The TARDIS parks itself in her hallway this time, and Clara is lucky the doors aren't facing the wall. Her flat seems small with the blue box crammed inside of it, but real, honest sunlight pours in through the windows. Outside, she can hear cars drive by, and hear the sounds of life that don't involve running from murderous ghosts.

She steps out of the doors and into her flat, and the coolness of her air conditioning swirls with the less-artificial, icy air from the TARDIS. The heels of her shoes are silent against one of her many rugs, and the familiar smell of home washes over her, causing her chest to tighten up. She missed it, missed the safeness of her regular old life.

Behind her, the doors squeak closed, and she peeks over her shoulder to see the Doctor following her into the kitchen. "Do you want some tea?" she asks, and this is a habit between them, one they have yet to break.

"Yes," he replies, looking over the framed photos on her wall as she sets the kettle on the stove. Clara digs through her cabinets, and searches for something that will set her nerves at ease. The idea of a warm bath pops into her mind, and she decides on that almost immediately. As soon as the Doctor leaves.

It takes a few minutes, but this is when the Doctor is most patient. He sits at her small kitchen table, and stares at nothing. She knows that he's thinking and that his mind tends to go over events that had just happened. His quietness here is a little bittersweet. She knows that at some point in his mulling, he's going to think about all of the people that died. They're different in that respect, because those people are what her mind goes to first.

Clara joins him at the table, and sets their steaming cups down. They're both old mugs that she collected from university, everything else sitting dirty in her sink, unattended. They sip at them in silence, the only sounds in the room are his slurping. "What are you thinking about?" she asks to break the tension.

The Doctor doesn't answer, and sometimes he does that. Sometimes the thoughts that go through his mind are private and his own, and she can understand that, though it makes her heart ache with worry.

"I'm thinking about what you said," he says slowly, looking anywhere in the tiny room but her eyes. He says his words with caution, thinking before they come from his mouth. "When you thought I was going to die, you asked me to break the laws of time."

Clara stares at him, stares at his sad and distanced expression, and swallows. She knows what he's really saying, knows what lies beneath his words, so thinly veiled that he might have just said it outright. She knows that what she said to him on the phone mirrors what she said to him on that dark day in the volcano, the day Danny died.

"I did," she agrees, because there's no point in denying a thing like that. There's no lying between them now, and Clara has to take a deep breath to gather her courage. "I can't lose you, Doctor. You know that."

"That's not quite what I mean."

Her eyebrows pull together, thin wrinkles forming on her forehead in confusion. Her blood feels both hot and cold. "What do you mean, then?"

He looks at her now, looks into her eyes and into her soul. "You said that if I loved you, in any way, I would come back to you." He leans back in his chair and gestures to the room around them, gestures to the space in between him and her, the expanse of the wooden table. "Well, here I am."

She thinks she might understand, but he's breaking their tradition of not talking about it, about this thing that they have. Clara just says, "Oh."

The intensity of his eyes doesn't change. They're the color of ice but hotter than the sun, and she can't look away, can only blink several times to stop from crying or from smiling because she's not sure what her face should be doing. "Are you angry with me?" she has to ask.

The Doctor lets out a long sigh. His body sinks into the seat, and his shoulders hunch forward, like he's allowing himself to show how he feels for just that one moment. He looks like the world is weighing him down, and Clara can't help but instinctively reach forward and lay her hand on his, the pair of them sitting atop of the table.

His hand curls tightly around her own, and he closes his eyes as he speaks. "No, Clara. I'm not angry with you. I'm trying to tell you that I love you."

The laugh that comes out of her mouth sounds sad and strained, "You can be in love and angry at the same time." Moments pass by, and she realizes that there is a difference between love and in love. Clara's heart pounds as she wonders if she made the wrong call.

But the Doctor cracks a small smile, and opens his eyes. "Yes, I suppose you can be." His hand slips from hers, but when she thinks that he's pulling away, he presses her hand flat against the table and traces his finger along the lines of her palm. "But no, I'm not angry. Are you angry?" She sees uncertainty on his face. "I don't have a note card for this."

This time, her laugh and her smile are genuine. Her heart feels just that bit lighter, and though the air is still thick with things left unsaid, the mood is clearing up. "Maybe a little," she teases, "even if it wasn't your idea to frighten me with your ghost." The skin of her palm tingles, and she watches their hands when she says, "But luckily for me, I'm good about being angry and in love."

He hums, "Yes, you are very good at that." His words settle, and Clara feels like they are the last to be said about this topic, at least for now. "What are you going to do now?" he asks suddenly. "What are your plans for tonight?"

"I was going to take a bath and relax," she admits, "and then watch the telly." The Doctor straightens in his seat, like he's getting ready to jump up and run back to the TARDIS, off to another adventure. Clara feels disappointed, his patience usually lasts longer than this.

His leg jiggles under the table, "Do you want me to leave?"

Her eyes are soft, "If you can stay, I would like you to."

The Doctor watches her, his gaze running over her face, at their joined hands. "You want to relax?"

"Yes, please."

"Stay here." He detangles their fingers and rises, quickly pressing his lips to the back of her hand before dropping it. He walks so fast that Clara would have to run to keep up with him, but he's out of the room before she even thinks about moving from her spot. He shouts out, when he is in another room and his words are muffled, "I'll be right back!"

Clara takes a gulp of her tea, looks at the clock above her stove, and gives him twenty minutes.