Clara sometimes asks me if I dream. "Of course I dream," I tell her.

Everybody dreams.

"But what do you dream about?" she'll ask.

"The same thing everybody dreams about," I tell her. "I dream about where I'm going."

When there are humans aboard, proper old-fashioned Earth ones, the TARDIS will adopt a twenty-four hour clock. She'll dim the lights of the console room and subtly change the hum and sigh of her power circuits to let them know it is night-time. Otherwise they can forget about sleep, forget about meal-times and all the other meaningless little human rituals he likes to tease them about. Like brushing their teeth or eating their breakfast. They need that circadian clock to tick-tick onwards, just like it does on planet Earth, or they become unaccountably grumpy and frankly no fun to have around.

Time Lords don't need to brush their teeth (although he sometimes maintains the habit, liking the minty froth of human toothpaste). They don't need regular breakfast, and they don't need sleep. Not like humans do. He can go for days without sleep if there's a need. Maybe even weeks.

"The point I'm trying to make here," he says aloud to the darkened control room, "Is that this is unnecessary."

The TARDIS deigns not to respond, the dull click and whirr of her idling console the only sound. The lights remain stubbornly low. He sits back in his armchair for a moment, closes his book with a snap.

"Perhaps I'll do some repairs then. About time I made a start on those drive-stacks, eh?" He descends to the central console slowly, listening to her gentle hum. He comes to rest at her dashboard, staring down at the buttons and handles of her interface as if he doesn't know every inch of her better than the backs of these still-new hands.

A sigh. "I know what you're trying to do, you know."

He can't visit Clara, not at this moment. Things between her and Danny are human and complicated, bound up in the web of lies she's spinning. He's more scared than he cares to admit that one more push and she'll walk out of his TARDIS for good. Turning up in her bedroom if Danny is at her flat might give rather the wrong impression. Right now, her marking books are on his side-table, forgotten in a hurry when she last left the TARDIS. When she realises they're missing, she'll ring and provide a welcome distraction. Or some kind of a distraction at any rate.

Hauling his toolbox downstairs, he sets about trying to make good the faulty stacks. For a while he makes good progress, re-routing circuits to make safe the removal of her loose units, but the light seems to grow steadily brighter. After a while his eyes start to burn and the sonic screwdriver slips as he blinks away stars. A circuit shorts, showering sparks and burning his fingers. He yelps, dropping the screwdriver and sucking the burnt digits for an angry second.

"Now, what did you do that for?" he grumbles, surveying the damage. His fingers are the only lasting harm but her circuits are still harshly bright. Fumbling for his fallen screwdriver, he admits defeat. "Forty-winks," he barters, "Just a little cat-nap, and then you'll stop this nonsense?"

She is inscrutable as always, although when he steps out of the control room and tries a few doors at random his bedroom has been reshuffled to behind all of them. It belongs to this incarnation alone, a new creation that sprang into being when he reformed the control room, and hasn't seen much usage. The candy-stripe pyjamas on the pillow are a new touch and his mouth quirks at the sight of them, remembering a day spent saving the world and sword-fighting in something rather similar.

"Nice try," he offers. They're still not quite right for this body. He folds them back into the antique drawers and takes of his boots before lying down on the bed. The only sop to comfort he'll allow. "A nap," he reiterates. "That's all."

He can't remember the last time he slept in a bed. Can't remember the last time he fell asleep anywhere other than his armchair in the console room, lulled by the soft hum of the living ship.

He closes his eyes.

And Trenzalore unfolds in his vision, the battlefield aflame. In his mind's eye, the fires of the different war are burning, all of time and space on fire.

"No," he croaks, "No, I didn't."

"I didn't."

He opens his eyes, breathing hard, hearts hammering. "Well that went well," he snarls, "Refreshing, I'd call it. I feel so much better now."

Adrenalin has pushed away the exhaustion, at least for a while, and the TARDIS knows when he's past the point of argument. From outside her doors, he can hear the telephone ringing.

"That's right," he mutters as he hurries across the control room, "Appeal to a higher authority. I don't imagine that'll do you any good either."

He's never quite sure how the TARDIS synchronises Clara's calls, given that he's billions of miles and quite often hundreds of years away from her. Perhaps the TARDIS simply knows how many hours have passed for Clara between stepping out through the front doors and making the call. Maybe she simply patches through the call at the matching point in his personal time-stream. Or, more likely he thinks, she connects the calls through when she thinks he most needs them.

He opens the front door, taking just a moment to marvel at the ringed gas-giant the TARDIS is currently parked in orbit above, and lifts the receiver.

"Doctor! Are you there?"

"That's an interesting question," he answers, "I'm certainly somewhere. As to whether it's there−"

"You're bored, then." It isn't a question.

"What makes you say that?"

"Because if there was something interesting going on, you'd answer the 'phone with a simple hello instead of a riddle."

He pulls the telephone back into the control room, wrestling with the cable all the way back to the console. "Well, having worked that out already, I suppose you must also have a solution for my terrible boredom?"

The co-ordinates to her flat are already locked into the flight-system; he flicks the handle to send the TARDIS into the vortex before she's even made her reply.

"Course I do. Come and pick me up and I might even tell you what it is."

The TARDIS lands with its customary solid thump and the line goes dead. Her mobile is still in hand as she throws open the doors, smiling.

"It had better be good," he warns, walking past her to replace the telephone.

"Space station," she replies, leaning back against the console to better watch his reaction. "I have never been on a proper, border of the galaxy, melting pot of the universe space station."

"That's an easy one to remedy. Are you thinking edge of the human frontier, or something a bit more…alien?"

He grins his shark's smile, awaiting her answer.