Titel: Barely, Carefully, Happily

Disclaimer: Nope, I am (very unfortunately) not British. I am also most definitely not the British Broadcasting Company. Thus I don't own Doctor Who.

Synopsis: Clara has saved the Doctor a billion times over. She knows it and so does he, but what he doesn't know is how much it broke Clara. Taking her back into the TARDIS after what happened on Trenzalore, he very slowly starts to realize how big a sacrifice Clara made when she threw herself into his timeline. She's cracking and he is the only person able to mend her. [Sequel to "Softly, Quietly, Desperately", but set after "The Name of the Doctor".]

Author's Note: So a few people expressed their hope for more "Softly Quietly Desperately" after I posted the last chapter and, after watching "The Name of the Doctor", this idea lodged itself in my brain and has been demanding to be written. But this might be confusing if you haven't read SQD and if I don't do some explaining, so here it goes:

Basically this is set after "The Name of the Doctor" as well as SQD. Clara and the Doctor did all the things they did in SQD – the Rings of Akhaten in a slightly AU – ish way, ice cream on Barcelona, visiting the Library, the broken glass bowl, future Cardiff, the jungle planet, the Doctor's nightmares and finally, the human war spaceship where the Doctor is tortured – and have been a couple for quite a bit. They also had a few of the adventures they had in the 7th series – namely "Cold War", "Hide", "Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS" and "Nightmare in Silver" – before Vastra, Jenny and Strax were kidnapped and they had to go to Trenzalore. This story starts right were the episode ends. But not all of the adventures have happened in that order, I've taken the liberty to set "Cold War", "Hide", "Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS and "Nightmare in Silver" before the events of the human war spaceship in SQD and "Hide" has happened directly after the day that never was. Basically Clara thinks they haven't had their Wednesday adventure yet so once the "Do you feel safe?" – conversation has taken place, the Doctor decides to go and see Emma Grailing at Caliburn house to try and find out something more about Clara. Afterwards he takes her home where she talks to Artie and Angie, then "Nightmare in Silver" happens and then the Doctor gets tortured, then they become a couple, have a few minor adventures and then Vastra and Jenny initiate the conference thingy, starting the events shown in "The Name of the Doctor".

Of course, a lot of conversation thingies would have happened entirely different, but I'll leave those to your imagination. So, enough of my rambling. I hope you enjoy this.

Love, ClaireFolie

Barely

When he has found her again, his only thought was that he needed to touch her, to make sure she was really real, to feel her warm, living, breathing body. Now that he has carried her out of this strange cave on Trenzalore and back to the TARDIS, leaving the man that is him but isn't the Doctor behind, his only thought is that she needs to wake up.

He needs her to wake up, to open her eyes and talk to him so he can know how she is doing, how she is coping with everything she has seen and done by now.

Looking her up and down, never ceasing to touch her, he is sure that she's the real Clara, the original one, the one he has saved from the Wi- Fi in London before going back to see her life before taking her on adventures before she stepped into his time line to save him from the Great Intelligence. She is not just a fragment, a splintered version of Clara that fell onto the field where he found her, she is the real Clara.

But he needs her to open her eyes, her beautiful chocolate eyes, and look at him and talk to him and react to his touch and by now, he is panicking, hurriedly checking her signals on the TARDIS infirmary monitors, but there are no signs to suggest that there is anything biologically wrong with her brain or her heart or any of her, for that matter.

She just isn't waking up.

And there seems to be nothing he can do, even though he is the Doctor, so he just sits down next to her and holds her hand until she wakes up again.

~

Every cell of her body feels like it's bursting apart at the seams and coming back together again. She can't move and she can't speak, but she feels her body. She's asleep and awake at the same time and it's painful and peaceful and horrible and good.

The last thing she remembers is meeting the Doctor – her Doctor – in that cave and seeing this strange man she has never seen before although she has seen all of him before collapsing. Now she knows she's lying down somewhere and that someone – the Doctor, probably – is holding her hand, but she can't react to any of it. She's caught in her own mind and suddenly she somehow realizes what's happening.

Her mind is sorting itself, taking the memories of what happened to her and putting them into the right order, starting on Gallifrey when she told him which TARDIS he should steal and ending when they – together again, finally – met a version of him she had never seen even though she had thought that she had seen them all.

And maybe that's why she can't move at all, because her mind is too busy, because this is the top priority right now.

But she wants to move, she doesn't want to remember all her lifes trying to save the Doctor, she wants to wake up to see him again and that's what she is trying to will her body into.

It just doesn't work.

~

A week. A week has passed in the TARDIS and Clara still hasn't woken up. And even though he's the Doctor, even though he hates waiting, even though he can barely remain still for a moment, he stays beside Clara's infirmary bed and holds her hand.

He wouldn't forgive himself if she woke up and he wasn't beside her. He owes her so much by now, he feels like he has to make himself wait for her to wake up.

So he waits. So he holds her hand and sleeps next to her – only once – and brusher her hair out of her face and kisses her forehead and checks her pulse and only ever leaves once every second day.

She wakes up when he's coming back from his third walk around the TARDIS, just as he has taken her small hand back into his own. She opens her eyes warily, blinks a few times and then squeezes his hand ever so slightly.

He can't help the strangled cry of joy that escapes from his mouth and the way his hands fly up to cup her face and stroke her hair as he presses a kiss to her forehead first and then a swift, chaste one to her lips.

"Doctor. Oh Doctor." She whispers, her voice breaking and raspy and weak, but he hears her anyway. "My Doctor."

One hand still in her hair, he just stares at her for a long moment, allowing himself to soak in how she looks. She seems tired and a bit worn, her hair is a bit off a mess and her complexion is rather pale, but she still looks lovely. "How are you feeling?"

She smiles a tiny bit, just the smalles upturn of a corner of her lip, but it makes his heart almost ache with relief. "I'm... I'm okay, I think." She props herself up on her arms, resting her forehead against his. "How long was I out?" She asks.

"Ah... about a week, I think, maybe. Well, you know, it's hard to tell in here, but I slept once and I think you would have slept seven times, so it must be about a week." He explains, running a hand down her bare arm. "How much do you remember?"

She sighs, leaning forward just a bit to steal another quick kiss that becomes a long one somehow. Oh, she had missed this, the feeling of his lips on hers, soft, sometimes a little chapped, sometimes longing and harsh, sometimes barely there, but always lovingly. With every incarnation of him she had seen, she had missed the one that already knew and loved her even more.

It was weird, really. Falling through his time line, feeling as if every cell of her body was falling away from her to form a new life where she'd try to find the Doctor only to die once she had so that said cell could come back to her, she had never really known where she was. Sometimes she had barely known who she was or what she was doing. And none of her versions had remembered the ones before, or the Doctor, only she, the falling one had remembered everything, but while falling, she had been pining for this, pining for the Doctor's, her Doctor's hands and lips on her body.

And now she was here again, curled up against the Doctor, safe and sound back in the TARDIS. Back home.

"I... I remember everything." She finally whispers into his shirt. "Absolutely everything."

~

She is curled up against his chest again on one of the couches in one of the TARDIS' living rooms. There are logs buring in the fireplace they're sitting in front of, her head against his chest, over one of his hearts, and his arms sneaked around her waist. She isn't really tired anymore, but she still doesn't feel like leaving the TARDIS to do some adventuring yet, so they're staying in, reading in the library, swimming, cooking, but mostly talking.

She doesn't tell him all of the truths, if she's honest with herself. Just the parts she thinks she can handle saying out loud.

She doesn't tell him how she almost bit off her tongue trying not to scream when she had entered his time stream because she knew how it would make him feel if he heard her scream in agony or how terribly scared and disorientated she was all the time or how she feels remembering her every death or the heartbreak she felt every time he ignored her or didn't recognize her or treated her like a stranger.

She doesn't show him the little cracks in her very essence.

She's positive that he doesn't see them on his own.

He suddenly lifts a hand and treads it through her hair, twirling one of her brown curls around his index finger. "What would you like to eat for dinner tonight?" He asks for the very first time and the question is so utterly domestic, it provokes her to giggle just a bit. "What?" He asks indignantly and stops playing with her hair.

She shakes her head and turns a bit to smile up at him. "Nothing. I just thought you didn't do domestic."

"I used to not do domestic when I was... about 900 years old, I guess. I'm 1200 years old now, I've matured quite a bit. I do domestic." He answers, messing up her hair with one hand. "Sometimes."

"I know, I've met that version. A few times." She smiles. "You were all big ears and big nose and leather jacket. It was quite fantastic."

"Hm. I can't remember meeting you in that version of myself." He admits, frowning slightly. "And I usually remember everything."

She smiles a bit at that sentence. "Well, once I was only a fifteen year old girl or something like that, telling you to run and save yourself before the vulcan errupted. And once I gave you good shove from behind, so you never saw my face."

He startles and pulls away from her, making her turn so he can see her face. "So that girl at the level crossing who pushed me out of the way..."

"That was me, yes." She confirms solemnly. "I... Doctor, I've saved you quite few times, but never... never like that. I mean, I saved you from Daleks and the Great Intelligence and Cybermen and whatnot, but that... I had to save you from yourself. I had to save you because you were standing on the rails, waiting for a train to come and kill you. What... Doctor, what were you doing?"

He sighs and hides his face with one hand, the other one clutching hers almost painfully. "I... I am so sorry, Clara. I swear I am so sorry I made you go through this." He mumbles and she knows he really is. She hears the pain in his voice and almost instinctly wraps her arms around him, resting her head on his shoulder, the hand he isn't holding treading lightly through his hair. "I... it was the first time I landed somewhere after... after the War, I had just finished the regeneration process and I... I hated myself so much, Clara. This hatred was all I was at that moment and I just wanted it all to be over. So I thought... well, maybe a train could kill me before I started regenerating again. So I went and looked for a crossing and well... I stood there until someone pushed me away, seconds before the train hit that someone." He buries his face in her shoulder for a second, breathing in her scent. "And that someone was you."

"Yes, it was." She whispered. "I had been on my way to meet a friend for dinner and that crossing was part of the way. I was waiting there when you ran onto the tracks and I just... knew. I just knew it was you and I knew I had to save you, so I did."

"I am so sorry, Clara. Please believe me." He whispered into her hair.

She pulled back a bit and pushed his fringe out of his eyes. "I know you are. And I'm okay, Doctor. I'm not yet completely fine, but I'm okay." With a slight smile, she leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss on the tip of his nose. "Don't you worry, chin boy. The worst part is over."

~

It really is, but at the same time, it isn't and she knows that. Yes, the part where she lost a bit of herself out of which a new Clara would grow only so that this version could die and the part she had lost could come back to her was over, but she was still recovering from it. And she wasn't sure if the recovery wasn't just as bad as the adventure.

She has seen things she has never expected to see in the first place and they've lodged themselves in her brain for what feels like forever. Of course she hasn't given up the hope that she will eventually forget because, after all, she is only human and human memory is rather febble, but then again, was she still just human by now? She was sure that nothing in her DNA had changed, but her brain, her character didn't feel human anymore. She was no longer a simple girl who wanted to go traveling, she was no longer a girl who had not really gotten over the loss of her mother, she was no longer a nanny.

No, she was so much more by now. She had become Soufflé Girl. She had stept into the Doctor's time line, spent all of his life with him even if he barely ever noticed and saved him again and again. She had watched the ways of the Universe and she had destroyed the Great Intelligence. She had died so many times that she had finally lost count and was still alive.

She was the impossible girl.

Lying in bed next to the Doctor, she wonders if it's only her impossibilty that intrigues him about her so much and a tiny part of her wants to ask, but she doesn't quite dare to. She's sure he'd call it a ridiculous thought and kiss her forehead, asking her how she got that idea. But then again, the thought keeps nagging at her and she finally turns to face her... well, she doesn't know how to call him. He's the Doctor and a bit he's her Doctor, but not really because after all, he is married. But then again, they were in a sort of relationship which is why she stretches up a bit and places a quick kiss on his lips.

He opens his eyes immediately – she doubts he was asleep in the first place – and pulls her closer against his bare chest, allowing her to breathe in his skin. "You alright?" He whispers.

"I'm a bit of a paradox, aren't I?" She asks, not looking at his face but rather at his collarbone on which she's drawing patterns. "I mean... if I hadn't jumped into the Time Stream, I would have never been in the Asylum..." – she shudders when she thinks of it, that is one of her least favorite lifes even though he had actually noticed him for a change – "... and you would have probably died. And even if you hadn't, I wouldn't have been in Victorian London either. You would have never met me, never taken me traveling... meaning I would have never ended up on Trenzalore to step into your time line in the first place. Maybe I wouldn't even have existed at all."

He cups her face, staring intently at her. "No. You would have existed. You, Clara Oswald, are a real person, with real parents and real friends and a real history and a real life, not just some sort of... creation of the Universe to save me. You, this version of you..." He smiles and places a hand over her heart, feeling it's beat through her thin t – shirt. "... this version I found in London is real and right and human. You weren't born because you stepped into my time line, you weren't born to save me, you were born because a tree had grown over years in a particular place so a certain leaf could grow on it's branches to be blown into your fathers face on a particular day so he could be saved by your mother. You, Clara, are not a paradox, you are a beautiful, snarky, clever, magnificent, bossy, fantastic human being and I'm so glad I have you by my side, do you hear that?"

She feels her throat thighten and her eyes become all wet and teary and then suddenly they spill over and start to run down her face. He wipes them away and pulls her even closer and kisses her forehead. "Oh Doctor." She whispers. His words are all she wanted to hear, all the reassurance she needed.

He strokes her hair and draws circular patterns on the skin of her back, making her feel safe and warm and loved. "You are not okay, are you?" He whispers and she just shakes his head.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I'm not... I'm not strong enough, I'm sorry I can't go out and on adventures yet, I'm sorry I'm not... right, but I just feel so... so... so..." She doesn't find the words and instead buries her face in his chest again, hoping to be calmed down by the beating of his hearts.

"There is nothing to be sorry for, Clara." He whispers into her hair. "If anyone has to be sorry for anything, it's me. I have done almost nothing but endanger you ever since I've met you and you saved my life so many times. You have done something unbelievable, something that would have driven normal people insane. But here you are, all sane and healthy. You're allowed to be not - fine, you're allowed to huddle up in here and be beside me as much as you need. Don't you dare think I would think anything less of you."

~

He is the Doctor and he has known all along, from the moment he had found her in that cave, that he has put her through something horrible and that it will take her some time to recover from it. Waiting for her to wake up in the Infirmary, he had been thinking that he might have lost completely this time, that it had been too much, that the real Clara was dying, burning up from the inside, because he had allowed her to do something so incredible stupid.

The Doctor had been so relieved to see Clara wake up that he had almost started to dance again, but he had wanted to see how she was doing most of all. When she had said that she was okay, he had known it was a lie. But he had allowed her to pretend otherwise because it had been what she needed.

Watching her bake yet another souffle for breakfast the morning after she has confessed that she has seen herself as a paradox, as something that only existed to save him, he thinks back to all the things he has done with her.

He thinks of how she had been clutching her mug of tea all along while he had landed a plane, of how she had called the TARDIS a snog box and asked him to come back the next day. He thinks of handing her the key, of Akhaten and how she had timidly asked him about the Time War afterwards, holding his hand while he had talked, offering him the only comfort she knew how to give. He thinks of how scared he was she would die again when he had found that she had disappeared in a part of the city where murdered girls had been found during the time of Jack the Ripper's terror. He thinks of her joy at seeing Barcelona, of the way she had timidly tried the ice cream – ishy thing he had bought her and of the way she had protested when he had dragged her back to the TARDIS.

For a moment, he wonders if that was part of what had him smitten with her – her refusal to be anything apart from an independent, strong woman that knew how to handle herself – or if it was something else. Maybe the way her eyes spark when she gives a witty response or the way she half – smirks, reminding him of that woman he introduced to da Vinci once. Maybe it's something else entirely.

He remembers the way she stayed in the TARDIS when he talked to River to make a souffle and how empathic she had been afterwards while they were trying to find the shards of the broken bowl. He remembers his own pain and what had felt like an open wound on his chest through which she then had crept in, all "What's wrong with complicated?" and hand – squeezing and a readiness to sacrifice herself if necessary. He remembers taking her to a future Cardiff, where she observed the way her species now interacted with aliens, all wonder and big eyes. He remembers being woken up by her after another horrific nightmare of the Time War – strangely enough, the Dalek that had been here had been there and he had fought it, having to choose between either killing her or being killed himself – and the comfort her arms had given him. He remembers asking her to stay and holding out his hand for her to come to his bed so he could fall asleep and wake up in his arms every evening and every morning.

Maybe it was that moment, he muses, when he first woke up again and there she was, a worried looking human girl with big, worried eyes and messy brown hair, trying to comfort him, that he had suddenly looked up and realized just how much she really meant to him. Or one of the other mornings when he woke up to find her wrapped in his arms, a picture of calm serenity in his arms, making him realize that she was so, so beautiful it took his breath away, even though he had seen so many wonders of the Universe.

He thinks back to when they had to visit a funeral for a girl that had died to save him and she had again comforted her by just being herself. He thinks back to when they went to 1879 and she teased him about the size of his wardrobe. He thinks back to their time on the Russian submarine, the way she bravely faced an Ice Warrior and how she sung an old Duran Duran song. He thinks back to the day that never was, the day she got lost in the TARDIS, found the Eye of Harmony and made him tell her about her other two selves. He thinks back to when she flew the TARDIS into the pocket universe to save him after reminding him to not always say what was on his mind.

He wonders if it had been her cheeky comment about his wardrobe or her bravery facing an Ice Warrior mostly on her own. When he realized she wasn't at his side anymore when the TARDIS had been salvaged, he had panicked, fearing he might lose her again, leading to the realization that Clara was long so much more than just a companion. Thinking he might lose her again if he didn't figure her out, he went back to Caliburn House with her, pretending to be there on some sort of mission while in reality he had only wanted to talk to Emma about her because maybe she could give him some sort of clue to her riddle. And maybe by solving the riddle he could find a way to make her stay at his side forever.

Facing the Cyber Planner he had already been in love with her, something the Cyberman in his mind had tried to use against him by telling Clara about his feelings to convince her he was the Doctor. She had seen right through it, resulting in a slap. And then, after that, they had ended up on the horrific spaceship, something he does not want to think about again, except for this one beautiful moment when she kissed him, her lips all soft and warm and loving.

This had definitely been the turning point for them. Afterwards, they had stopped being "the Doctor and Clara" and had become more like "theDoctorandClara", a two person entity. Afterwards, she had become his.

Stroking back her hair from her sleeping face, he wonders if the situation would be different if he and Clara hadn't become what they were before they had gone to Trenzalore. He knows she loves him – she has, after all, said so – and he's glad she does, but he wonders if she had still stepped into his time line if they had only been friends. Had she only done it because she loved him so much that she did not want to see him suffer? Or had there been another reason as well?

He does not regret becoming what he is with her now, but he does hate that she's damaged – maybe even because of it, maybe [probably] because of him – and that he can do almost nothing to help her. She has done so much for him, breaking apart, starting new lives, dying to save him again and again, and he can barely do anything for her now.

The Doctor knows that Clara is barely okay, that she is cracked and hurt and sad, and he hates it, but he is willing to do everything he can to help her mend herself. He loves her, he has loved her for quite a bit now, and he's pretty sure that he will love her no matter what, so it doesn't matter to the Doctor at all that she's changed.

That's what adventures do to people on occasion. His impossible girl had the biggest adventure of all to save her Doctor.