And so it was over.

Or so she thought.

The earth spun round and round and somewhere her mother- mothers?- were tasting salt on their lips as she cried for the first time. She was in Victorian London being buried, she was on Gallifrey lying on the blood-soaked grass, staring up at trees with shining silver leaves, and she was in a Dalek asylum, simultaneously more and less human than she had ever been, burning. Burning, burning, burning. The burning never ceased, and her eyes were glassy and no one saw through them, because she was no longer there. She can remember exploding, drowning, being shot, being sliced from neck to navel, being trapped in a burning room on a burning planet on a lonely universe where the only good thing was that the Doctor escape the carnage.

That was a thousand lives ago and a thousand lives ahead, and somehow she couldn't get her mind to wrap around this idea, so she decided not to wake.

She dreamed vivid, terrible dreams that she knew, deep down, must be something more like long forgotten memories. She woke for moments at a time, and when she did, she could sense the Doctor's close presence. And she was not surprised. After all, she had seen everything. She had seen his darkest moments and his brightest days. She had seen every cruel, selfish thing he's ever done, and every beautiful thing too. She had seen the full picture and the full picture was nothing like what the Doctor always felt it to be. His innate goodness was a shining beacon throughout all of her many lives, even when she had seen for herself just how terrible he could get.

The impossible girl wasn't quite so impossible after all. That was all she could think when, suddenly, she found herself waking. It had not been a conscious decision on her part—she still felt achy and broken—but no matter how long she lied there quietly, she couldn't fall back asleep. But then she remembered words that felt like they were uttered so long ago ("We don't walk away") and she was cracking open her eyes to see the world, as herself, for the first time in what felt like a millennium.

She was inside a room she had never seen before, with smooth wood-paneled walls and shelves upon shelves of tiny trinkets. She eyed the glittering chandelier that was made out of what looked like golden-hued diamonds, and then glanced around the room. She felt herself begin to panic a little when she saw the empty chair beside her, because hadn't she felt him beside her? Was he in trouble once more? Suddenly colder than she had ever been before, Clara pulled the blue comforter on the bed up to her shoulders and shook.

It took her a moment to realize what had happened, but soon the room was at least ten degrees warmer. She lowered the blanket, bewildered, until she realized that she must be inside the TARDIS. And the TARDIS might finally have come around.

She lowered the blanket and slid up slowly into a sitting position, ignoring the outcry of her muscles, and then she glanced in surprise at the ceiling of the room.

"Thank you," she murmured, her voice a bit hoarse, "Not so much of an old cow after all." She felt inexplicable warmth inside of herself when the TARDIS seemed to hum back.

It wasn't long at all before she heard quick-paced footsteps.

"Who're you humming at, Sexy?" The Doctor's voice echoed down, what Clara presumed from her recovered memories of being lost in the TARDIS, to be a long, winding hallway that seemed to never end. She heard an excited edge in his voice that made her feel a little less scared, a little less cold. "Has Clara woken up, then? Splendid! I knew you two would get on just fine in the end, didn't I tell you that?"

Clara was amused by his shared words with his TARDIS and knew, somehow, that this was something he was used to doing. She had been there for the beginning—flashes of the TARDIS such a long time ago spilled from her confused memory and filled her mind. She felt the distinct sensation of two hearts pounding away in her chest, saw his first face, and then the memory was lost to her as his eleventh peeked through into the room.

His demeanor was much different than she had expected. He stared at her with an expression she couldn't place, neither smile nor frown. She held her breath and counted to three. Run you clever boy, she found herself thinking on loop, and remember me.

The brightest smile she had ever seen, in all the many lives she had lived, slowly bloomed onto his face. She felt her own following suit.

"My Clara," he simply said, and that was enough. She was soothed. His Clara. Things were not remotely okay, she knew that, but for this moment they could be. Because she was his Clara and he cared for her just as she cared for her. And maybe she was a million fragmented pieces strewn throughout the universe, but he cared for those pieces. Somewhere deep down, he had to. Pieces can feel quite like a whole when they are cherished by someone who cares enough to try and put them back in the proper spot.

"Hope you haven't been missing me too badly." Clara responded. His smile grew even more, but she could tell he didn't miss how jagged her voice sounded by the way his barely-there eyebrows creased a bit in worry.

"Oh, well, you've made it easy on me! Only been asleep for eleven hours, thirty six minutes, and—" he paused and glanced up at the ceiling, counting quickly on his fingers for a moment. "Sixteen—seventeen—eighteen seconds."

Once she got over the affectionate amusement she felt for his time-keeping, she could only feel confused. She had been certain she was asleep for a week at the least. It felt like she hadn't moved in at least that amount of time. Her previously forgotten frustration and panic began to rise once more, and her most damaging questions began to fill her mind once more: who am I? Where am I? Why am I even alive?

Just as he always could, the Doctor picked up on her shift in emotions quickly. He wrung his hands nervously and perched on the edge of his bed. His hand was warm as he cupped her cheek.

"How are you doing?" He asked. His voice was gentler than she had ever heard, and she could have sworn there were galaxies burning inside the intensity of his eyes.

She considered lying, like she was accustomed to doing. She was so used to holding him at arms length, so used to holding everyone at arms length, that to do any different felt unnatural. She was a young girl again, staring at the wall and listening to the pounding of her heartbeat in her ears as her father told her her mother was gone forever. Her heart was sinking and sinking, but all she could do was set a reassuring hand on his forearm. "It's okay, daddy," she had said, even though it wasn't. Even though she cried herself to sleep every night for the next year.

It had always been like that with the Doctor, too, until Trenzalore. Bits of it come back to her now, and she knew that there was no use pretending to be unattached. He knew just how attached she was, as she had proved it to him in the most undeniable of ways. She had chosen to die for him, over and over again, instead of losing him. There was no way even she, clever as she knew she was, could deny how much she cared about him anymore. Not even if she couldn't explain why she cared about him so much in the first place to herself.

"I feel old, Doctor." She told him, and her voice came out shaky. "Properly, painfully old."

She could see the guilt swimming in his eyes. He swallowed once, drily, and dropped his hand from her face. He stared at his hands.

"I am so sorry." He said. "I'm sorry."

She watched him stooping underneath the weight he was placing onto his own shoulders, the weight of guilt, and she couldn't bear it anymore. She couldn't bear to watch him suffer. That was a truth she could not fight. The mere sight of his pain left her more shaken than anything else.

She reached forward this time and gently took his hand in hers. She gave it a reassuring squeeze.

"Well, I'm not." She said. "Someone has to watch out for you, and you know what they say: if you want something done right, you've got to do it yourself."

He smiled a sad and ancient smile, his eyes still downcast. When he looked back up at her, she could see tears gathering.

"Impossible girl." He said affectionately. "I've never had anyone look out for me. I have to admit it's a very odd feeling."

Clara didn't like that her eyes were burning, or that her throat ached, but she was helpless to stop it. She had seen all the lives he had lived. She had seen all he had lost, all the wrongs that had been done against him, all the dark times where he was absolutely alone. She had seen all the thankless people he had saved, all the beautiful things he had helped put into motion, all the cruelty leveled upon him. She had seen him crying on his knees, weakened and under the impression that no one could see him, but little did he know that she could see everything. And she had loved everything she had seen, even the bad bits. Especially them, because after all, it's the ingredients that make the soufflé, and the Doctor was full of overwhelming goodness. The bad parts did not taint the sweetness; they only made him who he is.

"You deserve to have someone look after you." She told him. She blinked rapidly against tears, refusing to let them fall. "You deserve to have someone save you after all the times you have saved everyone else. You deserved to be guarded." And loved, she wanted to add, but that wasn't a word she was ready to say, or a word he was ready to hear. She only knew that she cared for him, and it didn't matter in that moment how. It only mattered that she did.

He opened his mouth, and just as sure as she knew his hearts, she knew he was going to argue. She wouldn't give him the chance.

"I have seen all the bad things you have done, Doctor." She told him. Her eyes bore into him and he did not look away. "I can't remember everything about my past lives, but I remember you. I have seen so many of the things you have been through, and I can tell you that you deserved what I did for you. Despite all the bad you think you've done, the good more than triples it. Even if you don't believe it yourself."

The Doctor was never good at these kinds of conversations, she knew, so she was surprised to find him accepting to her words.

"I have never had someone who has been there throughout it all like you, Clara Oswald. I've never let anyone see those parts of me. And when I first realized the implications of what you did—that you would know every regeneration, that you'd know almost every secret of mine—I thought about running for a selfish second." He admitted. "You have to understand that I have been alone for a very long time. I don't know if I know how to be open with someone anymore." His voice cracked a bit, and Clara was feeling confidence in herself once more. She was finding it in his weakness, finding the ability to stay strong for him. She was Clara Oswald, a mediocre soufflé baker and university graduate. She was great with children and not afraid to speak her mind. She was a thousand versions of herself spread throughout time, and strong enough to handle that. She was strong enough to choose that for the sake of saving a man who saved millions. Oswin Oswald, Clara Oswin Oswald, Oswald—what difference did it really make? They were all parts of her, and now she was whole again, and life could continue. Maybe not the same, probably not ever the same, but good. Okay. Because she had done what she had always wanted: she had seen 101 places. And even more. Oh my stars, she wanted to tell her mother, you will never believe the places I have been, or the things I have done. There is power in sacrifice and strength in death.

"You don't have to be. I understand you now." She said. "I understand it all." She paused for a moment and scrunched up her nose. "Although I don't quite get a few of your previous faces' style preferences, but that's a whole different story."

The smile was back.

"I wish I could remember you in every life." He admitted, and it was such an intimate admittance that he blushed admittedly and hurried to change the subject. "How much do you remember of them, Clara?"

Thinking of a certain Doctor's penchant for celery had made her suddenly aware that the aching in her stomach was from hunger more than falling through his time stream. She sat up more and patted his hand.

"That's a conversation for dinner, I think. Fish and chips would best accompany talks of planets in the Kasterborous constellation and what not."

She couldn't help but smirk as she swung her legs out of bed and stood up carefully. She could see the Doctor's shocked expression out of the corner of her eye as she slipped on the pair of house slippers by the bed.

"Clara, did you say Kasterborous? Clara?" He pestered her, his face ashen, but she merely set her hands on his back and gave him a brief, guiding push.

"The kitchen! I'm hungry." She said.

Once she had a plate of fish and chips in front of her (picked up from the best pub in London by the overly-gracious Doctor who didn't want Clara going out just yet—"time stream exhaustion and all,"—and delivered right to her), Clara could no longer avoid the Doctor's serious stare. She knew the implications of what she was about to tell him, and that it would change their relationship. But she wanted him to know that he wasn't quite alone. He probably already had suspicions, and a selfish part of her hoped that he had known her, that he remembered her then. A selfish part of her felt the same way as he had admitted to feeling earlier. She wished he could remember her in every life, too, the way she remembered him.

"I can't remember much." She began. She studied her food as she spoke. "I can't remember even half of my names, or my parents, or my friends, or my lovers. But I remember bits and pieces here and there."

He stared at her intently as she spoke, his gaze urging her to continue. She'd never seen him so quiet for so long. Normally he was the one talking a mile a minute.

"Like red grass and orange skies," she said softly. She glanced up at the Doctor after her words, and he was smiling at her with sadness in his eyes. He seemed to have to wear that expression much more than he deserved.

"I had suspicions. Realistically, there's no way you wouldn't get scattered there too, but I guess it's just been such a long time since I've talked to anyone else who even had seen it once that I forgot it was possible."

Clara fiddled with her mother's ring almost nervously. When she thought too much about a particular life, she sometimes remembered more than she wanted to. She was learning that now.

"I met you then." She told him. Bit by bit, it came back to her. "You were older looking then, but younger. You were going to steal the wrong TARDIS."

He stared and stared at her until she was sure he wouldn't ever look away. She kept his gaze and continued talking.

"I was Oswald, just Oswald, I think. I might have worked in a museum with TARDISes, I can't really remember. I think I gave the children's tours. It's all a blur of tiny hands and whirling parts and levers. But I…just knew. I knew I had to go to the repair shop in the museum that day. And when I was there, I saw you, and you were the Doctor, and I knew that you were—

"—going to make a very big mistake." The Doctor quoted, suddenly, his expression more shocked than she'd ever seen. He stood from the chair and walked over to the counter, his back to her, and she stared at the muscles in his back as they tensed. She took a quick sip of her tea and dropped her eyes as he began to turn around. She could feel his gaze on her. "I remember now, Clara." He said, and she could hear the sever in his voice. He walked over to her quickly and sank down beside her chair so he was at eye level. She set down her mug and turned a bit towards him, her heart thumping wildly in her chest. He reached forward a bit and set his hands on her upper arms gently, his thumbs rubbing comforting circles.

"Tell me more," he requested, although she thought for a moment that it was more like begging. She turned fully towards him and gathered as much as she could.

"There's not much. But I remember the leaves and how the trees looked like they were on fire at sunset. I remember the sensation of time skimming all around me, and the beats of two hearts, and—" she stopped suddenly, wincing, overcome with emotions from a memory from a life she didn't even really remember. "Something very scary and something very painful. But mostly, I remember you."

He smiled, almost surprised, and she could see that his eyes were shining with tears.

"It did look like that, didn't it? Like the entire sky was burning."

She had had enough of burning in one lifetime. He pressed a kiss to her forehead, and that was all that was said about Gallifrey. Somehow, it was enough. She could see that in the lifted weight of his loneliness.

She was Clara Oswald and she knew who she was.

She was the sole keeper of a very old and very lonely Time Lord's memories.

"Where do we go from here, Doctor?" She asked him. It was three days after Trenzalore. She was finally feeling less achy and less exhausted, and she knew she couldn't lounge about his TARDIS forever, even if the old girl seemed to like her a little bit more now. But she wasn't sure what to do with herself. She found it impossible to imagine returning to her old life now.

"Well, I was thinking we could visit Anura. You know, take a dip, kick back, do groovy summer things." The Doctor pushed up a switch on the console as he spoke, his excited eyes alit.

Clara couldn't help but smile at him. She watched him flitter about the console for a few more minutes before speaking up again.

"I mean…where do I go from here?" She asked. The Doctor fell still suddenly, his hands resting weakly on the top of the console, his back to her and his head hung as he listened. "I'm still Clara, but I have so many memories shoved inside my head. I don't feel like myself anymore. How can I go home and make Angie and Artie breakfast like nothing happened?"

He was quiet for a moment, but then he circled back around the console to face her. He offered her a smile that showed his utmost confidence in her.

"Because you're Clara: braver and stronger than I could ever hope to be."

She wanted to go back to the Maitlands, but she was scared that she never could again. And she had to admit that she was scared to leave him alone, too.

"Who will take care of you while I'm gone?"

He took a few steps forward and tapped her nose playfully.

"You." He said. "You're spread throughout my entire timeline, now. You are always going to be there when I need you, just like I'm always going to be there when you need me too."

She smiled.

"Then I guess I'll see you for our swimming date on Wednesday." She told him.

"Best day of the week!" He agreed with a smile. But a moment later he was blushing. "I mean, you know, because objectively Wednesdays are in the middle of the week and everyone knows the middle's the best part!"

She quirked an eyebrow. He floundered.

"Not a date!" He practically squeaked, and she couldn't help but laugh at him.

When the time came to leave, however, she couldn't do it.

Four days had been long enough for the shock to wear off, and in the residue of that shock, horror sprouted.

She had never woken up screaming before, not ever, and yet that was what happened to her the night before the Doctor flew them back to 21st century London. She was dreaming of eyestalks, of four-syllable words screamed metallically after her and the children, of the Doctor dying, his hands always reached out to her where she stood in the shadows, always too far to help, but close enough to watch.

She woke up yelling, inside the room she had now taken to sleeping in each night, and clutched the pillow over her head.

"I don't know where I am," She croaked, still halfway convinced she was on Skaro, or Mondas, or even at home. Nowhere was safe and she existed nowhere and everywhere all at once. It was all too much, then.

Her sobs were aching and disjointed. They echoed around the huge bedroom, bouncing off the TARDIS's walls, and she heard her groan almost sympathetically. The room grew warmer once more, and she stretched her hand across the sheets, suddenly empty and so lonely. So lonely that even the knowledge that the TARDIS was there made her feel just a little bit better.

Somehow, she knew, the TARDIS must have sensed her feelings. Because a minute later she heard a clanging coming from just outside the room, and she knew the TARDIS was the culprit. Clara knew she was leading him to her, and she wasn't sure how to thank her for that. But maybe she didn't need to thank her. Maybe it was simply repayment for the time that Clara led the Doctor to her, too.

He was impossibly quiet, even with all those limbs. She wept and hurt, but then he was curling his body around hers, his chest to her back and his hands reaching around and grasping hers. She felt his face pressed against the top of her head, his breath warm and comforting, and the rapid double-beating of his hearts.

"There's so much," she told him, her voice choked and echoing.

"I know. It's going to take your brain a while to figure out how to accommodate it all." He told her, but that sounded like the beginning to a science spiel, and Clara was tired of cold facts and straight faces. She was tired of it, because she was breaking apart still and already had and someday would still, and it was all for this man.

"Will you just hold me?" She requested. She sniffed and felt tears seeping into the sheet below the side of her face. The Doctor curled his body closer to hers, his warmth providing an almost protective barrier. He kissed the top of her head.

"I swear, I swear I will." He told her, and it was filled with a fierce love that soothed any loneliness she was feeling before. "For as long as you want, for as long as I can."

She knew he wasn't just talking about physically holding her.

He was still there when she woke. She sat up, her eyes puffy from crying and the pillow still damp. But he was close to her, his arms stretched out in his sleep as if searching for her, and that made her feel just a little better. After all those lives of searching and holding him close, he was doing the same.

That afternoon, he landed the TARDIS in the Maitlands' yard as planned the day prior. Clara stood, shaking, in front of the TARDIS doors for a full minute before shaking her head mutely. And then she turned and sank back into the Doctor's waiting arms.

"I can't do it. Not yet." She admitted. She knew it made her weak, but she couldn't find the strength to face the children right now. She was still afraid she'd wake like that again, desperately lonely and dreadfully lost.

He rubbed her back soothingly, his lips pressed to her temple.

"It's okay, it's fine. We have all the time in the world. We can give it another try whenever you're ready."

She clutched the back of his jacket so tightly that the material was balled up in her fists.

"Promise?" She asked him.

He held her tighter in response.

"Promise."

Clara knew something as keenly as she knew computer science or her mother's soufflé recipe. She knew that the Doctor never lied. Not to her, at least.

He held her hand in his that day and took her to amazing places in the TARDIS. To the swimming pool, back to that Library, to an ice skating rink, to a movie theater.

"Where's the one place you want to go?" He asked her excitedly, his face full of an eager-to-please grin. "The TARDIS can make rooms, you know. Tell me what you want to see."

Clara thought hard about that. She had seen so many amazing things already that it was difficult to imagine what else there was to see. But as she looked back up at him and eyed his twinkling eyes, she knew what she wanted to see more than anything.

"I want to see your room." She told him.

He got an odd look on his face, almost one of confusion. It was replaced a few moments later with a soft smile.

"Righty-o! I'll take you to it, then." He told her.

She supposed, deep down, she wasn't that surprised when he led her to the room she'd been sleeping in for the past five nights. She walked through the familiar doorway and stared around her at all the things she'd been staring at each night, but never really seeing. She drifted around the walls, examining all the trinkets on the shelves that she knew must hold some sort of sentimental value to the Doctor. She saw photos of Gallifrey, hidden in the back behind jars of strange glitters and powders from other planets and interactive maps. And odd, seemingly insignificant objects from Earth that she knew must hold some sort of attachment to his lost companions.

When she reached the last shelf, she saw a canvas leaning against it, the white side facing out. She stooped over and picked it up, slightly surprised to find her own reflection staring back at her. Or, at least, one of her echo's. Run, you clever boy, and remember was written at the bottom.

She shifted the canvas a bit in her hands and then looked up at the Doctor.

"Why am I here?" She asked, nodding at the canvas.

He shrugged and pushed his hands into his pockets.

"Because you're everywhere." He replied.

No, she wanted to say, not everywhere. Just everywhere you are.

They fell into a comforting routine.

Clara cried and screamed less and less each night, but even when it ceased almost completely, the Doctor continued holding her. She said nothing about it, no jokes, no suggestive jeers, because she needed it too much to risk scaring him off. And for whatever reason, she felt he needed it too.

They ate breakfast together in the mornings (the Doctor consistently eating Jammie Dodgers and ignoring Clara's chides about the importance of an actual breakfast) and then spent time exploring the TARDIS. Clara got the impression that it had been a very long time since he'd shown the TARDIS off to anyone, and it was clear the old girl was showing off. But it was magnificent and extraordinary, and the two easily lost track of time as they peered at remarkable things together, their fingers forever intertwined.

For dinner, they stopped at restaurants around the galaxy, the Doctor now believing that Clara was able to take baby steps like that. She tried dozens of new dishes and drinks, and each night they stumbled back to the TARDIS, arms looped together, their stomachs full and hearts fuller.

Before Clara disappeared off to bed, they would sit quietly in one of the many lounges. Sometimes the Doctor read, sometimes he fiddled with the sonic screwdriver, sometimes he drew. But on the evening after the first time Clara slept through the night without crying even once, he pulled her into his arms.

She listened to his heartbeats quietly, staring at the flickering fire across from them in tired reverence. He stroked his fingers through her hair and she suddenly got the impression that he was further than he needed to be. She slid over onto his lap, gripping his middle with her arms, her face pressed against his shoulder. He didn't seem thrown off by the closer contact. He merely kissed her once more and then gently cupped her face, carefully guiding it back a little so they could meet eyes.

"The human brain is so beautiful," he told her, and he said it in that voice that always made her feel like she was the most valuable thing in the universe. He stroked her temple, her forehead, her cheeks with his fingertips. "It's so strong and gorgeous, so resilient, so pure."

She smiled at him. "Your brain's not half bad, either," she teased.

He grinned. "Oh, but it's nothing like yours. Mine is made to accommodate thousands of years easily, and yet even I wake up screaming sometimes. Yours is made for small pinches of time, and you are here and stronger than should even be possible."

She felt herself grow weaker and weaker. She felt her cheeks flush underneath his hands before she even uttered the admittance.

"I feel like I can do anything for you."

His smile was soft and ageless.

"You already have."

Later that night, when he crawled into his bed with her, he admitted something to her. His voice was as vulnerable as she sometimes felt.

"Your brain is beautiful and remarkable because it's yours." He whispered.

And that was, somehow, the most intimate compliment she'd ever been paid.

She hugged Artie tighter than ever when she returned home. To him, she'd been gone only a few hours. To her, she'd been gone for over a thousand years. She even risked pulling Angie into her arms and ignored the girl's complaints.

Clara invited the Doctor inside for tea, because she still wasn't sure about leaving him, and he gladly accepted. She had told him she was ready to go back, but now she wasn't so sure.

They all sat down at the table in the kitchen with steaming mugs in front of them.

"Where'd you go this time?" Artie asked them excitedly.

The Doctor and Clara met eyes for a long moment, knowing smiles curling up like smoke on their faces. Clara looked back at the two children, both of whom she loved a lot more than they would probably ever believe.

"Everywhere." She said simply.

Angie rolled her eyes with fake annoyance, but Clara could see her curiosity just underneath the surface.

"That's not vague at all," she said sarcastically.

Artie reached over and grabbed the Doctor's forearm.

"Doctor, I've been meaning to ask you, could you help me with my science fair project? Clara said you'd be much better at it than she would."

It took quite a long time for Clara to search through her memories to find that moment. It felt like an eternity ago that she had been standing in this kitchen, talking about something so seemingly insignificant as a science fair project with Artie. But she could feel herself understanding now how she was to slip back into her old life. She was supposed to use what she's lived to help her live, not to alienate herself from those she loved.

"Actually, Artie," she spoke up, before the Doctor could answer. "I think I'm pretty qualified to help you after all."

She could feel the Doctor's proud smile without even looking. She met his eyes a second later, her heart jumping when she did.

"But if the Doctor wants, I'd love his company." She added.

Artie smiled. "A party, then!"

The Doctor clapped his hands together.

"Excellent! I love a good science party!"

Angie frowned. "How come no one ever helps me with my projects?" She whined.

They spent the next hour in the living room, helping the Maitland children with their respective projects. And Clara began to understand how this alien man felt so at home on this planet. Sharing your love and knowledge with others is the way you make a home, after all.