"Isn't it time for bed, Clara? You look absolutely exhausted."

"Thanks for that," she replied sarcastically. The Doctor mindlessly tinkered away at the console, feeling the unrelenting stare of Clara resting on the back of his head. She swung her legs against the cool leather of the chair, taking in the change in the Doctor's usually laid-back stature.

"I'll go to bed when you tell me what's wrong."
The Doctor dug his face further into a row of levers and buttons as a precaution of shielding the emotions on his face to the companion behind him. He pulled out his sonic to repair the levers before him, trying to take his mind on thoughts that threatened to eat away at him.

"Nothing's wrong," he lied as he lifted a few wires protruding from the ground only to promptly place them back down, "the Tardis is just acting up. Anyway, we've already landed at your flat. 21st of August."
"It was a July 4th a day ago," Clara laughed, and her usual infectious happiness had the opposite effect on the Doctor.

The Doctor turned around and mustered a crooked half smile moments later, nodding his head towards the doorway. "July... Yeah, sorry. July can wait until morning. I'll get the TARDIS up and ready after you've had your sleep."

The despair in his voice did not translate into Clara's ears, who simply grinned. "You deserve sleep too, yeah? I mean you've been going at the console all day."

The Doctor's face fell and he promptly turned to lean on the console. "Yeah, I'll be off to bed soon. Goodnight." He managed to say the last phrase with considerable effort; he waited until he heard Clara's footsteps fade from the TARDIS before he slid to the ground and clutched his ears.

"Please old girl," he cried as he leaned his head against the metal of the console. "Tell me what's wrong!" The Tardis screamed in his mind, wheezing and making such a commotion through their psychic link the Doctor was momentarily blinded by the pain it gave him. He hunched over, his machine still screaming as he lost consciousness.

===
When Clara noticed the glow from the Tardis seep underneath her door, she turned her head to her alarm clock wearily.
"Two hours? Why would he only give me two hours to sleep?"

She reached for the light and jumped out of bed. She began speed-walking toward the other room in irritation before stopping in her tracks. She was exhausted, could she have fallen asleep without hearing the Tardis wheeze itself out of her flat? She always waited for that noise when he dropped her off. Who would want to miss that?

Her heart lept into her throat and she ran toward the Tardis.

Once inside, she saw a silhouette slumped against a dead console.

"Doctor," Clara rushed up to The Doctor and rattled his shoulders. He opened his eyes weakly. "Hey Clara," he gave a disoriented wave as Clara looked down at him. A bundle of Tardis wires was gripped between his fingers.

"Goodmorning?" He questioned as he tried to fake stretch before abandoning that strategy and instead wincing in pain.

"No." She replied sternly. "The TARDIS didn't dematerialize from my flat. And judging by the bruise on your head you didn't just decide to spontaneously nap in the control room."

He waved his hand dismissively and sat himself up. "I have very odd sleeping habits Clara," he offered.

Clara leaned closer to him, if only to get a better view of his bruised cheek that he tries to hide with a sweaty hand. "If you don't tell me what's wrong, I swear I'll hit the self-destruct button that's right above my elbow."

Dropping his hand from his face, he twisted his fingers around each other in his fidgety demeanor that he plays off as deep thought.

"Nightmares," his voice was shaky and didn't sound like his own. She opens her mouth to retort, but his cold eyes makes her stop in her tracks.

"Doctor -"

With a series of pained groans, the Doctor pulls himself up from the floor. "The Tardis was having nightmares."

He gives a icy laugh and throws his hands up in resignation. "No use in hitting the self-destruct button, either. She's already dead, or will be very soon."

"Then why - why were you tearing out her wires?"

"I must have been doing it instinctively." He tilts his head so she can see his right ear, blood drying out the side of it. "She was screaming."

Clara's eyes widen in concern, if only for a moment.

"Wait a minute," she points a finger at him. "You knew something was up when you ushered me off to bed. You could feel it, then. Why not say something?"

"I made you leave before the telepathic link you share with the TARDIS started to turn on you as well."

"How exactly does a time machine have nightmares, Doctor?"

He scratched his head. "Don't know. The other night, after we had visited the Aristotle, the Tardis kept ringing it's cloister bell any time I moved near the console. Emergency control modules kept popping up the closer I got to her. She was afraid. But then it was like it never happened, as if she woke up again and realized there was nothing there."

"Afraid of you?"

The Doctor nodded and turned to face a row of buttons, trying to get his machine to respond.
Clara rested a hand on the Doctor's shoulder and stared at him with big brown eyes.

"What if it wasn't a nightmare?"

The Doctor rolled his shoulders, uncomfortable to Clara's touch. "What are you trying to say?"

"Doctor, I don't think a nightmare would have killed the TARDIS."

"Why would the Tardis be so afraid of me?"

Clara pursed her lips. "That might be an answer we need to find out."

The Doctor's eyes darkened as he pressed his palms against the edge of the console. "Possibly," he grumbled.

He tapped his impossibly long fingers on the time rotor, looking for life.

"Nightmares," he breathed almost to himself. His eyes start to light up. "Nightmares, nightmares, nightmares."

Clara leaned in toward the console and gave the Doctor a quizzical look. "Hmm?"

"Why are you here?" The Doctor questioned his companion.

"What?" Clara asked sharply, almost offended.

"Answer," he continued, now turning a heel toward Clara. "You never left the TARDIS".

"Again, what?"

"I didn't make it out of your flat last night. You're still here. Within this proximity you would have felt it, too. The screaming."

Clara's face twisted in confusion as the Doctor examined her closely. "I didn't feel a thing. Would I have felt it? I expect you share a stronger telepathic link with the Tardis than I do. Still not sure she really likes me."

"Those screams," his voice trailed off, for a moment. "Surprised all of time and space didn't hear it. You would have felt something."

"You said I never made it out of the TARD-"

The Doctor interjects by hushing his companion. "Forget that. One second."
He dashed out to a corridor, emerging a couple minutes later with a pair of silver canisters.

He tossed one to Clara and gave her a reassuring smile. "Forgot about these," he beamed as he spins his canister around in his hands.

Clara examined the bottle. "These look like deodorant cans."

"Do you trust me?" The Doctor asked, nearly out of nowhere.

"Trust you to look after my antipersperant needs?"

Clara put both hands on the canister, brushing her finger on an etching on the bottom. She turned it upside down, an inscription scratched hastily on the bottom.
"Doctor," she breathed still looking at the canister. "What's nitro-9?"

The Doctor stepped beside her now, his hand resting on the top of his cannister. "An explosive. Which I all too conveniently found. Because this is a dream. And we need a way out of it."

"Doctor," Clara looked toward the TARDIS door, thinking of what to do. She started shaking, her voice doing the same. "Doctor, you're injured. Y-you're not thinking right."

"I'm sorry," he said. "But you really have to trust me."