Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine.

A/N: This is set sometime after the Doctor regenerated, in a universe in which Danny Pink wasn't around. I don't have any beta readers, so please forgive me of any casual grammar slips and let me know so i can fix them.

This is the first chapter out of four. Enjoy xo.

She was running.

She didn't know where to, she couldn't remember where from.

She just kept running.

Her heart raced inside of her chest, allowing her the energy and adrenaline to carry on. There was a voice inside her head yelling at her, pounding at her, like the beat of a drum. She couldn't get the beating to stop, so she just listened to it, followed its command.

It told her to get to the Doctor.

It told her to save the Doctor.

Her breathing was unsteady, her lungs felt like they would implode. She couldn't feel her body, her legs led her to somewhere she had no control over, but neither did she want to stop them. She knew she had to fulfill her purpose before it was too late.

And then, she saw him.

She couldn't tell which one of his faces he had on, she couldn't bother herself to find out either. There were too many for her to remember when they both were in a clock for his life.

He was fighting some alien force she had never seen before and from the way it looked, things weren't quite good for him. She rushed her legs, trying to get to him, she knew she had to.

But she was too late.

He had been hit before he had his chance to start regenerating. They had got to him before she could save him.

She had failed to save his life. Again.

Clara woke up in a scare.

Her breathing was anxious, and her fingers held so tightly to the sheets beneath her they were turning white. Her heart pounded against her throat so quickly she felt it might escape her chest at any time. She felt despaired, scared to ever close her eyes again.

Her face was covered in sweat and her eyes couldn't focus on anything. Her head ached, she felt like it held more information, more memories than it could bare. Clara feared It would explode if she didn't start losing some memories anytime soon.

Her life had been like that for a long time now. Since the day she jumped into his time stream, she hadn't been able to get a proper night of sleep. The dreams were always there, and they weren't always good. She was tired all the time, even if she did her best to hide it.

However, more recently, they were getting worse. The Doctor was always there, and he always ended up dead, which led her to wake up in panic and she wouldn't be able to catch her breath for minutes. Then, she would spend the rest of the night tossing around in her bed, hoping the dawn would arrive soon enough, or at least sometime before her dark thoughts consumed her mind.

Clara looked around her room in the TARDIS. The ship had turned a slight light on after sensing she was up, to which she was thankful for. The darkness was the last place she longed to be right now. She laid her back in the soft mattress again, her head sinking down the pillow, but her eyes remained wild open. She knew she would be tormented by nightmares if she dared to close them again.

After what seemed an eternity, refusing to give in to the exhaustion, she decided to get up. Maybe the Doctor would be up already and ready to go on an adventure. She laughed to herself, who was she trying to fool, the Doctor most likely hadn't even gone to bed.

After wrapping herself with a white silk robe and slipping some slippers on, she walked up to the console room. For her surprise, he wasn't sitting in his fancy chair like he tended to be. She wondered if he had gone explore some planet without her, but from the look on one of the screens, they were still in the time vortex.

She decided to go explore the ship, in boredom. She got a habit of doing that when her insomnia got a point she couldn't control. Lucky for her, the TARDIS always readjusted the rooms in a different order, always giving her something new to entertain herself.

That night, though, the TARDIS wasn't in the mood to ease her boredom.

The first door Clara passed by was the Doctor's room. For a moment, she considered going in, but decided against it. She didn't want to be a bother. For the first nights after Trenzalore, the previous incarnation of the Doctor had stayed with her after all those countless sleepless nights, thus it wouldn't be fair to bury him again with her problems.

She carried on, walking through a few corridors before reaching his bedroom, again. She mentally cussed the TARDIS, knowing very well she had heard it. Clara tried to go back to the console room, but the time machine kept mazing around her, always leading her to the Doctor's room.

Carefully, Clara laid her ears against the door, trying to listen to any sounds that indicated he was up. There were none. Shyly, she knocked. "Doctor? Are you asleep?"

There still was no answer. She debated whether she should go in or not, but decided to go for it as she didn't want to be standing in the hall until the break of dawn. Slowly, she opened the door. "Doctor?"

The Doctor looked up from the Tolstoy book he was reading. "Clara? Is it time to get up yet?"

She shook her head, eyes looking at the so neat bedding that didn't look to be touched for the past ten years. "No, I… I couldn't sleep," she told him, too tired to lie.

The Doctor closed up the book, setting it to the table next to the chair he was sitting on. He locked eyes with her, even if she refused to look back at him. "Why?"

Clara shrugged, wrapping her arms around herself. "Insomnia. It's a thing that happens, I'm sure you must be familiar with the term," she smirked.

The Doctor stood up. "I don't have insomnia, Clara, I just don't sleep," he walked towards her. "How long have you been up?"

Her shoulders went up and down. "I don't know, an hour or so," she confessed, "I was walking around the TARDIS to pass the time but she locked myself around your room"

He nodded. "She does that."

"Yeah."

The Doctor didn't move his eyes from her. After so many hundreds of years dealing with humans, he could tell when something was odd. "Clara, if insomnia is your main issue, then why can't you look at me in the eyes?"

A sad smile appeared in the corner of her lips. He knew her so well. "I just… I haven't been able to sleep well, that's all."

He grabbed his sonic screwdriver out of his coat and scanned her. "You're sleep deprived," he explained, still unable to get her to look at him. "Clara, have you been having nightmares again?"

She nodded shyly. "They keep getting worse and worse"

The Doctor took her by the hand and pulled her to his very large bed. She didn't protest. "Do you want to talk about them? I mean, I am no therapist but I still have a doctor's degree."

She laughed slightly, before laying her head on his shoulder. "I just want to sleep peacefully for once, Doctor."

Surprisingly, he didn't pull away from her. He wrapped one of his arms around her torso, while the other still held her hand tenderly. "How long have you been having these nightmares?"

She took a long breath, and then she whispered: "Forever. Since Trenzalore"

The Doctor hugged her even tighter. "Why didn't you tell me? I thought they were gone."

"They were… for a while," Clara tugged her face deeper into his chest.

"Come on, now," the Doctor moved so he could lead her to lie down on his bed. She was reluctant at first, but she let him take care of him anyway. His bed felt completely soft and warm beneath her, and she felt the exhaustion take over her body.

The Doctor covered her with a blanket, before lying next to her. He welcomed her in his arms, gently running his fingers through her brown locks of hair. "You just rest, Clara."

She tugged herself in the other's arms, the smell of him filling up her nose. She tried to close her eyes, but she couldn't sustain them that for much time. "I c-can't," she tried to get up. "I'm sorry, I can't do this."

But he held her back. "You don't need to be scared," his accent was soft, almost unnoticeable. "I'm here, you're safe now. No one can get to you anymore."

She whinnied against his collar bones, her eyelashes touching the bare skin of his neck. "You can't protect me from my own mind, Doctor. It doesn't work that way."

His hands rubbed her back in circle motions, his nose burying itself on the top of her head. "But if I see you having a nightmare, I'll wake you up before it gets to you."

Clara smiled with the corner of her lips. "But then, when will you sleep?"

"Well," he took a long breath. "I'll just take cat naps every now and then. You know, just the same ole' usual."

She grinned, thrilled with the possibility that she would finally get the sleep her body longed for. "You promise? Promise that you will stay here with me."

"I promise."

"But just for tonight," Clara interfered. "I'll be okay after that."

The Doctor laughed at her stubbornness. "Yes, Clara."

For the rest of that night, she didn't have any more bad dreams.