AN: So, this is my first fanfiction that I choose to post. This is set at a time where Clara was sleeping on the TARDIS and ended up finding out more than she expected. Any helpful criticism is completely welcome. Please review, favorite, follow, you know the drill. Thanks for reading!


Understanding the Misunderstood

Clara had already spent hours trying to find the great relief of sleep. She tossed and turned until her shoulder length brown hair was in knots. In another failing attempt she decided to try and find the kitchen for something to eat. Clara didn't exactly know how long time had passed since breakfast, but she did know it had been at least a couple of hours since her last meal.

As she walked sluggishly around and around the seemingly endless circle of TARDIS hallway, until she noticed this hallway was endless. Around the fifth lap of searching, Clara's bright golden brown eyes started to lose their sight. She had been walking for so long that she was almost sleepwalking. Literally. Clara huffed in frustration because she couldn't understand why the TARDIS hated her so much. She hadn't done anything wrong…to her knowledge. She often wonders why she doesn't have the Doctor take her home. It would be less of a struggle, and a walk if she knew where everything was. And if there wasn't a cow hiding rooms from her every five seconds.

"What have I done to you?" spoke Clara hopelessly as she finally found a door. Eager to leave, she shoved the door open, not caring what was on the other side. Another hallway. This time it actually led her somewhere instead of infinite wandering. The TARDIS console room. Where all Clara could hear was the slight wheezing of the blue box.

Clara, no longer tired, but curious, cautiously stepped down the metal stairs and onto the main platform in front of the console. "Can you please show me where the kitchen is?" Clara whispered suspiciously as she waited for an answer. Just as Clara started to leave the room in frustration when the image of a pale red-headed woman appeared. "Who are you?" Clara asked the lady. "I am a voice interface." Replied the seemingly Scottish hologram. "OK. Well, can you show me where the kitchen is?" Clara calmed a bit knowing this wasn't actually a stranger as she circled the projection. The TARDIS said nothing. "Please?" Clara tried, while she slowly became more and more irritated by the time machine.

Throughout this one-sided conversation the TARDIS interface had disappeared but still hadn't made a noise. Not one groaning, wheezing sound came from the metal machinery hidden in the blue box. The TARDIS knew why Clara getting so frustrated, but she needed to know. She needed to know why the Doctor cares so much for an "appliance" as she said. "A pretty good appliance, don't you think?" the TARDIS thought.

Clara was so wound up from trying to get even the tiniest sound from the TARDIS that she slammed her foot into the bottom of the console, "You know what? Don't help me. I'll never understand what I did for you to be this…cruel to me!" Before Clara could leave the room the TARDIS made the classic groaning sound as she landed somewhere. Clara stopped her rant and froze. She knew the TARDIS had taken her somewhere, but was terrified of where. "What did you just do?" Clara whispered inquisitively. Suddenly the doors opened. Clara walked over to the door warily, and peered outside.

Outside was what looked like a giant dump. Clara heard the doors close behind her as she walked outside and saw the random items and trash in piles at least twenty feet tall. Clara was in complete by it all. As she slowly took it all in, the vastness of the place, she heard a voice. A very familiar voice. The Doctor's voice. Clara swiftly ran to comb through the piles of weird contraptions, toys, clothes, and anything imaginable to find the Doctor, thinking he had planned this, but got no further than ten feet before she heard a loud wheezing sound. Knowing it was the TARDIS she turned around and saw that the doors had opened. "It wants me to leave?" Clara told herself. She didn't want to go, but her instincts were telling her to trust the box and go inside.

So she did. The door locked immediately after they were closed, and an image appeared on the screen. It was the same place that she had been only seconds ago, but the Doctor was there with two others. A tall pale blonde man with an awkward facial expression that said "How did get into this?" The other was the same woman that the TARDIS had projected a while ago. Then there were another two dressed in ragged clothing and seemed to be very happy about something. The Doctor addressed the redhead as Amy with in the next few minutes. In the middle of the Doctor and the two natives of the bizarre place, a women in a Victorian style dress came up to the Doctor talking nonsense. What shocked Clara the most is when the lady kissed the Doctor. Clara watched him flail wildly like a moth about to be swatted by a rolled up newspaper. The two people who seemed to know the mad woman pulled the lady away and told the three foreigners about this woman's issues in the head. Suddenly, the screen went black. Clara backed away from the console, a bit confused as to what she just watched.

Within the next few seconds, another image had appeared. This time it was of the same woman emitting a sparkling gold mist around her body. "What is that?" Clara wondered hoping the TARDIS would do something. "What happened? What was that? Where did you take me?" Clara had so many questions. The TARDIS finally answered with a two photos. The mad lady, and the TARDIS. Clara had stared blankly at the screen in shock of the idea swirling in her head for what seemed to be ages. She understood now. The TARDIS didn't actually hate her, she just wanted to keep her friend safe. This time machine had a…personality. A soul.

Clara looked back to the TARDIS console and walked in circles around her. Finally, Clara said those words, "I'm… so sorry." The blue box understood too.