Author's note: I'm really sorry about this one. At least it's short. It was painful to write. And from a prompt thing. I felt like I had to write it. Lyrics just before the story are from the song Welcome Home by Radical Face. I don't own anything associated to Doctor Who or the awesome lyrics to that wonderful song.

Warnings: Character death. Mentions of sex.


All my nightmares escape my head
Bar the door, please don't let them in
You were never supposed to leave
Now my head's splitting at the seams


You didn't know who you were anymore.

A best friend? A teacher? To whom, exactly?

You felt crazy. Maybe you were, you didn't know. How did you admit that sort of thing to someone, let alone to yourself? In fact, how exactly do you tell someone, like an actual proper doctor, that you've lost your mind because you gone traveling through all of time and space and did something that one must never do? You can't just speak like it's a normal thing. Time streams, Gallifrey, Trenzalore, a lizard woman from the dawn of time. All the things you've seen and done. And of course, Time Lords, your Time Lord – the Doctor.

It wasn't meant to have happened this way. It wasn't meant to have happened at all.

You were alone now.

He had died. The Doctor had died and his last words echo in your head all the time. God, it was ridiculous. He was falling, and he says Geronimo. But not before he told you to run.

Run and don't look to where I fall, Clara. Run to the TARDIS, it will take you home. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.

You regret that you didn't have anything to say to him in that very moment, there was nothing to say. You could only have listened and it's what you had done. It haunted you. That day had begun wonderfully. You and the Doctor had moments, spoke words you didn't think would be spoken between the two of you. I love you. Despite all you'd been through and done together, you thought those words would never come but they did that day. They weren't his last, they weren't yours. Maybe that wasn't a bad thing, maybe that would make the loss feel so much more real.

Was it real?

The grief-stricken look upon his face, the sadness and regret. His fear. How wide your eyes had gotten. You could still feel the heat and wetness of the first tear that slid down your face. Once that first one fell, they didn't stop.

Not all of the memories are bad.

No, but they all hurt. The images. Sometimes you think you can still feel his breath against parts of your body, or mingling with your own. His legs tangling with yours. You can feel his fingers entwined with yours, placed above your head. Sometimes you imagine him hovering over you, still, the twinkle and spark in his eyes. The goofy grin he always had, even in an intense and intimate moment.

But then you think of his body, that beautiful body of that beautiful man that fit your body perfectly in a way that was just so. You think of the damage and the sound. You think of his screams. After he told you time and time again.

Don't look to where I fall.

Don't look to where I fall, Clara.

Don't look back. Just run.

You think maybe he knew all along. That the battle would be won, but not without his loss. One you didn't see, because you running. You didn't want to see, but you hadn't wanted to hear.

When you were running, and he died. You heard it. You heard his body hit the ground. The loud thud. You were far away, maybe it wasn't so loud. But now it was louder than all his screams and all of your screams.

Even now when you screamed, trying to escape the voices and sounds and monsters in your head, it was never loud enough to drown out the dull sound of his end.

Your end, really.

The impossible girl, the girl born to save the Doctor. And who were you now?

You didn't know.