A.N. - The dialogue in the beginning is taken verbatim out of the episode "Hide", in which the Witch in the Well happened. I just like drawing everything back to my favorite pairing, and I wanted to see if I could do it from the Eleventh Doctor and Clara...and I did! Please enjoy the story and tell me what you think.

The Only True Companion

"To you, I'm a ghost. We're all ghosts to you…we must be nothing," said Clara, looking at the Doctor's back.

He stopped on the edge of the platform, his mind hooked on one girl. Blonde hair and brown eyes locked in his mind's eye.

"Nope. No...you're not that."

And he turned around slightly when he said it, giving her a strong look, but both of them knew the faint deception behind his words; Clara could see it in his eyes, even though she knew that he would never see it in himself. It was inevitable.

As he walked down the steps, she took several long strides forward.

"Then what are we?" she asked, her voice accusatory, trying to call him out on just this one occasion. "What could we possibly be?"

He turned and gave her the only honest answer that he could; the only thing that he knew would appease her.

"You are…the only mystery…worth solving."

He told her what she was to him, and left all of the other ones out of it. She just gave him a smile in return and she knew, just as he did, that that was the best answer that she was going to get from him. It was the only thing that he was going to admit. That she was of some importance to him. They both knew that that was what she was after.

However, what he would never tell her or anyone else, was that she was mostly right.

Most of the ones who tagged along for the ride were simply ghosts to him.

A few stuck with him. Amy Pond, of course, and then there was…oh, in his previous generation, what was her name? He couldn't even rightly recall her face. She must not have been as important as he thought, after all. And then he had his Impossible Girl, Clara, who was everywhere and every time, and yet nowhere.

But then, of course, there was Rose.

Throughout it all, there she was. Never wavering, and somehow, he didn't know how, never really changing.

All the rest of his companions had eventually realized the true mental and emotional cripple that he was, always needing someone around that he could either show off in front of or try to change their world and turn them into outcasts among their friends and family, leaving them stranded in a time stream that they should never have been in in the first place. He had ruined so many lives, and even though he'd also ruined Rose's…she was the only one who hadn't cared.

The only one who had chosen him over her own boyfriend, and left behind the only family she had. Her mother. And then he'd left her in a parallel universe, forever parted from her.

She had been the one.

The companion that he would see the ends of the universe with; the companion that he would have gone domestic for. The only one he would have gone domestic for.

But after he'd regenerated after taking in the heart of the Tardis into himself, he knew that in her eyes he wasn't the same.

To him he was the same Doctor as before, but to her he had changed. And so, it was with pain that he'd had to love her the same and watch her learn to care for his new face…and yet, never love him the same way, because she had fallen in love with the man he'd been before.

And what he would give to have that old, daft face back again. Even with the dumbo ears.

Because it was hers.

And maybe, just maybe, if he ever became who he was once more, she could return to him. It was an irrational and illogical hope that defied all the natural laws of physics and of time and space, but he didn't care. He would continue to grasp onto it.

Because he knew, deep within his hearts, that it was her.

The one he'd looked for, for all those years.

His only true companion.

THE END