She was there, beside him, always. When the image of Gallifrey burning set loose the nightmares in his head, the screams, the stench of buildings - and worse - burning, all he had to do was reach out his hand to her. Just the slightest movement of his fingers, and she was there, wrapping her tiny hand around his, grounding him. His Clara. His impossible girl.
The two most recent incarnations of the Doctor stood close to the console, ostensibly studying the readouts.
"I'm so glad you've got her," the pinstriped Doctor said, glancing over his shoulder at Clara. "We're rubbish on our own. Always have been. She…reminds me of Rose. Just a bit. Is that why I feel as if we've met before?"
"She's Clara," the purple tweed Doctor said firmly. "Wonderfully, uniquely, Clara. She doesn't like to be compared to other people. Can't say as I blame her, since I have never known anyone like her before. And yes, you have met. She's been with us all along, ever since the day we first ran away from Gallifrey."
He watched the previous Doctor's eyes widen as he remembered a dark-haired slip of a girl, directing him to his TARDIS.
"Blimey. You do know how to pick 'em."
"It'll come to you in time," the Doctor informed him smugly.
The War Doctor contemplated the lovely, dark-haired pixie moving about the control room of the TARDIS as if she owned the place. He'd once been accustomed to a certain degree of awe from his companions, but not this one. Feisty and clever, and not at all afraid to tell him - any of him - off for being an idiot, she reminded him, just a touch, of a certain girl who went toe to toe with a Dalek, wielding only a baseball bat.
He was, he admitted to himself, a jealous old sot. Pretty rich, considering that he had no one to blame but himself for his own decisions, not to mention the utter absurdity of being jealous of himself. Oh, not the frippery or the infantile speech patterns, of course, but…her. It had been so long since he'd had a companion. This incarnation had always been alone. His hearts clenched within his chest as he recalled the last person he'd asked to travel with him - and how she'd preferred death over the company of a Time Lord.
He wasn't meant to be alone. He needed someone to remind him that there were limits, even for him, someone to remind him that 'can' and 'should' were not the same thing. Most of all, he needed a hand to hold. Always had. Well, nearly always. That fellow with the chin was quite lucky to have her. She'd keep him out of trouble…despite his best efforts to the contrary.
Clara caught her Doctor's arm. "You're going to place yourselves inside the image we saw at the gallery?"
"Yes, Clara. It's the only way. The Tower is TARDIS-proofed, so the only way for us to get there is to travel through the painting that's already there." He smiled down at her. "It'll be fine. I promise."
"But I saw that painting. There's fire, and Daleks -"
"It's fine, Clara," he repeated soothingly. "We're going to walk into the image here, and walk right back out again inside the archive. There's three of us, and we know exactly what we're getting ourselves into."
"There's four of us," Clara said stubbornly.
The pinstriped Doctor had been lost in a memory of Rose Tyler trying to dissuade him from going out to face a group of armed Torchwood operatives, but now he shook himself out of his reverie. "Someone's going to need to be at the controls of the TARDIS to keep all our signals locked together. Wouldn't do for us to become scattered all over the place." He winked at his counterpart.
"That's right," the War Doctor added, quickly catching on. "We'll definitely need all of us, as well as the TARDIS, to arrive together."
"There now, you see? We're depending on you, Clara Oswald," the purple tweed Doctor told her.
"Just be careful, all right? All of you."
"I'm always careful," her Doctor assured her, leaning down to press a kiss to Clara's forehead, and choosing to ignore the skeptical look on her face.