Clara Oswald did not break rules. It wasn't something she'd ever done as a child, and it wasn't something she had ever planned to do. So when she set rules for herself, she knew that she would absolutely never break them. Especially when it came to The Rule.

But sometimes he made it so damned hard.

Every time she decided to stay a night on the TARDIS and woke up in the morning, he'd be there waiting for her with breakfast and an interesting story. Whenever he picked her up from the Maitlands' house, he would have that huge, goofy, we-are-going-to-have-an-adventure-today grin, and she would have to take a deep breath and remind herself of The Rule, because her heart would flutter and she would forget (but oh, how wonderful it was to forget!) that she could not let herself fall in love. Not if she didn't want to get hurt.

The Rule quickly became her number one priority, and she became quite good at doing her little trick: he would be, well, himself, and she would pretend that he wasn't all she could think about night and day. She would pretend that they were just friends. She would pretend that she wasn't in love with him.

What made it worse was that he was married. Clara may have been the constant in the Doctor's life, she may have saved his life as many times as he had saved the universe, but she hadn't arrived in his life early enough to get him first.

Her hardest memory was when she remembered his wedding. She had been there, of course, in the Teselecta. She had watched silently as he performed the ancient Gallifreyan ceremony and broke her heart. And that wasn't the end of it. He had never noticed her. She did not think that he would, because he didn't remember her from before Victorian London and the Dalek asylum, but that didn't make it hurt any less. When she had seen how much River truly loved the Doctor, she couldn't find it in her to reveal herself and get to him first.

She had decided to implement The Rule the morning after Trenzalore. She had woken up with hundreds of lives that she had lived barraging her memory, but the only thing she could truly remember about those lives was him. The Doctor had shown courage and weakness in all his lives, and she remembered every single one, from the very start to the very end. And his flaws, more than anything else about him, were what endeared him to her. It showed that for all his Time-Lordyness, he was no more than anyone else Clara had met. He was no different from Clara herself, plagued with memories that she wished she could unremember, that she wished would unhappen. He was the only person who could truly understand what she felt and what she knew.

But she knew that she could never tell him about the memories. Because if she did open up, even that tiny bit, she wouldn't be able to control herself. Everything would come pouring out. He would know about her feelings, and about The Rule. And she would lose her Chin Boy, with his young face and age-old eyes that danced when he spoke.

She had tried to leave when it got too hard. She had tried to leave several times. But she always failed. And she knew, without ever having to tell herself, that the one thing she could never, ever bear to say, that she hoped she never would have to say, was goodbye.

Goodbye, Chin Boy.

A/N: I'm sorry. I know you all expected so much more than a long internal monologue, but it's been a while since I've written from Clara's perspective (like properly, in her head) so I wanted to try something a little different.

The good news is, I now have a general plan for the next 20ish chapters, which have been inspired by this tumblr post: post/56266967253/unusual-date-ideas. So bear with me for now, and I'll update again soon!

As always, thanks for reading and reviewing!