A/N: Though most of this story is fluffy-bunny happily-ever-after (because good gravy, do we need it after the finale!), the humanist in me felt there needed to be at least some stuff that showed their relationship deepening. Realism in Doctor Who- the ultimate contradiction of terms- I know, but hey, I just write what these characters tell me. They're in charge. ;-)

And guys, if you are enjoying the story, and want to read more, please take two seconds to let me know in a review. It really does help me keep writing.

Not all of the time she spends in her bed is blissful. There are nights, usually after an attack, when the nightmares come.

They're not new, the nightmares. And now Clara thinks that they were probably inevitable, considering the vast amounts of memories, courtesy of her echoes, that were stored deep in her subconscious. Not long after she'd thrown herself in the Doctor's time-stream and miraculously survived, she'd asked the him why she only had glimpses of memories of those lives, why she had to concentrate to even remember some of them, and he'd smirked at her in a way that told her he was hiding something.

"Because you're impossible," he'd said, and she'd pursed her lips at him.

"That's not an answer," she'd insisted. "That much memory should have fried my brain, yeah? Why didn't it?"

He'd sighed, then, and wiped the a strand of hair from the side of her face. "I think it's because you're you," he'd said softly. "Because you still see only good in things, in people. And in me."

She'd smiled. "There's lots of good in you."

The Doctor had shaken his head with a soft chuckle. "I've never met anyone with so much hope," he'd told her. "Maybe that's what protected you."

"Hope?" she'd asked, surprised.

He'd turned back with serious eyes. "Never underestimate hope, Clara. Next to love, it just might be the most powerful force in the universe." And then he'd tapped her head. "Certainly strong enough to keep your lovely human brain intact."

She'd rolled her eyes at him, then, but now she thinks he was probably right all along. Because it had only been when she lost all hope that the memories, and the nightmares, had started. Her mind had never collapsed under the weight of all those lives until she'd collapsed under the weight of her own heart.

It was the day that Danny Pink had died instantly in the middle of the road. Until that moment, she had clung so hard to the idea that she, who traveled through space and time, who had lived a million lives, had saved a planet from annihilation and thrown rose petals at the wedding of Queen Elizabeth I, could still look forward to a quiet, normal life with normal things- job, husband, children, takeaway nights and after-holiday sales.

With Danny's death, in the blink of an eye, Clara Oswald, cheerful, earnest, hopeful, had finally turned into a creature that was more Time Lord than human. In that moment she'd realized with a chilling numbness that she was no longer a part of the normal world where death could be as simple as being hit by a car. Some horrible part of her had even called it "boring". In mere days, the kind, rational girl she'd been had descended so far that she'd been willing to destroy anything, including the TARDIS, herself and the Doctor, in the belly of a volcano, if it meant turning back time. It had taken a long while before she'd begun to accept that it had probably been more than Danny she'd been trying to recover- it had been her own innocence, to find that cheerful, normal girl she'd once been.

The dark truth was, losing Danny had been terrifying, but worse than that had been the realization that she'd somehow lost herself. And it had been the final act of polishing that had made her diamond-hard enough to at last withstand the weight of being a time-traveler.

So her past, and every life she had lived when she'd been split into confetti in the Doctor's timeline, had come steadily trickling out of her subconscious, and into her memory when she slept. The day of Danny's funeral, she'd had her first nightmare of her echoes' lives- of chasing after the Doctor as he drove by in Bessie, his yellow roadster, screaming for him to hear her. The next night she'd dreamed of helping the Doctor and his companion Peri escape from the guards in ancient Egypt, because Amenhotep II was preparing their execution.

One by one, they'd flooded back, along with every love, every loss, every terror and every joy. She'd had to face it alone for so long, never wanting to burden the older Doctor with what she'd been enduring.

And now she realizes, he'd known of her nightmares all along, because they'd been part of his memories. His past had been her present. But he'd been powerless to tell her he knew, or to even help her except to work harder than ever to keep her safe.

I have a duty of care, he'd said so often. Only now does she understand how much he'd cared.

It's only now, in the solitude of Trenzalore, that she's able to bury her head against his chest and feel safe when she wakes up, so full of memories that she sometimes doesn't know who she is for the first few moments.

She wonders, too, if it's the same for the Doctor, if he sometimes wakes up and wonders why it isn't Sarah Jane's voice or Rose Tyler's perfume, or the groan of the TARDIS that are the first things to hit his senses when he wakes. She wonders how he manages to still allow himself to love anyone, let alone her, after losing so much.

Today, though, she should have known that the nightmare would be a bad one.

The Cybermen had managed to slip through Tasha's force field, changing their frequencies. What they hadn't expected was that the Doctor had purposefully weakened the force field, right over a patch of thin ice on the lake. The display of fireworks from the short-circuit they'd caused as they crashed through the water had particularly amused the children of the Christmas. But all Clara had been able to see were the Cybermen that once sat in cages of dark water, sucking out the souls of those lost beneath the ground.

Later that night, when she screams out in her sleep, dreaming of everyone she's ever loved, her Mum, her grandfather, Danny Pink, all writhing inside the body of a Cyberman, she wakes to find the Doctor hurriedly lighting the candle beside their bed, his face wracked with worry. He wraps her in his arms, his hand holding hers tightly near her heart, until her pulse slows down to normal once more.

After a few moments he whispers, "Was it the Dalek one again?"

Clara bites her lip, because there are days like today when the nightmares are especially bad, and he's found her crying in her sleep. She'd told him of all of them- of her appointment to the Alaska, when her mother had given her a copy of her favourite opera as a gift, her eyes shining with pride, and how she'd screamed for her mother when the Daleks had imprisoned her, shoving wires into her body.

She'd told him of the young lamplighter from Victorian England, who came by the pub every Monday night to eat a dish she knew he hated, but ordered because she had cooked it, hoping to draw up the courage to talk to her.

She'd whispered of the morning she'd hid under the table, listening to her parents talk about taking her to the Time Vortex, and covering her ears so that it wouldn't be true.

Each time when the nightmares have come, he's woken her, held her close until she's fallen asleep again.

"No," she whispers, "not the Dalek one." But it only makes him hold tighter to her hand.

"It wasn't…?" he asks, and she shakes her head more forcefully.

"No," she murmurs, still facing the wall. "I didn't dream about them, either." She knows immediately who he means- the lives in which she had children, all now lost to time and space, just as his own children and grandchildren must be. It's the one thing of which they don't speak, and when she remembers the faces of those they've lost, human and Gallifreyan, she's not sure how either of them keeps breathing, how anyone does.

He squeezes her hand again, as if hearing her thoughts, the sorrow bubbling up in her heart once more. "Just hold on to me," he tells her. "Concentrate on where you are now."

But she's only human, and putting those memories away isn't as easy for her as it is for him. Her soul is now heavy with past lives, just like the Doctor's.

She feels the tears threaten at the memory, not just of her nightmare of the Cyberman, but the nightmare of all the loss of her echoes' lives. She holds tighter on to his hand. "I try," she whispers. "But I close my eyes and they're all around me."

It was what she'd meant when, long ago, she'd told the Doctor that it wasn't just he who had changed her, it was life. It was her million lives that had wrought the hardness into her soul, making her so very much like the man who lay inches away from her.

"Clara.." he says mournfully, but somehow it only makes her cling harder to him. The Doctor wraps his arms around her so tightly, she's no longer sure where she ends and he begins, as if he's trying to pull the pain out of her, endure it on her behalf.

"Doctor, how do you stand it?" she whispers against his warm skin. "How do you stand the memories of losing them?"

Her eyes raise to meet his and in the green depths she can see the staggering weight he carries in his soul.

"You remember the good things," he says softly. "It's all you can do."

He holds her as she finally cries, for the lost children of her echoes, lost parents and friends, all of whom she'd loved, and all of whom had been real to her, existing now only as memories.

Finally, when all her tears are gone, he wipes her eyes and gives her his handkerchief.

"Sorry," she mumbles, blowing her nose.

"Don't be," he assures her, gently holding the side of her head with one hand, cupping her cheek. "Not ever."

She wraps her arms around him again. "What a pair we are, eh?"

He smiles, a hint of sadness in his eyes. "Oh, no, Clara Oswald. You're not allowed to be like me. I won't have it."

Her mouth quirks, the smallest bit. "I think you might be too late."

The Doctor only holds her tighter, determined to make it not true.

He works harder than ever during the next week, though it becomes more and more difficult to make up excuses to get her out of the house. He's casually suggested to nearly every matron in the village that Clara would love to be invited for tea, and Clara has gone out so often that she's come back practically sloshing.

But finally, after months and months of secretive adjustments, tweaks here and there when she's not looking, he's finally ready to show her, and the Doctor has a hard time not grinning like a Cheshire cat when Clara comes back from Mrs. Harper's for the hundredth time, stepping through the door and brushing the snow from her hair.

He quickly rushes over to the rocking chair and sits, nonchalantly folding his legs, trying to look suave.

"You know, I never thought I'd get tired of cake," Clara says absently, unwrapping the scarf from her throat and tossing it on the coat-rack beside their door. The Doctor notices for the first time that Clara had placed it in the exact same spot that the coat-rack had been on the TARDIS, as though she'd been unconsciously replicating the entrance-way of his old home.

The thought of the TARDIS and where she might be, as it always does, flashes through his mind as his brain whirs the calculations as to why his ship still hasn't returned in nearly a year. He's used the sonic for scanning the sky for a speck of blue almost as much as he's used it to create this gift he's made for Clara.

"Next time I get invited for tea, I'm sending you instead," she says emphatically, smiling and removing her coat. "You eat nothing but sugar, anyway," she adds, walking over and kissing his forehead.

He smiles. "Oh, I don't think either of us will be able to go," he says airily, idly bouncing one leg over the other.

"Oh?" Clara asks, sitting down on their bed and kicking off her boots. "Why's that?"

"Because it's Wednesday," he says, grinning more broadly.

"It is?" she comments, then shrugs. "I guess I've stopped keeping track of the days."

The Doctor frowns, because he's just said something impressive and she hasn't noticed. And she's supposed to be telling him how clever he is by now. Then he remembers that he hasn't yet shown her what he did, and that his brain just leapt about three paces faster than his mouth.

"Ah, right," he says, rising quickly from the chair and taking her hand. "I didn't explain fully. It's better if I show you in the basement."

Clara stops. "We have a basement?"

The Doctor turns, and realizes he's still too many steps ahead. His grin grows broader, as he pulls her over to the bookcase against the wall.

"We do now," he says, and pushes the bookcase away to reveal… a blue door. He clasps his hands, shuffling them eagerly, waiting for her to tell him what a genius he is.

He turns to see Clara gaping at it, a smile forming around her mouth. "You made us a basement with a TARDIS door on it?" she asks, nearly laughing, and he wants to hop up and down because she still hasn't gotten it.

"Not quite," he says, and opens the door, leading her down the basement stairs that he'd painstakingly hewn out of the rock with his sonic over the last few months. Clara follows him willingly, almost giggling, but her laughter dies the moment they reach the basement and she sees what he's done.

He looks over at her, sees the wonder on her face, and knows it was all worth it.

"You made another TARDIS," she gasps, and he wants to laugh at the sight of her, mouth open at seeing another blue phone box in the middle of the cavernous basement.

"Well, it's not a real TARDIS," he explains, rushing over and standing in front of the rectangular booth. "Capturing a dying star and freezing it in time is a little beyond the capabilities of a screwdriver, I'm afraid."

Clara moves closer, touching the side of it. "What is it, then?"

His grin returns, as he takes her hand. "I told you, something for both of us."

Her brows quirk in confusion and he laughs and leads her inside the box, showing her an exact replica of the TARDIS control room.

Now Clara laughs, too. "Oh, my… bigger on the inside!" she cries.

He scoffs. "Well, of course it is. What kind of TARDIS would it be if it didn't have that rather defining feature?"

But Clara's hands have clapped together like a child and suddenly he wants nothing more than to file away the expression of delight on her face, a treasure for his hearts.

"It's wonderful," she breathes, and he feels his chest expanding.

"It's not over," he counters. "I figured that since we might be stuck on Trenzalore for awhile, you might miss seeing new worlds and new species around the universe."

Her dark eyes find his. "Doctor," she says softly. "I have all the universe I need. Didn't you know?"

His hearts nearly swell enough to burst his chest. But instead he replies quietly, "I do, now." He kisses her hand, and grins like the boy she makes him feel. "But I still think you'll like this."

She laughs, and touches to controls of the TARDIS. "I already do. Getting to see the inside of the TARDIS again..."

"Oh, but it's more than that," he says, and presses a button, watching her eyes light up at the same time that the inside of the control room begins to whir and hum and groan.

"Do you know how long it took me to get that sound right?" he calls over the noise, smiling at her. "I thought I'd be another thousand years older before I got it!"

Clara laughs again, and he takes her by the hand, bringing her back to the door again. "Now, as I was saying, it's Wednesday. And on Wednesdays," he says eagerly, turning the handle, "Clara Oswald gets to see wonders."

He opens the door and shows her his masterpiece.

Clara's mouth drops in surprise, as they step out on what appears to be an alien world, where the sky above her is a pale orange, and the trees are covered in soft, purple flowers, and a herd of animals that look like one-horned zebras race through a distant valley.

"Where are we?" she breathes out, and the Doctor smiles even more broadly.

"We're still in the basement," he says, as she turns sharply, frowning in confusion, "Although what we're looking at is the planet Argolis."

She stares at him, open-mouthed, so he adds, "But this was before it became radioactive after the Argolins' 20-minute war with the Foamasi." He laughs and waves a hand. "And long before they built their Leisure Hive…"

"Doctor!" she stops him, her smile now full of amusement. "What is this?"

"It's what you'd call a hologram," he explains, gesturing around him. "A digital recreation of light and sound…" he pauses, and takes her hand, "…taken from my memories."

She tilts her head. "Your memories?" she asks, and he smiles because she's starting to understand.

"Yes. I used the sonic to create a replica of every place I've ever been, everything I've seen, all the places I still haven't shown you yet, all the worlds…" he says, holding fast to her hand, hoping she's pleased with his gift. His face turns towards hers, and he whispers, "Places I always hoped to take you."

But when her eyes rise to his, he sees tears in them. She bites her lip and so he gives her a hopeful smile. For you, Clara, he thinks, I'd give you my whole universe.

"Surprise," he says softly.

Her hands fly to her mouth, and her face is shining. She's never looked more beautiful, standing in the midst of an alien world, and he knows it's because it's not just seeing a new wonder, it's because she's seeing the universe through his eyes.

"I don't know what to say…" she breathes. "It's so wonderful, I…."

The Doctor shuffles with embarrassment, because didn't she know she was worth all of this, and more? But then Clara throws herself in his arms and he forgets everything else but the feel of her body against his, her hands in his hair, her mouth on his, and his fingers gripping her waist.

When they pull up for air, he manages to ask. "Do you want to walk around a bit? The hologram moves with us so it'll even seem like we can go for miles before hitting the basement walls." An idea strikes him. "Or if you want," he says, hitting a panel on the side of the replica-TARDIS, making the scene around them suddenly change to one of inky black space, dotted with diamond stars, and he laughs as he and Clara suddenly begin to rise in the air, and she gasps with surprise. "We could float around Orion's Belt, if you'd rather."

She laughs, reaching for his hand as her feet move off in different directions. "Oh, my! You programmed anti-gravity, too?"

"I wanted it to be authentic," he says, his limbs floating, too, even while his eyes notice that her dress has begun to rise up around her hips. He grins again. He hadn't even thought of that nice little bonus when he'd programmed the anti-grav. This might be the best Wednesday ever.

"Best Wednesday ever!" she cries, as he floats over and grips her wrist, pulling her towards them as though about to dance in mid-air.

"I take it you like it, then?"

Clara laughs again and hugs him so hard he wonders where she got the strength. "I've never loved anything more," she says, then pulls back. "Well, except for one thing," she adds, touching his nose with her finger.

He smiles, then, relieved and proud and so full of feeling for her that he needs more hearts to hold it all. "What would you like to see next?"

She grins at him. "Anything. Everything," she breathes happily. "Somethin' awesome."

He snaps his fingers, and kicks the panel with his foot so that they float back to the ground. They're both still laughing when he pulls her back inside their makeshift TARDIS, ready to pick a new wonder to show her.

It doesn't really matter where they go, he thinks. Out of the whole wide universe, Clara Oswald is the most wonderful thing of all.

to be continued...