A/N: I have never posted as fast as I seem to be doing with this story, but darn it, happy endings need to happen now to counteract finale feels. That's the plan, anyway. :-)

"Doctor!" she cries, but it's no use. One of two Daleks that have managed to get through the force-field has already retreated into the woods, the Doctor in pursuit. The other, wounded and dying, is still randomly shooting laser-fire from the town square, where Clara and one of the children from the village are cornered.

Clara frowns, because she hadn't shouted from being afraid for her own life. The Doctor never leaves her unarmed in battle (despite the fact that he himself has a tendency to run after the very things that are trying to kill him, carrying just a screwdriver in his hand, she thinks with a sigh). She'd simply wanted him to wait for her, so she could get the girl to safety and then fight the battle with him.

The little girl, shielded behind her, lets out a whimper, then a shriek as the wounded Dalek continues to fire feebly, mercilessly, only steps from where they stand. It breaks her reverie and Clara looks up, feels her brows draw together in grim determination.

"Don't you worry," she whispers to the girl, her voice sure. "I know right where to aim." She holds up the cyberman's head, closes her eyes and feels the knowledge of her echo coursing through her. The junior entertainments manager had learned quite a lot about Dalek physiology.

"I know you don't have a choice," she whispers to her dying enemy, pointing Handles' head directly at a weak spot on the Dalek's body, "but neither do I."

She fires, and watches quietly as her enemy short-circuits and goes silent.

The girl whimpers again, so Clara gently puts Handles on the ground, then holds the little body in her arms. "Shhhh, see?" She says, nodding to the little girl. "It'll be a long while before they try to come back here again."

She says it, even though what she meant was that there would probably be many nanoseconds adding up to to the weeks or, if they were lucky, months before the next attack. But the girl believes her utterly, because everyone knows that no one can lie in Christmas.

She watches the child nod back weakly, trying to smile, so Clara nudges her. "Told you there was nothing to worry abo…"

But she never finishes because at that moment, she sees the explosion, huge and fiery, coming from the woods where the Doctor has just run off.

And her heart nearly stops in her chest. Again.

She runs, without care, without knowing who exploded, if the Dalek was the victor and will kill her on sight. She doesn't care, she has to get to him, because she won't breathe again until she knows he's okay.

Clara runs, her brain automatically chanting that he couldn't possibly be truly hurt...

He has to be okay, she repeats to herself. Still a thousand years to go, then a new regeneration cycle. All the things left to do, seeing Robin Hood and hatching the moon, and battling Missy and Davros on Skaro, finding Gallifrey again….

Then she remembers that he also walked with a cane when she came to Trenzalore that second time, and maybe his leg is broken somewhere and he's in pain because he doesn't have enough regeneration energy left.

She screams out, "Doctor! Doctor!' because it doesn't matter if the Dalek hears her and ends her life, because, even on Trenzalore, she will fight to save him until her dying breath. She runs and screams some more until her voice and limbs begin to ache.

A tree seems to move in the distance and her heart leaps in her chest as she sees him step out from behind it. His jacket is smoking, but otherwise, he's unharmed.

"Doctor!' she screams again, only this time, it's from joy. She runs into his arms, and crashes her lips to his, peppering every inch of him with kisses, relief flooding her every nerve cell.

"What?" he mumbles while she kisses him recklessly. "Were you worried over a little Dalek?"

"Never," she orders between kisses, "do that again! You scared the life out of me!"

"It's just that I couldn't let him leave," he tries to explain while she attacks him. "He'd broken the code on Tasha's force-field and was about to transmit it to the rest of them."

"Just wait for me next time, you daft old man," she says sharply, her arms in a strangle-hold around his neck, her cheek brushing his as she holds him. The fact that he chuckles only infuriates her more.

"Clara, really, it was just one Dalek, I was fine," he says, and she can actually hear him smiling against her face.

She wants to kick him. And then love him to death. She'll be fine when they're home in bed and the only light in the sky is that of starlight. She needs to lose herself in his arms, remind herself that he's alright.

"Well, I'm not fine if something happens to you," she whispers, her eyes squeezed shut. Because the truth was, the Dalek hadn't been that frightening at all, until it had been aiming for the Doctor. Being struck in her body was one thing, being struck at her soul was another.

"Clara…" he whispers, his voice soft, conciliatory, even though she knows he thinks she's being irrational. They live on a planet always on the brink of war, there's danger in the sky at every minute. Of course she knows it. But it's never been, and will never be, her own life that she's guarding. Even now, like every one of her echoes, she will fight to save him from harm.

He has fought for her so often, has endured unimaginable agony for her. She can't let him down now. She thinks again of his older self, limping against his cane, and her heart constricts at the thought that it one day happens because she wasn't protecting him. He must sense the whirling thoughts in her head because he pulls back then, and smiles gently at her.

"Oi, listen," he says, his eyes still faintly amused, "I'm completely fine."

But Clara only swallows, and presses her forehead against his. "Home," she insists. "Right now."

He sighs and takes her hand, leading her towards the edge of the woods, and she swears that she shakes the whole way back.

She knows that the nightmares will be especially bad tonight. And though she also knows he'll be there, arms circled round her while she breathes in the warmth of his body, the sound of his hearts beating against hers, the battle of her echoes' lives is something she has got to face.

And soon.

Weeks later, as he stands in the middle of their sitting room, the Doctor is convinced that Clara herself is trying to shorten this last life of his- murder by humiliation.

"You have really got to be joking."

"But the town wanted to do something special this year," she replies, her sweet voice doing nothing to assuage his dread.

"Well, why not a Punch & Judy show? Those are lovely," he tries, his voice muffled.

"Doctor," Clara sighs at him with exasperation. "It's a New Year's fancy dress party. And it's not like there's a costume shop 'round the corner. I had to improvise."

He checks his reflection in the mirror and is pained at the view of himself, covered in a bed sheet with circles painted on the lower half, an egg beater clutched in his hand.

His shoulders slouch, and he thinks that he no longer has to worry about how to stop the Daleks. They don't even possess a sense of humour, but he's fairly sure that if they ever see him in this outfit, they'll genuinely laugh themselves to death.

"I am not dressing as my mortal enemy. You can't make me," he says mutinously.

But Clara is beaming at him. "Yes, I can, and do you know why?"

"Why?" he grumbles, then stops as she puts on her own decorated bed sheet.

"Because I'm going as one, too," she says, standing beside him at the mirror, two pathetic-looking Daleks with egg-beaters for guns. He feels her small free hand reach out and find his. "And if you're a Dalek with me," she whispers, "It's not as scary any more."

His own embarrassment halts at her last words, and in moments, his hearts constrict in his chest, because he realizes immediately. She wasn't trying to humiliate him.

She was taking on her nightmares, beating them back.

In the year they've been on Trenzalore, it's been the one enemy he hasn't been able to conquer, the memories inside her. So many nights he's found her crying in her sleep, usually after there had been an attack, and he's had to hold her, helpless, knowing he has nothing but the comfort of his arms and voice to help her.

But Clara was showing she was stronger than that. With her gargantuan courage, she was figuring out how to face the traumas of her echoes, now that they were spilling into her mind.

She was showing him how to help her.

The Doctor's eyes close beneath the bed sheet, and he squeezes her hand, almost involuntarily, his love and pride of her swelling through every molecule. He looks again at their reflection, and suddenly finds himself smiling at the sight. Because with Clara as a Dalek, the truth was, they were a lot less scary to him, too.

He marvels at the realization that, even without the ancient knowledge and understanding of his species, she still manages to teach him. He, the master of Time and Space, who has watched stars being born and the universe die, is still the student when it comes to the courage that one small human woman can display.

"Do you know…" he says softly, his words still muffled under the sheet. "I suddenly have this uncontrollable urge…"

"Yes?" Clara asks, her voice muffled, too.

"To exterminate your clothing," he finishes.

He's rewarded with the sight of her bed sheet shaking as she laughs underneath it, and his hearts swell some more.

We'll face this together, Clara, and we'll win, he thinks. It's what we do.

He feels her squeezing his hand in return, and knows she understands.

It's then, right then. that he knows, looking at the pair of them in the reflection, the tall Doctor-Dalek, and the tiny Clara-Dalek in their ragged bed sheets- they were a pair, just as she'd said, two parts of a whole he hadn't even known was missing from making him complete.

It had taken this small human woman, with her courage and her kindness, to remind his ancient Gallifreyan soul what he'd once been- to turn him back from a monster to being a Doctor once more. On his last life, he'd finally gotten it right, because she'd helped define who he finally was, who he'd be when his life, at long last, came to a close.

She had saved him, so utterly he knows there will never be words enough to tell her.

"Fine," he says, holding fast to her hand. "I guess you can make me, after all."

He hears her sigh sweetly under the sheet. "Doctor, you never had a chance against the bossiest woman in Christmas."

And he nearly laughs, because it's true. He never had a chance against her.

She's taught him bravery in ways she can't imagine. And now, with everything he feels for her, he's realizes he wants to be brave once more. For centuries, he's run from this adventure, but now, this moment, he's never been more sure.

He doesn't just want Clara at his side, the companion he finally keeps. He wants to be part of her, wants her soul twined with his, in the most elemental way that exists for his species. He wants this more than anything he's ever wanted in his long life.

And he wants to laugh out loud at the irony that it's when she's dressed as the thing he most reviles in the universe that he realizes how much he has never loved Clara Oswald more. Instead, he brings her hand to his mouth, brushes his lips across it.

"Happy New Year, Clara," he says, his voice still muffled, as he smiles at the mirror.

"Happy New Year, Doctor," she says back, and even though he can't see it, he knows she's smiling just as broadly as he is.

It's going to be a very happy new year, he hopes.

And as soon as she's out of that Dalek-sheet, he has something very important he needs to ask her.

to be continued...

A/N 2: Hmmm, whatever could he have to ask her? I wonder, wonder! ;-)