Hello everybody. Sorry, the fanfiction went all funny for a moment there, I really don't know why! So sorry, I hope I've fixed it now.

Clara was trying her best, but, honesty, sometimes, - even though she would never confess it to anyone, not even the Doctor, especially not the Doctor - she felt like she just couldn't make it.

She had gained the ability to pretend that everything was under control, that she had it all figure out. She had become the perfect image of someone who always knew what he was doing, and always knew where he was going, and she had managed to fool everyone.

But, truth was, most of the time she didn't have a clue how she managed to balance her two worlds, which were in fact constantly on the edge of colliding.

One moment she was chased by an horde of angry Daleks, the next she was forced to spend the night grading her students' assays because the Doctor had dropped her home late.

And there she was, once again, at half past one in the morning with still two piles of homework to do, when she heard the familiar sound of the TARDIS fill her silent apartment

"No no no no no no," she groaned. "No no no, not now, no no no."

She emitted a frustrated noise when she realized that throwing curses at the TARDIS wouldn't make her go away.

There was a moment of silence, before she heard a door being flung open and a very familiar Scottish accent coming from the living room.

"Clara?"

The Doctor concern was palpable in his voice and this just made her feel all the more desperate. She passed her fingers through her hair and pulled it in frustration.

"I'm fine," she yelled back at him. "Now please leave, I'm busy!"

She knew she had made a mistake as soon as those words had left her mouth, because not only they wouldn't serve their purpose, but they also would make the Doctor want to stay more.

She heard hurried footsteps coming toward her and started to panic.

"Clara?" The Doctor repeated. "Is it those Sontarans again?"

But when he entered the kitchen the only thing he saw was Clara sitting at the table to the dim light of a small lamp and with her head buried in her arms.

"No just - go away" she moaned. "Leave me alone."

There was a moment of silence, before the Doctor spoke again.

"Clara?" He repeated, obviously taken aback. "Is everything OK?"

She sighed against her arms and then, so slowly it almost felt like slow-motion, she lifted her head and shot him a furious gaze.

"Of course everything is OK," she barked back at him. "Except maybe - just maybe - for the fact that there is an alien in my house at one o'clock in the morning."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow in response to her bitter sarcasm. "I'm sorry, I landed the TARDIS badly," he retorted, harshly, "but you've never complained before, so I hardly think that this is the case."

"I've got a billion of papers to grade and only a few hours left to do so, never mind that it will be the second night in a row that I won't be able to sleep, thanks of course to you who after two thousand years still have to learn how to arrive on time with your bloody time machine," she shouted, finally able to let weeks and months of repressed stress and exhaustion out of her system. "Happy now?"

The moment of relief she had felt after she had finished talking was hastily replaced by an oppressing feeling of guilt.

Why had she been so rude to the Doctor? She didn't really believe those terrible words. He didn't deserve to be the poor victim of her lack of organisation.

Tiredness had the better of her: she started shaking and her eyes began to burn.

Without looking at him she hid her face behind the palms of her hands. A sob escaped her mouth.

"It's just the result of the stress I've accumulated," she tried to justify her behavior to herself, but even so she didn't want the Doctor to see her like that. She was afraid to look up at him, so she remained still in that position, hoping he would just leave, and at the same time that he would come and cradle her, as if she were a little girl.

"But why don't you come in the TARDIS?" He eventually said. Much to her surprise -and relief-, his voice was kind and soft. "You would have all the time you want to finish grading those assays. And to sleep, too."

She shook her head vigorously, feeling like a petulant child. "No! I have to manage to organize myself. It's my fault, I have to fix it. Even when I'm in the TARDIS, even when we go back in time, my biological clock keeps on ticking and I don't want to waist the time I've got that way. I'm not doing that anymore. I have to manage, I have to find a way," she concluded, raggedly.

She then lifted her head and looked at him in the eyes, while giving him an apologetic smile.

The serious expression he gave her in return scared her, and hurt her. "Well," he said, without returning her smile. "OK, Then."

She nodded, gravely. "That's OK," she thought, bitterly. "It's what I deserve."

Clara expected him to turn his back on her and walk away, without even saying goodbye, but instead he moved towards the kitchen sink and turned on the tap.

She followed his movements, extremely puzzled. "Doctor?"

He turned to look at her. "Yes?" He asked, as if nothing unusual was going on.

"Mmmm... What are doing?"

He frowned. "What do you think I'm doing?"

"It seems like you are still here and you are opening the the tap of my sink," she sad, tentatively.

"I'm putting on some tea," he explained, with the impatient voice she knew so well and, oddly enough, managed to reassure her a bit.

"And why are you doing that?" She asked, still confused.

"Well, we're both going to need loads of it to get through the long night that lies ahead of us, don't we?"

And then his frown turned into an encouraging smile.

She couldn't help but smile herself. "What? So, you're gonna help me?" She asked, amazed.

"Well, of course."

"Why?" She asked, suspiciously.

Clara watched him think about it for a second, before he answered: "Because this is what friends are for."

At those words, her heart swelled with all the affection she felt for him, that moment more than ever. It was suddenly as if a huge weight had been lifted off her shoulders.

She didn't say anything. She knew there was no need to say anything, not right then, anyway.

She just grinned stupidly at the Doctor, her friend, and he grinned stupidly back at her, and she felt that everything would be just fine if they just continued doing that.