The True Extent of Fear

Whoufflé one-shot - hope you enjoy!

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The Doctor never understood how scared Clara really was... Until she went to sleep.

He body was downing in bed sheets, sweat and tears. Her cheeks burned like a million suns; her screams intensified with every breath. Her sticky fingers clawed at her messy brown hair, seeming unfazed if she ripped it from her scalp.

He stood in the doorway, helpless. He had tried to wake her 101 times in 101 ways. But nothing had freed her from whatever horrific dreamland she was locked in. Nothing could bring back his impossible girl. He would simply have to watch her suffering until dawn broke.

Sighing, he turned. But a single whispered word stopped him from leaving.

"Help." Clara repeated her cry. "Help!"

Within seconds he was by her side once more.

"Clara? Can you hear me? It's okay. Everything is okay. I'm here." He gently laced her fingers with his own, and as he did so, everything stopped. The screaming stopped. The crying stopped. The sweating stopped... Everything.

He could save her, just by holding her.

He kicked off his scruffy boots, worn by days of endless running, and clambered into the bed beside her. He wrapped his arms tightly around her small, delicate frame in a desperate attempt to save the women twice dead... Soufflé Girl... His impossible girl...

The girl he loved.

Clara Oswald lay still now - dead to the world. Her only movements were that of her chest, rising and falling in time with both the Doctor's hearts.

He had saved her.