The Soufflés That Got Burnt (Whouffle One Shots)

Scars (Part 1)

(A/N: There are themes of self harm, please be advised if it brings any bad memories and such.)

Clara doesn't know what it is she feels but it always keeps her awake.

Of course, she has her cute and optimistic little Doctor to be there for her, right beside her. At first, the warmth of his body and the kiss he always put on her forehead was enough for her to fall asleep. Sure, they were still there however... She didn't feel like it helped anymore.

She turned around to see her little Doctor, asleep, a rare occurrence. She could hear his two hearts beating, his breath normal and his face looking much younger, as if he didn't had the weight of his sadness and regret that much. She remembered when he declared he was to become domestic for a bit, just to see how boring the human life was. She smiled slightly at the memory and started examining her Doctor. Everything was flawless, but there is a little furrow between his eyebrows. Has that always been there? Did she do that?

She wanted to wake him, like she would do sometimes and they would talk the night away, cuddle, or something of the sort. He was used to it and was always happy to do so.

But she didn't want to. Lately, she was too shy to do so anymore. She felt embarrassed it was always him she relied on. She knew she could take care of herself, so she didn't bother and turned around again, facing a window instead.

She's read so many articles on this emptiness she feels. Depression, they call it. But she doesn't trust webMD. Social anxiety, neurosis, all these words are going over her head. She's stopped reading these articles and shut them out of his life. They scare her. She knows they can't be real and that they don't really describe how she feels, but at the same time she's scared because what if they're true? Clara hasn't talked about it with the Doctor, she feels like a freak for mentioning her problems, sometimes for no reason. Sometimes she feels sick, but most of the time it's because she's sick of himself and she doesn't know how to get better.

During the day she's tired. Tired of life. Too unmotivated to do anything yet plagued by the guilty thoughts of needing to do something productive. It hurts his head. She takes some pills she keeps from him and sleeps them off for three hours. She always sees the Doctor casting worried glances in his direction. She thinks of the way he sometimes opens his mouth to say something but closes it. Clara pretends that she doesn't see any of it, scared of what it might mean.

She starts to cry silent as possible, keeping she shakes and her cries to a minimum, hoping not to wake the sleeping man beside her. She could feel the wounds of her past, all the spots where she hurt herself just because of those reasons.

----

After minutes or hours of crying, Clara didn't know how long she was crying softly, a hand nudged her and she wiped her tears, turning around to find the Doctor, his emerald eyes filled with worry.

"You're crying." He states, wiping the stray tears away.

"I'm sorry." She mumbles, looking away.

"No need to be sorry..." He replied, a small smile on his face, trying to lighten up the mood. "Why didn't you wake me?"

"I'm sorry." It became the two words she felt was safe to say, nothing more, nothing less.

----

During the night, he brings her close to him and cradles her to sleep, telling her it was okay.

Except he was worried, ever so worried about his Clara. As he cradled her, he felt a something on the side of her stomach and another around it. He slowly lifted it up to see marks that were slowly fading, but he could see two fresh ones, probably from yesterday.

Marks of pain.

Marks of sorrow.

Marks of breaking.