Notes: This fic makes references to the following: Cooking Mama, Atalanta, King Lear, and omurice. Please look up all of them if you're curious or flat out confused.
Cooking Clara
Wednesdays may no longer be travelling days, but they had taken up another spot on the calendar as something no less thrilling, depending on your perspective and palate: Clara's cooking days.
Clara's cooking experiment days, if either Clara or the Doctor wanted to be exciting about it. As if having weapons routinely fired at their backs and a cavalcade of alien legions hounding them right up to the Tardis doors weren't enough on the nerves.
Most of the time these cooking days just meant a lot of loud noises, darting about back and forth before things could burn, and filling the already stuffed up sinks bulging with pots, pans, strainers, and used-then-abandoned kitchen utensils to be cleaned before they could ooze and drip into the drain. Clara never liked to leave a mess behind too long. It was a trait picked up by watching her parents in the kitchen. They, and now she, would cook, set the meal and any sides up on a plate, and then set about cleaning what she had just made instead of enjoying the meal while it was still at "ideal temperature conditions" (according to the Doctor). But it was a long-standing habit and a harmless one at that, and it wasn't going to go anywhere.
Well, sometimes it went nowhere. Depending on the dish in question, Clara could be as attentive or wander-prone as required. The fresh apple cakes using real Atalantian golden apples (aptly acquired during a marathon on Calydonia that Clara had been invited to run, and the Doctor had ended up skipping due to a long-standing tiff with its organiser, Pomen) had been quite difficult to resist as they cooled on the dish next to her. And the free-form strawberry cheesecake ("The sloppy sweets, you mean," "Doctor please, don't call it that," "But it is sloppy, just look at it! You've thrown the bits into a bowl and just wandered off while it all settled," "I, unlike you, can not only follow directions, I can also keep focused on a simple task — which is also unlike you") — had been something Clara had been all too happy to pick at while making. Surprisingly, it was the Doctor's wandering hand and shifty fingers she'd had to slap away while making the butter pudding trifle, and when Clara's kitchen creations strayed less from sweets to savouries, then on to breakfast foods, he had all but parked himself in the kitchen behind her to watch it all unfold.
Not to help. Just to watch. Which is what he was doing on this particular Wednesday morning — well, morning according to Clara's phone, if the clock could be trusted.
Armed with a black plastic spatula, strained patience, and a grumbling tummy, Clara was in absolutely no mood to have the Doctor peeking over her shoulder while she cooked. It wasn't only distracting, it was a bit grating. She told him as such. "I don't need an audience. Go wait in the library 'til it's done."
As expected, the Doctor scowled at the very idea of not being in close proximity to the food. "And you haven't got an audience, "he said. "I'm here for moral support."
"I don't need moral support, either." But she smiled as she said it. Her smile vanished at what he said next.
"Thought you said you wanted my support? It came up when you appointed yourself Tardis Junior Food Manager last month."
Clara spun from the stove, spatula bared and eyes sharply honed into a glare. "Shut up," she said sweetly, right through her teeth. "Try your best not to repeat bed conversations when we are out of bed, thank you. was tired when I said that. I talk when I'm tired."
"You're always talking."
"Because you always make me tired."
"Well then it's a good thing I'm here," he countered. "So you don't keel over into the pan and simmer your face."
"Shut up," she said again, weaker this time, laughing as she did it. Clara was smiling once more as she turned back to the stove, and she knew the Doctor had smiled as well.
The Doctor wasn't wrong — not fully, anyway. Clara had indeed appointed herself the happy chore of Tardis chef, but she hadn't exactly leapt at the chance to use one of the many ("How many, exactly?" "I dunno, a new one always seems to show up when the other gets empty," "That's just wasteful,") kitchens on board the TARDIS. It was only after she had agreed to stay on the ship for longer periods of time and became painfully aware of just how inept at basic kitchen skills the Doctor was now, did Clara sigh and agree to take on the almighty charge of feeding them.
It raised Clara's suspicions and an eyebrow just a smidge that the Doctor's response to her volunteering had been enthusiastic — well, as enthusiastic as a grumpy stick with a full-faced frown and enough wrinkles to rival a basset hound could be. But Clara liked those frowns. She liked those wrinkles, too. She even liked the way he'd surprised her with cooking lessons from master chefs across the world — and from several neighbouring system's planets (they had chef hats and sour tempers there, too), and also from a few simulated cooking games she had remembered hearing about in passing. The Doctor was playing one of them now as a matter of fact, his legs stretched out from where he sat on a stool, his long hands and tapering fingers clutched around the little game hand-held. Clara suppressed a laugh as she listened to the soft tinny voice bleat out "Let Mama fix it!" whenever the Doctor failed to make a dish. She failed a few times to hide the laughter, in direct proportion to the Doctor's own failures, breaking into a quiet riot of giggles that finally drew his attention away from Cooking Mama and back onto her.
"It's starting to smell in here," the Doctor said, scowling.
"That would be the cooking," Clara said, composing herself.
"No, it smells like eggs. Egg smell, never liked it. Clings to the air like a veil of yolk and… unused embryos."
Clara shuddered. "Doctor, that's disgusting."
The Doctor looked Clara over, still frowning. "Is that why you've got that apron on?" he asked, his mouth twisting a little at the pale blue frock. It was decorated with smiling teacups and kettles, their cheeks plump and eyes closed in ecstatic sighs.
She nodded once. "It does. And you've already passed judgement on my apron when I made the lemon torte last week, so mind the tone."
The Doctor approached her carefully, peering over her shoulder. "Did I?" he wondered.
"You did." Clara shot him a side glance from where she stood over the stove. He approached as close as he dared, close enough to put his full beaky profile in easy viewing range — as well as the wary, almost insultingly cautious expression printed there.
"What's that look for?" she asked.
"It's a look of amazement at whatever you're folding. There was bits of rice in the sink, Clara. And you've got yolk on your front and bits of chicken under your nails." He paused. "Not that I noticed. I mean, I did notice, I've noticed, but only because I couldn't not notice."
"Not that you were looking," she countered, smirking. "Can't get anything past you, can I? Not while you're so keen on the details." When the Doctor stayed silent, backing up a pace as if to reclaim his sullen perch on the stool, Clara continued. "It's an omelet with rice and meat folded in. Makes it a bit more filling. Consider it like… a food pocket," she said, turning to take a quick peek at him. Her eyes fell down to one of the pockets on his coat. He was always carrying bits of food around with him in that coat now, carefully wrapped up in plastic to savour later at the most inopportune moments.
"Is that the name for it?" he asked.
"No, but it gets the point across. And I thought you'd like eggs better if you thought of its dimensions and structure rather than the smell."
"The smell," he balked.
Clara poked him with the spatula again. "Don't start. Go sit. I've still got to finish mine and put the ketchup on."
The Doctor's boots scuffed on the floor as he came to a quick stop. "There's ketchup involved?"
"There is." Was that a note of excitement she heard lancing through his voice? Or was that her imagination? "Why?"
"It's like paint for food, isn't it? What design have you got planned this time?"
"Dunno. Cross-hatching? A shapeless splatter on the side of the plate?" Clara shrugged, carefully turning the omelet over in the pan so that it didn't come apart in a hideous trembling blob — not like the other attempts had done. "You can pick, I guess," she said offhand, shrugging again.
Clara felt the force of the Doctor's grin long before she glanced back to see it. She sighed.
"A two-thousand year old alien likes playing with his food," she muttered, sighing so a little puff of hair made her fringe fly off her forehead. "Who knew?"
Who knew as well that when the omelets were done ("Omurice," "Pardon?" "That's the name. Omurice." "Food names get portmanteaus as well?" "Sure. Anything to save time,") that the Doctor would not only use the ketchup to draw miniature approximations of the happy teacups from Clara's apron on both his and her omelets, but he would have scarfed down his whole plate before Clara could get even halfway through hers.
She chewed thoughtfully on a piece of omelet, poking the air with her fork as she observed him. "I take it you didn't mind the smell once you got used to the taste," she said out of one side of her mouth.
The Doctor looked uncharacteristically subdued as he eyed her plate, twisting his fork between his fingers. "Will you make more?"
"Will you help this time?"
He nodded. It looked more like a twitch, but it was a nod to Clara's estimate all the same. She smiled and started on her omelet again.
The tongs of the Doctor's fork tapped on the edge of her plate. A clanging, quick plea for attention.
"Yes?" she asked, eyebrows raised.
The Doctor poked at the closest piece within range of his touch. "Care to share?" he asked, soon adding, "Isn't that what you taught the kids back in Coal Hill? Sharing is caring? Lady Macbeth's fatal flaw was ambition? Mary Shelley was the leading contributor to contemporary science fiction as we know it — while refraining from mentioning our hand in the matter?"
One of those things was certainly not like the other. "Please stop talking," Clara said, chewing harder and scraping her cheek in the bargain.
The Doctor's fork stopped its hideously clanging tap as he watched her wince, his expression the perfect replica of sympathy when he saw her in pain. And then it switched off, becoming much more thoughtful, almost wickedly so. Thankfully it was done after he saw her recover.
"I suppose you won't be finishing this?" he said as Clara stood up and walked away from the table, heading over to fetch a glass of water to rinse the cut in her mouth. Her plate was scraped clean and long empty by the time she returned to the table, but that was fine. Clara could allow this small vicious victory. She was already plotting her revenge dish — a single serving of the most deliriously indulgent mug brownie she would eat in front of him with no intent to share.