12/Clara
Humor/ Romance/ Hurt/Comfort
Summary: The Doctor understands everything, except what makes human females tick.
A/N: Since when do I write Whoffaldi? No one was more surprised than I was! I blame Peter Capaldi, whose adorkable Twelve I have grown to love as much as I did Eleven. But I should have known it would happen, as the Doctor is nothing if not a sneaky so-and-so. :-) Hope you enjoy!
"Why did she say it like that?" he asked her, frowning as the shapely legs of Miss Park disappeared out the door.
Clara was finding it hard not to smile, seeing him lean against the desk in confusion, arms folded, his long legs crossed, and giving the impression of looking as out of place as… well, an alien in a school classroom.
She gave the Doctor another quick glance out of the corner of her eye while she washed her blackboard.
"Like what?" she asked, feigning ignorance.
"You know…Biology," he said, mimicking Miss Park perfectly, raising his thick eyebrows and flipping imaginary long hair over his shoulder.
She pressed her lips together to suppress the giggle. "What? She was telling you what subject she teaches."
"She was giving me a… a…" he stopped, looking utterly bewildered.
"A what?" Clara asked, grinning freely now.
He lowered his voice and said conspiratorially, "A come-hither stare."
She laughed then, unable to help it.
"I mean, why would she be giving me a come-hither stare, when I've given her no indication that I would welcome a come-hither stare…?"
Clara's eyes rolled. "Okay, first, stop saying 'come-hither.' And secondly, she was just letting you know she was available."
He stared at her, open-mouthed. "For what?"
Her grin was broad now, even while she continued to clean the board. "Biology lessons, I imagine."
If she'd told him to sprout wings and fly, he would have looked less confused. "What would I need those for?" he said hotly. "I know the biology of your species better than you do."
And now he had her attention. Clara put down the eraser and turned to him, eyes beaming with amusement.
"Come again?"
He gesticulated towards the door. "I know things that pudding-brain couldn't imagine about human biology."
She sighed. "Miss Park isn't a pudding brain, Doctor. She's a perfectly nice lady who teaches…"
"A subject I know more about than she does!" he said puffing.
Clara folded her arms, because she really had no idea how he managed to be so insufferably arrogant and endearing at the same time.
"What makes you think you understand human biology better than a human would?"
He straightened, pulling down the lapels of his coat. "Well, I am a Doctor."
"An alien doctor."
"And besides that," he said, completely ignoring her, "I'm not just a Doctor, I'm the Doctor." He pointed a finger at her. "It's on my payment stubs from UNIT, 'The Doctor', you can check."
Clara's mouth quirked. "Yeah, I know."
"I'm one of a kind."
"Well, you're thirteen of a kind, but yes, I get your meaning."
"So you tell me one thing about human biology that I don't already know," he challenged.
Her smile was slow. She'd been waiting for this conversation for what felt like centuries.
"How about why Miss Park was so interested?" she said sweetly.
"Eh?"
"Come on, 'the Doctor'," Clara teased. "You're the expert. Why was she so interested in a man she just met?" He goggled at her, so she amended. "In fact, let's make it easier. Why are nearly all the human women you meet so interested in you, do you think?"
She didn't add, and are always ready to jump into your damn snog-box without a second thought, hoping it wasn't in her eyes.
The confused face changed, relaxed into the confident smirk she knew so well. "That's easy," he said, nodding slightly.
"Is it?"
"Of course," he said jovially. "It's my car."
And now it was her face that wrinkled in confusion. He hadn't owned a car for several incarnations, so far as she knew.
"You mean Bessie? That yellow roadster?"
His frown matched hers. "What? No!"
"Then what are you..?" Her eyes, widened, then glinted with amusement. "Oh. You mean her."
The Doctor beamed proudly. "Well, you've got to admit, the TARDIS is pretty impressive. And over the years, I've noticed that human females are often impressed by a man's mode of transportation."
Clara gaped at him. "You're kidding me, right?"
"What?" he countered, defensively. "You tell me who else has got a car that's bigger on the inside, or can travel through time!"
Her grin threatened to escape again. "Yeah, that's really not it."
"Of course that's it. How many times do I have to tell you- nothing's sexier than my TARDIS!"
Clara's eyes rolled again of their own accord, and she sighed, giving him a pitying look.
"It's not the TARDIS?"
"Nope."
"Meeting other species, standing on different worlds, traveling through time, that's not it?"
She shook her head.
"Well, it's not me," he blustered, then looked more worried than if a fleet of Daleks had just entered the room. "Is it?"
Clara smiled at him.
"It's not!" he insisted, and now Clara moved closer to him, her grin spreading across her face.
"Would you like to know why?" She could see doubt written all over him, which was why, she knew, he was trying to cover it with sarcasm.
"Oh, please, enlighten me."
Could she love this man any more?
"It's this," she said, tapping his head.
"My hair? I know it's quite nice, but..."
"Your brain, Doctor, has made the universe tremble. So even when you put a girl in the most dangerous, most life-threatening of situations, you also manage to save her in the end using little else but your wits and a screwdriver."
He stared at her, his mouth hanging open slightly, then finally blustered. "Well, I mean the alternative is dying, so it's more of an instinct than anything…" he stopped and shook his head. "My brain?"
Clara shrugged, still smiling at how clueless the most brilliant man she had ever met actually was.
"Think about it. When an alien race comes out of the clouds, or out of the sea, or out of St. Paul's cathedral for that matter, the safest place to be is…." she paused gesturing to him, "…next to you."
"But… next to me is where the gun is usually pointed," he said, and Clara again had to smile.
"Well, there is that, too. But human women are programmed to find a mate who's the best gamble for their survival. And you, Doctor, who have made entire species shake in their alien shoes, you have the power to make her safe from every conceivable threat in the universe. I don't know how, but women always seem to sense it. And that, trust me, makes you very attractive to women."
His jaw was so slack, she noticed, it was practically on his chest. "You're joking."
"Basic biology."
"Good lord."
"Yep."
"Good lord."
"I know."
He stared ahead, still leaning beside her against the desk, then turned. "Being clever, that's all it is?"
"That's it."
"It's not my sparkling eyes or anything, you're sure?"
"Quite."
There was a long pause, before he finally said, his voice almost imperceptibly lower, and something else.
"And do you think I'm clever?"
Clara looked back at him and realized what the something else was. Vulnerability. The something he allowed himself to be so very, very rarely, and usually, only with her.
Her smile returned. "As a matter of fact…. I do. But that's not the reason I travel with you."
"But you're a human woman, and you just said…."
"I know, but that's not why for me. It's not your brain. Well, not just your brain."
His eyes were so hopeful that it nearly sliced her in two.
"What is it, then?"
This time, she placed her hand over his chest. "Because I see wonders in your heart."
She said it without thinking, bantering back and forth with him the way they so often did. But immediately, she felt the effect of her confession, the rapid beating of the twin organs in his chest, moving in double-time. And just as suddenly, she had to suppress the almost overwhelming urge to lay her head there.
When he didn't move away, staring at her like he could barely believe what she was saying, she gathered her courage, and finished. "Your wondrous heart and your beautiful soul, Doctor."
At her last words, she felt him flinch, the tiniest of movements, but it was there.
"I don't think my soul's all that beautiful."
She'd been wrong. It turned out that she loved him even more than she had ninety seconds ago.
"Yes, it is. And I've seen all of it, so you'll just have to trust me on that one."
He stared ahead again, and finally, she let her hand drop back to her lap, leaning beside him. Had she said the wrong thing? Had telling him how beautiful she thought he was only made him uncomfortable? Or touching him? It was often so hard to tell how he'd react.
It had taken her a long time to learn that while the first Doctor she'd met had been downright enthusiastic about touching Clara at every opportunity, his body constantly betraying how he felt when his words didn't, it was the opposite for the man he was now.
Now, though he actively tried not to touch her, his words were so intimate they nearly knocked her over.
Do you think I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?
When do I not see you?
Clara shivered slightly, remembering, and marveled at the fact that, without laying a finger on her, even without the constant brushing of his lips against her skin that he used to do, he still manged to caress her, all the same.
She chanced a glance at him again and saw that he was deep in thought, his hands shoved in his pockets, fists balled.
"I wish I'd known that a few centuries ago," he said quietly."Why they always seemed so eager to follow me."
She let out a sigh, because, being who he was, he was now slow-dancing with guilt, one of his favorite companions.
"Throw themselves at you, you mean?"
The Doctor shifted uncomfortably, squaring his shoulders. "Well, yes, I suppose. I always have tried to make sure they knew what the boundaries of our relationship are. It just seems that, as I've gotten older, I've been the one to let those boundaries… slide."
A flash of faces zoomed through her mind, as Clara recalled all of the young, and not-so-young women that, like she, had found him irresistible. And yet, she felt no jealousy of them because she understood him so well.
Chancing it, she put her hand on his shoulder, and said softly, "It's not a crime to get lonely, Doctor." She nudged him slightly. "And anyway, maybe you just realized that boundaries can be overrated."
But if she'd meant to comfort him, it seemed to have the opposite effect. His shoulder tightened beneath her palm, and when he turned to face her, his face was very serious indeed.
"Or maybe sometimes you meet someone who makes keeping those boundaries up…. impossible."
Clara was sure all the air had left the room. It only seemed to exist in his eyes, where she couldn't have looked away if she'd tried.
"Have you met someone like that recently?"
His eyes refused to leave hers, as well. "Depends what you mean by recent. I think I might have met her two thousand years ago."
Her heart lurched, because he was talking about some other…
"She helped me steal my TARDIS," he finished, and her heart lurched a second time, because he wasn't talking about some other..
Clara swallowed. "She sounds brilliant."
"She is."
This wasn't happening. Could this be happening?
"And what would you do if you saw her right now?"
He didn't even pause. "Everything I'm not supposed to."
That was when she fell off the desk.
To be continued…