Clara grinned excitedly, jumped up from her seat at the computer and headed for the kitchen. The oven was beeping. She'd done it right this time, she was certain! In the past she'd had overcooked soufflés, undercooked soufflés, sunken soufflés, overinflated soufflés, what the heck even happened there!? soufflés. But oh, no, not today! Today would be different! Today of all days she would be soufflé girl! Because today, it was her birthday.
Also, the Doctor was coming by. She hated it when he teased her about all her botched soufflés.
As soon as she was in the hall outside the kitchen, though, her hopes were dashed. An acrid burnt stench found its way to her nostrils; she moaned, and kicked the wall before rushing in to put the poor thing out of its misery.
Angie was at the table doing homework. "You burnt another soufflé," she said dully.
"I know!" Clara snapped, and swore as she took the sad, blackened lump of milk and eggs out of the oven. She gave it a proper silent eulogy and tossed it in the bin.
"I know you know," Angie replied. "You kicked the wall again. And daddy wouldn't be pleased if he found out you swore again, he told you not to in front of us."
"Well, let's keep it our little secret," Clara said. "You know, you could have gotten it out of the oven when you started to smell the house burning down."
"It wasn't ringing yet."
"Oh, 'it wasn't ringing yet.' Where's Artie?"
"At Josh's. Dad said it was okay."
"All right," Clara sighed, went to the fridge, and got out the mostly empty carton of milk. Three tries today.
"You aren't going to try AGAIN are you?" Angie accused.
"Nope. Of course not." Clara drank the remains of the milk and tossed it in the bin, too. Good riddance. Maybe she should try for a cake or something for once.
From out in the garden came the familiar vworp vworp vworp. Clara shook her head. If he'd landed in the begonias again she'd kill him.
"I know why you're so upset about the soufflés today," Angie said matter-of-factly.
"Oh, yeah, and why is that you little dalek?" Clara grinned.
"Cos it's your birthday, and the Doctor's coming over. And you FANCY the Doctor."
"Oi, shut up!" Clara joshed, but blushed a little.
Right on cue he came stumbling into the kitchen, looking endearingly awkward and completely alien as always. Upon giving Angie's math paper a passing glance, he said "Hello Angie! Wrong. The answer is forty-two."
"Hey! And there's the birthday girl!" the Doctor continued, grinning from ear to ear, running over, and kissing the air by both of Clara's cheeks. She hugged him, ignoring the smug look from Angie as she corrected her homework.
"I missed you, Doctor," she sighed contentedly as she leaned her head against his chest.
"It's only been a day!" the Doctor smiled.
"Actually, it's been a week," Angie corrected, scrubbing her paper with an eraser.
Clara frowned, and pulled away. "Yeah, you'd better have a pretty good explanation, chin boy!"
"Whoops," the Doctor raised an eyebrow cheekily. "Clara Oswald, the girl who waited…" he stopped, and a brief shadow passed over his face.
"What's the matter?" Clara asked, and he quickly brightened again.
"Oh, nothing, nothing at all. So, birthday!" He clapped his hands and rubbed them together gleefully, a gleam in his eye. "I think we should go on a really special trip. So many places in the universe we could go, so many places you'd love I've been to, so many place's I've never been yet…ooh, ooh, how about Barcelona?"
"In Spain?" Clara asked, wrinkling her nose. "I was thinking something more…planety."
"No, it's a planet, too. Always wanted to go, never actually get around to it. Did you know, there are dogs without noses? And my word GORGEOUS sunsets…"
"Can I come?" Angie asked. Of course she was ignored.
"All right, all right," Clara laughed. "Lets go to Barcelona."
"All righty then!" the Doctor shouted. Without further ado, he grabbed her by the hand and, never doing anything the slow way, they ran from the house.
"Get that homework done!" Clara called back to Angie. "You can't go to Susan's while I'm gone! I'll be five minutes, tops!"
Turns out the Doctor had parked the TARDIS in the begonias again, but Clara was in a much better mood now that the Doctor was here so she failed to chastise him. Again. The Doctor opened the big blue box with a snap of his fingers and danced his way in, clearly excited. Clara smiled and stepped in after, amused by his perpetual eagerness, but not paying much attention as he babbled on and on about Barcelonian sunsets and cities and trees and noseless dog people. She could never quite keep up with what he was talking about anyway.
The door snapped shut behind Clara, making her jump. The TARDIS was a bit catty with her sometimes. The ship began to rock back and forth, whooshing and whirring as it took off.
"Here we come, planet Barcelona!" the Doctor crowed as he ran around the console, pushing levers and buttons with a manic energy, clearly enjoying himself as the machine popped and shot sparks and jolted gently around.
The TARDIS never ceased to amaze Clara. Bigger on the inside wasn't the half of it. It was just a thing of beauty, a creature to be marvelled at; all grey and blue and machine-like, but somehow still so alive and warm. Never liked her a lot, though. She could almost feel the time machine frowning at her, and it made her smile. She held tightly to the console to prevent from falling over. "Hey old girl. You didn't miss me much, did you?"
The movement and noise stopped shortly as the TARDIS touched down. The Doctor beamed and gave a double thumbs up, which Clara returned with a grin.
"Allons-y," he said wryly. "Hmmm…been awhile since I've said that one."
They exited the TARDIS together.
Clara gasped as they walked out into the bright sun; two suns, actually. One was a smaller red one that could be looked at comfortably without damaging the eyes, the other was big and brilliant white, brighter than the earth's, almost blinding. It made the sky a brilliant pale blue, nearly white. But the real spectacle was the scenery. They stood on a long beach, stretching out for as far as the eye could see, and the sand was so white and fine it looked like snow. Clara had to take her shoes off and feel it; it was incredibly soft, like nothing that could be found on earth. She laughed and gave the Doctor another hug. "This is awesome! Why on earth have you never brought me here before?"
"If you think the sand's cool, look at the water!" the Doctor said. Clara obliged. At first she noticed nothing odd, then she realized;
"No waves!"
"No moon!" the Doctor explained. "This planet is nearly unique in the universe in that is generates a stronger gravitational pull than its suns. So it the SUNS that orbit around the PLANET! See that smaller sun, the red one? It takes that one much longer to set than the big bright one, so it's nearly constantly daytime worldwide here; when one sun's down, the other is up almost always up. When both go down, it's nearly complete blackness."
Clara didn't really understand what he was talking about, but she just nodded. She'd learned that was the best response when he was doing his technobabble.
"All right, now look at the water up close!" the Doctor urged.
Clara bent down to examine. She blinked to be sure it wasn't her eyes misleading her. "It's…it's pink! And…sort of sparkly." She looked far out. It looked very blue at a distance.
"It's the ocean floor," the Doctor explained. "Made up of the same stuff as this sand, its called smethnite. But the pressure of the water has compacted it down over time, and it's gotten hard and pink and shiny. What you're seeing is just the ocean floor. Clearest naturally occurring water in the universe!"
"Why does it look so blue way out then?" Clara asked, now getting more interested.
"Tiny little blue critters. I don't remember was the Barcelonians call them, but there's billions and billions of them."
Even after all her travels with the Doctor, Clara still could never get used to all the strange new landscapes they came across. "Doctor, its…its beautiful!" She breathed.
"Most beautiful place in the universe, according to some. Well, that could just be advertisement. Hang on, half a second!" the Doctor half cackled with glee as he ran back into the TARDIS. He returned mere seconds later, wearing a big, ridiculous-looking floppy sunhat, and carrying two pairs of sunglasses and a cheap children's plastic bucket and trowel.
He put the sunglasses on and handed the other pair to Clara. "Shall we build a sandcastle?"
Clara was overcome with the giggles.
"What?" the Doctor said, confused. "Isn't that what humans normally do at the beach?"
"Sure, Doctor," she said. "Let's build a sandcastle."
And they did. A huge one big enough to sit inside very uncomfortably, impeccably designed by (and mostly built by) the Doctor. Next they had a picnic, also produced from somewhere in the TARDIS, with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and iced lemonade. And fish fingers and custard…Clara was a little afraid to try that, but discovered it was actually kind of tasty. Afterward, Clara sprawled out on a beach chair under a large umbrella (both also from the TARDIS), trying to tan her legs while she watched the Doctor have a splash fight with himself in the water. He'd invited her to join; she'd politely declined.
As the brighter sun was beginning to set, they settled down on the edge of a large tidal pool, cooling their feet in the water and watching beautiful colors dance across the sky. The Doctor explained it had something to with magnetism, but Clara honestly didn't follow most of it. Sitting this close to the Doctor, Clara couldn't help but notice she loved the way he smelled; sort of a subtle sweet musk.
"This has been the best birthday ever," Clara murmured. It was so quiet out there; no waves, no birds, just the sound of the Doctor breathing and her own breath.
They sat awhile, just enjoying each other's company and the peaceful atmosphere. This certainly had been an unusual adventure; no monsters, no nearly dying, no big end of the world stakes. Clara thought it was very nice.
"I like the new suit," she commented, just to break the silence, noticing for the first time it wasn't his usual dark number.
The Doctor looked down at his attire; a tweed jacket with elbow patches, red braces and of course a matching bowtie. He smiled, very slowly. "It isn't new. It's old. It's my happy suit. It's been a long time since I've worn it."
Clara sat in silence for a moment, unsure how to respond. "Since you lost Amy?" The Doctor had talked a bit about Amy, of course. All that Clara knew was that she had used to travel with the Doctor before her, and he lost her. And it had hurt him, badly.
"Yeah, since I lost Amy."
Clara wasn't exactly sure what to do. It wasn't that she was jealous of this Amy character. She just wished the Doctor would tell her more about her. The Doctor talked about her like an old friend, nothing else…not that Clara fancied the Doctor or anything.
Or did she? She looked into his suddenly much sadder face, illuminated by the colors of the sky; the dancing lights, the warm glow of the red sun, the steadily fading glow of the white one. She thought about how he made her feel when she was around him…only to change her mind. She decided to push such thoughts away. Irrelevant. She loved the Doctor and how she loved him didn't matter.
"But you're happy now?" she ventured.
"Yes. I am happy now."
"Because you've got me," Clara continued.
The Doctor's unsteady smile warmed. "Yes. Because I've got you."
"Wear the suit more often. It suits you," Clara teased.
"Ha, ha." He laid his hand tenderly on top of her smaller, softer one. Clara got the butterflies in her stomach. She took the hand and squeezed it tightly.
"Oh!" the Doctor said suddenly, straightening quickly and withdrawing his hand. Clara tried her best not to be hurt.
"I almost forgot!" he said, and laughed. "Back in just a moment!" He ran off into the TARDIS again. This time, he took a little longer to return. Clara waited patiently, unsure whether to be excited or a little disappointed.
When he finally came back, he was wearing a party hat—he did seem to love his hats—and was holding something behind his back.
"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you," he sang. Badly.
Clara chuckled. "Doctor, have you got me a cake? Let me guess, a fancy space cake from planet something or other with lots of X'es and Z's in the name!"
He sat back down beside her without answering, carefully keeping whatever it was concealed all the while.
"Close your eyes," he said.
"Oh come on, that's silly!"
"Just do it!"
She obeyed, and he leaned in and whispered something in her ear that made her smile as he placed something warm on her lap. Then he said, "All right. You can open your eyes now."
She obeyed and looked down to see what he had given her. And she wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry or slug him in the arm.
"Did you bake this yourself?"
"Yup."
"In how many tries?"
"Just the one, why?"
Sitting in her lap was a beautiful, perfectly executed soufflé, complete with a little candle in the middle.
"Doctor, I hate you!" Clara swore passionately.
The Doctor looked a little wounded. "I thought you loved soufflé…"
Clara burst out laughing. "Doctor, I do, I just never can get it right!"
He looked relieved. "Well, don't be too offended. I learned how to cook straight from Julia Child, lovely woman she was too."
"Oh, shut up," Clara said, and kissed him on the cheek. He went very pink.
"Ahem. Well…you're still absolutely soufflé girl in my eyes." He reassured her.
"And you're my soufflé man," Clara countered.
The Doctor's eyes twinkled. "Happy birthday, Clara Oswin Oswald."