I had a huge crush on my babysitter as a kid and I found him on Facebook and wrote him 'Remember how hard it was to get me to bed as a child? Well, not any longer ;)' - Whouffaldi AU. Humour.

Don't Marry Someone Else Before Me

1996, 7 PM

If there was one person in all of London who wasn't qualified as a babysitter, it was John Smith. He had never had children, he had never been good with children and yet he found himself sitting on his colleague's sofa, staring into the large, brown eyes of his daughter because David Oswald wanted to celebrate his wedding anniversary and hadn't found anyone to watch over Clara.

"Clara is a sweet kid," Dave had told him, "You just have to make her a sandwich and read her favourite book to her and she will be asleep at 10. Don't worry about it."

Yet John was worried, very worried, especially because Clara kept staring at him and he had no idea what to do about that. When he already started wondering whether there was dirt on his face Clara finally spoke.

"How old are you?" the little girl asked him.

John cleared his throat. This was a child. Children liked to be entertained, right? "Well, how old do you think I am?"

"Mhhhhh," she pondered her answer, "112."

"112?" he gawked at her, "What makes you think I'm that old?"

The girl shrugged. "Your hair is turning grey right there," Clara replied and pointed to that one spot above his ear that had been annoying him for the last couple of weeks since he had noticed his first grey hairs. He wasn't quite sure whether to pluck them out or dye them because apparently they made him look 112 years old.

"I'm the same age as your dad. Do you know hold old your dad is?"

Clara nodded but the silence he had come to appreciate from her didn't last for long. "Are you married?"

Right. And there was that reason again, that reason he had never wanted children. They found your sore spot and prodded it once more to make sure it really hurt. His wife had left him and here he was, 6 years later, still single.

"No, I'm not married," John told her calmly.

Suddenly a smile appeared on Clara's face. "You can marry me when I grow up."

He almost choked at her words. "Uhm," he spluttered, "I think you're gonna want to marry someone your own age when you've grown up, not an old man like me."

"No, I don't think so," she replied, still smiling, "I like your hair. And I'm hungry. Can you make me a sandwich? One with chocolate spread?"

John sighed. He vaguely remembered Dave telling him something about not giving her sweets, but if that was a way to keep her from talking, he would feed her all the chocolate in the house. "Yes," he smiled at her, "Why not? Let's go and make chocolate sandwiches."

11:30 PM

John cleared his throat for what felt like the 50th time and finally closed the fairytale book.

"Okay, now it's time for bed," he said determinedly and made an effort to get up from the sofa but Clara was faster, throwing her arms around him to keep him where he was. He froze under her touch. Oh, how he hated hugging.

"I'm not tired," Clara complained, "I don't want to go to sleep. I want you to read me more stories."

He was about to protest when he heard the front door open, followed by the voices of Dave and Ellie Oswald. Saved by the Oswalds.

"Why is the light still on?" he heard Ellie say right before Clara jumped up and darted off to greet her parents, throwing her arms her mother.

"John let me have chocolate sandwiches for dinner and then he read me all the fairytales in the book and I said he has nice hair and that I can marry him when I grow up cause he doesn't have a wife," Clara blurted out happily.

"Chocolate sandwiches?" Dave looked sternly at her before his face wandered to John. He thought he would be in for a lecture for feeding her sweets, but his colleague soon laughed. "Should've tried coaxing River with chocolate. Maybe she'd have stayed."

John scoffed at him in reply and rose from his seat. Maybe Clara wasn't tired, but he certainly was – another reason why children were exhausting.

Yet before he had the chance to leave Clara had let go of her mother and approached him, hugging him, or rather his legs, once more.

"Don't marry someone else before me," Clara demanded, looking up at him.

John swallowed uncomfortably and glanced over to Dave, who sniggered into his fist and gestured towards John to go ahead.

"I promise," he mumbled grumpily and gently shoved Clara away from him, "But only if you'll be a good girl now and go to sleep."

Clara grinned broadly before running off into the direction of her bedroom. He sighed in relief. In a week she would have forgotten all about him. Hopefully. Otherwise he would have to babysit her more often.

2016, 10 PM

When Clara had offered her own flat for her friend's hen party she had had no idea what a mess her girlfriends would make of it. But since they were having fun Clara just shrugged, grabbed the next champagne bottle from the kitchen and staggered back into the living room where her friends were already waiting with their empty glasses.

"There is plenty more," she announced loudly and fell back on the sofa. Clara had had way too much to drink already and so did her friends, but this was Jenny's last night of freedom. What better reason to get drunk?

"So glad the wedding isn't tomorrow," Jenny said, downing another glass, "Vastra would kill me if I showed up hungover. But what about you, Clara?"

"Me?" Clara swallowed her drink, "Why would I kill you?"

"Not that, silly," her friend slurred, "When are you getting married? All of us are. Except you."

Clara sank deeper into her couch cushions. "Not many applicants on that position, I'm afraid."

"You were looking at someone on Facebook earlier!" Amy threw in loudly, pointing at her laptop, "Don't deny it!"

And at that Clara started blushing mercilessly. She had indeed looked at someone's profile earlier, an old colleague of her dad's who had babysat her as a child once. She had had a huge crush on him for months, constantly going on and on about how she wanted to marry him in front of her parents. She felt embarrassed about it even now, even though John Smith had turned into a handsome silver fox she wouldn't say no to. Damn, she really wouldn't say no to him.

"You need to show us!" Martha prompted her.

Clara groaned and rolled her eyes. "Fine," she spat and reached for her laptop. Once it had booted she opened Facebook and quickly found his profile again. Maybe it was the alcohol, but now that she was looking at his profile picture once more she thought he had gotten even more attractive. Just looking at the photo of him in jeans and a white shirt that hinted at his toned chest below, with his wild, silver curls and the early stages of his beard made her thoughts go crazy.

"Uhhhh, silver fox," Jenny commented with a big grin, "Nice."

"Isn't he a bit old?" Martha asked.

Yet Jenny shook her head. "No, he's a nice age. And he has nice hair."

Amy giggled. "I wonder if he's a gentleman in bed or an animal. What do you think?"

"Guys," Clara groaned, blushing even harder, "I can't hit on him. He knows my dad. He babysat me!"

And yet Clara sort of wanted to go for it. He was damn good looking and apparently still single and Clara hadn't had a boyfriend in a long time. When she realized her hormones and the alcohol were starting to get the better of her Clara made the reasonable decision to close her laptop.

"Alright, less talking about men, more drinking!" she announced and refilled their glasses.

1 AM

"Bye guys!" Clara waved after her friends as they made their way downstairs and once she could no longer see them she decided to go straight to bed. The floor was moving beneath her feet and Clara held on to her furniture, knocking into it more than once before she fell down on the sofa.

When she let her gaze wander Clara once more regretted her decision to have the party here – she would slave for hours cleaning this mess up tomorrow. And then she spotted her laptop again. Clara giggled to herself as she opened it and looked at the handsome face that was still on her display. Amy's question replayed in her head. Was John a gentleman or an animal in bed? Clara felt as if she would sell her soul to find out right now. She quickly opened the chat window and started typing.

Clara:

hey, rememxber how hard it was tto get me intqo bed as a chlid? well, nzot any longer t;)

Clara grinned proudly at her joke and she was surprised to see that John was already starting to type a reply.

John:

Clara? Are you alright?

Clara:

i fsee you still haven't mqarried. neither heave i. lbut i think pwe should go for aa test drive first. what bdo you say, sihlver fox?

John:

I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about. Is everything okay?

Clara:

why donl't you come over to mfy place and we carn talk? Oh, anqd ware that sexy white shirt so i can tear it opff you

Clara:

sorry i'm da bit horny

John:

I'm going to take a wild guess here and say that you are drunk. Are you okay? If you're at home just go to bed. We can talk tomorrow.

Clara:

i want you to taek me tlo bed ;)

John:

If you go to sleep now I promise you we'll talk tomorrow.

Clara:

Fine!

Clara slammed the laptop shut, still horny and more than a little frustrated at the outcome but the letters on her keyboard were starting to float away in front of her eyes, so she decided that John was probably right and she should go to sleep. She pushed the laptop away and stuffed a pillow under her head, drifting off almost instantly.

John stepped up to her door, a bag filled with croissants in one hand, two cups of coffee in the other. He wasn't quite sure why he was here, he probably shouldn't be here at all but after the conversation he had had with Clara the previous night John just wanted to make sure she was okay. Dave had given away her address in a heartbeat and without question and now here he was, wondering what the hell he was even doing but before he could change his mind John rang the doorbell. When Clara didn't answer he rang the doorbell once more.

"I'm going to kill whoever woke me," a voice complained loudly on the other side of the door before Clara opened it.

John granted her a shy smile, holding up the coffee and croissants. "Hangover breakfast."

"John," Clara gawked at him, "How did you know? Why are you here? What-"

"Uhm, you kind of asked me here," he replied sheepishly, "Last night. You seemed drunk. I thought I'd check on you, see that you're properly hydrated and. . . you know."

"Fuck," Clara blurted out and immediately clasped her hand in front of her mouth. Her eyes widened in horror. "I wrote you. . . oh God!"

Clara turned around on her heels and immediately ran back into her flat, leaving the door open so John wasn't quite sure what to do. He decided to follow her since he still wasn't convinced that she was fine and once he stepped inside he thought he had entered a rubbish tip, the remnants of a party still strewn all over the place. He soon spotted Clara sitting on the sofa, her face buried in a pillow. She still seemed to be in her party dress that was maybe a little bit too short.

"Don't look at me," he heard her muffled voice, "I'll just wait for a hole to open up and swallow me."

"It's not so bad," he shrugged even though Clara couldn't see it, "But I took the liberty of not wearing a white shirt."

He heard Clara make a sound that resembled a sobbing but to his great relief he saw that she wasn't crying when she removed the pillow to look at him. Her make up was smudged and she looked as if she was suffering from a very bad hangover, but still John couldn't help but notice that Clara Oswald was a beautiful woman. Was that why he had come here? Because deep down he sort of fancied her, too?

Slowly he sat down on the sofa, an arm's length away from Clara, and offered her the coffee. She accepted it thankfully.

"We all did a crazy thing or two while drunk. Nothing to worry about," he tried to comfort her.

"Really?" she asked hopefully, "What did you do?"

He laughed. "I agreed to babysit my colleague's daughter. Took him a bottle of quite expensive whiskey."

Finally Clara cracked a smile, too. "Thanks for the coffee. And I'm sorry about last night. We were having my friend's hen party at my place and it all got a little out of hand."

"That explains the rubbish tip."

Clara took a sip from her coffee. "Don't remind me. I have to clean that all up today."

"I could help," John shrugged, "I don't have other plans for today."

John felt her eyes boring into him and he was suddenly reminded of that time she had stared at him for so long as a child. She was thinking about something and he would pay a great deal of money to know what that something was because it was beginning to make John feel uncomfortable.

All of a sudden Clara launched forward and before he could do anything about it he felt her lips on his own. John knew that he should probably pull away, that maybe she still wasn't in her right mind, that all of it couldn't happen but instead he let her. And he was beginning to like the feeling of her soft lips, the taste of coffee, her tongue that swept over his bottom lip before she reluctantly pulled away.

John cleared his throat. "Clara," he hesitated, "What was that?"

She smiled in reply. "A test drive," Clara giggled, "What are you doing on Saturday?"

"Uhm," he stammered nervously, unsure of what would follow, "I don't know. Why?"

"I still need a date to Jenny's wedding," she beamed at him.

John was lost for words for a moment. A kiss, an invitation to a wedding, that wasn't what he had come here for. But then what had he come here for?

"I, uhm, I'm not sure what your father would say to that," he replied eventually.

Clara only shrugged. "He doesn't need to know. Yet. We're only test driving, right?" she smiled at him. "Thanks, by the way."

"For what?" John asked her.

"For not marrying someone else before me of course," Clara answered matter-of-factly.

John tried very hard to look stern, but couldn't quite hold back the laughter as he reached for the bag that held their croissants and threw it into her lap. "Eat your breakfast. We'll talk about that later."

Clara giggled as she retrieved a croissant from the bag and started munching it and John couldn't help but think that maybe he had truly waited for her all of these years. She certainly seemed to be worth it.