Clara hasn't asked yet, but she'd be lying if she said she hasn't been wondering.
And judging by the hard set of Lady Me's jaw and the calloused look in her eyes, Clara knows that Me has wondered, too. That Me has tried, probably more than once in the last few billion years, to find out.
What happens if someone strikes a fatal blow too quickly for the Mire medical chip to heal her?
She gets a fleeting image of blood staining the other woman's delicate temple, and she knows she doesn't want to find out.
Not like this, anyway.
Not chained next to each other, newly minted sonic pen on the operating-tray-turned-weapons-storage across the room, forced to kneel on the cold, eerily sterile steel floor of a laboratory on their fourteenth alien planet together. (Not that she'd been keeping count.)
"You know," Me intones calmly, conversationally, and Clara can't tell if she's addressing her or their three white-robed captors, each casually preparing scalpels. A fourth conspirator, whom Clara is distinctly not looking at, is giving a surgical saw an experimental buzz.
"If you want to find out the secrets of human biology, there really are more pleasant ways to go about it."
She turns her face toward Clara suddenly, her expression wiped clear and innocent, but her eyes are piercing with the dance of a heady challenge. The bottom drops out of Clara's stomach, and her tongue flits across her lower lip as her eyes flick down to Me's mouth. The surgical torture chamber melts away as other, infinitely more enticing, thoughts and images flood her mind.
But then the corner of Me's lips twitch into the ghost of a wicked grin and she's clearing her throat meaningfully.
Right. A plan, not a come on. Right.
Clara clears her own throat before nodding, hoping she doesn't look as dazed as she feels.
"She's right, you know." Me widens her eyes slightly and nods encouragingly as Clara pauses. "There's more to studying our biology than our anatomy, ey?" But their captors still aren't looking their way.
"In fact," she says as she stands slowly, catching Me's eyes. The immortal girl furrows her brow for a moment before realizing Clara's plan and nodding curtly, taking care to hide her smile.
Clara's chains clank as she gets to her feet, and only then do their captors turn – or rather, rotate – their way. "If you want to know the first thing about humans, it's that there's really no need to chain women's hands in front of our bodies instead of behind our backs. It really makes it so much easier to do this."
Without warning, Clara plunges her hand into the inside pocket of Me's trench coat – well, her trench coat, really, but Me was completely drenched and shaking when they came out of that crystal lake on Archemius Prime yesterday and all her trying not to shiver just made her shivering worse. Me'd looked so good in it – so warm and safe, and yes, more than a little sexy – that Clara had insisted she keep it on. (At least for now.)
And she's glad she did.
Her wrist grazes soft flesh and both of their faces flush deeply as Clara's fingers search in her – Me's – whatever – pocket for – where the bloody hell is – no, not River's latest novel – not Me's journal – damnit – yes! A tiny, mint-sized (and flavored) piece of metal, disguised as an internal coat fastener.
Her eyes catch Me's, which are wide with… something Clara can't focus on just now. She winks at the woman whose hitched breath is hot on her face, hoping she looks as suave as she feels. And before their captors can grab their discarded guns from the same table the sonic is laying on, Clara seals her fingers around the metal and presses.
A moment of locked eye contact, silence, the prayer of Please let this work. It'll look awfully silly otherwise. And then the sonic pen they'd made together is whizzing across the room, right into Clara's now readied hands. In a flash, she's undone Me's chains, and had her's unclasped in a quick pass of the sonic from woman to woman.
"How'd you do that? Isn't that cheating?" Me asks the question that their captors, fumbling to point their guns at them, also undoubtedly have.
"Remember a couple nights ago I couldn't sleep? I figured what the hell, let's make a virtually undetectable homing beacon for the sonic for situations that, funnily enough, looked just like this one when they played out in my head."
They're standing shoulder to shoulder now, Me holding out the sonic, straight armed, facing the guns.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Must have forgot somewhere between the horde of hungry travelers thinking we actually own a diner and our little dip in their famed waters." A pause. "Wait, you didn't know, so why were you – "
Me shrugs, her eyes fixed on the barrels of the guns. "I thought you'd just talk our way out of it, that always seems to work."
Clara glances at her sideways and grins. "Yeah, well, so does this."
"When you're quite finished," the formerly saw-handling interrogator interjects.
Clara pulls her sternest teacher face and voice. "Not quite yet, no, you'll have to wait." She pauses, tilts her head, and purses her lips at Me, who returns the look. Clara nods, then turns back to their would-be dissector, and says, "Alright, we're finished now. What would you like?"
He renews his grip on his gun purposefully and gestures for his fellows to close in on them.
"Funny thing for me not to mention," Clara begins again conversationally. Me smirks and silently flicks a hidden switch on the bottom of their pen.
"If we have a homing beacon for our sonic, do you really think we wouldn't have one for our TARDIS?"
The first two bars of Pretty Woman starts to wheeze throughout the laboratory in typical TARDIS tones as the diner materializes around them.
Their former captors yell and open fire. Clara and Me just smile and wiggle their fingers casually.
"Bye," they singsong in union before breaking into conspiratorial giggles.
Clara loses her breath – as she's been prone to doing since she decided to take the long way round – and somehow her hands, still shaking with mirth, find their way to Me's shoulders for stability. Me's hands, in turn, find Clara's waistline. They stay that way even after their giggles fade to long, settling breaths.
"I'm sorry I forgot to tell you about the homing beacon," Clara says, because if they're talking, they can ignore where their hands are; they can stay where they are.
"I'm sorry I couldn't come up with a better plan than 'Clara will talk them down from dissecting us.'" Me's voice is low, almost sultry.
Clara almost chokes, then scoffs softly. "We all have our days. Last week with the Slitheen, I was the one who was too thick to take advantage of that bloody unzipping process to get away."
Me arches her eyebrows and layers her voice with all the authority that granted her the status of Lady. "Are you calling me thick?"
Clara's eyes bug out and she almost moves her hands, but she thinks she feels a little subtle, added pressure from Me on her waist, so she stays.
"No! No, I didn't mean –"
Me chuckles and this time, definitely presses her hands into Clara's waist. "I'm several billion years old, Clara, I don't misinterpret self-deprecating humor that easily."
There's a pause, a meeting of mock-glaring eyes, then another round of dissolving into giggles. Without knowing who shifted what first, somehow they've both inched even closer into each other, so that their breath is tangled in the tiny space between them and Clara can smell the Galeron tea they'd been sharing before they'd been informed – by the barrel of a gun – that off-worlders were subject to mandatory dissection.
She inhales, but she's not sure if any of it is oxygen. Her eyes drift helplessly down to Me's lips. Again.
"Me, I – "
Both women slam against the console as the TARDIS lurches, suddenly, and parts of the other side of the console spark.
Automatically falling into the rhythm they'd organically established, Me swings herself over to the display monitor and Clara goes about soothing the controls.
"Shhh, just tell us what's wrong, girl," Clara says aloud as her fingers fly across the knobs and swirly buttons. "Terrible timing there, we'll have to talk about that," she adds under her breath.
Me's breath hitches and her eyes swivel uncertainly from Clara's face back to the monitor.
"Clara," she calls tentatively, bracing herself with both hands as another shockwave rocks the diner. "Are we where I think we are?"
Clara stumbles over to her as another shudder runs through the console room, and Me's arms catch around her waist again. Clara glances up, where she always imagines the TARDIS's metaphorical eyes to be, and sucks her teeth, both pleased and frustrated, at the young model's mischief.
Not bothering to move away from the warmth of Me's body, Clara stares at what Me was talking about. She blinks.
They hadn't been to Earth together since right after America, since Me waited patiently in the console room while Clara said her goodbyes to the Doctor; since they ran away together.
It seems their TARDIS decided it's time for them to return.