A/N Merry Late Christmas! :D We never found out precisely who Linda was, so I took a guess. This is based off a prompt from dreaming-in-tardis-blue:
The Doctor stays for Christmas dinner with the Oswalds and they do that thing everyone's family does when you bring a new boyfriend: a walk down memory lane with pictures. Can you do a really fluffy fic with a slightly embarassed Clara (or maybe a bit of Jealous!Doctor when they talk about her old beaus) and the Doctor being awkward and funny as usual and maybe a bit of domestic at the end? :D
ThankyousomuchIhadablastwritingthis ^_^
"Hi, everyone. So, uh, this is my boyfriend, the Doctor!"
"Doctor who?"
"Linda-!"
"Well, isn't he a looker?"
"Grandma!"
"What kind of Doctor are you?"
"Daaaaaaad!"
The Doctor held his two pointer fingers up. "Excellent questions, all. And we have plenty of time to get to them."
Clara's shoulders drooped. Accidentally inventing a boyfriend was the worst mistake she'd ever made. She should've known this would be a disaster. The Doctor, on the other hand, looked optimistic as ever, as he beamed at Clara's father, grandmother and godmother.
"You know what? The Doctor and I are going to check on the turkey!" Without waiting for any kind of permission, Clara dragged her "boyfriend" into the kitchen by the sleeve, ignoring her father's reminders that he'd sent the instructions through every way he could think of.
"This is a disaster already!" Clara hissed.
"I know," said the Doctor solemnly.
"They'll never let me forget this."
"I mean, it could cause future problems yeah. But I've never met anyone who-"
"I should never have invented a boyfriend!"
"-Got that obsessive over a turkey. Wait, what?"
Clara frowned. "What are you talking about?"
"What are you talking about?" The Doctor shot back.
"The fake boyfriend thing." Clara gestured with her thumb back to the dining room. "What are you talking about?"
"The turkey. It's burning, isn't that what we came to check on?"
Clara sniffed the air and squealed. "Oh, my goodness!" She all but launched herself at the oven and yanked it open. Sure enough, the turkey was looking much darker than any of the twelve pictures her father had sent her. "Oh, no..."
The Doctor bent down next to Clara and peered into the oven. He pulled out his sonic screwdriver and scanned the turkey. "...Yep, it's burned," he confirmed.
Clara rolled her eyes. "Thanks Sherlock. Can't you just app it?"
"App it?"
"Yeah, with your..." She mimed the sonic. "...Screwdriver."
The Doctor looked offended by the very idea. "It's a screwdriver, Clara, it doesn't do turkey."
Clara sighed, and chewed nervously on her nail. After a moment, her eyes widened. "Ah, I know! Mrs. Tilly down the street keeps her shop open Christmas Day! Maybe she has a cooked turkey I could pass off as my own."
"That's cheating!" The Doctor argued, but Clara didn't seem to care.
"You...distract them," she insisted, shoving him towards the dining room. "I won't be five minutes, okay?"
The Doctor wanted to say no, but they were both away that Clara was, in fact, the boss. "...Okay!"
Once they were back in the dining room, Clara clapped her hands together to get everyone's attention. "Heh, so, the turkey's doing great. Um, funny thing, there's a...something I have to see to. Uh, Fred from downstairs is having a little trouble getting his DVD player to work, so I said I'd go down and help him. Won't take long!" She put a hand on the Doctor's shoulder and whispered, "Please act normal," before shooting out the door.
While she maintained a calm demeanour, Clara was panicking on the inside. She trusted the Doctor with her life, of course. But with her family...? That was different. She just wanted to have a nice, normal Christmas that wouldn't raise any eyebrows, was that too much to ask?
When Clara stepped into the dining room with the turkey she was going to pretend she cooked, she'd expected to see just about anything...except this. Everyone was seated around the table, and there were a ton of photo albums lying open.
"And this," her Dad was saying, "Is from the first time a Clara fell off her bike!" Clara peered over her father's shoulder and gasped. He was showing off - to the Doctor of all people! - a rather unattractive photograph of a crying five-year-old Clara.
"But this is my favourite!" Linda pulled out a picture of Clara from her second birthday, sitting in a high chair, with chocolate cake all over her face and hands and chest. She was giving a big smile to the camera without a care in the world. Clara looked to the Doctor, hoping he would have the presence of mind to remember that he wasn't in fact her boyfriend, and there was no need for him to see these. But alas - he was grinning happily, and even gushing at some of the pictures.
"Aww!" He turned to Clara. "You were so cute! This is my favourite." He held out a photo of nine-year-old Clara sitting on Santa's lap. The shot was perfectly timed-she'd just ripped his beard away and the look on his face was priceless.
Clara sighed. "Doctor, I don't think-"
"Hey, look what I found!" All eyes turned to Linda as she stared down at the paste she had open. "Pictures of Clara and Jason from their school dance! Aw, he was such a lovely young man, whyever did you two break up?"
"Break up?" The Doctor turned back to Clara. "How come I've never heard of this Jason?"
Clara shrugged innocently. "It's wasn't...important?"
"Not important? He was your first love!" Linda turned the page again. "Aww here you two are, at the park. And here's Jason in the kitchen. Honestly Clara, you never should've left him. What a wonderful young man he was, so into cooking and cleaning too."
"Was he, now?" Asked the Doctor suspiciously.
"Oh yes!" Clara's father took over talking. "He loved it. The flat he lived in with his parents was always spotless. And he cooked the most amazing meals for us. He was always polite and charming, and he and Clara were smitten with each other."
Clara ducked her head, trying to hide the rising blush in her cheeks. "We were kids..."
"Very close kids from that I'm hearing," the Doctor mumbled.
"They were inseparable," Linda said wistfully. "After Clara's mother died, for the longest time, Jason was the only person who could make her smile."
"Yeah." The Doctor folded his arms and sulked like a child. "A maid: every girl's dream."
"Doctor, it's okay, you really can stop now. I think the pan is clean."
Linda, Dad and Grandma had all left. It was only the Doctor and Clara home, now; and to the human of the two, something seemed off. "Are you...okay?"
"Oh, I'm fine!" He sounded cheerful as ever, really. "Um, I'll leave this to drip-dry, I think." After a moment, he seemed to decide against that. "Actually, no. I am perfectly capable of drying up a pan, thank you very much!" And with that. He grabbed the dry dish towel and began to wipe the pan furiously.
Clara groaned. So far, the Doctor had dusted her picture frames, vacuumed her couches, alphabetised the fridge, spot-cleaned the walls, and scrubbed the kitchen top to toe - he even sorted the baubles on her Christmas tree by colour first and shininess second!
"Is it Jason?" The Doctor's hands froze as he dried the pan.
"Are you implying that I'm jealous? Because there is no way I am jealous of some silly human...child."
"I never used that word." Clara giggled, and took the Doctor's hands in her own. "It was years ago. We were teenagers with raging hormones. We thought we were in love, but then we grew up...and apart. Now he lives in Japan and runs his father's business from there. And I'm an English teacher with the most magical double life anyone's ever lived, and that's with you. Jason may have been a huge part of my world in the past. But my future lies in your hands, Doctor. You can't give me those big, sad eyes and honestly tell me that's not better, can you?"
No, he certainly couldn't.
The Doctor looked at Clara for a moment, before smiling. "I know of a planet where houses sway in the breeze. Tea parties are always a riot. Want to check it out?"
"That," Clara answered, kissing the Doctor's cheek, "Is much better than Japan."
It was only a friendly kiss, but neither the Doctor nor Clara were willing to give up hope that someday it could mean something more.