There was a time, the Doctor thought longingly, when all he had to do was fold his arms and scowl, and anything remotely domestic would scuttle for cover. Alas, heather-purple tweed and a bow tie didn't seem to have the same impact as black leather, which was how he came to find himself smiling gamely and passing the jammy dodgers. Right now, the only thing keeping him in his seat was a pair of beautiful brown-velvet eyes, silently pleading with him to behave himself, for goodness sake. The things he did for the people he lo…li…traveled with.
"Clara! Your boyfriend's here!" Angie sing-songed.
"Angie, that's enough," George Maitland shushed his daughter. "We have company."
"So I finally get to meet your mysterious Doctor?" Dave Oswald asked curiously.
"Sure, Dad," Clara replied. "Just let me go and er…"
"Warn him," Dave supplied, grinning.
"Dad!"
Clara hurriedly left the house, carefully shutting the door behind her. She met the Doctor halfway up the path.
"Miss me?" he asked with that boyish grin that usually melted her.
"You're early!" Clara hissed.
"Early, late, same difference. Time machine!"
"You're early," she reiterated, "and it does matter, because my dad is here for tea."
"Oh, er…all right. I'll just come back later."
"Angie already saw you."
"Oh, well, I'm sure we can work something out -"
"And announced your arrival."
"Oh."
"And I'm pretty sure my dad is watching us through the window right now."
The Doctor ran a finger under his collar, which suddenly felt extremely tight. "Tell, me, your father doesn't slap, does he?"
Clara crossed her arms and gave him what passed for a menacing glare on her pretty features. "No, but he is the one who taught me how to punch."
"I was afraid of that."
Clara heaved a long-suffering sigh. "Doctor, please. It's just tea. Just come on inside and sit and have tea and don't do anything weird for thirty minutes, all right? Please, for me?"
He was lost then, and he knew it. "All right," he replied reluctantly. "Thirty minutes, and you promise I won't get slapped, or punched, or, or anything."
"Doctor, it's only tea!"
"Well, yes, but the last time I spent time with the overprotective parent of a very pretty friend, I got slapped. And then it got worse."
Clara sighed again and raised an eyebrow.
"Then she decided that I wasn't so bad after all and I got kissed!"
"Doctor, I can pretty much guarantee that my dad will not slap you or kiss you. However, if you don't get moving…"
"Point taken. What's for tea?"
It was a bittersweet kind of deja vu, reassuring a parent who'd lost his partner that his only child was in safe hands while not imparting any actual information. On the whole, the Doctor thought he'd managed the whole proper human behavior thing pretty well…except for when he tried to snitch a biscuit from Clara's plate, and she'd absently slapped his hand away, but that had been laughed off as a boyfriend/girlfriend thing.
There was also that teensy tinsy bit of prevarication about just having 'one of those faces,' when Dave wondered if they'd ever met before, because as bad as 'time traveling alien' might be, 'time traveling alien who's been keeping tabs on your daughter for her entire lifetime' was just a little bit unthinkable.
"Second star to the right, and straight on 'til morning?" Clara demanded in tones of exasperation bordering on affection bordering on total apoplexy. "Really? My dad asks where we're going and that's what you tell him?"
"Well, it's not as if I could just come out and say we're going to visit the third moon of Rigellia, now is it?"
"What's on the third moon of Rigellia?" Clara asked, curious in spite of herself.
The Doctor just gave a rather superior little smirk and held out his hand. Laughing, she set her hand in his and let him lead her into the TARDIS.
