A/N: I'm still working on my other fics but I had this idea for a while and after seeing a really cute fanart called "Say something nice" by lufidelis on DeviantArt this little story simply happened. XD

Well, this is my first Doctor Who fic but I hope you like it. ^-^

Disclaimer: Doctor Who and its characters belong to the BBC.

The tale of cute socks and the "not" space daisies

The rain kept falling relentlessly and she watched as the water lazily dripped down into large puddles at her feet while her eyebrows furrowed in a clear sign of annoyed resignation. That place was cold, damp and gloomy; it looked very much like a normal forest though the sky seemed to change colors every hour or so. Right now it had this rather appalling green that did little to lift her humor. As if reading her mind and disliking her criticism, a thunder roared above and the rain got twice as heavy.

"Geez, is the sky sentient too?" Clara exclaimed while contorting her neck to look up as she was currently taking shelter under a massive tree. "I'm sorry! Green is a lovely color!" It felt silly to apologize to the sky, but she was way beyond the point of questioning how certain things worked and she was certainly not dressed to face a deluge. Surprisingly, after two or three flashes, the rain diminished considerably. "…Thanks!"

Luckily, she brought an umbrella this time around. Actually, a few hours ago she was stuck in the middle of what looked like the flood of the century at Coal Hill. It was a bleak rainy day and no one seemed very eager to brave the raging storm outside, besides, the traffic was jammed and the few who ventured outside were not going anywhere so soon.

It was then that the Doctor showed up waving his arms in an exasperated fashion that always made him look like an angry disheveled owl, because he had just wasted a good hour or so sitting alone in her room when he had planned a whole new trip and she managed to be late just because of a silly weather mishap, to which she replied rolling her eyes and speckling him with her drenched coat as she marched inside the TARDIS. "So says the man with a time machine that once took 3 weeks to bring her coffee."

And yet, despite the Doctor's constant and patented Scottish speech that she was cluttering his TARDIS with her useless human trinkets (which was rather funny since Clara was pretty sure he did have rooms filled with the equivalent of Time Lord trinkets hidden somewhere in there) she was glad that she brought her own umbrella this time. And as a matter of fact, he should be glad too. She was probably going to remind him of that particular detail later.

After all, taking care of an over 2000 years, grumpy and sometimes unbelievably childish Doctor was almost her main job now. However, having to deal with a really grumpy Doctor fighting a cold and a runny nose was a whole level of trouble that no one in the universe would be able to handle, himself included.

And that thought brought her back to the current incident: she was standing in the middle of some unknown trail in an alien planet, in the rain, no TARDIS around and dragging an unconscious and surprisingly heavy Doctor perched over her shoulders and barely balancing the umbrella in her right hand.

Well, to be honest he wasn't that heavy, just exceptionally gangly. She was relatively short compared to the Doctor so carrying him already looked quite ridiculous by itself but it worked and Clara just wanted to find somewhere dry. At first she was tempted to drag him back to the TARDIS by his legs, it would be quicker that way but that wouldn't have worked, with the rain and mud it would only succeed in making the man look like the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

"So much for a light stroll in the 'harmless' planet of the talking plants." By now Clara was quite surprised that the local flora didn't grow fangs and legs and chased them down the planet too. Looking back at their previous adventures so far, this was a lucky day by their standards.

With a sigh, Clara tried to find a more comfortable position to rest but to no avail. As soon as she did that she felt his arms slide from her shoulders and his weight cast the umbrella aside for a few seconds before she caught him again, which was enough to drench both of them in cold alien water.

"You know Doctor, you're not helping very much right now." She told him as she shook him back into place and for a moment Clara swore the man mumbled something back at her when his chin collided with her shoulder. She blamed his long legs for making this way clumsier than it should.

And she also had this sinking feeling that on the next morning her back was going to give her hell for pulling this sort of stunt.

"Now that's an interesting sight." Said a vaguely familiar voice not very far from her in a singing tone. It was not a mutant walking fanged plant, but for a moment Clara felt that one would be a better scenario than what she was about to see. Turning around with an ever growing sense of doom, she felt a knot in her stomach as another figure approached, one who was just the same as she remembered from their previous encounter in Skaro.

"I think I might be repeating myself but shouldn't you be, you know, dead?" her tone was not exactly friendly as the memories of the last fiasco with the Daleks the woman pulled on her were still too fresh in her mind, but Clara knew better than to provoke Missy too much. At least, that's what her brain concluded; her mouth seemed to think otherwise.

"I simply have no idea of what you're talking about." The woman casually replied while twirling her own umbrella as she splashed the puddles of water around. There was something unnerving in her mischievous expression.

"Okay, who am I kidding, stupid question." Clara looked down as she took a long deep breath and prayed to have enough patience and self control to not chuck the closest heavy thing she could get at Missy but she soon dismissed the idea. The Doctor wouldn't be too happy if he woke up later only to find a concussion after colliding headfirst with an old psychotic friend that simply refused to stay dead.

"Oh, someone's got a temper. You should watch that, you'll get all wrinkly before the time. Now that would be a funny thing, wouldn't it?" said Missy with the usual smirk as she leaned down a bit beside Clara. "What happened to the sleepy head now?" she asked, poking the Doctor's face.

"Missy, what are you up to?" avoiding her question and putting some distance between them, Clara cut to the point. Dealing with Missy was like dealing with a walking and maniacal trap, you can't stay too close but can't run away either.

"Well, the usual being evil routine and disintegrating stuff my dear. I was just passing by, ruining some gardens, terrible sense of style around here you see. I think I might have been doing them a favor!" She replied with such deadpan sincerity that Clara almost believed it. Almost. "But then this rain started and sent them all scurrying back to their burrows or whatever it's called so it all got a bit dull after a while."

"And you want me to believe that you were just casually stomping around this place when you bumped into us?" If Clara could raise her eyebrows any higher than now, they would be crossing the stratosphere. "And what's up with the whole gardening hate, is that a thing on Gallifrey or something?" for a start, if it wasn't for the Doctor's apparent scuffle with gardens, they wouldn't be in this situation and he probably wouldn't have acquired a new peripheral indentation on his skull.

At that thought, Clara noticed there was something odd going on there. She was struggling to keep herself out of the rain but so far it had been a lost cause. Missy, on the other hand was perfectly and infuriatingly dry. Not even a single hair out of place. And her makeup was equally intact, which reminded Clara that she was probably looking like some sort of melted panda by now.

"Is that what I'm thinking it is?" She asked, staring at the seemingly innocent umbrella with both curiosity and suspicion.

For a moment or so, Missy stopped skipping around with one final splash that certainly was going to leave mud stains all over Clara's pants.

"Really!" she looked almost offended waving her arms around in a way that somehow resembled the Doctor's own perplexed gestures. "Seriously, what else did you think it could be?"

"Oh I don't know, for all that I know it could be the new army of Cyber-Dalek thingies disguised as tacky garment pieces."

There was this sudden unnatural silence between them as if even the raindrops were holding their breath.

"Don't give me ideas my dear, I can make that work." Missy winked at her with an evil spark in her blue eyes and Clara internally cursed her own wild imagination, somehow she felt she just doomed some galaxy with her witty remarks.

"So…" she tried to change the subject as it was dangerous enough to linger around the deranged Time Lady, let alone fuel her with more destructive ideas. "Let me guess, it's the 'bigger on the inside' technology again? How does that even work?" Clara hoped that if Missy was remotely like the Doctor, she wouldn't miss the chance to flaunt her knowledge to an audience.

Judging by her lopsided grin Clara's assumption wasn't too far from the truth.

"Wider underneath would be a better statement but yeah, pretty close. Dimensions, it's like a second nature for us. " At that Missy looked at her with an ominously worried face while offering said item. "Wanna try? I fear you might shrink even more if you keep at it with that pathetic human thing."

"Nah, I think I'm fine here. In the rain." She replied, trying to sound respectful while fighting the urge of replying to the clear stab at her height. "Drenched to the bones but very much alive, thank you." Clara added in a low whisper.

"Oh look, it stopped." Said the woman so suddenly that Clara jumped back at the exclamation. That didn't look like a hostile planet but she looked around a bit alarmed, as if waiting to find something creeping around them ready to strike.

"Stopped? What stopped?" Clara blinked a few times while trying to keep up with Missy's unsteady line of thoughts. Glancing up, the sky had cleared but it changed colors again. This time, a radioactive orange glared back at them.

"The rain, silly!" she yelped slightly as Missy poked her with the now closed umbrella with way more force than it was needed. "How does the Doctor deal with you, doesn't he just implode out of frustration? No wonder he grew these eyebrows."

At first Clara tried to keep a safe distance but Missy closed the gap with a quick stride and stared at the Doctor's face with a thoughtful expression.

"By the way, did he name them yet?" Clara watched in confusion as the other woman tapped his left eyebrow and the unconscious man kind of wriggled away from her touch on his own. "We should call this one Angry, it's always the first one to flare up when he goes all Scottish."

As bizarre as giving names to Time Lord's eyebrows was, Clara was sort of inclined to agree with her on that matter. But now she had a more urgent matter at hand: getting them both out of there, preferably alive.

"Oh, I will be sure to let him know we now have a new pet name for them." She took a few steps as a test. Missy just tilted her head and stared. "Well, uh… I think that's my leave then!" Now that she would be able to actually see where she was going, Clara had hopes she could reach the TARDIS, it wasn't that far anyway.

It wasn't the best plan in the universe and so many things could go terribly wrong given the circumstance but since the Doctor was still out cold and showed no signs of waking either, there were not many options at hand. She covered quite a distance without being fired into oblivion so apparently her strategic retreat worked.

There was only a tiny little problem: Missy was following her.

"Just ignore her. Keep going, don't look back and maybe she will go away." She repeated in her mind hoping that it would really work. It would be too much luck for one day to get away so easily but she was willing to try.

"You know, there is something… how should I say it…"after a few minutes in silence, Missy decided it was time to pester her again. "I think we are missing something here." Clara continued her pace, determined to not look back. "I wonder where he got those socks, who knew the Doctor was a fan of such silly little things."

Now that single statement somehow won over Clara's resolution and her curiosity didn't help either. "How do you know what kind of socks he's wearing?"

Instead of replying, Missy only pointed down and she followed her gaze.

"Kittens?" Clara thought, eyeing his left foot, now bare except for what seemed to be (TARDIS) blue socks with little kittens all over it. She knew his fashion sense had always been questionable but things were taking quite a funny turn lately. She made a note to remember that later, it would be amusing to see his explanations.

"How do you do that with your eyes? It's sort of hypnotic." She heard Missy ask, now staring at her with a distracted expression. And Clara didn't like that almost predatory grin on her face that followed either.

"Must have dropped it along the way." she mentally searched for any memory of where the lost shoe might be but she was not going back, not with her current company still following her every step.

"It was half an hour ago, to be exact, when you slipped over a root on the trail." At first she wondered if Missy could read minds, it wouldn't really surprise her if that was the case. However, the answer came with deadly accuracy. Too accurate to be just a guess.

"Wait a minute!" She turned around and faced Missy, now her temper was rising to a dangerous level. "How do you know when…"Clara narrowed her eyes at the other woman who didn't even try to look innocent. "You found it."

"Maybe."

"Missy!"

"Oh, you're no fun at all. Of course I found it! See?" and then she practically materialized said shoe from God's know where and waved it around. "Honestly, I was just passing time, it would be stupid to leave without the other one anyway."

It was then that it hit Clara and she quickly looked down again. To her dismay, now both of the Doctor's shoes were missing. "Oh, he's going to grow a whole bunch of grey hairs when he sees this…"

"How did you even- " she never had time to finish her question as a flash and the sound of hysterical laughter filled the air and Missy was gone. The cold wind blew a few leafs in the air and Clara just stood there in the middle of the trail in utter disbelief. "What the hell just happened?"

For a moment, Clara swore the closest tree seemed to move its branches up like it was shrugging in response to her question.

Later at the TARDIS

"… the Sontaran army spent the night kicking me again after that match of…" Was the first thing the Doctor said as he regained consciousness with a jolt.

"Sontarans?" Clara asked back, confused. It happened before; she noticed he had this strange habit of raving about that particular race every time he woke from a shock. Unfortunately, what match he was talking about or why they were even kicking him was going to remain a mystery.

His voice was a bit hoarse and his eyes were still unfocused as he found her at his side. "And why am I so wet Clara?" The Doctor finally asked as he sat up straight in the chair he was currently resting, eyes blinking like a confused owl at the bright lights around.

He tried to get up but his legs were not properly coordinated yet and she had to hold him before the man crashed again on the floor.

"You were clobbered by the owner of the flower shop thing." She explained, crossing her arms as he sat again. By now Clara had already changed into a new set of clean clothes. "I tried to get you back here with at least some dignity but then all of a sudden the sky fell down on us and I dragged you as well as I could but your overly long legs got in the way."

"Oh." He rubbed his forehead as if remembering the incident. Then he did a double take as he registered her last words. "You carried me back?!" Clara shrugged as he stared in disbelief at her for a while. "And it wasn't my fault this time, the TARDIS translation was affected by the unusual electric properties of the atmosphere and kept confusing my words."

"I think you were meowing at some point." She added with a giggle as she remembered his short lived attempt of conversation with the native inhabitants and he twitched visibly. Slowly, he got up and rested his back against the TARDIS console. Some sort of angry hissing sound came from the control panel and the Doctor flinched a bit.

"Ok, ok, I might have confused part of their dialect. It happens sometimes" He said as if apologizing to the ship. "In my defense, he was not the most literate specimen I encountered."

His walk was still uneven but the Doctor paced around as he flapped his soaked coat seeming annoyed as he reluctantly took it off. He slid a hand through his messy hair and verified it was equally wet.

"I think it was a she, actually." Said Clara following his steps, just in case he slipped on the wet trail he was leaving all around.

"Now I need to change these clothes." He went on, barely registering what she had said. Then he suddenly halted his march. "What did you say?"

"The owner of that garden." She continued.

"Well, that explains a few things." the Doctor seemed to analyze the extent of the damage on his head as he resumed his pacing. "Mighty heavy hand she had. And poisonous too. No wonder it knocked me out for so long."

"Right, now sit still Doctor, you just recovered. I'm getting dizzy by just looking at you darting around the room." she used her best teacher tone and the effect was almost immediate and he sat back on the stairs leading up to the upper floor. Huffing and mumbling as he did but he obeyed.

"I didn't like her garden." He pouted while crossing his arms against his chest looking more than ever like a grumpy kid. The fact that he was still dripping wet only contributed to make the sight even more comical.

"Yeah, you've made your point very clear Doctor." Clara pointed and tried to hold the impulse to laugh. She sat beside him and poked the bump on his head, he winced. "The big bad Time Lord made the poor space daisies cry until they sobbed."

"They were not 'space daisies' Clara." He stressed the word space as if it was offensive. "First, those were not even daisies, why would be there daisies on this planet? And they were not in space. Definitely not in space. Your use of terminology is rather- Ach!" he growled as she touched his head again, this time a bit more gently.

"Sorry." She apologized and he slowly nodded once he realized she only meant to massage the sore spot. "We should do something about this Doctor, or else it will look like you're sprouting a second head by mitosis." Her remark got an exasperated look from him. "Is that a Time Lord thing, the gardening rage? I'm starting to see a pattern."

"What do you mean?" for the first time, she saw worry in his eyes.

"Actually, we kind of had company out there but it all ended in a rather harmless way. I think." It was useless to keep that detail a secret; he was bound to discover something was off as soon as he looked down to his feet. It was rather strange how he didn't seem to notice until now he was walking around without his shoes.

"Clara, I don't like that tone. It usually means you're trying to make something dangerous, and possibly very deadly, sound less threatening but it only makes it sound even more aggravating." And there was 'Angry' again, as Missy had named. Now that she thought about it, his left eyebrow did look a bit more cross than his right one.

"Missy."

One word and it felt like she had dropped a bomb inside the TARDIS. His expression changed from suspicion to horror in matter of seconds. Clara could almost see his brain short circuit as he fought to voice all of his concerns at once but nothing came out.

"Missy!" he finally repeated, getting up so quickly that he almost slipped down a step. "What was she doing here? Did she do something to you?" he was now walking around her as if to assure she was not missing an arm or a leg.

"Doctor, I'm fine. Apparently she just ran off with your shoes."

"S-she what?!" he stuttered, not quite sure he heard it right.

"Your shoes." She repeated more clearly, holding him still by his shoulders. He was already halfway of scanning her with his glasses just to be sure nothing was out of place. "Missy found one and then snatched the other when I was not looking."

For the first time, he stopped moving around and looked down at himself. His shoes were indeed gone.

"But why?" Clara shrugged looking as clueless as him. "I liked those." The Doctor mumbled looking almost hurt. "She can't possibly intend to use them, can she?" judging by his expression, the idea of Missy running around wearing his things seemed horrifying in his mind.

"Don't ask me. For all we know she could be plotting to build the next weapon to destroy worlds with one of your shoes as battery and keeping the other one to hit you on the head as she sings." he also found the idea absurd but didn't protest. That sort of silly madness could very well fit in with Missy's overall behavior.

Once he calmed down enough, Clara thought it was safe enough to ask something.

"So, what do we do now?" he looked down at her with a concerned expression. "I mean, we can't be sure she's not up to something but it seems she was just bored. That and we're probably the first two names in her list of 'people I should bother for no reason'."

It took a few seconds until his serious face cracked and he let a tiny smile show.

"Hm, I don't know." He looked around. "I'm pretty sure they are definitely gone now." Somehow, she knew he was going to mourn those shoes for days. "Any suggestions?"

"For now, I just want to find a good warm place to rest my feet and my back." At that point, the Doctor scratched his head looking a bit embarrassed, knowing quite well that she could have hurt herself carrying him on her own.

"Back to your home then?" he asked looking back at her as he pressed a few buttons. She nodded back in approval and pulled the closest lever.

"Tea and biscuits. Sounds any good?" she ventured, joining his side as he watched the panels in front of him.

"Good enough for me, yes. Oh wait!" he suddenly exclaimed as the TARDIS landed. Clara looked at him and for a moment he looked a bit paler than normal. She remembered his earlier talk about waiting for her with nothing else to do. That couldn't be a good sign.

"Doctor… did you break something?" he was sweating now, looking very much like a cat that got caught in the act.

"No. Not literally. I mean, it's a matter of perspective." He waved his hands for emphasis as he talked but it did very little to make his excuses sound more convincing. "What I'm trying to say is that your washing machine clearly developed a fault, I tried to fix it. Simple as that." He said in his most confident voice. "But apparently, it didn't like it." That last bit though came out almost like a whisper.

Clara took a deep breath and counted up to twelve. (Counting up to ten seconds to calm herself didn't work, eleven was enough for a while but now she found twelve was the right amount) She saw him tinkering with her appliances before, and at the time she thought the angry burn he received from the iron and the electric shock from the TV would keep him away of such things for a while.

That possibly meant this wasn't going to be the last time either.

"I've seen worse things." But that didn't stop her from giving him a warning glare. "I just hope I won't find the whole house burned to the ground when I open that door. So, why the kittens Doctor?"

"Hm?" he had closed his eyes for a moment, as if expecting a scolding. Peeking one eye open and deeming it was safe enough, the Doctor looked down at his feet. "They're comfortable. You don't like them?"

"Actually, I do like them." She said grinning a bit at his slightly flushed face. "I just didn't know you liked cats so much. You are not hoarding cats in here when I'm not looking, are you Doctor?"

"…No…" His answer had this strange pause to it that almost made it sound like he was not telling the whole truth but she decided against questioning him further on that subject. At least for now.

"Ok, then off to the shower with you." The Doctor shot her a quizzical glance as she pushed him across the room. "You don't want to catch some space virus and spread it on Earth, do you?"

He opened his mouth to protest against the use of space term again but then he stopped. As if by some divine intervention, his whole thesis about her inadvertent choice of words was replaced by an abnormally loud sneeze. That seemed to settle the matter once and for all.

"You jinxed me, Clara." His face was so serious that she couldn't help but laugh at his mortification.

"No I did not. And now you see what I meant. Go on, off you go!" She patted his back and the Doctor finally seemed to remember how to use his legs and walk. "And put some dry clothes too!"

"Clara?" The Doctor called after a while as he leaned back in at the door leading to the corridors.

"What?" After opening the TARDIS door and confirming she still had a home outside, she was just gathering her things when she looked back at him again. He had this big grin on his face that looked so much alike the ones Missy displayed not long ago.

"You look like you're melting."

"Doctor… shower."

"All right, boss." He replied with a distinct laugh when she tossed his drenched coat back at him.

A/N: It was really fun writing this, maybe I could do a series of short stories someday. As I wrote it, two songs served as inspiration, Precious by Depeche Mode and Volcano by U2 (for some odd reason, they remind me so much of these characters, must be the lyrics XD).

Thank you very much for reading, I hope you enjoyed this story! ;)