Author's Note: I know I haven't updated the Fellowship of the Strings in months and I am a terrible person please forgive me. But Doctor Who.
There is a darkness located in the shadier bars of Anagonia that, if one cannot avoid, one should attempt to shoot at repeatedly with a number of oversized weapons. It is a darkness so profound that it can leave a strong, able-bodied, Anagonian wondering if they've left the stove on, despite the fact that stoves have been outlawed in their galaxy for centuries. It is so complete that Heart of Darkness author John Conrad would likely have handed in his proverbial hat had he known of its existence.
This darkness would have slunk back into the shadows with its metaphorical tail between its legs had it seen the Doctor at this moment. The Doctor: oncoming storm, last of the time lords, was currently threatening to smash his mirror. The mirror was unimpressed.
"Excuse me," he shouted crossly, "excuse me. You don't even know what you're talking about."
"Oh reaaaaaaaally?" drawled the mirror (whomever had thought that "Genuine People Personalities" was a good idea had a lot of explaining to do, the Doctor had decided. He had been arguing with the thing for the past half hour since it had remarked that his coat looked silly. Stupid mirror. What did it know).
The Doctor's eyebrows had almost reached their peak of individual crossness. He was about to unleash a torrent of fury upon the unsuspecting glass and had even picked up a hefty looking chair in preparation.
"Doctor?" came the familiar query from down the TARDIS' corridors.
Clara was there.
Already.
Crap.
"Just coming!" called the Doctor.
He gave his coat one last ruffle to make sure that it looked (he thought) dashingly arrayed. It actually looked as though he had had a bit of a nap in it.
What can be said about Clara Oswald that has not already been pored over, in depth, in the Doctor's secret diary? Her beauty was only matched by the sheer power of her sass. If the Doctor was honest with himself (which he made it a practise never to be) he was more than a little smitten with her.
The problem, if it can be called such, was Danny Pink. Ah yes, Danny. That poorly written relationship that everyone wished could be made right but was really just a mess from start to finish.
"Did you know," said the Doctor, "that there is a planet where the only form of communication is dancing?"
"Sounds like a club to me. You trying to take me to a club, Doc?" Clara teased. The Doctor's left heart, always a softie, immediately collapsed into a puddle of metaphorical mush and informed his brain that if it did not ask Clara to marry him this instant, it was going on strike. The Doctor gave Clara a weak smile and cursed himself internally and at length.
"Of course not, you're much too bossy for me. And short. Also, shall we go pick up some makeup for you since you've clearly run out?" The insults spilled from the Doctor's mouth in a vain attempt to dislodge the foot he had so neatly placed there.
Clara arched an eyebrow. Hers were much nicer than his, he noticed. Like most of her, actually.
The Doctor realized that Clara had been speaking to him.
"Hmmm?" he said, eloquently.
"So are you going to take me to the dancing planet, or are you going to stand there looking like a lost puppy for the rest of the evening?"
Whilst his traitorous left heart launched into overdrive ("Clara thinks I look like a puppy puppies are loveable therefore Clara must love me our first born is going to be named Suzie I wonder if she wants a spring wedding" etc.) the Doctor nodded curtly and started flicking levers on the TARDIS console.
"Will the TARDIS translate?" Clara asked.
Ah.
"Well, actually no. I should teach you some basic phrases. In case you get lost, I mean." The Doctor's left heart was making a particular nuisance of itself and was vainly trying to tango, despite being an internal organ.
"Good. You should handle more of the teaching responsibility in this partnership," Clara said, grinning.
This was where things became rather unfortunate. As has been noted in his lifetime, the Doctor does dance. Quite well, in fact (most of the time). However, this regeneration had not really had a chance to make his way out onto the proverbial floor. It was, uh. It was...well, you'll see.
Clara was leading, for one. For two, the Doctor kept trying to see what his feet were doing and then discovering that his view was impaired by Clara's lovely smiling face. Then he would proceed to trip over something (generally a flat surface) and they would start all over again. They went on like this, her laughing and him getting redder in the face, until they ran out of breath and the Doctor had invented a new colour somewhere between tomato and embarrassment.
"Let's take a break then, shall we?" the Doctor muttered. Clara nodded. They sat.
There are many, many awkward silences that have been left out of the literary canon. For example, the silence following Polonius' 'neither a borrower nor a lender be' speech wherein Polonius waits for his applause and Laertes struggles to wake himself up, is often excluded from most texts. Even the original. Or when Helen of Troy says 'what could go wrong' and every Ancient Greek simultaneously looks at an imaginary camera for several minutes like on the Office. Whilst these entirely true historical incidences are good as far as awkward silences go, they do not compare to the awkward silence with which Clara and the Doctor awkward silenced.
The Doctor opened his mouth the say something. He shut it. Clara made as if to say something. She did not. They stared at each other intently. The Doctor's left heart almost had a heart attack. The Doctor's right heart was becoming increasingly unimpressed with its compatriot's antics and told leftie to take a chill pill.
Clara's phone rang. She declined the call. The Doctor cleared his throat.
"So, um. Dancing planet, then?" he asked, tentatively.
"Might as well," Clara said.
"Right," he replied.
Neither moved.
"We really should-"
"Yeah, let's-"
"I mean, if you want to-"
"Only if you want to-"
"Wanna make out?"
The Doctor blinked owlishly. "Yeah, okay," he said. And then they did.