The Doctor poured the wine as Clara watched, some thought patching itself together in the back of her mind just before breaching her thoughts of the long day of school work and Courtney's disruptions and the Headmaster's rebuke and Danny's smile and the jungle planet and the lava pit with the crab people and her scorched burgundy pants sitting in her bin, damaged beyond repair. He poured the red liquid to half-fill her glass before half-filling his own, carefully setting the bottle down on the coffee table just beside them and then groaning as he slowly molded himself into the couch at her side, lifting her right leg, injured and stretched over the cushion, to lay atop his thigh.
They took a long sip in unison before closing their eyes and letting the bold taste of those fermented juices slowly trickle down exhausted throats into empty bellies. Clara replayed the moment, working towards a question as she rested her head to the cushion at her right, hearing the Doctor's glass click against wood as he put it down to concentrate on her. His fingers were cool against the burned skin of her shin and she listened to the Sonic buzz before his sigh.
"It's not nearly as bad as it looks," he offered lightly.
She nodded, opening her eyes and taking another sip from her glass, feeling it warming her as she watched him reach for a small tub of something he'd brought into her flat from aboard the Tardis. A medicine, he said, from some future planet that would heal her burns and leave her with no scars – because he appreciated her ego-centrism, he'd told her with a smirk. He lifted his glass and took a drink and she tilted her head slightly.
Since when did he drink wine?
Since when did he enjoy it?
Clara could easily recall his previous incarnation's distaste for the substance. She'd tried in vain to get him to have a glass on occasion with her. On the day she'd moved into her flat, they'd toasted it with a bottle of champagne he'd gotten her as a housewarming present – one of a dozen in an assortment of things he decided she needed that day – and she'd watched him spit a mouthful back into his glass before smiling at her happily, as though it were absolutely normal. And Clara accepted it as such because she'd seen him do it on several occasions already, wide grin making her laugh and shake her head.
"What?" He questioned now, eyes focused on her burns as he delicately smeared on a paste with a small sponge, and Clara shrugged in response before he stopped and sighed, lifting his eyes to question, "No, there's something, what is it?"
Lifting the glass in her hand, she asked, "Picked this one up on sale last weekend, what do you think of it?"
"Bit tart," he allowed, "But otherwise, quite enjoyable."
"You hate wine," she stated.
He glanced back at her, "I hated wine. Past tense."
"How does that work?" Clara inquired, "One regeneration to the next, you hated apples, now you love them; you hated wine, now you enjoy it. How," she began, voice tapering off as he stopped the motion of the sponge over her wound and settled his hands softly over her flesh at her ankle, "How does it work?"
The Doctor considered it and she knew he had to have before, but it seemed as though maybe it'd been a long while, lost to more important thoughts like how to save a life, or how not to die himself. He smiled and she swore he blushed just a bit before he told her quietly, "I suppose it's an adaptation of sorts. Each regeneration taking an account of the one before it in order to provide a more adequate set of skills or tastes, or even face, for the next."
"What sort of an adaptation requires the enjoyment of wine?" Clara giggled softly as he closed the tub and set the sponge down atop its lid, reaching for a bandage he'd brought out along with it to cover her burns. He stared down at her leg, still seemingly pondering the question, but for a moment he didn't answer, merely sat in silence, hands palming either side of her calf calmly, fingertips pressing lightly every so often as she considered the question as well.
Then he placed her leg down gently as he stood, shrugging as he picked up the tub and the discarded sponge and bandage package, breathing, "Curious, isn't it."
Clara released another giggle, quieter and shaking a bit with an apprehension she didn't quite understand, and she reached for her wine, taking another drink before deciding it possibly hadn't been the best decision before dinner, and she listened as the Tardis door creaked shut. She held the glass as she stared out at the moon rising in the dark skies outside as she thought on it, knowing he was standing just inside his Tardis doing the same. A simple question, she realized, with a profound answer.
Because he gained nothing from one incarnation to the next in enjoying wine.
Except that he could enjoy it with her.
Looking to the glass held in her hand, she smiled, considering the thought foolish, and then she frowned, wondering if it could be true. Perhaps, she told herself, it's merely that ego of yours. She laughed at the thought and then realized she'd laughed aloud.
"Too much wine, Clara," she explained to the empty flat.
The Tardis door opened and closed quietly as she set the glass down, and she looked up at the man wrapping his hands at his waist, a perplexed look on his face as he approached her, nervously standing beside the couch a moment before reaching for her ankles, lifting them to set her legs in his lap again. Comfortably, she realized, unlike his predecessor would have been. Another little adaptation, she pondered, from the man who came before him, easily rattled by the sight of too much exposed skin.
"You're in a state of undress," she could remember him gasping upon entering her room.
"I've taken off my leggings, that's all," she'd laughed, watching him cover his eyes.
Now she sat in her knickers and an old tattered jumper she'd had to borrow from him, bare legs strewn over the couch and resting atop his thighs, her right ankle held firmly in his grasp, thumbs beginning to massage the bottom of her foot knowingly, because he'd done it before, and she truly contemplated the idea that even just a little bit of that was because of her. Ego, she reminded, eyes drifting to the ground to smile at the rug there. But his silence was screaming and she took a breath, touching the tip of her tongue to her top lip as he looked to her.
"Do you notice," she began quietly. "Do you notice what you adapt to? Why," she called, pausing before she finished, "Why you adapt?"
His fingers pressed automatically, finding the aches in her foot as he supplied, "It takes a while, but yes, eventually I can identify the what behind the changes." Then he added, "Or the who."
Her brow rose curiously at the words, seeing his head toggle twice in consideration.
"This face reminds me of who I am, to remain honest to what I promised when took on the name, the Doctor. It comes from a man in Pompeii I saved when I was reminded by a friend that saving at least one was possible." He smiled. "Handsome fellow." He looked to Clara's annoyed twisting of her lips to offer, "I think my accent comes from my previous companion, maybe a bit of my fire comes from her as well." He laughed lightly, switching Clara's feet casually between his palms to continue massaging. "The wine," he breathed, "You wanted to know about the wine."
"Is the wine for me?" She prompted boldly.
His head lifted and his hands slowed to a stop as he breathed, "You."
Nodding, Clara shrugged, "You hated wine, I remember you hated wine."
The Doctor's laugh was light and amused and she looked away from it, embarrassed, but then he told her truthfully, "Perhaps I'd never thought on it before, it seemed like such a little thing." He slowly worked his thumbs over the bottom of her foot before continuing, "The brutal honesty that's sometimes mistaken for cruelty; the ability to carry a face for truth and not vanity; the steady gait and confident stride; the newfound interest in style more fashionable than cool; the bit of distance between myself and the emotions that used to sit so readily at the sleeve; the palette for finer things, like yoghurts and wine..." he trailed with a smirk. "There's a growing list of attributable things, not all of them good, which perhaps I have adapted in this new self for you."
Clara released a small breath, absorbing and accepting his answer, nodding slowly as his hands stopped, gripping her foot firmly, "So that's a thing you actually do, adapt to... people."
His thumbs slowly stroked at her skin as he smiled shyly and declared quietly, "Yes, Clara, it's a thing I do."
"That's," she began before pausing and then adding quietly, "Interesting."
"I believe I get my penchant for excessive thoughts over simple things from you as well, as you're doing now, wondering what it all means – the why behind those certain little adjustments, regeneration to regeneration, that acclimate me to specific people. Questioning whether the changes to make me more suited for you mean something more than just needing to be more compatible with my current travelling companion..."
"Yes," she stated.
"Yes," he breathed in response.
They stared at one another, wide-eyed with a touch of fear at what the question and the answer meant and Clara swallowed roughly, turning away first, looking to the set of almost empty glasses set atop her coffee table. She nodded slowly and then released an anxious laugh, telling him, "Maybe we should cut the wine off for tonight."
"And avoid the inevitable truths it allows?" The Doctor challenged.
She looked to him, eyes narrowing curiously, "Inebriation leads more to regret than revelation."
"I regret nothing I've revealed," he told her on a small nod of his head, hands slipping to her ankle.
Clara shifted her legs out of his grasp and off the couch, reaching for the bottle of wine to refill their glasses, looking to him as he palmed his own knees and pulled his lips between his teeth. She knew that look well, and it lifted the edges of her own lips in amusement, because a nervous Doctor with a bit of wine warming his belly and a curious list of thoughts rolling around in his mind was one she enjoyed far too much. Handing him his glass, she watched him as they took another long sip in unison and she reveled in the feel of it slowly working its way into her stomach, knowing the first cup was already lowering her eyelids and relaxing her limbs.
"So," she sighed, turning and pressing her back into the couch cushion beside him, so close she could feel his body heat permeating what little she wore, so close she could see the minute shifts of his eyes to look at the skin of her thighs and the sliver of black knickers peeking out from beneath the edge of the matching jumper. "You molded yourself to me," she stated, shoulder leaning into him before she swung her bare legs carefully back up onto his lap, "For me, I suppose, a bit," she giggled and then raised her free hand to cover her mouth.
His breath was warming her cheek, rolling over her neck and slipping just underneath her collar, no discernible answer on it. Or perhaps there had been and she'd merely not heard, resting her right temple against his shoulder to smile at the open window and the moon that lit up the clouds around it. She could feel the effects of the alcohol weighing the entirety of her heavily and she knew, coupled with the long day, it would put her out shortly.
"Doctor," she stated simply.
"Yes, Clara," he answered lightly.
"I should have eaten before that wine," she admitted on a sigh.
"Yes, Clara," he repeated.
"Doctor," she whispered.
"Yes, Clara," he breathed.
"It's reciprocal, you know. The little adaptations, as we get older through time, become new and different people as we progress through the stages in our lives, like regenerations. People do that when they're with someone they..." she trailed, because saying what she thought aloud was both admitting and accusing and she wanted neither in that moment, not even the sluggishness the wine in her system was causing could get the word out. "I've changed as well since we've met," she let out the smallest of laughs as she finished, "For you."
Nestling her head into his shoulder, she closed her eyes, listening to him let out a murmur of approval, no doubt knowing she was dozing off. No doubt, she thought, thinking she was speaking deliriously now. Clara thought to raise her head to repeat the words, to tell him she had no regrets about the ways in which she had changed, for better or for worse, but instead she reached up to grip at the pale shirt that hung loosely against his skin before laying her palm to his chest to feel those steady heartbeats, familiar beneath her fingers.
And he knew she was soothed by those heartbeats, reminding her she wasn't alone; that she would never be so long as he breathed, he'd promised her that long ago. The Doctor listened to her breaths as they slowed and curled his left arm up around her backside, letting her drop slightly into the space at his side. His mind was beginning to spin from the alcohol just enough for him to brush his nose against her brow before pressing a long kiss there, comforted by the small satisfied moan that escaped her lips. He was still in the process of change; still adapting to her; still filing away little moments, especially ones like this one, to help him understand what she wanted from him.
What she needed from him.
We change for those we love, Clara, he thought to himself, listening to her sigh as he smiled up at the glowing moon, telling it on a whisper, "And one day we might change for each other just enough to acknowledge it aloud."