A/N: Here's the story I've been promising! It's gonna be a good and long one, basically in the format of an episode.

Also, I'm accepting prompts now! You can check out my profile for details, but I can tell you right now that I am certainly taking 12/Clara friendship prompts.

Okay I'll shut up. Enjoy!

Clara Oswald sighed as she thrust her key into her apartment door. Another long day, and all she wanted to do was sleep for a week… But the heavy bag hanging on her shoulder was a painful reminder that she would probably be up into the night doing marking. With a sigh, she walked down the narrow hallway to get to the kitchen.

"Finally."

Clara paused in the doorway of the living room, watching as the Doctor threw a magazine down on her couch. "How do you read that rubbish? I was just occupying my time translating it into thirty-seven different languages."

"How long have you been waitin'?" Clara asked, scanning the room for any discrepancies. She remembered all too well how the Doctor had rearranged her entire living room the first time he had been left here alone.

"Don't worry, I didn't touch anything, just as you said." He pointed to the window in the kitchen. "I only fed those plants there."

Clara looked at her two little green plants, sitting on the windowsill, and noticed that just below them was a half full milk jug on the counter. She turned and raised her eyebrows at the Doctor. "With milk?"

He stood up and frowned, all innocence. "They looked thirsty. Come on." He waved her toward her bedroom where the yellow glow from the TARDIS peeked through the cracked door.

"Not even going to ask," Clara mumbled to herself as she hurried to put the milk back into the refrigerator, only to pause when she opened the doors.

"Doctor?" she called over her shoulder as she placed the milk back on its shelf. "Where are my eggs?"

"I needed them," he said from her room, his voice muffled by the door.

Clara shook her head. She needed them for the dinner she was cooking for Gran tonight. "For what?"

"Are you coming or are you just going to yell at me about your eggs?"

She sighed. "Coming." She heaved her messenger bag over her shoulder, sighing with pleasure as the weight was lifted, and tossed it onto a couch cushion.

Clara heard the familiar creak of the TARDIS door and walked into her room to see the TARDIS standing in the corner as if it had always been there. She pushed the door open and walked into the bigger-on-the-inside spaceship, so used to it now that she didn't even flinch when the doors shut behind her at the snap of the Doctor's fingers.

"Really, Doctor," Clara said, continuing through to the console where the Doctor was already preparing the TARDIS for flight.

He looked at her and raised his thick eyebrows, leaning his weight into the console. Clara used her best teacher look on him, noting not for the first time that the Doctor often acted just like one of her misbehaving students.

"Did you eat all of my eggs?"

The Doctor rolled his eyes and focused back on the controls. "I needed them for a thing." He turned a lever which made the TARDIS begin to whine its usual dematerializing noise.

Clara turned the lever in reverse, making the TARDIS stop and go eerily silent. The Doctor looked at her sharply and she kept an equally hard gaze with him. "'A thing' called your appetite?"

The Doctor shrugged, unconcerned.

Clara huffed. "Please tell me you at least cooked them."

"Of course I cooked them." A smile stretched his features, probably in response to her now skeptical expression. "Of course, you noticed that your eggs were missing, but you didn't notice that I put everything else back in their places."

Clara frowned. "I don't know if I believe you."

His eyes widened as if he had been insulted. "I know how to cook! I took lessons with Julia Child once, great cook and even better poker player-"

"I meant you, putting everything back in its place," she interrupted. "You could've just cooked them in the TARDIS or something."

The Doctor turned to face her, carefully settling his hands inside his pockets. "So you think I'd lie to you?" he said with a chuckle, though it was just sarcastic enough to shift the mood.

Everything was very still. It seemed that not even the TARDIS was being as loud as normal with its rumbling engine and random background noises. Clara was very aware that their normal, lighthearted bantering had suddenly evolved into something much more serious.

His gaze seemed to bore straight into her with its intensity. She couldn't look him in the eye, so she stared past him and copied his stance, curling her hands into fists inside the pockets of her dress.

"It's important that you trust me, you know," the Doctor continued in a low voice while she thought of an answer. "You trusted him. Why?"

Him. Young face. Bow tie. Bright smile. Her Doctor, whose care for her she would never question.

"He would do anything for me," she said, finally, looking back at the Doctor and regretting the words as soon as they were out of her mouth.

"Ah." He nodded. "And you think I wouldn't."

I know you wouldn't, she amended in her mind. The other Doctor had made sure at every moment that she knew he would take care of her no matter what. From this Doctor, however, all she had received were insults and clever rescues (as always). She had begun getting used to him not expressing very much emotion, but she sometimes wished that he would say something so that she knew where she stood in his opinion now.

Though Clara couldn't look right at the Doctor, she could feel his gaze on her. She didn't know what to say. He had changed, and she still wasn't sure if she would ever get used to it.

He spun suddenly, breaking the tension. "Where are we going?" His stare could have drilled holes into the console.

Clara swallowed, caught off guard by the sudden change in conversation. She wanted to resolve this, but right now she didn't know how.

"Barcelona?" he asked, his eyes relaxing as he turned toward her. "That was fun."

Clara tried not to think about the fact that it had been a trip with the other Doctor. "We can't go to the same planet twice."

His eyebrows furrowed together. "Why not?"

"I'm trying to set a record." She smiled at him. "Where am I now? A hundred and six?"

"Five," he corrected, switching a lever on the console.

"Space Florida counted!"

He sighed as he walked around the other side of the console. They had been through this argument before. "No, it didn't. We were there for less than five minutes."

Clara followed him, crossing her arms over her chest defiantly. "Yeah, but we were still there, weren't we?"

The Doctor looked down at her and opened his mouth, but paused. His eyes widened and he slowly reached a hand into his jacket pocket. He pulled out his psychic paper and flipped it open, his eyebrows furrowing as he scrutinized it.

Still facing the Doctor, Clara stood on her toes and tried to see what was on the paper, but she wasn't quite tall enough. "Doctor?" The shocked look on his face was beginning to make her uneasy.

He turned the wallet over so that she could see the white psychic paper. In bold, black letters, the phrase, "Help me, Doctor," was written. Clara looked into his steely blue eyes, wondering what it meant.

"How about a planet called New Earth?"