Author's Note:
This is the first in a series of one-shots that will chronicle the Doctor and Clara's sweeter moments in the Tardis. I'm not sure exactly how many stories this series will include, but for now I'll call it at least fifteen. I hope you enjoy the story!
Happy reading!
It was a simple question, so he didn't understand why he was suddenly so flustered. All she had done was ask a small, simple question. One he had probably heard a thousand times before. (Though, as he calculated, it was precisely seven-hundred and sixty-two times. More or less.) So why did he suddenly feel as though his tongue had swollen up in his mouth? It wasn't like him to not have anything to say. ('I have plenty to say,' he thought to himself, 'I just can't speak at the moment.') To think, one small simple question posed by a small, simple human girl could render the Doctor speechless. ('Not speechless,' he would argue with himself, 'just speech…less. Less speech but more thought. Thoughtful. There's the word. Thoughtful.) So much thought, in fact, that he could not speak.
The Doctor opened his mouth and closed it several times while Clara waited ever so patiently for a response. ('So articulate. You have the verbal skills of a square of cheese.') He kept his hands busy, nervously running them through his hair, wiping a hand down his face, fidgeting with his fingers like a little boy waiting desperately for something to be over. The Doctor, the oncoming storm, the last Timelord, the savior and destroyer of worlds, brought to his knees by a simple question. ('No, not to my knees, I'm still standing,' he corrected, 'into a temporary state of verbal arrest. Yes, that's it. Verbal arrest.')
But how could she possibly possess the power to make him, ever the clever, sharp-tongued Doctor, completely incapable of processing speech? ('Hormone rush in the brain, high amounts of epinephrine washing through the body causing the heart to race and hands to shake,' The Doctor observed his own shaky hands, 'the brain initiates complete shut-down of fine motor skills until the epinephrine has completely washed over the body, yes, I know, I'm clever, now say something.') But still, not a single word escaped his lips.
The way she was looking at him was really not helping his situation. How awfully, beautifully, terrifyingly intimidating she looked when she was smiling at him like that. How horribly, wonderfully, adorably her nose wrinkled at the bridge. Even her eyes seemed to smile with merry amusement. ('Trick of the light, the sparkling is nothing more than the lights from the console reflecting in the fluid of the eye.') No doubt she was amused by the effect she has made on him.
"Doctor," she spoke once more after what seemed like hours of flustered silence. ('Precisely twenty-two seconds," the Doctor smiled a little to himself as he could hear her voice in his head, 'don't be so melodramatic.')
"Doctor, do you dance?"
There, she had said it again. He had taken too long to reply and she had said it again. (Well perhaps if you would stop thinking to yourself and open your clever little mouth—')
"I don't really know," he answered as honestly as he could before he could give himself a chance to think again. "Haven't danced in a long while, last time I believe was at a wedding. My own, actually. Long story, I was engaged to the Princess of Butuuk. Completely accidental. Saw a hat, thought it was funny, turned out to be some sort of blessed marriage hat-thingy. I thought it looked more like a big floppy sunhat, but I didn't really have time to argue." ('You're rambling again, she asked a question.')
"But dancing! What sort of dancing do you mean? Samba, salsa, waltz, tango, the fertility dance of the Nefertiti Tribe?" The Doctor flexed his fingers a little and licked his lips nervously. "Perhaps not the last one."
Clara looked at him with such a smile. ('Such a bright smile, such a beautiful smile—') She moved to the old radio at the center console and fiddled with the buttons to find what she was looking for. ('Sweaty palms, I don't get sweaty palms. Stop that,' he lectured himself as he wiped his hands over his jacket, 'stop being nervous. It's just Clara. Normal, human, perfect Clara.') But it was never just Clara. It was his impossible girl, his Clara Oswald.
She had found what she was looking for. He recognized it as an old tune from the 1920's. Jaunty, upbeat, with just the right mixture of ballad. A satisfactory song for her, but to the Doctor it seemed to fit her well. ('beautiful song, beautiful Clara.')
"So Doctor," Clara grinned as she outstretched her hand. "Care to dance?"