Author's Note: well, here we go...I've had this idea in my head since I watched too many Twelve/Clara videos on Youtube...I also have a really bad habit of identifying with a character to the extent of projecting my own thoughts into that character. Hence this story. So...yeah. Enjoy!
"Your face is doing that thing it does when you're sad. Make it stop."
"Hello to you, too," Clara grumbled, barely glancing up from the wall (which she pretended held her attention). "You know, you could have knocked."
"Well, you wouldn't have answered, now would ya? You've not spoken more than two words to me since you got in the TARDIS, and they were 'shut up' before you stormed into the study to do the thing with your face and pushed the lock button. Unfortunately for you, the TARDIS is mine, and I have sonic sunglasses."
"Bravo, Doctor, bravo. Now would you mind getting out, please? I can't concentrate."
"On what could you possibly be concentrating!? The wall in here isn't set to do anything remotely interesting, and you can't possibly think the makeup you aren't wearing into existence."
He actually noticed I'm not wearing makeup?
"Of course I noticed you didn't put that toxic paint on your face. How could I not notice that you actually look younger than me today?"
Clara scoffed. "Did you just read my mind?"
"Eh, just your eyes. Although the telepathic link helps. Now, would'ya bother to tell me why you look sad?"
"It's just been a rough morning." Clara sat up and swung her legs to the floor. "I need to do some baking."
"Oh, for the sake of it all - not again! Clara!" The Doctor's forehead creased in frustration as he followed his best friend (who had gotten a running start) out of the study. "You can't attempt soufflés in the TARDIS every time your chemicals flare up, she doesn't like the smell when they come out wrong!" He glanced around quickly, attempting to discern which hallway and which kitchen - "Why do you even have two kitchens when we didn't use either of them before Clara came along?" he grumbled to the TARDIS, which made a sound more akin to an indignant huff than a hum - before choosing the left hallway and sprinting down it. The last thing he needed today was Clara destroying yet another soufflé and using up the last of the eggs and milk.
Kitchen doors opened. Blue kitchen. No Clara. "If the TARDIS lets you set the red kitchen on fire without activating the extinguisher, it's your fault!" he shouted down the hall.
Okay, so maybe that wasn't fair. It wasn't that Clara was an awful cook - in situations where they had either been stuck on a random planet or he had stayed in her flat longer than intended, she did quite well whipping up dinner - but it had been over a year, when he was still the one with the bow tie, since the last time she had attempted one of the cursed soufflés, up until about six months ago. After the dream crabs, she hadn't been quite right - and she had started back onto the old nostalgic hobby she had once let go of. Only now, she was attempting them in the TARDIS - something about her landlord "not being okay with her baking so much."
"I promise I won't burn the kitchen up, now just leave me alone!" he heard from somewhere within the TARDIS. With a sigh, he moved back to the control room, realizing that he couldn't stop the impossible girl from doing whatever she wanted. After all, she practically lived with him these days…
Clara slammed her hand against the countertop as the open oven revealed yet another sunken, ugly soufflé. "Sorry, Doctor, but you're out of milk," she muttered angrily as she removed the ramekin from the oven and dumped it into the disposal, which hissed at the temperature. "Sorry, old girl."
Days like today - days when waking up was hard, nothing went right, going to work was excruciating, socializing was beyond her capabilities - days like these, well, sucked. She'd had so many of them in the last ten months that she didn't know what to think anymore. Her hand went to her temple, trying to massage out the irritation and avoid the tears welling up in her eyes. Making her mother's soufflé was another thing in her life she couldn't do right - and it was just compelled to continue haunting her. Funnily enough, it hadn't up until Danny's death. When all the flowers were gone and there was nothing left to do - when the Cybermen had come and gone, as had the mourners, friends, family - when the Doctor believed her lies and left, all she could do was revert back to her old addiction. Other than being expensive (after all, there are only so many eggs in a carton and so many boxes of milk in a supermarket), it was a harmless addiction to have…but the satisfaction never came. She would never measure up, never truly be her mother's daughter.
Ellie was dead. Ellie had been dead for over a decade.
Danny was dead. Danny wasn't coming back. His one chance…and he'd sacrificed it to cleanse his soul. Something she could never do, in all her selfishness.
Clara sank to the floor and wrapped her arms around her knees, a single tear escaping her eyes, words spinning wildly in her mind. The same lines from the same song which had plagued her for months - "staring at the bottom of your glass, hoping one day you'll make a dream last/'cause dreams come slow, and they go so fast/you see her when you close your eyes, maybe one day you'll understand why/everything you touch surely dies…"
If she never heard it again, she'd always remember those damn words. Because they were her life. She wasn't one to connect such sentimental thoughts, even as the creative mind she was. Such things were cheesy, and they annoyed her. But when the song had come on the radio during the Doctor's eternally long silence, it resonated.
Mum. Danny. Gran, recently. She hadn't mentioned that one to the Doctor. Who could be next? She didn't have many more people she cared for, except him. And at the absolute worst, he could drop her off in Glasgow one day and fly away in his blue box, forgetting about her entirely…
After all, she was a curse on everyone she loved. They either died or they left. Plain and simple.
I need a drink.
"All right," she whispered, leaning sideways to rummage through the lower cabinet on her left. At the back of the cabinet, she found several familiar bottles, with the frontmost one carrying a Post-It note reading: For the day you finally decide to have a drink with me. Spoilers ;) - River. Clara reached for the half-empty bottle just behind it. She couldn't read what was in it (and the TARDIS refused to translate anything on any of the bottles), although the Doctor probably could…but it wasn't the Doctor who had been into the cabinet lately. He probably had forgotten that it even existed.
Which made everything in it fair game. Sorry, River, but you know he's not going to drink any of this.
"Here we go again…" as she popped the cork out and took a long, long swig.
It was going to be an interesting adventure today.
