"Clara! You promised you'd come onto the ice with us!" Angie demands and leans over the railing, staring annoyedly at Clara who is still sitting on the steps, her skates beside her, a plastic cup of tea in her gloved hands.
She allows herself a sigh before saying: "I'll be there in a moment. Promise." When Angie pouts, she smiles encouraginly at her. "Really, Angie. Just going to empty this and then I'll be there."
"Alright." Angie agrees and saunters off with an elegance that Clara didn't really expect. It had been a long time since she had taken the Maitland children ice skating, so when had Angie become so good at it?
But then again, a lot had probably changed since she had left the Maitlands to finally start teaching. Though she couldn't say that she hadn't been suprised when Artie had called and insisted that she take them out ice skating. She had expected them to move on – but seeing Angie and Artie wanting her to spend time with them so much makes her somehow happy.
She drinks the last bit of her tea before crushing the plastic cup and throwing it away. Then she takes off her shoes and starts putting on the skates when she hears it.
That wheezing, groaning sound. That one familiar sound. The one thing she feels she'd recognize anywhere.
It materializes on the other side of the ice rink, the blue box, right between the sky scrapers, and her heart seems to stutter in her chest for a moment. She's on her feet and walking towards the TARDIS before it's even fully there and the gust of wind makes her hair slap her face when the groaning comes to a stop.
For a moment, she's confused. She wants to knock and open the door, but she doesn't really dare to. After all, who knows which one it is? What if it's not her Doctor, what if it's someone else, someone who doesn't know her yet? Before she can make a decision, the door opens from the inside and he falls almost on top of her, poking her eye out in the process with his ridiculous chin. "Clara!" He exclaims, straightening and fixing his bow tie. "What are you doing here?" She smiles up warmly at him. "I'm taking Angie and Artie ice skating. They've been nagging me for quite a bit about it. What about you?" She cocks her head to the side and musters him. He doesn't seem dressed for winter, instead he's wearing his usual combie – purple overcoat, vest, white shirt, bow tie – so she doesn't think he actually meant to land where he land, meaning he isn't following her around.
"I… I wanted to go to Canary Wharf." He admits after a moment of hesitation. She just nodds in understanding, he doesn't have to tell her. After all, she was there, too – she remembers. She knows the meaning Canary Wharf holds for him.
"Don't beat yourself up to much, Chinny." She says and reaches out, placing her hand on his arm and squeezing once. "I need to get back on the ice – join me later on, if you want."
He nods and she knows he's watching her as she walks back to where she left her skates.
It's half an hour later, when she is chasing Angie and Artie on the ice, that he almost crashes into her frontally, arms windmilling helplessly, a confused look of what the hell is happening on his face.
She laughs after she catches him and almost falls, causing him to pull her close to her. His breath tickles her hair and she almost can't surpress the shiver it causes to run down her spine. His one hand rests on her upper arms, his other arm snaked around her hip and as she looks up, his eyes are glued to her lips.
"Clara! There you a… oh." Artie sounds mildly embarrassed and, when she whirls around, she catches the faintest hints of red on his cheek. "Hey Clara's boyfriend. Didn't know you'd join us."
"I didn't know either! Kinda spontaneous, as these things go. So. Ice skating, huh? In good old London town, yeah?" He rubs his hands. "D'you wanna go ice skating somewhere more exciting?" "No!" Clara exclaims before Artie can even process the Doctor's question. "We're not going off onto some foreign planet to skate and then find some murderous ice monster there. Not a chance!"
"But…" "No." She sees that he doesn't like it, but she won't budge. She can't drag Angie and Artie back into the TARDIS, not after what happened the last time she did and she herself needs to normality of this. She needs to go ice skating in London, with the children and nothing but normal human beings. As much as she loves adventures, as much as she loves the thrill of it all, as much as she loves traveling with the Doctor, as much as she loves him being by his side, she needs this, too. She needs ordinary human things that tie her down to Earth. And this afternoon was supposed to be nothing but that. "I'm sorry, but no." He looks at her for a long moment, mustering her face before he finally shrugs. "You're the boss." He finally concedes. "I mean, not usually. Usually, I'm the boss. But this is your territory, so you're the boss. No ice skating on foreign planets if the boss lady doesn't want it." She smiles up at him thankfully and, as he winks, she knows he understands. "So, Artie, what were you doing?"
When Artie has explained that they were playing catch, the Doctor joins in with a childish joy she had almost forgotten he has. As he chases the children across the ice, she can't help but stare. He is his usual uncoordinated self, with flailing arms, crashing into the barrier around the ice rink and people alike. In addition, he's also kind of slow – meaning he gets caught by Angie and Artie a lot while barely keeping up with them. She allows him to catch her a few times just because she knows that it will make him happy and because she's fast enough to get to the children. The brilliant smile he gives her each time is also definitely worth it.
Finally Artie and Angie seem drained of their energy and leave the rink to sit down on the benches around it and get something to warm themselves up. Clara skates to the Doctors side and, seeing him wobble around and almost fall once more, she closes her hand around his.
"I'm glad the TARDIS brought me here exactly now." He admits in a quiet voice. "Haven't had this much fun on an ice rink in quite a bit."
She smiles up at him widely. "Glad to hear that." As she look over to Artie and Angie, she continues: "And I think you made the day quite a bit better for those two as well." He smiles down to here, completely focused on her – and completely missing the person in front of him, leading him to crash into them and fall down, pulling her down with him.
She can barely process what happened before he is leaning over her, hands smothering over her face, searching her for any obvious scratches and asking if she is okay repeatedly. She smiles up at him, saying: "I'm okay. Doctor, I'm okay, don't worry."
"Alright. Alright." He looks down at her and smiles softly, his eyes traveling between her lips and her eyes.
And she knows it, then, that this is the moment where they will kiss. The hand holding, the flirting, the touching, the kissing on the cheek and the forehead, all this, it's finally culminating in this moment on the ice rink by Canary Wharf. And it doesn't matter that it's Canary Wharf and that there are people and that Angie and Artie are there because finally. Her hands travel into his hair almost instinctively as his cup her face and her eyelids flutter and close and then suddenly his lips are on hers, not flailing and surprised like the first time she kissed him during that Victorian winter, but soft and shy, as if he is asking for permission and her insides are on fire on the ice, she almost tastes the stardust on his lips, but more importantly, she also tastes his humanity.
As he kisses her, he isn't a thousand year alien for a moment and she isn't an impossibility, she isn't a girl that scattered herself through time and he isn't a boy that does nothing but run all his life. She's just a woman and he's just a man and that is more than enough.