I would like to take a moment to thank nevertrustahug for tickling my funnybone and for being the inspiration behind this story.
The Halls Are Alive With The Sound Of…?
"Doctor! Doctor!" The sudden panic the Doctor heard in Clara's voice automatically sent him into his defensive mode. As he pushed his way through the milling bodies of students and teachers all clustered backstage, he wondered what alien threat would have chosen a sixth year Gifted and Talented production of The Sound of Music to disrupt. Though now, thinking back on the first two acts, there just might be a race of galactic thespian purists bent on riding the universe of horrid productions such as these. Was that such a bad thing, and should he really intervene?
When he finally made it to where Clara was flustering about, she grabbed him by the arm and pulled him off to a quiet corner. The Doctor noticed she was biting her thumbnail and that she looked rather anxious.
"What's wrong?"
"Rolf and Liesl are missing!"
He stared at her blankley. Who were Rolf and Liesl, he wondered? They sounded like the names of a pair of pet goldfish. Clara could tell he didn't have a clue and let out and exasperated, "Arrgggh!"
"Bradley and Sarah, Doctor! They are playing the characters of Rolf and Leisl in the play. The Sound of Music. Remember?"
"Oh, those two," he said, giving her one of his one of his 'see I can remember something when I have to' smiles.
"Yes, those two! They're due on next and they are nowhere to be found!"
"So, what? You think they were kidnapped by aliens or something? You want me to try and find them for you?
Clara looked at him like he was mental. "What? No! No, I think they just ran off. I heard from Annabel that Bradley kept trying to practice their on-stage kiss and that Sara punched him in the mouth."
The Doctor, for all of his exposure to them while hanging around Clara, never did understand miniature Humans and their antics. "Now why would she go and do something like that?"
She couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at him. "Seriously?"
He just shrugged.
She had to get the conversation back on track. "Look…Doctor, I need your help."
Ah! There they were, the magical words that when spoken from her lips, sent his hearts a flutter, made his respiration increase, his palms sweat and made him straighten up till he stood about two inches taller. He pursed his lips and looked around as if contemplating her offer, while his thoughts were heady with all the possible damsel in distress scenario's those words encompassed.
He was very eager to help. "Of course, what can I do for you, Clara?"
"I need you to do their number with me, it's coming up next."
The Doctor was not one to curse, especially not in this regeneration, but several, no…quite a few Gallifreyan expletives came to mind and made his eyes practically bulge out of his head. Clara noticed.
She rounded on him and backed him into a corner before he could run. "I know that you know the number Doctor. I've been playing the soundtrack on the Tardis for over a month now and you lip sync to that song every time it's on."
He crossed his arms and put up his best defense. "Yes, well lip syncing does not imply singing!"
"I've heard you sing."
He was indignant in his denial. "I do not!"
"You may be in denial Doctor, or just don't want to admit it, but every time you have your head in the stacks under the console I can hear you belting out some Jethro Tull, The Who, or Pink Floyd."
In an attempt to avoid the feeling that was at the moment flushing his face red, the size of his shoes suddenly became very interesting. Were they always this large, and were they the reason he was always stumbling around? Clara noticed he had deployed one of his avoidance tactics but she derailed it before he was too far gone.
"Oi! Put this on." She shoved a traditional Deutsch Trachten jacket into his chest. "What's this?" He asked as she moved around behind him.
"It's your costume," she said as she grabbed his collar and tugged his orange caretaker jacket off his shoulders. She had it down around his elbows before he could say, "Get off!" in either English or Ateiff's native Hindu.
"I can't do this!" He protested again. "I don't even belong here!"
She kept pulling his jacket down his left arm. "I think if you can pretend to be a temp janitor off and on for over a year, I think you can damn well pretend to be Rolf for one night!"
Oops. There it was, the tell tale word he only ever heard when all was not right in the world of Clara Oswald. Damn. It slipped out whenever she was truly exasperated…or desperate, which she obviously was right now.
"Fine! Fine!" He relented. Shooing her off of him, he finished removing his jacket and put his arms into the other one. It was made for a boy.
His frame was skinny enough to wear it, but his arms stuck out four inches past the sleeves and the hem of the jacket barley reached his belly button. He turned up a lip and raised an eyebrow at how ridiculous he felt and he hoped his expression and the stupidity of the outfit would garner some sort of sympathy from her. "That'll do," was all she said.
"Clara! You can't still be serious about this?" He held his arms out straight and the jacket sleeves rode up to his elbows.
She gave him her dead-eye serious look to his question about the seriousness of the situation and then said, "Just be glad I didn't ask you to put on the leiderhosen."
Whew! She had let him off easy.
"Go stand stage left and wait for me." She started to move off and he became panic stricken at being left alone.
"Where are you going?" His voice broke as he called out to her retreating back.
"I have to get into costume too. Be right back. Stage left." She pointed to the side of the stage where she wanted him to go and gave him a smile and a quick thumbs up of encouragement. It didn't help.
As he stood stage left waiting for her return, he towered over the children around him. He felt like Gulliver among the Lilliputians. Oh, if only they were! Then maybe they might blind him before this fiasco could ever continue. He didn't understand why he should be nervous about performing in front of a room full of middle schoolers and their families. He had a brief stint as a jester in Charlemagne's court. Now that was a tough crowd. What's the worst Coal Hill could dish out? Ridicule?
He felt a hand lightly touch his elbow. "Ready Doctor?"
He looked down to find Clara standing next to him and…., "Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" His fingers flew to his lips. Had he just invoked the names of earth's iconic Christian figures at the shock of seeing Clara in her costume?
Clara was just as shocked by his outburst, but her shock was quickly overshadowed by the fact that he wouldn't look her in the eye. The bodice of the Dirndl she wore was surely a size too small and her normally modest cleavage was now filling his eyes.
"Doctor?" She got no response
Doctor?" Still nothing, but she did notice that his fingers were now resting on his lower lip.
"Doctor?" His tongue crept out and began to slide back and forth across his fingers.
Oh bloody hell! He was not going to actually notice her now...of all times! "Doctor!" She slapped his arm causing his fingers to slip from his lips, thus breaking the spell.
"Wah..what. What's happened?" Something was amiss! He'd just lost 10.5 seconds of time. What was it, a freeze ray or a time loop? He looked around for the culprit. When his eyes fell back on Clara he realized what it had been, a brain override.
"You with me on this?"
He looked hurt. "I told you I'd sing your song."
"And the dance."
He threw up his hands. "What is it with you? I give an inch you want to take the whole ball of wax."
"No, Doctor its…I want to take a mile."
He rubbed hand across his forehead in exasperation. "Now I'm totally confused. Do you want a mile, a song or a dance? I need to know what it is before I embarrass myself out there."
She turned to face him and gripped the lapels of his tiny jacket. "You're not going to embarrass yourself out there. You know the song and you've been to every rehearsal; you should know all the steps by now."
"But I was at rehearsals as the caretaker not the understudy, I wasn't paying attention, I had a job to do."
She wrinkled her brow at his comment. Sometimes she suspected he really enjoyed his caretaker duties at Coal Hill. She leaned in close and whispered. "You know you're not really the caretaker. It's just your cover."
"I know that Clara. But I can't keep give Ateiff the crushing disappointment of unfulfilled dreams and then leave him with all the work that needs to be done here, poor man's got arthritis in his left hip.
"I didn't know that."
"He also makes a fantastic curry if you're ever interested. I've got the recipe."
He was getting her off topic, and by the sound of singing coming from the stage, there wasn't much time left. "Doctor, we've got to do something. We've only got a couple of minutes at the most."
"Ok what to do?" He steepled his fingers against his lips in thought.
Clara bounced nervously on her heels in front of him until he finally blurted out in exasperation: "Would you please quit bouncing like that?"
What was his problem now, she wondered?
"All that…," he held his hands up like he was grabbing a pair of…her eyes flew wide. "…jiggling, it's distracting."
She crossed her arms across her chest and turned to stand beside him. "Sorry."
Without a distraction, he rose to the challenge he was given. "I got it! Do you remember the Ducal ball we attended on the Plaxarin Homeworld?"
"Who could forget, we had to learn that traditional dance for the ball." They said in unison.
"It has the same tempo as our song, if you follow my lead I think we just might pull this off."
No sooner than their decision was made did the curtain come down on the third act. They were up next. Children ran to and fro, scenery and props were pushed off and on stage, lighting dimmed and brightened. Clara took hold of the Doctor's hand and pulled him out onto the stage.
Aside from a painted backdrop of a glass gazebo the only prop for their scene was a small bench on right side of the stage. She sat him down. "Eyes on me." She said. "We can do this, I know we can."
Was she trying to convince herself? Because she looked like she was about to run offstage and leave him stranded out there alone.
The curtain rose.
It wasn't long before the snickers started, soon they were followed by the odd laugh here and there. Clara could see the Doctor set his lips tightly together in an effort not to say anything, but when the comment… "Look, its Ozzie and the Scottie!" …sent the whole of the audience into laughter, he'd had enough.
He popped up off the bench and pointed out into the darkened auditorium. "Right… Stanley, I'd recognize your pubescent squeak of a voice anywhere. You better shut it or I'll have to tell your mum about how you and your mate Tyler like to have a fag behind the school during your lunch period."
"Ow!…mum, Tyler made me!" Came a squeal from the rows to the right.
"Did not!" Followed from the rows somewhere back and off to the left. "Ow!"
This only caused more laughter from the audience and was getting them nowhere. "Same goes for the rest of you too!" He pointed out across the entire auditorium. "Oh, the stories I could tell your mums and dads."
You could now hear a pin drop.
Clara tugged on his arm and hissed under her breath. "Doctor, sit." He plopped back down on the bench and she gave Adrian a slight nod to let him know it was ok to cue up the music.
"Here we go." She whispered.
As the music started the Doctor stood. He took her hand, pulled her up to dance and began to sing.
"You wait little girl on an empty stage for fate to turn the light on." And they danced as he continued to sing.
The pitch and timber of his voice sent chills up her spine and speaking of spine, she'd forgotten how much intimate touching was involved in this traditional…oh crap!...she'd forgotten it was a traditional courtship dance for the engagement party of the Duke's nephew! How could she have forgotten that? Did he choose this dance on purpose? After all she did catch him staring at…Oh good lord! He was doing it again, and the hop skip steps they were performing at the moment weren't helping matters either.
On the next turn, when they came back together she deliberately pressed herself into his pelvis. That got his attention. His eyes snapped quickly back to hers and his pitch went a little higher as he sang his final line.
"I..I'll take care of you."
Clara gave him a smirk which he interpreted as: "You call that taking care of me? Oogling my breasts onstage in front of hundreds of people!"
And he responded with raised eyebrows and an indignant huff which clearly said: "How is what you're wearing my fault?"
More semaphoric looks would have to wait because Clara's solo about to start. The remaining contention between them began to give way to a subtle game of 'keep away' as they danced. Clara took every opportunity the dance moves gave her to move in as close as possible, while the Doctor tried to keep away by always being a move ahead of her. The audience quickly caught on to the oblivious pair and whatever play it was they'd come to watch was all but forgotten. Subtle 'oohs' and 'aaahs' came from the crowd every time they came close and then moved away again.
The Doctor could tell Clara was becoming frustrated. She obviously knew he had the lead and that there was no way she would win this at game they were playing. He gave her a smug smile to proclaim his victory. And when Clara saw it, she was livid! How dare he? It wasn't over…oh it was far from over! Dammit! She had to think…quick!
But she was out of time. Her song was starting.
Clara started singing and as the Doctor led her on, she knew one thing was certain, the only chance she had for a save or a win was to stop dancing. She looked frantically about as she danced and sang, looking for some way to get out of the dance and yet to still finish the scene. Her eyes landed on the only prop on stage. The bench. Oh…oh that's perfect!
The Doctor spun her away, but instead of spinning back into him she let go of his hand, ran over to the bench and stood atop the seat. It all happened so fast he was still standing center stage looking for her as she sang:
"Timid and shy and scared am I of things beyond my ke-en."
Most of the audience was yelling…"Go! Go!"…and waving the Doctor over to the bench.
He took their cue.
Clara was facing the audience as the Doctor stumbled to a halt in front of her, and as she sang her next line he realized that he had lost.
She couldn't help but smile as she sang: "I need someone older and wiser telling me what to do-oo!" And he couldn't help but put his hands to his hips and roll his eyes at her cheekiness.
Oh, but she wasn't through with him just yet. Because now came the best part. Now Clara was going to be able to do the one thing she'd been dying to do to him since he'd regenerated, the one thing that Leisl did to Rolf as she sang her last refrain in the gazebo.
Clara began twirling her hands in the Doctor's hair as she sang:
"You are seventeen going on eighteen, I-I'll de-pe-end on you!"
It was hard to tell who was more affected by the whole hands in the hair event. It was as she has feared. Once she had a hold of his magnificent silver waves she found if difficult to let go, she wanted to run her nails across his scalp and…
…the Doctor's eyes tried to look up at where her hands were twirling in his hair but they only succeeded in rolling up into the back of his head as his eyelid fluttered down, and when he felt her nails across his scalp, it sent a tingling sensation traveling down his spine that caused his mouth to fall open.
It finally took a loud.. "Ahem!"…from Adrian, who was standing just offstage, to get Clara to pull her hands out of the Doctor's hair and for him to open his eyes. There was still a few more minutes of the scene left, some more dancing and the chase kiss at the end. She had to get down off the bench so that they could finish. She still doesn't know why she did what she did next. She could have just hopped down, but she kept going where the scene left off in the movie. She fell into the Doctor's arms.
It was obvious he wasn't expecting it. He caught her in an extreme dip, with one arm snugly around her shoulders and one hand gripping her tightly at her waist. Clara instinctively put her arms around him to keep from falling further and they found themselves nose to nose. All was now lost.
If the eyes really were the windows to the soul, then these two had forgotten to close the curtains.
As Clara looked into the Doctor's eyes, she wondered why she never noticed it before, but it was like observing a pair of shimmering blue grey galaxies that were swirling around the edges of two deep and dark black holes that were pulling in all of the light of universe. And now, they were threatening to pull her in as well. Oh god!…they were pulling her in…
...and Clara's eyes reminded the Doctor of the twin hematite/bauxite laden moons of Bol Gadaar. The brown, red and black flecks that were shimmering up at him could be found dotting their rocky surfaces. The Death Moons, they were called. Because of their proximity to one another and their super dense iron/cobalt cores, not many ships could escape their magnetic pull. And it was the same with her eyes. They kept pulling him in…there was no escape…they kept pulling him in…
…and as their lips came crashing together, they reinforced Plato's first law of affinity.
And, as amazing as it sounds, time did stop and the world did cease to exist for them…as for the rest of the audience though, the boys whistled, the girls swooned, the mothers wondered why their husbands no longer snogged them that way, and the fathers wanted to know if Arsenal had won or lost.
The Doctor and Clara would have been content to go on kissing for a while longer, but somebody in the audience had to go and yell out: "Ozzie loves the Scottie!" (And I'm sure we all know who that was.) Clara tilted back her head and the Doctor looked out above raised eyebrows. Everyone was clapping now. Her face turned red, his face turned pink and she whispered emphatically in his ear: "Doctor, is your sonic in your pocket?"
The question threw him. "No-oo." Her eyes got bigger, wrong answer. "Yesss."
"Then pull it out!"
His face blanched…double entendres really would be the death of him.
After a half second, she recognized his quandary and rolled her eyes at him. "Your sonic!" She hissed. "We need a distraction!"
He let go of her waist and pulled his sonic from his back pocket. He turned it on and mentally chose setting fifty two. Two seconds later there was a loud BOOM! and the entire school went dark. The Doctor escaped with Clara in the ensuing commotion.
Since he was already holding her it made sense, at least in his mind, to just pick her up and carry her out. She didn't seem to mind, at first, but once they were clear of the auditorium and outside in the breezeway and now heading towards the caretaker's storeroom, she began to protest.
'I think I can walk on my own now Doctor."
"Not much further." He kept marching along.
"No, really …you can put me down now."
This time he didn't reply. As he'd been walking, he'd been thinking about the evening's events and how he'd had no control over anything that had happened to him. And he'd come to the conclusion that it was time to take some of it back from her!
What was up with him? She kicked her legs and squirmed. He held her tighter. She squinted her eyes and glared at him. He wouldn't look at her.
"Doctor?" No reply.
"Doctor?" Still nothing. He stopped outside caretaker's door.
"Doctor, I demand that you talk to me!" She let out a squeak when he kicked open the door.
She was starting to slip in his arms a little so he hefted her up to get a better hold, and he spoke to her before he continued on inside.
"You might want to consider laying off the sweet cakes in the teachers lounge for a while."
How dare he? He was making comment about her weight! "Well…I never!"
"Yes…yes you do. Don't try and deny it. I've seen you eating them at the staff meetings." He snapped his fingers as he approached the Tardis and the double doors flew wide for him. He carried her on inside and stood with her in his arms in front of the console.
"Put me down Doctor!"
"No." He snapped his fingers again.
"Put me down!" She began to kick her legs. When that got her nowhere, she tried to twist herself out of his arms.
The way he was holding her was putting a strain on his back and with all her squirming around he was bound to lose his grip on her, so he took her and slung her over his left shoulder before she could protest. His left hand was holding onto the back of her thighs, perilously close to her buttocks.
"Doctor!" She growled. "Put me down this instant!" She flailed her legs again.
"Ooh…"I'll put you down somewhere Clara." He started off down the Tardis corridor.
"Where's that then!" She challenged him.
"Across my knee if you don't settle down."
"Wa…?" Did he just say what she thought he said? She was going to ask him, but then he took a sharp left and said:
"Now, where did I put my liederhosen?"
Clara's head shot up, and as their entangled forms slowly disappeared down the never ending corridor, her eyes were as big as the twin moons of Bol Gadaar.
2.5 billion light years away, in what was left of the Setarran Cluster of the Thraxia Nebula, the newly rebuilt Dalek fleet was busy harvesting new worlds when it received an urgent message from a scout ship. It arrived from an old battlefield known as the Milky Way.
"Activate the Void Ship!"
"Attention Dalek fleet. It has been confirmed that the Doctor has ripped a hole in the fabric of reality. All Dalek's must abandon this reality and enter the Void Ship until a new reality can be found."
In what was to later to become one of the greatest mysteries of modern times. The Daleks abandoned their entire fleet and disappeared from the known universe in just under two hours.
(In all actuality, the "ripping' sound that the Dalek scout ship picked up that day was just the sound of Clara's bodice being torn asunder.)