A/N: This oneshot takes place after Issue #1-4 of Titan Comics' Year Two of the Twelfth Doctor's comics. Just an idea that I've had for a while now. If you haven't read the comics, I suggest you do so soon. They're brilliant. Year 1-3. Not that you NEED to have read the comics to understand this fic, mind. No biggy. Beware for smut in this story. And a very assertive Clara. Figured I'd warn everyone, even if you did notice the tags. I just love writing smut between these two, okay. No judgements here.
"We are never going back to Raven's Isle! In fact, I'd be perfectly fine with staying away from Scotland for a while as well! I'll be having nightmares about fish people for weeks to come."
Her words, as she strode out of his blue box and into her kitchen, earned her a pair of angry eyebrows from the Doctor. "Really, Clara, it's not Scotland's fault that there were fish people on that island! And they're not fish people! They were Sea Devils."
She waved a hand and sighed. "You're biased. Hush. You don't get a say because you're all cross and angry-looking all the time and Scottish now."
Once in her kitchen, she washed her hands and set about putting the electric kettle on for tea. She plopped two mugs down, readied the teapot. Then she cast a perplexed look his way.
It had all been rather eventful, hadn't it? One thing in particular, though, stood out to her. Above all the rest, really. He'd walked in on her whilst she was in a giant bubble bath. It didn't even phase him in the least. And he'd knelt down on the floor to talk to her, rambling and prattling on in that way of his that he always had. And she'd let him.
Did he even notice these kind of things? Did he look at women and men and feel… things? He looked at her and it was like he looked right through her, sometimes. She was his best friend, his carer , the one he'd stolen away with in the middle of the night that past Christmas, and although it felt like he wanted or saw more than friendship between them on occasion, they never crossed that line. Tiptoed along it sometimes, maybe, but never crossed it.
He was too hard to read. Then again, she could just be the one reading too much into things. If he truly wanted something more, she would probably know by now. Right?
He told her that he wasn't her boyfriend once. Although, looking back on the memory now, it felt like ages and ages ago. And in a way, it really was.
He looked at women and men and other species and saw beings. Life-forms. He didn't see beauty. Beauty was a construct of the mind, depending on one's experiences and all that. He saw beauty in the stars, the planets, galaxies, nebulae. He didn't see her as beautiful.
Or did he?
She was curious. If anything, it gave her a chuckle. She was a madwoman for even daring to allow her mind to go in that direction.
She fixed them a pot of herbal tea once the kettle came to a boil, then listened as he began emptying his pockets of various knick-knacks to pass the time. "Oh, wow," he muttered softly. "Didn't even know I still had one of those…" Another clink and a clank. "Might toy around with that later…"
The clatter continued as she eventually poured them two steaming mugs of hot tea, then added sweetener and brought them to the table. There was, among a slew of objects, a pair of handcuffs. And keys, too, she noted. She tapped the former, eyeing them and allowing a soft grin to touch her lips. "I didn't know you had handcuffs," she said quietly. "Mind if I borrow those next time I'm out on a date?"
It was harmless. She only said it to see the deep, blotchy blush that colored his cheeks. Immediately, he began tucking everything away again. "Oh, Clara Oswald," he mumbled, not really having anything else to say. Maybe he just liked the way her name sounded on his lips. Maybe that was it. Her cheeks warmed as well from the mere thought.
Two blushing idiots standing around in a kitchen after a wondrous adventure with students, a Scottish school, and fish people (no, no, actual Sea Devils). Nothing at all wrong with that.
"Just kidding," she added a moment or so later, sipping at her tea and having a seat there at the table across from him. He followed suit, however fidgety he was, and sat down to cradle his cuppa in two delicate hands.
It occurred to her, over those few short moments, that he was only being so delicate because he was sipping from her favorite mug — one with kittens wearing knitted sweaters that her nan had bought her one year for Christmas. It touched her. Somewhere deep, too. Heartstrings were definitely tugged.
"Where are you off to next?" she inquired, as if it was a conversation they allowed themselves every day. But it wasn't too out of the realm of possibility with the lives they happily lead together.
"Who knows," he said, gently tapping his nose. She saw, in that moment, in his mannerisms, a piece of his fourth incarnation and allowed herself a gentle smile, ducking her head to sip at her tea. It burned, but only lightly, and it soothed her throat on the way down.
One should always have a good cuppa after a long adventure. Or so she told herself every Wednesday night after he left, heading off to Gods knew where, and she felt the slightest, strangest twinge of sadness and loneliness.
Her eyes lifted to meet his, finding a melancholy there that she hadn't been prepared for. As if the mere thought of leaving her left his hearts aching and a sadness washing over him. She cleared her throat softly, deciding to change the subject.
"I have so many papers to grade. You could—" The words were barely out of her lips before he snorted and rolled his eyes, determined to play it cool.
"Whatever you're about to suggest, Clara," he merely said, "please don't. I always find something to get up to while you're off playing teacher. It's perfectly fine."
She buried her face in her mug. "Some sort of trouble to get up to is more like it," she muttered to herself, much to his dismay, and sipped at her tea.
"Well," he said, setting aside an empty mug a few minutes later and rising to his feet. "I should really be going. I suppose I'll see you in a week." He turned, casting a look over his shoulder that cut her heart in two. He wanted anything but to leave, she could see it, and yet there wasn't a single thing she could do about it. "Alright," she heard herself say, although her heart was pounding in her ears.
As he walked off, she said, "You know that you're my best friend, right?"
That seemed to give him pause. With a hand on the TARDIS, he stopped and cast a long look her way, clearly amused. "Yeah, I think I do. What made you say that?"
She shrugged in that way of hers, tucking a wisp of hair behind an ear and giving him a secret smile — the kind of look that made him melt. "Just wanted to remind you, you know, incase you'd forgotten."
With a smile and a gentle nod, he slipped into his big blue box and left. She heard the wheezing sound, Sexy's complaints, heard a few papers fly and fall to the floor of her tiny living room, and felt a sigh tumble from her lips. He was gone. Gone for another whole week.
Another week where she longed to see him again, longed to hold his hand and run away with him, longed to solve mysterious and save civilizations. Longed for time with him.
She didn't have to wait the week out, however, because it was on Sunday afternoon that she was startled in the loo. Now, the bathroom off from Clara's bedroom wasn't a very big one, mind, but it was sufficient and it held a tub and a shower, along with a large counter for her cosmetics and toiletries. Big enough, she told herself. It was one of the reasons she'd decided on this flat of hers in the first place.
And, apparently, it was big enough to fit a TARDIS.
She was livid for a moment. Livid and concerned and scared, all in the same span of time. Why on Earth was he coming to her on a day that didn't begin with a "W" and end in a "day"? She was worried. Something must be wrong. She knew that much.
Furthermore, it was quite enough already that the madman parked his beloved ship in her bedroom? What if she was ever busy and he walked in on her? Or her with someone else? Not that it would ever happen, she hoped, but the thought remained.
But in her bathroom? While she was having a nice, hot bath? That was too much to process.
The first time it had happened, well — it was only a mistake and an accident and she was fine with it. But twice in a week? That was a bit much. A bit overboard.
Out he came in a spacesuit that reeked of sulfur and his face was smudged with dirt. Or, wait — was that dirt? She didn't want to ask.
She tucked her knees to her chest, all too aware of the lack of bubbles this time around. The only thing that protected her image and modesty was the purplish hue to the water from a bath bomb she'd tossed in earlier.
"Wait," he said, clearly alarmed. "This isn't the bedroom! Or the living room!" He turned to the TARDIS, poked his head in, and said something in a language she didn't quite understand but recognized as Gallifreyan. Apparently that was something the TARDIS didn't want translated for Clara's ears to hear.
"Oh well," he eventually mumbled, tossing a look Clara's way, returning without the space suit.
She looked so… tiny, like that. So embarrassed and fretful and innocent. He softened immediately. "I'm sorry," he tried, but she cut him off before anything else could fall from his lips.
"This is not okay!" Clara said rather loudly, the neighbors be damned. "Landing in my loo like this! What kind of girl do you think I am? And I don't care that the TARDIS apparently got it wrong! I don't care that it's not even your fault! I'm just mad! What kind of girl does the TARDIS think I am, anyway? I'm offended!"
He braced himself for the shouting, of course, but what he wasn't ready for was the amount of skin she was showing off. He winced at her harsh tone, looking a bit too much like a frightened puppy there in the line of fire.
"You are two-thousand years old!" she hollered at him. "Can you not handle a woman yelling at you? You're ridiculous! Get out of my bathroom! Right now! Before I throw something at your big, stupid head!"
She hurled a sopping wet loofah his way but he caught it, which only seemed to anger her further. "You know," she started up again after a long breath, "I'm naked in this bathtub and it's like you don't even care! It's maddening!"
An angry Clara was a terrifying Clara. And it took him all of about twenty long seconds to understand what she'd just spat at him. His brows furrowed, hands held up in defense. "What do you mean, Clara? I'm sorry, alright? I mean, of course I care that you're naked. You should drain the tub before you freeze to death. It could be quite dangerous. Hypothermia isn't something—"
A bottle of shampoo was tossed at his head and he took that as his cue to leave the bathroom altogether. What wasn't he understanding?
When she emerged from the steamy loo, she was barefoot and her hair was wild and she was all wrapped up in a fluffy towel embossed with an embroidered symbol he didn't understand. What was Kohl's? A man? A family name?
"Why are you here on a Sunday?" she asked him, her voice even and her expression calmed, although there was still a fire in her eyes that terrified the Hell out of him.
"I needed your help with something," he said quickly, cringing and looking comical in doing so. Was he expecting a smack? A slap? Something else? Pfft, perhaps, she thought. "It can wait," he added a moment or so later. "Or, you know what? I can do it myself. I'm sorry. Let me just, erm, get around you so I return to the TARDIS."
That's when she saw it. His eyes fell to her chest. She was all covered up in a towel but her neck, collarbones, and shoulders were exposed. She would have had to be blind to miss the brief look of longing on his features. She was fairly sure his breath even caught.
"If you want to leave," she said quietly, "then go. You wear me out, Doctor. I'm exhausted."
He blinked a few times, noting how she didn't bother to step away from the doorway or give him any room. In the background, he could just barely make out the soft gurgling sound of the bathtub draining soapy water. It was, honestly, the only sound in the flat. Aside from their soft breaths, that is.
"Okay," he suddenly said, wiping away the lingering soot and dirt on his cheeks from his adventure earlier, using his shirt-sleeve. He came forward, hoping to step around her and just be done with it and escape her tiny, terrible flat, but she wouldn't budge. It felt like the walls were closing in on him. "Why aren't you moving?" he asked, swallowing thickly, a bit worried.
"Because," she answered honestly, "I'm wondering if you'll look at me again like you just did. I'm not even sure if you were aware of doing it or not." She paused. "I'm hoping that you were."
She caught it. She caught sight of his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat as he swallowed. It felt like an eternity passed before he dared to search for his voice and speak.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he said, looking everywhere else but down at the small, petite brunette that was standing in front of him. She smelled so good, so tantalizing. It took all of his energy not to allow himself a deep breath in.
"Like Hell you don't!" She surprised him with that, making him jump slightly.
"Clara!" he cried. "Language!" She shouldn't have laughed. It shouldn't have been so funny to her. But she did. She laughed until it tapered off and he sighed.
Finally, finally his eyes met hers. And what she saw there, in his gaze, made her feel brave enough to speak the words she so desperately needed to say. "Please tell me I'm not imagining this electricity between us. Please tell me that you can feel it, too."
He leant in closer, almost as if he planned to kiss her, then stopped. Why? "Clara, I'm sure you're just tired. Teaching those little Humans all day is stressful, I'm sure. You could do with some rest. Now, let me by. Sorry I had bad timing. And landing, apparently."
There was a moment that passed where she hung her shoulders, something twisting and churning in her belly. It felt like defeat. And all at once, she was angry again. "Doctor!" she said. "It's the weekend. You do realize that I don't teach on Saturdays or Sundays, yeah?"
She reached for him with two hands, thankful that her towel was properly tucked around her slim body. She seized him by his shoulders, spinning his lithe body around and taking some sort of satisfaction in the look of pure shock there on his features.
"Look at me," she said. "I'm sick of this. I'm sick of this game we play with one another. Don't you want me? I don't care about your bloody… guilt or self-hatred or whatever else there is. You deserve to be happy."
She drew him close, surprised by how pliant he'd become in those few seconds. Her lips found his in a mostly-one-sided, desperate, heated kiss. His eyebrows flew upwards, a bewildered sound falling from his lips. "Clar—Clara, what? Mmph?"
His attempt to speak was smothered out by her lips and her kisses. Eventually, he softened and complied, lips parting on extinct. Even if a sound of protest came from the back of his throat, she knew he was a goner. He wanted this just as much as she did.
She kept kissing him. Suddenly his tongue was halfway down her throat and they were both moaning grappling for one another. Her hands landed on his shoulders, arms moving around his neck. His brushed the bare expanse of her shoulders and roamed lower, down to her lower back. He even cupped her backside, drawing her in close.
"Do you even understand how long I've been waiting for this?" she asked, guiding him backwards to the mattress without a thought or care. "What do you even see when you look at me?"
He stopped rather abruptly. "Doesn't it go without saying, Clara?" He instantly looked peeved. "I see you. I see a young woman with stars and nebulae in her eyes. I see a brave woman, a courageous school teacher who likes expensive perfume and herbal tea and saving planets. I see someone who can't lie well and someone who likes to be in control and someone who thrives off of saving people's lives because she's a good person. I see a bit of myself in you. I see someone who's saved me in so many lifetimes, so many ways. I see someone special. I see my impossible girl. I just see you."
Utterly astounded, she simply stood stock-still for a moment and stared. He shrunk a bit beneath her gaze, cheeks turning pink. "What? What is it? Have I said or done something wrong now?"
She reached out for him, grasping the lapels of his dark coat and kissing him earnestly. There was passion, sparks. Everything she'd always longed for with him. She made a sound that she'd never admit to making and went falling into bed with him.
"Clara, you're naked." She laughed, pushing him backwards. "Yes," she told him, "that's generally how these things work."
His breath caught in his throat and it was as if his reaction to her sent her up in flames. The Doctor, reeling, nervous, in bed with her and kissing her. How often did that happen? How about never.
These lips of his weren't new to him anymore, and neither was this face or his hands, but he seemed awkward and lanky and anxious as he began touching her. He seemed like he had no bloody clue what he was doing. Perhaps he'd never done this before, at least not in this body.
How her towel was still glued to her curves was an absolute mystery to him, and to her, and she made short work of dropping it. The gasp, the intake of breath on his part was sexier than anything she'd ever seen him do.
For a moment, he simply marveled her. "I'm sorry," he suddenly said, rather abruptly. "I'm sorry that I ever told you that you were built like a man."
Fine time for apologies. She laughed at that. It was a happy sounding, a comfortable sound. One of pure amusement. She bent her head, meeting him halfway to kiss him softly. "Mm, yeah," she whispered, "I bet you are."
Rolling them over gently, he mapped out her entire body like a broad, beautiful constellation that he wanted nothing more than get lost in. He found every freckle, every scar, every blemish, every sweet spot. And he kissed them all. Slowly, and with purpose.
She was writhing before she could help herself. She was helpless to the emotion he stirred within her, along with the sheer unbridled desire that welled up in her tummy. She was hopeless. No one else would ever be able to fill this void if he left her. No one.
He parted her thighs before carefully shedding his coat. Almost methodically, really. Then his hoodie and a t-shirt, his belt following. He unbuttoned his trousers, a pair of blue-green eyes floating up higher to meet her chestnut ones. She seemed so eager, so needy. He was at a loss for that look of love there, in her eyes. Utterly at a loss.
He shed his gray plaid trousers whilst their eyes lingered on another, then his question mark patterned boxers beneath. Bare to her now, he felt completely vulnerable. Instead of allowing her eyes to roam over him, he laid down between her thighs and covered her warm, tender bundle of nerves with his lips and tongue.
How, he wondered, had they even got to this point? Minutes ago she was in the bathtub and he'd accidentally landed his precious ship in the loo, who, as he thought about it, had fibbed to him for one reason or another about her location. She'd thrown objects at him, Clara had, hurled abuse at him, and then hurled herself at him. And here they were, making love in her queen-size bed. Not such a bad ending to the evening, after all.
He'd always kept his heart so close, kept himself tucked away from any and all emotions. She broke down every wall, every barrier, even scaled a few to save him and reach him. But that was so like her. So like his impossible girl. She saved him in any and every way, he realized.
A pair of warm lips tease and laved at her clit, knowing it was what she needed. Perhaps, she might have expected this when he'd crawled lower and made a journey of reaching the apex of her thighs with kisses, but what she hadn't expected was just how much joy and pleasure he seemed to derive from satisfying her this way.
He was attentive. He was patient. He was so good. So deft and nimble.
And when she came, on a gusty sigh and a long, low moan, her fingers all tangled up and lost in his beautiful, wild curls, he suddenly realized just how beautiful she actually was. It took her minutes to come back down. He watched her jump and jolt and felt her thighs clench and roll. He watched her breasts heave as she fought for gasps.
He watched it all, just like he watched stars explode and galaxies birth. He watched her, in all of her beauty, as she splintered and shattered around him and he was there to pick up the pieces. He was there to put her back together, kiss by delicate kiss.
If one had ever asked him to describe his Clara, he would have used a great many words. A great many, indeed. All good ones. Well, maybe not the bit about her being a slight control freak. But, aside from that, he never would have used that word.
Beautiful.
But, good Gods, she was magnificent. And he suddenly needed to be on top of her.
"Beautiful," he found himself murmuring, crawling up higher to seek her warmth. In every possible way. Her arms encompassed him for a moment, their lips meeting. She tasted her essence on his lips, something that drew another moan from her lips, and he flicked her lower lip the tip of his tongue.
Tender fingers trailed between them, down between their bodies, to feel for his hardening, aching erection. Her fingers were on him before he even guessed what she was up to. He moaned then, the sound shooting right through her to her very core.
She guided him closer after running her fingers all along his cock. Down the shaft, down the veiny underside and back up to where the tip was. She even teased the latter, wanting to draw another strangled sound from his lips. Her free hand began at his shoulders, smoothing along the faint muscle there, and then gliding along the long, smooth expanse of his beautifully pale back. Sex was just sex. But this wasn't sex. No, not by any means. This was worship, and Clara Oswald was worshiping his body and taking it all in.
He slipped inside of her so easily. She was tight and warm and welcoming. She squeezed him with her inner muscles, clenched them around him, and he groaned for her. They hadn't even begun and she knew exactly what he needed. Remarkable, really, how she always knew, no matter the circumstances.
He began to roll his hips for her, taking his time as he went. She cried out for him, much to his own satisfaction, and sank her nails into his upper back, into his shoulders. He moaned. Oh, he moaned and moaned and moaned for her. He came apart for her. So easily.
"Close your eyes," he told her. And she obliged.
He was there, gently pushing at the outer-lining and the outskirts of her mind and her thoughts. It startled her at first before she allowed him in, utterly encompassed by his desire, the sheer need for her there, and his love. Their minds were suddenly entwined.
She had no idea where she began and he ended, and perhaps that's what it felt like to make love with a Time Lord. He was a telepath and an empath, and so much more. He was a good lover.
She clung to him — wholly — and didn't bother to stifle any sounds. He might be smug about it later on, she thought to herself, but she didn't care. How could she?
And when she came again, she fell to pieces beneath him. She was the definition of a mess. And he fell into her, their teeth knocking together as they attempted a sloppy, messy kiss. Then it was his turn, with a bit of her coaxing. She clenched her muscles around him inside. That, she decided, was something he particularly adored.
And on a raspy, relieved sigh and a hoarse shout, he found his climax. He splintered and fractured before her eyes. Beautiful, it was, and she found herself unashamedly staring. Long eyelashes fluttered, lower lip moist from where he'd sucked it between his teeth, briefly ensnaring it, and his eyes dark and hooded.
They fell together, both landing on their backs across her squeaky mattress. Two heaps upon a cream-colored duvet. All at once, she began laughing. It earned a rather startled look from her Doctor, although he said nothing in response. A bit bent out of shape, perhaps?
"I love you," she suddenly — and quite tiredly — blurted out in confession to him. His head flew up, eyes finding hers.
She wasn't ever going to say those words again, not after Danny, but she just had. They fell from her lips so effortlessly. And perhaps, more than anything, that meant she'd healed. She was healing. Because she'd loved this man for so long and it felt good to finally free the words from the confines of her heart, her chest, like a bird from a cage.
She edged closer to him, tucking her head beneath his chin. A hand caressed his pale belly, a leg slung over his. She waited a moment longer before asking, "Are you okay?"
His nose was buried in her hair, words muffled. He said, "Never been better." But she heard. She still heard him. And then, in an even softer voice, he told her, "I love you too, Clara Oswald. My impossible girl."
All went silent for a while before he dipped his head to peck her forehead, a hand tipping her chin upwards to face him. His voice was soft, laced with sleepiness as he spoke. And he must have been sleepy, she thought, because he wasn't the romantic sort.
"The sunlight claps the earth," he began, voice a low drawl, "and the moonbeams kiss the sea: what are all these kissings worth, if thou kiss not me?"
He certainly knew how to seduce an English teacher, didn't he? Percy Brysshe Shelley was right up her alley. Obliging him, she leant in and pressed her lips to his. Long and slow and with no restraint. After all, they'd just had made love.
No more hiding, no more unexpected visits, no more worries. No more throwing things at him, either. Well, maybe. She wasn't sure about that last one. But they'd work it all out together.