A Day in the Life
(Short)
(Eleven/Clara)
Requested by: thatbetic
The young barista named Cliff woke up to the soft tinkling of door chimes as he heard the first customers of the day enter the shop. Cliff had found himself passed out with his face plastered to the cold surface the small, round metal table the employees used during breaks in the back of the shop. He checked his watch—7:47 am. Customers normally came around sometimes after 8:00 am. Cliff's shift does not start until 7:30 am, but he had been in the shop since 6:00 am. Ever since his boyfriend had left him a month ago Cliff had been finding himself uncomfortably lonely and idle in the flat they shared—worst of all was the difficulty sleeping.
They had a small fight the night before, it seemed so long ago and distant Cliff couldn't quite remember what it had been about, but he automatically assumed it was his fault. After all, Hank hadn't said a word to him. He was just gone one morning, didn't even take anything of his—he could not be contacted and nobody knew where he was. Cliff found life just a lot emptier since.
He sniffed once, blinking away the sleep in his eyes and pushing his black, plastic-rimmed glasses farther up the bridge of his nose. He stood up, quickly knotting his maroon barista's apron with deft hands as he walked towards the bathroom. He laid down his glasses on the sink before he splashed his face with cold water and fixed his purple mini-mohawk in the small, round mirror. In a hurry, he proceeded to the counter.
There on a booth at the farthest—and in his opinion, the comfiest—spot in the room, he found a small, dark-haired girl wearing a bright red dress and dark gray beanie. She was reading intently, a pocket book in her hands as she swung her brown-booted legs under the table in amusement. But Cliff couldn't see her face clearly. Realizing he had left his glasses on the bathroom sink, he sprinted away to get them.
Cliff cleaned the lenses on the hem of his white shirt as he walked. Again there was the sound of the door chimes as another customer entered. Cliff carefully placed his glasses back onto his face and looked up at the new customer.
He was a man wearing a tweed jacket and, strangely enough: a bow-tie. Cliff remarked that he had a very noticeable chin and barely-visible eyebrows. He was fumbling with something in the inside pocket of his jacket with a very concentrated expression whilst trying and failing to blow away locks of light brown hair that fell onto his face. He would blow them away for a split-second and they would fall right back to touch the tip of his nose. Cliff could not help but smile to himself at the sight of the funny man.
When the man was done with whatever it was he struggled for in his pockets, he brushed at his jacket, adjusted his bow-tie and spun on his heels. The man in the bow-tie looked around with a strange look on his face, quietly scrutinizing all the displays. He even stopped once to toss his head up and take deep breath, smelling the omnipresent scents of all sorts of brews that lingered in the coffee shop. His eyes suddenly drawn to the corner of the shop, the girl in the red dress waved to the fellow in the bow-tie. The man's hard-pressed mouth cracked into a grin and he jogged to the girl's booth. Cliff suddenly found himself smiling and shaking his head at the odd couple—an odd pair, certainly, but he thought they looked beautiful together. The small, dark-haired girl in the rose-red dress and the funny man in the bow-tie, complementing one another.
He propped his elbows up on the counter, absently looking out on the streets where he noticed a strange blue box just parked beside a lamp post across the street.
It had the queerest, bluest shade of blue he had ever seen and little windows on it. The sign on it read "Police (Public Call) Box". Cliff had no idea what it was, but he was sure the blue box wasn't there just a while ago. He had been gone in the few seconds it took for him to fetch his glasses, and he was sure it was not there just now. Cliff shook his head. He may have just missed it considering his bad vision.
He tilted his head in the couple's direction to see that both of them were looking straight at him with smiles on their faces. Cliff willingly returned a smile of his own, his brightest, kindest coffee-shop guy smile. Something about them just sort of made him feel like their little bubble of happiness was something infectious. He nodded towards them.
"And what will the lovely couple have this morning?" Cliff had a thick Irish accent about him. "Oh no, no—we're not—"
"He's not—"
The two of them said, shaky with nervous laughter. Cliff chuckled.
"Right." He thought to himself.
"Oh, I see." He nodded in apology.
"Give us your specialty, Cliff. Whatever it is you think tastes the best." The man yelled happily.
"And some cake, please. The house specialty." The girl added. Cliff loved customers like them the best. He rubbed his hands together and touched his hair with both hands.
"Coming right up." He answered cheerfully, tightening his apron strings and proceeding to work.
"So, you've never been to a coffee place before?" Clara asked brightly, not once taking her eyes away from the book she was reading, nonchalantly flipping a page and still swaying her legs underneath the table.
"What do you mean I've never been to a coffee place be-fore?" the Doctor said, aggressively flipping through a copy of the morning paper he had found on the shop's rack of reading materials. Clara laughed, taking a piece of brown tissue paper on the table and placing it carefully in between the pages of her book where she last left off. She closed the book and laid it gently beside her, putting her elbows on the table and nestling her face on her cupped hands. She ran her eyes along the pages of the Doctor's newspaper, the pages facing her were the ones attributed to the entertainment section and the crossword puzzle. Patting her pockets, she found a pen, pushed the top and grabbed the newspaper.
"Gimme."
"Oi. I wasn't done with that." The Doctor said, throwing his hands up incredulously in slight irritation. Clara flattened the paper onto the surface of the table. She looked up at the Doctor and grinned innocently in return. The Doctor raised his eyebrows and gasped in mocking disgust, folding his arms across his chest and crossing his legs, moving his toe up and down in annoyance.
"What do you care about the news, Doctor? You know what's going to happen, anyway." Clara asked cheerfully, not looking up from the crossword puzzle she was busying herself with.
"It's all about presentation, Clara. It's like—"the Doctor paused, creasing his forehead and staring intently on the dark wood of the table in attempts to muster a good metaphor. Clara looked up from the crossword and watched the Doctor struggle for words in amusement. The Doctor shook his head rapidly, running his fingers through his hair.
"It's like—it's like. Fah, never mind." He said, folding his arms across his chest again, pouting and looking blankly across the street. For a while there was silence between them, silence aside from the soft buzzing of machinery at work in the shop kitchen and the light scratching of Clara's pen against the paper.
"Oh you're right—I've never been to a coffee place before." The Doctor finally gave up. Clara placed the pen beside the paper. She laid her arms down on the table, tilting her chin up slightly and looking at the Doctor intently. Then she laughed, the soft and sweet sound of the small girl's laughter filling up the tranquil silence of the shop. The Doctor found himself affected by her laugh and let out one of his own. Clara reached for him across the table, upping his face in her hands, squeezing his cheeks and pulling him closer.
"I'm more of a tea person, really. It's just never occurred to me before I suppose." He said, circling his fingers around her wrists. Clara laughed again.
"Well, I did say I was going to take you out this time. And just my luck—"she paused.
"The Doctor, the man who's been to planets and civilizations all the way to the farthest ends of the universe, been to the end of the world and to black holes and beyond, but has never—ever—been to a coffee place before. I think I'm going to enjoy this!" she said cheerfully. Clara let go of his face and resumed with the crossword.
"Don't mock me." He replied jokingly.
"And yes, you did get lucky. Nothing like the daily comforts of human beings. I suppose I've never been around long enough to at least try. Take me out, you say. Quite right." Clara never looked up from the newspaper.
"Yeah. Like on a date." She answered, a long lock of dark hair falling onto her face, the edges touching the newspaper. Clara tried to blow it away to no avail. The Doctor laughed, reaching forward, he tucked the stray lock of hair back behind her ear.
"Is that what this is—a date, Clara Oswald?" he asked. Clara looked up to see him beaming from ear to ear.
"Wipe that stupid grin off your face, Doctor." The Doctor laughed heartily.
"Clara Oswald—taking me out on a date."
"Oh, don't flatter yourself. But I suppose I am." She said softly, her tone suddenly growing a bit more serious. The Doctor leaned forward slightly, carefully scrutinizing Clara's face. She always had that look on her face whenever she thought about something deeply, her lips frozen in a half-smile and a half-smirk—the slight tilt of her chin, her eyebrows raised unevenly. He knew that look like the back of his hand. Her eyes were focused blankly to the left as she tried to organize her thoughts, the warm and soft rays of the early morning sun streaming in from the glass and lightening the color of her eyes. He waited patiently for what she would say next. Clara shook her head and shrugged, looking down on her lap with a small smile on her face. Then she looked up at the Doctor.
"I mean, I thought to myself, who am I to go around taking you to places? The Doctor, the most brilliant—albeit the looniest—man in the universe: time and space traveler, who's taken me to places I never would have imagined, not even in my dreams. That's kind of pretentious of me isn't it? I mean, cause you've seen everything." She paused and let out a small, shaky laugh.
"I put a lot of thought into this, Doctor. And I thought, why not show you something so—so, mundanely human? Because sometimes I think you're too busy vamoosing about in that blue box of yours to stop and take a breath and appreciate the small things. All the… humany-wumany things, as you'd put it." Clara grinned and the Doctor laughed at the reference. He remained silent, sensing that she wasn't finished.
"I mean, it was sort of a shot in the dark and imagine my surprise when it turns out of all things, you've really never been to a coffee place before. I suppose I just wanted to say thank you, is that so bad? Just a cup of coffee and maybe a slice of cake just to say thanks because it's the least I can do." She shrugged again, looking straight at him with the most beautiful of smiles. The Doctor smiled unsteadily to himself, looking down at his shoes as he reached for her small hand that lay on the table. It fit snuggly inside the Doctor's large hand. He gave it a small squeeze, and she returned it. The Doctor loved her so, as if he'd known her all her life—which, if he choose, he could. The Doctor chuckled, shaking his head as he ran his thumb gently across the skin of her hand. Finally he looked up at her, running bottom lip over his upper lip in amusement.
"I don't believe I have ever heard anything so remotely human in all my years." This time the both of them laughed. He gave her hand one last pinch.
"Thank you, Clara Oswald. Coffee and cakes sounds wonderful." He said, soft, his smile warm and gentle like the early morning sun—the Doctor's smile.
There was the faintest sound of happy, idle whistling as the purple-haired barista walked over to the Doctor and Clara's spot, his cheeks puffing and returning to normal as he whistled a nameless tune to himself.
"And speaking of which." Clara said cheerfully. He carried two plain white, medium-sized mugs on a brown plastic tray on one hand and three white saucers of varying cake slices on the other. The mugs emitted a very good smell and the Doctor breathed in deeply, savoring the scent. The barista laid down the mugs and the saucers—one mug and saucer in front of each of them, leaving the third in the middle.
"There we go—my personal favorites. I hope you like it just as well." The purple-haired barista patted invisible dust from his apron as he set the orders down.
"Oh, and this one's on me." He said, nodding his head towards the extra plate on the center of the table. The Doctor rubbed his hands together in delight.
"Thanks, this all looks so good." Clara said, looking up at the barista. He grinned at them both.
"Indeed it does—oh, I do love sweets, I most certainly do—thank you, Cliff." The Doctor said. The purple-haired barista nodded happily at them before spinning in his heels and walking back to his spot over the counter.
As Cliff walked back to his station, he stopped suddenly. He looked down on his maroon-colored apron and realized he wasn't wearing his little silver nameplate that said Cliff. How did the man in the bowtie know his name? Maybe he'd been here before. Cliff didn't know for certain, so he shook his head and quietly went back to work.
"Clara couldn't help but laugh at the scene. She knew how much the Doctor loved his sweets. She watched him rub his hands together, staring at the cakes with the happiness of a child just about to open his presents on Christmas, excitedly pondering on which one to open first—the Doctor couldn't decide which of the sweets to taste first. Finally, after much fumbling with his fingers and watching the Doctor seemingly go for one saucer only to pull his fingers back, he settled for a chocolate mousse cake. The layered brown cake lay in front of Clara, in the middle was red velvet, and in front of the Doctor cream and strawberry. He reached his hand for the chocolate cake in front of Clara and switched it for the one in front of him. He sunk the fork into the tip of the triangle and gingerly put it in his mouth. The Doctor groaned in delight.
"Oh, bless—now that is good." He proceeded to stab at the red velvet cake as soon as he was finished savoring his first bite of the mousse, then to the cream and strawberry. Clara watched him in amused silence, carefully embedding in her mind the images of the Doctor smiling as he did now—pure, unadulterated bliss, the kind derived from such a simple thing of pleasure such as having a bite of good pastry—the like she had never seen in his face before, as if there were no secret worries or burdens that hid behind his grins. Clara treasured it all, keeping still shots in her mind and in her heart like she would photographs in a memory box.
"This. Is. The best. Clara what are you doing just sitting here have some!" Clara chuckled. The Doctor was busy again, taking a slice of chocolate cake and feeding it to Clara, his free hand underneath in case some crumbs fell.
"Oh you weren't kidding, that is good." Clara said in all seriousness.
"Don't I know? Now, try this one next." Next he gave her the red velvet. Clara opened her mouth and let the pastry melt in her mouth, chewing slowly as to let the flavors settle in her mouth. Next was the cream and strawberry. It was all really good, Clara thought—which was saying a lot considering her love for sweets and all the varieties she had tried… well, before all this. Before she met the Doctor.
As the Doctor was obviously advancing to devour all the sweet things, Clara slapped his hand and he dropped the fork in surprise.
"Oi. What was that for?" He said, shaking his hand and looking at Clara sourly like a child told that he had had too much candy for night.
"You're not supposed to eat it all in a hurry! Slowly—with the coffee."
"Oh, alright." He replied, defeated. Clara leaned back on her own seat, blowing pale white smoke off the top of her mug and inhaling the smell. She took one careful sip and laid the mug gently back down onto the wooden table. Even that was good. The Doctor followed her example.
"Now that—that is amazing." He proceeded to take another, bigger sip.
"CLIFF!" the Doctor yelled. The purple-haired barista was quietly flipping through a pocket book, his elbows placed on top of the counter. He looked up at the sound of his name, pushing his glasses farther up the bridge of his nose.
"I have never had better cakes and coffee in my life! Did you bake these?" The Doctor asked gleefully. The barista left his fingers inserted inside the book, closing it briefly to laugh, nodding a cheerful yes at the Doctor. Cliff did most of the baking in the shop. The Doctor raised his mug in acknowledgment of the barista before taking another sip. Clara grinned at him. Cliff laughed again in response and went back to his reading. Clara watched as the smile faded from his lips and he sunk back to quiet contemplation—to her he seemed distracted by something beyond the contents of his pocket book.
"He looks a bit sad, don't you think, Doctor?" she asked nonchalantly, never taking her gaze off of the man in the counter. The Doctor was busy trying to slow himself down from eating.
"Hang on—Doctor, he isn't wearing a name plate or anything. How do you know his name? Do you know him?"
"Yes and yes." He answered nonsensically before taking a sip of coffee.
"What do you mean yes and yes?"
"Ahhh." The Doctor let out after taking a particularly large swig of the hot beverage.
"By yes and yes I mean: yes, he is a bit sad—more than a bit I'd say, actually. And yes, I do know him, well, in a sense." He made for his mug of coffee again. Clara waited for him to continue.
"We aren't here by chance, Clara. See I had a bit of an errand I've been needing to take care of, and seeing as you're familiar with the town too—well, I thought. Though I had not known he would be working here."
"Okay, so—what's his story?" she said, reaching for a fork of her own and eating the cream and strawberry cake for herself. The Doctor didn't seem to mind, seeing as he had consumed most of the other two plates himself.
"Do you know what a Weeping Angel is, Clara?"
The Doctor rambled on before Clara could answer the question.
"Of course you don't, anyway—all you need to know is that when the Angels get a hold of their victims, they get zapped back into the past, poof. And as it happens—"
Clara knew better than to interrupt when the Doctor was haranguing on, even when he stopped for a bit of breath and a lightning quick sip of coffee and bite of cake.
"Cliff's boyfriend was touched by an Angel. I met him a few months—or at least it feels that long— ago in… that was 1986, I think. Lovely man—"the Doctor paused again for the same things in that same order: breath, coffee, cake.
"—Hank's his name. Made the loveliest scones, that he did. How we met—well, it was a long story. Anyway, he was 64 when I met him." The Doctor stopped short.
"He'd adopted children, they loved him lots. He was a successful social worker. Unmarried, though. Died of heart failure when his children were all abroad…" The Doctor said mournfully before dejectedly and slowly taking another forkful of cake into his mouth.
"So, he's… Cliff's—" said Clara, gesturing her head towards the counter.
"—Boyfriend now, it's 2013 and he got zapped back to… 1922?"
"Precisely. Now, what else can you guess?" the Doctor mused.
"These… Angels, so they do the—the zappy-thing unexpectedly, don't they? And… unmarried… so you mean, he didn't get to say goodbye to Cliff, did he?" Clara speculated. The notion made her sad.
"Couldn't you have done something about it?" she asked incredulously. The Doctor's face grew grim and desolate, his lips pressing into a thin line. He looked tired.
"I couldn't." he said briefly, his eyes sauntering slowly to nothing outside. Clara did not bother to ask for an explanation.
Involuntarily her head turned towards the barista, her eyes settling first on his bright and flashy purple mohawk. He held. the pocketbook aloft in front of his face, but he didn't seem to be reading it but was looking somewhere but seemingly not anywhere in particular out the window. His face wore a blank expression, his eyes looked almost hollow in the figurative sense and outside—shadowed with faint, purplish circles hinting at sleepless nights. He looked sad, in contrast to the bright and cheery coffee shop guy he displayed most of the time—Clara knew it was always different when you thought no one was looking. She blinked once and turned back towards the Doctor.
"Now, I have here something I promised Hank that I'd give to Cliff." He said, patting his right breast pocket thoughtfully.
"It's a letter. Just wanted Cliff to know what happened to him even if it all sounds so daft, just to let him know he hadn't upped and left him." The Doctor mused quietly.
"Even showed me a picture and laughed—of course, how could anyone miss Cliff's brilliant hair?" the Doctor mused, smiling at the barista's colorful head of hair. Clara chuckled with him. She liked Cliff's hair very much.
"He gave me an address somewhere uptown—I was meaning to stop by later on, but here he is—saves us the trouble."
"How do you plan on giving it to him?" Clara asked calmly, watching the Doctor attack the slice of red velvet with a ponderous expression on his face, taking one mouthful after the other.
"I have no idea—well, not yet, anyway. I'll think of a plan along the way. That's always worked, hasn't it?" he smiled at her.
"Yes, I suppose it sort of has." She replied sarcastically.
"For the mean time—we should enjoy, don't you think?"
"We should—now, give me that." Clara said, grabbing the half-eaten plate of red cake as the Doctor had a fork halfway into his mouth.
"Oi. That's the second time today, Clara Oswald. I'm not done with that yet."
"Exactly. I'm having some before you finish with it." She took a forkful. The Doctor rolled his eyes, took a sip of coffee and made for the other two slices of pastry. They ate in comfortable silence, until they were down to one last plate of chocolate.
"You love your sweets, don't you, Doctor? Somehow I'm not surprised." Clara stated. The Doctor grinned, resembling a small and happy child.
"Yes, I suppose I do—which is why I should bet having this," he said, gesturing to the last plate.
"But I thought since we were having a date, anyway, I thought I should share it with you." While the Doctor was busy taking slices out of the nibble slice of chocolate cake, he was busy doing the same with one hand, offering it to Clara as he ate. Clara leaned forward, smiling, eating the slice on the fork. They went on with the same routine, the Doctor leaving his arm hanging and waiting for Clara to take the bite in between bouts of thought with the crossword puzzle. When they had eaten it all, they proceeded to finish the remains of their coffee—Clara still, busy with her crossword while the Doctor remained content alternating in between gazing at peculiar scenes outside the window and watching Clara closely with a gratified smile plastered almost permanently onto his face.
"You want more, don't you?"
The Doctor sighed longingly.
"Yes, I do." Clara gazed outside the window, noticing the increased number of people that walked by the streets and the height of the sun.
"It's getting a bit late, Doctor."
"Right."
Clara grinned.
"Come on—we'll buy some and leave it in the TARDIS. We still have a continuation of a date to get to."
The Doctor laughed as Clara stood up. He followed her example.
"And mind you, I am not settling for one puny slice. Never again." The two of them proceeded to the counter.
"Cliff, you don't suppose we could buy those cakes by the whole, don't you?" Cliff grinned, somewhat moved by how much the odd man in the bowtie enjoyed his pastries.
"As a matter of fact, we do sell them by the whole. What can I get you?"
"All three, thank you very much." The Doctor said with full confidence. Cliff laughed again.
"You liked them a lot, didn't you?"
"Oh, yes I did."
"Alright, hang on a minute." He said, proceeding to the back to get the cakes. The Doctor searched his pockets for some notes, and finding a bit of money he placed it in his palm and showed it to Clara.
"Do you suppose this amount will do it?" he asked.
"Yes—a bit too much, actually—"
"Oh, that's not important."
A few minutes later Cliff came back with a large brown paper bag. He set it carefully on the counter. The Doctor took it in one hand and laid the money on the counter.
"Keep the change, Cliff."
"Oh but this is too much—"
As the Doctor was about to walk away, Clara nudged him with her elbow. The Doctor spun back on his heels to look at Cliff.
"Ah yes—that's right." He searched the inner pockets of his jacket until he procured a battered envelope, thick with its contents. He handed it to Cliff.
"Someone asked me to give this to you." He said gently. Cliff stared at the envelope on the Doctor's hand. He shook his head.
"But—but that's Hank's handwriting."
"Just take it, Cliff. Trust me." The Doctor smiled warmly at him. Slowly, anxiously Cliff took the letter from the Doctor's hand, gingerly lifting it open.
"Here's to hoping for the best." He whispered to Clara, offering her his other hand. Clara twined her fingers into the Doctor's. They turned back to look at Cliff simultaneously before exiting the shop, the chimes tinkling softly behind them.
The Doctor and Clara crossed the street in silence, until when they had reached the other side the Doctor stopped suddenly in his tracks.
"Doctor, what's wrong?"
"The shop."
"What about it?"
"What's the name of the shop?" he said slowly, almost dumbly, turning his head back around to the shop on the other side of the street. The large, rectangular sign on top read "The Rose and Crown" in bold, golden letters lined with maroon in a black background. Clara turned back around, and the two of them silently observed Cliff. He was crying. But he didn't look like all he cried of was sadness, Clara thought. She smiled to herself. The Doctor turned back to the TARDIS, digging into his pockets for the TARDIS key. The Doctor stepped inside, tugging Clara's hand. He froze when she let go.
"What would you do, Doctor, if I got zapped back in time?" Clara asked, folding her arms across her chest.
"You know I'd rip through planets just to get you back, Clara?" the Doctor answered seriously.
"What if… say, you couldn't go back?"
The Doctor smiled.
"Didn't I tell you before?" he offered his hand to her once more.
"What?"
"Well, if I couldn't go back what I'd do is—"
"Well?"
"Just like the other times. I wouldn't do a thing, Clara Oswald."
The Doctor said, quietly pushing the doors of the TARDIS open as Clara took his hand.
"Because in the end I know you'll always, always come back to me."
There was a sound of door chimes as the doors of the coffee shop opened once more and Cliff hurried outside to greet the odd couple standing by the blue box. They waved at him, smiling. Cliff had wanted to ask for an explanation—anything, anything at all, but somehow none of it seemed as important now. He wiped the tears away from his face with the sleeve of his shirt and he waved back at them, grinning. They entered the blue box and Cliff wondered vaguely what business they had inside such a tiny, cramped thing. Strange—then again it wasn't the only strange thing to have happened to him in the span of just that past hour. Cliff stopped wandering, then he shook his head cheerfully, turning back to pull open the shop's glass door. There was the sound of the chimes as he tugged at the door handle, and then another sound permeated the air—a queer humming, thrumming noise, one Cliff had never before heard in his life. It was a sound that seemed to grow more distant by the second. Cliff turned his head around for another look across the street. The noise had faded away completely, leaving nothing but a breeze of wind and crisp autumn leaves of browns and oranges blowing across the street in its wake and the absence of a strange blue box.
Cliff smiled. He held the door open for a few customers that happened to be also on their way in. He stepped inside the shop, tucking away the precious pictures of the dark-haired girl in the rose-red dress, the strange man in the bow-tie and bluest blue box he had ever seen quietly in the back of his mind.