Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who, its characters, settings, or events; all rights belong to their respective creators and the BBC.

Cover art by the wonderful Phoebe594.

This story is chronologically the fourth in the "Keeping Up With the Smiths" AU, a series of interconnected stories set in an alternate universe in which all of the Doctors (up to 12, so far; slight mentions of the existence of 13) are part of a large, slightly crazy family in which they are all named John Smith. This particular story follows directly after "Helpline" and it may be helpful to read that first; in case you don't want to, the briefest summary possible is that Clara met Eleven (who she knows only as John Smith) once at a local fair in the summer and once again when the girl in the shop gave her the Smith family number and told her it was a helpline and he helped her with the internet, flirted, possibly kidnapped her, and drove her to the library. Other stories in the series that are mentioned in this story are "A Few Eggs and a Few Minutes," wherein lies the tale of the fair, a soufflé, and Clara's flirting with both Rory and Eleven, and "Strangers and Psychiatrists," wherein lies the story of how Eleven and Amy first met, how Rory and Amy first met, and how little boys should possibly not introduce themselves by a number; it's not necessary to read them, but I personally like them.

Parts of this story were inspired by "Deep Breath," specifically Twelve's first lines (both in that and in this).

He kept asking her to dinner, but she kept saying no. It wasn't that she didn't like him—she did, more and more the longer she knew him—but she had only just lost her own dad recently and was reluctant to get involved in any way with anyone right now, but especially someone so close to such a large family. (He had told her that he had ten brothers and a little sister, plus sisters-in-law and nieces and nephews and all of their friends, and every time they drove past his big blue house it was full of people.)

She was already living on someone else's charity, she didn't need to push herself into yet another family.

So she kept him at arm's length.

She was also lonely, though, still being fairly new to town and feeling like a stranger in the Maitlands's house and doing her schooling all alone over the computer, so they did hang out a bit, studying together at the library a couple evenings a week and getting to know each other. He kept insisting his house was a better place to study than the local library, but she maintained that there was no way such a busy house could be better than a nice, quiet library with any books that she might need or want.

November passed quickly, more quickly than any other month since her father's passing, and she knew that was down to John Smith, the internet repairman who wasn't. She dreaded winter break, when there would be no studying, when the Maitlands would be celebrating with their extended family and she would be even more of a stranger in their house, when she would be all alone again-completely alone for the first major holiday in her life, and so soon after the first birthday she had been alone.

So when he asked again, at their last study date, if she'd like to come for dinner and meet the family, including some of his brothers and their friends who would be coming home from university for their own winter break, and a few who were beginning to trickle in early for Christmas, she said yes. At the very least, it would be an adventure.

He'd offered to driver her, of course, but she had decided to walk the now-familiar route instead. Despite her loneliness, she didn't actually get much alone time looking after the kids, especially now that they were on winter break as well, and the invitation was for early enough that there would still be light enough to find her way without worry. She also knew that he'd want to spend time with the siblings and friends who were appearing during this time.

As she approached, she could already see that there were even more cars in the drive than there had been any previous times.

She could also see that the yard was filled with snowmen of all shapes and sizes, most predominantly a row of them along the edge of the road, hands raised in greeting towards passing cars. They hadn't been there the last time she'd seen the place just a few days before, so she figured this was how the Smith family had chosen to spend time together during the influx of returning members. It was rather cute and something inside her ached at the desire to be a part of something like that.

Luckily, there was still a clear path from the road to the front porch, despite the cars and snowmen.

The front porch spanned the width of the house, white columns rising from the snow pooled around their bases to march across the front and around both sides in a stately row. There was a haphazard pile of snow boots of different sizes next to the door, the occasional mitten peeking out, and sleds cluttered the space to her right as she stepped up onto worn grey floorboards that creaked warningly under her weight and crossed to the door.

Or doors, actually. Two thin wooden panels, painted almost the same shade of blue as the house, only just barely wider together than a regular single door, with six-paned windows at the top of each, some of the panes frosted with more than the cold. There was a sign above the doors proclaiming "Police Public Call Box," in white lettering on a black background, and above that was a hurricane lantern. There was another sign on the left-hand door—white with black lettering—that read "Police telephone, free for use of public, advice and assistance obtainable immediately, officer and cars respond to all calls, pull to open;" it was a very strange thing to have on the front door of a house, but there was a little handle next to the sign and there seemed to be a panel of wood around it, like a tiny door on a bigger door. Out of curiosity, she opened the hatch and found an empty space, a little box attached to the inside of the door and painted the same blue color, with a letter slot at the bottom through which she could see a slice of brown floorboards. On the right-hand door, smack in the middle, was a doorbell, planted in the middle of a round black badge with the words "St. John's Ambulance" circling it and some sort of design in white peeking out from under it.

She pushed the button and heard a loud, gonging bell ringing inside, followed after a moment by a shout of "Bell's ringing." No one answered, though.

She rang a second time, and this time the right-hand door opened abruptly and a head popped out.

"Shush," the boy said grumpily. Then he disappeared again and slammed the door shut.

She frowned and pounded on the door with her fist.

The door opened again, just as abruptly, and the same head popped out. "Oi!"

"Oi, yourself!" she nearly shouted. "You slammed the door in my face!"

"And you still didn't go away!" he retorted.

He made to slam the door again, but she planted a hand against it and stuck her foot in the way, throwing her meagre body weight and strength into both. "Oh, no, you don't."

He opened the door fully and glared at her, thick, bushy eyebrows drawn down into a truly impressive frown. This was the first time she was actually able to clearly see him; his hair was brown and curly, cut close to his head on the sides, and he was slightly taller than her and painfully thin. He looked a few years younger than her, about twelve, maybe. He spoke with a Scottish accent. "Which dwarf are you, then?" he asked rudely. "Certainly not Bashful. Are you Grumpy?"

"I am not grumpy," she protested. He raised a rather eloquent eyebrow, which she pointedly ignored as she lectured, "I was invited here for dinner and you're being incredibly rude." After a second, she added, "And I am not a dwarf."

"Short enough to be one," he said.

"I am not," she argued.

His tone was irritating and a touch condescending when he said, "Whatever you say, Grumpy."

"I am not grumpy!" She took a breath. "My name is Clara," she said much more calmly.

"Might be."

"It is," she growled.

Movement behind him drew her attention and for the first time she looked past him and realized the doors opened into an entryway. It was painted an ugly hospital green, with a high ceiling and round cubbies built into the wall she could see on the left. There were shoes in the lower cubbies and gloves and scarves and maybe some jackets in the higher ones, and random junk sticking out of the top row as if it had been thrown there: a lacrosse stick, two footballs, a handful of books (one of which had landed face-down and spread open), a picnic basket, an unfolded pair of glasses, and an assortment of pens and other odds and ends.

At the opposite end of the long room, a man in a leather jacket was standing in a doorway that led further into the house. The jacket and his very short haircut might have made him look scary if they hadn't been offset by his ridiculously large ears and goofy grin. "Who's your friend?" he asked the younger boy. His accent sounded more like hers and he seemed friendly enough; she instantly liked him more than the other boy.

"Not my friend," said unfriendly menace answered.

"Well, that's not polite," the one with the leather jacket told him. Then he asked Clara, "What can I do for ya?"

"I'm looking for John," she explained.

"Alright," he said with a nod and a smile. She sighed in relief. Then he asked, "Which one?" His grin didn't waver, and she was starting to think he might be as bad as the other one, only more subtle.

"John Smith?" she tried again. She could hear the desperation in her own voice.

"Any one in particular?"

She stared at him blankly and debated just giving up and going home.

"I'm John Smith," he said. He pointed to the rude kid, "So's he. So are half a dozen other people in this house at the moment, including my little sister. And even more people who aren't here."

"Are you taking the mickey out of me?" she demanded. Maybe she should also move . . .

"Oh, you're here for Mickey? There's only one of those. Shall I call him?"

"Look," she said angrily, "I don't know what you're talking about. A friend of mine named John Smith invited me here for dinner."

"Ah," he nodded in understanding. "Somebody never explained the thing to you." He looked her up and down. "Probably Eleven. He's about your age and he never explains the thing, not since he was little and it caused him loads of trouble with Amy."

"What thing?" she asked, perplexed.

"Just a sec," he grinned. If it hadn't been for her mounting frustration with and suspicions about him, and the devil child also grinning, she probably wouldn't have been at all that bothered as he disappeared behind the door, apparently stepping through a door she couldn't see into an adjacent room. As it was, she began considering the benefits of moving to a different town as he announced, "We've got a newbie here who doesn't know about the thing. Front door." She heard his voice echoing further into the house and realized he'd used some sort of intercom system.

He reappeared seconds later, grinning hugely. "Come on in," he invited. "This is gonna be fantastic."

His words were underscored by the approaching sounds of both voices and feet. Many of them. She amended her considerations to possibly moving to somewhere very isolated and living out the rest of her days as a hermit.

As she stepped uncertainly inside and the younger boy closed the door behind her—much more gently than he had previously—they began spilling in through the opposite door. Some of them she recognized, even if only vaguely.

The first John Smith she had met was among them and he grinned when he saw her.

The Red Head and the Nose who had been with him at the fair a few months ago were there. They were holding hands, so she figured they were back together (big surprise there).

She recognized a blonde girl, too, but couldn't place her.

She was distracted from trying to place the blonde as her John Smith approached and the brat beside her addressed him. "One of yours, Eleven?"

"Manners," the older boy admonished distractedly, tapping the younger one on the nose with one finger. She had the distinct impression this was an old argument. "Everybody, this is my friend Clara." There was a chorus of 'oh's and 'hello's and 'nice to meet you's and she smiled and nodded towards the people bunched into the entryway. "Clara, this is my family." He pointed to the younger boy, "Even that one." The other boy swatted at him and he tried to dodge and ended up stumbling. Leather Jacket grabbed him by the arm and straightened him up.

"You never explained the thing to her," Leather Jacket said

Her John—Eleven?—looked to the ground and rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Er, right. There was never a really good time and I sorta forgot." He looked up at her. "Sorry."

"Tell her already," an annoyed Scottish voice demanded from the crowd, the red head from before probably.

"Right," he said, "okay, so, my dad's named John Smith, too, and so are all my siblings."

He paused and she realized the entire crowd was waiting for her reaction. Her pride asserted itself and she made sure to keep her face and voice as uninterested and slightly bored as possible as she asked, "Even your sister?"

The crowd burst out laughing.

"That's a new one," someone called.

"Oh, I like her," said another red head, not Scottish.

"Maybe she's pretending not to be interested 'cause you're all staring at her like she's in a zoo," another girl put in, Clara wasn't sure who. More laughter followed that one.

"If you want to be the one to explain things to her," Leather Jacket said to her John, "you'd better get on with it."

"Right," he said clapping his hands and rubbing them together. "Getting on with it. Yes. Well, when my eldest brother was born, my parents wanted to name him after our dad, so they called him John Smith, too. Also, I mean, not the number two; that comes later. Anyway, when the next one was born, the nurse asked them, 'What's your son's name?'" He changed his voice in imitation as he said it. "They said, 'Well, his name's John Smith,' which was true." He used a different voice there. Very theatrical. "Only, when they get the birth certificate, guess what name is on there for their second son?" He paused dramatically. "John Smith. They answered the wrong question and now the second son is named John Smith, too. I mean 'also' again, not the number two, because this one's actually number three. Are you with me so far?" Clara nodded, though she wasn't entirely sure, and he continued, "They could have changed the name, of course, but it was a funny story and they liked it, so by the time the third son came around, they called him John Smith t—also—and then they just kept naming babies John Smith after that, even when they got to my sister."

She looked around at the faces in the room, trying to determine if she was being had; this story was a little too crazy to be anything else.

"I know, it's weird," someone said. Clara located the speaker and found it was the blonde girl she vaguely recognized. "But he's telling the truth. They really are all named John Smith."

Another girl, dark-skinned, offered, "They have nicknames, though, to differentiate between them. They all go by the number of their birth order." She pointed at several of the boys in order and said, "That's Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, and Twelve."

The not-Scottish red head cut in, "That's not even the weirdest thing about them."

There was a round of laughter at that, mostly from the people who weren't Smiths, though she noted they mostly laughed, too (the angry one, Twelve, didn't laugh so much as scowl in offense and slight confusion).

"You get used to it eventually, though," the dark-skinned girl assured. "My name's Martha, by the way, Martha Jones."

The others began pitching in then, including the Smiths, giving helpful tips on dealing with the family, who were apparently a bunch of friendly nutters, and introducing themselves—every single one of the other Smith boys made a point to introduce themselves as John Smith. They were definitely very strange, but she supposed that shouldn't have taken her entirely by surprise, given the one she'd already met—Eleven, apparently, as if he weren't odd enough already—and the circumstances of their meeting, both the first and second times. And his car. And their house.

I couldn't stop myself from including references to the new doctor, even though I don't know enough about her to actually include her personally. Let's just say she's out of the house on this day, for some reason.

The entryway is based off the console room from the Hartnell's time; the sound of the doorbell is the Tardis cloister bell.

The snowmen will return in a later story based off the episode "The Snowmen."

Have a wonderful day!

M1ssUnd3rst4nd1ng