Chapter One: Baking Together

"Do these peaks look soft enough to you?"

The Doctor peered over Clara's shoulder at the mixing bowl. He hadn't the faintest idea what beaten egg whites were supposed to look like, but he nodded confidently in approval. "Yep. Perfect."

She sighed with relief. "Okay, then. Who knows, maybe the recipe might finally work this time." She tilted her head back to look up at him. "Can you pass the sugar over?"

The Doctor obediently fetched it for her. She took it from him and turned the egg mixer back on to a low setting. "The recipe says to add gradually," she said uncertainly, looking at the sheet with her lips pursed. "How gradually is gradually?"

The Doctor shrugged. In truth baking was one of the few things he didn't consider himself an authority on. In fact, that went for food preparation in general. Anything that wasn't microwaveable, he was usually content to leave preparation of to someone more skilled than he. Of all Earth's many inventions, the microwave was up there with the bowtie as one of his favourites. "I don't know," he said. "Just do what you think looks right."

"But I always get it wrong." Clara huffed fretfully. "Okay, I'll just add it as slowly as I can. That can't go wrong… hopefully."

She turned back to her mixture. The Doctor sidled casually up behind her. She did seem very tense to him. They were in her kitchen in the Maitland household, on their own together- the Maitlands had long since learned to steer well clear of the kitchen when their nanny was doing any baking, though on this occasion they were actually out of the house, leaving the pair of them alone. Once again, Clara was trying to recreate her late mother's soufflé recipe- she had many times lain waste to the TARDIS' kitchen, making his time machine dislike her even more than it already did, in pursuit of this endeavour, so the Doctor was by now well used to how frustrated she could get by the task. Still, this time, he'd imagined it might be more fun. This time, she had enlisted him as a 'second opinion,' which the Doctor had happily agreed to, not because he thought his opinion would in any way be helpful, but because he wanted to spend time with her.

He let his arms slip round her waist. Clara started just a little. "Don't surprise me like that," she exclaimed. "Not while I'm- oh, for goodness' sake-"

The mixture had started to splash over just a little. Hastily the Doctor drew his hands away, but this didn't seem to help. "No, don't move me again, I'll- ugh!" A glob of egg white landed on the countertop. "Okay, just don't move."

Obediently, the Doctor desisted, staying in place with his arms clasped loosely round her middle, watching as she tensely continued to add sugar at a painstakingly slow rate, until at last the peaks forming in the mixture became stiff and glossy as the recipe described. Clara shut off the mixer with a sigh and set it to one side. "That looks about right," she mumbled, turning to him. "Who'd have thought baking could be so stressful?"

She caught sight of his grin. "What? What is it?"

She had egg white on her nose. Just right on the tip. It looked hilarious, hilarious and adorable. The Doctor's smile only broadened at her confusion. "Have I got something on my face?" She probed self-consciously around, following where his eyes were. "Is it on my nose?"

Clara went cross-eyed as she tried to spot the offending spot. Now she looked even more adorable. The Doctor laughed. "Here. Let me."

He bent down and kissed the tip of her nose. "There. All gone."

Clara giggled. She tilted her face upwards and captured his lips with her own before he could draw away. Hers tasted just faintly of the sugary dessert mix, and they parted easily beneath his as he reached up to free her hair from the loose bun she always wore it when baking, allowing it to cascade down around her shoulders and letting his fingers trail through it loosely. She slipped her arms round his neck as his hands swiftly drifted downwards, arriving at the hem of her skirt. She pulled back just a little, enough that their lips were no longer touching, and looked up at him sceptically. "Really?"

"Well," the Doctor said with a meaningful nod towards the ceiling, "we do have an empty house…"

A playful smirk began to form on Clara's lips. She kissed him again, lightly, teasingly, far too briefly before she slipped away from him and back to the countertop. "Let me put the mix in the tray and put it in the oven first."

She did so with a flourish, distributing the mix with a lot more casualness than she had completed the other steps of the recipe. The Doctor rather thought she bent down with wholly unnecessary aplomb, and right in front of his wandering eyes, as she placed the tray in the oven and stood up with a final cursory look at the recipe. "'30-35 minutes advised'" she read out. She turned to him with a sultry smirk. "Tell me, what can you do in thirty-five minutes?"

The Doctor sidled up to her. He really had to start baking with Clara more often. "I'd really rather demonstrate than just tell you…"

So this was a pretty light chapter to start off on. There will be some less fluffy chapters to come, but most won't be too heavy. Hopefully this is us off to a good start. I'm still taking suggestions for future chapters, if anyone has any they particularly want to see. :)