*Hey guys! January time! First chapter of a new AU and I really hope you guys like it. I'm trying to capture different sides of Whouffle this time out, so the characters are going to be different to how we've seen them before. I really hope you guys like it! Anyway, February should be up tomorrow, and as ever, please please review and let me know what you think. Thanks so much to everyone who has already read, reviewed, followed and favourited. TPD*


Clara was back at work, back to the mundane processes of day to day life. Nina had backed off a bit since the New Year's party, but Clara could sense her friend planning something, she always was. Her friend from work, Tom, was constantly chirping in her ear about how Danny was seeing some new teacher, a trainee no less, barely twenty five. Clara couldn't care less. She was tired of hearing about Danny, having to think about Danny. She ended up snapping at Tom, which just made her feel bad for that. She was tired and pissed off within a week of returning to work and when Nina asked her if she fancied going out on Friday night, she couldn't say yes fast enough. Usually, Clara was used to turning down Nina's invitations, but the whole Tom/Danny situation, not to mention January exams, had left her stressed. She could see the relish on her flatmate's face when she said yes, Nina's eyes lighting up and Clara realising she may have made a mistake.

"Come in to the university," Nina insisted. "I finish at half 7 and we can go straight to a bar from there!"

Which was how Clara found herself, wearing a black jacket and long blue skirt, her hair and makeup all done up, standing outside a smoky chemistry lab. She frowned as Nina signalled something that she didn't understand with her hands and Clara decided just to leave her to it and go to find somewhere nearby to sit down and grab a cup of tea while she was waiting. She dropped Nina a text to tell her she was going to find a café.

She wasn't sure how she'd ended up in the Physics Department, but the physics and chemistry departments were so close to each other, whilst looking for a café, she'd ended up moving from one to the other. So when she finally crashed into a seat in the Physics café, she spotted a familiar face, sat alone on the table across from hers. He looked up and their eyes locked. He was frowning, as if trying to remember where he'd seen her and then his eyes lit up and he shot her a nervous smile. Clara bit her lip and then aired against the side of caution, standing up and plonking herself down opposite him at his table.

"John right?" she asked, sipping her cup of tea with a little glance over the cup at his face. Sure enough, he grimaced. "Can I ask you something?"

"Fire away…Clara?" he tested the water and when she nodded he sighed in relief.

"Why do you hate the name John?" she asked and watched as he flinched. "I mean I get that most people call you Doctor, but that's not because you can fix things. It's more than that. It's more than being used to being called the Doctor, you cling to that name. It means more than just a name people call you because you can fix stuff. So why do you hate your name?"

The Doctor frowned at her, sipping his tea and swilling it gently as he eyed her up. Clara immediately realised that she had struck a nerve and felt guilty, so she squirmed slightly in her seat as he weighed up a response. He fiddled with his blood red bow tie and Clara realised that it must have been a bad habit of his. Did he always wear bow ties?

"You're very observant Clara," he said eventually, and Clara blushed at that. "And you ask very personal questions for someone I've only met once." She blushed harder. "The name John reminds me of something. Something I lost a long time ago. Calling myself the Doctor not only detracts from that loss but also fills me with hope that I can fix anything, so that I need never lose something that precious to me again." He was looking into her eyes, but she felt like he was examining her, staring into her soul. A shiver ran down her spine.

"I'm sorry," she murmured, though the words felt inconsequential. He smiled warmly at her and she released a breath that she hadn't realised that she had been holding in.

"My turn," he said and Clara felt herself being probed. "What's bothering you?"

"Who said something's bothering me?" she bristled. She felt defensive all of a sudden, despite the fact she had been the one intruding on the Doctor's life.

"I do," he replied casually. Underneath his nervous exterior, Clara could see he was very intelligent and very confident in his own intelligence. He was gauging her; they were weighing each other up. Then, the nerves kicked back in as she raised an eyebrow at him. The nervous disposition had dropped for a moment, but that was all Clara had needed to get a glimpse of the real man. "I mean…it's written, all over your face."

Clara sighed. He was back to staring at his tea mug, occasionally glancing up at her, quizzing her. She realised that she was full of pent up energy, more than that, pent up emotion. She wanted to talk to him, but he was almost a complete stranger. And yet, she felt she could trust him. As she was about to talk, her phone buzzed.

"Shit," Clara muttered, checking the text and shooting him an apologetic look. "That's my friend, umm you remember Nina right? From last week's party? The Chemistry student?"

"I've seen her around a few times," the Doctor replied carefully. "She's the one who invited you right? I take it you're meeting her here?" There was disappointment in his voice and Clara winced at that. She wanted to continue the conversation but Nina was waiting.

"Yeah," she took a deep breath. "We're going out tonight, few drinks, maybe clubbing afterwards. I need to go." She plucked up all of her non-existent courage. "Youcouldjoinus?"

It took the Doctor a moment to register what she was saying, but then his eyes widened and he started stammering excuses and apologies. Clara felt a twinge of disappointment. She had put herself out there for once, and for what? The first guy she'd actually thought might be alright, and he was just another bloke who seemed nice but wanted nothing to do with her. She should just forget about it. She stood, smiling politely at him and she turned on her heels when he called after her.

"Wait!" he seemed stunned he'd managed to call himself as she smiled to herself and turned. "I mean, I don't go out drinking, as a rule, for reasons…" Clara remembered her mental note from the party. He'd been a heavy drinker once. Maybe he was still trying to get over that. "But um…we could go for maybe…" he seemed frozen, so Clara gave him her brightest smile in an attempt to open him up. "Go for coffee!" he finished eventually.

"Coffee?" Clara smirked and she could see him panicking. "I'd love to," she replied, finding herself going bright red. What would Nina say? "Um…tomorrow afternoon?"

"Sounds great!" his voice had gone high, Clara thought it was adorable. "Should I, um, give you my number or…"

Clara grabbed the nearest napkin and signalled for him to throw her a pen. He delved into his jacket and threw one to her, which she deftly caught. Being a teacher had its perks, including the ability to catch flying pens. She scribbled her number, along with 'Clara' and a kiss onto the napkin and left it on the table. She could see him scrambling for it out of the corner of her eye and had to hold back a blush as she left the café.

"There you are!" Nina scolded. "What took you so long?"

Clara shrugged and then let Nina drag her off, but her mind was still on the Doctor…


Clara woke the next morning with a hangover the size of Texas. She flopped out of bed, onto the floor and crawled into her en-suite bathroom. Thankfully, she and Nina didn't have to share, one of the perks of having a little bit of money saved up. She ran the hot tap on her bathtub and stumbled back into her bedroom, unsure if she was still a little bit drunk from the previous night. She was wearing the same skirt she'd worn when she went out and her jacket was strewn on the floor beside her boots and handbag. She rummaged through the bag for her phone. She had a string of texts. One from Tom, apologising and asking if she could forgive him. She deleted that one out of hand. Tom could be annoying at times, she'd deal with it on Monday. One from her father, seeing how she was doing. She gave him a quick reply, as loving as she could make it, given the throbbing state of her brain. One from Nina, asking if she made it back. Clara didn't bother replying to that one yet, as it was timed at 3am. Nina would either be home or passed out somewhere. Either way, Clara would find out soon enough. The final text was from a number she didn't recognise.

Hi Clara, it's the Doctor; you gave me your number last night? Just wanted to see if you were still on for coffee this afternoon? Say, half 2 at the Starbucks on Talen Street? X

She smiled at this one. She checked the time. It was just gone 11, the text had been sent just over an half ago. She felt a little guilty for not replying sooner. Knowing him, even though she didn't really know him, he'd probably been shitting bricks over it since he'd sent it. He was adorable though.

Sounds great, see you there x

She smiled as she sent the reply. She had a feeling about this Doctor, a feeling that she couldn't explain. She shook herself. She was being stupid, she'd only just met him and he was a mystery to her. She paused a moment to think and then unlocked her bedroom and stuck her head out.

"Nina!" she called, awaiting a potential response. Nothing, not even a groan or a thudding of floorboards. Clara rolled her eyes. It looked like she was still out then. Clara shut the door and locked it again, crossing back to her phone and she thumbed a quick, inquisitive response. Clara then slumped on her bed, her head explosive, her stomach churning. The only sound that could be heard was the hot water thundering into the bathtub and the thudding in Clara's own head. She let out a soft moan of pain, and then lifted herself to her feet, carrying herself to the bathroom. As she lowered herself into the bath, she felt her body calm itself, as if the hot water was stopping the sickness in her stomach and the ricocheting feeling in her skull. She had a good few hours until she needed to meet the Doctor and she intended to enjoy them.

Well maybe enjoy wasn't the right word. But as Clara tucked into her greasy breakfast, determined to cure her hangover, she could at least reduce the vicious torment that her body was putting her through. After a fry up, a shot of Nina's whiskey and several cups of tea, Clara was starting to feel better. She dressed quickly, putting on her thickest tights, a long blouse and a thick woolly jumper. She wasn't sure she was appropriately dressed for a date, but then was this even a date? She chewed on her lip. She only needed a glance out the window to convince her to forget it. She was dressing warmly, as the wind was howling and the people wrapped up outside looked bitterly cold. She shivered thinking about it. She grabbed her hat, scarf and gloves and threw them onto her bed alongside her coat, ready for her to leave. She still had time before she had to leave, so she decided to make another cuppa, her nerves started to bubble inside her. It had been a long time since she'd been on a date of her own choosing, rather than one Nina had set up. Even as she thought that, she cursed. She was thinking of it as a date then.

Clara had just finished stirring in the milk when the front door crashed open and shut. Nina looked wretched. Her hair was dishevelled, she was wearing her dress from the previous night, which had sustained a few rips and she was shivering. Clara went to rush over but Nina held up a hand in protest.

"Cuppa!" she growled.

Clara rushed back to the kitchen to make Nina a cuppa as Nina settled in the adjoining lounge, as close to the radiator as she could get without burning herself. She let out gasps of relief as Clara returned with the teas, eager to get Nina's view on the Doctor, but also to find out where her friend had been the previous night. She checked her watch. She had a little over twenty minutes until she needed to leave. And that was to ensure she was there by twenty five past. Clara hated being late for anything, which was one of the main reasons why Nina's habits wound her up.

"Thanks," Nina muttered as she gulped at the hot liquid. "I may or may not have slept with Steve last night…"

"Steve from Chemistry?" Clara raised an eyebrow. "The one you warned me about?"

Nina rolled her eyes at the judgement in Clara's voice. "I warned you because of his track record. His track record of screwing over girls like you." Clara frowned at this. "Naïve girls who want a lasting relationship and don't like one night stands." Clara didn't quite know how to respond to that assessment so stayed silent. "Anyway, he's great for a one nighter, so I went back to his after the club. How much do you remember?"

"Not a whole lot," Clara admitted, her brain still scrambled. She could remember the bar, drinking a few cocktails and then heading off clubbing with Nina, but not too much else. She hated memory loss; it always filled her with an intense anxiety of her previous actions.

"Well you crashed out early," Nina recalled. "Left the club about half 1, absolutely smashed off your face. Some sleazeball tried to follow you into the taxi, so I hauled him out and paid the driver for you, seeing as how Stevie paid for my taxi. I texted to see if you made it back, but you'd probably already passed out by that point. I must admit, I was a little disappointed Oswald, I was hoping you'd be a lot more fun!"

"Sorry," Clara murmured, relieved that her night had ended prematurely, not that she'd tell Nina that. She tried to think of a way to probe the Doctor situation without letting slip she was meeting him later but quickly realised that that was pointless. Nina would clock her in ten seconds flat, she might as well just come clean straight off the bat. "Do you know a guy called John, works in Physics, calls himself the Doctor?"

"Ahh," Nina's eyes narrowed. "The Doctor. I've heard of him. Real name, John Smith, aged 29," Nina rattled off. "He was a whizz kid, finished his PHD by the time he was 21, but he always lies and says it was later. Went a bit off the rails two years ago, after his wife died in a horrific car accident or so I'm told. Turned to booze, hit the bottle pretty hard. Almost lost his job at the university but he was so smart they couldn't afford to fire him. Nevertheless, they forced him to sober up and he's been back on his game the last nine months or so." Nina seemed to be considering if there was more to say. "That just about sums it up. Why do you ask?"

"We're going for coffee later," Clara said quietly, sipping her tea and waiting for the explosion. For some reason, it never came. Nina was staring at her with an intensity that Clara wasn't used to. She shifted slightly and Nina shook her head. "What?"

"Nothing," Nina paused. "It's just…all the eligible bachelors I try to set you up with and you choose the emotionally crippled, alcohol dependent, super-genius. What does that say about you Clara?"

Clara had no answer to that.


She had resolved not to ask the Doctor about his drinking problem, or his dead wife. But both of them were hanging over her head as she met him outside Starbucks and they went inside to order. Clara ordered tea, same as she always did, whilst the Doctor ordered a cappuccino. It took almost ten minutes of staring and awkward preamble before he sighed, put down his cup and looked intensely at her.

"You know then?" he asked, his voice hurt and Clara didn't bother to deny it. "You know about River? About the booze?"

"Was that her name?" Clara's voice was quiet, comforting, but she didn't know what she was doing. Nina's revelations had made her cautious, but hadn't changed her views on him. If anything, it just filled in the confusing gaps of her reading of him. "River?"

"River Song and I married young," he was speaking curtly, like they were facts about another person, like Nina was reeling off facts about him. "I was 21, she was 25 and we both thought we'd met the one. We thought that because we shared a passion for blowing shit up, it made our love invincible. I guess we were wrong. She got hit by some drunken fuckwit, I became a drunken fuckwit, and I've spent every second of my life since that day trying to find a way to carry on. It's taken me over six months to get to a place in my life where I don't need a drink and where I can move forward with my life. And I want to move forwards Clara. Sorry," his voice had lost its edge but she could see he was still tense. She felt the urge to reach out and grasp his hand. "I'm sorry Clara. But River Song has been hanging over my head for two years; I just wanted to start fresh. But there, now you know all there is to know. If you want to walk out that door, I'd understand. But I feel better now, and I just want to get on with my life and meet someone new. "

Clara knew she should walk. She should get up and leave this damaged man to his cappuccino. But she didn't. Because she liked him for some reason and she didn't want to let this chaos push her away. He wanted to move on and she understood that. In the six months following Danny, all she had wanted was for people to stop talking about Danny. The way he wanted people to stop talking about River, now that he was ready to move on. If he was ready. She didn't know why she believed him, but she did. Clara could almost hear Nina's groan of exasperation as she reached across the table and took his hands.

"Seeing as how I know so much about you John Smith," she said sweetly and this time he didn't flinch. "It only seems fit to return the favour. You already know I'm Clara, Clara Oswald. I've told you I'm a teacher, but I didn't tell you why I got into teaching. It was because of my mum." Clara took a deep breath. "She died when I was sixteen and I had never felt more alone. I became a teacher so that I could make sure that the teenagers I teach don't end up the way I did, alone, powerless, I want them to feel as though there's always hope and that people do care about them."

She could see admiration in the Doctor's eyes and also pity. She hated the pity, the pity of people who were always judging, who always thought they could put themselves in her shoes. She at least appreciated the admiration.

"That's not what's been bothering you though," he said gently, sipping his coffee. She could feel him evaluating her. "I could see yesterday you were…agitated by something. But the way you talk about your mum…it's not raw. It's not as painful anymore."

"It was a long time ago," Clara admitted. "It doesn't mean I don't miss her, the way that you must be missing River." He acknowledged this with a head bow. "But you're right, that's not what's bothering me. It's my friend Tom. I snapped at him. And now he's acting like a wounded puppy."

"Why did you snap?"

"Because he won't stop going on about how sorry he is and how much of a jerk Danny is!" Clara's voice was getting louder and she fought for control over her emotion. "He can't get it into his head that I don't care about Danny, and I don't want to hear about Danny every day at work, when all I want to focus on is…"

"Moving on?" the Doctor's voice was sympathetic, rather than pitying. "Danny is your ex?"

"We broke up six months ago," Clara explained, her face burning. "He cheated on me." She'd adopted the same, matter-of-fact tone that the Doctor had adopted when talking about River. "And now he's sleeping with some trainee and it's as if the entire world is up in arms, taking my side, expecting me to be angry or hateful. And…I don't care!" Clara shook her head. "I don't care anymore."

"Well…" the Doctor took a deep breath. The silence between them was deafening, Clara was shaking. She knew this was the make or break moment between them. Whatever the next words between them were, they would probably define the relationship to come. "That's the heavy stuff out of the way. Now, let's get down to the real stuff. The important questions. Clara Oswald, what is your favourite book?"

Clara smiled in relief.


Nina was still hugging the radiator when Clara got back. Her flatmate was giving Clara an odd look as she entered the kitchen, taking off her coat and shivering slightly as she rubbed her hands together. Nina blinked once and Clara rolled her eyes, turning to the cupboards, looking for food for dinner. She was waiting for Nina to speak, not willing to give her the satisfaction of answering the question that she was clearly desperate to ask.

"How was it?!" Nina blurted eventually, the tension of not knowing clearly killing her. Clara smirked to herself and put on her sweetest smile before turning around to face Nina, looking over the kitchen to the corner of the room Nina was perched in.

"It was lovely," Clara answered honestly, some of the sweetness melting off her smile as it became a genuine one as she looked back on her afternoon. "He's a great guy."

"Are you going to see him again?" Nina asked, the tone of her voice making it perfectly clear what she thought of the whole situation. Clara was in no mood for pussyfooting around her.

"We're going out for dinner Wednesday night. He's picking me up from here at 7:30."

The look on Nina's face was priceless.