Chapter Two: Shortness

Clara hated being short.

She had hated it from the moment she'd become aware of it. From her earliest memories onwards, it had caused her nothing but irritation. Her parents, both also small in stature and both annoyingly okay with it, had done their best to try and persuade her that it wasn't as much of a handicap as she made it out to be. "Some boys really like short girls," her mother had told her once.

"I don't care," Clara had replied huffily, albeit truthfully. "I don't like it, that's what matters."

"At least you'll end up taller than me," her mother had pointed out. That was true. Clara's mother had been tiny, even shorter than she was now. Countless times, she'd made this point to try and cheer her up, by reminding her that someday, there would at least be someone she could count herself as taller than.

Then her mother had died, before she'd grown up. She'd never got to see for herself that she was right.

It had caused an excess of problems throughout her childhood. Her formative years had been spent standing on stools and chairs to reach things down- for some reason everything she wanted seemed to gravitate towards the highest shelves. Clara's best friend when she was six had been Grace Barton, who had been bookish like her but one of the tallest pupils in her class. When she'd asked Clara to partner with her for the three-legged race on sports day, she'd been too polite to say no, though even in her six-year-old brain the mechanics of the situation hadn't escaped her. Landing sprawling on the grass, being dragged in the wake of her annoyingly large friend whilst parents around them fanatically shouted encouragement at their sensibly-sized offspring, Clara had decided then and there that being short was going to be bane of her life.

The next few years after that had seen more problems develop. Every rollercoaster she didn't meet the requirement for had felt like a slap in the face, jealously watching as her friends shrieked with excitement aboard the ride. Clara was already fairly miserable about her height when she reached secondary school, where it developed into an even more annoying problem- suddenly all her friends seemed to be shooting up, whilst she was stuck being tiny. Growth spurts came later to her than they did to most of her classmates; even then they barely qualified as spurts, and she stayed infuriatingly small. At least that one line about boys appreciating short girls had proven to be reasonably true. Still, she'd loathed being short in secondary school in particular. Being mistaken for a first-year when she was fourteen, suffering the indignity of continuing to go shopping in the 'girls' section in department stores, it all mounted up so that by the time she was told by Jenny Wilson in her GCSE year that she was 'so jealous' of her because 'guys loved short girls', Clara had felt ready to punch her for her seeming lack of sympathy for her plight.

Admittedly, being short didn't cause quite so many problems in the adult world, though it still was a touchy subject for Clara. She ended up being five foot one and a half, a shade taller than her mother had been but still most unreasonably small in her view. Clara's biggest worry about her height was that it would cause her problems when she finally finished her training and became a teacher- she would never be able to command respect being so tiny and unimposing. Try though she might, she continued in her twenties to be just as self-conscious about it as she'd been in her teens.

Then Clara met the Doctor. The Doctor was himself most irritatingly tall, but through his own brand of sincerity and affection he managed to make her self-consciousness dissipate. He'd tell her between kisses that she was beautiful just the way she was, something she hadn't been used to hearing before, and something that made Clara for the first time look at her height as something to be rather pleased about. He liked it, and she was inclined to trust in his opinion.

On the other hand, the Doctor did tease her terribly. Clara couldn't be mad at him for more than a few seconds for it, but all the practical problems of her height seemed to amuse him more than anything else in the world. Once he'd discovered her penchant for baking soufflés, he'd started deliberately putting ingredients on the highest shelves, just so he could watch and chuckle as she futilely tried to get them down before offering to help her out. He'd laugh as well as she stood on her tiptoes to try and kiss him without him having to bend down too far, and his laughter would only increase at the grumpy expression on her face; he'd reach out with his two index fingers and tweak the corners of her lips up into a smile, before he'd pick her up so they were at a similar altitude and meet them with his own.

"Clara, can you pass me that spanner? It's just down there, by the board- see, there, the one with the flashing lights."

He was pointing down into an open space beneath the floor of the console room. Clara looked at the drop down, lowered herself in and let herself fall to the level below. She picked up the spanner and tossed it up to him as he continued working on the maintenance of his ship. "It's there beside you. When are we going to-"

Clara stopped abruptly. Oh no. Surely not. She reached up towards the rim of the opening, trying to grasp hold of the TARDIS' flooring. She couldn't. It was too far, and she was too short.

"Doctor?" She backed off, looking round to see if there was anything she could stand on. There wasn't. Dammit. She could almost imagine the ship laughing at her, delighting in confounding her once more.

"Mmmh?" He continued to work on unperturbed. "What is it?"

"Could you… could you give me a hand?" she asked tentatively.

She heard a rattle as he dropped something, then he appeared over the opening, looking down at her curiously. "Of course," he said in bemusement. "With what?"

Clara felt herself blush furiously. "I'm stuck," she said sheepishly.

The Doctor's eyes widened. He stared for a moment, then began to laugh, clutching his sides as if worried they might split. Clara blushed further, then rolled her eyes as he sank to the floor of the TARDIS, nearly crying with mirth. Alright, it wasn't that funny. Maybe she should stick him down a hole somewhere, see how he liked it. "Shut up," she said huffily. "It's not funny."

"It's hilarious!" He continued to roll around on the floor laughing for a good five minutes before he finally sat up and reached down towards her. "Alright, give me your hand, then. Assuming you can reach."

Once he'd successfully extricated her, she sat down on the floor of the TARDIS, back to the console, looking sullenly at the floor. "I'm sorry for laughing at you so much," the Doctor said. He'd repaired what needed to be repaired on the ship, and now stood a few feet away looking down at her caringly. "If that's what you're annoyed about."

Clara sighed. "I'm sick of being short," she complained. "Tell me, you'd know- there's got to be some way in the future they can make you taller, right? Not much, just a few inches, so I don't feel so silly…"

She lowered her gaze grumpily to the floor once more. She heard him move, then a moment later felt him slide down the console to sit beside her and his left arm slip gently round her shoulders. "I honestly don't know if there is," he said. "But would you really want to change yourself? You're my beautiful soufflé girl, I wouldn't change a thing about you."

Clara kept up her grumpy stare, but her heart fluttered slightly at his words. "You mean it?"

"Of course I do…" He cupped her face gently with one hand, turning her head gently to face towards him. He was smiling fondly at her, his old eyes soft and sincere. "Come on. Give us a smile. Just a little one." He did his thing, gently raising the corners of her mouth, until they stayed up without any need for his support. Clara couldn't help but smile at him, and his own smile broadened as he saw her do so. "There we go. See, you're beautiful just how you are. Don't forget it."

He kissed her forehead lightly. Clara sighed again, contentedly this time, and allowed his other arm to encircle her and pull her into a hug. Now, this was one thing her being short was good for. Cuddles with the Doctor were terrific. She could snuggle in close to him and rest her head under his amusingly large chin, and feel safe and secure as long as he was there with her. "Thanks, Doctor."

"Don't mention it." They sat there cuddled up together as the TARDIS hummed softly around them. Yes, Clara would always be a little annoyed about being short. But her Doctor liked it, and if it made him happy… well, it was good enough for her.

Being myself a member of the short person club, I felt amused whilst writing this chapter. I'm a little taller than Jenna Coleman but also male, which to me makes it worse somehow. POVs will continue to alternate throughout this series of oneshots, so I'll probably make the next chapter from the Doctor's. Keep reading, and feel free to prompt me to write the chapters you want to see. Hope you're enjoying things so far :)