Thank you very much for the first reviews :) Hope you like the second chapter as well.

Chapter 2

Clara was just about to finish up the salad when she heard the front door open and Alex stepped inside their house.

"Honey, I'm home!" he called from the living room and Clara giggled. Ever since they had moved in together, this was usually the first thing he said upon coming back from work.

"Kitchen!" she announced and a moment later, instead of the salad, she was facing a large bouquet of flowers and Alex pressed a kiss to her head from behind.

"What are those for? Did I forget an anniversary?" she asked carefully as she took the flowers from him and turned around.

Alex shrugged. He looked really tired and worn out from the day he had had. "An apology," he explained, "For working so much lately."

Clara knew he was really lucky to haven gotten his position, head of human resources, at his current age and at such a big company, too, so she tried not to complain too much. After all, her own job was very important to her as well, yet some days when he was working late and none of her friends were around, she did feel bored out of her mind.

"Is everything okay at work?" Clara asked while she looked through the cupboards for a suitable vase.

Alex snagged something from the salad bowl and put it into his mouth. "Yeah, just lots of work. Remember when I told you we're trying to broaden the company horizons? We're currently working to set up an office in Seattle and we want to hire 80% natives, and the other 20% will be transferred from the London office," he explained.

"That sounds like a lot of interviews," Clara said, slapping his hand away from the bowl as he tried to grab another snack.

"It is and pickings are slim, but I can't blame them for not wanting to move to another continent, although the new job would come with a nice raise."

"Hang on," Clara looked up at him, knitting her eyebrows, "If you're in charge of the Seattle office, does that mean. . .?"

Alex nodded gravely. "I have to fly to America once or twice for the interviews, but I'm trying to schedule them for the Autumn school break so you could come with me."

"Ohh, I'm not sure I can make-," Clara stopped to take the bowl of salad away from him, "Stop stealing the food!"

"Why?" he asked innocently, "Why did you even make so much? Are we expecting guests?"

Clara glared at him, putting her arms akimbo. "The barbecue evening?"

Alex covered his face in his hands. "I'm sorry, I completely forgot. Who's coming?"

"Amy and Rory, Martha, though I'm not sure if she brings Mickey, and I invited the new neighbour. Remember, the one I told you about a few days ago? He fixed our kitchen tap."

Alex let out a tired groan and wrapped his arms around Clara's waist. "I was actually looking forward to some quality time with my beautiful girlfriend."

"You can have that later. Now go shower while I fix up dinner," she ordered him.

He groaned again. "Amy and Rory, that's gonne be hours of talking about sex positions most suitable for conceiving and tracking menstrual cycles and fertility clinics."

"Look on the bright side," she said with a shrug, "One day it's gonna happen and then they'll talk about nothing but nappies and bottles and first words that don't even exist in the English language."

"Already looking forward to that," he replied without enthusiasm.

OOO

John was clasping the wine bottle in his left hand as if holding on for dear life when he stepped up to the door and lifted his other hand to the door bell. He could still turn around and walk away. Clara would probably be disappointed in him, but he wouldn't have to face his son when he didn't feel ready yet. Though he knew that it was stupid, he would never feel ready, so he just gritted his teeth and rang the bell.

A few moments later Clara opened the door with a broad smile on her face.

"You came," she greeted him excitedly, "I wasn't sure you would."

John held up the bottle of wine that he'd brought for Clara to take. "Didn't know what else to bring, so. . ."

She cocked an eyebrow at him. "Did you know this was my favourite or just a lucky guess?"

John shifted from one foot to the other. "I, erm, may have seen a bottle of this on your wine rack in the kitchen."

Clara beamed at him. "Come on, everyone else is already in the back yard."

To his surprise Clara reached out to take him by the arm and led him through the house, her touch almost making him regret his decision to come. He really wasn't comfortable with being touched, which was probably normal after going 25 years without any kind of skin contact. His sister had tried to ease John back into it, but without obvious success as he had always stiffened up whenever she had attempted to hug him.

As she led him through the house, John grew increasingly nervous, not just because he was about to meet his son, but also because he felt like he had completely forgotten how to interact with people during social gatherings. He was fine when he was talking to just one person, but a quick scan of the garden told him he was about to spend the evening with five other people.

"Everyone," Clara announced immediately, "This is John Smith, who has just moved into the house across the street this week. He's a very skilled plumber and handyman, by the way. John," she said, now looking at him for a moment, "This is Martha Jones, works as a surgeon at the Royal Hope Hospital. These two are Amy and Rory Pond-"

"Actually," the young man raised his voice, "It's Williams. I don't even know how this joke's still supposed to be funny."

Clara laughed. "Yes, and he hates it when everyone assumes he has taken his wife's last name. Rory also works at the Royal Hope and Amy is a journalist and writer. And this one here," she said, pointing at the only young man who so far hadn't been introduced, "is my boyfriend Alex. He was named head of human resources at Asbury Inc. last year."

The only thing John recognized about him was the unruly mass of curly brown hair on his head. His face was unfamiliar, though he could see traces of his mother in it and he seemed to have inherited her way of furrowing the eyebrows.

John extended his hand nervously, hoping that Alex would take it before anyone saw that he was trembling. "Clara has told me you're from Glasgow as well?" he asked, not knowing what else to say to him.

Alex huffed as he shook his hand. "Ghastly place. Luckily my mother and I moved to London when I was little."

He took a mental note that apparently Sarah Jane hadn't stayed with the other man after all, though he couldn't find a good excuse to ask about it.

"You're a Smith from Glasgow, too, huh? You don't happen to be related to a Sarah Jane Smith?" Alex asked him and from his looks he didn't expected a yes as an answer at all.

John smiled politely. He could hardly tell them that John Smith was nothing but an alias, a name he had picked after being released from prison so in case his past came back to haunt him, no one would be able to find him among all the other John Smiths in the world.

"If all the Smiths of Glasgow were related, we'd be the biggest family in the world," he replied.

The evening passed slowly, but John grew less nervous with every minute. At first he had been terrified, meeting his son for the first time, making small talk with strangers who were all younger than him by some decades and he thought he wouldn't be able to fit in at all. Yet their friends were nice and he was able to evade questions about his past that dug too deep. He told them that he'd been living in Glasgow for most of his life, which was true, and that he had moved in with his sister six months ago, which was also true, because she was recovering from a nasty divorce, which was only half a lie. They asked about his job and by the end of the evening he had promised to have a look at Martha's flickering kitchen light and replace Amy and Rory's bathroom sink. In return he had learned that Martha was married to a man named Mickey and that Amy and Rory were desperately trying for a kid. Clara talked to him on a lot of occasions as well, small talk, nothing too serious and she constantly seemed to check if he was enjoying himself. After all, she was the one who had invited him.

His son appeared to be a really nice, young man and John couldn't be prouder that Sarah Jane had managed to raise him so well. He was attentive towards Clara, polite to him and the other guests, although it was plain to see that he was tired from work. He thought that Sarah Jane had probably made the right decision back before Alex had been born, to raise him with another man, or on her own. With John as a father, who knows how Alex would have turned out.

"I think I should call it a night," John announced as he looked around and saw some guests already yawning, knowing that the evening would be over soon anyway.

"I'll show you out," Clara said, rising from her chair.

When John had said his goodbyes to the rest of them, he followed Clara back through the house to the front door.

"I hope they didn't bore you to death," she said when they had reached the front door.

"Not at all," John replied earnestly, "I thought they were really nice."

"Really?" Clara's eyes widened in surprise, "They bore me sometimes with their pretty little lives and their perfect houses and their plans for having kids."

"They're you're friends."

"I suppose," Clara shrugged, "But I'm glad you could make it."

"I'm glad you asked me to come. It was a nice evening."

Before John could step back, Clara had leaned in and given him a peck on the cheek. He knew it was a common way to say hello and goodbye, but the feeling of a woman's lips on his skin was so utterly foreign to him by now that it startled him.

"Good night. See you around, I guess?" she asked.

"Yeah," he replied for lack of something better to say, "G'night."

John hurried across the street, away from the house and the confusion that was causing a turmoil inside of him.