Thank you guys so, so, so incredibly much for the sweet reviews! Now, let's see if the Doctor and Clara are in any way curious about each other. . .

Chapter 3

Involuntarily, Clara's lips curled into a smile when she looked at the photograph Amy had opened on her laptop and she quickly tried to hide her reaction, but damn, the Doctor looked nice.

"What's that smirk for?" her friend wanted to know.

"Oh, uh, nothing," she replied but couldn't help but glance back at the picture of the handsome singer. She wasn't entirely sure how old the photo was, but the man she was wasn't what Clara had expected. When her manager and friend had first mentioned she was going to work with an unknown singer, Clara had suspected a newcomer, a young guy with a terrible haircut and a voice like any other, so this came as a pleasant surprise. The Doctor looked like he was in his 50s, he had a strange mop of unruly, silver curls on his head and Clara found it almost impossible to tear her eyes away from his tall, lean body that was dressed in a handsome, dark three-piece suit. "He's got style."

"He does," Amy confirmed. "And his music is actually quite good. I don't know why it doesn't sell."

Clara reached for the remote and turned up the volume of her stereo, listening to the sound of the Doctor's music. She didn't recognize the song and if she had to place it in a decade, Clara would have suspected it had been written in the 70s. Maybe it was just too old-fashioned for modern listeners. Yet what struck her the most was his dark, gravelly voice that seemed to shoot straight through her, rippling her skin in goosebumps in the process. Handsome and talented. Yep, Clara could definitely get on board with this.

"So?" Amy asked hopefully, cocking her eyebrows at her. "What do you say? No longer mad at your favourite manager?"

With a sigh, Clara put the laptop away and turned around on her sofa, facing Amy. "I really wanted that holiday, you know?"

In response, Amy granted her an apologetic smile. "I know and I'm sorry. I really messed this up for you, but look on the bright side. At least you're gonna share the burden of writing and recording and promoting with another person. The attention won't all be on you."

"I know," she growled, but in her head, Clara was still waving that holiday goodbye. "I'm just so tired, you know? Just the idea of smiling for the camera and dragging my arse into the studio doing all the promotional stuff. . . I had just finished all of it for the last album. I feel like I'm gonna punch the next journalist who asks me a stupid question. It's so frustrating."

To her surprise, her manager sniggered. "You just need to relax."

"That's exactly what I was trying to do when you forced me into this joint album!"

"Not like that," Amy replied, giggling. "What about your toy boy?"

At the mention of him, Clara's eyes suddenly widened when she realized she hadn't even answered his last question. From yesterday.

"Fuck!" she cursed and instantly reached for her phone, but she didn't find the collection of messages she had expected. Okay, he was mad now. And he had every right to be. With a sigh, Clara dropped the phone back on her sofa. "Ah, I'll deal with him later."

"Poor boy," Amy remarked.

"Enough about him," Clara determined and looked up at Amy again. "Tell me about the Doctor," she prompted. Her curiosity was sparked by the photographs she had seen and if they were going to work together, she should know what she would be dealing with.

Yet Amy merely shrugged. "I don't know, I've never met him."

"Oh, come on, you must know something about him," Clara insisted and leaned forward to give her manager a soft nudge. "Any scandals?"

Her friend shook her head. "I really don't know anything about him, but I suppose you'll find out. Missy has proposed a meeting for coffee. On Friday."

Clara pouted at her in response when she realized her curiosity wouldn't be satisfied yet and leaned back on the sofa. On Friday, she would find out who the Doctor was and until then she would do what she had intended to do: relax. Clara only hoped that the Doctor wasn't an idiot because that would make her look forward to this project even less. A holiday would have been so nice.

"I know what she looks like, I've seen the posters for her tour," the Doctor growled at his manager when she attempted to shove her tablet under his nose.

"Take a look regardless, it might cheer you up a little," Missy insisted and dropped the iPad into his lap.

Still growling, the Doctor picked it up and looked at the photo only half-heartedly. Beneath the layers of make-up, Clara Oswald was probably quite pretty, but the dark eyeliner only made her look like a junkie who hadn't had a proper wash in weeks.

"Why would this cheer me up?" he wanted to know.

Missy raised her eyebrows at him. "Open your eyes, blind man. Half the country wants to sleep with her. Damn, even I would sleep with her."

The Doctor shot her a glowering glance in reply. "I don't wanna sleep with her. How old is she? 20? That's cradle-snatching."

"Actually, she's 29 but you know how the label likes to lie about a singer's age if they think it will make the music sell better."

He scoffed. "Yeah, they've been passing me up for 50 for years which tells you a lot about the mental capacity of the people who buy my music."

"Your fans don't care about age," Missy argued.

The Doctor lifted his head and raised an eyebrow at his manager, not sure whether she had meant it as a compliment or an insult. Knowing Missy, it was probably a bit of both.

"This will be good for your career, trust me," she told him sternly. "And even if it doesn't make you famous, it will still pay your bills for a while, so please, wipe that look off your face. Or are you afraid that your eyebrows will drop off?"

"Funny," he growled.

"Trust me, Doctor, you'll thank me for this at some point. Just sign the contract on Friday and make this album and everything's gonna be fine."

"Well, if you say so," the Doctor replied with a sigh and handed her iPad back to her. He was done staring at a photo of Clara Oswald that probably didn't even look anything like her. The Doctor only hoped that she would be nice. After so many years in the business, he had met many people, managers and singers alike, and in his experience, most of them were stuck up or downright rude. The Doctor just prayed that Clara Oswald wasn't one of them because they would have to work together for quite some time. It would make the following months unbearable.

"Do you know anything about her other than that she's successful?"

His manager shrugged. "Not really, no. Never met her. But my niece is her manager. It'll be fine."

Even though Missy kept reassuring him of that, the Doctor wasn't quite convinced. He wasn't exactly a team player. He had never done this sort of thing before. Somehow he couldn't shake the feeling that it was a terrible idea, but what choice did he have? Whoever she was, whether he liked her or not, the Doctor would just have to grit his teeth and go through with it.