Chapter 3: Lord Of The Lake

"I'm going to make you twenty one different meals," John explained as Clara twisted in the passenger seat of his car to look back again at the boxes of food he had stacked in the backseat. His black guitar case was propped in the footwell next to a small pile of novels and their wellingtons.

"Do I know how to make twenty one different meals?" he continued, copying the grin on her face. "No. I do not. I can make four. But I have this now—"

He reached somewhere into the nearest box and brought out a book.

The Complete Cookbook For Kids

Clara pressed her mouth into the seat to try and stop her laughter.

"What?" he grinned, showing his teeth. "What's so funny, Clara?"

"Nothing. What. I'm not laughing."

"You're going to enjoy all twenty one. Or pretend to." He threw the book away and opened the door to get out.

They had long crossed into the Highlands of Scotland, currently three hours north of Glasgow, stopped at the edge of an expansive loch to have lunch. Clara had been to Scotland before, Edinburgh a few times, Glasgow a few more times. North of the big cities however, her experience of the Highlands was very limited.

"Do you know what this Loch's called?" John asked with a smile, pulling his arms above his head in a long stretch.

"Loch… Achmór Clàr'Bo' Sléibhe Kinardochy?"

John blinked. "Excellent nonsense Gaelic. But no." He shook his head, dropping hands into his hair. "You're giving us far too much credit."

A gleeful grin expanded his mouth. He pointed directly at the water. "Loch Lochy."

Clara laughed automatically and then gave him a crooked smile. "Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"Lake Lakey."

"Yeah," he smirked. "How's that for effort?"

Clara looked to the south, toward the other end. It was large, perhaps five or six miles long. The two of them traversed towards the waterside, making a path over the maintained grass. It was a beautiful day, sun tentatively breaching a low position over the hills across the loch. Scattered clouds lingered in a wide stretch over the brilliant blue. The air was cold, a bite in her lungs but more refreshing than what she had expected. Sitting on the grassy edge of the water, John passed her a sandwich.

"Straight from the more inventive mind of a thirteen year old Scot," he explained, peeling back the corner of his, frowning curiously. "Lettuce… something yellow. Sprouts?" He shrugged, unconcerned. "Could be anything. Mystery sandwich. Be careful.

"Ah, Chloe wanted you have this, too." He plucked a post-it note from the carrier box and handed it over.

Can you please get Uncle John to buy me a new phone?
Thanks ! xxxx ! x

"Don't be fooled by all the exclamation marks and x's," he spoke through a bite of mystery sandwich. "Pure manipulation."

Clara grinned and pocketed the note, watching his fond smile and made a start on her own sandwich. John drew his heels towards him, propping his elbows on his knees, scanning eyes over the water.

"The regret you're feeling about what happened on the radio because your dad listened to it?" he questioned, glancing at her. "Well… mine is worse. Much worse."

She breathed out helplessly, realising what he was about to say.

"Uncle John And His Embarrassingly Overdramatic Meltdown. She wanted you to know her favourite parts were the complaints about my 'not normal house with the big gate', and all threats to throw me out the window."

"Right." Clara raised her eyebrows, not exactly sure how to deal with this situation. "Jesus. We, ah…" She pulled a face, powerless. "Shouldn't have done… all that."

"I feel like I should be embarrassed about it," he admitted, smiling slightly. "I don't mean as to what I said. But doing in that way. I don't seem to be managing to sustain it, however.

"Do you...?" he asked quietly, trailing the sentence away.

"Yeah, I still have a job," she sighed, understanding what he was implying. "I actually… I've actually been offered a promotion."

"What?" he said slowly, the sandwich travelling to his mouth stopping in mid air, disbelief clearly evident in his tone even though his question had been purposely skewed in the more optimistic way of asking whether she had been fired.

"I know. It's rather unexpected."

"But… Clara," he stressed, mouth dropping open. "Clara. I was about to offer to pay your rent for the entire year, or forever, or buy you a house. And pay all your expenses. And buy you food. What else do you need?"

Clara gave him a blank, bordering-on-unimpressed, stare. "Why don't I just give you my bank details and you can transfer your entire account into mine."

"Okay."

"What—no," she frowned in annoyance, shaking her head when his expression or tone didn't alter from the serious nature it was fixed in.

John shrugged and gave her an insouciant smile.

"I haven't looked at anything that's been written about us in the last week," Clara went on. "I'm not really… interested. At all. But Rory's given me some basic information. You probably know more than me. But for the station… it's obliterated the podcast charts by… I don't know. There's no competition for miles. Rory said the backlash at the possibility of not releasing it to the public the next day was about enough to start a coup."

"Licence-payers want what they pay for," he murmured, taking an absent bite.

"Mmm. I mean, on the other hand, it quite rightly now holds the record for the most amount of profanity complaints."

John snickered. "You started it."

"You started it."

"You called me a bastard within about sixty seconds," he grinned.

Clara opened her mouth to retaliate and then realised he was right. "Good point. Shit, I started it. Great."

Her frown shifted into something a little more resemblant of a smirk. "Jack is furious at you by the way. Disaster Thursday has well exceeded Wedding Saturday in the charts. Number one and number two."

"It was only ever my intention to upstage Jack Harkness at his own game."

She scanned her eyes over the side of his face. The remnants of the punch Jack had delivered were almost gone. A slight discolouration lingered on his cheek, the red mark fading back into the pale hue of his skin.

"I'd just… keep away for awhile," she recommended. "For safety."

John smiled, a hint of his own pressing smirk as he noted her inspection on his face. "Clara. I'd win if we fought for real."

She raised her eyebrows. "You're very confident."

"Jack's heavier, but I'd be faster. All that muscle? Just for show. He doesn't know how to fight." He looked rather pleased at the idea, chewing slowly with a grin. "He would've been in trouble if he had gone in a second time."

Clara offered him an unimpressed glare. "I hope you two never have to prove that to each other."

"Would Jack prefer being taken to the NHS or a private hospital?"

"Stop advocating violence on my friends," she growled, trying to stay serious.

"Friend," he corrected.

"I'll set Amy on you," she threatened with a tiny smirk.

John open his mouth to retaliate but then paused. "There's a fight I'm not sure I would win."

Taking a breath, Clara continued as he turned back to his lunch. "If I look at the whole thing from a third-party perspective, I can see it a lot differently. In terms of you… because of who you are, and from the viewpoint of an interview, it was incredible. Entertainment wise… well, I'm not exactly about to listen back, but I imagine it was quite interesting." She shrugged. "But it's not just that in consideration. We did eleven months of simply a really good show."

Clara exhaled, frowning. She paused for a moment to eat. "Anyway. It's only… a radio show. The swearing for offence? Not great. Jack's personal slander at Sharon Lowles? Also not great. But the rest was directed entirely at you. I should be fired. Resoundingly fired for letting that happen. Michelle, my boss—"

"Who I blackmailed," John acknowledged quietly with a frown.

"Yeah. She… really likes me. I feel awful about the position we put her in. But she understands, too, I think. What was going on."

Clara sighed again, staring down to the bread in her hands. "Maybe if the majority public opinion was the opposite of what it is, then the outcome would be different. But it's… Well. Whatever it is. I am keeping away from it. Jack and I did have to issue apology statements though. I got Rory to write mine. I had no idea what the hell I was supposed to say."

"I've read them," John admitted, glancing to her.

"You have? What does mine say?"

He exhaled amusement. "Generic, dull bullshit. I did actually imagine you would be a more of a creative writer than that. Rory didn't put a lot of effort into making it interesting."

She smiled. "Good."

"Just sincere enough to please anyone who was offended, and boring enough to be insincere."

"Perfect," she grinned. "Exactly what I was after."

"Donna wrote mine. Well, it wasn't really an apology. More of a statement. You should have seen her last week," he grinned, suddenly the embodiment of smug. "Her favourite week in thirteen years."

"I did," Clara said through her sandwich. "She came round to my house."

"What?" Surprise flashed in his eyes and then he frowned. "She didn't tell me that."

Clara smirked a little at his disgruntled expression. "Did she have to?"

"Well… no." He shifted slightly on the bank. "What did she want?"

"Nothing. She just wanted to see if I was all right. And then told me embarrassing stories about you."

His eyebrows furrowed further. "What embarrassing stories?"

"There was an excellent one involving an American airport and an American airport employee."

John threw a stone into the loch, glaring at the water like it had become the source of all his problems. "Okay. Well. That's the end of her employment with me then. Someone had to lose their job out of this."

Clara laughed at his scowling expression until it transformed back into a less displeased manner.

"I'm the one who should be fired. I don't deserve this. I was going to reject it entirely. Resign instead. Rory sort of… talked me out of an immediate decision. Jack, too.

"We've been offered—" Clara exhaled a breath of incredulous laughter, sending her gaze back out over the loch. "Saturday mornings. The three of us. Which is unbelievable."

John raised his eyebrows, mouth parting slightly in surprise.

"I always wanted to work in radio," she murmured, brushing a blade of grass from her knee. "Even when I was a kid. And I'm excellent at my job, too."

John smiled and she grinned at him, aware of the irony. "Prior to two weeks ago, I was excellent at my job. Mum and Dad always used to have Radio 4 on in the mornings when I was a kid. I like… stories. And those lingering fragments of a sentence, or a word, a joke… You feel it in your chest. A good feeling. The relationship between who's speaking and the people that listen has always fascinated me. The intensity of connection you can feel for someone you've never met, but have heard speak for years is… I don't know. Sort of… difficult to express."

Clara ran her hand over the ground beside her, staring down to the earth. "I've wanted this with Jack since I first met him. That was always my plan, to get offered this with him. He's been hesitant in the past about pursuing it because of the time commitment. But now, I'm guessing that faced with the actual offer, his massive ego has taken over. He's onboard."

She wiped fingers over her jaw. "He's done primetime radio before, but I always thought I could make him excel in a different way to what he'd done previously. Which I think is what we achieved last year."

Clara swallowed, a little shy as her voice lowered. "I'm so proud of The Wedding. Lots of producers have chaotic, impulsive shows. But we really made something special in the last nine months. And it overshadows what happened with me and you.

"We haven't accepted yet. We'd start broadcasting in late January. Jack won't say yes without me, so I have this week to decide. They want to announce it while this is all still headline worthy news.

"So," she finished, giving him a small smile. "All's well. Sort of. I just have to say yes."

His gentle, curious gaze scanned over her expression. "Are you going to say yes?"

"Yes."

"Why the delay?"

"Playing hard to get."

He smiled, his eyes flashing with darkening humour.

"I mean… after that performance," she reasoned with a grim smile, "I'm amazed I haven't had all the commercial stations offering me work. So, yes. I'm going to say yes." Clara sighed, scrubbing over her brow and lowering her voice. "I'm also having a little bit of trouble accepting empathy."

John leaned into her shoulder for a moment, keeping his eyes on the loch. "I'm very glad I haven't ruined your career."

"You could argue that you've actually sort of improved it."

"Mmm. I have, haven't I…" He hummed again and turned his gaze on her. "Interesting. I would have paid your rent in anycase."

Clara sighed and then gave him a pleasant smile. "And I would have told you to fuck off."

"I already contribute to your salary."

Laughter pressed in her throat. "When was the last time, you personally, went and paid your licence fee?"

Finishing his sandwich, he shrugged, impassive. "Can't remember. Probably never. Do I even pay it? I don't know."

Following the serpentine curves, the two of them wandered slowly down the edge of the loch, the small path leading them over the shallow stones.

"There was a famous clan battle fought right here in 1544," John told her quietly. "Or a bit more over there." He pointed back toward the northern end where they had come from. "MacDonald verses Fraser. Mmm… Another brilliant name. Battle of the Shirts. Apparently it was so hot that everyone took off their plaids and just fought in shirts instead. A proper strip down. But… I've always been dubious. Heat in this country? I'm not sure I really believe it."

"What were they fighting about?"

"Have a guess."

"Well, there's only two options. Land or leadership."

"Latter."

"Who won?"

"No one. There were eight hundred men and thirteen survivors. No victors. A stalemate." John sighed slowly, squinting in the sun. "We are so stupid."

"So stupid," Clara smiled, her tone wiping out his wider sentiment and hinting towards something a little more regionally personal.

A grin pressed on the edges of his mouth at her light teasing. "Careful. You're outnumbered here."

"Well… not in this immediate moment." She cast her gaze purposely over the empty landscape.

He shrugged and pointed over the loch. "I just have to do the secret Scottish warcry and my army will traverse over the hill."

"Why's it secret?"

"Because none of the English have ever survived to carry it over the border." He gave her a blank stare. "Obviously."

She shrugged. "I could just seduce my way through the lot of them."

He breathed out laughter and ducked his head. "Course you would."

"I'm a brilliant tactician."

More laughter spilled from his mouth and he rubbed fingers over his eyes. "Christ."

"What?"

"I'm just imagining it."

Clara pulled a face, realising the situation they were getting themselves into. "Maybe… maybe don't do that," she considered, frowning.

John smiled, flashing teeth and then biting on his bottom lip. "Well. They wouldn't stand a chance. Anyway. Do you like buzzards? There's a buzzard."

His pointing hand followed a high flying bird soaring overhead. "We might see a golden eagle on Skye. I've seen one before. Their wingspan can exceed two meters. The grey wolf hunter. Literally. A bird that can kill a wolf. You should probably be careful," he frowned, scanning eyes over her. "You're quite small."

Clara blinked, grinning. "I'm not going to spend this week being eaten by a bird. Why do you suddenly keep insinuating I'm not going to survive Scotland?"

"Dangerous land," he shrugged, fixing her with his own grin.

"Well, it's a very beautiful dangerous land, at least. So beautiful. I'd sort of forgotten. England has nothing on this."

Clara sighed, watching amusement flash over his profile. The cold breeze ruffled his silvery curls and he paused at the water's edge before turning slowly to look at her.

"They feel very different to me," he mused. "The border is imaginary of course, but in my head, England is… soft. The landscape, I mean. Not the people." He grinned as she narrowed her eyes at the wording. "Although…"

"This is going well," Clara expressed with a fixed smile.

John laughed. "I'll try again. England is like grass that you know can dry in the sun, even when it's covered in dew. In the summer, you can see the haze and the little flying insects to brush from your face. Clouds reside and the rain expelled is dreary and damp." He closed his eyes. "England feels old. I feel the shadows when I'm in London. All that history. But Scotland, Scotland feels… ancient."

His returning gaze cast into their surroundings. "The stones of the castles are crumbling away into dust. Tiny, tiny grains wearing slowly down into nothing. We can't stop it. If you fix it, it just crumbles again. The forests are taller, older. The shadows are darker and deeper. There's something…" He screwed up his eyes, confused or contemplating. "... Hidden here. I always think I can feel it on my skin. Somewhere in the cold."

He swallowed, running a hand over his throat. "It's… sharp. Visceral. You can see it mirrored in the sky and in the hills. The colours, they're more distinct than what they should be. They don't blend. It's almost a hard light, especially now, in winter. It cuts in my eyes. Some things"—He blinked, frowning up at the blue—"hurt to look at. As if there's a push on the limits to the spectrum we're allowed access to."

Humming, he ran a slow line down his chest. "Nothing can ever dry. But it never feels damp because the colours are wrong." His hand indicated to the north where the barren hills of burnt orange extended into the distance, sun scraping over the curves. "See? An illusion of a scorched earth. When you touch… When you touch the ground, it's never warm. There's no heat in the soil. And it wants your warmth, like it's feeding as your fingers dig into its flesh."

He crouched to the ground, one knee pressing into the stones. His palm flattened on the shore, just out of range of the lapping waves. She found herself mirroring his position, fingertips touching over the stones.

"Look." He extended his hand slowly towards her and pressed his fingers over her cheek. "My hand is cold."

It was like ice, to be more accurate. His skin always seemed to be consistently warm and the alteration was a little startling. He dragged them down her jaw, lingering and then away.

"Be careful," he warned quietly, pointing to her fingers still resting on the stones. "You have to be careful it doesn't take too much."

He curled his hand into a fist and then stood up. She followed him again, straightening as the remnants of his touch persisted on her cheek and his expression shifted into an absently wistful state.

"I've seen rain… rain falling in the wrong direction. Lifting instead, up and up, refusing gravity. And maybe it's just the wind. Wind so strong you can lean backwards over a cliff and let it hold you. Or maybe… it's not."

His low voice consumed her, washing over her like warm water as she stared out into the surrounding hills with the patches of pine. A light breeze rippled across the open water, rustling the scattering of trees behind them at the edges of her perceptions.

"The silence here is like… nothing I've ever heard." The contradiction curved his mouth. "When it is very still. When the wind ceases and the rain stops. There are no birds. No insects. No movement. It's the precipice of breath. Quiet."

Beyond the treetops, the buzzard returned, swooping in its formidable hunt. Clara followed its sweeping path, lifting in the gentle currents. The only other sign of life she could see. John dragged his eyes away and let his gaze fall in front of him.

"Maybe it's lurking in the water, too. Within are..."

"Monsters," she mumbled, finishing his sentence.

"Monsters," he repeated, smile on his lips. "Monster."

He moved, trailing a hand over her shoulders and stepping behind her. Her back brushed his chest and she leaned into him automatically, his body holding her weight.

"Watch the water," he instructed quietly.

Her gaze met the tiny waves lapping on small stones while the gentle, rhythmic sound pulsated in her ears. The shifting blue and grey expanse filled her eyes.

"We're at the wrong loch for the eminent monster," he murmured, his words brushing a more familiar heat over her ear. "But there are others. These waters hold the River Horse. Lord of the Lake. A supernatural being. Sometimes… in the form of a horse, it will graze on the banks. Lure mares from pastures and into the depths. And when angry, overturn boats."

A shiver travelled down her spine. The cold perhaps.

"And you think, well, it's not real. But you never really feel reassured in your assurances. Just that slight possibility keeps you wary against your own logic. Shadows in the corner of your eye. A tiny inconsistency in the pattern of the waves. The monsters aren't real, but you always look. Every single time. Just in case. Just to check."

He shifted against her, hands gripping into the sleeves of her coat and then around her wrists, mouth pressing into her hair. The sun that touched on her skin refused to leave any trace of heat.

"This is my home. It made me this person. In this country, things hide. In water and shadow and in the tiny gaps between the stones. Not for protection. But because they don't want to be seen. So. Be careful where you put your feet. And your hands. Because England is a dream. And Scotland is… reality."

Withdrawing, he took a deep breath and moved to stand beside her, trailing cold fingers over the back of her hand. She blinked, her trance-like state trying to revert to a more coherent condition.

"Except maybe for today," he added, smiling at her captured expression. "Today is still. At peace. And your hands are warm. Look, there's the River Horse."

John pointed over the water and Clara turned her head reflexively to look.

"Too late," he smiled softly, his eyes still on her as she returned to his gaze. "You missed it."