A/N: Hello again lovely people :) Thank you as always to everybody who's reviewed, favourited and followed! Also, to Laura, I've done my best to bring out Clara's more sassy/confident side here, so I hope it's worked. To UchihaHakura64, I love that idea, and it's very likely it'll crop up in the future, so thank you very much! I've set this about three weeks onwards on the basis of Clara now visiting roughly two to three times a week. Reviews always appreciated :)


Normally, Clara gets a nice greeting when she arrives at The Doctor's Archive. A smile, a hello, a 'how are you today?' and a Jammy Dodger or two from the Doctor. So, naturally, she was somewhat expecting that kind of interaction as she made her way towards the building and opened the door with a soft tinkling of the bell.

Instead, she was met with the smell of burning and the sound of something clattering to the floor from somewhere to the right.

Going well, then.

Dropping her bag by the door, she headed over to the source of the unsavoury smell to discover the Doctor standing in what appears to be a small kitchen, oven gloves on and a tray of something she didn't recognise in his left hand. The fact that what she presumed was once food was practically cremated in a misshapen heap didn't help the situation, as she stood and stared with an eyebrow raised.

"Oh, hello Clara. Didn't expect you to be here so soon. I was just making toast."

"I hate to be the one to break it to you, but when I think toast I think of lightly golden bread, not a pile of burnt crumbs stuck to an oven tray."

"Ah. Yes. Well, I don't have a toaster here, so I had to improvise. As you can see, it went...well..."

"Atrociously?" she finished for him.

"Hmm."

Walking over to him, Clara slid her hands underneath the oven gloves, removed the tray from his grip with them and threw the whole thing in to the bin, giving it a pat as she closed it. "That's enough of that, then. Time you learned to cook, Chin Boy."

"What is wrong with my chin?! And I can cook very well, thank you very much."

"Neither cremated toast nor a plate of Jammy Dodgers qualifies as cooking. I'm talking about the kind where you put the food in the oven and it comes out as something vaguely edible."

He opened his mouth as if to argue, before realising she was right. His idea of dinner was different to a lot of other people's, usually involving some sort of mishap and a last-minute rethink. And by last minute he secretly means after attempting whatever mess he's created before deciding it genuinely is inedible and finding something with very clear instructions on the packet that he looks at at least seven times during cooking.

Before he knew it, Clara was standing by the surface surrounded by various packages and a very determined look on her face. "Right then. Clara's cooking class, day one - soufflés. And don't think I'll go easy on you."

The Doctor looked at the various ingredients. He hadn't even known he owned half of them. After all, his kitchen here was only designed for various levels of hot beverage-making, not full on cooking lessons. But hey. Maybe it'd be fun?


Go along with it, he'd told himself. Maybe it'd be fun, he'd said.

Not so much.

His limb-flailing had shown Clara exactly why he wasn't a fantastic chef. Within ten minutes they were both coated in flour, they'd had four attempts and counting on separating the egg yolks from the whites, and Clara looked like she was on the verge of tears as she stared at his recent mistake.

"How did you manage to break a hole in the bowl?"

"I don't know, I just...did! Stupid bowl."

"But it's about a centimetre thick and solid plastic!"

"Perhaps, but technically the density means it's subject to-"

"Doctor."

"Yes?"

"Don't talk physics or mechanics or whatever you're about to launch in to to me now, please."

"Says the science teacher."

"Do you honestly think that now is the time?"

He fell silent, feeling a bit guilty. "I've got another bowl, if that helps at all?"

She straightened herself up with a sigh. After all, it wasn't his fault. "Right then Doctor. Fetch that, forget the cookbook, we're doing this full-on Oswald-style."

"Quick question, should I be scared?"

"Probably. But I've never broken a hole in any containers of any sort, so things won't get any worse."

Nodding, the Doctor spun on his heel to find the other bowl, whilst Clara tipped the waste mixture in to the bin, and the broken bowl with it. Opening his cupboard doors, she searched around for a bit, returning with cocoa powder, cinnamon, pepper, chocolate chips, hundreds and thousands, a spring onion and some diced strawberries, lining them up. The Doctor returned with the required equipment, eyeing up the cinnamon suspiciously.

"So, what's the Oswald way of baking soufflés?"

Clara turned so she was facing him. "Well, it's pretty much the same as the recipe. The bit that makes it different from the cookbook was my mother's habit of getting a large selection of ingredients, closing her eyes and randomly selecting two of them. Doesn't matter what they are, once they've been chosen they have to be used. The soufflé isn't the soufflé, the soufflé is the recipe, she'd tell me. Once you've gotten that down, it's yours to go crazy with, sparking this method. Even better if you bake more than one, which is what I intend to do. When the first soufflé is finished, the ingredients used will be removed from the selection, they'd be mixed up again, and then I'd close my eyes and pick two, repeat the process. Two completely different soufflés, could be nice, could be horrible. Luck of the draw. Understand?"

He saluted, making her smile. "Understood, Captain Oswald." He'd noticed the use of the word 'was' when she spoke about her mother in that sentence, and decided to stay quiet on it, watching instead as she demonstrated measuring and mixing the ingredients one by one, until it came to the selection time.

"I'll choose first. So just mix them up randomly, and I'll choose two."

The Doctor nodded. Checking Clara had closed her eyes completely, he switched the ingredients around. "Okay, done," he said, waiting for her to choose.

Her hand reached forwards and she bit her lip. Eventually, she selected two tins, opening her eyes and groaning.

"Cinnamon and hundreds and thousands?!"

The Doctor grinned at her, removing them. "Might I remind you that you chose them?"

"Not on purpose!"

"True. Right then, my turn."

After the Doctor had somehow managed to pick out the rather tasty-sounding combination of cocoa powder and the diced strawberries, they set the separate mixtures in the baking tins and put them in, Clara saying a silent prayer for her own soufflé. If anything else went wrong, she knew she'd never hear the end of it.

"Half an hour to go. What do you want to do until then?"

"I feel like the sensible answer would be to clean up," Clara replied, looking around at the flour-covered kitchen with her eyebrows raised. "But after the ordeal of this afternoon, I think we need a break. Got anything good on that computer of yours?"

He frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Just something to fill the time with that isn't any of your confusing computer...stuff."

The Doctor paused. "Well, we have YouTube at our disposal. Comedy of some sort?"

Clara nodded, following him back through. The library was luckily still empty, she wasn't sure how well either of them would be able to explain to any browsers just what had been going on. They fired up YouTube and decided on an episode of Miranda, one of the Doctor's favourites. Clara recognised it; it was one of her fathers favourites, though she didn't know the show too well.

They came to a minor hitch when it came to seating arrangements, as the Doctor only had one chair, but that was resolved when Clara boldly decided to sit on him instead. He was shocked at first, not quite sure what to do with his arms. Eventually, he wrapped them around her waist. "To...to stop you falling," he hastily added, to which Clara nodded. "Of course," she agreed, a hint of sarcasm in her voice as she leant forwards to click 'play'.

They sat in a comfortable silence as the sitcom went on. It turned out to have been a good thing that the Doctor had some sort of hold on her, as their laughter kept causing her to slip forwards slightly. By the end of the half an hour required, her ribs were aching, both from laughter and from the awkward position she'd ended up in to avoid slipping further. He waited until her feet were just above the ground before gently letting her go, hopping down as they went to check their soufflés.

By some kind of miracle they'd come out reasonably well; nice and fluffy, though Clara's was a bit of a strange colour. She served them up anyway, adding a small sprinkling of icing sugar over the top. Handing the Doctor a fork, they went for the experimental tasting.

Cinnamon and hundreds and thousands was certainly an interesting taste, but it wasn't quite as bad as she'd imagined. Admittedly she couldn't quite find the willpower to finish it and pinched some of the Doctor's instead, but it had been an experience at least. They alternated bites until there was nothing left, and Clara announced they needed to clean up. After a bit of whining on his part and a dishcloth to the face, the Doctor decided to help her out, and about half an hour later the room was almost spotless.

"Well, I think I'd best be off, unfortunately."

He nodded with a slightly nervous grin. "See you tomorrow, maybe? Grab a coffee or something?"

"Down boy," she joked, before her smirk fell in to a more relaxed smile, looking up at him. "Sounds like a plan. I'll meet you here at twelve?"

"Twelve it is."

"See you then, Chin Boy."

"And you, Soufflé Girl."


A/N: The hole-in-the-bowl episode was based on a personal cooking experience of mine. My friend managed to punch a hole in one with a spoon when mixing cupcake batter. So there's a little trivia fact for you all.