Clara's mobile alarm goes off at five, and she barely has time to mumble a plea for it to shut up when she's violently bounced a few inches into the air. Yelping in surprise, she grabs for something to steady her and shrieks in second shock when she seizes a warm, bony wrist.
"WHAT... THE... BLAZES... IS... THAT?" the Doctor bellows, clapping his hands over his ears.
He's sat straight up next to her, completely clothed, but with a case of bedhead so sculpturally spectacular that Clara collapses back on the mattress in a giggling fit.
"Sorry, sorry... it's the alarm on my mobile... I just need to find it..." she gasps through laughter, her hand scrabbling at the spot on the nightstand where she usually charges it.
"AND WHY IT IS LOUDER THAN THE MATING STAMPEDE OF THE NOORIAN RUSTLAFLUMPS?" he yells.
"My insomnia pills… oof!... make it hard to wake up sometimes…" Clara's dangling half-off the bed now, her fingertips hunting across the floor. "Where on earth…"
The Doctor's still staring at her in bewilderment, his hands glued to the sides of his head.
"It's coming from over there… wait, are you sitting on it?" She dives one hand under his buttocks, and he lets out a soprano shriek.
Her brain is slowly coming back online. "No, wait! You borrowed it yesterday! It's probably in one of your pockets!"
"WHAT?" he yells.
"Take your hands off your ears! It's probably in your trousers!"
"WHAT?"
"Oh, for heaven's sake," she huffs, swinging a leg over to straddle him and plunging her hands inside his jacket.
If she'd thought his eyes were huge before, they're bulging now. Clara lets out a "hah!" as she locates her mobile in his inner pocket, sliding it out and finally, blissfully, silencing the damned thing.
She lets out a long sigh of relief… then realizes where she is.
"Hello," he smirks, removing his hands from his ears and resting them on her thighs.
"Oh… hello," she replies, a little breathlessly.
"That noise should be outlawed."
"Sorry... I know your hearing's sensitive..." She moves to roll off him, but his hands are holding her in place.
"I, uh…" she points down. "Should move. Sonic's jabbing me."
He gives her a comically mock-solemn look, very slowly shaking his head.
"Oh." She adjusts her hips a little, grinning when the movement makes his breath hitch. "Ahh, much comfier."
"Not the precise adjective I'd choose..." he mutters.
"Your hair is amazing," Clara marvels, reaching out to flop a section of it to the other side. "It totally defies the laws of gravity, doesn't it?"
"Yes, well, that does seems to be becoming a bit of a theme." He shifts beneath her, and Clara flushes at the hardened heat of him.
"Right. I should probably ask... what are we both doing in my bedroom?" Her tone is brisk, but she can't resist grinding against him just a little bit more.
"I... ahhhh... worked on your shields last night, do you not remember?" He touches her cheek in concern. "There shouldn't be amnesia afterwards... what's the last thing you recall?"
"I do remember now, a bit." She can't stop tinkering with his hilarious hair. "I was knackered, you said that was fine, I'd probably doze off during it anyway. Am I sorted, then?"
A flicker of anger crosses his face. "You've had some cowboys in, but I've stopped the leak. We should talk about it when there's more time."
"So… I suppose you know absolutely everything about me, now. Feel free to run away screaming."
"For one thing, no, I don't, I was uncharacteristically and painstakingly protective of your privacy. For another…" he rolls his own hips against her, a mischievous grin quirking his lips. "Do I really seem that horrified?"
She flushes. "Well, that just happens to men in the morning."
"I fell asleep inside you, Clara," he murmurs, locking his eyes on hers. "That's why."
This time, it's her that stammers awkwardly. "Inside my m-mind, you mean."
"Yes." His thumb brushes her cheekbone. "For a telepathic race, that can be... well, picture a Victorian at a shapely ankle convention. I had some trouble concentrating on the task at hand."
She bites her lip. "And you fell asleep in there? How'd that happen?"
"You have a beautiful mind, Clara. It's warm, and kind, and brave. To be perfectly honest, I kept finding excuses not to leave, and simply waited too long. And then, well… we were dreaming."
"What, together?"
"Yes." He trails his fingers down her jawline.
"What'd we dream about?"
"Hazard a guess," he chuckles, shifting against her.
"And I forgot it? Ooh, not fair."
"I have an incredibly important question for you now, Clara." He lets his middle finger trace the neckline of her blouse, then grins up at her. "How long before you have to get ready for work?"
She reaches up, feeling her hair, touching her face. Yesterday's updo is half-collapsed, and her fingers come away gritty and stained with mascara. "Depends. How bad do I look?"
"Loveliest thing in at least fourteen galaxies."
She can't help grinning. "Okay, scratch that. How bad would my boss think I looked?"
"He might appreciate the smeary bits slightly less," the Doctor admits.
"Then, unfortunately, the answer to your question is now."
He runs his thumb across her lips. "I was afraid of that."
She opens her mouth to make a joke — well, clearly we need a time machine! — then remembers he'll be leaving as soon as he has one again. Her face falls.
His does too, like he read her mind, which reminds her...
"Can you still get back in?" She points at her head. "I mean, if you needed to?"
He nods, then gives her a coy glance. "Would you like our dream back?"
"Um... yes. Yes, I think so, yes."
He cups her face briefly, then withdraws his hands.
"But... I don't remember anything?"
"Oh, you will," he promises, mouth curving wickedly as he holds up his wristwatch and taps it. "At 12:45 p.m. Do make sure you're alone."
"You're bad!" she cries, punching his shoulder lightly.
"Perhaps. I suppose you'll find out just how much at lunchtime."
He looks so damned smug that she plants her hand on his chest, pushing him back into the pillows.
He just laughs and yanks her down with him, pressing a kiss to her forehead.
"You're going to be terribly tardy, Clara Oswald," he teases.
"Not as tardy as I'd like to be," she growls back, but rolls off him anyway.
She steps out of the shower and towels off the mirror, drawing a deep, appreciative breath at the smell of coffee brewing downstairs. There's another, lighter smell behind it... cinnamon, maybe?
Oh, she could get used to this.
Oh, she can't get used to this.
That's when she notices the zippered, dark leather bag tucked next to her sink.
Curious, she opens it. Toothbrush, razor, toothpaste — oh, of course it's the fruit-flavored kind for small children — all opened and used, but obviously newly purchased.
There's a sudden sting in her eyes, and a mad, brief impulse to unpack the little bag... tuck his toothbrush into the holder next to her own, line his shaving cream up next to hers.
"It's a travel bag," she sternly tells her reflection, which is looking distressingly starry-eyed. "A travel bag, because he is a traveller. That's what makes him... him. You can't keep him."
Except that she could, sort of, and she knows just how; it had sprung into her mind while she was in the shower.
She could stow away on the TARDIS.
She'd need the other Clara's help to pull it off, probably, but she's almost positive her echo would agree. They're both very aware that the other Clara owes her one.
Slip onto the TARDIS when it returns. Have her echo pretend to be her and say goodbye to the Doctor. Stow away until Trenzalore. Slip out while her younger self is exploring Christmas. Wait for him to send her younger self away.
Reveal that this time, this time, finally, she'd been the one to trick him.
He'd be furious, of course, but what could he do about it, really? The TARDIS wouldn't return for three hundred more years, and she'd be long dead by then.
It would have been a huge sacrifice... for Clara Oswald.
For lonely little Lucy Montague, not so much.
The coffee's vastly improved after he dumps half a bottle of chocolate syrup in it, and he carries it carefully up the stairs to the guest room. He's on about fifteen missions today, and one of them is figuring out how to open that damned box.
So it's a little anticlimactic when he walks in and realizes that the box is already open, and probably has been for days.
Pouting just a tiny bit, he swings open the lid. It's completely empty except for an envelope.
There's no address; it doesn't need one.
It just says "HELLO, SWEETIE".
He growls in frustration at the sight, throwing up his hands and splashing coffee-flavored chocolate all over himself. "Blasted woman... you could have mailed it! You didn't have to put it inside a—a telepathic shoebox with a snog-lock!"
He rips the envelope open with his teeth, yanking out the letter inside and wiping unhappily at his soggy waistcoat with his other hand.
The first line is: Now what would be the fun in that?
Apparently the new face came with a not-so-new River Song inside.
Second line: And I'll have you know, I'm still incredibly hot.
"I know," he grumbles. He'd figured that much out wading through Clara's broken shields last night. Yowzah.
This box is much bigger on the inside; you'll find everything you need, once you realize what that is. You said not to give you any hints, but this you is just too much fun to tease.
So here you go, darling: it doesn't have to be a watch.
By now you know you're not the last, but have you thought about what that means?
Go to the window and look up at the sky, my love. There's so many versions of you up there, more than capable of handling things. The silver fox I'm with at the moment even uses the stabilizers.
"Oh, what a shock, Great-Uncle Fergus McCrabby loves the boring-ers," the Doctor sulks.
Don't call yourself that. You hate it nearly as much as the pickle one.
I'll see you on the flip side.
XOXO — River
P.S. Don't forget — you and Dad are the same height.
12:42 finds Clara scurrying down the hallway to the supply closet.
First she'd had three students with questions about their upcoming projects... then she'd been cornered by the school secretary, hell-bent on informing her about oh-so-terribly-important changes to their recycling policy. She'd finally slipped into the staff lavatory and thought she was safe, only to discover two of the history teachers having a loud, gruesomely detailed conversation about hemorrhoids that had sent her fleeing back out again.
She ducks inside the closet, locking the door behind her and sitting down on a stack of copy paper boxes.
12:43. She gnaws her thumbnail.
12:44. She fishes a Dairy Milk out of her purse and pops a square in her mouth.
12:45. The other half of the candy bar falls from her limp hand and hits the floor, unnoticed.
Teeth and tongue and clever fingers, the Doctor's dark chuckle in her ear as he binds her wrists up with his braces. His voice, raw and choked as he cries her name; her voice, screaming his in a one-word prayer. He's beneath her, behind her, above her, within her body and her mind, sweat-slick and fever-hot. She's begging him, shameless, mindless, babbling faster-harder-more-Doctor-please. The world has relocated to the places they join, and she's breaking into pieces...
Clara bites the side of her hand to keep from screaming, the other one white-knuckled on the copy box. She's shaking uncontrollably, the intensity of the sensations in her mind almost enough to take her over the edge in real life.
Almost... and that razor-thin divide leaves her aching as she never has before, a throbbing, searing frustration that feels like it might actually drive her insane. She briefly considers taking care of the problem herself, but that's when the hateful, horrible bell rings.
She wobbles to her feet like a newborn deer, grimacing at the slickness of her inner thighs when she takes her first step. She can only imagine what she looks like; her face feels like it's on fire.
She can't decide whether she's going to murder him, or ask him to do it again tomorrow.
It's going to be a long, long, long afternoon.