Something was on fire.
Clara leaped off the bed and rushed down the hall, feet skidding roughly over the wood in the hallway before she found herself staring into a kitchen at a shirtless man looking sheepishly up at her with plate of something blackened and smoking held between his gloved hands. She shook her head, one hand coming up to push hair away from her face before she asked groggily, "What… are you doing?"
"I tried to make you breakfast," the Doctor admitted.
Going to him, she looked over the stove settings and flicked the one dial from high to off and turned as he set the plate down on the table with a frown. "Was it eggs?" She questioned with a grin.
He shrugged, "Supposed to be scrambled, but then it went mad."
"At what point did you think it might be a good idea to take it off the heat?"
Gesturing at the plate, he scowled, "Apparently too late."
Clara laughed, slowly at first, but then she took the plate and dumped its contents into the disposal and held the counter because she was still half asleep and the mental picture in her mind of this man dancing about the kitchen in just his trousers and suspenders was – at that moment – hilarious. After he realized she wasn't mad, or even a bit upset, the Doctor allowed himself to join in before stepping towards her and plucking at his shirt buttoned up and hanging loosely over her.
"We could… give it another go?" He prompted.
She turned, eyebrows high, "Doctor, I might need a bit of a break before having another..."
"No," he shook his head, "No," he gestured at the stove, "I meant breakfast."
Clara planted a hand to her face and he could hear her masked laughter.
"Maybe not eggs," he supplied with an accusing stare at the stove. "Maybe cereal? The kind with marshmallows?"
She gestured at a cabinet and he withdrew the box there and studied it as Clara looked him over while he smiled at the cartoonish rabbit on the cover. She knew he was playing the puzzles on the back in his mind and not worrying over nutritional information, and she sighed, opening her fridge to retrieve milk. They sat at the dining room table, silently eating and he glanced around, smiling absently as he looked over small decorations like the small handprints pressed into clay hanging on the wall and the glass cabinet that held a line of recipe books that varied from sophisticated meals around the world to 'Cooking for Kids'.
"I was going to ask…" she started, spoon plunking into her bowl, "I keep forgetting it hasn't been years, so I suppose the Tardis doesn't have a kitchen yet."
He grinned, "No use for a kitchen, honestly, with all of time and space ready to eat from."
"Intergalactic buffet," she supplied, eyes falling away. "By decade."
"We could go," he offered, "Take the children. I know of a place that would make the clown and that ice cream pale in comparison…"
Clara shook her head quickly, frown slapping her features.
"The Tardis is safe, Clara," he promised.
She glanced up at him, "I don't want to travel, not like that," she told him, then added slowly, "Not anymore."
"It doesn't seem like you travel at all," he pressed, "What happened to that dream?"
Her forefinger tapped rapidly against the tablecloth and she shook her head, looking up at him, "Can't we just… enjoy this for a bit?"
Leaning back, he nodded, but he knew the truth – this wasn't something he thought he could sustain, not when the reality of the day-to-day settled upon them. It wasn't something he was prepared to, at least not yet. A regular life. Rose Tyler had brought it up once: the house and the job and the ordinariness of it all and it had given him a small pang of anxiety then. He supposed, if he had the right circumstances, and if it were the right time, he could, but the silence of the house unsettled him. Picking up his bowl, he slurped up the milk and watched her stand and move to the sink with her own.
Her hands dropped to the buttons on his shirt and she began undoing them as he stood, going towards her and catching her gently by her neck, turning her and holding her against him. Clara held his sides and he could feel it in the way she held him just enough away, those boundaries being raised again – protecting herself from what he knew she was feeling; what she was wanting – and he pulled away, fingers coming down to linger on the next button of the shirt.
"I have to shower," she told him lowly, eyes on his stomach, waiting for him to shift away from her and he was left standing at the entrance to the kitchen, hands clasped together in confusion. She went down the hall and he could make out the small intake of breath as she went into her bedroom and listened to the door close behind her just before the shower rocketed on.
The Doctor raised his eyes to the ceiling and then nodded, going into the room to retrieve his jacket and as he straightened, he glanced up at the photos at her bedside of Henry and Olive smiling back at him. Their happiness was more important than hers he understood, and he swung the jacket over his arms, moving to the door to rap it with his knuckles.
"Clara, I'll just be over in the Tardis," he called.
"Alright," she replied quickly.
He leaned his head against the door a moment, fingers hovering above the handle because what he wanted was to open it and step inside and tell her to stop playing this game with him. To be honest with him, about everything… but he knew deep down that questioning her would turn her away permanently and he wasn't ready for that. And he knew it wasn't a game for her, it was a reality and he knew that this – he – had become her fantasy life. Last night had been an indiscretion to her, a mistake, a slip back into a life she'd put behind her and this morning had been a reminder: the Doctor and Clara in the Tardis was the past and it should stay there.
Inside the shower, standing under the hot running water, Clara pressed her hands to the tiled wall in front of her and leaned back, letting the blast of water pummel her face as she held her breath. She waited, numbly, listening for the closing of the door to bathe, quickly running over the list of things that had to get done without his distraction. And she chose to label him a distraction. She should have cleaned the house. She should have done the laundry. She should have gone to the grocers and picked up food for the week. Clara sighed as she dressed, pulling dark leggings on and slipping her feet into flats before picking up his shirt and tossing it in her hamper.
Outside she fell into her car with a crumpled list and stared at the Tardis across the street and she considered that he might be expecting her. He might be changed and waiting just inside for her to come over and banter with him, just like the old days. And some part of her took pleasure in turning the car onto the street to drive into town. He could wait this time, she frowned with a small growl. He could wonder where she went and how long she would be gone and whether she would return or not.
Moving passively through the aisles, she checked her list and dropped things into her cart, smiling and giving small nods to the people she knew. Some patrons of the shop, some of the other parents from the school, a neighbor who decided to tell her that her lawn could use some help. Clara listened without hearing. Her mind was on him, defying her as she wished to be thinking only about what Henry and Olive needed.
Henry and Olive.
She smiled involuntarily, thinking about the trouble they'd be getting themselves into with her father. He always returned with some tale, some little idea they'd cooked up between them that ended with mud in the living room, or frogs in his bed, or mouse traps in the shower. Clara remembered the look on his face when he'd come in with a blackened eye, and they'd gone running to their rooms in a rush to avoid being punished as he declared,
"They tried to build an archway of books. An archway of books, Clara. Clear across the hall and d'you know what happened because they're not architects?"
They'd watched a special on television while she'd been making dinner. How old stone buildings had been made and they'd decided to test it out in a place where they wouldn't be questioned – their grandfather's. Because Clara would immediately have spotted them carrying their building supplies out and she would have forbidden them from it. She would have taken them to the craft store and she would have gotten them foam blocks and sat on the living room floor and she would have…
Shaking her head, she stopped staring at the shelf full of assorted pickles and she moved around to the next aisle, staring down at the paper in her hands before crumpling it and shoving it into the pocket of her skirt. Henry and Olive needed more cereal and they needed fruit snacks and fresh vegetables. They needed peanut butter and jam and Henry had complained that he'd run out of paper for drawing and Olive wanted the fruit juice with the talking pear.
"Mummy, are the strawberries good this time of year? I can't remember."
"Mummy, can we make toast? Or have we run out?"
"Mummy, could we have the band-aids with the princesses on them?"
"Mummy, I'm not wearing band-aids with princesses!"
She smiled at a baby who babbled in her direction, waving a chubby hand as her and her mother slipped past with a small chuckle of shared amusement. Dropping a box of band-aids with princesses and a box of band-aids with monsters into her cart, she stared down at the contents there. More than she'd expected. Why did everything feel so much more than she expected. Too much.
Pressing her hands to her temples, she calculated in her mind the money she had and how much she'd be spending and she turned the cart towards the pharmacy. She didn't have room in her life anymore for the Doctor. Clara couldn't be that girl anymore, who clamored into his snog box and hung on his every word and wondered whether the looks he gave her meant more than she'd convinced herself they did. Even if she knew they did. She had to be the woman in control of her life; the mother who made sure her children were safe and taken care of.
Could she balance the lives?
The question was dismissed as soon as it entered her mind because she knew she couldn't. She'd have to tell him to leave. Clara would have to be the braver of the two and she'd have to tell him it was alright to let her go. She'd already had to let go of him once, she'd just have to do it again – this time with the finality of knowing it was mutual. And she had to let him know it was fine with her. It was alright to go out into the universe and find someone else and if she happened to cross his path again, she would smile strongly and wave him off.
"Morning," she muttered at the woman behind the counter, "Can you still get Levonelle without prescription?"
The woman looked at her a moment, waiting for her to meet her eye before smiling, gaining a small smirk from Clara. She knew the other woman was trying to make it less uncomfortable, but Clara knew the more time they spent interacting, the more people around her would be able to overhear and she didn't need anyone overhearing her purchases and starting more rumors. Last thing she needed was her sex life coming around to her father and having him think less of her.
The woman began to ask, as quietly and politely as she could, when she'd last had unprotected sex and whether or not she believed she was pregnant, but Clara cut her short with a quick, "No, it was last night." Wincing slightly, she whispered anxiously, "Look, I'm sorry. Can I get it or do I need to see my doctor or…"
They eyed one another and Clara realized she was one of the mothers in her Friday morning reading group. She had a bright eyed little girl with soft ginger curls who clapped and drooled a lot. Leaning back, Clara felt her cheeks redden slightly before she turned away. "It's alright, Miss Oswald, everything here is strictly confidential."
"I'm not…" she trailed, then uttered, "I'm not pregnant. It's just precautionary. I can't…" Her chest constricted tightly and she gripped the counter with both hands. "I was stupid," she finally admitted, eyes closing.
A hand touched hers and she blinked up at the woman who nodded, "Not stupid, just human." She smiled and disappeared into a back room before emerging with a bag to conceal the emergency contraceptive before gesturing at the register, "Can ring this up here if you'd like."
Clara gave her a small, but genuine smile, paying and shoving the bag into her purse with her receipt. She moved her cart towards the registers and paid for the rest there, frowning at the total because she'd just spent over twenty five pounds at the pharmacy because of her humanity. She drove home in silence and when she arrived, she carted her items inside, realizing on her last trip out that the Tardis was no longer parked across the street and she sighed, going inside to tear open the brown bag and rip through the box for the pill inside, downing it dryly and grimacing. Maybe, she thought, staring down at the cardboard scattered on the countertop, everything could be normal now.