A/N: Apologies for not updating this weekend! Cute little chapter here for you all, Amy and Rose investigate a bit...
Chapter Eleven
She woke up to the sound of vibrations.
Clara's eyes refused to open as her brain turned on with a sudden jerk of surprise as her left hand slammed down on the surface of her bedside table, her hand blindly searching for her phone as her muscles had just started to wake up. Her hair was tousled and stuck in various places about her head, her blankets and pillows askew and lopsided around her bed. (Sometimes Clara wasn't the most peaceful sleeper, with trying to find the perfect sleeping position and all.) She groaned in torpidity as her eyes adjusted to the light of the screen, the number unfamiliar to Clara. "Hello?" she said tiredly, sitting up in her bed and raking her fingers until they became matted within the mess that was her neglected hair.
"Hi Clara, it's Amy!" her ebullient Scottish accent waking her up even more so. "I got you're number from John, I hope you don't mind."
"Oh, nah. It's alright." Clara replied, yawning as quietly as her mouth could manage.
Amy laughed softly. "Sorry, did I wake you up?" she asked.
Clara looked over to the clock on her bedside table and realized that it was around ten in the morning. "Eh, no...I'm awake..." she trailed off, her consciousness fading away and her eyes pleading to shut as she then regained her focus, snapping awake suddenly. "...sorry..." she admitted, giving in, giggling along with Amy.
"I was just wondering if you'd like to join me for lunch this afternoon." Amy asked politely. Clara coughed.
"Oh, really?" she asked, a bit surprised."Oh, um...sure, just, where?"
"There's that new sidewalk café down town, I think it's called the The Grove...? I really can't remember, but I can text you the address." she offered.
"Okay." Clara nodded her head.
"I'll see you in an hour?"
"Yeah, see you." Clara smiled, hanging up and replacing her phone neatly on the bedside table. She stared at the opposite wall, which apparently contained a poster of Istanbul, at which point she realized that she had agreed to lunch with Amy Williams. Amy Williams. Clara crashed down back onto the mattress of her bed, now looking up at the ordinary ceiling that happened to contain no poster of Istanbul, but a habitual dust layered ceiling fan. Clara smiled, raising an eyebrow, somewhat impressed with herself.
The Doctor snored loudly on his chaise lounge, he'd fallen asleep with a book laying carelessly on his stomach, for that's usually how he'd find himself awake in the mornings on a Saturday when his presence wasn't required at TARDIS. But this time, a certain colleague somehow made the difference of his Saturday rituals, a certain blonde colleauge. "John! Up, now!" Rose yelled across the room in a cheerleader's voice, her call echoing and bouncing off of the papered walls. John's eyes snapped opened immediately as he found himself falling from his current position on his couch. "Wha-?" he managed to sputter out before he landed face flat on the hard wood floor, his limbs certainly not hurt but placed in rather awkward positions. "H..." he sighed. "How did you get in?" he asked her tiredly as he heard the sizzle of his stove, unwilling to move from his place on the ground.
"Your brother's keys." she called nonchalantly from the kitchen. John groaned, getting up slowly and toddling towards her voice. His brother David was Rose's supposed 'significant other', and that meant that Rose was technically a part of his somewhat happy family, which technically gave her rights to barge in on his life whenever her heart contented. John found it surprising that Rose actually got up to make him breakfast, but then again she was considered a friendly sister figure to him. But then again, she always did nice things for him when she particularly wanted something.
Once in the kitchen, John lazily sat down on the bar stool of his counter, his posture slackening as she placed a plate of french toast in front of him, perfectly made to pristine conditions and all. John stared at her blankly. "What do you want?" he asked her simply.
Rose gave a sarcastic look, as if she were offended of such sudden interrogation. "Nothing! I just decided, hey, John's maybe been working a little too hard and I think I should reward my boss with a well-deserved breakfast." she smiled at him as a sign of positivity, but John certainly wasn't seeing it. Yet Rose, being the persistent optimist that she was, continued to smile in hopes of him believing in her idiosyncratic alibi. John raised an eyebrow. Rose sighed. "Oh, come on, lighten up." she pouted a bit. "Sometimes, on the days when David's working, I need someone to talk to! About...life." she smiled, saying the word life in a wistful manner. John looked at her suspiciously, taking a bite out of his awaiting toast, which was surprisingly not bad. "So, with that said, let's do so over the coffee and toast that I made ever so beautifully, shall we?" she piped, leaning her elbows on the counter and staring at him with an over excessive interest. "So? How's work?"
"Fine."
"Any new stories?"
"Besides Clara's, no."
"Done anything interesting?"
"Not really."
"Watched any good movies?"
"Nah."
"Read the newspaper?"
"Not recently."
"Have you done anything of use?"
"I don't know."
Rose quirked an eyebrow, wanting to sigh at him from her exasperation and unwillingness to cooperate. "Are you sure? Nothing at all?" Rose grinned. "Not even with Miss Clara...?"
John glared at her. "Is that what this is about?"
Rose smiled. "It can if you want it to be!" she chirped. "Oh, you know you like her."
"I don't like her, well, I mean, I like her, but not like her like her." he blushed.
Rose gasped. "How could you be missing out on such a sweet girl?" Rose cried. "She's pretty, she's smart, she's the perfect height for you-"
"Rose, I do not fancy Clara-"
"John, you look at her like Jack stares at margaritas."
He sputtered. "I do not!"
Rose smiled deliberately. "You know you do."
He raised his index finger as if to object even more so, then realizing that, well, maybe Rose was right. And when she saw the look of defeat on his face, she clapped her hands and pointed at him in triumph, the same reaction she would've used if she had just hit him in the face with a dodge ball. "Ha! I knew it!"
"Rose-"
"You fancy her."
"Rose-!"
"You need to ask her out on a date." she shook her head.
"And she would say no." John turned down the offer.
"She sure as hell would say yes!" Rose chirped, a wide smile displayed on her face. "God, she can blush when we talk about you-"
"Blush?"
"Yeah, you know that thing that happens when you really like somebody?" she asked. John just looked confused. "...caused by the stimulus of discomposure and performed by the sympathetic nervous system?" she recited hopelessly, for scientifically speaking seemed like the only type of "speaking" he could understand. Rose sighed. "Listen, John, if you really like her, you'd tell her by now."
John looked down sheepishly. "But I'm just not...good at those kinds of things."
"Well, that's why I'm here!"
John looked up at her suspiciously. "How many cups of coffee have you had?" he asked her out of the blue, for Rose had her mornings when she tended to act over excessively hyper due to the superfluity of caffeine. Rose shrugged.
"I dunno? Two, maybe more. I'm not counting."
"So, what's going on with you and John?" Amy asked at an intentional moment of silence in their conversation. Clara almost spit out her decaf. "What?" she asked all of a sudden.
"...I'm...talking about the book." Amy smiled knowingly. That was a lie.
"Oh..." Clara sighed, a bit relieved. "Yeah, it's going well, I suppose."
Yet Amy had already pushed aside any conversational book-dealing matters. "...were you suggesting at something else?"
Clara shook her head too soon. "Oh, no."
"I think you were."
"No...I wasn't."
Amy smiled. "Clara...are you and John...?"
"...no."
"You hesitated."
Clara sighed. "Amy...I don't know!" she smiled at her in slight defeat. "Maybe I do, maybe I like him, I just...don't really know what 'liking someone' feels like."
"Well..." Amy said. "What do you think it feels like?"
"It feels...different."
Amy smiled sympathetically. "Clara, it's alright, it's not...scary to fall in love, as cliché as it sounds." she laughed. Clara smiled. "John...as much of an idiot he can be, he needs someone to talk to sometimes, and it's not me, it's not...Rose, I don't have a definite answer. It might be you, you know." she admitted, smiling warmly. Clara bite her lip.
"I just don't think he'd agree with me on that one Amy."
Amy smiled, raising her eyebrow. "Oh, the things that can surprise you."