Summary; John Smith and Clara Oswald are rivals in their English class, taught by Miss Saxon, who has had quite enough of their childish insults and battles to say the right answer. But she continues to pair them together on school projects hoping they will get along better. Young!Twelve

Coal Hill School, 2002

Year 11

Clara and John are both sixteen

'Who can tell me the difference between Gatsby and Tom? Their characters are quite a like, wouldn't you say so?'

Clara snorted. 'Both of them were abusive assholes.'

John stared at her from his seat next to her as if she was an idiot and had said something incredibly stupid, 'Gatsby didn't lay a finger on Daisy, Tom hit her all the time.'

Clara gritted her teeth and turned her head to look at John. 'You don't have to be physically abusive to be abusive, you dumbass.'

Miss Saxon, their English teacher with dark unruly hair sighed from behind her desk. 'Clara, John, please don't start. Could you just get on for once? I mean really, it's not hard, is it? You're both intelligent; surely you can put your pudding brains together and work it out.'

Clara folded her arms across her chest, pouting as she turned her head to Missy, who she refused to call "Miss," or "Mam," John was already annoying her and they had been in lesson for about fifteen minutes. John had unruly thick dark hair, most of it stuck up easily because of his curls. He had a sharp jawline, a straight nose and a shade of hair on his jawline that most boys his age couldn't manage to grow. He had huge eyebrows that Clara often screwed her nose up at because they always looked so furious and his eyes were a clear shade of blue. Not that she had noticed, of course not. Why would she notice John Smith and his annoyingly handsome face? Of course she had noticed, but she would never let him or anybody else know that she may have a little crush on him. The problem was, he may have been handsome, but he was irritating and he always thought he was right about everything and he just loved to show her up in front of their entire class.

John took a quick glance at the young girl next to him. She was annoying, her voice irritated him and she was smarter than him, he knew it and he always felt as if he had something to prove to the whole class; to prove to them that he was the smartest and Clara couldn't come close to him. But he was wrong, for she was definitely the smartest and she showed it off in style. She didn't always answer first, but she always answered with confidence. He watched her closely, studying her like he would a book. He bit down on his bottom lip, this was lust, it had to be, right? He couldn't be in love, he was sixteen, love didn't exist for them yet and they hated each other. Didn't they? Or was that just their ignorance and stubborn attitude? No, he wasn't in love. He was infatuated and drawn in by her intelligence but he would never let her know. How could he? They were supposed to hate each other, they were known by the whole class to hate each other and have screaming matches in front of their English teacher.

But she was so beautiful. So elegant and though her voice may be annoying, he loved to listen to it. Her Northern accent, they were both from different parts of the country, neither of them from London where they went to school. He was Scottish and every time he spoke, Clara's face seemed to soften, her brown eyes slightly inflated as she tried to ignore the sound of his voice and his heavy accent. How did her eyes do that, anyway? Inflate the way they do? She needed to get those things under control. John needed to get himself under control, this was madness, he shouldn't even be thinking about her like that. He half wanted to thank Miss Saxon for always forcing them to work together, maybe then they could get pass this fake hatred of one another. Her jawline, round and sharp, much like his but a lot more feminine. Her eyes. Hadn't he already spoken about her eyes? Her hair, growing longer and longer he was certain it would reach her waist. Was she ever going to cut it? And her eyebrows, thick but perfectly shaped and that tiny little nose he admired from afar.

Oh shit, he was completely and head over heels in love with her but there was no way he would admit to it. No fucking way.

'Does anybody else have an opinion on Gatsby and Tom being quite a like?'

Amy pipped up from the other side of Clara, a tilt of her head as she chewed on her pen, 'Miss, I think they're polar opposites but Daisy is attracted to the danger of them both.'

Miss Saxon nodded, a giant smile on her face that sometimes frightened her students. 'That's right, Amelia! Well done. Everybody write that down.' She turned on her heel, wasting no time in writing it on her board with her black pen marker.

Rory held his hand up from the back of the room, messing with his short hair, 'But Miss, they are a like in the way that… that – um - ' he paused and stared over at Amy, the beautiful redhead sat next to Clara who still seemed to be chewing on her pen, having no idea of Rory's affections but the whole class bursts into fits of giggles at Rory blatant and rather sweet staring.

Amy looked over her shoulder, frowning as she dropped her pen, 'What? Is there something on my face?' she muttered, her Scottish accent almost as thick as John's as she tried to figure out what everybody was laughing at.

Rory rolled his eyes and shifted uncomfortably in his seat, tapping his pen against his desk as he shouted over the laughter to Miss Saxon, 'That they're both abusive! Both Gatsby and Tom are abusive to Daisy but she lives for it, she likes the danger and she's attracted to the high life. She's an adrenaline junkie, she just doesn't realise it. Nor does she realise she is in love with both Gatsby and Tom…'

At Rory's last sentence, after the laughter had died down and Clara was busy taking notes, she dropped her shoulder as casually as she could and very slowly looked up through her eyelashes, staring right at John who seemed to be busy taking down the notes Missy wrote on the board. Clara arched her eyebrow, her face softening as she watched John with such an intensity she shocked herself. Her hazel eyes were just a little glazed over, her heart racing as she tried to control all her emotions at once. It was flooding through her body, setting herself on fire with emotion as she stared at him. She half wished he would turn his head, but that would be bad. Very, very bad and unorthodox, she felt her heart race as he reached up to run his long fingers through his thick hair. She so wanted to run her fingers through his hair and yank on it a little, just to see his reaction. Clara swallowed, trying to look away from him but she couldn't. This was so inconvenient for her, to fall for somebody she was supposed to hate. She supposed that this was the kind of love that made you crazy for one another just like Gatsby and Daisy; who were so crazy in love but their hatred over ruled their love. That was exactly why she couldn't tell John, it would ruin the dynamic they had.

She let herself have one last longing gaze at him, watching as the muscles in his wrist and arms moved every time he moved his pencil, gracefully moving across his book as he took down random notes; probably his own thoughts now, she had noticed how quickly he wrote. Clara cleared her throat and lent her arm on his desk, on purpose, but she didn't want him to know that so she looked down at her paper and carried on writing. She chewed her bottom lip, their arms touching as the two of them wrote on their papers. Her eyes narrowed to his arm, noticing his hairs standing up on his arm, her heart racing as she took in the scent of him, musky and incredibly strong aftershave and a hint of hair gel. Clara continued to write, noticing that the hairs on her own arm had stood up, her brown eyes watching him, until she heard a girl's voice.

'Clara, come on, we've got Mr Harkness next, you know… Hot P.E. teacher.'