She sauntered in with her best smile and brown boots, perpetually planning to do what she had always done. Her wavy brown tendrils rested against her shoulders, complimenting a perfect blue denim shirt that matched a good pair of jeans. With a twinkle in her chocolate brown eyes, she walked up the railing of the sentient snogbox, excited to be within the warm golden glow of the center console, but stopped short a few feet away from its owner - who was currently standing securely in front of the large chalkboard on the upper floor.
His hand danced across the black surface as equations poured out from a poisely-held white writing utensil, almost as if he had been a conductor of logical proportions, delivering a melody of complex, intricate thought that the school teacher only half-way understood. The brunette, instead, found herself grazing over his towering frame, admiring his firm, strong build with his back turned to her in his black magician coat, and how one hand saturated into his gallifreyan pants pocket, like a true man of science and arithmetic. His silver strands were what seemed to be an organized mess, yet also somehow wildly combed back in a way only he could pull off, and she partially found herself wondering what it would be like to run her fingers through it.
At this moment, he seemed quite... sophisticated, beyond his years, and she could clearly see him as being an eternal walker of worlds, the timelord that both saved and damned Gallifrey. The oncoming storm, and the intellectual alien that always seemed to be solving some sort of puzzle, always one step ahead of everyone else. A hero that strived to do what was right, and the only man that had ever served as her equal.
But, she also knew that, deep inside, he doubted himself. And, he needed her there to be his guide. His carer. His friend. With his snarky attitude and rude remarks, it was a wonder she'd stayed- that she was still there. But, if in her travels with him, if it's anything she'd learned, it was not to walk away from those you cared about.
And, as she had learned, she could never run out on him. Not really.
"Clara -" His voice rang out, interrupting her reverie, still scribbling string theories with his wise eyes never once leaving his work. "Nice of you to finally join the class."
There was a certain tone to his voice that seemed pleased she was there, but also a nearly undetectable grain of omnipotence in his words that made her wonder if he'd known she'd been standing there the entire time, or... if he'd merely only just noticed.
She shot him a perplexed look, coupled with something of a smirk. "I'm not your student," The statement was defiant, but somewhat playful - "I'm the boss," She cooed in a counter, hanging onto her impish words and the railing of the stairs for a moment. Her boots soon led her up the few steps that granted her the second floor, and she found her place beside the twelfth incarnation wishfully, her brown gaze swallowing the letters and numbers upon the chalkboard and analyzing them curiously.
A certain grin tugged on his lips upon her ploy, amused. "Okay, boss," he mocked the title as he sometimes did, his scottish strong. His next remark was a challenge twisted into instructive diction. "Tell me-" he gave her a side-long glance and stopped his painting of equation, seemingly finished with his work. He placed the chalk down into its holder, and he stepped back from the display, his eyes focused on the midnight surface and the pouring of the things he had put there. "What do you make of this?"
As he took a wide step back and gestured towards the intellectual connections, she took the smallest of steps toward the chalkboard to carefully scrutinize its contents, her chin resting atop her curled hand. It was a simple enough question, but a small part of her was afraid she'd get it wrong.
The curvatures and signs she deciphered along with the insertion of random numbers and letters gave way to the logic that this long formula was coordinates of some sort, albeit mixed in with some sort of galactic measurements. But, if he had an exact point of location, why would he write it down, instead of just entering it into the TARDIS? It could also be a complex physics problem - in which case, she wondered, why he was solving it. Her eyes searched for the truth in the writing, hoping to find the answer to the riddle he was giving her. When she came up with nothing, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion, much like the reply she supplied. "Is it a strange space telegram or something?"
"No, it is not 'a weird space telegram'. There is no such thing. You act as if you've never seen me use the telephone before..." he retorted sternly in his rogue accent, then stared at her a moment. When she didn't say anything else, he gaped, taken aback by her lack of imagination. "Oh, come on, Clara!" he said, "Do you really not see it?" He was seemingly bewildered, shocked even, as he knew she was more than capable of using that clever, bossy brain of hers. He knew it wasn't made of pudding like most of the other people of her species - she was better than that. She was Clara Oswald - top of the class!
Her lips pursed together nervously, almost as if she was holding back impatience . Her eyes were honest, and she was really quite confused and slightly irritated now, but doing her best to keep her calm. She took another glance at the black board, only for her chocolate gaze to return to the Doctor's with a raise of her eyebrows and a set of crossed arms. "Nope. Nothing." What was she supposed to be seeing, exactly? It still looked like a jumbled mess. But, maybe that was just the Doctor in a nutshell. Maybe that was the whole point. Maybe it was simply just a work of art.
And, if that was the case, she would gladly catapult him into the next century.
Still, despite whatever it was, it had nothing to do with why she was here. "Look, Doctor," she spoke up, "you told me we were going somewhere very special today. Does this-" she pointed at the string of letters and numbers - "have anything to do with where we're going? Because I'd really like to get there as soon as possible."
He gave her a suspicious look, almost feeling attacked by her words if it wasn't for his siege of eyebrows. "We're in a time machine, Clara. There is no reason to be in such a hurry," he berated, wondering why she didn't want to theorize or debate a little with him. It wasn't pointless bantering like she thought. He blamed her sudden irritability on the ever-growing fascination to the P.E teacher that was a prominent thorn in his side, who she was so convinced actually taught math. Fluorescent soldier pudding brain. Though, he was quick to disregard these more sinister, envious thoughts, internalizing them in order to get on with the matter at hand. "Besides," He interjected, walking over to the console to stand in front of the time rotor, and turning slender fingers upon the dial. "We'll need that for where we're going." His sapphires nodded towards the calculations on the chalkboard before he pulled the lever, sending them both into a side-ways tilt from the TARDIS, and into the Time Vortex.
He held onto the edge of the panel, and she held onto the rail of the short staircase, her mind still brimming with curiosities about their mystery destination. His lack of elaboration or at least one specific detail about it was concerning, to say the least, but nothing too out of the ordinary for the man in the magician coat. Ever since his regeneration, he had been a big ball for her to continually unravel and try and figure out, as he was much more closed off than his predecessor, despite still being, relatively, the same man. It was like swapping a firework with a hand-grenade. Although both were essentially explosives, one significantly had a much harder outer shell, and could be much more volatile - seemingly much more prone to wage a war than to forward a certain celebration. It was an ignition that fueled her as much as it beget fear. And, there was a certain, secret part of her that found herself gravitating towards this burning spark, like a moth to a flame. This new incarnation, as rude and as upsetting as he could sometimes be, was hard to stay away from, difficult to completely say 'no' to, or to actually leave - as she had most recently found out.
And, she felt that, on some level, he felt the same way. It was obvious they shared an unspoken bond, with all the words never said and the littlest of gestures shone more than the light of a thousand stars. Even the maths teacher could see it. But, their paths were soon diverging. Things always happened, and the timing was never right, and neither of them ever stood still long enough to actually make sense of it all.
Just how long, she wondered, could she keep up the charade? How long could she pretend that the Doctor didn't mean more to her than the beautiful heart-throb that was Danny Pink? How long could she keep lying to him, to herself, to everyone else about how she truly loved one over the other? How she kept going on secret, exhilarating adventures with the dashing older Gallifreyan man, and then running towards exciting new, normal dates with her sexy school teacher boyfriend?
She knew she would eventually have to pick. But, until that time came, she would keep going. She could do it. She could live a double life.
She had to, in order to protect everything she ever loved.