Chapter Six: Entente

An understanding or alliance between two nations.

Out of the five hours that Clara had entirely to herself, she spent not a second of them sleeping.

Her mug clamored onto the stage of the Keurig as she made her fourth cup of coffee that morning, the clock nearing six as she settled onto the bar stool of Jack's kitchen and pumped out three articles for 101 Places to See, her fingers flying across the keyboard in a caffeinated frenzy. Never before had she written with such fervor, and while a part of that still attributed to her pent-up rage, she refused to dwell upon anything but her work for the time being.

It wasn't until she tilted her mug towards the ceiling, not a single drop of coffee touching her lips, that she finally began to feel at a loss for words. She had talked about it all: her visit to Pier 39, the unprecedented amount of seafood she ate, and the strange shops she perused in between. What else was there to tell her readers without breaching the boundaries of something incredibly personal? She was not about to jinx her success with Wayfarer by mentioning it, and there was no way she was writing about John, regardless of their dispute. It felt too intimate, as if doing so would allow Clara to use her voice, not Oswin.

I'm a desperate twenty-four year-old who can't drive herself, she typed onto her drafts, stabbing each key as if she wanted to bore a hole straight through to the counter. —who has made the decision to hitchhike with a doctor she's only slightly attracted to, though now she regrets it because she's pretty sure he hates her now—

Stopping, Clara stared at the words in horror, and deleted them immediately.

She closed her laptop, pressing the heels of her palms into her eyes. Even if she wanted to, her body refused to sleep, as if her subconscious was a door propped open by caffeine. It had been a problem for her since secondary school; she'd down cup after cup and push aside sleep until the weekend, where she'd hibernate in bed until she'd eventually have to return to a place she dreaded day after day. It was a vicious cycle, one she couldn't help but fall victim to in times of distress. And apparently this was one of those times.

Wanting nothing more but to busy herself, Clara hopped off of the bar stool and began rummaging through Jack's kitchen cupboards, pulling various items from the shelves—salt, vanilla bean, eggs from the fridge. It wasn't until she lined everything up on the island that she realized she was making her mum's soufflé, a recipe she knew from heart but seldom managed to make correctly. It was an activity that required little thought, and as of now, that was exactly what she needed.

Reaching for the first of her ingredients, Clara began to bake, and quite frankly, she'd never been more dexterous at it in her entire life. She didn't know where it came from—a desperate need to get her mind off of things, or the sudden urge to punch a hole through the wall, but she performed every step without falter. From stiffly beating the concoction of egg whites and milk, to pouring the mixture into a ramekin, and chewing on her thumbnail as she anxiously watched the delicacy puff in the oven like a hot-air balloon, Clara had never felt more in tune to her mother's ways as she bustled around the kitchen like a lunatic. Ellie Oswald was a stress-baker, after all. And the apple doesn't fall very far from the tree.

Ding!

The young woman couldn't help but smile as she retrieved from the oven a perfect soufflé—the first in ages that hadn't emerged burnt or deflated or just plain obliterated by her unpredictable baking skills. I ought to get angry more often, she thought to herself, staring at her creation in pride and a tentative sort of happiness that only came after moment upon moment of misery. Like the sun finally peeking out after hours of relentless, dreary storm.

Because out of all the things that had come from these past several hours, this was the only thing Clara felt she had gotten right. And she was willing to hold onto that victory, if only for a moment, if it meant putting a pause to the storm that was this entire day.

He woke to the sound of his phone blaring.

Pinching open one eye, John barely recognized his surroundings—from the grey bed linens to the lavish drapes, and when he finally remembered, the impact was equivalent to being a hit by a large truck. The gun taking aim at the spot just between his eyes, the kindness of a single man offering his home to two strangers. The sour aftertaste of the argument he and Clara had just a few hours ago. It all came rushing towards him, leaving a pulsing headache in its wake.

Hand blindly searching for his phone on the nightstand, the young doctor squinted at the screen, and was met with the face of a familiar red-head. John stared at Amelia Pond's contact photo in bewilderment, wondering why on Earth he'd change his wallpaper from a minimalist portrait of Sputnik to her, until he realized that she was calling him. Fumbling with the button on his screen, he finally accepted her request to FaceTime, and waited for the call to load.

"Doctor!" Amy's big face took up the entire screen as she grinned at her best friend. "Did I wake you?"

"...Pond," John said by means of salutation, wiping drool from the corner of his mouth as he sat up. "It's eight-thirty. I know you're a morning person and all, but—"

"It's not eight-thirty," she frowned, checking her watch for good measure. She had put on a modest amount of makeup already, and was dressed in a turquoise blouse. If anything, she looked fully prepared to take on the day with her spunky personality and three-inch high heels. "It's eleven-thirty, are you seeing straight?"

"Well, maybe I would be if you'd give me the chance to wake up—"

"Oh my god!" she gasped, suddenly glaring at him through the screen. John distanced himself from the phone, unsure of what his friend was so worked up about, but knew the expression well enough to be scared. "You're not in New York! You missed your flight, didn't you?!" she accused, mumbling a curse under her breath as John stared at her, wide-eyed in realization.

"No, no, Amy, let me explain—"

"I knew something had happened when you didn't phone us last night. We were just about to drive into the city to see if you had checked into your hotel!" she shouted, as if yelling loudly enough would make up for the distance he hadn't yet crossed. "Where the hell—?!"

"Amy, please stop screaming," a familiar voice emerged from someplace behind her. "You'll wake the neighbors."

"Rory!" John exclaimed, relieved to hear the calm disposition of her friend's husband. "It's Rory! Amy, can I talk to Rory instead? He's much more..." He paused midway, the steely look on her face just daring him to say something that would further piss her off. "...masculine t-than you are. Is that a new blouse? I haven't seen it on you in pictures before, it's a lovely shade on you!"

Amy's eyes narrowed into slits, his attempt at flattery shriveling.

"Fine. You want to talk to my husband? Here he is," she spat, turning over the camera to reveal Rory in the doorway of the bathroom, wearing nothing but a scrub top and a pair of boxer briefs. He looked neither mad nor fazed by John's apparent situation, and was even quite pleased to see him. John wished he could say the same for the woman who was currently fuming from behind her cell phone.

"Hello Rory!" John greeted cheerily. Rory waved back, a toothbrush dangling from between his teeth.

"Hi Doctor," the nurse replied back plaintively, as if he had long accepted the fact that he wasn't wearing pants. "Why aren't you in yet? Has something happened?"

"Yeah," the young doctor finally admitted, scratching the back of his head. "I'm in Reno, Nevada. Got into a bit of a mix up at the airport, flight got cancelled, so now I'm driving over there."

Amy balked. "Driving—?!"

"Ah, brilliant. More time for lunch, then," her husband clapped his hands, looking over the top of the screen towards his wife. "Did you want to try that new Mediterranean fusion restaurant we passed the other day?"

"Doctor, why are you driving?"

"Because it's your birthday, Pond, and I'm not going to miss it this time!" he insisted, tapping the screen as if to better accentuate his point.

It seemed that the couple's best friend had missed out on it all: birthday parties, graduations—he was even late to their wedding reception—and the fact that they now lived in a suburb of New York made it no easier for him. The three had known each other since grade school, and were practically inseparable until university. And it pained John to see them grow up without him.

"Ugh, don't remind me," Amy muttered, turning the camera back to her. "At this rate, my birthday's just a countdown to thirty."

"Twenty-five will look grand on you, love," Rory encouraged behind a mouthful of toothpaste.

"Twenty-four looks perfectly fine on me now."

"Lawrence Bragg won the Nobel prize at twenty-five," John added helpfully.

"Oi, don't try to science your way out of this, you hear me?" she warned him, jabbing a manicured nail in his direction. "I know you're always full of stupid ideas, but this is your stupidest one yet. What makes you think you can drive over here by Wednesday? You'd have to speed! And you know I don't encourage speeding."

"It's 'cause she got a ticket yesterday for going fifty-eight on a forty-five," her husband interjected.

"It was fifty-five, and would you just shut up and get dressed?" Amy snapped, eyebrows drawn together angrily as the sound of the bathroom door closing echoed in the near distance. "Doctor, if it was God's plan to have me pay a two hundred dollar fine just so I could keep you from driving over here like a lunatic, then I accept the assignment."

"You worry too much about me, Pond," John conceded, running a hand over his face. "I'm fine, I promise! I'll drive at a reasonable speed, stop to smell the roses, and before you know it, I'll be bursting out of your birthday cake singing Donna Summer."

She still didn't look convinced. "I just hate that you're having to do this whole cross-country thing by yourself. You know how I feel about you traveling alone all the time—"

A knock cut her off short, John looking up to see that Jack had poked his head through the door.

"Oh, good! You're up," the Captain grinned at him. "Clara baked a soufflé, Doc, you've gotta try it. It's heavenly. Imagine the best sex you've ever had, and then just keep going. It's like that. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna inhale the entire thing on my own if you don't come downstairs."

And with that, he shut the door. It took a few seconds for John to absorb, but once he did, the faint tinge of butter that lingered in the air suddenly made sense. His eyes returned back to his phone, where Amy sat there wide-eyed, gaping at him.

"Who was that?"

"No one," he answered far too quickly. Amy glared at him. "He's just my..." he trailed off, wondering why on Earth he had to use the word 'my.' As far as he was concerned, Jack wasn't his anything. "...my lodger! Yes, he is my lodger."

"And who's Clara?" she prodded. John grimaced.

He could have lied in the moment. He could have said that she was Jack's roommate, or wife, but the mere notion of her fulfilling either position made him queasy—and if there was anything he couldn't do, it was lie to a Pond. Nineteen years of friendship had made himself utterly transparent towards them. And now was no exception.

So he told her. He told her everything—from him and the writer's shared motivation to get to New York on time, to the moment Jack saved them earlier that morning. He still found it hard to believe it had all happened in the same day.

And when everything was out in the open for Amy to scrutinize, the first thing she said was:

"You so fancy this Clara girl."

John sputtered, as if her words had physically struck him.

"I do not!" he protested, face reddening at her accusation. "What makes you think that?"

"Oh, please," Amy droned, rolling her eyes. John was one of the most intelligent people she knew, and yet he still lacked the ability to recognize the most basic of human emotions—especially his own. "The cappuccino? The TARDIS? Doctor, you were about to take a bullet for this girl! If it had been me, you'd have used me as a human shield."

"Not true," John grumbled. His friend only huffed in reply.

"Why else would you have invited her to come with you, then?" she asked. "You hardly invite anyone to travel with you, let alone people you've only just met."

"Because she needed help!" John insisted, fully convinced that was the only reason. "Because I met her and she's witty, and funny, and one of the few people who actually deserves to get what they're going after. And if that means paying six-hundred dollars' worth of speeding tickets, then...then to hell with my retirement savings."

He wanted to get the point across that he wasn't doing this for himself. Somehow, that only convinced Amy more.

"Besides," he confessed, falling back on his pillow in exhaustion. "She's mad at me. I don't even think she enjoys being in my company very much."

"And why's that?"

"She thinks I risk my life too often without thinking about it."

Amy scoffed. "You do risk your life too often without thinking about it."

"Oi, why are you agreeing with her? You never agree with anyone! It's in your DNA to disagree!"

"Because it's true!" she exclaimed, secretly glad he had found someone sharp enough to call him out on it.

John, on the other hand, grew quiet on his end of the call, unsure of how to respond, or whether to say anything at all. Amy sighed.

"Doctor, I don't think she's mad at you because she doesn't like you, she's mad at you because she's worried for you. She doesn't know you the way Rory and I know you; she doesn't know why you do the things you do. So of course she's going to be a little wary when you jump the gun! Figuratively and literally."

The young doctor merely shifted in the bed that wasn't his, at a loss for words against those of his friend. He wasn't just at a loss for words, he was at a loss for thoughts; all that occupied his brain was the look Clara gave him before leaving his room earlier that morning. He couldn't tell whether she was just tired or if she had actually teared up, but something in her eyes magnified their shade of brown, her distressed expression bothering him more than it should have. He didn't want her to feel sad two days before her big interview. He didn't want her to feel sad, period.

"Ready to go?" Rory asked Amy when he returned, his scrub bottoms on and his hospital badge clipped on. He appeared onscreen briefly to give his wife a quick kiss. "Is there anything we can do to help you out over there, Doctor?"

John smiled. Rory was always the most caring out of the three of them. "If you could phone United Airlines and tell them to pick me up on Interstate 80, that'd be great."

"I don't think he needs our help, Rory," Amy argued, a deliberate smile on her lips. "He's got Clara to help him now."

"Clara?" Rory asked. John didn't need to see him to know that he'd raised his eyebrows at this. "Clara who?"

"Clara Oswald, that's who," John snapped, refusing to look his two friends in the eye. "She's a girl from London I so happened to meet at the airport, and now we're driving to New York together in a rental, and that's all, so don't get any ideas!" He pointed in their direction, his fingerprint smearing the camera lens. "Now go, shoo, eat your Mediterranean fusion food and engage in the baseball civil war, or whatever the hell you New Yorker's do in your free time."

The couple wished him the best on the drive over there, and ended the call shortly after that. John let the phone fall from his hand and into his lap, his ears ringing at the newfound silence, as if they sought to hear the remainders of his friend's voices. He once feared he'd forget what they sounded like, and it wasn't until he called them, or at least heard their voicemail, that he could feel properly settled again.

He padded into an empty kitchen minutes later, one-fourth a soufflé sitting in its ramekin on the counter, as if it had been waiting there for him this entire time. It felt wrong to eat it knowing that Clara was likely still upset with him, but the longer he stared at it, the more his mouth watered. The only things in his system right now were graham crackers, coffee, and camomile tea; surely the young writer didn't dislike him so much as to starve him. He was her ride out of this place, after all.

So grabbing a utensil from the dishwasher and sitting himself down, John took a tentative forkful of the soufflé and shoved it into his mouth. Perhaps if he did it quickly enough, it wouldn't feel like he was committing a crime. A second passed. Two. And then he was dropping the fork, pressing his hands into his face, and willing the uneasy feeling in his stomach to go away.

Because it was the best soufflé he'd ever tasted.

And it was almost unfair to him that he kept on finding reasons to like Clara Oswald.

"Are you sure I can't just stay in your house forever?" Clara asked Jack as she reached up to hug him once more. He hugged back reassuringly, the firmness of his embrace steadying her like a stand might a porcelain doll.

"I'm sure Ianto wouldn't mind the help; he's always nagging me about how we don't use the kitchen enough," he admitted, pulling away from her and shielding his eyes from the blinding morning sun. "But never-mind the old couple, you've got a city to conquer on the East Coast!"

Clara tried to smile at that, though she was sure it had come off as a grimace. She hadn't exchanged a word with John when she tried to shove her suitcase into the back of the TARDIS, and he hadn't said anything after taking it from her to do it himself. If was as if neither of them knew exactly where the other stood in regards to one another, like they were playing a game of chess and had forgotten whose turn it was. Clara didn't know if she could tolerate it for another two days.

She glanced over at John from across the driveway and almost immediately regretted it, for only in resignation did she begin to notice things about him. Like how his green eyes held a flicker of gold that shone especially when he concentrated on something, or the way he ran his fingers through his hair as if he had an ounce of control over the way it flopped over his forty-acre forehead. He was wearing his Van Halen t-shirt and a pair of dark jeans, and it was so unfair that he looked like that when Clara was clearly trying not to look at him.

"Doc," Jack said solemnly as he approached, extending his hand out towards the young doctor for a shake, which only turned into a hug as John nearly suffocated beneath the man's ravishing grip.

"Thank you for letting us stay," he wheezed, breathless.

"Anytime," the Captain promised, releasing him from his grip but still keeping him in place by the shoulders. "Just promise me you won't get into any trouble in any other American city but Reno, okay?"

"I'll try, but I can't make any promises," he warned him truthfully. "If anything, Clara will be there to keep me in check."

The words had come out without warning, from the part of his brain he didn't think needed to be put under observation until now. Three and a half hours of sleep made him say a myriad of things he wished he hadn't, but perhaps a tall coffee would get him to where he needed to be. He thought back to what Amy had said to him earlier.

He's got Clara to help him now.

What exactly had she meant by that?

Clutching the keys in a tight fist, John clapped Jack on the back once more, and stepped into the driver's seat of the TARDIS, Clara following suit only after she hugged Jack once more. She had kept a firm distance between them up until the last possible moment, John almost glad she hadn't heard the exchange as he switched the gear into drive and backed out of the driveway, the silence between them almost bearable as they waved goodbye to the one person they didn't want to relinquish just yet. Never had they met someone so generous as to open their house to two strangers. Captain Jack Harkness saluted the two before retreating back into the solitude of his own home.

It wasn't until the place was no longer visible from the road that Clara officially felt the tension hanging in the air, as dry as the cracked earth that surrounded them on either sides. In truth, she wanted nothing more but to put this entire dispute behind them. She couldn't count the amount of times she had poured over the conversation in her head, his confused looks and her trivial accusations, battering her brain left and right until she felt properly ashamed. She had no right to accuse him like that, to discourage him from being good. Because he was. Deep down, she knew what his intentions were.

But before she could open her mouth to apologize, John spoke up first, his voice curt and polite as he asked, "Did you sleep well?"

Clara mashed her lips together, wringing her hands in her lap. "Yes."

Lie. It tasted foul, but she swallowed it down as she looked up at him and smiled as best she could without wincing. She had a few extra minutes that morning to dab some concealer under her eyes and coat her lashes in mascara—she was even wearing an outfit she didn't feel completely indolent in: a sheer button-up, a pair of starched navy shorts, and dark tights.

"Fake it 'till you make it, honey," Nina had always said, mostly to herself every time she went to work hungover.

"And you?" she asked, picking at her nails. "Did you sleep well?"

"Yeah, yeah. Slept just fine," John breathed. Clara saw that his knuckles were growing white on the steering wheel. "Well, as fine as I could in three hours and thirty minutes. Amy called, nearly obliterated me when she found I wasn't in New York yet."

"Van Halen Amy?" she asked. As if there could be any other Amy. John laughed tightly.

"That's the one," he replied. "Her and her husband Rory live in the suburbs of the city. She's the one having the birthday party this week, actually."

"Oh," was all Clara could say to that, and nodded.

Is this how the rest of their trip was going to go? Quick bursts of small talk that eventually descended into unbearable silence? They had only been on the road for two minutes and she was already growing infuriated because of it. And she was pretty sure he was, too, judging by the way his hands gripped the wheel as if he wanted to dislocate it from the dashboard. If they were going to spend the next forty-or-so hours sitting next to each other, then she wanted them to be worth it.

"John," Clara started, unsure of where she was going with this. "About what I said this morning...it was uncalled for. I was being ungrateful to you, and you didn't deserve that. So, I guess what I'm trying to say is, I'm sorry. And thank you. Thank you for looking after me."

There. She said it. And was now eagerly awaiting his response, unable to meet his eye as she fiddled with the ring on her finger, the skin beneath it turning red. He remained quiet for a long while, his eyes so focused on the road that he could have passed a kidney stone with that amount of concentration. Clara thought he wasn't going to say anything at all, until—

"You don't need to apologize for worrying, Clara," he finally said, his voice strained as he spoke. "If anything, it's me who should be apologizing, thanking you for looking after me. People are rarely around enough to do so."

"That's not true," she insisted, thinking back to the picture of him and his friends. "You have Amy and Rory."

A pained expression crossed his features. "Amy and Rory have always been an integral part of my life, and they always will be, but...they have their life set out already, and it's great. It's fantastic. And it's also three-thousand miles and an ocean away, hence the whole driving-to-New-York-debacle." He laughed, almost bitterly. "I cling to them too often. I really ought to stop."

"I bet they don't see it that way," she replied, resisting the urge to rest her hand on his. "My mother always told me that it was good to cling, to hold onto the things you care about. Because you never know when they'll be gone."

"She sounds like the best kind of mother," he smiled, glancing over to see that she was smiling, too, but for reasons entirely her own. Clara nodded.

"She really was."

He should have just left it at that. Should have just dropped the subject and moved on. But the way her voice tipped on that last word caught his attention.

"...was?"

Clara swallowed, afraid he might have asked. Nodding again, she slipped the ring from her finger, and held it between her palms.

"She died of leukemia when I was sixteen."

The words left the tip of her tongue and she immediately felt off-centered, because it still felt wrong to actually admit that her mother was gone, and had been for eight years now. It was as if only yesterday she had been helping her daughter pick out a dress for winter formal, discussing what universities Clara wanted to attend, the places she wanted to see when she was older. They were even planning to travel to Korea after her secondary school graduation.

Ellie Oswald hadn't the slightest room for hatred in her heart, and Clara blamed the universe for a long time for betraying her mother in that way, for taking the life of someone who in no way deserved it. Things like death didn't just happen to people like her. And admitting to herself that it actually had was the hardest thing for Clara to overcome.

"Ever since then, I had taught myself to tread carefully," she explained. "To confide in few, because who knows when you'll lose someone next? I don't think I can handle that kind of pain again." She looked down at the ring that sat in the midst of her palm, the only tangible thing left of her mother she owned. "When she had told me to cling, I did. But I prevented myself from holding onto anything that may have actually mattered to me."

It was why she had only managed to maintain one stable relationship in her life—and even that was futile since the beginning. It was why she bottled her pain and ran from anyone who dared ask how she was or if she was coping or if things were better when they obviously weren't. It was why when she looked at John, she couldn't understand how he lived so impulsively when life itself was such a delicate thing.

"I guess that's kind of why I freaked out, earlier this morning," she admitted, a small huff of amusement escaping her lips.

It was a subtle confession, but honest enough for John to understand. Honest enough for him to say, "I know this is in no way a consolation, but...I've experienced similar."

Clara looked up from her lap, the question in her eyes urging for him to continue.

"I was in my first year of medical school when I lost my parents to a car accident," he offered, extending this broken piece of himself not to make her feel better necessarily, but perhaps to let her know that she wasn't alone. "They always told me to live as much as I possibly could, so when they passed, I did exactly as they said. I'm taking from life the things that they could never experience, making up for the days they will never get to spend." He wore a mirthless sort of smile on his face as he said, "I guess that's why I didn't freak out enough."

"...I'm sorry."

She didn't know exactly what for, whether it be her judgment without understanding, or the fact that he had lost both parents at once. All she knew was that she meant what she said. She meant it wholeheartedly.

John glanced at her, his face sincere. "Me too."

The silence that followed felt heavy with the confessions now unfurled between them, an entente in which both Clara and John now saw what the other couldn't previously see. They both realized that vulnerability was not a weakness, but a strength that brought them both to a mutual understanding of one another. For though they thought separately, they were shaped by a similar loss.

And knowing that made all the difference.