Thank you for all the kind words in the reviews :) But between all the suspense, how about we give Clara a moment to breathe and consider a few other things?

Chapter 16

"Rory!" Amy shouted out into the hall. "How's the lock coming along? Your soufflé's getting cold!"

Clara watched her friend as she instantly turned her attention back towards the dessert on her plate and continued to eat while she waited for her husband's response. Clara hadn't touched her food and she was beginning to feel a little guilty because she had made Rory buy her a lock and dragged her friends here so late in the evening just because she was scared.

"Almost done!" Rory called back. "Couple more minutes!"

"Hurry up!" Amy urged him and when she looked at Clara, her friend seemed to notice that her own soufflé was still untouched. "Why aren't you eating?"

Clara shrugged in response. "I'm not really hungry. I've had a weird day," she explained with a heavy sigh. The strange encounter at the hardware shop was still on her mind and even though she was still hoping that she was wrong, Clara knew that it was unlikely, especially if John had already run into him as well. But she had pushed him in the right direction and he had promised her to look into it. Right now, all she could do was to hope that he would find something.

"You really didn't have to go through all that trouble with the soufflés, you know? Rory would have fixed your lock regardless," Amy said after a while, tearing her out of her thoughts. "Or I would've made him fix it."

Clara smiled at her friend, but even though she couldn't see herself, she knew that it must look tired. "I don't mind," she explained. "Baking distracts me."

In a swift movement, Amy put down her spoon and leaned forward a little, looking straight at Clara in a manner that suddenly frightened her. "Because of the creepy guy at the hardware shop?" her friend wanted to know, raising her eyebrows.

In response, Clara uttered a sigh. "Not just that," she replied. "John met him a few days ago, thought he was a nosy journalist. I'm not so sure about that."

"John?"

"Yeah, you know, John Smith, the detective," she explained, surprised that she even had to elaborate at all. It was Amy who had suggested he should guard her, so she should know that they had talked.

However, the response Clara received wasn't the one she had expected. "John, huh? You're on a first-name basis now?" her friend asked curiously, a smirk on her lips. Clara was ready to roll her eyes because, whatever her friend was insinuating, it certainly wasn't like that.

"He spent the night on my sofa, we talked, would've been weird to keep calling him Detective Inspector Smith after I made him dinner," Clara argued.

Amy chuckled. "You made him dinner?"

"Soup," she replied. "And of course. It would have been slightly rude not to offer him something while eating right next to him."

Still, the strange smile just wouldn't fade from Amy's face. "You know he's carrying a torch for you, right?" her friend asked, the amusement plain in her voice.

"Don't be ridiculous," Clara remarked, scoffing at her. That was the most ludicrous thing she had heard all week and she had heard a lot of really strange things after everything that had happened. "Also, carry a torch? Are we still in the fifties? Seriously, if you used that sentence in front of my students, I'm fairly certain they wouldn't know what you were talking about."

"Yeah, but you know exactly what I'm talking about, so don't change the subject," Amy teased her.

Not knowing how else to make her friend understand, Clara uttered a growl. "John is not carrying a torch for me, alright? He's a detective who takes his job very seriously, that's all."

Amy opened her mouth to reply but was cut off when Rory entered the kitchen, and Clara was grateful for the interruption. She didn't seriously think that John was into her even though there had been a couple of signs. Still, Clara thought he was too much of a professional for anything more than concern for a neighbour he was friendly with.

"Finished," Rory announced when he came to a halt next to the table. "Congratulations, you've got a new, very expensive, very difficult lock and by difficult I mean it was not a pleasure to install."

"Thank you, Rory," Clara said sincerely, offering him a grateful smile. "What would I do without friends like you?"

"Rory, could you please double-check if everything's working?" Amy asked to Clara's surprise. She was fairly certain that Rory had made sure everything was in order.

"I already-"

"Please, check it again," Amy insisted, interrupting him and by now, Clara knew what was going on and she dreaded the conversation that was to follow.

When Rory left the kitchen to check on the lock, her friend turned towards Clara once again and gave her that look, the one that left her with little doubt she was going to hear something she didn't want to hear.

"Clara, you're allowed to get your life back at some point," Amy said.

"I know that and that's exactly what I'm doing," Clara argued. "Building a new life right here."

Amy furrowed her brows. "Really? Cause it looks to me like you're hiding from the world. I know what happened with Danny hit you hard and I get that. I wouldn't even know what I'd do if I lost Rory-"

"Is that why you sent him out of the room? So he wouldn't hear?" she growled.

"No, because this isn't about me, it's about you," her friend insisted. "When are you going to get back in the game?"

Now, Clara really rolled her eyes. She had had that conversation with her old friends in London, the ones who had never been able to understand why moving on wasn't as easy as they thought, who had never even heard the whole story. For a moment, Clara considered telling Amy the truth, the whole truth, but she was afraid that it would do more damage than good.

"My fiancé died, yes," Clara replied sharply. "I'm not over it. I will be, at some point, but that isn't now."

Clara still had to take care of some things, things Amy would never be able to understand.

"And before you tell me about how John has a crush on me, which isn't true, may I remind you that it would be a stupid idea to start something with the man who lives across the field, the man who is leading the police investigation into the death of a woman who looks just like me, the man I will keep running into no matter where I go because we're on an island… just because I want to get back in the game?"

Amy shrugged. "Point taken," she remarked. Then the smirk was back. "However, I find it interesting that you chose not to mention his age or his looks or the fact that you can't imagine fancying him."

"Okay, I think this conversation is leading nowhere," Clara barked at her friend and then turned towards the door to shout: "Rory, come back! I'm sure the lock is perfectly fine!"

The disappointment was visible on Amy's face when their girl talk came to an abrupt end, but Clara really wasn't in the mood to continue their conversation. Maybe Amy would understand if she knew what had happened to Danny, maybe she would realise why Clara couldn't let it go and move on as easily as she would have liked, but Amy couldn't ever know the truth.

However, when her friends had left and Clara tried to push aside every thought about the fact that she was on her own and feeling exposed and unprotected despite the new lock, Clara considered something else Amy had said. Did John have a crush on her? Yes, he liked her, Clara was certain of that and she liked him back, but if there was more, Clara wasn't sure whether it would be a blessing or a curse.