"Thank you again for helping me with this, Danny." Clara said, putting a box into the boot of Danny's car.
"I still can't believe you're moving in with a weird old bloke you just met yesterday." He laughed and shook his head. "Is this place really so bad?"
As if on cue, one of her flatmates yelled incoherently from upstairs. Likely for no other reason than he'd had several pints at lunch and then not gone back to work, in favor of staying at the pub. If it was the one she was thinking it was, he'd likely incite the rest of the lot into hours upon hours of loud drinking in the common area of the flat.
"Suppose I shouldn't have asked?" He frowned, helping her put a few more boxes into the car.
"Why do you think I've never had anyone over?"
Danny smirked. "I just thought you weren't the dinner party sort."
"You can have people round outside of dinner parties," she argued. "And as it stands, I love having dinner parties. I'm brilliant at hosting them. At Uni-"
"Yeah, yeah. Well, this Doctor then? Will he let you have dinner parties?" Danny closed the boot and walked around to the driver's side.
"I don't know. I don't even know if the flat is big enough to host parties." As she sat down in the passenger's seat, she was beginning to think her impulsive decision to move out and into the first thing that came up might not have been the best idea. But a few more shouts from the flat reaffirmed her convictions in her impulsive decisions. "Hackney Wick is where we're going. Step on it!"
There was a spot of traffic, but the drive from Shoreditch to Hackney Wick wasn't a long one. Danny, to his credit, was attempting small talk, albeit awkwardly so. "How many pairs of socks do you own?" while endearing, wasn't exactly inspiring banter, but Clara went along with it in an effort to distract herself from how nervous she was about not only moving further East (and out of the comfort of Zone 1 despite the absurd costs that she'd clung onto like any proper transplant), but also in with some completely unknown person she'd only just met.
Pulling up to a line of terraced houses, he slowed down as they both looked for the number.
"Number 12, right there," Clara spotted, pointing so that she was blocking Danny's view of the road in front of him.
He pushed her arm down. "All right, don't blind the driver."
Clara jumped out of the car and walked up to the door to number 12, knocking a few times. She heard some shuffling from within and then the clicking of the locking mechanism.
"Clara. Where's all your stuff?" the Doctor asked, looking at her.
"In the car," she replied, moving aside so the Doctor could see Danny, leaning against the car and giving him a nod.
"You said you didn't have any pets," the Doctor said curtly. He fished a silver key on a chain long enough to be a necklace from his pocket and handed it to her.
For some unknown reason, Clara responded with: "Danny's just a friend."
"They often are," he replied, stepping aside. "Do you want to see your room?"
Clara looked back at Danny, who encouraged her to go ahead and went around to the back of the car to begin pulling the boxes out. She followed the Doctor down the hallway.
"Your room is down here. It's a double. Bed and everything," he pointed to a door, looking very pleased with himself considering he hadn't even opened it to reveal whatever was on the other side.
Instead, he let her open the door and watched from outside the threshold. She turned the light on and took a look around. It was large. Larger than her last room. A double bed in a simple frame. A desk with a chair. An armchair in the corner. A wardrobe. Nothing on the walls save a mirror next to the wardrobe.
"Satisfactory?" he asked, looking concerned.
"Very," she replied, looking back at him and smiling. Without thinking about it, she went to give him a hug, but he immediately recoiled. "I'm so sorry," she immediately apologized. "I should've asked-"
"I'm not a hugging person," he replied gruffly, looking slightly ruffled, like some sort of strange, stern bird of prey. He left her and walked down the hallway.
"Am I still following you?" she called after him.
"If you'd like," came his reply from an unseen room.
She walked in the same direction and found him in the open kitchen/living room area. This area looked significantly more lived in-records and books lining the wall shelves, framed photos and art on the walls. The sofa was worn brown leather and there was an Eames lounge chair off to the side. No TV to be found, but there was a very nice audio setup.
It seemed like a home.
"I better help out Danny with the boxes, I don't want to keep him here all night," she said finally.
"So he will be leaving then?" the Doctor asked.
"I told you, he's a friend."
"I'd hope so." The Doctor sat down on his lounge chair.
"Tour over then?" Clara asked.
"All that's missing is the loo and the garden. Don't go to the loo in the garden and I think you'll be set," he said, putting his hands behind his head and yawning.
"But I can barbeque in the loo?"
The Doctor smiled at that. "Don't be daft. The loo's much too small for that sort of thing."
Clara turned and went back outside to help Danny bring in her things. It only took about ten minutes for Danny and Clara to move all of the boxes inside. A surprisingly efficient effort, she had to say, for the two of them.
"It was nice of your new mate to help us out," Danny said, sitting on the edge of the mattress.
"Maybe it was a hard day at work?" she tried to defend.
"Or maybe he doesn't want to break a hip," he smirked. He took a look at his mobile. "Get some food in your new neighborhood before we call it a night?"
Clara, who was in the process of opening each box, looked up at him. "Raincheck? I have so much to do and I'm absolutely knackered."
There was a flash of disappointment, but Danny, a truly good sport, shrugged it off instantly. "Yeah, all right then. You're paying next time, though."
"It's a date!" Clara replied, then covered her mouth with her hand as her eyes went wide. "I mean, yeah...yes I'd be happy to-buy you dinner. As a thanks. For all the help tonight?"
"The sock question wasn't so bad now then, was it?"
Clara smiled and threw a pillow at him. "Revel in this brief reprise from being the least eloquent conversationalist on the planet."
Danny stood up and stretched. "I better do one then. See you tomorrow, yeah?"
Clara gave him a quick hug as a thanks and walked him out.
"We can schedule the date some other time," he teased, before going down the steps towards his car.
Momentarily flustered as she shut the door, Clara then immediately regretted not getting at least some takeaway upon realising she had absolutely no food in this flat.
"Doctor?" she asked the empty space as she walked towards the kitchen. "It's so odd not knowing your actual name," she mumbled, not intending to say it directly to him.
When she rounded the corner she found him sitting in the lounge chair, typing something on a laptop. It was a bit surprising, seeing him in reading specs and using a piece of technology that seemed completely out of character considering his demeanor and living space. It was almost otherworldly.
"Doctor, I just realised I don't have anything to eat. Mind if I borrow something until I can get to the shop tomorrow?"
He looked up from what he'd been working on. "Your boyfriend left then?"
"He's not my-what does it matter to you if he is my boyfriend?"
"Doesn't matter at all," he replied nonchalantly. "Seems to get a rise out of you, though. Which is interesting. Feel free to help yourself, but there's not much."
Clara took a look in the fridge. He hadn't been lying. There was some suspect looking butter, soya milk, a few sausages, a jar of mustard, and some marmalade. The cupboards didn't fair much better.
"What do you actually eat?" she asked, frustrated by the haphazard offerings.
The Doctor appeared at the kitchen island, leaning against the countertop. "I find quite a lot of food to be boring. No patience for it."
"But, you have to eat?"
"Have to, yes. Want to: rarely."
He pushed his way past her and opened a higher cabinet just out of her reach to pull out a box of pasta and an unopened jar of bolognese sauce. "Tada," he supplied half-heartedly. "Suppose I should do the honors?"
"This is like being back in uni," she sighed, resigned to what would likely be a bland meal. What kind of heathen didn't enjoy food? Especially living in Hackney Wick, which had been lauded by the so-called foodies of Shoreditch as being one of the more desireable areas for a decent meal out.
"You did say you were the cooking sort," he replied, though he was focused on prepping the pot for the pasta and heating up the saucepan. "It was never part of the deal that I'd be the one to do the cooking."
"That's fair." She went around to the other side of the counter and sat on one of the barstools.
"Bit of wine?" he asked, looking back at her. "'Fraid it's all red and Italian."
She perked up at the offer, though immediately thought better of it considering that anyone without a taste for food likely had even worse taste in wine.
"Over by the turntables," he nodded, his intense gaze set on the saucepan. "Pick whichever calls to you."
Next to his audio equipment seemed an odd place to store wine, but she found a rack with an impressive selection of various Italian wines next to the turntable just as he'd said. She noticed now that one of the shelves on this side of the room held an array of spirits (an exaggeration of scotches, though she figured that was a badge of some sort) along with what appeared to be crystal tumblers. Clara took a look at the labels and, knowing nothing of wine and particularly nothing about Italian wine, chose the label that had the most appealing design. When she looked up, the Doctor was nowhere to be found.
She cautiously walked towards the stovetop and was caught off guard when he opened the garden door, holding some leaves.
"Is that basil?" she asked, surprised.
"I grow some herbs in the garden."
"Please don't tell me you're a pothead," she joked.
He smirked. "I'm about to put fresh basil into the...admittedly not fresh sauce. Hopefully this is the last of the vestigial university PTSD."
"You're assuming quite a lot about my uni experiences, Doctor."
He fished a wine opener out from a drawer and handed her two nice glasses from another high cabinet shelf. "Wasn't saying it was your PTSD."
She poured a bit of wine into both glasses and nudged one towards him. Taking a sip, she was pleasantly surprised. "I don't know much about wine. This is pretty good, though."
"I don't know anything about it. The entire collection you see there-gifts. Quite a lot of people think I should know much more about wine. Something about being refined." He took a sip. "I quite like the wild edges."
She held out her glass in a toast. "To the wild edges?"
He nodded with a small smile and clinked his glass against hers. "Have you ever opened a bottle of wine with a shoe?"
She laughed. "That's not possible."
"Of course it is." He dipped the wooden stirring spoon into the sauce and considered. "Málaga, Spain. I'd been carrying a bottle of French wine with me through several countries while on holiday with some mates. We were in this poorly furnished flat, devoid of anything but water after the bars had all closed. Except for this wine I'd packed and repacked in every city we stopped in."
He grabbed an unknown spice, poured a bit into his palm, and slowly threw it into the sauce, stirring rhythmically. "The flat, of course, didn't have a working wine opener. So with a little bit of basic physics knowledge, quite a dash of drunken desperation, and within the glow of the lights of the unfinished cathedral, I took off my shoe, placed the bottle inside, and banged it against the brick wall of the patio until the cork popped out enough to pull out."
He tasted the sauce once more, then offered her a bit. Clara grabbed the spoon, blew on it to cool slightly, then took a hesitant taste. It was good. Surprisingly good.
"If you hadn't just made Tesco Express bolognese into this, I would've said that story was a load of bollocks."
"Not too spicy, then?" he asked.
"It's perfect."
He took care of the noodles next, then set out two bowls for them. She poured a bit more wine into both of their glasses. It was odd to her how quickly she'd become comfortable here. How quickly the nervousness and anxiety had subsided. This wasn't so bad after all. Far better than the alternative.
"Unfortunately I don't have any parmesan. Or bread to dip in olive oil. Or...anything else, really." He handed her a bowl.
"This is fantastic, Doctor. Thanks for this."
Clara took a bite. She took a sip of wine. She smiled.
"Don't get used to it. Next meal is up to you," he replied, taking a drink and holding up the glass in a sarcastic toast.