Prompt: I met him on the stairs.


Under My Protection

"Clara!" the Doctor shouted after her as she was walking quickly along the path towards her house, swinging her arms by her sides like weapons. "Clara, wait!"

"Go away!" she yelled, not even turning to look at him.

"Clara, listen to me, please!" he slammed the TARDIS door shut and rushed after her, grabbing her shoulder to stop her and try calming her down.

"Leave me alone," Clara yanked his hand away from her, "I don't want to talk with you now!"

The Doctor froze and looked at his companion reach the block of flats where she lived, then disappear inside the building. But he wasn't going to give up so easily.

Clara climbed the stairs furiously. This time the Doctor had really went too far. How could he dare mistrust her and treat her like a child. If there was someone acting like a child here, it was him. By the time she reached her floor, she was painting, not in fatigue, but in rage. And here he was, the Doctor, looking down at her from the top of the stairs, his TARDIS parked exactly in front of the door of her home.

He was standing still on the staircase a few steps above Clara, and his arms were crossed, just as the look on his face below his frowning eyebrows. He had clearly taken a shortcut, materializing ahead of Clara with his blue box.

"We need to talk, now!" he admonished her, blocking her way.

"Talk all you want, but I'm not going to listen," she cut short the conversation, avoiding his eyes. "That's not going to be a problem, you're great at talking to yourself. You don't care what anybody has to say anyway."

Clara dodged his attempt to move closer to her and walked up to the landing, squeezing through the space between the wall and the TARDIS.

"You'll never fit through there," the Doctor commented spitefully.

"Didn't you say I have the hips of a man?!" Clara shouted back, exasperated and resentful, slipping through the narrow space.

She struggled to get her key into the door, but she eventually managed to open it and enter her house, then banged the door shout behind her.

She took off her leather jacket and threw it on the sofa, then went to the kitchen and poured a glass of wine. She grasped the glass and gulped it down, trying to blow off the steam. The only think she wanted to do now was not thinking about the Doctor, but it was hard to stop arguing with him in her mind.

She put the glass in the sink and returned to the living room, collapsing into the armchair and breathing deeply to help herself relax. With her eyes half closed, she reached for the remote and turned on the TV, letting the blabbing and the noises coming from the screen filling the emptiness of her flat. When her heart rate slowed down and she was able to breathe regularly, she grabbed the homework books lying on the floor by the armchair and began marking them in the dim light of the TV.

A few hours and naps later, she decided to call it a day and go to bed. The last things she did before going to her bedroom were locking her front door and look through the peephole, as she did every night. Unexpectedly, she saw that the Doctor was still on the other side of the closed door, leaning on the banister near the TARDIS. Catching the glimpse of him made her angry again. Whether he was trying to make a point or expected her to surrender so easily and come out of her flat, he was just deluded. She was going to bed.

She had troubles sleeping that night. A mild sense of guilt for having shut her door in the Doctor's face tried to keep her awake, but in the end she knew he had asked for it.


The few moments before she could pull out from the daze of sleep the memories of what the Doctor had done to make her so mad, when she woke up in the morning, were a little snippet of bliss in the midst of the busy day that lied ahead of her. She got out of bed and tried not to let her anger influence everything she did, from the breakfast she consumed quickly to the makeup she applied absentmindedly. She then picked up her leather jacket from the sofa, grabbed her bag, and got ready to leave for work, mentally evaluating how long should pass before she could be able to talk with the Doctor calmly.

She opened the door lost in her thoughts and banged her nose against the TARDIS. The blue telephone box was still were she had left it the day before, and its owner was staring at her from the staircase on her left with a smug look on his face.

"Good morning," the Doctor said, with a small grin that made Clara livid.

She squeezed through the TARDIS and the wall, threw a fierce look at the Doctor without replying, and went down the stairs. If he thought he was being funny, he was just worsening his situation.


When Clara got back home that evening, she was so tired she didn't even remember about the Doctor. When she met him again on the stairs to her flat, she was too exhausted to keep up her air of superiority.

The Doctor was sitting on the topmost step of the staircase leading to Clara's house. "How was work?" he ask in a plain tone.

"What do you hope to achieve waiting here?" she asked back, bitter.

"I'll just wait until you want to talk to me," he replied, looking at her eyes intensely.

Clara dug through her bag to find her keys and slipped inside her flat. She rested her shoulders against the door as soon as it was closed behind her. After a hard day at work she just wanted to talk to her friend and set out for a journey in time and space with him, but she forced herself not to forgive him so easily.

She threw her bag on the armchair and went to the kitchen to start making soup for dinner. Waiting a little bit longer wouldn't harm the Doctor.


The following morning, the Doctor noticed a change in Clara's attitude. When she opened her door and squeezed past the TARDIS, she still didn't stop to talk with him, but she mumbled a "hello" in response to his greeting.

The Doctor knew he just needed to be patient for a few more hours. Clara had all the right to be mad at him, but he wasn't going to mess it up this time, and they were going to sort out their problems.


When Clara came back from work, the Doctor could read in her face that she had decided to give him another chance.

"Stop stalking me," she said, being the one to initiate the conversation for the first time since their fight.

"I'm not stalking you, I'm just waiting," he shrugged, standing up from the step he was sitting on.

"What do you even care?" she sighed, walking past him. "You don't care about anyone, you're just doing this for your guilt complex or your hero complex."

"Is this what you like to think about me?" he asked in a hollow tone. "Does it make it easier?"

"No," she groaned, as she put her key inside the keyhole, "because I know you always care underneath it all. Always have."

Clara stepped inside her flat and was about to close the door behind her, but left it open. The Doctor approached it, peering from behind the TARDIS, and Clara popped her head out of the door again.

"Why did you lie to me?" she enquired, waiting for an honest reason why he still didn't trust her after all the time they had spent together. "Why you decided to lie to me and make me so angry?"

"Why would it make you angry, you lie all the time!" the Doctor raised one eyebrow.

"Not to you!" she snapped, "you're the one man I would never, ever lie to!"

The Doctor arched his eyebrows, giving Clara a tender look. "There are lies I have to tell," he explained, "there are things that I can never say, not even to you."

"Why?" she repeated, confused. "You're my best friend."

"And you're mine, that's exactly why," the Doctor exhaled. "I have to lie when it's necessary to keep you safe. You're under my protection."

The Doctor's response overwhelmed Clara, who blinked repeatedly to fight back the tears where all her anger was starting to melt. "Why?" she said again, unable to grasp the scope of the Doctor's revelation.

"I have a duty of care," he whispered, lifting a corner of his mouth into a smile.

Clara's eyes could no longer hold the tears that released all the frustration she had carried for the past few days, so she stepped inside her house again and hid behind the door. Once she had regained control of her eyes and wiped the tears from her cheeks, she popped out of the door again, with a bigger smile on her face.

"Do you remember the day we met," she told the Doctor, "when you sat all night outside my house, guarding me?"

"As if it were yesterday," he replied, with soft smirk. "I'm still guarding you."

Clara lowered her head, disguising her smile. She was about to go back inside her flat, but now she couldn't leave the Doctor outside, not after what he'd told her.

He raised her gaze to his eyes. "Come on, get in. I'll put the kettle on," she said, leading the way.


A/N: Hope you enjoyed this story, let me know your impressions in the reviews, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks for reading.