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Chapter 9

By the end of her first week Clara felt drained, to say the least. Despite the Doctor's attempts to cheer her up and his advice on how to deal with a more mature bunch of students, Clara didn't really feel like it was getting any better. She just didn't have the authority, not like the Doctor, and right now she couldn't even imagine how it had worked before. She felt like she was failing miserably and not even Amy's quite similar stories about her first weeks could make her feel better about it. Clara simply thought she had made a huge mistake and no amount of talking could change that. And above all Danny was waiting for her at his flat and she was anything but in the mood for a quiet dinner at home.

He greeted her with a long, soft kiss and closed his arms around her back, a gesture Clara would have appreciated a lot, yet right now she wasn't at all in the mood for quiet cosiness. She needed to do something to get her mind off university.

"How was your first week?" Danny asked her sincerely.

With a sigh Clara sank down on one of the kitchen chairs. "Stressful," she admitted and looked up at him, "Can we not talk about work right now? Let's go out. I'm in the mood to do something."

Clara beamed at him, but she didn't spot the same enthusiasm on Danny's face.

"I thought we could stay in, watch a movie. I thought about ordering pizza," he told her, "I've been craving pizza for days."

Clara didn't. Not really. Especially because she had eaten pizza with the Doctor just this week, but a part of her knew that mentioning that to Danny would probably not be the wisest idea.

"Okay," Clara sighed in defeat, "Let's do that. But I get to pick the movie."

"Anything you want," Danny bent down and left a kiss on her head, "We can go out next Friday."

It was then that Clara remembered and she felt a little bit guilty about it, yet not enough to cancel her plans with the Doctor.

"About next Friday," Clara bit down on her lip while she gave Danny her best puppy dog eyes, "I may have made plans."

Danny looked at her for a moment, then shrugged to her surprise. "Alright. I suppose we can have our date night on Saturday. Or tomorrow. There's a movie I'd like to see at the cinema."

"Great," she replied with a smile. She would agree to anything to make the guilt go away, "Now order that pizza. I'm starving."

He laughed at her for that and pulled the phone from his pocket. "Those better be good plans though, because originally I had wanted to take you engagement ring shopping after work."

"Yeah, a colleague and I wanted to go to this London Dungeon event," Clara said, attempting to sound casual as she turned the flyer of the delivery service in her hands, pretending to read it. At least she would get to dodge that bullet for a while longer.

"You're going with the Doctor?" Danny's voice has turned from intrigued to mildly concerned and all of a sudden Clara did feel bad about it. She should never have mentioned her crush on the Doctor during that damned game of truth or dare because Danny was obviously still worried about that. Maybe even rightly so.

"No, with a colleague from the history department. Her name's Amy," Clara lied, "She called you hunky, by the way."

Now Danny chuckled again. "Alright, you're more than welcome to go out and have fun with a girl who thinks I'm hunky. Now, what pizza do you want?"

"I'll have the weekly special," Clara said, but her enthusiasm had faded.

She was lying to Danny for no obvious reason. She was lying about her job, about the Doctor, about the ring and even though she knew how bad that was, Clara couldn't find it in her heart to tell him the truth.

When the Doctor stepped through the front door, he could hear Missy hum a cheerful melody in the kitchen and he knew, he just knew that that was a very bad sign. Carefully he glimpsed around the corner and saw that she was frying an omelette. Not so very suspicious behaviour and yet the Doctor couldn't quite shake the feeling that something was wrong.

"Hi?" he asked cautiously.

Missy turned around, smiling broadly at him. "Oh, hello Doctor. Come on in, I'm making dinner."

"I can see that," he replied, eyeing the contents of the pan with suspicion. It seemed like a perfectly harmless omelette, "Also you're in a good mood."

Missy shrugged. "I made a big sale today. Expensive house in Kensington. I could buy this house over from my bonus alone."

"Ah, well, that explains it," he noted with relief.

"So I decided to do something nice for myself and my best friend. Since that best friend is still living with me even though I told him to move out," she added, "I made dinner and I did your laundry."

The Doctor frowned at her. "My laundry?"

"Yeah," Missy confirmed, her attention focused on stirring the contents of the frying pan, "The hamper was full to the brim. Your clothes are outside. Drying."

Ah. There it was. The real reason for her mood. "It's raining," the Doctor said dryly.

"Well, that's hardly my fault, is it?" she threw him a dirty glance while the Doctor headed outside to bring his clothes back in, which by now were completely soaked.

Maybe he should get his own place soon because living with Missy was never meant as a permanent arrangement. He had accepted the university's offer on such short notice that there hadn't been any time to find an actual place to stay, but the Doctor had hoped that she would at least give him a month or two to settle in. And, if he was quite honest, he enjoyed her company. Missy was the closest thing he had to family and he had missed her. Maybe, if he made a bit of an effort, she would allow him to stay for a while longer.

So while Missy was still busy at the oven, the Doctor started setting the table, opened a bottle of her favourite wine and thought of a way to make it up to her for being such a slob most of the time.

"Hey, maybe I could take you out to dinner tomorrow. Or to see a movie," the Doctor suggested after a moment, "You know, to celebrate the Kensington deal."

"That sounds nice," Missy commented, "There is a movie that I'd like to see and you will hate it."

She shoved the first omelette on one of the plates and the Doctor had to resist eating it on the spot. Instead he reminded himself that he wanted to be a nice flatmate and instead waited for Missy to finish the other half of their dinner.

"Fine by me," he said.

"How are things going with Clara? Have you stolen her yet?"

The Doctor couldn't help but smile at the thought of it. He hadn't had a chance to tell Missy the latest news yet. "We will go out next week. Midnight Horror at the London Dungeon."

Missy turned around, giving him a mischievous smile. "Midnight Horror. Oh, you sly dog. She'll cling to you the entire time," she smirked, "That's smart."

The Doctor laughed in reply. "Or I will cling to her, depending on how scary the monsters are. Which would probably not be so very impressive."

"No, it wouldn't," she agreed, her attention back to the frying pan, "You just have to suck it up and be brave if you want to get into young Miss Oswald's knickers."

He frowned at her. "Don't call it that. That's vile."

With a sigh Missy emptied the pan onto the other plate and gave him a shrug. "Honey, we're talking about how you're trying to seduce a much younger woman who is also engaged. Some people would call that vile."

"Point," the Doctor admitted and finally sat down on his chair. It really wasn't a nice thing to do, trying to steal someone else's fiancé, but he had loved Clara for so long that he simply couldn't find it in him to care about that. He wouldn't go down without a fight. Not this time.