Thank you for the sweet reviews, dears :) You liked that kiss, huh? Mhhhh. . .

Chapter 16

"Are you gonna join the excursion on Saturday?" Amy asked and Clara looked up from her task of stirring her tea. She had been so lost in her thoughts about how to approach the Doctor today that she hadn't even heard her fellow teacher enter the staff kitchen.

"Excursion? What excursion?" Clara asked back.

"Oh, it's an annual thing. All teachers and students are invited. We're driving out of the city to collect mushrooms under the supervision of the biology department and afterwards come back here to have a barbecue. It was fun last year," Amy explained to her.

Clara had to admit that it did sound like a lot of fun, if it wasn't for one kind of important fact. "Isn't it a bit cold?"

"Weather is supposed to get a little warmer again," Amy added with a smile, "Besides, that's what warm coats are for, right?"

Clara smiled back at her. The more she thought about it, the more Clara was beginning to like the idea. It would be fun to go out and get some fresh air for a change, especially if the weather was going to be nice.

"You know what? I'll come," she agreed happily, "I don't know a thing about mushrooms, but I do know that you shouldn't touch the red ones with the white spots."

"Oh, you're coming to the mushroom thing."

Clara's head shot around when she heard the Doctor's voice and instantly spotted him in the doorway of the staff kitchen, smiling broadly at the two of them. Something about him had changed since yesterday, Clara could tell. She just didn't know what it was.

"Yeah," Clara replied reluctantly, "Amy was just telling me about it."

"Don't worry, I'll keep you safe from the deadly ones," the Doctor said as he made his way past the two of them to switch on the kettle.

Now Clara realized just what exactly was odd. The Doctor was acting as if the kiss had never happened. Or that it had happened and he was fine with it. In any way, his reaction was confusion her because her feelings were still running haywire whenever she looked at him.

"You, uhm, you're coming, too?" she asked cautiously.

"Of course," he said, beaming at her, "It's gonna be a fun event, isn't it, Amy?"

"Absolutely," Amy agreed cheerfully.

Clara swallowed, suddenly not so sure anymore whether it was actually a good idea to come. Then she realized how stupidly she was behaving. She was going to see the Doctor every single day, whether she wanted to or not, so one more time couldn't hurt, right?

Clara regretted her decision and they had only been walking into the forest for five minutes. The last week had been bizarre, to say the least, and Clara had no idea just what to make of it. The Doctor was treating her normally, either as if their kiss had never happened or as if he didn't care about it in the least and either way, it was bugging her because that moment on his sofa was on her mind constantly. Clara kept replaying the scene over and over in front of her inner eye and the more she thought about it, the angrier she grew at herself and also at the Doctor because he didn't seem to care about it at all. Instead he was nice. Exceptionally nice. He helped with her essays, he brought her tea, asked about her classes and all of it felt utterly strange to her. Clara was nervous in his presence, edgy, because her crush on him hadn't faded away in the least. Quite the contrary. The kiss had only made it worse.

Clara didn't even realize how far she had fallen behind the group when suddenly the Doctor appeared next to her, granting her a smile.

"Lovely day to be out in nature, isn't it?" he asked casually.

Clara looked up at him, a frown on her face. Maybe she should ask about it. After all, they hadn't really talked about the kiss at all. But then again, what good would that do?

"Yeah," she replied instead, "It's lovely indeed."

As they walked deeper into the forest, Clara spotted the rest of the group further ahead and almost vanishing behind a row of trees. However, the one thing she hadn't seen so far were mushrooms. She suspected that it was going to change soon while the undergrowth grew thicker. Then suddenly a memory made her laugh.

"My former class at Coal Hill got really scared last time we went into the forest on a class trip. We had talked about fairytales a few weeks earlier and Courtney started to mention witches and monsters and some of the other children almost freaked out," Clara giggled, "Apparently they had missed that part about fairytales being fiction."

"Oh, I don't know," the Doctor replied after a moment, "Forests can be frightening. You walk through the deep, dark forest, the path disappears, you find yourself with a strangely compelling, masculine figure. . ."

Clara's head shot back up, glaring at him. "What?"

"What?"

He put on the most innocent face he could probably muster and Clara knitted her eyebrows at him. "Did you just call yourself strangely compelling?"

"Well, I am," he argued, looking just a tiny bit hurt.

The Doctor was subtle, he had been subtle all the time, but finally Clara thought she had seen through it. He was flirting. "I am engaged, Doctor," she told him calmly, reminding herself in the process, even though a part of her wanted him to flirt with her.

"That's odd because you never talk about him. No one really knows anything about your fiancé," he argued.

"That doesn't change the fact that I am engaged, whether I talk about him or not," Clara raised her voice a little, the anger about his nonchalant behaviour that she had been trying to swallow all week rising back up.

"Everyone knows everything about Amy's husband. She talks about him constantly, to everyone. You're not even wearing a ring."

Clara stopped dead in her tracks. So she had been right. He was flirting. He was jealous. He was into her. Oh God, this truly couldn't have come at a worse time. "Doctor, why are you doing this?"

The Doctor came to a halt and turned around to look at her. It was right there on his face. How could she have missed it the entire time?

"Because I'm interested. I have been for a while, but I couldn't approach you because you were my student, so instead I fled. When I saw you again, I thought I had been given another chance," he confessed, his shoulders sinking just a little.

Clara didn't know what to say. Had he confessed his intentions back when she had still been his student, Clara would have jumped at the opportunity and hearing those words from him now made her heart jump and her hands tremble in excitement. Yet her stomach tightened into a knot because his timing couldn't have been worse.

"I have Danny," she said quietly, here voice sad. Danny, who had been with her for years. Danny, who had come to accept all of her quirks. Danny, who was sweet and loving and forgave her for being the worst girlfriend in the world. He wasn't perfect, but Clara couldn't possibly do that to him.

"Really?" the Doctor scoffed, "You keep forgetting about his ring. You ignore his calls. Do you really think he's the one?"

"At least I know his real name!"

"Danny is boring!"

"Well, maybe I like boring," Clara threw back at him, "Maybe I need boring."

Suddenly the Doctor took a step forward and Clara instantly raised her hands.

"Whoah, what are you doing?"

A large grin spread over the Doctor's face. "Something that isn't boring."

Maybe she was just as surprised as the Doctor had been when she had kissed him in his office, maybe more, but his lips touched her own before she could react and in her surprise Clara didn't know what else to do and pushed the Doctor off her.

She hadn't meant to shove him so hard, but obviously Clara had caught him off guard, and she couldn't even reach out and hold onto him before the Doctor toppled over backwards and landed in the mossy undergrowth.

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry," Clara uttered instantly and reached for his hands to help him up. The Doctor, however, was laughing, and instead of letting her pull him back up, Clara felt him tuck at her hands and a moment later she was lying on top of him.

"Not boring, is it?" he asked, smiling, his face just inches away from her own.

Suddenly the entire forest seemed to have grown still and all Clara could hear was the blood rushing through her ears.

"No," she breathed in reply, "Not boring."

Technically it wasn't cheating. Technically it was just a kiss. And right now, as they were pressed against one another, and the body heat coming from him was strangely inviting in the chilly forest, Clara really, really wanted to kiss him.

The Doctor cupped her face in his hands and she didn't even protest when he pulled her down until their lips locked in another kiss. It was different than before and Clara opened her mouth, tasting his tongue on her own until her guilty conscience was drowned out by the sensation.

She didn't care about Danny, she didn't care about the rest of the group, she didn't care about how they were going to look each other in the eyes come Monday morning or the strange rustling she heard behind them. All that mattered was that the Doctor didn't stop kissing her.

Then someone cleared their throat behind them and Clara instantly distanced herself from the Doctor and scrambled into a sitting position. She turned around to see Amy awkwardly towering over them.

"Uhm, you didn't find any mushrooms down there, did you?" she asked, a shy smile on her face, "Sorry, I came looking for you. Thought you had gotten lost."

"We tripped," Clara blurted out and rose to her feet, brushing a few stray leaves off her trousers.

"Yes," the Doctor confirmed, now struggling to get back up as well, "We tripped and landed with our mouths on top of each other. That happens."

Clara threw the Doctor a dirty glance, but she didn't feel like fighting him over this in front of Amy. She had already seen more than enough.

"Well, join the rest of the group when you're ready," Amy said, a look of confusion on her face and Clara just knew that on Monday morning she would have one more person to answer to about this apart from herself.