Author's Note: Oh well the reaction to the first part of this story was rather wonderful and awesome and a bit jaw dropping. And totally didn't make me feel like there was much pressure to get this out and do it well. :D Thanks for reading and taking the time to review/follow/favourite and do enjoy this part.

So thinking that the two weeks stuck here might be okay after all? Yeah, bad idea. She'd clearly jinxed it.

By the end of the second proper day at sea the Doctor was definitely antsy. By the third he was a trapped ball of energy trying to find something to do. By the fourth he'd slipped into being morose and by the fifth he was unbearably moody. So much so that had Clara spent every waking moment she could somewhere that wasn't in his company. It wasn't so bad at night; he slept at her side peacefully - apparently boredom made him really tired - and was actually quite cuddly which definitely wasn't unpleasant. But during the day he mostly grumped around the corridors declaring everything stupid. He'd fiddled with the engines all he could, reducing their journey time from thirteen days to eleven. After that he'd run out of useful things to do - she hadn't dared suggest he make her that promised nightgown in case he really did start cannibalising parts of the sub to create a sewing machine - and so he'd started on ridiculous and pointless tasks like aligning the exact turn of every bolt to ensure they were all straight. Clara just shook her head and left him to it, making him promise not to undo anything important and accidentally drown them all.

For her part, she'd settled into a nice little routine of working in the galley. It wasn't exactly thrilling but it kept her occupied and the professor was an interesting man who was always pleasant to talk to. Made a nice change from the Doctor's moods. Okay so the professor did have a fairly lousy taste in music and he insisted upon playing it through the galley speakers, but he asked Clara lots of questions - about herself, about her family, about her travels with the Doctor - and it was nice to be able to witter away the increasingly long feeling days with idle chatter.

The supplies on the sub were pretty basic but so was Clara's cooking. Tinned ham, potatoes and veg tonight which should silence the complaints about 'soup again'. It also meant lots of peeling. She briefly considered asking the Doctor if he wanted to help but, she reasoned, he'd probably try using his screwdriver on them, disintegrating them or something and they'd all end up going hungry. Nope, bad idea all round; peeling vegetables didn't feel very 'him' no matter how bored he was.

"There aren't enough potatoes up here," she announced to the professor, hands on hips, having thoroughly checked all the cupboards. "Are there more down in the store?"

"I believe so, yes. The one thing we normally have an abundance of is potatoes." He didn't sound very enamoured of potatoes. Well, Clara thought, if he wanted something more exciting he'd have to learn to cook better himself.

"Right," she said brightly, "won't be long then."

He tried to argue, insisting that he should fetch them instead - chivalry or sexism, she hadn't decided - but she politely declined. She wanted to stretch her legs and it was as good as walk as she could get on a five hundred foot boat when most of it was out of bounds.

It wasn't until she'd left galley and the sounds of Duran Duran far behind that she appreciated just how quiet the sub was. Okay so there was the continual hum of the engines - which was good because it meant the Doctor hadn't broken them yet - but other than that there was an eerie stillness. The small remaining crew were all ensconced in their own working areas, making the place seem empty, and whilst Clara couldn't profess to know much about submarines, it just felt wrong somehow. Because, she supposed, it was wrong. With a full compliment of crew she expected it was far more busy and bustling down here normally. Now however it felt perilously close to a ghost ship. Which was a fairly apt description in light of recent events.

She soon came to the first of the doors marked 'storage', wondering briefly what the Russian for storage actually was and how on earth the TARDIS was still translating for her when it was thousands of miles away. She still hadn't quite got her head around the whole translation thing or how it worked and the Doctor had been terrible at explaining it. 'It makes your head read the words no matter what language they're in' - yeah, really helpful. It might be all right for him but Clara wasn't so sure she wanted the TARDIS messing around in her head given the ship's apparent feelings towards her. Perhaps, she mused as she started to open the door, absence would make the heart grow fonder.

Or maybe not, she corrected as she stepped into the room and immediately froze with a sharp intake of breath.

Was it really fair to throw blame the ship's way though? Could she really conclude that a purposely false translation had led her in here? Probably not. After all, the room was indeed storage, it just didn't have any supplies in it right now. Instead it was housing body bags.

Considering her recent nightmares Clara knew that the sensible thing would've been to just turn and leave again but something - some morbidly curious part - made her hesitate and take a step further inside.

"Facing your fears, that's good right?" she asked the silence around her. It was good to hear something even if it was just her own voice. It grounded her.

There were a good half a dozen bodies, more than she would've expected, laid out on tables that'd once held the food, medicines and other sundries that were meant to keep these very men alive and well. Was that irony? Clara firmly tucked her hands into the pockets of her borrowed jacket as she moved closer, repressing the sudden urge to open one of the zips and take a look. It was like…when you saw a flame and you just wanted fleetingly to stick your hand in it to see how it felt; a dangerous, wild urge that should be most actively ignored.

Instead she walked slowly between the tables, trying to be logical about it. It was tragic, she told herself, but there was nothing to fear here. A small frown marred her features as she completed the full circuit of the room that she forced herself to do. It wasn't just the fact that she was surrounded by dead people that was unsettling her, something was bugging her about the look of the bags. They just looked…wrong. Not that she had any experience with body bags outside of watching crime dramas on TV. Yet still, something was off about these, she could tell.

It only took a moment more pondering for her to realise what it was; they weren't body shaped. They were…flat in the wrong places and too bulky in others. She frowned. Why would that be? Were they-

Oh.

It was because they didn't contain complete bodies. They were in parts.

She fled out the door, shutting it firmly behind her, heart pounding an awful lot harder than before. She shouldn't have gone in there. Bad, bad idea.

There was a second door marked 'storage' half a dozen feet away and this one, thankfully, contained what she'd been looking for; boxes of supplies all stacked on metal shelving. If there was some kind of method to the order she couldn't figure it out and it took her an irritating amount of time to find something marked 'potatoes', a delay that made her even more unsettled. She'd had enough of being down here alone now, she just wanted to get back to the relatively comforting galley and to the reassurance of the professor and his awful music. Of course, the box of potatoes was on a high shelf, well out of her reach. She sighed and looked around for a solution - deciding that climbing the shelves wouldn't be very clever - thankfully spotting a handy step ladder propped up against the wall. Well, at least something was going her way.

She carried it across and set it down, checking it was stable before stepping onto the first plate. Then she wobbled it purposely, checking it again. The box was probably heavy and she needed a stable footing since being crushed under a load of potatoes would be a pretty tragic way to go. That was presuming there were potatoes in there. She still hadn't entirely discounted the notion of the TARDIS mistranslating things for her and she might end up with something else falling on her head instead. Like several dozen mouse traps or something.

Could you even get mice on a submarine?

She'd only taken a further two steps up the ladder when a warm voice from behind startled her.

"Would you like me to get that for you?"

Clara shrieked - she hadn't heard anyone enter and her nerves were already firmly on edge - and gripped hold of the ladder as it teetered in the wake of her jolt.

The stranger hurried across and immediately steadied it for her. "My apologies. I didn't mean to startle you."

She had no idea who the man was. One of the crew obviously, but beyond that…He was thirties, tall, with a face darkened by stubble and a head of close cropped dark hair. Most of the rest of the crew sported the same look.

"I just didn't hear you come in," she reasoned dismissively, feeling more than a little daft for her reaction especially in the wake of his amused look. It bruised her pride.

The sailor smiled up at her and she gave him a small one back. At least, she supposed, she wasn't alone down here any more.

"Would you like me to get that for you?" he repeated, nodding at the box.

"No, thanks, it's fine." He seemed quite friendly. Did he think that she knew him? Was she supposed to know him? He was kind of looking at her like she did. Maybe he'd introduced himself before? Oh, this could be embarrassing.

"Really, it's no trouble."

"I've got it."

"It's heavy."

"I'm fine."

But he didn't listen, waving her rejection away as though it meant nothing. He pushed passed her, stretching up - he was far taller than her, tall enough to reach it with the ladder - and pulled the box out, bringing it down into his arms with ease. He must be pretty strong. He smiled at her again. "See? No trouble."

"Thanks." She kept her response short to hide her annoyance at being so soundly ignored.

Her reaction was more than that though and she couldn't deny the sudden rise of disquiet she felt. Maybe it was the encounter with the bodies leaving her on edge. Maybe it was because she was suddenly and unhelpfully recalling the Doctor's words of warning from a few days ago. Either way the fact that this man could just ignore what she said and do it anyway, that he thought he knew what she wanted better than she did, was unsettling to say the least.

'Men trapped in a can for months at a time can start to think that very bad things are a very good idea'. She'd dismissed it at the time as errant worry, now the more wary part of her brain was starting to seriously consider it with no encouragement at all.

She climbed down the ladder and held out her arms, trying to walk a line between pleasant but not too friendly. She didn't want to be encouraging. "I can take it now."

"No, I'll bring it back to the galley for you," the sailor insisted with what he clearly believed was easy charm.

Clara wasn't charmed. Quite the opposite. Her suddenly suspicious mind didn't like the idea of a man who seemingly refused to take 'no' for an answer.

She forced a smile this time. "I'll be fine." She still held out her arms, insistently.

The sailor smiled broadened but to Clara's eyes it seemed more calculated than natural, like he was trying to assess just the right amount allure to break through her defences. "Where I come from, we don't let beautiful ladies carry heavy things."

"And where I come from when a woman says 'no', she means 'no'!"

Her voice snapped sharply at him, tension getting the better of her. As soon as the words left her lips though, the moment they were out in the open, real and tangible, she felt daft. He was only being friendly, surely? A bit misogynistic perhaps but this was the eighties. Besides, the sailors all thought she was married, none of them would try anything. The Doctor had just put stupid thoughts in her head and they'd made her as paranoid as he was.

She sighed and was about to apologise when she saw the deep scowl on the sailor's face and the words died on her lips. Perhaps she hadn't been so daft after all.

"You are very angry," he complained bitterly. "No wonder you fit with him so well."

Clara looked at him a moment, assessing his mood. No, not best pleased at all.

"Yeah, well I'll take that as a compliment," she muttered uncomfortably, glancing around. The air had become tense and it instantly made her start to plan; if she had to get out of here quick, what was the best way of doing it? He was holding the box still which would definitely slow him. If things got really desperate she could probably hit in with the small step ladder; swing it at his midsection, knock him down…She'd be well away by the time he got up again.

Clara had travelled to the past and future, to far off distant planets and deep into the history of her own and yet here she was still having to contemplate how she might deal with creeps who had no sense of appropriate boundaries. It was a depressing thought.

The sailor's glare told her that he was clearly offended - whether by her rejecting his attentions so bluntly or by her implication that he had an ulterior motive - but she decided not to point out to him how wildly inappropriate that reaction was. She didn't want to make him any angrier. And he was angry; she could see it in the tight, controlled purse of his lips and in the way he stood with his back ramrod straight. Clara was just considering what calm words she could use to make him act reasonably - how to sound placating and not patronising without being apologetic because she really wasn't sorry - when, without warning, he thrust the box into her hands. It hit her hard enough in the stomach to shove her back a couple of paces, startling her. She had a horrible feeling that'd been his exact intention. As he advanced on her again Clara could've cursed herself for backing up until the felt the shelving behind her. It made her feel weak.

"Just remember, rude girl," he warned with a low voice, using his height to lean down over her. "You are a guest here. You and your husband. You should show us courtesies or things could be difficult for you."

Clara said nothing, physically biting the inside of her cheek to repress the response she wanted to make, knowing it might very well make things worse for her. He was just trying to intimidate her, to save face, and as much as it galled her, her best course of action was to let him get away with it. She held his gaze a moment before she looked down, silently hoping he'd walked away now and leave this unpleasant scene as nothing more than a distasteful memory. She wasn't sure what she'd do if he didn't. How could she get around him now? She should have already run when she had the chance. Would anyone hear her scream down here?

The man didn't move and a rise of fear was just climbing in her throat before he was suddenly and roughly yanked back from in front of her. Clara hadn't really considered the Doctor as a physical threat to anyone before now - his slightly befuddled limbs and slim frame belied that - but she quickly realised that he didn't need to be; he could intimidate without raising a hand. He pulled the sailor away from her easily enough yet immediately released him, letting him stumble back. Any other man might've thrown a punch but the Doctor just placed himself between Clara and the sailor, standing at his full height even in the cramped sub.

"You can threaten me all you want," he pointed out in the darkest tone. "Lay every possible omen of your impending wrath at my door." Was he belittling the man? The Doctor had surely faced far greater foes in his time. "But you don't ever, ever think about threatening those I care about."

The sailor, his bravado crumbled into nerves, opened his mouth as if to speak. Perhaps to defend himself or even to apologise. The Doctor cut him off though, having no interest in anything he had to say.

"That was your first mistake!" His voice echoed through the room like a whip crack that would've silenced bedlam. Then he paused a moment, staring at the sailor intently, utterly still once more. A man of contrasts as ever. "Don't make any more mistakes today."

The sailor contemplated it only for a moment. Looking around to Clara with a quick nod, which seemed to be a rather lame apology, he turned and hurried off.

The heaviness in the air seemed to lift as soon as he was gone and Clara let out the anxious breath she'd been holding. Then she took another deep one to calm herself. Well that'd been horrible.

"They obviously don't teach them manners in the eigh-" she began, only having a moment to bask in the flood of relief before the Doctor turned on her so sharply that it immediately silenced her too.

"What did I tell you?" he demanded crossly.

She knew he'd been in a foul mood of late but she was utterly thrown by him turning it on her so blatantly and she regarded him with wide eyed disbelief.

"Excuse me?"

"You were told to stay with the professor!" he snapped. "But, no, he said you'd come down here alone. Didn't I warn you about this?"

Okay, she didn't care who he was nor that he'd just helped her out of a potentially difficult situation, nothing gave him the right to speak to her like that. Big fancy Time Lord or not, he was talking to her like some badly behaved child and that wasn't on. The adrenaline from the previous encounter hadn't left her veins yet and it made rising to his temper easy, deeply affronted.

"I am not under your command you know," she insisted fiercely. "You can't order me about!"

He looked even more cross that she had the audacity to argue back. Had he really expected anything else though?

"I can when it comes to your safety!"

He turned swiftly, marching back towards the door. But oh no, Clara would be damned if she was going to allow him to storm off feeling all self righteous and getting the last word. She dropped the box of potatoes without thinking and hurried to catch him.

"I wasn't 'unsafe'!" she shouted in his wake. "I wouldn't have even thought about it if you hadn't put the idea in my head in the first place! I wouldn't have got into that situation if you hadn't made me so suspicious with your 'by the way, all sailors are rapists' speech!"

That made him stop. Perhaps it was the bluntness of her words or perhaps it was the betraying unsteady quiver in her voice; she wasn't just angry, she was upset.

"I'm trying to look after you," he reasoned morosely, temper cooled but mood not improved, shoulders hunched with tension.

"Well it feels like you're trying to control me," she said, forcing herself to hold her emotions in best she could. It wouldn't help. "You made me scared. You made me think I was vulnerable. Not that sailor."

"I'm doing what I need to protect you."

"By making me afraid?"

He looked back at her, expression unreadable and considered her for a very long moment. Clara would've given anything to be able to tell what he was really thinking.

"Well, if that's how you feel," he finally announced, "then perhaps once we get back to the TARDIS I should take you home."

He turned and started walking again.

Clara's eyes widened at that. Panic for a moment, then shock, then outraged. How dare he?

"Oi!" she said insistently, storming after him again. "You're not doing that! You're not…blackmailing me into behaving how you want! That's not fair!"

He wouldn't stop though so she shoved passed him and stood her ground in front of him, hands on her hips to block the narrow corridor best she could. He didn't seem to know what to do - he certainly didn't want to look at her apparently but nor did he make any move to shove her aside - but when he finally turned his gaze up to hers he held it steadily.

"My ship, my rules," he reminded her in an emotionless tone.

But no, she realised with a sudden frown, not emotionless; a mask, hiding…something. This was a front. What was going on?

She didn't back down. "There's something else, isn't there?" she pushed, watching his face very carefully now for any clue. "What aren't you telling me?"

His jaw tightened but he wasn't angry. He was holding something in.

"Oh come on," she challenged, deciding that perhaps a bit of goading would get it out of him. "You're supposed to be so superior to us little humans; I thought you were better than this."

If he seemed momentarily on the verge of telling her something, he quickly decided against it. "Apparently not."

He twisted passed her, pushing her as gently out of his path as he could.

Oh great. Now he was sulking and moody. Just what she needed.

Very, very fed up with this afternoon now, Clara's exasperation tipped over. "God! What is wrong with you?" she asked, throwing her hands up before reaching out to grab his wrist. "For once could you stop-"

She was going to say 'running' but was quickly and effectively silenced by the Doctor reacting to her hand on his wrist as if she'd set off a spark. He turned swiftly and without any warning at all, his lips were on hers in a fierce kiss that she never saw coming. She dimly felt the cool metal of the corridor wall behind her, the force of him suddenly crashing into her sending them stumbling back. Not that she was in much of a state to realise or care as his mouth didn't leave hers and his body pressed closer. One of her hands was still clutching his wrist, the other hanging limply by her side but his were coordinated for once. He grabbed her waist with perfect aim, drawing her to him, leaving her caught very firmly between the wall and his chest. And his mouth…Goodness, she never would've imagined he could kiss like that. And she'd imagined it, once or twice. He kissed her like it was their last moment, like everything was about to end and he only had right now to tell her all he needed to. Her shock was quickly replaced by instinct, her free hand moving to his hair, clutching and drawing him down to her as she kissed him back with equal passion. She could taste him faintly against her lips, the warm wetness of his mouth tantalisingly close. When his tongue brushed hers she actually whimpered - damn him - causing him to graze his teeth over her bottom lip in response. It was want and desire and longing and everything she'd ever wondered if he could feel, all pressed into one insanely heady kiss. She couldn't help her small gasp in response nor the breathy murmur of his name.

It was that which made him pull back.

She could see the look in his eyes like a fire dying. He blinked as it faded out and then starred at her in shock, expression going from mortified to apologetic in a moment. He opened his mouth to say something, found no words, mumbled a completely unintelligible response and fled.

If Clara had recovered more quickly she might have followed him but she was too stunned and by the time she found the use of her feet again he was long gone.

And she was alone in the corridor once more, left with tingling lips, gasping breath and fingertips which gripped at the cold metal wall behind her as though it was the only thing keeping her upright.