a/n: I finished this one relatively fast, thanks to all the reviews I've been getting! Thanks so much for all the traffic guys, it means a lot. (:
"You go ahead and shower, I'll get that," Nina said, but as she moved towards the door, her mobile started ringing shrilly on the counter. She groaned. "Never mind," She mumbled, quickly hurrying to pick it up. "Can you get the door? Please? It probably won't take long."
Clara sighed. "All I wanted to do was take a shower," She whined under her breath, but whoever it was knocked again and she set the stack of clothes down on the couch and went to open the door. It was almost certainly the Doctor again, probably come back because he either didn't have a flat, didn't know where his flat was, or had somehow managed to forget something (though he didn't have anything on him that he could forget; she'd removed his sonic from his pockets before taking him out of the TARDIS). She smoothed down her messy hair, sighed, and opened the door, only to be greeted by quite the opposite of what she had expected.
A young man was standing on their doorstep. He looked like a normal guy—most definitely not the Doctor—in jeans and a t-shirt, except for one tiny difference: He was soaking wet. His dark hair was dripping, his face was streaked with trails left by little droplets, and his clothes were dark and hung funny, completely drenched. When Clara poked her head out, he brightened. "Oh, good! So Nina—" He broke off, his forehead creasing in confusion. "Wait, hold up. You're not Nina. Are you a friend?"
"Oh, no, I'm…" Clara pointed back into the house. "Nina's busy right now, sorry. Oh, and, uh, flatmate. Sort of friend. Um. Just moved in. Last night. I'm sorry." She shook her head. "Why are you soaking wet?"
He grinned and offered a damp hand, which she shook hesitantly. "Henry. I live upstairs and my sink's just exploded. Any chance you're good with a wrench?"
"Uh…" Clara shook her head again and let out a small, nervous laugh. "I'm sorry, I don't think so."
"Hm." Henry crossed his arms and tapped his foot, his shoe making a squelching sound against the front mat. "Well, do you mind getting a bit damp? You could help me try to stem the water flow, at least."
Clara gaped at him, wondering whether to believe his story or if it was just a dumb pick-up move (which she had seen before, amazingly), then realized she actually could hear a faint sloshing sound coming from upstairs. "Wait, you're serious?"
"Yeah." He gave her a lopsided grin. "My sink has seriously exploded, which is exactly why we need to get up there before I run my water bill through the roof and flood the building. You coming?"
Clara gazed longingly back in at the fresh clothes on the couch and sighed. "All right, sure. Let's go."
"Grand." Henry turned and headed up the staircase in the entry hall, and for the first time Clara noticed that water was trickling down the carpeted steps and forming puddles on the ground.
Clara followed him. "So, uh, how long has it been flooding your apartment?" She asked, though judging by the amount of water, she wasn't sure she wanted to know.
"Almost half an hour," He called back down. "I was thinking about coming to get someone before this, but I thought I had it under control."
"Sure looks like it." Clara raised her eyebrows at his back, but he didn't turn around until they reached the landing.
Henry pushed the door open and they were greeted by a fresh tide of water that flowed over and completely soaked Clara's shoes, which she was still wearing from the previous night. She made a noise of disgust and followed him inside.
The flat was a mess. It seemed as if, in an attempt to prevent his furniture from getting wet on the bottoms, Henry had shoved everything to the side of the room and as far away as possible from the water gushing out of the kitchen. This, of course, had inevitably failed, and left him with a lot of slightly damp furniture piled messily in a corner. The sink really had exploded. The faucet was completely gone, and instead it was spraying a jet of pressurized water out, over the basin and onto the floor. Clara stared around, gaping. "How the hell did you even do this?"
"Well, I was trying to fix the broken part in my sink," He explained to her as he splashed towards the sink, Clara in tow, "but then I think I dislodged something, and it started spraying water and wouldn't stop."
"And you only just now went to get help?" Clara asked incredulously.
"Well, Nina's not the best with fixing things, and I thought I had it under control." He shrugged helplessly. "I would have come sooner if I'd known she had a flatmate."
"I'm not sure I'll be much more helpful than Nina," Clara admitted. "But hey, try me."
"Wonderful! Take this." He picked up a sopping towel off the ground and tossed it to her. She yelped as it splashed water all down her front. "You need to get to the sink and hold the towel over the spout while I try to put this piece back in with my tools." Henry held up a small, metal bit of something that he'd been holding in his hand.
"Not like I'm not going to go take a shower after this," Clara muttered to herself, then brandished the towel and crossed to the sink as quick as she could, avoiding the actual stream of water itself until she managed to duck in and shove the wet fabric down on top of the exposed pipe. The water gurgled under the towel, bubbling and pushing at it before slowly starting to trickle out from under it. At least it wasn't spraying crazily across the whole flat.
Henry let out a sigh of relief as he joined her by the sink. "See, this is why I needed help!" He said. "I don't have enough hands to do a two-person job." As if to highlight his point, he showed her his hands and wiggled the fingers a little bit.
"Yeah yeah, enough with the small talk," Clara replied. "Mind actually fixing this thing? I've got…important stuff. Later." Well, a shower, she added to herself. But I'd consider that important.
"Sorry, sorry!" He raised his hands in surrender, then moved around Clara and set about putting the little piece back into place. The pressure on the towel subsided and Clara removed it with a sigh of relief.
"There you go," She nodded. "All fixed." She flashed a smile and then moved to go back downstairs. "Lovely meeting you, Henry."
"Hey, wait!" He called. "I didn't even get your name."
"Oh, right. It's Clara." Clara smiled again and gave a little wave, then headed out the door and back down the stairs, every step making a squelching noise on the soaking wet carpet. She flung the door to her own flat open and closed it heavily behind her, letting out a long sigh.
"Nina," She began. "I don't mean to be rude, but your upstairs neighbor might just be a little crazy."
Her flatemate was seated on the couch, holding her phone her hands, staring blankly ahead. When Clara came in, she seemed to come out of a trance, and looked up at her. Her face seemed paler than before. "Oh, Henry?" Her voice had a sort of forced lightness to it. "He's a bit odd. But he's a sweetheart, you'll get used to it in time."
Clara gave her a look as she took off her wet boots to leave by the door. "Is everything okay?" She asked Nina.
"Oh. Um, yeah." Nina turned her phone over in her hands a couple of times, suddenly becoming very interested in it. Then she glanced back up at Clara. "Listen. My boyfriend's coming round in about half an hour, and I was wondering if you wouldn't mind keeping out of the flat for a while. It's just…" She trailed off uncertainly. "We've kind of been fighting, and I think something might have happened, and I just really need to talk to him alone. Is that okay?"
"Yeah, of course." Clara nodded sympathetically. "I'm just going to pop off for a shower and then I'll hang 'round outside for a while. Have you got any books?"
"Loads, in the back room." Nina pointed down the hall, then went back to staring at her mobile, almost seeming to forget Clara was even there.
Clara bit her lip and leaned down to get her clothes, then left the room quietly to go shower. After that, she had only a few minutes before she needed to be out, so she snagged a novel from the bookshelf and went to sit out on the front stoop, aimlessly leafing through the pages although she had something more important on her mind.
She hadn't realized it beforehand, but she really shouldn't have let the Doctor leave the flat. She had no idea where he was, or what he was up to, or even if he was coming back. The Doctor's lack of, well, being there in the universe would be bad enough, but he had no past, no family, nowhere to live, no job, no money no nothing. How was he going to pull this off?
She sighed and picked at the torn edge of one page. Maybe she should go find him. Or she could just wait a month or so, open the watch and let him find his own way back, but if something happened to him before that… No. She couldn't even think about that. The Doctor was probably nearby, trying to sort out details of his life. Maybe he'd show up on his own. Until a little more time had passed, Clara knew she'd just have to keep on hoping.