It was a normal Friday night and London shone bright against the dark sky. A few minutes before midnight many people were making their way home, but for many others the evening was just starting. Either way, the streets were crowded with those who didn't mind the cold weather.

A tall man with gray hair and remarkable eyebrows was making his way through that crowd, pushing people aside as he went. He ignored the insults which addressed his rudeness and continued running.

A sudden noise made him duck, but it was probably just a car that backfired. He was looking around warily, as if he was trying to hide from something. Or someone.

He suddenly turned his head, and his eyes widened in panic.

"Clara!" he shouted, with a clear Scottish accent.

"Clara!" he called again, with increasing urgency. He turned on his steps, looking around frantically and calling out one more time.

"Doctor!" a voice equally scared finally answered. A petite brunette emerged from the crowd, running desperately towards the man. His face showed his deep relief for a split of a second, but then it shifted back to concerned as he reached for the girl's hand and held it in his, while pulling her forwards along the pavement.

The Doctor kept running, checking now and then that Clara was all right, and then turned abruptly in a street to the left. He looked back to see if their followers where behind them, if they had seen them change direction, but there was no one in sight. He shoved Clara into the first illuminated place he could find and then hurriedly followed her inside.

They were in a small, cheep-looking cinema. A few people were lining up at the cash register for one of those late night movie marathons.

He rummaged in his bigger-on-the-inside pocked and pulled out a black, velvet hat – like the ones normally spotted in classic gangster films. He rapped his arm around Clara's neck and pulled her closer, trying to conceal her the best he could. She obviously understood his intention and went along with it. She bowed her head and rapped one arm around his back and the other around his torso.

They walked slowly to the line, pretending to be just a normal married couple who decided to go to the cinema, and not a couple of time-travellers stuck in the year 1991, chased by evil aliens from outer space.

"Are we safe in here?" Clara whispered, looking up at him with her big dear eyes.

"I don't know," he admitted. "The best thing we can do right now is to hide in here until morning and hope they don't find us."

"What's going to happen in the morning?" she asked.

"The sunlight is fatal to them," he explained, "Either they'll die or they'll flee from this planet."

He could feel Clara relax under his touch and she gave him the first smile since they had started running. The Doctor smiled back and for a short while they simply stared at each other. Finally aware of how close they were, his hearts increased their beat and he thought he saw her blush before she turned her eyes away from him.

They had been so lost in a world in which only the two of them – and possibly an alien threat – existed, that they hadn't realized that the line had finished and that they were facing the ticket office. It was a board looking, gum chewing, middle aged woman who brought them back to reality. She had to cough a couple of times to gain their attention. The Doctor blinked in confusion, before remembering where they were.

"Oh, yes. Sorry," he apologized, a bit more harshly than intended. "Two for tonight's marathon, please."

The cashier frowned. "Six pounds," she said coldly and passed them their tickets.

The Doctor paid her and they walked into the auditorium as fast as they could without looking too suspicious.

Once the door had closed behind them, they parted. There was no need to keep pretending, but Clara immediately missed the warmth of his body against hers. She had found it very comforting, but she would never admit that to him. After all, he was not the hugging type any more.

They found a couple of seats in a dark shadow of the room and they sat down. Clara examined her surrounding properly for the first time. It was a tiny place, compared to the one she used to go to with Danny back at home and very few seats were taken. She wondered whether any of those people could be their chasers in disguise. Somehow she highly doubted it. Although, that man in the opposite side of the room-

"I wonder what they are showing," the Doctor whispered in her ear, making her jump. He soothed her by caressing for a second her hand which was firmly gripping the armrest of her seat. She hadn't even thought about that, so she shrugged.

He leaned forwards and cleared his voice to gain the attention of a man sitting a couple of rows in front of them. The man turned around. He might have been on his late forties, or early fifties, and his eyes told Clara how sad and lonely he was. After all, she thought, this looked just the place for sad and lonely people. She suddenly felt glad the Doctor was with her.

"Excuse me, sir," the Doctor asked gently. It was unlike him, but maybe ha had noticed what she had, too. "Could you tell me what's on, tonight?"

The man raised an eyebrow, but was polite enough not to ask that stick insect looking man why he hadn't checked himself when he had come into the cinema and bought the tickets. That's England for you. "They're showing Hitchcock movies."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

The man turned to stare at the space in front of him and the Doctor straightened back on his chair and leaned towards Clara.

"That's good news."
"Why?" she asked, confused. "Are they lethal for those aliens, too?"

He frowned, giving her his best attack eyebrows. "No," he replied slowly, "I meant... At least we've got good movies to pass the time with."

"Oh!" She sounded disappointed. "Really? I've never heard of this Hitchcock bloke."

The Doctor gaped at her. He looked away, his mouth opened in dismay, and then looked back at her with his eyes wide open. "You're kidding," he stated.

"No, Doctor," Clara told him, defensively. "Why would I do that?"

"What the hell's wrong with you?" he sounded sincerely shocked.

"Ohi!" Clara hissed, hitting him on his arm. "Nothing's wrong with me."

He rubbed the aching spot she had just punched and glared at her. "Missing those movies..." he shook his head. "Who does that?"

"I do that," she said angrily, hitting him again.

"Stop punching me!" he whined.

"Stop treating me as a pudding brain just because I haven't seen some movie," she retorted.

"Some movie?" the Doctor repeated, in dismay. "Oh Clara, my Clara, do I have to teach you everything?"

The girl beside him remained silent at his words. Blood rushed to her cheeks when she heard him use her name like that and, without realizing it, she held her breath. He eventually caught up to what he had said, too, because ha had to refrain a gasp.

They stared at each other, until Clara remembered to breath and swallowed. "You do?" she asked, stupidly, just to fill the void which threatened swallow them both.

The Doctor straightened on his seat. "When I told you I would show you amazing things," he tried to act naturally, "I didn't realize it meant going back to basics."

He gave her a tentative smile. He felt her relax beside him and he painfully remembered that she didn't used to have those kind of reactions with his last regeneration.

"It would seem so." She looked up at him and stared into his big sad sad eyes, which had made her truly realize, what seemed like ages ago, that, no matter which face he wore, the Doctor would always be the Doctor. She felt stupid each time she remembered that she had doubted that it could be otherwise. This thought made her unconsciously grin.

"So," she started, feeling at ease again. "What's so special about these movies?"

"You'll see." He told her and winked at her cheekily, making her laugh.

"Spoilers?"
"Spoilers." He confirmed and chuckled. "By the way, Alfred wouldn't approve if I told you."

Clara frowned. "Who's Alfred?"

"Alfred Hitchcock, the director," he explained impatiently. "He liked to surprise people. And scare them in the process, possibly."

Clara wasn't amused. "I don't like scary movies."

"You'll like these," he assured her. "these are classy scary movies."

"What makes you think that my problem with scary movies lays whether they're classy or not?" Clara laughed.

He decided not to answer that. "Well you've been through some pretty dangerous stuff, I'm guessing the scary part wouldn't be the issue here," and then he spotted her uncertain expression. "...or is it?"

"Well..."

"Oh, shut up!"

"OK I will."

This put a goofy grin on the Doctor's face. He founded hard not to smile when Clara was around.

"So, you know him?" Clara changed the subject.

"Know who?"

"Alfred. Hitchcock."

"Of course," he replied. "We go way back, that man and me. He's brilliant."

The Doctor hesitated, before adding: "We used to play this game...", she watched him get lost in his memories. "He started appearing in his movies to see if I could spot him – useless to say I always did – and he would do the same with me in Charlie Chaplin's."

"You're in Charlie Chap-", but she was interrupted by the sudden sound of the movie starting. A image of a window facing a courtyard was projected on the screen.

"Oh good," the Doctor whispered in her ear, unusually cheerful. "They're starting with Rear Window. It's my favourite."

His warm breath tickled her neck giving her goosebumps. She shifted her attention on the film, as she tried not to smile.

After the credits, she watched the camera film a busy courtyard, full of people talking, laughing, living. Two newly-weds, a young and attractive – yet, with a size that modern trend wouldn't approve of, Clara noticed – dancer, man and wife sleeping on their balcony, a man shaving while listening to the radio. And then a man she supposed was the main character: a sweaty, gray haired James Stewart, sleeping on a wheelchair, with a leg sealed in a white cast, on what seemed a very hot day.

She didn't know anything about cinematography, but she thought that what Hitchcock managed to do was to portray an entire existence revolving around that courtyard and the life of L. B. Jefferies in only a couple of minutes. And it also portrayed a time that could have come across as long gone from a XXI century girl's prospective – if that particular girl didn't happen to be a time-traveller.

Clara shivered. She hadn't noticed how cold it was in there. She rapped her arms around her torso and put her hands under her armpits, cherishing the little warmth she gained by doing so as best she could. It would be a long night, and this thought made her shiver again.

The shuttering of her teeth made the Doctor turn towards her. "Are you cold?"

She looked up at him. "No, I'm freezing just because I don't have anything better to do."

He raised an eyebrow, before catching up on her joke. She thought that was the end of that, because he turned away from her, but then she saw him take off his jacket and settling it roughly on her shoulder. "There."

"Oh," she whispered.

"-What?" The Doctor frowned at her as she staid still, staring straight at him with her big eyes. Eyes, he felt, he could easily fall into.

She opened her mouth and it looked like she wanted to say something, but then she closed it into a soft smile. She snuggled in his warm jacket, with its heat giving her some relief from the cold. "Thank you," she said to him.

He hardly repressed a smile and thanked the darkness that she couldn't see him blushing. He dismissed her gratitude with an awkward wave of his hand and they both went back to watch the movie.

She enjoyed Rear Window. She admired Grace Kelly's beauty and charm and made a mental note to ask the Doctor if she could meet her. She followed Jefferies investigation with great trepidation, she was at the edge of her chair when Lisa broke into Thorwald's flat and yelped when the same man discovered what they where up to. By the time Jefferies was buying time by blinding Thorwald with the flash of his camera, she was with her eyes wide open and clutching the Doctor's arm with bated breath.

They had often commented what was happening during the movie, passing from her conjectures about how the story would resolve itself to the Doctor's fan facts about the actors and the director and the film itself, which Clara took in like fresh water on a sultry day. He also pointed out Hitchcock to her, because she had never seen him before. "Keep him well in mind," he had told her, "We'll see if you'll be able to find him next time."

"But it hardly showed anything," she had protested. "I could only see a bold man looking at a clock."
"Oh come on, I know you're better than than," the Doctor had smirked.

"And did I also mention they showed him from a distance?" Clara had hissed back at him.

"So you're not up for the challenge, then?" he had provoked her.

"In your dreams." They had grinned at each other and laughed quietly to try and not disturb the other people who were trying to watch the film and not awaken those who had already fallen asleep.

The Doctor had already seen Rear Window an incredible number of times – blimey, he was there when they were filming it – but he had never had as much fun as that time with Clara. He would never had expected it, but she was overly exited about everything. He sometimes looked away from those scenes he knew so well, because he couldn't help but stare in wonder at her. It was difficult to take his eyes off her – she was so beautiful in the light of the screen, wearing his dark coat and a wondrous smile. Neither of them knew he looked at her like he looked at the wonders of the universe.

She had already heard about Psycho, but somehow she didn't know about the famous scene of the shower, so she definitely wasn't expecting for the main character to be killed off thirty minutes into the movie. The Doctor had to cover her mouth when she saw a figure on the other side of the shower curtain, to muffle her shriek. All through the stabbing scene she leant towards the Doctor and hold tightly to his shirt, as if her life depended on it, but didn't look away from the screen.

"Don't be such a baby," the Doctor told her, once she had set him free from her grasp.

"Sorry," she gasped, seemingly out of breath as if she had just been chased by one of their usual alien threats. "It's just... These movies are so good, they really manage to drag me right into them. Does this make any sense at all?"

The Doctor laughed because it made perfect sense and thought he should go to the cinema with Clara more often.

The girl beamed, feeling how well he understood her, as he always did, but her smile turned into a yawn. She suddenly felt very tired. With all the running they had done in the last twenty four hours, she hadn't realized how little time she had managed to spear to sit down before they had hidden in the cinema, let alone get some proper rest.

She yawned again and found it hard to keep her eyes open. She tried to fight her sleepiness, because, if the next movie was at least half as good as the previous two she had just watched, she didn't want to miss a second of it, but she was having a very hard time remaining awake. So, without realizing it, she settled even further in the warm and comforting jacket she used as a blanket and drifted cozily to sleep.

"You know," the Doctor whispered to a unusually silent Clara, at a certain point during The Birds, "I had told Alfred he couldn't use the time we were attacked by shape-shifting aliens as a plot for his movies, but he never listens to me. He never does what he is told. I bet that not even a control-freak like yourself would be able to make him follow orders."

He didn't get any reply. He had thought a playful provocation like that would be followed by a only too familiar stream of remarks, but all he got was silence. He started to get worried, so he turned towards her. "Clara?" he asked, concern in his voice, but he found her fast asleep beside him. He couldn't help himself but curl the corners of his lips into a small smile, at the sight of how peaceful she looked.

He turned to follow the movie and, after only a couple of minutes, he felt something warm against his side. Clara had snuggled against him, her head resting against his shoulder and she somehow managed to tuck her arms under his – probably taking advantage of his shock which was preventing from making any kind of reaction.

His body remained rigid against hers and his mind was momentarily unable to work properly, since he just couldn't follow the movie any longer. He watched Tippi Hedren being attack by birds and couldn't make any sense of what was happening, even though he had seen the movie several times before.

It took him a while to relax, but he eventually did. The feeling of having her so close and in such an intimate position, actually started filling his chest with a warm and unexpected sensation. They remained in that position all through The Birds, and then the film that followed.

Finally the marathon ended, and the Doctor was almost sorry of having to wake Clara up. He shook her gently and called her name sever times before her eyes flapped slowly open. In the meanwhile, most of the other people had left.

She looked up at him and he could see the confusion in her eyes, as if she couldn't exactly pinpoint where she was, and why. Realisation eventually dawned on her, because she nearly jumped on her seat.

"Oh no," she gasped, parting from the Doctor's side. "Is it over?"

"Good morning sleepyhead," he smiled. "And yes, it's over. The sun must have already gone up. We're free to go. We're safe now."

"I meant the marathon," he could hear the disappointment in her voice. "I wanted to see all of it."

"Well, it's your fault you fell asleep," he pointed out, matter-of-factly.

She frowned at him. "Actually," she answered, annoyed, "It's your fault I was so tired I fell asleep. You and all that running."

"Don't pretend you don't enjoy it," he smirked, fully aware of being right.

"Well that's not the point," she argued.

He looked at her carefully, and realized how disappointed she genuinely was. "Don't worry," he tried to reassure her. "Now that the coast is clear, we can go back to the TARDIS and we can watch the ones you missed. And also other ones - I've got all of his movies."

"Really?" Her face brightened as she gave to him one of her best smiles.

"Really," he confirmed.

She clapped her hands excitedly and jumped to her feet. "Then what are you waiting for? Let's go," and she grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the exit.

The Doctor staggered uncertainly behind her, thinking that she was probably the only living being in the entire universe who could make him willing watch a movie for the second time in the same day, let alone two. No wonder he still called her his impossible girl.