Hi guys! Look who's back from vacation! So, what you are about to read is a cute one-shot I thought of a while back. I had a lot of trouble writing it, trying to make the characters sound like they would on the show. This was actually quite difficult, because this sort of thing has never happened to the Doctor and Clara on the show, so I wasn't quite sure how they would react. Anyway, let me know if you know how I can improve the way I write these characters. Also, what one-shot should I do next? I literally have no ideas. Give me some inspiration!
Enjoy the story!
His eyes flicked back and forth, as rhythmically as the ticking of a clock. The console, humming with energy. The bookshelf that wrapped around part of the upper level of the TARDIS. The round things on the walls. The leather armchair that he was currently curled up in.
They weren't much to look at, but they were all he had right now, without her. Without Clara.
The Doctor stared dully at his hands, methodically turning them one way and another. His ears rang with the sound of silence; the silence that hung in the air whenever Clara wasn't around. He suddenly realized how much he thirsted for her company. How much he needed her company.
Would Clara ever be able to truly forgive him? The Doctor shuddered at the realization that he simply didn't know. He knew many things. He knew exactly how many stars there were in the universe. He knew exactly where to find the edge of the universe. He even knew why J.K. Rowling decided to write an eighth Harry Potter book in 2021 (mainly due to his own influence, of course).
But when it came to judging the emotions of his best friend, the Doctor was completely and utterly hopeless.
The Doctor sighed, his mouth twitching in a bitter smile. His eleventh self had dealt much better with these sorts of matters, although Clara's inability to tear her gaze away from his general cuteness and charm had probably aided him greatly back then.
Suddenly, someone gently cleared their throat, interrupting his gloomy musings. The Doctor turned his head a fraction to the right, and there she was. Clara Oswald.
She'd changed out of the fancy dress that she had worn on the Hindenburg, and was now clad in a black jumper and a scarlet skirt. Her russet hair was pulled back in a loose bun. Her eyes were slightly redder than normal, and the Doctor guessed that she had been crying.
For a few seconds, they simply stared at each other. Finally the Doctor broke the silence. "Clara," he started, swinging his lanky frame out of his chair, "I'm-"
"Don't," she cut him off. "Don't apologize. I don't want to talk about this. I want to forget this ever happened. Okay?"
The Doctor hesitated, his eyes roving over every inch of her face. He could sense that she meant every word. "Okay," he finally agreed, deciding for once not to argue.
"Good." Clara ascended the stairs, coming to a halt directly in front of the Doctor (they would have been face-to-face, except she was an entire head shorter than him). "Then let's go bake a soufflé."
"What?" the Doctor protested, immediately forgetting his decision to not argue with her. "No, no, no. You are not baking a soufflé in my TARDIS!"
"Actually, I am baking a soufflé in your TARDIS," she informed him smoothly. "I said I wanted to forget what happened. Baking a soufflé is going to help me forget what happened. You said okay, so you are going to let me bake a soufflé."
"I am most certainly not going to let you bake a soufflé," the Doctor retorted, his Scottish burr becoming more pronounced as it always did when he was annoyed. "You'll burn the place down!" He remembered all too well the various Soufflé Incidents, as he had christened them, that had befallen his eleventh regeneration.
Clara drew back, affronted. "Oi, watch it! I'm not that bad!"
"Yes, you really are," the Doctor told her rudely. He slid past Clara and continued down the staircase, returning to the main level of the TARDIS. "You are not baking a soufflé. End of story."
When Clara didn't object after several seconds, the Doctor began to get suspicious. He whirled around and discovered that Clara was standing right behind him, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. "Alright, fine. We're baking a soufflé."
Before the Doctor could object, she fastened her hand around his jacket and hauled him out of the console room. "Get off! What are you doing?"
"Taking you to the kitchen," Clara replied calmly, her grip around his jacket not wavering even for an instant.
The Doctor decided it was time to change tack, as refusing to bake a soufflé with her was clearly having no effect. "The TARDIS doesn't have a kitchen."
"Yes, it does. Two doors past the library, across the hall from the park."
"And I suppose you've been there, then?" he demanded acidly. He was actually rather surprised - he'd known about the park inside the TARDIS (it was a replica of Hyde Park in London, minus the ginormous palace) but not about the kitchen. Strange how one's best friend always knows more about your house than you do, he mused.
"Yes, and I suppose you haven't, by your tone of voice," Clara shot back, turning left and dragging the Doctor down a corridor lit by flickering tube lights. "What do you do for food?"
He shrugged vaguely. "Time Lords don't need to eat much... I've never needed a kitchen."
When Clara did not respond and merely began to walk faster, the Doctor attempted to dissuade her one last time. "The kitchen probably doesn't exist anymore, if you've already been there. You've probably burned it or exploded it."
Clara's mouth twitched at the insult, but she made no response. Sighing heavily, the Doctor gave up and resigned himself to an afternoon of being tormented in the kitchen.
Finally Clara came to a halt in front of a wooden door with no knob. She pushed it open with her back, swung the Doctor inside, and simultaneously released her hold on his coat. Startled, he stumbled backwards and was forced to frantically windmill his arms in order to regain his balance.
When he finally regained his composure, the Doctor glanced up and noticed with a sinking feeling that Clara was holding out a small silver key for his inspection. "Funnily enough," she smirked,"the kitchen door only locks on the inside. TARDIS probably thought it'd be a laugh. But it works to my advantage, because I can keep you in here until we're done." With a roguish wink, she slipped the key inside her shoe.
The Doctor knew when he was beaten. "Fine," he grumbled. "Soufflé. Let's get this over with. What do we need... flour, butter, anchovies -"
"Anchovies?!" Clara interrupted, wrinkling her pert nose in disgust. "Are you mad?"
"Oh, I'm sorry, I thought the anchovies were why your soufflés always turn out so slimy," the Doctor explained, a glimmer of amusement flaring in his clear blue eyes.
Clara stared murderously at him, her mouth a thin line. Without warning she produced a wooden spoon from behind her back and smacked him with it. "One-more-word-and-you-are-dead," she hissed, punctuating each word with another smack with the spoon. "Understand?"
The Doctor eyed her calmly, not responding.
"I said, do you understand?"
He shrugged. She had warned him not to say another word, after all.
"Oh my stars! You're insufferable!" Clara groaned and banged her head against a cupboard. Then she withdrew, rubbing her forehead. "Ow. That hurt."
The Doctor couldn't help himself. A laugh escaped him. Frowning, Clara turned around in preparation to whack him again, but she reconsidered upon seeing the look on his face. She smiled despite herself and then burst out laughing.
When her giggling fit finally subsided, Clara got to business. "Okay," she mused aloud, expertly swinging her wooden spoon. "We need salted butter, granulated sugar, whole milk, all-purpose flour, regular butter, vanilla extract, confectioners' sugar, and... fresh berries," she finished slowly.
The Doctor stared at her blankly. "Okay. What am I supposed to do about it?"
Clara rolled her eyes in exasperation. "You're supposed to go get me what I asked for, obviously! Go on! Shoo!"
"How am I supposed to remember all that?" he asked desperately.
"You're a bloody two thousand year old Time Lord! Don't tell me you can't memorize a list of ingredients!" Clara was clearly not in the mood to listen to excuses.
The Doctor frowned at her and turned away. He wasn't sure if the TARDIS was stocked with the ingredients she had asked for, and he certainly didn't know where to find them if it was. "Help me out, Old Girl," he murmured under his breath. Choosing a cupboard at random and yanking it open, he was disheartened to discover that its innards were bare. "Please," he added.
The size of the kitchen suddenly struck him. It was colossal, filled with rows of cabinets and shelving units alongside stainless steel counters that stretched endlessly into the distance. Every surface was spotless.
There were hundreds of nooks and crannies in this kitchen. How on earth was he supposed to find the required ingredients?
Desperately the Doctor continued down the aisle, ripping cabinets open and peering into every nook while Clara drummed her fingers impatiently on the tabletop. He turned a corner and suddenly found himself facing a wall of closed cubbies.
The Doctor raced towards them and began frantically opening them. There were at least a hundred cubbies, and he wanted to get through them all as quickly as possible.
He'd checked twenty cubbies. Not a sign of anything helpful.
Fifty. Nope.
Seventy-five. Still nope.
Ninety. The Doctor was beginning to lose hope.
"I'm waiting!" Clara called out from behind him.
Picturing what her reaction would be if he returned empty-handed, the Doctor redoubled his efforts. Nine cubbies left... then eight... then seven... "Come on, come on, they've got to be here somewhere..." he muttered under his breath. Four cubbies left... three... two...
And suddenly, there they were, resting peacefully in the final cubby. Flour. Sugar. Vanilla. Milk. Every single ingredient that he needed.
"Thanks, Old Girl," the Doctor breathed, reaching out to give the wall a gentle pat. He hastily gathered the ingredients in his arms and strode back to where Clara was standing, proudly depositing them on the table. "There you go," he announced smugly. "Every one of them. Even the milk, butter, and eggs, which really should have been in a refrigerator - but there's Time Lord technology for you. Refrigerated cubbies!" He beamed, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
Clara cast him a bemused glance. "Right then. Stop being so happy. It's kind of freaking me out. You know, seeing those 'attack eyebrows' with a smile."
"Yes ma'am," the Doctor replied, snapping her an informal salute and allowing his grin to partially fade. Smiling was something this regeneration didn't do much, and he was enjoying it slightly more then he would care to admit.
Clara gestured to the tabletop in front of her. "I've already laid out all the things we'll need. Mixing bowls, measuring cups, soufflé dish, and so on." She paused and then added, with a sly grin,"Watch and learn."
The next twenty minutes were a blur of activity which resulted in one perfect soufflé mixture and a gigantic mess. Both the countertop and the floor were blanketed beneath a carpet of flour. At least five eggshells, splintered so much that they were practically powder, were present on the table, and their contents were oozing down the side of the counter and forming puddles of yolk on the floor.
Clara and the Doctor, however, had borne the brunt of the hail of ingredients that had rained through the air during the past twenty minutes. The Doctor's black jacket as well as Clara's jumper now looked as though they had been heavily dusted with snow (Clara had taken it upon herself to teach the Doctor how to bake, and had entrusted him with the pouring of the flour. He had been slightly overenthusiastic and had created a rather large flour storm, which had affected everything from Clara'a face to the Doctor's shoes). In desperation, she had asked him to crack the eggs while she took care of the rest of the mixture. "Not even you can go wrong with eggs," she'd told him.
Well, he had. The eggs weren't cracking properly, so, in his frustration, the Doctor fished his screwdriver out of his pocket and sonicked the lot of them.
It might have worked, if he'd remembered to change the setting on his screwdriver to 'egg' (yes, there was such a setting).
The eggs exploded with such violence that pieces of yolk slapped against the opposite wall. Although the Doctor, fortunately, had managed to take cover behind the counter, Clara had not been so lucky.
"Okay," Clara stated, breathing heavily. Perspiration was trickling down her face, and her bun had mostly come undone. In fact, with strands of her hair sticking up in every direction and her face powdered with flour, Clara looked frightful. "Okay. There's flour and eggs everywhere. I look a mess. It's going to take forever to get this egg out of my hair. But the mixture is perfect! Half the time, I don't even get this far! I've usually forgotten to add an ingredient or something. But this... this is beautiful!"
The Doctor raised an eyebrow and turned away. "Withholding comment."
Clara rolled her eyes. "Oh, shut up. Don't spoil this moment." She slipped on a pair of mitts, picked up the soufflé mixture, and gently slid it inside the oven. "Alright, Mum," she whispered, blowing the soufflé a kiss as she shut the oven door. "This one's going to be perfect, just for you."
The soufflé was done in no time. Curious despite himself, the Doctor hovered next to Clara as she pulled it out of the oven and set it on the stovetop to cool. Its puffy golden top was crisped to perfection and was bubbling around the edges. It smelled warm and fresh... like Clara, the Doctor realized. She flashed him a smile, her eyes dancing with excitement. "This is unusual," she confided to him, tucking stray strands of hair behind her ear. "Normally they've collapsed... or burned... by this point."
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Collapse is inevitable," he assured her. "After all, you're the one baking the soufflé. I called you Impossible Girl for a reason, you know... Impossible to make a soufflé, impossibly wide face, impossibly egotistic nature... there are lots of impossibles there."
Clara slowly turned her head until her gaze met his. "Doctor?"
"Yes?"
"Shut up."
He shut up.
The soufflé cooled quickly, and Clara wasted no time in carving herself and the Doctor portions. She eagerly cut out a bite, delicately placed it on her tongue... and spat it out at once, her face contorted with revulsion. "Oh my stars! What is in that?"
The TARDIS emitted a deep rumbling sound, as though she were laughing at them.
Suddenly the Doctor realized that she probably was. "The ingredients. She tricked us... she gave us bad ingredients! She could have switched the vanilla extract out with medicine... Or given us that weird soy milk thing instead of whole milk..."
Clara seemed ready to tear her own hair out in her frustration. "You stupid snogbox!" she shouted, pointing a trembling finger at the ceiling. "I will kill you! I will kill you! Oh, you think you're so smart..." Her eyes were livid. "This was going to be the perfect soufflé!" Suddenly her anger seemed to subside. "I guess it's just not meant to be," she admitted sadly. "Me and soufflés, I mean. Maybe I should just give this up. Maybe I'll never be able to make a perfect soufflé."
"Good!" the Doctor exclaimed. "Once you get everything you want, why bother living? Far better to spend your life trying to get something and never get it! It's the trying that's important, not the succeeding."
Clara's mouth twitched in a soft smile. "Okay... I'll keep trying. But next time, I'm not inviting you to the party. I'm done with egg in my hair. Also, the TARDIS and I need to have a little talk." She began to stride towards the door but then she halted and glanced back over get shoulder. "Oh, and Doctor? There's one thing I forgot to mention at the beginning."
"Do enlighten me," the Doctor responded drily.
Clara winked. "You're cleanin' up."
With that, she unlocked the door and slid out.