Vive la Révolution

1

Clara dropped a heavy binder on one of the tables in the staff room harder than she intended, making the Doctor – already sitting down with her head buried in notes and books – jump.

"Sorry, didn't realise it was that heavy."

"You've got that old copy of Les Mis wedged in there, of course it's heavy," the Doctor pointed out. She'd been trying to get through it for weeks but had forgotten she was carrying it around with her. "Lemme have a look at it, I need to check something."

"Be my guest," said Clara, handing it to her. It was a very old edition printed at some point in the 1970s, which made it nearly a hundred now, and had originally belonged to her mother. When Clara had moved out to study literature she had taken it with her, along with a few dozen others, and had made sure to keep track of it. Of course, the Doctor had tens of different versions of every novel ever printed in the TARDIS library, but Clara had spent most of her life trying to build a library of her own. Many of the books in their house belonged to her.

It was the fifth period of the day on a Thursday, one of the very few free periods they had at the same time, and they usually spent it in the staff room. This was primarily because Clara's office only had one desk, and it wasn't large enough for them both to work at it. The second, smaller reason was that if they spent too much time lurking in her office they would be accused of being antisocial, or up to no good, mostly by Sarah Pickman.

Leaving her things under the watchful eye of her wife, Clara went into the kitchen to try and find something to drink in the fridge. She was very surprised to discover a modest cake in there with only a covering of simple, white fondant, in a plastic container. There was a card on top of it, but Clara assumed it was just a gift for somebody else, perhaps a member of the faculty was having a birthday, and she certainly wasn't in the habit of stealing food from her colleagues. Her attention was supplanted by two cans of pop she'd bought at lunch, both Tizer because it had been on offer, which she took out.

By the time she got back to the table Sarah had made her appearance, also sharing the same free lesson, and had taken the seat on the Doctor's other side. Apart from them, the staff room was sparsely populated.

"I've read that ten times," Sarah nodded at Les Mis.

"Really? I think it's unbearable," Clara said as she sat back down.

"It's better in French," she said quite pompously. Clara didn't quite believe that Sarah had read Les Mis in its entirety in French, she barely believed that she'd read it in English. She could just about imagine Sarah buying a fancy edition of it and putting it on a shelf in her front room for people to see. The Doctor made an irritated sound.

"I thought so…" she muttered.

"What?" asked Clara.

"I'm trying to revise my knowledge of the French Revolution, but this is set way too late." She closed it and set it back down on top of Clara's folder. "Why are you reading it?"

"I don't know," she shrugged, "It's been a long time. Why are you doing all this research into the Revolution?"

"I know all about the French Revolution," said Sarah.

"You do?" the Doctor asked.

"Well, it's not that complicated."

"I'd be inclined to disagree."

"The people didn't like the monarchy, so they cut their heads off. End of story," said Sarah, "That's all you need to know." Even Clara, who had very limited knowledge of French history because she didn't find much about France particularly interesting (that was her Englishness coming out), knew it was much more nuanced than that.

"Okay, well, Year 12 coursework next term is covering the history of France from the Storming of the Bastille to the establishment of the Third French Republic," said the Doctor, "And while I might have a soft spot for French history, I have to revise my knowledge if I have to, you know, actually teach it to anybody…" Again, she picked up Clara's book. "Do you have notes in here?"

"Not many," she said, though most of the pages did have passages underlined or a few scrawled remarks. But it wasn't as bad as the volume of notes she wrote in books she enjoyed a great deal. "I don't know what you think my notes add to a reading experience, to be honest," she cracked open her can of pop.

"I love reading your notes, Coo," said the Doctor, flicking through the pages, "This one right here where you've written 'Fantine' surrounded by hearts and a sad face. The depth is extraordinary."

"I think that sums up my feelings about Fantine quite well," said Clara.

"Fair enough, I guess."

"I think the whole thing sounds horrible," said Sarah eventually, "The Revolution. I can't imagine how scared those people must have been heading to the guillotine."

"Well, if you're gonna exploit the poor…" the Doctor began.

"Really? You think they deserved to be executed?"

"I didn't say that," she said, though she may as well have.

"What was their crime? Apart from being born rich?"

"…Do you want a list, or-?" But Sarah wasn't happy with the Doctor's apparent lack of empathy for French aristocrats who had been sent to the guillotines.

Huffily, Sarah began, "All I know is, if anything like that happened to my Louis and Marie, I don't know how I'd manage."

"Well, I don't think they beheaded a great many cats," said the Doctor, "Not during the Revolution, after the National Convention implemented a bunch of strict animal protection laws. Although, there was that massacre of cats in the Latin Quarter in the 1730s. But they hanged those ones, after trying them for witchcraft."

"Excuse me?" Clara asked.

"Haven't you heard that story? A group of printing apprentices tricked their bosses into thinking their cats were possessed because the bosses were jerks, so the bosses ended up killing all the cats on the Rue Saint-Séverin because of, y'know, demons."

"Is that true?"

"Sure. I've got some photos somewhere." Clara stared at her. "What? Obviously I don't support animal cruelty, but it's the kind of thing you need photo evidence of, or nobody believes you."

"Did they have cameras in the 1730s?" Sarah interrupted.

"I mean… illustrations," she lied, "Not photos. Got mixed up. Like I said, they were printing apprentices, so they printed recreations. But, you know, from a sociological perspective the whole thing was really an attack on womanhood and punished the printer's wife more than him. I guess that's pre-Enlightenment European misogyny for you. Can we get a cat, Coo?"

"What? No," said Clara.

"Oh. So you're saying we can get a dog?"

"We're not getting more pets. Captain Nemo is plenty."

"But he's just a lobster, he doesn't do anything."

"Then why did you steal him from that restaurant?" Clara countered sharply, never one to entertain the Doctor's constant pestering her to let them get a dog. The Doctor shut up, irritated, but knowing full-well that Clara was not going to alter her position. She returned to the large volume of 18th century French history she must have found in the school library somewhere, refreshing her memory with the rather corrupt court proceedings of the Revolutionary Tribunal.

"Who's that cake from, anyway?" Sarah interrupted. She apparently didn't want to let them get on with their work, Clara trying to come up with a more effective guideline for essay-style exam responses than the one the department was currently using (a truly riveting activity.)

"What do you mean?" the Doctor asked.

"Clara's cake, in the fridge."

"Sorry?" said Clara, "It's not my cake."

"It's got your name on it, there's a card. Ida brought it here, she said it was delivered to reception during lunch and you weren't in your office." She and the Doctor had gone out to a café for dinner that day. "She wasn't happy about it." Clara was taken aback; why would anybody have a cake delivered to the school for her? "Is it your birthday?"

"Not until the end of next month. Are you sure it's for me? Maybe it's for her," she nodded at her wife.

"Surely that's equally weird," said the Doctor, "I'm not expecting a cake."

"I said it has a card with it," Sarah repeated. Clara was perplexed and returned to the fridge, the Doctor and Sarah both observing her this time. She pulled out the circular cake and lifted the card stuck to the top. It was emblazoned with exceptionally neat, calligraphic writing, but the words were in French.

"It's in French," said Clara, unable to hide her confusion, "It must be for somebody else. I can't even speak French, and there's no surname."

"What does it say?" asked the Doctor.

"'À ma chérie Clara, qu'ils mangent de la brioche,'" she read it as best she could. "What does that mean?"

"'To my darling Clara, let them eat cake,'" translated the Doctor.

"Is it from you?" Clara asked.

"Me? No. If I was gonna bake you a cake, I wouldn't send it to the school with a weird note."

"I'm the French teacher here," said Sarah indignantly, "I could have translated it."

"I do speak French, too," the Doctor retorted. She spoke every language, like Jenny. And that was a thought that piqued Clara's interest.

"Maybe it's from Jenny," she said, putting the note and the cake away again because she found the whole thing quite strange. "She hasn't stopped baking at all for the last two weeks she's been staying with us." Jenny was still convalescing after her altercation with Will Smiles by order of Oswin, who didn't want her running amok on the TARDIS with half a dozen broken bones. She had bided her time producing an innumerable supply of baked goods for them.

"Maybe," said the Doctor, though she didn't sound convinced. Nor was Clara, since she couldn't think why Jenny would address her as 'my darling,' or write in French. She thought it more likely that the Doctor had baked it and suffered a bout of amnesia, making her forget what she'd done completely. "Or it could be for a student."

"There is a girl called Clara in Year 10," Sarah said.

"Oh, true," Clara nodded, "Would someone send her a cake with a French note?"

"She likes French?" Sarah offered.

"That's probably what it is, then," said Clara, returning to her seat at the table, "Occam's razor, and all that."

"What an exciting mystery we've solved," said the Doctor dryly.

"I wonder who sent it," Sarah mused, "Someone clever enough to quote Marie Antoinette."

"She never actually said, 'let them eat cake,'" said the Doctor, "It's a misattributed quote. Some would say mistranslated, too."

"What are you talking about? Of course she did. Marie Antoinette said, 'let them eat cake.' Everyone knows that," Sarah scoffed, "I think I know a bit more about France than you do."

"She wasn't even French, she was from Vienna," said the Doctor.

"Do you know, I heard a rumour that she was a lesbian," Clara interjected.

Sarah scoffed, "I doubt that. She had a husband and children."

"Scholars are divided," said the Doctor, "But you know, France was the first modern country to decriminalise homosexuality, in 1791. Do you think that should be included in my lesson plan?" She didn't wait for any answer from Clara. "Regardless, there were plenty of propaganda pieces accusing her of having illicit dalliances with the Princesse de Lamballe and the Duchesse de Polignac. They waved Lamballe's head around on a stick outside of Antoinette's window when she was locked up in the Conciergerie."

"Horrible people," said Sarah.

"She was totally gay," said Clara.

"It's fine to be wrong," said Sarah.

"You know, the historical erasure of LGBTQ people is a very real thing."

"Clara's right," said the Doctor, "It's a cultural trend."

"Well, it doesn't matter. It's not like you have a time machine and you can travel back and ask her if she fancied women."

"If only…" said Clara, smirking to herself a little.

"It's the anniversary of her death today," said the Doctor.

"Her heartless murder, you mean. Cut down in her prime," said Sarah. She seemed to be getting genuinely upset about this, or perhaps upset that the Doctor was proving she knew more about European colonial history than Sarah proclaimed to.

"Is it really?" asked Clara.

"October 16th, yeah," said the Doctor, "It was a Wednesday." Today was a Thursday.

"How do you know what day of the week it was?" Sarah questioned her.

"I've got a knack for that kind of trivia."

"If you have such a passion for France, why do you never help Matilda with her homework?" Sarah challenged. Clara was growing more and more convinced that she wasn't going to be able to get her outline done and was on the brink of giving up with it for the rest of the day.

"Oh, you mean like why don't I do your job for you?" Sarah did not have the upper hand in this exchange and clenched her jaw. "I try to help, but I can't just do it for her."

"I can't blame Mattie for not liking it," said Clara, "I always thought languages were boring as dirt."

"You are too English for your own good," the Doctor told her off for that attitude.

"Sorry."

"Besides, when Mattie still can't get a grip on French with my help and Stefani's help, maybe it's not the language that's the problem…" Steph had tried to help Matilda understand various foreign grammar rules many times that term, all to no avail. Jenny, too, had tried her hand, but her language assimilation meant she was at a loss to explain how tenses and conjugations worked; her brain just did those things automatically. It wasn't a subject Mattie was particularly receptive to, unlike science and maths in which she excelled. Not that she needed French to be a surgeon, as was her aim.

"Are you implying that I'm a bad teacher!?" Sarah exclaimed.

"No, of course she isn't," Clara said, even though that certainly was what the Doctor had been implying.

"All I'm saying is you hand out a lot of worksheets-"

"Sweetheart," Clara cut her off and gave her a warning look, but the damage was done. Sarah was well and truly pissed off, and collected her things – which were a stack of the aforementioned worksheets and a suspiciously thin GCSE French textbook – and carried them over to one of the sofas in the staff room, dumping them on a table and crossing her arms indignantly. As if to further ruin Sarah's day, Giovanna Rizzo, another Modern Foreign Languages teacher who was, by all accounts, a much better one than Sarah was, entered the room and began to grill Sarah about using up all of her printing credit to print more worksheets off. The Doctor bit her lip.

"I feel kinda bad now," she said to Clara very quietly. Clara shook her head.

"I'm sure she'll get over it. Are you really trying to refresh your memory about French history? It's just, everything you've said makes me think it's not actually lacking at all."

"I just don't wanna misremember something and teach the kids wrong. And I have always loved this period."

"…Sorry about this."

The Doctor was surprised, "What? What are you apologising for?"

"I don't know, dragging you here to this planet and making you do all this work," she lowered her voice considerably.

"You're very sweet, but I'm fine. It's education, it's fulfilling, and I get to spread revolutionary sentiments to developing youths. Not long now until they set up a guillotine in the grounds of Brighton Pavilion, Madame Oswald. Maybe you can finally abolish this country's tedious monarchy."

"Me personally?"

"Who else is gonna do it?"

"Well, the Americans have quite a good track record of abolishing control of the British monarchy, why don't you have a go? Or would that mean you have your knighthood from Queen Victoria revoked? Your marriage to Elizabeth I annulled?"

"I'm actually on good terms with Liz X."

"So the monarchy isn't going to be abolished?"

"I couldn't possibly say. But I will point out that the French tried quite a few times to get rid of their monarchy until they finally managed in 1870. But the message is clear: down with the aristocracy, abolish the class system."

"You know, I sometimes feel like in another life I was meant to be a French aristocrat," Clara mused, "Because of the debauchery. And the wine."

"If you were a French aristocrat I would never have married you."

Clara frowned, "Didn't you once have an affair with Madame de Pompadour?"

The Doctor was indignant about that being brought up, "I would not characterise it as an affair. And would you be quiet? You're going to get us caught." Clara didn't think anybody overhearing them would make the connection that they were time travellers, and the Doctor specifically was an alien who went around seducing human women left right and centre (much as she denied it.) Still, Clara took that as an opportunity to end the conversation as the Doctor returned to perusing her textbooks and Clara got back to her essay guide.

In the last half hour of the day, Sarah did not return to their table, merely occupied herself with her worksheets, while the Doctor made a list of very cryptic buzzwords about the French Revolution to help keep her on track during lessons. When the final bell rang at quarter past three, Clara was just finishing the last sentence of her revised guideline which she thought was much more concise, easier to remember, and was more adept at hitting all the criteria for the English language long-form exam.

"Here it is," she said as people began to gather up their things, "My magnum opus."

The Doctor, organising her books, papers and laptop, glanced at Clara's scribbles.

"I prefer your poetry."

"This is poetry, the examiners will be loving it." The Doctor smiled fondly at her.

"You're such a nerd."

"Oh, absolutely," said Clara.

"About what you said earlier," she began a minute later as Clara wedged Les Mis back into her ring-binder, "I don't think you're particularly debauched."

"Really?" asked Clara, almost like she was offended or upset at the idea. "I think I'd fit in quite well with all the libertine, French socialites. I've read Dangerous Liaisons."

"That explains so much about you…"

"How am I not debauched? You can't just say horrible things like, 'I don't think you're particularly debauched,' and then not back yourself up with hard facts and evidence," Clara argued with her.

"You aren't morally corrupt," she said, opening the staff room door so they could enter the bustling hallways full of children trying to escape, "You don't have a bad bone in your body."

"I would disagree," said Clara after they disengaged from the crowd to head towards the back exit of the school into the staff carpark rather than towards the front gates, "I'm morally corrupt on a vast scale. I mean, I smoke, I drink to excess, I've historically slept with whomever I like regardless of gender or whether they were arseholes or not, and now I'm married to a woman – which is truly an affront to god and antiquated ideas of the family."

"Hm, well, I suppose that's a good point, you do do all of those things. But I still don't think you're debauched."

"I'll prove to you how debauched I am…" Clara grumbled as they approached the van.

"I love you, too. Are we waiting for Mattie?"

"No, she's got her bike. She hasn't texted me to say she needs a lift, so I assume she's fine to see us at home."

The mood changed once they were in the van, however. Clara didn't immediately pick up on this, and certainly not the reason for it, but the Doctor grew very agitated very quickly and ended up tapping her foot, deep in thought about something. It took Clara a while to notice because she was trying to focus on actually driving them around, something the Doctor seemed to forget took concentration. But notice she did.

"What's up?" Clara asked.

"Nothing."

"Sweetheart?"

"It's nothing." Clara didn't press her again, only waited patiently. "I just… I miss when I could tell you about a historical period, my favourite historical period, and we could just go, then and there, on a whim."

"Oh."

"I want to go."

"Where?" Clara was alarmed.

"I don't know – Paris, I guess."

"You want to move to Paris?"

"What? No! Not move. Just go. Visit."

"Oh, right. I said I fancied going to Paris the other month and you told me off, you said we'd been too many times and we should go somewhere else, so I suggested Edinburgh, and I sort of thought we were going to do that at some point?" Clara reminded her. The Doctor didn't answer, and Clara surprised her by laughing. "I'm perfectly willing to go to Paris with you whenever you like, darling. We have the wonderful privilege of not needing to take time off or save up money to go on trips, and even though we don't live on the TARDIS at the moment, I'd never begrudge you the opportunity to take advantage of it."

"You're serious?"

"If you want to go and 'refresh your memory', then by all means. Maybe it will help Matilda to get more interested in French, too. If we take her, we're not going to any dangerous periods, though. By which I do mean, unfortunately, your beloved revolution."

"Well, I guess we could just… go to the Louvre, or whatever. You're joking though, right?"

"No. You know," Clara began, but couldn't finish her sentence because she got stuck at a tricky junction and had to focus as she drove them back through suburbia. It took her a minute or two to get back on track.

"What were you saying?"

"Hm? Oh, I was going to say, it worries me that you don't always like to talk about this right away."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, don't try to bury things. I know that this is a difficult compromise for you, and you think I don't miss being able to just go anywhere, anywhen, on even more of a whim than we can now? Because I do, and I understand it."

She sighed, "I know. I just don't want to drag us away somewhere and disrupt your rhythm."

"Our entire marriage has been you disrupting my rhythm, whatever that means," she joked, "We can still go to Scotland soon though, right?"

"We could take-off and go today. Do a tour of European capital cities for weeks on end."

"Mm, that's a bit too far," said Clara, which the Doctor knew.

"Of course we can. But, really, you'll go to Paris with me right now?"

"Well, not right now, we're in the car. And I'll need to have a wee."

"Ever the charmer."

"Anyway, technically it's an educational trip if you're teaching it next term."

"Thank you, for the validation."

Clara turned left to steer the van into the drive. Hacking up the mutant tree that had grown there had been quite the task, especially when the roots reached deep into the underground, but they'd eventually been able to rip enough of it up that they could haphazardly fill the hole and fix the driveway. It had been quite the operation repairing Brighton's roads and infrastructure after that fiasco; the tube still hadn't reopened, and there was some talk that it was used so infrequently at large that repairing it would be an even bigger drain on the city than building it had been in the first place.

The Doctor could hardly contain her excitement, bouncing on her feet while Clara unlocked the door. Inside, Jenny was baking again; she had two trays of cupcakes laid out on their kitchen table at the back of the house and was carefully piping them with pink icing so that they looked like roses.

"Can we eat these?" the Doctor asked upon entering the room. There were two-dozen of the things, and Jenny was halfway through piping them.

"The ones I've finished you can," she said. The Doctor picked two of them up, handing one to Clara when she came into the kitchen after dumping her things.

Having Jenny stay with them had been both good and bad. The bad was that it meant they had to put up with Ravenwood sneaking in during the night and had to foot the bill for the obscene amount of food Jenny consumed with her alien metabolism; the good was that she was so bored staying on Earth with no job or hobbies to occupy her that she had spent her time cooking all their meals, and she was an excellent chef. There was also the fact that the Doctor enjoyed having her daughter to stay. The cupcakes were delicious, as always.

"Had a good day, then?" Jenny asked.

"Your mother has been pissing off our colleagues," said Clara.

Jenny laughed, "How'd you do that?"

"I just suggested that maybe endless worksheets aren't the best way to get people passionate about French," said the Doctor.

"Why can't Mattie just switch to do a different subject if she hates French?"

"You need to do a language," said Clara, "It's compulsory."

"English is a language. A terrible one, I prefer German, but still."

"A foreign language," Clara reiterated, "Trust me, trying to teach them English is bad enough. I spent a whole lesson on tense agreement last year, and they still can't do it properly."

"Give her a universal translator," Jenny shrugged.

"No, she's too young," said Clara.

"She's fifty, and it's no different to getting your ears pierced," Jenny said, "They just embed in the neck."

"It's good if she learns," said the Doctor, "I had to learn. It teaches you to think in a certain way."

"Anyway, don't tell her I said this, but it's not really important whether she gets a good grade in it. I did awfully in GCSE French and I'm fine – career-wise."

"Don't you need really good grades in everything to do medicine?" Jenny asked.

"She wouldn't be able to get good grades if she had a translator, you know," said the Doctor, "Because everything would just be in English. She wouldn't pass the written assessments or the speaking one."

"I suppose…" said Jenny, who hadn't thought about that.

"But we already thought of a solution to this!" the Doctor changed her tone completely, "Clara says we can go to Paris."

"Don't say it like I'm controlling you," said Clara.

"Paris? Can I come, or is it like, a gross, romantic trip?"

"Absolutely you can come! A family outing. But without Rose, we won't tell Rose. She doesn't appreciate the Louvre."

"Do I have time to finish piping these?"

"I need the loo first, so," Clara said, "And Mattie's not even-" As she said they, they heard the latch on the front door go and the sound of Matilda returning, dragging her bike noisily into the hallway. When they heard her take to the stairs, Clara intervened. "Can you come into the kitchen, Matts?" she called. They heard her descend and then come trudging in.

"What do you want?" she asked. Typical teenager.

"Talk to you," said Clara.

"Do you want a cupcake?" Jenny offered, "There's loads."

"You alright?" asked Clara when Mattie went to take a cupcake. She seemed more sullen than normal.

"I had PE this afternoon."

"That's fun though, right?" said Jenny. Mattie looked at her like she was crazy (as did Clara, for that matter.)

"It's the opposite of fun," said Mattie, "We had to play field hockey, and someone hit me in the shin and now it's bruised."

"Who hit you?"

"I don't know. I don't think it was on purpose. And Steph wasn't there because she convinced Hannah to skive the whole lesson with her."

"Surprised that Magda let that happen," said the Doctor.

"She's not teaching today, remember?" said Clara, "There was a netball tournament, or something."

"We had a supply," said Mattie, "One who didn't know what Steph's like."

"Are she and Hannah back together?" Clara asked.

"No idea. I can't keep up."

"She shouldn't be skiving lessons with Steph if she's serious about this head girl campaign," said Clara. Not that it was much of a campaign at all, or that the head boy or head girl had any pull, or that any of the student body cared about the sorry excuse for an election. It was just something that looked good on UCAS applications, and a way to encourage engagement with democracy. That was what Lorna said, at least.

"I know what'll cheer you up," said the Doctor.

"More than cupcakes?"

"We're going to go to Paris."

"Paris?" she asked sceptically.

"We'll take the TARDIS, it'll translate, don't worry."

"Oh. You mean, like, today? Now?"

"Before Clara changes her mind. We can go to the Louvre, we can go to Notre Dame, we can-"

"What about the catacombs? They have catacombs in Paris." Now she was interested.

"Erm, of course we can go to the catacombs," said Jenny like this was a given.

"Are you coming?"

"I have been invited, yes," said Jenny, "So you won't be stuck with these two trying to have horrible, candlelit dinners in obscure Parisian bistros." Mattie nodded, then frowned, still holding a half-eaten cupcake.

"You know I don't have a passport."

"I don't think any of us have passports, sweetheart," said Clara, "You forget that these two are both weird aliens who don't legally exist." Being born in 2014, Matilda also didn't legally exist, nor Clara – every single document and record pertaining to them was fake. The pitfalls of eternal youth.

"We've got psychic paper, it's fine," Jenny shrugged, "And if you do get detained, we'll break you out."

"Thanks," said Mattie, unconvinced.

"You won't get detained," Clara told her firmly.

"Can I like, get changed? Have something to eat?"

"What do you want to eat?" Jenny asked her.

"I'll just make some Nutella sandwiches."

"Gross…" said Clara.

"I'll do it," said Jenny, "You go get changed."

"Will you make me anything to eat?" Clara asked once Mattie had left to go change into something more comfortable than school uniform.

"Have the last of that strawberry yoghurt, it goes off today," said the Doctor.

"You are a genius," said Clara, going towards the fridge. "I thought you were saving the yoghurt?" It was a pint-sized tub the Doctor had already eaten half of.

"I was, but I'll just eat all these cakes."

"If you're sure," she said, taking the pot out of the fridge.

"Don't eat it with your fingers, though," said the Doctor.

"…I wasn't going to," Clara lied. Jenny, closest to the cutlery drawer, passed her a dessert spoon to eat the remains of the yoghurt with.

"We should dine and dash at a fancy restaurant," said the Doctor.

"We can't do that with Mattie there, can't make her complicit in criminal activity. When she's older, she can decide for herself if she wants to commit crimes."

"Who cares if things are illegal or not?" said Jenny, busying herself with the Nutella.

"Obviously not you," said Clara with a mouth full of strawberry yoghurt, "Don't you be a bad influence on her."

"Me? I would never!" Jenny protested.

"Didn't you once teach her how to play poker?" the Doctor questioned. Jenny didn't say anything, returning to the Nutella without even bothering to defend herself. She made two sandwiches in the end, if they could really be called as much with only one ingredient, slathered with a generous amount of chocolate spread. Perhaps to avoid further questioning, one she was done with that she announced that she was also going to get changed before they left, disappearing upstairs. "Wow. We're alone."

"D'you wanna go for a quickie?" Clara asked with yoghurt in her mouth.

"Why? Because you're being so alluring right now?"

"I can be alluring."

"Not when you're eating yoghurt, you can't. And where?"

Clara glanced around, "Laundry room?"

"Do you think we're pretentious for having a laundry room?"

"It's just… an alcove with the washing machine in it," said Clara.

"Yeah, but – are we middle class?"

"Um… probably."

"Eurgh. We should move to a smaller house. There's a house in the cemetery for sale, you know," the Doctor told her.

"Yeah, I'm definitely not going to live in a cemetery," said Clara, "We've already got the one ghost upstairs, we don't need to attract more of them."

"Why not? We could have a dinner party."

"With ghosts? They don't eat anything."

"Exactly! Less cooking."

"You say you want a smaller house, but insist on having that transdimensional library upstairs," Clara pointed out.

"Well, that's – I'm talking about appearances."

"What do you want us to do? Live in a transdimensional shed? You've been living in a transdimensional shed for a thousand years."

"See, this is exactly why she's never warmed to you – calling her a shed," she tutted, "It's a good thing she likes Jenny."

"…Have you met this supply teacher?" Clara asked after thinking and chewing on her yoghurt.

"Which one?"

"Whoever's covering Magda."

"Nope."

"Must be a bit dense to let Steph and Hannah run off together like that," said Clara.

"Maybe they just didn't care," the Doctor shrugged, "Plus, it's physical education. I'm sure whatever they were doing in the changing room toilets for an hour was energetic, to say the least."

"Well, I… I suppose that's a good point," said Clara, "Probably more fun than getting smacked by aggressive teenage girls with wooden sticks."

"Are you speaking from experience? Were you attacked in high school PE lessons?"

"I'm very non-confrontational and apparently get on a lot of people's nerves, so yes, I may have found myself on the receiving end of more than a few hockey sticks. Frankly, not a lot has changed in my adult life. I'd much rather drag you into a toilet than do sports."

"Or into the laundry room, apparently."

"I don't know what your issue is with our laundry room. It's a good call."

"Why? We have a bedroom."

"Bedroom doesn't have a tumble dryer in it."

The Doctor paused to think about this for a few seconds before realising what Clara was implying, and then she was aghast, "You are so abominable. I'm going to have to go into a different room at this rate." Clara only laughed as the Doctor huffily picked up another of Jenny's cupcakes to eat. "Go have words with Magda's supply if you're that fussed."

"I just think Hannah shouldn't skive lessons if she wants to be head girl."

"And why do you care if Hannah Beckett is head girl?"

"Because she's in our form. It'll reflect well on us."

The Doctor shook her head, "The kids don't care about who the head girl and head boy are." As she said this Mattie, freed from her school uniform and in normal clothes, came bounding down the stairs and back into the kitchen in search of her Nutella sandwiches. "Who're you voting for as head girl?"

"What d'you mean?" she asked, picking up the plate and taking a bite out of the bread. Clara had almost finished her yoghurt.

"…Who are you going to vote for?" the Doctor repeated. Mattie just shrugged. "You see, Coo? I told you, they don't care. Hannah doesn't even care, she just wants it for UCAS."

"Why's it 'head girl' and 'head boy', anyway?" Mattie asked, "Isn't that a bit outdated?"

"It's not, really," said Clara, "They just pick the two people who get the most votes."

"You can tell you're from the past," said Matilda, eating. "I guess I'll vote for Hannah because she still hates me. But what's the point of it? Do they have any power? Can they make it so we get chips every day for lunch?"

"No," said Clara.

"So they can't do anything?"

"They can't change the dinner menu."

"But what can they do?"

"They…" Clara began, "Well, they… they… do little speeches on open evenings."

Mattie stared at her for a few seconds, "So it is pointless?" Jenny returned now, dressed in the clothes she'd brought and dumped throughout their very small spare room. The room really was designed for guests, but somehow people kept staying over – the Doctor had even called it 'Rose's room' a few weeks ago.

"I was actually head girl at my school, you know," Clara continued to argue with Matilda about whether there was any merit to the position.

"Why's that?" asked Jenny, copying her mother and picking up another cake, "Did you give everyone head?" The Doctor almost choked on her food.

"No," Clara said, annoyed.

"Are you sure? You forget, I am married to you, I've heard stories about your wild school days."

"Please, don't remind us of your marriage in that context." Jenny just shrugged.

"It was probably because she's a nerd," said the Doctor, "The head girl thing, I mean."

"Thanks. I love being personally attacked by the many wives I've apparently collected," she said bitterly. "Are we going to Paris, or are the three of you just going to make fun of me all day?"

"We can make fun of you in Paris, don't worry," said the Doctor. Clara grimaced.

"I don't get it, what were Clara's wild school days? What did you do?" Mattie asked her directly.

"I keep telling you, sweetheart, I was a lot like Steph."

"Oh. And they let you be head girl?"

"I care a lot about academia," she admitted, "I always did."

"She's a nerd," the Doctor reiterated. Clara turned a scowl on her. "Which I love about you, obviously – one of my favourite things is how much you care about books and school and grades." Clara remained unconvinced.

"Look, whatever; I've finished my yoghurt, so what's our plan?"

"Got a teleporter with me," Jenny said through a mouthful of cake. "We'll just use that. Don't want to call anybody."

"Why not? Ravenwood can fly the TARDIS," said the Doctor, prying into Jenny's personal life.

"She's in London, with Sally. Because Sally's lonely and she doesn't want to hang around with your sister," she added to Clara. "Besides, Adam and Oswin are away on Venus today. Which is lucky, because it means she can't moan at me about letting my punctured lung heal."

"…If you're not all healed yet-" the Doctor began.

"Oh my god, I'm fine," Jenny argued, "It's just a lung. I've got two of them. And you said we're just gonna be walking around the Louvre."

"Yeah," said Mattie, "It's just going to Paris for a few hours. How much could really go wrong?"