AN: Finally I am back. I haven't actually gone anywhere, but I almost finished my original drafts of this storyline before realising that they just weren't working at all, so had to rewrite the entire thing – but at least now it coincides with real-life Christmas. Instead of an over-arching storyline this time, this is just a small collection of short stories about them going through the holiday season on Earth. And "Goodbye" being in the storyline name is just because it's the end of the year, it's not the end of this fic or anything, and the next 3 storylines after this one will actually feature time travel and aliens. Also, there should be stuff coming to "Scattered Thoughts" soon provided I can finish the chapters!

Goodbye, 2064

1

Friday, 19th of December

A disgusting, undead monster lurched towards Matilda. With grey skin, yellow eyes, hands and mouth caked in blood, she had only a few seconds before the zombie would grab her and rip her to pieces with its teeth. But of course, it didn't get that far; she shot it square in the head, chunks of brain matter and mist blasted across the far wall. The zombie gargled when it collapsed to the floor. Only pausing to reload, Mattie stepped over the zombie – still twitching though its head had been pulverised – and pushed through a rusty door.

It opened onto an empty, industrial room. Moonlight shone through broken windows high up; she wondered what the warehouse had once been used for. She didn't have time to ponder this because a strangled roar pierced the air. A giant fist the size of her head punched its way through the iron floor, splintering the metal. The creature, still shrieking, tore into the room, clambering up like was rising from a grave, covered in glowing, yellow pustules she knew she had to shoot.

She took a deep breath and aimed her gun, then fired as many rounds as she possibly good into the throbbing, yellow mass above its shoulder. But she only hit it once until the clip ran out, and then she was done for. She needed every bullet to destroy the weak point, at which point it would be staggered and she'd have time to reload before going for the next weak point. Now though, she didn't have a chance. And predictably enough, the giant zombie was able to grab her and smash her head to pieces on the floor.

Enraged, she took off the old, battered VR headset and let it drop down against the large arcade machine, pulling off the gloves (which she did not think had ever been cleaned) and dropping the plastic gun on the floor. The headset and the gun were both attached to the machine by cables, despite not having a wired connection at all, to stop thieves.

"You got pretty far that time," said Aki, standing near the play-space – which was just a big circle cordoned off from the rest of the room by cheap, metal rails – drinking a slushie.

"I didn't, I got to the same point I always get to," she complained, picking her own slushie up from the floor. She was done with that arcade, and with The House of the Dead: 2060, after trying to finish it at least a dozen times in the last few weeks. She took her slushie to harangue Zack Walker, who – despite only being two years above Mattie and Aki in school and barely eighteen – was the assistant manager of the arcade. "I died again," she said, annoyed.

"Well, keep playing and you'll get better," he said smarmily. She scoffed.

"That's bullshit. This whole place is a rip-off, there's no way the hit detection is functioning properly. Why do I land my shots basically every time except on the final boss?" she questioned.

"Listen, I've beaten that game a hundred times, I don't know why you're struggling so much. You just point and shoot."

"No way. You're just… spewing out a party line."

"A party line?"

"The line of this arcade. You've hacked the game, or artificially boosted the difficulty in the final encounter, so people will keep paying for your stupid tokens," she snapped.

"If you've got a problem with House of the Dead, why not write an email to Sega? I'm sure they'll love to listen to your concerns. Maybe they'll do a recall of all the machines and make the software easier just for you," he mocked her.

"You're a bastard," she snapped, "How can you stand there behind that desk and just rip everybody off who comes in? You've got no morals."

"It's nothing personal, Mattie," he shrugged, "They pay me. I'm the assistant manager, that's higher than minimum wage. How much do you earn at your part-time job?" She grimaced. "Oh, yeah – you don't have a job, do you?"

"Shut up, you don't even know me," she shook her head, though he was right, she did not have a job, "And I wouldn't want a job if it involves lying to people and mugging them off."

"Why do you keep coming back and playing the game, then?" he countered, "If you hate it so much, just leave – then I won't have to deal with you."

"Aren't you supposed to be nicer to customers?"

"It's Alisha's night off, so I'm in charge."

"I should report you."

"Be my guest. But they won't fire me, they're not exactly overflowing with job applications for this dump," he said. She hated how little he actually cared and how cool he thought he was, it was unbearable. All the while, Akiko didn't say a word, just lingered behind Mattie with her slushie, checking her phone every now and then.

"Well, fuck you, then."

"I'll tell Dr Oswald you said that, she teaches my A-Level History."

"What? You'll remember to tell her in two weeks when the Christmas holidays are over?"

"I never forget when someone's rude to me at work," he said, but he was still grinning. Mattie was seething.

"You tell her what you want, she'll agree with me," said Mattie. She might get told off for swearing, but she would not get in trouble for calling out the arcade's shady business practices.

"We'll see, won't we?" he said. He still didn't care.

"Urgh!" she exclaimed, and then she gave up and left.

"I'll see you next week when you come back to play the game again!" he called after her as she skulked, slushie in hand, out of the dimly-lit arcade – which was drowning in neon lights and incredibly obnoxious fluorescents – and back onto the streets. It was almost five o'clock on December 19th, the last day of term, and she'd wasted over an hour of her precious holiday time trying to beat the final boss of House: 60 already.

"He's got a point," said Aki, "Why keep playing it when you're getting ripped off?"

"It's a matter of principle," said Mattie, "How will I be able to sleep at night if I never kill that zombie?"

"Just close your eyes."

"Very funny."

"Why even go to the arcade? It smells in there. Arcades are a lot better in Japan. Cleaner, and with good games."

"I'll go to Japan then?" Mattie asked sarcastically, "So I can play the exact same game in Japanese, which I don't speak?"

"Just play games at home. Don't you have a computer?"

"Yeah, but the VR architecture sucks. It's outdated." It was a decent computer, but not for video games – but she did wonder what kind of gaming hardware the Doctor had stashed in the library. She would have to ask about it when she got home that night.

Approaching a bin, she finished off the rest of her slushie and tossed the cup into the recycling. Inside the sweaty and dingy arcade, the slushie – from a cheap machine that hardly worked – was a godsend, but back out on the winter streets, it was not the most pleasant drink. Already she wanted something warm, but she was running low on money and she had things she needed to buy yet before the shops closed that night.

"Did you say there's a chocolatier around here?" she asked Aki, "I need to buy Christmas presents."

"Who for?"

"For the Oswalds. And for my godmother."

"I didn't think people actually spent time with their godparents until you started at school, you know," said Aki.

"I've seen her at least twice a week for my entire life," said Mattie, "I'm only getting chocolate, anyway. They're all hard to buy for, but everybody likes chocolate. Unless you have a better idea?"

"No," she laughed a little, "We don't even give gifts at my house."

"Why?"

"My dad's a Buddhist. He makes fried chicken from scratch on Christmas Day, that's the Japanese Christmas tradition."

"Why is that?"

"Something to do with KFC and Santa," she shrugged, "I don't know, it's ancient."

"I think we're just having turkey. The Doctor's been boasting about how good her turkey is."

"Is it just the three of you?" asked Aki as they walked. It was dark out already.

"I don't know," said Mattie a little quietly. She wasn't excited for Christmas. In fact, if the Doctor would let her use the TARDIS to travel to January and skip the festivities completely, she thought she would much rather do that. "I hope it's not a lot, but people just show up without warning. And I think Clara's sister usually comes to stay."

"I didn't know she has a sister."

"They're twins. Identical twins."

"Are they really creepy? Like the twins in The Shining?"

"I've never spent much time with Oswin, so I don't know. But they don't dress the same or anything, and it's easy to tell them apart – Oswin only has one leg; she's usually in a wheelchair," Mattie explained, "And no, I don't know what happened. Oswin's kind of weird enough on her own, even without any freaky twin stuff. And Clara's weird in a different way."

"Is she? She just seems normal," Aki shrugged. Though Aki was in Mattie's class for English – Tom Miller was their teacher – the previous year, she'd been taught by Clara.

"Nah, she's really into mayonnaise."

"Mayonnaise?"

"Yeah. She eats it out of the jar with a spoon."

"I've seen you do that, though, with Nutella."

Mattie scoffed, "That's completely different. Nutella is good, mayonnaise isn't."

"I think both are weird. You're just eating sugar paste, it's not healthy."

"The rest of the world is just afraid to admit that everything tastes better if you put Nutella on it," she continued to argue.

"What if you put it on mayonnaise?" Aki countered.

"I don't hate mayonnaise."

"You just said-"

"I said it's gross to eat it, it's fine if it's already on a sandwich. Are you seriously defending eating mayonnaise with a spoon? She sometimes hides it in yoghurt pots. If you've ever seen her eat a yoghurt, chances are the Doctor ate the yoghurt earlier, and Clara filled the pot with mayo."

"Why are you even getting her chocolate for Christmas? Why not just get her loads of mayo?"

"I don't want to encourage her," said Mattie.

"You could learn how to make truffles, then fill them with mayo. In Japan, we have sweets called daifuku, it's a rice cake with bean paste inside. You could fill one of those with mayonnaise, probably. It'd be disgusting, though."

"I don't know how to cook authentic Japanese pudding, unfortunately," said Mattie sarcastically.

"I should get my dad to make some…" said Aki, thinking, "I miss them. But not with mayo, obviously, with the azuki beans."

"Why do you only sell ramen when your dad is such a good cook?"

"…What's your problem with ramen?" she asked.

"I don't have a problem with it. Just, don't you get bored?"

"Bored with fresh ramen? Of course not. My great-grandfather owned one of the most popular ramen shops in Kobe - until a new one opened up on the same street and stole all of his business. But there are way fewer noodle bars in Brighton than there are in Kobe. Besides, he does cook lots of stuff, he just doesn't sell it all in the shop – we're having sushi when I get home tonight. Jellyfish sashimi."

"Jellyfish?" asked Mattie.

"Yeah."

"And that's nice?"

Aki shrugged, "It doesn't actually taste of too much. I'd rather have salmon, but dad said there was a good deal on fresh jellyfish with his wholesaler this week." Mattie was baffled; she'd never eaten jellyfish in her life.

They came upon the chocolatier Aki had recommended down near the seafront, just a few streets away from the Inoue Noodle Bar. It was closing soon but was warm enough when they went in – though, not so warm the chocolate melted, of course. Then she had the difficult choice of deciding exactly which assortment of bespoke truffles she wanted to get for each of her guardians. Luckily, she didn't have that much money, which reduced the number of choices she had to make.

"Did you get cards?" asked Aki.

"Yeah, the other day. Cards are easier than presents."

"I don't know about that; I never know what to write." Truth be told, Mattie didn't know what to write either – which was why she had not yet written her cards, despite buying them already.

"You can add cards to these gift boxes, if you like?" the chocolatier carefully arranging truffles in individual boxes suggested.

"No, thanks, I'm alright," said Mattie, taking her backpack off so she could put the boxes in there. Hopefully, they didn't get squashed on her walk back home – or worse, melt.

While she was paying Aki's phone began to ring. It was her dad, and Aki ducked out of the shop to answer. When Mattie rejoined her she was still talking to him, but since Mattie barely knew two words of Japanese she had no idea what was being said. She was left awkwardly waiting by the roadside and checked her phone, but all her texts were updates from Stefani about what fun she was having in duty-free waiting for her plane to leave (the Kaczmarek twins were spending the holidays in Poland, as they did every year, though Chanukah had ended a week ago).

"Do you have to help at the shop?" Mattie asked when she hung up.

"No, he just says dinner's ready, wants me to come home now. But he said you can come for dinner if you want? If you don't mind jellyfish."

"Sure," she agreed, "But I'd better tell Clara. She'll only mind if I don't tell her."

"Alright, cool."

Mattie called Clara's mobile as they began to walk towards the ramen shop, and Clara answered quickly enough.

"Hi."

"Hey, what's up?" said Clara.

"I'm just going to Aki's for dinner now, is that alright?"

"Of course, it's fine. We were just about to order takeaway, so it's lucky you called before we ordered for you."

"You would've ordered for me? How do you know what I want?" she questioned.

"Because you get the same thing every time we get takeaway."

"Well, maybe I would've got something different," she argued.

"Okay, I'm sorry. Next time I'll ask you whether you want cheesy garlic bread, potato wedges, and Pepsi Max." Mattie scowled, annoyed because that was what she always got. "Do you want anything anyway? We can put it in the fridge for you, warm it up tomorrow."

"I don't know, um… what about ice cream? Then I can have it whenever."

"Sure, we'll get you some ice cream. Do you want me to pick you up? If you're gonna be out late, I'd rather you didn't walk." Mattie did not immediately respond, thinking. "I really don't mind; it barely takes ten minutes to drive to the noodle bar."

"Um… alright, fine. But I'll text you."

"Has to be before ten."

"Yeah, I know."

"Otherwise I'll just drive out."

"It'll be before ten. I'll see you in a bit." Mattie heard a voice in the background – it was the Doctor, but she couldn't quite hear what was said.

"She wants to know what you're having for dinner," said Clara.

"Jellyfish sushi."

"Jellyfish sushi," Clara repeated, "Can you eat jellyfish?"

"Ooh, get me some jellyfish sushi! That sounds great!" said the Doctor loudly.

"I'll see," said Mattie, dying to get off the phone, "I have to go now."

"Alright, I'll see you in a few hours. Bye!" said Clara brightly.

"Yeah, bye…" she grumbled, hanging up. Aki laughed. "What's so funny?"

"Just the way you act like they embarrass you when they're so nice."

"I know they're nice, but they're still…" she could think of the word, "Just urgh. You know?"

"Not really."

"She's always asking me if I'm okay."

"What's wrong with that?"

"I never am. But I don't want to talk about it, so then when she asks, it's like… like I have to lie."

"…Can't you talk to her?" Aki suggested.

"I do, when I want to, not when she does." Mattie still didn't think she was doing a very good job of explaining her relationship with Clara. But Aki had succeeded in making her feel a little guilty for her frustration about Clara constantly checking in.

They had to go through the back entrance of the noodle shop so they didn't disturb the customers, of which there was a handful. Hideo, Aki's dad, was hard at work cooking when they entered.

"Konnichiwa," said Aki, bowing. Mattie smiled and bowed as well, though she never had any idea exactly how much you were meant to bow or for how long. Still, it was the thought that counts. Hideo always found it amusing when she met him.

"Hello, Matilda," he said (he never called her Mattie, for some reason), "How was school?"

"Oh, fine."

"She lost in the arcade again," said Aki.

"It's rigged!" she protested. Hideo chuckled then pointed out to Aki that the sushi was prepared and in the fridge already.

Aki retrieved the food and Mattie headed upstairs to the flat above the shop where they lived and was immediately accosted by Ryusei, Aki's little brother who was always overjoyed to see her. She quickly got him up to speed on her progress in Dead: 60 and how the machine was had definitely been hacked so everybody lost before Aki came to ferry him out of the room. He wasn't too happy about that but left to go play his own video games in his bedroom on the second floor (the flat itself was a duplex). Mattie and Aki had the living room to eat their dinner, at a traditional, low table, so they sat on the floor.

"Why do you always kick Ryusei out?" Mattie asked.

"If I don't do that then he's just there. All the time."

"Okay, so I'm not allowed to complain about Clara being 'there' 'all the time'," Mattie repeated, "But you can complain about him? At least he's your relative."

"I can complain because he's my relative."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"You just don't get it because you don't have any siblings," she said, picking up the TV remote. She completely ignored any actual television broadcasts, however, instead going onto the internet to find Spark Watch, the web news show that tracked what the Lightning Girl was doing. Spark Watch was usually dull because the Lightning Girl had been and gone by the time they got to a story, but that day they happened to strike gold. The internet pundits were rebroadcasting a video of the Lightning Girl briefly being interviewed by a mainstream journalist earlier that day, where she was lurking in rural Oklahoma to provide electricity to a small township that had been decimated by a tornado the previous night, knocking out the infrastructure.

"She never says anything interesting," said Mattie, who knew Esther enjoyed being enigmatic and so rarely said anything of substance.

"And what's so special about this town, in particular, that you've been out here all day?" asked the reporter.

"I'm only here until federal or local support can put the power back in place," said Esther through her glowing mask, "Dealing with a tornado is bad enough, but the nearest hospital has been disconnected from the national grid – people will die here without electricity."

"This is a town with a population of under a hundred, though."

"Nobody's life is expendable," said Esther, "But I need to recharge right now, so I'd better dash." And dash she did, disappearing in a crackling flash of electricity so powerful the camera feed was distorted. In the Spark Watch studio, it seemed a lot of attention was being paid to whether rescuing people in Small Town USA was a good use of the Lightning Girl's time.

"Urgh, what's wrong with these people?" said Mattie, "What do they want her to do, quantify the value of a human life?"

"Probably," said Aki, "But you know, there's stuff going on in other places. There are riots in Paris, I think."

"She shoots electricity, how is she going to help in a riot? Tase people?" asked Mattie sarcastically. "Besides, they're always rioting in Paris."

"I don't know why you don't like her."

"Obviously I like her, she's doing her best, but she's only one person. She can't be all things to all men. And she needs to eat and sleep."

"No, she's powered by the electricity, she never sleeps."

"Believe me, she definitely sleeps – I'd bet money on it," said Mattie entirely corruptly, being as she knew that Esther did, in fact, sleep.

"Do you think she's really American, or is it a fake accent?"

"I bet she's super American. I bet she's from Washington D.C. or something."

"Is anyone from Washington D.C.?"

"What do you think it is, just the White House in the middle of a field?" asked Mattie, "Of course people are from there."

"I'm telling you, it's a fake accent. She spends too much time in England to be American. If she was American, she'd never leave."

"Maybe she lives in England. Closer to CyTech."

"You don't really think she's a robot built by CyTech, do you?"

"She's probably Adam Mitchell's secret wife. Have you heard the rumours about his secret wife?"

"He wears a wedding ring, it's not much of a secret. And isn't he gay?"

"He's secretly married to the Lightning Girl," Mattie continued to lie without remorse.

"Are you going to try that sushi?"

"I'm working up the courage," she said defensively, "It's jellyfish." Aki had already gotten through a fair few sushi rolls, while Mattie had so far left her dinner untouched. "If she wasn't a real American, why would she pop up and tell people to 'vote blue' every time there's an election?"

"To throw people off," said Aki.

"I'm just saying. She's never been to Japan and endorsed a Japanese election."

"You always talk like you know stuff nobody else does about her," Aki argued, clearly getting annoyed. Mattie just shrugged. Aki glared at her.

"Fine, I'll eat the sushi," said Mattie, delicately picking up a roll with her chopsticks. She dropped it the first time because she was not very proficient with chopsticks, but the second time she bit the bullet and ate it in one go. As Aki had said earlier, it didn't actually have too much of a taste to it, it was just cold and a little chewy. "…I think salmon sashimi is a lot better, still."

"That's the most boring opinion."

"What's your favourite, then?"

"Hm…" Aki paused to think, "Negitoro."

"What's that?"

"Tuna and scallions."

"I don't really like tuna in anything."

"To say Britain is an island as well, there's terrible seafood here."

"I think the international community, in general, doesn't like the food here," said Mattie, who wasn't particularly into seafood regardless of which country it came from. "Clara loves it though, now that you mention it."

"What? Fish and chips?"

"Yeah, but anything from the sea. Her favourite food is actually calamari, which I hate, because the texture is just… urgh," she shivered just thinking about the texture of calamari. "Obviously with lots of mayonnaise."

"Why are you so interested in what food Mrs Oswald eats?"

"Because it's gross, and I have to eat with her, that's why," said Mattie, "You'd see if you ever came for dinner." She ate another roll; the jellyfish was growing on her a little.

"It's always weird when I come over. They're my teachers."

"And yet you've been judging me for not wanting to hang out with them constantly!" Mattie said.

"You're so argumentative today," Aki shook her head, "You know I'm not Zack Walker. You don't have to yell at me." Mattie scowled.

"I wasn't yelling."

"You're just in a bad mood because the Kaczmareks are away."

"Why do I care if Steph's away? She still texts me incessantly no matter what."

"I'm not talking about Steph."

"I don't hang out with Jake, and I barely even speak to him," Mattie shook her head, though she did check her phone when Aki reminded her of this. Predictably, she had more texts from Steph about the airport. "He's in another fight with Sam again, I think. Something to do with 'creative differences' in their band."

"Is that band actually any good?"

"No idea. I've never listened to them. Hey," Mattie remembered something she had wanted to ask, just as her phone buzzed with a message from Clara that her ice cream had arrived. She was momentarily distracted sending a thumbs-up emoji in response.

"What?" asked Aki.

"Hm?"

"You said 'hey', then nothing."

"…Oh. Do you have to sit a mock exam for Japanese after Christmas?"

"Do I… excuse me? What do you mean?"

"Just, aren't you in to do a Japanese qualification? Like the Kaczmareks are in to do Polish, just for a free GCSE. I think Steph is doing Russian as well, actually – though, I don't know if they do a Hebrew GCSE."

"I'm not doing Japanese."

"What? Why not? It's your first language, you could just get an extra qualification for basically no work. It beats French."

"I didn't even know you could do that, is that allowed? Who's letting them study Polish?" Aki was bowled over by this news, "Isn't that unfair to everybody else?"

"Clara got them both put in for it. They're in her form."

"Miss Pickman's never talked to me about Japanese."

"That's stupid, you should be in to do it," said Mattie, "It'll look good for the school too, I bet."

"Just leave it, it doesn't matter."

"She's such a bad teacher," Mattie complained, "Do you want me to ask Clara about it?"

"No!" said Aki quickly, "I'll get in trouble with Miss Pickman."

"I don't think you will. Sarah's a pushover, she's just power-tripping most of the time. Seriously, she was invited for dinner the other week, and she just moaned the whole time."

"Reminds me of someone…"

"Hey!" Mattie protested.

"Just leave it, okay? I don't want to make any trouble."

Mattie sighed, "Fine. Whatever you want." But she had made up her mind that she would, at the very least, see what Clara thought about the whole thing. On TV, they were still debating what the Lightning Girl's business in Oklahoma was. "Can we watch a movie or something?"

"I want to watch a movie!" shouted Ryusei from the stairs, making Aki jump. She shouted something at him in Japanese. "I'm not spying!" he argued.

"Just let him downstairs."

"Fine," said Aki, "But when he starts being annoying, you have to tell him to go away."

"He doesn't annoy me, he's not my brother," said Mattie. Ryusei came bounding down the stairs and decided he was going to take over and choose what film they watched, which Mattie didn't mind particularly – there were very few films she wouldn't watch. But at least he picked one in English, so she didn't have to concentrate to read subtitles for two hours.

It was a space western from a decade ago that Mattie quickly realised was very loosely adapting 1966's Django, only now the future's answer to Franco Nero was dragging an escape pod around with him that ultimately turned out to be the gigantic, detached turret from a battleship and not an escape pod at all. And rather than the finale being a triumph of willpower over devastating injury, his bloodied hands were replaced by robotic hands, and he now had to grapple with the fact his own hands were trying to kill him. All in all, she thought it was bizarre though not entirely without merit and made Aki promise that they would watch the original at some point. By the time Django had defeated the gang of rogue officers from the vaguely named "Galactic Navy", Matilda had been informed that Clara was en route.

"I'm gonna beat that game," she said firmly as she gathered her things to go home. Even if she had to steal the Doctor's sonic screwdriver to get it to play fairly (which wasn't really cheating, it was just creative problem solving), she'd do it.

"I think you'd feel better if you just forgot about it."

"If I don't beat it, I'll think about it for the rest of my life."

"That's not healthy," said Aki disapprovingly.

"Well. Anyway." She stood up, having just fastened her laces. "I'll see you… I don't know, sometime in the holidays?"

"Only if we don't go to that arcade again."

"Then I'll beat on my own! I'll beat it, and I'll get that prize." The prize was a plushie doll of an alien.

"It's not even a good prize," said Aki, "In Japan-"

"Yeah, I'm sure arcade prizes are so much better in Japan, but it's not about the prize, it's about the principle."

"Keep telling yourself that."

"I will…" she grumbled, not happy about Aki's lack of faith in her zombie-killing abilities. Maybe she should convince Jenny to teach her how to fire a real gun, then she'd have an advantage.

When she got downstairs, she found the Doctor in the kitchen talking to Hideo in fluent Japanese. He'd given her an additional tray of jellyfish sushi, just like she wanted, and she'd already tried one roll.

"Hey, Matts!" she said when Mattie appeared, "This stuff is great."

"I prefer it with salmon, to be honest."

"Mm," the Doctor nodded, "Salmon's great, too. But I've always been most partial to fatty tuna." Hideo said something else in Japanese which Mattie assumed was a joke considering the Doctor laughed. "We'll come for dinner someday soon, I promise. Oh – that reminds me…" She pulled an old Tupperware box out of her pocket to give to Hideo. It was far too large to actually fit in her pocket, clearly, but Hideo thankfully didn't question this. "An eye for an eye. I was baking gingerbread men a few nights ago, and thought I'd swap you some for the sushi." Hideo thanked her, and then Mattie thanked him for letting her stay, and she took her leave with the Doctor.

Clara was waiting in the van out front, lurking within to avoid getting a ticket for temporarily parking on double yellows. The Doctor climbed back in to sit in the middle and Mattie last of all, Clara waving to Hideo through the window as he came back into the front of the Inoue Noodle Bar to close up.

"Give me one of those," said Clara, taking a sushi roll from the Doctor's tray. She chewed it slowly, thinking. "I thought it'd have a stronger taste."

"It'd be better with sauce, or spicy mayo. I'll see if I can find something when we get home. Or I could go back and ask?" she suggested.

"No, that's alright. I want to get home so I can finish my book. Did you have a good day, Mattie?" she started the engine.

"It was fine. Can I borrow your sonic screwdriver?" she asked the Doctor.

"Sure!"

"Why?" asked Clara when the Doctor failed to.

"No reason," said Mattie guardedly.

"Is this about the arcade again?"

"That game is rigged!"

"You're not borrowing her screwdriver so you can hack an arcade machine."

"It's seriously unfair. Also, Zack Walker's threatening to report me to one of you for swearing at him."

"Did you swear at him?" asked Clara.

"Is that important? You swear all the time."

"That's because I'm a terrible role model, what's your excuse?" Clara countered.

"It's a scam! The machine is rigged so you keep paying for it and can never win, it's the only explanation," now that Aki was sick of her, she was stuck ranting to the Oswalds instead.

"All arcade games are rigged, sweetheart," said Clara, "I couldn't tell you how much change I wasted on the penny falls when I used to play in the 90s. And those bloody grabbers."

"And now she always cheats in arcades," said the Doctor, "Telekinesis."

"Oh, so you're a hypocrite? Saying I can't use the screwdriver to fix the game so that it works properly, and I win?" Mattie argued.

"I never said that," said Clara, "You asked if you could borrow her screwdriver with absolutely no explanation – how would we know you didn't want to do something really dodgy with it?"

"Like what? Open a door?"

"It can't open every door," said the Doctor, "It doesn't do wood."

"Can I use the screwdriver, then?" Mattie continued.

"I'll think about it," said Clara, "I just don't want you to get in trouble, that's all."

"That's true," said the Doctor, who had developed a habit of blindly agreeing with whatever Clara said when it came to their 'normal' lives, "I'm all for sticking it to the man, but Clara has a point."

"What about your revision, anyway?" said Clara.

"Revision can wait until I after I kill the big zombie."

"I'm not sure about that; you've got mock exams in January."

"Mocks aren't important, that's why they're called mocks. They're a mockery. Killing zombies is a real achievement."

"Well, maybe you can cheat at the arcade to rub it in Zack Walker's face if you do well in your mocks – which offer valuable exam practice, I'll have you know. It's not like you've ever sat an exam before, mock or not." Mattie crossed her arms huffily and leant against the door.

"I'll kill that zombie or die trying."

"Alright, darling."

"You'll see. You'll all see," she said as ominously as possible as they drove off into the winter night.