DAY 18,200

The Wasp Factory

Clara

For the first three hours or so of Clara's day, nothing notable happened. She had all of first lesson free to mark exams, nobody dropped by to annoy her like the Doctor often would if they had free periods at the same time, and then second lesson she had Year 8s learn about sentence structures, teaching them not to start every sentence with 'the' because it didn't read well. Now, though, she was trying to teach Year 11 An Inspector Calls. Really, the GCSE syllabus just got more and more grating.

"Daniel, if you call Daisy Renton a slag one more time, I will give you a detention," Clara said, leaning on her desk with the play in one hand, her cold cup of tea she had been given at break by the Doctor in the other.

"But miss-"

"One more word and you will have to stay behind tonight for a lecture on the hardships and prejudices sex workers face, okay?" she snapped at him, "And the same goes for anybody else."

"Don't you have plans tonight, miss?" a girl, Rita, quipped from the back of the room, and there were sniggers around. Honestly, it was like being on the TARDIS back when everyone lived together again. Soon enough Rose Tyler was going to burst into life in front of her in a flurry of golden sparks and start accusing her of getting up to no good in the communal shower stalls. Clara didn't answer the question about if she had plans, it had struck a nerve.

"I don't understand this play," another boy, Alex, interjected, "We're supposed to feel bad for her, but she did accidentally drink bleach."

"She drank it on purpose, you idiot," Rita remarked to him.

"Why? It would kill her."

"Duh."

"Okay, that's enough, let's not make a joke of her tragic suicide, shall we?" Clara stopped them.

"But miss, when we did Romeo and Juliet, you said they were both 'stupid children,'" Daniel argued with her, "They killed themselves."

"Well, I… you know, you're doing a terrible job of making me think you don't want a detention with me. Do I have to call your mother? I've had to call her so often we're on especially good terms," Clara pointed out to him. It was entirely true. Daniel's mother was pretty nice. There were more snickers about that, but this time they were laughing with Clara, not at her. For once. She was never the 'funny one.' Which was a real shame, because for decades she had been under the impression that she was the funny one. But no, that award went to the Doctor, of course, because everyone loved the Doctor, which would bother Clara if it wasn't for the fact she loved the Doctor as well.

"He's hoping he'll get extra sex education if you give him a detention," Rita commented.

"Well that was inappropriate, you're getting a negative point for that."

"Nobody gives Year 11s negative points," she argued.

"Probably because they think if you're sixteen and you still can't behave, you're beyond the point of helping. And who told you lot you have the afternoon off-timetable? You're not supposed to know yet," Clara said.

"Miss Stark told us," Daniel said. Clara scowled. Of course it was Evelyn, she didn't know the meaning of the word 'clandestine.' In fact, she really probably didn't. "Do we have to have a proper lesson?"

"Yes, obviously, especially since this afternoon probably won't be educational for any of you. I know you learn about contraception and abortion and whatever else in RE," she said. A good handful of these kids were in her form – her joint form, with the Doctor. It was some initiative Norris had introduced before she, as Graham so elegantly put it, 'snuffed it.' Two tutors per form. Apparently they were put together because it was 'easier for the alphabet' with their shared surname, and because of the fact people would get confused between them otherwise. She could see that they were probably legitimate reasons, but part of her still thought it was the result of some joke among the rest of the faculty.

"Why? What are you gonna do?" Rita asked.

"I don't know, stick on one of those old videos."

"What kind of videos, miss?" Alex questioned. More laughter.

"You will be disappointed to know I haven't brought pornography with me, since that's clearly what you're getting at. First of all because I'm not a pervert, and second of all because we didn't get told about this until this morning," she said.

"So you have porn?" Daniel asked.

"Inappropriate. Whole school detention for you on Friday – I'll be sure to let your head of year know what you've been saying. And Mary," she said, Mary being his mother. "And no, I don't have porn, I have a wife. She hates it." A lie. The first part. Not the part about Thirteen hating it (Thirteen really hated it.)

"This book's about a prostitute," he said.

"It's a play."

"So we can read about prostitution but not about porn?" Rita questioned.

"You don't 'read about' porn."

"What's Fifty Shades of Grey, then?"

"It's a travesty, don't go anywhere near it," Clara advised, "And if you do, don't pay for it. Not that I support stealing, don't quote me on that."

"Have you read it, miss?"

"You'd be surprised what I've read, Natasha. Now, can we please discuss the political subtext of this play? What kind of message do you think Priestley was trying to deliver to his audience in Edwardian Britain? In the final act when the Inspector talks about humanity having to work together to overcome the future tragedy of the First World War?" Clara asked them.

"Communism, innit," said a different boy, Ethan.

"Socialism, technically. But yes, good. Left-wing politics was gaining momentum back in the day-"

"Dr Oswald talks about communism a lot," Ethan interrupted her.

"…You're doing the Cold War, though, aren't you?" Clara asked.

"Vietnam. We did the Tet Offensive this week," he said. She paused and thought.

"I'll have words with her. She's not supposed to sway your political opinions." Her wife was an idiot. A politically vocal idiot. It got really exhausting sometimes – that morning and her complaining about 'corporations' and Valentine's Day was a prime example. Since she stopped living like a regular person and moved onto a spaceship with a gay alien, she'd sort of ended up not caring about politics. Being as she was most likely going to return to said spaceship before or just after the next election, she still didn't care, and thought that if the government knew about what she'd been up to for fifty years she'd end up disenfranchised. And she'd deserve it, too.

"Is Priestley trying to say that rich posh twats get away with murder?" Rita said.

"You have a whole school detention on Friday as well now for swearing," Clara said.

"I didn't even say anything! That's out of order, miss."

"You know perfectly well what you…" she trailed off, spying something out of the window which distracted her. It promptly distracted the twenty-something kids in the room as well, all of them turning to look at what she saw, and what she saw was a pretty weird sight in the staff carpark. It was that new History teacher, the one who didn't know the difference between the World Wars, Cole Campbell, wandering around out there aimlessly in the cold February air. She put down An Inspector Calls, and her tea, and went to open the blinds properly to see what was going on.

"Who is that?" someone asked.

"That new History teacher," somebody else replied.

"What's he doing?" Ethan asked Clara.

"I have absolutely no idea," she replied. She was just as confused as the kids were.

"Maybe he's lost? You should go see," Daniel advised her.

"And leave you lot unsupervised? No way. And besides, it would be five minutes before I got out there," Clara said. Then she frowned as Cole sat down on the bonnet of a car which didn't belong to him, because it was a huge, grubby Land Rover of McWatt's. "Everyone, close the blinds and sit back down, ignore him. If anybody asks, I didn't see anything, okay?" It took a minute, but when Cole didn't move anymore they all listened. He better not go near her new Ferrari, she thought.

"Can't we just make posters this lesson?" Natasha asked her as she sat back down at her desk.

"What? No! You have your GCSE exams in four months, of course you can't make posters." For the next five solid minutes, the entire class unanimously begged her to let them make posters.

"It's only fair, miss, you are asking us to lie for you about that new teacher," Rita pointed out. Shit, she thought. Now she was being blackmailed by fifteen-to-sixteen year-olds, most of whom were delinquents. Why was it so hard for them to behave? She behaved just fine in high school. Of course, she did also do quite a bit of sleeping around, and had actually had her infamous promiscuity discussed with her by 'concerned teachers.' It was lucky they had never told her parents, her father would have killed her, god rest his soul.

"…Fine, alright? I want a mind map with quotes on it from all the characters. At least two quotes for each, and you can go about memorising them for homework for the next few months. But you're doing a mock exam to make up for this, and for the fact you have the whole afternoon off," Clara said. At first there had been noises of success and elation, but then they turned to ones of bitterness when she mentioned a mock.

"You give us too many mocks, miss," Daniel said, "Dr Oswald never gives mocks."

"Well I think she should – do you want me to tell her to? There are all sorts of underhand methods I could use that would convince her to give you all plenty of practice papers," she threatened.

"Are you going to teach us about them this afternoon?" Alex asked, doing a fake tone of voice that sounded like genuine curiosity.

"Definitely not."

"We don't have any coloured pens. Colour coding is good for dyslexia, you know," Ethan said. God, teenagers were incorrigible. He didn't give a damn about dyslexia, they just wanted to use felt tips. Clara related, though, she did like felt tips… she had a whole collection of Sharpies at home she didn't let her wife touch. The Doctor had a magical gift for making pens run dry.

"Alright, I'll go get some pens…" she grumbled, giving in to them. Halfway out of the door, she added, "And I'm trusting you lot not to get rowdy. Anybody does anything severe while I'm away, and I'll give you all an extra exam paper for homework." Then she left. Now they couldn't get up to anything without getting shouted down by the rest of their classmates.

Speaking of her other half and felt tip pens, though, she wasn't going to deny that the Doctor was her first port of call when it came to scrounging stationary, when of course she was. Any excuse to see Thirteen, even for thirty seconds, was good enough for Clara to go skulking around towards the Humanities corridor. If she couldn't find any there, then she'd be forced to go two floors up to try and borrow off of Evelyn Stark, and Evelyn was always a real miser when it came to lending out art supplies.

She regretted it though. She should have gone to Evelyn first. Clara knocked and opened the door to Thirteen's room and immediately found herself bombarded by a thousand miniscule projectiles she quickly deduced to be Celebrations. Tiny Maltesers and Milky Ways and Twixes littered the floor at her feet. Clara looked around and found the Doctor right away, standing there looking quite amused.

"We're just doing about the Berlin Airlift and Operation Little Vittles," the Doctor explained, "You know, in 1949, when one of the pilots delivering supplies dropped candy out of his plane to give to the children in Berlin." She was teaching Year 9. One last kid who was a little late on the uptake threw his Bounty right at Clara's head, and it hit her just above her eye, and she flinched. Before she could tell him off (though she didn't rightly know who he was), Thirteen interrupted, "You getting hit by them makes you a disgruntled Soviet soldier."

"In which case I hope a Wendigo comes to put me out of my misery*," she muttered, "Do you have any coloured pens I can borrow?"

"Of course, darling. I mean, uh, not-darling," she hastened to correct herself, but she didn't do a very good job of it. Thirteen went to go get pens and Clara lingered in the doorway, trying to ignore the eyes on her from the thirteen year-olds. Probably hearing the Doctor slip and accidentally call her 'darling' was the most interesting thing to happen to them all week, especially those few who didn't even know they were married. The displays the Doctor had in her classroom were extraordinary, because she put a lot of effort into them, sitting up all night at home cutting out pictures and sticking them together. Clara thought it was sweet (her own displays were terrible.) The Doctor's room was also very warm and dark, because they'd been watching some black and white documentary on the projector.

"By the way, I know you really enjoy the whole left-wing-activist, Che Guevara thing, but you do know we're not legally allowed to influence kids' political opinions?"

"Che Guevara was homophobic, and a racist," Thirteen said absently, searching through one of her cupboards, "But fine, whatever you like."

"Who's Che Guevara?" another kid Clara didn't know asked the Doctor.

"Key Marxist leader during the Cuban Revolution in the Fifties. It's not on the syllabus," she answered, pulling out a shoebox full of pens, "He wasn't even Cuban, he was from Argentina." And you're not even from this planet, Clara thought to herself. As Thirteen brought the box of pens over Clara stooped to pick up one of the Maltesers from the floor (all the Celebrations were still in their wrappers, they hadn't been contaminated by children.) "Hey, those chocolates are for the good people of Berlin, Oswald."

Clara took the box and made to leave, calling back, "When will you Americans stop being so morally righteous?"

"Goodbye, now!" And the door closed.

On her way back to her own room, she had to pass by Cole Campbell's new room. Ordinarily, she would have thought nothing of it, if it wasn't for the earlier incident she had witnessed in the carpark earlier. He was back in his room, though, on his own, looking quite lost.

Clara paused and observed, briefly forgetting about her class of Year 11s – they were old enough to behave, though. The door to the room was slightly ajar, and a loud buzzing noise coming from within drew her attention. A wasp, a large one, she could see it clear as day. It flitted around Campbell's head and he flailed at it, as though trying to swat it. Clara couldn't think of anything worse to do to a massive wasp than aggravate it, normally she would open all the windows and vacate the room, or make the Doctor catch it in a glass and throw it out into the garden. Thank god, she thought a moment later, she had been there to see what she saw, because what she saw was a grown and easily confused new teacher grabbing an enormous stinging insect out of the air and sticking it into his mouth. The buzzing became muffled, and then she heard a crunch, and put a hand to her mouth and backed away around the corner to where she couldn't be seen.

What the hell was that!? He had just eaten a live wasp! A wasp! A wasp which was alive! A dead wasp would have been weird enough, let alone one that was still kicking, kicking with all six of its freaky little legs and its translucent wings and evil, buggy eyes. Had McWatt even given that man a criminal record check? She'd only encountered him for a total of five minutes and already she knew Cole Campbell ought to be committed. At least looked over by a mental health professional.

"Excuse me?"

Clara jumped and looked around to realise Cole had left his classroom and she had not heard. He stood there by the wall, tall and gangly, looking at her with an amiable smile. She forced herself to smile back.

"Sorry, sorry, just… had to go get some pens, needed a moment to myself, you know what kids can be like," she said, then she paused and added, "You do know what kids can be like, don't you…?"

"Your name's Clare, isn't it?"

"Close – I'm Clara," she said politely, "And I really ought to be going, as well, so if you'll just-" She tried to walk past him, but he stopped her.

"No, don't go yet, I need a favour."

"A favour…?" she asked incredulously. He continued to smile, in a nervous kind of way. It would be endearing if it wasn't for the fact she couldn't look at his teeth without thinking about the wasp they chewed up not two minutes ago.

"I, uh, I heard this rumour about you…" he began. Oh, here we go, Clara thought. Good thing she was used to having rumours spread about her. "It's just, people were saying you're a lesbian, and I need some help with this… girl…"

"I'm not a lesbian, I'm bi," she informed him.

"It's the same thing though, isn't it?"

"No. Not really. Can this not wait? I have to-" Again Clara tried to leave, and again Campbell stopped her. She was on the brink of resorting to teleporting away.

"Do you believe in love at first sight?" he asked.

"I… well, I suppose so. My sister and my brother-in-law had that. Love at first sight isn't synonymous with true love, though, it can be misguided infatuation, could be toxic, I wouldn't say first impressions are a whole lot to go by," Clara said.

"You seem like good friends with her, and you're gay, so I thought you would help me?" he said. Clara stopped dead.

"Wait, wait, wait – which, um, which girl is this?"

"Thirteen, the American."

"You want to ask…? You think...? Love at first sight? With… with the – with Dr Oswald? The...? I…" Clara stammered uselessly. What kind of weird Valentine's Day was this? This weird, confused wasp-eater now wanted to ask her wife out on a date? He thought that he had fallen in love with the Doctor? Love at first sight? It was ridiculous! Even she didn't claim that, how could she when the Doctor had showed up on her doorstep dressed as a monk? A stinky monk. A stinking monk who appeared to be stalking her.

But this bloke? He was weird. Majorly weird. The Second World War stuff was just the tip of the iceberg. And as for the Doctor? She could be covert if necessary.

"I'm only asking because you seem like great friends."

"…Well. You're in luck because we are the best of friends. And she is totally, completely single. Doesn't have one single plan for Valentine's Day. In fact, she keeps telling me she wished more men would ask her out, seriously. I reckon you'd be in. Definitely ask her out. Tonight. She'll say yes," Clara lied, "But I have to go now. Left the kids unsupervised, you know how it is. Bye, now!" She finally got away.

How had he heard a rumour that she was gay without hearing about her wife? Hearing they shared a name? They both wore wedding rings? Then again, he was very… flighty. Thinking about it, it wasn't so hard to believe Cole hadn't noticed. She supposed Thirteen just hadn't introduced the faculty, otherwise she would surely have complained about Celia, warned against crossing Douglas, pitied Graham and mentioned, oh, yes; that stunning, brunette English teacher with the dimples and the chocolatey eyes? That's my wife.

Perhaps Clara was being a little generous when it came to her own description of herself. Still. She wasn't wrong. She was suddenly glad, as she returned to her room, that she had let them do posters. She needed time to sit and think about how on Earth she was going to explain this catastrophe to her dear other half, but the only thing running through Clara Oswald's mind was the word shit.

*chapters 840-847