DAY 18,200

Toxic Valentine

Clara

She let her class go five minutes early in order to minimise the delay between the Doctor showing up at her door and them getting to the privacy of the car so that they could go out for lunch, as they did every day. She sat with her coat already on, ready to go, tapping her foot agitatedly. She wanted to check her phone, wanted to text the Doctor and warn her, explain, but the Doctor did not have a mobile, she still refused to get one. All her calls went to their landline or through Clara. Sometimes, she really did feel like a glorified secretary for the woman she loved.

Thirteen and Cole Campbell worked on the same corridor – god forbid they bump into each other, god forbid he ask her out when Clara wasn't there to do damage control, before she had a chance to explain that Thirteen needed to go out with him to try and figure out what was the matter with the boy. On top of all that, she was also faced with the ambiguity of Thirteen's reaction to all of this. Yes, she would be unhappy, annoyed, confused, even angry. But after Clara had explained, then what would she be? Forty years of Thirteen and she was still an enigma – but that was aliens for you.

The Doctor didn't knock as she came in, she just did, after checking for a second to see if the class was gone. Clara immediately stood up and tried to rush her out.

"Not like you to let them go early for lunch, usually – hey, what are you doing? What's the hurry?" Thirteen questioned as Clara forced her out of the classroom, hands on her shoulders, steering her around like a toddler that couldn't be tamed.

"Don't speak, just walk, quickly," Clara ordered.

"Uh, why? What's all this about? Have I done something wrong?" Thirteen continued to ask her things, continued to stall and walk slowly and fight against Clara as she attempted to make her leave and get to the staff carpark as soon as possible.

"Look, we just have to get out of here before we bump into – Hi!" Clara was forced to interrupt herself when the very man she most certainly did not want to see came gliding out from around the corner like some kind of spectre. She nearly pushed Thirteen right into his arms. Then again, she thought a second later, wasn't that exactly what she was trying to do?

"Oh, hey – did your first lessons go okay?" Thirteen asked, "I always find the trick is to make a lot of jokes. If you're funny. If you're not funny they'll hate you even more – it's a hard one to master." Clara disagreed with her on that, but now wasn't the time for a work-related spat between them. There would be plenty of time for that in five minutes or so.

"They were fine, after I had a word with Clare," he said.

"Clara," Clara corrected through gritted teeth. Okay, getting her name wrong once was understandable, but twice in the space of an hour? That bothered her. She suddenly wondered if she ought to just start making out with the Doctor right in front of him, to put an end to this stupid scheme of her own creation before it could really get going. But there were a dozen kids milling about the hallways (she should probably tell them off for loitering), so it really wouldn't be appropriate. If PDA was banned for the kids, it was banned for the staff. Which was fair enough.

"A word with her? When?"

"Just after I came to borrow those pens from you – Cole here told me something super interesting," Clara continued down this path of self-destruction. If her marriage ended because of this, she was going to call Jenny and make her come punch her in the face. And Jenny punched hard, but if Clara upset her mother she would be more than willing, alternate universe doppelgängers regardless.

"Uh-huh?" Thirteen frowned at Clara, who gave her a very pleading look masked with a smile in return.

"I was wondering if you might have dinner with me tonight?" Cole asked.

"Dinner?" Thirteen exclaimed, and gawked at him, "Hang on, you know I'm-"

"Single!" Clara interrupted in a higher voice than usual. She was still gripping Thirteen's shoulders like a vice as this exchange occurred, "Totally single. And desperate. For men. You're always telling me how you wished more men would ask you out. Because you're lonely. And very available. And incredibly straight."

"What are you-"

"Seriously, this one is so straight she's almost homophobic," Clara continued, "If only I could get lucky with her. But she's all about the, um, sausage." Thirteen kind of looked like she wanted to be sick when Clara said she was 'all about the sausage.'

"Well?" Cole implored, "You, me, tonight? Text you the details?"

"Go on, say yes, sweetheart," Clara advised, beaming the most painful beam that had ever beamed.

"Sweetheart?" Cole asked. The Doctor remained utterly lost for words. Clara knew she was probably going to end up being made to sleep downstairs in one of the armchairs because of these shenanigans. That was the best case scenario, too, the worst was divorce.

"Just my fun nickname for her. For my friend. My best friend, in the whole world, who's my friend. Who's incredibly straight and single and absolutely free tonight. Are you going to say yes?" Clara asked Thirteen directly.

"I… yes?" she said unsurely. Clara turned her thousand-watt smile (which felt like it was also emitting those thousand-watts into her cheeks she was so embarrassed for herself) back to Cole Campbell, some very confused Year 7s wandering by.

"There you go, see? She said yes. Just like I said she would," Clara told him. He opened his mouth to speak and she cut him off again, "Oh, would you look at that? We're nearly late for lunch. Our friendly lunch, because we're such great friends." She called all this back at him while continuing to drag the Doctor away, towards the doors, the Doctor who kept glancing between them and barely managed to say a word. "Talk about this later, you two lovebirds! Bye now!" A set of double doors closed on them and left them outside in the cold, a stone's throw from the main gate.

Thirteen did not say a single thing until Clara carted her all the way back to the shiny new Ferrari, discreetly checking it for any scuff marks courtesy of Cole Campbell. She at least did the chivalrous thing and opened the door for Thirteen, who stared at her for a second before getting in. Clara shut the door on her and took some very deep breaths before getting in her own side. Then all hell broke loose.

"What the hell was that, Clara!? What on Gallifrey is going on right now!? I've spoken to him for less than ten minutes' total! Why are you setting him up with me!? Am I in a parallel universe where we aren't married, or something!? That's the only remotely acceptable explanation for this! I barely know him! I don't even like him, I don't like anyone in that way apart from you and you know it! Aren't you gonna even try to explain!?" Thirteen ranted. She didn't reply. "Clara!? Seriously!? The silent treatment? After this nonsense? C'mon!"

"I'm sorry!" Clara said, louder than she intended, "I… panicked." She only spoke when she had managed to start the car, her hand shaking a little because she really didn't like when Thirteen shouted at her. Thirteen rarely did, and when she did, it was always within reason. Like now. Maybe it wasn't the best idea to be driving in Adam's car while they were also having a fight?

"You panicked? What exactly am I missing here?"

"Okay, okay, so… so just listen to me, alright?"

"I would listen to you, but you haven't been saying anything!" the Doctor protested.

"Alright! Okay. So. The thing is, you know this morning Campbell was… weird? About World War Two? Sort of confused? All that?" Clara asked.

"Yeah, sure I do, I mentioned the Cold War to him when I showed him around and he asked if it was called that because it was all fought in the Arctic," Thirteen informed her, "You know, I'm not sure he's even qualified. Continue."

"Well, third period I saw him wandering around the carpark aimlessly, then he went and sat down on the hood of McWatt's Land Rover. I had to shut all the blinds to stop the kids staring at him," Clara went on. She had her hands clenched tightly around the steering wheel, being careful not to drive too fast. She was barely having to touch the accelerator to make this thing rocket down the roads.

"Maybe he was just lost?"

"I'm sure he was, but it's not exactly hard to find a set of doors back into the school, there are a lot of them. That's not even the weirdest thing, alright? After I got those pens off you, I saw him in his empty classroom with this wasp, and he ate it. Like, the whole wasp. It was alive, flying around him, and he just grabbed it out of the air and ate it. I heard the crunch, sweetheart. Then while I was freaking out about that, he walks out of the room and starts asking me if I'm gay because he wants advice asking a girl out – turns out that girl was you, so I…"

"Panicked?"

"Yeah. And I was gonna explain, but he cut us off! So… well… well I don't know. I don't think he should really be allowed to teach in a school, regardless of if he's… if his origins, I mean, are… unearthly," Clara said carefully. Thirteen had been sitting in the passenger seat at a slight angle, turned to face Clara, one elbow leaning on the door by the window. When Clara finished she crossed her arms and sat forwards, though. They were nearly at the café they had lunch at practically every day.

"So now you think aliens can't be teachers, huh?" Thirteen questioned.

"No! That's not what I'm saying! You, wifey, actually know what you're talking about," Clara said, "You've lived through most of Earth's history yourself, albeit out of order!" She glanced over to catch Thirteen snickering a little, and realised she had just been making fun of her. Clara pouted. "Meanie."

"So you think he's an alien?"

"Whatever he is, he's obviously not qualified, and I'd go as far as saying he's a danger to himself. Anybody who eats a wasp is a danger to themselves," Clara said, going to park up.

"How big was the wasp?"

"Oh, it was massive. What are you going to do, then? Go on a date with him?"

"Well… I don't know. What about your Valentine's Day evening plans? I thought you were… well, not making dinner, but I thought you were arranging it? It was your responsibility? You said you had all these really romantic plans," Thirteen was saying. Clara stopped the car after carefully parallel parking outside of their usual haunt, and looked at her wife, biting her lip.

"…I don't have any romantic evening plans," she admitted sheepishly.

"You what? So why did you say you did!? You're full of surprises today, Oswald, and not the good kind of surprises. The bad ones," Thirteen complained.

"I didn't know what to do! It's different here, on Earth, I can't just say we're going to go to Venice for ice cream for breakfast, and then sneak into a banquet in Ancient Rome for lunch, go catch a matinee in the West End and then stop off to have dinner in Saturn's asteroid belt," Clara argued, "I just didn't know what to do, I've been thinking about how to impress you for months, and I can't come up with a single thing."

"Well setting me up on a date with some guy doesn't impress me," Thirteen argued, then she got out of the car and cut off their conversation. Clara had to hurry to follow her into the café, where they stole their regular window table, the Doctor going and asking Flora for 'their usual.' Nobody else ever seemed to come in this place, but it was divine. It was one of the few places Clara had seen that sold white hot chocolate, and she had a large cup of it every single day.

"I think it was very impressive that I got him to go out with you when you weren't even acting like you were into him," Clara said.

"That's because I'm not into him."

"Yeah, exactly. I'm amazing."

"I – what?" Thirteen was confused, unable to understand how it had all suddenly backfired and Clara looked as though she had done something helpful when, really, she had not.

"Listen," Clara whispered to her over the table as they waited for their food, which was little more than just sandwiches, "The way I figure it, you go on this date, right? Then just… act like it doesn't work out. Disagree with everything he says. And even if he is still into you after all of that, you'll just have to dump him."

"Dump him? I don't know how to dump somebody! What happens if we're totally wrong and he is a perfectly adept human teacher, and then we have to keep working with him? He'll find out we're married. He might find out we're married within the next hour, then we'll be the weird ones," Thirteen said.

"Sweetheart, you're forgetting about the fact he ate a wasp. And if it stung him, he didn't seem to care. Even if it was dead the sting would still be venomous," Clara argued, "And dumping people's easy, I've had to do it loads of times."

"I do not know how to dump somebody, Clara. I've actually been happily married for fifty years, which you seem to have forgotten," she hissed, and then she had to get up and go retrieve their food from the counter, Clara passing her a ten pound note so that she was the one who was paying. She always paid for lunch. In fact, any food they had like this, any restaurant or takeaway or drive-through they went to, Clara paid. It was the way they made things fair, since every other meal – every meal that had to be cooked – was Thirteen's responsibility. And that was a lot of time and work put into just mitigating Clara's uselessness.

"I know," Clara said, putting ketchup on her bacon sandwich, "You should practice breaking up with someone on me."

"But I actually like you, don't I?"

"How should I know? Pretend we've only had one date, it went terribly, and dump me," Clara ordered her, pushing the bread back onto her sandwich so that tomato sauce trickled down the sides. As Thirteen narrowed her eyes and thought about this proposition, Clara took a huge bite out of it. Delicious, as always. That and her white hot chocolate made every lunch a perfect lunch. Though, it was of course less perfect than every single lunch the Doctor had ever cooked for her out of love and courtesy.

"You got your brain wiped twice on our first date, that was pretty terrible, and we still made it. I don't understand your-"

"Just do it!"

"Okay! Chill out! Right… Clara. You're my wife. And you're amazing, you're my soulmate and the love of my life and I think we should be together forever will you please marry me again and adopt lots of dogs?"

There was a pause where Clara met her eyes, then exclaimed, "That was shit! Focus! And we're not getting any dogs because Captain Nemo is more than enough, and we're not getting married again because we don't have the money."

"I'm sorry! You're just really pretty and great and wonderful and-"

"You're doing it again," Clara stopped her. She scowled, annoyed at herself for being so pathetic. "Alright, why don't you channel your feelings for me when we go bowling and I always win?"

"You mean when you cheat?"

"All a matter of opinion, darling."

"Well then I would say I hate you and I wish you were dead."

"That's great, tell him that and you'll be sorted."

"You want me to tell some poor schmuck I just met this morning that I hate him and I wish he was dead? Doesn't that seem a little harsh to you?" Thirteen questioned. Clara was chewing her sandwich, though, and didn't have a chance to answer right away. "You have ketchup on your cheek."

"Lick it off."

"Absolutely no way," Thirteen said. Clara gave her a sad look and wiped her own face, licking the ketchup off her finger when she discovered it next to her nose. "…This date… as inarguably incredible as I so obviously am-"

"Of course."

"-I don't really think I'll be able to tell what this guy is just by talking to him. Unless he's some kind of shapeshifter and he shifts to his 'true form', or secretes something super tell-tale, I won't have a clue. What I'm getting at is, he needs to be somewhere where he can be scanned easily. Like… you know… our house…"

"If you invite him to your house on a first date, he'll think he's gonna get lucky. It's Valentine's Day, I'm the only one supposed to be getting lucky with you tonight," Clara argued.

"Well you already shot that idea in the foot when you set this whole thing up and neglected to fix us any other dinner plans," Thirteen retorted. Clara glared and distracted herself with her bacon sandwich for a few more minutes. They sat in silence, both of them thinking.

"You'd have to move all our weird stuff, all the pictures of us, anything that pertains to me – which reminds me, you'd best give me your wedding ring for safe-keeping so he doesn't see it," Clara advised her. That actually made her upset, and Clara sighed apologetically, "Look, I'm sorry, but I won't lose it, and it's only for a couple of hours." Between them, they had a lot of wedding rings. They used to wear a few of them at once, about three, but when they'd moved to Earth six months ago Clara had remembered that that looked kind of odd. Of all their wedding rings, they currently wore the most normal-looking ones, those ancient ones stolen from a jeweller's in Los Angeles, fifty entire years ago. After that one, the Earthling-ness of their rings had deteriorated. Indeed, the latest ones were both set with about a hundred tiny, red, crystal-like gems, incredibly valuable in some corners of space, set into a rose gold coloured alloy. They were gorgeous, but very indiscreet. In Clara's current wedding ring, she still had the initials TED engraved on the inside, for The Eleventh Doctor.

"Fine, but only after you finish your lunch. I don't want you making it smell like ketchup," Thirteen said. Just as Clara was about to change the subject to something else – like this sex education thing they were supposed be doing with their shared form that afternoon – the Doctor asked, "Do we have any Retcon?" Clara frowned as she tried to remember.

"I think so, I remember us bringing some here, but I can't remember where I put it," she confessed.

"Useful," Thirteen quipped, then, "You'll have to find it."

"Why?"

"Because if he is a human, we should probably erase his memories of the whole day. He already has a reputation for being confused and incompetent, we can hardly make that worse. And since you stashed the Retcon, and you orchestrated this entire thing, it's only fair that you're the one who goes and finds it, so we can do some damage control, at least," Thirteen made a good point. Reluctantly, Clara agreed to embark upon this search. The Retcon would, no doubt, just be in the first aid kit they kept in the bathroom.

That first aid kit was something the Doctor was pretty proud of, actually made her feel like her namesake. It worked from advice from Rory Williams, Martha Jones, Clara's sister, lots of people. Essentials, but not just regular essentials, essentials for people like them, who got into all kinds of trouble. It had antidotes for rare diseases, rare infections, alien illnesses, some of that ointment of Oswin's that removed ninety percent of scarring. And, she hoped, their supply of Retcon, Torchwood's selective memory loss drug. Well, actually, Clara thought this batch might have been donated by Undercoll (courtesy of Hayley Cohen), but the specifics weren't important.

"Alright. But what am I gonna be doing?"

"What do you mean? I don't know. Go for a walk?"

"You know we have earpieces?" Clara said wryly. Thirteen looked at her for a long while, Clara fighting a smile on her face.

"No. No, no, no, Clara."

"Yes! You wear the earpiece, I'll hide upstairs in our bedroom and listen in and tell you what to say, how to mess it up," Clara said.

"I have seen so many movies and so many TV shows and read so many books where people try that, and it has never once gone well, ever," the Doctor argued.

"Yeah, but the whole point of our operation is that it doesn't go well."

"You want it to go awfully?"

"Well I'd hate if he turned out to be great and you left me for him, so, yeah."

"Then you can cook dinner," Thirteen said.

"…But I'm not allowed to touch anything in the kitchen that isn't to do with drinks," Clara reminded her in a timid tone of voice. Her ban from the kitchen was just as extensive as her ban from computers – which was still in effect most of the time. It really was a good thing that when she had lived on Earth before ever meeting the Doctor, she'd been terrible with technology. If she had become as reliant upon it as, say, their brother-in-law, this ban might as well be a legitimate handicap.

"Cook the, uh, what do you call them? Space worms? Where you get the noodles and you put the baked beans on top of them? With the ketchup? You make that when we get home, then stick it in the fridge. When Campbell gets there, I'll reheat it in the microwave. Pretend it's mine. It'll be disgusting. Trust me, Coo, your cooking is a fool-proof way to spoil an evening," Thirteen assured her, speaking as though this were a compliment. It still grated on Clara a little, but she was more than used to these jibes at her expense.

"Fine, I will. If you're there. Make sure I don't break anything."

"Sure."

"Now, on another note, I think we ought to talk about this sex education talk we have to give, or whatever it is," Clara changed the subject.

"Just go home and bring in some of your secret porn collection you think I don't know about," Thirteen said. Clara stared at her. She smiled sweetly. "You're so adorable when you think you've successfully hidden something from me."

"…That would be incredibly inappropriate."

"Uh-huh," Thirteen said, "Well I'm just about finished here." She really had already wolfed down her entire lunch. That was remarkable, because while Clara's might consist of a simple sandwich, Thirteen had been eating a Full English with all the trimmings. Except black pudding, because she couldn't stand the smell of it, even though Clara always said she would eat the black pudding.

"That's because you eat like some kind of dog that hasn't been fed for a week," Clara said. She was finished too, though. They didn't really have a lot of time for lunch, only forty-five minutes. They needed to be getting back. She picked up her hot chocolate and her coat. It might be freezing, but she couldn't be bothered at present putting it on. She would probably regret it later.

"Well sorry for being hungry," Thirteen argued, "I just get excited when I have things cooked for me, I'm so used to having to do everything for some total ingrate I live with."

"I know what you mean, I always get excited when I remember that I have this amazing wife who graces me with her wonderful home cooking every single day," Clara told her, holding the door open.

"How dare you make me feel bad for calling you an ingrate," Thirteen went to get in the car. When Clara was starting the ignition, she said, "I think you should take the reins on the sex-ed thing."

"Why's that?"

"Well, it's all about humans, isn't it? Human physiologies, human reproduction. I don't know a single thing about human anatomy," Thirteen said.

"I'm a human and you've explored my anatomy plenty."

"Gross."

"I'm insulted. And you're a liar, you're just embarrassed. You know most of those kids are sixteen and have had these sorts of talks have a dozen times before? We could probably just put on some film and have them lie." They were driving away by this point; it was a bit less than five minutes that it would take them to get back to the school.

"'Some film'? Didn't you just say bringing your porn collection would be inappropriate?"

"A proper film, I mean."

"That would be irresponsible of us."

"I was thinking you would take the helm," Clara said, "You're the only person I know who's been both a man and a woman for extensive periods of time."

"Well you're the one with all the experience having STIs."

"Okay, ground rules, you are not to mention that, at all. No-one needs to know that, especially not a bunch of gossipy teenagers," she said, and Thirteen didn't say anything more. "…Shall we just wing it?"

"Yeah. Let's do that. Good plan."