DAY 140

Opinion Overload

Jenny

"To be honest, Clara, I don't give a shit, you're clearly insane."

"Just because you're too blind to see it!" Clara shouted right back at Sally Sparrow.

"I'm not blind! You're just crazy!"

"Don't be homophobic."

"Homophobic!? Can you hear yourself?"

While all of this was going on, Jenny Harkness met the ailing eyes of Esther Drummond across the room, both of them mutually willing that one of them would kill the other in some sort of tacit suicide pact. Because of the fact Sally didn't give Alpha Clara the time of day, nobody had ever picked up on this argumentative streak of compatibility in their friendship before. It was something to do with Jenny herself, she was sure, that was the reason Clara Ravenwood could control herself around Sally. The fact of the matter was, sexualities aside, Clara and Sally were remarkably similar, so having them in the same group was a bit like the unstoppable force meeting the immovable object (which wasn't even scientifically possible.) Esther had been over to offer her culinary assistance to Clara and Jenny again, while Sally had shown up later on, and now Clara had bought dinner for them all to make up for getting Sally so obscenely drunk two nights before.

Next to Clara, the row continuing, her phone rang. Jenny, wrapped up in a blanket and wishing the flu would just kill her so she wouldn't have to listen to the most ridiculous and pointless fight in the universe anymore, glanced down and saw it was Oswin who was calling. And Clara didn't notice one bit. Esther had her fingers pressed into her temples. She had given up trying to talk sense into either of them (well, mainly Clara) a while ago now. Jenny just wanted them all to be quiet. Seeing that Clara was not going to answer the phone, Jenny took it upon herself to do so, seeing it her duty as Clara's girlfriend to take a message, at least. So she snuck a hand out of her blanket cocoons and took the phone.

"Sorry," she said when she picked up, before Oswin had a chance to talk, talking very hoarsely as her throat still felt like it was possibly on fire, "Clara can't come to the phone right now because she's having an argument with Sally Sparrow about pig sex."

"It's not about pig sex!" Clara protested next to her, and Jenny groaned.

"She's what?" Oswin asked.

"You heard me," Jenny said.

"It isn't about pig sex," Clara said firmly.

"I mean, it is a bit about pig sex," Sally said, and Clara glared at her.

"Just shut up. I'm the one with the literature degree here."

"And god knows how you got it!"

According to Sally and Clara, this was not a fight, this was a 'discussion.' A 'civil conversation.' Jenny had been desperately trying to think of some excuse why she had to show Esther, alone, the library upstairs, just so that they could escape. But she had yet to conjure anything. She would suggest walking somewhere to buy dinner, if they weren't already all sitting around eating takeaway pizza (courtesy of Clara), and if she had the energy to walk anywhere at all. Which she did not.

"Sorry, Oswin. What's up?" Jenny asked.

"Well you weren't answering your phone, and I wanted to know how you are," Oswin said, "I don't really want to talk to Clara much at all."

"Neither do I right now," Jenny sighed.

"I can hear everything you're saying," Clara told her sharply.

"And we can hear everything you're saying, and I'm sure that both of us wish we couldn't," Esther argued.

Jenny yawned down the phone, "I guess I'm alright. Just tired. And I have a headache."

"Has Clara been looking after you alright? And yes, I'm perfectly aware that her and her gargantuan bat-ears can hear every word I'm saying." Jenny saw Clara scowl, but she didn't say anything. She was still 'talking' to Sally.

"Of course she has, she's a dream, like always," Jenny said, smiling to herself. Clara's scowl vanished.

"Yeah, a wet dream."

"Do you ever switch off?"

"No. And I find that offensive, me being a hologram."

"How's my father?" Jenny asked quickly. She didn't want to get into one with Oswin about her being 'deadist.' 'Deadism' did not exist, however sure she was that Esther and Ravenwood would disagree with her if they heard anything of it.

"Your father?"

"Yes, my father."

"All of them?"

"No. Just Eleven. The others can… well I don't care what they do, because they don't care what I do."

"He's fine, I think. Keeps trying to go visit you, I heard, but Clara keeps stopping him because he's ill too. And also because she's worried your girlfriend might kill him," Oswin explained. Jenny looked at Ravenwood on her right, the pair of them sat next to each other on the sofa. Esther was in the armchair; Sally was on a chair from the kitchen she had dragged through, in between the sofa and Esther.

"You wouldn't kill my dad, would you?" Jenny asked her.

"No, of course I wouldn't kill your dad, I like your dad, I think he's alright," Clara assured her.

"Understatement of the century," Oswin remarked in Jenny's ear. Jenny didn't say anything for a while, she was thinking. "Something wrong?"

"Will you put him on?"

"Who? Husbandy?"

"Yeah. Please, Os."

"God, alright, fine, but you're not talking to him for long because I have to get back to Adam and I don't trust the Doctor with my phone."

"Why? Might he change all the contacts in it to incredibly inappropriate, borderline disgusting nicknames?" Jenny questioned.

"Who on Titan would do a thing like that?" Oswin asked innocently. Of course she would never own up to her nicknaming-shenanigans. Jenny knew for a fact that her own name in Ravenwood's phone was 'Corpse Fucker.' What she didn't know was how Oswin kept getting into Clara's phone, even when Jenny tried to use the sonic screwdriver to stop her. To be honest, she thought it was rude.

"I don't know, but if whoever is doing it values my friendship at all, I really think they ought to put all the names back to what they're supposed to be and stop," Jenny told her.

Begrudgingly, Oswin said, "…I'll bear that mind… I'll get him now…" Clara nudged Jenny, and she looked over.

"Did you get her to fix the names in my phone?" she half-whispered. Jenny nodded and smiled proudly. There was a very brief moment where Clara, who was sitting very close because Jenny was trying to cool herself down by lurking close to Clara's vampiric iciness, trailed her eyes over Jenny's lips. And then Sally Sparrow threw a chip at her head.

"That was one of mine!" Esther protested as Clara glared.

"Why'd you throw a chip at me!?"

"Because you were going to kiss her, you can't just start making out when you have guests."

"I wasn't going to do anything of the sort," Clara lied, because everybody knew that she was.

"Hello? Jenny?" said Eleven down the phone.

"You were," Sally said, taking another chip off Esther.

"I'm going to electrocute you if you do that again," Esther said. Sally looked over and narrowed her eyes at Esther, then slowly reached out a hand to the box of chips. The Doctor was trying to say something to Jenny, but she had grown distracted watching this. Then Esther, who wasn't wearing her gloves, swatted Sally's hand away, blue sparks flying out of her fingertips.

"Ow! I can't believe you just did that!"

"I told you I would!"

Remarkably enough, Sally went to try and snatch another chip, at which point Esther finally gave up and got out of the chair to come and sit on Jenny's left on the other end of the sofa.

"Jenny? What's going on? Oswin's making faces at me," the Doctor talked again and took Jenny by surprise (she had nearly forgotten she was on the phone to him.)

"Tell her to stop being a baby then," Jenny said, feeling like she was being intruded on with Clara on one side and Esther on the other.

"What did you want? She's going to take the phone off me in a minute," said Eleven, "Sorry in advance."

"Just have to ask you a question about Animal Farm," Jenny said.

"Well don't ask your dad!" Clara protested.

"Only because you know he'll agree with me, just like everybody will agree with me, because you're literally mental," Sally argued. Esther made a very irritated noise next to Jenny. "Go on, ask him," Sally encouraged.

"Is she trying to tell you it's about gay pigs?" he asked, right after Jenny put the phone on speaker so that they could all get a resolution to the argument.

"Yeah," Jenny said, "How did you know?"

"Because I've had this argument with her before as well. It's not about gay pigs, it's a satirical critique of Stalinist ideology," Eleven answered.

"Which is exactly what I said!" Sally declared triumphantly.

"Snowball and Napoleon are in love, they're star-crossed, they just can't be together because-"

"Because one of them symbolises Lenin and one of them symbolises Stalin and it's a microcosmic representation of the downfall of true communism in Russia after 1917," the Doctor finished Clara's sentence.

"I said that as well," Esther argued.

"But then you betrayed me," Sally said. Esther went back to ignoring them all and eating chips.

"What's going on? Are you having a party?"

"Yeah. Everyone's naked," Sally said.

"Nobody's naked," Clara shook her head, "Although, Sally, if you and I want to go into the cellar together I'm sure we can change that?" Sally, who wasn't prepared to continue the sarcasm to try and call Clara's bluff, clenched her jaw and shut up. Jenny elbowed her.

"I'm going to have to go," Eleven said.

"Just tell Oswin that I say stop being a pain."

"I'm not telling her that."

"Why? Are you scared of her? She's not going to do anything to you, father," Jenny said, "She's all bark and no bite. Just ignore her and make Clara tell her off."

"Or he could make friends with her," Esther, who could presumably hear everything being as she was sat right by Jenny, "She's not that bad."

"Doesn't she ask you to marry her every other day?" Sally asked.

"Well, yeah, but, aside from that-"

"You only talk to her because you fancy her boyfriend," Sally said, and Clara laughed.

"I have to go, really."

"Right, yeah," Jenny said as Esther started arguing that she didn't have a crush on Adam Mitchell, "I'll call later, though, I'll call Clara."

"Yes, I very much-" the phone hung up. Oswin's doing, no doubt. Jenny held Clara's phone out to her.

"I told you so," Sally said to Clara.

Right as Clara began to argue even more, Jenny finally tried to end it herself, rather than just staying out of it, "Okay, every time you bring this up, Clara, part of my attraction to you vanishes."

"But your attraction to me was already so monumental to begin with, how does it make a difference?" Clara said, and Jenny raised her eyebrows.

Then she nodded at Sally Sparrow and said, "She is a bad influence on you."

"I'm not!" Sally argued.

"Jenny's right," Esther said, "Can't everybody all agree to just not talk about Animal Farm ever again?"

"Fine. If Sally's going to be so-"

"Oh my god!" Jenny exclaimed, "Clara. I love you. But I want to punch you in the face. I'm going to make a cup of tea, because I feel like my head is going to explode." Jenny stood up from the sofa and the blanket around her shoulders dropped off behind her. She was still wearing her dressing gown, though, and she wrapped her arms tightly around herself to try and keep from shivering. This chaos wasn't good for her and her illness.

She skulked off to lurk in the kitchen and wait for the kettle to boil, filling it up all the way so that it would take longer. Jenny then remembered that a few hours ago she had put washing in the dryer in the next room, the tiny room that had the washer, the dryer, boiler and the back door all crammed into it. Originally, Adam had suggested they keep the blood freezer in there, until Oswin pointed out that that was a stupid idea and they should probably put the blood freezer in a secret room in the cellar. Jenny went to see if the clothes in the dryer were actually dry or if they needed an hour or so more.

"Hey," said a soft voice, but it still made her jump. Her senses were all over the place, she was so full of cold she could barely tell when people were creeping around. Especially if those people were vampires. Clara was leaning in the doorway, blocking some of the dim candlelight coming through from the kitchen.

"You scared me," Jenny said, opening the door of the tumble dryer.

"...I'm sorry about arguing with Sally," Clara said, coming into the little room and shutting the door behind her, leaving them with just the light of the moon coming in through the glass in the back door, bouncing off the silver of Jenny's spaceship hovering silently in the garden.

"Yeah, well… I have a really bad headache," she muttered, feeling about at the clothes within the machine. They were not dry, though, so she sighed and set it for another hour. Clara touched her elbow and took her by surprise yet again. Jenny half-expected a kiss, but Clara pulled her into a hug, which happened to be (in that moment at least) a far more satisfying gesture. Jenny didn't outright hug back, but she did bury her face into Clara's shoulder and the crick of her neck. "I'm really tired…"

"Do you want me to see if I can get them to go away?" Clara whispered to her. It was a good thing the dryer was on, stopped nosey Sally eavesdropping.

"No, they're your friends."

"They're our friends, Jen, and I'll ask them to leave if you want," Clara said, still holding her.

"Well what do you want?"

"I want some alone time with you."

"Clara, I'm not having-"

"I don't mean sex," Clara said defensively, letting her go but taking both her hands, being very gentle with the right one, which was still immobile and still perpetually hurt a great deal. "I just mean that Esther was here all yesterday, and now both of them have been there all of today, and it's getting late for the people who aren't nocturnal. I kind of feel like I've been neglecting you while you've been ill."

"Of course you haven't been neglecting me – and I'm a grown woman, Clara, I can take care of myself," Jenny said.

"But I should be taking care of you right now," Clara said, "I don't know, maybe I'm…" she stopped talking and made an odd face, glancing over her shoulder at the closed door. Then she whispered, "Sally's saying she thinks we're making out in here."

"I really wish I was up to making out, but I'm not," Jenny said pitifully.

"Best not. Don't want to give her the satisfaction. But it's your call, should I ask them to leave? You are still sick, you're well within your rights to want some peace and quiet. From them. Not from me, I hope," Clara said, still holding her hands.

"…Alright, I admit it. Yes, I'd like if they would leave."

"Do you want to hide in here while I do? I'll say you're here because it's cooler and you feel better."

"I do feel better because it's cool. And that's cowardly."

"Well you should definitely stay if you feel better, though," Clara said, and Jenny couldn't be bothered arguing, and maybe she was a little cowardly, because she let Clara leave to go and convince Sally and Esther to vacate the premises. But the cold temperature by the back door really did relieve her dreadful headache somewhat, so that was where she lingered for what must have been at least ten entire minutes until the door opened again, and there was Clara, and over the racket of the dryer Jenny hadn't heard a single word that had transpired in the next room.

"Are they gone?"

"Yeah, finally. Kept complaining that it's started raining – it's only a drizzle. But it's just us now, I've got you all to myself, and thank god, because I want to talk to you," Clara said, holding out her hand for Jenny to take, which she did, finding that Clara had finished off making the tea she had begun herself earlier.

"Talk to me?" Jenny asked, marvelling at the peace and quiet in Sally and Esther's absence. She liked Sally and Esther, the Spooks, of course she did, but Clara was right; she was sick, and alone time would be wonderful. And they had been around for the last two days.

"Yeah – cos while you've been ill, I've realised something. Or more like, remembered something," Clara said, letting go of Jenny's hand so that Jenny could hold her mug of hot tea in it, considering the other one was useless. God, she hated having a broken thumb. Clara instead grabbed her right forearm to tug her over to the sofa and make her sit down, at which point she sat next to her, very close.

"If you're trying to get off with me it's not going to work, for the record," Jenny said, drinking her tea.

"Jenny, I am not always trying to get off with you," Clara argued.

"You liar."

"Whatever," Clara muttered, "What with you being ill and not much up to talking, I've been thinking a lot-"

"Are you breaking up with me!?" she exclaimed suddenly.

"What? God, no! No, Jen! Why would you think I'd do that?"

"I don't know; it's what people usually do."

"People usually break up with you? With you? What possible reason could they have?"

"Being too obsessed with finding my father, wanting to get out of East Berlin and escape the stigma involved with dating another woman in 1960s Germany, they were only with me for a bet, death. The usual. Stealing my pirate ship," Jenny shrugged. Maybe she shouldn't have mentioned the death one. She didn't want Clara to ask about it, she hated talking about it, even though it had been forty years ago.

"Hold on," Clara began, "Someone was only going with you for a bet?"

"That's what happens when you're in the army and you only look about twenty but you're a very superior rank and arguably hot," Jenny said.

"I don't think anybody would argue with the fact that you're hot."

"I was really upset about it, to be honest. Didn't let it happen again. Well, I guess… no, when we slept together, I was the one doing it for a bet…" she thought.

"That's what I was thinking about, like I was saying before you got paranoid."

"What was? Me doing you for a bet?"

"No, us before we were actually together. You're sick, so I was thinking about back when I was sick," Clara explained, "Because, you know, I've never really mentioned, but… well you'd just split up with Jack, and then you came to take care of me. What I mean is, that was when I realised I'd totally fallen in love with you."

Jenny found herself smiling; "Aw," she said, "That's sweet."

"It's because you didn't used to be so nice. Don't get me wrong, you were nice, but then you regenerated, and now you're… amazing," Clara said, "And I wanted to tell you. And also assure you that I'd never break up with you. That's a weird thought, actually; what if we're together for, like, ever? I might never have to go on another awkward first date again. I might never pick up a stranger in a bar and kick them out at four o'clock in the morning."

"Because those things are the highlights of your life up to this point, I'm sure. And you never kicked me out of your house at four in the morning."

"That's because I fancy you. Honestly, Jenny, you could have just packed up and moved in with me and I probably wouldn't have told you to leave I was that smitten. As it is you keep bringing stuff over, and you've been living here for a week now," Clara pointed out.

"Is it bothering you? If you want me to go, I'll go," Jenny said quickly.

"It's fine."

"Because I don't want to put too much strain on us too early, you know? We're kind of whirlwind as it is."

"Maybe whirlwind is what suits us best," Clara shrugged, "I don't mind. You can stay as long as you need to. I love having you around."

"Well then it's a good thing I love being around."