AN: Okay, you guys don't know this because I've never put it in an author's note or anything, I preferred to let you all imagine for yourselves what Thirteen looks like - but Thirteen does, in fact, look like Rose McIver in my head (though Rose McIver when she's doing an American accent like in iZombie as opposed to when she's doing her real accent being as she is from New Zealand. She's also Tinkerbell in Once Upon a Time if you guys watch that.) And I mention it now only because one of my damn lecturers at uni is the freaking. Spitting image. Of Rose McIver. And it's like - okay, now Thirteen, Clara Oswald's wife, is teaching me about aestheticism, what is my life?

Ain't That a Kick in the Head

Jenny

It was true what they said about oysters being an aphrodisiac. While it may be a matter of some scientific speculation whether the hormone-boiling chemicals contained in the things quite affected vampires and Time Lords in the same way they affected humans, or whether it was more of a general, sensual placebo, finding out the truth wasn't on either Jenny's nor Clara's mind when they returned to Hollowmire at round about three in the morning. No. Jenny and Clara cared about one thing and one thing only – who would win in the race between them of who could get the other's clothes off faster. When they came tumbling through the front door together, leaving the Porsche 365 with the jukebox rammed into the boot outside, Clara was the one losing more garments more quickly. Maybe this was because she didn't have as many layers on as Jenny, Jenny with her scarf and new coat and leather jacket and jeans, but Jenny was still winning. As Jenny won at everything.

Lip-locked and tangled up they staggered through the house, not even turning the lights on in a vague, unimportant quest to find the bed. Could she really be bothered having to go down a whole flight of stairs in order to really get down to 'business'? The nitty gritty? The inevitable? (Those were some very potent oysters.) Their surroundings were meaningless, dull and boring against the throes of passion they were both, at present, drowning in, Clara dragging Jenny with her arms wrapped around her whole body into the living room, half-lifting her and pushing her onto the table with the landline and the wireless router and a notepad and other knick-knacks and bits of old rubbish onto it. These bits of old rubbish were thrown to the floor in their rather desperate fervency to get at each other, Jenny with her legs around Clara's waist, her mouth on Clara's lips and her hands trailing over Clara's everything.

And then somebody coughed. An incredibly loud, exaggerated, stagey cough. Not just a cough, it extended, elongated, turned into some mocking imitations of dry-heaving as the mood was killed as easily as flicking on a light switch and, accordingly, somebody did flick on a light switch, for the reading lamp next to the armchair. It was a very compromising position they were caught in now.

"Oh, no," said an older woman with cruel, smug features, sitting in said chair with her fingers laced together rather dramatically, "Don't stop on my account – I was so enjoying the show." Jenny did not know who this woman was, but got an odd feeling about her. She and Clara were frozen, still locked in the shape of what they had been trying to do. Her new coat, her scarf, one of her shoes, Clara's skirt and tights; they were all strewn about on the floor. They'd done quite well, really. Jenny was the more modest of the pair of them, but Clara was the least embarrassed. She looked more offended, still half-kissing Jenny, Jenny having to turn her head around to quite an odd angle to get a look at this intruder. "What? I heard a rumour in the village about this house being haunted. I suppose 'haunted' can extend to all manner of dead things, though. Not just ghosts. Now, Clara, when exactly were you going to tell my boyfriend that you're still kicking?" She sounded faintly Scottish as she talked, Clara silent, stunned to silence. She still had Jenny more or less pinned to the small table, arms on either side of her, Clara held by her waist between her girlfriend's thighs. Like Jenny had said – a compromising position. "Or, even better, when were you going to tell him you're bonking his daughter?"

"Well," Clara finally broke her silence, "You break into my house, in the middle of the night, doing god knows what, and you go and use the word 'bonking.' I'm disgusted."

"God, you say? I didn't think your kind were supposed to use words like that." Clara narrowed her eyes. Why was she not more surprised? It was almost as though she expected this. "Now, while I would like to hear the very interesting story of how… this came about," she waved a dismissive hand at the pair of them, "I actually came here on far more generous business." And then she nodded at the other side of the room, and Clara, with her flat expression, glanced over. They had been so involved with each other, and then so involved with the mystery woman, they had both failed to notice the fourth person in the room, standing there alone. Clara's face was impossible to read when she saw this ghost; it was an abstract collage of possibly a hundred or even a thousand different emotions, crammed into a hundred more microscopic facial expressions and twitches and movements as she stared. And Jenny looked, too, but Jenny was merely shocked and confused. She had no idea what was going on, why this woman whom Clara knew had dredged up this old spectre and dumped it in their living room to stand there, ogling, his face a picture of pure horror and outrage.

"Danny?" Clara asked in a broken, empty tone. She was hollow. She had not moved. Jenny was still partially wrapped around her, becoming increasingly more uneasy and awkward, feeling almost naked with these strangers observing quite an intimate moment.

"Admittedly, I would have liked this reunion to be a little less, er, what's the word, what's the word… unfaithful? Treacherous? Adulterous?" the woman rattled off a string of negative adjectives, "I feel like I'm definitely witnessing a very callous display of debauchery in front of your… whatever you humans call life-partners. Or were the two of you not married? I forget. In love, though, I'm sure? Wouldn't ever love anybody else? Wholly sincere? You might want to unwrap your legs from around her," the woman spoke to Jenny then, Jenny who had not said a word yet.

"…Clara," Jenny whispered. Clara didn't even seem like she had heard the words of the mystery woman, she was staring at Danny Pink's ghost, and Danny Pink was staring right back. Jenny didn't understand. Danny Pink was dead. Danny Pink had had his brain scooped out and stuck into a Cyberman. Danny Pink's consciousness was supposed to live in a decaying data cloud of an afterlife. "Clara – move, Clara." Jenny had to push her a little until she actually realised what was going on, what Danny was seeing; her wrapped up in the embrace of another woman. Even then it was a bit of a chore for Jenny to fully disengage herself from Clara, Clara was just that shell-shocked.

"Thank the lord, I was beginning to think the two of you were glued together by the genitals and I might have to rip you apart," the mystery woman commented, idly examining her fingernails. All the while she didn't stand up from Clara's living room chair.

"What are you doing?" Danny Pink asked Clara Ravenwood. Clara said nothing, and neither did Jenny.

"I didn't think they got around to quite doing anything yet – or did I miss a bit of sleight of hand? A slip of the fingers? Oh, wait – it's tongue, isn't it? Slip of the tongue? Tongue or fingers? Which slipped in first?" she mused, her words getting progressively more explicit as she spoke. She clearly found herself very funny.

Clara stammered, "I was… I… don't… I…"

"I'm confused," Jenny said finally, looking at the mysterious woman, "Who are you?" The woman stared at her like she was a slimy streak of dog mess on the bottom of her shoe, and then turned her impetuous gaze on Clara instead.

"Really, Clara? How long have you been shacking up with this child for without telling her who your greatest influence and mentor is? I taught you everything you know about being a womaniser," the woman remarked, which finally seemed to get Clara's stunted attention.

"Sorry?" she frowned.

"Thank you for apologising."

"I didn't…"

"Well then I don't thank you for not apologising. Remarkable how she shuns me now, don't you think? I'm practically a mother figure to her, after her own mother turned out to have that horrible aversion to laser weaponry," the woman said.

"Don't talk about Clara's mother like that," Jenny said, feeling rage boiling underneath her skin.

"It's fine," Clara sighed, pressing her fingers to her temples and scrunching up her eyes, "Just ignore her."

"Ignore her? Why should you let her talk about your mother like that? I wouldn't let someone speak about mine that way. Who is she?"

"Don't mention your own mother…" Clara said. Clara seemed to be having some sort of meltdown, and Danny Pink himself was hardly speaking, just looking at her and sometimes looking at Jenny.

"Your mother is probably the worst Draughts player I have ever encountered. The last time I played with her she tried to castle – you can't castle in Draughts," the woman remarked, and Jenny stared at her, "And then she told me she had a royal flush! In Draughts!"

"You know my mother?"

"Intimately."

"Intimately?"

"Yes. Some might even say we were… BFFs. Or lovers. They're interchangeable, really. You'd know all about friends with benefits."

"What?"

"The poor child has raised by uneducated animals, clearly. That father of yours has never been any good for you," she said coldly, slouching a little in Clara's chair, like she wasn't getting enough amusement out of the scenario she had invented.

"Jenny," Clara said eventually, clenching her jaw and looking furiously at the woman when she spoke next, "This is Missy. The Master. The Master. The evil Time Lord."

"I would hardly say I'm evil!" she protested, "I'm clearly just misunderstood!"

"What about the time you became the dictator of Earth and tried to butcher its entire population?"

"Yes! A misunderstanding!"

"How could anyone misunderstand that!?"

"It was in your best interest to be butchered. I'm talking about the greater good."

"Bullshit."

"I did it for love."

"Love of what?"

"Of… general compassion and an all-round sense of charming sympathy and a desire to do-good."

"Still bullshit."

"Suppose I was bored. Nobody appreciates a bit of good, old-fashioned ethnic cleansing these days," she shrugged, "You kids and your… morality."

"What were you doing with that girl?" Danny finally questioned, snapping out of his lesbian-induced trance. Probably a bit jarring to see your ex-girlfriend getting off with a member of the same sex, really.

Clara froze up again.

"You're the Master?" Jenny was asking.

"Clara?" Danny implored.

"Yes. Well, the Mistress now."

"It's tricky to explain…" Clara mumbled.

"But… Master isn't a gender exclusive title," Jenny frowned.

"You had your tongue in her mouth!" Danny exclaimed.

"And being a smarty-pants isn't a gender exclusive hobby, but you're still doing it," she snapped, "I'm a Mistress of all sorts of things."

"Maybe I did!" Clara half-shouted.

"Mistress of your father, for instance," Missy remarked.

"You definitely did – how is that tricky to explain?" Danny persisted.

"It's just tricky to explain anything when you have your tongue in another woman's mouth. I know that from experience," Missy commented, winking at Jenny.

"Who even is she!?" Danny shouted at Clara, feeling the full force of his anger now, as though Clara had somehow been unfaithful to a man who had been dead for more than a year.

"She's-" Knocking on the door interrupted Clara and the criss-crossing bickering. Clara glanced at Jenny first, like Jenny might have invited someone to visit. Jenny shrugged, and volunteered to answer it, desperately wanting an escape from the living room. In the back of her mind she convinced herself it was her mother, Thirteen – it must be, she thought, coming to clear all of this up. But it wasn't. It was worse.

"Oh my god," Jenny hissed, "Now!? We're doing this now!?"

"Why? Are you suddenly too busy to kidnap people?" none other than Ashildr herself remarked, handcuffed and chained and held the scruff of her jacket by the Shadow. The Shadow was nearly invisible in the night-time gloom. "You can't go kidnapping people and then changing your mind about it later, Major." It wasn't even just Ashildr, either; the even juicier target, Austin Cargill, the brains behind the Polaris Death Charge and the biggest loss of life in the entire history of the Homeworld Alliance, was also being dragged along by the Shadow. Only, Cargill was unconscious.

"Wow. This is it. This is the worst day of my life."

"She says to the girl she's paid a cannibal swarm to kidnap!" Ashildr exclaimed. The Shadow, unlike Clara Ravenwood, did not ask for permission to enter the house. He and his two charges entered the house, and in a way it was lucky that Ashildr was there again, out of the blue. "Nice to see you're still keeping house with your stepmother, Clara," Ashildr said. Clara looked like she had been punched in the face.

"What's going on!?"

"I told you I paid the Shadow with an Arcadian Diamond to bring me Ashildr and Cargill," Jenny said.

"Well can you give him another Arcadian Diamond so that he takes them away again?" Clara hissed.

"I'd waltz with you if you gave me two Arcadian Diamonds," the Shadow commented dryly, speaking through a voice modulator with that hive mind of his.

"What is that!? And what did she mean stepmother!? Who is she!? Why is that man unconscious!?" Danny was yelling. Missy had sunk into silence, merely observing again. Things were interesting enough without her needing to comment.

"Why is he unconscious?" Jenny asked.

"He didn't want to come with me," the Shadow told her.

"What? And she did?" she nodded at Ashildr.

"Well, I just heard the name 'Jenny' and I could help but swoon over my ex-girlfriend's new girlfriend," Ashildr grinned.

"Your what!?" Danny demanded, and she looked at him and frowned.

"You're very loud."

"What do you want me to do with this one, Harkness?" the Shadow asked her.

"I don't know – leave him anywhere, just make sure he doesn't run off," Jenny muttered.

"I don't understand what you mean," Danny said to Ashildr.

"It's pretty simple, I'm Clara's ex-girlfriend, and now Jenny is Clara's new girlfriend," Ashildr said.

"Okay, you can't prove that you're my ex-girlfriend," Clara interjected.

"You mean we never broke up!? I always thought that you dying was your way of telling me we're through. And I can, there's pictures of us doing it that got circulated around during the 1870s and caused quite the commotion in Brighton at the time," then she turned her attention back to Danny, "Why? Who are you?"

"Danny Pink," Danny Pink said through gritted teeth. Ashildr turned and looked at Clara.

"Your dead ex-boyfriend is in your living room. Why?"

"I thought it would be nice!" Missy protested.

"Seems more emotionally confusing than anything else. Which Bond villain are you pretending to be sitting dramatically in the armchair like that?" Ashildr question, and Clara nearly laughed, "And yes, I know who you are, Mistress. You don't live to be as old as me without learning the names of the biggest alien maniacs in history."

"And who might you be?" Missy was affronted.

"Not someone as infamous as you," Ashildr said.

"What's all this shit about girlfriends, Clara? My death affected you that much? You're a lesbian now?" Danny questioned.

"No!" Clara protested.

"Don't swear at her," Ashildr said coolly, then asked Jenny, "Why aren't you defending her?"

"I can defend myself!" Clara argued.

"You're doing a bad job of it," Ashildr said, "Why are you half naked? And what's this gun on the floor?" Ashildr peered down at a long rifle.

"Oh – Josephine," Jenny said, going to retrieve the rifle and make sure it was okay. She was fond of Josephine, and had been missing her for a hundred and eighty years. What she mainly liked was the spyglass she had attached a little wonkily to serve as a better sight for when she was alligator hunting from a distance.

"She has a gun!?" Danny exclaimed.

"I have a lot of guns," Jenny answered him. She put Josephine down carefully on the coffee table and went to pick up her brand new coat from where it had been thrown, brushing it off and not really knowing where to hang it. Ultimately, since Clara's house was cold while people argued behind her, and because she was still mostly dressed, she just put the coat back on, and the scarf. Clara didn't seem inclined to re-dress herself, though.

"What kind of a woman is she!? And why do I feel like I know her?" Danny asked Clara. This was not a particularly lovey-dovey reunion – and Jenny didn't know how to feel about that. She didn't like that Clara was distraught.

"You've met her before," Clara admitted, and then she looked meekly at Ashildr, out of everybody, wanting the latest arrival to bail her out of this situation.

"Jenny's the Doctor's daughter," Ashildr finally said. Jenny felt like she was on trial.

"She's what? The Doctor!? Who puts you into so much danger!? His daughter?"

"I'm not sure whatshisname has all the relevant information," Ashildr said.

"I have all the information I need! She's bad for you," Danny said firmly to Clara.

"You don't know anything about her," Clara answered.

"I know enough. She's related to the Doctor. That means trouble. And since when were you gay?" he asked.

"I'm bisexual. I always have been. I just… never got around to telling you. It never seemed too relevant being as you're… you know, a boy. And – what the hell are you, anyway? You're dead! You died! And now you're in my bloody house!" Yeah, Jenny thought, though she didn't speak, what was he?

"And you're not even pleased to see me! You said you'd never love anyone else, that I was it for you."

"And you would have been, but you died, and then there was… there were a lot of people, maybe, alright? And… Jenny," Clara said, "But seriously, what are you?"

"He's just a hologram, that's all. About as harmless as a shop window dummy. Isn't that right, Clara?" Missy remarked. So he was like Oswin, only soft-light, so he couldn't pick anything up or attach prosthetic legs to himself. Or touch Clara.

"I'll slug you if you say anything else like that to her," Ashildr cut across Jenny. The last time Jenny had encountered Ashildr, she had not liked her. She had been murdered by her, in fact, run through with a very sharp katana. But Jenny was caught in a stalemate where she didn't want to say anything that might paint her in a bad light in front of Danny Pink, and here was Ashildr saying and threatening all the things that she herself could not. Ashildr knew what she was doing, too, going by the knowing look she gave Jenny for the tiniest fraction of a second.

"You're handcuffed," Missy pointed out.

"Don't think that'll stop me. What's with the scarf, Major?" Ashildr turned back to her.

"Clara knitted it," Jenny mumbled. Ashildr scrutinised the scarf from where she stood, perhaps trying to deduce what the silvery blots were supposed to be.

"Why are you calling her 'Major'?" Danny interrupted.

"She's a Major," Ashildr answered. Jenny smiled, not at anybody in particular, a little uneasily.

"Military officer. Of course she is. Ordering men to their deaths, never facing the front herself," Danny said.

"Excuse you, Sergeant," Jenny grew angry at this accusation against her and brought up Danny's own rank, knowing it from conversations with Clara, "I'll have you know that no man or woman or other ever died under my command, not once, not in two-hundred years have I gotten a subordinate killed or ordered anyone to their death." Danny glared.

"She's right. He did, though," Ashildr pointed at the unconscious Austin Cargill, slumped against the staircase in Clara's hallway with the Shadow standing guard. "And I blamed Jenny for it and stabbed her! But it's alright now."

"I can't believe it. You're gay and you never told me."

"Danny…" Clara groaned.

"What else have you lied about?"

"I didn't lie! I never said I was straight!"

"You let me think it."

"Why should it be her problem if you just assume everybody is straight?" Ashildr questioned. Jenny lurked in half-shadows near the door to the cellar; Missy sat in the armchair and just watched the fireworks; the Shadow observed calmly from the hallway with Cargill dozing behind him. Clara Ravenwood and Danny Pink had centre stage, with handcuffed Ashildr interjecting in the dim lighting.

"She should tell me!" he argued.

"She never told me," Ashildr said. Danny squinted at her.

"How old are you?" he asked.

"She's millions of years old!" Clara protested, "Immortal."

"She looks twelve," Danny said, "You've slept with a twelve-year-old?"

"I died when I was eighteen," Ashildr argued.

"You've slept with an eighteen-year-old!?"

"It's not illegal! And I don't actually remember!"

"And how old is that one?" Danny pointed at Jenny with his thumb. Jenny would rather not exist.

"I'm two-hundred and eight."

"Practically an infant," Missy commented.

"How many people have you slept with since I died? Did you even wait until my body was cold?" Danny persisted, and Clara seemed offended.

"None of them meant anything," Clara said. In her quest to try not to offend her ex-partner, the result was that she offended her current partner, turning around to explain to Jenny, "I don't mean you – I mean those ones whose names I don't remember, who I never called back."

"How many of 'those ones' are there!? Come on, Clara, how long was it until you started putting it about?" Jenny thought that if she was Danny Pink she might be a little bit happier to see Clara, and especially to see that Clara was moving on and coping with his death. But did he not want her to get over him, ever? Did he want her to wallow forever, cease to function? Have the same nightmares about him that she had about her mother? If he had only looked where he was going when he crossed the road the two of them might still be happy – and the thought of Clara being with somebody else bothered Jenny a whole lot less than the thought of Clara never being happy.

"It's a coping mechanism!" she protested.

"Since when? Since you became a lesbian slut?"

"She's always been promiscuous," the Shadow, who was apparently very involved in all this, commented, "Going by my research."

"Why? Have you slept with her?" Danny asked the Shadow. The Shadow didn't have a face, or in fact any kind of facial expression or way to convey non-verbal emotion, but he managed to give Danny a flat, deadpan gaze, staring him down and intimidating him with his opaque, glassy features. Danny turned to Clara and then had the gall to ask, "Have you ever cheated on me?"

Clara couldn't find the words to express her outrage aptly, "I've never cheated on anybody." She had moved on from shouting now. Danny Pink was not living up to the angelic, glittering imprint on her memory, clearly. Jenny remembered now that Danny Pink had given her father a black eye before, had decked him right in front of both the Claras, just for his being married to her in another universe. No longer was he a pristine, unblemished image she kept tucked away inside her cold, non-beating heart.

"And I'm meant to believe that? Do you still love me?"

"I do!" she exclaimed, "I did! I don't know… why are you doing this!?" she rounded on the Mistress.

"Because I thought you had a love that could transcend mutual death," Missy said.

"What do you mean 'mutual'?" Danny interrupted, but Missy ignored him and continued.

"Maybe you would want to carry on your apparently wonderful relationship full of lies and deceit about who you were with and what you were doing even after both of you suffered grisly ends. How was I supposed to know it was a different relationship full of lies and deceit you wanted to carry on?"

"Neither of us were deceiving each other," Jenny said, finally speaking on her own behalf.

"I didn't say anything about deceiving each other, but a little bird told me you were cheating on your husband," Missy said, "A little bird called Captain Jack."

"Why were you speaking to Jack?" Jenny asked. She shrugged.

"He often finds himself drunk in some very unusual places."

Jenny sighed, "Sounds like him…"

"And what if you get bored and decide to cheat on Clara?"

"I've regenerated since then," Jenny said coolly, "And it's different."

"As long as you're on good enough terms with Harkness to get the Arcadian diamond, Harkness," the Shadow remarked.

"Okay, could you call me by some other surname instead of calling us both Harkness?" Jenny asked him.

"When am I getting my diamond, Young?"

"You'll get your diamond when I'm ready to give it to you," she said coolly.

"She's a cheater, then?" Danny addressed Clara, "You can't trust cheaters, Clara. Or people who pay to have other people kidnapped, people who aren't even human."

Ashildr scoffed, "Clara isn't even human."

"It's a good thing Pink doesn't know about how you're a master thief who used to work for the mob," the Shadow said dryly, and Jenny hadn't glared at anybody so much for weeks.

"The MOB, Clara!? Are both of these two criminals!?" he included Ashildr, "What sort of people do you associate with!? I didn't think it could get worse than the Doctor – him putting you in danger, you blindly going along with it, lying to me about what you were up to. And you've been putting it about! Opening your legs for every random bloke who buys you a drink! And you said you loved me, more than anybody else, more than you ever would love anybody else, or were you just lying then, too? Like you lie about everything? Well, go on then, let's see. Let's see if you were lying. Let's see you choose. We could still make it work, my feelings haven't changed – but who's this new flame? Just another firefly in your life? Who do you want? Me or her?" It was a hellish spiel he gave Clara, and it was a hellish turmoil she was thrown into, dizzied and nearly stumbling, like the room around her was spinning. Jenny didn't know what to do, whether she ought to comfort Clara or stay quiet, argue with Danny or calmly make her own case, and in her indecision she just remained silent. It wouldn't have made a difference if she was there or not.

The room was filled with thrumming. A noise that washed Jenny with a feeling of relaxation, of brief calmness. It was mechanical and painful, the sound of the breaks being left on, but there was no doubt about it – outside somewhere, just at the edge of Clara's front garden, the TARDIS was warping into being. And the TARDIS brought the Doctor, and the Doctor was the only one who could straighten out everything that had happened and put an end to the chaos.

AN: What did you guys think of the 1948 mob storyline? I thought it was one of my better ones, personally, and I enjoyed it a lot more than some of the others, so I'm curious.