DAY 145

Another Girl Another Planet XX

Ravenwood

She didn't remember going to sleep. This, when she awoke some hours later, rendered her incredibly confused, the night's events hazy and not at the forefront of her mind. What was at the forefront of her mind was a bad dream consisting of Danny Pink berating her for her newfound, monstrous nature – that being, of course, that she was a vampire. It was only a bad dream, though. Not a nightmare. For Clara, nightmares were an entirely different affair, and generally involved reliving her mother's death over and over and over and over. Until she woke up screaming.

But that morning she didn't wake up screaming, just disoriented and tired, because she didn't really know where she was. She squinted around the dim room at the blue walls and the cream sheets, but most importantly she squinted around at Jenny, who was sitting up next to her with a notepad and pen in hand, deep in thought. Clara had been sleeping half with her head on her girlfriend's middle, using her as a curiously muscular and very warm pillow, arm across Jenny's waist. Clara could hear her two hearts beating. Jenny noticed Clara was awake almost instantly.

"Bit early for you, isn't it?" she asked.

"There's no sun here," Clara grumbled, hiding her face against Jenny, "It's hard to tell."

"It's only ten o'clock," Jenny said.

"Why aren't you asleep?" Clara asked, dimly aware that Jenny was meant to be sleeping that night, she hadn't slept at all since recovering from her sickness last week.

"I couldn't sleep. You were being restless, and I have things on my mind," she sighed. Then Clara noticed something else, some other reason why she was so vastly uncomfortable in Jenny's bed.

"Am I wearing clothes?"

"Well yeah, you were still dressed when you fell asleep," Jenny said.

"You didn't change me?"

"What? I'm not going undress you when you're sleeping, that's so creepy! If you fall asleep in your clothes you can deal with the fallout," Jenny said, then looked down at her and asked, "Are you okay?"

"I had a bad dream."

"One of your nightmares?" she asked seriously.

"No. Just a bad dream. About Danny. It's not important." Clara rolled away to get out of the bed from the other side, leaving Jenny alone with the idea she ought to get changed. As soon as she stood up, she felt faint, and yawned. "Is there any blood?"

"Of course there is," Jenny nodded at a flask on the bedside table on the side Clara had been sleeping on. "Are you getting up?"

"I'm just getting changed… I can borrow your clothes, can't I?"

"Always," Jenny said. Clara smiled at her, though she was still dazed and haggard, and the bloodlust was taking hold. It always did after waking, she would need at least an entire pint of blood to stop her from potentially killing the first human she came across. So the blood was the first thing she went for, and Jenny went back to poring over whatever she had in that notepad. That was when Clara noticed that Jenny was holding her pen in her right hand, and that her right hand was not bandage-clad. This left a grim scar in full-view, surrounded by purple and yellow blotched bruises.

"Your thumb," Clara said, looking at it.

"Martha took the bandages off. Oswin's making me some sort of brace," Jenny said.

"Have you been writing?" she asked, trying to take off her tights.

"Well, I'm swamped. I'm making a to-do list," Jenny explained. Clara stopped what she was doing in the middle of pulling off her tights, standing awkwardly on one leg, and raised her eyebrows at Jenny. "What?" She didn't say anything, managing to free herself from the tyranny of her own tights eventually, then came to kneel on the bed next to Jenny to get a look at this alleged list.

"Wow. It looks like it was written by a child. Or Oswin."

"Oi!" Jenny protested, and Clara laughed and leant over to kiss her girlfriend's disgruntled cheek.

"It's cute though."

"You say everything I do is cute."

"So what?" Clara countered, and then Jenny smiled. Making her way over to the wardrobe, Clara inquired, "What's on your list, then?"

"Number one; get a boyfriend."

"Oh, very funny."

"Number one is actually Homeworld Alliance. Because I have to go there as soon as possible to sort all this Cargill stuff out. Then number two; fix Porsche 356 for Clara. Number three; fix jukebox for Clara. Number four; fix lock/security system for Clara. Number five; spend time with the Doctor. Number six-"

"Hold on, why is most of your list just doing things for me?" Clara asked. While Jenny had been talking Clara had been searching through the wardrobe for pyjamas, resolving that one pair of Jenny's knickers would probably suffice for her lower half. Aside from that, Jenny happened to have a myriad of identical t-shirts, all black, to match the abundance of leather her wardrobe possessed.

"Well, you can't fix the Porsche or the jukebox or the lock."

"It's Adam's job to get the lock fixed, he's the landlord, and the security system is Oswin's."

"I know, I just thought I'd go ask them."

"I can ask them. They're only across the hall. And don't worry about the jukebox or the Porsche. Catch." She took Jenny by surprise by throwing her bra she had just carefully removed at her head. Jenny held up the notebook in her hands to block it. It just landed on the duvet next to her.

"What'd you do that for?" she looked at it funny.

Clara shrugged, "Felt like it? Do you not like women throwing their bras at you?"

"I never understand the point of it – bras are expensive, and what's the person you threw them at meant to do with them? It's not like I could wear it, it isn't the right size," Jenny said, picking it up with her left hand and dropping it on the floor by the bed.

"I want it back. You can't keep it forever."

"I don't want to keep it forever."

"I just don't want to sleep in it."

"I'm not critiquing your decision to take it off, it's the bit where you threw it at me I find weird."

"You need to learn how to take a compliment, Jen."

"And you need to learn how to strip in front of your girlfriend better," she jibed as Clara got changed, "You need more finesse."

"I'm not stripping," Clara argued, pulling the shirt down over her head, "I'm just getting changed. Don't be a perv."

"I'd never be a one-of-those. Anyway, back to my to-do list: number six; make sure Clara is okay."

"I don't know if she's okay – you'd have to go next door to ask her," Clara joked.

"Are you okay, though?" Jenny asked seriously. Clara sighed and scratched her head, thinking about if she could be bothered brushing her teeth yet that morning. She resolved that brushing her teeth could wait until she actually woke up in a few more hours, since she had all intents to go back to sleep as soon as she got bored of talking to Jenny. Not that she ever really got bored of talking to Jenny, but she was very tired.

Comfortable in pyjamas now, Clara came and threw herself down onto the bed a little over-dramatically.

"I'm fine," she mumbled into her pillow.

"Are you sure?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"You just collapsed onto my bed."

"I'm just tired."

"You're very melodramatic," she commented, and Clara looked around at her and scowled. Then she went to the tremendous effort of actually rolling over and sitting up properly, though her eyelids were heavy and stinging with sleep. She yawned again.

"I'm alright," she finally answered, "Don't worry."

"How can I not worry?" Jenny continued with her seriousness, "Your ex-boyfriend was-"

"I know what happened. I'm sad. But I'm not broken. I have you."

"But I'm-"

"Perfect," Clara finished her sentence, not wanting to know what kind of argument Jenny was going to make up, "You're perfect. You always will be. You don't have to worry, just don't leave me."

"I would never leave you!" Jenny protested, as though Clara had genuinely just accused her of doing such a heinous thing. She nearly laughed; in fact, she would have laughed, had the conversation not made her more melancholy again. Both of them, really.

"Good to know. What's eating you, anyway? Apart from me, obviously."

"Ew." Clara smiled. "A lot of things." Her smile faded.

She shuffled closer to Jenny, so that their hips were touching and Clara could feel the warmth radiating from her skin, and asked softly, "What things?"

"I couldn't save that alien yesterday."

"I keep telling you that wasn't your fault – let me hold your hand," she pleaded, and Jenny put the notebook down on the floor next to the bra and let her, Clara being very gentle with the battered, blueing thumb. She could feel the strange angle it had healed at now, though, like someone was pulling Jenny's thumb back and holding it there.

"Your cold hands will be great to help the swelling go down," Jenny said.

"I thought the swelling did go down already?"

"It did – then Ashildr tugged on it," she winced slightly when she spoke. On a whim, and perhaps because she was intolerably tired, Clara lifted Jenny's hand and lightly kissed the jagged scar running across her thumb knuckle. "Your lips are even colder than your hands."

"It's a wonder you can stand to sleep next to me. Is it all better now I've kissed it?"

Jenny feigned examining her hand for a moment, then said, "Oh yeah, definitely. Fine now. I appreciate it. You're adorable sometimes."

"Anything else bothering you? I'm here to help," Clara said, "What sort of a girlfriend would I be if I didn't let you confide in me?"

"A cruel but beautiful one," Jenny answered, "Classic vampire. And it bothered me the way he spoke to you, and about you, like he owned you – had some kind of a claim on you. Like you couldn't even make your own decisions. I don't care that you used to date him, he shouldn't say those things to upset you. Ashildr dated you for ten years, and she didn't say a thing against you or me."

"Wait – ten years!?" Clara exclaimed, gawking. She hadn't heard anything about this 'ten years' malarkey. Ten years with Ashildr!? With Ashildr!? An entire decade!?

"Oh, yeah. That's what she said. She said something else, too…" Jenny began carefully, as though she were gauging Clara's response.

"What did she say?"

"She…" Jenny paused a moment before finally resolving to answer, "She said you were never really hers. You were always mine. Even if I didn't know it. Saying you were 'somewhere else' a lot of the time. And she accused me of breaking your heart."

"My heart barely even beats. But what have you ever done to break it?" She was very interested now in these truth-bombs Ashildr had been dropping willy-nilly.

"Apparently my being a mass murderer responsible for the Polaris Death Charge," Jenny said grimly, taking her hand away from Clara and crossing her arms in a moody sort of way. Clara reached up to play with her blonde hair instead; she always got plenty of amusement out of that. She loved Jenny's hair. "Because she told you that and that's why you never called me for those ten years. Couldn't stand the fact I always acted so high and mighty even though I-"

"Hey, it's okay," Clara said, "I don't think that about you, and I don't even remember this period of heartbreak. Those ten years aren't important – to be honest, I thought it would be a lot longer than that – what's important is now. That's what you always tell me, the present is what counts. And now we're together."

"Finally."

"Yeah," Clara laughed a little.

"Oswin used to accuse me of fancying you."

"You do fancy me."

"No, I mean, before we were together."

"You did fancy me."

Jenny made a face, "That's not what I mean."

"What's this about Oswin being in love with you, anyway?" Clara asked.

"That's nothing, it's just a… thing. Ghost, kind of…" she said awkwardly, and Clara raised her eyebrows. Clara didn't know that she had just painted Jenny into a corner, though, and that Jenny now felt forced to admit something to her she would much rather not ever admit in her current regeneration. "You know I used to like her."

"You what?"

"Oh my god!" and Jenny then hid her face. Clara thought this was quite funny, "You totally know that!"

"Not really. What're you so bothered about it for – you said used to."

"Because it's weird because you look the same."

"But you slept with me as part of some weird competition with Jack about who could sleep with the most Echoes," Clara pointed out, "Having a tiny little baby-crush on Oswin isn't all that bad in perspective." And now Jenny Harkness had gone red.

"Don't talk about it like that… I'm sensitive."

"It can't be any worse than my infatuation with Sally Sparrow."

"But your infatuation with Sally Sparrow is not, never has been, and never will be, a mutual thing," Jenny said.

"Oswin used to like you as well?"

"It's not important! We never talked about it. We're friends. She's in love with Adam Mitchell, I'm in love with you, it doesn't matter," she grumbled, "Adam Mitchell is pretty great, really."

"Oh, so now you fancy my landlord as well as my sister?" Clara only said that to piss Jenny off. And it worked wonderfully as Jenny in all her embarrassment at this admittance of her minor affections for Oswin was appalled, hiding her whole face from Clara's view as Clara burst out laughing. But they were doomed to be interrupted as somebody knocked on Jenny's door, and they both fell silent. It took Jenny a moment to realise that this was her bedroom and so she ought to be the one to answer.

She cast Clara a dark look, Clara smirking, and got out of the bed, very careful to pick the stray bra back up and throw it into Clara's face. She was surprised to see it was Donna Noble at the door, and not Oswin or Eleven or Nios, perhaps. Martha after her for her thumb again. It was a good thing it wasn't Martha when the bandage covering her bullet wound on her left upper-arm was fully visible.

"Hey!" Jenny said brightly. Clara knew she was still blushing slightly, as she moved the bra away. "It's been ages!" She hugged Donna, Clara glancing at the messy handwriting in the notebook. There she saw 'number seven; make mayonnaise.'

"When did you get back? Nobody told me, I wouldn't have known if I didn't hear you talking next door," Donna said.

"Uh, only a few hours ago. What do you mean next door? In my dad's room?"

"Oh – I forgot, you wouldn't know… Jack swapped rooms with me. Well, the place where the room is, not the actual room. I don't want to see some of the stuff he might have in there…" she said, speaking as though Jenny didn't know exactly what kind of kinky stuff Jack kept in his room. Not that Jenny would ever tell Clara about it, as often as she asked. Her lips were sealed.

"Swapped with you? Why?"

"In case you brought her home," Donna nodded at Clara, who heard Jenny scoff.

"Seriously? That's petty. Did we wake you up? Clara was just going back to sleep now, anyway," Jenny said.

"Is she alright? She looks ill," Donna said.

"You could ask her directly?" Clara sarcastically suggested.

"Are you ill?"

"No, I'm just undead. Haven't been drinking enough of the blood of the innocent lately to keep that healthy glow in my cheeks. Isn't that right, Jen?"

"Yes, yes," Jenny dismissed her, "You're melodramatic, we already spoke about this."

"And I'm still offended by it."

"I thought you hate when people call you 'Jen' and not 'Jenny'?" Donna asked carefully, glancing between them both like she was trying to solve a puzzle.

"I do. Unless they're Clara," Jenny answered, "She can call me what she likes." Jenny's dislike of the nickname 'Jen' came as a great surprise to Clara, who called her it frequently and was never told off for it.

"Are you two actually going out then?" Donna asked, perplexed. Jenny was taken aback.

"What? We've been going out for a month. A month to you. It's about three months to us, I think," Jenny explained, "How do you not know that?"

"I just thought it was some sort of trick you were playing on Jack."

"Oh, I don't care enough about Jack to play a trick on him for so long," Jenny said indifferently, "You know, Donna, I hate to sound like I'm being rude, but Clara has to go back to sleep. Since she's nocturnal, and stuff."

"Are you trying to get rid of me? Why is she holding a bra?" then Donna gasped very theatrically, "Are you two about to do it!?"

"No!" they both exclaimed, then Jenny sighed and said, "Why don't you go see if the cat's given birth yet?"

"Don't patronise me," Donna said coolly, "I'm not a child."

"And what? I am? I'm two-hundred. And I have to talk to my girlfriend," she said. Her reiteration of the fact Clara Ravenwood was her girlfriend made Donna leave, and Jenny felt bad for doing so. She would make it up to her later. She would make it up to everyone later. Absently, she called behind her, "Add onto the list – number eight; make dinner for the whole crew. Please." Clara picked up the notepad and pen and did so, her own perfectly neat and legible handwriting making Jenny's broken scrawl look like a farce. It was amusing, though. Jenny closed the door.

"What do you have to talk to your girlfriend about, then?" Clara inquired as she finished writing.

"I don't know. How pretty she is? How I forget there's no privacy on this ship…"

"Then let's just not do anything private. Listen, Jen," Clara began, Jenny coming to get back into the bed, "I don't think I'm going to stay here very long."

"I didn't think you would, it's just, last night was chaotic…"

"Yeah, I know, but I'd rather go back home later today."

"You can. Anyway, I think I might… come back to the TARDIS," she said, "Since staying with you apparently doesn't keep me out of as much danger as Martha thought… but it is a bit disheartening thinking about not being with you all the time."

"It'll be fine."

"It's kind of like long-distance, though."

"Okay, you live in a teleporting space-box, it's not remotely long-distance," Clara told her, "Anyway. I'm so tired I think I might die."

"Can I go? While you're asleep? Try and sort out this stuff with the Alliance quickly? I've got to get through my list by the end of the day," Jenny said. Clara smiled.

"Of course you can."

"And you promise you won't go back to Hollowmire without seeing me?" Jenny asked.

"Yes, I promise – god, you act as though you're not my favourite person in the world. But seriously. I'm going to pass out in a moment. Good night." Again, she over-dramatically threw herself down in the bed, onto the pillows, pulling the sheets tightly over her.

"I think you mean good morning."

"No, I mean good night," she mumbled.

"So do I get a good night kiss?"

"Well I guess, if you're insisting," Clara pretended she was put-out by this request as she sat back up, Jenny leaning down slightly to kiss her first. Bitterly, but with a note of cruel smugness, Clara thought to herself that Jenny was a much better kisser than Danny Pink had ever been. And a much better everything-else-er, too. It was these thoughts, of how lucky she was to still have Jenny in spite of it all, that lulled her back to sleep.