Date Night XVII / Nerd Flirts XI

Clara

The Doctor was asleep. It was nearly half past ten in the morning, and he was still in bed. He'd had a late night, Clara didn't actually remember him coming back to their room, but he had been there when the Echoculum had woken her up at five in the morning. She entered quietly and didn't turn the lights on, throwing her empty Marlboro pack in the wastepaper bin and going to dig out her e-cigarette, because she had officially run out of regular ones. It was on the coffee table buried among all the books they took out to read and then forgot about. She fumbled about switching the liquid cartridge for a while, struggling in the dark, still hearing Eleven snore behind her as she kicked off her shoes into the corner. She switched on the device and took a deep, refreshing breath of vapour.

She went to eye one of the stacks of books but didn't recognise them or some of the words on the covers. The Doctor must have been in the library again until late. Her eyes wandered back to him, fast asleep in bed. He had surely had enough sleep by now, though. And if not, he could easily catch up later. It was this Clara had in mind when she jumped onto the bed next to him, her empty side on the right, with as much force as she could muster. This wasn't a particularly great amount of force, but it was enough to jolt Eleven and make him think there was something going on. He woke with a start, frantic, panicking, and was just faced with Clara laughing at him.

"What's going on?" he asked her urgently.

"Nothing," she said, fumbling with her pillows to prop them up behind her. She hadn't made the bed that morning when she had left, just left it messy. "I'm angling for company."

"Did you jump on the bed?" he questioned, "It's bad for the springs. That's what you always tell me when I want to jump on the bed."

"You're heavier than I am," she said, "You'd do irreparable damage to the springs, but the springs won't even notice me. I'm petite." He made an incoherent, grumbling noise and buried his face in his pillow. Clara reached over to mess up his hair - which was already quite dreadful - and he rather pathetically tried to swat her hand away. This made her laugh. "What time did you come to bed last night?"

"Two in the morning. I went to the Savoy, I've been having an affair. Marilyn Monroe just won't stop ringing," he mumbled.

"I suppose I can't be angry. I'd do the same thing If Marilyn Monroe kept ringing me. You know what? You should call her," Clara said, "Wasn't she married to Arthur Miller? Let's double date. I'd love to meet Arthur Miller." The Doctor forced himself to sit up next to her, leaning on the headboard with one of his pillows underneath him and the other one tossed onto the floor.

"I don't know if that's a good idea."

"Why not? You won't let me meet anyone famous."

"What about The Beatles?"

"I don't care about The Beatles," she pouted.

"You sound like a spoilt child," he told her, and she knew he was right. But she still wanted to have dinner with Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller - they could even go to the Savoy, what with them being banned from the Ritz Carlton. "What are you chewing? Is that a pen?"

"No, it's a cigarette, you know that," she said, and then proceeded to say quite patronisingly, "They make electronic ones now." He reached up his hand as if to take it, and she let him have it to examine, even though he had certainly seen it before. "If you break it I'll start smoking real ones indoors again."

"It looks like my screwdriver."

"A little bit," she admitted, "I could get a sonic one. Sonic cigarette."

"Then you'd have two sonics since you still haven't returned mine," he said, handing her back the device. She took another drag on it and then blew the vapour into his face, which alarmed him. "Why does it smell so funny?"

"It's marshmallow flavour," she said. "You can get tons of weird flavours."

"Like what?"

Clara paused and thought for a while, "Milk."

"Milk?"

"Yeah."

"Surely it's easier to just drink some milk."

"Well, milk normally doesn't have any nicotine in it," she explained, still patronising him. He didn't say anything for a few moments, merely watched her. She was about to break from holding his gaze and ask him what he wanted, when he leant in and kissed her. So that was what he wanted, she thought to herself.

"Are you wearing clothes?" he asked a moment later.

"I actually do own clothes, it might surprise you to hear," she told him.

"Are we going out? Did I forget?" he asked, stroking her cheek.

"No, I've been out already today, I just got back. Didn't I wake you up leaving?"

"Apparently not." He moved his hands away from her. "Where did you go?"

"Echo crisis," she explained, "Just me and Oswin. Found something out about our future - one day, we're going to see one of my Echoes get decapitated in front of us, and you're going to save her and make sure she survives as a floating head in a jar."

"Sounds like a lot of work, and not a particularly nice life - I wouldn't like to be a just a head," he said.

"She hired a mad scientist to clone her a new body, except it turns out she's rich and he wanted to steal her identity and her money. So we were talking to this head - my head - and it wasn't me at all, it was a nutty professor. Professor Ouroboros." Eleven laughed here. "What?"

"Funny name. In regards to you."

"How's that?"

"Well, it's an Ancient Egyptian symbol, a serpent eating its own tail. Represents creation and order in chaos and whatnot," he said.

"Ah, so you think about me eating myself? That's what you're getting at?"

"No, but a head chasing its own body? It's interesting. Did that take you all morning?"

"More or less. And now I'm all free for the rest of the day. What about you? Any plans?" Clara queried. She hoped he didn't bring up Jenny, now that Clara knew of Jenny's low-key plans to leave. But Oswin was right; if Clara could keep the secrets of her 'affair' with Thirteen under wraps, then she could keep Jenny's private business she wasn't even supposed to know about to herself as well.

"No, I don't think so. I was going to sleep."

"Why were you really out so late?"

"I was in the library."

"You spend a lot of time in the library - is it your shed?" she questioned wryly, but he just frowned.

"What do you mean?"

"It's a thing men have, sometimes a literal shed but sometimes… an office, or a basement. Where they go to escape from their wives and families," she explained to him.

"Why would I want to escape from my wife? Honestly, I think your species have quite unusual views on marriage. These men - I see them all the time - they're so excited to propose and get married, but after that they stop caring. I've even heard Craig complain about Sophie sometimes and the way she insists on drying all the washing up before she puts it away. And before, that would have been white noise, I wouldn't have registered it, but now? I told him we have a dishwasher."

"Do Craig and Sophie not have a dishwasher?"

"No. Something to do with her not wanting them to get lazy. Personally, I admire the sentiment, but I told them that having the dishwasher means more time for… other things," he said awkwardly. Then he picked up a mug from the bedside table and took a sip of it, before coughing and spitting what was in it back out. "What is that?"

"Cold coffee from two nights ago. Shall I go and put the mug in the dishwasher?" she quipped. He didn't say anything and put the mug back down, still making a face. "When did you have this conversation?"

"The last time we had dinner. You didn't come, you remember? Because you think Sophie doesn't like you?"

"She doesn't like me."

"She does, Coo, she thinks you don't like her."

"That's crazy, she's cute," said Clara, "Shall I invite her to girl's night?"

"Since when did you have girl's night?"

"Me and Rose getting drunk."

"Don't invite her to that," he sighed, "She wouldn't be able to handle it. All the teleporting and causing a public disturbance – and the theft."

"Then… let's not have dinner. Let's do something else with them."

"Ah," he said knowingly, and then tapped the side of his nose, "You mean like lunch?"

"No," she laughed, taking his hand, "I mean something fun. We're fun people, aren't we? Just because we're married doesn't mean we can't be fun. We went and saw Rent."

"I don't think we should take Craig and Sophie to see Rent, not with you crying."

"Take them to see The Beatles."

"Are you serious? Not about The Beatles, about wanting to do something with them."

"If you do something for me," she said sultrily, moving her e-cigarette and leaning close to him.

"Like what?" he asked quietly. She kissed him for a brief moment.

"Like convince Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller to do a double date." He groaned and leant away from her, and she sat back down in her own space. He studied her carefully, from afar, and she merely waited for his answer.

"I'll think about it. But she might hate me. And she might hate you, for marrying me, since she wanted to do that herself. Although she was very drunk," he said, "She might not even answer the phone."

"We could go paint-balling."

"I'm not sure Marilyn would want to go paint-balling."

"Craig and Sophie."

"I don't want to go paint-balling. Sophie likes art - we'll go to an art gallery, or a museum. In the future. One you haven't been to, either. How does that sound?"

"Sounds great. We could even get lunch."

"Speaking of lunch…" he began leaning towards her again, "What time is it?"

"Nearly eleven."

"So there's still an hour until noon."

"I already ate."

"Oh really… about what we were saying, about you wearing clothes…"

"Do you want me to put my coat back on?"

"What? No! I was just thinking, because you don't have any plans, and I don't have any plans…"

"Like what? Cleaning up in here?"

"…Maybe later, Coo." He looked at her imploringly. Eventually, she smiled.

"Just give me five more minutes of vaping, okay? And I need the toilet. Then I'm all yours, for the rest of the day and the rest of forever."

Oswin

Somebody grabbed her waist from behind and she freaked. She freaked and nearly fell off the plastic stool she had been sitting on in her laboratory, sketching schematics. She had been listening to an opera from her own century in the background while she worked, and had subsequently not heard anybody come into the room. When she twisted around in her chair she was faced with Adam Mitchell laughing smugly, clearly proud that he had finally got the drop on her, instead of the other way around. Not that she ever intended to frighten him, it was always accidental.

"Mitchell!" she objected, hitting his arm pathetically, "What did you do that for!?"

"I don't know," he admitted, "I just saw you there, all quiet. I couldn't resist." She glared at him. Then he smiled, "Let me make it up to you."

"How are you going to do that?" she challenged him. And that was when he kissed her. She got the feeling that he had wanted to interrupt her with this marvellous action, but remembered that she didn't like being interrupted like that. No matter how cute he was. But now he had waited until she had finished speaking, so him actually having some courage for once came as a very delicious surprise. She kissed him back and pressed her hands onto the tabletop behind her, but her hand was on one of her schematics and the paper ended up slipping and she nearly fell off her stool. She would have done, if Adam didn't catch her. She clung to his arm and stared at the fallen sheet of paper.

"Was that something important? I'm sorry," his bumbling self returned and he removed his own hands from where they had been on her waist. A disappointing turn of events for something which had briefly been so exquisite.

"No, not really. Just some stuff I was drawing up." It was for Flek, but she didn't want to mention Flek because it would end up killing the mood stone dead, and she didn't want that. She was still rather angling to try and seduce him at the next decent opportunity, after all.

"What kind of stuff?" he queried, leaning down to pick up the drawings.

"Water purification devices, mainly," she said.

"For Flek?" he asked. She sighed. Now he had ruined it for himself.

"Uh-huh." He looked at her for a few moments, and then at his feet.

"Sorry. For knocking it on the floor."

"Don't be sorry, it was… you know, nice. Swept me off my singular, three-toed foot," she confessed, her cheeks going pink. She cleared her throat. "I thought you were out with Ellie today?"

"I was, it didn't take long," he said, pulling out the stool next to her and sitting down on it. Oswin just wanted him to kiss her again, but doubted that he would. It was all very unfortunate. "Do you think she's okay?"

"I haven't seen her for ages. But she does have a very disrupted home life," Oswin pointed out, "All I can suggest is to give her more stability than you being an absentee guardian, but…"

"But?" he prompted.

"You'd have to leave the ship, and I don't want you to leave the ship," she admitted, "I don't know if we would work long-distance. But I wouldn't want to live in your century, no offence. It's a bit… stone age."

"Yeah," he sighed. She knew he didn't want to leave the TARDIS, either. Ever since he'd been kicked off the first time, his dream had been to one day return and become a genuine companion.

"She might be okay. She's not the only kid going to boarding school, after all. I don't mind staying on Earth with you during holidays, you know," she said, "I just couldn't make any permanent change. But I like your house. I could bring Fyn, I keep meaning to show him Earth. He might get along with your sister, and it'll prepare him for when his kid becomes a teenager."

"What, really? You'd stay on Earth during holidays? For my sakes?"

"And Ellie's. You're forgetting, I have five siblings. Six if you include Clara. And, you know… maybe our families should…"

"What?"

"Meet?" she suggested.

"Is this about my parents?" he asked seriously.

"No, it's not about your parents." That was half a lie.

"Because they're not very good people, and they wouldn't say anything nice about you – I wouldn't want them to upset you," he said.

"It's not about that," she said, "Though, my dad still does want to meet you. And you're not getting out of it by playing this eye-for-an-eye card. I want you to meet him because he'd love you. It's just… I've been out with Clara today, and she was asking me all these questions." She wasn't looking at him as she talked, because this was a very difficult conversation to have. "She was just asking me if I… if we… ever talked about getting married." She had never seen Adam Mitchell so flummoxed as he was at that moment, so wholly incapable of thinking of something to say.

"What? Are you… you're saying… you'd want to?"

"I'm gonna tell you something I've never told you before," she began, "It was a few weeks ago, when we got the letter from Thirteen giving us clues and instructions about the future, and I was re-dressing your weird barnacle lesion you have and I had to run a biopsy*."

"Yes?"

"And you were worrying about it being unattractive to girls, and I said it's not unattractive to me so why should other girls matter? And you started saying you were worried I was going to dump you, and it was when I was telling you how wonderful you are that I remember thinking that I was going to marry you one day. And I nearly said it, and you asked me, and I lied and said something about dressing the welt. And you know, it's got to be a genuine sentiment because it just came out of nowhere." He stared at her.

"I thought you were against marriage?"

"I've just never really thought about it in regards to myself. But I thought I should tell you, because Clara was badgering me and I thought… it should be something you and I talk about first, if we're going to talk about it at all."

"Well, this is…" he didn't know what to say. She knew that he would fall over himself for an opportunity to marry her, though, one day. "It's only been a few months."

"I'm not proposing, babe. I'm just letting you know that… well, that I think we have a future together, a proper one, that we can evolve. Not yet, but you know what they say about honesty."

"Wow."

"What?"

"You haven't made one filthy joke this whole time."

"I'm being sincere," she said, "I can't be funny all the time, even I'd get tired of that."

"I wouldn't want to get married at all for a few years," he said somewhat guiltily.

"That's fine," she laughed, "Like I said, I'm not proposing. That's your job."

"But you're from the liberated future – don't women propose?"

"I don't want to emasculate you. You can do it. You'd think of something better than I would, I'm not very romantic," she told him. "I'm only telling you all this because… well, you should know, I suppose."

"All anyone ever seems to talk about these days is weddings," he sighed. Sprite had been curled up on the desk next to Oswin, but now unfurled his legs. "Was he asleep?"

"Mmm, he does that," said Oswin, "I'm a very good programmer." Adam Mitchell smiled and Sprite went to shower him with affection, which just involved crawling over him.

"He reminds me of a cat," said Adam, who was getting used to Sprite, though he was still very guarded.

"If you want to go play with a cat there are six of them in the next room you're supposed to be getting rid of. What's the news with that, by the way?"

"I don't know, I've been kind of snowed under recently… Ravenwood wants the nasty one, so that's good," he said, "The rest are fine. I thought we might keep the one with the tentacles on the TARDIS. What with it having tentacles. Do any of your brothers want a kitten?"

"I doubt it, Fynny hates animals. I'll ask, though. Maybe Reker will want one. I've been meaning to speak to him again, anyway," Oswin said, "Ask after my nephew and nieces."

"I've been trying to get Esther to take one of them, but she keeps complaining about accidentally electrocuting it, or it getting cat hairs everywhere," he said, "They're not even old enough to give away yet."

"Sooner the better," said Oswin.

"Well. I'll keep my ear to the ground," he said. She didn't know if he was being truthful; she had a sneaking suspicion that he might pretend to look for homes for the cats and then try and swing it so that they could keep the whole litter – minus the savage one that kept trying to kill Jack and Jenny. "Hey," he took her hand just as she was about to pick her pencil back up, "I'm glad you told me this stuff. That you felt you could. I know you hate talking about your feelings."

"I don't hate it, I just prefer not to think about it," she said, "But I'll bear it, for you. Anyway, that's all I want to say on the matter. I've had a long morning, I can't think of anything better to do with the rest of my day than spend it with you not talking about our relationship."

"What do you want to do?"

"…Watch films?" she suggested, "I don't care. I want to stay in and I want it to just be us. I'll even play one of your ancient video games." He then smiled very broadly, as though he were trying to stop himself from expressing joy but he wasn't very good at it.

"Alright. Whatever you want."

"We can go in the simulation, then I can eat popcorn and walk," she said.

"Sounds like a dream."

*chapter 965