Another Girl Another Planet XXIII

Ravenwood

The rain had subsided a little in the afternoon while she had been away, Jenny told her, but by the evening it was dark out and they were in the middle of a storm. Thunder and lightning was forecast for the night, and the black clouds blocked out the moon and the stars. She could see nothing but car headlamps gliding past like ghosts, the cars themselves blotted out by the inky night, through the soaking window pane of the restaurant.

"I hope no one notices," said Jenny, looking at the window as well. She was talking about the mirror image in the glass, one of an attractive young blonde wearing her best dress with her makeup done to perfection, having a romantic dinner with a spectre who did not appear in the duplicated picture. Clara's food shifted around her plate and disappeared, and her chair was pulled out. Waiters spoke to the unoccupied space and smiled and brought more drinks. Long ago she had gotten used to not having a reflection; Jenny would sometimes sketch her, but rarely.

"They won't. They'll be too busy looking at you in the glass to notice that I'm not there," Clara did her most charming smile, "You look beautiful. Really, you do. The belle of the ball." Jenny looked down at her plate to hide her blush, fidgeting with her mussels and shoving them around the plate. Clara was eating calamari because it was her favourite. Unbeknownst to Jenny, Clara didn't have the engagement ring on her anymore, she had hidden it away in their bedroom again. "Tell you what I love – those lobster rolls. You remember when you used to go all the way to Maine just to get those lobster rolls for me and Esther?"

"I still would, but I'd feel bad about having them without Esther around."

"She'll have to show her face soon. Sally's spiralling and I miss her, it's been months. She's never visited since we moved."

"It's just a few more years until the HCC goes bust," Jenny reminded her, which she had to remind Clara often. In fact, it was something they had to remind each other, because they both found themselves appalled by the treatment of Manifests. It was like living in America during the Red Scares, shipped off to Guantanamo for a stray comment about being partial to vodka and ushunkas.

"I want her help with powering the hotel to keep it off the grid," Clara said, "There's only so much perception filters and transdimensional technology can do." Really, Clara just missed her. She missed living just down the road from Sally and Esther, though she did enjoy having Nios just down the hall, and sometimes Dr Cohen, who hated Other Her but loved asking questions about what it was like to be a vampire. Clara couldn't work out of Dr Cohen was building up the courage to ask her to bite her; she was surprised Jane Austen hadn't asked her to bite her; Sally Sparrow never stopped asking her to bite her.

Thunder rumbled outside. Clara liked storms. She liked that they now slept in the attic instead of the cellar she could listen to the rain drumming on the roof; it gave her an excuse to stay awake longer talking to Jenny, whispering sweet nothings while the clouds revolted above. She ate another morsel of squid. Traffic was backing up in the road, and now there were red and orange lights rippling in the waterfall-window. A memory rose to the surface and she nudged Jenny underneath the table with her foot.

"Tell me about your big case. Is it going to show up in the papers?" Her scrapbook of news clippings had come to mind.

"Oh," Jenny smiled slightly, pleased that Clara had asked, "Yeah, definitely. Might be front page news, but I'll only be a footnote. I told Turner to give James most of the credit."

"Really? That's noble."

"Not at all," Jenny shook her head, talking with her mouth full. She chewed her food and swallowed it before resuming, "He did nearly all the work, made most of the breakthroughs. He wants a promotion, anyway."

"He'd be your boss."

"I wouldn't mind," she shrugged, "I can have a boss. It'd be like you and Dylan. Anyway, Keegan and Holloway were put on these overdose cases because they thought it was some new and incredibly dangerous street drug…" Jenny told her the whole story of her day, of the 'skin bags full of goo' and of she and Elliott's impeccable good cop bad cop routine where they weaselled information out of a drug dealer, and then finally their heroic and legendary bust of Needles Phelps.

"D'you ever feel like a traitor? Like, you were raised into an organised crime family? And now you work with the police?"

"I always told Viola to stay out of narcotics."

"Do you, though?"

"Not like a traitor so much, but more like I don't really belong with the police. Like there's something fake about me. Which there is, because I'm faking being a human. Any other questions?" Jenny asked. Clara saw that coming a mile off, a complete diversion of the conversation into proposal territory. She had a look in her eye, a kind of sparkle.

"Like what?" Clara pretended not to know what Jenny meant.

"Like, you know. Questions."

"Do you think Sally and Elliott will stay broken up for good this time?" she asked. It was a question, so Jenny couldn't really complain, though she did have an excellent look of disappointment about her, like a puppy being denied a treat. Clara had made up her mind, anyway, she was not going to propose. Not tonight, not any time Jenny would see it coming.

"I hope they will, they're bad for each other. James already tried to pick up two different people today, a boy and a girl, and he says he wants to sort out his priorities and start putting his career first. Hence his new aim to get a promotion. But no, I'll give it a week until one of them caves and begs the other to get into bed with them," Jenny said, "Which is bad, because I told James he could stay with us."

"Wait, what?" Clara hadn't heard anything about this.

"He slept in his car last night, Clara. Besides, what if they do stay broken up for good? He'll just live in his car? We own a hotel."

"I own a hotel, Ashildr gave me the deed," Clara reminded her. "It's fine. Just stick him in one of the en suite rooms and tell him not to ask Nios to cook for him or he'll end up castrated. And if Sally shows up at night begging…"

"I'm sure you'll love to eavesdrop on them going at it." Clara glared at her. "Do you really not mind?"

"If he stays for too long I'll just start charging him for the room. Why would I mind? He's really hot. Maybe we won't put him in an en suite room – if we do that then I can 'accidentally' bump into him when he's on his way back from showering," Clara said, "I might accidentally pull down his towel and then accidentally take a photo of his dick."

"For what possible reason?"

"Like, uh… I could send it to Sally."

"She's probably got pictures of it already."

"I'll send it to you, then."

"What?"

"When you're at work, and you're talking to him, I'll just text you a picture of his dick and you'll see it and then you'll have to carry on talking to him and act like you didn't just get sent a picture of his dick."

"…You know what, maybe James can keep living in his car. Because I'm concerned about him charging you with something and then you'll end up on the sex offenders register for the rest of your immortality." Clara smiled a little as Jenny's focus waned and she wound up staring out of the window watching the progression of the storm again. Clara had nearly finished eating her slithery chunks of squid; she wondered what Jenny was thinking about, but whenever she asked she rarely got a straight answer, only a vague half-finished thought.

"Hey, so, I saw this video today," Jenny returned as soon as Clara began talking, "It's like this bowl of rice, yeah? And there's a squid on it with no brain and they poured stuff on it and it started dancing. And it was dead, and they were totally going to eat it." Jenny laughed, and Clara couldn't work out whether she was laughing at her or not. "What?"

Jenny shook her head slightly, grinning – she had been done eating around ten minutes ago. "You're so adorable. It's called Odori-Don, it's Japanese. They usually use cuttlefish, actually. The soy-sauce has a lot of salt in it and it reacts with the muscle cells and makes it move even without a brain. Do you want me to make it? Is that why you brought it up?"

"No, I didn't know what it was, I thought I'd ask you. You know everything about food."

She laughed again, "I don't. Why didn't you google it?"

"I like listening to you explain things. Anyway, I've thought of a question," she said, putting down the cutlery on her plate. Jenny perked up immediately, sitting up straight and failing to hide her hopeful expression. As if she thought Clara was really going to propose like that. "Do you want to get dessert?"

"Oh," Jenny's face fell.

"What's up? You don't want dessert?"

"I just thought you were going to ask something else."

"Like what? More drinks? I could actually go for another G&T. What are you drinking?"

"Lemonade."

"With what?"

"With… ice?" Jenny said uncertainly.

"I thought it had vodka in it?"

"Uh, no, it's just lemonade. There was this whole thing with this old Sprite warehouse earlier, so…"

"Oh. Maybe I won't have another G&T, then. I don't want to wind up drunk if you're sober," Clara said, picking up the drinks menu again and looking for the alcohol-free section. "There's a ton of mocktails, do you want to get mocktails to share?"

"Sure. You pick something."

"Okay, then I pick… blueberry and elderflower." This was a good choice, because Jenny loved elderflower. Clara thought it was okay, and she could abide by it, but there were no other mocktails that she even remotely liked the look of. "Do you want dessert, though?"

"Do you want dessert?"

"Yes."

"Let's get something to share," Jenny suggested.

"No. I'm not sharing food with you, I've made that mistake in the past. You just eat it all and then I can't even complain about it because you're cute. I'm sick of it. No way."

"Let's get the profiterole tower – do they do profiteroles? We can just split half of them and then-"

"Listen, lovely, if you want profiteroles then you can get some for yourself. I want some ice cream."

"Maybe I want ice cream."

"Then I'll have cake."

"I could go for cake."

"Oh my god. Stop it," she was laughing, "Stop it, stop it. I'm ordering you profiteroles, okay? You can have a whole profiterole tower to yourself because I'm treating you now for your big case today. And I'm going to have sticky toffee pudding because it's freezing out there. Hey?" she waved down a nearby waiter with a smile and gave him their new orders. He took the dirty plates away with him as he left. It was so busy in there, it was the sort of place where there were so many people that everybody went unnoticed. It reminded her of something Scott Fitzgerald once wrote. "Do you definitely have the rest of the weekend off?"

"Yeah. Unless, I don't know, there's an emergency. Like riots in the streets, or something."

"Don't jinx it."

"There's this storm out, if it's a bad storm their might be looting. But – I'm joking, though. I mean, there could be looting, but I'll turn my phone off. Well, I won't turn my phone off in case James actually does decide he needs a room, but he'll probably just go out and have something to drink and then beg Sally to let him inside."

"Inside her pants."

"Oh wow, you're hilarious."

"You know it, babe," Clara winked at her. Jenny pretended to be annoyed for a moment, but couldn't fight the smile away.

"Don't call me 'babe.'"

"Sure thing, babe. Whatever you want, babe. Oh look, babe – our drinks are here, babe," Clara said as a different waiter descended on them with a pitcher of elderflower and blueberry and two fresh glasses. Jenny half-pouted and half-glared at her. Clara poured two glasses and then took a sip, wincing when the elderflower vastly overpowered the blueberry; she had been hoping it would be the other way around.

"You don't like elderflower," Jenny pointed out.

"It's okay."

"You should have got something else."

"You like elderflower," Clara said.

"I could drink the whole thing, you know – just go get another G&T. Do you want me to go order you one?"

"You? No, you'll get ID'd again." That had happened before, because she did look quite young.

"It was like, one time I got ID'd," Jenny said, "And I had psychic paper, so it didn't even matter."

"You're being too accommodating."

"I'm just trying to make up for today," she said eventually, "I've made a mess."

"Jen, it's fine. It's okay."

"You're not angry anymore?"

"I don't really know. I'm kind of out of focus. I mean, she's going to die, I might never see her alive again," Clara sighed. She had been thinking about in the back of her mind all day, but thought it would be disrespectful to try and forget about it. She had read about Jane's death on her Wikipedia page many times, but now it seemed a lot more real. Probably because it was.

"Oh, yeah…" There was a flash of lightning outside which rendered Clara briefly blind, it was like someone shining a laser pointer in your eye. It was so disorienting, the explosion of light brighter than the sun, that she didn't brace herself for the thunder. This was especially loud and right in her ear, so two of her senses were knocked out of commission by the bad weather. Her disorientation ended in a few moments when somebody was clicking their fingers in front of her face and saying her name. "Clara? Are you okay?"

"God, yeah. Sorry." She rubbed her head.

"We really should have sat further away from the window," Jenny said.

"They didn't ask me where I preferred when I called to book this morning. And I like looking out of the window."

"Maybe you shouldn't have boarded up all the windows in the hotel, then," she suggested jokingly.

"I love the rain. And the thunder." It was then that their desserts came, nice and prompt, and Clara occupied herself by shovelling as much very delicious sticky toffee pudding into her face as was physically possible. Jenny was doing something similar with her ghastly mountain of profiteroles, and they were both eating too much to really talk.

"Are you going to ask?" Jenny spoke a good while later, when she was just scraping up the last dregs of her chocolate sauce and licking the spoon clean.

"Ask what?" Clara frowned, playing dumb. Jenny put down the spoon.

"You know what."

"…Oh, you mean-? Am I going to ask you to marry me?" Clara ate another chunk of warm sponge.

"Yeah."

"I don't think so. Not today."

"But – I thought that was why we came here?"

"It was going to be – but I just want a nice evening," Clara said, "We've both had a rough day. We deserve something nice." But Jenny didn't seem happy about this. "I haven't even got the ring on me."

"That's because I want it on me."

"Ooh, nice one."

"Thanks," she paused and thought, watching Clara eat, "Maybe I'll just ask you, then."

"Ask me what?" Jenny scowled.

"Ask you to marry me."

"You wouldn't do that."

"I would!"

"Go on, then," Clara challenged.

It took Jenny a long time, a lot of deliberation, and Clara thought she had every muscle in her body tightly clenched and constricted when she said, "Will you marry me?" It was a monumental moment.

Clara smiled at her, "No."

"Wha-!? What do you mean, 'no'!?"

"You haven't got a ring! And you didn't get down on one knee."

"You're totally being mean."

"I'm totally doing it on purpose. Look, I'm not going to propose here because you'll see it coming. You're waiting for it every time I open my mouth, and I want to catch you out. Plus, you know, I hate to keep bringing her up – but I sort of don't want the date I ask my girlfriend to marry me to be the same anniversary as the last time I saw Jane Austen alive…"

"Oh, yeah. Right – no, I get that," said Jenny, nodding. There was another flash of lightning outside, which again served to make Clara woozy. Woozier than before. "You know what, I want to get out of here. Out of the storm."

"Really? We've still got loads of drinks left."

"Forget the drinks, you don't like them anyway. We've got drinks at home."

"Why are you so eager to leave?" Clara puzzled.

"I was thinking about seeing if you would get off with me in the toilets, but this storm is only supposed to get worse and worse. I'm gonna call a taxi."

"Don't do that."

"So you want to get the bus?"

"It's not that far home," said Clara.

"In this weather? You want to walk?"

"What? You're scared of a little rain?"

"I'm not scared of anything."

"Except ladybirds."

"Hey!"

"And rain."

"I'm not scared of the rain."

"Prove it," Clara challenged, "Prove you don't have something against getting wet."

"Why did you have to phrase it like that?"

Clara leant on her elbow and looked at Jenny very intensely, smirking. "Come on. I've got my umbrella. Let's just walk back. Save money. I think it looks like a nice night. Don't be wimp."

"Fine. You're on. I'll get the bill."

"Okay, I admit it, this was totally a bad idea," Clara said through laughter a brief while later, as they walked through the steadily flooding streets huddled tightly underneath the umbrella, dragging their feet through the overflow from the drains now sloshing over the pavements. They were both having to hold onto the umbrella to keep it from blowing away in the gale force winds which, Jenny was right, were only supposed to get worse as the night progressed.

"We should have got a taxi," she called loudly over the wind. It was like being in a hurricane.

"Are you kidding me? They'll charge double in this weather. No, no – a little rain never hurt anybody," Clara said.

"It did, like in that film."

"What film?"

"You know – that one with all the water. And there's the kid and he has the paper boat, and it gets pulled into the storm drain and then there's that evil killer clown, and it rips his arm off and then he bleeds to death. You know – what's it called… Finding Nemo."

"Finding-!? You mean IT."

"I mean Finding Nemo."

"That's the animated one where the clownfish with the bad fin gets lost."

"In a storm drain."

"Not in a storm drain."

"Look, they both have water in them, they're like, the same film. And Waterworld."

"Waterworld is about global warming."

"Yeah, but it's got water in it," Jenny said knowingly.

"So does Titanic, what's your point?"

"That water has hurt people."

"I said rain never hurt anybody, it didn't rain in Titanic," Clara pointed out. And that was the moment that the wind picked up again and a powerful gust blew straight at them and sent Clara's umbrella into oblivion. Not that the umbrella had been doing a particularly good job anyway since the rain was basically going sideways, but it was her favourite umbrella. Her one she used to block out the sun. "No, no! Wait here, I'll fly after it."

"Don't do that!" Jenny exclaimed, "You're so tiny when you're a bat, the wind will kill you! Like when birds always fly into the Statue of Liberty and die because the big light disorients them."

"It's nothing like that."

"Clara, please, just – let's go home, leave the umbrella, I'll get you a new one, I'll run out in the morning, okay?" Jenny pleaded with her, taking her hand. Clara turned back and met her eyes; she wasn't wearing waterproof mascara, so it was running and it made her look like she had been crying. For some reason, this made Clara laugh. "What?"

"C'mere, lovely," she took Jenny's other hand and leant in to kiss her, with freezing cold rain pouring down onto them, meaning they were both soaked to the skin in just a few seconds of the umbrella having blown away. "Tell you what film I like about rain," she said quietly, or as quietly as she could with the storm raging around them (not actually that quietly), "Singin' in the Rain. Totally romantic."

"Do you forgive me yet?"

"Hmm, I don't know. I'll have to think about it. I think if you kiss me again, that might take up the amount of time it would take to-" Jenny pressed her lips to Clara's and cut her off completely, and soon enough Clara forgot all about the cold and the rain and Jane Austen and even about her long-lost umbrella.