DAY 2,237

Another Girl Another Planet XXIV

Jenny

Jenny could not remember the last time she had been allowed to sleep in without being woken up by a ringtone or an alarm. She really could not remember. A new day was dawning and she didn't think she had ever felt so well-rested before, so engorged and bloated on sweet, blissful sleep that she was practically woozy, and strained to remember what had happened the night before to put her in such a wonderful state of mind. They had walked home staggering into each other during the biggest storm of the year, through flooded nooks of Soho and Fitzrovia, laughing and lovesick. They had collapsed into bed after a hot shower and were so exhausted that they both fell fast asleep right away, wrapped up together as the gale-force winds howled outside and rain cascaded onto the roof like bullets, bombs and shrapnel. Only Clara's presence could make Jenny drift into a deep sleep in a situation as loud as an active warzone.

She wanted to go back to sleep so badly, but the desire to see Clara enticed her powerfully enough to open her eyes. And she was shocked by what she saw. Just yesterday, she had burst into Jane Austen's bedroom as she lay there, frail and dying, and saw Clara kneeling on the floor with a glittering engagement ring in her hands. The same ring she had later thrust bitterly into Jenny's face, boasting about the romantic inscription and her plans and her schemes – and then, before she could get a proper look at it and drink in all of its features and its feeling, it had been removed from her sight and hidden by Clara again. Until that moment, that precise moment, when Jenny opened her eyes to see her left hand on the vacant pillow next to her, with that same shimmering, ebony jewel nestled comfortably on her finger.

Clara spoke, "I hope I'm not being too presumptuous by putting the ring on you before you really had a chance to say yes." She was sitting with her feet up on the bed at the side, in the comfortable old chair she usually had wedged underneath her crooked writing desk in the corner. She had a book in her hands, but she put it down when it was clear that Jenny had woken up. Jenny was intoxicated looking at the black diamond. It looked like outer space and it twinkled as if a million microscopic stars and galaxies were swirling around inside.

"…Maybe I'll say no."

"Good morning to you, too," Clara laughed. She didn't think Jenny would say no, and honestly, Jenny didn't think she could say no, even as a brief joke. Clara watched her and she couldn't decide what she thought was prettier at that precise moment, the vampire or the ring. "Do you like it? I didn't know if you would like a black diamond or if you would think it was tacky."

"No one's ever got me a diamond ring before."

"But do you, though?"

"It reminds me of you," she smiled, entranced. She felt like a character in a treasure-hunting flick who could never quite resist the temptation of the gaudy, cursed artefact, and stole it only to perish in some grisly yet completely avoidable manner. "Like the scarf."

"That's just what Nios said you would think…" Clara cleared her throat and then stood up, "Anyway, I suppose I'd better do my due diligence and do this properly, yeah?" She picked up her chair and dropped it back down on the wonky section of floorboards where her desk rested. "Floor's kind of dusty over here… oh well." She got down on one knee next to the bed.

"No, Clara, you really don't need to do that."

"I do, because with you being so useless the onus is all on me to do this properly," Clara insisted, taking Jenny's left hand as she knelt. "It's funny, because I always dreamt of the moment when somebody would propose to me, I never thought I'd have to be the one to do it… so since I do have to, I'm going to do it right, okay?"

Jenny smiled, going red, "Okay."

"And I've planned what I'm gonna say, so you'll have to be quiet." Jenny didn't speak. Clara cleared her throat. "So, uh… it's insane to think that we started off where we did. That the day we met, we both had totally different boyfriends and barely spared a second glance for each other. It's more insane to think that the next time we met, you had a husband and I didn't have anybody. And then to remember that us sleeping together was because you were being spiteful and I can't cope with loss. I think that from that moment on, though we didn't realise it, we needed each other. Then I went away, for nearly a year, and I couldn't stop thinking about you and how even though you only gave me the time of day for a bet, it was one of the first times I'd really laughed or felt… not quite happy, but like I could be happy again, one day, since Danny died.

"But you were still taken, so things were very tricky, and they only got harder. They got harder because being around you turned out to be the easiest thing in the world, but I couldn't be with you, I barely even considered that something could actually happen. You're the Doctor's daughter, after all, my best friend's daughter, so it seemed stupid to hope. But I was falling in love with you anyway, and eventually, you broke up with Jack, and that was the first time I dared to hope.

"And then I died. I died, and I was bitten by a vampire, and I lost everything. Nothing was waiting for me on the other side of that tunnel, nothing at all – except you. You were the first person I saw when I woke up, you were the one who told me what had happened, you were the one who was there for me. And I knew I really was in love with you then, so much that I couldn't keep it to myself for more than a few hours. I had to tell you, even though I was scared I'd lose you, and… well, I didn't lose you, obviously." Jenny smiled a little, listening carefully. "You said you loved me, too, and it didn't feel like I had nothing anymore. It felt like I had everything, everything I could ever want or ever need. You helped to fix me when I was broken beyond repair, and you've been by my side ever since.

"All the weird stuff's never even mattered, either. It's never really been an issue that your father is with me in a parallel universe, or that you're a two-hundred-and-something-year-old alien, or that I'm an evil, blood-sucking vampire, because… sometimes love really is unconditional. You genuinely are the love of my life and the love of my death, the most important person in the whole universe to me. Marrying you is the only thing I want in the world right now, the only thing I've wanted for aeons, but I've been waiting until I found the absolute perfect ring. Ever since you said you didn't know whether anybody would ever get you a fancy engagement ring, I've made it my mission to find one. It's with this ring, that I hope you like because I seriously did agonise over it, that I ask you this. And I hope you say yes, because of how much you mean to me and because of how much I know we love each other.

"So, um… Will you marry me?"

"Yes," she laughed a little, some tears in her eyes, overwhelmed, "Yes, one-hundred per cent, I'll marry you." Clara beamed pulled Jenny into a tight hug, so tight that Jenny flinched and had to get her to stop.

"Sorry, sorry," Clara relinquished her.

"One day you'll actually learn your own strength," said Jenny. Clara only let her go for a second before kissing her – but that was a lot less painful, so Jenny didn't mind. "You still smell like the rain," she whispered.

"I haven't showered yet," Clara said, then tried to kiss her again, but Jenny didn't let her.

"Can't even be bothered to have a wash before you ask me to marry you? I see how it is."

Clara laughed, "We can shower together, if you like?"

"Maybe in a bit."

"What else are we gonna do?"

"Talk about our feelings – if you get to make a little speech why don't I?" Jenny challenged. Clara leant away a little, thinking. Jenny sat up properly, crossing her legs.

"Have you prepared a speech?" she asked incredulously.

Jenny paused before answering, "No. I can speak from my hearts! I've got two of them. I know because it's engraved here in this engagement ring."

"In that case, I suppose I have something else to show you," Clara reached over for the wonky bedside table and opened the drawer, feeling around for something. Jenny only watched and waited until she took out a fabric pouch and from within it drew another engagement ring. This one wasn't new, though; it was quite plain and well-worn. Clara sat down on the edge of the bed next to Jenny.

"You got two rings?"

"No, this was my mum's. I told my dad a few months ago that I was going to propose to you, and he told me to give you this. But… well, I wanted to wear it myself. If you said yes, I mean. And I wanted to get you something more personal."

"Sorry, a few months ago?"

"Okay, I've been thinking about marrying you for six years, I don't know why hearing that I've been properly planning for months is so surprising. It took a while for the custom ring to come back with the engravings and the black diamond, so." Clara held the ring out towards her. Jenny took it but frowned.

"Do you want me to get down on one knee, too?"

"No, but you said you wanted to do a speech, so there you go. If it's a bad speech though, I'll say no."

"Of course you will…" But after this she faltered, staring at the ring in her hand. "Uh… so… erm…"

"See! This is why I had to do it."

"I can think of something!" Jenny protested, "I should be able to come up with something meaningful to say to my fiancée." Against her will, Clara giggled a little when she said 'fiancée.' Jenny remained deep in thought for a few minutes though.

"You don't need to, Jen. Just save it for the wedding."

"I thought only the groom does a speech?"

"Right… I hate to break this to you, but we're actually both girls, so there won't be a groom."

"Oh yeah… but does that mean we both do one, or neither? What are the rules?"

"There aren't many rules for gay, inter-species weddings."

"Well… wait, so you want me to do one, though?" she frowned.

"You do whatever you want to do, it's our wedding. The two of us."

Jenny thought for a long while, thumbing the engagement ring in her hand that had belonged to Ellie Oswald, Clara only watching her. "I think sometimes you healed me. I was in such a bad place when we met. I think I was in a bad place for those two-hundred years I didn't know you existed."

"You don't have to say something like that."

"It's true. I know a lot of it is also to do with, you know, my dad leaving me on Messaline, but… you were one of the big reasons I tried to reconcile with him. You are… my favourite person in the universe, and the best person I've ever known, and I'm totally overwhelmed by you wanting to marry me. I'll come up with some more things to say and save them for later."

"For your speech," Clara joked.

"Everything I could possibly say to you is much too personal to be broadcast in a room full of people. Do you want to put on your ring, or do I have to ask you as well?"

"It's fine," she smiled, holding out her hand so that Jenny could slide the ring onto her finger, "Mum would've loved you, you know. Dad already thinks you're god's gift to the world, but honestly… my mother would probably have asked you to marry me years ago because she'd think I wasn't getting on with it fast enough."

"Six years is a fair amount of time. The other Clara barely waited six weeks."

"I… wanted to be sure. Didn't want to rush."

"Sure of what?"

"Pfft, I don't know. Sure that you weren't going to get less hot one day, or something," she shrugged.

"Wow."

"What? I can't have a wife who isn't hot." Jenny just shook her head. "I don't suppose you… want to think about setting a date, or anything? That's sort of like, the first thing to consider…"

"Oh, now you want to rush?"

"No. I just want to ring my dad, and I know it's the first thing he'll ask me."

"It's best for you in the winter," said Jenny.

"But you like summer."

"My birthday's already in the summer," she shrugged, "I can get married in a different season. Don't want you hiding from the sun all day, or night, or whatever time."

"So… it's spring of 2022 now… and we can't do December because Rose got married in December…"

"You're really serious about doing this now?" Jenny asked wryly.

"What if I am? What do you think? Early January, maybe."

"January in eight months or January in twenty months?"

"Hm… planning a wedding in eight months sounds exhausting… but twenty months is nearly two years…"

"We do have access to multiple time machines."

"I don't want to use a time machine to plan our wedding. Oh, we don't have an awful lot of money, either, we'll need to save…"

"Then let's leave it. 2024."

"Cool…" Clara nodded slowly, then broke into a wide smile. "We're really getting married. I'm really getting married." Jenny touched Clara's cheek and then leant in to kiss her warmly for a few long, languid seconds.

"Can I ask you a question of my own?"

"Anything."

"…Can I take your name?"

"Ravenwood?" She nodded. "Jenny Ravenwood? You don't want to hyphenate?"

"Do you? I thought you like having your mum's name."

"I do, I just… I mean, yes, of course, if that's what you want. You can take my name. And I'll… keep the same name, I suppose."

"Well, you'll be a 'Mrs,'" Jenny pointed out, "And I'll finally have a name I connect with. Besides, you wouldn't want to be Clara Young, would you? I only picked 'Young' because I thought it was funny. Otherwise, I just close my eyes and point in the first phone book I can find."

"It would be my honour to provide you with a name that wasn't pulled at random from a phone book."

"And – one more thing," she lowered her voice, "Will you come back to bed for a bit?"

"'For a bit'? What if I don't want to leave?"

"Great, you can stay forever."

"Fine by me," Clara whispered, kissing Jenny one more time before they fell back into the sheets together.