Chapter Text
He’s barely left London when he notices her, sitting on the grass next to the highway with a sign leant against her suitcase, the crooked letters spelling out Glasgow. He doesn’t know why he stops the car. He certainly doesn’t intend to. But he does, waving halfheartedly at her, and in response, her entire face lights up like he’s offered her all of time and space.
“Nobody hitchhikes anymore,” the Doctor says when she’s reached the car, the words falling from his lips before he’s had time to think them over. He always does that, speaks before he thinks, and he always ends up saying things he regrets, scaring everyone off.
Not this woman, though. She just nods towards the suitcase in her hand. “Are you going to offer me a lift to Glasgow or did you just stop your car to tell me about the dangers of hitchhiking?”
“The air conditioner doesn’t work,” the Doctor says, “so you’d probably be better off with somebody else.”
“And miss out on the opportunity to spend seven hours listening to your complaints?” the woman says, lifting her suitcase into the backseat of the car. “Not a chance.” She walks around the car to take the seat next to the Doctor, reaching out a hand to him, which he reluctantly shakes. “Clara Oswald.”
“The Doctor,” he says.
“Just the Doctor?”
He can already tell that it’s going to be a long day. “You’ve got a problem with my name?”
“So what are you a doctor of, then?” she asks him, ignoring his question. There’s something amused in her tone.
“None of your business,” the Doctor says, starting the car again.
Clara tilts her head to the side. “Are you always this grumpy?”
“Only on special occasions.”
That earns him another smile from her, and he forces himself to focus on the road in front of them, on the suffocating heat in the car, on anything but the way her eyes crinkle when she smiles.
**
She’s quiet for about fifteen minutes, and then she opens her mouth again, stealing all of his attention.
“So, you are going to Glasgow, aren’t you?”
For a moment, the Doctor contemplates whether he should take the opportunity to lie to her, but with his luck, they’d probably end up running into each other in the city. “Yeah.”
“Do you live there? Or are you just visiting?”
“Could you read the map for me?” the Doctor says. “Or anything, really, as long as it gives you something to concentrate on so that you don’t have to annoy me with all of these stupid questions.”
“I’m just curious,” she defends herself.
“And there’s really not much to know about me.”
Clara raises an eyebrow. “For some reason I sincerely doubt that’s true.”
“Grew up in Glasgow, studied medicine, moved to London, worked as a doctor for twenty-six years,” the Doctor tells her. “Happy?”
“Very,” Clara says. “Can I open the window? I’m burning up in here.”
“I warned you about that.”
“I know.”
“Fine,” the Doctor says after a short silence, “go on, open the window.”
**
“I need to pee,” Clara says when about an hour has passed, and the Doctor sighs dramatically, because he’s an arsehole who always does things like that. When they reach the next petrol station, though, he stops the car.
He didn’t notice how short Clara was earlier, but when he’s standing next to her, it’s hard to miss. She can’t be more than five foot one, wearing a summer dress and a pair of old trainers, her dark hair in a messy bun on the top of her head.
He absolutely and definitely doesn’t notice how gorgeous she is.
“Should I buy you a cup of coffee?” he ends up asking her as they walk towards the station, deliberately avoiding looking at her.
“Are you asking because you’re making an effort to be polite or are you planning to poison me?”
“I guess you’ll just have to wait and find out.”
“I’ll take the risk,” Clara says, pushing the door to the station open with a hip. “Milk and no sugar, please.”
“Right,” the Doctor says, and then she disappears to the toilets, while he buys two cups of coffee, filling his own with a handful of sugar cubes, earning a disapproving look from the woman behind the counter.
When Clara returns and he reaches her the cup with milk and no sugar, she beams at him, and he blames the thing his heart does at the sight on the heat.
“So,” she says when they’ve settled down in the car again, “you still didn’t tell me why you’re going to Glasgow.”
“And you didn’t tell me why you are,” he says.
Clara laughs. “Did you just ask me a question?”
“No, I didn’t,” he objects. “And even if I did, I don’t have any interest whatsoever in your answer, so it doesn’t count.”
“Thou doth protest too much, methinks,” Clara says.
“A fan of Shakespeare, are you?”
“Another question!”
The Doctor grimaces. “Oh, shut up.”
“I’m an English lit teacher,” Clara says, “I’m pretty sure loving Shakespeare is part of my job description.”
“And don’t they pay you anything?”
“I’m not hitchhiking because I’m broke. I just ... didn’t have any money on me. And if I hadn’t given this a shot, I wouldn’t have met you, would I?”
“You could have ended up dead in a ditch somewhere, you know,” the Doctor says.
“I can take care of myself, thank you very much.”
“I’m not undermining you, I ...”
“Well, don’t,” Clara says, her tone cutting off the conversation.
**
“Why did you choose to study medicine?” Clara asks the Doctor when she finally opens her mouth again, and he feels something completely irrational that reminds him of relief. He shouldn’t want her to try to dig any information out of him, shouldn’t want her to make any conversation at all. What he should do is enjoy getting to drive in silence.
Then again, he’s hyperaware of her presence in the car whether she’s talking or not, so she might as well talk, because at least then there’s a reason for him to have his attention focused on her, and he doesn’t have to come up with nonsensical justifications for it.
“I wanted to save people,” he says.
“Did you?” she asks.
Not the one who mattered. “I guess. Why did you choose to study literature?”
“I’ve always loved stories.”
“Is that why you’re hitchhiking? So that you’ll have a story to tell?”
Clara rolls her eyes. “Obviously.”
“Why, then?”
“None of your business,” she echoes his words from before.
He regards her from the corners of his eyes for a moment before he nods, understanding her reluctance to share her secrets with him all too well.