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He tries so hard to stop himself from reacting, he really does. But the sight of her standing dumbstruck in the middle of their little TARDIS kitchen, hands held aloft, the blender still whirring determinedly in the background and spewing out steaming goops of orange stuff - the same stuff that covers her from head to toe and is dripping from the end of her ridiculous nose - that proves to be too much, even for his ironclad Time Lord-grade self-control, and one corner of his thin lips curls up in the faintest hint of a smile.
And that’s all it takes. Of course she notices, egomaniacal English teacher that she is.
“It’s not funny.” Her voice has taken on the shrill edge that usually sends him diving for the nearest long, pokey object to defend himself with.
“Well, it really sort of is.” Shut up shut up shut up, the part of his brain interested in self-preservation screams. It doesn’t compute. He cannot stop the torrent that bubbles forth from his traitor mouth. This mouth will kill him one day. Perhaps today. “You look like you’ve slipped and taken a dip in Slitheen afterbirth. Or are you trying out a new beauty treatment? I’ve told you, those “under-eye bags” you keep complaining about are highly valued in some cultures. In fact, there is this one race that stretches their faces on purpose so they can use the excess skin to carry their young. Which is funny, because those are literally “eye-bags” - Clara? Clara, where are you going?”
Silence. Uh-oh, he’s done it now. He’s upset her, and now she’s taken herself and her inflatable eyes to some inaccessible part of his machine (he misses those pre-Clara/TARDIS tag-team days), and it’s probably going to take an official apology (correct grammar and all) issued over the loudspeaker system to tease her out of her hidey-hole.
“Clara!” he tries again.
And there she comes, back round the corner, dabbing a wet towel all over her face, eyes inflated and dewy. She stops a few feet short of where he’s frozen to the spot, and glances irritably at the blender, now almost empty but still dutifully whizzing along.
“Thanks so much for your concern, Doctor.” She grinds out his name with the sardonic passive-aggression he’s come to (reluctantly) admire as a Clara-specialty. “I went to ice my face. I’m sure not having a face is highly valued in some cultures, but I happen to like mine, and I don’t know how the students are going to react if I turn up on Monday with half of it melted off.”
He cautiously approaches her, wishing he still had his caretaker’s brush with him. She’s purposely avoiding his gaze now, and her mouth is set in a way that he recognises as the advent to an impending meltdown of cataclysmic proportions. He reaches for the towel, and in her desperation to hold back the tears that have appeared anew, she doesn’t try to stop him. He tucks the towel into one of his bigger-on-the-inside coat pockets (also engineered to be waterproof from that one time he had to transport an entire colony of seahorses to a new habitat), and gently lays one palm on each side of her reddened cheeks. Her eyes widen in surprise, and she lets out a sigh of unadulterated relief that tugs painfully at his binary vascular heartstrings.
“Those cold hands are good for something, at least.” Her tone lacks its previous bite, so he knows she’s no longer angry with him. “Oh wow, that feels good. Do you think it’s going to blister?” She’s talking about her face now. “Or scar? I’m so stupid. The recipe said to blend it in batches, but I just dumped the whole lot in and it just went everywhere. I knew I was going to be rubbish at it. I’m sorry about the mess, I’ll clean it up as soon as I can get my skin to stop stinging. Those stupid contestants on that show make it look so easy. I’m sticking with store-bought from now on…”
He lets her babble, coaxing her onto the two-seater the TARDIS has refashioned from the kitchen bench. She curls up against him, spent from the shock and all that wounded dignity. He sends a tendril of suggestion through his palms on her face; just the slightest hint of sleepiness. Once he’s certain she’s nodded off, he lays her head against the armrest, drapes his coat around her quietly snoring form, and goes looking for some anti-scar salve in his ship’s infirmary.
(He gets momentarily distracted by a bit of the orange goop still sitting in the bottom of the blender, which had short-circuited and switched itself off at some point. He sticks a finger in the goop, sniffs it, and sucks it into his mouth. Tastes a bit like pumpkin soup, but what does he know about these ‘organic’ cosmetics from 21st century Earth? He swipes a bit more from the blender, rubs it under his eyes, and writes himself a mental memo to ask Clara when she wakes up whether his “eye-bags” look any better.)
END.