Chapter Text
Clara took a step into the TARDIS.
“So, he comes back, does he?” she asked, crossing her arms.
The Doctor didn’t look up. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“What question?”
“You don’t seem like a nanny.”
“I was going to travel,” Clara began, fiddling with her shirt. “I came to stay for a week, and during that week…”
The Doctor closed his book and looked up at her. “She died,” he finished. “So you’re returning the favor. You’ve got a hundred and one places to see, and you haven’t been to any of them, have you? That’s why you keep the book.”
“I keep the book -” she took one step, and then another towards the console, “ - because I’m still going.” Gingerly, she brushed her hand across the controls in front of her.
“But you don’t run out on the people you care about,” the Doctor said, pocketing the reading glasses. “It takes some people far too long to learn that skill. You know, the thing about a time machine -” He leapt down the stairs and slid towards the console, stopping just short of falling. “You can run away all you like and still be home in time for tea, so what do you say? Anywhere, anywhen - all of time and space, right outside those doors. Well, we’d have to make a quick stop to Cardiff first, but after that, Clara Oswald, the universe is your oyster.”
“Does this work?”
“What?”
Clara laughed. “Is this actually what you do? Do you just crook your finger and people just jump in your snog box and fly away?”
“It is not a snog box.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
“What? When? How?” The Doctor crossed his arms and uncrossed them practically in a single motion. Cross didn’t quite suit his arms this time around.
Clara stopped and turned to face him. “Why Cardiff?”
“What?”
“You said we’d need to stop in Cardiff first - why?”
“I promised Rose I’d pick her up on my way off planet.”
“And who’s Rose?”
“My -” he floundered for a moment. Somehow, finding a label that fit them in this time and place seemed to get harder rather than easier the longer they were here. “My partner, I suppose.”
“So I’d be joining a buddy cop movie set in a police box?”
He leaned back against the console. “More like we’d be common law married in just about every society in this galaxy where that’s a thing than buddy cop .”
“So it is a snog box. Sorry, I was a bit more keen on the buddy cop thing, if I’m honest.”
“You wouldn’t be joining that . We’re perfectly happy with just the two - three - ish of us, thank you very much.”
“Three- ish ?”
“I don’t really pay much attention to the words they use when I’m not involved, especially with how River’s timeline is.”
“River’s the other one then?”
“Yes, River is, as you so eloquently put it, the other one.”
“Right then, and where is she?”
“Teaching at the University of Jaska Major, a couple of centuries from now, usually.”
“Okay. Come back tomorrow. Ask me again.”
“Why?”
“Because, tomorrow I might say yes. Besides, I’d like to meet whoever it was that actually came into your snog box.” She uncrossed her arms and made her way toward the door.
“It is not -”
She stopped. “Sometime after seven okay for you?”
The Doctor huffed. “It's a time machine. Any time's okay.”
“See you then,” she said. She smiled to herself, then pushed open the doors and made her way out onto the street.