Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. All rights to the BBC and Steven Moffat.

Author's Note: This is a sequel to another Twelve/Clara fic called "Tipping Your Hand." You may be a little confused if you haven't read that first, but it's not absolutely essential (basically they had an intimate encounter as a result of a TARDIS meltdown and now the Doctor owes Clara a favour.)

"You came!" Clara pushed through the TARDIS doors, her spirits lifting as she stepped across the threshold.

"You called." The Doctor didn't look up as he continued to flip through a book.

"Yeah, but you're here now. It's still tonight, not two weeks later." Setting the still mostly full bottle of wine down on the floor, she threw herself into a chair, soaking in the interior with its cool colours and space lighting. The thrum of the life beneath her fingertips always invigorated her, and she wondered for possibly the thousandth time how she could ever have considered giving this life up.

"Maybe I was bored." He shut the book, placing it back on the shelf. "So where are we headed?"

"We're not." Clara pushed off with her foot, letting the chair twirl in a lazy circle.

He eyed her curiously as he descended the stairs. "We're staying in the TARDIS?"

"Yep." She stooped down to pick up the wine bottle, holding it up like an offering. "We're gonna play a game."

He regarded the bottle with disdain, swiftly moving past her to the other side of the console. "I don't play games."

"You'll like this game."

"I don't play games."

"You'll be good at this game."

"I don't play games." He typed a set of coordinates in, readying the lever. Clara intervened, jumping up from her seat and leaning against the console.

"We're gonna need glasses."

He scowled, hesitating. "Why?"

"Because it's a drinking game."

He let out an exasperated sigh. "Have your eyes grown so big they've actually taken over your ears? I told you – I do not play games." Still, he released his hold on the lever with an irritated grumble and headed down the corridor towards the nearest of the many kitchens.

"The game involves telling the truth about things," she called over her shoulder. "Just one long game where all you do is tell the truth…" she murmured, settling back into the chair.

"How am I supposed to trust a single word that comes out of your mouth?" Danny practically leapt from the couch, shaking off Clara's outstretched hand. His muscles stretched taut into his military stance: as reachable as a man-turned-machine if Clara didn't act fast.

"Danny, wait – that's not what I meant!" She set her wine glass down hastily, the contents of it sloshing over the sides and spilling onto her coffee table.

Her touch did nothing to erase the pained expression from his face. "It doesn't matter 'cause the thing is, Clara…" He sighed. "I don't think YOU even know when you're telling the truth or lying half the time."

Desperate to salvage their evening, she went straight for her trump card. "Do you think I'm telling the truth when I say I love you?"

He nodded. "Yeah." He paused, the lines of his face drawing down even further. "But you love him, too."

She crossed her arms, shielding both of them from that particular truth. "I told you – it's different with him."

"Yeah." Those deep brown eyes affixed to some distant point, like he was watching something recede from him and was helpless to stop it. "I've seen just how different it is with him…"

It would have been so easy to finish the bottle after Danny had left – if getting drunk after a row with one's boyfriend wasn't a proper occasion for it, she didn't know what was. But wine could only dull her senses so much; she needed more of a distraction.

She COULD tell the truth, dammit. She could tell the truth so well that she could win a game by telling the truth.

"It's called 'Never Have I Ever," she informed him as she heard him come back into the room.

"Well, I hate it already then."

"Why?"

"It's a stupid name – why not just call it 'I Have Never?'"

"'Cause…'cause I dunno. That's the name of the game." She swung her chair around and was pleased to discover that he had a new bottle of wine in one fist and two long-stemmed glasses balanced delicately in the other. "Oh." Her eyebrows shot up. "Think we'll be in for the long haul, then?"

"No." He uncorked the bottle and poured the claret-coloured liquid into each of the glasses. "This is a vintage from the past. Or the future, one of those." He eyed her bottle with a level of disgust usually reserved for slimy, multi-tentacled creatures. "If we're going to drink wine, might as well do it properly."

Clara harrumphed. "Fine by me. It's not every day I get to taste a vintage wine from…Doctor, where's the label?"

He handed her a glass. "Must have gotten lost at some point over the years." He swirled the amber liquid in his experimentally, giving it a tentative sniff before taking a sip. "Yes, this should work well."

She followed suit, wincing as the different taste assaulted her tongue. He sat down next to her, and they lapsed into a comfortable silence. "This is nice," she finally said, though her smile didn't quite reach her eyes.

"Is this why you called me?"

"Sorry?"

"You're giving me that smile again."

She sighed. "I'm not malfunctioning, Doctor, I'm just…it's nice. That's all."

He let out an irritated huff of recognition. "I see. Trouble with P.E. Now it all makes sense."

"I really don't want to talk about it, okay? I just want to drink wine and play the game."

"How about we just drink wine?"

"'Cause then I won't stop thinking about it. If we sit here in silence, I'll think about it, and I don't want to… I don't want to think about it, and I don't want to talk about it. I just need to get my mind off of it, but you're absolute rubbish at making conversation so..." She trailed off, her rush of words petering out.

"So why don't we go somewhere?" He leaned forward, clearly anxious to return to the console and send them to wherever he'd programmed. "Can you honestly say that you'd still be moping about P.E. if we're getting chased by an angry horde of Triktilfanians? Or witnessing the majesty of the Broken Moon of Pash'tu? Or attending the opening of a comedic opera in 18th century Vienna?"

"Angry hordes, broken moons and lots of elaborate costumes and singing aren't gonna do the trick this time. I need to keep my mind occupied, like really actively thinking about something else."

"If you want to play a mind game, you do remember we have the game rooms? Thousands of games from across all of time and space – every permutation imaginable, 12D simulators, life-size game pieces – you could even wire the telepathic circuits into your brain, play against her if you really want a challenge." He jerked his head up at the ceiling. "And I can pretty much promise you that she won't play fair."

"Doctor -" She clamped her mouth shut before she could voice the real need to play this particular game: the need to bolster her shaken confidence, to prove Danny wrong. "This is the game I want to play. I don't want to learn a new one, okay? I just want to play this one."

He was sullen. "Why me? If all you wanted to do was play this game, why call me? You must have pudding-brained friends who would gladly do something to engage their tiny minds."

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, Doctor, I have friends. But I've already played it with them loads of times. Dozens of times. And it was too late to call any of them."

"So I was convenient, then."

"No, that's not what I said. I wanted to see you. I wanted you – to spend time with you." She gave him her most winning smile, taking on a playful sing-song tone. "And if I wanted a challenge - you're my cleverest friend."

The Doctor wasn't convinced. "But for some reason, you need wine, too. Because you also want to get drunk?"

She raised an eyebrow at him, the gesture just shy of coquettish. "No, I want to get you drunk."

He mirrored the motion, though there was no hint of flirtation to it whatsoever.

"That's not what I meant," she stammered. "And it's not just that – it's something you play to see how well you know each other."

"I told you, Clara – I don't play games."

Her sigh of exasperation was closer to a groan. "Yes, I know – they're a waste of your time or beneath you or you don't like them or whatever it is you have against them, but this is what I want to do, Doctor."

"You're not listening…"

"And neither are you 'cause you're my friend, and…" She squared her shoulders and turned to him, determined. "What if this is my favour?"

She had his full attention now. "This is your favour?"

"It is. Yes."

He was incredulous. "You could have asked me to do anything, no questions asked-"

"So I'm asking you to play this game with me, no questions asked."

He examined his wine, tilting it so the pale amber colour caught the light. It seemed to glow for a moment, like it had caught fire.

Clara took another sip, trying to calm the jangling of her nerves.

He pinned her with his gaze. "What happened to strip poker?"

She choked, coughing and sputtering. She cleared her throat lightly a few times, trying to cover with a strained laugh. "I was joking," she replied unevenly, plastering on a fake smile. "Obviously," she added after she'd regained control of her vocal cords.

He held her gaze for a few more uncomfortable seconds. "Of course you were." He shrugged a shoulder like it was of no concern to him, taking a sip of his wine. "Fine. We'll do this game then. But if your burning desire was to try to get me drunk, you've wasted it. There are far easier and more successful ways to do that."

It took some effort to ignore that bit of dangling bait, but she pushed on. "That's just one part of the game 'cause the other person only drinks when you say something that's true about them. So, for example, I'd say 'never have I ever stolen a Type 40 TARDIS and run away from home' – and then you'd have to take a sip."

There was no word in any language that could encompass the depth of contempt radiating from the Doctor's face. "You say true things about the other person to get them to drink and that's the game?"

Clara grit her teeth. "Might as well stop complaining 'cause you're not getting out of this no matter how much you hate it."

"And how do you know who's won?"

Of course. 'Cause playing just for fun wasn't an option. Though if she was being entirely honest with herself she usually did manage to emerge as the least drunk one with her friends by sidestepping emotionally charged never have I evers and eschewing the level of pre-game sharing many of them often indulged in. "You don't, really - unless someone gets so drunk they can't get proper words out." Her lips quirked as brief flashes of all the times the game had devolved into complete and utter silliness rose to mind.

Though she would never have guessed it was possible, his glowering intensified further. "There needs to be a clear winner. Because even my lifetime is too short for some things."

"Pretty sure my lifetime would still end before yours."

There was an unmistakable tightening to his jaw as a shadow crossed his face. "Well, yes, I expect you'd keel over and die of boredom before we were done," he replied, his caustic tone a little too forced.

Her answer sounded from between clenched teeth. "Fine. You play the game however you want, Doctor as long as you stop criticizing it." She took a deep breath. "And fine, we'll figure out some way to designate a winner. Now…can we please get started?"

"Fine, yes. Fire away with your – intoxication-inducing statements of truth."

Clara was starting to doubt whether drinking alone would actually have been more painful than this after all. "Thank you. Okay. Never have I ever – I'll start easy. Never have I ever stolen a Type 40 TARDIS and run away from home."

The Doctor took a sip, his movements stiff like someone was forcing his hand. "Never have I ever…run away from home with a Time Lord."

She frowned. "I didn't run away from home with you."

"No? Your life was perfect and you had everything you wanted?"

"Well, I didn't say that, but -"

"And clearly, your life continues to be perfect, nothing whatsoever that you might want to avoid tonight."

"That's not fair." She shot him a wounded look, taking a sip, the burning in her throat momentarily distracting her from the stinging in her eyes. "And anyway, that's not how you play. You don't get to question the person or ask for explanations or stories – or take cheap shots after you've stated your 'never have I ever.' It's against the rules." She cut her eyes at him. "And you're not going to get me to stop playing this game."

"Fine." He held up a hand. "No discussion in between intoxication-inducing statements of truth. Understood."

"Good." She took another sip of wine for good measure. "Never have I ever run away from my spouse immediately after I'd married them."

The Doctor looked dubious but took a reluctant sip anyway. "Never have I ever run away from my boyfriend to spend time with another man."

Her mouth dropped open at his implication. "I didn't run away from Danny to spend time with you. Not that I'm going to talk about it 'cause I'm not, but we had a row and he left. And then I called you."

"I know I'm breaking the rules by providing explanations," he remarked pointedly, "but I believe the game is called 'never have I ever."

She glared at him as she took the tiniest sip of wine she could manage. But she wasn't cowed in the slightest. If dirty was how he was playing…well, two could play that way. "Never have I ever…shamelessly flirted with someone, constantly invaded their personal space, always finding excuses to touch them, acted insanely possessive and jealous any time someone of the opposite sex paid any attention to them – just to act like it was basically all in their head."

The Doctor didn't move.

She waited. "Well?"

"I thought you said no discussion in between statements."

She very successfully avoided throwing her glass at his head. "I'm amending the rule, then, just to make sure that you're clear about the rules: if someone says something that's true, you can't not take a sip."

He shrugged. "But you didn't say something that was true."

"Doctor."

"I never said it was all in your head." He gestured with loose-limbed grace. "In fact, if I recall correctly, I very specifically stated that it was not in your head."

It was true – technically he had. But that had not been how he'd treated her immediately following his regeneration. "Okay, fine, you did, but I said 'act like' and I said 'basically.'"

"Are you still amending the rule, or is it just that the rules don't apply to you?"

"The rules apply to both of us, but…" She bit down on the inside of her lip. Hard. This was unfamiliar territory for her: she was never the sort to charge forth with emotionally worded statements people could just brush off. She'd seen plenty of friends with ancient grudges and recent slights against each other fall into that trap. "You're right. I said no explanations in between statements. Your turn."

"Good." He ran the tip of his index finger along the rim of his glass while he thought. "Never have I ever tried to seduce someone…and failed."