Let It Be Me

Clara is the best wedding planner there is even though she herself is completely disillusioned with love and romance. When Missy hires her to plan her brother's wedding, Clara thinks that in John she has finally met someone with a heart as cold as her own.

Note: John's future wife: I thought about John's bride to be for a very long time and and debated it with my friend and fellow writer universe-on-her-shoulders, but I think I was able to find a good solution. I didn't want to use a former companion because I'm going to use them elsewhere in the story. Missy was also out of the question because I've decided to make her John's sister once again. I don't like directly involving River in my fics because I know that many of my readers ship both whouffaldi and twelveriver, so I don't want to to upset. In the end I decided to go with Elizabeth I - or a modern day version of her - because she married the Doctor on screen in DotD, so it's canon, but people aren't necessarily invested in the ship.

Chapter 1

"I wanna go out tonight," Clara said into the phone as soon as her friend Amy had picked up. It was only 10 in the morning and she was already fed up with this Friday. One of her clients had turned down every single photographer she had chosen and Clara had already spent two hours on the phone, trying desperately to find another one.

"You sound annoyed," Amy noticed instantly.

"Well, I am annoyed. This one couple has declined every photographer I suggested and now I can't find another one for their wedding in six weeks. If they keep this up, they'll have to get their wedding photos taken by aunt Judy," she groaned. "Please, let's just go out tonight. This week as been hell."

"Alright," her friend agreed. "I'll pick you up at 7."

"Thank you!" Clara sighed in relief. "Really, I can't wait for this day to finally be over."

"Not long, sweetheart. Just hang in there," Amy reassured her before she hung up.

Clara put the phone away, but as she realized she would soon need it again to find a photographer she groaned in frustration. It was almost impossible to find a good one six weeks before the date of the wedding and she had repeatedly told her clients exactly that, but right now Clara decided not to care. It wasn't her fault that her clients wouldn't listen to her, it wasn't her fault if they had to resort to a mediocre photographer. She would give it one more try today, but after that her clients could either take Sarah Jane, a wonderful woman and talented photographer, or ask some distant relative with a DSLR to take their photos.

It had occurred to Clara on some occasions that maybe she had chosen the wrong profession, that maybe planning the weddings of other people wasn't what would make her happy in the long run, but the truth was that she was just pretty damn good at it. She was well organized and she knew almost everyone from caterers to photographers and her negotiation skills usually got her a really good deal. Clara was fine as long as she didn't admit how utterly silly she thought the wedding industry to be. Everything was overpriced, the romance felt forced and in her opinion brides and grooms just entered this endeavour with expectations so high that there was no way for it not to end in disappointment. The divorce rates certainly confirmed her theory. Clara used to be different, but that was a long time ago, long before everything had gone so horribly wrong. Now it was just a job to her, a job like any other, a job she was good at. She was organizing all those dream weddings for all those couples that were sickeningly in love while she herself had buried that dream long with her fiancé.

The little bell above her office door rang and Clara looked up from her desk to see that a woman had stepped inside, looking around the room suspiciously. Clara took a moment to examine her, late 40s, possibly 50, a messy bunch of curls on her head that absolutely didn't go with the immaculate pencil skirt and blazer. She didn't exactly look much like a bride to be and she made no attempt to approach Clara.

"Can I help you?" Clara asked her after a moment. "If you're looking for the photo studio, Sarah Jane Smith is right next door."

"Oh, no, my dear," the woman said with a thick Scottish accent as she spun around and stared right at Clara. For a moment she felt as if those icy blue eyes looked straight into her soul. "I'm exactly where I wanna be, thanks."

For a brief moment Clara felt a little taken aback by the strange woman's response, but she quickly found her composure again. "Well, if you're here to get a wedding planned, it might be helpful to talk to me instead of staring at the pictures on the wall."

"In a minute," the woman replied with affected indignation as she nodded towards the photographs. "I'm just gonna have a little look first."

"Fine," Clara hissed. "Suit yourself."

She rolled her eyes when she thought the woman was no longer looking at her and she decided to get some actual work done in the meantime. A client like her was exactly what she didn't need today when everything else was already enough of a mess. However, as Clara stared at the list of potential photographers and compared it to the list of those her clients had already turned down, she suddenly found the presence of the woman to be utterly distracting and even a little unnerving.

"I'm sorry," Clara said and she made sure that her annoyance was audible in her tone, "but I'm a wedding planner and not a curator. If you want to look a pictures, I suggest you go to a museum."

The woman in front of her shrugged and now finally moved forward until she had reached the other side of the desk. She let herself fall down on the chair with a sigh. "I'm here because of a wedding. I just wanted to make sure you weren't a moron first. My brother's wedding is a very special day and I don't want a moron in charge of it."

"Please tell me your brother is as charming as you are," Clara scoffed. "The bride will be a very lucky woman."

"My brother's first wedding was a disaster," the Scottish woman complained. "Mainly because I wasn't there, but also for a number of other reasons. I doubt it was even legal."

"Uhm," Clara hesitated for a moment. The woman in front of her was clearly mad and she had half a mind to send her away immediately. "You might wanna check before you're starting to plan his second wedding."

"Oh no, it's fine." She made a dismissive hand gesture. "His first wife's dead," she explained matter-of-factly.

"Okay, uhm, listen Mrs-"

"Saxon," the woman beamed at her and suddenly extended her hand across the table, "Missy Saxon. Please, call me Missy."

Reluctantly Clara shook her hand. "Mrs Saxon-"

"Missy," the woman insisted sharply.

"Missy," Clara paused and inhaled deeply. This wasn't the time to deal with crazy clients. Not today. Definitely not today. "Maybe you should come back with your brother and his fiancé so we can all talk about what kind of wedding they'd like."

"Well, his fiancé would like a pompous, Tudor-style Renaissance wedding and my brother wants a quick trip to the registry office to get it over with," Missy explained sweetly. "And I'm going to throw a large amount of money at you if you can find a middle ground between wearing a hoop petticoat and my brother showing up to his wedding in his pyjama bottoms and a hoodie."

Clara opened her mouth and was about to turn the strange woman and her crazy family down, but then she started to reconsider. Even if they didn't go for a proper Renaissance wedding, it did sound like an expensive event to plan and Clara was in dire need of a holiday, a holiday she would have to pay for somehow.

Eventually she forced herself to smile at Missy. She had had weirder requests, she could do this. "Alright, why don't you send your brother and his wife to be to my office on Monday afternoon?"

"Out of the question," Missy Saxon shook her head in a fierce manner. "I'm paying for this wedding, so I'm going to be there every step of the way."

"Okay," Clara kept the smile on her face. She just needed to remind herself that lovely holiday she was going to take afterwards. "Why don't you three come back to my office on Monday afternoon and we can talk it over?"

Finally Missy Saxon smiled back at her. "That sounds perfect."

Clara exhaled sharply once the crazy woman had finally left her office and she sank back in her chair. A week in Spain, that was what she would treat herself to after that job was over.

While she was still in the right mood to do it Clara reached for her phone again and informed her clients that she had been unable to find another photographer on such short notice and that they could either take Sarah Jane Smith or leave it to an amateur. When the couple finally agreed after discussing in on hold for ten minutes, Clara switched off her computer, killed the lights and locked up her office. Any other couple would have to wait until Monday and she was not going to let any more lovesick puppies ruin her Friday.

Missy smirked to herself once she had exited the building and immediately drew out her phone to send her brother a message and inform him of the good news. If she knew him half as well as she thought, this wedding would never take place.