Well after the seasons end I wanted to write this - and just want to laugh and let you know the day Clara is having? I have literally had that day! This is what living in England does to you! It gets you soaking wet and blown away by gale force winds! Even that bit with the bus - this is all real life! xD Not entirely sure where this is going, I'm just winging it - still playing with whether I should make this T- rated or M- rated :P

Chapter One

Clara Oswald had skipped over angry today. She'd gone right into sullen as she walked slowly down the street nearly being blown backwards by gale force winds. Her hair, coat and trousers had long since been soaked through and where plastered to her skin making her itch – she wasn't even going to address the squelching every time she took a step because of her soaked shoes and socks.

Come to lunch Clara, it'll be fun Clara – she thought bitterly as she struggled against the wind. She'd been invited out that Saturday by the other teachers from School, she hadn't really been social at all since Danny died and the Doctor left – her only real social interactions had been with her family and Kate Stewart who'd helped her locate the family of the boy Danny saved and officially bring the child back from the dead on paperwork. After that she'd kind of become a recluse. A miserable recluse. She'd even stopped teaching full time becoming only a temp teacher.

So she'd relented and come to lunch with the girls – admittedly she mostly just sat and listened to the conversation going on around her, occasionally speaking. The one time she actually spoke was when Rachel – the new English teacher – said "Shakespeare was an absolute master of words, especially on the sage – I bet he was fantastic live, I wish I could go back in time and see him!"

"He wasn't that good – live he was actually just like any other guy, he was a bit smelly and the theatre didn't smell any better and was far too over crowded even in the seated areas." Clara said without thinking. She only registered what she'd said when she realised everyone was very quiet and she looked up to find them staring at her. She put on a fake smile, used to the lie now and said "I'm joking."

She was met with nervous unsure laughs and odd looks and someone said "You've a weird sense of humour Clara." And that was when she'd stopped making an effort to talk.

A bus drove past her wheels going through a large puddle which splashed up and drenched her all over again. Whatever part of her had been dry was certainly not dry now – and yet she still couldn't bring herself to care. Instead she spotted her favourite book store up ahead, she hadn't been in there in months, and couldn't resist to lure of a thick creamy hot chocolate in the upstairs café even when she looked like a drowned rodent.

She got a look from the girl behind the counter and resisted a snarl – though she was sure the smile was less than polite – seeing the judgment in the girl's eyes, probably for her drowned appearance.

Upstairs she got a sympathy look from the young man behind the counter – he even gave her a towel while he was preparing her beverage – which she took grateful for the warmth of the cup in her hand as she retreated to her favourite booth in the far corner of the café, one that was cut off from the world but still had a lamp light enough for reading as well as a shelf of books right beside it.

She paused, someone was already sitting in that seat. They had their back to her – but she was sure she recognised that slim ridged frame and silver grey hair. She opened her mouth to call 'Doctor?' but thought better of it and snapped her mouth shut again retreating across the room to a different seat, and isolated one with no one around her. It couldn't be the Doctor, she scolded the part of her that had yipped like a happy puppy at the idea he was here. He was back on Gallifrey being a king or something – there was nothing on earth around for him anymore.

She pushed the sadness from her thoughts and concentrated on getting dry. She removed her coat thankful it had saved most of her shirt from getting wet and hung it on the radiator near her seat in an effort to dry the damn thing, though it was probably futile. She used the towel the barrister had given her to rub at the ends of her dripping hair and wipe at her damp cheeks – she wasn't sure if her waterproof mascara had fared well against the rain and at that moment she didn't care.

Her hair continued to drip onto her shirt at with a deep sigh threw the towel onto her table and gave up trying to get dry. She sat down, taking a thankful sip of her hot chocolate and wiping the whipped cream from her nose she caught herself stealing glances at the man who looked like the Doctor but couldn't be the Doctor.

He had a large pile of books stacked on the table, as well as one already open for him to read. The Doctor had been fond of doing that, she thought, then corrected that she herself did that anyway so it didn't confirm anything. The books on the table where odd though – ranging from Harry Potter, molecular physics theories and she was pretty sure that was a copy of Darwin's theory of evolution too.

She sighed and forced herself to look away before the stranger caught her staring – that would be awkward. She pulled out her phone to check the time, and while she was on it decided to check the weather and see if the rain was due to let up any time soon. Luck was certainly not on her side – the rain was due to continue for a few days in fact. It wasn't long before she found herself scrolling through her contacts list – thumb hovering over the Doctors number. This happened every time she used the phone, she would sit there staring at his number for a while before putting the phone away with a sigh and a frown. There was no point in disturbing him – hell there was no real chance he'd be anywhere near the TARDIS phone, he'd probably be off helping rebuild Gallifrey after all.

Clara stood and moved amongst the book shelves looking for something to catch her eye. She ended up at the 'surprise' shelf. This shelf was why the book store was her favourite. The books on this shelf had been bound in paper so the covers where hidden – the only thing on the covers was the blurb. It made the selection of her book that day a surprise, a mystery and without the Doctor around these days it was the only excitement she got.

She wasn't sure how long she stood there reading the different blurbs, but when she happened to glance up again the stranger who'd sat in her favourite booth was gone – though his books where still there and a steaming cup of tea half drank so she assumed he'd be back. She turned away, intending to take the book in her hand back to her seat, but was so busy looking at the blurb she walked into the person behind her rather abruptly. She dropped the book with a startled gasp and began to rattle off apologise as she bent down to retrieve the strangers dropped book too. "I'm so sorry, I should have been looking where I was going…"

The stranger had knelt down too and picked up both books before she could reach them. He looked up again, cold blue-grey eyes meeting hers and widening – she was sure hers where rounder than they'd even been. "D-Doctor?" she breathed, not daring to believe it was actually him.

"Clara? What happened to you, you look like a kitten that got stuck in the washing machine." Defiantly the Doctor, they both straightened and her head only reached his chin causing her to crane her head back just to look up at him.

"It's… it's raining." She blinked, she could feel a well of emotion that threatened to make her cry and had to wrap her hands around her middle to stop herself hugging him, knowing that he both disliked touch and that she'd lose all control and weep again if she did.

"Ah." Was his reply, and they both shuffled awkwardly until he asked. "So, uh, how are you?"

She faked a smile again. "Good. How're you? What are you doing here anyway, should you be off being a king on Gallifrey?"

She knew the weak thin lipped smile he gave her. His smile was as much of a lie as hers and they both knew it. "Gallifrey is good, but I've become accustom to human tea – and there's nowhere better to get that than earth."

"Oh?" she considered calling him out on his liars smile, but she didn't want to make him run. She asked a different question instead. "What are you doing here then? You could have come visited me and I'd make you tea… unless you think my tea is bad?" she couldn't help but tease.

"No- no!" he looked a little startled "Your tea is fine, brilliant! But I didn't want to impose on you and P.E. Might accidentally walk in on something that could damage my psyche."

"Well that wouldn't happen if you learned to knock on doors." She rolled her eyes. "I thought you'd have learned your lesson after walking in on me shirtless, you complained about it enough!"

They noticed some of the other customers giving them funny looks. "Ah err… would you like to join me at my table?" the Doctor frowned.

"Sure. You stole my favourite table." Clara smiled genuinely over her shoulder for the first time in months as she retrieved her still soaking coat and hot chocolate before she joined him having to move a stack of books she could see him over them.

They just sat like that, stealing glances at each other over their cups while the other wasn't looking until the Doctor asked bitterly. "So how is P.E? Have you two set a wedding date yet, human courtships are always so short, is it any wonder half of them end in divorce?"

Clara was startled by the bitterness in his voice, and stalled for time by taking a long sip of her drink. I- uh…." She tried to speak but something seemed caught in her throat, her body rebelling against the lie she wanted to tell on reflex.

The Doctor took her inability to speak as an affirmative of his assumptions. "No need to be embarrassed. It's just your species – pudding brains – always using their emotions to dictate rather than this heads, honestly. So when is the big day? Hope it's not a winter wedding with weather like this! Unless it's indoors of course-"

"Doctor." She cut across him, unable to hear anymore. Normally he would have kept talking – but he'd never seen such a frown on her face before and it made him stop. "Danny never came back."

He said nothing for a few seconds – too stunned. "But… the bracelet- you had it, I saw!"

"He didn't use it on himself." Clara was looking down at her cup. "He used it to send back a child."

The Doctor felt the new found respect for solider boy increase. "Then why did you… why did you tell me he was back?"

Clara smiled weakly, sadly and finally looked up at him meeting his eyes with her watery ones. "I didn't- you made the assumption and I didn't tell you different. I didn't want you to think I was going to be all alone when you went back to Gallifrey – I didn't want you to feel like you had to come back or anything…"

They both looked away awkwardly, for their separate reasons. Eventually the Doctor sighed and still not looking at her admitted "I didn't find Gallifrey."

Her neck cracked with the speed of which she looked up. "What?"

"The coordinates… they were a lie…" the Doctor stared down at the table under which he flexed his hands remembering the damage he'd inflicted on himself and the TARDIS in his frustration after realising that the Master- or Missy rather- had lied. His ship had given him her equivalent of the silent treatment for over a week after the incident and was still mad at him. She kept turning off the gravity in rooms or accidentally 'deleting' the rooms he used most often or locking him out.

He expected Clara to yell, be angry at least and was most startled when she abruptly laughed instead. "What? Why are you laughing?" he frowned feeling he'd missed some secret joke.

"Us!" she grinned and shook her head at their stupidity. "We're such idiots!"

It took him a few minutes. He wasn't sure if she was genuinely serious – but eventually he found himself smiling too, a rare genuine smile on this face that usually just smirked and frowned. It made her smile wider for a second too, before she gave an exasperated look and said "Now we know we both lied. How have you really been?"

He stopped smiling too, his eyes stopped looking happy too and regained a shadow darkness as he looked away. "Same old I guess. Rescuing here, saving that…. Trying to anyway."

"Trying too?"

He shrugged. "Not everything has gone to plan lately that's all." He said sounding irritable.

Clara took the hint and didn't ask him what had gone wrong- still not wanting to cause him to leave again.

"What about you?" he asked "How have you actually been?"

"Miserable." She answered honestly, if she wanted any kind of truth of him she'd have to admit her own feelings first that much she knew. "You have no idea how many times I nearly called you these past months – I missed you so much."

His usually menacing eyebrows raised in surprise. "You… you missed me?"

"Of course – you're my best friend in the entire universe quite literally." She shrugged, a little embarrassed.

"Ah… well… uh…" he tugged at his collar a little, had it suddenly gotten warm in here? "I guess I missed you too."

She gave him a tiny smile. "You did?"

"Well, yes." He cleared his throat, face burning as he looked anywhere but at the girl in front of him. "There was no one around to see how clever I am."

She rolled her eyes at that, drinking the last of her hot chocolate and considering another.

"You could always come back you know." He said so quietly she paused, wondering if he'd actually spoken at all.

"Really?"

"Yes… I mean… if you wanted too?" for the first time since he'd regenerated he looked at her with insecurity in his eyes rather than the usual overwhelming confidence.

"Of course I want too!" she blurted out far too fast and loud for her liking and gave a slight look of embarrassment afterwards despite his smug look.

He stood, held a hand out for her which she took without hesitation. "What are we waiting for then? I even have an umbrella."

He led her down a few streets outside in the rain. Neither really spoke, both too convince this was going to turn out to be a dream – they had both had the dream of meeting and traveling again, it wasn't too farfetched to believe this could be a dream too. Clara would have been convinced it was a dream if her feet hadn't still been soaking wet and cold as ice.

Clara felt utter relief when she saw the TARDIS sitting at the end of the alleyway, her grip on the Doctors arm tightened unconsciously with anticipation because this was usually when she woke up in her dreams. She almost was convinced it was a dream when the Doctor raised his fingers and clicked – and the doors didn't open.

He sighed heavily and she looked up at him with a frown. He shrugged at her and gave a gruff explanation as he opened the door with a key instead. "She might be angry with me. We haven't actually been getting along very well the past few months either. I might have hit her when I realised the coordinates where a lie… and then yelled… and she might be mad at me for lying to you."

The Doctor stepped inside, and as usual was met with a dark room. the TARDIS was somewhat limited with punishing him when she wanted too and turning the lights very low without turning them completely off was one of her punishments – however the moment Clara stepped through the door the time machine whirred into life purring like a contented cat and the lights brightening to their usual colours.

Clara turned in a slow circle as she started up at the TARDIS, she place a hand on the metal wall behind her and smiled brightly "As surprising as it is I missed you too, you old cow!" she said affectionately.

The Doctor just smiled as he watched her, meeting her eyes across the room they shared a grin and he slammed down a lever with more enthusiasm than he'd had in months since she'd left and he swore the TARDIS's usual groaning was louder than it had been in months too.