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Helloelcome to my collection of Clara-centric one-shots. They'll be canon and multi-genre. First up, here is some Clara/12 fluffy banter.

Thin

"Are you always this skinny?" Clara asked one day, leaning against the TARDIS console.

"You've met all of me," the Doctor shrugged, "You tell me,"

"I don't remember you all. Well, bits. Voices, hairstyles, one violently-coloured coat," she said with a wince, "But the only versions I really know are the three I've met for real,"

The Doctor chose not to correct her on what " for real" constituted. "Four," he pointed out, "The War,"

"Oh yeah. Are you counting him now?"

"Yes," said the Doctor firmly.

"You're consecutive, right? There's you, and before that there was the bow tie and before that was the silly hair and the overcoat".

It was strange to talk about his previous incarnation- her first- so casually. She thought about him a lot, dreamt about him. She missed him. She truly loved the current Growly Scottish Doctor, but was grieving for Surprisingly Sexy Maths Teacher Doctor. How strange, to grieve the man stood in front of you.

"You thought the one with the overcoat had sillier hair than the one with the bow tie?" the Doctor boggled.

"Yeah," shrugged Clara, "All that gel and spikes. Must have taken ages to do in the morning,"

"Twenty minutes if I was in a rush," the Doctor answered casually, "Forty if I had time". He smirked to himself at the pun in 'having time'.

"Forty minutes on hairgel? That's not you," Clara scoffed. The Doctor looked at her shrewdly. "Well," she muttered, "You know what I mean. So before Boyband Hair there was War Grandpa?"

"No. One in between,"

"Was he skinny?"

The Doctor pondered, then murmured, "He was short. I suppose I was, sort of...lean,"

It didn't escape Clara's notice that he switched between "I" and "he" when discussing his previous incarnations.

"Are you like one of those supermodels who can't weigh above six stone?"

"I do a lot of running," the Doctor mumbled, "The one you remember with the technicolour dreamcoat- he was a little portly. Err...". The mentally ran through his previous regenerations, remembering what it was like to be in their skin and wear their trousers. Now she mentioned it, he'd always been a similar build. "Well, I suppose certain traits do carry over," he admitted.

"So always skinny, always white, always male," Clara counted off on her fingers, "Sounds like someone's studied how to have power and influence,"

"It's not conscious!" the Doctor protested, "Have you ever had every cell in your body change? It isn't exactly easy to control,"

"I suppose you do change age," Clara conceded, "Who d'you reckon does better from life- skinny young white men, or skinny old white men?"

The Doctor glared at her, eyebrows flexing menacingly. (Well, they were always menacing).

"You're the person to ask," Clara claimed, grinning, "D'you ever hear the story of Tiresias? He got turned into a woman for seven years for some reason, and when he was a man again the gods were arguing over who enjoyed sex more, men or women, and they asked him cos they reckoned he'd know best. I can't remember which he said but one of the gods didn't like the answer and they-"

"-made him blind. 'S not true, of course. He went blind after he was bitten by one of those snakes he trampled on. I was there,"

Clara rolled her eyes and resisted the temptation to bring up mansplaining. "That's what you're like," she needled, "...except with how scary you are to aliens, not sex,"

Again, the Doctor said nothing.

"Which is it, then?" Clara persisted, partly to annoy him, partly because she hadn't realised how awkward it was to bring up sex in front of him until she'd said it, and now desperately wanted to change the subject, "Do you get more intergalactic street cred as young prettyboy or snarly older dude?"

The Doctor glanced away abruptly, and a strangely distant expression passed over his face. "Prettyboy?" he echoed. Then he seemed to regain himself and asked, "Which one's that then, Spikey Hair or Floppy Hair?"

"Answer my question first," Clara ordered.

"Intergalactic street cred," he mocked, "You tell me,"

"You can't avoid a question by asking me to answer it," Clara scoffed.

"'S what you just did,"

Clara rolled her eyes and gave up pestering him. "So. Where shall we go next?"

The Doctor thought for a few moments. "Haven't been to Shanghai for a while," he thought aloud, "Shanghai?"

"Sure,"

"You pick a year,"

"1851,"

"Summers were terrible in the 1850s,"

"1488,"

"Ooh, nasty stomach bug that year,"

"2006,"

"That was about ten minutes ago for you, wasn't it?"

"1851. I don't care if it's raining, I don't care if there's mutant fish trying to rule China, just let's go and eat dim sum and see the terracotta army!"

The Doctor smirked, pleased that he'd wound her up, and began flicking controls and twisting dials on the TARDIS.

"You can have a double portion, help put some weight on you," Clara suggested, hitting him lightly in the stomach.

"I eat," the Doctor mumbled in protest. This, Clara knew, was true- last week she'd seen him demolish a lemon curd at the Rockefeller Centre in 1927. He'd happily put away a whole roast dinner if nobody else claimed it.

"How about we choose for each other?" Clara suggested, "Me and Dad play this game in restaurants where we choose a cheese for each other from the board,"

"Alright. But remember I'm-"

"Vegetarian, I know," Clara sighed.

"Oh, and Clara?" the Doctor called, as the TARDIS thunked into a landing.

"Yeah?"

His face cracked into an evil grin. "Which one's the pretty boy?"

Fin.

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