Archive of Our Own

She likes this time in the TARDIS the best, when they return from some ridiculous place and he doesn't immediately plot their next course but simply lets them drift. Then she can just be with him, can just stop and breathe and know this weird thing they do, this is a part of her life right now, and it's remarkable.

They spent the bulk of the day on a mostly oceanic planet, on one of its two beautiful, balmy islands. There was an open-air market, and he didn't look askance at her when she bought a few trinkets to take home, even though she had to barter away her sunglasses and pinky ring and, eventually, his cuff links. Her favorites were a floppy hat -- the sun was pretty hot -- and a bracelet with teeny, tiny twinkling green stones.

She also tried the local food, which was mostly peppery meat on a skewer, with something like preserves as a glaze. She must've sampled about a million different drinks: a juice that reminded her a little of limeade, several kinds of teas, some bubbly and thick nectar she was afraid to ask the origin of, and something else dry and sour and definitely alcoholic. Overall, it was a lovely planet. Sure, the toilets were open air and the whole place didn't have the best smell in the universe, but the people were kind and absolutely intent on making her laugh.

She spent the last couple of hours lying under a shade tree, listening to a bard singing about the adventures of one of the local heroes, a woman who was apparently just as clumsy as she was brave. The Doctor was three or four trees away, in a conclave of brainy types, occasionally arguing pretty loudly about things she didn't understand in the slightest. Sometimes he caught her eye, even in the middle of one of these battles of wills, and she smiled widely enough it made him smile in return. They stayed until the second, mellowest sun had gone down but the third, the brightest, had not yet risen.

It was sort of a miraculous day, actually. They went to Peramus IV because Clara was in a dark mood and needed some diversion. She came to realize that the Doctor had needed the diversion just as much. So he brought them to a place where both of them could relax, in their own ways. Apparently, though, that kind of relaxation had made the Doctor more prone to dropping some of his physical barriers with her. As they moved through the crowds, he took her hand more than once to lead her in a new direction. When he came to find her and take her back to the TARDIS, he lay his hand on her shoulder and it lingered until she got up.

The sheer volume of all those incidental but definitely uncharacteristic touches didn't strike her until she was showing him all her purchases. Standing there beside her, he noticed that the clasp of her necklace was turned round to the front, so he reached out and righted it. But he left his hand there, at her neck, as he appraised her face, frankly. His fingers slipped away from her skin reluctantly, and he whirled away to check the console output screens.

The next time she passed him, he reached out to get her attention by letting his fingertips graze her forearm. She stood right in his personal space -- he was close enough she could smell the scent of the island's herbs lingering in his hair and see the hem that had come unraveled on his coat sleeve -- and patiently listened to something technical she only half understood.

Okay, so she half listened, as the other half of her attention was puzzling out his behavior. And it still is. She wants to drop it, really she does. In fact, she's headed back to her little room near the heart of the TARDIS when she feels his eyes following her. When she looks back, however, he quickly turns away.

That's too much. Just then, she's crossing in front of his armchair, so she flops herself down it, knowing it will earn her a slightly grumpy look but probably no particular reprimand.

"All right," she says. "What is going on with you?"

"Hmm?" He looks back at her, as though he's forgotten she was there.

"You're being strange."

He just rolls his eyes and turns away.

"That. Right there. You've not looked me in the eyes all afternoon. Except when you stare. You're being shirty."

"Shirty?"

"Yes. Awkward and defensive and...weird."

"So we're on adjectives today, are we? I'd rather do verbs, Ms. Oswald."

"You're going to tell me nothing's wrong with you."

"Yes, I'm going to tell you just that. I'm fine."

"Then explain to me why you keep touching me."

He just gives her a quizzical face, dismissive, and then shuffles over to the other side of the control room.

As if simply discontinuing the conversation on his end means it's over.

"And I'm not just talking about a tap on the shoulder or something," she continues, launching herself from the chair and striding across the room. "My hands. My arm. My face, just after we settled in at the bar. My hair, I think, when we were buying food."

"I've touched you dozens of times."

"He has. You, not so much."

"Clara, can we not --"

"Shut up. Seriously. It's not about comparison. It's that this is not like you, Mr. I-Don't-Think-I'm-a-Hugger."

"What's not like me?"

"Earlier, when we were still at the market, you put your hand at the small of my back."

"Did I?"

He's really pretty terrible at feigning ignorance.

She says, "Just guided me through the crowd as easy as you please."

"Which I will endeavor never to do in the future, if it's that big of a --"

"And just a few minutes ago, what was that, then? There was no reason whatsoever for your finger to come up and flutter over my collarbone. None."

At those words, all the bravado leaves his expression. After a momentary widening of the eyes, he narrows them again and steps over to his old fashioned chalk board and begins scratching at some equations.

A gesticulating, shouting Doctor, she can deal with. This bottled-up version? She has no idea how to approach him. No, scratch that -- she knows very well, just not if it will do more harm or good.

She's about to make her exit, content (or, okay, not so content, but willing) to come back and fight another day, when his voice drifts across the room to her, clear but tentative:

"I'm sorry, my dear."

She turns back. He meets her eyes for a moment then looks away again, telling the chalkboard:

"I never meant to make you feel…uncomfortable."

With a sigh, she rounds the console again, steps up to his level and takes the arm of his coat to swing him back around, make him look at her.

"That's not why I asked," she says calmly. "Not at all."

He raises an eyebrow, skeptical.

She lets go of him, then, because she's pushing things as it is, and, really, she's about to need her hands to aid her in some very serious point-making. It's either that or raise her voice, and she doesn't think shouting at him would be a good plan.

"The time we were stuck on the third Silvurnian moon. Or maybe it was the fourth. Anyway, do you remember that?"

He grimaces. "The least interesting nudist commune in the known universes."

"That was awkward, even with our clothes on. And when they put us in jail on Jagoban Minor, the dirt floor and lack of toilet? Really pretty unpleasant. I've seen and been through some out-there things with you, even just these last few weeks, and not all of it has been awesome. But you touching me does not qualify as one of those uncomfortable things."

"Okay."

"But your lying to me does."

"Not lying," he replies, jaw clenched.

"No, maybe not. Withholding, more like."

"If you say so."

"I do say so. So spill. I'm not going away until you do."

Rolling his eyes, he spins away from her, only to spin back a bit a second later. He points an angry finger in her direction.

"You really don't want to push me."

"No, I don't. So why do I feel like I need to?"

"Because you're a pain in my arse? I don't know why you do any of the things you do."

"Doctor."

His reply this time is nearly a shout: "It will go away."

She matches his tone: "For Christ's sake, what?"

He doesn't reply immediately, but after a moment, she watches his shoulders fall in defeat.

"Very well," he says. "Just remember that you pushed the issue. Do you recall that I was smoking the Tendeara earlier today?"

"That hookah thing? While you were talking algebra and, what, farming with that blue guy?"

"He's not that blue guy. He's Andrastapol, and he's a prophet and a philosopher. And a farmer. But, yes, that."

"Did he drug you?"

"No. Not Andy. But I do think it was the herbs we were smoking. I believe they had a...psychogenic aphrodisiac mixed in with them."

"A what?"

"Clara," he replies in a tone that is half plea and half warning.

She might not know what the hell psychogenic means, but she knows the word aphrodisiac, and if the situation is that uncomfortable for him, she's suddenly a bit horrified on his behalf.

She does her level best not to look down at the region below his belt. At least not for long.

With a grimace, she asks, "Has it...given you a...problem that won't go away?"

"What?" He wheels around again. "No."

"Thank God."

"No. I think they probably mistook me for a human or maybe a adolescent Keplar, because the dose was mild. I just... I feel very..."

"Grabby?"

He snarls, "Dear girl, you haven't seen grabby if you think that was --"

"Okay," she replies, holding up her hands. Her voice even softens, like she's talking to one of her students. "Okay. Let's define it as...cuddly?"

"Perhaps."

He closes his eyes and sighs.

"Okay," he adds. "Yes, that's apt."

She smiles, finally, and says, "Basically, it's like being caned, except instead of having the munchies, you just need to touch things? Well, that sounds a bit like being caned, too, actually."

"Not things," he says with a shake of the head. "People."

"And when you say need, are you...?"

It's impossible not to make horrible frowning, apologetic faces. She's beginning to see why he tried to hide it from her.

"Am I what?"

"In pain or anything, I guess."

"No," he says, a weary, amused smile coming over his face. "Just a compulsion, is all. Like an itch that wants to be scratched. I don’t have to do it."

"And if you don't...?"

"Whether I do or no, it will fade in a few hours, if I've identified the right substance."

By now, she's edged close enough to him that she can feel the sway of his body toward hers. It's strange. She didn't realize how much she missed the easy physicality of his previous self until she's confronted with this -- with the evidence of how hands-off her Doctor has become, made all too clear by how weird it is that he's suddenly, unwillingly, desperate not to be.

So she reaches out and, predictably, he stumbles back a few paces.

"Don't be an idiot," she murmurs.

"Clara."

"Look, if you don't want to be this close to me, at least let's take you to someone you like better. I'm sure there's a few people in the vast reaches of time and space who you haven't completely hacked off yet."

"It's not about liking," he snaps. Now, his hands come up, and if she didn't know him better, she would swear he's about to flail his arms -- for emphasis or in panic, she's not sure. "I simply don't wish to force myself on you."

He looks scared, and it's so stupid. There's no reason to be scared of her. She's not going to get the wrong idea. He's made his feelings for her, or lack thereof, abundantly clear. That's not exactly why she travels with him.

"You are not forcing anything," she says. "I am. Do you plan to seduce me?"

"No."

"Then you're being ridiculous. Come here."

Without any more ado, she takes hold of his hand, and instantly, his fingers slip though hers, cool but damp. And clutching.

A little unsteady on her feet now, all of a sudden, she concentrates on leading him around the console to the far side of the room, where his large armchair is.

"Sit."

He does, still holding onto her hand. She can already see so clearly that it's not enough, but it's all he'll permit himself to take. It's like he's hanging from a cliff face, and he's accepted a hand so that he won't fall, but he won't be rescued either.

He's difficult to read on the best of days, and sometimes even harder to get a response from. It's not that she doesn't know how; it's mostly because she's reluctant to push. It's actually ridiculously easy to shock him into action, much more so than it was before.

"Well, here we are," she says.

"What's your plan now, Madame Amateur Head Shrinker?"

"Settle in for the duration, I suppose."

He sighs, then he raises an eyebrow. "You will need a chair, my dear."

And then it hits her, and she feels a sly grin curve her mouth without her meaning it to.

"Oh, I think we can share," she replies.

Before he can protest, she settles herself across his lap, one arm around his neck and her legs dangling over the armrest.

He's frowning at her, like he's horrified at her impertinence and not a little worried about the structural integrity of the chair, but his arms are already meeting around her waist.

"Better?" she asks, snuggling down so she can lay her head against his shoulder.

He's tense all over, but not nearly so much as he was before. She can feel his adam's apple when he swallows.

"Yes, I think."

He doesn't say anything else, and she quickly accepts that he probably won't, so she doesn't either, for once.

She's aware that she must be heavy in his lap, but she can't bring herself to mind if he doesn't. He smells different than he used to. There's more bulk to him (there'd have to be, wouldn't there?), but he also seems more delicate in some way. Maybe it's his fingers, making slow, light paths up and down her back, or his breath, evening out until she realizes they're breathing in tandem. This version of the man, he can be still. It's so strange but ridiculously attractive.

When she was with his other self, they didn't stop moving long enough to deal with anything, really, let alone whatever it was that was between them. It was probably for the best; things were complicated enough without bringing a physical relationship into the mix. Might've been perfect, or might've been a complete disaster. The unpredictable sharpness of their relationship, that was exhilarating. Precarious, though. It feels less precarious now.

She finds her thoughts wandering, her ideas unraveling. It's been a long time since she slept, she thinks. And maybe he'll find it easier to hold her if she's not awake, not asking questions and demanding anything, just being. A few minutes after his hand comes up to stroke the back of her neck, making soft circles just below her hairline, she lets herself drift off.

When she awakens again, she's instantly conscious that she's still in his lap, although he's shifted her a bit. She doesn't move, but he already seems to know that she's awake.

"Not long," he murmurs, answering her unasked question.

"Sorry."

"It's fine," he says.

"How are you?"

"Also in the realm of fine, I think. I don't know if it's the prolonged contact or the substance wearing off, but I feel a damn sight less…distracted than I was."

"Good."

His voice is soft when he adds, "Not that you need to rush off anywhere."

"Oh," she says, smiling into his shirt, "I wouldn't dream of it. You're comfy."

"Yeah?"

"Bony legs and all."

"As if I can even feel my bony legs at this point."

She makes a half-hearted move to stand, and he tightens his grip on her waist.

After she settles in against him again, he says, "Although I do want you to know something."

"Okay."

"You remember, I hope, that I'm a wee bit telepathic?"

"Yes, I remember. Mostly empathetic, I think you once told me. Before."

"Yes. It hasn't changed. And that's a good way to put it."

"So?"

"So, I don't like to snoop, as it were, but it's a lot bloody harder to keep from overhearing things when we're this physically connected."

She feels her heart instantly throb into a wild, panicked beat -- which she immediately tries to calm because, hey, mind reading.

"Okay," she says, almost like it's a question.

"I just wanted you to know. In case you'd like to extract yourself."

She just shakes her head.

"No?" he says.

Her heart almost in her throat now, she bucks up her courage and says:

"You can't have learned anything that was much of a surprise to you."

At that, he smiles. "Oh, don't underestimate my ignorance, Clara. What goes on in your head is most definitely surprising."

"Yeah?"

He nods, but it takes him a moment to answer.

"I did know how to be still," he finally says. "When I was him, I mean. I simply preferred not to be. It was far easier."

"Just like now you prefer to be Mr. I-Don't-Think-I'm-a-Hugger?"

His chest heaves with a snort.

"Why does it always surprise my traveling companions that I have irrational notions and odd hangups about things? I've lived for more than 2000 years. I was bound to pick up some mental baggage along the way. Especially traveling with humans so often."

"I guess that makes sense. Imagine the mess I'd be in if I lived that long."

He just chuckles, and she can feel the vibrations in his chest. He strokes her hair for a moment, clearly contemplating his next words.

"I look decades older than you," he murmurs.

"Maybe two or three. What does that matter? You actually are, what, centuries older than I am?"

"The point is, I look twice your age, yes? But here in my arms, your pulse is still racing. It's remarkable."

"It shouldn't be. By the way, I've noticed no small amount of nerves on your part, too."

"Effect of the drug," he says with a shrug.

"Is it?"

"No," he replies with a sigh. "Not exactly."

She pulls back enough to give him an arch look. "Explain."

"What they dosed me with, it rather unwinds one, mentally, which means it can't unwind anything that isn't already wound up. In here," he says, pointing to his head, then to his heart, "and in here. It can't harvest anything that one hasn't already planted, so to speak."

She actually feels her chest tighten at the implication.

"You mean, you already...?"

"I suppose I did. In that part of my brain that I normally do a very good job of ignoring."

"Why?"

"What do you mean, why? It's a bad idea, to dwell on what could be."

"Oh, come one. You like bad ideas. They're almost as good as barmy theories and dodgy plans."

"It's bad enough I drag so many of you out of your time and across far-flung galaxies, I shouldn't --"

"Who cares about should and shouldn't."

"Clara Oswald, the man holding you in his arms is not young, and he is certainly not human."

Before she can give him a glib reply, she feels his regard for her wash over her. He's speaking directly to her heart, now, where before he was just listening. It sends chills down her spine, the possessive fury of his feelings, and their depth makes her dizzy, like she's standing at a great height, looking down. After a moment, though, the flood of emotions abates a little, evens out. Ah, she thinks, so he was trying to throw everything he had at me.

In reality, the feelings are not so overwhelming, just constant, like a heavy cord tying her heart to his, one that doesn't pull, really, but is taut enough that she's definitely aware of it. She thinks maybe she always will be now.

"You should know better than to try to scare the impossible girl," she replies.

He actively pulls his mind back, then. Now she's keenly aware of the physical again, of his fingers slipping up under her shirt to ghost over the soft skin at her lower back. But she needs more. She doesn't dare kiss him on the mouth, not yet, not when he's still so defensive. Instead, she turns her head up and lets her lips press against his neck and drag a bit. She feels rather than hears him surrender a groan.

Holding him close, she concentrates on thinking and feeling how much she loves being here with him, how he's all at once the safest and the most dangerous person she knows. Of course, she can't stop her mind from scrambling his current face with the one she knew first, but that seems okay. When she sees that long gone face in her mind yet clutches him tighter, she can feel some of the tension drain out of him. She's hyper aware of his body now – this body, older but new – and that awareness must be something he can feel, because soon he uses his fingers to turn her head, tilt her mouth up toward his, and then he's kissing her.

And this is the newest part of all. Yes, she's kissed him before, and it was good, really good, but he was always a bit like a small animal snared in a trap. Now, for all his usual physical reticence, aloof where his previous self never let a person get a breath alone, he is not nervous, and he's hesitant only for a moment.

He doesn't miss a beat when she stands up and repositions herself facing him, astride his hips. When she runs her fingers through his graying hair, he tilts his head back to look up at her, those blue eyes somehow the warmest thing she's ever seen, and his mouth curves into an amused smile.

He says, "I think I should've asked if you planned to seduce me."

"Because clearly you're opposed to the idea."

"Utterly."

"What else are you opposed to?" she asks with a grin.

For just a moment, he projects a feeling, one she couldn't describe readily in words, but one which makes her sure he'd be very, very happy to stay just like this, only with less clothing in the way.

"No fair," she murmurs against his mouth.

"It's all I've got, I'm afraid," he says in her ear. "Parlor tricks."

"Good tricks," she replies. Pulling out of a kiss to press her mouth to his neck instead, she adds, "But I doubt that's all you've got."

"You keep doing that and I will most definitely forget all my tricks entirely."

"Oh, I'd like to see that."

"Would you?"

"Very much."

She stands, then, so she get out of some of her clothing. First, she unbuttons her shirt and lets it fall to the floor. Her pants quickly follow. She can feel his eyes on her undergarments, which are black, not completely embarrassing but far from the realm of sexy lingerie. Not that he seems to mind.

When she climbs back into his lap, she feels for the first time how hard he is. He groans at the way her thighs come to rest bracketing his, and his face comes to rest against her collarbone. Just for a long moment, though. Quickly, he raises his head to start a wet, biting trail of kisses at her neck, one that eventually wends lower and lower.

Before she's aware of what his hand is doing, he's flicked open the clasp of her bra and is pulling it down and off her shoulders.

She mutters, "If you needed your sonic screwdriver to do that, I don't want to know."

At that, he softly giggles – God, and it's probably the sexiest thing she's seen all day – and immediately brings both of his hands up to mark the curve of her breasts and brush a thumb over her nipples, first one and then the other, light and teasing.

She shudders, saying in a bit of a moan, "No fair."

"What now?"

"Too much clothing."

"I agree," he replies, and one of his hands comes down to tug at the waistband of her knickers.

She slaps it. "You. Too much on you."

He rolls his eyes, but he doesn't protest as she leans back and lifts his jumper by the hem. He bats her hands away and tugs it over his head himself. In almost the same motion, he pulls her close, her bare breasts pressing against the sparse, wiry hair on his chest, his skin cool and soft.

"Mmm," he murmurs in her ear. "You're right. Much better."

They stay like that for a moment, holding each other tight. She can feel the thump of his heartbeats, and it's all she can do not to grind against him.

"Are you sure this is what you want?" he asks.

"You tell me," she says with a smile against his skin.

"I need to hear you say it," he says. "In actual words."

So she holds his gaze and says: "I need you inside me."

His eyes flutter shut and she feels more than hears his reaction: oh yes.

They share a long, sort of frantic kiss, then he pushes her back and she gets off his lap again, faltering a little as she steps out of her knickers because she's watching him fumble at his belt. Once he gets it off, there's the matter of his flies, then she's climbing into his lap again and sinking down onto him before either of them can change their minds.

The feeling is like nothing she's ever experienced before – it's like he's inside her but also around her. Everywhere, everything.

Sorry, she can feel him saying. She can also feel him retreating a bit, and it brings about this unaccountable panic, like a hand gripping her chest. She opens her eyes to find him staring at her.

"It's okay," he says, stroking her face with his hand. "It's too much otherwise."

"Because of the drug?"

He just shakes his head, but then she loses the thread of the potential argument because he's lifting her by the hips, up until he's almost slipped completely out of her, then lets her come down to meet his thighs again.

"Fuck," she says.

She can feel him laughing, there inside her head, warm and giddy and with her, not at her. I'll show you, she thinks. When she raises herself up, teasingly slowly and never taking her eyes off him, she watches his eyes screw shut, and he mutters something that sounds musical and harsh at the same time.

Panting, she asks, "Gallifreyan?"

He laughs, his head falling forward against her. Gaelic, I think.

It takes them a while to find the right rhythm, not that she minds. In fact, it's sort of fun testing and teasing, each getting the measure of the other, one thrust or nip or stroke at a time.

Whether he's trying to get a read on her or not, he's certainly paying attention. He must be. When she's close, or as close as she gets without a little help, she feels his hand slip between them, seeking out the place where their bodies are joined.

When the pad of his thumb finds just the right spot, she makes a noise that is probably most accurately described as a scream. It seems to do lovely things to him, and she presses in closer.

In his ear, she says, "You don't...have to do... Just don't stop."

"Close?"

"Yeah."

"Good."

"You're…?"

"Aye."

"What can I…?"

He grabs her hips, and she thinks -- she knows -- harder.

She finds her rhythm slowing, so she can really grind into him. He's no longer cresting with the wave, riding atop it again and again; he's about to be sucked down with the undertow.

She keeps forcing her eyes open, and every time she does, he's still looking back at her. When she opens her eyes and finds his closed, shut tight while his mouth is slack and open, she pushes herself a little harder, a little farther forward and then she's tumbling and tumbling, her orgasm peaking like that slow supernova they saw in the Traxian galaxy, and then reeling and reeling away from her.

She's started coming down from it when he gives a deep moan and she feels him break, filling her and shuddering in her arms. Luckily, she's so strung out that the force of his orgasm, the mind-to-mind aspect of it, doesn't wash her away. What it does do, though, is bring her right to the brink again.

"Oh God," she moans.

He's still moving inside her when she comes again, this time with a sharp pain and a lingering throb. But it's so fucking good.

Once she's come down again, she pulls off him, half afraid that if she doesn’t, it'll happen again. Not that she doesn't want to test that theory in more depth some other time, mind you.

But she's still resting in his arms when he mutters:

"Sorry about that."

"Rule number one: don't ever apologize for multiple orgasms."

"More than one?" His eyebrows arch. "Really?"

"I thought you were telepathic."

"Distracted a bit."

"What in the world did you think you were apologizing for, then?"

He sighs, and he turns her head so he can press a kiss to her mouth, slow and soft.

"You weren't prepared for...any of that."

"Well, what's new."

"Clara."

"Doctor."

"I think that was probably a very foolish thing we just did."

"Maybe. Didn't feel like it."

He pauses for a moment, then he says, "No, it didn't."

If her knees are now complaining a bit, she imagines he's even more ready to get out of that chair. Climbing out of his lap, she retrieves her underclothes and, first, slips back into her knickers. He doesn't pretend not to watch, although he does take the time to tuck himself back into his trousers.

He says, "You've not turned me into a hugger."

Contorting herself a bit to re-clasp her bra, she nods and replies, "Good."

"Good?"

"I'd hate to imagine you going around hugging everyone in the universe."

"Oh, you must've hated me before, yeah?"

She shrugs. "I guess you were sort of a flirt."

"Sort of?" he says with a snort.

"I liked it," she says with a wicked smile, retrieving her trousers from the floor.

A little gloomily, he says, "Sorry you're stuck with me, then."

"Oh, you're much worse now."

"What?"

"A flirt who doesn't realize he's a flirt."

"I know when I'm chatting a person up."

"Then how come you were barking up the wrong tree with Jenny a couple of weeks ago? My weeks, anyway."

"Sometimes it's nice to banter with folks what's safe."

She holds up his discarded jumper but doesn't hold it out to him.

"Is that why you don't flirt with me?"

"I don't?"

"No. Because I'm not safe?"

She gives him a long stare, holding out the jumper.

"Not even remotely," he replies with a sigh. "You never have been."

At that admission, she tosses him his jumper.

He adds, frowning, "Which is why I should never have taken you to Peramus IV."

"I'm not a child. You explained that they were empaths. Wait, don't tell me you knew what would happen."

He shakes his head before it even emerges from the neck hole of his jumper.

"I remembered that they are somewhat pushy diplomatists, which for them often extends to the realm of matchmaking. What I did not recall – having not been there in at least a millennium – is what altogether different ethics they have about achieving their goals, as it were."

"Why did they drug you but not me?"

"They knew they wouldn't have to drug you, I'd wager. Although I'm not convinced they didn't dose you with something to make you even more obstinate than usual."

She sticks out her tongue as she begins buttoning her shirt. Now that his clothes are set to rights, he lounges back in the chair, watching her with narrowed eyes.

"I like the black," he says.

Yes, his tone nearly makes her shiver, but she replies lightly:

"I'll take that under advisement."

"Very much."

"I've noticed," she says with a nod at his dark slacks and shirt.

"On you, I mean."

"I am so not choosing my knickers to suit you."

"No?"

"Not like you'd see them anyway, most of the time."

"Oh, but I'd know, wouldn't I?"

"Then you can just imagine away," she says with a wicked smile.

He stands, finally, grimacing momentarily at the straightening of his knees. When she raises her eyebrows, he rolls his eyes. Then he reaches out to straighten her collar.

"Don't worry, dear girl," he murmurs. "Imagination is one thing I've never had a lack of."

She tilts her head a bit. "You can see why that's slightly worrying to a person, can't you?"

Whirling away from her and toward the console, he replies, "I don't know. If nothing else, it sometimes means interesting destinations."

"Unfortunately, it's probably time for me to go back to the least imaginative destination possible."

"Yeah? I've always found that children are wonderfully imaginative, sometimes frighteningly so."

She smiles. "I know. I just meant that it doesn't take any imagination to put me back at school."

"Can't anyway," he says, waving a hand. "You've gotten sunburnt. During your lunch period. Which your young charges would most certainly notice."

She reaches up and feels her face, which is distressingly hot.

He says, "I know a place with excellent food, interesting art, cerulean foliage, and nothing but cloudy days."

"But will you be able to find anyone to quarrel with?"

He snorts. "Oh, for that I wouldn't even have to leave the TARDIS, would I?"

Rolling her eyes, she throws herself back into the armchair, smiling to herself.

"That wouldn't be so bad, would it?" she says.

He looks back at her, his eyebrows arching for a moment before he shakes his head.

"Still impossible," he mutters as he turns back to the console and begins setting them a new destination.