Nine Months, Twelve Days (Whouffle fanfic)

New Hope and Disappointment

Clara woke up, finding that the Doctor was still asleep. She tiptoed out of bed and creeped downstairs, relieved to see that Hank was no longer hunched over and disfigured, or rather, hunched over and disfigured that she could see. She made a pot of coffee, and decided to drink it black. Today was a day she needed to sober up and not be emotional. She needed to solve the problem at hand and not break down in hysterics like she did yesterday. No wonder the Doctor treated her like a child; she acted like one.

As she stood in the kitchen, silently sipping her coffee, she began to notice things that she hadn't before. There was a crack in the plaster above the kitchen door, probably from her slamming it during one of their many fights. There was a crack in the base board, and a paint chip off of the cabinet. It amazed Clara that they had been there long enough to have caused damage to the house. Clara tried her best to keep it looking nice and pretty for when someone else moved in after them. It wasn't that she necessarily wanted to quite being domestic, it was that she was just...bored.

She was tired if being a housewife. She was tired, period, but nothing could be done about that. She was deep in thought when the Doctor entered the kitchen, reaching for the pot of coffee. He smiled crookedly at Clara and sipped it, and reached for the cup of sugar on the counter. The Doctor had liked how Clara always kept the sugar bowl by the coffee pot, the tea pot, or anything else anyone might be drinking that needed sugar. Clara was just good at being prepared, but not over prepared, unlike the Doctor who was never prepared for anything.

"Good morning," he said, a bit timidly for his usual self. A part of him suspected that she was still mad at him. Another part of him told him to stop worrying about it.

"What?" Clara said, coming out of thought. "Oh...good morning. Sorry...just thinking. So, what're we gonna do today?"

"We could finally solve the Judy and Hank issue," he said, and then added, "in a humane way," when she saw the look of uncertainty on Clara's face.

Clara just nodded in response, sipping her coffee and looking out the window. The Doctor stared at her, obviously upset about her minimal response. He came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, and setting his chin in her shoulder. She grabbed his hands and squeezed them, whispering something as she did.

"What did you say?" he asked her.

"I said, 'Let's do this thing,'" she said, leaping away from him, kissing him in the cheek, and running up the stairs.

+++++++++

They were outside their neighbor's door twenty minutes later, holding hands. Clara just wanted the comfort, but the Doctor wanted to suck in every little bit of Clara while he could. He didn't know what might happen and he didn't want to miss out on oppurtunities that he might never see again. Clara rapped on the door and it opened a second later, revealing a worn looking Judy and a wreck in the house behind her. 

"What the hell do you want you guys?" Judy asked, sighing. 

"Well, um, you're an alien, so we thought we'd just come over and make sure that all that screaming last night wasn't a human sacrifice or anything," Clara said with a smile, sass coating her every word. 

"Excuse me?" Judy huffed in disbelief, but the Doctor was already inside of thier home, scanning the room with his sonic. He ran up the stairs, buzzing the screwdriver in short little bursts, as Clara shoved past Judy and started looking around the room. 

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Judy demanded, as Clara followed her companion up the steps of the mess of a home, and listened for the sonic until she found him in the master bedroom, leaning over Hank who was huddled in the fetal position.