When the Doctor wakes up in a bed in Victorian London, he remembers everything. People and places flash through his mind.
Then he smells something.
Chalk.
A light, somehow pleasing scent.
His nose must be much improved, he thinks as he's crawling along the floor, if he can smell a stick of chalk from across the room.
Dinosaur.
Why does he smell like dinosaur?
More importantly, he realizes, looking up from his scribbled equations on the floorboards, why can he hear dinosaur?
He leaps from the window.
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When Clara bakes her soufflés, the Doctor can always tell, no matter where the TARDIS has put the kitchen this time. The scent of vanilla and sugar and something indescribable will permeate the air and he will raise his head and sniff the air before smiling, just a quirk of his lips, and settling back down to tinker with the TARDIS or read his book, knowing that soon a pouting Clara will sulk in and complain about how his time machine dislikes her enough to burn her confections.
He humors her. Actually, knowing the TARDIS, it was completely possible she does.
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The first time he smells it, he's sitting in his new leather wingback armchair and talking, reading aloud in his new Scottish lilt. Clara is sitting across from him, legs crossed, poring over some book she's to assign in her class next week. Just a hint of it dances along the base of his nose; it's warm, and musky-sweet, intoxicating. He flares his nostrils and narrows his eyes.
What was it?
Clara looks up at him. "Why'd you stop?" She asks, voice sweet and light, a question in her brown eyes.
"I-never mind." He clears his throat and starts again, picking up where he left off, and the girl across from him shifts slightly in her seat.
The smell brushes his senses every once in a while, teasingly light, barely there.
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The Doctor is lounging in his TARDIS greenhouse, splayed out across a recliner and letting the digitally-generated, yet extremely realistic sunlight bathe his pale skin. A warm breeze tickles his cheek and ruffles his hair.
"Doctor?" He can hear the voice coming down the hall and the click of those odd shoes Clara is so fond of ("People keep saying I'm short. 5'2'' is a perfectly respectable height." She huffs, crossing her arms), and cracks a lazy eye open when the greenhouse door clicks open. "Are you-uh. Oh."
She walks in, face full of wonder, and touches the leaf of a particularly exotic plant from the Gertaroan continent of Refert. "Are all these yours? I mean, do you take care of them?" She looks over at him and seems to realize for the first time that he is not wearing his long "magician's" coat; it's slung over a nearby chair. Instead he has on a simple white dress shirt, rolled up to the elbows, and a waistcoat with his usual black slacks.
"One thing I've found about this body is that I have a most unexpected green thumb." He shifts and stretches, joints groaning, and stands up, all long limbs and easy, sunshine-induced drowsiness. "Here." The Time Lord plucks a fist-sized cherry red fruit that looks not unlike a peach from a nearby tree and tosses it to Clara. "These are Ingados from the Farron Galaxy, and they're reputably very sweet and safe for human consumption."
She takes it and, with a jokingly suspicious glance back up at him, bites into it. Her face morphs from curiosity to surprise and then, slowly, a grin.
"This is fantastic." Clara says, smiling up at him with red-stained lips and white teeth, and he wants to lean down and kiss the taste of fruit right out of her mouth. "Did you really grow these?"
He pretends to be insulted. "Of course. I learned to care for the tree from a very good Farroni friend of mine who owns an orchard of them." He smiles back and snags another one from its leafy confine, biting into it and closing his eyes in pleasure.
The scent wreaths around his head, stronger than last time, and he opens his eyes again.
"So!" he says, taking another chunk of the fruit into his mouth and swallowing. "What was it you needed?"
She stammers ever so slightly, flushing a little. Probably the heat of the greenhouse; he does tend to turn it up a bit too much. This new body gets cold easily.
"Er, I just wanted to ask you if you knew where the TARDIS put the dressing room? I'm dying to get out of these scorched clothes and she seems," Clara scowls now, "to have misplaced my bedroom. Again. And I hate to admit it but the TARDIS does have great taste in clothing."
He thinks for a second, then says, "It should be just up the hall, to the left. It'll be the… 4th door you pass."
The brunette smiles again and, licking at the fruit in her hand, chirps, "Thanks!" before trotting off to change.
The scent fades slowly, dissipating into the air and the smell of flowers, but the Doctor's already ingrained it in his memory.
He lays back down, basking in the sunlight, and smiles.
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When the scent appears next, it's slightly unexpected. They're chained up, restrained in a small room, shoulder to shoulder. He's cursing and wriggling in his bonds, accent a little stronger from the strain, and she's sitting unusually still. The cyborgs have locked them up and take his screwdriver, and these ropes really do chafe; they're going to be covered in rope burns for days...
"Come on, Clara," he says, rolling the "r" unconsciously, and he feels her squirm a little beside him and let out a small breath, "we've got to get out of here!"
The smell gets stronger, making his breath speed up ever so slightly, though he doesn't know why, and he notices the ropes binding her are stretched around her chest and her wrists, probably causing an uncomfortable amount of sensation even through the clothing. She wriggles and pants hotly, sounding damp, and her face is flushed and-
Oh.
Oh.
He stills and feels a flush creep up his neck, and it seems quite a bit of blood is allocating itself to his cheeks and his... nether regions.
She struggles against her bonds with renewed vigor and the scent is dizzyingly potent, and it's not very convenient that they're trapped in a small, warm space and he needs to get out of here-
The door opens and a robot stomps in. They're trapped in a rush of rope and lasers and escape, and they're running, running, running...
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When he presses her up against the wall it's not the situation one would expect. He's tall and warm and smells like... cinnamon, she thinks, and she can feel the telltale clenching in the pit of her stomach and has to bite her lip to prevent herself groaning.
He covers her body with his, hidden in an alcove, hardly daring to breathe.
She is soft and radiating heat, and his acute nose can't seem to stop itself from pressing lightly into her hair, and there's strawberry and something like vanilla and that frustratingly warm scent...
The Doctor feels her hands snake up to the lapels of his red-trimmed coat and she leans into his chest.
When the sound of the distinctive steel-tipped combat boots fades into the distance, he releases Clara, hands lingering on her shoulders, hers still holding on to his coat.
"What was that for?" She asks, relinquishing him and brushing his jacket down, as if her presence had marred its fabric with lint.
He sighs. "Sorry, it was another... acquaintance of mine." A flash of red hair flashes in the corner of his eye and he gets a whiff of sunflowers and spice. He turns swiftly 'round, but there's nothing there. The Doctor gestured to the stalls of the Hasanean fruit market. "Where were we?"
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The next time he scents it, his nostrils flare as he unlocks the door to her apartment. It's thick, and warm, and he can't help following it until he hears something.
A moan.
The Doctor stops short at Clara's closed bedroom door. Another groan sounds from inside, and he feels himself hardening in his trousers.
The sounds coming from behind the wall are almost continuous now and he can't move away if he wanted to, and he definitely doesn't want to now that he thinks about it, and thinking seems remarkably difficult in his current scenario, and there's little doubt as to what's happening behind that door…
Her moans reach a crescendo and he has to fight not to sink to his knees and unzip his fly. A cry rings through the rooms; "Doctor!"; and she finishes, panting.
The Doctor turns and runs, the scent of her lingering in his nose and the forefront of his mind.
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"Clara!" He rushes out of the TARDIS, excited. "I've got a great idea!"
The Doctor bursts into her bedroom and stops, pauses. "What are you doing?"
She's putting on a gold earring, wearing a nice blouse and skirt. With makeup.
"Oh, I'm sorry, Doctor. I tried to call you, but it didn't go through." Clara says, not taking her eyes off the mirror. "I can't do tonight; I've got a date."
He freezes, blood chilling in his veins, and he swears his twin hearts stop.
"Date?" He croaks, hoping his voice sounds completely normal.
She looks round at him, frowning as she takes in his face. "Yeah. Doctor? Are you alright?" Her hand comes up to his cheek. "You don't look well."
The Doctor shakes himself out of his stupor. "Why a date? Why tonight?" He does not whine, he's a centuries-old Time Lord of Gallifrey.
"I'm sorry, I can't go on a hare-brained adventure this week." She does look genuinely contrite and pats his arm.
In the pit of his stomach, he feels the stirring of a monster.
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He follows her.
Of course he follows her.
The Doctor glares as Danny Pink, arithmetic teacher at Coal Hill Middle School, kisses Clara's hand and pulls out her chair for her. She giggles.
He laughs and takes a seat, saying something- something stupid.
But it can't have been too dumb because Clara's smiling now, bright and warm, and it's directed at him instead of the Doctor, and he feels the beast swipe at his intestines
He's not jealous.
Not of a man named Danny Pink.
He scowls, shifting the binoculars he's using to scope out their… he's loathe to call it a date.
But it is.
Despite what he heard in Clara's apartment the other week, she chose to go on a date with Danny effing Pink instead of with the Doctor.
The monster is chewing broodingly at the lining of his stomach.
Pink orders a bottle of wine from a nearby waitress and takes Clara's hand over the table, and the night only gets worse for the Doctor from there.
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She unlocks the door to her apartment and the Doctor can't stand it, can't bear the clenching in his chest and the roiling in his stomach as she leads him in by the hand.
He can't help but wonder.
Is he (he refuses to address him by his name anymore, that ended when he kissed Clara on the cheek) carding his stupid hands through her hair?
Is he kissing her neck, smiling with his stupid face as she moans?
Is he smelling that scent, that warm, musky, intoxicating aroma that was supposed to be the Doctor's?
His.
His.
He should go in there.
Clara'll kill you if you do.
The Doctor stalks away, and the London sky begins to pour.
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He's flipping switches and twisting knobs on the TARDIS console, still in a foul mood, when she walks in the next week, dressed to the nines. He looks up at her.
The smell is back.
"Hullo, Doctor! Wh-mmph." She's cut off by the Doctor rising abruptly and pulling her flush to him, crushing her lips to his. Clara, after the initial shock, returns the kiss eagerly, snaking her hands around his neck.
They separate after a minute, Clara firmly pressed against the console of his time machine, both panting and red-faced.
"What was that for?" She smiles.
He responds by kissing her again, murmuring "mine" into her skin whenever he lifted for air.
"Mmm. Were you jealous?" Clara is grinning now, like there's a joke here that the Doctor doesn't quite understand. "Good." She pecks him on the mouth and says, "I've been trying to get your attention for ages, you know."
The Doctor growls lowly into her ear. "It worked."