A/N: Hello readers! This one is very fluffy. Be warned.

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One of Those Couple-y Decisions

In which Clara send the Doctor shopping but he comes home with something else instead

Clara had always suspected it would be a risk to send the Doctor on his own to buy their weekly food shop. From past experiences she'd long since realised that the Doctor needed almost constant supervision when let loose inside a supermarket- his hands seemed to get distracted so easily when something colourful or interesting met his eye, and usually it was Clara who had to set him straight and question him on why lychees were really necessary and you don't even like hummus! He was so much like a kid in that retrospect. The Doctor was one of the most intelligent and humorous people she'd ever come across: but on occasion intelligence didn't really compensate for his lack of common sense and responsibility. Before sending him on his way with her bag for life (their relationship has got to the stage where they, indeed, share a reusable shopping bag) she lectured him heavily on the importance of sticking solely to her shopping list and buying nothing other than the groceries listed.

"I'm trusting you on this," Clara warned, pressing the lined piece of paper into the Doctor's hands which was covered in her swirly italic script. "I swear, if you stray from it and come home with some bizarre cereal…"

The Doctor laughed, scanning the list quickly before stuffing deep into his pocket. "Relax, Clara! I'm an adult. I'm capable of sticking to a shopping list."

Clara raised an eyebrow. "I beg to differ."

The Doctor stuck his tongue out at her, clearly proving her point on his current levels of maturity. "Why don't you do the food shopping, then? If you're so worried about me messing up?"

"Fine then!" she retaliated, holding her hand out for the list, "I'll do the shopping, you can clean the bathroom."

He quickly grabbed the car keys from the kitchen table. "I'll be back in an hour."

Yet, an hour passes, and there is still no sign of the Doctor. Clara has managed to clean the whole of the bathroom as she intended (which was quite a chore- yet out of the two of them she was the only one who could do it properly) and have a cup of tea without any word from the Doctor. He better not have got side-tracked in the confectionary aisle again. He could spend quite a long time gazing at the rows and rows of chocolate bars.

Clara quickly rinses out her mug in the kitchen sink. One of the Doctor's still lies lazily on the draining board, along with a teaspoon: she rolls her eyes at his uncleanliness. He can be such a pain sometimes; leaving odd socks on the staircase when they've jumped out the washing basket, forgetting to chuck out the teabags when he's made a cup of tea. She lets a thoughtful, lopsided smile take over her face when she thinks about him, though. What he lacks in order he always seems to make up in goofy grins and mind-numbing kisses. He's quite elegant in that department, even with his spindly limbs and lanky frame.

Her heart jumps slightly when she hears the front door open, dragging her away from her trail of thought and back to reality. She's confused when she hears the Doctor talking away to himself, presumably, so she abandons the kitchen and walks out into the hallway.

To her surprise, the Doctor isn't alone.

Attached to a long, red cord in his right palm is a small, panting, bundle of fluff.

"Clara!" he exclaims enthusiastically in his usual Doctor fashion, "Hello!"

The little puppy is skittering and jumping up around the Doctor's feet, its black fur covering its eyes ever so slightly and its tiny, pink tongue hanging loosely out its jaw. The Doctor is clearly besotted; looking at the dog like it's his own child, grinning every time its paws come in contact with his knees.

Clara is too stunned to say anything. Her eyes glance from the triumphant grin of the Doctor's and the happy face of the dog, so many questions running through her mind but the main being what the hell is a dog doing in their house?! "…What?"

The Doctor kneels down, scrubbing the eager puppy's face with his palm. "Isn't she gorgeous? I've always wanted one, Clara."

"No…" Clara shook her head profusely, still trying to wrap her head round the situation, "What is it?"

The Doctor looked up at her with a frown. "She's a puppy, Clara. Obviously. Strictly speaking she's a Labradoodle. Isn't that brilliant? A cross between a Labrador and a Poodle!"

"I know what it is!" Clara snaps, shocking him slightly. Clara hardly ever snaps. He's also realised that Clara isn't exactly happy with this new addition, either. "I just don't know what it's doing here!"

"There's an animal centre on the way to the supermarket," the Doctor says. He stands up again, so he and Clara are both on the same level. This isn't the reaction he was hoping for- he thought Clara would be happy at the thought of a pet, let alone furious! "I couldn't resist taking a look and then I… Well, I couldn't resist when I saw this little face looking back at me. I thought we could call her Bessie. Although, if you don't like that, we can always…"

"Don't like doesn't even cover it!" Clara shouts, the puppy cowering between the Doctor's legs. Even the Doctor starts at her tone: she's boiling with anger. "I sent you to get shopping! I trusted you to get shopping! I might've known you'd come back with something like this- shopping doesn't usually mean a pint of milk and loaf of bread with you, does it?"

"Clara, I…"

"You know what Doctor- I'm sick of this." Clara tries not to loom down at the puppy. She can't deny that it's the most adorable thing, much like the Doctor, but she can't take this spontaneity and this incapability of doing the most menial tasks without getting distracted. How could she go on living with a man who can't even go to the supermarket on his own? "We can't afford a pet, either. We can barely scrape enough up to pay the rent and the TV licence- how can we possibly cover a dog and vet bills and dog food on top of that?"

His heart is sinking deep within his chest. This is the worst they've ever been in regards to arguments; the occasional snap over stupid things, but not full-blown fights. Never. They've always just fitted too well for that to happen. He tenses his grip around the red lead in his hand, the puppy anxiously dancing between his legs. "I'm sure we could find enough, one of the biology teachers at school is on sick leave so I could take another couple of classes…"

Clara exhales noisily and frustratedly. He obviously wasn't helping. "Why can't you do anything right?"

She pushes past him to get to the front door. Her handbag is lying at the peak of the stairs, so she throws it over her shoulder before going for the front door handle.

"Where are you going?" the Doctor asks anxiously, reaching forward for her shoulder, but she shakes it off.

"Out." She replies and he swears he can hear a crack in her voice- and that's all she can say. She doesn't even look back when she opens the door and heads out into the street.

The Doctor just stands there. There's no noise in the hallway at all, no giggle from Clara as she jumps up behind him and kisses his neck or her voice as she sings in the shower at full volume. Just silence, emptiness and the short pants of the dog at his feet.

Suddenly, he feels cold. Was this it? Had he lost her properly this time? Had he took one step too far and lost the only person he'd ever, truly felt any love for? Clara Oswald is everything to him and if this was it, everything over… Well, he'd never get over it.

He kneels to the ground beside the puppy and strokes her head. His nails scruff vigorously at her fluffy ears and soft fur, swearing that the droplets dripping onto her back are most definitely the leak which he was meant to fix on the ceiling.

"What am I meant to do, eh?" he asks, and the constant grin on her face doesn't give him any answers. He leans down to press his chin into her head. "Mr Useless."

-x-

A little while later he goes out because the cold atmosphere in their usually spirited home is a bit too depressing to bare- although going 'out' with their situation as it is isn't any less morbid. He aimlessly walks around the park for a few hours, despairing about how life without Clara is just no life at all and maybe, possibly, he might be able to make it up to her before things go completely wrong and unfixable…

When he arrives home and enters the hallway, the house is still silent. Bessie (he couldn't keep calling her 'the puppy') is nowhere to be seen (he probably should take her back to the centre tomorrow if he has any chance of salvaging his relationship) and neither is Clara- so he gloomily troops into the living room and to his surprise, Clara is lying on the sofa, Bessie sprawled out across her stomach; fast asleep. Clara's hands are knotting in and out of her curly fur, the dog clearly delighted and so relaxed at the contact.

Clara's eyes glance up at his presence in the room, her mouth relaxing into an almost apologetic smile. "Hey."

"Hi," he says in response, gesturing towards Bessie, "She likes you."

"I know," Clara replies, reluctantly shifting from her position on the couch. Bessie merely slides off, completely unaffected and still unperturbed from the movement. "Wouldn't stop following me when I came back. Probably looking for some company."

He shrugs his shoulders. "My guess is that she's probably fallen in love with you. Like I have. Lots. More than lots. Lots, then a suitcase full on top of that."

She shakes her head with disbelief at his flattery. She's supposed to be angry with him- but she just can't. "Shut up."

Shut up is a good sign. Shut up usually means I love you too. Well, at least he hopes that's what she means. "Clara, I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't have gone and bought a dog without consulting you first, because 'buying a dog' is one of those coupley-decision things that you make as a couple, and…"

She cuts him off with a kiss.

-x-

They've somehow ended up in bed, which is becoming more of a pattern on Saturday afternoons when neither of them are at work and most likely have something more pressing to attend to: then again, when their lips collide, going to the bedroom seems one hundred times more important than anything else on their to-do list.

He pulls her back into his chest, letting his arm curl round her stomach and he can feel the texture of his shirt beneath his fingers- she's somehow acquired it whereas his chest is now completely bare.

"Spooning, are we?" she murmurs contently, his hand cool against her skin as his fingers slip between the material and cascade over her abdomen.

"Of course," he mumbles into her hair. His other hand is dancing through the loose tendrils; soft and so easily tangled up between his finger and thumb. "It's an 'I'm sorry' spoon."

"It's me who should be sorry," Clara sighs, her palm moving to clasp his. "I really overreacted- like, properly overreacted. I shouted at… Well, I shouted at you and I-"

"Stop it. I need telling, I really do," the Doctor argues. Maybe it is time he grew up a bit. It's alright to be childish and immature on occasion, but maybe it was time he cut down on those occasions in order for Clara to put up with him. "From now on, I'll be grown up all the time. I won't go out and do stupid or rash things."

Clara tilts her head slightly so he can see her sceptical look.

"Okay," he decides, "Most of the time. Quite a lot of the time. Fine. Very- Okay, if I want to go out and do stupid things, I'll always ask you first."

"Good enough for me," she giggles. That's as good as she's going to get, and she wouldn't have it any other way. He's clumsy and mad and an idiot, but he's her everything and her idiot and maybe those traits are what made her fall in love with him. He's done so much for her in the past; she couldn't lose him over one… "What are we going to do about the dog, then?"

She can feel the Doctor's chest hitch against her back. "Oh, I, uh… Well, we could take her back if its-"

"No!" Clara's shifts her body round to face him, the tone of her voice surprising him somewhat. Maybe the eagerness in it, which is a huge contrast to just hours before where fury blazed more than anything. "I mean, no… It would look bad to take her back, wouldn't it? Now she's settled in…"

"Definitely," the Doctor agrees profusely and seriously.

"She can't go back to that centre now. That wouldn't be fair on her, would it?" Clara says, trying to list as many excuses as possible as to why Bessie would be best with them without trying to appear too keen. She's too stubborn to go back and alter her previous argument completely.

"Not fair. Not fair at all," the Doctor briefly kisses her lips. "But what about the money thing? I didn't really think about whether or not we could afford her or not."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" she grins cheekily, earning a playful clip round the nose. "Well, you can always take that extra class if you want and we'll just have to forgo food for ourselves for the next three years," she jokes, before pausing for a moment to look at him. "Did you actually get the food shopping?"

A red flush takes over the Doctor's face and he suddenly looks very uneasy. "Funny you should say, as I, uh, well, I did, but- I almost bought it, if it's any consolation."

"Oh. Right," and for a moment the Doctor thinks she's going to say no more about the matter, "Well, you can almost make dinner tonight, then."

He laughs- her humour never fails on him. He kisses her neck softly; his finger still wrapped around one solitary curl that has separated from the rest. She shudders under the contact: but it's a good shudder, the kind that sends tingles up her spine. "How about I take you out for dinner tonight instead? It's probably going to have to be a sausage roll from the bakers in the park seeing as we don't have a penny, but it's out anyway! Nothing better than a pastry on a park bench. Or an ice cream, if you'd like. The place down the road does fantastic banana splits…"

She shakes her head with disbelief. How did she ever come across this amazing, maddening, insane man? The strange thing is, though, when she was little she'd always dreamt of being a Disney princess- living in a castle, fancy dinners, horse and carriage… Yet with the Doctor she definitely had none of the above: they rented a tiny house, a fancy dinner was a dine in for two from Marks and Spencers, and she'd been driving the same tiny red Citroën for the last four years… But she felt more of a princess than with any of her other boyfriends. "Sounds perfect."

The Doctor grins goofily and is about to go in for another kiss, when a strange and unfamiliar noise from his side of the bed disturbs him. He gives Clara a look before flicking a glance over his shoulder, collapsing into laughter when he realises just what is there. Clara's confused, so she reluctantly moves out of the fold of sheets to look over the Doctor's shoulder to see for herself.

Standing next to the bed is Bessie, grinning happily with her tongue lolling out her mouth. The noise, apparently, is the rhythmic banging of her tail against the bedroom floor.

"How long has she been there?" the Doctor asks incredulously, his eyes glancing their new little puppy's gratified facial expression.

"I don't know. I don't suppose we could've heard her when we…" Clara looks over at the headboard of the bed, her eyes slowly widening.

It doesn't take the Doctor long to catch on. "Has she seen us do…? Y'know?"

"It's decided now. We can't possibly take her back." Clara confirms, "She's seen way too much of our personal lives to ever go back to the dog centre. She's signed up to us now."

The Doctor grins down at Bessie, who is still as cheerful as ever. Which is sort of worrying, actually, considering… He leans down to pet her head, and her eyes close in contentment. "Well then Bessie… where do you wanna start?"