Cold Coffee

Danny walks out of the coffee shop with a medium black cup with a dash of cream, and a frothy latte that Danny's never had the occasion nor desire to try. Lattes are also expensive, especially buying one so often on a teacher's salary. Danny can only assume the milk is from the finest cows in Great Britain. Regardless of cost, he's been buying one every weekday for the past two months.

Clara's journey to work is longer than Danny's. That coupled with the atrocious coffee in the teacher's lounge led to Danny offering to give her a little spare time to sleep in. Her face the next morning when he offered her the latte was so bright, that curving smile made his heart skip a beat. He was glad his training let him keep his mouth from falling open. He managed his normal, mild smile that he hopes she knows is as good as a beam from someone else. The look in her eyes tells him that she miraculously understands.

He knows this arrangement is about more than just the extra twenty minutes of sleep Clara gets, but Danny also knows she appreciates the additional rest a lot.

Which is why he is surprised to see her a little down the street, idling near an alleyway. She's looking around the area with an easy smile until she looks down at her phone. Then her expression flips to annoyance.

Danny opens his mouth to call out to her, to ask if she decided to meet him, but she turns on her heel and calls down the alleyway, past what he can see. Her call empties the words from Danny's mouth as a familiar sense of irritation and muted betrayal sets in.

"Doctor!" It's only because of the echo in the alleyway that Danny can hear it.

Clara is apparently stretching her extra twenty minutes before she leaves for work through unorthodox means. It's the twenty minutes Danny gave her. It isn't all of time and space, but he thought it was enough. Maybe not.

Danny knows that she probably doesn't do this every morning, but he really has no way of knowing, does he? Though perhaps Danny ought to have suspected. The Doctor has a habit of stealing her away, tempting Clara into his blue box regardless of her current preoccupation.

Danny's about ready to walk (he would never storm, he's not that person) to ask her what she's doing, and maybe get a few jabs in at the Scottish alien, when someone else steps out of the alley. It's a slender man, rather young looking, with floppy hair and a silly bowtie.

Danny wonders if the Doctor stole away another poor soul.

That's when he hears Clara's voice rise in pitch and volume and she utters that words again.

"Doctor!"

She isn't facing the alley. Her words are instead directed at this new man. Danny blinks in confusion and stops walking, still on the other side of the street. Because that definitely is not the crotchety, old Scottish alien Danny knows. In fact, he rather looks like Adrian—

"When I first met him, he looked . . . different."

"What does that mean?"

"He has this trick where he can cheat death by regenerating every cell in his body. It changes his appearance to something completely different."

"Oh."

"He actually used to look like Adrian." Her tone is thoughtful.

When Clara told him that, Danny could have been intimidated. He knows that plenty of women find Adrian to be charming, but Danny doubted that, regardless of a different appearance, the Doctor could ever pull off that silly, geekey charm Adrian has with his softspoken manner and tasteful sweaters.

Danny was right in thinking so, because this Doctor is nothing like Adrian. No, this Doctor is all frantic energy and charisma. Even in the face of Clara's ire.

"You brought me back a year late!" Clara accuses, voice still loud enough to carry. "And does this look like my flat?!"

"Is the right town and decade just not enough for you? You are demanding, aren't you?" The accent isn't Scottish, not even close. There's a posh lilt to it, but his irregular speech makes it engaging.

"Oi, you!" Clara retorts.

The Doctor then replies at a normal pitch, too low for Danny to hear. Whatever it is, Clara does not agree with it because she smacks his shoulder.

The Adrian lookalike actually pouts, his young features twisting. Just when Danny is beginning to question if he heard right, if there is a possible way this young, strange man could be the Doctor, the other man's expression turns condescending. His eyes are light though, nonaggressive.

His hands dart through the air in strange jerks, gesturing vivaciously as he says something to Clara.

She ducks under one of his flailing limbs. Despite his girlfriend's earlier ire, Danny can see she's suppressing a smile. It isn't her smile that really tilts Danny's understanding. Instead it's her eyes.

Clara's eyes are affixed on the Doctor, ignorant of anything else on the street, and Danny watches the adoration with sinking understanding.

She loves him.

This Doctor, the young one with the bowtie, has Clara's complete and utter love.

That isn't true now, Danny knows that the way the Scottish Doctor and Clara interact is entirely different, a strange friendship between an elderly man and a woman young enough to be his daughter. There is comradery and deep caring for certain, but not this complete adoration.

Danny can't help but wonder why. He knows well that the Doctor is not a good man. On occasion the alien can pass as decent, and maybe toe the line of good, but he lacks the capacity to actually cross it. And Danny does think when it comes down to it, he is a better man than the Doctor is. But it frightens him, watching Clara, because he can't tell if she hasn't realized the Doctor's flaws yet, or if she is too distracted by his engaging and charming appearance. Danny has known the alien all of a month, but he's already seen his true character. One adventure revealed it all. Clara would have noticed by now.

Worse still, as Danny recalls the incident, he realizes that she knew full well. Because she wasn't surprised, nor worried nor frightened when the Doctor asked her to be a diversion for what was apparently one of the most deadly creatures in all of space and time. The Doctor had thrown her his device and she'd been running out the door seconds after. She trusted him with a trust born from having done this maneuver repeatedly, from him regularly asking her to risk his life.

Danny recognizes the pattern from his time in the army. But this is not a battlefield and Clara is not in that situation, she's clever, she's aware. So how did she fall in with this man?

It's hard not to consider the Doctor's charming appearance as a part of the equation. Clara's expression is too entranced.

Despite his reluctance, Danny can't help but wonder how his and Clara's relationship would be if the Doctor still looked this way. If the Doctor was still full of young charisma, and his face attractive with emotive eyes.

Because Danny knows it wasn't a grand realization of his character that changed the look in Clara's eyes. There was no betrayal or bad blood between them, not a drop of it in Clara's long narration of their relationship to Danny.

That leaves the most likely answer; it was the Doctor's transformation.

. . . Danny wonders if he changes too much, will Clara abandon him too?

And suddenly, his quarrel is not with the Doctor. He realizes that his understanding that the Doctor was the enigma, the one he could never understand or trust, is a lie. He can trust the Doctor to behave as recklessly and unethically as ever. It's Clara, the one he thought he finally remedied, that he realizes he's never really known.

Because her curving smile, the one Danny knows from experience is a sign of her flirty mood and love, is not aimed at Danny himself.

It hurts more than he wishes it did. But the young Doctor is still leaning against the wall, his touch on Clara easy and so assured.

What made him the old Scottish, caustic man Danny knows today? He wonders and hopes to never know.

After a beat, he turns on his heel and heads down the street. The wheezing sound of the police box echoes in the alley behind him, but he doesn't look back. Instead, Danny goes to work.

Danny meets Clara in the parking lot for a quick clandestine kiss, and gets a wide smile as he gives her the coffee.

"Is everything all right?" Clara asks after a sip. Her large brown eyes are wide with concern. "You've got that look on your face that says you're thinking of stuff again. Is it normal stuff like Courtney? Or alien stuff? Is it anything I should be worried about? It's not about me, is it?"

She rambles in that half-awkward, charming way of hers. Instead of warming him like it should, Danny just feels colder.

He shifts on his feet and shrugs. "Nothing really, I'm just tired is all."

After a moment, Clara nods in acceptance. "I could see that. New semester's coming up, I bet you're as booked with planning as I am."

"Yeah."

He lets her chatter wash over him and tries to let it drown out the truth of the matter—

Danny isn't the one she wants.

.

.

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I find the way Clara treats the Doctor after his transition from the 12th to the 11th to be problematic. If Clara met Danny when she was with the 11th, I don't think she and Danny would be together, to be honest.

Sorry to my other readers. I actually wrote this some time ago, just haven't posted it until now.

Let me know what you think.