I apologise for my lack of activity recently. Unfortunately both my rats as well as my grandad passed away in the last two weeks so times have been pretty tough and I haven't felt like writing- but here you go! Please please review, they light up my day so much and I'd love something to cheer up as I've been feeling so down recently. Thank you! xox

Midnight

In which the Doctor fulfils many of Clara's childhood dreams.

Another day, another failed soufflé attempt. The TARDIS kitchen is once again swarmed in the harsh tang of cremated milk and eggs, black clouds of smoke still hanging copiously in the air while the extractor fans get to work. Clara scowls unhappily at yet another culinary disaster, flour smeared across her cheeks and her hair scraped back messily from her face. Twenty-four years and she still hasn't managed to get one right. Twenty-four years. If anything, her soufflés appear to become more and more inedible with each endeavour- her most recent so charcoaled that it could probably suffice a coal-burning stove for a whole month.

With a moan her elbows collapse from beneath her and her head falls onto the kitchen counter, and she doesn't even care that now her whole face is covered in flour and egg shell. For a moment, all she wants is the cool surface to swallow her up and preferably turn into a king-size bed in which she can get lost in. Ahh, feathered duvet and fluffy pillows, maybe a Jane Austen novel…

She abruptly wakes from her vision when she feels two arms snake round her hips and a low laugh at her surprise. As the grip round her tightens slightly she relaxes: she knows these arms. She knows these arms better than any other.

"Doctor?" she mumbled, letting her head fall back onto his shirt-clad chest, the soft blue cotton smelling of tea leaves and custard creams and the universe.

He laughs again. When they first met, a little while ago now, his laugh was hollow. Like he was still hurting, lost… But now, well, it was whole again. "Tired, love?"

"Not tired, no," she admits, her eyes flickering open to see that his eyes are looking solely down at her, "Just fed up."

His eyebrows knit into a frown as his face falls. "Fed up how?"

Her eyes quickly glance over at the cremated soufflé and more disappointment settles in her stomach. "It's my mum's recipe. She always managed to bake it right. Every single time when I came home from school she'd have a new one, perfectly made, ready on dot for when I came through the front door until she…" Clara looks up at the Doctor's face, "Why can't I do it? I do everything right. Everything. Yet it still turns out like that!"

He doesn't know the words to say to comfort or reassure her so he just shrugs his shoulders. "Nine hundred years and I still haven't managed to perfect the macaroon. They're tricky little blighters, are macaroons. You have to make the biscuit things just the right size otherwise the cream won't fit in the middle. Or the trifle. And I love a trifle- what's not to like about cream and custard and jam? Or a soufflé, for that matter." he looks thoughtful, "Or beans on toast…"

She whacks him playfully on the arm. Even though his comment doesn't help her in any way, nevertheless it boosts her mood. He has a habit of doing that. Making her smile when she feels like curling up in a ball and crying for god knows how long. She had a lot more times like that before the Doctor came into her life: not that she'd admit that to him. "Shut up! It's just that this is sort of, well… A childhood dream, I guess. To bake the perfect soufflé. Like mum always used to do."

His hands ease from around her waist and leans down to press his chin into her shoulder. "A childhood dream?"

She shakes her head profusely, walking away from his grasp round to the other side of the table. She picks up the still moderately warm soufflé tin and wanders over to the pedal bin in the corner of the room, the soufflé refusing to budge from the casing so she just throws the whole thing into the bin-bag. "…Is that embarrassing?"

"No!" he retorts almost too quickly, so his arms flounder around awkwardly round him after he's spoke to try and mull the atmosphere. "No! Not at all. Definitely not. Everybody has childhood dreams, Clara. When I was little, about ooh, eighty or so; my dream was to see the universe," he smiles nostalgically. Oh, many of his dreams came true. But so did many of his nightmares. He quickly snaps out of his trip down memory lane. "And that's what I do now, of course. Have you got any more of these childhood dreams of yours?"

A soft flush takes over her cheeks as she walks back over to the kitchen counter. "Maybe. Why are you interested?"

He leans onto the kitchen counter, the elbows of his blazer now spattered with flour. "I'm interested in you. Therefore, I am interested in your dreams. So go on, tell me! What did you aspire to do when you were Little Clara?"

Little Clara. She can't help but smirk at that. She grabs a mixing bowl and various spoons from the worktop, throwing them into the kitchen sink. "I'll tell you when we've finished washing up."

He waves away the task with a flippant flick of his hand. "Who needs washing up? Washing up is for wimps." He reaches out for Clara's hand which is considerably smaller than his but just seems to fit, and drags her over to the table. She sees that there is not getting out of this, so with a roll of the eyes she jumps onto the counter and lets her legs dangle over the edge while the Doctor eyes her intently.

"It's really not that interesting," Clara tries to bribe him off with but that doesn't work for one second. Every part of Clara Oswald is interesting to him. The dimples that crook in the corner of her mouth when she smiles, the way she scratches her ear when she's nervous or under pressure. The way she presses her lips on his when they kiss.

"Fine," she sighs, looking up at the ceiling as she combs through her memories. "Well, there are all the usual ones… Wanting to travel the world." She looks back over at him with a grin, "Got a bit more than I bargained for in that sense."

He laughs at that. Oh, Clara.

"Stand at the top of the Empire state building," –oh, probably not such a good idea- "Eat snails. Yeah, kind of gone off that one a bit. See a tiger for real. Swim with dolphins. The Northern Lights." She lists all sorts of amazing sights, tastes, sounds- and the way she still says them with such interest and delight makes him smile even though she's seen so many things already. You never lose touch with your childhood ambitions, do you? Not Clara, anyway. She could go all the way round the universe yet she still clung on to what was important to her. "There was this one phase when I was about fifteen and feeling rebellious, probably just before my mum died. I wanted the most handsome boy in my class to throw pebbles at my window and whisk me away for the night."

This last one intrigues him. He's always thought of Clara as the rebellious type, especially before her mother passed away, but this is not the first thought that sprung to mind. "And what would that entail? This running off with the boy shebang."

They both wrinkle their noses. Not shebang. Not ever, not again.

She shrugs, smirking somewhat. "It was nothing really. I just wanted to escape, like all teenagers do, I suppose. And I really, really fancied Larry Anderson. That's the boy, by the way. Larry. He had really nice eyes. Never spoke to him once, but he was the sole of my affections."

He doesn't like this Larry. Not one bit. He just can't seem to fathom why or how he (or any other boy) couldn't just fall in love with Clara Oswald just by looking at her. Hearing her laugh. The sole of her affections. He wants to be her Larry Anderson, not that he'd ever tell her that.

He hoists her off the kitchen cabinet quickly and hauls her through the TARDIS corridors until they reach the control room. His hands instantly avert to the mess of controls in front of him. "So, Clara Oswald… Where do you fancy first? Play the tambourine as part of the Philharmonic Orchestra or the peaks of the Himalayas?"

She just grins. Maybe a few more of her dreams will come true after all.

-x-

They spend a month or so travelling, each time crossing an experience off her list. They drink tea and laugh at the North Pole as the electric blues and simmering greens of The Northern Lights blaze up above them like the whole universe has decided to dance in the sky. He reluctantly takes off his beloved blazer and bowtie to jump into the Pacific Ocean, defying the icy blasts of water and holding her hand while they swim amongst a school of beautiful dolphins. They capture a kiss at the very peak of The Empire State building (and, thank goodness, there were no Dalek's there this time round). They even take a quick detour in Paris to sample their finest escargot (the Doctor, funnily enough, is very good acquaintances with the head chef of Le Meurice) although in the end they decide that maybe snails are not for them.

It's coming to the end of their somewhat enjoyable quest together that Clara awakes with a start in the middle of the night, one of the days she's staying at the Maitland's. There's a spatter of tiny shadows looming every so often against her window, partnered with a quiet clatter. Hailstones, perhaps?

She curiously pulls herself out of bed and patters across the bedroom floor. Her hand clings round the fabric of her curtain as she pulls it back cautiously; her whole body relieved when she sees a tall man in a purple blazer and a gold bowtie standing in the middle of the street.

She laughs to herself as she rips open the curtain and pulls open the handle on her window, leaning out with a grin as her hair lies in a loose sheet around her shoulders. This is the second time they've talked through windows, she confirms. She rather likes it. "What on Earth are you doing?"

He looks at her as if it's obvious. "Throwing pebbles at your window! What do you think? Admittedly, they could pass for rocks, but there weren't any pebbles nearby so I just assumed rocks would suffice."

She bites her lip and shakes her head. "You are… Mad. Absolutely mad."

"You knew that already," he shrugs with a grin, "Now I may not be Larry Anderson with the lovely eyes, but I have thrown pebbles at your window and I do believe it's the middle of the night." He rolls on his heels, "So what do you say, Clara? Do you want to run away with me?"

She looks at him; studies him. His eagerness, enthusiasm, his love for her. He'd taken something into account that she'd said on a whim due to her stupid teenage fantasies: but he did it anyway. Oh, he was so much better than Larry Anderson. Better didn't even cover it- he was better than better.

How can she resist?

"Yeah," she says, "I'll run away with you."