for which i have to (eleven/clara)

He's draped over a desk looking at maps, each a few dozen years apart. He'd misplaced a village once and it was about time he'd brought it back. He just had to find it first.

He hears her before he sees her, which is… not news. The soft steps, the unintelligible humming. He imagines her jogging down the corridor in her wedges, green dress and red purse, her hair flying, that smile on her face.

He doesn't turn around even though he can feel her standing in the doorway, close enough to stab him in the back. It's one of their Things; he pretends he doesn't know she's there and she crosses her arms and studies him (he's not sure about the arms, actually, but that's what the Clara in his mind's eye does and he likes it). Sometimes it raises the hairs on his arms and pours ice down his spine, but not today and he might be slightly disappointed. Today it's something warmer indeed running down his back and up into his cheeks.

She'll say something pretty soon.

Soon…

Soon

"I'm too old for hide and seek, Doctor."

He spins, faking surprise. (He knows she catches the smirk on his face before he manages to wipe it off because her own smirk widens.) He considers sitting on the desk but decides on leaning not-at-all awkwardly against it instead. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You brought me here and then you disappeared. I'm guessing you wanted me to find you, so I did. Just this once."

She looks so certain that she's right he's getting all confused. "Are you sure? I might have wanted to be alone?"

Clara shrugs and hooks a thumb behind the strap of her purse. "We're the only two warm bodies here."

"I… see."

"Sulking on your own, you might as well drop me off back home."

"Again, I'm not sulking!"

"You don't know what 'again' means, do you?"

And then, then, she quirks a brow and all the Doctor has to counter with is a well-modulated sigh.

"What're you working on?" she asks, skipping closer. "I spy… medieval maps. Promising!"

"Not all of them! Some of them are Renaissance."

"Either you sulk in my company, or you take me there. Or… you do both at the same time." She touches his elbow and all the warmth in him rushes there, pooling around her fingers. "Your choice."

He's not sure it is, actually, but it's not like he minds.