I've been really low on plot bunnies lately :( But this one popped into my head not so long ago, and I've really missed writing! Anyway, as always - Hope you enjoy :) It's a little drabble-y at the moment, but it's hopefully a bit of fun. Next chapter up soon :) Reviews always welcome, as is concrit :)

For now, Reader,

L_M_D

For weeks, Clara Oswald had been… off.

Even the Doctor had noticed, and he was beginning to run out of ideas. He'd taken her skating on a planet made of ice the colour of cotton candy; to the ultimate pleasure planet near Tamagaaria; to a fair ground on 71st century Earth. He'd taken her to a planet entirely dedicated to the British institution of the Cup of Tea; to Japan in the late nineteenth-century to drink sake and watch The Dances of the Old Capital. He'd even used the ace card – a planet whose sole inhabitants were puppies.

(No one was quite sure how the puppies had got there, how they survived, or why they didn't age. The Doctor had a sneaking suspicion it had something to do with future him).

Clara had been pleased, charmed even, with these interstellar trips; she had 'ahhhd' adequately over the puppies and shouted excitedly in the fair ground. But each of them only seemed to serve as a temporary distraction.

Once back in the TARDIS, after a brief period of happiness from whichever planet they'd been to, she'd bite her thumb nail and skulk off to her room, leaving the Doctor in the console room, face hunched in confusion.

So the Doctor did what he always did when there was 'trouble with the ladies'.

He phoned Jack.

Who gave him the same advice he always did.

"Dinner, Doctor. And candles. And order champagne this time, for Gallifrey's sake."

And, for the first time in his very, very long life, proving his ultimate desperation, the Doctor did what he was told.

He made his way to Clara's room, practising in his head how he would make the offer of dinner in 1920s New York. He pictured her clapping her hands with delight, her depression broken, perhaps hugging him, his hands slipping around her slender frame…

But when he got there, she barely looked up from the book she was reading.

"Sure, sounds good, Doctor. I'm getting pretty hungry."

She met him, as specified, ten minutes later, looking, as the Doctor thought to himself, awfully pretty in a black asymmetrical 1920s dress and considerably cheerier than she had been before. Her hair was slung back in an easy chignon, and, with the addition of a smile, looked more beautiful than anything the Doctor had ever seen.

But then, he reasoned to himself, he thought that every time he saw her.