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locker_monsterTitle: Household Gods (1/5)
Rating: PG
Characters: Twelve, Clara
Timeline: pre-"The Caretaker"; no spoilers.
Summary: An unexpected discovery at the British Museum leads the Doctor and Clara to Ancient Rome, but things quickly get out of hand when the Doctor is mistaken for another man...
Disclaimer: Doctor Who belongs to the BBC.
A/N: I wrote this fic back in December, but I have a feeling that it will be Moffat'd in season nine, so I thought I would get it posted before that happens. Many thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rumpelsnorcack for the awesome beta.
Clara couldn't claim that the Doctor had ruined museums for her, but it was harder to be awed by artefacts and relics when the ability to visit them when they were brand new was at her fingertips. That was part of the reason travelling with the Doctor appealed so much to her. She had a chance to appreciate things long gone from the world.
She walked through the Great Court of the British Museum, doing her best to keep track of her group of students as they navigated through the crowds. Hers was one group out of three of Year Sevens from Coal Hill that were visiting for the day, but she had caught glimpses of other groups from other visiting schools as well. Not for the first time, she wished that the school uniforms were a bit more distinctive. Every student here wore the same black blazer and it was hard to distinguish her students from the rest from just their backs. Different coloured ties were only good if she was facing her students.
"Keep together," she said in vain. Herding a group of twelve year olds was like herding cats. There were always going to be a few that would wander away.
Clara looked back briefly and saw Danny managing his own group of students. It had been sweet of him to volunteer after Adrian came down with the flu. This was far from his usual realm of numbers and equations, but she knew him well enough now to know that Danny Pink was always up for a challenge.
He noticed her just then and offered her a smile and Clara beamed back at him.
"Miss Oswald?"
Clara looked back. She had fallen slightly behind her group and all fifteen of her students were waiting for her at the entrance of the Greek and Roman wing. The one who had called her name, a girl named Ruby, had one of her usual perplexed looks and it was aimed at Danny. Ooh, these kids were catching on, fast.
At least they had waited for her instead of running ahead. She lengthened her stride and caught up with her group. Most had taken advantage of her inattention to pull out their phones. "Mobiles away," she urged. "You can Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to your heart's content at lunch."
There were some groans, but everyone tucked their phones away as asked. Clara ushered them on until they reached Room 18, home of the famed Elgin Marbles.
"I thought they were columns," said one of her students, a boy named Samson, as they entered the large space.
"Nope, they're sculptures and statues from the Parthenon in Athens." Clara had been here before but it was still amazing to see these ancient pieces of art surviving in their time . So much of history was destroyed.
"Then why are they called the Elgin Marbles?"
"Because," said a middle aged woman who had been waiting for them at the end of the room, "they're made out of marble and they were acquired by a man named Thomas Bruce, who was the 7th Earl of Elgin."
The woman herself wasn't familiar, but Clara recognized her voice from the numerous planning sessions over the phone that they had had for this school trip.
"Professor Jackson. Clara Oswald. It's nice to finally meet you." She walked over and shook the woman's hand. Jackson was taller than Clara with short blonde hair and wire frame glasses. She was dressed fairly casually in jeans and a navy blazer with a t-shirt underneath, but it made her more approachable.
"So why aren't they called the Bruce Marbles?" asked Samson, interrupting the introductions.
Jackson just smiled. "Good question. I suppose everyone remembered Thomas Bruce by his title, so they used 'Elgin' instead of 'Bruce' as a nickname for the Marbles."
By now, the other groups had arrived and Clara quietly slipped away so Professor Jackson could address all of the students. School trips were always a logistical headache, but she still thought that they were worth it. It got the kids out of the classroom and they could see firsthand the things they were learning about.
She tried to make her way towards Danny, but a tour group got in her way and she was forced to hang back as the tour guide explained, in what sounded like Japanese, what some of the different Marbles were.
Clara decided to examine the nearest frieze to her, which featured men riding horses. Most of the figures were intact, but the occasional hoof or hand was missing.
"Is she going to explain the dubious legal means by which Elgin obtained the Marbles?"
A familiar Scottish voice sounded behind her and Clara whirled around to find the Doctor. He had his back to her and his attention seemed to be on the Japanese tour guide, but there was no mistaking that it was the Time Lord. The grey hair and lean build gave it away.
"What are you doing here?" hissed Clara. The Japanese tour group blocked her view of Danny and she hoped his eye line was equally obscured. Grabbing the Doctor by the arm, she dragged him over to a nearby pillar.
He tried to pull his arm free from her grip, but she maintained a tight hold. "This is a museum. It's open to everyone."
"So you just happen to be here while I'm on a school trip."
"No, I phoned your school and asked where you were."
Clara's eyebrows shot up her forehead. "You what?" She desperately wanted to shout the two words at the Doctor, but she didn't want to draw any attention. "Why?"
She didn't mind when the Doctor landed the TARDIS in the middle of her flat or in a supply closet at school because it always happened before or after school hours. This was an intrusion into her working life. She needed to focus on looking after her students, not thinking about a quick jaunt to another galaxy.
"Well, you weren't at your flat and you weren't answering your phone. It's Wednesday," he added, as if that explained everything.
Which, in fact, it did. They had a long-standing agreement that Wednesday was their official travel day. Clara could always expect the Doctor to show up on a Wednesday. Of course, that didn't stop him from popping up on other days, like today.
"Doctor, it's Monday. Monday morning, in fact."
His brow furrowed. It amused Clara to watch his prominent eyebrows push down to such extreme angles. "You have the date wrong," he insisted.
She pulled out her phone from her bag - where the screen showed a few missed calls from the TARDIS' number - and she showed the Doctor the date and time displayed there. "See, Monday. Now can you please go somewhere else for the next three hours?"
He finally noticed the gaggle of students listening intently to Professor Jackson. "You're an English teacher. What are you doing at a museum?"
"I'm helping out one of the history teachers and who says I can't use a museum to teach a lesson?" Clara forced herself to stop and take a breath. She and the Doctor could argue for hours if they wanted and that was the last thing she needed. "I just need until lunch. We can talk then." She walked off so they couldn't launch into another squabble.
Just before she reached Danny, Clara glanced back and, much to her relief, she saw the Doctor walking out of the room.
"Hey, where were you?" Danny asked in a whisper.
"Had a message on my phone from my dad. I didn't want the kids to see me using my mobile during class." The lie came easily, as did most of the lies she told Danny. Clara wasn't sure if this was a good thing.
So she put on a sweet smile and that seemed to stop any questions Danny had, but meanwhile she couldn't help but wonder what would happen if the Doctor and Danny ever met.
The Great Court was packed today with students and tourists and they had been lucky to claim a corner that was out of the way of the foot traffic. Thankfully, twelve year olds didn't mind sitting on the floor to eat lunch .
Clara's phone rang just as she was coming back with a cup of tea and a sandwich from the little café in the Court. She had wanted to spend lunch with Danny, as they hadn't had a chance to really talk all morning, but she knew who was calling and she also knew she couldn't put off talking to him for another time.
"Sorry, got to take this," she said to Danny, handing off her tea and sandwich to him. "Be right back." She hit the talk button and brought the phone to her ear as she walked off into the crowd.
"Is it lunch time now?" the Doctor asked before Clara could say hello. He sounded so impatient, but she didn't feel like that ire was directed at her. He just seemed impatient with the slow drag of time.
"Yes. Where are you?"
"I'm in the Greek and Roman wing. The dates on some of these artefacts are hilarious. There's an urn here that's clearly from the first century AD, not the second."
She headed in that direction, dodging around slow moving tourists. "Yeah, that sounds like a riot," she said dryly. "I'll see you in a mo."
The various rooms were a bit quieter at lunch, but there were still plenty of people wandering around, looking at the antiquities. Clara drifted through the various exhibits until she spotted the TARDIS parked in an unobtrusive corner. She started to head towards the time machine when she noticed the Doctor examining a display a few steps away.
He wasn't aware of her presence yet and she took opportunity of the moment to look him over. He was dressed in his usual dark colours and his body language was relaxed and collected. This couldn't have been an emergency if he agreed to wait for three hours to talk to her. Of course, normal, human behaviour didn't apply to the Doctor. He could remain cool while facing impending death, but something as mundane as finding lost house keys nearly threw him for a loop.
"Is everything okay?" she asked, walking over.
He looked up at her. "Why are you asking that?"
"Usually, when you phone the school, you just leave a message." During her first year at Coal Hill, everyone thought she was terminally ill from the amount of calls and messages she received from her "doctor". "Do you need me for something? You wouldn't have come out here otherwise."
The Doctor moved on to the next display which housed a cracked marble bust of a woman. "You make it sound so dire. I honestly thought it was Wednesday. I just wanted to take a trip."
Clara crossed her arms. "And that's all?"
He sighed and drifted over to the next display. "Yes." Add an eye roll and he could have been one of her students, exasperated from her numerous questions regarding the latest English assignment .
Well, at least he wasn't in trouble. That took a load off of Clara's mind. She kept in step with him as they continued down the row of artefacts. They had passed through this room earlier to get to the Elgin Marbles and she vaguely recalled that these were new items on loan from some excavation in Rome.
"So where would we go if today had been Wednesday?"
The question was enough to draw the Doctor's attention back to Clara. He had a devious grin. "Why wait until Wednesday?"
"Now? You want to go somewhere now?" She thought of Danny, sitting back in the Great Court, holding her cup of tea.
"Do you keep forgetting that I live in a time machine?" It was as if the Doctor had read her thoughts. Or maybe her hesitant expression gave her away. "I can have you back a minute from now."
"It's a school day," reasoned Clara, but she couldn't deny that a part of her was sorely tempted. "I have kids waiting back at the Court and there's only two other teachers here." She paused, searching for more good reasons not to go, but that temptation wouldn't go away.
It wouldn't have been irresponsible of her if she did go on a short trip. It wasn't like she was leaving in the middle of a lesson. They were on lunch break. It'd be like ducking out to run an errand if she were back at the school. Time was relative. She'd only be gone five minutes from Danny's point of view.
Danny. She already told him one lie today. He didn't deserve another.
Clara made up her mind right then. She would stay and do her job and she and the Doctor could go somewhere after school was done. Everybody won this way.
She was ready to tell the Doctor her decision, but he wasn't there anymore. She looked around the room and found him standing in front of another display. Clara shook her head. She hadn't been inattentive for that long.
"Can we do a rain check on the trip? There's too much to do today." She walked over and joined him at the display.
The Doctor didn't reply. He just stared at the slab of marble propped up on the platform. At first, she thought he was just engrossed with examining the carvings, but then she noticed it wasn't a rapt expression on his face. It was one of surprise.
Clara quickly took in the details of the marble slab and her eyes went wide.
The carving was no bigger than a lunch tray, slightly grimy and very weathered due to the ravages of time. The right side of the rectangular slab had broken off at some point, leaving an uneven edge at a forty-five degree angle. The figure of a woman who graced the right hand side of the carving was, unfortunately, left without a head or chest.
But it was the image in the middle of the slab that was unbelievable. A rectangular box with a stacked roof sat atop a podium. It might have been a temple, but Clara didn't know of any Roman temples with lights on top of them and this box definitely had a lantern shaped light on top of the roof. She couldn't make out the writing along the top width of the box, but something had been written there long ago.
"One of us needs to say it," she said to the Doctor.
The Doctor had his jaw clenched the entire time and it took him a moment before he could speak. "That's the TARDIS."
The moment he said it, she knew that she wasn't going crazy. Her eyes flicked over to the other figure on the left hand side of the slab. It was a man, but his features and most of the details of his clothing had been worn away.
"Been to Ancient Rome lately?" The man had to be the Doctor. Not the Doctor standing next to her, necessarily, but one of his other selves.
"Not recently, but I've been there numerous times before."
Clara leaned forward to read the title card underneath the slab. The slab was, according to the museum, a marble carving from approximately 80 AD. It was likely part of a shrine dedicated to the household gods that a Roman family had worshipped.
Gods. Worshipped. The words took Clara by surprise. The Doctor could be arrogant but he was no deity.
"Is it good or bad that they worshipped you?"
"I don't know." That stunned feeling was wearing off. The Doctor wanted to look into this mystery; she could tell by the gleam in his eye. Hell, she was pretty intrigued, too. Who would want to worship the Doctor?
"Then let's find out."
The Doctor finally tore his gaze away from the marble carving. For just a second, he regarded her with astonishment, but it quickly gave way to a pleased, though somewhat smug, smile. Of course he had assumed she would come along, like she couldn't resist his charm or something.
"Just this once," Clara declared. "I don't like you on your own. You're liable to burn down Rome or something."
The Doctor laughed derisively as they headed for the TARDIS. "That's the wrong time period. And I've already done that."
Clara was not surprised.
Rating: PG
Characters: Twelve, Clara
Timeline: pre-"The Caretaker"; no spoilers.
Summary: An unexpected discovery at the British Museum leads the Doctor and Clara to Ancient Rome, but things quickly get out of hand when the Doctor is mistaken for another man...
Disclaimer: Doctor Who belongs to the BBC.
A/N: I wrote this fic back in December, but I have a feeling that it will be Moffat'd in season nine, so I thought I would get it posted before that happens. Many thanks to
rumpelsnorcack for the awesome beta.Clara couldn't claim that the Doctor had ruined museums for her, but it was harder to be awed by artefacts and relics when the ability to visit them when they were brand new was at her fingertips. That was part of the reason travelling with the Doctor appealed so much to her. She had a chance to appreciate things long gone from the world.
She walked through the Great Court of the British Museum, doing her best to keep track of her group of students as they navigated through the crowds. Hers was one group out of three of Year Sevens from Coal Hill that were visiting for the day, but she had caught glimpses of other groups from other visiting schools as well. Not for the first time, she wished that the school uniforms were a bit more distinctive. Every student here wore the same black blazer and it was hard to distinguish her students from the rest from just their backs. Different coloured ties were only good if she was facing her students.
"Keep together," she said in vain. Herding a group of twelve year olds was like herding cats. There were always going to be a few that would wander away.
Clara looked back briefly and saw Danny managing his own group of students. It had been sweet of him to volunteer after Adrian came down with the flu. This was far from his usual realm of numbers and equations, but she knew him well enough now to know that Danny Pink was always up for a challenge.
He noticed her just then and offered her a smile and Clara beamed back at him.
"Miss Oswald?"
Clara looked back. She had fallen slightly behind her group and all fifteen of her students were waiting for her at the entrance of the Greek and Roman wing. The one who had called her name, a girl named Ruby, had one of her usual perplexed looks and it was aimed at Danny. Ooh, these kids were catching on, fast.
At least they had waited for her instead of running ahead. She lengthened her stride and caught up with her group. Most had taken advantage of her inattention to pull out their phones. "Mobiles away," she urged. "You can Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to your heart's content at lunch."
There were some groans, but everyone tucked their phones away as asked. Clara ushered them on until they reached Room 18, home of the famed Elgin Marbles.
"I thought they were columns," said one of her students, a boy named Samson, as they entered the large space.
"Nope, they're sculptures and statues from the Parthenon in Athens." Clara had been here before but it was still amazing to see these ancient pieces of art surviving in their time . So much of history was destroyed.
"Then why are they called the Elgin Marbles?"
"Because," said a middle aged woman who had been waiting for them at the end of the room, "they're made out of marble and they were acquired by a man named Thomas Bruce, who was the 7th Earl of Elgin."
The woman herself wasn't familiar, but Clara recognized her voice from the numerous planning sessions over the phone that they had had for this school trip.
"Professor Jackson. Clara Oswald. It's nice to finally meet you." She walked over and shook the woman's hand. Jackson was taller than Clara with short blonde hair and wire frame glasses. She was dressed fairly casually in jeans and a navy blazer with a t-shirt underneath, but it made her more approachable.
"So why aren't they called the Bruce Marbles?" asked Samson, interrupting the introductions.
Jackson just smiled. "Good question. I suppose everyone remembered Thomas Bruce by his title, so they used 'Elgin' instead of 'Bruce' as a nickname for the Marbles."
By now, the other groups had arrived and Clara quietly slipped away so Professor Jackson could address all of the students. School trips were always a logistical headache, but she still thought that they were worth it. It got the kids out of the classroom and they could see firsthand the things they were learning about.
She tried to make her way towards Danny, but a tour group got in her way and she was forced to hang back as the tour guide explained, in what sounded like Japanese, what some of the different Marbles were.
Clara decided to examine the nearest frieze to her, which featured men riding horses. Most of the figures were intact, but the occasional hoof or hand was missing.
"Is she going to explain the dubious legal means by which Elgin obtained the Marbles?"
A familiar Scottish voice sounded behind her and Clara whirled around to find the Doctor. He had his back to her and his attention seemed to be on the Japanese tour guide, but there was no mistaking that it was the Time Lord. The grey hair and lean build gave it away.
"What are you doing here?" hissed Clara. The Japanese tour group blocked her view of Danny and she hoped his eye line was equally obscured. Grabbing the Doctor by the arm, she dragged him over to a nearby pillar.
He tried to pull his arm free from her grip, but she maintained a tight hold. "This is a museum. It's open to everyone."
"So you just happen to be here while I'm on a school trip."
"No, I phoned your school and asked where you were."
Clara's eyebrows shot up her forehead. "You what?" She desperately wanted to shout the two words at the Doctor, but she didn't want to draw any attention. "Why?"
She didn't mind when the Doctor landed the TARDIS in the middle of her flat or in a supply closet at school because it always happened before or after school hours. This was an intrusion into her working life. She needed to focus on looking after her students, not thinking about a quick jaunt to another galaxy.
"Well, you weren't at your flat and you weren't answering your phone. It's Wednesday," he added, as if that explained everything.
Which, in fact, it did. They had a long-standing agreement that Wednesday was their official travel day. Clara could always expect the Doctor to show up on a Wednesday. Of course, that didn't stop him from popping up on other days, like today.
"Doctor, it's Monday. Monday morning, in fact."
His brow furrowed. It amused Clara to watch his prominent eyebrows push down to such extreme angles. "You have the date wrong," he insisted.
She pulled out her phone from her bag - where the screen showed a few missed calls from the TARDIS' number - and she showed the Doctor the date and time displayed there. "See, Monday. Now can you please go somewhere else for the next three hours?"
He finally noticed the gaggle of students listening intently to Professor Jackson. "You're an English teacher. What are you doing at a museum?"
"I'm helping out one of the history teachers and who says I can't use a museum to teach a lesson?" Clara forced herself to stop and take a breath. She and the Doctor could argue for hours if they wanted and that was the last thing she needed. "I just need until lunch. We can talk then." She walked off so they couldn't launch into another squabble.
Just before she reached Danny, Clara glanced back and, much to her relief, she saw the Doctor walking out of the room.
"Hey, where were you?" Danny asked in a whisper.
"Had a message on my phone from my dad. I didn't want the kids to see me using my mobile during class." The lie came easily, as did most of the lies she told Danny. Clara wasn't sure if this was a good thing.
So she put on a sweet smile and that seemed to stop any questions Danny had, but meanwhile she couldn't help but wonder what would happen if the Doctor and Danny ever met.
The Great Court was packed today with students and tourists and they had been lucky to claim a corner that was out of the way of the foot traffic. Thankfully, twelve year olds didn't mind sitting on the floor to eat lunch .
Clara's phone rang just as she was coming back with a cup of tea and a sandwich from the little café in the Court. She had wanted to spend lunch with Danny, as they hadn't had a chance to really talk all morning, but she knew who was calling and she also knew she couldn't put off talking to him for another time.
"Sorry, got to take this," she said to Danny, handing off her tea and sandwich to him. "Be right back." She hit the talk button and brought the phone to her ear as she walked off into the crowd.
"Is it lunch time now?" the Doctor asked before Clara could say hello. He sounded so impatient, but she didn't feel like that ire was directed at her. He just seemed impatient with the slow drag of time.
"Yes. Where are you?"
"I'm in the Greek and Roman wing. The dates on some of these artefacts are hilarious. There's an urn here that's clearly from the first century AD, not the second."
She headed in that direction, dodging around slow moving tourists. "Yeah, that sounds like a riot," she said dryly. "I'll see you in a mo."
The various rooms were a bit quieter at lunch, but there were still plenty of people wandering around, looking at the antiquities. Clara drifted through the various exhibits until she spotted the TARDIS parked in an unobtrusive corner. She started to head towards the time machine when she noticed the Doctor examining a display a few steps away.
He wasn't aware of her presence yet and she took opportunity of the moment to look him over. He was dressed in his usual dark colours and his body language was relaxed and collected. This couldn't have been an emergency if he agreed to wait for three hours to talk to her. Of course, normal, human behaviour didn't apply to the Doctor. He could remain cool while facing impending death, but something as mundane as finding lost house keys nearly threw him for a loop.
"Is everything okay?" she asked, walking over.
He looked up at her. "Why are you asking that?"
"Usually, when you phone the school, you just leave a message." During her first year at Coal Hill, everyone thought she was terminally ill from the amount of calls and messages she received from her "doctor". "Do you need me for something? You wouldn't have come out here otherwise."
The Doctor moved on to the next display which housed a cracked marble bust of a woman. "You make it sound so dire. I honestly thought it was Wednesday. I just wanted to take a trip."
Clara crossed her arms. "And that's all?"
He sighed and drifted over to the next display. "Yes." Add an eye roll and he could have been one of her students, exasperated from her numerous questions regarding the latest English assignment .
Well, at least he wasn't in trouble. That took a load off of Clara's mind. She kept in step with him as they continued down the row of artefacts. They had passed through this room earlier to get to the Elgin Marbles and she vaguely recalled that these were new items on loan from some excavation in Rome.
"So where would we go if today had been Wednesday?"
The question was enough to draw the Doctor's attention back to Clara. He had a devious grin. "Why wait until Wednesday?"
"Now? You want to go somewhere now?" She thought of Danny, sitting back in the Great Court, holding her cup of tea.
"Do you keep forgetting that I live in a time machine?" It was as if the Doctor had read her thoughts. Or maybe her hesitant expression gave her away. "I can have you back a minute from now."
"It's a school day," reasoned Clara, but she couldn't deny that a part of her was sorely tempted. "I have kids waiting back at the Court and there's only two other teachers here." She paused, searching for more good reasons not to go, but that temptation wouldn't go away.
It wouldn't have been irresponsible of her if she did go on a short trip. It wasn't like she was leaving in the middle of a lesson. They were on lunch break. It'd be like ducking out to run an errand if she were back at the school. Time was relative. She'd only be gone five minutes from Danny's point of view.
Danny. She already told him one lie today. He didn't deserve another.
Clara made up her mind right then. She would stay and do her job and she and the Doctor could go somewhere after school was done. Everybody won this way.
She was ready to tell the Doctor her decision, but he wasn't there anymore. She looked around the room and found him standing in front of another display. Clara shook her head. She hadn't been inattentive for that long.
"Can we do a rain check on the trip? There's too much to do today." She walked over and joined him at the display.
The Doctor didn't reply. He just stared at the slab of marble propped up on the platform. At first, she thought he was just engrossed with examining the carvings, but then she noticed it wasn't a rapt expression on his face. It was one of surprise.
Clara quickly took in the details of the marble slab and her eyes went wide.
The carving was no bigger than a lunch tray, slightly grimy and very weathered due to the ravages of time. The right side of the rectangular slab had broken off at some point, leaving an uneven edge at a forty-five degree angle. The figure of a woman who graced the right hand side of the carving was, unfortunately, left without a head or chest.
But it was the image in the middle of the slab that was unbelievable. A rectangular box with a stacked roof sat atop a podium. It might have been a temple, but Clara didn't know of any Roman temples with lights on top of them and this box definitely had a lantern shaped light on top of the roof. She couldn't make out the writing along the top width of the box, but something had been written there long ago.
"One of us needs to say it," she said to the Doctor.
The Doctor had his jaw clenched the entire time and it took him a moment before he could speak. "That's the TARDIS."
The moment he said it, she knew that she wasn't going crazy. Her eyes flicked over to the other figure on the left hand side of the slab. It was a man, but his features and most of the details of his clothing had been worn away.
"Been to Ancient Rome lately?" The man had to be the Doctor. Not the Doctor standing next to her, necessarily, but one of his other selves.
"Not recently, but I've been there numerous times before."
Clara leaned forward to read the title card underneath the slab. The slab was, according to the museum, a marble carving from approximately 80 AD. It was likely part of a shrine dedicated to the household gods that a Roman family had worshipped.
Gods. Worshipped. The words took Clara by surprise. The Doctor could be arrogant but he was no deity.
"Is it good or bad that they worshipped you?"
"I don't know." That stunned feeling was wearing off. The Doctor wanted to look into this mystery; she could tell by the gleam in his eye. Hell, she was pretty intrigued, too. Who would want to worship the Doctor?
"Then let's find out."
The Doctor finally tore his gaze away from the marble carving. For just a second, he regarded her with astonishment, but it quickly gave way to a pleased, though somewhat smug, smile. Of course he had assumed she would come along, like she couldn't resist his charm or something.
"Just this once," Clara declared. "I don't like you on your own. You're liable to burn down Rome or something."
The Doctor laughed derisively as they headed for the TARDIS. "That's the wrong time period. And I've already done that."
Clara was not surprised.
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