“What is it?” The Doctor demanded, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. Clara started. She had been staring without realizing it. She shook her head to clear her thoughts.
“Nothing. Uh, I was just spacing out. Why don’t you give it a go, Doctor. Ask me what I’d rather do given two options.”
The Doctor put a finger to his lips and seemed to give the game a fair amount of thought. His eyes went wide with excitement. “Got it!” Clara smiled, amused at his enthusiasm.
“Clara, would you rather solve a grisly murder mystery on Terrablok 12 or help free enslaved whales on Atlanakarus?” The Doctor put his hands on his now bouncing knees and leaned over slightly toward Clara, awaiting her response. Clara sighed.
“Doctor, you basically asked me this exact same question last week when we were trying to decide what our adventure should be. We went with the whales! We actually did that. The point of this game is to pose ridiculous scenarios, not things we’ve already done,” Clara said shifting her gaze from his now frowning face to outside through the window. The sun was beginning to set, and the apparently toxic chemicals in the planet’s atmosphere caused extraordinary colors to paint the sky during sunsets.
“Whales enslaved by little elves! Clara, how do you get much more ridiculous than that?” The Doctor asked, apparently still not quite understanding the point of the game.
“Ok,” Clara relented. “I’ll go again, and maybe then you will get the hang of it.” She paused, thinking of a good “would you rather” to pose to The Doctor. “Would you rather...” Clara began still thinking of how to word her question. The Doctor nodded his encouragement. “Would you rather have an infinite supply of jelly babies knowing that you have to hug me each time you want to eat them, or would you rather have exactly twenty jelly babies a day — and never anymore — and you have to eat all of them each day, so you can’t save them up?” A scowl formed on The Doctor’s face.
“Clara, have you ever known me to be satisfied eating so few jelly babies? What’s the point of eating them at all if you can eat hundreds of them at a time? It’s torture,” he said, seemingly disgusted. He looked down at his now empty bag of jelly babies and really seemed to struggle with the question.
“Well you do have another option that would take care of that problem for you,” Clara reminded him in a near singsong voice. The Doctor looked at her reproachfully.
“Clara, you know I’m not a hugger,” he said defensively, crossing his arms with a little huff.
Mirth danced in Clara’s eyes as she turned to face The Doctor, bringing her legs up under her so she sat cross-legged on the bench. “Don’t think I don’t notice that that little flappy thing you do with your arms sometimes. I know you do it when you want to hug me but then, for some reason, decide against it.
“I do no such thing!” The Doctor exclaimed curtly. Clara nudged him in the ribs with her elbow.
“You do so! You did it on our last adventure twice! The first time was when I gave that little speech that got the renegade elves to agree to help us free the whales, and the second was when I escaped back to the cave after swimming for my life after being thrown overboard from our ship! And then when you didn’t hug me, and I hugged you instead, you hugged me back,” Clara said matter-of-factly.
“Well, I was relieved that you were alright,” The Doctor said smiling just a little, proud of her bravery. Clara smiled widely.
“Yes, exactly you daft old man, that’s definitely a reason people hug one another — to show they care.”
“You know that I care. I have a duty of care,” The Doctor reminded her. Clara leaned over and rested her head on The Doctor’s shoulder.