Nine Months, Twelve Days (Whouffle fanfic)

Lying Can Be Easy

The Doctor arranged the flowers that were on the table for about the fiftieth time as Clara continued getting dinner ready. He was nervous for some reason, even though he knew it was highly illogical of him to be. It had been the Doctor's idea to have their neighbors over for dinner, mostly in order to tell them in some weird way that he and Clara were going to have a baby. He wasn't sure how he was to bring up the subject, but he was sure Clara would find a way.

He walked into the kitchen to find Clara cooking some sort of meat in a pan whilst talking on the phone with someone. He smiled at her as he heard her talking, and she beamed back at him, motioning to the pot of potatoes on the stove. He nodded and began to mash them, adding milk every once in a while to make them fluff up a little bit better. As soon as Clara got off of the phone she quickly thanked the Doctor and took over the potatoes, finishing up what the Doctor had started.

"Hey, Doctor, do you think you could turn off the burner and get the chicken onto the plate? It's right next to the stove," Clara said, spooning the potatoes into a bowl and turning her attention to the pot of green beans.

"Clara, you look like you're about to have a heart attack," the Doctor said as he plated the chicken.

"I'm weirdly stressed out for this," she laughed as the stove dinged and she pulled out a tray of brownies from the oven.

"No soufflé?"

"Well, they usually collapse, and I have to resort to nothing, so I figured I'd mix it up a bit."

"Clara, you should calm down. There's no reason to be nervous."

"Doctor, pretending to be married is different than pretending to be pregnant. Marriage is one thing, and I know this is crazy, because it's fake, but I feel like there's a responsibility there now. Crazy?" Clara said.

The Doctor grabbed up the dishes and set them on the table, ready for the arrival of their guests. "No, not really. I guess I get it. Just act really, really happy, and then whenever someone asks a question about it, we don't know. Gender? No clue. Twins? Nope, no clue. How far along? For that, I guessed somewhere around six weeks probably makes sense," he said.

"You've really thought about this, haven't you?"

"Well, it's good to have a plan," he said, kissing her quickly. "You should go brush your hair, you kept running your hands through it and it's a mess."

Clara took off her apron and moved down the hall, into the bathroom, where she carefully brushed her hair and smoothed her dress. She heard a knock and she heard the Doctor open the door, but she wasn't ready to face them yet, so she slowly brushed her hair again and checked her makeup.

*********

Judy and Hank had left their kids at home this time, and for some reason, that had meant that in the bag Judy was holding there were four bottles of wine. Judy was wearing an exuberant amount of makeup and was wearing a deep purple blouse that cut off right at the waste band of her jeans. The Doctor noticed that she was a lot thinner than he has previously thought, but quickly averted his eyes away from the waste band of her jeans and let the couple into the house.

He shook hands with Hank, both of them barely acknowledging each other, and went into the kitchen to check that everything had been turned off on the stove. He flicked his wrist pulled out the sonic, scanning all the food to make sure it had all cooked properly. He smiled as he saw that it had and went back out into the living room. His smile quickly faded when he saw Judy and Hank, practically on top of each other on the Doctor's couch.

"Should I come back...?" the Doctor asked, making the couple quickly jump apart. Judy smoothed down her hair and looked at the Doctor, blushing, but just barely. Hank did not seem affected whatsoever by being barged in on.

"John, where's Clara?" Judy asked him, obviously trying to smooth over his intrusion on them.

"Um...let me go check if she's ready. She was just going to brush her hair."

Clara heard a knock on there door as it opened, revealing a smiling Doctor. His smile faded when he saw the look on her face, which was pale.

"Clara, what's wrong?"

"I don't know, Doctor. I just...I guess I worked myself up a bit," Clara said, then smiled, "Let's go do this thing."

The Doctor and Clara walked out into the living room, meeting with a smiling Judy and a scowling Hank. Clara eyed Judy up and down and noticed how her outfit was revealing, but didn't say anything, instead only smiling and laughing at something Judy said. She went to go get the food, bringing it out into the living room so that they could sit causally on the couch, her and the Doctor looking at each other knowingly everytime they set something down.

"So, Clara, how's the writing been?" Judy asked, cutting a piece off of her chicken and popping it into her mouth.

"It's been really good, actually. I think I'm almost done with the book. Then I just have to revise and send it off to the publisher," Clara said brightly, letting the lies pour out of her mouth. It was fun to make up lies about herself, depending on what they were.

"That's marvelous!" Judy exclaimed, making Clara inwardly roll her eyes.

"There's actually something else that we both have going on right now," the Doctor said, looking over at Clara who was setting down her plate and moving over to the Doctor. He wrapped his arm around her waist and she looked down at him expectantly, obviously waiting for him to continue.

"What?" Hank asked, sounding bored.

"Clara and I are...well, we're going to have a baby."

"Oh! That's great!" Judy practically yelled, hugging Clara. Clara pretended to be happy and smiled, laughing along with Judy as she made jokes to John. Hank stood up, looking bored, and announced that it was time that he and Judy left, whisking her out the door.

"We'll be back soon, and thanks for dinner! It was fantastic," she said as they left. The Doctor shut the door behind them and sighed a gasp of relief, finally glad they were gone.

"You'll never believe what I pick pocketed off of Hank," the Doctor said, smiling.

"What?" Clara asked, putting down the dishes to examine the device that he had just pulled out of his pocket.

"Hank's only communication to his home planet."

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Well kiddos, that's it for this chapter. Sorry it took a bit to update. Life, you know? Anyways, hope you enjoyed! Please let me know what you thought in the comments, I love reading them. I will start responding to them soon I think...that way I can get more personal with the people who are actually reading my story :) have a wonderful day!