Slight Problem [open]

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Clara Oswald opened her eyes...and instantly, she groaned as a wave of pain hit her. Headache. Great. She was pretty sure she hadn’t even had any alcohol. She sat up, looking around, and her eyes widened a fraction. It looked like a hotel of some sort...but when she looked outside, she could clearly see the stars...and a few planets dotted in the distance. Ah. This might be a problem.

Well, if she was in space... that meant the Doctor should be around somewhere. He better be, she thought to herself. She got up from the bed she’d been laying on, glancing down at her clothes. Her blouse and skirt from the day before were all creased from where she’d been asleep in them. She smoothed them out as best she could, and put on her leggings and shoes. She headed for the door, not sparing time to look around. For now, the top priority was finding out where she was. Then maybe explore a bit, if the place was interesting enough.

She opened the door and peered out. There was a key card slotted neatly into a gap by the door. When she took it out, any lights that had been on in the room instantly flickered out. She pocketed the key card (oh the joys of skirts with pockets) and walked out, closing the door behind her. There was a long corridor, with bright green carpets and bright blue walls. Everything, in fact, was bright. There were strange patterns and pictures and paintings scattered all across the walls.

As Clara walked down the corridor, she noted a slight bounce in her step; she felt lighter, definitely. She tried to think as the Doctor did, before deciding that perhaps the gravity here was different than Earth’s. Or maybe she’d just lost some weight. Who knew, these days? The messy-haired brunette kept walking until she came to some stairs, some leading up, some leading down. The smell of breakfast caught her attention, so she followed it, down the stairs, past some odd-looking aliens, who all seemed to be half human, half penguin, and into a big room that looked like a dining area. There were quite a lot of people in there. Some looked like her, others looked extremely different. But then again, Clara was used to all that. She’d been travelling for a while now.

She picked her way through the crowd and sat down at a table, flicking open a menu. Thankfully, the TARDIS translation system was allowing her to see everything in English. Well, it might have been written in English in the first place. Yet another thing Clara wasn’t sure about. She flicked through. Some of the things on the menu were things you’d find on Earth, while others were...well, let’s just say the fact that Clara couldn’t even pronounce some of them put her off a little bit.

A woman passed by and placed her hand on Clara’s shoulder, making the brunette jump violently. She looked up, smiling sheepishly. “Hi.” She greeted. The woman looked like a human; although, really, she could have been anything.

The woman smiled kindly. “Hello, dear.” She replied. “I just wanted to say I awfully like the messy way you’re wearing your hair. It’s a lovely new trend, I must admit. It definitely makes you look...” the woman waved her arms, and then uttered a word in a language that Clara didn’t understand. But it didn’t sound too bad.

“Er, thanks!” she called after the woman, when she departed. Anxiously, Clara ran a hand through her hair only for her fingers to be met with tangles everywhere. It dawned on her that she hadn’t even thought to fix her hair before she left. She sighed exasperatedly, looking around. Nobody was looking, thankfully. She lowered her head and looked at the menu. When a waiter came over, and tapped her shoulder with his half tentacle, half hand (it was definitely as weird as it sounds), she pointed at something random on the menu. He smiled, took her menu, and walked off to get it ready. Clara rested her elbows on the table and dropped her face into her hands tiredly. She still had no idea where she was, but perhaps after breakfast she could go find out.

After a while, her order arrived. When it was placed in front of her, Clara’s eyes shot open. It was a mix of green, purple and red gloop, and it looked rather alarming. It seemed to move at one point, and while Clara smiled awkwardly at the waiter, as soon as he was gone, she pushed the gloop away from her, suddenly not hungry any more.

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"Ah, thank you, I was hoping you wouldn't eat that. I'm starving."

The Doctor gave Clara an innocent smile as he reached over to take her knife and fork, having just appeared in the seat situated at the spot she had slid her meal over to. "At least you don't have to pay for two now."

Well, he had found his companion. That was joint first objective sorted. The other joint first objective was finding the TARDIS, but that was proving to be slightly more difficult. Still, he was sure she would be fine, and it wasn't as though they had decided to leave yet.

As he cut off a viscous, jelly-like slice of the multi-coloured gloop and popped it into his mouth, the Doctor cast his mind back over what he could remember. He had woken up in a room on his own, then left, taking they keycard which appeared to be for the lights as well as the door. Quite clever, really. Although he still had to work out what you were supposed to do if you wanted the lights put off but the door kept locked while you were sleeping. That was another thing; he had been sleeping. He hardly ever slept. He didn't remember going to sleep. That was a tad worrying. And the more he thought about it, the more worried he became. So he stopped thinking about it.

Upon exiting his room and taking note of the gravity, he had tried to speak with some of the guests and staff of what he'd come to realise was a space hotel of some description. That had started to ring a few bells. None of the various lifeforms had been all too helpful, however, apart from that crowd of Enchalidonian Penguins who'd told him where Clara went once he'd started focusing on finding her. He asked about the TARDIS as well, but no one seemed to have seen a blue wooden box anywhere. Ah well. One out of two wasn't that bad.

So he'd come to the dining room just in time to see his companion pushing a fresh breakfast away from her. Understandable, considering how it looked. But as he ate he discovered it was rather tasty. "You're missing out," he told Clara between mouthfuls. "This tastes just like your typical fry breakfast. Just sort-of liquified and condensed. Watch how you mix the colours, though. I can't imagine apple juice and gravy going well together."

Pausing to set the cutlery down, he dabbed at his mouth with a napkin and looked up at Clara again. Suddenly his eyes widened. "Oh, I see you're doing something new with your hair! You should stop, it's not a good look. Too much like those Travestyl models. They've been voted the worst-looking species in several galaxies for the last six decades or so."

Had he just insulted her? He might have. It really did feel like he had. Should he apologise? No, it was too late now, and they had other things to worry about. "So,"he said, leaning back in his chair and flashing a grin at Clara. But behind it he was glancing his eyes over the room, trying to observe everything around him. "What are we doing here? I must be getting old because I can't remember. I hope you didn't let me take any hypervodkas last night."

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"Ah, thank you, I was hoping you wouldn't eat that. I'm starving. At least you don't have to pay for two now."

Clara raised her head to look up at the Doctor as she heard him speak. She felt relief flooding through her. Thank God he’s here. “Help yourself.” She replied, shrugging her shoulders. Then the next sentence he spoke clicked in a few seconds later. Ah. Money. She’d forgotten about that. Whoops. Well, since this place was a hotel, maybe she had one of those all-inclusive things or something. Hopefully. “I suppose.” Clara said, waving her hand dismissively. There were more important things to think about, for the moment. She attempted to pat down her hair, disliking the fact that she couldn't see how messy it was, but if anything, it just sprang up more, as if saying ‘Well, you didn’t brush me. Now you have to face the consequences.’

Great, now I’m imagining my hair can talk. I clearly didn’t get as much sleep as I should have, she thought, inwardly rolling her eyes. She watched him as he ate, her eyebrows raising somewhat. How anyone could like that was beyond her. Then again, she hadn’t exactly tried it. Just the look of the food had put her off, in fact. She chuckled at him, shaking her head. “You can be really weird sometimes.” She told him, as if it were something he didn’t already know. Surely he'd been told before.

"You're missing out. This tastes just like your typical fry breakfast. Just sort-of liquified and condensed. Watch how you mix the colours, though. I can't imagine apple juice and gravy going well together."

“I highly doubt I’m missing out on that much.” She replied, with a little laugh. At the mention of apple juice and gravy together, Clara shuddered a bit. “No, I can’t imagine it tasting that nice either.” She agreed.  Before she could bring up the more important things at hand, however, she heard his next comment, which caused her eyes to widen and her pride to deflate ever so slightly.

"Oh, I see you're doing something new with your hair! You should stop, it's not a good look. Too much like those Travestyl models. They've been voted the worst-looking species in several galaxies for the last six decades or so."

“Oi!” she exclaimed, indignantly, her cheeks turning a bit pink from embarrassment. First a stranger had commented, now the Doctor. She'd forgotten he wasn't at all tactful, these days. “One, I’m not doing anything new with it, in fact I just forgot to brush it this morning because, quite frankly, I was a bit concerned at the fact that I’d woken up in a room alone and I didn’t remember getting there. Two, are you saying I’m the same as the worst-looking species in the galaxy?” Clara huffed and folded her arms, quite unimpressed with her alien friend so far. He’d only been here five minutes and he’d managed to offend her. Typical. Was this a new thing now? She still wasn’t quite used to the sudden insults that he could often come out with.

"So, what are we doing here? I must be getting old because I can't remember. I hope you didn't let me take any hypervodkas last night."

He didn’t apologise, either, but Clara just rolled her eyes and listened to his question. She was quite curious, herself. “Thing is, I don’t remember either.” She admitted. “I don’t remember getting here, or any of the events that may have happened afterwards.” This was quite concerning, actually; Clara had rather hoped that the Doctor would remember more than she did. Perhaps she had been drinking alcohol the day before, after all. Shrugging, she made one last attempt to smooth down her hair – then just gave up. She rooted around in her pockets, found a hairband, and tied her hair up in a ponytail. She imagined that it looked marginally better now. “What do we do now?” she asked. “If neither of us remember anything, I mean. What if something important happened?"