I know, there are still three people out there reading this story, and let me tell you; I just have written the last chapter, and 3/4 of the chapter that has to follow next. As I want to post them together, this all needed a bit. But I am confident to update soon!
God, I think I finally found the plot for the next chapter in "Choices we make". I am a terrible person for letting you all wait so long, but I think I will be able to write it and post it soon.
Randall and Clara still working out their relationship, and he has to decide what to do with the informations they now have.
So this is a chapter about relationship progress between R and C, and also it pushes the matter about the threats the magazine is involved further.
In the morning Randall awoke, finding Clara’s head resting on his chest, talking in her sleep. He couldn’t understand a word, it seemed gibberish, and as it seemed not to be a nightmare he let her. His hand trailed over her shoulder, and her back under her shirt, circling her skin, enjoying her warmth against his body and her soft murmurs.
A woman in his arms, in love with him and he with her, he had missed this feeling all too long. He had missed this kind of trust and spirit, being at ease while the world turned hectically around them. With Clara he was able to forget all the trouble he had went through and through what they went at the moment.
Yes, she was the best that had ever happened to him, and when he listened into himself, he knew he loved her dearly. Madly even. He had looked so long, without any success, and then, when he had made his peace with the fact, to end up alone, she took him home and robbed him off his clear mind. Let alone his heart.
Clara stirred slowly awake, while he mused over their relationship, “I dreamed I was flying a plane,” drowsy eyes peeked at him with a soft smile.
“What kind of plane?” Randall smirked over her appearance, brushing gently some hair out of her face.
“How shall I know?” she asked as if he had asked her something indecent. “The only thing I know was, that I crashed it!”
“Oh,” he bit the inside of his cheeks so he wouldn’t laugh out loud. “That bothered you?”
“Hell, of course it did!” she came up onto one of her elbows, looking challenging at him. “Clara Oswald does not crash a plane.”
“Control freak,” he grinned and she reached for the pillow to hit him with it onto his chest.
“I see your hearing is better?” she giggled after he had wrestled her down so he could kiss her till they both were out of breath.
“The wheezing is still there, and I hear you double,” he told her, “but I think I am on a good way.”
“We have to go to the hospital later,” she fell down back onto his chest, not ready to stand up. She shoved her hand under his shirt, connecting with his warm body, smiling over it. She could stay like this the rest of the day, she thought. “What were you musing about?”
The question got to him unexpected, “M-musing?”
“Yeah,” she didn’t look at him, knowing it would help him to open up to her, “you had your musing-face on. Remember, this part between your eyes.”
He chuckled softly, “I really have to work on this. I’m not sure if I can accept that you read me like an open book.”
She laughed and squeezed gently some skin by his waist, “So you did muse.”
“Yes, I did,” he needed to collect some more courage before answering her, and he was glad Clara didn’t interrupt him, just kept laying there, fondling with her hand over his stomach. “About… us.”
“And?” she asked after he didn’t went on in his elaborations. At the same time she feared he had developed doubt over night, but Clara was able to push her own doubts away and stay still. Also her hand stopped stroking and Randall noticed.
“I meant what I said. Yesterday, about you, being the best that has ever happened to me in a very long time,” he reached for her, making her face him. “When this story is through, I would like to talk with you about us, and…,” he not wanted to say it, but his head just went the way, and he only could follow, “The higher management will insist on a separation of us. I am the Head of News, I am in charge for everything about the magazine, but it doesn’t mean I can bent the rules in other parts.”
“I told you, I don’t want a contract, I’ll finish my year and then leave,” Clara said, not quite sure what he wanted to say and hear from her. “I can find a good job in town. I am sure the Head of News will write me a good recommendation letter?”
“I am sure he will,” he laughed, “but the thing is, there is a chance, you will not be able to finish your year.”
That made her sit up, “What? Do you think they will fire me?”
“No! I won’t let that happen! And Bel will be on my side, but I am your supervisor, and we are now in a relationship, people know about. I know Danny is not that kind of person, but if he would want, he could make complains. About I favouring you, even if it is not true, the management will have problems with it.”
Clara looked down into her lap. Randall was right, and she knew she hadn’t thought so far, when they had started their little affair. There had been no reason for it.
The problem was, if she couldn’t finish her year, she would have to restart somewhere else, and she couldn’t tell if she was able too. It was wasted time and also a question of money.
Randall read her concerns in her eyes and face, “Clara, look at me. I am not going to let that happen. You will finish your year.”
“What if they insist on our separation? I am not stupid, Randall,” she reached for his jumper, slipping it over. “In the end it will be you or me. The Head of News or the stupid intern. Wanna bet who they going to send away?”
Huffing, he realised he had made a mistake to bring up his thoughts. He watched her, seeing how she imagined her future break apart. Sure, she didn’t give him the fault, she never would do that. Biting his lips, he thought about what to say, knowing he could offer her his moral and financial support. Asking her to move in, to save the rent, what wouldn’t be his main motivation for it. He was able to find her another position, but she would need to restart her year as intern before finding a proper job as journalist. Aside she would hate it to be dependent on him.
In the end, there was only one thing he could offer, and he was willing to make such sacrifice, “If they make us to choose, I… I’m going to resign.”
Clara turned with a shocked expression toward him, then she hopped out of the bed, starting a steady pace in front of it, “Have you lost your senses?”
“Not, that I know.”
She was unable to say more, and everything that came out of her mouth was a wild stutter.
Randall followed her with his eyes, almost till he felt dizzy, then he jumped out of the bed too, and stepped into her way, “Where is the problem?”
“I can’t let you do that!”
“Why not? Do you feel then, you owe me something? It’s not like that,” he went and put his trousers on. “To be honest, I thought about retreating from the job earlier, before you.”
“Oh, you just say that now, to make me feel better!” she pointed at him.
“Yes, I do,” he smiled guiltily at her, hoping she would understand his motivations. “Really, Clara, I will find another job, and also, I have saved some money, I don’t need the job right now. Also, it’s the worst case scenario,” he huffed. “The thing is, I not wanted to talk with you about me quitting my job, I wanted to ask you if you can imagine a future with me, aside the work.”
Clara stopped her pace, and looked with a deep frown on her forehead up to him. Randall leaned slightly back.
“Oh, I don’t know,” he turned away from her. He felt like he was about to propose or something, what was not his intention. “I know we said we are in a relationship now, and we spent already a lot time together, but… listen I am rubbish with relationships. I don’t know how to do it,” he turned around again. “What I want to say is, I want to have a decent, proper relationship dinner with you, in a fancy restaurant, where everybody can see us. I want to invite you to spend a weekend with me, in Scotland or god knows where, just you and me, a vacation. And I feel stupid to say it, because this is just three weeks old, but god, I have the feeling I wasted so much time already, and I just want to do it with you. I want to know you better, and want you to know me better. Not later, now,” he smiled almost sad at her, and it made Clara’s heart melt away.
Stepping up to him, she placed her hand on his cheek, “I’d love to do it. Right away.”
“Yes?” he let out a relieved sigh. “You not feel it’s a rash decision? I not want to push you. I am afraid I do, but there is this feeling in me, that …”
“You not want to waste any more time,” Clara placed her hands on his chest. “I understand you, completely. And I am glad you said it, because I never would have come to you with it myself. Maybe we can take some off time after all this is done, whenever it is done.”
“I am so in love with you,” he breathed, blushing over his own words. “Where have you been all my life?”
Clara’s smile turned into a mischievous grin, “Mh, let’s see, while you spent time in Croatia I spent time in kindergarten.”
Randall cracked a smile, closing his eyes for a moment, “You are impossible. Are you really alright with it? Me being so old. People will say you are my daughter.”
“They will probably say, I am your granddaughter,” she teased and succeeded, as his face went all in protest mode. “I don’t care. We’ll figure it out. Everything, I am sure of it. We have dinner, a vacation and … a lot of sex then.”
It was what he loved, that she made him lose his strict manner, hit crack after crack into his walls, and he didn’t care about it anymore.
“In my age, I’d in more for quality instead for quantity, also I am willing to try,” he smirked, “I really would like to take you back to bed right now, but,” he glanced down his watch, “we have to go to the hospital.”
Clara nodded with a smile, not letting him go get dressed without snogging him one last time.
They spent two hours alone in the hospital before Randall got released and they returned to the office. It was a Monday and so everyone was back at work. Everybody had heard about the events from the weekend. A car had exploded and it was a quick spread rumour, that it had been the one of their boss.
Luckily Bel had dealt with it, by giving a motivational speech and sending out an email to everyone, who couldn’t be in the conference. She tried to play it down, not talking about a mafia-like organisation, more about some minor fanatics, being angry with the magazine's latest publishings.
That Scotland Yard had taken over — what was not all a lie, and it would be soon cleared up, and people were already taken in custody. No word about the papers they had sorted through, no word about the phone calls, the threats — it would have made no sense to drag the others into it too. It was enough, that the the Head of News, the Producer, a Freelancer and two interns were all involved and had to fear for their lives. The other writers, and the rest of the staff, was better left in the dark about it. What they didn’t know, they couldn’t pass on.
Randall felt better with his ears, yet he had an annoying echo every time someone spoke with him, something, so the Doctor had said, would pass in a few days. He would be back in old shape in a few weeks, but he had given the advice to Randall — jokingly — to avoid loud music in a disco for the future.
Aside that Randall felt guilty, as he hadn’t been able to help the others sort through the papers, and had kept Clara of this duty too. Bel insisted, it was okay, his health was more important, and they were able to sort it out without him.
“Everything is true, what we know till now. The information we have go along side with our earlier research about Kensington Industries, his owner John Marshall, the members of the house of parliament Scott, Thompson and Murray. We have enough proof, to get them behind bars. It’s basically a special issue we could bring out with all this information. We have names, places, even written down amounts of money, that have presumably flown from one pocket to another,” Bel explained in front of a big board, they had built over the weekend. Pictures, maps, little notes, and indeed some strings connected one point with the other — they were blue, but Danny had managed.
“Also, we not have real proof, do we? We do not have a key witness, do we? Mister Smith is gone — vanished,” Danny went on. “What we basically have is a rumour.”
“That’s all we need, Danny,” Freddie told him. “We are the news, we basically research rumour and bring them onto the screen, the papers. Right now, it’s only a whisper, but printing it in black and white, will make others start to move. The police will be forced to do something. We don’t need to find proof, we don’t need to make people like Smith talk, that the police will do for us.”
“It’s like an avalanche, isn’t it?” Clara asked.
“Yes,” Randall turned to her, before following one of the strings with one of his finger, “it is. We throw a little snowball into the ring, and it will become one of the biggest scandals the UK has seen this year. Heads will roll, People will go to jail, and not only those four. Things will change.”
“And yet,” Freddie stood up from the sofa he had sat on, “I can hear the ‘even so’ in your words.”
Randall turned around to him and the other, his look going out of the window, watching some clouds slowly move across the sky. It was a surprisingly sunny day. “I don’t have to remind you, that my car exploded yesterday, almost killing my two interns, and robbing me almost of my hearing.”
“So you think we should give up?” Bel asked him. If he would say so, she would follow — they both knew she trusted him. Freddie would protest, but would give in in the end.
“I didn’t say so,” he smiled thankfully to her, reading her mind. In all those years, he hadn’t seen someone more loyal as her.
He walked over to Clara, giving her a soft smile. How easy it would be to say they should drop the matter, leave it be, and then he would announce he would go onto a holiday, and take Clara with him. Just spending two weeks in the middle of Scotland’s nowhere, with her alone.
He turned on his heals, “Special issue. In two weeks. We make the whole thing alone. Just we five, no one else. From the first letter to the last test print. We just bring it without a word.”
Freddie escaped a disbelieving and surprised laugh, his mouth open he smiled, not sure if he had heard right, “Really?”
“I can’t do it alone, so I need you,” he nodded. “But… I can’t… I will not hold you back. If anyone wants to leave, you can take two weeks off, and I will never ever judge you over it. Danny? Clara?”
“We are too deep in it, anyway,” Danny began. “It’s not a clever idea, but I stick with you guys.”
“Clara?” Randall stepped up to her. “You don’t have to, only because… .”
“I want to. I started it,” she touched his hand for a moment with two fingers, “I don’t let you end this without me.”
“I don’t have to ask you, Freddie, do I?” he turned to the younger man.
“The thing calls Pulitzer, I am not leaving you alone here,” Freddie turned to his wife. “We are okay, are we?”
“Yes, we are, we are going to do this,” Bel confirmed, grabbing his hand for a short moment, and then suddenly out of nowhere clapped her hands together, calling out; “The Newspaper Band!”
All the others turned toward her with a quizzical look. Even Freddie seemed surprised, as he usually knew what was going on in the mind of his wife.
“Excuse me?” Randall adjusted his glasses.
“The Newspaper what?” Danny repeated and looked at Freddie who only pulled a face and shrugged.
“Don’t you remember? The day of the bomb threat, when we were meeting up in the diner,” Bel started to explain with a smile. “Wasn’t it you, Clara, saying we looked like some gang?”
“Yeah,” Clara tried to remember. She said much when the day was long. “Think so.”
“And you said, we need a name for it,” Freddie now got his wife’s drift. “The Newspaper Band?”
“Yes!” she said overexcited.
“Band? Did I miss something?” Danny asked, raising one eyebrow. “Did you guys take music lessons, while I went getting breakfast for us all?”
Bel threw a crumpled paper toward him, “Oh, stop the mocking!”
“Well, he is not wrong, is he?” Randall joined the absurd discussion. “It sounds like a name for a music band.”
“God, people, when did you all get so critical?” she threw her hands in the air. “I don’t mean it like in a band, I mean it like… like in this one movie,” she turned to Freddie.
Freddie remembered, “Oh, you mean Band of Brothers?” Bel nodded.
“Like a Band of Journalists?” Clara suggested after a moment of silence while everybody processed the words.
“How long did you think about this?” Danny asked confused, he barely couldn’t remember the incident itself. “And how many names did you come up with?”
“Hey Soldier Man!” Bel glared. “It’s a good name. Aside, aren’t we like a band? A music band?”
To his own surprise Randall opened the upper button of his shirt and then said, “Enlighten us.”
“Here we have the lead singer,” she pointed at Randall, who immediately protested under the amused look of Clara.
“Oh, please,” he regretted to let Bel have the word, “I can’t sing!”
“Are you kidding me? With this voice, I bet you only have to try,” Bel mocked back, and he smacked at her.
“As long, as I don’t really have to sing,” he grumbled but shot Clara a short smirk.
Bel went on in her explanation, “Then here we have our two background singers,” and pointed toward Danny and Clara.
“Oh, please? Why are we the background singers?” Danny obviously wanted to play guitar or the drums.
“Because you are the interns,” the seriousness of her explanation made Freddie almost burst out in laughter. “You can play the drums when you graduated.”
Danny gave it a disappointed sigh, even knowing it was not real.
“What do I play?” Freddie asked eager.
“You play the guitar, of course.”
“Of course,” Clara swayed with her face, playing as if she was jealous. “And I assume you play the drums then?”
“Yeah, giving the cadence, as a producer” she beamed at all of them. Her hands rose into the air and she formed an imaginary cardboard, “The Newspaper Band.”
“That’s totally … silly,” Randall snickered.
“Of course it is,” Bel said. “Also it’s the first time in two days I saw all of you smile, taking your minds off the case and the worries.”
A moment of silence fell over the group. Bel was right, they had reveled the sorrow for too long for the last few days.
“Can we print T-Shirts?” Danny suddenly came back to the topic. “If I am only the background singer I want at least a T-Shirt!”
“I would wear one,” Clara announced immediately.
“Oh, please!” Randall groaned over all the silliness in the room. “I am not going to wear a T-Shirt.”
“You get a button up with an imprint then,” Bel announced, and Freddie said he would wanted a jumper then.
Randall reached for his soda glass, eyeing his people. They indeed were a band. Of people. Friends. He laughed over it once more, shaking his head and then held the glass out, “To the Newspaper Band then.”
They all did the same, “To the Newspaper Band!”
I had the idea about the Newspaper Band quiet a while ago and I know it's just fluffy and bit silly, but I liked it somehow and really wanted to use it. I think its a good possibilities to show that it's not only about Clara and Randall, to show that there is a group formed in all this trouble.
I have a rough idea what will come in the next few chapters, and hope to update next week again.
when and why and where did randall/clara come from? i was just wondering, because this ship appears on whouffaldi tag quite often
Hey,
well, as you might know, Peter Capaldi played Randall Brown in the second season of THE HOUR and for some reason there is a slight trend to ship Peter Capaldi’s characters with Clara Oswald.
So there are AUs with Malcolm Tucker/Clara, or Randall Brown/ Clara even Richelieu/Clara. If you surf A03 you’ll find quit a lot. I think the most popular is Malcolm/Clara.
It’s probably their good chemistry, that inspires writers.
For me, I love Randall Brown and started writing my AU a year ago, that is called “Collide” and right now I am writing another Randall Brown/Clara Oswald fic called “Choices we make”, I also call this ship “romantic!whouffaldi”, to difference it from the usual 12/Clara Whouffaldi. But that’s basically just me. I post my chapters here so that’s why you might find it in the tags.
It’s still whouffaldi somehow, also I admit I use the tag to attract a bit of attention ;). Some, like you, haven’t heard of it and so people might notice.
I am slowly, very slowly fighting through my next chapter for Doctor Who / The Hour AU “Choices we make”.
I think I have no real plan at the moment how to come to the point I have planed, that’s why I have a hard time writing it. So everyone who follows this story, be patient, I am working on it. Babysteps at the moment. But I am sure, when I am at some point, I’ll break open like a dike.
I posted another chapter (16), for “Choices you make”. Just so you know. Another will follow tomorrow, after that I will post the usual way again here on tumblr.
