InsaneJournal

Who: Clara and Kristoff
What: Confusing Kristoff
When: Weekend in December
Where: TARDIS!Diner
Warnings: Low
Status: Log | Complete

Kristoff was actually starving, and far too impatient to go home and cook for once. He’d been good all week about cooking for himself, and now it was what was considered his weekend off from the hospital. He wanted something decent, that wasn’t made by his own energy. He honestly didn’t have any energy left by the time it came down to it. He was tapped out. Between two twelve hour shifts and every other one ending in ten hours, he was ready to collapse.

He wore a grungy army green hoodie and pair of jeans though, he’d at least managed to change out of hospital scrubs-barely. As he roamed the various establishments of the city, looking for a decent bite to eat.

Tardis Diner?...Why had he never seen that before? Whatever, it caught his attention and Kristoff pushed his way inside.

Clara really could never say when and where the TARDIS would choose to touch down once she decided she was in the mood to be a waitress and see who came into the diner and what sort of interesting conversations she could get into. Or things that needed to be investigated. Really, it could go all sorts of ways and that was what she loved about it.

She had admittedly been feeling more and more restless as the days went on. Nothing really was grounding her, keeping her in place. She figured it probably had something to do with the fact that she was coming up on five years of being technically ‘dead’. Christmas was always a complicated time thanks to that and the trauma of the Dreams.

No matter. No need to think about all of that.

So far a few people had come and gone, some good conversations, some not so good. At present though, she was just sitting on the counter reading while she waited to see if anyone else would show up. And there was the bell. Grinning, the brunette marked her place and jumped onto the floor.

“Hello! How can I help you?”

British woman in a seriously Americana type diner. Who didn’t enjoy a good juxtaposition like that?

Kristoff looked up at the woman, even she seemed a bit..out of place in that diner. “Was this here yesterday?” He asked in confusion. “Nevermind, maybe I’m just that tired.” It wouldn’t surprise him if he were just imagining things. The question probably sounded insane, of course a place like this couldn’t just appear in a day. That would be completely nuts.

“You have food don’t you?” Smooth Kristoff. Very smooth. “I mean I want to order food. I don’t know what food.” His brain clearly wasn’t firing on all cylinders yet. He was just that damn hungry and worn out.

Clara had heard plenty of strange things. And well, people asking if the diner had been in a location before was actually fairly common. Not that he needed to know that. She didn’t recognize him from the network so it wasn’t like she could point to that as how she was just in this location.

So instead she just let the question go and grinned with a quirked brow at the question. So very smooth.

“I was going to say, this is a diner. I certainly would hope we had food here.” We being her and a metal dog. Who at least was hiding out in the control room given that was a bit harder to explain as K-9 got offended when people thought he was a robot or a toy.

Instead she just handed Kristoff a menu, he might not know what he wanted off the top of his head but psychic paper menu did mean whatever was in mind would be ‘on’ the menu and they could go from there.

“Take a look, no rush.

“I mean I’d hope so but I’ve never even seen this place before and now I’m fifty percent sure I either need a CAT scan or very strong coffee.” Possibly both to start. The menu he was handed seemed to just appear, and once again caused Kristoff to blink and stare at it. It didn’t seem to have any real theme, there was everything from Waffles to polish sausage and he could only give it a confused look.

“We? Is someone else here?” He looked up, and didn’t see anyone. But he could just be over thinking as he went back to the menu. Then it seemed to have changed again since his mind had changed. Now it was pizza and meatball sandwiches, so he raised an eyebrow and shrugged.

“Uh..the mediterranian pizza I guess?” He handed the menu back and scratched his head as he looked around a bit.

“Fair enough. And well, we are a diner so strong coffee is something we can do here. Can’t help you with the CAT scan though.”

And well it wasn’t like she cooked and could easily be whomever was in the kitchen handling the food. Just because the supposed cook staff was in the back didn’t mean they weren’t part of the ‘we’. Nevermind it was really just her and K-9.

So instead she just waited as Kristoff made his choice and nodded as she took the menu back and headed to the back to place the order as it were before coming back out.

“Should be about ten minutes. Take a seat anywhere you like.”

Coffee and pizza were probably a strange combination, but whatever. At this point he almost wanted it spiked so he just went with it. He could always ask for water later on and just looked at her for a minute in sheer confusion before nodding. He slid into the booth near by, not overly picky about where he sat. Apparently there were plenty of seats.

Kristoff rubbed his eyes as he tried not to over think things. It was hard. He glanced over at her foot a minute and asked "Has the snow always been around? I've never really noticed it before and I've lived here most of my life." he admitted, pushing a few stray blonde hairs away from his eyes.

There were a lot of strange combinations that ended up happening in the diner. Though coffee was a staple in diners so when he had made the comment about strong coffee, of course she had to comment about it. Especially since it was before he ordered pizza.

Not quite sure why he was looking at her in confusion, Clara shrugged but got said coffee.

"Every December in the six years I've been here. Seemingly only on the weekends is new though."

She knew the constant cover up every year was climate change and the locals tended to buy it.

Confusion was his general state of mind when it came to Orange County lately. "It doesn't make any sense, my weather app says 70 degrees…" he said with a shrug as he rubbed at his eyes. "It says nothing about snow, on the weekend or otherwise..I mean L. A. Has always been unpredictable with rain, but snow?" it didn't add up. First off the elevation was incorrect for it.

"I don't get it, but I guess it isn't the first time I've been confused here." it wasn't like Clara had made it snow, probably. So he just took the coffee when it arrived. "The main inconvenience is not owning anything but a hoodie.. Not exactly snow weather worthy." he didn't own snow clothes.

“Isn’t there some saying never to trust weather apps or the weather report on the news?” Clara was pretty sure she had heard something about that. Seemed a good rule of thumb at any rate. Even when it wasn’t December in Orange County. Or well, Orange County in general because nothing was predictable there.

“Pretty sure being confused here is actually pretty normal.” Shrugging, Clara leaned back against the wall once she’d given Kristoff his coffee, “And that is definitely an inconvenience.” She had the TARDIS which meant the wardrobe for whatever was needed no matter where or when she was. But well, most people didn’t prepare. Even if they were aware of the snow in December they always ended up caught off guard it seemed. As if this year it would go back to ‘normal’ or whatever.

“Especially in California.” He responded, the weather was always weird. But this was just a whole new level of sheer madness. He shook his head and took a quick sip of the coffee. Wincing as the flavor touched his tongue. Strong, but strong was good. That was what he’d asked for. “This coffee beats the hell out of starbucks. Pretty sure you’ll be seeing more of me in the future.” Assuming this shop was here again. Kristoff enjoyed the strong roast, it eased his nerves a bit.

“Well at least that’s something.” He shrugged with a slightly annoyed look at his thin jacket. It was barely even a hoodie, it was what one might call a California hoodie mostly thin, basically just for fashion appeal. “Entirely. I didn’t think to order anything, not like there’s much of that out here.” Heavy winter jackets weren’t exactly a thing.

That was always the trick. Ensuring that she was in the same location any day. But no matter. Instead she just smiled, “Always happy to hear that.” It was typical diner coffee, nothing special. But sometimes that was all that was needed. Admittedly she preferred tea but no matter.

“Not if you’re ordering from somewhere here at any rate.” That was something Clara had learned early - before weather didn’t have an effect on her that is. Clothing changed depending on where you were. What was needed.

All that seemed to be left was to relax a bit, and wait for the pizza to show up. It was pretty easy to do in the little diner. It had a nice ambiance and he could appreciate the cozyness of it.

"Yeah, think that's the only thing I'd change." He leaned on the booth. "I'm Kristoff, by the way." if he was going to turn up again it was probably a good idea to get her name so he didn't just call her "Hey you" Or something of that nature.

Well, Clara was used to being referred to as a lot of different things. She was a fan of her actual name though. So instead she nodded.

“Clara.”

Who knew if their paths would cross again, the TARDIS was tricky like that. She certainly had stopped trying to make sense of where it would decide as a location for when she was in diner mode.

Noting the time was about right, she pushed herself off the back of the wall and to the ‘kitchen’, soon returning with the pizza that Kristoff had ordered.

“Here you go, Kristoff.”

He preferred to call her by name also, he liked to think he wasn't one of those rude people who just came in and called her whatever else. He'd try to get to know her a bit while he had the pizza as well.

"This is perfect, exactly what I wanted. Thank you." and with that he'd start asking random questions. Why open a diner etc, he obviously didn't mind the company and the good was good. The exhausting day had already improved tenfold.

Questions Clara was more than happy to answer. True, a lot was vague on the specifics. But the general wanting to interact with more people and hear their stories? That was true. It just gave her more freedom than teaching had, even if she did love her students. The constrictions of school just got to be too much and it was no longer enough to keep her grounded.

No matter though. Random conversations with customers and weird things to investigate filled her time now. No need to think about the could have beens.