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It takes Clara just two days of being with the Doctor again before she realises just how big of a mess the last six months have been for her.
She knows that she’s been struggling but there’d always been a part of her telling her that she was in control so the knowledge that she really hasn’t been is a shock to her system.
She hadn’t been bothered with her appearance in her six months without the Doctor, using all of her energy to just get through the day and not having enough left over to worry about if her split ends were getting bad.
But now she can see how her eye bags could probably carry her whole – sizable – wardrobe, how her clothes hang off her frame just slightly and how her hair is limp around her face.
So, she does something about it.
She spends a week with the Doctor, getting back into the swing of things, bringing her diet back to normal and sleeping more than she ever has. He’s patient with her, more so than he ever has been before – at least in this body – then he drops her off for Christmas morning with the promise of coming to visit on Boxing Day.
And if her family notice the difference, they blame it on the Christmas spirit giving her a new lease of life.
Maybe they’re right; but Santa Claus looks a little different to her.
She takes a break from lesson prep on the last day before term starts again to go to the hairdressers and comes back with the feeling of a massive weight having been lifted from her shoulders.
Standing in front of the mirror, she runs her fingers through her hair, admiring the way it falls easily across her face and how it makes her feel new.
This is the fresh start she needs to give herself before trying to join life again.
She still takes her five minutes every day, five minutes to apologise to Danny over and over and allow the crushing guilt to overwhelm her.
But then she takes a breath, runs her a hand through her newly short hair as a reminder and gets the hell on with life. Living it to the full, as she knows Danny would want her to.
She smiles around school with the spark of life back in her eyes and a spring in her step that people notice, commenting on how much happier she looks, how much more alive.
And she really feels more alive; she sticks around for a while to talk to people in the staffroom instead of hiding in her classroom, she starts helping out with extracurricular activities like taking a group of kids to Taekwondo each week, she takes up a sort of part time advisory job with UNIT and, of course, she spends a lot of time with the Doctor adventuring through all of time and space.
The Wednesday night rule is out the door, they go anywhere anywhen, running as fast as they can and taking tea breaks – between visits to Jane Austen and saving whole civilisations – in the safety of the vortex when it all gets just a bit too much.
She puts her trust in the Doctor to protect her in the knowledge that she will protect him just as fiercely and off they run, making the most of their lives like they’re living on borrowed time.
And maybe they are.