[The Doctor knows she's treading dangerous ground here. A few more steps onto it and there will be no going back, no slipping from the door and leaving Clara to live the rest of her life, content to know she's alive (such as it is) and well.
She can see the change in Clara's posture even before she turns around, hear the guarded edge to her words. Always clever, her impossible girl. The Doctor sits up from the slouch she'd settled into on the counter stool. In that moment she sheds some of that veneer of casual humanity slips from her, and she's a little too still, the light in those eyes far too old to be looking out from such a young face.]
I am. [She agrees, her voice having lost its playful edge as well, quiet and serious now.] Hard not to be, as many times as she's saved me.
[She meets those clear, dark eyes and holds that gaze.]
no subject
She can see the change in Clara's posture even before she turns around, hear the guarded edge to her words. Always clever, her impossible girl. The Doctor sits up from the slouch she'd settled into on the counter stool. In that moment she sheds some of that veneer of casual humanity slips from her, and she's a little too still, the light in those eyes far too old to be looking out from such a young face.]
I am. [She agrees, her voice having lost its playful edge as well, quiet and serious now.] Hard not to be, as many times as she's saved me.
[She meets those clear, dark eyes and holds that gaze.]