A long while ago…
Clara couldn't help but smile as the doorbell went, a couple of short, successive buzzes that she knew meant the arrival of her two best friends. She hadn't been expecting them today, with it being a Friday, but she still happy jumped up from her sofa and dashed over to the door. She took a moment to make it look like she hadn't been in a hurry to see the two Time Lords, then opened the door.
Danni immediately all but shoved a cake at her, with chocolate icing and covered in white chocolate stars, "Congratulations!" She exclaimed happily, "Did you get it?"
The Doctor pulled her up against him, mainly because he just liked to hold her, but partly to get her attention as well, "I thought you were going to wait until we were inside?" He asked her and she nodded, looking slightly sheepish.
"I was, but I was too excited." Danni explained as Clara let them both in, completely amused by the blonde.
"You're just too cute." The Doctor teased, nudging her in. Her excitement was always contagious. She found so much happiness in the joy of others, and Clara was definitely no exception.
"I am not cute." Danni retorted even as her cheeks flushed slightly at the compliment. They headed into the living room, where Danni placed the cake on the coffee table. Clara had done a rather nice job decorating the room, and Danni was pleased to see all the photographs she'd placed everywhere. Nothing made a home like pictures of your friends and family. It made it look lived in. Look loved.
Danni turned back to Clara, "So, did you get it?" She asked again, barely waiting a moment. Clara tried to keep a neutral face, but at Danni's wide, eager eyes she broke out into a grin.
"I got it." She replied and Danni cheered in delight. The two girls grabbed hold of each other's arms, jumping up and down the spot.
"Oh, I knew you would!" Danni gushed, "Who wouldn't want to hire you?"
"Well," Clara smirked, "I am pretty fantastic." Danni nodded as the pair sat down on the sofa as the Doctor busied himself looking at all the trinkets that she had on display. He wanted to give them a moment together, the older he got, the more he realised just how much Danni would need her friends after he was gone. Of course, he would always prefer to spend time alone with her. But time with others as well would help, and he'd trust Clara to look after her properly.
"You're very fantastic." Danni corrected, "Tell me everything! What's the job? Where at? When? What are your breaks like? Holidays? Do we need to change from Wednesdays?"
"Woah, calm down," Clara laughed, holding her hands out in front of her as Danni practically bounced in her seat, "why are you so excited about a job? You have a time machine."
"Because I've only ever had two jobs in my life." She replied, "I worked for the BBC for a little while, and I worked in a call centre for a day."
"What? You did not work for the BBC." Clara retorted in disbelief and Danni nodded.
"I did." She replied, almost offended, looking over at the Doctor, "Remember? With Martha?"
The Doctor, who was taking apart what had turned out to be a music box, almost dropped it in surprise at being addressed. He shoved it back on the shelf before leaning against the unit like he wasn't doing anything at all, "Sorry?" He asked when he realised he hadn't been listening.
Danni shot him a fond smile. She loved her Theta, but sometimes he was just like a kid who only paid attention when their mother made them, "I worked at the BBC, didn't I?"
"Oh, yes, she did." The Doctor replied, hopping over and sitting in between the two girls on the sofa, "With Martha, right?"
Danni nodded, like she hadn't just said that, "You're forgetting things in your old age, Spaceman." She teased the forever young-looking Time Lord.
"Oi." He retorted, wrapping his arm around her shoulder and pulling her close, "You should respect your elders."
"It's very hard to when he acts like a gigantic child." She replied even as she snuggled slightly into his grasp, "But you still haven't told us."
"Oh, it's just a comprehensive." Clara dismissed, before answering the rest of Danni's questions, "As an English teacher. I start in three weeks. I have an hour for lunch, and a break in between the morning and afternoon lessons. I have normal school holidays, and no I don't need to change from Wednesdays as long as you drop me back off Wednesday night. I can't go missing for a week anymore."
"Oh, that sounds so exciting!" Danni gushed, and even though Clara was rather pleased to have gotten the job, exciting was not the word she would have used for any job, "What's the name of the school."
"Coal Hill." Clara replied, "It's just in Shoreditch. Nothing particularly… what?" She asked, seeing the frown that appeared on Danni's face, "What is it? Why do you have that look on your face?"
The words surprised Danni, "Look? What look?" She asked.
"You pulled that… that…" Clara waved her hand in the air like the Doctor would when he was struggling to find a word, "it's you 'I know that and I'm trying to place it so I can tell you how exciting it is' face."
The Doctor let out a chuckle, "That's it." He agreed and Danni turned on the spot so she could look up at him, "She used to pull it all the time when she jumped around. I'd say something and she'd grimace like she knew I was wrong."
"I don't have a face!" She exclaimed, wondering if this was how the Doctor had felt when they discussed his 'noticing' face, "I never used to do that, did I? I was good at keeping the spoilers to myself."
"Oh, you were fabulous at it." The Doctor agreed, pulling her back close again, shooting Clara a look over her head that said that she wasn't as good as she had thought she had been. Clara did her best to suppress her grin at this information.
"What's wrong with Coal Hill?" She asked Danni, bringing the conversation back to why they were talking about her cute face to begin with, "Don't tell me you fought off some aliens there or something."
Danni shook her head, "No. Well, I didn't anyway." She replied, "It's where Susan went, isn't it?"
"Susan?" Clara asked and Danni nodded.
"Old Man Time Lord here's granddaughter," Danni explained with a nod towards her husband, "at least, I think so."
The Doctor let the 'Old Man' comment slide, for now, "Yeah, she wanted to go through human schooling for a few years. She always found humans incredibly fascinating." He leant back against the sofa, "I think Ian still works there. A governor or something. I should give him a ring…"
Clara shook her head, holding her hand out to stop him in the middle of his sentence, "Nope. No calling up my boss. I don't care if you know him, or if he travelled with you or…" She trailed off, her eyes narrowing, suddenly very suspicious, "You didn't, did you?" She asked him, "Tell me you didn't call him and ask them to give me the job!"
"Of course not!" Danni defended, reaching over and taking Clara's hands in hers, which had started flailing slightly. Clara immediately calmed, sinking back into her seat, "It's the first time we've heard of it, right Spaceman?" She shot him a look that had him quickly nodding.
"Exactly, I've not had time to ring Ian." He promised and Clara nodded.
"Good." She conceded, seeing that they were both telling the truth, "Because I want to have this job on my own merit, not because I happen to have met two Time Lords and saved them from being erased from time."
"And you did." Danni promised. Now happy, Clara stood up.
"I'll grab us some plates and pop the kettle on." She told them, leaving them in the living room to head into the kitchen. The moment Danni heard the kettle start to boil, Danni spun back around to shoot her husband a warning look.
"If Clara finds out you rang him before her interview she will kill you." She warned, "Don't you dare tell her."
"I said I didn't!" He protested but she just raised an eyebrow at him.
"You think you can lie to me, Theta?" She asked, "Not a word, right?"
He opened his mouth to protest that he hadn't been lying, but there was no point, he could tell she had seen right through him, "I didn't talk to him about Clara exactly." The Doctor insisted, "I just said I knew of someone who was looking for a job but didn't have any experience. I was trying to get tips for her interviews." He smiled as Danni's face turned from incredulous to touched.
"You were trying to help her?" She asked and he nodded, "Oh, that's so lovely, Theta." She pushed up to press a kiss on her cheek. He caught her lips instead then after one, two, three kisses, he deepened it further. Her hand reached up into his wonderful, soft, brown hair as he pushed her backwards onto the sofa.
"Oi!" Clara snapped as she re-entered the room with the three small plates and a knife, "Don't snog on my sofa!"
~0~0~0~
Clara had thought she was completely ready for her first day. She and Danni had spent plenty of time choosing the right outfit, with the right shoes, to go with her right hairstyle. She had paused outside the building for a moment, taking in the atmosphere with a sense of hope, a sense of pride. She had gotten the job off her own back because she could do it. Lesson plans had been planned, homework was ready and waiting to go, and she had a pair of time travellers who were more than willing to give her a bit of extra time to mark it at the end of the day.
Some of the other teachers were incredibly friendly, others had been less so but that was what to expect at a new job. Some people would love the new face, some people would just not want to be there regardless.
She walked into the room, wrote her name of the board, then turned around to face her first ever class. They were a group of Year 10's, who were part way through her GCSEs and needed to be kept on track if they were ever going to pass and make it to their A-Levels, or into work or whatever was waiting for them on the other side.
What Clara saw was not twenty-odd eager faces waiting for her to impart the wisdom on Tess of the D'Urbervilles. No, what she saw is exactly what she gave her teachers when she was their age. Twenty-odd teenagers all staring back at her, judging her, deciding whether to take her seriously or break her before she'd even started. She stared back for a moment like a deer caught in headlights. She knew it. When she had been their age, she would have seen a teacher just like her and saw her as an easy target. She, with all of her friends, would have torn her down where she stood and waited for the next teacher to wander in and attempt to prove their worth.
She wasn't having it. She was strong, she was going to be a fantastic teacher. She just had to show them who was boss. She was the boss of two Time Lords, a bunch of teenagers was a piece of cake.
~0~0~0~
Clara flopped onto her bed, legs dangling off the bed, phone up against her ear, "I can't do this." She groaned, "I can't, they don't like me and I don't like them! What am i going to do? I can't quit, I have rent!"
"You're just being hard on yourself." Danni replied on the other side of the phone, "It's your first day, of course it's going to take a while to get settled in."
"I'm supposed to be bad-ass Miss Oswald!" Clara explained, "They're supposed to be terrified of me and yet think I'm the best teacher in the world! But I couldn't even get them to be quiet!"
"They're not supposed to be scared of you." Danni corrected, "They're supposed to like you. Kids will never respect a teacher they're scared of."
"No, but they'll do their work." Clara grumbled, "This one girl, Sophie Turner, sat the wrong way round in her chair all class. She would answer me and everything, but she refused to sit right at her desk!"
"Well, what did you do?" Danni asked her and Clara grimaced, thinking about her overreaction in that first class. She knew, from experience, that by the time the bell had gone for her second attempt at teaching those unruly teenagers that she'd made it around the school like wildfire. From that moment on no one was going to take her seriously. She had become 'Miss Oswald - Pushover'.
"I, um, might have threatened them all with expulsion. At the same time." She admitted, ashamed of her own behaviour. She could tell Danni felt the same at the pause in the conversation.
"Yes," Danni eventually replied, "that might have been a bit… um… forward?"
"It was stupid!" Clara exclaimed, "What am I going to do? They're never going to take me seriously anymore, and I can't quit and start again because they're all going to wonder why my first proper teaching job ended so quickly, and it'll all just start again! I've ruined my career, completely ruined it!"
"Now you're just being overdramatic." Danni told her, amusement in her voice, "You just need to start again. Tomorrow you'll just have to go in without acknowledging today. People have bad days, tomorrow will be perfect."
Clara nodded along, "You're right," she agreed, sitting up straight, a confident look on her face, "I've just got to go in there and act confident. I let them get to me, that was the problem."
"Exactly!" Her friend really had made her feel better. Now Clara felt ready to take on all those br- those challenging children, "That's more like the Clara I know. Go in, head held high and - Ow!" Clara jumped at Danni's exclamation, "Theta will you be careful?!"
"Sorry, sorry." Clara heard the Doctor replied quickly.
"What happened?" She asked.
"Oh, he stabbed me with the piece of wire he's using to undo my handcuffs."
"What?!" Clara exclaimed, "I've told you about answering the phone when…"
"Oh, no, we're not doing that." Danni was quick to reassure her, "We're trapped in a dungeon. There's this planet of cat people and they're being overthrown by some dog people and we were trying to get into a castle. It's a long story."
"Then why did you answer the phone?" Clara asked, now more confused than ever, "How did you answer the phone?"
"To pass the time." Danni offered as a reason, "It was easy, really…"
"Danni, we don't have time. We have to go." The Doctor interrupted urgently.
"Oh, sorry, gotta go sweetie. You'll do fantastic, I know you will. See you Wednesday!" And with her hasty words, Danni hung up, leaving Clara sat on the edge of her bed, her confidence back up to the level it had been that morning. Even more so now because the worst had now happened. She didn't have to worry about it anymore, nothing else could go wrong. She was 'Clara Oswald - Boss'.
~0~0~0~
Clara loved her job. Well, she loved her job as much as anyone could love a job. She was sure the even Beyoncé had days where she didn't want to go sing, or write, or one of the other multitude of awesome things that she did that made up being Beyoncé. But, as far as anyone could, Clara loved her job.
Every day was slightly different, and she took everything that was thrown at her in her stride. Kids forget homework? No bother, she could act disappointed while secretly cheering that she had one less piece of homework to mark. She forgot their homework? That was also completely fine, because no one was going to bring up homework with her and she was the teacher, she could bring it in when she was good and ready.
She walked past a group of girls from one of her Year 9 class, huddled together in the hallway. Without even looking, she stuck her hand between Grace and Faye, grabbing the chewing gum packet out of Jessica's hand and walking off without a pause, "You know the rules, Jessica." She called over the protesting girl, smirking to herself as she pocketed the packet. Students weren't allowed chewing gum in school, any packets were to be immediately confiscated and not given back to discourage the behaviour. Clara's step picked up slightly, the swagger of a woman in her prime. She even knew the rules. She was the boss.
She opened the door to the staff room, saying hello to Mr Gardner the art teacher as she headed inside. He offered her a nod, which was more than he offered others, and Clara made a beeline for the coffee machine.
"Did you hear?" Miss Kissinger, the school flirt and gossip queen, "The new Maths teacher is starting today. Military, apparently."
"Oh?" Clara replied vaguely, grabbing herself a cup of mildly nice coffee, "No, I hadn't heard." Of course she had; everyone had. Miss Kissinger had made it incredibly well known like it was the juiciest piece of gossip she had ever heard. Clara did have to wonder if she spoke like that about her arrival. She hoped people were more enthused about her starting than she was about the maths teacher.
When pretty much every member of faculty had arrived for the morning, the head teacher, Mr Armitage, came in with a young man roughly Clara's age trailing behind him. He didn't seem particularly confident, and Clara had been barely paying attention to begin with, so his introduction passed her by as she thought about how she had to deal with Courtney Woods first thing and she really didn't think she could handle it first thing on a Wednesday. Danni and the Doctor would be picking her up that evening and she didn't want to waste it by brooding over her 'too wide' face.
She hadn't even noticed she'd missed the introduction until the bell went off and suddenly it was time for class. She shrugged to herself, finishing her coffee quickly before heading for first period. She was sure she'd get to meet the new guy soon enough.
~0~0~0~
As much as Clara loved her job, she hated substituting in other people's classes. She'd already worked out a near-perfect excuse for getting out of them, except for the times when she couldn't. Mr Armitage was insisting that she take over the Year 7 Design Tech class for the following Tuesday because Mrs Friar was away at her sister's wedding until the Thursday and it was the only class he'd not been able to cover. Not been able to, as in, was coming to Clara because it was the last choice he had. And Clara, unfortunately, couldn't use Courtney as an excuse because the whole year had a field trip that day and Clara didn't actually have anything to do.
"Fine," Clara replied with a frustrated sigh as she hoped agreeing so she could just go home, "I'll take that class and then, they can do some of the test." Armitage smiled, which she took as her signal to leave, so she reached over and grabbed her handbag. So close, she was so close…
Armitage smiled as he spotted the new teacher across the room, "Oh, Clara," He called over to her and she forced her smile on her face so he wouldn't know how much she wanted to throttle him right now, "you've not met Danny Pink yet? New fella, maths." She shook her head, barely paying attention as she grabbed the rest of her stuff. If she acted quickly, she could still be home before the news started, which was always her goal, "Danny? Clara Oswald."
Clara's head snapped up at the first name, immediately thinking of the blonde currently travelling who-know-where with her husband. Her heart picked up speed, probably in nerves at why she might have been working at Clara's school, but they all flew out of the window when she met the new guy's eye. He was incredibly good lucking, with a perfect amount of facial hair and a great, genuine, but soft smile that immediately drew Clara in. She quickly made her way over, suddenly very happy to miss the news completely.
"Hey." She greeted as they shook hands. A firm handshake. That… that was very nice too.
"English." Armitage told Danny like it explained everything about her.
"Hey, nice to meet you." Danny replied politely and Clara nodded in agreement.
"You too."
"Want to watch yourself around him." Armitage warned jokingly, "Bit of a lady-killer, but always denies it." Danny rolled his eyes; he'd obviously heard this many times before and he was trying to not get too annoyed at it.
"I am not a lady-killer." He insisted and Armitage chuckled.
"See what I mean?" He replied before spotting someone else on the other side of the room, "Oh, Beth, can I have a word?" And with that he was gone, but now Clara couldn't have cared less. Danny made a move to leave, but she couldn't let that happen. She needed to start up a conversation, and fast. She needed to find out if the rest of him matched his incredibly good looks.
"Er, was it you that I saw outside doing the soldiery thing?" She asked him and, to her delight, he stopped in his tracks, looking slightly abashed.
It was adorable, "Ah yeah, probably. The Coal Hill Cadets. Just a bit of fun." He explained away.
"What, teaching them how to shoot people?" She asked with a laugh and his smile turned slightly, like it was a bit more forced than before.
"There's a bit more to modern soldiering than just shooting people." He explained, "I like to think there's a moral dimension."
"Ah, you shoot people then cry about it afterwards?" She joked, hoping to pull the conversation that had barely started back but he just looked more uncomfortable, embarrassed even and it just confused her even more.
"Ah." Was all he said though and her brows furrowed.
"Something wrong?" She asked him.
"Nothing, no. Sorry, no, nothing." He replied with a shake of his head, "I just. I didn't think they'd say anything, that's all."
Now that didn't make any sense at all, "Sorry?"
"Have they told everyone?" He asked, like she was supposed to know something but she really didn't. Had she missed something? She was normally rather good at keeping up with gossip, but she seriously had no idea what he was going on about.
"No, no, no." She quickly said, "As far as I know, nobody has told anybody anything." She looked around quickly but nothing gave her a clue about what he was on about, "What are you talking about?"
He seemed to notice that she was bewildered, "Why did you just say the crying thing?"
"I was being funny." She offered but that didn't seem to be a satisfactory explanation.
"Why?" He asked, still sounding confused and Clara wasn't exactly sure how to answer that. It was true that, when she was flirting, she showed off and tried to be a bit funnier than in her everyday life, but it was hard to explain that to a guy she'd only just met.
"I just do that." She replied slowly.
"Why?" He asked again and she shrugged.
"I don't know."
She leant in a bit closer, brows furrowed as she waited for an explanation to his suddenly rather weird, if not adorable, behaviour. There was a pause and then he tried to brush over it, "Anyway I, er, I've left some stuff in my class." He pointed awkwardly at the door and she nodded, glad they were over their strange encounter. She shot him another bright smile, just to make sure he remembered her not looking perplexed.
"Okay, see you." She replied and he nodded, holding onto his bag as some sort of nervous habit as he walked stiffly off.
"See you." Clara paused for a moment, thinking on the conversation and decided quite quickly that she hadn't been offended, or weirded out. In fact, she'd just found his awkward behaviour endearing. So she turned around, rushing after him as he headed for the door.
"Er, are you going to the, er, leaving thing tonight for Cathy?" She asked and for a moment he looked like she'd stepped in on him naked; wide eyed and ready to flee.
"Um." He drawled out before giving a short shake of his head, "No, I'm not."
"Oh, okay, never mind." She replied with a shrug, like it didn't mean anything. There was that smile again; the one that made him look completely out of his depth.
"Good night." He bid farewell with another nod and she couldn't let him leave again.
She squeezed her eyes shut, wondering if she came off as desperate as she felt she was. But she hadn't been on a date in months and he seemed like a genuinely nice, if not slightly uncomfortable around people, guy, "Change your mind." She commanded quickly.
"Excuse me?" He asked as he turned back around again.
"I'm going. Er, I'll give you a lift. Why not?" She asked, deciding just to put herself out there. He looked her over for a moment, before shooting her an apologetic grimace.
"No, I've got some reading." He told her and Clara half-smiled, half cringed. She knew a gentle rejection when she heard one.
"Ah, okay. Maybe some other time, then?" She offered, just in case he changed his mind. This time he was out of the door before she could stop him and she squeezed her eyes shut. Things were so much easier outside of a social setting. Danni, her Danni, and the Doctor would just come pick her up and they'd go do something nice. No dancing around each other, no awkward flirting in front of witnesses. Just a nice, easy, trip out.
But he was just so cute! Clara wasn't shallow by any means, but she couldn't deny that he was incredibly good looking, and all that did was make her desperately want to get to know the man behind it. Who apparently was a ladies' man but seemed to have trouble actually talking to anyone, let alone women. Who taught maths and played cadet at the same time. Whose excuse wasn't that he was going out with his mates, but that he had reading to catch up on.
Oh, one last attempt, what could she lose? She placed her marking down and followed him out of the room, heading towards the spare maths classroom that she was sure he would have been given.
"I'll give you a lift. Why not?" She heard coming from the door in a high-pitched, obviously fake voice. She paused in the doorway then realised he was doing her voice.
"Actually, now that you mention it, it sounds like the best plan ever, thank you." He replied in his own voice before she'd even had a chance to storm in to tell him off for making fun of her. Instead she quickly realised that he was replaying the conversation over the way he'd actually wanted it to go, and she leant on the doorframe, a smirk on her face. Yep, still got it.
"Maybe some other time." He continued in his Fake-Clara voice.
"Thank you!" He exclaimed in a self-hating growl before letting his head drop painfully onto his desk. She grimaced slightly at the thud it made against the wood, then watched him bang his head on it three more times before she decided to intervene.
She cleared her throat, "Is the wooden sound you or-or the desk?" She asked as he stopped, sitting up slowly and not looking at her.
"How long have you been there?" He asked, his embarrassment thick in his tone.
"Longer than you would like." She told him, unable to keep the smile off her face or the amusement out of her voice.
"Okay." He replied, still looking away from her as he tried to work out just how to get him out of this incredibly horrifying situation.
"Are you going to look that terrified when you take me out for a drink?" She asked him and he turned in his chair, unable to believe that she was still asking him out on a date. He shifted in the wooden chair, trying and failing to find a cool pose to sit in, settling for leaning one arm on the back of the chair.
"I, I absolutely promise I won't." He replied, not sounding like he was sure he meant it at all.
Clara pushed off the doorframe, turning to leave, "Play your cards right and you might." She offered cheekily before leaving him to his head-bashing. She grinned to herself, a skip in her step as she headed off. Yep, still totally had it. Clara and Danny, it had a nice ring to it.
~0~0~0~
And somehow, between guys who looked like Danny, and travelling to the end of the universe, their first date had turned into a second. Clara had honestly thought that she had screwed it up, but both of them had been incredibly apologetic and they had another date planned. A lovely little Italian restaurant that Clara had wanted to try for a while now, but hadn't found the time. Now, though, not only did she suddenly have the ability to make the time, but she had managed to snag herself someone to go with.
She smiled happily to herself as the bell rung for the end of class, diving into Danny's classroom as the last of his class filed out to head to the next one. She had a pile of work in her hands to make it look like a professional visit, but as soon as the door was closed they were stood in between the desks together, barely any distance at all between them.
"7.15." Danny started with this smug smirk on his face, like it had been all his doing, "Meeting me. You are. Date. Second one." His head had dipped low, like he was trying to steal a kiss from her but she couldn't let him get away with it that easily, no matter how much she wanted to close the gap between them.
"Got the words out." She replied in the same stuttered tone, "Not in the right order, but, hey." She smirked as well, "Maths teacher." They both leant in closer to kiss as the door opened and Stephan from Year 8 rushed inside. Immediately they pulled away from each other to try and pretend they weren't about to snog, both putting their stern 'teacher' faces on that needed very little frustration faking to find.
"Out!" They shouted at the same time and Stephan was as quick out the door as he had been coming in. Clara waiting for a moment before sighing in relief that they hadn't been closed.
"I guess doing… doing that at school might not be the best idea." Danny stuttered out, unable to even say the word kiss for fear of being caught. Clara nodded seriously, turning back to face him.
"Oh, definitely not." She agreed, "We have to be professional, after all." She told him before reaching up, grabbing his tie and pulling him in for a quick snog they both needed.
~0~0~0~
"Are you okay?" Danny asked, snapping Clara out of the semi daze she'd fallen in. This date had gone a lot smoother. She hadn't put her foot in it, and he hadn't any more than usual. She'd quickly realise that he was just naturally a bit awkward and, while she hoped he'd relax a little as their relationship progressed, she just found it charming.
The conversation had fallen into a comfortable silence as they continued to eat, Clara swirling her spaghetti around her fork in what she felt was a dignified manner. It took her mind to the other Danni in her life, wondering what she and the Doctor were up to. Since he regenerated their marriage had been rather tense, and she hadn't been able to tell if they'd pull out of it until their adventure in a bank. She'd seen Danni die and it had broken her heart, but it was nothing compared to the devastation that the Doctor inside of her and the actual Doctor had felt. She'd watch him break in front of her eyes, watched him lose all hope in his and any future, then turn mad with fury at the guy who'd put them there. Who'd turned out to be himself. And Danni hadn't died at all.
Clara wasn't sure what she'd do without Danni in her life. They were both her best friends, but she and Danni were closer than she'd ever been with anyone after her mum had died. She needed the blonde in her life, and she liked to think that Danni felt the same about her.
It was in this train of thought that Danny had caught her unaware, and she nodded shooting him a smile, "Yeah, I'm fine." She promised before pointing her fork at him like she'd seen Danni do a hundred times to the Doctor, "Have I told you about the time my friend Danni tried to build my set of shelves. You think Justin's hand-eye is terrible, it took her four attempts to get the screwdriver into the correct screw." She laughed at the memory, "She won't admit that she's clumsy, it's adorable."
Danny shot her a smile, "That's the fourth time you've brought up this friend of yours." He pointed out, much to Clara's surprise, "Should I be jealous? Or concerned that she's called Danni too?"
He obviously meant it in a joking way, but Clara leant forward on the table nonetheless, shooting him a look that he couldn't ignore.
"Oh, definitely not." She promised, "You have nothing to worry about, Mr Pink." And she let Danni fall from her mind as she sat back, watching him watch her with a sense of smug satisfaction, "Now, tell me, what are your DIY skills like?"
"Oh, I can be quite handsie when I want to be." Danny tried flirt back, his eyes widening as he realised how pervy he actually sounded. Lucky for him, it just set Clara off in a fit of giggles and all was forgotten.