"Geronimo," whispered the Eleventh, and even though Clara knew what would happen, had seen it happen before, her breath was knocked out of her and for exactly eleven double heartbeats, there was nothing before her eyes but searing, white-hot flames.
When the light faded, the insides of her eyelids blistering, she blinked.
There he was. The Doctor.
The Twelfth.
He was less ridiculous, certainly, than the Eleventh. She could tell, just by looking at him. Not as pretty as the Tenth, older too, and he didn't have the bad-boy quality of the Ninth or the lush curls of the Eighth, but he was the Doctor.
He just wasn't her Chin Boy anymore.
He loosened his bow tie and held it up with two fingers, looking at her.
The first words out of his mouth were, "Why on earth am I wearing a bow tie?"
"You thought they were cool," Clara said, and burst into tears.
Perhaps he would still show her the stars. Perhaps she'd still be the Impossible Girl. Perhaps she could still save him.
But she hadn't been able to save her Chin Boy, and at that moment, nothing else mattered.
And she sobbed, in the green light from the TARDIS, and the Twelfth Doctor looked on and part of him wondered if he should cry, too, for the man he had been.
Because bow ties had been cool.
And now they weren't.
That's all there was to it.