The Doctors Son Book 2: Child of Time

Summary:

As the Doctor remains in Victorian England and continues his recovery, he remains watchful over his baby son, remembering the warning Raymond had sent from the future.

But then the Doctor suffers complications with his long healing process and is forced to use the Tardis to leave and seek help from a future time and place.

When he insists on leaving baby Raymond behind in the care of Madame Vastra, Clara becomes suspicious, wondering why a doting father would be so keen to leave his child behind – and the Doctor knows it is only a matter of time before Clara realises he is keeping far too many secrets from her...

But time passes and events begin to occur that makes the Doctor realise that perhaps he can not alter the future and keep his son safe from dark forces – but he is determined to try, despite the fact that he had promised grown up Raymond from the future that he will not meddle with his destiny...

Eventually, that which is foretold will come about – and what choice will the Doctor make, and how will Clara react when she learns the Doctor had known about the threat to their son ever since the day he was born?


Rated T

Disclaimer: I own nothing, I write for love of fan fiction.


Chapter 1

Five years had passed by.

The Doctor and Clara had remained in Victorian London, while he slowly continued to recover from the head injury that had caused so much damage.

While the Doctor was recovering, his son was growing fast.

Young Raymond was fascinated with the blue box that stood in Madame Vastra's garden, and every time he caught that look in his eyes, it chilled the Doctor's blood, because he recalled the words of his grown up time-traveller son who had warned of an incident that would happen one day, when as a young boy, he would run out of the Tardis and straight into danger...

Clara still did not know.

He tried not to feel guilty about keeping all he knew a secret, but all the same, no matter how many times he reminded himself he felt it was for the best, guilt still weighed heavy:

He had never wanted to hide anything from her ever again.

He had wanted the life they shared to be one of total clarity.

But could total honesty ever be a realistic goal, when he was a Timelord who knew so much more than she ever would – or should understand?

He had tried to tell himself that he was protecting her, but really he knew he was protecting himself:

If she thought there was a risk to Raymond, she would be off.

He would lose her and his son, and he had no intention of doing that...


It was a summer afternoon and his thoughts were lingering on secrets and how long the burden would weigh heavy on his conscience, when his young son darted up the garden path, heading for the Tardis.

"No!" he shouted, and the boy stopped in his tracks, turned around and looked at his father with a frown on his face, and as he saw that look, the Doctor wanted to hug him.

But instead, he walked up to him, joining him outside the closed Tardis door, and then he looked down at him sternly.

"You will never be permitted to enter my Tardis," he reminded him, "Not until you are grown up."

The little boy looked up at him, blue eyes pleading with him.

"But I want to see!"

"No," the Doctor repeated, "This is a time machine. Sometimes it doesn't go where I want it to go, it could fly off somewhere dangerous and what would happen then?"

The boy looked back at him, and in that moment his eyes reflected the Doctor's own.

"I'm not scared of monsters, I've got you, Daddy!"

The look in the Doctor's eyes softened and he leaned closer and gave his son a brief hug.

"You used to be ginger when you was a toddler," he remarked, "I've always wanted to be ginger. And then you got bigger and your hair went the same colour as Mummy. But I knew that was going to happen."

And then he paused, thinking of the man Raymond would grow up to be – and then he wondered where he was now, off in the future with Nina – he had often looked into the eyes of his child and realised he had already lied to him, not yet, not in this time – it would come later, when Raymond was a grown man, when he had promised not to interfere in the course of his destiny. But the Doctor felt there was no choice in the matter – he had to save his young son from danger, it was a simple fact...

"Why don't you let him look around?"

Clara had walked up the path to join them.

She smiled as she looked into the Doctor's eyes, but then a brief frown appeared on her face as she wondered why he looked so alarmed at the suggestion.

"You want me to let him go in there?" the Doctor said, indicating to the Tardis.

Clara nodded.

"Better not," he replied.

She stood there looking beautiful in her dark red Victorian dress, and he would have kissed her if it would have shut her up, but that look was in her eyes and he knew Clara had truly had enough of his excuses.

"I want the truth," she said.

He felt caught by her gaze.

"Strax!" Raymond called joyfully, and then he ran across the lawn to join the Sontaran at the fish pond where he stood feeding the fish.

"Watch my son near that pond," the Doctor called, "It's rather deep -"

"Stop worrying!" Clara said, and Strax nodded to him and then carried on with his task as the Doctor's son looked on.

Then as the Doctor turned back to Clara, he saw by the look in her eyes she was not ready to let the subject drop.

"Why won't you let our son step inside the Tardis?"

He looked into her eyes, and as he looked at her he desperately hoped the woman who knew him so well, and shared his life and his bed and who was raising a child with him, would not spot that he had something to hide.

"It's a time machine -"

"Really?" she said in a voice heavy with sarcasm, "I wondered why it was capable of space and time travel! Stop it, Doctor – that's the excuse you give to our five year old son! What's the real reason? He's your son, you should want him to see the Tardis, I don't get why you won't let him do it!"

"Because it could be dangerous," he replied, "Kids get curious, Clara. And then there's the fact that we don't always land where we intend to go. That could prove disastrous. Think about all the situations we have been in over the years – add a kid to the mix, an excited kid who might run out the door and straight into a Dalek, or into the waiting arms of a Cyberman!"

Confusion clouded her eyes.

"I thought you stopped ranting about the Cybermen when your bad moods and nasty temper cleared up around five years back?"

"This isn't a rant. You would know if I was ranting."

"Oh yeah, so I would. I think the whole of Victorian London would hear your bad language if you went through that phase again!"

He looked at her apologetically.

"Clara, the Tardis is up and running and we can use it any time we want to. But if we did, Raymond is staying here with Madame Vastra and Jenny. It's for the best that he has a settled up bringing. We could go off on an adventure right now – but would you want to do that, take such a gamble, when we have a little boy waiting for us to return? We might be gone for five minutes in his eyes, thanks to time travel – but what if something happened to you or me? What then, Clara?"

As she looked at him she felt a chill run through her blood.

"Don't."

"Don't what?"he asked.

"Don't say things like that!"

"Sorry, I was just trying to make a point -"

"Okay, well you just did," she said to him, "Let's just drop the subject."

Then she paused for thought, and spoke up again.

"You'll have to use the Tardis soon – the tissue repair device is wearing out and you're still getting dizzy spells. You need to get another one."

The Doctor gave a weary sigh.

"No I will not be getting another one. And I thought you wanted to drop the subject."

"I just changed it."

The Doctor looked over at the pond.

His son was singing Humpty Dumpy Strax to the Sontaran butler, who turned to him and replied fiercely:

"If I fell from a wall and it caused me harm, I would declare war on the wall, in the name of the Sontaran Empire!" and then he smiled, adding pleasantly, "Shall we go inside and see what Jenny is preparing for dinner?"

As Strax lead their son back into the house, the Doctor drew the Tardis key from his pocket and unlocked the door.

"Come on" he said, "I have to do it sooner or later...This won't take five minutes."

And Clara followed him inside the Tardis, feeling sure that if he suggested taking off somewhere without their son, she would definitely have something to say about that...


Moments later they stood together at the Tardis console while the Doctor ran through a database.

"What are you looking for?" she asked him, "Why don't we just go back to 2060 and -"

"Go back there?" the Doctor remarked in surprise as he glanced up from the console. "Back to the place where I had a transmitter dug out of my head with decidedly primitive equipment that caused me a great deal of harm?"

Clara frowned, recalling a very different set of events that the Doctor had failed to remember because he had been unconscious at the time:

"The Tardis landed as an emergency. You had to take what ever they could do for you, because it was life or death. I know you don't remember, but I do. I'll never forget."

And then she fell silent and the Doctor continued to scroll through the database.

"Clara, are you going to speak to me?"

She drew in a slow breath and kept her anger in check as she replied to his question.

"I think, I honestly do believe that the problems you were left with was a small price to pay! I was there, I was holding you in my arms while you bled all over me and I thought you was gone! Then Nina came along and called for help and gave you first aid until medical back up arrived. You wouldn't be here today without them!"

He looked up at her again.

"I know that," he replied quietly, and then he continued to search the database.

Finally he stopped scrolling.

"I've found what I'm looking for at last...distant future, Earth colony planet of Eqstrinda... has a vast and highly advanced medical base, and there is a specialist called Professor Johnny Von Straten – he's a specialist in hi tech minimally invasive procedures to repair brain injuries. I think we should pay him a visit. Maybe he can put me right once and for all."

And then the Doctor paused, leaning on the console as he took in a sharp breath and began to tremble.

Clara stepped closer to him, watching as he closed his eyes, then as he stopped trembling, he blinked several times and she caught his dazed expression.

"If not for the tissue repair device that would have been a lot worse," he remarked, but his comment did little to ease her fears – the Doctor had been suffering these brief, mild seizures on and off for more than a year, and as the repair device had began to run out of power, her fear had increased that perhaps his seizures would also worsen...

"Wait here," Clara said to him, "I'll go and fetch Raymond and then we can go."

"No."

That look was back in her eyes, that confused – and now slightly suspicious – expression, the one that reminded him he was keeping far too many secrets from the woman he loved...

"Doctor, why not? You will need treatment once you get there and we don't know how serious that could be! You need your family around you!"

"I need to know Raymond is kept out of the situation," he replied, "I need to know while I'm being treated that my son is safe on earth with Madame Vastra and her wife, he doesn't need to worry about Daddy, he doesn't need to know I'm ill. I'd rather he stayed home and followed Strax around the garden."

"But why?"

"Because it makes sense to me, that's why!"

The Doctor shut off the database and headed for the door and Clara followed.

As they stepped outside, she looked at him and felt that perhaps there was more to his reason for leaving their son behind.

She had always found him to be a protective father – perhaps over protective, but it was only now that she was beginning to realise there could be a reason for this, perhaps something he was reluctant to share with her... But she had already decided she would not push him for answers yet, they had a journey to make, and before they left, they had to say goodbye to their son...


"But I want to come with you!"

As Raymond looked up at his parents, the Doctor looked away, feeling guilty for causing tears to form in his son's eyes.

"We won't be gone long," Clara said to him, "The Tardis is like magic! We can go off for a few hours...or days...and come back right after we left, and to you, we will only be gone for a very short time – not even a day!"

Raymond looked sadly at his mother.

"I want to come too!"

"Not this time," the Doctor told him, "Maybe next time, okay?"

And then he hugged his son, and so did Clara.

And his son looked at the Doctor with disappointment in his eyes.

Then Jenny stepped forward and held out her hand.

"Come with me Raymond, me and Madame Vastra will be having tea soon – we've got cake as well!"

As Raymond took her hand he turned to walk away with her, but then he looked sadly back at his parents.

"Hurry up," he said, "I want you to come home."

"We wont be long," the Doctor promised as he smiled fondly at his son, then as Jenny led him out of the room his smile faded.

"I wouldn't want him with us on this kind of trip any way," the Doctor said to Clara, "I don't want my son to see me go through a potentially painful procedure. I don't know how this professor can fix my problem – if he can do anything about it at all. I'm just hoping for the best."

"Do not worry about your son, Doctor," said Madame Vastra as she rose from her seat and led them out of the parlour and down a corridor towards the kitchen, where the back door to the garden was open, "We will take care of him. Your child is the least of your worries at a time like this. Go and find this man who can heal you."

"Thank you," he said to Madame Vastra, and then he and Clara left the house, walking down the path towards the Tardis.

Madame Vastra stood at the back door and watched as they went inside the Tardis, and then the box shimmered and vanished, and as it faded out she made a silent wish that all would be well for the Doctor, and that his absence would be a short one.


As the Tardis drifted through time and space, Clara went off to change out of her Victorian clothing, and when she returned to the console room, the Doctor smiled, seeing her in clothing more befitting her days as a school teacher brought back a flood of fond memories.

The Doctor had not bothered to change – his own dark clothing had fitted in very well with the era and in some ways his suit, especially with its crimson lining, seemed as timeless as he was.

As he looked across the console at Clara, he saw that look of doubt in her eyes once more and his smile faded.

"I do wish you would stop doubting me," he said , and then he turned his attention back to the console, simply to avoid her gaze.

"I can't," she replied, "And I don't want to quarrel with you at a time like this, but I keep getting the feeling that you're hiding something from me. I hope you're not, because I thought – and for now, I still do think, that we share absolute honesty. Should I have a reason to doubt that?"

He slowly looked up from the console and met her gaze.

"Of course not," he told her, and as he looked into her eyes not a trace of guilt betrayed him as he kept it all back, determined to conceal the truth forever.

"Are you sure there's nothing I need to know?" Clara asked him, looking intently into his eyes, and that look reminded him in an instant of all he stood to lose if she ever discovered what he was hiding.

"There is absolutely nothing," he replied.

Then her questioning look melted away, and at last he felt spared from thoughts of the awful fate of losing her and his son.

"You think he would it upsetting because you're having treatment, that's why you don't want him with us?"

"Yes!" he insisted.

"That's the only reason?"

He looked at her across the console.

"Of course!"

Clara nodded.

"Okay," she replied softly, remembering this could prove to be a traumatic trip and deciding to hold back on more questions for a better time, "I accept that, I believe you."

"Good," the Doctor said quietly, and then he looked back down at the controls to avoid her gaze, and the Tardis travelled on through time and space, heading for its destination.