The Doctor sat calmly in one of the seats around the console, arms crossed at his chest, head slightly tilted, staring in a sort of disgust down at the stranger seated on the cold metal a few feet away. It was an infant, just under a year old, gnawing happily on a yellow and green teething ring, drool melting into a puddle forming in the space between his bent knees. Benji, she called him. A mostly bald squirmy squeaky mass of flesh that grinned up at the Doctor as he hummed against the toy between his gums.
"I'm oddly fascinated by the device," the Doctor told the oncoming footsteps.
"Doctor," Clara chided, "You were supposed to be watching him!"
He straightened, leaning back in the chair as she moved past him and swooped Benji up into her arms, doing a half spin and cooing at him, a noise the baby responded to by squealing and dropping the toy to reach for her hair.
Picking up the teething ring and gesturing with it, the Doctor informed her kindly, "I watched him chew on this like a hungry puppy for ten minutes."
Clara sighed, "Doctor, when I said watch him, I didn't mean sit him down on the floor and literally watch him."
"What would you have me do with him?" He gasped, free hand opening to push into his own chest.
She smiled to the boy who pressed at her cheeks and babbled as she sang, "I dunno, play with him; show off all the lights on the console like you normally do when a new person comes aboard the Tardis."
He scoffed, "Have you looked at him? He'll get his drool on the controls, we'll malfunction, and then you'll punish me for... no. Absolutely not."
Clara shifted her grin to look at him and the Doctor's stance softened just a bit, seeing her standing there with Benji clinging to the collar of her shirt. The baby inched forward to set his open mouth to her jaw, offering a slobbery kiss before pushing off to laugh. Why, the Doctor wondered, does this make my stomach turn over like discovering a new star?
He pointed and barked, "You said watch him and I did."
She released another long sigh, then went to look to the monitor, shifting Benji to her waist to reach a hand up to tap at it. "We should get back home, get him bathed, and maybe try to get him to sleep before his mum and dad come wondering where I've gone with their son."
Scanning the teething ring with his Sonic, the Doctor nodded absently, listening to her clicking at buttons and flipping up switches, turning a dial and then slamming down the thruster. They moved through the vortex as he pondered aloud, "I've never understood why putting pressure on the aches of an emerging tooth would sooth an infant as much as it does. I imagine it should aggravate them with excruciating pain..." they stopped, landed, and he looked to her.
Clara wasn't listening, of course, she was forehead to forehead with Benji, wrinkling her nose and giggling with him as she poked his stomach and took his small hand. The Doctor took several calm breaths, knowing it was a game to the child, one he probably played with his mother at home. A soothing game, a comforting game, a bonding game between parent and child.
Oh, why does this make my hearts ache so unexpectedly.
"Stop coddling him," he grunted, "Bath, sleep – we had a list of objectives and we're on a time table, are we not?"
Clara laughed in response, bounding past him towards the Tardis doors as she responded flippantly, "Benji, it sounds like someone else needs a nap, doesn't it." The baby rambled, arms shrugging as his hands waved.
Following them, the Doctor told her gruffly, "He says the grey one doesn't need a nap."
"The grey one," Clara repeated, clearly amused as she moved through her flat to the couch to find the brown bag with the pale green stripes and the bright orange cartoon lion on the side.
The Doctor stood impatiently, watching her ruffle through the contents to pluck free a long red pajama he grimaced at and a new nappie and she was up again, heading towards her bedroom, items dropped onto the bed before entering the bathroom. Again, he followed, frown set on his face as he watched the baby smile up at him, talking to him excitedly as Clara started to work on filling her tub. The Doctor chuckled and Clara turned.
With a wiggle of his finger towards the baby she was settling into the rising water, he explained, "He thinks we're all going in the bath together."
Clara's giggle made him nervous, and he stood in the doorway of the bathroom a moment as she began to bathe the little boy who recounted their little escapade as he splashed away. He hadn't taken them far, nor had he taken them anywhere unsafe. Clara had been hoping a little trip after dinner might sooth the little boy into a slumber, but instead it had widened his dark eyes and given him new energy.
The sun, he told his hands as they shifted beneath the water, was pretty, and the skies were a funny color, and the air smelled of sweets like mummy. Like Clara. Benji smiled up at her then, telling her excitedly, you smell like a good mummy and the sweet air in the new place.
"Doctor, you can go off if you'd like, have an adventure and meet back in a few hours after Benji's been picked up," Clara called as she rinsed off the pale skin before her, her knuckle lifting to nudge a chubby cheek on the baby who mumbled nonsense happily.
Why does this please me, the Doctor demanded, why does this please me in a way that anchors me here?
He turned, pacing towards the open window through which a crescent moon sat dimly in the sky. His mind replayed the walk they took through a garden as she half-listened to him rattling off the important facts of the planet and her inhabitants. One day, he promised, they'd go back without the baby in tow and they'd explore it proper. Clara had simply nodded, and then walked away to show the boy a brilliant waterfall.
Now he could hear her telling Benji quietly, so quietly he imagined she didn't know he could hear her, "The grey one looks angry, but he means well – and I know him the best, he's the one I love most in the whole universe."
He loves you like stars, the boy hummed back at her.
The Doctor smiled, head bowing, and he listened to the glug-glug of the water draining and glanced up to her surprised face as she paused when she saw him before taking the baby towards her bed to dress him. The little boy lying dutifully for her yawned and the Doctor could see the way his eyelids drooped now. It would only be a matter of minutes before he was asleep, he knew.
He slowly went to switch off the main light as Clara lifted Benji off the bed with an exaggerated groan and a gentle, "Oh, you're getting to be such a big boy."
For a moment, he contemplated leaving. Going to his Tardis and stepping inside to fly himself two hours into her future to return and have her all to himself for some journey through space, but then she began to sing. The tune tugged at his hearts and he turned, gripping the doorframe as he looked to her, silhouetted against the little light coming in through her window. Clara held the baby securely to her and she was bouncing slightly as she took small steps back and forth in front of that window, hand patting the boy's back gently. And she sang. It was soft, only for Benji, he knew, and he also knew she could sense him watching her curiously, frozen to that doorway.
She would make a wonderful mother, he thought. But he found himself overwhelmed by the notion that he would hate to arrive in the Tardis a year too late and find her mothering someone else's child. Oh, his whole body exclaimed as he watched her continue her walk back and forth as Benji drifted deeper and deeper into an easy sleep, oh my stars.
Her steps stopped and she nodded, moving to a travel pen she'd set up beside her bed, closer to him. Clara carefully settled the sleeping boy inside and she stood, eyes avoiding his a moment. They travelled to the baby beside her and he watched the smile that lifted her lips before she straightened and moved to walk past him, stopped by a light hand around her bicep.
"What's on your mind?" He questioned.
"Too much to talk about right now," she answered quickly, honestly.
He nodded, then looked to the boy. "I love you like the stars." He waited for her eyes. "It's what he told you when you told him you loved me – he replied that I love you like I love the stars."
She laughed nervously, shrugging, "He's a baby, they're simple, and it's the only way they know express relationships. Love. Hate..."
"Benji is simple, but he is also correct in his simple assumption," he told her plainly, hand slipping off her arm to land limply at his side. "Perhaps I had complicated my emotions and my thoughts so thoroughly, it was difficult to see that one simple truth through it all."
Glancing up, he watched her swallow roughly and then she asked in a harsh whisper, "Doctor, why are you telling me this?"
Releasing the door frame, he stood at full height and smirked down at the slightly annoyed expression that fluttered over her features, and then he looked to Benji. Clara had laid a blue blanket with yellow trim over his tiny body. He was peaceful, lying in that little pen, none of the confusions or complications of life had settled in yet and the Doctor sighed as he turned his attention back to Clara, staring up at him anxiously.
"I know what you sacrifice, travelling with me. I know the possibilities that trickle away the longer you and I go running along through space and time."
"But I gain so much more," she began on a light laugh.
He stopped her with a shake of his head, admitting, "Clara, I don't want you to give up a life you could have had." He stopped her again with a slender finger over her warm lips to add, "I don't want you to give up your chance at being a mother... for me."
The Doctor waited, seeing the long breath she took and how she released it slowly, eyes glazing over in a thought she wouldn't share before she focused and nodded, telling him quietly, "I didn't realize I had to choose one or the other."
"One day," he began softly, "One day you will."
Clara turned, standing at his side in the doorway, and she looked to Benji. He could feel her thinking over his words, mulling away at her thoughts, piecing together a puzzle of sorts he knew he hadn't the right to ask about. He waited, wondering if she would offer him a small glimpse, but there came a soft knock on her door and she sighed, glancing towards it before lifting a palm to press lightly into his chest. Clara met his curiosity with quiet amusement, as though he'd missed a punchline somewhere in the night, and she inched up to press a gentle kiss to the corner of his mouth.
"There's no choice for me to make," she told him softly, smiling knowingly before adding, "That's on you."
The Doctor bent slightly as the warmth of her hand and the weight of her presence at his side slipped away, but he smiled, pondering her decision, or lack thereof. He looked to Benji, chuckling, and he listened to her greet her fellow teacher and her husband, whispering of their evening as the Doctor understood.
"She loves me," he told the sleeping boy.
Like the stars, he murmured back.