It's not really a bad day...it's just...
00
That's Just...
Gibbering
The Thirteenth just shook his head, trying desperately not to break out into slightly hysterical giggles. He had no idea why he'd allowed Rose to give them to him, but he had gotten distracted when he realized they were hatching. Too late now, he'd been standing right there three linear days ago, when they started to crack shell, after hours of trying to hatch. Naturally, he had got so caught up watching the birds being 'born' that he forgot what happened when that species got a good look at the first living being it saw after hatching. Instead, he'd very carefully cleaned and dried each and every young bird, feeding them gently, making sure they each got just a touch of water, mindful of the remainder of the yolk-sac of course...and by then it was already far too late.
They'd imprinted.
On him.
"Oi." Was all he said when they'd followed him out of the garden and down the corridor toward his bedroom, trying desperately to ignore the pair of widely grinning human women. The loud cheeping as they followed 'mother' didn't help.
Clara watched with a grin a mile wide as fifteen infant emus followed behind the Doctor, cheeping. Finally breaking out into laughter. She saw him flinch at the sound. "That's so cute, Doctor...you'll make them a wonderful mother!"
He looked at her and to his horror realized she was holding a camera. "Now, Clara..." And not just any camera, either.
Click
"Oi, no not that one, please, no...that one sends pictures straight to the gallery wall, framed, added to the First's TARDIS and they can't be removed...ALL OF ME WILL SEE THOSE," He yelled in panic, "Uh oh. Shouldn't've told you that."
Click
"Oi! Two were bad enough!"
Click
She turned to look at her new friend, a blonde with an unusual knack for shifting herself between dimensions. "You were right, setting him up to hatch that clutch out was most definitely worth it."
"ROSE! You didn't!" He exclaimed, horrified.
Click
"Clara!"
Click
The only thing he could do was get out of sight, which he did...quickly.
"Gibbering is a good look on him, no matter what body he's got on when he does it."
"Huh?"
"Ask him." Rose told her as she walked away, raising her hopper. She missed her Doctor, the one that had stayed something fierce but he was gone and she was still young. Or at least she looked like she was. It helped that her nature was far less suicidal than his. Some.
"Wait, body? You know about that?"
Rose paused, sighed and nodded. "He's met me, traced my timeline since he saw me last...and yes, I was aware of it, but it was really rude to do without telling me he was going to do it. He does know better, so, this is partly that you do need to know, well in advance: Just in case. It's like learning to swim or to perform CPR, you might never need it, but if you do, you better already have it. In this case, you need to know that it could happen, and it's the Doctor's place to tell you. Not mine."
"What's the other part?"
"It's really rude to mention it at all before he does...because I do know better, but he can't be allowed to get away with things just because he does not know you already know something, yeah? You're there to be a control, someone with the strength of will to stop him so that he never goes too far. That's what we do, we companions. We're there to care, because his own people don't give a damn for him, so that means he needs other people to care for and that care about him. It also means that if he is to find a mate he can love who loves him, he's going to have to marry down, so to speak. I was born human, you know. The TARDIS had to tamper though when something major happened and now I'm a little more. Human plus, actually." She paused to study Clara for a moment. "I don't age, I won't up and die on him and this him is much, much too young for me. He's still on the young side of three particular fixed points and I have to allow for at least one of them...this older me. So, I have to try again to pop on one of his forms that's old enough. So, you can tell him for me, 'Rose says to tell you you'll see her again, long before you did properly which is about two months into the Tenth. Course, she said she's much, much younger in that then, just nineteen, but that this her is looking for your Eighth. That you is supposed split yourself...and she'll be going off with the new branch...as well as waiting for the old. It's a closed loop, only I haven't yet closed it."
"And the emu eggs?"
"Oh that." She grinned fiendishly at Clara. "That was just a prank, though with the dam being killed by a predator, I have to admit that he was the first person I thought of...literally. I thought he'd look adorable with the babies following along behind and him in his suit."
Clara started laughing. "He does!"
Just as Rose was about to push the hopper's button then zap out without another word, Clara laid her hand on her arm. "Stay. Stay with us, alright? He'll just have to adjust."
"Are you sure?'
"Yeah. Not here full time, just once in a while."
"He's rubbish alone."
"Yeah. It's complicated. He's the Time Lord, though, let him work it out."
"Always is with him. Yeah, okay. I'll go find a room then. I doubt my first one would fit me now at all."
"Here, he'll try to relieve me of it. Probably knows better from you."
"Yeah, but I'll show you how to cure that...old girl, put this where we can find it when we want to use it...no matter what he has to say about it." Rose told the TARDIS, taking the camera from Clara and putting it on the console.
Clara could have sworn that the ship giggled as the instrument disappeared.
"Just ask her for it whenever you want to use it...and if I don't already have it..."
Clara began laughing. "He's in so much trouble..."
"True. Very true."
~_TBC_~