The Eleventh Doctor was in the newly added room of the TARDIS, watching the most improbable matter ever - well, it was improbable because it was going on right here. And the Doctor had never imagined that there would be any need for such room here because all of his previous companions and friends had been at least... fifteen or something. But now it was a very special case.
There was a tow-topped baby boy in the middle of the room. Yes, the newest addition to the TARDIS crew was only slightly older than eleven months or something, this is why a nursery had been created. Thank you very much, the Doctor thanked his eternal friend mentally.
Little Johnny-Jimmy was playing with wooden multi-colored blocks, trying to build something out of them. Something very particular...
"What are you making, kiddo?" the Doctor asked, sitting down next to him. The boy was determined to finish his task - now he was searching for the block which had side of the needed color. Finally he found it, turned around in his chubby hands and pointed at its side:
"Boo!"
"Yes, it's blue", the Doctor nodded. Johnny-Jimmy placed the block at the required place and resumed his search.
All of a sudden something hot emerged in the Doctor's inside pocket, so he instinctively bounced up, having nearly smashed the result of Johnny-Jimmy's work with a brisk movement of his hand. The boy blinked at his guardian worriedly:
"Dotta-daddy?"
"It's okay, JJ, it's okay", the Doctor assured him, pulling the wallet with the psychic paper out - that was the reason of the "burning". A message. What could that be?
This was interesting. Sometimes the TARDIS linguistic matrix took some time to adjust to certain language (or in several cases she just hadn't wanted to translate a writing because of keeping secrets or intriguing), so the Doctor had to translate it by himself. Oh man, some languages were perfect to hide the information, but reading them was a torture to the eyes and the mind, so a couple of minutes passed between the first look and the first understanding.
"Let's see if you can cope with child-caring as well as with saving the Universe", the Doctor read aloud. "Hmm..."
The sound which only occurred twice in flight - when taking off and landing - ran through the corridor. What the fish custard? The Doctor, feeling a twinge of nasty feeling inside, scooped Johnny-Jimmy up and rushed to the console room, awaiting anything... except something that he nearly tripped over, having almost reached his destination.
There was another baby next to his feet. It was a little girl dressed in a reddish pink romper, locks of her blond hair framing her rosy-cheeked face with small turned-up nose and marvelling hazel eyes staring at the Doctor, understanding nothing.
"Oh no. Oh sweet heavens, no..." the Doctor muttered, hurrying to place Johnny-Jimmy (who was as awed as him) onto the seat next to the console and fasten a couple of belts over him, and returned to gather the wee girl. After a couple of seconds of examining her he made sure that it wasn't just a random tot. He had seen her as a grown-up and as even smaller baby... at the same time. The TARDIS also approved his guesses: the nearest screen flashed, showing the words "ROSE TYLER" on it.
But it was just the beginning.
A piercing cry was heard from under the console - it wouldn't be surprising if it broke the glass floor. One more, one more, but it was the same voice. Having placed tiny Rose next to Johnny-Jimmy and given both little patting on the shoulder as a reassurance, the Doctor climbed under the console to find one more sudden guest of the same age as previous. The new baby was dark-haired, with brown eyes (completely dry - his yells were the result of tantrum, no tears) and tiny little nose which couldn't be messed with anyone else's - this would've been obvious even if he weren't wearing that checkered red romper.
"Jamie!" the Doctor gasped, picking him up and placing comfortably to calm him down. "Crumbs and bananas, who could've been so careless to make me interrupt my own time stream?.. Shhh, it's okay, tiny Jamie", he went on, giving the little Scot a bounce and tapping him on the tip of his nose. Jamie stopped yelling and stuffed his fist in his mouth, giving out a small wondering babble.
"Yes, I know this without you", the Doctor informed when the TARDIS showed the words "JAMES MCCRIMMON" to him. "I'm not as silly as you think!.. Sorry, it wasn't addressed to you", he reassured the kids, who were blinking at him warily, while performing the same procedure with fastening the belts on the seat for all three not to fall down.
"Dotta-daddy", Johnny-Jimmy pronounced, pointing at the direction of the console. And again: "Dotta-daddy".
Nothing can be worse, the Doctor thought and followed the boy's pointing finger. And his expectations were fulfilled. The collection was to be completed - there was one more baby girl crawling on the stairs leading from under the console to the room. Her straight thick hair was chin-length and dark with a tiny reddish shade, and she was round-faced with the most attentive look of darkish eyes ever. It didn't even bother her that her white onesie with pink and red pinstripes wasn't the best clothing when it was about slippery surfaces.
The Doctor felt his legs wobbling under him - then they turned into jelly for two or three seconds, but this was enough to make him plump onto the floor. The letters on the screen didn't make the situation better. "SARAH JANE SMITH".
"And what am I going to do with all of you?" he asked without addressing it to the babies (tiny Sarah Jane had already reached the floor and was examining the unfamiliar adult with her look). After a couple of seconds the Doctor stood up, realizing that checking of language would be the best way to find the answer. Hurriedly he entered the needed settings (having made some mistakes, and therefore he had to correct them) and pushed the input bar, then scooped baby Sarah Jane up and sighed.
Three kids at the seat weren't going to tear their looks off the Doctor, but because of different reasons - Johnny-Jimmy was wondering what his guardian was going to do with him and those strange newcomers, while tiny Jamie and Rose were curious about this strange man and even stranger place. But that didn't last long. For a couple of minutes, before tiny Jamie started yelling again.
"Yeeeees, now I believe it's you. Lungs of a real piper", the Doctor muttered, feeling nervous sweat on the back of his neck. He had already got used to the troubles which usually happen to babies, but Johnny-Jimmy wasn't hopeless in this case, so... One more check approved his guesses, so, having hastily ordered the rest of the kids to stay there, he rushed to the bathroom together with his new task.
"Oh gods, oh stars, oh planets... where were they?.. I've put them there... Don't tell me that you switched the position of things together with the rooms!" the Doctor shouted, trying to outvoice the child who was going to choke with screams. The matter was that the TARDIS changed the position of rooms almost every day just to have fun. "You just wait, you just wait..."
After some more items thrown around the needed was finally found, but that was only the beginning. Jamie appeared to be much more rebellious than Johnny-Jimmy (no wonder!), so more than one nappy was spent before the kid was finally diapered properly. Only then the yelping was over.
"There you go", the Doctor concluded and hurried to the console room. He was met with three-voiced babbling and six little arms raised in the air. I'll give you some sweet moments, the Doctor thought angrily - obviously the TARDIS had decided to "play" with him. At first she had refused to translate the message, then she had switched the room's and the items' position, and now she wasn't letting him understand baby language! And this all at the critical moment!.. By the way, about it. The search was already complete.
"Of course..." the Doctor groaned, lowering Jamie down onto the seat. But that wasn't so easy. Jamie had absolutely no wish to be separated from the one who had to care about him, and the Doctor didn't want to give his eardrums one more session of torture, so he held the boy in the crook of his left arm, while typing single-handedly on the keyboard. "Oh yes. I just knew it".
The information on the screen suggested that the appearing of three babies here (and not just babies) wasn't an accident. It was the work of Selenians. Interplanetary orphanage, so to say. Like in that story with Adipose, but different. The point was that they watched all the planets' inhabitants, and if they found that anyone careless - from their point of view - gained a child to care, they had a fashion to perform the "checking". In other words, they took someone very close to the "careless" from his or her time stream (particularly childhood) and sent to the "object". If the "careless" one cared for the new baby as well as for the "first" one, then he or she was allowed to be a parent, and if not, the child was taken by Selenians to be given to "better" parents. Anyway, no one ever remembered about this happening - in any case there was memory-wiping for both sides. And those were them who had made the "preparations" like changing the kids' clothing before throwing them into the unknown.
The Doctor shook his fist in the air.
"All right then! You think if I'm not a standard guy, I won't make a good parent for JJ?! Fine!"
Right at this moment tiny Sarah Jane finally spoke - it was a soft babble together with begging look. Tiny Rose expressed her thoughts more clearly - by smacking her lips.
The Doctor grabbed his head in his palms. How could he have forgotten?!
Thank goodness the TARDIS finally decided to stop her pranks and help instead. At least the Doctor thought so when he came to the kitchen and found out there were four high chairs instead of one, each with a cover of different pattern... though he wasn't sure this wasn't one more trick before all four kids were placed on the chairs without incidents. Well, if not to count the fact that the Doctor still couldn't understand the gurgling phrases they exchanged among each other.
The Doctor, glad that they were not going to scream, scratched his head, wondering. What if the kids wouldn't like what he was going to offer?.. Never mind. Not going to wait more, he grabbed a box of oatmeal from one of the cupboards and the plastic bag of fruit from the fridge, and hurrying appeared to be no good - the bag immediately tore, having let half of its contents fall onto the floor (those were mostly tangerines). Okay, okay, no hurrying. Having half-filled the nearest pot with oatmeal, water and sugar, the Doctor turned the cooker on and decided to make the dish more attractive. As planned.
Having collected all the "runaway" fruits, he found the blender (thank goodness it was an item used frequently now when Johnny-Jimmy was on board, because rarely used things tended to get mixed - not without the TARDIS's intrusion) and began cutting an apple in the glass cup with insane speed. So insane that he completely forgot about the fact that the lid should be closed properly before pressing the "on" button.
WHIRRRRRRR!
The Doctor didn't catch the moment between turning the blender on and then off again - he just found himself covered in apple bits head-to-toe. And not only him - the furniture nearby too. In conclusion after a moment of silence a high-pitched burst of laughter followed. Guess who? It was tiny Jamie who thought that the "fruit explosion" was incredibly funny. In a second tiny Rose repeated his reaction, shrieking with laughter, as well as tiny Sarah Jane, but Johnny-Jimmy, on the contrary, stared at his guardian, waiting for storm and thunder. The Doctor sighed and, rubbing the fruit splashes from his clothing with a wet patch of cloth, approached to Johnny-Jimmy.
"Did you think I was going to shout at you, kiddo?" he asked, gently lifting the boy's head, his fingers under the kid's chin. "Leave it. I just didn't have to be in a hurry... Totally". This word was addressed to the baby trio of companions. "It's in your fashion. But I'm not blaming you".
"Ohh!" cried tiny Sarah Jane, pointing at the forgotten pot on the cooker. The Doctor glanced there and forgot his words about "not having to be in a hurry" - the oatmeal was about to boil out, judging by the column of steam; he turned the gas down right on time and mixed the contents of the pot for them not to get burnt.
"Thank you!" he hastily threw, loading the blender - this time with half-frozen peaches - for the second time. Four sessions of mashing four types of fruits went on successfully, and the oatmeal was prepared well, but this was only the beginning. And this time the trouble was to emerge because of tiny Rose - she behaved as if had never seen mashed bananas, acting suspiciously towards the oatmeal half-mixed with them.
"Come on, Rose, you know it pretty well that bananas are good", the Doctor cooed, holding a spoonful of mix in front of her face. "Well, you will know, it's for sure. Now be a good girl and take it... No-no-no-no-no, Jamie, that's no good!" Luckily tiny Jamie wasn't going to play up because of taste (his portion of oatmeal was mixed with blended raspberry - no wonder, the Doctor's fridge was bigger on the inside and held everything possible, or almost everything), but this was the trouble - he dived both hands into the mass and yelped, because at the bottom of the bowl it was still hot.
"I told you", the Doctor said reproachfully, jumping back not to get more spots on his clothes from the chubby hands reaching out to him. "Wait for your turn, Jamie... All right, all right". Luckily one time was enough for the addressed child not to repeat his activity - after his hands were rubbed clean with a damp cloth, he babbled something and stayed quiet before it was his turn to get his meal properly.
Johnny-Jimmy, as usually, accepted his portion without any resistance (there were still remains of his previous life's fear of disobeying the grown-ups, that was no good), and not only because he didn't want to argue, but also because his oatmeal was with raisins, which he loved. Tiny Rose finally decided that her portion was fine only when she saw tiny Sarah Jane eagerly taking spoonfuls of oatmeal-apple mix, thank goodness.
"Okay, what are we going to do next?.." the Doctor mused aloud. He had already got used to having one baby on board, but four, again... Having given them a proper cleaning and thrown the bowls into the sink, he brought them to Johnny-Jimmy's nursery. And this time it came out that none of the babies wanted to stay away from the only adult here - when he lowered Johnny-Jimmy and tiny Sarah Jane onto the floor in the required room, both crawled to his legs and clung to them, their eyes getting watery.
"I cannot leave them two alone", the Doctor tried to explain, freeing his legs. "Now remain quietly here, please, and I'll bring our friends here... No-no, I'm not leaving you. I'll be back in a moment".
Trying to act quickly and carefully, the Doctor finished the transportation and sat down onto the floor, watching the babies. Luckily Johnny-Jimmy found his unfinished block tower and decided to complete the task, and tiny Sarah Jane joined him, so the Doctor placed tiny Jamie and Rose into the playpen a little farther. Who knows what they were up to?
"Dotta-daddy!"
The Doctor awoke with a start - he hadn't realized that he had switched himself off for some minutes before gaining consciousness again. Johnny-Jimmy and tiny Sarah Jane had finished their "task", having built something like a small TARDIS out of those very blocks. Yes, it was crooked and ready to fall any minute, but the children still did their best.
"Yes, truly nice", he beamed at the two, then turned to the playpen and was taken aback: somehow tiny Jamie had managed to climb out of it and now was helping tiny Rose do the same, pulling her by the hands, but she couldn't get over the obstacle. "No-no. It's no good, you can damage yourself... and then..."
Having restored order, the Doctor wanted to say something else, but the words were stuck in his throat. Then his legs gave up, and he plopped onto the floor, staring into nowhere. Those were not just kids. All four of them... Yes, when travelling through time you never know what happens first and what happens last.
A small hand tugged his sleeve. The Doctor shook a bit and noticed baby Sarah Jane staring at him like at a giant from the below with the most concerned expression.
"It's okay", he lied, feeling dry pain in his throat together with wetness in his eyes. "It's okay. As far as I know, it's going to be fine..."
This all had begun as not too fine thing, and wasn't going to finish this way. Yes, it was so. The Doctor thought for a second, observing two dark-headed and two tow-topped babies, now surrounding him. Why them? Because - of course, he loved them. The best friends ever, even though... even though...
"Noh", he heard and glanced to the side from which the little voice was heard. It revealed to be belonging to baby Jamie. "Noh", the boy repeated, reaching out to him. The Doctor scooped him up, and one small palm rubbed the sudden tears off his face.
"Come here, all of you", he said, smiling tearfully. "Old foolish Doctor's gone a bit sentimental. What's the sense of pretending? I love all of you".
The babies accepted the invitation - Jamie and Rose took places in his arms, while Johnny-Jimmy and Sarah Jane climbed onto his lap. Like an alive and breathing blanket.
"No matter, whatever happens, I will protect all of you", the Doctor promised, knowing that he will do his best to keep it. In the past, present or future - what's the difference? Without realizing in fully - his mind was slightly in haze - he began to sing, barely above humming:
"You are not alone,
I'll be here with you,
Though you're far away,
I'll be here to stay.
You are not alone,
I'll be here with you,
Though we're far apart,
You're always in my heart..."