Chapter 4: Time Tot

The Doctor was concerned. What was he going to do with this little girl? She's much too young to be on her own. Even if she was older though, he didn't feel that she was experienced enough to safely use her abilities. He could train her, but that put him at a risk because she could probably sneak into his mind again if she tried and learn things she shouldn't learn, and on top of that his life was much too dangerous to have a little girl following him. But she was just a little girl, how hard could she possibly be to keep? He had children once, it's not like he was new to the idea of raising children.

"All right, come on, let's get you all checked out." He pushed her back slightly so he could look at her better. If he could do a checkup on her, maybe he could find more answers about who she was. At the back of his mind he could just sense something was familiar with this girl.

She seemed a bit hesitant when he started to steer her by her shoulder out of the kitchen and into the hallway but relaxed a but when he let go of her. She followed him down a few corridors and into the med bay. She stopped for a moment in the doorway and looked around the room. Such a hesitant child, maybe she was like this because she was remembering the lab that she said she was in?

"why don't you sit right up here on this table and I'll get you checked out quicker than an electron passing through an electric current", The Doctor tried to give her a reassuring smile.

Chloe slowly entered the room, looking around at everything. She circled almost the entire space before stopping at the table that the doctor was referring to. She was about to try and jump backwards but before she could The Doctor quickly tucked his hands under her shoulders and lifted her onto the table.

She looked so nervous.

The Doctor gently took her arm and rubbed little circles on the inside of her elbow. He then picked up a device and pressed it to the inside of Chloe's elbow. A small vile the diameter of a toothpick filled up with blood. It did not hurt which surprised Chloe. Drawing blood had always hurt before. He plucked the vile out of the device and dropped it into a scanner.

He then rubbed his hands together and then placed them on either side of her neck under her jaw and pressed gently a few times.

"hmmm-mmm" he mumbled to himself.

He pulled out a thin wooden stick and held in in front of her mouth. "say 'ahhhh'" and Chloe opened her mouth wide and let The Doctor depress her tongue a bit to look down her throat.

This all felt so familiar, she had don't this so many times before she almost felt like she could do this whole checkup herself.

The Doctor then pulled down a large screen and pushed the back end up towards Chloe's chest. A soft whirring noise started up and he looked to be studying the screen with immense interest. Chloe didn't recognize any of the equipment. She was really beginning to think that he really was a time traveler. How else could he get all of these cool things.

She looked back up to The Doctor and was surprised when she saw his face. His eyes were wide and his mouth hung open. His eyebrows rose higher and higher on his forehead and he looked like he stopped breathing. He looked to her suddenly and then back to the screen, and then back to her.

A gentle beeping noise sounded and The Doctor spun so quickly he nearly slipped, flung open a side panel on the scanner he put her blood in and gaped at the small scanner screen.

"Oh!" he called out "OH!"

He turned back to Chloe and picked up a stethoscope from the side of the table. He quickly put them on and without warning popped the icy metal onto her chest. Chloe jumped from the contact.

The Doctor then placed the stethoscope piece to the other side of her chest, and then repeating this action over twice.

He stepped back away from her and put a good two meters between them. His hand rubbing his face and pulling the skin down from around his eyes. "How can this be?!" he asked himself out loud.

Chloe couldn't have felt any more uncomfortable if she tried. Her cheeks and eyebrows were starting to hurt from frowning at The Doctor so hard. Why was he acting so upset? Did he see something wrong? Was she doing to die?

Chloe shivered at the thought. She really didn't want to die. Now that she was introduced to delicious hot soup and a warm soft bed she rethought her initial idea to fight to the death with anyone who would take her back to the lab. Instead she would fight till THEIR death. That sounded better.

Thinking to herself helped keep her from paying too much attention to the man standing before her.

He came up close again and softly placed his fingers under her chin and lifted her head so he could look right into her eyes.

"Where have you been all this time?" he whispered, His eyes looked sad…or happy? She couldn't honestly tell.

"um…" Replied Chloe. She did not know why The Doctor seemed all emotional all of a sudden and she really didn't want to say the wrong thing. She seemed to have been making him upset since she first opened her mouth.

"Doctor?" she whispered.

The Doctor seemed to fall out of his trance a little. His eyebrows detailed the emotion on his face. His eyes were shining and his shoulders were slumped. He leaned towards her pulling her into another sudden embrace.

I'm not alone! The thought rang through The Doctors mind. He held her so close. He inhaled the smell of her hair deeply.

Yech! He gagged. Time Tot or not she so dearly needed a REAL bath.

His mood changed very quickly and he found himself smiling. She needs a BATH! He giggled in his mind, A bath! For some reason the sudden innocence of the situation seemed to lighten his mood.

He pulled Chloe off of the table "That's enough with physicals for today!" he said very happily. He took her hand and again she was following him out into the hallways of his Tardis. He glanced back at her and stifled back another giggle. She was a lost Time Tot and HE had found her. He had saved her from living on the run, full of fear. Well she didn't have to fear, not anymore.

As they walked he thought about the adventures they would have, and all the places he could show her. He thought about how Donna would react to her. They would just LOVE each other! And he could teach her all about Gallifrey, and how to read in gallifrayian. And the best part of all was that she wouldn't die on him! No 100-year lifespan for this Time Tot, she had her WHOLE life ahead of her full of adventures and learning and people!

They finally arrived at a very large bathroom. He silently thanked the Tardis when he found that there was already a steamy hot tub, big enough to fit ten people and plenty of soaps and cloths all around the edge of the tub. The whole thing was in the ground so it was almost like the bathtub was a steamy lake.

He turned back to Chloe and started helping her out of the large nightshirt. For a moment she looked panicked and put her hands on his to stop him. "What? What are you doing? What's going to happen?" she asked with a light touch of panic in her voice.

The Doctor kneeled down on his knee and put one hand on her shoulder and TRIED to run his other hand through her hair but it was too knotted. "You, my little Time Tot, need a bath."

"Your little what?" Chloe was very confused. What did he call her? Did she really need a bath? Chloe lifted up her arm and tentatively sniffed her under arm.

The Doctor failed to hold back a chuckle while putting his hand on her arm to stop her from smelling her armpit. "I called you a Time Tot, because that's what you are. And you very much need a bath. Let's get you out of those nightclothes and into this tub and I'll tell you all about what you are, sound okay?"

Chloe gaped at the man, "THAT'S a TUB?"

The Doctor chuckled again and lifted her shirt off of her and guided her into the tub. " oh my GOSH! It's so NICE!" Chloe gushed.

The Doctor then proceeded to take off his own clothes but decided to leave his shorts on, and dipped himself into the water beside Chloe. Suddenly she splashed him and got water everywhere. The next thing they knew they were splashing at each other and tossing wet wash cloths at each other's faces and flinging soap everywhere.

The Doctor couldn't remember a time when he had THIS much fun just horsing around.

The Doctors laughter made Chloe feel happy. If he was happy, she was happy. Soon though she started to get tired and she yawned. The Doctor caught her yawn.

"Oh that's right, you haven't had much sleep have you? You woke up not Three hours after I put you to bed, and growing Time Tots need their rest."

Chloe frowned "Why are you calling me a Time Tot? What's That? Are you a Time Tot?"

The Doctor poured some soap in the little girl's hair and started massaging. "I am a Time Lord, and for a very long time I thought I was alone, but now I have found you."

"Is that why you were acting funny earlier?"

"yes, That's why I was acting funny earlier." He dipped her backwards into the water so her hair was submerged but not her face, and he ran his fingers through her now clean hair to get all of the soap out.

Chloe let him hold her weight, she trusted him, closed her eyes and waited patiently for The Doctor to Finnish scrubbing her hair. It felt really nice. She couldn't remember a time when she felt so loved, and so cared for. She felt cherished, and that was a very good feeling.

He filled a wash cloth with some liquid soap and started scrubbing her back and arms, and spending some good time making sure her armpits were clean.

"Actually that makes sense," He continued. "we are part of a race where having psychic abilities isn't uncommon. Even I have some ability, that was how I put you to sleep."

Chloe thought back to when she had been crying on the doctor's shoulder. She remembered all of those visions! And then she remembered waking up. That was him? She turned back around to The Doctor "So…I'm not in trouble?"

"wellllll…." He started to reply "No, you're not in trouble for simply possessing this ability, but you should be much more careful about what you do with this ability. Forcing your way into another's mind is definitely not good practice, and in fact if I catch you doing that on purpose then you WILL be in trouble."

The Doctor did not want to change the happy mood but she really should know that it wasn't good, what she had done earlier.

"I'm Sorry, I didn't know." Chloe replied in a whisper with her head low.

"Alright, no pouting" and he flicked his knuckle under her chin and then touched the tip of her nose with his index finger. It was something he did to his own children when he wanted to get their attention playfully.

"Don't worry, you have me! And I can teach you how to better control your abilities. You don't have to hide anymore, not from me anyways, oh and not from Donna"

"Is she a Time Tot too?"

"no, she's fully human, but she's one of my best friends and I know that she would be overjoyed to meet you."

Chloe smiled. This was probably the best day that she could remember ever having. She felt like a weight had been lifted off of her shoulders. She yawned again.

"Alright, up, up, Time to get you back into bed." The Doctor got out first, then held up a large fuzzy towel and engulfed Chloe in it when she stepped out from the tub. He draped his own towel over his shoulders not minding that his sopping wet shorts were getting water everywhere, and then Picked Chloe up and headed to her room.

Most of the way there he could hear her giggle from deep within the bundled towel.

When they had gotten to her room he dried her off better and then tossed a new clean nightshirt over her head.

She turned and jumped into the bed and snuggled under the covers.

And before The Doctor had finished tucking her in, she was fast asleep.