The Doctor rose to his feet, a welcoming smile on his face that turned into a shocked stare as Tegan came into view. She in turn went absolutely white when she saw him. "What are you doing here?" she demanded shrilly, darting an accusative look at Sarah Jane's aunt.

Lavinia merely shrugged and reached around to close the door firmly behind the young Australian, who looked as if she were seriously considering bolting back out. "He's come for a visit, Tegan. I asked him to, because I believe there are some things you need to discuss. So I shall leave you the kitchen, and your privacy." She headed for the door to the parlor, pausing on the threshold to add, "Please try not to break too much of the crockery." Then she was gone, ignoring Tegan's look of panicked betrayal.

The Doctor tried a hesitant smile. "Hullo, Tegan." He looked down at the pram uncertainly. "Babysitting?"

Wrong question; he could sense it the moment the words left his mouth. Tegan stiffened, then moved to one side of the pram. "As a matter of fact, I'm not," she replied in carefully controlled tones. Her face was still white, and her hands were trembling slightly as she picked the baby up. "This is Lanie." Her eyes remained firmly focused on the small bundle as she added softly, almost inaudibly: "She's ours."

The Doctor shook his head, a nervous grin appearing briefly on his face. "I'm sorry, I didn't quite hear you. Did you say she's...yours?"

"No," she said clearly. "I said she's ours." She waited defiantly for a reaction.

It wasn't long in coming. The smile froze in place, then disappeared completely as the stunned Time Lord sank down slowly into his seat. "Ours?" he repeated softly, disbelievingly.

Tegan nodded. "Ours," she confirmed as she took the opposite chair and began undoing Lanie's jacket and bonnet, using the time to try and collect her thoughts.

The Doctor was using that same time to try and come to grips with the information Tegan had just dropped in his lap. No wonder Lavinia was so anxious to get him here--! In all the time she and Sarah Jane had K-9 available to them, he realized now, they'd never used the robot dog to contact him. Especially not for something as trivial as a simple visit. He should have suspected something.

But, he reluctantly admitted as he stole a glance at the baby sitting comfortably on Tegan's lap, he never would have suspected this. So much for the vaunted Gallifreyan reproduction suppression disciplines. And so much for the incompatibility of human and Gallifreyan genes.

He looked over at the baby more fully, seeking--what? Familiarity? Shared features? It had been millenia since a Gallifreyan baby had been born outside of the Genetic Loom, but he did recall that even then they rarely resembled their parents. Something about the fluidity of regenerative genes, he remembered from a long-ago biology class. Of course, those lessons hadn't included information on half-Human Gallifreyan babies...all of which was beside the point. Whether the child regarding him out of bright blue eyes looked like him or not didn't alter the certainty that Tegan had in her voice when she identified the baby as his.

His baby. A frightening phrase. "Lanie?" he murmured inquisitively, concentrating on the smaller facts while his still-reeling mind grappled with the larger consequences. His baby.

Tegan nodded, still avoiding his eyes. "Elaina, actually," she said. "After my Gran. Elaina Jovanka. I picked family names because..." Her voice trailed off, and he instantly understood why.

"Because you're not ready to bring her home, is that it?" He tried to keep the hurt out of his voice. "Because of me, because of her father."

Tegan nodded miserably, his words hitting her like darts. No, like arrows, striking directly at the heart. She hated being the one to bring that tone to his voice. "I'm not sure I can ever bring her to meet them, not without finding some way to explain why she's...different." She lifted the baby to her shoulder, to hide her own pain. If it hurt him that she felt this way, it hurt herself just as much. Lavinia and Sarah Jane had both tried to convince her to at least introduce the baby to her grandfather, but she'd been too afraid of his reaction to risk it.

Lanie continued to regard the Doctor, her father, out of serious blue eyes. Her hair, he noted, was the same dark shade as Tegan's, standing out from her head in short, fuzzy tufts. "May I--that is, can I hold her?" he asked awkwardly. Suddenly, looking at her wasn't enough; he needed to hold her, to confirm her reality, and never mind the mess he and her mother had made of things. Lanie was the only thing that mattered right now. According to everything he'd been taught, she shouldn't exist. But here she was, a tiny miracle. Extraordinary.

Tegan nodded. Her expression remained carefully neutral as she stood up and walked over to his side. Lanie's hand waved aimlessly as the Doctor accepted her, not without a certain amount of trepidation.

"She was two months early," Tegan told him, watching the baby like a hawk. Or like a mother lion. She adjusted her daughter's head, fitting it more snugly into the crook of the Doctor's arm, her fingers lingering for a moment before he felt her pull abruptly away. "She weighed four and a half pounds and lived in an incubator for almost two weeks before Dr. Sullivan would let me take her home." Her voice broke at the memory, but she quickly regained her composure. "She has your ridiculous double-circulatory system. Other than the fact that she was early, there were no complications during the pregnancy or delivery, which surprised the hell out of Harry and K-9. And me." She looked down at the baby in his arms tenderly, reached forward with a gentle finger to touch the tiny head. "Sometimes I can feel her thoughts. I could throughout most of the pregnancy." She looked back at the Doctor with her normal faint air of belligerence, finally meeting his eyes.

She was frightened. Merciful heavens, so am I! he realized. "Tegan," he said after a long, uncomfortable moment, "I really think we need to talk." Lanie squirmed in his arms, and he returned his attention to her, distracted by the motion but even more so by the tiny creature making it. He wasn't used to holding babies, especially not one this small; she felt incredibly fragile. And she was his daughter. Frightened? He was absolutely terrified. And, yet, at the same time, exhilarated.

Tegan nodded in slow agreement. "You're right, we've needed to talk for a long time." She held her arms out for the baby, biting her lip in a vain attempt to keep it from trembling. "But not right now. I--I need some time to get used to you being here." Her voice sank to a whisper. "Please. Just a little time."

The Doctor nodded, reluctantly handing over the baby. His shock was turning into tender amazement that he could be responsible--well, partly responsible--for creating the tiny being he was looking at. "Of course," he said softly. "I think I could use some time as well, to get used to the idea that I'm--that I'm a father." There. He'd said the word, and it tasted foreign in his mouth. He was a father. How long before he'd be used to it? He turned his mind away from that line of thought, bringing his attention back to Tegan. "I'm going to move the TARDIS here," he said. "It's a bit of a walk from the house. But I'll be right back."

Tegan nodded as she headed for the kitchen door. "I'm going up to my room," she replied, her voice as soft as his, but he caught the note of disbelief in it as well. She thought he was running.

"Tegan." He waited until she stopped and looked into his eyes; he wanted her to see the truth in them. "I shall be right back. I promise."

She nodded again, then backed out of the door, hugging Lanie to her chest protectively. Protecting whom? the Doctor wondered briefly as he headed for the back door. It was a question he couldn't answer. He left the door open in his haste, and the slight breeze coming in pushed the pram forward until it bumped noisily into the table, the abandoned blanket flapping aimlessly as it hung over the side.

It struck Lavinia as a particularly lonesome image, when she entered the empty kitchen a few minutes later. She hoped it wasn't an omen of things to come.