The Tardis swung into the vortex smoothly and the Doctor checked his console as it parked down just over six years before in an alleyway not far from the Maitland's. He wasn't sure if she'd be there, but he knew he had to be discrete – he couldn't change a single thing about her life because it could change her future and as he stepped out, he peered in either direction to make sure he was, indeed, in an alleyway. The wayward cat that purred up at him expectantly made him feel oddly guilty.

"I know it's not good to spy," he spat at the cat.

It meowed as he stepped past it, closing the Tardis door.

"Oh, I'm just having a look!"

Taking a menacing step towards it, he watched as it scampered down the muddy strip before he turned and went in search of her. She'd be there, he knew, somewhere nearby and when he found her, he stood dumbstruck beside a tree. She was coming down the street with Artie on one side of her and Angie on the other, all three carrying bags of groceries and laughing about something he couldn't hear. He could see the lift in her dress, revealing her knees as she walked, and the bulge at her midsection.

And she was beautiful. Hair bouncing over her shoulders, so much longer than he'd ever seen it, and she radiated as she went, he supposed it was the glow he'd always heard so much about. He couldn't understand it until he stood smiling at her from his hiding spot admiring her as she continued on the sidewalk with the two children.

The last breaths of her laughter dissolved into a quick giggle before she glanced down at her stomach and then at the two beside her. "When we get home," she finished lightly, tilting towards Artie.

"You should let us carry those for you, Clara," Artie offered, glancing at her stomach with a frown before adjusting his bags into one hand.

Shaking her head, Clara smiled, "I can carry a few bags. Besides, you have the heavy ones already."

"Thinks he'll build muscles," Angie teased. The Doctor touched his sore jaw.

Artie looked off-put by the comment and reached out swiftly to take Clara's bags before she could complain, shifting away from her when she moved to take them back, hair dropping into her face with a laugh. He smiled as she dropped her hands to her stomach, giving it a small pat before locking her fingers over-top it and looking between the children at either side of her.

Shuffling her feet and staring at the ground, Angie told her quietly, "Dad says you'll be leaving soon; says you won't be our nanny anymore."

"That can't be true," Artie exclaimed, "I mean, you'll just have the baby and stay with us, right Clara?"

He watched the last of her smile flutter away on a breeze and she shook her head, "No, it's not fair to either of you, or your father, that he'd be paying me to look after my own child." She forced a laugh, "He'd be paying me to sit around while you two take care of me – how fair is that?"

"Seems fair, you've been taking care of us!" Artie barked, glancing at Angie, who, the Doctor knew, was conflicted because she was older and she understood better than her brother why the arrangement wasn't actually fair.

Angie sighed and looked to Clara's stomach, "Will you live with your father then?"

"Will we still see you?" Artie questioned.

She stroked her belly and nodded slowly, "I'll be with my dad, yeah, and of course you'll still see me. One day I expect to make proper nannies out of both of you," she teased, arm coming up around Angie's shoulder while her other hand nudged Artie's chin.

Face dropping away, Artie kicked at a rock on the ground and Clara touched his shoulder, releasing his sister to turn her attention to him. "Hey, it's alright," she told him with an air of hopefulness that warmed the Doctor's heart.

"It's not alright," he fumed, "None of this is alright."

"Let's not get in on this again," Angie warned. "She shouldn't…"

"In on what?" Clara questioned sternly.

Angie lifted an arm to her brother and supplied, "He blames the Doctor, says if he hadn't left, none of this would have happened and you'd be staying with us as our nanny."

With a shake of her head, Clara began, "Artie, don't blame him…"

His face reddened and he admitted, "I heard dad talking to Mr. and Mrs. Pennington at the market, couple months back, she told him you'd gone bonkers. They'd seen you at the pubs with some blokes from the city, hanging off them, and there were rumors about you and Errol…"

"The plumber?" Clara asked calmly.

"Yeah," he shouted, "Said someone saw you comin' out of his house in the morning – said there were a lot of people questioning whether you were a bad influence on us. Said he'd better keep a short leash on Angie before she's lining up the boys in the school bathroom."

Clara straightened and rubbed her forehead. "I went to the pub for some chips and water with Sam – man I used to go to school with," she explained. "Errol is incredibly creepy and I wouldn't go near his place unless he kidnapped me and took me there, which obviously did not happen."

Artie shook his head and juggled the items in his hands before hissing, "But the rumors, Clara, I mean, they were talking like you'd opened up a brothel and sleeping with…"

She let out a breath and told him bluntly, "So I've had sex with men, Artie. I'm an adult and I'm entitled."

His lips were pressed so tightly together, he looked like he might pop, and he finally spat, "They say you don't even know who the father is…"

Laying a hand on either shoulder, she stopped him with a cold stare and the Doctor could hear the angered twinge to her voice as she told him, "Be mad at me, I messed up – that's got nothing to do with the Do…"

"It's got everything to do with him!" Artie shouted at her and he could see the words strike her like a slap in the face and she turned away, grip tightening on him before she slipped back, releasing him as he continued, "You didn't do those things before, you would never have done those things before."

"He left, Artie. He left and I had to deal with that and I chose to go about it the wrong way."

"And you're pregnant," he reminded.

"Artie, I think she knows she didn't make the best decisions," Angie interjected with a frown. "And dad understands, knows she's perfectly sane – or she wouldn't still be taking us to the grocers and helping us with our homework."

The boy looked away and then turned back sharply, muttering with a scowl, "Don't see why you didn't just get rid of it."

Clara flinched and then she laughed softly, waiting for him to meet her eyes before she forced him to settle the bags on the ground and she took his hands and placed them on her abdomen, holding them there a moment before his head came up quickly. Artie's anger melted into confusion as his fingers spread slightly and he inched closer to her.

"That the baby?" He asked.

"That's my baby, Artie," she told him, moving his hand to another spot and watching his face light up and his breath quicken. "That's my baby," she repeated with a sad smile as tears dropped silently over her cheeks.

Angie moved closer and placed one of her bags on the ground, hand coming up before Clara released Artie, who stood, shocked, and guided Angie towards the small strong thumps. "You found out if it's a boy or a girl yet?" Angie asked, then laughed, "So we can stop calling it it?"

Clara nodded shortly and whispered, "Couldn't get a good look, but they said she had a… they said she had a strong heartbeat." Clara's hand came up to her mouth and she dissolved into sobs that neither child understood before she told them on a ragged breath, "I've sort of taken to calling her Olive."

The Doctor turned, pressing his back firmly to the tree, rubbing into it so the wood stung his back, because she dropped onto Angie's shoulder, body shaking with tears. His own hearts were thudding in his chest as he listened to the children consoling her and eventually, they made their way to the house and went inside, leaving the Doctor to trudge back to the Tardis and flip the gears, the day of their birth. The day she found out it wasn't that solitary girl in her womb, but two small souls that changed her life irrevocably.

He stepped carefully into the hospital, knowing that despite the late hour, anyone could be wandering about and the last thing he needed was running into her father, or Mr. Maitland. They would report back to her and on this day, she needed nothing less. Walking through back doors and flashing his psychic paper when questioned, he found her room empty of anyone except her, sleeping comfortably with a nurse checking on her.

"Visiting hours…" the woman started.

"I'm the Doctor," he supplied easily, lifting the psychic paper until she shrugged and went about putting notes in her chart before handing it to him.

He held the metal binder and looked down at Clara. Her face was puffy and her eyes were still red, hand with the IV lingering on the bump that remained of her stomach. With a small grin, he opened her chart and skimmed her details. She'd arrived at eleven in the morning, blood pressure and heart rate significantly elevated, and had given birth to Olive just before midnight. Twelve minutes later, Henry.

"Different birthdays," he laughed quietly to himself.

She sighed and shifted in the bed and the Doctor backed out of the room, replacing the chart just outside of her door before finding his way to the nursery and showing his fake credentials before slipping on a greenish covering so he could find the children. They were tiny. He always forgot just how tiny newborn babies could be and as he smiled down at them, snuggled tightly in two basinets next to one another, he found himself at a loss. She must have told their father, she must have known. Despite what she'd told him herself, he just knew Clara wasn't the type to not know… unless his departure had had that profound effect on her.

Abandonment left scars, he knew. And he couldn't have done it at a worse time.

Henry opened his eyes and stared up at him carefully and unfocused and the Doctor gave him a large smile and lifted him carefully out of the bed, cradling him delicately as he yawned. "Hello, Henry," he whispered. The boy only stared, lips pressing together tightly and working from side to side as the Doctor rocked him.

"Poor girl," a man nearby uttered, "Don't think she was prepared for the one and she got landed with two."

Olive made a squeak of protest and the Doctor looked down at her as she shifted her lips, displaying the small dot of a dimple already so familiar to him. He looked to the man, a nurse he could see, checking on other infants before telling him assuredly, "Clara will be fine."

He glanced up at the Doctor and let out a small huff of amusement, "They usually are in the end. She's lucky she's got her father and that family."

"The Maitland's," the Doctor provided, before setting Henry down and picking up Olive to look into her furrowed eyebrows and pouted lips. He laughed at the expression as it smoothed away. "Was there mention of a father, anyone drop by?"

The man eyed him suspiciously before shaking his head, "She was fairly adamant – screaming like a banshee adamant – that they might as well have no father."

Settling Olive back down, he stood over the two, one hand on each and he dropped down to place a kiss on each of their foreheads, telling them in a whisper, "Be good, and listen to your mum." He gave their cheeks a small rub that they both turned instinctively towards before he straightened and slipped away, sniffling back his own tears. The Doctor moved quickly out of the nursery, listening as slowly, they both began to cry.