The silence was different now, the Doctor thought as his right forefinger slowly slid over the plating beside a lever, ending its journey atop a red button he pushed before typing softly at a keyboard. It was deliberate, and filled with a simple anticipation of the sound that would soon fill it. The tiny cries of their infant son needing to be fed or changed, or simply held. The Tardis quieted herself so the Doctor could hear the rustling of fabric in his crib and the gentle suckling of his hands just before he released a shrill wail.
Then came the shocked gasp Clara exhaled almost simultaneously, a disoriented, "I'm up, I'm up," muddled by the sheets of her own bed being thrown back to stand and retrieve the boy who called her.
Smiling as his eyes closed, the Doctor listened as she spoke quietly to the child, now hungrily at her breast as she made her way back into bed to sit and watch him. Clara loved to watch him. She could stand at the edge of his crib for hours – body swaying from lack of sleep, eyes drooping lazily – just smiling down at Aurelius as he dreamt away time. She loved to see those eyes, still milky and unfocused, open up to peer at her curiously as he decided whether he should complain or remain neutral.
"Wish I could talk to mum now," he heard Clara utter, "Ask her if she felt as strange, feeding me as a baby, because this isn't like your father's playful nips. This is quite strange." Her giggle was soft, amused, and he turned from the console towards the corridor that lead to their room, leaning into the doorway to look in on them.
Aurelius' cheeks shifted quickly a moment and then stopped, and the Doctor sighed at the exhale the boy offered before continuing his meal. His left hand lay over Clara's bosom, tiny fingers flexing against her skin before relaxing and then gripping, pushing at the flesh as she laughed. The boy jerked at the sudden sound and unlatched, eyes finding hers to stare up at her in a sort of shock as she continued to chuckle softly.
"He treats my breasts as a cow's udder sometimes, as though he can knead more milk out of it," Clara told him, eyes not leaving her sons as she pulled her knees up slightly to lay him against her thighs, "It's amusing, and a bit frightening considering he'll only get bigger and stronger and the goal is a year of this."
The Doctor moved towards the bed leisurely, sitting beside her knees to tell her, "I suppose it will become less amusing when he begins teething."
He watched her smile fade as her eyes glazed over, considering the notion before looking down at the boy studying her. Clara remained silent as Aurelius laid there calmly, belly filled with his mother's milk; hearts calmed by his mother's face, and then she told the Doctor quietly, "He's a week old now." Her eyes came up, rimmed with unshed tears, "Doctor, this is time. This is how time passes now. So quickly, right before our eyes."
"Clara," he sighed, standing and twisting to sit nearer to her, arm coming up around her shoulder, stopping her words as Aurelius squirmed – his discomfort as his mother's panic evident – and he assured, "This is how time should pass, us reveling in its fleeting nature. Us trying not to miss a moment of it."
She nodded, then smiled back at their son, "I've thought of it so often, Doctor, how quickly the time will run from me; how soon it'll seem in the end it'll have been taken from me. I've thought already on my end and how he'll continue on, so much longer than any child should be without their mother..." her eyes met his as he shook his head, silencing her again.
"You will love him and know him and give him his best chance for a wonderful life, Clara. That is all you should concern yourself with for the rest of your days, however few, or however many, you're given." He turned his attention to the boy staring up at her, the boy who shifted slightly to peer at him.
The Doctor touched his cheek with a finger, then laid his knuckles to the boy's chest, feeling the steady beats of both of his hearts. He smiled, remembering the way the medical personnel at UNIT had told him firmly they were both good strong healthy hearts. The way Kate had lifted him up into her careful arms, all of her professional rigidity melting away to tell him confidently, "Three kilograms of perfection." The long breath Osgood had taken off her inhaler before congratulating them nervously.
Aurelius offered a long blink of his large inquisitive eyes and the Doctor felt an inkling of something. It tickled the back of his mind and tugged at his hearts, wetting his eyes with a joy he hadn't felt in too long. The boy hadn't the words yet to express how he was feeling, but he had that tether to him, one he was utilizing then to express his admiration of him.
Father.
He felt it, rather than heard it. A warmth travelling through his veins, drumming up from those tiny hearts underneath his fingertips. It gripped at him and soothed him and he smiled down at the baby staring into him. Aurelius was asking for a promise from him, he understood. A promise to love like he'd never loved before; one he felt he'd already fulfilled, looking into the calm round face that watched him. The Doctor nodded and bent to kiss the soft forehead that wrinkled underneath his lips and he listened to Clara's laughter as the small mouth gnawed lightly around the edge of his chin in an attempt to suckle.
"Aurelius, I thought we were having a moment," he breathed, shifting back.
Clara raised a hand to run along the Doctor's jaw before she settled it onto the boy's chest as he took a deep breath and looked back to her. He envied her, as they sat in the quiet of the night, because he could see that as much as Aurelius loved him as his father, he was enraptured by Clara. His mouth moved slowly, sounds emerging awkwardly in his new voice, for her. It was a soft voice, a gentle one that carried a careful message to the woman who held him.
You are my time, forever in memories and stardust in my hearts.
She nuzzled his nose with her own and he let out a happy squeak as she pecked tender kisses to his cheeks before inching away to look at him again. Aurie sighed, and then his skin broke out in a dazzling glow. The Doctor touched Clara's hand, nodding to her confused glance and looking to the boy who reached for her, arms uncoordinated through the swirls of regeneration energy he emitted.
Mother.
The word came with a swell of emotions from his mind. And he saw them echoed in Clara as she took their son's desperate hands into hers, settling her thumbs within his grasp in each. The Doctor could see she was speaking, but her words were for her son only, and he watched her kiss the boy's knuckles before shifting her palms underneath his arms to lift him up and cradle him into her chest, lips settled delicately to the top of his head.
Golden sparkles flowed between them and the Doctor wasn't sure whether he should be concerned or relieved by it. What was his son doing? Did he even know? Would this have repercussions beyond their understanding? Was it simply a show of his attachment to his mother? He began to speak Clara's name, but just as he did, the glow of that energy seeped into their flesh where it hovered and went out. She looked to him then, all of those same questions in her eyes, and he merely shrugged.
And then Aurelius hummed.
A simple sentence that brought an easy chuckle to the Doctor's throat as Clara asked, "What? What's he said to me?" He could hear the hesitant frustration in her voice, and he shook his head, looking to the boy now drifting into an easy sleep against his mother. Listening to her heartbeat, a sound that would always comfort him, Aurelius was peaceful, and the Doctor smiled to him, nodding before looking to Clara.
"He's protecting you against your fears, Clara," he breathed, not daring to disturb the baby sleeping in her arms in spite of his need to caress his wonderful boy. "Gave you a bit of the regeneration energy he has, being conceived aboard the Tardis while travelling in the Time Vortex."
She contemplated his words a moment before asking quietly, "Am I going to regenerate?"
The Doctor shook his head and offered, "Doubtful, it's not in your genetic makeup. But there really is no way of knowing just how much he gave you, or what it will mean for you," he then added solemnly, "Or for him."
"Because we don't know how much he was born with, given that the council didn't offer it to him as some graduation gift for not going insane at Time Lord school," Clara prompted with a hint of sarcasm.
He sighed, and then nodded, because it was partly true. They didn't know. He could have had only one extra lifetime, shared now with his mother, or he could have been birthed with a hundred. He looked to a single swirl of barely glowing embers just beside Aurelius' forehead at Clara's chest, watching them sit there a moment before disappearing as she took a long breath.
"He gave up a bit of his life for me then, because of what I said," she uttered sadly.
He met her eyes and affirmed, "Clara, it won't harm him."
"We don't know that," she responded swiftly, "Said so yourself."
Shrugging, he looked over the baby she held, mouth puckered, cheek squished against Clara's flesh. The Doctor watched him take several small breaths, knowing he was deep enough in his sleep already to be dreaming and he smiled, wondering just what the boy would dream now. He was forming his own memories and no longer needed to borrow them from his mother. He'd seen the stars, had stared out at the so intently, the Doctor imagined he understood what they meant, even if he couldn't separate out a single one in his new vision.
"Doctor," Clara sighed, "I don't want you to make sacrifices for me."
He turned to look at her as she held a palm to the boy's back, thumb stroking lovingly. "Clara?"
"Aurie is only a week old, and just feeling that I was frightened of losing time with him because I'm human, he gave up a bit of his life to keep me longer," she uttered before repeating, "Promise me you to make sacrifices for me."
He looked to her tired features, the slow breaths she took, that single silver hair that he hadn't mentioned peeking out from within a cascade of browns. If he thought hard enough on it, he could remember how much younger she'd been, just a few years ago, before all of the travelling and the pain she'd endured. Her voice had been lighter; her eyes held less sadness. Frowning, he looked to the boy she held, knowing how the years would pass for her, knowing they'd pass just as they did for any human being. But with them, with the dangers that lurked around every turn in a corridor...
The Doctor knew her meaning well and he leaned in to kiss her temple, arm tightening its hold on her shoulder as he nudged her with his forehead, nodding against her, telling her quietly, "Aurelius has asked me to promise him to be the best father I can be, and now you ask me not to by giving up the opportunity to extend your life if I had the opportunity to by giving up a bit of my own." He took a long breath of her scent, eyes closing against the dead silence in the Tardis then, the ominous way it stood still. "There's only one promise I can keep, Clara, and you know which it is."