Sitting in silence, the trio looked at Mr. Pratchett as he stared back, his eyes reflecting them, and eventually Lila spoke up, asking him what he meant.
However, he refused to say anything more about it, only for them to leave their duties while they're still alive, it's not worth dying for, and it drew Theodore to ask him about his belief.
His eyes filled with emotions; Mr. Pratchett turned his head to face Theodore.
"You don't know what you've gotten yourselves into, even if you adventured countless times, you still don't know," Mr. Pratchett wearily looked at him as he tells Theodore while the aloof giant sat quietly.
David leaned forward as he wanted answers about why Mr. Pratchett felt the way he did and he didn't want Mr. Pratchett trying to talk them out of their duties as the Doctor or only giving vague answers, he wants the truth and nothing but the truth.
The elusive Mr. Pratchett shifted in his spot as his eyes reflected David, as David looked back at him, before he finally told him, "I knew your father."
His chocolate eyes widened, David sputtered as he asked Mr. Pratchett how he knew his father and as he took off his hat to put over his chest, Mr. Pratchett told him with a look in his eyes.
"He came to me for help, only I couldn't go with him, I had Jenny. He begged for my help, but I hesitated. I worried that if anything happened to me, Jenny'd be alone. He countered, saying he had a family, too, but he couldn't overlook it if he wanted. Only when he told me, I had to pull favours for someone so they'd watch Jenny for me until I came back," Mr. Pratchett told David how his father visited him one evening, a little after Mr. Pratchett's wife passed.
The retired Mr. Pratchett hesitated helping him as he had Jenny to consider, but David's father convinced him and he went with him through the familiar doorway into the TARDIS.
Lila inquired what David's father said that made Mr. Pratchett change his mind, but the man looked wearily about talking about it, saying he never uttered it after that day and he never will.
"Please, if you knew my father, then you'd know what happened to him, surely?" David shifted topics, wanting to know more about his father, he begged Mr. Pratchett to tell him.
There's a silence looming at the table as a waitress refilled their drinks, Mr. Pratchett exhaled quietly as he pondered quietly, before he wearily told David, "I'll tell you, but not here."
He'll tell David, but not in the cafe, they'll have to go somewhere else, somewhere private, and David agreed.
As promised, he paid for the drinks, and all four departed, Mr. Pratchett taking them somewhere private where he'd easily answer David's question.
To David's TARDIS, no less, despite him having given up his old life, Mr. Pratchett knew where to find it without even asking David.
David let them inside and the changed interior's enough for Theodore to wrinkle his nose displeasingly at the sight.
There's a look in Mr. Pratchett's eyes as he looked around the TARDIS' console room, his hand gliding on the railings as memories flooded back to the old days.
Somehow, winding up inside the TARDIS many years ago, taken to different places, fighting against the Daleks and all sorts of aliens, meeting his then-wife, and having to walk away from all that once she died, the agony of it all.
His hand on the silver railing, Mr. Pratchett let out a deep sigh as he tells David, "I promised him that when he died, to keep his secret, and I did. I never uttered it to anyone, not even Jenny, for over thirty something years."
Sadness in his eyes as Mr. Pratchett tells him the story about Mackie, how he entrusted Mr. Pratchett with his secret, knowing that once he left the very door they went through, he wouldn't come back.
His resignation to his death, something that Mr. Pratchett couldn't fathom, and it was enough that Mr. Pratchett wanted to aid Mackie, help him in some way, but there wasn't anything he could've done.
"I asked him what he wanted me to do and he told me that there's nothing I could've done, his fate sealed, and if I tried, I risked destroying time as we knew it. He walked out of the TARDIS, chin up, eyes forward, it took me strength not to pull him back," Mr. Pratchett recalled the events leading up to Mackie leaving the TARDIS.
Once he left the TARDIS, Mr. Pratchett waited for what felt like an eternity before the TARDIS sprang to life, taking Mr. Pratchett away, preventing him from interfering further.
Took him back where he left and the console seized, preventing him from using it, forcing him out of the TARDIS. The moment he stepped out of the TARDIS, it animated, disappearing behind him, and he never saw it again.
"He told me... he loved you, very much, and wished he could've saw you grown up. He was sorry what he done to your mother, but he had to do it, it was for her safety and yours that she didn't remember him," Mr. Pratchett tells David how his father confided in him how due to the dire situation he was in, he was forced to wipe the memories of his existence from his lover, shielding her and their son from the troubles. It pained Mackie to do it, but he did it for his family's safety. He carried that sin with him to his death, as Mr. Pratchett said that he knew.
Hearing this, David's face changed as he quietly processed what Mr. Pratchett told him.
His father knew he was going to die and there wasn't anything he could've done to stop it, rather wallow in defeat, he soldiered on.
Bitterly, he wiped the memories of himself from his lover, hoping it'd protect her and their son.
"What happened to my father?" David pressed Mr. Pratchett for answers on what went on that resulted in Mackie's death.
Mr. Pratchett only said that Mackie went to him for help, but he never said anything about what Mackie needed help with.
Chewing on his bottom lip, Mr. Pratchett looked away as he quietly thought to himself, before he replied in a stilted voice, "He needed my help to find someone. We did. Said it was too dangerous for me, that was that."
In little words, Mr. Pratchett told David that his father wanted to find someone and Mr. Pratchett helped find who he was looking for, but it was too dangerous for him, so Mackie went ahead.
"Who?" Theodore came around the side to stand near Mr. Pratchett, roused with interest on who Mr. Pratchett helped Mackie search for that led to his death.
Shaking his head, Mr. Pratchett replied that Mackie never told him much about who they were looking for, just that they're dangerous. Almost like he himself was afraid of them.
"Who killed my father?" David gestures as he asks Mr. Pratchett if the person Mackie looked for's responsible for his death.
His hand slowly moving away from the railing as he walked towards the steps and sitting on the top step, an audible groan as Mr. Pratchett's mind weighed with guilt, as he tells David, "I can't tell you, son, I wish I could. He never said a thing to me, said it'd be better if I never knew."
As much as David hoped for an answer, Mr. Pratchett couldn't tell him anything about who his father looked for and their name, his father refusing to involve Mr. Pratchett more than he needed. Even if he pressed him for answers, Mackie wouldn't tell him anything.
"But you said something earlier, 'I already lost her to him,' what about that?" Lila spoke up as she moved around the console room, watching the scene unfold as Mr. Pratchett looked towards her with his heavy eyes.
A heavy sigh comes from the wearied Mr. Pratchett as he responded with, "Mackie asked me questions when he pulled me into his adventure about that night, 'Does your daughter cry a lot?' And I answered that she didn't, Jenny never cried much when she was a baby. Her mother always checked her when she was in her crib, because she was so quiet. Then he asks, 'That night, when your wife died, how did your daughter cry?' I looked at him with confusion. I told him, Jenny started crying suddenly late night, and Matilda went to check on her. He elaborated and asked me, 'How did she sound when she was crying?' I thought back to that night and imagined her cries. Sounded like she had a nightmare, I thought, and that's what I told him. That's when he said, 'She wasn't crying because she was having a nightmare. She cried because she saw a nightmare,' and he told me that Matilda's aneurysm didn't come out of nowhere."
The Time Lord's convinced that the death wasn't natural causes as they thought, he believed that a silent intruder killed Matilda. Killed her in a way that nobody would've suspected as foul play, the only witness to the culprit being Jenny, as she sensed the unseen presence.
Her panicked cries alerted her mother and when she went to tend to Jenny, she unknowingly walked into her death.
Understandably, Mr. Pratchett didn't believe him at first, until Mackie convinced him by asking him a question that sounded odd, but enough for Mr. Pratchett to search for an answer.
Mackie asked him if his wife wore anything when she went to bed and Mr. Pratchett told him that he'd bought an emerald necklace for her for their anniversary. She'd wear it to bed more than once.
"Was she wearing it when she went to check on her?" Mackie asked the skeptical Mr. Pratchett.
Thinking back, Mr. Pratchett said she was, and then Mackie asked if she was wearing it when he found her body.
It seemed like an odd question, but the more Mr. Pratchett thought about it, he remembered that when he was fumbling with her body, trying to find a pulse, desperate as he cried out her name, but he didn't see her necklace anywhere.
He was sure she wore it to bed, it wasn't in her jewelry box, it wasn't lying in the hallway, and investigators looked top to bottom for it, unable to find it.
The investigators certain that Mr. Pratchett's mistaken, but he wasn't, he knew his wife's necklace from anywhere, and it was nowhere in their home.
The revelation's enough for him to believe Mackie.
"Who killed my wife?" Mr. Pratchett asked Mackie the question as he's incensed that somebody would've laid a hand on her, but Mackie wouldn't tell him anything about her killer.
Fear in his eyes, Mackie warned him that he couldn't tell him anything, out of fear, and so, Mr. Pratchett aided him in silence.
Only at the end, did the Time Lord finally tell him, the person Mackie looked for's the one who killed Mr. Pratchett's wife.
"Are you going to kill him?" Mr. Pratchett asks him as he wanted justice and Mackie reluctantly said that he's not sure if he can, but he'll try, it's the only way he knew how.
However, Mr. Pratchett didn't know if Mackie successfully killed him, no way to check, and that's all he knew.
He only wanted to protect Jenny from her mother's killer if he wasn't dead like Mackie hoped and that's what he's doing, by trying to keep David at bay, for fear that his antics would've encouraged the reappearance.
"But, why would he kill your wife in the first place?" Lila speaks up as she followed along with the story as Mr. Pratchett started pacing around the console room, looking around, seeing how different it looked compared to when he used it sometime ago.
Frowning, Mr. Pratchett replied that Mackie told him it's because he was the Doctor, that's why she was killed.
"That's why you two should stop being the Doctor, while you're still alive," Mr. Pratchett looked between Theodore and David.