A/N: This chapter takes place when the twins are able to crawl, but walking hasn't quite started to happen yet.

"Alison Joan, you take that back or you will bite soap," the Doctor warned. His daughter babbled again and he scowled. "I mean it—as soon as your teeth come in, you will be getting a fresh bar shoved right in there."

"Doctor, please," Clara sighed. She picked Alison up off the floor and bounced her in her arms. The Doctor had been charged with watching the children while she had a soak, and it was all well and fine normally, except he was speaking Baby again, which was really rather silly. He should have been concerned with the fact James was attempting to scale his back using his hoodie, yet instead Alison was distracting him with her incoherent mimicry of sounds.

"She was saying I'm an old fuddy-duddy!" he said, standing up. He blinked in surprise and silently mouthed the word before repeating it. "Fuddy-duddy… huh… must be the swear filter again…"

"Where's James?"

"I dunno; he was around here somewhere…" The Doctor turned to look at the mound of stuffed animals and pillows, which was where his son often was, only for his space-wife to discover that the boy was sitting happily in the hood of his father's sweatshirt. She rescued him (which he was rather upset about), after which the Doctor turned back around and looked at her sheepishly.

"If you're so fluent in Baby, then why don't you teach them how to behave?"

"It's a steep, uphill battle when your daughter has a sassy streak and your son hides whenever he can!" he protested.

"Uh-huh… you can't speak Baby. Admit it—you've been guessing because of your psychic abilities."

"I can too speak baby… it's a complex system of babbles and coos that has syntax and irregularities and all the functions of any other sentient language! You'd be amazed at the massive vocabulary they've developed…!"

"Doctor, I'm not hearing any more of this now, because it's time for their bath," Clara said firmly. She carried the children out of the nursery and towards the bathroom, where the TARDIS already had laid out soaps, towels, baby-sized pajamas, and even filled the tub with a one-to-seven ratio of the perfect-temperature bathwater and fluffy bubbles.

Clara knelt down next to the tub and put her babies down, first attempting to get Alison out of her overalls. This allowed James to make a break for it, zooming towards the corridor, only to be snatched up by the Doctor instead.

"None of that now; when Mam says it's bathtime, that means bathtime," he gently scolded. He took care of undressing James, putting him in the bath next to Alison when he was done and had rolled up his sleeves. The babies stared at one another before waving their pudgy arms around and playing in the lavender-scented bubbles.

"Hold still," Clara insisted. She held Alison by the arm to get her to hold still long enough to wet her hair, yet the girl was too wiggly. The feat was accomplished by the mother eventually grabbing a small cup from the edge of the tub and using that to pour soapy water right over her daughter's head. This made Alison freeze in surprise, ending in a jagged sob as the deluge stopped.

"Mam did tell you so," the Doctor said. Alison glared at him, still crying, which made her father scoff. "The shampoo says 'no tears', so I don't want to hear it."

"It says 'no tears', as in 'no tearing their hair out', not tears as in 'crying their eyes out'," Clara interrupted. The Doctor grabbed the bottle and furrowed his brow, inspecting it carefully.

"It amazes me how the TARDIS makes sense of English sometimes—this won't do at all," he scowled. Getting up off his knees, he went into the cupboard and began rummaging around, pulling out a bottle with an oddly-sweet smell to it before kneeling back down next to the tub. "Use this."

"Are you sure?" Clara wondered. She couldn't read the Gallifreyan on the bottle, but by the time she looked back at the Doctor, he had already taken a gob of it (how he got it, she did not know) and was running it over James's hair.

"This is a no-crying formula," he said. Once he cupped some water in his hands and used it to rinse the shampoo off James, he took some bubbles and placed them on the boy's head and face, giving him a mohawk and goatee. "Now don't you look silly?"

Clara shrugged and began using the shampoo, careful not to get any in Alison's eyes, or press down too firmly on the soft spot of her head, and washed her daughter's hair. Silky soft and smooth, she hoped the girl's hair would stay like that instead of needing all the conditioner and products she herself needed in order to simply keep her hair looking healthy, let alone prevent it from growing brittle. Maybe it would come from her father's side of things… she could hope.

Eventually, the children were washed and began to wobble as they sat in the near bubble-devoid tub. Their parents lifted them out, dried them, put on fresh nappies and footed pajamas, and carried them back to the nursery. They made soft noises as they were put down, making their father's eyes well up.

"What is it?" Clara asked. Instead of replying verbally, he put his pointer fingers on her temples, connecting her mind with his, which was in turn connected to the children's.

'Good night Mummy. Good night Daddy. We love you.'

Chuckling in an attempt to not cry, Clara hugged the Doctor around his middle, pressing her face into his jumper. "No fair; you've been holding out on me."

"You hear it in your heart though, don't you?" he said. He rubbed her back and kissed the top of her head. "A mother knows it, a father knows it, whether they're telepathic or not. They simply know."

"We do, don't we?" she laughed.

Gently, the Doctor took Clara's hand and led her towards the door connecting the nursery to their bedroom. When there, he helped her undress—pressing tender kisses to her cool skin—eventually sliding her nightgown over her head. He stripped down to his pants and joined her under the blankets. Wrapping her arms around him, she used his shoulder as a pillow while he made sure they were covered, snaking one arm under her and around her waist.

"Good night, Mam."

"Good night, Dad."