A/N: The following takes place when the twins are around three years old, post-events from the "James Can Read" chapter (ch.20). Also, I know very little about music and apologize in advance.

Twenty-Six

The Doctor listened carefully as he sat on the console room steps, strumming the guitar as he tuned it. He was usually a deft hand at it, putting an instrument into perfect pitch in no time flat, although today… today he had a couple beings that were getting in the way.

"Daddy! Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!" James and Alison screeched as they ran out of the corridor and over to him. Their arms were spread wide like wings as they pretended to be flying through the air like wee airplanes. The preschoolers crash-landed onto their father's back, flinging their arms around his neck in a hug.

"I thought I told you two it was time to quietly read," the Doctor muttered.

"We don't want to read! We want to play!" Alison declared.

"Can we go see Jenny?" James asked. "Mr. Gordon-Fletcher makes yummy biscuits, even if he does call them cookies."

"Yeah! And if we can't see Jenny, we can go see Lucy and Mr. Rigsy!"

"Hold on there, kids," the Doctor said. He rested his guitar against the stair railing and stood, children clinging to his back and shoulders as he did so. "Dad said it was time to read, so therefore we're going to read."

The twins whined in chorus as their father walked through Auntie Idris, carrying them back to the library. When the two were born, it was with the closest the ship could come to glee did she put together a new children's section, complete with picture books and simple sentences and everything they would need from small babies to beginner readers. Sometimes they took books back to the nursery, and sometimes the books in the nursery switched themselves out for new ones, but it was still one of the things that the TARDIS truly enjoyed. The Doctor found the children's bean bags and pried them off, dumping his daughter on the green one and his son on the yellow.

"Now read," he ordered. "Dad was in the middle of something."

"Mummy always intermupts you and your guitar," Alison reasoned.

"I know, which is why I'm tuning it now instead of when she's here. This way I can play for her when she's home for the weekend."

"Your music is dumb though."

"Alison Joan, watch your mouth."

"But Daddy! She's right!" James insisted. "Your music is… is…" He paused in search of a word, which the TARDIS hummed in reply. "Yeah! A-throw-suss!"

Conspiring; they were all conspiring against him, that's what they were. What good was raising children inside a sentient space-time ship if he couldn't have half an hour to himself every once in a while?

Oh, yeah, because Clara would find out and she'd lecture him about how Alison and James were still children and needed to be watched over by someone with corporeal hands to snatch them up with.

"How about if the two of you try to play an instrument?" the Doctor frowned. "I bet you'll find out it's not that easy."

"I don't wanna," Alison pouted.

"Fine—then this means that I win."

"No you don't! That's not fair!"

"It is too, young lady. Now, back to your reading."

"I can barely read!"

"Daddy? Can you teach us how to play an instrument?" James wondered. "If we play good, that means we win, yeah?"

"It could," the Doctor shrugged. "Would the two of you like to try?"

While the twins usually did enjoy learning something new, it was the fact that they could win against Daddy that made their eyes sparkle in anticipation. They jumped up from the beanbags and began to bounce around as they overflowed in excitement.

"Then follow me," their father said.

He took them each by a hand and began walking through the ship, eventually finding a room the twins had never been in before. It had many, many different kinds of musical instruments, including many the kids hadn't seen before. Staring at the dust-caked chunks of brass and wood and whatever else there was, it was almost intimidating seeing pieces larger than they were.

"I think we'll start the two of you out small, though not too small. Met a man once who insisted kids your age start out on the small stuff." The Doctor searched through the instruments until he found a plastic recorder and a tiny violin. He held them up triumphantly, approaching his kids with a grin plastered over his face. "Alright, who wants what?"

"Oooh! I'll take the violin!" Alison gasped. She jumped up and down, attempting to reach the instrument as she opened and closed her hands. "I want it, Daddy!"

"Ooh! That means I get this one!" James said, reaching for the recorder. The Doctor handed the twins their new instruments and couldn't help but chuckle.

If Clara found his playing atrocious, then she was going to be in for a surprise.

Later that week, Clara returned to her flat to find the TARDIS dutifully-parked in its designated spot in her bedroom—just what she needed after a long, aggravating week at work. She had been proctoring exams for five days straight and all she wanted was to snuggle with her space-husband while their children did their best to make her laugh. After dumping her marking on the floor of the console room, she wandered through the ship, using the path made by the corridors' baseboard lighting to find where her family had run off to this time. She eventually found them in the study, the kids curled into either side of their father while he was reading to them from a book much too advanced to read on their own.

"Mummy!" the twins shouted when they saw her. They abandoned the story without so much as a second thought, sliding off the couch and running over to her. Clara knelt down and hugged them both, feeling her energy return with their hugs and kisses.

"There's my darlings," she cooed. "How was this week with Daddy?"

"We can play music now!" Alison announced. Clara blinked in surprise.

"Music? Really?" She glanced at the Doctor, who was now standing with his hands in his trouser pockets. "I thought we agreed that they wouldn't start learning a musical instrument until after they started utilizing the learning docks."

"Just a bit of fun to get them used to the idea—get your instruments, kids!" The Doctor clapped his hands and the preschoolers ran off, giving their parents time alone. "There's no harm in it."

"I didn't say there was any harm in it; I just want to make sure that you're not making major decisions without consulting me first," Clara said. She closed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around his middle, resting her forehead on his chest. "Missed you."

"And I missed you… but at least I have the privilege of the children."

"Lucky bastard," she teased. They then kissed, reacquainting themselves with the other's taste, only to be interrupted by the tykes returning with their instruments.

"Kissy-faces later, Mummy!" Alison scolded. She held up her child-sized violin, presenting it to her mother. "See? Daddy found us instruments!"

"He said we can change later if we don't like them," James added. "Wanna hear us play?"

"Of course," Clara said. She and the Doctor then sat down on the couch together, waiting for the impromptu concert.

What came out of the instruments sounded like a tune, though how Clara's ears didn't spontaneously begin to bleed was beyond her.

"Okay—that's enough!" she shouted over the noise once she couldn't take it anymore. "It sounds like you're coming along nicely."

"Good!" James grinned. He put his recorder down on the low table by a chair and hopped onto the couch between his parents. "Can we continue with the story now?"

"Oh, yeah, Daddy was reading to us!" Alison remembered. She left her violin with the recorder and found the Doctor's free side, both children cuddling in close, not wanting to miss a thing. He took the book from his pocket and opened it to the page where they'd left off, giving Clara a smile in the meantime.

A/N: For this story's sake, The Return of Doctor Mysterio was a Twelve-Clara adventure from before the twins came into being. There were weird time-disturbances preventing the TARDIS from always materializing in New York City, blah, blah, blah, something about the Williams-Ponds that would make me sob like a baby, blah, blah, Clara your degree is in children pls help. (It was English/Literature, yeah, but you get the joke.) Then voila! You get a new friend for the Time Twins who you can also imply has a stay-at-home-dad (the Doctor, Grant, and Rigsy are the best okay (yes Rigsy counts)).