The Red Cliff Community Centre offered free prenatal and infant care classes for eight weeks at a time, at six o'clock on Thursdays. In theory, the municipal government could provide courses on the gestation, birth or hatching, and infant care of any sapient species living on Darillium. In practice, Red Cliff's prenatal classes reflected the same fifty-fifty split as the city of Spera itself. In Room 111, an arthropodan class catered to Malmooth parents-to-be. In Room 112, the mammalian class was comprised almost entirely of humans.

It was five minutes to six. The other soon-to-be parents had all drifted into their classrooms to chitchat over complimentary snacks. One mate of a pregnant human lingered alone in the corridor, examining a display of artwork by members of the Red Cliff After School Club. MY HOME & FAMILY, announced a bubble-lettered header.

The Doctor studied the drawings with furrowed brows and a knuckle against his lips.

River poked her head out of Room 112. "Doctor," she sighed. "Do come in and at least try to be social."

River was on a mission to befriend the other parents. She said they'd be 'good mutual support.' The Doctor didn't understand it. They already had plenty of support lined up. Ramon and Nardole had agreed to be their child's godfathers. And as long as there were university students looking for easy extra credit from Dr. Smith or Dr. Song, they'd never be short on babysitters.

"Doctor, did you hear me?"

"Look at all these skies, scribbled in all black," he said, gesturing over the children's drawings. "They must run through black crayons faster than Kleenex around here. Unless they stockpile their unused black crayons from the dayside years…"

"The Diallos brought a lovely fruit salad," River offered.

"Most of these artists have a very poor grasp of the relative sizes and positions of Darillium's moons."

"That's because they're five to ten years old, sweetie. Listen. It's Bathing and Changing Week. We have to pair up at the workstations." River lowered her voice and gritted her teeth. "I do not want to get stuck with the Evans-Nguyens again…"

"Look, this one's made Rillan green. Even a five-year-old should know that Rillan is gray! Do you suppose it's a statement of some kind? A call to terraforming?"

"I think the artist's intended statement was 'I like the color green'," said River. "Sweetie-"

"Yes, I heard you. Fruit salad. Table partners. Got it." He turned and followed her into the classroom.

The Doctor had just grabbed a bowl of fruit salad when they were accosted by a pair of smiling classmates, both women. Like most of the class, they'd stopped wearing their nametags after the first week. While the Doctor couldn't remember their names, he certainly remembered them. He'd mentally dubbed them 'The Tummy Toucher' and 'The Tummy Toucher's Wife.'

He edged his way to safety on the far side of the table, while the Tummy Toucher greeted River with cheek kisses. Sure enough, she deftly escalated to putting her hands on River's bump.

"River, honey!" she cooed.

"Kiki, darling," River replied, lifting her classmate's hands off her middle. "How are you and Bree?"

"Oh, just strolling down Baby Boulevard!" Kiki trilled. Bree nodded along. "How about you and your 'Doctor'?"

"Oh you know, busy with midterms-"

"And how's my Avereigh's future best friend?" Kiki reached for River's tummy again. "How many weeks are we now?"

"Erm, twenty-four I think-"

"Twenty-four weeks!" Kiki squealed, as River once again pulled Kiki's hands off her. "Gosh, no wonder you're getting so massive! Baby girl's about the size of a cantaloupe now!"

The Doctor gagged on his diced cantaloupe. The three women turned and stared as he pulled a face, spit out the fruit, and dropped the bowl in a nearby bin. Kiki looked at him as if he'd grown an extra head, Bree as if she'd only just noticed he was there, and River as if she couldn't decide whether to kill him or to laugh.

"Why do you keep doing that?" he asked Kiki. "Comparing fetuses to food? Those three-" he gestured to a married triad whose names he couldn't remember. "Last week I heard you call their baby a head of cauliflower. Do you know what kind of mental image that evokes? You're putting us off fruits and vegetables, right when half of us are supposed to be eating more of them!"

"Alright, everyone!" called their teacher, Mrs. Singh. She clapped her hands a few times to tamp down the din. "Welcome to our class on bathing and changing! You'll find four tables set with dolls, basins, and supplies. Take a seat: two pregnant parents and their partners per table, please."

Kiki and Bree gave River and the Doctor a weird look, before grabbing a table with the Cauliflower Triad.

"Well at least we're not stuck with them again," River muttered. "So thanks for that, honey."

"Oh. Are those the Evans-Nguyens?"

"Yes. Kiki and Bree Evans-Nguyen."

"Why do you want to make friends with them?" he asked. River frantically motioned for him to keep his voice down.

"I don't. But I'd rather not make them our enemies while we make friends with someone else," she hissed.

They ended up at the back of the room with the Diallos. The Doctor knew it was the Diallos, because they were the only students besides River and himself who still wore their nametags. Sky Diallo (they/them) was a short, pregnant human with cobalt-blue hair, slip-on trainers and a very comfy-looking oversized hoodie. Their husband Chenru (he/him) was a tall, greenish-blue Malmooth in a cardigan and glasses. As far as most of the class knew, he was the only non-human in the room.

Interspecies marriage was legal on Darillium, and nominally accepted. But it was still outside the norm. If the Doctor had to guess, Chenru was probably the reason that most of their classmates kept the Diallos at arm's length. The social exclusion was bad enough for even him to notice. The Diallos ended up at the back of the room week after week, and Sky's baby bump was the only one that Kiki Evans-Nguyen hadn't forced her hands upon.

The Doctor was secretly glad that they were several millennia too early for the Malmooth custom of starting and ending every utterance with fragments of one's own name. But even if they hadn't been, he still would have rather shared a workstation with the Diallos than the Evans-Nguyens. He decided to try being friendly with them.

"Hello again Chenru, Sky. Thanks for the fruit salad. I really was enjoying it before, well-" he cocked his head towards the Evans-Nguyens' table. Sky stifled a giggle.

"Did you do that on our account?" asked Chenru. His mandibles twitched in a way that, after three years of having Malmooth colleagues and neighbors, the Doctor recognized as nervousness.

"Do what?" he asked.

"He really didn't," said River. "He doesn't pay attention to drama."

"I do if it's any good. Remember Shakespeare in Stasis at the Cavern Theatre last month? I hung on every word. Have you guys seen it yet?" he asked the Diallos.

"Not that kind of drama, sweetie," River intoned.

"It's nothing. Forget I said anything," Chenru smiled. Twitch, twitch, went his mandibles. "Shakespeare in Stasis? Sounds interesting."

Sky put a hand on their husband's arm. "It's not nothing. We should-"

"Is everyone situated?" Mrs. Singh asked loudly. "Lovely! Okay. All eyes on me, mums and dads. We'll start with a demonstration on how to test the bathwater temperature."

The Smith-Songs and the Diallos passed a pleasant hour repeatedly washing, rinsing, and diapering a plastic doll. They asked after each other's careers, shared anecdotes of recent holidays. They even talked about the hair tie trick. Apparently, by the time Chenru finally talked Sky into buying some maternity clothes, they'd been using two hair ties on end to fasten their favorite jeans.

After class, the four of them loitered by the snack table. Sky kept offering leftover fruit salad to the other expectant parents on their way out. The Doctor filled two small bowls with fruit for him and River to enjoy later. He wrapped them in seaweed cling wrap offered by Chenru, then put them in River's tote bag.

All the other parents politely declined the fruit.

They trailed their classmates into the corridor, where they joined the Malmooth parents from Room 111 on their way out of the building. Opposite the classroom doors, a half-wall opened into an aerial view of an indoor playground on the floor below. It was well past seven now, and the playground was bathed in the orange light of an artificial sunset. The wild games of tag and glowball had ended. The handful of kids left had tired themselves out. They sat or hung on the jungle gym, playing handheld games, trading digi-cards, even reciting ancient clapping rhymes with each other. Expectant parents- both human and Malmooth- looked down on the idyllic picture, rubbed their bellies or their egg sacs, and smiled to themselves.

"Thanks for not treating us any different," said Sky as the two couples walked together.

"You shouldn't have to thank us for that," River replied. "But- you're welcome."

"I'm sorry if I confused you earlier, Doctor," said Chenru. "It's just that… well, some people get weird about food around us. I thought maybe you'd taken it upon yourself to defend us."

"Defend you from what?"

"They never say it outright." Sky rolled their eyes. "Just pointed questions, weird looks. Behind our backs, we know certain people are thinking 'is he gonna eat their baby?' or 'is the baby gonna eat Sky after it's born?'"

"Wait," the Doctor frowned. "Are you saying that some people suspect Chenru of being an Ounmooth?"

The corridor grew quiet at the mere mention of the notorious, cannibalistic, and rightfully illegal Malmooth fringe group. Other parents of both species gave the Diallos and Smith-Songs a wider berth.

"Well, yeah. We all have that one racist uncle who suspects any Malmooth of being Ounmooth," Sky muttered.

"But that's just stupid," the Doctor scoffed. "Who ever heard of violent reactionaries turning up at suburban community centers with their cross-species spouses? Besides, we're centuries away from successful human-Malmooth surrogacy or hybridization. Clearly, your baby is one hundred percent human. The pheromones that the Ounmooth use to induce newborns to eat their own mothers wouldn't even work on your baby. This theory just gets stupider the further down you go!"

The entire corridor was listening now. There were murmurs of agreement from the Malmooth in the crowd. Most of the humans took a sudden interest in the linoleum floor. The Tummy Toucher waddled up the Diallos and Smith-Songs.

"Sky," she said. "River."

"Kiki," they both replied.

Kiki waddled off at top speed, nose in the air. River, Sky, Chenru, and even some of the onlookers burst out laughing. Sky nudged River playfully. "Something tells me your baby is no longer 'Avereigh's future best friend'!"

The Doctor fell back from the laughing crowd. He wondered how humans, with their practically nonexistent telepathic abilities, could use just the tone with which they said each other's names to carry out such elaborate social negotiations.

He leaned his elbows against the half-wall and his mouth against his fist. On the playground below, a young human dog-eared her paper book and left her solitary place on the swings. She approached a gaggle of children playing clapping games. The Doctor didn't hear her request to join, or the children's rejection. But he heard the fallout of said rejection.

"No fair!" the girl with the book screeched. "You never let me play! No fair, no fair, no fair!"

The other children slowly backed away. It looked as if they'd done nothing wrong. Then again, it looked as if the girl with the book had done nothing to warrant their exclusion. At least, not before her outburst. It really didn't seem fair. The Doctor couldn't make sense of it.

He doubted the girl with the book could make sense of it, either.

He knew that his and River's child would be different from her human peers. She was 51 percent timelord, after all. But now he found himself hoping that she wouldn't be too… weird.

Different was one thing. Different was self-aware. Different could own itself, stand up for itself. Different was more likely to stand up for others, too. Different was good. But weird… Weird was proto-different. Weird was naïve, hapless. Weird was landing on the wrong side of subconscious primate groupthink, and the next thing you knew, no one came to your birthday party.

Their child would inherit many traits from both her parents, especially in her first body. What if she inherited her father's difficulty with human faces and voices? What if she talked too much like him, moved too much like him? What if the other children somehow sensed her differences, before she was even fully aware of them herself?

He didn't want her to be lonely. Especially not as a child. He wanted her to be happy, at least for awhile. Because by the time the sun came up over the city of Spera, she would face a terrible loss…

He felt a light touch on his back. He nearly bit his knuckle. He spun around, wide-eyed. The other expectant parents were all on their way out the door. Only River was here with him now.

"It's official!" she said. "We're 'new parent friends' with the Diallos, and everyone else can sod off."

He nodded, his one hand still tight to his mouth. He found he couldn't look River in the eye, or even her face. The closest he could get was her colorful, casual necklace, where it rested on her collarbones.

"Doctor, are you alright?"

He nodded again. She put her hands on her hips, unconvinced. If only he could say "yes" aloud, maybe she'd believe him. But right now all the words were stuck…

"I'm sorry," she said. "I shouldn't have pushed you to try and make friends… Here."

She took his free hand and moved it to her belly. She held both her hands firmly over his. She knew he preferred a pressured touch, especially in moments like these. But she had another reason, too. For weeks now, they'd been waiting for him to feel movement. She made sure he pressed down just enough so that maybe, hopefully, this time…

There it was! The slightest ripple beneath his hand. That was the baby. Their baby. The Doctor gasped a quiet laugh. His other hand fell from his mouth and floated down to River's belly on its own accord.

"There she is," River whispered. "Hello, Dad."

For a moment they just stood there, both smiling down at River's bump. Not caring if anyone walked by and saw, or what anyone might think. A pair of happy idiots in their own little world.

"She already knows that we love her," River said. "That's what matters. Not what she's like, or who she plays with on the playground. She will be happy, Doctor. Because she'll know that she's loved."