Learning to Live

Chapter 121

"Take a punt." The Doctor called out as he finished his thought process, playing around with Gallifreyan maths on his blackboard up on the gallery, frowning slightly as his son casually leant over and corrected one of his mistakes. Urgh, he was getting old well, he's been old for a long, long time now or he could lie about his age again knock off a thousand years or more and be young once more.

Or maybe his son was just smarter than him. Probably his son was just smarter than him, Thor was his mother's son after all and Morgana was the smartest woman he'd ever met, and the most beautiful and murderous...he shot her a love-struck look uncaring of how sappy he appeared in front of his kids and Clara couldn't see him.

Clara swung around on the easy chair the level below and raised an eyebrow at him just as he wiped his face clear of emotion "Right." She said blankly.

"Your choice. Wherever, whenever, anywhere in time and space." He expanded with a sigh, wasn't it clear what he was talking about? Looking over to his lovely wife she sent him an absent-minded smile, busy with a runic witch book he'd found for her. He should dig up those supposed witch tools that he'd found some hundred years ago.

"Well, there is something, someone that I've always wanted to meet. But I know what you'll say." Clara replied carefully, not wanting to be laughed at but also really wanting this to be real.

"Try me." The Doctor encouraged with a kind smile.

"You'll say he's made up, that there is no such thing," Clara said knowing just how...unfairytaleish this Doctor was, the eleventh Doctor was more open-minded and happy to go looking for fairies or spend three days traipsing through a woods looking for a unicorn.

This Doctor wasn't like that, he was more callous in a way, harsh and unforgiving.

"Go on." The Doctor rolled his eyes, honestly why was she being so reluctant?

"It's. It's Robin Hood." Clara gathered her courage and admitted.

"Robin Hood." He repeated blankly staring down at his companion in concern.

Morgana snickered in amusement "Really?"

Clara huffed and headed upstairs into the galley "Yeah. I love that story. I've always loved it, ever since I was little."

"Robin Hood, the heroic outlaw, who robs the rich and gives to the poor." The Doctor said hoping that he was describing someone else.

"Yeah." Clara nodded.

"He's made up." The Doctor explained, "There's no such thing."

"I don't recall ever meeting someone like that" Morgana added in her two cents "though I think I was stuck in the middle east during that time."

"Ah, you see?" Clara said pouting that neither one of them was willing to believe her.

"We've both lived a long time Clara" Morgana sighed as she flipped a page "most stories are just twisted truths, ninety-nine per cent of the time it turns out to be us"

"A good wizard who tricks the terrible evil and saves the Princess" The Doctor put in using the words River once used during the Pandorica debacle.

"Isn't mother usually saving you?" Loki questioned sitting cross-legged in front of his cauldron, throwing in some bones before stirring it, purple smoke billowing out.

"Yes," The Doctor admitted easily as he took a book from the bookcase, turning it over in his hands as he made his point to Clara.

"Old-fashioned heroes only exist in old-fashioned storybooks, Clara." He scolded her lightly putting the book back.