Arcadia's Family (Book THREE)

Stories in the End

Phina:

Oh, my twins... They were so big now. The Doctor hated being without me, and seeing me so lost on Earth so he'd left it for a while, and now... They were about 7. But it was also Clara's turn to chose where we were going. "Take a punt."

"Right."

I smiled at her from the chair as I cuddled the twins. "Your choice. Wherever, whenever, anywhere in time and space. As long as we're home in time for bath and bed, no arguments, S-J, Cadia."

"Well, there is something, someone that I've always wanted to meet." Clara said carefully. "But I know what you'll say."

"Try us."

She looked really nervous, especially about what I'd say. "You'll say he's made up, that there is no such thing."

Well, we couldn't say anything until you she said who it was. "Go on."

"It's. It's Robin Hood." 

Oh, come on! "Robin Hood."

She nodded, going up to where my husband was on the gallery. "Yeah. I love that story. I've always loved it, ever since I was little." Well, I loved Pandora's Box, and then we found out that was real.

"Robin Hood, the heroic outlaw, who robs from the rich and gives to the poor." Clara nodded hopefully. "He's made up. There's no such thing."

The Doctor took a book from the bookcase. "Old-fashioned heroes only exist in old-fashioned story books, Clara."

"Daddy, he could be real." We both looked at Sarah Jane, the little one who spoke all the time, while Cadia was as shy as I was as Alice. "You never know."

Clara bent down and picked up her little Goddaughter and rested her on her hip, though she was already getting big. "And what about you, Doctor, Phi?"

Wait, what? "Us?"

"Yeah, you. You stop bad things happening every minute of every day and still make it home for baths and bed, and marking. That sounds pretty heroic to me."

The Doctor licked some yoghurt from a large, metal spoon, and looked like he was enjoying it and I had a small pang for fish custard, bacon, beans and apples, right back from the beginning. Amelia and Alycea. "Just passing the time. Hey, what about Mars?"

"What?!"

Actually that sounded pretty good. "The Ice Warrior Hives."

"You said it was my choice."

"Or the Tumescent Arrows of the Half-Light." No, no drinking, we had the twins and we didn't need a conga line with them watching. "Those girls can hold their drink."

"Doctor. Seraphina."

He kinda refused to stop giving other ideas. "And fracture fifteen different levels of reality simultaneously. I think I've got a Polaroid somewhere."

"Doctor! My choice. Robin Hood. Show me."

We went back down to the console and I let the twins have a go, carefully explaining any mistakes they made to them, and they got us there in one piece, more than could have been said to my husband whenever he tried this. "Earth. England. Sherwood Forest. 1190AD. Ish. But you'll only be disappointed."

I shuffled Clara, the twins and myself off to the wardrobe, changing quickly before we made it out as my husband was being borderline attacked by a guy with a bow and arrow. Eh, they were too hit and miss with aiming. "Might be a little bit much, but what do you reckon, Dove?"

"By all the saints." The man breathed, staring at Clara and I, while S-J frowned at the bow. Oh no, no, no, don't even think about it. No telekinesis. "Are there any more in there? Not the children, the damsels."