Arcadia's Family (Book THREE)

Just Listen

The Doctor:

Seraphina and Clara had the twins, staying in their little flat somehow, and I was worried that if I went to see them too soon, she would think that I was trying to take them away from her. Never. But I was alone, so alone.

And because of that, I started to talk to myself, and then, then I wondered about the that there could be someone else with me. That was never a good move, and I started to speak to this person. "Listen! "Question. Why do we talk out loud when we know we're alone?" I blew out a candle of Phi's. "Conjecture. Because we know we're not." I grabbed my chalk, started to write on the chalkboard. "Evolution perfects survival skills. There are perfect hunters." A lioness taking down a wildebeest to feed her young. Seraphina... "There is perfect defence." 

This time it was a puffer fish inflating out the spines. "Question. Why is there no such thing as perfect hiding? Answer. How would you know? Logically, if evolution were to perfect a creature whose primary skill were to hide from view, how could you know it existed?" I placed the chalk in an open book. "It could be with us every second and we would never know. How would you detect it, even sense it, except in those moments when, for no clear reason you choose to speak aloud? What would such a creature want? What would it do? Well? What would you do?"

That last word echoed around the TARDIS. The chalk is no longer where I left it. It rolled on the floor to my feet and I picked it up, then sees that what was written on the blackboard had been replaced by one word. Listen.

So I went to look for my wife, finding her reading to the twins as they went to bed, but they both scrambled out of bed when they saw me, hugging me. "Daddy!"

"SJ, Cadia, I'm so happy to see you. SJ, your hair is amazing, did mummy do that?" I asked her, not sure what I was saying, but she got annoyed when I didn't notice when her mother did notice. 

"Doctor, her hair is in a plait to stop it messing up while she sleeps." Phi sighed, shaking her head a little. "To what do I owe this honor?"

Oh, come on now. "Can I not come and see my amazing wife and children now?"

Phina folded her arms, her bright blue hair and gold eyes completely skeptical. "Doctor, you always have a reason behind everything. You missed parents evening for crying out loud. Sarah Jane has been levitating things in class, I've had to retcon her teacher twice!"

"SJ, you know what we spoke about. You use it to help us in the TARDIS or off world, and that is it. Arcadia, you haven't been walking through walls, have you?"

My son looked a little sheepish, his tufty violet hair getting a little too long now. "Only when a boy locked me in the cupboard, and there was no one else in the room."

"Baby, you never told me about that." Phi was on her knees in a moment, cupping our sons face in her small hand. "Why did the boy do that and why didn't you tell your teacher?"

"He told me that he'd hurt SJ if I told anyone." Cadia muttered, looking down.

Sarah Jane then walked over and took her brothers hand. "Well get him tomorrow. I know that he's scared of slugs, so I'll put one in his back during lunch." My daughter was just as strange yet protective as her parents. How Cadia turned out shy we'll never know.

"Doctor, why are you here, my Dove?" Phi asked me once we put them to bed. 7 year old Time Lords, perfect. "They're happy in school here, they like it. Well, they're telling me they are."

"I want you to come on an adventure with me."

"Doctor, you have got to be kidding me. I am not leaving them to go on some wild goose chase with you, because you stupidly left it to long for yourself."