#Twelve is a good dad he just doesn't want to fck up

[nehswritesstuffs]

Getting the hang of things: Clara is out for the week and it falls on daddy 12 to give the twins “The Talk”. He calls Clara to ask him for advice and he makes some notecards and it goes about as awkward as you would expect. When Clara gets back the kids have far more questions than before based on some interesting things that daddy 12 decided to add onto “The Talk”. Later 12 and Clara have a laugh before “turning in for the night”.

I absolutely love this because it is so mortifying there is no option but failure.

2331 words; makes use of some of the more infamous EU canon; I feel like if Twelve and Clara were raising kids like this, that this would be just absolutely blown-out-of-the-water awkward or not at all, only because you have two very different species you’d be dealing with even if on the surface their physiologies have minimal deviance from each other’s norms; no matter what, we’re dealing with Human/Extraterrestrial hybrids, so jury’s out as to what in the hell’s going on anyhow, so, yeah, your mileage is supposed to vary

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

It was a very normal day within the TARDIS as the Doctor carried his daughter like a sack of potatoes into the learning docks. She had long ago let her body go limp, having given up against her father’s iron grip. James followed close behind, as he was unsure of the situation—should he follow his father, or help his sister escape?

“If you don’t get in there, you’re never going to be where you need to by the time Mam puts you in school,” the Doctor scowled. He placed Alison on the floor and saw that her expression nearly matched his own in irritation. “What’s with that face?”

“We’re already ahead of where sixth-formers are, and we’re only eight,” Alison argued. “Can’t we go and ignore the learning docks for a bit?”

“No—you’re well beyond sixth-form in basics like maths, sciences, language, and the like, but you’re not going to be in subjects that are decidedly Earthen in nature.”

“…like…?”

Her obstinate ways knew no bounds… but then again, it wasn’t as though he could complain, since she learned from the best after all…

“History and literature, for two,” he reminded her. “As much information as I programmed into the docks, there’s only so much knowledge that I can give it. You need the perspectives of a variety of Earthen sources to be well-rounded in those topics, which is what you’ll get when you start at Coal Hill. In the meantime…”

Alison groaned loudly as she dramatically flopped down on the chair and sourly turned on the equipment. The Doctor then turned his attention to his son, with the boy fidgeting nervously.

“What’s the matter now?” he asked, trying to be as gentle as possible. James shrugged.

“There’s not a lot of sciences either,” the boy stated. “Biology has lots of gaps.”

“Nonsense—what kind of gaps?”

“How more animals happen,” James said. “The docks will tell us about an animal’s behavior and its habitat and its diet, but nothing about baby animals without anything about the replication mechanisms. Why is that?”

Both of the Doctor’s hearts skipped a beat and he tried not to outwardly grimace. “I’ll make sure to look into it—must’ve been something that got jumbled between you and the last person who used it.”

“Ace, right?” James asked. “If she was like your daughter, did you adopt her? Does that make her our sister? Is she our sister? When can we meet our sister?”

“We’ll talk about that once you get to temporal schisms and their relationships with the fifth dimension,” the Doctor insisted. He guided the boy over to his learning dock and sat him down. “It’s way too complicated an answer for me to tell you before then, and I don’t want you to feel bad because there’s something you don’t understand, or that there is an additional concept that needs explaining with varying amounts of other context. You’re not stupid, and explaining now when you don’t have that foundation might risk you feeling that way.”

“Are you sure this isn’t you avoiding the topic?”

“I’m sure; now get in.” The Doctor helped his son turn on the learning dock and he left the room, heading back to the study where he had several books waiting for him.

Ah, yes, books—that would certainly distract him from the matter at-hand. It was true that he needed to make sure that the docks were in full working order—what else did his demolitions-daughter put behind a firewall—but at the same time…

…he needed to have The Talk with his children.

They were bright, clever, brilliant wee things, so there was the chance that they somehow figured it out already, but at the same time, there was nothing telling him that they had either. It was a thing that he dreaded, and hoped that at least the learning docks would take care of, or—if anything—Clara would be there to help. He tried distracting himself with a book and it simply wasn’t sticking… he needed to talk to Clara. Pulling the mobile from his pocket, he fired off a text, hoping it was well-received.

A moment passed and the mobile rang, the sudden noise causing the Doctor to fall off the couch.

“Clara!”

“What’s going on?” she wondered on the other end of the line. It sounded like she was echoing in the mobile speaker—she must have stepped into a stairwell. “All you said was ‘it was asked’ and that was it. That’s cryptic, even for you.”

“The learning docks have apparently been withholding information about animal reproduction from the children, and I just got asked why. Blamed it on Ace for the time being, but I don’t know what to do about it now that it’s out.”

Clara chuckled on the other end. “So what you’re saying is that you stumbled into needing to have The Talk with the kids?”

“Do I have to?”

“You’re the parent that ended up getting asked, so you’re the one who needs to follow up,” she replied in bemusement. “I can help with anything else from a Human perspective when I get back, but otherwise you’re on your own. Chances are they won’t wait until Mum’s home to start asking more questions, and we want them to feel like they can go to either of us for answers or advice, right…?”

“…but Clara…”

“What…? Is the big, bad Time Lord afraid of some birds and bees? I’ve helped teach sex ed—it’s not that bad.”

“Then can it wait until the weekend?”

“Don’t be so terrified—they won’t bite.” The Doctor placed one of the throw pillows from the couch over his head and audibly groaned. “Stop being such a baby… you can make flashcards for this, you know. It won’t be that bad.”

“I wasn’t the one to do it before,” he replied quietly. “The Academy took care of that. This isn’t exactly something that I’ve had a lot of practice in.”

“…despite the very sexy Dad Skills…?”

“Yes, despite the terribly sexy Dad Skills.” He shifted onto his side and curled up. “I’m scared, Clara. What if they don’t wait until you’re in for the weekend?”

“You’ll be perfectly fine,” she assured him. “In fact, I’m sure you’ll be nothing short of brilliant. I wouldn't trust my children with anything or anyone less.”

The Doctor stayed silent for a moment, taking strength from the fact that they were, in a way, together in that moment. That was right; she never would be with him, never leave the twins with him, if she didn't trust his judgement explicitly.

“I’ll report back tonight, yeah?”

“There’s a good lad—I’ll call you then.”

“Okay.”

The call ended and the Doctor felt as though he was going to be sick—he wasn’t prepared for this in the slightest.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

“Hey Dad… did you look into the learning dock programming?”

The Doctor glanced across the dinner table at his son and felt a shiver go down his spine. He was hoping that the boy had forgotten their conversation from the morning, but it was not meant to be, apparently.

“What about specifically?”

“You said you were going to look into why it doesn’t show anything about baby animals,” James noted. Alison gasped.

“We can learn about baby animals?!” she gasped. “I love baby animals!”

“About that…” The Doctor began to rifle through his pockets, searching for the flashcards he’d just made up that afternoon. “In order to learn about baby animals, we need to first talk about how baby animals are made.”

“Well, yeah, we know that,” Alison scoffed. Her father almost dropped his pile of index cards onto the floor.

“...you do…?”

“Of course we do,” James said. “When a Mum and Dad love one another, she eats a lot and gets a big belly and then that becomes a baby.”

“Yeah, though sometimes it’s two mums or two dads, and when that happens, they either find a kid to adopt, or they go to a house where there are spare babies for sale,” Alison added. “Is that where loom-born come from?”

The Doctor suddenly knew he was in way over his head. “How do you know about the loom-born?”

“Sometimes the learning docks mention that someone from Gallifrey was loom-born,” she shrugged. “That’s how you get adopted babies, right? Have them loomed instead of growing it in a lady-person?”

“Have they made looms big enough to make twins like us or are they all one at a time?”

“Do people start off having a mum and dad, but then one of them regenerates and then there’s two? Does that turn them into loom-born? How can you tell the difference from someone who was grown from their mum and someone who came from a looming agency?”

“How do babies come out? Do they come out of the belly button? Is that what it’s for? Why do you have a belly button if we came out of Mum? Is it a vest… vemst… vemstigimul…?”

“...vestigial, son…”

“Yeah! A vestigial thing!”

“That’s like Mum’s appendix, right?”

“Okay, okay, enough, enough,” the Doctor sighed. “Now listen: there’s a lot of things we need to go over when it comes to this, so let’s clean up our plates and head on over into the study. I’ve got slides for this.”

“A slideshow?!” the kids gasped.

“Yeah… a slideshow…” The Doctor felt a weight drop in his stomach as the twins hurriedly finished their food and began clearing their dishes. He had been hoping that there wouldn’t be any questions for him until Clara got back, and yet… no such luck.

It was time to talk about baby animals, he guessed.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

A few days passed and Friday eventually came. Clara stepped into her flat after work to find that the TARDIS was already there, silently keeping watch in the corner of her sitting room. She gave the wooden door a respectful pat before pushing open the door, heading inside to find her family. Once divested of her marking in the console room, she began to wander the corridors in search of her trio of extraterrestrials, popping her head into individual rooms for a bit before glancing up at the ceiling and frowning.

“Okay, I give up: where are they?”

The TARDIS hummed and acquiesced, guiding Clara to the classroom. The learning docks were empty, though it did not mean that the room was unoccupied, as the twins were sitting at their desks while the Doctor was at the chalkboard, a diagram of the cross-section of a chicken egg having been hastily drawn upon it.

“How are my favorite primary-schoolers?” Clara chuckled. Her family all snapped their attention towards her, the twins rushing up to her for hugs while their father breathed a sigh of relief.

“Mum! We’re learning about baby animals!” Alison squeaked.

“Yeah! The learning docks had a malfunction, so we’re learning about them from Dad instead!” James added. “He showed us Gallifreyanoids first, and then other animals like kittens and puppies, and now we’re learning about lizards and baby chicks!”

“That sounds like a lot of things to learn,” Clara noted. She glanced at the Doctor, who was getting pink in the face. “Have they been good students?”

“Good enough to where I think they’ve earned a break while Mam and Dad put dinner together,” he replied. The kids both gasped in excitement and ran out of the room, determined to get in as much as they could before dinner. This left their parents alone, their mother approaching their father, putting her arms around his waist in a hug as he leaned into her.

“See? Was that so bad?” she chuckled.

“Clara, my blood pressure is high enough as it is—I didn’t need to do that by myself.”

“...but it wasn’t something they simply let sit until I got back, now was it?”

“No… you’re right…” He kissed the top of her head as he returned the embrace. “I don’t know how much more of that I could have done.”

“You make it sound like it was one of the most difficult things you’ve ever done. I know it’s hard… but…” At that point, Alison poked her head back into the classroom, cutting her mother off. “Yes, Aly?”

“I have a question about when Dad was telling us about Gallifreyanoids and how they make babies,” the girl stated. Clara let go of the Doctor and gave their daughter her full attention.

“What’s that?”

“I need to know: do people on Earth have looms too?” Alison wondered. “Dad said that Humans don’t have looms, but I want to make sure that it’s just not something he doesn’t know about, since he knows a lot, but not about everything.”

“Looms…?” Clara glanced at the Doctor, who looked like he was going to faint in mortification. “There are looms on Earth, but they’re the kind for making cloth, not the kind for creating babies.”

“Oh…” Alison seemed to ponder that for a moment before nodding. “I didn’t think so. That means that when Madam Vastra and Missy Jenny want to raise kids, they have no choice but send Mister Strax to the baby store and find one on sale, right? Mister Strax loves things on sale.”

“...if Madam Vastra and Miss Jenny want to even raise children at all,” Clara explained. “Sometimes, people don’t want to raise children, or they can’t afford to do so, or they would much rather be sitters. There’s lots of ways that can happen.”

“I guess…” Alison shrugged before turning around and running out the door, presumably to wherever it was her brother had run off to, leaving her parents alone again. Clara looked at the Doctor again and chuckled.

“At least it happened this way instead of them walking in on us turning in for the night,” she reminded him. He shuddered at that and followed her out into the corridor—anything but that.