Arcadia's Family (Book THREE)

Good Man, Bad Man

 But now we were waiting for him to go to sleep normally, to get into bed and rest, Vastra the only one brave enough to stay in a room with him. Jenny and were waiting outside the door though. "It's simply misunderstandable to me. I don't know what it is. Who invented this room?" He opened the door and we nearly fell in. The twins were in a large crib against the wall, asleep themselves, and Phi was in the bed, as peaceful as she was in the TARDIS. She was in a coma, according the scanner.

"Doctor, please, you have to lie down."

He just shook his head, pointing to where his wife was lying. "It doesn't make sense. Look, it's only got a bed in it. Why is there only a bed in it? Why's Seraphina in the bed already, why couldn't she stay in the TARDIS?"

I was going to hit him. "Because it's a bed room. It's for sleeping in. And she's in a coma, she needs to be monitored."

"Okay, what do you do when you're awake? And when she wakes up?"

Surely this was all obvious. "You leave the room."

"So you've got a whole room for not being awake in. But what's the point? You're just missing the room." He pointed to the mirror next to the twins. "And don't look in that mirror. It's absolutely furious. Plus, that's not the twins bed, they have a special one that Seraphina made."

"Doctor, please. You have to lie down. You keep passing out."

"Well, of course I keep passing out. There's all these beds." Then he looked right at me. "Why do you keep talking like that? What's gone wrong with your accent? Why-"

Jenny came to my rescue. "Nothing's wrong with her accent."

He pointed at her now. "You sound the same. It's spreading. You all sound all English. Now you've all developed a fault."

so Vastra, the only conscious Scot in the room, came to our rescue instead. "Doctor, I need your help with something."

"Finally, someone who can talk properly."

"I'm having difficulty sleeping."

This seemed to surprise him. "Oh? Oh, well, I wouldn't bother with that, I never bother with sleep, and I just do standy-up catnaps, though I have to be vigilant for Sarah Jane and Arcadia, they need someone to watch them."

She lead him slowly towards the bed. "Oh really, how interesting. And when do you do those?"

"Well, generally whenever anyone else starts talking." That explained a lot. "I like to skip ahead to mine or Phina's bits. It saves time."

They sat down together. "Save me time, Doctor. Project an image of perfect sleep into the centre of my mind."

"What, do you want a psychic link with me? The size of my brain, it would be like dropping a piano on you, I did it to Donna once, she wouldn't shut up."

Vastra was very good at this. "Be gentle, then."

"I'll try. Brace yourself. Piano." They put their fingers to the others temple. And the Doctor fell back onto the bed, sound asleep.

"I love monkeys. They're so funny."

Her wife took offence to that. "Oh, I see. So people are monkeys now, are they?"

"No, dear. People are apes. Men are monkeys."

We worked together to tuck the Doctor up next to his own wife and they auto cuddled together, even Phi moving, but we scanned her, and it was just a Time Lord thing. Soul Bonds or whatever, she was still in a coma. "So what now?

Vastra shrugged. "He needs rest, and she needs to adjust to whatever caused the coma."

That wasn't what I meant. "So what do we do? How do we fix him?" They didn't understand. "How do we change him back?"