"Underestimated"--Doctor Who (1/1)
Woot! First posting of a new fic in the fic journal!
Title: Underestimated (1/1)
Author: aibhinn
Word count: ~ 2700
Pairing: Ten/Rose (implied very strongly)
Rating: G
Spoilers: None from canon, though if you don't know the ending of The One Adventure He'll Never Have, you'll be spoiled for one of the big Reveals.
Summary: The Doctor's parenting skills are called into question when a social worker finds him and his child out in the park on a Monday morning. Pure fluff. A sequel of sorts to The One Adventure He'll Never Have.
Author's notes: Dedicated to bonnie8jo, whom I don't know from Adam, but whose suggestion sparked the bunny in the first place. :) Many kudos and lots of thanks to buckbeakbabie, zoanthropic06, joely_jo, and sensiblecat for beta reading-especially you, Ruth, for all the links about home-schooling in Britain. Thank you so much!
The Doctor stepped out the door of the house he and Rose had bought not long after the twins were born, and turned to hold out his hand to his six-year-old daughter. "Come along, half-pint. Let's go."
"I'm not a half-pint!" Thalia objected. She took hold of the doorknob and pulled the door shut behind her. "I've grown! Look!" She stood side-by-side to her father on the front step and placed her hand flat on top of her head, then moved it over toward him until it touched his belt. "See!" she said triumphantly. "I'm tall now!"
"So you are," the Doctor said with a smile. "I guess that means I can't call you half-pint any more. All right, tall Thalia, we've got the whole day together, just you and me. Where do you want to go?"
"The park!" Thalia said immediately, taking his hand.
"Are you sure?" he said doubtfully, but letting his eyes twinkle at her. "Because there's always the dentist."
"No, the park!" Thalia repeated, jumping a bit.
"Oh, all right." They started down the walk toward the pavement. "If you must. Though I think we should go to the dentist. They give you sugar-free sweets, you know. And you get to sit in that chair that goes up and down and lies back and sits up and-"
"Daddy," Thalia said in a long-suffering tone. "The dentist isn't fun."
"Fun? Who said anything about fun? This is work, my girl. If you're not a half-pint any more, then I'm afraid you're a grown-up, and that means no more fun for you. It's all washing up and mowing the grass and paying bills and watching telly. That's your life now. No more of this play stuff."
"You and Mummy were playing this morning," Thalia accused. "You were sword-fighting with spatulas."
"We were?" the Doctor said, astonished.
Thalia giggled. "I saw you!"
"No, no, no. Couldn't have been. Are you sure it was us? It might have been Uncle Jack and Auntie Gwen."
"Auntie Gwen doesn't have yellow hair," Thalia said firmly. "Mummy does. And you're skinnier than Uncle Jack. Besides, he talks funny."
The Doctor laughed. "I'll have to remember to tell him that," he said. "But the fact remains, if you're not a half-pint-"
"Oh, silly," Thalia said, sighing. "You can still call me half-pint, Daddy."
"I can, eh?"
"Yes. But you have to call me 'tall Thalia' sometimes, too. Because it rhymes."
He chuckled. "I can do that. What about Mummy? Does she have to call you 'tall Thalia' as well?"
"Of course not! She doesn't call me 'half-pint' ever. She just calls me 'sweetheart' and 'Thallie.' Except when I'm in trouble. Then I'm 'Thalia Rose.'" She looked up at him. "Why do mummies call their kids by both names when they're angry?"
"I don't know," the Doctor said, raising an eyebrow. "I hadn't thought of it before. Maybe we should ask Mum when she and Alex get home this evening."
"Okay." The playground came into sight, and she squealed, jumping up and down with both feet. "Can I run over there, Daddy?"
The Doctor looked around carefully. There was nothing but pavement and deserted houses between them and the park; nobody hanging round, and he had a clear view of the entire playground. "Go on," he said, releasing her hand. She squealed again and pelted for the swings, pigtails flying. He grinned indulgently and sauntered after her, hands in his trouser pockets. Much as he loved being with his family as a whole, he adored these chances to be one-on-one with each of his children. It was amazing to him how different the twins were, and yet how much like their parents.
Alex was like his mother in her quieter moments: focused, intent, and determined. When given a puzzle or a problem to work out, he'd sit down in a corner and work through it all by himself, silently. And yet, when he was out alone with one of his parents, Alex would happily babble on about the things he'd learned and what they were seeing and where they were going. All very intelligent babble, too; once he'd figured something out, he could tell you exactly how he'd done it and why. He wasn't about to venture a guess until he had it well-sorted, though.
Thalia, on the other hand, was more like her father's open, hearty, and fun-loving side; she could talk about anything, had the ability to charm the socks off everyone she met (though that was probably more Rose's influence than his, he thought), and worked her way through problems by talking through them. Not necessarily talking to someone else, either; he'd peeked in on her one time when she'd been taken to task for something and had been set her lessons alone in her room, and she was still talking her way through the steps of the problem, though there was nobody there to hear her. No doubt about it, she'd definitely inherited his gob.
The sound of a car door caught his attention. A woman in a business suit had got out of a dark blue Ford, clipboard in hand, and was walking purposefully toward the playground and his daughter. Concern seized him and he broke into a run. "Oi!" he called, catching the woman's attention.
She turned toward him, and the concerned expression on her face relaxed somewhat. "Are you her father?" she asked as he jogged up. She nodded toward Thalia, who was swinging, but watching the two of them closely.
"Yes," he said firmly, moving around her so he stood between her and Thalia.
"I'm from Children's Services, and I'm just going round neighbourhoods checking that children are where they should be. Why isn't she at school?"
"Ah," the Doctor said, floundering a bit. Rose had told him something like this might happen if they didn't register as home-schoolers with the LEA. He probably should have done that after all. Scratching at the back of his neck, he tried to remember what she'd told him to say. He couldn't exactly tell this stranger that having a part-alien child in an Earth school was asking for trouble, after all. "We, er, school them at home. Her and her brother, that is. Education Otherwise, and all that."
"I see." The woman pulled out a biro and began writing on her clipboard. "And her name-?"
The Doctor folded his arms across his chest, frowning. "I think you'd better show me some identification first," he said firmly.
"Oh! Of course." She reached into her handbag and brought out a business card. It read Sioned Morgan, social worker, City of Cardiff, Wales in both English and Welsh. "Now, her name, please? And yours?"
"This isn't identification," the Doctor said, holding it up between two fingers. "This is a business card. Anyone can have a whole batch of these printed up, on your very own computer even. I won't be giving out details about my daughter until I'm certain you are who you say you are. Shouldn't you have some sort of official badge or something from Children's Services?"
There was a muffled whump from behind them, and he turned to see Thalia coming up from a crouch-apparently she'd leapt off the swing in mid-flight. She came over to take her father's hand. "It's all right, Daddy," she said, smiling at the stranger. "She's telling the truth."
"She is, is she?" the Doctor said, surprised. "What makes you think so?"
Thalia tilted her head sideways and narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. "She's all in blue," she said at last. He could feel her mind nudging his gently, asking to be let in. Curious, he allowed her, and suddenly he could see what she saw: the strange woman was surrounded in a blue aura that nearly matched both her car and her suit.
He was dumbfounded-he'd never known Thalia could see anything out of the ordinary. Does blue mean she's telling the truth? he asked.
Of course, Thalia said, a flavour of surprise to her mind-voice. That's how I knew Alex was lying when he said he didn't know where my stegosaurus was. He went from blue to yellow.
Suddenly very, very glad that he and Rose had vowed never to lie to their children, even 'for their own good,' he said aloud, "So she is. Quite a pretty shade of blue, too. All right, Thalia, do you think we should tell her your full name?"
"Thalia Rose Tyler," she said proudly, smiling brightly up at Sioned. "And my brother is Alexander John Tyler. But you have to call us Thalia and Alex, because if you call us by our full names, it means we're in trouble."
"I'll remember that," Sioned said with a smile, writing. "And your name, sir-?"
"Dr John Tyler." Legally, that was true; Jack had got him all sorted with a legal name change, from John Smith to John Tyler. Rose had protested at first, but he'd managed to talk her round-not only did it give the whole family the same surname, but it would hopefully make it harder for anyone trying to search him out to find him, if they didn't know about the change.
"And are you a medical doctor?"
"Doctor of philosophy. Physics. It sounds a bit odd, that, doesn't it? Philosophy and physics. Though when you start getting into the areas of quantum mechanics, they're strangely closely related."
She didn't crack a smile. "Your wife's name? And your address?"
"Rose Tyler. We live at number 15 Short Lane, just there." He pointed down the street toward their house. Cooperate with Children's Services, that's what Rose had told him. It was far better to be thought an overprotective but harmless parent than someone who had something to hide.
"And your son, Alexander-where's he?"
"Alex," Thalia corrected. "He's out with Mum. It's their day."
"We take each of them out separately, once a week," the Doctor explained at Sioned's raised eyebrow. "This week I've got Thalia and my wife's got Alex; next week we'll swap." It still felt odd to say wife, but that was what Rose was, in essence. They might never have had the ceremony, but as she'd said once, they didn't need one.
"Clever," Sioned said approvingly, writing some more. "How old are you, Thalia?"
"We're six," she said.
Sioned frowned, looking up at the Doctor. "'We'? Are they twins?" He nodded, and she noted that down as well. "Excellent. Now, why did you choose to home educate your children?"
"Oh, well, you know," the Doctor said uncomfortably, glancing down at Thalia. "Tailor their lessons to their ability levels, no bullying worries, all that sort of thing. We always planned to teach them at home."
"We're too advanced for school," Thalia said brightly. "Mum says the teachers would tear their hair out and the other kids would be mean to us. So Mum and Dad teach us. Well, mostly Dad, but Mum too."
"Really?" Sioned smiled at her. "Are you here for a lesson, or is this just play time?"
"Oh, it's play time," Thalia told her seriously. "But the Greeks thought it was quite important to exercise your body along with your mind, so it's not really a waste. Daddy and I walked all the way here so he could get his exercise, and I play on the playground so I can get mine. It's more fun when there are other kids," she added, looking at the empty swings and slide a little wistfully before turning back. "But it's still fun like this. And today's for Daddy and me anyway, not for Daddy and me and other kids."
Sioned blinked, glancing at the Doctor, apparently a bit taken aback. The Doctor held his expression still, though he really wanted to beam brightly at his daughter.
The social worker turned back to Thalia. "What have you been learning, then, when you're at lessons?"
"Oh, lots of things," she said. "The Earth's surface isn't all one big solid plate. It's a lot of different plates, and they're floating around on the molten rock of the mantle like a bunch of rafts on a pond. And when the currents move them, they shift around and bump into each other and that's how mountains form. Not all mountains are volcanoes, you know."
"They're not?" Sioned said. She was smiling, but the Doctor could tell this was a little more than she'd expected from a six-year-old.
"Nope!" Thalia said excitedly. "The Himalayas were formed when India crashed into Asia, like two cars running into each other." She demonstrated a head-on collision with her hands. "Boom! And their bonnets get all crinkled up because of how hard they hit. That's what the rocks did. But the Apennines in Italy are volcanic, and that's why Mt Vesuvius and Mt Etna are always exploding."
"Are all mountains found at plate boundaries?" the Doctor asked, unable to stop himself. They'd been learning this for the past few days, and he wanted to see how well she'd retained her lessons.
"Yep," she said proudly. "All of them."
"Are you sure?" he asked raising his eyebrows.
Thalia looked at him, frowning. "Are you trying to trick me, or did I get it wrong?" she asked.
"I dunno," he said, shrugging. "Think back to yesterday. Did I teach you anything about any mountains that are right smack in the middle of a tectonic plate?"
She continued to frown at him. Grinning, he waved his hands and swung his hips like a hula dancer. Memory flashed in her eyes, and she said, "Hawaii!"
"Well done! Now, what's it called when a volcano forms in the middle of a plate?"
"A hot spot!" she said triumphantly. "The magma burns through the crust!"
He laughed and knelt down to hug her. "That's my clever girl! I knew you could remember." He glanced up at Sioned, who'd completely stopped writing and was staring at the two of them. "There you are. Basic geology. Of course, we do other things, too. Maths, for example." He looked back at Thalia. "Five times six."
"Thirty."
"Fourteen times three."
"Forty-two," she said, with a short pause to think.
"The square root of sixteen."
"Four." She gave him an exasperated look. "That's baby stuff, Daddy," she said, hand on her hip. "Anybody can do that."
"Oh, really?" he said with a smile. "All right, then, let's give you something a little harder. What's the absolute value of negative twelve?"
"Daddy." She rolled her eyes. "It's twelve. I learned that years ago."
"Th-that's algebra," Sioned said quietly. The Doctor glanced up; she'd gone pale, her eyes wide. "Absolute value-I learned that in algebra."
"Well, pre-algebra," the Doctor agreed. "Though how you lot get away with not teaching the properties of the number line until they're in secondary school, I'll never know. And if you're going to teach them that three times four is the same as four times three, why not teach them the name of the number property at the same time?"
"Commutative!" Thalia put in, beaming.
"That's right. Well done." He kissed his daughter on the forehead and rose, taking in the way Sioned stared. "Nothing amazing about it, honestly," he said cheerfully. "Just pushing boundaries a little, that's all. Don't worry, I won't be teaching her calculus for a good long while yet. Mostly I'm teaching things in a different order than the National Curriculum, not things that aren't in it at all." So far, he added mentally. When he started lessons on TARDIS piloting and fourth-dimensional physics, it would be different. That wouldn't be for a few years yet, though.
"I-I see," Sioned said shakily. She put her pen away. "Erm-I don't think I need to finish this report. It's clear to me that you're not neglecting her education in any way. Thank you so much, Dr Tyler-good day. Goodbye, Thalia." Without waiting for an answer, she hurried to her car and drove away.
Thalia watched the car disappear, a pensive expression on her face. The Doctor was struck by how much she suddenly resembled Rose. "Did she leave so fast because we're from Gallifrey, Daddy?" she asked softly.
The Doctor frowned at the sadness in her voice and knelt again to look Thalia in the eye. "No, half-pint," he said earnestly. "It's because she underestimated you. Most children in this time are underestimated, even if they're fully human. She wasn't upset with you; she was upset with herself."
"Are you sure?" she asked. Her eyes were very wide, and he could see the beginnings of hurt in them. It broke his heart.
"I'm completely sure." He pulled her into a hug and kissed her, then rose to his feet with her in his arms. "What do you say we forget the park today?" he said, trying to keep his tone light. "We could go to the cinema."
She brightened, wrapping her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. "Could we see the one with the dragons and the fairies? I want to see that one."
"We certainly can, if that's what you want." He started off toward the pavement again, holding his daughter securely. "It's a long one, though."
"Two hours and thirty-three minutes," she said. "That's what Mum told me. But I know how long two hours and thirty-three minutes is, and I can sit still if there are dragons and fairies."
He smiled at her. "Me too," he agreed.
Title: Underestimated (1/1)
Author: aibhinn
Word count: ~ 2700
Pairing: Ten/Rose (implied very strongly)
Rating: G
Spoilers: None from canon, though if you don't know the ending of The One Adventure He'll Never Have, you'll be spoiled for one of the big Reveals.
Summary: The Doctor's parenting skills are called into question when a social worker finds him and his child out in the park on a Monday morning. Pure fluff. A sequel of sorts to The One Adventure He'll Never Have.
Author's notes: Dedicated to bonnie8jo, whom I don't know from Adam, but whose suggestion sparked the bunny in the first place. :) Many kudos and lots of thanks to buckbeakbabie, zoanthropic06, joely_jo, and sensiblecat for beta reading-especially you, Ruth, for all the links about home-schooling in Britain. Thank you so much!
The Doctor stepped out the door of the house he and Rose had bought not long after the twins were born, and turned to hold out his hand to his six-year-old daughter. "Come along, half-pint. Let's go."
"I'm not a half-pint!" Thalia objected. She took hold of the doorknob and pulled the door shut behind her. "I've grown! Look!" She stood side-by-side to her father on the front step and placed her hand flat on top of her head, then moved it over toward him until it touched his belt. "See!" she said triumphantly. "I'm tall now!"
"So you are," the Doctor said with a smile. "I guess that means I can't call you half-pint any more. All right, tall Thalia, we've got the whole day together, just you and me. Where do you want to go?"
"The park!" Thalia said immediately, taking his hand.
"Are you sure?" he said doubtfully, but letting his eyes twinkle at her. "Because there's always the dentist."
"No, the park!" Thalia repeated, jumping a bit.
"Oh, all right." They started down the walk toward the pavement. "If you must. Though I think we should go to the dentist. They give you sugar-free sweets, you know. And you get to sit in that chair that goes up and down and lies back and sits up and-"
"Daddy," Thalia said in a long-suffering tone. "The dentist isn't fun."
"Fun? Who said anything about fun? This is work, my girl. If you're not a half-pint any more, then I'm afraid you're a grown-up, and that means no more fun for you. It's all washing up and mowing the grass and paying bills and watching telly. That's your life now. No more of this play stuff."
"You and Mummy were playing this morning," Thalia accused. "You were sword-fighting with spatulas."
"We were?" the Doctor said, astonished.
Thalia giggled. "I saw you!"
"No, no, no. Couldn't have been. Are you sure it was us? It might have been Uncle Jack and Auntie Gwen."
"Auntie Gwen doesn't have yellow hair," Thalia said firmly. "Mummy does. And you're skinnier than Uncle Jack. Besides, he talks funny."
The Doctor laughed. "I'll have to remember to tell him that," he said. "But the fact remains, if you're not a half-pint-"
"Oh, silly," Thalia said, sighing. "You can still call me half-pint, Daddy."
"I can, eh?"
"Yes. But you have to call me 'tall Thalia' sometimes, too. Because it rhymes."
He chuckled. "I can do that. What about Mummy? Does she have to call you 'tall Thalia' as well?"
"Of course not! She doesn't call me 'half-pint' ever. She just calls me 'sweetheart' and 'Thallie.' Except when I'm in trouble. Then I'm 'Thalia Rose.'" She looked up at him. "Why do mummies call their kids by both names when they're angry?"
"I don't know," the Doctor said, raising an eyebrow. "I hadn't thought of it before. Maybe we should ask Mum when she and Alex get home this evening."
"Okay." The playground came into sight, and she squealed, jumping up and down with both feet. "Can I run over there, Daddy?"
The Doctor looked around carefully. There was nothing but pavement and deserted houses between them and the park; nobody hanging round, and he had a clear view of the entire playground. "Go on," he said, releasing her hand. She squealed again and pelted for the swings, pigtails flying. He grinned indulgently and sauntered after her, hands in his trouser pockets. Much as he loved being with his family as a whole, he adored these chances to be one-on-one with each of his children. It was amazing to him how different the twins were, and yet how much like their parents.
Alex was like his mother in her quieter moments: focused, intent, and determined. When given a puzzle or a problem to work out, he'd sit down in a corner and work through it all by himself, silently. And yet, when he was out alone with one of his parents, Alex would happily babble on about the things he'd learned and what they were seeing and where they were going. All very intelligent babble, too; once he'd figured something out, he could tell you exactly how he'd done it and why. He wasn't about to venture a guess until he had it well-sorted, though.
Thalia, on the other hand, was more like her father's open, hearty, and fun-loving side; she could talk about anything, had the ability to charm the socks off everyone she met (though that was probably more Rose's influence than his, he thought), and worked her way through problems by talking through them. Not necessarily talking to someone else, either; he'd peeked in on her one time when she'd been taken to task for something and had been set her lessons alone in her room, and she was still talking her way through the steps of the problem, though there was nobody there to hear her. No doubt about it, she'd definitely inherited his gob.
The sound of a car door caught his attention. A woman in a business suit had got out of a dark blue Ford, clipboard in hand, and was walking purposefully toward the playground and his daughter. Concern seized him and he broke into a run. "Oi!" he called, catching the woman's attention.
She turned toward him, and the concerned expression on her face relaxed somewhat. "Are you her father?" she asked as he jogged up. She nodded toward Thalia, who was swinging, but watching the two of them closely.
"Yes," he said firmly, moving around her so he stood between her and Thalia.
"I'm from Children's Services, and I'm just going round neighbourhoods checking that children are where they should be. Why isn't she at school?"
"Ah," the Doctor said, floundering a bit. Rose had told him something like this might happen if they didn't register as home-schoolers with the LEA. He probably should have done that after all. Scratching at the back of his neck, he tried to remember what she'd told him to say. He couldn't exactly tell this stranger that having a part-alien child in an Earth school was asking for trouble, after all. "We, er, school them at home. Her and her brother, that is. Education Otherwise, and all that."
"I see." The woman pulled out a biro and began writing on her clipboard. "And her name-?"
The Doctor folded his arms across his chest, frowning. "I think you'd better show me some identification first," he said firmly.
"Oh! Of course." She reached into her handbag and brought out a business card. It read Sioned Morgan, social worker, City of Cardiff, Wales in both English and Welsh. "Now, her name, please? And yours?"
"This isn't identification," the Doctor said, holding it up between two fingers. "This is a business card. Anyone can have a whole batch of these printed up, on your very own computer even. I won't be giving out details about my daughter until I'm certain you are who you say you are. Shouldn't you have some sort of official badge or something from Children's Services?"
There was a muffled whump from behind them, and he turned to see Thalia coming up from a crouch-apparently she'd leapt off the swing in mid-flight. She came over to take her father's hand. "It's all right, Daddy," she said, smiling at the stranger. "She's telling the truth."
"She is, is she?" the Doctor said, surprised. "What makes you think so?"
Thalia tilted her head sideways and narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. "She's all in blue," she said at last. He could feel her mind nudging his gently, asking to be let in. Curious, he allowed her, and suddenly he could see what she saw: the strange woman was surrounded in a blue aura that nearly matched both her car and her suit.
He was dumbfounded-he'd never known Thalia could see anything out of the ordinary. Does blue mean she's telling the truth? he asked.
Of course, Thalia said, a flavour of surprise to her mind-voice. That's how I knew Alex was lying when he said he didn't know where my stegosaurus was. He went from blue to yellow.
Suddenly very, very glad that he and Rose had vowed never to lie to their children, even 'for their own good,' he said aloud, "So she is. Quite a pretty shade of blue, too. All right, Thalia, do you think we should tell her your full name?"
"Thalia Rose Tyler," she said proudly, smiling brightly up at Sioned. "And my brother is Alexander John Tyler. But you have to call us Thalia and Alex, because if you call us by our full names, it means we're in trouble."
"I'll remember that," Sioned said with a smile, writing. "And your name, sir-?"
"Dr John Tyler." Legally, that was true; Jack had got him all sorted with a legal name change, from John Smith to John Tyler. Rose had protested at first, but he'd managed to talk her round-not only did it give the whole family the same surname, but it would hopefully make it harder for anyone trying to search him out to find him, if they didn't know about the change.
"And are you a medical doctor?"
"Doctor of philosophy. Physics. It sounds a bit odd, that, doesn't it? Philosophy and physics. Though when you start getting into the areas of quantum mechanics, they're strangely closely related."
She didn't crack a smile. "Your wife's name? And your address?"
"Rose Tyler. We live at number 15 Short Lane, just there." He pointed down the street toward their house. Cooperate with Children's Services, that's what Rose had told him. It was far better to be thought an overprotective but harmless parent than someone who had something to hide.
"And your son, Alexander-where's he?"
"Alex," Thalia corrected. "He's out with Mum. It's their day."
"We take each of them out separately, once a week," the Doctor explained at Sioned's raised eyebrow. "This week I've got Thalia and my wife's got Alex; next week we'll swap." It still felt odd to say wife, but that was what Rose was, in essence. They might never have had the ceremony, but as she'd said once, they didn't need one.
"Clever," Sioned said approvingly, writing some more. "How old are you, Thalia?"
"We're six," she said.
Sioned frowned, looking up at the Doctor. "'We'? Are they twins?" He nodded, and she noted that down as well. "Excellent. Now, why did you choose to home educate your children?"
"Oh, well, you know," the Doctor said uncomfortably, glancing down at Thalia. "Tailor their lessons to their ability levels, no bullying worries, all that sort of thing. We always planned to teach them at home."
"We're too advanced for school," Thalia said brightly. "Mum says the teachers would tear their hair out and the other kids would be mean to us. So Mum and Dad teach us. Well, mostly Dad, but Mum too."
"Really?" Sioned smiled at her. "Are you here for a lesson, or is this just play time?"
"Oh, it's play time," Thalia told her seriously. "But the Greeks thought it was quite important to exercise your body along with your mind, so it's not really a waste. Daddy and I walked all the way here so he could get his exercise, and I play on the playground so I can get mine. It's more fun when there are other kids," she added, looking at the empty swings and slide a little wistfully before turning back. "But it's still fun like this. And today's for Daddy and me anyway, not for Daddy and me and other kids."
Sioned blinked, glancing at the Doctor, apparently a bit taken aback. The Doctor held his expression still, though he really wanted to beam brightly at his daughter.
The social worker turned back to Thalia. "What have you been learning, then, when you're at lessons?"
"Oh, lots of things," she said. "The Earth's surface isn't all one big solid plate. It's a lot of different plates, and they're floating around on the molten rock of the mantle like a bunch of rafts on a pond. And when the currents move them, they shift around and bump into each other and that's how mountains form. Not all mountains are volcanoes, you know."
"They're not?" Sioned said. She was smiling, but the Doctor could tell this was a little more than she'd expected from a six-year-old.
"Nope!" Thalia said excitedly. "The Himalayas were formed when India crashed into Asia, like two cars running into each other." She demonstrated a head-on collision with her hands. "Boom! And their bonnets get all crinkled up because of how hard they hit. That's what the rocks did. But the Apennines in Italy are volcanic, and that's why Mt Vesuvius and Mt Etna are always exploding."
"Are all mountains found at plate boundaries?" the Doctor asked, unable to stop himself. They'd been learning this for the past few days, and he wanted to see how well she'd retained her lessons.
"Yep," she said proudly. "All of them."
"Are you sure?" he asked raising his eyebrows.
Thalia looked at him, frowning. "Are you trying to trick me, or did I get it wrong?" she asked.
"I dunno," he said, shrugging. "Think back to yesterday. Did I teach you anything about any mountains that are right smack in the middle of a tectonic plate?"
She continued to frown at him. Grinning, he waved his hands and swung his hips like a hula dancer. Memory flashed in her eyes, and she said, "Hawaii!"
"Well done! Now, what's it called when a volcano forms in the middle of a plate?"
"A hot spot!" she said triumphantly. "The magma burns through the crust!"
He laughed and knelt down to hug her. "That's my clever girl! I knew you could remember." He glanced up at Sioned, who'd completely stopped writing and was staring at the two of them. "There you are. Basic geology. Of course, we do other things, too. Maths, for example." He looked back at Thalia. "Five times six."
"Thirty."
"Fourteen times three."
"Forty-two," she said, with a short pause to think.
"The square root of sixteen."
"Four." She gave him an exasperated look. "That's baby stuff, Daddy," she said, hand on her hip. "Anybody can do that."
"Oh, really?" he said with a smile. "All right, then, let's give you something a little harder. What's the absolute value of negative twelve?"
"Daddy." She rolled her eyes. "It's twelve. I learned that years ago."
"Th-that's algebra," Sioned said quietly. The Doctor glanced up; she'd gone pale, her eyes wide. "Absolute value-I learned that in algebra."
"Well, pre-algebra," the Doctor agreed. "Though how you lot get away with not teaching the properties of the number line until they're in secondary school, I'll never know. And if you're going to teach them that three times four is the same as four times three, why not teach them the name of the number property at the same time?"
"Commutative!" Thalia put in, beaming.
"That's right. Well done." He kissed his daughter on the forehead and rose, taking in the way Sioned stared. "Nothing amazing about it, honestly," he said cheerfully. "Just pushing boundaries a little, that's all. Don't worry, I won't be teaching her calculus for a good long while yet. Mostly I'm teaching things in a different order than the National Curriculum, not things that aren't in it at all." So far, he added mentally. When he started lessons on TARDIS piloting and fourth-dimensional physics, it would be different. That wouldn't be for a few years yet, though.
"I-I see," Sioned said shakily. She put her pen away. "Erm-I don't think I need to finish this report. It's clear to me that you're not neglecting her education in any way. Thank you so much, Dr Tyler-good day. Goodbye, Thalia." Without waiting for an answer, she hurried to her car and drove away.
Thalia watched the car disappear, a pensive expression on her face. The Doctor was struck by how much she suddenly resembled Rose. "Did she leave so fast because we're from Gallifrey, Daddy?" she asked softly.
The Doctor frowned at the sadness in her voice and knelt again to look Thalia in the eye. "No, half-pint," he said earnestly. "It's because she underestimated you. Most children in this time are underestimated, even if they're fully human. She wasn't upset with you; she was upset with herself."
"Are you sure?" she asked. Her eyes were very wide, and he could see the beginnings of hurt in them. It broke his heart.
"I'm completely sure." He pulled her into a hug and kissed her, then rose to his feet with her in his arms. "What do you say we forget the park today?" he said, trying to keep his tone light. "We could go to the cinema."
She brightened, wrapping her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. "Could we see the one with the dragons and the fairies? I want to see that one."
"We certainly can, if that's what you want." He started off toward the pavement again, holding his daughter securely. "It's a long one, though."
"Two hours and thirty-three minutes," she said. "That's what Mum told me. But I know how long two hours and thirty-three minutes is, and I can sit still if there are dragons and fairies."
He smiled at her. "Me too," he agreed.