They originally intended to stay only a week on Mizzone XIII. They had steeled themselves to leave after that sweet, idyllic time.

Because a planet of humanoids with only one gender – male – was idyllic for Davie and Spenser. They enjoyed the fact that everyone took them for lovers. They enjoyed the Promenade where they walked hand in hand like all the other couples and the Marina where they disguised the TARDIS as a motor yacht. They went to the theatre, they went to concerts, they had lunch and dinner in restaurants where nobody thought they looked strange or was offended when they touched each other in platonic but affectionate ways.

“I feel as if I could stay here forever,” Davie said as they walked on the boardwalk by the pier on what they had firmly decided was their last evening. The twin suns were going down spectacularly, and it was a warm, balmy evening. The breeze that came off the sea merely scented the air. It couldn’t have been more perfect. He smiled happily and turned to Spenser, reaching to kiss him fondly. They had done that a lot this week. There was no reason not to.

“I don’t want to go, either,” Spenser said as he pressed close and enjoyed Davie’s uninhibited affections. “But we have to. If we stay longer you might start to forget that you’re not really my lover. I might forget, too. And then we’d both be in trouble.”

Davie pressed his face into Spenser’s shoulder and kissed his neck tenderly.

“I haven’t forgotten,” he answered.

“I think you have, a little,” Spenser insisted. “You have hardly mentioned Brenda all week.”

“I love her, still. I want nothing more than to be married to her. This is a dream, an interlude. A chance to enjoy being in love with you, Spenser. It’s a special place we can come back to, sometimes. When we want to recapture this feeling. Our own special place.”

“No,” Spenser told him. “It can’t be. It’s a nice idea. But you need to find special places to take Brenda. I will always treasure this week. But we can’t do this again.”

Davie sighed. Spenser was right. He wondered just how much it hurt him to be the voice of reason in this argument. It would be so easy for Spenser to give in to the same mood, to let himself forget that this was a dream, that they were both under a sort of enchantment tonight. Tomorrow, the real world awaited them, where Spenser was just a very close and dear friend, a comrade in arms, his co-pilot through space and time, and Brenda was the one he had pledged his life to.

“You should find somebody who can give his heart fully to you,” he told him. “It’s not fair to give you so little, when you deserve so much more. You should have a real lover you can bring here and walk with under the stars.”

“He would have to be very special,” Spenser said. “Like Brenda is to you.”

“Well, I hope you find him, Spenser,” Davie answered. “But, right now, let’s not worry. We have tonight, still.”

He kissed him again and then they walked on, happily. Across the wide promenade, there were lights coming on in the pubs and clubs and restaurants as the sun went down and the evening drew in. There were sounds of laughter and music. Later, perhaps, they would join in with that laughter. But for now, he just wanted them to be alone, together.

Except they weren’t alone. Spenser gripped Davie’s hand and warned him urgently as he heard somebody closing in behind them. Then he yelped as he was hit hard on the back of his head and pulled away from Davie’s side. He was hit again and felt himself slipping to the floor, stunned. As he struggled to stay conscious he saw their assailant grabbing Davie and pushing something against his mouth. He saw Davie collapse and the man crouching over him, covering his body. It looked, though Spenser was sure he was mistaken, as if the attacker was kissing Davie. Then he stood and looked around and ran away towards the pier where he could lose himself in the arcades and side shows.

Spenser was still dizzy and hurting, trying to keep himself from passing out as he crawled to Davie’s side. He was unconscious. There was a smell of something like chloroform on his mouth. He seemed unharmed apart from that.

There were people running towards them. A few among the crowds of evening revellers had realised something was wrong and they were coming to help. A man knelt and looked at Davie and then shouted to another to call an ambulance.

“No,” Spenser protested. “He’ll be ok in a few minutes. He’s just been knocked out. Some kind of drug… I think it was an attempted mugging, but…”

“He’s a forced nasci victim,” said the one who had looked at him first. “He’s going to need professional help. Are you his…”

“Yes, I am,” Spenser answered without hesitation. The man gave him a sympathetic look and touched him on the shoulder.

“He’s going to need your love, your support. Stick with him. The ambulance is coming, now. You’ll be all right.”

Spenser was confused. But the one thing he did know was that Davie needed him. He had no intention of being anywhere than at his side, supporting him. The advice was needless in that sense. Though he still didn’t understand why so much fuss was needed. If he could get Davie back to the TARDIS he would be all right.

The ambulance came. Davie was attended to. Spenser was again asked if he was his lover. He said yes and got into the ambulance with him. He was surprised by the attention that was paid to Davie’s condition on the journey to the hospital. The paramedics were anxious about his blood pressure and heart rate and gave him a saline drip and vitamins as a ‘precaution’.

Spenser waited in the hospital corridor while Davie was attended to and put to bed in a ward. He made a statement to the policeman who came to talk to him. But he couldn’t give very much detail. He never really saw the assailant’s face. He was hit from behind and afterwards he just saw the attacker’s back as he covered Davie.

Finally he was allowed to sit beside Davie in the ward. He was still unconscious, but clean and dressed in a pair of hospital pyjamas. A physician who introduced himself as Doctor Wien explained what had happened. Spenser listened carefully, and with a shock that gripped his stomach as he realised just why Davie was going to need him in the near future.

“I’m with you, Davie,” he whispered when he was finally left alone with him inside the curtained off cubicle. “I’m with you all the way.”

Davie began to come around after a little while. He breathed in deeply and reached to touch his neck. He complained that his throat hurt. Spenser reached to prop a pillow under his head and gave him a sip from the soothing drink that was left on the bedside table.

“What happened,” he asked as he opened his eyes and stared at the hospital name tag on his wrist, the needle from the drip taped to the back of his hand, and the curtains around the bed, before focussing on Spenser. “Were we mugged?”

“Not exactly,” Spenser answered him. “Davie… it’s complicated. And a bit weird. There’s a doctor who wants to talk to you in a bit. And a policeman. Though I’ve already told them everything there is to know. But… before the doctor comes back… it might be better if you heard it from me.”

“Heard what?” he asked. “Why does my throat hurt?”

“You…” Spenser sighed. “Davie… you remember we talked about how people here… make love… how they reproduce?”

“Umm….”

“They have very long tongues and they put them deep into each other’s throats. When they want to reproduce a fertilised egg is passed from one partner to the other. It lodges within the recipient’s body….”

Davie was a very smart young man, but he had just woken up and he could be forgiven for taking a long time to work it out. When he did, his eyes widened in shock. His hand reached again for his aching throat.

“You mean I was… raped….”

“They have a different word for it,” Spenser said. “They call it forced nasci. The word nasci… in our language… it means…”

“Implantation… impregnation…” Davie was starting to fire on most of his thrusters now. And his grasp of intergalactic languages was kicking in. “Sweet mother of chaos… you’re telling me somebody tried to impregnate me?”

“Not tried… according to the tests they did on you… Davie… it succeeded. You’re….”

“I'm… pregnant? No. I can’t. I’m not… I mean it may work for the Mizzonians. But I’m not…”

“Apparently you are. That’s why the physician needs to talk to you. They can arrange for a termination. They know you’re an offworlder. They know about your blood, your two hearts, your different body temperature. And there is no way that you can be forced to go through with it. They’ll sort it out. All you have to do is sign a consent form.”

“What… no!” Davie sat up and ripped off the needle from the saline drip. He pushed back the sheets and started to get out of the bed. “Where are my clothes?” he asked.

“I don’t know. In the cupboard maybe? What are you doing?”

“I’m getting out of here,” he answered. “I’m not signing anything. I want to get back to the TARDIS and….” He put his feet down on the floor and then swayed dizzily. “What did they drug me with? I shouldn’t feel like this.”

“It’s not the drug. It’s… You’re…. Apparently it happens very fast with Mizzonians. It’s kind of like morning sickness.”

“Chaos!” he swore. He steadied himself and then opened the bedside cupboard and pulled out his clothes. He started to dress himself. He was frustrated to find that he couldn’t fasten the button of his trousers. “What the hell… HOW fast does it happen?”

“I don’t know,” Spenser admitted. “Maybe you should stay here. Somebody can explain it to you properly.”

“I’m not staying anywhere where people want me to have an abortion.”

“That’s not exactly what it means.”

“Yes, it is, it’s exactly what it means,” Davie answered. “And I’m not… I couldn’t think of it. I’m leaving.” He pulled his sweatshirt down over the still unfastened button and slipped his leather jacket on over it. He slipped his feet into his shoes without even bothering about his socks. He turned to leave and was barred by the physician. “Get out of my way,” he said. “You have no right to stop me.”

“You have to stay,” Doctor Wein told him. “We have no idea how your alien body might react to the impregnation. We need to carry out the termination straight away.”

“No,” Davie said. “I’m not doing that. I believe in life… all life. I live to protect the innocent… protect life. I’m not going to destroy a life that… that I’m in any way responsible for.”

“Without the DNA extracted from the tissue, the police can’t trace your attacker,” Wein added.

“I don’t care about that, either. Just… stand back. I’m leaving, right now. Spenser…” He reached out his hand and Spenser took hold of it. They stepped forward together. The physician tried to stop him. So did two of the nurses. There was something about his expression when he turned to look at them, though, that made them back off. Davie kept on walking past them. He kept walking until he was out of the hospital. It was very late at night by now. It was quiet, cooler than it was earlier. He shivered slightly. Spenser steered him towards a taxi rank. They sat quietly in the back of the cab until they reached the marina. Even then he said nothing much until they were inside the TARDIS.

“I… need a drink,” was all he said as he closed the door and crossed the console room.

“You need a lot more than that,” Spenser told him. “Davie… I think you’re still in shock. You should get some sleep and… tomorrow… when you’re thinking more sensibly…”

“Do you think when I’ve slept I’m going to feel any different about this? Do you think my opinions about the fundamental meaning of life will change overnight. I don’t want a termination. I don’t…”

“Do you want to have a baby?”

“If that’s the alternative, then yes,” he answered. He turned and carried on to the kitchen where he found a large carton of milk in the fridge and poured a half pint of it into a glass. He drank it slowly, letting it soothe his throat. Spenser watched him.

“Go to bed,” he said. “Sleep. Tomorrow, we’ll decide what to do.”

“We?”

“Yes, WE,” Spenser insisted. “Ever since this happened, people have been telling me I have to look after you, support you, because you need me. Well, I’m here to be needed. And I will help you, Davie. Whatever you decide. But right now, it’s late. You’ve had a really difficult time. You need to sleep.”

Davie said nothing in response. He put the glass in the sink and left the kitchen. Spenser waited a few minutes and then went to make sure he had gone to bed. He seemed to be acting so irrationally he might have done just about anything. He found him in his bed, lying there with his eyes wide open and the light on. He could feel his mind whirling with thoughts and plans. He wasn’t in any way ready to relax and sleep.

Spenser sighed and kicked off his shoes and slipped into the bed beside him.

“If this is the only way I can look after you,” he said as he snapped his fingers and turned down the lights. He embraced Davie in his arms and kissed his cheek gently. He felt him press closer and sigh softly as he dropped asleep. Spenser lay awake a little longer, just thinking about how he had longed, many quiet nights, to share a warm bed with Davie. It wasn’t quite fair that he got his chance in such a way.

He woke in the morning to find the bed empty. He tried the kitchen and bathroom before going to the console room and tracing Davie’s lifesign to the medical room. He headed there and was surprised to find him lying on the examination table, using the overhead medical scanner on himself.

“Spenser…” he said. “Come here. Look…” He pressed a button and the scanner’s images appeared on a screen. “Look, that’s the baby, right there.”

Spenser looked at the black and white image and at first he couldn’t make out anything. Then he saw the mass of cells within what looked like a protective sac. It wasn’t exactly a baby, yet. It was, however, exactly what Davie had said last night. It was life at its most basic and most vulnerable.

“I thought… I really rather hoped that it wouldn’t survive. You’re not Mizzonian. It shouldn’t have happened. I thought it might have just failed naturally.”

“I was afraid it might have done,” Davie said. “That’s why I came in here when I woke up, to make sure. It’s alive. It’s growing. It’s actually grown a lot in only a few hours. That’s normal. I looked up some information about Mizzonian pregnancy. The fertilised egg lodges in the lining of the abdomen. It forms a sort of pouch in the flesh. It grows its own womb around itself. It extracts nutrients from the parent by simple osmosis. That’s why my clothes don’t fit. The womb has already begun to develop. The whole process takes about five months, by the way.”

“And what happens then, incidentally? Because men where we come from don’t have babies. We’re not designed for it.”

“In the last weeks, a kind of aperture develops in the abdomen. It’s closed at first, but when the baby is ready to be born it opens up. It’s much easier than with Human childbirth, really. There’s no birth canal. It’s more or less directly connected to the womb. Afterwards, everything just dissolves away and closes up.”

“And you think that’s what will happen to you?”

“I can’t see any reason why it won’t. The pregnancy is viable. Everything is perfectly normal.”

“Davie, nothing about this is normal. Are you serious? You intend to go through with it?”

“Yes. I’m serious. I didn’t want it to happen. But now it has…”

“I wonder if it’s some kind of hormonal reaction,” Spenser said. “Something that gets into your blood, makes you want to protect the baby. I never took you for maternal before.”

“It might be. Doesn’t matter. The point is, I’m having a baby. I’m going to get some breakfast, and then I’m going to go and buy some maternity clothes, because quite soon nothing I own will fit.”

The Mizzone equivalent of Mothercare was an experience for them both. It was busy with expectant parents buying clothes and baby equipment. Spenser watched parents in different stages of pregnancy, most with their partners, all of them happy with the prospect of a baby in their lives.

“Is it your first?” asked a middle aged man who was in his fourth month of gestation and wearing a long, loose jumper that covered his ‘bump’. “You’re going to love being parents. It’s my third. Not long now. Doesn’t seem like yesterday that we conceived. Wonderful night. Chad… my chara… that’s him over there looking at cribs… he took me to the theatre, dinner… a perfect night… and afterwards, when I received the egg… I was so pleased. What about you? Did you plan it or…”

“It was… kind of a spur of the moment thing,” Davie answered as Spenser struggled for something to say. “But we’re pleased, all the same.”

“You look it. It’s in your eyes. The joy of conception. You’re a little pale, though. Remember, the first week the baby drains almost eighty percent of the nutrients that go into your body. Building the womb walls is the most intensive period of growth. You need to eat lots of protein enriched food. Fish and chocolate. That’s best.”

“Not on the same plate, I hope?” Davie replied with a wry smile. He was hungry, come to think of it. He chose the clothes he wanted to buy and headed for the checkout. After that he found the nearest restaurant. It was still only mid-morning. Spenser ordered a latte coffee and a round of toast. He watched in astonishment as Davie drank a large mug of cocoa and devoured a whole foot long baked fish called a Lemon Soldo with a mountain of mashed potatoes and vegetables. Then he got through two portions of chocolate fudge cheesecake with extra hot fudge and a portion of fresh cream on the side. And he ordered another mug of cocoa afterwards.

“I hope the baby does take most of the nutrients,” Spenser commented. “If you eat like that every meal, you’ll need to buy more trousers in a week.”

“My baby needs the nourishment. He’s got a lot of growing to do.”

Spenser looked at him carefully. He touched his stomach as he spoke, as if caressing the barely formed child.

“Davie, you know, technically it isn’t YOUR baby. I mean, the egg was fertilised before it entered your body by some form of parthenogensis. There is nothing of your DNA in it. You’re just a host body…. a vessel…”

“It’s nourished by my body,” Davie said. “It’s protected, warmed, by me. It’s… it’s my baby, and I won’t let anyone take him away from me. Not even you.”

“I don’t want to take him from you,” Spenser assured him. “I just want you to understand…”

“He’s my baby. And he will be for the next five months, until he’s born. I’ve thought it through. I’ve read up about the process. I know what to expect. I’m going to go through with it. And I have to believe he’s my child. Otherwise he’s just a parasite draining me like a tapeworm. Which would you rather?”

“When you put it that way…. Ok, it’s your baby, Davie. But what are we going to do? Do we stay here on this planet until the birth? Then what?”

“They have a system for legal adoption here. I’ll give him to a couple who can’t have children of their own. People who will love him.”

“And then how do you explain to Brenda, and Chris, and your mum and dad, where you’ve been for all that time?”

“We have a time machine.” He answered. “We’ll go back to the time we originally planned to go home. Nobody will know.”

“Davie!” Spenser was astonished at just how far he had thought this through. “You mean to say, you’ll go through all of that. Five months of pregnancy, the trauma of birth, then giving up the child for adoption. And then we head back and pretend we were away for no more than a week and nothing happened?”

“I might need a bit of convalescence time,” he said. “This is going to take it out of me, big time. Call it six months… but then, yes. That’s the plan.”

“And nobody will ever know about this? Brenda, Chris? Nobody?”

“Nobody but you, Spenser. This will be our secret.”

“There is another way. If you really want to have the baby… go home. Tell them. I mean, they’ll be shocked. But they love you. And Brenda… she adores babies. She would love YOUR baby.”

“I thought of that,” Davie answered. “And, yes, I could see Brenda’s face. She’d be jealous that I’m the one having the baby, but she would be longing to hold it. I’d never get a look in after that.”

“So…”

“I’ve looked at Mizzonian physiology. They look like us, but they’re different in so many ways. Their method of reproduction for one. And a lot of their internal organs are different. Their livers and kidneys are shaped differently. Chris and I grew up ‘different’ and had to hide what we were. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. And psychologically… They are only ever attracted to males. And even though that is legal in our period of Earth history, a lot of people still don’t accept it. It’s still something that would set him apart. Raising a child who was THAT different, just wouldn’t be fair. Sooner or later, I’d have to explain why he was different, how I came to be his parent. That would hurt us both. I’ve thought about it. He should grow up here, among his own kind, as a normal Mizzonian, not an abnormal Human.”

Spenser listened to his reasons and nodded. Yes, it did make sense. But he wondered if Davie had considered his own feelings in the equation.

“I can’t do it without you, Spenser,” Davie continued “I need you. That word they use here, chara, it means lover, husband, partner. I need you to be that. I don’t mind being a parent. But I don’t want to be a single parent.”

“You’ve got me, Davie,” he assured him. “Five months. I get to love and cherish you, to be your husband in every way but the physical. For me, that’s a dream come true. So… if you’re finished eating, come on.”

“Where?”

“The market. We need to do some food shopping. I’ll learn how to cook Mizzone fish and make hot fudge sauce.”

“Mmm. Yes.” Davie smiled hopefully. “Still don’t want them on the same plate. Though possibly that might change in the next weeks. When I get cravings.”

Davie was hungry again by the time they finished the food shopping. They went back to the TARDIS long enough to put the provisions away and for him to change into one of his maternity outfits. It was black, like his other clothes. But the trousers were loose fitting with an adjustable waistband. A full shirt with plenty of growing room went over it. He put his leather jacket back on over it all, but didn’t even try to fasten it even before he sat down in the marina bistro and ordered a prawn cocktail followed by salmon mousse and pasta and another large chocolate dessert to follow. His appetite was noted by many of the other diners. When they knew he was ‘with child’ they nodded in understanding and smiled at him.

“Children are regarded as a precious gift,” Davie said. “They treasure them.”

“Then how come that physician wanted you to get rid of it?”

“Because I am an alien and he was scared of what would happen. But I’m fine. The pregnancy is completely viable. My body is adapting.”

“Davie…. Are you really ok about it all? I mean… being attacked like that. What if it was Brenda, in the usual way we understand these things on Earth?”

Davie considered that. The thought obviously pained him.

“But it’s not,” he argued. “I wasn’t physically damaged. Only a bit of a sore throat. There will be nothing to show that anything happened to me afterwards.”

“Nothing on the outside. At least as long as you work off all the fudge. But, Davie, you seem to be taking this so calmly. You were raped, and all you can think of is buying clothes and eating. You should be upset. You should be demanding justice. You should be hurting.”

“I don’t feel any of that. I think it really is a hormone thing. All I feel… I really feel good, Spenser. I am a little scared about the future, but actually, I am happy.” He looked at Spenser. “Do you feel angry? Is that what you mean?”

“Just a little. If I got my hands on the one who did it, I’d beat him black and blue. You’re mine, Davie. At least when we’re together. And it does feel wrong knowing that another man…. I know that we can’t. We’re not physically able to do that. But I keep wishing we were. I wish it was my baby that you’re carrying. And it hurts that it’s not.”

“I love you,” Davie whispered to him. “I love that you’re jealous, that you’re angry. Because it proves that you love me.”

“And your hormones are in overdrive. I don’t know if you mean it when you say that, or you’re just going a little bit nuts. Just remember that I have always loved you. And I’m here to take care of you. Now, let’s get the bill and then we’re going back to the TARDIS. You need an afternoon nap. And I need to read the stuff you’ve already read so I know what to expect and how to look after you. And I still need to learn how to cook fish.”

Davie slept on the sofa in the console room. Spenser sat on the floor beside him and accessed all the data he could find about Mizzone pregnancy and childbirth on the mini-computer. He read steadily and took it all in. When he was done, he reached and touched his lover’s face gently.

“Sweetheart,” he whispered. “You’ve got a real struggle ahead of you.”

For the first few weeks it didn’t seem too bad. Davie was happy, and he seemed to be healthy. He always felt a little sick in the morning when he first woke up, but after a breakfast of smoked kippers and hot chocolate he felt energised. They spent their mornings around the marina or the promenade, walking, resting when Davie needed to, then they went to their favourite café for lunch. Afterwards, Davie slept for a few hours and Spenser would cook a high tea for when he woke. They would dress up and go out in the evening to the theatre or cinema, or some such entertainment and supper afterwards before returning to the Marina.

Spenser was happy because he got to live all these days one after the other as Davie’s lover. When they were out, people took them for a married couple, expecting their first child. They held hands. They kissed, often.

And at night, he slept beside Davie, holding him tight in his arms. It was never a physical relationship. Spenser knew that it could never be that. But he didn’t need it. As long as he could hold Davie’s warm body against his at night, feel his hearts beating, his breath against his shoulder as he cuddled him, he was happy. He knew it was an illusion. It was an interlude in their lives, and it would be over once Davie’s baby was born and they were free to move on. But until then, he was his lover, his chara, his husband in every sense of the word that mattered.

After the first six weeks, Davie started to looked really pregnant, and he felt it. His back ached when he lay down, and Spenser eased his suffering by massaging him with deep heat oil before he could sleep. In the morning, he still ate a large breakfast and he was hungry again by lunchtime. The baby was going through a spurt of rapid growth and he needed to eat four big meals every day.

At ten weeks, halfway through the pregnancy, Spenser held his hand as they went to an ante-natal clinic where Davie was thoroughly examined and ticked off by the nurses for not attending more regularly. They found nothing amiss with his progress, anyway. There wouldn’t be. He used the scanner in the TARDIS at least twice a week to check how the baby was developing. He knew there was nothing wrong. But just the once, he needed to have it confirmed by an expert in Mizzone pregnancy.

At twelve weeks, Spenser went with him to a building in the city centre where they had arranged a special appointment. They were both a little nervous as they waited in the ‘family meeting room’.

“You can say no,” Spenser told Davie. “If you don’t like the people, you don’t have to do it.”

“I know,” he said. “But I hope I do.”

The door opened and their case worker introduced them to Grieg and Solon Tully and left them to get to know each other. Davie looked at the couple. They looked a little older than he was, maybe twenty-five. They held hands and looked at him even more nervously than he looked at them.

“I'm not sure what we’re supposed to say,” Davie said, breaking the silence. “Um… is there anything you want to ask?”

They weren’t sure, either. They had been given copies of his ante-natal scans. They knew the baby they wanted to adopt was healthy and that it should be delivered on schedule in another eight week’s time. What else was there to know?

“Just one thing,” Solon Tully said in a cautious, hesitant voice. “Why do you want to give up your baby? Don’t you love it?” He looked at Spenser, who was sitting close to Davie on the soft sofa, holding him around the waist. “You’re a couple. You’re well dressed. You can’t be short of money. Why would you want to do this?”

Davie explained. It was less painful to him, after so many weeks had gone by, than it was to the Tullys when they heard his story. It shocked them, also, to discover that the host parent of the child they wanted so desperately was an alien to their world.

But they were also very sympathetic and understanding. And when he explained to them why he felt he couldn’t take his Mizzonian child back to his home planet, they both reached out and held his hands.

“I want my baby to have the best chance of life,” Davie told them. “If you can give him that… then…”

The words stuck in his throat. He touched his stomach where the growing child was so very visible now. He felt the tiny kicks and the heart beating strongly. He loved the baby he was carrying, and to actually say out loud that he was going to give him away hurt more than he expected. He couldn’t say it. But he took Solon Tully’s hand in his and pressed it against the place where the heartbeat was strongest. He watched the other man’s eyes light up with joy. He didn’t have to say anything else. He just nodded and smiled through his tears.

“I just… want to ask you one thing,” he said when he was able to speak. “I think it’s an unusual request. But may I name him? I would like to do that.”

Grieg and Solon looked at each other and then at the young man who was going to give birth to their future son. Yes, it was unusual. The adopting parents were usually allowed to choose the name. But there was something about the way he asked that made it impossible to refuse.

“You’ve really thought about names?” Spenser asked when they were walking together on the cool, quiet promenade before tea. “Davie, is that a good idea? I mean… it’s practically the first rule of Emotional Detachment. Never name something you don’t want to care about.”

“I DO care about my baby,” Davie answered. “I’m not Emotionally Detached from him. I never was. And yes, I know what you’re going to say. It’s hormonal. I think from the moment I was impregnated I’ve been ‘used’ in that way. My mind is being controlled by the chemicals this beautiful foreign body within me produces. But I don’t care. And, yes, I’ve thought about names. I’ve thought about holding him in my arms, kissing his face, loving him, if only for a short time. And I want to give him a name, even if I can give him nothing else.”

“Definitely hormonal,” Spenser agreed. “But if it makes you happy….”

“It does.”

“Doesn’t look like it. Your eyes are red from crying. You look….”

“Like a total girl,” Davie said with a soft laugh. “I know. It’s changed me. Whatever happened to the tough guy who took down all those Dominators? Where did he go?”

“He’s still there,” Spenser told him. “Still you. And it’s a good thing. Because having this baby is going to be harder than facing down the clone cyborg army. You’re going to need to be that tough guy to get through it.”

“I’m not scared of pain,” Davie told him. “I’ve known pain. I remember when I Transcended. I never told anyone how much it hurt. Chris was hurting much more and I had to be strong for him. I internalised my own pain. He never knew what I went through. Neither did granddad when he mentored us. But he did say it was worse than childbirth.”

“He’s a man. What does he know?” Spenser replied. That made Davie laugh.

“It’s not really a weakness, you know. Being like this. If anything threatened my baby right now. I’d be ready…. I’d….”

“You’d fall over because your centre of gravity is altered so much,” Spenser told him. “I’m your husband, Davie. You let me do the protecting and the fighting until this baby is born.”

“That’s a deal,” Davie answered him. “Spenser, thank you. You’ve been wonderful. I don’t know how I can ever thank you enough.”

“Being with you, sleeping beside you, kissing you, that’s my reward,” Spenser answered. “I love you, Davie.”

“I know you do. And that’s the cruellest thing of all. When this is over, when I go back home, you won’t be able to tell me that, and I won’t be able to tell you I love you, in return.”

“That’s why every minute of every day is precious to me,” he answered. “Because afterwards, I’ll treasure the memory.”

“Let me give you some memories worth treasuring,” Davie told him. He reached and pulled Spenser close to him and kissed him passionately. Spenser sighed happily and enjoyed the long, lingering moment.

“If I was Mizzonian, I think I’d need a pregnancy test now,” he said when the kiss was done and he clung to his lover happily.

“Just as well you’re not, then,” Davie answered him. “One of us is enough.”

“I couldn’t cope with it,” Spenser said. “I don’t like fish that much.”

“Neither did I before I was pregnant,” Davie confessed. “Come here. Let me kiss you again. Take my mind off food for a little while.”

Spenser didn’t care why he was kissing him. Just so long as he didn’t stop doing it.

The next few weeks passed slowly. Davie began to look VERY pregnant. He was tired a lot. They rarely walked further than the promenade now. His back hurt all the time. And many of the other symptoms of his pregnancy troubled him. He looked at himself in the bathroom mirror and hardly recognised his own body. He had always been physically fit. He did martial arts and other exercises daily that kept him at a peak of mental and physical health. But he had not been able to do anything like that for months now. His muscles were flabby. His stomach was distended. He couldn’t even see his feet when he looked down. In the mirror he could see the faint yellowish line where the birth aperture was developing. And he was shocked to find that he was starting to produce milk.

“I wasn’t expecting that to happen,” he confessed to Spenser over breakfast. “I really didn’t. I mean, I’m not Mizzonian. I wasn’t even really expecting the aperture to develop. I sort of expected that I’d have to have their equivalent of a caesarean section.”

“This is why I don’t think it will be as easy as you think to go back to ‘normal’ life afterwards,” Spenser told him. “Quite apart from the emotional impact.”

“There won’t be an emotional impact,” he said. “I know Grieg and Solon will look after the baby. I don’t have to worry about him.”

Spenser said nothing more. Davie insisted that he would be able to give up the child easily. He wouldn’t talk about it. Spenser worried about him. But there was nothing he could say or do.

They met with the adopting parents at least twice a week. They had become friends with them. They went to dinner with them and the theatre. A couple of times they went to their apartment and saw the nursery that was being made ready for the baby. Davie bought a light up mobile to go over the crib and a lot of the baby toys that were made ready for the eagerly awaited child. He also bought a pram, reasoning that he would be the parent for a few days before the adoption was finalised, and he would need one.

There were still two weeks to go when he was feeling as low as he had been since the pregnancy began. He had slept badly the night before because the baby was lying on a nerve. Then in the afternoon he was so exhausted he slept too deeply on the sofa and woke with a stiff neck and a headache.

Spenser practically had to bully him into coming out for a walk. He complained that he was too tired and sick. When he did get out on the promenade he was still lethargic and stopped to rest every few minutes.

“What did I get myself into?” he asked. “What made me think I could do this? I’m not a Mizzonian. I’m half Human and half Time Lord. We’re supposed to leave this to the women.”

“You’re nearly there,” Spenser assured him. “Don’t lose heart, now.”

“I’m not losing heart,” Davie answered. “I’m scared, Spenser. I’m not sure how I’m going to get through the birth.”

“The way I read it, you just have to lie there and let nature take its course,” Spenser told him. “You said you can cope with pain.”

“I can. But what if….”

There were a whole string of ‘what ifs’ that Davie had thought of. They all involved some complication of the birth process. Some of them didn’t even sound physically possible.

“Davie,” Spenser said gently as his fears got more and more irrational. “You have scanned yourself daily for the past fortnight. You know perfectly well that your baby’s head is the normal size for a Mizzonian child – the same as it is for a Human. It is NOT going to get stuck and have to be decapitated. When and where does that happen?”

“I don’t know. I dreamt about that happening. I dreamt that the aperture was too small and the baby wouldn’t come out.”

“You daft thing,” Spenser chided him. “You’re just nervous, that’s all. And no wonder. This is a scary thing you’re going through. But it will be all right. I promise. You’re going to have a healthy, safe birth and the Tullys are going to get a bouncing baby boy to love and cherish. And then you’re going home to Brenda, and you’re going to remember this when she’s in the fifteenth month of a Gallifreyan pregnancy and you’ll be the most sympathetic husband in the universe.”

“Brenda?” Davie said the name as if it was unfamiliar to him.

“Brenda, your fiancée. The woman you intend to marry,” Spenser reminded him.

“I know, Brenda,” he protested. “I am going to marry her. We’re going to have children together. And you… I want you to be happy, Spenser. Don’t hold out for me. Find a man you love. And be happy.”

“I will,” Spenser promised. “But right now, I love you. And you’re the only man who matters to me.”

Right now, Davie was happy to be loved by him. He smiled as they held hands and walked on in the warm Mizzonian afternoon. They were oblivious to everyone else around them. They particularly weren’t watching a man who drew level with them as they stopped again to look out over the sea. Not until he moved right up behind them.

“You’ve got something of mine,” the man said.

“I don’t think so,” Spenser answered. “Push off.”

“He has something of mine,” the man said and Davie yelped as he felt something sharp press against his back through the thin fabric of a summer maternity shirt. “He has my child.”

“What?” Davie half turned and looked at the man. He didn’t recognise him. He never saw his face that night on the boardwalk. “You’re the one who….”

“It’s my child,” the man repeated. “And I'm taking it back.”

As clumsy and heavy as he felt, Davie reacted quickly as the knife flashed in front of his face. He raised his hand and parried the arm away. Spenser, meanwhile, moved around and got hold of the assailant by the neck, pulling him safely away from Davie.

“It’s not yours,” he said as he grasped his hand and tried to make him drop the knife. “It’s Davie’s baby. And he’s mine. You stay away from him.”

“It’s mine,” the man screamed and with an unexpected burst of strength he pulled himself away from Spenser’s grasp and lunged at Davie. Spenser recovered and took his legs out with a Sun Ko Du sweep that Davie had taught him in the Sanctuary Dojo. The knife dropped from his hands as he went down. Spenser kicked it away and restrained the attacker as others came running to assist and there was a Doppler sound of a police car drawing near.

“Spenser!” Davie called out as the madman was arrested, still claiming that the baby belonged to him. Spenser looked around. Davie was leaning against the sea wall, his face pale, and sweat beading his forehead. The drama around him suddenly seemed insignificant as he realised what was happening. He ran to his lover and held him tightly as he called for somebody to get an ambulance.

An hour later Davie was lying in a comfortable bed in the delivery room at the hospital. Spenser was allowed to see him. He kissed him and asked if he was feeling all right.

“I’m getting contractions every ten minutes,” he said. “It shouldn’t be more than a couple of hours. They said the baby is all right. It’s big enough to be viable even two weeks early. But they’re worried the head isn’t presenting.”

“So this is it?”

“This is it. What about… did the police say….”

“They’ve sectioned him under their mental health act. He’s a bit of a sad case. He wanted to have a child, but his partner left him – because he was too obsessive about everything. And he became obsessed with having a baby by any means.”

“He can’t take him from me?”

“No, he can’t. He has no legal right. It’s your baby, Davie. Until you sign the adoption papers. And then he belongs to Grieg and Solon. He’ll never set eyes on your baby.”

“I felt his mind,” Davie said. “He actually meant to cut the child from me, with that knife.”

“Not while I have breath in my body. Don’t think about it. You just do your breathing exercises or whatever it is you have to do now.”

“Breathing exercises don’t help,” Davie responded. His face screwed up and he groaned. Spenser held his hand until it was over. “See. Useless. Breathing is the last thing I can think of when it happens.”

“Try,” Spenser told him. “For your good and the baby. Is he all right?”

“He’s fine. I can feel him.” He pressed his hand over his stomach. “He’s just fine. Except for the way he’s lying. Has to be turned around, ready. Otherwise it will be very difficult. And dangerous. But I think I can handle that.” He closed his eyes and concentrated. Spenser felt him reach out and mentally touch the child within its womb. He gently coaxed it to turn, little by little, until its head was towards the place where the aperture would open in a while. He just managed to do it when the next contraction overcame him and he suppressed a cry of pain.

“That wasn’t good. I was still in mental contact with the baby when it started to overwhelm me. I don’t want him to know how much this hurts me.”

“You don’t have to hide it from me,” Spenser told him. “Let me help.”

“You’re already helping, by being here,” he answered. “I appreciate it.”

“As if I could go anywhere else. You just rest yourself. You’ve got a bit of a way to go, yet.”

“Not as long as I expected. The physician said it would be over before midnight.”

“Good. Then you can get a night’s sleep afterwards.”

“Feeding every two hours,” Davie reminded him. “When he’s born, he still needs me.”

“Sleep in between then.”

Another contraction seared his body. They were getting stronger. As this one passed a nurse came to examine him. The aperture was starting to open. Spenser glanced at it and saw the gap widening. There was a sort of gel like substance that oozed from it. That was meant to make the birth easier. But it looked unpleasant in the meantime. The nurse put a gauze pad over it to keep it clean and asked if he needed anything.

“No, I’m all right,” Davie answered. “I just want this to be over.”

“They all do,” the nurse told him. “At least you’ve got your sweetheart with you.”

“Yes,” Davie agreed. He smiled at Spenser as they were left alone again. “My sweetheart.” He reached and kissed him. “Did I ever tell you I love you?”

“Many times. But it’s the hormones talking. You love Brenda. I'm just standing in for her right now.”

“Can’t think of her right now. All of that… my real life…seems too far away. I can’t think beyond the next few hours. The next five minutes, even. Ohhh.”

Spenser grasped his hand as he rode the wave of pain and came through it, gasping for air, tears pricking his eyes. He asked for some water. Spenser held a glass to his lips. His head slipped back onto the pillow and he sighed deeply.

The pattern repeated again and again, with the pains getting longer and the time between them shorter. Davie was tired and hurting, but Spenser helped him every way he could, even telepathically sharing the pain with him when it was at its worst. Two hours went by slowly, agonisingly. He was examined regularly by nurses and a doctor who said he was progressing satisfactorily.

Then there came a time when there didn’t seem to be any breaks between the pains. Davie screamed out loud despite Spenser’s efforts to ease his suffering. The doctor and a nurse came in and began to make preparations. Spenser held his hand and kissed his hot, flushed cheek and tried to be as reassuring as he could be.

“It’s almost over now,” he promised him. “A little more pain, a bit more effort and it will be over.”

“I know,” Davie replied. “But… but…” He screamed again. Through a haze of pain he heard Spenser’s reassurance and a professional voice telling him to be ready to push. He could feel it was time. He got ready. He gripped Spenser’s hand tightly and he groaned with the effort. He felt the baby move within him, felt it pressing against him as he relaxed for a few moments and it all began again.

Davie couldn’t see clearly. Spenser hardly dared to look. He kept his eyes on his sweetheart’s face as he pushed and screamed this time. They both heard the nurse say the head was there and he just needed one more effort.

“One… more effort.” Davie took a deep breath and pushed hard. He felt suddenly lighter and he looked up to see the doctor holding a white, pink and slightly blue looking baby, covered in ooze and fluid, the umbilical cord still attached. He held his own breath as the baby took its first gasp of air and cried softly. The umbilical cord dissolved away as he watched, leaving a small mark on the baby’s stomach.

He felt a sense of loss now that the child was no longer attached to him in any way. But that feeling was brief. The nurse quickly cleaned the baby and wrapped him in soft cloth and gave him into his parent’s arms. Davie looked at the tiny face, pale skin, a small nose, bright eyes looking up at him, a small pink mouth that opened soundlessly. He sobbed for joy.

“He’s beautiful. Oh, he is. Absolutely beautiful. Spenser, look. He was worth all the effort, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, he was,” Spenser agreed. He hugged Davie and kissed his cheek while the nurse completed the disposal of the placenta. The aperture would, he was told, close up by itself in a few hours. The now empty womb would dissolve away and his body would slowly return to normal.

Almost normal, anyway. Spenser sat back and watched as Davie opened his shirt and fed his baby for the first time. He smiled blissfully.

“That… really is the most wonderful feeling,” he said. “I am so lucky to be able to feed him from my own body. It’s… fantastic.”

“You still want to name him yourself?” Spenser asked, skirting around whether Davie being able to breast feed was fantastic or not.

“Yes.” Davie smiled at the little face that looked up at him, blowing milk bubbles through the soft mouth. The child had none of his own DNA. He had simply been nurtured within his body for nearly five months. His eyes were deep green and the fine hair on his head was red. He didn’t look like him, or anyone he knew. But he was his own child. He loved him. And yes, he had a name.

“Khristan,” he said. “I looked it up. It’s the closest Mizzone equivalent to my brother’s name. The best name I could give to a child.”

“Good name,” Spenser agreed. “I think the doctor wants you to let go of him for a minute, by the way. They have to do some weighing and measuring and counting of fingers and toes.”

They did, and he was. And when that was done, Davie was moved into the post-natal ward where he was put to bed. His baby, now wearing a name tag with his date of birth and the name Khristan Campbell, was set beside him in a glass sided crib where he could see him.

“Go to sleep, now,” Spenser told him, leaning over to kiss him. “I’ll be back to see you in the morning.”

Davie sighed and turned over on the pillow so he could look at the crib as he fell asleep. He woke a few hours later for the first feed of the night, then slept again. As the dawn broke on a Mizzone summer morning he repeated the process. A few hours later, before breakfast was served, he fed and washed and changed his baby using the moist wipes and towels and nappies provided in the cupboard by the bed. Then he half sat with the pillows propped behind his back and cuddled his newborn son in his arms. After breakfast he slept again for a while, with the child cuddled next to him in the crook of his arm.

He was asleep like that when Spenser came into the ward to see him, bringing gifts of chocolates and barley water and a bunch of flowers. He put them down and sat for a while just watching Davie sleep with his child in his arms.

“Hello, sleepyhead,” he said when Davie stirred and opened his eyes. “How do you feel?”

“I’m ok,” he answered. “Tired, still. But I’m doing ok.”

“Will you still be ok if I tell you Grieg and Solon are in the waiting room. They were hoping to see you and the baby.”

“They’re not…” Davie looked nervous. “They’re not here to take him away? It’s too soon. I need more time, yet.”

“No, silly. They just want to see him. They were thrilled when I called them. It is all right, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Davie answered. “Yes, it’s all right. Let them come in.”

He sat up and found a comb for his own hair before making sure his baby looked presentable for his future parents. He smiled bravely through the visit, thanking them for the flowers and gifts they brought. He even let them hold Khristan for a little while.

“Davie, are you sure?” Grieg asked as he noted the way he held the baby close when he finally got him back in his arms. “If you wanted to change your mind, we wouldn’t blame you. After all you went through, and now, looking at him…. He’s your baby. You could still….”

“I love him,” Davie admitted. “But I know I can’t keep him. I have a life I have to go back to. I’ve been too long away as it is. And that life doesn’t include him. I need a few days. He needs me. It’s in the baby books… the milk that he drinks in his first week is enriched, specially formed to give him the best start. I’ll give him that start. And then, after that, he’s yours. I will be ready.”

Grieg and Solon understood. But all the same he was slightly relieved when they went. He didn’t even really need Spenser just now. He wanted to be left in peace with his baby.

He stayed in hospital for a week. The physicians insisted on making sure his alien body fully recovered from the trauma of Mizzonian birth. Apart from continuing to breast feed Khristan, his part Gallifreyan body went back to normal easily. He refused to stop doing that. He cherished the bond he had with his child when he fed him. He cherished every moment he spent with him. He knew the days were short. So he made the most of them. He held his baby as often as he could, lay awake watching when he slept in his crib. When Spenser or Khristan’s future parents visited he was most often found lying in the bed with the baby pressed close to him. There was little doubt that he loved him dearly.

But the day came when Spenser arrived early, bringing Davie’s ordinary clothes with him. He dressed, feeling strange as he fastened his belt around a waist he had forgotten he had. He dressed Khristan from the skin out in new clothes he had bought ready for this day. Then he carried him from the maternity department, out of the hospital. When they got outside in the sunshine, Spenser unfolded the brand new pram and Davie put the baby into it. He took the handle and pushed it happily along the busy Mizzonian streets. He noticed the glances of passers by, who smiled to see the week old baby sleeping contentedly.

They went to a park with cool fountains and flower beds and sat for a quiet hour. Davie fed Khristan, not from his breast this time, but from a bottle of prepared formula. From now on, that was how it would be. He held him until Spenser gently reminded him that it was time. He nodded and put him back into the pram and they walked to the building where the adoption agency had its offices.

He held Khristan again as they waited in the comfortably furnished room where the formalities took place. Grieg and Solon sat and waited, and didn’t try to rush him. The case worker brought the paperwork. Davie’s signature wasn’t the neatest he had ever signed, because he was still holding the baby when he picked up the pen, and perhaps also because he was crying softly and his hand shook a little. But with that signature Khristan Campbell officially became Khristan Tully, child of Grieg and Solon. Davie kissed him one more time and then passed him into Solon’s arms. He watched as the new parents hugged their baby and then he stood and turned away. Spenser followed him as he walked out of the building.

He walked halfway down the road without even thinking about where he was going. His tears ran unchecked. Spenser took hold of his arm and summoned a taxi. He cried all the way back to the Marina. He cried as Spenser opened the TARDIS door and brought him inside. He cried himself to sleep on the sofa in the console room.

When he woke, the TARDIS was in flight. He asked Spenser where they were going.

“My home,” he answered. “You need a few days. A bit of time to get over it all. I can’t take you home, yet. You’re still a complete emotional basket case. And you need to get a bit of exercise to work off all that fudge. Your belt is two notches out from normal, you know.”

Davie said nothing. He lay there and watched Spenser competently piloting the TARDIS back to Earth, to his hermitage in Northumbria. The thought of a few peaceful days there was comforting. But only a little. His hearts ached with grief and loss and he couldn’t imagine getting over that feeling if he was there for a year.

He tried. He spent the time walking and jogging on the clifftop, practising the martial arts that kept his body trim and fit. His body mended. He stopped producing milk in a few days. He started to look like the man he used to be.

But emotionally he was still a ‘basket case’. He cried a lot. Sometimes for no apparent reason he would break down. Spenser comforted him, he chastised him, he downright bullied him to try to help him over his grief. But nothing worked.

Finally, in the cool evening of a day nearly two weeks later, Spenser couldn’t find him anywhere around the house or the garden. He feared the worst and walked along the cliff edge looking down at the rocks below, expecting to see a twisted, broken body there. When he returned, he noticed the door to the TARDIS open. It was parked in the drawing room, disguised as a walk in cupboard.

Spenser stepped inside and found Davie sitting on the floor by the sofa. He had a cardboard box with him. It contained all the evidence of Khristan’s existence. There were printouts of scans from when he was no more than a bunch of cells to the day before his birth and countless photographs taken afterwards. There was his birth certificate, naming Davie as his parent. There was the tiny plastic wristlet that was put on his arm in the hospital, with the name ‘Khristan Campbell’ in neat, small handwriting. There was a pair of cotton booties that he had worn.

“How did we manage to take so many photographs in a week?” Spenser asked as he picked up one of them.

“I don’t know,” Davie answered. “I thought… I wanted… as many memories as I could… things to keep to remember him by.”

“I suppose, that’s all right,” Spenser conceded.

“No, it isn’t,” he said. “Spenser, it’s not all right. I have to forget him, completely.”

“What?”

He put the pictures and the other mementoes into the box and closed it. He sealed it with his sonic screwdriver, which seemed excessive to Spenser. Sellotape would have been just as effective on a cardboard box.

“I want you to take this,” he said. “I want you to put it in your attic, or a drawer you don’t use very often… hide it away where I’ll never come across it.”

“I can do that,” Spenser told him. “Probably the best thing, anyway. You can’t really have that lot around at home. Not if you don’t want anyone to know.”

“That’s the thing. I can’t… I can’t possibly avoid them finding out. They’ll know straight away that something is wrong. Chris won’t be fooled. He’s known me since… since we were both a mass of cells growing and dividing in our mother’s womb. I have no secrets from him. And Brenda will know I’m not right. She’ll probably get the wrong end of the stick and think you and I have been sleeping together.”

“We have been sleeping together. For five months, now.”

“You know what I mean,” Davie told him. “And I’d end up having to tell her the truth so she knows I haven’t broken my promises to her and had sex with you. And… it’s impossible. I can’t let anyone know. And the only way I can do that, is if I don’t remember. If… in my mind… it never happened.”

“But…” Spenser was puzzled at first, then his eyes widened in shock as he understood. “Davie… Oh, no. You want me to take away your memory of the whole five months. You want to forget how much you liked being pregnant, how you cherished the little one growing within you, forget how much you loved him. I know it hurt to part with him. But your memries of the week you were his parent, a week of love….”

“I have to,” he said, his throat constricted and tears pricking his eyes again. “I have to forget his face. I have to forget holding his tiny hand, kissing his cheek, his eyes looking up at me, loving me back. I have to forget everything I felt, good and bad.”

“You’ll forget how much we loved each other, too.”

“Yes.”

“Maybe that’s for the best,” Spenser conceded. “I did wonder how it was going to end. I’ve slept by your side for all that time, as if we were lovers. But you have to be Brenda’s lover. I have to be your friend. When you’re lying in her arms, you can’t be wondering remembering, comparing her with me.. It would be better if you don’t.... But Davie, it’s still a terrible sacrifice for you to make. To forget everything….”

“You’ll remember for me. You’ll remember his face, remember how beautiful he was. You’ll think of him now and again, growing up happy with his two parents who love him. You’ll do that for me, Spenser. That will be the most wonderful thing you could ever do for me. The greatest expression of your love.”

“And you won’t even know it.” Spenser shook his head at the irony.

“Please, say you’ll do it for me,” Davie begged him as the tears flowed down his cheeks. “Please, Spenser.”

“I’ll do it,” he said. “Come here.” He drew Davie into a tight, loving embrace. He pressed his mouth against his in a deep, passionate kiss. As the kiss lingered, as Davie responded with the same passion, Spenser touched his forehead. He reached into his mind and found those precious memories. He mentally grasped them together and plucked them like a bunch of flowers growing in a bed, root and all, leaving nothing behind. He felt Davie’s gasp in his own mouth and his head falling away as he slipped into unconsciousness.

“I’ll remember for you, Davie,” he promised, kissing his cheek.

Davie woke in a strange bed, with daylight coming through the window. He saw Spenser sitting beside him.

“Where am I? How did I get here?” he asked.

“You’re in my bed, in Northumbria,” Spenser answered. “You’ve been there for a week. Don’t worry, you’re still going to be a virgin on your wedding night with Brenda. I didn’t do anything to you.”

“I… didn’t think.…” He laughed softly. “But the last thing I remember was walking with you under the boardwalk on Mizzone….”

“You don’t remember collapsing in agony, with the worst case of food poisoning in the history of bad cuisine?”

“No,” he answered. “Not a thing. Is that what happened?”

“I carried you back to the TARDIS, diagnosed you in the medical room. Dosed you with medicine, then decided I could look after you here better than anywhere else. You had a rough time of it. But you’re all right, now.”

“Spenser, you are wonderful,” Davie told him. “I really don’t deserve you. I think the last thing I remember was telling you to find a man who can give you the love I can’t.”

“Something like that. And I promised you I would. But not while you need me. Anyway, stay right there. I’ll make some food. You must be hungry.”

“Please, yes. Only… anything but fish. It must have been those shellfish we had that made me ill. Let’s avoid anything like that.”

“No problem,” Spenser answered. “How does a nice baked ham sound?”

“Perfect,” Davie answered as he pressed his face into the comfortable pillow and sighed softly.

Two days later he was ready to go home. He hugged Spenser fondly and kissed him tenderly before he left. They couldn’t be as intimate as they were on Mizzone, but in the privacy of his Northumbrian hermitage, he could kiss him at least. Then he stepped into the TARDIS and set his course. He set the time co-ordinates for when he was originally supposed to be getting back so that nobody would worry.

And nobody had worried about him. He materialised the TARDIS on the patio outside the French doors of Mount Lœng House’s drawing room. It was raining and the doors were shut. As he stepped towards them, though, they opened. Brenda came running, smiling at him. She hugged him, not caring that she was getting wet, and Davie kissed her lovingly.

“You still come home to me, even after spending a week exploring the universe with Spenser,” she said.

“Of course, I do,” he answered. “You’re my girl. And I love you.” He kissed her again, not caring about the rain, either. “Funny,” he said. “But it feels like longer than a week since we did that. Why don’t you come into the TARDIS and we’ll go away for a quick orbit around planet Earth while I catch up on kissing you?”

Brenda didn’t answer in words. She turned and waved to Rose, who closed the French door against the rain and took his hand as they ran, soaking wet but happy, back to the TARDIS.