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The Doctor tried to not show how afraid he was, shielding his chaotic thoughts and feelings and controlling the tremors which ran down the long muscles in his arms as he held his two daughters tightly to his chest, the girls burying their faces in his robe. They were crouched and huddled in the back of the room, under the dressing table, staring at the locked door.
Even if he broke into their rooms, he couldn't find them here, could he? Locked up in the guest bathroom, three levels back from the apartment rooms and labs they used to live and work in?
Rosa was the strongest telepath of the three of them, she had inherited her other father's psychic ability, but she was only a toddler, barely out of nappies. She let a constant quiet keen of fear, hardly more than a whisper.
When they were sure Koschei had gone, they went to the kitchen and ate chocolate ice cream, although it turned to ashes in the Doctor's mouth.
Rosa was still keening, rocking in her high chair.
“Why?” Sharn thought at him, her eyes blazing with fear and confusion, her deeper feeling still one of love as well as fear for her Papa.
“Papa likes to control. We didn't do as he asked. He gets angry. And then he likes to make others fear. He thinks he can control us by fear if he can't by making us obey. We won't let him. H'm? Will we girls?”
“Don't let him in Father!”
“I won't my dear. We are safe.”
Until the next time, the Doctor thought sadly, swallowing anxiety and self-reproach for not being able to keep his daughters safe in the first place, for not choosing a better husband, for not being able to help Koschei through the dark times of the drums.