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The Doctor, quite frankly, was horrified.
Of course he knew of the great Trafanium Market on Catatrox in the 98th century. He spent far too much time here during the Time War and not by choice. However, he never imagined to be walking into the largest megastore of guns, laser blasters, bombs, universal weapons of mass destruction and other pointy things in the universe with his wife and their four-year-old daughter.
“River,” the Doctor hissed as Charlotte’s eyes promptly widened at the giant space. An array of clothing spread before them, looking utterly harmless. But against the walls, gleaming weapons sparkled in all their destructive glory.
River ignored him and made a beeline for the children’s clothing, starting to rummage through pint-sized environmental suits. “What color do you want, poppet?” she asked as Charlotte started to tug on her arm.
“Can I have a dress like yours, Mummy?” she tried to pull River toward the adult section where evening dresses sparkled.
“Well, not quite like Mummy’s,” River replied. “That slit is a little daring for someone your size, and there’s a reason behind the pockets sewn into the dress. I’m sure we can find something a bit more age appropriate. Now, the green or the purple?”
“Purple,” Charlotte decided as the Doctor made his way around to the other side. “Can I go look at the guns, Mummy?”
“Don’t touch them,” River said a bit distractedly, trying to find Charlotte’s size.
“River,” the Doctor hissed again as River held up one of the suits to check it over for flaws. “We can’t be in here!”
“We most certainly can! I made absolutely sure I landed us before we were ordered to be shot on sight. There’s a reason I drove us. Besides, these have the best environmental suits in the universe.”
“I don’t care about that.” The Doctor waved to the weaponry as Charlotte joined a crowd watching a toy demonstration. “Look at all this! This place is an homage to carnage! Every known weapon of mass destruction in the universe is in this place, and we just brought our 4-year-old!”
“There’s a restaurant upstairs, we can have dinner there,” River said, draping the suit over her arm and making her way toward Charlotte, who had wormed her way to the front of the crowd.
“River!”
“We’re not the only people to bring a child here.” River rolled her eyes at him and gestured to the families milling about. “This is considered a family outing for a lot of races.”
“Not my family!”
Charlotte broke free from the demonstration at that point, running back to their side. “Mummy, there’s three-eyed Broga fish in the pond!” She pointed toward the back of the store, where a bridge crossed over to the archery department. A flight of stairs directed people to the second-floor restaurant and space camping equipment. A small feeder was set up next to the bridge. “Can I feed them? Please?”
“All right, but just the feed. You remember what happened the last time you fed Broga fish non-Broga food?” River fished out a credit and handed it to her.
Charlotte fisted the coin and nodded solemnly. “I promise not to force you and Daddy to have to brainwash zookeepers ever again.”
“Good girl.” River patted the top of her head, and Charlotte ran toward the bridge. “Keep an eye on her, while I go check out some of the smaller laser blasters.”
The Doctor did a double take so fast that he very nearly stumbled. “You can’t be serious!”
“I’m perfectly serious! It’s time Charlotte gets her first gun.” River marched away from the Doctor. He glanced helplessly as Charlotte got her fistful of fish food, then followed his wife. Whatever Charlotte could do to the fish couldn’t possibly be worse than arming her.
He ran into River poring over a selection of small silver laser blasters with glitter unicorns embossed in the handle. She tapped one of them and the clerk bowed to her and opened the case to remove it. “I don’t want her to have a gun.”
“I do. I’m her mother.”
He scowled. “I’m her father.”
River tapped the case impatiently. “I carried her for god-knows how many months and gave birth to her!”
“You haven’t yet," the Doctor pointed out.
River scowled back. “But I will do so.”
“Oh, time can be rewritten, my dear wife.”
“How so?”
He grabbed her arm and hissed in her ear, “I can start using condoms.”
River merely rolled her eyes and accepted the case containing the blaster. “Thank you,” she told the clerk and tucked it into a small shopping basket she picked up while he hadn’t been paying attention. There was an array of items already in it: child-sized socks, the blaster, “Child’s Introduction to Atomic Weaponry,” and several kits.
He plucked one of the kits out and nearly dropped it when he saw what it was. “River, Charlotte’s four. She can barely perform advanced calculus and you want to buy her the Tinker Tots Time Displacement Bomb Creation Kit?”
River grabbed the kit back. “She’s got to learn proper weapon safety at some point.”
“River, no!”
“River, yes! Now be quiet or go back to the TARDIS.” River turned on her heel and headed to where Charlotte crouched by the pond, feeding the fish.
“River-”
She weaved through the clothing racks. “Doctor, we are not having a domestic in here!”
“We are going to bloody well have a domestic in here, because I don’t want my daughter to become a gun-toting assassin by the age of 6!”
River whipped around and the Doctor froze at the sheer fury and hurt in his wife’s eyes. “You mean like me?”
“You had no choice,” he ground out.
“No, I didn’t! And considering that she’ll be public enemy no. 1 when the universe figures out who she is beyond a cute little girl in pigtails feeding the Broga fish candy when I told her not to do so, I’m going to ensure that she’s never caught in a place where she can’t rescue herself like me when I was a child.” River shoved the basket in the Doctor’s arms. “Here, go put all this back then! Keep the socks. I told you I wasn’t cut out for this mothering thing. You think you can do it all better? Go on then.”
She pushed past him and stalked to Charlotte’s side. “Oh, baby, I told you not to feed them sweets,” River sighed as she watched dead Broga bob in the pond.
As fish after fish went belly-up, Charlotte’s lip trembled. “But it was fish food, Mummy, I swear it. You said not to feed them anything other than that, and I promise, I didn’t.”
River’s gaze flicked up to the feeder and she quickly ascertained that Charlotte was right. Someone had indeed switched out the fish feed. Oh well, not her issue. It was the sort of thing the Doctor would puzzle out. Not her. “I believe you, darling. Let’s go back to the TARDIS.”
“Do I still get my purple suit?” Charlotte asked in a small voice as they walked out of the store, sirens sounding behind them.
“Eventually,” River sighed and tried to calculate when she could sneak back and not be banned for this particular incident - even though it wasn’t their fault. “Maybe when people aren’t in a murderous rage."
“That’s what you always say.”
She had a point. River pushed open the TARDIS door to find the Doctor leaning against the console, arms crossed. Charlotte pushed past her to wrap her arms around his legs. “Daddy, I didn’t mean to kill the fish.”
“I saw.” He crouched to her level and ruffled her hair. “Managed to get away with a present for you.”
Charlotte’s interest piqued, the fish nearly forgotten. “Really?”
He reached behind him, beneath the console, and brought out the Tinker Tots Time Displacement Bomb Creation Kit. “Here you are. Baby’s first bomb kit.”
“Wow!” Charlotte grabbed the box and bounced a little. “Look, Mummy! Will you build the bomb with me?”
River smiled. “Of course, darling. I kind of have to, really. You take it to the nursery while I thank your Daddy.”
Charlotte hugged the box to her chest. “But you thanking Daddy always takes such a long time.”
“I’ll be brief this time, I swear. Go on now.” River shooed Charlotte down the stairs, then turned to the Doctor. “Thank you,” she said quietly.
“You may have a point about self defense,” the Doctor said gruffly.
“We’re going to disagree about a lot of things,” River pointed out. “This is just going to have to be one of them. You teach Charlotte your values, and I’ll teach her mine. She’ll find her own path as she gets older. Now, come with me so you can put a bug in her ear about using that time distortion bomb to save those Broga fish.”
The Doctor grinned after River and decided it was wise not to point out that at times, her values were the same as his own.