Chapter Text
The house was still, for once. No cartoons humming in the background, no toddler feet pounding through the hallway, no cries, no calls for Mummy or requests for snacks. Just the low hum of the refrigerator in the next room and the gentle tick of the old clock on the wall.
John Noble was asleep on the couch in the den, stretched out with an old tartan blanket tossed over him, one arm flung above his head like he'd passed out mid-sentence. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep- not with the baby monitor balanced on his chest like some kind of badge- but exhaustion had a way of winning. Four hours of sleep across two nights, endless nappies, two emergency trips to the chemist, and one especially impressive projectile vomit on his favorite t-shirt had finally tipped the scales.
The baby monitor crackled faintly.
He stirred.
And then he heard it- soft at first, the smallest whimper, like a bubble popping in water. A breathy little sound, tentative and testing, the start of what might become a proper wail if left unanswered. Sarah Jane Noble. Janie. Brand new and still sort of upset about it.
John was halfway through sitting up when another voice- brave and solid and nearly as small- spoke gently into the quiet.
“’s okay, Janie-bug. ’m here.”
John froze.
That was James Wilfred Noble. Freddie. His brave little soldier.
There was the muffled sound of bedsheets rustling, a toddler moving across the mattress, and then a faint thump as he scrambled over to her bassinet. Another whimper from Janie, but not crying just yet.
“You don’ needa cry, Janie. Mummy’s tired. Daddy too. You gots me.”
John sat up fully now, leaning toward the monitor like it could bring him closer. His hand dragged through his hair- in desperate need of a trim- and he closed his eyes tight. His chest ached, but it wasn’t pain. Not exactly.
He hadn’t taught Freddie to comfort his sister like that. No one had told him to say those words. But there he was, just four years old and already standing guard over his baby sister like he’d been born to do it. Brave, soft-hearted, full of kindness in a world that hadn’t earned it yet.
John swallowed hard, throat tight- He knew what he could’ve lost.
There were moments, split seconds, really, when the sounds of the delivery room still crashed over him worse than gunfire he faced in the war. When all he could remember was Rose going limp, blood everywhere, the machines screaming and the midwife shoving him back as they rushed her to surgery. He’d held Janie in one hand, slick and screaming, while the rest of his body screamed with her for Rose. His instincts failed him- in the moment he wasn’t a surgeon with years of trauma experience, nor a soldier- a Royal Marine with years and years of training in life or death situations- just a terrified father and husband suddenly facing the impossible.
They could’ve lost both of them. He could be sitting here right now in a house with just Freddie and their ghosts.
But they hadn’t. Rose and their little Sarah Jane had both come through.
He looked toward the hallway, as if he might catch a glimpse of his wife just beyond it. She hadn’t stirred, he was sure. The medicines helped her sleep when she actually managed to close her eyes. Lately, she barely ate. Cried in the shower where she thought he couldn’t hear. She didn’t hold Janie for more than a few minutes at a time. And the worst part- worse than anything- was how sorry she was.
Sorry she couldn’t give him the big family he used to talk about in the early days. Sorry she was tired. Sorry she wasn’t smiling. Sorry she hadn’t died but kind of wanted to. Sorry. Always so sorry.
He didn’t know how to make her see it, that she’d already given him everything. Everything that mattered. That he’d take a hundred broken dreams if it meant he got to keep her. Keep their children and this life.
Freddie, whispering sweet comforts to his baby sister in the dark of the pre-dawn morning. Janie, soothed back to sleep by the sound of her brother’s voice. His son, his daughter. His brave, beautiful wife- fighting the storm inside her every day and not giving up- when he could tell she really wanted to do just that.
John stood with a groan and tugged the blanket tighter around his shoulders. He didn’t go to the nursery yet. He just needed another minute.
Because his heart was breaking and healing all at once- and it was all so heavy in his chest, this terrible, beautiful love.
John padded barefoot through the hallway, baby monitor still clutched in his hand like a lifeline. The house was dim, bathed in the warm hush of early morning, but the nursery door was ajar. He leaned in, already bracing for the sight.
And there they were.
Janie was quiet again, tucked safe in her bassinet with her tiny fists curled near her cheeks. And nestled beside her, absurdly large in comparison, was Freddie’s well-loved stuffed turtle- green, floppy-limbed, and missing one glass eye- known to the family as ‘Gravy’- and nobody knew why.
Freddie lay sprawled on the floor cushions they'd stacked for his ‘camping nights,’ his little arm stretched in Janie’s direction like he’d fallen asleep mid-promise.
John’s breath caught in his throat.
It was too much, sometimes. The goodness in them. The way Freddie had become a big brother overnight, like he'd been waiting for this purpose. The way Janie seemed to quiet when he was near, as if she already knew his voice. As if she’d been listening for him, even before she was born.
He backed away quietly, shutting the door with care, and turned toward the master bedroom. He needed to check on Rose- make sure she was still asleep, still breathing deeply, her face soft with real rest for once, as she had been when last he peeked in. Maybe he’d warm a bottle for Janie before she stirred again.
He’d just made it to the end of the hall when a pounding started at the front door.
Not knocking, but banging.
Sharp, frantic, desperate.
The kind of knock that threw adrenaline straight through his chest.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered, already descending the steps two at a time, his hand tightening around the banister. He swatted at the porch light switch, then flung open the door with every intention of telling off whoever thought it was a good idea to-
“Clara?”
She stood on the stoop like a phantom in the porchlight. Her hair was wild, her coat thrown on over pajamas, and her mascara had long since surrendered to whatever storm of tears had come before this. Her face was pale and blotchy, and her eyes- those eyes always so bright and knowing- were ringed with red. She looked positively wrecked.
“Have you-” she started, voice cracking hard. “Have you seen Basil?”
John blinked, blood running cold.
“What?”
Clara stepped forward like she might fall if she stayed still. “He left work early yesterday. He told someone he wasn’t feelin’ well. But he never came home. He’s not answerin’. His mobile is turned off... I’ve…” She pulled in a shaking breath. “I’ve been callin’ everywhere. Donna an’ your mum haven’t seen him, so I thought maybe he came here, I don’t know, I thought maybe… he’s not answerin’ me, John- he always answers…”
John’s mind was already moving. It clicked over from sleep-addled warmth to triage in a single heartbeat.
“No. We haven’t seen him. He’s not been by.” He stepped out and gently closed the door behind him, careful not to let the chill in. “Clara. Hey. Look at me.”
She did, barely.
“You’ve been cryin’ all night?”
She nodded, lip trembling.
John lowered the monitor to his side and stepped forward, resting a hand on her arm.
“Okay. Alright. Let’s not jump t’ the worst case yet, yeah? Come inside. I’ll make some tea, and we’ll figure this out.”
“I don’t want tea-” she snapped, voice rising, then winced and wrapped her arms around herself. “I’m sorry. I just- God, Johnny, what if…”
“I know,” he said softly. “But let’s not go there unless we have to.”
His older brother was missing. That is what he’d just been told.
John glanced toward the stairs- toward Rose, asleep in their room. Toward their babies, resting side by side in the nursery, the baby monitor now suddenly heavier in his hand.
And he exhaled, bracing for the day ahead. Preparing to call once again on Jack Harkness for backup because if Basil was gone there was nobody else.
Why was nothing ever simple for them?
The kitchen was quiet but full of low light- the under-cabinet strips Rose had put in glowing golden across the countertops, the old kettle beginning its slow rumble on the hob. John moved around with practiced ease, even through the exhaustion weighing him down like wet sand. Clara sat at the table, elbows on the worn wood, hands twisted into each other in her lap.
He set the mug in front of her. Two sugars. No milk. Just how she took it.
She hadn’t asked, but he remembered. Like every member of this family- it was a gift they had, Clara was convinced of it.
He sat across from her with a soft groan, one hand curled around his own mug for warmth. He didn’t speak right away. Let the silence sit, let her take a breath.
But she didn’t. She just stared down into the steam rising off her tea like it might answer for her.
“Clara,” he said gently, his voice still rough with sleep, “I need you t’ tell me what’s been goin’ on.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it again. Her lips trembled, jaw twitching once like she was biting back something too big.
“Did you have a row?” He leaned forward.
“No.” Her voice was quiet but quick. “No, nothin’ like that. We’ve… we’ve been fine. Good, even. Better than good. Happy- I… I thought we were happy.”
“Then what?” John pressed, not harsh, but not letting go. “Come on, love. Somethin’s got you scared enough to come here cryin’ in your pajamas. Somethin’ happened. Did he say somethin’? Did you say somethin’? Did- did he leave a note?”
Clara shook her head, eyes still glued to the tea.
“Then help me out, Clara, please,” John said, a little more force now behind the words. “If I’m goin’ t’ find my brother, I need to know what I’m lookin’ for. Did he get bad news? Somethin’ with work or-”
“I think he found the test.”
The room went still. John blinked back at her.
“The what?”
Clara finally looked up. Her eyes were glassy again. She spoke in a rush before she could second guess herself.
“The pregnancy test. It was positive. I wasn’t- I didn’t plan it, I didn’t mean to, it just… it happened. I know he doesn’t want kids, yeah? I love him, accepted that came with the deal. It was so much an accident, an’ I… I was gonna tell him, I was, I swear. I just… I needed to wait until I could do it right. Gently. Because I know…”
She paused, pressing her knuckles to her mouth.
“Because I know what happened with River. I know what he’s afraid of. He’s terrified of bein’ a father again, John, I see it in him. Every time I held a baby near him, he’d flinch. He holds Janie like she might vanish, ya know? An’ with Rose nearly… nearly dyin’... I just… I didn’t want him to panic. Knew it would be a conversation, debate about keepin’ it that I was probably gonna lose. So I buried it in the bin under the coffee grounds and cardboard and whatever else I could find. Because I wasn’t ready.”
John’s heart dropped into his stomach.
He stared at her for a long moment.
“And now you think he saw it.”
“I know he did.” Her voice cracked, barely a whisper. “Had to have- probably when he took the rubbish out that mornin’. There were some spilled grounds, like he’d maybe knocked the bin over. He came home from work early. Didn’t say anything. He just… he looked at me, like I’d betrayed him, or like I was already gone. An’ then he kissed me on the forehead an’ said he was goin’ to the shop. That was yesterday afternoon.”
John cursed under his breath, running a hand down his face.
“I thought maybe he just needed t’ clear his head. Maybe he was goin’ to ring you, or Donna, or take a walk an’ then come back when he could breathe. But he didn’t. He hasn’t.”
Her breath hitched, and a tear slid clean down her cheek and dropped to her pajama top.
“I don’t even know if he’s angry. Or terrified. Or grievin’ all over again. I don’t know if he’s somewhere tryin’ to talk himself down or if he’s just…” She swallowed, hard. “If he’s just gone.”
John stood up, too fast, his chair scraping the floor. He scrubbed both hands through his hair and turned toward the window, staring out at the still-dark morning like the answers might be out there somewhere in the shadows and fog.
He couldn’t imagine it. Or- no, he could. That was the worst part. He could imagine it. Basil, face pale and hands shaking. Basil, lost in the fog. Basil, reliving the worst night of his life with nothing but silence to hold onto.
He turned back to Clara, who sat crumpled, guilt rising from her like steam.
“I’m gonna find him,” John said quietly.
Clara looked up at him like she wasn’t sure she believed it.
He nodded. “I am. But you’re not stayin’ here alone. I’ll get Rose up, call Jack over. We’ll make a few more calls. An’ then I’ll go out. An’ I will find him.”
“Even if he doesn’t want to be found?”
John’s jaw clenched and then his eyes softened all at once as he looked Clara over.
“Especially if he doesn't.”