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Nyssa had been the one to notice it. A bright flash of colour, out of the corner of her eye. She had walked over without a word to Tegan and Adric, who were stilling following the Doctor. The sound of Tegan still grousing ("Where exactly is that beautiful waterfall we were meant to be seeing, Doctor?") at the Doctor got fainter as Nyssa pushed past a low-hanging branch. A few metres away from the path, she had found a small bundle of yellow fabric on a tree stump. Nyssa had nearly gasped when she had noticed an infant’s face peering out from the blankets.
The child had been wrapped so deliberately, Nyssa noted as she carefully picked up the baby, watching it blink up at her sleepily. With real care. So then why would it have been left behind?
Despite her grousing, Tegan had been the first one to notice her absence. She walked up to Nyssa, hands on her hips.
“Nyssa, where on Earth do you think you’re going—” Tegan stopped in her tracks when she noticed the infant, eyes widening in surprise. “Oh, rabbits.”
The Doctor and Adric were following along after her.
“Nyssa?” The Doctor said. “Where did you find that?”
“Someone just left it here,” Nyssa explained, indicating the tree stump. “Why would someone leave a child this young alone?”
The unease in Nyssa’s tone must have startled the child. Suddenly, it began to cry.
“I’m not sure,” the Doctor said, his tone troubled. “But they must have had a reason. I need to go get something—don’t move a muscle, any of you.” And then the Doctor set off in the direction of the TARDIS without another word.
Nyssa tried to rock the crying infant, trying to remember how the nursemaids did it back on Traken. But her memories were vague—it had been many years before Traken’s destruction that there had been a child that young in her family.
The shrieks of the child were surprisingly loud. One wouldn’t think that such a small lung capacity could cause such a noise, but Nyssa was a woman of science. The proof was right in front of her.
After a couple of minutes of this, Tegan was looking at the infant like she very much wanted to try to scream right back at it. Luckily, she just glared instead, and then said to Nyssa, “The Doctor had better get back here soon.”
“Someone has to do something,” said Adric, who kept cringing at the child’s sharp cries.
“Got any bright suggestions?” Tegan snapped back.
“It’s not my fault that you don’t have maternal instincts!” Adric said.
Oh dear, thought Nyssa.
“Maternal instincts?” Tegan looked like she was about to bite Adric’s head off. “What exactly do you mean by that, you little chauvinist?”
Even Adric knew when he had bit off more than he could chew.
“I should go too,” Adric said quickly. “I have… some equations to work on. Back on the TARDIS.”
Adric quickly headed off in the direction the Doctor had left in. After he had left, Tegan had taken the child from Nyssa and had begun rocking it. A part of Nyssa was starting to wish very much that she had some equations to work on, as flimsy as an excuse as that was. But even if she had, Nyssa knew that she couldn’t leave Tegan, or the child, alone.
Tegan’s attempts to calm the infant were quite strange. There was the incongruity of the scowl on her face mixed with her sincere attempt to keep the rocking slow and gentle. She had also begun softly singing what must be an Earth nursery song. Nyssa found the lyrics slightly disturbing. They seemed to concern structurally unsound bridges and a very ill-advised cradle placement. She wasn’t sure how that was expected to comfort a crying child.
The Doctor came back not long after that, a small bag around his shoulder.
“Tegan,” the Doctor said, his voice unexpectedly gentle, placing a hand on Tegan’s shoulder. “Let me try?”
“Knock yourself out,” Tegan said, handing the baby to the Doctor.
“Do you think it’s healthy, Doctor?” Nyssa asked. She didn’t have that much experience with children that young, but surely it couldn’t be healthy to cry that much.
“She’s perfectly healthy, as far as I can see,” the Doctor said as he took the infant. “That’s how babies communicate, Nyssa. They cry. It’s the only language they can use.”
The Doctor held the infant with confidence. He seemed to know exactly where to put his hands to support the child, and almost immediately she began to settle down. Very softly, he sang the child a song too, though Nyssa couldn’t make out the words this time. Tegan’s Earth nursery songs had been translated into Trakenite, but whatever language the Doctor was speaking, the TARDIS had not translated it.
But the feeling of it was clear. Melodious and soft and strangely calming. The child settled down, gradually but surely, her big eyes staring up at the Doctor.
Nyssa thought she heard the Doctor once mention having had children before. But it had been such a quick mention, with only the vaguest hint of wistfulness in the Doctor’s eyes. She could have misunderstood. The Doctor had looked much too young to have grown children in both of the bodies Nyssa had known him in, but who knew what his real age was. She had wondered, but it had never seemed polite to ask.
“Look at that!” Tegan said, clearly impressed. “You’ve got some real paternal instincts, Doctor.”
A hint of something flashed in the Doctor’s eyes, but it was gone as soon as Nyssa noticed it.
“Nyssa,” the Doctor said quietly. “Get the sling out of my bag, will you? We should take her back to the TARDIS.”
Nyssa did, and to her surprise, the Doctor wrapped the child up around his front, so that the baby was looking at the celery on his lapel. Luckily, she didn’t reach for it. Or try to eat it. But it was an amusing picture, the Doctor wearing a baby as they headed back to the TARDIS together.
They would have to find the baby’s parents later, of course. And get into plenty of trouble along the way. But walking along the trail with Tegan, watching together the Doctor baby-wear without a hint of self-consciousness, Nyssa couldn’t help but smile.