"Donna called this sort of thing 'Dad Shock'," the Doctor said, smirking just a little. "When Jenny sort of popped into my life. All grown up and troublemaking. And I can't keep a child on the TARDIS with our life out there, Jack, it'll die."

He wondered if Bea wanted him to stay. If that was why she was calling him back, in the hopes that he might. But she wasn't the settling down type. But, then again, there was very little about her that he really, truly knew.

"You raised Alice," he said. "There for her when she needed you."