Beta: Miral-Romanov
Birthday girl: natural-blues
Fearless
His wife hurling herself out of bed and into the loo in the early hours of the morning jostled the Doctor awake yet again. He winced in the darkness as he heard her retch loudly, pushing the covers off and padding into the loo as well. Rose was hunched over the toilet with her hair askew, head resting on the wall. The Doctor knelt down next to her and placed a hand on her back, saying gently, "All right, love?"
"Fine," she huffed, breathing heavily. "My stomach's screamin' at me."
"I'll get you some ice water," he said, brushing her hair off her sweaty forehead and standing up.
Rose grumbled out a response, laying her head down on the cool tiles as the Doctor left the en suite, pulling on his dressing gown and leaving their bedroom. Expression sombre, the Doctor strode down the hall to fetch some water from the kitchen. Every morning for the last week and a half, Rose had gotten sick, yet refused to go to the infirmary, repeating that it was probably just a stomach bug and she'd be fine in a little bit. It was just as well— the Doctor didn't want her to know just yet that she was actually pregnant.
The TARDIS hummed, chastising him for his thoughts, and he glared at the ceiling. He'd found out a little over a month ago after he'd licked between her— well, after he'd licked her, tasting the changes in her hormones along with his rather impressive olfactory senses. He'd only suspected it at first, up until Rose starting exhibiting more obvious outward symptoms. Walking into the galley, the Doctor blinked when he spotted Susan already up and dressed, preparing a cuppa for herself.
"Hello, Grandfather," she chirped.
"Hello," he replied, allowing her to bounce over to him and give him a swift kiss on the cheek. "What are you doing up so early?"
"It's a school day, Grandfather," Susan reminded him, nibbling on a biscuit. "I'm in college now, remember?"
"Right," he said, rubbing his forehead. He'd gotten so used to Susan hovering around the ship after her high school graduation, he'd forgotten her application and acceptance to Oxford.
Susan frowned, and she asked, "Grandfather, why have you been so preoccupied lately?"
"Have I been?" he said airily, digging in the cupboard for a glass and filling it with water from the tap to avoid looking at her.
"You forgot I was in college, even though I have been for a whole month now," Susan pointed out. "Also, every time we've taken a trip you've landed us in the wrong time period, or even on the wrong planet."
"That's the TARDIS's fault, not mine," the Doctor said petulantly, before letting out a yelp when the TARDIS sent a current of electricity through the tap, shocking his hand.
Susan hid a smile behind her cup. "If you say so, Grandfather," she said, setting down her cup and striding out of the room.
Huffing, the Doctor stuck his burnt thumb in his mouth and left as well, heading back to the bedroom he and Rose shared. To his surprise he bumped into Rose in the hallway, looking bleary-eyed but considerably less pale than she had been earlier.
"Feeling better?" he asked, handing her the glass of water.
She nodded, sipping at it carefully before taking a proper gulp when it didn't upset her stomach. "Yeah. Just bloody hungry."
"I'll make breakfast, shall I?" he said, placing a hand on the small of her back and leading her back into the kitchen.
"God, I'd murder someone right now for a omelette," she groaned, leaning her head on his shoulder. "And some toast. And bacon! I want bacon— and orange juice."
"You just got sick," the Doctor said with a frown.
"I know," Rose said, heading over to the refrigerator and pulling out a jug of orange juice. "Which means now my stomach's empty, which means now I want bacon."
"Er, I'll make some then," the Doctor said, watching with concern as Rose poured the orange juice into her glass and basically chugged it down. "Hold on one moment."
He practically fled the kitchen, ducking into the nearest room to hide. Ignoring the TARDIS's hum of disapproval this time, the Doctor covered his mouth with his hand. He'd faced down dozens of the universe's most terrifying creatures despite being less than three hundred years old, yet nothing scared him more than knowing his wife was by some miracle carrying his child. It'd been centuries since the last Gallifreyan was born instead of Loomed, and he'd been ninety-nine per cent certain they were incompatible, so he hadn't been prepared for something like this. What if something went wrong? What if Rose's dreadfully fragile human physiology couldn't handle carrying a Gallifreyan child? And what would she do if she found out? Rose had never expressed a desire for children, and he wasn't sure he had the emotional capacity to get rid of it if that's what she chose to do. Worse yet— what if she left him?
The TARDIS sent him the mental equivalent of an eye roll. Okay, so maybe he was overreacting a little— Rose wouldn't really leave him over something like this. Still, his other theories were viable. In any case, he'd have to tell her soon, before she spent the next couple of months throwing up every morning and eventually piecing it together herself.
Inhaling deeply, the Doctor plastered a smile onto his face and entered the kitchen again, the smile slowly turning into a real one when he spotted his cooking-clumsy wife pouting at three wrecked eggs splattered on the floor.
Some way or another, the Doctor was hiding something from her, and Rose was almost positive it had something to do with her recent illness.
He was nothing but a sweetheart when she woke him up in the middle of the night to throw up, or when she'd have bizarre cravings and demanded they go to TESCO's — or an alien planet, depending on whether her craving was for something alien — but the rest of the time when she was feeling fine, she'd notice sideways glances of terror from the corner of her eyes or catch him staring at her stomach absently, like he was seeing something else, and he seemed to refrain from touching her like he thought she was made of sugar.
One way or another, Rose was starting to put the puzzle together, and she was starting to wonder if she was actually pregnant.
The first few days getting sick, she'd just assumed she had a stomach bug, since whenever she got the flu when she was a little girl, she'd crave random foods from peaches to beef soup and make her mother head out to the store to get them. Those had usually lasted only a few days, not almost two weeks, and they didn't make her mother send her secret looks of fear.
After eating breakfast, the Doctor left to get dressed, giving Rose the opportunity to slip away and head to the infirmary. Before she could confront him about it and maybe smack him a couple of times for concealing it from her, she had to confirm it. Upon entering the infirmary, Rose gave the TARDIS's walls a grateful pat when she saw that all the weird alien machines had been pushed aside to make room for a regular Earth ultrasound machine.
Hopping onto the table, Rose grabbed the instruction manual and began leafing through the pages, hoping it also told her how to interpret the ultrasound images, since every time she saw one on telly it just looked like a collection of grainy black and white blobs. Thankfully the manual said she wouldn't have to learn; the machine would print out a test along with the usual ultrasound picture. Rose snorted— of course the Doctor would have a normal ultrasound machine with a few extra quirks jiggery pokeried in.
Laying herself flat on her back, Rose opened the package of gel and spread it over her abdomen, before switching on the wand and pressing it over her gel-covered skin. The monitor lit up with the same unintelligible, pulsing grey blobs, and as she moved the wand around the machine started spitting out a little ticket and a large-scale print of the ultrasound with a loud noise like an old-fashioned printer. She kept the wand in place until the printer was finished, sitting up and using a wet cloth the TARDIS graciously provided to wipe off the gel before ripping the ticket out of the slot.
Literally seconds later the Doctor walked in, a frown of confusion on his face. "Rose, darling, what are you—?"
He stopped his sentence short, swallowing hard when he spotted the ultrasound machine and the ticket in her hands. Even from the doorway, he could see the giant boldfaced letters spelling 'POSITIVE' at the top left corner. The TARDIS hummed in a way anyone could interpret as a singsong 'busted', but he was too terrified of his wife's potential reaction to tell her off.
"When exactly were you gonna tell me about this?" Rose asked in a frighteningly emotionless voice, looking at him with an equally neutral expression.
The Doctor looked at his feet, guilt clear in his voice. "I don't know."
"This thing says I've been pregnant for a whole month," Rose said, edge creeping into her voice as she waved the ticket at him. "Did you know a month ago?"
"Yes," he mumbled.
"Then why didn't you tell me?" she demanded. "Isn't this a good thing for you?"
"Of course it is!" he said quickly. "Is-is it for you?"
She rolled her eyes, a smile blooming on her mouth. "Of course it is, you daft git!" Relief hit him like a punch in the stomach, and he beamed at her before scooping her up into a tight hug. "Now how do you read this thing?" she asked, plucking the printed ultrasound image from the same slot the ticket had come from.
His hearts sped up at the sight of it, and upon tracing the outline of a white blob in the centre, he said with a slightly wavering voice, "That's it."
"Kinda looks like a turtle," she said.
He chuckled and said, "I suppose so."
"Ooh, I have to show this to Mum!" Rose squealed, squirming a little on the table. "Can we head over to the Estates?"
"We could if you wish," he said, cringing at the prospect of having to face down Jackie Tyler. She'd either yell at him for knocking up her daughter, or spend the next eight months fussing over baby clothes and what colour the nursery would be and driving them both nuts.
Apparently noticing his grimace, Rose bit her lip and began toying with his lapels. "But maybe… we could celebrate first?" she said, quirking up an eyebrow on the word 'celebrate'.
With a growing grin, the Doctor swept her off the table with surprising agility, the ultrasound picture tucked safely between them.
A/N: As requested by natural-blues, a fic in the universe of Ageless, Timeless :3 Happy birthday, tesoro!