A voice, familiar and yet not, pulled Rose slowly out of her sleep. She'd shifted from her side to her back, and the comfortable weight of the Doctor's hand rested on her belly. His thumb stroked absently over the curve that, at 25 weeks, proclaimed her state to everyone they met.

Her eyes blinked open, and she took in the sight of him nestled into her side, so close his fringe brush against her chemise. The voice she'd heard was his, she realised now, as he told their unborn child the story of Little Red Riding Hood. His voice jumped an octave, and Rose understood why she hadn't recognised it at first—he was doing different voices for all the characters.

Looking down at him, Rose wanted to run her fingers through his hair, but she didn't want to interrupt story time. Her heart clenched with love for him every time he talked to their baby, which was every day. The Doctor had welcomed the news that she was pregnant with a joy she could never have anticipated.

The Doctor shifted and placed a kiss over the spot where their baby was growing. "Shall we tell your mummy we know she's been awake for the last five minutes?"

Rose rolled her eyes, then gave in to the earlier temptation. The Doctor hummed in pleasure just like he always did when she touched his hair. She pulled her hand away to tease him, giggling when he tilted his head back and pouted at her.

She relented after a moment and started massaging his scalp again. "You're telling him stories now, that's new."

"Stories are one of the best ways to teach her language," he explained. "I read it in one of those books we got."

The Doctor had cleaned out the parenting shelf at Powell's in the 31st century—and considering the size of that store, that was no mean feat. Ever since, he'd been peppering her with daily facts about their baby's development, or what infants were like.

Rose raised an eyebrow at this though. "Doctor, I don't think he's going to learn to talk before he's born."

He propped himself up on his elbow, and she noticed excitement on his face that she hadn't picked up on over their bond. "Oh, but our little girl will. Her telepathy is starting to develop, Rose."

Rose's hand shot down to her belly. The Doctor had told her to expect the baby to start reaching out for them telepathically sometime between 23 and 28 weeks, and she'd looked forward to it with barely contained impatience.

And now it was finally happening. She closed her eyes and focused. At first, all she could feel was the Doctor and the feeling of home she would always associate with him. But then a tiny tendril reached toward her, faint at first, but then stronger as she realised who Rose was.

Rose pulled her daughter into her mind and wrapped her own barriers around that precious consciousness. A tear trickled down her face, and the Doctor wiped it away.

"Can you feel her?" he asked.

Rose nodded and opened her eyes. "So, you were right about the baby being a girl," she said, her voice choked with emotion.

"No need to sound so surprised that I was right," he teased.

"I suppose it was bound to happen sometime." Rose held a straight face until he exclaimed indignantly, then she burst into giggles. "Now, you were explaining how our daughter will be able to learn to talk before she's even born."

"It's not learning to talk," the Doctor said. "It's more… a general understanding of what words mean. She'll associate the sounds with the emotions they bring up. By the time she's born, you'll have a full empathic connection with her."

Rose rubbed her belly. "And stories are the best way to learn a language."

The Doctor rolled onto his back and tugged Rose gently until she was on her side again, with her head resting on his shoulder. "Yep."

"Do you think we could do story time together, then?"

Rose was almost hesitant to ask, not wanting to invade his private moments to bond with their baby, but his soft smile told her he didn't mind. "That would be brilliant, Rose." He pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Now go back to sleep. You need at least another two hours."

A picture of them sitting together on the couch in the library with the Doctor's arms wrapped around her, his hands resting on her belly, floated through Rose's mind as she drifted off to sleep. Story time, she knew, would soon be her favourite part of the day.