"God, why does a mortal man have children? It is senseless to love anything this much."
—Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams
Rose is sitting on a large pillow on the floor, wrapping a present. Her tongue is poking out from between her lips in determination as she wrestles with a roll of tape, trying to affix it just so and having some difficulty. She's almost got it when she's startled by a voice behind her ("hello!" it cries happily), causing her to jump and stick the tape in an awkward place.
She twists around- not easy to do with her giant belly in the way- to glare at the intruder. It is the Doctor standing above her, which shouldn't surprise her but does. "You," she says, frowning and poking his shin accusingly, "messed me up. You're going to have an ugly present and no one but yourself to blame." She tries to calm her racing heart.
The Doctor is grinning, clearly unrepentant. He plops beside her in the floor, kissing the crown of her head on the way down. "Sorry, Rose," he replies. "Didn't you hear me come in? And really, on that note, didn't you expect me? This is about the same time I usually come home."
He's right, of course, but she's not used to being home waiting on him, and she hasn't looked at the clock recently, either. Today is the first day of her maternity leave, one week before her due date, and she isn't yet used to a stay-at-home routine. "I suppose," she concedes unwillingly, but she wrinkles her nose at him all the same. She's not going to admit that the likely reason she didn't hear him is because she's been loudly humming Christmas tunes to herself for twenty minutes. He probably heard her, anyway.
The Doctor chuckles and shakes his head in defeat before gesturing to the pillow supporting her bum. "Why're you on the floor, then?" he asks, changing the subject.
Rose shrugs. "'Cause my back hurts today."
He makes a sympathetic noise in return and scoots close enough to place his hand on her lower back, gently kneading the muscle there. "Doesn't sitting in the floor make that worse?" he wonders, not realizing that he's said the wrong thing until her head rolls to the side to glare at him.
"When you are nine months pregnant, Doctor, then you can decide how to deal with how uncomfortable you are. Until then, let me do it!" she says snappishly, though some of the ire in her voice is siphoned away by his talented massage on her stressed body.
Rather than point out the logical fallacies in this argument, the Doctor wisely gives in. "Okay, love, I'm sorry," he murmurs instead, moving to sit entirely behind her. His hand leaves her lower back but finds her shoulder, gently tugging her backwards until she relaxes and leans against his chest. She tilts her head back for a kiss, which he drops to her lips with a sigh of contentment. "Missed you today," he remarks softly.
They both work at Torchwood and though they're in different departments, they generally at least eat lunch together, if nothing else. Today, Jake had pulled the Doctor out of the lab to visit a nearby chippy, laughing off the Doctor's protests. "Figured you'd be holed up like a lost puppy today with Rose at home, and I was right." The Doctor had spluttered out his offense, and Jake had rolled his eyes and told him to just order his chips, already.
All of this comes back to him now as he snuggles Rose against him, and he grins to himself. She has settled in again and thus doesn't see his expression. "I missed you, too," she admits, oblivious. "This house is dead boring alone."
He snorts out a chuckle. "You didn't miss me, you missed having someone to talk to," he accuses, pretending to be offended.
Rose nods, the back of her head knocking against his chest as she does. "You've got it," she confirms, a teasing lilt to her voice. "Right in one. You're actually interchangeable for any other random 900-year-old half-alien, half-human. So if you see any more of them, send them my way."
What Rose doesn't take into account is that sitting the way they are, with her all wrapped up in his arms, she's in the perfect position to be tickled… Like any other genius, the Doctor knows when to use such situations to his advantage, and within moments, Rose is squealing and squirming as his hands mercilessly scrabble across her sides. "I take it back, I take it back!" she cries, begging him to relent. "Just stop before we have to throw this pillow in the wash!"
Before they have to- oh. He stops immediately and Rose unsteadily hastens to her feet, grabbing onto the Doctor's shoulder to level herself before waddling quickly to the loo. "Gotta wee, gotta wee," she mumbles urgently under her breath as she goes, and the Doctor can't help his grin as he watches her disappear through the door. She's just so cute as she hurries awaythat he can't feel sorry for contributing to her little emergency. It happens frequently, anyway, what with a seemingly energetic child resting against her bladder.
While she's gone, he returns the fluffy pillow to the sofa and places the wrapped present under the tree, a fond smile on his face. He turns on a Christmas playlist over the excellent (maybe alien, maybe nicked from Torchwood, he's not admitting anything to anyone, especially not to Rose, who has already asked suspiciously at least three times) speakers he installed last month.
When Rose emerges from the loo, looking much happier, he grabs her hand and pulls her toward him for a dance to "The Christmas Song." She giggles, stumbling slightly, and lands her hands on his chest as his settle on her waist. With her belly taking up space in the middle, they can't get very close, but it's sweet and intimate all the same, making Rose smile. "What's brought all this on, then? Give us a hint," she requests softly as they rock slowly in a circle. The baby kicks suddenly between them as if in concurrence, and pressed together as they are, he can feel it, too. It's an odd sensation, feeling his unborn child kicking against his stomach, and he wonders if this is how Rose feels every time it happens.
"Like I said," the Doctor answers with a shrug that shows he's aiming for nonchalance. "Missed you today." One of the hands on Rose's waist slides to caress the side of her belly.
All of the sudden, Rose's eyes are filling- these pregnancy hormones attack her at least three or four times a day- and the Doctor chuckles as his hand leaves her hip so he can swipe at her cheeks and catch the escaping tears. When she's done crying, he kisses her gently and then drops to his knees to talk to her belly. It never fails to make her laugh, though it's something he does regularly.
"Listen here, little princess," he says sternly with one finger inches away from her taut abdomen, though his voice is full of affection. "You leave your mummy be, yeah? She can't go around crying all the time. She's got a reputation to uphold. Just how do you expect her to strike fear into the hearts of men if she can't go ten minutes without sobbing?" Here, he neatly dodges the hand Rose sends swatting at his head.
"C'mere, you," Rose orders, frowning teasingly and this time successfully grabbing hold of the Doctor's ears, ignoring his indignant squeak as she pulls him to his feet. She shuffles forward to drop her head onto his shoulder, sighing in contentment and nuzzling lightly. "The baby's not the one you should be taking up the matter of hormones with, mister. You are the one who got me pregnant to begin with," she mumbles into his shirt. Her moods while pregnant jump around fast enough to give them both whiplash, and suddenly her playful mood has given way to an intense sleepiness.
"We can discuss the relative intelligence of that decision or lack thereof after you get some rest, alright?" the Doctor suggests warmly, kissing the top of her head and rubbing her back. When she finally lifts her face up a moment later, he grabs her hand and gently tugs her, unresisting, toward their bedroom. She's so easily worn out at this stage of her pregnancy that she falls asleep in under a minute after getting ready and laying down.
The Doctor glances at the clock and discovers that it isn't even quite seven o'clock and he laughs quietly to himself. He stares for a few seconds at the lump under the covers that represents his sleeping girls, and decides that he's a lucky man, indeed… More so than he'll ever deserve. He won't stop being grateful, though.
It's a little over a week later when disaster strikes. It's December 24th, Christmas Eve, and they're officially three days past Rose's due date. The Doctor has woken up well before his wife, which is far from unusual because in his opinion, Rose epitomizes the human affinity for sleeping in. Today, though, something feels off.
He doesn't figure out what it is until he glances out the window while making a cup of tea.
He can't even see the street through the sheet of white snowflakes blowing past the window. There's a veritable blizzard storming through today… Unusual for London, for sure, even in this universe, and it's happening at the worst possible time. If Rose goes into labor today, or even tomorrow, they're going to have serious trouble getting her where she needs to be.
Feeling unsettled, he swipes her present out from under the tree to give him an excuse to wake her and makes his way up the stairs to the bedroom. She looks peaceful and totally out, her lips parted and her face serene, a halo of blonde hair arranged messily underneath her head on the pillow.
Even as anxious as he finds himself feeling, he doesn't want to rouse her just yet. It's so nice to see her free from any pains or cares- the pregnancy hasn't been an easy one- and really, her body does need the rest. As he leans against the door frame watching her, however, her face suddenly tenses up. Her fists clench and unclench on the sheets, and she lets out a breathy little moan that has the Doctor instantly on the alert.
He crosses the room quickly and sits down beside her, reaching over to gently jostle her shoulder. Her face cycles through several expressions almost instantly, distress before relaxation before open-eyed, sleepy confusion before finally settling on recognition. She smiles and yawns. "Morning," she greets in a scratchy voice, rolling slightly and landing a hand on his thigh with an affectionate squeeze.
Too worried to relax just yet, he sets aside the Christmas gift to place his hands tenderly on her swollen belly, feeling carefully for any signs of distress. Finding none, his eyes flit to her face and he discovers that he's being observed with some confusion. "How are you feeling, Rose?" he asks softly, not immediately revealing why he wants to know. He doesn't want to worry her; he's stressed enough for the both of them.
"Fine," she answers, raising her eyebrows. "Why wouldn't I be? You look worried," she comments. She wobbles a little but manages to shift into an upright position. Her hands gravitate to his features, thumbs gently smoothing his small frown away.
"You looked like you were having a nightmare," he shares reluctantly, soothed by her apparent honesty in her self-assessment, as well as her touch on his face. "Or like you were in pain."
"Well, if I was, I don't remember it."
"Alright. Please, please tell me if that changes, though, Rose. Please." He won't tell her about the snow yet. There's no need, unless something does end up happening, in which case the problem will quickly become as apparent to her as it is to him.
"I will," she promises. Her gaze shifts to the cheerfully colored parcel he abandoned a few minutes before, and she quirks an eyebrow at him. "Doctor, why's there a gift up here?"
"It's Christmas Eve!" Over the past two years, they've started a tradition of exchanging their gifts on the day before Christmas. They'll do the big exchange with the whole family tomorrow at Jackie and Pete's, but this is their private Christmas celebration where they can quietly appreciate the gifts they receive without the chaos of Tony running and playing and Pete on the phone with some urgent matter or another and Jackie yelling at him to get off the phone and spend time with his family for once, Torchwood can hang.
Rose giggles. "I know that, but why did you bring it to the bed?" She gets a wicked expression on her face and waggles her eyebrows, the effect mussed a little by her sleep-thick voice and wild hair. "Is it something I'll need in here?" she suggests salaciously.
The Doctor throws his head back and laughs. "Really? You're thinking about sex now, Tyler?"
Rose's face melts into a grin and she shakes her head. "Three days past my due date, yeah? I'm uncomfortable enough as it is without adding any repetitive movement to my morning."
Even though she meant it as a joke, he pecks her cheek in apology for her perpetually-sore state and smiles at her, a bit of embarrassment showing itself as he blushes lightly. "Actually, I brought it up here as an excuse to wake you up in case you were grumpy with me once your eyes were open," he admit, vaguely bashful over his own bit of cowardice. Angry morning Rose is a scary sight to behold, though, and being on the other side of her wrath is even worse.
Rose rolls her eyes but decides against commenting on this (frankly accurate) assessment of her attitude before noon. "Let's do it in front of the tree," she proposes instead. "You went through so much trouble to make everything nice and festive, and it'd be a shame to put all of that to waste." Actually, she's not sure why he has been so insistent on the house being properly decorated this year, because last year neither of them made much of a fuss. "Just let me visit the WC for a moment and I'll meet you down there."
"Okay!" the Doctor agrees, feeling chipper again. His anxiety about the possible outcomes of the day isn't gone, but it's muted somewhat since there's no immediate danger. The two of them have taken on a festive air, too, and that helps. He finds that despite the inevitable domesticity of such celebrations, he loves human holidays these days. Of course, that may have something to do with the particular human he tends to spend them with.
He grabs the parcel that he came up with and bounds back down the stairs, cheerily whistling "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen."
He is gone just in time to miss Rose flinching and instinctively clutching her abdomen as it spasms under her fingers. Another Braxton Hicks, she thinks miserably after it passes. They started a few weeks back and have been coming fairly regularly since last night, and she wishes they would stop. They're very uncomfortable, and they remind her that she's honestly a little bit afraid of experiencing actual labor, which promises to be worse.
Shaking off these thoughts and the residual soreness from the fake contraction, she gets up to use the toilet and follows the Doctor downstairs as promised.
He's started the Christmas playlist up again, and he's nudged the small pile of gifts marked "from Rose to the Doctor" or "from the Doctor to Rose" into the center of the floor, right under the mistletoe he's affixed to the main light source in the room. He's waiting impatiently for her, she decides, judging from the way he's twitching and bouncing as well as the way his eyes light up when she walks in… despite the fact that they last saw one another four minutes before.
She pulls a pillow from the sofa like she did the other day and sits on it next to him, obliging his hopeful puppydog expression with a lingering kiss, because, well, tradition. He smiles widely when they separate and starts parceling out the gifts. When he's done, he indicates that she should start and she picks up the one he'd brought upstairs earlier.
She's just pulled one end open when she's overcome by yet another Braxton Hicks contraction, and she drops the package in favor of doubling over, her breath catching in her throat. It doesn't take long to pass, but when it does, she comes back to herself to find the Doctor supporting her with one hand on her back and the other on her arm. "Rose," he starts, his voice low and careful, measured. "How long has that been going on?" She can feel that he's trying to mask some emotion in his voice that he doesn't wish for her to know about, but she doesn't know what it would be.
"Mmm, not sure," she says, shrugging. "Since maybe nine or ten last night? I don't know, I slept through a lot of them so it could have started before that. Why?"
"You didn't think to tell me?" he asks, though his voice is suddenly tight and he doesn't seem to actually want an answer. "Rose, we need to get you to the hospital, now. You're in labor, love, you realize that, right?"
Rose shakes her head in denial. "No, I'm not… That was just another Braxton Hicks. Practice contractions, yeah? The real ones are more powerful than that. Aren't they?" Despite herself, she's becoming uncertain under his serious gaze.
The Doctor's expression turns graver, and Rose swallows. "This may seem like a stupid question, so bear with me here… but is there any chance that your water broke and you forgot to tell me that, too?" He doesn't sound angry, exactly, but he does sound concerned with a bit of frustration thrown in for good measure.
"No," Rose assures him, shaking her head, but then she pauses. Her bedtime had shifted earlier and earlier over the course of the pregnancy, and these days she's in bed hours before the Doctor. The night before last, she'd awoken alone an hour or two after falling asleep, surrounded by a circle of moisture. She'd assumed that she'd wet herself in her sleep… It wouldn't have been the first time that the baby had shoved too hard, too suddenly against her bladder for her to make it to the toilet in time. Humiliated, she'd changed the sheets and thrown the wet ones in the wash, glancing out of the window to make sure the Doctor was still occupied with working on the TARDIS out in the shed. What if she'd been wrong? "Wait… I don't know," she confesses, cursing herself. Could she really have been so stupid?
"Tell me what happened," he requests, calm but with a sense of urgency. She does, and she sees him take a deep breath and let it out slowly. "If that was your water breaking- and it's very possible that it was- then you're following the timeline of labor. Your contractions started about twenty-four hours after you thought you'd wet the bed… Love, I know it's asking a lot, but is it alright if I examine you? I'm afraid that you really are in active labor, and it's-" he swallows and jerks his head toward the window, which Rose looks out of for the first time all morning. "It's snowing."
That is the understatement of the year.
Rose doesn't want to let him do whatever he needs to do to examine her. Despite the fact that he's seen her bits countless times, she feels deeply embarrassed and shy about allowing him to see all of her under these circumstances in a medical capacity. She knows that it's unfortunately necessary, however, and she also knows that he'll be professional.
He can see how hard this is for her.
She nods hesitantly, and reaches down for the string on her pyjama bottoms, but before she can release it, she feels the Doctor's hands cupping her cheeks and gently pulling her face up to meet his. He kisses her tenderly and pulls back to look her in the eye. "Whatever happens, we'll get through it," he says fiercely. "I believe in you, Rose Tyler, and I'm going to be right here every step of the way."
Her lip trembles, but she nods. He caresses her cheekbones for another moment, his gaze intense, before releasing her and turning to stare out of the window, clearly giving her a bit of privacy to get undressed. She sheds her bottoms and knickers and goes to lie on her back, red-faced, on the oversized chair-and-a-half in the corner. It's long and well-suited for laying this way, but most importantly, it has pillows that she can use to cover her flaming face. She immediately makes use of one of them.
After a moment, she feels the Doctor's hands gently pulling her knees apart and hears a soft admonition of "relax, Rose." She tries to, and she's succeeding around his as-impersonal-as-possible pokes and prods, she thinks, until she hears his soft intake of breath. She chances a look at him, peering around her mountainous belly and pulling the pillow away from her face, and his expression scares her. He looks worried, very worried, and while he's never been unshakeable, it's usually fairly difficult to rattle him. Whatever he's discovered has done it.
He pats her thigh to let her know that she can close her legs and sit up, if she wishes, and she does so, trying not to get concerned. "You are most certainly in labor, Rose," he tells her softly but earnestly, sitting down beside her. "Actually, I'd guess that you don't have more than an hour to go. I'd be surprised if it took that long, honestly."
She can feel an expression of terror setting in on her face, and she starts to shake her head as if this is something she can say no to. He grabs her hand and clasps her fingers nearly as tightly as she clasps his. "I'm going to… I'm going to call 999 and ask for an ambulance, because I think that if I try to drive you to the hospital now, we'll end up getting stuck in the snow and delivering this baby on the side of the road. But love… you have to understand that they may not get here in time. It's a real possibility that I'll have to deliver her here."
Every part of Rose wants to panic- this was not at all how she'd pictured giving birth, not at home in front of her bloody Christmas tree and not with the Doctor between her knees instead of holding her hand- but she takes a deep breath and calms herself down. She may be stranded at home and she may be afraid, but she isn't alone, either… No, she's got her brilliant husband with her, complete with over 900 years' worth of advanced medical knowledge floating through his oversized brain. They'll be just fine.
"Alright," she says slowly, putting some strength into her voice. "Let's do it."
Though he's clearly still worried, the Doctor smiles widely at her response, relieved that his girl's ironclad will is returning. "Allons-y!" he says, and goes to call 999.
After that, it's a flurry of activity.
The Doctor has Rose relax on the sofa this time, as the chair-and-a-half has been designated their emergency birthing station and thus needs to be set up. He brings her a nightgown to change into so she isn't just bare-arsed during all of this, which she deeply appreciates and dons immediately. He lays out a plastic sheet and then several old blankets and sheets over the chair-and-a-half and then gently moves her to it once it's ready and she is, too.
He stops his working periodically to check her for progress, and the ambulance fails to make an appearance throughout everything.
Rose has long since stopped paying attention to her surroundings. She focuses instead on getting through each contraction, and they're getting progressively longer, closer together, and more painful. The Doctor alternates between getting things ready (though what that entails, Rose neither knows nor cares), touching Rose precisely where she doesn't want to be touched, and comforting her. He holds her hand, brushes her hair off of her increasingly sweaty face, murmurs encouragements, and tells her he's proud of her.
Just as the Doctor is opening his mouth to tell her that she's nearly there, the Christmas music suddenly jacks up its own volume with no input from either Rose or the Doctor. It's been playing the entire time, soft in the background and forgotten by both of them until now, but it's suddenly deafening. It makes her ears ache nearly as badly as her belly already hurts, and suddenly she's furious.
"TURN IT OFF!" she roars through an intensely painful contraction.
"I'm trying, I'm trying!" the Doctor cries, helplessly jabbing the little remote over and over again to no effect.
"I'm going to murder you," Rose half-growls, half-moans as the contraction fades to an end and all of her strength leaves her, which has happened with the last ten contractions, at least. She's reaching the end of her rope.
Her threat might have been more impressive if she wasn't nearly passed out, panting and sweating on the chair-and-a-half with her eyes closed, but the Doctor gets more frantic anyway, beginning to randomly slap at hidden speakers in a desperate attempt to make "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" stop, for the love of Rassilon and the Queen of England and all the bananas at the Villengard and bloody hell he's willing to convert to any religion belonging to a deity that can stop the music and keep his wife from divorcing him on the spot.
It's a wonder he heard her, anyway.
Then a brand new contraction hits and Rose yells, barely able to hear herself over the obnoxious sound of Alvin and the Chipmunks. She decides right then and there that the stupidest thing she's ever done is agree to have a child with this fucking alien who steals tech that he can't even bloody control and this is it if she survives this she's never having a child with him again no she's never ever letting him touch her again and why do they even have this song on their playlist!?
They're both full of wild thoughts and they're ready for this to be over.
The Doctor gives up on the music to help her through her contraction, and when he checks, she's fully dilated and ready to go. "Time to push, Rose!" he cries, struggling to be heard.
She shakes her head no, her anger leaving her at once in a wave of fear and self-doubt, but her body can't resist the urge to follow the Doctor's instructions. She screams for all she's worth and pushes. It goes on forever. All rational thought has left her mind until she's only vaguely registering the Doctor's encouragements and Celine Dion loudly crooning about chestnuts and she's lost in her own instincts to fight and survive and give life.
The baby finally slips free and Rose falls back against the cushions, groaning. There's a beat before she hears the sweetest sound she's ever heard, her daughter's soft, mewling cries. It's another beat before she realizes that she shouldn't be able to hear them, much less the Doctor's reverent murmuring to their brand new little girl- in Gallifreyan, she thinks- and she comes to the conclusion that the music has mercifully stopped.
"Rose," she hears the Doctor say somewhere off to her right, and she cracks her eyes open to look at him. He's streaked with sweat just as she is and he's got a number of questionable substances on his shirt, but he's smiling so widely she thinks that his face is liable to crack. In his arms is a noisy little bundle wrapped in an old quilt from upstairs. "Love, I think there's someone you'd like to meet. All seven healthy pounds of her," he says softly, cooing at the child before placing her gently on Rose's chest.
Rose's heart stops at the sight of the tiny face before her, as red and wrinkled up with anger at the indignities of birth as she is. It doesn't matter that it'll be a bit before they can figure out who she looks like, what color her eyes will turn out to be, how much hair she'll have- right now there's just a light dusting of soft blonde strands, though who knows if that will hang around- because she's absolutely perfect.
Rose is vaguely aware of the Doctor quietly leaving her and their daughter to bond while he moves about her knees. She can't even bring herself to pay attention to delivering the afterbirth. All she can do is fall hopelessly in love with the tiny creature that's part her, part the Doctor, and part something and someone entirely new.
The first thing that pulls her attention away from her daughter is the sound of a camera snapping a photo. She looks up and the Doctor is beaming at her from behind his mobile phone. He climbs up behind her on the chair-and-a-half, settling in so that she and the baby are both cradled in his arms. Before he puts it away, he presents his mobile to Rose so she can see the photo.
In it, she's gazing down at her daughter, an expression of complete rapture on her face, and in the background, the Christmas tree sparkles cheerfully. It's a bit grainy, a tad too dark, taken by a less-than-stellar camera on a less-than-up-to-date phone, and it's the most beautiful picture she's ever seen. "Worth all of the effort," the Doctor breathes, and it's only by virtue of his lips resting near her ear that she hears him at all.
She's inclined to agree, but she's not sure he is the one who should be saying it. "I'm the one who did all of the work," she informs him, in case he thinks it's up for debate… Not that she could have done it without him, on any level.
He laughs exuberantly but quietly, trying not to wake the little sweetheart who's finally stopped crying and has drifted off against her mummy's chest. "I promise, I wasn't trying to claim otherwise. I just meant the Christmas decorations. I wanted… I wanted her first Christmas to be as beautiful and festive as possible."
It clicks suddenly with Rose, the reason he'd spent so much time and brainpower trying to make their decorations perfect, and her heart swells with love for him and for the tiny mostly-human that they created together. "Love you," she whispers, and his lips ghost across her forehead.
"Love you more," he murmurs back. "Thank you for the best Christmas present I've received in almost a thousand years."
"Don't think I'll be able to top this one next year," she says with a tired chuckle. Then she offers him the baby, because her arms are trembly and exhausted and though she doesn't want to part from her child, she's terrified that she'll drop her. They rearrange so that the Doctor has the little girl in one arm and Rose tucked into his other side. It hurts to move, but Rose is far from complaining.
"Let's make the next one a little less exciting and dramatic, okay?" he suggests after a moment of comfortable quiet.
She looks up at him, snorting. "You think there's going to be another one after all of this?"
His face falls so much that she relents, snuggling into his shoulder again. "We'll talk about it another day," she concedes, knowing that it won't be a week before she's forgotten about this traumatic day in favor of diving headfirst into this new adventure, parenthood. She expects that it's inevitable for them to have a housefull of kids by the time they're done. Looking at the button nose of her daughter, she's content with the idea.
They'll have to try nursing soon, and there's a huge mess in their living room to clean up, and she's quite sure she and the baby will have to make a hospital visit if the ambulance ever arrives, but for right now, she wants to enjoy this moment with her new little family. It's silent for a few minutes, both she and her husband simply listening to the baby's snorting little breaths, and then suddenly, the Christmas music starts up again over the alien speakers.
Luckily, it's soft this time, not loud enough to wake the baby, and it's playing "Silent Night," making Rose giggle softly. She does so even more when she hears the Doctor mutter, "I didn't realize the speakers were sentient," his voice exasperated. Some things never change, and that's an idea that she's content with, too.
She drifts off thinking that it's the happiest Christmas she's ever heard of.
It's 4 AM and Rose has just gotten her cranky newborn back to sleep after a zombie-like middle-of-the-night feeding. It's mid-January now, and they've finally established a tentative sort of schedule of feeding and sleeping and diaper changes, not to mention the parental responsibilities involved in all of these tasks. This time, it was her turn to wake and feed the baby, and even as exhausted as she is, it's an activity that makes her blissfully happy.
She's put the little girl back in her bassinet, and instead of going back to sleep- honestly, that's the prudent thing to do, because the baby will probably be up again in a few hours and Rose should know by now to take all of the sleep she can get- she's kneeling next to the crib, her chin resting on the top bar as she watches her tiny daughter's chest rising and falling. The baby is snoozing peacefully, and Rose wants nothing more than to hold this moment forever. She knows that all too soon, the girl will be walking and talking and causing mischief, but for now… For now, she's existing in a quiet moment where it feels like she and Rose are the only two in the whole universe.
The door creaks open behind Rose, letting in a sliver of light from the hall, and she reluctantly turns away from the sleeping baby. The Doctor is standing just beyond the door frame, his shadow falling across Rose's face as he yawns involuntarily. "Rose, love," he murmurs, his voice distorted by the yawn, "come back to bed. You can't watch her sleep forever. At some point, you have to sleep, too."
"Yes, I can," Rose argues softly, but she rises to her feet anyway and steals a glance back at their daughter. She knows the Doctor is right, though it's still hard to leave.
After a moment's hesitation, he joins her next to the bassinet, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and tugging her against him. There they stay for a few minutes, watching their offspring slumber and reveling in this rare space of time where they can be together with no expectations or responsibilities.
Eventually, the Doctor begins to tug on Rose, and she allows him to lead her from the room after a quick stop in order to make sure the baby monitor is on. He kisses her forehead as she exits and heads to their bedroom, and he closes his little girl's door softly so as not to make any noise.
This time, it's him who lingers, staring at the door. He knows, knows like he's never known anything before, that what lies behind that door will be his scariest, most fantastic adventure yet. He can't wait.
A/N- Does anyone else get asked to help reorganize boxes of Christmas decorations and then get randomly inspired to write a Christmas fic in April? No, just me? Okay.