He can hear her crying from the console room. He crawls out of the access conduit where he'd been replacing worn out navigation circuitry and listens to her soft sobs echoing through the corridors from her room. He climbs to his feet and heads back towards it.
She'd been fine when he'd left her earlier; sleeping peacefully when he'd slipped out of bed to 'putter about the ship' as she liked to call it. He'd have a solid six or seven hours on his own, before slipping back in beside her just before she woke. They'd make love again before breakfast, then prepare for the day, which usually involved saving the universe in some way, and lots and lots of running.
It was their thing.
Her room is dark when he steps inside, but the light is on in the bathroom, painting a golden streak across the threshold beneath the closed door. He presses his ear to it, listening to her quietly sobbing on the other side. He tries the handle, to his surprise it turns easily in his hand.
"Donna?" he calls quietly, as he pushes the door open.
She looks up at him from her perch on the toilet seat, tears streaming down her pale face. She's nervously clutching a wad of unused Kleenex in her hands and slowly shredding them with her fingers.
"What is it?" the Doctor asks, tucking a stray ringlet behind her ear as he kneels in front of her, "what's wrong?"
She sniffs through her tears, staring at him with red-rimmed eyes. "I'm thirty-five," she says simply.
Of all the countless things he can think of that could possibly be upsetting her, that one had never even made the list. "Okay," he says, nodding slowly, then blinking in confusion. "Nope, sorry, you've completely lost me."
"I'm thirty-five," she repeats emphatically.
"And I'm nine hundred and three," he says, "if getting older is the problem, then by all rights I'm the one who should be crying, not you."
"No, but it's different for men isn't it," Donna says tearfully, "no matter how old you lot get, you can still have a family, but I'm a woman. A thirty-five-year-old woman. I mean, this could turn out to be my last chance."
"Last chance to what?"
"To have a baby!" she cries. "Haven't you been listening to a word I've been saying?!"
"I thought I was," he says, "apparently I need subtitles."
"-but, the last thing I want is for you to feel as if I've trapped you into something you don't want," she goes on, the words tumbling out of her mouth in a rush. "It isn't as if I'm staying up nights poking holes in my diaphragm, or anything."
"You don't use a diaphragm," the Doctor says.
"I know I don't use a diaphragm!" Donna cries. "That's the bloody point!"
"Donna, I don't-"
"The stick turned blue," she says.
"Sorry?"
"The... stick... turned... blue..." she says, enunciating each word very carefully.
The Doctor blinks. "The crow flies at midnight," he says after a moment.
"What?!"
"Oh sorry, I thought we were speaking in some sort of code."
"Doctor," she says, pushing something into his hand, "the stick turned blue."
It's one of those home pregnancy test sticks, the tip stained a bright electric blue.
"Oh," he says absently, then his eyes widen as the implications slowly sink in, "ohhhhh."
"I'm pregnant," Donna says, rather unnecessarily.
The Doctor swallows, his mouth suddenly dry. "Right," he says, his voice cracking like a nervous teenager's. He clears his throat. "Well, these things have been known to turn out-"
Donna shoves five more test sticks into his hand, each one stained the same deep blue as the first.
"-wrong," he finishes lamely.
Donna bursts into a fresh batch of tears.
"But, but, but," he babbles staring at the test sticks splayed in his hands like a neon blue fan, "we were careful, well, aside from that one incident with the broken condom, but that was weeks ago." His voice fades as he suddenly realises what he's saying.
Donna's staring at him as if he's a moron.
"Never mind," he says sheepishly.
"My mum's gonna kill me," she sobs.
"Actually, I think it's far more likely that she'll kill me," the Doctor says, feeling suddenly dizzy.
"You're completely freaking out right now, aren't you," Donna says, her bottom lip trembling.
"Well, I was all right until you mentioned your mum!" he cries, finding it suddenly difficult to breathe. "Now I think I'm having a panic attack!" His hand flies to his chest, his hearts galloping like a pair of racehorses against his ribcage.
Sylvia Noble, his child's grandmother. It's enough to make his blood run cold.
"Put your head between your knees," Donna says, with a vague flutter of Kleenex.
He pats his jacket pockets and finds an empty paper bag. He sinks heavily to the floor, his legs splayed out in front of him as he takes a seat across from her. The tiled wall feels oddly cold against his back; the paper bag swelling and contracting like a bellows in his hand as he slowly breathes into it.
"Well, how do you think I feel?" Donna cries. "I'm the one with the half-alien baby growing inside her!"
The Doctor rolls his eyes. "It's a baby Donna," he snaps. "It isn't as if it's going to burst out of your chest and start devouring your shipmates, or anything."
"Yes, but what am I supposed to tell my mum? Guess what Mum, I'm pregnant. Oh and by the way, the dad is from another planet. After she's through having her stroke, she can beat me to death with her purse!"
"Calm down Donna," the Doctor says, softly.
"This from the man breathing into a paper bag," she says sarcastically. "Oh God," she gasps suddenly, "I'm gonna get so fat. Nine-months of," she pauses, "it is nine-months?"
"Course it's nine-months," the Doctor says. "I'm not an elephant am I?"
"Nine-months of morning sickness and swollen ankles, and what about these?" she demands, clutching her breasts.
"What about them?" The Doctor murmurs, one eyebrow cocked quizzically as he eyes her ample bosom.
"Well, they're not exactly a-cups are they," she gasps, hyperventilating now, "they're supposed to swell during pregnancy. I'll have to sling them over my shoulders like sand bags."
"Donna," the Doctor says, "this is just-"
"So help me Spaceman if you say hormones, I'll hit you in the head with my shoe."
The Doctor prudently decides to say nothing.
"I'll end up a contestant on one of those tabloid chat shows," Donna cries, her chest heaving with anxiety. "Today on Barry: I slept with my nephew's father and now I'm about to give birth to my own aunt."
"Want this?" the Doctor asks, offering her the paper bag.
Donna nods rapidly and snatches it from his hand.
"For the record, morning sickness usually subsides after the first trimester," he says.
"Not helping," she gasps as she breathes slowly into the expanding and retracting bag. "It smells like jelly babies in here."
"Yup," he says absently, popping the p. He eyes her in silence for a moment. "I'm not going anywhere you know," he says, finally.
Donna eyes him back. "I know," she says meekly.
"No, I don't think you do," he says. "You seem to be under the impression that I'm about to toss all your things into a suitcase and dump you on your mum's doorstep, then leg it to the other end of the universe. I'm not."
She takes a shuddering breath. "This doesn't exactly fit in with your plans though, does it," she says softly.
He chuckles suddenly. "Donna look at me," he says. "Do I strike you as the type of person who makes plans?"
He gets a tentative smile from her at that, but she sobers again almost instantly. "I suppose we could," she says hesitantly, "we could... go somewhere and have it... taken care of."
He looks up sharply at that. "Is that what you want?" he asks, keeping his tone neutral.
She gives him a somewhat defiant look. "No," she says, softly, "I want to keep it," her hands spreading protectively over her belly.
The Doctor nods, letting out a breath he hadn't even realised he'd been holding. "I thought I was just humouring you with the condoms," he murmurs softly, his eyes on the floor.
"What?"
He looks up at her. "It shouldn't be possible, this," he says, holding up the royal blue test sticks to illustrate his point. "The odds of a human and a Time Lord actually producing offspring fall somewhere in the vicinity of one-in-a-million."
"Oh well," Donna says flatly, "just lucky I guess."
"No, it's more than that," he says, his mouth quirking into a wan smile. "Could it be that I've somehow managed to find the one person in the entire universe that can give me what I thought I could never have again?" He eyes her in growing wonder. "You are a remarkable woman, Donna Noble," he says, his smile widening into a grin.
"Wait," Donna says, swallowing nervously, "are you trying to tell me that you're actually happy about this?"
"Yeah, I suppose I am," he says, as if he can't quite believe it himself.
Yet again, Donna bursts into tears.
"Now what?" the Doctor asks. "It's not twins is it?"
"No, I just," Donna sobs, tearfully "I thought you'd be terrified."
"Oh well, I'm that too," he says wryly. "In fact, there's a good chance I may wet myself when I stand up, but I mean, a baby. Our baby, yours and mine together. It's..." he breaks off, searching for the proper word.
"Yeah," Donna says, smiling through her tears, "it is."
"So we're doing this then," she says after a moment.
"I think we are, yeah. Blimey."
She springs from her seat and throws her arms around his neck in a fierce embrace. The Doctor chuckles as he gently wipes her tears away with his thumb. Then he kisses her, her swollen lips softly parting against his mouth so he can taste her unique sweetness on his tongue.
"What if I'm a terrible mother," she says, after they part.
"Not possible," he says.
"At least you've been a father before," she says, anxiously biting her lower lip, "I've had no experience. What if I'm complete rubbish at it?"
"Donna," he says, cupping her chin in his hand, "you're going to be a wonderful mother. There's too much love inside of you for it to be any other way."
"I hope the baby feels the same way," she says, sheepishly.
"We could ask," he says.
"What?" she swallows. "You can do that?"
"If you want me to," he says.
"Yes," she says, simply.
The Doctor smiles and gently brushes her temples with his long fingers. They close their eyes almost at the same time.
"Open your mind Donna," he murmurs softly. "The connection between you already exists, you just need to be receptive to it."
He sees it in his mind, like a softly glowing tether linking them to one another. He pushes against Donna's consciousness, gently guiding it along the connection until she reaches the tiny life growing at its source. No thoughts, just feelings and emotions and sensations. Warmth. Safety. Peace. Contentment.
"Oh my God," Donna breathes, slowly rubbing her hand over her belly.
"You see, you're a wonderful mother already," the Doctor says gently. She won't need his help to find the connection again. Now that her mind is opened to it, she'll be able to find it whenever she wants.
She smiles, closing her eyes as she silently communes with the tiny life growing inside of her. "It's a boy," she says, tears of wonder slowly sliding down her flushed cheeks.
The Doctor smiles, placing his hand beside hers on her belly. "Yup," he says softly, "one-in-a-million, just like his mum."
~END~