One-Hundred and Seventy

by Lumendea

Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who and gain nothing from the creation of this story beyond personal satisfaction.

AN: Cleaned up old drabble. This was written before series four, but I've had requests to repost it. Remember that if you enjoy my stuff to look up my original works The Iron Soul series by J.M. Briggs.

…..

It took him ten days to get them back to the TARDIS and Rose was not amused in the least. She had something important to tell her alien husband of 170 days now. Well at least that long if the day cycles were the same as Earth's day it was 170 days. She couldn't be sure seeing as how she had spent most of the time in an underground cell almost a kilometer beneath the planet's surface. Rose huffed as she walked past the Doctor to go straight to the shower.

"Rose," the Doctor called after her with a worried near frantic note. "Rose."

She stubbornly ignored him. All Rose wanted was to clean the grim of the last ten days off and then sit down with the Doctor to tell him that she was expecting. That was it after all, being captured normally didn't bother her so much, but now… As she closed the bathroom door, her hand went to her stomach and she swallowed. Rose quickly stripped out of the torn and dirty clothes after turning on the water. She stepped into the warm steamy shower with a happy sigh.

"That's better," she whispered as the water rinsed away some of her tension.

Rose lathered her hair and rinsed it with a smile and contented sigh. She avoided all thoughts of the conversation to follow, but she knew it wasn't wise to leave it much longer. The last ten days had not been pleasant and she had been unwilling to tell the Doctor they were going to be parents under those conditions.

She shook the thoughts from her head and focused solely on the warmth of the shower. Rose closed her eyes and sighed loudly to cleanse her thoughts. The door opened slowly and the Doctor peeked in. Seeing that Rose hadn't heard him, he knocked on the door and called her name softly.

"Yes Doctor?"

"Rose," he sighed as he stepped into the bathroom and leaned against the counter. "I'm sorry. I never meant for that to happen."

Rose smiled softly at the tone of his voice and she felt a pang of guilt. "I know," she answered from the shower, "I'm not mad at you. I wasn't mad at you earlier. I was angry with them and I just felt horrid."

"You're not mad at me," the Doctor clarified in a hopeful tone.

"No," Rose assured him as she peeked her wet head out of the shower. "I'm not mad at you. Just let me get cleaned up and rest. Before you know it we'll be off again."

His grin made her heart jump like usual. After so long of first traveling with him, then being involved with them and after 170 days of marriage she really thought she should be used to it by now. She slipped her head back into the shower to finish rinsing out her hair.

"Rose?"

"Yes Doctor?"

"Are these what I think they are?"

"What?"

"The five little sticks in the sink?"

Rose's eyes widened and she cursed herself. The Doctor had pulled her off for an adventure just after she had verified that she was pregnant. She hadn't had time to clean them up.

"Rose?" The Doctor's voice pressed, "Rose are these pregnancy tests?"

"Hand me a towel," Rose ordeered as she started to step out.

He obeyed, but his eyes trailed to her stomach as she wrapped herself in the towel. The Doctor swallowed and looked back at her face. She noted that he had pulled on his glasses as he gestured to the sink.

"Well?"

"They are pregnancy tests," Rose confirmed with a nod.

"And that color means positive?"

"Yes," Rose verified with a nod, feeling remarkably calm. The Doctor was silent and she swallowed before saying, "Doctor this isn't how I planned to tell you-"

"We're having a baby?" The Doctor asked, cutting her off as his eyes moved between the sticks in the sink and Rose's face.

"According to those tests, yes."

He was still for a moment before he took her dressing gown off the hook and handed it to her along with another towel.

"Those are accurate," the Doctor said to her. "Right then, first things first you need to dry off and then you need to eat something. Then we need..."

Rose grinned as the Doctor ran his fingers through his hair in excitement and began pacing in the bathroom. Shaking her head she pulled on the dressing gown and started drying her hair. She'd listen to the list later.