Notes: So, this was another prompt-inspired piece that ended up being too long to add to the drabbles. This time it was the "place your OTP giving birth in the most awkward/inconvenient situation/time/place" sort of thing. I'd had the idea for the TARDIS baby thing awhile ago, but never had a convenient way to place it, so here it is, finally!
Also, if you read the sort of companion piece to this, "Don't Forget Us", that's a few years beforehand. The baby being born will be their second child, (and technically an "OC" if that's what you want to call it), a daughter (you'll see her later).
And, as noted, Susan is a bit older here, too, though I don't technically know how old in Time Lord's years, and wouldn't dare to guess. Enough, though, that she's been with David for quite awhile. Anyhow, enjoy!
Mini Warning: There is some minor blood/gore/descriptive stuff in the second part because...well, because babies. It's not serious, but if that's not your thing, here's a quick shoutout to you.
Stay calm, she tells herself. You've done this before, nothing to worry about.
Barbara takes a slow breath out and ends up placing the mug she's holding too hard on the counter, effectively breaking the handle off. She sighs and grips the ceramic, her other hand pressed into the edge of the kitchen counter. Closing her eyes, she tries to make sure if everything's in order.
Already called Ian, that was the first thing. He'll be here.
His mother will pick up Johnny when he gets out of school, so that's done.
Double and triple-checked the hospital bag, that's fine.
House is clean.
Working on the dishes...except for that mug, and—
The front door slams open and shut a little too hard for her liking, and she hopes there isn't a scuff mark on the wall from it.
"Barbara!"
"I'm in here," she calls to her husband, and breathes out again, rocking a little into the counter. "Thank you," she hums, feeling Ian's hand press into her lower back.
"How do you feel? Are you alright? Did you—"
She laughs quietly to herself, and turns around to press her back into the counter instead. "I'm fine," she says gently, smiling. "Just fine, Ian. Like last time. Already checked everything. Nothing's gone wrong."
She smirks, and holds up the broken handle between two fingers.
"Well, almost nothing."
He grins. "If that's the only broken thing that you can manage today, I'll be impressed."
Sighing, she rolls her eyes. "I did not hurt your hand that badly last time, and I most certainly did not break it!"
"I'm just teasing," he whispers, kissing her cheek affectionately. "I'll tell you, though, you had me rushing out of the school like a crazed man. The secretary's office will have something to talk about for the next few weeks, I'm sure."
Barbara thinks that if she had to list all of the times he's made a fool of himself—with or without her help—that she'd run out of paper.
"You know that they'll find something to gossip about no matter what, and that ninety percent of the time, it'll be about us," she reminds him. Though they'd both been offered their positions at Coal Hill readily enough after their return—their replacements, they were told, weren't that effective, it seems—she knew well enough that the girls in the office were always the ones spreading half of the rumors that buzzed around town. Even over the seven years that followed, it seemed that Barbara and Ian's two-year disappearance was still a hot topic among the secretaries.
Barbara, personally, didn't care much for their talk, since half of the conversations involved theories of her sleeping around during those two years. (And, engagement ring, and later, wedding band afterwards didn't seem to stop the rumors of their son having been conceived before the wedding, either).
But, she thinks, if they want to fantasize her being some desperate mistress to a chemistry teacher, then they can well go ahead for all she cares.
She's distracted from her thoughts when a contraction hits her hard, and she drops the mug's handle aside on the counter in favor of finding Ian's hand instead. Shutting her eyes tight, she swipes blindly until she finds it, clutching until she feels him squeeze back.
"You're alright," he assures her. "Just breathe. How bad is it?"
Barely lasts a minute, she notes, and shakes her head, recovering just as quickly. "Not too terrible. But I want to wait a little longer, they might send us home instead."
"If that's what you want."
He squeezes her hand again—more gently this time—and moves to pull the sink plug behind her.
"You finished here?"
"Well, most likely, I won't get anything else done, so yes."
"Then I'll clean up. You go take a rest, alright?"
Another kiss, and she moves out into the living room to go have a seat in the armchair, one that's damn near falling apart, but a comfortable chair nonetheless that she really doesn't want to toss out. Barbara props her bare feet up on the coffee table, the ceramic bowl of petunias in the center just between her ankles, and she tips her head back against the back of the chair. Quietly, she closes her eyes, and she can hear Ian fussing about in the kitchen, and through their room.
He asks her something about checking the bag, and she almost answers him before her eyes fly open, and she pulls herself up to peer out the kitchen blinds into the backyard. Maybe, she thinks, she's only imagining it—labour does make one's mind a bit unsettled, at the most—but a part of her knows that nothing else on Earth could make that whooshing, wheezing noise.
The police box smack in the middle of her backyard is not something she'd expected, either.
"Ian!"
She's silent as he comes skidding into the kitchen—sliding and smashing the left side of his head into the refrigerator as well—and he fusses and worries over her, though she doesn't pay attention.
"Ian, look."
She folds the blinds and nods when he looks, shocked, to her for confirmation, and as if they had nothing better to do, he leads her by the hand out into the backyard. He knocks on the TARDIS door with the back of his hand, and when there's no answer, he presses on the dark blue wood, only to have the door swing open on well-oiled and slightly creaky hinges before them.
"Doctor?" Ian calls in, as he steps into the machine, leaving his wife standing in the yard behind him. The old man is at the controls, babbling about some broken bit or other—and how "well of a landing it was, honestly, child"—and a much older Susan than the one that Ian remembers leaving behind pulls herself up off of the floor.
"Ian!" she cries happily, running to wrap her arms around him. "Oh, I'm so glad that we got here all in one piece. How are you? Is Barbara—"
Slowly, his wife takes a step into the ship, and seeks his hand for some balance. "I'm right here, Susan."
She looks to be in her late twenties to them, now, but the pair of them can still see the sparkle in her eyes when she looks at them.
"You're pregnant," she says slowly, her eyes flashing mischievously between the two of them.
"Second child, actually," Barbara says, breathing out and smiling softly as if she wasn't in pain at the moment. The contraction quickly becomes much, much stronger than the last, though, and she curls forward, her calm facade shattering in an instant.
Ian wraps his arms around her to support her upright as she pants heavily, and she feels Susan's hands on her arm as well.
"I'm fine, really," she breathes, groaning softly. "Just fine."
"But you're not," Susan whispers to her, and their eyes meet. Susan shrugs, grinning herself. "I know. Have a two-year old at home, myself."
"Ours is five," Barbara says, the conversation most definitely difficult, but surely calming. "He's five since last October."
"And from the looks of it, this one is due...well today, right?"
"Technically, it was yesterday...but probably in a matter of hours, I think," she answers, her panting beginning to slow as the pain falls from its peak.
"Sit down," Susan suggests, and Barbara slides from Ian's grasp as the girl leads her to the sofa in the console room—a new rendition since their departure, she notices—and has her sit.
"Despite the circumstances," Barbara sighs, smiling, "I really am happy to see you, Susan. It's been too long." From where she sits, she reaches up to hug the young girl halfway. "It looks like it's been quite awhile for you, too."
"Oh, just a few years," she shrugs. "Grandfather was going to take me and we were going to just drop by for a little while, but it, uh...looks like you're rather busy. We can come back, but I'm not sure how soon. Almost got lost on the way here, you know."
She laughs, a childish sort of giggle that hasn't changed with her maturity.
The Doctor fusses about the controls and presses a few buttons before crossing to join their little grouping.
"I suppose we should be on our way, then," he says, glancing between the two humans.
"It's not...terribly serious," Barbara phrases, shaking her head lightly. "Really, if you've come all this way, we can at least spend a few minutes with you. I may be labouring, but not too heavily."
Even as she says this, her hand finds its way to squeeze the arm of the sofa.
"Ian," she sighs, almost serenely. "Is the hot water bottle still in the bag? I checked, but I..."
"I'll go and see."
He's gone for only a few seconds, of course, but it feels like a lifetime for her. Of course, he brings the entire hospital bag with him instead, and plops it down on the floor to dig through the various items, finally pulling out the rubber bottle to set it beside her on the sofa.
"It's empty, though," he says. "But it should only take a minute to fill up. Terribly sorry to ask, but do you have a sink we could use?"
"I'll get it," Susan offers brightly, taking the thing from him, and turning away a bit too quickly.
In the process, she trips straight over Ian's ankles, and slams her hands against the controls to steady herself.
The TARDIS doors are already closed, but when the main rotor begins to bob up and down in the center console, Barbara looks to her husband and feels a flood of panic fill her. Susan apologizes over and over again, her hands shaking as the Doctor shoos her from the console, fiddling here and there between the dials. The look he gives the two humans is far from comforting, and is more...apologetic, Ian thinks.
"I don't know what I hit, I'm sorry!"
Ian calms her down a little, telling her that it's perfectly alright, just an accident, and that these things happen, but Barbara watches the Doctor fuss around and feels strangely like things couldn't be worse.
"Doctor," she says softly. "You...you can get us back, right?"
"Well—"
The entire right half of the controls sparks, and a wedge of the hexagonal panels bursts into a series of small flames. Susan shrieks as the Doctor flaps his coat at the fire, the fire soon put down.
"Just a minor malfunction," he assures them, glancing at a monitor here and twisting a knob there, but he sounds all but sure of himself.
Barbara laughs uneasily from where she sits, and tries to convince herself that it's all a mistake, honestly.
"But you can get us home?"
"About that," the Time Lord says slowly. "I'm not actually so sure, my dear."