Chapter 3
He woke in the middle of the night. This wasn't a particularly strange thing, because he usually didn't sleep very much. It would probably come in handy in the ensuing months. Rose slept soundly on her side facing him, her breath a steady metronome that he had become accustomed to listening to those nights when sleep eluded him. There was a time when he might have taken to making repairs around the TARDIS, a time before Rose, at time when time and space were his most trusted companions, for they never left him.
If he had told his past regenerations of his current life, the one he thought that he could never have, they would have scoffed at him and to stop thinking so much like a human. As much as he had loved Earth and its humans (flaws and all), there was time when he would not have even entertained the fact of permanently living with one, let alone having a child with one. Though he had to admit, this wasn't just any human; this was Rose Tyler. She was different.
Rose's t-shirt was bunched up just enough around her waist so that he could see the slight rise in her stomach. Her skin was smooth and pale, the creamy flesh rising slightly. He looked down at her and brushed a lock of hair that had fallen into her face. She sighed in her sleep and snuggled closer to him, as if she wasn't close enough already, so that her stomach touched the bare skin of his abdomen.
He felt the life buzzing inside of her. Whenever he touched her he could feel it. It was amazing. He had witnessed the birth of galaxies, the rise of new species, and the growth of civilizations, but those were nothing in comparison to this. Call him a sucker, but the small, faint life that Rose held inside of her was one thing that was the most precious thing aside from Rose, and it was almost unfathomable to him. It was theirs. Perhaps it was the knowledge that they had created it together—that he had finally helped to make something real and vibrant instead of being hailed as a harbinger of destruction. There were moments when this idea panicked him. Somehow the responsibility of time and space was one that the thrived on; it was second nature to him. But this was something new and so, so much more important.
Rose sighed in her sleep again. She must be dreaming.
"Shh, Rose," he whispered into her hair, planting a kiss at the top of her head. Her eyes fluttered open and she smiled at him groggily.
"What time's it?" she slurred.
"It's four in the morning, go back to sleep. I didn't mean to wake you."
"No, it's okay. Sleep's a waste of time anyway. It's too bad I have to sleep as much as I do."
"Don't be silly, Rose. You need your sleep now more than ever, what with, you know, the baby. Being pregnant takes a lot of energy."
"Well, I'm up now," she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his. It was a kiss that was dangerously close to the kind that prevented them from getting out of bed all day, but Rose, feeling another sort of craving, broke away first.
"Do you fancy pancakes? I fancy pancakes. I mean, I really, really fancy pancakes."
The Doctor smiled, at first disappointed when she broke away, but now very pleased with Rose's latest craving.
"I don't suppose we have any cherries, do we?" Rose asked. "I could make cherry sauce for the pancakes. And whipped cream. We have to have whipped cream."
The Doctor stood from the bed and put on a t-shirt, making Rose pout at the disappearance of his bare chest. He smiled.
"Whipped cream we have in spades. Cherries, on the other hand, we are in short supply. I believe you ate the last of them on Tuesday."
"I did not!" The Doctor was on dangerous ground, and he probably should have known better.
"Oi, yes you did! I wanted some for myself, but you sat in the galley all day and finished every last one!"
"I-I-" She knew it was true, she just didn't like that he pointed out her pregnancy-induced gluttony. Tears filled her eyes, but she wasn't really sure what for. She was irritated, yes, but not so much as to make her cry.
"Buuut," he began, trying to salvage a situation that was quickly becoming hormonal. "Perhaps we can make a detour to Kiraz Prime tomorrow. They have wonderful cherries, Rose. I can't believe I've never had you try them before."
Mollified, Rose spoke again. "But what will we have with the pancakes now?"
"Do you have any objection to bananas, Rose Tyler?"
She smiled and hoped out of bed. "No, I suppose not."
Rose turned towards the dresser to grab her hairbrush, when she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. "I'm not showing much for four months, am I?"
It was true. In the first weeks of Rose's pregnancy, the Doctor had closely monitored the rate of the fetus's growth, and found that at its current rate, the baby would gestate for ten months instead of the regular human nine.
"Gestate what now?" she'd asked, brows furrowed in confusion.
"You'll be pregnant for ten months instead of nine. I'm sorry for that, Rose. I hear human pregnancy can be quite uncomfortable towards the end. It just appears that the Time Lord DNA in there needs a bit more time to…ripen up, I guess."
"Well, that's not so bad, really."
"How so?" Now it was his turn to be confused.
"Honestly, I would have thought it would take longer. I mean, Time Lord DNA isn't exactly the simplest, is it? Oh, come on, don't look so smug. I know, Time Lord superiority and all that. But that's just it, I would have thought because of that it would take longer than just an extra month. Maybe there's not as much Time Lord superiority as you've been leading me to believe!" She stuck out her tongue at him playfully as he scowled with indignation.
She hadn't had much of a chance to add much else, though, before he'd taken her by the hand and run down the corridor to their bedroom, where he promptly showed her just how superior this particular Time Lord could be.
::
He walked over to her, kneeled, and placed his hands on her stomach.
"You might not be showing very much, Rose, but I wish that you could feel it. It feels so alive. It's practically vibrating."
"That's what that is?"
"You mean you can feel it?"
"Not all the time. When I sleep, mostly. It's like…during the day my mind is too loud and active to hear it, but when I'm asleep, it's clearer. It isn't quite communication…not yet, but it's more than a heartbeat. It's sort of like…like a life force."
He smiled a toothy grin at her and placed a kiss on her abdomen.
"My Rose, always seeing that the impossible is accomplished before bedtime."
"After bedtime, in that instance." She snickered and grabbed his hand. "Pancakes, Doctor? I wasn't kidding. I'm famished."
He smiled a contented smile at the life he had in front of him. It was a kind of perfection that he had never known before.
After everything, maybe this child was his absolution.
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