Universal Impact

Chapter 4

The Anxious Mother

29th April 3033

the TARDIS

River's POV

I sat in a chair in the TARDIS library, reading the fifth book in the beloved 'Harry Potter' series from the 21st century. I had been occupying my time with reading the series and I fell in love with it since halfway through the first book.

I marked my current place and closed it. I glanced at my bulging stomach and suddenly felt overwhelmingly blessed. Never in a thousand years would I have ever thought I would be the mother of the Doctor's child. I don't deserve to be her mother, and yet, somehow, the universe thinks I am the perfect woman for the role.

Starting last week, I began to feel nauseated and the Doctor gave me strict orders not to stand for a long period of time and to get plently of rest. I have begun to fear that something terrible is going to happen. The dramatic drop in my health is making the Doctor dreadfully worried and stressed. It's like he knows something important that I should know, but when I try to talk to him about it, he just changes the subject.

A sharp pain pierces my lower back. I put my hand on the sight of the pain, rubbing it and I sat up straight, trying to ease the pain more. The pain decreases slowly and I sigh.

"Four more months," I whisper to myself, "four more months."

The Doctor estimated my due date to be the 18th of August, give or take a day. I have a feeling it will be much sooner because of the sickness. I also have been having the strangest dreams. Just last week, I dreamt that I was in the TARDIS, watching the Doctor and an older version of Emma looking at a colourful lightning storm, apparently having a father-daughter date. It was like I was witnessing her future.

He mentioned that the dreams could be her actual future and that those types if dreams only happen with Gallifreyan pregancies.

I reopened the book and started to read. I was interrupted by the sound of the door opening a few minutes later. I looked up from the novel and turned around to find that my husband had entered. Since I had started feeling sick, he constantly checks on me.

"Feeling okay?" he asked for the thousanth time.

"Yes, only some minor back pain, that's all."

"Have you had any dreams lately?"

"Just asking," he said, starting to walk out.

"You had a dream about her?" I asked curiously.

He turned around and said truthfully, "Yes, but it was very different from the ones you've been having."

He could sense I was worried, so he walked over to me, held his hand out and I took it. I stood from the chair only with some difficulty and he wrapped me around in his arms. He gently put his hand on my stomach and rubbed his thumb.

"The last time I was a father, back on Gallifrey, I remember I would take my children stargazing every weekend just when the twin suns would overlap with each other. Soon after, the moon would rise high above Mount Kartorborous and billions of stars would appear in the black sky. Oh, how I miss that sight.

The dream I had was similar to it, but it was just her and I gazing at the lightning storm of Cotter Paulini's World. I wasn't watching them, I was in the perspective of the older version of myself. By the conversation that we had, I figured out that I had taken her there for her 14th birthday."

"What did she look like?" I asked eagerly.

"I thought you wanted it to be a surprise," he said, still rubbing my stomach.

I paused, remembering what I said a few months ago. "You've seen her, haven't you? The night you went to the Maldovarium I knew you saw her. The look in your eyes told me that you did."

He sighed deeply, then took his hand off of my stomach. We intertwined hands and left the library. He lead me to the console room. In his normal quirky attitude, he flew the TARDIS into the time vortex and moments later, we landed. He glanced at the doors, motioning me to open them. I carefully walked down the steps and opened the doors as he instructed. I looked in awe at the scene. He came behind me and put his arm around my shoulders.

In the distance, I saw cliffs above a deserted beach where two figures were walking along the sand. The water was very blue and the sand was white, even though the cliffs were green and lush. I could see that the two figures were the Doctor and Emma. We could faintly hear them talking.

"Can you teach me how to fly it?" she asked.

"When you're older," was his response.

"I'm at the perfect age to know how. And besides, I might need to know sooner because what if something happens to you and I would need to fly it?"

"Then the TARDIS would teach you."

"How would the TARDIS teach me how to fly itself?"

"You have a telepathic connection with it, and so does your Mum."

"How?"

"That's another very long story for another day, but now your grandparents invited us for dinner and we don't want to be late."

"Er... we have a time machine. We could cure cancer, visit Niagara Falls and witness Louis XIV being crowned and still not be late. We're time travellers so we don't have to worry about being late."

"Never thought about it like that."

She was looking at the sea in awe of the colour of it. She looked at it for a while and he came up behind her and put his arm around her shoulders.

"Thanks for taking me here," she said.

"It was my pleasure."

They stood there for a long while. I couldn't see the details of her appearence, only that she had wavy brown hair and that her height around 4'11". He then removed his arm from her shoulders and looked down at her.

"Come along, Song."

She followed him back to their TARDIS and we watched as they dematerialised from the beach.