A/N: So totally had no time today to get a decent chapter written. Only a half-lunch break today, so I really didn't get all that I had intended to get written... BUT ... at least I got something written, yeah?
And this leads me into the really good bits where the Eight discovers everything he truly has even when he believes he has nothing left at all, so it's all tobogganing fun downhill easy writing from here! Whoot whoot!
...At least I hope so... I already have the final chapter written, so I just need to get myself to that point, which is only two (actually more realistically three) chapters from now. Yah!
Oh, and I do have to give props to Marc Platt and his incredible writing with the Lungbarrow novel ... I stole the Triumphs of Rassilon (in italics) from him... It's one of my favourite chapters of the book: The Doctor at the tender age of 5 1/2 being just as insolent and cheeky as he is at 900! If you haven't read it, please do. Your heart will break, which in turn makes your love for our Doctor soar high. (and you will also gasp out a stunned breath when you find out who Susan really is and how she came to be with the Doctor...dun dun dunnnnnnnnnn) I honestly wish this book was considered canon ... because it truly is a wonderful and brilliant story ...
...But I love Gallifrey and the Time Lords, so I would think that...
~~oooOOOooo~~
"…And Rassilon, in great anger, banished the Other from Gallifrey that he might never return to the world," the Doctor chanted to himself as he strode quickly along the grass toward his TARDIS. Rose Tyler – the mother of his apparently about-to-be-born daughter – was nestled awkwardly in his arms. Mere seconds ago she had suggested that perhaps her waters had broken and that it might be time for the newest little Time Tot to make her entrance into the waiting universe.
"…There was great rejoicing through the Citadel…"
He had quickly investigated the source of the fluid that was seeping through the slats of the park bench and determined that yes, her waters had indeed broken. Actually. If he wanted to be a right git and claw for more accuracy in that statement (and let's face it, git was probably part of the multi-syllable word that made up his real name) then he would say that it was clear that her amniotic sack had ruptured and that the fluid (or "waters" as laboring mothers were prone to calling it) had been expelled. Expelled from her uterus and now splashed to the four corners of the small cement pad that held the park bench.
"…But the Other, as he fled, stole away the Hand of Omega and departed the world forever…"
The rupture of the amniotic sack and the excitement of his little girl filling his mind as she prepared herself to enter the world and meet her loving parents meant only one thing: He was about to assist in the birth of a daughter he hadn't even conceived yet.
Oh, mighty Rassilon, he hadn't prepared himself for anything like this.
Speaking of Rassilon: "Hear now of Rassilon and his mighty works. He who single-handedly vanquished the darkness and…"
"What you talking about?" Rose asked him breathlessly against his heaving chest. "I can't understand you. Is everythin' okay with the baby?"
He nodded quickly as he swallowed a hard lump in his throat. "Everything is fine, Rose," he answered with a cautious tone. "Fine and dandy I must say."
She wriggled against him. "Then what're you mumbling about?" At this point she wasn't feeling any actual contractions, but that didn't mean that she wasn't feeling any discomfort. Gentle as he was, the Doctor did have her curled up into a bit of a tight ball in his arms. She was seeing her knees for the first time in weeks, which had to mean that she was probably squishing their little baby. That thought alarmed her just slightly.
"Could you let me down, Doctor?" she peeped with a tug at his cravat. "I can walk, you know."
"I'd much rather you didn't," he countered smoothly as he tightened his hold on her just slightly.
"Well I'd much rather you didn't fold me into a pretzel and squash my little baby into a lumpy nugget like you are."
His steps faltered just slightly, and then he stopped walking altogether. He glanced down at her with a curious expression and a single brow arched high over his eye. "Are you always so prone to nonsensical exaggeration, dear?"
She blinked up at him. "Are you always so prone to talking to yourself in a foreign language and completely ignoring your companion when she's tryin' to get your attention?" She held up her hand and shook her head before he could comment. "No. Never mind. I already know the answer to that question, ta."
He remained still for a moment and just looked down at her slightly amused countenance with his own somewhat amused expression.
"And I will suppose that you are prone to cheekily asking rhetorical questions to your doting Time Lord just to be able to give yourself the opening to levering a little bit of playful insult." He winked. "Am I correct?"
"Partially," she breezed with a whisper. "But I don't really need a reason, yeah? You always give me the opening I need."
He resumed his walk, but kept his eyes on her. His voice was soft and tender when he spoke again.
"How are you feeling?"
"Scared," she admitted softly.
"So am I," he whispered in a genuinely tender voice. "Which is why I'm reciting the Triumphs of Rassilon." He let out a breath and looked up as the TARDIS came into view. "I find it centres me; although I'm not entirely sure why that is. I absolutely loathed all of those tedious brainbuffing exercises I had to endure as a loomling."
"Will you teach it to me?" she asked him in a tiny voice. "It might help me too."
He opened his mouth and let his head tilt back lightly to laugh. "Oh, my precious girl. That would require you to have a working understanding of the High Gallifreyan language." He approached the TARDIS doors at a quick stride and shifted his hold on Rose slightly in order to be able to retrieve his key. His eyes widened as the doors immediately opened wide and welcoming to them both.
He paused at the threshold between Earth and his TARDIS' temporal dimension and coked his head to the side. "I see. Are you agreeing to talk to me, now?"
"Have you been upsetting her again?" Rose asked with a smile. She then looked toward the TARDIS with a smile. "Hello beautiful," she cooed gently. "I've missed you."
The Doctor stepped into the main console room of the TARDIS and, after pausing at the sudden intake of breath and a murmur of how different she looked from Rose, kicked the doors closed behind him. He felt the wash of familiarity and warmth of love from his ship toward the woman held inside his arms and swallowed thickly.
"I believe, Rose Tyler," he began with a whisper. "That my ship has missed you as well."
"She looks so different," Rose remarked with the smallest of winces at a pulling discomfort from her womb.
He took that wince to be one of disappointment. "You don't like it?"
Her frown deepened as she drew in some slow and deep breaths through her nose. "I didn't say that," she answered breathlessly. "I love the TARDIS…" she paused to focus on her breathing a little more and closed her eyes. "No matter what she looks li-" she ended the word with a long groan that seemed to draw every single bit of breath out of her lungs.
Rose struggled to draw in another breath, which made the Doctor juggle her worriedly in his hold. "Oh, my dear and precious girl. It looks like our daughter is most definitely making her moves to enter into this universe."
Rose let out another whine, this time one through an open mouth, and then panted out as the pain released. "But does she have to do it so painfully?"
"I'm afraid so," he answered with apology. "But I'm sure that I can find some techniques that will help alleviate the pain enough that you might be able to somewhat enjoy this experience." He lifted her in his arms, higher against his chest, and kissed her on top of her head. "Come on," he whispered into her hair. "Into the med bay with you."
Her hand shot out to the side to clutch at one of the support beams at the centre of his console room. It stopped him from being able to continue through to the main corridor to the interior of the ship. "Can we call my mum first?"
He wasn't quite sure that he heard that right. The request was made so quietly and timidly that he thought for sure he was dreaming it. He looked down at her hand, and to the white knuckled grip she had on the support beam, and then chanced a look into her large, pleading eyes.
…That was a look that would pretty much guarantee that he'd give her absolutely anything that her heart could possibly desire.
"I'm sorry," he bleated with a strangled and sheepish voice. "What was that?"
"My mum," she clarified with clear embarrassment. "Can we call her, please? I. I've never done this before. I don't think I know how."
"Well it's quite a natural process really," he blurted without really thinking. "Your body will know exactly what it needs to do to get you through…" His train of thought faltered as he saw a short flash of physical pain fire by her eyes and her breathing became a series of whimpers. "Mother. Yes. Indeed. Every girl needs her mother in moments like these, I expect."
Her eyes widened and she nodded frantically. "Please, Doctor. Can we call her before you take me to the med bay?" She smoothed his cravat with her fingers and looked up at him with large doe eyes of pleading.
His knees almost gave out in his sudden need to give her anything that her heart desired.
"I don't know that I can do this without her," Rose continued pitifully. "Please?"
He nodded frantically in response and gently lowered his arm to let her slide into a stand at his side. He held her supportively with one arm as the other reached out to pull the keyboard toward him. "Are you okay to stand, Rose?"
She nodded and steadied herself against the console. "I. I think so. The pain comes and goes."
"It will for the next little while," he agreed somewhat breathlessly. "Now. How can we reach your mother? Do you have her phone number?"
Her eyes widened with embarrassment and she held up her broken phone. "Uhm. Her number's in here, and … and it's broken."
His brow arched high. His voice was low, yet incredulous. "Are you telling me that you don't know it by rote?"
She scratched at her hair in a sheepish gesture. "Oh. Well. I didn't think to memorize it," she breathed out softly. "I have her on speed dial in the phone, and haven't had to … you know …" She looked up at him with a pained expression. Her sheepishness then gave way to frustration. "Okay. I've never had her number memorized, okay? I've always carried a cellphone that has her number in it!"
His mouth shifted to one side and his brows moved opposite to each other; one up, the other down.
"And your back-up plan in the event that your cellphone breaks and you need to get hold of her is…?"
She narrowed her eyes at him and norted out sharply through her nose. "Is to thump the soddin' Time Lord who seems to know everythin' about time and space but wants to be a git and pretend that he can't get hold of her without my help."
His brows lifted in perfect synchronicity at her hastily hissed threat. "Are you perchance experiencing a contraction right now?"
She hummed her affirmative.
"I see," he replied blandly as he turned to the console and took a couple of calming breaths. "Perhaps if you could provide me with an address and I'll have the TARDIS take us directly to her." His eyes shifted cautiously toward her. "It would bring the two of you together far more quickly than phoning her to provide her with our location. That would be preferable, yes?"
"Please," she whimpered with a nod of her head. With her hands clutching at the countertop with a white-knuckled grip and her voice strained as she fought off the pain of labour, Rose provided him with the address that would take them to the Tyler mansion.
The Doctor was flicking levers and twisting dials before she'd even finished providing him with the address. It was only a short moment after the whining groan of the engines that the entire room gave a shudder and then fell silent. The Doctor looked to the ceiling and levered his chin forward just slightly in question as to whether or not the TARDIS had actually taken flight at all. Never before had she been that smooth.
"Huh," he breathed out after a moment. "Looks like way may have stumbled into a bit of a problem." He lowered his head to look at Rose with apology. "I expect that she's having some difficulty in navigating and orientating herself correctly inside this parallel. If you could just give me a moment…"
The pounding at his TARDIS doors ended his line of thought rather quickly.
"Doctor," a shrill voice voice called from the other side. "How many bleedin' times do I have to tell you that you're not parkin' that soddin' box of yours right snack in my living room?"
His eyes blew wide and he snatched a quick look toward Rose. He swallowed thickly and cleared his throat. "Your mother?"
Rose winced with the pull of another mild contraction and nodded. She panted out a couple of breaths and waved to the door. "You might wanna open the door for her. Otherwise she just might barge her way on in 'ere and give you a slap for messin' up her carpet."
He pointed to the door as the yelling and pounding from the other side intensified somewhat. "Your mother knows me?" His eyes widened further as she nodded. "To clarify," he asked again with a waver in his voice. "I've met your mother?"
Rose held at her back and nodded, then shook her head slowly as she walked toward a plushy looking couch to the side of the room. She analyzed the piece of furniture a moment in order to create a plan of attack as to how to fall into it with at least a little grace.
"Don't make it sound like it's the most horrific thing you've ever encountered," she said with a moan as she turned around and stooped lightly in her knees in an awkward attempt to fall backward into the chair. "You both won't admit it, Doctor, but you and mum love each other."
"I can't imagine…"
"You're family, yeah," she continued with a wince and a whine at being unable to get enough balance or stability to be able to fall into the chair without hurting herself. "Oh forget it," she muttered to herself. "I wouldn't be able to get up out of it anyway."
"With my assistance you could," the Doctor managed with a shrug.
Rose looked up at him and then made a shooing motion toward the door. "Well go on then. Go get my mum."
He looked to the door; that actually rattled underneath the onslaught of pounding fists from the other side, and then looked back at Rose. "Is it truly a necessity that she be here for this?" He looked back to the door. "Judging by the caterwauling I'm hearing from your mother right now, I am slightly suspect on your assurance that she loves me in the familial way."
"Trust me," Rose assured him with a smile.
"I've just met you," he challenged.
"So?" she called in reply. "I trust you. An' I mean this you."
"Well, touché, my dear. I can't exactly argue with that, can I?" he asked her in an incredibly tender voice. "Then again. Arguing with a woman preparing to gift me with a child is not the mark of a gentleman, is it?"
"Again. You're not a gentleman," she teased with a smile touched by the slightest tip of her tongue. She whimpered and huffed through her nose as she held at her back with both hands and began a walk around the console. "Enough messin' about and stallin'," she declared with a tight grimace across her face. "My books tell me that I have to walk around a bit, so I'm gonna stroll about while you get mum."
"Right," he muttered as he straightened his jacket with a tug at his lapels and stood tall as though expecting to embark on a perilous journey. "And what would your mother's name be?"
"Jackie," Rose answered though her teeth in a hiss of pain. "Everyone else calls her Jacks, but you've always called her Jackie."
He gave a firm nod of his head. "Right. Jackie." He blew out a breath of preparation and strode purposefully toward the doors of his beloved ship. He licked at his lip, inhaled a breath to draw himself tall and reached forward to unlatch the doors.
The door opened and he stepped out into a room filled with bright sunlight from large bay windows…
….and one very irate looking blonde woman with far too much makeup on her face and a pink velour jacket and pant set covering the slightly rounded figure of a middle-aged woman.
The Doctor held onto his breath as he stepped deeper into the room. He looked warily at the woman as she angrily folded her arms across her chest and then slouched to one side to be able to tap her foot on the cream-coloured shag carpeting at her feet.
He swallowed thickly.
"Hello, Jackie."
