Chapter 7
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A stunned silence filled the TARDIS, broken only by Martha. "Right, infirmary. Now."
River shook herself from her stupor at the sight of the TARDIS's interior as the Doctor scooped Rose up in his arms and hurried off down the hallway. She pulled her eyes away from the console, her hands shaking. "What about James? Are we all just going to forget him, now?"
Ianto's jaw tightened. "His name is Jack, and he's more than able to take care of himself."
Her eyes narrowed. "Listen, I don't know if you understand what just happened, but that was a time bomb. It stretches and mutates the temporal stability of the area it hits, and no one can survive it."
Ianto's lips curled up in a small, stiff smile. "You'd be surprised."
The Doctor's voice echoed back into the console room, high-pitched with stress. "Donna!"
The redhead grimaced and rested a hand on River's shoulder. "Listen, Jack'll be all right. You don't need to worry about him. Rose, on the other hand..."
River nodded, taking in a shaky breath as she slowly straightened. "No, you're right. She matters more right now." Ianto's hands clenched on the jump seat, and she tightened her lips and gave him a severe glance. "She does. Do you have any idea what that woman means? She's carrying the fate of the universe."
Donna spun around, blocking her path before they could enter the hallway. "Right, that kinda thinking stops here. Rose is a very scared young woman focusing on her first pregnancy with the man she loves. She's not some mythic figure, she's a girl, and you're not going to shove that kind of pressure down her throat when she's already frightened out of her wits."
"But they—" Donna's hand flew up, and River broke off.
"Don't care. Yeah, they've both done some amazing things, but they're still people, and I'm not going to let you put all that weight on their shoulders. Now can I trust you to show a little sensitivity, or am I going to have to set Ianto to watching you?"
He raised his eyebrows. "Do I get a say in this?"
She shot him a perfunctory glance before focusing on River again. "Hush, you. Well, do I?" River pressed her lips together, nodding gravely. Donna nodded decisively and turned to lead her to the infirmary. "Right. Now we'd best find out what's going on."
Martha glanced up as they came in and gave Donna a desperate look as she pulled out an array of scanners. Rose was lying, pale and sedated, on a smooth medical bed, her hair and nails markedly longer than they had been moments ago. The Doctor was clutching her hand, his eyes glued to her stomach and his face pale. Donna cleared her throat. "Oi, Martian boy! This is no time to be useless. Somethin's wrong, so why don't you set to finding out what it is, hmm?"
He glared at her, and Donna fought down the shiver that threatened to race down her back at that inhumanly angry look. "Donna, this is Rose."
She leaned in and glared right back at him, the same look Sylvia Noble had perfected on her, and had the satisfaction of watching him blink and look away. "Exactly. So do somethin' about it."
He blinked dully at her for a moment before snapping into action, his long limbs moving in a frenetic blur of activity. "Martha, lower right-hand drawer, beneath the Atalusian bio-scanner."
She yanked the drawer open immediately, dragging out instrument after instrument before she making a triumphant noise and lifting up a rather frightening metal contraption. "This it, Doctor?"
He glanced up from where he was carefully attaching several small, glowing monitors to Rose's stomach and nodded briefly. "Exactly. Now, do you remember the set-up I showed you after Rigel IV?"
Martha looked up, her dark eyes wide. "But that was just practice. I never actually needed to use it."
"Martha, I'm sure you remember how."
She set the instrument down, her hands shaking a little. "Doctor—"
"Martha." She looked up when he spoke, his voice utterly serious. "You saved the earth all by yourself, and you've saved me too many times to count. You can do this."
She swallowed and lifted her chin. "You're damn right I can. Now, let's get this fixed."
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The time passed quietly, Martha and the Doctor working silently side by side as Donna watched. Ianto had collected River a few hours ago to discuss the Time Agency, but Donna had let them to their own devices. She wasn't about to leave Rose or the Doctor, no matter how suspicious the Doctor was of River. The TARDIS would keep an eye on her. Well, not an eye. Donna was fairly certain the TARDIS didn't actually have eyes, and she was grateful for that. The idea of the walls sprouting eyes wasn't something she was comfortable with.
The Doctor put down the flashing scanner with a sigh, and Martha finished punching her calculations into the medical mainframe before grimacing. "Lord, I need the loo. Be right back."
Donna straightened with a grimace, rolling her shoulders as they popped back into place. "Doctor? Is she going to be okay?"
He had rested a hand reverently on the swollen bump of Rose's stomach, but at Donna's voice he blinked and looked up. "Hmm? Yes. Yes, she will."
Donna swallowed, hating to ask the next question. "And... the little one?"
"Not so little, anymore." She raised her eyebrows expectantly, and he let out a tired breath and continued. "The baby's stable, Donna. She'll be perfectly all right. If she weren't a Time Lord, though..."
Donna reached out and touched his arm as his eyes darkened, and she smiled softly at him when he looked at her. "She?"
He blinked a little, then a grudging smile tugged at his mouth. "She. We're going to have a daughter, Rose and I." His eyes were still dark and sad, and Donna reached down to squeeze his hand, remembering blonde hair and a blinding grin.
"I'm sure she'll be amazing, Doctor."
Something in his smile fractured. "They all were."
"And she will be."
A quiet, groggy voice drew both of their attentions. "Doctor?"
He was by Rose's side in an instant, brushing her hair away from her face tenderly. "I'm right here, love."
Her eyes widened as she became fully awake, and one of her hands flew to her stomach. "Is..."
"She's perfectly all right, Rose. There's a quirk of Gallifreyan biology, lets us be a bit more temporally elastic than... well... anyone else, so she was able to settle soon after you did." Rose's eyes stayed wide, and the Doctor's brow furrowed. "Rose, I swear, she's fine. Perfect, really."
Her voice was hushed and reverent, and Donna backed out of the room. "...She?"
He smiled down at her, letting the joy he'd fought off ever since he'd found out shine in his eyes. "She. We're having a little girl, Rose."
Rose gasped in a deep breath, her eyes shining, and he laughed quietly and perched on the smooth stool next to the medical bed, resting his forehead against hers.
There was a soft, wavering warmth at the edge of Rose's mind, and she stilled as she felt it flicker against her consciousness. Closing her eyes and concentrating, she focused on the shimmering force. It hummed against her quietly, nestling into her with complete trust and joy. Her eyes snapped open, and she stared up at the Doctor. He was watching her with an odd smile on his face, his dark eyes soft. "Did you feel that?"
His eyebrows shot up, and he blinked and leaned back. "It's your mind, Rose."
"And it's our baby. Come here." He didn't need a second invitation. Within moments, his mind had joined hers, and the flickering warmth of their child blossomed into a steady glow as she was cocooned by her parent's minds.
Rose's eyes opened, staring, awestruck, at the sudden possibilities that stretched in front of her mind's eye, a golden, laughing child dancing through the timelines—flickers of wide brown eyes and strawberry blonde hair, a glimpse of painfully familiar blue eyes and heavy, dark hair, all with the same love and joy trilling from their soul as the baby now growing in her womb. A drop fell on her arm, and she realized with a start that the Doctor was crying. Her Doctor, who fearlessly faced down tyrants and monsters, was crying. "Doctor—"
He spoke quietly, and she stilled. "I never thought I'd feel this again." She caught his hand tightly with hers, her mind and the baby's (their daughter's) singing a chorus of love-joy-comfort-home to his familiar storm-cloud presence.
If she hadn't had the dimension cannon project to work on in the years after she regenerated, Rose was quite sure she would have gone mad, back in Pete's world. Her mind echoed with silence when she woke after the accident, and she'd never even had another mind there, for her to feel the loss. She couldn't imagine how the Doctor had survived such aching loneliness after Gallifrey was destroyed, and she felt with a sudden, bone-deep certainty that he would never have to again. The TARDIS purred with contentment at the back of all of their minds, and Rose closed her eyes and smiled.
She didn't know how she could ever thank the TARDIS enough for what she'd given them, but maybe taking the mallet away would work for a beginning.
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