Chapter Fourteen
"We'll be fine, Rose," the Doctor murmured hoarsely, shaking off brick dust and coughing as his former companion flung brick after brick away from his crumpled body.
She held back though, chewing on that one word, we, for just a breath or two before her fingers wrapped around another broken red brick, this one badly chipped and rough with bits of porous mortar. "Why did the… Old One do this? Why did it toss you against the wall, but not any of us? Did you step on its toes or somethin'?"
A weary sigh, instead of the laugh she was expecting. At least the eyes were bright, though.
.. "No, Rose- it attacked me because it wants something, and it knows I can take more abuse than any of you, save Gabriel. If it wanted to kill me, any of us, really, it could have done so at any time. Its reach is far beyond anything we can affect. That's just… not what it wants. Its whims are simply unknowable. Therefore, everyone's still alive, and I'm still pregnant."
"You're what? Oh my god, all those bricks, and the wall!" said Rose, jerking up from where she sat holding Half-Ten's hand. "How do you know?"
"I'm a complicated space-time event. Did you know I was at the center of the Big Bang? That was the TARDIS, blowing up. My new companion Amy and her husband Rory saved my bacon. Oh, dear, bit of a spoiler, that… try and forget I mentioned it, okay?"
"No, I meant… about your bein'… bein' a dad again. But, how would it, you know… come out?" she called over her shoulder.
"Looks like we got here just in time," a voice mused. Then a golden-haired woman and a tall man with dirty blonde hair zapped into existence behind the Doctor. "I'm River Song, and this is the archangel Gabriel. Hello again, Doctor. You look the worse for wear." She took the Doctor's shoulders and squeezed gently. "Fine time to be lying about, in your state. And you'd do well to remember that I was there that day, too, Sweetie," she said as she rubbed circles into his lower back, "Why don't you have Gabriel accelerate your gestation, just to be safe? Careful now, head between your knees, darling."
"What makes you think my bloody nephew can do it any better than I can?"he whined, screwing up his face at her.
"Yes, but you've been injured, and Gabriel can heal you much faster than you can yourself. Why don't you think about it after you've had some rest, all right? I'll be close by!" she teased, curving her bottom lip in a half-smirk as she went to sit by Half-Ten with Rose.
"Don't… don't do that!" the Doctor said, running a hand through his floppy hair. His manhood, he noticed drearily, was tenting in his pants after her. Damn his supposedly superior Time Lord genes, damn the situation, and Damn. That. Woman.
"Down, boy!" a glib, conspiratorial tenor murmured from above him.
He looked up to see Gabriel crouching beside, and wished he hadn't. The archangel's hand flattened across his shoulder blades as the blood rushed from his head all at once and he swooned.
"Annnnnnd- he's out!" the angel called out merrily as he kept his uncle from falling.
For a split second, Rose felt her stomach sink as she watched River watch Gabriel lay the Doctor out on the grass with surprising care, as though the Time Lord were a puppy who'd been hit by a car.
"You're his wife, aren't you?" she asked, reaching down to caress Half-Ten's face.
River looked askance at her as she checked Half-Ten's pulse again. "Yes, sweetheart, I am. His future, my past."
She blinked then, allowing herself a rueful little smile as she added, "I swear, this regeneration is so tense around me. It's almost as if he knows something he's not telling."
Rose laughed nervously, her lower lip trembling despite herself.
"River… do you think we'll all be okay at the end of this? Angels! John's been more distant, and the Doctor- well, he looks more open in some ways I s'pose, this bein' a new regeneration an' what, but mostly, he just looks…"
She shook her head and reached down to brush back a lock of Half-Ten's… no, John's hair.
"Tired?" the older woman supplied sadly as she applied a slight smack to the Metacrisis' thin cheek. "Wake up, pretty boy- your wife wants to see you."