I AM SO OBSESSED WITH BROADCHURCH THIS IS NOT OKAY.

And I'm glad the insulin thing caught some people's attention. It was a last minute add. My dad and his family are diabetic and my mom and her family are hypoglycemic so sugar regulation is a routine thing in my house….

When he woke the next morning, Rose's side of the bed was cold. His headache was gone, he noted as he slid his legs over the side of the bed and sat up, testing his ability to stand. He was feeling better.

With a hand trailing the wall just in case he decided to fall over, he made his way back into the house and into their bedroom where Rose was sitting on the floor of their en suite bathroom. Her eyes slid up to meet his and she gave him a hazy smile.

"Think I'm gonna take the day off from work today," she grumbled. "And tomorrow, and the rest of the week."

"Not feeling well?" he asked with a smirk, holding out a hand to pull her up. She leaned against the sink and stuck her tooth brush in her mouth.

"You know what's wrong with me already, don't you," she accused, giving him a quick glance. "How're you doing today?"

"Feeling better. Staying vertical, so far," he smiled. "But you should be at work." His had found her forehead and he nodded in affirmation. "You're fine."

She swatted him away. "I haven't felt fine all morning." He left the bathroom to find clean clothes out in their bedroom. "I felt bad yesterday morning, too. It's like some sort of morning-only sick—"

The Doctor smirked to himself as he rifled through his shirts. "Some sort of what?" he called back. Suddenly she darted past him, pulling on work clothes quickly.

"You know what? I feel fine." She gave him a kiss on the cheek, grabbed a pair of heels from the closet, and raced out the door, fingers fighting tangles out of her hair.

The Doctor grinned knowingly and returned to the TARDIS to do some work.

XXX

Rose's heart was pounding loudly in her ears as she arrived at Torchwood, barely remembering to flash her clearance badges at all the right checkpoints as she stormed through the halls on a mission. She ignored people calling her, not caring whether they thought she didn't hear them or that she was just rude.

Pete, though, grabbed her by the arm and dragged her back a few steps as she passed him. "I thought you called in sick today," he said, concern narrowing his eyes as he studied her flushed face and frantic eyes.

She swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. "I did—I just needed to come in and talk to someone, that's all."

"You alright?"

"Yeah, I'm great," she said almost sarcastically. "Look, I'm kinda in a hurry—the Doctor is expecting me back in a few and I really don't want him chasing after me."

"Especially in that box of his," Pete muttered, letting Rose go so she could continue racing through the halls.

She wasn't sure what she was feeling. Excitement, dread, hope in either direction. She just needed to know for sure.

"Dr. Amell?" Rose said quietly, leaning on the doorframe of the doctor's small office within Torchwood. The woman looked up at Rose in surprise and took off her reading glasses.

"Rose."

"Do you have time to…?" Rose gestured vaguely to the empty chair in front of her desk.

"Oh, sure, yeah." Dr. Amell close the packet of papers she was reading and pushed them away while Rose shut the door and took a seat. "So what can I help you with?"

"I think I'm pregnant," Rose blurted into her lap.

Dr. Amell leaned back in her chair. "And how possible is this conclusion?"

"Very," she responded slowly. "We've never really…I mean, we both decided…but it's not like we were trying we just weren't….precautious."

"Never have been," she said with a smile. She stood and motioned for Rose to follow her. "Let's go find out for sure."

Rose sat in a paper gown at the edge of an examination table, hands knotting in her lap. Her stomach flipped at the thought of what was going on. The Doctor was back at their apartment dying and here she was, finding out if they were pregnant. Sure, they'd talked about having kids yesterday but this was a little fast for her tastes.

Her heart jumped when Dr. Amell reentered the room and leaned against the counter, sifting through papers in her hands.

"Alright," she began hesitantly. "You are pregnant." Rose let out a breath as the unknown became certain and relief calmed her heart a bit, excitement making way. "HCG levels are a bit high, which can mean multiples but considering—"

"Considering that the Doctor isn't completely human," Rose finished for her, knowing how uncomfortable the words made some people feel.

"Right. Everything else looks good. You're at about week 5 so we can do an ultrasound any time and see the heartbeat if you want," she suggested, but Rose shook her head.

"Not today."

"There is something else, though," Dr. Amell began, concerned. "And I know how you feel about this, Rose—but I want to do anything I can to make sure you stay healthy. If anything happens—"

"What do you mean?" Rose demanded, her voice level and calm.

"I just mean that this might not be an ordinary pregnancy. And if the need arises, the Doctor—I might need to study—"

"You want to study the Doctor if anything goes wrong," Rose finished, relieved.

"Only if we need to," Dr. Amell insisted. "Only for the sake of you and the baby." She hesitated, her jaw working to find the right words to voice her thoughts. "I'm afraid that, with you being completely human, your chances of having a miscarriage is going to be higher than average."

"A miscarriage?"

"There is no real explanation for any miscarriage, but in your case, I can only assume that your body might reject the foreign DNA," Dr. Amell explained. "There's no real treatment other than just taking care of yourself and letting us keep an eye on you."

XXX

Rose returned to the apartment an hour later and immediately found herself in the kitchen with a sharpie in her mouth flipping through pages of the calendar.

"What are you doing?" the Doctor asked quietly from behind his laptop at the kitchen table.

"In the last two months, when have we had sex?" she asked him, pulling the marker out of her mouth.

"In the last two months? March and April?" he asked without even looking at her, his attention still on whatever he was working on.

"Yeah."

"In March—the fourth, seventh, ninth, fifteenth, and the twenty-third. In April—the second, third, ninth, and tenth," he responded, still not giving her his full attention.

"You should stop that," she mumbled, making marks on the calendar.

"Keep your clothes on, then."

"Not that," she grumbled, falling into a chair next to him. She sighed and licked her lips. "I'm pregnant."

"I know."

"You knew."

"I did."

"I'm not surprised."

"Knew that, too."

"Stop that," she groaned.

"You like it," he grinned, closing his laptop now to give her his full attention. She crossed her arms on the table and laid her head on top of them, watch the Doctor as he watched her. "It's how I got back from the other universe, you know. Time Lords can cross universes if there's already a Time Lord in it."

"So you used to baby to get back." He nodded. "That's how you knew."

"I would have known regardless," he laughed.

"You told me last night that I'd never be alone." The shake in her voice sobered the Doctor and he tilted his head back. "You didn't mean that you'd survive this. You meant I'd have the baby."

The Doctor slumped down in his chair and crossed his arms across his chest. "I haven't really done much good for you, have I?" he pondered. "I trapped you in an alternate universe away from Mickey, away from your mates. I robbed you of a normal future."

Rose sat up and pressed her hands into the table, looking angry and confused. She glared at him for a second before her face softened into a slight smile. "You're the best thing that's ever happened to me," she mused. "Just before you regenerated, you said I was fantastic. You were the first person to ever believe in me and see some kind of potential. I'd become so stuck in my boring, mundane life that I stopped believing I was—I could be—special. You helped me realize that."

He grinned and leaned forward to take her hand in his own and kiss her knuckles. "You've changed me, you know. I need you. Stuck with you—that's not so bad."

"Yeah?" She grinned, tongue poking through her teeth.

"Yes."