Chapter 21 – The Aftermath

Rose barely slept while the Doctor was in Intensive Care over the next few days. She'd wake up every thirty minutes, crying in the darkness for everything that was happening. Her head was still a complete mess and she didn't want to advertise her miscarriage, so only Jack knew. Although he was being very supportive, looking after her and Leah and listening to everything she had to say she couldn't bring herself to talk to him about the deeper feelings she was having. A tide of complete guilt. Anger. Despair. Helplessness. He'd think she was mad, and maybe she was.

All she wanted to do was talk to the Doctor, and for him to respond as if he'd actually heard her. That was it. He'd been given the maximum sedation and little bit more, but it was still a few days before he had finally gone into a healing coma. Even then he kept ripping out of it, crying out with pain before sinking back into unconsciousness at the drop of a hat.

When he wasn't doing that, he still wasn't coherent. Even if he looked wide-awake and as though he was listening, he wasn't. She'd told him she'd miscarried about six times, but he still didn't seem to hear or understand her, just talking about something ridiculous that made no sense.

She'd lost track of how much she'd cried. She was sick of crying. She wanted him back so badly. In fact, she wanted him back so much it was actually making her angry that she couldn't talk to him. She had to keep all these feelings inside and pretend like everything was okay. And it wasn't. It was killing her.

It had been a week since the Doctor's surgery, and Rose was off to see him bang on 10am. It had become a daily ritual, increasingly feeling more and more pointless with every passing day. But she hung onto that glimmer of hope as she was escorted into the ICU, followed by Jack. When they reached his bed, he'd woken up again, staring up at the ceiling unblinkingly.

"Doctor?" Rose tried, moving to lean over him.

His eyes snapped to her face. "Hello, nurse," he murmured.

Rose took that sentence like a punch in the stomach; completely winding her. She resisted the urge to cry again as she leant forward to kiss him. "Not a nurse. It's me, it's Rose."

"Yeah, you look like a Rose," he said, staring at her. "Your eyes are all red."

Rose gave a half smile at that. She hardly felt like a full one.

"Doctor, I really, really need you," she croaked. "I need you to wake up. Please come back. I need to talk to you. I'm a mess and you're the one that makes it better, so please. Please wake up."

"I'm listening," he suddenly said, staring at her.

Rose saw an opportunity, and she decided to take it. "I'm so sorry, I feel like hell, like it's my fault and..." she spontaneously burst into sobs. "God, I... I've... I've lost our baby. Your baby. It was in me and now it's gone..."

"That was careless, did you check under the fridge?"

She sobbed even harder. "Please, please understand me, I need you..."

He gazed at her. For a flicker of a moment she thought he might be understanding her, but he suddenly closed his eyes again and turned over with a wince. "I'm thirsty, can you get me a drink?"

Suddenly she was angry, irrationally angry at the fact he couldn't comprehend what she was saying. "Wake up!" she yelled, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him on impulse. He screamed out in pain and instantly Jack dived to pull her off, where she sank like a stone in his arms and cried her heart out.

Jack took her out, calming her down and taking her back to the TARDIS to leave in the care of Martha before returning to the Doctor, finding him still lying there staring at the ceiling.

He looked up as soon as Jack appeared, giving a little smile. "Hello. Can I ask you something?"

"Sure, Doc," Jack replied, taking a seat next to him. "Anything."

"Well, there's just this girl that I really love, she's called Rose, she's really beautiful. She comes to see me every day but... Well, she's always crying and I don't know why. Do you know why? I want to help her feel better."

Jack offered him a smile. "Sorry, Doc, that's one you've gotta find out for yourself. And you can help by going into a healing coma and staying in it for a few days, okay?"

"Okay, I'll do that," the Doctor replied. "And... can you tell Rose that I love her and I'm coming back really soon?" he asked, his expression portraying someone who didn't quite know what he was saying. "And can you ask Jack if he can look after my girls?"

Jack smiled. "He will. Good night, Doctor."

"Night," he replied, closing his eyes. Ten seconds later the heart-rate monitor flat-lined as he finally fell into a healing coma.

Jack's smile fell, leaning forward to kiss him on the forehead. Discounting Leah's birth, Jack hadn't seen him this bad since after the Valiant. Whilst Martha had been sorting out her family and Tom, the Doctor had slowly been withering. He had forced himself onwards to burn the Master's body until he'd finally walked back into the TARDIS and collapsed.

Jack had been there, though. For a while after they had hovered in the vortex, the Doctor slipping between consciousness and unconsciousness; weaker than a new-born and unable to feed himself. Jack had taken charge, getting him everything he needed until he had finally grasped the real world again.

Then they had talked. Everything from the day they'd met to their experience on the Valiant. Jack came to see him a lot differently as he nursed him back to health. He'd given Jack a new perspective; a drive. Eventually the Doctor recovered and they had gone on to get Martha like nothing had happened before eventually parting, but Jack would never forget that. He owed the Doctor so much. It was his duty to start repaying him.

With one last look he left to go and do exactly what the Doctor had asked.

A few days passed as the month crept into March, and the Doctor had thankfully stayed in his healing coma. But Rose wasn't fairing well at all. Jack could barely get any communication out of her – so inside herself and her mind. He was beginning to worry, worry that the miscarriage was emotionally affecting her deep inside. He'd tried to get her to talk about it, but it had become very clear that the Doctor was the only one she wanted to talk to.

He was by no means wrong. The following morning was the worst of Rose's life so far. She woke up at 7am feeling the lowest she had since this whole thing had begun, but to her complete surprise found Leah walking into the bedroom holding a tray with a plastic bowl of cereal and a plastic cup of orange juice on it.

The girl beamed at her. "Mummy, I made you breakfast."

Rose took the proffered tray, staring at it. The cereal had far too much milk and was spilt all over the tray, as was the orange juice, but it didn't matter, because it made her smile. "Thank you, sweetheart," she said, instantly feeling a lot, lot better.

"You're welcome," Leah said with a smile, and rushed out the door.

Leah went straight to her room to get a blanket, her bunny slippers and Bundy. She tucked the bear under her arm and stuck her thumb in her mouth, dragging the blanket along the floor as she walked back out, through the console room and out of the TARDIS doors.

She toddled into the reception, so quiet Pam didn't notice her. It wasn't until she walked up to the desk and asked, "excuse me?" did Pam jump out of her skin and look around in alarm. She could see no one over the desk.

"Hello?" she asked, wide-eyed, talking into the nothingness.

"Hello," the voice said, and finally Pam realised the voice from coming from down below, looking down at the toddler in her pyjamas. "Do you know where my Daddy is, please?"

"Are you Leah?"

"Yeah. My daddy is the Doctor, can you tell me where he is?"

Pam gave the girl a gentle smile. "Where's your mummy?"

"No, where's my daddy?" Leah corrected.

"Are you sure you should be here?" Pam reiterated, persisting with her smile.

"If you don't tell me I'll find him," Leah told her straight.

"If you just wait here, I'll find your Auntie Martha..."

"No, thank you," Leah said, and ran off through the doors.

"Leah! Wait!" Pam called, but she was already halfway down the corridor.

She saw the signs on the wall, remembering her uncle had said something about an ICU, and there it was listed on the wall with an arrow. So she followed the series of arrows through the corridors for around ten minutes until she reached the ICU. As she passed through the doors, she saw lined down each side aliens in bed, silent and on a menagerie of machines.

It was scary, at least until she got to the middle and saw the familiar form of her Daddy lying on a bed unconscious. There were no guards around and two nurses were at the end of the ward with another patient, so Leah dragged a chair next to the bed, used it to climb on it and curl up next to her dad. She covered herself with the blanket and snuggled up to him with Bundy on his chest, closing her eyes.

After Leah's breakfast, Rose had somehow dozed again and fallen asleep for three straight hours – the longest in ages. She was only awoken by Jack opening the door, peering around for a moment before moving back out.

"Jack?" she asked, sitting up.

"Nothing, don't worry, go to sleep," Jack said, far from innocently.

"Worrying," Rose said, staring at him.

"We err... We can't find Leah."

Rose was just taking in a deep breath to completely flip when she was stopped by Martha running to the door with her arms in the air.

"It's okay, I found her!" she yelled, looking between them. "She's with the Doctor."

"Is he awake?"

"Yeah, he just woke up. He seems to understand me, now."

Rose's heart instantly started up in a samba, already getting out of bed. "I gotta see him."

When Rose got there the Doctor was indeed awake, chatting with Leah who was curled up under a blanket with Bundy in her arms on his bed. When he saw Rose, his face shone like the Blackpool Lights.

"Rose!" he called, and was very quickly shushed by several people in the wing. "Sorry," he said quietly, before looking back up at her and grinning again.

The relief that flooded Rose's body could only be equated to a sudden drug rush of some kind. Instantly all of her tensed muscles she didn't even know she had relaxed, her head stopped buzzing with a million things. All she could feel was pure relief, and pure love for the two people on that bed, smiling away as though nothing had happened.

She reached them, and now she was smiling. The Doctor gave her a one-handed hug and a big kiss on the lips to go with it.

"Ewww," Leah complained loudly.

The Doctor and Rose laughed at her, and kissed again.

"Missed you," Rose whispered when she pulled away.

"I missed me too," he replied with his ever persistent grin.

"How are you feeling?"

"Arm hurts, and I feel like I'm drugged up so much I'm somewhere in the atmosphere," he admitted.

Rose just smiled. She couldn't help but smile. For a moment she almost forgot, but then the memory of the miscarriage hit her like a ten tonne rock and her expression fell.

The Doctor noted it. "Oh, sad thought," he pointed out, gazing at her. "What's wrong?"

"I... I need to tell you something," she muttered, looking down at Leah, then at Jack behind her. "Jack, can you take Leah somewhere for a minute?"

"I don't wanna go!" Leah protested, but she was already in Jack's arms. The Doctor noted his expression had also spontaneously turned very solemn.

"This isn't good, is it?" the Doctor supposed, watching Jack and Leah leave. "What is it?"

Rose swallowed, taking a seat, and his good hand.

"Excuse me, sir, ma'am? We need to take you for a post-op x-ray," a nurse said politely.

"Can you give us a minute please?" Rose asked quickly, and the nurse nodded, backing away as Rose looked back at him. "Look, um... When that thing had you, it threw you in the wall and you got knocked out... And after that it was a mess and the other things caught up with us. One of them grabbed me and started... you know. It felt like I was dyin', but Jack stopped it before it went too far. But... After that... I..."

She suddenly had to stop as a choked sob came from her throat and a tear slid down her face.

The Doctor was alarmed to say the least. "What? What's wrong?"

"After the... the accident, I started... Well, I started b-bleedin' and I f-fainted and couldn't b-breathe and..." She paused again, gathering her breath as he gazed at her in concern. "Doctor... I... I had a miscarriage. I lost a baby."

The Doctor's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. "You... You were pregnant?"

"Yeah..."

"But..."

"Sir," the nurse interrupted again, moving close. "I'm sorry but we've only got a short slot..."

"Hold on!" Rose protested, hands in the air. "Doctor, I was p-pregnant, but I... but I lost it... And... And I need to... to know you're not mad at me...?"

He just stared at her, in complete shock. He couldn't even find any words to say.

"Doctor?" Rose prompted, her eyes withering with every passing second.

He didn't reply. He just looked at the nurse, and nodded. They all swooped in to take him away.

"No! Doctor!" Rose called, following the bed as it travelled up the aisle, but she couldn't get any further than the doors. "Doctor!"

Then within three seconds she was alone, standing in the ward staring at the doors, absolutely distraught.