I opened my eyes and I was standing in a bathroom. I squeaked in shocked surprise as I heard the Doctor clatter around down the hallway in what I somehow knew was the kitchen.
"Emma?" He called and I took a deep breath to steady myself before I let it rush out of me in a huge gust.
"I'm in the bathroom," I called back as steadily as I could manage. I heard more clattering as I looked down at myself and mentally told myself to not panic. Panicking was not going to be a good idea.
"We're in 2019, how can we be in 2019 in a house when we were just on the TARDIS?" I pushed the door of the bathroom open slowly with a slightly shaky hand and carefully made my way down the stairs.
"Doctor we have a problem," I said after I had made it close to the kitchen. The Doctor was looking at the calendar that was up on the wall and scanning it with his sonic, even though I was pretty sure the sonic didn't do paper as well as wood.
"Yes, I know that we have a problem we should be in 2009," he said, and I swallowed because he still hadn't looked at me, so we were on two very different pages.
"No, I mean we have an 'I'm really hugely pregnant' problem," I said and rested one of my hands on my swollen stomach as the Doctor spun towards me with shock on his face and went dangerously pale before stumbling backwards to sit on a chair.
"Are you okay?" I asked after a few long minutes of silence. The Doctor made a strangled noise that I couldn't quite place. "I'm going to take that as a no."
"How did this happen?" The Doctor asked before his head jerked up and he jumped out of his chair and gently pushed me to sit in it as if he was worried that I was about to give birth that second.
"Do I really need to explain human biology to you?" I asked with an eyebrow raise. I got another strangled noise for my trouble as he started to pace back and forth in front of me. I let him pace for a few minutes to see if he would have an idea, but I soon realized that the gears in his head were just spinning uselessly. "Maybe we should call Lillian."
"Yes Lillian!" The Doctor cried and raced out of the room. I took a deep breath and looked down at my stomach.
"Sorry that we're so freaked out. Things just get weird with us sometimes," I said and rubbed the top of my stomach slightly and I felt a gentle yet firm kick in response. I squeaked in slightly terrified shock and the Doctor stuck his head back into the kitchen with a worried look on his face.
"I just felt the baby kick," I said with a quiet strain lacing my tone. The Doctor fumbled the phone that was in his hand and dialled as soon as he managed to catch it.
"What is going on?" The Doctor asked as soon as Lillian picked up, still looking at me in equally large doses of confusion and concern.
"It was 2009 when Emma and I went to bed last night on the TARDIS and Emma certainly was not pregnant," he said after Lillian had said a few things though I couldn't quite hear her. He hung up shortly after and then knelt next to me.
"Lillian is coming over. Do you need anything?" His hand flexed awkwardly, like he wasn't quite sure where to put it and I smiled at him reassuringly.
"Can you check the fridge for some yogurt?" I asked and he nodded. He squeezed my shoulder as he got up from the floor and came back with a yogurt cup and a spoon just as I heard Lillian open the door.
"Okay wait so neither of you know anything about this?" Lillian asked as she gestured wildly around the room. I wasn't sure if she was referring to the baby or the house or something else, so I just nodded.
"Not a thing," I said and looked down at my stomach. "Tiny bit of a shock."
"Tiny bit I'm sure," Lillian said as she flopped down in a chair across the table from me. "So, do you guys know about the wedding?"
"Wedding?" The Doctor squeaked from where he was leaning against the wall with the bridge of his nose pinched between his fingers. I blinked at him in shock because I'd never heard him make a noise like that before.
"Yeah you guys got married here on Earth once you found out that Emma was pregnant. It was a very small affair, but it was absolutely wonderful," Lillian said as she looked between the two of us. I wasn't sure what to think about how the Doctor was reacting, but I decided that that was an issue for another time. I rubbed the side of my stomach slightly as I felt a firm, insistent pressure as the baby stretched out slightly. I wasn't sure how I knew that and decided not to think about it.
"And we bought a house?" I asked and Lillian nodded.
"You said you didn't want to raise a child on the TARDIS. The Doctor got his job back at UNIT and you were both working there though Emma's been working solely for the magazine ever since she hit the third trimester." Lillian and I both looked up at the Doctor who nodded like he agreed with a decision he couldn't remember making.
"I wasn't sure that this was possible." I gestured to my stomach as I looked up at the Doctor. He hadn't looked at me since Lillian had gotten here and it was starting to make me nervous. "We are different species after all."
"We're close enough. Susan had children," the Doctor said and dropped his hand away from his face. "I heard it was hard on her."
"It's been normal so far. Barring the fact that the baby has two hearts," Lillian said, and I blinked at her in shock.
"Really?" She nodded and I looked at the Doctor beseechingly. "Can I listen?" I thought he would protest, but he dug out his stethoscope without a word and knelt down next to me again. I pulled my shirt up helpfully and he ran it around a little before he smiled and pulled the ear pieces out and held them out to me.
"Two hearts," he said with a soft smile as I slipped the ear pieces in. I listened to the steady double heart beat and felt a wide smile break out across my face.
"That's our baby," I said, and he laughed lightly and nodded. With that all my nerves about how the Doctor was reacting went away because as far as I could tell he was happy.
"It sure is," he said as he took the stethoscope back from me. Lillian laughed slightly.
"This is the biggest case of déjà vu I have ever witnessed," she said, and I smiled before I yawned suddenly.
"Sorry I just suddenly feel really tired," I said. Lillian waved my apology away.
"Don't worry about it. You've been napping around this time for the past few weeks. Why don't you go lay down?" Lillian offered and I nodded as I got up off the chair and walked over to the living room to lay on the couch and tried not to think about how I knew where both those things were. The list of things that I was not thinking about was starting to get long very quickly. I wasn't sure how long I had been laying down on the couch when I heard Lillian's voice.
"What?" She asked.
"What do you mean what?" The Doctor asked and judging by the way Lillian scoffed I knew that she was buying that about as much as I was.
"You think that Emma hasn't perfectly described every single one of your facial expressions to me? Something is bothering you and I know it has something to do with Emma I just can't quite figure out what it is," Lillian said, and I felt a lurch of something slightly like guilt in my chest, though I wasn't sure if it was because I was eavesdropping or because I was the one who was supposed to handle the Doctor not Lillian.
"This. Domestic life, white picket fence, a mortgage and a kid or two," the Doctor said after a few moments of silence.
"I don't follow," Lillian said, and the Doctor sighed.
"This is what Emma deserves. Emma deserves this, not bouncing around the universe with me for the rest of eternity," he said, and I thought about getting up to reassure him, but Lillian beat me to it before I could really form the thought.
"Emma would say that it might be what she deserves, but it isn't what she wants," Lillian said gently, and I had to agree with her, that was exactly what I would have said. "But I say, respectfully, you're full of shit."
"What is that supposed to mean?" The Doctor asked with a bit of offense in his tone.
"Listen just listen to me for a minute, okay?" She paused pointedly and the Doctor must have nodded because she continued. "You weren't there when we were thirteen. I know that you would have been there if it didn't mess up the timeline, but you weren't there when Emma missed her mom so much that she could barely breath and she was trying to figure out why her dad didn't love her enough."
"And you know what made all of that pain better? You did Doctor. Emma used to curl up under the blankets on her bed and make up planets that you were going to take her to or look through history books and circle names of people she wanted to meet. So, you might think that Emma deserves this nuclear family thing, but Emma waited for you for twenty years and I think she deserves you."
"I never thought about it that way," the Doctor said after several moments of silence.
"I know you think you're being selfish, loving Emma, but believe me when I say that being with you and being in love with you is the best ending that Emma could possibly ever have," Lillian said.
I must have drifted off because when I woke up again the living room was darker, Lillian was gone and the Doctor was sitting with my feet in his lap. He sent me a soft smile when he noticed that I was awake as I rubbed my eyes and stretched slightly.
"I should apologize," he said softly as his hand drifted along my ankle.
"Apologize?" I asked and wondered if I had missed something. "For what?"
"The way I reacted." I frowned at him.
"I still don't follow."
"The baby Emma. The way I reacted was inexcusable," he said and lifted a finger when I opened my mouth to speak. I closed it to wait. "I could tell by the look on your face that you thought I wasn't happy. And then there was how I reacted to the news that we got married. Which was even more inexcusable."
"It got very suddenly dropped on you. It's fair of you to have been shocked," I said with a smile. His lips quirked up self deprecatingly as he shook his head.
"It was a shock for you as well, but I didn't see you being almost unable to function." I looked at him for several moments before I swung my legs off his lap and held my hand out to him.
"Help me sit up?" I asked and he did as I asked without question. "Listen I wouldn't blame you in the slightest if this is too much for you." He blinked at me for several seconds.
"Emma Bradley, are you trying to suggest that I leave you?" He demanded with a furious glint in his eyes and I shrugged weakly as I shifted my gaze to rest on the couch cushion between us.
"I wouldn't ever want to do anything to hurt you and if marriage, kids, white picket fence is hurting you or will; then I don't want to force you to stay," I admitted, and he put his fingers under my chin to gently force my gaze up.
"Do you really think that I would have bought a house with you if this was too much for me?" He asked.
"Well actually I don't know that," I said because I couldn't miss the opportunity and he laughed as he pressed a kiss to my forehead.
"Besides that, how do you know I'm not happy?" I raised an eyebrow up at him.
"Your inexcusable actions might have been a clue," I teased, and he laughed again.
"I love you immensely Emma. Trust me this is not too much."