Ch 48

Arthur was drifting off by the time they reached the flat.

"Why don't you go to the med bay, I'll put him down and meet you there." The Doctor murmured.

River nodded, going into the TARDIS and starting up the scanner. The Doctor made sure the baby monitor was in his pocket before hurrying off to find River.

She was laying on a cot, the results of a scan pulled up on the screen.

"Any good news?" He asked, looking at the screen.

"Results say high blood pressure due to stress." She murmured, "I didn't read the rest."

"Haven't seen that in a while." He murmured, obviously talking about something else.

"What?" She frowned, looking over at him.

"Can't remember the official term for it, but the locals called it something like rash of the mind." He said, still looking at the information.

"And what exactly is a rash of the mind?"

He finally turned to her. "It's a thing Timelords get when their telepathic connections are misused or mistreated. Occasionally seen in mentally linked lovers, but it's most common in those who bear children."

"What you do mean mistreated?"

He thought. "Overuse, sudden use after a lack of, tugging from either side, re-connections or disconnection..." He stopped. "I think there's more but I can't remember. And I say mistreated, I really mean just anything that would cause the irritation, though I suppose mistreating it would do that too." He looked up at her.

She was obviously annoyed, "Well I don't know why that's there since I haven't even been using the connection, much less mistreating it. I don't know why you won't just cut it and save me a lot of trouble."

He blinked at her, trying not to react to that last bit. "I, uh, if I had to make a guess as to why you've got this, it would probably- actually two guesses. Guess one: that whole mess with the connections before and having to choose one... it could still be tender to the touch from all that. Guess two: there's pulling, but not from you."

"I cut my connection with Arthur for her before I was ready, I don't know what more she wants." She took a deep breath, "I just want it to go away. I don't want it, I want this to stop."

He swallowed. "The irritation can go away and your blood pressure can normalize with a day's rest and some focus on healing... we don't have to go to extreme measures."

She laughed bitterly, "That's so easy for you to say when you're not the one actually dealing with it."

"Just medical advice." He murmured. He knew he was getting into territory where he had to tread carefully. "Sorry. You're right. Your body, not mine. What do you need?"

Her nose had begun to bleed again, an indication of the amount of stress she was feeling. "I want you to cut my connection with her. You've done it before and with much less reason, I don't know why you won't do it now."

He stared at the floor, voice quiet. "Because I did before without much reason." He echoed. "And William... "

She visibly tensed, "That wasn't the reason he died, you know that."

"I do know, but I remember how I felt because of that. How you felt because of it, (or at least how you told me how you felt)." He sat in down in a close chair.

She sighed, burying her head in her hands.

"I just can't bring myself to do it again, not after the last time." He gave a heavy sigh. "But if it's really something you want, I'll make a block."

"This isn't what I wanted." She was shaking, "From the moment you told me you knew I was pregnant, nothing has been going right. This isn't what I wanted for our family, for our children. I don't-" She couldn't continue, afraid she would really lose it if she did.

"I'm just trying to take this one problem at a time, River. If you try to hold it all at one you're going to be crushed by the weight of it all." He hadn't moved his eyes from the floor.

"There are too many problems for me to take it one at a time." She whispered.

"It's still exhausting to do all at once... even two or three at a time would be immensely better. The longer you hold it, the heavier it will feel." He said, remembering another factor to rash of the mind.

"Well, there's no way to deal with these problems." Her voice shook.

"Not alone, no." He began to look up at her.

She was still shaking, trying to calm herself down, "I don't know what to do."

He stood and moved to gently sit on the edge of the cot. "Stop trying to figure it out alone."

"There isn't a way to fix most of the problems whether I'm alone or not."

"Talk to me, then. Tell me what they are, you never know if you don't try." He murmured.

She stared at him for a minute, trying to figure out where to start. "None of this started the way I wanted it to. I wanted to get to tell you that I was pregnant when I was in a place where I was happy and comfortable with it, but..." She didn't want to say she had felt like she was pushed into it, "I never got that. I felt thrown into it before I got the chance to process it myself, and now every time I think about it, it h-" She stopped before she could say 'hurts', "There isn't a way to fix that."

"You aren't going to be pregnant forever." He thought aloud, taking that in. He'd already partly known how she felt, at least in the beginning. She'd done so well at hiding it he'd thought she had found that happy place, at least until recent events uprooted all that. "I thought... In the beginning, I wish that I hadn't pushed you so much. I was trying to help, but obviously, it was a rubbish sort of help that really only counteracted the goal. And then I thought you were okay because you stopped saying all of this out loud but then we found out she's deaf and you weren't okay. What I'm trying to say it, you could be right about always feeling like that, but you never know how things change. They can change so quickly for us and our thoughts and emotions evolve with the times... they might not, but time does have a tenancy to heal at least a bit."

She shook her head, 'It doesn't matter how much time will pass, I'm never going to feel better about that. It's like saying that in time I won't be sad that we lost a child." She took a breath, "I never got that happy moment that I needed, that I still need." She took another breath.

"There's still time..." He fiddled with his thumbs. "Do you think that moment will never come?"

She was quiet for a minute, "I don't think so, not anymore."

He disagreed but didn't say so. "Do you think it's too late...?"

She nodded.

"I don't think it is too late." He said softly. "Are all the other things, related to this? Caused by this feeling of not being ready?"

She sighed, "Yes, I suppose so."

"Tell me about some of the other things."

"I'm afraid the girls will be upset that we have so much less time with them than before."

"I think that's only a temporary thing, Arthur and Terra will both get older and less dependent. I think that we'll still have time, we can make time, wheather it be with the family or just one of us." He tried to assure.

"But Arthur and especially Terra won't be independent for years. By the time we'll have time for them they'll be much older."

"Didn't you worry the same thing about Arthur? That turned out okay, didn't it? The girls adore him and they don't think we ignore them now. What if we started doing a weekly family thing?"

"Yes, but we're going to have four kids now, two of them babies. You remember how busy we were when the girls were both infants. And Terra..." She trailed off, "She's going to need even more attention than we've had to give the others."

He was starting to really want to go and change time for her and give her the time she needed to process this. "You're right, she will, but there are two of us for that reason. The girls understand that and we won't shun them out."

She shook her head, not having faith in his words.

"What if we started doing those family outings again?" He suggested again. "Every week, no matter what's going on, all of us will spend time together."

"You want to do family outings with a newborn?" She raised an eyebrow.

"Okay, it doesn't have to be outings," he corrected, "it can be as small as family game night."

She sighed, "Fine."

Her sigh made him unsure. "...Are you saying fine because you want me to zip it or because you want to do the idea."

"No, I think it's a good idea, I just… don't know how long we'll be able to keep it up. I don't think you understand how busy we'll be."

"You never know know until it happens," he said, "If we start it up, then Terra's born, we can see where we are and how things go." He was probably underestimating a bit, but he was almost sure that she was overestimating. He also had a much more hopeful look at it that she did.

She closed her eyes, "I just wish I had had the chance to figure this all out so I could actually enjoy these few months and bond with her the way I'm supposed to be."

He watched her expression, feeling a bit useless that he could give her nothing but words of comfort, which in all probability didn't go very far. He started to think of what he might do if he could change time, though scrapped every idea since none of them would be possible. "I wish I could find a way to extend the time before she comes and give you that chance."

"No, absolutely not! I don't want this pregnancy being any longer than it has to be. I'm tired of having her constantly right there, I'm sick of her being in my head!" She knew very well that he was clever enough to figure something out.

He jumped at her tone. "Sorry, it was only a thought!"

The tension in her shoulder's had grown, and she pressed her eyes shut.

"...Still don't want the block?" His voice had gone quiet again. She didn't answer, trying to get her body to stop shaking. "Your nose is bleeding again." He murmured, grabbing her another tissue.

She took the tissue from him, avoiding his eyes.

"You ought to lie down and take a rest. This stress is really getting to you."

She nodded, getting up and walking to their bedroom in the TARDIS.

"River?" He followed in the hall. "Can I get you anything?"

"No, I'm fine." She murmured.

"Uh, shout if you need anything. I'm going to check on Arthur."

"I will."

He nodded and quietly went to Arthur's flat nursery where he'd been napping.