A/N Heavy tension settles in following the aftermath of the previous chapter. To say the Doctor and Rose now have a lot to talk about is an understatement, but being ready and capable of doing so is another issue.

Chapter 11

The Doctor wasted not a second of time in putting the TARDIS into the Vortex as soon as he reached the console. He was fleeing this while at the same time realizing that no matter how far or how fast he ran this could never be escaped, undone, or changed. This had happened. There was no going back from that. The insurmountable question now was how would they go forward?

Rose stood numb and unmoving, having barely made it past the top of the ramp. Her mind was reeling as feelings of fear, confusion, disbelief and pain crashed over her from what felt like every direction, the latter of which came from the words of the one man she never imagined would ever hurt her. Yet the words that had erupted from the Doctor minutes before had done exactly that. Rose honestly didn't know what shocked her more – the news of this impossible pregnancy or the Doctor's caustic reaction. It wasn't his anger over how this had been devised that shook her. It was his clear loathing of the thought of having a child with her.

Maybe at some point she could somehow begin to process all this, but considering only a few minutes had passed since her world had been turned on its head, she wasn't even close.

Rose was drawn out of her immobilized state as the Doctor slowly rounded the console and walked back towards her. Their eyes met, yet there was nothing within his that gave her the comfort or assurance that was always there when she needed it. This time she saw only turmoil itself staring back at her.

The Doctor, the man who was never without words and had an answer for everything under the sun, looked as if he didn't even know what to say or do next, which was currently true. Where would they even begin? In the midst of uncertainty incarnate, Rose was certain of just one thing: If his words were going to be anywhere even remotely near to what she had already heard him speak, then Rose didn't think she could bear it again and preferred he remain silent.

Almost hesitantly, the Doctor reached his hand out towards her, hovered in the air halfway between them, then pulled back. Could he not even stand to touch her? Rose's tumultuous mind questioned. Was the thought of her carrying his child that repulsive to him?

The Doctor opened his mouth to speak but was unable to produce words. Rose had heard of cases of extreme shock causing people to become mute. Some part of her brain briefly wondered if that had now happened to them.

He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, if not shakily, trying to gain some semblance of control to at least make it through this moment here and now. Later, well, he'd deal with that when it came. For now, he was functioning one minute at a time.

"Rose," he finally managed, his voice painfully tight. "I need to get you to the infirmary."

Rose didn't reply. She couldn't. She merely nodded her head and followed silently behind him. Despite walking mere feet apart, it felt like they were on either side of a gulf. There was no arm brushing the other, no intuitively reaching for each other's hand, and both were uncharacteristically stiff, due to the effort of holding these pent-up emotions inside.

Upon reaching the infirmary, Rose sat on the exam bed as the Doctor began gathering devices and setting up equipment – equipment he never imagined he would be using for this purpose, and certainly not on Rose.

As he went about his work, his movements were methodical, clinical. Rose couldn't help but feel like he'd slipped into the role of doctor with a lowercase 'd.' The Doctor began running scans, took a sample of blood and poured over the readings that he had begun to gather, all the while neither one speaking a word and barely even making eye contact. The reason they didn't speak was not because the words that needed to be said were few; it was because there were far too many, and where would they even begin?

The moment the first scan was complete which confirmed without a doubt to his own eyes the reality of the situation, the Doctor felt the air leave his lungs in a rush. There was no refuting the evidence before him.

Rose didn't have to ask for confirmation of whether or not she was pregnant. She knew it was true. She could feel it. She could also see the truth of it in the Doctor's eyes as his earlier anger that had erupted in the hospital now congealed into fear and uncertainty and another emotion which gripped her heart and wrenched it from her chest: regret.

The Doctor fought with everything within him to detach his emotions from the task at hand. Rose's well-being was his priority right at this moment. He had to focus on making sure she was alright – at least for the time being. Whether she could continue to be alright through a pregnancy such as this remained to be seen. If he allowed his emotions to overtake him now he wouldn't even be able to function. Later, he could succumb to the crushing weight that was bearing down on him. For now, he had to fight past it.

He continued working, scanning and analyzing, neither one speaking or able to speak. Finally, Rose broke the weighted silence that had fallen between them as she forced words to her voice.

"Is the baby okay?" she asked on a near whisper, yet the words seemed to resound loudly in the previously silent room.

The baby. Those words on her lips felt strangely foreign to even speak. Yet it was real. This baby, their baby, was now a very real presence in their lives. Rose couldn't even begin to comprehend the numerous consequences of all this just yet, but if she was now carrying a child, she at least wanted to know it was safe.

Is the baby okay?

Her words hung heavily in the air. Was the baby okay? A voice inside the Doctor said no. Nothing about this baby was okay. But at this moment Rose needed temporary assurance, so he had to give her an answer. His eyes slowly lifted from the monitor he had been reading and looked into hers, properly, for the first time since they had been alone with this news.

"It's..." His voice cracked. He swallowed down forcibly. "The scans indicate that it's not in jeopardy at the present moment."

Rose nodded as she took in a shaky breath. Their equally turbulent eyes remained on each other's for a few brief seconds before his fell away and back to the monitor. He couldn't face the questions swirling in her eyes because he couldn't yet form answers to them himself.

Silence stretched on between them for several more minutes. So many thoughts were churning in Rose's mind, but the one reverberating the loudest that she could not tamp down was the one that finally escaped past her lips in a broken voice.

"You don't want it, do you?"

From across the room, the Doctor drew a sharp breath. It was a direct question, yet so much hinged on his reply. His answer could further expand this gulf which now seemed to have wedged itself between them. But should he lie to her? It was pointless because she would see right through him if he did.

The Doctor stood unmoving, facing the monitor which sat on a table in front of him. His shoulders were rigid as he gripped the sides of the table he was leaning over so tightly his knuckles were turning white. "I didn't say that," he finally answered hoarsely, not looking at her.

A bitter laugh rose like bile in her throat but came out sounding like a choked sob. "You didn't have to," Rose all but whispered. "You already made your feelings perfectly clear."

He straightened up abruptly and turned towards her. The Doctor raked a hand through his hair, then let it fall to his side, slightly shaking as emotions continued to surge through him. His posture was tense and the sharp edge to his voice could cut through steel. "Rose, those people violated you – they violated us. They schemed, manipulated and engineered this...occurrence without our knowledge and against our will, thinking only of their own gain and giving absolutely no regard for how this could affect us. So do forgive me if I'm not jumping for joy right now."

Rose suddenly found her previously-diminished strength and used it to stand up in front of him. "This 'occurrence,' as you so lovingly put it, is our child." She paused and took several deep breaths to try and gain her control. Rose spoke a little more quietly the second time. "We didn't think we could ever have children, and now–"

"And now...," he abruptly cut in, "now you're truly happy, right?" The Doctor stared at her hard. "Now that you can have a child with me you have the happiness you didn't before. So were you lying to me before this, Rose?"

"What?" she cried.

He took a step towards her. "You told me you didn't want children – that you were happy with me, and that I was enough. But was that even true?"

In hindsight the Doctor would regret ever questioning her unconditional feelings for him like that, but at the moment his emotions had wound him so tight he was about to explode, and he was speaking without filtering or putting thought behind his words – only raw emotion.

Rose clenched her eyes shut and attempted to calm herself down. She waited several moments before focusing her eyes back on his and answering. "I never said I wouldn't want children if we could have them. I said I didn't need to have children with you in order to be happy, and that was true. You have always been enough for me. But like it or not, and quite apparently you don't, we are now having a child. A child that we created. I'm sorry if you want me to say this has destroyed our lives, but I can't see it that way, regardless of what they did."

No, she couldn't, he thought. She couldn't possibly see this in the same heart-wrenching way he did because she obviously didn't understand what this child being part human would mean for him. She didn't live beneath the crushing curse of the Time Lords. She had never lived through centuries of loss and experienced how that silently destroys you inside in a way no other pain ever could. She wouldn't be the one to live on alone after all those she loved eventually fell prey to the march of time, this child now being one of its eventual victims, added to the tragically-long list – one he fought desperately hard never to add to. In dropping the protective walls he'd built around his hearts in order to open himself to loving Rose, she had inescapably made the waiting list. Now it was growing ever larger.

The weight of silence filled the space between them once more as they both looked away. The Doctor couldn't even bring himself to speak of these things – not yet. And there were yet other immediate reasons why his emotions were now waging war within him; other reasons why happiness was the last thing he could feel at this moment, any trace of it smothered by fear.

The Doctor spoke up at last, his voice now low and restrained and his words requiring effort. "I don't know the full danger this could put you in, Rose, and that terrifies me." The rare, exposed vulnerability and open fear was evident in his voice, in his features, in every line of his tense body. "I don't even know what to fully expect with a human/Time Lord pregnancy, but there could be any number of risks, and I never would have chosen to put you in that position. There is a very real chance you may not even be able to sustain this pregnancy."

Rose fought to keep her voice from shattering as she spoke with excruciating honesty. "Would that solve everything for you if I couldn't? Would you be happier if I lost this baby?"

The Doctor swallowed hard. "Rose," he whispered painfully, "how could you think that?"

Stinging tears began to build in her eyes. "How could I not? After...after what you've said?"

He drew a long, deep breath then released it shakily. Though his voice was strained, the fight had gone out of him. "Rose, I never meant to hurt you with those words. And I certainly don't wish for harm to come to this child. I just..."

"Never wanted it in the first place?" she finished for him. Rose stepped closer to him and looked into his eyes. "Doctor, I know this was never planned. Never even imagined. And I'm not exactly thrilled with how they secretly engineered this possibility behind our backs. But regardless of what they did, we are the ones who created this life. They might have made it a possibility, but you and I made this child out of our love." The Doctor dropped his eyes from hers as she continued in a near whisper. "They said I was one week along. Do you remember last week? That night?" she breathed. "We did this, Doctor. Through our love."

The Doctor squeezed his eyes shut before opening and slowly raising them back up to hers. He was shutting himself off and she could feel it. She could see it in his dark, impassive eyes – the look he always took on when he internalized his feelings. "Rose I just...I need some time to process this. To think it through. To catch my breath."

Rose didn't have the strength – physically or mentally – to put effort into drawing him out. She nodded her head. "Yeah. So do I. We both need time to process this and try to figure out what it is we're even feeling." A look of pain mingled with fear flickered in her eyes. "I just hope once we've had a chance to do that, we won't reach such different conclusions that we'll be driven further apart by this than we already are right now."

The Doctor opened his mouth to speak in reply, but the words just wouldn't come as Rose walked silently past him and out of the room. Maybe it was better that way. He had already said enough.