A/N: Thought I'd post a new chapter early. I hope you enjoy it.

Also, a huge shout-out to the people who subscribed to this story and series over the past few days. They really mean a lot to me, especially since I've had a really tough few weeks, with my grandmother (my dad's mom) recently being admitted to hospice. I really appreciate it!

*** This chapter has been rewritten ***

Chapter 2: A Second Chance

The Doctor was speechless. Completely and utterly speechless.

He just stared at her, mouth firmly shaped into a wide 'O' as he slowly rose to his feet. River could see tears brimming in his old eyes, but she couldn't tell if they were tears of anger or tears of joy. It wasn't until he'd started running his fingers restlessly through his hair that she guessed the former.

"Sweetie?" she asked worriedly as she watched him struggle to process the information he was just given.

He began pacing the Console Room, now looking like he wanted to straight-up pull his hair out from his scalp. "I… This is… This can't be… I didn't… We never…" He just couldn't believe it. River Song, Melody Pond, his beloved wife, was pregnant! It just couldn't be possible!

"Sweetie, you're panicking," she said worriedly as she rose from the chair and cautiously approached him with her arms up in an attempt to calm him. "You know I don't like it when you panic. You need to calm down."

"How can I calm down after hearing something like that?!" he exclaimed, and he could now see that she, indeed, had a slight baby bump that she no longer tried to hide.

"Doctor, sweetie, my love," River said, reaching out to take his hands to prevent him from hurting himself, "please calm down. You're overreacting."

"Of course I'm overreacting!" he snapped back, his body physically shaking from the stress the revelation seemed to put on him. "You're pregnant with… I don't know who's baby…"

"Ours, of course!" River exclaimed, incredulous that he wouldn't know. How could he not? She thought. It wasn't like she would've done 'it' with anyone else—no one besides him.

Then again, it was with a future version of her husband, so that alone would make her understand the confusion that he was currently experiencing. Spoilers had a major habit of making things so much more complicated than they really needed to be.

"How can you be sure?" the Doctor frowned, evidently doubtful that she was pregnant with his—their—child.

She decided to tell him. "Because when I accidentally cut myself the other day, the cut healed; but it didn't just heal the way it normally would. Regeneration Energy appeared and healed the cut, which, you and I both know, should be impossible, because—"

"You should no longer be able to regenerate," he interrupted, his frown deepening.

"Exactly," his wife nodded. "Therefore, the only way it would be possible for me to regenerate is—"

"Is if you had a part of me—a full-fledged Time Lord—inside you," he interrupted again, his voice sounding, this time, like it was calming, the realization finally becoming evident to him.

"Yes, sweetie," she nodded again. "Therefore…" She then paused, this time allowing him to finish without interrupting.

"The baby is also mine," the Doctor sighed in relief with tears in his eyes.

River smiled with tears in her own eyes as she began caressing her husband's cheek. "You're going to be a father again."

The Doctor chuckled joyously, choking on her words. "River, that's… That is wonderful. I haven't been a father in so long. I never thought I'd ever be one again." Not since he last left Gallifrey, he thought, thinking of his late granddaughter, Susan, and all the other people he left behind.

"And now you get a second chance," River replied as a small tear ran down her cheek. "A chance at raising our child."

The Doctor was still speechless. "And the fact that I… That we… In the future! I just…" Not knowing what else to say, he just wrapped his arms around his wife in a tight hug. "River, I'm so happy for you. For us." He still didn't know how to believe it, but the fact that it did—rather, it will—happen greatly excited him.

A few seconds later, he paused, sighing shamefully as tears of regret started running down his cheeks, "But I can't."

River frowned, pulling away from him. "You 'can't?' Can't what? Be a father again?"

"I can't let our child be a part of a life like this," her husband confessed sadly. "Not when my life is very nearly at its end."

"Why should that matter? It's our child!" In her mind, age didn't matter, as long as their child was a full part of their lives, no matter how long they were. The only thing that mattered to her was living whatever amount of life she had left—that they had left—to the fullest with their child and not miss a single moment.

"I don't know how much longer I've got left to live before I die at Trenzalore," the Doctor explained, "if that is what is destined to happen to me—the so-called 'Fall of the Eleventh.' And then there's the Silence, who have been trying to kill me for years by attempting to blow up my TARDIS and engineer you to assassinate me."

"Which didn't happen, last I checked," River added under her breath. Of course, it did happen, since it was considered a fixed point in time, but it also didn't, since it was actually a robot replica she 'killed' instead of her real husband. In any case, he was still alive and well, and that was all that mattered to her, and she was determined to keep him that way.

"In any case," he continued, "who knows how many other attempts the Silence might make between now and Trenzalore. That being said, our child, whoever he or she might be, can't be a part of it. I won't allow it."

"I understand, my love," River sighed as she cupped her husband's face in her hands to force him to listen, "but you don't understand this. You've been given a second chance at being a father again. No matter what dangers may be thrown at us, they shouldn't stop us from raising our child to the fullest, no matter what lifespan we have left. We have an opportunity to be parents, which, news flash, was a privilege my parents never really had because of everything that'd happened at Demons Run. Granted, they may have 'raised' me as their best friend without knowing I was really their daughter. In any case, you have no idea how much I've wanted to raise a family of my own. With you. I'm not letting this opportunity go to waste, and you shouldn't either." She had been waiting for this opportunity since the day she married him, and maybe long before that; no way was she going to give it up anytime soon.

"Whoa, don't get me wrong," he said, raising his hands up in surrender. "I want to be a father again. I really do. In fact, I'm looking forward to it. I just don't want our child to live in a universe as dangerous as it is. As dangerous as my life is right now. Like I said, the Silence now want me dead more than ever, and by now they probably want you dead just as much, and they're going to go to great lengths to make that happen. If they found out about our child's existence, that you're pregnant…" He couldn't help but imagine the Silence taking their child away and training him or her exactly like they trained River—or Melody, as she was called then—into the psychopath she was originally meant to become.

"They'll never find out," River shook her head confidently. "And even if they did, we'll protect her from them at all costs."

"'Her?'" the Doctor frowned, puzzled.

"I don't actually know if it's a girl," she shrugged at her mistake of words. "It's just a feeling." Which was half-true, she thought, as the last time she saw her husband, when she stayed aboard the TARDIS with him to help him recover from the loss of his In-Laws in New York, he had accidentally let slip that same night that their first child together would be a girl. That night, he unconsciously kept going on and on about how brilliant "she" will be, 'she' referring to their first child whom he knew in River's future. Now that she was pregnant, she felt this accidental slip-up might just be coming to light at this very moment, which, for once, was a spoiler that excited her greatly. However, she decided to keep this knowledge a secret for the time being, at least until she was absolutely certain that this child would, indeed, be a girl.

"I sincerely hope it's a girl," her husband replied with a smile as he flipped a few switches on the console next to the scanner. "That way, I can name her Susan."

"We'll discuss baby names later," his wife chuckled back. "Right now I'd like to pay my folks a visit, tell them that they'll soon be grandparents. I'm sure Mother will be especially excited." Amy had been pestering them for months about whether or not they'll have a kid so she can be a granny before her time is over, and they had always denied it.

That was, until now.

"I thought you were too tired to do anything," the Doctor frowned, puzzled as to his wife's sudden change of mind.

"I'm feeling more energetic, now that I've gotten everything off my chest," she admitted. "Besides, my parents deserve to know. Mother made me swear I'd keep her updated on everything I do in my life. You know how mothers are—always so inquisitive."

"I can imagine," the Doctor chuckled. He then said seriously, pulling the scanner towards him, "However, I would advise you—in fact I implore you—to be careful whilst out and about. Your Lindos Levels are off the charts."

"My what?" River frowned, puzzled at the unusual word.

"Your Lindos Levels are extremely high," he stated. "Lindos is a hormone that triggers Regeneration, which, again, shouldn't be possible for you. But since you're pregnant with another Time Lord, and you now have the ability to regenerate again whilst pregnant, you have that hormone in your system."

River nodded. So the TARDIS must have scanned her while she was aboard, she thought. "So what does that mean for me?" she asked, in slight concern for her—as well as her unborn child's—health.

"It means you are now more attracted to danger," her husband explained. "Rather, danger is more attracted to you. As long as you're outside the boundaries of the TARDIS, danger will be after you like a moth to a flame, especially the Silence. That being said, you shouldn't be out for long; in fact, I would highly recommend you not go out at all, just to be safe."

Oh, here we go again, she thought with a sigh. The sentimental idiot, as per usual. "Sweetie, I'll be fine," she said out loud. "I'll be with my parents, and I've got my gun and Vortex Manipulator. If anything goes south, I'll call you or have Mother and Father call you. I promise. Or, if you're that worried for me, feel free to stay with me." A part of her seemed to prefer the latter, but at the same time she wanted to see her parents alone, as they hardly ever got to spend time together as a normal family (as their lives were far from normal).

"No, I'll let you spend time alone with your parents," the Doctor said as if he read her mind (and, deep down, he probably did), "but I'll only let you be gone for a short time. An hour at most. Maybe half an hour."

"Two hours," River said firmly, "and no less."

"Done," her husband nodded, though he sounded reluctant to comply. Then again, to River, speaking from past experience, two hours felt like an eternity for a time-traveler (especially without a time-machine). In any case, she figured it wouldn't kill her husband to allow her some quality time alone with her parents, whom she hardly ever got to visit.

"Thank you for letting me do this, sweetie," she told her husband as he flew the TARDIS to the Ponds' house. "I've wanted to tell my parents for a very long time, since I started having the 'symptoms.' Of course, I didn't know I was pregnant at the time, but now that I do, I'm anxious to tell them."

"I know," the Doctor nodded. "I can't wait to find out what they think of the news."

"Me neither," River agreed. After the TARDIS landed, she said, pecking her husband lightly on the cheek, "See you later, sweetie."

"Stay safe out there," he kissed her back before she walked toward the exit. "Both of you," he murmured to himself, thinking of the safety of their unborn child, once she was gone.

A/N: TO BE CONTINUED!

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