Rose couldn't get a grip on her emotions.
She lay with her face tucked into the Doctor's neck, hiding her face.
Finally, at long last, he'd made love to her again. They lay sweat slicked, breathless, limbs still slightly tangled.
It had been wonderful. She found that even in a new body, he seemed to remember her every curve, even though some of them had changed a bit in her pregnancy. It was exactly what she'd needed. It had been perfect.
Except...
"Good different?" He'd ask her, breathless, the same way he had right after his regeneration. It may have seemed like an attempt at a joke to him.
"Just different." She'd replied the same way she had then, hiding her face from him.
Rose lay there, willing the tears to stop, knowing full well he could feel them rolling from her face to his neck, but he didn't say anything about it. He simply held her, stroking her back, trying to get a grip on the beat of his hearts as he came back to himself from their post-coital bliss.
The Doctor considered asking her not to cry, but given everything they'd been through, he couldn't blame her. He wasn't offended, but he did have something weighing on his mind. He'd had to very carefully put a mental barrier between the two of them as they made love, he did not want to know if she was thinking of him from before while with him now. After all, it was no one's business but hers- and he was still him. It was his name she'd cried out, him she was begging to touch her. So really- it shouldn't bother him either way, should it?
If I could change back... Would you want me to?
He'd ask her that in his head probably a billion times, each time he imagined her answering different ways. He'd found that not a single one of the answers he imagined ever made him feel better. He'd been reading books the TARDIS had in the library on regeneration that he'd never had a reason to open before now. It was something so simple to his people, he'd grown up with it. But Rose wasn't used to it. To her, she'd had someone she loved very much die in front of her and a new man take his place.
She'd been doing her best with him, and he knew she loved him. He really did.
You do, don't you? Rose?
The Doctor was pulled from his thoughts, however, when her quiet crying turned to sobs that shook her whole body. He gently pulled away just enough to grab a blanket and wrap around them snuggling the soft quilt up to Rose's shoulders.
"Hey," he soothed softly, "Shh. It's okay."
"It isn't." She shook her head, unwilling to look up.
"Are you hurting?" He ask, concerned, still trying to get her to look up.
She shook her head.
"Then please talk to me?" He begged.
"I don't know how to... to say what..." She sobbed thickly.
"Just say it, love." He stroked her hair. "Whatever it is, I can handle it."
Again, Rose shook her head.
"Rose..."
"I guess its just... a lot. Emotionally. Hormonally." She sighed, finally peaking up at him.
"Are you sure?" He pleaded with her.
Rose swallowed as she looked into his eyes.
The wrong color. Her mind reminded her, and she physically had to shake her head.
"No, but I'm tryin'." She sighed. "Never been pregnant before, 's all new, just a lot."
He looked up to the ceiling of her room, the lights across the ceiling twinkling softly.
They'd sneaked off to the TARDIS while Jackie had company, wanting the time alone but also neither of them wanted their second 'first' time to be somewhere they'd need to try and be quiet and quick. He wanted to take his time with her. Show her how much he loved her, how much he wanted to please her.
"Need a nap?" He ask, seeing the exhaustion written all over her face.
"Need the toilet first." She gave him a weak smile. "Then yes, please."
She slid away from him, grabbing her robe from the bedpost and shrugging it on. She padded away on her bare feet, and once the bathroom door shut behind her, the Doctor grabbed a pillow from her side of the bed and pressed it over his face. He feel hurt that he couldn't place.
Maybe Rose had been right.
Maybe he was jealous of himself.
Maybe he was jealous of her humanity.
That was something else that weighed on his mind.
He wanted nothing more than to propose. Marry Rose Marion Tyler. Build a life. Have this baby, maybe a few more. Live life on Earth. Grow old. Die holding her hand.
Only a couple of those things were really possible.
He fully hoped to marry her. Have this baby, and if she liked, a few more. But then, of course, there he'd be with their all but immortal children who would lose their mother after what would be such a short time with her in relation to their lives. At this point, the Doctor felt like he'd cursed his child with the burden of being Time Lord at their core. He'd give anything to be human with her. For them both to be human with her.
That was what he'd been reading about.
There were stories, of course. He wasn't the first from Gallifrey to have half-human children. He'd now fathered two, one of each possibility. One who was more human, one more Time Lord.
His son had lost his one human life to war, his early twenties. His partner, unofficial wife, had mourned herself to death. So the Doctor did what he did best.
He ran.
The stories he'd heard, those who'd given up their extra lives- if he could just figure out how they'd done it. Maybe he could give himself and Rose both everything they wanted. There might be a way, somewhere, somehow.
"Can hear your gears turning all the way in the bathroom." Rose said with a small smile as she came back into the bedroom.
"You know me..." He teased with a wink.
"Penny for 'em?" She ask, shrugging the robe back off and crawling back under the quilt with him. Her skin was so warm against his, it made him shiver as his body tried to equalize the temperature.
"Do you have any idea what I'd do just to make you smile?" He ask as she sank into his embrace further.
"Mmm. No, maybe you can show me again after my nap." She teased, missing his serious tone.
The Doctor didn't reply, he simply kissed her forehead and held her as she settled in and quickly fell asleep.
As he lay there, he began to think to his ship.
If there is something you know... Some way to back-generate, or to give up the changing... Please. Let me have this. Let her have this. He pleaded.
The TARDIS did not immediately reply, but as he lay holding Rose close, a book appeared on the console of the control room.
It would be waiting for them when they headed back to check on Jackie.
Slight filler but we're getting to the crux of our story soon.
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