You're What?: Chapter Forty-Six

[amberfocus]

                                                                                    banner by alizarin_skies

Title:  You're What? (46/?)
Author:  amberfocus
Characters/Pairings:  Nine/Rose, Jack Harkness, Jackie Tyler, Mickey Smith
Genre:  Baby!fic, Romance, Angst, Fluff, Smut, Hurt/Comfort
Rating:  Adult
Betas:  amyo67, jeprdyfrndly
Summary:  An unexpected pregnancy causes huge emotional upset in the lives of the Doctor and Rose.  With Jack the only voice of reason, will this child lead them to happily ever after or tear them apart forever?

Previous chapters:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/262898.html

Chapter Forty-Six: The More They Stay the Same

The Doctor was worried about Rose. For the first twelve hours of the umbilici withdrawal he had been able to mute her pain, but for the last two hours she’d been whimpering, tears streaming from her eyes as she tried to mask her symptoms. He had known from the start that this pregnancy would be difficult on Rose, but so far he’d managed to correct the imbalances of her frail, human system and had counted on the accommodations that her people’s genetic material naturally made when interbreeding with other species.

Right now there was very little he could do but watch his wife suffer. He knew the process wouldn’t last much longer, ten hours tops, but that didn’t do anything to console him. He thought about the most potent and powerful Gallifreyan drugs he had locked away in the infirmary. There were medicines in there that could turn off Rose’s pain completely, but the harm they could do to the child was unknown.

Rose curled in on herself, her overtaxed body vainly attempting to form the fetal position around her fecund belly. Her hair and clothing were soaked with sweat and yet she was shivering almost uncontrollably. He had never felt so helpless in his life.

A soft knock on their bedroom door startled him. “Yes?” he called.

“It’s me,” came the gentle, masculine voice. Jack.

“Come in.”

The door opened and Jack came in cautiously. “Jackie sent me for an update,” he said, his worried eyes alighting on the shuddering form of Rose.

“She’s as well as can be expected,” he said, “considering how much pain this is causing her.”

“You’re sure she’s not in labor?” He approached Rose’s side of the bed and sat down on the floor, one hand going to rest on Rose’s back.

“No, she’s not showing any of the signs.”

“Her mum is sure that she is.”

“Jackie panics easily. Rose isn’t in labor. This is a natural process,” the Doctor said, “for my kind.”

“Why is it so painful?”

“There’s a reason my people abandoned having babies the old-fashioned way,” he said, not really answering Jack’s question. “Just tell Jackie that Rose should be fine by lunch time tomorrow.”

“I’m not sure how much longer I can keep her out of here,” Jack said.

The Doctor sighed. “Let her come in. But she has to promise to keep her visit short. No more than five minutes. Rose needs all of her strength right now, if there’s going to be any shot at all of keeping that silly wedding on time.”

Jack returned a moment later with Jackie who came in and immediately demanded that the Doctor do something to help her weeping child.

“There’s nothing more I can do.”

“You’re supposed to be this big, impressive alien with a super future medical bay and you can’t make this pain stop?”

“It’s a natural part of the birth process, Jackie. It’s the only way the child can get born. If it didn’t unbind him from her organs they’d both die. This is what is supposed to happen. She’s on track, she’s safe, it just hurts her,” he explained.

“Mummy,” came Rose’s broken voice from the bed. “Mummy, it hurts so much.”

Jackie glared at the Doctor and tried to give Rose a comforting hug, but Rose wouldn’t move from her position. “She’s just responding to your voice. She doesn’t really know that you’re here. She’s out of her head from the pain.”

“How much worse is labor going to be?” Jackie demanded.

The Doctor spread his fingers, palms face up. “I don’t know. But Rose is strong. She’s the strongest human I’ve ever met. She can do this.”

“If it comes down to a choice,” Jackie said carefully, “you save my daughter.”

The Doctor’s eyes blazed at his mother-in-law’s implication. “I will not let either of them die!” he snapped. “Now, you’ve seen her. She needs her rest. Jack, see that Jackie finds her way out.”

“You can’t keep me away from my own daughter!” Jackie’s voice rose angrily.

“I can if you’re going to speak of our child dying!” he roared back.

Jackie set her jaw. “Don’t you yell at me.”

“Don’t you make me take her away,” the Doctor threatened.

Jackie stood there in shock for a moment, her mouth hanging open. “You wouldn’t,” she said in a voice that almost broke his heart.

“Don’t test me, Jackie. Rose is my wife and her health comes first. I won’t have you upsetting her. I need you to leave.”

With an angry huffing nose Jackie turned on her heel, grumbling all the way out of the room. Jack gave the Doctor a look.

“What?”

“If you decide to take off again, you make sure I’m on this ship,” he said, his voice almost a growl.

“Wouldn’t dream of leaving you behind again,” he said.

“All right. I’ll go and try to calm down Rose’s mother. Why don’t you see if you can get Rose into a hot bath? It might help her muscles to relax.”

The Doctor nodded. “Good idea.”

“I knew you kept me around for something,” Jack said self-deprecatingly.

“I keep you around because you’re our family, Jack,” the Doctor said firmly. “And we love you.”

“When you say love…”

“Jack.”

“I’m going.”

“You didn’t, you didn’t have to, to do that,” Rose said through chattering teeth.

The Doctor stroked her wet hair back from her brow. “She means well, I know she does, but I can’t have her talking like that around you.”

“You—you could have…been nicer.”

“I know, but I don’t want her putting negative thoughts into your head,” he said with a sigh.

“Could…could Charlie die from this? Could…I?” She coughed weakly, her arms tightening around her stomach.

“No, not from this,” he said.

Rose nodded. “That…that bath…can we do that now? I’m s-so cold.”

“Yeah. I’ll go run the water.” The Doctor stood up and walked into the bathroom, turning on the faucet and adjusting the temperature, before hurrying back to Rose. “Do you think you can walk?” he asked.

“No,” she said. The word turned into a soft groan as a new rush of pain hit her.

When it ended he coaxed her into sitting up. Very carefully he took off her clothes and then carried her into the bathroom. He set her down gently in the tub.

“Join me?” she asked.

He smiled at her and slipped off his own clothes before stepping into the tub behind her. When he had settled against the back of the tub, legs spread around her, she curled into him, lying on her side against his chest as the hot water rose around them, her belly resting on his thigh. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head.

When the tub had filled he reached up with one foot to turn the water off. Rose gave a soft grumble of complaint as he shifted. The water seemed to be having the desired effect as he felt some of the tension leaving her muscles. A few minutes later the deep breathing of sleep came from Rose.

He slid one hand down to cradle her belly, checking the baby’s state of mind. He didn’t get much from Charlie but a general feeling of contentment. Despite what the detachment was doing to his mother, he was safely insulated from it in her womb.

Rose napped for a half an hour before the pain was strong enough again to wake her up. The Doctor rubbed slow circles against her lower back while she breathed slowly and evenly until it passed.

“Is the water helping at all?” he asked.

“Yeah. Could you make it warmer?”

“Okay.” He knocked the drain with his foot, opening it, and allowed about half the bathwater to leave the tub before blocking the exit and turning on the water again. They repeated the process for the next several hours before Rose decided she had turned into a prune. His skin didn’t get all wrinkly from water.

He helped her out of the tub and carefully dried her off as she stood holding onto the wall. “You are so beautiful,” he told her.

She gave him a wan smile. “Even like this?” She gestured to her belly.

“Especially like this,” he said. He sat her down on the edge of the tub while he dried off and then picked her up and carried her back to bed.

“I’m starting to feel hungry,” she told him as he put her into a clean nightgown.

“Have the pains stopped?”

“No, but they’ve become far more bearable. I think it’s about over.”

“Let me go get the scanner and check,” he said, pulling on his jeans.

Rose nodded and he sent forth a silent plea to his ship to inform him if Rose started to hurt again while he hurried to the infirmary. He grabbed the machine and wheeled it through the corridor back to the bedroom. He was just a small distance away when suddenly Rose screamed. He broke into a run, shoving the machine ahead of him as fast as he could.

“Rose?” he said.

She was in tears and she had bitten through her lip. Blood trickled down her chin. She lay rigidly still before slowly her limbs began to relax. “I can’t take much more of this,” she said when she could speak again.

“I’ve got the scanner. We can see how far along the process is.” He tugged up her nightgown and squirted gel on her belly. The image of her insides filled the monitor. Quickly he moved the scanner over her stomach. Several umbilici waved loosely at him, a few already shriveling up to be reabsorbed by Rose’s body. Other than the one on Charlie’s navel, which would remain attached through the end of the pregnancy, the umbilicus leading into her liver was the only one left.

“Just one more to go,” he told her.

He wiped the gel off her stomach and pushed the machine aside, crawling into bed beside her and holding her tight. He soothed her as best he could as the final detachment took place and once it was finished and she fell into an exhausted sleep, he felt as if he could breathe again.

He reached for his nightstand and pulled out the sonic screwdriver. He flicked it to the dermal repair setting and aimed it at her cut lip. It healed within seconds and then he carefully used the sheet to wipe away the blood.

There was a very light knock on the bedroom door. “Jack?” called the Doctor.

“Yeah.”

“Come in.”

The door opened. “How is she?”

“It’s over,” he said, relief evident in his voice. “She’s okay, just wiped out. I don’t want to leave her alone, but before she fell asleep she said she was hungry. I’d like to have something waiting for her to eat when she wakes.”

“I can make sandwiches,” Jack volunteered.

“Thank you, Jack. But before you do, will you go and tell Jackie that it’s over? That Rose is fine.”

“She was about ready to skin you with a dull butter knife, you know, for treating her like that.”

The Doctor managed to look sheepish. “I wasn’t wrong, though. She scared Rose talking like that.”

“I know. I talked her down. She’s going to want to see her,” Jack said.

“Tell her Rose is sleeping and that after she wakes and eats, then she can see her,” the Doctor said.

Jack returned a half an hour later with a cooler full of sandwiches, fresh fruit, and a variety of drinks. “I wasn’t sure what you wanted for drinks. There is juice and there’re some of those electrolyte replacement drinks. I noticed before how badly she was sweating so she might need that. Also your favorite lager.”

“Rose can’t stand the smell of lager right now,” he said.

Jack nodded. “You mind if I stay?” he asked nodding to the rocking chair in the corner of the room.

“Be my guest,” the Doctor said.

Jack settled into the rocker and the two men quietly waited for the most important woman in both their lives to awaken.




“I could eat a horse,” Rose said devouring nearly a quarter of her sandwich in one bite. It was an hour later and she’d woken feeling indescribably well. Endorphins raced through her system, a reward for all of the pain she’d been through.

“Don’t forget to chew,” Jack cautioned.

Rose swallowed and laughed, taking another huge bite. “I’ve always said you make the best sandwiches, Jack.”

He beamed at her compliment. “Thank you.”

“How’s Mum holding up?”

“Other than being furious with me, she’s fine,” the Doctor said.

“So nothing new then?” Rose gave him a grin.

“Well, I was a bit harsh with her,” he admitted his hand scrabbling through his hair. “You can see her once you’re done eating.”

“Am I going to be all right for the wedding?” she asked.

“I think so, but we’ll make that decision in the morning.”

“What day is it?” she asked. “I lost track.”

“Today is Friday. It’s a little past noon. The wedding is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon.”

“Mickey will push you in a wheel chair down the aisle if he needs to,” said Jack. “He already volunteered. That’s another one who needs to see with his own eyes that you’re okay. He’s keeping Jackie company.”

“I want to walk,” Rose said.

“After all this?” Jack looked astonished.

“I feel okay,” she said. “It’s like…well, I feel a little high, actually,” she admitted.

“That’s the endorphins,” the Doctor said. “Plus there’s a bit of retrograde painkiller now it’s done, that the body develops. But I do want you on bed rest right up until it’s time to get ready for the wedding.” Rose nodded.

They finished eating and then booted Jack out of the room so they could get dressed. The three of them then left the TARDIS, Rose under her own waddle power, to go and face the mighty beast otherwise known as Jackie Tyler.


Ch. 47:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/520919.html