amberfocus | You're What?: Chapter Twenty-five

A/N: Decided it was time for a happier banner for this story. And she sorta looks pregnant, doesn't she?

Chapter Twenty-five: And Bind Thee Ever to Me

Rose woke up feeling wonderfully sated and happy and reached for the Doctor only to find an empty space beside her. She sat up and searched around her, finding a note on the Doctor’s pillow.

Rose,

I went to pick up our wedding rings and I’ll be bringing back breakfast so don’t worry about feeding yourself. Didn’t want to wake you, you looked so content. I’ll be back as quick as I can.

Love,

The Doctor

Rose sighed. As much as she liked waking up with the man beside her, it wasn’t too often it happened. She’d kind of thought that maybe this morning he’d be there, but he obviously was in a rush to get that ring on her finger. She laughed. Bit eager about letting the world know she was his wife, the Doctor was, but she bet that eagerness would subside when they faced up to her mother.

Rose didn’t quite want to face up to that yet, but she knew they were going to have to go soon. She was starting to show and even though some of her new clothes, not the ones designed to show off her belly mind, would disguise her bump for a little bit longer, she wanted her mother to know the truth. Even if it meant…well, there might be a bit of a tongue-lashing in it for her and a smack or two for the Doctor. Rose was under no illusions that Jackie was going to take this well.

She reread the note, her fingers tracing over the word love above the Doctor’s signature. He’d said it to her, but seeing it there in black and white in her husband’s, (husband’s!) signature made it seem that much more a reality. She grabbed his pillow and hugged it to her inhaling that deep masculine scent that was leather, honey, cinnamon, sage and engine grease and so very much the Doctor.

Well, the fact that he wasn’t back yet probably meant she had time for a shower. She eased her pleasantly aching body out of bed and went to soothe her sore muscles under the never ending supply of hot water that the TARDIS provided. When she emerged thirty minutes later she was dressed in a soft, flowing lavender dress with an empire waist that fell to mid-calf in a swirl of fabric and long poet’s style sleeves. Her damp hair was pulled up in a clip that had her loose waves cascading down the back of her head and she’d woven a couple of thin purple ribbons into it. The Doctor was waiting for her. His eyes darkened as he took in her appearance, fresh and warm and still slightly red from the hot spray.

“You are so beautiful,” he told her his eyes full of wonder and longing. He reached out one hand and she came to his side, sat down beside him on the bed and turned so she was facing him, one knee up on the mattress. He opened his coat and released her hand, using the sonic screwdriver he zapped it at the top of the inside pocket.

“What’d you do?”

“Sealed the rings inside the pocket so they couldn’t fall out,” he told her a bit sheepishly. “Didn’t want to risk losing something so important.” He pulled the little blue velvet box out and opened it. Nestled inside were their rings and Rose couldn’t help but let out a little gasp at their deep beauty as the star sapphires winked back at her. The Doctor prised Rose’s ring out and took her left hand in his.

“I want you to know, Rose, that I take this marriage very seriously. I know it wasn’t planned and that it was probably far too soon for the two of us to take this step, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting it, wanting this with you. You saved me when I was drowning in the aftermath of the Time War. You gave me a reason to keep going on, a purpose for waking up in the morning. I know I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but I want to spend the rest of our lives together making up for that. You are my life, Rose. And I love you.”

He slid the ring onto her left hand and leaned forward to kiss her softly. The kiss was surprisingly sweet and chaste and between that and his words Rose had tears in her eyes. When he ended the gentle melding of mouths she pulled back from him and picked up his ring.

“I’ve been in love with you almost from the day I met you,” she told him. “It took me some time to figure that out, but when I look back on it, when I search out when these feelings started, the tiniest of sparks; it was when you told me you could feel the turn of the Earth. And it’s only grown from that day forward. I didn’t know, I didn’t think it could ever be possible for me to be this happy, especially after…well, everything. But you’ve made it possible, Doctor, the way you make everything possible. My heart belongs to you. And it always will. I choose this. I choose you. I love you.” She slid the ring onto his finger and leaned in and sealed it with another kiss.

Things might have progressed from there if Rose’s stomach hadn’t let out an indignant growl that made them both giggle against each other’s lips and pull back. “Sounds like the baby’s hungry,” the Doctor said caressing her belly.

“Ha! That was one hundred percent Rose Tyler,” she told him. “What’d you bring back?”

“Come on, to the kitchen with you. Breakfast in bed got awfully messy last time.” He stood up and then hauled her onto her feet, tucking her under his arm and ushering her to the kitchen and to the delicious breakfast he’d brought back to feed his ravenous wife.

Rose had convinced him over breakfast that it was time to go and face the music with Jackie Tyler but he was in no rush to do so. The TARDIS had landed with a little too much ease when he could have used an accidental landing in the wrong time or location instead. She had not seemed amenable to the suggestion and had made a rather rude noise with some of her gears when he’d pressed the issue showing him instead a picture of himself as a young child, making it clear she thought the Doctor was being immature over the whole issue.

Really, he knew he was due for a sound smacking and he didn’t think there’d be any way of getting around it. He also knew he deserved it. Starting a sexual relationship with Rose the way he had when she was so young had been very poor judgment on his part, even if he had started falling for her the moment she first saved his life swinging out on that chain over the vat of Nestene Consciousness and knocking the Autons to their destruction and then landing in his arms all hot and warm and pink and sweaty and beautiful and alive. And caring, really caring, about what happened to him.

Then when she’d held him all night when she’d found him shuddering with sobs after crossing paths with that Dalek in Utah and had not judged him or spoken of the moment again afterwards, his fate was forever sealed, his love for her by then irrevocable. He couldn’t regret it, getting involved with her like this, couldn’t regret marrying her, couldn’t regret anything about her getting pregnant with Charlie, except the way he’d handled it in the beginning.

Oh, please don’t let Rose tell her mother about that! he thought desperately. The woman was likely to lock Rose in her room and boot him to the curb and never let him in the flat again. Of course, there wasn’t a human lock made that could keep him out of anywhere he wanted to be, and he could easily enough spring Rose and flee with her in the middle of the night.

What was he thinking? Jackie Tyler was not that intimidating. She was just a little woman with a big voice and an overzealous slapping hand and really, she wasn’t that big of a threat. And anyway, he could always hide behind Rose. There was no way Jackie would hurt Rose, especially a pregnant Rose, to get at him. No, she’d probably wait and launch a sneak attack later. The woman was devious. He groaned when he realized that if things didn’t get out of hand, he was likely going to be subject to some of the woman’s cooking.

“What’s wrong, Doctor?” Rose asked coming in to the console room. She wrapped her arms around him from behind, her hands splaying across the front of his jumper.

He turned around in her arms and pulled her tightly into his body. “Just…”

“Worried about telling my mum?” She reached up and soothed the wrinkles from his forehead with her fingers. He leaned into the touch.

“How mad do you think she’s going to be?”

Rose bit her lip. “She’ll come around.”

“What? Come around to the fact that a nine hundred-year-old alien impregnated her nineteen-year-old daughter? How’s she going to do that?” the Doctor demanded.

A sudden knocking sound on the outside of the TARDIS doors interrupted them. The Doctor frowned and moved to look at the monitor. “Who is it?” Rose asked at the shocked look on the Doctor’s face.

“It’s you,” he said.

Ch. 26: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/111350.html