amberfocus | To Call Our Own (9/36)

Chapter Nine: Baby Talk

Rose floated on her back in the little pond in the TARDIS garden. The water was warm and it felt good to her tired body, helping to soothe away the stress of the previous three weeks of working non-stop to save so many people from that devastating plague. She was now 13 weeks pregnant, though it didn’t yet show.

Rose smiled as she remembered Donna saying she was probably going to be one of those annoying women who didn’t show until the 5th or 6th month and only then popped out a little bump for the rest of the pregnancy. She laid a hand over her belly for a moment and hoped that Donna would be wrong. She wanted visible signs of her pregnancy to start showing. She wanted the world to see the evidence of the little life inside of her.

At least she seemed to be free of the morning sickness finally. It had been three days now and this morning when she’d woken up she’d been ravenous. Rose smiled in remembrance. The Doctor had been more than happy to stuff her full of a wonderful breakfast, before going off to tinker under the TARDIS console.

She flipped over and swam under the surface to the edge of the pond and climbed out, the water streaming from her body. Lying down on her towel, she felt the TARDIS turn up the artificial sunshine’s warmth. She loved that about this room. She could get plenty of ‘sun’ without any of the risks of sun exposure.

The Doctor found her there four hours later, sound asleep. He dropped to the grass beside her and put his hand on her back. “Rose?”

She came awake slowly, giving him a happy, sleepy smile. “Hello,” she said.

“Hello, love. I hate to wake you, but it’s time for you to eat something.” He indicated the basket he’d brought with him and she sat up, blinking away the last of her nap. She watched him as he unpacked the little picnic. Their last picnic had been in the rings of Saturn sitting in a force field bubble. This one was decidedly warmer, if not quite as romantic.

“Where are we going to go next?” Rose asked him as he handed her a plateful of food.

“Well, first I’m going to take you for your pre-natal check up with Dr. Visily and Jack wants to get back to Torchwood for awhile, but then I was thinking maybe Sandoval. It’s a resort planet, pretty much nothing but beaches on inactive volcanic islands that ring its equator. After that last adventure, I think we could do with a bit of a vacation.”

“Sounds lovely,” said Rose. “If we’re going to meet Dr. Visily, can we also stop by a bookstore? I’d like to get some books on the various stages of pregnancy and childbirth. Wish there was something a bit more specific to my situation, though I really doubt there is. At least not on Earth,” she laughed. Then her expression sobered. “Doctor?”

“What?”

“I’ve been thinking about names for the baby. What do you think about calling him after the new Rindi king?” she asked.

“Vandarian?”

“Yeah. I really like it. Though we’d separate it on the Earth birth certificate. Van Darian Tyler. And call him Darian for short.”

“Vandariantyler. Run it all together like that and it sounds like a Gallifreyan name,” the Doctor mused. “But Darian? Yeah, I like it.” He reached over and placed his hand on her abdomen. “What about you? What do you think of it?”

Rose jumped as she felt a very distinctive shaft of thought, happy in acceptance, shoot towards the Doctor. “Did you feel that?” Rose asked him.

“Yep. The baby just gave me a telepathic nod of approval. I’d say he likes the name choice. Little baby Dare.”

They ate in silence for awhile before the Doctor spoke again. “I think we should ask Jack and Donna to serve as in loco parentis for the baby.”

“Loco parentis?” Rose asked. “What’s that?”

“People who would gain guardianship over the baby if anything should happen to us. A bond parent, if you will. They’d also help with the upbringing and education of the child.”

“Jack and Donna?” Rose questioned. “Well, Donna would make a great choice, she’s responsible and careful. But Jack’s a bit of a wild card, don’t you think?”

“In a way. But he’s also immortal, Rose. He’ll be able to look after our family long after I’ve finished my final incarnation and you are gone. And he’d be extremely careful with any of our children.”

“He does love us very much. And I can just see him holding a baby with that gentle look he gets on his face sometimes…” Rose trailed off. “All right. After we get back from Sandoval we’ll ask them.”

Dr. Visily was a sweet but eccentric old man. Rose liked him immediately, feeling soothed by his very presence. He examined her briefly and then prepared to scan her stomach. “It’s similar to a regular ultrasound,” he told her. “But my equipment is far in advance of what you’d see in a regular obstetrician’s office.”

That was true. For one thing it produced a holographic three dimensional view of the baby, in color. “Oh, look at him,” Rose whispered to the Doctor as the image revolved above her stomach. The Doctor gripped her hand happily.

“He’s beautiful,” the Doctor said.

“And he’s most definitely a boy,” said Dr. Visily.

“I can see his little heart thumping in his chest,” Rose said, awe and wonder in her voice. "The skin is so thin."

“Everything is at this early stage.” Dr. Visily took some measurements on his computer and then turned to look at them both. “You should expect the baby to come around April if you manage to stay on a linear calendar. And I expect to see you back here in 4 weeks time for your next check up.”

They left the Doctor’s office with a copy of the hologram of their baby, walking directly to a nearby pharmacy to fill Rose’s prescription for pre-Natal vitamins, and then to a nearby bookstore, where Rose ended up with five non-fiction books that would keep her occupied throughout much of their downtime between adventures. She also showed him the one she’d gotten for mindless pleasure reading.

He read the back. “Oh, nice Rose. Really.” He sounded sarcastic.

“What?” She looked back at him in wide-eyed innocence.

“The main character is abducted by aliens and is impregnated by one of them and you say what?”

Rose grinned. “Don’t knock it. It might prove useful. And anyway it was the closest thing I could find to What to Expect When You’re Expecting an Alien Time Baby.”

Ch. 10: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/67738.html