You Reap What You Sow (18&19 of 45)

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Chapter Eighteen:  Snow

“I want to see snow,” Rose said.

“What?” the Doctor asked from his position under the console.

“I said I want to see snow.”

“Snow?”

“Yeah. It’s been…well…since the Christmas you regenerated. It didn’t snow in London once in the parallel universe. And I want to see it,” she told him.

“Okay,” he slid out from under the console. “That’s done,” he said getting to his feet. “So, Earth snow, or does it matter?”

“I don’t suppose there is anywhere in the universe that has warm snow?” mused Rose.

“Rose, by definition snow is frozen water. You can’t have warm snow. It’s impossible,” the Doctor told her.

“Wouldn’t be the first time you’ve done the impossible,” she said with a grin. “But I was hoping…I’d like to take Dare out in it and see what he thinks, but I don’t want him getting cold.”

“Well, I can do something about that. Back in a tic.” He sprinted out of the console room and out of sight.

Rose hefted Dare up into the air above her head. “Let’s see what your brilliant daddy comes up with,” she said.

“Dah!” Dare agreed and giggled happily as Rose gave him an airplane ride. After a moment she brought him back down and hugged him close. He was getting so big and at 3 months old he was very close to rolling over. It was early for a human baby but the Doctor said he was on schedule for a Gallifreyan child. She was definitely getting clearer thoughts from his infantile mind than she had been even a month ago.

Finally the Doctor reemerged in the console room and was pulling a transparent wagon with runners instead of wheels. It was very similar to a sled but with high sides. “It’s heated on the inside and Dare will be able to see out and still be warm.”

“What was it for originally?” Rose asked.

The Doctor grinned at her. “K-9, actually. He couldn’t get around in the snow very easily so if I needed him, I’d put him in this. It worked pretty well. Kept him at an even temperature, too. He didn’t function quite so well in severe cold.”

“You want to put our baby in a dog sled?” She put a touch of outrage in her voice.

“Technically a dog sled is pulled by dogs, not ridden in by them. And K-9 is not an ordinary dog. It’s not like he shed in there or anything. Oh.” He blinked when he realized from the expression on Rose’s face that she’d just been winding him up.

She giggled and wrapped one arm around his waist, balancing Dare against her shoulder, and then she kissed him softly. “You are a brilliant man. That should work perfectly.”

She kissed him again then pulled away. “About how long do you think?”

“To go to a snowy planet? Hmm…a couple of hours. The winter planet of Hoton isn’t too far off. Why don’t you tell Donna what our plans are and find appropriate clothing in the wardrobe?”

Rose agreed and handed the baby over to the Doctor before leaving the console room. The Doctor held Dare just over the console, the infant making gurgling sounds as he reached for the levers. “Now you don’t really want to touch that, Dare. That’s button Epsilon. Auntie Donna calls it the get the ‘heck’ out of here button. Well, that’s not what she really calls it but your ears are a little too young to hear what she really calls it. But in an emergency when there isn’t time to program the TARDIS, that’s the button we press to leave in a hurry. Probably good for you to know that, but for now, no touchies.”

Dare giggled at him and grabbed for the bicycle pump. He made a delighted “Dah!” sound when it pulled out. “Dah! Dah!”

The Doctor turned the baby around. “Did you just say Dada?” the Doctor asked with a silly grin on his face. He had expected Dare to start making recognizable syllables soon as his brain development was far beyond a human baby’s already.

“Nuh, nuh, nuh,” babbled Dare.

“Come on, little love. Say it again. Dada. See? It’s easy. Dada,” the Doctor tried.

But Dare steadfastly refused to repeat the earlier syllables. “Well, but you still said it. And won’t Mummy be jealous when she finds out!” He returned to the console screen and began typing out calculations. “Mummy wants to show you snow, so we’re visiting Hoton. Lovely planet. Not much in the way of people. Just enough to support a skiing industry really. But it’s snow and since it’s almost Christmas based on when we left Torchwood, snow it is. Maybe we’ll even cut down a tree. I think Mummy would like that. What do you think, Dare?”

Dare squealed happily then shoved a hand in his mouth. The Doctor started pressing buttons, flipping levers and switches and then held Dare’s hand under his to work the bicycle pump. The baby was delighted.

When Rose wandered back into the console room she said, “We found winter gear for everyone. Why don’t you give me the baby and I’ll feed him and put him down for a nap before we arrive?”

“Dare said Dada,” the Doctor burst out happily.

“Did he now?” Rose said.

“Yuh!” said Dare.

“See, he agrees?” the Doctor crowed.

Rose rolled her eyes. “You know it’s just nonsense sounds at this stage right? Even a human baby babbles a da da sound early on. One of the first sounds they make. It’s nonsense sounds at this stage.”

“He said Dada,” the Doctor insisted, trying not to sound sulky at Rose’s disregard for the most momentous occasion in the history of Time Lord children.

“All right, love,” she said. “He said Dada.”

“You’re just saying it now,” said the Doctor petulantly. “You don’t really believe me.”

“Of course, I do,” said Rose soothingly. To make up for her dismissal of his excitement she hugged him tightly and gave him a lingering kiss that took the pout right off his lips. As she stepped away from him she gave him a saucy wink. “If you’re not busy after Dare falls asleep, maybe you could come to bed for awhile?”

“Maybe I could,” he said, his voice going low. She grinned and slipped out of the control room.



Dressed in several layers of warm clothing, the four members of the TARDIS crew set foot on the planet Hoton. The snow was perfect for building snowmen and packing snowballs. And Rose insisted on making snowangels. As she lay in the snow, her arms and legs vigorously going back and forth and her shiny blond hair making a halo above her head, the Doctor smiled in utter contentment.

After helping the women make forts he stood well back out of range with the baby while Donna and Rose had a snowball fight. It was doubtful either of them felt the hits through their parkas and winter gear, but they were both giggling like children and making plenty of hits.

After a while he took Dare out of the little wagon and held him down by the snow. Dare reached out with his gloved hand and patted it. “Snow,” said the Doctor. “This is snow. It’s made of frozen water, the building blocks of which are two parts hydrogen to one part oxygen or in the realm of chemical formulae, its H2O. H2O comes in three forms, water which is its liquid state and is wet and that’s what we bathe you with, ice like this is its solid crystalline form, and its third form of steam when it is a vapor, like fog.”

“Do you really think he understands all that?” Donna asked from behind him. He hadn’t realized that the snowball fight had stopped and the two women had walked up on his educational lecture to Dare.

Rose was grinning. “Well…maybe and maybe not, but unlike the two of you he can’t walk away when I get started. He’s a captive audience for his daddy, aren’t you little love?”

“Dah! Dah!”

“See! I told you he said Dada,” the Doctor exclaimed with a look of vindication.

“Okay, okay,” smiled Rose.

The Doctor stood up and reached inside the TARDIS, coming back with an axe. “I thought while we were here we could chop down a Christmas tree. It’s Dare’s first Christmas after all.”

Rose and Donna both nodded in happy agreement, the Doctor put the baby in the wagon, and the three of them started trudging towards the tree line, Dare in tow behind the Doctor.


A/N:  Bit of an angst warning for this chapter if you couldn't tell by the title, but don't worry.  I'll be posting the next bit today also.

Chapter Nineteen:  Blood in the Snow

When he thought back on it, the moment had been perfect. Rose and Donna were laughing, their cheeks aglow from the cold and the good cheer, their eyes sparkling with brilliant merriment. They’d been chattering about what a marvelous time they’d been having as they played in the snow.

Rose had stumbled, he’d caught her and she had laughed and told him, “I love you, Doctor.” He had thought his heart would burst, thinking back to just a few short weeks ago when she couldn’t even remember she loved him.

“I love you, too,” he said. She hugged him, held him, pulled away a bit and kissed him briefly. Then she spun away from him, whirling happily. That’s when the arrow had flown out of the forest. She’d seen it just in time to move between it and him. He’d stood in shock as her body crumpled to the ground, her life’s blood seeping out to stain the snow. He’d given a wordless scream as he fell to his knees, dropping the axe in the snow. His mind slowly kicked into gear, as he checked the area where the arrow had hit, buried in the flesh of her mid-section.

Rose moved her hands to clutch at the arrow, ineffectually trying to pull it out. “Baby,” she muttered. “Doctor? The baby?” He gently pulled Rose’s hands away from the arrow.

“Don’t Rose. Don’t try to pull it out.” They were so far from the TARDIS and though his sonic screwdriver was capable of simple dermal repairs, this was a major puncture wound.

“Hurts,” she managed. “Baby?”

The Doctor scanned her abdomen, his face going grim at the too slow heartbeat of the fetus. “We need to get you back to the TARDIS now.”

“Baby!” she insisted.

A single tear rolled down the Doctor’s face. “I don’t know, Rose,” he whispered, shaking his head. “I don’t know.” He stood up and hefted Dare out of the wagon and handed him to Donna.

“Is she going to be all right?” Donna asked as the Doctor lifted Rose and set her down on the wagon. Rose moaned and then her eyes rolled back in her head and she mercifully passed out.

“I don’t know.” He secured his wife as best he could in the too small wagon, grateful she was unconscious. Donna tucked Dare inside her snow suit, zipping him in so only his face peaked out, then zipped her parka back up to just below his chin. They were ready to make a run for it when they were surrounded.

“Where is the beast?” demanded one of the warriors, bows pointed in their direction.

“There was no beast. You shot my wife!” The Doctor’s anger spilled into his words, his eyes blazing brightly.

The warrior blanched as he looked down and saw the injured woman and the blood in the snow. “Our village is close by. We have a medic who can help.”

“How close?” the Doctor asked, debating whether help was faster in coming if he went with the strangers.

“Half a klick,” he said. And the TARDIS was a good three klicks away. The village was closer and hopefully not so primitive.

“Our medic is good at treating injuries. Come.”

Feeling as if they had no choice if they wanted to save Rose and the baby, they followed the warriors to their village.



As far as villages went, it was not primitive. It was clean and well kept and had indoor plumbing, so why had the warriors been hunting with bows and arrows? The medic worked out of a room in the back of his home, although there was a larger clinic in an adjoining building for surgery or quarantine in the event of an epidemic. “My name is Torshawn,” he said as the Doctor laid Rose down on the examining table.

“I’m the Doctor,” he replied. “This is Donna,” he introduced as the medic carefully began cutting away the clothing surrounding the arrow’s shaft. Donna excused herself to the hallway, taking Dare with her. The medic pulled back the clothing as it came free and the Doctor gasped when he saw the arrow embedded in Rose’s flesh.

“I’ll need to give her a painkiller and an anesthetic,” Torshawn said.

“She’s pregnant,” the Doctor told him.

“How far along?”

“Eight, nine weeks, I think.”

“And she’s human?” he queried.

“Mostly, yes.”

“Any drug allergies I should be aware of?

"Aspirin. Aspirin will kill the baby. Any acetylsalicylic acid, really. Willow salic of any kind. Rose has no allergies of her own.”

The medic nodded and got to work, injecting a local anesthetic next to the arrow shaft and running an IV with a painkiller into her arm. With steady hands he pulled the arrow free and began his work of closing the injury.

“You’re quite lucky,” he said when the wound was closed and dressed. “It didn’t hit any internal organs.”

“What about the baby?”

The medic rustled around a moment and pulled out an ancient, by the Doctor’s standards, holographic imaging machine. He squirted gel onto Rose’s belly and turned on the machine, his eyes going to a nearby monitor as he rubbed the probe across her skin. The baby’s image appeared and she was making little movements, her heartbeat visible through translucent skin.

Visible relief flowed through him as he realized the baby’s heartbeat had returned to almost normal levels. The anesthetic and painkiller in Rose’s blood must be damping it down a little bit. “Baby looks just fine,” said the medic.

“Now, Rose will need to stay in bed for a few days while she recovers. You and your wives and the babe are welcome to stay in my home while she recovers.”

“My wives?”

Torshawn gestured out into the hallway where Donna was waiting. “The woman holding the babe, is she not your wife as well?” Something about the way his eyes glittered made the Doctor wary of saying no. In some places status came from the number of wives you kept or women were only protected if they had a husband. Something about the medic’s manner convinced him to reply in the positive.

“Ah, yes, Donna is my second wife.” He heard a muffled sound from the hallway and only hoped Donna had the good sense to keep quiet. It wouldn’t have been the first time they’d had to pose as spouses, though it was the first time since he and Rose had been reunited.

“When Rose awakens, send your second wife to the main house and we’ll have her moved,” Torshawn said. With that he left the Doctor alone with his wife and left the building.

Donna entered the room. “Second wife?” she asked warily.

“Something about the look on his face bothered me. Let’s be on the safe side here.”

“How come I don’t get to be first wife?” Donna complained.

“Because Rose is my wife,” he said flatly.

“Yeah, well even when it was me and Martha, Martha always got to be first wife, too,” she muttered.

“Really? You’re really going to be bothered by the status of your imaginary role while my wife is lying there on that table recovering from being shot through the middle with an arrow?” His voice had gone steely.

“I was just saying,” she sounded annoyed. “It’s because they’re prettier than me, isn’t it? Can’t have a first wife who’s all ginger and gangly and talks far too much for her own good, even if I do have the best set of--.”

“Donna!”

“What?”

“Don’t make me tell them the truth unless you want to be forcibly married to some chieftain’s ugly seventh son.”

“Fine!” she snapped. “Though it wouldn’t be the first time, now would it?”

“I got you out of there before the marriage was consummated, didn’t I?”

“Barely.” Her mood shifted. “Rose and the baby are really going to be okay?”

“Yes.  And it's not because you're not pretty, because you are," he told her, then when she began to smile he added, "It's because you annoyed me more than Martha,” he said.

"Should have thought that was the sign of a first wife," she said with a roll of her eyes.

Rose began to stir and when she opened her eyes it was to meet the worried pairs of the Doctor’s and Donna’s. “Ouch,” she said. “What happened?”

“You got hit by an arrow,” said the Doctor. “But you’re going to be fine. And so is the baby.”

Rose blinked. “That’s good,” she managed.

“I told them Donna was also my wife,” the Doctor said. “For safety’s sake.”

Rose nodded. “I’ll go tell them Rose is awake, shall I?” Donna asked. She handed Dare to the Doctor and hurried out of the room.

The Doctor leaned down and kissed his wife gently. “I thought I was going to lose you,” he said softly.

Rose coughed, winced, and then said, “I’m harder to lose than you think, Doctor.”

“I’ve begun to notice that.”

“So,” said Rose a moment later, “I’m first wife, right? I mean status-wise?” The Doctor closed his eyes in consternation. What was it with women anyway?

“Of course, you are,” he said soothingly. “Always.”

Rose smiled. “Good.”

Donna arrived back shortly with the medic, his wife, and his oldest child. With the Doctor’s help, the four of them managed to shift Rose’s bed from the clinic to a room on the bottom floor of the main house, while Donna followed behind with Dare.

The quarters they were given had a second large bed and a separate living and bathing area. After they were settled Donna went off to the kitchen to have a chat with the medic’s wife and see what she could find out about the events of the day and the culture of the village.

The Doctor settled down in a chair next to Rose and helped her nurse Dare, before changing the baby’s nappy and putting him down in the crib. Afterwards he sat there holding her hand while she drifted off to sleep and he waited for Donna to return.

Ch. 20&21:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/91374.html