amberfocus | You're What?: Chapter Three

Chapter 2: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/68071.html

Sorting Things Through

“The hell you will!” the Doctor snarled leaping towards Jack like he was planning on strangling him.

“I will!” Jack insisted vehemently tensing for an impact that never came. “For Rose I’d do anything. And I’m surprised at you, Doc, that you won’t! You’ve never struck me as the kind of man that runs away from his responsibilities. But if you’re going to run away from this one, I’ll be more than happy to step in and take your place with Rose.” He paused, then just to make sure the Doctor got his point added, “In every way.”

“If you think I’m going to let you touch her--.”

“Won’t be up to you if you run away from this, will it, Doc?” Jack snapped. “It’ll be up to Rose. And you know, I think she likes me just enough that if you’re out of the picture she’ll accept me as hers. I don’t mind being second choice for her!”

“Damn you, Captain!” The Doctor’s fists clenched and he advanced on the other man again. “Rose is mine. That baby is mine! If anyone’s going to…” He trailed off at the slow grin forming on his rival’s face.

“Now you’re getting it,” Jack said.

“You, you,” spluttered the Doctor. “I…you tricked me.”

“Do you love her, Doctor?” Jack asked. He glared at the younger man. “Okay, that’s a given. So how can you even think about letting her do this on her own?”

The Doctor sank down in the jump seat. “I just…how can I? How can I do this? I’m not going to be any good at it, Jack. I’ll mess it up. Everything I touch turns to ashes. How can I do that to Rose? How can I ruin her life? How can I saddle her with me forever?”

“It’s Rose, Doctor. How can you not?” Jack replied.

Running his hands across his face he sighed. “Will you stay with us?”

“Thought you were getting ready to pitch me off the ship,” Jack said.

“Hate to admit it, but I think we’re both going to need you to get through this. It’s…wrong, her and me having a child. Too many ways it can all go wrong.” The Doctor gazed into space the way he did when he was viewing the time lines and Jack sighed.

“Did you ever think that maybe for once everything could just go right? That there might be an outcome that doesn’t leave you in despair and misery? That maybe this child is a good thing for both of you?” Jack demanded.

“That’s not how my life works, Jack.”

“I think you’re a self-fulfilling prophecy,” Jack said dryly. “You’re so convinced that it’s all going to fall apart before you even start that you won’t even make the attempt. But that’s not good enough this time, Doc. You have to look at this from Rose’s side of things. She deserves the best. You need to find that in you and give it to her.”

Jack put a hand on the Doctor’s shoulder. “I’ll be here. I’ll help you both as best I can. But you gotta promise me you’re going to try.”

The Doctor nodded. “I’ll try.”

“Good, but if you do cock things up I will follow through. I will take care of her. I mean that. Now get out there and tell Rose you’re sorry for handling this so badly,” Jack ordered. If the Doctor had had a tail it would have been between his legs as he hesitantly stood up and made his way to the door.

Great, thought Rose. Just great. She knew she must have knocked herself senseless because the moon didn’t seem to be in the same place as it had been the last time she’d looked up at the sky. She didn’t remember falling, precisely. She remembered slipping and landing and pain, but the actual sensation of falling seemed pretty absent. Then nothing until just a few seconds ago.

She lay still, quietly taking stock of her body. Starting with her feet she wiggled her toes, circled her ankles, bent her knees and cried out. Her left knee made itself known quite painfully to her and she eased it back down into the sand. She progressed up her body taking stock of thighs, hips, tailbone (another ouch, but not nearly as bad as her knee) and torso (bruised rib, possibly cracked).

As she got to her shoulders, again pain flared into life on the left side. She strained her eyes in the darkness and realized she must have hit that side of her body on the way down against the cliff face. She raised her right hand up to her head and gingerly felt around her face and head. It came away from the left side of her face and head sticky and somewhat cool.

As carefully as she could she tried sitting up and decided when a wave of nausea and dizziness washed through her that staying flat was probably a better idea. Not that she wasn’t used to being nauseated lately, but… Her eyes widened. The baby. Her hand flew to her abdomen. Not that that would tell her anything. She was only seven or eight weeks pregnant. She’d probably gotten so the first time the Doctor had made love to her if she went by missed cycles. She felt around the crotch of her jeans seeking any signs of blood and was relieved when there didn’t seem to be.

Wait a minute. Relieved? She bit her lip. Wouldn’t it have solved everyone’s problems if her little tumble had caused her to lose the baby? Everyone could have gone on pretending life was the same as it had always been, she wouldn’t have to worry about altering her life forever, and she wouldn’t have to go home to being a single mum alone after living the greatest adventure in the universe. So why was she feeling relief?

Was it possible she didn’t want to take the easy way out? If you could call tumbling down a cliff the easy way, she thought ruefully. Maybe it was that from the moment she’d suspected, she’d set her head to the fact that she would have this baby because it was his. She’d already been sure of that fact by the time the test had confirmed matters for her. It had been a reluctant acceptance, but it had been an acceptance nevertheless.

Rose sighed. She didn’t exactly want this baby even under the best of circumstances. Not right now, anyway. Ten years down the road if she and the Doctor had still been together, and she’d had every intention of staying with him, having his kid would have been something she’d be willing to do if he’d wanted it. She’d have wanted it, but would never have pushed him. She’d always wanted kids someday. That someday had just never been close to now.

Of course, it was not something they’d ever discussed. The whole genetic incompatibility thing that he’d been so blatantly wrong about had precluded that talk completely. Plus, the relationship was too new to even be thinking that far down the road. Though she had. She’d set her mind to making things work with the man for the rest of her life. As difficult as he was and as irritating and crazy as he could sometimes be, she loved him. And she knew he felt, if not love, then something as close to it as he was capable of getting.

But now was when she was going to have this baby. Not ten years from now when she was ready. Right now. Nine months. Or oh, no, what if there was some ridiculous number of months in a Time Lord pregnancy? The Doctor was 900 years old. What if gestation rates were higher as a consequence? What if she was looking at ninety months instead of nine? She could be pregnant for seven and a half years!

Well, that would solve her problem nicely, she thought ironically. It’d be closer to the ten years she’d be ready to have a child in. She laughed at her own silliness, then groaned at the pain that washed through her ribs. It was possible the pregnancy could be longer or shorter, but she doubted it would be more than a year or two. It didn’t seem like a good quirk of biology for a humanoid race to be pregnant for nearly a decade.

Rose wished she could ask the Doctor. When he took her home, who would she ask when she had questions like this? She was going to have to make him sit down and go through everything he knew about his people’s pregnancies. Maybe a biology lesson or two were in order so she might know what to expect when raising the child on her own. He could have some books he’d let her take home. And—but, why? Why couldn’t he just suck it up and deal with this and be there for her by her side during the whole damn thing? Why couldn’t he just step up and be the man she needed him to be?

How long had she been outside now? Shouldn’t someone have come looking for her by now? The Doctor was probably still angry, but she’d been gone an awfully long time. Far longer, she suspected, than it usually took for her to cool down. Maybe he was giving her space? This was a far bigger issue than any they’d ever fought about before.

“Help,” she tried to call out, but it was in drawing in a deep breath to yell that she realized her breathing was way too shallow. That cracked rib might be more serious than she’d thought. What if she’d nicked a lung?

“Rose?” Jack called out into the darkness. “Rose?”

When there was no answer the Doctor glanced around him into the night. “She likes to look at the water when she’s angry,” he said.

Jack took a powerful torch out of his pocket and shone it towards the bluff. “I don’t see her.” He flashed it at the ground. “Those look like her trainer prints, though.” They followed the path towards the overlook. “I only see one set of footprints, Doctor,” Jack said uneasily. “I don’t see any leading away.”

The two men rushed to the side of the bluff and Jack shone the light down the fifteen foot drop to the beach below. “Rose!” Jack called.

“Rose!” the Doctor shouted as fear filled his belly with dread. He grabbed the torch and swept it in a careful scan. “There!” he hollered as the beam caught sight of a sprawled form below. “Rose!”

He strained his ears listening for an answer, but there was no response. “I’m getting the TARDIS to land on the beach,” the Doctor said. “Stay here. Keep talking to her. Make sure she knows she’s not alone. I don’t want her hearing the ship take off and thinking I’ve left her.”

“Isn’t that what you’re going to do eventually anyway?” Jack asked.

The Doctor didn’t answer him and bolted for the ship. As fast as he could he altered coordinates and begged his ship to land properly so he could get to Rose as quickly as possible. The ship recognized the urgency and landed them easily seconds later mere yards from where the crumpled form of Rose Tyler lay.

Chapter 4: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/72397.html

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