amberfocus | Forgotten (1/5) (Reply)

Chapter One: Cracked

Rose has spent too much time hoping that having Mickey on board the ship is going to be okay but she still resents his presence there every bit as much as she thought she would when the Doctor invited him on board. How is she supposed to work on fixing her relationship with the Doctor with Mickey constantly underfoot and hovering like he is? She knows she’s being unfair to her ex. He has been so worried about her since finding out she is pregnant, been so worried when her relationship with the Doctor had almost broken. Mickey Smith is a good man. He’s just not the man Rose wants to see right now.

That man is proving to be far more elusive than she likes. It had been one thing for the Doctor to run away from saying he loved her by inviting Mickey along with them to travel in the TARDIS. She hated it, but she understood what he was doing to a certain extent. He’d scared himself by admitting just how much Rose meant to him and she gets that, she really does. But it is another thing entirely that after two days in the Vortex he has avoided coming to her at night and is not yet willing to work on their problems.

He’s told her he won’t leave her behind and she wants to tell him she believes him, something that will go a lot easier if she can just ditch Mickey long enough and find the bloody man. When he hadn’t come by to hold her as she’d more than half expected now they’d made up, she had tried going to him the night before once Mickey was asleep. She had wanted, needed, to explain to the Doctor that she is ready to begin steering their relationship back to the way it used to be, but he’d managed to hide himself somewhere in the bowels of the TARDIS and she hadn’t been cooperating at all in the finding of the missing Time Lord. When the Doctor wants to be alone this badly, the TARDIS doesn’t interfere.

Finally the warning bell for imminent materialization sounds and Rose hurries to the console room knowing he’ll have to show up to land the ship, but even finding him there hunched over the controls does nothing to soothe her stomach. He looks up only briefly, a ghost of a smile there and gone before he flits his eyes away again. “Hello, Rose,” he says stiffly, formally. “How are you today?”

“Doctor, please talk to me.” She’s upset with herself when her words come out in a tiny little voice completely unlike her normal boisterous one.

“I am talking to you, Rose,” he says with a half smile that also doesn’t stay on his face but a moment. “This is me, talking, asking you how you are.” His voice is patient, as if he is explaining something to a five-year-old. It’s that dribbled on her shirt voice that she and Sarah Jane had talked about and Rose hadn’t really expected to hear it again directed at her. Not like this, when she’s trying so hard to reach out to him.

“Is this how it’s gonna be?” she asks.

“How what’s going to be?” he wonders.

Is he deliberately being this obtuse? “You avoiding me for the rest of my pregnancy?” she asks.

He looks startled and this time he looks at her and his eyes stay put. “I’m not avoiding you, Rose. I’m here with you right now.”

“But you’re not!” she bursts out, her frustration soaking her words with her anxiety. “You didn’t come by last night and I needed to see you. I’ve been trying to find you for ages and the TARDIS, she’s no help--.” Rose breaks off as the ship lurches sharply to the side on landing. Rose is flung to the grating. Mickey, who she only now notices is in the control room, is the one who hauls her to her feet.

“You okay, Rose?” he asks.

Rose nods sharply, frustrated again that she can’t finish the conversation she’s just started with the Doctor. Her hand goes to her ribcage at a throbbing new pain and she fingers what feels like a bump and is likely the beginning of a huge bruise. She hisses at the pain and the Doctor is at her side instantly, his hands moving hers aside and unceremoniously pulling up her t-shirt. He runs his fingers over her ribs. She squirms under his touch and despite the fact that he is very gentle she sucks in her breath painfully as he moves over the aching rib.

“We can explore in a minute,” he announces. “To the infirmary with you, Rose. I need to make sure this isn’t cracked.”

Mickey trails them to the infirmary and the Doctor firmly tells him to wait outside. “I’ll have to remove Rose’s shirt to treat her,” he says by way of explanation.

“It’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” Mickey mutters.

“Well, it’s not something you’re seeing again,” the Doctor says darkly and Rose almost smiles at the possession in the Doctor’s voice. “Now respect Rose’s privacy and wait out here.”

Mickey grumbles but slides down the wall to sit on the grating and wait. The Doctor shuts the door a bit more firmly than necessary. Rose slides onto the exam table. “Take off your shirt,” he tells her.

Rose moves to obey but the sharp pain in her side hurts when she tries to lift her arm. She winces and bites down hard on her lip. “Here, let me,” he says. His voice is almost tender but his face is impassive. He eases her arm gently out of her sleeve and then pulls the shirt quickly away from the rest of her body. “Lay back.” He helps her with this, one hand against the back of her ribcage. He runs his hands over the injury site and if it didn’t hurt so much Rose would be arching up under his hand. She didn’t realize how much she has missed his intimate touch, how ready she is to have it back again.

“Doctor, I--.”

“Hush,” he tells her as he pulls the scanner up over her midsection. “You did crack a rib,” he says a moment later, the 3-D image of the injury projecting over the table. “I can fix it. Just a minute.” As he pushes it away from her ribs it moves over her abdomen and the image of the inside of her uterus is suddenly visible, the tiny life growing inside her as clear as if the child were exposed to the naked eye. Rose gasps and the Doctor turns back to her sharply, the bone regenerator in his hand. “You all right?” His eyes fall on the new image. "Oh,” he murmurs.

“That’s…that’s…” She can’t finish, her eyes well up with tears, and her voice is choking itself out of existence.

“Our daughter,” he says. “Oh, Rose. A little girl.” He sits down hard in a chair and his face is a mask of grief. “How did we ever get this broken?”

“I don’t know, Doctor. But I don’t want this. I don’t want to be hurting all the time. I want to be able to talk to you. I want to know where you are when I need you, when I want desperately to see you. I don’t want you using Mickey as an excuse to hide behind because you’re too afraid to face what you’re feeling,” she bursts out.

“I’m not afraid to face what I’m feeling, Rose Tyler. I’ve always known what I’ve felt. You’re the one who’s forgotten,” he says intensely.

“I’ve never forgotten,” she insists. “I just got…confused for a while. I’m not…I’m not confused anymore. I want to fix this. I want to fix us.” She reaches for him then cries out as her rib reminds her painfully of her injury.

The Doctor jumps to his feet and tells her to lay flat again and he begins running the machine over the damaged area. “Hold still,” he orders. “This should only take a couple of minutes and you’ll be as good as new.”

He leaves the imager in place above her belly and she watches the tiny little heart beating. “Only one heart,” she says.

“Hmm?” he murmurs, his hand holding steady above her rib as she is bathed in the warm light, feels the tingle of healing from the bone regenerator.

“Our daughter. She has only one heart. I thought she’d have two. You’re always going on about superior Time Lord physiology. I thought your DNA would dominate,” she says softly.

“She’ll grow another heart the first time she regenerates,” the Doctor says.

“She will, then?” Rose asks.

“Will what?” He glances at her face.

“Be a Time Lord like you?”

“She’ll be able to regenerate. My DNA will, as you say, dominate.”

“Then you won’t be alone,” Rose whispers.

“I’m not alone now,” he tells her. “I’ve got…I’ve got you.” The bone regenerator whines, indicating that it’s finished its job and the Doctor sets it down. He reaches out and strokes her face and she leans into the caress. “I have, haven’t I?”

Her mind has gone blank as his fingers move into her hair. “Have what?”

“Got you? Got you back?” he whispers.

She nods. “Yes, you have.” Her words are shy as she looks up at him. “If you want me, Doctor, you’ve got me.”

He helps her sit up and then he moves to stand between her legs and he puts his arms around her. Rose raises her face to his and their lips meet in a kiss that is gentle and sweet and full of all the longing for her Doctor that she’s felt since he regenerated. She is sure in this moment that everything between them is going to be okay.

An hour later he’s kissing Madame du Pompadour.

Ch. 2: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/211880.html