amberfocus | You're What? (41/?)

A/N: Oh, lookie there, she wrote fic. No smut, but probably not entirely work safe.

Chapter Forty-One: Return to Earth

They didn’t go back to Earth right away. They probably should have but Rose didn’t want to deal with planning an Earth wedding after their bonding and the Doctor, as much as he liked having Jack around, desperately wanted time alone with his wife. He had a strange feeling deep within him that if he didn’t take the time now to be with her, he might never have the opportunity again. He didn’t like the way it made him feel, it was fatalistic and stupid, but more and more his mind kept returning to what the Rose from the alternate universe had said, the way she had lost her Doctor, first to regeneration and then to being sealed away in another reality.

There was no guarantee that his own time line would play out in any way approaching the one hers had, but the mere possibility that there might be Daleks still lurking somewhere in this universe had left him feeling slightly on edge for too long. Being alone with Rose soothed him. It stored up reserves of hope and happiness within him and made him think that if that dark future did come, he could face it. He knew what to do to prevent a reoccurrence of the same circumstances, had built what he needed to destroy the Daleks should the need ever arise again, but there was always the possibility he’d be separated from the device or that he couldn’t get to it in time and if they somehow got a hold of his Rose, took her and Charlie from him, he was more than a little afraid of what he might do.

And so they stayed away from Jack, who’d played a large part in the other world’s battle with the Daleks, and they stayed away from Jackie and her wedding plans, and they visited every sweet and romantic planet or moonlet that the Doctor could think of to take her, too. Oh, there was still a bit of running for their lives, or as Rose’s pregnancy advanced, waddling, but for the most part the universe seemed to be cooperating in protecting this pregnancy. She knew eventually they had to go back. They both did, but this time alone together had been so needed. They’d stayed away for seven months; Rose now had two months left in her pregnancy, being thirteen months along.

“I’m never going to fit in the wedding dress I picked out with mum,” Rose said staring at herself in the large full-length mirror. “I don’t even fit in the maternity clothes I already have.” She pointed to the shirt that didn’t quite cover her stomach.

The Doctor came up behind her, his hands coming around to caress her fecund belly. Charlie jumped under his touch and Rose smiled. “You’re beautiful,” he told her. “We can stop and get you some new clothes. That tailor where we were hand-fasted could make you something more.”

He kissed the side of her neck and she pressed back into him. “I’d like that. I wonder if that one shop still has the baby bedding with the six-legged giraffe creature,” she mused. “I never did find anything I liked better.”

“What? Not even the flying bananas?” he asked with a bit of a pout.

“Not even the flying bananas. I suppose it’s long gone now.” She sighed.

“Well, if you really want it, we can go back and get it,” he said.

“Time travel for baby things? Isn’t that kind of…I don’t know, against the rules or something?” she asked.

“Against whose rules?” he wanted to know. “Honestly, Rose, we left my people’s rules behind the day that I took you into my bed. We broke their laws when I impregnated you. I don’t think a quick skip back a few months is going to imperil the universe, do you?”

“I suppose not.”

“We can get you a new wedding dress, too, if you want.”

“It’ll have to be huge.”

“Nah. Just a bit more fabric around the baby, is all.” He stroked her bulge and kissed her ear.

“You know, my mum’s going to kill us. We can’t exactly hide how long we’ve been gone what with my belly this big,” she said. “We should have gone back sooner.”

“Didn’t want to. Still don’t want to,” he muttered darkly. “Besides, we deserved a honeymoon.”

“We were going to take one after the wedding,” she pointed out.

“For a few weeks, yeah, but then we would have had to pick Jack back up right away again and I wanted you to myself for a while.” His hands moved from her belly up to cradle her heavy breasts. “Maybe a bit more fabric here, too,” he said with a smirk. She elbowed him lightly. “If you don’t want your mum to know you’re so pregnant I can always do some jiggery pokery on your clothes. Make it so they’re bigger on the inside than the outside and you won’t show.”

Rose looked sorely tempted but then shook her head no. “No. The minute she hugged me, she’d know the truth and anyway it’s better to just face the music, tell mum we wanted some time to ourselves. She’s just going to have to understand that you’re the most important thing in my life and when we need time alone that’s just the way it’s gotta be. At least it won’t be as long for her on her end. She’s still not quite forgiven you for that twelve hours/twelve months thing.”

The Doctor deliberately ignored that comment. He wasn’t sure Rose had ever quite forgiven him for that twelve hours/twelve months thing. “People will notice, though,” the Doctor said. “Shareen and Mickey.”

“What about that…what do you call it? The other Rose, she had one, hooked into her TARDIS key. TARDIS has it, too. A filtration thingy…”

“A perception filter?” the Doctor asked slowly.

Rose nodded. “That’s it.”

“Yeah, I suppose I could jigger your TARDIS key to be a small perception filter. If you keep it over your stomach, people’s eyes would just sort of slide away from it and not notice how pregnant you are now,” he said.

“It would certainly make things easier with the minister,” Rose mused. “Mum said she didn’t think he could even tell I was pregnant when we first met with him. I kept hoping he wouldn’t cotton on before the ceremony.”

“Lots of women get married when they’re pregnant these days, Rose. Even in churches,” the Doctor said.

“Yeah, I know. And we’ve technically been married since the hand-fasting. We just can’t prove it in a court of law. And I just…I don’t want anyone looking down their noses at us for doing things in the wrong order. Honestly, if Mum hadn’t wanted a church wedding I’d never have chosen it.”

The Doctor turned her around and hugged her to him as best he could. “The only people’s opinions in this that matter are yours and mine.”

“I suppose,” she said, but she didn’t sound convinced.

The Doctor kissed her and said, “Don’t worry so much. It’ll all be okay.” Then he took her hand and tugged her into the console room and set the coordinates to return to the tailor that had made Rose’s clothes before.

With a newly expanded wardrobe to go with her newly expanded belly packed into half a dozen bags that the Doctor was bearing like a pack mule and a wedding dress in a very light-weight, silvery white fabric that Rose was easily able to manage on her own, the couple made their way back to their suite. They’d spent a week, their last week alone, in relative comfort at a beautiful hotel, the TARDIS parked in the corner of the bedroom. Rose had managed to find the baby bedding she’d wanted without a trip back in time, but had agreed to the flying bananas blanket as back up for when the other was being washed.

Picking the clothing up had been their last thing to do and they bundled everything into the ship. They were reluctant to head back to Earth despite the fact that Rose was really beginning to miss her mother and Jack. And she was getting to the point in her pregnancy where having more hands around to help would be a very good thing. Still, she sighed when the Doctor entered the coordinates to take them home.

The trip was a short one and he materialized in his usual spot behind the Powell Estate. “You stay here. I’m going to go and see if the coast is clear in your mum’s flat and if it is I’ll bring the ship inside. I don’t want you walking up that many stairs.”

Normally Rose would have argued at this, but the last week had proven that even walking for too long was starting to get hard. Because the human body was geared for a nine to ten month pregnancy and not one that lasted for fifteen months, her body had been overproducing a hormone called relaxin for several months now. It was responsible for pelvic and cervical expansion in the last few months leading up to the birth. The Doctor had done his best to mitigate the effects of it as he had with the hyperemesis gravidarium she’d had at the start of her pregnancy. He hadn’t been quite as successful and she required daily injections to keep from going into early labor.

“Why don’t you just call up and see?” she wanted to know.

“TARDIS phone needs a replacement part, remind me before we leave here to go to the electronics store, and you left your super phone in the flat the day we left. I’ll only be a moment.” He leaned over and kissed Rose and stroked her belly before heading out.

He was back fairly quickly. “Flat’s empty,” he said. “I’ll land her in your room, though, just in case Jackie comes back with guests.” A few moments later they were landing and Rose left the familiar confines of the TARDIS for the no longer familiar confines of her bedroom. In one corner was a fully assembled crib complete with everything she could possibly need for future visits home. The room was clean and her old bed had been taken over by a rather masculine, yet still remarkably flamboyant, duvet with Jack’s greatcoat laying draped across it.

“Jack’s living here?” she asked.

“Makes sense.” The Doctor ushered her out of her room. “We sort of took off with his home and left him here. Didn’t think to make sure he had money. He’s resourceful, though. He always manages.”

“Hope he’s not mad,” Rose said as she heard the front door to the flat slam shut.

“Oh, he’s not mad,” Jackie’s voice came from the entryway. “He’s used to the two of you dumping him off places and taking off for a while, though I think he’s upset that you didn’t bother to say good-bye. I, on the other hand am furi—bloody, hell, Rose, you’re huge,” she burst out as Rose came into view. “How long did you two stay away for?”

The anger in Jackie’s voice made Rose cringe and she backed up into the Doctor, seeking his support. His arms went around her protectively. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d be so thoughtless. There’s less than a week left until the wedding, the minister is going to be all disapproving now, and you won’t be able to wear your dress. Honestly, Rose, we don’t have time to look for a new one.” Jackie shook her head.

“I took care of that,” said the Doctor. “I had a new dress made up for Rose.”

Jackie shook her head and headed for the kitchen. “Well, come on. You can’t stand there cringing all day. Besides, I’ve got groceries. Doctor, you can help me put them away. Rose, you look like you need to get off your feet.” She waved in the direction of the sofa and they both started to relax.

Rose settled herself in on the couch and listened to her mother sparring with the Doctor. “It was a bad time to take her away, that’s all I’m saying,” Jackie berated him. “There’s only six days left before the wedding. You could have at least come back the morning after you left, although from what Rose says your driving is so rubbish you’re probably lucky to have hit the right month, let alone the right year.”

“Oi!”

“Mum!” Rose hollered. “Stop it.”

“Hush, you,” Jackie said poking her head out of the kitchen for a moment and shooting Rose an annoyed glare before returning to the subject of her ire. “How long did you keep her away for, anyway? She looks like the baby could come at any time now.”

“She’s got two months to go.”

“That’s seven months! You were gone for seven months?” she asked incredulously.

“We needed the time. Rose needed it. And will you stop going on about her size? I’ve just gotten her convinced she isn’t the size of a space whale and you’re undoing all the good I’ve done her,” he said sharply.

“There are space whales?” Jackie asked momentarily distracted.

“That’s what the name translates as. Can’t pronounce it right in any Earth language. They’re beautiful creatures, about the size of a footie stadium.”

Rose giggled at the Doctor’s exaggeration. She’d never said she thought she was the size of a space whale. Although there were times when she’d felt like the size of an orca. Especially the other night when she’d accidently rolled onto her stomach on the bed while stretching and beached herself. She’d needed the Doctor’s help to get back up. He’d been very good at reassuring her about her figure, but that had been a bit shattering to her confidence.

She blushed as she remembered how he’d made her feel better and he was adamant that he didn’t care if she ever got her figure back, so long as she managed to be able to take his hand and run again one day. Though she didn’t think they’d be doing that much this first year after Charlie was born. She sighed, hoping that he didn’t mind what having a child would do to their lifestyle.

She heard a slap from the kitchen and her thoughts quickly returned to the present. “Hey, what’s going on?” she demanded trying to get up quickly from the couch and failing. She hauled herself up on her third try and made her way into the other room.

“Rose, I told you to go sit,” Jackie said sternly. Rose’s eyes swept the kitchen, expecting to find the Doctor cradling his face. He wasn’t.

“I heard a slap,” she said suspiciously.

“What? Oh,” said the Doctor. “I took off my leather jacket and tossed it at the chair,” he said. “It missed and smacked into the floor.”

“Really, Rose, did you think I hit him? You should know better than that.”

“Well, you did last time he kept me away for so long,” she said a trifle petulantly.

“Last time it was a year for me and I thought he was a dirty old man preying on a young girl. Come to think of it, I wasn’t half wrong, was I?” she said with a pointed glance at Rose’s belly.

“Oi, I’m not a lecher,” the Doctor said indignantly. “And it wasn’t like that then, anyway.”

“Oh, then what was it like?” Jackie snapped. “You’ve always had a thing for my daughter!” The Doctor glared at her but didn’t deny it. Her eyes moved back to her daughter. “It was only eight days on my end. Though you could have taken your phone. I tried to call the ship with it, but someone must have been ignoring my calls.”

“We were not. It just so happens the TARDIS phone is broken. I need to get a new part,” he said. “And Rose didn’t even know we were leaving when we took off, or she would have had her super phone.

“Well, do me a favor and keep it on you for the rest of your pregnancy,” Jackie said to Rose. “I wasn’t that worried about you knowing himself would keep you safe but I don’t like being that out of touch when you’re pregnant. Especially when it’s your last minute wedding details I’m seeing to.”

“I’ll try to remember to keep it with me,” Rose said meekly.

“Do more than try,” her mother said firmly. “Now go and set yourself back down. I’ll bring you some tea in a bit.” She turned to look. “Why don’t you go rub her feet or something? Can’t you see she looks exhausted? She can’t be running like this anymore. You need to take it easy until the baby comes.”

“I know, Jackie,” the Doctor said in annoyance. “We won’t be leaving Earth again until after the babe is born.”

“Well, that’s something, but don’t you be dragging her back in time to ancient Egypt and getting her heart cut out in some ancient sacrifice.”

“That was the Aztecs,” the Doctor corrected and Jackie threw a sponge at his head. He caught it neatly and put it down by the sink.

“You get my point.”

“I do. I’ll take care of her, Jackie. I always do. You know that.”

Jackie sighed. “Yeah, I do. You’re a good man, Doctor. You just don’t think sometimes. Now go tend to Rose. I’ll be out with that tea in a few minutes.”

He didn’t grumble as he made his way to Rose and sat down on the sofa beside her. She slipped her feet into his lap and he removed her shoes and then her socks and began rubbing the arch of her left foot.

“She’s right,” Rose admitted. “We really are going to have to slow down for a while.”

“I know. And we’ll have to change our honeymoon plans, too. You’re too far along to travel on an airplane now. They’d never let you on board looking like you’re so close to delivery. We could still go in the TARDIS if you want, but…” The Doctor shrugged.

“Do we really need a honeymoon after the last seven months?” Rose asked.

“I wanted to take you somewhere you could be pampered,” he said.

“Well, there’s a spa Shareen told me about if you don’t mind spending the money,” Rose said.

“We’ve got it, might as well spend a bit of it making your last few weeks of pregnancy comfortable,” the Doctor said.

“They let men in, too,” she said hopefully. For a moment the Doctor looked stricken until she added, “They have an entire area just devoted to couples. We’d have our own attendants. It’s very…private.”

He swallowed at the promise in her eyes. “I’ll think about it, Rose,” he said.

“You do that,” she purred and then she did something entirely inappropriate with her free foot that made him forget not only what they’d been talking about but that Jackie was in the flat with them. His subsequent reaction and Rose’s response to it was totally worth the slap he eventually did earn when his future mother-in-law returned with tea.

Ch. 42: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/351494.html

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Awww. I'm glad they got some time alone together.

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