amberfocus | You're What?: Chapter Forty-Three

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alizarin_skies

Title: You're What? (43/?)
Author:

amberfocus
Characters/Pairings: Nine/Rose, Jack Harkness, Jackie Tyler, Mickey Smith
Genre: Baby!fic, Romance, Angst, Fluff, Smut, Hurt/Comfort
Rating: Adult
Betas:

amyo67,

jeprdyfrndly
Summary: An unexpected pregnancy causes huge emotional upset in the lives of the Doctor and Rose. With Jack the only voice of reason, will this child lead them to happily ever after or tear them apart forever?

Previous chapters: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/262898.html

Chapter Forty-Three: Preparations

The next few days were both mentally and physically exhausting for Rose. She was in more and more discomfort and was well and truly tired of being pregnant. In order to perk Rose up her mother gave her a facial, a manicure and a pedicure. Jackie then cut and dyed Rose’s hair with the special dye the Doctor and Jack had acquired from Rigel and she spent far more time than she liked to admit sitting on the edge of her bed and admiring herself in the mirror afterwards.

It was nice to have something that made her feel beautiful again. Oh, the Doctor did a pretty good job of it, reassuring her that she was gorgeous in her rapidly expanding state, and his appetite for her in bed certainly hadn’t diminished, but Rose was still insecure sometimes. A good haircut and color gave her the confidence she needed going into the final days before the wedding.

While the Doctor, Mickey, Keisha Selby’s brother Jay (who had stepped in to even the number of groomsmen to bridesmaids) and a still somewhat petulant Jack went to get their final tuxedo fittings, Jackie helped Rose into the new dress she and the Doctor had picked up the previous week. The dress was an ivory satin and tulle affair. It had a high, empire waist, and rather a low cut, gathered scoop neckline with a large pink pearl at its lowest point.

The skirt of the dress puffed out in a rather dramatic fashion, held up and out by a fluffy petticoat slip that did much to disguise the state of her pregnancy. If people weren’t looking for it, they might not even know it was there, unless she held it down against her belly and made it unmistakable. The sleeves came halfway down her upper arms ending in diagonal points of lace and she had long white gloves with scalloped edging that ended just before her elbows. She wore sheer white stockings that fastened to a garter belt and white ballet flats decorated in ivory lace.

“Aren’t you a picture?” asked Jackie. “Have you decided how you’re going to wear your hair?”

“Mostly down,” said Rose. “I’ll pull back the part around my face and fasten it back here,” she added scooping up her fringe and leaving just a few loose tendrils to frame her face. She clipped it with a barrette. “Like this.”

“You going to leave it wavy or straighten it?” Jackie asked.

“Wavy like this. The Doctor likes it natural,” she said. “Where’s the veil got to?”

“On the bed,” said Jackie. She moved to the bed and removed the veil from a garment bag. She brought it over and fastened it to Rose’s head. The veil had several layers of translucent white tulle that fell to her waist. It was held together at the crown with a spray of white silk roses, dotted with tiny pink seed pearls, and baby’s breath. “You take my breath away,” Jackie said with a soft sniff. Then in almost a wail she added, “I can’t believe my baby girl is getting married.”

“I’m already married, Mum,” Rose said softly. Her hand fell to her belly and stroked softly across the swollen bump.

“It doesn’t count unless I see it,” Jackie said firmly.

“It does to me,” said Rose stiffly.

“Oh, Rose, I didn’t mean it,” she said. “I just…a mum should see her daughter get married.”

Rose softened. “That’s why we’re doing this,” she said. “For you, you know.”

Jackie pulled Rose into her arms and hugged her carefully. “Thank you,” she said then she pushed away from her daughter. “Have you given any thought to your makeup?”

“Probably just a bit of blush and some lipstick and some clear mascara,” Rose said.

“No eyeliner?” Jackie teased.

“No,” she said. “The Doctor found some products that were safe for me to use, but eyeliner wasn’t one of them.”

“What do you mean safe to use? Why’s regular makeup not safe to use?”

“Mum, the body absorbs everything through the skin. We can’t know how these things can affect a half Gallifreyan child. The Doctor wants me and Charlie to always be safe. We don’t know what the baby will or won’t be allergic to.”

“This is a complicated pregnancy,” Jackie said with a sigh.

“Just be glad you got to skip part of it,” Rose said. “I’ve had to go the long way around.”

“Every pregnancy feels like it takes forever, Rose,” Jackie said.

“Well, mine really is. Thirteen and a half months is a long time to be pregnant and I’m not even done cooking yet.”

“Just six or seven weeks left now, Rose,” Jackie said soothingly.

Rose sighed. “I know. It’s just that it’s been months and months of medicine to help me keep my food down and daily shots since my ninth month just to keep me from going into premature labor. I don’t think Charlie’s ever going to have a sibling. I’d like to say I could give him a brother or a sister. In the beginning I wanted to give the Doctor more children someday, but it’s been so hard. As much as the Doctor has done everything he could to make it easier on my body, it’s just not.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. Have you talked to him about it?”

“I don’t want to complain to him about it,” she said biting her lip. “I don’t know how I’m going to make it through the entire wedding ceremony,” Rose said. She held her low back with her hands, trying to ease the weight of the baby off her spine. “Even standing this long is uncomfortable. My back throbs all the time unless I’m on my side.”

Jackie hugged her again until Rose started to squirm. “I need to get out of this dress. I’m starving and I desperately need to pee,” she said. “Charlie’s bouncing up and down on my bladder like it’s his own personal trampoline.”

“Babies will do that.” Jackie turned Rose around and unzipped her from the dress. Rose climbed out of it, yanked off the petticoat and ran for the loo. Or attempted to run. It was much more like a waddling lurch.

Once she emerged Jackie handed her a dressing gown and told Rose to rest on the sofa while she made some lunch. By the time Jackie exited from the kitchen with a tray of food, Rose was fast asleep. Jackie put it down on the coffee table and carefully tucked a blanket around her dozing daughter.

She sat down in the rocking chair the Doctor had had delivered the previous day. She sighed as she watched Rose with worried eyes. It wasn’t like her daughter to complain. If it was bad enough that she was, then things were bad. She’d have to have a word with the Doctor when he got back and see if there was anything left to do to ease her child’s discomfort.

When Jackie heard fumbling at the front door she hastily climbed to her feet. She snatched open the door and pushed the Doctor back onto the balcony, closing it behind her. “What?”

“Rose is miserable,” Jackie said. “She’s not coping well with this pregnancy.”

“It’s almost over,” the Doctor said. “And she’s been coping just fine.”

“She doesn’t want to worry you, Doctor, but she’s not coping fine. She’s having a hard time of it. The medicine, the shots. She’s exhausted all the time. She can barely stand for ten minutes and she’s in pretty bad pain,” Jackie said.

“In the abdomen?” the Doctor asked sharply, looking worried. “She’s not having contractions, is she?”

“No, her back. Baby’s putting too much pressure on it.”

“She should have said. He’s probably pinching a nerve and I can do something for that.”

“Really, she needs to stay in bed,” Jackie said.

“I’m not the one who insisted on there being an Earth wedding,” the Doctor said pointedly.

“That was supposed to be much earlier in her term,” Jackie said narrowing her eyes. “If you’d not taken off she’d be easily walking down that aisle in a few days time and you know it.”

“Well, I can help her. Where is she?”

“She fell asleep on the couch. And she hasn’t eaten because she fell asleep.”

The Doctor pushed past Jackie and into the flat. He dropped to his knees in front of Rose who was on her side facing the back of the sofa. “Rose?” he said softly putting one hand on the back of her head and the other in the small of her back.

“Mmm, Doctor,” she mumbled. She yawned. “How’d the fitting go?”

He stroked her hair softly. “Fine,” he said. “How are you doing? Your mum says you’re hurting?”

“Just a little,” she said, but as she tried to sit up she winced at the sharp pain. “Okay, a lot,” she said as the sudden spasm in her back put lie to her words.

“Let me in,” he said softly. “Let me find the pain.”

Rose nodded and he placed his hand over her temple, slipping easily into her mind. He traced the red hot path of pain down her spine and manipulated her pressure points until the twisting muscles began to ease. “I’m going to block some of the receptors in your brain that are triggering the pain, damping it down. Not so much that if you went into labor you wouldn’t notice, but enough that you won’t be constantly hurting.”

“What if she steps on glass or something?” Jackie said. “She needs to feel pain in an emergency.”

“It won’t stop anything dangerous from getting through. Just the discomfort she’s feeling in her back,” he said.

As the pain eased up, Rose let loose a long sigh, as if she’d been holding her breath for a very long time. “Thank you,” she breathed.

She wiggled and squirmed until she managed to turn over and face him. “Next time you’re in that much pain you tell me,” he said sternly. “You don’t have to be and I won’t have you suffering needlessly.”

“I…didn’t want to worry you.”

“I’m your husband and the father of your child. It’s my job to worry about you,” he said. He leaned in and kissed her tenderly. He had started to lose himself in the kiss when Jackie coughed pointedly and he pulled back. He stroked his hand over the side of her face and then down her body, resting it firmly on her swollen belly. “Charlie’s not in any distress,” he said.

“Could he have been?”

“He could have reacted to it mentally, yes, but my guess is he’s gotten used to it since you’ve been pushing on through the pain. He thinks it’s a natural state for his mother to be in. And it’s not,” the Doctor said.

“I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be sorry, Rose. Just tell me when you hurt.”

“I will. From now on I will. It’s so much better.”

The Doctor nodded. “Jackie tells me you fell asleep instead of eating. Jack’s on his way back with takeaway. We found this little place that uses all natural ingredients and makes everything from scratch. He should be here soon.” As he spoke there was a thump on the door as if someone was kicking it with his foot.

Jackie jumped to her feet and went to open the door. Jack, loaded down with bags, was on the other side. She quickly relieved him of some of the food and hurried him to the kitchen. The Doctor helped Rose up and steadied her as they followed the others. He set her down in a chair and then dished up a plate of food for her before getting one for himself.

Rose took a while to get comfortable and Jackie kept frowning at her. “What?” Rose asked.

“I’m calling Keisha and Shireen and telling them to cancel the bridal shower,” she said.

“That’s probably a good idea,” said the Doctor.

“No way,” said Rose. “I’ve given up any idea of a hen night, but my shower, too? That’s not fair!”

“Rose, you can barely walk,” Jackie reminded her.

“But…”

Rose looked so crestfallen that the Doctor felt bad for agreeing with Jackie.

“Why don’t we just move it here?” Jack asked.

“That’s not traditional. The mother isn’t supposed to host the shower,” Jackie said. “What will people say?”

“They’ll be too busy noticing my stomach,” Rose said, “to worry about shower etiquette.”

“Thought you’d be wearing that perception filter,” Jackie replied.

“That won’t stop a hug from telling people I’m pregnant,” Rose retorted.

“Shireen and Keisha can still host it, just here,” Jack said.

“I don’t know if everyone will fit,” Rose said.

“They’ll have to,” replied the Doctor. “You need to save your energy and strength. You really can’t handle that many flights of stairs right now to get to Shireen’s.”

“Fine,” Rose agreed reluctantly. "We'll have it here."

“I’m not trying to ruin your fun, Rose,” the Doctor said.

“I know, I know. The pregnancy comes first. It has to.”

The Doctor put a comforting arm around Rose and she leaned her head against his shoulder for a moment before resuming her meal. Despite the limitations that were now being imposed on her, he hoped she knew it would all be worth it when they had a healthy baby boy.

She turned towards him and he realized she’d heard his thoughts when she said with a soft smile, “I do. He’s worth everything.” And from the sudden contentment he heard radiating from her mind, he knew she believed it, too.

Ch. 44: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/445084.html