amberfocus (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
amberfocus) wrote2008-05-18 07:50 pm
amberfocus) wrote2008-05-18 07:50 pm
Entry tags:
Repercussions (36-39)
Banner by Megz33
Chapter Thirty-six: Telling
We arrive on Earth, materializing behind the Powell Estate. When we left my mum had informed me that she was letting Dr. Jones stay in my room so she could be closer to the recovery effort, otherwise we would have landed the TARDIS in my room.
I am suddenly nervous. Telling my parents that I’m pregnant is not particularly something I want to do. My mum likes the Doctor, though she had her issues in the beginning and my dad respects him. But no parents want to hear that some older guy has knocked up their baby girl. Especially when last Mum knew, the Doctor and I hadn’t even slept together.
Last they both knew we were only best friends. And it was true. Before this version of the Doctor, there had been no chance of anything romantic ever happening. One of the reasons they didn’t mind my going off with him all the time.
The Doctor is even more hesitant than I am to leave the TARDIS. “We have to tell them,” I insist.
“Why? Why do we have to tell them? Can’t we just get married, have the ceremony really soon and then leave? Come back a week later, pretend it’s been a couple of months for us and then tell them you’re pregnant?” he asks.
“Doctor! How can you even think about that? It’s dishonest!” I am pretending to be stunned when really I am trying to calculate the odds of such a plan actually working for us.
“So I shouldn’t just this once take advantage of the fact that I have a time machine?” he demands.
“Not for personal gain.”
“It’s not magic, Rose! Time travel for personal gain is just fine as long as you’re not messing with history or revising time lines,” he says.
“Doctor,” I say disapprovingly.
“You’re only five weeks pregnant, Rose. Why do we have to tell them now?”
I sigh and run my fingers through my hair. Oh, dear, now I’m starting to pick up his mannerisms. I put my hands on my hips and say, “Out. I’m not lying to my parents."
"It's not lying if you leave something out."
"The sooner we get this over with, the better,” I insist.
“I’ll take you to Calixis,” he says desperately.
I turn around and stare at him, my mouth dropping open in amazement. “You’ll take me to Calixis?” I repeat, shock in my voice. Calixis is a planet. And a mall. Yes, the entire planet is a mall. And from the day I found out about it I have begged the Doctor to take me there just once. His horror at the very idea had caused the TARDIS to throw us to the other side of the universe.
I reach out and hold his hand. “What are you so afraid of?” I ask gently.
“Rose, what if something happens to the baby? Don’t you think that maybe we should wait until the pregnancy has advanced a couple of months before we start spreading the news?” he asks.
“Nothing’s going to happen to the baby.”
“Something already nearly did.” He swallows and looks away from me. I can tell he didn’t like reminding me about what Jasz had done when he’d tried to kill the new embryo.
I put my hand on the Doctor’s shoulder and am pulled roughly into his embrace. “Maybe I’m not the only one who needs to talk to someone,” I tell him. “Maybe you should see a counselor, too.”
He stiffens a bit in my arms. “I’m fine, Rose. I just…I really think we should wait to tell them. Let’s just tell them we’re getting married for now, okay? It’s not like we’re doing it because of the baby, so why does it matter if they know now or not?” he asks.
I bite my lip but finally agree. “Okay. I’ll wait another five weeks, then we’re telling them,” I say.
He lets out a big sigh of relief. “But you have to be the one to tell them we’re getting married,” I say.
“Now that I can handle,” admits the Doctor. “Come on. Let’s go and see them.” Hand in hand we walk out of the TARDIS and up to my parent’s flat.
Chapter Thirty-seven: Hand in Marriage
The Doctor shifts nervously on the worn old sofa I had grown up with. I pick at the edge of the arm where the material has become tattered with age and my bad habit of doing exactly what I’m doing. Dad sits across from me in the battered recliner and Mum has perched herself on a kitchen chair that she’s brought out and placed beside Dad.
“What’s this all about?” asks Dad.
“You’re not going away for a year again are you?” Mum wonders, her eyes narrowing just a little bit to show the Doctor she hasn’t quite forgotten or forgiven that mistake.
“No, nothing like that, Mum.”
The Doctor reaches out and takes my hand, his grip tightening a little too hard on mine. “Ease up,” I hiss. “I’d like to keep the blood flowing.” His hold loosens just a little.
Finally the Doctor just blurts it out. “I’ve asked Rose to marry me.”
I think this was the last thing either one of them had been expecting. Grave news has been the matter of the day for so often of late. Dad looks shell-shocked and Mum is quiet for a minute before turning to me.
“What did you say?” she asks.
“I said yes,” I answer, not meeting her eyes, somewhat afraid of what I might find there.
“About bloody time,” Mum says. I was not expecting that. Maybe a bit of yelling or possibly a slap for the Doctor, but not this.
Dad’s reaction is different. “I thought the two of you were just travelling companions, just friends,” he says.
“We were. For a long time we were,” I tell him. “But things changed. They started changing when the Cybermen came. And now we’re…life mates.”
“I love your daughter very much,” the Doctor says. He looks at me. “You can’t know how much.”
Dad is frowning and I’m not sure why. Somehow I expected it was Mum that was going to have a problem with this new development. “Your life isn’t safe,” Dad says. “You’ve never been able to promise to keep my daughter safe. Now you want her to live the rest of her life in danger?”
“I’m not in danger all the time, Dad. And it’s no safer here on Earth. Not anymore. Not since the Cybermen came,” I tell him.
“Things are changing on this planet of yours,” the Doctor tells him. “There’s no going back now, no denying the facts that there’s been alien contact. The universe is aware of you now. Life here is just as dangerous and will be from now on,” says the Doctor.
“I can’t accept that,” says my father.
“Dad, you were made halfway into a Cyberman. The Doctor saved your life. He saved the lives of thousands here.”
“I have to wonder if the Cybermen would have even come here if you hadn’t been here first,” says Dad. “Death and destruction follow in your wake. I’ve been reading up on you on the net. You’ve been busy.”
“Dad, you’re not being fair,” I say. “The Doctor has saved countless lives. Think of all the times he’s saved yours and Mum's.”
“They wouldn’t have needed saving if he hadn’t gotten tangled up with you,” Dad insists. “I’m sorry, Doctor. If you’re asking for Rose’s hand in marriage, I’m not going to say yes.”
“I wasn’t asking,” the Doctor says, the darkness of the storm coming into his voice. “I was telling. Rose is mine. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“Rose?”
“He’s my life now, Dad. I’m going to marry him, whether you want me to or not. You don’t actually get a say in the matter.” My hand drifts down to my stomach and rests there for a moment before I realize what I’m doing and place it back on the couch arm.
It’s too late. Mum notices the movement and her eyes widen. “Oh, no, Rose,” she exclaims. “Are you pregnant?”
Chapter Thirty-eight: Unanswered
Dad leaps to his feet. “Is that why you want to marry her? You knocked her up and now you think you have to?” There is anger in his voice.
The Doctor rises, too, all storm and fury. “How dare you?” he says, his voice cold. “Do you think I would only marry Rose for the sake of a child? I love your daughter. I love her. I want to marry her because of that. I have no other reason for my decision.”
“Daddy, please,” I say. “Sit down.” I reach up and grab the Doctor’s hand, pulling him back down beside me.
I know my mother is very well aware of the fact that the question she asked has not been answered. If she asks me again I will have to answer, have to tell her the truth because I will not outright lie to my mum. But she does not ask again. I think she knows the answer already. Or doesn’t want to know it.
My father finally relents and sits back down. “I love him, Dad. I love him with all my heart. And we’re getting married.”
“The sooner the better,” the Doctor says.
“I don’t know how fast I can put a wedding together, sweetheart,” Mum says.
“It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, Mum. Just me and the Doctor, you and Dad, a couple of friends. That’s all,” I say.
“Well, you have to have a dress. And the best of the bridal shops were destroyed in the war. I suppose you could wear my gown, but I think you’re a little too tall for it.”
I look at the Doctor and I feel a small wave of evil glee wash over me. He really should have let me tell my parents I was pregnant. “That’s okay, Mum. You can come with us to Calixis. They’ll have lots of dresses there.”
“The mall planet?” Mum looks like she’s died and gone to heaven. The Doctor looks like he’s died and gone to hell. The idea of shopping with me on Calixis is a nightmare for him as it is. Wedding shopping with me and Mum? He is going to go spare.
He leans over and whispers in my ear, “You are so going to make this up to me.” I shiver at the hint of storm in his voice.
I lean back towards him and whisper, “I’ll find a way.”
“You’re welcome to come along, too, Daddy,” I say.
“That’s all right. I pity the poor fool who has to trundle along behind you with all your bags. Oh, wait, that’s you.” His eyes are on the Doctor as he says this and in Dad’s mind perhaps shopping with me and Mum is a suitable punishment for the man who’s about to take away his little girl forever.
Chapter Thirty-nine: Calixis
“Oh, and there’s just one more shop I wanted to check in,” says my mother. “They had the most beautiful veils.”
The Doctor groans, no longer even pretending to be a good sport anymore. He is so loaded down with parcels I can barely see his face. “Your mum is going to be the end of me!”
Mum turns and gives him a look. “Your mother-in-law,” she tells him almost primly. “You may as well get used to calling me Mum now.” She whirls back towards the shop.
There is an expression of horror on his face. It hadn’t even occurred to him that my mother might want to be addressed that way by him. I try so hard not to giggle. “Mum?” he whispers. I can hear him gulp. “She wants me to call her Mum?”
That’s it. The tone of his voice means I’m done for. I start to laugh. And not sweet, tinkly bell lady-like laughter. I’m so overcome I’m snorting and horse laughing. I can’t stop myself, I just let it go and soon I’m in tears. Thank goodness Mum has already disappeared into the shop.
“It’s not funny, Rose!” he protests. But it really, really is.
I just point at him and gasp out, “You…you…your face!” And I’m gone again, giggling so hard that I have to sit down. I slide down the outside of the shop as the tears stream down my face. I try so hard to get a hold of myself and then I suddenly realize I can’t. And my breathing is getting difficult, coming in ragged gasps.
I reach out and grab his pant leg and begin tugging urgently on it. “Rose, stop it,” he says. “You’re going to make me drop all these packages.” I tug harder. “Or lose my pants! Rose!”
Then he does drop the packages and he’s able to see me more clearly and he’s immediately down at my side. He dumps the contents of a paper bag on the floor and holds it over my mouth and nose. “You’re hyperventilating. Breathe into the bag. Good, now out. Keep going, Rose.”
Slowly my breathing normalizes and I am aware of my surroundings again, aware of the sight we must be, sitting there on the floor. But I don’t care, because the Doctor is there with his arm around me and his face all devotion and worry.
“I should have thought to warn you. In my people, in the early stages of pregnancy the baby draws heavily on the respiratory system to make sure the oxygenation of blood it receives is at a much higher content than in a human fetus. It’s necessary for the rapid growth of brain tissue. But if anything interferes with your breathing, you can go into respiratory distress. The excessive laughing fit was enough to bring it on.” His hand covers mine where it rests on my abdomen.
“Great,” I mutter. “How long will it last?”
“Oh, maybe three weeks. Definitely not the whole duration of the pregnancy--.”
“The whole duration of what?” Our head’s snap around to see that my mum has reemerged from the shop looking for us. Her voice is a little too calm for my liking.
The Doctor rises to his feet and then helps pull me up to mine. He looks anywhere but at her face. “The…the pregnancy,” he manages to get out.
“So it’s true then.”
“It’s true,” he admits.
“You knocked up my daughter.”
“I did.” His voice was high and squeaky now.
“My twenty-one-year-old daughter.”
“Yep.” He has the decency not to pop the P.
He seems frozen to the spot, but finally his head moves back and he raises his eyes to meet my mum’s. When they do, my mum hauls off and gives him a slap. “That’s for getting Rose pregnant before you marry her,” she said. And then she pulls his head down and kisses him full on the lips. “And that’s for loving her the way you do.”
The Doctor pulls away from Mum, reeling. I don’t know what frightens him more the smack or the…other smack. He steps behind me, making sure I stay between them.
“Well, I guess that’s enough excitement for one day,” Mum says, leaning down and beginning to pick up our scattered parcels. “I think we should head back to the TARDIS. Get some sleep and start fresh tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” gasps the Doctor in dismay.
“Certainly,” says Mum. “We’ve barely touched this continent’s offerings. And there’re three others!” She rubs her hands together in glee, then steps around me and hands him several packages.
“Can’t wait,” the Doctor mutters numbly.
I start to laugh again, but think better of it. Only partly because of the hyperventilating earlier. Mostly because I’ve got the glare of the Oncoming Storm headed in my direction.
The Doctor is even more hesitant than I am to leave the TARDIS. “We have to tell them,” I insist.
“Why? Why do we have to tell them? Can’t we just get married, have the ceremony really soon and then leave? Come back a week later, pretend it’s been a couple of months for us and then tell them you’re pregnant?” he asks.
“Doctor! How can you even think about that? It’s dishonest!” I am pretending to be stunned when really I am trying to calculate the odds of such a plan actually working for us.
“So I shouldn’t just this once take advantage of the fact that I have a time machine?” he demands.
“Not for personal gain.”
“It’s not magic, Rose! Time travel for personal gain is just fine as long as you’re not messing with history or revising time lines,” he says.
“Doctor,” I say disapprovingly.
“You’re only five weeks pregnant, Rose. Why do we have to tell them now?”
I sigh and run my fingers through my hair. Oh, dear, now I’m starting to pick up his mannerisms. I put my hands on my hips and say, “Out. I’m not lying to my parents."
"It's not lying if you leave something out."
"The sooner we get this over with, the better,” I insist.
“I’ll take you to Calixis,” he says desperately.
I turn around and stare at him, my mouth dropping open in amazement. “You’ll take me to Calixis?” I repeat, shock in my voice. Calixis is a planet. And a mall. Yes, the entire planet is a mall. And from the day I found out about it I have begged the Doctor to take me there just once. His horror at the very idea had caused the TARDIS to throw us to the other side of the universe.
I reach out and hold his hand. “What are you so afraid of?” I ask gently.
“Rose, what if something happens to the baby? Don’t you think that maybe we should wait until the pregnancy has advanced a couple of months before we start spreading the news?” he asks.
“Nothing’s going to happen to the baby.”
“Something already nearly did.” He swallows and looks away from me. I can tell he didn’t like reminding me about what Jasz had done when he’d tried to kill the new embryo.
I put my hand on the Doctor’s shoulder and am pulled roughly into his embrace. “Maybe I’m not the only one who needs to talk to someone,” I tell him. “Maybe you should see a counselor, too.”
He stiffens a bit in my arms. “I’m fine, Rose. I just…I really think we should wait to tell them. Let’s just tell them we’re getting married for now, okay? It’s not like we’re doing it because of the baby, so why does it matter if they know now or not?” he asks.
I bite my lip but finally agree. “Okay. I’ll wait another five weeks, then we’re telling them,” I say.
He lets out a big sigh of relief. “But you have to be the one to tell them we’re getting married,” I say.
“Now that I can handle,” admits the Doctor. “Come on. Let’s go and see them.” Hand in hand we walk out of the TARDIS and up to my parent’s flat.
Chapter Thirty-seven: Hand in Marriage
The Doctor shifts nervously on the worn old sofa I had grown up with. I pick at the edge of the arm where the material has become tattered with age and my bad habit of doing exactly what I’m doing. Dad sits across from me in the battered recliner and Mum has perched herself on a kitchen chair that she’s brought out and placed beside Dad.
“What’s this all about?” asks Dad.
“You’re not going away for a year again are you?” Mum wonders, her eyes narrowing just a little bit to show the Doctor she hasn’t quite forgotten or forgiven that mistake.
“No, nothing like that, Mum.”
The Doctor reaches out and takes my hand, his grip tightening a little too hard on mine. “Ease up,” I hiss. “I’d like to keep the blood flowing.” His hold loosens just a little.
Finally the Doctor just blurts it out. “I’ve asked Rose to marry me.”
I think this was the last thing either one of them had been expecting. Grave news has been the matter of the day for so often of late. Dad looks shell-shocked and Mum is quiet for a minute before turning to me.
“What did you say?” she asks.
“I said yes,” I answer, not meeting her eyes, somewhat afraid of what I might find there.
“About bloody time,” Mum says. I was not expecting that. Maybe a bit of yelling or possibly a slap for the Doctor, but not this.
Dad’s reaction is different. “I thought the two of you were just travelling companions, just friends,” he says.
“We were. For a long time we were,” I tell him. “But things changed. They started changing when the Cybermen came. And now we’re…life mates.”
“I love your daughter very much,” the Doctor says. He looks at me. “You can’t know how much.”
Dad is frowning and I’m not sure why. Somehow I expected it was Mum that was going to have a problem with this new development. “Your life isn’t safe,” Dad says. “You’ve never been able to promise to keep my daughter safe. Now you want her to live the rest of her life in danger?”
“I’m not in danger all the time, Dad. And it’s no safer here on Earth. Not anymore. Not since the Cybermen came,” I tell him.
“Things are changing on this planet of yours,” the Doctor tells him. “There’s no going back now, no denying the facts that there’s been alien contact. The universe is aware of you now. Life here is just as dangerous and will be from now on,” says the Doctor.
“I can’t accept that,” says my father.
“Dad, you were made halfway into a Cyberman. The Doctor saved your life. He saved the lives of thousands here.”
“I have to wonder if the Cybermen would have even come here if you hadn’t been here first,” says Dad. “Death and destruction follow in your wake. I’ve been reading up on you on the net. You’ve been busy.”
“Dad, you’re not being fair,” I say. “The Doctor has saved countless lives. Think of all the times he’s saved yours and Mum's.”
“They wouldn’t have needed saving if he hadn’t gotten tangled up with you,” Dad insists. “I’m sorry, Doctor. If you’re asking for Rose’s hand in marriage, I’m not going to say yes.”
“I wasn’t asking,” the Doctor says, the darkness of the storm coming into his voice. “I was telling. Rose is mine. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“Rose?”
“He’s my life now, Dad. I’m going to marry him, whether you want me to or not. You don’t actually get a say in the matter.” My hand drifts down to my stomach and rests there for a moment before I realize what I’m doing and place it back on the couch arm.
It’s too late. Mum notices the movement and her eyes widen. “Oh, no, Rose,” she exclaims. “Are you pregnant?”
Chapter Thirty-eight: Unanswered
Dad leaps to his feet. “Is that why you want to marry her? You knocked her up and now you think you have to?” There is anger in his voice.
The Doctor rises, too, all storm and fury. “How dare you?” he says, his voice cold. “Do you think I would only marry Rose for the sake of a child? I love your daughter. I love her. I want to marry her because of that. I have no other reason for my decision.”
“Daddy, please,” I say. “Sit down.” I reach up and grab the Doctor’s hand, pulling him back down beside me.
I know my mother is very well aware of the fact that the question she asked has not been answered. If she asks me again I will have to answer, have to tell her the truth because I will not outright lie to my mum. But she does not ask again. I think she knows the answer already. Or doesn’t want to know it.
My father finally relents and sits back down. “I love him, Dad. I love him with all my heart. And we’re getting married.”
“The sooner the better,” the Doctor says.
“I don’t know how fast I can put a wedding together, sweetheart,” Mum says.
“It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, Mum. Just me and the Doctor, you and Dad, a couple of friends. That’s all,” I say.
“Well, you have to have a dress. And the best of the bridal shops were destroyed in the war. I suppose you could wear my gown, but I think you’re a little too tall for it.”
I look at the Doctor and I feel a small wave of evil glee wash over me. He really should have let me tell my parents I was pregnant. “That’s okay, Mum. You can come with us to Calixis. They’ll have lots of dresses there.”
“The mall planet?” Mum looks like she’s died and gone to heaven. The Doctor looks like he’s died and gone to hell. The idea of shopping with me on Calixis is a nightmare for him as it is. Wedding shopping with me and Mum? He is going to go spare.
He leans over and whispers in my ear, “You are so going to make this up to me.” I shiver at the hint of storm in his voice.
I lean back towards him and whisper, “I’ll find a way.”
“You’re welcome to come along, too, Daddy,” I say.
“That’s all right. I pity the poor fool who has to trundle along behind you with all your bags. Oh, wait, that’s you.” His eyes are on the Doctor as he says this and in Dad’s mind perhaps shopping with me and Mum is a suitable punishment for the man who’s about to take away his little girl forever.
Chapter Thirty-nine: Calixis
“Oh, and there’s just one more shop I wanted to check in,” says my mother. “They had the most beautiful veils.”
The Doctor groans, no longer even pretending to be a good sport anymore. He is so loaded down with parcels I can barely see his face. “Your mum is going to be the end of me!”
Mum turns and gives him a look. “Your mother-in-law,” she tells him almost primly. “You may as well get used to calling me Mum now.” She whirls back towards the shop.
There is an expression of horror on his face. It hadn’t even occurred to him that my mother might want to be addressed that way by him. I try so hard not to giggle. “Mum?” he whispers. I can hear him gulp. “She wants me to call her Mum?”
That’s it. The tone of his voice means I’m done for. I start to laugh. And not sweet, tinkly bell lady-like laughter. I’m so overcome I’m snorting and horse laughing. I can’t stop myself, I just let it go and soon I’m in tears. Thank goodness Mum has already disappeared into the shop.
“It’s not funny, Rose!” he protests. But it really, really is.
I just point at him and gasp out, “You…you…your face!” And I’m gone again, giggling so hard that I have to sit down. I slide down the outside of the shop as the tears stream down my face. I try so hard to get a hold of myself and then I suddenly realize I can’t. And my breathing is getting difficult, coming in ragged gasps.
I reach out and grab his pant leg and begin tugging urgently on it. “Rose, stop it,” he says. “You’re going to make me drop all these packages.” I tug harder. “Or lose my pants! Rose!”
Then he does drop the packages and he’s able to see me more clearly and he’s immediately down at my side. He dumps the contents of a paper bag on the floor and holds it over my mouth and nose. “You’re hyperventilating. Breathe into the bag. Good, now out. Keep going, Rose.”
Slowly my breathing normalizes and I am aware of my surroundings again, aware of the sight we must be, sitting there on the floor. But I don’t care, because the Doctor is there with his arm around me and his face all devotion and worry.
“I should have thought to warn you. In my people, in the early stages of pregnancy the baby draws heavily on the respiratory system to make sure the oxygenation of blood it receives is at a much higher content than in a human fetus. It’s necessary for the rapid growth of brain tissue. But if anything interferes with your breathing, you can go into respiratory distress. The excessive laughing fit was enough to bring it on.” His hand covers mine where it rests on my abdomen.
“Great,” I mutter. “How long will it last?”
“Oh, maybe three weeks. Definitely not the whole duration of the pregnancy--.”
“The whole duration of what?” Our head’s snap around to see that my mum has reemerged from the shop looking for us. Her voice is a little too calm for my liking.
The Doctor rises to his feet and then helps pull me up to mine. He looks anywhere but at her face. “The…the pregnancy,” he manages to get out.
“So it’s true then.”
“It’s true,” he admits.
“You knocked up my daughter.”
“I did.” His voice was high and squeaky now.
“My twenty-one-year-old daughter.”
“Yep.” He has the decency not to pop the P.
He seems frozen to the spot, but finally his head moves back and he raises his eyes to meet my mum’s. When they do, my mum hauls off and gives him a slap. “That’s for getting Rose pregnant before you marry her,” she said. And then she pulls his head down and kisses him full on the lips. “And that’s for loving her the way you do.”
The Doctor pulls away from Mum, reeling. I don’t know what frightens him more the smack or the…other smack. He steps behind me, making sure I stay between them.
“Well, I guess that’s enough excitement for one day,” Mum says, leaning down and beginning to pick up our scattered parcels. “I think we should head back to the TARDIS. Get some sleep and start fresh tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” gasps the Doctor in dismay.
“Certainly,” says Mum. “We’ve barely touched this continent’s offerings. And there’re three others!” She rubs her hands together in glee, then steps around me and hands him several packages.
“Can’t wait,” the Doctor mutters numbly.
I start to laugh again, but think better of it. Only partly because of the hyperventilating earlier. Mostly because I’ve got the glare of the Oncoming Storm headed in my direction.