Prologue

Her fingers trembled slightly as she fidgeted with the controls in front of the monitor. She had seen the Doctor operate them numerous times, and it had looked so easy. Press a button here, switch a lever there, and the monitor would show you what you wanted to see. But all Rose stared at on the monitor was a blue oval shaped symbol that blinked at her at different intervals. She was missing one vital component – the sonic screwdriver. Without that little gadget, she could push as many buttons and twist as many knobs as she wished, she wasn’t going to get the result she wanted.

Her head started to throb, and she rubbed her finger against her forehead. She had waited far too long to do this. She had to be certain now. Just – she couldn’t and she wouldn’t ask the Doctor for this favour. Maybe she was crying wolf, she thought once again. ‘Highly unlikely’ suddenly flashed across her inner eye in big bold red letters.

Frustrated, she kicked the console in front of her which sent the TARDIS rotor reeling into a mad spin for a very short moment – a moment, however, that did not go unnoticed by the Doctor, and he burst through the door into the control room only a second later.

“I felt a bump. Did you feel a bump? I am pretty sure it was a bump,” he rambled as he rushed towards the console and pulled the monitor away from Rose and towards himself. “There shouldn’t be a bump. We are in hibernation. Standing still. You felt the bump as well, right?”

He focused on the monitor, and he frowned slightly when he saw the blue symbol blinking at him. He knew exactly what it meant. His eyes narrowed on Rose.

“That’s the intruder alert. Did you mess with the console?”

“Sorry,” came her short reply and she quickly turned away from the Doctor, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her jacket. Her feet carried her to the other side of the console, away from the Doctor, away from the now madly beeping monitor.

“Oi, initiation of the medical protocol. What did you do that one for? You not feeling well? Do you need a doctor? Well, a real doctor of course, not me,” he peeked around the rotor, the enthusiasm on his face turning into concern as she watched him, “You’re not sick, are you?”

“I’m fine,” she replied with a quick shake of her head.

“You must have turned on that programme for a reason. Come on, now. A quick scan doesn’t hurt, and whatever you wanted to check out will be taken care of.”

“No, really, ‘s fine. I don’t need a scan anymore.”

“Doctor’s orders!” he insisted and reached out his hand towards her. “It’s not going to hurt, I promise.”

“I am not sick,” she replied annoyed and moved further away from him, simply ignoring the hand he was waving at her.

“Then there’s no reason to worry about a short scan, right?”

“There’s no reason for a scan in the first place.”

“Rose….” He took a deep breath before he rounded the console, trying to catch up with his human companion, but the closer he got, the farther she seemed to move away. “If you are feeling sick, you have to tell me. For all we know you could have picked up the Draiendoan flu when we stopped at Sornal a few days back. It was going around, you know.”

”I ain’t puking green stuff, am I?” she tried to reason with him, but he wasn’t going to have any of it. He quickened his pace, which just resulted in her starting to jog.

“You worked the console for a whole half hour, trying to get the medical programme running. I can read the logs, Rose. There’s gotta be a reason for you to do that. I don’t care if you are too embarrassed to tell me. You wanted a scan, you’re gonna get one.”

He reached his hand inside his suit pocket and retrieved the screwdriver. The low hum of the gadget was barely heard in the control room, the blue light getting lost in the turquoise rays emanating from the rotor. He pointed the tip at Rose the best he could as they both moved around the controls in circles. She wasn’t going to get away from him, not this time. If she had picked up the Draiendoan flu, she was in serious danger.

“Stop bleeping at me!” Rose demanded as she tried to dodge the Doctor and the small alien device in his hand.

She knew perfectly well though that she couldn’t get away from him. If the Doctor had set his mind on something, there was no escaping him. She heard the monitor beep, and the Doctor exclaim “ah ha” behind her, and she stopped dead in her tracks. Her eyes fell shut, and she took a deep breath. It was time for the truth. There was no hiding from the Doctor any longer. She was certain what the result would be, and soon, he would know as well.

She heard his trainers squeak on the metal flooring while he moved towards the monitor on the other side in fast strides. A moment of silence passed, then she heard a low creak. Another few seconds of silence followed, then the whirring sound of the screwdriver and the Doctor cursing in a language alien to her as he slapped the device against his hand.

“Blimey, I think it’s broken,” he announced, and Rose turned around to face him. “Can’t tell a human from a Gallifreyan anymore. It’s honestly telling me there are two hearts beating in your body.”

Rose stared at him for a moment, then opened her mouth to say something, but the words failed her. The screwdriver was not broken. She knew for sure now. Tears started to well in the corners of her eyes as she stared at the monitor in disbelief. There it was, two heartbeats, one faster than the other.

“It’s not broken,” she replied with a raspy voice, as her fingers traced the small thumping circle that indicated the second heartbeat.

“Course it is. You can’t have two heartbeats. You are human. Humans are born with only one…. “ he stopped in the middle of his sentence as the thought finally hit him. He reached for the glasses in his pocket, swiftly slid them on, and intently stared at the thumping motion in front of him. Clearly, there were two heartbeats on the monitor, and it definitely was no mistake.

His eyes fixed on Rose’s fingers as they slowly circled the smaller of the symbols which beeped at them in a fast, but steady interval.

“Blimey,” he rasped, and swallowed hard, “one heart, one human. Two hearts…”

“Two humans,” Rose finished for him as a single tear spilled down her cheek. “I’m sorry.”

The momentary shock disappeared from the Doctor’s face rather quickly, and a smile started to play across his lips as he slowly approached her. He reached out his hand, his fingers tenderly brushing over her cheek as he brushed away the tear.

“Don’t cry, my Rose. This should be happy moment and not one you are sorry for. You’re having a baby!” he exclaimed excited, the smile broadening across his whole face.

That was when Rose couldn’t hold back the tears anymore. They fell freely from her eyes, trickling down her cheeks and over the Doctor’s hand. She finally knew what she had suspected for so many weeks. The one thing that shouldn’t have happened had happened.

“It’s okay,” she heard the Doctor whisper, and she suddenly found herself encircled by his arms, pressed tightly against his body.

“It’s okay,” his voice echoed in her ears as she cried against his shoulder like a child.

She didn’t know what to feel right now. The certainty that she was having a baby had sent her whole emotional state on a mad roller coaster ride. She didn’t know why she was crying; she just felt empty inside.

She didn’t know for how long the Doctor cradled her in his arms as she wept. She felt his hand brush over her hair as he tried to soothe her, heard his voice murmur sweet nothings to her. He gave her the time she needed to calm down, never broke their physical contact, never pushed her away. He just held her in his arms, rocked her back and forth in a slow and tender rhythm.

“Everything better now?” he finally asked when she pulled away, wiping away the dried tears from her face.

“Just came as a shock, ‘s all,” she replied, and took a deep breath as she stuffed her hands into her pockets.

“Shock, yeah, I can see that.” He took off his specs, twisting them in his hands before he placed them on top of the console at his side. “You must have known something was up though. How long?”

“Coupla weeks?” she answered, biting her lower lip. She earned a stern look from the Doctor in response, and his brow furrowed. Her final confession was not what he expected though.

“’kay, a coupla months.”

“A couple of months?” he gasped, shaking his head slightly, “Why did you never say a word? Rose, you can trust me with anything, don’t you know that by now?”

“’s just awkward, you know. I mean, ‘s not like I could’ve just said, ‘by the way, got myself knocked up’, is it?”

“Maybe not in those words,” he uttered and turned towards the console, a contrite look on his face.

The initial excitement had slowly worn off when he had started to realize what this news meant for them. He had to take her back to her time, back to London – back home. She couldn’t travel with him anymore, not when she was carrying a new life under her heart. He attracted danger like a magnet, and that was the last place where he wanted her to be - at his side when once again danger found him.

The rotor sped up its movement a moment later, and the comforting, whirring sound of the TARDIS filled the inside of the control room.

“Where are we going?” Rose inquired, a hint of excitement in her voice as she walked up beside him.

“I’m going to take you home.”

“No!” she exclaimed immediately, putting her hand on top of his to stop him from moving the golden glowing crystal ball on the console. “Please, I can’t go home.”

He sighed as he looked up, trying to avoid looking at her. This wasn’t going to be easy, but he had no other choice. As much as he wanted her to stay and continue to travel to the end of time and space with him, he knew that that was not her place any longer. Within the blink of a moment, everything had changed, and he suddenly realized that that was what she had been afraid of all along.

“Mum’s gonna go mental if I tell her,” Rose’s voice brought him back into reality. Slowly, he turned towards her, and found a pair of dark brown eyes fixed on him, desperately pleading not to take her home.

“Gotta tell her sooner or later. Knowing your mother, she’s gonna go mental no matter when you tell her. It’s just gonna get harder the longer you wait.”

“I will tell her,” she said and walked away from him, her hand casually brushing over the edge of the console as she rounded it to the other side, “jus’ not right now.”

“Fine,” he huffed as she sent the rotor into a mad spin, and the TARDIS shook momentarily, but steadied itself within seconds. “We’re gonna go back to London, whether you want to talk to your mother or not. You have to see a doctor to make sure you and the baby are all right. There is going to be no discussion about that.”

“Please, not back to my time. Maybe a hundred years in the future, yeah? We’ll find a doctor there. I just can’t go back to my time. Can’t tell mum, not right now. I need time to think about what to say. Can’t just walk in and tell her she’s gonna be a granny. She’s gonna kill me.”

“Yeah, she’d probably do some bodily harm and then think better of it,” he smirked, a lopsided grin on his face which caused Rose’s lips to curve into a weak smile in return. “But you will tell her, promise me.”

“I’ll tell her eventually.”

“Promise me, Rose.”

“I promise.”