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In the back of her parents' garden, near to the flower bed where the Doctor had planted the TARDIS coral just a few years before, Rose carefully sets herself down in the grass, sighing as the Doctor joins her.
"I'm suddenly regretting this. I might not be able to get up again," she says.
"You'll be fine, I'm here to help you. And I'll get Pete to call a tow truck if that doesn't work," the Doctor jokes.
Rose fixes him with a sour look. "Thanks for reminding me how huge I am," she mutters, stretching her legs out in front of her wiggling her bare toes. "My ankles are enormous."
"Your ankles are beautiful," he says, leaning over and kissing her. "And so's the rest of you."
"I'm a planet."
"Planets are gorgeous, Rose! You know that. And planets aren't carrying our child, that gives you one up on them." He gently rests his hand on Rose's generously rounded stomach, caressing it through her soft nightshirt. "Well, except this planet, I suppose, but still. And besides, it's not much longer now."
"That's true," Rose admits. She's a good 39 and a half weeks along, ready to go any time as far as she's concerned. She leans back on her hands and considers her feet again. "Didn't really get to this part last time."
The Doctor's hand stills by her navel. "I know."
This entire pregnancy, especially the last three months, has been haunted by the memories of Ellie, the baby they lost five years before. Rose has technically been on bed rest since the end of April, thanks to the risks of complications - better understood with the Doctor’s research, but still very real. They’d moved to the mansion in June, to ensure someone would always be around, just in case. It was the only thing keeping the Doctor from taking a sabbatical until after the baby was born. The summer had become incredibly hot very quickly, and Rose was thankful for the air conditioning and her family’s help, but as the baby grew bigger and her movements became more limited, cabin fever set in. She’d grown so large that the next person to ask “are you sure it isn’t twins?” was going to get a Pregnant Tyler Slap, a variety much more stinging than the regular kind. It was bad enough that she could now only move between her bed, the loo, and the couch in her room, she’d also been ordered to completely forgo work (and her colleagues at Torchwood forbidden from calling her about it), and developed a terrible case of insomnia, which sent her stir-crazy in the worst way. So when a cool breeze came in through the window for the first time in ages, Rose had declared she was going outside even though it was one in the morning and the Doctor could help her or watch her fall down the stairs. He tried to keep her on the porch, but Rose was determined to go out to the garden and feel the grass beneath her feet.
Rose lays her hand over the Doctor’s and gives it a squeeze. “Are you still scared?” she asks.
“Yup,” he says cheerily, and Rose laughs. “Terrified, really. Both of something going wrong and of actually taking care of a baby. You?”
"Same. I don’t think I could handle losing him, but it’s like, what’ll I do when he gets here? I felt like that with Ellie too, but...well, it was all over before I could get too anxious about it."
"Him? You think it's a boy?" The Doctor asks, trying to keep things lighter and focused on the now.
"Just a hunch," Rose says, smiling with her tongue in her teeth, something that still makes the Doctor melt after all these years. The night air stirs and her hair flutters around her face. The Doctor catalogues the sight in his list of Moments Rose Tyler Has Never Looked More Beautiful before leaning in and kissing her.
"You're going to be a fantastic mum, you know," he murmurs.
"And you'll be a brilliant dad," she answers, breaking into a jaw-popping yawn. "If only because you're more rested than I am."
He laughs and rises to his knees. "Looks like it's bedtime. Up we get." With some careful maneuvering, the Doctor helps Rose to her feet, keeping a steady arm around her as they make their way back to the house. Rose needs to rest a moment before tackling the stairs, so the Doctor makes them a snack. When they've finished eating, he tugs Rose up to standing and she freezes.
"I think I'd better stay here," she says, focusing on a point across the room. "I'm just going to have to come back down soon anyway."
***
There is a flurry of activity at the mansion - waking up Pete and Jackie, calling Dr. Harper, getting Rose’s things together, helping her out to the car - and then again once they arrive at Torchwood Medical, especially when Dr. Harper announces that Rose’s labour has already progressed a great deal before Jackie can even go get everyone some tea. Rose squeezes the Doctor and Jackie’s hands hard enough to leave marks, and shouts loud enough that the patients at the other end of the hall ask the nurses what’s going on, and soon Dr. Harper is placing the wailing infant on Rose’s belly and handing the Doctor a pair of fiddly little scissors to cut the umbilical cord. The Doctor is sure some other things happened in between all those bits but he can’t remember now, because Rose has let go of his hand to hold their son against her bare skin, kissing his sparse blonde hair and smiling through her tears, and he’s pretty sure it’s going to be on top of his list of Moments Rose Tyler Has Never Looked More Beautiful for a very long time.
“You made it,” she says, and turns to the Doctor with a grin. “He’s here. He made it.”
The Doctor can only return her smile, and she scoots over, making room for him to climb onto the bed next to her. Once he’s settled she passes the baby to him and the Doctor will swear that, for just a moment, he could see timelines clearly again, those golden threads that used to permeate his mind and now only hover at the edges of his awareness. Pete will tell him later that it’s a new dad thing, having that moment of realization that life is never going to be the same thanks to this tiny human, but the Doctor knows that he saw, and felt, the infinite possibility of a child less than an hour old in that ancient way only a Time Lord can. Jamie Peter Tyler is brilliant already.
And finally, after Pete and Tony have visited and everyone has had a turn holding Jamie and cooing over how he has his mum’s nose and his daddy’s eyes, after Jackie’s taken an absurd number of pictures, after the Doctor has settled in a rocking chair with his son in his arms, twelve hours after sitting out in the garden, Rose is getting some sleep.