Work Text:
1. Crack version
The Doctor’s eyes widen and he pulls Rose closer into his side by tugging on their entwined hands. He’s unable to stop himself grinning as he tilts his head and buries his face in her sweet, sweet neck, licking firmly with the flat of his tongue.
"Doctor!" she squeals and squirms away from him. "What the hell are you doing?!"
He rocks back on his heals and puts his hands in his pockets, closing his eyes as he calculates.
"Four weeks," he finally concludes and opens his eyes to see her staring at him, mouth agape. He pulls her into a tight hug, twirling her around before carefully setting her back on the solid ground. "About a month, give or take a few days. We don’t have a lot of time, so much to do! Brilliant. Just brilliant!"
She narrows her eyes and smoothes her hair from where it came untied in his vigorous spinning. “What’s brilliant? And what’s happening in a month? And seriously, why did you lick my neck?”
"The newest Time Tot, of course!"
"Newest what?”
"The new hope, a brand new start, a bundle of sunshine and happiness."
She looks even more confused.
"The beautiful life growing inside you, Rose! Ohh, she’s gorgeous already. Smart too; just like her mummy and daddy."
"Life…what?!"
The Doctor sighs and ruffles his hair. “The baby! Only four weeks left and we’ve done nothing to prepare! Haven’t you been listening?”
"To what??" She’s beginning to hyperventilate now and he places his hands firmly on her chest to calm her down. It doesn’t work and she throws them off. "Are you trying to say I’m pregnant?"
"Well, yes. Obviously."
"But…how?! Why? I haven’t…we haven’t…we’ve never, and I…”
"What?" He’s beginning to feel a little panicky too, if he’s honest with himself. "You didn’t know? But… We’ve…and…and last week for almost three hours, I thought…"
Rose takes three deep breaths and closes her eyes for a long minute. He tries to speak but she holds a finger up to silence him. “Okay,” she finally says after her breathing is under control, “let’s be very clear here. I’m pregnant?”
"Yes," he squeaks.
"And it’s your baby?"
"Yes," he squeaks.
"And it—"
"She," he interrupts, not meeting her eye.
"And she was conceived…how?”
He swallows. “The normal way. Touch.”
"What do you mean, the normal way? The most touching we ever do is hand-holding or hugs!” He thinks he hears her mutter something about ‘despite my best efforts’ under her breath but he’s not sure.
"Exactly! Last week we snuggled on the sofa for hours and you held my hand the whole time!"
Rose sucks a deep breath in through her teeth and holds it. “And that’s how Time Lords…reproduce?”
"Yes?" he squeaks and his voice is now high enough that it upsets the nearby dog-like creatures. He clears his throat. "Through skin to skin transference of genetic code; it builds over time, the more touch that occurs, until there’s enough code to fertilise…I thought…Didn’t you take sex ed?!"
"Yes!" she shouts, "I took SEX ed. You know, sexual intercourse. Penis. Vagina. Insert tab A into slot B. You don’t do that? What the hell is this transference?!" Her eyes widen further, if possible and her voice turns growly. "And what do you mean four weeks??"
"Rose, that’s a lot of questions and I don’t know where to start."
"Explain the four weeks!"
"Um, right. Yes. Gallifreyan pregnancies last about nine months. Same as you humans, I believe."
She looks down at her flat abdomen, her fingers brushing along the hum of her jumper. “I’m eight months pregnant?”
"Or so, yes." His eyes follow her hands and he understands. A little. "Ah. Dimensionally transcendent babies are a strictly Time Lord thing I suppose. Your womb is made, um, bigger on the inside."
The look in her eyes is wild and dangerous and he takes a step back from her. She follows, advancing on him like an angry carnivore, ready to rip open his throat and snap his neck. Or a mother lioness, he thinks whimsically for a moment, protecting her cubs.
"I’ve been pregnant for eight bloody months and you didn’t think to tell me until now?"
"I thought you knew!" he huffs. "How can you not know? That’s why we’ve only been going on safe adventures lately. Well, there was that mammoth. And the fire-breathing koala at the Sydney zoo. But tame, really! And…"
She turns calm and still and he’s more afraid than he’s been the whole conversation. “I’m pregnant.”
"Yes."
"In four weeks I will be pushing your baby out of my lady parts."
"Yes. Well, pushing isn’t quite the right turn. She’ll slide right out. No fuss!"
"And then…?"
He scratches the back of his neck. “And then we’ll be parents. To a beautiful baby girl. And we’ll be so happy, Rose, I thought…I’m sorry, I really thought you wanted this. I want it. I’ve wanted it since the day I met you.”
She sighs and the anger evaporates. “You’ve wanted this? A baby with me?”
He nods without taking his eyes off her.
"Why didn’t you say something?"
"I…I thought I did. And you promised me forever, so… Wait. You know that was a marriage ceremony, right?"
She opens her mouth and then closes it again. Then she kisses him, rough and hard with frankly not enough tongue, not enough at all, and storms off.
He runs after his wife and mother of his children, hoping she won’t mind the other twelve foetuses also developing inside her, due in monthly intervals over the coming year. They covered that, at least, in her sex ed classes, right?
2. Angsty version
The Doctor watched her from the corner of the room, clenching and unclenching his hands until they were sweaty and cramped. Her hair was up in a messy bun, several tendrils escaping and flush against the nape of her neck and he wanted nothing more than to be those strands of flaxen curls, pressed to her neck in an endless embrace.
She began biting the corner of her nail and he changed his mind. He wanted to be that finger, sucked between her lips.
But he couldn’t. An extended lifetime wasn’t a blessing; virtual immortality was a burden and no one deserved that mantle. Even if they could be together, travelling the stars, better with two…he wouldn’t do that to her. Seeing everyone you love die: he’d seen it, done it, and he loved her too much to let her know that agony.
Touching her, feeling her lower lip between his, blazing trails down her silken skin and feeling her clench around him… It could never happen. Every prolonged touch poisoned her with his genetic code. And he wouldn’t let that happen. He could never let that happen to someone he—
He closed his eyes momentarily and plastered a smile on his face.
"So! Where do you want to go today? The universe is our oyster!"
3. Reunion version
She crosses her legs and uncrosses them again, failing to find a comfortable position in this leather conference chair or in this parallel universe. It’ll just take time, they all say. Ha. She’ll never feel comfortable, never feel right in her own skin and never find that other half of her heart, without him.
There’s a commotion outside the glass walls but she only sighs and turns back to doodling on her Torchwood notebook paper. Pete says something about political correctness regarding alien life form nomenclature and she pretends to take notes, all while sketching the Doctor’s wonky ear.
There’s a distant screaming and she rolls her eyes and stretches her legs out in front of her. It’s always something here.
The door to the conference room bursts open and a blur of blue dashes across the space. She doesn’t bother to look up, erasing the shape of the earlobe and starting again.
She finally glances up when she notices that the whole room has gone silent and Pete is staring at her with his jaw practically on the floor.
"Sorry, I didn’t hear that. What did you ask?"
"Rose."
She freezes but not before closing her eyes. She can’t take another false alarm. She can’t. “No,” she whisperers.
But she knows, oh, she knows, the exact instant that he takes her hand, the millisecond that his skin touches hers. She knows. Even if she still can’t open her eyes.
"It wasn’t impossible after all. You…you have some of my genetic code; like an innocuous infection. Every time we touched…you got more and more of it. And somehow, luckily, beyond luck, beyond whatever there is to believe in and to thank, we touched enough. Well, never enough, and that’s a different conversation, because the things I want to…" He trails off at the sound of Pete clearing his throat. "Anyway, the TARDIS was able to track you because of it. An infinite number of parallel universes, but the she can always find me. And now I can always find you."
She doesn’t say anything, keeps her eyes firmly screwed closed, but tears manage to escape anyway.
"Rose. Please, open your eyes."
She shakes her head.
"Right. Well. If your eyes are going to be closed anyway," he murmurs and all at once his lips are on hers, gentle and probing, asking permission that she readily gives. His arms are around her and she grapples for that ear, the wonky ear that had only been two dimensional a moment ago and now inhabits in same dimension as her. He smells the same, he feels the same, even if she’s never felt him like this before, and she presses herself against him, willing her body to melt into his. It’s been too long and she no longer wishes to ever be a separate entity again.
When she finally opens her eyes, he’s watching her with warm, watery eyes of his own. “Hello!” he chokes out and she can’t help but laugh, a trifle hysterically.
"You’re here."
"You’re here," he repeats with a grin and pulls her into his arms again. "Let’s keep it that way, shall we?"
The meeting room is empty when she next opens her eyes, the blinds closed and the door firmly shut. The air conditioner is blowing too cool and her neck is stiff from being bent up at him and her lips are bruised and she’s never been more comfortable in her life.
4. Whump version
"YOU ARE THE DOCTOR!"
She tried to scramble backward when she heard the screaming electronic voice but found herself running into another metal creature.
"No, no, I’m not," she insisted, her words choked and desperate, "I’m Rose. Rose Tyler, I—"
"YOU ARE THE DOCTOR; YOUR GENETIC MATERIAL CONFIRMS IT."
The other Daleks moved closer. “EXTERMINATE!” “EXTERMINATE THE DOCTOR!”
"It transfers," she yelled, "it’s like an infection, it happens…I…I travel with him, but I’m not the Doctor."
Figures. He finally kissed her and now look what happens.
"TAKE HER INTO THE EXAMINATION CHAMBER" the lead Dalek orders. "WE WILL ASSESS! PREPARE THE DALEK PROBE!"
5. Fake Married version
"Rose, I’m sorry, but I think it’s the only way." He tries to look contrite but there’s no disguising the grin that passes across his face for a moment.
"Why do we always land on the planets that forbid single people? How is it even possible to have a law like that?"
The Doctor shuffles his feet on the ground. “I think we could leg it back to the TARDIS, if you’d rather not. It’s a long run, but I can carry you on my back if you get tired.”
"No, no, no," she sighs with an unwanted smile of her own threatening to foil her resigned expression. "When in Rome…"
"Or Rowenicalphentus-Ytleli-Frox…"
"Yup. Okay, same drill as always?"
His face lights up. “Yep! Do you still have your ring?”
"I don’t bother taking it off anymore, actually." She flashes him the giant diamond on her left ring finger. Comes in handy, actually, cutting through glass and prison bar doors.
"Same!" He twists his own gold band with a happy smile. "Time Lord TNA level check?"
She holds out the inside of her wrist in front of him and he takes a long lick. “Hmm. Could use a little more, actually. We want this to look authentic. My wife would definitely have more of my genetic code in her.”
"Right. Good thinking." She stands on her tiptoes and he bends down to kiss her, his tongue immediately seeking hers and stroking deeply. When she moans he echoes it right back into her mouth. Her arms wrap around his neck and he grips her hips and pulls her flush against him.
She pulls away when she needs some oxygen and he follows her lips with a whimper. There’s a bulge in his trousers that she can’t help but wriggle against and his noises become strangled.
"I’m worried they won’t think this is authentic enough. I might need even more, er, Time Lord genetic code inside me. How much is enough, really?"
He glances at the secluded alleyway to their left. “Always with the good questions, Rose. And we can never be too careful.”
"Never," she murmurs as he takes his hand and drags him into the quiet side road. Her trousers are unzipped and his hands under her t-shirt before her back even hits the brick wall.
Another day, another fake relationship. One of these days they’ll be able to admit there’s absolutely no pretence left. She’s patient.