Chapter Text
Rose woke up with a dry feeling in her mouth and a vague inkling that something brilliant had happened - but perhaps only in a dream.
Then she rolled over and knew otherwise.
"Typical," he whispered, eyes bright in the darkness, still half-drunk, still bloody gorgeous, "I wake up in bed with Rose Tyler and I can’t remember a thing."
"Me neither," she replied.
She couldn’t remember anything after giddily dragging him out of the club and into a taxi. They’d made out in the back of it and she remembered dropping her keys multiple times while trying to let them into her flat because he kept sucking on her neck.
He inched closer. “You okay?”
"Yeah."
What were they going to do? Act like this had never happened? Go back to being friends? Maybe it was for the best they couldn’t remember, then. Let all of it fade away into a blur, a moment of madness.
"S’not fair," he said, staring at her mouth. "We should do it again."
"What?"
"We already did it once. We should do it again. I want to know."
Know what, she wondered, but quick as lightning he closed the gap between them and kissed her, kissed her until she couldn’t think.
He picked up on the second ring. “Hullo?”
"I’m late," said Rose.
"What? We haven’t got plans to meet today, have we?" He looked at his watch, puzzled.
"No," she said, tersely, "I’m late.”
Rose opened her door and said, “Did you get it?”
Feeling as though he were living in a bizarre sort of dream come to life, he lifted the Boots bag and said, “Of course.”
She grabbed it and went into the living room, dumping the contents onto the carpet in a frenzied rush. She glared at him. “You bought crisps!? And what’s all this bloody Lucozade for!?”
He rubbed his neck, sheepish. All at once the jangly nerves he’d shoved away in order to face her came storming back again, permeating every cell of his body. “C’mon, Rose - what’s it look like, a bloke walking into a shop and buying nothing but a pregnancy test?”
The look she gave him was one that screamed don’t mess. He picked up the test - neatly encased in a cardboard box - and handed it politely to her.
"Okay," she said, still seething and ripping the cardboard apart with a forcefulness that made him flinch, "I’ll- I’ll go to the loo."
"Right."
He waited by the door, pacing, studying the colour of the paint on her walls, and the dust bunny that was collecting in one corner. The tick-tock of the clock behind him drove him mental. She was taking ages.
"Rose," he called out, careful to keep his voice calm and neutral, "Everything alright?"
"No!"
"What-" His heart began to race. "Is- Are you-"
"No!" She sounded extremely cross. "I don’t know yet! I haven’t finished taking the test!"
He stared at the wood grain of the door, perplexed. “Do you need the box for instructions?”
She made a derisive noise, and threw something at the door. It made a loud clang. He retreated, withdrawing to the corner for safety in case the molecules of the door suddenly became permeable since this was clearly a dream, and not reality.
"I can’t wee with you out there," she shouted, flustered. "Go away!"
"Go where?”
"I dunno!"
He racked his brain for something to offer, some way to keep himself from being kicked out. “Well… why don’t you try… thinking about rivers, lakes, waterfalls? You know the sort of thing.”
"That’s not helpful!"
He ran back into the living room and seized the bottle of lucozade. “I know! Drink this! Fill up your bladder!”
The door opened just enough to allow Rose’s arm to shoot out and snatch the bottle from his grip. It shut firmly again in his face.
He held his breath (among other things, Rose had taken so long in the loo he was starting to burst) as she emerged, hands shaking. She tossed the test onto the table and clenched her fists.
Positive. It was positive. He felt faint.
"I’m pregnant," she said, voice rising to a terrifyingly high, hysterical pitch, "I’m bloody pregnant!" She punched him in the arm, hard, her chest heaving with rage. "You just couldn’t leave well enough alone! You- you had to seduce me again! Twice!”
Except he’d used a condom that second time, the awesome time, the time he remembered, so chances were it’d been round number one that had done the deed. But Rose didn’t seem like she was in the mood for rational deduction so he kept his mouth shut, cringed, and felt the Universe cackling at him.
"I’m pregnant! Oh my god. Oh my GOD. We’re not even together! You’ve made me pregnant and I’m not even your girlfriend!" This last bit was fairly screamed at him, which made him recoil instinctively.
He didn’t do well with jump scares. They made him react before he could think; it was reflex, it was, just reflex, and so he blurted out, “Do you want to be?”
Wrong thing to ask. She threw the nearest thing she could reach at him. It happened to be a lamp - he narrowly dodged as it crashed to the floor.
Okay. That would be a no, then.
"You’re keeping the baby?"
She nodded.
Relief surged through him, he hadn’t known he’d been hoping for this, had told himself: it’s her decision for the last two weeks of silence. Now he knew that he wanted this baby, wanted to be a dad, prams and diapers and 2AM feedings and potty training and all. He wanted a family. Uncertainty filled him at the thought. Rose might be keeping the baby, but she might not want to keep him.
"Can I… can I help you?"
"You’d better," she said, looking at him intently. Those eyes of her would be the death of him. "Listen. I was… pretty upset last time. I blamed you for this, but… obviously it took the both of us for it to happen. I don’t want you to feel like you have to do things you don’t want to. We can work things out with the baby and still be friends."
"Right. Yeah, course."
Friends, he thought, feeling a wave of panic hit him, properly, for the first time. Friends who are having a baby together.
Rose looked like she might cry. He thought he understood the feeling.
He said, with as much confidence as he could muster, “It’ll be alright. You’ll see. We can do this, you and me. We’re in this together.”
The first trimester was a roller coaster. Rose had told her mum the truth about a week after she’d declared her intention to keep the baby. Jackie appeared on John’s doorstep the next morning to slap him upside the head, and made him promise to take care of Rose and the baby, or else. He wasn’t sure what the ‘else’ entailed, but he wasn’t going to find out.
It was bloody uncomfortable, pregnancy, when one viewed it up close.
The guilt was immense, he’d done this to her, but so was the secret satisfaction of being the one she came to when she wanted to rant and whinge about how much morning sickness sucked and how she was putting on weight and felt bloated already. He set himself as number one on her speed dial and was over everyday to rub her ankles, even though they weren’t sore yet - but he said he was practicing for later and she seemed to like it.
She was back to being typical Rose, albeit perhaps a touch more prone to violent mood swings than before. Still. She was Rose, who liked his jokes and tendency to ramble and who always made him feel welcome in their circle of friends. Rose, who he had been nursing hopes towards for years, who had always been taken by some other lucky sod before he even realised he’d been too slow to act. That night at the club had been the first time she’d been single in ages. He’d taken advantage of the liquid courage, had used up a lifetime’s worth of luck in one go, to get a single night with Rose.
But the universe liked it’s jokes, and clearly enjoyed screwing with him, and so here they were: pregnant, in limbo, forever tied to one another, though not in the ways he’d imagined or hoped.
"When the baby comes," he said, screwing up the courage one afternoon, as he massaged her left foot, "I could… I could move in here. To help you. With feeding it and all. You know, in the middle of the night."
He glanced at her. She was looking at him, pensive. His heart sank, inch by inch, into the pit of his stomach. “Is that not okay?”
She shook her head and pulled her foot free of his grip, away from him. The sofa suddenly seemed awfully long, allowing her to produce a gaping distance between them.
"I don’t know. It’s still early. I’m not even showing yet."
That’s what he got for being greedy. Rose was allowing him to stay in her life. He shouldn’t have pushed his luck.
Still, he wanted her to know. That he was serious about this, that he was in for the long haul. “I want to be there for the baby. For you.”
"I know."
He didn’t understand the conflicting emotions that passed over her face, like rapid storm clouds.
She sighed at long last, and said, “We’ll see. When the baby comes.”
He squeezed her hand. “I’ll be there, you know.”
She rested her head on his shoulder. “I know.”