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“What are we gonna do?” Rose whispered, twisting her fingers anxiously, as they queued up in the chemist. He didn’t answer, so she tugged on his sleeve. “Doctor, if it’s positive. What are we gonna do?”
“I don’t know,” he said, putting his arm around her shoulders. He wouldn’t meet her eye, but she took comfort in his touch, at least. She looked up at him, but his gaze was focussed on the box of the pregnancy test in his free hand. “Blimey, these are pricey, aren’t they?”
She glanced at the price sticker. “Yeah. Best not make a habit of this.”
“Well, if you are pregnant, at least we won’t need to buy another one of these for months,” he quipped.
Rose swallowed hard. “You’d want to keep it, then. If I am.”
Only then did he seem to realise what he’d implied, and froze. “Oh. Er - good point, I didn’t - I didn’t really think, before I said that.”
She lowered her voice, noticing the person in front of them in the queue had cocked an ear, clearly eavesdropping. “So you don’t want to keep it?”
“I didn’t say that either. I don’t know, Rose. We’ll…we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“Okay.” She bit into her bottom lip, fighting back tears. “It’s just. You’re leaving next year.”
“Hmm?”
“For uni, you’ll be off and I - I don’t think I could do this on my own.”
“Hey, shh,” he whispered, and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Let’s not do this here, yeah? We’ll talk it through later.”
A few minutes later, and they were leaving the chemist, pregnancy test securely hidden in a shopping bag, away from prying eyes. They had to go back to hers to do the test, and her Mum would be in, probably, and she couldn’t face her knowing just yet.
::
Inside the Tyler flat, John - or Doctor, as he was known to his friends - let out a sigh of relief. Jackie had left a note on the fridge, letting them know she’d popped over to Bev’s. They had some time to take the test and have their talk in private, thank god.
“Do you want me to come in with you?” he asked, handing over the box into Rose’s shaking hands.
She pressed her lips together, looking terrified, and nodded. “Would it be too weird, though?”
“I don’t mind.”
“Close your eyes while I wee, yeah?”
He smiled, nodding, and followed her into the bathroom, sitting on the edge of the bath. She took the white stick out of the box and set it on the side of the sink, then gave him a significant look. He dutifully closed his eyes, and heard the unzipping and rustling of her undoing her jeans.
The next sound he heard was the tap running, and he smiled again, at the thought of her bladder going shy with him in the room. It was a scary situation, her potentially being pregnant right now, when they were still so young, and still had so much to do, and he didn’t really know how he could smile at a time like this, but she was adorable and currently weeing in front of him and he loved her and would do anything to make her smile, too.
When the flush sounded, he opened his eyes, and she tugged her knickers and jeans up and buttoned them. “Two minutes, it says we’ve got to wait,” she muttered, closing the lid and sitting on it.
“Okay.”
The stick was resting on the side of the sink again, and her eyes hadn’t left it. “I can’t believe we’ve been so stupid,” she said.
“I know.”
“I mean, it’s sex education, rule number 1.”
“Yep.”
“We’re usually so careful. How many times do you think we’ve had sex?”
“Blimey, I dunno. Several dozen? A hundred, maybe? No, less than that, if we’re not including just oral - ”
Apparently she’d meant it to be rhetorical, because she wasn’t really listening and pretty much instantly continued talking, so he stopped attempting to calculate it and shut up.
“And one time. Just one time without a condom, and we’ve potentially changed our lives forever.”
“Yes.” He shifted uncomfortably, feeling incredibly guilty. It had been the night of their friend Jack’s party, nearly two months ago, now. They’d snuck off upstairs - separately, five minutes apart, as no one had known, at that point, that they’d been secretly dating for months - and had a bit of a snog, which turned into a bit of a shag, sort of a bit by accident.
Knowing the only person he’d potentially be having sex with was Rose, but thinking they wouldn’t risk doing so at Jack’s, he hadn’t thought to bring any condoms. Retrospectively, he knew they should’ve just waited for the five seconds it would’ve taken to open Jack’s bedside drawer - no doubt he had a whole selection, right there next to them, available for use. Better yet, they should’ve waited until they’d bloody got home to his house. He’d told her that dress of hers was dangerous.
Anyway. He would never, ever inform Jack Harkness that their baby was conceived on his bed. They’d never hear the end of it.
“I’m so scared,” she said, looking away from the test and at him, at last.
“Come here.” He slid to the floor, leaning against the bath and opening his arms, and she moved over to him, wrapping her arms tight around his waist. “I’m scared, too. I’m so sorry, Rose.”
“It’s not your fault. We both risked it.”
“Yeah.” He nuzzled the top of her head, and she smushed her face into his neck, giving him a soft kiss there. “We’ll be okay, you’ll see. We’ll work it out.”
“It’s different for you, though,” she reasoned. “I’m the one who might have a baby inside me. You could run away, if you wanted.”
“You’re right,” he said, tightening his arms around her. “I could. But I won’t.”
She sniffled. “Why not?”
“Lots of reasons.”
“Like…?”
“Like, how that’s the wrong thing to do. How it’s not something I would be happy doing. How the only running away I want to be doing is with you, all across the world, like we planned.”
“You’ll forget all about me once you’re at uni.”
“Don’t be daft.”
“I wouldn’t blame you.”
“Shut up, Rose. I love you.”
She lifted her head, staring up at him with wide, tearful eyes. “Yeah?”
“Course I do.”
A shaky smile crept upon her face. “I love you, too.”
“Good, should think so, too.”
Still smiling, but sadly, Rose said, “I never thought I’d be in this situation. Never thought I’d follow in Mum’s footsteps.”
John tilted his head. “Well, to be fair, Jackie was a couple of years older than you when she - ” Rose groaned, flopping her head against him dramatically.
“I know, that’s what makes this even worse. I beat her to it. After all those years saying I was gonna get out in the world and - and be something, and…”
“She did a brilliant job with you, regardless. And on her own, too, which was very brave.”
“Poor Mum. Don’t go and die on me, Doctor. I couldn’t do what she did.”
“I think you underestimate yourself, but no. I don’t plan on leaving you anytime soon. Or ever, if I can help it. Just you watch, I’ll invent some sort of immortality drug and we’ll spend the rest of time looking back on this like, ‘what were we so worried about?’”
“Sure you will,” she said, sighing in what he hoped was affection.
He kissed her temple. “We’ve got plenty of time to do all what we’ve planned, Rose, baby or not.”
“You know, Mum was married when she had me.” She tilted her head back to waggle her eyebrows at him playfully.
Snorting, he shifted his arm so that he could tuck her hair behind her ear, stroking her cheek after, wiping away a tear that had fallen there. “I’ll only marry you if we can do it on a beach somewhere, a thousand miles away.”
“Nice of you, thanks,” she laughed. “Dunno where we’ll get the money for that, mind you.”
“Didn’t you know, I’m planning on winning the lottery.”
Rose giggled again, and something loosened in his chest. They could do this. It would be so, so hard, and he’d probably have to postpone his plans for uni, and they’d definitely have to save up a lot, and for years, before he could take Rose to Barcelona - the first stop on their planned out, mapped out tour of the world - but they could do it.
“I think I’ve loved you since I was eight years old, when I walked into my classroom to find you, the new boy, sitting in my seat, playing with my friends,” Rose mused.
“You hated me!” he laughed. “You were so jealous, ‘cos I befriended everyone instantly, and that was usually your thing, and I was the teacher’s pet.”
“You drew me a picture to say sorry for upsetting me, though,” she pointed out, grinning, “And then I fell head over heels.”
“Sure, and then you tied my shoelaces together and I fell flat on my face, and we didn’t speak to each other for the rest of the year.”
“I did that before you gave me the picture! I didn’t know my revenge mission was unnecessary. By the time I realised, it was too late!”
“A likely story.”
“It’s true!”
“I know exactly the moment you decided you loved me, or at least fancied me, and that was when we were fifteen and you got jealous because I asked a girl in my Maths class to go to the cinema with me instead of you. Which I only did, I might add, because you had started dating that tosser ‘Jimmy Stone.’”
“Why did you just do quotation marks around his name, that’s his actual name!” Rose said, laughing even harder. “Anyway, I wasn’t jealous!”
“Pffft.”
“Besides,” she muttered. “Lynda could’ve gone with you to the cinema a hundred times, and she wouldn’t have ever snogged you in the back row like I do.”
“No, she’s too sweet for that.”
“Git,” she said, whacking his chest lightly. He caught her hand in his and entwined their fingers. She was silent for a moment. Then, “…she didn’t, did she?”
He shook his head. “Nope. Not so much as a peck on the cheek. I wasn’t bothered. Already had my heart set on you.”
Rose squinted at him suspiciously. “Just as long as I’m the only girl you’ve got pregnant.”
“I can categorically tell you that is the case. Well, if you are. Speaking of, isn’t it done yet? The test?”
“Shit, probably.” Rose went a bit pale. “Shall I look?”
“Yeah.” He loosened his hold on her, and she crawled over to it, picking it off the sink.
Her eyes went wide. “Doctor.”
He held his breath.
“Can you double check the leaflet for me?”
Scrambling for it, his hands shaking, he looked at it. “Okay, one line means no, two means I love you but we’re gonna have a baby and I’m terrified.”
Rose exhaled. “It’s negative.”
The paper floated out of his hands. “What?”
“It’s negative.” She looked at him, and beamed in relief. “False alarm.”
“But - how - I thought you said you’ve missed a period?”
“I have, but it must just be something else, some other reason that isn’t me being pregnant.”
“Oh my god,” he whispered, and his head fell back against the bath with a thunk. “Thank fuck for that. Are you sure?”
She threw the stick at him and he caught it in his left hand. It was indeed negative; just one little line.
“And this is how accurate, exactly?” he asked, just to make sure.
“Well, it says on the back of the box that if used correctly, it’s pretty accurate,” she said, deflating a little. “What, you don’t think it made a mistake, do you? I followed the instructions…should we get another one?”
“I don’t know. I - you’re probably right, it’s probably reliable, but maybe we should do another just to be completely certain.”
“It says in the leaflet to wait a week before taking another, if you think you still might be pregnant. Something about detecting the HGC,” Rose said, biting her lip.
“HCG,” he corrected absently, taking a look at the instructions himself. He let out a long breath. “No, I think we’re good. If you were, you’d be far enough along by now that it would’ve detected the pregnancy hormone. Probably. Maybe we’ll do one again next week just to put our minds at rest completely.”
“Okay,” she said, nodding. “Good plan.”
He set aside the test and they just stared at each other for a minute before breaking into relieved laughter.
“Barcelona’s still on, then,” she said, giving him a shy smile.
“Absolutely. The world’s our oyster, Rose Tyler.”
“Just as soon as you win the lottery,” she laughed.
“Yes, just as soon as I do that.” He got to his knees, so that he could reach out and tug her close to him. “Let’s never tell your mother about this…incident, yeah? She’d never let me near you again, if she knew.”
Looping her arms around his neck, she leant in to kiss him. “Agreed. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
“Can we go get some beers to celebrate?”
“God, that sounds like a great idea. Do you have any in?”
Fortunately, Rose did indeed have some beers in the fridge, so they grabbed a couple each and went up to the roof of Rose’s building, lounging there for the rest of the evening, looking up at the clouds and arguing about who fell for the other first, who was the most likely of their friends to become Prime Minister, and who, in the end, would be the one to tell Jack what a nightmare they’d had, all thanks to his bloody birthday party.