Work Text:
He’d seen her beautiful and terrifying before. When she’d absorbed the Time Vortex and he hadn’t been able to tear his awed gaze from her.
Or when he’d seen her dressed as a Victorian lady on his arm with that smile and that enthusiasm he’d forgotten in his world of fire and blood and screaming deaths. The joy of life that slowly seeped into his ragged, broken shell.
Or when she stood on a beach and cried and he hadn’t been able to touch her—ached to do so. To soothe her tears and hold her tight against him.
Or when she’d found him, returned to him, saved him.
Again.
But now, standing in the middle of their bedroom, the lights up in a simulated beautiful morning—cloudless and sunny with the sound of birds and the scent of wildflowers—the bed behind her, the fake windows showing a replica scenery of Laracopa where they’d first made love, the Doctor thought she never looked more beautiful.
Or more terrifying.
His fingers twitched at his sides, but he couldn’t seem to move his arms. He thought his mouth might be hanging open, but couldn’t remember why that even mattered. He took a step forward, not at all sure how it was possible he moved or why it should matter. All he knew was that he needed to touch her.
Needed to touch her and feel her and reassure her (or him) and hold her.
Yes. He needed to hold her.
He’d crossed their bedroom in quick strides, ignoring the bits of mechanics strewn across the floor, a lone sneaker, her knickers from last night. The Doctor cupped her face, fingers combing through her hair, eyes intent, oh so intent on hers.
“What?” he asked though he’d heard the words the first time.
Those beautiful, magical words beat in an echo through him, loud and soft and there-there-there. Oh so beautiful and utterly terrifying.
“I’m pregnant, Doctor.” Rose repeated.
Just as softly. Just as confidently. Her smile blossomed over her face, those wide lips he knew better than his own stretching into a happy grin.
He didn’t whoop or shout for joy or pick her up and spin her round and round. Happiness choked him, closed around his throat and his hearts and squeezed. He’d once thought happiness like this didn’t exist. Hadn’t believed it was possible.
The Time War happened and he knew such happiness was impossible.
Rose appeared in his life like his savior, a protector, his own salvation when she took his hand and grinned up at him. And the Doctor knew a joy that had always evaded him. (And then she’d fallen and he’d lost her and his world shrunk to greyed-out nothingness and his hearts forgot how to sing.)
The Doctor licked his lips and watched her. Quiet and intent and certain, so very certain, that he’d never again see anything so beautiful and so terrifying as Rose Tyler, standing there in her short blue silk robe with her fingers curling over his wrists and the bonding pendant nestled between her breasts looking up at him and smiling.
“I’m pregnant.”
The universe snapped back into place and his hearts beat again (Rose-Ty-ler over and over they beat to her name) and he breathed.
“Rose.”
He lowered his mouth to hers and pressed his lips against hers and held her so tenderly and so tightly and so close and breathed her in. His love. His bond mate. His wife. Etched on his hearts and his soul and now, now holding a precious life in her body.
“Doctor.” She said his name, but he felt it deeper within. Felt the love brush on the edges of their bond, the whisper of his true name as she held him close and pulled him in and kept him safe.
For so long she’d kept him safe and now, now he needed to do more than that for her. For her and their child.
And the love she felt for him brushed along his own hearts and the laughing-happy-contentment wrapped around him and the yes this is real, this is so very real flooded him.
“Our child.” He didn’t know if he said the words aloud or if he thought them, pushed them along their bond. It didn’t make the truth any less real or the reality any less petrifying.
Or Rose any less beautiful.
“I love you, my hearts.”
And I swear on the universe, I’ll keep you and our baby safe. Forever.