Like Stars In My Sky

by bendingwind

"Oh!" the girl looks up at him with surprised green eyes. "Hi! Didn't see you there, sorry to run, things to do…" She flashes him a brilliant smile, and then turns to leave.

Just before she disappears around a corner, she turns back to shout, "And you're going the wrong way! The Sultan's Sky Garden is in the opposite direction. Take the lifts on Palmer Street!"

And with one final wink, she vanishes.

"Who was that?" he asks the air. He shrugs and turns to stroll cheerfully back the way he came, fingering the note in his pocket. He smiles at the thought of the woman waiting for him in the Upper Gazebo of the Sky Gardens of Sultan Lauren the Third.

Normally, these visits are a bit more scheduled—not with her guards, because neither of them care—but with her, because she likes to pack ahead of time. Having waited exactly once for her to get ready, he is only too willing to let the arrangement stand.

Sometimes, though, he likes to surprise her. As it happens, she likes to surprise him back just as often.

"You," she snaps, as he steps out of the TARDIS, "are not supposed to be here!" She's wearing a shapeless prison uniform, scarlet and blue, and she looks ridiculous.

"You never wear those," he says, frowning at her. She seems incensed that he's ignoring her statement. For his part, he feels mostly stupid and disappointed, because he might have expected at least a slightly warmer welcome than this. Even a nice hello peck would have done.

"I do now," she bites out. She stands abruptly and pushes past him into the TARDIS.

"It's a good thing you showed up today," she growls, as she bounds up the steps to the console, "because you're very, very late, and I couldn't wait another day."

"Oh, er, sorry?" he responds, no more enlightened than he was when he arrived.

"You showed up a month ago after I sent a note your way, and told me I couldn't come with you right then because I was already on board."

"Oh, er, haven't done that yet… sorry…" he replies, awkwardly, "I suppose this is when I pick up the you that meant you couldn't come on board then?" He scratches the side his cheek, nervous. He's seen her irritated and frustrated and worried, but never quite so angry.

She doesn't seem to have heard him. As she glides around the console, flipping the appropriate levers and switches, she says, "Do you know how worried I've been all month that they'd find out? Anything could have gone wrong—they could have noticed I'd looped the video feed from the cameras in the showers and dressing rooms, my name could have been called for a random medical exam, I—"

"River—" he tries to interrupt her, with no success.

"Or I could have just shifted the wrong way in my sleep and someone could have noticed! They might have instituted random garbage inspections again, and someone might have put two and two together! Do you know how much danger I was in, how terrifying it's been?"

"River, I have no idea what you're talking about," he says quickly, before she can start up again. She looks as if he's slapped her.

The TARDIS lands with a very slight shudder.

"I'm going to change," she declares, lifting her chin. "And you, my love, are going to walk through those doors and explain to me, as nicely as you can, that you will fuck up an entire universe's time stream if you take me with you right at that moment. And then you are going to apologize more sincerely than you ever have in your entire life."

He gulps, and nods, and she marches imperiously away into the TARDIS.

With a sigh, he opens the door of his time machine, and steps out into Stormcage.

"You came!" she jumps up to meet him, every bit as enthusiastic as he'd hoped the last time he'd shown up in her cell.

"Hello," he says cheerfully, "I, er, got your message. In a sort of round-about way."

"Oh?" she asks, sounding slightly preoccupied, "I've missed you, by the way. You haven't been to visit in nearly two months."

He frowns and flips through his diary with practiced motions. "Was that the time you had the flu?" he asks. These bits get so complicated sometimes, and every once in a while spoilers are necessary.

"Well… yes," she says, but she looks away. She looks… worried about something. "Listen, sweetie, there's a reason I called you."

"Not just a conjugal visit, then?" he teases.

"No, well, maybe after," she says, slowly. "But listen, maybe we should sit down. I have something to tell you."

He lets her guide him to her bed, really and truly lost. Apparently, she can't wait to say it, because the moment he stops squiggling around trying to find a comfortable spot on the hardest mattress he's ever encountered, she spits out, "I'm pregnant."

"Er—" he replies, cleverly.

"Did you hear me?" she asked, anxious as the seconds pass and he doesn't answer. "Don't look at me like that, it's yours. Really, my love! You are so ridiculous."

"Pregnant! As in, like a, a baby? As in the combination of the, the spermatozoa of a male and the ovum of a female, developed into a genetic mesh of the two individuals in question? An infant or a kid or a newborn or a, a—"

She lets him trail off with a slight smirk, and then she leans over and says, very firmly, "Yes."

"Wot," he manages to squeak out.

"You're over a thousand years old, sweetie, you know very well what." She winks at him, and moves to sit on the bed beside him. "That's why I sent you the note. We can't let the prison warden find out—he'll take our baby away, and that is simply not acceptable. He's bound to notice sooner, rather than later." The Doctor eyes her waist, which does indeed look a little thicker. "Travel by vortex manipulator isn't very safe when pregnant, so I was hoping you could, you know, give me a lift."

"Oh!" he exclaims.

"So…?" she asks, with that slightly irritated, will-you-just-answer-my-question look that she does so very well.

"You're pregnant! Pregnant!"

"Yes, sweetie," she sighs, "We've been over that. And now I need your help to get out of here."

And suddenly, her earlier anger makes quite a lot more sense.

"I, er, I can't," he says, nervously. "Not without, erm, I think you said, fucking up an entire universe's time stream."

"I'm sorry?" she asks, dangerously.

"Well, I've sort of already picked you up. Will have. I ran into you about a month from now in your future, and you came with me. You're back there, in the TARDIS." He nods vaguely in the direction of the doors.

"I'm, er, really, really sorry River!" he says, as she levels her most dangerous glare at him. "I'll see you in a month, then?"

Without waiting for an answer, he scrambles back into the TARDIS.

She's waiting there as well, propped up against the console in an old pair of his trousers and one of his spare shirts.

"You really messed that up," she says, and her anger seems to have cooled a bit. He's pretty sure there's some fondness in her expression… somewhere.

"Sorry," he replies sheepishly, and he rubs at the back of his head. She sighs.

"She's gotten too used to me," his wife muses, looking up at the TARDIS. "The variety of clothes she carries has gotten rather limited. The only choices I had were tailored for my size, so they're too small now, or your clothes."

"You look rather nice in my clothes," he points out, approvingly.

"I look nice in everything," she rebuts, and then, she smiles. He nearly sags in relief.

"I'm sorry I was late," he says, moving up to lean against the console beside her. He surveys her waist again, marveling at the way the fabric of his shirt molds around the slight curve there.

"You really are—?" he asks.

"Yeah. It's okay, right? Only you ran away in a very literal sense before I could ask you last time."

"Yeah, it's okay," he replies. He doesn't seem to be able to do much but stare at her, bewildered and overjoyed as he slowly processes what she's told him. She doesn't wait for him to finish.

"I thought I'd go to my parents' house, I should be safe there for a month or two before things become really obvious. You can stay as well, though I won't kid myself that you'll stick around. You don't have the patience to stay in one place for five months."

"Neither do you," he points out.

She shrugs. "Don't plan to. You'd better come when I call next time."

"Of course I will!" he replies, stung. "Also… you should probably know that, er, the gestation period for a Gallifreyan is eleven months. So, er, that might affect things a bit… you know…"

Her eyes flash, dangerous and lovely. "You had just better hope that is not the case, Doctor." She pulls down a lever and the TARDIS shudders around them.

"Come on," she sighs, tugging at his hand, "We've got to go tell my parents."

He feels the blood draining from his face.

"Do we have to?" he squeaks, and she smiles at him in just the right way to make it clear that this is her revenge.

The conversation with her parents goes better than expected, and he manages to stick around for two whole weeks before she shoos him off to investigate the Fourth Moon of Kesh Iil because his hovering annoys her. One things leads to another, and frankly no one should ever pass up the opportunity to visit the Diamond Clouds of Kesh Korr, and it's months and months before he gets a note asking him to meet her on Planet Eighteen. The note is signed with a particularly violent-looking 'x'.

"Sweetie!" she exclaims, when she opens the door to the nondescript apartment she's staying in.

"You've swallowed—" he begins, eyes widening at the rather bulbous protrusion of her stomach, "I mean, er, how far along are you?"

Her answer is to drag him through her door by his bowtie.

Pregnant!Sex, as it turns out, is cool. She sees him out the next morning with a warning to try not to be noticed, because this face is known here and she'd rather they didn't trace her just yet.

"I hear the Agalian Falls are lovely this time of year," she says with a wink and chaste kiss on the cheek, and then she closes the door behind him.

The Agalian Falls are lovely. Holding her hair back as she vomits into a trash bin is not, particularly.

"Flu's going around the prison," she says, miserably. Wisely, he stays quiet, because spoilers and all. "Sorry, my love, maybe we can have our picnic some other time? I'd really just rather go back to the TARDIS and have a lie-down."

They make their way back to their time machine with only a few stops in the bushes, and he spends a delightful couple of days making her tea and patting her forehead with cool cloths. She finds it immensely irritating.

Eventually she leaves with a rather put-out, "Sweetie, if you bring me one more cup of tea I am going to pour it over your head and then, when I get back to Stormcage, I'm going to construct a repulsion field to keep the TARDIS out."

He just smiles and waves her out the door.

"Hi, honey, I'm home," he says, arriving at her room in her parents' home. She crawls out from beneath her covers with a sleepy smile.

"What kind of time do you call this?" she asks, teasingly, and she pats the bed beside her. Delightedly, he crawls under the covers beside her.

"At least take your boots and jacket off, my love," she chides, but she curls into his side nonetheless. He manages to shuffle out of his boots and wrap an arm around her. Apparently, she's willing to let the jacket issue lie. She reaches up to toy with his bowtie, drowsy eyes drooping.

"Actually, I thought you'd be a bit later," she mumbles, as her eyes flutter closed with sleep. "I need to move on, but for now, why don't we just sleep?"

He smiles and tucks her head under his chin, and within moments she's snoring in that very adorable, quiet way that she does.

Later he will deal with Amy's suggestive teasing when she finds them there— "Really, Doctor, I should have known my daughter would have a kink for that bowtie and tweed," she'll say with a wink—and Rory's not-very-subtle threats about abandoning his daughter, but for now he breathes in the scent of her hair and studies her abdomen with curiosity—there is a life there, a bit of him and her, fascinating and mad and wonderful. Probably this is a very, very bad idea, but right at this moment he cannot bring himself to care, because he has the one thing in the universe that has always mattered most: a family.

He'll drop her off in the Gamma Forests later today, or maybe sometime next week.

He should have known, when a couch mysteriously materialized in the console room of his TARDIS, that she was planning to drop by. She looks tired and a little weighed down and pretty much ready to pop—er, ready to, er—no, he can't really think of a better way to phrase that. Maybe something in Gallifreyan.

"I've only just realized that we never really made plans," she says one morning when he arrives in the console room after a few hours of sleep. She's lounged across the couch, very visibly tired and stressed.

"Er, for what?" he asks, confused. "I thought the notes were okay, in fact I rather like notes…"

"For where exactly I am going to have this baby," she interrupts. "Anywhere in the galaxy I can think of is likely to notice an infamous criminal widely regarded to be your wife showing up in the maternity ward to give birth to a two-hearted baby."

"Medical privacy—" he begins, but she corrects him before he can even finish his sentence.

"—has a certain tendency of proving unsound to people who really want specific information, mine in particular. Stormcage has a standing court order that enables them to access any of my medical records from any century."

"Oh," he says, deflating. "Well, Rory could always deliver the baby."

"There is no way my dad is delivering my child," River bites out. He retreats.

"I… think I'm out of ideas, then," he says, bemused, "Hate it when that happens. It's almost always your fault, you know."

"Hmm," she agrees. She reaches down and, for the first time, he notices a heavy bag by her feet. She nudges it towards him.

"Start reading," she says, with her most lovely, dangerous smile.

"… Seriously?"

"Seriously, time boy." She rises from the couch with some effort, and makes her way back into the TARDIS with quick, light steps. "I'm going to take a nap. I'll see you later."

He groans and moves to study the books. The first that he pulls out is titled Childbirth: A Guide to the Medical Techniques of Fifty-first Century Midwifery.

He hangs his head and starts to study.

"There is no way, " he tells her later, as she lounges on the couch with sleep-tousled hair and a cross expression. "It sounds completely disgusting and I'm really very bad with these things, there's a reason I never became a medical doctor, and also I think I'm likely to faint. Which would be bad."

"I'll say," she drawls, studying him intently. "You really don't think you could do it? It's just, it's so dangerous to bring in outside assistance. This is one of those things we're better off not sharing with the wider world."

"We could always swing by Earth and pick up a Doctor or two from the twenty-first century," he points out. "It's not like they could record it anywhere, they'd be called mad."

"They're butchers," she points out, "Do you know how many unnecessary caesarian sections occurred during that period because they had no idea what they were doing?"

"Er, good point," he replies, frowning.

"Also there's the two-hearted thing," she points out.

"How do you even know it has two hearts?" he asks, exasperated. Stubbornness must be a genetic trait.

"I am perfectly capable of constructing and conducting an ultrasound, sweetie," she replies with a roll of her eyes. She looks down.

"My love…" she says, after a moment, "I'm scared."

"Oh." Well, that's something then. "Me too."

"What a pair we make," she says, laughing. There is bitterness as well as sweetness in her voice.

Voice interface enabled, the artificially constructed voice echoes through the TARDIS. River Song has approximately ten days remaining before her optimum delivery date. The TARDIS has taken measures to provide a Lyeli Birth Bay and appropriate the accompanying medical bots. Will you be requiring anything else?

He spins around, startled. River seems equally at a loss.

"What—I didn't—"

River Song is a child of the TARDIS, the voice intones, and this time it sounds almost as if there is a smile in the voice.The TARDIS provides.

"Oh." River sits back in her seat, and stares at him. "Well. That's that then. I'll see you in ten days?"

"You're not going?" he asks, appalled. She shakes her head.

"You know the noise she makes when you fly her gives me a headache, and I'm not exactly up to dashing around flipping switches and piloting her. I'll call you when you're needed."

The TARDIS feels rather empty, once she leaves.

"Hello."

The little girl is perhaps five years old, with eerily familiar green eyes. He met her a long time ago, sometime in her future.

"Er, hello," he replies.

"Oh," she says, looking downcast. "I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else."

"I'm way cooler than someone else!" he protests, half-heartedly. He's worrying about River, lurking around the seedier side of the Bane Nexus, ten months pregnant and likely to call for him at any given moment.

"Yeah, right," she says, crossing her arms and glaring up at him. Then she brightens. "Want to hear a story?"

"A story! I love a story!" he says, completely derailed from his worry about River. He crouches down in front of the girl. "Let's hear it then." She straightens and clasps her hands behind her back, beaming at him.

"Once upon a time," she begins, only to be interrupted by a buzzer wrapped around her wrist. She looks startled. "Oh, sorry, Mummy's looking for me. I'd better go!" She flashes him one last smile, and runs off.

Always running, he thinks fondly. He strolls aimlessly back in the direction of his TARDIS, wondering when-slash-if he'll ever hear from his wife.

"I don't really like being fat," she says, frowning at her reflection in the mirror. The twenty-first century outfit she's wearing goes a long way to disguise her pregnancy, but she's at that awkward size where it's hard to tell if she's pregnant or just chubby.

He thinks she looks adorable either way, and he tells her so.

She stretches up to press a chaste kiss against his lips. "That's very sweet of you, my love," she says with a smile, "especially because it's at least half your fault that none of my favorite clothes fit me anymore."

He pulls her into his arms and kisses her forehead, and asks, "Where to now? Er, I did get the time on your note right, didn't I?"

"Must have," she says with a grin, "I'll send it later. You have no idea how I've been craving fish and chips today."

"Oh! I know this fantastic shop, just around the corner really, well I say around the corner, actually it's in Cardiff but it's really quite lovely, took Rose and Mickey there once."

"Mickey?" she asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Rose's boyfriend. Well, I say boyfriend. I always thought he was a bit more of a pet."

"Doctor!"

He shrugs and grins, unapologetic. She laughs.

"You're terrible, sweetie. I'm glad you didn't treat my dad that way."

His grin becomes a little fixed and he scratches his cheek nervously, but she doesn't seem to notice.

"Let's go there, then, but do try not to bump into yourself. It always gets a bit awkward when things like that happen."

"Right!" he says, beaming and dragging her into the TARDIS.

He somehow manages to miscalculate and out of all ten years the shop is open, picks the exact day he visited before. It turns out alright—as it happens, dodging himself and Rose and Mickey just makes the outing that much more exciting.

I think the traditional phrase is, "It's time." I'm at my apartment in Bane, 12/4/5089/23:06, 51.34.

—x

He spends about ten seconds scrambling to catch the note after he drops it, and then about five minutes hyperventilating. Then he dashes off to the Grand Library of Tertius Mega to read up on babies, which only makes him panic more, and he spends about half an hour materializing in and out of the Ponds' yard while he tries to decide if he should bring them, and finally he goes off to pick her up.

She's curled up on a chair in her parlor, lips taunt with pain.

"The TARDIS better have some really fantastic painkillers," she mumbles as he tries to help her up, his hands fluttering nervously around her. "And stop flittering around like that, you're not helping at all."

He helps her into the TARDIS and to the medical bay, which his lovely time machine has placed conveniently just off the console room. There's a large, comfortable bed to one side, and a deep pool to the other, with a wide variety of medical implements oddly arrayed between lovely sculptures. There is, naturally, a soothing fountain trickling merrily in a corner. Along the wall stand no less than five level-two androids with pleasant, fixed expressions on their faces.

"We have the situation in hand," one of them says, stepping forward, "If you will please wait outside, expectant father-to-be."

"No, I'd really rather—" he tries to protest, as the android neatly plucks River from his arms.

"Your assistance is not necessary," the android continues, in a voice that is oddly both soothing and mechanically precise. "It is tradition for the father-to-be to wait outside the birthing room."

"In what culture—!" he tries to protest, as a second android gently pushes him out of the room.

"Ours," it replies, quite succinctly. He sags, and gives up.

"What if she wants me there?" he asks, as the android turns to re-enter the medical bay.

"We are programmed to accommodate any whim of the mother-to-be," the android intones, "We will fetch you if she requires your assistance."

"Okay," he says, feeling rather left-out and unloved and, maybe, pouting just a little. He spends half an hour alternately pacing around the console room and brooding on the couch before the android comes for him. He leaps to his feet.

"She's asked for me—" he begins, but the android speaks over him.

"The mother-to-be has requested that you use this time to fetch her parents. She says it is a tradition of her people and she is afraid that her mother will never forgive her if she is not invited. If you would please oblige."

The android doesn't wait for an answer, merely marches back inside and shuts the door behind it. The Doctor wrings his hands nervously for a minute and then frantically starts to set the coordinates for Leadworth, Earth, Some Point In Time When Rory and Amy Won't Totally Panic About Being Grandparents. He overshoots the first time but eventually finds them in their late fifties. Their youngest daughter is staying with them, and all three pile on board. The androids let Amy through into the room with River, while her sister tries to text the rest of their siblings to let them know.

Rory stops her with a gentle hand on her wrist, and shakes his head. When she looks questioningly at the Doctor, he shrugs.

"Best we don't leave written records," he says, quietly. "It couldn't be dangerous, later."

Rory manages to distract the Doctor with a game of chess using tiny magnetic pieces (more accurately, he manages to distract the Doctor by starting a game of chess with tiny magnetic pieces that move on their own, and succeeds because the Doctor then finds it necessary to take it apart and study it because he's never seen one before). His other daughter abandons them an hour in, asking her father to tell her what happens later. Rory sighs, and nods.

"It's hard for her and the other kids," he explains to the Doctor, who is too busy measuring the strength of the core magnet to really be listening. "They don't know her so well, she didn't… grow up with them."

The Doctor nods, vaguely, and mumbles, "Oh, Pondy Pond Ponds," as he unscrews a bit of the chess board. "Do you think she'll be alright?"

"Probably," Rory says, shooting a worried look at the door.

The Doctor dismantles quite a lot of mundane things as a distraction, before all is said and done.

He's actually managed to fall asleep, propped up against the arm of the couch, by the time River creeps through the door of the medical bay with a squirming bundle in her arms. She shuffles over to him, adjusting her burden, and shakes his shoulder to wake him up.

"Wha—?" he asks sleepily, his eyelashes fluttering open. She's wearing a standard, long white medical gown and she looks very lovely in it.

"Should you be up already?" he asks.

"Lyeli technology, very nice," she says with approval, as the baby shifts and whines in her arms. He is immediately distracted by the dark head of hair poking out from under its blankets.

"Hello," he gulps. The baby makes a munchy, squealy sort of baby sound, and he beams.

"Very nice to meet you, Blue! I'm—I'm—" he stutters and falters and looks up at River, slightly desperate. She smiles and sits next to him on the bench.

"I think we may have to convince her that another name might be better," she says, lightly, before she all but shoves their daughter into his arms. He stares down at her as if he's not sure if the universe is ending or beginning.

"Hello," he says again. "I, I'm your daddy. I think."

He can almost hear River rolling her eyes next to him.

"And, and this is my TARDIS. Well, I say mine, I guess it's your mummy's too. When she wants it to be. Which she usually does. It travels through all of space and time, anywhere you want to go." Blue grasps at one of his fingers, gurglingly delightedly.

"When you're older," River adds, a little warningly.

"When you're older," he repeats, and Blue squeezes his hand and opens bright green eyes.

His hearts implode a little, in a rather lovely way, and he squeezes back with infinite gentleness.