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Link to Part 13
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The Doctor tried to trigger the sonic screwdriver as he knelt beside Jack, and cursed colorfully in several languages when it spat a number of sparks at him and refused to offer a reading. He needed to know that Jack and the child he carried were unharmed, and he was concerned about the other man too, although, nowhere near as concerned as he was about Jack. Biting his lip briefly, he looked at the Vortex Manipulator Jack wore, the Time Agency had many faults, but they built equipment to take a hell of a battering, and the teleport function was almost impossible to disable unless you overloaded it.
“Rose, come here,” he barked.
“What? Is Jack all right?” she asked, hurrying to kneel opposite him, beside the two unconscious men.
“I don’t know, the sonic screwdriver is broken. Move, so you’re kneeling up by their heads,” he ordered.
She complied, looking at him in confusion, but he was too focused on Jack to care.
“Put a hand on each of their shoulders, you’re going to need to be touching both of them,” he said, opening up the flap covering the controls of the manipulator.
“Why?” she asked.
“I’m not waiting for the rescue team to get here, I’m sending them to the medical facility, and of the three of us, you’re the smallest, so you’re going to have to be the one who goes with them to talk to the staff,” he said impatiently.
“Ok,” she said, leaning forward to rest a hand on Jack’s shoulder, before more hesitantly touching the stranger.
“Right, just tell them that you were all on the transport, and Jack requires a level four diagnostic scan, got that?” he asked.
“Level four diagnostic scan,” she repeated back.
He nodded once and hit the control to send them to the coordinates he had programmed in. He rose as the three vanished in a swirl of blue light, glaring at Mickey as the young man grabbed his arm.
“What did you do?” he demanded.
“Sent them to the medical facility, they’ll be fine. Let go of me, I’m going to start checking if there is anyone else who needs help,” he growled.
Mickey let go, and after a moment, followed the leather clad back along the tilted floor, deciding he might as well make himself useful.
/x/
Rose looked up as they appeared in the middle of a clean white corridor, startling the bustling medical staff that was getting ready to treat any casualties from the accident.
“Um, hi. We were on the transport when the antigrav went out, my friend and this man were hurt, I was told to tell you that he needs a level four diagnostic scan,” she said, gesturing to Jack, wondering why the doctor who was coming toward them looked so startled when she passed on the instruction the Doctor had given her.
“Their names?” he asked as more staff hurried over.
“He’s Jack Harkness, I don’t know who the other guy is, he was just sitting beside Jack on the transport,” she shrugged.
“Very well, you may wait in that room over there,” the doctor said as Jack and the other man were attached to little devices that made them float without moving them at all, to allow them to slide stretchers under them.
“I want to stay with Jack,” she protested.
“You cannot. Wait over there,” he said firmly, and then they were all out of sight, leaving Rose standing alone in the corridor, the bustling staff flowing around her without slowing.
Reluctantly she went over to the small, windowless waiting area, thumping down onto a hard, white plastic chair to wait, pouting as she looked around the room. It was better than a lot of waiting rooms she had seen on Earth, despite the lack of windows and the hard chairs. The walls were a pearly color instead of harsh white, and the lighting was lower than out in the corridors, making the room slightly more soothing. A small tree sat in a pot on the wall where the door was, it’s lush branches reaching the ceiling, but clipped to restrain their outward growth, and despite the fact she couldn’t see any blossoms, there was a subtle, calming peach scent from it. There was a screen set into one of the walls, looking similar to a plasma screen TV, so she pushed to her feet and went over to investigate it, there didn’t seem to be anything else to do in here.
It was nearly an hour later when the doctor came back into the room, and she took her eyes off the screen that she wasn’t really watching anyway, to look at him.
“How is Jack?” she asked, standing up.
“Your friend has a mild concussion, a fractured scapula and two fractured ribs, along with a number of bruises. He is fortunate, the way he landed protected his stomach and abdomen, and he is in no danger of losing the child he carries. We have knit the bones and he is resting now, you may sit with him, if you wish, provided you are quiet,” he said.
“Thank you,” she said automatically, her mind frozen on what he had said as she followed him out of the room. The child he carries, the doctor had said, she slumped into the chair at the side of the bed where Jack lay when she was led into his room, staring at him blankly, her eyes moving from his peacefully sleeping face, to his stomach, under the covers, the child he carries, pregnant, how the hell could Jack be pregnant?
She was still sitting there staring at Jack when the Doctor and Mickey turned up forty minutes later, hurrying into the room.
“Rose, is he all right? What did the doctors say?” the Doctor asked as soon as they were in the room.
She turned her dazed eyes on them, her face going slightly cold as she focused on the Doctor.
“He fractured his scapula and a couple of ribs, but he’s not going to lose the baby,” she said, surprising them both, the Doctor with the chill in her tone, and Mickey with what she had said.
“He’s pregnant? How the hell can a bloke be pregnant?” Mickey asked, stunned.
“He’s from three thousand years in your future, a lot of medical advances are made by then,” the Doctor said distractedly, looking at Rose.
“Are you all right Rose?”
“You didn’t tell us, you didn’t trust us,” she accused.
“Rose, it had nothing to do with trusting you or not, Jack wasn’t ready to tell you. He was getting there, he was nearly ready, and I am sorry you had to find out this way, but DO NOT take this tone with him, he doesn’t need it,” the Doctor warned her.
“So, he’s having your baby, a little Time Lord?” Mickey asked.
“There’s no way of knowing yet if the child will be a Time Lord, although, the scans do indicate the baby has two hearts developing,”
“That is so cool, you won’t be the last one any more,” Mickey said with a grin.
“Cool? Mickey….” Rose trailed off, unsure what she actually wanted to say, but knowing she was still hurt, angry, that this had been kept from them.
“What, Rose? You surely can’t begrudge a little happiness to your friends, can you?” Mickey asked.
“Of course not,” she objected, meaning it, she was thrilled deep down that the Doctor and Jack would have a baby, but at the moment, all she could think of was how shut out she felt.
“I’m going for a walk,” she said, shaking her head and walking out of the room.
“I’ll go and keep her company,” Mickey said quietly, looking at the Doctor apologetically and following her from the room. He couldn’t believe that Rose was acting like such a brat over this; she was usually the more accepting of the two of them.
The Doctor sighed and walked over to the bedside, sitting in the chair that Rose had vacated.
“They’re gone, you can stop pretending you’re asleep now,” he said quietly.
“Well, they took that well,” Jack said miserably, opening his eyes.
The Doctor curled his fingers around Jack’s lifting his hand to his lips so that he could kiss his knuckles.
“She’ll get over it,” he said.
“I really hope so,” Jack whispered.
tbc
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