The Time of Change

The Secret

"I'm sorry... C-can you say that for me again?"

    I take a deep, steadying breath. "Doctor," I repeat more slowly than the first time, "I'm... I'm pregnant."

    He shakes his head, hair flopping around, and scrubs a hand over his face. "How?" he mumbles to himself.

    "Well, I thought you could tell me that, seeing as I don't remember our wedding night or the next four to follow."

    "It was one night," he says with wide eyes.

"Date isn't the issue here, love. It's quantity."

"Three! The exact number is three, and then you fell asleep and didn't wake up."

    I cock my eyebrows, attempting to coax a smile out of him despite my raging nerves. "That good, was it?"

    Rather than replying, the Doctor takes a step toward me, and though they're down by his sides, I see his hands shaking. As soon as I notice this, he falls into his nervous habit of wringing them. Never once does his gaze stray from my face. I tremble slightly beneath it, searching his expression for anything I can latch onto, but it's unnamable: like a mixture of everything a person can possibly feel all coagulating inside him at once.

    "You're sure?" he asks me weakly.

    I bite my lip as I nod. "She told me herself," I answer, patting the console with my hand.

    An extremely heavy sigh escapes him, like he's either just placed a tremendous weight on his chest or just removed it. Unsteadily, I try to catch my own breath, but my lungs don't want to cooperate. My heart beating wildly against my ribcage, I whisper, "Please say something."

    He blinks at me as if seeing me for the first time, and his cheeks pale by a fraction. "Don't think what you're thinking," he tells me in a rush, causing me to furrow my eyebrows. "You're thinking the worst because that's what you do, but don't. I just don't know how to do this. I... I have never been married, and Queen Elizabeth does not count."

    A laugh bursts from my throat without my consent. He visibly relaxes at my smile, continuing, "I've never had a family of my own; none of my siblings had any children before they died in the Time War. But you listen to me. Look at my face." He points at his cheekbones with one hand, lacing the other's fingers with mine, and I watch as the tiny grin on his lips begins to grow. "I have never loved anyone like I love you," he says intensely, "but just because I don't always know what to do right away doesn't mean I won't get there eventually. Annalise... I am ecstatic, and that is the absolute truth."

    He promptly pulls me to him and hugs so tightly that I see stars for a moment. "I'm sorry if I scared you," he breathes in my ear, "but you should know by now that the things you make me feel are sometimes stronger than I know how to handle."

    I close my eyes as relief settles in my veins. Just as I wrap my arms around him in return, the Doctor spins me around, and I let out a squeak of a giggle, holding securely to his neck. When he sets me down, there's something else besides happiness in his eyes. "What is it?" I ask.

     "It's just..." He pauses. "It'd be unfair to force a baby to be the child of time-travelers, at least not until the time's right. We might need to find somewhere to settle down when he-slash-she is born."

    I clutch at the hem of my leather jacket, feeling the tips of my fingers brush against the soft fabric of the sundress. "That's partially why I've been hesitant about telling you," I confide without meeting his gaze. "I could never, ever ask you to give up what you love, and you love being a time-traveling policeman."