DOCTOR WHO: Arising -- A Nova Sue Prequel (Part 1.5)

Chapter 1: Two Dangerous Words

River Song can't decide whether or not to tell the Doctor that she is pregnant with his child.

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River Song, otherwise known as Melody Pond, was nervous. Nervous about seeing her wonderful husband, the Doctor, again, which was very unusual for her. It wasn't that she was nervous about meeting a particular face of his that didn't have a clue who she was (though that was something she often feared and predicted would happen in her near future), but rather she was nervous about how he would react to her present condition. Strangely enough, she was nervous to tell him two words—two of what she thought to be the most dangerous words in the universe:

I'm pregnant.

She'd found out just last week (not long after she'd last seen her husband in Manhattan, New York), when she was cooking for herself in her apartment at Luna University, when she accidentally cut her finger with a knife; and instead of the wound bleeding everywhere, it sparkled with something she never thought she'd see again, at least on herself—regeneration energy. Even long before that, she'd felt incredibly sick and often had to call in a substitute teacher to take over for her during classes, and she began sensing that these weren't normal symptoms of a typical Common Cold or other common illness. These were similar 'symptoms' of a pregnant woman. She'd taken a Pregnancy Test later that same day, which confirmed her suspicions. She was, indeed, pregnant, and she had been for at least a month.

Anxious to tell her husband the good news, she sent him a message via Psychic Paper (saying "Great news, sweetie. Come quickly. XX") and immediately rushed outside to her favorite bench on campus to wait for him.

She'd been sitting there for a few minutes at this point, but now she was beginning to have second thoughts about her decision. There were a million thoughts whirling through her head about what he might think of the news. She figured he'd be excited to have the chance to be a father again after so many centuries, but at the same time he might feel discouraged about the idea of having a child so close to the end of his life. She knew her husband was now completely out of regenerations (as was she, since she gave up the rest of hers to save him in Berlin 1938), and she was under the impression that the Silence, as well as many other enemies of his, had caught on to that fact, hence why they had been targeting him more often than they used to; of course, he wouldn't want their unborn child to be a part of that stuff either, even after birth.

A small part of River now felt regret about sending that message, as, now that she'd thought more about it, she no longer had the courage to tell him, what with knowing how sentimental he was ('the sentimental idiot,' she often called him).

She was just thinking about going back into her apartment when she heard the telltale sound of the TARDIS materializing, and she figured she didn't have a choice but to tell him, now that he'd arrived. Once the TARDIS settled in front of her, she stood up, put on the bravest face she could muster, and entered its impossible vast interior.

"Greetings, my wonderful wife!" the Doctor, dressed in his usual tweed jacket and ridiculous bow tie, exclaimed upon seeing her enter, smiling at her from the other side of the main console at the center of the elevated platform.

"Likewise, my darling Doctor," she chuckled back as she ascended the stairs, using the railing as support (just in case), and sat down on the chair across from the console.

"How is Luna University treating you?" her husband asked curiously as he adjusted a few levers to get the Old Girl travelling again. "You've just started teaching there, didn't you?"

"Oh, I've been teaching there for quite a while," she answered casually, sitting in a certain position and wrapping her blouse further around herself where she wasn't showing her slight baby bump. "Just finished my sixteenth year, and now I'm ready for a long holiday."