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

Chapter 11: Together Again...Someday

Regrettably, the Doctor and River decide to give their newborn daughter up for adoption. Unbeknownst to them, they will be together with their child again...someday.

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During the Doctor's and River's first few nights as parents, they both experienced several nightmares, especially the Doctor. Of course, River was dealing with her own nightmares that were similar to her husband's, but the Doctor's were seemingly worse; at least, he thought of them to be that way. As most normal parents did when starting out, they dreamt of several scenarios where things went horribly wrong while raising their child—some examples being that little Nova would get seriously hurt (or even killed) when getting into something she shouldn't, or that one of the Doctor's enemies would find Nova and do horrible things to her in front of her powerless parents. River seemed to have most of these nightmares, but the Doctor's nightmares were a little more intense. His would mostly be about the consequences of the Silence's experiments that were performed on his daughter before his arrival to save her, specifically their experiments with her Regeneration Energy. He experienced several nightmares of teenage or adult Nova regenerating, but her Regenerations would harm, or even kill, those around her and sometimes even herself, and Nova would have absolute zero control of her energy. He even had nightmares about his enemies finding her because of her uncontrollable Regenerations. He had been thinking nonstop about the outcome of these experiments ever since he was first told about them from that soldier he ran into on the ship.

Every time the new father would wake up from these nightmares, he would wake up to Nova crying as well. Through their psychic link, he would sense her fear—rather, she would sense her father's fear projected into her own mind and possibly give her nightmares of her own. Every time this would happen, he would take Nova out of his old cot and calmly walk with her in his arms through the endless hallways of the TARDIS in an attempt to calm both her and himself as River slept on (or at least tried to). He would often bring her to the most comfortable place in the TARDIS—the library—and would sit with her by the fireplace and tell her stories of his past adventures, and even adventures he planned to take Nova when she was older, as she fell back asleep in his arms. If his In-Laws were awake, they would try to help with Nova as well, but by the second day, they ended up having to go back to work, and so the Doctor took them back home while River stayed on board to continue recovering from childbirth as well as lack of sleep.

Over time, his fears escalated, and he felt that Nova was no longer safe with them, and not just because of the nightmares (though the nightmares tended to stir up his fears as well). He mostly feared that these nightmares would become real, and with there being an incredibly high chance that they would, he decided, with much regret, that he and River would have to make the one decision he hoped to never make—give their child up for adoption. On the third day, he decided to tell his wife about this decision and enforce it, despite what she thought about it the first time they discussed it back when it was just a possibility for when worse came to worse.

He found her in one of the lounge chairs in the TARDIS library, having seemingly just finished breastfeeding their daughter.

"Hey, River," he said as he casually walked in and leaned over her shoulder at their daughter falling asleep once again in her mother's arms. "How is she?"

"Beautiful as always, my love," his wife smiled. "Just like you." She looked up as her husband leaned in and kissed her on the lips before sitting on the sofa next to her.

"And how are you?" he asked curiously as he crossed his legs and leaned on the armrest toward his wife and sleeping daughter.

"Better but exhausted," River sighed. "I never expected raising a child to be this hard. I feel like I haven't slept in weeks."