Incompatible (Remix)

Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairing: Ten/Donna
Genre: Fluff, humour
Length: Oneshot, 1350 words
Description: The Doctor has made an error, and now he is suffering the consequences.
Rating: PG (warning for mpreg)
Disclaimer: These characters belong to the BBC, not to me.
Note: I don't think you can technically "remix" your own story, but I didn't quite know what else to call it. I had two entirely separate ideas for this, and since there was no way to do them as a story and a sequel, I wrote them up as two different stories. Both follow from "Compulsion," but both are intended as AUs.
Thanks to babydee1 and pipersmum for helping me with a bit of Britspeak!

Incompatible (original version)


*****
"Doctor?"

Donna Noble paused at the door to the loo, blinking in shock at the startling sight of the Doctor kneeling in front of the toilet, his lanky body limp with misery. Slowly and painfully, he lifted his head, and she saw that his hair, which could ordinarily best be described as fluffy, was sticking to his face, damp with sweat. His face was so pale that his freckles stood out in bold relief.

"Donna," he said, rather miserably. "I don't feel too good."

"Oh, blimey." She crossed the tile floor and sat down next to him, patting his shoulder gently. "You're sick."

"Welllll..." He looked embarrassed. "Not exactly."

"Then what's wrong?"

"Um... remember last month, when we... well, remember that resort we went to?"

"Of course I remember," she said with a fond smile. "How could I forget?"

"Well..." He paused to swallow, looking like he might just be about to sick up again. "Remember how I said we had incompatible DNA?"

She nodded, patting his shoulder.

"I was wrong."

"What?" She stared at him in confusion. "What do you mean, Doctor?"

He looked back at her with big, sorrowful eyes.

"I'm pregnant," he said.

She burst out laughing.

*****

Several minutes later, she was still giggling, and the Doctor looked very, very annoyed.

"Let me get this straight," she said. "Time Lords... have... a uterus?"

"It's not called a uterus," he muttered defensively.

"Don't care what you call it, Sunshine; if there's a baby growing in it, then it's a uterus." She looked at him, chortling, but he was so clearly unhappy that she couldn't help but feel sympathy. She tried to choke back her laughter. "Poor thing. Is this how it always works with your people?"

"Well... ordinarily we grow our children on the loom. But in the occasional case when an... error... is made, then... yeah. This is how it works."

"And we made an error."

"Several of them, as I recall." He groaned, and retched into the toilet some more. "Oh, Rassilon. No wonder my people went in for asexual reproduction. This is absolutely disgusting."

"Don't worry," she said, patting his shoulder. She could feel an echo of his nausea through their mental bond, and yeah, it was disgusting. Totally. "Morning sickness doesn't last forever."

"It'll go on for about six months," he said, hanging his head miserably. "Gallifreyan pregnancies are slightly longer than human ones."

"Oh, yeah? How long?"

"Twenty-one months."

"Oh. My. God." She gaped at him. "You have to carry around a baby for almost two years?"

"Well, I'm already a month along." He sighed. "So call it twenty months from now till I deliver. Advanced brains require a longer gestational period, you see."

"And exactly how..." She looked him over thoughtfully. "I don't quite recall seeing... well, how exactly do you deliver the baby?"

"You really do not want to know."

She decided he was probably right about that, and patted his shoulder sympathetically instead of pressing for detaills. "How are we going to get you through this, Doctor? I'm no obstetrician, and we can hardly check you into a hospital in London. But you can't give birth by yourself on the TARDIS, either. What are we going to do?"

He frowned for a moment, then his expression lightened.

"Martha," he said. "Martha Jones. If I get all the literature I have on Gallifreyan obstetrics to her, she'll have plenty of time to learn all there is to know about it by the time the baby's ready to be born. She can be Earth's leading expert on the subject."

"Earth's only expert on the subject, you mean. Okay. That sounds like a plan." She watched as he turned back to the toilet and sicked up some more, and frowned, swallowing uncomfortably against the nausea she could feel emanating from him. "Are you absolutely certain you're pregnant?"

"Checked myself in the med bay. The results were conclusive." He sighed. "We're going to have a baby, Donna."

She couldn't help the delighted smile that broke over her face. "I don't mind. I love babies, and there's no one I'd rather have a baby with."

He gazed up at her, all dark eyes and hopeful expression. "Really?"

"Really," she told him, and gently brushed the hair off his damp forehead. She refrained from adding that the absolute best part of this situation was that she was going to get a baby without having to be the one who went through pregnancy. She could tell through their mental bond that morning sickness was a symptom she'd just as soon never cope with.

He looked mournful. "But I'm going to get so... huge."

"That," she said, looking at his skinny form, "I'm actually looking forward to seeing."

"How exactly can I save worlds if I'm waddling? I'm going to have backaches! Swollen ankles! Varicose veins!" He groaned. "I'm going to be the Pregnant Oncoming Storm! Doesn't have quite the same ring to it, does it? The Oncoming Storm is not supposed to be pregnant, Donna!"

"You'll find a way," she said, stroking his hair. "I have faith in you. You'll manage it somehow. But by the end, you're going to have to resign yourself to doing a bit less running, for sure."

"The Daleks will laugh at me."

"Doubtful. They don't have much of a sense of humour."

"The Sontarans will mock me."

"You've mocked them for being short often enough. Turnabout is fair play, if you ask me."

"I'm going to be useless," he said with a moan, "absolutely useless. I might as well just resign myself to spending the next twenty months knitting booties, or something."

"Hey." She smacked him on the shoulder, very gently, so as not to upset his stomach any further. "Do you seriously think the entire female population of Earth becomes useless when they're pregnant? That every woman on Earth just sits down and knits booties for nine months?"

"Well... no. Of course not."

"Then quit your whingeing," she said tartly. "If Earth women can find a way to carry on when they're pregnant, then a Time Lord can manage it, too."

"I just..." He lowered his head and spoke in a voice barely above a whisper. "I had quite a few children, Donna, but they were all... loomed. I've never actually been pregnant before."

"I'll help you through it." she said, gently stroking his hair. "Don't be scared, Doctor."

He lifted his chin with an attempt at his usual arrogance. "I'm not scared." He caught her eye, apparently saw she wasn't fooled, and dropped his head again. "I'm terrified," he admitted in a small voice.

"It'll be okay. I'll be here to hold your hand and help, the whole time. It's the least I can do, considering I'm the one who got you up the duff to begin with."

She saw the slightest curve of his mouth. "That was really all my fault, Donna. You asked-- and I told you it was safe--"

"You made a mistake." She patted him. "But not a bad one, not really. I've always wanted a baby."

"Yeah." He lifted his head, and his eyes went unfocussed and distant, as if he was seeing other times, and children from long, long ago. "Babies are nice. Very, very nice."

"Well, babies are nice when you have them with the right bloke." She reached down and took his hand, squeezing it. "And you're definitely the right bloke, Doctor."

He paused, considering that, then brightened.

"Yep." He popped the P, and offered her his cockiest smile. "I am, aren't I?"

"You egotistical prawn." She whacked at him, very gently, and he chuckled.

"Well," he said, looking a little more cheerful. "So much for our agreement about not mating, eh? I mean, we already pretty much blew it to smithereens, honestly, but this kind of puts the capper on it, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, it does," she said, and grinned, feeling very, very cheerful herself. "It really does. You have to give us credit for that, I reckon. When we mate... we really mate."

-The End-