[For Gwen] - Sunday Morning

[dr_robchase]

He'd tugged a lot of things along with him that Sunday morning. After booting the Doctor out of the room with a playful foot to his behind, he'd gotten Gwen, the cookies, muffins, and some crossword puzzles from Sarah Jane before settling in for the morning, locking the door for privacy and keeping the little terrace door open.

It was lazy, as per usual, but Chase liked to think he only worked in lazy. Except for the fact that instead of doing his crossword puzzle, he kept straining his neck to memorize definitions from the psychiatric textbook he had on the bed, a couple feet from Gwen.

"So, you still avoiding me?" he teased, barely glancing up as he fed Atalanta several crumbs of the muffin.

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[dr_robchase]

But Chase didn't move at all, just tightened his embrace around her, like a rock, really, sitting atop. "Nope," he said decisively. He pressed his lips to her hair. "See, cuz, I wanna talk with the eventual mother of my child, if you're serious."

[be-normal.livejournal.com]

"Stop it," Gwen snaps, frowning. "Don't placate me, Rob, I'm not in the mood." Realizing that he outweighs her and she won't be able to escape until he deems it so, she's stopped moving, and is staring across the room with annoyance.

[dr_robchase]

He scoffed. "Placating you? Gwen, the only reason I'm not marking you down in my calendar as 'getting knocked up by me' is because Peter will be pissed, it's a huge commitment and I'm..." he trailed off, hesitating, "well, I'm not sure you're not just saying it to placate me."

[be-normal.livejournal.com]

"You think I don't know how big a commitment it is?" Gwen shoots back, swinging her gaze around to Rob. "That I've not given any thought to how big a risk it is to have children in this place?" She swallows hard, but her eyes are suddenly shining with unshed tears anyway. As Rob's likely clued into already, this isn't really about him not asking her to have his baby.

[dr_robchase]

And he understood, all too easily and very suddenly and felt horrible all at once. "Gwen," he said quietly, trying to only hug her tighter. "Tell me? About what you've thought? What you want?"

[be-normal.livejournal.com]

Gwen's face crumples a bit, and she finally hugs Rob back, turning her face in against his neck. "I've wanted a family so long," she mumbles. "Even before I came here. And now Tosh is having a baby, and it's not fair. It's not fair." It's purely selfish on her part, and irrational besides, but Gwen's never been especially rational as a rule.

[dr_robchase]

"Jay has a daughter," he pointed out, so quiet that it might as well have been inaudible. "And a soon-to-be-wife. Trust me, Gwen," he spoke, words only for her, "when I say I understand how unfair things are." He gave her a weak smile, stroking her hair from off her face, just a little. "Maybe I'm stupid, but I think your time's not up yet at all. And you'll get it."

[be-normal.livejournal.com]

"I should be happy for her," Gwen sighs, and then grits her teeth, her jaw flexing. "But it's Owen. Owen." Which is insult to injury, really.

Leaning back, she shakes her head in dismay at herself. "I don't want to push Peter away," she explains. "Rhys and I had been together years and had only casually discussed children. I've been with Peter four months." Logically, she knows this should make a difference. Should encourage her to divert her attentions elsewhere. But there's a very large part of her that's insisting it's long enough, because she knows. For the first time in her life, she knows that she doesn't want to be with anyone else. For the first time, she's looking at a man and not thinking that she wants a child, but that she wants his child, and it's been an overwhelming epiphany for her.

[dr_robchase]

"Gwen, don't psyche yourself out because time is no constant," he reminded her. "I mean, four months is a long time. Four months can be the end of a lifetime for a cancer patient or...or the changing of the entire world. Four months is no petty bit."

[be-normal.livejournal.com]

Eyes downcast, Gwen bites furtively against her bottom lip. Rob's words mingle with Jack's in her mind, and then with her own as she insisted to Peter that she didn't want to lie anymore. This, she knows, is as good as a lie. Holding everything inside, keeping from him what she's feeling. Waiting for the other shoe to drop and sabotaging herself when it doesn't.

"Alright," she quietly relents, not looking up.

[dr_robchase]

He idly gave her back a simple rub, easing away and collapsing on the bed, staring at her upside-down from where he was. "If you want it, you deserve it," he insisted firmly. "Says me."