dr_robchase | [For Gwen]

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[For Gwen] - Post-Dinos

He had told the Doctor that he should go, find the others, see if everyone was okay. Of course he hadn't meant a word of it, had really meant stay, please don't leave me, please, please, please. But then, when recently engaged and rescued from dinosaurs, exhausted with low blood sugar and a wound on his hip deep enough to earn its own name (the Grand Chase Canyon), he really wasn't in the best headspace.

So he had pushed the Doctor to go do his things, because he had to learn sometime. And anyway, he was wrapped in massive blankets, only his eyes and forehead and hair peeking out from under, half-asleep and swathed in protective cotton and linens.

It felt nice.

Even if he didn't want to close his eyes too much, for fear he'd be yanked right back to Mr. T-Rex.

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Gwen's been there, of course, as long as she's been back, still half-mad with worry. When the Doctor descends, she takes that as her opportunity to go up, and passes him on the staircase without a single word and only the briefest of acknowledgments.

Spying Rob bundled up in the middle of the bed, Gwen wonders how he's not suffocating from the heat of it all. "Rob?" she quietly calls, sidling up next to the bed to peer worriedly down at him. "Sweetheart?"

Chase opened his eyes fully to peer at Gwen, eyes bright and blue and wide, almost like his facial expression is that of a little boy and he keeps tight, feeling cold yet (still chased by a shiver here or there). But when he saw Gwen, he lit up, completely.

"You have no idea," he said, voice slightly shaking, even though it was clear he didn't want it to and it was a physical reaction, "how good it is to see you."

"Ohhh," Gwen laughs, "I think I have an idea." Without giving it a moment's thought, she tugs back the covers and crawls into bed beside Rob, mindful not to jostle him, as she's not certain if he's been injured much. "Aren't you hot under here?" she asks, picking fretfully at the blankets.

He shook his head, still staring at her a little forlornly and like a little boy. Mostly because he can. "My blood sugar hit a really, really low crash," he said, speaking softly, like he didn't want to get overhead. "Between that and the blood loss, I'm..." He gave a laugh, almost surprised. "Well, I'm sort of freezing."

He stared at her, reaching over his right hand to brush her hair away and to lean in and kiss the corner of her lips, very slow and delicate and gentle. When he eased away, he hadn't stopped looking earnest. "Gwen, I love you," he swore. "I know I suck at saying it, but I do. You're amazing to me. You act like an actual friend and like you like me and aren't just putting up with me and I love you for it."

He'd learned. He'd learned to say what was underneath.

And then he hugged her. Tight.

And didn't let go.

Overwhelmed by emotion, Gwen can only hug him back and try to swallow back the grateful tears burning in her eyes. "Oh Rob, oh sweetheart," she murmurs, petting against his hair. "I love you, too. Thank you for telling me. Thank you so much."

What he's feeling now, she knows intimately. She understands how an experience like that seems to open your heart like a door, and fill you up with so much gratefulness that you feel you might burst from it.

"I won't let you go, sweetheart," she murmurs fiercely against Rob's hair. "I promise you."

It wasn't as though he intended to let go the way he did, but he started to cry when she was replying to him, so open, so much with the loving him back, like it was just so easy and he couldn't even stand it. How could people grow up with this and take it for granted? Chase, who had never had one constant source of parental love, couldn't understand it.

He sniffled, a long and deep breath in to try and mask it as an inhalation. "God, Gwen," he exhaled. "I'm petrified. I couldn't sleep. The Doctor asked me to, he...he said for him, but I couldn't."

The tears aren't unexpected, and for a moment, Gwen simply lets Rob have it out, still petting consolingly against his hair. She'll not shush him or ask him not to cry, not unless it physically hurts him, because she understands that sometimes you just need to have a good cry out.

"Sod him," she replies decisively of the Doctor. "He's been part of the reason I couldn't sleep. You and I will lay here together and not worry about it." Even if she melts in the process.

Chase furrowed his brow slightly, easing back just enough from Gwen to look her in the eyes, his own gaze going over and over her face and he had stopped crying as he settled, just trembling a little. He needed another sugar spike soon.

"Gwen," he spoke, quietly, with some hesitating, because this was gonna be awkward, maybe. "We're engaged."

Gwen rears back at that, her green eyes widening. "You're what?!" she blurts, not giving a toss if she's being completely tactless. "Since WHEN?!"

He stared back at her, not sure what to say because at first, he'd been completely taken off guard, because shouting and panic was not good. "Uh." He fumbled for a sense of time, shaking his head. "Hours ago?"

Gwen's mouth opens, then clamps shut again after a few seconds' worth of faltering. "Oh, Rob," she says, and damn if she's not crying again for what feels like the millionth time in three days, because she knows.

She knows what it does to you, an experience like that.

Her hug is abrupt, but she tries to be gentle about it, although it's difficult because she wants to squeeze him tight, as if the depth of her emotion can somehow be transferred to the physical. "Congratulations."

He wasn't sure if he did something wrong. The reaction time was still delayed in his head and he wondered, for a second, if she was crying because he'd fucked it all up, but then she was hugging him and hell, he just wanted to be held at that point, so he hugged right back, burrowing his face into her neck and her hair. "Thank you," he murmured, muffled by skin and hair.

When he eased back to breathe again, he looked her in the eyes. "You're the first to know."

"I damned well better be!" Gwen replied with a rather watery laugh as she wiped hastily at her cheeks and smiled back at Rob. "Oh, honey, I'm so happy for you," she said, and took his face in her hands so that she could place a swift, sisterly kiss to his mouth. "Your fiancé is a wanker, but I'm happy for you anyway."

He was surprised by all the kisses and hugging, but it wasn't phasing him so he just laughed and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pushing the blanket off as he rested his forehead to her hair. "He's not a wanker, he saved my life," he protested, spitting hair out of his mouth when it got lodged there.

He shifted slightly, scratching at the bandage as he wrapped his arms around Gwen's midsection, just hugging as he settled again.

"He is a wanker, he worried me half-senseless," Gwen protests, neglecting to add that she was currently punishing him for it by refusing to speak to him. "Taking off alone, refusing to wait."

Chase just gave her a big show of puppy-dog eyes, staring up at her forlornly. "But he saved my liife," he countered.

"If it took him this long, he could have waited thirty minutes. We might have found you faster as a group." Of course, they'd not found him at all, but that wasn't the point. The point was that the Doctor was a wanker.

He let his lip slip out, just a little now as he stared up at Gwen, giving her full-on puppy-dog eyes and pouting.

"Not going to work," Gwen insists, and tugs Rob a bit closer so that her face is against his shoulder and she doesn't have to look at his pout. "He's made his bed, he'll have to lay in it."

Chase let out a soft sigh. "Okay, fine, but so long as you aren't mad at me because I almost died and I dunno if I can deal with m-mad Gwen," he teased, even as his teeth chattered and he reached for the toffee by the bedside.

"Why would I be mad at you?" Gwen asks, and tugs the blankets up around Rob and tucks them in. "It's not as though you could help it. Have you been to the clinic yet?"

He shook his head. "Nuh uh, won't go," he said stubbornly. "Not gonna leave because if I let anyone out of my sight, then I might go back. I stitched myself up and the Doctor helped. Sorry, my wanker fiance," he corrected himself.

"Rob." She's addressing him in That Tone. The one mothers use when their children have disappointed them and they want them to know it. "You know better."

Chase gave her a look in turn. "Gwen," he said, very seriously. "I'm a very good intensivist and your head says so. I did fine."

"You're lucky you're already hurt, or I'd smack you," Gwen replies with a low huff and wriggles out from under the blankets, not wanting to get heat stroke. This is also another strike against the Doctor, that he'd allowed it.

Not only allowed it, but had finished the job for him.

"One tiny injury and a dip in blood sugar," he protested, resting with her as he started to get a little hot, but not too much. "Besides, you shouldn't smack the near-dead. We get mad."

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[For Gwen] - Post-Dinos

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