Our Baby Has a Head!
"Come on, Ianto, push!" Owen ordered his patient.
Ianto gripped his husband's hand even harder as he bore down with next contraction. 'How the hell do women do this?!' he asked himself incredulously as he worked to push his unborn child out into the world.
As he tried to catch his breath another contraction crashed through his body and he had no choice but to push again. It felt like he was trying to shove out a full-grown Weevil, not a tiny baby! 'Damn Jack and his over-active libido, anyway!'
"This is all your fault!" he yelled. Well, at least he tried to; the words actually came out as more of a pathetic moan.
"What?" Jack looked confused. "What about the vaults?"
Ianto managed to suck in a bit of air. "You are never touching me again, Jack Harkness-Jones!" This time he roared at the top of his lungs, ignoring the sound of feminine laughter that came from the upper level of the Hub.
Jack ran a soothing hand through Ianto's sweat-soaked hair and then he passed a cold, damp cloth over his lover's face. "I won't, I promise," he replied. "Never, ever again."
Even in the middle of childbirth, Ianto Jones managed to roll his eyes. He tried, he really did, but he was just too damned tired to think up a pithy comeback.
Owen's head popped up from between Ianto's legs and he grinned encouragingly. "One more push, Tea-Boy, and you'll pass the head!"
Right on cue, another contraction tore its way through his body and Ianto could feel something big… huge… enormous even, suddenly pop out. He closed his eyes and fell back against the pillows, out of breath and out of strength. Nineteen hours had passed since he'd experienced his first labour pain and his doubts about whether he could continue the process his body had begun were at their peak.
"Good job!" Owen cheered. "On the next contraction, I want you to give it all you've got, Ianto, and then it should be over!"
'Yeah, yeah,' Ianto groused silently. 'You find something to give, you bloody twpsyn… I'm done!'
"Oh, my sweet Goddess, Ianto!"
Jack's voice suddenly seemed farther away than before and Ianto opened his eyes to find out why. 'Well, that explains that.' Jack was now standing down by Owen and he was staring awe-struck, his mouth literally hanging open, at something Ianto couldn't see.
Jack looked up and caught Ianto's eye. "A head, Yan," he spoke with a tone of pure awe in his voice, and then he crowed excitedly, "our baby has a head!"
Owen's own head snapped around and he couldn't stop the words from exiting his lips. "Jack, you're such an idiot! Of course, it has a head. It's Tea-Boy's baby, so it probably has a brain too, no thanks to you!"
Too late the doctor saw the look of bewildered but intense hurt cross the immortal's face and he felt uncharacteristically guilty. "Jack, I'm sorry, really, mate. It was supposed to be a joke." For a second, Owen thought he saw Jack's lower lip quiver; 'oh, God, please don't cry! Please!'
"Hey, guys?" Ianto called out in a weak voice. He was in the beginning throes of a contraction that was threatening to tear his body apart. "A little help here, please?" His last words were almost a shriek as pain like he'd never felt before centred itself between his legs. "AAAHHHH!"
Instantly Jack was back at his side, helping to support him as he tried to double over with the pain and the pressure and the pushing.
"Hold up… Just a second…" Owen muttered, "Let me get…"
Ianto could feel Owen doing something down there and then the doctor said,
"Last push, Ianto! Come on, mate, push. PUSH!"
Exhausted, Ianto shook his head. "No… can't…"
"Yes, you can, Yan. I'm right here and in just a second our baby will be right here with us," Jack whispered in his ear. "Our baby, Yan, one we made together." He leaned closer and kissed Ianto, taking the opportunity to push a little of his never-ending life force into his lover's struggling body.
"OI!" Owen exclaimed loudly. "Fool around later! Push now!"
Ianto looked up at Jack, into blue eyes that glistened with unshed happy tears. He tightened his hand around Jack's, and as the next contraction came, he rode the wave of pain like a surfer, Jack's gift allowing him to rise above it and use his remaining strength to push his child out rather than waste it fighting the pain itself.
"It's a boy!" Owen held the infant up 'Lion King'-style so that Ianto could see him above the sheet. "Jack, come and cut the cord and we'll get him cleaned up!"
With a blinding, ear-to-ear grin, Jack rushed over and accepted the scissors Owen offered. "Right between the clamps, Jack."
Ianto lay against the pillows, tears streaming from the corners of his eyes. 'It's a boy! I've given Jack a son.' He closed his eyes and offered a silent prayer of gratitude to anyone on high who might be listening.
"Tosh!" Owen bellowed. "A little help?"
Once he'd gone into active labour and nothing covered his private parts but a small sheet, Ianto had banished the girls from the 'Birthing Room', as he'd christened the autopsy bay in a pique of pregnancy hormones. "I am not having my baby in the same room as all of Owen's dead things!" he'd declared haughtily before marching down to his Archives.
Tosh and Gwen were at the former's desk; they had watched the birth – from a discrete angle, of course – on the big-screen monitor. Now that it was over, Toshiko was allowed to return to the area. As part of Ianto's birth plan, it was her job to take Baby Harkness-Jones and get him or her cleaned up, weighed and measured. Then she would have the honour of handing the infant over to his proud parents for his or her first cuddle.
"Yan?" Jack's voice was soft as he ran his hand along Ianto's cheek, his touch was as gentle as could be. "How are… erm, I mean… can I get you anything?"
Ianto opened weary eyes and smiled at his lover. "I'm all right, Cariad; it's okay to ask me now." Earlier in his labour he'd threatened to cut off Jack's favourite body part and feed it to Janet if Jack asked him one more time how he was doing.
Jack smiled brightly. "You are so beautiful and so brilliant, Yan, and I don't think I've ever loved you more than I do right now."
"Oh, Jack, I…"
"Ahem…" A soft voice at Jack's elbow interrupted Ianto's reply. "May I interest either of you in a cuddle with your little one?" Tosh slipped their newborn son onto Ianto's chest and then quietly moved away.
Ianto carefully wrapped his arms around their baby and pulled him closer. Together he and Jack peered at the tiny face peeking back them from his blue receiving blanket.
'He has Jack's blue eyes.' "He's beautiful…"
'He has Ianto's pert nose.' "He's perfect…"
Jack and Ianto spoke at the same time, then stopped and looked at one another.
"Thank you, Cariad, thank you so much for making this possible." Ianto's eyes shimmered as he looked at Jack.
"No, thank you, Yan, for giving me the greatest gift ever." Tears ran unchecked down Jack's cheeks as he caressed his son's face with a trembling fingertip.
Loath to interrupt the new parents, Owen knew he couldn't wait any longer. "Ianto, a quick push to expel the afterbirth and then your body should start returning to normal, okay?"
"When you say normal…" Nosy Gwen piped up from the railing. "Does that mean his lady parts will go away?"
Tosh could only stare at her team-mate, aghast at how personal the question was. "Gwen, that's hardly any of your business!"
However, Owen – always the practical man when it came to medical topics and always the first to speak without thinking – paused in his cleaning of Ianto's lower body to consider her question. "As far as I can tell from the data Martha gave us, the uterus and ovaries will stay but the vagina and cervix will be absorbed into the surrounding flesh. If he ever gets pregnant again, and I still don't understand how that happened without either of those parts in the first place, his body will regrow them."
Over their son's head, Jack and Ianto's eyes met. 'Next time?!' they both asked silently. Jack nodded 'yes' eagerly while Ianto vehemently shook his head 'no', although he did it with a smile.
'Maybe…'
end