Title: Pros and Cons
Summary: It's 2014, and Martha and Mickey are working for the rebuilt Torchwood. Martha is pregnant, and she's not sure what to do. Gwen might be of some help.
Rating: T for some mature themes
Word Count: 1191
Disclaimer: The British Broadcasting Corporation owns Torchwood and Doctor Who and all related characters, settings, and trademarks. I do not profit in any way from this material.
Pairings: mentions of Martha/Mickey, mentions of Rhys/Gwen
Contains: pregnancy, post-Miracle Day
Warnings: Abortion mention
Martha wanted to sleep for a month. In her ideal world, she'd wake up and it would all have been a dream and everyone would be happy and everything would be fine, but in this world, she hoped that if she slept for a month, she'd wake up refreshed enough to make the right decision on her own.
She couldn't sleep for a month, though. That would be unhealthy, impractical, and extremely inconvenient for her husband and for her dearest friends. She needed to just make a choice.
She sat there at her desk and stared down at the blank sheet of paper before her. She'd lied to Mickey—told him she wanted a second look at some things on her last autopsy report—and gone into work to mull over her problem. She hadn't told him yet, and she didn't want to tell him until she'd decided how she felt about it. She didn't want him getting his hopes up about this if she was just going to decide that she didn't want it. "Mickey, I'm getting an abortion," was a very different conversation starter than "Mickey, I'm pregnant." He'd support her in the former case and be happy in the latter case, she knew that, but she didn't want him to get ahead of her.
She'd thought she might make a list of pros and cons, but first she had to get past the mental block and actually pick up the pen. There was something that felt so final about actually starting to write, though. It would shoot her 'go to bed and hope the problem would be gone when she woke up' plan straight to Hell. She was not going to wake up and just not be pregnant anymore, and she wasn't really sure she wanted to. She and Mickey had never talked about kids, but they both liked kids. They babysat for Gwen's girls all the time.
She sighed. She drew a line down the center of the page, wrote 'Pros' at the top of one column and 'Cons' at the top of the other, and then put a bullet and 'like kids' in the 'Pros' column, followed immediately by 'Gwen has kids,' which sounded like a silly thing to take into consideration, but what she really meant was that Gwen proved that it could be done. On the other hand... she wrote 'Both work for Torchwood,' under 'Cons.' Rhys didn't work for Torchwood. For the last few years, he'd been working from home. Having kids had worked out so well for Gwen in no small part because Rhys was always at home to make sure they were still taken care of whenever Gwen had to stay out until sunrise to save the world. Martha and Mickey both worked for Torchwood. Whenever there was a crisis, they were both liable to work 20-hour days. They'd have to get a nanny, and they'd have to be willing to work ridiculous hours on short notice. That wouldn't come cheap. Martha stuck 'Expensive nanny' in the Cons column.
"So how far along are you?"
"Jesus!" Martha actually jumped, and almost knocked over her coffee. "How long have you been there?"
"Just a few seconds," Gwen said, moving around Martha and sitting on Martha's desk. She had her own cup of coffee in her hands. "How far along?"
"Six weeks," Martha said. "Found out from one of our scanners while doing the last autopsy." Martha looked down at her list for a minute, sighed, and looked up at Gwen. "Do you think I should keep it?"
"I don't think that's a choice anyone but you can make," Gwen said. "Have you told Mickey yet?"
Martha shook her head. "I don't want to get him excited if I'm just going to decide that I want to have an abortion, you know?"
Gwen nodded. "I understand." She took a sip of her coffee and looked at Martha calmly. "I never thought it would happen for me, once I started working for Torchwood. It was hard enough to juggle Torchwood and Rhys, let alone Torchwood, Rhys, and children. With Anwen, though, I knew I wanted her. Had a few moments of doubt, but the general feeling was that we were ready for it. Everything was changing back then anyway. Torchwood was shut down. It was nice to have that hope to cling to. And then with Elain, I hadn't really planned to have another, but I got pregnant and it just felt right."
Things had, of course, been very different during Gwen's second pregnancy than they had during her first. Torchwood was rebuilt. Martha and Mickey had enjoyed being on their own, but when Jack and Gwen had called them up and said they needed them to establish Torchwood, they'd jumped at the chance. The four of them worked well together, and since they really didn't have much of a hierarchy, joining the rebuilt Torchwood hadn't involved surrendering much autonomy. Now, Torchwood was running as smoothly as it ever had, and with a lot more transparency. The base was also much nicer, and everyone was glad of that.
"Was it rough, taking all that time off work?" Martha asked. "You were out for more than a year."
Gwen shrugged. "It was rough in some ways. Nice in others. Sometimes it's nice to not know what's going on. And I loved being able to stay home with Rhys and the girls..."
"I'd be home alone for most of my pregnancy," Martha pointed out.
"You could visit your parents."
Martha smiled a little. "Suppose I could. But Jack called Rex in to fill in for you a few times. Rex can't just fill in for me."
"UNIT would send someone, when we really needed them," Gwen said. "We've gotten on without doctors before, and we mostly managed by sending a lot of the work off to UNIT."
"You'd all hate that," Martha said. "I hate having UNIT officials meddling in our cases, and I used to be one of them!"
"We'd put up with it for you and your baby," Gwen said. "It would only be as a last resort. Hell, if you wanted to, you could probably come in once in a while, when you felt up to it. We'd have to talk it over with them, but it's your body and you're the doctor. I don't think any of us are more qualified to assess whether or not you can do it than you are."
"That would be nice," Martha said. "It would keep things interesting for me, at least, and I'd sleep better knowing that you don't have UNIT in your hair."
Gwen smiled. "So there it is. You should probably tell Mickey before you tell Jack, though."
Martha smiled. "I will. Should I do it when he comes in for work, or is this the sort of announcement that you make over dinner?"
Gwen shrugged. "However you want, but I don't recommend waiting. Honestly? I just called Rhys while I was at work to let him know about Elain, as soon as you showed me the scans. He'll be happy however you tell him."