On Raising a Child the Torchwood Way
Author: Milady Dragon
Disclaimer: I don't own Torchwood; I would have treated it better.
Author's Note: I don't normally post on Sundays, because of my work schedule, but as it's badly_knited's birthday I'm taking a little time out before I collapse from exhaustion (Sundays are are twelve-hour work day for me).
Happy Birthday! Hope you like this little trip into the On-Verse!
This is also a direct sequel to "On What to do With a Drunken TARDIS".
It had been a quiet two weeks for Torchwood, which was why Ianto should have expected the weird shit to start happening at any time.
He first noticed something wrong when he decided that Jack's desk needed more paperwork on it. Of course, if Jack would simply do it in the first place, it wouldn't pile up like it currently was, and a part of Ianto wondered if the joy of colour-coding the paperwork had finally worn off, which meant it would only be a matter of time before all the post-its he'd bought would become just one more thing in a long line of office supplies turned sex aids. He knew Jack, and knew it wouldn't have lasted long, but he'd been hoping that it might have gone at least a year before Jack got tired of it and gave it up as a lost cause.
It just meant that Ianto would have to start bribing his lover again with either coffee or sex to get it finished before it grew legs and walked away.
Yes, this is Torchwood. That could conceivably happen.
And so, on that particular day, when Jack was out – most likely looking heroic whilst standing on a very tall building – Ianto brought in a new stack that would overflow Jack's inbox and, if he wasn't careful, would spill all over the floor the first time Jack swished in without taking off his coat first.
Not that Ianto didn't enjoy watching Jack swish. It could be quite a distracting sight.
It was a tribute to Ianto knowing everything that went on in the Hub that he recognised something was off immediately upon stepping into the office.
The Welshman stopped, one foot over the threshold…and then he backed out again. Ianto went back to his own desk, deposited the paperwork with a mental reminder to take it back when things were back to normal – well, as normal as it was for Torchwood – and then pulled out his mobile, speed-dialling Jack.
"Hey, gorgeous," Jack answered almost immediately. Ianto could hear the faint sound of the wind whistling over the connection, which confirmed the entire 'being heroic on a tall building' thing. "Miss me?"
He sounded so confident of Ianto's answer that the Welshman wondered why he was even bothering to ask. Therefore, he chose not to answer.
Instead he said, "Jack, is the coral in your office supposed to be glowing?"
"It's never done that before," Jack commented.
If it was possible for the entire team to fit into the doorway of Jack's office, they'd all have been watching the coral on Jack's desk glow with a faint, golden light that was surprisingly aesthetically pleasing, at least in Ianto's opinion.
Of course, innocuous pieces of coral weren't supposed to behave that way. At least, not terrestrial coral. As this was Torchwood, there was no telling where Jack had picked it up from.
Jack had shown no fear of it, and had walked right up to the softly glowing coral, staring down at it as if he was expecting it to something amazing. Maybe he was. As far as Ianto was aware, Jack was the only person in the Hub who knew what it was, and he hadn't shared that knowledge.
But then, Ianto hadn't actually asked. He was sure Jack would have told him if he'd shown an interest in the coral besides thinking it was pretty but that it took up too much room on Jack's desk, when there could have been even more paperwork in its place.
Jack might have once claimed that Torchwood ran on coffee…that was patently false. Torchwood ran on the corpses of the many trees that had been killed in order to generate all the forms the team needed to fill out every day.
"What is it, Jack?" Gwen demanded.
Andy silently passed a twenty pound note over to Ianto. Honestly, the were-rabbit should have known better than to accept Ianto's wager that Gwen would be the first to ask that question.
"It's supposedly a piece of a TARDIS," Jack answered, almost absently. "I found it in the Archives here about a hundred years ago. I recognised it, and confiscated it."
That made sense. Emily Holroyd and Alice Guppy, not-so-lovingly nicknamed the Torchwood Lesbians, certainly hadn't needed to know that the Rift had burped out part of a time and space machine.
"It's grown a bit over the years," Jack went on. "Although I have no idea why it's glowing now." He reached down and picked it up, cradling it against his chest.
Ianto remembered when Jack had found it in the wreckage of the Hub, just as they were starting the rebuilding. Of course, now he knew why Jack had treated it like it was the Doctor's hand all over again, without the obvious, sexually charged, fondling.
That hand had been somewhat disturbing.
Ianto was glad that Jack had never suggested a threesome with it.
"Does this mean it's going to change into a big blue box?" Andy inquired.
"No," Jack denied. "The TARDISes all have a chameleon circuit, which lets it become whatever form it needs to in order to blend in."
"Then someone should tell the Doctor that police boxes went out of fashion about a decade ago," the former copper snarked.
No one responded…well, except for Ianto, who rolled his eyes, which according to Jack spoke far louder than anything he could have said.
Besides, he wasn't about to say anything against the TARDIS. She was his favourite saucy minx, after all. She also had a lovely mental singing voice and the ability to filk drinking songs. Even if the lyrics were odes to Jack and himself.
Actually, Ianto was a bit proud of that. Not that he was going to admit to it.
"You gonna snuggle that all day then?" Mickey asked. He sounded bored, but then Mickey often was where things about the Doctor were concerned. Ianto knew that history, and didn't really blame him for it. It must have gotten tiresome to hear an ex-girlfriend going on about how great the Time Lord was.
Jack, being the adult he was, promptly stuck his tongue out and said, "Jealous?"
"Bloody hell no," Mickey scoffed. "I'm going back to work if the only thing we're gonna do is stand here and watch nothing happening."
That seemed to break up the party in the doorway, leaving Jack and Ianto alone in the office. Well, as alone as two men with an alien coral could be.
Ianto had to wonder if this coral was sentient, like the TARDIS was. Did it know what he and Jack had gotten up to in this office? Should he be embarrassed by that?
Ianto considered.
Actually, he had absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about, and was just going to ignore the fact that the pair of them had done the filthiest acts imaginable in front of a proto time machine that may or may not have been taking notes on their technique.
"So," he finally spoke, "just what do we do now?"
Jack's eyes snapped up to Ianto's, and they had a rather sappy expression in them. "Isn't she adorable?" he cooed.
Alright, that wasn't what Ianto was expecting.
But then, ever since they'd learned that the two of them had gotten the TARDIS pregnant Jack had had bouts of paternal feelings. And this was, after all, a baby TARDIS. Jack had to have been thinking of their own child, out in the universe somewhere, being carried by its mother as the Doctor did his travelling. The Doctor had claimed that the gestation period for a TARDIS could have been centuries, so it would be a long time before they actually got to meet their son or daughter.
At least he and Jack had that sort of time. Personally, Ianto couldn't wait, and thought the Doctor was being completely unreasonable in making them wait. After all, the TARDIS was a time machine…
There were times when, despite the fact that Ianto tolerated the Eleventh Doctor much more than the Tenth, that he wanted to slap him into his next regeneration. He only refrained because there was no telling just what they'd get with the Twelfth.
Ianto was, quite truthfully, dreading it.
"I suppose this could be practice for when the TARDIS has ours," Ianto mused. Not that raising a coral would be strange, but this was Torchwood and they ate strange for breakfast.
Well, maybe not. Ianto himself had had coffee and a croissant with this really tasty strawberry jam. And then he'd brought in pastries, of which he'd had two. And the pizza for lunch…
It was really a good thing he was immortal, and would lose the weight as soon as he died the next time. It wasn't a weight loss plan he'd recommend to just anyone, of course. But then he remembered Lisa as once telling him that 'diet' had the word 'die' in it, and that should tell them all something.
There were days when he still missed Lisa. Ianto suspected he always would.
"Although," he added, "I flatly refuse to buy a pram and take it for a walk."
Jack snorted. "That's just ridiculous. Of course, we won't do that." Then he grinned. "Although I do have some ideas for the nursery…"
That didn't surprise Ianto one bit. He and Jack were going to have to discuss just what was proper behaviour in raising an alien coral…of course that meant there was actually that sort of thing…
The very unmistakable sound of the TARDIS arriving echoed through the Hub, causing Myfanwy to raise a ruckus and for Mickey to start cursing and leave the room, as was his wont when the Doctor arrived. Mickey could hold a grudge better than anyone Ianto knew, and he was fine with it.
No, Ianto wasn't about to admit that he'd been cuddling the baby coral in his arms at the time, seated in Jack's chair and rocking gently. And no, that wasn't a baby blanket it was swaddled in, either.
Damnit, Jack had gotten to him.
At this rate, Ianto would descend into childishness in about a century. Well, he wouldn't go quietly, that was for sure.
He hadn't had a chance to set the coral back onto its little rack under the heat lamp that Jack had set up before the Doctor was striding into the office, his face into that expression that the Time Lord thought of as his Oncoming Storm visage but, in Ianto's opinion, just made him look constipated. He wasn't at all impressed by it.
The bow tie and the fez didn't help, either.
Ianto had to wonder if the Doctor became more immature the older he got. He did prefer this version to the last, but he'd carried over the whole 'spoilers' crap into this regeneration and Ianto didn't care for it one bit. And now, the Doctor had caught him with the TARDIS coral treating it like a baby and Ianto would have to regain his lost dignity.
It was a pain in the arse.
"And what are you doing with that?" the Doctor demanded as he came to a halt in front of Jack's desk, his body twitching and his hands waving as if he was directing an invisible orchestra.
Ianto looked up at him, keeping up his cradling of the TARDIS coral because he'd been busted anyway, and he might as well pretend he wasn't doing something that could be construed as insane. He raised an eyebrow, daring the Doctor to make any sort of comment that would cast aspersions on either his manhood or his mental state.
"And just why are you so suddenly concerned about this?" he asked instead of directly answering the question, since any sort of response most likely would have him looking like an idiot. He clutched the coral closer, even before he knew he was doing it, realising that he was afraid that the Doctor would take it away, and had to consciously relax his grip.
The Doctor's mouth opened, then closed, but nothing came out. Ianto smirked. He loved making the Doctor speechless.
"That," he finally spat out, "is a TARDIS coral! You shouldn't have that!"
Ianto shrugged. "Jack's had it for about a century. Why are you so bothered by it now?"
Something was up. Ianto didn't have to be a psychic or anything to see it. The Doctor didn't just show up in the Hub for no reason, and that coral had been there every time the Time Lord had stopped by previously.
But then, it hadn't been glowing any of those times, either.
The Doctor did the whole goldfish thing again; personally, Ianto thought that Gwen did it so much better. "What do you mean," he spluttered indignantly, "Jack's had her for about a century?"
Ianto narrowed his eyes. He was pretty sure that the Doctor hadn't meant to drop that particular bombshell. "She?" he inquired, giving the Doctor both eyebrows, on the hunch that if one was good, two was even better.
The Doctor looked decidedly shifty.
Ianto ticked off another mental point on the "Ianto versus the Doctor" scorecard he'd been keeping ever since becoming immortal.
"Hey, Doc," Jack interrupted their glare-down. "Is there something we can do for you?" He took one look at Ianto cradling the coral and his eyes went all sappy…and was that a hint of a tear?
What was it about the coral that had suddenly turned Jack into a gigantic girl?
Alright, maybe it was affecting Ianto as well…not that he'd ever admit it, or course.
"I picked up some temporal readings and came to check them out," the Time Lord answered, making an attempt to loom and failing utterly at it. "And since when do you have a TARDIS coral?"
Jack walked to the desk, leaning his hip against the side. He was putting himself between Ianto – and the coral, of course – and the Doctor. Ianto felt a little gooey at that.
Then promptly stopped, because it was completely undignified.
Jack shrugged. "For a while now. You didn't know before now?"
"It wasn't putting out a temporal signature before now!" the Doctor exclaimed.
Well, that explained the glow.
"Thanks for taking care of her, but I should take it off your hands now." The Doctor made a couple of grabby gestures that had Ianto frowning at the somewhat silly hand waving.
"That's the second time you've called the coral by a feminine distinctor," Ianto commented. He wasn't about to let the coral out of his hands, because this was suspicious behaviour…even for the Doctor, who was the King of Suspicious in Ianto's opinion.
Not that he would, anyway. The coral was Jack's, and there was no way Ianto would give it over.
Alright, maybe it was his as well…
Jack really had gotten to him.
Fuck.
This wasn't fair. Ianto could usually keep himself out of Jack's little machinations by dint of being an adult, but he'd completely failed this time. Maybe being in love with Jack was turning him into a sap.
Yeah, that had to be it.
Ianto would have to be more careful in the future.
Jack was giving the Doctor a look he normally reserved for a member of the team who wasn't being completely honest, like the expression of a father would give a son in whom he was disappointed in their life choices. Usually, Jack worshipped the ground the Time Lord walked on, but today…it was the coral, obviously, that was causing this change in Jack, and Ianto wanted to get down on his knees and do a little worshipping of his own…on a certain part of Jack's anatomy.
Ianto was certain this was the first time he'd ever been so turned on in the Doctor's presence. He wasn't even embarrassed by the fact that he was holding an alien coral like it was a baby and who might actually be aware of what was going on.
"Just why do you want the coral so badly?" Jack inquired. This was also the immortal in interrogation mode, and it just ticked another box on the "Ianto is aroused" list.
The Doctor pouted, as if he was bothered by Jack's complete lack of faith in him. "I would think that would be obvious," he practically whined. "It's a TARDIS. The best place for her to be in proper hands."
"And your hands are the proper ones?"
Ianto would have laughed at the Time Lord's betrayed expression if it wasn't for the fact that it was nice to see Jack stand up to him for once. "Of course they would! How can you even question that, Jack?"
"Only because I've had this coral for decades and you're just now coming to collect it. Makes me wonder what's changed, except that it seems to be putting out signals. And you keep saying it's a 'her', which begs the question of just how you know that."
The Doctor's shoulders slumped in defeat. "You're not going to give her up, are you?"
"Absolutely not," Ianto answered. "She's ours."
Somehow, he knew that, that this coral was his and Jack's. TARDISes were telepathic, so maybe the coral was trying to communicate? Well, that would certainly explain his and Jack's…parental…feelings toward it.
Or her, if the Doctor was correct.
The Time Lord threw up his hands. "Alright! She's yours."
Jack's grin of triumph dwarfed the one that Ianto just knew he was wearing.
But wait…
"You're giving up rather easily," Ianto accused. "Just what are you up to?" That usually meant that the alien was up to something.
The Doctor seemed far too innocent to be believed. "I don't know what you mean."
"Like we're going to believe that," Ianto scoffed.
But Jack's eyes were examining the Doctor minutely, and Ianto saw the moment that the lightbulb went off.
The smirk the decorated Jack's already handsome features had Ianto even more turned on than before, which should have been impossible but this was Jack Harkness, after all.
"She really is ours, isn't she?" the immortal said, eyes twinkling. "She's our baby."
Oh, damn.
Yes, Jack could act like a child hyped up on candy, but there was a very intelligent man hiding behind the flirty and immature façade. Ianto was oftentimes lulled into that false front, even though it could honestly be said that he knew Jack better than anyone. He did enjoy to tease his lover about it, and Jack teased right back, but Ianto should know by now never to underestimate Jack.
The Doctor was decidedly shifty now. "I don't know what you mean."
Yep, he was busted.
It made sense, in a timey wimey way. The TARDIS was a time machine, after all. Ianto couldn't help but cuddle the coral a little closer. "She's ours, and Jack's had her all this time…"
The Doctor sighed. "The TARDIS gave birth to your spawn, yes. I only found out where she was when the temporal signature showed up…although, it makes me wonder if the TARDIS wasn't hiding her. She's a sneaky minx, after all."
"So, she sent our daughter to me, all those years ago," Jack marvelled. "I've been taking care of her ever since." Then he went pale. "Oh Goddess, there were so many times we could have lost her…"
"But we didn't." Ianto reached up and touched Jack's hand. "She's here, just where she belongs." He glanced up at the Time Lord, who was scuffing the toe of his boot against the floor and not meeting their eyes. "And just when were you going to tell us?"
The Doctor's head shot up, his eyes filled with denial. "I would have! I just…wanted to make sure she was alright. After all, the TARDIS practically crossed so many time lines there could've been consequences! As soon as I'd done what needed to be done, I would have said something. I just…didn't want to get your hopes up, that's all."
Ianto was positive the Doctor was being honest with them. Still, he wasn't about to turn over their child to the Time Lord because, quite honestly, he didn't trust the alien as far as he could throw the SUV. "Then why don't we all go to the TARDIS together and let her Mam see her again?"
The sunny smile on the Doctor's face almost made Ianto like him. He clapped his hands together happily. "Yes, let's!"
Maybe this wasn't a good idea from the condition of Ianto's trousers…or, more accurately, what was in them…
The Doctor was gone, and the coral – their daughter, whom the TARDIS had decided would be named Isabella Idris – was back under her lamp, basking in the warmth it generated. As far as Ianto was concerned, all was right with the world.
It was going to be at least another century before the coral matured enough to gain full sentience, but he and Jack had the time to wait. For the first time since the Doctor had come screaming into the Hub, accusing them of getting the TARDIS pregnant, Ianto felt as if his family was whole…even if their daughter wasn't the usual sort of child.
Still, this was Torchwood. Strange was their way of life.
Ianto still had to reward Jack for being so very clever and figuring things out…
So, that was what he did.
And, if he made sure the coral was turned away as Ianto made his appreciation known, well…no one had to know, did they?