Ha, this whole story is dedicated to my friend Becca, who I was talking to when I decided 'Screw it, I'm going to write one the way I think it'd be done!'. I've seen alot of different ways of this being gotten around, some better than others, some just downright bizarre (I mean, actually giving birth? Where the hell would it come out of?!), and here's my attempt to make sense of somethign I think would actually be pretty adorable. Granted, it do still find the image of one of them with a bump weird... I may skip over most of the actual pregnancy because of it...
I apologise if the title changes, but I can't settle on one, and I need Becca's advice before I think of a final one... but she's deserted me for the day, so yeah. Mine may have to stick!
This isn't going to be a huge long fic, perhaps 3 or 4 chapters... Probably 3. I hope you find it a suitable solution for the whole situation and that you like it =
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters (or food items) below, they belong to Russel T. Davies (and Ben and Jerry) and I shall return them, hopefully, in the correct condition.
Chapter 1: Coming Clean
Tosh was sitting comfortably at her desk, clutching a hot mug of fresh coffee and taking a sip every so often. She smiled to herself and leaned back in her chair. She'd been working hard all day to finish her list of U.N.I.T. slip ups for the past 5 years, and there had been a lot of them. Jack had grinned at her when she'd realised just how many events she'd have to catalogue and file for the list.
Shaking her head, she looked around, searching for Jack so that she could show him the list. He was walking down from his office, strolling through the hub with his hands in his pockets. He looked at Tosh and she beckoned him over. Altering his course a little, he wound up behind her desk, looking at the automatically scrolling screen.
He let out a low whistle and nodded.
"I'm impressed, Toshiko Sato. That's a hefty little list you've made yourself." He patted her shoulder and grinned as she looked up. "Good work!"
Laughing a little, he walked away and returned to his original course. Keeping a steady pace, he suppressed the nausea and groaned inwardly. Adjusting his pace slightly, he sped up, and by the time he'd entered the bathroom and locked the door, he was running. He skidded to the other side of the room and dropped to his knees in front of the toilet, leaning over and throwing up.
He sat back against the wall and groaned, rubbing his eyes. This was the most unpleasant part. Slowly, he pushed himself to his feet and staggered over to the sink, turning the cold tap on and cupping his hands under the stream. He splashed the collected water onto his face before ducking his mouth under the tap and taking a gulp, swilling it round his mouth before spitting straight back out.
Another wave broke over him and he rolled his eyes, ducking for the toilet bowl again. He groaned loudly as the dry heaving ended. He'd already purged himself of his breakfast and morning doughnut, so there was really nothing left in his stomach to be forced out. He knew this was only the beginning.
He looked sharply at the door when he heard a sharp knocking.
"Jack? Jack, are you okay in there?" It was Ianto. God damnit, it was Ianto.
"Yeah, Yan… Yeah, I'm fine." He got up, flushed the toilet and washed his mouth out again, before smoothing down his shirt and unlocking the door to find the young Welshman looking at him with deep concern.
"You've been throwing up all morning, that's not fine." He reached a hand forwards and stroked Jack's cheek before smiling briefly and dropping his hand to take hold of Jack's and pull him back into the hub. "Can I get you anything?"
Jack thought through the list of food he'd compiled under the heading 'Sick as a Dog' and smiled when he remembered that not only did coffee not come under it, it was one of the things that made it better. He looked sideways at Ianto before grinning and replying.
"I'll have a coffee please… My usual." He winked at Ianto and laughed as the young man blushed and hurried off to the kitchen. He wandered back up to his office and sat down behind his desk. It was one of those days where he just wanted to go back to Ianto's house and curl up on the sofa with him, with a DVD on the TV. He growled in rebellion and hit his fist lightly on the desk before pulling a file towards him and getting to work.
By lunchtime, he'd 'thrown up' three more times after attempting to eat an apple, a slice of ham and a bag of croutons. The last ones had been strongly flavoured, so Jack suspected that it was his body naturally rejecting the strange food, and had nothing to do with the thing plaguing his stomach. Ianto had made him a coffee each time, helping to soothe the ripples of nausea that survived. Hopefully Ianto would stick around.
The team had ordered in pizza, and gathered that it was late enough in the day for him to attempt to eat again. When Ianto called him down from his office, he ran full pelt to the table, grabbed the box Ianto was holding out for him and opened it. He hadn't smelt anything as good fro a long time. He pulled a slice free and rolled it up, biting it in half and sinking onto the sofa happily. Gwen raised an eyebrow and pulled her desk chair over to sit on the other side of the desk. Owen followed behind her, and Tosh swivelled in her chair to face them. Ianto planted himself next to Jack and watched, half disgusted, half amused, as Jack stuffed the rest of the slice of pizza into his mouth, before he'd even finished the first half.
"Jack, here on earth, we have these things called manners?" Owen looked at him sceptically and took a bite out of his own pizza. Jack just grinned.
"When there's only a few things you really like to eat that you can actually stomach, who cares how you eat them?" He repeated the process with the next slice of pizza and started humming to himself.
Owen looked incredulously at Ianto, who raised his hands to say: "Don't look at me, I'm just the boyfriend." It was common knowledge in the hub that Jack and Ianto had been seeing each other for a while. Most guessed that it was since Jack had returned from his little trip, with his psychotic ex-lover in tow. It had been hot gossip between Owen, Gwen and Tosh, but none of them had got the courage up to ask either of the two men about details.
The team finished up their lunch with the usual conversation about what they'd done that morning, the occasional question about a member's private life being asked and answered. When they were finished, Jack dropped his empty pizza box on the table and headed back up to his office happily. Ianto watched him go, feeling a little bemused at his behaviour.
Ianto's understanding of the situation hadn't cleared up by the time Jack came up to his office, picked up his coat and pulled him from behind his desk. Jack yawned loudly and hooked an arm around Ianto's waist, pulling him out into the cool night air and locking the door behind him.
Ianto chuckled a little as he pulled on his coat and the walked along the boardwalk to the where his car was parked. He was extremely surprised when Jack voluntarily climbed into the passenger seat and he was allowed behind the wheel. It made for a fairly relaxing drive home and a much more relaxed Ianto when they arrived there.
The next surprise was having to wake Jack up when he pulled up into the driveway of the small semi detached house in the suburbs of Cardiff. He shook Jack's shoulders gently until he blinked his eyes and yawned loudly again, getting out of the car without assistance and pulling his keys from his pocket when he reached the door.
They'd decided a week or so after Jacks return that they weren't going to mess around this time. They'd agreed very quickly that Jack should move in with Ianto, and over the few months that had followed the decision, traces of Jack could be found throughout the house. Ianto was glad he'd decided to stay, as he'd always found the house a little lonely on his own. He smiled when Jack took his hand and pulled him in through the door, closing it behind him and kicking his boots off next to the mat.
Ianto watched him shrug his great coat off and sling it over the banister before shuffling into the sitting room and dropping onto the sofa, lying sprawled across the dark brown suede. Jack had always loved the sofas, as they had hard, thick arms which were perfect for putting a plate of dinner or a cup of coffee down on. They were also quite deep and perfect for curling up on together, as there was no risk of falling off. Jack could be romantic and practical when he wanted to be. Right now, he was tired. Ianto heard a gentle snore drift up to him and rolled his eyes. Jack had been snoring a month or so, and Ianto no idea what had brought it on.
Sighing, he sat down on the bottom step of the stairs and started to unlace his shoes, setting them next to Jack's haphazardly placed boots and hanging both his coat and Jack's abandoned one on the pegs next to the door. He went through to the kitchen and flicked the kettle on making them both a cup of coffee before moving back through to the sitting room and shaking Jack awake again. He blinked at Ianto again and pushed himself up into a sitting position, taking his coffee as Ianto sat down next to him. He put the mug on the arm and lay back down, resting his head on Ianto's legs and groaning softly. Ianto rubbed his arm sympathetically and took a mouthful of his coffee before putting it down on his arm of the sofa.
"You okay down there, Jack?" He heard him mumbled something about feeling a little sick again and gently moved his hand from Jack's arm to his stomach, rubbing it gently. That caused the older man to close his eyes and sigh gently, which made Ianto, in turn, chuckle. "Shall I order more pizza? You seemed to be able to keep that down earlier."
Jack wriggled onto his back and looked up at Ianto, smiling. "What I really want, is ice cream." Ianto nodded and pushed himself up, making Jack sit up too, and reach for his coffee. Ianto left to room to sighs of appreciation from the man.
He delved through the freezer and pulled out a large, half eaten tub of Ben and Jerry's Phish Phood. Grabbing two spoons from the drawer, he made his way back into the sitting room and found Jack sitting cross legged and holding his stomach.
"Jack?!" Ianto's voice was full of alarm and Jack looked up sheepishly.
"I'm fine, I told you, it's nothing." He patted the sofa next to him and Ianto came over and took his place again, propping his feet up on the coffee table and slumping down in his seat. He flicked the lid off the ice cream and held it tightly to his chest to warm it up a bit. Jack quickly grabbed it from him and retrieved a spoon, digging it straight in.
"Come on, you have to let it melt a bit!" They'd always disagreed on the best way to eat ice cream. Ianto liked it when it got all gooey around the edges, but Jack liked it when it was still completely frozen.
"I'm letting it melt! I'm just eating the middle while it does." He flashed Ianto a grin and the young man had to acknowledge that it made sense. He pushed himself up and drew the curtains of the large bay window and returned to his previous position.
"Do you know that you've started snoring, Jack?" Ianto was staring at the ceiling. Jack looked up in alarm.
"Shit, really?" Ianto looked at him and saw annoyance in his face. He watched him put the ice cream on the coffee table and rub his eyes. He growled a little and swung his legs down so his feet were on the floor, his elbows resting on his knees and his torso leaning forwards. "Not good…"
"Jack? What's wrong? You're starting to creep me out a little here." Ianto put a hand on his back and leaned forwards so he could see Jack's face.
"Shit.. I was really hoping I'd got it wrong." He wrung his hands for a while before sighing and looking up at Ianto. "You know how I said I wasn't going to get pregnant again?"
Ianto just stared at him. "You have got to be kidding me…"