Once again, I'm sorry for the delay in posting! Lately it just seems like there's been so much going on (most of it good) that I haven't had much time to write, but I promise, I haven't forgotten my stories (or you, my wonderful readers!)
Thank you so much for sticking it out through the 'dry spell' – hopefully with things slowing back down again in the next couple of weeks I'll be back to it (probably not as prolifically as before, I've got a couple of new projects I'm tackling over the summer, not to mention the garden, but I would like to be able to give you more!)
And as always, thank you so very much for all the wonderful reviews and fave/alert listing me and my stories!
Special thanks to Kitsa, who has once again let me bounce around some ideas with her and for coming up with a brilliant notion for "what's next" (after this chapter…)
Chapter Nine
26 April, 2010
To be pregnant is to be vitally alive, thoroughly woman, and undoubtedly inhabited.
Anne Buchanan & Debra Klingsporn
Abby McGee sat with her elbows perched at the edge of the cold metal table, her hands balled up into fists with her chin resting on her knuckles. She glared at the computer screen in front of her. On it, the box just sat there, inert, while the instruments set up around it collected data, data that was streaming across the Atlantic to her terminal.
The problem was that there wasn't enough data. In fact, there was hardly any data. The box was made of stone—she could see that with her own two eyes (she supposed it wasn't necessarily stone, but it certainly looked like stone, never mind that everyone who had seen and touched it for themselves said it was made of stone.) It wasn't terrestrial—but she knew that already too, they all did. If it were terrestrial John Hart wouldn't have called Jack (well, he might have done, but Jack had confirmed the box was giving off low levels of radiation that most definitely were not of a sort found anywhere on earth—trouble was that was all he knew. All she knew, looking at the readings streaming through to her monitor, was that whatever the source of the radiation was something inside the box.)
Abby slammed her palms against the table pushing herself to her feet, sending her chair rolling half way across her lab. "I can't work like this!" she snapped into the web cam. "I can't do anything from here! This is…it's impossible!" she declared, frustrated.
"Abby, you're pregnant," was Bobby's reply; his tone was infuriatingly calm. Patronizing.
(Then again, he was safely on the other side of the Atlantic… but just wait until he gets back…) "I know that!" she told him. "But I can't work like this! I need to be there."
On the other side of the Atlantic, Temperance 'Bones' Brennan gave over a quizzical look to the tall Australian doctor; she was clearly puzzled by the fact that Abby, who was obviously supposed to be an expert in… well, something, it was hard to say what exactly… but the point remained that if Abby McGee's input was vital to the investigation of the ossuary, she should be present for its examination.
"It's Torchwood policy," Bobby explained; the explanation only garnered further confusion from the American scientist. "She's pregnant," he said. "She's not allowed in the field."
"That seems sexist," Brennan observed. She was entirely certain that when she became pregnant, that while there might be some things she wouldn't be able to do, she wasn't about to let Booth or anyone else tell her she couldn't go into the field, at least not until she was much further along than the woman on the other end of the webcam.
"Thank you!" Abby told her, her tone making it clear that her opinion of the other American had just increased tenfold.
"It's not sexist at all," said a voice from the door; it belonged to Jack Harkness. He strode into the room as if he owned the place.
Brennan opened her mouth to challenge his statement, but Harkness spoke first, cutting her off.
"If one of the men on my team went and got himself pregnant, I wouldn't let him in the field, either."
"That's biologically impossible," the anthropologist protested. "The human male…"
This time it was Jack who was cut off (as he started to cut her off) by a handsome young Welshman who had just come to deliver a cup of tea to Abby. "Don't get him started, Dr Brennan, for your own good," he pleaded into the monitor on the Cardiff side of the connection. "Jack did nothing but moan the entire time he was pregnant with our daughter. Ianto Jones Harkness, by the way," he added by way of introduction as he set a cup of chocolate-mint tea down next to his colleague's elbow; she pounced on it like Myfanway going for a chocolate bar, declaring him a prince amongst men… unlike some other people she knew. The latter was directed at Jack and the remark came complete with a glower that would have wilted any mere mortal man.
The Captain scowled right back, although his dark look wasn't directed at Abby so much as at the man standing next to her in the suit… the perfectly tailored black three piece suit with the red shirt and red and black tie (Jack was convinced he'd worn that on purpose, just so he could taunt him with how good he looked in it, knowing he couldn't do anything about it from D.C.… not that he couldn't be back home with in a matter of seconds if he used the vortex manipulator… it was just a quick hop, really, he could be back before anybody even noticed he was gone)… Jack cleared his throat before he lost his ability to scowl. He wished he could get the time travel circuits working again; if he had done, he could so easily whisk his husband off for an afternoon… a week… another whole year without aliens to worry about… and still be back in plenty of time to sort out whatever the box really was.
(On his end of the line, Ianto had no difficulty seeing the mirthful, wistful—bordering on lustful—twinkle in his partner's blue eyes and smirked.)
"Oh yeah?" Jack snarled at his glib expression. "I'll tell you what, the next time we decide to have a baby, you can be the one with the swollen ankles, back aches and morning sickness!"
Ianto just chuckled at him. "Not a chance."
They held one another's gaze for a moment more, oblivious to Dr Brennan's continued disbelief over male pregnancy. It was a silent exchange that spoke volumes inside the span of only a few heartbeats… then Jack's gaze raked over Brennan as he turned to face Bobby. "Now. You want to tell me what a civilian's doing in here?" he demanded of his medic.
The Australian shifted his weight from one foot to the other; the twinkle had completely gone from the Captain's blue eyes. Just the same, he spoke in a firm tone. "She found the artefact, Jack. She deserves to know what it is. Besides, I'd like to know more about where and how she came across the thing in the first place."
He gave over a look, as if he was having a hard time refuting the other's logic.
"He's got a point," said Ianto through the monitor.
"Not helping," the immortal muttered at him.
"I wasn't aware that helping was in my job description, Sir," he retorted without missing a beat. His lips curled up slightly on that word 'sir'… his smirk was brief, but it had the desired effect on the older man. Smiling smugly to himself, he turned his attention to the woman who had discovered the ossuary. "I've been going over the Jeffersonian's records—"
"What? How?" she wanted to know.
He merely smiled. "We're Torchwood, Ma'am. We can do that. As I was saying, I was going over the museum's records and you according to your report, you found the alien artefact in a mass grave in Chile. Do you have any idea where it came from originally?"
She shook her head. "How do you know it's alien?" she inquired.
"I can answer that," said Abby, sounding happy to be able to provide useful information. "Whatever's inside that box, it's emitting low level radiation—it's nothing to worry about!" she said quickly to the look of concern that crossed over the other woman's face. "It's totally harmless… well, you know, it wouldn't be harmless if there was more of it—like way more of it—but there isn't so it's ok. And anyway, the writing isn't terrestrial. I'm pretty sure it wasn't made with any Stone Age type tools, the lines are way too clean—although you should probably have Shane take a look at it, I'm not an archeologist, you know. Where is he?"
"Any idea what it is or where it came from, Abbs?" Jack asked her, ignoring her question in favour of his own… although he supposed he should probably track down the rest of his team sometime soon. Especially John. The last thing he wanted was his ex partner starting some sort of incident, particularly with an FBI agent running around. Abby was talking:
"I might be able to actually tell you something about it if I was there…" the argument died before it really got started. Clearly, Jack wasn't in a mood. She sat back down in her chair. "There's nothing in our database like it. I'm cross referencing with UNIT—don't give me that look, Jack, they might have something we don't," she told him in an indignant tone; to look at him, one would have thought she'd just suggested that somebody had genetically engineered flying pigs. "Bobby, how hard is that rock? I need you to take a sample and run it through a mass-speck if you can."
"Is that safe?" Brennan wanted to know.
"Relax, Doc," said Jack, "my people do this sort of thing all the time. We're the experts, remember?"
Ianto rolled his eyes.
Bobby's expression bore out his own dubiousness. However, "I should be able to get a sample," he said, more to Abby than Jack or Brennan. "But I'm going to need the use of some of your equipment," he added in the anthropologist's direction.
Brennan nodded her consent and stepped back as the Australian took a small scraping of stone from the bottom of the ossuary. He didn't don gloves or any other sort of protective gear, he just pulled a small pick and collection dish out of his case and after a quick inspection to determine the best place to deface the artefact he (easily it seemed) scratched a small sample of the bottom of the box… nothing happened. Brennan offered to show him the way back to the main area of her lab.
Jack lingered back, waiting until they were clear of the room; he leant in closer to the webcam. "So… how would you feel about a quick hop to D.C.?" he asked his husband.
"I believe it was your idea for me to stay at home," the Welshman reminded him.
"Maybe I changed my mind."
Ianto sniggered. "You're there on official Torchwood business, Cariad."
"What was it you said before… the world's always ending? Besides, it's probably just space junk."
