"You okay in here?"
Boone turned around to see Jack entering the room. "Yeah, I'm fine, so long as I don't ever want to use my arms again," he replied.
"You can't put him down?" Jack asked.
"Oh, I can put him down," Boone nodded. "He just screams his head off every time I do."
Jack smiled at him. "Give him here."
Boone carefully handed the baby over to Jack. Noah stirred slightly but settled back down as soon as he was safely in Jack's arms. Noah looked even cuter when he was sleeping in Jack's arms, Boone thought. That way he got to look at Noah and Jack at the same time, which is pretty much the only thing he ever wanted to look at ever again.
Jack rocked Noah slightly and made sure he was sleeping comfortably before he leaned forward and placed him carefully in the crib. He pulled his arms away and there was a second where Boone thought it was going to work but then, as Jack pulled fully away, Noah started up again.
"Told you so" Boone said.
Jack gave him a look before turning back to Noah. He picked him up again and started rocking him. "Hey, come on, you're just sleepy, you need to go to sleep."
"He was asleep," Boone felt the need to point out.
"Well we just need to make sure he's in a deep sleep before we put him down," Jack said.
"He knows when you put him down, Jack," Boone replied. Jack continued pacing with Noah and Boone watched them for a second. "Sayid said you need to learn when to leave them alone and when they really need you, that way they only cry when they actually want something."
"That's a very nice theory," Jack responded.
"Worked for them," Boone shrugged. "Zara's a good kid. She's disciplined."
Jack nodded. Boone was fairly sure that none of this was getting through. Not that it was particularly getting through to him either if he was honest. Sayid made raising a child sound easy as pie but Boone couldn't quite understand how you could just let a child cry in order to teach it that no one was coming. If you did that then how could you count on them crying if something really was wrong? Running every time they cried could lead to getting a spoilt attention seeker but ignoring them could lead to them being introverted and withdrawn. Neither of those options sounded great. He guessed he and Jack would just have to find their own middle ground.
"We'll work it out," Boone said.
"What?" Jack asked, looking up at him. Oh, right, he wasn't in on that whole internal monologue thing.
"I dunno, just... Everyone's got their own system, right?" Boone replied. "Shannon and Sayid did it one way but I guess we have to find our own."
"I think we're doing okay," Jack responded.
"Yeah, no, I know," Boone said. "I just mean that we're still a little new at this, that's all."
Jack nodded. "Yeah, it's all new," he admitted. "But it's new in the best way. It's new like you were new. Like everything you ever showed me was new. Pretty much everything we did together was a first for me."
"Pretty much?" Boone asked.
"I say 'pretty much' cos I'm not just talking about the sex," Jack replied.
"You can't talk about... that in front of the baby," Boone exclaimed, checking Noah for a reaction. Which he knew was ridiculous, he didn't even know what the English language was yet, let alone what 'sex' meant, but it felt wrong anyway.
Jack rolled his eyes. "Noah doesn't even know his name, he has no idea what we're talking about," he pointed out. "And he's asleep."
"That's not the point," Boone told him. "Kids don't want to hear about their parents having... s.e.x."
"He doesn't even know what sex is..." Jack began.
"Stop saying that word," Boone cut in. "Do you want that to be his first word? Do you not think that would be a little embarrassing?"
"He's a fair way off his first word, Boone," Jack stated.
"Yeah, but if you continue to talk about sex all the time..." he stopped. "Oh God, now you got me doing it."
"Boone, calm down," Jack instructed. "You need to relax."
Yeah, Jack was right. In fact everything he'd just said was right. But Noah was going to pick up on things so Boone thought they should start thinking about what they wanted him to hear and what they didn't. He fairly sure sex went in the 'didn't' column.
Boone looked down at Noah. "I don't think he heard us anyway."
"No, I think we're safe," Jack smiled.
"I just really don't want to traumatise the kid," Boone stated. "I mean, he's going to have enough problems as it is."
Jack looked at him. "Having two fathers instead of a father and a mother doesn't have to be a problem," he replied levelly.
Boone couldn't tell if he'd offended him or not but he guessed that he had. "No," Boone said, shaking his head a little. "No, it doesn't. It's different though."
"Your mother pretty raised you by yourself after your dad left, right?" Jack asked. "Until you were ten."
"Yeah," Boone replied, realising where Jack was going with this.
"Was it a problem that you didn't have a dad?"
"It was a problem at father-son baseball games at school," Boone replied. "My mom sent me with a member of the home help, which was so embarrassing. But a bunch of the kids at my school, their fathers were so busy working that, even if they were in the picture, they couldn't be bothered to show up. I don't think half the kids knew if my father was absent or just really important."
"Can you play baseball?" Jack asked.
Boone looked at him with a bemused little smile. "I'm not great at it."
"Okay, I'll take father-son baseball then," Jack replied.
"I think you're missing my point," Boone stated.
"No, I think you're missing the point," Jack insisted. "Noah's not going to be missing out on anything."
"He's not going to be missing out on anything that I missed out on," Boone agreed. "But what about the other stuff? The stuff my mom taught me? My mom taught me how to dance, probably so that I wouldn't show her up. And my mom taught me how to make the chicken broth she gave me whenever I was ill, which I so didn't think she really made until I saw her do it. And my mom taught me how to write a good letter, and pick a matching colour scheme and dress to impress and organise a photo album. What about all that stuff?"
"You know how to do all that stuff now, right?" Jack asked.
"Yeah," Boone replied.
Jack shrugged. "So you can show Noah," he stated. "I really don't see what the problem is. He doesn't have to miss out on what you missed out on cos we can do that stuff for him and he doesn't have to miss out on what you had because you can pass that stuff onto him. Same with the stuff that I had, I can pass that on. So what exactly do you think he's going to miss?"
Jack had a pretty strong argument there. And he was way smarter than Boone because he'd got him to unwittingly back up his argument. There was nothing that Noah was going to miss out on when you put it like that. Boone was in a position to give Noah everything he had and everything he didn't. Besides, he knew he didn't really miss out on that much stuff and he didn't want his dad around all that much anyway, he'd never really felt a bond with him the whole five years of his life he was around. And if he didn't miss something that was around for five years then he guessed Noah wouldn't really miss something he never had.
"What if he wants to know something about girls?" Boone asked.
"Did you ever ask your mom about girls?" Jack asked.
Boone shook his head. "No."
"Me either." He looked down at Noah. "Okay, I think we should be safe now." He walked over to the crib and carefully placed him down. He slowly moved his arms away but as soon as he straightened up Noah started all over again. Jack looked a little disheartened.
"Should I try feeding him again?" Boone asked.
Jack shook his head. "He's not hungry."
"You wanna sedate him?" Boone asked in mock seriousness.
Jack looked at him and gave him a smile. "I think this is one of the times we're supposed to leave him to cry himself out."
Boone nodded but neither of them made a move to leave. "You can handle having a spoilt kid, right?" he asked.
"I deal with you everyday, don't I?" Jack responded.
Boone gave him a look before turning back to Noah. "Guess it's my turn then," he stated, leaning down to pick Noah up again.