Title: Something Unpredictable (Chapter 6/?)
Rating/Warnings: PG, mpreg
Pairing: Jack/Ianto, Lisa
Description: Jack finds himself with a 51st century predicament in a 21st century world.
A/N: Ah, sorry about the wait! Thank you lj usernightanddaze for beta-ing for tonight. This is a pretty long chapter so thanks for reading it!
Chapter 6
About a week had passed when Jack knew he had to sit down and tell Tosh and Gwen. It was bad enough when three men knew about an unplanned pregnancy before two women, and Jack knew it would be a little awkward, especially in Gwen's camp. He prepared himself for any form of reaction as he pulled the well-worn, tan-colored braces over his shoulders and shrugged them in place.
Things had gone more or less back to normal with Ianto, however normal it could be, considering. Ianto had managed to bypass the blood test for days on end, whether it was by sheer chance (the end of the world) or his own effort ("Shouldn't we tell them first?").
Ever since that night in the tourist booth, he'd spoken to Jack just like he always did, but both of them failed to even speak of the inevitable for very long, besides idle conversation. In particular, Ianto's dialogue had reverted back to his first few weeks at Torchwood Three, his "can I get you anything, sir?" shtick. It was difficult to go all out in the presence of Tosh and Gwen, and Ianto was still in haste of inviting Jack back to his flat for another sleep over. Too much stood in the air.
It was a Tuesday afternoon, post-lunch, when Jack decided to bring everyone into the conference room. Ianto and Jack glanced back-and-forth like a couple of scatter brained teenagers, and as that thought dawned on both of them, their eyes flitted away. Jack evened out his breath and tucked in his chair as each member of his team shuffled in and sat down in their designated spots.
"What's up, Jack?" Tosh asked sweetly, her hand attached to her PDA, an extra appendage. "I'm not seeing any rift activity, touch wood."
Jack cracked a smile. Touch wood. A running joke with one of the ex-ex-ex-members of Torchwood, a man he inevitably took to bed. Massive overbite. Jack glanced back over to Ianto, who opened his palm and tapped his thumbs together. Owen raised his eyebrows and sighed out, but his silence was resigned. His undead self would have been a hell of a lot less patient.
The truth would always be stark raving mad to any of them. Gwen nearly opened her mouth to intervene, but Jack cut her off as the workings of words formed in his mouth, aided by a large huff of air. "No, Tosh, there's nothing, that's not why I called you in here today." Tosh set her PDA and its wand on to the table. Jack took note of this and folded his fingers. "Look, I know how it's going to sound, but I need you to listen very closely. In the 51st century…"
He hesitated again, not long enough to cause any overwrought suspicion. "I agreed to be this recipient, you could say, of this male pregnancy thing. Now, I was hardly the first, but it would be a gross simplification to just say I was closely monitored. It didn't work out, in the end."
Owen raised a silent eyebrow then, but he kept his mouth shut. Jack continued slowly. Gwen was already giving him that unconvinced, pinched-eye look of hers, the way she always looked at anyone when she assumed they were daft.
"To make a long story short, it's why I called you in today… all of you, to make the announcement."
It made little difference that Owen and Ianto knew. Gwen looked across the table to Jack and turned her head, her entire reaction that of hesitation. "What announcement?"
It was as clear as day. Jack's nostrils flared slightly. "I think I've made myself perfectly clear."
Gwen knew that much. She was physically cognizant of what Jack had just said and the situation, yet her brain, her very conscience inside of her, was unwilling to believe it. "I don't understand. You said there was no rift activity, what could possibly have come in from the 51st century?"
Jack was silent then. In fact, the whole table was, and no one could bear to look at Gwen even as her thick, inquisitive Welsh accent filled the air again. "You can't be telling us…"
Owen sat up straighter in his chair and joined the conversation. "Actually, it's true. Very true, in fact. Nine weeks along. Fit as a fiddle, I might add. Amazing. Utterly… amazing."
The look in Jack's eyes indicated some small form of annoyance, but he was resigned once Owen shrugged his shoulders back. At that point, he almost smiled. He'd have to remember to thank him, actually. Gwen was still skeptical, but if it took strapping Jack to the table and jabbing a few needles in to him for her to believe it, that's what they would do.
Jack expected this sort of reception, especially from Gwen. He couldn't be one hundred percent sure about Tosh. She sat there as quiet as Gwen, but she was the next one to break the silence.
"I believe you, Jack, as crazy as it sounds. Crazier sorts of things have happened, haven't they?"
The Captain couldn't help but smile as he nodded his head once, speaking a silent "thank you," and turned his eyes back at Gwen. She was now drawing circles against the table with her finger, trying to comprehend the very science of male pregnancy and how it could possibly intertwine with her boss. Funny that, she always expected to be the first pregnant member of Torchwood, but not for years down the line, even.
"It is what it is," Owen added, his voice quiet and low like loose gravel. "I didn't believe it at first, not even when the results were staring up at me. Believe me, there are still some unanswered questions. They'll get answered… once we…"
Owen glanced over to Ianto, who was currently running his finger over the end of his tie in deep thinking-mode. Owen finally continued then. "We have a lot to do."
"This is impossible for any number of reasons," Gwen insisted, looking past Owen's more solemn undertones.
Jack could pound a hole in the table with his fist, but he used every last amount of resistance inside of him to keep his hand on the table. He was getting quite frustrated with quaint, 21st century categories, especially from his own team. "Yes, it's impossible here, it's impossible now. But it won't always be. Believe me, there will be a lot more than transsexuals giving birth in the next three thousand years."
"I just don't understand it."
"You don't have to."
It was silent then. Gwen smiled sparingly and dejectedly nodded her head. "Just answer me this. Is it alien-related at all?"
Given Gwen's situation at her own wedding, it was a perfectly understandable question. Ianto was downright surly. He nearly considered giving her decaf tomorrow, but perhaps he'd settle on instant or magically forget to bring her a cup. Still, Gwen remained as polite as she could.
"No, it's completely…" Jack began to speak, but Ianto interjected.
"It's mine."
The younger man blurred his vision past every set of eyes and looked pointedly at Gwen. Jack was silently smiling, but he wore his stoicism like it was going out of style. Gwen read the message loud and clear and passed on her congratulations before each person drifted away from the table.
Ianto became more than just a body of a human planted on a new world. As the weeks drifted on, his new identity seeped inside of his soul like the acknowledgement of a familiar friend. What was once irregular and disconcerting about the 21st century transformed into comfortable and normal. Even the images of Darion flashing a million watt grin faded like dust as the days wore on. It wasn't a matter of disguising who he was, but living out a new life, the one he wanted to.
Six months passed in the blink of an eye. Ianto settled into his new habitat and created an identity suitable for his own self. He was aptly Welsh, as Lisa caught him speaking it the next day on a lark, another side effect of regeneration. His parents, deceased. His home city, Cardiff. All things lined up in due time, but fast enough for Ianto to acquire credit, a slew of temporary jobs, and a relatively clean room from an ad he read in the classifieds.
Before his first paycheque, he stuck a piece of gum to the end of a wire clothes hanger and managed to slip away enough from an ATM. He had an uncanny ability to go in and out of places entirely undetected. At first, it was a known science by way of a few tricks he'd acquired from the 51st century. In time, he adapted it to the time frame he was in and used it to his own advantage. He wasn't a fan of stealing – far from it, but it was either that or to keep wandering the street for food or shelter. Partly, however, he wanted to impress her.
In the case of her, it developed rather quickly. However blind and stupid Ianto felt at first, he could always find pleasurable, in depth conversation with Lisa, even from the very beginning. As it turned out, she was a Londoner all her life. She quickly taught him all the ins-and-outs of the city, including where to eat, where to drink, and just as importantly, what to avoid. It was only a couple of weeks before he memorized the tube system and could navigate tourists to-and-from the various landmarks.
And then there was the subject of housing. Ianto shared a two-bedroom flat with a thirty-two year old aspiring actor named Edgar completely obsessed with Radiohead. It was mind grating, to say the least, and if it had been up to Lisa, Ianto would have moved in straight away and that would have been the end of it. To call London expensive would be an understatement.
In his eyes, though, their first meeting had been so precarious that he never wanted her to think that he was some sort of free loader. Drinks and dinners out and cinema were always on him despite the cash crunch he was in most of the time. Many of his temporary jobs included sales, telemarketing, construction (for which he was fired after a day for tossing a hammer over his shoulder and knobbing a civilian in the head), even a stint as a personal assistant (again, fired, for accusation of blackmail).
It was around Christmas time when Lisa and Ianto toasted the half-year they survived each other, mainly to his own self-deprecation and not hers. It was also that night, clouded by dimmed candles and good Italian food, that Lisa pitched a couple of bottom-of-the-barrel job opportunities at her work. She knew Ianto was miserable going from temp arrangement-to-temp arrangement, and far worthy of something better.
Mentioning "the job," in Lisa's case, had always been a touchy subject. One particular day, she happened to tell Ianto the name of it in a strictly confidential way, but she failed to elaborate. It didn't matter. One small flicker of his memory latched on to the name, and he made his own impression for himself, never mentioning it. She, like him, had her own secrets, though none so gargantuan.
The job opening were nothing more than basic paid internships passed off as "junior research." Ianto was weary for any number of reasons, number one being that Torchwood worked to pick apart, exploit, and exterminate aliens. It could only lead to a disaster.
It wasn't until March that Lisa had finally managed to convince Ianto to at least try. Perhaps it was the shift in the weather that caused him to change heart. At that point, it had died down from frigid cold to mildly bearable, and the Christmas woes were over. But his heart still felt like a ball of compactly strung rubber bands wound tightly together. He was half-plagued by nerves and half-plagued by a pang of distant guilt that he could barely define. But it was there, looming over him like a small storm.
He walked into the recruitment agency on a Thursday with every intention to bugger up the job interview and never get a call back. On a Monday, Ianto Jones was in the clutches of Torchwood London, his thumb at the center of alien prevention. One cup of coffee at a time.
"Well, I thought that was successful."
Ianto turned his eyes over to a lounging, almost sing-song Jack. His feet were turned on to each other on his desk, his hands crossed his chest. He looked up at Ianto like the cat that got the cream. Perhaps telling Tosh and Gwen had lifted a big weight off his chest. For Ianto, it made it a hell of a lot more conflicting and complicated.
"Really successful," Ianto mumbled, glancing down to his watch. As usual, he stayed later into the night, though the requisite shag or two hadn't been met.
Jack's chair squeaked as he sat up from it, and he walked behind Ianto, gave his shoulder a squeeze, and slid his arm around his chest. "Of all the times I couldn't want a cup of coffee more, and I can't have one. Isn't that ironic?" He brushed his fingers along the younger man's chest. "You couldn't make an exception?"
"That isn't that ironic, unless you're Alanis Morisette, in which case everything is very ironic," Ianto smiled faintly, touching Jack's arm with the tips of his fingers and sliding his hand around his wrist. "And sorry, no-can-do."
Jack broke into one of his grins that could stop a clock before he turned to rest against his desk. His arms crossed his chest and he looked directly across to Ianto. Ianto smiled then, too, and both men shared an intimate moment as the silence wore on. Jack spoke up with a slight lilt in his voice, but he grew more and more serious. "You've been awfully quiet lately."
"Same as always, I should think."
"Not really."
Ianto clapped his hands together silently and looked down into his lap. "Things are fine." He felt his entire body pause, and he hesitated. "It's just that I've got a lot on my mind. With you and what's happening."
Jack nodded his head slowly and sighed out every indicative mark of apprehension in his body. Things had gotten so comfortable between him and Ianto. Committed wasn't the word. In fact, whatever their relationship was, it could still be counted as poly, and neither man complained. Silly little packages and categorical words weren't needed, because from day one, Jack had always sensed a fondness inside of Ianto. Even when Lisa was uncovered from the basement and Jack could have shot Ianto square in the head, he kept him around.
There was a closeness that could not be ignored, but now. Now, Jack sensed Ianto could hardly look at him.
"You want to talk about it?"
Ianto smiled then. "Do you know what you sound like right now?"
Jack's voice fell one octave, becoming far more serious. "Do you want to talk about it?"
The younger man's smile faded from his face, and he returned to the shell of a silent man. Jack's eyes practically bore through his entire soul, yet he blocked him out, somehow. "I wouldn't know where to start."
"It doesn't matter," Jack's head shook. "Say a word, start a sentence, ask me anything."
"Do you remember anything about your first time?"
"My what?" Jack couldn't help but smirk devilishly.
"I said that wrong." Ianto immediately began to back peddle. "Not your first time-time, the first time you were…" He didn't even need to finish his statement as Jack uncrossed his arms, set his hands beside him, and slid over his desk.
"There was this agency called LifeSmart…"
"You told me that," Ianto interrupted, growing more specific. He found himself becoming edgier, and his voice turned more and more Welsh as the words formed inside his mouth. It wasn't a matter of interest; he had to know what Jack knew. He had to know so he could recall. "I want to know what you remember. What were you like, where did you live, were you with anyone, who was he… or she?"
This was the last thing Jack was expecting, but Ianto showed some interest, so he opened his mouth. At first, all that appeared was silence, but he went back to that place in his life decades upon decades ago. "I was happy. Mortal. A few years older than you, but not by much, I think." He took in another breath, straining to remember. "We… him and I, we were not monogamous, we were never officially 'together,' but no one really was. I remember we shared a flat, but we split the rent. At one point it just seemed like he should live with me."
Jack found himself starting to smile. He traced a finger over his teeth and down his lip, drifting into another world. The hairs on the back of Ianto's neck slowly crept up as he attempted to listen as close as possible.
"I trusted him to be the right person, because he just seemed so good. He was one of the few good people I knew. And believe me… they were hard to come by sometimes. It was so easy to con yourself into everything. He made me read through every pamphlet, leaflet. At one point, he made me go to a support meeting just to observe the 'energy.'"
Ianto smiled as a hair of a memory floated through his head. He rested his elbow against the arm of the chair and scattered his fingers over his chin, laughing to himself. "A bit thorough, then."
"I think he invented the word 'thorough.'" Jack laughed softly as unconsciously he traced his fingers over his flat stomach. The memories, if anything, were just the thing to make him sentimental. He was about to go through it all over again, the ups and the downs and the annoyances and the general sense of immobility. So much of it would be him fending for his own self in the presence of a team completely unaware of what to do with him.
His fingers noticeably stopped turning as his mood shifted, and suddenly, he couldn't make eye contact with Ianto. It wasn't just that. "So much so that he effectively left without warning, which showed me how good he really was. Con man." He added to himself, somewhat. "Then again, we always were in the end. We just liked to pretend we were something better, I guess."
The younger man's expression was resigned to a frown and shifted in his chair, practically sitting on top of his hands. "I'm sorry." His tone was ambiguous, if not void of familiarity, but he wondered if, only for a moment, Jack could hear anything more behind his words.
"It's not your fault," Jack responded, feeling more sluggish now than he did only a few minutes ago. Ianto didn't know what to say to that, and so he settled for nothing for the time being. It still wasn't the time, if it ever could be. Even Ianto didn't know. The wheels kept turning in his head.
"Where do you think he went?" Ianto continued hastily, moving his hands back over his knees. Jack still seemed willing, but he took in another breath before he shrugged his shoulders back.
"That's the thing, I have no idea. But he—I'm pretty sure he took my old vortex manipulator." He pointed to his wrist then. His brow pinched again as he tried to remember. "A think a week or so went by when I realised it wasn't going to be so easy to find him, and that's when I realised it went missing the day he left. I hadn't worn it in a while." He felt the need to elaborate more, but he didn't know what else to say on the matter. For all he knew, Ianto barely knew the purpose of a vortex manipulator.
"You think he's alive out there?" Once again, Ianto chose his words carefully. Jack had never even considered it. So much time had passed, well over one-hundred-and-fifty years, that it was all a small flicker in his mind.
"I don't know. I suspect not. Cheating time is a funny thing, but you can't run from death. Except me, but I'm on borrowed time as it is." He spoke so casually that it would seem as though his words' utter significance – immortality, spanning throughout space and time, an unmovable stake in history – was lost to him, at least for the moment. He tended to live each day in the present now. "If I ever ran into him along the way, I would have known it."
"You keep saying him," Ianto practically mumbled, but he looked up at Jack and crinkled his brow. "Don't you remember his name?"
Jack nearly wanted to respond with something in the vein of "what's it to you?" but he held his tongue. In light of all that was happening, Ianto had a right to ask questions, but it didn't make it any less of an uncomfortable situation for Jack. He'd spent so long trying to erase that man and those memories from every part of him that he even began to pretend that he forgot his name – to the point that it became true.
An artillery bullet lodged in Jack's chest during the Second World War. He was pronounced dead as his body was pulled away from the battle grounds. Fifteen minutes later and not a moment too soon, he gasped for air and reached out his arms in the name of The Doctor (which was eventually brought to him, but not the one he wanted), as well a mystery man named Kieran. Naturally, he wasn't as lucid at the time.
And then there were those other times, when the name Kavin burned a hole through his brain and on to papers and in little statements in his heads. Those were not moments he enjoyed.
"K-something. K-ish," Jack finally responded, his mouth a little lazy and tone a bit short. "I think Kieran. Or Kevin." He couldn't say his name out loud, not even as it bore in his mind.
Ianto couldn't even recall blinking as he nodded his head. So much time had passed for Jack and yet, as the memories washed over him and he looked before the man in front of him, it had only been a few short years.
Jack spoke up again as he stepped down from his desk. "I think that's enough of that for the night."
"Thank you for telling me," Ianto spoke in a quick, sharp breath, looking back at Jack with heavy, yet appreciative, eyes. Somehow, despite the pain of so few answers, he was thankful.
The older man, his Captain, glided his palm over Ianto's shoulder and kneaded in only the slightest way. "Any time. You have a right to know, but you can't—" He breathed in through his nostrils. "Don't tell anyone what I told you. This is all strictly personal."
"I won't tell anyone," Ianto nodded, reaching out to rub Jack's knuckles. "I promise."
Jack trusted him. He patted the top of his hand and gave it a soft shake. "Okay."
"Okay," the younger man said, not taking his eyes off of Jack for even a moment. Silence took a strong hold once more, but it was a comfortable silence.
"So you're really going through with this?"
"What did I say?" Jack's tone rose again, but Ianto still looked back up at him with honest, inquisitive eyes, not bothering to speak. So Jack replaced the quiet, once again, with more words of wisdom. "It seems like the logical thing to do."
Ianto licked his bottom lip and gradually turned his eyes away. "It's a big decision."
"And I've made it. I made the decision over one-hundred-and-fifty years ago."
"But is it the right time, is it the same circumstances?"
Jack couldn't answer that truthfully. It wasn't. He'd changed in a big way, and the world was a lesser place. He certainly knew the road ahead of him would be a bumpy one, and yet, he was driven by the challenge.
"No, but I believe I have what it takes." He watched for any reaction from Ianto, anything, before sliding his hand around his neck. "I understand if you're scared. I understand if you want nothing to do with it. I can make it on my own. And I won't Retcon you, either, if you make that decision."
"Who said anything about forgetting; I haven't run away yet, have I?" Ianto said, interrupting. "I've already said all that I have to. I'm not all that daft."
"I know you're not."
"So I'll do whatever it takes, because I would anyway, mine or not."
Jack was pacified then, but he saw the anxiety inside the younger man sitting right beside him. It was no picnic for Jack, either. "It's ours," he said quietly and understated. "I can promise you it's ours."
"Then that's it then. You, me, baby, Torchwood. Nothing to discuss, is there?" Ianto seemed slightly more flushed, but he still regained his cool.
"No, I guess not." Jack squeezed the back of Ianto's neck and cupped his left hand around the back of his head. He leaned over and spoke into the younger man's ear, his repetitive breath slightly ticklish, but comforting. "You're a good man."
Ianto's heart shook like a rattle inside of his chest. Jack felt it, and he cupped his hand over the side of his chest. "Thank you."
"Yeah," the older man sighed slowly, gently rubbing the fabric of Ianto's shirt. "Stay in tonight. If you would."
Ianto's eyes trailed up at Jack. He nodded before closing his eyes as his lips were taken into a kiss, a kiss that transcended from something so chaste to something more. This was his reality, this life he'd made for himself.