Title: Something Unpredictable (Chapter 7/?)
Rating/Warnings: PG, mpreg
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Description: Jack finds himself with a 51st century predicament in a 21st century world.
A/N: Oh my godddd, you guys, I'm so sorry for the wait. I have nothing to say about that. Suffice to say, I'm planning to finish this story, so I hope you guys are still interested. (Fingers crossed)
Some would lark that if you close your eyes for too long, your life may pass by in a blink. Captain Jack Harkness had lost that virtue more than a century ago.
Weeks carried on like regular days, years like months, decades after decades. It never changed, nor was he convinced that it ever would. That inevitable weight of death, the sort of thing a man carries to take them from each goal in life, was lost in his biological countdown. And within those years, one piled after the other, was a list of the lives he met and the deaths he saw, all which felt seconds apart.
As for people - hell, people didn't change. Clothes, hair, music, and trends, maybe, but not the inner psyche of humanity. Man kind was predictable, he had decided; so easily swayed, manipulated, gullible, and incapable of learning from their own mistakes. They all leapt like fools at the first sign of danger, yet they never looked up to the sky or saw the vast possibilities. They only carried on in their own little world. War, depression, recession, dictatorship, climate change were just a few of the fears people faced. Each person could cope by virtue of knowing their time on earth would be futile and the next generation could sweep up the pieces.
But Jack would be every generation. He would weather the eye of every storm and watch as man kind wiggled in and out of its worst times and proudest moments. He had lived so very long that he knew hoopla from a crisis and a trifle event from foreshadowing.
Three weeks and three days had passed since Jack told Owen. Hell, he was closing on a month. It would hardly seem plausible if not for the fact that he was changing. And not just him, but his entire team, the four other people who had learned to rely on all his tendencies, whether commendable or otherwise. His actual condition, too, had not been a joy ride either. He was more and more displeased with own behavior and physical appearance by the day - sensitive, aggravated, anxious, nauseous, fatigued. It was already putting a cramp on his work life. He was still capable of fulfilling every duty, though the side comments and the seemingly unnecessary amount of nurturing put the hairs on the back of his neck on end.
His true time of solstice was usually kept to the mornings while he was completely alone. That odd little world stowed below the Roald Dahl Plass had been his entire world and purpose for as long as he could remember. Now it felt as though his limbs were getting stretched away from him, as if he was being reshaped like a glob of clay without any say in the matter.
Ianto came to work earlier than usual that day. Drops of rain dripped down his coat as he hung it inside the tourist office, and Jack watched from a usual spot in his office by way of the CCTV, one hand absentmindedly strayed in his lap. The younger Welshman could often tell when he was being watched, but now he seemed so hollow-minded and distracted that Jack barely knew how to carry a conversation with him.
The younger man meandered, licking stamps on to envelopes and plucking away at the tourist booth computer, as if somebody was honestly going to come in at six in the morning on a rainy day. Once he finally wandered into the main Hub, he picked up a trash bag and cleaned up traces of filth from all around him, not once glancing up at Jack's office.
Jack could see it in his eyes, the underlying layer of repression, as if he had something mounting in his own mind that could not reach the surface. Jack had his suspicions, but sometimes—damn, sometimes Ianto was too complicated even for him. At times, when Ianto would think Jack wasn't looking, or in dark corners in the streets of Cardiff on another Weevil expedition, Jack would catch a single glance of Ianto, only to be met with more astonishing confusion than he had before. Ianto had a knack for bewildering him before all of this, but now it was as if he was retreating inside of himself.
A coffee cup shattered to the ground and Jack was brought back to the present. There was only one explanation, and without a moment's notice, he spun his chair around, bounded up to his feet, and sprinted down to the main level. Ianto was sucking the blood from a cut on his finger and gathering the scattered pieces of porcelain when Jack set his hand on the small of his back.
"Everything all right down here?"
Ianto stood up straighter, tucking at his waist coat just as Jack's fingers strayed away. "Everything's fine. Absolutely brilliant." He picked up the shattered cup absentmindedly, shuffling about in the small space between him and Jack.
Jack nodded and crossed his arms to his chest, causing his entire posture to lean back like a bow. As Ianto glanced over, he pressed his lightly cut thumb against the inside of his palm and looked the Captain up-and-down. Whether Jack was entirely cognizant of his own body image (that, alone, was debatable), his belt had expanded at least an inch or two, though it was not very obvious yet. Thankfully, the last thing anyone would expect is a pregnant man. Even in Cardiff.
"So you're here awfully early." Jack leaned forward again with a sigh before walking behind the coffee maker. Over the last few weeks, he had already stared longingly in its direction only to feel a sharp dose of reality, usually in the form of nausea.
Ianto took another garbage bag out to double line the broken cup before proceeding to fill another one with a steaming glass of decaf, as per usual.
With a resigned puff of acceptance, Jack took the cup and tipped back the liquid. "Thank you." He frowned as the younger man stayed silent whilst running a rag along the coffee station.
"So as I was saying, you're here awfully early." Jack tested his own boundaries, and rather listlessly, his fingers curled over his abdomen and the small but round indentation. "You don't have to do that, you know."
Ianto eased into a slow halt, his hand holding on to the sopping wet rag, as if moving simply left him in standby mode with no ability to speak nor respond. But the truth was as evident as the very clean state of the coffee station. Jack turned his body profile to Ianto, as if he was ready to leave if Ianto kept up the silent treatment.
The rag was set into the sink very slowly, and like clockwork, Ianto looked back at Jack. "I'll… follow you to the sofa. In a minute or so. That is, if you're not busy."
Jack gave him a quizzical look. No questions asked, just a single look. Ianto was waiting for an answer, so he simply shook his head and gave some half-arsed, dazed, "Yeah, sure. I'm not busy."
Jack's stance, however unexpected it appeared, was hardly that of darting to the sofa. However hungry he was to tell Ianto everything and, in exchange, listen intently, he was completely unsure if Ianto was going to proposition him, shag him, or both. Frankly, neither sounded too shabby at that particularly moment.
"Emergency command system, please state your emergency," a seemingly robotic, female dispatcher spoke.
Ianto's hands trembled and his free hand pressed against his forehead in a pit of sweat. He was locked in a cross-legged, huddled position against the walls of the flat he shared with the woman he loved. Across from him sat Lisa, or all that was left of her in fragments across the floor. All he could see was steel and the harsh realization of mutilated pain. She was alive, so very alive, the woman who had saved him, yet her eyes were flickering with panic.
"Emergency command system, please state your emergency."
He finally spoke, his voice choked yet high pitched and bleeding with panic. "It's my girlfriend, Lisa, Lisa Hallett. We were at Canary Wharf."
"Is she unconscious, sir?"
"No, but she's injured and she's in pain. Those, those cyber people got her, but I saved her. Please do something, please help us."
The dispatcher remained so calm that Ianto could barely breathe. "What is she, sir?"
"I'm sorry, where is she?"
"What is she?"
He. He could barely believe his own ears and he hesitated before speaking again. He didn't want to become a ballistic animal, but every part of him was shaking. "I, I'm sorry, I don't understand."
"Can you please tell me the state you found her in, sir? What she is?
The voice on the other end was so calm that Ianto could have strangled the phone. He tried, he really did try, but he just couldn't hold back on the frustration. Not now, not like this. "What sort of bloody question is that? This is an emergency and you're just asking these questions, she needs your help. Please help us!"
"Sir, I need you to calm down for me and for Lisa. Can you do that for me?"
He felt himself nodding; though his heart was palpitating so quickly that he was on the verge of fainting. He was still so unsure and his world was spinning in circles all around him. "I—I don't know if I can."
"What is your name, sir?"
"Ianto. Ianto Jones."
"Ianto, my name is Emma. It's going to be all right."
Relief. That's all he could feel and the tone of his voice rose as both his hands took a hold of the mobile, one of his wrists crossing over his chin. "Please, are you going to help us?"
"Yes, Ianto, I just need to know a few things first. We will have people on the way if you calm down."
He began to nod his head again until a thought came over him, and this time, he did not hesitate for a second. "Are you actually giving me an ultimatum?"
"Ianto, it's all right—"
Ianto pinched the bridge of his nose and practically let out a sob. His fist banged the floor as he brought the phone from his ear and it in front of him, only inches from his lips. "How can it be all right? I can't calm down. Please just get someone!"
The dispatcher momentarily then spoke extra slowly. "Ianto, I will have ambulance on its way in no time. But I need you to take a deep breath. And then I need you to look at Lisa. And then I need you to tell me what she is."
Ianto whimpered, pulled the phone away from his mouth, and looked back to Lisa, his Lisa, longingly. And for that moment in time, he never stopped staring, his eyes fixed on the woman he loved, those eyes he could still see and touch, just like old times. Yet there she sat, virtually lifeless and so marred that she was brutally unrecognizable. Blood was stained to flesh underneath the coarse, metallic moldings bound to her body. It was a miracle she was still alive, that she could even remember who he was.
He responded to Emma with a frantic stillness, just barely hanging to the edge of his sanity. His voice was hoarser than he had realized, he couldn't think.
"She's one of them, those cyber things, but only half-way. They, they changed her, but you may be able to reverse it. There's still hope, she's holding on, and you—you've got to come get her, please, you've got to help us."
There was an eerily silent pause over the next few seconds. Like darts whisking through the air, Ianto's brain chased more and more quickly.
"Please, are you there?"
"I apologize. The dispatcher line has received an unobtainable amount of related calls within the last several hours. According to the board of greater London's emergency command system, all calls and-or hospital-inquiries in relation to cyber conversions in which the victim has been partially converted are to be forwarded to the Torchwood institute immediately."
Torchwood. Ianto's passion rose to his highest level, and as the tears streamed down his face, he beat his first to the air and empathically cried into his phone. "Torchwood—Emma, we work for Torchwood! Torchwood is Canary Wharf. Of all the people in London to know about what just happened, it's supposed to be us. We're supposed to know."
"Ianto, I apologize, I am just following orders. There is nothing we can do. Will you hold?"
"No, please, I swear, I've lost my friends, my job, I might lose my girlfriend if you don't—so please! Send anyone, you just don't understand! I don't care what your board said, we've been completely crippled. Please tell your supervisor, Torchwood is gone, it's bloody gone! Please!"
"I'm sorry, sir, I'm so sorry. I am going to have to forward this call now."
Ianto shuffled a bit, elbows on top of his knees and fingers squeezing a loose fist. It felt good to talk. Even if the past was dead and buried, it was every bit a part of him as present circumstances, if not more so. Jack listened intently whilst fragments of Ianto's anxiety chipped away all the while.
"And so at that point, I was desperate to get home to Cardiff. As you well know, I made every move to get in here, for Lisa. We always promised each other that if one of us was hurt or—or worse, we'd get on, we'd be strong for each other, but it was just all so quick. We needed each other. In a way, I wanted to save her, like the way she saved me in the beginning."
The regret was as clear as a bell in Ianto's voice, and rather than hashing up the past and growing bitter, Jack took on a fond smile and nodded his head, however lost his thoughts were in Ianto. He couldn't help but watch the simple things. The anxious cracking of his knuckles, the spare picking of his fingernails, the adjustment of his tie and waist coat, every last eyebrow arch.
"How?" Jack finally responded, albeit quietly and still solemn with the morning air. He'd had months to get over Ianto's deception and double crossing. The only pain he drew from Lisa was watching Ianto, but even then, he'd watched him grow exponentially in confidence.
A small yet lost smirk formed on to Ianto's lips, and Jack leaned in to rub his knee. Ianto glanced back and brushed his hand over his.
"We had just met and she picked me up off the street. It's all so blurry, I can't even remember what I was thinking." He blinked away the memories like a blur caught in his eye. "She took me in, even when I looked like a complete nutter. She saw something in me and from that point on, it was pretty quick. Us, I mean. I got the Torchwood gig six months later."
"Sounds about right," Jack said to himself, sliding his hand away as he began to recollect the first time he researched Ianto Jones, that strange man he met on a weevil chase. Ianto stopped to pause before cracking a familiar, closed-lip smile, secretly rolling his eyes to himself. He should have known.
"Ah. None of this is new to you, is it?"
Jack grew momentarily quiet, glancing back to his young friend, lover, confidant, "baby daddy." He hadn't coined the word, at least not yet. Nonetheless, despite having perhaps said the wrong thing, Jack's knowledge was something Ianto had accepted. The Captain's experience and war wounds were often times what held Torchwood together; their fearless, if not overly confident, leader.
"Look," Jack began, shifting his weight slightly. "Don't overestimate what I know. They were nothing more than figures on a sheet of paper. It's what's in here." He tapped his own heart and leaned back in his chair, his arms crossing to his chest.
The younger man felt almost baffled, though he resigned to humility as he rubbed his hands together. Jack was expecting him to say something – possibly something brilliant, but Ianto's cold hands unfolded and he stared into his palm for a good, long time, tracing lines over his veins.
"It used to be that I couldn't wake up and not see her face or hear her name or simply be reminded of something. She was that place in my life that was just right. Until the day she died." He swallowed a lump in his throat. "And that day was Canary Wharf."
Jack nodded along until Ianto came to a close, and his eyes grew wider. He hadn't expected those words from Ianto in a million years, not even after so long. His mouth was a few inches ajar and he was fighting say something relevant, but he could barely form the appropriate words.
Clearing his throat, he gained composure and tapped his fist against his lips. "I'm, uh, glad you can see it that way, Ianto. But part of me could already tell. You've become a greater person."
Ianto had no idea what that meant, but he had to admit, that wasn't a bad thing to hear from anyone, and so a hint of a smile traced over his lips. He couldn't help it, really. He hadn't intentionally grown, he had just evolved, and he had Torchwood – and Jack – to thank for that. It had occurred to him ages ago that he couldn't save Lisa, at least not completely. If all he had was this… well, he wasn't doing too horrifically.
"What about you, then?" Ianto said, as if shrugging away at least one part of the baggage of his past.
"Hmm?"
"You, everything." At that point, Ianto wished he had a drink. He weakly gestured. "The baby."
"Oh," Jack mumbled, noticing just then that his fingers were traced over his middle. "We're fine. I'm wired up to the gills practically every morning, as you've noticed." Both men hummed softly to themselves. "Owen's being really neurotic. He's keeping track of anything and everything."
"I think he's just concerned. You can't blame him."
"No," the Captain's head shook. "He's doing the best he can. It's not the most normal situation. He claims that my body appears to be working in overdrive to overcompensate for the 'intrusion.' They had drugs for that in the 51st century. Here… well, I suppose it's all on me."
"Is it going to be all right?" Genuinely concerned, Ianto slid his hand over Jack's knee. Jack slid his fingers over his knuckles and cracked a small, reassuring, if not cocky, smile.
"Of course. I always come out alive, don't I?"
"I wasn't necessarily referring to you."
Jack's raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips, quietly putting his ego back in check. "Oh." His hand returned back to his chest before it protectively brushed along the small intrusion in his belly, and he stared down at a spot on his lap before glancing back up at Ianto, acting seemingly nonchalant.
"I. Didn't know you were that concerned. You've seemed a little off since I told you."
"Well, you have to admit. It's one thing to find out you're a father, another to—" Ianto buttoned up his lip as his jugular rose and fell. "Well… I just want what's best."
Jack's head bobbed up and down slowly as he leaned forward and scattered his fingers in between Ianto's, anything for a deeper connection. "Good. I'm glad to hear it." He took in a deep breath and exhaled. "You know, I'm just as scared. In all my years, I've never actually been a father. And I've been a lot of things. I've worked in the circus."
Both men couldn't help but crack a smile, their hearts warming a bit more than before.
"I wouldn't worry so much," Ianto said with a wistful sigh. "Surely all that experience ought to rub off on it, right? It's not like you won't have a million stories to tell."
"I know, but even this life. Torchwood." Jack hardly needed to say anything more than that, but he elaborated. "Look at Gwen and Rhys. You know some day Rhys is going to convince her, and the day will come when she pops the news." He cracked a smile and shook his head wistfully.
"Jesus, can you imagine? Gwen, someone's mother. She batters us around enough." Ianto nearly stopped himself. He could hardly believe he was having this conversation.
"But she'd be good for it. She's got a lot of heart. You know?" Jack noted and raised an eyebrow before nodding to Ianto's approval. Moments later, as if deflated with a fine toothed needle, he added, "And that's precisely what will make it so hard."
"Why's that?" Ianto silently murmured. His brow wrinkled as he rested his chin in the palm of his hand, and he watched Jack seriously. It was a warm moment, yet Ianto was evidently ready for Jack to elaborate.
Jack let out a sigh and leaned back again. "Like I said, kids, Torchwood, not a match. Gwen should be able to live a normal life."
Ianto turned a suspicious glance on to Jack. "Sure. Course. So should you, if you apply the same logic."
Jack's expression didn't change, though a fingernail scratched his trousers slowly. The younger man sat up in realization. "You wouldn't."
"I don't know, would I?" The Captain glanced back, trying to remain as proud as he could in an utterly sheepish moment.
The moment turned quiet, morbidly quiet as Jack and Ianto sat there, attempting to read each other like complicated, 18th century literature. Ianto could not begin to understand Jack's logic. Frankly, it was enough to frighten him. If the man in front of him could be so quick to retcon Gwen, a woman he clearly had a love and fondness toward, could he do the same to him? Would he? These thoughts riled up in Ianto's head, and as he began to dwell on it, he developed a bit of a snarl underneath his gravely, low voice.
"I don't think you'd be able to. I think you're being daft." Ianto nodded only once with as much conviction as he could muster. "I think you'd treat her with the same respect as you'd treat yourself."
"It's different with me. This is my team."
Ianto's anxiety rose only slightly, yet he tried to remain passive. "Yes, isn't that so easy to say."
Jack placed a finger softly over Ianto's mouth to hush him up. For five cold, searing moments, they shared direct eye contact, transmitting an equal amount of feedback through one look than a thousand words. And somehow, the younger man was pacified as Jack ran his hand down his shoulder and even managed to come back down to earth. "Please. Let's not get hung up on hypothetical 'what ifs." Things like that are out of our control, and we've both got enough on our plates in the future."
Still silent, Ianto only blinked and nodded his head. Hell, talk about the understatement of the year. He wore all of it on his back like a cross of guilt, and whatever Jack could see, he tried to kiss away. Ianto put on a face, just to make him happy.
"You're going to be great, Ianto."
"So are you." And Ianto meant it.
Jack wrung his hands and chortled. "Yeah, but you're going to be something better than great."
Whatever that means, Ianto practically remarked, giving Jack an extra long, awkward glance before attempting to laugh it away. But Jack only insisted.
"I'm serious."
"And what makes you so sure?"
Before Jack could take his time to answer, the Torchwood doors swung upon, swooping in Tosh at her appropriate arrival time. She was chatting away on her mobile at a surprising rate, God only knows why, and munching on a piece of biscotti. Jack glanced over his shoulder and back to Ianto, and before Ianto could get a word in edgewise, the Captain cut him off with a kiss to his lips and murmured quietly.
"Because somehow, in this crazy, weird way, you remind me of him." Jack let those words sit in the air for at least half a minute before he patted Ianto on the back and stood up to his feet. "And I mean that in a good way."
Ianto could still feel Jack's hands around his arms, his voice buzzing against his lips. Those few words, however ambiguous and confusing they should have been. "Jack."
But the therapy session had ended. Jack needn't tell him more than once.
"We'll talk later. Brand new day, Ianto, time to get to work. I need those letters stamped and posted by ten-thirty."