Chapter Eleven: Waiting

Oh, my friend, it's not what they take away from you that counts.
It's what you do with what you have left.


William Cowper

Ianto paced the length and breadth of the waiting room, back and forth in front of the big window looking out over the city, his insides turning in on themselves. Tears bit at his eyes.

This couldn't be happening. They'd made it through six months without a hitch… they'd named her… Seren. Seren Toshiko. They'd named her and now he was afraid they were going to lose her… please, let her be all right…

Two days ago he'd felt her moving inside Jack for the very first time and that had been so much more amazing than listening to her heart beat or seeing her image. It had been so much more real… so much more solid. He was going to have a daughter…

Ianto swallowed hard but the lump in his throat refused to go away.

They'd been in the park… the few days before had been so rainy and grey, but that day had been perfect and Ianto had insisted on packing a picnic lunch… he just wanted to get out of the apartment for a bit.

He and Jack were sitting under a tree with Jack reading to him (a book that wouldn't be printed in Ianto's lifetime) when suddenly his partner reached out and took his hand. He placed it on his belly and there it was… movement. This little ripple across Jack's stomach from the inside… He was sure he didn't breathe at all for at least a minute…

And now Jack was bleeding and the thought of never getting actually meet their daughter… never holding her… first words… first steps… please be all right…

He should never have pushed Jack to go out tonight… he should have noticed the bleeding sooner… he should have realized something was wrong… Jack was never tired, not like he had been earlier.

He should have insisted that they come straight to the clinic instead of trying to brush it off as nothing…

"Hey," said a voice at his elbow.

Ianto was jolted out of his thoughts… for half a second he thought John… but the voice was female. It wasn't Hart come to check on him… or to gloat over his pain. It was a young woman… maybe twenty something, he reckoned.

"You looked like you could use this," she held out a plain white mug, like the kind they used in the clinic's cafeteria.

Ianto blinked. The woman wasn't a nurse or a technician, they all wore easily recognizable white uniforms with little green crescent moons embroidered on the front. He was sure he'd never seen her before, either. "I… I'm sorry…I… " he didn't know what to say. The mug was filled with something hot… peppermint tea? His brain was unable to process the gesture.

"I'm here with my partners… Jaeka went into premature labour a few hours ago…" she nodded towards another woman sitting in the lounge, looking as worried as Ianto felt. "That's Karen. I'm Suki."

Karen looked up; nodded. Went back to her own, clearly pained thoughts. Her own worry.

"Ianto. Jones. Ianto Jones." He introduced himself shakily, taking the mug from Suki's outstretched hand. "Thank you. How… how far along is… Jaeka?" he had to search his memory for the name.

"Only four months. His body is rejecting the womb… they say that happens… one in a million, and wouldn't you know we're the ones," she seemed to be trying to laugh. "I know, I know, 'why is he the one pregnant?' We get asked that all the time," she explained. "He wanted to. He seriously wanted to," she seemed to be trying to take it in stride, but she was clearly as distraught as her partner. "Maybe we shouldn't have let him."

"I…" Ianto didn't know what to say. There were too many things about the fiftieth century that just didn't make sense to him…. And yet Jack had said he'd been to the year 200,200 with the Doctor…he'd been to the end of the universe… and he probably hadn't been the least bit fazed by it, either. "I'm sure… they seem to know what they're doing here," he fumbled for something positive to say.

"This is the second time he's gone into labour. They said if it happens again, they may have to terminate… try again."

"I… I'm sorry…"

She shrugged. "What about you?"

"My husband started bleeding… I haven't heard what's wrong yet. He's at six months..."

"Well at least if they have to take the baby, there's a good chance…he…or she?"

"She."

"There's a fantastic survival rate if they have to take her at six months."

Dumbly, Ianto nodded. In his time there was almost no chance of survival at just six months…

"I… I'll leave you," Suki told him, then. "You just looked so alone… "

"I… am. My… family is…is far away," he stammered, realizing how alone he felt. He'd been too worried about the baby and Jack to think about being all alone, but now that he had… the only other person he knew in this time was John Hart, which was no consolation at all. He was entirely grateful John had made good on his promise not to stick around.

"That's the thing with spanning four galaxies, huh?" Suki's question brought him out of his thoughts.

"Yeah. It is." He drank his tea.

Everyone he'd ever cared about was dead… except for Jack.

Jack was probably still alive in this time, he would have to be. He couldn't die. What was three thousand years to a man who might live to see the end of the universe a second time?

Ianto wondered what Jack was doing, the Jack who belonged here. He wondered if he remembered him… if he remembered what had happened to them today, the first time he'd been here… now. He wondered if… if in three thousand years any of this will matter to him at all…

By this time he must have had hundreds… maybe even thousands… of other partners… lovers… loves…

He forced a smile in Suki's direction. "Thanks. For the tea," he clarified. "And the company."

"You're welcome." She took her leave, returning to her partner.

Ianto turned away from the waiting room and looked out at the city. At the sky. All those stars. All those planets. People… all of them insignificant specks really.

And somewhere out there was Jack… another Jack. An older, wiser Jack.

A Jack who might not remember that Ianto Jones had ever existed… that he had loved him more than anything… that they had had a family…

He closed his eyes against the tears that threatened to spill out. Please let her be all right. Let them both be all right…even if he forgets all about me some day, I still love him… I need him… I need… please, I need them both. I know I don't even know her yet, but I feel like I do. He loved her… he'd loved her even before they named her, but now that he had a name to attach to all the feelings he had for his child… he couldn't imagine his world without her in it.

"Seren," he whispered very, very softly. "Seren Toshiko Jones Harkness…"

"Mr. Jones?"

He turned at the sound of his name. He recognized the nurse for her uniform, if not her face. His tea had gone cold. He was alone in the waiting room. "Yes… yes, Ma'am," he moved towards her. "How… how are they?"

"Both fine," she said.

Ianto felt as if he could breathe again. "What happened?"

"The umbilical cord pulled away from the uterine wall…"

He felt the blood draining from his face. That didn't sound 'fine'.

"Mr. Jones, the damage can be repaired… it's not as serious as it sounds. It might have been if you hadn't gotten him to us so quickly… "

He nodded… movement across the floor caught his attention. The lift doors slid openen… he recognized Basha Gullier even though she was wearing street clothes. She looked as if she'd rolled out of bed, pulled up her hair and come straight to the clinic…

Ianto met her part way, startled by his own reaction to her presence, reaching out, taking her hands… expecting her to know something the nurse didn't even though she was obviously just arriving.

"I'm so sorry I wasn't able to get here sooner, Mr. Jones…"

"Just tell me they're going to be all right." Because Jack would live no matter what, but Seren… she wasn't immortal and if Jack died, even for a moment there was no telling what his body would do with the pregnancy.

"I've spoken to the doctors who examined your partner. Both he and your daughter are going to be fine, Mr. Jones. I promise. The doctors are going to reattach the umbilical cord. It's not a dangerous procedure," she added. "He'll be on bed for a couple of days and have to take it easy for a week or two, but after that, he should be fine. These things happen sometimes," she told him. She lowered her voice, "No matter what science tells us, pregnancy puts a lot of stress on the male body…"

Ianto swallowed. Nodded. "We went out to a concert tonight… I should have been paying more attention."

"It's not your fault."

"But… the last couple of weeks… we've… we've been…" he blushed. He and Jack had been extremely active lately, and they hadn't always been gentle with each other. It was almost as if Jack was trying to make it up to him for those first three months, even though Ianto kept saying he didn't have to… he wasn't one to be able to turn Jack down, either. Now he wished he would have.

She seemed to understand exactly what he was unable to articulate. "Having a healthy sex life didn't hurt your baby Mr. Jones. Neither did going to a concert or walking around the market. Sometimes these things happen... and he may need to be just a little more careful the next few months, but they're going to be all right. You got him to us very quickly. That's what counts."

He tried to convince himself to breathe. He believed her. He didn't know why, but he believed her. "Will they let me see him?"

"Of course. I'll take you back." She moved past the nurse.

"Mr. Harkness is heavily sedated…" the nurse tried to object.

Basha ever so politely ignored her and took Ianto back to the ward where Jack was sleeping.

"What's that on his stomach?" the Welshman asked. It seemed like some sort of belt but it took up most of his midsection… there were lights… monitors… wires… it didn't look at all reassuring. He also wondered if it wasn't the sort of thing that everybody knew all about, because the nurse checking on Jack at the moment gave him a look… if he weren't so upset by everything else, he might have been upset by her obvious presumption that he was some sort of idiot for having to ask.

"They put the baby in stasis while the evaluated your partner's condition," Basha told him smoothly, completely unflustered by his ignorance. "It's just a precautionary measure, not an indication that anything is wrong," she added to the look of concern that flickered across his face.

He nodded. Stasis. That meant that the baby wouldn't be affected by blood loss… oxygen deprivation… "How bad was it?" he wanted to know.

"All preliminary indications are that she was completely unaffected… it was only a partial separation," she told him. "The reattachment surgery isn't even strictly necessary… but why take chances? It's a very simple procedure. It just takes a couple of hours."

He moved to Jack's side and laid his hand over top of his partner's. His skin seemed cold… Jack was never cold.

He opened his eyes and smiled when he saw his Welshman.

"God, I was scared to death," Ianto felt the words come out in a rush.

"Sorry about that," Jack's smile warmed as he twined his fingers into his partner's. He sounded as groggy as he looked.

"It wasn't your fault. You're both all right and that's all that matters." He held his hand… stroked his cheek. He leant in and kissed Jack's forehead. I love you so much… "You'll be up and driving me mad again in no time," he added with a smile.

Jack chuckled at him, although clearly it was an effort for him just to keep his eyes open. "What happened?" he asked.

As Ianto started to tell him, he closed his eyes… just for a moment… he loved the sound of his partner's voice… those beautiful Welsh vowels… so soothing…

He was out cold before Ianto could really explain what had happened.

"He's pretty heavily sedated," Basha told the younger man in a gentle tone. "I'm surprised he woke up at all."

Ianto smiled at her. "I'm not."

He sat with him until the doctors came to take Jack into surgery… he'd been allowed in the room when they did the implantation, but he wasn't invited back for this procedure.

Basha sat with him in the waiting room. She made him a fresh cup of tea. She made him eat something and made idle conversation with him to keep his mind off Jack and the baby.

Ianto found himself talking about his family… his sister… Remi… Jack… Jack's son… being the Wicked Step 'mother'. Dealing with his mother in law... of course he stuck to the story that Jack was only thirty seven...

"Mixed families are always challenging," his companion assured him.

Ianto could only begin imagine how complicated it must have gotten in the past three thousand years.

"Have you named your daughter yet?" Basha asked him then.

"Seren. Seren Toshiko Jones Harkness."

"That's lovely."

"Tosh… Toshiko Sato… she was a friend of ours. She died a couple of years ago…" three thousand years ago… "She… she was one of my closest friends," he said anyway, wiping away the tears as the weight of the last few hours finally came crashing down on him.

Tosh had been the first person at Torchwood to be nice to him… Suzie was too busy to even look at him… Owen only noticed him when he wanted a coffee. Jack… he had been so conflicted about Jack. It seemed like so long ago… a whole lifetime… he looked over at the woman sitting next to him and took her hand. "Thank you. For… listening. And sitting with me."

"I know what it's like to be a bit out of one's element, Mr. Jones."

He gave her a startled look.

"I'm sorry… I don't mean to… suggest anything. It's just… I was born on one of the outlying colonies, too."

"How did you end up here? If… if you don't mind my asking?"

"I was young, perhaps a bit naïve. Almost any life seemed better than what I had on the family farm," she shrugged. "I've no complaints about the life I have here… but I do remember what it was like to be as overwhelmed as you seemed to be that first day. They tell us we're not supposed to get too close to the patients…"

"I'm glad you did."

"So am I."

Just then one of the nurses appeared to let Ianto know his partner was out of surgery and all was well… she took him back so he could sit with him.

When Jack woke up a few hours later, Ianto told him about John. There was a part of him that didn't want to… would rather not admit that John was capable of even a single selfless act. But Jack deserved the truth.

He didn't comment. He just held onto his partner.