Chapter Thirteen: Nine Months
At last I feel the equal of my parents.
Knowing you are going to have a child is like extending yourself in the world, setting up a tent and saying "Here I am, I am important."
Now that I'm going to have a child it's like the balance is even.
My hand is as rich as theirs, maybe for the first time.
I am no longer just a child.
The young Welshman took a deep breath and let it out again. (Deep breaths were definitely better than shallow ones, no matter what Tim said.)
They were back at the clinic in a comfortable private room, the same room they'd be staying in for the next two days, just like they had when they'd been there for the implantation. In fact it may have been the very same room for all Ianto could tell…
"Nervous?" Jack reached over and and his partner took his hand.
"I don't know why you're not," he replied dryly to his partner's unreasonable calm.
The older man smiled, "It's a simple procedure, remember?"
"But what about all the stuff that happens afterwards?"
"Ok, now I'm nervous," he said, mostly teasing. Mostly. The next few months didn't bother him, but after that… going home…? How were they ever going to balance work and family? It wasn't as if they'd done such a great job the last couple of years with Jason… he supposed they could have done worse… they'd made it to football games at least…
Ianto pulled Jack's hand to his lips, brushing his partner's knuckles with a kiss. "I love you."
"I love you too." He decided that he would worry about home when they got there.
Jack laid back in the bed and closed his eyes a moment, resting. Breathing. In a few minutes a nurse would come… take them back through sterilization… he would put on the surgical gown… Ianto would exchange his jeans and t-shirt for a 'clean suit'… a sterile jumpsuit. He'd have to wear a mask again… Jack would probably tease him about wanting to play doctor, just like before…
I'll turn my head and cough for you anytime… Jack smiled. Ianto had nearly smacked him after he'd said that.
His free hand wandered towards his midsection… his smiled deepened when he felt Seren moving. "Looks like somebody's anxious to get this over with," he told his partner.
Ianto leaned in close… he kissed Jack's lips. His stomach.
Their daughter.
He laid his head gently against his partner's body while they waited, savouring the moment… the closeness he felt to Jack as the older man held him tight.
He had no idea that in the same moment Jack's mind had wandered towards things he'd spend a lifetime… multiple lifetimes… trying to forget.
Jack held on tighter to the young man lying next to him, but it was a futile effort.
Another time. Another place. Eighty years in the future.
Two thousand years in his personal past.
Jason.
Roan had been no less supportive during the pregnancy. No less wonderful. The man that Jack had been hadn't appreciated it. He swallowed, remembering the two of them heading into the small operating room. Roan was so nervous, just like Ianto was now.
He was sure he had been cavalier about the whole process, anxious to get it over with. Get his figure back… his life. He'd moved into Roan's house during the last couple of months of the pregnancy. He was anxious to move back out again.
Not that he had to, he was on an approved medical leave from the Agency, he had two months… but he didn't want to take them. He loved his job.
Still, Roan had done so much for him, the least he could do was give him something in return…
He kept his eyes closed as they moved him into the surgical bay. He listened to Basha explaining the procedure to Ianto. He was glad he'd made friends… Basha… Suki and her partners, Karen and Jaeka. It was good for Yan to have someone besides him to talk to.
"How are you holding up?" Ianto whispered into his ear.
Jack opened his eyes and looked into those blue grey eyes of his partner's. He smiled. "Perfect."
The younger man smiled back at him. He took Jack's hand. It would take less time to perform the caesarean section and remove the womb than it had taken to implant it.
Jack gave his partner's hand a squeeze. "We're almost parents."
"We've been parents, Cariad. We just haven't got the chance to get to know her yet."
So young and so wise, he mused… "I love you."
"I love you, too."
It seemed like it was hardly more than a few minutes later when both men heard the healthy wail of their daughter.
"She has your lungs," Ianto teased; he felt the tears welling up behind his eyes but he couldn't decide if he should hold them in or just let go and cry.
"Mr. Jones… would you like to cut the umbilical cord?" Basha asked him softly.
"Could I… I mean…" it seemed like such an antiquated custom… it probably wasn't even necessary. Everything in the room was lasers this and sonic that.
She smiled and guided him around the screen, "Fair warning…" she began.
He nodded, understanding. A caesarean section wasn't a pleasant sight even with fiftieth century technology. He could handle the blood… he didn't see much past the squirming infant in the nurse's hands anyway.
"I'm not sure I can do this…" he said suddenly, aware that his hands were shaking. It didn't help that Basha had handed him an old fashioned looking pair of scissors.
"Yes you can," came Jack's words of encouragement.
He took a breath to steady himself… my God, she's beautiful, he thought, looking at the wriggling, unhappy little girl.
As soon as he snipped the cord a doctor flashed a laser across the cord, evaporating it almost completely… fiftieth century technology at its best, he mused softly. None of it made Seren any the happier.
The nurses finished drying her off and wrapped her in a soft blanket before handing her over… she stopped fussing the instant she was settled into Ianto's arms.
In that moment his whole world stopped. The universe shrank. There was just her… this tiny… vulnerable… beautiful little thing. He glanced at Jack and smiled. Together they had made his child...
"Looks like somebody knows who her father is," Basha's soft voice pulled him further back up into the larger world around him. Ianto swallowed, but he couldn't speak. It didn't matter. "Maybe you'd like to introduce her to her other father," she suggested.
He nodded… Jack… those gorgeous blue eyes and that smile that started in his eyes and worked its way all the way down to his mouth… Ianto found his voice in his partner's smile. "I'd like you to meet your daughter, Cariad. Seren, this is your Papa," he used the name Jason used without thinking about it. "I'm sure he's going to cause you as much grief as he causes me, but trust me, he's worth it," he smiled down at his Captain.
Jack returned his smile, but for a moment he found himself lost in memory again…
"I'd like you to meet your son. Jason, this is your Papa…"
He placed the squirming baby on his chest and Jack met his gaze… those beautiful green eyes… the eyes of a man who would forgive him anything, love him no matter what he did... and for one instant he felt what he knew Roan had always felt when he looked at him…
Something so true and so deep that there weren't words enough to describe it and yet in its simplicity one word, love, summed it up so eloquently, so perfectly… there was a connection between them… it was real. For both of them... for the first time Jack felt it too.
Jack bit back tears… the past… the present… in that moment, seeing his son for the first time, he'd felt something for his partner… felt like they were partners… they'd accomplished something so profound, so beautiful. So amazing.
"I love you," Roan told him; his tone held a confidence it so rarely held when said the words. He knew his partner was feeling the same thing he was, he could see it in his eyes. In that moment everything felt so right. It felt the way it was meant to be. The way he'd always known it would be… "I have loved you for so long," his voice was filled with raw emotion… longing. They could be so good together.
All Jack had to do was say the words.
He let them die in his throat. He flashed a smile, one of his cocky little half-grins. "We do good work, huh?" he asked in a cavalier tone.
He ignored the look of hurt on Roan's face.
He looked up at the young Welshman who was smiling at him now… that same sort of smile Roan had given him. The same loving… longing… expression in his eyes. The same promise… they could be so good together. "I love you, Ianto Jones Harkness," he could barely speak; he held Seren carefully with one hand and with the other reached up to bring his husband into a deep kiss. "I love you so much."
Seren fussed.
They both laughed.
"I love you too," Jack assured her.
"We both do."
Jack looked at his partner a long, long moment… maybe in a lifetime as long as his was destined to be he would have a thousand partners… a hundred thousand… but in that moment, he couldn't imagine anyone he would love as much as he loved his Welshman. He wondered if that was unrealistic… he supposed it was… but I love you so much.
He leant in and laid a soft kiss on Seren's forehead. There was no one else he had been with that he would have had another child with, but he was glad he had her.