Chapter 9: Accidents

It was seven o'clock on Saturday morning and Jack suppressed a laugh as he heard a loud beeping followed by some colourful swearing coming from behind the door to his left, since he had started going out with Tosh and Ianto on a Friday night he had discovered that Ianto really didn't like his alarm clock on a Saturday morning, knocking on his way in Jack entered the room with a drink and a couple of painkillers to help get Ianto out of bed and ready for work on time. After they had all stumbled into work at noon the Saturday after their first night out – Jack should have never got into a drinking contest with that drag queen – Owen had played music around the HUB and made their morning ride in the SUV more turbulent than necessary just to make them suffer. It was the first time in decades that Jack had suffered so much after a night on the town and this time he couldn't even blame it on the hyper-vodkas. Nope, in 21st century Cardiff it was Jager-bombs that were causing the pounding in his head and Ianto's need to empty his guts into the toilet twice that morning. Owen and Gwen had both been out with their usually quiet co-workers at some point during Jack's absence and after one heavy night on the town they had both refused to repeat the experience – Gwen because Rhys had told her off because he had to pick her up from the police station when she had thrown bits of her kebab at PC Andy when she saw him on the high street – apparently it was funny at the time – And Owen wouldn't go back to Club X with them after they had made fun of the fact that he'd been drunkenly flirting with a man in drag all night. Jack had laughed at their stories but was honestly a little worried by Ianto's behaviour, he had promised to give the younger man some space while he made up his mind what he felt about Jack but that didn't mean that the Captain couldn't look after him while he was deciding.

So this morning for the fifth week in a row he was stood in Ianto's kitchen making toast and pouring orange juice while Ianto got dressed and Tosh groaned her way into the shower where she stood under the hot water until she felt alive.

"Did you sleep on the couch again?" Ianto walked across the lounge to sit at the breakfast bar where he could face Jack while he ate.

"Yeah" as Ianto mentioned the couch he touched the sore spot on his neck from where he had slept at a strange angle.

"You know you could have come in with..." He was cut off by a phone ringing, actually it was three phones ringing. They heard Tosh jump out of the shower to read the text as they picked up their own mobiles and read:

"Hoix in Bute Town, Gwen injured" They snapped into action. Tosh had thrown her hair into a ponytail and was dressed in two minutes flat and Ianto made sure everyone was armed from his not at all scary under the bed arsenal before they went running out of the front door and set off on foot.

Running wasn't doing anything for Ianto's stomach but the fresh air and painkillers had cleared his head as they ran the short distance to where Tosh's PDA had traced Owen's call to. Ianto came running around the corner behind Jack and Toshiko and came face to face with three very hungry Hoix, two were eating out of a couple of bins – Hoix really would eat anything – and another was moving dangerously close to Owen's back while he tied off a makeshift tourniquet around Gwen's injured leg. Jack pulled his webley and fired off one shot between said Hoix's eyes which unfortunately started the other two out of their feeding frenzy and had them scattering. Jack and Toshiko followed one to a dead ended alley and Ianto chased one along a street where numerous cafés were opening for the breakfast rush.

Gwen sat in the back of the SUV where Owen bandaged the wound on her leg which had bled a lot at first but was actually quite shallow once he had cleaned it up. Jack had loaded the two Hoix bodies into the boot and was about to check on Gwen when Tosh reminded him of the team member he had momentarily forgotten, being so occupied with keeping the people in his immediate vicinity safe.

"Jack I can't get hold of Ianto, I've got a signal from his comms so I can track him but he's not answering me" Jack swore fluently then tapped the communicator at his ear:

"Ianto?" Was nothing bit silence "Damn it!" According to his wrist strap, Ianto had been in the same building for six minutes and hadn't moved in four. Jack ran to the place indicated on the map while Owen drove the half-mile in case they needed the SUV or its equipment. From the commotion inside the first café on the block it was obvious where the Hoix had been and when Owen entered the building with his med kit he saw Jack on the floor holding a bleeding Ianto surrounded but scared old ladies while the Hoix lay dead on the other side of the room covered in what looked like burns. The medic took one look at the gaping stomach wound and knew there was very little he could do, Jack was knelt in a pool of Ianto's blood and even if they got him to a hospital it would be too late to get more blood into him by the time they arrived but Owen was a doctor and as futile as he knew it was he snapped on a pair of gloves to do the little he could to try to help, he had just located the main point of bleeding when he found himself being pulled away from Ianto by a frantic Jack

"What the fuck are you doing Harkness?" Jack didn't say anything, just pointed to the mass of glowing orange specks which had surrounded Ianto's body, the young man arched and his face contorted in pain as the robots knitted his torn flesh back together.

"It's going to kill us!" one of the old biddies who had witnessed the entire thing screamed before switching into welsh and becoming hysterical, Gwen got the story out of her and translated for the team.

"Apparently Ianto came in after the Hoix which had gone running for the cakes and when Ianto shot it in the shoulder it got angry and swiped at his stomach, then there was some kind of wave of orange light..."

"Nano genes?" Tosh looked at Jack but the man had no more information than she did.

"I've never heard of nanogenes doing anything like that but I've reprogrammed them using 51st century technology and you used your sonics while you were working on them so honestly we have no idea what kind of modifications they made to themselves that we can't see, they're highly adaptive – they have to be"

Owen took his place back at Ianto's side and felt a regular pulse and normal breathing "He's just unconscious, we need to get this lot retconned and I need to get Ianto back to the HUB for tests, I really don't give a crap about you're tech theories I just want to make sure there's no damage done to Ianto. That alright?" Owen's doctor instincts told him that his patient was more important than any technological issue so he prioritised his actions in that order and the team mobilised, responding to his commanding tone.

Three hours later

"So what you're saying is your scanners can't see anything"

"Yeah"

"And as far as you can see there's nothing wrong with me?"

"well no but..."

"Then why can't I go home?" Ianto had been sat on the examination table for two hours while Owen shook his equipment but still couldn't see anything as the nano genes were creating some kind of interference, a good old fashioned session of poke the patient failed to reveal any health problems either and Owen didn't really have any reason to keep Ianto here except for the fact that the man had almost died today.

"I don't want you going home alone, we've got no idea what those little bots are up to and until these test results finish processing I'm not declaring you fit for duty"

Ianto glared at the medic, he felt fine and couldn't see why it was a bad thing that the nano bots which had turned his life upside down had finally done something good.

"Owen go home," after the morning they'd had everyone needed some downtime, "you too girls" Tosh was grateful for Jack's decision and headed home to sleep off the rest of her hangover and Gwen was eventually persuaded to leave when Jack reminded her that a Saturday off meant a whole Saturday that she could spend shopping "I'll take care of Ianto don't you worry" Outwardly Jack seemed to be coping pretty well with the stress of the day but in truth he had been terrified, he honestly thought he's lost Ianto when he'd seen that pool of blood on the café floor and at the minute he didn't know whether to be pleased that the nano genes had been able to save the man he loved or terrified of what they were capable of, if they could roast a Hoix then they needed to look into hat other dangers the technology could present.

Ianto took a shower and came into the locker room to see Jack sat on one of the benches looking upset, the emotions of the morning had finally caught up with him.

"Is this what it's like?" he looked into the young man's eyes and Ianto sat down next to him and put an arm around I've revived in your arms so many times but I didn't know that it was so hard to watch" Ianto remembered all the times he had held onto Jack's body waiting for him to come back to life and understood how Jack must have felt today – Ianto had a fleeting moment of panic when he saw Jack's dead body that maybe this time he wouldn't come back but Jack had been grief stricken, when Ianto had come back he had been over the moon but he still wasn't sure where they stood. The uncertainty of their relationship over the last couple of weeks mirrored the fragile nature of life and it was all too much for the usually strong Captain who just wanted his Ianto back.

Ianto turned Jack's face towards him and grinned mischievously as he thought of the perfect way to cheer the man up. While he had needed the last few weeks to think Jack had been more considerate and thoughtful than Ianto had ever seen him and it was time that the hours Jack had spent taking care of him and the others paid off. Their eyes were locked until Ianto's lips touched Jack's for the barest moment then the captain was left confused as the Welshman pulled away. He raised an eyebrow at the deflated look on Jack's face and leaned in to speak into his ear

"Lose the clothes and find a place to hide. You have thirty seconds"

Jack crouched behind Suzie's old desk grinning with excitement while playing his favourite game, it wasn't a very good hiding place but being found was the whole point wasn't it?

"ready or not? Here I come" Ianto walked across the floor of the HUB taking in every detail, he had seen Jack behind the desk but teased like you did with a small child while playing a family friendly version of this game

"Hmm, I wonder where he could..." Ianto didn't have time to finish his sentence as Jack jumped out from behind the desk and caught his lover in an embrace. Things were just starting to get interesting when Jack stopped his trail of kisses down Ianto's neck as the man collapsed in a dead feint. After his ego had finished its victory dance at his feint-worthy kissing skills he lowered the man to the floor and watched as his eyes fluttered open.

"You okay?" Ianto didn't answer, just rolled his head to the side and proceeded to throw up all over the concrete floor.

"I'll take that as a hell no"

Owen Harper resisted the urge to say "I told you so", usually he would be the first one to point out that he was right and the tea boy was wrong but this was a health matter and there was no time for jokes, his scans still couldn't pick anything up and there was no reason for Ianto to be vomiting – except for the kissing Jack part...but he didn't make that joke either, if Jack didn't punch him then Ianto would. He didn't really know what to do with the nearly naked pair of men who were sat in his med bay and had called him back from his pub lunch but he was thankfully saved from admitting this by the beep of his machinery as Ianto's test result's finished processing.

"What does the beep mean?" Ianto fidgeted on the table feeling cold in just his underpants when he just wanted to go and brush his teeth to get rid of the vomity taste.

"means you should be quiet while I..." Owen stopped dead and sent a deadly look at an utterly confused Jack. He reached into a cupboard before pulling out a plastic cup and handing it to Ianto

"Go pee in this, I need a word with Jack"

"Just tell me what's..."

"now!" Jack didn't like the tone of Owen's voice and when Ianto came back with his pot the doctor put a sample into one of his many machines and turned back to face them.

"Right, I'm just going to come out and say this, In the blood sample I took earlier there is evidence of hCG"

"What's that some kid of drug, because Jack didn't spike me if that's what you..."

"Not a drug a hormone, specifically a pregnancy hor..."

"Fuck off Owen I'm not in the mood for this" he had never understood the medic's sense of humour but honestly this was a step too far, it wasn't even funny. The machine next to Owen beeped and they all looked at it.

"did you have sex with Jack right after he got back?" Ianto had no idea how Owen could possibly know that but he seemed to have found it out from the printout from the machine

"How did you know that?" Owen explained about how hCG levels rise during a pregnancy so could be used to date it and as he went into more detail he saw the information sink in for the two men. Jack was grinning, things were back on track with Ianto and they were having a baby, he restrained himself from breaking into a chorus of "happy days are here again" but was picturing a little baby with Ianto's eyes. Ianto on the other hand was less than happy, the nano genes strike back and once again he finds himself as a freak, as Jack and Owen start talking about ultrasounds and prenatal vitamins he feels something inside of him snap.

"stop it, stop it, stop it!" he pointed an accusing at Jack "you did this to me, and you're talking about it like it's a good thing and we're going to be a family well what about what I want? I don't want to be a freak any more Jack. I did that when I got turned into a bloody woman but this" he indicated his stomach "is too much." before Jack could argue he continued "there's no choice here, I want you to fix this Owen, give me a drug or I don't know an operation with a little vacuum cleaner or a bottle of gin and a hot bath. I don't care I just want to be me. I just want us to be us without all the crap that keeps getting in the way"

Ianto took a deep breath after he had finished and waited for Jack's reaction

Jack couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this angry, a kind of all consuming rage that had sent Tosh scurrying off home and Jack down into the depths of the HUB to punch something until he could calm down. For the second time in his life someone was trying to take away his chance to be a father, but where he could still go to see Alice – so long as he called in advance and never told Stephen who he was – Ianto wanted to throw away their chance at parenthood before their child even had the chance to live. How could he make a decision like that so lightly? What gave him the right? Didn't Ianto realise that in this job this might well be his last chance to have a family? It's not like he was going to meet a nice girl and settle down when he was working all night most nights hunting down aliens. Jack vented his frustrations onto the punch-bag in the gym and after several hours of Jack's furious assault the wall bracket gave way and the bag crashed to the floor, Still unsatisfied Jack kicked it around the room for a few minutes until his anger ebbed and he went to take a shower, nursing his bruised knuckles as he went.

Ianto Jones sat on his bathroom floor trying to hold back tears as his phone informed him for the fourth time that Jack was unavailable. He left a message - though he had to use the speaker phone as he was too dizzy to concentrate on holding the phone and sitting upright at the same time – then emptied the meagre contents of his stomach which had been threatening to spill since he had sat up too quickly in bed trying to shake off his nightmare.

Ianto was in the lower levels of the HUB, in a cell block not unlike the ones where they had kept Sven; there were differences though, this one was overcrowded, with two or three moaning Weevils to a cell and the light's weren't working, only the emergency light lit the long corridor and at the end of the hall one cell was lit by one dim light. Behind the glass door stood a small boy who couldn't be any older than four or five dressed in dirty pyjamas who looked up at him with watery eyes.

"Please don't leave me here Tad, I'll be good I promise, please don't leave me with the monsters" Ianto ran from the boys accusing gaze and found himself at the top of the stairs leading down into the med bay. Jack sat on the table cradling something, it was a bundle of blankets covered in blood and he had barely taken two steps into the room before Jack tuned on him, his angry expression just as terrifying as it had been this afternoon.

"You killed him. Why would you do that Ianto? You said you loved me and then you... I wish I'd never come back to you Ianto" Jack pulled out his webley and fired.

Ianto had jumped straight out of bed and this was how forty minutes later he was sat on his bathroom floor having just hung up the phone for the fifth time when he heard a key in his front lock. Walking unsteadily into the living room Ianto was surprised to find his nephew attempting to sneak in without waking Ianto. The Welshman would have wondered why the teenager had come here instead of catching the bus home if he couldn't smell the vodka on him from across the room.

"You've been drinking" It wasn't a question. Ianto wasn't about to judge the boy, at sixteen he had been out in town every Saturday night too but he was glad that David had somewhere to go when he couldn't make it home.

"So have you" the Jones family humour made an appearance as David proved he could be just as dry as Ianto "but you must have started a lot earlier than me to already be home and throwing up at..." he craned his neck for dramatic effect as he checked the kitchen clock "eleven thirty"

Ianto didn't know how to respond to that, how exactly do you tell your nephew that you were pregnant with your boss' baby and you'd just decided to keep it? He didn't have much of a choice though, he couldn't do this alone and though David probably thought he was enough of a freak after the whole being turned into a woman thing he needed some family at his side. If Jack wasn't willing to listen to him then he was going to have to lean on someone else.

"I've not been drinking" David looked up at him over the coffee he had just made and they sat down at the kitchen table

"You're sick? Its not some kind of weird alien space flu is it? Cause if it is can you give it to me so I don't have to sit my exams next week?" Ianto smiled, David had accepted the existence of aliens fairly easily after he had been kidnapped by a group of them a few weeks before and Ianto hoped that this would be just as easy for him to accept. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a second before saying the two words he honestly never thought he'd have to say.

"I'm pregnant."

Jack ran across the plass trying to ignore his emotions, in the last five hours he had been overjoyed at the prospect of becoming a parent and having the chance to get it right this time, furious at the fact that Ianto wanted to take that away from him and now terrified that something might have happened to the man he's spent the last few hours trying to persuade himself not to shoot. Ianto's voice mail had ripped a hole through Jack's heart, the man had pleaded with him to pick up the phone, then there had been a slightly gross retching sound before Ianto spoke again, he had come back to the phone and told Jack that he was sorry for freaking out and that he just wanted to talk about their situation. Jack was left stood in his office feeling more than a little guilty that while Ianto had been begging him to pick up the phone he had been ignoring him and beating the crap out of inanimate objects. It wasn't the guilt that had him running the half mile to Ianto's flat though – it was the fear of whatever it was that had caused Ianto's swift change of heart, the man had sounded so broken and tired on the phone which was a stark contrast to the Ianto Jones who had been yelling at him as he left the HUB at six pm claiming that he never wanted to see Jack again. Jack had rung every buzzer on the external door to Ianto's block but didn't hear Ianto's neighbours swear at him as they buzzed him in because he was already half way up the stairs, being too impatient to wait for the lift.

David Jones moved around his uncle's kitchen making sandwiches while Ianto lay on the couch where he had ordered him to stay until he got back. It turns out one of David's girlfriends had a pregnancy scare earlier that year and the boy had done a lot of research; one of the things he learned was that morning sickness was related to blood sugar so as Ianto was feeling ill he thought it was best to take care of that before they went to bed. It wasn't anything fancy but as he carried the plates out of the kitchen he was glad to do something to help his uncle...who was currently sat holding hands with a strange man on the couch.

"erm, I made you that sandwich" Ianto blushed and took the plate, moving away from the man in the military coat as David took a seat on the armchair. "so this is him? Would you mind giving us a minute Ianto"

Jack was impressed with the way this boy (and he was a boy no matter how well he held himself and no matter how much Jack pretended he wasn't intimidating him right now.) moved about the room, giving Jack the speech he hadn't heard since one of his date's rugby playing brothers had given him back in the eighties, it was pretty standard: hurt him and I'll kill you, they'll never find the body. But something about the delivery reminded him so much of Ianto and Jack fought the urge to grin, knowing that it wouldn't endear him to the family member he was trying to convince that he was a good person. He was eventually dismissed – and Jack honestly felt like he was being dismissed by one of his old army captains - and they said goodnight, David going into the spare room while Jack went into Ianto's.

"did you get the speech?" Ianto was leaning against the headboard with his legs extended out in front of him, Jack just nodded and sat down on the bed, toeing off his bots and throwing his coat onto the floor in a way that he knew drove Ianto mad.

"That's usually Rhi's job, you know Lisa almost broke up with me after Rhiannon scared her the first time they met. How did David do?"

"meh," Jack shrugged "He's scary, but you wouldn't let him kill me" Ianto leaned on Jack's shoulder and the man wrapped an arm around him.

"I'm sorry about before, I was stupid and scared and..." the rest was muffled as Ianto found himself pulled against Jack's chest. They didn't need to waste time with apologies, they had both been stressed and scared and once they got past that there was nothing to do but he happy about the prospect of becoming parents.

"We're really doing this?" Jack had held Ianto for hours but they were content to just lie there rather than risk ruining the moment. Ianto moved so that he was lying on his back and placed Jack's hand on his stomach then nodded and smiled.

"It's still...weird, I don't know if I'm used to the idea of being pregnant yet but a baby is a good thing. I'd sort of given up on the idea of being a dad after..."

"Lisa" Jack finished for him and pressed a kiss to his lovers forehead "I've got something I should tell you" If they were being honest then Ianto should really know about...

"Alice" Ianto surprised him by speaking before he could figure out how to tell him that he had a daughter older than his boyfriend.

"How did you?"

"When I first joined I did a lot of research on you Jack, and I promise that I won't take this child away from you. You'll get your chance to raise him properly"

"Him?" Jack questioned before pressing a grateful kiss to Ianto's lips

"Yeah, I think it's a boy" Jack raised an eyebrow but shrugged and went back to kissing his way down Ianto's neck, paying special attention to the pulse point where he knew that Ianto was especially sensitive. The Welshman moaned but managed to get out one last question before he gave in to what he was feeling

"So we're done with the heavy conversations?"

"Mm hmm" Jack's mouth was a little busy marking Ianto's pale throat to give a better answer

"good" Ianto surprised Jack by rolling him onto his back and moving on top of him "I've missed you"

AN/ WOW...That was a jam packed chapter wasn't it ?(even with the serious lack of jam) this is the final chapter of Let's Make a change, the story of Ianto's pregnancy and the life of the Harkness-Jones family will be continued in a new fic "Let's start a family" which I will be uploading from next week, i'm taking a few days to do a re-edit of this fic before I start posting anything new, i'm aware that quality has slipped a little recently and I do apologise for that.

Thanks so much to anyone who has alerted, subscribed and reviewed this fic :)

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