ericadawn16 | Jack- December 7th, 2009, Part Two

Title: But Time Didn’t Stop
Characters: Jack Jack/Ianto
Rated: PG-13 ANGST COE Spoilers MPREG
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Summary: Jack opens his Christmas present.
Author's Note: Starts after COE.
January 4th, 2010
Masterlist: http://ericadawn16.livejournal.com/63337.html

December 7th, 2009, Part Two

When Jack woke up with the Doctor on the TARDIS, he was so relieved until he remembered how he hadn’t shown up. Even though he maintained ignorance of the matter, the former time agent couldn’t believe him. He knew everything in the history of time and space and this had escaped him? Still, he’d forgotten how much he had enjoyed being a companion and the TARDIS liked to have someone new to talk with. In exchange, she kept him supplied with sweets and smooth journeys to the other rooms. She even made a lift in the wardrobe room.

The Doctor worried him though. Yes, he acknowledged it was hypocritical, but he was allowed to pity himself sometimes. Time Lords did not have that luxury although he hadn’t known that he’d sacrificed his entire race even though the Doctor thought for sure he’d told him. Apparently, he told Rose, Martha, Donna and about every companion except Jack until now. However, he was the only one who knew about the half-human thing, that was interesting and something clicked in Jack’s mind. Ianto had alluded to the Doctor’s parentage being interesting, had he actually known? Had there been files on the Doctor that he’d never read?

As he got better, he was able to go to some of the planets with him. Jack loved how he could show his bump without the odd looks he would have received in the twenty-first century on Earth. Instead, people smiled at him, asked how many weeks he was and a couple asked to feel his belly. Some of them even assumed the Doctor was the father which could either make him sad or amused depending on his mood at that moment. The Time Lord appeared to have been the subject of mistaken marriages before with others. Jack was also able to convince the Doctor to take pictures of him and his bump with his mobile so he’d have proof he could look at later. Of course, he’d have the baby, but he was thinking ahead. After a few years, when his child would be going to their first day of school, it’d be hard to remember how it had once been inside him. Even though he had the whole galaxy and any time period to choose from, whenever he tried to picture when the baby was older, he kept thinking of Cardiff and Newport where Ianto had grown up. Being only thirty-two weeks along, he could sort that out later.

The alarm on his watch went off and he saw that it was Christmas. Last year, Ianto had asked if he wanted to come along and Jack had declined because it was a time for family. Now, he realized too late that Ianto was his family.

“Happy Christmas, baby,” he said and rubbed his belly, “Next year, it’ll be better, I hope.”

However, that was another thing he would have to sort out. In most couples with a difference of religion, they could discuss the matter together about how to raise the child. He didn't have that option. To Jack, Christmas was nothing more than a secular time of gift-giving, but he knew that it had meant much more than to Ianto. Ianto was the one with the well-worn Bible that was in a different place each time. Ianto was the one who could find any Bible quote or reference in about a minute, two at the most. It could have been attributed to his gift of memory yet Jack knew better. Ianto enjoyed being able to do that and in December, when the telly in the Hub was showing the Christmas specials, he knew who had put it on. If Jack tried to point out the failings of the two thousand year old religion, he rarely got any response. His lover preferred not to discuss such matters; keeping his religious views to himself except for these acts of faith. He supposed that was what made it harder to decide how their child should be raised. However, those acts made him hope Gwen was right and that there was a Heaven so Ianto could have gone there. Although the reasonable explanation for getting off Oskerion was the distress call from his wrist-strap, he preferred to think Ianto had intervened somehow. Stupid, he knew it was stupid except it made him feel better.

Even if Ianto had been having a crisis of faith as mentioned in the diary, he had always believed in Christmas and everything good about it. Jack knew Ianto would want his child to have the same experience, but he wasn't sure how to do that. Maybe Rhi could help.

He did have a Christmas present from Rhi, he remembered and rolled himself to the edge of the bed where he could ease himself out of it. His coat was hanging in the closet; unable to be worn because the buttons wouldn’t reach the holes anymore. In the inside pocket was the green construction paper she’d given him. He could still remember her voice saying, “When you reach where you’re going, I want you to look at this and maybe then, you’ll find your way back.”

When he unfolded the paper, a photo fell out. Luckily, it fell on the bed so he didn’t have to come up with a way of reaching it. Reaching down was not a pleasant experience these days.

The photo was a teenaged Ianto holding what had to be David as a baby; no more than two. He couldn’t help trying to imagine what the photo would have looked like of his husband holding their baby. Still, it wasn’t what Rhi had in mind since she still didn’t know she was going to be an aunt. Her goal had been a simpler one. Being sixteen or so, he was wearing a rugby shirt and trying to sort out how to do his hair and that sense of not knowing who he was going to be yet. He wasn’t a child or an adult; made more obvious by his tiny nephew in his arms. The inclusion of a photo with David must have been to remind Jack how much Ianto had loved his family especially his niece and nephew.

The former time agent turned his attention to the green construction paper with a white piece of typing paper glued to it. In one corner was listed: Ianto Jones, 14/9/94 and a red check from a teacher’s pen. The eleven year old had hand-copied a poem and he began reading it aloud for the baby, “Nothing Will Die by Alfred Lord Tennyson

When will the stream be aweary of flowing
Under my eye?
When will the wind be aweary of blowing
Over the sky?
When will the clouds be aweary of fleeting?
When will the heart be aweary of beating?
And nature die?
Never, oh! never, nothing will die;
The stream flows,
The wind blows,
The cloud fleets,
The heart beats,
Nothing will die.
Nothing will die;
All things will change
Thro' eternity.
'Tis the world's winter;
Autumn and summer
Are gone long ago;
Earth is dry to the centre,
But spring, a new comer,
A spring rich and strange,
Shall make the winds blow
Round and round,
Thro' and thro',
Here and there,
Till the air
And the ground
Shall be fill'd with life anew.
The world was never made;
It will change, but it will not fade.
So let the wind range;
For even and morn
Ever will be
Thro' eternity.
Nothing was born;
Nothing will die;
All things will change.”

Jack rubbed his belly and was rewarded with a kick.

“Your aunt is a very sneaky woman as I’m beginning to think all Jones are,” he spoke while being well aware that the baby was also a Jones, “I’m going to have my hands full with you, aren’t I? Because I’m bad enough on my own and you have both our genes.”

He picked up the photo again and decided to find the Doctor to show him. After telling him what today was, they went shopping on Darbodia where it hit him how little he’d prepared for the birth. He knew how he wanted it to happen and was able to convince the Doctor to perform it, but he had none of the necessities for afterward. However, the Time Lord was more knowledgeable about babies than he appeared. When he woke up from his nap, all of their purchases were piled in his room and he started unpacking, assembling, arranging, rearranging, and moving it again until he felt he must leave the room before he changed it again for the fiftieth time.

December 25th, 2009