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[MEME] And then there were children.
Stolen from the internet.
Leave a comment and I will come up with the hypothetical kid between any of my muses (List BTR) (List Epic) and any of yours (assuming I know them at least well enough to pretend that I know them well enough to write them). Terms of parent-child relationship are left to the management. Children may be biological and natural, in-vitro, adopted, surrogate, changechildren, left on a doorstep in a handbasket, or pretty much whatever needs to happen. Any requests for children parented by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
john_thane will incur a karmic penality. Memes are not intended to diagnose, prevent, treat, or cure any disease. This contract is not canonicity-binding.
Leave a comment and I will come up with the hypothetical kid between any of my muses (List BTR) (List Epic) and any of yours (assuming I know them at least well enough to pretend that I know them well enough to write them). Terms of parent-child relationship are left to the management. Children may be biological and natural, in-vitro, adopted, surrogate, changechildren, left on a doorstep in a handbasket, or pretty much whatever needs to happen. Any requests for children parented by
john_thane will incur a karmic penality. Memes are not intended to diagnose, prevent, treat, or cure any disease. This contract is not canonicity-binding.
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I like giving options! Options are fun, even if some of them are full of WHAT?
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"I'm going to give you three seconds to redo those tests before I start punching you in the stomach and don't stop," Dmitri says, breaking the silence over the Torchwood board table and causing Jack to very quickly hide an amused grin in his cup of coffee. Owen, standing by the screen which is still scrolling genome analyses, looks about as impressed as one would expect given the volume of those threats he receives.
"Margin of error's about two percent," he says. "Pretty conclusive, I'd say. In some universe, you two–" he flips out his index fingers, singling out Dmitri and Sark at the table, "Had a baby!"
The level of excitement he shows at that – and this is probably intentional – is inversely proportionate to how appropriate that excitement is. Gwen shoots him a look, and Jack tries not to chortle his coffee. Dmitri, meanwhile, is watching Owen like she'd like to turn into a raven and peck a hole in his silly skull, whereas Sark is wearing the expression of a tiger shifter who, though he has no fur at the moment, really thinks his shoulder ruff needs a good cleaning.
"And then she wandered through the Rift," Owen continues, shaking his head in mock chastisement. "You really should learn to keep an eye on these."
The three-year-old playing with pick-up-sticks at the head of the table looks up at Owen, looks back at Sark, and waves a yellow stick at him before going back to playing awkwardly in this room full of adults.
"Okay," Dmitri says, voice just barely warmer than a superconductor, "letting aside how and in what universe that makes more sense than a screen door on a space station, what are we supposed to do with her now?"
Owen shrugs. He just gene-tests these things. Like he's got any idea what to do with children.
"We obviously can't require you to take care of her," Gwen says evenly, though whether she's speaking out of deference to their individual desires not to be parents or out of concern for the child's emotional wellbeing is unclear. "Gladys has been keeping a database of parents who have been separated from their children by the Rift. We can find someone to place her with." She gives them each a pointed look. "But it might help the adjustment if both of you were willing to spend some time with her, ease her through the transition..."
"'s okay," the child says, sorting out the green sticks with a single-minded focus. "Doan want to prenent a in-con-ven-ience."
Sark visibly winces. Dmitri just stares.
Gwen fixes them both with an accusing look. "I don't think it will be an inconvenience. Either of you?"
"...no," Dmitri forces out through clenched teeth.
Sark resists the urge to bring a hand to his forehead. "Not. At. All."
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Oh my God, THAT KID IS SO CUTE. I DON'T EVEN LIKE KIDS, BUT RANDOM ALTERNATE UNIVERSE DMITRI/SARK!BABY IS LIKE THE CUTEST THING EVER.
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It'll almost make up for the boatload of emotional issues. Really.
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...God, that kid will be Tosh 2.0, won't she?
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...wow, it's impressive how that went from angsty to semi-serious to CRACK. Well, at least you have options!
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"We should have a kid," are the first five words out of Dmitri's mouth when she hops onto Toshiko's desk with a messenger bag slung over her shoulder and a pint of sweet pecan ice cream in her hand. She flips the spoon, offering it to Tosh handle-first, and follows it up with "you know, homeschooled, definitive proof that the American school system wastes the potential of the growing years to learn complex fields like language and differential calculus. Also, woman, you desperately need offspring."
Tosh takes the spoon for no reason other than the fact that the reasoning portion of her brain is trying to reason its way through Dmitri, and the instinctual portion says that when someone obviously wants you to take something, you take it. A moment later the ice cream is thrust into her hands as well, and Dmitri is digging something out of her bag. Tosh manages to get as far as "What...? A child," before Dmitri drops an overstuffed folder down in front of her.
"Don't worry, fruit van mijn gelukkige boom, I'm not talking about the weird parasitic awkward gestation thing, 'less you're into it. Kendall, you know, the old forger from the big O – yeah, Kendall got all the information a Wanderer needs to legally adopt in this state, and odds are ten in my favor that I could get the Doctor to hack the database. He owes me for that thing with the aerial kelp." She kicks out her heels, giving Tosh a look. "Oh, and I cleared it with Jack."
Tosh is left holding ice cream and a spoon and staring at the folder before she looks up at Dmitri again, getting as far as "You cleared–" before it occurs to her that she's got no idea whether or not to be annoyed about that. On the one hand, she'd appreciate it if Dmitri wouldn't go over her head when her own hypothetical children, not that she knew she had any, were involved. On the other hand, after six years of Dmitri checking with Gwen or Jack for her official schedule of responsibilities before any time she asked her out, she really should have expected this.
"Yeah, his exact words were something along the lines of 'am I really the one you should be asking about this?', which I took as tacit approval," she says. "So what do you say, la mia lezione bella? You'd make a great mother."
Tosh sets the ice cream down carefully next to the folder. "Dmitri," she says, trying for stern and making it two-thirds of the way there from bewildered. "Don't you think something like this requires more thought than you're putting into it?"
Dmitri laughs, tapping on the folder. "Oh, waveform analysis of my heart. The adoption brochures and legal information make up about thirty-five pages of that. The rest is what I think you'll find a very considerately-structured rationale. I've got time to go through it if you do."
Tosh is not sure what to say to that.
Eight months later, listening to Dmitri read the Principia Mathematica over a crib in the Kashtta nursery, she's still not entirely sure when she agreed.
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Thank you. ♥
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(And she and Tosh are just too much of the good. One day they're going to have that sex and quantum physics night, and Jack will be unsure, if he ever hears about it, whether they're doing something very wrong or very right.)
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And I am happy to reciprocate, if you like. Remind me to link you to a list of my muses when I am not sneaking into the internet during lunch. :D
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Jack had a laundry list of reasons he couldn't allow himself to have children, and none of them seemed to work, here. I can't contaminate the gene pool with anachronistic DNA lost its meaning when Chicago was the dumping ground for who knew how many universes; I'm not bringing up a kid in an environment like Torchwood fell apart when Torchwood, here, was open and friendly and accessible to the public and really didn't have the death-and-debilitating-trauma rate of Torchwood Cardiff back home. Most of the rest fell apart when Rachel looked at him just like that and asked just like that, with that open unsure honesty even Torchwood Chicago trained out of a person so none of his team ever displayed, and he remembered that somewhere in all his girding himself to take out the trash of the world he'd forgotten to armor up that soft spot he'd always had for the idealistic, naive, and in-over-their-heads.
Which was why he found himself giving the answer he tried not to tell anyone, and most of his friends didn't live long enough to learn anyway: "I'm immortal. I don't age. I don't die. And I don't want to outlive my own children."
At the time Rachel almost fell over herself with apologies and concern – somehow, no matter how much she showed it, Jack always found himself taken aback that there was someone willing to shower him with that much open concern. He told her not to worry about it; it wasn't something he liked thinking about, and it wasn't something he liked anyone else thinking about, and of course that meant absolutely nothing and they both went home thinking about it anyway.
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He tore off the seatbelt and didn't make the rounds in time – most of his team was unconscious, one already dead, one too close to dying. This time, and it wasn't uncommon, was it?, all he could do was see to the survivors and put the paperwork through.
And then, almost at midnight, he found himself still in his bloodstained clothing outside the door to Rachel's room.
He didn't quite knock. His hand hit the door and just stayed there, resting on the pressed wood, feeling the artificially smooth varnish that wasn't smooth or cold enough for any of the fixtures in the morgue. That one hit was enough to alert Rachel that he was there and after a moment the door pulled open, leaving his hand to drop to his side through the open air.
Rachel took a breath to greet him and stepped back, aghast. A moment later she had both hands on his shoulders and was pulling him in, demanding "What happened?"
"Accident," was the first thing Jack thought of to say, and then she was easing the coat off his shoulders, sucking in breath at the sight of his bloodsoaked shirt. He couldn't quite remember what happened. Probably something went through him, probably his ribs were crushed against the dashboard, probably his head snapped forward and cut itself open when the windshield crumpled in, all he ever remembered was coming to when it was over and it never mattered if he'd been dead.
"This is – a lot of blood, Jack," Rachel said, looking up at him like she was concerned he'll fall down. "You need, like, an ambulance or something. I could drive you – I know some guy here who'd let me use his car–"
Jack shook his head. "Rachel, I heal."
She wasn't listening. "You're covered in blood. God. Hang on – I have a first aid kit, they make us all keep one–"
"Rachel..."
"I mean–" she crossed the room, grabbing a white box from under the desk. "I don't know if it'll be any good, probably just little bandages, and – what happened? Like, how bad is it? You should sit down. I can–"
Jack crossed after her and caught her wrist, relieving her of the first aid kit and trying to push comprehension down her eyes.
"I heal."
The moment hiccuped, half a beat between them before she answered, quietly. "Everyone else?"
He let go of her wrist, dragging a hand through his hair. It's a mess, he realized – probably bloody, probably still with pebbles of shatterproof glass hiding by the scalp.
"Two dead," he answered. "Then cuts and bruises. Two dead."
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Jack closed his eyes and fell back, feeling his shirt shift under him. The blood was mostly dried but it was still coming off him in flakes and dustings. Blood on the sheets. He always seemed to get blood on everything.
He was trying to think of a way to say They'll be fine. Torchwood is used to dying and trying not to think that, paternity or no, he still managed to find people to outlive, when Rachel settled down next to him. She fit herself into the space at his side, one arm stretching over his chest, one pressed against him, holding him in as much of an embrace as she could. He closed his eyes.
For a moment while Rachel grabbed for something to say, the only sound was their breathing. Jack caught the hitch of her breath when she inhaled, words found, and the warmth of her body pressing through the shirt and against the dried blood, the weight of them both on the bed, both moving, both feeling, both with life in what circumstance could turn to cold meat in a morgue drawer without consideration or warning, and he rolled over to stop her saying anything.
It didn't quite work.
Something got asked, and something got answered, and sometime in the night while they were lost in clutching each other Jack opened up a bundle of muscle in his gut that he'd never opened before – no one left these things to chance, when he was from – and regardless of any complaints he might have, any second thoughts, by the time he came down, it was done. One life up, two lives down. Worse than even. Better than average.
Maybe just enough.
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Also, you did a fantastic job capturing Rachel. Very well done! :)
Thank you so much for writing this. I loved it.
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Oh, the options you have. :P
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He'd known it was bad when Owen's voice came over the intercom in the hushed tones he never used unless there was a tragedy on. "New Wanderer; taking her to the infirmary" was all he'd say on the channel, along with "Some sensitive..." and trailing off like he wasn't sure of the word.
Gwen was out on a personal day, Andy looking after Sam in the residential wings following his latest mishap, and the last time he'd seen Ianto he'd been hock-deep in something large and complicated involving too many legal documents and too much paper, so he caught Suzie on the way down to the infirmary and wondered who the hell would provoke that much of a reaction from Owen.
What he wasn't expecting to find was a thirteen-year-old girl in a nightgown sitting in a corner, ankles locked together, holding onto a mug of hot cocoa and carefully not looking at anyone.
Owen looked between them as they came in, perpetual grimace deepening as he walked over. "Won't let me touch her," he said, keeping his voice low. Not that she wouldn't be able to hear him, but it was the best he could do. "All I could do to get a name out of her, and she introduced herself..."
They all knew the name before he turned to look at Suzie, hung halfway between apology and a vestigial sense of sympathy.
"Well, as you."
This wasn't something they trained for.
Jack took a breath to control the situation, but he didn't make it to speaking before Suzie – the adult, not the child curled in a corner – set her shoulders and shot both of them a glare that could whither steel. "I'll sort this. Get out."
"Suzie," Jack said, and the glare sparked. Oh yes, that glare said, he could argue, but he'd better be prepared to make a Sherman's March to the Sea out of it; he'd better be prepared to take no prisoners.
"I've got it," she said.
They stepped out, and she shut the door between them.
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When she did emerge, leaving the door half-closed behind her, she looked worn down to her sharp edges, like everything soft and extraneous had been temporarily stripped away. Her posture, her expression, were uncompromising.
"She'll need a room," she said, and Jack ticked that down. 'She,' not 'I'. That's something.
"Here?" he asked.
Suzie nodded. "I intend to look after her."
That's something else. "Suzie," Jack began.
"Jack," she said, cutting off any possible protest. "How stupid would I have to be not to know everything you're about to tell me?"
Jack shut his mouth.
Suzie's eyes flicked over him. Just him, at the moment, no glances to things generally unseen, but she sank back a little, landing on a hard edge of challenge. "I'll find a way to make it work, Jack. I'm not going to leave her to a foster home; I can't."
Jack held up one hand. Children and Torchwood were a complicated issue at the best of times, and this wasn't a simplifying factor. But their options...
Another Gwen had come through. He'd heard about that, and about what happened. If another Sam, or another Ianto, or another Tosh had come through, he wouldn't have let them out of his sight. And Suzie was no different. His team, his responsibility, his family whether having this particular Suzie from this particular age and night made things ten times as complicated or not. He exhaled.
"We'll find a way," he said.
Suzie blinked back at that. "You don't need to–"
"Yeah, I do." He bites back a wry smile – not the time for it, not here, not watching her like this. Hell. He tore her down and they put her back together after Cardiff, after Thane; at least there was less damage to undo on the younger one. "We've got some experience with this."
He was watching for her reaction. Tellingly, he'd have been able to see it even if he hadn't been. In the end it was her lips that made the smile, even drier than his would have been.
She let the door open, just a bit, behind her. "Be careful with her."
He'd brush it off, tell her she knew he would be, but the way she's watching his eyes writes that option out. He catches her eyes and nods, giving the full weight of promise to that nod. "I will be."
She stepped in through the door again, walking to the girl now sitting at the edge of the examination table and taking her hand. "Susan," she said, standing near and almost over her in a posture Jack recognized – one he often wore himself.
Suzie looked back at him. Both of them looked.
"He's safe."
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I don't really have words, but thanks for this.
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You has so many options. :D Pick your choice or choices! I am always excited to see Magi writing!
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It didn't take long for the three of them to decide that they wanted a relationship, if they actually decided it at all. The Doctor, at least, was of the opinion that it (like most of his life) just happened to him one day and refused to let up. The house took longer, mostly because the Doctor refused to admit to its existence, and the idea of family in the sense of raising children took a few years to take hold. But when it did, it took hold with both hands and a vengeance.
A few months and clandestine visits to the Conrad Basement's infirmary later, upon discovering that one Desmond Descant was incapable of fathering children, options were discussed and alternatives compared and it was decided that perhaps the next best thing would be to borrow a few gametes from a suitably similar donor. And, to the great annoyance and chagrin of both males involved in the relationship, it was Martha who suggested that one Jack Harkness might comply, as well as offering the added advantage of a child who at least looked like he or she might belong to Des.
That, Des later claimed, comprised seven of the most awkward conversations he'd ever had, and that was including all the ones where he'd just come out of three thousand years in a cave.
As it turned out, and to no one's surprise, Jack was obnoxiously fertile. Martha had a healthy set of fraternal twins, Jack went back to running Torchwood with the occasional godfathering duty, Des went back to nursing his pride and pretending that Jack didn't exist, and things were generally pretty good.
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The first Jack heard of it was when he got back from a visit to Torchwood Rome to find Charlie and his truck waiting for him instead of Gwen and the Torchwood hybrid, who he'd expected. Charlie wore an expression only a longsuffering Guardian Angel could wear.
Jack threw his suitcase into the bed of the truck and sighed. "Is it Tish or Leo?"
"Conspiracy," Charlie said, and didn't bother to explain as he drove from Chicago O'Hare to the house the Doctor still denied was his. Irritable, Jack noticed, and not just in the way that he kept shifting like he was trying not to let his wings out. ...Jack had to wonder where the Doctor had gone.
Charlie drove them up the driveway and got out, disappearing almost immediately around toward the back of the house. Jack got out too and was greeted by Des, who had been hanging back in the front doorway while it played a cover of The Kids Are Alright that seemed to have been put together mostly on synthesizer and theremin.
"I hear tell there's a conspiracy," Jack said.
"Is that how Charlie put it?" Des wandered up, eyeing him. After a moment, and with a decisive set of his jaw, he pronounced "Harkness? Your children are problems."
"I heard that!"
Jack stuffed his hands in his pockets and tried to look innocent as Martha came down, which was actually fairly easy considering that this time, he was innocent. Des tried too, but still got a smack on the shoulder for his trouble.
"Jack."
"Martha." Jack smiled. "You're not grey yet."
"Yeah, no help from these kids," Martha said. "Des didn't tell you?"
Jack shook his head.
Martha echoed the gesture. "Well, they're supernaturals. No surprise there. Just started manifesting a few days ago. From what we can tell, Leo's learned how to... excite things." At Jack's quirked eyebrows, Martha forged ahead. "No idea what to call it other than that. Machines turn on, animals go crazy, static electricity everywhere, but that's nothing compared to Tish."
Des coughed.
Jack turned to him, fully expecting the rest of the explanation, and Des shot him a look which implied that he, yes, he personally, was responsible for all of this. "Tish is learning how to teleport."
Jack's face contorted in quite an impressive way as he tried to keep from laughing. "Okay. So what am I supposed to do? Or did you just call me over to blame me?"
"Well," Des said, "we're having a little bit of a problem."
He didn't say anything else. After a moment Martha sighed, then took Jack by the arm and pulled him back toward the fence.
"There," she said, turning him around and pointing to a spot a few metres above the house, invisible from where they'd been standing. The TARDIS hovered, spinning erratically, door hanging open far above the ground. "The Doctor is in there failing to fix it, and I think Tish went up because Leo was there, and don't ask me how Leo got the TARDIS up there. For all I know they're planning to elope. Can you just bring them back to the house, please? They've both got classes tomorrow."
Jack stared at the TARDIS.
Then he started laughing.
When he straightened up again to meet Martha's eyes, not quite so annoyed as she'd like him to believe, he raised one hand in acknowledgement and then dropped it to his wrist device. "Doctor too?"
"Oh, the Doctor can stay up there," Martha said. "Let him find his own way down."
"Roger," Jack said, and teleported up.
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ZOMG. This was so much love. SO very amusing, and yes. It made me very happy. :) Hehehee!
I think you captured everyone perfectly, and I love that she named the kids after her siblings. It's definitely something that she would do.
The house took longer, mostly because the Doctor refused to admit to its existence, and the idea of family in the sense of raising children took a few years to take hold. But when it did, it took hold with both hands and a vengeance.
That is my favorite line. ^^ It's- yeah, I loved the way that that was worded.