[MEME] And then there were children.

[eelseason]

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 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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[eelseason]

It took four and a half hours. This, Jack knew because he waited them, patiently, outside the door until it opened again. He sent Owen off. Suzie knew her way around medical supplies, and more importantly, she knew her way around this.

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."

[superiorspectre]

Words can't describe how much I love this fic. It's amazing, in a painful, horrible way.

I don't really have words, but thanks for this.