Fandom: Torchwood

Characters: Gwen, Ianto, Jack

Author: m_findlow

Rating: PG

Length: 2,158 words

Content notes: none

Author notes: Written for Challenge 345 - Amnesty & Challenge 50 - Kids

Summary: Gwen and Ianto are faced with delivering more than just food at the safe house.


Gwen heard the rustle of shopping bags come through the door of the narrow terrace house. 'About bloody time,' she muttered. ‘Did you buy up everything Morrison's had?’ she asked, intercepting Ianto as he dropped the shopping bags on the kitchen counter and began filling the cupboards and fridge.

‘You know,’ he began, ‘it's not as easy as it seems trying to buy groceries for an alien when you don't know what it's preferences are. Not to mention a pregnant alien. If she's anything like you when you were pregnant she'll be-’

‘Yes?’ Gwen asked, folding her arms and giving him a challenging look.

‘Um… unpredictable?’ There didn't seem to be a word that was going to be eloquent enough to get him out of hot water on this occasion. ‘Do alien mums get cravings?’

‘I don't know why you're asking me. And for the record, it was one jar of gherkins. With ice cream.’

‘And crisps,’ he reminded her. ‘I bought extra of those. And, you know, if she’s not interested in crisps, well, then there’s some for us.’

Gwen had to smirk at that. ‘Always thinking ahead, aren’t you?’

He smirked back. ‘It's what I do best.’

There was a wail from the bedroom upstairs and the pair of them rushed up the creaking stairs to find out why. The alien was just where Gwen had left her, resting on the bed with her large swollen stomach tipped over into one side. Now however she was sitting in a far more upright, legs spread in a way that Gwen knew could probably mean only one thing.

She was basically bipedal except for the extra long arms and legs, and the neck that was capable of craning a full two feet over even Jack’s height. Everything about her was long, in fact, right down to the long snout and floppy ears, all in a rich shade of turquoise blue that clashed horribly with the mustard yellow sheets and curtains in the safe house bedroom.

‘What's wrong?’ Gwen asked, rushing to the alien’s side. She had a rudimentary understanding of English, but was far more fluent in Galactic Standard, which she'd mostly used to converse with Jack, leaving her stilted English attempts for Gwen and Ianto to battle with only when necessary.

‘Baby arrive,’ she said through painful gasps of air.

Gwen spun to Ianto, hovering a few feet further back, clearly uncomfortable getting too close. ‘What was that you said about thinking ahead?’ she asked.

‘I didn't think that far ahead. Jack said she wasn't due for a few weeks yet, not ready to pop.’

‘Oh, and what would Jack know about any of it?’ Gwen snapped. ‘Pregnant once - forever ago - and thinks he knows bloody everything. It’s okay,’ Gwen tried to reassure her. ‘We’re here and everything is going to be okay. You just do what you need to.’ She bustled past Ianto and out into the hallway, asking him to keep an eye on the mother to be. She tried to stop her hand from shaking as she hit the speed dial for Jack. It took four rings but finally he answered.

‘Gwen Cooper! How's things there? Mum to be all settled in?’

Gwen flicked her gaze across the room to the chair in the corner of the room where Ianto was sitting and wringing his hands. ‘Yeah, bit of a problem. Looks like she's gone into labour.’

‘Okay, I'm on my way over to the safe house now. Just hang in there. You know what to do.’ He didn't ask her if she actually knew what to do, and Gwen didn't find time to tell him that much either. Jack hung up on her and she stepped back inside and turned to face Ianto. ‘Okay, so what do we do?’

Ianto swallowed hard. ‘Not panic?’

‘Apart from that.’

‘You're the one that's had a baby!’

‘Yeah, well I was a little distracted at the time!’ she replied. ‘Didn't get all of the finer points on how to medically deliver one. Push and breathe was the extent of it. Try not to think about it being the size of a watermelon and cursing the man who put it there in the first place.’ She forced herself to turn her attention to the alien. ‘It's okay. Just breathe. Jack's on his way, but if you need to push, just push, okay?’ The alien mother just nodded, able to understand but not communicate anything meaningful back. Gwen gave her hand a reassuring squeeze and she held it tightly. She brushed the long ears back from her face, feeling it sweaty and damp without knowing whether that was a good sign or a bad one.

Gwen hadn't even noticed Ianto's absence until he came back arms laden full of stuff.

‘What's all this for?’

‘Hot water and towels,’ he explained, clutching at them for dear life.

‘Why?’

He looked confused. ‘That's what they do in the movies.’

‘Only if they're set in 1912! Oh, fine,’ she huffed, grabbing towels and shuffling them around, trying to lay them somewhere they might be of use, tucking them one-handed around the bed and between the long aqua legs.

The mother cried out in pain and Gwen nearly did the same as her hand was crushed by the alien's grip. ‘Push,’ Gwen instructed, struggling up into the bed to sit next to her. ‘You're going to have to help the baby out,’ she instructed Ianto.

‘Me?’ He couldn't have gone more white. He looked like he might vomit right then and there and then he'd be the one needing towels and hot water.

‘My hand is currently stuck in the alien equivalent of a vice. You can either comfort or you can catch.’ Gwen cried a high pitched sound. ‘Oh, God, that's my hand you're nearly breaking! Ianto do something!’

Ianto nervously shifted from foot to foot. ‘I didn't even visit my sister in the hospital until it was all done.’

‘So, that'd be a no to comforting.’

‘I quite like my hands’ Ianto cringed as he knelt on the towels at the end of the bed and got his first good look. ‘Oh! That is so more that I even wanted to see!’

‘For heaven's sake, Ianto! You'd think you'd never had sex with a woman before.’

‘Trust me when I say no man has ever looked that closely, nor wants to. Peg A, slot B. Job's done.’

Gwen groaned. ‘Men! Just tell me what you see.’

‘Um…’ There was a look of horror, followed by one of revulsion. ‘We're going to assume that this is sort of like a human pregnancy, right?’

‘Are you an expert in any other kind that might be of use?’ Gwen replied sarcastically.

Ianto whimpered slightly, taking a proper examination of the situation. ‘Er, okay. We've got legs, a whole bunch of genitalia I won't describe in detail and something kind of blue and bulgy in the middle. Guessing - rather, hoping - that's a head of some kind.’

‘Baby arrive,’ puffed the alien, repeating the same words.

‘Yes, sweetheart, but not just yet. You still have to push,’ Gwen told her. Gwen wished she could have addressed her by name, but it was so long and impossible for anyone but Jack to wrap their tongues around that all Gwen could do was use reassuring pet names.

‘More bulgy stuff coming out,’ Ianto reported, then squealed rather unmanly.

‘What?’

‘Oh, um, I think an ear might have just flopped out. At least I think it's an ear. Could be an arm or a leg for all I can tell. God, why didn't I agree to swap places with you earlier? Ah, it's coming!’

‘Get your hands in there ready to catch it.’

‘Do I have to?’

‘Use a towel if it makes you that bloody squeamish!’

Iantto grabbed frantically for a towel, draping it over his hands and arms as he reluctantly reached in, turning his head away and wincing as something solid and heavy dropped into his hands at the same time as Gwen felt her hand get crushed, and a loud wail tore through the room.

‘Have you got it?’ Gwen demanded to know, trying to see what was happening.

‘I got it!’ Ianto sounded so ridiculously pleased with himself.

‘So, hand it over already!’

There was a bit of awkward shuffling as Ianto attempted to wrap the squirming bundle into the towel. It wasn’t crying but at least it was moving and that was enough for gwen. All babies eventually erupted into a fit of ear piercing cries so there was no point in getting panicked about a little peace and quiet just right now.

‘Please don't ask me to decide if it's a boy or a girl ‘Ianto said, gratefully handing it over to its mother who took the bundle into her long arms like an expert. ‘I think I'm scarred for life as it is.’

Gwen beamed at the baby and then at mum. ‘Well done, you. It's beautiful.’ She had no idea whether it was or not, it was just the kind of thing you were supposed to say to make mothers feel better about the situation. She’d have decked Rhys or anyone else if they’d been honest and told her that Anwen as a newborn has been the ugliest little thing she’d ever laid eyes on, whilst simultaneously being overjoyed, if for no other reason that she was out and no longer making Gwen look and feel like an elephant.

The alien smiled down at her baby before her face scrunched up in a pained frown.

‘Um, I don’t mean to be alarmist,’ Ianto began, ‘but did Jack happen to confirm whether we were expecting more than one? Not that I was looking, but there appears to be another on its way.’

‘How many?’ Gwen asked, holding up her fingers and trying to get a straight answer from their guest, who was busy bearing down and not particularly interested in having a conversation with Gwen. Gwen held up two fingers and the alien shook her head. When Gwen reached four fingers, she finally nodded, screaming out as number two made its arrival known.

‘I really don’t know what I’m doing here,’ Ianto said, bracing to swaddle the second baby.

‘Well, you’ll be an expert by the time you get to the fourth one, won't you?’ Gwen said.

‘Four? Oh, bloody hell.’

Gwen cradled the second baby, even as she was still providing moral support and a very bruised hand to delivery number three. There was a lull in proceedings after that and the pair of them had started to convince themselves that there’d been a miscount and that was it, but sure enough, just when they thought they were out of the woods, along came number four. Ianto was left holding the last one as mum and Gwen already had their hands full.

Then, true to form, Jack arrived right on time, having avoided the chaos completely.

‘Hey guys! Got stuck in traffic,’ he apologised, though not very convincingly. ‘Did I miss the big moment?’ He clocked the bundle in Ianto’s arms, closest to the door when he entered and beamed. ‘Oh, nurse Ianto is in charge, I see. Never thought about playing naughty nurse games before.’

‘Shut up,’ Ianto grumbled, though he’d somehow unconsciously taken to jigging the baby very gently. Jack would rib him about that later.

‘Woah, that is one bald baby!’ Jack exclaimed, getting a closer look.

‘Jack!’ Gwen hissed.

‘Hey, I'm only saying what everyone else is thinking. And these guys aren't known for being on the side of hairy, if you know what I mean.’

‘I'm sure it'll be fine. If not, you can be the one to give it counseling later in life.’

‘I think I'm going to be the one needing counselling,’ Ianto muttered. ‘From now on, let’s leave the delivery of babies to the experts. And I'm covered in something I don't even want to think about. There's not enough hot water in the world that’s going to get rid of that smell from my memory.’

Jack leaned over and played with the newborn until it wrapped its long tiny fingers around his much larger one, tugging experimentally on it. ‘So, this hasn't made you keen to have kids, I take it?’

‘Let’s start with pets. I think I'm going to have to work my way up to humans.’

Gwen smirked at them. ‘You can babysit Anwen anytime you like if it’ll give me and Rhys the night off.’

Jack burbled something indecipherable in Galactic Standard to their alien guest. It sounded like he was congratulating her and letting her know that she had four healthy babies. She replied in much the same relieved tone. Then he turned and grinned at Ianto. ‘She says we can babysit here anytime we like as well.’

Ianto looked unenthused. ‘Brilliant. Can’t wait for that.’