Once Owen had confirmed that Jack was expecting, it had been immediately obvious that he could no longer do fieldwork, there would have been too much risk to the baby, so he’d had no choice but to leave the Rift retrievals and rounding up of rogue Weevils to his team and ‘lead’ from the safety of his desk, until he’d reached a point where he no longer fitted in his desk chair. Even then, he’d been reluctant to give up work entirely, doggedly continuing to show up at the Hub every day, issuing orders from the sofa, where he sat knitting, and doing occasional paperwork.

By eight months, however, he’d surrendered to the inevitable and agreed to stay home, alone at first and then with the company and assistance of Nosy, while Ianto had taken over the day-to-day running of Torchwood. As much as Jack hadn’t wanted to be head of Torchwood Three in the first place, now that he was being sidelined, even though it was for a very good reason, he found if hard to let go of the reins, and phoned his husband several times a day to find out what was going on, and to offer advice, whether it was needed or not. Mostly it wasn’t, but Ianto never told Jack that, knowing how much he missed the excitement. Pregnancy could, apparently, get very boring in the later stages, even with so many baby things to knit.

The final stage of his pregnancy would soon be coming to and end though, the baby was due in a couple of weeks, and although it could arrive either earlier or later than estimated, certain things still needed to be decided. How were the new parents to cope with the dual responsibilities of caring for their baby and running Torchwood?

“I’ll be able to go back to work once the baby’s here,” Jack said firmly.

Ianto was appalled at the very idea. “And take our child to the cold, draughty Hub every day? Expose our little one to who knows what kind of alien organisms might be floating around in the air before baby even has the benefit of a working immune system?”

“You could stay home with the baby while I come to work,” Jack said, looking like he considered that a perfectly reasonable solution.

“What? NO! I’ve never had a baby before, I don’t have any experience in looking after one, and you want to leave a complete novice alone at home all day with your baby?” The very thought terrified Ianto. He could face down an enraged Weevil, and defend the earth against alien invaders, but being left in sole charge of a newborn was too much. “You’ve had kids before; you’re an experienced dad. I’ve never even changed a nappy! Besides, would you really be okay with being separated from your baby for hours at a time?”

Jack wanted to say yes, after almost nine months of carrying the baby around inside him everywhere he went, his whole life being dictated by what baby wanted, needed, or most definitely didn’t like, he was more than ready to let someone else take over the baby care. But when he thought about it, he realised that wasn’t true; he couldn’t just walk away, he’d feel like he was abandoning his baby, like a part of him was being ripped away. As much as he wanted to get his life back to normal, or as close to normality as possible under the circumstances, he needed to bond with his child outside of his body, get to know the little bundle of joy that was currently kicking the stuffing out of his insides…

He put his hands protectively over his swollen stomach. “No, you’re right, I wouldn’t, at least not right away. I suppose that means you’ll have to continue running Torchwood while I stay home to take care of our baby.”

“And then how will I bond with our child if I’m at work all the time? Baby will think you and Nosy are the parents and I’ll be a stranger who stops by occasionally.” Ianto frowned. “I don’t want to be the absentee daddy who’s only home in the evenings. I want our baby to have two involved parents.”

“So what d’you suggest?”

“Like it or not, I think we’ll have to leave Owen in charge of the Hub, at least for the first four to six weeks, so we can both stay home with the baby.” When Jack opened his mouth to protest, Ianto silenced him with a look. “If there’s an emergency the team can’t handle, or if Owen feels they need an extra pair of hands for something, one of us can go in to help out, but I think we both deserve some time to get to know our baby, and for baby to get to know us. Gwen got to stay home with Anwen for six months; the least we should get is four weeks of paternity leave. Just because we’re the heads of Torchwood Three shouldn’t mean we have to sacrifice the time off any other employee would be entitled to.”

“That… sounds fair enough, as far as it goes. But what about when our paternity leave comes to an end? Do we just stick our baby in daycare every morning?” Jack didn’t like the thought of that. He knew there were some good daycare places in Cardiff, he’d done his research and talked to Gwen, but after the way things had gone with Melissa, or Alice as she was now called, he’d been hoping to be a better parent this time around…

“Of course not! We’re entitled to one day off a week, just like everyone else, so why don’t we just take it in turns for the other 6 days? One of us goes to work while the other stays home with baby, and the next day we switch; that way we’ll both be able to enjoy parenthood and still get to regularly be around adults, if you can call our colleagues that. Anytime we’re both needed at the Hub, we can get Rhiannon, or one of the team, to babysit.”

Jack stared at his husband in surprise; it was such a ridiculously simple solution, he couldn’t imagine why he hadn’t thought of it himself.

“You are brilliant!” Grabbing Ianto, Jack kissed him, then winced as baby tried out a few advanced karate moves. One day at work, one day at home, so they’d both get to watch their baby grow and develop without going stir crazy at home with only a baby and a Fluff for company. They’d literally have the best of both worlds.


The End