Chapter Text
Looking back on the incident over the course of future decades, Jack Harkness could never quite decipher the emotional alchemy that turned a simple solicitous query into an explosive trigger, no matter how hard he tried. He did, however, have plenty of time to reflect that he really should have stuck to his resolution, made almost eight centuries ago, about never ever getting pregnant again, no matter what.
It was a little like being hit by a tsunami out of a clear blue sea. One second he was standing in the middle of the oak-and-white-plaster kitchen of Blackmoore Manor, staring at the iron frying pan he'd just removed from its hook over the cooking island and wondering dimly exactly what he'd intended to do with it; then, in the space of maybe three more seconds, KITT happened to enter the kitchen and see fit to ask a sympathetic question —
"Oh, are you hungry? Would you like me to make you an omelette?"
— and then —
As the frying pan shot across the kitchen in KITT's direction, Jack had just enough time for a flash of memory: himself, nearly six and a half centuries ago, getting a coffee cup thrown at his head because he'd tried to comfort his own pregnant wife during an emotional meltdown. As KITT ducked the flying utensil with catlike agility and the frying pan bounced off one of the vertical wooden wall beams, he also had time to reflect that history certainly had a way of repeating itself — only this time he was the one resorting to physical violence because something, somewhere, finally had to give.
Even in the year 2617, human males did not naturally carry fetuses to term — hence the cunningly engineered uterus, grown from Jack's own DNA, currently implanted in his abdominal cavity, and hence the hormone micro-pumps that were topping up his system with the right blend of estrogen and progesterone to keep the baby nestled in his belly safe and growing strong. Doctor Emelus Zindan was the foremost expert in induced human male pregnancy in the Virgo Cluster, and during his last visit to Jack and KITT's small but stately mansion on Tarrakon IV he'd declared Jack to be in excellent health, a textbook example of healthy progression at the six month gestational benchmark.
Which meant that little Norbert was happy, at least. The same couldn't always be said for his parent, who'd been feeling increasingly moody over the past three weeks — also normal, Doctor Zindan had assured him — and experiencing more and more random incidents of sudden and complete forgetfulness. Pregnancy brain, Rowan Lindecker had told Jack cheerfully during her last visit, or momnesia, take your pick! She'd borne two children of her own, so presumably she would know, and perhaps that was also why she seemed to take a positive delight in stopping by from time to time to watch Jack's abdomen swell, and his usually confident masculine stride degenerate to a less-than-dignified waddle, and his razor-sharp mind being worn away centimetre by centimetre in the rising fluxes of estrogen and progesterone.
He'd impregnated her (unintentionally), and she'd agreed to pass the job of incubation over to him (completely intentionally), and as KITT straightened up again in the wake of the frying pan, staring at Jack in wide-eyed consternation, Jack let out a yell that encapsulated all his physical discomfort, mental frustration and hormonally fueled rage:
"YOU DID THIS TO ME!"
Consternation became outright disbelief. "I most certainly did not!"
"I — you —" Of course he hadn't, he was an android, and as human as he looked (except for those glowing red-in-black eyes) he was incapable of impregnating anybody, much less his very male husband — and Jack, even as infuriated as he was, had to concede that point. Still — "But you agreed to it!"
"That's not at all the same thing," KITT pointed out, eminently reasonable, which just made Jack want to grab an even bigger piece of cookware and try some target practice with that instead. Of course you could hit KITT with a truck and he'd suffer no lasting ill effects, and oh, the thought was tempting — but staring into KITT's puzzled face, so handsome under its sleek cap of pulled-back blond hair, Jack experienced a sharp savage urge to stride across the tiled floor and take that face in both his hands and kiss it into silence, to unbind the android's long ponytail and stroke it out with slow hard fingers, to grab KITT's firm ass and pull hard, grinding their erections together —
— except there was currently a big fat swelling in the way, and not the sexy fun kind either. Which only made Jack more inclined to rip something apart: he had to clench his fists hard to stop himself from making a lunge for another frying pan off the rack, and oh Goddess, was that a stinging he felt behind his eyes? No, oh God no, he wasn't going to start crying, he'd just gone through a sobbing jag last night —
And here was KITT, looking at him with concern and pity in those beautiful alien eyes, and he couldn't take it, he just couldn't, that kindness in spite of all the irrational fury seething inside him, that gaze that told him he was loved, no matter how bloated and emotional he'd become, no matter now much worse things were going to get before this was over.
He felt fat, and ugly, and suddenly utterly miserable, and he just couldn't — couldn't argue, couldn't explain, couldn't think straight. He couldn't even remember to make an omelette five seconds after walking into his own kitchen, for fuck's sake!
He was pregnant, his back hurt like a bitch, and he was done.
"You," he ground out through clenched teeth, "I, hrnngh!" He turned on his heel and stormed across the kitchen and out the back door, not even pausing in the mudroom to grab a coat before slamming through the outside door — which hummed silently closed on inertial hinges, depriving him of even the satisfaction of a good loud bang! for his buck. He was running so hot that the cold spring air outside barely cooled him down through his loose pajamas and open bathrobe, and he hardly noticed the damp snow riding up over the top of his indoor slippers with every angry stomp of his swollen feet as he proceeded down the shallow paved steps into the sunset-lit garden beyond.
But the indignant stomping barely lasted past the second door: he'd gotten maybe two metres when the baby inside him started to wriggle, probably in response to the stress hormones currently lighting up his nervous system like a Christmas tree. The sensation forced him to gear down to a more typical hip-sprung waddle, with his ass stuck out and his feet braced wide like a duck's, while he rubbed the sides of his protruding belly in circles with both hands and muttered at the bulge: "Easy, Norbert… c'mon, settle down… it's okay, Daddy's just a little annoyed right now…"
Norbert wasn't convinced. He kept kicking, and Jack winced all the way down to his favourite place to sit and think, a long bench under a spiral-branched dorval tree overlooking the lake beyond the sloping foot of his property. He made it to the bench and plopped down onto it, not even bothering to brush away the lingering cushion of last night's snowfall: immediately he could feel the already damp snow start melting under the heat of his body, soaking through his robe and pajama bottoms, but he didn't try to get up — for one thing it felt good to have a concrete reason to feel sorry for himself, and besides, the thought of marshalling his resources to heave his bulk upright again made him feel a little bit like weeping anew.
In his mind, a respectful tap on his mental shields, accompanied by a warm glow at his temples: KITT, querying his status through the empathic link of the nanite colony they shared. He resolutely ignored the attempt at telepathic communication, took a deep breath, and started to lean forward to rest his elbows on his knees and clasp his hands between his —
Oh, Hell!
Jack Harkness slumped against the back rest of the cold bench instead, wiped at his eyes wearily with the fingers of his right hand, and barely resisted the urge to flop over onto his right side in the snow and just give up and die. (Not that it would do any good — he'd only resurrect anyway, with the same damned backache and Norbert flailing irritably in his belly.) KITT hadn't repeated the query, leaving him feeling poignantly alone in spite of the fact that he was the one who had put so much angry distance between them, and he sniffled, abruptly aware of how cold it actually was out here in this empty garden barely emerging from winter's embrace.
He was cold, he was alone, and dragging his swollen body over the wrought iron fence and jumping into the lake beyond was starting to feel like a better idea with every passing second. What the Hell had he been thinking? Hadn't once been enough? He could be anywhere, doing anything — he could still be out playing privateer, a starship at his command and the whole galaxy his oyster — and instead he was sitting here with a wet ass and tears in his eyes, having just attacked the one thing he'd always loved no matter what. He was a piss-poor excuse for a human being, he was a hot mess, and if KITT decided to clear the hell out and leave him to wallow in his misery he wouldn't blame the android in the —
Norbert gave a particularly energetic wiggle and bestowed a pointed kick just below Jack's belly button. He automatically rubbed the spot, briefly smiling in spite of himself through the blur of his own tears.
"Easy, Tiger," he murmured, and came to the only possible conclusion: "It's okay. I'm not going anywhere." He let silent tears track down his cheeks while he stared out over the golden-lit icebound lake, feeling the robust heat of his own healthy body glowing in the early spring chill and taking slow deep breaths, trying not to think about anything much beyond that.
When he felt another tap through the dedicated empathic network he and KITT shared, a notification that the android was about to leave the house and come find him, he sent back a pulse of grudging acknowledgement. And sure enough, his husband did not disappoint.