That night, after Rose had been properly introduced to Martha, Donna, Gwen and Ianto, the question of sleeping arrangements came up. The Doctor said he’d be quite happy staying in the TARDIS, but then Rose told him off for isolating himself.

“So where am I supposed to stay then?”

“Well I don’t know… Jack, where do you sleep?”

“Um. Here. In the Hub.”

“Where’s your bed?”

“Oh, er… down there.” He indicated a trapdoor in the floor.

“Oh. Right. Well, this place is big enough, so Doctor, you can stay here with Jack tonight.”

The Doctor raised the next point. “What about you?”

“Oh, I’m staying with Martha. Donna too. We’ve got a lot to talk about. I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”

“Er… yeah. Okay.”

She kissed him on the cheek quickly, then hurried away to where Martha was waiting for her. When Jack and the Doctor were alone – Gwen and Ianto having already left for the night – the Doctor turned to his companion, looking strangely scared.

“Doc?”

“What do you think they’re going to talk about, Jack?”

“Y’know, I don’t think you really need to know that. It’s a girl thing.”

“They’re going to be talking about me. I just know they are.”

“Doc, relax. It doesn’t matter. They’re getting to know each other, that’s all. It’ll be fine.”

“Right. Yeah.”

“Come on. We need to find you a place to sleep.”

Jack opened the trapdoor down to his rather small sleeping quarters – he had a bed, a wardrobe for his clothes, a tiny bathroom and an even tinier kitchen – little more than a fridge and a cupboard.

The Doctor looked around. “Huh. Well, it’s… cosy.”

“Cosy?”

“Well, it’s a bit spartan. You need some decoration… some paint, maybe a picture or two… what?” He realised that Jack was laughing.

“Oh… nothing. I just… didn’t know you were an interior designer as well.”

“You don’t know everything about me, Jack. What’s wrong with being an interior designer?”

“Nothing. Er… sorry.”

“Hm. You’re forgiven. So… this is the only bedroom in the Hub, right?”

“Yeah.”

“So, where am I going to sleep?”

“Well, you could have the bed, and I’ll sleep on the sofa outside. Or you could have the sofa. Or we could both share the bed. I don’t mind either way.”

“Oh, I can’t kick you out of your own bed. And that sofa doesn’t look terribly comfortable.”

“Okay. Looks like we’re sharing.” An uncomfortable silence followed. “Er… actually, I’m not all that tired.”

“Me neither.”
“So… we could, um, maybe… have a drink? There’s this nice little pub not far from here…”
“Jack, are you asking me out on a date?”

“Well… sort of. Partly. That, and I could really do with a drink right now.”

“Oh. Drinks it is, then! Let’s go, let’s find this pub of yours.”

--

An hour later, they were sitting in a pub together. It really was nice… booths around the walls, for people who wanted a little more privacy, and arrangements of comfortable chairs occupying to rest of the room. They’d claimed one of the bay windows… Jack was sitting on the window seat, with the Doctor in an armchair nearby, feet propped up on the table between them.

“So. How have you been? I know how your team is, and what you’ve been up to. But what about you?”
“To be honest… I feel good. Really good, for the first time in years. I’m not saying there isn’t a lot of stress, but… yeah. I feel good. Except…”
“Except what?”
“It’s not really a problem. And it’s a bit embarrassing.”
“You have Doctor-patient confidentiality on your side. Tell me.”

“I’ve been having dreams. Regularly, and over the last six months.”
“What about?”
Jack grimaced. “That’s the embarrassing part. They’re about… well, us.”
“Us? Are you sure those aren’t memories?”
“No. Definitely not. In the dreams… we’re happy. Some of the scenes are positively domestic. Some of them are… well… you can guess. And there’s something else. In the dreams, we have a kid.”

The Doctor’s eyes widened. “A what?”
“A kid. A girl. Sometimes she’s only a baby, mostly I see a child. Although one time she was a teenager. That wasn’t fun, even knowing that it was a dream.”

“Okay. That’s weird. There hasn’t been anything else weird, has there?”
Jack just looked at him. “Torchwood, remember?”

“I mean, other than the usual kind.”
“Sometimes… I wake up, and I have this feeling that someone else is there. But no-one is. What does it mean? Is anything dangerous going to happen?”
“Well… not as such. Things might have to change a bit though. Um…” He reached into his coat pocket and took out his stethoscope. “You don’t mind if I check something, do you?”
“Er… no.”
“Good. Lift up your shirt.”

Jack did so, and the Doctor put the end of the stethoscope against his stomach and listened. Then he went pale. Or paler than usual, anyway.

“Doc… what is it?”

Wordlessly, the Doctor let Jack listen. It was faint, but he could clearly hear the ba-dum, ba-dum of a small heartbeat. Then the Doctor moved the end of the stethoscope a fraction of a millimetre, and Jack heard a second tiny heart beating.

“So… I’m, uh… pregnant?”
“Yeah.”

“Damn. Already did that once. Er… you know, I haven’t actually, um, done it with that many people recently. Not with Ianto for months, and… oh, crap.”

“Yeah. The last person… would be me.”
“So it’s not twins?”
“No. Only one.”
“And apparently a Time Lord, too. Wait… how do you know?”
“I can recognise other Time Lords just by being around them, or seeing them. I can feel it. You’ve got a unborn Time Lord in there, Jack.”
“I knew I should have had that implant removed.”

“Right. Um… we should probably get you back to the Hub. Or the TARDIS. Just to check that everything’s okay in there.”

--

On the way back, Jack called Martha, telling her to get to the Hub and that he had something important that she needed to know about. She sounded concerned, but said she’d come anyway.

As they made their way inside, Jack heard something.

Mummy?

He looked around, looking for a child, but there was no-one nearby apart from the Doctor. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“A child. Asking for its mummy.”

“I didn’t hear anything.”
Mummy?

“It happened again, just now.”
Mummy, is that you?

The child obviously couldn’t be heard by anyone else… so Jack tried thinking calming thoughts at it. Okay, kid, it’s okay. Everything’s okay.

Mummy!

“Oh, crap.”