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daily writing (Who/Torchwood)
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niqaeli.
Spoils a throwaway comment Jack makes in the first five minutes of Torchwood.
This fic is rated ELECTRICAL BANANA (quite rightly). Also archived at AO3.org.
Jack has five parents: three mothers, a father, and a hermaphrodite with six arms whom everyone has always called Shiv'. There are more people in his parents' marriage group, of course, but most of them aren't his genetic donors and none of them are his registered parents.
Five is actually considered a bit many for a parental group. One, of course, is hopelessly few, both because no one can devote twenty-five and a half hours per cycle to new offspring (the most devoted parent still has to sleep) and because a single parent could too easily become a tyrant without partners for balance. This is something that rather concerns the government of Planet Xena, for whatever reason--Jack's been around a bit, and has realized Xena's set-up is fairly unique. Instead of regarding children as the semi-property of their parents until they reach majority, Xena considers children to be citizens entrusted temporarily to the custody of parents. (Possibly the low age of majority has something to do with this. The vote always tends to skew young.)
Two parents is better, but if there is a disagreement on how to parent, stalemate can occur. Three is considered ideal, because the democratic process can usefully be employed at that point, but it's not yet a case of too many cooks spoil the rehydrated Campbell's, as can happen with four or five or six or more parents.
Jack might be a little spoiled. He's always been the apple of his mothers' eyes, and that's a three vote majority right there.
When Jack realizes he's pregnant, the first thing he does is curse Rose and the Doctor, but mostly the Doctor, because Rose doesn't have any extra bits to impregnate him with, being a twenty-first century girl, so it has to have been the Doctor's fault. Then he curses them both for leaving him on his own, because he needs for them to support him and shoulder their share of the responsibility, or else he's going to end up joining the cloners' communal parenting circle on Gabrielle, which numbers about four hundred and will spoil his offspring rotten.
Because Jack is going home to give birth. Xena's the only place in the cosmos where he's not only guaranteed socialized medicine, but medicine at a technological level and bent he's comfortable with. Xena's really got the best handle of human hermaphroditism--nobody will bat an eyelash at the supposedly vestigial uterus Jack inherited from Shiv'. Jack's just glad it's not an ectopic pregnancy.
The months wear on and Rose and the Doctor fail to show their faces. Jack's three-fifths brother Robert is having a daughter with his boyfriends, and Jack tries to convince Robert that he would be an excellent addition to their parental group, but Robert just laughs and tells him he'll only hare off downtime or uptime or slipshod and hadn't Jack better be talking to the other genetic donors, anyway?
So eventually the only thing Jack can do is have Tara (mostly a daughter, with a few androgynous traits) genetically tested and fill out the paperwork to have her declared a non-human off-worlder to be raised by her other parents under their parenting system. Jack is surprised this actually works--he knew the Doctor wasn't human, but enough oddities crop up in Tara's genetic make-up to make Jack wonder about Rose.
And then Jack hares off uptime to the late twentieth century. Yes, he's hoping to find the genetic donors like he told the Xenan government he would, but he's also settling down in a period where single parents are not so unheard of, because if he can't find Rose and the Doctor, neither can he bear to let anyone else take care of Tara. She's all he has left of them.
Rose was raised by Jackie all on her own and didn't turn out too badly, and Jack figures he hasn't got his head as far up his ass as Jackie does, so this can't go too horribly wrong. And if Jack becomes something of a benevolent despot, well, Tara's stubborn enough to match him, and quickly learns to how to get her own way.
niqaeli.Spoils a throwaway comment Jack makes in the first five minutes of Torchwood.
This fic is rated ELECTRICAL BANANA (quite rightly). Also archived at AO3.org.
Jack has five parents: three mothers, a father, and a hermaphrodite with six arms whom everyone has always called Shiv'. There are more people in his parents' marriage group, of course, but most of them aren't his genetic donors and none of them are his registered parents.
Five is actually considered a bit many for a parental group. One, of course, is hopelessly few, both because no one can devote twenty-five and a half hours per cycle to new offspring (the most devoted parent still has to sleep) and because a single parent could too easily become a tyrant without partners for balance. This is something that rather concerns the government of Planet Xena, for whatever reason--Jack's been around a bit, and has realized Xena's set-up is fairly unique. Instead of regarding children as the semi-property of their parents until they reach majority, Xena considers children to be citizens entrusted temporarily to the custody of parents. (Possibly the low age of majority has something to do with this. The vote always tends to skew young.)
Two parents is better, but if there is a disagreement on how to parent, stalemate can occur. Three is considered ideal, because the democratic process can usefully be employed at that point, but it's not yet a case of too many cooks spoil the rehydrated Campbell's, as can happen with four or five or six or more parents.
Jack might be a little spoiled. He's always been the apple of his mothers' eyes, and that's a three vote majority right there.
When Jack realizes he's pregnant, the first thing he does is curse Rose and the Doctor, but mostly the Doctor, because Rose doesn't have any extra bits to impregnate him with, being a twenty-first century girl, so it has to have been the Doctor's fault. Then he curses them both for leaving him on his own, because he needs for them to support him and shoulder their share of the responsibility, or else he's going to end up joining the cloners' communal parenting circle on Gabrielle, which numbers about four hundred and will spoil his offspring rotten.
Because Jack is going home to give birth. Xena's the only place in the cosmos where he's not only guaranteed socialized medicine, but medicine at a technological level and bent he's comfortable with. Xena's really got the best handle of human hermaphroditism--nobody will bat an eyelash at the supposedly vestigial uterus Jack inherited from Shiv'. Jack's just glad it's not an ectopic pregnancy.
The months wear on and Rose and the Doctor fail to show their faces. Jack's three-fifths brother Robert is having a daughter with his boyfriends, and Jack tries to convince Robert that he would be an excellent addition to their parental group, but Robert just laughs and tells him he'll only hare off downtime or uptime or slipshod and hadn't Jack better be talking to the other genetic donors, anyway?
So eventually the only thing Jack can do is have Tara (mostly a daughter, with a few androgynous traits) genetically tested and fill out the paperwork to have her declared a non-human off-worlder to be raised by her other parents under their parenting system. Jack is surprised this actually works--he knew the Doctor wasn't human, but enough oddities crop up in Tara's genetic make-up to make Jack wonder about Rose.
And then Jack hares off uptime to the late twentieth century. Yes, he's hoping to find the genetic donors like he told the Xenan government he would, but he's also settling down in a period where single parents are not so unheard of, because if he can't find Rose and the Doctor, neither can he bear to let anyone else take care of Tara. She's all he has left of them.
Rose was raised by Jackie all on her own and didn't turn out too badly, and Jack figures he hasn't got his head as far up his ass as Jackie does, so this can't go too horribly wrong. And if Jack becomes something of a benevolent despot, well, Tara's stubborn enough to match him, and quickly learns to how to get her own way.
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