Expectant (audio story)

Expectant
Main character(s):	Jack Harkness
Featuring:	Ianto Jones
Main setting:	South Wales, 2009
Key crew
Publisher:	Big Finish Productions
Writer:	Xanna Eve Chown
Director:	Scott Handcock
Producer:	James Goss
Music:	Blair Mowat
Sound:	Richard Fox @ FoxYason Studios
Cover by:	Lee Binding
Release details
Story number:	5.10
Release number:	34
Release date:	18 December 2019
Production code:	BFPTWCD34
ISBN:	ISBN 978-1-78703-702-1
Official trailer
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Big Finish Torchwood series
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Expectant was the thirty-fourth story in the Torchwood audio series by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Xanna Eve Chown and featured John Barrowman as Jack Harkness.

Publisher's summary

The Yalnix Empire is a fragile alliance of a dozen systems, under constant attack from their ancient enemy, the Vad. With the Empress unable to trust any of her court she gives the job of growing the next Ruler of the Yalnix to an old friend - Captain Jack Harkness.

With hunters on the loose and a battlefleet in orbit, Cardiff’s suddenly became a dangerous place for a man to be pregnant.

Plot

Jack is on top of a burning building with Jonty, having set it on fire to kill an alien virus growing in the air conditioning. They use a zip wire to escape and Jonty reminds Jack that Jack is pregnant.

The pair chase a Weevil called Terrance in a sewer and Jack's pregnancy symptoms get worse. He counters Jonty's protestations to his activities by reminding him that he agreed to carry the next Ruler of the Yalnix, whom he has nicknamed "Junior", so long as he could continue to work for Torchwood as normal for as long as he could. Jack asks the Weevil nest if they have seen the old woman's arm that Jonty removed.

Jack and Jonty go to a café where Jack suffers a mood swing. They later deal with the Tomvaris, who are looking for the spawn baby and whom Jack persuades to leave, and briefly encounter UNIT.

Jack goes to the Hub and has a hormonal meltdown in front of Ianto. Ianto speaks to Jonty outside and expresses his concern for Jack, who he thought was dealing well with Tosh and Owen's deaths before he came back pregnant. Ianto saves Jack, who has sneaked out, from a man-eating dragon, and sees him off as Jack and Jonty go to the Monkstone Abbey Health Spa. Paula welcomes them.

The other residents stop and cry whilst staring at Jack and Jonty before returning to normal. Paula checks in with them and Jack asks if she has seen anything unusual before everybody enters a trance and state that he must be secured. Jack enters the final stage of gestation and is saved from Paula by Jonty, who explains that Junior had turned the residents into warriors to protect itself from the reckless Jack. Ianto arrives and uses a stun gun on Paula.

Jack admits to Ianto that he accepted the pregnancy in order to feel some control after what happened to Tosh, Owen, John and Gray. Ianto deliberately drives into the sea at Penarth Pier, prompting the birthing ship to teleport them inside where Jack gives birth.

In a sewer, Jack hands Junior over to Jonty, who thanks him for what he has done for the Yalnix.

Cast

• Captain Jack Harkness - John Barrowman
• Ianto Jones - Gareth David-Lloyd
• Jonty - Aaron Anthony
• Paula - Catherine Ayers
• Brigadier - Jessica Hayles
• Residents - Meryn Davis, Emily John

References

• Jack gives Jonty a leather harness to help zip wire off of the burning building.
• Jonty is a midwife.
• Jack and Jonty go to a café and are served by a waitress.
• Jack gets a litre of cherryade and a salt beef, peanut butter, poppy seed bagel, which Jonty supposes is high in protein. Jack is angry that they used crunchy peanut butter instead of smooth.
• Jack's first pregnancy was a student prank.
• Mood swings are caused by hormonal imbalance.
• Jack deals with a Tomvaris destructor ship. The Tomvaris are bounty hunters.
• Jack described UNIT as "like Torchwood, with bigger guns and an HR department".
• Jack has an egg sac in his abdomen.
• The Yalnix Empire is under constant threat from its ancient enemy, the Vad.
• Jack is entrusted with the next Yalnix ruler as the Yalnix Empress does not trust any other with it.
• Jack takes two hot dogs with onions and mustard and gives them to a dragon.
• Ianto asks if Jack has packed his antacids, toothbrush, underwear and the tartan slippers with pom-poms that he bought him.
• Gwen Cooper is on holiday in Tenerife.
• The birthing ship is under Penarth Pier.
• Monkstone Abbey Health Spa offer yoga, hydrotherapy, hot stone massages and pilates. The swimming pool has an underwater treadmill, massage points and a jacuzzi. It used to be an asylum and has high hedges around it.
• Jonty watches a soap opera.
• Paula asks if Jack eating crisps will lead to him smoking cigarettes behind the tennis courts and doing crack cocaine whilst everybody else does pilates.
• Jack and Owen once went to a small village where everybody's hair inexplicably turned blue. They found that the local cannabis supply had been contaminated with lazulium. The vicar was one of the ones with blue hair, making Jack and Owen laugh.
• Jonty accidentally calls Castle Taxis.
• Just as Jack's pelvis breaks, he suggests he's gone too far and that "Tosh would have stopped [him]."
• Gwen gave Ianto a siren for Secret Santa.
• Ianto was planning to have a "nice night in" with the radio, a cup of hot chocolate and some garibaldis.
• Maud is a Weevil.

Notes

• A bonus scene was added on the album featuring locals fighting and arguing in a Welsh pub called The Crown & Anchor. This was a fictional scene from a programme that Jack and Jonty were watching at the health spa. The famous line 'Get outta my pub' is used by the landlord, echoing the line used by Peggy Mitchell, once landlady of the Queen Victoria in EastEnders.

Continuity

• Jack begins the story on a rooftop, as he often does. (TV: Everything Changes, etc.)
• Jack recalls that he said he would never become pregnant again. (TV: Everything Changes)
• Jack is not to blame for the Weevils. (AUDIO: The Torchwood Archive)
• Jack has protected Cardiff for over a century. (TV: Fragments; PROSE: The Baby Farmers; AUDIO: The Victorian Age, The Torchwood Archive)
• Two of Jack and Ianto's friends just died. Jack says he really misses Owen. (TV: Exit Wounds)
• Jack has survived being buried alive. (TV: Exit Wounds)
• Jack's reason for bringing life into the world is his guilt and grief after what happened to Tosh, Owen, John and Gray. (TV: Exit Wounds)

External links

• Official Expectant page at bigfinish.com