The lady behind the counter clearly wasn't big on customer service. "You want the full package, or just the man-goo?" she barked at him.

Of course, this wasn't exactly a top-of-the-line clinic; more under-the-counter, really. Doing this legally, in this time and place, would have techinically required that Jack have either witnessed consent, or a registered partnership and a death certificate, neither of which was worth the trouble to fake. He did, however, still have Ianto's full biodata on his wrist computer - it was a standard Time Agency protocol he'd never quite dropped. That was all that was really necessary.

He handed her the card with the copy of Ianto's full genetic code and said, with his most charming smile, "Just the goo, please. I'm going to do it the old-fashioned way, I think."

"Hmph," she replied as she slid the chip in to her console. "I suppose you'll want me to run maximize-dominants, too."

He hadn't really considered that. He was still being sideswiped now and then with how thoroughly he'd normalized to Old Earth's limitations. But now he imagined a small child smiling up at him with Ianto's hair and grin and eyes, with only enough of Jack showing through to break his  heart. "Yes, please," he said, and then "How did you know?"

She rolled her eyes. "The ones who are mourning for a dead lover always go right for the sentimental options. I suppose you'll say to skip all the gene-cleaning, too: you kind always say you loved them for their faults."

"You know, finding out I'm just like everybody else who walks in here is kind of killing the spirit of the grand romantic gesture."

"Good," she replied, not looking up from her screen. "The sooner you realize it's not a grand romance, it's a kid, the better for everyone."

He thought about that. He thought about the way Alice had looked at him, the last time he'd seen her; he thought about something one of his teammates had said, over and over again, long before Alice: "It's unnatural for a parent to outlive their child. It's not <I>right</i>."

And he wanted that pain, relentless, endless, bitter. A long lifetime from now, he hoped, but he wanted it.

"You could at least have let me keep the illusions until I started having to deal with the mess," he told her with a grin, trying to keep it light.

"Huh," she said. Then, "You might want the gene-clean after all. Where'd you find this guy? Some backwater lost colony? I can't remember last time I saw such thoroughgoing atavism in a sample."

"Something like that," Jack said, not meeting her eyes.

"Mind you, the maximize-dominants will take care of most of it," she said. "Right clean phenotype, at least, you must have classic taste. But he doesn't have any of the standard  enhancements, not even Immunity-&Beta;, and that one's been around for centuries. You sure you don't want to take this down to the university and get it funded as an archeological experiment?"

"I'm not doing it for science."

"Should at least charge you hybridizing prices then," she muttered. "But I won't. Here," she pulled out a padd, flicked through a few menus, and handed it to him. "Go through the gene-clean and basic enhancements checklists and see what you're willing to have done, and then we can finish this. Got any questions you can ask me."