Another Life by a_silver_story | Part 17
Title: Another Life
Chapter: 17 | ??
Characters: Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones
Author: a_silver_story
Genre Alternate Universe, Romance
Rating: NC-17 just to be safe.
Warnings: A bit of angst, and some tentacles and d/c in the future.
Disclaimer: If I owned anything in this, I'd be a rich rich rich bitch. However, I am not a rich rich rich bitch so you may all, therefore, assume I own nothing. Which I don't. It all belongs RTD and the BBC, in case any of you didn't know.
Summary: Ianto finds himself heartbroken and alone, but eventually learns that no matter what point in Captain Jack Harkness' life he finds himself, they will always fall in love.
Torchwood Index/Masterlist
First Part
Another Life
Another Life XVII
Jack watched him sleeping for a while, after cleaning him up and tucking him in under the covers. His skin was still flushed, still glistening with sweat. His lips were pink and bitten, his hair standing up on end in a billion different angles. He was warm and soft, defenceless as he lay there in bed, unconscious - depending on Jack to look after him, to protect him.
He was so young, but far too old.
As Jack slipped an arm under his neck to cradle his head, he found himself running his fingers through sweat-dampened curls, sweeping the dark hair from Ianto's face and placing a gentle kiss to the corner of his mouth, then the tip of his nose, then lingering on his lips for a few moments.
Ianto had had what Jack would assume to be a good reaction to the gel, but whether or not he'd like to try it again would be up to him. His vocality had surprised Jack at first, making him glad they'd tried it at his place instead of Ianto and Rhys' flat. Well, Rhys' flat. Ianto was bringing his things over tomorrow, and Giacomo would be alternating nights until they moved.
Jack shuddered at the thought of moving, pressed one last kiss to Ianto's shoulder and dragged himself out of bed. He dressed in fresh clothes and wandered up to his office, eyeing the In Tray dubiously and deciding that since it was a special occasion, he might actually do some paperwork.
He settled himself in his chair, wondering if he'd be allowed to take his desk and chair with him when they moved. If he couldn't take them to work he could at least have them in his home study - if the house had a study. If not ... they could convert a bedroom, maybe. Then again, Giacomo had been asking for a little sister ....
The Captain thought of Giacomo's older sister, Jaqueline. She was fourteen, and didn't know her father. He tracked her progress through school, and when she was ill sent little gifts and pulled strings to make sure she got the best care, but he was absent. He knew she was a Pescetarian, like her mother - she ate fish (as they didn't feel pain, and her favourite was salmon), but not meat. Her grades were average, and she was pretty enough but was more interested in reading fantasy novels than bothering with girls and boys.
Her half-brother Jacob, on the other hand, was very pretty, but also pretty dim by academic standards. He was twenty, and made up for lack of aptitude by excelling at pretty much everything vocational. He might not be able to tell you the exact and correct use of an apostrophe or implement the formula for finding the volume of a sphere, but if you needed something painting, making, building or fixing you asked Jacob. He also liked to sleep around.
A lot.
Jack chuckled to himself, reading the same line of small print for the fourth time and deciding that two forms was enough work for that evening. He got himself a glass of water from the kitchenette, and checked his watch. Not too late, he noted, and decided to maybe wander down to Rhys' and play with Giacomo for a bit. He was half way to his office door when there was a knock on it, and he inwardly cursed. He pulled it open, and instantly grinned when he saw the Doctor standing there, waiting to be let in.
"I hear you've forgotten pretty much most of your wedding night?" smirked the Doctor as he sat down.
"Yeah ... went a little bit crazy ...."
"I think that means I owe you your wedding present again," he mused. "Lean forward ...."
Jack obliged, frowning as the Doctor placed fingers on his temples and applied a small amount of pressure. He closed his eyes when instructed, and everything behind his lids swirled gold.
Parts of the first time they'd done this came back to him, and he recognised himself as being in a long, long, long, long, long forgotten and distant memory. He and Ianto - Ianto, wearing a striped tie and pale pink shirt with his black suit - were in an office. It was dark outside, so after hours, and the memory had a distinct feeling of 'we're not supposed to be here'.
"... photocopying your butt. Or maybe not your butt - hey ... since we're here why don't we-"
"The Rift," Ianto cut him off, his tone slightly cold. "was active at these coordinates about two hundred feet above ground. Which means either this floor ... or the roof."
Then Jack blinked, and Now Jack did too. He could feel the guilt of his past self - had he done something? - and also sensed nerves and insecurity.
"How are you, Ianto?"
"All the better for ... having you back, sir," Ianto replied, not looking at him and mindlessly flipping through some papers.
"Could we maybe drop the sir now?" Then Jack asked. "I was thinking ... while I was away-" Away? Away where? "- ... dinner ... movie ...."
There was a flicker of surprise on Ianto's face as he finally turned to look at Jack. Now Jack found himself holding his breath, crossing his fingers without realising.
"A-are you asking me out on a-a date?" Ianto asked, his eyes flicking down to the floor again.
"Interested?"
Ianto breathed out a puff of air. "As long as it's not in an o-office. Some fetishes should be kept to yourself," he tumbled out quickly.
Jack felt a strange sense of relief, let out the breath he'd been holding and felt a feeling of smug satisfaction. He'd just got a date with Ianto Jones. Goal!
He had a feeling there was more, but evidently the Doctor didn't. The gold swirls behind his eyes came back, everything obscured behind the flowing yellowing light, until a different picture seeped in and solidified before him. It took a moment for Jack to (a) realise this was not a good memory and (b) spot where Ianto actually was.
There was a lot of shouting for such a small space, and Then Jack was firing off rounds in every direction, switching weapons and firing off more. They were in a very, very, very ancient house, a kitchen, with plastic sheeting hanging down from the ceiling. Ianto was gagged and bleeding, bound with his hands behind his back and looking terrified - if not strangely relieved - and he was dirty and blood-stained. He also wasn't wearing a suit, Jack noted through his haze of anger and terror, stood as a substance-less bystander unable to do anything.
He watched his past self leaning down and threatening a man dressed in hideous khaki, and a dark-haired woman with a blood-sodden green jacket was leaning over his shoulder. A man in a black leather jacket had gone to kneel by Ianto, easing the gag from his mouth and casting around for the keys to the cuffs cruelly cutting into his wrists. Once he was freed, Ianto turned to him, mumbled something inaudible and collapsed into his arms.
Then Jack seemed to notice, turning sharply and practically pushing the man in the leather jacket away from Ianto with his presence.
"How is he, Owen?" he was asking, crouching down and pulling him close.
"I'll have to examine him properly after the paramedics do what they can," he sighed. "I think it might only be surface damage - cracked or broken ribs at the most."
The Then Jack helped Ianto to his feet, practically hauling him up and pulling an arm over his shoulder to help give him balance.
"Toshiko?" Ianto asked weakly.
"She's fine," muttered Then Jack. "We're all fine. Except you."
"I'll be right as rain this time tomorrow," Ianto assured him, serious. "Though I wouldn't mind the morning off."
"Take the week," Jack told him as he guided him towards the exit, throwing the most evil looks imaginable at the people lying around the ancient kitchen.
"I don't really appreciate your sense of humour at a time like this," scowled Ianto, allowing himself to be turned and sat on a low wall. Owen had followed them out, and gave a small snort at Ianto's words. He was manipulating a Bekaran scanner with deft ease, confirming his earlier prognosis of nothing worse than a few cracked ribs and mild concussion.
"The week off will probably do you good, though," he told Ianto with a tone that breached little argument.
Ianto mimicked him in a high-pitched mumble, and Owen simply stuck his tongue out.
"Send daily thermoses via courier, or I'll be over there with a big needle and a rectal thermometer!" he called over his shoulder as he returned to the house through a massive hole in the wall with a tractor currently lodged in it.
The Then Jack crouched beside Ianto, before thinking better of it and sitting on the wall. They sat quietly for a moment, companionable silence, until finally Then Jack spoke. "I agree," he sighed. "You really should send in coffee via courier. Though if the expense becomes too much I will gladly offer to ferry the good stuff."
Ianto gave a small laugh, before his hand flew to his ribs.
Jack smiled softly. "Sometimes your coffee is so good, I worry they might make it illegal."
"Only sometimes?" asked Ianto, an eyebrow trying to raise.
"Okay, I admit ... all the time!" Jack held his hands up.
"Hmmm ... if they did make it illegal ... I would have to make you ferry it. Secretly."
"Across the Torchwood border?"
"You could be my coffee mule," smiled Ianto, with a slight wince of pain.
"Mmm ... love to think where I'd have to hide that big, hot oblong," grinned Jack.
"You'd have to be careful. What with the vibrations from the car seat going up into that big, hot oblong as you attempt to drive covertly, you might wind up causing accidents."
"Mm," agreed Jack, closing his eyes. "People could get hurt. Why don't you drive; I'll ride shot gun?"
"What else would you like to be riding?"
"You have such a dirty mouth when you're concussed."
"It matches my filthy brain - and for the moment, my filthy clothes, too," Ianto replied, frowning down at his ruined shirt as if confused by it. They sat quietly again, and in the far distance they could hear approaching sirens. "Jack?" Ianto eventually asked.
"Mm?"
"What do you want to do before you die?"
The Then Jack closed up at the question, and Now Jack deduced that Ianto didn't know about his immortal-ness just yet.
"I ... erm ... why do you ask?"
"I don't know," Ianto admitted. "I just ... I was ... the cleaver touched my skin. It didn't even cut me, but ... it touched me. And a million things went through my head - like I suddenly realised my life was ... incomplete."
"What would make you complete?"
Ianto was silent for a long while, staring into the middle-distance. Eventually, he found the words he was looking for.
"I really wouldn't mind being happy again," he admitted, his voice barely audible. "Just for a little bit," he added. "Even a tiny bit. Just ... to wake up in the morning and think ... yeah, there's bad stuff. But I have some good stuff, and this is my good stuff, and it makes me happy."
"So ... what good stuff have you got at the moment?"
"I ... I ... Torchwood," he said.
"Oh."
"Not much of a Good Stuff, is it?"
"No, not really," agreed Then Jack. "Tell you what," he announced decisively and squeezing Ianto's knee. "Ianto Jones: I shall help you find more Good Stuff."
Ianto laughed, then completely out of the blue put a hand behind his head and pulled him in for a kiss.
"What are you ... what are you doing?" Then Jack asked, pulling away.
"I'm concussed. I can do rash, stupid and otherwise regretful things when I'm concussed."
Jack shrugged, and allowed himself to be pulled into another kiss with fervour.
Gold light swirled and whirled through the memory, blinding Jack though closing his eyes was no use. It finally receded to reveal a dance floor, with Then Jack and Ianto stood close together, rocking and revolving on the spot slowly.
Jack watched the dance for a long while, sitting cross-legged on the floor of his memory, before the gold came back.
"... all I'm saying is that out of everywhere we've fucked, that had to be the most uncomfortab- oh ... Hi Gwen ...."
They were in the underground place that Jack reckoned was a sewer. The dark-haired woman, Gwen, was stood with her hands on her hips, looking like the den-mother about to blow a fuse at her unruly children. She opened her mouth to speak, and the Then Jack held up a hand to silence her.
"I know exactly, what you're about to say. Let me explain - there was this alien sex gas-"
Gwen cut in. "It was sex gas last week," she growled.
Ianto cleared his throat. "What he meant to say was ... was ... it was ... terrorism. Sort of."
"Terrorism?" Gwen repeated, clearly still unimpressed.
"Yeah," Jack agreed. "They were trying to ... erm ... distract ... from ...."
"The crop circles," Ianto finished.
"The crop circles," Jack agreed.
"What 'crop circles'?" Gwen sighed.
"Y'know ... the crop circles ...." Ianto shrugged.
"Massive circles - in the crops," Jack told her authoritatively.
Ianto nodded. "And so that no one would notice, the aliens released the ... the ...."
Gwen rolled her eyes. "... the sex gas?" she completed for him.
Ianto snapped his fingers. "Exactly!"
"Though," considered Jack. "I'd say it was more an aphrodisiac than an out-and-out sex gas."
"Mmhmm!" agreed Ianto. "Enough to distract people from the crop circles, you see!"
"There hasn't been any crop circles," Gwen glared.
"You didn't see the crop circles?" Jack asked, wide-eyed.
"She didn't see the crop circles?"
"She didn't see the crop circles!"
"Must've been distracted," concluded Ianto.
"Must've been," Jack shook his head regretfully.
Gwen glared between them. "You're just lucky I'm not in charge, Jack Harkness!"
"Captain," Jack and Ianto corrected in unison.
"That's it!" she snapped. "I'm making a complaint!"
A heavy silence hung in the air as Jack was clearly trying to hold in a fairly big laugh. It was stoic Ianto, however, who let out the first tiny little snigger. "I'm ... s-s-s-sorry!" he gasped, and broke down laughing, and Jack was already joining him.
Gwen beat uselessly with her fists on Jack's back and shoulder. "It's ... not ... funny!" she insisted, though the corners of her mouth were beginning to pull.
"It ... wasn't ... my ... f-fault!" Ianto gasped through his laughter. "Giggle Loop! Giggle Loop!"
Jack was holding onto Ianto, and Ianto was holding onto Jack, and eventually Gwen was holding onto both of them for support as they found themselves unable to stop laughing. Gwen was still flailing her arms a little in an attempt to hit at them, which just made the trio laugh even more.
Eventually they collapsed on the floor in a heap, entangled. They took a few moments to calm down, their faces returning to normal colour and breathing regulating.
"Where were you really?" Gwen asked once they were functioning like normal people again, albeit normal people in a tangled heap on the floor and not really doing anything about it.
"We told you," Jack sighed, finally moving to get up.
Ianto allowed himself to be helped up before turning to offer his hand to Gwen. "Alien sex gas ... and crop circles."
"For the last time:" Gwen huffed. "There. Were. No. Crop. Circles."
Ianto sighed. He moved over to a desk filled with computers and brought up the local news channel.
"... crop circles have been spotted, ranging from twelve feet to one-hundred-and-thirty feet in diameter all along the southern Welsh coast this morning ...."
Gwen's eyebrows shot up. "Well ... whaddya know?"
Ianto took on a mocking, melodramatic tone. "... and she accused us of lying! Well, I never!"
"Never," Jack shook his head, as if disappointed.
"Honestly - never work with a couple. You two talk like bloody twins!" grinned Gwen, turning and making her way up to a green house filled with plants.
Jack and Ianto stood next to each other, their mouths opening and closing for a few moments.
"Er ... um ...." Ianto broke the awkward silence, though neither of them looked at each other. "Do you want your video back? I'm fairly certain Gwen didn't notice it was from three years ago ...."
Jack cleared his throat. "Ahem ... yeah ... er ... future occasions and ... all that. Commendations for ... forward planning ...."
"Told you we'd need to," Ianto nodded, and still they didn't look at each other. "Erm ... I ... have ... Archives," he said, excusing himself.
"Yeah I've got ... um ...."
"Paperwork?"
"Yeah," nodded Jack, and they both turned to dart off in the same direction, but just stepped in the others' way. They did a little dance to try and move along, until eventually until the Then Jack pushed Ianto in the direction he wanted to go in. Quickly, they got as far from each other as they could go.
Jack wanted to shout at his past self and tell him to go after the man as the swirly, glowy light returned to blind his vision. The Doctor seemed unsure what to show him next, and the light lingered longer than before, but eventually the light began to dim and clear, showing a restaurant scene in a very posh looking place overlooking water.
The Then Jack and Ianto (in a gorgeous bright red shirt) was being led to a table by a waiter, and they both were looking dubious. They were seated and presented with menus, and Ianto leaned over to Jack.
"What happened to 'table in the corner'?"
He shrugged.
"It's so ... exposed here," sighed Ianto. "In the middle of the room ...."
"Shall I ask for us to be moved by the window?" Jack asked pointedly.
"Sorry ... I didn't mean it like that ...." mumbled Ianto, carefully studying his menu.
Jack opened his, browsing for a couple of moments, then snapping it shut again. "Don't you want to be seen with me?" he asked quickly.
Ianto blinked a couple of times, as if shocked by the question. "I just ... don't generally like to be seen," he finally replied. "I feel ... exposed without ... it's not you. It's not about being with you. It's just me being ... weird."
The Captain searched his face for a couple of seconds, then opened his menu again, reassured by the answer. They ordered drinks and food, and sipped at their wine glasses in comfortable quiet, listening to the conversations going on around them.
"Y'know," Jack eventually said. "I don't think we've ever made it this far into a date without being interrupted."
"Mmmm," agreed Ianto. "Don't jinx it," he joked.
"Really, though ... I'm almost on tenterhooks, waiting for the PDA to go off."
"Desperate to get away and the starter isn't even here," smiled Ianto.
Jack laughed. "Would I be spending this much on a table if I was desperate to leave it?"
Ianto frowned. "Spending how much?"
"Just ... a deposit," he shrugged.
"Mmmm," Ianto replied, narrowing his eyes but deciding to leave it. "So what are you having for mains?"
"Err ... summit with fish, I think. I don't know, I don't understand the menu - I shut my eyes and picked. You?"
"Steak ... I think," laughed Ianto. "Do you reckon we'll actually get to eat it?"
Shrugging, the Then Jack began buttering a bread roll from the complimentary basket and taking a huge bite. "Fill up on bread rolls in case," he managed over a mouthful of food before gulping some of his water.
"Don't talk with your mouth full," Ianto chastised, reaching for a bread roll for himself and neatly slicing it open to butter the inner sides. He ate delicately, as he always did, and savoured the food, actually tasting it before swallowing.
A few minutes later, Jack spoke again. "Sorry," he said, and Ianto gave him a confused look. "... for speaking with my mouth full. I finished it before speaking again - are you proud?"
"Very," Ianto replied, rolling his eyes. "Take smaller bites and we might manage to have a decent-ish conversation."
They carried on eating for a short while, and when Jack had finished his second roll while Ianto was still on his first, he sat back in his chair and folded his arms. "So ... the maitre de: gay, straight, bi?"
"Straight."
"Barman?"
"Bicurious."
"That waiter?"
Ianto took a surreptitious glance. "Oh ... my ... God ...."
"What?" Jack asked, turning to look.
"Don't turn around. Don't even move!"
"Is there an alien?" asked Jack, concerned.
"Not quite so bad," groaned Ianto. "The waiter on the next section?"
"Yeah?"
"... he's my brother-in-law. Don't look!"
"Smiley, tubby and curly?"
"Yes," Ianto scowled, annoyed, trying to make sure Jack wasn't bringing attention to them. "I didn't even know he had a job," he groaned. "What if he sees us?"
"What if he does?"
"He's an awkward one ... he might be a bit funny about ... we're here having a meal while he's got to serve us kind of thing ...."
"And you also don't want him to see you," Jack pointed out.
Ianto shot him an exasperated look. "I haven't exactly told my sister or her husband about you yet - at least here he can't make too much of a -"
"Ianto you smart bastard! How've you been?"
"Oh ... hi, Johnny!" smiled Ianto. "You finally got a job, then!"
"Aye - for a tenner an hour, I woren't gonna say no. Who's this?"
"Cap'n Ja-"
"My boss. He's my boss," Ianto insisted.
"Cap'n Jack Harkness." Jack held out his hand and they shook. "You're ... Ianto's brother-in-law?"
"Yeah - Johnny. Please to meet you an' that. I heard he'd gone bender," he grinned.
Ianto's eyes went as wide as saucers. "I ... you ... what ... ?" he spluttered. "From whom?"
"Well, Suzan on the corner told Trace who told Rhiannon that she saw you-"
"Oh my God ... Rhiannon's gonna ...."
"... go mental. Yep. She did." Johnny assured him, pulling at his bow tie. "A little ticked off you failed to mention it during your visit the week before, but don't worry, I told her: it's his private life, and he'll tell you the gossip when you're ready. There's no need to be concerned."
Ianto blinked, a little surprised. "... th-thanks, Johnny," he said sincerely.
"No problem. If you wanna take it up the arse, that's your choice. Now - if you could possibly try and persuade Rhi about the pros and cons of said taking-"
"WAITER!" someone yelled, snapping their fingers.
"I'll be back in a minute," sighed Johnny, and hurried off.
Ianto put his head in his hands and groaned. "Oh my God ..."
Jack shrugged. "Your brother-in-law seems nice."
"He is," Ianto agreed, rubbing his face before sitting up as straight as he could. "A little full on, and rather blunt ... but ... oh dear God ... not how I expected them to find out ...."
Jack grinned, then his smile slipped slightly as he watched a snooty middle-aged man in a tuxedo at one of the tables starting a scene, shouting at Johnny for spilling a little bit of soup as he'd placed the bowl down on the table. "To diffuse, or not to diffuse ...." he mused. Ianto turned, and watched for a moment.
Johnny was apologising politely, but dared to point out the soup had only spilled onto the tablecloth and nothing of the man's. The tuxedo glared at him, took the pitcher of water from the table and splashed it all down Johnny's front.
Ianto turned to Jack. "Diffuse," he decided. Jack made to get up, but Ianto stopped him. "I'll do it," he told him.
Jack nodded, and Ianto made his way over to the table. "Problem, sir?"
"This idiot-"
"... inarguably."
"- spilled and wasted this twenty-five pound starter! Has he any idea about the value of money?"
"Evidently - that is why he will not be spending two-and-a-half-hour's wages on flavoured and thickened water."
"How dare you? Don't you know who I am?" the man demanded, outraged.
Ianto raised an eyebrow and looked him squarely in the eye. "Nope."
The people around the table made incredulous gasping noises, as if Ianto having no idea who this man was was inconceivable.
"I," the man began importantly. "am Sir-"
"That's lovely. I'm sure I'll remember it, Sir. Now please - calm the Hell down before I take that stick out of your arse and beat you with it. C'mon, Johnny."
"Fucking bender," muttered Sir.
Ianto ignored him, but Johnny spun on his heel. He swung, hitting Sir squarely on the jaw and sending him backwards into his bowl of soup. "No one," he glowered threateningly. "- and I mean no one - is allowed to call Ianto a bender ... except me."
Within minutes, Johnny was fired.
"Ah well," he shrugged. "There'll be other jobs."
"Yeah ...." nodded Ianto. He glanced over at Jack nearby to see that a third chair had already been added to their table. "Since you're dressed to the nines - if not a little damp - ... why not eat with me and Jack? On him, obviously."
"Oh ... I couldn't."
Ianto sighed. "You can tell all our school friends that I'm your bitch," he coaxed.
Johnny grinned. "Just like old times." He plonked himself down in the chair between Jack and Ianto, and greeted the Captain again.
They made easy banter for a bit, but then Johnny just had to go and ask, didn't he?
"So ... who's the top, who's the bottom?"
Ianto's face hit his hands fast, but not fast enough to hide the furious blush of his cheeks. Jack was just smirking.
"Ianto's ... very ...." Jack pondered. "Ianto's very ... controlling," he smirked wolfishly.
"Is that so?" Johnny asked, taking out his mobile. "Hang on ... just need to ... um ... inform my wife she's seventy quid lighter ...."
The golden swirls began to invade as the Then Jack laughed heartily, Ianto groaned louder and Johnny texted furiously on his ancient mobile phone.
The Then Jack was running up flights of stairs with panicked speed, barging past people as he desperately climbed higher and higher. Now Jack deduced they were in some sort of high-end block of flats, judging from the people they crossed and the cleanliness of the building. They got to the seventh floor and detoured off into the corridor and came to an abrupt halt outside number thirty-five. Knocking wasn't necessary, as keys were fumbled into the lock and the Captain burst into the flat beyond.
"Ianto? Ianto!" he yelled, slamming the door behind him and racing into the living room, then the bedroom to find Ianto calmly sat in his bed, a book propped open on his knees before him as he read. He glanced up as Jack entered the room, an eyebrow raised inquisitorially. "There ... was ... a ...." Jack panted. "a-a-a- ... body ... found ... early ... twenties ... caucasian ... male ... dark hair ... came ... to ... check ... on ... you ...." he explained.
Ianto's other eyebrow joined its partner in surprise. "I ... Jack, I had the day off. I can assure you, I'm not dead."
Jack collapsed on the bed and hauled himself to sit next to him, pulling him close. "You know how I worry when you have the day off," he sniffed.
"Mmm," agreed Ianto. "I am there when you're asking me if I'm fine, have any concerns or might like you to come over to secure the perimeter. Every. Five. Minutes."
"Fifteen!" objected Jack. "Give me some credit .... What are you reading?"
"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," he informed him.
"Ahhh ... Y'know ... I always thought it was a shame Dobby died in the seventh one - I really liked him. And Lupin. And Fred."
Ianto blinked, and stared at him wide-eyed. "J-Jack?"
"Mmm?"
"The ... the seventh book ... it ... it isn't out until next week ...."
"Oh ... oh. Oh shit."
The memory went black before the gold swirls returned.
Jack groaned as he realised he was being brought back to the present day. "Show me more," he begged the Doctor.
"That's enough for now," he smiled. "Wouldn't do to live in memories - especially when he's alive downstairs, living and breathing and waiting to make new ones."
"He's asleep," Jack whined. "He doesn't do much when he's asleep! He's boring!"
"That's why you've thus far spent the equivalent of sixteen earth months watching him sleep? For a four-year relationship, that's quite a lot."
"I ... um ... I don't need much sleep myself ...." Jack mumbled.
"No," nodded the Doctor. "Anyway - I shall leave you to your tower of paperwork. You have let it get on top of you, haven't you?" he mused. "Cheery-bye-bye!"
Jack sagged heavily in his chair, glaring at his paperwork. "Pffft ...." he said out loud. "It's not like doing you would be consequential at this stage anyway ...." he sighed, getting up. His head was starting to ache at the temples where the Doctor had gained access to his old brain, so he decided to go downstairs and snuggle up to Ianto while he slept it off.
He made his way to the bedroom, pulled on his comfy clothes and burrowed under the covers beside the still-sleeping Ianto. Curling on his side, he made himself comfortable, Ianto's hand clasped between his, and drifted off into a deep, easy sleep.
~*~*~*~
Giggling, Ianto lay on the floor, Rhys' belly a soft cushion under his head and his face hurting from all the laughing. The three-quarters-empty bottle of Scotch sparkled on the living room coffee table, the world a bubble around them and their abdomens still aching.
Ianto had finally gotten Rhys to do the Truffle Shuffle.
Life was good.
"Do you think ...." Rhys slurred, attempting to pat Ianto's head and instead petting lamely at his face. "... I should ask Till to marry me?"
Ianto blinked at the sudden seriousness. "You don't wanna get married for the wrong reasons," he pointed out. "Besides," he yawned. "You could always just ask the Doctor to take you back to the twenty-first century ...."
"Can I be with Gwen?"
Ianto shook his head regretfully. "Timelines - but you could probably get to see your kids. From a distance."
"I don't think I could leave them again," he murmured quietly. "Or live nearby and watch them grow. Or be near the places I used to take them, or where we used to walk by ... or see their schools or their friends or their friends' houses and parents and brothers and sisters ...."
Ianto nodded as he trailed off. "I don't regret coming here," he admitted. "but ... I wish I knew what happened to my sister and her husband and kids. And ... well ... Jack."
"Jack ... left, shortly after you ... did."
"Oh."
"Well ... I say 'left' in a waxing poetic kind of way. He was physically there, but ... he wasn't. He never spoke about anything other than work, and when he wasn't working he was sat in front of the computer monitors watching this graph doing the same thing over and over again. Gwen said it was ... Rift readings? He isolated the readings from the spike that took you, trying to figure out where you went and if you'd come back. Failing that, I think he was ready to follow you if he could."
"Oh ...."
"Mmm ... but I think this is too deep a conversation for our level of drunkeness. I vote we play an horrendous practical joke on someone we don't particularly know or like, just to even the balance."
"We could sneak down the the kitchen and switch the signs on the salt vat and the sugar vat?"
Forty-five minutes later, they were running full-pelt down the corridor from the kitchens to the stairs. On their way out of the kitchen, devious misdeed completed, they had been spotted by the new Night Patrol and were forced to flee as fast as possible back to their flat.
Rhys was grinning from ear to ear, despite realising, "We're never going to outrun them!"
"I don't need to outrun them!" Ianto answered. "I just need to outrun you!"
"Wha -? You're supposed to be my non-homosexual lover! You wouldn't betray me like that!"
"I'm sorry, Rhys!" Ianto gasped as they ran. "I'll get you off, I promise!"
He picked up his speed, running as fast as he could as the sound of an energy weapon being enabled hummed through the floors. Rhys yelped as a web caged around him, and he was left stood in a portable cell, banging at the energy field around him.
"IANTO!" he yelled.
"I'll get you off!" Ianto replied from somewhere.
"You can't get me off!" Rhys bellowed in reply. "I DON'T LIKE COCK!"
~*~*~*~
Ianto lay on the floor, the carpet rough against the side of his face and his mouth dry, tongue heavy. The carpet? He'd been pissed enough to pass out on the carpet? What if there'd been a spillage? What if he'd left a stain?
With great effort, he pushed himself up into a seated position and stared around the decimated flat. He spotted the box of Doctor Harper's Hangover Patches and sluggishly slapped one on his inner wrist. He squinted around as the Bless'd Patch cleared his pounding head, and his hand flew to his mouth as the events of the night before came crashing back.
Salt.
Sugar.
Sign swapping.
Night Patrol.
Rhys doesn't like cock.
Shit.
Ianto threw himself into the shower, threw on a suit, shirt and tie, yanked on his shoes and made his way to the door. He hurried up to his office and booted up the computer, accessing the Night Patrol records to find what was going on with Rhys.
"Reason for breach of security unknown. Drunkard had consumed copious amounts of alcohol. Accomplice as yet unknown - suspected Jones, I. Flat 007. Like we're ever gonna pin anything on that bastard."
Ianto smirked to himself. Like they ever would.
In two keystrokes the record was cleared, and in its place he typed the words 'mistaken identity - immediate release', and authorised it using the Captain's clearance. As an afterthought, he also added the words 'sorry folks!' as a cheeky tidbit to the bottom. He emailed himself the Notice of Release forms that he would have to take to get Rhys out, and quickly glanced over the murky CCTV footage to make sure the dark blob that was him wasn't too easily identifiable.
An hour later, Rhys was back home, Patch on his arm and grumbling.
"Left me ... just left me ...."
"If I'd have been caught too, we'd both be locked up still - and facing tribunal and punishment for the sign-swappage."
"We'd have been in it together though," Rhys pointed out.
"I'm too practical for the whole 'a friend bails you out of jail; a best friend is in the cell with you saying "wasn't that fun?"' analogy of friendship," he shrugged. "I better go and make sure Giacomo hasn't killed the Captain," he sighed. "You can go and snuggle up in bed."
"Yes, dear," laughed Rhys, but did as he was told.
Ianto made his way up to Jack's rooms, creeping downstairs and finding the Captain and his son curled up in bed still. Evidently, the Captain had spoiled Giacomo beyond reason - there were still chocolate smudges around his mouth, on his nose and in his hair. They had also both fallen asleep in their clothes, surrounded by sweet wrappers, bottles of fizzy drinks and the TV still on.
Sighing, Ianto gently prised Giacomo away from the bed, and woke him gently. "C'mon you ..." he murmured. "You need to have a bath."
"Don' want," Giacomo moaned softly. "Bed, Yantoe. Bed."
"Bath - no arguing."
Ianto sat him on the pile of towels while he began to fill the tub, and he slowly he woke up more and more. Finally sat in the water, he splashed happily.
"I think he does love me," he told Ianto, grinning.
Ianto blinked. "Pardon?"
"My Dad. He loves me."
"O-Of course he ... there was never any question of it, Giacomo. Your Dad loves you more than anything, and he always will."
"He gave me all the things I'm not allowed," he said proudly.
"I noticed," Ianto replied. "And you are allowed those things - but only on Saturdays. You know that."
"Dad says that when we move, that rule will go and I can have sweets whenever I want!" he exclaimed, wide-eyed.
"Hmmm ..." considered Ianto. "I may have to have words with your father. That rule isn't going anywhere."
"Why?" whined Giacomo.
"Because we don't want you getting fat, do we? We want you nice and healthy so that you don't get sick and cost us lots of money in medical bills."
"You're always mean," scowled Giacomo, folding his arms as Ianto washed him. "You always shout at me."
Ianto glared. "Fine - I won't tell you off anymore. I'll just let you do whatever you want -and if you get hurt, or fat, or sick, it'll be your own fault. And let's not forget: naughty little boys don't get birthday parties. Nor are they allowed to turn six - or get little sisters!"
Giacomo stared at him, and Ianto quirked an eyebrow.
Eventually, Little Jack sagged. "I'm sorry, Daddy," he murmured. "I think it's the sugar."
"Mmm," agreed Ianto brusquely, then sniggered as he remembered his own antics from the night before. It was strange to think that the man kneeling in the bathroom, bathing a child and being a parent was the same man who had spent a good chunk of the night before peeling labels off vats to switch them around as a juvenile prank. Ah well, he supposed. "Do as I say, not as I do."
"Now," he sighed, Child clean and dry and dressed in fresh clothes. "Let's go and wake up your father in the most evil way imaginable."
"You pull off the covers," Giacomo instructed, whispering the conspiracy. "... and I'll jump on him!"
"While you're jumping ... I'll tickle his feet ...." smirked Ianto.
They crept into the room, masking giggles, and Ianto mouthed 'One ... Two ... Three!" and yanked the covers back as Little Jack took a running jump. He heard Big Jack's yell of surprise and pain, and instantly began the Tickle Attack.
"No no NO NO NO!" Jack laughed and yelled, kicking out as Giacomo clung to stay on him like a bucking Bronco. Ianto relented before someone got hurt, and found himself forcefully dragged down onto the bed. "I'll deal with you later ...." Jack promised, before turning with a grin to scoop up Giacomo and dangle him upside down.
"Can we go and play Tigger Sticks?" Giacomo asked, his face red and still upside down.
"Not right - put him downside up, Jack - not right now, love. We'll do it another time."
"Okay," he agreed sullenly. "Dad?" he asked.
"Mmm?" prompted Jack.
"Can I have a little sister?"
Ianto's eyes flew wide. Ahhhhhhhhhhh shit.
"I don't know, Giacomo ...." Jack considered. "You're quite a handful on your own - and having another kiddie might just destroy your Daddy slowly from the inside with all the worrying and paranoia he's going to have to be doing."
Ianto nodded in agreement vigorously.
"So ... I c-can't?" asked Little Jack, his bottom lip wobbling.
"We'll see," the Captain decided firmly.
Giacomo sniffed. "Okay. I'll be good. I promise. And I'll help look after her. Can we call her Molly?"
"We'll see," Jack repeated.
Ianto kissed the Captain's temple. "We'll see," he reconfirmed.
Giacomo nodded. "Okay." He raised his head, his best puppy eyes turned on Jack. "For my birthday, can we get drunk?"
Ianto clapped his hand over the Captain's mouth and pretty much shouted "No!" before he could make a sound.
~*~*~*~
Ianto tucked Giacomo into his bed at their - no, his old - flat, and kissed him on the head. He let him drift off as he read a story, and stayed to watch him sleeping, smiling to himself and stroking his hair.
"Cute," a voice commented behind him.
Ianto didn't need to turn around. "How did you get in Rhys' flat, John?"
"Borrowed a key," he shrugged, entering the room.
"What do you want?"
"You seem to be asking me that a lot lately."
"That's because I want rid of you."
"You don't even know me."
"Two of my friends died because of you."
"So call it penance when I try and save your life," he shrugged in reply. John then sighed melodramatically. "I hear 'Lil Jack doesn't change that much as he grows up. You'd recognise him instantly," John was saying.
"Is that so?"
John was quiet a moment, then changed tact. "Kids ... y'know ... I love 'em, but I don't think I'd ever have one."
"Why?"
John gave a small laugh. "Me? A father? I've screwed up enough lives, thank you."
"Who knows - maybe a child might make you decent human being."
"So goes the theory - but there's no telling whether or not the child might make itself a decent human being."
Ianto tensed from head to foot.
"Look at him ..." sighed John. "... you'd never guess he'd grow up to-"
"Get. Out."
"No," John replied calmly. "Not until you listen to me, and what I have to say."
Ianto's mouth set into a thin line, and he nodded once.
"Tell Jack that Giacomo came back in time to try and kill you - that he set the chain of events going from the collapse of the schoolrooms until this self discovering his parentage. Tell him he did it so that he would grow up with the Captain for himself."
"It would destroy him," Ianto muttered, shaking.
"Then help fix him again," shrugged John. "You can't do this on your own - and the Doctor might not around to syphon off life force when the little bugger stabs you again."
Ianto gave him an alarmed expression, and John suddenly looked shifty. "Erm ... yeah ... I'm going now," he declared and got to his feet, hurrying out and leaving Ianto alone with Giacomo asleep. He poked his head back round the door. "It's not for years yet though!" he added cheerily, and wandered off again.
Ianto stared at the sleeping boy, feeling strangely relieved now that his darkest secret had been muttered aloud, but also feeling worse knowing that ... that ... that he would try again. He would try again. To kill him. To murder him.
He got to his feet and shut himself in his old room, now devoid of all his things. He curled up on the bare mattress and cried quietly, hating the fact that Hart and the Doctor were so, so, so right - and he knew they always had been.
Eventually, he calmed, washed his face, straightened his suit and began to make his way back to Jack's -his and Jack's - rooms.
He was going to have to tell the Captain - and he was going to have to face the fallout.
Apologies for the sparse updates! Silver's been a bit sick - and snowed under with work *grumbles grumbles grumbles*
Hopefully I shall be back on track soon - probably after Wednesday.
Let me know what you think if the chapter!
xx
Next Part | Previous Part | Torchwood Index | Request a Convo/Prose Fic
Chapter: 17 | ??
Characters: Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones
Author: a_silver_story
Genre Alternate Universe, Romance
Rating: NC-17 just to be safe.
Warnings: A bit of angst, and some tentacles and d/c in the future.
Disclaimer: If I owned anything in this, I'd be a rich rich rich bitch. However, I am not a rich rich rich bitch so you may all, therefore, assume I own nothing. Which I don't. It all belongs RTD and the BBC, in case any of you didn't know.
Summary: Ianto finds himself heartbroken and alone, but eventually learns that no matter what point in Captain Jack Harkness' life he finds himself, they will always fall in love.
Torchwood Index/Masterlist
First Part
Another Life
Another Life XVII
Jack watched him sleeping for a while, after cleaning him up and tucking him in under the covers. His skin was still flushed, still glistening with sweat. His lips were pink and bitten, his hair standing up on end in a billion different angles. He was warm and soft, defenceless as he lay there in bed, unconscious - depending on Jack to look after him, to protect him.
He was so young, but far too old.
As Jack slipped an arm under his neck to cradle his head, he found himself running his fingers through sweat-dampened curls, sweeping the dark hair from Ianto's face and placing a gentle kiss to the corner of his mouth, then the tip of his nose, then lingering on his lips for a few moments.
Ianto had had what Jack would assume to be a good reaction to the gel, but whether or not he'd like to try it again would be up to him. His vocality had surprised Jack at first, making him glad they'd tried it at his place instead of Ianto and Rhys' flat. Well, Rhys' flat. Ianto was bringing his things over tomorrow, and Giacomo would be alternating nights until they moved.
Jack shuddered at the thought of moving, pressed one last kiss to Ianto's shoulder and dragged himself out of bed. He dressed in fresh clothes and wandered up to his office, eyeing the In Tray dubiously and deciding that since it was a special occasion, he might actually do some paperwork.
He settled himself in his chair, wondering if he'd be allowed to take his desk and chair with him when they moved. If he couldn't take them to work he could at least have them in his home study - if the house had a study. If not ... they could convert a bedroom, maybe. Then again, Giacomo had been asking for a little sister ....
The Captain thought of Giacomo's older sister, Jaqueline. She was fourteen, and didn't know her father. He tracked her progress through school, and when she was ill sent little gifts and pulled strings to make sure she got the best care, but he was absent. He knew she was a Pescetarian, like her mother - she ate fish (as they didn't feel pain, and her favourite was salmon), but not meat. Her grades were average, and she was pretty enough but was more interested in reading fantasy novels than bothering with girls and boys.
Her half-brother Jacob, on the other hand, was very pretty, but also pretty dim by academic standards. He was twenty, and made up for lack of aptitude by excelling at pretty much everything vocational. He might not be able to tell you the exact and correct use of an apostrophe or implement the formula for finding the volume of a sphere, but if you needed something painting, making, building or fixing you asked Jacob. He also liked to sleep around.
A lot.
Jack chuckled to himself, reading the same line of small print for the fourth time and deciding that two forms was enough work for that evening. He got himself a glass of water from the kitchenette, and checked his watch. Not too late, he noted, and decided to maybe wander down to Rhys' and play with Giacomo for a bit. He was half way to his office door when there was a knock on it, and he inwardly cursed. He pulled it open, and instantly grinned when he saw the Doctor standing there, waiting to be let in.
"I hear you've forgotten pretty much most of your wedding night?" smirked the Doctor as he sat down.
"Yeah ... went a little bit crazy ...."
"I think that means I owe you your wedding present again," he mused. "Lean forward ...."
Jack obliged, frowning as the Doctor placed fingers on his temples and applied a small amount of pressure. He closed his eyes when instructed, and everything behind his lids swirled gold.
Parts of the first time they'd done this came back to him, and he recognised himself as being in a long, long, long, long, long forgotten and distant memory. He and Ianto - Ianto, wearing a striped tie and pale pink shirt with his black suit - were in an office. It was dark outside, so after hours, and the memory had a distinct feeling of 'we're not supposed to be here'.
"... photocopying your butt. Or maybe not your butt - hey ... since we're here why don't we-"
"The Rift," Ianto cut him off, his tone slightly cold. "was active at these coordinates about two hundred feet above ground. Which means either this floor ... or the roof."
Then Jack blinked, and Now Jack did too. He could feel the guilt of his past self - had he done something? - and also sensed nerves and insecurity.
"How are you, Ianto?"
"All the better for ... having you back, sir," Ianto replied, not looking at him and mindlessly flipping through some papers.
"Could we maybe drop the sir now?" Then Jack asked. "I was thinking ... while I was away-" Away? Away where? "- ... dinner ... movie ...."
There was a flicker of surprise on Ianto's face as he finally turned to look at Jack. Now Jack found himself holding his breath, crossing his fingers without realising.
"A-are you asking me out on a-a date?" Ianto asked, his eyes flicking down to the floor again.
"Interested?"
Ianto breathed out a puff of air. "As long as it's not in an o-office. Some fetishes should be kept to yourself," he tumbled out quickly.
Jack felt a strange sense of relief, let out the breath he'd been holding and felt a feeling of smug satisfaction. He'd just got a date with Ianto Jones. Goal!
He had a feeling there was more, but evidently the Doctor didn't. The gold swirls behind his eyes came back, everything obscured behind the flowing yellowing light, until a different picture seeped in and solidified before him. It took a moment for Jack to (a) realise this was not a good memory and (b) spot where Ianto actually was.
There was a lot of shouting for such a small space, and Then Jack was firing off rounds in every direction, switching weapons and firing off more. They were in a very, very, very ancient house, a kitchen, with plastic sheeting hanging down from the ceiling. Ianto was gagged and bleeding, bound with his hands behind his back and looking terrified - if not strangely relieved - and he was dirty and blood-stained. He also wasn't wearing a suit, Jack noted through his haze of anger and terror, stood as a substance-less bystander unable to do anything.
He watched his past self leaning down and threatening a man dressed in hideous khaki, and a dark-haired woman with a blood-sodden green jacket was leaning over his shoulder. A man in a black leather jacket had gone to kneel by Ianto, easing the gag from his mouth and casting around for the keys to the cuffs cruelly cutting into his wrists. Once he was freed, Ianto turned to him, mumbled something inaudible and collapsed into his arms.
Then Jack seemed to notice, turning sharply and practically pushing the man in the leather jacket away from Ianto with his presence.
"How is he, Owen?" he was asking, crouching down and pulling him close.
"I'll have to examine him properly after the paramedics do what they can," he sighed. "I think it might only be surface damage - cracked or broken ribs at the most."
The Then Jack helped Ianto to his feet, practically hauling him up and pulling an arm over his shoulder to help give him balance.
"Toshiko?" Ianto asked weakly.
"She's fine," muttered Then Jack. "We're all fine. Except you."
"I'll be right as rain this time tomorrow," Ianto assured him, serious. "Though I wouldn't mind the morning off."
"Take the week," Jack told him as he guided him towards the exit, throwing the most evil looks imaginable at the people lying around the ancient kitchen.
"I don't really appreciate your sense of humour at a time like this," scowled Ianto, allowing himself to be turned and sat on a low wall. Owen had followed them out, and gave a small snort at Ianto's words. He was manipulating a Bekaran scanner with deft ease, confirming his earlier prognosis of nothing worse than a few cracked ribs and mild concussion.
"The week off will probably do you good, though," he told Ianto with a tone that breached little argument.
Ianto mimicked him in a high-pitched mumble, and Owen simply stuck his tongue out.
"Send daily thermoses via courier, or I'll be over there with a big needle and a rectal thermometer!" he called over his shoulder as he returned to the house through a massive hole in the wall with a tractor currently lodged in it.
The Then Jack crouched beside Ianto, before thinking better of it and sitting on the wall. They sat quietly for a moment, companionable silence, until finally Then Jack spoke. "I agree," he sighed. "You really should send in coffee via courier. Though if the expense becomes too much I will gladly offer to ferry the good stuff."
Ianto gave a small laugh, before his hand flew to his ribs.
Jack smiled softly. "Sometimes your coffee is so good, I worry they might make it illegal."
"Only sometimes?" asked Ianto, an eyebrow trying to raise.
"Okay, I admit ... all the time!" Jack held his hands up.
"Hmmm ... if they did make it illegal ... I would have to make you ferry it. Secretly."
"Across the Torchwood border?"
"You could be my coffee mule," smiled Ianto, with a slight wince of pain.
"Mmm ... love to think where I'd have to hide that big, hot oblong," grinned Jack.
"You'd have to be careful. What with the vibrations from the car seat going up into that big, hot oblong as you attempt to drive covertly, you might wind up causing accidents."
"Mm," agreed Jack, closing his eyes. "People could get hurt. Why don't you drive; I'll ride shot gun?"
"What else would you like to be riding?"
"You have such a dirty mouth when you're concussed."
"It matches my filthy brain - and for the moment, my filthy clothes, too," Ianto replied, frowning down at his ruined shirt as if confused by it. They sat quietly again, and in the far distance they could hear approaching sirens. "Jack?" Ianto eventually asked.
"Mm?"
"What do you want to do before you die?"
The Then Jack closed up at the question, and Now Jack deduced that Ianto didn't know about his immortal-ness just yet.
"I ... erm ... why do you ask?"
"I don't know," Ianto admitted. "I just ... I was ... the cleaver touched my skin. It didn't even cut me, but ... it touched me. And a million things went through my head - like I suddenly realised my life was ... incomplete."
"What would make you complete?"
Ianto was silent for a long while, staring into the middle-distance. Eventually, he found the words he was looking for.
"I really wouldn't mind being happy again," he admitted, his voice barely audible. "Just for a little bit," he added. "Even a tiny bit. Just ... to wake up in the morning and think ... yeah, there's bad stuff. But I have some good stuff, and this is my good stuff, and it makes me happy."
"So ... what good stuff have you got at the moment?"
"I ... I ... Torchwood," he said.
"Oh."
"Not much of a Good Stuff, is it?"
"No, not really," agreed Then Jack. "Tell you what," he announced decisively and squeezing Ianto's knee. "Ianto Jones: I shall help you find more Good Stuff."
Ianto laughed, then completely out of the blue put a hand behind his head and pulled him in for a kiss.
"What are you ... what are you doing?" Then Jack asked, pulling away.
"I'm concussed. I can do rash, stupid and otherwise regretful things when I'm concussed."
Jack shrugged, and allowed himself to be pulled into another kiss with fervour.
Gold light swirled and whirled through the memory, blinding Jack though closing his eyes was no use. It finally receded to reveal a dance floor, with Then Jack and Ianto stood close together, rocking and revolving on the spot slowly.
Jack watched the dance for a long while, sitting cross-legged on the floor of his memory, before the gold came back.
"... all I'm saying is that out of everywhere we've fucked, that had to be the most uncomfortab- oh ... Hi Gwen ...."
They were in the underground place that Jack reckoned was a sewer. The dark-haired woman, Gwen, was stood with her hands on her hips, looking like the den-mother about to blow a fuse at her unruly children. She opened her mouth to speak, and the Then Jack held up a hand to silence her.
"I know exactly, what you're about to say. Let me explain - there was this alien sex gas-"
Gwen cut in. "It was sex gas last week," she growled.
Ianto cleared his throat. "What he meant to say was ... was ... it was ... terrorism. Sort of."
"Terrorism?" Gwen repeated, clearly still unimpressed.
"Yeah," Jack agreed. "They were trying to ... erm ... distract ... from ...."
"The crop circles," Ianto finished.
"The crop circles," Jack agreed.
"What 'crop circles'?" Gwen sighed.
"Y'know ... the crop circles ...." Ianto shrugged.
"Massive circles - in the crops," Jack told her authoritatively.
Ianto nodded. "And so that no one would notice, the aliens released the ... the ...."
Gwen rolled her eyes. "... the sex gas?" she completed for him.
Ianto snapped his fingers. "Exactly!"
"Though," considered Jack. "I'd say it was more an aphrodisiac than an out-and-out sex gas."
"Mmhmm!" agreed Ianto. "Enough to distract people from the crop circles, you see!"
"There hasn't been any crop circles," Gwen glared.
"You didn't see the crop circles?" Jack asked, wide-eyed.
"She didn't see the crop circles?"
"She didn't see the crop circles!"
"Must've been distracted," concluded Ianto.
"Must've been," Jack shook his head regretfully.
Gwen glared between them. "You're just lucky I'm not in charge, Jack Harkness!"
"Captain," Jack and Ianto corrected in unison.
"That's it!" she snapped. "I'm making a complaint!"
A heavy silence hung in the air as Jack was clearly trying to hold in a fairly big laugh. It was stoic Ianto, however, who let out the first tiny little snigger. "I'm ... s-s-s-sorry!" he gasped, and broke down laughing, and Jack was already joining him.
Gwen beat uselessly with her fists on Jack's back and shoulder. "It's ... not ... funny!" she insisted, though the corners of her mouth were beginning to pull.
"It ... wasn't ... my ... f-fault!" Ianto gasped through his laughter. "Giggle Loop! Giggle Loop!"
Jack was holding onto Ianto, and Ianto was holding onto Jack, and eventually Gwen was holding onto both of them for support as they found themselves unable to stop laughing. Gwen was still flailing her arms a little in an attempt to hit at them, which just made the trio laugh even more.
Eventually they collapsed on the floor in a heap, entangled. They took a few moments to calm down, their faces returning to normal colour and breathing regulating.
"Where were you really?" Gwen asked once they were functioning like normal people again, albeit normal people in a tangled heap on the floor and not really doing anything about it.
"We told you," Jack sighed, finally moving to get up.
Ianto allowed himself to be helped up before turning to offer his hand to Gwen. "Alien sex gas ... and crop circles."
"For the last time:" Gwen huffed. "There. Were. No. Crop. Circles."
Ianto sighed. He moved over to a desk filled with computers and brought up the local news channel.
"... crop circles have been spotted, ranging from twelve feet to one-hundred-and-thirty feet in diameter all along the southern Welsh coast this morning ...."
Gwen's eyebrows shot up. "Well ... whaddya know?"
Ianto took on a mocking, melodramatic tone. "... and she accused us of lying! Well, I never!"
"Never," Jack shook his head, as if disappointed.
"Honestly - never work with a couple. You two talk like bloody twins!" grinned Gwen, turning and making her way up to a green house filled with plants.
Jack and Ianto stood next to each other, their mouths opening and closing for a few moments.
"Er ... um ...." Ianto broke the awkward silence, though neither of them looked at each other. "Do you want your video back? I'm fairly certain Gwen didn't notice it was from three years ago ...."
Jack cleared his throat. "Ahem ... yeah ... er ... future occasions and ... all that. Commendations for ... forward planning ...."
"Told you we'd need to," Ianto nodded, and still they didn't look at each other. "Erm ... I ... have ... Archives," he said, excusing himself.
"Yeah I've got ... um ...."
"Paperwork?"
"Yeah," nodded Jack, and they both turned to dart off in the same direction, but just stepped in the others' way. They did a little dance to try and move along, until eventually until the Then Jack pushed Ianto in the direction he wanted to go in. Quickly, they got as far from each other as they could go.
Jack wanted to shout at his past self and tell him to go after the man as the swirly, glowy light returned to blind his vision. The Doctor seemed unsure what to show him next, and the light lingered longer than before, but eventually the light began to dim and clear, showing a restaurant scene in a very posh looking place overlooking water.
The Then Jack and Ianto (in a gorgeous bright red shirt) was being led to a table by a waiter, and they both were looking dubious. They were seated and presented with menus, and Ianto leaned over to Jack.
"What happened to 'table in the corner'?"
He shrugged.
"It's so ... exposed here," sighed Ianto. "In the middle of the room ...."
"Shall I ask for us to be moved by the window?" Jack asked pointedly.
"Sorry ... I didn't mean it like that ...." mumbled Ianto, carefully studying his menu.
Jack opened his, browsing for a couple of moments, then snapping it shut again. "Don't you want to be seen with me?" he asked quickly.
Ianto blinked a couple of times, as if shocked by the question. "I just ... don't generally like to be seen," he finally replied. "I feel ... exposed without ... it's not you. It's not about being with you. It's just me being ... weird."
The Captain searched his face for a couple of seconds, then opened his menu again, reassured by the answer. They ordered drinks and food, and sipped at their wine glasses in comfortable quiet, listening to the conversations going on around them.
"Y'know," Jack eventually said. "I don't think we've ever made it this far into a date without being interrupted."
"Mmmm," agreed Ianto. "Don't jinx it," he joked.
"Really, though ... I'm almost on tenterhooks, waiting for the PDA to go off."
"Desperate to get away and the starter isn't even here," smiled Ianto.
Jack laughed. "Would I be spending this much on a table if I was desperate to leave it?"
Ianto frowned. "Spending how much?"
"Just ... a deposit," he shrugged.
"Mmmm," Ianto replied, narrowing his eyes but deciding to leave it. "So what are you having for mains?"
"Err ... summit with fish, I think. I don't know, I don't understand the menu - I shut my eyes and picked. You?"
"Steak ... I think," laughed Ianto. "Do you reckon we'll actually get to eat it?"
Shrugging, the Then Jack began buttering a bread roll from the complimentary basket and taking a huge bite. "Fill up on bread rolls in case," he managed over a mouthful of food before gulping some of his water.
"Don't talk with your mouth full," Ianto chastised, reaching for a bread roll for himself and neatly slicing it open to butter the inner sides. He ate delicately, as he always did, and savoured the food, actually tasting it before swallowing.
A few minutes later, Jack spoke again. "Sorry," he said, and Ianto gave him a confused look. "... for speaking with my mouth full. I finished it before speaking again - are you proud?"
"Very," Ianto replied, rolling his eyes. "Take smaller bites and we might manage to have a decent-ish conversation."
They carried on eating for a short while, and when Jack had finished his second roll while Ianto was still on his first, he sat back in his chair and folded his arms. "So ... the maitre de: gay, straight, bi?"
"Straight."
"Barman?"
"Bicurious."
"That waiter?"
Ianto took a surreptitious glance. "Oh ... my ... God ...."
"What?" Jack asked, turning to look.
"Don't turn around. Don't even move!"
"Is there an alien?" asked Jack, concerned.
"Not quite so bad," groaned Ianto. "The waiter on the next section?"
"Yeah?"
"... he's my brother-in-law. Don't look!"
"Smiley, tubby and curly?"
"Yes," Ianto scowled, annoyed, trying to make sure Jack wasn't bringing attention to them. "I didn't even know he had a job," he groaned. "What if he sees us?"
"What if he does?"
"He's an awkward one ... he might be a bit funny about ... we're here having a meal while he's got to serve us kind of thing ...."
"And you also don't want him to see you," Jack pointed out.
Ianto shot him an exasperated look. "I haven't exactly told my sister or her husband about you yet - at least here he can't make too much of a -"
"Ianto you smart bastard! How've you been?"
"Oh ... hi, Johnny!" smiled Ianto. "You finally got a job, then!"
"Aye - for a tenner an hour, I woren't gonna say no. Who's this?"
"Cap'n Ja-"
"My boss. He's my boss," Ianto insisted.
"Cap'n Jack Harkness." Jack held out his hand and they shook. "You're ... Ianto's brother-in-law?"
"Yeah - Johnny. Please to meet you an' that. I heard he'd gone bender," he grinned.
Ianto's eyes went as wide as saucers. "I ... you ... what ... ?" he spluttered. "From whom?"
"Well, Suzan on the corner told Trace who told Rhiannon that she saw you-"
"Oh my God ... Rhiannon's gonna ...."
"... go mental. Yep. She did." Johnny assured him, pulling at his bow tie. "A little ticked off you failed to mention it during your visit the week before, but don't worry, I told her: it's his private life, and he'll tell you the gossip when you're ready. There's no need to be concerned."
Ianto blinked, a little surprised. "... th-thanks, Johnny," he said sincerely.
"No problem. If you wanna take it up the arse, that's your choice. Now - if you could possibly try and persuade Rhi about the pros and cons of said taking-"
"WAITER!" someone yelled, snapping their fingers.
"I'll be back in a minute," sighed Johnny, and hurried off.
Ianto put his head in his hands and groaned. "Oh my God ..."
Jack shrugged. "Your brother-in-law seems nice."
"He is," Ianto agreed, rubbing his face before sitting up as straight as he could. "A little full on, and rather blunt ... but ... oh dear God ... not how I expected them to find out ...."
Jack grinned, then his smile slipped slightly as he watched a snooty middle-aged man in a tuxedo at one of the tables starting a scene, shouting at Johnny for spilling a little bit of soup as he'd placed the bowl down on the table. "To diffuse, or not to diffuse ...." he mused. Ianto turned, and watched for a moment.
Johnny was apologising politely, but dared to point out the soup had only spilled onto the tablecloth and nothing of the man's. The tuxedo glared at him, took the pitcher of water from the table and splashed it all down Johnny's front.
Ianto turned to Jack. "Diffuse," he decided. Jack made to get up, but Ianto stopped him. "I'll do it," he told him.
Jack nodded, and Ianto made his way over to the table. "Problem, sir?"
"This idiot-"
"... inarguably."
"- spilled and wasted this twenty-five pound starter! Has he any idea about the value of money?"
"Evidently - that is why he will not be spending two-and-a-half-hour's wages on flavoured and thickened water."
"How dare you? Don't you know who I am?" the man demanded, outraged.
Ianto raised an eyebrow and looked him squarely in the eye. "Nope."
The people around the table made incredulous gasping noises, as if Ianto having no idea who this man was was inconceivable.
"I," the man began importantly. "am Sir-"
"That's lovely. I'm sure I'll remember it, Sir. Now please - calm the Hell down before I take that stick out of your arse and beat you with it. C'mon, Johnny."
"Fucking bender," muttered Sir.
Ianto ignored him, but Johnny spun on his heel. He swung, hitting Sir squarely on the jaw and sending him backwards into his bowl of soup. "No one," he glowered threateningly. "- and I mean no one - is allowed to call Ianto a bender ... except me."
Within minutes, Johnny was fired.
"Ah well," he shrugged. "There'll be other jobs."
"Yeah ...." nodded Ianto. He glanced over at Jack nearby to see that a third chair had already been added to their table. "Since you're dressed to the nines - if not a little damp - ... why not eat with me and Jack? On him, obviously."
"Oh ... I couldn't."
Ianto sighed. "You can tell all our school friends that I'm your bitch," he coaxed.
Johnny grinned. "Just like old times." He plonked himself down in the chair between Jack and Ianto, and greeted the Captain again.
They made easy banter for a bit, but then Johnny just had to go and ask, didn't he?
"So ... who's the top, who's the bottom?"
Ianto's face hit his hands fast, but not fast enough to hide the furious blush of his cheeks. Jack was just smirking.
"Ianto's ... very ...." Jack pondered. "Ianto's very ... controlling," he smirked wolfishly.
"Is that so?" Johnny asked, taking out his mobile. "Hang on ... just need to ... um ... inform my wife she's seventy quid lighter ...."
The golden swirls began to invade as the Then Jack laughed heartily, Ianto groaned louder and Johnny texted furiously on his ancient mobile phone.
The Then Jack was running up flights of stairs with panicked speed, barging past people as he desperately climbed higher and higher. Now Jack deduced they were in some sort of high-end block of flats, judging from the people they crossed and the cleanliness of the building. They got to the seventh floor and detoured off into the corridor and came to an abrupt halt outside number thirty-five. Knocking wasn't necessary, as keys were fumbled into the lock and the Captain burst into the flat beyond.
"Ianto? Ianto!" he yelled, slamming the door behind him and racing into the living room, then the bedroom to find Ianto calmly sat in his bed, a book propped open on his knees before him as he read. He glanced up as Jack entered the room, an eyebrow raised inquisitorially. "There ... was ... a ...." Jack panted. "a-a-a- ... body ... found ... early ... twenties ... caucasian ... male ... dark hair ... came ... to ... check ... on ... you ...." he explained.
Ianto's other eyebrow joined its partner in surprise. "I ... Jack, I had the day off. I can assure you, I'm not dead."
Jack collapsed on the bed and hauled himself to sit next to him, pulling him close. "You know how I worry when you have the day off," he sniffed.
"Mmm," agreed Ianto. "I am there when you're asking me if I'm fine, have any concerns or might like you to come over to secure the perimeter. Every. Five. Minutes."
"Fifteen!" objected Jack. "Give me some credit .... What are you reading?"
"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," he informed him.
"Ahhh ... Y'know ... I always thought it was a shame Dobby died in the seventh one - I really liked him. And Lupin. And Fred."
Ianto blinked, and stared at him wide-eyed. "J-Jack?"
"Mmm?"
"The ... the seventh book ... it ... it isn't out until next week ...."
"Oh ... oh. Oh shit."
The memory went black before the gold swirls returned.
Jack groaned as he realised he was being brought back to the present day. "Show me more," he begged the Doctor.
"That's enough for now," he smiled. "Wouldn't do to live in memories - especially when he's alive downstairs, living and breathing and waiting to make new ones."
"He's asleep," Jack whined. "He doesn't do much when he's asleep! He's boring!"
"That's why you've thus far spent the equivalent of sixteen earth months watching him sleep? For a four-year relationship, that's quite a lot."
"I ... um ... I don't need much sleep myself ...." Jack mumbled.
"No," nodded the Doctor. "Anyway - I shall leave you to your tower of paperwork. You have let it get on top of you, haven't you?" he mused. "Cheery-bye-bye!"
Jack sagged heavily in his chair, glaring at his paperwork. "Pffft ...." he said out loud. "It's not like doing you would be consequential at this stage anyway ...." he sighed, getting up. His head was starting to ache at the temples where the Doctor had gained access to his old brain, so he decided to go downstairs and snuggle up to Ianto while he slept it off.
He made his way to the bedroom, pulled on his comfy clothes and burrowed under the covers beside the still-sleeping Ianto. Curling on his side, he made himself comfortable, Ianto's hand clasped between his, and drifted off into a deep, easy sleep.
~*~*~*~
Giggling, Ianto lay on the floor, Rhys' belly a soft cushion under his head and his face hurting from all the laughing. The three-quarters-empty bottle of Scotch sparkled on the living room coffee table, the world a bubble around them and their abdomens still aching.
Ianto had finally gotten Rhys to do the Truffle Shuffle.
Life was good.
"Do you think ...." Rhys slurred, attempting to pat Ianto's head and instead petting lamely at his face. "... I should ask Till to marry me?"
Ianto blinked at the sudden seriousness. "You don't wanna get married for the wrong reasons," he pointed out. "Besides," he yawned. "You could always just ask the Doctor to take you back to the twenty-first century ...."
"Can I be with Gwen?"
Ianto shook his head regretfully. "Timelines - but you could probably get to see your kids. From a distance."
"I don't think I could leave them again," he murmured quietly. "Or live nearby and watch them grow. Or be near the places I used to take them, or where we used to walk by ... or see their schools or their friends or their friends' houses and parents and brothers and sisters ...."
Ianto nodded as he trailed off. "I don't regret coming here," he admitted. "but ... I wish I knew what happened to my sister and her husband and kids. And ... well ... Jack."
"Jack ... left, shortly after you ... did."
"Oh."
"Well ... I say 'left' in a waxing poetic kind of way. He was physically there, but ... he wasn't. He never spoke about anything other than work, and when he wasn't working he was sat in front of the computer monitors watching this graph doing the same thing over and over again. Gwen said it was ... Rift readings? He isolated the readings from the spike that took you, trying to figure out where you went and if you'd come back. Failing that, I think he was ready to follow you if he could."
"Oh ...."
"Mmm ... but I think this is too deep a conversation for our level of drunkeness. I vote we play an horrendous practical joke on someone we don't particularly know or like, just to even the balance."
"We could sneak down the the kitchen and switch the signs on the salt vat and the sugar vat?"
Forty-five minutes later, they were running full-pelt down the corridor from the kitchens to the stairs. On their way out of the kitchen, devious misdeed completed, they had been spotted by the new Night Patrol and were forced to flee as fast as possible back to their flat.
Rhys was grinning from ear to ear, despite realising, "We're never going to outrun them!"
"I don't need to outrun them!" Ianto answered. "I just need to outrun you!"
"Wha -? You're supposed to be my non-homosexual lover! You wouldn't betray me like that!"
"I'm sorry, Rhys!" Ianto gasped as they ran. "I'll get you off, I promise!"
He picked up his speed, running as fast as he could as the sound of an energy weapon being enabled hummed through the floors. Rhys yelped as a web caged around him, and he was left stood in a portable cell, banging at the energy field around him.
"IANTO!" he yelled.
"I'll get you off!" Ianto replied from somewhere.
"You can't get me off!" Rhys bellowed in reply. "I DON'T LIKE COCK!"
~*~*~*~
Ianto lay on the floor, the carpet rough against the side of his face and his mouth dry, tongue heavy. The carpet? He'd been pissed enough to pass out on the carpet? What if there'd been a spillage? What if he'd left a stain?
With great effort, he pushed himself up into a seated position and stared around the decimated flat. He spotted the box of Doctor Harper's Hangover Patches and sluggishly slapped one on his inner wrist. He squinted around as the Bless'd Patch cleared his pounding head, and his hand flew to his mouth as the events of the night before came crashing back.
Salt.
Sugar.
Sign swapping.
Night Patrol.
Rhys doesn't like cock.
Shit.
Ianto threw himself into the shower, threw on a suit, shirt and tie, yanked on his shoes and made his way to the door. He hurried up to his office and booted up the computer, accessing the Night Patrol records to find what was going on with Rhys.
"Reason for breach of security unknown. Drunkard had consumed copious amounts of alcohol. Accomplice as yet unknown - suspected Jones, I. Flat 007. Like we're ever gonna pin anything on that bastard."
Ianto smirked to himself. Like they ever would.
In two keystrokes the record was cleared, and in its place he typed the words 'mistaken identity - immediate release', and authorised it using the Captain's clearance. As an afterthought, he also added the words 'sorry folks!' as a cheeky tidbit to the bottom. He emailed himself the Notice of Release forms that he would have to take to get Rhys out, and quickly glanced over the murky CCTV footage to make sure the dark blob that was him wasn't too easily identifiable.
An hour later, Rhys was back home, Patch on his arm and grumbling.
"Left me ... just left me ...."
"If I'd have been caught too, we'd both be locked up still - and facing tribunal and punishment for the sign-swappage."
"We'd have been in it together though," Rhys pointed out.
"I'm too practical for the whole 'a friend bails you out of jail; a best friend is in the cell with you saying "wasn't that fun?"' analogy of friendship," he shrugged. "I better go and make sure Giacomo hasn't killed the Captain," he sighed. "You can go and snuggle up in bed."
"Yes, dear," laughed Rhys, but did as he was told.
Ianto made his way up to Jack's rooms, creeping downstairs and finding the Captain and his son curled up in bed still. Evidently, the Captain had spoiled Giacomo beyond reason - there were still chocolate smudges around his mouth, on his nose and in his hair. They had also both fallen asleep in their clothes, surrounded by sweet wrappers, bottles of fizzy drinks and the TV still on.
Sighing, Ianto gently prised Giacomo away from the bed, and woke him gently. "C'mon you ..." he murmured. "You need to have a bath."
"Don' want," Giacomo moaned softly. "Bed, Yantoe. Bed."
"Bath - no arguing."
Ianto sat him on the pile of towels while he began to fill the tub, and he slowly he woke up more and more. Finally sat in the water, he splashed happily.
"I think he does love me," he told Ianto, grinning.
Ianto blinked. "Pardon?"
"My Dad. He loves me."
"O-Of course he ... there was never any question of it, Giacomo. Your Dad loves you more than anything, and he always will."
"He gave me all the things I'm not allowed," he said proudly.
"I noticed," Ianto replied. "And you are allowed those things - but only on Saturdays. You know that."
"Dad says that when we move, that rule will go and I can have sweets whenever I want!" he exclaimed, wide-eyed.
"Hmmm ..." considered Ianto. "I may have to have words with your father. That rule isn't going anywhere."
"Why?" whined Giacomo.
"Because we don't want you getting fat, do we? We want you nice and healthy so that you don't get sick and cost us lots of money in medical bills."
"You're always mean," scowled Giacomo, folding his arms as Ianto washed him. "You always shout at me."
Ianto glared. "Fine - I won't tell you off anymore. I'll just let you do whatever you want -and if you get hurt, or fat, or sick, it'll be your own fault. And let's not forget: naughty little boys don't get birthday parties. Nor are they allowed to turn six - or get little sisters!"
Giacomo stared at him, and Ianto quirked an eyebrow.
Eventually, Little Jack sagged. "I'm sorry, Daddy," he murmured. "I think it's the sugar."
"Mmm," agreed Ianto brusquely, then sniggered as he remembered his own antics from the night before. It was strange to think that the man kneeling in the bathroom, bathing a child and being a parent was the same man who had spent a good chunk of the night before peeling labels off vats to switch them around as a juvenile prank. Ah well, he supposed. "Do as I say, not as I do."
"Now," he sighed, Child clean and dry and dressed in fresh clothes. "Let's go and wake up your father in the most evil way imaginable."
"You pull off the covers," Giacomo instructed, whispering the conspiracy. "... and I'll jump on him!"
"While you're jumping ... I'll tickle his feet ...." smirked Ianto.
They crept into the room, masking giggles, and Ianto mouthed 'One ... Two ... Three!" and yanked the covers back as Little Jack took a running jump. He heard Big Jack's yell of surprise and pain, and instantly began the Tickle Attack.
"No no NO NO NO!" Jack laughed and yelled, kicking out as Giacomo clung to stay on him like a bucking Bronco. Ianto relented before someone got hurt, and found himself forcefully dragged down onto the bed. "I'll deal with you later ...." Jack promised, before turning with a grin to scoop up Giacomo and dangle him upside down.
"Can we go and play Tigger Sticks?" Giacomo asked, his face red and still upside down.
"Not right - put him downside up, Jack - not right now, love. We'll do it another time."
"Okay," he agreed sullenly. "Dad?" he asked.
"Mmm?" prompted Jack.
"Can I have a little sister?"
Ianto's eyes flew wide. Ahhhhhhhhhhh shit.
"I don't know, Giacomo ...." Jack considered. "You're quite a handful on your own - and having another kiddie might just destroy your Daddy slowly from the inside with all the worrying and paranoia he's going to have to be doing."
Ianto nodded in agreement vigorously.
"So ... I c-can't?" asked Little Jack, his bottom lip wobbling.
"We'll see," the Captain decided firmly.
Giacomo sniffed. "Okay. I'll be good. I promise. And I'll help look after her. Can we call her Molly?"
"We'll see," Jack repeated.
Ianto kissed the Captain's temple. "We'll see," he reconfirmed.
Giacomo nodded. "Okay." He raised his head, his best puppy eyes turned on Jack. "For my birthday, can we get drunk?"
Ianto clapped his hand over the Captain's mouth and pretty much shouted "No!" before he could make a sound.
~*~*~*~
Ianto tucked Giacomo into his bed at their - no, his old - flat, and kissed him on the head. He let him drift off as he read a story, and stayed to watch him sleeping, smiling to himself and stroking his hair.
"Cute," a voice commented behind him.
Ianto didn't need to turn around. "How did you get in Rhys' flat, John?"
"Borrowed a key," he shrugged, entering the room.
"What do you want?"
"You seem to be asking me that a lot lately."
"That's because I want rid of you."
"You don't even know me."
"Two of my friends died because of you."
"So call it penance when I try and save your life," he shrugged in reply. John then sighed melodramatically. "I hear 'Lil Jack doesn't change that much as he grows up. You'd recognise him instantly," John was saying.
"Is that so?"
John was quiet a moment, then changed tact. "Kids ... y'know ... I love 'em, but I don't think I'd ever have one."
"Why?"
John gave a small laugh. "Me? A father? I've screwed up enough lives, thank you."
"Who knows - maybe a child might make you decent human being."
"So goes the theory - but there's no telling whether or not the child might make itself a decent human being."
Ianto tensed from head to foot.
"Look at him ..." sighed John. "... you'd never guess he'd grow up to-"
"Get. Out."
"No," John replied calmly. "Not until you listen to me, and what I have to say."
Ianto's mouth set into a thin line, and he nodded once.
"Tell Jack that Giacomo came back in time to try and kill you - that he set the chain of events going from the collapse of the schoolrooms until this self discovering his parentage. Tell him he did it so that he would grow up with the Captain for himself."
"It would destroy him," Ianto muttered, shaking.
"Then help fix him again," shrugged John. "You can't do this on your own - and the Doctor might not around to syphon off life force when the little bugger stabs you again."
Ianto gave him an alarmed expression, and John suddenly looked shifty. "Erm ... yeah ... I'm going now," he declared and got to his feet, hurrying out and leaving Ianto alone with Giacomo asleep. He poked his head back round the door. "It's not for years yet though!" he added cheerily, and wandered off again.
Ianto stared at the sleeping boy, feeling strangely relieved now that his darkest secret had been muttered aloud, but also feeling worse knowing that ... that ... that he would try again. He would try again. To kill him. To murder him.
He got to his feet and shut himself in his old room, now devoid of all his things. He curled up on the bare mattress and cried quietly, hating the fact that Hart and the Doctor were so, so, so right - and he knew they always had been.
Eventually, he calmed, washed his face, straightened his suit and began to make his way back to Jack's -his and Jack's - rooms.
He was going to have to tell the Captain - and he was going to have to face the fallout.
Apologies for the sparse updates! Silver's been a bit sick - and snowed under with work *grumbles grumbles grumbles*
Hopefully I shall be back on track soon - probably after Wednesday.
Let me know what you think if the chapter!
xx
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