Fic: Quality Time (Gold dust deleted scene for cruentum, Ianto, kidfic )
Title: Quality Time
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack/Ianto/Lisa, Evan, Gwen, Ravi, Claire
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 3,665
Author's Notes: So cruentum bought my arse in the help_haiti lightning round, and I figured why mess with a good thing? Third time's a charm. This is Gold dust fic set post series, but still before the end of the story. Crue wanted some Evan-Ianto bonding time. Thanks to blue_fjords for the beta.
Summary: Then Lisa slips the envelope holding the ballet tickets into her purse and he remembers that the conversation had been rather like Lisa saying, 'Who wants to use these ballet tickets with me?' and Ianto had looked left, and Jack had looked right and the silence had been awkward. Then finally Jack had said something to the effect of, 'How close will we be to the stage?' and Lisa had said, 'Front and center.' And Jack had said, 'Sold.'
'You'll be fine,' Lisa says, her bag on her shoulder like a flail. She keeps saying that even though she also keeps reminding him of things he already knows. 'The juice boxes are in the cupboard, and you know where the crayons are and there are extra wipes in the bottom drawer of the table,' she says, 'you'll be fine.'
'Hey Ianto,' Jack says from the bathroom, 'You'll be fine.'
Ianto smirks and Lisa flips Jack off. At his plastic table in the corner of the lounge, Evan is engaged in conversation with a bear, his crayons, a colouring book full of pirates, and about three random plastic items that Jack had got him three weeks ago from the machines in the grocer's and which he can no longer go anywhere without. They are, respectively, a rubber cow that gathers lint, a necklace with a tiny version of brass knuckles, and a spaceship that came from a plastic chicken egg. They keep them in a plastic zipper bag so that when he carries them about he doesn't lose one.
Ianto had a nightmare two nights ago that he lost the cow and the ensuing drama led to Evan turning into a velociraptor and hunting him through their now verdant jungle penthouse. It was a dream, it doesn't always have to make sense.
Lisa checks her phone, then her earrings, and then her blouse, smoothing the silk over her breasts and Ianto can't help but feel a little sting. Couldn't they get a minder? Was this necessary? Was he being punished?
Then Lisa slips the envelope holding the ballet tickets into her purse and he remembers that the conversation had been rather like Lisa saying, 'Who wants to use these ballet tickets with me?' and Ianto had looked left, and Jack had looked right and the silence had been awkward. Then finally Jack had said something to the effect of, 'How close will we be to the stage?' and Lisa had said, 'Front and center.' And Jack had said, 'Sold.' And when Ianto had stared at him in mock horror Jack had replied something about men's arses in tights.
And suddenly now Ianto wants to go too, but he doesn't want to go to the ballet, so that rather kills the whole thing.
Lisa likes the ballet for childhood reasons, and Jack, Ianto secretly thinks Jack might just like the ballet for whatever artistic reason, despite what he says about toned glutes.
Despite that, it's pointless to hire a minder when there's a completely capable parent available, and something doesn't sit right with Ianto that he'd be at work, filing or something, and Jack and Lisa would be at the ballet, and their child would be with a non-parent. Gwen would give him the eyes. And she'd be right. Hell, Ravi would give him the eyes. And when your childfree co-workers start to judge, then it's either time to admit that something is wrong, or you should poison their coffee.
Ianto is not allowed to put laxatives in Ravi's coffee. Again. That was shortly before he and Jack and Gwen decided that they were not going to continue the "hazing" portion of Torchwood entry level training.
Jack emerges from the back bedroom, and Ianto stops for a moment, because he doesn't have much occasion to mentally remark on role reversal of this nature. Jack is wearing a real suit. Not one made in the 80s from the set of Miami Vice, or from the twenties with a fat tie or some such, but a real suit, that he must have got somewhere, had made somewhere. Without telling him.
He went with blue. Predictable, but a wise choice. Ianto can't even fault the tie, though the knot looks like some sort of creation that Jack came up with himself. It still passes muster. The man even has a pin in it. Ianto watches him button the suitcoat and shoot his cuffs and feels a little stab of-
'Oh, Dress-Up Jack,' Lisa says over Ianto's shoulder. 'We should take you out of your box more often.'
Jack strikes a small pose. 'I come anatomically correct and with articulated joints.' He wags his tongue at Ianto. 'Wanna see?'
Ianto sucks in a breath, because yeah, Jack can't replace him, and it's not like Ianto has a copyright on suits and taking his wife out on the town. It doesn't keep Ianto from wanting to toss on some braces and woolen trousers, a bland button down and CAT boots, go wave his arms about wildly and order Ravi to do something ludicrous, like "Dial all the mainframe rift sensors in the fifteenth quadrant up to eleven." Then he'd eat all of Gwen's Jaffa cakes and pretend to be reading a book when he is really monitoring Claire in the communal showers (Ianto knows he does it. Jack's eye wanders, but nothing else.).
The shoes would fit, but the shirt would be baggy. Jack has that broad chest.
Lisa slides her arms from Ianto's shoulders, and then it's all a blur of hugs and kisses for Evan, and 'Mummy and Dad will be back later, stay with Daddy,' and hugs and kisses for Ianto (Jack puts his hands on Ianto's shoulders and looks at him gravely. 'Mummy and Dad will be back later. Stay with Evan.'). Ianto rolls his eyes but accepts the kisses anyway because the presence of a tie makes him like French kissing. Is he a suit whore?
The door shuts and he turns to his son and realises that the last time they were deliberately left alone together had been when Evan was eight months old and Jack had been in Brussels and Gwen had taken Lisa for a spa sanity day. That had been a long time ago.
It's not that he doesn't know how to take care of Evan. He's been feeding and bathing and changing his nappies since day one. He's the nappie-fucking-master. He can put the nappie on while Evan is standing up. He can change it in the dark. He used to be able to heat bottles by the microwave light.
It's that now that Evan is actually doing things, interacting and making conversation, Ianto finds that he's rather unsure of what is supposed to happen. If it were a mate or something, they'd have a pint and talk about football, and if it was a co-worker, like Ravi, they'd talk about, oh, wires or something. Once he'd sat for David when Rhi had been in hospital giving birth to Mica, and this had turned out largely the same: they'd stared at each other for a while and David had said, 'Can we watch The Wiggles?' and he'd said okay, because really. What did they do?
'So,' Ianto says to Evan as he sits on the edge of the sofa and they regard each other. He had long ago decided that he wasn't going to use a different voice to talk to his son, but he tries to make his tone light, ever since Gwen had told him that his "serious voice" resembled "quiet disapproval". 'What shall we do?'
Evan blinks and then looks back at his bear. 'It's on the roller coaster.'
Ianto blinks. 'Really, now?'
Evan resumes his drawing. 'Ohhhh yeah. It's a bear and a dragon and a cow.'
Ianto understands that there is an inner monologue to which he is not privy. The best thing to do is to latch on to the words that he does get and go with that. 'I see that you have a cow. Does the cow have a name?' He knows that it does not. They could have a whole conversation about the cow. What is the cow doing? Who got you that cow? Where does it come from? Oh, it lives in the bag? Who gave you the bag? What else is in the bag? They could go for ages starting with the cow.
'It's a cow,' Evan tells him. 'It's white.'
Ianto nods. 'You speak the truth.'
Evan trades the red crayon for a blue one and continues his Pollock impression. 'Yeah, well, [unintelligible] the cow, on the horse, and they all [brrrrzakt] Thomas.'
Ianto gets that part. He runs his hands on his knees and glances at the clock, and then gets down on the floor cross-legged next to the table and picks up a green crayon. 'I see, well, then Thomas should have a hovercraft full of eels.'
Evan hands him the blue crayon. 'Sure!'
Oh, fine. They can communicate with nouns and Monty Python sketches. Excellent. 'I'll draw a spaceship, yeah?'
Evan flips his paper over and doesn't look up. 'Yeah right.'
Fifteen minutes later, the phone rings and Ianto looks up from the stacks of illustrations that he's made. Evan is on the couch reading a book to himself, and he glances at Ianto. 'It's the phone.'
Ianto picks up the handset. 'I know.' The display reads Gwen, so he knows that something is up. He presses the button and cradles the phone in his ear while he collects all the crayons and shuts them in the Tupperware box so that Evan won't get them out whilst they sleep and add things to the walls. 'Gwen, to what do I owe the honor?'
'Ianto,' Gwen sounds a little out of breath. 'Has Jack left already?'
Ianto glances at the clock, and it tells him that not only has Jack been long gone, he'd seen it with his own eyes, but the curtain is almost up. Right now he and Lisa are settling in some cushy velvet seats, and he's probably got his arm around her or his hand on her knee, and they're laughing about something private.
'You've missed him,' Ianto says. 'Is something wrong?' He glances at Evan, who is reading a Paddington book on the sofa, a long stream of gobbledygook in perfect inflection. If only he would say the actual words. Ianto wonders if he isn't stunted or something, but when he brings the subject up to Lisa she rolls her eyes and asks about the likelihood of them getting him to do something he doesn't want to do, given his heritage, and Ianto bites his lip. And his tongue. 'Should we page him?' he asks, because he's offering to do it.
Oh no. Not. Jealous. At. All.
Gwen is breathing hard. 'Oh no, I just-do you have Evan now?'
'Yup.' Ianto organises the drawings, tosses a few of his own more elaborate ones in the rubbish (Lisa will not appreciate the sheer realism of his crayon stun gun illustrations), and stands in the centre of the room, hands on hips and wondering what is about to happen. 'But honestly, if it's important he would want you to-'
'Oh, Ianto,' Gwen says, and he knows that he's been caught, which is unfortunate, because he's in the middle of successfully telling himself that he's not upset because he voluntarily agreed to stay home while his wife and…husband? went out on a date that he condones. Moreover, he realises, he has no issues with them becoming physically intimate or emotionally intimate, but traditional dating makes his hackles rise.
Or maybe he just wants Jack to send him flowers. That would be amusing and mortifying (because they'd be a huge bouquet of gladiolas and they'd arrive at work).
Ianto opens the freezer and retrieves a pint of Mackie's, shaking it at Evan, who closes his book with a surprised squeak of, 'OoOOOooh, ice cream.'
'Ianto,' Gwen says, 'Ravi, Claire and I are out in Roath, and this thing that-well, anyway it had some sort of EMP device, and I'm sorry to say that the SUV is dead.'
'I have remote access to the mainframe from here,' Ianto says digging for a bowl in the cupboard as Evan climbs into his booster seat. See? They have simpatico. He flips open the laptop at the table on his way to Evan and drops the ice cream carton on the floor. 'Oh, shit.'
'Ianto?'
'Sorry.' He winks at Evan and hands him the plastic spoon. 'I dropped the ice cream.'
Gwen's voice has a tone in it that sounds like the feeling he has as he glances at the clock and realises that he's about to give his child ice cream at quarter to eight in the evening. 'You're giving him ice cream?'
'What are you, Super Nanny?'
He can also hear her lips twitch, a sign that they have been working together too long. 'Nope.'
'This is fucking entertaining,' Ravi says, and Ianto can hear his verbal two-fingered salute, and Jesus, how long has he been working with Ravi? If he can hear Claire's visual insult, then he'll know this is all imagined. 'But really, if you could get me the schematics for the wiring under the SUV, I could take care of this and get the computer back up.'
Ianto rolls his eyes and logs into the servers on the secure network and then spends a good minute letting it run the security measures on his computer while he scoops out a heaping spoonful into a bowl and then a massive spoonful into his own mouth. Yeah, he doesn't normally like ice cream, but this has chunks of toffee in it. Toffee.
'Ianto, are you there?' He swallows quickly and then clutches his chest at the shock of it all going down his aesophageus like a shot of dry ice. Dear god, and then his head pounds for a full twenty seconds as he clutches the edges of the tables and watches Tosh's green code scroll by in the black screen. 'Ianto, are you okay?'
He declines telling them about his frozen blunder and instead pounds his chest and says, 'Yeah, I'm in.'
'Okay, now I have a shiteload of wire here, so what I need you to do is…'
***
An hour later, Ianto presses the play button on the DVD remote again at Evan's request and Percy and the Bandstand restarts again. Evan bounces past him on his inflatable horse. 'Thank you!'
Ianto enters a few more streams of code and murmurs, 'You're welcome.' While he's been reading Ravi the schematics he's also been helping Gwen create an electrical dampener net with what they call "Torchwood household items": mesh netting (dinosaur nets), some trigger mechanisms, power packs that they've been able to restart after banging them on the ground a bit (Owen and Ravi both believe that banging solves many technological issues), and the inner parts of his stun gun collection from the trunk. Ianto sighs about that last bit, but really, he thinks as he watches Evan fall sideways onto the floor, narrowly missing the corner of one of the end tables with his head, he can always order more stun guns.
'For what?' Ravi grunts. 'Or are you talking to the midget again?'
This adventure has taught him several things: Ravi is a creative curser, more than he ever thought possible; Gwen and Claire are bonding at an incredible rate and soon they will have a secret female language so that they can plan their coup of the Hub in plain sight; and Tosh's old code is clunky in one section of the Archive indexing database. Ianto doesn't like the idea of calling anything of Tosh's clunky, but it is, like she designed it when she was drunk or feeling poetically wistful for the old days of Netscape or something. In fact, as he erases it and puts in something more streamlined, he wonders if he isn't erasing some sort of poetic form that he can't comprehend, like a person painting over a Matisse canvas so that they can have a blank canvas to paint the daily special in their restaurant.
'Midget,' Ianto answers after a pause, leaning back and letting Evan crawl up into his lap. While he waits for the code to compile, he opens another window and surfs through the pictures on his harddrive. 'Have you got all the fried wires?' he asks, pointing to the first picture that comes up. 'Oh look, it's a sheep.'
Ravi sighs. 'Three more to go. I'll let you know if it doesn't work.'
Ianto smiles and clicks the mouse. 'What's that?'
'It's a Dad,' Evan says to the picture of Jack on the screen. Another click. 'It's Mummy.' Click. 'It's you!'
'No, that's you,' Ianto says, bouncing Evan on his knee and waving his little fingers away from the touchpad. 'You say, "That's me." Who's that?'
'That's Gwen.'
'Too right. And that?'
'That's me!'
'No, that's me, Daddy,' Ianto says, wondering how to convey the concept of me versus you and coming up blank. This has to be one of those things that he sorts himself, like taking off his nappie and opening the door to the closet to dig out his toys at two in the morning.
Speaking of. Ianto checks the clock and realises that someone is about thirty minutes past the time that he's supposed to be in slumberland. He glances at the hallway and thinks that he could make a trip to the bedroom, but Murphy's Law dictates that that is when disaster will strike. He decides to try out a technique he's seen Lisa do recently.
'Hey, go get me a nappie,' he says to Evan as he slides off Ianto's legs.
'You wish,' Ravi mutters under his breath, and Evan shoots into the hallway.
'Okay!' And off he goes. Ianto shrugs and turns back to the computer, then thinks better of it. 'And the wipes!' Another experiment. 'And your jim-jams!'
'Yeah, right!'
It can't be that easy, he thinks, but it is. This kid stuff is so much easier when they understand what you're asking. Language can't come quickly enough, Ianto thinks as he accepts the jim-jams, nappie and tub of wipes from Evan's willing hand. 'Can you take off your clothes?'
Evan starts to pull off his shirt, and Ianto is fairly sure that the age of miracles has come. He has the shirt up around his face and arms out to the elbows when Ianto hears a muffled 'Ah help it,' and he reaches down to yank the shirt off the rest of the way.
Ravi rattles on about the schematics while he gets Evan to jump through a three ring circus: Can you put your soiled clothes in the hamper? Of course. Can you throw your nappie in the rubbish? Not a problem. Can you put your jim-jams on? Wilco. It's uncanny. By the time he's done, Ravi is ready to go, and they start up the mainframe connection on the SUV. Another fifteen minutes later and the tracking system is online, and they're ready to go. Gwen says the net is pretty frightening, but will most likely work on the creature, if the electrical traces they can now pick up are any indication.
Ianto sits back and watches Evan zip and unzip his sleeper in the front, his head bent so that Ianto can only see his mop of curls, his fingers delicately picking at the zipper.
'Thanks, Ianto,' Gwen breathes. 'I know you were supposed to be off tonight.'
Ianto resists the urge to ruffle Evan's hair because he knows how much he hates it when people do that to him. 'Not an issue. We're salaried, you know, not-'
'That's not what I mean,' Gwen says softly, and he knows that she means that she's taken time away from Evan in a way. Because she'd resent time away from Ioan, no matter how needed she was. Ianto isn't sure if he could have done it without the distraction, or if he is a bad parent for letting Percy run again and again, or for the ice cream, or for letting him ride a dangerous inflatable horse. He doesn't have a track record for these things. Maybe next time he can do it without the emergency. Maybe Gwen can arrange to call him just a little, to break things up.
This is, of course assuming, he thinks, that Lisa and Jack ever have a date night again, which Lisa might regret once she realises that Ianto is the worst tad ever.
Well, no, just…insufficient.
Oh bollocks, he's all right, he thinks, and he's about to sign off when there's a short shout on the line and he knows that Claire has been surprised by something. There's gunfire, and he jerks, thinking to call Jack on the other line until he hears Gwen say, 'We're okay, we're okay. Just gave us a fright. Ravi, take left-'
Thirty minutes later, Percy is replaying the main menu and Gwen is screaming something about a giant sawn-off shotgun and the net. Claire adds something about priming the vectors for the dampener, and Ianto hands Evan a cup of juice. He's pretty much done now, now that they're reconnected to the mainframe, it's just him listening on the comm to make sure that no one is stabbed or explodes. Exploding is always bad, and Ianto doesn't like to reflect that he's seen it happen.
But the sawn-off shotgun is neutralised and the critter is tied up and defused and all is well. No need to call Jack, Ravi says, sounding relieved, and Claire asks him why that would have been bad. Ravi is explaining to her when Gwen says, 'Good night, Ianto,' and by that he knows that they both remember when they had gone without Jack before, what that had been like, and how they'd got along.
With all this around him, even watching Evan rearrange the drawings on the refrigerator, Ianto knows he wouldn't trade it for the world.
He stretches and claps his hands in satisfaction when Gwen signs off, and then he hears the rattle of keys in the lock. He slams the lid shut on the laptop and tosses the phone on the sofa, turning just as Lisa and Jack sail in, speaking in hushed whispers, because it's eleven and someone should be in bed. Lisa smiles at Ianto, and Jack leans on the front door while he tries to kick off his shoes. Ianto grins a little, trying to defuse what could be An Issue. Lisa's eyes finally find Evan standing in the kitchen, and she raises an eyebrow.
Evan drops a refrigerator magnet on the floor. 'Oh shit.'
END
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack/Ianto/Lisa, Evan, Gwen, Ravi, Claire
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 3,665
Author's Notes: So cruentum bought my arse in the help_haiti lightning round, and I figured why mess with a good thing? Third time's a charm. This is Gold dust fic set post series, but still before the end of the story. Crue wanted some Evan-Ianto bonding time. Thanks to blue_fjords for the beta.
Summary: Then Lisa slips the envelope holding the ballet tickets into her purse and he remembers that the conversation had been rather like Lisa saying, 'Who wants to use these ballet tickets with me?' and Ianto had looked left, and Jack had looked right and the silence had been awkward. Then finally Jack had said something to the effect of, 'How close will we be to the stage?' and Lisa had said, 'Front and center.' And Jack had said, 'Sold.'
'You'll be fine,' Lisa says, her bag on her shoulder like a flail. She keeps saying that even though she also keeps reminding him of things he already knows. 'The juice boxes are in the cupboard, and you know where the crayons are and there are extra wipes in the bottom drawer of the table,' she says, 'you'll be fine.'
'Hey Ianto,' Jack says from the bathroom, 'You'll be fine.'
Ianto smirks and Lisa flips Jack off. At his plastic table in the corner of the lounge, Evan is engaged in conversation with a bear, his crayons, a colouring book full of pirates, and about three random plastic items that Jack had got him three weeks ago from the machines in the grocer's and which he can no longer go anywhere without. They are, respectively, a rubber cow that gathers lint, a necklace with a tiny version of brass knuckles, and a spaceship that came from a plastic chicken egg. They keep them in a plastic zipper bag so that when he carries them about he doesn't lose one.
Ianto had a nightmare two nights ago that he lost the cow and the ensuing drama led to Evan turning into a velociraptor and hunting him through their now verdant jungle penthouse. It was a dream, it doesn't always have to make sense.
Lisa checks her phone, then her earrings, and then her blouse, smoothing the silk over her breasts and Ianto can't help but feel a little sting. Couldn't they get a minder? Was this necessary? Was he being punished?
Then Lisa slips the envelope holding the ballet tickets into her purse and he remembers that the conversation had been rather like Lisa saying, 'Who wants to use these ballet tickets with me?' and Ianto had looked left, and Jack had looked right and the silence had been awkward. Then finally Jack had said something to the effect of, 'How close will we be to the stage?' and Lisa had said, 'Front and center.' And Jack had said, 'Sold.' And when Ianto had stared at him in mock horror Jack had replied something about men's arses in tights.
And suddenly now Ianto wants to go too, but he doesn't want to go to the ballet, so that rather kills the whole thing.
Lisa likes the ballet for childhood reasons, and Jack, Ianto secretly thinks Jack might just like the ballet for whatever artistic reason, despite what he says about toned glutes.
Despite that, it's pointless to hire a minder when there's a completely capable parent available, and something doesn't sit right with Ianto that he'd be at work, filing or something, and Jack and Lisa would be at the ballet, and their child would be with a non-parent. Gwen would give him the eyes. And she'd be right. Hell, Ravi would give him the eyes. And when your childfree co-workers start to judge, then it's either time to admit that something is wrong, or you should poison their coffee.
Ianto is not allowed to put laxatives in Ravi's coffee. Again. That was shortly before he and Jack and Gwen decided that they were not going to continue the "hazing" portion of Torchwood entry level training.
Jack emerges from the back bedroom, and Ianto stops for a moment, because he doesn't have much occasion to mentally remark on role reversal of this nature. Jack is wearing a real suit. Not one made in the 80s from the set of Miami Vice, or from the twenties with a fat tie or some such, but a real suit, that he must have got somewhere, had made somewhere. Without telling him.
He went with blue. Predictable, but a wise choice. Ianto can't even fault the tie, though the knot looks like some sort of creation that Jack came up with himself. It still passes muster. The man even has a pin in it. Ianto watches him button the suitcoat and shoot his cuffs and feels a little stab of-
'Oh, Dress-Up Jack,' Lisa says over Ianto's shoulder. 'We should take you out of your box more often.'
Jack strikes a small pose. 'I come anatomically correct and with articulated joints.' He wags his tongue at Ianto. 'Wanna see?'
Ianto sucks in a breath, because yeah, Jack can't replace him, and it's not like Ianto has a copyright on suits and taking his wife out on the town. It doesn't keep Ianto from wanting to toss on some braces and woolen trousers, a bland button down and CAT boots, go wave his arms about wildly and order Ravi to do something ludicrous, like "Dial all the mainframe rift sensors in the fifteenth quadrant up to eleven." Then he'd eat all of Gwen's Jaffa cakes and pretend to be reading a book when he is really monitoring Claire in the communal showers (Ianto knows he does it. Jack's eye wanders, but nothing else.).
The shoes would fit, but the shirt would be baggy. Jack has that broad chest.
Lisa slides her arms from Ianto's shoulders, and then it's all a blur of hugs and kisses for Evan, and 'Mummy and Dad will be back later, stay with Daddy,' and hugs and kisses for Ianto (Jack puts his hands on Ianto's shoulders and looks at him gravely. 'Mummy and Dad will be back later. Stay with Evan.'). Ianto rolls his eyes but accepts the kisses anyway because the presence of a tie makes him like French kissing. Is he a suit whore?
The door shuts and he turns to his son and realises that the last time they were deliberately left alone together had been when Evan was eight months old and Jack had been in Brussels and Gwen had taken Lisa for a spa sanity day. That had been a long time ago.
It's not that he doesn't know how to take care of Evan. He's been feeding and bathing and changing his nappies since day one. He's the nappie-fucking-master. He can put the nappie on while Evan is standing up. He can change it in the dark. He used to be able to heat bottles by the microwave light.
It's that now that Evan is actually doing things, interacting and making conversation, Ianto finds that he's rather unsure of what is supposed to happen. If it were a mate or something, they'd have a pint and talk about football, and if it was a co-worker, like Ravi, they'd talk about, oh, wires or something. Once he'd sat for David when Rhi had been in hospital giving birth to Mica, and this had turned out largely the same: they'd stared at each other for a while and David had said, 'Can we watch The Wiggles?' and he'd said okay, because really. What did they do?
'So,' Ianto says to Evan as he sits on the edge of the sofa and they regard each other. He had long ago decided that he wasn't going to use a different voice to talk to his son, but he tries to make his tone light, ever since Gwen had told him that his "serious voice" resembled "quiet disapproval". 'What shall we do?'
Evan blinks and then looks back at his bear. 'It's on the roller coaster.'
Ianto blinks. 'Really, now?'
Evan resumes his drawing. 'Ohhhh yeah. It's a bear and a dragon and a cow.'
Ianto understands that there is an inner monologue to which he is not privy. The best thing to do is to latch on to the words that he does get and go with that. 'I see that you have a cow. Does the cow have a name?' He knows that it does not. They could have a whole conversation about the cow. What is the cow doing? Who got you that cow? Where does it come from? Oh, it lives in the bag? Who gave you the bag? What else is in the bag? They could go for ages starting with the cow.
'It's a cow,' Evan tells him. 'It's white.'
Ianto nods. 'You speak the truth.'
Evan trades the red crayon for a blue one and continues his Pollock impression. 'Yeah, well, [unintelligible] the cow, on the horse, and they all [brrrrzakt] Thomas.'
Ianto gets that part. He runs his hands on his knees and glances at the clock, and then gets down on the floor cross-legged next to the table and picks up a green crayon. 'I see, well, then Thomas should have a hovercraft full of eels.'
Evan hands him the blue crayon. 'Sure!'
Oh, fine. They can communicate with nouns and Monty Python sketches. Excellent. 'I'll draw a spaceship, yeah?'
Evan flips his paper over and doesn't look up. 'Yeah right.'
Fifteen minutes later, the phone rings and Ianto looks up from the stacks of illustrations that he's made. Evan is on the couch reading a book to himself, and he glances at Ianto. 'It's the phone.'
Ianto picks up the handset. 'I know.' The display reads Gwen, so he knows that something is up. He presses the button and cradles the phone in his ear while he collects all the crayons and shuts them in the Tupperware box so that Evan won't get them out whilst they sleep and add things to the walls. 'Gwen, to what do I owe the honor?'
'Ianto,' Gwen sounds a little out of breath. 'Has Jack left already?'
Ianto glances at the clock, and it tells him that not only has Jack been long gone, he'd seen it with his own eyes, but the curtain is almost up. Right now he and Lisa are settling in some cushy velvet seats, and he's probably got his arm around her or his hand on her knee, and they're laughing about something private.
'You've missed him,' Ianto says. 'Is something wrong?' He glances at Evan, who is reading a Paddington book on the sofa, a long stream of gobbledygook in perfect inflection. If only he would say the actual words. Ianto wonders if he isn't stunted or something, but when he brings the subject up to Lisa she rolls her eyes and asks about the likelihood of them getting him to do something he doesn't want to do, given his heritage, and Ianto bites his lip. And his tongue. 'Should we page him?' he asks, because he's offering to do it.
Oh no. Not. Jealous. At. All.
Gwen is breathing hard. 'Oh no, I just-do you have Evan now?'
'Yup.' Ianto organises the drawings, tosses a few of his own more elaborate ones in the rubbish (Lisa will not appreciate the sheer realism of his crayon stun gun illustrations), and stands in the centre of the room, hands on hips and wondering what is about to happen. 'But honestly, if it's important he would want you to-'
'Oh, Ianto,' Gwen says, and he knows that he's been caught, which is unfortunate, because he's in the middle of successfully telling himself that he's not upset because he voluntarily agreed to stay home while his wife and…husband? went out on a date that he condones. Moreover, he realises, he has no issues with them becoming physically intimate or emotionally intimate, but traditional dating makes his hackles rise.
Or maybe he just wants Jack to send him flowers. That would be amusing and mortifying (because they'd be a huge bouquet of gladiolas and they'd arrive at work).
Ianto opens the freezer and retrieves a pint of Mackie's, shaking it at Evan, who closes his book with a surprised squeak of, 'OoOOOooh, ice cream.'
'Ianto,' Gwen says, 'Ravi, Claire and I are out in Roath, and this thing that-well, anyway it had some sort of EMP device, and I'm sorry to say that the SUV is dead.'
'I have remote access to the mainframe from here,' Ianto says digging for a bowl in the cupboard as Evan climbs into his booster seat. See? They have simpatico. He flips open the laptop at the table on his way to Evan and drops the ice cream carton on the floor. 'Oh, shit.'
'Ianto?'
'Sorry.' He winks at Evan and hands him the plastic spoon. 'I dropped the ice cream.'
Gwen's voice has a tone in it that sounds like the feeling he has as he glances at the clock and realises that he's about to give his child ice cream at quarter to eight in the evening. 'You're giving him ice cream?'
'What are you, Super Nanny?'
He can also hear her lips twitch, a sign that they have been working together too long. 'Nope.'
'This is fucking entertaining,' Ravi says, and Ianto can hear his verbal two-fingered salute, and Jesus, how long has he been working with Ravi? If he can hear Claire's visual insult, then he'll know this is all imagined. 'But really, if you could get me the schematics for the wiring under the SUV, I could take care of this and get the computer back up.'
Ianto rolls his eyes and logs into the servers on the secure network and then spends a good minute letting it run the security measures on his computer while he scoops out a heaping spoonful into a bowl and then a massive spoonful into his own mouth. Yeah, he doesn't normally like ice cream, but this has chunks of toffee in it. Toffee.
'Ianto, are you there?' He swallows quickly and then clutches his chest at the shock of it all going down his aesophageus like a shot of dry ice. Dear god, and then his head pounds for a full twenty seconds as he clutches the edges of the tables and watches Tosh's green code scroll by in the black screen. 'Ianto, are you okay?'
He declines telling them about his frozen blunder and instead pounds his chest and says, 'Yeah, I'm in.'
'Okay, now I have a shiteload of wire here, so what I need you to do is…'
***
An hour later, Ianto presses the play button on the DVD remote again at Evan's request and Percy and the Bandstand restarts again. Evan bounces past him on his inflatable horse. 'Thank you!'
Ianto enters a few more streams of code and murmurs, 'You're welcome.' While he's been reading Ravi the schematics he's also been helping Gwen create an electrical dampener net with what they call "Torchwood household items": mesh netting (dinosaur nets), some trigger mechanisms, power packs that they've been able to restart after banging them on the ground a bit (Owen and Ravi both believe that banging solves many technological issues), and the inner parts of his stun gun collection from the trunk. Ianto sighs about that last bit, but really, he thinks as he watches Evan fall sideways onto the floor, narrowly missing the corner of one of the end tables with his head, he can always order more stun guns.
'For what?' Ravi grunts. 'Or are you talking to the midget again?'
This adventure has taught him several things: Ravi is a creative curser, more than he ever thought possible; Gwen and Claire are bonding at an incredible rate and soon they will have a secret female language so that they can plan their coup of the Hub in plain sight; and Tosh's old code is clunky in one section of the Archive indexing database. Ianto doesn't like the idea of calling anything of Tosh's clunky, but it is, like she designed it when she was drunk or feeling poetically wistful for the old days of Netscape or something. In fact, as he erases it and puts in something more streamlined, he wonders if he isn't erasing some sort of poetic form that he can't comprehend, like a person painting over a Matisse canvas so that they can have a blank canvas to paint the daily special in their restaurant.
'Midget,' Ianto answers after a pause, leaning back and letting Evan crawl up into his lap. While he waits for the code to compile, he opens another window and surfs through the pictures on his harddrive. 'Have you got all the fried wires?' he asks, pointing to the first picture that comes up. 'Oh look, it's a sheep.'
Ravi sighs. 'Three more to go. I'll let you know if it doesn't work.'
Ianto smiles and clicks the mouse. 'What's that?'
'It's a Dad,' Evan says to the picture of Jack on the screen. Another click. 'It's Mummy.' Click. 'It's you!'
'No, that's you,' Ianto says, bouncing Evan on his knee and waving his little fingers away from the touchpad. 'You say, "That's me." Who's that?'
'That's Gwen.'
'Too right. And that?'
'That's me!'
'No, that's me, Daddy,' Ianto says, wondering how to convey the concept of me versus you and coming up blank. This has to be one of those things that he sorts himself, like taking off his nappie and opening the door to the closet to dig out his toys at two in the morning.
Speaking of. Ianto checks the clock and realises that someone is about thirty minutes past the time that he's supposed to be in slumberland. He glances at the hallway and thinks that he could make a trip to the bedroom, but Murphy's Law dictates that that is when disaster will strike. He decides to try out a technique he's seen Lisa do recently.
'Hey, go get me a nappie,' he says to Evan as he slides off Ianto's legs.
'You wish,' Ravi mutters under his breath, and Evan shoots into the hallway.
'Okay!' And off he goes. Ianto shrugs and turns back to the computer, then thinks better of it. 'And the wipes!' Another experiment. 'And your jim-jams!'
'Yeah, right!'
It can't be that easy, he thinks, but it is. This kid stuff is so much easier when they understand what you're asking. Language can't come quickly enough, Ianto thinks as he accepts the jim-jams, nappie and tub of wipes from Evan's willing hand. 'Can you take off your clothes?'
Evan starts to pull off his shirt, and Ianto is fairly sure that the age of miracles has come. He has the shirt up around his face and arms out to the elbows when Ianto hears a muffled 'Ah help it,' and he reaches down to yank the shirt off the rest of the way.
Ravi rattles on about the schematics while he gets Evan to jump through a three ring circus: Can you put your soiled clothes in the hamper? Of course. Can you throw your nappie in the rubbish? Not a problem. Can you put your jim-jams on? Wilco. It's uncanny. By the time he's done, Ravi is ready to go, and they start up the mainframe connection on the SUV. Another fifteen minutes later and the tracking system is online, and they're ready to go. Gwen says the net is pretty frightening, but will most likely work on the creature, if the electrical traces they can now pick up are any indication.
Ianto sits back and watches Evan zip and unzip his sleeper in the front, his head bent so that Ianto can only see his mop of curls, his fingers delicately picking at the zipper.
'Thanks, Ianto,' Gwen breathes. 'I know you were supposed to be off tonight.'
Ianto resists the urge to ruffle Evan's hair because he knows how much he hates it when people do that to him. 'Not an issue. We're salaried, you know, not-'
'That's not what I mean,' Gwen says softly, and he knows that she means that she's taken time away from Evan in a way. Because she'd resent time away from Ioan, no matter how needed she was. Ianto isn't sure if he could have done it without the distraction, or if he is a bad parent for letting Percy run again and again, or for the ice cream, or for letting him ride a dangerous inflatable horse. He doesn't have a track record for these things. Maybe next time he can do it without the emergency. Maybe Gwen can arrange to call him just a little, to break things up.
This is, of course assuming, he thinks, that Lisa and Jack ever have a date night again, which Lisa might regret once she realises that Ianto is the worst tad ever.
Well, no, just…insufficient.
Oh bollocks, he's all right, he thinks, and he's about to sign off when there's a short shout on the line and he knows that Claire has been surprised by something. There's gunfire, and he jerks, thinking to call Jack on the other line until he hears Gwen say, 'We're okay, we're okay. Just gave us a fright. Ravi, take left-'
Thirty minutes later, Percy is replaying the main menu and Gwen is screaming something about a giant sawn-off shotgun and the net. Claire adds something about priming the vectors for the dampener, and Ianto hands Evan a cup of juice. He's pretty much done now, now that they're reconnected to the mainframe, it's just him listening on the comm to make sure that no one is stabbed or explodes. Exploding is always bad, and Ianto doesn't like to reflect that he's seen it happen.
But the sawn-off shotgun is neutralised and the critter is tied up and defused and all is well. No need to call Jack, Ravi says, sounding relieved, and Claire asks him why that would have been bad. Ravi is explaining to her when Gwen says, 'Good night, Ianto,' and by that he knows that they both remember when they had gone without Jack before, what that had been like, and how they'd got along.
With all this around him, even watching Evan rearrange the drawings on the refrigerator, Ianto knows he wouldn't trade it for the world.
He stretches and claps his hands in satisfaction when Gwen signs off, and then he hears the rattle of keys in the lock. He slams the lid shut on the laptop and tosses the phone on the sofa, turning just as Lisa and Jack sail in, speaking in hushed whispers, because it's eleven and someone should be in bed. Lisa smiles at Ianto, and Jack leans on the front door while he tries to kick off his shoes. Ianto grins a little, trying to defuse what could be An Issue. Lisa's eyes finally find Evan standing in the kitchen, and she raises an eyebrow.
Evan drops a refrigerator magnet on the floor. 'Oh shit.'
END