Till the Moon Hath Taken Flight - 1/3
Title: Till the Moon Hath Taken Flight
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Gwen, Owen, Tosh, Rhys, Rhiannon
Rating: PG-13
Beta: None due to time constraints - mistakes are all mine on this one
Summary: There is a secret buried within the files of Torchwood that Ianto Jones must keep hidden, one that could change everything.
A/N: Written for the jantocam June challenge. Sorry its a day late, got a bit sun baked during the pride parade. First fic I have finished in months. Liberal sprinklings of Welsh and Celtic Folklore abound.
Hope you like it.
Till the Moon Hath Taken Flight
Pistyll Rhaeder (Spring of the Waterfall)
Powys, North Wales
Berwyn Mountains 1986
“Be careful,” Colwyn warned his bride as she shimmied down the moss covered stones alongside the pool near the base of Pistyll Rhaeder. Terrwyn or Teri as she was called by her friends stretched a tentative foot unto the narrow path running along the back of the pool and turned to give him a thumbs-up before continuing on to the hidden cave the innkeeper had told them about behind the waterfall.
“Found it!” she called up to him as the entrance came into view. “Just going to take a few shots before the light fades,” she added with a wave as she leaned against the rock behind her and raised her camera.
From his perch on the bank, Colwyn watched as she attempted to capture the sunlight sparkling onto the glittering cascade pouring overhead before lowering her camera and slipping inside the cave.
“My little daredevil,” he said with a rueful grin as he sat down to wait.
~~~~~~~~
“Beautiful,” Teri whispered as she slipped off her backpack to switch lenses. A rainbow shimmered into existence across the curtain of water before her as it plunged into the pool below, and she laughed in child-like wonder as soft flickers of reds, blues, and greens danced across the walls of the cave.
A sudden burst of light flared behind her chasing the colors from view, and Teri turned in confusion as the light faded to reveal a woman and two small children huddled together at the back of the cave.
“Are you alright?” she asked moving to help them.
The woman’s head shot up in alarm, and she gathered the children close as she warily watched Teri approach.
“My name’s Teri,” she said as she drew closer. “Are you injured? My husband is up the bank, should I call for help?”
“Help?” the woman responded with the thick Welsh accent common amongst those who still mainly conversed in their native tongue.
“That’s right, help,” Teri replied kindly as she took in the ragged cuts on the woman’s arm and the bruising on her cheekbone. Bending down she glanced at the children, a young girl and a toddler of no more than three, both of whom seemed unharmed. They stared back at her with luminous blue eyes; the boy looking up through a mop of unruly brown curls, and the girl playing with the crown of blossoms decorating her hair. Reaching inside of her pack, she pulled out a small first aid kit and cleaned the wounds on the woman’s arm before gently bandaging it. As she worked, the little boy smiled up at her before turning to hide his face in his mother’s skirts. It was then that she noticed something she had missed in her haste to help them. Glancing up at his mother, she found herself being scrutinized. At length the woman nodded and reached up to tuck a lock of hair behind her pointed ear.
“Fae,” Teri breathed scarcely believing what was before her.
“Tylwyth Teg,” the woman corrected with a twitch of her lips.
“Of course,” Teri replied dumbly.
The woman smiled again and pointed to herself. “Eleri.”
Teri smiled in greeting and was about to ask after the names of the children when a small ball of light burst into existence behind them.
“What on Earth?” she asked as the woman quickly rose and pushed the children behind her.
“Must go,” Eleri said with fear in her voice. “Must hide them,” she added moving closer to the cave entrance. As the late summer sun shown down on the trio through the falling water, the traces of green and gold clinging to their milk-white skin became more apparent.
“How?” she asked knowing that it would be difficult to pass them off as human.
The light pulsed and grew larger as Eleri reached up and unclasped a green pendant from around her neck. She said something to her daughter and the little girl quickly gathered up a small pile of twigs and moss from the debris inside the cave while her mother took a stray rock and smashed the pendant. The boy began to sniffle in alarm, and his mother shushed him before turning to gather up the shards of her pendant along with the twigs and moss and placed her hands above them. A soft light illuminated the pile as it twisted and reformed into two necklaces made of brown wooden toggles inter-woven with small green beads. Turning to her daughter she slipped a necklace over her head, kissing her forehead as Teri watched the girl’s elfin features shift into something more human.
The girl reached up, touching her ears in wonder as her mother scooped up her youngest and did the same for him.
“Hidden,” she said before nuzzling the toddler’s cheek and whispering in his ear. Teri watched in fascination as the boy’s eyes grew heavy and he fell asleep.
A sudden stillness filled the air and Eleri looked back in alarm before thrusting the boy into Teri’s arms.
“Must hide,” she begged as light began to fill the cave once more. Teri started to protest as the girl moved to take her hand, but Eleri shook her head.
“Un tywll, Dark one,” Eleri said, her voice laced with fear. “Teri keeps rhai bach safe.”
Realizing that Eleri meant to cover their escape, Teri struggled to remember the Welsh her gran had used when she was a child and holding the fae-woman’s eyes said the words that would change her life forever.
“Rwy’n addo,” she vowed. I promise.
“Yr wyf yn derbyn,” I accept, Eleri replied as she lifted her hands, causing a gust of wind to blow Teri and the two children through the cascade of rushing water into the pool on the other side.
~~~~~~~~
Cardiff, Wales
Twenty years later…
Toweling off his face as he prepared for his first day back from his suspension, Ianto Jones inspected the scratch marks along his neck resulting from the chaos of Lisa’s rampage through the hub. Looking closer, he noticed that one of the green beads adorning the necklace he had worn since he was a child had chipped during his fall. Reaching up to check the damage, he gasped in surprise as it came loose and dropped into his hand. Holding it up to sunlight from the nearby open window, he marveled as the prisms within the bead caused a series of bright green lights to dance across the room. Smiling at the sight, he glanced back at the mirror and froze in confusion as his reflection seemed to blur ever so slightly, taking on the green cast of the bead, and making his eyes appear a brighter and even deeper shade of blue. It wasn’t the shade that struck him as odd, though, it was the sense of familiarity that made him pause. It was as if he had regained something he didn’t even know he had lost.
“You’re just tired,” he reassured himself as he closed the bead in his fist and the light retreated. But even as the green light reflected in the bead faded from sight, the newfound depth to his eyes remained. As his heart rate sped up and his grip on the bead tightened, Ianto felt it crack further and quickly opened his fist, finding only a dusting of green powder blowing away to nothing as a soft morning breeze caressed his palm.
The dull thud of a single knock sounded, announcing that Owen had arrived to give him a final medical scan before escorting him to the hub for his first day back. Ianto shook his head, deciding that it must have been a trick of the light before chastising himself for being nervous and going to answer the door.
“There’s something I want you to see,” Jack announced later that afternoon as he came down to check on him in the archives. Raising an eyebrow at the intrusion, Ianto pushed the file drawer he was working on closed before straightening his suit jacket and following him down the all too familiar route to the lower levels of the hub. As they came to a stop outside the door that used to house Lisa, Jack stopped and gave him an assessing look before tapping the newly installed keypad on the door.
“It was like this when I came down to install the keypad on the empty room the next morning,” he explained as Ianto stepped inside. Where the conversion unit had previously stood there was now a riot of color as flowers covered every discernible surface; a tribute in flora now housed where Lisa had died.
“Rosemary for remembrance,” Ianto whispered as he surveyed the room. “Daisies for farewell…” he trailed off before reaching down to pluck a solitary bloom from the array before them. “Snowdrop for hope,” he said as he turned and held the flower out as an offering.
“Hope for what exactly?” Jack asked eying the white flower warily.
“At present?” Ianto asked shrugging his shoulders, “a chance to prove myself to you and the others.”
Jack held his gaze for a moment before reaching out to take the bloom from his hand.
“Accepted,” Jack replied placing it in his pocket. “Any idea how this all got here?” he asked gesturing to the room around them.
“Not really, no,” Ianto replied, even though something about it seemed familiar. “My Mam used to tell stories before she died about faeries leaving flowers to mark the passing of those they cared for,” he remarked, thinking of the cluster of hydrangeas that bloomed on her grave no matter what the season.
The change in Jack was instant.
“There better not be any faeries here,” he growled to the room at large.
“Something you need to tell me Sir?” Ianto inquired, surprised at his sudden change in demeanor.
Jack glanced around the room again before running a hand over his face with a sigh.
“Just something from my past,” he answered before gesturing for them to leave.
Ianto stepped back outside and watched as Jack glared at the room a final time before closing and securing the door. As he followed Jack back to the main hub and started another round of coffee, he wondered at Jack’s reaction to the notion that faeries could have brought the flowers into the hub. After all, it had been an acknowledgement of loss rather than a threat hadn’t it? But why was he so spooked?
As he went about the business of grinding and brewing on auto-pilot, a memory stirred at the back of his mind.
Crouching behind a boulder beside Rhiannon as they watched a gathering of elders raise their arms and call forth a bevy of flowers to cover the burial mound of the high king, his mother winking back at them as the flowers began to…
“Everything alright Ianto?” Tosh asked, breaking his reverie as she came up beside him to wash her teacup.
“Fine Tosh,” he replied straightening his shoulders. “Would you like another cup of tea?”
Tosh nodded and smiled before returning to her workstation.
Slipping his mobile from his pocket Ianto quickly fired off a text to his sister. He’d promised when they were little to always tell her if he remembered anything of their past.
And a promise made by a Jones is a promise kept.
~~~~~~~~
It turned out the flowers were only the beginning.
A few weeks later, funny weather patterns evolved into an altercation with an ancient race that Jack called the Mara, but whom Ianto instinctively knew by a name much more sinister. While Gwen attempted to debunk the Cottingley photos based on schoolgirl research, Ianto began pulling all of the case files Torchwood had referencing faeries, Twylyth Teg, the Mara, changelings, and any other sort of fae that might add to the investigation. What he hadn’t planned on finding in the process was a file from an investigation back in 1986, bearing a photo of a very familiar witness by the name of Terrwyn Breen.
“Find anything good Tea-boy?” Owen asked as Ianto quickly closed the file and slipped his butler’s mask into place while the medic sauntered up to peruse what he had found.
“Only bits and pieces,” he answered noncommittally as Owen lifted the top file off the stack and flipped it open.
“I’d like a look at her bits and pieces,” Owen said with a leer as he eyed Terrwyn’s photo.
Ianto grit his teeth as Owen continued to expound on how “hot” young Terrwyn was, hoping that he would not see the connection between them or feel his unease. He was about to flip over the cover page to review the rest of the file when Tosh’s voice came over the comm., telling Owen to prep the autopsy bay for their return.
“Should give you some fresh spank material at least,” Owen said with a sneer as he tossed the file into Ianto’s lap and turned away.
Ianto kept the file closed until Owen had left, only then did he open it once more and lose himself in the past.
He clung to his mother’s neck as they ran through the darkening forest, breathing in the familiar scent of honeysuckle and fresh rain that perfumed her hair, trying to still the creeping fear with the sweet smell of home. A screech echoed in the stillness and he hastened a glance over her shoulder to where the shadows grew ever closer, withering the vines and branches that sprung up behind them to aid in their escape.
“Don’t look,” his sister panted as she ran beside them. “Fear gives them power. Don’t look.”
He nodded and buried his head against his mother’s shoulder as arrows started flying past. Suddenly she lurched forward and cried out in pain as one of them managed to catch her arm. As she stumbled towards the ground, she pulled Rhiannon towards her and lifted up her hand, calling forth a gateway in a last desperate chance at escape.
“Ianto we’re headed back,” said Jack’s voice over the comm., causing Ianto’s eyes to snap open.
“Right away Sir,” he replied automatically staring down at the photos in the file before him. On impulse, he slipped the file into the top drawer of his desk and locked it. Bracing his hands on the desktop before him, he steadied himself before reaching up to touch the remaining beads on his necklace. When he and Rhiannon had spoken, she had told him what little she could remember of their life before being adopted by Teri and Colwyn Jones, and warned him that the beads were the only thing keeping them safe.
Only eight left. He had to be careful.
Two days later, Jasmine had been taken and the mood at the hub was grim. As the rest of the team left Jack to wallow in his guilt, Ianto remained behind, knowing that he had not had a choice in the matter.
“I thought you might like to know that an array of tea roses was planted inside Bute Park in Estelle’s honor,” Ianto told him as he walked into Jack’s office.
“Thank you,” Jack said as he took a sip from his tumbler of whiskey. “They were her favorite.”
“My pleasure,” Ianto said with a soft smile. “Well best be going home. Leave the glass when you’re done. I’ll clean up in the morning.”
“Ianto,” Jack called out causing him to pause on the threshold. “Thank you for….” He paused, not sure what to say.
“You did what you had to Jack,” Ianto replied over his shoulder. “There is no reasoning with the Ellylldan when they have chosen.” Jack’s brows creased at the name and fearing he had said too much, Ianto nodded and left before Jack could respond.
Chapter Two
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Gwen, Owen, Tosh, Rhys, Rhiannon
Rating: PG-13
Beta: None due to time constraints - mistakes are all mine on this one
Summary: There is a secret buried within the files of Torchwood that Ianto Jones must keep hidden, one that could change everything.
A/N: Written for the jantocam June challenge. Sorry its a day late, got a bit sun baked during the pride parade. First fic I have finished in months. Liberal sprinklings of Welsh and Celtic Folklore abound.
Hope you like it.
Till the Moon Hath Taken Flight
Pistyll Rhaeder (Spring of the Waterfall)
Powys, North Wales
Berwyn Mountains 1986
“Be careful,” Colwyn warned his bride as she shimmied down the moss covered stones alongside the pool near the base of Pistyll Rhaeder. Terrwyn or Teri as she was called by her friends stretched a tentative foot unto the narrow path running along the back of the pool and turned to give him a thumbs-up before continuing on to the hidden cave the innkeeper had told them about behind the waterfall.
“Found it!” she called up to him as the entrance came into view. “Just going to take a few shots before the light fades,” she added with a wave as she leaned against the rock behind her and raised her camera.
From his perch on the bank, Colwyn watched as she attempted to capture the sunlight sparkling onto the glittering cascade pouring overhead before lowering her camera and slipping inside the cave.
“My little daredevil,” he said with a rueful grin as he sat down to wait.
~~~~~~~~
“Beautiful,” Teri whispered as she slipped off her backpack to switch lenses. A rainbow shimmered into existence across the curtain of water before her as it plunged into the pool below, and she laughed in child-like wonder as soft flickers of reds, blues, and greens danced across the walls of the cave.
A sudden burst of light flared behind her chasing the colors from view, and Teri turned in confusion as the light faded to reveal a woman and two small children huddled together at the back of the cave.
“Are you alright?” she asked moving to help them.
The woman’s head shot up in alarm, and she gathered the children close as she warily watched Teri approach.
“My name’s Teri,” she said as she drew closer. “Are you injured? My husband is up the bank, should I call for help?”
“Help?” the woman responded with the thick Welsh accent common amongst those who still mainly conversed in their native tongue.
“That’s right, help,” Teri replied kindly as she took in the ragged cuts on the woman’s arm and the bruising on her cheekbone. Bending down she glanced at the children, a young girl and a toddler of no more than three, both of whom seemed unharmed. They stared back at her with luminous blue eyes; the boy looking up through a mop of unruly brown curls, and the girl playing with the crown of blossoms decorating her hair. Reaching inside of her pack, she pulled out a small first aid kit and cleaned the wounds on the woman’s arm before gently bandaging it. As she worked, the little boy smiled up at her before turning to hide his face in his mother’s skirts. It was then that she noticed something she had missed in her haste to help them. Glancing up at his mother, she found herself being scrutinized. At length the woman nodded and reached up to tuck a lock of hair behind her pointed ear.
“Fae,” Teri breathed scarcely believing what was before her.
“Tylwyth Teg,” the woman corrected with a twitch of her lips.
“Of course,” Teri replied dumbly.
The woman smiled again and pointed to herself. “Eleri.”
Teri smiled in greeting and was about to ask after the names of the children when a small ball of light burst into existence behind them.
“What on Earth?” she asked as the woman quickly rose and pushed the children behind her.
“Must go,” Eleri said with fear in her voice. “Must hide them,” she added moving closer to the cave entrance. As the late summer sun shown down on the trio through the falling water, the traces of green and gold clinging to their milk-white skin became more apparent.
“How?” she asked knowing that it would be difficult to pass them off as human.
The light pulsed and grew larger as Eleri reached up and unclasped a green pendant from around her neck. She said something to her daughter and the little girl quickly gathered up a small pile of twigs and moss from the debris inside the cave while her mother took a stray rock and smashed the pendant. The boy began to sniffle in alarm, and his mother shushed him before turning to gather up the shards of her pendant along with the twigs and moss and placed her hands above them. A soft light illuminated the pile as it twisted and reformed into two necklaces made of brown wooden toggles inter-woven with small green beads. Turning to her daughter she slipped a necklace over her head, kissing her forehead as Teri watched the girl’s elfin features shift into something more human.
The girl reached up, touching her ears in wonder as her mother scooped up her youngest and did the same for him.
“Hidden,” she said before nuzzling the toddler’s cheek and whispering in his ear. Teri watched in fascination as the boy’s eyes grew heavy and he fell asleep.
A sudden stillness filled the air and Eleri looked back in alarm before thrusting the boy into Teri’s arms.
“Must hide,” she begged as light began to fill the cave once more. Teri started to protest as the girl moved to take her hand, but Eleri shook her head.
“Un tywll, Dark one,” Eleri said, her voice laced with fear. “Teri keeps rhai bach safe.”
Realizing that Eleri meant to cover their escape, Teri struggled to remember the Welsh her gran had used when she was a child and holding the fae-woman’s eyes said the words that would change her life forever.
“Rwy’n addo,” she vowed. I promise.
“Yr wyf yn derbyn,” I accept, Eleri replied as she lifted her hands, causing a gust of wind to blow Teri and the two children through the cascade of rushing water into the pool on the other side.
~~~~~~~~
Cardiff, Wales
Twenty years later…
Toweling off his face as he prepared for his first day back from his suspension, Ianto Jones inspected the scratch marks along his neck resulting from the chaos of Lisa’s rampage through the hub. Looking closer, he noticed that one of the green beads adorning the necklace he had worn since he was a child had chipped during his fall. Reaching up to check the damage, he gasped in surprise as it came loose and dropped into his hand. Holding it up to sunlight from the nearby open window, he marveled as the prisms within the bead caused a series of bright green lights to dance across the room. Smiling at the sight, he glanced back at the mirror and froze in confusion as his reflection seemed to blur ever so slightly, taking on the green cast of the bead, and making his eyes appear a brighter and even deeper shade of blue. It wasn’t the shade that struck him as odd, though, it was the sense of familiarity that made him pause. It was as if he had regained something he didn’t even know he had lost.
“You’re just tired,” he reassured himself as he closed the bead in his fist and the light retreated. But even as the green light reflected in the bead faded from sight, the newfound depth to his eyes remained. As his heart rate sped up and his grip on the bead tightened, Ianto felt it crack further and quickly opened his fist, finding only a dusting of green powder blowing away to nothing as a soft morning breeze caressed his palm.
The dull thud of a single knock sounded, announcing that Owen had arrived to give him a final medical scan before escorting him to the hub for his first day back. Ianto shook his head, deciding that it must have been a trick of the light before chastising himself for being nervous and going to answer the door.
“There’s something I want you to see,” Jack announced later that afternoon as he came down to check on him in the archives. Raising an eyebrow at the intrusion, Ianto pushed the file drawer he was working on closed before straightening his suit jacket and following him down the all too familiar route to the lower levels of the hub. As they came to a stop outside the door that used to house Lisa, Jack stopped and gave him an assessing look before tapping the newly installed keypad on the door.
“It was like this when I came down to install the keypad on the empty room the next morning,” he explained as Ianto stepped inside. Where the conversion unit had previously stood there was now a riot of color as flowers covered every discernible surface; a tribute in flora now housed where Lisa had died.
“Rosemary for remembrance,” Ianto whispered as he surveyed the room. “Daisies for farewell…” he trailed off before reaching down to pluck a solitary bloom from the array before them. “Snowdrop for hope,” he said as he turned and held the flower out as an offering.
“Hope for what exactly?” Jack asked eying the white flower warily.
“At present?” Ianto asked shrugging his shoulders, “a chance to prove myself to you and the others.”
Jack held his gaze for a moment before reaching out to take the bloom from his hand.
“Accepted,” Jack replied placing it in his pocket. “Any idea how this all got here?” he asked gesturing to the room around them.
“Not really, no,” Ianto replied, even though something about it seemed familiar. “My Mam used to tell stories before she died about faeries leaving flowers to mark the passing of those they cared for,” he remarked, thinking of the cluster of hydrangeas that bloomed on her grave no matter what the season.
The change in Jack was instant.
“There better not be any faeries here,” he growled to the room at large.
“Something you need to tell me Sir?” Ianto inquired, surprised at his sudden change in demeanor.
Jack glanced around the room again before running a hand over his face with a sigh.
“Just something from my past,” he answered before gesturing for them to leave.
Ianto stepped back outside and watched as Jack glared at the room a final time before closing and securing the door. As he followed Jack back to the main hub and started another round of coffee, he wondered at Jack’s reaction to the notion that faeries could have brought the flowers into the hub. After all, it had been an acknowledgement of loss rather than a threat hadn’t it? But why was he so spooked?
As he went about the business of grinding and brewing on auto-pilot, a memory stirred at the back of his mind.
Crouching behind a boulder beside Rhiannon as they watched a gathering of elders raise their arms and call forth a bevy of flowers to cover the burial mound of the high king, his mother winking back at them as the flowers began to…
“Everything alright Ianto?” Tosh asked, breaking his reverie as she came up beside him to wash her teacup.
“Fine Tosh,” he replied straightening his shoulders. “Would you like another cup of tea?”
Tosh nodded and smiled before returning to her workstation.
Slipping his mobile from his pocket Ianto quickly fired off a text to his sister. He’d promised when they were little to always tell her if he remembered anything of their past.
And a promise made by a Jones is a promise kept.
~~~~~~~~
It turned out the flowers were only the beginning.
A few weeks later, funny weather patterns evolved into an altercation with an ancient race that Jack called the Mara, but whom Ianto instinctively knew by a name much more sinister. While Gwen attempted to debunk the Cottingley photos based on schoolgirl research, Ianto began pulling all of the case files Torchwood had referencing faeries, Twylyth Teg, the Mara, changelings, and any other sort of fae that might add to the investigation. What he hadn’t planned on finding in the process was a file from an investigation back in 1986, bearing a photo of a very familiar witness by the name of Terrwyn Breen.
“Find anything good Tea-boy?” Owen asked as Ianto quickly closed the file and slipped his butler’s mask into place while the medic sauntered up to peruse what he had found.
“Only bits and pieces,” he answered noncommittally as Owen lifted the top file off the stack and flipped it open.
“I’d like a look at her bits and pieces,” Owen said with a leer as he eyed Terrwyn’s photo.
Ianto grit his teeth as Owen continued to expound on how “hot” young Terrwyn was, hoping that he would not see the connection between them or feel his unease. He was about to flip over the cover page to review the rest of the file when Tosh’s voice came over the comm., telling Owen to prep the autopsy bay for their return.
“Should give you some fresh spank material at least,” Owen said with a sneer as he tossed the file into Ianto’s lap and turned away.
Ianto kept the file closed until Owen had left, only then did he open it once more and lose himself in the past.
He clung to his mother’s neck as they ran through the darkening forest, breathing in the familiar scent of honeysuckle and fresh rain that perfumed her hair, trying to still the creeping fear with the sweet smell of home. A screech echoed in the stillness and he hastened a glance over her shoulder to where the shadows grew ever closer, withering the vines and branches that sprung up behind them to aid in their escape.
“Don’t look,” his sister panted as she ran beside them. “Fear gives them power. Don’t look.”
He nodded and buried his head against his mother’s shoulder as arrows started flying past. Suddenly she lurched forward and cried out in pain as one of them managed to catch her arm. As she stumbled towards the ground, she pulled Rhiannon towards her and lifted up her hand, calling forth a gateway in a last desperate chance at escape.
“Ianto we’re headed back,” said Jack’s voice over the comm., causing Ianto’s eyes to snap open.
“Right away Sir,” he replied automatically staring down at the photos in the file before him. On impulse, he slipped the file into the top drawer of his desk and locked it. Bracing his hands on the desktop before him, he steadied himself before reaching up to touch the remaining beads on his necklace. When he and Rhiannon had spoken, she had told him what little she could remember of their life before being adopted by Teri and Colwyn Jones, and warned him that the beads were the only thing keeping them safe.
Only eight left. He had to be careful.
Two days later, Jasmine had been taken and the mood at the hub was grim. As the rest of the team left Jack to wallow in his guilt, Ianto remained behind, knowing that he had not had a choice in the matter.
“I thought you might like to know that an array of tea roses was planted inside Bute Park in Estelle’s honor,” Ianto told him as he walked into Jack’s office.
“Thank you,” Jack said as he took a sip from his tumbler of whiskey. “They were her favorite.”
“My pleasure,” Ianto said with a soft smile. “Well best be going home. Leave the glass when you’re done. I’ll clean up in the morning.”
“Ianto,” Jack called out causing him to pause on the threshold. “Thank you for….” He paused, not sure what to say.
“You did what you had to Jack,” Ianto replied over his shoulder. “There is no reasoning with the Ellylldan when they have chosen.” Jack’s brows creased at the name and fearing he had said too much, Ianto nodded and left before Jack could respond.
Chapter Two