Conspiracy Theories, a TW fanfic
With a chuckle, Ianto followed Jack and his mother into the room as she began the process of introducing the captain to the rest of the family. Ianto knew that simply watching Jack from the doorway with a bemused expression on his face wasn’t the kindest thing. It probably showed he was being a bad boyfriend, but Ianto was still in shock that, for today at least , he was going to be considered Jack’s boyfriend. Jack turned around and silently pleaded for the Welshman’s help. Ianto supposed it was the least he could do.
Walking into the family room, Ianto took Jack’s hand, the one his mother wasn’t tugging and gave it a faint squeeze to brace them both for the announcement to come. The way he was holding Jack’s hand must have been a bit of a giveaway as his cousin Evan was looking at them with raised eyebrows and Evan’s mother, Ianto’s dreaded Aunt Gladys, was giving them a strange look, something between revulsion and satisfaction.
“Everyone,” Ianto’s mother said, using that voice that easily carried over a crowd, “this is my Ianto’s boyfriend, Captain Jack Harkness.” Jack gave a small wave and said hello to everyone. He was wearing his patented Harkness grin, but Ianto, familiar to the more confident version of that smile, could see the chinks in it.
Ianto chuckled and walked with his mother as they started with Uncle Trevor and Aunt Morgan. Ianto had had his clashes with his uncle in the past, largely when Ianto had been going through his rebellious stage as a teen and after his father had died. Ianto had resented his uncle for a long time for that. He’d felt that he was trying to step in for Ianto’s father. It wasn’t the case, and with some maturity, Ianto could see that like any elder sibling, Uncle Trevor had been protecting his sister, even if it was from her own son.
Facing down the brown-eyed gaze of the man, Ianto had to wonder what the response of his more likable uncle and aunt would be. Like Ianto’s mother, they were Catholic, but they were far stauncher in their beliefs than she ever had been.
“Captain?” Uncle Trevor asked. “Captain of what?”
“RAF, sir,” Jack said with a smile. “Earned my way through the ranks. Then, after fighting so long to protect Cardiff, I just settled here and began working in a quasi-government business.” He shrugged. Ianto was actually rather impressed that Jack would come up with a term like “quasi-government” when Ianto could clearly feel the man’s hands were clammy, or was that Ianto’s own?
“So how did the two of you meet?” Aunt Morgan asked. She was being incredibly polite, which didn’t mean she accepted this, but it was a step.
“We actually work together,” Jack said with a smile.
“Jack’s my boss,” Ianto clarified, earning a few surprised looks.
“Aren’t there rules against that?” came the voice from the corner
Jack grinned. “You must be Ianto’s Aunt Gladys,” he said. “He’s told me so much about you.”
Ianto had nothing else to do while they were stuck in the traffic jam but to get Jack up to date on his family, and apparently his description of the frigid woman had been accurate enough.
Looking at Jack, he could recognize the smile. It was so strange to think that just a faint change in Jack’s eyes and the quirk of his lips could change a smile to a grin to a leer or to what it was now. It was a falsely sweet smile he used to purposely tell the person he was talking to that he did not have a high opinion of them. Ianto wanted to chastise the man, but for what? For smiling at his aunt funny?
And it wasn’t as though she didn’t deserve it.
“But as for rules,” Jack said with a grin, “I’m the boss, and I make them, so nope, no rules against dating within the organization. I decided that the moment I took over.”
Ianto gave Jack’s hand a squeeze, just a reminder of reassurance. After all, Ianto knew exactly how Jack had been forced to take over Torchwood 3.
“How long have the two of you been together now?” Ianto’s mum asked.
“Off and on for, about a year now,” Ianto said, and then elaborated. “Jack was away for a few months visiting an old friend, and it was just easier to pick things up after he got back than try to stretch a new relationship thin for three months.”
Jack gave a sidelong look at Ianto, who only smiled. Of all the things Jack had done since they’d started whatever the hell this really was with them, Ianto didn’t begrudge that the captain went with the Doctor. He resented not being told, but considering he’d mutinied against him just days before, even the sting of that had faded.
“And as my friend told me, if you’re thinking about somewhere else more often than where you are, that’s where you should be,” Jack said.
Ianto couldn’t help it; he rolled his eyes. “You have to forgive him. He’s prone to being a bit corny, not to mention a sap.”
“Sappy and corny?” Jack asked, as though contemplating it. “It sounds like a disgusting children's breakfast cereal.”
That got a chuckle from Uncle Trevor, who had to point out that he was Royal Navy, retired, and very soon, Jack was comfortably finding a spot to stand nearby, exchanging war stories, so to speak, and Ianto was busy looking for Daffyd and Johnny, the only family members not in the room.
To avoid the pointed stares of his Aunt Gladys and the shock of his cousin Evan, he would have taken any excuse to get out of the room.
Ianto’s mum had already disappeared to the kitchen. The young man knew she wasn’t done with him, not by a long shot, but Christmas dinner was going to come first.
Nearing his mum’s office, he heard Daffyd’s voice. “Tad, can I get online and play Neopets?”
“Not now, Daffyd. I need to check something.”
“You still looking for that Torch-whatever the crazy guy was talking about?”
Ianto froze where he was, trying to regain his composure. So Ron had already gotten to his family before the monitoring devices were in place. Shit. He’d have to tell Jack.
For now, it was time for a little damage control, what Ianto did best in his capacity at Torchwood.
“Hey, Daffyd. I’d wondered where you were at.” He walked over and gave the blond boy a ruffle of his hair.
“Uncle Ianto, can you get Tad to get off the computer?” Daffyd asked. “There’s no one here for me to play with and I wanted to get on Neopets before dinner.”
“We can’t rush your Tad if he’s doing something important,” Ianto said, looking over at Johnny expectantly.
“Well, since you’re here, I could just ask you, I suppose,” Johnny said, switching the internet browser from the search engine he’d been using to find information on Torchwood to the bright yellow screen of Daffyd’s game.
“Ask away,” Ianto said.
“Have you ever heard of something called Torchwood?” Johnny asked. “Don, you know, the man that lives across the street from us-”
“The crazy one,” Daffyd chimed in.
“He mentioned it. Said you were involved.”
Ianto chuckled. “At least now they’re including me in their theories,” he said with practiced ease.
“You know about this?” Jonny asked.
“Some conspiracy theory went out a couple of years ago, probably due to Jack. He doesn’t do subtlety and well, walking around in World War II dress gets you a bit of attention.” Ianto shrugged. “He’s eccentric, what can I say? But people who have been out looking for explanations to all of the weird things that happen in Cardiff have decided to blame Jack and some of my coworkers. Or at least claim they’re the people with the explanation.”
“Explanation for what?” Johnny asked, his voice nearly a whisper. He sounded so like the boy who was currently bidding on something online-Ianto seriously hoped not with real money-that it was uncanny.
“For aliens,” Ianto said conspiratorially. “There are people out there who think the Tourist office where I work is actually headquarters for an alien hunting organization. I usually flew under the radar, but it sounds like someone noticed that I run the office after all this time.”
“What does Jack think about it?” Johnny asked.
“He makes it all worse,” Ianto said. “Puts on a big show when he goes out, that greatcoat flapping behind him. He and the rest of the employees at work gather information on Cardiff, tourist-y stuff and otherwise. So whenever they do, he goes out walking around like a giant hero.”
Johnny chuckled. “I can imagine that.”
“So do you really work with aliens, Uncle Ianto?” Daffyd asked, his attention diverted from the screen and large eyes looking up at him as though, for once in Ianto’s life, he could almost be cool.
“Nope,” Ianto said. “Afraid not.”
He hated lying almost as much as he hated that it came so easily to do it to his family.
Trying to keep up with her mum while she was busy putting the finishing touches on the dinner was impossible, so Rhiannon made herself useful and checked on the turkey.
“It’s almost done, Mum,” she said as she shut the oven door. “Could use a minute or two more to get a golden color.”
Merideth grinned. “I’m grateful that Johnny’s managed to teach you a little about cooking,” she said. “Heaven knows I failed at it.”
“I’ll never be a chef, but common sense would say, leave a turkey in a three-hundred-odd degree oven for a certain amount of time, it’s going to brown,” Rhiannon said, tossing the towel she’d used to handle the roasting pan at her mother. Her mum tossed it back, hitting her square in the face.
“You know, Mum, you took things surprisingly well with Ianto and Jack.”
“How else would I take it?” her mother asked, looking surprised at the suggestion she might have been anything but pleased.
“I thought you’d have tossed me out the door,” Ianto said as he came into the kitchen. When had he gotten so quiet? Rhiannon didn’t remember a time when her brother hadn’t been a loud, clamoring little boy that sought and got attention at every turn. Now, she hadn’t even noticed as he was coming into the kitchen.
She watched as he rolled up the sleeves on his shirt and went over to the sink, looking to get ready to start on the dishes that were slowly accumulating in the sink.
“I would never toss you out,” their mum said. “If you think I didn’t have some inclination you might be interested in men, then you didn’t pay attention to why I asked you about ABBA.”
Ianto looked somewhere between mortified and surprised as Rhiannon couldn’t help but show her confusion.
“When I was in University, the girls used it as a way to test if the blokes were gay,” her mother explained, making Rhiannon let out a bark of laughter. “If a young man could give you an answer other than no, the girls assumed they were homosexual. It wasn’t foolproof, but indicated the truth more often than not.”
“What was your answer?” Rhiannon asked.
“His answer was practically an essay on the finer points of ABBA’s music, dissecting each song, if I remember correctly.”
Ianto looked nearly as red as some of the Christmas decorations. It only fueled Rhiannon’s amusement. “I’m not gay,” he added rather pathetically.
“No,” their mum said matter-of-factly, “you were far too enamored in your Lisa to be entirely interested in men.” She gave Ianto a gentle rub on his back, a small gesture of sympathy for the loss that the young man had suffered. “But as I said, the ABBA test proved truth more often than not.”
Ianto reached his wet hand up and flicked a bit of the water droplets onto the matriarch of the family. “I could only begin to guess what Jack’s answer might be. He could tell you he’s not heard of them, saying he prefers big band music-which he also says when he doesn’t want to hurt someone’s feelings about a particular band-or begin breaking out into song. And everything in between.”
Their mum grinned as she went to take a few smaller dishes to the dining room. “I like him already,” she said as she walked out.
“How did you and Jack end up going from coworkers to dating?” Rhiannon asked, figuring it was fair game now.
Ianto stopped a moment, and something very dark passed across his face for a moment, but just like that, it was gone. “I needed a job desperately after the bombing because Lisa needed so much, more than even the insurance and recompense checks could cover. And I knew that Jack’s end of the tourism business paid well, even just manning the counter at the office. So I courted him with coffee, offered to be his butler and even his guard dog if it would get me a job.”
Ianto chuckled at some memory, one that seemed very “private joke,” before continuing. “There was tension from the start, flirting, all of it. I figured I’d play along as long as it kept my job. The problem was, I forgot when I was playing and when I wasn’t. We came so close on so many occasions to kissing. And then… Then Lisa died, and I was furious at Jack and myself for what had gone on. He was mad at me for not telling him.
“But things started to get better. Jack and I talked more. We spent a lot of time together because we both ended up putting long hours in at the office, and we got back to where we were before, but better.”
Rhiannon went over to her brother and gave him a hug, just because she felt like he needed it. Also, because she really had missed when he’d just open up to her like now. She missed the time when he didn’t keep his feelings under lock and key, away from where anyone could see them. She let him go to once again check the turkey.
Ianto looked over his shoulder. “Where’d mum go? It can’t have taken her this long to set out two dishes.”
“I don’t know,” his sister said, “but could you help me get the turkey out? I think it’s ready.”
“I somehow get the feeling I’m being cornered,” the captain said as Merideth stood fussing over a table she knew already looked perfect. “You wanted to talk to me alone then?”
“You could say that,” she said. “You seem to make my son very happy, and I like seeing that. There was a time when my opinions on relationships like yours were formed by my parents’ negative opinion of them, but no longer.”
“And?” the man said, his American accent giving the single syllable an unusual lilt.
“And I want you to promise me something,” she said.
“I make no promises before I hear what they are. They can get you in too much trouble if they’re impossible to fulfill.”
Merideth looked up at the captain, her features stern as she looked at the taller man. “My son has a brilliant mind. If we hadn’t lost my Daffyd during Ianto’s first year at University, I don’t have a doubt that he would made it through without difficulty. He still could go back, or he could do well doing something other than manning the counter at a tourist office. You are his boss, and you are in a relationship with him. That gives you power over him in a way that doesn’t sit well with me.”
Jack looked at her in surprise. Just as the woman had thought, this was a man accustomed to his charm working on everyone, but when it came to her family, no amount of charm would work to keep her from protecting them.
“My son can do better than the job he has,” Merideth said. “And as long as he is happy, I am not going to push the issue, but he could easily be a barrister or work with computers, or anything but dealing with clueless tourists all day. When he comes to realize that, I don’t want you as his boss or as his boyfriend stopping him.”
“Mrs. Jones,” Jack said, “I realize the mind your son has. I do. If he asked me to leave, I would be upset, but I wouldn’t stop him. Even if I tried, it wouldn’t stop him.”
Merideth got the feeling that there was more here, that maybe even the captain was lying to her. However, a throat being cleared from the doorway interrupted her thoughts. She turned to find the very topic of their discussion.
“We got the turkey out of the oven. Rhiannon thinks it looks ready. We were growing concerned that you might been swallowed by something on your trip to the dining room.”
“I’m going to put a damned bell on you, Ianto,” Merideth said. “You’re too quiet for your own good.”
“I’ve said the same thing,” Jack said, looking earnestly at Ianto, who gave a shrug. Merideth felt as though the two men were having a discussion that she couldn’t hear.
“Mum, I really am happy where I work,” Ianto said. “And I don’t just man a tourist counter, so will you please stop this?”
“You worry me Ianto, luv,” Merideth said. “I’m your mother and I will always worry.” She walked over to him and placed her hand on his arm. She couldn’t help but notice as she did that this was not the little boy who’d been all gangly limbs and thin frame growing up. Though it did little more than twitch under her touch, she could feel the muscles beneath. To look at him without the cover of the suits, it was obvious he had filled out in other ways, looking more grown up than she’d ever thought she’d see him look.
“I know, Mum, but for once, I’ve gotten myself settled.” He kissed her forehead-the blasted boy had outgrown her years ago. “Now, go help Rhiannon before she somehow manages to ruin the turkey. I’ll be right out.”
Jack rubbed the back of his neck. “Are you certain your mother wasn’t an interrogator for the police or something like that?”
Ianto chuckled and shook his head. “Worse. She is a dentist.”
“So a torture artist then,” he said with a chuckle, but then he looked at Ianto questioningly.
“They’re white, they’re clean, I don’t have any problem with my jaw, and I didn’t want braces as a kid,” Ianto said. “Not to mention it wasn’t quite the rage it is now thanks to all of the American imports and humor.” He pointed his finger at Jack. “Not a word, got it? We don’t all need to look like Stepford Wives like some people.”
Jack, true to his mature self, pretended to make an attempt to bite Ianto’s finger. Ianto retracted the digit and turned serious. “We have a problem though,” he said quietly.
“What with?” Jack asked. There could be a laundry list of things that would qualify as “problems.”
“Ron got to my family anyway. Started asking about Torchwood.”
“What did you tell them?” Jack asked.
“I told Johnny that we were aware of all the rumors. Then I told him what Torchwood does, because what could sound more ridiculous than what we already do?” he asked.
Ianto had a point there. “Well, we’ll work on damage control.”
“We?” Ianto asked, looking doubtful.
“I made the mistake of losing track of where your family was and where Ron was, so yes, I’m going to help too.”
“So is that all it takes to get you to help with damage control? Admit it was your mistake?” Ianto asked with a grin as he headed out of the room and walked quickly down the hall with Jack chasing him.
“No running in the house!” Ianto’s mum yelled.
“Sorry, Mum,” Ianto said, though he’d actually obeyed the rule.
“Sorry, Mrs. Jones,” Jack replied, doing his best to look sheepish as he quickly wrapped his arms around Ianto and evoked a surprised sound from the younger man. Jack did his best to let his thoughts of Ron and Ianto’s family go to the back of his mind. He was getting as close to normal as Jack ever got, and he was determined to enjoy it. He only hoped Ianto would as well. The Welshman had been through a lot, and Jack couldn’t quite offer normal like Lisa could have or others still could.
Still, things on the Rift front were relatively quiet in Cardiff, and that was always good news. Jack had already gotten a report there had been the annual Christmas attack on London, but this year, it seemed to be dismissed as hoax as soon as it appeared.
“Stop the Mrs. Jones stuff,” Ianto’s mum said. “You’re not that much younger than me.” Ianto let out a quiet snort that earned him a slight pinch in the side from Jack. “Having you call me Mrs. Jones makes me feel like an old woman. Merideth, please. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll need you to take your hands off my son for a moment. I need him to cut the turkey.”
There was the slightest hesitation from Ianto at that, but Jack’s hands slipped from his frame all the same. The captain started off smirking until he realized the hesitation had nothing to do with him pulling away.
“Mum, are you sure?”
“Get over here. About time you took this over.” She held out a rather vicious-looking knife to Ianto, who almost delicately wrapped his hand around it.
Jack stepped out of the doorway, near Rhiannon who leaned over to whisper, “Our tad used to do this. Mum and I have both done it, but never Ianto.”
Jack could only interpret that carving the turkey meant something more to the family. But Ianto did the act with such reverence, Jack just couldn’t begin to make a joke at his lover’s expense.
The entire time they’d been there, Jack had gotten the impression that the relationship that Ianto had with his family had become even more strained that Ianto had let on in the car. Jack had first suspected when Ianto introduced him to his Uncle Trevor, and after talking to the man, first of their military experiences-Jack’s updated from World War II stories to Gulf War, Nazis transformed to Iraqis-and then of Ianto. To see Ianto now, it was hard to imagine the hell-raiser that Trevor had described, a boy who hadn’t known what to do with his life and who had a way of making his family worry about and be angry with him.
Losing a parent can make a child, no matter the age, a rebel. Even worse if guilt was involved. Ianto’s father had apparently been working longer hours to help pay for some of his son’s costs at University. He was coming home after a very long night when his car was hit by a drunk driver’s. It didn’t take a genius to know Ianto blamed himself. He was good at that.
But now, there seemed to be a weight lifted off of the young man’s shoulders. One Jack hadn’t even realized was there until it was gone. He watched the Welshman carefully cutting the turkey, ignoring his mother’s slightly hovering way of telling him how to do it properly, and Jack smiled.
“It’s hard to believe how much older Ianto seems,” Rhiannon said, quietly.
Funny, Jack was thinking just the opposite.