Just Like A Jones 24/30
TITLE: Just Like A Jones
Chapter: 24/30
Rating: NC-17 for series
Pairing/Characters: Jack/Ianto. Mica. David. Martha. Gwen/Rhys. Lois. Johnny/Rhiannon.
Synopsis: Mica may be a Davies, but sometimes she acts like a Jones. Set 13 years in the future. The world is a very different place, and Torchwood is a world that Jack doesn't want to know, but a promise made a long time ago brings him back to their door whether he likes it or not. Mica is in awe of a past she didn't know and a man she barely remembers, but her passion for his world takes her on a journey she never expected.
Spoilers: Aftermath of COE.
Disclaimer: Not mine, if it was this woul not need to be written.
A/N - I shall make you happy! jut watch me! happy fix.
Thanks. Thanks to everyone who has replied so far XD. As i have said before it was lack of feedbak that made me give up before, but the comment i got for ch8 made me so happy and confident and determined to keep going for this fandom. )
PART 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
Jack stood close to Ianto and fastened up the last button on his crisp new waistcoat. It was a perfect fit. Mica had hand-picked a black and white pinstripe suit with a shirt that was neither purple nor red and the tie was cranberry; even the white gold and opal cufflinks were perfect. The aftershave she had picked out was exactly the same that he used to wear and as Jack looked at him, almost dressed and clean shaven, his hair perfect again, it felt like he had him back. Only his tie was missing, and that would soon be fixed.
Jack straightened Ianto's waistcoat, running his fingers down the sides and picked a white thread off the black fabric. He drank the vision into his eyes and stored away with his other memories for the days where Ianto was gone again and smiled a little.
“I'm capable of dressing myself you know?” Ianto said. “I'm not that sick.”
“I know.” Jack pulled up Ianto's collar and picked the tie up from the bed and hung it around his neck. “I just wanted to help.” He circled Ianto and stood behind him, then looked at the reflection of them in the mirror as he wrapped his arms around him. “Plus, this way I get to touch you.”
“Pervert.”
“You know me so well.” Jack started to fasten Ianto's tie from behind; he could only ever do it from that angle. He looked him in the eye through the mirror and rested his head on his shoulder.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Ianto said.
“Like what?”
Ianto leaned into him and watched Jack's eyes through the mirror. “Like you're worried.”
“I'm not worried.” Jack lied. “I just wish that you could stay this way forever.”
“Young?” Ianto's face fell.
Jack shook his head. “No.” He kissed Ianto's jawline and held him tighter. “Safe.”
“Nobody is ever safe, especially in this world.”
“I know.” Jack sighed and changed the subject. “You look great.”
“It's the suit.”
“It is a very good suit, you look cute in it.” Jack smiled wickedly. “although, much cuter out of it I have to say.”
“Mica has impeccable taste.”
“She does.” Jack turned Ianto around and smoothed his tie, tucking it into his waistcoat. “She's a Jones through and through.”
“I wish I knew.” Ianto sighed. “She knows me so well and I don't know her at all.”
“You will.” Jack wrapped his arms around his waist and pulled him close. “It's going to be strange for you at first.”
“When she hugged me I didn't know what to do.”
“I sensed that. I actually thought, just for a minute, you weren't going to hug her back.”
“If I tell you something do you promise not laugh and/or accuse me of being sentimental.”
Jack smiled. “Okay.”
“I've never been a family person, Jack. They were just kind of there. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love Rhiannon and the kids - well, I suppose they're not kids any more - but I never felt that urge to be near them. But, when I was in there and she hugged me and you were there too I felt, just for a minute, like family was what I wanted.” He looked at Jack. “And I mean you just as much as I mean her, in some ways maybe more.”
Jack grinned and moved to kiss him, but Ianto pushed him away. “What?”
“Were you going to laugh?”
“No.” Jack chuckled at the thought. “Actually, I was going to kiss you.”
“Why?”
“Because I love you,” Jack said, “and I thought that kissing you would be a really good way to get out of having to say it.”
Ianto wrapped his arms around him and kissed him. “So, we get to share a proper sized bed tonight?” He ran his hands over the material of Jack's trousers and gave his arse a gentle squeeze. “It could be interesting.”
“I thought you said that it was all a bit too much.”
“I'm feeling better all the time.”
“I don't want you to rush yourself into anything,” Jack said, “I mean I know I an be pretty full-on sometimes, but we have all the time in the world for things like that.”
“Nobody has forever.”
“I do,” Jack said sadly, “Forever with you, then forever without you.”
Ianto moved closer kissed the words from his lips until they were almost forgotten.
~~~~~*~~~~~
Rhiannon wrapped the electrical cord around the hoover and put it away in the cupboard underneath the stairs. She had just slipped off her shoes, sat down on the sofa and put her feet up on the coffee table when the phone rang.
“Johnny!” She shouted. “Will you get the phone!”
She waited a moment, but he never materialised, so she sighed heavily, dragged herself up and picked up the phone.
“Hello?”
“Mam, it's Dave.”
Rhiannon sat down on the sofa again. “Does this mean that you're going to stay at the pub for tea?” she asked. “Because me and dad were thinking about getting an Indian in.”
“No. I'm not at the pub.”
“Wow. Miracles do happen.” she smiled. “And I didn't even see any pigs with wings fly past the window.”
“I'm with Mica.”
Rhiannon sat up suddenly and switched the phone to her other ear. “Well where is she?” she asked, her voice panicked. “Is she okay?”
“She's fine,” David said, “nothing wrong with her.”
“Where is she?” She stood up and picked her car keys up from the table.
“I can't tell you.”
“Why not?”
“She made me promise.”
“I'll promise your arse in a minute.”
David sighed. “Look, I've got to go. But I'll see you later.”
“Tell her to come home. Tell her I--” She spoke, but David was already gone. She sighed and hung up. “Love her.”
~~~~~*~~~~~
Jack walked out of the front door and shut it behind him. He thought it was time that Mica and Ianto took a little time to get acquainted, and had heard that the pub not too far away did a damn good hotpot. He wrapped his coat around him to fend off the wind and walked towards the road. He sensed something move as he passed the car and turned around to look in the window.
David was in the front, lying down over the driver and passenger seats hoping not to be seen. Jack opened the passenger side door and glared at him.
“David!”
“Oh hello Uncle Jack!” David looked up at him from his horizontal position. “Fancy seeing you here. Nice weather for--”
“For what?”
He searched for his words. All he needed was a plausible reason to be there. “A drive in the country?” The result was an epic fail.
“Less of the charm act. Out the car.”
David climbed out and shut the door behind him. “I can explain,” he said.
“I'm sure you can.” Jack sighed and slung his arm around his shoulder. “You an tell me all about it down at the pub. Fancy a pint?”
~~~~~*~~~~~
Mica poured out two cups of coffee and carried them through to the living room, then put them down on the table. She sat down opposite Ianto and blew the steam away from the top. They sat in silence for a moment, both fiddling with the handles on their ups idly. There was so much both wanted to say, so many questions, but neither could find a topic of conversation.
“So.” Ianto was the first to speak. “Thank you for the suit.”
“No problem. I thought that you might want some clothes.”
“Yes. I did. It' perfect. Just my style.”
“I thought it would be.” She smiled a little. “Jack was always point random suit out to me on the high-street. 'Ianto would like that' he would say or 'oh Ianto would burn that' or 'look, a cute suit!'.”
“Sounds like Jack.”
“Yeah.”
Silence fell between them again.
Ianto opened his mouth to speak then closed it again. He pursed his lips and the deep crease in his forehead etched a look of deep contemplation into his brow before he looked over the rim of his coffee cup. He opened his mouth to speak, this time with words firmly on the tip of his tongue, but Mica got there first.
“What does death feel like?” She asked suddenly. “I've always wondered. I mean Uncle Jack describes it, but he's only dead for a short period of time. But death, permanently I mean, what's it like?”
“I suppose it's different for everyone.”
“For you though. What was death like for you?” She locked her eyes onto his. “Did it hurt?”
“Not really. I mean, it kind of burned, then just faded away. Then I was gone, I think. That was it.”
“What about after?”
“After?”
“Yeah. When you were gone.”
“You mean is there a heaven?”
Mica shrugged. “I don't know.” She looked at him for a moment, looking suddenly hopeful. “Why? Is there?”
“No.” Ianto sighed. “Not for me.”
“So life just ends?”
“Not in the conventional sense.”
“What does that mean?”
Ianto opened his mouth to speak, then gave up when no words formed. “I don't know how to explain it really, not out loud.”
Mica stood up and picked up his diary from the table and a pen, then handed it to him “Write it then.”
“Now?”
“If you want to.” She sat beside him. “No pressure. You don't have to.”
Ianto picked up the pen and turned to a blank page, then stopped before the ink hit it. He put the pen down and turned to face her; she looked so young and her eyes were full of such hope.
Was she ready to know the truth?
Was a 18 year old girl ready to face the reality of life-after death?
Did she really want to know that there was everything and nothing all at once, that every day was lived in a world of lonely darkness that sent you slowly insane, with silence so loud it was was like a thousand voices screaming at you?
No.
She wasn't ready.
Ianto was never quite sure whether he believed in God or not; he had resigned to the fact that there probably wasn't a lovely old man sitting on a big golden throne in front of big pearly gates with a big white beard. But when he died he expected there to be something, anything; there was nothing. Darkness and loneliness forever. He was pretty sure that the dead lived forever; lonely immortality in the darkness.
“Maybe another time,” he said, “I don't really want to think about it just now.”
“Okay.” She shrugged. “Understandable I suppose.”
“You know, you look like your mother,” he said, “when she was young, before she had you and David.”
“I get that a lot. I'm nothing like her though, not personality wise.”
“I wouldn't know.” Ianto sighed. “I wish I could have seen you grow up.”
“I don't.”
“Why?”
“Had you not died then I wouldn't be who I am now. I wouldn't have had Jack and I would have never seen your diaries. I would have no focus in my life, nothing to inspire me.” She took his hand. “Uncle Ianto, I would have ended up like every other girl on the Cromwell. A chav with three kids to three different dads like all my old mates. I wouldn't have the life I have now.”
Ianto closed his eyes and squeezed them shut; he tried to block out the thought of her life. “Maybe that would be better.”
“Why?”
“Torchwood is dangerous. I don't want you to have anything to do with it.”
“Would you go back?” she asked.
“I don't know. I haven't thought about it.”
“Maybe you should.”
~~~~~*~~~~~
David took a drink from his pint and avoided Jack's hard glare.
“I asked you a question,” Jack said, “care to answer it?”
“Is it true?” David looked at him. “Uncle Ianto, is he alive?”
“Yes.”
“How?” She shook his head. “It's impossible.”
Jack sighed and took a drink. “Anything is possible.”
“But he was dead.”
“And now he's not.”
David was quiet for a while. “Why her?” he asked. “Why Mica?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why not me?” He looked down into the depths of his bubbly pint. “Am I not good enough?”
“It's not like that.”
“Ever sine you came here you've clung to Mica, like there was something that she had that I didn't.” He sighed. “Is it because she's more like him and I'm more like my dad? Because there's nothing wrong with my dad.”
“No.” Jack took a deep breath. “Mica has always been interested, always, you didn't seem to care as much so I left you alone. It doesn't mean that I love you any less than I love her.”
“But when it came to bringing him back you went to her, why didn't you come to me?”
“She didn't tell you?” Jack asked. “Did she?”
“I'm a bloke. I'm stronger than she is. I'm older. Why chose a girl to do a man's job?”
“I didn't choose her. She chose me.”
“What?”
“This was all her idea,” Jack said, “she's the genius behind this, not me.” He smiled. “She figured out al the details and she only used me because I had what she needed to make it happen. It's not because you weren't good enough.”
David fell silent again. “Can I see him?”
Jack nodded. “That can be arranged.” He picked up his coat. “Drink up.”
“Now?!”
“No time like the present.”
~~~~~*~~~~~
Jack opened the door and walked inside with David closely behind him. He looked at Ianto and Mica at the table; the slam of the door made them both look up from their conversation. He stood back, letting David step into the room in front of him.
“You have another guest,” Jack said.
Ianto looked over at them, then stood up. He didn't know the man, he had never seen him before in his life.
“Hello Uncle Ianto.” He smiled awkwardly. “Lookin' pretty sharp for a dead man.”
David looked a lot different to what Ianto had expected; he was a man now, almost as old as himself, with broad shoulders and a deep voice that was miles away from the nine year old he remembered. He walked towards him slowly and David stood still, frozen to the spot.
“David?”
As Ianto moved closer David backed away. “No.” He shook his head. “That's close enough for me. It's weird enough seeing you alive let alone anything else.”
Ianto sighed, inwardly relieved that he didn't have to partake in another awkward embrace. “That's fine.”
~~~~~*~~~~~
Gwen sat in her car, keeping a close eye on the house. Nobody had gone in or out in the last half an hour since Jack and Mica's brother. She kept debating whether or not to go and knock on the door; she decided against it. If Ianto was alive he had enough to deal with without her; she would give it another hour.
She heard her phone ringing in her Jacket pocket and answered it.
“Hello?”
“I can see you.” Jack's whispered voice filtered through the speaker. “You shouldn't be here.”
Gwen looked through her binoculars. She could see Jack peering out from behind the curtains. “What's going on Jack?”
“Half an hour,” he said, “I'll meet you on the hill where I said Goodbye. I'll explain everything.”
“Or how about I come in there and we all have a little chat?"
“Just be there.”
“We can talk this through,” she said, “you, me and him just like the old days.”
“Gwen, I want you to stay away.”
“Jack--”
“Half an hour.” Jack hung up and the curtain returned to its normal position.
Gwen Cooper turned on the ignition, spun the car around and drove away.
~~~~~*~~~~~
CHAPTER 25 HERE