Year of the Cat - Chapter 11
Title: Year of the Cat - Chapter 11
Characters: Jack/Ianto, Gwen, Martha, other canon, some OC
Rating: say M for language and later situations
Spoilers: includes info up to end of season 2.
Disclaimer: Don't own - but wish I did...
Author's Note: And now it's time for the usual Sunday posting. Now that this is all fixed up, we should be doing good. Oh, to warn you, a certain character within has been hi-jaking people's brains. So be careful.
Thanks to candybree , and mrsalemp - who, despite our conversations sometimes sounding like 'choose your own adventures' (thanks for giving me those words, Patelyne!) still continue to help me and push me forward! Oh! I forgot to mention that this chapter may have a spoiler as to the origin of 'Puff the Magic Dragon' - if you want to believe me, that is...
Jack was almost back to the part of town where he had left Martha and Gwen when his comm chirped. “Yeah?”
Gwen was so angry that Jack had to listen hard to make out what she was saying. “We're back at the Hub, no thanks to you, Jack Harkness!”
“Calm down, Gwen,” Jack soothed over the connection.
“Don't you tell me to calm down! Ianto better be damn near dead the way you tore out of here and left us like that...”
Jack sighed heavily, not caring if Gwen heard it or not. From the noise he heard her make next, however, he supposed that she had. “He's fine. I'm on my way in and I'll tell you all about it.” Before she could answer, he terminated the connection.
**--**--**
“Are they okay?” Martha all but tackled Jack before he could even make it through the cog door.
Jack smiled at her concern. “They're fine.” He dropped his coat on an empty desk and went to look at the screen Gwen had in front of her. “What's all this?”
“This,” Gwen snapped, “is the instructions to that little machine I found.”
“Wow. Back down, Gwen,” Jack held his hands up in surrender. “I had to go and check on Ianto and Henry. It wasn't anything serious, but it could have been.”
“What about us, Jack? What if this thing had been dangerous? What then?” She stood and placed her hands on her hips, backing him up as she talked.
“Jack would never let us get hurt - I don't think he'd be able to live with himself,” Martha stepped in. “He knew what that little machine could do. In fact, it seems he wrote the manual you are now reading.”
Gwen was taken aback by what Martha told her. She hadn't looked at the author until now. “Sorry, Jack, I just...”
“It's been rough for all of us, Gwen,” Jack moved to put his arms around her. “Now, have you found out if it still works or not? Or, more importantly, are there any genetic signatures left stored in it?” He moved over to where Martha stood holding the device.
“Genetic signatures?” Martha looked at the metal. “There doesn't seem to be any kind of storage unit on here that is capable of that.”
Jack took it from her carefully and pressed the small button, holding it down for the count of eleven before handing it back to Martha, who watched as a small chip popped out. “Oh, is that so?” The side of his mouth crooked up in question.
“This is going to make things a bit easier.” Martha remarked, smiling back at him.
“Okay, now that we have those, maybe we can figure out what is going on around here.” Jack walked toward his office, but was stopped by Gwen.
“Jack, I just got another text from Andy. He says an 'Emma Rhosin' has gone missing. Do you want me to do a check?” She bit her lip.
Jack smiled back at her. “Yeah, get right on that. Good thinking. If either of you need me, I'll be in my office, finishing up paperwork.” The women couldn't be sure, but they thought they may have seen him shiver.
**--**--**
“Martha,” Gwen called the doctor over. “I found something in those fingerprints you got from the machine.”
“You did?” Martha looked up from the files she was reading. “I thought it would take longer.”
“Well, it seems, for some reason that the fingerprints are on file in the national database.” She tapped the screen with a shrug. “They are coming up with the names Roderick Delany and Johnson Pruitt.”
Martha scribbled the names down. “And the other two sets?”
Gwen shook her head. “Nothing yet, but I'll keep looking.” She sighed and looked at her watch. If they were going to be there much later, she would have to call Rhys.
As if Jack had heard her, he called out from the door of his office. “It's quitting time!”
Martha and Gwen looked up from their desks and smiled gratefully. Jack didn't have to tell them twice - he barely heard them saying goodbye as they fled out the cog door.
Left alone, he knew he had to get home, no matter what was waiting for him there. He supposed he should have called Ianto to see how everything had worked out, but he was afraid of what the other man would say, so he had decided if Ianto had needed anything, he would have let Jack know. With that knowledge, he climbed in the SUV and drove home, noticing that it was starting to rain. He hoped that the door wasn't as bad as it had looked when he left.
**--**--**
Jack came home to find that the door was decidedly off the hinges for the foreseeable future and the living room was back to looking normal. He followed his nose into the kitchen and found dinner waiting for him in the oven, still warm. Jack picked up a piece of fish and nibbled, taking a handful of the chips as well. He munched for a bit, leaning against the counter before he went to look for Ianto.
“There are fish and chips in the oven staying warm,” Ianto called from the bathroom, where Jack could hear the sound of splashing. “I'll be out in a moment.”
Jack looked back at the door before walking down the hall to talk to Ianto. “What are we going to do about the door?” He pointed with a half-eaten chip in the direction of the item in question.
“Well, I called about having it fixed - which, by the way, the neighbors are all talking about. Did you have to kick it in?” Ianto lifted the boy from the tub as he pulled the plug. “I see you found dinner.”
Jack smiled and popped the last bit of chip on his mouth, watching as Ianto hefted the toddler from the water.
Henry was shaking his head like a dog, splattering water all over as he laughed. Ianto almost lost a grip on him twice before being able to stand him on the toilet to dry him. All the while, the boy went between beaming first at one man, then the other.
“What does that mean?” Jack pointed to the hand gestures the boy was now making. Henry's fingers were splayed and pointed downward, much like a pianist about to start a concert.
Ianto sighed as he toweled the boy's hair and wrapped him up. “It's a helicopter.”
Jack followed them into the bedroom, where Ianto fought to put a diaper on the boy. “And that?” All of the boy's fingers were extended, but squished together.
Ianto pulled the tab off the first diaper trying to get it tight and growled. Getting another, he glared at Jack. “It's a mouse.” He reached for the powder and Henry accidentally kicked Ianto in the chin. “Henry! Quit moving!” The boy stilled. “Thank you.”
Once the boy was dressed in pajamas, Ianto handed him over to Jack. “Here. You do it. You do something fabulously 51st century to get him to go to sleep. I am going to go and have my dinner.” He left before Jack could stop him.
“Well, what now, kid?” Jack took off his coat and sat on the bed as Henry bounced beside him. “What did your mum and dad do to get you to sleep?”
Henry stopped bouncing for a moment, but didn't look as though he quite understood what Jack had asked him. “Toe?”
“No, kid, Ianto is done for today. You wore him out.” Jack pulled the boy onto his lap and was relieved when the child didn't fight him too much. “It's my turn for a bit.” He watched as blue eyes looked worried. “How about this - I can tell you the story of the plane with the broken wing.” Henry's eyes grew wide. “Now, then, wait right here and I will be right back, okay?” Jack stood, glancing back every now and then to check that the boy was doing as he had asked him to do. Satisfied that Henry was going to wait for him, Jack went to the wardrobe and pulled out a wooden box. He smiled as he brought it back to the bed.
“Now,” Jack opened the box and brought out a small wooden airplane that, indeed, had a broken wing. “This is the story of the plane with the broken wing. Are you ready?” The little boy nodded his head, and climbed into Jack's lap, pushing the box out of his way. Jack chuckled before continuing. “Now, Henry, this is a very special plane. He's seen things that other planes have not.” The boy was reaching for the toy and Jack gave it to him. Henry turned the little red wheels and the yellow propeller as he listened to Jack's voice, small ear to Jack's chest.
“This little plane didn't always have a broken wing. He got it while he was fighting - which is bad, so don't do it. Well, it's only bad if you are doing it without reason. I mean, if you're fighting to help someone or something you love, then, generally, it's okay. But going off and hurting someone for no reason - that's wrong.” He looked down at the boy and saw he was still playing with the plane. “Oh, I am really bad at stories, Henry. I'll just tell you how I really got that, okay?” Again, the boy nodded.
“I'm not really from this time, kid. I come from far in the future, a place you'll - sadly - never get to see. And I used to travel in time with a man named the Doctor. That is, until something happened and made it so that I can't die and stay dead. But that's another story. This one is about one of the many wars I fought in. But wars are bad - remember that. There was devastation everywhere, and, yet, out of all that pain and suffering, children still managed to see me as a hero. One of the boys gave me that to remind me.” Jack let out a snort. “Like I was going to forget one of the faces that made me realize that it was all worth it.” He looked down and saw that Henry was starting to doze off, the plane still clutched tightly in his hand.
“See? Told you I was bad at this.” He began to rock and hum a song he had not sung in a long time. “Puff the Magic Dragon lived by the sea, and frolicked in the Autumn mist in a land called Honna-lee. Little Jackie Paper loved that rascal Puff ...” Jack let the words drop off as the boy began to go limp and hummed until he was sure the boy was good and asleep before putting him in the playpen and going out to talk to Ianto about his day.
“He asleep?” Ianto asked, looking up from what he was writing.
Jack, nodded, flopping at the opposite end of the couch. “Wasn't that bad.”
“Of course not, you didn't have to clean up the pancake mix and syrup mess that was coating a good part of the room - by the way, I billed the cleaning crew bill to Torchwood.” He smiled a smug smile at Jack, daring him to refuse the request.
Jack tried to look sorry. “Ouch. Was that what he was coated in?”
Ianto closed his eyes as he shut the book he had been writing in. “Yes. I really don't want to think about it anymore.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Any progress?”
Jack leaned back and encouraged Ianto to stretch his legs out on him. “Gwen found a device that might prove to be very important. She and Martha were working on it when I sent them home.”
“Good to know.” Ianto sounded like he didn't care to hear about Torchwood at all, and he changed the subject. “What was that you were singing?”
“In the bedroom? It was a Boeshanian lullaby. I used to sing it to the girls.”
“Oh, I couldn't quite hear it and it sounded a bit familiar.”
Jack began to tell the story, “It's about a dragon named Puff and a little boy named...”
“Jackie Paper,” Ianto finished.
Jack was startled by the way he could finish the story. “How did you know?”
Ianto shrugged. “Mam sang it to me.”
“Funny,” Jack mused.
“What?” Ianto didn't like the tone of his voice.
“Nothing - just can't picture Glenda humming that...”
“And why not?”
“Uh, Ianto, there are some things that you don't know about her...”
“If you tell me that you slept with her, I'm going to give you a fat lip!” Ianto was giving Jack a warning look.
Jack chose his next words carefully. “No, no, no - never!”
Ianto fell back on the couch. “Thank God.”
Unable to stop himself, Jack added, “Not that I didn't try...”
“I really hate you right now, Harkness,” Ianto murmured, attempting to lift his arm before letting it fall to the couch.
“But, I love you, Yan,” Jack tried to arrange him so that he could sit beside him. Ianto tried to push him away, but found it was useless. He gave up and let Jack sit as close as he wanted to, knowing he was going to get his way anyway.
“Leonard Lipton,” Jack said after a long while.
Ianto opened an eye to glare at Jack. “Pardon me?”
“That was his name.” Jack patted Ianto's leg, making him jump a bit.
He swiveled his head and opened both eyes to Jack. “Who?”
“The guy I met in a bar in New York - I was going by the name of Lenny Edelstein then - good old Lenny...” Jack was lost in a memory.
“What are you even saying?” Ianto's voice sounded heavy and he was getting harder for Jack to understand.
Jack laughed to himself. “I was so drunk I was reciting Ogden Nash - 'Custard the Dragon had big. Sharp. Teeth...”
Ianto was sleep-confused. “What?'
“The poem, Ianto,” Jack came back to the present time. “Custard the Dragon was the poem.” When he didn't see any recognition of the poem on Ianto's face, he continued. “Anyway, Lenny and I talked about a lot - Ogden Nash, where I was from-”
Ianto was more awake now. “You told him?” He felt hurt.
“I told you I was drunk-” he smiled weakly.
“Jack!” The way Ianto said it, it meant 'That's no excuse, you complete idiot.'
“Anyway. Turns out he wrote that song with the help of Pete Yarrow.”
“Right - it was a song by Peter, Paul, and Mary.” Ianto remembered the discussion he had had with a friend about it being a drug song.
“Yeah, I know. Pete was my roommate.”
“Wait.” Ianto sat up again. “Are you telling me that you are the reason 'Puff the Magic Dragon' was written?”
“Wouldn't be the first song I inspired...” He blew on his nails and buffed them on his shirt in fun.
Ianto sighed. “Was one of the others 'Hit the Road, Jack', by any chance?”
“That stings, Ianto Jones.” Jack pouted at the other end of the couch.
“That's it. I've had enough. I'm tired. No more of today.” Ianto moved to collapse against Jack.
A smile played on Jack's lips as he cradled Ianto until he fell asleep, only to be woken up minutes later by Henry crying.
“I'll do this, go ahead back in there - you have to get up early,” Ianto rubbed his face and stood.
“No, you go to bed,” Jack said when Ianto made his way down the hall, Jack following him. “I'll bring him out here with me.”
“What about not having a door?” Ianto fell into bed as Jack bent to pick up the whimpering toddler.
“I'll put it on. Just won't swing. No big deal.” Jack used his free hand to cover Ianto before taking Henry back into the living room and setting him on the couch so he could prop the door up and move a few kitchen chairs to hold it in place.
Going back to the couch, he swept up the boy and noticed he still had the plane in his hand. “Hey, you like that?” Henry just looked back at him. “Right. Maybe we should just try to get some sleep.” Jack took off his watch and wrist strap so that he wouldn't scratch the boy as they settled into the couch.
Characters: Jack/Ianto, Gwen, Martha, other canon, some OC
Rating: say M for language and later situations
Spoilers: includes info up to end of season 2.
Disclaimer: Don't own - but wish I did...
Author's Note: And now it's time for the usual Sunday posting. Now that this is all fixed up, we should be doing good. Oh, to warn you, a certain character within has been hi-jaking people's brains. So be careful.
Thanks to candybree , and mrsalemp - who, despite our conversations sometimes sounding like 'choose your own adventures' (thanks for giving me those words, Patelyne!) still continue to help me and push me forward! Oh! I forgot to mention that this chapter may have a spoiler as to the origin of 'Puff the Magic Dragon' - if you want to believe me, that is...
Jack was almost back to the part of town where he had left Martha and Gwen when his comm chirped. “Yeah?”
Gwen was so angry that Jack had to listen hard to make out what she was saying. “We're back at the Hub, no thanks to you, Jack Harkness!”
“Calm down, Gwen,” Jack soothed over the connection.
“Don't you tell me to calm down! Ianto better be damn near dead the way you tore out of here and left us like that...”
Jack sighed heavily, not caring if Gwen heard it or not. From the noise he heard her make next, however, he supposed that she had. “He's fine. I'm on my way in and I'll tell you all about it.” Before she could answer, he terminated the connection.
**--**--**
“Are they okay?” Martha all but tackled Jack before he could even make it through the cog door.
Jack smiled at her concern. “They're fine.” He dropped his coat on an empty desk and went to look at the screen Gwen had in front of her. “What's all this?”
“This,” Gwen snapped, “is the instructions to that little machine I found.”
“Wow. Back down, Gwen,” Jack held his hands up in surrender. “I had to go and check on Ianto and Henry. It wasn't anything serious, but it could have been.”
“What about us, Jack? What if this thing had been dangerous? What then?” She stood and placed her hands on her hips, backing him up as she talked.
“Jack would never let us get hurt - I don't think he'd be able to live with himself,” Martha stepped in. “He knew what that little machine could do. In fact, it seems he wrote the manual you are now reading.”
Gwen was taken aback by what Martha told her. She hadn't looked at the author until now. “Sorry, Jack, I just...”
“It's been rough for all of us, Gwen,” Jack moved to put his arms around her. “Now, have you found out if it still works or not? Or, more importantly, are there any genetic signatures left stored in it?” He moved over to where Martha stood holding the device.
“Genetic signatures?” Martha looked at the metal. “There doesn't seem to be any kind of storage unit on here that is capable of that.”
Jack took it from her carefully and pressed the small button, holding it down for the count of eleven before handing it back to Martha, who watched as a small chip popped out. “Oh, is that so?” The side of his mouth crooked up in question.
“This is going to make things a bit easier.” Martha remarked, smiling back at him.
“Okay, now that we have those, maybe we can figure out what is going on around here.” Jack walked toward his office, but was stopped by Gwen.
“Jack, I just got another text from Andy. He says an 'Emma Rhosin' has gone missing. Do you want me to do a check?” She bit her lip.
Jack smiled back at her. “Yeah, get right on that. Good thinking. If either of you need me, I'll be in my office, finishing up paperwork.” The women couldn't be sure, but they thought they may have seen him shiver.
**--**--**
“Martha,” Gwen called the doctor over. “I found something in those fingerprints you got from the machine.”
“You did?” Martha looked up from the files she was reading. “I thought it would take longer.”
“Well, it seems, for some reason that the fingerprints are on file in the national database.” She tapped the screen with a shrug. “They are coming up with the names Roderick Delany and Johnson Pruitt.”
Martha scribbled the names down. “And the other two sets?”
Gwen shook her head. “Nothing yet, but I'll keep looking.” She sighed and looked at her watch. If they were going to be there much later, she would have to call Rhys.
As if Jack had heard her, he called out from the door of his office. “It's quitting time!”
Martha and Gwen looked up from their desks and smiled gratefully. Jack didn't have to tell them twice - he barely heard them saying goodbye as they fled out the cog door.
Left alone, he knew he had to get home, no matter what was waiting for him there. He supposed he should have called Ianto to see how everything had worked out, but he was afraid of what the other man would say, so he had decided if Ianto had needed anything, he would have let Jack know. With that knowledge, he climbed in the SUV and drove home, noticing that it was starting to rain. He hoped that the door wasn't as bad as it had looked when he left.
**--**--**
Jack came home to find that the door was decidedly off the hinges for the foreseeable future and the living room was back to looking normal. He followed his nose into the kitchen and found dinner waiting for him in the oven, still warm. Jack picked up a piece of fish and nibbled, taking a handful of the chips as well. He munched for a bit, leaning against the counter before he went to look for Ianto.
“There are fish and chips in the oven staying warm,” Ianto called from the bathroom, where Jack could hear the sound of splashing. “I'll be out in a moment.”
Jack looked back at the door before walking down the hall to talk to Ianto. “What are we going to do about the door?” He pointed with a half-eaten chip in the direction of the item in question.
“Well, I called about having it fixed - which, by the way, the neighbors are all talking about. Did you have to kick it in?” Ianto lifted the boy from the tub as he pulled the plug. “I see you found dinner.”
Jack smiled and popped the last bit of chip on his mouth, watching as Ianto hefted the toddler from the water.
Henry was shaking his head like a dog, splattering water all over as he laughed. Ianto almost lost a grip on him twice before being able to stand him on the toilet to dry him. All the while, the boy went between beaming first at one man, then the other.
“What does that mean?” Jack pointed to the hand gestures the boy was now making. Henry's fingers were splayed and pointed downward, much like a pianist about to start a concert.
Ianto sighed as he toweled the boy's hair and wrapped him up. “It's a helicopter.”
Jack followed them into the bedroom, where Ianto fought to put a diaper on the boy. “And that?” All of the boy's fingers were extended, but squished together.
Ianto pulled the tab off the first diaper trying to get it tight and growled. Getting another, he glared at Jack. “It's a mouse.” He reached for the powder and Henry accidentally kicked Ianto in the chin. “Henry! Quit moving!” The boy stilled. “Thank you.”
Once the boy was dressed in pajamas, Ianto handed him over to Jack. “Here. You do it. You do something fabulously 51st century to get him to go to sleep. I am going to go and have my dinner.” He left before Jack could stop him.
“Well, what now, kid?” Jack took off his coat and sat on the bed as Henry bounced beside him. “What did your mum and dad do to get you to sleep?”
Henry stopped bouncing for a moment, but didn't look as though he quite understood what Jack had asked him. “Toe?”
“No, kid, Ianto is done for today. You wore him out.” Jack pulled the boy onto his lap and was relieved when the child didn't fight him too much. “It's my turn for a bit.” He watched as blue eyes looked worried. “How about this - I can tell you the story of the plane with the broken wing.” Henry's eyes grew wide. “Now, then, wait right here and I will be right back, okay?” Jack stood, glancing back every now and then to check that the boy was doing as he had asked him to do. Satisfied that Henry was going to wait for him, Jack went to the wardrobe and pulled out a wooden box. He smiled as he brought it back to the bed.
“Now,” Jack opened the box and brought out a small wooden airplane that, indeed, had a broken wing. “This is the story of the plane with the broken wing. Are you ready?” The little boy nodded his head, and climbed into Jack's lap, pushing the box out of his way. Jack chuckled before continuing. “Now, Henry, this is a very special plane. He's seen things that other planes have not.” The boy was reaching for the toy and Jack gave it to him. Henry turned the little red wheels and the yellow propeller as he listened to Jack's voice, small ear to Jack's chest.
“This little plane didn't always have a broken wing. He got it while he was fighting - which is bad, so don't do it. Well, it's only bad if you are doing it without reason. I mean, if you're fighting to help someone or something you love, then, generally, it's okay. But going off and hurting someone for no reason - that's wrong.” He looked down at the boy and saw he was still playing with the plane. “Oh, I am really bad at stories, Henry. I'll just tell you how I really got that, okay?” Again, the boy nodded.
“I'm not really from this time, kid. I come from far in the future, a place you'll - sadly - never get to see. And I used to travel in time with a man named the Doctor. That is, until something happened and made it so that I can't die and stay dead. But that's another story. This one is about one of the many wars I fought in. But wars are bad - remember that. There was devastation everywhere, and, yet, out of all that pain and suffering, children still managed to see me as a hero. One of the boys gave me that to remind me.” Jack let out a snort. “Like I was going to forget one of the faces that made me realize that it was all worth it.” He looked down and saw that Henry was starting to doze off, the plane still clutched tightly in his hand.
“See? Told you I was bad at this.” He began to rock and hum a song he had not sung in a long time. “Puff the Magic Dragon lived by the sea, and frolicked in the Autumn mist in a land called Honna-lee. Little Jackie Paper loved that rascal Puff ...” Jack let the words drop off as the boy began to go limp and hummed until he was sure the boy was good and asleep before putting him in the playpen and going out to talk to Ianto about his day.
“He asleep?” Ianto asked, looking up from what he was writing.
Jack, nodded, flopping at the opposite end of the couch. “Wasn't that bad.”
“Of course not, you didn't have to clean up the pancake mix and syrup mess that was coating a good part of the room - by the way, I billed the cleaning crew bill to Torchwood.” He smiled a smug smile at Jack, daring him to refuse the request.
Jack tried to look sorry. “Ouch. Was that what he was coated in?”
Ianto closed his eyes as he shut the book he had been writing in. “Yes. I really don't want to think about it anymore.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Any progress?”
Jack leaned back and encouraged Ianto to stretch his legs out on him. “Gwen found a device that might prove to be very important. She and Martha were working on it when I sent them home.”
“Good to know.” Ianto sounded like he didn't care to hear about Torchwood at all, and he changed the subject. “What was that you were singing?”
“In the bedroom? It was a Boeshanian lullaby. I used to sing it to the girls.”
“Oh, I couldn't quite hear it and it sounded a bit familiar.”
Jack began to tell the story, “It's about a dragon named Puff and a little boy named...”
“Jackie Paper,” Ianto finished.
Jack was startled by the way he could finish the story. “How did you know?”
Ianto shrugged. “Mam sang it to me.”
“Funny,” Jack mused.
“What?” Ianto didn't like the tone of his voice.
“Nothing - just can't picture Glenda humming that...”
“And why not?”
“Uh, Ianto, there are some things that you don't know about her...”
“If you tell me that you slept with her, I'm going to give you a fat lip!” Ianto was giving Jack a warning look.
Jack chose his next words carefully. “No, no, no - never!”
Ianto fell back on the couch. “Thank God.”
Unable to stop himself, Jack added, “Not that I didn't try...”
“I really hate you right now, Harkness,” Ianto murmured, attempting to lift his arm before letting it fall to the couch.
“But, I love you, Yan,” Jack tried to arrange him so that he could sit beside him. Ianto tried to push him away, but found it was useless. He gave up and let Jack sit as close as he wanted to, knowing he was going to get his way anyway.
“Leonard Lipton,” Jack said after a long while.
Ianto opened an eye to glare at Jack. “Pardon me?”
“That was his name.” Jack patted Ianto's leg, making him jump a bit.
He swiveled his head and opened both eyes to Jack. “Who?”
“The guy I met in a bar in New York - I was going by the name of Lenny Edelstein then - good old Lenny...” Jack was lost in a memory.
“What are you even saying?” Ianto's voice sounded heavy and he was getting harder for Jack to understand.
Jack laughed to himself. “I was so drunk I was reciting Ogden Nash - 'Custard the Dragon had big. Sharp. Teeth...”
Ianto was sleep-confused. “What?'
“The poem, Ianto,” Jack came back to the present time. “Custard the Dragon was the poem.” When he didn't see any recognition of the poem on Ianto's face, he continued. “Anyway, Lenny and I talked about a lot - Ogden Nash, where I was from-”
Ianto was more awake now. “You told him?” He felt hurt.
“I told you I was drunk-” he smiled weakly.
“Jack!” The way Ianto said it, it meant 'That's no excuse, you complete idiot.'
“Anyway. Turns out he wrote that song with the help of Pete Yarrow.”
“Right - it was a song by Peter, Paul, and Mary.” Ianto remembered the discussion he had had with a friend about it being a drug song.
“Yeah, I know. Pete was my roommate.”
“Wait.” Ianto sat up again. “Are you telling me that you are the reason 'Puff the Magic Dragon' was written?”
“Wouldn't be the first song I inspired...” He blew on his nails and buffed them on his shirt in fun.
Ianto sighed. “Was one of the others 'Hit the Road, Jack', by any chance?”
“That stings, Ianto Jones.” Jack pouted at the other end of the couch.
“That's it. I've had enough. I'm tired. No more of today.” Ianto moved to collapse against Jack.
A smile played on Jack's lips as he cradled Ianto until he fell asleep, only to be woken up minutes later by Henry crying.
“I'll do this, go ahead back in there - you have to get up early,” Ianto rubbed his face and stood.
“No, you go to bed,” Jack said when Ianto made his way down the hall, Jack following him. “I'll bring him out here with me.”
“What about not having a door?” Ianto fell into bed as Jack bent to pick up the whimpering toddler.
“I'll put it on. Just won't swing. No big deal.” Jack used his free hand to cover Ianto before taking Henry back into the living room and setting him on the couch so he could prop the door up and move a few kitchen chairs to hold it in place.
Going back to the couch, he swept up the boy and noticed he still had the plane in his hand. “Hey, you like that?” Henry just looked back at him. “Right. Maybe we should just try to get some sleep.” Jack took off his watch and wrist strap so that he wouldn't scratch the boy as they settled into the couch.