Disclaimer: I do not own Torchwood or Doctor Who, no copyright infringement intended. If you still want to sue bring Ianto back to Jack first.
Warnings: Spoilers for almost nothing (just a very tiny bit for the Doctor's companions in: TW2-Reset, CoE-Day4 and TWdrama-The House of Dead, plus DWserial14-The Hand of Fear/DWseries2-School Reunion, DWseries1-The Parting of the Ways, DWseries2-Doomsday, DWseries3-Journey's End), I simply wanted to write some Christmas banter. Not beta-read and English's not my native language. Constructive criticism is appreciated and sorry in advance for any grammatical mess up.
Dr Who A/N: Set after "Water on Mars" and before "The End of Time". Yeah, the 50th anniversary gave me ideas about Ten (Eleven?) as much as doubts about numeric progressions.
Torchwood A/N: Set way in the future after CoE (and MD). More specifically, if you consider the T. Davies-fix it arch that I'm writing, it will be before the time frame of Eclipse on the Lost Lovers-Epilogue, but, really, it's just my way to make myself write a one-shot instead of a multi-chaptered fiction full. SOY giving me a limited number of words challenge did nothing but giving me a headache. The only thing you need to know is that I'm taking for granted that Ianto is alive again, immortal and back with Jack.
Take the foolish way
The Doctor looked at himself in the mirror, taking in his aged eyes, his distraught expression and the general aura of sadness that seemed to cling on him no matter how far he run away. Somehow, what he was escaping from kept stalking him until the end of the universe. Literally.
He knew his death was imminent, but searching for things that made him feel alive only managed to make him feel his own end nearer, as he faced people that actually gave themselves the chance to live or people that were facing their own personal tragedies. Tragedies too similar to his own.
He knew that his friends would die too soon for him to be ready and face it, he knew that some of them would forget him in the long way… He knew that some of them already did and not by choice.
He knew that he knew too much about past, present and future, that there were too many things he could not change. He knew that he didn't want to know, that he didn't want to remember what he couldn't amend, but even worse than that, he knew that he wasn't able to forget and, deep inside himself, he knew that it would have been extremely wrong and sad to just do so. It was someone else's nature, to him it simply didn't feel right.
He knew that he had caused pain, willingly or unwillingly, that he had changed people, for better or for worse, and that sometimes both situations could coexist in the same companion or in the same friend.
After all, he had given a life full of adventures to Sarah Jane, only to leave her to try and mingle back in a common routine she wasn't used to anymore. He had given a chance to prove herself to his Rose, only to strand her far away from him, in a world that wasn't even hers. He had given a bit of thrill to a young student, only to turn her into a soldier. He had shown to an average woman how important she could be, only to delete everything once and forever. He had made a hero out of a conman, only to condemn him to eternal pain, sacrifice and solitude.
He knew that in this exact moment, while he was looking at himself in the mirror, some miles in time and space away from his T.A.R.D.I.S., in London, that very same conman was losing the love of his life and that he could do nothing to prevent it. He knew that the boy had to die, so he could be brought back to life and die once again to close the rift that passed through Cardiff, in Wales. It was a fact so clear in his mind that for the life of him he couldn't find a single way to make it happen despite keeping the boy alive.
He saw no alternatives for his friends, for no one of them, but he knew that even though it was completely unfair he still had a few left for himself.
More specifically he had two choices now: to keep running away until his fate would eventually bring him on Earth for a heartfelt confrontation with what he had done to his friends, maybe even ending up giving them some farfetched last good token of his current self before the last goodbye, or do the most foolish thing his mind could come up to and find solace in a future in which he hoped he had been forgiven.
If he had to give up everything -and he still wasn't sure he really wanted to do it- he needed to at least know it was worth it, despite the rules on time and space.
Just this once, he wanted to take the foolish way and not simply to keep going forward without seeing the finishing line, letting himself fall into oblivion like those apes that liked bungee jumping, leaving Fate to decide what he would be up. Just this once he wanted reassurance, even though he knew that everything would be a small detour before he had enough courage to let himself fall again into the depth of space and time, leaving Destiny to lead him back to his desperate and unavoidable track.
Still this was a diversion he needed.
This would need to be a far future considering what he had done, so there was only one of his former companions that would do. He would need to be extremely idiotic and desperate to actually push the lever and ask the T.A.R.D.I.S. to help him find that little pocket in time that could give him the comfort he wanted.
So he did it.
Inside the T.A.R.D.I.S. the lights were flickering, alarms echoing and everything else trembling, so the Doctor gripped himself even tighter to the handle and prayed with all his might that the detour would be a nice one and not another tumble down into the darkness. The shakes kept going for less than a minute and then everything stopped all of sudden, throwing the Time Lord half through the cabin with a loud Tonf.
"Owww!" He cried, massaging his pained scalp as he tried to get back on his feet and glaring at the console. "We'll be soon having a couple of words about landing, girl. If I didn't know better this time it almost seemed on purpose!"
The Doctor could feel the aura of fake innocence coming out from the T.A.R.D.I.S., but he simply grimaced at her and let it go, too curious to see if, despite the harsh arrive, she had actually brought him right where he wanted to.
He opened the door and took a hopeful glance outside, but he had no time to take in the dark and slightly humid room he was in, that his wide shocked brown eyes stared into two even wider blue ones.
"This is one for the records." Jack stated puzzled.
"Everything considered, I would say one not for the records." Another male voice argued from behind the immortal man, a voice that sounded vaguely familiar to the Doctor even though at the moment he couldn't place it.
A voice with a deep Welsh accent.
Damn it.
"Jack" The Time Lord warned, preparing himself for a long scolding that was rudely interrupted by the Captain, who plainly shut his mouth with his hand.
"Stop. We already heard it and you will just end up saying the same things twice. Skip the rant and just be glad that Ianto's death didn't stick to him much."
The Doctor quirked an enquiring eyebrow at Jack, but the ex-conman simply answered with one of his best smiles and then gestured something to Ianto. The Welshman nodded back and, with an even wider smile than Jack's, he turned on his heels up to a narrow staircase.
"I'll go and add another seat to the table. While I'm at that, I'll fetch some retcon."
"Sorry Doctor" Jack explained, finally freeing the Doctor's mouth after his lover had disappeared upstairs. "But we know for a fact that that you will forget everything about today."
"Oh." Now that he had once again the chance to speak freely, there was nothing he actually felt like saying. He hadn't actually considered that he could have no rights to remember his little diversion. What were diversions for if he couldn't even remember them!?
"Are you going to just stand there?" Jack asked, smirking. "C'mon, let's get you to the living room… No, wait, I've got a better idea! Have the T.A.R.D.I.S. move you there. She can't eat with us, but at least she will be part of the festivities!"
The Doctor was still staring questioningly at Jack, so the captain simply pushed him back inside and, before closing the door, he yelled "I trust you to get the coordinates right and within a human time frame this time, old girl!"
Jack laughed heartily as he clearly perceived the T.A.R.D.I.S. giving him her equivalent of a tongue stuck, and then left the underground cellar to follow his lover back upstairs. No matter if he was immortal, he did not fancy dying of pneumonia on Christmas day.
He made it into the living room just in time to hear Ianto's slightly chocked scream at seeing the T.A.R.D.I.S. appear in one of the corners.
"Jack! A little warning next time?" Ianto reprimanded him, putting both hands on his hips and challenging him with his eyes. All Jack could do was to burst out in an even louder laugh.
The Welshman shook his head and crossed his arms on his chest. "You know, you should go and get him, because otherwise I get the feeling he's going to stay shell-shocked inside his blue box until next year."
Somehow that made Jack laugh even more.
"What now!?"
"Since it's Christmas, I really need to unwrap the blue box before midnight" Jack stated proudly, still sniggering.
Ianto simply rolled his eyes and escaped towards the kitchen. "If this is your idea of a present…"
As soon as he got a grip of himself, Jack went to open the T.A.R.D.I.S. door and found the Doctor still lingering in the doorway on the same spot he had put him a few minutes before.
"Merry Christmas, Doctor! Welcome to our home!" He chirped happily.
"It's… Christmas!?"
"Why? Don't you like Christmas? It's a fine day even if you're going to forget it, especially since we're not in London."
"We're not in London even because London as we knew it barely exists anymore." Ianto clarified, coming back from the kitchen with a long tray filled with appetizers to arrange on the Christmas table.
"What?" The bit of information actually made the Doctor snap out of his trance. "Is that century already?"
"Yeah" Jack confirmed. "We are among the ones that stayed behind. The rift it's still active and we keep monitoring it, even if what we do slightly changed from our 21st century routine."
Now that he got the chance to look around himself, the Doctor could notice how the T.A.R.D.I.S. was not the only thing not strictly in the Christmas spirit inside the airy living room. There were tall wood dressers and counters full of decorations and a medium size colourful Christmas tree, but also complex and extremely hi-tech metal devices with blipping screens and different kind of input keys, each one of them apparently coming from a different time frame. From one of the open doors, opposite to what looked like a traditional fireplace, he could see a sort of double office with two enormous computers linked to an even bigger mechanism made of glass and some extra-terrestrial alloy.
"You live and work here? You two and this big house are what is left of Torchwood?"
"We've never been as big as the London branch, but we still have our hub and our team." Jack explained, smirking bitterly as he realised that this Doctor had never got to their hub. "This is just a needed arrangement to let us do some work at home too."
"Needed for what?"
As if on cue, a desperate cry echoed in the room from one of the devices that cluttered the room. Ianto rushed upstairs, whilst Jack went to switch the noisy circular object off.
"Well for instance it gave us the chance to let our friends reach their families in the colonies and in the travelling satellites and spaceships for Christmas, and beside that…" Jack nodded in the direction of the stairs, where Ianto was coming back down with a trembling white bundle in his arms.
"Oh, my." The Doctor stated. "Please tell me I already know about this too."
Jack smirked at his protests as he tried to help Ianto disentangle the child from the blanket he had snuggled himself into.
"Oh, no. We're still counting the days until you will discover the little mess we made." His eyes lighted up as he successfully pried the cloth away from his son's stubborn grip and was welcomed by a pout that could best his most efficient ones.
Ianto gave the baby a kiss on his plump cheek as held him tighter in his arms. "C'mon, sweetheart, say hello to uncle Doctor."
The boy stared at his fathers, at the Doctor and then at the T.A.R.D.I.S, eventually settling his eyes back on the Time Lord and start crying desperately. Jack and Ianto rolled their eyes and then the captain took the child in his arms to calm him down.
"Forgive him, Doctor. He's really shy." Ianto explained, staring at his family disheartened.
"Don't worry, I guess I must look scary to everyone" The Doctor stated evenly. "Even worse to a kid one year old."
Both Jack and Ianto swallowed hard and looked elsewhere.
"Jack?" The Doctor asked suspiciously.
"He's two actually." Jack admitted as Ianto rolled his eyes.
"So much for 'I'll deny everything till my last breath'."
"He will forget everything! What's the point of lying?"
"Having a nice Christmas." Ianto deadpanned.
"Yeah, about that…" The Doctor butted in, as he pinched the root of his nose to prevent himself to get a migraine and reprimand both immortals for their little evil plan. "Why don't you just make me forget everything now? Really, I didn't want to barge in your family dinner."
Both Jack and Ianto exchanged surprised glances and then stared back at the Doctor.
"What the heck are talking about? You are family!" Jack reached with his free hand for the Doctor's shoulder and pushed him not too gently towards the table.
"Well, now…" Ianto argued, crossing his arms on his chest. "Your family maybe. Anyway, I'll play the part of the nice wife, who pretends to stand the mother-in-law."
The joke managed to get a small embarrassed smile to finally grace the Doctor's face as he looked at Jack. "Wouldn't that make me your mother?"
Jack appeared actually thoughtful for a while. "Well, considering that my life completely revolved around itself when I became immortal, that might actually make the T.A.R.D.I.S. my step-mother via Rose and you a sort of step-father? It's a bit of a stretch, but…"
He shrugged, earning a questioning stare from the child in his arms. Jack grinned at his son and gave him a light peck on his forehead.
"So, what's better?" He asked him with a funny voice. "Uncle Doctor or grandpa Doctor?"
The child frowned and then finally stated "Papa!" patting his hands on Jack's chest with determination and a resolute nod of his head.
"You already have two! Do you need a third!?" Jack argued, using his normal voice.
The Doctor sniggered, whilst Ianto rolled his eyes again.
"Same mental level…" He complained, going to get some other dishes from the kitchen.
"I don't think you would kiss your father the way you kissed me though, you know Jack?"
The Doctor's challenge was met by the same mirth. "I would actually. Anyway, different regenerations, Doctor, and there was no Ianto back then. Besides, truth to be told, among all the different Doctors I met, I would still pick him."
"I treated you badly, it's understandable." The Doctor said sadly, finally sitting down.
Jack simply shook his head.
"That's not the point, Doc. It's because he was the one who knew me as mortal, I own him everything. When you came, you were the one who had to confront with the differences, and after that, well… Spoilers." He concluded with a wink and placed his son straight in the Doctor's arms, despite the Time Lord's shock.
"Wait! He hates me!" He cried, staring absolutely terrified at the small child.
"No one hates you." Jack dismissed him with a flick of his hand and met Ianto halfway from the kitchen to take the tray he was holding from his hands to place it on the table.
"Yep" Ianto confirmed. "We might dislike some of the things you do or how you do them, but I don't think there's actually someone who really managed to hate you for it. Especially a toddler that met you ten minutes ago."
"Toddler? Is he already toddling?" The Doctor asked, eying suspiciously the child from as far as he could put him. "A toddling toddler toddling around… He's too small!"
"We've not noticed any particular difference from kids his age, except looking slightly younger." Jack clarified. "Even pregnancy terms were respected just fine."
"Well, there's the fact of him being a little more immature than other babies about his age, but I would blame that on Jack's genes."
"Hey!"
Ianto sniggered at Jack's outraged expression and gave him a small peck on his lips, asking forgiveness. The captain pouted even more, so he tried whispering in his ear more interesting promises for the night.
Magically the pout morphed into a grin.
The Doctor ignored the transaction between the two parents to keep studying intently the baby as the baby kept studying attentively him.
When Jack and Ianto gave them their attention again, they saw the Doctor gently reclining his head to his side, deep in thoughts as the child mimicked his actions with an even deeper frown.
"Is there something wrong?" Ianto asked, cursing himself as soon as he said those words feeling Jack's shudder at his side.
"Babies usually blabber a lot, why he keeps quiet!? It's unnatural!" The Doctor declared, completely oblivious of Ianto's gaffe.
The Welshman sighed his relief and Jack huffed in disappointment, even though he looked visibly more relaxed.
"Maybe is because of Ianto's genes. He tends to omit things." Jack teased.
Ianto glared at him and offered a more realistic interpretation. "Maybe is because the Doctor doesn't do presentations."
"Oh, c'mon!" The Doctor exclaimed, once again twisting his head to the other side. "A kid demands attention, it doesn't expect it."
His words were met by a silence so deep that he actually turned to look at his former companion and his partner, only to see both of them shrugging nonchalantly.
"We're both a bit peculiar and he still is his own person."
"Yeah, we learned to expect nothing." Jack concluded, moving to take a seat opposite to the Doctor.
The Time Lord stared again back at the young boy, who resembled Ianto way more than the captain, especially now that he seemed to look at him almost expectantly.
"Hello, I'm the Doctor. And who are you, young man?" He tried experimentally.
The child smiled at him widely and babbled something in answer to the Doctor, earning his father's reproachful glare.
"You lazy son of Jack." Ianto muttered in disbelief, knowing too well that his son was capable to articulate plenty easy understandable sentences.
However the Doctor, unaware of those small details, simply stared at him with wide eyes and his mouth dropped open. "It worked! You called him Steven? And why Jones?"
"Because Jones is my actual surname. If we intended to give him a fake one we would have found something more manageable."
"What do you mean!?" Jack protested.
"Harkness is a mouthful."
"Now, who's speaking? Despite not understanding what you're saying, I would need to pay for vowels to even pronounce half of the things you blabber about!"
"You find Welsh hot!"
"That's… beside the point."
Ianto and Jack exchanged meaningful glances that became in few seconds lewd ones. Once they had reached some silent compromise, the Welshman tried to get back his son from the Doctor, but unexpectedly the child made an awkward excuse for a jump and clenched his tiny arms around the Time Lord's neck.
"This is a new one." Ianto stated bewildered.
"Looks like he's a child that values courtesy beyond anything else." The Doctor considered fascinated, as a warm smile involuntarily spread all over his face.
"C'mon, love, we don't bother the Doctor." Jack tried to reprimand Steven, despite fighting with himself to keep himself serious in front of Ianto's insulted expression.
Steven babbled something more, earning a disconcerted stare from the Doctor.
"Looks like you're right, he actually doesn't hate me…" He spaced out a moment more before staring back at Ianto. "I could keep him… I mean, for the meal. He can stay. With me. On… this seat."
Ianto raised an eyebrow at him. "You sure? Children are a handful."
"Ahh, don't worry!" The Doctor dismissed quickly his fears with a big happy smile. "You just need to learn the basics and I had my share."
As the Welshman went to sit his chair next to Jack, he was welcome by his partner's mischievous grin.
"Yeah, you're the only one with no experience in parenting among us. Except this one of course."
"What would that mean now!?"
"That your legendary patience is finally showing its limits." He teased. "C'mon, it won't hurt you to let your worries go for one night, the Doctor is trustworthy."
Jack choked on the leaf of celery he was munching as he noticed Ianto's challenging glare.
"…when secluded in a close area away from civilization?" He added prudently.
"I bet he would manage to find trouble even there."
When Ianto looked back at the Doctor though, he found him looking extremely guiltily down at the empty plate in front of him. He rolled his eyes and tore away a mistletoe berry from the decorations on the table to throw it at the whining Time Lord.
"Oi! What was that for!?"
"Sulking is forbidden in my house at Christmas, we have too much of it during normal days." He offered the Doctor a warm smile. "Besides, we are Jack's Torchwood, trouble follow us too. It's what makes life worth to be lived."
"Even when you can't die?"
Jack and Ianto simply shrugged.
"Protecting people will never get too old" The captain said with a wink, and reached out for another bit of celery to try it out with a different kind of dressing. "Now start eating, Doc. Because it's a very special day the one in which Ianto Jones admits vegetables on his table."
Ianto glared at him, whilst the Time Lord simply burst in laughter.
"And what about the little gentleman?"
"Give him canapés, the bread will keep him busy for a while and he will hopefully stay away from the excessive meat abuse Ianto submit him to."
Both Steven and Ianto stared at Jack with the same outraged expression, making both Jack and the Doctor laugh even more.
"Are you turning vegetarian, Jack?" The Time Lord asked when he eventually stopped giggling. He began filling a plate with different kind of appetizers for himself and another one with canapés and softer cheese for the child.
"I might, living with him." Jack complained, finishing off a yellow turnip striped canapé and turning to his lover reproachfully. "You know, you will lose those love handles if you ate at least a portion of vegetables a day."
Ianto ignored his partner for as long as it took him to chew carefully his olive, Vienna sausage and cheese spit, and then he raised a challengingly eyebrow at him. "Alright. Still when my hated love handles will disappear, someone will miss them and something tells me that it won't be me."
Jack's jaw dropped in disbelief, but after giving Ianto's point of view some actual thought, he simply pouted and took two slices of mini pizzas with prosciutto, handing one to his partner as he shut himself up eating the other. Ianto gleefully accepted it in front of the Doctor's amused stare.
Despite Ianto's prediction of disasters, the dinner went on without trouble or interruptions. Jack and Ianto had loads of funny family snippets to share and their own set of adventures with Torchwood, whilst the Time Lord did his best to remember travels that didn't end up in tragedy and was surprised to discover that they were actually more than he had been willing to admit.
Appetizers, firsts, seconds, vegetables and fruit were gulped down greedily, until eventually the Doctor had to ask if they had really managed to cook all those dishes by themselves and just for the two of them and the kid. Ianto admitted that they had done their best to make Steven enjoy Christmas the way he was grow up to consider normal, to the point of secluding themselves inside the house for the last two days in order to give at least a bit of 21st century Christmas feeling to their unorthodox home and menu.
Unfortunately, since Ianto had never been the greatest fan of holidays and Jack kept mixing up past, future and alien traditions, they ended up scavenging old bookstores and their own personal libraries for random information. Eventually they mixed up different countries Christmas customs, trying to fill the gaps when something wasn't feasible anymore, but at least they were certain that everything was mostly 21st century themed.
"It didn't turn out the way we wanted, but traditions changed, food changed… this is pretty much all we could put together."
"It's great, Jack." The Doctor told him, smiling warmly. "He will appreciate it when he will be older. It's part of his heritage being one of his fathers from that century."
"We hope so. Desserts?" Ianto offered warmly.
"Plural?"
"Christmas cakes, puddings and sweets are actually the only Christmas thing I always ate during the holidays."
"Only ate? Who made them then? I doubt someone manage to produce them like they did in your century anymore."
"Well, since we start living together, I ended up making them when Christmas came." Jack explained proudly.
"Yep and you would always end up doing it again from scratch at least a couple of times, because you never got it right the first."
"I had a strict critic." Jack teased his lover. "And you're obscene when you eat sweet things. I could spend days in the kitchen only to stuff you with… it."
"Oh please you two!" The Doctor reprimanded them exasperatedly. "I'm trying to keep an open mind here, but there's a child present."
Both Ianto and Jack stared at him disconcerted.
"Doctor, this is the edited version." Ianto revealed to the traumatized alien.
"You're kidding me, right? I travelled with Jack, he was no way near this bad!"
"He's always been like this around us" Ianto protested, moving back to the kitchen to get some cake slices and sweets.
"I'm beginning to think you're bad news, Ianto Jones." The Doctor said with a laugh.
"I told you I was innocent!" Jack called cheerfully after his lover, showing his teeth through a very wide and happy smile as he saw his lover coming back with a tray full of desserts and clean tableware.
"Of course you're, Sir." Ianto put it down, took a colourful toffee from one of the bowls and fed it to his lover, smirking knowingly at him. "I'm the deceptive one between us after all."
Jack smiled back at him as he gulped down the toffee, a light tinge of red spreading over his cheeks. "One of us has to be."
Their eyes lingered on one another for a few seconds more and then Ianto took one of the bowls on the tray to place it near the Doctor's plate.
"Taffy? That's the only kind of Christmas dessert I always managed to put together."
"Welsh toffee? Not among the easiest though." He tried one thoughtful, but soon enough his eyebrows rose in astonishment. "Tasty too! Good job for an ape!"
The Doctor's praise was welcomed with Ianto's frown.
"Glad you liked them. They certainly came out from a Welsh recipe and from a Welshman, so I guess you're not wrong saying they are Welsh toffee, still we call them Taffy."
"Ianto…" Jack admonished him, taking the plate with cake slices and pudding his partner was handling him.
Just when they were about to finish eating the desserts, one of the machines around the room beeped for attention.
"Oh Gods, don't tell me something happened." The Doctor asked mortified, feeling extremely guilty for no reason at all.
Jack cleaned his mouth from the smears of chocolate pudding abuse and then went to check the machine.
"Do you realise that your only presence doesn't make you responsible for things?" Ianto tried to reassure the Time Lord, who still kept staring at him gloomily. "Besides, nothing is supposed to happen today. We made sure of it."
"Ianto's right" Jack added, checking coordinates and kind of material on the screen. "It's just a bit of junk that the rift decided to send on Mars as a gift."
"Junk?" Ianto drawled. "It could have found something prettier since it's Christmas. So thoughtless of it."
"Oh, well, you know the rift." Jack joked, sniggering. "I bet he forgot that today was Christmas and got nothing ready beforehand. By the way, we still need a name for it since you refused to call it Rifty."
Ianto simply shook his head, whilst the captain tapped a few times on the virtual keyboard on the screen and took out from the frame something similar to a very small microphone. Soon from the device the voice of a young man could be heard.
"Captain Harkness, you wanted to wish me Merry Christmas even though you know we don't consider it an holiday at all?"
"Good evening to you too, Leen. I just wanted to tell you that you're going to have mail. Junk from the rift."
"Weren't you on holiday today? Officer Jones finally left you? You know we have room here." The last sentence was spoken almost too hopefully.
"Hi Leen!" Ianto called out annoyed, glaring at his lover.
"Pity."
"We simply brought some equipment back home" Jack explained, forcing himself to be polite and trying to ignore Leen and Ianto's quarrel. "We only wanted to warn you. Bye, Leen."
On the other hand of the receiver the communication was interrupted brusquely with a last snort, so Jack simply signed and put the microphone back into its spot, ready to face the fight that was bound to happen.
"Something to say?"
Ianto shrugged and took another bite of his cake, but the Doctor actually stared at him in disbelief.
"Really Jack?"
"I only said hello to him, he made his hopes up by himself!"
"I'd like to see you, if I were the one saying hello to him like that."
"You wouldn't have. You're mostly into women." Jack snorted, but the Doctor actually stared at him still concerned.
"It's on Mars, Jack."
"Everything has been taken care of. We do our monitoring quite well. Mars has never been safer and humanity keeps extending to the far universe. Our family too as you see."
"For that reason you've been known to have extended quite a bit too." Ianto countered innocently.
"Oh, c'mon! I was pregnant not fat! And I took extended leave for that."
Ianto suppressed his laughter, but his plain expression was easily cracking.
"Anyway, flirting can be dangerous, Jack" The Doctor stated again, still unconvinced. "More to your lover and kid than to you."
"You. Worry. Too. Much. And on too many things." The captain replied confidently.
"And you not at all!"
"Jack's right, Doctor, but you're not wrong." Ianto interrupted. "That's why the day Leen tries something, I'll reserve you a spot to see the carnage. Front row."
"That's why you will never meet him again." Jack clarified with what was supposed to be a smirk, and then he blinked happily at them. "Who's up for board games?"
The Doctor stared at him sidetracked for a while, but before he could voice his opinion, his two hosts were already taking the dirty dishes away and Ianto had even managed to present him with a nice cup of coffee, whilst Jack took out the board games.
Two ten feet high stacks of board games.
A tiny voice in the back of his head told him that he would be better off not knowing why the two adults had that many and he heartily agreed with it.
They tried out a lot of different games and happily the Doctor realized that at least his mind couldn't find any way to pervert most of them. The same happiness hadn't been always shared by his friends though.
The match that shocked the two Torchwood agents the most turned out to be Scrabble: not because their pair lost miserably, but because half of the Doctor's team's words seemed to have come out as their son's suggestion. They could only hope the Time Lord had been faking it all the game long, or else they would really stop trying for another child altogether.
Before the night came to its end, the Doctor had completely forgotten what the future had in store for him, and at the same time Jack and Ianto had completely lost their will to retcon their friend. It was about five in the morning when Steven, who was merrily moving around the dial for the three adults during a very intricate round of twister, began nodding his head sleepily.
Ianto declared himself off the game to tuck the child into his cradle, so Jack and the Doctor let themselves simply fall messily on one another, happy to have the chance to get back the free use of their limbs. As they moved back to the table making small talk, the Doctor noticed the retcon pill the Welshman had professionally put next to his glass right at the beginning of their meal.
He took it in his hand and stared at it with a thoughtful expression on his face.
"Doctor, you know… What will happen in your future, maybe it could be not related to it…"
"Uh?"
"There was this ship, coming from the future… We tried our best to hide it, because it had some kind of technology 24th century did not know about, but everything was exposed to the scientific community and, before we knew it, they were already working to recreate the new tools! So we went to the captain of the ship, a beautiful lady with long black hair, I even tried to flirt with her a bit, but she was-"
"Jack" The Doctor interrupted him. "What are you trying to tell me?"
"Alien races are tricky and you shouldn't lose today, Doc." He confessed in a single breath. "Maybe it was meant to be and the future will sort itself out by itself without dangers."
"I'm certain today was meant to be, but I'm pretty sure I'm not meant to remember it. Not consciously at least." He kept staring sadly at the small white pill, playing with it with his fingers. "Besides I don't think your strict partner would agree on leaving me off like that."
"Wouldn't be the first time I broke the rules for reasons." Ianto said as he came down the stairs. "Truth to be told, I'm not so certain myself as I was at the beginning whether it's proper to retcon you or not."
He sat on Jack's knees and then stared back at the Doctor. "What if you were meant to remember and then forget? Making you forget would mess up things. It wouldn't be good even if you were meant to forget from the start, because Retcon is not always reliable and a tiny bit of who knows what could make everything come back to your mind."
"If that was the case you would suddenly remember that your friends drugged you and made you forget a bunch of happy hours…" Jack complained hugging his lover tighter by the waist and hiding his head behind him. "I would hate for you to have to go through something like that."
A warm smile appeared on the Doctor's face. "Thank you."
"You're a friend after all" Ianto added. "And you will always be, even when travelling for a long time or taking wrong ways."
"Your friend too?" The Time Lord asked suspiciously.
"Well… I guess I can live with that."
Jack sniggered from behind his back and Ianto thanked him with a slap on his tight.
"Someone's up for another cup of coffee? We could make it breakfast and then go to catch some sleep ourselves."
"If it's breakfast I want more of that Christmas cake then!" Jack yelled as Ianto was disappearing inside the kitchen.
"If you want more dessert, you can come and cut yourself a slice. I'll even let you put some whipped cream over it." He offered, crossing his arms on his chest and waiting for Jack to approach him.
As soon as he did it, Jack took his chance to give his partner a loving kiss on his lips and then they both disappeared inside, leaving an amused Time Lord to stare at them happily.
When Ianto rushed back a few moments later to ask how the Doctor wanted his coffee though, he was gone, along with the T.A.R.D.I.S. and the retcon pill.
"Merry Christmas, Doctor." Jack whispered sadly at the empty air, joining Ianto in the living room. His lover could only hold him tight in his arms, his head resting against his partner's shoulders to offer him a tiny bit of comfort.
Unknown to them, some space and time away from their Earth, the Doctor had fallen asleep on the T.A.R.D.I.S. floor, but eventually, after a long time of anguish and suffering, with a happy smile on his face.
Losing the happiest and completely satisfying Christmas he'd had in while, had really been taking the foolish way, but it felt worth it anyway. After all he still had time and more Christmas to come.
*The End*