CHAPTER ONE – Meet The Parents

It had been a long and tiring day for Captain Jack Harkness. The former military man turned PI had spent a good portion of his day trying to track down a man that did not seem to be in the city, until the daughter of the old lady who had called, called him and explained that her mother was slightly senile and forgot her husband was visiting family in Scotland.

Now, all Jack wanted to do was go home and go straight to bed, but he could not even do that. He had to put on dinner for the kids, help Owen with his homework and pack lunches, before having to trick them into going to bed on time.

Just the thought was making him more tired.

Despite this, he still sighed with relief once he had finally reached the front door of his small apartment. He fished out his keys and unlocked the door before swinging it open, only to find the room filled smoke.

Leaving the door open, Jack ran into the apartment, calling out, "Gwen, Owen. Where are you?"

He was met with silence, which only served to make him more panicked, until he heard his son whisper happily, "Your in trouble now Gwen."

"Shut up Owen," she hissed back.

Sighing in relief, Jack went back and closed the front door, before making his way into the kitchen. Sure enough both Gwen and Owen stood there, attempting to hide the smoking oven from his view.

With a bemused expression on his face, Jack asked, "What happened this time?"

Owen was of course, the first to cave in, pointing a finger at his sister and calling loudly, "Gwen burnted the dinner."

"Burnt Owen, and you helped," bit back Gwen, glaring at her little brother.

"Na ah."

Shaking his head, Jack walked passed the bickering siblings and opened the kitchen window, before getting a tea towel and opening the oven, to find an impossibly burnt tray of frozen lasagna.

He looked up at his oldest, who was fiddling with a singed tea towel, before saying, "You're supposed to take it out of the plastic tray Gwen."

The 15 year old looked up at him, arguing in a defensive voice, "Well I know that now. Your always the one who says live and learn aren't you."

Jack only rose an eyebrow, before taking out the destroyed meal, and putting it straight in the bin. He straightened up and looked around the room. It was considerably more messy than it had been when he left it that morning, but Jack could not help but smile at Gwen's effort to help him out.

"Thanks for trying," he said, messing up her hair as he walked passed to open the lounge window as well.

"Dad!" she cried in alarm, racing into the bathroom and fixing the damage he had done. A minute or so later, she came out of the small room, giving her father a withering glare and saying angrily, "Do you have any idea how long it took me to style it like that."

Jack smirked at this, before bending down quickly and scooping up Owen as he passed by in one of his many rounds of the flat, "Who wants Chinese for dinner."

Brightening up immediately, Gwen grinned and walked off to her room to get a coat, calling, "Apology excepted."

Owen looked up at Jack with confusion, and asked, "Did you apologize dad?"

Jack smirked. Lifting his son onto his shoulders, the PI stated in a long suffering voice, "Owen my boy, something I have learned over the years, is if a woman accepts an apology, even if you weren't apologizing, you just have to go with it."

"Whatever," was the only answer he got, before Owen started rattling off about all the things he had done at school that day.

----- TW -----

A hour and a half later, the Harkness family were all sat around a table in the corner of a nice Chinese shop, tucking into their meals.

Jack looked up from his fried rice to see Gwen fiddling with her own dinner, and asked, "What's wrong with you?"

Gwen gazed up at her father, looking like someone who had been waiting to be asked that question all night. A sly smirk spread across her face, as she said quietly, "I met someone."

"What do you mean you met someone?" asked Jack, a little taken aback by the girl's openness. Usually when she liked someone, it took weeks of spying, nagging and trickery to find out who it was.

Gwen rolled her eyes at him and said slowly, "I. Met. Someone. You know, a guy."

Frowning, Jack asked, "How old is he?"

That was the night that Jack learned, you never asked that question and continue eating.

"He looked around twenty eight."

"What?!" cried Jack, as he choked on the chicken he had been attempting to swallow.

Seeing his opportunity to be helpful, Owen stood up on his chair and thumped hard on his father's back until he finally stopped gagging. Catching his breath, Jack hissed, "Twenty-eight?"

"Thirty at the most," said Gwen, looking confused by her father's reaction. "I don't know what you're so upset about, it's not that much of an age difference."

"Not that much- your half his age Gwen," he said in exasperation.

Gwen's eye widened as she realized why Jack had been acting so odd, and clarified, "Oh, not for me! I was thinking for you."

Jack stared at her in silence for a moment, before collapsing back into his chair and sighing, "Not again Gwen."

"But this guy seems really nice Dad," pushed Gwen.

"Oh yeah?" Jack sighed again.

"He is. He's the father of one of the children in Owen's after school care, his name is Ianto Jones. He works as an accountant for a big firm in the city, and I know that you would really like him."

Jack's eyebrows rose with surprise, and he asked, "How do you know all that."

Giving him another sly smile, Gwen said offhandedly, "It's hardly my fault they just left these files lying about."

Jack shot his daughter a proud grin, saying, "As soon as you're old enough I'm hiring you."

"Thank you, so will you meet him?"

"No."

"But dad-" started Gwen, only to be interrupted by Jack who put up a hand and said, "Gwen, we have talked about me getting into relationships before. It never works out, you guys get attached and everyone gets hurt in the end. I'm not doing it any more, end of story."

Gwen looked crest fallen, but being her father's daughter, pushed on. "At least come and pick up Owen tomorrow so you can meet him. If you don't like him, or their's no spark, then I will let it go, but you never know if you don't try... something else you always tell us."

Jack sighed again, before asking, "You're not going to let this go until I do are you?"

With victory in sight, Gwen gave her best performance yet, saying in a sweet voice, "I don't know what you mean. But if I did I'm sure the answer would be no."

Chuckling, Jack shook his head in resignation, before answering, "Fine, I'll come pick up Owen tomorrow, and I might meet him. You happy now your highness?"

Grinning triumphantly, Gwen picked up a pair of chopsticks and replied, "Ecstatic," before digging into her food.

----- TW ------

"Alright Tosh I think it's time for bed," called Ianto from his office. Getting up from his desk, the young Welshman made his way out into the living room, where his ten year old daughter sat, watching the wide screen television fixed to the wall.

"What you watching?" he asked, leaning against the door frame.

Without looking away from the television, Tosh replied, "It's a documentary on computers and how they work."

Quirking an eyebrow with bemusement, Ianto asked, "Aren't you a little young to understand that?"

Tosh turned around and gazed up at her father, with an annoyed expression on her little face. She replied irritably, "I would be if they were talking about anything interesting. They're just taking the thing to pieces."

Ianto chuckled as he picked up the remote and turned off the program, before scooping Tosh up in his arm. "Well it's time for all the little genius's to go to bed," he announced, playfully tickling the girls stomach as he made his way into her bedroom.

Pulling back the covers, he plopped her down on the mattress, before wrapping her tightly up with the blankets.

"You done your teeth already?" he asked, as he handed her the stuffed teddy her mother had given her.

Tosh gave him a massive grin so he can see all her teeth, which usually meant, "Yes dad look."

Smiling, he bent down and kissed her forehead, before whispering, "Time for sleep. Night sweety."

"Nu-night," Tosh yawned back, hugging her teddy closer and quickly falling to sleep.

Tosh had always been good when it came to bed time, something that Ianto was eternally grateful for. It had been hard enough to raise someone who reminded him so much of Lisa, he did not know how they would have made it through the last decade together if Tosh had been difficult.

Luckily for him though, Tosh had always been sweet and brilliantly behaved. She was smarter than her years would suggest, frequently baffling her father with facts that she had picked up from one place or another.

Shaking his head, Ianto smiled and made his way back to his office, to finish off the work he had been forced to bring home with him.