Title: In Other Words
Rating: PG-13
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Ianto, Jack, OMC; Jack/Ianto
Summary: Ianto still doesn't have much faith in his newly rediscovered good side. But thanks to a child's gift, Jack knows he's getting there. For the schmoop_bingo prompt "greeting card".
Disclaimer: If I owned Torchwood, the boys would have had more screentime together, more sex, and Ianto would still be alive.
The song isn't mine either; written by Bart Howard, and the version Jaita plays is the Frank Sinatra one.
A/N: Jaita - the name of Jack and Ianto's TARDIS. Set in the same universe as Falalalala~lalalala.
"So," said Jack, "how does it feel to have saved the world?"
Ianto shrugged. "Like all other seven-hundred-and-ninety-three times."
Jack didn't questions the accuracy of the statement. Even before he'd become immortal, Ianto had had almost full recall, and in the mood he was in, saying the wrong thing may get Jack his head blown off.
Ianto had done that three days ago. Growing his head back had hurt.
So he followed at a more sedate pace a safe distance away as Ianto stalked back to their TARDIS, disguised as a tree stump. He'd let Jaita deal with Ianto. She was better at handling him anyway. Lingering outside, he starred down into the valley below. Little bright lights denoted the campfires that had been started up around the tents, though it was still light enough to see.
It would take time, Jack knew. Decades definitely, perhaps even centuries for them to recover from the plague, but humans were a hardy species. There were probably other populations on other parts of the planet that had survived, so this little town wouldn't be the only one left. He gave the lights a last vague wave, then opened the TARDIS door. The shuffle of feet made him turn around.
"Ahndo! What are you doing here?" Ahndo had been one of Ianto's patients, and the five year old had taken an immediate shine to Jack's partner, despite Ianto's general grouchy disposition and his somewhat dismissive behaviour of the child.
Ahndo held up a flat package. "For Yahn-toh," he said, lisping his words in manner Jack secretly found adorable. He held out his hand for it.
"I'll give it to him," he offered.
But Ahndo shock his head and clutched the package to his chest. "Noh. I ghive."
At that moment, Jaita's door swung open and Ianto's head poked out. "Jack! What the hell are you doing? Let's go!"
"You have a visitor."
"What?" snapped Ianto, then his gaze fell on the boy standing next to Jack. "Oh Madra," he muttered, rolling his eyes in exasperation. "What is it, Ahndo?"
The boy held out his gift. "For you."
Ianto took it cautiously, like it was a bomb rather than a child's present. Jack fought the urge to smack him upside the head. "Shall I open it?" Ianto asked Ahndo. Ahndo nodded, grinning.
It was nothing more than a piece of folded cardboard, but whatever Ahndo had scribbled on it, it was making Ianto smile in a way Jack hadn't seen him do for centuries.
Ianto then tucked his present into his pocket and picked Ahndo up. "I'll take him back," he told Jack. "Be back in half an hour or so."
"Take your time." He gave Ahndo a kiss on his forehead, then gave Ianto one that was just appropriate enough to be given in front of little children. Ahndo giggled and Jack felt Ianto smile against his lips.
88888
"Fly me to the moon, let me sing among those stars," Jack sang, turning in place while Jaita hummed accompaniment, "let me see what spring is like, on Jupiter and Mars..."
Ianto chose that moment to come in. "Stormy, as I recall," he said, "Jupiter anyway. Mars was all right." Jack didn't stop dancing and didn't miss a beat as Ianto came up to him and joined him. They danced together, turning and bobbing past the control console down the corridor as they joined Jaita in humming along to the music.
"In other words, I love you," Jack sang softly as they spun to a stop in front of their bedroom door. Ianto didn't reply, burying his head instead in the crook of Jack's neck, but the older immortal knew the sentiment was returned.
"So what did Ahndo give you?" he asked, as he opened the bedroom door and steered them both in. Ianto flopped face first onto the bed and gestured to his pocket.
Of course, rummaging around in Ianto's pants with Ianto still in them led to groping, which led to sex. Later, as Ianto slept beside him, Jack leaned over the bed and fished the pants up from the floor, extracting the present. It was a card, crudely made from cardboard folded in half. He opened it. In it, three stick figures where smiling. There was the smallest stick figure, clearly Ahndo, holding the hand of a stick figure labelled "Yantoh", while a "Jahk" stick figure stood in the background waving something -a stick?- in the direction of a black cloud. A somewhat lopsided heart had been drawn around the Ahndo and Yantoh stick figures.
Jack smiled then put the card back. He leant over to give Ianto a kiss, then pulled a blanket over his partner and crept out of the room.
"He's doing fine," he told Jaita in response to her questioning hum as he headed towards the library. "And yes, today's your turn to go wherever you want to go. Surprise us." She warbled happily in reply, and Jack felt the slight tug behind his navel that told him they were in the Vortex.
One side of the library was taken up with Ianto's diaries, which existed in both physical and digital forms, but Jack had his own growing collection.
Year 11562, Sector Z-7 of the Kantos Galaxy, unnamed moon of star Aldhibah, time: 2047
_Ianto is getting better, but I will still kill John Hart when I see him_
Fin
A/N: For those puzzled by Ianto's behaviour, he's "coming back from the dark side" so to speak.