Me and Mrs Jones

Jack was only trying to be helpful when he offered to do the washing up.

He had been very pleased when Ianto's mother had invited him to lunch. It represented a world away from Torchwood, and he thoroughly subscribed to the theory that a change was as good as a holiday. Although, he mused to himself, investigating a potential Weevil sighting in Pontypridd instead of Cardiff wasn't encompassed by that theory. Not Ponty. Not for a change. And especially not for a holiday.

He'd been looking forward to Sunday lunch, admittedly with a degree of trepidation. Ianto's mother had been slow to accept that Jack was both Ianto's boss and his partner. She'd liked Lisa and had been devastated when Canary Wharf ripped away her dreams of becoming a grandmother. And she was then astonished when her hitherto heterosexual son had mentioned a new partner called Jack.

"Jacqui?" Mrs Jones had questioned her son on the phone. "That's a pretty name, short for Jacqueline, I suppose. Not such a common name these days. Do you know, there was an article on the 'One Show' on the television recently about the popularity of girls' names. It's all Emma, and Emily, and Ellie, these days apparently. I quite like Cerys, myself. A good Welsh name. It was 94th in 2004. But these American TV shows have far too much influence, what with Phoebes, and Courteneys and Chandlers."

"Someone called their little girl Chandler?" asked Ianto, sucked unwillingly into the monologue, even though he knew that he knew better. He was accustomed to his mother's telephonic monologues. He knew that all he was required to do was answer the phone when she rang, and grunt occasionally into it.

"Don't look at me dull, Ianto!" his mother chided, even though she couldn't see him. "No one calls a girl 'Chandler'."

"But you just said...." he stopped. He knew he was on a loser, no matter what he said. He went back to grunting.

"Well, tell me something about this Jacqui." his mother had continued, barely missing a beat.

He took a breath and was about to start but his mother got there first.

"Is she Welsh?"

"No," interjected Ianto quickly, ready to go on with the truth.

"Pity," tutted his mother, even quicker. "A good girl from the Valleys, from Cymoedd De Cymru, that would be ideal. Where is she from then? Don't tell me she's from Blaenau Ffestiniog!"

"Mam." Ianto cut in. "No, she's not from Blaenau Ffestiniog, but I don't see what's so wrong with that. I like it up there; Snowdonia is beautiful."

"It might be beautiful, son," continued his mother, "but don't you remember the dreadful queues to go on the mountain railway when we used to go there on holiday when you were little?"

At this point in the conversation, which had been on speaker phone in Jack's office, Jack had placed his hands gently on Ianto's shoulders and eased him down into a chair, placing a stiff whisky in front of him and massaging the back of his neck. Ianto covered the mouthpiece of the old fashioned phone and began to speak to Jack, but found that he couldn't even get in a word there. Jack covered Ianto's lips with his own. They could both still hear Ianto's mother sounding tinnily from the ear piece.

"Calm down, cariad." Jack could feel the heat and frustration emanating from Ianto. "Gently."

"Gently?" said Ianto. "Gently? Believe me, you are not going to get it gently later!" Ianto was ready to take out his frustration in the form of vigorous exercise. Jack was not about to object.

Jack smirked, removing Ianto's hand from the mouthpiece and pushing the phone back to his lips. He mimed taking a deep breath and then said, voicelessly, with exaggerated lip movement "Just. Tell. Her."

So Ianto did.

"Mam, my friend is called Jack. Not Jacqui. And he's a man, not a girl." He paused and smiled at Jack. "But, look on the bright side, he comes from a million miles away from Blaenau Ffestiniog."

For the first time in many years, Ianto was amazed to find his mother was speechless.

So, it had taken a while for Mrs Jones to come around to accepting that her son was happy with Jack. But finally it had happened, and she'd invited them, as a couple, to Sunday lunch. This had always been the most important meal of the week in the Jones' household, a tradition that was maintained by the family after Ianto's father had died.

Unfortunately, this weekend Ianto's sister was suddenly taken ill with a cold and decided she didn't want to pass her germs on, so she and her family had cried off. That left Mrs Jones, Ianto, and Jack.

The meal had gone well. Ianto's mother turned out to be a splendid cook and had produced a lovely meal of roast pork, apple sauce, roast potatoes and vegetables. It didn't escape Jack's notice that Ianto's plate was piled high with the roast ingredients and conspicuously lacking in anything green.

"Last time I tried to make him eat a brussels sprout, he sat at the table from lunch time until bedtime and wouldn't eat but more than a bite. He was seven."

"I tried it, Mam. I didn't like it." Ianto had been expecting at least some embarrassing revelations about his childhood. His dislike of vegetables was amongst the least of his worries. He was more concerned that his mother would tell Jack about the time that.....

…... "I'm going to clear the table and start the washing up," he said, as he heard his mother starting to vocalize his worst fears.

"No, no you don't," said Jack. "You sit here and have a nice chat with your Mom, and I'll do the washing up."

Ianto shot him a grateful look.

Jack smiled a silky smile at him. "Just relax and when I'm done I'll make coffee for us. You can fill me in on what your Mom has to say later."

Ianto grimaced, realising that he was beaten.

Jack quickly cleared the plates into the kitchen, and was pleased to discover that Mrs Jones had a dishwasher. He systematically went about stacking the plates, knives, forks, glasses, the gravy boat, and saucepans into the machine. He was even humming a happy little chorus of 'Sospan Fach', although he couldn't do the words, to himself as he found unlikely space for the last small saucepan and slipped a dishwasher tab into the slot. He was about to switch it on when Mrs Jones popped her head around the door.

"Oh, Jack," she said, "did you remember to rinse everything before you put it in the dishwasher? Mrs Evans up the road had such trouble the day her son did the washing up and forgot to wash the things first. It really clogged up the filter. They had to have the repair man out. Cost them nigh on sixty pounds, so it did."

Jack shot a sideways glance at the dishwasher door. He'd done exactly what he always did at Ianto's house and at the Hub, and just put everything straight in.

"I'll, er, double check, Mrs Jones. You go and sit down, and I'll put the kettle on in the meantime."

Jack steadily unloaded the dirty crockery from the dishwasher, rolled up his sleeves and began to run the water into the sink, waiting for it to run hot.

A voice sounded from the sitting room. "And mind you don't use too much water, I can't afford that, not now I've gone on a water meter."

Jack switched off the tap, looking into the quarter filled bowl of luke warm water, and sighed. He began to rinse everything and, when it was so clean that it no longer required the dishwasher, he stacked it back into the machine.

He was almost finished when a need to go to the bathroom overtook him. After politely asking if he might use the lavatory, he went upstairs as directed. When he returned, ready to switch on the dishwasher, he was more than surprised to find Mrs Jones busily engaged in unloading the contents and putting them back into the washing up bowl in the sink.

"Wait!" he called, "I haven't run the program yet," he cautioned.

"Oh, I know you haven't, love," she replied. "It takes one hundred and thirty seven minutes to get through the program for dirty dishes. I've timed it."

"But the dishes aren't dirty," began Jack. "I just washed them. It could go on the "quick rinse" program...." out of the corner of his eye he could see Ianto making frantic gestures. The movements started with a pantomime of Ianto pulling a zip across his lips, which Jack interpreted as a sign for 'shut up', and culminated in Ianto miming pulling a sharp knife across his throat in the time honoured fashion to indicate that anything further would be suicidal.

Jack Harkness, who had no wish to die at Sunday dinner in the Jones' household, shut up. He suspected that Ianto might have meant it for real.

"Oh no, love," Ianto's mother was saying. "You can't put the glasses in the dishwasher, they get all scratched and cloudy. Or the sharp knives, it blunts them and makes the handles fall off. And then there's Great Grandmother Blodwen's gravy boat, that's an antique, you can't put that in. You have to wash these by hand."

Jack realised in dismay that almost the entire contents of the dishwasher had been unloaded for a second time, and was back in the sink.

"Handwash." he said, in resignation. He instantly recognised the futility of mentioning that he had, already, handwashed these items.

"Oh, yes, love," said Mrs Jones, "You have to do those by hand. And not too much water, mind, remember the meter," she cautioned as she went out.

With the dishwasher finally running, and the assorted items that had been excluded from it carefully washed, dried and put away, Jack stretched and returned to the sitting room. It was warm, cosy and inviting, but he had eaten a big lunch and felt a need for exercise. And, given the circumstances, a walk seemed the only real option.

"What do you think, folks?" he asked. "Shall we go for a stroll? Get a bit of fresh air? After that delicious lunch?"

He was surprised to see Mrs Jones glaring at him and Ianto shaking his head gently in denial, as if he couldn't believe what Jack had just said.

"We can't possibly go out!" exclaimed Mrs Jones in horror.

Jack was somewhat taken aback. "Oh, I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't realise that you didn't go out before chapel on a Sunday." Jack had been briefed by Ianto that they had to make their getaway before evening church.

"Oh, it's not that," replied Mrs Jones. "I just don't go out and leave the dishwasher on. What if it had a leak?"

Jack was about to reply that the consequences would probably be the same, whether they were out in the park or drinking tea in the sitting room when Ianto made just a tiny 'knife against throat' gesture again. This time Jack understood implicitly what the gesture meant, even if the logic behind the reasoning escaped him.

Finally, one hundred and thirty seven minutes after Jack had started the machine running, and just as Mrs Jones had suggested another cup of tea and a slice of homemade fruit cake, a loud beeping noise issued from the kitchen. Jack jumped, startled from a comfortable doze in front of the real coal fire. He'd nodded off during 'Antiques Roadshow'. His hand went to his Webley, concealed in his trousers. Ianto again began to make frantic signs at him. He was waving his hands in the 'no' gesture.

"Dishwasher's finished, Mam," said Ianto standing up hurriedly.

"Oh, there's a good boy. Quick, go and turn it off, I don't want it wasting electricity by leaving it beeping."

Ianto hotfooted it into the kitchen. Jack was only moments behind but was astonished to see Ianto unloading the clean, dry contents and then wiping them on a teatowel. The teatowel bore the legend "A present from Blaenau Ffestiniog". He raised his eyebrows in questioning astonishment. But before he could say anything, Ianto spoke.

"Things need an extra wipe." he said. "Trust me, it is just easier to do it this way. Mam's house, Mam's rules."

"So," said Jack, thoughtfully. "You can't put dirty things in the dishwasher, they have to be clean first. And you can't put glasses, knives, saucepans, or things with wooden handles in the dishwasher at all. And even the clean things you can put in have to be dried off with a tea towel afterwards..."

Ianto nodded.

"I think," said Jack, "Owen would have a field day here. And he believes YOU have obsessive compulsive disorder! Now I see where you get it from."

And that was when Ianto hit him.

End