1
"Are you sure?" Owen asked again as he watched his friend fiddle with the napkin in the crowded restaurant. As usual, he ate barely three bites of food. Too bloody skinny this one.
"Yes" Ianto hissed, "You know I need the money for the love of Pete!"
"Well, you can still back out OK? Here, Tosh said to give you this, it's all we have on him" Owen slid a file across the table and Ianto accepted it, opening it to read about the man he was to marry.
"How soon?" Ianto asked as he looked at the documents, "Before he pays."
"You meet him a couple of times, like public and very obvious dates at some glitzy events that will be recorded. Then you marry and cohabit. It usually takes six months before the powers that be get through the paperwork and then he will get his Green Card and can change his status to Earth Based Citizen. Then he can quietly divorce you and you get an agreed sum in the divorce settlement. Some even go for alimony, I see he is willing to offer that as well. Look, he comes from a good family with old Boeshanninan money, his brother and sister are already Earth Based and he just wants to join them now their mother had finally passed. Because of his military background there should be no problem" Owen shrugged.
"Then why does he not just apply and get it anyway?"
"Because of the previous marriage. He has a child that is Boeshanninan like him and his ex. The rules say he cannot simply change her citizenship, the mother can contest it. This way, you give him a back door to getting the child here as well" Owen said softly, "The war is intensifying, the planet is in turmoil and he is afraid for his child. The fighting is starting to break out in the cities now. Strangles is also starting to develop in his sector, you know that is the plague over there. He just wants his wee one safe."
"And his ex?"
"Nuts. He has orders against her, lots of legal barriers up the wazzo. She can't take the child back ever. She is banned from even contacting them but the loophole in the law means she can still demand her kid is raised on her home planet and she had exercised that so she can still stalk them." Owen explained, "That's why Jack is desperate enough to do this. This is more than a Green Card. This is a new start and new life for the wee one."
Ianto turned the page and was confronted with a large glassy photo of the man in his military garb standing there in what can only be described as a Hero Pose.
"Looks up himself" he muttered.
"confident" Owen corrected, "He is. Pushy, in your face and excitable. Happy. Intense. My best friend. Look, leaving that life behind was hard but I love Tosh and knew I would simply never find another. Coming here I thought I would only have her to cling to and be a burden. Shit, I narrowly spoke this language. Thank God you knew Galactic Standard and could be so patient. He's my friend, one of my oldest and dearest friends who encouraged me to leave everything for her. Now he is doing the same for his own love. His daughter. A year tops. That's all I'm asking Yan. One year out of your life and you get the money you need to get out of your wee financial hole Lisa left you in. You don't have to like him, just accept him for a while. Separate rooms, think of him like a … a … flatmate. Yeah?"
"And if they choose to investigate? You know they randomly select all the time and you hear those horror stories" Ianto frowned.
"Then we have the bonus of having someone on the inside to help us" Owen was whispering now, "Tosh is right behind us on this and with her wee brain she can thwart any would be problems, right?"
Ianto was torn, Owen could see that but he also knew he had him. Lisa's death had plunged him into financial ruin and he was only just treading water above the bankruptcy line.
"He's funny and so kind" Owen said hopefully, "Hugs and kind words. Cooks like a bloody saint and is thoughtful. Never forgets my birthday, or Tosh's. He vid-coms her if she had a bloody cold and worries if she is OK, calls me to check if I remembered a jacket when I am flying over to visit. Tells me the weather I am flying into for Pete's sake. A real motherer."
Ianto turned the picture over, then hesitated and flipped it over instead so it sat side by side with the little girl's. Black hair in ringlets and the same dimpled smile. Not a dimpled chin but her lips were shaped the same. Same blue eyes, must be her mother's nose and chin. She looked happy. Like him.
"Alice" Owen was smiling, "She's a little princess. Always in my lap and telling me stories. The proudest thing in the worlds was when me and Tosh stood there and became her Secondary Guardians. When she looks up at me and calls me Uncle Owie I just go all gushy. Because of her, me and Tosh have agreed to try for kids. I thought I would be a crap father, no good with the nurturing thing given my past by this wee gem had shown that I can feel love for a child. You will love her, singing and skipping about. Oh! She can play the piano. You play the piano right?"
"Piano, guitar, sitar, banjo and violin" Ianto said absently, "Hated the fucking violin as a kid."
Owen was surprised to see that the little girl was swaying him, Ianto never being that affectionate to his own sister's kids but something in the photo seems to have him wavering.
"She just needs a good start" Owen leaned forward deciding on that tactic "So vulnerable. You know they are killing kids in the battles. Can you imagine this wee one snuffed out?"
Ianto's eyes rolled up to look at Owen through his lashes and he wondered if he had laid it on too thick but then Ianto grimaced and leaned back with a huff.
"One date" he warned "If he's a Twypsn then it's all off. If I get rubbed the wrong way, feel I can't share my space then it's off"
Owen resisted the urge to punch the air.