Chapter note: Right off the bat, I feel I need to explain something. I've been reading TW fanfiction for years and, in my own opinion, the wedding of Ianto Jones and Jack Harkness has been done and redone, ad nauseam. I was extremely hesitant to write this story because of that. So, I've put my own spin on the wedding theme by actually skipping the wedding itself. I feel the need to explain that up front because if that's what you're looking for here, you're not going to find it. Like my story, "The Holiday," this is nothing more than an interlude piece that is meant for nothing more than character development and some fluff and more angst than I intended :).
It was a crisp Sunday in Cardiff, the mid-morning air was still chilly even though they were well into May. Doctor Miranda Ryan parked her car on the small street across from a lovely mid-terrace house. She knew exactly which door she needed, its stained glass sparkled in the sun. The tall plants on either side of the doorway were still wrapped in their protective burlap. Through the front windows, Miranda could see the house's occupants were at home. She inhaled sharply and then exhaled slowly, rolling her shoulders.
She took her Torchwood issue side arm out of her purse and tossed it into the car's glove box. She opened the driver's door and got out of the car and then took her coat out of the back. She settled it over her shoulders and ensured the flap that concealed her sword was well closed before shouldering her purse and striding across the road. She looked far more confident than she felt. Once again, she inhaled, slowly exhaled and rolled her shoulders as she climbed the stairs to the door, distracting herself with admiring the stained glass. Pressing her lips into a thin line, she rang the bell twice and waited. She heard the muffled shouting inside the house.
"Steven! Get the door!" a woman shouted.
"I'm busy, Mum!" a cracking adolescent voice answered.
"You can pause your game and answer the door!"
There was the sound of stomping feet and the door flew open revealing a boy in his early teens.
"Yeah?" he said, a slight attitude to his voice.
"Hello," Miranda said brightly. The young man was nearly her height. "You must be Steven. Is your Mum home?"
"Steven? Who's at the…" the boy's mother said trailed off as she caught sight of the woman standing in her doorway. Her hair was short and dark with a slight wave to it. Her hazel eyes went wide with surprise and then narrowed with suspicion. Miranda took in the face, the slightly square jaw and the long nose. It had been many years since Miranda had last laid eyes on Melissa Moretti.
Alice Carter, Miranda told herself firmly before she spoke. Still Jack's spitting image… "Alice. You're looking well. May I come in?"
Alice still eyed her suspiciously but Miranda could see curiosity there as well. "Steven? You can go back to your game."
"Mum-" the boy protested.
"Now, Steven," Alice said flatly.
The boy, so reluctant to abandon his video game, was now reluctant to return to it and leave what he could tell was a juicy situation. He looked between the two adults, then obeyed. Alice led Miranda into the kitchen.
"Why don't you sit down? Tea?" she asked, stiffly.
"Yes, thank you," Miranda said. She took off her coat, rolling it around her concealed sword in such a way that she could lay it over a stool next to the counter. She sat down on the stool next to it and spoke softly.
"You still take milk and honey?" Alice asked, not looking up from her chore.
"Yes," Miranda said, surprised she remembered. She looked around the kitchen and then down at the counter. "You have a lovely home, Alice. My apologies for the unannounced visit."
Alice lifted her head and then, at the top of her lungs, shouted out of the kitchen, "STOP EAVESDROPPING STEVEN!"
Miranda heard the stomping feet and the slam of a door. She suppressed a grin.
"I'm used to it with Dad," she said, a little bitterly.
"You're the spitting image of your father," she said with a smile.
"You always say that," Alice said with a little shake of her head as she put the mug of tea down in front of Miranda. She stared straight into Miranda's eyes and said in an accusatory tone, "What are you doing here, Auntie Mei-Mei? Dad wants something doesn't he?"
"Your father doesn't know I'm here," Miranda said, quietly. She reached into her purse and pulled out the deep burgundy envelope. She slid it across the counter towards the other woman.
Alice picked it up, turning it over in her hands. With her brow furrowed in curiosity, she slid her finger under the flap to open it. She pulled out the piece of thick parchment, mounted on heavy burgundy paper and embossed with gold. Miranda swallowed as she watched Alice read the elaborate calligraphy.
"Married? Dad's getting married?!" Alice exclaimed in a hushed whisper. Her eyes went wide and her jaw dropped slightly.
"For the past seven years, your father has been involved with a man named Ianto Jones-"
"I know," Alice interrupted, snapping a bit. A flash of embarrassment came across Alice's face as Miranda gave her a stern look. Alice had never met Ianto. Her father had asked a few times about bringing Ianto round to meet her and Steven. Alice hadn't thought it was a good idea. She'd arranged a few dinners but she always changed her mind. She'd been glad when he'd finally stopped asking about it. She didn't need her father bringing around his boy toy, someone who could shine a bright spotlight on her father's lack of aging. She already looked older than him.
With a level tone, Miranda continued, "Ifan… Ianto rather, proposed a few months ago. It's to be a wedding service followed by dinner at a restaurant on the quay. It's a small celebration, just Ianto's family and the team. They didn't want a big to-do."
Alice's shock increased. "Didn't want a big to-do? Dad?!"
"I was as surprised as you are," Miranda said with a smile. Jack did love showing off. "Both of them would like for you and Steven to be there."
Suspicion narrowed Alice's eyes again. "You said Dad doesn't know you're here. If he wants me to be there, why didn't he come and give me this himself? Or just send it in the post?"
"Do you want the truth of that, Alice?" Miranda asked, lifting her chin.
"Why wouldn't I?" she asked, almost defiant.
And that is the end of my tether… "He told Ianto that he didn't want to trouble you. But Ianto and I know the truth of it. Your father is convinced you won't come and it would break his heart for him to ask only to have you refuse or back out at the last minute. So, he felt the best solution all around was to not even try."
Alice leaned back as if Miranda had slapped her and responded with more petulance. "So I'm supposed to stand there and play happy family while he marries someone half my age?"
"Firstly, young lady, Ianto Jones is not 'half your age'," she snapped and Alice looked away, tossing the invitation onto the counter. "Secondly, no one is asking you to play happy family, just be civil at someone's wedding and thirdly, your father and I can't exactly marry people our own age."
"Oh yes, you and him and your lovely little immortality club-" Alice said sarcastically.
Miranda brought her hand down on the counter hard enough to get Alice's attention but not loud enough for Steven to hear upstairs. She put a chill in her voice, the tone and cadence changing to something more archaic as it always did when she was truly angry. "You will drop that insolent tone, girl. Do not speak of things you cannot possibly comprehend. You should be grateful for what your mortality gives you."
"Says the woman who will never look a day over thirty."
"Says the woman who has buried a husband, two wives, a son, four grandchildren, and more friends and lovers than you can possibly count," Miranda snapped and shook her head. "You may be your father's image but you are your mother's daughter - vain."
Alice lifted her chin defiantly in an expression so reminiscent of her father. "Mum always said you were jealous of her and Dad - that she was just filler, warming Dad's bed until you could find a way to climb back in."
"I was never jealous of your mother, Alice," Miranda said, a bit defensive herself. Miranda gazed across the room at the old drawings littering Alice's fridge. "No, I'm wrong. I was jealous of her."
Alice looked at Miranda, smug and triumphant and Miranda decided to wipe that look right off her face.
Admitting an uncomfortable truth, she said, bitterly, "I was jealous that she could give your father you."
Alice's face immediately fell. She looked down into her mug, almost ashamed.
"But now I see the way you break your father's heart and I thank all the Gods and Goddesses above and below that I cannot bear children." She stood up and placed both of her hands onto the counter. "The day I buried my son was the worst of my life. On the day your father stands over your grave, it will shatter his heart but that is not in your control. The way you wound him now, you do so deliberately."
"He's dangerous-" Alice began.
"That is your mother talking," she said, interrupting her. She stabbed at the envelope with her finger. "You're a grown woman. Act like one. Use your own mind."
"You think I should go," she said, a statement, not a question. There was still defiance in her tone.
"Whether you come to this wedding or not is your decision. As is how you behave in whatever you decide," Miranda said. "I'll not have you show up with this chip on your shoulder, only to spoil your father's happiness nor will I allow you to use a refusal of this covert invitation as a way to wound him."
Alice didn't answer Miranda, she sat there, her arms folded across her chest. The posture reminded her strongly of Jack.
"As woefully obtuse as your father," Miranda said with a shake of her head. "You're a mother. Put yourself in your father's place. If Steven were shutting you from his life so much, that you didn't dare invite him if you remarried?"
"Dad is dangerous-" Alice repeated and again, Miranda interrupted. Alice was parroting her mother's rhetoric and Miranda had had enough.
"What have you seen of him that is dangerous? Does he mistreat you or his grandson?" she snapped, her voice rising dangerously loud. She lowered it and said sternly, "Yes, Torchwood is dangerous and, yes, your father is Torchwood but so was your mother. You will listen to me plainly, Alice, because what I tell you now your father would never forgive me for revealing. But I see it is the only way." She saw the curiosity light in Alice's eyes.
She continued, "A mere week before your mother spirited you away, you were all a happy family. Then, your father died saving the entire Torchwood team, including your mother. He was burned alive and hauled back to the Hub a mere smoldering torso. An agonising day later, he gasped back to life. Your mother saw what many see when they are confronted with our undisguised immortality. She saw something unnatural. She saw something she couldn't understand so she reacted as every human being has reacted to the unknown since the dawn of humankind - with fear. She took you and fled. Your father went home to find an empty house and nothing but a letter. I read that evil hearted piece of paper. She called your father a thing, an aberration, a perversion and a host of other terrible things. Your father wanted to look for you but your mother told him to stay away… and even though it broke his heart, he did as she asked. And he's done as you have asked - he has stayed away.
"You hold your mother on too high a pedestal. She was a woman with flaws and faults like any other. You parrot her. You call your father dangerous. I came through the door and you assumed that your father wanted something. And why is that? Perhaps it is because the conditions and boundaries you set on him that it is the only time he may call upon you. He'd be here every day if you allowed it. But no, you sit here and declare a man you scarcely know as dangerous."
Alice opened her mouth to speak but Miranda raised a hand to silence her.
"His immortality will eventually be noticed by Steven, yes. And, yes, if you decide to reveal what Jack is to him, it will be a difficult conversation. But there are many difficult conversations to be had with your son about life - sex, drugs and death. Telling him that his uncle is his un-aging immortal grandfather isn't a typical subject, but you will handle it as all parents do. You will do your best."
Alice was silent for a long while. She stared at the invitation, reading and rereading it. Suddenly, her eyebrows shot up and she said, "This is next week!"
Miranda nodded. "Yes, it is. Ianto and I were quite conflicted about your invitation. We delayed a long time."
Ianto and Miranda had had many circular debates on inviting Alice and about whether or not to tell Jack. Their concern was only Jack's welfare. In the end, Miranda had decided this covert invitation the best solution. Ianto had wanted to come with her but Miranda had been firm. She was glad she'd held her ground. There was a great deal of history here that Ianto was not aware of and Alice would not want to speak freely in front of him.
"He didn't think I'd go?" she asked, softly. There was hurt in her voice.
"No, he didn't," Miranda said.
Alice ran her finger along the edge of the invitation. "I need to think about this Auntie."
"And that, I believe, is the core of my argument," Miranda said, disappointed. She started to put on her coat. "Your father loves you unconditionally. There was never any question when he attended your wedding."
Alice looked at Miranda with alarm. "I told him not to come! I didn't want to explain him to Joe."
"So he said," Miranda said, very angry. "I managed to remain a part of my son's entire life in superstitious Imperial China. I was an honoured guest at his wedding. I was midwife to my daughter-in-law and pulled my own grandchildren into this world. Those are some of the most precious moments in my life. You could have come up with a dozen different stories to explain Jack. But no. You forced him to watch his only child, his only daughter get married from across the street…" She adjusted the collar on her coat. "On your wedding night did you find the unopened rose buds on your bed?"
Alice's eyes went wide. "We thought the hotel had done that! That was Dad?!"
"It's a tradition on his world. The unopened bloom signifies the potential of the relationship to blossom into great beauty, the possibility to bear fruit." Miranda remembered how much trouble Jack had gone through for that little display. She glared at Alice with contempt. "Your father shows love for his own daughter in secret, as if he must be ashamed. That is your doing." She pushed the invitation towards her. "There's no need to reply. Either show up, or don't. I'll see myself out."