Author's Note: This has been going really smoothly, especially as I lost my internet connection for 7 hours yesterday and managed to write about 8000 words, so I'm hoping to keep up that momentum, post a chapter a day and have it all finished and uploaded in under 3 weeks. We'll see if that actually happens, but I think I can do it.


Jack picked up a glass of champagne from the table and turned around to watch the proceedings again. Ianto was at the DJ desk talking to Gwen; their heads were close together and he was smiling at her, nodding his agreement to whatever she was saying. Over in the corner, Tosh was picking at her food whilst Owen sulked with his chin on his folded arms, and Rhys was standing in front of the top table and appeared to be doing his best to ignore his mother. Jack grinned and raised the champagne flute to his lips, sipping gently and letting his eyes wander over the crowd, past the two bridesmaids, and back to Ianto and Gwen.

They kept talking for a while, then Gwen gave Ianto another brilliant smile and kissed his cheek before sweeping down from the stage and towards Rhys. Jack hid a grin in another sip of his champagne and shook his head, following her progress. He had to hand it to her, there weren't many women who could sweep as well as she could, even if it was really annoying when you were the one she was sweeping. Ianto, when he chanced another look, had his head down over the DJ desk, a tiny furrow between his eyes from his concentration. He looked up suddenly and caught Jack's gaze across the room, letting his soft smile smooth away the frownlines and making him look as young as he actually was for a change. Jack's heart skipped a beat as the shock of it sank in again, and he returned Ianto's smile tremulously.

Gwen clapped her hands and clasped them together against her shoulder, looking at Ianto over her shoulder. He nodded at her and picked up a microphone off the desk, tapping it twice to check that it was on and raising it to his lips. "If I could have your attention please? Mr and Mrs Williams are going to take to the floor for their first dance as a married couple, and they've chosen Calon Lân."

As the music started up, Jack closed his eyes and swayed into it, mouthing the words along with the rich singing of a recorded male voice choir. His smile faded, and he opened his eyes again to watch Gwen and Rhys swaying together in the middle of the floor, surrounded by family and friends, ready to start out on a new life as a married couple.

Wedding traditions had change a lot since he'd got married. Sarah's father, Roger, knowing that Jack had no parents to look after him, had taken it upon himself to make sure that Jack could waltz for the first dance, insisting that anyone who was marrying his little girl had to do it properly. He'd been so proud of both of them when he walked down the aisle with Sarah's arm through his, ready and willing to give her into Jack's care. It had been a simple wedding, on the eve of war when so many other couples were getting married in a hurry. They'd married in church, a full service for her religious family, and then gone to her uncle's farm, where tables and tents were set up in one of the fallow fields, and they'd eaten simple, healthy meals that Sarah and Anne, her mother, had prepared, and their first dance had been dusk-lit and accompanied by her cousin on the violin.

His best man had been Gerald, the director of Torchwood, there because he'd insisted that he keep an eye on Jack, rather than because Jack had wanted him there. The organisation had made his life miserable since he joined them, and the one bright patch in it was the beautiful young woman he'd helped up when she fell off her bicycle and, somewhere down the line, fallen in love with.

They had waltzed around the field, laughing when she tripped over his feet – she was never the most coordinated of people – until he picked her up and waltzed her around with her feet dangling off the ground, surrounded by the laughter and love of her family in the warm summer night. There were very few truly perfect nights that hindsight didn't dull, but that was one of them; even with the pain of loss that had followed it too soon.

He took another sip of his drink and let the memories sweep him away.