9
Zane was still tantruming, an epic one with high pitched screams tempered with unnerving silence as he seemed to roar without sound, Jack now worried he was having some sort of fit as he lay him on the War Room table.
"What in the seventh rell happened" Laura gasped as she rushed to comfort her little grandson.
"I stuffed up" Jack sighed, "Lost my temper and let Ianto have a mouthful of ugly. I am a complete stuff up that just acted no better than the twins."
"In front of the little child?" she demanded as she scooped up the baby who went rigid in protest "Oh Jackson Junior, you know better."
"Yes Mama" he slumped.
The door swung open and Ianto strode in, "Zane stop being naughty."
The baby immediately started to scream, shrugging in his grandmother's grip as he reached his arms for his Dam and Ianto looked at Jack "Permission to comfort your child Master?"
"Stop it" Jack roared, anger employed once more.
Ianto reached out and took the child, sitting and revealing a breast that the little one snarled around as he chewed at it frantically.
"Calm down, you will choke" Ianto said calmly, "I know you are angry, I am too but it will not help your drinking. You need to let go of my breast sooner or later you know, spoilt little beast."
Zane closed his eyes and sighed as he drank some more and Ianto rose, "I wish to take your son. Am I allowed this time or will you take him from me again if I try?"
"Jackson" his mother growled with horror.
"Ianto I did not mean to do that, I did not… I love you. You know you are the sun and the moon, please. I should have curbed my temper before speaking with you" Jack begged, "Please forgive me. I am physically ill at what I did, please let me apologise for being horrible. You are not a slave, please stop reminding me that you once were. What you were is not what you are."
"But it is" Storm said as she stepped around her Taddy's legs to look up at her father, "He is H 4.0. Always. He was born and bred. As am I. If Taddy is just a fool, so am I Daddy. Until H 4.0 are free, what am I?"
Jack looked at his darling child, then the other standing in the doorway behind her, his first born. The future ruler of the Realm, his face stony as he stared back at his father with his hand firmly clasped in that of the man who had helped raise him. Jax raised his eyes to meet his father's with the pert nose of a H 4.0 wrinkling with annoyance.
"Well?" Damec said softly "Are these children just slave pups?"
"Stop it"
"Look out there, you think there are not children on those? Some as young as these? How many already in training as pleasure models? How many the age of our beloved Rose that are already saddled?" Damec pressed, glancing at his love to see if Jackson was angry with him for speaking but he only nodded, "Tell us Wee Jax. What makes their lives matter less for what their blood drew from? We all bleed into the earth the same."
"A man should not be judged on the poverty of his ancestors" Ianto said calmly, "Or the wealth of them either. We are all free men in this room, look around. Look to the one next to you. Are you better than him? Or would you offer you hand if he stumbled. They stumble now. Out there in the universe they stumble. We must offer our hand."
Jack nodded "I hear you love. I am sorry, I was spoilt as a child wasn't I. Maybe I needed a smack occasionally to temper my horrible pride."
"Oh, lovely." Damec spluttered, "Blame me!"
Ianto laughed softly as he turned to Damec, "Now, now. You taught him love, important one that, shame Gray has yet to settle on one, for he has sampled the entire stable by now."
Damec laughed as everyone felt the air lighten, Ianto's anger dissipating like a bad smell.
"Ianto, I am sorry. Of course your thoughts for those onboard is to save them, it's something I admire about you" Jack reached for the baby and was rewarded when Ianto handed him over, "And I never…I repeat …never… should have challenged your place as a parental."
"I will always have my breeding and my heritage in my past but I do not want that for my children's future, you understand that, right?" Ianto felt the need to press it "I will never bow again. I will always strive to save and protect. I will not stop that for you. You should not ask me to try, it would be as painful as refusing an order from a master."
"And as you never have to serve again, how can I demand you do the other" Jack smiled, "I love you, all of you… past and present, definitely future."
"Good" Ianto smiled, "I feel the same."
Jack kissed him over the head of their little one and Zane grumbled as he seized Ianto's tunic so Ianto took him back, turning to usher the other two from the room.
Jack thought Storm might impart a snarky comment but to his surprise it was Jax who hesitated and turned back to face him.
"Nobody should feel small coz someone else needs to feel big. Even a small man can cut a large man's legs from under him with the sweep of a sharp sword Dada" he said, then he was gone.
"Wow" Damec said softly, "Sonny, he sounded just like your late mother."
The old Barron nodded as he stared at the doorway, the child's eyes had shown his great-great grandmother's disapproval as well. The Queen's essence still lingered all these years since the realm was split.
He will make a formidable foe.
She had been terrifying in this room of War.
