Yay, homestretch now! Just two more chapters to go :)

Disclaimer: I don't own Jack and Ianto, they belong to RTD.


Chapter 9

The film ended in much the same way that it had the last several hundred times Griffin had made Jack and Ianto watch it, but the content smile on his face by the end of it was worth watching it yet again.

Once it had finished, Jack and Griffin returned to their jigsaw and Ianto's mother and sisters vanished to the kitchen to make lunch for everyone. Ianto was sitting with Niamh and a puzzle cube on his lap, watching as she worked through the simple but effective challenges on each side.

"You had one like that." Ianto looked up as his father spoke from across the room, a smile on his face as Niamh cried triumphantly at fitting a cylinder in the circular hole. "I seem to remember tantrums when the triangle didn't fit in the square."

Ianto blushed and looked away, knowing exactly what expression would be on Jack's face. Eli barked with laughter. "But then again, I also remember the pig headed stubbornness that refused to let the puzzle lie."

"Some things haven't changed then." Jack murmured with a smile, turning his attention back to Griffin who was brandishing a piece at him inquisitively. "That looks like someone's arm, can you see a body it would fit on?"

"Yeah? I'll remember that next time Griffin's drawing on your reports." Ianto said with a hint of a threat. "He was only trying to help, after all. How long did it take for you to rewrite them all?"

"Not as long as it took you to reorder that filing cabinet." Jack countered, mischief in his eyes. "Griff, I don't think Buzz's head goes on Bo Peep's body."

"You're still working in archives then?" Eli asked in surprise. He'd only ever heard complaints that he just made the coffee at Torchwood London.

"Tad, without me, Jack would get lost after three steps into his records. It took me almost a year to get everything properly ordered," Ianto shot Jack another look. "Everyone on the team usually leaves it to me, but someone likes to go down there and try their hand at filing every so often."

"Hey!" Jack interrupted, offended at the insinuation. "I learnt my lesson the last time." He looked comically wounded. "You didn't have to make me sleep on the couch for a week."

Ianto noticed his father wince and couldn't help but smile. He remembered times from his childhood when his tad had been made to sleep downstairs for working too late or too hard. Once, Ianto and his sisters had orchestrated a camp out in the front room with him, eating chocolate and crisps into the early hours of the morning. Their mother never had worked out why her husband was so placid the next morning.

"One day, Jack, when those two are older, you'll be able to see sleeping on the sofa in a much different light." Eli said sagely, obviously thinking of the same instance as Ianto was. Jack looked between the father and son suddenly realised just how similar they looked, the slight smiles their memory brought making their faces mirrors of each other.

"I may have been sleeping on the couch, but I seem to remember being joined in the middle of the night." Jack reminded Ianto with a grin.

"That's because I remember what it's like to be kicked out of the bed for no real reason." Ianto pointed out, defending his corner instantly.

"You shouldn't have eaten my ice cream, I told you before." Jack looked at him pointedly and Eli started to chuckle again, Ianto switching his gaze to stare at his father accusingly.

"You're not a proper couple until you can laugh about being kicked out of the bed." He clarified, standing up and heading into the kitchen to join the rest of his family. Ianto smiled to himself again as he watched Niamh attempt to do what his father had said he did, the triangle block still refusing to go into the square slot.

"He's nothing how I thought he'd be." Jack said quietly, handing Griffin another piece of the puzzle, which was now half finished.

"Oh?" Ianto replied, intrigued.

"No, I thought he'd be all uptight, pursed lips and frowns when he saw me walk in." Ianto laughed at the thought of his father being strict and homophobic. "But he's like an older version of you."

"Not exactly, I hope." Ianto said slyly, eliciting a low chuckle from his lover. Lunch was a fairly tense affair for Ianto, as his parents and sisters had decided to punish him for his lack of contact over the past few years. Bryn had already relieved him of Niamh and was feeding her mashed banana and Griffin was glued to Jack like a limpet, as he usually was on a Sunday.


Ianto had slowly sunk further and further in his chair as the stories moved from infancy and early childhood to his teenage years, which he now had a strong feeling he was reliving.

"Mam, please!" He moaned as she took Bryn's prompt to tell the story of his run in the with Head teacher in his sixth form years.

"Ianto, don't be such a baby! It's an excellent story! You do realise they were still telling it when I left last year?" Bryn said with a smirk, eyes glittering dangerously.

"Oh, I really am intrigued now." Jack said, turning to look at the expression of sheer agony on Ianto's face. He watched the young man cover his eyes with his hands and nod slowly, receiving a cheer from his sisters.

"He was caught hacking into the school database after got a C in English for back chatting the teacher. I'm only assuming he was meaning to change it for his report." Ianto nodded his affirmation and Lydia continued. "The head teacher put him in three straight detentions and he came home in a foul mood."

"I wasn't even back chatting in the first place, she was pronouncing half the words of The Tempest wrong, any idiot can read Shakespeare, even the Welsh ones!" He scowled, trying to defend himself. Griffin noticed the look on his face and stretched over the gap between his fathers, patting Ianto's arm sincerely.

"Yan, everyone gets one or two bum detentions." Ellen said with a roll of her eyes. "That doesn't mean you go home and stick the head's face on some porn and email onto the school network."

Jack snorted and laughed loudly at that, joined by Bryn and Eli as well. Ianto winced and pushed a carrot stick around on his plate as a mental diversion. "I did do a pretty good job on it though," He muttered to himself, ever the moody teenager.

"The best part is that they never had enough proof to pin it on him." Bryn said proudly, grinning and Niamh clapped her hands in approval of her tad's antics. "What you were doing with porn on your computer in the first place though…"

She looked upwards slightly and managed to dodge the cherry tomato that Ianto flung at her. Ianto knew that Jack was looking at Griffin with the same knowing smile that had turned up every time he'd been biting back a retort. Ianto saw, just in time, that the smile widened to a grin and he pointed his finger viciously at his lover.

"You even dare and you're on decaf for a month." He warned darkly. The grin snapped off his face and he nodded, Bryn laughing at the interaction. Ianto had the feeling that his sister was now their biggest fan, enough to rival both Tosh and Gwen, who seemed to find them extremely endearing as a couple.

"If you'll excuse me, I have to go check my messages, make sure everything's running smoothly at work without us." Jack passed Griffin to Ianto with a small protest from the boy, and excused himself politely, heading upstairs to check both his wrist strap, which he was actually wearing, as always, and his mobile.

"Ianto Jones," Ellen said with a smirk. "you have really hit the gold mine with him, who'd have thought you'd have such good taste in men?"

"Back off, I saw him first." Ianto said with a smile, handing Griffin another piece of bread and butter to devour.

"Seriously though, son," This time his tad was speaking. "We expect to see all four of you again."

"I can't promise anything." Ianto was going to say, but his mother cut him off.

"We don't mean every week, and not even for that long. We'd just like to see you all every so often, even if just for the afternoon." She looked at her son earnestly and Ianto nodded slowly. He couldn't promise all four of them, but he knew Jack wouldn't be averse to coming to visit again, and neither would their children.

"Could you please try and restrict visits to when we're back from uni?" Ellen said a little impatiently. "It's one thing to suddenly discover that you have a niece and nephew, but it's an entirely different thing when your pig of a brother doesn't let you see them."

"I'm not saying you can't see them, I'm saying that we may not be able to come over too often! It's a completely different thing. It's not like we work in a place when you can take scheduled holiday time." Ianto scowled at his sister, who gave as good as she got. After a minute or so, Griffin announced that he'd finished and Ianto forced himself to break the contest.

"Tad, tired." The little boy said with a yawn, curling up and gripping holding of Ianto's t-shirt. The young man's expression softened and he hoisted his son into his arms as he stood up.

"If you'll excuse me as well, I have to go find Jack and these two need to go down for a couple of hours." Ianto said, stroking Griffin's hair gently. Bryn took her cue, collected Niamh up and followed him from the dining room, heading up the stairs slowly.

"Why do I get the feeling that you're trying to avoid that lot visiting your home?" Bryn asked quietly, careful not to disturb the now unconscious Griffin.

"Because there is so much more to my life than what you've all seen these past couple of days." Ianto replied, a little sadly. They walked a little further in silence until Jack stepped out of Ianto's bedroom, almost walking into them. "Jack, can you go put Griff down?"

Jack nodded and eased the boy out of Ianto's arms, kissing his lover's forehead gently before following Bryn down to the nursery. Ianto stood and watched them walk into the room before turning into his own, flopping face down on the bed and sighing. He folded his arms under his pillow and rested his forehead on them, memories of his adolescence flooding back at the scent of the bed linen.

It struck him then that his love life hadn't been so settled or secure than it was now, and with Captain Jack Harkness nonetheless. All those rumours of the insatiable flirt and playboy and here he was, Ianto Jones of twenty first century Cardiff, living with an almost completely domesticated Jack and their two kids. It really did make his mind boggle.

He felt the bed dip next to him and a familiar hand on his shoulder. He looked up to see Jack looking at him, concern in his eyes. Ianto grinned and rolled over, pulling Jack down into a fiery kiss. Whether it was a rush of teenage defiance or simply that he missed the taste of Jack's lips, he didn't care. As long as Jack was there, it was more than enough for him.

"You know," Jack suggested as he pulled back a little, slipping his arms around Ianto's waist and pulling him closer, "Your sisters are standing outside. We should charge them for the show."

"They are, are they?" Ianto grinned and kissed him again, groaning in an exaggerated way and listening to the stifled giggles that came from the door. "You do realise they're only doing this because they want to be in my position, right?"

"And why would that be?" Jack asked seductively, kissing along his jaw line slowly.

"Because they want to be the ones shagging you senseless every night." Jack chuckled deep in his throat and kissed him again, biting Ianto's bottom lip gently before jumping up with a mischievous look in his eyes and heading to the door. He opened it a fraction and poked his head round, taking the two young women by surprise.

Ellen blushed and looked away in shock, looking just like Ianto when he got flustered. Bryn was looking at Jack and grinning from ear to ear. The childish, maniacal grin reminded him of the Doctor and only served to spur a surge of affection for the girl. He managed to keep his body hidden behind the door and he raised his eyebrows innocently.

"What can I do for you, girls?" He asked politely, a playful glint in his eyes.

"We were just passing by." Bryn said with a careless flip of her head, flicking her fringe from her eyes. Jack felt himself pushed to one side as Ianto took control of the situation.

"What will it take for you to give us five minutes alone?" Ianto asked, readying himself for a heated round of bartering.

"Let me come by and babysit once a week." She said with a casual shrug of her shoulders. Ianto frowned in shock, but Jack pushed him back, holding his hand out for the young woman to take.

"Done." He said with his most dashing grin. She shook his hand and smiled once more before dragging the still bashful Ellen by the hand down the stairs. Ianto closed the door and turned back to Jack, pulling him into another, bruising kiss. This time, Jack allowed himself to be pulled back onto the bed for a rather heated five minutes.