12
They lie nude under a sheet.
"I've never been this safe before." Ianto sighs as he snuggles and Jack smiles. "No one could get by you."
"Right now it might not be so hard." Jack huffs as he tries to move his limp limbs.
Ianto laughs, kisses him and buries his head down into his shoulder. Jack stares across the bed at the samurai sword lying on the floor. Some of Ianto's clothing is draped in a heap across it. The torn pieces of the scarf lie nearby.
"Tell me something" Jack whispers as he rubs a smooth back.
Ianto hums in question.
"The pink car" Jack says as he squeezes and Ianto laughs.
"Sy's idea. Another bloody photo shoot" Ianto confesses as he looks into Jacks eyes, "I hate the bloody thing."
They drift in the warmth of the embrace, Ianto's sigh matching the exhale from Jack.
.
.
.
The roller-blind is raised with a sharp, snapping sound. Jack is moving around the room, getting dressed. Ianto is still in the bed behind him, woken by the noise of his activity.
"What? What is it? What are you doing?" Ianto says with honest confusion as he looks around sleepily.
Jack keeps moving, looking for his shoes.
"Jack?"
"Ianto, I don't want to get confused about what I'm doing here." Jack doesn't look at him as he briskly moved about.
"I'm not confused." Ianto frowns.
Jack finds his shoes.
"You pay me to protect you, that's what I do."
Ianto sits up. "What? Have I done something wrong?"
"No, nothing." Jack huffs as he brushes his jacket with his hand.
"Then what is it?" Ianto asks as he lifts the sheet seductively and looks over the top of it. "Do you want me to beg?"
"No, I want you to do without." Jack stops and Ianto freezes.
"What's going on, Jack?"
"I want to keep it straight in my head what job I'm doing." Jack repeats as his hands shake, he covers this by brushing the jacket again.
"And what is that exactly? Making me feel like shit?"
"No, I'm sorry. This is my fault." Jack now has his holster in his hands.
"Don't apologize for godsake. Just tell me what I did. I'm a big boy." Ianto is starting to bristle with hurt.
"You didn't do anything. It was me." Jack shrugs, "I involved myself with my client."
Ianto picks up on the word. "Your "client"?"
"I made a mistake."
"What mistake?... You don't find me attractive anymore." Ianto takes a deep breath.
"Christ! I've told you why. I can't protect you like this." Jack shouts as he throws the gun down.
"And what?" Ianto says softly. "That's it for me?"
"Yeah..."
"I don't believe it. One quick shag and I'm done?"
Jack retrieves the gun he just threw with a look of abject misery. He automatically checks the gun as he slips it into the holster. "You can live with that or you can fire me."
"But I can't fuck you."
Jack turns and looks at him. This is hard for him, too.
"I don't believe this...I'm asking you?... Let me tell you..." Ianto stops suddenly and, with a roar of combined frustration, humiliation and rage, he lurches from the bed in search of his clothes. Jack shuts his eyes in mortification and pain.
.
.
.
A nanny sits in the early morning mist, embroidering.
Jack is kneeling with Flynn beside the pool. He's putting new batteries into Flynn's boat. Flynn watches him as he tears off the wrapping from the batteries, preoccupied.
"He's real mad at you, isn't he?" Flynn says softly and Jack stops what he's doing and just looks blankly at the batteries in his hands.
There's a beat of silence.
"He told me he doesn't understand why you're so shitty to him..."
Jack's shoulders droop and he lets out an imperceptible sigh. He gently resumes fitting the batteries, still not looking at Flynn. In the quiet of early morning, it's almost like a confessional.
"I've spent a lot of time learning not to react to things like other people do. It's my job. But it doesn't always work, Flynn..." Jack struggles for a moment to find the right words, "it doesn't always work."
"I don't think I understand." Flynn frowns.
"I'm an old man compared to you, pal, and I don't understand either. And I'm starting to get the feeling I never will." Jack confesses and there's a crunch of footsteps behind him. He looks around.
With a big flourish, a copy of Daily Variety is put down, front page upwards.
Jack takes in that its Rhiannon then glances at Galaxy Variety, lying on the concrete beside him. Splashed across the top, the headlines announce the day's news of the Academy Award nominations. Ianto's name is among the Best Actor nominees. The Hollywood Reporter follows.
Jack picks it up and stares at it. Rhiannon stands beside him with the morning's mail under her arm.
"Thought you'd like to know." Rhiannon says haughtily, "Everyone said he was a sure thing. Of course, you know all about that."
She raises an eyebrow, gives him a look. Jack looks steadily back at her.
She drops a small pile of mail beside the magazines... several letters and a small packet. She's embarrassed by Jack's gaze.
"I'm sorry. That was out of line." She sighs, "It's none of my business... Here's today's question marks for you."
She turns and walks briskly back to the house. Jack watches her go, then looks slowly down to the pile. From across the pool, Flynn watches silently, and then pushes his boat out into the deep water as Jack hurries off with the mail under his arm.
.
.
.
Jack is investigating the small packet, with a surgeon's precision, checking it with a stethoscope and a metal detector, sniffing at it.
It has been addressed in the normal way, except that Ianto's name has been cut out of a magazine and pasted above the address. He begins carefully slicing away the wrapping. Inside is a cardboard box. The contents are still hidden by packing paper. He picks it away with tweezers.
Suddenly there is a whirring sound from the box and movement in the paper.
Jack drops the box into a bed of sand in a sink surrounded by sandbags.
The movement slows and stops. Jack extracts the item –
It is a wind-up mechanical beaver with a hand-painted sign hung around its neck:
WE LOVE YOU, IANTO
YOUR FANS IN BEAVER, PA.
SALLY AND KATE.
The beaver's mouth moves into a smile in Jack's hand.
This may just have taken years off his life. He holds his hand out straight, palm downwards, and looks at it.
No tremor.
Just checking.
.
.
.
Jack is still considering the mess he had gotten into as Ianto's scent seems to be everywhere.
He pauses at the sun lounger to imagine Ianto laying there, sipping his drink.
Spector's voice suddenly shouts from the next door office. "Harkness! Get in here!"
The office is filled with congratulatory balloons and flowers heralding the morning's news. Spector's secretary is taking congratulatory phone messages.
Two assistants are struggling in through the door with a large floral arrangement.
Spector confronts Jack across his desk.
"Put together a list of your expenses. Your total billing... Let me have it in one hour and I'll see that a check is cut."
"Don't you ever say what's on your mind?" Jack snorts as he realizes what is happening.
He is being fired.
