21
Ianto slid from the function and went up to the room where Maria was drying the babies.
"Ah…bum. I missed the bath?" he sighed, "Oh well, hand one over for PJ time."
He knelt and crooned as he dressed his wee Rose and watched her eyelids sag with fatigue. He was lifting her to wrap her in her favourite blanket when Jack entered, speaking as he closed the door, "I turned around and you were gone. You didn't think to tell me you were sloping off?"
Ianto's hands stilled for a moment and he turned to look at Jack, and then frowned as Maria scooped up the babies, "I go to next room and sleeps."
"But, their last bottles" Ianto protested.
"No good with sour milk" she said as she shot from the room and Ianto sat on the bed morosely as he could only agree.
"Ianto? What's going on?" Jack sat and folded his legs, "Why were you chewing on that speech? You knew it backwards."
"I knew the words, but my inclination to say them may have changed" Ianto replied, "I was a bit confused by your words to me before the speeches and it influenced my belief in them for a moment or two."
Jack blinked and then huffed, "What words."
"You called me a Pagan. You said you had placed your own religious beliefs aside for me and my own beliefs" Ianto said as he folded the clothes from the babies, "You made it sound like I chose my religion and scoffed yours or something."
"I did not!" Jack defended and then he considered, "Did I?"
"The contract that I was unable to fulfil" Ianto said, then rose to wring his hands, "You ever wonder about that?"
"Yes" Jack admitted.
"Then you need to know that the money came from your preferred church" Ianto said, anger now starting, "The father was a Sharman, his money paid for the contract. He stood over me with a gun to my head as he demanded I not abort the child. Like I could stop the miscarriage. He prayed over me, ranted like a madman. It took four officers to pull him from the room so they could save me. I would never besmirch your choice of religion, or deny our children the choice in their own spiritual journey but don't you ever imply that you have to…to…lower your standards just for me."
Jack blinked.
Ianto was now placing the baby clothes in the bag for the laundry, his actions stilted to show both rage and upset.
"That wasn't in the file" Jack said and then his brain caught up to the statement as Ianto froze and slowly turned to face him.
"What file?"
Jack knew he was wrong and he could only shrug as he admitted to getting the file off Owen, then he cringed as he placed their friend into the mix, Ianto' anger now almost boiling as his face started to turn red.
"He was worried, he wanted me to go gently, he wanted to protect you, to tell me to treat you…"
Ianto was striding down the hallway, the door slamming back as he fled the room and as he stalked towards a quiet spot to think he saw Owen ahead, laughing with someone. Ianto knew he would unleash so he changed course and Owen looked up in time to see Ianto slam into a door, then struggle through and his gaze followed Ianto's retreating figure through the shrubbery into the gardens of the venue.
Jack came flying into the room and Owen pointed at the door, Jack grimacing and following into the dark.
"Ianto" Jack called, trying to see where he was going, then a grunt of pain to his left and he pushed through some shrubbery to find Ianto sitting on the ground with his ankle caught in a tree root.
"Gods, are you OK?"
"Gods?" Ianto snarked, "You don't have to say that. You can say Goddess ya know!"
"Really? We are really going to have a marital spat over religion?" Jack asked sadly.
"Do you think that is what is pissing me off to the point of wanting to smash your fucking head through the wall?" Ianto snarled, then he flopped back into the ground. "Just when we were getting somewhere nice."
"I'm sorry" Jack said sadly, "I needed to understand, to know. I craved to know everything about you, including the bad bits. I feel….like…I will never know enough"
"You could have asked." Ianto huffed.
"Please don't be angry with Owen, I was as demanding as I always am" Jack begged, "Please love. He loves you so much."
"I know" Ianto stared up at the stars above them. "I hate what that contract took from me, so much gone."
"Ianto, I won't say it doesn't matter but…" Jakc took Ianto's hands and loked into his face in the moonlight, rubbing the knuckled with his thumbs, "You said it back in there. Take what you need of my heart to fill the bits missing from yours. Take anything everything. I would cut it from my vhst for you if you need it."
"Oh Cariad" Ianot sighed as he leaned into his arms and Jack clung to him with relief, "I don't know how you manage it. You can go from arsehole to Saint with just a few words."
"Truths" Jakc whispered with a gentle squeeze, "A few truths. I will never lie, I promise."
"And I will always forgive you."
"And I will forgive meself…eventually." Jack snorted, "Gods AND Goddess, I am a fool around you. You make me so flutstered, even after this time together I am still a silly school boy."
Ianto started to giggle, "I have an image of you in a school boy's uniform now, bastard!"
They sat in the dark giggling in the bushes.
Two fools in love.