A/N: Hello everyone! I am pleased to annoince that my exams are over at long last (two going splendidly and one that I have completely and utterly failed beyond belief!) and I will be resuming my normal posting habits ie everyday sunday-thursday! As long as people want me to write that often...? I will be alternating between ACAAG and IJD most days, though I might write more frequently on this one to try and catch it up, and may post on GPYRO sometimes too... who knows :) Anyway, hope you like the chapter! Hannah xxx
Result: he has given in at last! Well… when I say given in, I was hardly gagging him and beating him with a baseball bat and threatening the lives of his family in order to get him into bed with me… so more realised that he has been behaving coyly for long enough now and has come to his senses!
I had thought initially that after he responded so eagerly to my provocative email, that things would happen a lot sooner than they eventually did, I was hoping that even though he had said he was tired that he would run up to my office and ravish me senseless on top of my desk I mean, I had been stuck in that infernal hell hole without human contact of any form, never mind this kind, for a year. A YEAR. And a year is a bloody long time I can tell you!
But I can see where he was coming from, why he had hesitations in starting up the physical side to our relationship again, because I could tell that in his mind allowing this to happen was in some way losing his power in the whole situation. I've noticed that since my return he has seemed somewhat nervous around me at times, I think he worries about whether I meant what I said the other evening, and whether or not things will be different and more meaningful this time. Which is absolutely absurd of course, because it was never really what I tried to pretend it was, a casual fling… he has always meant more to me than I allowed myself to admit, but still I think he had doubts. And by letting me 'get what I wanted' he thought that that would be it, game over, things back to how they were. But of course it could never have been like that, I mean yes I would be getting what I wanted, but so would he! But, as I said, I can understand his earlier motivations – but thank goodness he changed his mind.
Last night at around half eleven, four days after our date, he was working dedicatedly away on sifting through some police reports on ghost sightings that apparently 'could absolutely not wait until the morning' as per usual. I was expecting him just to pack up his things, turn off his computer and collect his coat, giving me a brief yet satisfying goodnight kiss as he left the building to return home alone, as had been the routine for the three nights prior. But last night he didn't, instead he switched the monitor off, took of his jacket and bounded up to my office where I had been surreptitiously watching him on the CCTV for the last twenty minutes. I heard him knock at my door.
"Enter at your own risk" I said through a grin.
He chuckled from behind the frame, "Perhaps I'll leave it then…" But he came in anyway.
I was about to make a comment along the lines of 'off home are we?' when he began speaking first.
"I just came to warn you that hockey was never my strong point in PE, I was always better at rugby." He grinned.
For a minute I was lost, had not a hint of an idea as to why he was bringing up hockey, but as my eyes rapidly darted around the room I spotted the two new hockey sticks I had bought a few weeks back and remembered the proposition I had made.
I grinned back: "Not to worry… I'll go easy on you" I winked, and a familiar blush began to grow across the tips of his ears.
"If you could just remind me of the basic rules" He asked, moving closer towards me now.
"Well firstly I think we should change into something more appropriate" I answered, eyes filled with a devilish wickedness at the thought of exactly what I meant by appropriate.
I got up and out from behind my desk and slowly began loosening his silk tie and undoing the buttons on his lilac shirt, my own eyes never leaving his rather nervous looking ones. He rather reminded me of how he was on that evening when we first met like this in my office, after Suzie died for the second and last time. He had been nervous then because all of this was new, but he was nervous now because he was worried that it was all too familiar – so I kept eye contact to try and reassure him and it must have helped a little as he began working on my buttons in return. Soon we were both de-clothed and just stood there looking at each other in my dimly lit office, neither having met the site before us for quite some time.
Standing there in silence, barely breathing, I realised that I had somehow forgotten quite how perfect he is, how sprinklings of dark hair covers his pale skin and how this skin smoothly covers gentle muscle. I really don't think he sees how truly beautiful he is. Somewhat reluctantly – I didn't want to take my eyes away quite frankly – but also with a sense of eagerness I pulled him into a deep and desperate kiss, pressing his bare chest against my own, only pulling away to grab the hockey sticks.
And indeed we did play hockey for a little while, though it was quite difficult in such a small space and with so many distractions on offer… but then the ball fell down the trap door, leading down to my bunker, which I had left open and we followed… and so did everything else.
It was better than I had remembered, but I don't think that a mere memory could ever do justice to that… I couldn't resist a little throw away comment about our activities last night when I was talking to Tosh earlier this morning; Ianto will probably kill me for it, but I just couldn't help myself. I'd called the others in early this morning to help me check out this case of burglary that the police were convinced require our insight, but initially had decided not to bring Ianto in, to let him get a bit of rest as I know he certainly had none last night… when Tosh asked why he wasn't here I told her plainly and simply why. She seemed to find it all highly amusing… In the end I had to call Ianto in anyway, we needed someone to do a background check on the Halloran's and I knew that no one would be as thorough as he would be… Ianto's always very thorough…
Well the past two days have been hellish; so many – far too many – people have died. It always ends up this way, people have to die before we can sort everything out and 'save the day' – we're never quite quick enough. Maybe if we'd have paid more attention when we tried to freeze Beth the first time, the sleeper agent within her wouldn't have been able to contact and activate the others in the area and no more deaths would have occurred, maybe then Beth herself wouldn't have had to die and could have lived a normal life with her husband who also wouldn't have died… but there's no real use in examining the 'what if' situations because it just makes me angry.
At first I'd been so convinced, along with Gwen, that it had been the husband who had assaulted and killed the criminals that had invaded the couple's home, Beth had just looked so startled and fragile and frightened. But I'd been wrong (and Owen had been right which was highly annoying), it had been her, she just hadn't realised. I wish that she could have just carried on living blissfully unaware that there was an alien within her, that her whole life was nothing more than a cover story for cell 114, but I suppose the truth was bound to emerge sooner or later, even if it did take the use of a mind probe to find the hidden secret beneath the surface. I'd been quite surprised by Ianto's sarcastic reaction to my suggestion of using it, but I supposed that he had found out that I had let Tosh know about naked hockey and was a little pissed with me. To be honest, I wasn't all that bothered by the back chat, in fact I really did enjoy seeing a rather more cheeky side to the Welshman, but I pretended to be a little cross with him, hoping that that crossed with his annoyance with me would lead to glorious make-up sex later… it had yet to happen…
Anyway, after discovering the truth behind the events of the burglary and finding out what Beth had living within her, we did try to freeze her, try and prevent unnecessary deaths, to try and prevent the need for Beth to be killed, to try and buy us some time to think of a way to allow her to continue her normal life with her husband who wouldn't have died if things had gone to plan. But it didn't work and carnage was brought to the city. In the end the only thing that could have happened to resolve it all happened, Beth's death. When she emerged on the balcony like that, Gwen pressed against her chest, weapon poised… there was a part of me that knew that she was only doing it to bring about what she thought was right, what she was determined to do – he execution. But we couldn't risk the fact that she might actually kill Gwen, so all four of us began shooting at her, killing her cold. Well… I say all four; I'm convinced Ianto was missing on purpose… I'm going to have to talk to him about that I think, I mean I know he's never liked using guns and I don't want him to feel pressured into doing so… but at the same time it's something that he needs to get over and something that I need to help him do. Though I really do hate the fact that he has to.
So, once again Torchwood has been at the centre of so much loss and tonight is one of those nights when really don't want to be alone and sit here and dwell on this saddening fact; so I'm going to find Ianto.
I approached his desk: "Your place or mine?" I asked, grin planted thickly upon my mouth. Hopefully he wasn't still angry with me about telling Tosh… and Owen… and that police officer… about our activities from a few nights ago.
He didn't reply. "Oh, sorry, I just thought we could do… well if you don't want to do anything this evening then that's fine" I stumbled through, feeling like a bit of a prat. I'm not used to rejection, people always say yes!
"No, no. Of course not! I was actually planning on asking if you wanted to come round for drinks but…" He began.
"But…?" I questioned, not completely relieved yet, but a calming sensation starting to wash over me once more.
"Well, I thought you were angry with me" He mumbled, deliberately avoiding my eye line.
I couldn't help but let out a full blown laugh at that, the suggestion really was quite ridiculous – how could I be angry with him? "Why would I be angry with you?"
"Well… I was kind of sarcastic earlier and then I made that joke about your bedroom manners… and I didn't mean to offend you I just… and you seemed cross…"
I laughed again, I had play acted at being miffed with his comments yes, but I hadn't realised he'd assumed I was genuinely cross with him! "I wasn't really angry! I was just pretending to be angry so that we would be even." I replied, thinking that that clarified all.
"Excuse me?" He questioned… ok clearly not clarified then…
"Well you were cross with me about the hockey referenced right? So I thought if I pretended to be angry with you, then you would forget about being cross with me… or we could have great make-up sex" I winked "I was hoping for the latter…" It seemed very logical in my mind.
"Oh. So you aren't really angry?" He double checked.
I sighed a little as I pulled him into a hug, hopefully he'll get over his little niggling doubts soon. "No Ianto, I'm not really cross. In fact it was kind of hot to see you challenge my authority a little, you should try it more often… and in other situations…" He blushed beautifully at that, and I stroked the ever growing patch of pink on his cheek.
"You're absolutely sure, I mean even though I deliberately missed when we were shooting at Beth earlier… I mean I know you saw" He asked again – clarifying my suspicions that this was what he had done.
"Yes!" I replied, a little exasperated now. "I'm glad you did that, I mean it's not exactly practical for you to be so inherently unwilling to kill even the most dangerous of beings but I don't want you to want to kill. I don't want any of you to want or to need to do it. And, aside from everything else… Ianto Jones I could never be angry with you when you are wearing such a gorgeous shade of pink." To be honest he could never make me angry, well maybe not never but it certainly would be a challenge for him to do so, regardless of what he was wearing… but that pink shirt… absolutely gorgeous.
He seemed satisfied enough now so I made my suggestion: "So, your place?"
He answered with a simple nod and grabbed both of our coats as we head out of the cog door.