Err. Um, yes, not complete yet. This was supposed to be the last chapter, but it kept growing and went somewhere I didn't expect. But it does tie off a loose end so I went with it (and I hope it worked).
But first, some truly soppy fluff, followed by fireworks (yes that sort too).
Ianto emerged onto the roof, but stopped so suddenly Jack cannoned into the back of him.
"We can't go up here," whispered Ianto, nudging Jack back into the stairwell. "Someone's got it all set up for a romantic rendezvous. We'll ruin it if we go barging in."
Jack sighed and made his way back onto the roof, dragging Ianto with him. "Check out the blanket, Ianto. Does it look familiar by any chance?"
Jack smirked as Ianto's jaw dropped. Literally dropped. "That's my…our…. Jack, did you do this?"
Sentiment wasn't so bad, after all. Not when it made Ianto look at him like that.
Their heads turned at the faint popping sound of fireworks in the distance, heralding midnight. Jack gloated inwardly at the perfect timing and drew Ianto into his arms. Golden sparks flared across the inside of his eyelids and he tried to tell himself that it was only the afterimage of the fireworks in the sky.
"Happy New Year," Jack said softly, pulling away only enough to allow for speech.
"It is so far," Ianto answered.
"Come on, then," Jack added, tugging on the hand he still held. "I didn't do all that so we could stand here and look at it.
The blanket spread out on the rooftop was the spare Ianto hadn't needed since the portable furnace otherwise known as Jack started sharing his bed. The cushions scattered across the blanket used to decorate that same bed, before Jack started complaining about how much time they wasted putting them away.
"Nice to know you've found a use for them," Ianto commented, poking one of the cushions with his foot. Glowing points of light around the edges of the blanket caught his attention. "Why aren't those candles blowing out?"
Jack chuckled. "Because they're battery operated. Best I could do, it's windy up here and real candles wouldn't stay alight." He flopped down onto the cushions and looked back up at Ianto with a satisfied smile. "Care to join me down here?"
Ianto settled comfortably into Jack's arms and watched gold and silver diamonds burst over the bay. "This is nice," he commented.
"Nice," Jack repeated. "Hours, this took me. Lugging all this up the stairs and chasing the damned cushions when the wind got them and all I get is nice?"
"Very nice?" Ianto amended, vanishing beneath the cushions as Jack rolled onto him with a growl. "Ow, Jack, careful. Ribs still mending."
"Sorry," Jack said, backing off hastily. "I forgot."
"Thank God for that," Ianto responded. "I'm sick of you treating me like a pane of glass." His voice softened. "And thank you. Thank you for doing this…it's….."
"Nice," Jack finished, defeated.
"A hell of a lot of trouble to go to for a part-time shag," Ianto concluded.
"Full time," Jack corrected. "Twenty-four hour exclusive access." Which, the little voice inside him hissed, eliminates Mickey. Ha.
"That would be so reassuring if it wasn't coming from a time-traveller," Ianto said placidly.
Jack tapped his wristband. "Broken, remember?"
The laughed at each other as a series of rockets screeching across the sky had them both reaching for guns that weren't there.
"We have music too," Jack remembered, scrabbling around in the folds of their blanket. His hand emerged clutching the small radio that usually sat on a shelf in the bathroom, where it performed duets with Jack while he showered. "They're transmitting the musical accompaniment on BBC 2."
"Clever," Ianto approved. Something classical and booming – the 1812 Overture, he thought – sounded from the speakers in perfect accompaniment to an explosion of red and blue starbursts. "Very clever."
After a few moments of appreciation, Ianto returned to his explorations of the blanket. "I see we have a picnic basket."
"Stocked by yours truly with the assistance of Tesco," Jack supplied, "Since you fell asleep before I'd even started dinner."
Ianto frowned. "So all those complaints about 'you've slept too long we'll never make it back to the Bay before midnight', were just misdirection?"
"Yep," Jack agreed, sounding quite unbearably smug. "Gotcha, huh?"
Ianto swatted the arm twined around his waist. "I thought you were really disappointed."
Jack simply smirked - again. "I'm good, aren't I?"
Ianto arched an eyebrow. "Actually, you're bad, but you're good at it."
Something more modern sounded from the speakers while they explored that concept.
"Good and hungry, actually," Jack continued, when they stopped for air. "You?"
Ianto nodded. "I don't think I've eaten since breakfast." He reached for the basket, but Jack's hand closed over his before he got the cover open.
"When I said hungry," Jack murmured. "I wasn't actually talking about food." He slid down onto his back, pulling Ianto with him, breath catching as the sky around them lit with starbursts. Really, Jack congratulated himself, absolutely perfect timing.
"I see," Ianto answered, his eyes dancing in the candlelight. "But aren't we supposed to be watching the fireworks?"
"Make our own?" Jack suggested. A breathy sigh escaped his lips as he buried them in Ianto's neck.
"Corny," Ianto scolded.
"Yeah, well, I'm not thinking very straight at the moment," Jack admitted. "Lack of blood supply to the brain."
"Corny and tacky," Ianto added, as the echoes of his laughter drifted away across the roof. "And there is the small matter of being on a cold and windy roof."
"With a spare blanket," Jack countered triumphantly, pulling it out from under the cushions and draping it over them with a flourish.
"Your organization skills continue to overwhelm me," Ianto teased.
"Only my organization skills?" Jack protested.
"They're the only ones you're demonstrating at the moment."
"Just waiting for an invitation," Jack said, totally failing to sound coy.
"Did you not notice?" Ianto enquired. "That isn't a gun in my pocket anymore."
-XXX-
"I think we can conclude the steroids are on their way out," Jack said with satisfaction. The smoke from the fireworks wafted to them on the wind, adding the sharp taint of cordite to the cocktail of scents embedded in the threads of the blanket. At some point the musical accompaniment had changed from drums and cannons to soft voices and gentle melodies.
"Don't gloat, Jack," Ianto admonished. "Or at least gloat after you've fed me. Where's that basket gone?"
"I think I kicked it somewhere," Jack responded, feeling around with a foot. "Yep, knocked it over. Hang on." He slid briefly out from under the blanket, grabbed the handle of the picnic basket and retreated back into the warmth, his icy skin making Ianto help.
"It's cold out there," Jack explained, pressing closer to the warm body beside him.
"Put some clothes on then," Ianto answered, shivering even through his shirt. He slapped away a cold hand and delved into the basket.
"Kicked them away too," Jack admitted.
"Lucky for you I caught them," Ianto answered smugly. "They're under the blue cushion. Put something on while I sort out the food."
Golden orbs burst above them. Jack shuddered and snuggled closer to Ianto, hindering his explorations in the picnic basket. "Exactly what those Rift portals looked like," Jack explained. "Of course, you arrived in one too. Most welcome sight I've ever seen, and that's saying something."
Ianto tensed in his arms and the fact that Jack had re-dressed didn't stop him becoming cold again. Confusion swept him until he remembered what Ianto must have seen as he'd arrived to rescue them. Gwen, on Jack's lap. And he should have known, really, that Ianto couldn't just brush it off.
"Ianto…"
"Food," Ianto said firmly. He hunted through the basket. "You remembered plates, too. Very civilized. Here, you hold them and I'll fill them."
Jack dropped the plates onto the blanket. "Ianto, it was just…."
"I assume you want a bit of everything? What did you do with the plates? Honestly, it'd be much easier if you held them up, but never mind. Here you go, dig in."
Jack laid the plates carefully beside him. "Ianto, I can explain…."
"Did you pack anything to drink? There's glasses but….oh I see, right down the bottom…"
Jack clamped his hands around Ianto's wrists and wrenched him around to face him. "Damn it, Ianto. Listen to me."
"Let go," Ianto said, voice blunt.
"Sorry," Jack released his grip and shoved his hands into his pockets. "I'm sorry, but you have to let me explain."
"If I must," Ianto said, voice neutral. The butler's mask had never been more irritating.
"When you found us, you and Mickey," Jack began awkwardly. "What you saw, that was just resuscitation. Nothing more."
"So she said," Ianto agreed. "And I'm not disputing it. But both of you seem to have forgotten that I know exactly what your particular form of resuscitation involves."
"It's the only method I know," Jack said defensively. "That's the way they do it in the 51st Century."
"And you've never bothered with our method because it's not as much fun," Ianto finished. "Fine. And I'm glad you saved Gwen, regardless of how. Explanation over and accepted. Can we eat now?"
Jack shifted uneasily. He should be relieved, but he wasn't. The food he'd spent so much time selecting had all the flavor of cardboard.
"Did you ever make stupid promises to fate, Jack?" Ianto asked. "Of the 'dear Santa please bring me a bike and I'll never mess up my bedroom again' variety?"
Jack nodded. "Sometimes," he admitted.
"I do that," Ianto mused. "I even keep them, sometimes. And when I realized you were gone, I promised myself – or fate, perhaps – that if you came back you could drool over Gwen all you liked and I wouldn't say a word. So this is me, not saying a word. I actually thought you'd appreciate it."
"I don't drool over Gwen!"
Ianto actually laughed. "Black jeans, red top," he said pointedly. "And those boots."
Jack bit his lip. "You did too," he said defensively.
Ianto sighed. "Fine. You don't drool over Gwen. You've never drooled over Gwen. Every incidence of said drooling exists purely in my imagination. Can we stop this now?"
Jack seethed inside. He knew he should take the out he was being offered, but he couldn't. He waved a hand across the roof while Pink told him via the radio that he was a tool. "I didn't do all this for Gwen, did I?"
Ianto's hands clenched around one of the bottles of mineral water Jack brought instead of alcohol. In deference to painkillers, no doubt. But the further evidence of careful consideration only served to tighten the knot currently fighting for space with the picnic food. Jack didn't do this sort of thing. Except, Ianto realized, when he was feeling guilty about something. There'd been that date after he'd come back from traveling with the Doctor. Dinner at the expensive French restaurant after reading his diary. That weekend away after Gwen's wedding. And between his insecurity and Jack's goading his promise not to say another word about Gwen vanished in a red mist.
"Why did you do this, Jack? What are you trying to make up for? What else happened while you were in that cell?"
"Nothing, damn it! There's nothing between me and Gwen, there never has been, and there never will be."
They glared into each other's faces, as close now in their mutual rage as they had been in their mutual passion such a short time ago. The blanket fell away from their shoulders and Jack's eyes fell on the bruise he'd left on Ianto's neck, the hair disheveled from his grasping hands. He dropped back onto the cushions and buried his face in his hands, gasping in deep steadying breaths that were frighteningly close to sobs.
There was a final flurry in the sky as the fireworks display reached its climax. The radio announcer thanked them for listening and wished them all a safe and happy year before returning them to their usual programming.
Plates rattled as Ianto threw everything back into the basket.
Jack rubbed a hand tiredly over his eyes, wondering how the hell it had gone so wrong so fast. "Where's all this coming from, Ianto?"
Ianto pointed silently to the radio, his face twisting into an expression of wry amusement. "It could almost be physic programming," he said. "Says it all, really."
If you can't be, with the one you love, love the one you're with.
"No," Jack protested. "No Ianto…"
"You settled for me," Ianto said, so softly Jack had to strain his ears to hear. "I thought I could make it be enough, but I can't. Neither can you. And it breaks my heart watching you try."
"Ianto…don't….."
"I'm going back down to the flat, Jack. Give me some time, OK? Enjoy your roof for a while."
"I don't want…."
"It's not always about what you want, Jack. I didn't want to start this. I tried not to, but you wouldn't stop….and now I don't just want time. I need it."
The door creaked shut behind him. The stupid song blared forth from the radio, and this time Jack did kick it off the roof.
Yeah, sorry about that. It will be fixed in the final chapter, kind of, mostly, and hey, Valentine's Day is the next holiday in the plan….
I don't know if Cardiff and BBC 2 ever participated in a fireworks display as described in this chapter. I based it on Melbourne's Stereo Skyshow which was awesome and unfortunately doesn't happen anymore.