A/N ok, the usual thanks, to everyone who has kept reading this despite the RL that keeps me from getting any writing done, and with all the thanks to my beta Orion. Please read and review, it keeps the muses happy.

"Everything put away?" Jack said, his voice so close that he gave him a start.

"All taken care of, Sir." There was a tension between them and Ianto hated it, but he wasn't about to let go of this and neither was Jack. So instead they would ignore it, finish the job and then have their disagreement and a large disagreement at that. He knew what Jack thought and he wasn't alone. Owen- he knew it was Owen , it could only be him, had messaged a couple of four letter epithets to that effect after Jack had come back. Ianto knew that neither of them would believe that he hadn't pressed the button because there was no time, certainly he didn't. Jack had to learn to trust his judgement. But that would be settled later.

For now the lunch break was finished and they would go back to sorting out the situation. After the near disaster, the base commander wanted the ship gone immediately, if not sooner and General Christian was not far behind them. One thing Ianto would give the man, once he knew he was wrong, he was ready to listen and make it right. Transport and been ordered, and Jack had agreed to help supervise, along with giving Dr. Neville some pointers on handling the unusual radiation and sparking some ideas that had the scientific advisor huddled in the corner with his computers and a couple of equally excited assistants. Meanwhile, the afternoon was to be devoted to working up protocols. They had all been played by those who had no real understanding of what was at stake, and the general was eager enough to make up for it.

Then there was the Ministry bean counter who had started all this. Whether it was deliberate or not, someone was putting their nose where it didn't belong, with the same kind of disregard that had allowed Canary Wharf to happen. It would be up the Ianto to ferret out the culprit and the reason, not to mention any outside connections that might be involved. Once he had the information, they could set about ruining their days.

For now they needed to deal with the storage facility itself and its contents. Commander Rooney, suddenly less sanguine about the safety of the things he was guarding, had asked if Jack would take a look through, with an eye toward things likely to explode in spectacular fashion. Christian had seemed like he would object, the traditional rivalry and ingrained secrecy warring with the sure knowledge that something blowing this close to London would be spectacularly bad. In the end, safety and curiosity won out. Ianto closed the boot and followed the older man back inside, making a note to call his sister; John would need to stay one more night.

"Tha's your Da," Rhia called, putting the phone back on its cradle. "They're going to be a bit later than what they thought. I told 'im just to get you tomorrow. That's alright, yeah?" John looked up and agreed after a moment, before returning to what he was doing.

Once David had returned from his football with his friend Gareth and another couple of buckets of Legos, they had started back on the space station, or whatever it was they were building. With all four of them working on it, the construction had already taken almost all the free space in the lounge. They were working relatively quiet for a bunch of kids, helping out John when the small boy, who in some ways was so far ahead of his age, couldn't make things work. Rhia reflected that, while he was fantastically smart for his age, his strength and coordination were still more or less what they ought to be, at least mostly. He had taken a bit of a tumble earlier, trying to climb over the back of the settee after Mica. He'd been fine, or so he said. Stoic, that's what they would call him if he was older, a bit like Ianto really. He'd never been much of a crier, not that Dad would have really put up with it. Watching them now, she wondered what he would have said if he'd lived.

Ianto'd grown up to something important with the tourist board. Oh, he played it down, said he just ran a tourist information kiosk, but she knew better. Typical really, her little brother, understating things, but you didn't get the money for those suits of his from managing a tourist kiosk, nor that nice car, and he could usually be counted on for tickets when something was worth it. He even managed to get Johnny those rugby final tickets last year when no one had them, and most of the time he didn't care for Johnny. But what Dad would have thought of Jack and all, that was another thing entirely. Not that Dad had ever said anything against them. Actually she couldn't remember him ever saying anything about it one way or another. Mum, though, that was a different matter, though. She hadn't cared about what their Mum would or wouldn't have thought about anything in a very long time. Rhia wondered if Ianto had seen her up at the Bay. She'd never asked and he wouldn't say. Would she even remember them anymore? Did she even care? Or would she ignore them, try to pretend they didn't exist as she had for so long?

"No, it's like this… Nooos Daa," Mica said, exaggerating the sound while Gareth laughed. The boy hadn't been sure, seeing John, about playing with a little kid, but once he had seen what they were doing, he settled right down, only commenting that they should have invited Evan, as he had more legos than anyone.

"You should learn. My teacher says it's important on account of our cult heritage."

"Tha's cultural heritage," Gareth joined in.

"Yeah, it means when we weren't allowed to speak anything but English so they'd know about rebels and stuff. But its not the same Mica, John's not Welsh, are you mate?" Before the little boy could answer, focused as he was on getting two red blocks together, Mica was back in it.

"Doesn't matter, Uncle Ianto is, and if he's going to be his other Da, then that makes him half Welsh, yeah?"

Unable or unwilling to challenge the little girl, David and Gareth just nodded and went on with their bricks. "That's not the brilliant part though. The brilliant bit is that most of the grown ups round here didn't have it at school, so it's like a secret code."

"Yeah," David popped in, "Mum doesn't speak it, not at all. Uncle Ianto might, but he knows lots of things."

"My gran understood it, she's really old, but she's off to the infirmary now. She has the Alzheimer's, where she forgets things and thinks I'm me uncle. Mam never learned, said it wasn't taught and Gran didn't have time, with all of them to teach 'em."

"Good with codes," John said, then cocked his head to the side a bit, as if this needed more thinking about.

"John, alright love?" she called from the kitchen. They all looked at her, as if they had forgotten she was there, probably had. The little boy just smiled and went back to what he was doing, handing the piece he had just put together to Gareth to add to the main structure.

They left the base far later then they wanted to. Commander Rooney had invited them for dinner and since Gwen said that everything was quiet and John was safe and sound at Rhia's, it didn't seem politic to refuse, or maybe they just felt like postponing the fight that was inevitable.