36
Ianto stared at Jack for a moment then surged towards him, their embrace both hard and fast.
"Are you hurt?" Jack asked, giving Ianto time to recognize that he was.
"My knee when I jumped from the balcony and my hand" Ianto said as he held it up, a defensive wound on the palm was bleeding. Jack pulled a tea towel from the oven door and wrapped it around the hand.
"Hold this love, a few stitches. You can still move your fingers so it's not that bad, right?" Jack crooned, turning to run for the Throne Room where it was agreed the children would hide but Ianto called after him.
"No, upstairs in the wing. They knew about my room" Ianto said sadly, "We were sold out by one of the workmen. They knew about it."
Jack slumped, then looked up. He called out and the sliding clunk of the bolt being disengaged told him Walter had heard, the door swung open and the children cascaded down the stairs all talking at once.
"And we tied him up" Curtis finished last.
"Who?"
"The one with the map" Walter pointed over their heads, "Tad tired him to the bed in the spare room. The other three… two in the garden and the other one…where is the fat one?"
"I shot him" Jack said blandly, "Ianto?"
"Gonna hurl I think" Ianto said conversationally as he rushed for his Throne Room and Jack pulled Babs into his arms.
She shook as she clung to him, relieved Bethy had not stayed over tonight. As she buried her face in the chest of her handsome father she went back over the viciousness she had seen in her Tad. She had never seen him attack like that and she hoped when she was a mama that her instincts would be as fierce.
She felt so loved.
"Where's Ton?" Curtis asked, the nurturer in the current group.
"In the car" Jack said as he started to search for the cell phone jammer.
He found his sound system…or the remains as Ton would start calling it.
"Fuck!"