Chapter Thirty Six: After the Honeymoon is Over

A/N: Just a bit of silly fluff.

…………………………………………………………..

"Erm…" Jack held the thing up for Ianto to inspect. It was big and blue (with bits of yellow and pink) and misshapen. "What is it?"

The younger man tilted his head at the thing. They were stretched out on the bedroom floor in their pyjama bottoms and housecoats (Ianto in his slippers, his feet were always cold), going through the wedding gifts they'd received. If they hadn't already come across the Doctor's gift, Ianto would wonder if the thing Jack was holding wasn't some weird alien artefact. "Maybe you're holding it upside down?" he suggested.

Jack turned it the other way, but he didn't think it made any difference. He set it down next to the matched set of cherub statues. One was in a cherub in a bathtub, the other was a cherub reading a newspaper, sitting on the toilet. He put the thing in the middle of the other two. "What do you think… staff bathroom?" he suggested with a grin.

The younger man rolled his eyes and grumbled, "I told you we should have registered somewhere."

"I never had a problem with registering!" Jack protested.

"No. You just made it impossible for me to get through the experience." It had, in fact been worse than bed shopping and new car shopping put together. "Oh yes, and then there was that incident with the bug."

"That was not my fault."

"That was entirely your fault," Ianto countered. "And it took me a week to get everything cleaned up. You could have at least helped."

"Cleaning up is your job."

The younger man snorted contemptuously, but went back to the notebook in his lap. There would be no winning the argument and he knew it. "Fine. Whose it from?"

Jack found the card that had accompanied the thing. "Harold…?" he squinted at the signature.

"Brown suit," Ianto clarified.

"Oh him," Jack grinned. "The hearing aid."

Ianto picked the thing up and examined it for himself. "I suppose it wouldn't have mattered if we'd registered or not," he said at last. "It's a fish."

"From what planet?"

"Earth."

"Couldn't prove it by me," Jack reached for the next box. "You know, when I married Laura, she and her mother did this."

"Would you really want my mother seeing what the Doctor gave us? Or maybe you'd like to be the one explaining to her exactly Marth's gave us that UNIT cap?"

Jack flashed a mischievous grin, "I wish we'd opened that one before we left for Paris." He also wondered what the Doctor was going on about when he started telling a story about the Mona Lisa being a fake… unfortunately by the time the he was telling the story, he'd already had one too many banana daiquiri… Jack would have to ask Donna later if Time Lords got hangovers the same way humans did, because if they did, the Doctor must've been in sore shape the next day.

He unwrapped the next gift and showed it to Ianto. "Another toaster. This one is from your cousin Maddy."

"Right. I'm sure Bobby will need a toaster when he finally gets around to finding his own flat. You can put it in his pile."

"I thought the idea of wedding presents was that we were supposed to keep them ourselves."

"How many toasters do we really need, Jack? We hardly ever even eat at home, anyway."

"So why are you keeping both vacuums?" the Captain wanted to know.

"One for down here and one for the Hub. Unless you really want to be the one hauling the vacuum cleaner up and down the ladder for me every week. Besides, that one that I've got upstairs is… it's about as old as you are."

Jack humphed at him. "The Hub doesn't have any rugs," he added.

Ianto's expression made it clear that he thought the answer was obvious, "The sofas, Jack."

The older man bit back on a comment that he was sure would get him in trouble and opened up the next box. "Oh look. A coffee maker."

Ianto scowled, "Who the Hell would get me a coffee maker?"

Jack laughed at the younger man's expression, despite the fact that his outburst only made him scowl harder. "Yvonne," he finally managed to say.

Ianto rolled his eyes. "Right. Bobby's pile."

Jack looked at the piles they had going and asked again about the etiquette involved in re-gifting.

"It's only re-gifting if you wrap it up and say 'here, happy Christmas, I know you've always wanted one.' I intend to tell both Bobby and Gwen where everything came from. And it's not as if my family is ever going to be at either of their flats. Or here for that matter. And anyway, Gwen needs the toaster as much as Bobby does and that made… what four?" He looked over the list he was making so he could start in on the thank-you cards straight away.

Jack just sighed and reached for the last wrapped box. His mischievous grin turned into something more serious looking.

"What is it?" Ianto wanted to know.

Carefully, Jack pulled out the silver service set.

The Welshman scowled. "That's my great grandmother's… Mam gave that to Nerys when she got married."

"It looks like Nerys is giving it to you," he handed over the card that was addressed to Ianto, rather than to the 'happy couple' or some other variation there on, as most of the other cards had been. Even in their attempt to accept the situation, most of Ianto's relatives still hadn't quite known how to deal with details such as how to address cards to the new couple. Traditionally, wedding gifts got addressed to Mr. and Mrs. GroomsNameHere, so when faced with two grooms, most of them had opted for not using names.

Ianto opened the small envelope Jack had handed him and read the note, a lump forming in his throat.

"What is it?"

"She wants us to have it, seeing as her marriage has collapsed. Sorry," he apologized as he felt himself on the verge of tears. "This… it's over two hundred years old. My great grandmother got it as a wedding gift from her mother in law. Great grandmother gave it to her daughter, my grandmother… who gave it to my mother… then she gave it to Ner," he explained as Jack pulled out the pieces. "That's a hot chocolate pot," he said of the second pot that Jack set next to his leg. It was taller than the tea pot.

"I know."

"Right. Sorry. Sometimes I forget that you got here when every house probably had one."

He just smiled and held up the sugar bowl, "You probably don't want to know what I thought this was for."

Ianto chuckled, and took it from him. The sugar bowl came complete with six tongs for sugar cubes; Ianto could just about imagine what Jack had suggested using those for… When he lifted the lid, he realized that there was something inside it.

"What's that?"

Ianto shrugged… when he unfolded the paper, he smiled and showed it to his partner. "Remi."

Jack grinned. It was a very six year old looking drawing of the two of them and a pterodactyl. "You know, I think she caught Myfanwy's likeness pretty good… what are you doing?" He asked. Ianto had gotten to his feet.

"What any respectable Uncle would do. I'm going to go upstairs and put this on the fridge."

Jack laughed. "Hey…" he called as Ianto retreated out of the room, "Would you make some coffee while you're up there?"

He leant back against the bed and closed his eyes, the image of Ianto's smile over the picture playing on his mind. Despite what Ianto had said about him, the young Welshman was the one who would have been a great father. I only wish I could give you that… but with their lives, their job… this was no place for children and anyway, Jack knew from experience that he wasn't cut out for parenthood…

…………………………………………………...

A/N: In an old Tom Baker episode, there are a number of copies of the Mona Lisa, made by Di Vinci himself, which are "fakes"… the Doctor went back in time and scrawled "this is a fake" in magic marker across the canvas, leaving a note for his friend Leo to just go ahead and paint over the scribbling…

As always, reviews appreciated ;-)