53

Harley entered the house chirping, his robot under his arm and his wet hair curling around his head in a little halo. Also a nappy sliding off one hip as he had discarded his clothes along the path between houses, this being a place here your freak flag could fly and he was a naturalist at heart, the nappy plopping onto the floor for him to step out of.

"In the bedroom" Ianto called and Harley dropped the robot he had been carrying, scampering for the bedroom in the hopes of finding what he did. Ianto was still in bed and he clambered up with glee to plaster himself on Ianto as he laughed and slapped playfully at him calling him a wet doggie.

"Shit, is he still a little whiney?" John asked as he respectfully hovered in the doorway until Ianto waved him in. Clothes in his hands from the disrobed one were wet and he dropped them in the clothes basket without a second thought, this still their home too.

Ifan was cuddled in the bed with his Warren tucked under his chin, heavily lidded eyes peering out at them with the morose stare of a sick child. John sighed as he sat and rubbed a little back, crooning, "Poor Impy Bum. Awww, is Uncle Owen coming to visit and poke ya?"

"He is calling in this afternoon" Ianto nodded now having wrestled the little naked boy into the covers where he slid over to hug Ifan and kiss his cheek, crooning as he felt his friend's sickness. "He is sure it's just those back teeth but I don't know. It doesn't seem the same temperature for teething."

"He has been a bugger all night too, wouldn't settle and grizzly" John pointed at the blonde mop of curls disappearing under the covers, "Maybe they both have whatever it is. He didn't want his breakfast either, made snowmen with his porridge. Chrys was not best amused."

Ianto snorted at the image and then slid from the bed. He was fully clothes and in socks so he slid on some slippers as he was now happy to leave the two boys together in their own company and they moved to the kitchen where Jack was sitting reading the paper. Jack looked over the black frames glasses perched on his nose, "They OK?"

"John was saying that monkey is grumpy too, maybe they both have it" Ianto said as he leaned over to kiss Jack and then start the coffee as John pulled out a chair and collapsed into it. Jack looked back at the paper and frowned.

"Have you had mumps?" he asked.

"Yes" Ianto replied absently, then froze "Why?"

"An outbreak of it apparently, a new strain that some of the ….babe?" Jack watched Ianto move to the sideboard where the Baby Book was and thumbed though it with a soft frown.

"He was immunised" Ianto muttered, then he stared at the wall, then he picked up the phone, "Owen? Hey. Mumps. He was immunised with the booster and ….huh? Really? Well shit! Damn shit and fuckery. Well, well. Yah, poor wee buggers, this will affect a lot of them. Yeah, ah shit Ton."

Jack dropped the paper as his best boy was mentioned, rising to stare at Ianto who dropped the phone back into it's cradle and frowned at it.

"A new strain, the immunisations are useless" Ianto grumbled, "They apparently work against two trains, this is a third. Shit balls. Unless you have had mumps you are not immune. He is coming out to check but the moment you said it the symptoms made sense."

"Mumps?"

"Yeah. And If Imp has Mumps, the bloody village has mumps."

"Including Ton" Jack said with concern, turning to get his coat and head to the school to check the little man who had clearly been in a sullen mood this morning.

Shit.