50
The snow came, winter came, real cold came.
The children began slopping about with blankets on like ceremonial cloaks as they complained about the cold and the boring days.
It was a relief when Jack decided to check the perimeter motion detectors, Tosh also happy to show the children what she was doing as they crowded around.
"You are dressed warm, right?" Owen asked yet again.
"Yes Mom" Jack chortled back as he pulled Ianto towards the door. Ianto wore a thermal shirt that was covered by a red and black jacket he called his Lumberjack Coat. It was long and covered his back right down to the saddle and Jack knew Ianto loved its warmth. Ianto did hate the cold.
The horses were waiting and Ianto swung into the saddle as he looked around the house for signs of any unwelcome visitors…those of the slithery kind… and was pleased to see only dog and child prints. No cat ones, they were still displeased with the human inability to clear them a path. The mice were probably breeding like mad in the barn.
"Looks like no lizards" Jack said, looking as well, "The grid seems to be working, they don't like the zaps. Good thing they don't seem too keen to lead their handlers this way either."
"I'm guessing they don't want zaps again" Ianto agreed as he shortened his reins and impatiently gestured for Jack to get a move on. Jack laughed at his mate's cheeky nature and swung into his own saddle, sweeping his arm to let Ianto take the lead.
His mate.
Had he just thought of Ianto like that?
Jack considered. Yes. Fits.
"Ianto?" Jack called softly, "You OK? Been a bit low the last few days."
"Mica's birthday" Ianto said after a while, "She would have been six yesterday."
Jack let his horse come to a halt next to Ianto's and he looked in the direction Ianto was, seeing deer tracks in the snow. He struggled for something to say, but found nothing that would soothe himself over the loss of Alice and Stephen. I recognised there were no words that would suffice so he simply sat and waited, letting Ianto know he was there.
"I always thought …when I was young, that there would be the wife, the kids. The whole deal, ya know?" Ianto sighed softly, "Then came Lisa and I thought 'there she is' and I started planning our life. Had the land for the house sorted, we have our jobs with a great pregnancy plan, everything was going to be roses. Rose."
Ianto shifted in the saddle to look at some bushes, then settled again and Jack canted his head. "Rose?"
"Yeah. Blonde, perky and gobby" Ianto replied, "We were huddled in a stairwell and I was shielding her from some crossfire between Darleks and Cybers. She clung to me and I told her I was going for Lisa. She looked at me and asked if she was my everything. I almost said yes but then something...I don't know. I looked at her and she had this way about her, like a challenge. 'Are you sure she is worth it? Is she the one you would burn for?' she asked, her eyes boring into me."
Jack was very still as he listened. Had she burned for him?
"She told me not to give in or be too impulsive. In the end I stepped back and she slipped around me, straight into the battle and seemed to just…" Ianto made a motion with his hands that showed his fingers flying apart in the air, "Like…she evaporated into gold dust. I thought they had killed her but later I looked down and saw her with the Doctor and another blonde woman running. Weird thought. Different clothing. I mean, she wasn't a Timelord so she hadn't regenerated, right? I sometimes think it never happened. I was so insane that day I imagined the entire thing."
"Was she…" Jack swallowed thickly "Was she afraid?"
Ianto snorted softly, "Oh no Cariad, she reminded me of a wild animal. Like a predator."
Jack sat for a long time, watching Ianto's horse pick its way through the frost as he considered and wondered. That had been a day of madness, his own battle in Cardiff wreaked with near misses and strange events as worlds opened and Verses overlapped. Maybe it had been a Rose for another world? Another Verse bleeding through?
Jack followed, his horse churning through the snow and he was again pleased they had these huge bulldozers of animals, a standard horse would have been floundering. He found Ianto by the river bank, trying to urge his horse back from the edge.
"Yan?" Jack called as he drew near, "is that stable?"
"I don't think so but the bloody thing wants a drink, I don't know how deep it is here if the ice shelf gives way." Ianto yelled back over his shoulder as he again pulled at the reins and the horse grunted as it shifted its weight to comply, its front hooves digging into the snow.
The crack was like a gunshot, Jack rising in his stirrups with alarm as he recognised the sound of breaking ice and Ianto yelped with surprise as his horse started to tip.
"Ianto" Jack screamed, "Jump!"
Ianto struggled with his stirrups, his boots firmly lodged and he swung back to look at Jack with a look of apology as the horse toppled and Jack screamed as Ianto and the horse he rose slid from the safety of the bank into the fast running water.
Ianto was gone.
