27
Rhiannon was pissed. Super… set fire to his head… pissed. Ianto caught the first few glares and drew her into the kitchen for a hissing contest that she knew she would not win as at the end of the day she knew how much he loved this man. This… arsehole. Drunken weeping always told her so.
"You don't even know him!" Ianto argued.
"He got you killed!" she spat back.
"Yes. Yes of course he did. Look at me all dead and everything. So sad. Best bury this disgusting, stinking corpse… wait… oh my god. It's a miracle… is there… a finger. Look a finger is twitching .. I do not appear to be dead after all" he said with strikingly calm sarcasm. "God, might I make a full recovery on day with the wonders of modern science? Hmmmm?"
"He left you then!"
"And yet… here we are" Ianto said, and then to her complete confusion he started to laugh at himself for saying that sentence for the umpteenth time.
"Uncle?"
"Yes sweetheart" Ianto said to Mica, still allowed to speak to her like she was little girl even if her mother couldn't.
"Is he really your… boyfriend?"
"Yes" Jack said as he entered the room, the boy in his arms like a baby "Yes, Ianto is … my love."
"Cool" she shrugged "I'll peel the spuds mama."
Rhiannon settled to watch Jack play with the boy, David slipping into the room with that wraithlike gloom of a teenage boy. Jack ignored him and Ianto kissed his nephew's head as he passed him, David smiling briefley before remembering that he was sulking.
Not really.
Just a bit.
"Uncle?" he finally asked.
"Yes darling?"
"Is he staying? Where?"
"Well … in my room I guess" Ianto said then frowned as he looked at Daniel "If Danny is happy to get the sofa bed."
"YES!" Daniel screamed with glee, the large pull out sofa bed a firm favourite. He was so excited.
"So .. a four bedroom house?" Jack started to look around, "Nice holiday place. Tell me … does the fire heat the water too?"
"Yes" David said, surprising everyone as he became animated "Mama has a room, me and Mimi have a room each and Uncle shares one with Daniel. When it's going to be Christmas or something ether Uncle or Daniel gets the sofa bed. Daniel LOVES the sofa bed cos it's a big one"
"Wow … I don't mind the size of my bed, you know… in a spaceship they are so small sometimes" Jack corned as he smiled down at the child "I was on one once heading from the Meruvian Nebular to the Drodik region when I fond myself in a berth… that's what they call beds on spaceships ya know … a berth the size of a bath tub. Sort of shaped like one too"
"You were on a spaceship?" the little one asked with wide eyes "Like Uncle Doc?"
"He lets you call him Doc?" Jack asked the little boy who was sliding from Jack's arms to his feet. Then he sped off with Jack swinging around to call after him "Hey. Where are ya gong?"
"To get his drawings of the TARDIS probably. The best spaceship ever apparently" Ianto smiled "He has also been on a pleasure Cruiser once… before I realized where we were and threatened to do some damage to one of his favourite Fezzes."
"Fezz."
"That was… ah… eleven? Eleven had a thing for them? Twelve is cool, he plays the guitar" Ianto said, then smiled as the boy entered the room with some scribbling pads "Here we are. Some amazing monsters coming."
"Not real ones, Taddy sez I have to be grown up before I can see real monsters" Daniel said with a familiar glower that had Jack laughing at his little boy, he was so sweet. Everything Jack remembers in one of his boys being that sweet Elizabeth had provided before the consumption had taken then. Wow. Hadn't thought of them in …. Wow.
"Never mind soldier, I had to be sixteen before I could go to the Academy to become a Time Agent" Jack told him.
"What's that?"
Jack settled to tell the child about the amazing world of the Time Agency as the others sat to listen with a mixture of amazement and disbelief. Rhiannon glancing at Ianto to see if this was real or not, Ianto's calm ignoring of the situation not calming her at all. She had not believed all the things Ianto used to tell her about this man but how… watching him … he really was from another world, wasn't he.
"See this scar here? His is where a Mertyle bit me. Man, did I cry like a baby. Their teeth have venom like a snake and I had to have several patches to get better." Jack tapped his wrist.
"There's a Mertyl at our school. I think she bites too" the child frowned, Jack roaring with mirth.
"Right, come on son. Let's build your bed!" Ianto said and the child leapt to action, running for the stairs.
"I will get my blanket!" he roared with glee.
"His special TARDIS blanket. From his favourite ever box" Ianto said softly, the love and delight in his eyes making him glow with pride in the boy. Jack knew he had missed so damned much.
When all this was over … he was going to make sure he didn't miss anything else.