31

Jack found Ianto in the kitchen making hot chocolate and he leaned against the table as he watched him move with the catlike grace that always makes his dick twitch.

"So .. you lost your father to marauders"

Ianto glanced at him and kept working, nodding silently.

"So did I"

Ianto turned now, his head canted to show interest.

"They came … meaters. Gray and I … my little brother Gray… we ran and his hand slipped from mine. I hid in the mangroves and waited for them to leave, thinking he was in the next clump of bushes, rose to get him and found no trace. Searched for a while then thought maybe he ran home. He was only six … me ten. I was sure he would have headed for home and I ran for my parents to tell them Gray was hiding somewhere only to find my father dead and my mother mourning over his body. First thing she did was ask for Gray… what could I say. Or do." Jack sighed, looking at his feet now.

"Did she blame you?" Ianto finally spoke.

"Not out loud." Jack pushed off from the table and walked over "But there was a look that she gave me sometimes… like… why him not me kinda thing. She was proud when I made the Academy… first of my tribe to make it. I was their poster boy, they were all proud and she sort of gave me this awkward hug… the first real touch since that day… felt so …so…"

"Foreign."

"Yeah" Jack looked at him closely "you too?"

"Yes. I mean … I saved my siblings and Father saved the other two… I had also managed to protect a Queen caught in the melee and hadn't even registered it as I pushed her in the right direction, hissing and spitting with the Toms. They all acted like I was a little hero but…" Ianto screwed his face up "In the darkness when she wept, my heart twisted because if I had been there sooner, acted faster… been bigger… Tadda might still be here. I think she feared me, the strangeness of me, the first of the aggressors."

"There is not more brutal a punishment than the one we give ourselves" Jack grimaced.

"Moses never heard that. Has never known the beginnings of the change. That was the last time they came… that was the beginning of the revolution. The decision to go off-world, to send some of us to another world was one not taken lightly and when my family were chosen as one of the founding families of this new Mecca I was shocked to hell. Mother was excited, most of my siblings were though some resisted. Three stayed back, refused to go. I wonder about them sometimes" Ianto reached out and stroked Jack's face "I was not your average Kit. Not your average Kat. I know that. There was something in me that … challenged everything. I was scolded and punished so much as a little fluff but it didn't stop me. I couldn't stop. I had to…. Is that an alarm?"

Jack canted his heard, listening with his own advanced hearing and grunted, both men moving out to the Hub where Toshiko was slowly emerging from the tent to look around blearily "Is that an alarm?"

"Yes love" Ianto replied as he moved quickly, leaping gracefully over the sofa and bouncing to the nearest workstation with an inhuman ability.

"Visitors topside" Ianto muttered.

"Fucking idiots" Jack spat "They will have heard from Li… the Queen by now and their first act is to defy her?"

"They are going to damage the door with that acetylene torch!" Ianto growled, I like that door."

"Well … best go let them in then Tiger" Jack said calmly as he pulled oit his phone and started to dial "Go on then. Let's see what is so important they have to knock at this time of night."

Ianto started up and released the door, the swing of it startling those on the other side still trying to burn through it.

"That is Kliriddion Hard Wood. Do you have any idea how rare that is on this planet?" Ianto roared angrily once the light hit him from the office lights "It is only grown in the Antarctic deep in the No Man Zone. How fucking dare you mark it."

"We are here to see the Captain." One of them snarled, stepping forward and Ianto bristled, letting his lips curl back to display his teeth in a kitty fashion.

"Step off me sir, least I claw your fucking face off" Ianto said calmly "You are not going to be invited in if you cannot be civil."

"Look here you fucking gimp, we want ot see your boos quick sm…" each word had companioned a finger poke into Ianto's' chest and he has counted to ten then as the last few word were spoken his hand slowly raised and he swiped it across the man's face… claws out. For the first time in so long, Ianto had partially transformed and he felt the surge of power within.

The man screamed as he staggered back, blood dripping from his hands that covered his face and Ianto blinked slowly.

"You are not going to be invited in if you cannot be civil."