Ianto comes to the estate more often now. He has more time on his hands, he explains sheepishly, simultaneously giving himself an excuse for not coming before and for suddenly coming now. Their base is gone, his lungs are still damaged.

Rhiannon was never smart. That was her mother. Her father was cruel and crafty, predictable for everyone but his children. She was never smart, never ambitious. Energetic as a kid. Capable and quick-thinking as an adult, but never smart like Ianto. He would have gotten good grades if he'd just tried. He didn't, and yet he ended up at Torchwood—so maybe grades weren't everything. He ended up almost dying, so there went that intelligence.

Stupid Ianto. Stupid little brother, making her worry for years and years and years and then—all it took was a near-death experience! He's settled, how. Happier. Sure of himself.

They have dinner together every few weeks, meet up for lunch in between. He's had more than a single conversation with Johnny and didn't even flinch when Johnny asked about his alien form.

"Of course he knows!" Rhiannon had scolded him.

Ianto had curled his shoulders to his ears. "I thought I knew that, I think... Did you tell me before? I didn't know he knew."

He's confused sometimes, now. Not too much. Just a little. Oxygen deprivation, maybe.

He doesn't tell her. His lungs are healing, he can walk for longer and longer distances while pretending that everything's okay. They aren't the sort of family that worries in that way. Maybe their mother when she was alive.

Rhiannon's started to worry. Maybe it's a parent thing. She remembers their father; maybe not.

She's started to worry. David comes home one day with a scratch on his cheek because someone made fun of Mica and he picked a fight.

"Did you win?" asks Johnny, and Rhiannon only scolds David when he answers in the affirmative.

Don't start fights you can't win, but don't fight in general. It worries your mother. She doesn't tell him that.

"What did he make fun of you for?" she asks Mica when she slinks in.

Mica shrugs. "Nothing."

At night, Rhiannon gets the whole story. She's worried, for a second, when Mica doesn't talk much at dinner and when she rebuffs Rhiannon's attempt at comfort after dessert. She's worried it's because of her.

And it is.

Just not in the way Rhiannon thinks. "He thought your braids were bad. Said it was 'cause his gran knew your parents and she said bad things about them. That they never taught you how to braid 'cause they were bad, and that you don't know how to braid because you don't—"

"Because I don't love you?"

Mica nods. She's either frowning or pouting, emotions conflicting on her face. "I know you love me, but he was so sure!"

"I do love you," Rhiannon says, because she needs to, and draws Mica in closer with her arm, curling her tail around her daughter's leg.

She doesn't have one. Small mercies.

.oOo.

David and Mica are close enough in age to play together. Not when they have friends over; they're territorial over school friends, don't like sharing toys where anyone can see them be close. It's a sibling thing. Rhiannon never had it with Ianto but they saw others do it growing up. She wishes they were like that.

Too late now.

Ianto hardly looks comfortable, sitting next to her in the kitchen and following her gaze out of the window to see the children wrestling.

"It's good for them," she says, the same way she said to Johnny when he questioned it several years ago.

Ianto laughs. "I know."

Rhiannon looks down and feels her face heat up. "Sorry. I'm just used to—I know you know. I'm used to people who are—people. You didn't come by for so long, I only had mum. From home. Johnny knows, but it's not—"

"The same," Ianto finishes. He nods. "You know Jack's not from Earth?"

Rhiannon shakes her head, but, "It makes sense."

"It does, doesn't it?" Ianto gets that wistful look in his eyes that Rhiannon knows accompanies the sappy thoughts he doesn't want to admit. "He's not from Earth, but he doesn't get it. Not in this way. He... He's human. However far away he came from, however many centuries he has to wait to catch up, these are his people. They... the customs are different but there's a connection, a root. I don't—"

He looks down. Rhiannon doesn't answer. Does she respond to the hints he let fall about Jack? Does she comfort him? They're more comfortable with each other, sure, but there's so much distance between them. Ianto has a home, a home far away from her, with Jack and Gwen and her husband and his wild secret agent life, and she has this little estate and her children and Johnny and her neighbors.

"I know. I mean, I did." She smiles and gestures outside. "You're the only who knows, now, truly knows. But Mica and David will. If you keep coming. They'll have someone other than me who knows what it's like. And Jack—he knows but he doesn't know, but he's there, isn't he? They all know."

"They?"

"The neighbors. Johnny, he—" She doesn't share her fear at telling her husband she wasn't human. She doesn't share his reaction, his nonchalance, his gentleness and comfort when Rhiannon was so scared she was shaking. "They're not all bad. They let the kids sit in the warmest spots when they come over. No one teases them about some skin differences, some scales. They don't have tails, but look. They're wrestling like we did, they run on all fours when they want, and no one—well, some people maybe. But none of them would denounce us in any way. They don't get it, but they are good people. Some of the kids make fun of David and Mica, but for the same way they make fun of the other kids, of their parents. For my braiding skills, not my—"

"Secret identity as a giant lizard?"

Rhiannon smacks his arm.

Ianto throws her an indignant look. "I'm right!"

But he's smiling. Rhiannon can't hold that against him, the calm that's moved his shoulders down another millimeter. She's given herself the time to find a home. Has Ianto? Perhaps, but does he know it?

.oOo.

It's summer once more, the sun shining even after dinner's finished.

Rhiannon doesn't make the kids clean up after themselves and instead sends them to do her homework. They shoot looks at Ianto as he stands up to help with the dishes, either thankful or taunting, but he's used to it. He's had a year to get used to being her little brother again, and Rhiannon doesn't even mind that she has to share the position with Gwen. She hasn't come by recently, but it makes sense, what with having a baby.

Ianto updates her on little Anwen as they make their way to the living room, trailing off when Mica and David run up and ask, interrupting each other, if they can go outside.

It's been a year, but parents still hold their children too close. Rhiannon won't stifle them—the window goes out into the yard anyway.

She nods.

They cheer.

Ianto sits a second before she does, tired, letting her have the place with a better vantage point. Outside, David and Mica run around on the grass, messing up the turf and trampling the dandelions Johnny didn't quite manage to eliminate last time.

Ianto takes a sip of his tea.

He didn't let her make coffee when he couldn't stand long enough to do it, and a few months ago sheepishly admitted that he couldn't drink as much of it anymore. Rhiannon doesn't comment on his newfound addiction.

"Johnny coming home tonight?"

Rhiannon nods. "It's not an overnight trip. I left him some dinner, he'll be in soon."

"You'd think with as much as Wales is used to aliens, we'd be able to predict traffic. Less people going on holiday this year."

"Can't blame them." Rhiannon—nor anyone she knows—can't afford too many trips, but it's coming on to a year since the children, and even though they're used to aliens, it became so real. It's harder for them to forget. Their children were being targeted.

Outside, David and Mica wrestle, standing opposite each other, hands grasped together. They push side to side, back and forth, overbalance—that's why the instinct requires a tail—and roll over the grass.

So much easier for children to bounce back.

"It'll be okay," Ianto says.

Awkwardly, hesitantly, almost too quiet, but steady. He bumps his shoulder against hers and gives her a half-smile.

Rhiannon bumps back.

He presses his shoulder against hers, steady—he's learned how to be constant and comforting somewhere along the way, and Rhiannon hadn't been there to see it, but she's here now—and directs his eyes back outside.

It's not the carefree tumbling of her children, or even the instinctual but hollow and tentative wrestling of their childhood, but it satisfies the same urges. Family, companionship, safety. Fully, now, Rhiannon's brother at her side in a way he hasn't been in years.