The sky is red when their father wakes them up and takes them to the ship. Rhiannon is half-asleep, dragging her feet behind her mother. She doesn't understand why the sky is red; it isn't usually. Her parents never showed this much haste in anything before, but they're running as if from a flood. Rhiannon remembers learning about floods in school, but she doesn't think that's what's happening. It's too hot for that.
"Where are we going?" she whispers to her mother when they're situated, her father at the spaceship controls on the other end of the room. Her brother's leaning against her mother, asleep. At least she thinks so. She can never tell; he tries too hard to be quiet around their father.
Her mother shakes her head. "Away."
"Are we coming back?"
The pause is too long. Rhiannon looks out of the window—reinforced glass to withstand space and any battles, but those only happen in stories—and tucks her feet under herself as she twists around. The spaceship rises, their home getting smaller and smaller. There's a large cargo hold—did their parents pack before they woke them up?
Her mother kisses the top of her head and draws Rhiannon closer. Her tail settles around Rhiannon's, comforting, reminding her of being younger. She's fifteen now. Far too old to be so scared, but she doesn't know what's going on.
It's only later that her parents tell her of a war, of a planet they don't know exists anymore—home. That planet was called home. They're orbiting another planet, whatever it is; Rhiannon is stuck somewhere between wonder and anger. She's begged her father to take her up in the ship and he's always said no so strongly that Ianto's never gotten the courage to ask for the same, but now all she wants is to go back.
It's not that she misses home. Everyone was mean to her, there were rumors of her father's infidelity and illegal wealth; Ianto didn't fit in and restlessly scampered all over the landscape. It wasn't good, but it was familiar.
Ianto's still pretending to be asleep, curled up next to their mother; it's his tail hers is touching now. Rhiannon looks away and back out the window.
.oOo.
They arrive on Earth amidst an orange sunrise. Soft, almost pink. Nothing at all like the violent sky that was Rhiannon's last glimpse of her home planet.
She looks at her parents. "Why here?"
"Your father has an acquaintance here," her mother says when he walks away without a word. "He can help us get settled. There's quite a large non-Earth population here."
"Where is here?"
Her mother looks down at Ianto. "Wales, United Kingdom, Earth."
He mouths the words to herself. Rhiannon rolls her eyes. Her brother's always had a deep need to understand things but an individual way of working through them. Her annoyance is for show, however; it's good that there's something familiar here.
"So we're staying?" she asks.
Her mother nods.
.oOo.
Ianto takes to Earth like a duck to water. That's the Earth expression. It would be more accurate to say like a lizard to warmth.
He runs around like mad, soaking up the bright yellow sun—Rhiannon understands, she wants to do that, too. It's never warm enough on Earth, and certainly not in Newport. She doesn't have the luxury of curling up on a nice rock and taking a nap. She doesn't even have the luxury of walking around in her natural appearance. Humans don't have tails.
That's the first thing Rhiannon learns.
They don't scamper on all fours when they need to get somewhere quickly, they give live birth. They wear trousers and laugh at her brother for curling up next to radiators to fall asleep. He's growing, he needs the heat.
Someone called him a salamander once, an insult. As far as Rhiannon's concerned, they are the most familiar beings on the planet.
Ianto loves Earth and the sun and wilts when he comes back inside. Their house in Newport is nothing like the house they left. It's white and two-storied, and the neighbors know nothing about them. There are no rumors about Rhiannon in school, not until Ianto is twelve—the Earth equivalent of twelve, they seem to age differently—and breaks his leg. There are rumors then, and Rhiannon remembers the practice she had in ignoring them.
Ianto's more careful, then, yet restless, sneaking out, searching for something that isn't there. He found it once before in the sun and still seeks out its rays, but there's more now.
Rhiannon meets Johnny, who shrugs when he first sees her naked and says, "We're not too far from Cardiff, you're not the strangest I've seen."
He means no harm by it and kisses her with his whole being.
She wonders if this is what Ianto needs. Love, real love, not the fearful upbringing they got. If Ianto seeks outside warmth because he never feels enough of it inside him.
.oOo.
The first time she sees Ianto in months, he walks to her across bright green grass and doesn't even wait for her to greet him when he says, "I have a girlfriend."
Her name is Lisa and she's magnificent.
Ianto moved to London and didn't return to Wales for their father's funeral, only came back because Rhiannon told him she was pregnant. In the back of her head, she wonders how many familial traits her children will have, if they will only inherit behaviors rather than tails and scales.
"Don't go into the city much if you can help it," Ianto warns her cryptically.
She fixes him with a look. "I know about Torchwood, Ianto."
It was Johnny who told her. Funny, how their father's acquaintance didn't warn them about the organization that wanted them dead.
"Still," Ianto says.
He looks uncomfortable. He's never liked the estate. Rhiannon pretends it doesn't hurt; they were never close, not even before they came to Earth, but there were always moments she cherished, moments when she thought they understood each other.
He goes back to London soon after.
.oOo.
The sky is clear and blue when Ianto comes back to see her. He's blue, too—that Earth expression: sadness.
It's not accurate. Their natural coloring is red and orange; warm natural colors like the lizards of Earth seem to have. Not all of them. Just the ones that she can talk to.
Ianto's visited in the intervening years, short and awkward, doing his best with her children but unable to bond.
Rhiannon hopes for a miracle. For Ianto to come to her door happy and content, not searching for something wild and dangerous—he's Torchwood, he told her, almost right after warning her away from it. An alien, a Torchwood operative? It's insane. Ianto's odd but not that odd; surely his restlessness and melancholy can be satisfied by something else!
It's ironic, how clear the sky is when Ianto comes to see her. Lisa is dead. Dead and gone and Rhiannon can only hold her brother after dinner as he tells her.
Not for long. Not for as long as he needs.
Their mother lives too far to call, is too sick to come down on her own. She imagines her warmth and love, the way she held them when they were little. An arm over their shoulders, crooning quieter than human ears can hear, entwining her tail with theirs and radiating comfort and love. She channels that, feels Ianto calm a little. Not enough, never enough.
The sky is still light. She imagines the dark sky of their home planet. She dreams of it often, tells Johnny stories of their old life—the good parts and the bad, all in one. With their mothers impending death that Rhiannon is pragmatic enough to expect if not accept, Ianto is going to be the only one that remembers them as well.
The darkness fits Ianto better. He strives towards light and happiness but he hasn't gotten it yet. He's broken, cracked around the edges, talking about his boss and his girlfriend and aliens. Rhiannon wants him to pause and look around, to let the world pass him by for just a second, for him to gather his wits and figure out exactly what he's searching for. But maybe Ianto needs to keep going lest he stop and fall.
.oOo.
There's a color Rhiannon can see that no human can.
There's less of it on Earth than on her home planet. She catches glimpses and remembers. It's been so long that she doesn't feel pain; her home is here, with Johnny and the children and her mother's grave and Ianto.
Ianto sees it, too. He tries to pretend sometimes that he's somehow more than his species. Ridiculous. As if there's something to rise over.
But he sees it, seeks it out in shirts and ties. He doesn't meet Rhiannon's eyes—he never liked doing that—but he smiles when they do see each other, more and more often now, knowing that she sees it, too. It's their last tie to their home, not counting their tails and scales and love of warmth, and it's something that he can have on himself at all times.
Rhiannon loves her brother. He comes to her and asks for her laptop, hints at explosions and hugs her before heading off to London.
Rhiannon keeps her children close and hopes that London doesn't finally finish Ianto off.
.oOo.
She expects Torchwood to come.
To tell her sorry. To tell her lies. To thank her, her brother for her sacrifice.
She saw him fall. There was no time for Gwen, the Torchwood woman who came to her door, to tell her if her brother was alive. There were the children to think of, then the military that whisked her away. Back to London, Rhiannon thought.
No one's contacted her since.
She doesn't expect to open the door and see Ianto.
He looks a little worse for wear, pale, a little unsteady; eager to let her hug him. He's dressed well, a purple shirt and dark jeans, holding the hand of a handsome man—his boss. He allows Rhiannon to lead him inside, promises to tell her a story. He's breathless after the short walk, enough that Rhiannon turns a frantic look at the man beside him.
Ianto waves off her worry and goes deeper into the house, sitting in the corner of the sofa by the radiator. He closes his eyes and leans his head on the wall dangerously close.
The man looks at him endearingly but doesn't sit close. He nods at Rhiannon and lets her take the seat, then stands nearby as Ianto initiates greater contact, tucking his feet under himself to make himself smaller and warmer but leaning into Rhiannon as well.
Maybe it's whatever sickness ravaged but didn't kill him. Maybe it's the man beside him.
Whatever it is, Ianto allows her to hold him and finally looks settled.