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"Tad?"
"Hey munchkin" Ianto replied without looking up from the ground he was inspecting carefully with the trowel.
"What are you doing?" Rosie asked settling to watch with interest.
"I'm searching for lost flowers" he smiled as he looked at the little sweetling, Jack's gift to the pack that he had a special soft spot for if only because she had her father's eyes "see? There was once a house here but it is long gone. The garden though, it's still here under all the leaves and such. We have to let it out."
"Like feelings" she agreed "They need time to find the light."
"Clever" Ianto felt pride as he leaned over to kiss her forehead "Yes darling. Hiding your feelings is not always a good thing."
"Like Uncle Sean. He is rotting inside" she sighed "Hope is angry, so is Pip. The Twins say we should stay out of Grup feelings but Dean sez he is gonna do something stupid of he doesn't wake up to the word still turning… whatever that means."
Ianto leaned back and pondered "The earth turns on an axis as well as traverses around the sun. Why we have night and day. Remember school work about it? So we have the saying that the world will still turn. It must."
"Ah" she looked up at the sky "Tadda?"
"Yes my little Rose?"
"Will you always love me?"
Ianto was stumped with where she was going so simply answered "After the last star had burned out, I will still whisper your name."
"Good. Good" she rose to go and then looked back at him "Why don't all parentals love their babies forever?"
Ianto now knew and sighed "Uncle Sean loved Liam, loves Liam and will always love Liam. I think it's more a matter of him not loving himself right now sweetie. It seems like he's forgotten Sean, he hasn't. That's the problem. He can't forget and he has to learn to live with that feeling."
"Ah" She leaned in and kissed him, "Love you Tadda"
"Love you prefect little Rosie girl" Ianto smiled as he watched her go then he rose and went searching for Sean, finding him leaning against a fence watching the horses running. He stood next to him for a while before speaking.
"The children are worried now. They think you do not love anymore" Ianto said after he had formulated the words he wanted to use "They are just children. For all the things we have taught them, loss is one they do not understand. They are too … cloistered. Nainny's death was not unexpected, she was old and sick. Like the farm animals … they saw it as natural. They do not fear it as it's not really happened to them. The do not understand your pain and you make them think you have broken."
Sean looked at him with surprise "Really … I … I don't know what to do either."
"Try one day at a time, like someone coming off booze or drugs. Come out of the anger and grief a little each day. You will relapse, you will crave a good tantrum … it will get easier to live with. You never heal all the way, you just … learn to live with the wound."
"God. I never thought I would be so … I mean. When Mama died it was horrible, scary but we had Nainny. Then all this…then Poppy … then Nainny died I didn't think I could take much more. Now … my boy." Sean rubbed his face.
"Your daughter needs you. She is confused too" Ianto reached out and patted his arm "Come on. She needs to know it's OK to cry and grieve. She is waiting for you to show her what to do. Clara is in shock and can't do it."
Sean nodded, walking towards his home and the child probably sitting quietly on her bed hugging the toy teddy her brother gave her from a recon.
Ianto watched him go and turned to watch the horses now, the life inside him moving and settling at the sound of the hooves thundering as the horses rumbled along with their tails high like flags behind them, enjoying the bright sunny day.
He let it all go.
.
.
.
.
Pip stood with his hands in his pockets, his small frame tilted slightly forward as if his shoulders were bent with the work of decades upon them, the weight of many things. He looked around at the children who all sat looking at him as he spoke in the strong Grup voice of an elder.
"So it is an end to it" he said with a thump of his stick on the floor "I have had enough of the bickering and finger pointing. We must stick together if we are to get by. We must to survive for in the end all we have in each other. In the days to come when the Grups fall away and only Tadda and Daddy remain as our constants you will remember this moment and the decision you make!"
Hope nodded "So we vote. All those in favour raise your hand."
One. Two, eight, nine … eventually every hand in the room was raised bar that of Rosie who looked at her sister for clarification.
"If we agree, there is no backsies?"
"None!"
She raised her hand.