Torchwood: Divergence
Book Two: Adferiad

Chapter 20

The three friends gathered in the Boardroom, settled close together at the near end of the table and broke out the pizza. It really was just like times past… the Torchwood Three Musketeers, sitting down to a late meal of takeaway at the end of a hard day. Some things never changed.

"I've missed this," Gwen half-laughed, toasting her companions with her bottle of cold Brains. "Just the three of us, waiting for the next alien threat, eating delivery or takeaway and picking apart the latest missions."

"Speaking of that," Ianto put in, snagging a slice of each of the pies. "Did the Weevil problem clear up once the Xhoquitt disappeared?"

"Not a single attack or unusual sighting since," Jack confirmed, going for the biggest piece of the Meat Feast and taking a bite… then sucking in a big breath. "Man… this stuff is always best when the cheese is still hot enough to fry your tonsils."

"That's what the beer's for," his partner smiled, obviously just as pleased with the fare.

"All right you two, let's play a game," Cooper suggested, immediately pointing a finger at their leader and shaking her head. "Don't even suggest it… no stripping or running about the base."

"If you say 'I Spy' or Scrabble," the American warned. "I give you a 24 hour Retcon and have Ianto drive you home."

"Wow!" the woman to his right exclaimed with false surprise. "I'm sensing some past family game night trauma. Who needs Retcon?"

Jack rolled his eyes and took another bite of pizza, Ianto simply eating and staying out of the middle.

"Now, what I had in mind," Gwen continued. "Is more of a sharing thing. Like… what's your favourite memory of something you saw or experienced since joining Torchwood? That doesn't involve sex if possible."

"Well, that limits the choices," Harkness snorted, but gave in. "Okay… gimme a minute."

They all thought for a while, munching their pizza in silence.

"It's strange," Ianto finally spoke up. "Having you make me the liaison to the Crown, Jack, and getting to have monthly meetings with the Queen… being awarded a Commission as a Lieutenant in Her personal Guard while you were gone with the Doctor. Those were and still are amazing experiences, and not anything I ever imagined would happen to me."

He paused for a moment and rolled his eyes at the older man for snickering over the fact that he said "Leftenant" when referring to his rarely spoken of rank.

"But I honestly think one of my favourite experiences was during the supposed Zombie Apocalypse, when I helped Sarah have her baby," the Welshman continued with a slight smile. "I mean, I had to scramble to get Jack to the Autopsy Lab, her husband into the Hothouse, the mattress out of the bunker to put in the old Boardroom for her, lock our captive Zombie in the cells without losing bits of my anatomy, and get Sarah settled with pillows so she could push. Plus, I was scared to death something would go wrong or I'd do something I shouldn't. But it all turned out fine in the end. She had a healthy little boy in spite of all the madness and I really felt like I'd helped with something important. When you told me I did a good job, Jack, I felt this incredible moment of pride… like I'd finally proven myself as a real member of Torchwood by handling a crisis almost entirely on my own."

"I didn't know you delivered her baby," Cooper grinned, obviously impressed. "Brilliant!"

"Jack did all the hardest bits," Jones insisted, though his eyes sparkled at the praise. "Caught the baby, did all the stuff with the umbilical cord and afterbirth."

"Yeah, but you did the real work," Harkness countered firmly. "You coached an incredibly stressed-out first-time mother through labour without any pain medication, kept the birth canal clear and the baby in the right position. Sarah said you had the patience of a Saint, never flinched when she tried to crush your fingers into pulp during contractions, and knew just what to say to keep her calm and focused. No, that one's all you, buddy."

The young Welshman blushed and smiled, saluting his friends with his bottle.

"What's yours, Jack?" Gwen prodded curiously. "You must have some doozies."

"I've seen and done a lot of pretty amazing things over the years," the Captain nodded, taking another bite of pizza and looking away at nothing for a moment. "There's tonnes I'd rather just forget… but a surprising amount that I really value. It's hard to pick one, and the best today may get edged out by another tomorrow. But one that stays consistently high on the list, is the night after Tosh and I crossed back from 1941. Ianto… I haven't really said anything yet and you're already blushing."

"And likely will be till well after you're finished," Ianto breathed with a tiny smile that told his friends that he was torn between flattered delight and complete mortification.

"I'll keep it pre-watershed friendly… mostly," his partner promised, chuckling when the younger man mouthed 'liar' at him. "I told you all months later that we'd met the real Captain Jack Harkness and what ugly fate awaited him the reason I was able to steal his identity. I was… well, I was kind of depressed. Even without knowing the details at the time, Ianto stayed late to keep me company. He explained what happened with Owen and the Rift, made a special trip to get me shrimp fettuccini alfredo from the Italian place along the Quay, and told me he was really happy to have me back. Then he found a station on the radio playing Big Band music, dimmed all the lights and danced with me. He kissed me back when I kissed him, and things got incredibly X-rated for the first time since we'd started our serious flirting with the occasional round of grope and tickle. Talk about ending the day with a bang.

"I honestly thought I'd ruined him for life, but he let me know he was more than up for another go some time. And even though being his first was amazingly memorable, what sticks with me the most is the fact that he focused everything on trying to make me feel better and get me to smile again. That was all he really wanted. No one has ever done so much for me and asked for so little back. He definitely got more than he bargained for, but that wasn't why he did it. Same as my next favourite, which is him taking me off the roof of the Stadium over the river just to let me know what it feels like to fly… amazing."

"Jack was your first?" Cooper queried uncertainly. "But I thought you and Lisa…"

"Once," Ianto confessed uncomfortably. "She was my second overall, but Jack was my first and only same gender experience. A curiosity grope during my brief time at Uni doesn't really count in the grand scheme of things."

"Wait," Harkness frowned. "Are you telling me you'd only ever had sex twice in your entire life before we broke my chair and destroyed the stopwatch? Who was the first, and why wasn't a handsome young fellow like you sowing his wild oats all over the United Kingdom?"

"Yes, only twice before you," Ianto breathed, looking like he wanted to crawl under the table. "The first was a not very impressive or enjoyable encounter with one of my sister's friends when I was seventeen, and went to visit Rhi for the weekend. The woman was drunk, I was scared, coerced, and afraid to fight back because I didn't want to hurt her, so you can probably figure out how it went. She moved not long after and never remembered a thing regardless.

"Lisa and I had met my first day at Torchwood London, we dated a long time, had our one night in the freezing cold during a spontaneous camping trip on a beach in Brittany, in coats and a single sleeping bag. It was a couple of months before Canary Wharf went down and you both know what happened to her. Beyond that, I've just never been the sleep around type. I'd prefer to really know a person first and make sure it's something we both want a lot, because once I commit that's pretty much it for me."

"And you have no idea how much I always envied that," Jack told him solemnly. "I grew up in a very open, multiple partners are the norm, 'share the love' kind of environment. But after I ended up trapped in this 19th Century, those rules didn't apply and honestly haven't save for a brief span in the 1960s. Still, I've spent almost all my life here running from commitment, trying to keep things at just a good time and regretting it if I let it go beyond that. A lot of that was because I knew I'd lose them eventually anyhow, so why volunteer for the heartache. After Alice's mother divorced me because she decided she really couldn't handle the whole growing old with me never changing thing, I swore off serious relationships entirely.

"I broke my own rules with you, even though I tried so hard not to. And it nearly destroyed me two years ago, but it actually turned out to be a good thing. Because it brought you back and gave me a second wind I didn't think I'd find. Commitment doesn't scare me now, and I can see that just because I'm not sleeping my way through the beds of the galaxy, doesn't mean I'm not enjoying a damn good sex life. And now it actually means something."

"If you embarrass him anymore, Jack, the poor thing's going to burst into flames," Gwen intervened, feeling sorry for the twenty-six-year-old squirming on the other side of the table. "I promise not to ask about the broken chair and stopwatch reference, if you let him breathe."

"Okay, okay…" the American agreed immediately, not having realised he was so thoroughly embarrassing his lover. "No more discussing our sex lives. Although knowing your history now, explains why so many things were a surprise to you that night we 'dabbled' when you were still in a woman's body. So… what's your favourite memory, Miss Manners?"

"Ah… well, there are two butting heads for top shelf," the former constable shrugged, clamping down on the urge to ask about the night her boss had mentioned… so much for Ianto going home alone to wait out the change. "My wedding day for one. It could have been nothing but a horror and freak show beginning to end. But you lot did so much to make it turn out all right. After all the chaos it really was a beautiful ceremony, and the team taking up the slack everywhere… Owen seeing to fainting guest and passing out Champagne like a prescription, Tosh keeping the caterer moving, Ianto taking over for the dead DJ, and you double-talking both sets of parents. Then the hours of post-Retcon clean up you all did. Just made me love every one of you more.

"But then there's the memory of the first time we brought Ebrill here to see you two. Watching you cuddle with and coo at my baby girl, when I'd been so sure I'd never see either of you again and she'd never know her godfathers. That moment was just so perfect."

The three of them sat quietly for a time, considering each other's prized memories and the other tidbits they'd learned. What else might they discover as the 'game' progressed?

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AN: Yeah, a bit of sharing and (hopefully) relaxing to be done in the next few chapters. With luck, it won't bore you all to tears…

Thank you to those reading the story. And thank you to those who have followed, favourited, and reviewed. NM

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