5
"You were not happy that I told them they could go instead of us" Jack accused Ianto as he watched him fold washing. Ianto ignored him for a moment or two as he paired off socks then glanced at him before looking aback to his task.
"I wanted to go." Ianto finally huffed. "I needed to feel it for myself."
"I know, but you always want to go. Be first, be best. One of the things I love about you is your need to run headlong into flames" Jack said as he tried to make Ianto see reason. "Come on love, we are trying to make sure they all get equal footing with decision making, that we are not the bosses of everyone. Look at it from my point of view."
"Your point of view, the only one that matters. Life is like a model scene in a box, there are windows on all sides looking in, not just the one you are watching the world through Jack!" Ianto growled. "I have another angle to see things, another vantage point."
"We have kids, we have people here depending on us. We are not the ones to save everyone. Sometimes, Ianto sometimes someone else had to be a hero too. Owen and John being the ones to scout out a new possible home is not a bad thing, it helps to show we all have a part to play." Jack tried to make Ianto look at him but Ianto just grunted as he picked up a little shirt to fold next.
"You and I are different and you know it. We have a better chance of coming back if it all goes wrong" Ianto finally pointed out with anger "They don't have our… gift."
"Gift… you call it that if ya like but when is it a gift and when is it a curse? Come on Ianto, we need to step back now and then. Everyone had to be part of this. We can't mollycoddle them forever!" Jack scoffed.
Ianto shook his head "And that is where you and I will never see eye to eye Jack. It's not mollycoddling to protect those you love."
"Why, they die anyway" Jack said, then stopped as he heard what he had said.
"Right. Why love and lose? So do you love me at all or are you just enjoying me while you can" Ianto threw the basket of clothing at him "Fuck you. Go with them, you are angling to go with them and leave me here right? Go on. Be the man. Go, hero mode engaged. As per fucking usual. I am secondary to what you want and you don't want me there distracting you from the possibility of a chance to be The Man!"
Jack was not sure how the hell that had happened, Ianto had tricked him somehow into making him show his hand. It showed as Ianto's' shoulders sagged and he shook his head at him.
Jack was still waiting to lose it all.
Jack did not have faith.
.
.
Ianto decided not to make a thing of it, instead he made himself busy in the garden room, not even taking part in the comms side of things. Toshiko noticed, as did Jack and he grimaced at her as she glared back, knowing full well it was something he had done to upset their resident archivist. He had not gone with. He had stayed behind to prove Ianto wrong and felt childish doing so.
Finally the cameras flickered to life as John and Owen turned on their body cams and started to walk from the Away Vessel to search the green area. It looked great, it had trees, a small body of water and as they walked John pointed out some rabbits that seemed totally un-phased by humans walking around. Of course they didn't really care, they had likely never seen humans before, less than a couple of years old.
"They look good. No radiation ticking off them" Owen's voice was tinny in the speakers as he waved the scanner over them "This looks great."
"It's too small" Ianto said, making Jack jump, then swing to look at him with surprise. As always, he had moved silently and quickly.
"What do you mean?" John asked as he turned to look into Owen's camera, his face full of interest as he grinned on the screen, his hair moving in a soft breeze.
"I mean, the area is too small to support us as well as the wildlife already visiting. If we take it, they will lose what little habitat they have" Ianto pointed out. "We will be proving the Bots right that we are the enemy."
"So what do we do?" Owen asked.
"we feel excited as this means there are greenbelts like we had thought and it is possible that if there is one this size, there may be one larger in a valley somewhere" Ianto sighed, rubbing at his face then looking at the screen intently "Don't forget to take soil and plant samples."
"yes Mother" Owen snarked as he went to obey.
John stood a while longer looking around and then said softly "You're right Eye Candy. This is not somewhere that need humans fucking it up, we've done enough of that already."
No one answered.
No need.
Who could agree more?