8
"So. What happened to your wife?" Jack asked as he laid in the heather watching clouds at the bottom of the Flying Fox, the creek burbling nearby.
"Didn't have one, no marriage happened" Ianto replied cryptically "We were not supposed to be. Her father forbade us, she got preggers and… well. We met secretly of course, after… when I managed to get hold of him legally and the family could not fight me for him anymore, I moved around for the first year or so, completely unsure what to do. Then by accident I got on the wrong bus that stopped here. I got off as he was fussing and I needed to find his binky. The bus left. I didn't."
"He never knew her then? Shae seems so… grown up."
"Oh, he sees her briefly, maybe… once a year. Yes. A stoic little man. Reminds me of myself" Ianto grinned now, the light of the day warmer somehow as he rolled to face Jack "And you? I see physical likeness there but Joseph's calculated look… is that you too? Or his mum?"
"Clare was … calculating. Sure. Extremely clever." Jack smiled wistfully and he found himself telling Ianto his entire life story as they lay there in the grass. It was not until they were heading home that Jack realized that Ianto had deflected so easily that Jack had been the one to spill.
Damn, the FBI would have loved an analytical mind like his.
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Jennifer was waiting for them and she seemed agitated as she paced Jack's kitchen.
"Jen?"
"School photos" she hissed as she tripped around the kitten striking at her skirts. Of the three kittens the kids had chosen, this little tabby was a right bugger with its claws already. Her own son had a ginger (of course) but the other two boys had both chosen tabbies. They had wanted to match.
"They happen every year, next week I think" Ianto frowned as he tried to remember the school staffroom meeting. He picked up Monster and placed him on the chair where he had some toys.
"Online!" she hissed, throwing the notice on the table "This year they are posting the photos online! Anyone can see them!"
"Well… anyone that is a member of the school, sure. It's a secure site. No one can just patch in and troll it" Ianto assured her, he own concerns about that forcing the question "I made sure of it. Asked the questions and even had a few terse words about cyber stalkers to get the system upgraded a few years ago. The student records, name, photos… all locked down. Only a parent with an access code can get in to their own child."
She slumped in a chair "God."
"He can't find you" Ianto said on a low voice, Jack clearly hearing it, then added louder "Besides. If I wear my vampire fangs I will be the best photo in the entire year anyway!"
Jennifer turned to see her son in the doorway with Shae. Both boys looking at the adults with wide eyes. Shae said to his father "Taddy? Are things OK?"
"Yes love. We just hate photos. Posing, best clothes and trying not to blink. You know… I always look like Spock off Star Trek, my eyebrows such weird things!" Ianto assured them, the kids moving back as Joseph called out to them that he had found whatever it was they were looking for.
Jack saw the two little friends off and wondered what the hell was so wrong with online photos?
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Photo Day and Joseph was in his finest garb. Jack noted the hairstyle was eerily similar to his new friend's … well… both their new friends the Jones men. Ianto's quaff not just repeated in his son but Jacks' as well. Clearly this friendship was cementing itself and Jack found that a good thing.
Jennifer was walking her son to school, the boy with his hair slicked back in a way Jack had never seen it. He surmised the boy was also trying for the quaff but his wiry hair was not cooperating so he just jelled the shit to of it. As the three boys met, Ianto waved from across the playground where he was talking with another teacher.
Jack knew he had been looking forward to their awkward hello grins and not having him at the gate was a little crushing. God. Crushing? Jack now saw that he was getting a little too familiar with his son's teacher and he wondered if that was a good thing nor not.
Then Ianto smiled at him across a sea of little heads and Jack knew it didn't' matter.
He was beyond a crush now.
God, he was falling in love with this man he really knew nothing about. They had started running almost every day together while the kids were at school when Ianto had that last class free. They talked as they ran and Jack had found Ianto to have more stamina than he had thought he might have. Fit. Another hidden side to him.
Jack decided he had to do a background check for his own piece of mind, no matter how wrong that was when he even thought about it. He knew nothing of this man, his past… the Hoodlum connection vaguely referenced.
Whatever he was hiding…Jack would find it.
Whether he liked that or not.
Either of them.