"And that right there is Venus," Jack said, pointing up.
Ianto nodded. He knew that, somewhere in the back of his head, but it had been too long since he had last stargazed. "What's that one?"
"The moon."
"No, that one."
Jack laughed, clear voice ringing out across the empty field in front of their rented cottage. "Mars."
Ianto settled back further into the porch swing. "You ever been?"
"To Mars?"
"Yeah. Or… any of them. The close ones."
"No." Jack put an arm around Ianto—a clearly practiced move—as he settled as well. "Had a pit stop on the moon, once, that was… oh, somewhere in the next ten centuries. We had an Earth-based mission—not many of those, and we broke down on the way out, needed to do some quick repairs. Not that easy when you have UNIT's entire air force on your tail!"
Ianto chuckled along to the story. Jack's tales rarely took place on Earth—the ones of his past before Torchwood and endless loss—and he always mentioned planets Ianto didn't yet know the existence off, aliens that would make contact centuries from now, laws and customs that were as alien to Ianto as the solar systems they originated on.
"Humans go out to the rest of the solar system in a few centuries," Jack said. "It's not that there's nothing there, but everything's too Earth-y to be of interest to the Time Agency. Still too primitive to con, too."
"London wasn't really interested in them, either," Ianto agreed. "Suppose it's too close to home to feel like true Torchwood ambition."
"Suppose so."
They lapsed into silence, Ianto thinking of the past and the future, looking up at the stars and stuck on Earth, content and restless at the same time. He wasn't used to such days off, weekends free to take off into the countryside and rent a cottage to get away from the city for his birthday. Sitting on the porch and stargazing seemed so small and insignificant compared with what he could have been doing, which... in retrospect, wasn't all too important. The Rift was quiet for once and the only work waiting for him was filing and cleaning, and the occasional Weevil, which, for all the danger it posed, counted more as pest control than anything else.
Jack's voice broke through the silence, gentle and smooth. "Being on the Moon was really something, though. It's space—you can't forget that if you've got a ship to repair—but the Earth is so close. We're looking up right now, and what are they? Mars, Venus... they're just dots up there. On any moon, really, but the first time I was on the Moon, I saw Earth for the first time. It's..."
Ianto nodded as Jack trailed off. He couldn't understand, could never grasp the wistfulness Jack's voice took on—unconsciously, even—as he talked of flying and traveling, and yet saw in Jack something familiar: not a yearning for the past, not with the ghosts it held, but something more, a certain hope for previous carelessness, perhaps.
"I'll take you up there once."
ianto laughed, because he was supposed to, because the promise was too real to take seriously. "You can't."
"Just watch." Jack didn't look at him. "I'll do it."
"Alright." Ianto rested his head against Jack's, not initiating eye contact, and basking—if not in the promise then in what it represented. "I'll take it as an I-owe-you."
"An I-owe-you. A belated gift." He felt the flexing of Jack's hand against his shoulder, then the nod of Jack's head against his. "It's a deal."
One chapter left! Thank you so much for reading and let me know what you think! :D