6. Day five 3.50pm

Jack listened to Ianto's' breath as he slept, willing himself back to sleep but whatever had woken him seemed insistent so he carefully extracted himself from his sleeping lover and padded to the window to peek around the drapes and he saw something he could not explain.

"Carrrrrrid"

"Maurice is tapping on the window."

"Let 'im in"

Jack turned or stare at Ianto then shrugged, sliding the large window open and stepping back as the tiger slithered into the room and walked confidently to the bed, walking around the side to rub his face into Ianto's and Ianto grunted, flapping his hands weakly as the big cat "Fug orfff"

Maurice did it again, this time forcefully and Jack saw that he was trying to connect their foreheads, finally managing and Ianto sighed, giving in and letting the cat have his way. Then to Jacks' immense surprise the large creature leapt onto the bed and curled up around Ianto like a house cat with a favourite toy.

"Tiger….ah….not you Moe … Ianto?"

"Isssss Alrieeeeee. He jusssss loves me."

"OK. How about I go check on Tosh and stuff then? Give you some quiet time with Moe."

"Hmmmmmmmm"

Jack left the room and stood outside the door with his mind whirring. He seemed too jittery and wondered if he should have had a catnap … I mean a snooze… Jack was starting to find it amusing now as he left the house and started to walk along the path towards Toshiko and Owen's house but as he neared it he saw activity in the communications house so changed course for there.

People were placing things in boxes with force, all the tech was being packed away and Jack moved to the other room to find Toshiko rolling a rug over the place on the floor that Ianto had badly damaged with his wrath as someone else painted the newly reconstructed wall and outside hammering told him the outer wall was intact as well. The window was toast though.

"They are taking a window from one of the old cabins by the shore" she said as if hearing his thoughts there "It will slide in no trouble they say. Like this is no big thing. Like someone tantrums like the Hulk every other day."

"Well … it was quite impressive" Jack sighed.

"How is he?"

"Asleep with Moe. I think I am annoying him with my active mind, I can't settle so I left him to some silence. He seems to need calm, silent reflection and I keep pissing him off all over again." Jack grinned.

"Moe?"

"The white tiger. His name is Maurice." Jack clarified, now looking at the box of parts "Where is everything going?"

"They are putting everything in a big hole in the ground and burying it" Toshiko said forcefully "We had a little meeting while you to were gone. They decided that for the betterment of this place, we would stop reaching out beyond the bubble. Some of the stuff will be saved for another day but most of it … toast."

"A bit knee jerk" Jack sighed as he nodded knowing they were probably right. Someone else could tinker, someone else might actually make contact with a satellite passing overhead. Any beacon was a bad thing whether they intended it or not. They did not need rescue and could not rescue anyone else. Why torture themselves trying to find out is there are others out there? Ringing a dinner bell often brings dogs with the children.

"What are you thinking with that frown?" she asked, afraid that he was still angry with her, she knew many were.

"A saying my wife used to like to use when I was feuding with one of my neighbours back in the day. Elizabeth. Her name was Elizabeth. Beth for short. She had long black hair, a long neck and pert arse. Nice ample breasts and the smallest waist… I could lift her off her feet so easily. She gave me three delightful kids. Was such a kind, good woman. Forgiving. Maybe the biggest thing with me … forgiving. One day I was raging and tantruming as I stomped about because the neighbour had been in our apple orchard cutting down one of the trees again. I was going to call a town meeting to discuss this and she warned me, used her favourite phrase to reminding me that I was not exactly the golden boy in the town. "If you ring the dinner bell, you call the dogs with the children" she used to say. Sticking my head above the trench might get it blown off. She was right. They could have come and pointed out my own faults and the fact some trees were on the property line, the reason for the feud."

"What happened in the end?"

"I killed him" Jack shrugged, "I liked her saying but I was not a dog or a child. I was a wolf in the flock of sheep and I simply culled one. They never even suspected."

Tosh stared at him and then nodded, asking "What happened to her?"

"Influenza. Killed them all … I watched my entire family die out, my children … my lovely wife still so young and active suddenly felled. It was …. Horrible. One of the hardest graves I had to dig ws one large enough for her and out youngest child who ws the last to die. I buried them all together, Beth and little Eliza next to the two boys already gone. Darren and William." Jack stopped talking as the faces of his children flashed through his mind, a loss he still felt after a hundred years or more.

"I am sorry" Toshiko sighed "To always lose. No matter how hard you fight, in the end … we will all let you down by growing old and leaving you behind."

"Not all of us will" Orinoco said as he looked up from where he was painting the wall "Chimeron live longer than humans do. If my grandfather had truly bonded to Jack here …then … how long is a piece of string? One has never been immortal before but … who knows. One had never bonded to one before. We usually mate for life … so…."

Jack found a chair and settled to ponder that.

Did Ianto want to live forever?