A/N - Thanks to everyone who let me know that the formatting had broken!

31.07.2009

Butterflies fluttered in Ianto's stomach when the Sat Nav told them they had arrived at their destination, which turned out to be a substantial Victorian house in a leafy Bristol suburb. The driveway, tucked behind a neat privet hedge, was big enough for Jack to park the enormous Jaguar he'd hired for the weekend alongside Alice's Corsa and still leave space for whatever Johnny was driving this week. He saw the curtains twitch when they pulled in through the gate, and by the time Jack had parked up and they'd got out Steven was bouncing in the doorway, held back only by Alice's hand resting on his shoulder. As soon as she released him he shot across to Jack, laughing when Jack hauled him up into a hug and carried him back to his mum. "Uncle Jack, Uncle Ianto!" he yelled, very close to Jack's ear. "You're getting married tomorrow!"

"Is that really tomorrow?" Jack rolled his eyes at Ianto. "Hi squirt."

Ianto chuckled and reached up to ruffle Steven's hair. "Hi Steven. Hello Alice."

She leaned in the doorway and crossed her arms over her chest, but watched Steven and Jack with fond eyes. "How was the drive over? Easy, I hope?"

"Fine. Bit of a queue for the toll bridge, but nothing serious. Rhiannon and her lot are a bit behind us, had to stop for Micah." He rubbed at the back of his neck. "I think Mam regrets deciding to come with them instead of us. Thank you for having us tonight, and for today, and... Everything."

"It's my pleasure. It'll be good to have us all together. The family, I suppose," she added, with a little of the wonder and slightly panic that Ianto had been feeling for the last week. "And thank you for driving tomorrow."

Jack set Steven down at last and pushed him towards Ianto for a hug. "No, thank you for agreeing to take us to the airport. I never really thought about going on honeymoon, so I never thought about the logistics of it. Good job I've got Ianto."

"I think we can all agree with that." Alice tutted at him and stepped back to let them in. "Come on. I'll put the kettle on. Steven has been baking but..." she ruffled his hair as he ran past, "we'll get them out when the Joneses arrive, alright?"

"Yes Mum!"

She caught Ianto's eye as she closed the door behind him. "I'm sorry, he seems to have to shout everything today. He's a bit excited."

"Well, you can get away with it when you're his age, can't you?" He followed Jack and Steven down the passage to the kitchen-diner at the back of the house, past a closed door with a name plate that indicated it was Alice's office and the open door of a large, impeccably tidy living room. Either Steven was an absolute angel, or Alice had spent a long time tidying up in preparation for having Ianto's entire family descend on her house. The kitchen took up the whole of the back of the house, with French windows that opened onto a garden bursting with colour. The kitchen, which took up the left of the room, was spotless and the dining table in the other half of the room was set with as many places as it would take. Jack was already sitting at the table where Steven had pushed him into a chair and was showing him photos brought back from their latest trip to Milan.

"Steven, let them get in the door, will you?" Alice sighed again and turned to Ianto with a bright smile. "Coffee, Ianto? Oh! That reminds me." She hurried over to the coffee machine and pulled out a tin painted in black, gold and silver. "I brought you this. It's the house blend from my favourite coffee shop in Milan. Best way to recover from the flight. I bring so much of it back with me when we go, it's the only thing that gets me through the morning some days. I'll put some on now. Steven, will you show Jack where he and Ianto are sleeping tonight?"

"Oh, but Mum..."

She tutted again. "Now. Before Micah and David arrive and you get completely distracted. And you can show him your room while you're up there, can't you?"

That cheered him up and he grabbed Jack's hand and dragged him out of the room, talking at a mile a minute about the whole process of redecorating the room, down to the finer details of choosing the exact right shade of green. Alice breathed a sigh of relief when they heard footsteps on the stairs. "He's been so excited," she said with a rueful smile. "I love seeing him happy, but I wouldn't mind him being slightly quieter."

"At least you won't lose him in the crowd," he pointed out.

She laughed at that. "That's true. And... it's good to see Jack so much brighter. You're happy, both of you?"

"I... yeah, we are." He watched her turn away to the coffee machine to busy her hands like he wanted to and it stilled a few of the butterflies. "It's meant a lot to him, having you and Steven around."

"He still doesn't remember everything, does he?"

Ianto shook his head, even though she had her back turned to him. "We can't expect him to. Even what he does remember, some of it's... different."

She half-turned to him with a half smile. "Less cruel?"

"Yes."

"He deserves that much, at least. Even he can't change the past, but at least he can remember it better." She passed Ianto a mug and cradled her own against her chest. "You've been good for him."

"That's been mutual." The crunch of tires on the gravel driveway and the thunder of feet as Steven raced for the front door cut him off. "Alice, I apologise in advance."

She laughed him off and hurried down to join Steven at the doorway, only to find him already bouncing by the car doors, waiting for David and Micah to pile out. Jack met them at the bottom of the stairs and raised one eyebrow at Ianto in an unspoken question that went unanswered. Instead, Ianto trotted out onto the drive to greet Rhiannon, his mam and, reluctantly, Johnny. "You made it at last," he said, stating the obvious in place of a greeting. "Are you feeling alright now, Micah?"

She certainly looked alright as she wrapped herself around his leg and looked up at him with a bright smile that was missing at least two teeth. "Hi Uncle Ianto."

"Hi. Hello David." David gave him a quick wave and returned to his very excited and very loud conversation with Steven, so Ianto picked Micah up and greeted his mam with a kiss on the cheek. "Hi Mam. How was the trip?"

The look she gave him was haunted and slightly acidic, but it melted away quickly to be replaced with a bright smile and a hug. "Terrible, but worth it." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Any chance I can travel with you in the morning?"

"I'll see what we can do," he assured her. "But not if you're hungover."

"I'll see what I can do."

Johnny swept in at that point, and by the time Ianto had escaped the boistrous bear hug Micah was running after Steven and David into the house and Rhiannon was chatting with Alice. The sight filled him with a certain amount of panic, but also a warm, fond glow. He slipped his arm around Jack's waist and held him back for what would probably be their last moment to themselves for several hours. "Okay?"

"Better than ever," Jack told him. "Are you?"

"Nervous. More nervous about tonight than tomorrow, to be honest. The bar for success seems so much higher." He sighed. "Tomorrow we just have to get married. Tonight we have to try to stop Johnny from annoying everyone, keep my mum sober, and get three excited children to bed in time for us all to leave in the morning."

Jack laughed. "Always on top of the details. Relax. It'll be fine. If Johnny gets too annoying we can just put him in the garden."

"Oi, lovebirds! Are you coming, or what?"

They looked at each other and Ianto raised an eyebrow. "How long do we have to wait?"

# # #

The shadows of late evening stretched across the garden, reaching almost halfway across the lawn towards where Steven and David were still playing with the swingball. Micah was curled up against Jack and doing her best to pretend she was still awake and could stay up for hours yet, despite her eyes slipping closed every few minutes. She yawned hugely and did her best to hide it in Jack's shoulder, but this time Rhiannon wasn't falling for it. "Come on then, love. Time for bed."

"Mummy..."

"No, bed time." She hauled herself out of her chair and picked Micah up despite her reluctant protests. Alice got to her feet as well and looked out at the boys in the garden. "You think we should try and get those two off to bed as well, Alice?"

"I should send Steven up for a bath soon. Will your two be wanting one?"

Rhiannon huffed. "After the way they've been chasing each other around, David probably will. I think this one is past that point." Micah grumbled again, but her head was resting on her mam's shoulder and she was well on the way to sleep. "Should we just hose them down?"

"They'd probably enjoy it," Alice laughed. "I'll get Steven through first and then David can finish up. They've done a good job of wearing each other out for us." She glanced over to the lounger in the garden where Johnny was fast asleep and snoring. "And him!"

"Oh... you know what, I might just leave him there overnight. There's no rain forecast, is there?"

Alice looked thoughtful. "You know, I don't think there is." She shook her head and wandered over to the door whilst Rhiannon took Micah upstairs. "Steven, time for a bath. We've got an early start tomorrow."

He looked about to protest for a moment, but as soon as she reminded him about the wedding he brightened up and scampered in past her, then back into the kitchen to bounce on his toes. "Good night Uncle Jack and Uncle Ianto."

"Good night, Steven." Ianto watched him go, and David trailing behind him rather less enthusiastically, only to turn back and find himself under similar scruitiny from his mother. She smiled in a way that would have made his teenage self squirm and sipped her wine. "Something funny, mam?"

"Not funny, love. I'm just looking forwards to seeing both my kids all grown up and married by this time tomorrow." Her smile softened into something less knowing and more wistful. "I wish your tad were here. He'd be so proud of you." Ianto raised an eyebrow and she shook her head firmly. "It might have taken him a while, he always were a stubborn sod, but he'd be more worried Jack's American than that he's a bloke and you know it. And look at you both. Torchwood!"

A conversation from the dim and distant past occurred to him, and he allowed himself a moment of smugness, just long enough to bask in its glow without earning himself a clipped ear. "I suppose things worked out in the end. I wonder where we'd be now if I'd never left Newport."

She gave him a look that said that the smugness had been noted and was going to be tolerated, just this once. "It's a funny old thing, life."

"It certainly is." Jack looked between them. "I'm told that everything hinges on tiny decisions, but they always seem pretty massive to me."

"Maybe that's how you end up in Torchwood. Most people go through life without ever dealing with an alien, Jack." She paused and a worried look stole over her face. "Or at least they think they do..."

There was a sudden scream of laughter from upstairs and they all looked up at the ceiling. "I'm glad David and Steven are getting on," Ianto said, hoping that they still were. "Steven's a smart kid, well behaved. David could use a role model cousin like him."

"I'll tell your sister you said that."

"Only because you know I'm right." He got to his feet and started collecting together abandoned mugs and wine glasses. "Early start in the morning."

"Yes. Are you nervous?"

"I wasn't until you asked." He sighed. Jack was keeping very quiet in the corner. "No. Like I said to Jack earlier, as long as we come out of tomorrow married I'll feel it's been a successful day. Everything else will fall into place, one way or another." There were always the nerves about the end of the world, of course, but they were no higher than usual, and there were that many Doctors and alien experts attending that the world would have to be mad to try and end at their wedding. He looked over at Jack again and smiled. "So long as Jack doesn't decide he's fed up with me already, it'll be fine."

"Not a chance. You're stuck with me this time," Jack told him firmly. "I've had my idiot moments already."

He smiled, even though he'd known the answer. "Good. It would be a shame to waste that much wine."

# # #

"Ianto," Alice called out as he passed her office door. A sliver of golden light fell across the hall tiles and he paused just past it, with his hand on the bannister rail, for a moment before he doubled back and pushed the door open. He found her sitting at her desk with a plain manilla folder open in front of her and a neat stack of photos on top of it. Her courage seemed to fail her for a second, but then she turned in her chair and beckoned him into the room. "I found these the other day and I thought... well, there's no protocol for this, but I thought you'd like to see them."

That was one way of putting it. He settled down in the empty chair next to her and accepted the two faded, crumpled pictures she held out to him. 'No protocol for this' should be the title of his memoirs. She was going to be his step-daughter. He had a step-grandson. He might have more than one, but he'd tried not to think about that. And now he was sitting in his step-daughter's house holding a photo of his husband marrying her mother and another from a few years later. "When were these taken?" he asked, rather than think about that any further.

"They got married in '66. The day of the World Cup Final, believe it or not. Mum must have already been a few months along with me, because I was born that November, but you can't tell." She laughed. "Not like me with Steven. I could never have got away with a dress like that."

Ianto moved it closer to the light so he could look at it properly. In forty years, Jack had barely changed. He had his arm linked with that of a handsome young woman, her dark hair cut in a fasionable bob, who wore a simple dress with long lace sleeves. Like Alice had said, there was no hint of her pregnancy to her slim figure, but to the trained eye her military training was easy to see. It was there in the tilt of her chin and the set of her shoulders. "She was quite a beauty, wasn't she?"

"She was." She chuckled. "I'd say that he was too, but you already know that well." Her smile fell a little. "That's the only other photo I have of him. It was my second birthday. I think he broke a few rules to be there. Broke a few more to track me down years later, though."

Jack looked far happier in the other photo than he did in the wedding shot. Alice was a chubby toddler with a brilliant smile and a head full of flyaway curls, balanced on Jack's hip and holding onto his shirt with a tight fistful of fabric. "You were adorable, weren't you?"

"I was. What went wrong?" She turned back to her desk and started tidying the already neat pile of pictures. "We moved back to Italy a couple of months after that, so I don't really remember him. We didn't meet again until he took control of Torchwood in 2000. I had Steven by then and, well, I didn't really have a dad-shaped space in my life."

"Or a step-dad shaped space, I suppose."

She smiled sadly. "And definitely not a... god, what is Rhiannon? Step-aunt?"

"Don't tell her that," Ianto laughed. "I don't even want to think about what our family tree looks like now."

"Well, we'll have to figure it out sometime." She took the photos back from him and looked down at them with a fondly rueful smile. "I need to get a frame for these, and get a photo of the four of us tomorrow to add to it. I think it's time." She paused and looked around at him again. "Big day tomorrow. Everything changes."

"Yeah." He rubbed at the back of his neck. "I'm getting used to that."