A/N: all right, so this contains slight spoilers to my own story Blood Moon Rising…

Chapter Eighteen: Family

The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together.

~Erma Bombeck

Ianto felt a flash of deja vu as he stepped into his mother's living room. Cade was sitting in the exact same spot as he had been the first time the younger man had brought his partner home to meet his family… Dafydd, too. He was sitting on the sofa staring out the window, looking about as cheerful as he had two years ago… had it really only been two years? Ianto wondered… closer to two and a half maybe. That made it three and a half for him… his personal timeline. He never imagined that he would have a personal timeline different than anybody else's. The furthest he'd ever been from home before he met Jack was a weekend campin in Brittany.

Gavin at least was standing in a different spot and instead of looking up wearing an uncertain expression, he smiled as Ianto and Jack came in the door, with children in tow.

Trea and Deidre came out of the kitchen as soon as they heard the door open, too. Nerys came from upstairs.

Gavin got to them first, holding out his hand to Jack in a welcoming handshake. "Good to see you again, mate," his smile was nothing short of warm. He waited until Ianto had set Remi down before giving his younger brother a hug. "You too, Yan. How was…?" He left it open ended. They hadn't been terribly specific about where they were going to adopt, just that it was overseas, Eastern Europe somewhere (which wasn't really over seas at all, but it was certainly foreign.)

"It's good to be home," Ianto answered simply.

"Well let's see the baby then!" Trea moved to her husband's side, peering into the carrier. "Ooohhh, she is a doll! May I? Jack? Ianto?" she all but pleaded to hold their daughter.

"Let me just get her out of there for you," said Ianto. "The latch is a bit tricky." He could feel Cade's glare. His mother's frown. The former wasn't unexpected… he just wanted his mother to be happy for them.

"I think I can manage a baby carrier, Ianto," her tone was patronizing, but her expression took the sting out of it.

"No… really…" he began, but before he could say more, she had the buckle unsnapped and had hoisted Seren into her arms. Ianto didn't bothering looking at Jack; he knew he would be giving him that look, the one that said he was fretting and he'd better stop it soon.

He felt Jack's hand on his and twined his fingers into his partner's. He smiled despite the pterodactyls in the pit of his stomach. The smile deepened when as he watched Trea with Seren. She was holding her and crooning over her the same way she had crooned over Deidre's children… over Remi. Deidre and Nerys was hovering over her, too, marvelling at how adorable she was, how she almost looked like Jack and Ianto… he flashed a nervous smile at his sister. She knew.

She was the only one and only because he had to have someone to talk to. That had been his and Jack's agreement. He needed one friend outside of Torchwood and Nerys had already met Myfanwy… they'd always been close… He found himself suddenly missing Suki, Karen and Jaeka, even though they'd had to keep secrets from them, too.

But at least we didn't have to pretend that she wasn't really ours… Seren fussed a moment… found him in the crowd… she looked right at him… Ianto smiled. She seemed to settle down once she realized both he and her Papa weren't very far away.

Just then, Ianto's mother slid her hand into his and pulled him gently away from his partner and into the dining room.

He swallowed nervously, wondering what she wanted. He kept expecting her to say that he looked older, to notice that something was amiss. That he was different somehow.

It was silly really, but when he was younger – so much younger – she used to tell him every year on his birthday how much older he looked than he had the day before. He knew of course that mothers said things like that (it was on the mental list of things he was never going to do to Seren), but it didn't make him any less nervous about standing in his mother's dining room one year older than he'd been when she saw him last, just a two weeks ago.

Alice cleared her throat softly; she didn't quite meet her son's gaze. Her expression was difficult to read.

"Mam?" he asked.

"I know," she glanced quickly out into the living room, but they hadn't been missed yet. "I know Jack isn't what anyone would call a religious man," she kept her voice low so as not to be heard over the fuss everyone was starting to make over the baby. Or at least the girls were fussing over her; the men seemed content to let them.

Ianto let out the breath he'd been holding and nodded to acknowledge the truth of his mother's statement. Jack was disinclined towards any sort of religious notions at all, but he was very good about keeping his opinions to himself. It was Jack's mother who had caused the ruckus the first time she'd met Ianto's mother…

"I understand to each their own and all that," Alice went on, still looking uncomfortable. "But I do hope you're going to… do the right things. By the church. And by your daughter, because you'd be doing it for her, not me or anybody else. That is the whole reason you went and adopted some foreign baby… to give her the advantages she wouldn't have gotten…"

He frowned, not understanding what she was getting at.

"I just meant to say that I hope you're going to have her baptized," she finally came out and said it. A little too loudly.

The chatter stopped.

"Mam, you promised," Nerys began. "You said you wouldn't get into it…"

"I said I wouldn't make a fuss, not that I wouldn't ask," she answered, just a little too defensively. Clearly this was a discussion that had caused some tension between mother and daughter. "I haven't fussed. I just asked. But since you're accusing me, I may as well say for the record that she should be baptized like all good Christian children, no matter what sort of family she was actually born into. She's ours now, after all."

Although Alice didn't miss the pained look on Ianto's face, she didn't understand it. She tried to give him an encouraging smile…

"Good Christians?" It was too much for Cade to be able to keep his mouth shut. "They're bloody queers! Where are you going to find a priest willing to baptize…?"

"Can't you leave it for one minute, Cade!" Deidre snapped angrily; then she ran out of the room, choking back sobs.

No one moved for several long moments… Cade's face twisted up in rage. As he found his feet, both Gavin and Ianto both intercepted to keep him from going after her in the state was in; he looked ready to kill somebody.

He pushed them both off only to find Jack standing in his way.

"Don't get in the middle o' this 'Captain'," he made the title sound like a bad word. He glared hard at his brothers. By then even Dafydd had gotten to his feet, although generally being the youngest and smallest, he was the least likely to get involved when Cade's temper flared.

Cade returned his gaze to Jack, who still hadn't moved out of his way. Ianto's 'husband' was the only man in the room as big as Cade; he'd taken on Gavin before and had no doubts he could take on Gavin and Ianto together now, not that he expected the younger of the two would actually get into it with him.

Dafydd wasn't even a consideration. The boy spooked at his own shadow.

Jack was another matter, however, and even angry Cade realized it. Despite his repeated jabs at the American's masculinity (or lack thereof) he knew a fighting stance when he saw it. There was something about Jack that suggested he could probably take him on… probably would too, if pushed too hard.

"Why don't you take a few minutes to cool down," Jack suggested in a rational tone of voice that infuriated the other man.

"This isn't any of your business," Cade growled in return. (Even having a modicum of rationality about the situation, he wasn't about to lose face to a faggot… or whatever Jack was. What did 'omnisexual' mean, anyway?)

During the initial exchange, both Alice and Trea, who was still holding Seren, had exited the room. The former went to find Deidre and try to calm her down. The latter was outside with the children, keeping them occupied so they wouldn't go inside and see what was happening…

Cade stepped closer to Jack, chest first, getting himself directly into the other man's face. "I said 'get out of my way'. This is between family."

"He is family," Gavin told his brother.

"Just because some damned bureaucrat decided to recognize two men as husband wife doesn't mean the rest of us…"

Jack was the only one who saw Ianto's jaw clench. The younger man had taken about as much as he was able to and he knew it. He took half a step back from Cade. "Maybe we should go and let you guys sort this out," he said, mostly in Gavin's direction.

"You're a part of this family, Jack," he repeated.

"Fricking pansy…" muttered the elder Jones half under his breath. "Probably just afraid of a good clean fight…"

Ianto's fist across his jaw came as a complete surprise to everyone except Jack or Nerys (who had crammed herself into a corner as far out of the way as possible).

Cade stumbled back two steps with the force of the punch. He would have fallen if Gavin hadn't caught him.

They both stared at their younger brother, although Cade's expression was the one of sheer disbelief.

Gavin's face betrayed little more than smug satisfaction. He'd never seen anyone throw a punch so hard before and of all people, Ianto was the one man he knew who had never raised a hand to anyone over anything (at least not that any of them were aware of or that they would have believed if anyone had ever said as much.) Even when Yan had rushed to Nerys' defence against JP, he'd only won the so-called fight because JP was a drunk idiot who'd tripped over his own two feet and smacked his face against the pavement. Or so the story had gone…

"Enough," Ianto told Cade a frosty tone. "Enough about me, enough about Jack, enough about us." He was shaking with barely contained rage; he hadn't held back when he'd hit his brother. It was little wonder he hadn't broken Cade's jaw. "If you don't like what I am or think it's wrong or whatever your fucking problem is, fine, I don't give a shit. But I'm just sick to death of hearing about it. I don't need your approval. I never have. I never will." He stalked out the front door.

Jack glanced at Dafydd just long enough to ensure he was all right. The youngest Jones would probably never fully recover from the experiences from last year, but other than seeming a bit shaken, he looked all right despite Ianto's outburst. A quick nod in Nerys' direction brought her to the Dafydd's side. It wasn't the first time Jack was glad Nerys knew more than the rest of Ianto's family.

Cade was just starting to gather up his wits when Jack left to go find his partner.