Fixed

by the ocean weekender

Jack comes back from travelling with the Doctor and goes and re awakens Gray from the freezer and takes him back to live in the Boeshane Peninsula 10 years after the invasion. Will everyone get their happy ending or is the entire family doomed to misery and heart break? Coe fix-it story. Sequel to my DW story STRANDED, i suggest you read that first but it's not essential.

7. Chapter 6

Chapter 6=

Zaphira approached her eldest son from behind where he was sitting on the edge of the cliff looking at the sun breaking. As she got closer she noticed with concern all of the little but loud things that had changed about the now (much) older man. The aura of despair that was coming off him in waves, how underneath his clothes he was so thin that she wondered how long it had been since he had eaten properly, the bags under his eyes that were practically black when he wasn't making sure that he was animated and lively; the crushing sea of emotions that roiled about in his baby blue orbs and her heart went out to her son who was going to have to live like this, most probably, forever.

~0~

Jack knew he couldn't stay in the house, as soon as the opportunity had first come up he had escaped to the cliff top. Zaphira had hugged them both for a long, long while before hurrying them into the house and sitting them down at the kitchen table and making them all a mug of tea. (Ianto had always thought that he had hated tea because it tasted disgusting but in reality he hated the reminder of home but now Ianto was gone and he couldn't even smell coffee without almost puking.) Then he and Gray had explained the best that they could, it had taken the woman a while to truly understand what being immortal meant for her eldest son but compared to some other people Jack had known, she'd handled it fairly well. There was only enough food in the kitchen for Zaphira alone so Jack had walked down to the man with his cart near the caves who sold fresh Biblio (think chips and fish fingers put together in rainbow colour) and they had all sat down at the table eating Biblio with their fingers- and Jack had been very careful not to wipe his fingers on his trousers because he was quite sure that Ianto would have turned in his grave- and drinking tea and watching the news-feed on the screen set into the wall just above the fridge. After they'd sat in the living room with the cartoons playing while Zaphira sewed and knitted; Gray had eventually dozed off and Jack picked him up and put him to bed in their old room before sneaking out to the cliff top. And there was no doubt in his mind that his mom was going to give him yet another hug and just generally be his mom again. So why did he still feel so empty? He had his family back and he was home, yet there was still a gaping black hole in his heart where something was missing and he knew without a shadow of a doubt that it was Ianto and wondered when, if, he would ever feel whole again.

Jack realised that Zaphira was staring at him still and he turned to her with a grin and a raised eyebrow that seemed to take a lot more effort than it should have done. "Breaking curfew am I?" he asked in what he hoped seemed like a cheerful tone. She looked at him with unreadable eyes before pulling him into a fierce hug that felt like she was trying to break his ribs and he didn't mind.

"I was such a mekrittu," she said shakily, "always acting like I blamed you for what happened."

"Mom," Jack soothed, "it doesn't matter."

"Yes it does!" she told him, close to tears, "You were 13 Blue! 13 years old and you let your mom blame you for tearing the family apart."

"Sshh," the immortal ex time agent told her, "it wasn't like that Mom, I blamed myself even more than I thought you blamed me and Gray is home safe now so no dwelling on what can't be changed, ok? It wasn't your fault, it wasn't Dad's fault, and it was nobody's fault."

"Still," Zaphira murmured, "and now you're immortal! How in the name of everything that is sacred did that happen then?"

"There was a girl, we were both travelling with this man who was called the Doctor, but there was a battle on a place called Satellite Five. I was killed but Rose looked into something very powerful and absorbed the power and it gave her a way to look over all of time and space and she brought me back. But she was only a 19 year old human, she couldn't control it and she accidentally brought me back for good."

"How old are you now?" the elderly woman queried. He told her exactly how old and her mouth dropped, "But how..?" she whispered reverently, "You don't look a day older than the day that I last saw you."

"One benefit is that I age about a day for every 100 years that I live." Jack explained, keeping a close eye on making sure that she wasn't about to faint in shock anytime soon.

"So you have to see all of the people that you love die and some even turn against you and get bitter for not aging?" Zaphira said, "How are you still sane Blue?"

"You get used to it," Jack confessed, "and the special ones that I allow myself to truly love then nine times out of ten they die before they can even get near the bitter and twisted stage."

"I love you Blue," Zaphira told him fiercely, "after the invasion I should have told you that every single day, I'm sorry."

"It's ok." Jack promised her, and for once he thinks that he might have convinced himself as well.

~0~

A/N: FOR THOSE OF YOU THAT ARE READING THIS STORY THEN I APOLOGISE FOR THE IRREGULAR UPDATES BUT MY LIFE IS A BIT HECTIC AT THE MOMENT AND ALSO WATCH OUT FOR WHEN YOU READ THE NEXT CHAPTER AS THERE'S GOING TO BE A TWIST!