Kyle wasn't too happy about sitting in The Old Glory Inn for the night. He nursed his beer listening as the thunder sounded like it helped the lightening rip apart the sky. He knew it wasn't so he let his imagination go with the image. Those kinds of thoughts came more frequent since Jack came into his life. He always wanted to write a story just give it a try but farm life got in the way of anything practical, so he let his mind wander when he could and more than often on nights like tonight.
He became aware that the eyes of those in the bar were on him. He knew why, even as a part of the community he was still manly a loner. Mauve was the social one. But Kyle just wanted to stay home when he could. So going out to socials became a chore. It was easy when Trevor was older, he would take his mother to the event and she would have a great time with her friends. Trevor would stay and flirt with the girls for a bit before he went to find his friends never missing the time he was suppose to come back, sober and take his mother home.
Kyle was always waiting up for his wife to tell him the gossip from that night's festivities. As long as he had Mauve he never need leave the house. She was all he wanted to keep him going. She had away of making life fun and joyous.
"The sky looks stupid again." Young Andy Meyers stated as he went back to his beer.
"That has to be one of the dumbest comments I every heard out of your mouth. Andy you are nothing but a half wit." Ken Trummble grunted as he began to stare at Kyle. "See Kyle you have spooked him, he never says anything and then nonsense just falls out of his mouth." Ken Trummble pursed his lips in an almost snarl towards Kyle. His mouth was almost toothless from years of drinking and neglected.
Kyle swore that despite his farming up bringing he would never be a hick nor would his children. He didn't mind that they left town if they choose to move on. Kyle and Mauve could always sell the farm if the kids didn't take an interest in it. He at least got the chance to go to college but the only son of six children found his father asking him for help.
"Just for a year or two until I can hire someone. Kyle, I promise then you can go." That year turned into many until his father passed. He re met Mauve two years after his return at of all places a church social and he fell in love. Even as a kid Kyle loved her, now he had at least one dream come true. That was the day she appeared to him in a beautiful white dress trimmed with antique lace. A vision he kept inside his mind when things seemed bleak. It helped when the years of hard work weighed heavy, he thought of the best reason for why he stayed, his wife.
It didn't work when his son was brought back to him in a box with the Silver Star. The thunder and lightening increased as Kyle's mind went to his son dead lying there cold in the grave.
"I know we aren't good enough for you, but you could at least respond to me." Ken Trummble still wore the same sneer as before. Suddenly Kyle realized that his thoughts made him think time progressed but it didn't he was still in the same place and Ken just had continued to his second thought right after the first.
"Leave him be Ken, you know Kyle just isn't a talker. Here have a round on me gentleman." He retrieved three bottles popping the tops off on the counter he placed one down in front of the three people sitting at the bar ignoring the mugs he had given them earlier. "It is a fancy dark beer from Europe. I got a case as a sample from my distributor."
"Thanks, Bob." Kyle said softly. He took a swig of the darker beer. Smiling as it hit his taste buds. "Oh that is good."
Ken just chugged it back as did Andy not caring what it tasted like as long as it did what it was suppose to do that is to get them drunk
The door opened making the small group turn to see the latest arrivals. The clap of thunder entering the room followed the guest as they got settled bought a little chill to Kyle as he sat at the bar of the Old Glory Inn founded in 1855. He was questioning his decision to stay the night in Tempest at this moment when the door opened again bring in more residence that had enough of staying home in the rain.
When he tried to get home via the bridge over the Two Folks Brook he found it was under water again. The bridge always went out when the rains where heavy and there is always the path back to the farm that went around the old Connor Farm but for some reason Kyle decided to just turn back to town. He was regretting this when the town folk took an immediate interest in him.
"Glad you'll be staying the night Kyle. Matilda has redone the King's Room and she has been dying to test on some one. I hope you don't mind velvet and sparkles!" Bob laughed as he went to get the new comers their drinks.
"I don't mind as long as I can get some sleep." Fact was with all the eyes staring at him he was thinking that as soon as he finished his beer he would head to bed.
"Save it for his border, Bob, he might need it." It was Giles that owned the hardware store. He was a quick wit and made Kyle laugh. If Kyle were to choose a friend when in need it would be Giles. Though older then Kyle by at least ten years, Giles was always friendly with the younger man even as kids. Giles at times was almost like family, Kyle mused. Mauve thought so anyway. She liked the man enough to have him give her away at the wedding having lost her Dad a year prior.
"My boarder has a room. I don't think Jack likes luxury at least he doesn't seem the type." Kyle clanked is mug against Giles before taking a drink. After all the room Jack was in was nothing more than a walk in closet with a small bed and a tiny dresser. If Jack didn't like it, it didn't show on his face. He actually smiled and said it felt very homey that it reminded him of a place he once lived in. Of course Jack wouldn't give out any details just sat bouncing on the bed a bit to test out the springs. He smiled again and said, "I'll take it" before stretching out on the bed fully. Kyle swore he never saw anyone so content as Jack did at that moment almost like he found a sense of peace.
His thoughts were turned back to the room as Ken decided to add to the conversation.
"But there is something peculiar about him, don't you think." Ken turned his attention back at Kyle by shifting his body on the bar stool to face him. " I mean he shows up and these storms are here every night. Seem odd to me." He reached for his newly placed mug.
"Ken, you know it isn't every night and besides it is that time of year. So give it a rest, you were like this last night, and the night before, stirring up some type of conspiracy talk about Jack. I met the man, he is not like us but he isn't the demon you try to make him out to be either." Bob shoved another beer at Ken wiping down the counter slowly as if waiting for Ken to continue the conversation.
Ken merely said, "Just seems like more then a coincidence that Jack appears out of nowhere and than we have these violent storms. Not only that some folks animals getting sick and dying started around the same time. Bo Jennings lost that prized yearling his mare gave birth to all of a sudden. Sam Tucker had half his corn wiped out with some unknown force over night. I could go on." He had the attention of everyone in the place now.
" And I say you shouldn't. Stop the nonsense now, before I throw you out of here." Bob cautioned as he glance at Kyle who seem to have shoved his head into his beer not caring what Ken was onto or trying to imply.
Bob knew that Kyle was again embarrassed. He was a private man for the most part and Ken talking about Jack was no different then if he was talking about anyone of his family. Bob smoothed back his grey hair and fixed his shirt so it hung better over his small gut. He was not a bad looking guy, spared the wear and tear that most of the farmers and ranchers had on their face in Tempest from out door work. But he had a different worn face, one that comes with years of running a business and never having a life outside of his Inn.
The Inn itself was glorious well persevered and spit polished to perfection. The wood was lacquered and maintained to the highest of gloss. One cut see one's self in every finish of every stick of furniture and wall giving the impression you had walked into darkened hall of mirrors. Bob was a perfectionist just as much as his wife was. They were the perfect couple always trying to improve the appearance of their place still hoping that one day Tempest would become that tourist attraction that they were once promised. It is after all a historical site. Well the town folks were proud to say a small Union army passed through during the civil war. It really was nothing more then the Inn and a few homesteaders at the time but it did connect it to a minor historical occurrence, most folk just forgot what exactly it was. Bob knew it was absolutely nothing. But the folks still took pride in their town and that mattered.
The conversation returned to Ken. "See he is having that effect on you as well, the deceiver this Jack is, making you threaten one of your own and siding with him and his minion. I'm telling you for your own sake Bob, that Jack is not at all right, he has bought with him the end of days." He stared down the silent room now full with around twelve other town folk. It remained silent for some time as Ken's words sunk in.
Kyle felt his face grow hot as the silence continued. It was almost as if he could sense that these people suddenly feared Jack. He tried to stand to leave the room but his curiosity to see where the group took the accusations forced him to remain.
Bob laughed out loud shifting the feel in the room from fear to ease as the folks smiled joining in following Bob's lead. "You should be a writer with that imagination, Ken. Okay folks this round is also on me. God, I should just give the profits away next time." He winked at Kyle as if to say, "all better now" to his friend.
Kyle sighed smiling a thank you at Bob's direction. He stood to go leaving a half full mug of beer behind. Though the tension seemed to have left the room, he couldn't have noticed how some took what Ken said a face value when they watched him leave. Something made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up from a few glares sent his way. He had a bad feeling about this whole thing. Ken may have started something that could end up getting some one hurt. That person Kyle knew would be Jack.
Jack stood by the fireplace allowing the small flames to heat his legs a little. He was more interested in the pictures on the mantle to really notice that his legs were sweating form the heat. He knew it was too humid for the fire, but Mauve insisted because it made her feel safer when the lights were out.
"Just a silly thing my Daddy would do for us when we lost power. We would all huddle in the living room watching the fire while he told us stories. I loved my Dad so much that when he died it felt like he took the best of the world with him, he was that inspiring. But Kyle, he renewed that feeling, shy as he was, he told stories and made the darkness go away." She explained as she handed Jack a cup of coffee.
His face registering that same split second of emotion he did early that day when Mauve handed him a cup in the pasture. She was curious to why coffee seemed to have this affect on him. So she took a leap forward with a question hoping to get Jack to open up just a little. He has been a boarder with them for sometime and though he added to their lives and made Jess so very happy again, she wanted to know what made Jack seem so sad just about all the time.
He was studying a picture of Trevor and Jess when they were very young. There was 12-year difference between her two sons but they couldn't have been closer. It was Jack picking up a baby picture looking at it with a small little smile that Mauve spoke one of the many thoughts she had about Jack.
"You are good with Jess, it is as if you were a father once. Do you have children Jack?"
His face went blank for a moment before he shrugged the question off. "What makes you ask that?" He turned those sharp eyes right at her without a blink.
"You seem to have some experience that's all." She saw more in his face than she heard in his words. He was holding something back. She knew it. She moved away retreating to the couch while she waited for him to speak.
Jack picked up another picture of Trevor when he was five. He almost looked like Stephen the way the sunlight hit his hair. He thought of Alice as well, what must she be like now without the boy in her life. "I took him away from you. My decision, my idea, it was the only way. Always my fault, I can't control the greater good, but maybe if I just had for a few more moments I could have spared him, Alice. But I didn't have that luxury, I, the man that will live forever, was out of time."
He watched his daughter walk away from him knowing he would never see her again, never hold her or talk with her because he was now the monster that Ianto once accused him of once being.
He snapped out of the dark thoughts and turned to Mauve. "Yes, I have daughter who hates me. I wasn't a very good parent never one for the discipline of the whole parenting thing. But if her mother had wanted me to stay, I would have. She just didn't think I would be responsible enough. And in many ways she was right. I can be a selfish prick most of the time." He placed the picture down and went to sit on the couch next to Mauve.
She shrived a bit with the closeness. Jack was handsome and she even being so in love with her husband wasn't immune to his charms. His nearness always made her tingle a bit. She mentioned it to Kyle once, feeling guilty. He laughed and said oddly he felt the same way. She didn't feel guilty again seeming it was just something natural that came with Jack if he could turn even a straight man's head.
She reached for his hand with nothing but compassion. Jack understood that accepting the gesture as nothing but tenderness. He after all knew the complexity of human emotions. Even something like holding hands could have very different meanings.
"Someday she made forgive you Jack, there is nothing that a father can do that would chase a child away forever." Mauve had such a wonderful smile that Jack for a split second believed her. But he had forever, Alice didn't. She was gone from his life that much was certain.
"I think killing her son, my grandson would make that impossible." He couldn't bring himself to saying it out loud. "I could learn to believe that if I had your smile around me everyday. But I don't think so; some fences just can't be mended. I think that is a saying?" His puzzled face had Mauve laughing.
"It might be a saying. But I never met a fence that couldn't be mended; I guess it has to do with what kind of fence it is and who is repairing it. Some would say there is a craftsman for every chore. So anything is possible." She squeezed his hand before letting go just as the phone rang. "That has to be Kyle, he can't sleep unless he hears my voice." She got up, Jack standing with her.
"I'm heading to bed anyway. Thanks for the chat." He hugged her before shooing her towards the phone. "Sweet dreams."
"You to, but we aren't done with this conversation yet. I just brushed the surface with you and I want more!" She laughed as she raced to the phone. "Sweet dreams to you!" She yelled after him.
"I doubt that." He mumbled. "I don't ever have sweet dreams.
And that proved correct for as soon as his head hit the pillow. Jack went into a very bad dream.
"I have just scratched the surface with you." It sounded like Ianto. Jack knew it was Ianto. The younger man stood naked before him not at all like when he uttered those words that to Jack seemed so long ago.
This Ianto's image was a few days after Jack and the rest of Torchwood killed what remained of Lisa. Jack didn't want to end up in bed with the younger man again. He felt used enough but Ianto standing there looking so lost was and alone pulled at emotions he thought he had buried. He found himself wrapping his arms around Ianto, leading him to the bed. But instead of taking advantage of Ianto in the state he was in, so willing to just give himself to Jack, Jack pulled the blanket around him and held him close. Ianto caved into Jack's warmth and cried.
"Don't let go, just don't leave me. Jack, I'm sorry for hurting you, but I love her so much and I felt I had to save her. Do you understand any of it? Why I did what I did?"
He nodded his reply allowing Ianto to feel it physically. If he told Ianto all that he was, the young man would be right in calling him a monster. But mercy was not beyond Jack and he knew that if the roles were reversed, his younger self would have done exactly what Ianto did.
"Wisdom comes at the strangest of times." He mumbled in his sleep as his dream self held Ianto even tighter.
"If only I knew then, Ianto, what I know now. You might still be alive. But some how I knew that happiness isn't something I'm allowed, not for along. I think I have to pay for what I have done in the past. Losing you was part of that payment. I can see that now. You would have understood me the most over time. But now that is over."
He awoke with tears falling down his cheeks. The storm had passed and he could see the moon peeking out behind the failing cloud cover. His head turned to the nightstand noticing the notebook the Jess was using to jot down their story. He smiled as he began to read the last sentence.
"And the hero watched the sun steer around the clouds before he left this place stratified he did well in helping others." He picked up the pen and began the next chapter. It was dawn when he put the pen down.
End Chapter 3
TBC