A/N: Hello! Here's part two of the festive fun! I probably could carry on into a 3rd chapter with the way I've left it... but that's a little excessice so I won't ;) But don't worry, there will be a brief account of what exactly happens on boxing day - just not a whole chapters worth! Hoe you enjoy reading and have a lovely Christmas! Hannah xxx
I've finished it! By some sweet miracle I have actually managed to finish making, baking and decorating my cake by a reasonable (well reasonable-ish, it's only 12.30 and I do get a lie in!) hour and can now go to sleep and rest happily with a clear head in preparation for another late night that will follow after the party. It was a bit touch and go at one point as to how it was going to turn out, but now I'm really rather proud with my resulting 'masterpiece' even if it isn't a real fruit cake. Whilst attempting to find my 9" cake tin, I stumbled across something very exciting at the back of my cupboard which I had completely forgotten about; a Christmas tree shaped baking tin. So I made a basic Victoria sponge with, as always, the addition of my secret ingredient which I would not reveal for all the world's gold, and got the first round of washing up out of the way whilst it was inside the oven. I iced it in green, as one would anticipate with it being a tree, and added finishing touches of silver balls and edible glitter, but it's the decoration at the top of the 'tree' which I think makes the cake; I've fashioned a Weevil out of icing again, but this year she's a fairy! I hope the others will like it, even though it's not the traditional fruit cake.
As it turned out, I didn't get a very goodnight's sleep in the end last night after all. I was certain that I would be able to have a good eight hours (for once), but I guess my body had different ideas to my mind as I had a fairly restless night and woke up early as usual at about 5.30. Perhaps it's because I've just got so used to rising with the sun, or rather before the sun in this dark and wintery season, in order to get to work promptly for around 6.30… or maybe, just maybe, it's because I was a little bit too excited about Christmas to be able to sleep properly. If that is the case, I don't know how I'll manage to sleep at all this evening, as I'll be anticipating having the whole of Christmas day with just Jack which, if last year was anything to go by, will be a lot of fun indeed.
So I've showered and shaved, dressed and picked out my outfit for the party later , eaten breakfast, drank two cups of coffee, cleaned my teeth, watched the news, and given my apartment a quick tidy around – and it's still only 9.30. Is it too early to go into work? I did tell Jack to expect me around eleven, and I'm sure he wouldn't mind if I turned up earlier. It's funny, I remember having this same dilemma last Christmas, but surely this year we're in a more established (?) relationship and so I shouldn't really be worried about seeming overly keen to see him… after all he knows that I love him and therefore want to spend time with him, right? Perhaps I'll just give it another half an hour.
Damn it, I seem to have no will power anymore and I know exactly which two people to blame that one on, it's another one of Owen's bad habits along with sarcasm that I picked up whilst being paired up with him so much, lack of will power is also one of Jack's specialities. But anyway, I'm about to give in, it's 9.45 and I'm heading over to the hub because I can't bear sitting around here idly doing bugger all until eleven – there's just absolutely no way I would have been able to cope with having the whole day off!
It was ten past ten by the time I arrived, and was most surprised to see Jack sat at MY desk rather than at his own or on the sofa, with his head in his hands looking rather glum to say the least. When he saw me, his mood quickly turned on its heels and his beautiful mouth stretched into a magnificent grin.
"Now there you are at last!" He said, quickly getting up from the desk to meet me in the entrance way and ruffle my perfectly styled hair.
"What do you mean? The party doesn't start until seven or so, and I told you I'd be in around eleven and it's only just gone ten now…" I replied, my brow forming a slight frown in confusion – what did he mean 'at last'?
He just chuckled and kissed my forehead, melting away the frown and said: "I know, but I missed you and was getting impatient waiting for you to arrive"
Sometimes he really amazes me with the things he says. I know things have changed a lot between us since he came back from his year of hell, but despite myself, occasionally when he makes these simple comments of utter affection I can't help but feel the corners of my mouth twitch in pleasant surprise.
"Well, it's a good job I didn't leave it any longer then isn't it… After all, I'd been pacing about in my apartment finding things to keep me occupied before eventually giving in and making my way here… I might have found some extra tasks to attend to" I replied.
"It's a bloody good job you didn't! Now Ianto; what's in the bag?" He asked, one eyebrow raised.
I had been waiting for this; the bag in question contained the Christmas cake and there was no way under any circumstance that I was letting Jack anywhere near it until the party. Not only did I want to keep the decorations of choice as a surprise until this evening, I also wanted to make sure there was a cake left by this evening!
"Nothing Sir" I said, attempting to put on an alluring voice, deepening it a little and accentuating my 'Welsh vowels' in order to distract him.
His eyebrow simply rose higher – "Jones, Ianto Jones – what is in that bag!" He asked with a slight hint of impatience and a slight reciprocation of my flirtatious tone, his attempts being more successful than my own I'm sure.
I sighed "Fine, fine. It's the Christmas cake, but you're not allowed to look at it until the party, let alone try any alright?"
"But… couldn't I just…"
"No! I'm willing to hide it if necessary."
"That's ok, I'll find it easy; you're always rubbish at hiding in naked hide and seek" He said grinning.
"That's because I want to be found" I replied with a nonchalant shrug.
"We could play now if you like… and the cake could play too" He suggested, widening his grin in hope, prompting me to roll my eyes. I was saved by the bell, quite literally, as the rift alert sounded seconds later.
We arrived back to the hub from the call out about ten minutes ago, the pair of us utterly soaked to the bone; we'd had to drive across to St Mary's Well Bay in order to hunt down an Ood on the loose with red eye and whilst trying to detain him (?), it wrestled us into the water. Oh and did I mention, of course it started snowing jut as we were making are way back to the SUV drenched in sea water, with the body of an Ood in tow? I can safely say that it was an experience I would not like to repeat for w long time, if ever.
I've spent the past two hours trying to warm up again. It's a time like these that I am so very glad that a) Jack has a shower, and b) I have a drawer of my own clothes in his bedroom, he might like my suits and I may feel more professional in them… but there's nothing quite like the comfort of pyjamas. I will have to return home to change ready for tonight's festivities in a little while though, and mark my words that cake is coming with me, I categorically do not trust Jack alone with it after all his been making eyes towards it's resting place, safely under the desk where I am working, since our return.
Perhaps we were really pushing our luck when we thought we would get a second Christmas party in a row undisturbed by the rift or anything else for that matter? To put it quite frankly, we our luck has just gone from bad to worse of the last twenty four hours, and to think it all started off so very well indeed!
Tosh and Owen arrived promptly at just gone seven; I'd been expecting to see Tosh around that time but was most surprised to see Owen arrive, not only with her, but almost on time for something! Gwen and Rhys didn't arrive for a good half an hour after, but that was only to be anticipated, of course Jack and I were already here at the hub, me having changed into a pair of straight leg black jeans and a festive, yet subtly so, red fair isle jumper and Jack seeming to be dressed in my navy cardigan! I am going to have to have words about that!
Anyway, we quickly relaxed into the start of the evening, chatting over glasses of mulled wine and listening to the carefully selected playlist that Tosh had formed, but Jack couldn't stay patient for more than twenty minutes of 'general pleasantries' before insisting that I revealed the cake. The other's seemed just as keen to have a look, and a slice, so I unveiled my grand design, pleased to find it had had the desired effect upon everyone. I did feel a little bad for Owen of course, but then again I suppose it can't be helped…
"It's a times like this that I really, really wish I wasn't bloody dead" he said in a melancholic tone.
We all immediately turned to Rhys, uncertain as to whether Gwen had told him about Owen's… predicament or not, and if not how he was going to take it. Evidently she had either divulged the gory details, or he was very good at keeping face when faced with such a bizarre situation as this.
The entire cake was finished off within half an hour or so, Jack had whispered that if there was any left that we could make good of his suggestion, and consequently gave Rhys a scowl as he ate the last piece, I just couldn't help laughing at that. After things didn't go his way regarding the cake situation, he was determined to have his say in what activity we took part in next so, naturally, it was present time!
Once again I was so pleased and touched with what everyone gave me. Tosh bought me a concert ticket to see the Black Keys in a couple of months' time; Gwen and Rhys bought me a biography of Arthur Miller (though how she knew I wanted it is beyond me) and a box of Thornton's chocolates. I received a rather alarming t-shirt as a gift from Owen… it was black with a pale pink silhouette of a sheep on it, with a caption reading 'the pink sheep of the family' I felt quite embarrassed upon opening it, but couldn't help laughing (along with the others who were all in hysterics) – I don't intend to wear it outside of the house…. Jack, much to my surprise, gave me a fairly inoffensive present of a miniature desk hoover and the first series of the original Star Trek.
Despite having laboured carefully over what to purchase for all of my nearest and dearest, I couldn't help worrying just a little when it came to the actual exchanging of gifts as there's always that risk that the recipient will secretly (or openly) hate it, or that one party will have out spent the other… but of course, as it was to be discovered later, this was the least of my worries, as they all loved what I had chosen. As predicted, Rhys was both pleased with his Queen CD and indifferent to my choice of perfume for Gwen, whilst Gwen was very, very grateful for the wine it seemed. Jack seemed to twig that, once again, I too had a second present waiting for him and seemed to find both aspects of his jokey gift very amusing, especially when Owen said that I should have crossed out 'toy boy' and replaced it with 'teaboy' causing me to blush bright fuchsia – I suppose I did deserve it though, after his Tin Tin socks. Tosh also seemed amused by her present, and a little embarrassed at first, as everyone seemed as surprised as I was to find that she like karaoke, but after her initial shyness, and another glass of mulled wine, she was begging us to play it.
"Please?" She begged, "It'll be fun I promise! We play on two separate teams, but that doesn't mean that it has to be taken seriously – we can just have a laugh!"
Owen and I rolled our eyes in synchrony as Jack, Gwen and even Rhys willingly gave in. It did turn out to be quite a laugh though; Jack, Tosh and I were on a team against Rhys, Owen and Gwen a despite what Tosh had said about not taking things seriously, we all became rather competitive. Jack was probably the worst, he was both keen to show off his (ridiculously beautiful) voice and to sabotage the other players chances. Everyone laughed when it came to my go and 'the Ace of Spades' was randomly selected – but, little did they know, that I have a very broad music taste which extends to the delights of metal so was able to give an almost flawless performance, on a par with no less than Captain Jack Harkness. I was pleased to find that I'd amused and surprised everyone with my abilities, guess I just never thought to mention that I can sing. It was about now that things took a downward spiral.
Whilst we were kept busy and entertained with that, and due to the lack of windows in the hub, we failed to notice that the light snow that had begun to form into a heavy blizzard and that suddenly it had become very chilly indeed down here.
"Gosh it's cold" Gwen said shivering suddenly
"Really?" Owen asked. "Guess that's one of the perks of being dead – don't feel the cold" He winked.
"Hmm, yes you're right it really has become freezing down here – I'll go and make sure that the heating's still on" Jack said before dashing off.
Unfortunately, Jack didn't bring good news with his return – the boiler had broken down. Tosh managed to re-route the 50% of the energy supplied by our generator in order to power up some electric heaters for the time being, we'd all decided that it was probably best to make a move soon anyway, as it was approaching one o'clock and we didn't want to be absolutely knackered for Christmas day. Of course, come 2.00 am when everyone wanted to leave we discovered the severe weather of the outside world and Jack insisted that it wasn't safe for anyone to try and drive anywhere until it had at least stopped snowing – if only we had just left then and taken our chances with unsafe driving conditions, rather than taking on an utterly spoilt Christmas day.
Shortly after we had resolved to remain in the hub until we saw signs of the snow slowing, a large crack in the rift opened right in the centre of the main floor. It took us all by surprise, mostly because the rift alert hadn't sounded and there had been no predictions made for around this time (though that could have been down to the reduced power supply) but also partially because you never quite get used to the sight of the opening rift. The team waited withheld breaths to face the demon which was about to surface from the portal, whilst Rhys looked on in confusions with Gwen shushing him every time he tried to question what was going on.
I don't think I would have believed it if someone had told me what was about to emerge from the rift, even after everything we see at Torchwood I probably still would have thought that the person telling me about it was crazy or attempting to fool me. I genuinely never expected to see Santa Claus arise from the depths of the rift – and certainly not a RoboForm, gun wielding one!
But sure enough, a peculiar looking Father Christmas figure appeared and we were unsure as to what to do at first. Owen and I glanced over to each other from opposite sides of the room, both of us with our eyebrows raised and attempting to think of suitable sarcastic comments to whip out. However, shortly after its arrival it produced a fire arm from its trombone and began firing at will, prompting us to open fire back. Unfortunately it proved to be rather resilient to our bullets and was able to hit one its target before we could take it out, at least it was only Jack that was killed. Well I say only, I always hate it when he dies, there's always a moment of panic before you hear him gasping back to life, that his luck's run out or something in the universe has changed and he had become mortal again. Not to mention that he always feels like crap after coming back to life… but at least he can come back to life.
Rhys, bless him, looked shocked and appalled when after managing to take down the Santa RoboForm, even if it was only temporarily in the end, that our only reactions to our boss lying cold on the floor of the hub with a bullet hole through his chest was for me to go over to him, lift his head and shoulders up so that he would be leaning against me when he came round and to comment: "Not again, that's another t-shirt ruined!"
"He's dead and your worrying about his t-shirt!" Rhys said incredulously.
"Hang on, hang on. You told him that I was dead, yet you forgot to tell him that Harkness is immortal? Nice one Cooper!" Said Owen.
"Immortal?" Rhys practically shouted with shock.
"I guess it just slipped my mind!" She justified. "Yes Rhys, Jacks immortal, he'll be fine in about…"
Jacks gasping breath and my sigh of relief cut her off. Unfortunately, Jack wasn't the only being to bounce back to life just then as Chris Cringle had a little resurrection moment himself. We were quicker off the mark to react this time though, fending it off with bullets before it had the opportunity to pull out its own weapon and biding us time while Jack went to fetch the sonic ice gun from the armoury which "ought to sort the bastard out" In Jack's words. Jack doesn't swear often, but he had a right to be angry, after all, this thing had just killed him.
After our unwanted guest had been neutralised, we were all pleased to look out onto the CCTV footage and find that the snow had at last stopped falling, the feeling of happiness lasted approximately two seconds as we heard a small and timid voice speak out:
"Umm guys…" Toshiko began. "You remember how I set up that software to send the hub into automatic lockdown …?"
"Yes." We all replied, not yet understanding what she meant.
"Well, it's just, it activated when that thing started firing and well…I can't override it!"
"WHAT!" We all exclaimed at once – suddenly what she was trying to tell us had become painfully clear.
"I fixed the programme so that it couldn't be overridden until 8 hours after the incident"
"Well, that's not so bad" Gwen began, "It means we can be out of here by 10 o'clock tomorrow and still have a normal Christmas day."
"Ah, you see…it takes two hours at least to bring the hub out of lock down…and that's with full power… with the generator only supplying at 50% capacity because of the heating, we're looking at more like five or six hours!"
"You mean it could be four before we get out of here?" I asked.
"I'm afraid so… I'm sorry… I didn't know it would have consequences like this, I just –"
"Don't worry Tosh, we'll be glad of your thorough security measures one day, I'm sure" I smiled back at her, hopefully convincingly, as I didn't want her to feel too badly about the situation, especially seeing as I could already see an argument forming on the tip of Owen's tongue and Rhys whispering to Gwen about how on earth would they get to his mother's on time- but in truth I was secretly a little annoyed. Not with Tosh mind you, with the situation in general. I had planned a lovely day for Jack and I, beginning with us going back to mine after the party and waking up at some ridiculous hour there together, then sharing our presents and cards (I did indeed make him a card in the end, but that will be explained later!) before I cooked a delicious Christmas lunch and witnessed Jack, once again, eat far more than you'd expect a man of his size to be able to put away. Now, we would be spending Christmas day with everyone in a less than fantastic mood, here in the hub, without privacy, with no means of me making a proper Christmas lunch and without the opportunity to exchange our gifts. I've been up in the conference room, partially hiding so I didn't reveal my disappointment, partially wallowing in a little self-pity, for the last ten minutes or so. I guess I should head back down, or they'll think I've got lost!
Before I had the chance to leave, Jack came up to me.
"What you hiding up here for?" He questioned, smiling devilishly.
"Who says I'm hiding?" I asked, ominously.
He just laughed, and then turned a little more serious in tone to ask:
"You alright?"
"Of course" I lied.
"Ianto?" He pressed.
"Well… you're going to think I'm silly…"
"Ha! As if that could ever happen!"
"Well, I guess I'm just a little angry and a little disappointed. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm very glad that Tosh takes the security measures very seriously… but if it wasn't for that stupid Santa then our day tomorrow wouldn't be ruined! I mean, I was looking forward to spending the day with just you…" I trailed off, worrying that I might have said too much.
Obviously he didn't think so, as he just chuckled lightly. "Ok, so maybe you've proved me wrong you daft man! So what if tomorrow isn't going to go exactly to plan? It doesn't mean we have to let it ruin Christmas! Besides, I've given everyone boxing day off as well remember, so we can just do our Christmas a day later" He said reassuringly.
"Really?"
"Really, really – can't miss out on the opportunity for more presents and a home cooked meal now can I?" He grinned and then pulling out a piece of mistletoe from his back pocket, drew me into a passionate kiss. I don't know how tomorrow will pan out, whether or not Gwen and Rhys will drive each other insane with little squabbles, or if Tosh will drive us mad with repeated apologies… but I do know that I love that man a ridiculous amount and cannot wait for boxing day.