Chapter 5

"Where the hell have you been?" Jack demanded as he flung open the door to the cottage and virtually dragged Ianto inside.

"No need to take the role of wife to heart quite so seriously." Ianto rolled his eyes fondly, but took note of the panicked look on Jack's face.

"Your note said you were just going for a walk to get some fresh air and to fetch some milk from the farm house – that was over two hours ago! I've been worried sick."

"You could have called me… oh." Ianto grimaced as Jack handed him his mobile phone.

"I tried. And where is the milk?"

"Oh shit, I left it up there. Do you want me to go back for it-"

"Don't you dare. Get those muddy boots off and then tell me what the hell you've been up to."

Ianto was bemused at the role reversal and put the fact that Jack was delivering his usual lines down to the hormones that must have been flooding his body. He crouched down to undo the laces on his boots before toeing them off and setting them on the newspaper that Jack had pointed at. It wasn't easy to do one-handed, but he didn't think that asking Jack for help would be a good idea in the circumstances.

"How about a nice hot drink first?" Ianto took Jack by the arm and steered him towards the kitchen. He figured that he needed to do something to bring down Jack's blood pressure or he'd be making an emergency call to Owen before the week was out.

"I'm not allowed coffee, as you well know. Those herbal teas are revolting and hot chocolate without milk is disgusting – what do you suggest?"

"Soup?"

Ianto slipped his hand into Jack's, anxious to make amends for getting him worried. He knew that the angry bluster was the other man's means of disguising his fears.

"Hey, you're freezing, Ianto. Come here."

Jack rubbed the back of the hand that Ianto offered to him, mindful of the bandages around the fingers, and then pulled him in for a gentle hug. After a morning of languorous love making, both men taking care not to hurt each other, he'd fallen asleep and not heard Ianto leave the cottage, waking later to find a note left on the pillow. After such a long enforced separation, he didn't like to lose sight of Ianto and he'd panicked when the hours stretched out with no sign of return. His doubts concerning how Ianto was really coping with impending fatherhood had resurfaced with a vengeance, he wondered if Ianto had fled back to Cardiff. However, the arm now firmly clasped around his body dispelled those particular fears.

"Let me warm up some soup for us and then there's something I need to talk to you about. OK?" Ianto pressed his chilled lips to Jack's forehead in an attempt to reassure him.

"Should I be worried?"

"I don't think so."

"Good."

"They've got llamas – did you know that? They thrive on the mountains up here."

"Llamas? Is this what you've been building up to?" Jack almost choked on a mouthful of soup, wondering if maybe Ianto had overdone the painkillers.

"Sort of." Ianto chewed his lower lip thoughtfully. "Jack, when the baby comes… we've not really discussed it properly… but, there's no way we can bring up a child and keep working for Torchwood."

"I guess it could be a challenge child-proofing the entire Hub." Jack set down his soup spoon and absently placed his hand on the bump beneath his shirt.

"It's barely adult proof," Ianto snorted. "The Health and Safety Executive would shut us down if they ever inspected the place."

"So we're not going to be showing the kid where his daddies work?"

"It's a boy?" Ianto dropped his spoon into his bowl with a clatter.

"Didn't I tell you?"

"I think I'd have remembered something like that!"

"Sorry? In my defence the 'baby' word wasn't exactly something you were dealing too well with up until now."

"I know," sighed Ianto. "And it hasn't helped that we've barely talked about it since you moved up here."

"Phone lines, Ianto – Owen was right, too high a risk of our conversations being listened in on." Jack had been more frustrated than Ianto had been at the inadvisability of talking about his pregnancy over the phone, but there was too much at stake to take the chance. "So, that's a given then. No taking the kid to the Hub."

"No – and before you deny it, I know that you've had Owen looking into possible foster parents and nannies in Cardiff."

"Oh. They were just preliminary enquiries – I was going to talk to you about that."

"That's what Owen said." Ianto had been surprised that either of them thought they could conduct that sort of research and for him not to find out.

"You know it occurred to me that perhaps we could persuade Gwen and Rhys –"

"No way!" Ianto shook his head vehemently.

"What? Why not?" Jack was shocked. He had genuinely thought that it could provide an ideal solution. From what he'd seen of Rhys Williams he knew he'd be a good father and Gwen had so much heart, how could Ianto possibly object?

"Many reasons – one, she might notice after a while that the kid looked like both of us, she's not stupid. Two, you'd have to sack her or give her a desk job, because Torchwood is not a safe place for a mother to work and three …" Ianto paused and swallowed hard, before looking up at Jack. "I'd hate to have to stand by and watch someone else bring up our child under my nose and …and not …"

Jack got up from his seat and crouched beside Ianto, pressing a finger to his lips, not wanting to see him get any more flustered or agitated trying to express feelings he was only just coming to terms with.

"Got it – not going to happen. And for what it's worth, I really was going to discuss this with you once Owen had come up with a list of suitable candidates."

"Right. Well, I've been thinking. Had plenty of time for that in hospital… and well… it struck me that for all the reasons that we're keeping your pregnancy secret, we'll need to make sure nobody ever finds out that you've given birth to a child." Ianto took a deep breath and cupped Jack's face in his hands. Making sure he had Jack's undivided attention he broached a subject he knew would upset him. "Jack – I know about Melissa."

"Melissa?" Jack went pale.

"I know that she is a relative of yours and I know what it has cost you to keep her safe. When you were away with your Doctor, someone from the government managed to hack into our systems. Tosh stopped them before they got too deep – but they'd been searching the databases of retired Torchwood operatives and their families. The file for Melissa Moretti was one of those attacked, so I had to go in and find out how much had been accessed –it's OK, she's still safe for now, although I took the liberty of making sure payments into her bank account couldn't be traced to your offshore account quite so easily in future."

"Ianto – what can I say?" Jack looked shell-shocked. It struck him that Ianto hadn't mentioned that she was his daughter and, despite everything, he still couldn't bring himself to admit that, not yet. "Do you know what relation she is to me?"

"No – all I know is that you and her mother were very close. I suppose that's what triggered the level of interest from Saxon's men, probably trying to find some means of leverage against you. I didn't mean to intrude and I never mentioned anything to any of the others."

"I… that bastard…" Jack muttered to himself, realising the danger his daughter had been in. Ianto had a point though, there were those who would exploit any relationship he had in order to gain his co-operation. They'd done it in the past to get him to do things he'd never have done otherwise.

"She's safe, Jack. But this child you're carrying… our son, he might not be so easy to protect."

"I'm gonna have to give him up aren't I?" Jack spoke softly. It had been something he'd known all along yet tried to deny. The life he led was fraught with dangers and he had no right dragging an innocent child into that world.

"I'm sorry – but I can't think of any other way of keeping him out of danger. You've made a lot of enemies, Jack, if any one of those ever-"

"I know… I know." Jack wrapped his arms around Ianto and hugged him tight. He couldn't help but feel that life wasn't fair to either of them, constantly separating them from those they'd loved.

"Anyway, I've had an idea."

"Let's hear it."

"Let's go sit on the sofa, you're not comfortable there." Ianto pulled Jack up off the floor and got him settled on the floral sofa before continuing.

"It's nice up here, plenty of fresh air."

"And?" Jack was confused and wondered if Ianto was going to start talking about llamas again.

"Megan and her husband have been looking after this place for years. We know them and can trust them."

"Yes?"

"Did you know that they use that old barn along the valley to house groups of disaffected city kids every summer? They have them help dry stone walling, dipping sheep and rolling fleeces. Apparently it really turns them around - "

"Where's this going Ianto?"

"They never had their own kids – Megan wasn't able to." Ianto bit his lip and decided he had nothing to lose. "That's a shame really, she'd have made a wonderful mother."

Pressing his lips together and waiting for Jack's objections, Ianto was startled as Jack wrapped an arm about his shoulders and pulled him close.

"Ianto Jones, are you suggesting that our son grows up in the Welsh mountains?"

"There are worse places." Ianto shrugged, thinking of his own upbringing on a council housing estate.

"So, this morning – what were you up to?"

"Nothing much, just drinking tea and talking in the kitchen. They've got a log fire burning and the farm dogs were curled up on the hearth... it was so peaceful there I just lost track of time. They're lovely people, Jack, caring and kind. I just thought that maybe…" Ianto hesitated, not wanting to get carried away.

"- maybe we could give our son the chance to grow up somewhere sheltered and safe, brought up by honest farming folk?"

"Would that bother you? Have I assumed too much?" Ianto was worried that he'd overstepped the mark, suggesting to Jack that his son should not live in Cardiff with him.

"No – not at all." Jack crushed Ianto to his chest tightly, his voice breaking slightly. Trust Ianto to find the solution right here that neither he nor Owen had even considered. Jack suspected that in their time apart, Ianto had been doing a lot of thinking about the child he was carrying, even though they'd not been able to talk freely until Owen had brought him to the cottage. He couldn't help but think that the close call on the cliff top had been a blessing in disguise. It had brought them so much closer, in more ways than one.