5
Ianto needed to scrub this house too, no need for a pyre here at least and he also managed to gather a lot of food that would be awesome. He went in search of the buggy and was pleased to find it sitting next to a portable fuel tanker. Winner, winner chicken dinner.
Crypto found some chickens to chase actually so chicken dinner was really on the cards if he found where the coup was. Ianto rose to go hunt them down and sighed as he wondered how long the food was going to last.
He drove back home with a heavy heart and a yowling cat in a box as he left the house behind him burning, hoping the smoke didn't attract anyone … or anything out there in the wilds.
.
.
.
.
"Ianto?"
He knew that tone and thought it best to ignore it as he helped Mr Simms load the stock feed onto the little trailer their buggy had been pulling.
"Thanks boy, my load was going to arrive later this week but with everything happening I don't think it will get here now" the old man smiled as he patted Ianto's' shoulder, "Good man your Grandpa. All this stockpiled and we wind up with his stock. Your Nain was going to arrange for us to buy it for a measly sum, we were still arguing a higher price. You know she would have given it to us for free if she could have got away with it but that sister of yours…"
"IANTO!"
He sighed as he knew he couldn't ignore her anymore, "Yes love?"
"Things are getting worse, total lockdown, nothing in or out of all major cities. We do have enough right? I mean…" she looked at the elderly couple with obvious intent.
"We have enough feed here to last four or five years with the few sheep and single milking cow and it will have all rotted by then Lis. Why they are taking it, they already were while Nainny was here." Ianto tried to explain smiling as he spoke, "It's no big deal love, besides. They brought fresh eggs for those omelettes you love."
Her face lit up as she saw the tray of eggs and she snatched it up, "I'll put that inside."
The old man turned to regard the boy he had known his entire life, "when are you gonna flick her to the side boy?"
Ianto grimaced, "She says she's preggers"
"Bullshit, she says she wants to trap you a bit longer until she does fall, bet there's no protection right?" he hissed, "Then she will try to have a wee miscarriage once the ring's on her finger? Followed by a real one? Bet you and her are a nice match at work … does she have another on the side yet?"
"Keb, you are a cold bastard" Ianto said even as he smiled to show he knew he was probably truthing, her drinking not curbed one little bit and as she had admonished a work college for drinking when pregnant he was pretty sure this was a bluff like he was guessing.
Still.
He hated confrontation.
.
.
.
.
.
He was half way back when he saw it and he slowed the buggy to scoop it up, the little shoe that he had been unable to find and he let the buggy coast to a stop as he started to cry.
This had been the hardest of all.
They had been like extra grandparents, their daughter a childhood friend but… the one she had left behind with her parents for the weekend…this little one had been just a baban no more than two.
Ianto had found her gone already, not from his bullets but from what he had been shooting at in the darkness as he screamed with pain and fear, this little shoe missing until now. Poor little thing must have run when they were attacked, her grandparents searching after the initial wave thinking it was all over. Leading them over to his house instead so it all came to a head in the front yard.
He couldn't leave it.
It was a little white shoe with a bright gold buckle.
He placed it on the buggy's spare seat and Crypto leaned in to sniff it then dismiss it as he scanned the fields around them, uneasy with the lack of movement.
He was right.
Not good to be caught out here with your dacks down.
.
.
.
.
.
Lisa had followed him inside, the old couple leaving with cheerful calls that had him watching out the kitchen window even as he felt her impending argument.
"I want to go back" she said defiantly, "Yvonne is demanding all agents return to the tower."
"We are outside the zone" Ianto replied "We will not get in"
"We show our credentials" she said and he was ready, taking a deep breath to steady himself before answering.
"We don't have any."
"Don't be stupid, we have our IDs, we always do. You showed them to get out" she pointed back behind her like the roadblock was just down the road, not a day's drive away.
"That was then."
"What the hell does that mean?"
Ianto knew it was going to cause an explosion but he was strangely detached as he answered "I burnt them when we got here, they helped cook your dinner. We have a baby to think about, I have to keep you both safe."
She ran back upstairs to upend her purse and he settled with a strange glee.
Wait until she learns that the cell phone doesn't work for sending messages either.
She would never find the jammer.
She didn't even know he had one.
Just like he knew there was no baban … like she would soon tell him everything to make him let her leave alone.