4

Jack had chosen and Ianto was surprised by it.

A horse stud. Yeah, Jack rides. Ianto had not seen that one and was slightly delighted by this fact as he, himself was a rather adept horseman and he loved the idea of them swanking about on horses for a while. Both of them had grown up around horses, Jack back in America and Ianto on summer holiday programmes for underprivileged kids. So, the big and the small of it. It will be interesting to see if they have similar tastes there too. After all, so far, they had been on the same page.

"Are you sure its OK" Jack asked again.

"Look, Andy is an old friend. We grew up in the same housing block. He's a bit mad but you will like him when ya get to know him" Ianto replied as he folded his clothing neatly into the suitcase, trying to ignore the way Jack was simply scooping his own clothes from his drawers and dumping them into his own suitcase like he was robbing the place.

"So, you don't own this one." Jack said as he went back over the paperwork in his head, the folder full of options had several pages on each choice of dwelling. When Jack saw the horses… well… no brainer.

"Yes, but not" Ianto muttered, then sighed "Sorry. Habit. I didn't mean to deflect. I am still learning here. So… I wanted it as it had been me Grandy's place before the bank took it when I was a kid. I knew having somewhere with my name on it would only paint it as a target, in my line of business your name was supposed to be as invisible as you. This was my first ever idea of a safehouse really. So… Andy came along. I trust him with my life. He's like a brother to me. It is all in his name, but I paid for it. If anything happens to me he is supposed to sign it over to my sister's kids … He's a good guy, you will like him."

"The dogs will love it too, and the cats seem unimpressed here too" Jack agreed.

"Yeah, they are all sulking in the bedroom and refusing to come out. I had hoped the girls would at least like the waves. They prefer grass and trees I am afraid" Ianto laughed "They will be beside themselves when they see Andy. You've not seen them truly spaz out, you will be in for a real display of dorkiness. These two nobheads will go nuts."

"Andy, have I met him?"

"He was with me when you were in the court but you probably didn't notice him, he was helping Archie with the investigation side of things." Ianto infirmed him, holing out his hand for the shirt Jack was trying to fold in vain.

"We will be fine, we always are" Ianto assured him and Jack just nodded, not wanting to jinx anything.

Not when this had been his fault in the first place.

.

.

"Boss"

Lisa looked over at the man who was holding out a phone and she glanced at it, then shook her head "Tell him I am indisposed."

"REALLY?"

The voice yelled, and she hesitated at her Master's Voice rang out from the speakers.

With a grimace at the hapless man who might get a smack in the head with a hammer later, she accepted the phone "Sir? Sorry, didn't' know it was you."

"Well, now you do. Report back to base and call your dogs off too. We have things to discuss young lady!"

"Unfortunately, I am in the middle of something, and I will get back as soon as…."

"Listen to me young lady, you might be called the Rattle Snake but that does NOT make you the big kahuna around here, ya savvy? Get your arse back here and your little arse kissers hiding under your skirts can get back here too!"

Lisa simply dropped the phone and stomped on it, then cleared her throat "oops. Slipped right out of my hand."

The men all laughed nervously as the Rattle Snake showed their Boss who the new Boss was these days.

"Silly old Goose" one of the men muttered "What sort of name is that anyway."

"What do you mean?" another asked.

"Goose. That was his name before he became Boss Man. His street name was Goose".

They all considered that, then laughed softly as Lisa made a rude noise "Come on. Maybe it's the dulcet tones when he shouts at you… more likely it's the old lecherous way he pats your arse. Giving you a goose."

Now the laughter was loud as they all slapped at one another's arses… except Lisa's of course.

Secretly, Lisa had wanted a better name like Panther or something. Getting a snake name was a slight, the Boss having several agents with different snake titles. Like he had a thing about them. But I guess at least she was not a carpet snake or grass snake. No one wanted the word Grass in their name, right?

But for sure… the Rattle Snake was over listening to a silly old Goose.

Lisa had her eyes on the prize and what her men didn't know is that she was not after Ianto for revenge.

It was for the money she knew he had sacked away somewhere.

If it could set him up for life... it could her too.