1
Ianto was waiting by the old brick well as agreed and Rhiannon was late. Ianto double checked his pocket watch, grunting as he slid it back into his pocket and with a deep breath, he started to count in his head.
If she was not here by the time he got to five hundred, he was leaving.
She was not usually late, but he always gave himself a little leeway in case it might happen, the checkpoints were quite stringent this time of year and there was always going to be a first time, right?
He had reached one hundred and three when he saw the vehicle coming along the road and he let out the breath he had been holding. Christ… he hadn't realized he was still holding it. As she came closer he saw why she was late, the child in the passenger seat with a face like thunder was NOT supposed to be there.
As Rhiannon pulled to a halt David got out, slamming the door to storm towards him in full flight and Ianto managed to catch him as he burst into loud ugly crying. Rhiannon wearily got out and walked up with a look of defeat.
"What now?" Ianto asked not sure if he wanted to know.
"His feckless father made a remark about mutants" she sighed "He heard."
Ianto grimaced as he scratched at his inch thick beard, "And Mimi?"
"Still in her own little world, as per usual with her Granny… where the father's fecklessness comes from. I shoulda never chose him but … well… I got the goods" Rhiannon replied as she turned to wave a hand at the truck. End of conversation, subject changed. Short and to the point, like her father. Ianto nodded, and felt the boy's grip tighten.
"Any chance he can have a sleep over? It is Friday" Ianto asked.
The boy raised his head from his elder's shoulder to stare balefully at her, his desperate need to be there clear as she nodded her agreement, leaned into kiss the boy's cheek and then after some conversation she headed for another truck that looked identical to the one she had just driven there. Even the same number plates.
"I will be back for him on Sunday" she called out as she turned at the truck's driver's door and David gasped with glee.
"Will you be OK Sweetheart?" Ianto called after her but she didn't answer, clambering into the truck to drive off down the road towards the city beyond the vale. Ianto watched until her taillights had disappeared and turned to the boy, "Right. Who' driving then?"
"Grandy-Ta!" the boy laughed "You know I can't drive yet!"
"Oh god. What bloody use are you then?" Ianto demanded as he shoved the boy towards the truck "Come on. Let's get the to the village before GPa Jack does something terrible to one of the chickens."
The child giggled all the way there.
.
.
The truck rumbled into a large courtyard and several men approached it cautiously, waiting for the single horn beep before the engine was turned off.
As Ianto got out, he turned to help David down and the boy saw over Ianto's shoulder someone else he wanted to see "Uncle Andy, you have fuzzy face hair too!"
Andy laughed as his own beard was not quite as good as Ianto's but with the red flecks it was strikingly different from the young fresh-faced man you might be thinking of.
"Did she get everything?" Jack asked as he appeared form the other side of the now opened cab of the truck, his face clean shaven and so damned youthful, making Ianto look like an old letch for having such a vibrantly sexy husband.
"She had trouble getting the scarves, but she got some wool instead as she thought you might knit them. By the time I could get my breath back to explain the scarves were supposed to be silk ones she was ready to lamp me one" Ianto laughed, "Next time. When she comes back to Davie on Sunday she will have them now that she understands her misstep there."
"What sort of wool?" Jack was rummaging through some bags in the back of the cab while others unpacked the back of the truck. "Oooo… pretty pastels."
Ianto rolled his eyes as he left his mate to fuss over the pretty wool balls that he wound make into something. Jack loved to knit, something Ianto had never got the hang of and was lax to admit to there being something that beat him.
"Fresh corn" someone called out, "Enough ears for two meals at least. What a star she is."
"Well, the hair dye is here too" Andy held up a box "And I think we need to get onto that before tonight's meal if tomorrow is the meeting."
Shit, he had forgotten about the meeting, and he turned to watch the small child laughing as he was led away by some other kids. Jack seemed to know his thoughts and said softly "Don't worry darling. I got the kid."
Ianto followed Andy to the bathroom in their shared quarters to use the dye, least they do not look right for the meeting planned for the next day.
Everything hinged on it.
.
.
It was about three hours later that the bell rang for the evening meal, everyone setting at one huge table that was round, the middle of it had the biggest lazy Susan you could have ever seen and as it slowly rotated people took what they wanted from the huge selection.
There were close to sixty people seated there, another ten moving around with the fifteen children, making sure everything was good. Jack was looking at his handsome husband, compete with freshly dyed hair and bread that made him look so fucking old. The bleach turning his brown hair and beard into streaky shoots like pepper salt. Andy's was better, being blonde with a reddish bead made the transition to an older version more pronounced and both men scratched absently at their beards, showing annoyance at them.
But it was needed.
They had to be older, this contact they were meeting the next day one they had known for about ten years and they had be appearing older, they had to age like a normal person would… so the man would not suspect he was doing a deal with mutants.
Those supposedly culled from the face of the planet, hunted and killed with open malice.
Mutants.
A dying breed of human that had been bred out in captivity as slaves or killed if unable to be captured and enslaved like the others.
This little family out here in the middle of nowhere hid well, did their best to appear just like a hippy commune or something but sooner or later they would be discovered. They always were. And then they would have to run. And as each cell was discovered and scattered by the hunters, they grew smaller and smaller. Scared to come together to fear of a hunter tracking cell back to other cells via their network.
Like last time.
