Gwil's Guide to Growing Up Torchwood: Year 3, Chapter 1

[amuly]

Title: Gwil's Guide to Growing Up Torchwood: Year 3, Chapter 1
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Word Count: 2,172
Rating: PG
Summary: When a seven-year-old boy falls through the Rift, Ianto and Jack decide to adopt him. This is the story of his life at Torchwood.
Chapter Summary: Just a typical day at school for Gwil.
Warnings: none
A/N: Welcome to Year 3! Fun stuff going on this year, to make up for all the angst in Year 2 ^.^ (Of course, I'm just buttering you up for Year 4, which is going to be DRAMA and ANGST central :P)

 

Previous Chapters:

               Prologue          |          The First Year:          |          The Second Year:          |          The Third Year:
  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10         1, 1.PWP, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17               8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13    
 

 

 

 

Gwil's scar tingled as he exited the portal, tugging at the tight skin where his index finger once was. Unconcerned, he stepped out of their fake house and onto the path, starting on his way to school. His scar always tingled when he went through the portal; he had just never mentioned it to his tads since it didn't really hurt or anything.

Hurrying along, Gwil gripped his lunch box tight in one hand. With one glance around for the presence of either of his parents, he turned from the normal route to school and hurried down a side street, then taking a right and continuing on to school. This way was only two blocks longer than the route Tad had planned out, and Gwil always took it now that his tad let him walk on his own. He was nine, after all. All the fifth years walked to school by themselves: even most the third years and some of the second years did.

“Gwil!”

Gwil's stomach did a funny little flip-flop as he turned to the source of his shouted name. Katie was hurrying out of her house, silky brown hair flying around as she stormed down her front steps.

He waited until Katie was on the pavement with him before he replied: “Hey Katie. Watch'ya reading?”

The book Katie had been clutching switched hands, and Gwil turned it over to read the back cover as they walked. “It's called A Wrinkle in Time. It's about this girl and her little brother, and they get sucked up into this whole adventure. Her brother's really smart, and so's she.”

Gwil passed the book back to Katie, doing his best to keep his face neutral. The back cover had mentioned the word “tesserect”. Gwil wasn't sure what a tesserect was, but it sounded familiar. It sounded like something Auntie Tosh might have said, back when he first got sucked through to the future two years ago.

Katie was still talking. “-want to go on an adventure one day. Especially to a whole different world, or time, or dimension! Don't you?”

Gwil's rucksack slid from his shoulder as he shrugged, and he had to sling it back on. “Dunno. Sounds scary. What if it's someplace bad?”

Katie's eyes were bright as she waved away Gwil's concerns. “Then you just have to be brave. I think you'd be brave, don't you?”

Gwil decided it was time to change the subject. “I brought you something.”

Katie's eyes lit up as she grinned broadly. “Really? What is it?”

Fiddling with his lunchbox, Gwil managed to open it without breaking stride too terribly, and retrieved the present inside. It was a jam doughnut. He had snuck it from the kitchenette this morning, while his tad and dad were busy “talking” in private. They seemed to be doing a lot more “talking” recently, ever since the Big Fight that they pretended they weren't going to have, but Gwil knew they did.

He had cried in his room that night, because he knew it had been all his fault for being a brat and telling Dad that Tad didn't love him. But the next morning Tad had come in and given Gwil an extra cuddle, and Dad had seemed really happy at breakfast, so Gwil supposed they had worked everything out.

Katie gasped as she took the doughnut, eyes as wide as the hole in its side where the jam was peeking out. “Gwil! Is it jam-filled?”

“Yup.” Gwil popped the “p” and tried to do that smooth, proud look that Tad did whenever Dad was impressed with something he did. He didn't think he quite managed it, but Katie didn't seem to notice.

“Thank you, Gwil!” Katie's eyebrows furrowed as she turned to Gwil forlornly. “But I don't have anything for you!”

Gwil shrugged, edging just a tiny bit closer to Katie. Now he was trying to look like his dad: all cool and cocky, just how he always looked right before he and Tad would start snogging. “That's okay. It's no big deal.”

With a little giggle of delight, Katie turned to Gwil and wrapped him up in a hug. Gwil's arms shot up as he hugged her back. He grinned over her shoulder.

Then Katie pulled back, taking a bite of the jam doughnut as they continued their walk to school. Gwil swung his lunchbox a little more enthusiastically with each step as he walked.

**

Zack ran into Gwil as the students poured out of the classroom for lunch. Gwil shoved back, standing his ground and keeping his pace even as he moved to lunch. “Oi!” Zack knocked his shoulder into Gwil. “Watch it!”

“You bumped into me first.” Zack wasn't a bully – at least, Gwil didn't think he was. He was just kind of loud, and said mean stuff sometimes. But he kind of reminded Gwil of Uncle Owen: saying mean stuff without wanting to be mean, just not really thinking about the stuff sounding bad. Gwil was certain there was a word for it, and that his tad had used it more than once in reference to Owen (but it wasn't a curse word, Gwil was sure of that, too). He just couldn't remember it.

Zack just snorted and tossed his shoulders back. “Whatever. SEAN!” Gwil winced as Zack shouted at eardrum-bursting levels for his friend. With that, the other boy was gone, tackling Sean from behind in greeting. Sean laughed and shoved Zack against the wall in response. Gwil pondered the sight. He didn't understand it, but he knew the two boys weren't boyfriends, because they'd call other boys queer in an apparent insult. Yet, they acted kind of like Tad and Dad acted, when they thought no one else was looking. Gwil suspected that having two tads made his perspective a little different from the other kids, so he kept his mouth shut on the matter.

Tibor's shoulder was the next to bump into Gwil's, but it was in an entirely friendly manner and intended, disparate from Gwil's earlier encounter with Zack. “Oi! Gwil! Did you see the new Clone Wars last night?”

Gwil found himself flanked by Zachary on his other side, who joined in on the conversation. “With the new Sith student with the face and the head?”

“So wicked!” Tibor moaned, face rapturous as he recalled the night's previous episode.

Gwil frowned. He hadn't seen the episode, because Mickey had brought an alien “corpse” into the Hub that was actually still alive. When it woke up to Martha cutting into it, it had released a localized EMP blast as a defense mechanism, taking out all the electricity in the Hub. That included Gwil's telly.

“I missed it.” Tibor and Zachary both made known their distress over Gwil's lack of Clone Wars in his life the night before. “But I record all the episodes, so I'll watch it tonight.”

In his enthusiasm, Zachary grabbed at Gwil's arm, shaking it madly. “You gotta watch for the thing with the building and the clone troopers.”

Tibor cut in, leaning across Gwil as they continued to walk to the lunch room. “You mean with the hooks and the guys?”

Zachary threw his hands up in delight. “Yes!”

A small sigh escaped Gwil's lips as he settled in at their lunch table and started opening his lunchbox. Darn Torchwood.

**

Gwil gnawed at his bright yellow pencil as he stared down at his test. It was spelling. He hated spelling. Maths were fine, reading was fine, history and science were fine. But spelling. Spelling was just awful. Auntie Tosh said it had to do with him knowing Welsh pronunciation, plus being late when he started, plus not having as good of a handle on the modern Welsh accent. Or something like that. Gwil just knew it was hard.

The teacher warned that she was going to move onto the next word, so Gwil quickly scribbled down: “reserv”. He frowned, added an “e” to the end. He frowned again and erased the “e”.

“Deserve. Deserve.”

Gwil grumbled to himself and scrambled onto the next word. He was almost positive “deserve” had an “e” on the end. Maybe. Auntie Tosh had said something about long vowel words having silent “e”s on the end, so “deserve” should have an “e” on the end, because the “de” part was pronounced “dee”, and not “deh”. Or at least, so Gwil hoped.

“Grow. Grow.”

He growled, scratching marks into the side of his page. He knew “grow” was spelled “g-r-o-w”, but it had a long vowel sound, and didn't have an “e” on the end. So was he remembering the rule wrong? Gwil went back to “deserve” and erased the “e” on the end, before getting nervous and putting it back in.

Bollocks.

**

Katie was trying to explain to Gwil the very important difference between being a doctor and a lawyer – “Because doctors have to poke the insides of living people! But lawyers it's okay, because it's just talking.” – when the Torchwood SUV flew past them, lights flashing and alarms blaring. Gwil spun around in his stride, watching Uncle Owen hang out of the window with gun drawn and pointed backwards, as he shouted and swore at Auntie Gwen, who was hanging out the other window in a mirror image of the doctor. He caught the faintest glimpse of his Dad behind the wheel and Uncle Andy in the front seat, before the car was gone around the corner. A second after that, something invisible but most definitely there followed in the SUV's wake, following it around the same corner.

Next to him, Katie was tugging at his jacket sleeve. “Gwil! Gwil!”

Gwil turned, sighing as he fumbled in his pockets for his cell phone. If something really bad was happening, Tad would have called him. But nope: no missed messages. So just a normal day, then.

Katie was still tugging at his jacket, so Gwil turned to look at her. “Gwil! Wasn't that your dadses car?”

Gwil shrugged a shoulder, glancing to the side. He fumbled with the answer, finally settling on, “Yeah. My dad's. Tad drives a normal car.”

Katie's eyes were wide, her lower lip trembling a little in fear. “But... is everything okay? Who was that man? And that lady?”

Gwil shrugged awkwardly, fingers fumbling with his rucksack as he tried to walk a little more quickly. He could generally avoid such questions about his dads' jobs by saying “government stuff” and changing the subject. When something like this happened, however – and it happened disconcertingly often – Gwil still hadn't mastered the art of carefully constructed lies.

“That was Uncle Owen and Auntie Gwen. They work for my Dad,” he said carefully. “They're all... government workers.”

“That didn't look like government stuff! That looked like...” Katie fumbled for a moment, before her eyes widened. “James Bond! Is your dad James Bond?”

“No, that's my tad.” Gwil grinned as Katie's eyes widened even more.

“Wow!”

“Yup,” he shrugged. “Dad's more Captain America.”

Katie giggled. “I've never met your dad. Is he really American?”

Gwil decided to go with the easiest answer again. “Yup.” He honestly didn't know if Dad was American. He was pretty sure, with the accent and everything, but Dad had never mentioned America, nor had anyone else at Torchwood.

“I'd like to meet your dads one day. They seem really cool.”

Glancing down the street, Gwil hesitated. They hadn't put the teleport to the test with people outside of Torchwood, just yet. Still, Katie was standing next to him in front of her house, shiny brown hair blowing in the brisk Cardiff breeze.

“Maybe,” Gwil responded earnestly. “I have to ask my tad, but maybe!”

Katie's smile was bright. Gwil smiled back. “Cool!” she said. “See you tomorrow!”

Gwil watched for a few moments as Katie skipped up her front steps, bounding inside her house. Then he hurried back down the street and over to his house, running to make up the time he lost with the longer route. As soon as he entered, he saw the Rift alert blaring, so he grabbed his snack out of the fridge and hurried to his room, locking himself in. Tad would be in once the alarm stopped sounding, to make sure he was okay. Then Dad would come later, all swagger and smiles, and scoop him up and tell him all about the big bad aliens they stopped.

But for now, Gwil locked his door and opened his laptop to play some games. He'd start on his maths homework in a bit.


Continue on to Chapter 2.

 

Comments

awww

[lawford.livejournal.com]

Loved Gwil trying to mimic his fathers. So cute.

Re: awww

[amuly.livejournal.com]

There will definitely be more of that in future chapters. We can only hope he learns early on to prefer to mimic Ianto rather than Jack... :P