amuly | Gwil's Guide to Growing Up Torchwood: Year 4, Chapter 4

Title: Gwil's Guide to Growing Up Torchwood: Year 4, Chapter 4
Pairing: Jack/Ianto, +Team +Eleven &c.
Word Count: 2,826
Rating: PG-13
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: Everything gets explained; possible solutions put forth.
Warnings: angst
A/N: Please trust me, lovely readers? Please? ;___; The angst and the drama is good for you, okay?!

Previous Chapter: Year 4, Chapter 3
Gwil Masterlist

Jack watched as Ianto shut Gwil's door with a quiet click, face pressed to the gap between doorjamb and door as long as possible to watch Gwil's nervous face peer over at him from beneath the covers until the last second. Jack waited as Ianto stayed there, holding onto the door handle with one hand, the other pressed gently against the wood, for a moment as he breathed. Just breathed. In and out.

When he turned around Jack was there, face drawn tight as he watched Ianto. “They're upstairs in the conference room.”

Ianto nodded. His eyes darted over Jack's face, as though looking for some kind of reassurance, some kind of certainty that everything was going to be alright. Jack knew Ianto needed him to be confident, to somehow just know, like he always did, that everything would be alright. Because it hadn't been alright so many times in his and Ianto's past, and he couldn't just blindly trust that fate would treat them kindly. If anything, he expected that cruel bitch to do her best to ruin his life at every turn.

The best Jack could give Ianto was worry, and concern, and a touch of blind faith. He could tell Ianto wasn't reassured by the way his face slowly fell. Jack knew it was because Ianto didn't have the same faith in the Doctor's decision-making abilities as he did.

“Alright.” Ianto squared his shoulders, tugging ineffectually at his wrinkled wedding suit. Jack saw a small moment of misery flash across Ianto's face as he did, and he almost reached out to reassure Ianto. The day wasn't supposed to go like this – in fact, it should have turned out almost one hundred and eighty degrees from how it ended up. But they had probably been fools to expect any differently. Ianto cleared his throat. “Best go make them some coffee. I'll put a take-away order in, as well. A handful of biscuits isn't exactly brain food, and I have a feeling we'll need a lot of that to sort this.”

Ianto made to move past Jack, but Jack stopped him with an arm wrapped around his waist. “Are you okay?”

Apparently that was the exact wrong thing to say. Ianto turned to Jack with cold, furious eyes. “Of course I'm not. Our son is at the center of some sort of temporal disturbance, and I don't know how it's going to turn out. Are you okay?”

Jack's mouth open and shut for a moment, before his eyes softened. “Ianto, of course... but it'll be okay. The Doctor will fix it.”

Ianto snorted. “Yeah. The Doctor will fix it. Excuse me if my faith in the Doctor isn't quite as unwavering. He really managed to 'fix' you right proper, didn't he? And when he let you be tortured for a year? Sure took his time 'fixing' things then!”

Jack's eyes hardened, and he tugged Ianto closer. “Then don't believe in him. But believe in me, Ianto: I'm not going to let anything harm our son. Anything. You'll trust in that, won't you?”

Sighing, Ianto leaned into Jack, nodding. “Okay, Jack. I'll trust you. Just... watch him. Yeah? Don't go blindly accepting everything he says. He might not be human, but he's no god, either.”

Jack swallowed as he hugged Ianto tight to him. He didn't want to promise not to trust the Doctor, because he did: of course he did. Ianto had just seen the few times when situations had gotten far out of the Doctor's hands, and then somehow blamed the Doctor for them. But the Doctor always tried to do what was right for the most amount of people, and he'd do his best to do the same in this situation. “Come on.” Jack rubbed Ianto's back before pulling away and looking him in the eye. “Let's go figure out what we're going to do to keep our son safe.”

They were gathered around the conference table again. Ianto had left Jack for a moment to go order some food for the large group. As Jack sat down at the head of the table, the door to the room opened and Ianto came in, stopping at Andy's chair to have a word with the young man. Andy nodded as Ianto spoke into his ear, then stood up and hurried out of the room. Ianto slid into his seat next to Jack's without a word.

“Okay!” Jack clapped his hands together and turned in his seat toward the Doctor. “So. First order of business is figuring out exactly what's going on. Second order is fixing it.”

The Doctor pushed himself up from his seat with a flourish, spinning around before wiggling his fingers absently. Jack watched as the young man – so different from the grouchy man in a leather jacket he first met on a cold night in 1941 all those years ago – gathered his thoughts, glancing slowly around the room as he did.

“Right. Well.”

Gwen raised her hand hesitantly, glancing between Jack and the Doctor. “Well first we have to figure out why it's Gwil pulling the two pieces of time together, right?”

“Yes, that is the million-pound question, isn't it? Why is this little human the fishfingers in the cheese sucking the two slices of time-bread together?” Before the Doctor could continue his musings, Owen spoke up.

“Well it's because his finger's back in the mill, innit? So then the solution is to stick him in the teleport, grab the finger when it appears with the mill, done. Problem solved.”

The Doctor was shaking his head almost the moment Owen started speaking. Jack agreed with the Doctor. A single finger left in another time shouldn't cause these sort of paradox-based symptoms that they were seeing. Goodness knows he had left bits and pieces of himself all over time and space, and it had never caused such problems before.

“I think the mill coming through and the teleport blips are just a symptom,” the Doctor countered.

“So the disease is the fact that Gwil is in the present?” Martha asked. “And all the grilled cheese fishfinger stickiness is just a result of some other major paradox?”

“Sure, if that helps you understand it,” the Doctor waved Martha's attempt to understand his analogies away. “Except nothing like that at all.”

Jack grinned at the Doctor's eccentrics, but quickly stifled it as he saw Ianto frown and shift uneasily in his seat.

“The disease,” the Doctor smirked at Martha, “if that's what you want to call it, is caused by Gwil being in the present.” Next to Jack, Ianto started forward. Jack laid a hand gently on his forearm. The muscles beneath Jack's hand twitched and skin twisted, but Ianto remained seated. Jack continued to watch the Doctor. The man had a plan – he knew it.

“Doctor.” The word was obviously said through gritted teeth as Ianto spoke up. “But why? How is it a paradox that Gwil is in the present?”

The Doctor turned to Martha, hands crossed over his chest. “Are those results in yet?”

Martha blinked and reached for her PDA. “Oh! Right.”

She fiddled for it a moment, while Ianto leaned over to Jack. “What results?” he hissed. Jack just shrugged. He didn't know any more than Ianto did.

Martha's eyes went wide as she looked down at her PDA, then apologetic as she looked up at Jack and Ianto. “Oh,” she whispered. “Oh, Jack, Ianto: I'm so sorry.”

Jack felt Ianto go impossibly tense beneath his hand, while the Doctor rocked on his heels with a grin on his face. “I was right, wasn't I?” the Doctor prodded. “I got it right.”

Sadly Martha nodd, passing her PDA across the table to the Doctor. Rory snatched it up, glancing quickly over the results before letting the Doctor take it from his limp hand, face shocked. He glanced over at Jack and Ianto, and Jack felt his nervousness increase when he saw sympathy etched across Rory's features.

The Doctor, meanwhile, was spinning around with the PDA clutched in his hands. “Aha! I love it when I guess right.” He turned to Amy and laughed. “A lot better than those times when it takes me six guesses before I get it, huh?”

Ianto spoke again, in that teeth-clenching tone of voice. “Doctor,” he grunted. “What is wrong with my son?”

“Not your son!” The Doctor tossed the PDA carelessly toward Ianto who caught it deftly in the hand not being held down by Jack's. “Not your son. Little one is your great great great grandfather. With a handful more greats thrown in there.” Ianto was staring down at the PDA, face ashen. Jack froze, hand still clenched around Ianto's forearm. “And since he didn't have a chance to find your great great however many greats grandmother and have your great great great minus one great grandfather before he got sucked through the Rift, all of space and time are starting to get smushed together and collapse.” The Doctor paused for a moment in his explanation, considering. “I imagine the symptoms will get worse as the little one starts puberty and draw closer to the age when he historically... did the deed.”

The panic in Jack's chest hadn't quite risen to attack levels, yet. Because the Doctor had a solution – other than the obvious. He had a way to fix this. He always did. Next to him, Ianto didn't seem to have the handle on his panic that Jack did. His eyes were squeezed shut, face turned away from the PDA as though if he didn't look at it, it wouldn't be true.

The door to the conference room opened and Andy entered, arms heavy with bags and boxes of take-away. He glanced around the room, obviously picking up on the tension and hesitating as he entered.

Jack took a breath and turned to the Doctor, cautious smile forced onto his face. “What's the solution?”

“Well that's easy, isn't it?” The Doctor glanced around the room, looking for faces in agreement with him. “Just pop the little one back to the time he belongs in. Problem solved.”

With that, Ianto stood up from the conference table and left, letting the door slam shut behind him. Jack scrambled to follow him only a moment later.

“Ianto-”

“No, Jack!”

Jack ran to catch up, following Ianto down the back stairs to their rooms. The door slammed shut behind them as Ianto hurried into the kitchen, where he spun around and started pacing. His eyes darted around the room, already red and wet with tears. Jack wanted to wrap Ianto up in his arms, tell him everything would be alright, but he knew the comfort would be unwelcome. So he stood, helplessly in their kitchen, hands shoved in his pockets as he waited on Ianto.

After several minutes of silent pacing, Ianto spun on Jack. “I won't do it.”

Jack nodded. “I know. I-”

“No, Jack! you're not listening. I will not do this. I won't send him back to that life, to be a mill scavenger. Do you realize that his calluses are gone? He won't be able to do manual labor without serious injury. And he's too big to be a mill scavenger anymore. So what will he do? He doesn't have the natural muscles he would have developed in that life. He might be tall, but that will hinder more than help him in finding work. And he's educated. Do you realize how much of a problem that might be?”

Jack held out a placating hand as he stepped closer to Ianto. “I know, Ianto. I know. I know all of that. I lived all of that, remember? And I won't send him back to that. We'll find a way around it. The Doctor-”

Jack found himself slammed back intot heir fridge, china rattling on the top as the entire thing shook. Ianto had his shirtfront gripped tight in his fist, eyes furious as they bore into Jack's. “No,” he hissed. Jack felt himself cowering beneath the vehemence Ianto managed to infuse in that single word. “No, Jack. Not the Doctor. We are going to fix this. We are going to find a way to protect our son. He is staying here with us. Do you understand?”

Jack nodded slowly, placatingly. He tried lowering his hands to Ianto's forearms, but the other man just shoved himself away, pacing around their kitchen once more. “I know how you feel, Ianto. But he does what's right. He'll find a way-”

Ianto interrupted him, a mad gleam in his eye. “I'd die to protect Gwil, Jack. Do you realize that? I'd die. Gladly. Willingly. Would you?” Jack opened his mouth to agree, but Ianto cut him off, stalking forward to pin Jack to the fridge again. But this time he managed it without touching Jack: the sheer force of his presence kept Jack feeling like a butterfly on a board. “And I mean really die, Jack. Because if you don't find a way to protect Gwil, to keep him here, with us: I will find a way to kill you, Jack. And God help me, Jack Harkness, I will make it stick.”

Looking into Ianto's eyes in that moment, Jack knew he'd make good on his threat. Whether he found a way to make death permanent or just contain Jack for the rest of his long, long life, Jack knew Ianto would find a way. And Jack didn't much like the idea of frying to death at the center of a neutron star over and over again until the last of the stars went out, or being ripped apart in the singularity of a black hole for the rest of eternity. And he certainly didn't like the idea of sending Gwil back to his own time any more.

“I love you.” Jack tried a different tact. “And I love Gwil.” Ianto seemed to relax, just minutely, so Jack risked resting his hands on Ianto's shoulders. They weren't shrugged off. “And I – we, you and I – will find a way around this. We will. Okay?”

Ianto seemed to finally believe Jack, and he sagged into his embrace, burying his face in Jack's neck. Jack reached a hand up to stroke his hair, making soothing noises as he pretended not to notice the hot tears falling to his neck. Jack assumed Ianto would pay him the same courtesy when he looked up and saw the tears tracking down his own face. “I won't marry you, either,” Ianto finally mumbled into Jack's neck. “If we can't fix this. I won't marry you.”

“Well now I better find a solution,” Jack managed to tease, even through his tears. “Dying sounds unpleasant, but not being married to you?” Gentle Jack tugged Ianto away from his neck, where teary-eyes met teary-eyes. “Well that's just something I couldn't live with.”

Ianto managed a weak smile, before wiping his face and pulling away. “We need to start working. Researching. If what the Doctor said was true, we still have a couple of years. And I can drive Gwil to school, and avoid the teleport. It should give us some time to find a way around it.”

Reaching a hand up, Jack wiped at Ianto's cheek, brushing away the tears still glistening there. Ianto pressed his lips together, putting on a brave face. “If anyone is going to find a solution, it's you.” Ianto smiled at Jack's words. “And you've got us to help. We'll find a way. After all: we're Torchwood.”

Ianto nodded and made to move past Jack, heading in the direction of the stairs to the Hub. But Jack stopped him, gripping Ianto's shoulders and steering him to one of the kitchen chairs until Ianto acquiesced and sat down. “But you're not going to find the solution tonight,” Jack cautioned. “Let me get some food for you, send everyone home, and then we can sleep on this. Trust me,” Jack bent down and pressed a kiss to Ianto's hair, “if there's one thing all my years have taught me, it's that everything looks better in the morning.”

Ianto nodded, resting his head in his hands, slumped over the kitchen table. As Jack started out of their rooms, he turned and stared back at the young man hunched over in the dim light of their kitchen. Jack had to protect their son. If not for himself, or for Gwil, then for Ianto.

Continue on to Chapter 5.

Gwil's Guide to Growing Up Torchwood: Year 4, Chapter 4

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