Gwil's Guide to Growing Up Torchwood: Year 4, Chapter 6

[amuly]

Title: Gwil's Guide to Growing Up Torchwood: Year 4, Chapter 6
Pairing: Jack/Ianto, +Eleven, Amy, Tosh
Word Count: 2,677
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: The Doctor fumes, Jack defends them, Ianto broods, then does some research and testing to see if the whole crazy plan was worth it.
Warnings: continued discussion of morally questionable actions
A/N: GUYS. I SAW X-MEN FIRST CLASS. HNNNGGGGGG. SO SLASHY. SO FUCKING SLASHY. OH MY GOSH. Don't be surprised if you get inundated from kink-meme fills SHIPPING THE HELL OUT OF Charles/Erik. SO SLASHY. Honestly, it was jarring when the two of them DIDN'T kiss at the end of several scenes throughout the movie.

SO SLASHY. SO SLASHY. (There are also absurd amounts of interviews where James McAvoy – my genetic perfect match – repeatedly goes on about how ridiculously slashy his character and Erik are. He is just flat out like “oh my gosh, so tragic, if only they could have just sexed each other up and not have been enemies!” :DDDD)

 

Previous Chapter: Year 4, Chapter 5
Gwil Masterlist  

 

 

 

The three of them – the Doctor, Jack, and Ianto – sat in Jack and Ianto's kitchen as they waited for dawn to break. The Doctor had already made his displeasure with Jack quite clear, and now was sitting in sulky silence, staring down at the table and scratching at it with his thumbnail. Ianto had managed to get his restraints removed when he promised the Doctor he wouldn't do anything “So mind-boggingly idiotic again. Honestly. I can see Jack's terrible influence written all over this plan”. Ianto was using his new-found freedom of movement to flip through his laptop as he waited for Gwil to wake up. He hadn't looked up anything on Abigail Winters before he and Jack had executed their plan, for fear of what he might find. Now the guilt was eating away at him and he had to know.

Two birth certificates pinged on his computer: one son, born approximately nine months after Jack inseminated her. His name was Gareth Winters. A second son pinged on the computer: born two years later to an Abigail Davies, named Aeron Davies. Abigail's death certificate was dated the same day as her younger son's birth. The cause of death was childbirth.

Ianto swallowed hard, ignoring the sudden burst of argument that had broken out again between the Doctor and Jack.

“Don't pull the high-and-mighty card with me, Doc. I've seen you wipe out whole races-”

“The Daleks, Jack! Not innocent little girls-”

“And Gwenyth? She was just an innocent little girl.”

“I had no way of knowing-”

The records for the two little boys showed that they stayed with Abigail's mother until her death almost a decade later. After that the eldest, Gareth, made it into an apprenticeship in Cardiff to a fisherman with the last name Jones. An adoption certificate was filled out a year later, with young Gareth changing his last name. The youngest child, Aeron, was sent to work in a textile mill, just as his brother's time-traveling father had. There was a certificate of death not even a year later.

Ianto closed his laptop will a dull click, blinking hard. A knot of guilt was settled low into his stomach, as he had known it would be as soon as he had hatched this plan. He wasn't morally inculpable – the Doctor was absolutely right to accuse him and Jack of severe abuse of their power and technology. But it had been for Gwil. And Ianto wouldn't have changed a thing, if his plan had indeed worked and the timeline was secure for Gwil to remain here with them.

The Doctor and Jack were still shouting at each other.

“And the Slitheen woman?”

“That was more accidental-”

“And the Sontarans? Martha told us about them. You let that boy go to his death, to blow up an entire fleet.”

“They wouldn't have stopped otherwise-”

Ianto blinked again and lifted his head, listening to Jack's response.

“That's just what you do though, isn't it, Doctor? You just let others do your dirty work for you: the killing, the exploding, the sacrificing themselves. From what Amy's told me about this River woman, she's just another in a long line of people who will wield a gun in your stead, to keep you and the world safe. Face it, Doctor,” Jack leaned across the table, palms pressed flat on its surface, “sometimes you need people like Ianto and I to do what you can't.”

“But I wouldn't have done this!” the Doctor shouted, jumping out of his seat and spinning around. “If we couldn't have found a solution, I would have just popped the little bugger back into the eighteen hundreds! He survived it for seven years, I'm sure he would have been fine.”

“He's my son,” Jack shouted, standing up to stand toe-to-toe with the Doctor. “You can't just take him away, just like that!”

Before the Doctor could get another response out, a small cough drew the attention of the three men away from each other and to the hallway. Gwil was up, clutching his Woody doll to his chest. “Tad?” he queried. Automatically Ianto held his arms out and Gwil headed straight into them, snuggling close.

“Time for school?” Ianto asked as he stroked Gwil's hair.

“Do I have to go?”

Ianto hesitated, looking between Jack and the Doctor. Tosh? he mouthed to Jack, who nodded. As Jack fumbled for his mobile, Ianto tugged Gwil from him and set about making breakfast. “We're going to ask Auntie Tosh about something, but if she says it's okay, you're going to school. You can't just skip when Torchwood stuff is happening.”

Gwil sighed, slouching in his chair. He fiddled miserably with his Woody doll, which he had sat on the edge of the table with its legs hanging off the edge. “I know,” he grumbled. “But bad Torchwood stuff is happening. I know it.” He fixed a glare on the Doctor. “You and Dad keep arguing about him. When are you going to leave?”

The Doctor blinked, taking a step back under the force of Gwil's upset. “I- er-” he glanced around at Jack and Ianto. “Soon. I need the results of Ms. Toshiko's tests.”

Ianto tapped Gwil's shoulder with a spatula, giving him a weak smile. “What do you say to pancakes? To make up for all the bad Torchwood stuff going on right now?” They hadn't told Gwil the full story of what was going on with him, not wanting to scare him. But he had obviously pieced together the general gist of what was going on: between the Doctor's tendency to shout out the problem in front of Gwil and his fathers' foul moods as they struggled for a solution, Ianto knew that Gwil had figured most of it out. But he had done so well trusting in his fathers and going about his daily school routines – Ianto was so proud of him.

Gwil perked up at the word pancakes. “Can they be dinosaur pancakes?”

Ianto had already been reaching into a cabinet for their dinosaur shaped cookie cutters. “Of course,” he replied as he greased up the pan.

As Ianto cooked Gwil his pancakes, he kept one ear open and listening for Jack's conversation on the phone with Tosh. After a few hushed explanations – Jack's hand cupped over the phone and walking casually out of the kitchen and into the atrium, presumably so Gwil wouldn't hear – Jack closed his phone with a snap and returned to Ianto.

“Tosh says he can go to school. She can do all the tests she needs to without him. But she wants us to send him through the teleport.”

Without taking his eyes off the slowly cooking pancake batter in the frying pan, Ianto's attention shifted to the teleport sitting in their atrium. They hadn't let Gwil go through it since it unearthed all the problems with Gwil's presence in the future, instead taking turns driving him to school. Amy and Rory had even helped them on days when the Rift had taken over their attention in the morning or afternoon, using one of the many Torchwood cars and chauffeuring Gwil around. Ianto imagined the young couple was feeling guilty and next to useless as they waited around for the Doctor or Torchwood to find a solution to their problem. Either way, he was grateful for all the assistance they gave, and Gwil had warmed to them over the weeks.

“Right,” Ianto finally replied. Lips pressed tightly together at the thought of sending Gwil through the teleport once again, Ianto removed the cookie cutters from the pan and carefully flipped the dinosaur-shaped pancakes over. “Hear that, Gwil? You're going to school: go get dressed.”

Heaving a great sigh, Gwil stood and trudged back to his bedroom, Woody doll hanging by one arm and little booted feet dragging on the floor.

By the time Ianto had the pancakes finished and a bowl of fruit set out on the table, Gwil was dressed in his school uniform and returning to the kitchen. The Doctor had quieted down into another sulk in the corner of their kitchen, back pressed to their counters as he frowned at Gwil.

As Gwil sat down to munch on his breakfast, the Doctor pushed himself up from the counters and stalked forward. Instinctively Ianto put himself between the Doctor and Gwil, staring down the strange man with a sort of vehemence Ianto normally reserved for hostile aliens – which the Doctor essentially was. The Doctor rolled his eyes, pulling out his recovered sonic screwdriver and waggling it at Ianto. “I just wanted to scan him. See if time is still doing a discordant cha-cha around the boy's presence.”

Reluctantly Ianto stepped aside, pasting a fake but hopefully reassuring smile onto his face for Gwil. “He's just going to wave his device at you,” he said to his son, who was peering warily at the Doctor as he chewed his pancakes. “You shouldn't feel a thing.”

Eyes remaining trained on the Doctor and his glowing green device, Gwil nodded. With a quick swipe from Gwil's head to his toes, the Doctor pulled his sonic in and peered at the readings. When his frown deepened Ianto panicked, taking another protective step toward Gwil.

“Well the good-bad news is that your morally hideous actions seem to have done the trick. No more paradoxes emanating from the little one like bad smell off a kraken.”

The knot of guilt in Ianto's stomach eased, just the slightest bit. “You think it worked, then?”

The Doctor snapped his sonic shut before tucking it into his inside jacket pocket. “Appears so. Congratulations: you get to keep one little boy in exchange for-” the Doctor stopped when both Ianto and Jack turned on him, stares equal parts angry and protective. With a hesitant glance in Gwil's direction, the Doctor adjusted his speech. “Well. You know what you did.”

Turning away from the Doctor, Ianto smiled down at Gwil and ran a hand through his hair. “Come on: you'll be late if you don't hurry up. Teeth, face, hair. Let's go.”

Shooting one last skeptical look at the Doctor, Gwil slid out of his chair and hurried off to the bathroom to follow his tad's orders. Turning back to the Doctor, Ianto stared him down cooly. “It was a morally hideous action. You're right.” When the Doctor started to smile at this acknowledgement of his correctness, Ianto turned away from him and headed for his bedroom, to get ready to face the day. “But I would do it all over again for him.”

The Doctor's indignant “Well.” managed to quirk Ianto's lips into something resembling a smile as he tried to figure out how he and Jack would explain their actions to the team.

**

At lunch Ianto found he couldn't bring himself to eat, no matter how delicious the chow mein smelled sitting at his workstation. Every time he looked at the food his stomach churned at the thought of eating it. He might as well eat worms, for how appealing good chinese sounded at the moment.

He couldn't stop clicking through the records he had glanced at this morning, reading and re-reading them, as if he could glean more of his family's history with each new read-through. It was a sad, terrible story, printed there in careful black and white. And he had been the main contributor to the small tragedy that was his family's story. Just so that he could keep one little boy with him.

The clack of heels over metal grating alerted him to Tosh's presence before she whispered a quiet “Hi,” behind him.

Resignedly he turned his chair around, not even bothering to force a smile onto his face. “Yes? Do you need something?” He was being rude, but Ianto figured he was allowed a day or so's indulgence. It wasn't everyday, after all, that someone ordered his fiance to sexually assault his great-great-great-great-great grandmother at the tender age of fourteen.

“I... after I ran all the tests...” Ianto nodded, wearily waiting for Tosh to continue. He had made sure she double and triple-checked all the readings from Gwil going through the teleport this morning. No blips, no problems with the Rift. It would appear that the paradox surrounding Gwil had been undone by his and Jack's actions.

“After I ran the tests, I decided to look something else up.”

Lifting a tired hand, Ianto waved at his computer screen. “I know all about it, Tosh. Are you here to remind me how terrible it is? How I ruined this poor girl's life, and indirectly led to her death and the death of her second child? How I orphaned my great-great-great-great grandfather, and sentenced his brother to a painful death from mill life?”

Tosh was shaking her head furiously, eyes gleaming wet as Ianto berated her. “No! No, Ianto: look.” Tosh leaned over him and clacked away at his keyboard. From what Ianto could tell, she was pulling up internet caches from days, weeks, months, and years before. “I knew that the records would all reflect what you did today, but look: the records going back years ago were also the same. The internet caches from two thousand six show the same exact records as the ones today.”

Ianto frowned. “But of course they would be. We rewrote history with what we did, which would include the internet caches.”

“Or,” Tosh interjected, hopeful light in her eyes, “it means it had always happened this way. That your great grandmother had always been impregnated by Jack, and that all this was supposed to happen.”

Ianto pressed a hand to his head. Time travel. He wasn't sure which explanation made more sense, or which one was preferable. His explanation made him morally culpable, but Tosh's explanation almost eliminated the idea of free will. He didn't think he liked either very much, but... “Thanks, Tosh,” he muttered, “but this was my decision. And Jack's. We still chose to do all this – timelines or not.”

With a shad shrug Tosh tucked her hair behind one ear. “I just thought I'd let you know. I thought it might help.”

Before he could reply that nothing would eliminate the guilt he felt over what he had done, what he had made Jack do, the pitter-patter of small feet over metal grating broke through his remorse. Gwil came scurrying in, rushing to Ianto as he fled Amy's outstretched arms. “You can't escape the tickle monster!” Amy laughed, wriggling her outstretched fingers at Gwil.

Jumping into Ianto's lap, Gwil shook his head viciously. “Base! You can't touch me! Base!”

Amy stomped her foot and snapped her fingers. “Darn!” Smiling, but trying to pull an upset face at the same time, Amy pressed her hands to her hips. “You've escaped my clutches this time, mister, but you better watch out! Because when you least expect it...” Amy let the threat dangle in the air for a moment, before throwing her hands out in front of her and wriggling her fingers madly. “Tickle tickle tickle tickle!”

Gwil laughed and squirmed as if Amy was really tickling him, writhing against Ianto's chest. In that moment, as Ianto brought his arms up around Gwil to hold him securely in place, a tiny bit more of the guilt in his stomach melted away. He might not have done exactly the right thing, and maybe there had been a better solution. But he still had Gwil, and Gwil still had the opportunity for a magnificent, wonderful life. There was very little – if anything – Ianto wasn't willing to do to make sure of that.



Continue on to Chapter 7.