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Chapter Text

Manda Carlisle (nee Harkness) was busy preparing carrots when she noticed, out of the corner of her eye, her four year old son Jack crawl into the kitchen as if he were trying not to be noticed. Intrigued she decided to play along, ostentatiously chopping as he opened the cupboard, took out a jar of peanut butter and ducked sneakily back into the lounge. On his arrival in the other room Manda could hear his twin sister Camille squeal with glee. That couldn’t be good.
The phone rang.
Damn. ‘Hello.’
‘Hello,’ said a pleasantly toned male voice. ‘Is that Victoria?’ The accent was American.
‘No, I’m sorry,’ Manda explained, this happened less frequently these days but was still fairly common. ‘Victoria is my mother. She moved into town a few years ago. I can give you her number if you’d like.’ She edged towards the living room door. It had gone awfully quiet in there.
‘Oh,’ said the voice. He sounded a little put out. There was a pause. ‘You must be Amanda then. Am I right?’ Camille was holding the cat. Jack was…
‘Manda,’ she corrected automatically. ‘Jack! Don’t you dare! Stop that right now!’ The peanut butter jar flew out of the boy’s hands. Camille dropped the peanut butter covered cat which did a terrified circuit of the room before diving out the door. ‘Give me that,’ she screamed as she realised there was a jar of honey dripping onto the hearth rug. She loomed over her children breathing hard. ‘What..,’ she started.
‘Hello. Er hello,’ said a voice. Oh God, there was still a man on the phone. Jesus, she just wasn’t cut out for this mother thing. Give her terrorists any day. She took a deep breath. ‘Don’t move,’ she told the twins.
‘I’m sorry,’ she told the phone, carefully checking the sofa before she sat on it. ‘Bit of a crisis here. My twins have just peanut buttered the cat.’
There was a spluttering on the other end of the line. She supposed that was understandable. ‘You have twins?’ the voice finally said, sounding delighted.
‘I do,’ she told him, not feeling at all pleased about it herself right then.
‘And one of them’s called Jack?’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s the other one called?’
‘Camille. Sorry, who is this?’
‘Camille. Awww.’ Manda lifted a sharp hand at her children who by some unspoken communication had decided to attempt an escape, one going in each direction around the sofa. Unfortunately for them they had telegraphed their intention in advance and she’s spotted it. ‘Don’t you move!’
‘Ah,’ the man squawked. ‘My name’s Jack Harkness. I think we’re sort of cousins.’
‘Jack Harkness? One of the American Jack Harkness’?’
‘Yes, well I’m afraid my family’s tradition of naming eldest sons Jack makes it a little hard for other people to figure out which one of us they’re talking to. My grandparents were Jack and Alison. I understand she was his second wife and Camille was the first. I’m from the American branch of the family, as you’ve probably figured out.’
Manda smiled. ‘Yes, it is a little obvious.’ She suddenly panicked. ‘You’re not ringing from America are you?’
‘No.’ There was a smile in the voice. ‘I’m in Cardiff. I’m working here for a while.’
‘Oh thank goodness. This call would be costing a fortune if you were ringing from the States.’
‘No, it’s fine.’ There was a pause. ‘Um, do you want me to ring back? Do you need to go rescue your cat or deal to your children?’
‘Noooo.’ She cast an eye over her two children who were now sitting cross legged on the hearth rug glowering at her. ‘We’re fine. What can I do for you cousin Jack?’
‘If you’re Victoria’s daughter then Jack and Camille would have been your great grandparents. Is that right?’
‘It is? Don’t know quite what cousin ship that makes us. Are you doing a family tree?’
He snorted. ‘Hell no. No I was ringing about the cottage. My cousin Jack told me about it. He stayed there about ten years ago.’
‘I think I met him, I vaguely remember. He looked very like the pictures of great granddad Jack.’
The Jack on the phone chuckled. ‘I’ve heard it said that I really look like him too. I don’t think cousin Jack and I look that alike, but other people have said so. My brother and I look really alike for what it’s worth. I like that you’ve named your kids Jack and Camille.’
‘Mmm, thanks.’ She got up and wandered back out into the kitchen where there was an alcove that served as an office. ‘Were you wanting to use the cottage?’ She pulled out the reservation book. ‘You know that there is a clause that states that if family ever want to use it, any other tenant has to vacate to let them.’
‘Oh I wouldn’t want to put anyone out, but if it were available I’d like to take it for a week.’
‘Starting when?’
‘Tomorrow?’ he asked hopefully.
‘Ah.’ That wasn’t a problem as far as tenants went, there was nothing booked for at least two weeks, it just meant she’d have to get herself organised and get it prepared. She’d brought all the bedding back up here to her house to get it aired. She wasn’t sure if there was any firewood either. ‘That’s fine. It’s the end of the season and bookings have tailed right off. Cornwall empties out at this time of year.’
‘Oh great.’ Manda looked out the window and cursed. She could just see two pairs of trainers disappearing out through the hole in the hedge. She’d never even heard the door. She flung the window open. ‘Jack! Camille! You two get back in here now!’
The man was chuckling. He wouldn’t think it was funny if he had to raise these two beasts. She growled and took a deep breath. ‘Is everything all right?’ the adult Jack asked.
‘They’ve escaped!’
Goddamn, but it sounded like he giggled. ‘Oh,’ he said. There was a short silence. ‘I look forward to meeting them.’
Manda took some more deep breaths. There was peanut butter on the cat flap. ‘They might still be alive when you get here. So you’ll be coming tomorrow?’
‘Yes thanks. Ahh, we might stay longer than a week. I don’t know. I’m bringing a friend. He’s not well and needs somewhere quiet to convalesce.’ That seemed a very old fashioned word choice. ‘I don’t know how long we’ll want to stay.’
‘Well you’re family so that means you can stay as long as you like.’
‘Great. Thanks. Look, do you mind? Could you do some shopping for us, just the sort of basic stuff, bread, milk, that sort of thing. I’ll fix you up for it when we get there. Ianto, my friend, I think the trip is going to wear him out. It will take us at least three hours. I don’t want to have to stop and shop.’
Manda fought the urge to roll her eyes. As if she didn’t have enough to do. But Jack sounded really concerned for his friend. ‘Tell you what,’ she said. ‘I’ll give you my email. Just send me a list and I’ll have everything waiting for you when you get here.’
‘Thank you,’ he said sincerely. ‘I’m really looking forward to meeting you.’
She gave Jack her email and made sure he knew where to come. ‘The weather sounds like it’s going to be quite stable for a few days too,’ she said. ‘It should be nice.’
‘The weather doesn’t matter,’ he told her. ‘Just being somewhere other than here will be good for both of us.’
‘See you tomorrow,’ she said. She looked out into the garden. The kids were nowhere to be seen. They’d come back when they were hungry she decided. Making a mental list of things that needed to be done tomorrow she rung out the dishcloth and started mopping up peanut butter and honey. She hoped that cleaning all that fatty goo off its fur wouldn’t make the cat sick. It would be nice to meet one of these American cousins; she was too young to really remember the one that was here before. This one had such a nice voice.

Chapter Text

Manda stood at the cottage door and worked through her mental check list. Beds made, master bed and second bedroom prepared. Both lovely large sunny rooms. She wasn’t sure if two beds were needed or not, but it seemed safer to assume that that was so. Towels in the bathroom, heated towel rail on. Complimentary toiletries on the vanity and extra soaps and toilet paper in the cupboard. Log basket full and fire laid, the groceries she’d bought stowed away, fruit in the bowl and flowers from the garden (dahlias) on a vase on the table. The windows had been open all morning to air the place and most were now shut so that it would warm in the afternoon sun. The kitchen and living room glowed with light. She put the duster down with a sigh, she loved this cottage. It was all ready. She hoped the visitors would love it too.
She stepped back and surveyed the building. It was an old stone house, probably two hundred or so years old. It was hard to tell with these places. Over the years her family had owned it, it had been constantly updated so that while it still looked like an ancient Cornish cottage from the outside the inside was comfortable and warm with all the mod cons. It even boasted broadband internet access and Manda was pretty sure most holiday homes in the region couldn’t say that.
It was odd, Manda didn’t know how it was funded, but Great Granddad’s legacy somehow provided for keeping the cottage upgraded. Her mother said that apparently he had so loved it he wanted to make sure it would never become unliveable due to age. New roof needed, no problems, rewiring, same. New technology, the cottage definitely had to have it. It was a shame the privileges didn’t extend to their own home further up the valley. Any improvements there came from their own pockets, although as the cottage caretakers they were paid a rather handsome annual stipend for their efforts.
On her way to the supermarket Manda had made a quick call to her mother’s, barely catching her before she went off for her bridge game. She was delighted to hear another of the American cousins was coming and was really annoyed that Manda hadn’t worked out which Jack it was. There were three of them apparently of approximately the right age, plus one who must be in his sixties or early seventies and might possibly be the father of this one. The older Jack had two brothers, Alan and Franklin. This Jack could equally be the son of one of them.
It made Manda’s eyes cross, she didn’t really care, but promised to ask.
Leaving her mum’s she went off to do the shopping requested. Jack had sent her such a “man” list. Milk, bread, margarine, marmalade, sausages, baked beans, teabags and frozen dinners. She did a proper shop for them instead. Cynically she wondered if that is what her cousin had been intending all along. Shopping done she’d come down to prepare the cottage. The children were at a friend’s, which was such a treat for all of them, herself included. She had until about four o’clock all to herself. On a nice day like this she rather begrudged having to spend it at the cottage when she could have been getting through her list of things to do at home.
She turned and looked down the path to the sea. The cottage nestled at the foot of a valley running down to a typical Cornish cove. High cliffs enclosed a narrow body of water, the swell of the open sea channelled into it by the rocky headlands so that quite a surf broke on the steep rocky beach although there was a stretch of sand at low tide. It was a quintessential smugglers cove and Manda had always loved it. As a child she and her brothers, their cousins and friendly guests had played endless pirate games, roaring up and down the cliff path and down the steep grassy slope to the small strip of sand below the rocks. It had been a marvellous place to grow up and leaving had been very hard. Being back here now, with children of her own was such a privilege. Caring for the cottage wasn’t too bad a price to pay.
With a start she realised that while she had zoned out a car had been making its way down the windy track from the road. It was a grey Audi, she grinned, same make and model as her own. She patted herself down as the car pulled up next to hers in the gravel yard, smoothing her sleeveless shirt and dusting her jeans. A tall dark haired man got out and stretched, hands on the small of his back. He was nicely dressed in slacks and a blue button down shirt. Incongruously he was wearing pale blue braces. As she came around the side of the house he saw her and his mouth split in a wide beaming smile. My god, he was gorgeous. She stared at him. Dear god, he was familiar. ‘Oh,’ she breathed as he hurried towards her, hand held out in greeting. ‘You do look like the photograph of great grandfather.’
He seemed genuinely pleased to see her. ‘I’ve heard that before,’ he said sweeping her into a hug before she could blink. He smelled divine. He stepped back and held her, hands warm on her bare arms. She nearly gasped. She was suddenly awash in memories of her father. ‘I’m Captain Jack Harkness, and you must be Manda.’ It was the feel of his arms around her, the family resemblance and something indefinable. The way her father had smelt? His head quirked to one side as he regarded her. ‘Oh you are gorgeous.’
Manda laughed.
‘No really,’ he said. His voice had a pleasant foreign burr to it, but the accent didn’t seem as pronounced as it had on the phone. ‘You’re beautiful. I’m so pleased to meet you at last.’
‘Er, likewise,’ Manda stuttered. The passenger door of the car opened giving her a chance to collect herself. Jack instantly raced around the car to help his friend. Manda was disconcerted to see the rather pale young man seemed to need quite a bit of assistance to get out of his seat. He looked to be in pain.
Once upright, he was able to stand on his own and Manda hid a grin when she saw him remove Jack’s supportive hand but he did keep hold of the top of the car door. He too stretched and turned his face to the sun before gazing appreciatively at the view. He gave Jack a smile, of approval she thought, before turning and smiling at Manda. He was rather plain looking next to the devastatingly handsome Jack, but he had a nice smile. ‘Manda Carlisle,’ Jack introduced, ‘this is Ianto Jones.’ Ianto stepped forward holding out his hand and Manda noticed bandages hiding under the cuffs of his sweatshirt. Both arms. She called on her professional skills, keeping her smile plastered on her face as she moved towards him.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ she said as she took his hand. Interest aroused she assessed him. His skin felt chilled, but his handshake was firm. His eyes tightened slightly as they shook hands. It hurt him to do that. She caught the faintest whiff of vomit on him. He must have been sick during the trip. He certainly didn’t look well now.
‘Lovely to meet you,’ he said in a warm voice. ‘Jack hasn’t told me anything about his family.’
Oh, she realised. He’s Welsh.
‘Well hey,’ Jack said, ‘there were other much more interesting things about me you needed to know.’ The two men exchanged warm looks and this time when Jack put out his hand Ianto let him take his elbow and start steering them towards the door. ‘Come on,’ he said quietly. ‘Let’s get you inside.’
The men walked slowly towards the door exclaiming about the prettiness of the scene, the age of the cottage and the proximity of the sea. It always made Manda feel good to hear that. At the open doorway they paused, smiling as they took in the airy open plan space, so different to what you expected from the cottage exterior. ‘Wow,’ Jack said, taking in the row of French doors letting in light and the scent of roses from the garden. ‘That’s different.’
‘This was done about ten years ago,’ Manda said with a smile. ‘The whole thing was opened out. I think it’s lovely.’
‘Traditional cottage from the front, unexpectedly comfortable and modern inside,’ Ianto said appreciatively. ‘Bigger on the inside,’ he quipped. Manda nearly laughed, she supposed it could seem a little like that, but then she realised he’d never expected to be heard. It seemed to be a private joke.
‘Do you want to go lie down?’ Jack asked quietly. Ianto was leaning against him.
Ianto gave a small grin. ‘Not really, but I think I’d better.’ Manda couldn’t help but smile at what he said next. ‘I’d really much rather race down and look at the beach, but I guess that’s going to have to wait. Right?’
‘Right,’ Jack agreed. He dropped a kiss on the top of the other man’s head.
Ah, Manda thought. Only needed to make one bed. ‘Why don’t I go and put the kettle on,’ she suggested, ‘while you get settled?’
‘I don’t suppose there’s a coffee machine is there?’ Ianto asked.
‘Actually there is,’ Manda told him at the same time as Jack jumped in and said, ‘You’re not allowed coffee.’
Ianto looked like he was expecting Jack’s answer. ‘Spoilsport,’ he said mildly. ‘Can’t I just have one?’ but his voice was strained. He reached out for the back of a chair steadying himself and blinking suddenly. His face was grey.
Jack grabbed for him again, wrapping an arm around his middle. ‘Bed,’ he said, slightly alarmed. ‘Ah, he looked at Manda, ‘This way?’
She nodded.
‘I’m all right,’ Ianto protested. ‘You know,’ he argued, as Jack led him towards the bedroom, ‘I’m actually probably suffering from coffee withdrawals. It must be even harder on my body going without than it would be to let me have a cup.’
‘No,’ Manda heard Jack say as they disappeared through the bedroom door. She grinned. They were cute. Her gaze tracked naturally from the bedroom door to the portrait on the wall over the fireplace.
As the water came to the boil Manda found herself compelled to stand in front of the picture. It was enlarged version of an old photo, her great grandparents Jack and Camille Harkness on their wedding day. She couldn’t remember the exact date but the year was 1919. Camille was standing, her dress long and fitting, a veil over her hair and falling across her shoulders. There was a posy of flowers in her left hand, her right hand rested on the shoulder of her seated husband. Great granddad Jack, from hair line, to eyebrows to the shape of his jaw was the spitting image of the man who was presently in the other room. Of course the picture was black and white but she would be very surprised if it turned out that her ancestors’ eyes were anything but blue.
The bedroom door opened and the latest Jack Harkness joined her. She smiled at him. Looked from him to the picture and back again. ‘That really is extraordinary.’
He grinned, which did make him look quite different from the formally posed man in the portrait. ‘What’s amazing,’ he said, ‘is how much you look like Camille.’ He touched Camille’s face in the photo and then ran a finger along Manda’s jaw line as she found herself rooted to the spot. ‘That is what I think is extraordinary.’
Manda blinked as his touch left her. He looked faintly embarrassed by it. ‘I don’t think we look that similar,’ she said.
‘Oh no, you are. There’s definitely something there.’
‘Yes, well this family seems to be good at passing on family traits.’
He grinned and nodded.
‘I’ve made tea,’ she told him. ‘Your friend Ianto, is he all right?’
Jack sighed and followed her across to the kitchen bench. ‘He’s exhausted. He’s still very weak and he hates it. I think this is the longest he’s been out of bed since…’ He glanced up at her from under his fringe. ‘Since it happened.’
Manda didn’t press him for details but she was starting to get curious about what was really wrong with Ianto Jones.
‘I’ll take him a cup of tea,’ Jack continued, ‘he needs to keep his fluids up. Then I think he’ll sleep.’
‘Is he up to cake?’ She opened a tin that was sitting on the table. ‘My mother made you a fruit cake.’
Jack beamed. ‘Oh thank you. Thank your mother. I’m sure Ianto will like it.’
Manda cut the cake and placed four pieces on a plate. She set a tray with the teapot, milk jug and mugs and the cake plate. ‘Take it in and have it together. I’ll get away and leave you to it.’ She turned on the oven and pulled a casserole dish out of the fridge. ‘I’ll just put this on to heat. You will not be eating TV dinners while you are in this house.’ She laughed at Jack’s look of surprise. ‘This will be ready in about an hour.’ As an afterthought she added a banana and a couple of apples to the tea tray. Her cousin seemed a little gobsmacked. ‘Go on,’ she told him. ‘I’ll come down and see you tomorrow. If you need anything, my number’s written on the wall by the phone.’ Impulsively she leaned over and gave him a kiss on forehead. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

Twtwtwtw
Jack set the tray down on the bedside cabinet as Ianto gave him a sleepy smile. His colour was better already, just from lying down. Jack wasn’t sure if he were disappointed or pleased that Manda had left. He was having trouble hiding the storm of emotions that her presence caused him. That and just being here were nearly too much.
‘Cup of tea,’ he said to Ianto, pouring milk into a pretty bone china mug. ‘And do you think you’re up to some cake?’
‘I actually do like a good cup of tea,’ Ianto groused elbowing himself upright, ‘but I’m really missing coffee right now.’ He yawned. ‘Cake would be good.’ He grimaced as he put too much pressure on his wrist. ‘That looks nice,’ he said to cover it but Jack saw. ‘This is a nice place.’ Ianto wriggled around on the large pile of pillows. He gave Jack a sideways look. ‘And Manda would be?’
Jack busied himself pouring tea.
‘Your granddaughter. Right?’
Damn Ianto. He hadn’t thought he’d catch on quite so quick. Jack huffed and fluffed with the pillows himself, lifting Ianto forward and rearranging the pillows behind him. He settled him back and tried to ignore the concerned look he was giving him. Handing Ianto a mug, he waited ready to take it back if he had to. Ianto needed both hands but he was able to steady it and Jack was learning not to offer help unless it was asked for. ‘My great granddaughter actually,’ he finally said. He sank down on the side of the bed. ‘But she’s so like Camille I don’t think I can stand it.’ He jumped up. ‘I’ll go bring our bags in. You need your pills,’ and he fled out the door.

Chapter Text

Later than night after the children were in bed Manda climbed into the attic and started searching through the boxes and tat that three generations of Harknesses had left in the house. My god, there was a lot of it. She was initially sidetracked by old toys of her own and her brothers. She quickly decided that what she was looking for would be right at the back. That turned out to be only partially right. Some of this stuff and these boxes hadn’t been looked at since they were put here more than fifty years ago, she was sure of it. If memory served her right Granddad Peter had bought this house after the Second World War. She wasn’t sure of the reasons but suspected that he didn’t want to keep living in the cottage after his mother and sister had died. Or maybe it was because Grandma Amanda didn’t like it. Regardless, all the family bumph had been crowding in here ever since. Somewhere surely, there must be original documents for the cottage, and she was hoping, paperwork such as birth and marriage certificates for great grandparents Jack and Camille. She was actually hoping to find his First World War service records because suddenly, she just had to know what colour his eyes had been.
She couldn’t find anything like that, but standing in the middle of the overflowing cartons she was not really surprised. She found an awful lot of dust and started sneezing frantically. It was unpleasant. As the evening wore on she got tired of looking. Finding a collection of Granddad Peter’s diaries she decided to call it quits. She’d have a shower and then browse through the diaries before going to bed. You never know, at some stage he might have mentioned his father’s eye colour. If not, he had some good tales from his time in the RAF, they would probably be quite a good read.
Twtwtwtw
It was nearly eleven the next morning before Manda got back to the cottage. By the time she’d dropped the kids at kindergarten and done her chores it was getting quite late. She wouldn’t be able to stop long before she had to get back to collect the kids at 12.30. It took her at least 15 minutes to get back to the village depending on how many gates she had to open on the track out to the road.
The cottage was always let as self service and Manda wasn’t used to having to walk in on people to make beds or anything. She knocked on the front door, but after standing there for a minute realised she wasn’t going to get any reply. She was a bit shy about just walking in. She expected them to be up, but with Ianto ill she didn’t really know. Maybe they had decided to spend the day in bed.
She had said she’d be back today so they would be expecting her sometime. It didn’t take long to decide to walk around to the other side where she could see through the French doors. Coming around the corner into the secluded garden she could see that the doors were all thrown open but she couldn’t see anyone inside. It was sunny and lovely in the garden, loungers, deck chairs and a three seater swing chair were organised on the patio for guests. Sliding through the gap in the hedge she turned sideways to fit between the swing seat and the house wall. She gave the swing chair a push to increase the gap. ‘Hello,’ she called out.
A sudden eruption from the swing seat nearly gave her a heart attack. She started as a dishevelled Ianto Jones flung himself upwards, twisted round, eyes wild and staring. She reared back instinctively, frightened of flailing arms. His hands scrabbled under the pillow. Searching for a weapon?
‘Ianto,’ she called.
He jerked, turning towards her.
‘Ianto,’ she said, more gently.
He saw her, really saw her and deflated. ‘Ahhh.’ He sank back down onto the swing and leaned back, eyes shut, hand on his chest. A small cry escaped him.
‘God, sorry,’ Manda muttered. Carefully, gently she came round to crouch in front of him. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you. Are you okay?’
He opened his eyes and gave her a wan smile. ‘Sorry. Just a bit sensitive to sudden noises.’
That was a bit of an understatement. His breathing was funny and he was awfully pale. ‘Have you hurt yourself?’
He shook his head, but it wasn’t convincing.
‘I’ll get Jack.’
He grimaced. ‘Bumped my ribs, that’s all.’
Ribs huh? So his injuries were more than just his wrists which suggested that he probably hadn’t slit them himself. He was still fighting for breath. There was an unhealthy sheen of sweat on his face. She put a hand on his knee and felt him trembling. ‘Where’s Jack?’
He motioned with his head and Manda turned to look. ‘Jack’s up there.’
Ah. She could see him, a small figure standing right out on the tip of the point. He was wearing some sort of long coat that blew out behind him in the sea breeze. Even at this distance he looked quite magnificent. She snorted. ‘Where’s my zoom lens when I want it?’
Ianto smiled weakly. ‘He does like to pose.’ The attempt at humour seemed to help things. He swallowed and eased himself back down onto the seat, lifting his legs and carefully lying down along it, pulling up the afghan he’d kicked off in his panic. Manda picked up the pillow that had fallen on the ground and put it under his head. ‘Thanks.’
‘Do you need anything?’ she asked anxiously.
He shook his head. ‘I’ll be all right in a minute. I just need to…’ he grimaced as he tried to take a deeper breath. ‘Just give me a minute.’ His pale face was now flushing with embarrassment. He was a very private man.
‘I’ll put the jug on then.’
Ianto smiled. ‘Thanks.’
He probably thought she couldn’t hear him groan as she walked through the door.
She took her time getting back outside. The patio was warm and sheltered and the you Welsh man appeared to be asleep again, his long legs pulled up to fit them on the three seater swing. He looked very young although he was probably only a couple of years younger than she was. It was partially the posture, he looked so like her kids when they curled up to sleep. ‘Ianto,’ she called softly, not wanting a repeat of earlier. ‘Are you awake?’
‘Mmm,’ he mumbled, opening bleary blue eyes.
‘I’ve got you something?’ She waved a mug under his nose. She saw his nose actually twitch and his blue eyes flew open.
‘Coffee?’ He would have jerked up again if Manda hadn’t put a hand on his shoulder. Automatically they both looked towards the headland where Jack still stood like some carved figurehead. ‘You made me coffee?’
‘Uh huh. I agree with what you said to Jack yesterday. I don’t think coffee withdrawals can be doing you any good at all.’ She smiled and pulled over the patio table placing the tray on that. She had cut more cake. ‘How do you have it? Milk?’
‘Please. And lots of sugar. I don’t usually but…’
‘I understand.’ She helped him shuffle more upright. He really was quite sweet. ‘Cake?’
‘Mmmm. Please.’
‘And these?’ She held out the pill bottle she’s spotted on the table. Morphine tablets. Whatever was wrong with him must really hurt like hell.
Reluctantly he shook his head. ‘Those are long acting, slow release. I’m only supposed to take them twice a day.’
‘Is there something you can take? You look like you need it?’
He gave her a grateful smile. ‘The coffee will be fine. Thank you.’
Manda pulled up a deck chair and took her own cup. They sat quietly for a while, enjoying the warm autumn sun, Ianto taking on a look of blissful contentment as he sipped from his mug. ‘What’s he doing up there?’ Manda asked. ‘He hasn’t moved since I’ve been here.’
Ianto gave a wry smile. ‘It’s his way of processing things. Some bad stuff happened.’ He shrugged reluctantly. ‘He has to work it through. Get his world in order in his head.’ He smiled indulgently. ‘He needs to be somewhere with a view. Usually he breaks into buildings and stands on roofs.’ He glanced at her to see how she took that but she kept her face straight. She knew any comment would stop him from saying anything more. ‘This is perfect for him.’ He placed his empty mug back on the tray and slid back down on the seat with a beautific smile. ‘Thank you.’ For a moment she thought he was going to say more, but in the end he just nodded and smiled again.
Manda smiled back. She put out a foot and gently pushed the seat setting it swinging. ‘He stands on roofs?’
‘Yep.’ He sniggered slightly. ‘It’s very posey.’
‘Presumably that’s not why he does it?’
‘No. I think he gets a different perspective from the height. The world seems simpler when you can’t see the minute details, just an overall view.’
‘Mmm. And what about you? Do you join him on his roofs?’
Ianto snorted. ‘I’d rather not. I have a healthy respect for heights.’
Manda smiled at him. ‘You’re feeling better now then?’
‘Oh yeah. I can’t believe what a difference that coffee made.’
‘You really are an addict then.’
‘You have no idea.’
‘You’re a soldier aren’t you?’
‘What?’ He sat upright again, startled. ‘Why do you say that?’
‘You were searching for a weapon when you thought you were under attack.’ And you’re obviously suffering from PTSD, but she didn’t say that.
‘And what are you then?’ he asked angrily. ‘Besides nosey?’
‘Army intelligence,’ she told him matching his raised eyebrows. ‘Nosey is definitely in my nature. I was just lucky to find a position that required that property.’
‘I see.’ His face shut down, all friendliness gone. ‘Well I don’t need nosey right now.’
‘I’m sorry,’ and she was. ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’ She grinned and she had no idea how much she resembled her ancestor with that look. ‘I can’t help being interested in you two. I’m just like that.’
He sighed. ‘I’m too tired for this. I’m sorry, can you go now.’
‘We could just not have this conversation.’ Who were these people and what secrets did Ianto Jones feel he was too tired to protect?
He shook his head. ‘Just let me sleep. Please.’
There was something heartbreaking in his manner. She felt bad, he was obviously recovering from some major injury and she’d thoroughly disrupted his peaceful morning. ‘Is Jack likely to come back any time soon?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Are you all right on your own?’ She was concerned. His colour was better but he seemed fragile somehow. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. I have to go and collect my children anyway. I could get my mother to go if I had to, I guess. If you’re not all right?’ She was burbling slightly now, embarrassed for interrogating him, trying to make amends.
‘I’m all right. Well, no I’m not all right but I’m no worse than I was before. I don’t think I can get into too much trouble lying here,’ acknowledging what had happened when she’d startled him. It was a truce. ‘Could you come back later? With the children? Jack would like to meet them I know. He’s got a real need for family at the moment.’
Manda smiled, feeling immensely relieved. ‘Yes, we can do that. About four? We’re hardly close enough relatives to count as family though, I wouldn’t have thought.’
Ianto gave a short barking laugh. ‘Having just had a run in with his daughter, I think distant relations might be nicer.’
‘Jack has a daughter?’
Manda couldn’t understand the look of dismay that crossed Ianto’s face. ‘He was sixteen when she was born,’ he said. ‘He hadn’t seen her for a long time.’
‘And it wasn’t a happy reunion?’ Manda hazarded, doing some hurried mental arithmetic. Jack was at least mid to late thirties. The daughter therefore must late teens and old enough to be making her mark on the world.
Ianto grimaced.
‘What’s her name?’
‘Lyndel.’
‘And you didn’t get on?’
‘No,’ he said shortly. He made a visible effort and looked up at her with expressive eyes. ‘She wasn’t nearly as nice as you.’
It was flattery pure and simple and it worked. It was also an apology for wanting to send her away. ‘Thanks. I do have to go now but I’ll come back later with the kids. And I’ll bring you something for your dinner as well.’
‘You don’t have to do that you know.’
‘Yes I do.’ She smiled again. ‘Like I said, no one is eating frozen dinners in this house.’
‘Both of us are actually capable of cooking,’ he told her.
‘But neither of you need to tonight,’ she told him back.
Driving back up the road Manda tried to work out just what exactly had happened. She was more curious that ever about her American cousin and his friend.

Chapter Text

Manda settled the children down with their lunch on the coffee table in front of their favourite Postman Pat DVD. It meant they’d spend a little quiet time which they needed after a morning at Kindy, and it also gave her some time to herself. She got on the internet and googled genealogy websites. She wished her Dad was alive, her Mum was good on her side of the family but she’d never been overly interested in Dad’s family tree. Somehow they knew nothing past the Jack and Camille that had bought the family cottage. And even then, Manda screwed up her face trying to access vague childhood memories of family conversations, she wasn’t even sure where Camille was from but thought she’d been French. Her fruitless search of the attic last night hadn’t inspired her to try it again so good old google was today’s search choice.
Genealogy sites weren’t proving to be helpful. There didn’t appear to be a Harkness family in America that matched her search. There certainly didn’t appear to be any easily accessible records of great granddad Jack marrying someone called Alison in the 40s, let alone having a second family with her. There was a Jack Harkness born in the twenties but that didn’t fit. He’d died in 1941 while a volunteer in the RAF. Of cousin Jack’s family there seemed to be no trace.
Manda gave a wry grin. She had access to information way beyond what normal people could access, no one had ever revoked her codes, but first she decided to try the obvious. She googled the name “Jack Harkness”.
Oh bloody hell.
She sat back from the desk with a puff of breath. ‘No!’ It took her a surprisingly long time to want to look further. What she was seeing were hinky alien watcher websites but they all pointed the same way. She opened another page in her browser and googled “Ianto Jones”. The results there were much more clear cut. They were old references but there were two interesting ones, his name was listed on an interoffice newsletter, which who knew how had made it onto the web, welcoming new staff members to Torchwood London. And he was on the very short list of survivors of Torchwood One.
And there was that name again.
Torchwood!
Fuck!
She nearly screamed. As if Torchwood hadn’t done enough to her and her family. Fuck, fuck, fuck. The pain flooded back. Her Dad, months from retirement, tickets bought for the world trip, Major Anthony Harkness of UNIT, trying to co-ordinate a response to god knows what? Dreadful forces unleashed by Torchwood on the world, dreadful forces that had killed hundreds including her beloved Dad.
Ianto Jones had been there too and survived.
Jack and Ianto were Torchwood. God it was like a sick joke.
The kids had had enough of the tele. They’d done well to sit still so long she supposed. She let them out into the garden and got up to put on two roast chickens for dinner. She certainly didn’t feel like feeding Ianto and Jack now but she could hardly let them down. After all it probably wasn’t their fault that Dad had been killed.
Something was tickling the back of her mind. Once she had the birds in the oven she went back to the computer. Ianto Jones, pleasingly, did exist. With a bit of searching she found his birth certificate, school records, a shop lifting charge in his teens and reviews of a pub band he’d been in at university. There was nothing more recent than the survivors list.
Jack Harkness may well be an enigmatic figure reputed to be the leader of another branch of Torchwood, but, he wasn’t mentioned on any regular birth, death or marriage records. According to the public record he didn’t exist, in any country. Manda felt queasy.
She went deeper.
Calling up access codes she’d last used in Army intelligence she suddenly found loads of information. Captain Jack Harkness was the current leader of Torchwood Three in Cardiff having taken on the role in 2000 following a murder suicide of all other members of the branch. Harkness had been the only one to survive, something that had caused no end of speculation amongst many. The “Captain” seemed to be an affectation, no record of having earned the title to be found. He had been a thorn in the side of Torchwood London and was on record, thankfully, of being in disagreement with their policies. Manda scrolled through official document after official document, Torchwood, UNIT, MI5, government directives, even CIA and learnt only that Jack Harkness managed to piss off just about any authority figure he came across while still remaining THE utmost authority on alien threats to the world.
The dinging of the stove timer brought her out of her trance like state and with a headache forming she closed all the sites and from habit ran a special program to remove all traces of her search. She shut the computer down and suddenly remembered she was a mother and it had been awfully quiet for a very long time.
Oh God. Groaning she peered out the window as she headed for the oven. She couldn’t see the children from here. The birds were cooked and she hauled them out and onto a board to cool, flung some potatoes into a pot and put them on to cook. She sighed, it was nearly three thirty, what had happened to the time? And where were those bloody kids, she had to get them tidied up and down to the cottage to meet their cousin, if that is what he was. Because bloody hell, and it really pissed her off, if he didn’t exist, how could he look so like her great granddad and smell like her father?
And, she thought later in the car as she realised what else was bothering her, what had happened to great granddad once he’d gone back to America and why didn’t his second family seem to exist either? Plus where had he come from before he married Great Gran? She ground her teeth together, too many questions, maybe it was time to ask for answers.
Twtwtwtwtw
As Manda drove down the lane to the cottage she could see two figures walking arm and arm up the track from the beach. She couldn’t help but smile, Ianto had so wanted to see the beach. It was nice that he was feeling able to do so. The kids piled out and headed down the track hollering and whooping. Manda followed them a little more slowly, eyebrows raised waiting for the men’s response. When she got there they were doing their utmost to retain straight faces as they were jostled by mini red Indians, mini Indians in full war paint that didn’t unfortunately wash off. While Manda had been busy with her research the kids had found the house paint leftovers in the garage and decorated themselves.
‘Well,’ grown up Jack was saying, ‘I’m not saying that we won’t come quietly, but it would be a lot easier to walk if you weren’t standing on my feet.’
Camille looked like she was thinking of a response to this when Ianto yelped. ‘No,’ he said sternly in a terribly deep voice. ‘We do not stick arrows into prisoner’s bottoms,’ and young Jack danced away cackling.
‘Okay,’ Manda shouted over the hubbub, ‘back to the car and find the cake tin.’ That got everyone’s attention. The twins raced off still uttering war cries. ‘Don’t shake it up,’ she shouted after them. She smiled at the men who smiled back. Ianto was leaning on Jack but it could just be that he was fond of him, not that he needed holding up. He looked otherwise healthy, the walk seemed to have been good for him. There was a healthy pink glow to his cheeks. They were a handsome couple. ‘You wanted to meet my children,’ she said.
‘Erm, yes,’ Ianto agreed. ‘I just wasn’t expecting Indians.’
‘Neither was I,’ Manda told him straight faced. ‘I thought I might have kittens. I can’t send them back though.’
There was a split second’s silence then the laughter started, Ianto wincing slightly. Jack’s eyebrows raised in a gesture that was so familiar. ‘Do you often let them paint themselves?’ he asked.
‘Not often. Bit of a slip up there.’
They walked back to the cottage chatting inconsequentially about the bay and the weather. It became obvious that it was becoming a struggle for Ianto and Manda got the idea that Jack would like to pick him up and carry him. She suspected he restrained himself because she was there. Ianto was wearing a warm woollen coat which he seemed to huddle inside in spite of the warm afternoon. Jack was dressed as yesterday in slacks, open necked shirt and braces. He kept an arm around his friend’s waist and his other hand firm on his elbow. They hadn’t actually been down to the beach, just as far as the top of the track where they could look down and see it.
Back finally at the cottage they moved inside and Jack lowered Ianto gently onto one of the large white sofas. Manda made a mental note to keep the children outside if she could manage it. They had brought in her large food basket and having found the cake tin were munching through the shortbread, a piece in each hand. She nearly groaned. They weren’t always savages. Why did they have to decide to act up today? She marched over and ejected them by the scruff of their necks sending then off to the old shed down the garden to find some balls or some other game to play.
Manda put the kettle on and watched cousin Jack tenderly remove Ianto’s coat and boots and arrange him with his feet up on the sofa. The Welshman looked tired but somehow better than he had that morning. ‘Coffee?’ she asked innocently.
‘Best not,’ Ianto told her with a wink, ‘but you go ahead. Jack?’
‘Oh yes please.’ He gave his friend a guilty look. ‘If you’re all right with that?’
‘Jack,’ he said exasperated, ‘I think I can manage to watch you drink coffee without resorting to murder.’
‘Might be a close thing though,’ Jack said fondly.
‘Might yeah,’ Ianto agreed.
‘Cousin Jack,’ a small voice suddenly said. Young Jack was standing in the doorway with a cricket bat and a hopeful look on his face. ‘Do you play cricket?’
The look on big Jack’s face was one of absolute delight. ‘Well yes,’ he said crouching down in front of the boy, ‘as a matter of fact I do. I’m actually quite good at it too.’ Manda looked across to see Ianto give a massive eye roll. ‘Would you like me to play?’
‘Please. Would you?’ Camille was there now too with a ball and two wickets, one looking like it had been chewed by something.
‘Sure. Where shall we go?’ He threw a grin over his shoulder as they dragged him, one hand each across the patio and out onto the lawn. Chattering away the children ordered Jack to place the wickets at the end of the lawn and Camille paced off what she obviously thought was a reasonable distance for the crease. Young Jack pulled off his Indian head dress and dropped it on the spot she indicated to mark where the bowler would bowl from.
Grinning Ianto levered himself off the sofa and moved out onto the patio to watch. Terribly serious Jack let the twins place him in front of the wickets and place a bat in his hands. He took up a very professional looking stance. Manda was impressed. She didn’t know Americans knew anything about cricket. But then again he had said he’d been working in Cardiff for a while and he had to have been at Torchwood Three before the year 2000.
Young Jack pulled an ancient ball out of his pants and spat on it. He passed it to his sister who proceeded to rub the ball in her groin, just like the professionals did. At the other end of the crease Jack tried to suppress his laughter, Ianto didn’t bother, a warm guffaw rolling out of him.
And then suddenly Camille let fly. She was a surprisingly good bowler for a four year old girl and it took Jack completely by surprise. He took a swipe at the ball and missed completely. The twins shrieked with mirth. It took all three of them beating through the bushes to find where the ball had gone. When Jack faced Camille again he was a little more prepared. Again she sent the ball zooming straight at him (from not very far away) but this time he didn’t duck. He hit it sweetly and it sailed straight out and into the paddock beside the garden. The two Jacks took after it whooping with delight while Camille watched. She was an Indian princess and shimmying through fences was beneath her dignity today. Ianto was watching completely entranced.
Manda went back to the kitchen, unpacking the roast chicken and vegetables, reminding herself that there was a meal just the same as this waiting for her when she got home. She laid a tea tray with mugs and shortbread as the game continued, brewed the coffee. They were so nice. She tried to remember how discomforted she’d felt earlier finding that Jack didn’t exist. He so obviously did. Her kids liked him. Why did she want to rock the boat?
Then suddenly everything changed. She heard the thwack as the bat hit the ball and looked up as Jack gave it everything he’d got. The hard ball travelled with tremendous speed sailing straight towards the house… and hit Ianto fair in the centre of his chest. He dropped as if he’d been shot by a cannon.
Jack went mad.
‘Ianto! No!’ He covered the distance between them in three great strides dropping to his knees beside the stricken man. He sat there a moment, eyes wide, hands hovering in space as if he didn’t know what to do. ‘Oh Gods.’ He patted his face. ‘Ianto?’
Manda was there nearly as fast. She might have been in Army intelligence but she was fully combat trained. And that involved advanced first aid. Plus she wasn’t emotionally involved. As Jack made to gather Ianto into his arms she took charge. ‘Don’t!’ Ianto’s eyes were wide, conscious and frightened and locked on Jack. ‘Don’t move him. Let me check him.’
The children came running, picking up on Jack’s panic and terrified by what was happening. ‘It’s all right,’ Manda soothed everyone. ‘He’s going to be okay.’ Touching her son on the shoulder she turned him around. ‘Jack, go and get Mummy’s phone from the car.’ She could have the ambulance or the village doctor here in minutes if she needed to. ‘Camille, sweetheart, go and get a blanket and some pillows. Okay.’
‘He’s not breathing,’ Jack was shouting. He wrestled a phone out of his pocket and was struggling to dial at the same time he was trying to rip Ianto’s shirt open. ‘He’s not breathing!’ On her knees on the other side of Ianto Manda was doing a rapid assessment of her own. Ianto’s face was white and his lips were taking on a bluish tinge but he was conscious and alert, his hands clenching in the gravel, mouth open and gasping although not moving any air. She found his pulse point in his neck and his heart was racing.
Jack wrenched his shirt apart, shoved the tee underneath up revealing his chest and Manda gasped when she saw it. The Welshman’s chest was a mottled mess of bruising, yellow, purple and greenish colours stained his torso from mid chest to his trouser tops. Manda was mother enough to recognise old bruises that had “run” as gravity pulled spilled fluids down from damaged flesh. The bruises weren’t recent but she knew that the injuries underneath them still hurt like hell. Bumping his ribs this morning had caused him to collapse. Now, squarely in the middle of his upper body was a round, already swollen, red fist sized lump. He must be in agony. Now Manda knew what was wrong.
‘Owen!’ Jack was yelling at his phone. ‘It’s Ianto. He can’t breathe.’
‘Jack!’ Manda tried to calm him. ‘He’s all right. He’s just winded.’
‘He got hit with a cricket ball,’ Jack told the person on the other end of his call. Manda put her hands gently on Ianto’s chest, feeling carefully for any distortion of his rib cage. His body jerked under her hands. ‘It’s all right,’ she soothed as his eyes focused on her. ‘You’ll be all right.’
‘No of course he wasn’t playing cricket,’ Jack was trying to explain. He gave a shout of exasperation. ‘Damn it Owen, he’s not breathing.’
‘It’s all right,’ Manda said again. She could see Camille out of the corner of her eye, standing there with a blanket falling over her arm. She put a hand on Jack’s arm, finally getting him to see her. ‘He’s all right. It hit him on the solar plexus. His diaphragm’s in spasm. It’ll come back.’ He didn’t seem to hear.
‘He needs mouth to mouth.’ He moved forward to try.
‘Don’t!’ Manda gave Jack a shove which rocked him back onto his bum. ‘He’s winded. CPR won’t help.’ He sat there blinking at her.
‘Is that a doctor you’re talking to?’
‘Yeah.’
She held her hand out. ‘Let me…’ She took the phone off Jack. ‘Help me roll him onto his side. Hello,’ she said into the phone, ‘I’ll talk to you in a moment.’
Together she and Jack worked their arms underneath Ianto and lifted him onto his side. The movement did the trick and as she started to rub his back he took a great gasping breath. With a moan of pain he took another gasp and another. She thought for a moment that he might vomit, but the moment passed. They all breathed deeply in sympathy. ‘There. That’s better. You’re all right.’
‘Just breathe Ianto,’ Jack gently lifted his head into his lap. ‘It’s all right now,’ he choked. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Manda remembered the phone. ‘Hello,’ she said.
‘Could somebody bloody tell me what the hell is going on,’ a very grumpy man said. ‘Who the hell are you?’
Manda laughed. The relief in tension was huge. ‘Manda Carlisle,’ she told him, and then just to see what reaction she’d get, she added, ‘nee Harkness.’
The splutter the man made was really quite fun.
Camille came forward with the blanket and Jack wrapped it tenderly around his partner. Her Jack passed over her phone which she slipped into the pocket of her jeans. ‘Tosh,’ she could hear the man on the phone call out to someone, ‘something for you to check out?’ The children were huddled together frightened. ‘Ianto’s okay,’ she assured them. ‘It was like when Davey fell off the trampoline. Do you remember that? He couldn’t breathe for a while?’ The twins nodded. ‘But he was fine in the end. It was just like that. You two go off and play for a bit. We’ll go down the cove soon.’ She kept quietly rubbing Ianto’s back, wanting to stay close. She was starting to feel quite frightened by Jack’s white face. ‘You’re a doctor, right?’ she asked the man on the phone.
‘Dr Owen Harper,’ he told her. ‘You want to tell me what Jack’s done to the teaboy?’
‘Teaboy?’
‘Jonesy. Ah Ianto.’ The doctor sighed. ‘What’s Jack done?’
Manda filled him in on the cricket ball to the chest. The doctor swore. ‘Jesus, just what the poor bastard doesn’t need right now. Okay,’ he took a breath. ‘I’m guessing Jack’s bugger all use for anything at the moment. Can you take some vital signs for me?’
‘Sure. Hang on. Jack,’ she grabbed for his wrist. ‘Watch.’ She was a little nonplussed to discover that the device on his left arm wasn’t a watch. Jack held his right arm out which did have a watch on it. She took Ianto’s pulse, ‘124,’ she told the doctor, ‘and resp rate, God, nearly twenty four and shallow, and painful.’ His breathing was now more like shallow gasping as he tried to get the air he needed around the pain. Ianto’s hands were clutching Jack’s shirt so tightly the fabric was tearing.
‘Okay, not good but about what I’d expect. We need to get him something for pain. They’ve got a kit with them somewhere. There’s even a gadget that will take a heart rhythm and send it to me over the internet. Do you know where the kit is?’
‘Why do you need a heart rhythm?’
‘Because,’ he said sadly, ‘Ianto wasn’t just tortured, he was poisoned and he ended up with his heart muscle damaged.’ He assumed she knew what he was talking about and she didn’t disabuse him. She actually felt a physical pain in her own chest. ‘You’ve seen all the bruising I take it?’ he continued.
‘Yes.’
‘Well that wasn’t the torture. That was me trying to get his heart going again.’ Torture? He really had said torture. ‘Three times,’ he said proudly. ‘We had to resuscitate him three times.’
Oh dear god. The poor guy. ‘He didn’t tell me that,’ she said. ‘How long ago was this?’
‘Ten days,’ he said. ‘I’ve only just cleared him from bedrest. Jack promised this little jaunt would involve lazy days doing nothing more energetic than moving from a bed to a sun lounger.’
‘Well to Ianto’s credit, that’s about all he has done.’
‘Get him something for pain and get me that reading. Then I can decide if I need to get him back here or not.’
‘Okay. Jack,’ she touched his shoulder. ‘Your doctor says you’ve got a medical kit. Where is it?’
‘Uh.’ Jack was wrapped around the other man, which couldn’t be good for the patient. She tried to loosen his grip. ‘Jack let him breathe. Where’s the med kit? There’s something in there we can give him for pain.’
‘Bedroom,’ Jack said. ‘Green bag.’
She found the rather large green medical kit in the corner of the room buried under wet towels. ‘Ianto’s not the only one suffering from PTSD is he?’ she remarked to the doctor now that the men couldn’t hear her.
‘Ah,’ he seemed a little embarrassed. ‘No I suppose not. Look let’s sort the Teaboy out. That’s the best thing we can do for Jack. Er, how are you related?’
‘Cousin,’ she said.
‘Owen,’ Jack shouted, grabbing the phone out of her hand when she got back. ‘There’s a helicopter on standby. Get on to Skinner at UNIT. I want you here.’
It took another half an hour for things to calm down, to calm Jack down and get Ianto comfortable and into bed. Surprisingly the medical kit included preloaded morphine syringes as well as the blood pressure machine/heart monitor. Sensors placed on Ianto’s chest measured his heart rate and rhythm and via a Bluetooth link to a mobile were beaming a continuous report to the rather sensible, if somewhat crude mouthed Doctor Harper in Cardiff. The doctor had managed to talk Jack down on his insistence on making a very expensive (to someone) house call. Ianto was freshly bruised, very sore, but in his opinion otherwise fine. Ianto seemed extremely relieved by that diagnosis. Manda watched him stoically trying to be brave for Jack and then slowly giving in to the medication and sliding into sleep safe in Jack’s arms.
Manda just knew she couldn’t leave them here alone.
After a bit of thought she remade the pot of tea and took Jack in a mug and some shortbread. It was five o’clock and the children were going to be hungry soon. She fed them the men’s dinner. There would still be enough to do something with if Jack wanted something to eat later. In the meantime, needs must.
Poking her head quietly back around the bedroom door she could see that Jack was dozing too, tear stains obvious on his face. She sighed. She could feel so much pain from both of them, she could taste it. She didn’t need more pain. She didn’t want to share theirs. Her own grief was too near the surface, discovering that these two, and presumably Dr Harper too worked for Torchwood had brought it all back up.
Her Dad, damn it! And then three days later, her husband Dean had been killed in Afghanistan. She knew the two weren’t connected but they were in her mind and her life, irrevocably. Torchwood was bad. Great Granddad had worked for Torchwood too and he had gone to America after Great Grandma died to get away from it. She didn’t need any reminders of Torchwood in her life.
Collecting the children she took them for the promised walk to the cove. An hour later as it was starting to get dark they came back to the cottage. Ianto was sleeping but Jack was awake, lying quietly beside him on the bed. When he saw her he quietly extricated himself and came out. He was calmer but he looked tired.
‘He’ll be alright,’ she told him.
‘I know.’ He grimaced. ‘For this time. It was just an unlucky accident. Trouble is, we seem to keep having them.’
‘I know,’ she muttered. It happened to her family too. ‘Do you want anything to eat?’ she asked him.
He shook his head and sank onto one of the kitchen chairs.
‘Well I do,’ she told him. ‘I’ll turn what’s left of this chicken into soup. Then if Ianto wakes up and wants anything it will be fine for him too.’
‘You don’t have to look after us,’ he said a little reluctantly echoing his partner earlier in the day.
‘And it I don’t, who would?’
He conceded the point. ‘Why don’t you light the fire before it gets really cold,’ she told him. ‘I’ll make soup.’ The fireplace was near the TV where the children were and as Manda opened a tin of chicken soup and started shredding the last of the cooked chicken into it she saw Jack smiling and interacting with the children. She was pleased she’d decided to stay around.
Once the fire was going, Jack settled on the sofa watching the Discovery channel with the kids. She saw her Jack climb up beside him and whisper. She sidled closer to hear what was being said. ‘… but,’ the child said, ‘when I hit Davy Treddinick with a tennis racket Mrs Pritchard made me sit on the naughty seat.’
Jack laughed and pulled the boy into a hug. ‘Do you think I should sit on a naughty seat? Have we got one?’
‘I think you should say sorry,’ the boy said very seriously.
‘Oh believe me,’ Jack said burying his face in the child’s soft hair. ‘I have.’
Manda put on toast then called Jack to the table placing a bowl of soup in front of him. ‘Eat,’ she said. ‘Please.’
They ate companionably, discussing nothing much, Cornwall, her family, the children. He got up and helped her clean up. The kids were starting to yawn. ‘I’ll have to take them home soon,’ Manda said.
‘That’s all right. I’ll be fine now.’ He pulled her into a hug and kissed the top of her head. ‘Thank you.’
She hugged him back. The feeling of familiarity was so strong. She pulled away. ‘If you’re sure you’re all right I’ll see you tomorrow.’
He smiled. ‘We’re fine. Ianto’s fine. He’ll sleep right through now.’
‘What will you do?’
‘I’ll probably watch him sleep.’
Manda kissed him goodnight and took the children home.

Chapter Text

Having settled the children Manda picked up her grandfather’s diaries. Granddad Peter was supposed to have gone a bit dolally near the end but she’d enjoyed flicking through the diary that pertained to the war. He’d been a bit of an unsung hero, Manda hadn’t realised it but he’d been seconded from the Air Force to work at Bletchley Park. What he did in that top secret establishment was not mentioned. There were no details of what he did in the book, of course not, but Manda knew enough to be able to read between the lines. Of course it was a well known fact these days that Bletchley Park was where the Nazi codes had been cracked and famously that the riddle of the Enigma code had been broken there. That sort of thing really must run in the family.
Making herself a coffee that briefly reminded her of Ianto she settled down on the sofa to read some more. It wasn’t long before she got to the romantic part as her grandfather met his future wife Amanda and confided coyly in his diary of her beauty, charm and tinkling laugh. Manda smiled, she remembered a large woman in polyester dresses who smothered her in hugs and fed her badly cooked cakes. The elderly woman she remember didn’t seem anything like the girl her granddad was describing.
Granddad spoke of the impending visit by his mother and his sister, the other Amanda, travelling up from Cornwall by train to attend a concert and meet his Amanda. He spent nearly a page agonising on how well the two Amandas would get on, whether his sister would seem too provincial to the London bred woman. His mother, he was sure, was going to just love her. Manda read it all with a lump in her throat, knowing of course what he could not. The meeting never happened. Cecilia and her daughter were on a train just entering the outskirts of the city when it was destroyed by an unexploded bomb from a raid the night before. The bomb has lodged under a trestle bridge and been jostled by trains passing overhead all day. Why it should have detonated then was a mystery.
Cecilia and Amanda were dead and Peter and his father Jack were devastated. She knew that of course from family legend because the diary didn’t tell her. There was a big space of months, nearly a year, before he wrote in the diary again. The next entry briefly described his wedding. The following entry, dated the next day was the real shocker. “Today,” it read, “my father told me his secret. Now that I know I marvel that I had not previously seen. Familiarity and all that. He is leaving, of course he must.” It continued sadly. “I have gained a wife and must make a family of my own. I have lost the family of my childhood. I curse my father, how could he leave me now? Who can I ask about being a parent if I have none of my own? He says he will write, stay in touch. Personally I think that if mother were still alive he would have moved mountains to stay. Obviously I am not of the same calibre. He says that is not so, that I am now grown and no longer need him, that I have Amanda and he is needed elsewhere.” It concluded: “Bloody Torchwood.”
That was the end of the diary.
Bloody Torchwood indeed.
Manda couldn’t help herself; she picked up the next diary. She had to read on.
The next diary didn’t start until exactly a year after the last entry of the previous one. She searched through the small pile of books, but if he’d kept records of that year they weren’t here. It seemed that he had fallen out of the habit of diary writing and only picked it up a year later. This diary was dull. It started with the description of bringing his pregnant London bride to Cornwall to live in the country. She must have already made her dislike of the cottage obvious because Granddad spoke of the end of the renovations on the house being completed only days before their arrival. It appeared Grandma had never lived in the cottage at all. With the war over Granddad worked in Whitehall, although he didn’t ever say she knew he had continued his code breaking and espionage skills for the nascent MI6. He obviously could say little about his work. What was strange however was that he said little about anything. Even his entries on the birth of his children were flat. The diary was strangely lacking in animation and Granddad’s “voice.” After the great feeling of an exciting life she had sensed in the previous diary Manda was disappointed.
It was getting late. With a sigh she put the book down and got ready for bed. She checked in on the children, tiptoeing into the room to place a kiss on each sleeping cheek. She did this every night, it helped remind her how very much she loved them, sometimes during the day she lost sight of that.
She did love them, and surely her grandfather had loved his children. Her father spoke of a happy childhood and a father who played games with them and took them on expeditions when he was home from London. So why didn’t he write more about them? Something prickled in the back of her brain. She went back to the lounge and picked up the book. She looked at it closely. She hadn’t noticed earlier but the book was written with the same coloured ink throughout. Only it wasn’t just any ink, it was written with a ball point pen. All of it.
She fired up the computer which she’d just shut down and did a Wiki search for ball point pens. It seemed that the first biros went on sale in 1945 so it was possible that Granddad might have had one, but having the same one for the eleven year time period the diary covered seemed unlikely. It really didn’t look like the ink colour changed at any stage in all that time. Maybe it was a special pen he kept just for diary writing. Somehow this colourless diary didn’t suggest that the writer would have bothered.
So what else was odd? The lack of emotion, the word choice most definitely and suddenly Manda smiled. She knew exactly what she was looking at. ‘You crafty old bugger,’ she muttered. This was a man who had made a career out of codes and that Manda just knew was exactly what she was holding, the book was a cipher.
All thoughts of bed were gone.
Okay, how to crack it? She ran through a brief list of ideas, the date, a year from the last date of the previous one could be significant. She tried his name, wife, children. She tried the birthdays. She had no doubt that if she put her energies in it she could crack it herself. Manda wasn’t actually a slouch in these sorts of things either. Manda however had tricks of the trade her Grandfather had never dreamt of. Opening a special browser page on her computer she opened the book and typed in the first page – exactly as it was written.
She then entered search parameters and possible key words and numbers. She hit enter and sat back to let the programme do its work. She expected some sort of result within minutes, after all the book had obviously been written by hand, and she’d like to bet it had been written after his diagnosis of lung cancer, in the brief period of lucidity before the pain killers needed to keep him comfortable had apparently tipped him into increasing dementia. A very ignoble end, she thought sadly, for a remarkable man.
The computer was still running through possibilities. Manda didn’t want to consider that it was nothing more than a boring diary. She was so sure it wasn’t. She got up and poured herself a bourbon.
‘To you Granddad,’ she toasted before turning back to the computer. An icon on the left of the screen was flashing. ‘Yes!’ Cipher found.
The text had certain letters highlighted, forty two of them and she pressed a button to pull up the decoded text. “iknowmanysecretsthegreatestofwhichissittin” She would need to keep decoding to read the rest. The key for the code turned out to be a number written in letters. Fifty thirty two. She had no idea what the significance of that was.
She contemplated typing in the whole book, but that would take all night. She had the key and a computer to give her the decryption method. She pulled out a pad and a pencil and started searching letters. It was simple – using the words fifty thirty two she found the first f on the page. The computer had told her that the first letter in the message was I – and there it was, one letter to the right of the first f in the document. The word it was in was “find”. The next letter in the key was i. There was a k sitting directly above it. So that meant he had used all four places around his target letters. That made it harder to decrypt, because she had four choices for each letter, but made it much easier to write because it could be hard to put two letters together in a seemingly logical way otherwise. There were no capital letters and no punctuation, but it wasn’t hard to read the message now she knew the key.
She marvelled at the little book. It was good. If she hadn’t been the suspicious sort she’d never have imagined it to be anything other than what it looked like. And she would probably have been unable to discover the key without access to top secret code breaking software. She had no idea what the significance of those numbers was.
By the time she got to the end at around 3.30am she knew exactly what they meant.
Twtwtwtwtwtwtw
Manda got back into the car after taking the kids into Kindergarten and breathed a sigh of relief. Boy those two sure knew how to push her buttons. The terrible two seemed to know instinctively that she was tired and crabby and it had taken twice as much effort as normal to get them dressed, fed and ready to go.
But now they had gone and she could go and direct some of her temper at someone who deserved it. She glanced across at the front seat where the box of diaries sat with the transcript on top. There was also a bottle of milk, the morning paper and a box of eggs. God she was soft.
She let herself around into the garden and could see the men sitting at the table. It was earlier than she’d arrived before. ‘Breakfast,’ she thought as she knocked briefly on the door and let herself in. Jack looked up and smiled before casting a concerned look at Ianto. She marched past them into the kitchen to put the groceries down, picked up the diary that was really a cipher and turned, dropping it on the table in front of Jack. ‘Recognise that do you?’ she asked. Only then did she register that they weren’t eating breakfast. ‘Oh shit, sorry.’
On the table Jack had laid out a dressing tray and medical equipment. He had Ianto’s left hand in his and was unwinding the bandage around his wrist. Ianto was wearing his pyjama bottoms and a tee shirt and looked cold. ‘I’m kinda busy right now,’ Jack told her tersely as the bandage came off to reveal soiled dressings on both sides of the arm.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t realise what you were doing.’ She looked at Ianto, noting his pale poker face. He was steeling himself for pain. ‘Are you okay with me being here?’
He gave a pallid grin and nodded. Jack used this distraction and picking up forceps ripped the dressings off. Ianto jerked and gasped. Tears sprang into his eyes. Jack stroked his hand, gave him a minute to recover. ‘I’m sorry love,’ he said soothingly. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘You should have done it last night,’ Ianto gasped. ‘Really needs to be done twice a day.’
‘There was no way I was subjecting you to this last night.’
‘Yeah, well look how that worked out.’ But Manda got the idea that while his mouth said it he was grateful that Jack was caring for him the best he knew how.
Manda couldn’t stop herself from staring and her stomach turned. The wounds were terrible, great meaty holes in his arm. ‘Dear God! What happened to you? What did this?’ She could see tendons or possibly bones. Removing the dressings had made the crusty black edges of the wounds crack open and bleed. No wonder it had hurt him to shake hands. He’d said he’d been tortured, but she couldn’t imagine what could have caused this. ‘That’s not a bullet wound.’ Although it was obviously caused by something that had gone right through.
‘No,’ Ianto swallowed. Once again he’d lost all colour. Jack pulled on a pair of sterile gloves and then taking Ianto’s hand in his left again he dipped a cotton ball into saline and started to clean. A low moan escaped Ianto’s lips as he shuddered.
‘Here,’ Manda said. She moved to stand behind his chair, putting her hands on his shoulders and pulling him back against her. ‘Lean on me.’ He did. Gratefully. She wrapped an arm carefully around his upper body, her other hand came to rest gently on his head. ‘You should have pain relief before you do this.’
‘He does,’ Jack told her. ‘He should be sky high right now.’ He grimaced and she could see tears in his eyes too. ‘It’s not enough.’
‘Can you tell me what did this?’
Ianto leant further back in against her chest. ‘Sort of like being crucified,’ he squeezed out. ‘Nailed to a wall to keep me still while they tortured someone else.’ Manda caught the black look Jack gave him as he glanced up from his work. ‘Bloody big spike things,’ he said firmly.
Manda didn’t understand the undercurrents of the conversation and she definitely didn’t want to think about what Ianto had just said. He shouldn’t have to relive that. ‘Will they heal?’ she asked instead. It didn’t look likely to her. The edges didn’t look healthy and the wounds were very wide.
Jack was working swiftly and efficiently, cleaning and debriding. He opened a sachet of some ointment and used a sterile spatula to spread it over two new dressings before carefully pressing them back over the wounds. Holding them carefully in place he looked up. ‘No,’ he said answering her question. ‘They won’t heal. All we’re doing here is stopping things from getting worse, making sure it doesn’t get infected.’ He draped a larger absorbent gauze pad around the arm and reached for the clean bandage he had ready. ‘When Ianto’s stronger and well again, then we’ll be doing plastic surgery to fix this up.’ He finished wrapping the bandage and fastened the end. He breathed a sigh and stripped off the gloves.
‘Okay?’ he asked Ianto. When Ianto nodded Jack seemed a little less pained himself. He cleared away the dressing tray and set out a new one. Then he put on fresh gloves, took a deep breath and reached for Ianto’s other hand. ‘Ready?’
‘Just do it,’ Ianto hissed.
Automatically Manda tightened her grip.
‘Distract me,’ Ianto said. ‘What’s the book?’
Jack looked up at her sharply. ‘Not now,’ they said in unison.
Ianto grunted as Jack started pulling the crusty dressings off. ‘Oh, now I’m really intrigued,’ he stuttered. The dressing on the underneath of his wrist was really stuck, but Jack seemed to have anticipated that and was squirting saline from a plastic ampoule onto it and slowly working it free. His eyes met hers and flicked sideways. She followed his gaze and noticed an empty icecream container on the chair beside them. ‘Go on Manda,’ he said dryly. ‘Tell us about the book.’ He grasped Ianto’s hand tightly. ‘Don’t look,’ he said and wrenched the dressing off.
Ianto’s body jerked and went rigid, a ghastly keening sound escaping him. ‘Stay still,’ Jack told him urgently and Manda saw that this wound was packed with gauze. Using the forceps Jack grabbed one end of it and what proved to be a bloody ribbon of the stuff gradually unwound and was pulled from the ghastly hole in Ianto’s wrist. It had to feel disgusting. Ianto’s breathing was erratic and shallow and Manda suddenly understood what the food container was for. She grabbed it and got it under his chin as he retched.
All the time Jack kept firm hold of Ianto’s hand and kept doing what he had to do.
Manda held Ianto tightly against her. As the retching eased she used the tea towel that Jack had also left handy and wiped his face. He turned his head away from the table, trying to distance himself from his own arm. He pressed his head into her belly, crying outright. She made nonsense soothing noises and tried not to retch herself as she watched Jack repack the dreadful hole with a fresh ribbon of gauze soaked in saline. ‘Um, the book,’ she said, suddenly desperate to distract them all. ‘It is my Grandfather Peter’s diary.’ Jack looked at her, tired and resigned. He knew she knew. He was putting the ointment on the dressings. ‘Only, it’s not really a diary at all. It just looks like one.’ The wounds were covered up now and she could feel the body in her arms relax just a little.
‘Go on,’ Jack said quietly, real and alive. He had to be at least a hundred years old and he hadn’t aged since he’d married her great grandmother and now he was sitting here, at a table in this cottage. Where she suddenly realised, he must have lived for about twenty years. He was right here across the table from her, alive and distressed.
‘It’s actually a cipher. The whole book actually translates into a message about a thousand words long.’ The bandaging was nearly complete and Jack seemed reluctant to finish the job and look up. ‘But you know that don’t you Jack?’ She felt Ianto start slightly. Had she read things wrong? Did he not know? ‘You know that because you were there when my grandfather wrote it.’
Manda actually felt guilty waiting for Jack to answer. He looked terrible. Changing the dressings had taken a lot out of him. He obviously hated hurting Ianto. His face was white; his eyes looked dark and haunted. She fought the urge to hug him. All her anger towards him was long gone. Ianto was shivering slightly and she hugged him closer rubbing his arms. ‘The transcription starts, “I know many secrets, the greatest of which is sitting in the room watching me write. I am dying and my father is here. The nurses think that he must be an illegitimate son of mine. This is useful for they will never tell my wife. All they tell her is that I am losing my marbles.” I decoded it last night.’
‘How can this be?’ Jack quoted the next line.
‘Exactly.’ Manda felt a shiver of shock building in her own body. It was enough to read of it… Until Jack had said that, confirmed that, it really hadn’t been true. She stared at him as he met her gaze. He was the same man she’d seen arrive here two days ago and yet now he looked completely foreign. He was the man in the photograph over the mantle. It was a huge concept. It was unthinkable. Now she’d made the accusation and had it confirmed she didn’t know what to do next.
‘Well aren’t you multitalented?’ a dry voice said from under her nose. She jumped. In spite of holding him tightly she’d been so intent on Jack she’d nearly forgotten the existence of Ianto Jones. ‘She can cook, she can clean. She’s a bloody good nurse and she’s sneaky. Plus in her spare time she can break codes.’ He gave a brave attempt at a laugh. ‘Hey Jack, it’s easy to see she’s one of yours.’
‘I can’t clean,’ Jack mumbled.
‘Know that.’ Ianto said starting to shake rather alarmingly.
‘I get the cooking and cleaning from my mother,’ Manda said. ‘You need to be in bed.’ Jack was already on his feet. ‘The sneaky is from my father’s side of the family.’ She tilted the chair back so that his head was lower and his legs were up. ‘It’s all right love. Shh.’ Jack took hold of the other side of the chair. ‘Stay put, we’ll carry you to bed like this.’
They did. It was surprisingly easy. They poured Ianto off the chair and he moaned with relief as he found himself lying flat. ‘Not usually this bad,’ he tried to reassure Manda. ‘They just dried out.’
‘It’s all right. Rest now.’
He looked at Manda. ‘Promise me you won’t try to kill Jack before I’m up again.’
Manda snorted, aware of how silly she sounded. ‘Don’t worry. I get the feeling I wouldn’t be able to anyway.’
Jack smoothed his hair. ‘I’ll make you some tea and toast. Do you want that?’
Ianto grimaced. ‘Not really, but I know, I have to eat something.’
Jack smiled sadly. ‘Yeah.’
Manda had moved back to the doorway to give them some space. As Jack came towards her she couldn’t help but openly star at him. ‘It’s true then? Really true?’
‘Yes. It’s true.’ Jack sighed. ‘You’re my great great granddaughter and you are so like Camille that it hurts.’
‘Oh.’ She hadn’t been expecting that.
‘Hey,’ said a small voice from the bed. ‘Don’t you two dare have this conversation without me.’
‘Tea and toast coming right up,’ Jack told him. ‘No talking till we’re back in here. Promise.’
In the kitchen Manda filled the kettle as Jack started firing bread in the toaster. ‘Can I just ask you one thing?’ she said.
He grinned. ‘I promised.’
‘Just something I don’t want to ask in front of Ianto.’
‘Ah.’ Jack gave her a quizzical look. ‘Let me guess. Is this where you ask if I’m really gay?’
Manda grimaced. ‘That was it.’
‘Yes and no.’
‘Not really an answer.’
‘I know. The thing is, where I come from… when I come from, we don’t use those sorts of labels. I had a friend once, he called me omnisexual.’
‘Fifty thirty two.’
‘That’s the year I was born, yes. How do you know that?’
‘That’s the key Granddad used for his cipher.’ She looked at him, slightly odd dress sense but perfectly normal in other respects. ‘It’s all true then? It really is true?’ He was devastatingly handsome, but that could be just her own personal bias, attracted to people who looked as though they would fit in with her family. It was a well known psychological phenomenon. And Jack of course didn’t just look like someone who would fit in with her family, he was her family. His resemblance to her father, her brothers and even her uncle was very apparent. Of course she found the look of him appealing.
‘Yes it is. Do you want toast too?’
‘Yes please. I think I will. Shall I cook some scrambled eggs?’
‘Would you? Erm, I mean… If you’d like to that would be nice.’
‘No trouble. So, you really love Ianto don’t you?’
Jack smiled, a wide beaming smile. ‘I do yes. I really do.’
‘So did you love Camille?’
Jack’s smile turned introspective but it remained. ‘I did yes. I really did. She was…’ he sighed, ‘…wonderful. She was everything...’ He swallowed and turned away to deal with the toaster. ‘Okay, enough. This isn’t fair on Ianto. He needs to hear this story too.’
‘Okay.’

Twtwtwtwtwtw
Jack helped Ianto wrap himself in his robe and sit up in bed. Ianto had been drowsy, nearly asleep when they’re come back with breakfast but had grumpily been coaxed upright. He was leaning heavily on Jack who settled beside him. Manda, surprised at how comfortable it all felt had climbed onto the bed on his other side and was now coaxing him with small mouthfuls of creamy egg. Surprisingly he was actually eating.
‘I feel better,’ he said, ‘Once the pain eases, I’m okay.’
‘I’m glad.’
Jack was watching them fondly. ‘We’ll have to keep you on Manda. I can never get him to eat like this.’
‘That’s because you can’t cook.’ Ianto shook his head refusing any more. He’d had less than Camille would have liked but apparently it was still a real achievement. She could see why Jack was worried. ‘She didn’t get her cooking skills from you.’
‘Oh god.’ Manda started. ‘I forgot. Mum’s picking the kids up from Kindy today and bringing them here for lunch. She wants to meet you.’ The guys exchanged a look, Ianto didn’t look so keen but Jack beamed. ‘I’d love to see your Mum.’ He suddenly looked wary. ‘Does she know anything?’
Manda gave him a warm smile. ‘Mum is a Harkness in name only don’t worry. She takes everything at face value and it never occurs to her to think otherwise. If you say you’re a cousin from America then that is exactly who you are.’ She laughed out loud, ‘She’s an amazing cook but other than that I never could understand what Dad saw in her. I guess that’s where I get my homemaking talents from.’
‘Hey,’ Jack admonished pointing his toast at her. ‘Your Mum is a neat lady. I really liked her when I met her.’
Manda deflated slightly, she’d forgotten. ‘Oh yeah. One of the cousin Jacks was here when I was little. That was you obviously.’ Suddenly the whole situation made her cross. ‘So. We’d better get our story straight. Who are you this time exactly?’
‘Don’t be like that.’
‘I don’t like being lied to.’
‘And if I’d told you the truth?’
Manda shrugged, unwilling to concede.
‘Peter and I worked this out. It was the only way we could work out that I could keep in touch with the family, see you all grow up.’ He looked terribly sad. ‘Get to know you a bit.’ Ianto gave his knee a gentle pat. ‘I haven’t abused it. I don’t come very often.’
‘You didn’t think the family could be trusted to keep your secret?’
Ianto now patted her knee to get her attention. She’d not noticed before how very careful he was with his arms. ‘Why don’t we let Jack tell us,’ he said gently.
Jack looked relieved until Ianto turned to him and gave him a killer look. ‘Yes Jack. Why don’t you tell us all? Tell me about your wife and this family I’d never heard about until we got here.’
‘Ianto.’
‘I’m with Manda, I don’t like being lied to.’
‘I haven’t lied to you.’
‘Not technically no. But you never told me you had a family, you never mentioned this cottage until suddenly you’re bringing me here and then it was just a place you knew about. Nothing about the significance. Dammit Jack,’ he leant back and closed his eyes. ‘I thought, after you came back, I thought we’d committed to each other. I thought the secrets were over.’
‘It wasn’t a secret. It just didn’t come up.’ He gathered Ianto’s limp body back in against him. ‘Yan… please?’
Ianto leant his head on his shoulder. ‘Tell us Jack,’ he said tiredly. His mouth quirked in a small smile. ‘Tell me a story.’
Jack snorted and kissed the top of his head. Manda couldn’t help smiling as Ianto snuggled in closer. Jack saw her looking and smiled. ‘Once upon a time,’ he started and grinned. ‘I loved Camille you know. She was the most amazing kick-arse woman I have ever met.’ He was holding Ianto tight and stroking his arm. ‘She gave me a hell of a run for my money. You’d have liked her.’ He kissed Ianto again. ‘You’d both have liked her. She was a spy.’
Manda laughed, ‘Now there’s a surprise.’
Camille De la Tour was a French spy. Jack has originally met her early in 1915 when they were both trying to infiltrate a German advance unit in Belgium. Their motives were at cross purposes however. Camille was trying to gain military intelligence using her greatest asset, her looks. Jack also was using his looks and his language skills and was actually inside the unit and accepted as an officer. He’d quickly spotted Camille as more than just your usual whore and she was awfully close to spotting him. He was doing a fantastic job of leading an entire battalion into a trap and couldn’t run the risk of being discovered by anyone so he’d grabbed her one night and arranged her disappearance.
Bound and gagged he’d stashed her in a barn where she was supposed to be collected by some local men and passed back into a safe area behind the lines. But it had all gone wrong and it was three days before she was rescued.
Jack moved on and didn’t see her again until nearly the end of the war. By then he’d left the secret service, served in the Somme and had by all manner of accidents become the British liaison to the French forces. When Camille had seen him in 1915 he’d been in a German uniform and had kidnapped her.
‘Long story short,’ Jack grinned. ‘She shot me. Right between the eyes.’ She had been predictably surprised when he’d gasped back into life five minutes later. ‘She was sitting there, shaking and crying. I was the first person she’d ever killed in the whole war. She didn’t really see it as a good thing that she hadn’t actually killed me.’
The two had had a tempestuous relationship but ultimately, come the end of the war Camille had come back to England with him. ‘Her mother had just died and she had nothing else to do.’ He grinned at Manda. ‘She was a spy and she was a good one. She didn’t want to go back to civilian life, so I brought her back to Torchwood.’ He gave a wide smile. ‘And I got her to marry me.’
Unsurprisingly Camille was pregnant within the year. What was surprising (to Jack) was her decision to make a home somewhere well away from Cardiff and raise her family. ‘This cottage here in Cornwall reminded her or her grandparent’s home near Brest. ‘We were happy,’ Jack said. ‘We were so happy.’
Torchwood was not exactly providing stable employment and Jack got to spend quite a bit of time with his wife and family. ‘We had Amanda really quickly and then Peter came along,’ and then Camille lost another baby when she haemorrhaged and nearly died. They saved her but she couldn’t have any more children.
‘I never knew that,’ Manda said softly. ‘I don’t think that’s written anywhere.’
Jack grimaced. The memory obviously still brought him pain. The two children they did have were so precious and nothing Jack could say would convince Camille to even think of working again. Jack wasn’t sure originally that she would cope with her lack of English living in such an out of the way place with small children. Jack couldn’t be with her all the time and had been reluctant to leave her here but she’d blossomed. She’d had the home she never thought she’d have, she made her place in the community and she had Jack.
The immediacy of the story had Manda rapt. She started to think that maybe she should spend her time here with her small children researching and writing her great grandmother’s biography. She had certainly been an interesting woman.
Camille, Jack told them knew everything about him. ‘Everything,’ he stressed. ‘She was the only other person I’ve loved that I’ve told everything to,’ he said looking significantly at Ianto. I never hid anything from her and as they grew up they hadn’t held anything back from the children. They were family. ‘But,’ Jack said, ‘I knew there was another war coming and there was no way Peter could avoid being in it. It turned out not to be a problem, Jack had been grooming him for a position in espionage almost from when he was old enough to talk. Peter spoke four languages, was a master at puzzles and problem solving and knew instinctively when people were telling the truth. ‘He could have been a professional card player,’ Jack laughed, ‘but a few words in the right ears and he was plucked out of flight school and straight into Bletchley Park.’
Jack had kept his son safe, but he hadn’t been able to protect his women. Seven decades later the grief of that loss still brought Jack to a stop. ‘They were in Cornwall,’ he choked. ‘They should have been safe.’ He swiped his hand across his eyes. ‘I didn’t even know they were coming to London, didn’t know anything about it. I was in France. It was weeks before Peter managed to have me tracked down.’ He jumped up, started to pace around the room. ‘This place was completely different when we lived here.’ His laugh was a little unhinged. ‘This room was the parlour. Camille’s piano sat right there,’ he pointed to the wall, ‘and she had a little desk here under the window. There was a passage way from the front door running straight to a door at the back and the kitchen was sort of tacked on out there.’
Ianto caught Manda’s eye and she got up and went to Jack. ‘Stop talking now,’ she said stilling his pacing with a hand on his arm. She got the feeling that now he’d got going he would never stop. She’d seen that in interrogations, a suspect who started to talk was so relieved at being able to share his secrets that they would give absolutely every detail they could think of. Jack looked rung out and exhausted. ‘Mum will be here soon with the kids. Why don’t you help Ianto get dressed while I tidy up and make lunch?’
When the two appeared later they had obviously both showered and their body language screamed that there was something wrong. Ianto shook off Jack’s helping hand and stalked to the couch on his own sitting down gingerly. Jack turned his back on him and came over to the kitchen. ‘What?’ he groused when Manda stared at him.
‘You two have a fight?’ she asked mildly, intrigued. They’d shown every sign of being a perfect devoted couple until now.
‘Ianto’s being obtuse.’
‘No Jack, I just don’t get it.’ Ianto glared at Jack over the back of the sofa. ‘You don’t do relationships. You said that right? And you’ve made me fight every inch of the way to get more from you than just…’ he gave a huff, obviously unwilling to continue that sentence in public.
‘Ianto...’
‘Yet,’ Ianto continued cutting him dead, ‘you went from the death of Camille, who you’ve just told us you loved desperately for twenty years, to Estelle, who apparently you were also in love with, in under a year.’
Jack hurried over to the sofa. ‘Ianto I was hurting. I’d lost all stability in my world, my family. Estelle helped me find that again.’
‘”She was so beautiful,” you said. You “fell in love with her straight away” and I’m quoting.’ Manda looked on shocked. ‘Doesn’t seem like the actions of a man who has just lost his precious wife and daughter.’ It seemed that Jack had taken up with another woman very soon after Camille had died.
‘How do you know I said that?’ Jack was towering over him furious.
‘CCTV. You told Gwen,’ Ianto glared at him, ‘while I was dealing with Estelle’s body.’ He shrugged, failing to appear nonchalant. ‘I was worried about you, checked the footage. You are nowhere near as clever at hiding things as you think you are.’
Manda would have loved to have heard more of this particular story but she heard a car drive up. ‘Guys,’ she interrupted. ‘I think my mother is here.’
Moments later the kids rushed in.
Lunch was awkward.
Later Ianto and Manda left the table where Jack had Manda’s mother Victoria rapt as he told stories of this mythical family in America. Manda leant her arm and the two of them made their way out to the terrace and the swing seat. The children were whooping around, still in red Indian mode as they hid and exploded out from behind bushes.
‘I hate the lies,’ Ianto said bitterly. ‘I hate the way he can sit there and spout on about the doings of non-existent people and you’d never know he wasn’t telling the truth. He could probably pass a lie detector test.’
‘So what’s really wrong,’ Manda asked softly.
He turned and glared at her but she held his gaze, eyebrows raised. He huffed and deflated. ‘Jack does that too,’ he said, ‘that eyebrow thing.’
‘So what are really upset about?’ she asked again. ‘This woman he took up with?’
‘Exactly,’ he said vehemently. ‘It doesn’t seem right. Here he is telling us that Camille was the love of his life, the only other person he’s told all his secrets to, and then, less than a year after she dies he’s taken up with this other woman that apparently he fell in love with at first sight! I mean… huh???’
Manda got it. She put a gentle hand on his shoulder. ‘You’re worried that he’s told you that you’re the one he loves more than anything and yet you had no idea about Camille and this other woman?’
‘No, I knew about Estelle, but he left her, never stayed with her because he didn’t think she could stand it to grow old while he didn’t. He said he left her to save her the pain of staying with him. The point was, I thought,’ he was getting upset, ‘I thought I was the only one he had ever trusted with the truth. I thought I knew everything about him.’
‘And you never knew about Camille or all of us?’
‘No. And,’ his voice cracked, ‘if Camille meant so much, how could he fall in love with Estelle a year later?’ He turned to her as if she knew the answer. ‘What does that make me?’
‘Ah sweetheart.’ Manda thought about pulling him in for a hug but changed to rubbing her hand across his back as he turned away from her. ‘You need to talk to him, but from an outsider’s point of view I’d say it looks like he really loves you.’
‘He seems to be able to do that at the drop of a hat.’
‘Hardly. Unless there’s loads of others he hasn’t mentioned?’ she raised a questioning eyebrow, and Ianto shook his head. ‘It’s sixty years since the other two.’
He sighed, his whole body slumping and she reminded herself that he was exhausted. All his energies were being channelled into healing and recovering from whatever dreadful things he’d been through when he was tortured. He didn’t have any reserves to fight any new emotional trauma. She silently cursed Jack, what was he thinking bringing him here? Although she supposed Jack couldn’t have expected her to discover his secret. ‘Talk to Jack,’ she said pulling Ianto into a hug, regardless of whether he wanted it or not. After a moment’s hesitation he sagged against her. ‘He loves you. I can’t say whether it’s more or less, better or worse or just plain different from the way he’s loved others, but trust me, I can see it, Jack is absolutely in love with you. Just for now, that’s all you need to worry about.’

Chapter Text

Jack and Ianto stayed another ten days in the cottage and Manda visited every day. She was still absolutely blown away by the reality of Jack Harkness and vacillated between believing he was her great grandfather who couldn’t age and deciding he had to be the world’s greatest con artist. If she stopped to think about it too hard she ended up with a head ache. It was easier to just accept him in the here and now and add a layer of detachment to his stories of the family and his memories of the early days of the family. By the same token the immediacy of his tales of Camille and the childhood of her grandfather brought them to life in ways she’d never experience from diaries and photos. She treasured every gem and Jack so obviously delighted in being able to openly share this part of his past.
She saw Ianto’s health improve markedly and Jack had obviously been able to regain his trust. She was pleased. Ianto got strong enough to walk down to the bay, cautiously clambering down the slope on Jack’s arm to kick along the edge of the sand and take his shoes off and paddle in the shallows. Climbing back up the slope nearly knocked him out the first couple of times but by the end of their stay he was achieving it without too much difficulty.
Manda was present a few more times when Jack changed the dressings on Ianto’s arms and the wounds stayed clean but otherwise showed little improvement. They were just too large to heal on their own. Dressing changes were still distressing and painful but Ianto seemed better able to cope. The doctor in Cardiff, after much whinging from Ianto, finally gave in and allowed him to drink coffee again. His whole personality changed once he was allowed coffee. He was much more relaxed and amusingly, so was Jack. It occurred to Manda a couple of days later that it was probably more than just coffee that the doctor was allowing again when she called unexpectedly one afternoon to find them in bed and Jack rushed out, pulling his pants on and looking flushed. She was pleased about that for them too.
Manda and Ianto would often sit on the swing seat and watch Jack play with the children. He developed a real rapport with them dropping into a complete childlike mode himself and happily playing Indians, pirates and Jack took a starring role in an elaborate James Bond spy scenario.
On their last full day Jack was helping put the final touches on a tree hut which was only actually about three feet off the ground in an old apple tree. There was a lot of banging going on. Manda and Ianto were sitting on a rug on the lawn a few feet away watching as Jack helped Camille attach a piece of roofing iron to fill in the final piece of the roof. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so relaxed and happy,’ Ianto remarked.
Jack stood back and dusted off his hands on his trousers and grinned. ‘There you are, done.’ Young Jack was already inside and he gave Camille a boost to get up too. The two of them sat side by side grinning back out the door. ‘Mum, look at us.’
‘Bravo,’ Manda called. ‘It’s a wonderful tree house.’ Jack turned around and all three of them posed for a photo on Manda’s camera, smiles wide and family resemblance strong. ‘Okay, young ones,’ Jack laughed. ‘You’ve worn me out. I need to go lie down with the grownups.’ Still laughing he flung himself down between the two on the rug, pulling them both in for a hug. He planted a kiss on Ianto before turning and kissing Manda on the forehead. ‘Thank you,’ he murmured. He was a little teary.
‘You’re quite welcome,’ she told him, knowing full well that he was alluding to having his family returned to him. She hugged him back. ‘I want you to come back, at least twice a year and I won’t take no for an answer. We are your family and I don’t want you to lose touch again.’ She grinned. ‘Ianto and I have discussed it and he agrees. This is your home and he’ll drag you here if you won’t come on your own.’
‘No more secrets,’ Ianto said. ‘You have to have somewhere where you don’t have to hide anything and this place is it.’ He clinched his argument. ‘Manda and I agree.’
‘Right,’ Jack said, ‘so it’s obviously a done deal.’
They both grinned at him and reached in to kiss his cheek. Manda started to tickle Jack and noticed Ianto move cautiously away before he got caught up in it. Then it was all on and Jack didn’t play fair. Manda found herself flat on her back as Jack held both her hands in one hand and poked her in the ribs with the other. She screamed. The children shrieked and jumped on Jack and then all four of them were rolling on the ground as Ianto laughed and took photos.
It felt unbelievably good. For the first time, since the death of Dean and her dad Manda felt that life was about more than just surviving. The children were happy. She had her Mum, she had her life here and when the kids were older she could look at going back to work. In the meantime, she would enjoy raising her children in the here and now.
She looked at Jack lying on the grass and laughing madly as the twins tickled him. He was an extraordinary addition to her family. She looked at Ianto laughing at his lover and looking so much better than he had two weeks earlier and realised that here was another special friend. Jack wasn’t the only person who had been hiding their real self from the world around them. Manda was an army intelligence officer living as a solo mother, doing the Kindy run in rural Cornwall. She had nothing in common with anyone in the whole district. In Ianto she had found a kindred spirit, a clever mind who understood her compulsion to catalogue and characterise and who was also a dab hand at breaking codes. She’d shown him her grandfather’s diary and watched as he’d decoded it himself, without the help of the computer programme. Mind you, he did have the benefit of knowing it was a cipher. The man was brilliant. She had both these men in her life now and she was going to miss them terribly when they went back tomorrow.
But it was all right. She had their phone numbers and they’d come back. ‘The twins will be five in November. I think you need to be here for their birthday.’
Jack grinned. ‘It’s a date. Ianto make a note.’
‘Already noted sir.’
For now, life was good.