Chapter Text
"I told you… it doesn't matter" Ianto said yet again, then added "Stop making me repeat myself. You know I hate that!"
"Sorry."
"Jack."
"Yep… OK" Jack held his hands up in surrender, walking from the room feeling no less better after the heat of anger coming off Ianto told him the forgivingness was not really there yet.
.
.
"I don't' know why you are asking me for help. After all... my wonderful relationship knowledge has done me so well" John Hart snorted with amazement as he watched Jack pacing.
"But why did you keep feeding it to me?"
"Because you kept asking."
Jack finally saw the enabler John was and the effect he had not only on the relationship with Ianto, but the one between themselves. "You know… I sometimes think you do not love me at all. You sabotage me."
John was clearly surprised by this one "What?"
"Yeah… yeah you sabotage the fuck out of my relationships. Is it jealousy? Or the fact you are not happy and single you would prefer me to be too?" Jack asked "I mean… John I do love you. Always will but… not like him. There has never been nor will there ever be again… anyone like him."
John did not have an answer for that, perhaps unsure himself what that answer even was.
Was he jealous?
And who of?
.
.
"Ianto?"
"In here"
Jack followed the voice to find their daughter in the bathtub, her eyes wide and her mouth open as she gobbled at nothing, like she was trying to catch her breath.
"What is she doing?"
"I don't know. Sometime I think she is talking but she only does it in the tub. I do wonder, since she was born in the water, if she is trying to be a fishie" Ianto crooned "And really… I think she is making faces at me because I make them at her without realizing I am doing it as I wash her. She is mugging me off, aren't ya."
Ianto made some more faces an she responded, Jack finding himself laughing as he eased himself to the floor beside Ianto "I am sorry. I took a long walk after my talk with John and I think.. I think he is feeling left behind or something. He sees how happy I am and it's not with him. He is hurt and I was only too happy to let him sabotage me. I should have not only been watching my drinks, I should have been watching him. Of course this must hurt. Look at her. So healthy, so fine. You and me, this family. All the things he cannot get."
"But that's the thing. He can. He just had to realize that its not with you" Ianto sat back and let Jack ponder that as he took the baby into his hands, taking over as Ianto rose to gather the towel and get ready to take her out. It did not occur to Jack that Ianto already had everything ready, could do this with his eyes shut and he has simply let Jack have the moment.
"Daddy is a stinker…. Yeah" Jack crooned as he stroked her hair back from her face and she blinked at him slowly, then grinned up at him "Awwwww… I was that cute once."
"Still are sometimes"
"Am I Tiger?" Jack sighed as Ianto knelt to take their daughter into the towel. God, but he was handsome. So handsome.
"Sometimes I want to kill you with my bare hands… who can say how the pendulum swings." Ianto winked then rose, leaving Jack to laugh on the floor.
"Ianto, so.."
"No. No more. If you insist on repeatedly apologizing, I shall scream. I know how you feel, it comes off you in waves of guilt and fear. We shall move on with the understanding that you will NOT fuck things up again… well, not this way. I am sure you will find another way to fuck things up but…. Never mind. I am getting used to you and your silliness." Ianto handed over a now dry baby "Her clothes are laid out in the bedroom if you want to dress her, I will get her bottle so she can feed and then sleep."
Jack settled in his chair with the little one now warmly dressed in the cutest little rabbit onesie he had ever seen, her little long ears all floppy on the hood as she sucked like a trooper. "See that? Likes her food."
"Yes. See? Clearly Harkness in that respect so stop looking for what is obviously there" Ianto leaned over and kissed Jack's forehand "Next time I will lamp ya one."
Jack had more thinking to do.
.
.
That night at dinner Jack cleared his throat "I want everyone to know that I am well aware that I was acting like a fuckhead, and I am sorry for the way I acted. I have no excuse except for the overwhelmingly obvious fact that I can be a dick sometimes."
"Jack…"
"I know. I am not apologizing to you anymore… I am apologizing to everyone else. I messed up their lives too. I will do better, I will try to think forward and next time I stuff up, remember that I do not intend to."
"Tad has done a lot for us… for me. I might be a Boeshanian due to you, but my mother was not Boeshanian. She was Itallianish. Remember? You made her so angry sometimes. When she left it felt like you pushed the start of the letting go… but… if Ianto leaves us I will die. I don't want to lose anyone else."
"Me too. I like it here and I love Tad" Stephen agreed.
Ianto smiled softly "Thanks guys. You know I love you all too. And it's OK. If he ever stuffs up so much that I leave him, I will take you too. Bit of course, if it is that bad I might just kill him and bury him in the desert out there."
Giggling started as Jack gaped, the kids starting to eat again now that they knew things were going to be OK. Jack glanced at the baby asleep by the fire, the at his kids eating the healthy food and then at the man who had changed his life. It was time he pulled up his pants and changed his own life.
Because if Ianto ever left him… he WOULD die.