Three's a crowd

Chapter 12: Waking up

Jack woke slowly from dreams of barrage balloons and Glenn Miller. He looked at the clock, 6:14am. Five hours, it was a long time since he had slept that long. And he had slept the night before. Over the years, Jack had found that when he was under any serious emotional turmoil, good or bad, he could sleep, sometimes almost as much as a normal person. One of the many reasons Jack liked a little drama in his life. Sleeping gave Jack a chance to process things. When he woke up it was always with a clearer head.

Jack became conscious of his body. There was another benefit of sleeping. Morning erections, nothing quite like them, or what came afterwards. He rolled over with a grin, reaching out to find, nothing. Natasha's side of the bed was empty. Not even her warmth remained.

"Tash." he called out but with no response. "Tash." Still no response, he might have to take care of the situation himself. He reached down and then stopped. Thoughts of Steven came flooding back. He couldn't waste the time. He pulled himself out of bed and walked to the bathroom to relieve himself in a much less edifying way.

Ablutions completed Jack entered the kitchen. "Tash are you home?" He spotted a piece of paper on the kitchen table. It was filled with Natasha's scrawling cursive.

Jack,

Couldn't sleep. Thought I'd get an early start. Ate your chocolates as a midnight snack. Sorry.

See you at work, if I'm not already off chasing one of these nanogene people.

Love ya to pieces,

Tash

xo

She's avoiding me, he thought. Natasha rarely left the house before eight, and even then only with her hair still drying and toast crumbs on her cheek. Jack grabbed an apple and his coat and made for the door. If he hurried perhaps he could catch her before she left the hub.

.................

"Humph." Ianto felt something hit him in the stomach, wrenching him from nightmares of vomiting aliens and chanting children. He felt a weight on his lap. Tensing and readying himself for action he opened his eyes and reached for his... "Mica?"

Ianto contemplated the small girl who had settled on his lap, remote control in hand, flicking through the selection of children's programs on offer. Not as small as when he had seen her last. It was rather alarming to see a child grow a year in what for him had been a matter of days. She turned to face him. "Uncle Ianto?"

"Yes Mica."

"Are you going to live here with us?" Big eyes looked down at him rather endearingly. Perhaps it wasn't that bad to be woken up this way.

"For a while." he replied with a smile.

Mica studied him from a moment and then asked, "Uncle Ianto, when you were in heaven did you see George?"

"George?" Ianto strained his mind, which although normally sharp in the morning was sluggish from lack of sleep on the uncomfortable sofa. Why's she asking me about heaven? Bloody hell don't they shield these kids from anything? Who's George? "Oh, the dog."

Mica nodded her face serious. "Did you see him?"

Ianto sat up and pulled his niece into a hug, kissing the top of her head. Ianto thought about her question for a moment. All he could remember was dying, blackness, then waking up in the shiny new hub. "I don't know sweetie. I don't really remember anything."

"So you weren't in heaven?" Mica asked.

"I don't know. Maybe you can't remember heaven when you're alive. Otherwise there wouldn't be any surprise at the end." Ianto hoped that was true. There couldn't just be nothing.

Mica flicked though channels on the television for a few minutes before settling on some colourful cartoon where the character's heads were too big for their bodies. She squirmed in his arms and looked up at him again. "When I die, will I come back to life again?"

Ianto's head was pounding. It was definitely too early for these questions. However, he couldn't think of a time when they would be easy to answer. "No love. It was just a once off. When you die, which won't be for a very long time, you'll go to heaven. You're not going to come back to life again."

Mica cocked her head to one side. "Are you a super hero then?"

"Yeah Mica, he can fly through the sky on the power of his farts alone and he kills the baddies by flicking poisonous snot balls at them. Isn't that right Ianto?" A large man wearing only boxer shorts appeared in the doorway wiping sleep from his eyes. He turned around and yelled up the stairway. "David, get up you lazy sod. Uncle Ianto's here."

"Morning Johnny." Ianto rolled his eyes and smiled up at his brother-in-law who affectionately ruffled Mica's hair before wandering into the kitchen.

"Uncle Ianto!" A flash of rocket ship pyjamas flashed across the room before a blonde haired boy hit him in the chest, almost sending Mica flying and definitely compounding Ianto's already throbbing head.

"David." Ianto grinned grabbing his nephew for sloppy kiss. He found himself, somewhat unexpectedly, pleased to find himself smothered under the weight of these two children. Although he rarely visited, it was these two children he had thought about during the "incident" with the 456. When Gwen told him how close they had actually been to being taken he felt physically sick.

"Yuck Ianto." David said wiping the kiss off his cheek. "I know you've been dead, so you might not know this, but I'm too old for kisses."

"Is that so?" said Ianto stealing another kiss and earning himself a scowl.

"Yes." said David, determinedly wiping off the second kiss. Still keeping his arms around his uncle David fixed his head in a position just out of reach of any more kisses. "Ianto, Mum said that your job is to catch aliens. If I'm good can I come to work with you? Dad let me go to his work."

Another one for open parenting. Ianto wondered if Rhiannon and Johnny had told the kids how Johnny's cousin had "supported" herself through university or how he and Johnny, when looking for more wine one Christmas, had discovered a "cough cough" cage in his Aunt Jude's cellar.

"No David you can't. Never. Definitely not." Ianto steeled himself against the shrieks of protest. He hoped Rhiannon kept a good supply of aspirin. This headache was threatening to stay all day.