New Horizons 12/?

[missthingsplace]

Title: New Horizons
Author: missthingsplace
Parings/characters: Jack (Jack/Ianto Rhys/Gwen) OC's: Dafydd, Angela, Christopher, Charlie
Disclaimer: I don't own Torchwood or any of the characters ... unfortunately, just borrowing them for a while.
Summary: After losing Ianto and Gwen in the same attack Jack accepts a request by the queen in Washington DC
Spoilers: None
Warnings: Angst, slash ... the usual.
Rating: NC17 for series. This chapter PG

Previous Chapters: http://missthingsplace.livejournal.com/211867.html#cutid1

The following morning after Jack had his morning shower he made a cup of tea and opened the curtains wide letting the early morning light flood into the apartment.

Sitting down on the sofa he couldn't miss Ianto's journal still sitting where he had left it on the coffee table, he resisted it for a good five minutes knowing that reading it would make him sad but in the end he reach for it and thumbed through the pages.

Jack smiled to himself as he read the entry for the fourth wedding anniversary, he could remember the day as if it was yesterday.

Jack is just amazing, not only did it arrange for us to have two whole days off work after checking and rechecking the rift monitor that nothing major was going to happen he booked us into a very swish hotel in London.

I say room, it was a suite, huge bed in one room, bathroom and even it's own little living room. I told him I didn't want to leave it for the whole two days.

Jack surprised me yet again with theatre tickets for that evening, after a quick thank you in the shower we headed into the west end for dinner and then the show before rushing back to the hotel and straight into bed, where we stayed for the whole night and most of the following day.

We only surfaced to shower and order room service as by then we were both starving, man cannot live on sex alone apparently, we did try.

Jack let out a loud chuckle to himself before reading on.

Even while we were eating we were sat close, touching each other and talking. The conversation somehow got round to children again, I don't know which of us brought it up but we made a decision of sorts, we would wait a couple more years and then try and find a way to reverse the effects of Jack's inhibitor.

He tells me it's chemical, that it self replicates in his body and as he had it when he died the first time it's always present when he comes back to life, it's part of him now. Once he starts taking it he'll have to avoid dying, or he'll be back to square one and when he does fall pregnant dying is a big no no.

Oh my god, Jack being pregnant, I'm thinking it as if it's normal? What has Torchwood done to me? Oh hell, I don't care, if I get to have a child with the man I love I don't care one iota that Jack's a man having my baby.

Maybe I can get him to change his mind and try for one sooner, I'll wait and while and then maybe bring the subject up again. I want a child with him more than anything else in the world at the moment, wow.

“Why didn't you tell me?” Jack spoke to the diary, feeling so sad that he had never known just how Ianto had felt on the matter, he'd never pushed the issue when they had spoken about it. “If I'd known I would have agreed, I wanted it just as much.”

Jack closed the diary and carried it to his bedroom, pulling the case out from under the bed and stashing it inside telling himself he was bringing himself nothing but heartache by reading Ianto's thoughts.

He wiped a stray tear from his eye, grabbed his keys and headed out the door. Jack wasn't surprised to find Charlie arriving as he did, having called him the day before as asking to come that morning, telling him he had a proposal for him.

“Morning.” Charlie greeted him cheerfully as Jack came into view. “I'm a little early, I hope that's not a problem.”

“No, not at all.” Jack replied, leading the way through the concealed door and down the steps into the base. “Tea, coffee?”

“Coffee would be great thanks.”

Charlie followed Jack into the kitchen area and sank into one of the comfy chairs as Jack made coffee for Charlie and tea for himself, handing a mug to him before sitting down himself.

“So, what's up?” Charlie asked, sipping his hot coffee.

“I'd like to offer you a job, here.” Jack told him. “We need someone else, someone to help with the day to day running of the place.”

“Dogsbody?”

“No no, okay, I'm going to be honest with you but I need to to keep this between us, the others don't know yet.” Jack replied.

“Sure.”

“Once they are fully trained I'm heading home, back to Cardiff. I need to be with people I love in a city I love.”

“Who's going to lead them, if you leave?”

“Dafydd, from what I've seen he has the potential to make a great boss but he's also the medic so he's going to need someone to help with all the day to day stuff, paperwork etc.”

“How long, till you leave?”

“I think a couple of months, at the most.”

“It's a tempting offer, I know the pay is a darn sight better than the FBI pays.”

“Danger comes with the job, it's the least Torchwood can do to pay their employees well.”

“When would you want me to start, I'd have to give notice, two weeks is normal.”

“There are ways around that, Torchwood has lots of benefits.” Jack grinned.

“Keep talking.”

“No one but the queen has jurisdiction over us, no one can stop us going anywhere or doing anything we need to do to get the job done, not the FBI or the US government.”

“And?”

“We catch aliens, sometimes to help them get home, sometimes regrettably we have to kill them but there are hundreds of species out there, some boring as hell, some brilliant, some gorgeous and some damn ugly but it's never boring.”

“Shame you'll be leaving.” Charlie replied.

“I need to go home, deal with my feelings properly, I can't do that here.” Jack replied, completely missing the look Charlie gave him.

“And no one should deny you that.” Charlie told him.

“So, you're interested then?”

“More than you know.” Charlie replied.

“Right, consider yourself an employee from tomorrow, I just need to make a call to the FBI and all will be sorted.”

“They won't be happy.”

“Good.” Jack grinned, getting to his feet and holding out a hand to Charlie.

Charlie followed suit, standing up and taking Jack's hand and shaking it firmly. Jack didn't register that Charlie kept his hand in his a little longer than he needed to and Charlie wondered when he had started finding himself attracted to his boss to be.

Jack however didn't miss the look Charlie gave him as he said goodbye to him at the door but he brushed it off as his imagination and headed to his office to check his emails before the others arrived.

Angela arrived first bearing a rather large box of doughnuts, setting them on the counter in the kitchen area before switching on the coffee machine as the other two arrived together.

Walking across the base to meet them Jack spotted the doughnuts straight away and grinned, he missed the delicious Danish pastries that they often indulged in for breakfast in Cardiff but doughnuts made a good substitute Jack decided as he dipped into the box and lifted out the most decadent looking one he could fine and demolished almost half of it in one bite.

“Delicious.” Jack mumbled through his mouthful as Angela passed him a mug of tea.

“Maybe you should go easy on them.” Christopher chuckled and then realised what he had said to his boss. “Sorry.”

Jack's hand went automatically to his stomach, feeling the small swell that hadn't been there when he had left Cardiff and realised he was right. He had eaten a lot more takeaways and comfort food since Ianto had died, he'd have to cut back and try and eat a bit more healthily again.

“Sorry.” Christopher repeated, seeing the look on Jack's face.

“No, you're right.” Jack told him. “Forget it. Okay, from tomorrow Charlie will be joining the team.”

“We need another person?” Dafydd asked. “Not that I have anything against Charlie.”

“I need someone to help with all the day to day running of the place, paperwork, filing and we really need to start an archive of sorts as things are bound to fall through the rift that are of alien origin but not actually aliens.”

“Sounds like a great idea, I hate paperwork.” Angela replied.

“No, we're not going to fob all our paperwork onto Charlie, we do our own but there will be certain things that he will handle himself.”

“And he's okay with the job description?” Dafydd asked.

“Yeah, he's as excited about coming into contact with aliens are you all were.” Jack replied. “We've barely seen any yet, a weevil and a Hoix are nothing compared to what's out there waiting to fall through the rift.”

“You did promise there were some cute aliens out there, now them I'd love to meet.” Christopher told him.

“You've not experienced anything till you've had sex with some species ... not that I have in a very long time I might add!” Jack told him, making them all chuckle.

“You want to tell us about them?” Dafydd asked.

“Maybe one day.” Jack replied. “Okay, it looks like it's going to be another quiet day today, lets make the most of it and finish up on the outstanding paperwork for the Hoix, I'm hoping we get a chance to send it back through the rift soon.”

“I should go and feed it breakfast, along with Tim.” Christopher replied, placing his empty mug in the sink and heading towards the lower level and the holding cells.

“Angela, if you could work more on the rift predictor programme, it's getting there but it needs some tweaking, having a heads up when something's coming through is a real bonus.”

“Consider it done.” Angela told him, she was enjoying expanding her already impressive skills.

“Dafydd with me, lets find an area to designate as the archives.”

“There's an area at the far and of the cells, large empty room we could use.” Dafydd replied as they walked towards the area mentioned. “We could add some shelves, filing cabinets and the like.”

“And it's thinking like that that'll get you my job.” Jack grinned as they entered the room Dafydd had talked about. “Perfect for now.”

“Too small?”

“It might become that way, but for now it'll do.” Jack replied. “Can I leave it to you to arrange for the items we need? We'll have to rely on Charlie to deliver them though, I don't want to have to retcon delivery men if I don't have to.”

“Sure, and I'll call Charlie first for an address to have them delivered to.”

“Thanks, right I need to call the FBI and tell them I'm stealing another member of their organisation.”

“That could be fun.” Dafydd chuckled.

“Oh I hope so.” Jack grinned.

They left the room and made their way back past the cells, both of the residents seemed rather placid as they passed having just been fed and headed back out into the main base.

Dafydd headed to his workstation to find what he needed on-line, pulling out his mobile to call Charlie as Jack went back to his office, not even realising that his hand was resting idly on his stomach as he called the FBI about Charlie.

TBC

A/N Next chapter is written and will be posted upon my return :)