wanda1969

Title: "Come Fly With Me"
Rating: This chapter’s safe for work, I think.

Spoilers/Disclaimers : Torchwood, belongs to the BBC and RTD, I’m just borrowing the characters- I own nothing here, nor do I make any money! So please don't prosecute!
Summary: Torchwood characters in a story set in the glamorous world of international travel! Fluffy, romantic and cheesy in the extreme, I suspect!

A/N: Please point out any errors- I’ve lost the will to re-read this yet again!

In which the barbeques goes better than Ianto thought in some ways… but he gets to have a chat with Rhiannon. Thanks again, everyone who’s reading and commenting!

Chapter list: http://wanda1969.dreamwidth.org/1863.html

Chapter 20

***

Ianto arrived at his sister’s house on the ‘notorious’ (as it had been dubbed by walesonline) Cromwell Estate on the outskirts of Cardiff, and paid the taxi driver. He had every belief, totally justified, that the evening ahead of him would involve more alcohol than would be legal if he were to use the hire car.

He could hear music blaring from inside and found the front door was unlatched. He pushed it open and stepped inside to find a group of small children chasing their way around the hall and stairs. Finding his opportunity, he weaved between them towards the kitchen cum dining room. If Rhi, Johnny or his mam were going to be anywhere, it would be there.

And he was right. His mam was perched on a stool, leaning against the breakfast bar with Rhiannon on the other side, an iron grip on an almost full bottle of Lambrusco.

Two pairs of eyes swivelled uncertainly towards him.

“Ianto! You’ve worn the shirt! I knew it would suit you!” Ianto knew that Rhiannon had probably plied her with, at the most, half a glass of the weak wine; his mother didn’t drink regularly and it didn’t take much to make her ever so slightly inebriated.

“Mam’s right, that shirt does suit you,” his sister said as she slid off the stool and offered him a bottle of beer. “Get some food- Johnny’s out back burning sausages or something.” She waved at the kitchen door as she took the offered bag containing Johnny’s birthday present.

Stepping into the garden, he found Johnny standing over the smoking barbeque holding a pair of tongs. A couple of the men standing with him looked familiar from other parties, and Johnny’s stag night.

“Johnny- Happy Birthday. I’ve left your present with Rhi.” Ianto announced himself.

“Oh cheers, Ianto! Thought you’d got lost!” His brother in law cheerily abandoned the blackened sausages and burgers to give him a manly hug. As he released him he eyed the beer in his hand. “Got a beer, then?”

Ianto nodded and looked over towards two of the men who were busily trying to rescue some burning chicken legs, as Johnny quickly introduced him to his friends, before he returned to smother the flames which had suddenly engulfed the right side of the grill. “Bollocks!” Johnny mumbled.

***

“…we’ll have to see what the new Ferrari does.” Ianto said, draining his bottle and dropping it into the recycling bin. The conversation had turned from Rugby to the upcoming Formula 1 season. “I’ll just get another beer,” he said going back into the house.

His mother was sitting at the far end of the kitchen-diner with Mischa and some of her friends, but Rhiannon was still fussing around the breakfast bar, filling bowls with crisps and snacks, helped by a heavily made-up blonde whose tight pink T-shirt was emblazoned with the word ‘Pussycat’ in diamante, and an only slightly more conservatively dressed dark haired woman.

Rhi spotted him out of the corner of her eye. “Ianto! Just the man. Do you remember Mari?” She indicated the brunette, before gesturing to the blonde. “And Leanne?”

Ianto indeed remembered them both from his sister’s wedding reception, where Leanne’s renditions of the Macarena, followed later by a dangerously disastrous attempt at ‘The Running Man’, had been the second most talked about events of the day. “Leanne, Mari- good to see you.”

The two women none too subtly looked him up and down, and Ianto reflected on whether he should have worn something a little less dressy for the party, realising he’d dressed just as he would have done had Jack been there.

“Rhiannon tells me you’ve been travelling all over the world now,” Mari gushed. Ianto and Lisa had only met Mari briefly at Rhiannon’s wedding, but it was clear that his sister had told her friend about Ianto’s break-up and new job. Leanne soon drifted towards the sitting room, seeing that her friend had beaten her to the most eligible man at the party.

The Welshman used his best avoidance tactics during the ensuing conversation: Mari regaled him with the story of how her husband had run off with the barmaid from their local pub, and Ianto gave her the sanitized version of his break-up with Lisa. He avoided the more salacious aspects, citing ‘differences’ and ‘work’as the reason- he really couldn’t be bothered to bring Anthony into the discussion. The ‘Lisa and Anthony Debâcle’ almost seemed like a distant memory, he’d been so caught up with Jack in the recent months. He realised that whatever resentment he felt towards his ex had evaporated as Jack filled the space in his life that she’d left- in a way that Lisa had never filled that space in the first place.

“Mam!” A shout came from the hall.

“Shit! That’s Euan. Back in a minute.” Mari fled towards the hallway, and, inwardly, Ianto thanked his lucky stars for the reprieve.

***

Each giving their mam a hug, Ianto and Rhiannon waved her off as she got into the taxi taking her back home. It was late now, and the party’s make-up had changed- most of the guests with children, including Mari, had already left to go home to put them to bed. Johnny and his mates had long since given up on the barbeque and were now slumped in the sitting room playing with David’s PS2, and were debating whether the Wii would require too much energy and co-ordination at this time of night. All in all, the day hadn’t been as challenging as he thought it would be; his mam had been too preoccupied with Rhiannon and her grandchildren and their friends to ask him too much about his personal life, or to berate him for his present career.

Ianto ended up sitting back in the, now otherwise empty, kitchen with Rhiannon.

“Mari’s a nice girl… and she really likes you.”

“She’s got a kid…”

“At our age, most of the girls out there have kids, Ianto!”

“Yeah, I know… Her living in Cardiff kind of rules her out, even if that doesn’t.”

“You know, the way you work these days, you could move back, and I don’t mean just for Mari, you have what- four, five days off between shifts? And I know you could get cut price travel to Heathrow and back. You could even work for a different airline down here.”

“Rhi… I’m perfectly happy at Torchwood…” he started, but was distracted by a beeping from his waistcoat pocket. He retrieved the ‘phone and smiled at the display.

Rhiannon noticed the same soft smile from yesterday; in fact, it was the same smile that she’d noticed earlier on at the party when he’d received another message.

“Hey, sorry, Rhi. I’ve just gotta call this one back. Won’t be a minute.” He stood up and went into the garden, scrolling through the mobile’s address book.

Rhiannon took the opportunity to stand at the back door to have a cigarette. She’d cut down on her habit over the past couple of years but it was always at parties that the combination of alcohol and socialising lowered her levels of willpower.

Ianto was nowhere to be seen; probably standing at the side of the house for a bit of privacy… As the music in the lounge changed to something a little quieter she heard her brother’s voice drift over; sure enough he was standing round the corner. She couldn’t stop herself from eavesdropping on the one-sided conversation.

“…It’s going OK… No, I haven’t been fixed up with hot Welsh girls…” he laughed. “Well, Rhi did make sure I was reacquainted with Mari… She’s the divorced one… Well, I was tempted…” Rhiannon recognised the teasing tone in his voice. “I summoned all my reserves and resisted, though! ...No, I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about there…”

So that was the reason Ianto was avoiding all her attempts to fix him up with Mari, she thought; he was obviously speaking to a woman. And that would explain the texts, too, and the way he’d smiled when he’d read them.

“So I’ll see you at the airport… I guess it’ll be around half one by the time I’ve collected the luggage… I’ll speak to you before then… You know I miss you… OK, I’ll speak to you later, Jack. ‘Night.”

She cursed to herself when the music changed again, making it hard to hear the last sentence or two, but she was sure she heard him finish with the words ‘I miss you…Jackie’. She stubbed out her cigarette and sat back on her kitchen stool. Moments later Ianto returned.

“Sorted?”

“Yeah...” Ianto said and reached for the bottle he’d left on the breakfast bar.

Unable to contain herself Rhiannon took a drink and asked, “So, then. Who’s Jacqueline?”

Ianto’s brows knitted together in puzzlement. “Jacqueline?”

She smiled. “Look, I couldn’t resist having a fag when you went outside to make that call…”

Eyes widened as Ianto realised she’d probably overheard his conversation- and managed to jump to the completely wrong conclusion.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me? I wouldn’t have tried to fix you up with Mari! Poor girl- I told her you weren’t seeing anyone… I think she’d got her hopes up. She’s always fancied you.”

“Oh…” Ianto was speechless as his mind went through the possibilities of what she could have heard. No, he was sure that whatever he’d said had been totally innocent, although he vaguely remembered saying ‘miss you’ and using Jack’s name.

“So when are we going to get to meet her? You could have brought her up this weekend.”

Silently, Ianto’s mind went through some of the possibilities- deny everything, say ‘yes, she’s called Jacqueline, but, no, it’s not that serious…’, or he could just tell the truth. He wasn’t sure whether it was the alcohol or the way that Jack had seemed almost hurt recently when Ianto had reacted to the news that Owen knew full well what was going on between the two of them, but the latter choice suddenly seemed the most appealing option. Option ‘a’, and more so option ‘b’, might have had their advantages, but he knew that neither would work out in the long run. Either, he’d end up being introduced to Rhiannon’s single friends on every possible occasion, or he’d have to ‘finish’ with Jacqueline before she was invited to the next family gathering … or, sometime in the future, he’d finally find the guts to tell them all about Jack, and they’d know he’d been lying anyway…

“It’s not like that, Rhi… it’s not Jacqueline… it’s… different.” He struggled to find the right words. This might have been easy if he had had the time to prepare some kind of eloquent or coherent speech, but instead he found himself trying to explain the situation without any preparation at all.

“Like what? You know me and mam- and Johnny- will always support you. Look at Lisa- you know what some of the neighbours in Newport said there.”

Ianto thought back to the first time he’d brought Lisa back home. His family had accepted her, no questions asked- even his dad, who was about as Labour as you could get, but equally (and sometimes confusingly) conservative with a small ‘c’. Some of their neighbours- especially the older ones- hadn’t been quite so accepting.

“Rhiannon, just for now, please, I’d be grateful if you could keep this to yourself… It’s not Jacqueline- it’s Jack. I’ve been seeing a man…”

He waited for the inevitable reaction, and wasn’t disappointed.

“You’re joking! You always went out with girls… You’ve gone ‘bender’?”

Ianto rolled his eyes and looked at the ceiling for a second and sighed. “Yes… No… It’s just Jack…”

“Oh my God!”

“I think I could do with one of those cigarettes,” he said looking at the packet on the bar.

“I think I could, too. C’mon- we’ll go outside,” she said, and stood up, tucking a bottle of Lambruso under her arm.

Rhiannon lit her cigarette and inhaled deeply, handing Ianto the lighter. They were stood almost shoulder to shoulder, leaning against Mischa and David’s trampoline. “You always had girlfriends… I never even suspected you were…interested… in men…”

“Men? You make it sound like it’s all men. It… it isn’t. I’m not gay. At least I don’t think I am. It’s just him. And if it helps, I didn’t even suspect I was… interested in Jack at first…”

She nodded, seeming to take in his words. “How long has it been going on? Was it why you and Lisa finished?”

“I’d never even met him until after Lisa and me split-up,” he paused. “It’s been about six months…”

“Six months? How did you meet?”

“At work…”

“Ah…” Rhiannon said. “I guess that makes sense. You always hear that a lot of the stewards are… that way inclined…”

“He’s not a steward, Rhi.”

She looked slightly confused. “Oh. What does he do, then?”

“He’s the pilot…”

“The pilot?” Rhiannon seemed vaguely baffled as if, for some reason, it had never occurred to her that a pilot might be bisexual or gay. “I’ll give you one thing, Ianto- you aim high!”

Ianto laughed as he took a drag on his cigarette. “Yeah, well… I didn’t do it consciously.”

“So… what’s he like?”

He gave a relaxed smile. “Tall, dark… blue eyes…”

Rhiannon leaned in, nudging his shoulder, and winked. “Handsome…?”

Raising his eyebrows, he blushed. “I think so…”

“But he’s nice to you, isn’t he?”

“He’s nice, Rhi…”

“Is it serious?”

“I don’t know… I’ve never been out with a guy before… and we’re not broadcasting it.”

“I’ve seen the way you look when he texts- it was him, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah… I just don’t know how it all works sometimes…”

She looked at him questioningly.

“It’s strange…after going out with women. I’m afraid you lot can be pretty easy to read sometimes.” He gave her with a nervous smile. “Sometimes it’s hard to see how…serious men are about going out with other men. There’s this idea that men aren’t serious, I guess.”

“But he’s not seeing anyone else, or anything?”

“God, no. He’d have to be some kind of time traveller! We’re at work together most of the time, and this is the longest we’ve been apart since we got together… if you don’t count work- and even then we’re together most of the time. But, like I said, we’re not making this public knowledge.”

“So no one at work knows?”

He shook his head. “Apart from Owen, the co-pilot, no. And he’s not told anyone. At least for the moment. ”

“But you are happy? Both of you? You do know that’s all that matters to me and mam, don’t you? ”

“I’m hoping that’s going to be the case when mam finds out…” He looked down and studied his baseball boots. It was one thing telling his sister about Jack, but it was another thing to actually speak to his mam about it all. “I can’t remember being this happy- not even with Lisa. Sometimes I’m glad we broke up.”

“’Course mam’s going to be happy for you. And him? He’s happy, too?” There was an undertone in the last question, which Ianto knew was Rhiannon’s way of asking how committed Jack was.

“…He seems happy.” He laughed, “In fact, he sounds like he’s getting a bit bored this weekend… he might even be bored enough to get a bit of tidying up done.”

“It all sounds serious to me… especially if you’re talking about bloody housework!”

“Yeah, well. Someone’s got to do it.”

“Sooo- am I going to get to meet this Jack, then?”

“Dunno…”

“You know we’re coming up to Mother’s Day soon? And it’s your birthday next month. Mam’ll go spare if you leave it so long again before you visit…you could bring Jack…”

“Oh, God…” Ianto took yet another drink of beer, then wiped his hand across his forehead.

“Unless he’s not comfortable about meeting family…”

“No- that’s just me. It all still feels pretty weird. He doesn’t have any close family, but I’ve met his friends. I guess it’s ‘cause he’s older than me…he’s had more time to get used to this.”

“Older? How much older?”

“Ten years or so- he’s forty.” Ianto saw the sudden worried expression on Rhiannon’s face.

“I know what you’re thinking, Rhi. There’s no age ‘thing’…I’ve got more in common with Jack than I ever had with Lisa. And, no- I’m not being taken advantage of. Far from it…” Ianto felt a confident glow from the beer.

His sister turned to look at him.

“Y’know, on our first…date…he took me to see Rhod Gilbert. Lisa was never that keen on that kind of thing. ”

Rhiannon laughed. “Well, yes. I can just see Lisa thinking Rhod Gilbert was a waste of money when there were handbags out there…!”

He snorted slightly. “Was I the only one who didn’t see that?”

“Maybe,” she said jokily, looking at her wine glass. “But to the really important question…Is he good in bed?”

Unfortunately, Ianto had decided to finish the last mouthful of beer in the bottle he’d brought outside with him. He spluttered a little, and had to wipe his mouth with his free hand.

“Right!” He wiped his hand on his jeans and pushed himself up from the trampoline. “Rhiannon Davies, if you’re deluded enough to think I’m gonna talk to my sister about my sex life, you’re sadly mistaken. And I’ve gotta go for a pee.”

The movement made him feel lightheaded. Ianto took a few steps before he turned back and grinned cheekily. “By the way,” he winked. “He’s fucking brilliant! Bordering on the avant-garde...”

As he turned, he heard his sister first gasp, and then giggle.

***

To be continued…