Title: Bred in the Bone (1/?)

Author: Emma

Characters: Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones, Andy Davidson, Toshiko Sato, others

Rating: Starts PG, but hey, it’s got Jack and Ianto in it!

Disclaimer: Oh, please. If I owned them, would I let some of those idiots write the scripts? And if I were making any money off them, would I be where they could find me?

Summary: Andy Davidson must embrace his inheritance in order to protect Jack and Ianto’s daughter Gwen

Author’s Note: So, we know Ianto is special. Hey, I made him into a TARDIS/Time Lord hybrid! But there are other special Welshmen out there… This story takes place three years after Evolution.
Author's Note: This is an AU where Gwen and Owen were killed by Gray. So if you want to know why Martha is married to Rhys and Jack and Ianto have a CP and two adopted daughters, you may want to read Evolution first.

Author’s Note: The title is shamelessly stolen from Robertson Davies’s magnificent novel. It’s also an old saying: what’s bred in the bone will out in the flesh.

            For every question there are two answers: the simple one and the truth. Take me. When someone asks if I’m Welsh, I’m likely to answer, with this accent, you need to ask? Most people, even those that have Talent enough to see, will believe what they want to believe. They look at me and see a pleasant, unprepossessing bloke with a nice smile and they don’t look any further.

            The truth is more complicated.

            If being born in a place makes you a native, then I am Welsh, as were my father and grandfather before me. But there are other things, bred in the bone, that go beyond birthplace. You can turn your back on them, as my grandfather had, or try to outrun them, as my father had, or ignore them, as I did, but sooner or later they will claim their due, and God help you if you’re not ready.

            Mine presented their accounts in full on a pleasant spring afternoon in Pontcanna. It was sunny and warm and the breeze showered lilacs down on the tiny piece of lawn where Ianto and I were putting the final touches on the new playhouse while Benjamin Asher, Jack and Ianto’s handyman-bodyguard, pissed himself laughing. Jack, being Jack, had ordered a replica of a slate roof cottage big enough for a gaggle of three year olds and promptly turned it over to Benjamin to sort out. Ianto, being Ianto, had to make sure all the details were perfect and insisted on doing the job himself.

            Me, I had gotten drafted on my day off. Story of my life, really.

            Not that I minded. Little Rosie was an adorable tyke, a tiny version of Jack with Ianto’s beautiful eyes and mannerisms. Most people who saw her with her tads assumed some sort of fancy in vitro procedure. Well, they weren’t far wrong. Her birthday was that weekend, and the playhouse was her present. So as not to spoil the surprise, she was spending a few days with her aunt Tish and uncle Thomas at Woodstall Grange with all her cousins her age. They would be bringing her back Saturday morning.

            “Is everyone staying for the weekend? I can put Mike up, if you’d like.”

            “That would be good.” Ianto said, head bent over the curtain he was stitching. “Poor guy needs some time away from horses and little girls by now.”

            Soon after their wedding, Martha and Rhys sprung the news that not only were they expecting their own child, but they were adopting two of the girls we had rescued from the Archangel nutter, MacKenzie. Mind you, they were only taking two because Thomas Woodstall insisted on adopting two himself. A year later, Thomas married Martha’s sister Tish, who had taken on Rhys’s old manager job at the farm, and she promptly got pregnant. The Harkness-Jones children were awash in cousins these days.

            Thinking back on it I realize that if I hadn’t been so determined not to pay attention to things that were right under my nose, I should have known even then that something was stirring. Rhys, who I suspect has more than a touch of Talent, had asked me to name his children. He and Martha were just back from hospital, bringing their son home, and still arguing fiercely over names for all three. Throwing up his hands, Rhys’s turned to me.

            “You name them, Andy. You have more sense than all of us put together.”

            Before I’d given it a thought, I had walked up to them. “Briallen,” I said pointing at the girl Rhys was picking up, “Telyn,” pointing at the girl Ianto was holding, and “Darwen,” pointing at the boy sleeping in his mother’s arms.

            It was a true Naming; I felt it in the way everyone agreed without question. But it was more. I had named them Primrose, Harp, and Oak. Those were my clan’s heraldic badges. By our rules I had claimed them as mine, and I had done it as instinctively as breathing. The teaching ballads told of such magicks happening right before the Kings went to war; but there were no more Kings, and I had rejected my family’s traditions as my father and grandfather had, and the danger signals went right over my head.

            Just as we were hanging the last curtain – two grown men on their knees, trying to wriggle themselves in spaces meant for three year olds – we heard a commotion in the kitchen. We grinned at each other. Gwen and her beloved papa were home.

            When they’d added Rosie to the family, Jack and Ianto had devised ways to make sure Gwen wouldn’t feel jealous or left out. One of them was having Jack pick her up at school and share tea and confidences. By now even the Prime Minister knew not to call in the late afternoon unless the world was literally coming to an end. I could have told them Gwen wasn’t at all jealous of her little sister, but I judged that she enjoyed the conversations. Jack has this habit of answering her questions honestly, no matter what the subject.

            “Tad! Uncle Andy!”

            The kitchen door bounced open and the Harkness-Jones tornado hurtled out, followed by her grinning Papa; Mrs. Asher must have told them where to find us. I watched her as she swarmed over her tad. Physically Gwen was a stunning child. Tall for her age, with golden-brown hair and pale green eyes, her delicate build and Asian features were all Toshiko if one knew how to look. Her intelligence and exuberance more than matched her looks. It was all to her fathers’ credit that Gwen wasn’t a conceited little miss, as she had been getting compliments from total strangers all her life.

            She and I had taken to each other from the day I walked into Jack’s office  to find the feared Torchwood leader trying to soothe his teething daughter. His unhappy, loud teething daughter. I had rubbed her gums with my finger, funneling a little power down to the roots of her budding teeth, a trick I had learned from watching my mother deal with the kids she cared for. At age four, when she discovered fairy tales, she had declared me her prince. Perhaps I should have heeded that sign also.

            “Uncle Andy. I wanna show you my present!” She threw herself in my lap and wriggled until she was comfortable, the same way she had done when she was two. “Wanna see?”

            “Sure, princess.”

            She pulled a small box out of her pocket. My mouth went dry as I looked at it. I ran my fingers along the carvings and shuddered at the wrongness of it. I opened the lid. The box was crammed full of red rose petals.

            I looked at Ianto and Jack. Ianto had gone blank and still, but I could almost smell his terror. Jack… Jack was worse. He looked hopeless.

            “Who gave you this, Gwen?”

            “A new girl in school. Her name is Jasmine.”

            “And do you like your present?”

            “Noooo… It feels bad. Is it a bad present, Uncle Andy?”

            “I think so, sweetheart. Would you do me a favor?” At her nod, I placed my hand over hers and put as much power into my voice as I dared. “Promise me, as your prince, that you won’t accept any more presents from anyone you don’t know. Not even a nice girl in school. And promise me you won’t accept if she invites you to go with her. Anywhere, no matter where.”

            “I promise, my prince.”

            As she uttered the words I felt the geas take hold. And I knew there was no going back.