The Torchwood Hub was empty and quiet. Jack was alone apart from the Pterodactyl and the cryogenically frozen people. Jack liked it like this. It was peaceful. It was fairly late on a mid-December night and the streets above were, due to a combination of the hour and the cold, almost totally deserted.
Jack was so deep in thought, tilted back on his office chair, when Ianto arrived he hadn't heard the main entrance open or close. Considering the fact said entrance being similar to that of a bank vault, this was quite a feat. He, in fact, didn't notice Ianto's presence until the other man came to embrace him from behind. Jack tilted his head back to rest on the other man's chest and brought his right arm up to stroke the nape of his neck affectionately.
"Hi." Jack said affectionately.
"Hi." Ianto replied.
"What are you doing back?"
"I got lonely." Ianto said, coming around to sit on Jack's desk.
"Oh, you did, did you?"
"You're not happy to see me? I can leave."
"I can't think of a single context, that wouldn't result in your death, where I wouldn't be happy to see you."
"You od romantic you."
"Very old."
"Jack."
"Ianto."
Jack expertly undid Ianto's slate grey tie laying it gently on the desk and opening first two buttons of his crimson shirt kissing the point where his collarbones met.
"You're beautiful, you know that?"
"I'm nothing special."
'I mean it. I've lived hundreds of lives, and I'll live hundreds more. Nobody has ever been as beautiful to me as you are and nobody ever will be."
"I bet you say that to everyone."
"No, actually I don't."
Jack crossed to the old gramophone witch sat unassumingly in one corner of the office. Ianto was fairly sure he was the only one other than Jack who was aware of its presence. Jack put on an old record. It was distinctly festive with jazz undertones but Ianto had never heard it before. It began with a waltz.
"Dance with me." Jack said extending a hand. Ianto took it and they began to move with the music. Slow and close.
When the eerily familiar vocals came in Ianto tilted his head to look at Jack.
"Is this you?"
"Yes. I made it with some friends while I was in Melbourne between the World Wars."
"I didn't know you'd ever been to Australia.'
"I've spent quite a lot of time there actually, especially in those days."
"How did the record come about?"
"I met Jack Robinson and Kate Southon, the one singing with me, at the battle of Fromelles. And wasn't that the worst blood bath I've ever seen. People were dropping like flies. Most of them Australians. That idea they have about being cannon fodder is well justified I tell you poorly dressed the ANZACs but every one of them good men, worth a dozen from anywhere else and that doesn't include the extraordinary ones. I'd read about The ANZACs of course but being there and seeing it was something else. I happened to run into Jack in London in twenty-nine or thirty. He'd followed a lady detective, Phryne Fischer halfway around the world. It was Phryne who commissioned the record. Ridiculously affluent she was, dirt poor growing up though. I ended up following them back, I was due a change of scenery. A bit before Christmas Phryne had the idea for the record. There weren't very many copies made, one for everyone on it and about a hundred for a hospital fundraiser."
"How many of you were on it?
"Let's see. Me, of course. Jack, Phryne, Kate. That's four, then there was Mac. Doctor Elisabeth MacMillan, a formidable woman, totally brilliant. Then Dot and Hugh Collins, Jack's Constable and his wife. And then Jane Ross, Phryne's ward and Charlie Beaumont, Mac's niece. So nine of us, plus a twelve piece band who were all somehow connected with Phryne, I think they were the house band at some jazz club she liked. No they weren't, they were the house band at Florentino witch was the centre of Melbourne's gay scene at the time."
"There was a gay scene in nineteen thirties Melbourne?"
"There's always a gay scene Ianto. You just have to find it."
"Good to know."
"What, in case you ever find yourself time travelling without me?"
Ianto huffed out a laugh and they danced out the waltz in affectionate silence. The music changed to a rendition, in parts, of Twelve Days of Christmas. Jack identified each vocalist. The Partridge in a pair tree was Charlie. Two turtle doves was Jane. Three French hen was Dot. Hugh had four calling birds. The other Jack had five gold rings. Six geese laying was Phryne. Jack had Seven swans swimming. Kate had eight maids milking. Mac had nine ladies dancing. The Jacks and Hugh had ten lords leaping. Charlie and Jane had ten drummers drumming and Mac and Kate had twelve pipers piping. The next song was a beautiful duet between Kate and Mac of Auld Lang Syne.
YOU ARE READING
It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas
FanfictionA series of short and festive Doctor Who morsels to get in the mood for Christmas. ******DISCLAIMER****** This is Fanfiction. I own almost nothing in this except the plot and The Eastick (and a couple of other characters but most of them belong to p...