Spoilers: set well after CoE and MD, tiny spoiler for S1 of The Sarah Jane Adventures
Warnings: mild child endangerment
AN: Set in Straysverse. Fills trope bingo square: Free Space

"Alice is going to kill you. Then she's going to kill me."

"Alice never has to find out."

Ianto sits back, dumbfounded by Jack's chutzpah and knowing he oughtn't be. Jack can't possibly sit there suggesting this, and think he will somehow get away with it. More to the point, he can't seriously believe that Alice will remain blissfully unaware instead of discovering what they've done and forbidding Steven from spending any unsupervised time with either of them ever again.

Gwen says, "It's not a terrible plan. Steven's the perfect age to attend the school. He doesn't even need to go inside. We just have to get the two of you into the classrooms on a tour whilst we take readings."

Ianto turns on her, demanding, "And you'd be fine with sending Anwen in there?"

Her chin is thrust in a very familiar pose. "Yes, I would. But she's two years old. Steven is eleven."

"He'll be perfectly safe. He'll be with us." Jack forces a smile. Alice has made her position clear that she's not ever going to forget how unsafe Steven was the one time it mattered. But Alice is going out of town for a week, and Joe is out of the country. Steven has permission to stay with them. Ianto has no intention of jeopardising future visits, much less of sending Steven into the slightest chance of harm.

"We'll pose as inspectors," says Ianto. "That always works."

Gwen says, "We tried. Albert and Lois got turned away at the door, and we're sure they're being followed. That's why they haven't been in to the Hub."

Ianto blinks. No-one mentioned this. His current job means spending most of his time in the business front of their new operation, tracking down leads on tech and artefacts stolen from the ruins of their old base. He spends more of his days browsing jumble sales and Internet auctions than he does chasing alien wrongdoers. It's good, solid activity for the sake of the team and the planet, but on days like today, he feels like he's back at the start of his time here, out of the loop and ignored by everyone going about their real work.

Jack sees the hesitation on his face before Ianto can put on a proper mask. He spins the monitor of his display. "I mocked these up," he says, which means he asked Albert to do it but doesn't like to say. "I had pictures of Steven from when he was little. Now we're in them."

Ianto can't identify the unsettled feeling he has, flipping through the set of rigged-up snaps. Two are just copies of what Alice already has at her home, but there are 'family' photos here as well. He, Jack, and Steven in a nice posed photograph from a studio. Pictures of one or the other in a candid moment with a clearly younger version of Steven, and even a photo they'd never taken of them as a couple. One startlingly good snap of the three of them goofing off for the camera. "I don't even want to know where the originals of that one came from," he says, but he pauses there. Everything together creates a well-constructed lie of two people very much in love, and their son.

"That reminds me," Jack says. "You should tell Rhiannon to change her system password."

Gwen starts to laugh, but covers it in a cough at Ianto's glower.

Admitting defeat, he asks, "Have you started the paperwork trail?"

Jack nods. "Lois has been planting documents. We can pull them as soon as we're finished. Since Steven's used to calling you Dad, you're listed as his biological father. You and I had a civil partnership three years ago after seeing each other for five years. Birth records, death records, everything's been set up."

It's weird, listening to Jack describe their fabricated history with clinical detachment. Jack has pretended to be married to his colleagues at least a dozen times, even Gwen twice. Ianto never has, though, and certainly never with Jack. Pretending won't make it any more real. (Again, see Gwen.) He is stupid enough to have imagined even a pretend marriage would be more romantic than poring over digital records to check for typos.

"What is he going to call you?"

"He can keep calling me Uncle Jack. It's easier for him to remember, and it's not far-fetched."

Gwen says, "We'll have wires on all three of you. Eyes and ears wherever you go. I'll monitor Steven myself." Ianto shoots her a grateful look. He likes the other members of the team - to be precise, he likes Lois and Dr. Pol; Albert's an arse - but he'll breathe easier knowing Gwen is the one watching Steven.

"Alice will kill you," Ianto repeats. But he knows he's in.

"Mum will kill you." Steven dons the nicest shirt he packed. This is an interview, not school, and having him show up in his normal uniform will create more questions.

"Then don't tell her," Jack says. He fiddles with Steven's tie until Ianto bats his hands away and does it himself, then he straightens out the mess Jack has made with his own. This brings Ianto's fake wedding band into view, which is not helping with the nerves.

Steven asks, "Why are we doing this?"

Ianto says, "We have reason to believe the children at this school are being used to aid aliens working on a project that isn't good for the rest of the planet. A friend of ours has seen this before." Sarah Jane was kind enough to send her files, but her son and his friends are too old to go undercover.

Steven frowns. "Are they being hurt?" He's not afraid, Ianto is proud to see. He's weighing his options. He's had to grow up fast in too many ways, and one of them is learning to take on the troubles of the world so others don't have to. He is going to be a hero when he's an adult, no matter how much the adults in his life want to protect him, and that makes Ianto want to protect him now even more.

"We don't have to take you in," he says, sitting next to Steven on the bed and ignoring Jack's sudden look of concern. "We can tell the headmaster you've got a stomach bug. We just need to be inside."

"But it's better if I'm there. The other kids, they'll be safer the faster you see what's going on, and if you don't have to explain why I'm not there, you'll get inside easier."

Jack says, "That's the plan. And you will be in absolutely no danger at any time. You'll stay in the room with us. Torchwood will be monitoring everything from the camera in your tie." The speech is made with the faintest hint of worried desperation. Jack's trying to convince himself. He'd be happy to wrap Steven up in a blanket and never let him get hurt again, just as he'd like to do the same with Ianto. But he can't. None of them can. This is the best way he has to prove to himself he's not going to get both of them killed again.

"What time is the appointment?"

"Half ten."

"Can we have lunch after we're done? Maybe Frankie and Benny's?" He's already thinking about after the mission, about spending time with the two of them pretending to be a family, or at least, pretending to be a different family: one with two dads and one hundred percent less death by alien menace. God, that actually is an attractive thought for the rest of the day, Ianto thinks. Tomorrow they can go back to playing pretend that Jack is his uncle instead of his grandfather, and Ianto is his godfather instead of the bloke who adopted him for a year.

"Of course," Ianto says before Jack can beg off. "And if you're good, we'll go to the cinema later."

"Fantastic."

Jack says, "Do I get a say in any of this?"

"No. Steven, gather your things. Let's go spy on some aliens."

"Yes, Dad."

The End
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