"Hey, Jack?"

"Yes?" Jack responded, smiling at Ianto's carefully inquisitive tone. The last time Ianto opened a conversation sounding like that it had led to a really fun night.

"Just curious… have you ever, I don't know, 'conjured up' a Rift storm?"

Ok, that definitely didn't seem to be going the direction Jack had hoped. "Conjured… not sure they get 'conjured.' Are you talking about basically manipulating the Rift? 'Cause, no I haven't, and wouldn't, as I think we've all experienced -"

"Yeah, no, not what I meant. Just…." Ianto sighed. "Alright, I've kind of given into my sister's pressing me to come to a family event next weekend and I was holding out a shred of hope that the Rift might go mad that afternoon and send the city into chaos. It would be preferable."

Jack snickered.

"Yeah, hilarious for you, Harkness," Ianto pouted.

"Is it really that bad?"

"Worse. There's a reason I got away from home and avoid it still. I have nothing in common with them and won't even really know most of them as it'll mainly be her husband's family."

"I guess you mustn't be very close to them," Jack said, leaning in on his desk. "I'm pretty sure this is the first you brought up any of your family."

Ianto took up a corner of Jack's desk to sit on. "I might talk to my sister twice a year. That's down from the seasonally we used to talk when I was in London. Seriously, Jack, we had nothing in common even before I wrangled weevils for a living. But she's actually been ringing for the last week, leaving me messages about this picnic do and hoping I'd come. I accidentally answered her call last night and I utterly blanked for a reason not to go."

Jack grinned sympathetically and leaned back in his chair. "So… what if I were to crash the party with Janet as my plus-one?"

Ianto rolled his eyes.

"Go, Ianto. At least try to talk to your family. I know it isn't always easy, and sometimes it's practically impossible, but family isn't easy to come by. You don't want to regret not trying. If you've ever trusted me about anything, trust me about that."

"Might have expected as much," Ianto grumbled.

Jack smirked and patted Ianto's knee. "And, hey… if it's really that bad, I'm just at the other end of a phone. And I've had plenty of practice at being the really difficult boss who drags his poor, suffering employees in on their days off."

"That you have," Ianto conceded. "Alright, fine, I'll go. But you have to swear you'll answer if I ring – and you'll ring me first if there's even so much as a blip on the Rift monitor."

"You have my word," Jack smiled.

"I thought you were off today," Jack mumbled sleepily, watching form his pillow as Ianto took a suit out of his closet after his 6:30 AM shower.

"Yeah."

"So why are you up and dressing for work?"

"Why should I change my routine now just because you're willing to send me to the lions later?"

Jack smirked. "Never saw you go drama-queen before. 'S kinda cute."

Ianto just glared at him.

"You don't usually wear a suit on any other day off," Jack pointed out.

"Yes, but I'll be going out later."

"To a picnic."

Ianto frowned and Jack couldn't help thinking of a child being told he couldn't take his security blanket to school.

"I think, typically, it's jeans for casual affairs like picnic. But then, I am talking to the man who wore a button-down to go camping."

"Jack, keep talking, I'm going to find the instant decaf in the cupboard."

"Ok, I'm sorry," Jack said, properly contrite.

Ianto sighed. "Should I really wear jeans?" he asked.

Jack sat up in bed and reached to pull Ianto into his arms. "You should wear whatever you're comfortable in. Really. But, maybe not the three-piece?"

"You just like me in denim," Ianto said, stroking Jack's messy hair.

"I like you in anything. Or in nothing. Especially in nothing. Oh!" Jack exclaimed as if he'd just cracked their toughest case. "A defabricator! That's so what we need to scavenge!"

Ianto just shook his head, well used to Jack's madness. "Whatever a defabricator is, I get the feeling that you would use it inappropriately at every opportunity."

Jack smirked. "Would not. I would use it very appropriate at every appropriate opportunity."

"Right. I'll wear the jeans," Ianto said. "Maybe it will help me blend in. But I'm wearing a button-down. Some things I won't compromise. And... let's at least have a nice breakfast, yeah?"

"You make it sound like a last meal," Jack said, getting a grope in before letting Ianto get dressed. "I'll make breakfast, ok? You just do whatever it is you do with the coffee and then sit down and find a movie or something. It'll take your mind off. What time do you need to go?"

"I'll leave here around 2," Ianto said, heading into the kitchen. "You will answer if… no, when I ring for help, right?"

Jack wrapped his arms around Ianto from behind, liking shirtless-Ianto-in-jeans almost better than completely-naked-Ianto. "I will answer when you ring for help, but not if you ring 15 minutes after you get there. Give it a chance."

"You'll feel bloody guilty when a Raxacoricofalapatorian has eaten half my family because it ran through the estate 10 minutes after I got there and you wouldn't answer your mobile because you thought I just wanted an easy out."

Jack couldn't help laughing. "The terrible thing is, that's probably what would happen given our track record. Hey… what if I came with you to the family thing?"

Ianto shut his eyes as if looking away from a trainwreck. "No, Jack. This will be best if I just go, talk to a couple people, stay out of the way, hand my niece and nephew money, and get the hell out."

Jack stroked Ianto's arm and kissed his neck before going to the fridge to start making breakfast. He couldn't help feeling a bit sad that Ianto had such a strained relationship with his family, mostly because he knew too well what that was like. And because he knew it wasn't something he could fix or help. All he could do was give Ianto a kiss when he left and anticipate a desperate call an hour after that.

Before the first 15 minutes were up, Ianto was silently begging for an epic weevil outbreak, a stray brontosaurus, a sky filled with Dalek ships… hell, even a visit from John Hart couldn't be as bad as the trial he was enduring.

He'd been greeted with the question of why he was so "dressed up" at least half a dozen times – usually followed by someone asking if or suggesting that he had a date that night. He might not have minded so much if the question was asked more with interest and less with disbelief.

Before a half-hour had gone, Ianto had already been brushed off by his nephew. That wasn't so bad, as he knew he was practically a stranger to the kids, but it did rather gall when David literally ran to him when he handed Mica a fiver (as she hardly took her eyes from a computer game).

It was, surprisingly, nearly an hour before anyone asked where he was living, and if he'd come all the way in from London for the afternoon. When Ianto said he was living and working in central Cardiff, he unwittingly opened a floodgate of derision about how the regeneration had ruined Cardiff and turned it into nothing but toffs and poofs. At one point, his great-aunt – the matriarch of his father's side of the family - proudly declared she had never in 70 years set foot in Cardiff proper. She simply never saw the point in going "all the way out there" from Dinas Powys.

It was around the hour-and-a-half point when a discussion ensued of the time Johnny's uncle, only a few years older, caused him to go half-deaf by clobbering him with a hockey stick. Ianto threw in the towel and escaped to the loo long enough to call Jack.

"I gave it all the chance I could," Ianto said, keeping his voice low, as soon as Jack answered. "Ring me in five minutes with an urgent archival matter, I'm begging you."

Jack chuckled at the other end. "Ok," he said. "Want to meet us at the pub? Things are quiet here, I was going to take the team for dinner and drinks. You know, my typical 'asshole boss' routine."

"Anything, just… five minutes… please no more than that."

"I've got the stopwatch right here. Five minutes… and counting, Mr. Jones."

"I'll thank you later," Ianto said, ringing off.

Ianto went back outside and did his best not to look at his phone as if willing the five minutes to vanish and his phone to ring. He'd made sure his phone's volume was all the way up, so it would be obvious that he had to take a call. As soon as Jack rang (37 seconds late) Ianto turned on his speakerphone.

"Hello?"

Jones. I need you in.

Ianto had a difficult time not laughing at Jack's sudden northern accent. He took a deep breath to quash the laugh and hopefully appear disappointed at being called by the boss. "I'm not meant to be in, sir… day off," Ianto 'protested.'

I know that, Jones! Jack 'snapped.' But there's an unholy mix-up in the damned archives and you're the only one who can get it sorted. I've got the bleedin' Lord Mayor in here first thing Monday for a tour! I don't need having my head bitten off over the state of these files.

"Yes, sir. I'll be there straight away, sir," Ianto said 'resignedly.' Ianto quickly apologized to Rhiannon for leaving so soon and shrugged, saying, "my boss… real tosser when he wants to be. Gotta go!"

Ianto was back in his car and attempting not to break any speeding laws as he headed back to Cardiff to park at the quay and walk over to the pub the team occasionally occupied. He literally breathed a sigh of relief when he spotted his colleagues at a table with a free chair (which just happened to be at Jack's side).

"Late-comer's round!" Owen declared the moment Ianto sat down.

"Gladly. What's everyone having?" he asked.

Ianto was back minutes later with four pints of best lager and a glass of water for Jack.

"Sure you ought to drink?" Jack asked him. "Figured you'd have got tanked up at the picnic. In fact, I thought about swinging by and picking you up."

"I had exactly half a can of Tesco lager," Ianto said. "I couldn't stand any more than that. The lager or the family."

Owen snorted. "I know that feeling," he muttered. "Here's to absence making the heart grow fonder."

"Oh, I can relate to that!" Gwen snickered, raising her glass. "I love my mum and dad, but I don't think I'd want them any closer than Swansea."

Jack glanced at Tosh, knowing she wasn't likely to share the sentiment. He wasn't sure he did himself and gave her a small smile, touching his glass to hers in their own unspoken toast.

"God, the music in here is awful," Owen moaned. "Isn't there something you can do about that, Toshikins? Hack into their music system or something?"

"That's cyberterrorism, Owen," Tosh said.

"You could hack MI5 without blinking," Ianto said.

Tosh gave Ianto a grin and pulled out her PDA, tapping away at it quickly.

"Oh, yeah, you'll do it for teaboy, though," Owen grumbled.

"Ianto isn't patronizing," Tosh smirked.

Owen rolled his eyes. "Yeah, alright."

Gwen shook her head at the two of them.

Jack ducked his head to hide a grin at the romantic tension between them. He surreptitiously glanced over to see Ianto doing the same and squeezed Ianto's knee under the table. Ianto reached over and returned the touch.

Two hours later, four of Torchwood's team were well into their cups. Owen was in the middle of a med school story about smuggling a piece of medical equipment back into the country, going to pick it up at the United Airlines gate at Heathrow, and instead finding a jet designated "United… States of America."

Ianto looked around the table and saw Jack giving one of his most genuine laughs, Tosh leaned back in her chair, Gwen texting Rhys that she'd be taking a cab home soon, and Owen looking jovial for the first time since Diane picked the Rift over him. As different as they all were, Ianto knew they had one thing in common: one another.