Fandom: Torchwood

Characters: Jack, Ianto, OC

Author: m_findlow

Rating: PG

Length: 1,144 words

Content notes: none

Author notes: Written for Challenge 221 - Diary

Summary: Thoughts are private no matter whose they are.


Jack couldn't help but pick up the small book lying on one of the kitchen counter stools. He'd never seen it before, but now that he had, he was keen to take a closer look inside. He hadn't gotten past the first page before Ianto joined him in the kitchen, Eleri right behind him. She saw what Jack was holding and went pale.

'Don't touch that!' his daughter yelled. 'That's mine!'

'I know,' he said. 'It says "Eleri's diary" all over the front of it, with pictures on the inside cover of, who is that again?' he said, holding them up for Ianto to see.

'Clancy Morgan,' Ianto replied. 'He's an actor.'

'He's hot!'

Eleri snatched the diary off him, looking ten kinds of furious, an expression which was rare.

'Leave my stuff alone.'

'Then don't leave it lying about, sweetheart,' Ianto said, trying to diffuse the escalating scene.

'I didn't leave it lying about. I was coming to get a glass of juice before Dad decided to come in and start going through my stuff.'

'I barely touched it,' Jack protested.

'I don't go through your private stuff.'

Thank the gods, Ianto thought. No one needed to see that, least of all their two teenage girls. What they did in the privacy of their own bedroom was nobody's business.

'I promise we won't go through your private stuff,' Jack said. Ianto checked to see if Jack had his fingers crossed behind his back as he said it. He was a preternatural liar of the highest order.

'Whatever,' she huffed, clutching the book to her chest and disappearing down the hall towards her room with it.

Jack let out a long breath. 'No one's ever going to deny she's yours, Ianto,' he said. 'Secret keeping, diary writing, fiery Welsh temper.'

'That's right,' Ianto replied, feeling proud. 'Don't mess with us. And you shouldn't have been snooping, by the way.'

'But it was right there!' he argued. 'Did you know she was keeping a diary?'

'Of course I knew. I'm the one who cleans up their rooms.'

There wasn't much you could hide from a Torchwood agent, let alone their Director. That didn't mean he went around looking for things, just that they weren't particularly well hidden. If it wasn't dangerous or harmful, he let it slide, putting it right back where he'd found it. What teenager didn't have stuff they didn't want their parents to know about? These days however, most of it was tucked away in their internet history rather than physical items. Torchwood software was good at nutting out when they'd been looking at something they shouldn't be. They'd already had to have "that talk" with their son Tom. A diary was nothing by comparison. He wasn't even tempted to read it, knowing that it would be nothing more that the fanciful flights of a teenage girl who would later come to regret most of what was written on those pages. Any one of them would be embarrassed to know that their Dads were in on whatever it was they were trying to keep hidden.

'Don't you want to know all about what boys she fancies, and what really happens at those sleepovers that are supposedly strictly "no boys"?' Jack said, putting little quotation marks with his fingers around the words "no boys".

'I trust our girls,' he replied. 'They've seen enough crazy stuff that they can handle themselves. Boys will be the least of our problems as they get older.'

On that, Jack had to agree. He'd hoped that none of their kids would want a bar of what they did, working for Torchwood. They'd seen their Dads come home in all sorts over the years, from mysterious illnesses, to bizarre transformations, but the older they got, the more interested they became in wanting to know everything. It was just part of their lives and they weren't about to shy away from it. It certainly made conversations around the dinner table interesting.

'You know, I still keep a diary,' Jack said, leaning back against the kitchen counter, quirking an eye at his husband as he flipped the kettle on.

'You keep a diary?' Ianto asked, incredulous at the fact. 'Since when?'

'You know, you're not the only one who's cornered the market on salacious little journals.'

Ianto scoffed. He hardly considered the contents of his diary salacious, not that Jack would know since he'd never managed to uncover it. Any of them, since there'd been dozens of them over the years, though they'd petered off in recent years. There simply weren't enough hours in the day anymore for gathering thoughts in private. Admittedly there were a few comments here and there that would have most certainly piqued Jack's interest, the least of which might have been questions surrounding Jack's physique and its abilities. It was all by the by these days. He knew perfectly well what Jack was physically capable of, and that Jack knew how he felt about it.

'Besides, it's not a diary exactly,' Jack clarified, passing him two mugs as Ianto set them on the bench and dropped teabags into them. 'More of a Captain's Log.'

Ianto laughed at that. 'And what it is that you're Captain of these days?' he teased. It was nice to remind Jack where he sat in the Torchwood hierarchy occasionally. Jack teased him often enough, usually starting such comments with the words "glad it's not my problem anymore...".

'I might have my own views and notes on certain "projects" we work on, that don't need to be voiced into official reports.'

'Oh, do you now? And is there a reason why you're not including these details?' Ianto came closer and wrapped his arms around Jack's waist. 'As your immediate superior, I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist.'

Jack leaned in close until his lips were almost touching Ianto's ear. 'Time lines,' he whispered.

Ianto gave him a playful slap. 'You always use that excuse!'

'It's true, though, I swear! I can't be messing up the future.'

'Two immortal men with three kids, in charge of a global organisation that deals with the extraterrestrial on behalf the entire planet,' Ianto replied. 'I think you already messed it up.'

Jack grinned and pecked him on the cheek. 'All I did was time lock the entries. When the world is ready to know what I know, all my reports will become official record.'

'And that's all this is, your Captain's Log? Purely work related?'

Jack gave him a wicked grin. 'Wouldn't you like to know?'

Ianto fixed him with a firm look. 'I would, actually,' he said, knowing full well Jack would only kiss and tell when it suited him.

'Rest assured, those entries will never become official record,' Jack promised. 'A guy's gotta have a few little secrets of his own, doesn't he?'