Fandom: Torchwood

Characters: Jack, Ianto, OCs

Author: m_findlow

Rating: PG

Length: 2,893 words

Content notes: Torchwood isn't mine, but the OCs are.

Author notes: Written for Challenge 263 - Magic and Challenge 192 - Tree (Bingo square)

Summary: Jack is having trouble with his daughter's latest friend.

'Where are you going, pumpkin?' Jack asked, watching Eleri skip through the kitchen, decked out in her bright pink raincoat and matching purple wellingtons. She looked good enough to eat, Jack decided, finding it hard to keep the smile from breaking out on his face.

'Just going out to play,' she replied, continuing to skip towards the door to their back garden.

Jack took one peek out through the window and frowned. 'But honey, it's raining outside.'

'That's why I've got my coat and wellies on, Daddy!' She said it as if that was the most obvious thing in the world and that he probably should have picked up on it.

'But raining isn't really good playing weather,' Jack said, persisting. Jumping in puddles afterwards was totally fine, but being out in the elements whilst they were still hard at work was something else entirely. He'd long since decided that he didn't want to be out in the rain unless he absolutely had to be, and given the Welsh climate, that was quite often enough. Choosing to go out in it, even appropriately clothed, was madness.

'Why don't you just stay inside?' Jack offered. 'We can colour in if you like, or bake cookies.' Those reports in his office upstairs could definitely wait until after cookies, or pretty much anything for that matter.

Eleri frowned right back at him. 'But I wanted to play with Sara. She'll be waiting for me.'

Jack's brow furrowed. He'd been trying hard to keep up with all the names of the kids at school, not to mention their parents. Somehow his life had become one long stream of PTA meetings, bake sales, sports days and concerts. It was far more exhausting than chasing aliens for a living, and that hadn't let up much either. By the time he and Ianto had prevented the end of the world, bathed and fed three seven year olds and put them to bed, they were ready for bed themselves. He wracked his brain for a Sara but came up empty. Perhaps she was a newcomer to the area. 'Is she a new friend from school?'

'No,' Eleri replied.

'Soccer club?'

'No.'

Ah, wait, he had it now. 'She was at that birthday party you went to the other week, wasn't she?'

'No, silly. How could she go to a birthday party?'

'I don't know,' Jack replied, feeling thoroughly confused. 'You tell me. You say she's waiting for you? Out in the garden?' He peered through the grey rain, which was now more of a persistent drizzle, but there was no child out there, thank the gods. Not that he knew how a child could sneak into their back garden without him knowing. He was certain he hadn't heard the door bell all day, even when he had been trying to work. Ianto would have mentioned if anyone had a play date.

'Can I please go out, Daddy? She'll be getting lonely.'

'You still haven't told me who she is and where she is.'

'Out there!' Eleri huffed, pointing through the glass sliding door. 'The tree!'

'Sara's a tree?'

'Uh huh.'

'Honey, trees aren't people.'

Eleri glared at him, affronted by the suggestion in a way that made her look so much like Ianto with that scrunched up little frown on her face, that it was almost laughable. 'I know what a tree is. She's a magic tree, though. She's my friend.'

Jack could sense the onset of a migraine if he didn't start making sense on all of this. 'How come Sian and Tom don't visit the magic tree? I never heard either of them talk about playing with Sara.' Even saying it out loud sounded silly.

'Because you have to believe in magic to visit the magic tree. I told them but they don't believe me. It's okay, though. Sara only likes to talk to me, anyway.'

Jack looked at the tree she was referring to. It was an old oak that had been here longer than they had. It had been here when they'd bought the two storey terrace house several years ago and there'd been no reason for them to want to pull it out. It was lovely to sit under on a nice summer's day, and the kids loved collecting the acorns that dropped from its branches every year, leaving them in little piles all around the house. He was fairly certain however that it had no special properties of any kind, let alone the ability to talk. 'Have you been friends long?'

Eleri seemed to ponder the question as if the answer were very important to get right. 'Only a little while. It's lonely out there, but not anymore, because now we play together.' She pressed her small hands to the glass and looked up at him with those blue puppy dog eyes. 'Please, Daddy?'

He couldn't very well say no. She looked like she might burst into big fat tears if he did. He could never deny his two little girls anything. God help him later in life when they wanted to go out and mingle with boys rather than just to play out in the yard. That would be a different proposition altogether. 'Just for a little while okay?' he promised. 'I don't want you to catch cold out in the rain.' He flipped the lock on the sliding door and pushed it open just enough for her to slip through. He watched her the entire way across to the very back corner of the yard, where she seemed to settle in a nook under the large tree, its leafy canopy sheltering her from the rain almost completely. Even from this distance he could tell a smile was on her face.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when a sound came from behind him, spinning around to find Ianto setting an empty mug on the counter, before firing up the coffee machine.

'Refill?' Ianto asked, holding up his mug and giving Jack a questioning glance. 'I don't know about you, but I'm never letting my paperwork get this far behind ever again. This is what, my third coffee of the afternoon? Thank God for the team at the hub keeping a lid on things while I catch up. I hope you're having a better job of it than I am.'

Jack gave him a brief smile. At least he wasn't the only one chained to his laptop. 'I'd love one,' he replied, never saying no to a coffee made so expertly and with so much love.

Ianto peered over his shoulder. 'What were you staring at out there, anyway? You looked like you were a million miles away.'

'Just Eleri, out playing in the rain.'

'I hope you didn't let her out there without her raincoat.'

'Of course not,' Jack replied. He'd happily take credit for Eleri's good habits even if he had nothing to do with them. Ianto was forever nagging about things like coats and scarves. He gave the window another frown and then turned back to his husband. 'Do you know anyone called Sara? She's apparently a friend.'

Ianto placed a mug carefully under the coffee machine spout, watching the thick black liquid begin to fill Jack's mug. 'It rings a bell,' he admitted, 'but I'm finding it hard to keep track. Did you get an introduction?'

Jack gave a half-hearted little shrug. 'Sort of. Apparently Sara is the oak tree out in our yard. It's magic, so I'm told.'

Ianto swapped mugs, filling his own. 'Please Jack, don't insult my intelligence. There's no such thing as a magic tree.'

'Then why does she insist there is? I'm only just realising now that she's out playing in the yard all the time lately. Why is our little girl talking to a tree?' A look of panic flashed across his face. 'You don't think maybe she's been infected by something, do you? Something alien we brought home by accident?'

Ianto quirked an eye at him. 'Alien?'

'Yeah. There's tons of parasite type creatures that love to burrow into people's brains. What if it's causing her to have these, er, delusions? I should get Jez over here to take a look at her straight away.' Just contemplating it make him feel sick inside. He began to move across the kitchen, heading for his phone when Ianto intercepted him.

'Relax, Captain. Stand down. I'm almost one hundred percent positive there's no alien involvement.'

Jack was unable to keep the stunned look from his face. 'Then what?'

Ianto gave a little smirk, as if Jack had missed something obvious. 'It's just kids, Jack. They have imaginary friends. It's just a phase she's going through.'

Jack folded his arms and furrowed his brow. 'Imaginary friends?'

'Sure. Didn't you ever have an imaginary friend as a kid?'

Jack frowned. The whole concept was completely alien to him. 'Why would I? I had real friends. Wait, don't tell me you had one?'

'Inky.'

Jack suppressed a laugh, though it was difficult to do so. 'Inky?'

Ianto heaved a sigh. A tinge of red was creeping across his cheeks at the admission. 'I was seven.'

'And you played with Inky?' Jack asked, beginning to tease him.

Ianto paused awkwardly unsure just how much he should admit to. 'We... talked, among other things. Look, I turned out okay. It's just a thing. All kids have them at some point. It's a sign of a good imagination.'

Jack gave him a look of pure skepticism. 'Well, if you say so.'

'I do. It's fine. If I thought our daughter was in any kind of danger don't you think I'd be the first one rushing to do something about it?'

That was true, Jack had to admit. As a pair, they were probably the most fiercely protective parents in Cardiff. And with good reason, he supposed. They alone knew the things that lurked in innocent leafy streets, just waiting to cause trouble. 'All the same, I think I might check it out.'

Ianto poured milk into the two mugs before giving Jack a challenging look. 'You're not dragging her to the hub and stringing her up to all those devices. I put my foot down if it comes to that.'

'I meant the tree,' Jack clarified. 'Unless you have any objections?'

Ianto passed him his mug and pecked him on the cheek, seemingly satisfied. 'Whatever makes you happy, cariad. Just don't let her play out there too long. It's still cold.' He left with his own mug, leaving Jack alone in the kitchen.

'Is there anyone not telling me what to do today?' Jack muttered.




'Eleri, sweetie,' Ianto called out a while later, 'come inside now. It's getting too wet out there.' He already had a towel ready for her when she came in, divesting her of her rain-slickened coat and boots, toweling off her shoulders where the water had dripped off. Whilst he was still drying off the very tips of her damp pigtails, Jack streamed past him, headed for the yard.

'Jack where are you going?'

'Out to check the tree.'

'It's bucketing out there now,' he replied, watching as the rain came down in earnest. He'd heard it coming down heavier and heavier, returning downstairs to make sure Eleri was back inside the house. It would be just like Jack to get distracted and forget she was out there.

'No time like the present, Ianto,' Jack announced. He was already flipping open his vortex manipulator, readying it for the task ahead.

Ianto ruffled Eleri's head with the towel so she couldn't hear what he said next, even though he hissed it in a low whisper. 'You realise you're overreacting completely, don't you? There is nothing special, or magic, about the tree.'

'And when I prove it, you can mock me all you like.' Jack thrust open the door and headed out into the pouring rain, stomping across the spongy grass, his coat providing only basic protection against the rain. He was like a dog with a bone.

'Is Daddy okay?' Eleri asked, watching him march out towards her special tree. 'I don't think he likes Sara.'

'Go wash your hands and I'll make you a hot cocoa,' Ianto replied. There was no sense in her witnessing Jack's madness first hand. He left the towel by the door for when Jack came to his senses, but he wasn't about to hang around and put up with it. Some of them still had real work to do. Jack's stubbornness was more than he could cope with some days. He shook his head. 'Magic alien trees,' he muttered. 'Honestly.' Even their lives weren't that insane.




Jack let out a vexed sigh at breakfast as Ianto set his mug of coffee down on the table. 'What's wrong?' he asked, seeing the look of annoyance on Jack's face as he scowled at the clear sunny morning outside. It looked like it was going to be one of those perfect spring days. Certainly not a day for being grumpy.

'I don't get it,' Jack said, his gaze never leaving the window.

'Get what?' Ianto replied, talking a sip of scalding hot coffee. 'Pythagoreum theory?'

Jack turned his head and narrowed his eyes at Ianto who was trying to be funny. He wasn't in the mood for it. 'The tree,' he clarified. 'Sara. Whatever you want to call it.'

Ianto slid into the chair opposite, cupping his hands around his mug. 'Not this again. That was two weeks ago and you're still chewing it over?'

'I don't know what else to do, Ianto. I've tried using every piece of analytical equipment we have on that stupid tree and nothing.'

Ianto raised a questioning eyebrow at him. 'You have? When was this?'

'On and off, whenever I had a spare minute.'

Jack felt the burning glare from his husband. 'You don't have spare minutes, Jack. I should have known you couldn't let this go.'

Jack felt himself getting defensive. Just because Ianto believed all of this silly imaginary friend malarkey didn't mean he had to ascribe to it. They dealt with aliens for a living. It was the obvious explanation for it in his mind. 'No rift energy, no Nelson seepage. Not so much as a quark that registers as outside of the acceptable range,' Jack reported, refusing to be cowed. 'I really think maybe we should get Jez to take a look at Eleri.' He continued on before Ianto could interject with his protests. 'Nothing invasive. Just the full body scanner. The kids love it when we let them scan themselves.'

'Only because we know there's nothing wrong with them,' Ianto argued. Letting them wave at images of their own skeleton was one thing, but this... Then again, maybe Jack had a point. What was the harm in being one hundred percent sure. And if it would stop all this nonsense with Jack trying to analyse their back garden for alien interference, so much the better. 'I suppose,' he relented, 'but we take all three of them there. No sense scaring her thinking it's anything more than a bit of fun.' Hopefully that was all it would turn out to be.

'Absolutely,' Jack agreed, nodding emphatically. 'I'll go round them up.'

Jack entered the living room where the three of them were curled up on the sofa in their pajamas watching cartoons. 'Hey guys, what's say we go to the hub?'

'But it's Saturday cartoons on,' Sian argued. 'Can't we go later?'

'Well, sure. As soon as they're over we'll go.' Jack turned to daughter number two. 'Eleri, is that okay with you? You don't have a play date with Sara planned, do you?'

Eleri scrunched up her face at him. 'I don't play with Sara anymore.'

Jack paused. 'Why not?'

'She's been gone ages. She wasn't real anyway.' She pulled the cushion closer to her and went back to watching the television as if it was no big deal.

'Oh. Okay, then. Well, that's a shame,' Jack said, feeling flummoxed. 'So, uh, after cartoons then, yeah?'

'Yeah. You can stay and watch with us if you want,' Sian offered, though never taking her eyes off the screen as she said it.

'Okay.' At least that was that. This whole stupid business of trees and people who didn't exist was over, even if it meant having to admit that Ianto had probably been right all along about the imaginary friend thing. He went to flop down into the space between Eleri and Tom, wrapping an arm around his daughter.

'Don't sit there, Dad!' Tom cried. 'You're sitting on Gareth!'

'Gareth?' Jack sat up straighter and looked around but there was no one.

'He's watching cartoons with us,' Tom replied. 'Can he come to the hub, too?'

When Jack's gaze fell on Ianto standing in the doorway it was a look that was verging on bursting out laughing. This was clearly well earned revenge for having poked fun at Inky, the invisible friend. Apparently, or perhaps fortunately, there was no magic talking tree. There wasn't even a Sara. But now they'd adopted a Gareth. Hopefully he wasn't a magic talking sofa, Jack prayed. Getting that to the hub would be challenging. He sighed. Oi... This whole parenting business was a lot harder than it looked.