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aviv_b_artworkTITLE: Chapter 70 - Attitude
AUTHOR: Aviv_b
RATING: Chapter 70- PG
CHARACTERS:: Ianto, Jack, Aaron, Alonso
DISCLAIMER: Not mine; Aunty B's and RTD's
WORDS: ~ 1655
SUMMARY: A new side effect of Aaron's illness is driving Ianto crazy. Will this spell doom for their relationship?
Title is from: Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. The amount of work is the same. ~Francesca Reigler
Ianto's Journey begins here: http://aviv-b.livejournal.com/1972.html
All Chapter are linked.
“I’m retiring from the Marines. If you quit Torchwood we could travel the world together.”
Aaron came out with this startling statement about six months after he came home from the hospital. Ianto could appreciate Aaron’s desire to retire from the Marines. Given the seriousness of his recent heart attack and stroke, there was no chance that he would be allowed to continue to field train new recruits. And that was Aaron’s passion, taking young raw recruits and molding them into strong efficient Marines. Not to mention kicking their arses on the Commando Course.
About a week before he was to return to duty Aaron was called into his Commanding Officer’s office in London and was informed that he was being reassigned to classroom teaching. He understood the decision, but the thought of standing in a classroom day in and day out, teaching the History of the Marines course was depressing. They weren’t even assigning him to weapons training. No he’d be consigned to teaching the course that was the least engaging and important to training a Marine. The course was generally assigned to doddering elderly officers well past their prime. In prestige, it ranked below even the basic math and English language course
So while Ianto supported Aaron’s decision, it was the expectation that Ianto would quit his job that astonished him.
‘Aaron, I just can’t walk out on Torchwood, especially when Jack made saving your life a top priority. He practically shut down operations while you were in the hospital.’
Aaron mumbled under his breath and went into his study. Ianto sighed. This was another change in Aaron’s personality that had appeared only recently. While spontaneity was nice, Aaron would come up with crazy ideas and want Ianto to just agree with them. Two weeks before Aaron had wanted to buy a cottage on an island off the coast of Scotland. The month before that, he wanted to buy some land and open an animal sanctuary for disabled horses.
Aaron didn’t seem to feel that his lack of knowledge about horses would any barrier to running a successful sanctuary.
‘Aaron, how many pounds of grain would you feed each horse,’ Ianto asked. Aaron didn’t know.
‘How much land would we need to buy to keep let’s say 25 horses?’ Aarons reply was “don’t know.”
And when Ianto gently pointed out that opening a horse sanctuary without at least a rudimentary understanding about horses was a recipe for disaster, Aaron didn’t argue. He just mumbled under his breath and went into his study.
‘Duw,’ Ianto thought, ‘if he’s at loose ends now, its only going to get worse when he retires.’
The more Ianto thought about it, the more he was afraid that a bored and unhappy Aaron could spell real trouble for their relationship. Ianto didn’t mind that Aaron would be around all the time, that change was welcome. But Ianto was fearful that Aaron would concoct even more outlandish ideas if he had too much time on his hands.
Later that week at work, the topic came up as he ate lunch with Jack and Alonso. Jack had inquired about Aaron’s health and all Ianto could do was laugh.
“Is something wrong?”
‘Jack, honestly I just don’t know. He’s had some personality changes, they really aren’t any big deal, but it’s hard to get used to them.’
“Like what?” Alonso inquired. After Ianto explained, he was surprised at Alonso’s insightful response. “You know, it’s almost like you woke up one morning and your spouse has been replaced by a shape-shifter. You really have to get used to a different person now…that’s got to be hard.”
“I don’t know if I should say this,” Jack said, “but he sounds like he might have picked up a bit of John Hart’s craziness for unrealistic plans and impossible ideas. This could be an artifact from John Hart’s nanogenes.”
Ianto shook his head in disbelief ‘Oh come on now…’ Ianto started to say.
“No really, when I first met Hart he had all these wild plans. After he had some money saved he was going to start a Lansamanian worm farm on Jinitorus. The worms produced a fiber so durable that anything made out of it was practically indestructible. Took a huge investment to start a farm but you could make it back several times over in a year if you knew what you were doing. But like Aaron, John didn’t know a thing about worm farming, figured it couldn’t be that hard and he could just wing it. Luckily, he always spent money faster than he earned it, so he was never going to have the money to get started. And he did dream about buying a small planet and starting his own colony there. Fortunately he grew out of it.”
‘Aaron’s 55, by the time he grows out of it, we’ll both be dead. Either from old age, or because we kill each other in frustration.’
Alonso snorted. “So I have to ask, did Aaron inherit any other characteristics from John?”
Ianto turned bright red. “Yeah? Come on tell us about it,” Jack begged.
‘Nothing to tell. Got to go, see you later,’ Ianto said abruptly ending the conversation and walking away.
After Ianto was out of ear range, Jack and Alonso laughed about the changes to Aaron.
“Well at least Ianto’s found one improvement in Aaron.”
“Alonso, that’s really rude. Aaron doesn’t impress me as someone who would be a loser in bed. He’s way too competitive.”
“Yeah, but compared to John Hart? He even gives you a run for the money.”
‘Ouch,’ Jack thought. “You slept with John Hart?” Alonso didn’t have to be a genius to see that Jack didn’t like this at all.
“Hey remember flyboy, we said no strings attached. You didn’t want to change that agreement did you?”
Jack sighed. “No, I guess not, but did you have to sleep with John?”
“Why, afraid of the competition?”
“No way,” Jack blustered, “he’s nowhere in my league.”
“You think? I guess you’ll have to prove that out tonight, won’t you.”
Jack smiled. “I’ll give you a full test drive tonight, Tiger Pants.”
Alonso made a growling noise under his breath. “We’ll see.”
****
Despite his joking with Alonso, Jack was worried about Ianto and Aaron. When he remembered how infuriating John Hart could be when he got focused on some daft idea, he hated the thought that Ianto was going to have to deal with more uncontrollable problems in his life. It occurred to him that this was much like the problem he faced when Ianto first came to Cardiff. There had to be some way to keep Aaron busy and focused on something practical so that he wouldn’t feel useless and Ianto wouldn’t be driven to insanity by a middle-aged man with childish fantasies.
Jack was also concerned about Alonso. He actually didn’t care if Alonso had other lovers (but John Hart, why him of all people) but he could sense that Alonso was getting bored with early 21st century Earth life. But short of The Doctor making another appearance, Alonso was pretty well stuck here on this ‘backwater nothing of a planet’ as Alonso so fondly called Earth.
***
The answer to Jack’s first concern came to him quite by accident. During another meeting with UNIT officers they spoke of the on-going tensions between the joint Torchwood-UNIT teams. While Torchwood clearly had the authority, UNIT personnel were still often suspicious and resentful of Torchwood’s superior status.
Brigadier Morrison was the youngest officer present at the meeting and appeared to believe in the value of the joint teams far more than some of the other officers.
“You know, if we could get a UNIT and Torchwood trainer to travel together to the field locations and assess and resolve issues within the teams, that would go a long way toward improving the performance, not to mention the camaraderie of the teams.”
A rather unique solution occurred to Jack. “What would you think about a team made up of a Torchwood officer and a British military officer?” he asked.
Slowly it dawned on the UNIT brass what Jack was proposing.
“You’re speaking of Lt. Colonel Hamilton and Director Jones, aren’t you?”
Jack nodded.
The most senior officer attending, General Chatterjee spoke up immediately. “I think that’s a splendid idea. A capital idea. But what about Hamilton’s commitment to the Royal Marines?
Without revealing anything about Aaron’s continuing medical issues Jack told them that Ianto had mentioned that Aaron was retiring at the end of the year.
“I’m not surprised. Heard he was being reassigned to classroom duty. I can’t imagine him being happy doing that. And he has an outstanding reputation as a field trainer.”
Of course, once Chatterjee weighed in, everyone else from UNIT agreed. Jack smiled to himself. It didn’t hurt that the General was still very close friends with Brigadier Hamilton and would be open to helping the son of a friend out, even if it meant bending the rules a little.
Now all Jack had to do was convince Ianto and Aaron that it was a good idea. ‘I think I’ll propose they visit the Israeli team first. That should work nicely with Ianto’s concern that they visit Ronit in the next few months. Then perhaps they’d like to take a year or so and see the Americas. He knew that both Aaron and Ianto were interested in ancient American civilizations, so a trip to work with the teams in Peru and Ecuador (and a stop to see the Incan site at Machu Picchu), perhaps a swing through Mexico, especially that new team near Cancun (and so close to some nice Mayan ruins) and perhaps a visit to the Roswell, NM team with a little free time to see some Anasazi sites in the Four Corners region.
“Oh yeah, I don’t think this will be too hard at all.”
Chapter 71 here: http://aviv-b.livejournal.com/40903.html
