Title: Duty Calls
By: catelfemma
Pairing: gen
Rating: PG
Author's Notes: After someone's meme on personal canon (unfortunately I can't remember whose - but I'm sure many, many people have had the same idea) I wanted to draw on one of the ideas in it, and this is what I ended up with. Just like the rest of us, Ianto Jones has to make dutiful phone calls to his family. Any ideas on how to make this more Ianto-ish would be gratefully received - the idea of Torchwood characters even having parents doesn't seem quite right (no, I'm not a big fan of Adam).
Summary: Even Torchwood employees have to deal with awkward family phone calls.

***

Ianto Jones had always been able to confide in his mum. And his dad, too, they'd been a close family, but he always got the feeling that his mum understood a little bit more. Of course, they couldn't see much of each other; a demanding job and an equally demanding retirement saw to that. But they tried as hard as they could to stay in regular contact, and phonecalls were always welcome.

Well, almost always.

"Hello, Cardiff Tourist Information here, how may I help you?"

"Ianto, sweetie, is that you?"

Ianto tried to get the phone into a more comfortable position in the crook of his shoulder, extracting his hands from an alien radio set that was looking increasingly like an autopsy. The idea of using some viscous liquid to receive the signals was novel, he accepted. He just wished it wasn't all over his desk. Or quite so sticky.

"Hi, mum. Can you just give me a moment?"

An explanation wasn't really called for. "Of course. I'll hang on."

Ianto washed the worse of the liquid of his hands and tried to clean it off the desk, resulting only in getting the dishcloth he'd been using firmly stuck to it. A couple of empty beer cans and a half-eaten sandwich and his desk would start to look like Owen's. He resolved to try and ignore it for the time being, although it itched at his compulsive desire to keep things tidy, born of everyone else at Torchwood Three's dedication to total chaos.

"Right, I'm back. So, how were the mushrooms?"

Another trek to South America had kept her out of telephone contact for six months. Thirty years ago she and Ianto's dad had started the search for a foodstuff to feed the world, convinced that it would only take them a couple of journeys.

They were still looking, still just as determined as when they'd first set out.

"We're making progress." She sighed. "And how's the T of W?"

When Ianto had first wanted to break the news to his parents about his new employment at Canary Wharf, it had been something of a surprise to find out that his mum knew all about it already.

'We used to make jokes about them at UNIT,' she'd said. 'They were never as good at being secret as we were. We were most jealous of how they never seemed to be short of money. And between you and me, Torchwood operatives were always a lot sexier than UNIT soldiers. That was all before I met your dad, of course.'

Ianto paused, trying to think of how to summarize the past six months: the aftermath of Lisa's death, one of the few things he'd never shared with his mum, then Suzie and the cannibals and Bilis Manger and Abaddon. And Jack disappearing, and reappearing, and their trip to the Himalayas in between. And Captain John, and the sleeper cell. How on earth could he say all that in a phone call?

"As usual," he replied.

"That bad?" His mum said sympathetically. "And... everything else?" This more tentative. Ianto hadn't told her the truth about Lisa, but he had told her something. Ever since then she'd been wary about discussing his love life.

Ianto smiled to himself.

"You're smiling," she said. "Come on, what's she like? Or... he? Or... it?"

He was working for Torchwood, after all. It was best to allow for all eventualities.

"He's my boss," Ianto said quietly.

"The dashing Captain Jack Harkness?"

"The very same."

"Well, Ianto? What's he like?"

Ianto heard his dad say 'Jo, don't gossip for too long,' in the background, and heard his mum reply, 'I'm not gossiping. The cataloguing can wait.'

"He's... dashing," Ianto ventured. "And brave. And, ah, well-travelled."

"And good-looking?"

"Very."

"Good."

"And loyal. Heroic, even. There's nothing he wouldn't dare to do. He's like one of those heroes from books from the fifties. Those ones who were strong and courageous, who weren't quite real. Enigmatic, too. There's a lot I don't know about him." He swallowed, deciding to be honest. "There's a lot he doesn't want me to know."

"I knew a man like that once," his mum said quietly. "Told me a lot of anecdotes, talked about things that he couldn't possibly have seen..."

"Jack does that, too."

"It wasn't like that with me and, er, John, though. We didn't go out. He was a lot older than me."

"There's a bit of an age gap with me and Jack."

"What does it matter, if he's handsome enough?" His mum laughed. "You have fun with your hero, Ianto. It's nice knowing there's someone out there to save the world."

"It needs a lot of saving."

"Don't work too hard, Ianto."

"Tell that to Dad, not me."

'Cliff?' Ianto heard her say. 'Professor Clifford Jones, are you listening to me? Ianto says don't work too hard.'

She turned back to the phone. "Fat chance of that. With either of you!"

Ianto glanced at his desk again, and noticed with alarm that the dishcloth appeared to have dissolved. "Bit of a problem here, sorry. Dissolving dishcloths. I'll ring you later."

"Maybe you could even come and visit us, for once?" She asked mildly, ignoring the dishcloth threat. "Wales isn't that big, you know, it's too long a journey. Get your Jack to give you some time off. Or even bring him with you."

Ianto tried to imagine Jack in his parents' bungalow. Granted it wasn't the normal home of two pensioners, festooned as it was with not-entirely-terrestrial flora and surrounded on three walls by large greenhouses. Even so, Ianto couldn't see how Jack would fit in with his dad's propensity for preaching environmentalist sermons at everyone who came through the door, as well as his mum's endless searching questions.

They probably wouldn't be at home when he could get time off, anyway. They were travelling most of the time, visiting other scientists or undertaking research of their own in humid places with unpronounceable names.

He liked it that way. Torchwood didn't really allow for a warm and active family life.

The desk itself was starting to turn into sawdust. "I'll think about it."

"OK. Bye, Ianto. It was nice hearing from you."

"Bye."

It was nice to touch normality once in a while. But, Ianto thought guiltily, aliens and dissolving desks were somehow more stimulating than discussing exotic mushrooms. After delicately sniffing the desk, he poured some water over it and it magically reformed, dishcloth and all.

A radio, Jack had said. Ianto would have to have a word with him about checking Tosh's analysis gadgetry. He didn't want his all-too-rare family phone calls disrupted by alien party tricks again.

***