[Jack rolls his eyes at John's comment, but he's still smiling. He's not sure if he'd have even considered sharing this memory at another time--knowing how John in particular feels about the Doctor, even if that rage has tempered, he'd hesitate on mentioning anything where he was involved even if Rose was too--but for some reason, now, he's actually mulling it over. Figuring how to explain it without going into too much detail about the danger his then-mortal self had been in during the whole ordeal.
It's something about the weight of Ianto's hand against his stomach--having a distinctly different body shape and musculature from the majority of people capable of being in his 'situation', not to mention never letting it reach this point before, has made it rather difficult for him to decipher if anything he's felt in the last week or two is anything more than the occasional lingering stomach upset or his organs getting shoved out of position as the baby grows,-but he'll save discussing that matter for after he's told them what he can. What he wants to, and is pretty sure he's sorted out at least one reason.
He takes another moment to figure out where to start, before tipping his head against John's with a softer smile.]
It was back when I was traveling with Rose. [he starts, softly. He knows by then that both of them know that also means 'and the Doctor', even if Ianto's only heard about Rose which is a damn shame.] Just a bit after we met, we wound up in this little village in Russia, sometime in the late 20th or early 21st century, can't quite remember now. Got sucked in by the usual alien bollocks, ordinary day for me even then. Maybe wouldn't have remembered it much after all this time but…
[he swallows, though his smile doesn't dim and his eyes are still dry, voice still soft but not constricted by emotion] There was this girl. Valeria. 'Bout the age Rose was, maybe a little younger--nineteen, I think. But she didn't look it. The stuff that was going on…pretty much in an instant, she'd gone from looking like any teenage girl, to--someone's great-grandmother. Worse, because…she was virtually catatonic. She could walk, if you helped her along, but she couldn't talk or do anything for herself. If you sat her down somewhere, she'd just stay there, no matter what hell was breaking loose around her. When we found her, I went off the military guys we'd run into, following them to where they said the whole--thing had gone down, and they tried to tell me to just leave her for dead. Give you three guesses to how that went, first two don't count.
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It's something about the weight of Ianto's hand against his stomach--having a distinctly different body shape and musculature from the majority of people capable of being in his 'situation', not to mention never letting it reach this point before, has made it rather difficult for him to decipher if anything he's felt in the last week or two is anything more than the occasional lingering stomach upset or his organs getting shoved out of position as the baby grows,-but he'll save discussing that matter for after he's told them what he can. What he wants to, and is pretty sure he's sorted out at least one reason.
He takes another moment to figure out where to start, before tipping his head against John's with a softer smile.]
It was back when I was traveling with Rose. [he starts, softly. He knows by then that both of them know that also means 'and the Doctor', even if Ianto's only heard about Rose which is a damn shame.] Just a bit after we met, we wound up in this little village in Russia, sometime in the late 20th or early 21st century, can't quite remember now. Got sucked in by the usual alien bollocks, ordinary day for me even then. Maybe wouldn't have remembered it much after all this time but…
[he swallows, though his smile doesn't dim and his eyes are still dry, voice still soft but not constricted by emotion] There was this girl. Valeria. 'Bout the age Rose was, maybe a little younger--nineteen, I think. But she didn't look it. The stuff that was going on…pretty much in an instant, she'd gone from looking like any teenage girl, to--someone's great-grandmother. Worse, because…she was virtually catatonic. She could walk, if you helped her along, but she couldn't talk or do anything for herself. If you sat her down somewhere, she'd just stay there, no matter what hell was breaking loose around her. When we found her, I went off the military guys we'd run into, following them to where they said the whole--thing had gone down, and they tried to tell me to just leave her for dead. Give you three guesses to how that went, first two don't count.