gracie_musica | Deviations from the Norm -- Not Exactly Coincidence

Title: Deviations from the Norm
Chapter Twelve: Not Exactly Coincidence

dwtwprompts prompt: Birthday
Date Written: 6/20/08
Rating: G/K
Word Count: 1,743
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters/Pairings: Jack/Ianto, team, OCs
Spoilers: Torchwood Season 1 & 2
Warnings: Crack, general crazy Jones family
Author's Notes: I have been wanting to do this part for AGES, ever since I found the book The Power of Birthdays, Stars & Numbers. And since yesterday was Litha, you get crazy pagan Mama Jones! There's also another A/N after the fic. Set very, very shortly after their wedding, so Tosh hasn't asked him her big surprising question yet.

1/?: De Mortuis Nil Nisi Bonum Dicendum Est
2/?: It's Like Battle, But Harder
3.1/?: I'll Know It When I See It
3.2/?: Some Cupid Kills With Arrows, Some With Traps
3.3/?: Keeping Up With The Joneses
3.4/?: Speak Low, If You Speak Love
3.5/?: Shall I Never See a Bachelor of Threescore Again?
4/?: Paint By Numbers
5/?: There's No Place That Far
6/?: Its Eyes Are For The Stars
7/?: Up In The Sky...
8/?: If I Say It Enough, I'll Eventually Believe It
9/?: There's No Reasoning With An Unreasonable Person
10/?: Where Do I Know You From?
11/?: Never Doing That Again

Jack found it immensely amusing that such a pagan household -- complete with charms and wards over the windows and doors -- still had a Sunday family dinner. The family had laughed when Jack accidentally mentioned it during the first big family meal he'd attended. The immortal had been a bundle of nerves, unaccountably nervous at meeting his soul mate's family and blurted it out after Ceri had done a very lovely blessing. Ianto had just smiled and took his hand as the family gave their religious run-down.

Broderick had been born and raised Catholic, with parents who were more the Sunday sort of Christians. He'd had a near-death experience as a teenager, a horrible car wreck that had almost killed both him and the friend he had been riding with. They'd both been convinced that God had watched over them, and Broderick had thrown himself headfirst into the religion.

Ceri, meanwhile, had converted as a young woman, shortly after marrying Broderick. It had caused a little bit of tension in the new marriage, but they eventually agreed to disagree. Their children had been inducted into both religions -- the traditional Catholic baptism in Broderick's church, and what was called a Wiccaning by the head priestess of Ceri's coven -- and raised to be open-minded. Their family tradition had started when Broderick would take the children with him to Sunday morning Mass, and Ceri would stay behind and have lunch ready for everyone when they got home.

Mike and his wife Bethan were Catholic, and were raising the triplets within the Church (Ianto was their godfather).

Nonny called herself a Christain Mystic, but Ianto explained later that she was a Wiccan who used the Catholic saints as her pantheon. Her husband was agnostic. They still hadn't decided how to raise the baby.

Tegan and her girlfriend were die-hard atheists. They lived and worked together in London, while the other three Jones children lived in and around Cardiff, so they usually joined them only once or twice a month.

Jack had asked Ianto what believed on the drive back home. Ianto had smiled a little. "When I was a child, I sort of made up my own," he admitted. "Lots of Eastern and Western religions rolled up into one. Energy flows, meditation, that sort of thing."

"And now?"

"Now my faith is Torchwood," had been the quiet answer.

"Ianto, dear, there's something I'd like to discuss with you."

All heads turned from Ceri to look at Ianto Harkness-Jones. The Jones family was gathered around the table for yet another Sunday dinner, the adults having post-meal tea and coffee while the triplets played in the den and Carys napped quietly on her grandparent's bed.

Ianto carefully set his teacup down on the saucer. "Yes ma'am?"

"It's about your birthday, dear, next month? I realized yesterday that your birthday falls on an Esbat," she said, giving a guilty smile. Jack frowned a little, and Nonny mouthed full moon at him from across the table.

"I tried talking to the coven, but any other day isn't good for them -- "

"It's all right, Mam," Ianto reassured her. "I think Jack and I had something planned anyway."

"He'd better," Mike teased, nudging Jack gently. "First birthday as a married couple, this is the big one."

"I don't think it's appropriate to discuss big birthday plans in front of my in-laws," Jack replied, grinning as Mike snorted into his coffee.

"His birthday's on a Monday this year, so we'll just do something the following Sunday?" Broderick suggested, looking over his cup at his youngest son and son-in-law. Both of them smiled and nodded.

"So what sort of party goes down at the Jones house for birthdays?" Jack asked, grinning around the table.

"Presents, cake, that sort of thing," Steven, Nonny's husband, explained. "Sometimes whomever's celebrating their birthday picks something they really want to do, and we go out."

"We took the triplets to the zoo when they turned seven," Ianto chimed in.

"Never, ever again," Bethan swore. She pointed one well-manicured finger at Ianto. "This one has my children corrupted. He had them running all about the place."

Ianto's completely innocent look was ruined by the mischievous smirk that pulled at the corners of his mouth. "Beth, I have no idea what you are talking about."

"Oh, that reminds me!" Ceri smiled over at Jack as Ianto, Bethan and Mike started up their gentle banter about who really was in control of the three boys. "Jack, when is your birthday?"

Ianto's hand found Jack's under the table and Jack squeezed it. "January 3, 1975," he told her, repeating the birthday Ianto had drawn up on his 'official' birth records.

"Jack, we never celebrate your birthday!" Gwen complained, adjusting the party hat on her head. It was Toshiko's birthday, and the others had conspired to have a surprise party for her at Ianto's flat. Martha had managed to take a personal day to come down to Cardiff, and even the Rift had been nice and quiet, the universe's present to the hardworking technician.

Jack laughed. "My birthday is... complicated." In truth, he didn't know how old he was in his linear time. Istari had a shorter year than Earth, but more hours in the day. He'd never properly sat down and figured it out.

"So, just pick a day to celebrate it," Owen said with a grin.

"Just... any day?" Jack said, tapping his chin thoughtfully.

"The third of January is a nice choice," Ianto said, cutting himself another piece of cake. The others turned to look at him. "Well think about it. You can take off extra days over the New Year, go on a nice long holiday."

"Have I mentioned lately how much I love the way you think?" Jack asked.

Ianto just smiled and took a bite of his cake.

Ianto was outside with the kids, supervising a three-way sword fight between the boys. Jack had tried to help with clean-up, but had been banished from the kitchen. Steven and Beth told him to enjoy it while it lasted, that he'd get roped into dishes eventually, so he'd volunteered to keep an eye on Carys instead. The little girl was just starting to get truly mobile, crawling and squirming around until she found something to captivate her attention.

Jack had given her a board book that had been in her playpen, and she was having a lot of fun babbling over the bright pictures and chewing on the corners of the book. The older immortal reached over and pulled the book out of her mouth like a good uncle should, checking out the books that lined the den's shelves between rescuing the book from the baby.

The collection was pretty varied, owing to the tastes of the family. Fiction and nonfiction of almost every genre sat quietly on the shelves, and Jack had fun trying to guess who had picked out what title.

There was a large selection of New Age and religious books. There were quite a few books on tarot and divination, but one caught his eye. He reached over to touch the blue, hardback binding, fingers running over the title. The Power of Birthdays, Stars & Numbers.

Out of sheer curiosity he pulled the book off the shelf, checking over his shoulder to make sure the baby wasn't trying to eat her book again before opening it. The pages were well-thumbed through, which Jack put down to years being in the service of Ceri's coven (the copyright page said it was published in 1998). He grinned and flipped through the book, looking over at Carys every now and again to make sure she wasn't getting herself into any trouble.

There were two pages per day, with a rundown of how the person born on that day was supposed to be. He'd flipped through to each of the team's birthdays and grinned like a fool when they ended up fitting each person fairly accurately ('Clever and shrewd, with a good mental potential, you like to keep yourself occupied and well-informed' for Ianto's birthday had sent him into a fit of giggles that had made the baby stop what she was doing and look up at her uncle like he was a crazy person). He'd been around enough of this sort of fortune-telling to know that it was mostly what you made of it, how a perception could latch on and spin in just the right way.

He bit his lip, wondering if he should read his own or not. Oh, what's the worst that could happen? He flipped the pages towards the back, stopping at January 3. He checked the baby again, leaning over and pulling the book out of her mouth and tapping her nose before turning back to the pages.

There were a few parts that made him laugh ('Although you will always have a youthful quality...'), quite a few that sent chills down his spine ('You have the choice between using the discipline of your birthday or being manipulative to attain your desires' was one of them), but it was the final bit that made his breath hitch a little. In the lower right-hand corner of the second page there was a list of birthdays of people he was 'compatible' with, friendships, beneficial friendships, ones that would be challenging and the final one: Soul mates. Jack grinned a little, moving his thumb to read the dates. In for a penny, after all.

Soul mates: Jan 30, Feb 28, Mar 26, 29, Apr 24, 27, May 22, 25, June 20, 23, July 18, 21, Aug 16, 19 --

Whoa. What?

He blinked and reread the last date. August 19. Ianto's birthday.

"Found something interesting?" Ceri's voice cut in, jolting him out of his stupor. He turned around, looking a little guilty, to see his mother-in-law bouncing the baby on her hip. Her smile widened when she saw what he was looking at. "Have an interest in astrology?"

"Not particularly, no," he admitted, slotting the book back into place. "Although I know a particularly talented card reader."

"I see." She leaned in to press a kiss to Carys' chubby cheek. "Let's get you back to your Mam, little one." She turned back to the kitchen, calling over her shoulder to Jack. "Ianto loved that book when he was younger. Read it cover to cover. He's probably got it memorized, knowing that boy."

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A/N: After I wrote this,

totally4ryo and I were discussing numerology and birthdays. We looked up everyone's birthdays and compared it to the

'Your Special Someone' chart in the book. Here's what it said for everyone:

Gwen Cooper -- Born August 16
Fatal Attractions: Owen
Challenging: Jack
Soul Mates: Jack

Owen Harper -- Born February 14
Fatal Attractions: Gwen and Ianto
Challenging: Tosh

Toshiko Sato -- Born September 18
Beneficial: Gwen

Ianto Jones -- Born August 19
Fatal Attractions: Jack
Soul Mates: Jack

Jack Harkness -- for the purpose of this fic, January 3
Soul Mates: Gwen and Ianto

I KID YOU NOT. Which writer was reading this book?!

ETA: Chapter twelve found here