That poly thing, REMASTERED.
Mah experiments. Mah experiments.
Torchwood One gives them a huge settlement. They might have insisted that Lisa take retcon, but for Ianto sitting next to her at the big table in the rehabilitation center's conference room (she had pushed the papers across the finish and said something unrepeatable); but Ianto is staying on with the organisation, albeit in another place, and so she manages to get out of it. Her useless legs say that they owe, they owe her so much that money cannot buy, and retcon would be a slap in the face. In the end, Ianto wins with logic and cajoling, and a very flat, level voice that he is startled to discover he possesses after Canary Wharf.
She nervously watches them load her boxes of china onto the moving lorry. Ianto has told her not to worry, that he'll take care of everything, but she really would rather do it herself. Not that she can. The chair is fitted to her, made for her, and she hasn't learned how to deal with that yet. She runs into the edges and doorjambs in their small apartment, and he can hear her swearing under her breath.
They are never so glad to see the city limits.
'You know,' she says, staring out the window, 'sometimes I think that if we hadn't been married, you wouldn't have stuck around for this.' Her head swivels to him and she blinks in rapid succession. 'I know I might not have.'
'Stop,' he tells her.
'I mean, Jesus, look at how fucked this is.' She slaps her knee, as if she can feel it.
Ianto has to pull the car over on the carriageway then. He reaches over and undoes the buckle of her safety belt, then through a series of awkward movements, and her own pushing with her arms, made stronger by the therapy, he settles her in his lap.
He doesn't know what to say once she is there, her useless limbs akimbo. Of all of the things she could have said, that is the saddest and most untrue thing. Because until she had said it, he had never thought of it, and he doesn't want to think of it.
So instead, he runs his fingers along her neck and presses his forehead into her shoulder. 'I thought we took a vow. Sickness and health and all that.'
Her eyes scan the passing cars, dancing over each one as it zooms past, processing, processing. 'People say those things because they're standing at the altar, and everything is beautiful. They never mean them for the unforseeable.'
Ianto sighs into her then, because that's all bollocks, well, not always, but for him. For him it had never been a question, from the moment she had sat down across from him at the cafeteria and said, 'You are incredibly dapper.' He wants her to understand this, but he has no words for it. That is why he had trusted the minister to supply them for him in the first place.
He lets the minister supply them for him now. 'I do,' he says. 'I do, always.'
Lisa rests the back of her head on the window, and he can feel her shoulders shaking, so he lets himself cry, just a little, and then they sob together on the birm, fingers wrapped around each other, until a PC pulls over and knocks on the glass, wondering if they are dead or having a quickie on the front seat.
He makes sure that she is settled, in their flat with its extra wide doorways and lift so large that it accommodates her and shopping bags and a small Audi, whatever she needs; she packs a lunch for him, as a joke, really, puts it in a novelty lunchbox with a picture of Tin Tin on it that she must have scrounged from the vintage kitsch shop next door to their building. Ianto tries to hide it for a second when he arrives at work, but then he knows that the last thing Harkness needs to think is that he is hiding anything. Torchwood One has so many black marks on it, it might as well be made of tar. He looks about the tourist office that he is supposed to attempt to man, and then goes downstairs into the underground Hub to try to make nice with The Monster of Torchwood Three, as Yvonne called him.
Jack Harkness isn't happy to see him, and Ianto remembers that he has been thrust on the man, in a way. Jack-call-me-Jack frowns as they descend the stairs to the Archives, which looks like a bomb has gone off. Probably decades of people running about, grabbing what they needed and then just adding it to a pile instead of returning it.
'We don't get a lot of Torchwood One people here,' Jack says, and what he means is that he doesn't like Ianto.
Ianto runs a finger down the filing cabinet next to him. 'I can see that.' What he means is that he is fully aware that Jack doesn't like him.
Jack leans against the wall and crosses his arms. 'Well, you're cute, and the coffee is good.' He pushes off from the wall and rounds Ianto. 'Yvonne was a bitch, but she had good hiring sense.' He shrugs and steps behind Ianto, and the lack of sound to his movements makes Ianto jumpy. 'I don't really care about the Archives enough to hire someone, but if they're sending you, then I guess I'll deal with it.'
What he means by that is that his archives had been shown to be a mess when UNIT had needed them. Ianto guesses that Jack doesn't like UNIT breathing down his back; he can completely sympathise.
'I'll try my best to be as effectively unobtrusive as possible,' he says dryly, turning, and Jack is right there. Ianto blinks and starts a little. If this is the way Torchwood Three does things, he is going to have to get better at not being surprised.
Jack reaches out to touch the knot of his tie with one finger, as if it is the button to mastering Ianto, and pressing it will reveal Ianto's dastardly plan. More's the pity that it's just coloured silk, then.
He moves away to start his day, the stacking and shuffling of files an international signal for 'Now I shall do my job.' Jack seems to understand this, and with a sigh and a warning not to get lost, he leaves him alone.
Ianto notices that Jack has yet to mention Lisa. He had thought that it would be one of the first things out of his mouth; but that might just be because Lisa is his waking thought. He keeps forgetting that she's not everyone else's.
At lunch, Jack raises an eyebrow at Ianto's lunchbox, but when they all sit down at the table to eat, his mouth quirks at the note Lisa has taped to the inside: 'Fuck those Cardiff bastards. I love you. XOXO'
Ianto considers Lisa and Jack firmly introduced.
Evolutionary fic. Bah. Pretzels.
Torchwood One gives them a huge settlement. They might have insisted that Lisa take retcon, but for Ianto sitting next to her at the big table in the rehabilitation center's conference room (she had pushed the papers across the finish and said something unrepeatable); but Ianto is staying on with the organisation, albeit in another place, and so she manages to get out of it. Her useless legs say that they owe, they owe her so much that money cannot buy, and retcon would be a slap in the face. In the end, Ianto wins with logic and cajoling, and a very flat, level voice that he is startled to discover he possesses after Canary Wharf.
She nervously watches them load her boxes of china onto the moving lorry. Ianto has told her not to worry, that he'll take care of everything, but she really would rather do it herself. Not that she can. The chair is fitted to her, made for her, and she hasn't learned how to deal with that yet. She runs into the edges and doorjambs in their small apartment, and he can hear her swearing under her breath.
They are never so glad to see the city limits.
'You know,' she says, staring out the window, 'sometimes I think that if we hadn't been married, you wouldn't have stuck around for this.' Her head swivels to him and she blinks in rapid succession. 'I know I might not have.'
'Stop,' he tells her.
'I mean, Jesus, look at how fucked this is.' She slaps her knee, as if she can feel it.
Ianto has to pull the car over on the carriageway then. He reaches over and undoes the buckle of her safety belt, then through a series of awkward movements, and her own pushing with her arms, made stronger by the therapy, he settles her in his lap.
He doesn't know what to say once she is there, her useless limbs akimbo. Of all of the things she could have said, that is the saddest and most untrue thing. Because until she had said it, he had never thought of it, and he doesn't want to think of it.
So instead, he runs his fingers along her neck and presses his forehead into her shoulder. 'I thought we took a vow. Sickness and health and all that.'
Her eyes scan the passing cars, dancing over each one as it zooms past, processing, processing. 'People say those things because they're standing at the altar, and everything is beautiful. They never mean them for the unforseeable.'
Ianto sighs into her then, because that's all bollocks, well, not always, but for him. For him it had never been a question, from the moment she had sat down across from him at the cafeteria and said, 'You are incredibly dapper.' He wants her to understand this, but he has no words for it. That is why he had trusted the minister to supply them for him in the first place.
He lets the minister supply them for him now. 'I do,' he says. 'I do, always.'
Lisa rests the back of her head on the window, and he can feel her shoulders shaking, so he lets himself cry, just a little, and then they sob together on the birm, fingers wrapped around each other, until a PC pulls over and knocks on the glass, wondering if they are dead or having a quickie on the front seat.
He makes sure that she is settled, in their flat with its extra wide doorways and lift so large that it accommodates her and shopping bags and a small Audi, whatever she needs; she packs a lunch for him, as a joke, really, puts it in a novelty lunchbox with a picture of Tin Tin on it that she must have scrounged from the vintage kitsch shop next door to their building. Ianto tries to hide it for a second when he arrives at work, but then he knows that the last thing Harkness needs to think is that he is hiding anything. Torchwood One has so many black marks on it, it might as well be made of tar. He looks about the tourist office that he is supposed to attempt to man, and then goes downstairs into the underground Hub to try to make nice with The Monster of Torchwood Three, as Yvonne called him.
Jack Harkness isn't happy to see him, and Ianto remembers that he has been thrust on the man, in a way. Jack-call-me-Jack frowns as they descend the stairs to the Archives, which looks like a bomb has gone off. Probably decades of people running about, grabbing what they needed and then just adding it to a pile instead of returning it.
'We don't get a lot of Torchwood One people here,' Jack says, and what he means is that he doesn't like Ianto.
Ianto runs a finger down the filing cabinet next to him. 'I can see that.' What he means is that he is fully aware that Jack doesn't like him.
Jack leans against the wall and crosses his arms. 'Well, you're cute, and the coffee is good.' He pushes off from the wall and rounds Ianto. 'Yvonne was a bitch, but she had good hiring sense.' He shrugs and steps behind Ianto, and the lack of sound to his movements makes Ianto jumpy. 'I don't really care about the Archives enough to hire someone, but if they're sending you, then I guess I'll deal with it.'
What he means by that is that his archives had been shown to be a mess when UNIT had needed them. Ianto guesses that Jack doesn't like UNIT breathing down his back; he can completely sympathise.
'I'll try my best to be as effectively unobtrusive as possible,' he says dryly, turning, and Jack is right there. Ianto blinks and starts a little. If this is the way Torchwood Three does things, he is going to have to get better at not being surprised.
Jack reaches out to touch the knot of his tie with one finger, as if it is the button to mastering Ianto, and pressing it will reveal Ianto's dastardly plan. More's the pity that it's just coloured silk, then.
He moves away to start his day, the stacking and shuffling of files an international signal for 'Now I shall do my job.' Jack seems to understand this, and with a sigh and a warning not to get lost, he leaves him alone.
Ianto notices that Jack has yet to mention Lisa. He had thought that it would be one of the first things out of his mouth; but that might just be because Lisa is his waking thought. He keeps forgetting that she's not everyone else's.
At lunch, Jack raises an eyebrow at Ianto's lunchbox, but when they all sit down at the table to eat, his mouth quirks at the note Lisa has taped to the inside: 'Fuck those Cardiff bastards. I love you. XOXO'
Ianto considers Lisa and Jack firmly introduced.
Evolutionary fic. Bah. Pretzels.