FTFE - WIP
Series: A First Time for Everything
Part: One of ??
Title: Flirt (Ianto)
Spoilers: This part: Fragments and Cyberwoman.
Rating: Ummm.....PG-13? References to previous sexual history, language.
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Summary: All relationships have their stages and their first moments. This is one of them.
Notes: ok, just in case anyone wonders: the 'Bridge', to almost any Welsh person with a South Wales connection is the Severn Bridge - the roadbridge that brings the M4 into Wales over the Severn Estuary. And Eros's Statue has/had a very well-known reputation as a pick-up point: it's on the edge of Soho. Finally, there's no real dress code in West End theatres.
Welsh: diolch yn fawr - thank you very much.
Thanks: to my three wonderful, amazingly-fast betas: 'madtheo', 'used songs' and 'travellingone', who sifted out the dross and polished the rest!! Thank you!
Part One - Flirt (Ianto)
The first time Ianto comes on to Harkness is the first time they meet. The Welshman’s desperation is growing more urgent every day; she’s dying and he has to save her. So he blatantly comes on to the captain and hopes it will work.
He hunches his shoulders under the battered old jacket, rubbing his hands together. There’s a light drizzle and the wind is coming straight in off the water. It’s after midnight and bloody freezing, but hopefully tonight will be the night the plan gets moving.
The Plan. It was born in the aftermath of the Battle, in those first days after his world fell apart. He’d been drafted into the clean-up operation by the nameless Suits swarming in as the Battle ended, their top-level clearance badges flashing. He hadn’t argued as it had given him unfettered access to almost everything. Security had only started tightening after those same Suits realised that Torchwood Cardiff had left with several sensitive items they hadn’t been given permission to take, by which time, Ianto had already managed to salvage most of the tech that he needed.
The first day, there were 50 of them all told, with twenty in hospital and thirty picking up the pieces at Canary Wharf. The two Torchwood Cardiff women showed up on Day Three, by which time 2 of the injured were already dead. By Day Five, when the two women left, two more of the injured were dead. It was then that he began to realise that the number of active, acknowledged survivors was dwindling: only 27 of the original 30 remained on-site. Over the next week, they were told of more deaths at the hospital until there were only ten victims still there, while at the Tower, the number of ‘volunteers’ kept diminishing until by Day Ten he was one of only twenty left working cover-up at Canada Square.
By then, Ianto already knew there was no hope to be had from the Institute; already knew that the powers-that-were would show no mercy to his situation. Glasgow was hopeless; there was no way to hide Lisa there. But he knew something about the Hub. He’d looked into the Cardiff outpost when he’d found out that a space/time Rift lay in the city where he’d spent half his life. He knew Harkness had been held in dubious regard by London, warily monitored but mostly ignored, and by then that was enough to call Ianto out of London and across the Bridge home, bringing Lisa and her brother Keith with him. On the day before his exodus, he counted only 17 people working in the ruins of the Tower and it was then that the Institute announced a grand total of 27 survivors. He still doesn’t want to think about what might have happened to his thirteen vanished colleagues.
During those last few days in London, he’d grabbed every chance he could to disappear into the Archive Vault. The files in the Tower were in two parts; the electronic files above ground had been decimated while the manual files stored below ground had survived relatively unscathed. Fortunately for his purposes, the entirety of the Torchwood Three file was down there - all of the information pertaining to their so-called “monitoring outpost” held together. So he re-read everything there was about the Cardiff Branch in general and this time, he read about the team. Medic: Doctor Owen Harper. Tech Support: Toshiko Sato PhD. Second-in-Command and Research: Susan Costello PhD. Leader: Captain Jack Harkness. Then he set out to find as much information he could on the Captain.
You had to know how to look to find anything about Harkness, and two years of working in Torchwood London had taught him how to search for the hidden, for the unknown. So he learned a good number of things about Harkness, not least being that the man had worked for Torchwood for at least 30 years and yet the most recent picture, a poor quality snap-shot from five years ago, showed a man who didn’t look older than his mid-thirties. Strange? Yes, but this was Torchwood.
What information there was made it clear that London had never liked Harkness when he was a field operative; did not like Harkness now that he ran Cardiff and wished quite heartily that it could manage without Harkness; but he kept the Rift incidents under such firm control that they didn’t dare try and remove him. Maverick, renegade, loose canon - and that was in the official reports. He’d found some more personal anecdotes in the records as well and it was these stories that gave him his idea. Because the anecdotes made it fairly clear that he and Harkness had something in common. Something he had no intention of telling Lisa………
As soon as she was settled in the abandoned hospital, he’d started out with the aim of getting into Cardiff. Not by breaking in - the Cardiff defenses were too good; that much his reading had made clear. Even Hartman had acknowledged that forcing her way into the Cardiff base would create too much collateral damage, even though she held the life of everyone but herself in low regard. No, he had to use different means to get in. For three weeks, he’s stalked the team. Watched them all, with a particular eye on Harkness. He already knew from his desperate research in London that they were a team of specialists but he’s learned more than just the pen-and-ink details in these past weeks. He’s learnt about the Captain and his team - who they actually were; how they worked. What made them tick.
One thing he learned very quickly was that they were anything but the back-water outpost Hartmann wrote them off as. They work flat out, they are understaffed and under-supported and Harkness runs himself ragged trying to keep them all going. All of which, he hopes to God, will give him a way in. He doesn’t care what kind of job gets him inside the base, so long as he gets there. He’ll do anything for Lisa. Anything.
So he’s standing, looking out across what they used to call the Oval Basin, keeping one eye on the water tower and the other eye on the passers-by. The get-up chosen to reel Harkness in is having a side-effect he hadn’t thought of. Last time he was in Cardiff, the Bay was not the place to go to pick up other men, but either that’s changed or his plans for Harkness are making him give off vibes because he’s been propositioned three times in one night. He hopes there’s some sign from the base soon, because that cop who eyed him up earlier will soon be heading back in this direction and the last thing he wants right now is an arrest for solicitation.
Lisa laughed the first time she realised a man had propositioned him. They were passing by Eros’s Statue, walking, rather than waiting for a night bus after a late-night trip to the West End to see Phantom. Her mobile rang and she stopped to answer it. Rather than appear to listen in (at only five weeks into the relationship Ianto was still very respectful of her personal space), he wandered away from her and stood just outside the wooden partition around the statue. Stupid place to stand, really. By the time she ended the call and turned around, he was glaring after a short, fat man who was hurrying away with a very put-out look on his face.
“Eh? What happened?” she said. He scowled and shook his head.
“Doesn’t matter.”
“What? C’mon, Ianto - what is it?” He sighed, then shrugged.
“He wanted to know the price.”
“Price?” She stared at him for a moment, clearly lost, then her eyes widened. “Price?!” She clapped a hand to her mouth but he could hear her muffled giggling. Her hand dropped to the hollow of her throat as she fought to keep a straight face. “He thought you were a……” and she giggled again. Her laughter was as infectious as ever and he found himself smiling, despite the embarrassment.
“Has that happened before?” she asked. He felt his face flush and her eyebrows shot up before she bit her lip and her shoulders began to shake as she again tried to hide the laughter.
“Oh well” she said. “At least we know one way you can earn our living if we lose our jobs!” At the expression on his face, she laughed out loud again and then he grinned at her, grabbing her waistband to pull her gently closer.
“Oh, it’s a kept woman you’re wanting to be now, is it?” he asked. She smiled.
“Did I mention how much I love that accent?” she asked. She reached up and gave him a quick, light kiss before she spoke again.
“Well, can’t say I blame him - I mean, you are cute and….” Her hand snaked around behind him… “I do like these jeans. Makes a change from the suits.” Moving his own hands around to her back and then down to her bum, he kissed her and she moved close against him. Breaking the kiss, she looked up at him.
“I don’t know though - I knew I was going to have a challenge from the ladies to keep you to myself - but if men are the rivals as well…..” She smiled up at him, and he panicked. Not a single clue what to say, what to tell her. Then, to his relief, she grinned and he realised she was joking. Or she thought she was joking.
“Ah, you’re all mine aren’t you, Mr. Jones?” He returned her smile and something flared in her eyes that made the world seem to shift around him. He nodded and when he lowered his head to hers, the kiss was like a dream come true. This time, when she moved back, she looked up at him in silence for a moment and then…
“My place is closer.” And suddenly she was off, running towards the bus-stop. He ran after her, catching her and swinging her round and round and they both laughed and laughed and then stumbled onto the bus as it came and just sat and laughed together…..
He went home with her that night and moved in the next day. And for nearly two years, the world was laughter and light and fun and he thought that maybe he didn’t need to tell her because she filled his world so completely that he could no more imagine being with a man again than he could imagine being with another woman.
And then the Ghost Shift project started.
He closes his eyes as the good memory fades, blotted out by the bad. Only when he’s away from her can he even find the good memories. When he sits with her, when he watches that lovely face, so often full of pain or, more frightening still, devoid of all feeling; he can only remember the bad things. Canary Wharf and the Cybermen and the Daleks and the bodies and the screaming and the smell of burnt flesh and blood and the sound of the conversion unit…..
He jerks his head back until it connects with the wall behind him. The flash of pain helps, helps him ground himself, helps distract him from the pain inside. For a moment, it feels good.
He drags one hand down his face, taking a deep breath.
He stares out across the Plas, focusing his attention once more on the water tower. If Harkness doesn’t make an appearance soon, he’ll have to give tonight up as a bad job and he doesn’t have time for that. He’s not as sure about Keith as he was even a week ago. It’s nothing he can put a finger on, not yet, but something is telling him to watch the man.
Movement over by the tower catches his eye. He stares across the plaza. It must be Harkness. He might not yet have seen the man close-up in daylight, but there are only two men in Torchwood Three and Doctor Harper is a lot shorter and skinnier than the man across the Plas, striding away from him and towards the Waterside carpark.
Ianto drifts along the top of the Plas steps, watching as Harkness looks up into the night sky, slowly turning a full circle on the spot. The Captain stands quite still for a moment, and some trick of the water or the night air carries his heavy sigh clearly to Ianto. Then he starts moving again, his back to Ianto as he heads for the carpark.
Ianto follows at a distance until the Captain disappears through the entryway and then sprints back to the bike. It’s bloody freezing, riding a motorbike in weather like this without leathers but he sold all his stuff when Lisa begged him to give up the bike, and although Keith’s reluctantly lent him a bike, the other man’s leathers are two sizes too small.
He’s sitting the bike in the shadows by the carpark exit, helmet on and visor down, when the big black car rumbles past. Tonight, Sato left the other SUV in the Senedd car-park so this can be no-one but Harkness. He waits just a few seconds before following.
Harkness drives like a bat out of hell and on more than one occasion, it’s only the bike’s maneuverability that enables him to keep up. Perhaps there’s something in those reports he’s read which say Harkness is more than reckless; he’s a liability.
Car and bike tear through the city and Ianto hopes to God that they don’t pass a bored traffic cop. He’s just thankful when the SUV comes to an uneventful stop on Cathedral Road up above the Gardens. He takes the bike on for about 50 yards before pulling over, then leaves the helmet on the bike and slips back towards the car. He’s just in time to see Harkness disappearing down into Sophia Gardens. Hanging back briefly, the Welshman draws a deep breath. He closes his eyes for a second, wondering how the hell he’s going to play this. Memories come back….memories he hates almost as much as the memories of the Battle; memories of before he left Cardiff; memories of what he sometimes thinks was another life. He remembers how to do this.
He opens his eyes and starts down into the Gardens. Faintly, from amongst the trees, he hears movement, rustling and what sounds like moans or growls. Harkness has clearly heard the same thing, because he speeds up.
The Weevil comes out of the bushes so suddenly, it takes them both by surprise.
The fight between Harkness and the creature is so fast he can’t really keep track of what’s happening. When he sees the other man thrown back against a tree, he glances around quickly for some sort of weapon and sees a thick, reasonably long, branch lying on the winter grass. He scoops it up and looks up in time to see Harkness’ back hit the ground and the Weevil launch itself at his throat. He puts on a burst of full speed and reaches them in seconds, bringing the branch down on the Weevil’s back.
It turns to attack him and for a moment it’s all he can do to keep it from his own throat. There’s a blur of motion from behind it and then Harkness knocks it to the ground and the bottle in his hand is clearly a repellent of some kind because he sprays it full in the creature’s face, stunning it. Harkness yanks a black cloth from his pocket and shoves it over the Weevil’s face. From another pocket, he hauls out a syringe and Ianto feels a surge of relief as Harkness injects the Weevil and it slumps against the ground.
Ianto blinks for a second, puzzled. The only time he ever saw anyone injecting anything into a Weevil was when one escaped within the vaults back in the Wharf and within seconds of that injection, the creature began to spasm and didn’t stop until it died, howling. This one is… still breathing.
He throws the stick to one side as Harkness gets to his feet. In the dim light, he can see blood at the man’s throat, which is hardly surprising given the viciousness of Weevil bites. The other man touches a hand to his throat, grimacing, and looks at the blood on his fingers, then his gaze shifts to Ianto.
“Thanks,” Ianto says.
He knows exactly what he’s doing. For this to work, he has to be in control from the outset. But until he knows how Harkness… likes things, he has to be careful. Has to be prepared to give the impression that it’s Harkness who has the control.
That thought has him on edge at once as Harkness’s eyes flick over him for a second. He doesn’t like remembering what happened the last time he gave over control to someone else. It’s a welcome distraction from where his mind is threatening to go when Harkness replies.
“No, thank you.” It’s the first time he’s been close enough to really hear the man and he finds himself immediately liking that voice. “And you are?”
He moves forward as he answers.
“Jones. Ianto Jones.” Oh God, he thinks, that’s almost as clichéd a line as ‘who ya gonna call?’ isn’t it? There is no amusement on the other man’s face but when Harkness replies, he’s fairly sure there’s some gentle mickey-taking there.
“Pleased to meet you, Jones, Ianto Jones.” For a moment, a warm, firm hand is holding his as they shake, then the touch is gone. “Captain Jack Harkness”.
Ianto nods down at the Weevil.
“Lucky escape.”
“I had it under control,” Harkness answers, his voice smooth and calm.
“You think so?” Ianto glances at him, then back at the Weevil. “It looked pretty vicious.” He looks at Harkness again. “You’re umm...” he starts to reach out, not even sure why he’s doing this, but Harkness moves back, clearly not happy with the personal space invasion. As he does so, light and shadows move and Ianto can see his throat again. What the…. “You were bleeding.” The bite-mark has gone, he’s sure of it.
“Had worse from shaving,” Harkness answers. Ianto files the incident and the reaction away for pondering over later and glances back down at the Weevil. This is Torchwood, so Harkness isn’t going to give anything away, but it’s time to play another card…
“Looked like a Weevil to me.” There is a short pause. From the corner of his eye he can see Harkness looking at him for a second before giving the perfect Torchwood answer.
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.” Ianto lets his head swing round to give Harkness a flat look, letting his surface thoughts take over for a second. Of course you don’t. We don’t let on to strangers, Captain, now do we?
For a moment, they just look at each other until Harkness turns away, bending over the sprawled form of the Weevil. He hefts the limp form up and over his shoulders and turned back briefly.
“Thanks for the assistance.” He starts to walk away and Ianto nods, only now aware of the raw feeling at the side of his head. The Weevil must have managed to land a blow during their brief struggle.
“Anytime!” he answers. Harkness starts to stride away, and the light from the street above and beyond him highlights the long lines accentuated by the greatcoat.
“By the way,” Ianto raises his voice slightly. “Love the coat.”
Harkness’s stride changes for a second, but then he’s gone, swallowed up by the shadows. Ianto draws a deep breath and lets it out slowly. If Harkness isn’t looking him up within half an hour of getting back to the Hub, the man has no business working for Torchwood. The next time they meet, Harkness will know about him. Whether the man offers him a job or not is a separate question.
The rain that’s been threatening all day finally breaks whilst he’s on the way to the hospital. By the time he gets there, he’s soaked through and shivering violently. He’s barely through the door leading into the wing they’ve commandeered when Keith comes storming out of the ward, shouting. His dark, handsome face is twisted in anger. It’s strange to think that they were friends, once.
“Where the fuck have you been, you useless wanker? She’s been asking for you for twenty minutes! You’re late, you piece of shit….”
Keith is angry. No surprise there, then - Keith is always angry these days and never misses an opportunity to insult or antagonise. Since he first saw her lying in the conversion/support unit two days after the battle, there hasn’t been a day that Keith hasn’t made it abundantly clear he blames Ianto for his little sister’s condition. And he already knows it’s his fault, diolch yn fawr, he doesn’t need someone else telling him that every single fucking day. It’s his fault - if he’d just been quicker, if he’d moved quicker, acted earlier, got there sooner…..
“I had to wait and see if Harkness was going to show up tonight. I knew he was alone in the Hub, I had to hope something might come up and bring him out.”
“Well?”
“It did; I met him” he snaps. He’s cold, tired and hungry and he really doesn’t want this now.
“And?”
“And what? He knows I exist now, I’ll get hold of him again as soon as I can.” Ianto starts to move past him, to go to her, but the other man grabs his sleeve and Ianto stops for a second to look at him.
“Get this sorted out, Jones, soon. Or I’m going to tell someone what’s going on here.” Ianto wrenches his arm free and looks down at Keith with contempt.
“Who the hell would you tell, Keith? Who do you think is going to listen if you tell them that your sister is the next thing to a cyborg? You think anyone will listen? Assuming they don’t section you and cart you off to Provi…a mental hospital, that is?” He steps forward, deliberately crowding into the other man, using the advantage that three inches of extra height gives him.
“You tell anyone, anyone, and you are killing your sister. I’ve told you this before. If you tell the media, Torchwood will find out. If you tell the hospitals, Torchwood will find out. If you tell the police - Torchwood. Will. Find. Out. And if Torchwood find out, they will kill her. As for you, the best you can hope for in that case is waking up dumped by a motorway somewhere with about 8 weeks gone from your memory, thinking she died in a terrorist attack on Canary Wharf.”
The previous two times Keith has spoken about ‘telling someone’, the threat against his sister and himself has shut him down. This time, his face hardens and Ianto’s earlier unease solidifies into a chill down his spine as he realises that Keith is close to cracking and confessing all.
Keith glares at him, suspicion all over his face.
“So if Torchwood are so dangerous to her, why the fuck are you going to them for help?”
“I’m not going to them for help, you half-wit, I’m trying to get access to the base. How much longer do you think we can keep the conversion unit wired up here without someone from the electricity company realising this place is supposed to be abandoned? We need a secure, uninterrupted source of power. We need technology and information I can only get my hands on if I’m inside Torchwood. I need the computers. I need the Archives. I need the tech. I can’t get that from here and it’s impossible to break into the base - believe me, I’ve seen the specs for the security. So the only option is for one of us to actually get into the base legitimately. And guess what? I work for fucking Torchwood, so the odds are if I can play my cards right, I can get us in!”
It’s only when he stops speaking that he realises he’s shouting. In the silence, Keith glares up at him and there is nothing but hate in his eyes. When a soft groan of pain comes from the direction of the conversion unit, Keith’s eyes flick across to his sister with no change of expression.
Ianto’s heart seems to freeze inside him. For eight weeks, he’s held onto Keith’s love for his sister, held onto the other man’s brotherly need to help protect her. But suddenly, it’s terrifyingly clear that the pressure of the last 8 weeks and the changes forced onto Lisa have changed the way her brother sees her. If Ianto is lucky, he has days left.
It’s a good job he’s never mentioned that Torchwood are almost certain to execute Ianto himself if they ever find Lisa. The way Keith feels about him these days, that might actually be enough to make him betray them all. If he can just get into the base in the next couple of days, it should be safe. As soon as he has her safely there, he’ll go back to the original plan, the part he never told the other man about, and retcon Keith. Once Lisa is of sight and out of mind, there is no way he trusts the man to keep his mouth shut.
He turns away, and strides across the dust-strewn floor of the abandoned ward to the conversion unit. She turns her head as he comes closer and he flinches inwardly at the pain on her face. That is something else he needs: access to the sorts of drugs they’ll have inside the base because the standard medications he’s been able to get hold of are starting to fail.
He stops beside her and bends to kiss her on her too-cold mouth and takes her hand in his. He tries to pretend it’s warm and soft, not hard, icy metal. Tries to tell himself that the cheek he strokes feels like it always has, not…wrong. She turns her head into the touch and he wills the tears back before her eyes focus on his face.
“Oh love, there you are! I was getting worried.” He smiles down at her.
“I’m here - I’m ok. Met Harkness.” He sees the spark of hope in her eyes.
“And?”
“Helped pull a Weevil off him.” He smiles again, trying to sound like he’s not worried half out of his mind. “It worked last time!” She returns the smile but there is so much pain there that he can’t hold back the tears. She squeezes his hand and he swallows to try and hide the grimace of pain. She no longer knows her own strength.
“We’ll do this, Lisa. We’ll manage it. You’ll be alright - I promise.”
“You always keep your promises,” she whispers.
He sits with her, talking to her to try and help take her mind off the pain until it’s time to administer a new dose. He eventually falls into a fitful, restless doze holding her hand as she drifts off under the morphine.
TBC
Part: One of ??
Title: Flirt (Ianto)
Spoilers: This part: Fragments and Cyberwoman.
Rating: Ummm.....PG-13? References to previous sexual history, language.
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Summary: All relationships have their stages and their first moments. This is one of them.
Notes: ok, just in case anyone wonders: the 'Bridge', to almost any Welsh person with a South Wales connection is the Severn Bridge - the roadbridge that brings the M4 into Wales over the Severn Estuary. And Eros's Statue has/had a very well-known reputation as a pick-up point: it's on the edge of Soho. Finally, there's no real dress code in West End theatres.
Welsh: diolch yn fawr - thank you very much.
Thanks: to my three wonderful, amazingly-fast betas: 'madtheo', 'used songs' and 'travellingone', who sifted out the dross and polished the rest!! Thank you!
Part One - Flirt (Ianto)
The first time Ianto comes on to Harkness is the first time they meet. The Welshman’s desperation is growing more urgent every day; she’s dying and he has to save her. So he blatantly comes on to the captain and hopes it will work.
He hunches his shoulders under the battered old jacket, rubbing his hands together. There’s a light drizzle and the wind is coming straight in off the water. It’s after midnight and bloody freezing, but hopefully tonight will be the night the plan gets moving.
The Plan. It was born in the aftermath of the Battle, in those first days after his world fell apart. He’d been drafted into the clean-up operation by the nameless Suits swarming in as the Battle ended, their top-level clearance badges flashing. He hadn’t argued as it had given him unfettered access to almost everything. Security had only started tightening after those same Suits realised that Torchwood Cardiff had left with several sensitive items they hadn’t been given permission to take, by which time, Ianto had already managed to salvage most of the tech that he needed.
The first day, there were 50 of them all told, with twenty in hospital and thirty picking up the pieces at Canary Wharf. The two Torchwood Cardiff women showed up on Day Three, by which time 2 of the injured were already dead. By Day Five, when the two women left, two more of the injured were dead. It was then that he began to realise that the number of active, acknowledged survivors was dwindling: only 27 of the original 30 remained on-site. Over the next week, they were told of more deaths at the hospital until there were only ten victims still there, while at the Tower, the number of ‘volunteers’ kept diminishing until by Day Ten he was one of only twenty left working cover-up at Canada Square.
By then, Ianto already knew there was no hope to be had from the Institute; already knew that the powers-that-were would show no mercy to his situation. Glasgow was hopeless; there was no way to hide Lisa there. But he knew something about the Hub. He’d looked into the Cardiff outpost when he’d found out that a space/time Rift lay in the city where he’d spent half his life. He knew Harkness had been held in dubious regard by London, warily monitored but mostly ignored, and by then that was enough to call Ianto out of London and across the Bridge home, bringing Lisa and her brother Keith with him. On the day before his exodus, he counted only 17 people working in the ruins of the Tower and it was then that the Institute announced a grand total of 27 survivors. He still doesn’t want to think about what might have happened to his thirteen vanished colleagues.
During those last few days in London, he’d grabbed every chance he could to disappear into the Archive Vault. The files in the Tower were in two parts; the electronic files above ground had been decimated while the manual files stored below ground had survived relatively unscathed. Fortunately for his purposes, the entirety of the Torchwood Three file was down there - all of the information pertaining to their so-called “monitoring outpost” held together. So he re-read everything there was about the Cardiff Branch in general and this time, he read about the team. Medic: Doctor Owen Harper. Tech Support: Toshiko Sato PhD. Second-in-Command and Research: Susan Costello PhD. Leader: Captain Jack Harkness. Then he set out to find as much information he could on the Captain.
You had to know how to look to find anything about Harkness, and two years of working in Torchwood London had taught him how to search for the hidden, for the unknown. So he learned a good number of things about Harkness, not least being that the man had worked for Torchwood for at least 30 years and yet the most recent picture, a poor quality snap-shot from five years ago, showed a man who didn’t look older than his mid-thirties. Strange? Yes, but this was Torchwood.
What information there was made it clear that London had never liked Harkness when he was a field operative; did not like Harkness now that he ran Cardiff and wished quite heartily that it could manage without Harkness; but he kept the Rift incidents under such firm control that they didn’t dare try and remove him. Maverick, renegade, loose canon - and that was in the official reports. He’d found some more personal anecdotes in the records as well and it was these stories that gave him his idea. Because the anecdotes made it fairly clear that he and Harkness had something in common. Something he had no intention of telling Lisa………
As soon as she was settled in the abandoned hospital, he’d started out with the aim of getting into Cardiff. Not by breaking in - the Cardiff defenses were too good; that much his reading had made clear. Even Hartman had acknowledged that forcing her way into the Cardiff base would create too much collateral damage, even though she held the life of everyone but herself in low regard. No, he had to use different means to get in. For three weeks, he’s stalked the team. Watched them all, with a particular eye on Harkness. He already knew from his desperate research in London that they were a team of specialists but he’s learned more than just the pen-and-ink details in these past weeks. He’s learnt about the Captain and his team - who they actually were; how they worked. What made them tick.
One thing he learned very quickly was that they were anything but the back-water outpost Hartmann wrote them off as. They work flat out, they are understaffed and under-supported and Harkness runs himself ragged trying to keep them all going. All of which, he hopes to God, will give him a way in. He doesn’t care what kind of job gets him inside the base, so long as he gets there. He’ll do anything for Lisa. Anything.
So he’s standing, looking out across what they used to call the Oval Basin, keeping one eye on the water tower and the other eye on the passers-by. The get-up chosen to reel Harkness in is having a side-effect he hadn’t thought of. Last time he was in Cardiff, the Bay was not the place to go to pick up other men, but either that’s changed or his plans for Harkness are making him give off vibes because he’s been propositioned three times in one night. He hopes there’s some sign from the base soon, because that cop who eyed him up earlier will soon be heading back in this direction and the last thing he wants right now is an arrest for solicitation.
Lisa laughed the first time she realised a man had propositioned him. They were passing by Eros’s Statue, walking, rather than waiting for a night bus after a late-night trip to the West End to see Phantom. Her mobile rang and she stopped to answer it. Rather than appear to listen in (at only five weeks into the relationship Ianto was still very respectful of her personal space), he wandered away from her and stood just outside the wooden partition around the statue. Stupid place to stand, really. By the time she ended the call and turned around, he was glaring after a short, fat man who was hurrying away with a very put-out look on his face.
“Eh? What happened?” she said. He scowled and shook his head.
“Doesn’t matter.”
“What? C’mon, Ianto - what is it?” He sighed, then shrugged.
“He wanted to know the price.”
“Price?” She stared at him for a moment, clearly lost, then her eyes widened. “Price?!” She clapped a hand to her mouth but he could hear her muffled giggling. Her hand dropped to the hollow of her throat as she fought to keep a straight face. “He thought you were a……” and she giggled again. Her laughter was as infectious as ever and he found himself smiling, despite the embarrassment.
“Has that happened before?” she asked. He felt his face flush and her eyebrows shot up before she bit her lip and her shoulders began to shake as she again tried to hide the laughter.
“Oh well” she said. “At least we know one way you can earn our living if we lose our jobs!” At the expression on his face, she laughed out loud again and then he grinned at her, grabbing her waistband to pull her gently closer.
“Oh, it’s a kept woman you’re wanting to be now, is it?” he asked. She smiled.
“Did I mention how much I love that accent?” she asked. She reached up and gave him a quick, light kiss before she spoke again.
“Well, can’t say I blame him - I mean, you are cute and….” Her hand snaked around behind him… “I do like these jeans. Makes a change from the suits.” Moving his own hands around to her back and then down to her bum, he kissed her and she moved close against him. Breaking the kiss, she looked up at him.
“I don’t know though - I knew I was going to have a challenge from the ladies to keep you to myself - but if men are the rivals as well…..” She smiled up at him, and he panicked. Not a single clue what to say, what to tell her. Then, to his relief, she grinned and he realised she was joking. Or she thought she was joking.
“Ah, you’re all mine aren’t you, Mr. Jones?” He returned her smile and something flared in her eyes that made the world seem to shift around him. He nodded and when he lowered his head to hers, the kiss was like a dream come true. This time, when she moved back, she looked up at him in silence for a moment and then…
“My place is closer.” And suddenly she was off, running towards the bus-stop. He ran after her, catching her and swinging her round and round and they both laughed and laughed and then stumbled onto the bus as it came and just sat and laughed together…..
He went home with her that night and moved in the next day. And for nearly two years, the world was laughter and light and fun and he thought that maybe he didn’t need to tell her because she filled his world so completely that he could no more imagine being with a man again than he could imagine being with another woman.
And then the Ghost Shift project started.
He closes his eyes as the good memory fades, blotted out by the bad. Only when he’s away from her can he even find the good memories. When he sits with her, when he watches that lovely face, so often full of pain or, more frightening still, devoid of all feeling; he can only remember the bad things. Canary Wharf and the Cybermen and the Daleks and the bodies and the screaming and the smell of burnt flesh and blood and the sound of the conversion unit…..
He jerks his head back until it connects with the wall behind him. The flash of pain helps, helps him ground himself, helps distract him from the pain inside. For a moment, it feels good.
He drags one hand down his face, taking a deep breath.
He stares out across the Plas, focusing his attention once more on the water tower. If Harkness doesn’t make an appearance soon, he’ll have to give tonight up as a bad job and he doesn’t have time for that. He’s not as sure about Keith as he was even a week ago. It’s nothing he can put a finger on, not yet, but something is telling him to watch the man.
Movement over by the tower catches his eye. He stares across the plaza. It must be Harkness. He might not yet have seen the man close-up in daylight, but there are only two men in Torchwood Three and Doctor Harper is a lot shorter and skinnier than the man across the Plas, striding away from him and towards the Waterside carpark.
Ianto drifts along the top of the Plas steps, watching as Harkness looks up into the night sky, slowly turning a full circle on the spot. The Captain stands quite still for a moment, and some trick of the water or the night air carries his heavy sigh clearly to Ianto. Then he starts moving again, his back to Ianto as he heads for the carpark.
Ianto follows at a distance until the Captain disappears through the entryway and then sprints back to the bike. It’s bloody freezing, riding a motorbike in weather like this without leathers but he sold all his stuff when Lisa begged him to give up the bike, and although Keith’s reluctantly lent him a bike, the other man’s leathers are two sizes too small.
He’s sitting the bike in the shadows by the carpark exit, helmet on and visor down, when the big black car rumbles past. Tonight, Sato left the other SUV in the Senedd car-park so this can be no-one but Harkness. He waits just a few seconds before following.
Harkness drives like a bat out of hell and on more than one occasion, it’s only the bike’s maneuverability that enables him to keep up. Perhaps there’s something in those reports he’s read which say Harkness is more than reckless; he’s a liability.
Car and bike tear through the city and Ianto hopes to God that they don’t pass a bored traffic cop. He’s just thankful when the SUV comes to an uneventful stop on Cathedral Road up above the Gardens. He takes the bike on for about 50 yards before pulling over, then leaves the helmet on the bike and slips back towards the car. He’s just in time to see Harkness disappearing down into Sophia Gardens. Hanging back briefly, the Welshman draws a deep breath. He closes his eyes for a second, wondering how the hell he’s going to play this. Memories come back….memories he hates almost as much as the memories of the Battle; memories of before he left Cardiff; memories of what he sometimes thinks was another life. He remembers how to do this.
He opens his eyes and starts down into the Gardens. Faintly, from amongst the trees, he hears movement, rustling and what sounds like moans or growls. Harkness has clearly heard the same thing, because he speeds up.
The Weevil comes out of the bushes so suddenly, it takes them both by surprise.
The fight between Harkness and the creature is so fast he can’t really keep track of what’s happening. When he sees the other man thrown back against a tree, he glances around quickly for some sort of weapon and sees a thick, reasonably long, branch lying on the winter grass. He scoops it up and looks up in time to see Harkness’ back hit the ground and the Weevil launch itself at his throat. He puts on a burst of full speed and reaches them in seconds, bringing the branch down on the Weevil’s back.
It turns to attack him and for a moment it’s all he can do to keep it from his own throat. There’s a blur of motion from behind it and then Harkness knocks it to the ground and the bottle in his hand is clearly a repellent of some kind because he sprays it full in the creature’s face, stunning it. Harkness yanks a black cloth from his pocket and shoves it over the Weevil’s face. From another pocket, he hauls out a syringe and Ianto feels a surge of relief as Harkness injects the Weevil and it slumps against the ground.
Ianto blinks for a second, puzzled. The only time he ever saw anyone injecting anything into a Weevil was when one escaped within the vaults back in the Wharf and within seconds of that injection, the creature began to spasm and didn’t stop until it died, howling. This one is… still breathing.
He throws the stick to one side as Harkness gets to his feet. In the dim light, he can see blood at the man’s throat, which is hardly surprising given the viciousness of Weevil bites. The other man touches a hand to his throat, grimacing, and looks at the blood on his fingers, then his gaze shifts to Ianto.
“Thanks,” Ianto says.
He knows exactly what he’s doing. For this to work, he has to be in control from the outset. But until he knows how Harkness… likes things, he has to be careful. Has to be prepared to give the impression that it’s Harkness who has the control.
That thought has him on edge at once as Harkness’s eyes flick over him for a second. He doesn’t like remembering what happened the last time he gave over control to someone else. It’s a welcome distraction from where his mind is threatening to go when Harkness replies.
“No, thank you.” It’s the first time he’s been close enough to really hear the man and he finds himself immediately liking that voice. “And you are?”
He moves forward as he answers.
“Jones. Ianto Jones.” Oh God, he thinks, that’s almost as clichéd a line as ‘who ya gonna call?’ isn’t it? There is no amusement on the other man’s face but when Harkness replies, he’s fairly sure there’s some gentle mickey-taking there.
“Pleased to meet you, Jones, Ianto Jones.” For a moment, a warm, firm hand is holding his as they shake, then the touch is gone. “Captain Jack Harkness”.
Ianto nods down at the Weevil.
“Lucky escape.”
“I had it under control,” Harkness answers, his voice smooth and calm.
“You think so?” Ianto glances at him, then back at the Weevil. “It looked pretty vicious.” He looks at Harkness again. “You’re umm...” he starts to reach out, not even sure why he’s doing this, but Harkness moves back, clearly not happy with the personal space invasion. As he does so, light and shadows move and Ianto can see his throat again. What the…. “You were bleeding.” The bite-mark has gone, he’s sure of it.
“Had worse from shaving,” Harkness answers. Ianto files the incident and the reaction away for pondering over later and glances back down at the Weevil. This is Torchwood, so Harkness isn’t going to give anything away, but it’s time to play another card…
“Looked like a Weevil to me.” There is a short pause. From the corner of his eye he can see Harkness looking at him for a second before giving the perfect Torchwood answer.
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.” Ianto lets his head swing round to give Harkness a flat look, letting his surface thoughts take over for a second. Of course you don’t. We don’t let on to strangers, Captain, now do we?
For a moment, they just look at each other until Harkness turns away, bending over the sprawled form of the Weevil. He hefts the limp form up and over his shoulders and turned back briefly.
“Thanks for the assistance.” He starts to walk away and Ianto nods, only now aware of the raw feeling at the side of his head. The Weevil must have managed to land a blow during their brief struggle.
“Anytime!” he answers. Harkness starts to stride away, and the light from the street above and beyond him highlights the long lines accentuated by the greatcoat.
“By the way,” Ianto raises his voice slightly. “Love the coat.”
Harkness’s stride changes for a second, but then he’s gone, swallowed up by the shadows. Ianto draws a deep breath and lets it out slowly. If Harkness isn’t looking him up within half an hour of getting back to the Hub, the man has no business working for Torchwood. The next time they meet, Harkness will know about him. Whether the man offers him a job or not is a separate question.
The rain that’s been threatening all day finally breaks whilst he’s on the way to the hospital. By the time he gets there, he’s soaked through and shivering violently. He’s barely through the door leading into the wing they’ve commandeered when Keith comes storming out of the ward, shouting. His dark, handsome face is twisted in anger. It’s strange to think that they were friends, once.
“Where the fuck have you been, you useless wanker? She’s been asking for you for twenty minutes! You’re late, you piece of shit….”
Keith is angry. No surprise there, then - Keith is always angry these days and never misses an opportunity to insult or antagonise. Since he first saw her lying in the conversion/support unit two days after the battle, there hasn’t been a day that Keith hasn’t made it abundantly clear he blames Ianto for his little sister’s condition. And he already knows it’s his fault, diolch yn fawr, he doesn’t need someone else telling him that every single fucking day. It’s his fault - if he’d just been quicker, if he’d moved quicker, acted earlier, got there sooner…..
“I had to wait and see if Harkness was going to show up tonight. I knew he was alone in the Hub, I had to hope something might come up and bring him out.”
“Well?”
“It did; I met him” he snaps. He’s cold, tired and hungry and he really doesn’t want this now.
“And?”
“And what? He knows I exist now, I’ll get hold of him again as soon as I can.” Ianto starts to move past him, to go to her, but the other man grabs his sleeve and Ianto stops for a second to look at him.
“Get this sorted out, Jones, soon. Or I’m going to tell someone what’s going on here.” Ianto wrenches his arm free and looks down at Keith with contempt.
“Who the hell would you tell, Keith? Who do you think is going to listen if you tell them that your sister is the next thing to a cyborg? You think anyone will listen? Assuming they don’t section you and cart you off to Provi…a mental hospital, that is?” He steps forward, deliberately crowding into the other man, using the advantage that three inches of extra height gives him.
“You tell anyone, anyone, and you are killing your sister. I’ve told you this before. If you tell the media, Torchwood will find out. If you tell the hospitals, Torchwood will find out. If you tell the police - Torchwood. Will. Find. Out. And if Torchwood find out, they will kill her. As for you, the best you can hope for in that case is waking up dumped by a motorway somewhere with about 8 weeks gone from your memory, thinking she died in a terrorist attack on Canary Wharf.”
The previous two times Keith has spoken about ‘telling someone’, the threat against his sister and himself has shut him down. This time, his face hardens and Ianto’s earlier unease solidifies into a chill down his spine as he realises that Keith is close to cracking and confessing all.
Keith glares at him, suspicion all over his face.
“So if Torchwood are so dangerous to her, why the fuck are you going to them for help?”
“I’m not going to them for help, you half-wit, I’m trying to get access to the base. How much longer do you think we can keep the conversion unit wired up here without someone from the electricity company realising this place is supposed to be abandoned? We need a secure, uninterrupted source of power. We need technology and information I can only get my hands on if I’m inside Torchwood. I need the computers. I need the Archives. I need the tech. I can’t get that from here and it’s impossible to break into the base - believe me, I’ve seen the specs for the security. So the only option is for one of us to actually get into the base legitimately. And guess what? I work for fucking Torchwood, so the odds are if I can play my cards right, I can get us in!”
It’s only when he stops speaking that he realises he’s shouting. In the silence, Keith glares up at him and there is nothing but hate in his eyes. When a soft groan of pain comes from the direction of the conversion unit, Keith’s eyes flick across to his sister with no change of expression.
Ianto’s heart seems to freeze inside him. For eight weeks, he’s held onto Keith’s love for his sister, held onto the other man’s brotherly need to help protect her. But suddenly, it’s terrifyingly clear that the pressure of the last 8 weeks and the changes forced onto Lisa have changed the way her brother sees her. If Ianto is lucky, he has days left.
It’s a good job he’s never mentioned that Torchwood are almost certain to execute Ianto himself if they ever find Lisa. The way Keith feels about him these days, that might actually be enough to make him betray them all. If he can just get into the base in the next couple of days, it should be safe. As soon as he has her safely there, he’ll go back to the original plan, the part he never told the other man about, and retcon Keith. Once Lisa is of sight and out of mind, there is no way he trusts the man to keep his mouth shut.
He turns away, and strides across the dust-strewn floor of the abandoned ward to the conversion unit. She turns her head as he comes closer and he flinches inwardly at the pain on her face. That is something else he needs: access to the sorts of drugs they’ll have inside the base because the standard medications he’s been able to get hold of are starting to fail.
He stops beside her and bends to kiss her on her too-cold mouth and takes her hand in his. He tries to pretend it’s warm and soft, not hard, icy metal. Tries to tell himself that the cheek he strokes feels like it always has, not…wrong. She turns her head into the touch and he wills the tears back before her eyes focus on his face.
“Oh love, there you are! I was getting worried.” He smiles down at her.
“I’m here - I’m ok. Met Harkness.” He sees the spark of hope in her eyes.
“And?”
“Helped pull a Weevil off him.” He smiles again, trying to sound like he’s not worried half out of his mind. “It worked last time!” She returns the smile but there is so much pain there that he can’t hold back the tears. She squeezes his hand and he swallows to try and hide the grimace of pain. She no longer knows her own strength.
“We’ll do this, Lisa. We’ll manage it. You’ll be alright - I promise.”
“You always keep your promises,” she whispers.
He sits with her, talking to her to try and help take her mind off the pain until it’s time to administer a new dose. He eventually falls into a fitful, restless doze holding her hand as she drifts off under the morphine.
TBC