Fic: As Long As I Have (24/25)
Title: As Long As I Have (24/25)
Pairings: Jack/Ianto
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Huge spoilers for Children of Earth, all Days.
Disclaimer: I don't own Torchwood. Anything you recognise is the property of the BBC.
Summary: Children of Earth fix it fic, starting from Day Five.
Author's Notes: As always, huge thanks to tazza_di_jo for all of her help. Sorry for the delay, technical difficulties! Would have been posted early today, if British public transport failed less.
Previous Chapters: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 19, Chapter 20, Chapter 21, Chapter 22, Chapter 23
Jack let Ianto drive the SUV to the castle. It was walking distance, really, for the two of them, but they had picked Riley and Amelia up on the way, wanting to initiate them into Torchwood properly as soon as possible. Gwen had said she would meet them there, but not before laughing at the idea of a base inside Cardiff Castle. Jack had to admit, he had his own doubts about what they would end up with, but Ianto seemed to be thinking positively and, really, they didn’t have any ideas.
“This place could be ideal,” Ianto said as he drove through the streets, “It’s an old UNIT base, but it hasn’t been touched since the eighties.”
“And UNIT are okay with you taking it over?” Riley asked. He was sat in the back, at a slightly awkward angle due to his leg. Jack hadn’t wanted to vacate the front seat.
Amelia cut him off, “What’s UNIT?”
“Unified Intelligence Taskforce,” Jack told her. “They’re an organisation like Torchwood; they’re more military, more controlled. We’re the freelance version. Riley here used to work for them. They take it all a bit too seriously for my taste.”
“There isn’t a commander in UNIT that Jack hasn’t pissed off,” Ianto said. “Anyway, apparently the base isn’t on most records. I asked Martha if she’d be able to do a search for possible locations for us on the UNIT database. My hacking skills aren’t up to it.”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “You asked Martha to find a UNIT base we could steal?”
“I didn’t,” Ianto said, “I asked her to research abandoned facilities. And this is one of them, no one’s stepped foot in it in years as far as anyone can tell. You should be able to get us in with your wrist strap-”
“What’s the deal with that thing?” Riley asked.
Ianto ploughed on. “And we can take a look. From the specification Martha emailed, it looks pretty big. It’s underneath the castle.”
“You’re telling me there’s some big... sci-fi headquarters underneath Cardiff Castle?” Amelia asked, looking disbelieving.
Jack laughed. “Our last base was underneath the bay,” he told her, matter-of-factly.
Amelia shook her head. “That’s insane.”
Jack thought it was a mark of the affect that their jobs had on them that both Ianto and Riley merely shrugged.
“What sort of space are we looking at, Ianto? One giant room or what?”
“The plans aren’t very clear,” Ianto said, turning a corner. They were only a few minutes away now and Jack checked his gun. They didn’t know what would be left in the base, it was better to be prepared. “But it looks like it’s sectioned off, and it’s not like Torchwood can’t afford to get some work done on it. It’s split over two levels, so we’ll be able to sort out some containment cells and a morgue. Get you an office and make sure there’s a med bay. We won’t need archives just yet.”
He pulled the car into the visitor car park and took the keys from the ignition. Gwen was leaning on a fence waiting for them.
“How will you get builders in?” Amelia asked. “Won’t they be suspicious?”
“Retcon,” Jack said, and then, at the look on Amelia’s face, “We’ll explain later.”
Ianto checked his own gun and glanced at Amelia and Riley, then back to Jack. “Are they armed?”
“Riley is. Amelia’s got no firearms training.”
Ianto nodded and got out of the car, Jack and Amelia helped Riley out and Gwen walked over to the car. “Locked properly is it, Ianto?” she asked with a smile.
Ianto rolled his eyes.
Gwen looked over at the castle. “You sure about this?”
“It’s a possibility,” Ianto said.
Jack looked at them all, his new team, and smiled. “Right. We’ll have to buy tickets to get inside until we figure out exactly where the entrance is. When we find it, I go in first. None of you move until I say so, okay?” He turned to Ianto. “Okay?”
Ianto opened his mouth to protest, but nodded instead.
“When we go in, Amelia, Gwen, you stay behind us.”
“If you think just because I’m a girl that-”
Jack cut Amelia off quickly. “I don’t need a female rights activist on my team; I had enough of that during the seventies. You stay at the back because you’re not armed, Gwen stays at the back because she’s pregnant. Got it?”
Amelia nodded, but looked put out all the same.
“As soon as we’ve got a base and got back on track, you can have firearms training.”
“Hopefully not the same kind of firearms training I got,” Ianto commented and adjusted his suit jacket over his gun. “Are we good?”
Jack nodded. “Let’s go.”
Jack grumbled only a little as Ianto paid for their entrance into Cardiff Castle and, to her credit, the woman behind the counter did not express any surprise at the odd group buying their tickets. She smiled warmly at Ianto as she passed them over. “Good to see you again, Ianto,” she said.
“You too,” Ianto nodded.
Jack frowned. “You know each other?”
“Abigail has come into the tourist office a few times,” Ianto explained. Jack still didn’t look impressed.
“Suppose you’re out of a job now,” Abigail remarked. “It being blown up and all. Or have they moved you to another office?”
“Not many tourists wanting to come to Wales right now,” Ianto said. “I’m moving on.”
Abigail smiled again and Jack, feeling suddenly possessive, took Ianto’s hand in his. Abigail raised an eyebrow but said nothing as Ianto pulled the hand away and led the way out of the shop.
“What was all that about?” Jack asked.
Gwen laughed. “Oh, look Ianto, he’s gone all possessive.”
“I have not!” Jack protested.
“You should be nice to her, Jack. We might need a receptionist if the entrance isn’t easily accessible.”
Jack frowned and moved off, leading the way through the castle grounds and definitely not sulking. Ianto rolled his eyes and followed, Gwen and Amelia flanking Riley as they walked behind.
They wandered for a while, looking for any obvious signs of an entrance. The UNIT plans Martha had dug up didn’t make it very clear, and Jack’s scanners hadn’t picked up any alien tech, either. Jack was beginning to think giving up would be a good idea, when they all stopped to sit on a bank. Riley was tired of hobbling about on his crutches, Ianto was being unnecessarily grumpy and Gwen had taken to reminding them all she was pregnant every five minutes. He leaned back on the grass, tapping Ianto’s foot with his own.
Ianto glanced over at him. “What?”
“Maybe we should just try the next location on your list. This is a no hoper.”
Ianto said nothing and Jack rolled onto his front. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing,” Ianto said. “I’m fine,” he gave Jack a small smile. “Maybe you’re right, too good to be true, I suppose.”
“You two better not being thinking about giving up,” Gwen told them, “Not after we’ve spent two hours circling this place.”
“One last sweep, then,” Jack said, sitting up. “There’s got to be somewhere we didn’t try.”
“The castle apartments?” Ianto suggested. “Maybe there’s a stairwell.”
Gwen got to her feet. “Come on then, let’s get on with it.”
Jack frowned as he rose, pulling Ianto up with him. “She thinks she’s in charge,” he said.
“She probably is,” Ianto told him. “Everything but the title.”
Jack shrugged and followed Gwen as she led the way over to the castle apartments. Ianto dropped back to help Amelia steady Riley, who was all for giving up on his crutches entirely. He wondered if perhaps they should have left Riley at home to recover.
Walking around the castle apartments, all but Jack were easily distracted by everything around them. Jack zipped from room to room, stopping only when he reached the library and his wrist strap began to beep, indicating the presence of alien tech. Jack had set it to scan when they arrived at the castle; he didn’t often use it, because they carried so much alien tech with them it was hard to tell, but today they had brought nothing with them.
He called to the others, and a curator near the door frowned at him for shouting. He shrugged, and waited impatiently for the team to arrive.
“Here?” Ianto asked.
Jack nodded. “Somewhere.”
They began to investigate. Jack rolled his eyes when Amelia began pulling books from shelves, hoping to trigger a secret entrance. “Does she think that really happens?” Jack asked Ianto. Ianto shrugged and went back to searching.
Moments later they all stopped at a grinding sound. Amelia had a book in her hand, and the shelf had slid a little to the right. Not very far, but with enough space for a person to slide through. Ianto couldn’t help but laugh at the look on Jack’s face.
Jack slipped past Amelia and made his way through the entrance. Ianto waited for instructions to follow, while Gwen, in an attempt to distract the now curious curator, clutched at her belly and half-stumbled towards the exit. As the curator offered her a seat, she threw Ianto a wink. He laughed and waited for Jack’s call.
It came quickly, and they followed one by one. It was a short, dark corridor, ending in a stairwell, as Ianto had predicted. He led the way down the stairs, to where Jack was waiting amongst abandoned machinery that must have been what had set the alien tech scan off.
The stairs had left them in a large room, though there seemed to be other rooms off to the side. Beside the stairs was another staircase, going down this time, no doubt to the lower level on the plan. Ianto glanced at Jack, trying to gauge his impressions.
“Well,” Jack said, grinning at his team. “It’s a start.”
They smiled back, Ianto turning only to offer his arm to Gwen as she came down the stairs.
“Just needs a coffee machine,” Gwen told them.
Jack laughed. “Definitely,” he glanced around. “Right troops, explore. There must be another entrance, I can’t see UNIT paying the entrance fee every time they needed into the facility, and there’s no way we can lug aliens through the castle museum on a daily basis.”
They set about exploring the area. Jack and Gwen looked for possible exits, while Riley and Amelia looked around, just seeing what was there. Ianto, ever organised, moved from room to room with a tape measure and a notebook. There would be a lot of work to do, but from the look in Jack’s eyes, Torchwood Three was moving to Cardiff Castle.
> Chapter 25
Pairings: Jack/Ianto
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Huge spoilers for Children of Earth, all Days.
Disclaimer: I don't own Torchwood. Anything you recognise is the property of the BBC.
Summary: Children of Earth fix it fic, starting from Day Five.
Author's Notes: As always, huge thanks to tazza_di_jo for all of her help. Sorry for the delay, technical difficulties! Would have been posted early today, if British public transport failed less.
Previous Chapters: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 19, Chapter 20, Chapter 21, Chapter 22, Chapter 23
Jack let Ianto drive the SUV to the castle. It was walking distance, really, for the two of them, but they had picked Riley and Amelia up on the way, wanting to initiate them into Torchwood properly as soon as possible. Gwen had said she would meet them there, but not before laughing at the idea of a base inside Cardiff Castle. Jack had to admit, he had his own doubts about what they would end up with, but Ianto seemed to be thinking positively and, really, they didn’t have any ideas.
“This place could be ideal,” Ianto said as he drove through the streets, “It’s an old UNIT base, but it hasn’t been touched since the eighties.”
“And UNIT are okay with you taking it over?” Riley asked. He was sat in the back, at a slightly awkward angle due to his leg. Jack hadn’t wanted to vacate the front seat.
Amelia cut him off, “What’s UNIT?”
“Unified Intelligence Taskforce,” Jack told her. “They’re an organisation like Torchwood; they’re more military, more controlled. We’re the freelance version. Riley here used to work for them. They take it all a bit too seriously for my taste.”
“There isn’t a commander in UNIT that Jack hasn’t pissed off,” Ianto said. “Anyway, apparently the base isn’t on most records. I asked Martha if she’d be able to do a search for possible locations for us on the UNIT database. My hacking skills aren’t up to it.”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “You asked Martha to find a UNIT base we could steal?”
“I didn’t,” Ianto said, “I asked her to research abandoned facilities. And this is one of them, no one’s stepped foot in it in years as far as anyone can tell. You should be able to get us in with your wrist strap-”
“What’s the deal with that thing?” Riley asked.
Ianto ploughed on. “And we can take a look. From the specification Martha emailed, it looks pretty big. It’s underneath the castle.”
“You’re telling me there’s some big... sci-fi headquarters underneath Cardiff Castle?” Amelia asked, looking disbelieving.
Jack laughed. “Our last base was underneath the bay,” he told her, matter-of-factly.
Amelia shook her head. “That’s insane.”
Jack thought it was a mark of the affect that their jobs had on them that both Ianto and Riley merely shrugged.
“What sort of space are we looking at, Ianto? One giant room or what?”
“The plans aren’t very clear,” Ianto said, turning a corner. They were only a few minutes away now and Jack checked his gun. They didn’t know what would be left in the base, it was better to be prepared. “But it looks like it’s sectioned off, and it’s not like Torchwood can’t afford to get some work done on it. It’s split over two levels, so we’ll be able to sort out some containment cells and a morgue. Get you an office and make sure there’s a med bay. We won’t need archives just yet.”
He pulled the car into the visitor car park and took the keys from the ignition. Gwen was leaning on a fence waiting for them.
“How will you get builders in?” Amelia asked. “Won’t they be suspicious?”
“Retcon,” Jack said, and then, at the look on Amelia’s face, “We’ll explain later.”
Ianto checked his own gun and glanced at Amelia and Riley, then back to Jack. “Are they armed?”
“Riley is. Amelia’s got no firearms training.”
Ianto nodded and got out of the car, Jack and Amelia helped Riley out and Gwen walked over to the car. “Locked properly is it, Ianto?” she asked with a smile.
Ianto rolled his eyes.
Gwen looked over at the castle. “You sure about this?”
“It’s a possibility,” Ianto said.
Jack looked at them all, his new team, and smiled. “Right. We’ll have to buy tickets to get inside until we figure out exactly where the entrance is. When we find it, I go in first. None of you move until I say so, okay?” He turned to Ianto. “Okay?”
Ianto opened his mouth to protest, but nodded instead.
“When we go in, Amelia, Gwen, you stay behind us.”
“If you think just because I’m a girl that-”
Jack cut Amelia off quickly. “I don’t need a female rights activist on my team; I had enough of that during the seventies. You stay at the back because you’re not armed, Gwen stays at the back because she’s pregnant. Got it?”
Amelia nodded, but looked put out all the same.
“As soon as we’ve got a base and got back on track, you can have firearms training.”
“Hopefully not the same kind of firearms training I got,” Ianto commented and adjusted his suit jacket over his gun. “Are we good?”
Jack nodded. “Let’s go.”
Jack grumbled only a little as Ianto paid for their entrance into Cardiff Castle and, to her credit, the woman behind the counter did not express any surprise at the odd group buying their tickets. She smiled warmly at Ianto as she passed them over. “Good to see you again, Ianto,” she said.
“You too,” Ianto nodded.
Jack frowned. “You know each other?”
“Abigail has come into the tourist office a few times,” Ianto explained. Jack still didn’t look impressed.
“Suppose you’re out of a job now,” Abigail remarked. “It being blown up and all. Or have they moved you to another office?”
“Not many tourists wanting to come to Wales right now,” Ianto said. “I’m moving on.”
Abigail smiled again and Jack, feeling suddenly possessive, took Ianto’s hand in his. Abigail raised an eyebrow but said nothing as Ianto pulled the hand away and led the way out of the shop.
“What was all that about?” Jack asked.
Gwen laughed. “Oh, look Ianto, he’s gone all possessive.”
“I have not!” Jack protested.
“You should be nice to her, Jack. We might need a receptionist if the entrance isn’t easily accessible.”
Jack frowned and moved off, leading the way through the castle grounds and definitely not sulking. Ianto rolled his eyes and followed, Gwen and Amelia flanking Riley as they walked behind.
They wandered for a while, looking for any obvious signs of an entrance. The UNIT plans Martha had dug up didn’t make it very clear, and Jack’s scanners hadn’t picked up any alien tech, either. Jack was beginning to think giving up would be a good idea, when they all stopped to sit on a bank. Riley was tired of hobbling about on his crutches, Ianto was being unnecessarily grumpy and Gwen had taken to reminding them all she was pregnant every five minutes. He leaned back on the grass, tapping Ianto’s foot with his own.
Ianto glanced over at him. “What?”
“Maybe we should just try the next location on your list. This is a no hoper.”
Ianto said nothing and Jack rolled onto his front. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing,” Ianto said. “I’m fine,” he gave Jack a small smile. “Maybe you’re right, too good to be true, I suppose.”
“You two better not being thinking about giving up,” Gwen told them, “Not after we’ve spent two hours circling this place.”
“One last sweep, then,” Jack said, sitting up. “There’s got to be somewhere we didn’t try.”
“The castle apartments?” Ianto suggested. “Maybe there’s a stairwell.”
Gwen got to her feet. “Come on then, let’s get on with it.”
Jack frowned as he rose, pulling Ianto up with him. “She thinks she’s in charge,” he said.
“She probably is,” Ianto told him. “Everything but the title.”
Jack shrugged and followed Gwen as she led the way over to the castle apartments. Ianto dropped back to help Amelia steady Riley, who was all for giving up on his crutches entirely. He wondered if perhaps they should have left Riley at home to recover.
Walking around the castle apartments, all but Jack were easily distracted by everything around them. Jack zipped from room to room, stopping only when he reached the library and his wrist strap began to beep, indicating the presence of alien tech. Jack had set it to scan when they arrived at the castle; he didn’t often use it, because they carried so much alien tech with them it was hard to tell, but today they had brought nothing with them.
He called to the others, and a curator near the door frowned at him for shouting. He shrugged, and waited impatiently for the team to arrive.
“Here?” Ianto asked.
Jack nodded. “Somewhere.”
They began to investigate. Jack rolled his eyes when Amelia began pulling books from shelves, hoping to trigger a secret entrance. “Does she think that really happens?” Jack asked Ianto. Ianto shrugged and went back to searching.
Moments later they all stopped at a grinding sound. Amelia had a book in her hand, and the shelf had slid a little to the right. Not very far, but with enough space for a person to slide through. Ianto couldn’t help but laugh at the look on Jack’s face.
Jack slipped past Amelia and made his way through the entrance. Ianto waited for instructions to follow, while Gwen, in an attempt to distract the now curious curator, clutched at her belly and half-stumbled towards the exit. As the curator offered her a seat, she threw Ianto a wink. He laughed and waited for Jack’s call.
It came quickly, and they followed one by one. It was a short, dark corridor, ending in a stairwell, as Ianto had predicted. He led the way down the stairs, to where Jack was waiting amongst abandoned machinery that must have been what had set the alien tech scan off.
The stairs had left them in a large room, though there seemed to be other rooms off to the side. Beside the stairs was another staircase, going down this time, no doubt to the lower level on the plan. Ianto glanced at Jack, trying to gauge his impressions.
“Well,” Jack said, grinning at his team. “It’s a start.”
They smiled back, Ianto turning only to offer his arm to Gwen as she came down the stairs.
“Just needs a coffee machine,” Gwen told them.
Jack laughed. “Definitely,” he glanced around. “Right troops, explore. There must be another entrance, I can’t see UNIT paying the entrance fee every time they needed into the facility, and there’s no way we can lug aliens through the castle museum on a daily basis.”
They set about exploring the area. Jack and Gwen looked for possible exits, while Riley and Amelia looked around, just seeing what was there. Ianto, ever organised, moved from room to room with a tape measure and a notebook. There would be a lot of work to do, but from the look in Jack’s eyes, Torchwood Three was moving to Cardiff Castle.
> Chapter 25