What Happened to My Life? (24/34ish)
Title: What Happened to My Life?
Author: Otrame
Summary: Ianto Jones is an ordinary bloke. Maybe a little on the geeky side. Works for a big insurance company. Married, first baby on the way. So, why won’t his kidnappers believe him when he tells them that he has never, ever heard the word Torchwood before?
Rating: PG 13 for mature themes.
Pairings: Jack/Ianto
Warnings:This story contains some descriptions of torture, most of which is psychological. Occasional highly charged sexual language, frequent cursing, etc. There will be some explicit violence and occasional brief sexual scenes, though these will be not be detailed or terribly explicit. It is an AU.
Spoilers: Potentially all of S1 and S2 until after Owen's first death.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction and is intended as a tribute to characters and stories developed and owned by Russell T. Davies and the BBC. No copyright infringement is intended.
The story begins here.
24. Preparations
In which the team gets ready to go get Ianto.
Just remember, you asked for this, Ianto told himself. Laying here now, he only had to exaggerate the shivering, not fake it entirely. His heart was racing. He was terrified.
He had asked for it. No, he had demanded it. And oh, what an explosion that had caused. He was not at all sure that he had not permanently damaged his relationship with Jack. He’d had to use some pretty brutal emotional blackmail to get Jack to agree to this. In the end, Jack had acquiesced, but from that moment, he had been cold and withdrawn and Ianto was very afraid that Jack had decided that his relationship with Ianto was costing more than it was worth. The man who had sent him out the door to catch the two agents that had been watching the Hub had acted as if he were making use of an asset, nothing more. There had been no sign of the warm and loving man who had helped Ianto through the terrible effects of the treatment Owen had given him to free his memories.
But Ianto had to do this. Maggie, as least, seemed to understand, though she had stayed out of the fight with remarkable adroitness. He had to do this, because he wouldn’t feel like he was really himself again until he had confronted them, on their own territory and on their own terms.
The feeling had begun almost the moment he’d woken from the long sleep that had capped the treatment to restore his memories. It was a worm of humiliation and fear that ruined the pleasure of getting all his memories back, of being welcomed by Tosh and Gwen and, God help him, even Owen. The latter, choosing a moment when they were alone, had said gruffly, “Glad you’re back, teaboy. Now maybe Harkness will calm down a little and things can go back to their normal level of fucked up.”
Ianto wished it was that easy. Just go back to the way things were. It wasn’t happening. His thoughts kept circling back to that moment when he had realized that he was holding Jack’s gun, had actually taken it out of its holster while he was kissing Jack. Around and around, his memories returned to listening to the voice saying, “Shoot him three times in the chest and then shoot yourself in the head.” Over and over. That soft American accent, that thin female voice. Over and over and over. Of course he would never obey such orders… except he hadn’t been able to put the gun down until Maggie had intervened.
Everyone acted as if, now that he could remember everything, that they could all, Ianto included, buckle down and find the people who had done this to him, as if it were just another case. He had believed that himself at first, or at least he had tried to believe it. Then he’d noticed the spot on his temple. It had been a thin crescent shape and looked like a healing burn. It was not obvious. It was hardly there. But he did not remember being burned. It bothered him. He had no memory but there was something… His mind worried at it, until he finally remembered. No, not a memory. In that horrible moment when he had finally been able to drop the gun, he’d had a vision of what could have happened, a vision as real as a memory of shooting Jack and then turning the gun on himself and, yes, the spike of pain from the heat of the gun barrel touching his temple…
It had not been a memory, it was just a flare of horrible imagination.
But the burn was there on his temple. The mark left by a gun barrel, still hot after firing three rounds, touching flesh.
But it was not a memory. It had just been a waking nightmare, hadn’t it?
It had taken him more than an hour to make himself talk to Jack about it, and a while longer before Jack had finally admitted that Ianto had shot him, had put that gun to his own head, and his instinctive flinch when the hot metal burned him and Gwen’s fast reflexes had saved him.
Jack and Owen insisted that that couldn’t happen again. Maggie told him he could resist any remaining conditioned responses because he was fully aware of the reasons why he had such thoughts and would not again be fooled into thinking they were really his own.
But they had not stood there with that gun in their hands. They had no memories of what these people had done to him. They did not know true helplessness. He needed to wash that out of his thoughts, out of his soul. He needed to be the one who brought these evil people down, even if it meant his own death.
***
“Jack, you better take a look at this.”
Jack came up from the back of the van, where he had been doing something mysterious with some equipment that Maggie did not recognize. “What’s up?”
Owen nodded to the screen. The CCTV showed that two SUVs and a large van not very different from the one they were in now had pulled up to the front of the building where Ianto was being held. As they watched, a dozen or more men and one women got out of the vehicles and started inside. The men were wearing what looked like military gear, minus any insignias. They were all carrying small arms. Several pairs of men carried fairly small but apparently heavy metal boxes, two carried long duffles that also appeared heavy. The woman was in business attire. She carried a very large briefcase. Jack and Owen watched these people go into the building.
“Looks like someone decided that a couple of guys with stun guns might not be enough fire power,” Owen said.
Jack nodded.
“What are you going to do now?” Maggie said.
Jack glanced at her, looking a little surprised. “We’re going to wait for Ianto’s signal, and then we are going to go in and get him.”
Maggie looked around. Tosh and Gwen were quickly and quietly attaching various pieces of equipment to belts wrapped around their torsos. She swallowed, realizing that she had never seen so many guns in her life. Gwen glanced up at her and saw her expression. She grinned ruefully. “Think you’ve gotten caught in a Bruce Willis move, yeah?”
“Yeah.” She watched them a little longer. Finally she said, “Please tell me you aren’t planning for the four of you to just walk in there. I mean maybe when Ianto first arrived, but now, after all those people showed up? How can you expect to get anywhere, against those odds?”
Owen let out a little snort. “Actually, it will be just the three of them. I’m staying in the van with you.” He put a large metal case on the table and opened it. Inside was a series of little compartments surrounding a something about the size and roughly the shape of a computer game controller. In each of the compartments were two small black somethings.
“Don’t worry,” Gwen told her, reaching into take two of the little black…things.”
“But how can you fight against those kinds of odds?”
Tosh picked up the controller-like piece of equipment. She looked at Maggie, eyes solemn, with no hint of either fear or amusement in her expression. “We cheat.”
Author: Otrame
Summary: Ianto Jones is an ordinary bloke. Maybe a little on the geeky side. Works for a big insurance company. Married, first baby on the way. So, why won’t his kidnappers believe him when he tells them that he has never, ever heard the word Torchwood before?
Rating: PG 13 for mature themes.
Pairings: Jack/Ianto
Warnings:This story contains some descriptions of torture, most of which is psychological. Occasional highly charged sexual language, frequent cursing, etc. There will be some explicit violence and occasional brief sexual scenes, though these will be not be detailed or terribly explicit. It is an AU.
Spoilers: Potentially all of S1 and S2 until after Owen's first death.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction and is intended as a tribute to characters and stories developed and owned by Russell T. Davies and the BBC. No copyright infringement is intended.
The story begins here.
24. Preparations
In which the team gets ready to go get Ianto.
Just remember, you asked for this, Ianto told himself. Laying here now, he only had to exaggerate the shivering, not fake it entirely. His heart was racing. He was terrified.
He had asked for it. No, he had demanded it. And oh, what an explosion that had caused. He was not at all sure that he had not permanently damaged his relationship with Jack. He’d had to use some pretty brutal emotional blackmail to get Jack to agree to this. In the end, Jack had acquiesced, but from that moment, he had been cold and withdrawn and Ianto was very afraid that Jack had decided that his relationship with Ianto was costing more than it was worth. The man who had sent him out the door to catch the two agents that had been watching the Hub had acted as if he were making use of an asset, nothing more. There had been no sign of the warm and loving man who had helped Ianto through the terrible effects of the treatment Owen had given him to free his memories.
But Ianto had to do this. Maggie, as least, seemed to understand, though she had stayed out of the fight with remarkable adroitness. He had to do this, because he wouldn’t feel like he was really himself again until he had confronted them, on their own territory and on their own terms.
The feeling had begun almost the moment he’d woken from the long sleep that had capped the treatment to restore his memories. It was a worm of humiliation and fear that ruined the pleasure of getting all his memories back, of being welcomed by Tosh and Gwen and, God help him, even Owen. The latter, choosing a moment when they were alone, had said gruffly, “Glad you’re back, teaboy. Now maybe Harkness will calm down a little and things can go back to their normal level of fucked up.”
Ianto wished it was that easy. Just go back to the way things were. It wasn’t happening. His thoughts kept circling back to that moment when he had realized that he was holding Jack’s gun, had actually taken it out of its holster while he was kissing Jack. Around and around, his memories returned to listening to the voice saying, “Shoot him three times in the chest and then shoot yourself in the head.” Over and over. That soft American accent, that thin female voice. Over and over and over. Of course he would never obey such orders… except he hadn’t been able to put the gun down until Maggie had intervened.
Everyone acted as if, now that he could remember everything, that they could all, Ianto included, buckle down and find the people who had done this to him, as if it were just another case. He had believed that himself at first, or at least he had tried to believe it. Then he’d noticed the spot on his temple. It had been a thin crescent shape and looked like a healing burn. It was not obvious. It was hardly there. But he did not remember being burned. It bothered him. He had no memory but there was something… His mind worried at it, until he finally remembered. No, not a memory. In that horrible moment when he had finally been able to drop the gun, he’d had a vision of what could have happened, a vision as real as a memory of shooting Jack and then turning the gun on himself and, yes, the spike of pain from the heat of the gun barrel touching his temple…
It had not been a memory, it was just a flare of horrible imagination.
But the burn was there on his temple. The mark left by a gun barrel, still hot after firing three rounds, touching flesh.
But it was not a memory. It had just been a waking nightmare, hadn’t it?
It had taken him more than an hour to make himself talk to Jack about it, and a while longer before Jack had finally admitted that Ianto had shot him, had put that gun to his own head, and his instinctive flinch when the hot metal burned him and Gwen’s fast reflexes had saved him.
Jack and Owen insisted that that couldn’t happen again. Maggie told him he could resist any remaining conditioned responses because he was fully aware of the reasons why he had such thoughts and would not again be fooled into thinking they were really his own.
But they had not stood there with that gun in their hands. They had no memories of what these people had done to him. They did not know true helplessness. He needed to wash that out of his thoughts, out of his soul. He needed to be the one who brought these evil people down, even if it meant his own death.
***
“Jack, you better take a look at this.”
Jack came up from the back of the van, where he had been doing something mysterious with some equipment that Maggie did not recognize. “What’s up?”
Owen nodded to the screen. The CCTV showed that two SUVs and a large van not very different from the one they were in now had pulled up to the front of the building where Ianto was being held. As they watched, a dozen or more men and one women got out of the vehicles and started inside. The men were wearing what looked like military gear, minus any insignias. They were all carrying small arms. Several pairs of men carried fairly small but apparently heavy metal boxes, two carried long duffles that also appeared heavy. The woman was in business attire. She carried a very large briefcase. Jack and Owen watched these people go into the building.
“Looks like someone decided that a couple of guys with stun guns might not be enough fire power,” Owen said.
Jack nodded.
“What are you going to do now?” Maggie said.
Jack glanced at her, looking a little surprised. “We’re going to wait for Ianto’s signal, and then we are going to go in and get him.”
Maggie looked around. Tosh and Gwen were quickly and quietly attaching various pieces of equipment to belts wrapped around their torsos. She swallowed, realizing that she had never seen so many guns in her life. Gwen glanced up at her and saw her expression. She grinned ruefully. “Think you’ve gotten caught in a Bruce Willis move, yeah?”
“Yeah.” She watched them a little longer. Finally she said, “Please tell me you aren’t planning for the four of you to just walk in there. I mean maybe when Ianto first arrived, but now, after all those people showed up? How can you expect to get anywhere, against those odds?”
Owen let out a little snort. “Actually, it will be just the three of them. I’m staying in the van with you.” He put a large metal case on the table and opened it. Inside was a series of little compartments surrounding a something about the size and roughly the shape of a computer game controller. In each of the compartments were two small black somethings.
“Don’t worry,” Gwen told her, reaching into take two of the little black…things.”
“But how can you fight against those kinds of odds?”
Tosh picked up the controller-like piece of equipment. She looked at Maggie, eyes solemn, with no hint of either fear or amusement in her expression. “We cheat.”