Torchwood/Life on Mars crossover
Title: Time and Time Again
Pairing: Jack/Ianto, shades of Hunt/Tyler
Summary: Jack and Ianto meet an old friend of Jack's.
Rating: PG
Spoiler Warnings: General series spoilers for Torchwood and Life on Mars.
Word Count: ~2,000
Disclaimer: Torchwood, Jack and Ianto belong to Russell T Davies and the BBC. I just like to play. Life on Mars, Sam and Gene belong to Kudos and the BBC.
Notes: Quick-fic written for lozenger8 who has had a Bad Day(tm). Happy reading and feel better Loz! There really should be more LoM/TW or LoM/DW stuff, really. Consider this my effort to beef up the genre. I think it can be read as gen for LoM - although there are undertones of slash as well. Edited to include crossover information
Ianto follows Jack down the hospital corridor. It smells of antiseptic and boiled chicken and makes him feel decidedly queasy. He’s always associated these smells with death and decay after being forced to sit with his dying grandfather as a small child. Day after day of being quiet and still while his mother cried silently as the strongest man she’d ever known faded in front of her.
He tries to avoid hospitals but, as he’s discovered lately, he’s developed a disturbing yearning to follow wherever Jack will lead. He will admit, though, that the following’s not so bad when a man like Jack walks in front of you.
Jack’s stripped his military coat off, for once, and slung it over his arm - the hospital is too warm even for a man that never seems to care about the weather and Ianto’s sure that, if Jack weren’t wearing a waistcoat today, there would be dark patches of sweat on Jack’s habitual blue shirt.
They pass ward after ward of quiet patients and their families, not talking loudly enough for Ianto to make anything out, children shifting restlessly on uncomfortable plastic chairs. Things become even more sober as they pass into the area of the hospital reserved for comatose patients and Ianto suppresses a shiver of remembrance.
“Why now?” he asks, just to break the eerie silence, “Why here?”
Jack, for his part, doesn’t seem annoyed by the intrusion and pauses looking thoughtfully at the signs they’d been following.
“Confirming a theory,” he says at last, taking off again with a quick look over his shoulder, “Met a guy once, reckoned he had a friend that travelled through time”
“From a hospital?” Ianto asks, brow furrowing
“Something like that,” Jack nods, “This should be the right year - and the hospital records have a case listed that sounds about right”
“Will you be able to tell this ‘guy’ if he’s right?” Ianto asks and Jack throws him another look.
“Maybe, don’t know if he’d still be around,” Jack says as they pass a family room.
There’s a few people in there, reading ancient magazines or flipping idly through television channels. Ianto’s eye is drawn to one man in particular who seems sadder than the rest - leaning against a wall and staring into space. He’s a tall man and wide about the stomach, though there’s something about him that suggests suppressed power. He has old fashioned sideburns and longer hair than most older men. He must be about seventy, Ianto thinks, although he seems younger and his eyes still carry a bright spark of life.
“Come on,” Jack says and his hand comes to rest on Ianto’s elbow, he hadn’t even realised he’d stopped, “It’s rude to stare”
“Sorry,” Ianto mutters instinctively, he turns to leave and bumps into Jack - the other man now standing transfixed by something he’s seen.
“No,” he breathes, “Can’t be,” and Jack raises his voice as he steps into the room, “Gene Hunt, as I live and breathe”
The tall man Ianto had been watching looked up sharply, his face twisting with confusion for a moment before dissolving into recognition. He stepped across the room and let Jack embrace him, smiling for a moment and looking ten years younger.
“Jack bloody Harkness,” Gene says, clapping Jack’s arms forcefully with his hands, “You haven’t aged a day. More than I can say for myself”
“Nonsense,” Jack says, bright smile splitting his face in two and Ianto feels that maybe he’s witnessing something private, “Just as handsome as you’ve always been”
“Steady on, Jack,” Gene says, dropping his voice lower, “There’s a time an’ a place”
Jack nods acceptance and Gene turns his attention onto Ianto, examining him with calculating eyes and Ianto knows instinctively that this man is, or used to be, a policeman. They all have the same stare, even Gwen.
“Ianto Jones,” Jack offers and Gene extends a hand that Ianto grips briefly, “This is former DCI Gene Hunt”
“Pleased to meet you,” Ianto’s manners have him say, though he knows it sounds a bit wet.
“Your partner, I suppose,” Gene says and there’s a momentary lift to his eyebrows that Ianto thinks he might have imagine. Jack looks across at him and smiles, a softer smile than the one he gave Gene, and Ianto feels himself blush a little.
“Something like that,” Jack says for the second time that day and Ianto wonders how he manages to work with someone that deals so easily in impreciseness. It makes him itch sometimes.
“I take it he’s here then,” Jack says, his voice even lower than before and the smile fades from Gene’s face. The older man nods shortly, his nose wrinkling up for a moment, the spark in his eyes dimming a little.
“Wouldn’t have believed it myself if I didn’t read it in the paper last year,” Gene says softly, indicating they should follow him, “I don’t think I really wanted to know in the end”
Jack touches Gene on the arm, squeezes softly, and gives him a sad look. Ianto begins to get the feeling that there’s far more going on than he knows - not an unusual feeling when working with Jack - and he begins to wonder just when Jack met DCI Gene Hunt. He gets the feeling it was a long time ago.
They come to a private room with a single occupant - a man in his thirties with short hair and the odd pallor to his skin that a long time coma patient possesses. He is hooked up to a whole bank of machines that Ianto can’t really make heads or tails of but knows they can only be life support equipment.
Gene crosses the floor and touches one of the man’s hands briefly, as if trying to gain his attention.
“You’ll never guess who I just found roaming the hospital, Sammy boy,” he says, “Only Captain Jack Harkness - remember the trouble ‘e gave us?”
Jack throws Ianto a grin before crossing to the bedside. Ianto shakes his head - he can only begin imagine the trouble Jack could cause a Manchester policeman.
“Well Sam,” Jack says, touching the man’s arm, “You’ve looked better”
“What happened to him?” Ianto asks and Gene looks at him as if he’s forgotten he’s in the room.
“You can tell him,” Jack says, jerking his head in Ianto’s direction, and Gene moves away from the bed.
“DI Tyler,” he starts before pausing and running a hand through his hair, “DCI Sam Tyler was hit by a car early last year. It put him in ‘ere, comatose, critical”
Gene spares a look at Sam and sniffs loudly, not from emotion Ianto can tell, but like a tick or a reflex.
“Sam was my DI,” Gene continues, his voice softening, “In 1973. Transferred from Hyde. Had all manner of daft ideas about policing that we’d never ‘eard of before”
Ianto watches Jack past Gene as the Mancunian talks. He’s bent down over Sam, whispering into his ear, stroking a hand along one of Sam’s arms.
“We have this bizarre case that even Sam can’t wrap his head around and your partner turns up,” Gene gestures over his shoulder to Jack who grins at Ianto again, “Spouting all sorts of nonsense about Torchwood and rifts an’ the like. It sounded like utter bollocks to me. It still would - if it weren’t for this”
Jack shrugs at Ianto then lays a finger alongside his lips before bending down and kissing Sam gently. It’s awkward with the breathing tubes but he manages it. No matter how many times Jack does this it never ceases to amaze Ianto - the soft glow which passes from Jack to the other person is almost pretty. He’s felt it himself and knows what it’s like when Jack pulls you back from the brink. Knows that Jack only ever does it for people he cares about. But he can’t be sure, here, whether Jack is doing it for Sam or for Gene.
“Then suddenly ‘poof’,” Gene draws Ianto’s attention again, “He up and disappears. We spent a year looking for him - I nearly lost my job because of it. But nothing - not a sign, I even sent young Skelton over to Hyde with Cartwright - but the men there didn’t recognise him”
Gene turns and Jack is standing again, scrutinising the monitors, Ianto is sure the pitch of the room has changed. It feels like holding your breath for too long, so your head becomes giddy. Jack nods to himself and joins Ianto and Gene by the door.
“Well, you know where I am,” he says to Gene, touching his arm again briefly, “If you ever want to talk”
“Yeah,” Gene nods and seems about to say something more when Sam jerks in his bed. Gene crosses the floor faster than Ianto would’ve thought possible for a man his size and presses the nurse call button. Sam’s eyes roll wildly then focus on Gene - wide and open.
“It’s me, Sam,” Gene says, and his voice seems to break over the words, “It’s the Gene Genie”
A nurse and a doctor push past Ianto and Jack - the doctor rattling orders at the nurse. There is a frenzy of activity in which things beep and buzz excitingly and eventually the breathing tubes are removed and Sam coughs, wheezes, and tries to grip at Gene’s steadying arms.
“Gene?” Sam croaks and it’s barely more than a whisper but it’s enough. Jack smiles and nods, touching Ianto’s arm to draw him away from the room. The last thing Ianto sees is Gene looking up at Jack, as if he somehow knows that Jack is responsible. The other man says nothing but his eyes speak volumes as he blinks away tears and nods.
Later, in the SUV, Ianto asks the question that’s been brewing since Jack pulled his Prince Charming act again.
“Why did we really go there?” he asks, looking away from the road to glance at Jack for a second. Jack sighs.
“You don’t miss a trick, do you?” he says, “I was fulfilling an obligation”
“It was you, that took him from 1973?” Ianto asks and feels Jack nod, “How could he be in a coma there and alive then?”
“I don’t pretend to know how these things work,” Jack says after a moments silence, “All I knew was that the last thing Sam heard before he disappeared was my voice. I didn’t put it together until I saw him lying there. Maybe I’ll ask the Doctor about it one day, he probably knows”
“Gene and Sam,” Ianto says after mulling over Jack’s explanation, “Were they -”
“I couldn’t actually say,” Jack says, huffing out a breath, “Gene’s pretty hard to read, even for me. But I think, yeah, I think they might’ve been. For a little while at least”
Jack sounds sad and Ianto decides that’s it’s best not to pursue the conversation. Decides not to ask what he was doing in 1973 or even how he got there. Decides not to ask just how long Jack’s been working for Torchwood. Jack is a mystery wrapped in an enigma, as cliché as it sounds, and every time Ianto thinks he’s peeled back another layer it turns out there’s more of them than he can imagine.
“You did a good thing, Jack” Ianto says softly and is rewarded with Jack’s hand brushing along his arm to pull a hand away from the steering wheel.
“Thank you,” Jack says, twining his fingers into Ianto’s, “For coming with me - I don’t think the others would understand”
“Don’t mention it,” Ianto says, compensating for the stolen hand. Jack continues to grip his hand and Ianto squeezes back, thinking that he could spend the rest of his life following Jack around if it always lead to this.
And it wouldn’t be a bad way to spend a life, really.
Pairing: Jack/Ianto, shades of Hunt/Tyler
Summary: Jack and Ianto meet an old friend of Jack's.
Rating: PG
Spoiler Warnings: General series spoilers for Torchwood and Life on Mars.
Word Count: ~2,000
Disclaimer: Torchwood, Jack and Ianto belong to Russell T Davies and the BBC. I just like to play. Life on Mars, Sam and Gene belong to Kudos and the BBC.
Notes: Quick-fic written for lozenger8 who has had a Bad Day(tm). Happy reading and feel better Loz! There really should be more LoM/TW or LoM/DW stuff, really. Consider this my effort to beef up the genre. I think it can be read as gen for LoM - although there are undertones of slash as well. Edited to include crossover information
Ianto follows Jack down the hospital corridor. It smells of antiseptic and boiled chicken and makes him feel decidedly queasy. He’s always associated these smells with death and decay after being forced to sit with his dying grandfather as a small child. Day after day of being quiet and still while his mother cried silently as the strongest man she’d ever known faded in front of her.
He tries to avoid hospitals but, as he’s discovered lately, he’s developed a disturbing yearning to follow wherever Jack will lead. He will admit, though, that the following’s not so bad when a man like Jack walks in front of you.
Jack’s stripped his military coat off, for once, and slung it over his arm - the hospital is too warm even for a man that never seems to care about the weather and Ianto’s sure that, if Jack weren’t wearing a waistcoat today, there would be dark patches of sweat on Jack’s habitual blue shirt.
They pass ward after ward of quiet patients and their families, not talking loudly enough for Ianto to make anything out, children shifting restlessly on uncomfortable plastic chairs. Things become even more sober as they pass into the area of the hospital reserved for comatose patients and Ianto suppresses a shiver of remembrance.
“Why now?” he asks, just to break the eerie silence, “Why here?”
Jack, for his part, doesn’t seem annoyed by the intrusion and pauses looking thoughtfully at the signs they’d been following.
“Confirming a theory,” he says at last, taking off again with a quick look over his shoulder, “Met a guy once, reckoned he had a friend that travelled through time”
“From a hospital?” Ianto asks, brow furrowing
“Something like that,” Jack nods, “This should be the right year - and the hospital records have a case listed that sounds about right”
“Will you be able to tell this ‘guy’ if he’s right?” Ianto asks and Jack throws him another look.
“Maybe, don’t know if he’d still be around,” Jack says as they pass a family room.
There’s a few people in there, reading ancient magazines or flipping idly through television channels. Ianto’s eye is drawn to one man in particular who seems sadder than the rest - leaning against a wall and staring into space. He’s a tall man and wide about the stomach, though there’s something about him that suggests suppressed power. He has old fashioned sideburns and longer hair than most older men. He must be about seventy, Ianto thinks, although he seems younger and his eyes still carry a bright spark of life.
“Come on,” Jack says and his hand comes to rest on Ianto’s elbow, he hadn’t even realised he’d stopped, “It’s rude to stare”
“Sorry,” Ianto mutters instinctively, he turns to leave and bumps into Jack - the other man now standing transfixed by something he’s seen.
“No,” he breathes, “Can’t be,” and Jack raises his voice as he steps into the room, “Gene Hunt, as I live and breathe”
The tall man Ianto had been watching looked up sharply, his face twisting with confusion for a moment before dissolving into recognition. He stepped across the room and let Jack embrace him, smiling for a moment and looking ten years younger.
“Jack bloody Harkness,” Gene says, clapping Jack’s arms forcefully with his hands, “You haven’t aged a day. More than I can say for myself”
“Nonsense,” Jack says, bright smile splitting his face in two and Ianto feels that maybe he’s witnessing something private, “Just as handsome as you’ve always been”
“Steady on, Jack,” Gene says, dropping his voice lower, “There’s a time an’ a place”
Jack nods acceptance and Gene turns his attention onto Ianto, examining him with calculating eyes and Ianto knows instinctively that this man is, or used to be, a policeman. They all have the same stare, even Gwen.
“Ianto Jones,” Jack offers and Gene extends a hand that Ianto grips briefly, “This is former DCI Gene Hunt”
“Pleased to meet you,” Ianto’s manners have him say, though he knows it sounds a bit wet.
“Your partner, I suppose,” Gene says and there’s a momentary lift to his eyebrows that Ianto thinks he might have imagine. Jack looks across at him and smiles, a softer smile than the one he gave Gene, and Ianto feels himself blush a little.
“Something like that,” Jack says for the second time that day and Ianto wonders how he manages to work with someone that deals so easily in impreciseness. It makes him itch sometimes.
“I take it he’s here then,” Jack says, his voice even lower than before and the smile fades from Gene’s face. The older man nods shortly, his nose wrinkling up for a moment, the spark in his eyes dimming a little.
“Wouldn’t have believed it myself if I didn’t read it in the paper last year,” Gene says softly, indicating they should follow him, “I don’t think I really wanted to know in the end”
Jack touches Gene on the arm, squeezes softly, and gives him a sad look. Ianto begins to get the feeling that there’s far more going on than he knows - not an unusual feeling when working with Jack - and he begins to wonder just when Jack met DCI Gene Hunt. He gets the feeling it was a long time ago.
They come to a private room with a single occupant - a man in his thirties with short hair and the odd pallor to his skin that a long time coma patient possesses. He is hooked up to a whole bank of machines that Ianto can’t really make heads or tails of but knows they can only be life support equipment.
Gene crosses the floor and touches one of the man’s hands briefly, as if trying to gain his attention.
“You’ll never guess who I just found roaming the hospital, Sammy boy,” he says, “Only Captain Jack Harkness - remember the trouble ‘e gave us?”
Jack throws Ianto a grin before crossing to the bedside. Ianto shakes his head - he can only begin imagine the trouble Jack could cause a Manchester policeman.
“Well Sam,” Jack says, touching the man’s arm, “You’ve looked better”
“What happened to him?” Ianto asks and Gene looks at him as if he’s forgotten he’s in the room.
“You can tell him,” Jack says, jerking his head in Ianto’s direction, and Gene moves away from the bed.
“DI Tyler,” he starts before pausing and running a hand through his hair, “DCI Sam Tyler was hit by a car early last year. It put him in ‘ere, comatose, critical”
Gene spares a look at Sam and sniffs loudly, not from emotion Ianto can tell, but like a tick or a reflex.
“Sam was my DI,” Gene continues, his voice softening, “In 1973. Transferred from Hyde. Had all manner of daft ideas about policing that we’d never ‘eard of before”
Ianto watches Jack past Gene as the Mancunian talks. He’s bent down over Sam, whispering into his ear, stroking a hand along one of Sam’s arms.
“We have this bizarre case that even Sam can’t wrap his head around and your partner turns up,” Gene gestures over his shoulder to Jack who grins at Ianto again, “Spouting all sorts of nonsense about Torchwood and rifts an’ the like. It sounded like utter bollocks to me. It still would - if it weren’t for this”
Jack shrugs at Ianto then lays a finger alongside his lips before bending down and kissing Sam gently. It’s awkward with the breathing tubes but he manages it. No matter how many times Jack does this it never ceases to amaze Ianto - the soft glow which passes from Jack to the other person is almost pretty. He’s felt it himself and knows what it’s like when Jack pulls you back from the brink. Knows that Jack only ever does it for people he cares about. But he can’t be sure, here, whether Jack is doing it for Sam or for Gene.
“Then suddenly ‘poof’,” Gene draws Ianto’s attention again, “He up and disappears. We spent a year looking for him - I nearly lost my job because of it. But nothing - not a sign, I even sent young Skelton over to Hyde with Cartwright - but the men there didn’t recognise him”
Gene turns and Jack is standing again, scrutinising the monitors, Ianto is sure the pitch of the room has changed. It feels like holding your breath for too long, so your head becomes giddy. Jack nods to himself and joins Ianto and Gene by the door.
“Well, you know where I am,” he says to Gene, touching his arm again briefly, “If you ever want to talk”
“Yeah,” Gene nods and seems about to say something more when Sam jerks in his bed. Gene crosses the floor faster than Ianto would’ve thought possible for a man his size and presses the nurse call button. Sam’s eyes roll wildly then focus on Gene - wide and open.
“It’s me, Sam,” Gene says, and his voice seems to break over the words, “It’s the Gene Genie”
A nurse and a doctor push past Ianto and Jack - the doctor rattling orders at the nurse. There is a frenzy of activity in which things beep and buzz excitingly and eventually the breathing tubes are removed and Sam coughs, wheezes, and tries to grip at Gene’s steadying arms.
“Gene?” Sam croaks and it’s barely more than a whisper but it’s enough. Jack smiles and nods, touching Ianto’s arm to draw him away from the room. The last thing Ianto sees is Gene looking up at Jack, as if he somehow knows that Jack is responsible. The other man says nothing but his eyes speak volumes as he blinks away tears and nods.
Later, in the SUV, Ianto asks the question that’s been brewing since Jack pulled his Prince Charming act again.
“Why did we really go there?” he asks, looking away from the road to glance at Jack for a second. Jack sighs.
“You don’t miss a trick, do you?” he says, “I was fulfilling an obligation”
“It was you, that took him from 1973?” Ianto asks and feels Jack nod, “How could he be in a coma there and alive then?”
“I don’t pretend to know how these things work,” Jack says after a moments silence, “All I knew was that the last thing Sam heard before he disappeared was my voice. I didn’t put it together until I saw him lying there. Maybe I’ll ask the Doctor about it one day, he probably knows”
“Gene and Sam,” Ianto says after mulling over Jack’s explanation, “Were they -”
“I couldn’t actually say,” Jack says, huffing out a breath, “Gene’s pretty hard to read, even for me. But I think, yeah, I think they might’ve been. For a little while at least”
Jack sounds sad and Ianto decides that’s it’s best not to pursue the conversation. Decides not to ask what he was doing in 1973 or even how he got there. Decides not to ask just how long Jack’s been working for Torchwood. Jack is a mystery wrapped in an enigma, as cliché as it sounds, and every time Ianto thinks he’s peeled back another layer it turns out there’s more of them than he can imagine.
“You did a good thing, Jack” Ianto says softly and is rewarded with Jack’s hand brushing along his arm to pull a hand away from the steering wheel.
“Thank you,” Jack says, twining his fingers into Ianto’s, “For coming with me - I don’t think the others would understand”
“Don’t mention it,” Ianto says, compensating for the stolen hand. Jack continues to grip his hand and Ianto squeezes back, thinking that he could spend the rest of his life following Jack around if it always lead to this.
And it wouldn’t be a bad way to spend a life, really.