Tales Of A Time Agency - 22 B/ 24
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: Jack/Ianto but it’s the Time Agency so expect Jack/John, Tosh/Owen, Ianto/John, Tosh/Mary, John/ OFC, John/the consenting population of the universe……
Spoilers: Anything Torchwood could be hinted at.
Summary: Ianto Jones is thrown into the world of excess of the Time Agency Academy, but will he sink or swim? In this chapter, Tosh and Owen are faced with a difficult realisation whilst Ianto finally receives the answers that he needs about his past…
Disclaimer: Regrettably I own nothing, none of the characters, zip. Wish I did though. I will take the credit for Telmaya though; I’m quite fond of her.
Author’s Notes: An epic TOATA this, so let’s just say that you have been warned. The series might be coming to an end but the chapters aren’t becoming any shorter that’s for sure! Anyway, as always I owe so much to the divine wisdom of my betas,thehubsitter and
naddypants , who as always give me the confidence boost I need to post and keep on writing! And of course, a huge thanks to everyone who has stuck with me so far!
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five A
Chapter Five B
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight A
Chapter Eight B
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven A
Chapter Eleven B
Janto Interlude
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen A
Chapter Eighteen B
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty Two A
It was almost as if reality had passed into a dream world…
His eyes were slowly adjusting to the gloom as Ianto fumbled with his gun, clicking on the small light that was fixed along its top edge. The soft beam flickered into life, the cave wall glowing a soft amber, quickly joined by another circle of light as Jack quickly did the same, his body positioned barely a few steps behind Ianto’s. Their foot falls echoed upon the smooth, weathered surface of the cave, a back drop of dripping water accompanying their every step. With every inch of progress Ianto made he would have to duck, dodging the protruding ledges of rock, or even worse the assortment of dead animals they hung suspended from the low ceiling, their necks ensnared in a devilish twine. Ianto swallowed hard, trying not to take in any more of the putrid, sulphurous air than he had to, his eyes focusing on his path ahead and nothing more. The cave itself was smooth, cylindrical, more manmade than natural, the tunnel ahead turning abruptly to the left. There was an orange light shining out from around the corner, and as he drew closer Ianto could almost taste the ever distinctive smell of wood smoke. It immediately sickened him, the sensation in his nostrils hauntingly familiar. For his home had been made of wood back on Salax 9, the same wood that had burnt and smouldered that fateful night when he had lost everything.
As they cleared the corner, Ianto’s heart jumped within his chest. Years of thinking, months of planning and suddenly there was the man he loathed, sat there right in front of him, although only his back was visible, his eyes clearly watching the fire. He was dressed in rags, his clothes hanging from a limp, skinny frame. A mop of tousled black, shaggy hair hung from his head, the odd strand of grey glinting out from the fire light. And yet although unrecognisable, Ianto instantly that the man in front of him was still Darko. His father’s friend. His father’s murderer. The man who had single handedly made Ianto the man he was.
“Darko…” For years Ianto had been planning his words for this moment, but right then, the man’s name was all that would roll from his tongue. The grip on his gun tightened, his teeth already clenching slightly as he watched the man slowly stand and turn to face him. His features were the same, the same deep yellow eyes, the same protruding nose and chiselled chin. But now his skin was creped across them, wizened, his face aged far beyond his years. Ianto was not sure what to say as the man continued to stare at him, his eyes unfazed, not even graced by disbelief. “Don’t pretend that it isn’t you.”
“Oh I wouldn’t…” Darko suddenly replied, his voice wavering, husk, weakened, as if he had not spoken in years. He spread his arms out wide, a strange smile etching across his features. “I am what I am, Ianto Jones…”
“Y-you know me?”
“You look like Ieuan.” Darko replied softly. “So valiant…so strong…forever a man to melt the hearts of others. And here you are…daddy’s boy…here to bring me to justice.” He cocked his head to one side suddenly, giving Ianto a questioning look. “That’s what you’ve come for…isn’t it?” He smirked to himself, scratching his head thoughtfully. “I saw you…out there in the street, hunched over your dead sister. I had a clear shot. One squeeze of the trigger and your body would have crumpled on top of hers!” He cackled gleefully. “Would you have liked that Ianto Jones?”
“I’m here for answers, Darko.” Ianto’s throat was dry, his heart pounding so hard as he forced the images of Lisa away from his mind.
“But you had to live…” Darko carried on, completely disregarding Ianto’s words, the same sickening smile spread across his features. “Had to live. Had to be able to find me here and end it all. So brave, Ianto Jones, so eager to hand out vengeance to those who deserve it.” He began to step forward, his hands out stretched. “So like your father Ianto Jones, so like him…the man he told you to be….-“
“No further!” Both Ianto and Darko jumped as Jack stepped out of the shadows to stand by Ianto’s side, his gun levelled on Darko’s head. “Don’t you come any closer to him!”
“A protector!” Darko laughed, clapping his hands together. “Oh…now Ieuan wouldn’t have liked that, his only son too scared to face me alone.” He smirked, stepping a little closer, testing Jack, watching with satisfaction when he made no attempt to shoot. “You can’t kill me…not yet. Not until Ianto Jones gets his answers...”
“Then give them to me!” Ianto yelled, his voice erupting out into the cave, echoing off the walls around them. “Tell me why you killed my Dad!”
“Because I was told too.” Darko smiled sincerely, nudging Ianto’s gun with one hand, almost playfully. He traced his finger across the metal, his eyes fixed upon the object and the intricate lines carved into it. “I loved your father…loved him…like he was my brother. In some ways I loved him more than you…”
“Don’t you dare say that!” Ianto screamed, his anger so uncontrollable that he swung his arm, hitting Darko in the mouth with his gun, sending him flying back onto the floor of the cave. He kept the gun pointing at his face, his eyes burning with rage, lips quivering as he spoke. “Don’t you even think that you loved him!”
“That’s it!” Darko laughed, his left hand reaching up and wiping a smear of blood away from his lip. “Wrath…you look more like your father now…so like him…before he’d kill…”
“No!” Ianto was jumping forward, ready to launch at Darko, ready to beat him so senseless that he would never be able to speak ever again. But a pair of hands stopped him, holding his chest back, Jack’s words muttering into his ear.
“No Ianto…not like this. It’s what he wants.”
“I used to be the one to hold Ieuan back….the one who would stop him…” Darko smirked, standing up and looking Ianto in the eye. “He wanted to protect everyone…that wasn’t our job, wasn’t our mission. He made a scene, got noticed…cared too much. I tried to warn him…tried to…but he’d never listen…never.”
“You warned him?” Jack’s voice asked the question that Ianto’s could not.
“I didn’t want him dead…didn’t want to lose him. But the orders came…they wanted him silenced. Done. Dead.” Darko drew a thumb across his neck, as if slitting his throat. “I had a new mission.”
“But you didn’t just kill my Dad…you killed my Mother, my sister, your actions wiped out half the slums that night with the fires and fighting that you caused!” Ianto’s voice was lavished in anger, his eyes so dark, so desperate to tear out the throat of the man stood in front of him. “Why did they all have to die too?”
“If you’re so strong…Ianto Jones…so sure, then you turn that gun around.” Darko spoke bluntly, nodding towards the gun in Ianto’s hands. “Point that at your friend…your protector. If they told you to shoot…would you? Could you? Would you be able to look him in the eye as he died…knowing that you had ended his life?” He swallowed hard, the smile lost from his features in seconds, one distant hand tugging at a lock of his tangled hair. “I was a coward Ianto Jones. I couldn’t do it…so I took the coward’s way out and I got someone else to do it…kill him for me…pretend that it had never happened. Never.” He turned away, his back to Ianto as he continued to speak. “I never thought that they would kill the rest of you…”
“It’s still your fault. You have to answer for what you’ve done.”
“No I don’t.”
“Their blood is still on your hands!! Even if you didn’t pull the trigger, didn’t light those burning torches.” Ianto spat, straining slightly from Jack’s hold. “You still killed them all in cold blood.”
“I see them sometimes…” Darko smiled his back still to Ianto and Jack. “The kids from the slums…they stand up against the wall…they sing…they dance…they’re not dead.” He laughed, turning round slowly, a pure look of childish joy on his features. “They tell me it’s ok…they’ve forgiven me…Ieuan comes too…he misses me…misses you.”
“Shut up! My Dad would never miss you!”
“There are things he never told you…never told your mother.” Darko smiled softly, closing is eyes. “We were partners in more ways than one.”
“No!” Ianto screamed, his voice so loud that it would block out Darko’s words. “He wouldn’t…”
“Wouldn’t what?” Darko laughed softly. “Does it please you Ianto Jones? To finally know who your father was?”
“You’re lying!”
“No…” Darko shook his head. “He loved me.”
“He loved my mother.”
“But not like he loved me…we were different…different Ianto Jones.” Darko smirked, nodding towards where Jack was stood. “Like you and your protector.”
“No!” Before he could control himself Ianto was stepping forwards, his gun barely an inch from Darko’s face, his eyes burning into his dark yellow pools. “You’ll regret saying every word…”
“Yes….” Darko nodded, searching Ianto’s features slowly, calculating before he spoke again. “Take me to him, Ianto Jones.”
“What?!”
“It’s time for me to die. Here…now…like this.” He opened up his body, spreading his arms as if he was a target. “I want this…I want peace. Sleep. I haven’t slept in so long. Always looking, always waiting…watching…”
“Then why didn’t you end it all before? Why wait?”
“You…you Ianto Jones. I had to wait for you.” Darko smiled softly, glancing around the cave. “It’s why you had to live…you tie everything together…bring everything full circle…”
“I don’t understand…”
“You wouldn’t…but you’re here Ianto Jones, here to kill me. You have to. You’re the only one who can….couldn’t do it myself…too kind, too kind. No, it has to be you. The only way is for you to kill me now…end it all, the last piece of the puzzle. You want revenge…I want absolution…it’s the only way.” He sneered, closing the distance between himself and Ianto’s gun, pressing it to his forehead. “Do it…please…you’re the only one…only one who can stop this.”
“You’ve lost your mind…”
“Then take the rest from me too…it’s your right…what you deserve…what we need…We’re tidied together Ianto Jones…we always will be.”
Ianto’s finger reached for the trigger, his hand shaking as he continued to stare at the man in front of him, at the passive face, the relaxed features of a man who was simply ready to die. Behind him he could feel Jack’s eyes burning into him, willing for it all to end soon. Ianto himself was wanting it all to end too, his mind reeling from the “answers” he had received, the strange off hand comments from such a deranged man that were designed simply to push him further, to drive him to this, to make him want to kill Darko even more than he could ever have imagined. And more than anything right then…Ianto wanted him to suffer. He wanted Darko to pay the ultimate price, to suffer the ultimate sacrifice for what he had done, not only to Ianto’s family, but to all the other families, his friends, who had been needlessly slain that night. They deserved to be avenged, deserved to see their memories honoured with the death of the man whose actions, no matter whether they were ordered or not, had lead to so much bloodshed.
His finger was just about to pull the trigger when Ianto stopped, his mind suddenly realising what he was about to do. He was giving Darko what he wanted, the absolution, the peace that Ianto would never think that he would deserve. By killing him now, Ianto was freeing Darko from his past, whilst Ianto would forever live with the memories of it. And in that single, pure moment of time, Ianto Jones realised that he was making the wrong choice.
“You don’t deserve to live.” Ianto hissed, keeping his gun pressed to Darko’s forehead whilst his left hand pulled him closer by the tattered collar of his shirt. He watched the older man’s features carefully, savouring the effect that his words had, the power that they gave him. “But you don’t deserve to die either.”
“What?! No…Ianto Jones…”
“You’re going to live…and everyday, you’re going to remember those kids. All those families that died. You’re going to remember, my mother, Lisa…and most of all you’re going to remember my Dad.” Ianto smiled sickly. “You’re going to stay here until you rot…outlast them all, but every second you’ll be wishing that you were dead like them…”
“No! No! You can’t…this ends…today. I planned this! Don’t you see? Planned…it has to end today!”
“And it will.” Ianto nodded. “For me. Because I’m going to forget you…live my life like I’m supposed to. But you, you’ll never forget me.”
“Ianto Jones…no…you’re not like this...you want vengeance…you want me dead.” The desperation on Darko’s face was clear, his hands scrabbling away at Ianto’s tunic. “Ieuan would want you to kill me…”
“No…he’d want me to forget.” Ianto spat, glancing at Darko once more before throwing him to the floor, watching with satisfaction as his limp body hit the hard rock. “I knew my Dad better than anyone else…and he would not want me to do this…I can see it now.” Ianto smiled, glancing at Jack before holstering his gun, giving Darko one last piercing glance. “Goodbye Darko…” He nodded quickly to Jack. “Let’s go…Please…”
As they turned to leave, neither man spared Darko a second glance. And therefore, neither man saw him crawl across the floor to where he had been sitting earlier, reaching underneath a blanket for his own gun. Watching them step away from his vantage point on the floor, Darko Traven uttered the words that he hoped would be his last: “I’m sorry…so sorry…Ianto Jones.”
When both men heard the click of the gun’s safety catch coming off it was too late. They both twirled round in an instant, making a mad grab for their guns, but as they did so a loud gun shot rang out through the cave. Ianto swallowed hard, looking down to his abdomen ready to see the soft swell of blood begin to seep through his tunic. He was stood there waiting for the pain, waiting for the shock to subside and for his agony to burn its way through a solid wall of adrenaline. But it was something that never came. Instead, to his left he heard Jack groan, watched as his hands gripped his stomach before the cadet fell heavily to floor. Ianto’s heart hammered in his chest, his worst fears realised in a split second as he watched Jack, his body lying motionless on the floor, felled by a single bullet. Seconds passed like hours as Ianto glanced back to Darko in a mix of horror and shock, finding only that familiar look of passive indifference in the man’s features. A look that soon became permanent as Ianto raised his gun, firing quickly and effectively, a bullet striking Darko in the middle of the forehead, a small red circle the only mark, the body collapsing lifelessly to the floor in a crumpled heap. Done. Dead. Finished.
For as Ianto rushed to Jack’s side, Darko Traven had found his absolution. But in order to get it, he had had to attack the one thing more precious to Ianto Jones than his own life…
So…dare I ask what you think? *hides* I hope beyond hope that I am not letting anyone down here, but just in case I am, I’m sorry! Either way please let me know what you think, as TOATA is still being written for you! Thanks so much for reading this far though! :)
Just Being Me a.k.a Siany
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Chapter Twenty Three