TW Fic: Ferals (1/6)
Title: Ferals (1/6)
Author: nancybrown
Characters: Ianto, Jack, Steven, Alice, Gwen, Martha, Mickey, OCs
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Martha/Mickey, past Jack/others, past Ianto/OMC
Rating: for adults only
Words: 31,800 (6500 this part)
Warnings: suicide, character death including child death, gore and violence
Spoilers: plot spoilers through CoE, (very) brief mention of characters and events from MD, some parts based on early spoilers from the current season of DW, but finished before the season premiere aired
Beta: Eldar and fide_et_spe both kicked this into shape, and have my deepest thanks.
Summary: Ianto and Steven have returned home, but as Ianto tries to solve an alien's murder, he learns home isn't ready to take them back.
A/N: Sequel to Strays and Rescues. eldarwannabe did a lot of heavy lifting in breaking this fic, and without her, it would not exist. If you like it, tell her thank you.
A/N2: Fic to be posted over the next couple of days.
***
Chapter One
***
The most amazing thing about sex with Jack Harkness is that, despite his breadth of experience, he has a gift for making his current partner the star of his attention and the centre of his private universe. At this moment his lips and teeth are engaged in seeking out the sensitive place under Ianto's jaw that curves down his neck. Jack makes a delighted sound deep in his own throat, drawing wet images with his tongue, savouring the taste of skin and the skitter of his fingers on Ianto's shoulders as much as he has ever enjoyed anything.
It's heady, almost frightening, to be here with him under the focus of his perfect attention. Ianto can't completely let go of the thought of fresh-faced bartenders or worlds-weary space sailors, but Jack has, does, here in the dark. There's no-one else on his mind, no other ghosts in the bed.
Ianto tries to capture the same easy grace, dragging Jack back to meet his mouth by an oh so careful tug to Jack's hair. Counting the months or years between them isn't possible: Jack has skipped time, Ianto has spent part of the interim dead. But Jack's mouth never changes, full of bright smiles around each kiss, ragged breaths punctuated by nonsense words between each swipe of tongue and nibble of perfect teeth. It'd be predictable if it wasn't so damn wonderful.
These sheets are new, a little scratchy, and Ianto squirms, not coincidentally rubbing himself against Jack's body, groaning at the smooth friction of Jack's erection hot and plump against his.
His mobile chirps.
Jack keeps kissing him, not hearing it or not caring, but Ianto pauses the kisses to hear the second chirp.
He's out of breath as he throws off enough covers to reach the mobile phone. Jack has already looked at the caller ID as Ianto answers. It's got Alice's name.
"Hello."
"Hi."
Part of him expected the voice to be Alice's, but only a small part. "Are you all right?" Ianto swings his legs over the edge of the bed, uncomfortably aware that he is turning away from Jack as he does so. But he has to give his own complete attention elsewhere now.
"I'm okay," Steven says. He's got that breathless hitch. Ianto's not fooled.
"How bad was the nightmare?" he asks in a low voice. He can feel Jack watching him. He can sense Jack wanting to take the phone.
"Are you busy?"
"No. We can talk." He straightens his back, cracking it, then grabs his dressing gown as he walks to the lounge, leaving Jack in the bed.
On the other end, he can hear Alice say something but he can't make out the words. "Mum says I should go because I'm bothering you."
"Tell her you're not bothering me. It's fine. I gave you my number so you could call any time," he says in the cheeriest tone he can manage.
There's a long pause, and he can't tell if Steven has covered the speaker with his hand. Behind him, Jack has come to the door and is still watching. He's certain Alice is doing the same from Steven's end of the conversation.
"Can you come over tomorrow?"
"Of course." A second later he says, "Make sure it's all right with your mother." Sometimes he forgets. Ianto spent months pretending to be Steven's father. Now Alice is the one who decides what her child does. Ianto is a well-meaning friend of the family, and nothing more.
He listens to Steven ask, and hears the hesitancy in Alice's reply.
"She says it's fine."
"All right. I'll come over tomorrow. Why don't you try to get some sleep?"
"Okay. Good night."
The line clicks, and Ianto closes his phone. Jack hasn't moved. "Just a nightmare," Ianto says lightly, walking past him to set the mobile back in its place close to the bed. "He'll be fine."
"That's every night this week."
And nearly every night since he's been home. Ianto got the first calls before he was discharged from hospital. Steven insisted on staying with him for three nights, curled up on a blanket in the hospital room. The Doctor came, as he came to help all those affected by the TARDIS explosion, and then Alice insisted Steven go home.
He phoned the very first night. Steven falls asleep and is beset with terrors, and he calls Ianto.
Problem sorted for the moment, they fall back into bed, and it's not long until Jack is distracted with Ianto's mouth. Ianto himself keeps half an ear open for another ring.
***
Mornings begin more or less the same way every day: love, gentle to start and more energetic as both wake, hands and mouths engaged until toes curl in perfection. Then a shower, shared so Jack can help him scrub around his injury. If work doesn't beckon, Jack cooks breakfast and if Torchwood does call, he steals a fast kiss before dashing out the door.
The argument is also the same every morning. "I could go with you."
"No. You're not recovered."
That sufficed him the first weeks home, but Ianto has been benefiting from extra(terrestrial) healthcare, thanks to the new medic Jack hired when Ianto was … away. "Away" is the word they use, Jack and Gwen. Ianto goes along with the pretence, because "when you were dead" isn't something any of them want to acknowledge. "Away" sounds like Ianto took leave, finding himself whilst Jack and Gwen did whatever they did in America.
Several changes were made during the period Ianto was away. Jack and Gwen put together a new team here, and they have contacts overseas. A new woman, someone Ianto has only seen previously in a mirror using the special contact lenses, does his old tasks. A new man, with a sharp face and a Liverpool accent, carries a gun and hacks into computers, inadequately filling Tosh's empty shoes. An alien who passes for human and who can sense disease and injury by touch occupies the autopsy bay now, and she has been visiting Ianto since he was discharged, bringing her special touch and chiding care. And Jack and Gwen, of course.
It's a new team of five, replacing the old team of five. Ianto can count, and when Jack still tells him no after he feels fine, he knows Jack can count, as well.
"I need to go in to work," Ianto says, not backing down. He doesn't say, "You need me," because they have seen that's not true.
"Stay in. Relax. Besides," Jack says, eyes shadowed, "you promised to go visit today."
"Tomorrow. I'm going to work tomorrow."
"You don't need to. We've got things covered."
The argument always ends this way, with Jack walking out the door, off to the Hub, off to do what Ianto should be doing. And Ianto stays here.
He's getting used to this soulless flat, incongruously sleek and modern with chrome and black tile. Jack picked it months ago when he came back to Cardiff, but no room could feel less like Jack: neither drenched in 1940s nostalgia nor futuristic and pining for a time yet to be. Few of Ianto's former possessions are here, just a creased and ruined blue tie Jack had kept during his travels and the random ends Rhi hadn't donated. He has some photographs and the books she'd neglected to give to the jumble sale at the church, and nothing more. Jack has very few of his old things here, given that most of what he'd owned was destroyed with the first Hub. They are beginning this new life together, except that Jack has a life, and Ianto is staying home, is taken care of, is slowly going out of his mind because his boyfriend is under no circumstances letting him go back to work at their insanely dangerous job.
He washes up the breakfast dishes and checks the train schedule. He can be at Steven's door by eleven if he hurries.
He calls Alice. "I'll be on the train arriving at ten forty-five."
She pauses. "Have you left?"
"Not yet."
"Don't. He's better this morning. I'm sending him to school. You can come Saturday."
She doesn't put Steven on to talk. "Sounds good," Ianto says, and closes his phone with a quick good-bye.
Then he looks around the flat that isn't exactly his, and he wonders if he should clean it again to pass the time.
***
Lost? Feeling alone in your new life? Call Amy's Friends
[number redacted, poster is old and fraying in the weather]
***
A few of the flowers from his hospital stay are pot plants Ianto hasn't killed yet. They brighten the room. He's written 'thank you' letters to everyone who sent something, less out of obligation and more out of boredom. It also means he has contact information, and during the long day, he calls Anne.
"Sally," she reminds him, because they have all returned to their homes and their names and their lives.
Her daughters have grown, she tells him, proud and sad at once. Things changed when she was away and she's still adjusting.
"They're forgetting. That man, that doctor, he fixed me. Made them see me. And now they're forgetting I was gone. They're even forgetting about what happened when I was gone, the camps and everything. But I remember dying, Lloyd. I remember they didn't know me."
Ianto doesn't correct her on his name. She has died and lived through something remarkable. In the old days, he would have encouraged her to forget. Now he thinks she deserves the truth. "Humans can't deal with everything that happens. Our brains don't process it, so we make up reasons why we couldn't have seen mannequins come to life, or Daleks or planets in the sky."
"But it's all real. I know it's real. We all died."
"And time fractured." Ianto barely understands. He won't be able to explain it properly. "People forget because it's easier than learning nth dimensional physics."
"How's your little boy?" she asks abruptly.
"He's back home with his mother. I was only taking care of him." It's a strange sort of lie to tell her, made up almost perfectly of things that are true.
"I'm setting up a get-together with some of the old faces. The two of you ought to come. I mean, you're the reason we all could go home."
Amy Pond, the arbiter of their return, won't be there. Amy has left the planet. He felt her go, long before the curious message came from the Doctor: Amy is with the angels, and her daughter has gone to the Library.
He starts to beg off. It will be in London, he has things to do here. But he doesn't, not really. Jack might be reluctant to have him gone for a few nights but really, he's gone all day anyway, and Ianto doesn't have much to do with his time. Alice might allow Steven to go, and she might not. "Let me know. I'll try to be there."
***
Sally calls back that afternoon, and amid the completely spotless flat, he's absurdly grateful for the call, until she says, "Keith killed himself two days ago."
Ianto doesn't remember Keith at all. He doesn't remember most of the faces from Amy's Friends, but Sally is distraught. "I'm sorry to hear that."
"Why would he do that? He finally went home." She's angry, and she's terrified, too.
Perhaps there wasn't room at home for him any more. Perhaps he discovered there were worse things than being away. Perhaps as vital he might have thought he was, everyone he loved had moved on without him.
"I don't know."
***
Jack's home early. "Quiet day," he says with a kiss. "Let's go somewhere tonight. There's this new place along the quay you'll love."
"Sure. How is everyone?"
"Good. Gwen says hello and wants to have us over for dinner on Saturday."
"Saturday's bad. I've got plans."
Jack's eyebrows reach his hairline. He calms his expression instantly but Ianto has already seen and noted. Jack's no fool, taking a quick glance at the time and coming to a conclusion. "You didn't go visit today."
"Alice said to wait." Alice, he thinks, would prefer he not visit at all. Ianto is a reminder of bad times she is desperate to put behind her, and Jack's face is no better for her to see. "So, we can go on Saturday, or I'll go and you can have dinner with Gwen and Rhys."
"No, I'll tell Gwen we'll take a raincheck. It's fine. Are you ready to go?"
The new bistro on the quay is pleasant but not remarkable. Jack's a bit too much himself, cheery and romantic and overzealous to turn this into a date, to catch up for years of no dates and bad memories. Ianto enjoys the hand stroking his wrist and their ankles nudged together under the table, and he'd be lying if he claimed not to like the attention, but he's also annoyed. This is a holding pattern, when they ought to be worked to the bone, taking minutes off with each other as rare gifts. He shouldn't be sitting home alone all day. Life was supposed to revert to normal with his return to Cardiff, with breaking the perception filter hiding him from everyone who knew him.
"Dessert?" Jack is already poring over the separate Sweets and Treats menu. He's lost weight in the intervening years, leaner in his body and older in his face, but Jack's tastes haven't changed.
"None for me." Instead he has an extra glass of wine he doesn't need.
They take a walk after, though Jack steers him clear of the Hub's entrances, new and old. Ianto recognises faces and shops, others are frighteningly new. He remembers this sensation from his last homecoming, dragging along these same streets like a stranger after the horrors of Canary Wharf.
After twenty minutes, Ianto feigns fatigue. Back at the flat, he pounces on Jack with more fervour than he feels, and Jack responds happily. They fuck on the stiff, new carpet, Ianto thinking less about the man in his arms and more about shop fronts he doesn't know and someone named Keith he doesn't remember.
Later, after some telly and not much conversation, they go to bed. Around midnight, Ianto's phone rings. Another nightmare.
***
On Saturday, Alice phones early to say, in spite of the panicked call Ianto took late last night, that everything is fine and they've made other plans. These plans are iron-clad: Steven is going to spend the weekend with his father and stepmother.
"Let me wish him a good trip?"
He senses her reluctance over the line, but Steven picks up the other end. "Hi."
He has to speak carefully. "Are you looking forward to spending the weekend with your dad?"
Steven's voice gets quiet. "Not really." When they were away, he met someone who might have been his dad but who didn't recognise Steven at all. Although everyone else they knew reacted the same way, Steven shut down after that encounter, burrowing into his own sad head.
"Did I ever tell you about my father?"
"Nope."
"We didn't always get on. He wanted me to be someone I wasn't. I think I wanted the same thing from him. But I loved him, and even if he didn't show it, I know he loved me. Dads are kind of terrible sometimes at showing what they feel." He doesn't tell Steven to ask his mother about that. No use making things worse. "Your dad is going to be very happy to see you, even if he doesn't show it the way you want."
"Okay." Steven doesn't sound convinced. "When are you coming to visit?"
When your mother lets me. "Soon."
They say their goodbyes and ring off. Jack sometimes pretends not to listen when Steven's on the phone, but he may as well admit to eavesdropping. He's in his own bad place with Alice: responsible for Steven's death, indirectly responsible for bringing him back. He doesn't dare get in the middle now.
Ianto says, "Do you think we could still go to Gwen's tonight?"
"I think she'd like that."
***
Gwen is a hugger and an enabler of hugs in others. She greets them at the door with a big smile, dimmed only when Anwen howls in the background. The toddler's at the age when she doesn't want her mam out of sight for even a minute, which Rhys says is making the days Gwen's at work a pain.
"No daycare at the Hub," Jack says, and Ianto can tell this is a discussion he's coming into late. He's not surprised. He is surprised when the doorbell rings again, with Albert on the step with a bottle of wine, and it's not long before Lois arrives, flustered and late from a last-minute phone call with her boyfriend. Dr. Pol can't join them but sends her regrets.
Gwen invited the team, the new team. Ianto has met them, but he doesn't really know either of them. As dinner winds along, talk turns to recent cases and goings-on. Jack doesn't talk about work with him, so the Jeral incursion is news even though it apparently happened last week.
Albert laughs. "I can't believe you did that to its dorsal fin." He flops his hand over, which sends Lois, Gwen, and Jack into fits of laughter with him. Rhys at least looks as lost as Ianto feels, another Torchwood widow. Just the thought makes Ianto reach for his glass again, and he hides behind it when Lois chats with Rhys about a case he helped them with a month ago.
The only person he isn't insanely jealous of is the toddler. After dinner and before dessert, Ianto sits on the rug with her, catching her attention with a big red ball rolled between them. "Ba!" she says every time she pushes the ball with chubby arms.
"Red ball." He rolls it back.
"Red ba!" This is probably the best game ever invented. "Row red ba!"
He feels Jack sit down behind him, rubbing his shoulders playfully until Ianto shrugs him off. "Excuse me. This young lady and I are having a game."
Anwen looks exactly like Rhys. Ianto feels unearned relief watching her face scrunch up like her dad's, but he'll never admit it. She's the brightest spot in a long, uncomfortable evening. Anwen doesn't talk about new species of aliens spotted in the city centre. She doesn't suggest phoning Rex to consult on a case about aliens turning up dead under mysterious circumstances. She likes her red ball. It's a good red ball.
Sadly, she goes down to sleep at nine, leaving him with a room full of people he doesn't know, or doesn't know any more. He sits quietly, listening to them talk, gradually becoming aware of how little anyone there notices his presence, a spectre on the sidelines.
At nine-thirty, his mobile rings. "I'll take this outside," he says to no-one.
It's Sally. "Did I catch you at a bad time?"
"No. How are you?"
"Fine, fine." They chat a little before she tells him she's arranged the get-together for Tuesday evening, and can he make it?
He doesn't have to glance inside. "I'm free. I'd love to come."
"Can you bring Steven?"
"I don't think I can but I'll ask his mum." Who will say no. "What time?"
Ianto lingers on the line longer than he needs to, not wanting to return to the conversation inside. Sally takes the chance to vent. Her husband has stopped remembering that she was away, but his new girlfriend hasn't. Not all the pieces fit when pushed back together.
"Oh, and I'm glad I called around. Laura, do you remember Laura?"
He recalls a vague image: a middle-aged woman, too-red hair. "Yes."
"I had to talk her down from a ledge."
He grips the phone. "Literally?"
"Half. She had her medicine cabinet open and was digging when I called. She's better now, I think, but I'm calling again tomorrow."
"Good idea." He's uncomfortably reminded of the days after the fall of Torchwood London. The survivors spoke too little, and their numbers dwindled as the bad memories claimed more victims. "Let me know if there's anything I can do."
"You've done plenty, but I will. I mean, you helped get us home. It's simply … "
"Home wasn't waiting for us."
"No." She's sad. They all went through rejections when they first returned to life. Parents, siblings, lovers, no-one knew them. But now they know, and many of those doors are still closed.
"I'll see you Tuesday," she says at last.
"I'll see you then."
He thinks about staying out here. He thinks about walking down to the shop they passed two streets over and buying a pack of cigarettes, even though he quit years ago. Before he decides, his mobile rings again. He doesn't know the number.
"Hello?"
"Who is this?"
Ianto blinks. He doesn't know the voice. "You phoned me."
"My son asked me to dial the number."
Ianto thinks fast. "Is this Joe? Joe Carter?"
"You're that man." There's confusion, grudging gratitude, and also suspicion as he says, "Alice told me about you."
"Ianto Jones. Is Steven all right?"
"He wanted to talk to you."
A moment passes, and then Steven says, "Hi."
"It's early. Did you have another nightmare?"
"No, I just wanted to say hi."
Ianto smiles. "Hi. Are you having a good visit?"
"It's okay. Dad and Petra took me to the museum and out for ice cream."
"That's good. What did you see?"
Steven launches into descriptions of dinosaur bones and recreations of fierce prehistoric creatures. He's babbling a little, but he's always like that after a large bowl of ice cream.
It occurs to Ianto that this is the longest chat they've had in a week. It also occurs to him that not all of Steven's nightmares have been actual nightmares. He's been looking for reasons to call, and his father isn't yet at the point of forbidding contact, as Alice seems to be nearing.
When Ianto finally says goodbye and goes back into Gwen and Rhys's home, an hour has passed. The others are still talking, but Jack takes a quick look at him, and says he's turning in.
"Are you all right?" he asks as soon as they're in the car and alone.
"Fine. Steven phoned. He's having a good visit. They saw dinosaur skeletons." He taps on the window. "I forgot to ask, did you ever locate Myfanwy?"
"Her tracking device shorted out a month after she vanished. The last location we have on her, she was headed north."
"I could do a search for her. Sheep disappearances, that sort of thing." He doesn't have much hope. The first winter would have killed her.
"Don't. She's not a danger to humans. Didn't we always say she'd come home when she was hungry?"
It's been years. She's hungry. Ianto doesn't mention her again. "I'm going to London Tuesday. I'll probably spend the night."
"Why?"
"Meeting up with some friends."
"Okay." The unsettled 'You have friends?' hangs in the air.
"Amy's Friends. Everyone is getting together to catch up." Not that he was necessarily friends with any of them, or even knew who they were when they were in the meetings. They understand, though. That makes them like family.
His own family is more difficult. Rhiannon came to visit while he was in hospital, and she's been over to the flat once. But she stares at him as though through a screen, not sure of what she sees, and the children act like he never left. Their memories are stitching themselves into something they can understand. In another year, the return of a thousand people to life will be forgotten by everyone but them (and Jack, and perhaps Gwen and Rhys, but Jack says that's a function of being exposed to too much weirdness).
Back at the flat, they settle in, and Steven doesn't call.
***
Ianto is a ball of nerves by Tuesday. Three times he opens his phone to call Sally and cancel, and three times he stops himself. Jack lingers over their goodbye kiss in the morning and offers him a lift to the train station, but Ianto would rather take the bus.
"Okay. Call me when you get there. Maybe we can have fun over the phone tonight?" It's simple and playful, only a touch strained. Jack hasn't asked what's wrong, because Jack doesn't do that. But he worries.
"I will. I'll see you tomorrow."
Part of him wants to break away right now, pack a real suitcase instead of this small bag, let the wind take him anywhere but this small, sleek, empty room. In deference to this urge, he buys a one-way ticket. He doesn't disembark at the Bristol station to change trains to head towards Steven's house, but he watches the rooftops until they are well out of sight.
London is just as huge and impenetrable as when he lived there: too big, too loud, and uninterested in the details of Ianto's mixed-up life story. The city had been a perfect place to bury himself every other time. Now he feels an unwelcoming presence around him, although an impersonal one. He doesn't belong here any more than he belongs home in Cardiff, but London doesn't give a damn why.
Amy's Friends used to meet in a church basement with stale biscuits and weak tea. Tonight they are collecting in a pub with fried heart attacks in a basket and strong beer. Sally greets each of them with a hug. Ianto doesn't recognise anyone as he's on the receiving end of handshakes and muttered thanks. It's not as effusive as it could be, but Ianto isn't excited either. Laura's in hospital for observation. Keith is dead. Others have vanished as neatly as they did when they were away.
There are glad tidings amidst the rest. Georgia went back to her fiancé, and they are getting married next month. Nareen is expecting a baby. Hal and Karl met through Amy's Friends, and although they've been welcomed back into their old lives, they're building a new one together.
The evening is interrupted unexpectedly by a commotion outside, and even beer-dulled instinct is instinct. Ianto is the first to the door, and of course it's a Parmerian, third eye dilated with whatever drug it shoved into its nose. It's shouting at hallucinations and wrecking everything in its path.
Ianto holds up his arms placatingly, hoping that's the right motion with this species. Insulting the alien's parentage never works out well.
Torchwood London would already have this situation contained. He can hardly let the side down now. "Hello," he says in the patois of the loose alliance the local alien population shares. "Stand down."
Ianto takes a step forward. The Parmerian watches him with interest, though he's seen the same expression on a dozen Weevil faces as they sized him up moments before attacking. But if he has its attention, it isn't as likely to attack any civilians.
It does not occur to him to think of himself as a civilian.
Behind him, the other patrons of the pub spill into the street, including Amy's Friends. "That's an alien, that is," says Nareen.
"Can't be," says someone else, someone who hasn't been dead and brought back in a pretty girl's dream. "Just some kids in fancy dress. Or those gang bangers on PCP."
Ianto catches the matching expressions of disgust on Hal's and Karl's faces out of the corner of his eye. "Kids," Karl says, and Ianto remembers those days, when he first realised how little the world is inside some people's heads.
He shuffles forward again, keeping the alien's focus. He's not sure what he'll do when he gets to the creature but he knows if he doesn't, someone else will end up hurt or killed.
The Parmerian explodes wetly, sending bloody chunks over the pavement. Ianto ducks, instinct again, but there isn't a second blast. He can just see the form in the alley lower the weapon in its arms before it vanishes. He shoots a glance to Sally. "Stay here. Make sure they stay here."
His mobile is in his hand as he runs after the thing that killed the Parmerian. Jack picks up after the first ring. "Hey ... "
Ianto cuts off potential phone sex with, "I'm in pursuit of an unknown. It just shot a Parmerian in front of me."
"Wait, what?"
Ianto turns the corner. Whatever this is, it's far ahead of him. He's out of shape. "A Parmerian, high on something, was outside the pub. When I was trying to talk it down, something shot it. I'm in pursuit."
Jack's voice is steady. "Ianto, stop. Right now."
Confused, for a moment he does. But it's getting away, and he dashes off again. "I'll lose it."
"Stand down!" The shout hurts his ear, even through the speaker. Forget instinct, Ianto's body follows orders faster than his head, and he stumbles to a stop.
Jack says, "You have no weapons, no backup, you don't know what you're chasing, and you've been drinking."
"I could have caught it," he says, out of breath, and angry at Jack for pointing out things he ought to have known himself.
"And then what? Been blown up?" There's a little teasing and a lot of worry. "Get back to the body. Contain the scene. Don't touch anything, don't let anybody else touch anything. I'll be there in a few hours."
"I know how to handle a scene."
Jack's voice turned tender. "I know you do. Give me the address."
The assailant is long gone. Ianto trudges back to the pub, and the growing crowd around the exploded Parmerian. It's a mess. This whole evening is a mess. He doesn't really know the people he's with, but there's no-one else to ask, so he has Hal and Karl move the crowd away, telling them the police have been called. Sally borrows a tablecloth from the restaurant next door and helps Ianto cover the parts of the body they can find.
He takes note of everything for later. The creature did explode, bursting from inside. Parts of its guts are charred as if from a superhot temperature, and he can't help but flash briefly to the horror of the moment they saw a bomb in Jack's belly, the dark twin to the embryo that Gwen had just discovered inside herself. Did this alien have a bomb inside that was activated by being shot? No inorganic bits, so unlikely. He files the notion away.
Sally looks sick under the sodium glare of the streetlamp.
"How much do we not notice?"
He shrugs, tucking a mutilated arm under the shroud. "If people noticed everything that happened with aliens and whatnot, they'd go mad. It's terrifying to realise how close Earth comes to annihilation all the time."
She stares at the blood on the pavement. "Like what happened to us, that sort of thing is always happening."
He nods. "But Earth has its protectors. That was the job of the group I used to work for."
"Used to?"
"Before."
It's her turn to nod. Everyone's life was different before.
Nareen and the rest go back into the pub. Everyone needs another drink after the excitement. Sally stays outside with Ianto as the night gets colder, making up excuses for the passers-by and waiting for Jack. They don't talk much. Her children are getting used to having her home again. Ianto is getting used to not having a child around. She wants to know more about aliens. He doesn't want her memories wiped.
Jack arrives significantly faster than the speeding laws ought to allow. Ianto's joy at seeing him (and it is joy, fluttering into his heart) sputters and dies when Albert gets out of the car with him. He doesn't thaw with the kiss Jack plants on his lips.
"Is everything contained?"
Ianto gestures at the covered body. Albert is already unloading their body bag from the car. Ianto goes to help, but Jack's hand is on his chest, pushing him back.
"Tell me what you saw."
He reels off every detail he can recall, including his aborted chase of the killer. Jack listens intently. Just as in bed, no-one can do 'you have my full attention' like Jack Harkness interrogating a witness. Sally's waiting, and Ianto sees Jack's hand go to the deep pocket of his coat to find her a pill.
"Don't. She already knows everything. She's like me." He waves her over. "Sally, this is Jack."
Her face splits into a genuine smile as she extends her hand. "Ianto's told me so much about you."
"Likewise," Jack replies, although he hasn't, not much. That doesn't stop Jack from kissing her hand, or from flirting sweetly even as his own hand snakes around Ianto's waist in a proprietary fashion. He leaves the hand there as Sally and Albert say hello -- Albert got in touch with Amy's Friends, everyone knows Albert, Albert's a fucking gem -- and then it's time to go.
"Tell everyone I said good-bye."
"You don't have to go," Jack says, pushing him toward the door. The gnawing worry rematerialises instantly, and Ianto can't prevent the flicker of his eyes back and forth between Jack and his new right hand man.
Albert says, "Boss, I'll drive this one back tonight. Why don't you catch the train in the morning?" His hatchet of a face is cold and still.
Like an invisible wire, Ianto can see a line drawing Jack back to the car, back to work. Even billions of miles away, the line drew him back here to this small, wet planet.
And Jack shrugs it off, surrendering the hold for the night. "Sounds good. Call if anything important comes up." His hand slips back into Ianto's and Jack is the one leading him, and Sally, back into the pub.
If Jack's attention is split amongst the new faces he meets (Sally does the introductions) every shard he shares glows with incandescence. The saddest member of their little group can't help but perk and preen under Jack's warm light, and he grows under their reflected brightness. Ianto is nearly forgotten, and he's fine with that, taking a seat farther back, a drink at his elbow and his mind ticking things over:
- Jack's got that particular smile pointed at Sally, the one that says he's going to suggest a threesome later, but first he's interested in knowing everything she saw.
- Albert took the car, and the Parmerian.
- Nareen would be up for that threesome. So would Hal. Karl is sizing up Ianto and coming up with "not interested."
- Someone killed an alien in front of him, and got away. Bipedal, easy-running.
- Jack's not drinking, a good sign. He's been trying to re-establish his sobriety after falling off the wagon so hard he bounced.
- Sharky would know if other aliens have been killed recently, but Ianto isn't on great terms with Sharky right now.
- Nareen just slipped Jack her number. Jack takes the bit of paper with a grin, and makes as if he's sticking the number in his pocket, while with a well-practised sleight of hand he places it behind himself to be swept up when the waiter comes by next.
- Martha might be following Jack's lead on not letting Ianto be involved with anything related to aliens, but her husband won't bother.
Jack catches his eye, divests himself of his newest crop of fans with plenty of winks, and they leave, just the two of them. The hotel's within an easy walk. London doesn't care if Jack's holding his hand. London certainly doesn't mind the way Jack's fingers slide into his trousers the second the door closes, the electronic lock clicking behind them, and London can fuck right off about Jack yanking down his trousers and sucking him hard before they've even reached the bed.
Hot, wet throat, gulping at him, and firm tongue pressing on the underside of his cock, and Christ, it's all Ianto can do to hold onto Jack's head, his own head drunkenly swaying until his orgasm is wrenched from him with a loud groan that probably wakes the occupants of both rooms beside them. He grabs Jack for a kiss, but Jack's already wiping his mouth, already shucking his own trousers and pants, shirt gone, still in his vest. Ianto's legs hit the bed, and he sprawls back, watching Jack's high-speed disrobe, watching him scoop up the complementary hand cream from the tray beside the empty ice bucket.
Jack's sure fingers slick into him with greasy ease, Ianto grabbing his wrist, encouraging every move and twist. Another heavy dollop goes on Jack's hand, and he coats himself, tossing the plastic bottle to the rug absently. They fit together with a slow, sure thrust, Jack burning into Ianto with a tight moan. Jack pervs on every sexual dalliance known to humankind (and otherkind) but his favourite sex is the pure focus of skin against skin in any combination.
If Ianto wasn't so wrung-out from the day and from his own orgasm, he'd push Jack over and ride him now, rising and falling with each breath. Instead he merges his thrusts with Jack's, awkwardly timing kisses as Jack bends him in half. Whatever's eating at Jack isn't holding him back, and it's not long until his hips have picked up the distinctive pace that mean he's found his perfect friction point and he's about to come. As he bends in for another kiss, Ianto's teeth grab his lip and draw blood. Jack stutters through his peak, mouthing gibberish against Ianto's mouth, whole body trembling and rocking the bed against the wall. The neighbours probably hate them now.
After they clean themselves and crawl beneath the sheets, Jack whispers, "Don't go running off looking for trouble again. Promise me."
"I wasn't looking for trouble."
They don't settle on a compromise, but eventually, Ianto does settle to sleep with Jack's fingers entwined with his. He manages two hours before his mobile wakes him.
***
Chapter Two
Author: nancybrown
Characters: Ianto, Jack, Steven, Alice, Gwen, Martha, Mickey, OCs
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Martha/Mickey, past Jack/others, past Ianto/OMC
Rating: for adults only
Words: 31,800 (6500 this part)
Warnings: suicide, character death including child death, gore and violence
Spoilers: plot spoilers through CoE, (very) brief mention of characters and events from MD, some parts based on early spoilers from the current season of DW, but finished before the season premiere aired
Beta: Eldar and fide_et_spe both kicked this into shape, and have my deepest thanks.
Summary: Ianto and Steven have returned home, but as Ianto tries to solve an alien's murder, he learns home isn't ready to take them back.
A/N: Sequel to Strays and Rescues. eldarwannabe did a lot of heavy lifting in breaking this fic, and without her, it would not exist. If you like it, tell her thank you.
A/N2: Fic to be posted over the next couple of days.
***
Chapter One
***
The most amazing thing about sex with Jack Harkness is that, despite his breadth of experience, he has a gift for making his current partner the star of his attention and the centre of his private universe. At this moment his lips and teeth are engaged in seeking out the sensitive place under Ianto's jaw that curves down his neck. Jack makes a delighted sound deep in his own throat, drawing wet images with his tongue, savouring the taste of skin and the skitter of his fingers on Ianto's shoulders as much as he has ever enjoyed anything.
It's heady, almost frightening, to be here with him under the focus of his perfect attention. Ianto can't completely let go of the thought of fresh-faced bartenders or worlds-weary space sailors, but Jack has, does, here in the dark. There's no-one else on his mind, no other ghosts in the bed.
Ianto tries to capture the same easy grace, dragging Jack back to meet his mouth by an oh so careful tug to Jack's hair. Counting the months or years between them isn't possible: Jack has skipped time, Ianto has spent part of the interim dead. But Jack's mouth never changes, full of bright smiles around each kiss, ragged breaths punctuated by nonsense words between each swipe of tongue and nibble of perfect teeth. It'd be predictable if it wasn't so damn wonderful.
These sheets are new, a little scratchy, and Ianto squirms, not coincidentally rubbing himself against Jack's body, groaning at the smooth friction of Jack's erection hot and plump against his.
His mobile chirps.
Jack keeps kissing him, not hearing it or not caring, but Ianto pauses the kisses to hear the second chirp.
He's out of breath as he throws off enough covers to reach the mobile phone. Jack has already looked at the caller ID as Ianto answers. It's got Alice's name.
"Hello."
"Hi."
Part of him expected the voice to be Alice's, but only a small part. "Are you all right?" Ianto swings his legs over the edge of the bed, uncomfortably aware that he is turning away from Jack as he does so. But he has to give his own complete attention elsewhere now.
"I'm okay," Steven says. He's got that breathless hitch. Ianto's not fooled.
"How bad was the nightmare?" he asks in a low voice. He can feel Jack watching him. He can sense Jack wanting to take the phone.
"Are you busy?"
"No. We can talk." He straightens his back, cracking it, then grabs his dressing gown as he walks to the lounge, leaving Jack in the bed.
On the other end, he can hear Alice say something but he can't make out the words. "Mum says I should go because I'm bothering you."
"Tell her you're not bothering me. It's fine. I gave you my number so you could call any time," he says in the cheeriest tone he can manage.
There's a long pause, and he can't tell if Steven has covered the speaker with his hand. Behind him, Jack has come to the door and is still watching. He's certain Alice is doing the same from Steven's end of the conversation.
"Can you come over tomorrow?"
"Of course." A second later he says, "Make sure it's all right with your mother." Sometimes he forgets. Ianto spent months pretending to be Steven's father. Now Alice is the one who decides what her child does. Ianto is a well-meaning friend of the family, and nothing more.
He listens to Steven ask, and hears the hesitancy in Alice's reply.
"She says it's fine."
"All right. I'll come over tomorrow. Why don't you try to get some sleep?"
"Okay. Good night."
The line clicks, and Ianto closes his phone. Jack hasn't moved. "Just a nightmare," Ianto says lightly, walking past him to set the mobile back in its place close to the bed. "He'll be fine."
"That's every night this week."
And nearly every night since he's been home. Ianto got the first calls before he was discharged from hospital. Steven insisted on staying with him for three nights, curled up on a blanket in the hospital room. The Doctor came, as he came to help all those affected by the TARDIS explosion, and then Alice insisted Steven go home.
He phoned the very first night. Steven falls asleep and is beset with terrors, and he calls Ianto.
Problem sorted for the moment, they fall back into bed, and it's not long until Jack is distracted with Ianto's mouth. Ianto himself keeps half an ear open for another ring.
***
Mornings begin more or less the same way every day: love, gentle to start and more energetic as both wake, hands and mouths engaged until toes curl in perfection. Then a shower, shared so Jack can help him scrub around his injury. If work doesn't beckon, Jack cooks breakfast and if Torchwood does call, he steals a fast kiss before dashing out the door.
The argument is also the same every morning. "I could go with you."
"No. You're not recovered."
That sufficed him the first weeks home, but Ianto has been benefiting from extra(terrestrial) healthcare, thanks to the new medic Jack hired when Ianto was … away. "Away" is the word they use, Jack and Gwen. Ianto goes along with the pretence, because "when you were dead" isn't something any of them want to acknowledge. "Away" sounds like Ianto took leave, finding himself whilst Jack and Gwen did whatever they did in America.
Several changes were made during the period Ianto was away. Jack and Gwen put together a new team here, and they have contacts overseas. A new woman, someone Ianto has only seen previously in a mirror using the special contact lenses, does his old tasks. A new man, with a sharp face and a Liverpool accent, carries a gun and hacks into computers, inadequately filling Tosh's empty shoes. An alien who passes for human and who can sense disease and injury by touch occupies the autopsy bay now, and she has been visiting Ianto since he was discharged, bringing her special touch and chiding care. And Jack and Gwen, of course.
It's a new team of five, replacing the old team of five. Ianto can count, and when Jack still tells him no after he feels fine, he knows Jack can count, as well.
"I need to go in to work," Ianto says, not backing down. He doesn't say, "You need me," because they have seen that's not true.
"Stay in. Relax. Besides," Jack says, eyes shadowed, "you promised to go visit today."
"Tomorrow. I'm going to work tomorrow."
"You don't need to. We've got things covered."
The argument always ends this way, with Jack walking out the door, off to the Hub, off to do what Ianto should be doing. And Ianto stays here.
He's getting used to this soulless flat, incongruously sleek and modern with chrome and black tile. Jack picked it months ago when he came back to Cardiff, but no room could feel less like Jack: neither drenched in 1940s nostalgia nor futuristic and pining for a time yet to be. Few of Ianto's former possessions are here, just a creased and ruined blue tie Jack had kept during his travels and the random ends Rhi hadn't donated. He has some photographs and the books she'd neglected to give to the jumble sale at the church, and nothing more. Jack has very few of his old things here, given that most of what he'd owned was destroyed with the first Hub. They are beginning this new life together, except that Jack has a life, and Ianto is staying home, is taken care of, is slowly going out of his mind because his boyfriend is under no circumstances letting him go back to work at their insanely dangerous job.
He washes up the breakfast dishes and checks the train schedule. He can be at Steven's door by eleven if he hurries.
He calls Alice. "I'll be on the train arriving at ten forty-five."
She pauses. "Have you left?"
"Not yet."
"Don't. He's better this morning. I'm sending him to school. You can come Saturday."
She doesn't put Steven on to talk. "Sounds good," Ianto says, and closes his phone with a quick good-bye.
Then he looks around the flat that isn't exactly his, and he wonders if he should clean it again to pass the time.
***
Lost? Feeling alone in your new life? Call Amy's Friends
[number redacted, poster is old and fraying in the weather]
***
A few of the flowers from his hospital stay are pot plants Ianto hasn't killed yet. They brighten the room. He's written 'thank you' letters to everyone who sent something, less out of obligation and more out of boredom. It also means he has contact information, and during the long day, he calls Anne.
"Sally," she reminds him, because they have all returned to their homes and their names and their lives.
Her daughters have grown, she tells him, proud and sad at once. Things changed when she was away and she's still adjusting.
"They're forgetting. That man, that doctor, he fixed me. Made them see me. And now they're forgetting I was gone. They're even forgetting about what happened when I was gone, the camps and everything. But I remember dying, Lloyd. I remember they didn't know me."
Ianto doesn't correct her on his name. She has died and lived through something remarkable. In the old days, he would have encouraged her to forget. Now he thinks she deserves the truth. "Humans can't deal with everything that happens. Our brains don't process it, so we make up reasons why we couldn't have seen mannequins come to life, or Daleks or planets in the sky."
"But it's all real. I know it's real. We all died."
"And time fractured." Ianto barely understands. He won't be able to explain it properly. "People forget because it's easier than learning nth dimensional physics."
"How's your little boy?" she asks abruptly.
"He's back home with his mother. I was only taking care of him." It's a strange sort of lie to tell her, made up almost perfectly of things that are true.
"I'm setting up a get-together with some of the old faces. The two of you ought to come. I mean, you're the reason we all could go home."
Amy Pond, the arbiter of their return, won't be there. Amy has left the planet. He felt her go, long before the curious message came from the Doctor: Amy is with the angels, and her daughter has gone to the Library.
He starts to beg off. It will be in London, he has things to do here. But he doesn't, not really. Jack might be reluctant to have him gone for a few nights but really, he's gone all day anyway, and Ianto doesn't have much to do with his time. Alice might allow Steven to go, and she might not. "Let me know. I'll try to be there."
***
Sally calls back that afternoon, and amid the completely spotless flat, he's absurdly grateful for the call, until she says, "Keith killed himself two days ago."
Ianto doesn't remember Keith at all. He doesn't remember most of the faces from Amy's Friends, but Sally is distraught. "I'm sorry to hear that."
"Why would he do that? He finally went home." She's angry, and she's terrified, too.
Perhaps there wasn't room at home for him any more. Perhaps he discovered there were worse things than being away. Perhaps as vital he might have thought he was, everyone he loved had moved on without him.
"I don't know."
***
Jack's home early. "Quiet day," he says with a kiss. "Let's go somewhere tonight. There's this new place along the quay you'll love."
"Sure. How is everyone?"
"Good. Gwen says hello and wants to have us over for dinner on Saturday."
"Saturday's bad. I've got plans."
Jack's eyebrows reach his hairline. He calms his expression instantly but Ianto has already seen and noted. Jack's no fool, taking a quick glance at the time and coming to a conclusion. "You didn't go visit today."
"Alice said to wait." Alice, he thinks, would prefer he not visit at all. Ianto is a reminder of bad times she is desperate to put behind her, and Jack's face is no better for her to see. "So, we can go on Saturday, or I'll go and you can have dinner with Gwen and Rhys."
"No, I'll tell Gwen we'll take a raincheck. It's fine. Are you ready to go?"
The new bistro on the quay is pleasant but not remarkable. Jack's a bit too much himself, cheery and romantic and overzealous to turn this into a date, to catch up for years of no dates and bad memories. Ianto enjoys the hand stroking his wrist and their ankles nudged together under the table, and he'd be lying if he claimed not to like the attention, but he's also annoyed. This is a holding pattern, when they ought to be worked to the bone, taking minutes off with each other as rare gifts. He shouldn't be sitting home alone all day. Life was supposed to revert to normal with his return to Cardiff, with breaking the perception filter hiding him from everyone who knew him.
"Dessert?" Jack is already poring over the separate Sweets and Treats menu. He's lost weight in the intervening years, leaner in his body and older in his face, but Jack's tastes haven't changed.
"None for me." Instead he has an extra glass of wine he doesn't need.
They take a walk after, though Jack steers him clear of the Hub's entrances, new and old. Ianto recognises faces and shops, others are frighteningly new. He remembers this sensation from his last homecoming, dragging along these same streets like a stranger after the horrors of Canary Wharf.
After twenty minutes, Ianto feigns fatigue. Back at the flat, he pounces on Jack with more fervour than he feels, and Jack responds happily. They fuck on the stiff, new carpet, Ianto thinking less about the man in his arms and more about shop fronts he doesn't know and someone named Keith he doesn't remember.
Later, after some telly and not much conversation, they go to bed. Around midnight, Ianto's phone rings. Another nightmare.
***
On Saturday, Alice phones early to say, in spite of the panicked call Ianto took late last night, that everything is fine and they've made other plans. These plans are iron-clad: Steven is going to spend the weekend with his father and stepmother.
"Let me wish him a good trip?"
He senses her reluctance over the line, but Steven picks up the other end. "Hi."
He has to speak carefully. "Are you looking forward to spending the weekend with your dad?"
Steven's voice gets quiet. "Not really." When they were away, he met someone who might have been his dad but who didn't recognise Steven at all. Although everyone else they knew reacted the same way, Steven shut down after that encounter, burrowing into his own sad head.
"Did I ever tell you about my father?"
"Nope."
"We didn't always get on. He wanted me to be someone I wasn't. I think I wanted the same thing from him. But I loved him, and even if he didn't show it, I know he loved me. Dads are kind of terrible sometimes at showing what they feel." He doesn't tell Steven to ask his mother about that. No use making things worse. "Your dad is going to be very happy to see you, even if he doesn't show it the way you want."
"Okay." Steven doesn't sound convinced. "When are you coming to visit?"
When your mother lets me. "Soon."
They say their goodbyes and ring off. Jack sometimes pretends not to listen when Steven's on the phone, but he may as well admit to eavesdropping. He's in his own bad place with Alice: responsible for Steven's death, indirectly responsible for bringing him back. He doesn't dare get in the middle now.
Ianto says, "Do you think we could still go to Gwen's tonight?"
"I think she'd like that."
***
Gwen is a hugger and an enabler of hugs in others. She greets them at the door with a big smile, dimmed only when Anwen howls in the background. The toddler's at the age when she doesn't want her mam out of sight for even a minute, which Rhys says is making the days Gwen's at work a pain.
"No daycare at the Hub," Jack says, and Ianto can tell this is a discussion he's coming into late. He's not surprised. He is surprised when the doorbell rings again, with Albert on the step with a bottle of wine, and it's not long before Lois arrives, flustered and late from a last-minute phone call with her boyfriend. Dr. Pol can't join them but sends her regrets.
Gwen invited the team, the new team. Ianto has met them, but he doesn't really know either of them. As dinner winds along, talk turns to recent cases and goings-on. Jack doesn't talk about work with him, so the Jeral incursion is news even though it apparently happened last week.
Albert laughs. "I can't believe you did that to its dorsal fin." He flops his hand over, which sends Lois, Gwen, and Jack into fits of laughter with him. Rhys at least looks as lost as Ianto feels, another Torchwood widow. Just the thought makes Ianto reach for his glass again, and he hides behind it when Lois chats with Rhys about a case he helped them with a month ago.
The only person he isn't insanely jealous of is the toddler. After dinner and before dessert, Ianto sits on the rug with her, catching her attention with a big red ball rolled between them. "Ba!" she says every time she pushes the ball with chubby arms.
"Red ball." He rolls it back.
"Red ba!" This is probably the best game ever invented. "Row red ba!"
He feels Jack sit down behind him, rubbing his shoulders playfully until Ianto shrugs him off. "Excuse me. This young lady and I are having a game."
Anwen looks exactly like Rhys. Ianto feels unearned relief watching her face scrunch up like her dad's, but he'll never admit it. She's the brightest spot in a long, uncomfortable evening. Anwen doesn't talk about new species of aliens spotted in the city centre. She doesn't suggest phoning Rex to consult on a case about aliens turning up dead under mysterious circumstances. She likes her red ball. It's a good red ball.
Sadly, she goes down to sleep at nine, leaving him with a room full of people he doesn't know, or doesn't know any more. He sits quietly, listening to them talk, gradually becoming aware of how little anyone there notices his presence, a spectre on the sidelines.
At nine-thirty, his mobile rings. "I'll take this outside," he says to no-one.
It's Sally. "Did I catch you at a bad time?"
"No. How are you?"
"Fine, fine." They chat a little before she tells him she's arranged the get-together for Tuesday evening, and can he make it?
He doesn't have to glance inside. "I'm free. I'd love to come."
"Can you bring Steven?"
"I don't think I can but I'll ask his mum." Who will say no. "What time?"
Ianto lingers on the line longer than he needs to, not wanting to return to the conversation inside. Sally takes the chance to vent. Her husband has stopped remembering that she was away, but his new girlfriend hasn't. Not all the pieces fit when pushed back together.
"Oh, and I'm glad I called around. Laura, do you remember Laura?"
He recalls a vague image: a middle-aged woman, too-red hair. "Yes."
"I had to talk her down from a ledge."
He grips the phone. "Literally?"
"Half. She had her medicine cabinet open and was digging when I called. She's better now, I think, but I'm calling again tomorrow."
"Good idea." He's uncomfortably reminded of the days after the fall of Torchwood London. The survivors spoke too little, and their numbers dwindled as the bad memories claimed more victims. "Let me know if there's anything I can do."
"You've done plenty, but I will. I mean, you helped get us home. It's simply … "
"Home wasn't waiting for us."
"No." She's sad. They all went through rejections when they first returned to life. Parents, siblings, lovers, no-one knew them. But now they know, and many of those doors are still closed.
"I'll see you Tuesday," she says at last.
"I'll see you then."
He thinks about staying out here. He thinks about walking down to the shop they passed two streets over and buying a pack of cigarettes, even though he quit years ago. Before he decides, his mobile rings again. He doesn't know the number.
"Hello?"
"Who is this?"
Ianto blinks. He doesn't know the voice. "You phoned me."
"My son asked me to dial the number."
Ianto thinks fast. "Is this Joe? Joe Carter?"
"You're that man." There's confusion, grudging gratitude, and also suspicion as he says, "Alice told me about you."
"Ianto Jones. Is Steven all right?"
"He wanted to talk to you."
A moment passes, and then Steven says, "Hi."
"It's early. Did you have another nightmare?"
"No, I just wanted to say hi."
Ianto smiles. "Hi. Are you having a good visit?"
"It's okay. Dad and Petra took me to the museum and out for ice cream."
"That's good. What did you see?"
Steven launches into descriptions of dinosaur bones and recreations of fierce prehistoric creatures. He's babbling a little, but he's always like that after a large bowl of ice cream.
It occurs to Ianto that this is the longest chat they've had in a week. It also occurs to him that not all of Steven's nightmares have been actual nightmares. He's been looking for reasons to call, and his father isn't yet at the point of forbidding contact, as Alice seems to be nearing.
When Ianto finally says goodbye and goes back into Gwen and Rhys's home, an hour has passed. The others are still talking, but Jack takes a quick look at him, and says he's turning in.
"Are you all right?" he asks as soon as they're in the car and alone.
"Fine. Steven phoned. He's having a good visit. They saw dinosaur skeletons." He taps on the window. "I forgot to ask, did you ever locate Myfanwy?"
"Her tracking device shorted out a month after she vanished. The last location we have on her, she was headed north."
"I could do a search for her. Sheep disappearances, that sort of thing." He doesn't have much hope. The first winter would have killed her.
"Don't. She's not a danger to humans. Didn't we always say she'd come home when she was hungry?"
It's been years. She's hungry. Ianto doesn't mention her again. "I'm going to London Tuesday. I'll probably spend the night."
"Why?"
"Meeting up with some friends."
"Okay." The unsettled 'You have friends?' hangs in the air.
"Amy's Friends. Everyone is getting together to catch up." Not that he was necessarily friends with any of them, or even knew who they were when they were in the meetings. They understand, though. That makes them like family.
His own family is more difficult. Rhiannon came to visit while he was in hospital, and she's been over to the flat once. But she stares at him as though through a screen, not sure of what she sees, and the children act like he never left. Their memories are stitching themselves into something they can understand. In another year, the return of a thousand people to life will be forgotten by everyone but them (and Jack, and perhaps Gwen and Rhys, but Jack says that's a function of being exposed to too much weirdness).
Back at the flat, they settle in, and Steven doesn't call.
***
Ianto is a ball of nerves by Tuesday. Three times he opens his phone to call Sally and cancel, and three times he stops himself. Jack lingers over their goodbye kiss in the morning and offers him a lift to the train station, but Ianto would rather take the bus.
"Okay. Call me when you get there. Maybe we can have fun over the phone tonight?" It's simple and playful, only a touch strained. Jack hasn't asked what's wrong, because Jack doesn't do that. But he worries.
"I will. I'll see you tomorrow."
Part of him wants to break away right now, pack a real suitcase instead of this small bag, let the wind take him anywhere but this small, sleek, empty room. In deference to this urge, he buys a one-way ticket. He doesn't disembark at the Bristol station to change trains to head towards Steven's house, but he watches the rooftops until they are well out of sight.
London is just as huge and impenetrable as when he lived there: too big, too loud, and uninterested in the details of Ianto's mixed-up life story. The city had been a perfect place to bury himself every other time. Now he feels an unwelcoming presence around him, although an impersonal one. He doesn't belong here any more than he belongs home in Cardiff, but London doesn't give a damn why.
Amy's Friends used to meet in a church basement with stale biscuits and weak tea. Tonight they are collecting in a pub with fried heart attacks in a basket and strong beer. Sally greets each of them with a hug. Ianto doesn't recognise anyone as he's on the receiving end of handshakes and muttered thanks. It's not as effusive as it could be, but Ianto isn't excited either. Laura's in hospital for observation. Keith is dead. Others have vanished as neatly as they did when they were away.
There are glad tidings amidst the rest. Georgia went back to her fiancé, and they are getting married next month. Nareen is expecting a baby. Hal and Karl met through Amy's Friends, and although they've been welcomed back into their old lives, they're building a new one together.
The evening is interrupted unexpectedly by a commotion outside, and even beer-dulled instinct is instinct. Ianto is the first to the door, and of course it's a Parmerian, third eye dilated with whatever drug it shoved into its nose. It's shouting at hallucinations and wrecking everything in its path.
Ianto holds up his arms placatingly, hoping that's the right motion with this species. Insulting the alien's parentage never works out well.
Torchwood London would already have this situation contained. He can hardly let the side down now. "Hello," he says in the patois of the loose alliance the local alien population shares. "Stand down."
Ianto takes a step forward. The Parmerian watches him with interest, though he's seen the same expression on a dozen Weevil faces as they sized him up moments before attacking. But if he has its attention, it isn't as likely to attack any civilians.
It does not occur to him to think of himself as a civilian.
Behind him, the other patrons of the pub spill into the street, including Amy's Friends. "That's an alien, that is," says Nareen.
"Can't be," says someone else, someone who hasn't been dead and brought back in a pretty girl's dream. "Just some kids in fancy dress. Or those gang bangers on PCP."
Ianto catches the matching expressions of disgust on Hal's and Karl's faces out of the corner of his eye. "Kids," Karl says, and Ianto remembers those days, when he first realised how little the world is inside some people's heads.
He shuffles forward again, keeping the alien's focus. He's not sure what he'll do when he gets to the creature but he knows if he doesn't, someone else will end up hurt or killed.
The Parmerian explodes wetly, sending bloody chunks over the pavement. Ianto ducks, instinct again, but there isn't a second blast. He can just see the form in the alley lower the weapon in its arms before it vanishes. He shoots a glance to Sally. "Stay here. Make sure they stay here."
His mobile is in his hand as he runs after the thing that killed the Parmerian. Jack picks up after the first ring. "Hey ... "
Ianto cuts off potential phone sex with, "I'm in pursuit of an unknown. It just shot a Parmerian in front of me."
"Wait, what?"
Ianto turns the corner. Whatever this is, it's far ahead of him. He's out of shape. "A Parmerian, high on something, was outside the pub. When I was trying to talk it down, something shot it. I'm in pursuit."
Jack's voice is steady. "Ianto, stop. Right now."
Confused, for a moment he does. But it's getting away, and he dashes off again. "I'll lose it."
"Stand down!" The shout hurts his ear, even through the speaker. Forget instinct, Ianto's body follows orders faster than his head, and he stumbles to a stop.
Jack says, "You have no weapons, no backup, you don't know what you're chasing, and you've been drinking."
"I could have caught it," he says, out of breath, and angry at Jack for pointing out things he ought to have known himself.
"And then what? Been blown up?" There's a little teasing and a lot of worry. "Get back to the body. Contain the scene. Don't touch anything, don't let anybody else touch anything. I'll be there in a few hours."
"I know how to handle a scene."
Jack's voice turned tender. "I know you do. Give me the address."
The assailant is long gone. Ianto trudges back to the pub, and the growing crowd around the exploded Parmerian. It's a mess. This whole evening is a mess. He doesn't really know the people he's with, but there's no-one else to ask, so he has Hal and Karl move the crowd away, telling them the police have been called. Sally borrows a tablecloth from the restaurant next door and helps Ianto cover the parts of the body they can find.
He takes note of everything for later. The creature did explode, bursting from inside. Parts of its guts are charred as if from a superhot temperature, and he can't help but flash briefly to the horror of the moment they saw a bomb in Jack's belly, the dark twin to the embryo that Gwen had just discovered inside herself. Did this alien have a bomb inside that was activated by being shot? No inorganic bits, so unlikely. He files the notion away.
Sally looks sick under the sodium glare of the streetlamp.
"How much do we not notice?"
He shrugs, tucking a mutilated arm under the shroud. "If people noticed everything that happened with aliens and whatnot, they'd go mad. It's terrifying to realise how close Earth comes to annihilation all the time."
She stares at the blood on the pavement. "Like what happened to us, that sort of thing is always happening."
He nods. "But Earth has its protectors. That was the job of the group I used to work for."
"Used to?"
"Before."
It's her turn to nod. Everyone's life was different before.
Nareen and the rest go back into the pub. Everyone needs another drink after the excitement. Sally stays outside with Ianto as the night gets colder, making up excuses for the passers-by and waiting for Jack. They don't talk much. Her children are getting used to having her home again. Ianto is getting used to not having a child around. She wants to know more about aliens. He doesn't want her memories wiped.
Jack arrives significantly faster than the speeding laws ought to allow. Ianto's joy at seeing him (and it is joy, fluttering into his heart) sputters and dies when Albert gets out of the car with him. He doesn't thaw with the kiss Jack plants on his lips.
"Is everything contained?"
Ianto gestures at the covered body. Albert is already unloading their body bag from the car. Ianto goes to help, but Jack's hand is on his chest, pushing him back.
"Tell me what you saw."
He reels off every detail he can recall, including his aborted chase of the killer. Jack listens intently. Just as in bed, no-one can do 'you have my full attention' like Jack Harkness interrogating a witness. Sally's waiting, and Ianto sees Jack's hand go to the deep pocket of his coat to find her a pill.
"Don't. She already knows everything. She's like me." He waves her over. "Sally, this is Jack."
Her face splits into a genuine smile as she extends her hand. "Ianto's told me so much about you."
"Likewise," Jack replies, although he hasn't, not much. That doesn't stop Jack from kissing her hand, or from flirting sweetly even as his own hand snakes around Ianto's waist in a proprietary fashion. He leaves the hand there as Sally and Albert say hello -- Albert got in touch with Amy's Friends, everyone knows Albert, Albert's a fucking gem -- and then it's time to go.
"Tell everyone I said good-bye."
"You don't have to go," Jack says, pushing him toward the door. The gnawing worry rematerialises instantly, and Ianto can't prevent the flicker of his eyes back and forth between Jack and his new right hand man.
Albert says, "Boss, I'll drive this one back tonight. Why don't you catch the train in the morning?" His hatchet of a face is cold and still.
Like an invisible wire, Ianto can see a line drawing Jack back to the car, back to work. Even billions of miles away, the line drew him back here to this small, wet planet.
And Jack shrugs it off, surrendering the hold for the night. "Sounds good. Call if anything important comes up." His hand slips back into Ianto's and Jack is the one leading him, and Sally, back into the pub.
If Jack's attention is split amongst the new faces he meets (Sally does the introductions) every shard he shares glows with incandescence. The saddest member of their little group can't help but perk and preen under Jack's warm light, and he grows under their reflected brightness. Ianto is nearly forgotten, and he's fine with that, taking a seat farther back, a drink at his elbow and his mind ticking things over:
- Jack's got that particular smile pointed at Sally, the one that says he's going to suggest a threesome later, but first he's interested in knowing everything she saw.
- Albert took the car, and the Parmerian.
- Nareen would be up for that threesome. So would Hal. Karl is sizing up Ianto and coming up with "not interested."
- Someone killed an alien in front of him, and got away. Bipedal, easy-running.
- Jack's not drinking, a good sign. He's been trying to re-establish his sobriety after falling off the wagon so hard he bounced.
- Sharky would know if other aliens have been killed recently, but Ianto isn't on great terms with Sharky right now.
- Nareen just slipped Jack her number. Jack takes the bit of paper with a grin, and makes as if he's sticking the number in his pocket, while with a well-practised sleight of hand he places it behind himself to be swept up when the waiter comes by next.
- Martha might be following Jack's lead on not letting Ianto be involved with anything related to aliens, but her husband won't bother.
Jack catches his eye, divests himself of his newest crop of fans with plenty of winks, and they leave, just the two of them. The hotel's within an easy walk. London doesn't care if Jack's holding his hand. London certainly doesn't mind the way Jack's fingers slide into his trousers the second the door closes, the electronic lock clicking behind them, and London can fuck right off about Jack yanking down his trousers and sucking him hard before they've even reached the bed.
Hot, wet throat, gulping at him, and firm tongue pressing on the underside of his cock, and Christ, it's all Ianto can do to hold onto Jack's head, his own head drunkenly swaying until his orgasm is wrenched from him with a loud groan that probably wakes the occupants of both rooms beside them. He grabs Jack for a kiss, but Jack's already wiping his mouth, already shucking his own trousers and pants, shirt gone, still in his vest. Ianto's legs hit the bed, and he sprawls back, watching Jack's high-speed disrobe, watching him scoop up the complementary hand cream from the tray beside the empty ice bucket.
Jack's sure fingers slick into him with greasy ease, Ianto grabbing his wrist, encouraging every move and twist. Another heavy dollop goes on Jack's hand, and he coats himself, tossing the plastic bottle to the rug absently. They fit together with a slow, sure thrust, Jack burning into Ianto with a tight moan. Jack pervs on every sexual dalliance known to humankind (and otherkind) but his favourite sex is the pure focus of skin against skin in any combination.
If Ianto wasn't so wrung-out from the day and from his own orgasm, he'd push Jack over and ride him now, rising and falling with each breath. Instead he merges his thrusts with Jack's, awkwardly timing kisses as Jack bends him in half. Whatever's eating at Jack isn't holding him back, and it's not long until his hips have picked up the distinctive pace that mean he's found his perfect friction point and he's about to come. As he bends in for another kiss, Ianto's teeth grab his lip and draw blood. Jack stutters through his peak, mouthing gibberish against Ianto's mouth, whole body trembling and rocking the bed against the wall. The neighbours probably hate them now.
After they clean themselves and crawl beneath the sheets, Jack whispers, "Don't go running off looking for trouble again. Promise me."
"I wasn't looking for trouble."
They don't settle on a compromise, but eventually, Ianto does settle to sleep with Jack's fingers entwined with his. He manages two hours before his mobile wakes him.
***
Chapter Two