TW Fic: Strange Brew
Title: Strange Brew
Author: nancybrown
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Jack, Gwen, Tosh, Owen
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Ianto/Lisa, Ianto/OCs
Rating: R (language)
Warnings: author chooses not to warn (PM if you need to know)
Spoilers: up through "Something Borrowed"
Words: 6400
Beta: tymewyse and fide_et_spe fixed this, so thank them nicely
Summary: Ianto Jones works at a coffeeshop in Cardiff. Unfortunately, he thinks he works for Torchwood.
AN: written for Trope Bingo square: coffeeshop AU
***
Gwen stared at the CCTV to the cells, drumming her fingers on her desk as she did so. She hated how often her job led her to hurting innocent people, or even killing them, merely because they'd accidentally found themselves caught up in a situation beyond their understanding. Go to the ASDA to pick up milk, come home missing an arm and a week's worth of your memories. Welcome to Cardiff.
Take, for example, the poor sod in their cells right now. For the last fourteen months, Gwen had seen him serving coffees at Tempo Vola. He gave her a pleasant smile or a disinterested shrug as the day demanded, and slightly overcharged her for a steaming cup of what had become her daily wakeup routine. But this morning, the barista at the coffeeshop on the Quay had pounded his fists on the door shouting at them and demanding to be let inside, and he'd spent the last two hours raving like a madman. They couldn't let him leave now, not with him willing to say the word 'Torchwood' to every passer by he met, but what were their alternatives, other than to Retcon the poor thing and track down whatever artefact had warped his mind this way?
"Toshiko," Jack called from the catwalk, "any joy?"
Gwen turned to Tosh, who'd been examining every record she could find on their prisoner. "Not a thing."
Owen had come up the stairs to see, greeting the news with a yawn. "He probably ran into Suzie, then. Start killing all of us any minute like that other idiot she brainwashed." He flopped into the chair at his work station.
Jack said, "That's a possibility," but he sounded unconvinced.
Gwen said, "Maybe he was part of a group. Like when that ship crashed last year in the Taff." They'd handed out white pills like sweets that day. She'd had to shower twice when she got home, she'd felt so awful, and she never could explain to Rhys why. For the young man's sake, she hoped it was something like that, something they could fix. If he was one of Suzie's Retconned sleepers, the kindest option they had was to kill him, and Gwen didn't know if she could face herself in the mirror after. Bloody Torchwood.
Toshiko said, "Everything I'm finding says he's exactly who we think he is." She read off her screen the man's name, date of birth, and current address. Jack nodded, as though committing it to memory.
"And you're absolutely sure he's not in any of our records as a past case. I'm saying to go back all the way on this."
"I did." Toshiko sounded affronted, as if she would even consider not doing as thorough job.
"And the same for the Torchwood One records?"
Tosh nodded. "It's a common name, but the other Ianto Joneses who appear in the records are from years ago, or I can trace to other specific individuals." She clicked her keyboard, and six different photographs of six very different men appeared, not one looking like their prisoner.
"Profile? What do we know about this guy, other than that he makes us coffee?"
Gwen turned to her own hasty research. "He's originally from Newport. Not a happy family life as a child, multiple reports of the police being called in to break up fights. Did all right in school, nothing outstanding, one arrest in his teens for shoplifting." Those were basic facts, which Tosh had confirmed. "He's never really left Cardiff. He's a bit of a dreamer, a drifter. Never settled into any one thing for long. He's in a band. Also, I found these." She flashed the snaps on the large monitor for the rest to see. Gwen frowned, sad to look at the evidence of a wasted life.
Owen said, "Could be he cracked. Sounds like believing he was a secret agent all along would be right up this tosser's alley."
"All right," Jack said, rubbing his chin absently. "Good work. I'm going to interview Mr. Jones again, and see if he can come up with why he thinks he works here."
Gwen stood. "I'm going with you. I haven't had a chance to play good cop in a while."
And, she mused, her presence might convince Jack not to shoot the poor fellow outright, not until and unless there was no other choice.
***
Ianto lay back on the hard bunk in the cell, closing his nose as best he could to the ever-present smell of Weevil. He knew he'd cleaned this cell just the other day, but the stench was gagging. Next door, he heard Janet rustling around, and hoped she hadn't taken up painting with her own faeces again. Given the kind of day he was having, he wouldn't be surprised.
Last night had been going well. The others fled before seven, with the dark clouds rolling in promising a bugger of a storm. Eschewing their normal takeaway plans, Jack had offered to cook dinner back at Ianto's flat instead, and had somehow managed to fix an amazing mock stroganoff out of tins and boxes Ianto had stuffed haphazardly in the pantry. Ianto had tried to pay attention to how he did it, but kept getting distracted by Jack's nimble fingers, and as soon as they'd eaten, Ianto'd found even better uses for Jack's hands, first kissing each knuckle and licking the pads of his thumbs, before guiding him exactly where Ianto wanted him to stroke. It was a bit like being a giddy teenager again, all sticky fumbles on the sofa and wet kisses, and waiting for someone to interrupt.
Naturally, someone had interrupted, drawing them out into the rainy night to hunt down a slavering Moobik that was terrorising patrons at a bookshop near the city centre.
Ianto swore he'd only closed his eyes for a minute in the car, but it had been morning when he woke up in a car he didn't recognise and a keyring he did, his mobile blaring a song he didn't know to announce a call from a number that was similarly unfamiliar.
And when he'd answered, the other person had shouted at him that he was late for work down at Tempo Vola.
The door at the end of the cells opened. Ianto opened his eyes, and forgot not to breathe in through his nose. He winced again as he stood.
"Tell me your memories have been restored and you're here to let me out."
"Funny," Jack said, "we were hoping the same thing."
The 'we' was quickly explained, as Gwen came into view with a friendly yet pitying smile, the same she'd used for weeks after Lisa's death. "Are you feeling better?"
"I feel fine, Gwen." He looked between them, and the matching expressions of confusion they wore modified by Jack's stern concern for his team and their secrets, and Gwen's obvious desire to see this sorted quickly. "I know you don't believe me, but we're friends. I know things about you. Gwen, I went to your wedding. I helped clean up after we Retconned the entire guest list. Jack, I still don't even know your real name, but I know you're from the 51st century, born on the Boeshane Peninsula, wherever that is. You're nearly two hundred years old, and you like chocolate but love caramel." He paused. Of the various personal details he knew about Jack, not all of them were things Gwen had been privy to, or the others who were surely watching on the CCTV.
He touched the cold, smooth Perspex between them. He wanted to take Jack's hand in his, hold it against his own cheek, his own anxious heartbeat, and make him remember. Jack was such a creature of sensation, surely touching him would help jolt him back to sanity.
The frown on Jack's face grew. "Did you hack our records or are you just probing our minds?"
"Neither!" Ianto resisted the urge to shout at them.
Gwen stepped between them placatingly. "We understand. You think you work for Torchwood. But none of our records have you listed, and every file and document we can find about you says you are the person we think you are."
"Then your records have been altered."
Jack folded his arms. "All of them? That's a tall order for a system my expert tells me is unhackable."
Ianto smiled. "I'll admit Tosh is the best, but that doesn't mean we haven't encountered someone better." He walked away from the Perspex. "What I don't understand is why anyone would go to the trouble of erasing me. I'm not going to recite access codes to prove myself," this was to the camera, for those watching, "and the personal information I know wouldn't be of value to anyone."
His head shot up. He said to Jack, "Unless Hart's back. He'd love to know the things I do about you." He grimaced. "And I'm sure he wouldn't mind if I did disappear."
Gwen tilted her head to Jack. "He knows John Hart? Would Captain Shagpoodle have sent us a Trojan Horse?"
"It's possible."
"Hart didn't send me! I'm telling you, someone is behind this, and it might be him."
Gwen said, "What about your children?"
Ianto froze. "I don't have children." He did the mad mental scramble that all men did when the prospect of unknown offspring was raised, but came up blank.
Gwen held out a data pad. She pulled up the files she'd found, digital copies from Facebook. "Perhaps you just need your memory jogged, yeah?" She showed him the two snaps, holding the pad up to the Perspex.
He stared. Both children looked to be toddlers, two or three years old. He could see a resemblance, if he squinted, but he'd faked enough photos not to give these much credence. "I have a niece whose picture could have been photoshopped to look like either of these." Cautiously, as if touching a red sore, he asked, "Who's their mother?"
Gwen took the pad back. "Mothers. Trish Newman is Darla's mum. Jacob belongs to Penny Michaelson. You're behind on Jacob's support payments. You aren't making any support payments at all to Darla, something about a deal."
"I don't know those women. Listen to me, Jack, someone has been rewriting my life. You've got to remember."
"I'm not the one with the memory issues." Jack's eyes were cold and wary. Ianto hadn't seen him this distant since right after Lisa's death, and it hurt.
"I put a Cyberman in your basement."
Jack's Webley was up and pointed at him in an instant. Ianto's heart sank more. "Say that again?"
"It was over a year ago. She got loose, and you all killed her. There's still a bloodstain on the floor. Basement storage room zero-thirteen-G. I never could get it clean. I tried everything. If you don't believe me, fine. Go see for yourself." He sat back on his bunk. "I gave you that fucking pterodactyl, too. I have no idea how they rewrote that one. And if you'll check your bunker, I've probably got a spare suit hanging in your wardrobe, but whoever it was probably cleaned that up. They won't have been able to clean the bloodstain, though. Go look."
***
Gwen followed Jack to the empty storage room. Sharing a glance, they began searching the floor for any unusual stains. Jack muttered at her, "Pterodactyl?"
Gwen gave a little gasp. "Jack, I think I've found it." She pointed to a dark spot on the floor. Jack approached the stain, kneeling down.
"My God, Jack, what if he's right?" The world bent for her, warped with the horrifying thought that she might have forgotten someone she cared about.
Jack touched the cold concrete. Then he lifted his hand off the ground, watching it.
"It's a shadow," he said, and he showed her. The light from the corridor angled in with just the right crook to make a shadow appear on the floor as a stain. Smoke and mirrors, Gwen thought.
Her earpiece buzzed. Owen said, "If you're not busy, we've found something."
***
Toshiko said, "While you were interviewing the prisoner again, I had a hunch. I hacked into the cameras at the shop." She pulled up a visual, highlighting a small object on a shelf beside various knickknacks: mismatched teacups, stuffed rabbits, other cutesy decorations.
Jack squinted. "Wait. Is that what I think it is?"
Owen produced the same object from his pocket and set it triumphantly on the boardroom table. "Tosh said it's a Hortan scrapbook."
"Good work, Toshiko," Jack said, as he examined the artefact. "How many times have we been in that place and never seen this? We have to pay closer attention, people."
Gwen asked, "What is it, then?"
Tosh rattled off excitedly: "It's brilliant technology. Apparently it attunes to the wavelengths of thought, and records everything for later."
Jack nodded. "Better than a diary. This baby actually takes down every thought, feeling, and memory. It's been recording us for months, just sitting there without our noticing."
Owen said, "And when it got bumped, or someone dusted, whatever, it activated, and suddenly, what, the local barista thinks he's some kind of ninja teaboy?"
Jack looked at the CCTV to the cells. "He's a perfect candidate, too. Dead-end job, doesn't like his life, always dreaming about doing something better. Then this thing feeds in all of our memories, and rewrites his to make him think he's been here the whole time." He turned to Owen. "So how do we get those memories out again?"
***
Ianto stared at the device on the table. "I have never seen that before in my life."
Gwen used her nice voice. "You may not remember. It rewrote your past."
"But that's not possible." He must have sounded desperate, because she placed a comforting hand over his. Ianto looked at her. "Gwen, I swear. I have been working here for almost two years."
"About that," Jack said, detaching from his casual pose against the wall. "Everything you've told us matches up to things we already know. Gwen started almost two years ago, too. She spends the most time at the coffeeshop, so it's natural you'd imprint on her experiences."
"I didn't imprint on Gwen. Jesus, Jack. What about Canary Wharf? None of you were there. How can I have memories of that?"
"I was looking at the list of the casualties," said Gwen kindly.
"And I was at the clean-up," said Owen.
Jack said, "And I've survived Cybermen and Daleks before. It's not a stretch to piece those together. You even told us your memories were spotty."
"From stress!" He took a breath. "There were only twenty-seven survivors from Torchwood London. We all had trouble. You know that."
"Twenty-two," said Owen. "Looks like the artefact messed up."
"Or I remembered wrong," Gwen said.
Toshiko said, "The device gives very realistic memories. The one we found has been deactivated. It must have filled your mind with everything it had." Behind her pleasant, reassuring expression, she was clearly considering all the security and access codes she must have given him.
Ianto sat back in his chair, staring at them all in turn. "I don't believe you. Someone has gone to a great deal of trouble to make you think I don't belong here." He looked down at the table, closing his eyes. Then he opened them again. "The Tricksters. Jack, Sarah Jane had a run-in with aliens that rewrote memories. One of them must have done something."
That led to another thought. "Call Martha. Even if they've somehow warped your memories, she won't have been in range." He looked at Jack. "You trust Martha, anyway. Let her tell you."
Jack steepled his fingers together. "First, the fact that you're now endangering my friends who don't work here is not helping your case, friend." Ianto held back his shudder at the last word, and Jack's flat intonation of same. "Second, I emailed Martha and asked her to name the members of the team, just in case you were right. After she made sure I wasn't being impersonated by someone attempting to gain access, she did. She's never heard of you, either."
The revelation stunned him. Horrified, he said, "That isn't possible. Martha knows me. She asked me about ...." He stopped, not wanting to blurt out everything in front of the team. They knew, they had to know, but they didn't even remember he existed except as the bland, friendly face on the other side of the counter. "She wanted to know my hat size for a UNIT cap."
Jack smirked. "Why? Did she think you'd look hot in one?" Ianto didn't trust himself to answer.
Gwen said, "We'll do what we can to get you back to your life."
"This is my life." But he was doubting. The artefact on the table could rewrite memories. Perhaps it had rewritten the team's, but wasn't the more likely scenario that they were right, and he was confused?
Even the past he could remember clearly was damning. Yes, he'd always secretly (or not so secretly) believed he was better than people thought him. He could be a suave secret agent, someone to respect, not just another failed kid from the council estate, not just Hugh and Mary Jones's troubled son. He'd dreamed of being more, and Torchwood had given him more, given him self-respect and a purpose and amazing experiences. It'd also given him Lisa, and then Jack, the two most gorgeous human beings Ianto had ever been lucky enough to meet, much less make love to. For all the nightmares he'd lived, Torchwood had in many respects been a dream come true.
But what if he hadn't? Bored and lonely, dissatisfied with brewing lattes for arseholes, his brain would have taken the mish-mash of images and concocted the perfect fantasy life for him: not just a barista with two kids he never saw and a mouse-ridden flat, but a vital member of a top secret alien fighting team, who had steamy affairs with hot partners and still made a damn fine cup of coffee.
It was all a lie.
"I remember them," he said, lips numb. He looked at Gwen. She was the soft-hearted one. She'd give in. "I want to read the list."
She glanced at Jack, who nodded. She pulled up the employee list from Torchwood London, which named the living (few) and the dead (too many). Ianto made himself read the whole thing as the others watched him, made himself look up the names of the other survivors from his department, the terrified handful who'd stood with him in a forced line as the Cybermen had shoved them one by one into the conversion unit at the front. Behind his eyelids, he could see them, could hear the screams, could smell the burning flesh and the fresh blood. He opened his eyes again, making himself focus on the names of people he'd apparently never known. Deceased. Deceased. Survived. Deceased.
A name caught his eye. Ianto turned the paper over and slid it back to Gwen. "Thank you."
Owen said, "We can begin with a low dose of Retcon. If your memories are this new, they ought to be wiped clean with a week or two gone. Then you can get back to your life." He smiled, thinly and falsely. Ianto nodded.
"Car accident? Bad head injury?" At their surprised faces, he said, "I have all the memories of your operating procedures. I can remember faking this sort of thing."
"Which is a useful skill," said Jack. "I would love to see what else you think you remember."
Gwen said, with kindness in her tone, "We'll do our best work. You won't even know we've tampered, all right?"
"Fine." Ianto toyed with the cuff of his sleeve. He had a memory of putting on this jacket yesterday, had a memory of Jack giving him these cuff links as an off-hand gift Ianto had nonetheless treasured. Had the real him stolen them? Would he ever know?
"Could I have a few moments to myself? I'm about to give up," he cleared his throat, which did nothing for the lump there, "a lot."
"Of course," said Gwen before Jack could say anything. She gave the others a very obvious Look, and they filed out. Jack lingered, clearly not trusting him to be left alone. The naked suspicion on his face didn't hurt, Ianto told himself, and it didn't matter. It had all been a false fantasy made from an alien brain ray. Ianto would go back to serving coffees and cleaning up spilled tea, dreaming of working his way up to management.
Finally, Jack left the room.
Ianto allowed himself a small smirk, as he rapidly went over the Hub's security measures and figured out the best means of escape. Just because he was being forced into another conversion didn't mean he had to lie down as they strapped him in.
***
The tracker on the car led Jack directly to him. Nice area near Maidenhead, thirty miles from London, good schools, quiet neighbourhood. Ianto sat parked in his own car down the block from what Toshiko said was the current address of one of the Canary Wharf survivors. Jack watched Ianto watching the house, then he got out of the SUV. Ianto didn't even notice until Jack opened the door and sat on the passenger side.
"Anyone ever tell you you're kind of a stalker?"
Already past his initial surprise, Ianto shrugged with exaggerated nonchalance. "Someone did once, but he told me later he was flattered."
"Lisa Stellan, formerly Lisa Hallett, born May 15th, 1981. She used to work for Torchwood until the Battle of Canary Wharf. She was on holiday that day, on her honeymoon, in fact. One daughter, one year old, and another baby on the way." Jack recited what he could from Tosh's quick research. Ianto's face didn't move as he spoke. "Any good reason we're sitting here bothering this poor woman?"
Ianto kept his eyes on the house. A door opened, and a stunningly attractive woman stepped outside, hushing along a little girl. Jack kept his wolf whistle to himself.
"You're going to Retcon me," Ianto said, watching mother and daughter hand-in-hand walk down the street. "You don't have any other options. I know too much about Torchwood, about you and the team. You can't allow me to walk around with what I know, and you can't trust me enough to bring me in. Gwen gets upset when you shoot people, so unless I force you, you're not here to kill me. It'll be Retcon."
"I hadn't made that call yet," Jack said.
"You will, and I don't think a week's dose will work. I'll have to lose about four years of my life, five would be better. And I won't even know it. I'll lose everything I've gained, everyone I've loved, everything, and I'll never know. I'll be just another failure, a man who doesn't even know himself, working a shit job he hates and wishing he'd done something special just once." He let out a small laugh. "I'll probably wind up in another coffeeshop. You always did like my coffee."
Jack glanced down and saw the flask between the seats. He raised an eyebrow. "May I?"
"Go on." Ianto craned his neck as Lisa and her child crossed the street, headed for the playpark.
Jack unscrewed the top to take a long swallow. The kid had a gift, no denying that. He replaced the flask's top with care, hiding the opening with the cup of his hand as he did.
"Why Lisa?"
"Why do you think? We were together, until she died at Canary Wharf." He stumbled through the words, as though he didn't quite believe them himself. "The person I was with after her wouldn't accept a proper goodbye. So if you're going to take my memories and essentially kill me, I wanted the last ones to be of Lisa." He stared out the window.
"She's getting a divorce," Jack said. Tosh's research had pulled up those papers as well. "You could settle here, make friends, ask her out. Maybe things would work out this time."
Ianto finally drew his gaze back to Jack. "Would you do that? With my memories intact?"
Jack couldn't meet his eyes. "No. Probably not."
"All right."
They sat for a while, neither speaking, as Ianto watched the playpark in his rear mirror. The little girl seemed happy, unaware that her mother had been saved by chance from being murdered by aliens, not knowing her daddy was moving away. The Ianto Jones in Jack's records was a miserable failure as a dad. The one beside him might not be. But they'd never know now.
"Tell me about her," Jack said, waiting.
He took the coffee flask and drank before he replied, "She was perfect. Even when she wasn't." The kid smiled, just a quick upturn of his mouth. His eyes said much more, distant and besotted and sad. He had it bad. For a second, he flickered his gaze to Jack. "It doesn't matter now. She won't remember me, either."
Jack knew he shouldn't poke, yet he couldn't help himself. He'd seen this man dozens if not hundreds of times over the past few years. Tomorrow, he'd be back to his old self again, but today, he was a fascinating puzzle, full of half-spoken dreams and full-on delusions. On top of all that, as Toshiko had pulled up from the CCTV analysis, he spent eighty-three percent of his time looking directly at Jack.
"Do you still think your memories are real?"
"Yes." There was no hesitation.
"Even though we've shown you that they're not? You've got the evidence all around you that you are who we think you are, that that woman," he pointed to Lisa, "is not in any way your dead fantasy girlfriend, that you're wrong."
Ianto closed his eyes for a long moment. Jack held his breath, but Ianto opened them again. "I know what the evidence is. I also know what I remember, what I feel, and even if I'm the only one who does, it's real to me. You've spent over a century living among primitive humans who don't know what the future holds. You know what that's like, being the only one. You don't stop believing in who you are just because the rest of the world is wrong."
"That doesn't sound crazy to you?"
He shrugged and didn't answer. The little girl was on the swings now. Jack could watch his eyes follow her movements back and forth. Ianto covered his mouth as he yawned. He began to shake as he stared at Jack. "Already?"
"I hadn't made the call. Then you ran. I couldn't guarantee you wouldn't run off to spill our secrets."
The sedative deadened his movements. Jack made himself watch, although the quiet expression of hurt and betrayal on Ianto's face unsettled him. "How long?" he asked, as his eyes drifted shut.
"Long enough. When you wake up, all this will have been a bad dream."
His head tilted forward. Jack resisted the urge he had to brush Ianto's cheek, tell him he would be okay. Sure, he'd noticed the hot guy behind the counter, in the same way he noticed the various hot people he encountered every day. But watching him sleeping now, the leaden sleep of the heavily-sedated, Jack felt a strange sorrow in his gut, like he was losing something he hadn't known he'd wanted.
Jack's earpiece buzzed, breaking the moment. "Go ahead."
"Jack," said Tosh, a note of tension in her voice, "have you found him?"
"Found and dealt with."
"Oh." There was a long pause.
"Toshiko?"
"I went through the Rift records from last night again, searching for anything I could. There was a Rift event last night, a tiny spike. I never would have seen it if I hadn't been combing through." A bad feeling settled into his mind.
"What kind of spike?"
"Negative. And it splashed."
"Where?" But he already knew.
Jack looked at the sleeping man in the seat beside him. Rift spike, universe slide. The right event at the right time, with the right man in both places at the right instant. Yes, the Ianto Jones of their records may have been some failed twit with a bad life. But the man he was looking at, the man he'd just Retconned, wasn't him.
"Tosh, we need to work on your timing."
***
"You're kidding me," said Owen.
Tosh said, "It's not a perfect plan."
"It's an awful plan," said Gwen. "We don't just shove people through the Rift and hope for the best!"
"But this has a good chance of working," Tosh said. "The readings for the predictor say tonight's event will be identical to last night's. It might switch them back."
"Might," Gwen said. "If the other bloke is in the right location at the right time. There's no telling if he's even still alive."
Jack said nothing. He'd driven Ianto back in the SUV, abandoning the other car for now. The sedatives would soon lose effect, and he would wake up. The good news was that Jack hadn't used the high dose, not without Owen's input on exactly how much to give someone to take away four or five years. The bad news was that he'd started with a large enough dose to take weeks, partially as a test to see if the lower dose would wipe the new memories.
"What are our options?"
"Send him through," said Tosh immediately. "We put him precisely where the event will occur and assume our counterparts in his universe put the other one in the same location."
"Finish the job," said Owen. "Wipe enough time, it won't matter."
Gwen bit her lip, not wanting to make either call. "If we're wrong, those two kids are going to lose their dad."
"Not much of a loss," Owen reminded her.
Gwen glowered at him. "And an innocent man will be grabbed by the Rift and sent God knows where. He could be killed, or lost forever. We're not even positive he came through the Rift to begin with. He still might just have a scrambled memory."
Owen said, "Which we can fix with more Retcon. Either way, messed up brain or Rift refugee, we wipe him and set him up somewhere else. It'd be a mercy."
Jack looked at the sleeping man again. "How long do we have?"
Tosh checked her numbers. "Three hours."
"Then we'll wait."
***
Head pounding, Ianto opened his eyes, blinking against the light of the Hub. He lay on the sofa, uncomfortably propped up. The others stood nearby, watching him. He focused on the person closest to him. "Jack?"
Jack's face went through unfamiliar contortions before smoothing out. "Hey, Ianto." He said Ianto's name with an odd inflection. He always did, Ianto reminded himself, flattening the word and stretching it in peculiar ways with his accent that wasn't American.
Head still muzzy, Ianto reckoned he must've been hit pretty hard. "What happened?"
Owen said, with a halting deliberation, "You don't remember the accident?"
"Accident?" He went to sit up, felt nauseated with the movement, and instinctively reached for Jack's hand to steady him. "Jack? What's going on?"
Jack stared at their joined hands, then shifted into a more comfortable hold. "What's the last thing you remember?"
He scratched at his memories. "Gwen's wedding. Fucking Nostrovites." He blinked at Gwen. "You're back from your honeymoon?"
Owen came forward, holding his pen light. He turned it on, flashing the migraine-inducing light into Ianto's eyes. "You've got concussion, mate. Just take it easy."
Ianto blinked pain away, and looked at Jack again, fear rising as he felt his own scalp and face for damage. "What hit me?"
Jack grimaced. "You gave as good as you got. Now lie back and close your eyes. Owen needs to look you over."
Nothing about that made sense. He ought to stay awake, not close his eyes. He ought to be in medical, or even resting at home, not on the ratty old sofa. But Jack had told him to rest and his eyes were already shutting. He heard one last thing as Owen poked him with a sharp needle, and sleep hit him like a boxing glove:
"Answers that question."
***
They stood well clear of where the Rift predictor said the event would occur. Toshiko counted down the seconds on her scanner as the levels peaked. The sky ripped open with a white crack that had nothing to do with lightning, and a moment later, eyes still smarting from the incandescence, they saw where it had been.
"Owen," said Jack, indicated the crumpled form on the pavement.
Owen took in the terrible clothes and the bad haircut. It could be the same bloke, almost. Owen took a pulse, and ran his scanner over the body. "He's alive. Dunno if it's the right Ianto Jones, but it's definitely someone new. Also he's got Retcon in his system, so I'm guessing our pals on the other side had him as their guest."
Jack helped him lug Ianto into the SUV. They'd observe him when he woke, see how much of his memories he had left, and finish the job. Bit weird, Owen mused, but typical.
Gwen rode shotgun on the way back. Jack drove, his face closed off. Owen sat in the back with Tosh, looking in on his patient from time to time. "Welcome back to your life, mate," he whispered.
After they staged the accident, Jack arranged for Jones to be resettled around Maidenhead. He never said why.
***
Ianto woke with a bugger of a headache, and no explanations of where he'd been.
"You really don't remember?" Gwen asked.
Owen waved his scanner vaguely. "With this much Retcon, I'm not surprised."
"Seriously, I don't remember anything after the wedding. How long has it been?"
"A couple of weeks," Tosh said, and having assured herself he was otherwise okay, she let herself back upstairs.
He turned to Jack, always his favourite anchor when shit got weird. "Was I gone that entire time?"
Jack looked worried, but took his hand, wrapping it carefully in his own. "As far as we can tell, you were gone twenty-four hours. That's how long we had the other you here."
Ianto blinked. "What?"
"I'll explain. And catch you up. Are you sure you feel all right?"
Before he could complain about the headache, Owen injected him painfully with something. But the headache eased. "I'm positive." He rubbed the sore spot on his arm. "How did you know the other me wasn't me?"
"He didn't dress like you. He didn't act like you. And he decked me when I tried to kiss him."
"Ah." As he shrugged his suit coat back on, he said, "I promise I won't deck you if you try now."
Jack smiled and complied, to Owen's rolling eyes and Gwen's uncomfortable titter. "Want to go get a coffee and talk about your missing weeks?"
"Not coffee. For some reason, it doesn't sound good."
Owen said, "I'd best check you over again. Sounds like we got the wrong Ianto back." But everyone ignored him.
***
No coffee -- Ianto actually twitched as they passed by that shop by the Plass -- and no ice cream, because Jack could eventually remember that sort of thing, thus they wound up at a table at an outdoor café overlooking the Bay, Jack with a glass of water and Ianto using the menu as a prop for his nervous hands. Jack was used to this, the waiter less so, and Jack finally ordered something to get the man to go away.
"You okay?" he asked when they were alone.
"A bit queasy. Like when we lost those two days."
"Understood." None of them had wanted to dig up why they'd Retconned themselves a few months ago, but everyone had been ill at ease for some time after, wondering.
"Did the other me really punch you?"
"Yep. Never saw it coming. I thought it was you, and you haven't hit me in over a year." Not a pleasant memory to uncover, Jack realised too late, but truth. He soothed the old hurt quickly. "It was so strange to see someone who looked like you, talked like you, smelled like you, but who wasn't really you at all. You didn't know who we were. We thought maybe you'd been Retconned by accident or something. But you remembered our coffee orders."
Ianto flinched at that, and Jack filed away the information. Patterns. "That must have been ideal, then. Someone to make the coffee and otherwise stay out of your business."
"It was awful," Jack said, thinking about the flat, blank expression as the other Ianto had stared at him, without a trace of the happy affection that lit his Ianto's face whenever he saw Jack. That man hadn't cared if Jack lived or died. This one put down his menu and began toying with his cufflinks, an elegant set Jack had bought on a whim. "We couldn't wait to send him home. You really don't remember a thing about that other universe?"
"Nothing at all. We know they have Torchwood, and they have Retcon, and that the other me will never have heard of either one." His mouth screwed into a frown again. "Did he seem happy to you?"
Jack started to say, "As happy as anyone else does," but that was a bullshit answer, and instead, he said, "No."
"Ah."
Jack watched him, watched his hands, and the way he stilled his movements as he noticed the observation, watched his face, written with both the worry of what had happened to him and the hope that this business was finished.
"Are you happy?"
Ianto nodded. It was too fast a response, too soon for the question to sink in, but Jack accepted the answer. He took Ianto's hand, and he wrapped their fingers together warmly. "Good."
***
The End
***
Author: nancybrown
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Jack, Gwen, Tosh, Owen
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Ianto/Lisa, Ianto/OCs
Rating: R (language)
Warnings: author chooses not to warn (PM if you need to know)
Spoilers: up through "Something Borrowed"
Words: 6400
Beta: tymewyse and fide_et_spe fixed this, so thank them nicely
Summary: Ianto Jones works at a coffeeshop in Cardiff. Unfortunately, he thinks he works for Torchwood.
AN: written for Trope Bingo square: coffeeshop AU
***
Gwen stared at the CCTV to the cells, drumming her fingers on her desk as she did so. She hated how often her job led her to hurting innocent people, or even killing them, merely because they'd accidentally found themselves caught up in a situation beyond their understanding. Go to the ASDA to pick up milk, come home missing an arm and a week's worth of your memories. Welcome to Cardiff.
Take, for example, the poor sod in their cells right now. For the last fourteen months, Gwen had seen him serving coffees at Tempo Vola. He gave her a pleasant smile or a disinterested shrug as the day demanded, and slightly overcharged her for a steaming cup of what had become her daily wakeup routine. But this morning, the barista at the coffeeshop on the Quay had pounded his fists on the door shouting at them and demanding to be let inside, and he'd spent the last two hours raving like a madman. They couldn't let him leave now, not with him willing to say the word 'Torchwood' to every passer by he met, but what were their alternatives, other than to Retcon the poor thing and track down whatever artefact had warped his mind this way?
"Toshiko," Jack called from the catwalk, "any joy?"
Gwen turned to Tosh, who'd been examining every record she could find on their prisoner. "Not a thing."
Owen had come up the stairs to see, greeting the news with a yawn. "He probably ran into Suzie, then. Start killing all of us any minute like that other idiot she brainwashed." He flopped into the chair at his work station.
Jack said, "That's a possibility," but he sounded unconvinced.
Gwen said, "Maybe he was part of a group. Like when that ship crashed last year in the Taff." They'd handed out white pills like sweets that day. She'd had to shower twice when she got home, she'd felt so awful, and she never could explain to Rhys why. For the young man's sake, she hoped it was something like that, something they could fix. If he was one of Suzie's Retconned sleepers, the kindest option they had was to kill him, and Gwen didn't know if she could face herself in the mirror after. Bloody Torchwood.
Toshiko said, "Everything I'm finding says he's exactly who we think he is." She read off her screen the man's name, date of birth, and current address. Jack nodded, as though committing it to memory.
"And you're absolutely sure he's not in any of our records as a past case. I'm saying to go back all the way on this."
"I did." Toshiko sounded affronted, as if she would even consider not doing as thorough job.
"And the same for the Torchwood One records?"
Tosh nodded. "It's a common name, but the other Ianto Joneses who appear in the records are from years ago, or I can trace to other specific individuals." She clicked her keyboard, and six different photographs of six very different men appeared, not one looking like their prisoner.
"Profile? What do we know about this guy, other than that he makes us coffee?"
Gwen turned to her own hasty research. "He's originally from Newport. Not a happy family life as a child, multiple reports of the police being called in to break up fights. Did all right in school, nothing outstanding, one arrest in his teens for shoplifting." Those were basic facts, which Tosh had confirmed. "He's never really left Cardiff. He's a bit of a dreamer, a drifter. Never settled into any one thing for long. He's in a band. Also, I found these." She flashed the snaps on the large monitor for the rest to see. Gwen frowned, sad to look at the evidence of a wasted life.
Owen said, "Could be he cracked. Sounds like believing he was a secret agent all along would be right up this tosser's alley."
"All right," Jack said, rubbing his chin absently. "Good work. I'm going to interview Mr. Jones again, and see if he can come up with why he thinks he works here."
Gwen stood. "I'm going with you. I haven't had a chance to play good cop in a while."
And, she mused, her presence might convince Jack not to shoot the poor fellow outright, not until and unless there was no other choice.
***
Ianto lay back on the hard bunk in the cell, closing his nose as best he could to the ever-present smell of Weevil. He knew he'd cleaned this cell just the other day, but the stench was gagging. Next door, he heard Janet rustling around, and hoped she hadn't taken up painting with her own faeces again. Given the kind of day he was having, he wouldn't be surprised.
Last night had been going well. The others fled before seven, with the dark clouds rolling in promising a bugger of a storm. Eschewing their normal takeaway plans, Jack had offered to cook dinner back at Ianto's flat instead, and had somehow managed to fix an amazing mock stroganoff out of tins and boxes Ianto had stuffed haphazardly in the pantry. Ianto had tried to pay attention to how he did it, but kept getting distracted by Jack's nimble fingers, and as soon as they'd eaten, Ianto'd found even better uses for Jack's hands, first kissing each knuckle and licking the pads of his thumbs, before guiding him exactly where Ianto wanted him to stroke. It was a bit like being a giddy teenager again, all sticky fumbles on the sofa and wet kisses, and waiting for someone to interrupt.
Naturally, someone had interrupted, drawing them out into the rainy night to hunt down a slavering Moobik that was terrorising patrons at a bookshop near the city centre.
Ianto swore he'd only closed his eyes for a minute in the car, but it had been morning when he woke up in a car he didn't recognise and a keyring he did, his mobile blaring a song he didn't know to announce a call from a number that was similarly unfamiliar.
And when he'd answered, the other person had shouted at him that he was late for work down at Tempo Vola.
The door at the end of the cells opened. Ianto opened his eyes, and forgot not to breathe in through his nose. He winced again as he stood.
"Tell me your memories have been restored and you're here to let me out."
"Funny," Jack said, "we were hoping the same thing."
The 'we' was quickly explained, as Gwen came into view with a friendly yet pitying smile, the same she'd used for weeks after Lisa's death. "Are you feeling better?"
"I feel fine, Gwen." He looked between them, and the matching expressions of confusion they wore modified by Jack's stern concern for his team and their secrets, and Gwen's obvious desire to see this sorted quickly. "I know you don't believe me, but we're friends. I know things about you. Gwen, I went to your wedding. I helped clean up after we Retconned the entire guest list. Jack, I still don't even know your real name, but I know you're from the 51st century, born on the Boeshane Peninsula, wherever that is. You're nearly two hundred years old, and you like chocolate but love caramel." He paused. Of the various personal details he knew about Jack, not all of them were things Gwen had been privy to, or the others who were surely watching on the CCTV.
He touched the cold, smooth Perspex between them. He wanted to take Jack's hand in his, hold it against his own cheek, his own anxious heartbeat, and make him remember. Jack was such a creature of sensation, surely touching him would help jolt him back to sanity.
The frown on Jack's face grew. "Did you hack our records or are you just probing our minds?"
"Neither!" Ianto resisted the urge to shout at them.
Gwen stepped between them placatingly. "We understand. You think you work for Torchwood. But none of our records have you listed, and every file and document we can find about you says you are the person we think you are."
"Then your records have been altered."
Jack folded his arms. "All of them? That's a tall order for a system my expert tells me is unhackable."
Ianto smiled. "I'll admit Tosh is the best, but that doesn't mean we haven't encountered someone better." He walked away from the Perspex. "What I don't understand is why anyone would go to the trouble of erasing me. I'm not going to recite access codes to prove myself," this was to the camera, for those watching, "and the personal information I know wouldn't be of value to anyone."
His head shot up. He said to Jack, "Unless Hart's back. He'd love to know the things I do about you." He grimaced. "And I'm sure he wouldn't mind if I did disappear."
Gwen tilted her head to Jack. "He knows John Hart? Would Captain Shagpoodle have sent us a Trojan Horse?"
"It's possible."
"Hart didn't send me! I'm telling you, someone is behind this, and it might be him."
Gwen said, "What about your children?"
Ianto froze. "I don't have children." He did the mad mental scramble that all men did when the prospect of unknown offspring was raised, but came up blank.
Gwen held out a data pad. She pulled up the files she'd found, digital copies from Facebook. "Perhaps you just need your memory jogged, yeah?" She showed him the two snaps, holding the pad up to the Perspex.
He stared. Both children looked to be toddlers, two or three years old. He could see a resemblance, if he squinted, but he'd faked enough photos not to give these much credence. "I have a niece whose picture could have been photoshopped to look like either of these." Cautiously, as if touching a red sore, he asked, "Who's their mother?"
Gwen took the pad back. "Mothers. Trish Newman is Darla's mum. Jacob belongs to Penny Michaelson. You're behind on Jacob's support payments. You aren't making any support payments at all to Darla, something about a deal."
"I don't know those women. Listen to me, Jack, someone has been rewriting my life. You've got to remember."
"I'm not the one with the memory issues." Jack's eyes were cold and wary. Ianto hadn't seen him this distant since right after Lisa's death, and it hurt.
"I put a Cyberman in your basement."
Jack's Webley was up and pointed at him in an instant. Ianto's heart sank more. "Say that again?"
"It was over a year ago. She got loose, and you all killed her. There's still a bloodstain on the floor. Basement storage room zero-thirteen-G. I never could get it clean. I tried everything. If you don't believe me, fine. Go see for yourself." He sat back on his bunk. "I gave you that fucking pterodactyl, too. I have no idea how they rewrote that one. And if you'll check your bunker, I've probably got a spare suit hanging in your wardrobe, but whoever it was probably cleaned that up. They won't have been able to clean the bloodstain, though. Go look."
***
Gwen followed Jack to the empty storage room. Sharing a glance, they began searching the floor for any unusual stains. Jack muttered at her, "Pterodactyl?"
Gwen gave a little gasp. "Jack, I think I've found it." She pointed to a dark spot on the floor. Jack approached the stain, kneeling down.
"My God, Jack, what if he's right?" The world bent for her, warped with the horrifying thought that she might have forgotten someone she cared about.
Jack touched the cold concrete. Then he lifted his hand off the ground, watching it.
"It's a shadow," he said, and he showed her. The light from the corridor angled in with just the right crook to make a shadow appear on the floor as a stain. Smoke and mirrors, Gwen thought.
Her earpiece buzzed. Owen said, "If you're not busy, we've found something."
***
Toshiko said, "While you were interviewing the prisoner again, I had a hunch. I hacked into the cameras at the shop." She pulled up a visual, highlighting a small object on a shelf beside various knickknacks: mismatched teacups, stuffed rabbits, other cutesy decorations.
Jack squinted. "Wait. Is that what I think it is?"
Owen produced the same object from his pocket and set it triumphantly on the boardroom table. "Tosh said it's a Hortan scrapbook."
"Good work, Toshiko," Jack said, as he examined the artefact. "How many times have we been in that place and never seen this? We have to pay closer attention, people."
Gwen asked, "What is it, then?"
Tosh rattled off excitedly: "It's brilliant technology. Apparently it attunes to the wavelengths of thought, and records everything for later."
Jack nodded. "Better than a diary. This baby actually takes down every thought, feeling, and memory. It's been recording us for months, just sitting there without our noticing."
Owen said, "And when it got bumped, or someone dusted, whatever, it activated, and suddenly, what, the local barista thinks he's some kind of ninja teaboy?"
Jack looked at the CCTV to the cells. "He's a perfect candidate, too. Dead-end job, doesn't like his life, always dreaming about doing something better. Then this thing feeds in all of our memories, and rewrites his to make him think he's been here the whole time." He turned to Owen. "So how do we get those memories out again?"
***
Ianto stared at the device on the table. "I have never seen that before in my life."
Gwen used her nice voice. "You may not remember. It rewrote your past."
"But that's not possible." He must have sounded desperate, because she placed a comforting hand over his. Ianto looked at her. "Gwen, I swear. I have been working here for almost two years."
"About that," Jack said, detaching from his casual pose against the wall. "Everything you've told us matches up to things we already know. Gwen started almost two years ago, too. She spends the most time at the coffeeshop, so it's natural you'd imprint on her experiences."
"I didn't imprint on Gwen. Jesus, Jack. What about Canary Wharf? None of you were there. How can I have memories of that?"
"I was looking at the list of the casualties," said Gwen kindly.
"And I was at the clean-up," said Owen.
Jack said, "And I've survived Cybermen and Daleks before. It's not a stretch to piece those together. You even told us your memories were spotty."
"From stress!" He took a breath. "There were only twenty-seven survivors from Torchwood London. We all had trouble. You know that."
"Twenty-two," said Owen. "Looks like the artefact messed up."
"Or I remembered wrong," Gwen said.
Toshiko said, "The device gives very realistic memories. The one we found has been deactivated. It must have filled your mind with everything it had." Behind her pleasant, reassuring expression, she was clearly considering all the security and access codes she must have given him.
Ianto sat back in his chair, staring at them all in turn. "I don't believe you. Someone has gone to a great deal of trouble to make you think I don't belong here." He looked down at the table, closing his eyes. Then he opened them again. "The Tricksters. Jack, Sarah Jane had a run-in with aliens that rewrote memories. One of them must have done something."
That led to another thought. "Call Martha. Even if they've somehow warped your memories, she won't have been in range." He looked at Jack. "You trust Martha, anyway. Let her tell you."
Jack steepled his fingers together. "First, the fact that you're now endangering my friends who don't work here is not helping your case, friend." Ianto held back his shudder at the last word, and Jack's flat intonation of same. "Second, I emailed Martha and asked her to name the members of the team, just in case you were right. After she made sure I wasn't being impersonated by someone attempting to gain access, she did. She's never heard of you, either."
The revelation stunned him. Horrified, he said, "That isn't possible. Martha knows me. She asked me about ...." He stopped, not wanting to blurt out everything in front of the team. They knew, they had to know, but they didn't even remember he existed except as the bland, friendly face on the other side of the counter. "She wanted to know my hat size for a UNIT cap."
Jack smirked. "Why? Did she think you'd look hot in one?" Ianto didn't trust himself to answer.
Gwen said, "We'll do what we can to get you back to your life."
"This is my life." But he was doubting. The artefact on the table could rewrite memories. Perhaps it had rewritten the team's, but wasn't the more likely scenario that they were right, and he was confused?
Even the past he could remember clearly was damning. Yes, he'd always secretly (or not so secretly) believed he was better than people thought him. He could be a suave secret agent, someone to respect, not just another failed kid from the council estate, not just Hugh and Mary Jones's troubled son. He'd dreamed of being more, and Torchwood had given him more, given him self-respect and a purpose and amazing experiences. It'd also given him Lisa, and then Jack, the two most gorgeous human beings Ianto had ever been lucky enough to meet, much less make love to. For all the nightmares he'd lived, Torchwood had in many respects been a dream come true.
But what if he hadn't? Bored and lonely, dissatisfied with brewing lattes for arseholes, his brain would have taken the mish-mash of images and concocted the perfect fantasy life for him: not just a barista with two kids he never saw and a mouse-ridden flat, but a vital member of a top secret alien fighting team, who had steamy affairs with hot partners and still made a damn fine cup of coffee.
It was all a lie.
"I remember them," he said, lips numb. He looked at Gwen. She was the soft-hearted one. She'd give in. "I want to read the list."
She glanced at Jack, who nodded. She pulled up the employee list from Torchwood London, which named the living (few) and the dead (too many). Ianto made himself read the whole thing as the others watched him, made himself look up the names of the other survivors from his department, the terrified handful who'd stood with him in a forced line as the Cybermen had shoved them one by one into the conversion unit at the front. Behind his eyelids, he could see them, could hear the screams, could smell the burning flesh and the fresh blood. He opened his eyes again, making himself focus on the names of people he'd apparently never known. Deceased. Deceased. Survived. Deceased.
A name caught his eye. Ianto turned the paper over and slid it back to Gwen. "Thank you."
Owen said, "We can begin with a low dose of Retcon. If your memories are this new, they ought to be wiped clean with a week or two gone. Then you can get back to your life." He smiled, thinly and falsely. Ianto nodded.
"Car accident? Bad head injury?" At their surprised faces, he said, "I have all the memories of your operating procedures. I can remember faking this sort of thing."
"Which is a useful skill," said Jack. "I would love to see what else you think you remember."
Gwen said, with kindness in her tone, "We'll do our best work. You won't even know we've tampered, all right?"
"Fine." Ianto toyed with the cuff of his sleeve. He had a memory of putting on this jacket yesterday, had a memory of Jack giving him these cuff links as an off-hand gift Ianto had nonetheless treasured. Had the real him stolen them? Would he ever know?
"Could I have a few moments to myself? I'm about to give up," he cleared his throat, which did nothing for the lump there, "a lot."
"Of course," said Gwen before Jack could say anything. She gave the others a very obvious Look, and they filed out. Jack lingered, clearly not trusting him to be left alone. The naked suspicion on his face didn't hurt, Ianto told himself, and it didn't matter. It had all been a false fantasy made from an alien brain ray. Ianto would go back to serving coffees and cleaning up spilled tea, dreaming of working his way up to management.
Finally, Jack left the room.
Ianto allowed himself a small smirk, as he rapidly went over the Hub's security measures and figured out the best means of escape. Just because he was being forced into another conversion didn't mean he had to lie down as they strapped him in.
***
The tracker on the car led Jack directly to him. Nice area near Maidenhead, thirty miles from London, good schools, quiet neighbourhood. Ianto sat parked in his own car down the block from what Toshiko said was the current address of one of the Canary Wharf survivors. Jack watched Ianto watching the house, then he got out of the SUV. Ianto didn't even notice until Jack opened the door and sat on the passenger side.
"Anyone ever tell you you're kind of a stalker?"
Already past his initial surprise, Ianto shrugged with exaggerated nonchalance. "Someone did once, but he told me later he was flattered."
"Lisa Stellan, formerly Lisa Hallett, born May 15th, 1981. She used to work for Torchwood until the Battle of Canary Wharf. She was on holiday that day, on her honeymoon, in fact. One daughter, one year old, and another baby on the way." Jack recited what he could from Tosh's quick research. Ianto's face didn't move as he spoke. "Any good reason we're sitting here bothering this poor woman?"
Ianto kept his eyes on the house. A door opened, and a stunningly attractive woman stepped outside, hushing along a little girl. Jack kept his wolf whistle to himself.
"You're going to Retcon me," Ianto said, watching mother and daughter hand-in-hand walk down the street. "You don't have any other options. I know too much about Torchwood, about you and the team. You can't allow me to walk around with what I know, and you can't trust me enough to bring me in. Gwen gets upset when you shoot people, so unless I force you, you're not here to kill me. It'll be Retcon."
"I hadn't made that call yet," Jack said.
"You will, and I don't think a week's dose will work. I'll have to lose about four years of my life, five would be better. And I won't even know it. I'll lose everything I've gained, everyone I've loved, everything, and I'll never know. I'll be just another failure, a man who doesn't even know himself, working a shit job he hates and wishing he'd done something special just once." He let out a small laugh. "I'll probably wind up in another coffeeshop. You always did like my coffee."
Jack glanced down and saw the flask between the seats. He raised an eyebrow. "May I?"
"Go on." Ianto craned his neck as Lisa and her child crossed the street, headed for the playpark.
Jack unscrewed the top to take a long swallow. The kid had a gift, no denying that. He replaced the flask's top with care, hiding the opening with the cup of his hand as he did.
"Why Lisa?"
"Why do you think? We were together, until she died at Canary Wharf." He stumbled through the words, as though he didn't quite believe them himself. "The person I was with after her wouldn't accept a proper goodbye. So if you're going to take my memories and essentially kill me, I wanted the last ones to be of Lisa." He stared out the window.
"She's getting a divorce," Jack said. Tosh's research had pulled up those papers as well. "You could settle here, make friends, ask her out. Maybe things would work out this time."
Ianto finally drew his gaze back to Jack. "Would you do that? With my memories intact?"
Jack couldn't meet his eyes. "No. Probably not."
"All right."
They sat for a while, neither speaking, as Ianto watched the playpark in his rear mirror. The little girl seemed happy, unaware that her mother had been saved by chance from being murdered by aliens, not knowing her daddy was moving away. The Ianto Jones in Jack's records was a miserable failure as a dad. The one beside him might not be. But they'd never know now.
"Tell me about her," Jack said, waiting.
He took the coffee flask and drank before he replied, "She was perfect. Even when she wasn't." The kid smiled, just a quick upturn of his mouth. His eyes said much more, distant and besotted and sad. He had it bad. For a second, he flickered his gaze to Jack. "It doesn't matter now. She won't remember me, either."
Jack knew he shouldn't poke, yet he couldn't help himself. He'd seen this man dozens if not hundreds of times over the past few years. Tomorrow, he'd be back to his old self again, but today, he was a fascinating puzzle, full of half-spoken dreams and full-on delusions. On top of all that, as Toshiko had pulled up from the CCTV analysis, he spent eighty-three percent of his time looking directly at Jack.
"Do you still think your memories are real?"
"Yes." There was no hesitation.
"Even though we've shown you that they're not? You've got the evidence all around you that you are who we think you are, that that woman," he pointed to Lisa, "is not in any way your dead fantasy girlfriend, that you're wrong."
Ianto closed his eyes for a long moment. Jack held his breath, but Ianto opened them again. "I know what the evidence is. I also know what I remember, what I feel, and even if I'm the only one who does, it's real to me. You've spent over a century living among primitive humans who don't know what the future holds. You know what that's like, being the only one. You don't stop believing in who you are just because the rest of the world is wrong."
"That doesn't sound crazy to you?"
He shrugged and didn't answer. The little girl was on the swings now. Jack could watch his eyes follow her movements back and forth. Ianto covered his mouth as he yawned. He began to shake as he stared at Jack. "Already?"
"I hadn't made the call. Then you ran. I couldn't guarantee you wouldn't run off to spill our secrets."
The sedative deadened his movements. Jack made himself watch, although the quiet expression of hurt and betrayal on Ianto's face unsettled him. "How long?" he asked, as his eyes drifted shut.
"Long enough. When you wake up, all this will have been a bad dream."
His head tilted forward. Jack resisted the urge he had to brush Ianto's cheek, tell him he would be okay. Sure, he'd noticed the hot guy behind the counter, in the same way he noticed the various hot people he encountered every day. But watching him sleeping now, the leaden sleep of the heavily-sedated, Jack felt a strange sorrow in his gut, like he was losing something he hadn't known he'd wanted.
Jack's earpiece buzzed, breaking the moment. "Go ahead."
"Jack," said Tosh, a note of tension in her voice, "have you found him?"
"Found and dealt with."
"Oh." There was a long pause.
"Toshiko?"
"I went through the Rift records from last night again, searching for anything I could. There was a Rift event last night, a tiny spike. I never would have seen it if I hadn't been combing through." A bad feeling settled into his mind.
"What kind of spike?"
"Negative. And it splashed."
"Where?" But he already knew.
Jack looked at the sleeping man in the seat beside him. Rift spike, universe slide. The right event at the right time, with the right man in both places at the right instant. Yes, the Ianto Jones of their records may have been some failed twit with a bad life. But the man he was looking at, the man he'd just Retconned, wasn't him.
"Tosh, we need to work on your timing."
***
"You're kidding me," said Owen.
Tosh said, "It's not a perfect plan."
"It's an awful plan," said Gwen. "We don't just shove people through the Rift and hope for the best!"
"But this has a good chance of working," Tosh said. "The readings for the predictor say tonight's event will be identical to last night's. It might switch them back."
"Might," Gwen said. "If the other bloke is in the right location at the right time. There's no telling if he's even still alive."
Jack said nothing. He'd driven Ianto back in the SUV, abandoning the other car for now. The sedatives would soon lose effect, and he would wake up. The good news was that Jack hadn't used the high dose, not without Owen's input on exactly how much to give someone to take away four or five years. The bad news was that he'd started with a large enough dose to take weeks, partially as a test to see if the lower dose would wipe the new memories.
"What are our options?"
"Send him through," said Tosh immediately. "We put him precisely where the event will occur and assume our counterparts in his universe put the other one in the same location."
"Finish the job," said Owen. "Wipe enough time, it won't matter."
Gwen bit her lip, not wanting to make either call. "If we're wrong, those two kids are going to lose their dad."
"Not much of a loss," Owen reminded her.
Gwen glowered at him. "And an innocent man will be grabbed by the Rift and sent God knows where. He could be killed, or lost forever. We're not even positive he came through the Rift to begin with. He still might just have a scrambled memory."
Owen said, "Which we can fix with more Retcon. Either way, messed up brain or Rift refugee, we wipe him and set him up somewhere else. It'd be a mercy."
Jack looked at the sleeping man again. "How long do we have?"
Tosh checked her numbers. "Three hours."
"Then we'll wait."
***
Head pounding, Ianto opened his eyes, blinking against the light of the Hub. He lay on the sofa, uncomfortably propped up. The others stood nearby, watching him. He focused on the person closest to him. "Jack?"
Jack's face went through unfamiliar contortions before smoothing out. "Hey, Ianto." He said Ianto's name with an odd inflection. He always did, Ianto reminded himself, flattening the word and stretching it in peculiar ways with his accent that wasn't American.
Head still muzzy, Ianto reckoned he must've been hit pretty hard. "What happened?"
Owen said, with a halting deliberation, "You don't remember the accident?"
"Accident?" He went to sit up, felt nauseated with the movement, and instinctively reached for Jack's hand to steady him. "Jack? What's going on?"
Jack stared at their joined hands, then shifted into a more comfortable hold. "What's the last thing you remember?"
He scratched at his memories. "Gwen's wedding. Fucking Nostrovites." He blinked at Gwen. "You're back from your honeymoon?"
Owen came forward, holding his pen light. He turned it on, flashing the migraine-inducing light into Ianto's eyes. "You've got concussion, mate. Just take it easy."
Ianto blinked pain away, and looked at Jack again, fear rising as he felt his own scalp and face for damage. "What hit me?"
Jack grimaced. "You gave as good as you got. Now lie back and close your eyes. Owen needs to look you over."
Nothing about that made sense. He ought to stay awake, not close his eyes. He ought to be in medical, or even resting at home, not on the ratty old sofa. But Jack had told him to rest and his eyes were already shutting. He heard one last thing as Owen poked him with a sharp needle, and sleep hit him like a boxing glove:
"Answers that question."
***
They stood well clear of where the Rift predictor said the event would occur. Toshiko counted down the seconds on her scanner as the levels peaked. The sky ripped open with a white crack that had nothing to do with lightning, and a moment later, eyes still smarting from the incandescence, they saw where it had been.
"Owen," said Jack, indicated the crumpled form on the pavement.
Owen took in the terrible clothes and the bad haircut. It could be the same bloke, almost. Owen took a pulse, and ran his scanner over the body. "He's alive. Dunno if it's the right Ianto Jones, but it's definitely someone new. Also he's got Retcon in his system, so I'm guessing our pals on the other side had him as their guest."
Jack helped him lug Ianto into the SUV. They'd observe him when he woke, see how much of his memories he had left, and finish the job. Bit weird, Owen mused, but typical.
Gwen rode shotgun on the way back. Jack drove, his face closed off. Owen sat in the back with Tosh, looking in on his patient from time to time. "Welcome back to your life, mate," he whispered.
After they staged the accident, Jack arranged for Jones to be resettled around Maidenhead. He never said why.
***
Ianto woke with a bugger of a headache, and no explanations of where he'd been.
"You really don't remember?" Gwen asked.
Owen waved his scanner vaguely. "With this much Retcon, I'm not surprised."
"Seriously, I don't remember anything after the wedding. How long has it been?"
"A couple of weeks," Tosh said, and having assured herself he was otherwise okay, she let herself back upstairs.
He turned to Jack, always his favourite anchor when shit got weird. "Was I gone that entire time?"
Jack looked worried, but took his hand, wrapping it carefully in his own. "As far as we can tell, you were gone twenty-four hours. That's how long we had the other you here."
Ianto blinked. "What?"
"I'll explain. And catch you up. Are you sure you feel all right?"
Before he could complain about the headache, Owen injected him painfully with something. But the headache eased. "I'm positive." He rubbed the sore spot on his arm. "How did you know the other me wasn't me?"
"He didn't dress like you. He didn't act like you. And he decked me when I tried to kiss him."
"Ah." As he shrugged his suit coat back on, he said, "I promise I won't deck you if you try now."
Jack smiled and complied, to Owen's rolling eyes and Gwen's uncomfortable titter. "Want to go get a coffee and talk about your missing weeks?"
"Not coffee. For some reason, it doesn't sound good."
Owen said, "I'd best check you over again. Sounds like we got the wrong Ianto back." But everyone ignored him.
***
No coffee -- Ianto actually twitched as they passed by that shop by the Plass -- and no ice cream, because Jack could eventually remember that sort of thing, thus they wound up at a table at an outdoor café overlooking the Bay, Jack with a glass of water and Ianto using the menu as a prop for his nervous hands. Jack was used to this, the waiter less so, and Jack finally ordered something to get the man to go away.
"You okay?" he asked when they were alone.
"A bit queasy. Like when we lost those two days."
"Understood." None of them had wanted to dig up why they'd Retconned themselves a few months ago, but everyone had been ill at ease for some time after, wondering.
"Did the other me really punch you?"
"Yep. Never saw it coming. I thought it was you, and you haven't hit me in over a year." Not a pleasant memory to uncover, Jack realised too late, but truth. He soothed the old hurt quickly. "It was so strange to see someone who looked like you, talked like you, smelled like you, but who wasn't really you at all. You didn't know who we were. We thought maybe you'd been Retconned by accident or something. But you remembered our coffee orders."
Ianto flinched at that, and Jack filed away the information. Patterns. "That must have been ideal, then. Someone to make the coffee and otherwise stay out of your business."
"It was awful," Jack said, thinking about the flat, blank expression as the other Ianto had stared at him, without a trace of the happy affection that lit his Ianto's face whenever he saw Jack. That man hadn't cared if Jack lived or died. This one put down his menu and began toying with his cufflinks, an elegant set Jack had bought on a whim. "We couldn't wait to send him home. You really don't remember a thing about that other universe?"
"Nothing at all. We know they have Torchwood, and they have Retcon, and that the other me will never have heard of either one." His mouth screwed into a frown again. "Did he seem happy to you?"
Jack started to say, "As happy as anyone else does," but that was a bullshit answer, and instead, he said, "No."
"Ah."
Jack watched him, watched his hands, and the way he stilled his movements as he noticed the observation, watched his face, written with both the worry of what had happened to him and the hope that this business was finished.
"Are you happy?"
Ianto nodded. It was too fast a response, too soon for the question to sink in, but Jack accepted the answer. He took Ianto's hand, and he wrapped their fingers together warmly. "Good."
***
The End
***