ROTQ (6/8)
Title: The Roots of the Quadratic (6/8)
Author: nancybrown
Fandoms: Torchwood, Doctor Who
Characters: Ianto, Jack, Alice, Jenny, John Hart, OCs
Rating: R
Beta/Britpick: queenfanfiction, wynkat1313, temporal_witch, and fide_et_spe had a hand in fixing this. All remaining mistakes are mine alone.
Spoilers: up through CoE, one spoiler for "End of Time," one spoiler for Bay of the Dead
Warnings: character death, angst, child endangerment, mentions of sexual coercion, violence, timey-wimey temporal physics, and of course, Captain Bad Touch rides again
Words: 46,000 (6,300 this part)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
***
Chapter Six
***
"Most revolutions fail. Everyone involved is killed, imprisoned, or silenced, and no-one else ever knows. The first time I remember dying, I died standing up to an unbeatable foe against impossible odds, and that's how I learned the truth. It's not about winning. It's about choosing the good fight because it's the right thing to do." - from "Me: An Autobiography"
***
Jenny rested against the cleanest wall in the alleyway. Opposite her, music pounded from the club and smells she didn't care to identify drifted out.
"It's a popular spot," Jack's voice said in her ear. "We used to go there all the time." She heard Hart's throaty chuckle, and immediately she felt dirtier than if she'd leaned against the other wall.
"We should join her. Bring back old times."
"Can you guarantee we're not in the pub right now? You want to poke a hole through space-time just to get a drink? All right, then."
Jenny hid her own chuckle. No-one chided Hart quite the way Jack did. Movement caught her eye. Sure enough, the back door opened, and a figure staggered out. Neither of her companions, check. Agency support staff uniform, somewhat worse for wear after a night of carousing, check. Drunk or stoned off his/her/its/zir arse, check. She would only be able to ascertain whether identification was present with a physical search of the uniform.
She smiled, even as the stench of slightly used alcohol and stomach acids filled the alley. She estimated a blow to the back of the neck in a particular spot would mean a 98% chance of unconsciousness on the part of her chosen victim, with only a 0.2% chance of death.
Jenny liked those odds.
***
Two kilometres or so out from the Thames House colony, Ianto rehearsed the report he would present. If it was just Harry and Flora, he'd give them the list of dates he'd been given for the past four Agency visits to the neighbouring colonies, which had also ended abruptly. The aeroplane survivors were sending out a team to the next colony over to see if they knew anything; the closer colony would be sending two people to the Aeros to begin talks. Ianto had agreed to come back in a week's time with more members of his own group in order to begin building an alliance among all the colonies. If the Time Agency had abandoned them, they no longer had any reason to follow their guidelines about contact, and a loose community of a few thousand might have a better shot at long-term survival once they set up trade and communications.
His head buzzing with plans, Ianto didn't notice at first the lack of activity in the fields. When he finally realised that it wasn't a rest day, wasn't a mealtime, and not even the hardest workers were outside, he slowed his pace, watching his surroundings warily.
Crazy scenarios went through his mind. Someone had snapped and killed everyone. They'd all come down with the sheep 'flu and died. The Time Agency had returned in his absence and taken the lot to another planet. That one led to the thought that maybe they'd come for the other colonies while he'd been on the way back here, and he'd been left behind, the last man alive on this world.
Really, finding out the colony had been taken over by renegade Time Agents came as somewhat of a relief, comparatively speaking.
***
Alice slept in the dormitory during her brief sleep-shifts. Flora and Harry were being held -- alive, as far as they could tell -- at the nursery where the colony had a large number of other hostages to their good behaviour. Even those who hadn't any children didn't want to be responsible for their deaths, not after Gerta had taken two people at random and shot them in front of everyone. Alice didn't recognise either one, which made her glad, and also angry at herself for being glad. The infirmary, in the same building as the nursery, was currently staffed by only one of the five people in the colony with medical training, and she had been allowed to try to save them. One had lived.
A skeleton crew maintained the fields, three doing the work of twenty from dawn to dusk. Only two members of the child care staff, Chrissy and a man Alice didn't know, were permitted to come and go from the nursery. Mothers who could prove they were lactating were allowed to feed their own babies under supervision. The male Time Agent Trem had suggested they round up three or four mothers, keep them at the nursery, and make them feed the lot. Blays, the other female Time Agent, had overruled that as impractical and Gerta, who was indeed in charge, agreed.
Everyone who wasn't in the field or taking care of children had been put on Gerta's pet project. The Town Hall was converted to a makeshift factory, and the colonists were told how to take apart every piece of technology left by the Time Agency to turn it into weaponry for Gerta's plan to take over this tiny world, and after that, everywhere.
Alice shivered, and settled her thin shirt more firmly around her shoulders. She could too easily picture the whole of humanity, reduced to pockets of survivors on outlying worlds like this one, coming under the boot heel of someone as amoral as Gerta.
Gerta had been five seconds from shooting Ianto dead when he'd come back to the colony. Instead, Trem had beaten him and taken the information he'd gathered from the other colonies. The intel had saved Ianto's life and doomed their neighbours. As soon as he was upright from the beating, bruises purpling all over, he'd been forced to join the rest of them in stripping the machines that ran the colony into parts to take over the galaxy. He'd avoided Alice and, as far as she knew, not spoken to a soul since.
Twice, Alice tried to steal small parts from the pieces of machinery in front of her, but both times she went to do it just as Trem or Blays was watching her. Malik was the first to complete one of the new weapons. Gary, working next to him, had seized the opportunity and tried to turn the gun on their captors, but couldn't work the controls fast enough. Trem shot him in the shoulder, and Gerta executed him right before supper that night in front of everyone.
No-one had tried since.
She looked down at the machine parts in her hands. Mum had taught her from childhood that anything could be a weapon. She'd made Alice practise with hairspray and with pens and she'd shown her how to break glass in order to get a shard for a crude knife. Her father had trained her on gun use and safety, and told her fond stories about how when Mum had still been with Torchwood, she'd once killed a rampaging Gr'nak by stabbing it in the eye with her own toothbrush. Jenny had never met Alice's mum, but she knew how to use almost every firearm ever developed by human technology, and once Alice watched her regretfully assassinate the mad leader of a planetary-wide cult using nothing more than Alice's fingernail scissors.
Considering this, Alice slipped four unremarkable parts into the long sleeves of her work shirt just as Blays called time for supper.
Alice took her normal seat near the back of the room and began wolfing down her thin soup. If she ate it quickly, she didn't have to taste it. To her surprise, Chrissy took the seat next to her. She tucked into her own meal, saying quietly, "Saw Flora today. Couldn't talk to her."
Alice spooned the soup more slowly into her mouth.
"Haven't seen Harry, not for days. I think he's dead. Mouthed off to that Trem."
She closed her eyes. "Would you fight?" she asked around her spoon.
"Yeah. Don't know how, though." Trem walked over towards them, and Chrissy shoved more food into her mouth as fast as Alice had earlier. Trem kept walking. "They've had people in. Give 'em info, see your baby."
"Spies."
"Could be anyone."
"You're trusting me."
"You don't have a baby. And you're new. Different."
She let it pass. "Can you tell us who the spies are?" She was already thinking of this as an "us." Probably not good.
"Sally. Keith. I think there's more."
"Thanks." Alice got up from her seat and took her tray back. She paused to look around her. Nearly a hundred people, all armed with trays and bowls and spoons. If they all rose up together, they'd make short work of the three Agents. But no-one wanted to risk it all alone.
When she passed Ianto's table, she met his eyes.
***
The guard took a passing look at Jenny's stolen ID and waved her through the gate with barely a glance. She let out a deep breath once she passed him. Her memory of their previous visit led her to the beginning of the corridor maze. "You'll want to take a left," said Hart's lazy drawl in her ear. "Or was it a right?"
"Stop being an idiot," Jenny hissed.
"Just having some fun. Left. Definitely left."
"Your definition of 'fun' leaves much to be desired." She went left. When she reached the next hallway, she paused. "Now where?"
"This way."
She spun. Jack was behind her, back in his uniform, and striding along the corridor as though he'd never left. Jenny sprinted to reach him, grabbed his shirt collar, and pushed him up against the wall. His eyebrows shot up in surprise at her strength, and she allowed herself a moment of quiet pride.
"What part of 'stay with the ship' did you fail to comprehend?" She let him go, and he stepped away from the wall, readjusting his uniform as if he hadn't just been beaten up by a girl.
"Did Gorgeous catch up with you?"
"Relax. I was out on missions all the time. The likelihood that I'm here right now is … "
"One hundred percent," Jenny said, and grabbed his head and kissed him, hard. Disturbingly, after a moment of stuttering surprise, he started to get into the kiss, jaw moving against hers, tongue flickering naughtily against her lips before sliding inside. Her senses screamed in pain, synapses screeching to get away from the terrible Wrongness currently attached to her mouth. The part of her that was woven from Gallifreyan cloth recoiled in revulsion from his hands over her shoulders, the hurricane feel of his breath.
From behind the awful Fact, she heard a very familiar voice say, "Hey, no making out in this corridor, unless I'm invited."
Jack choked, while Jenny made an obscene gesture behind his back at his younger self.
"Is that a promise?" She repeated the gesture. "Fine, fine. I know when I'm not wanted." Footsteps walked away, and Jenny finally broke the kiss.
"No. No you don't," she replied five thousand years later, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
"I'd say I'm sorry, but … "
"You could have caused a rip in space-time being here. Do not start with me." She walked away in the direction he'd been headed. She hoped.
He made an amused noise in his throat. "You're a good kisser."
"Your daughter thinks so."
She didn't let herself look to see his reaction.
***
He was happy, safe, and surrounded by friends, so Ianto knew he was dreaming. He and Jack were holding Christmas at their house this year. Rhiannon was over, and Gwen and Rhys had brought the twins, and Lisa called to say she was going to be late, but not to worry. He kept making excuses to hold her on the line, asking her about her day, but the phone beeped to say he had another call.
"You should answer that," she said, and rang off.
The other line was Toshiko, who said, "Ianto, it's time."
"Time for what?" Ianto wasn't sure where this was going, but Jack was rubbing his shoulder, hard.
"You sleep like a damned log. No wonder you can put up with his snoring."
He opened his eyes onto a dim room. Someone was in front of him, shaking his shoulders. Alice.
"What are you doing here?" He looked around. The other beds were empty, though he wasn't surprised. Paul and Wayne had been nipping off together for weeks, and were just waiting for a house to open up, whereas Malik was seeing Sally and had probably gone off in a quiet corner somewhere with her. It was the best comfort any of them had now.
"If anyone asks," she said, sliding onto the bed with him, "having mad, passionate sex with you." She pulled the blanket over herself as Ianto thanked any handy deities that he was wearing pyjamas. "We need to talk."
"Talk."
"We have to make a plan. You're the only other person here who remembers how to use a gun." From all of the MI-5 survivors. Once again Ianto's life was a cosmic joke.
"Do you have a gun?"
"No."
"Not much purpose in knowing how to use one, then." He rolled over and away from her. The last woman he'd shared a bed with had been Lisa, too many years ago. With Alice this close, he could feel her warmth and breathe in the hint of perfume that followed her everywhere. This was all familiar and weird and wrong.
"Don't be obtuse. Look, we're being held by three people. We could easily take them if we all banded together."
"Yes. But they'll likely kill a number of us before we succeed." He'd gone over the scenarios in his head. None of them ended with everyone still alive, and most ended with bodies littering the ground.
"If we had weapons, we could do it."
He granted her that. "If we had weapons, and enough people trained on using them, yes. I remind you of point one. We don't have any weapons."
"I've stolen some parts. We could steal more, get the others involved. You've got experience with alien and future tech. Build something."
"I'm not a technician." Malik was, though. If they could bring him in … No.
"You're Torchwood."
"Retired."
"So was my Mum, and she could kill a man with his own shoe."
He tried to picture this. The visual was consistent with the stories about Lucia which had made it into Jack's book. "I think I would have liked to have met your mother."
He felt her shrug beside him. "She'd have hated you. Nothing personal." She shifted again. "Ianto, I know about Torchwood. The training you receive. The things you can do. They're letting us handle the pieces. I'm surprised you haven't already made something."
"I told you, I'm not a tech."
"Field agents aren't stupid."
"I was the secretary." He looked up at the ceiling.
"You were what?"
"I was the secretary. General support, admin, records keeper, personal assistant, and janitor. I was only a field agent when we were down people." When Jack was missing. When Owen died the first time. When he died the second time and Tosh was gone, too.
Alice sighed. "So?"
"What do you mean 'So?'"
"So you were the secretary. You were still Torchwood. Still used a gun, still played with alien bits and bobs. I majored in Art History, and Jenny and I have started nine revolutions and stopped twelve civil wars."
"Fine. Assuming I'm your best bet, which I'm not, I'm still not in."
"Why in the hell not?" Her voice rose, and he worried they'd be heard. Of course, that would just help her chosen cover story.
"Because!" He lay back on his pillow. "I have to protect you."
She laughed a lot harder than he felt was justified. "You really don't."
"I really do. If anything happens to you, Jack will never forgive me, and 'never' is literal in his case."
"You really don't, and if he were that worried, he'd have shown up by now. Everyone here is in danger, Ianto. She's holding children hostage. Doesn't that mean anything to you?" He refused to answer. "You're going to let Gerta and her mates walk all over the last surviving humans in the galaxy because you're a coward."
Which, while cruel, was entirely true.
"I killed them."
"Killed who?" she asked, annoyed.
He closed his eyes. This was the thing he hated to think about, the thing he'd managed to set aside for years until having it shoved back in his face every day here. "Thames House. These people. I killed them all."
"No, you didn't. It was the 456. Killed you, too." Her voice caught.
"I talked Jack into going in. He wasn't going to do it. He was going to sit back and see what happened because we had nothing. No real plan, no real assets. And I convinced him to take on the 456 anyway, and we all died for it because I screwed up." He turned onto his side, facing her. "Alice, every person in this colony died once already because of me. Call me a coward. Call me anything you'd like, but I can't risk that all over again. I won't."
The door opened, and they froze. Malik slipped in through the crack and closed it again, tiptoeing his way to bed.
Alice coughed. Malik froze. "Sorry, mate. I can wait outside."
"I was just leaving," said Alice, making as if she was pulling her trousers back on, although she'd remained dressed. Her voice dropped a register, and it trickled down his spine in a way he normally associated with a different member of her family. "See you later."
"Good night," he said in a tone he hoped was as sexy, and then he tried not to laugh. The scent of her lingered on his sheets and pillow, and he knew it would rob him of sleep tonight, if her words hadn't already guaranteed the same.
Malik crawled into his own bed. "Thought you said Alice was family."
"We'd be family by marriage."
He could see Malik's nod in the dim light. "And old marriages don't matter here."
"Something like that." They'd never got around to getting married, not that Ianto could remember. Perhaps the Agency took that from him the way they'd taken it from everyone else. Malik had lost five months or so off the end of his own former life. Ianto wondered how much he'd lose off the end of this one.
***
John was bored. Bored bored bored bored bored bored bored. And also bored. Jack had gone after that bird Jenny as soon as she'd found herself some identification, because Jack was even less capable of dealing with boredom than John was. Five years of living with someone who had to be entertained constantly made John aware of just how much Jack's immortality was a punishment from some deeply twisted goddess. If John ever found out which goddess, he'd be sure to show up at her nearest temple with a bottle of booze and a selection of upscale sex toys. She sounded like his kind of woman.
Religious questions aside, he was still bored. He'd told Jenny how to gran the Agency's computer system properly this time, but he was sure Jack would fuck it up somehow.
He ought to take the ship as his payment, and just get the hell out of here.
"Hey, beautiful," he purred to the ship's AI. "I'd love to show you the moons of Calligos."
"I saw the moons of Calligos," said the AI. "Alice and Jenny rescued the child-empress of Calligos from pirates."
"Ah. Well then, I'll bet you've never seen the lava fields of Poriala Nine."
"Jenny is still technically President for Life on Poriala Nine, thanks to her intervention in the election woes they had in the year 418."
John blinked. He'd heard the stories of the fabled President for Life, but he'd disregarded them as standard rising-hero claptrap. "What about the crystal falls of Lampeth?"
"Oh, we go there quite a lot," said the ship happily. "There's a tradition to name all the firstborn daughters in a family line after Alice. Would you like to know why?"
"No." Losing hope, he said, "How about the singing trees of Aladan?"
The ship paused. "I would quite like to visit the singing trees of Aladan."
John grinned. "Perfect! So how about you and I take a quick little trip, bit of a holiday, yeah?"
"Not without Jenny and Alice. Our friend Daff is the Head Magistrate on Aladan, and they'd like to visit him, too."
He growled in annoyance. Then he flipped open the spare control panel and began punching in a course. He could find somewhere they hadn't been, lie low for awhile, and then …
"Unauthorised access," said the AI.
"Just putting in coordinates for when we go."
"Negative. You are attempting to hijack me."
"Bright girl."
"If you do not cease from this behaviour, I will electrocute you. As you are not immortal, you will die. You have the count of three. Two. One."
His hands flew off as the charge filled the panel. He heard the hum, and knew if his hands were still there, the current across his heart would have stopped it dead. "All right, no need to be pushy."
"Touch me again and I'll kill you," the AI said sweetly.
***
So far, Alice had recruited Chrissy, Tanya, Sahira and Steve. Chrissy couldn't gather parts, but she could keep her eyes open for traitors. The rest of them kept their heads down and took pieces as they dared. Alice opted to stash everything in her room. If someone was going to be found out and executed, she'd stand there first.
Two people walked from the neighbouring colony to start the negotiations Ianto had suggested. Gerta shot them both.
Three weeks into their new dictatorship, the Agents announced the colonists could have a rest day. Alice suspected Blays had had words with the other two about exhaustion; while she was as quick to threaten as her friends, Alice was beginning to see through the bluster, and thought there might be a way in after all.
Once, she'd stopped in her work when Blays was beside her. "You know this is wrong," Alice had said quietly. "What she's doing, what she's planning."
"Keep working," Blays had replied, but her eyes had been hooded.
The familiar bonfire didn't cheer them, but it did help with the cold. Autumn was coming upon them, and with the shorter days came the prospect of winter and starvation if they didn't get the crops harvested. Alice thought the Agents wouldn't let them starve, would allow the harvest, but then, they might also use that threat to get people to work faster. The cache of weaponry was growing slowly. Alice wondered if, should winter come, they'd hold the invasion until spring.
Alice warmed her hands by the fire, catching Sahira's eye as she leaned against her husband.
Suddenly there were arms around hers, and she tensed, ready to strike, when a chin dropped to her shoulder and a voice whispered in her ear, "Don't."
Ianto was warm against her, which admittedly was quite nice with the fire before her. "What are you doing?"
"Helping." He pressed his hand against hers, palming three firing pins to her as he bent in and kissed her hair.
"We'll need more people."
"I've talked to Malik and Kris. They're in."
She didn't tell him her people. Best to keep the groups tiny in case someone was compromised. "Can you build something?"
"No. But Malik can." He hugged her closer. "We should keep the parts in my room. If we're found out, they can kill me."
"I'll bring what I have tonight." She leaned over and kissed him lightly in case anyone was watching, then stepped nimbly out of his arms to head back to her room to plan.
***
They took a wrong turn, and then another. Over the comm, John mocked them as he guided them back towards the secure areas. Jack would snark right back, but then, John was the only one who could help them now.
"You shouldn't be here," Jenny said again.
"I hate sitting around doing nothing."
"Your preferences were not taken into account for formulating the plan." He glared at the back of her head, wondering if he could increase the size of her headache by thinking hard.
He said in a lower voice, "Two people I care a lot about are in trouble. I want to do what I can to save them."
Jenny stopped. "'Care about?'"
"What?"
"Your daughter is missing, and you can't even say you love her?" For a second, Jack was certain he wasn't the one Jenny was actually angry with, and then her eyes focused on him.
"Alice knows I love her. So does Ianto."
She made a disgusted motion with her hand and walked faster. He hurried to catch up. "What?"
"You. You have the most ridiculous relationship with love I've ever seen."
"I wouldn't call it ridiculous."
"You love everyone. You love my father."
"I'm getting over that."
"No, you're not." Probably true. "You love Alice and Ianto."
"That's right."
"You also love Dungbeetle back there on my ship. And I'd be surprised if you didn't love me a bit as well."
"What's wrong with that?" His opinion had always been that more of something tended to be a good thing when it came to matters of love and sex.
"Nothing. But it's not special to you. Alice is your child. But you've had dozens of children. Can you even remember all their names?"
"It hasn't been dozens. Fewer than thirty." And he'd undertaken his book as a means of reminding himself, hadn't he? Sons and daughters (and the three who'd been both, and one who'd been a gender only found on ser home planet) peppered his book with their names, their stories as he could remember them. "They were all special."
"But did they all feel special? Or did they know they were numbers on a long list? And that certainly doesn't touch the list of your spouses, or of your lovers."
*
"So do I even get to know my number?" His eyes are hooded tonight, lost in old memories of his own. Jack is often lonely here on this little world, but he has forever ahead of him to be out among people again; for Ianto, the isolation is hellish whenever he lets himself think about it, and Jack can't always distract him in time.
Jack doesn't always have patience enough for both of them, but this time he does, and he coaxes Ianto back into his clothes and outside into the chilly night. This isn't the first time Jack has pulled this corny trick, and he hopes he hasn't pulled it on Ianto in the past and forgotten about it. He points up. "That star is part of a twin system, with a gas giant acting as a third small star in the orbit. Over here, this one is a nice medium-sized star with two habitable worlds. One's got a primitive society just now, but the other is a trading port for dozens of other worlds." He points out stars one by one, naming those he can remember while Ianto shivers beside him. "That one just past the tree top. No, over there. Yeah. That one's Sol. Earth's system."
"I know what Sol is." His teeth are chattering. It's kinda cute.
"Just because there are a lot of them doesn't mean they're not special. And I'm going to remember the best ones for a long, long time. Okay?"
They go inside, where it's warm and pleasant, and the shadows lift from Ianto's face again even as Jack feels a bit like a heel because of the times he's said these same words to other people to try to get them to understand. Later, when Ianto is sleeping, Jack gets out of bed and returns to his study and he writes, pinning these moments to paper, knowing that he has nothing more to offer than his own memory.
*
"They're special to me. They know they're special."
But Jenny didn't look convinced.
***
Malik looked up from the pile of debris on Ianto's bedspread. "We're two pieces short."
"Which two?" asked Alice.
"I don't know their names. I can draw a picture, though." Ianto found paper and pen, and Malik did two hasty sketches.
"I recognise this," Ianto said, pointing to the first sketch. "The equipment I'm working on has one. I'll get it tomorrow."
No-one recognised the second piece. Ianto and Kris committed the picture to memory, and Alice took it to show her own people later.
"All right," said Alice. "Assume we find both pieces. How long will it take you to assemble?"
"A night. Less. I can get most of these pieces together now and save the rest for when we've got the last bits."
"Do it," said Ianto, when he noticed the rest were staring at him for approval. He didn't know why; this was Alice's plan. He was never anyone's leader, merely a loyal lieutenant to the end.
Alice said, "We're going to have to get the word out."
Malik said, "We can trust Sheldon and Ben. I'll tell them tomorrow." He'd been saddened to find out Sally'd been compromised, but Sally had a little boy in the nursery.
Kris nodded. "Forrest is in. I think Laurie is safe to tell."
"Bring them in," said Alice. "Show them the part we need. Have them get it to me or Ianto. Don't give anyone else's name."
Ianto saw everyone out but Malik, and when Paul and Wayne came in, they broke the news. "The two of you may want to find a new place to stay," Ianto told them at the end.
Malik said, "If they find out, we're all in trouble."
The pair shared a look. "We're in," said Paul.
Ianto slept that night with the parts under his pillow. He dreamed uneasily about children whose faces he couldn't make out.
***
They passed various staff members as they made their way through the hallways, and Jack made sure to smirk at, flirt with, or studiously ignore each one as befitted his typical personality back then. Granted, he should probably stay out of sight, or better yet, go back to the ship right now rather than risk running into himself again, but everything he was screamed he had to be here in the middle of the action.
Speaking of action, two Agents were having a row. Jack and Jenny came upon them suddenly, becoming part of a rapidly-growing crowd of pretending-not-to-be onlookers.
"Straight ahead," said John in their ears, but Jack already knew where he was.
"Blocked," he said quietly.
"You lying sack of shit!" shouted one Agent. She looked familiar, but didn't everyone?
"I don't know what's worse about you, that you're psychotic, or that you're too stupid to know how psychotic you are," said the other. What was his name?
"You fucker!"
"Klaust!" Jack said, happily.
"What?" said Klaust angrily. Heads turned towards Jack.
"Nothing." As everyone turned back to the argument, Jack leaned over to Jenny. "Klaust always was a weird one. Turns out, he has three temporal fugitives locked up at his place." Beside him, someone else gasped. Jack turned to see another Time Agent: a stocky, short woman with dull red hair. Uh oh. "I mean, I heard he did."
"From who?" Her eyes were wide and shocked.
"Georgn. Somebody told him."
"Thanks," she said, and nudged her way through the crowd to the other female Agent, whispering in her ear.
"You! You've been nobbing fuges?!"
Klaust went pale.
Jenny grabbed Jack's hand. "Come on, then."
"Yeah." As they hurried away, he remembered the two women, finally. The redhead was one of the very few legacy Agents, allowed in because her mother had been an Agent. The shrieking blonde was her best friend. Jack had slept with them both a couple of times -- hell, they'd all slept with each other a couple of times, it was what just what they did -- but the blonde, whatever her name was, she'd been vicious. She'd made a habit of gathering a set of followers around her, because there was always someone scared enough or dumb enough to hang out with the mean ones.
Jack had never been part of her clique, but he recalled, perhaps in the fondness of time, that only a few of her hangers-on had been as actively cruel. The red-haired woman, for example, had a pattern of getting involved with stronger-willed personalities, and she wasn't bright enough to walk away. Now if only he could remember her name, or the other woman's name. He remembered Klaust because Ianto had told him about the time he'd learned what "getting fired" meant in the Time Agency. The story had gone into the book, but so much from his days here at the Agency could not be dredged out of his memories. Names were gone.
"Are you all right?" Jenny asked, as they found the room with the right terminals.
"Yeah. Just feeling old."
On the planet with the red house, he'd essentially been retired. He only worked on what he chose, ate and slept as he pleased, and wrote his life story, just like the very old man he was. Out here, his heart raced and his palms sweated and they kept fleeing danger, and wasn't this what life was supposed to be about? At least while he was still spry enough to enjoy it?
Spry. Now there was an old man word.
"Let me do this."
"Hart told me how to hack it." Jenny went to work, and sure enough, a minute later, she was in.
"You're good."
"'Brilliant' would also be appropriate, under the circumstances."
"Did you just tell a joke?"
"Maybe." She wore a pleased expression as she searched the files. "This one looks promising."
Jack stood behind her and read over her shoulder. "No. Wrong planet of origin. See?"
"You're right." She kept digging. Jack's fingers itched to grab the input from her, but he'd set off the alarm last time in his haste and they didn't dare that again. "How about this one?"
He scanned the record. "That looks right. Try cross-referencing it for additional acquisitions."
"Four more colonies, same time period, all on one planet. Six thousand years from now."
He wanted to take the info and run, but if they were wrong, they wouldn't get a third chance. "Keep searching. We have to be sure."
***
Tanya brought Alice the final piece two days later. "Get Harry out of there," she said, fear and sorrow on her face. Tanya was a horsy-looking woman, broad at the shoulders and not conventionally pretty. In the old days, Harry probably wouldn't have looked twice at her, and she'd have spent her nights thinking about men who were too busy chasing tiny things in short skirts to notice she was alive. None of them could have guessed how life would turn out, could they?
That night, they watched Malik finish their first and only weapon. Alice and Ianto took the first turns testing the heft and balance, neither daring to fire it yet.
Alice said, "We've got this, they've got more. We need to find a time when there's just one of them watching. Shoot, take their guns, and we'll go after the other two."
Ianto said, "The timing has to be right. I don't want to go after anyone as long as they're guarding the nursery."
"Leave that to me," said Chrissy. "Let me know when you want them out, and I can get them out."
Alice nodded. "Tomorrow at lunch, then. Spread the word tonight."
***
Ianto woke with an urge to pee and a gun in his face. Trem said, "Get up."
Ianto kept his eyes on Trem, wondering if he could dive for the gun under his pillow before he was shot. This would be the perfect chance.
Gerta stood in the doorway, her own gun held casually. "Wakey wakey," she said, and as Malik, Paul and Wayne woke, Trem brought them into the sights of his gun.
"Who else is involved?" Gerta asked.
"Just us," said Malik.
"They're lying," said Trem. "The woman, that dark-haired one. She's been seen with them."
"She's my girlfriend," Ianto said. "She's not involved."
"Pity," said Gerta, and in the hallway, Ianto could see Blays guarding Alice and her roommates. With a gesture, they were led into the room with the men. Two of the women blinked, yawning and confused and scared. Alice stayed steady, while the fourth woman appeared to comprehend exactly what was going on, an angry tilt to her mouth.
Gerta said, "Just so you know, I will be making an example of all of you, but if you'd like to spare the others some needless pain, the ringleader may feel free to step forward."
"It's me," said Ianto, just as Malik said, "I am."
Alice said nothing. Ianto was grateful that she would let him protect her that much. Then she smiled, and his stomach dropped. He knew that smile.
Before he could shout, before he could stop her, Alice dove for his pillow and pulled out the weapon. She fired at Gerta, who managed to duck the blast, but barely. Alice fired again, wounding Blays.
Trem shot her. Alice was dead before she hit the floor.
***
Chapter Seven
Author: nancybrown
Fandoms: Torchwood, Doctor Who
Characters: Ianto, Jack, Alice, Jenny, John Hart, OCs
Rating: R
Beta/Britpick: queenfanfiction, wynkat1313, temporal_witch, and fide_et_spe had a hand in fixing this. All remaining mistakes are mine alone.
Spoilers: up through CoE, one spoiler for "End of Time," one spoiler for Bay of the Dead
Warnings: character death, angst, child endangerment, mentions of sexual coercion, violence, timey-wimey temporal physics, and of course, Captain Bad Touch rides again
Words: 46,000 (6,300 this part)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
***
Chapter Six
***
"Most revolutions fail. Everyone involved is killed, imprisoned, or silenced, and no-one else ever knows. The first time I remember dying, I died standing up to an unbeatable foe against impossible odds, and that's how I learned the truth. It's not about winning. It's about choosing the good fight because it's the right thing to do." - from "Me: An Autobiography"
***
Jenny rested against the cleanest wall in the alleyway. Opposite her, music pounded from the club and smells she didn't care to identify drifted out.
"It's a popular spot," Jack's voice said in her ear. "We used to go there all the time." She heard Hart's throaty chuckle, and immediately she felt dirtier than if she'd leaned against the other wall.
"We should join her. Bring back old times."
"Can you guarantee we're not in the pub right now? You want to poke a hole through space-time just to get a drink? All right, then."
Jenny hid her own chuckle. No-one chided Hart quite the way Jack did. Movement caught her eye. Sure enough, the back door opened, and a figure staggered out. Neither of her companions, check. Agency support staff uniform, somewhat worse for wear after a night of carousing, check. Drunk or stoned off his/her/its/zir arse, check. She would only be able to ascertain whether identification was present with a physical search of the uniform.
She smiled, even as the stench of slightly used alcohol and stomach acids filled the alley. She estimated a blow to the back of the neck in a particular spot would mean a 98% chance of unconsciousness on the part of her chosen victim, with only a 0.2% chance of death.
Jenny liked those odds.
***
Two kilometres or so out from the Thames House colony, Ianto rehearsed the report he would present. If it was just Harry and Flora, he'd give them the list of dates he'd been given for the past four Agency visits to the neighbouring colonies, which had also ended abruptly. The aeroplane survivors were sending out a team to the next colony over to see if they knew anything; the closer colony would be sending two people to the Aeros to begin talks. Ianto had agreed to come back in a week's time with more members of his own group in order to begin building an alliance among all the colonies. If the Time Agency had abandoned them, they no longer had any reason to follow their guidelines about contact, and a loose community of a few thousand might have a better shot at long-term survival once they set up trade and communications.
His head buzzing with plans, Ianto didn't notice at first the lack of activity in the fields. When he finally realised that it wasn't a rest day, wasn't a mealtime, and not even the hardest workers were outside, he slowed his pace, watching his surroundings warily.
Crazy scenarios went through his mind. Someone had snapped and killed everyone. They'd all come down with the sheep 'flu and died. The Time Agency had returned in his absence and taken the lot to another planet. That one led to the thought that maybe they'd come for the other colonies while he'd been on the way back here, and he'd been left behind, the last man alive on this world.
Really, finding out the colony had been taken over by renegade Time Agents came as somewhat of a relief, comparatively speaking.
***
Alice slept in the dormitory during her brief sleep-shifts. Flora and Harry were being held -- alive, as far as they could tell -- at the nursery where the colony had a large number of other hostages to their good behaviour. Even those who hadn't any children didn't want to be responsible for their deaths, not after Gerta had taken two people at random and shot them in front of everyone. Alice didn't recognise either one, which made her glad, and also angry at herself for being glad. The infirmary, in the same building as the nursery, was currently staffed by only one of the five people in the colony with medical training, and she had been allowed to try to save them. One had lived.
A skeleton crew maintained the fields, three doing the work of twenty from dawn to dusk. Only two members of the child care staff, Chrissy and a man Alice didn't know, were permitted to come and go from the nursery. Mothers who could prove they were lactating were allowed to feed their own babies under supervision. The male Time Agent Trem had suggested they round up three or four mothers, keep them at the nursery, and make them feed the lot. Blays, the other female Time Agent, had overruled that as impractical and Gerta, who was indeed in charge, agreed.
Everyone who wasn't in the field or taking care of children had been put on Gerta's pet project. The Town Hall was converted to a makeshift factory, and the colonists were told how to take apart every piece of technology left by the Time Agency to turn it into weaponry for Gerta's plan to take over this tiny world, and after that, everywhere.
Alice shivered, and settled her thin shirt more firmly around her shoulders. She could too easily picture the whole of humanity, reduced to pockets of survivors on outlying worlds like this one, coming under the boot heel of someone as amoral as Gerta.
Gerta had been five seconds from shooting Ianto dead when he'd come back to the colony. Instead, Trem had beaten him and taken the information he'd gathered from the other colonies. The intel had saved Ianto's life and doomed their neighbours. As soon as he was upright from the beating, bruises purpling all over, he'd been forced to join the rest of them in stripping the machines that ran the colony into parts to take over the galaxy. He'd avoided Alice and, as far as she knew, not spoken to a soul since.
Twice, Alice tried to steal small parts from the pieces of machinery in front of her, but both times she went to do it just as Trem or Blays was watching her. Malik was the first to complete one of the new weapons. Gary, working next to him, had seized the opportunity and tried to turn the gun on their captors, but couldn't work the controls fast enough. Trem shot him in the shoulder, and Gerta executed him right before supper that night in front of everyone.
No-one had tried since.
She looked down at the machine parts in her hands. Mum had taught her from childhood that anything could be a weapon. She'd made Alice practise with hairspray and with pens and she'd shown her how to break glass in order to get a shard for a crude knife. Her father had trained her on gun use and safety, and told her fond stories about how when Mum had still been with Torchwood, she'd once killed a rampaging Gr'nak by stabbing it in the eye with her own toothbrush. Jenny had never met Alice's mum, but she knew how to use almost every firearm ever developed by human technology, and once Alice watched her regretfully assassinate the mad leader of a planetary-wide cult using nothing more than Alice's fingernail scissors.
Considering this, Alice slipped four unremarkable parts into the long sleeves of her work shirt just as Blays called time for supper.
Alice took her normal seat near the back of the room and began wolfing down her thin soup. If she ate it quickly, she didn't have to taste it. To her surprise, Chrissy took the seat next to her. She tucked into her own meal, saying quietly, "Saw Flora today. Couldn't talk to her."
Alice spooned the soup more slowly into her mouth.
"Haven't seen Harry, not for days. I think he's dead. Mouthed off to that Trem."
She closed her eyes. "Would you fight?" she asked around her spoon.
"Yeah. Don't know how, though." Trem walked over towards them, and Chrissy shoved more food into her mouth as fast as Alice had earlier. Trem kept walking. "They've had people in. Give 'em info, see your baby."
"Spies."
"Could be anyone."
"You're trusting me."
"You don't have a baby. And you're new. Different."
She let it pass. "Can you tell us who the spies are?" She was already thinking of this as an "us." Probably not good.
"Sally. Keith. I think there's more."
"Thanks." Alice got up from her seat and took her tray back. She paused to look around her. Nearly a hundred people, all armed with trays and bowls and spoons. If they all rose up together, they'd make short work of the three Agents. But no-one wanted to risk it all alone.
When she passed Ianto's table, she met his eyes.
***
The guard took a passing look at Jenny's stolen ID and waved her through the gate with barely a glance. She let out a deep breath once she passed him. Her memory of their previous visit led her to the beginning of the corridor maze. "You'll want to take a left," said Hart's lazy drawl in her ear. "Or was it a right?"
"Stop being an idiot," Jenny hissed.
"Just having some fun. Left. Definitely left."
"Your definition of 'fun' leaves much to be desired." She went left. When she reached the next hallway, she paused. "Now where?"
"This way."
She spun. Jack was behind her, back in his uniform, and striding along the corridor as though he'd never left. Jenny sprinted to reach him, grabbed his shirt collar, and pushed him up against the wall. His eyebrows shot up in surprise at her strength, and she allowed herself a moment of quiet pride.
"What part of 'stay with the ship' did you fail to comprehend?" She let him go, and he stepped away from the wall, readjusting his uniform as if he hadn't just been beaten up by a girl.
"Did Gorgeous catch up with you?"
"Relax. I was out on missions all the time. The likelihood that I'm here right now is … "
"One hundred percent," Jenny said, and grabbed his head and kissed him, hard. Disturbingly, after a moment of stuttering surprise, he started to get into the kiss, jaw moving against hers, tongue flickering naughtily against her lips before sliding inside. Her senses screamed in pain, synapses screeching to get away from the terrible Wrongness currently attached to her mouth. The part of her that was woven from Gallifreyan cloth recoiled in revulsion from his hands over her shoulders, the hurricane feel of his breath.
From behind the awful Fact, she heard a very familiar voice say, "Hey, no making out in this corridor, unless I'm invited."
Jack choked, while Jenny made an obscene gesture behind his back at his younger self.
"Is that a promise?" She repeated the gesture. "Fine, fine. I know when I'm not wanted." Footsteps walked away, and Jenny finally broke the kiss.
"No. No you don't," she replied five thousand years later, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
"I'd say I'm sorry, but … "
"You could have caused a rip in space-time being here. Do not start with me." She walked away in the direction he'd been headed. She hoped.
He made an amused noise in his throat. "You're a good kisser."
"Your daughter thinks so."
She didn't let herself look to see his reaction.
***
He was happy, safe, and surrounded by friends, so Ianto knew he was dreaming. He and Jack were holding Christmas at their house this year. Rhiannon was over, and Gwen and Rhys had brought the twins, and Lisa called to say she was going to be late, but not to worry. He kept making excuses to hold her on the line, asking her about her day, but the phone beeped to say he had another call.
"You should answer that," she said, and rang off.
The other line was Toshiko, who said, "Ianto, it's time."
"Time for what?" Ianto wasn't sure where this was going, but Jack was rubbing his shoulder, hard.
"You sleep like a damned log. No wonder you can put up with his snoring."
He opened his eyes onto a dim room. Someone was in front of him, shaking his shoulders. Alice.
"What are you doing here?" He looked around. The other beds were empty, though he wasn't surprised. Paul and Wayne had been nipping off together for weeks, and were just waiting for a house to open up, whereas Malik was seeing Sally and had probably gone off in a quiet corner somewhere with her. It was the best comfort any of them had now.
"If anyone asks," she said, sliding onto the bed with him, "having mad, passionate sex with you." She pulled the blanket over herself as Ianto thanked any handy deities that he was wearing pyjamas. "We need to talk."
"Talk."
"We have to make a plan. You're the only other person here who remembers how to use a gun." From all of the MI-5 survivors. Once again Ianto's life was a cosmic joke.
"Do you have a gun?"
"No."
"Not much purpose in knowing how to use one, then." He rolled over and away from her. The last woman he'd shared a bed with had been Lisa, too many years ago. With Alice this close, he could feel her warmth and breathe in the hint of perfume that followed her everywhere. This was all familiar and weird and wrong.
"Don't be obtuse. Look, we're being held by three people. We could easily take them if we all banded together."
"Yes. But they'll likely kill a number of us before we succeed." He'd gone over the scenarios in his head. None of them ended with everyone still alive, and most ended with bodies littering the ground.
"If we had weapons, we could do it."
He granted her that. "If we had weapons, and enough people trained on using them, yes. I remind you of point one. We don't have any weapons."
"I've stolen some parts. We could steal more, get the others involved. You've got experience with alien and future tech. Build something."
"I'm not a technician." Malik was, though. If they could bring him in … No.
"You're Torchwood."
"Retired."
"So was my Mum, and she could kill a man with his own shoe."
He tried to picture this. The visual was consistent with the stories about Lucia which had made it into Jack's book. "I think I would have liked to have met your mother."
He felt her shrug beside him. "She'd have hated you. Nothing personal." She shifted again. "Ianto, I know about Torchwood. The training you receive. The things you can do. They're letting us handle the pieces. I'm surprised you haven't already made something."
"I told you, I'm not a tech."
"Field agents aren't stupid."
"I was the secretary." He looked up at the ceiling.
"You were what?"
"I was the secretary. General support, admin, records keeper, personal assistant, and janitor. I was only a field agent when we were down people." When Jack was missing. When Owen died the first time. When he died the second time and Tosh was gone, too.
Alice sighed. "So?"
"What do you mean 'So?'"
"So you were the secretary. You were still Torchwood. Still used a gun, still played with alien bits and bobs. I majored in Art History, and Jenny and I have started nine revolutions and stopped twelve civil wars."
"Fine. Assuming I'm your best bet, which I'm not, I'm still not in."
"Why in the hell not?" Her voice rose, and he worried they'd be heard. Of course, that would just help her chosen cover story.
"Because!" He lay back on his pillow. "I have to protect you."
She laughed a lot harder than he felt was justified. "You really don't."
"I really do. If anything happens to you, Jack will never forgive me, and 'never' is literal in his case."
"You really don't, and if he were that worried, he'd have shown up by now. Everyone here is in danger, Ianto. She's holding children hostage. Doesn't that mean anything to you?" He refused to answer. "You're going to let Gerta and her mates walk all over the last surviving humans in the galaxy because you're a coward."
Which, while cruel, was entirely true.
"I killed them."
"Killed who?" she asked, annoyed.
He closed his eyes. This was the thing he hated to think about, the thing he'd managed to set aside for years until having it shoved back in his face every day here. "Thames House. These people. I killed them all."
"No, you didn't. It was the 456. Killed you, too." Her voice caught.
"I talked Jack into going in. He wasn't going to do it. He was going to sit back and see what happened because we had nothing. No real plan, no real assets. And I convinced him to take on the 456 anyway, and we all died for it because I screwed up." He turned onto his side, facing her. "Alice, every person in this colony died once already because of me. Call me a coward. Call me anything you'd like, but I can't risk that all over again. I won't."
The door opened, and they froze. Malik slipped in through the crack and closed it again, tiptoeing his way to bed.
Alice coughed. Malik froze. "Sorry, mate. I can wait outside."
"I was just leaving," said Alice, making as if she was pulling her trousers back on, although she'd remained dressed. Her voice dropped a register, and it trickled down his spine in a way he normally associated with a different member of her family. "See you later."
"Good night," he said in a tone he hoped was as sexy, and then he tried not to laugh. The scent of her lingered on his sheets and pillow, and he knew it would rob him of sleep tonight, if her words hadn't already guaranteed the same.
Malik crawled into his own bed. "Thought you said Alice was family."
"We'd be family by marriage."
He could see Malik's nod in the dim light. "And old marriages don't matter here."
"Something like that." They'd never got around to getting married, not that Ianto could remember. Perhaps the Agency took that from him the way they'd taken it from everyone else. Malik had lost five months or so off the end of his own former life. Ianto wondered how much he'd lose off the end of this one.
***
John was bored. Bored bored bored bored bored bored bored. And also bored. Jack had gone after that bird Jenny as soon as she'd found herself some identification, because Jack was even less capable of dealing with boredom than John was. Five years of living with someone who had to be entertained constantly made John aware of just how much Jack's immortality was a punishment from some deeply twisted goddess. If John ever found out which goddess, he'd be sure to show up at her nearest temple with a bottle of booze and a selection of upscale sex toys. She sounded like his kind of woman.
Religious questions aside, he was still bored. He'd told Jenny how to gran the Agency's computer system properly this time, but he was sure Jack would fuck it up somehow.
He ought to take the ship as his payment, and just get the hell out of here.
"Hey, beautiful," he purred to the ship's AI. "I'd love to show you the moons of Calligos."
"I saw the moons of Calligos," said the AI. "Alice and Jenny rescued the child-empress of Calligos from pirates."
"Ah. Well then, I'll bet you've never seen the lava fields of Poriala Nine."
"Jenny is still technically President for Life on Poriala Nine, thanks to her intervention in the election woes they had in the year 418."
John blinked. He'd heard the stories of the fabled President for Life, but he'd disregarded them as standard rising-hero claptrap. "What about the crystal falls of Lampeth?"
"Oh, we go there quite a lot," said the ship happily. "There's a tradition to name all the firstborn daughters in a family line after Alice. Would you like to know why?"
"No." Losing hope, he said, "How about the singing trees of Aladan?"
The ship paused. "I would quite like to visit the singing trees of Aladan."
John grinned. "Perfect! So how about you and I take a quick little trip, bit of a holiday, yeah?"
"Not without Jenny and Alice. Our friend Daff is the Head Magistrate on Aladan, and they'd like to visit him, too."
He growled in annoyance. Then he flipped open the spare control panel and began punching in a course. He could find somewhere they hadn't been, lie low for awhile, and then …
"Unauthorised access," said the AI.
"Just putting in coordinates for when we go."
"Negative. You are attempting to hijack me."
"Bright girl."
"If you do not cease from this behaviour, I will electrocute you. As you are not immortal, you will die. You have the count of three. Two. One."
His hands flew off as the charge filled the panel. He heard the hum, and knew if his hands were still there, the current across his heart would have stopped it dead. "All right, no need to be pushy."
"Touch me again and I'll kill you," the AI said sweetly.
***
So far, Alice had recruited Chrissy, Tanya, Sahira and Steve. Chrissy couldn't gather parts, but she could keep her eyes open for traitors. The rest of them kept their heads down and took pieces as they dared. Alice opted to stash everything in her room. If someone was going to be found out and executed, she'd stand there first.
Two people walked from the neighbouring colony to start the negotiations Ianto had suggested. Gerta shot them both.
Three weeks into their new dictatorship, the Agents announced the colonists could have a rest day. Alice suspected Blays had had words with the other two about exhaustion; while she was as quick to threaten as her friends, Alice was beginning to see through the bluster, and thought there might be a way in after all.
Once, she'd stopped in her work when Blays was beside her. "You know this is wrong," Alice had said quietly. "What she's doing, what she's planning."
"Keep working," Blays had replied, but her eyes had been hooded.
The familiar bonfire didn't cheer them, but it did help with the cold. Autumn was coming upon them, and with the shorter days came the prospect of winter and starvation if they didn't get the crops harvested. Alice thought the Agents wouldn't let them starve, would allow the harvest, but then, they might also use that threat to get people to work faster. The cache of weaponry was growing slowly. Alice wondered if, should winter come, they'd hold the invasion until spring.
Alice warmed her hands by the fire, catching Sahira's eye as she leaned against her husband.
Suddenly there were arms around hers, and she tensed, ready to strike, when a chin dropped to her shoulder and a voice whispered in her ear, "Don't."
Ianto was warm against her, which admittedly was quite nice with the fire before her. "What are you doing?"
"Helping." He pressed his hand against hers, palming three firing pins to her as he bent in and kissed her hair.
"We'll need more people."
"I've talked to Malik and Kris. They're in."
She didn't tell him her people. Best to keep the groups tiny in case someone was compromised. "Can you build something?"
"No. But Malik can." He hugged her closer. "We should keep the parts in my room. If we're found out, they can kill me."
"I'll bring what I have tonight." She leaned over and kissed him lightly in case anyone was watching, then stepped nimbly out of his arms to head back to her room to plan.
***
They took a wrong turn, and then another. Over the comm, John mocked them as he guided them back towards the secure areas. Jack would snark right back, but then, John was the only one who could help them now.
"You shouldn't be here," Jenny said again.
"I hate sitting around doing nothing."
"Your preferences were not taken into account for formulating the plan." He glared at the back of her head, wondering if he could increase the size of her headache by thinking hard.
He said in a lower voice, "Two people I care a lot about are in trouble. I want to do what I can to save them."
Jenny stopped. "'Care about?'"
"What?"
"Your daughter is missing, and you can't even say you love her?" For a second, Jack was certain he wasn't the one Jenny was actually angry with, and then her eyes focused on him.
"Alice knows I love her. So does Ianto."
She made a disgusted motion with her hand and walked faster. He hurried to catch up. "What?"
"You. You have the most ridiculous relationship with love I've ever seen."
"I wouldn't call it ridiculous."
"You love everyone. You love my father."
"I'm getting over that."
"No, you're not." Probably true. "You love Alice and Ianto."
"That's right."
"You also love Dungbeetle back there on my ship. And I'd be surprised if you didn't love me a bit as well."
"What's wrong with that?" His opinion had always been that more of something tended to be a good thing when it came to matters of love and sex.
"Nothing. But it's not special to you. Alice is your child. But you've had dozens of children. Can you even remember all their names?"
"It hasn't been dozens. Fewer than thirty." And he'd undertaken his book as a means of reminding himself, hadn't he? Sons and daughters (and the three who'd been both, and one who'd been a gender only found on ser home planet) peppered his book with their names, their stories as he could remember them. "They were all special."
"But did they all feel special? Or did they know they were numbers on a long list? And that certainly doesn't touch the list of your spouses, or of your lovers."
*
"So do I even get to know my number?" His eyes are hooded tonight, lost in old memories of his own. Jack is often lonely here on this little world, but he has forever ahead of him to be out among people again; for Ianto, the isolation is hellish whenever he lets himself think about it, and Jack can't always distract him in time.
Jack doesn't always have patience enough for both of them, but this time he does, and he coaxes Ianto back into his clothes and outside into the chilly night. This isn't the first time Jack has pulled this corny trick, and he hopes he hasn't pulled it on Ianto in the past and forgotten about it. He points up. "That star is part of a twin system, with a gas giant acting as a third small star in the orbit. Over here, this one is a nice medium-sized star with two habitable worlds. One's got a primitive society just now, but the other is a trading port for dozens of other worlds." He points out stars one by one, naming those he can remember while Ianto shivers beside him. "That one just past the tree top. No, over there. Yeah. That one's Sol. Earth's system."
"I know what Sol is." His teeth are chattering. It's kinda cute.
"Just because there are a lot of them doesn't mean they're not special. And I'm going to remember the best ones for a long, long time. Okay?"
They go inside, where it's warm and pleasant, and the shadows lift from Ianto's face again even as Jack feels a bit like a heel because of the times he's said these same words to other people to try to get them to understand. Later, when Ianto is sleeping, Jack gets out of bed and returns to his study and he writes, pinning these moments to paper, knowing that he has nothing more to offer than his own memory.
*
"They're special to me. They know they're special."
But Jenny didn't look convinced.
***
Malik looked up from the pile of debris on Ianto's bedspread. "We're two pieces short."
"Which two?" asked Alice.
"I don't know their names. I can draw a picture, though." Ianto found paper and pen, and Malik did two hasty sketches.
"I recognise this," Ianto said, pointing to the first sketch. "The equipment I'm working on has one. I'll get it tomorrow."
No-one recognised the second piece. Ianto and Kris committed the picture to memory, and Alice took it to show her own people later.
"All right," said Alice. "Assume we find both pieces. How long will it take you to assemble?"
"A night. Less. I can get most of these pieces together now and save the rest for when we've got the last bits."
"Do it," said Ianto, when he noticed the rest were staring at him for approval. He didn't know why; this was Alice's plan. He was never anyone's leader, merely a loyal lieutenant to the end.
Alice said, "We're going to have to get the word out."
Malik said, "We can trust Sheldon and Ben. I'll tell them tomorrow." He'd been saddened to find out Sally'd been compromised, but Sally had a little boy in the nursery.
Kris nodded. "Forrest is in. I think Laurie is safe to tell."
"Bring them in," said Alice. "Show them the part we need. Have them get it to me or Ianto. Don't give anyone else's name."
Ianto saw everyone out but Malik, and when Paul and Wayne came in, they broke the news. "The two of you may want to find a new place to stay," Ianto told them at the end.
Malik said, "If they find out, we're all in trouble."
The pair shared a look. "We're in," said Paul.
Ianto slept that night with the parts under his pillow. He dreamed uneasily about children whose faces he couldn't make out.
***
They passed various staff members as they made their way through the hallways, and Jack made sure to smirk at, flirt with, or studiously ignore each one as befitted his typical personality back then. Granted, he should probably stay out of sight, or better yet, go back to the ship right now rather than risk running into himself again, but everything he was screamed he had to be here in the middle of the action.
Speaking of action, two Agents were having a row. Jack and Jenny came upon them suddenly, becoming part of a rapidly-growing crowd of pretending-not-to-be onlookers.
"Straight ahead," said John in their ears, but Jack already knew where he was.
"Blocked," he said quietly.
"You lying sack of shit!" shouted one Agent. She looked familiar, but didn't everyone?
"I don't know what's worse about you, that you're psychotic, or that you're too stupid to know how psychotic you are," said the other. What was his name?
"You fucker!"
"Klaust!" Jack said, happily.
"What?" said Klaust angrily. Heads turned towards Jack.
"Nothing." As everyone turned back to the argument, Jack leaned over to Jenny. "Klaust always was a weird one. Turns out, he has three temporal fugitives locked up at his place." Beside him, someone else gasped. Jack turned to see another Time Agent: a stocky, short woman with dull red hair. Uh oh. "I mean, I heard he did."
"From who?" Her eyes were wide and shocked.
"Georgn. Somebody told him."
"Thanks," she said, and nudged her way through the crowd to the other female Agent, whispering in her ear.
"You! You've been nobbing fuges?!"
Klaust went pale.
Jenny grabbed Jack's hand. "Come on, then."
"Yeah." As they hurried away, he remembered the two women, finally. The redhead was one of the very few legacy Agents, allowed in because her mother had been an Agent. The shrieking blonde was her best friend. Jack had slept with them both a couple of times -- hell, they'd all slept with each other a couple of times, it was what just what they did -- but the blonde, whatever her name was, she'd been vicious. She'd made a habit of gathering a set of followers around her, because there was always someone scared enough or dumb enough to hang out with the mean ones.
Jack had never been part of her clique, but he recalled, perhaps in the fondness of time, that only a few of her hangers-on had been as actively cruel. The red-haired woman, for example, had a pattern of getting involved with stronger-willed personalities, and she wasn't bright enough to walk away. Now if only he could remember her name, or the other woman's name. He remembered Klaust because Ianto had told him about the time he'd learned what "getting fired" meant in the Time Agency. The story had gone into the book, but so much from his days here at the Agency could not be dredged out of his memories. Names were gone.
"Are you all right?" Jenny asked, as they found the room with the right terminals.
"Yeah. Just feeling old."
On the planet with the red house, he'd essentially been retired. He only worked on what he chose, ate and slept as he pleased, and wrote his life story, just like the very old man he was. Out here, his heart raced and his palms sweated and they kept fleeing danger, and wasn't this what life was supposed to be about? At least while he was still spry enough to enjoy it?
Spry. Now there was an old man word.
"Let me do this."
"Hart told me how to hack it." Jenny went to work, and sure enough, a minute later, she was in.
"You're good."
"'Brilliant' would also be appropriate, under the circumstances."
"Did you just tell a joke?"
"Maybe." She wore a pleased expression as she searched the files. "This one looks promising."
Jack stood behind her and read over her shoulder. "No. Wrong planet of origin. See?"
"You're right." She kept digging. Jack's fingers itched to grab the input from her, but he'd set off the alarm last time in his haste and they didn't dare that again. "How about this one?"
He scanned the record. "That looks right. Try cross-referencing it for additional acquisitions."
"Four more colonies, same time period, all on one planet. Six thousand years from now."
He wanted to take the info and run, but if they were wrong, they wouldn't get a third chance. "Keep searching. We have to be sure."
***
Tanya brought Alice the final piece two days later. "Get Harry out of there," she said, fear and sorrow on her face. Tanya was a horsy-looking woman, broad at the shoulders and not conventionally pretty. In the old days, Harry probably wouldn't have looked twice at her, and she'd have spent her nights thinking about men who were too busy chasing tiny things in short skirts to notice she was alive. None of them could have guessed how life would turn out, could they?
That night, they watched Malik finish their first and only weapon. Alice and Ianto took the first turns testing the heft and balance, neither daring to fire it yet.
Alice said, "We've got this, they've got more. We need to find a time when there's just one of them watching. Shoot, take their guns, and we'll go after the other two."
Ianto said, "The timing has to be right. I don't want to go after anyone as long as they're guarding the nursery."
"Leave that to me," said Chrissy. "Let me know when you want them out, and I can get them out."
Alice nodded. "Tomorrow at lunch, then. Spread the word tonight."
***
Ianto woke with an urge to pee and a gun in his face. Trem said, "Get up."
Ianto kept his eyes on Trem, wondering if he could dive for the gun under his pillow before he was shot. This would be the perfect chance.
Gerta stood in the doorway, her own gun held casually. "Wakey wakey," she said, and as Malik, Paul and Wayne woke, Trem brought them into the sights of his gun.
"Who else is involved?" Gerta asked.
"Just us," said Malik.
"They're lying," said Trem. "The woman, that dark-haired one. She's been seen with them."
"She's my girlfriend," Ianto said. "She's not involved."
"Pity," said Gerta, and in the hallway, Ianto could see Blays guarding Alice and her roommates. With a gesture, they were led into the room with the men. Two of the women blinked, yawning and confused and scared. Alice stayed steady, while the fourth woman appeared to comprehend exactly what was going on, an angry tilt to her mouth.
Gerta said, "Just so you know, I will be making an example of all of you, but if you'd like to spare the others some needless pain, the ringleader may feel free to step forward."
"It's me," said Ianto, just as Malik said, "I am."
Alice said nothing. Ianto was grateful that she would let him protect her that much. Then she smiled, and his stomach dropped. He knew that smile.
Before he could shout, before he could stop her, Alice dove for his pillow and pulled out the weapon. She fired at Gerta, who managed to duck the blast, but barely. Alice fired again, wounding Blays.
Trem shot her. Alice was dead before she hit the floor.
***
Chapter Seven