Conspiracy Theories 14/?
Thom made a quick stop by his home for tea, greeted at the door by a miniscule little boy who was undeniably his. He had the same light brown skin, though his hair had looser curls than his own coarse and shortly cropped hair could ever imagine doing.
“Daddy!” Chubby hands reached up and Thom grinned as he pulled his son into his arms.
“Hello Geoff,” he told the boy as he gave him a kiss to his forehead. “Where’s Mommy?”
“Kitchen,” Geoff said, or at least a close enough approximation to it. Carrying the little boy in his arms, Thom made his way to the auburn-haired woman at the stove and got close enough to give her a cheek on the kiss.
“Hello, Gorgeous,” Thom said to his wife as he positioned Geoff better on his hip.
“Shouldn’t you be at work?”
“Franklin is taking care of things so I can be here with you for tea,” he said as he kissed her cheek again. “See? I can be a thoughtful sort of guy.”
“You know he’s going to make you owe him for this,” she replied back, but had a pleased smile on her face.
“That’s why I went ahead and did a favor for him ahead of time,” Thom said with a grin, as he put Geoff in his seat, fastening the toddler into the plastic chair and then having a seat beside where his wife always sat. The round table was small, and it put him very close to his son as well.
Thom was usually still at work or in another part of town that he couldn’t get away this time of day, but he was grateful for the break to get to spend time with his family.
“I have some fresh scones from the shop on the corner,” his wife said, setting the white box on the table in front of them. “I know you like them.”
He smiled. “You know me too well,” he said. Of course, she didn't know him well enough. His wife genuinely thought it was just a favor that had gotten Franklin to take over part of his shift. The other postal carrier was a piece of work, at best, and Thom knew it was just a matter of time before he found something on the man that would make Franklin owe him for life. A little affair between Franklin and a just-turned-18-year-old man-and this was an affair Thom seriously suspected had been going on for some time now-was more than enough of a bargaining chip to get Franklin to take whatever shifts, and do whatever Thom asked of him. After all, Franklin's wife wouldn't take well to the news, or the photos.
“Something good happen at work?” his wife asked. Thom looked up at her curiously. “You were smiling.”
“Oh,” Thom said. “I was just thinking about this funny thing I saw Franklin doing at work. It's a bit difficult to explain.”
“One of those 'You had to be there' moments?”
“Exactly,” Thom said. He smiled and gave her a quick kiss.
“Daddy kiss!” Geoff said, squirming in his chair.
“Who could deny that?” Thom asked as he kissed the little boy on the cheek.
Hearing the telephone ring, he stood. “I'll get it. You sit,” he told his wife as he walked from the room and out to grab the nearest telephone.
“Hello?”
“God, you have no idea how brilliant it is to hear your voice again,” a man said on the other end of the line.
“And who are you?”
“My name is Ron Llewellyn. I used to work with you in Cardiff.”
“I don't know what you're talking bout,” Thom said, feeling the start of a headache at the back of his skull. “I never worked in Cardiff.”
“Yes you did,” this Ron said. “Why do you even try to argue when you can’t possibly recall what happened for a period of a few years?”
“How do you know that?” Thom asked.
“Because I know you, Thom. I worked with you. Listen, I'm going to meet you at the Sly Fox Bar on Halifax Road,” he said. “I should be arriving in a reasonable time so that I can get there around 6 p.m. We can have a few beers and chat over old times.”
“I don't know why you assume I'm going to go there,” Thom said.
“You will. I know you will. We used to be good friends, you and me.”
“I'll consider it. That's all I will promise.”
“That's fine,” Ron replied. “And before I hang up. Torchwood, Alex Hopkins, Jack Harkness, Ron Llewellyn, Suzie Costello, weevils and the hub.” The line went dead as Thom felt like his head was going to split open.
It lasted only a few moments, the excruciating pain. His wife was at his side, his son anxiously inquiring after him from his little seat. There was an overwhelming feeling of exhaustion, but the pain was gone. In its wake, Thom was flooded with memories. He remembered Jack sitting down to dinner with himself and with Ron. They should have guessed it then, but they hadn't. Not until the drug was kicking in and they were fighting off exhaustion did either realize that they had been retconned. That they were going to lose years of their memories.
It was all that the former sociologist could to do keep the curses to himself.
“I’ve visited Katy Harris,” Ianto said into the phone. “I saw her at ProvidencePark.”
“And what did you find, Mr. Jones?” Ron’s voice asked on the other end of the line.
“You know what I found. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have sent me there.” Really, who did this man think he was toying with?
“I suppose you saw her, in all of her retconned glory. Sadly, she’s the one that has come out of this the best of all of us. Despite her current situation, she is genuinely happy. Do you think that I could say the same for my time in that delusional state? And obviously, the other members can’t. You’ve looked them up, I assume.”
“The others, save for Thom,” Ianto said.
Ianto had, or rather, asked Tosh to do a quick search for the three other people Ron had claimed were former Torchwood members. They had died at separate times, in different parts of the country, but all had been suicide. Obvious suicide. They had lost years of their memories. Really, the insanity, depression, search for identity, they would all be expected. Ianto was more than aware that the old Torchwood had never been big on using cover stories to fill in gaps, and in a moment like that, where Jack would have been faced with trying to create cover stories for team members as he tried simultaneously to rebuild the team, there was no doubt he would have had no time to come up with proper cover stories.
But Ianto would have thought Katy would have been given something.
"Jack genuinely cared about her," Ron added, putting salt in Ianto's already open wounds. "And he left her in that state. I felt that it was fair to at least warn you. People who are with Jack... it doesn't end happily for them. I might have been the tech expert, but I can assure you there was enough evidence of nasty things happening to those who were in a relationship, or at the very least shagging Jack Harkness."
"Is that a threat?"
"It doesn't have to be," Ron said and followed it with a sigh. "Consider it a warning of a pattern of behavior."
"What do you mean it doesn't have to be?" Ianto asked, only to be met with silence and the beep of Ron's phone hanging up on him. When he tried redialing the number, he got no answer, save for the mechanized voice message he was immediately directed to.
Ianto's immediate response was to call Rhiannon on her cell. He had to make certain that everything was okay with them. It rang once, twice, three times... until, finally, he got an out of breath, "Hi, Ianto."
He gave a sigh of relief. "Rhiannon," he said. "I was just calling to see how you were. And to see what your thoughts are on the house."
"We're taking it," she said. "We agreed today after we got some news that we were taking the house."
"News?"
"Why don't you tell him, Daffyd?" he heard her say, though she was obviously turned away from the phone.
There was some fumbling and the obvious exchange of the cell phone. "Uncle Ianto! I'm going to be a big brother."
Ianto smiled. "That's brilliant!" Despite his worry, he was genuinely excited for his sister and brother-in-law.
"I know. I hope it's a sister."
"Sisters can be great things," Ianto said. "Do you mind if I talk to mine?"
"Nope. Just a minute." Again, the fumbling sounds, fingers rubbing over the mouthpiece of the mobile. "Here mom. Uncle Ianto wants to talk to you now."
"So, yes, I'm pregnant. Johnny and I wanted to keep it a sort of secret until we were sure, just telling people we were trying."
"That's fantastic," Ianto said as he turned down . "You're already a great mum. You'll be brilliant with a new baby. So how far along are you?"
"About six weeks, we have it figured," Rhiannon replied. "We're having a bit of ice cream here at the house. That was Daffyd's idea. Do you think you can pop by?"
"I..." Ianto considered it for a moment. Jack would be pissed that he was off visiting family in a crisis situation-a situation that Jack himself had caused-but Ianto couldn't quite bring himself to care. It was important that he get to see his family right now. Somehow, Ianto had to guess that if Ron's words were the threat he genuinely believed them to be, it would be his family who would pay the price. He wasn't blind enough not to realize that.
It also meant that no matter how infuriated he was with the captain, he was going to have to talk to Jack and soon. Ianto took a few detours on his route back to the hub and found himself once again in front of his sister's home. For the first time ever when visiting his family, he grabbed his gun just in case and hid it so he could go into the house.
On the way in, he carefully inspected to make sure the technology that he and Jack had installed was working properly before heading along the sidewalk and up to the house. He knocked on the door to have Johnny open it with a broad smile on his face.
"Congratulations!" Ianto said, giving his brother-in-law a hug.
“Thanks,” Johnny replied as he returned the hug.
“So have you told the family yet?”
“Your mum’s on her way over, and I’ve been trying to call mine, but I can’t get a hold of her on her phone.” Ianto knew that Johnny’s mother had moved to Australia for work and stayed there after marrying an Aussie. “I’m going to send her an e-mail soon so that she calls me. I’d hate it if she found out from friends here before us.”
“I think your mother would line you up in a firing range,” Ianto said. “I know mine would.”
Johnny chuckled as the sound of feet thumping on the floor sounded from the kitchen. “Uncle Ianto!” Daffyd yelled as he launched himself at the man. Ianto caught him easily and spun him around as Jack usually did. It was amazing, the idolizing look that the boy still held in his eyes. “You have to come out and get ice cream with us!”
“That’s why I’m here,” Ianto said as he set the boy back on the floor.
Daffyd tugged on his uncle’s sleeve forcing Ianto to follow his nephew into the kitchen with Johnny going behind them. He saw Rhiannon was busy dishing out the frozen dessert. Somehow, he managed to pry himself from Daffyd so he could give her a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’m really happy for you,” he said as he took one of the bowls and passed it off to Daffyd. He hoped to distract the boy from his complete hero worship.
His nephew thanked him and Ianto turned around to find a bowl being thrust in his direction. Before he ate a bite, he found a napkin and tucked it into his collar. He might have been stuck in the same suit for over 24 hours now, but he wasn’t about to mess it up.
“Just like Tad,” Rhiannon said, with a small smile.
“At least now that I wear these daily to work, I understand why he did it.”
“Are you okay, Ianto?” she asked. “You look a little rough.”
“Not much sleep,” Ianto confessed. “One of the guys at work was hurt last night. He seems to be okay, but we were worried.” Johnny looked at him curiously for a moment. “Jack and me.” That earned a nod and a faint look of reproach, as though Johnny was a bit upset with himself that he forgot. “As a boss, he treats you like family, thinks of you that way too, so he was worried most of last night.”
“Your friend is going to be okay?”
“We think so,” Ianto said. He was grateful for Daffyd’s presence because it guaranteed that his sister didn’t ask for specific questions that she wouldn’t want her son to hear. Details that he wasn’t entirely sure he could come up with on the spot.
“It’s good you were able to be there for Jack,” Johnny said. “That’s really important when you’re part of a couple.”
Ianto felt the slightest twinge of guilt for how he left Jack, but he reminded himself that he was here checking on his family because Jack didn’t let him know how dangerous Ron might be. Couples communicated a hell of a lot better than the two of them did.
“Speaking of you being a couple,” Rhiannon said, “please tell Jack about the baby as well. He’s family now.”
There was a knock on the door. “I’ll get it. I’m sure it’s mum,” Ianto told Johnny. He set the bowl down and went to get the door. As he’d expected and hoped, it was his mother.
“Hello, dear,” she said. “It’s good to see you’re here. I’m guessing you heard?”
She gave him a quick peck on the cheek.
“Yes. I heard.”
His mother then moved past him to see Rhiannon and Johnny. Ianto returned to the kitchen to see them all talking rapidly about baby plans and moving, and it was all so blissfully normal, Ianto could almost lose himself in this part of life.
That was, until he was deafened by Jack’s voice yelling in his ear, “Ianto Jones, you had better get your ass back here right now and end this pointless temper tantrum immediately. You are needed here, were needed here an hour ago.”
He went out to the kitchen and pulled out his phone and opened it. “I need to go,” he said. He pulled the napkin from his neck. “The friend from work… he’s taken a turn for the worse. I’m sorry. Jack needs me.”
“Of course. Go, go,” Rhiannon said, giving him a light push. “Give Jack our love and we’ll pray for your friend.”
Ianto gave a sharp nod and then headed from the house as quickly as he could. Things were safe for now. And he’d just have to have a talk with Jack once he got back to the hub.
Jack was seething. Ianto had not been there when Owen collapsed and he was not here for the team meeting. Jack really, really didn’t know what had gotten into the Welshman, but it was going to have to stop quickly. With a frown, he listened to Martha’s explanation of Owen’s current condition, the comms on so that Ianto wasn’t left entirely out of the loop. Though he deserved to be left out, Owen didn’t deserve to have a team member uninformed as they tried to resolve this situation.
He had to admit, if only to himself that there was some truth to Ianto’s words earlier. Jack really hadn’t considered the consequences of his actions when he brought Owen back. He had been reluctant to lose the man he thought of like a son. He had needed the code-though truthfully Tosh could have hacked into the morgue system to find it out. He just hadn’t been ready to give up.
But that wasn’t the point now. The point was that Jack needed to fix this problem, and that wasn’t going to happen on Starbucks or with his team down a member, down two really, as Owen was the subject of their problem.
Jack let his mind go back to the topic at hand, and he found himself trying to sort out what this thing was, this energy. Of course, Owen didn’t take to being talked about as though he wasn’t in the room. He quickly apologized to the doctor and tried to find out just what it was that was in the darkness. He saw Ianto passing by the board room as he continued questioning Owen on this thing in the dark. The last person to come back from death thanks to a glove, Suzie, had said there was something in the dark. She’d told him that there was something and it was waiting for him.
“Yeah, I felt it. I didn’t see it,” Owen said.
“Where do you think it went?”
Owen shook his head. “Don’t know.”
Their discussion wasn’t going to get them anywhere, but they gave it an effort. However, they knew talking wasn’t going to do much good, so the conversation was kept short. All the while, Jack would occasionally catch a glimpse of Ianto making rounds with coffee, all the while listening in on the comms.
Leaving the board room, Jack barked his order to Ianto to check for dimensional anomalies in the last hour. It was also implied that the Welshman follow him up to Jack’s office to do so, despite the fact that it wasn’t necessary. Ianto managed to understand both the said and unsaid message and headed up to Jack’s office.
“Are you quite done with your temper tantrum, Ianto? Because the team needed you.”
“Call it what you like,” Ianto said. “I was doing Torchwood business during my ‘tantrum,’ but I’m only operating on what information I can gather because you’re keeping things from me. So while you are here cleaning up your mess, I was with my family doing the same damned thing. Your mess, not my mess. I went to check on them and to do some research on what might have happened to certain members of Torchwood who could be involved.”
“Are you saying that you suspect Owen or Gwen or-”
“Let me clarify,” Ianto said as he faced Jack. “Former members of Torchwood. Naturally, if there was information available at one time on the weevils, information that no one here but you knew about, then someone else who was lucky enough to be retconned rather than executed must have known how to lure them out. I trust Gwen, Owen and Tosh not to be the ones to do it.”
“And you thought this up on your own?” Jack growled, stung that Ianto hadn’t included him in the list of those he trusted and wary as it seemed Ianto knew something he shouldn’t.
“Does it matter if I did?” Ianto asked.
“I think it might,” Jack said warningly.
Ianto left Jack’s office without an apology, without any more words on the subject and went from Jack’s office to the computer station that the Welshman usually used down in the Hub.
“Where are you going?”
“To check out the information on any dimensional anomalies as you asked, sir.”
“Oh.”
“Yes,” Ianto said. “And Rhiannon said I’m to tell you that she’s going to be a mum again, since you are, to quote her, ‘family now.’”
Jack had to admit there was some pleasure that came out of being so willingly included in Ianto’s family, but for as mad as Jack still was at his lover, he had a feeling that Ianto was furious with him. The question on Jack’s mind right now was how exactly Ianto had found out about the other members who had been retconned.
Somehow, Jack didn’t feel particularly pleased at the fact that Ianto was keeping the source of his knowledge from him. He’d thought the young man was done with keeping secrets from him.
Hypocritical? Jack knew it was, but he didn’t much care.
Ron sat at a small table in the corner of the pub as he saw Thom walking in. He flagged the other man over while he took in the changes in his friend. Thom had earned himself a bit of a paunch over the last few years, but he looked far better kept than Ron himself had been until recently.
“Hello, Ron,” Thom said. “It’s been…”
“A very long time,” Ron said, signaling the waitress to bring two pints.
Thom sat down across from Ron, only to leave them sitting in awkward silence until their drinks arrived. After finally getting Thom there, Ron found himself at a loss for what to say.
It wasn’t until they’d finished their first pint that Thom slammed his hands against the table top. “That bastard!” he said.
“I know,” Ron said.
“That son of a bitch asshole captain erased my memories,” he said.
“I know,” Ron said. “But when have you ever known me to be without a plan?” He smirked and waved his Blackberry about.
“I’m listening,” Thom said, crossing his legs and folding his arms at his chest. “Does it fall into the category of taking out the bastard?”
“There would be the rub. I have a bit of video you need to see,” Ron said. He hit play. “Here is the team as it stands today.”
“Just five members?”
“Just five. Pathetic isn’t it?” He looked back at the screen. “What you’ll see happening right now was a few months before. Apparently here, they felt the only way they could fix a disaster was by opening the Rift.” That got a reaction from Thom. “I know, I know. They are children compared to the old Torchwood. But it turns out it worked, though not quite how they’d hoped. While the remnants of that time remained at the Hub on CCTV footage, time seemed to reset itself after the attack. Something about the darkness. Abaddon something or other. But just watch.”
“Mutiny?” Thom asked. “Such a loyal team he substituted the lot of us for.”
“It gets better,” Ron assured. “Now, this one’s the doctor. Like family to Jack. Watch him.”
After a moment or two, Thom reacted as Ron expected him to, moving back in his chair and flinching. “Well, the good doctor got rid of him for us.”
“That isn’t the most interesting part. Keep watching.” Ron had skipped ahead a bit, ignoring as the scheming team scanned their retinas and Jack’s as well. Thom’s reaction to the suddenly awakening Jack and the healing wound was amusing.
“Bloody hell!” he swore as he watched.
“And there are dozens of other deaths,” Ron said. He let Thom watch a few more of those deaths at various locations, but he was interrupted when he got a notice that his computer at home had successfully hacked into Johnny Caldicott’s computer. “Excuse me. I need to get some remote access.”
“Part of that master plan of yours?” Thom asked with a smirk.
“Oh yes,” Ron said. “We can’t kill Jack. We can hurt him physically, but we can hurt him emotionally, too.” He began scanning for a sign that Johnny had been talking to someone about Torchwood. “He’s managed to get himself into a relationship with the man who runs the tourist office.”
“What else is new? He was shagging Katy,” Thom said.
Ron smiled and shook his head. “He might have been shagging Katy, but let me reiterate that he is in a relationship with Ianto Jones.”
Thom smirked, catching on as quickly as Ron knew his friend would. The other man looked so like how Ron remembered him, despite the addition of a few wrinkles and some graying hair.
“Right now, I’m sending an e-mail as a Mr. Ewan Smith to Johnny Caldicott”
“What for?”
“A diversionary tactic. Then you and I are going to have to make a trip to Cardiff.”
“Not that I’m not all for it,” Thom said as he ordered another pint, “but you do realize that I have a wife and child now. They might get suspicious.”
“Tell them you’re on a job interview for a company stationed in Cardiff,” Ron said. “They’ll be ‘paying your way’ until you get the position.” Thom raised an eyebrow as to ask how that was going to happen. “I have manged to hack into the Parliament members’ accounts. Nearly every one I looked into has been finding other uses for the taxpayers’ money. A few extra thousand here or there won’t be missed. And if it is, who will they complain to about the money they’ve been skimming off the top?”
That earned a chuckle from the darker complected man. “And Alex thought I was the evil genius of the two of us,” Thom said appreciatively. “Will I be staying with you in Cardiff?”
Ron shook his head. “Better yet. You’re finally going to get to see IvyOak.”
It was late, but Johnny had yet to hear from some of his friends who he’d messaged about the baby. Much to his surprise, they had received a phone call from Jack. It was quick, but he congratulated them both before excusing himself. Still, he appreciated the gesture.
When he saw a message from Ewan from work, he couldn’t help but open it.
“Torchwood London aka CanaryWharf.”
Johnny froze. He read on about things called cybermen, about a man called the Doctor who’d saved the world during the so-called terrorist attack that Ianto had been involved in. There were even links to other sites that reinforces these conspiracy theories, theories that no longer seemed as ridiculous about what he’d found so far.
Johnny was certain he didn’t believe it had been alien intervention, but he knew now that some things about his brother-in-law hadn’t changed. He was still keeping secrets, and once again looked to be involved in something well over his head.
The image of Ianto traipsing around Cardiff with Owen, the real estate agent, both holding guns and investigating a warehouse somewhere at the outskirts of the city. He was angry that he’d been lied to, but he was even more furious that there was a possibility that Ianto and his partner might very well have brought a weapon into his home, around his son. That if Ianto was involved in something suspicious, he had exposed Johnny’s family to a man who wielded a weapon like a trained expert.
“Thanks for the info, Ewan,” he wrote back on the e-mail. “Where on earth did you find this stuff?”
The question was whether he contacted Ianto immediately or tell Rhiannon.