Fic: And Miles to go Before I Sleep.
For Redisourcolor round #27
Titles: And Miles to go Before I Sleep.
Pairing: Ianto/Lisa
Rating: PG
Prompts used: Theme: travel. Loath, stark, helpful. It was justified, if nothing else.
Summary: Driving through the night with Lisa and a cyber conversion unit hidden in the back of the van isn't how Ianto expected to return to Cardiff.
A/N: I've driven overnight on M1/M25 around London and the roadworks and queuing traffic on two of the four occasions were appalling. I'd been trying to avoid traffic, but sure enough, 3am there was tailback over a mile long.
One hundred and sixty miles to Cardiff.
Somewhere in the distance a clock on one of London's many churches and civic buildings chimes the hour, one am, as Ianto makes a final sweep of the storage unit.
Satisfied that there's nothing left behind that would suggest that somebody has been living there for the past few weeks, he turns his attention to the transit van that occupies much of the space.
Lisa is already inside, held securely in the metal framework of the cyberconversion unit. Ianto loathes nearly everything about it, and if it were not the only thing keeping her alive, he'd tear it to pieces with his bare hands.
There are other things that he's taken from the ruins of Torchwood One. The pass codes to their personnel files, some medical supplies and a couple of small devices that make keeping the conversion unit running possible. It might technically be theft, but it was justified, if nothing else, in Ianto's opinion. Torchwood had taken nearly everything from them, and it's time that it gave a little bit back.
“We'll be in Cardiff soon, just a few hours,” Ianto says, climbing in beside her, wishing that he didn't have to leave her alone in the back of the van while he drives.
“You look tired,” Lisa says, turning her head as much as the cyber augments will allow. “You should try to sleep before you do any driving.”
“I’ll be okay, I can sleep when once we arrive,” he reassures her. “Things will be better once we get to Cardiff.”
“Do you really believe that?” she asks wearily. “That everything can be solved by leaving London?”
Ianto hesitates.
“You don’t, do you?” Lisa smiles sadly, her hand seeking his. “It’s alright, you can tell me. It's not right you keep it all inside, we're in this together.”
“I know we are, and it will be okay. We've got a plan, remember?” He takes her hand in his, holding it to his cheek. He can almost imagine it still to be warm, soft skin, rather than the cold metal that has replaced it.
“You better put me under before we go,” Lisa says, scared and resigned at the same time. “It's starting to hurt again, and the speed bumps...”
“I know.” Ianto wishes he didn't. It breaks his heart to see her in so much pain, the slightest jolt jarring the metal graphed to her body, until she's sobbing for breath. “Do you want me to do it now?”
Lisa nods.
Taking a couple of vials of liquid painkillers and sedatives, Ianto slots them into the conversion unit. The programs built into the unit gauging the timing and dosage given.
Lisa clutches at his hand again. “Stay with me.”
“Of course I will. I won't leave you, not ever.”
Sitting on the floor of the van, Lisa's hand still held in his, Ianto waits with her while the drugs take effect.
They have nothing but each other, can trust nobody but themselves. He’d seen the few remaining security personnel turn their guns on their half converted colleagues, leaving him in little doubt of the fate that would await Lisa should he fail.
* * *
One hundred and fifty five miles to Cardiff.
The traffic in front of the van hasn't moved more than a few dozen car lengths in the past quarter of an hour, and Ianto curses the overnight roadworks.
It had been a choice between travelling during the day and risking getting caught in traffic and travelling at night and potentially drawing attention to themselves by driving down otherwise deserted streets.
In the end the need for the shortest travel time possible won out. With Lisa in the back of the van, Ianto knows he'll be unable to reach her if she needs him without stopping the van and getting out - not really a viable proposition if they were caught in snarled up traffic in central London or anywhere else for that matter.
To be caught in traffic now seems to sum up their luck of late.
The clock on the dashboard display glows a faint and fuzzy two nineteen am, and Ianto blinks and rubs his eyes.
A full night of sleep seems a dim and distant memory. Between caring for Lisa, the fear of discovery and the nightmare images of the conversion rooms rest has been limited to a few snatched minutes here and there or maybe an hour or two when exhaustion finally wins out over everything else.
The red brake lights of the cars and vans ahead of him swim and dance, the light reflecting and refracting off the spots of rain on the windscreen.
Fighting back a yawn, Ianto grabs a packet of caffeine tablets from the door pocket. Taking the maximum recommended dose in an attempt to drive away the need for sleep, he hopes that it will be enough to keep him alert for the rest of the night.
* * *
Eighty six miles to Cardiff.
The faint hum and vibrations of the engine provide a cocoon of white noise, the miles sliding by as his eyelids droop lower and lower.
The vibrations suddenly increase and Ianto snaps back to wakefulness as the van's wheels cross the rumble strip separating the outside lane from the hard shoulder.
Movements jerky from with exhaustion, he turns the steering wheel sharply to the right and van veers to the side, moving out to straddle the line between the middle and inside lanes.
The driver in the car behind blares his horn, annoyed that he's has to break hard and change lanes with almost no warning.
Shaken, the realisation of just how close he came to crashing filling his mind with stark images of twisted and burning metal, Ianto grips the wheel white knuckled, heart hammering adrenaline keeping him awake once more.
Just a few minutes later, he's relieved to see a sign indicating a service station at the next junction. Although he's loathe to stop as they're now more than an hour and a half behind his carefully plotted schedule, he knows he must or risk crashing and ruining everything.
The services just outside Swindon are almost deserted, the only people there the drivers of the long distance artic lorries headed to and from the port at Bristol.
The overpriced fast food outlet holds little appeal, and Ianto heads straight for the shop.
The woman at the counter smiles sympathetically at him as he buy energy drinks and chocolate. “You look done in. Look, I probably shouldn't be telling you this, but they don't mind too much if you fall asleep in the cafe, as long as you've bought something first.”
Knowing that she's just trying to be helpful, Ianto just nods and smiles. Then, clutching his purchases, hurries back to the van.
* * *
Twenty five miles to Cardiff.
The sun is coming up as Ianto pays the toll and drives onto the Severn Bridge.
It's not a spectacular sunrise welcoming him back to the land of his ancestors. Just a misty lightening of the horizon that promises nothing more than an end to the darkness the night.
He's not been back to Wales since leaving four years ago. He can barely remember the person he was then, how young and naïve he'd been. He wonders briefly if he knew then what he knows now whether he would have ever left.
Yet despite the horror of what he's seen in the past couple of weeks, the sights and sounds of those being converted that he's sure will stay with him for as long as he lives, Ianto knows that it if were a choice between having seen this or never meeting Lisa, there is no choice at all. Lisa is everything.
* * *
Cardiff.
Shaking with tiredness, Ianto almost falls out the van as he gets out to opens the door of the lock-up in Roath.
After a few false starts, he manages to get the van inside. Then, with a sign of relief, he locks the door behind them.
Safe and secure for now at least, Ianto feels the last of the energy he had fail. Sagging against the back of the van, even finding the coordination to use the keys takes every ounce of concentration he's got.
Eventually though, the door opens and he climbs in. Every part of him seem to ache with tiredness, but he knows he can't stop yet. Lisa comes first.
“We're in Cardiff,” Ianto says, pulling a blanket up over her, concerned now that the van heater is off, that she might get cold. “We've made it. I told you we would. Everything is going to be alright, I promise.”
There's no response, just the faint reassuring buzz and wheeze of life support systems built into the conversion unit.
Ianto forces a smile. “Right, right. You need your sleep to get better, don't you? You don't need me chattering on.” Leaning in close to her, he kisses her on the lips. “Goodnight.”
Ignoring the camp bed, the effort of assembling it seeming impossible, Ianto picks up a second blanket, and then lays down on the floor of the van.
Tomorrow he’ll start work on getting into Torchwood.
He'd seen them, Torchwood Cardiff, picking through the ruins of Torchwood One, taking the what they wanted and offering little or no assistance in return. While their leader, Captain Jack Harkness, flirted indiscriminately amidst the devastation.
He looks over at Lisa, love and determination in his eyes. Whatever it takes, he'll do it willingly. However hard the journey, he’ll make it for her.
Titles: And Miles to go Before I Sleep.
Pairing: Ianto/Lisa
Rating: PG
Prompts used: Theme: travel. Loath, stark, helpful. It was justified, if nothing else.
Summary: Driving through the night with Lisa and a cyber conversion unit hidden in the back of the van isn't how Ianto expected to return to Cardiff.
A/N: I've driven overnight on M1/M25 around London and the roadworks and queuing traffic on two of the four occasions were appalling. I'd been trying to avoid traffic, but sure enough, 3am there was tailback over a mile long.
One hundred and sixty miles to Cardiff.
Somewhere in the distance a clock on one of London's many churches and civic buildings chimes the hour, one am, as Ianto makes a final sweep of the storage unit.
Satisfied that there's nothing left behind that would suggest that somebody has been living there for the past few weeks, he turns his attention to the transit van that occupies much of the space.
Lisa is already inside, held securely in the metal framework of the cyberconversion unit. Ianto loathes nearly everything about it, and if it were not the only thing keeping her alive, he'd tear it to pieces with his bare hands.
There are other things that he's taken from the ruins of Torchwood One. The pass codes to their personnel files, some medical supplies and a couple of small devices that make keeping the conversion unit running possible. It might technically be theft, but it was justified, if nothing else, in Ianto's opinion. Torchwood had taken nearly everything from them, and it's time that it gave a little bit back.
“We'll be in Cardiff soon, just a few hours,” Ianto says, climbing in beside her, wishing that he didn't have to leave her alone in the back of the van while he drives.
“You look tired,” Lisa says, turning her head as much as the cyber augments will allow. “You should try to sleep before you do any driving.”
“I’ll be okay, I can sleep when once we arrive,” he reassures her. “Things will be better once we get to Cardiff.”
“Do you really believe that?” she asks wearily. “That everything can be solved by leaving London?”
Ianto hesitates.
“You don’t, do you?” Lisa smiles sadly, her hand seeking his. “It’s alright, you can tell me. It's not right you keep it all inside, we're in this together.”
“I know we are, and it will be okay. We've got a plan, remember?” He takes her hand in his, holding it to his cheek. He can almost imagine it still to be warm, soft skin, rather than the cold metal that has replaced it.
“You better put me under before we go,” Lisa says, scared and resigned at the same time. “It's starting to hurt again, and the speed bumps...”
“I know.” Ianto wishes he didn't. It breaks his heart to see her in so much pain, the slightest jolt jarring the metal graphed to her body, until she's sobbing for breath. “Do you want me to do it now?”
Lisa nods.
Taking a couple of vials of liquid painkillers and sedatives, Ianto slots them into the conversion unit. The programs built into the unit gauging the timing and dosage given.
Lisa clutches at his hand again. “Stay with me.”
“Of course I will. I won't leave you, not ever.”
Sitting on the floor of the van, Lisa's hand still held in his, Ianto waits with her while the drugs take effect.
They have nothing but each other, can trust nobody but themselves. He’d seen the few remaining security personnel turn their guns on their half converted colleagues, leaving him in little doubt of the fate that would await Lisa should he fail.
* * *
One hundred and fifty five miles to Cardiff.
The traffic in front of the van hasn't moved more than a few dozen car lengths in the past quarter of an hour, and Ianto curses the overnight roadworks.
It had been a choice between travelling during the day and risking getting caught in traffic and travelling at night and potentially drawing attention to themselves by driving down otherwise deserted streets.
In the end the need for the shortest travel time possible won out. With Lisa in the back of the van, Ianto knows he'll be unable to reach her if she needs him without stopping the van and getting out - not really a viable proposition if they were caught in snarled up traffic in central London or anywhere else for that matter.
To be caught in traffic now seems to sum up their luck of late.
The clock on the dashboard display glows a faint and fuzzy two nineteen am, and Ianto blinks and rubs his eyes.
A full night of sleep seems a dim and distant memory. Between caring for Lisa, the fear of discovery and the nightmare images of the conversion rooms rest has been limited to a few snatched minutes here and there or maybe an hour or two when exhaustion finally wins out over everything else.
The red brake lights of the cars and vans ahead of him swim and dance, the light reflecting and refracting off the spots of rain on the windscreen.
Fighting back a yawn, Ianto grabs a packet of caffeine tablets from the door pocket. Taking the maximum recommended dose in an attempt to drive away the need for sleep, he hopes that it will be enough to keep him alert for the rest of the night.
* * *
Eighty six miles to Cardiff.
The faint hum and vibrations of the engine provide a cocoon of white noise, the miles sliding by as his eyelids droop lower and lower.
The vibrations suddenly increase and Ianto snaps back to wakefulness as the van's wheels cross the rumble strip separating the outside lane from the hard shoulder.
Movements jerky from with exhaustion, he turns the steering wheel sharply to the right and van veers to the side, moving out to straddle the line between the middle and inside lanes.
The driver in the car behind blares his horn, annoyed that he's has to break hard and change lanes with almost no warning.
Shaken, the realisation of just how close he came to crashing filling his mind with stark images of twisted and burning metal, Ianto grips the wheel white knuckled, heart hammering adrenaline keeping him awake once more.
Just a few minutes later, he's relieved to see a sign indicating a service station at the next junction. Although he's loathe to stop as they're now more than an hour and a half behind his carefully plotted schedule, he knows he must or risk crashing and ruining everything.
The services just outside Swindon are almost deserted, the only people there the drivers of the long distance artic lorries headed to and from the port at Bristol.
The overpriced fast food outlet holds little appeal, and Ianto heads straight for the shop.
The woman at the counter smiles sympathetically at him as he buy energy drinks and chocolate. “You look done in. Look, I probably shouldn't be telling you this, but they don't mind too much if you fall asleep in the cafe, as long as you've bought something first.”
Knowing that she's just trying to be helpful, Ianto just nods and smiles. Then, clutching his purchases, hurries back to the van.
* * *
Twenty five miles to Cardiff.
The sun is coming up as Ianto pays the toll and drives onto the Severn Bridge.
It's not a spectacular sunrise welcoming him back to the land of his ancestors. Just a misty lightening of the horizon that promises nothing more than an end to the darkness the night.
He's not been back to Wales since leaving four years ago. He can barely remember the person he was then, how young and naïve he'd been. He wonders briefly if he knew then what he knows now whether he would have ever left.
Yet despite the horror of what he's seen in the past couple of weeks, the sights and sounds of those being converted that he's sure will stay with him for as long as he lives, Ianto knows that it if were a choice between having seen this or never meeting Lisa, there is no choice at all. Lisa is everything.
* * *
Cardiff.
Shaking with tiredness, Ianto almost falls out the van as he gets out to opens the door of the lock-up in Roath.
After a few false starts, he manages to get the van inside. Then, with a sign of relief, he locks the door behind them.
Safe and secure for now at least, Ianto feels the last of the energy he had fail. Sagging against the back of the van, even finding the coordination to use the keys takes every ounce of concentration he's got.
Eventually though, the door opens and he climbs in. Every part of him seem to ache with tiredness, but he knows he can't stop yet. Lisa comes first.
“We're in Cardiff,” Ianto says, pulling a blanket up over her, concerned now that the van heater is off, that she might get cold. “We've made it. I told you we would. Everything is going to be alright, I promise.”
There's no response, just the faint reassuring buzz and wheeze of life support systems built into the conversion unit.
Ianto forces a smile. “Right, right. You need your sleep to get better, don't you? You don't need me chattering on.” Leaning in close to her, he kisses her on the lips. “Goodnight.”
Ignoring the camp bed, the effort of assembling it seeming impossible, Ianto picks up a second blanket, and then lays down on the floor of the van.
Tomorrow he’ll start work on getting into Torchwood.
He'd seen them, Torchwood Cardiff, picking through the ruins of Torchwood One, taking the what they wanted and offering little or no assistance in return. While their leader, Captain Jack Harkness, flirted indiscriminately amidst the devastation.
He looks over at Lisa, love and determination in his eyes. Whatever it takes, he'll do it willingly. However hard the journey, he’ll make it for her.