A Year Out of Time - part 2
A Year Out of Time - part 2
Part one
“We’ve got power,” Ianto says with an exhausted smile, looking like he might not have the energy to get up from where he’s lying half under one of the workstation.
After so long trapped underground, Andy’s first instinct is to rush outside and find out what’s been going on. That and to phone his nan and mum and find out if the rest of the family is all right. Fortunately, he supposes, his next instinct, the one that says find out what you’re going to be facing, wins out.
Helping Ianto to his feet, Andy asks, “Can we still tap into the CCTV or get the TV going?”
“I don’t know. But I can try.”
All the TV stations that they try stay resolutely blank. Andy tells himself that it’s probably just because the transmitter over at Wenvoe is down. The luck with the CCTV feeds is little better; the one and only view that seems to work is that of the steps outside the Sennedd building.
Normally on a sunny weekday afternoon he’d expect to see at least a few tourists hanging about. Except there is nothing. Even the seagulls seem to have deserted the bay, giving the whole scene an eerie, deserted air about it.
“It doesn’t mean anything.” The words are confident, but there is a slight waver in Ianto’s voice that lets Andy know that he’s just as worried as he is.
“I suppose there could be a curfew, or maybe everybody is just staying inside. I suppose there’s not much to come down here for on a weekend unless it’s for tourism.” Andy wishes he could sound more confident about it, maybe then he’d actually believe what he’s saying.
Not that Ianto appears to really be listening, as he nods distractedly and starts to try to hack into the national CCTV network.
After an hour or so with no success Ianto finally admits defeat and switches the computer off to conserve what little power they have.
* * *
Using the other power cell, it’s easy enough to leave the Hub. It’s getting to the exit that takes time.
Ianto stops several times as they climb the seemingly endless steps up to what Andy realises, once they get there, is the rather rundown looking tourist office just off the Plas.
“Where is everybody?” Andy asks quietly. He’s not sure why he’s whispering, although perhaps it’s something to do with the fact that the once busy city, a city that has been his home for his entire life, is now completely silent.
Stray pieces of litter drift aimlessly across pavement, while cars sit empty and still, their owners gone. There are dark stains on the concrete and in places the shop windows are broken, signs, Andy knows, of a struggle.. He’s almost grateful the CCTV cut out when it did, that he didn’t have to see the massacre of people that he was supposed to protect.
Behind him Ianto still looks tired and ill as he leans against a wall, keeping himself mostly hidden in the early evening shadows.
Andy glances down the street to where a car is a twisted wreck, the bonnet split by a lamppost it had obviously hit with some force. Smears of dried blood still cling to the shattered windscreen, the glass littering the pavement around it. It’s hard, Andy finds, not to think about which family had lost somebody dear to them in the crash. It’s a thought that becomes bleaker as he wonders if anybody is actually left alive to mourn them. He turns back to Ianto, asking, “Do you think they’re all dead?”
Ianto shakes his head slowly. “No. I think that they’ve been taken. Rounded up and taken somewhere.” He shivers and digs his hands into his coat pockets, looking cold and exhausted from their relatively short walk.
“Are you sure?”
“It’s too quiet for people to still be here.” Ianto looks around, his expression as bleak as his tone. “And it doesn’t smell nearly bad enough for them to all be dead.” He shivers, closing his eyes as if remembering something that he really doesn’t want to be remembering.
It’s only the haunted look in Ianto’s eyes that stops Andy from telling him just how cold what he’s just said sounded. He’s seen some of the older detectives in CID get a look like that sometimes. He doesn’t want to know what it is that can make somebody his own age get that look.
There’s a slightly awkward silence between them before Andy says, “We need to get some more food.”
The supplies that they have are limited and Andy knows that soon they’ll have to get more. Getting more, however, means stealing, looting from abandoned shops and supermarkets. Andy thinks that as a police officer he should be more against the idea than he is.
“There’s a Tesco not far from here.” Ianto looks around, checking roads and buildings. “I think we can get to it and stay mostly out of sight.”
Mostly, Andy decides, will have to do. It’s not like they really have much of a choice.
It’s not far to the small supermarket, and there’s no sign of any of the aliens as they go inside.
Some of the food is already off, the meat and frozen food having spoiled when the freezers shut down. Most of the rest is still all right, although the bread and fruit probably only has a few more days until it goes the same way.
Andy wonders if he should make a list of what they are taking, so that when all this is over he can pay for it. It seems to make sense for a moment, before the reality that nothing is ever going to be the same again hits him.
He’s not sure if it’s a laugh or a sob that escapes him, the terrible absurdity of their situation suddenly overwhelming. Holding a hand over his mouth, scared of the aliens maybe hearing him, Andy leans against the shelving, feeling tears run down his face.
Ianto puts a hand on his arm, his tone carefully neutral as he says, “We shouldn’t stay too long.”
Nodding, Andy wipes his eyes, grateful that Ianto has chosen not to ask him what’s wrong or make a big deal out of it.
Ianto gives his arm a small squeeze, then turns away and starts putting some cans into a carrier bag.
“Are you sure?” Andy asks, looking at the can of macaroni cheese that Ianto has picked up. “It’s going to taste awful cold.”
“There are a couple of camping stoves in storage back at the Hub. We can heat it up on that.”
They are both silent on the way back, lost in their own thoughts. Andy considers trying his mobile again now that they’re outside, but a quick glance at the display says that there is no reception and that the battery is almost gone.
By the time that they are back in the Hub, Ianto is almost shaking with tiredness, even though they have walked slowly and Andy has carried the bags. Letting Ianto rest for a while, Andy unpacks their food.
By the time that he’s done Ianto is dozing, curled up on the sofa where he’s spent most of the past few days.
Taking the device that Ianto had previously used to open the doors, Andy decides that it’s time for him to find the stove that Ianto had mentioned.
It doesn’t take too long to find the camping stove now that he can easily open most of the doors that he finds. He’s not sure why a supposedly top-secret organisation, based in a city, would actually need camping equipment, or why so much of it seems to be damaged. But he’s grateful that they do.
Andy doubts if he’ll be able to make the coffee anywhere near as good as the cup that Ianto had offered him that first morning in the Hub, but decides that any form of coffee is better than no coffee at all.
Their coffee and food heated, he sits down next to Ianto.
It’s surprising, Andy decides, how much of a difference simple things like having a hot drink or meal can make to how you feel.
The look of surprise and gratitude, and the quietly murmured thanks Ianto gives Andy as he hands him the food is been slightly unexpected. It makes Andy wonder when Ianto last had anybody who looked after him, or even cared about him.
The realisation that if he hadn’t met Ianto, then he’d have been at home asleep when then aliens attacked, Andy finds disturbing. There are too many questions that scare him and that he doesn’t want to know the answer to, like would he have woken up and tried to fight them? And if he had, whether he’d still be alive? Or would he have hidden, alone and scared until he’d disappeared along with everybody else in Cardiff?
The food suddenly seems less appealing, and the need to talk, and to reaffirm the fact that he’s not alone, more important. Turning to Ianto, Andy asks, “Do you think that the aliens have taken everybody away? Or just the people in Cardiff?”
“I don’t know.” Ianto puts down his fork. “If they know about the Rift, maybe they decided they should remove everybody from here just in case they try and use it.”
“That’s the second time you mentioned this Rift. What is it?”
Ianto sighs, picking half-heartedly at the remainder of his macaroni cheese. “Short answer is, it’s a tear in time and space. Aliens, people displaced in time and pieces of technology wash through, and occasionally things get taken.”
“And you can use it?” Andy asks hopefully. He’s not actually sure what use it might be to them, but anything that they can use seems like an improvement over their current situation.
“No,” Ianto says sharply. “Torchwood thought that they could, once. It didn’t work. We can’t control it, and I’m not going to try.”
The look on Ianto’s face dissuades Andy from asking any more. It’s obvious to him though that Ianto knows rather more about the Rift and any attempts to control it than he has said.
“Maybe everybody was evacuated to somewhere safe,” Andy says with an optimism that he really can’t bring himself to feel as he tries to turn the conversation in a more positive direction. “You said UNIT deals with aliens; maybe they’ve managed to stop them.”
“If UNIT were going to help, I think we’d have seen some sign of them.”
“Maybe they’re busy?” Andy takes his phone out his pocket, and looks at the almost empty battery indicator. “I’ve still got a signal, if you want to call them.”
“Don’t you find that suspicious?” Ianto asks, taking the phone from Andy.
“That it still works?” The fact that his phone is still working has been something that Andy has taken for granted; there doesn’t seem to be any good reason why it should stop working until the battery runs out.
“That Archangel is the only network still operating?” Ianto points to the small symbol next to the reception bar before handing the phone back to Andy.
“I hadn’t really thought about it,” Andy says, feeling like he’s missing the point of this conversation. “Is it important?”
“Maybe, maybe not. But I think it’s suspicious that Saxon was responsible for the construction of the Archangel network. It was Saxon who tried to get Torchwood out of the way before all this started, and it was him who called the press conference, and had arranged for UNIT to provide security for it.”
Put like that, Andy decides, it does start to seem very suspicious indeed. “So what are we going to do?”
“We need to find out what’s going on, and if it is Saxon who’s behind this, we need stop him.”
“How?” It seems like such an impossible task that Andy’s not even sure where or how they can start.
“I don’t know.” Ianto sips his coffee, looking determined. “But we won’t be the only ones. People aren’t going to just sit around and let everything they know be destroyed. They’ll fight back.”
Putting his plate down on the floor, Andy finishes his coffee before saying, “Okay, so if there’s no TV, and all the phone networks apart from Archangel are down, which means we can’t use the Internet either, how are they going to contact us?”
“Radio would probably be their best option.”
“But they’d be heard, wouldn’t they?”
Ianto frowns, thinking for a moment before answering, “Maybe not. If they use frequencies not commonly available on a standard radio.”
“If they don’t use normal radio frequencies how are we going to hear them?” Andy asks, picking up their plates and mugs.
“There should be some of the old radio frequency scanning equipment in storage from before the system became computerised. I doubt if any of it has been used since the seventies, but it should still be functional.”
* * *
Knowing what they are looking for and actually finding it, Andy discovers, are two very different things. The storage rooms aren’t lit, and the slow search by torchlight takes nearly two days before they find partially dismantled pieces of the radio scanning equipment.
Transporting it all up to the main part of the Hub is slow as well. With Ianto unable to lift any of the heavier parts and tiring easily, Andy finds that most of the work is up to him.
After the first day of carrying heavy boxes up dimly lit stairs, Andy decides that they need some kind of timetable if they are going to do this effectively. Times when they can rest and eat, so that they don’t end up burning themselves out.
Actually getting all the pieces of the radio scanner reassembled, and then connecting it to car battery taken from SUV, takes another two days.
While Ianto works on the radio, Andy checks and organises their supplies, and makes sure that Ianto remembers to eat and take the remaining antibiotics. Andy also takes over feeding the weevils and Myfanwy. The weevils, Andy finds, are easy to cater for, eating just about anything that he offers them. Myfanwy is more awkward, but tinned fish seems to work the best, and on Ianto’s advice the occasional bar of dark chocolate.
Eventually the radio scanner is ready. It’s almost anticlimactic, Andy thinks, as he listens to the static crackles as Ianto slowly moves the dial, noting the frequencies of every static crackle just in case it’s someone broadcasting.
As more days pass, checking the radio changes from being a source of hope to a demoralising one. Andy suspects that neither of them wants to be the first to say that maybe there isn’t anybody else out there, that as long as they don’t speak about it, it somehow makes it not true.
Andy feels a little guilty for letting Ianto do more than his share of listening. He tries to rationalize it by telling himself that he’s only doing it so that Ianto doesn’t put too much strain on his injuries, but he knows he can’t use that reason indefinitely. Eventually, Andy knows, he’s going to have to admit that the reason he’s spending less time on the radio is because the lack of success is making him more miserable every time he tries and fails to make contact with anybody.
Andy watches as Ianto takes off the headphones, his fingertips rubbing hard against his temples, trying to relieve the headache that usually went along with several hours on the radio.
As much as Andy has grown to hate the radio, he knows that Ianto won’t take a break unless he takes over.
Getting a bottle of water from their supplies, Andy walks over to Ianto and puts it down in front of him, before picking up the headphones. “Want to take a break?”
Ianto nods wearily and accepts the bottle. “There’s nothing,” he says despondently. “Just nothing. I thought there’d be…something.”
“Maybe they aren’t broadcasting all the time. We might have just missed it for today.” Andy wishes he sounded more optimistic. He thinks that maybe if he did, he might be able to convince himself that there actually is some purpose to what they are doing, rather than just getting headaches from listening to static for hours on end.
“Maybe you’re right.” Ianto doesn’t sound convinced either.
“Get some rest; I’ll wake you if we get anything.”
Ianto nods before going over to the sofa and lying down, an arm across his eyes.
The airwaves seem to be as empty as they have been since they started their search, and Andy is considering telling Ianto that maybe they should look for some other way of contacting people, when he gets a signal.
“…don’t think you’re alone. We are going to fight back. It might not be an easy fight or a quick one, but if we all work together we can succeed.” Making a note of the frequency Andy hits the record button before hurrying over to Ianto.
“There’s somebody on the radio,” Andy says excitedly as he shakes Ianto’s shoulder. “She’s talking about fighting back, that we’re going to win.”
Getting up quickly, Ianto listens to the remainder of the message with a look of relief and amazement on his face.
As the message ends Andy can see tears in Ianto’s eyes. Putting his hand on Ianto’s arm, Andy stands there for a moment, just trying to take in the fact that after so long without any contact with the outside world, they aren’t alone.
Wiping his eyes, Ianto sounds a little choked as he says, “That was Tosh. She’s all right.”
“Tosh? Who was with Gwen? Can we talk to her?” The realization that they’re not alone had been amazing, but this Andy decides is on another level. It’s almost like finding out that his family is okay.
“Yes, and no, this is only a receiver.” Ianto picks up the piece of paper that Andy has written the frequency down on. “Tosh will have set up a system so that she can scan for incoming radio transmissions. She’s brilliant like that.”
“So we need a short wave transmitter?” Andy asks, suddenly wishing that he knew a lot more about radios.
“Ideally a transceiver, then we wouldn’t have to run two different machines,” Ianto says a little distractedly as he checks the connections for the radio scanner.
“Do we have one?” Andy asks eagerly.
“No, but a shop that supplied amateur radio enthusiasts would probably be our best option to find one.”
“Any idea if there’s one of those in Cardiff?” Andy asks. He doesn’t know, but then amateur radio has never been something that’s interested him. He’s sure that Colin would have probably known; it was the sort of strange information that Colin always seemed to know. It’s what had made him so popular on the pub quiz team.
Ianto shakes his head. “No. But there’s a yellow pages in the tourist office.”
The walk up the almost endless seeming flights of stairs is every bit as tiring as Andy remembers it. The fact that Ianto doesn’t have to stop and rest as often as the last time, Andy decides is a good sign that everything is healing as it should.
While Ianto checks the yellow pages, Andy flicks through the stacks of tourist leaflets. Event lists for the Millennium Centre vie for space with leaflets about exhibitions at the castle, maps of the city centre and bus timetables.
Andy is about to ask Ianto if he’s had any luck when one of the leaflets for an exhibition at the Nation Museum of Wales catches his eye. Signal fires to Wi-Fi: Communication through the ages.
“What do you think?” Andy asks, putting the leaflet down in front of Ianto.
Picking it up, Ianto reads through the leaflet before saying, “I probably shouldn’t be suggesting this to a policeman, but I think we’ve got a museum to break into.”
* * *
The journey to the museum in Cathays Park is nerve wracking. Hurrying between buildings and hiding in shadows, then watching and waiting to see if they’ve been seen, makes what once would have been a forty-minute walk taking nearly an hour and a half.
The streets around the park and the National Museum are the same as those around the Millennium Centre. Cars sit abandoned, while the signs of a struggle can be seen in the broken windows, the dark stains on the pavements and the debris left behind as Saturday morning shoppers had run for their lives.
The museum, it turns out, doesn’t need to be broken into, as it had been open when the aliens had attacked.
The museum feels eerie as they search for the correct exhibit, their footsteps echoing on the tiled floors. Ianto moves slowly along the line of display cases, reading each label as he goes. Pausing occasionally, he checks some of the radios against what’s written in his notebook, then shakes his head and continues searching.
Andy tenses at the sound of breaking glass, expecting alarms to sound, even though the rational part of him knows that there hasn’t been any power to the alarms for over a week.
Turning around from where he’s been keeping watch on the corridor, Andy sees Ianto clearing the last of the glass from the front of one of the display cases.
Once Andy has reassured himself that nobody has heard them, he looks at the radio.
It consists of three unremarkable -looking metal boxes, one of which has a label on it proclaiming it to be a World War Two German SE 108/10 transceiver.
“Do you think it still works?” Andy shines his torch on the rather battered radio unit.
“I don’t know,” Ianto says with a sigh, turning the middle one of the three boxes over his hands, before putting it back in the display case. “The battery unit is dead.”
“It’s all been for nothing then?” Andy can’t keep the disappointment from his voice. He’d been so sure that this had been it, that finally something was going to go their way.
“Maybe not.” Ianto puts the remaining two boxes into the backpack he’s brought with him. “We can take it back with us, and I should be able to wire it up to an alternative power source.”
The walk back to the Hub is equally as fraught as their journey to the museum, and they have to hide several times as they see the aliens fly overhead. They are always too fast to get a good look at, but he supposes that he should be grateful that they always seem to be in a hurry as it means that there is less chance of the aliens spotting them.
* * *
“Well, this is it,” Ianto says to Andy as he switches the transceiver on. Holding down one of the buttons he speaks into the microphone. “Hello, Tosh. I hope you’re getting this. If you are, reply on the same band you used last Thursday.”
Standing behind Ianto, Andy wonders if Ianto feels as nervous and excited about this as he does. He supposes that Ianto must do as they wait for a reply.
It seems strange to be using an old World War Two radio like the SE 108/10 transceiver to contact resistance groups. It makes Andy think of Saturday teatimes around at his Auntie Ellen’s house watching ‘Allo, ‘Allo. Not that he’s trying to think about his relatives; at the moment he’s still clinging to the idea that no news is good news and that they’ve all managed to escape to somewhere safe.
It’s odd, now that Andy thinks of it, that a comedy set in one of the darkest periods of recent history had been such a success. It makes him wonder if in sixty years or so, people will make comedies about what they are living through now. He hopes so, because if they do, that would mean that they have somehow managed to win. And that, more than anything, Andy finds, is a thought worth holding on to.
A minute later there’s a reply. “Ianto? Is that you?” Tosh sounds cautious, like she’s almost not daring to hope she might be right.
“Yes. Tosh, are you all right?”
“Yes. I didn’t know if you…I mean we left you alone. One of use should have stayed with you.”
“It’s all right, I’m all right.” Ianto reassures her. “And I’m not alone. I met up with Andy.”
“Andy?”
“Andy Davidson, he used to work with Gwen.” Ianto pauses for a moment, before closing his eyes and asking a little unsteadily, “Gwen and Owen, they’re still with you aren’t they? They’re all right?”
The fact that Gwen might not be all right isn’t something that Andy’s considered, it just doesn’t seem possible. Andy’s hand grips the back of Ianto’s chair tighter, his breath catching until Tosh replies.
“Yes, they’re still here and still arguing about the best way to do things,” Tosh says fondly.
Letting out the breath he’d been holding Andy feels shaky and wrung out, the initial surge of relief at finding out Gwen is still alive tempered with the fact this may be the only time that he gets good news like this.
“It’s nice to know some things don’t change,” Ianto says, sounding as emotional as Andy feels. “Where are you?”
“It’s probably not a good idea to say, just in case we’ve got any unwelcome listeners.” There is the sound of paperwork being moved about before Tosh speaks again. “I’ve got an idea. Can you get to storage room two?”
Ianto looks confused for a moment, then smiles, saying, “Would this plan involve the Helixian frequency modulator? The one that you’d been working on before…” He stops, covering his mouth with his hand.
It’s at moments like this that Andy wonders how, given all that has happened, they are still functioning. Putting his hand on Ianto’s shoulder, Andy stands quietly behind him, offering what support he can.
Andy knows it’s not the first time that either of them has suddenly been overcome with the horror of everything that has happened, nor does he think it will be the last.
This silent reassurance that they’re not alone has become their method of coping. They don’t talk about it afterwards or even acknowledge that it happened, and Andy suspects that Ianto is as much lost for words to describe how he feels as Andy himself is.
“Before all this. Yes,” Tosh says gently, when Ianto doesn’t continue. “I’ve still got the decoding equation for it on my laptop.”
“Tosh, you’re brilliant. We should tell you that more often.” Ianto still sounds a little choked up as he finally replies.
As the conversation becomes more technical, and Ianto seems more composed, Andy stops listening, deciding that his time is probably better spent doing something that he actually understands.
Giving Ianto’s shoulder a small squeeze, Andy leaves Ianto to his discussion with Tosh and goes to find a couple of torches and some spare batteries so that everything will be ready when they start to search storage room two.
* * *
Finding and then connecting the Helixian frequency modulator, which Andy decides looks like a Rubik’s Cube with added flashing lights, proves to be almost as time consuming as getting the original radio scanning equipment to work.
However, once it is done, having a relatively secure method of communication seems worth all the long hours and frustration of trying to fit together two very different technologies.
Tosh’s nightly broadcasts soon become their eyes and ears to the world, providing them with information that Andy thinks that they would never have otherwise known. Information such as the fact that Harold Saxon has started calling himself the Master, and that he is the one responsible for bringing the aliens, the Toclafane, to Earth.
There is news of the human cost as well. That in the initial attack a tenth of the world’s population had died, and in the days that had followed many more had perished attempting to fight back.
There will have been more deaths than that, Andy’s sure of it. Shock, lack of medical care, disease and even suicide would all still be adding to the death toll. It’s loss of life on a scale that Andy is thankful he can’t imagine.
The haunted look in Ianto’s eyes as he listens makes Andy wonder once again just what sort of things Ianto has seen, what nightmare situations he’s lived through. It makes Andy want to be able to do something to help, to drive away the sadness that so often seems to cling to him. But where to begin escapes him.
There is some good news though, like the existence of resistance groups. And the knowledge that, despite the fact that any groups that are found are ruthlessly crushed, more and more seem to take their place.
The news that there are resistance groups in the UK is tempered with the knowledge that none of them are near Cardiff, or even in Wales. Although neither of them talk about it. Andy is sure that Ianto is just as disappointed as he is that none of the groups are close enough for them to join up with.
* * *
It’s almost a month after their first contact with Tosh when they get the news that there’s a resistance group based in or very near to Southampton.
They listen to the minimal information that Tosh has on the group; that they appear to be reasonably well organised and that they have some form of radio equipment although they don’t know how to use it properly.
Once Tosh has finished relaying her information, Ianto switches off the radio to conserve what power they have, and turns to Andy asking, “So what do you think we should do?”
* * *
The option of staying where they are and hoping that another, nearer resistance group forms is barely discussed.
Getting to Southampton, Andy knows, will be difficult. Once it would have only been a few hours drive away;, now it’s a hundred and forty miles of the unknown.
Tosh has provided them with as much information as she can on the current state of the UK. But the fact that she’s several thousand miles away, having crossed from Nepal into China, means that the information is sketchy at best.
The decision to travel on foot as far as the Severn Bridge isn’t an easy one, especially given the amount of time that it will take. Eventually though, after some discussion, they decide that a full night of walking more than outweighs the risks associated with being in the only moving vehicle in Cardiff.
There’s a lot to arrange before they leave, and Andy finds that every waking moment seems to be filled with finding or organising something. Their route out of Cardiff needs to be planned, food that’s light to carry and easy to prepare has to be found, and despite Andy’s initial reluctance, there’s weapons training to complete as well.
Despite the fact that they are going to join a group of people who are fighting back against the Master and the Toclafane, the idea of being armed, and of shooting and possibly killing somebody, hasn’t been something that Andy’s allowed himself to think about.
The gun feels strange and heavy in Andy’s hand as he practices on the firing range, the sound and smell of the gunfire louder and stronger than he’d thought it would be.
Andy doubts he’ll ever be more than a very average shot, but Ianto reassures him that average is good enough, pointing out that average means better than fifty percent of other people.
It’s the sense of normality and even fun that Ianto brings to these training sessions that makes Andy decides that Ianto is actually quite a good teacher. The rather hands- on approach that Ianto takes to weapons training is something of a surprise to Andy, given how reserved Ianto usual is. However, having Ianto standing behind him, Ianto’s hands over his own as he takes his first few shots, doesn’t feel as awkward as Andy thought it would.
One of the last jobs that needs doing is releasing the weevils and Myfanwy, as there is no way to leave enough food for them in the Hub for whatever amount of time Andy and Ianto are gone. Especially as neither of them knows if they will ever be coming back.
Releasing the weevils is easy, relatively speaking. A tranquilliser is hidden in their food, and once it has taken effect, he and Ianto carry the sedated weevils up from the cells to the Millennium Centre car park. From there, Ianto assures him, the weevils will be able to find their way back in to the city.
Myfanwy is harder, and Andy is sure that he can see confusion in her eyes as the drugs he’s put in her food take effect.
Ianto’s mood seems sombre as well as he helps Andy carry Myfanwy up the stairs and through to tourist information office to lay her on the edge of the Plas.
Watching from the relative safety of the office, Andy waits with Ianto until Myfanwy comes round. It’s not a long wait, and Myfanwy squawks as she slowly circles the Plas, gaining height, as the sun rises across the bay.
“Just something in my eye,” Ianto says a little too quickly to be convincing, as he turns away from watching Myfanwy leave.
“She’ll be all right.”
Ianto nods, still not looking at Andy. “Of course she will. We should finish packing.”
* * *
There’s a strange, nervous excitement to packing, Andy thinks. It feels like an odd cross between going on his first holiday abroad and his first day out on the beat.
The radio transceiver and the power cell are amongst the last things to be packed. The alien power cell is now full charged after using the car batteries from most of the vehicles parked in the Millennium Centre car park. It had been a slow job done over several nights, but a necessary one as Andy knows that it means that they’ll have all the power they need for the radio while they make their way to Southampton. It also is a lot lighter than carrying several batteries around with them, which would have been the only other alternative.
Locking the door to the tourist office, having previously secured the entrance down to the Hub inside, Ianto slowly runs a finger across the worn and faded woodwork before turning to Andy and nodding.
Now that they’re finally leaving Cardiff, there doesn’t seem to be anything left to say, or nothing that Andy thinks he could put into words. The fact that neither of them might ever see Cardiff again hasn’t been something they’ve spoken about, although Andy is sure that they’ve both thought it.
They leave the Hub soon after dark, the only illumination as they walk though the deserted city is a half moon that is frequently hidden by clouds.
Following the railway line as far as the outskirts of Newport, they keep to the south of the town, crossing the river Usk by the first bridge they come to.
There are a few lights still on in Newport, and the decision not to investigate and find out if they belong to people who have survived the Toclafane attack is a difficult one.
Andy knows why they don’t: the people could be working with the Toclafane. It had been one of the harder pieces of news to take in that Tosh had told them, that some people were choosing to work with the Master and the Toclafane in subduing the rest of the world’s population.
The farmland beyond Newport seems strange and exposed after they have spent so long in the city. The cover provided by the occasional farm building and by small groups of trees seems insubstantial compared to the rows of shops and houses in Cardiff and Newport.
The sun is just starting to come up as they reach Llandevenny, a village a couple of miles short of the Severn Bridge. Although there has been no sign of the Toclafane so far, they decide to stop and wait until evening before attempting to cross the Severn.
Sheltering in a barn on the edge of Llandevenny, Andy is glad that they’ve stopped. Fifteen miles of walking combined with the unfamiliar weight of a backpack on his shoulders, and the constant fear that might be spotted at any moment, has been exhausting.
After eating a cold meal from their supplies, not wanting to chance a fire because of the risks of being seen, and of setting light to the hay stacked around them, they secure the door to the barn the best they can and try to sleep.
Andy wakes once during the day. Lying wrapped in his sleeping bag, he blinks a few times in the bright sunlight that’s streaming through a gap in the door of the barn, trying to work out what has woken him.
Ianto is sitting up, head resting on knees drawn up to his chest, his breathing shaky enough that Andy wonders for a moment if Ianto is crying.
“What’s wrong?” Andy asks quietly, hoping that there is nobody outside near enough to hear them.
Lying down, Ianto rolls over so that his back is facing Andy before he replies, “It’s nothing. I just don’t like the countryside.”
A nightmare, Andy decides, knowing that they’ve both had a few since the Toclafane have taken over. He wonders if he should go over to Ianto, and try to reassure him that it was just a dream. Only Andy doubts if Ianto would appreciate it, so he just watches and waits until Ianto has fallen in to what appears to be a nightmare free sleep, before going back to sleep himself.
* * *
Ianto is still quiet and a little more withdrawn than usual as they leave the barn and continue toward the Severn Bridge, and Andy wonders if he did the right thing in not trying to find out what had been wrong.
The sun is low on the horizon as they cut across county, approaching the bridge from the shoreline, so that they have a good view of it without easily being seen.
Crouching down behind a low wall that runs along the edge of the farmland, Andy watches as men and women in military fatigues patrol the Severn road bridge, while the Toclafane flit overhead.
Going around them and over land would add miles to their journey, but even attempting to cross the bridge looks like suicide. And turning back would be admitting defeat before they’ve even really begun, and Andy doesn’t think either of them are ready to do that.
Beside him Ianto nudges his shoulder, nodding his head towards the shoreline. “What do you know about boats?”
Andy scans the shoreline where a few small rowing boats are moored along a jetty. “They float, that’s about it. Why?” He’s not sure why he’s bothering to ask why, it’s pretty obvious what Ianto is thinking: that they should cross the Severn estuary by boat.
“It’s about three and a half miles across the estuary here, we could probably row across in a hour or so.” Ianto sounds a little doubtful, as though he doesn’t quite trust his own plan to succeed. “The only problem is the tides.”
“Only the tides.” Andy can’t help but smile. “There’s the army with machine guns over there and aliens who want to kill us, and you’re worried about the tides?”
“The tides here are some of the strongest in the world; we time this wrong and we could be swept inland towards the bridge or out to sea,” Ianto says, as he looks at the tide line. “The tide is coming in at the moment. If we leave just before it starts to turn, then any of the movement inland should be cancelled out when the tide starts to go back out again.”
“All right,” Andy says quietly, looking at where a few boats are moored at a jetty a few hundred yards down the river from them.
The daylight is fading fast as they cautiously make their way down to the jetty, keeping the low sea wall between them and the patrols on the bridge.
The few boats that are moored along a small pier are exposed, and with the sun setting in the west behind them they both know that they would make easy targets to anybody who is watching.
There are a few boats though which have been dragged up onto the beach, their hulls resting in the shingle above the high water line. The tide is still coming in, the water lapping high on the shore as they ease one of the small boats down into the surf.
The sea, although Andy supposes it's technically still the river Severn here, is cold. The stiff breeze blowing in from the west makes the otherwise warm summer night feel chill.
The water is colder still he discovers as, after taking off his boots, he wades out into the shallows and steadies the boat as Ianto puts their packs and the radio aboard.
The splash of the oars is louder than Andy had thought it would be, and the first few minutes as they slowly pull away from the shore, he’s worried that somebody will hear them.
Neither of them are particularly sure how sharp the Toclafane’s hearing is, if indeed they actually have any hearing at all. What they are both sure of, though, is that right now would be a very bad time to find out.
As the last of the daylight fades, Andy glances back, suddenly needing one last glimpse of home. It seems strange to be leaving Wales. Not that he hasn't done it a thousand times before: it's just that the last time had been only a few weeks before this madness had descended. He and about a dozen of the other lads from the station had gone over to Ireland on a combined rugby and stag night weekend. It feels like a lifetime or more ago now.
The lack of light and the constant fear that they are about to be discovered make the journey seem almost endless. Andy is sure that they have been rowing for hours when he chances a quick glance at his watch. It’s almost disappointing to realise that it’s little more than an hour since they left the muddy beach just outside Newport.
Andy estimates that they are just over half way across the estuary when they feel the tide start to change, the pull against the oars getting stronger.
Each stroke of the oars takes more and more effort to keep the boat on course, and for the first time since they started rowing Andy is glad that they don’t have any light; he really doesn’t want to see the blisters that he can feel on his hands.
They are both almost shaking with tiredness as they drag the boat up on to the shore, the first faint glow of dawn starting to appear on the horizon.
There’s no sign of the Toclafane or any people as they shoulder their packs and make for the houses overlooking in the bay. They would have been expensive houses once, Andy thinks as they cautiously approach the nearest of them.
The door to the house is ajar, the carpet in the hallway inside stained with dried blood and strewn with children’s toys. Andy swallows hard. It’s hardly the worst sight that they’ve seen or probably will see, but anything with kids is hard. It was something that he’d learnt soon after joining the force. That no matter how bad something was, if it involved kids, it was always worse.
For a moment Andy considers asking Ianto if they can find somewhere else. However, the early morning sunlight that is starting to creep in through the windows soon puts pay to that idea. The need for safety and rest overcomes the fear of what he might find if they venture further into the house.
There is nothing else in the house though, just the debris of people leaving in a hurry.
Carrying their packs down to the small cellar under the house they secure the door. Getting out his sleeping bag, Andy decides that anything else like eating or working out exactly where they are can wait until tomorrow.
* * *
Andy wakes just before nightfall to the distant sound of a dog barking and the smell of coffee brewing.
Ianto is already awake, the map that they’ve brought with them spread out on the floor in front of him, as he waits for the coffee to brew.
Stiff and a little sore from the previous night’s rowing and from sleeping on the floor, Andy groans quietly as he gets to his feet.
Ianto looks round at the sound before giving Andy a sympathetic look and saying, “Not just me then?”
Andy shakes his head before helping himself to some of the coffee. It’s black and slightly bitter, and Andy wishes that he’d got some milk to put in it, but knows that’s probably not going to be possible for some time, short of finding a cow and learning how to milk it.
Drinking his coffee slowly, Andy wonders why it’s stupid little things that he’s started to miss the most. Milk is fairly high on the list, and so are bread and eggs. Not being able to have a normal breakfast, Andy decides, makes everything seem worse. “So where are we?”
Ianto points to a small town on the map that is just north of Weston-Super-Mare, saying, “Clevedon. The current pulled us at lot further south than I thought it would.”
The map shows the Severn widening dramatically after Weston-Super-Mare, and Andy knows that if they’d drifted beyond there then they might not have reached land at all. He’s glad now that he’d been too tired when they’d finally reached land to even consider how close they’d come to not making it.
“Do you think we should keep walking or do you want to try to find a car?” Andy asks, looking at the map and at the hundred or so miles that still lay between them and Southampton.
Taking some cereal bars out of his pack, Ianto hands a couple to Andy before shaking his head. “Until we find out if the roads are being watched like the bridge was, I think that we should stay on foot.”
Andy nods, knowing what Ianto has just said is sensible, sometimes Andy doubts Ianto is capable of suggesting anything that isn’t sensible; It’s disappointing though, the thought of miles of walking carrying a heavy pack.
Ianto looks at the scale of the map, and then at the distance between Clevedon and Southampton, saying, “Even if we can’t get a car, we should be able to average twenty miles a night or so on foot. We’ll be there in about five or six days.”
Hoping that it really doesn’t come to that, Andy finishes his breakfast.
* * *
If there’s anybody still living in Clevedon, they are keeping themselves well hidden, Andy decides, as he and Ianto make their way between rows of houses.
The M5 that cuts along the eastern edge of the town is just as deserted, the six lanes of asphalt looking strange and bare without any traffic on them. Once, Andy knows, it would have been busy with lorries and cars making their way to and from the port at Bristol.
Scrambling down the steep embankment at the side of the motorway, Andy is about to cross it when he sees the glow of headlights in the distance, and Ianto grabs his arm putting him back to hide amongst bushes at the slope.
Lying amongst the scrubby trees and long grass, his heavy pack feeling like it’s pressing him into the ground, Andy watches as a convoy of buses, escorted by military vehicles, pass by.
They are moving too fast for Andy to be able to see anything beyond the fact that the buses are occupied and that the soldiers, who are mostly travelling in the back of old open backed Land Rovers, are armed
As the last of the vehicles pass him, Andy notices that a struggle has broken out on board one of the buses. Glancing over at Ianto, Andy wonders if he should suggest doing something to help the man on the bus.
There’s no time to do anything as the bus and the jeep that’s driving along side it stop a few hundred yards up the motorway from where Andy and Ianto are hidden.
Three soldiers get out of the jeep and onto the bus. A moment later they drag a man from the bus and make him kneel in the road, his hands on his head.
They are too far away to clearly hear the conversation between the man and the soldiers, but the sound of the single shot that strikes the man in the head is shockingly loud in the otherwise still night.
Sick. Angry. Scared. Andy’s not sure which he feels the most. Closing his eyes, Andy tries to blot out the way the man had crumpled to the ground as the bullet struck.
“Just breathe, slow and steady, that’s it,” Ianto says, rubbing his hand across Andy’s back, trying to calm him. “It’s all right, you’re all right.”
Andy wants to tell Ianto that no, it’s not all right, that he’s just seen somebody murdered in front of him, but it’s too hard to form the words. Andy’s not sure when Ianto removed his pack for him, or when he started shaking, tears wet on his face.
The convoy has moved on and the motorway is dark and silent once more when Ianto helps Andy to his feet. Shivering, Andy finds he can’t look at the stretch of motorway where the body still lies, abandoned like so much road kill.
“I know it sounds awful, but it gets easier,” Ianto says quietly, as he helps Andy put his backpack back on. “The first time I saw someone die, I didn’t think I’d ever get it out of my mind. You do though.” Ianto looks away, his voice strained, “You realise that there are worse things than a quick death.”
Andy doesn’t answer. He doesn’t want it to get easier, to become desensitised to death like this, to any form of death; it just doesn’t seem right.
Still feeling shaky, Andy is grateful that Ianto stays close to him, occasionally reaching out to touch his arm as they cross the motorway and into the countryside beyond.
part three, part four.
Part one
“We’ve got power,” Ianto says with an exhausted smile, looking like he might not have the energy to get up from where he’s lying half under one of the workstation.
After so long trapped underground, Andy’s first instinct is to rush outside and find out what’s been going on. That and to phone his nan and mum and find out if the rest of the family is all right. Fortunately, he supposes, his next instinct, the one that says find out what you’re going to be facing, wins out.
Helping Ianto to his feet, Andy asks, “Can we still tap into the CCTV or get the TV going?”
“I don’t know. But I can try.”
All the TV stations that they try stay resolutely blank. Andy tells himself that it’s probably just because the transmitter over at Wenvoe is down. The luck with the CCTV feeds is little better; the one and only view that seems to work is that of the steps outside the Sennedd building.
Normally on a sunny weekday afternoon he’d expect to see at least a few tourists hanging about. Except there is nothing. Even the seagulls seem to have deserted the bay, giving the whole scene an eerie, deserted air about it.
“It doesn’t mean anything.” The words are confident, but there is a slight waver in Ianto’s voice that lets Andy know that he’s just as worried as he is.
“I suppose there could be a curfew, or maybe everybody is just staying inside. I suppose there’s not much to come down here for on a weekend unless it’s for tourism.” Andy wishes he could sound more confident about it, maybe then he’d actually believe what he’s saying.
Not that Ianto appears to really be listening, as he nods distractedly and starts to try to hack into the national CCTV network.
After an hour or so with no success Ianto finally admits defeat and switches the computer off to conserve what little power they have.
* * *
Using the other power cell, it’s easy enough to leave the Hub. It’s getting to the exit that takes time.
Ianto stops several times as they climb the seemingly endless steps up to what Andy realises, once they get there, is the rather rundown looking tourist office just off the Plas.
“Where is everybody?” Andy asks quietly. He’s not sure why he’s whispering, although perhaps it’s something to do with the fact that the once busy city, a city that has been his home for his entire life, is now completely silent.
Stray pieces of litter drift aimlessly across pavement, while cars sit empty and still, their owners gone. There are dark stains on the concrete and in places the shop windows are broken, signs, Andy knows, of a struggle.. He’s almost grateful the CCTV cut out when it did, that he didn’t have to see the massacre of people that he was supposed to protect.
Behind him Ianto still looks tired and ill as he leans against a wall, keeping himself mostly hidden in the early evening shadows.
Andy glances down the street to where a car is a twisted wreck, the bonnet split by a lamppost it had obviously hit with some force. Smears of dried blood still cling to the shattered windscreen, the glass littering the pavement around it. It’s hard, Andy finds, not to think about which family had lost somebody dear to them in the crash. It’s a thought that becomes bleaker as he wonders if anybody is actually left alive to mourn them. He turns back to Ianto, asking, “Do you think they’re all dead?”
Ianto shakes his head slowly. “No. I think that they’ve been taken. Rounded up and taken somewhere.” He shivers and digs his hands into his coat pockets, looking cold and exhausted from their relatively short walk.
“Are you sure?”
“It’s too quiet for people to still be here.” Ianto looks around, his expression as bleak as his tone. “And it doesn’t smell nearly bad enough for them to all be dead.” He shivers, closing his eyes as if remembering something that he really doesn’t want to be remembering.
It’s only the haunted look in Ianto’s eyes that stops Andy from telling him just how cold what he’s just said sounded. He’s seen some of the older detectives in CID get a look like that sometimes. He doesn’t want to know what it is that can make somebody his own age get that look.
There’s a slightly awkward silence between them before Andy says, “We need to get some more food.”
The supplies that they have are limited and Andy knows that soon they’ll have to get more. Getting more, however, means stealing, looting from abandoned shops and supermarkets. Andy thinks that as a police officer he should be more against the idea than he is.
“There’s a Tesco not far from here.” Ianto looks around, checking roads and buildings. “I think we can get to it and stay mostly out of sight.”
Mostly, Andy decides, will have to do. It’s not like they really have much of a choice.
It’s not far to the small supermarket, and there’s no sign of any of the aliens as they go inside.
Some of the food is already off, the meat and frozen food having spoiled when the freezers shut down. Most of the rest is still all right, although the bread and fruit probably only has a few more days until it goes the same way.
Andy wonders if he should make a list of what they are taking, so that when all this is over he can pay for it. It seems to make sense for a moment, before the reality that nothing is ever going to be the same again hits him.
He’s not sure if it’s a laugh or a sob that escapes him, the terrible absurdity of their situation suddenly overwhelming. Holding a hand over his mouth, scared of the aliens maybe hearing him, Andy leans against the shelving, feeling tears run down his face.
Ianto puts a hand on his arm, his tone carefully neutral as he says, “We shouldn’t stay too long.”
Nodding, Andy wipes his eyes, grateful that Ianto has chosen not to ask him what’s wrong or make a big deal out of it.
Ianto gives his arm a small squeeze, then turns away and starts putting some cans into a carrier bag.
“Are you sure?” Andy asks, looking at the can of macaroni cheese that Ianto has picked up. “It’s going to taste awful cold.”
“There are a couple of camping stoves in storage back at the Hub. We can heat it up on that.”
They are both silent on the way back, lost in their own thoughts. Andy considers trying his mobile again now that they’re outside, but a quick glance at the display says that there is no reception and that the battery is almost gone.
By the time that they are back in the Hub, Ianto is almost shaking with tiredness, even though they have walked slowly and Andy has carried the bags. Letting Ianto rest for a while, Andy unpacks their food.
By the time that he’s done Ianto is dozing, curled up on the sofa where he’s spent most of the past few days.
Taking the device that Ianto had previously used to open the doors, Andy decides that it’s time for him to find the stove that Ianto had mentioned.
It doesn’t take too long to find the camping stove now that he can easily open most of the doors that he finds. He’s not sure why a supposedly top-secret organisation, based in a city, would actually need camping equipment, or why so much of it seems to be damaged. But he’s grateful that they do.
Andy doubts if he’ll be able to make the coffee anywhere near as good as the cup that Ianto had offered him that first morning in the Hub, but decides that any form of coffee is better than no coffee at all.
Their coffee and food heated, he sits down next to Ianto.
It’s surprising, Andy decides, how much of a difference simple things like having a hot drink or meal can make to how you feel.
The look of surprise and gratitude, and the quietly murmured thanks Ianto gives Andy as he hands him the food is been slightly unexpected. It makes Andy wonder when Ianto last had anybody who looked after him, or even cared about him.
The realisation that if he hadn’t met Ianto, then he’d have been at home asleep when then aliens attacked, Andy finds disturbing. There are too many questions that scare him and that he doesn’t want to know the answer to, like would he have woken up and tried to fight them? And if he had, whether he’d still be alive? Or would he have hidden, alone and scared until he’d disappeared along with everybody else in Cardiff?
The food suddenly seems less appealing, and the need to talk, and to reaffirm the fact that he’s not alone, more important. Turning to Ianto, Andy asks, “Do you think that the aliens have taken everybody away? Or just the people in Cardiff?”
“I don’t know.” Ianto puts down his fork. “If they know about the Rift, maybe they decided they should remove everybody from here just in case they try and use it.”
“That’s the second time you mentioned this Rift. What is it?”
Ianto sighs, picking half-heartedly at the remainder of his macaroni cheese. “Short answer is, it’s a tear in time and space. Aliens, people displaced in time and pieces of technology wash through, and occasionally things get taken.”
“And you can use it?” Andy asks hopefully. He’s not actually sure what use it might be to them, but anything that they can use seems like an improvement over their current situation.
“No,” Ianto says sharply. “Torchwood thought that they could, once. It didn’t work. We can’t control it, and I’m not going to try.”
The look on Ianto’s face dissuades Andy from asking any more. It’s obvious to him though that Ianto knows rather more about the Rift and any attempts to control it than he has said.
“Maybe everybody was evacuated to somewhere safe,” Andy says with an optimism that he really can’t bring himself to feel as he tries to turn the conversation in a more positive direction. “You said UNIT deals with aliens; maybe they’ve managed to stop them.”
“If UNIT were going to help, I think we’d have seen some sign of them.”
“Maybe they’re busy?” Andy takes his phone out his pocket, and looks at the almost empty battery indicator. “I’ve still got a signal, if you want to call them.”
“Don’t you find that suspicious?” Ianto asks, taking the phone from Andy.
“That it still works?” The fact that his phone is still working has been something that Andy has taken for granted; there doesn’t seem to be any good reason why it should stop working until the battery runs out.
“That Archangel is the only network still operating?” Ianto points to the small symbol next to the reception bar before handing the phone back to Andy.
“I hadn’t really thought about it,” Andy says, feeling like he’s missing the point of this conversation. “Is it important?”
“Maybe, maybe not. But I think it’s suspicious that Saxon was responsible for the construction of the Archangel network. It was Saxon who tried to get Torchwood out of the way before all this started, and it was him who called the press conference, and had arranged for UNIT to provide security for it.”
Put like that, Andy decides, it does start to seem very suspicious indeed. “So what are we going to do?”
“We need to find out what’s going on, and if it is Saxon who’s behind this, we need stop him.”
“How?” It seems like such an impossible task that Andy’s not even sure where or how they can start.
“I don’t know.” Ianto sips his coffee, looking determined. “But we won’t be the only ones. People aren’t going to just sit around and let everything they know be destroyed. They’ll fight back.”
Putting his plate down on the floor, Andy finishes his coffee before saying, “Okay, so if there’s no TV, and all the phone networks apart from Archangel are down, which means we can’t use the Internet either, how are they going to contact us?”
“Radio would probably be their best option.”
“But they’d be heard, wouldn’t they?”
Ianto frowns, thinking for a moment before answering, “Maybe not. If they use frequencies not commonly available on a standard radio.”
“If they don’t use normal radio frequencies how are we going to hear them?” Andy asks, picking up their plates and mugs.
“There should be some of the old radio frequency scanning equipment in storage from before the system became computerised. I doubt if any of it has been used since the seventies, but it should still be functional.”
* * *
Knowing what they are looking for and actually finding it, Andy discovers, are two very different things. The storage rooms aren’t lit, and the slow search by torchlight takes nearly two days before they find partially dismantled pieces of the radio scanning equipment.
Transporting it all up to the main part of the Hub is slow as well. With Ianto unable to lift any of the heavier parts and tiring easily, Andy finds that most of the work is up to him.
After the first day of carrying heavy boxes up dimly lit stairs, Andy decides that they need some kind of timetable if they are going to do this effectively. Times when they can rest and eat, so that they don’t end up burning themselves out.
Actually getting all the pieces of the radio scanner reassembled, and then connecting it to car battery taken from SUV, takes another two days.
While Ianto works on the radio, Andy checks and organises their supplies, and makes sure that Ianto remembers to eat and take the remaining antibiotics. Andy also takes over feeding the weevils and Myfanwy. The weevils, Andy finds, are easy to cater for, eating just about anything that he offers them. Myfanwy is more awkward, but tinned fish seems to work the best, and on Ianto’s advice the occasional bar of dark chocolate.
Eventually the radio scanner is ready. It’s almost anticlimactic, Andy thinks, as he listens to the static crackles as Ianto slowly moves the dial, noting the frequencies of every static crackle just in case it’s someone broadcasting.
As more days pass, checking the radio changes from being a source of hope to a demoralising one. Andy suspects that neither of them wants to be the first to say that maybe there isn’t anybody else out there, that as long as they don’t speak about it, it somehow makes it not true.
Andy feels a little guilty for letting Ianto do more than his share of listening. He tries to rationalize it by telling himself that he’s only doing it so that Ianto doesn’t put too much strain on his injuries, but he knows he can’t use that reason indefinitely. Eventually, Andy knows, he’s going to have to admit that the reason he’s spending less time on the radio is because the lack of success is making him more miserable every time he tries and fails to make contact with anybody.
Andy watches as Ianto takes off the headphones, his fingertips rubbing hard against his temples, trying to relieve the headache that usually went along with several hours on the radio.
As much as Andy has grown to hate the radio, he knows that Ianto won’t take a break unless he takes over.
Getting a bottle of water from their supplies, Andy walks over to Ianto and puts it down in front of him, before picking up the headphones. “Want to take a break?”
Ianto nods wearily and accepts the bottle. “There’s nothing,” he says despondently. “Just nothing. I thought there’d be…something.”
“Maybe they aren’t broadcasting all the time. We might have just missed it for today.” Andy wishes he sounded more optimistic. He thinks that maybe if he did, he might be able to convince himself that there actually is some purpose to what they are doing, rather than just getting headaches from listening to static for hours on end.
“Maybe you’re right.” Ianto doesn’t sound convinced either.
“Get some rest; I’ll wake you if we get anything.”
Ianto nods before going over to the sofa and lying down, an arm across his eyes.
The airwaves seem to be as empty as they have been since they started their search, and Andy is considering telling Ianto that maybe they should look for some other way of contacting people, when he gets a signal.
“…don’t think you’re alone. We are going to fight back. It might not be an easy fight or a quick one, but if we all work together we can succeed.” Making a note of the frequency Andy hits the record button before hurrying over to Ianto.
“There’s somebody on the radio,” Andy says excitedly as he shakes Ianto’s shoulder. “She’s talking about fighting back, that we’re going to win.”
Getting up quickly, Ianto listens to the remainder of the message with a look of relief and amazement on his face.
As the message ends Andy can see tears in Ianto’s eyes. Putting his hand on Ianto’s arm, Andy stands there for a moment, just trying to take in the fact that after so long without any contact with the outside world, they aren’t alone.
Wiping his eyes, Ianto sounds a little choked as he says, “That was Tosh. She’s all right.”
“Tosh? Who was with Gwen? Can we talk to her?” The realization that they’re not alone had been amazing, but this Andy decides is on another level. It’s almost like finding out that his family is okay.
“Yes, and no, this is only a receiver.” Ianto picks up the piece of paper that Andy has written the frequency down on. “Tosh will have set up a system so that she can scan for incoming radio transmissions. She’s brilliant like that.”
“So we need a short wave transmitter?” Andy asks, suddenly wishing that he knew a lot more about radios.
“Ideally a transceiver, then we wouldn’t have to run two different machines,” Ianto says a little distractedly as he checks the connections for the radio scanner.
“Do we have one?” Andy asks eagerly.
“No, but a shop that supplied amateur radio enthusiasts would probably be our best option to find one.”
“Any idea if there’s one of those in Cardiff?” Andy asks. He doesn’t know, but then amateur radio has never been something that’s interested him. He’s sure that Colin would have probably known; it was the sort of strange information that Colin always seemed to know. It’s what had made him so popular on the pub quiz team.
Ianto shakes his head. “No. But there’s a yellow pages in the tourist office.”
The walk up the almost endless seeming flights of stairs is every bit as tiring as Andy remembers it. The fact that Ianto doesn’t have to stop and rest as often as the last time, Andy decides is a good sign that everything is healing as it should.
While Ianto checks the yellow pages, Andy flicks through the stacks of tourist leaflets. Event lists for the Millennium Centre vie for space with leaflets about exhibitions at the castle, maps of the city centre and bus timetables.
Andy is about to ask Ianto if he’s had any luck when one of the leaflets for an exhibition at the Nation Museum of Wales catches his eye. Signal fires to Wi-Fi: Communication through the ages.
“What do you think?” Andy asks, putting the leaflet down in front of Ianto.
Picking it up, Ianto reads through the leaflet before saying, “I probably shouldn’t be suggesting this to a policeman, but I think we’ve got a museum to break into.”
* * *
The journey to the museum in Cathays Park is nerve wracking. Hurrying between buildings and hiding in shadows, then watching and waiting to see if they’ve been seen, makes what once would have been a forty-minute walk taking nearly an hour and a half.
The streets around the park and the National Museum are the same as those around the Millennium Centre. Cars sit abandoned, while the signs of a struggle can be seen in the broken windows, the dark stains on the pavements and the debris left behind as Saturday morning shoppers had run for their lives.
The museum, it turns out, doesn’t need to be broken into, as it had been open when the aliens had attacked.
The museum feels eerie as they search for the correct exhibit, their footsteps echoing on the tiled floors. Ianto moves slowly along the line of display cases, reading each label as he goes. Pausing occasionally, he checks some of the radios against what’s written in his notebook, then shakes his head and continues searching.
Andy tenses at the sound of breaking glass, expecting alarms to sound, even though the rational part of him knows that there hasn’t been any power to the alarms for over a week.
Turning around from where he’s been keeping watch on the corridor, Andy sees Ianto clearing the last of the glass from the front of one of the display cases.
Once Andy has reassured himself that nobody has heard them, he looks at the radio.
It consists of three unremarkable -looking metal boxes, one of which has a label on it proclaiming it to be a World War Two German SE 108/10 transceiver.
“Do you think it still works?” Andy shines his torch on the rather battered radio unit.
“I don’t know,” Ianto says with a sigh, turning the middle one of the three boxes over his hands, before putting it back in the display case. “The battery unit is dead.”
“It’s all been for nothing then?” Andy can’t keep the disappointment from his voice. He’d been so sure that this had been it, that finally something was going to go their way.
“Maybe not.” Ianto puts the remaining two boxes into the backpack he’s brought with him. “We can take it back with us, and I should be able to wire it up to an alternative power source.”
The walk back to the Hub is equally as fraught as their journey to the museum, and they have to hide several times as they see the aliens fly overhead. They are always too fast to get a good look at, but he supposes that he should be grateful that they always seem to be in a hurry as it means that there is less chance of the aliens spotting them.
* * *
“Well, this is it,” Ianto says to Andy as he switches the transceiver on. Holding down one of the buttons he speaks into the microphone. “Hello, Tosh. I hope you’re getting this. If you are, reply on the same band you used last Thursday.”
Standing behind Ianto, Andy wonders if Ianto feels as nervous and excited about this as he does. He supposes that Ianto must do as they wait for a reply.
It seems strange to be using an old World War Two radio like the SE 108/10 transceiver to contact resistance groups. It makes Andy think of Saturday teatimes around at his Auntie Ellen’s house watching ‘Allo, ‘Allo. Not that he’s trying to think about his relatives; at the moment he’s still clinging to the idea that no news is good news and that they’ve all managed to escape to somewhere safe.
It’s odd, now that Andy thinks of it, that a comedy set in one of the darkest periods of recent history had been such a success. It makes him wonder if in sixty years or so, people will make comedies about what they are living through now. He hopes so, because if they do, that would mean that they have somehow managed to win. And that, more than anything, Andy finds, is a thought worth holding on to.
A minute later there’s a reply. “Ianto? Is that you?” Tosh sounds cautious, like she’s almost not daring to hope she might be right.
“Yes. Tosh, are you all right?”
“Yes. I didn’t know if you…I mean we left you alone. One of use should have stayed with you.”
“It’s all right, I’m all right.” Ianto reassures her. “And I’m not alone. I met up with Andy.”
“Andy?”
“Andy Davidson, he used to work with Gwen.” Ianto pauses for a moment, before closing his eyes and asking a little unsteadily, “Gwen and Owen, they’re still with you aren’t they? They’re all right?”
The fact that Gwen might not be all right isn’t something that Andy’s considered, it just doesn’t seem possible. Andy’s hand grips the back of Ianto’s chair tighter, his breath catching until Tosh replies.
“Yes, they’re still here and still arguing about the best way to do things,” Tosh says fondly.
Letting out the breath he’d been holding Andy feels shaky and wrung out, the initial surge of relief at finding out Gwen is still alive tempered with the fact this may be the only time that he gets good news like this.
“It’s nice to know some things don’t change,” Ianto says, sounding as emotional as Andy feels. “Where are you?”
“It’s probably not a good idea to say, just in case we’ve got any unwelcome listeners.” There is the sound of paperwork being moved about before Tosh speaks again. “I’ve got an idea. Can you get to storage room two?”
Ianto looks confused for a moment, then smiles, saying, “Would this plan involve the Helixian frequency modulator? The one that you’d been working on before…” He stops, covering his mouth with his hand.
It’s at moments like this that Andy wonders how, given all that has happened, they are still functioning. Putting his hand on Ianto’s shoulder, Andy stands quietly behind him, offering what support he can.
Andy knows it’s not the first time that either of them has suddenly been overcome with the horror of everything that has happened, nor does he think it will be the last.
This silent reassurance that they’re not alone has become their method of coping. They don’t talk about it afterwards or even acknowledge that it happened, and Andy suspects that Ianto is as much lost for words to describe how he feels as Andy himself is.
“Before all this. Yes,” Tosh says gently, when Ianto doesn’t continue. “I’ve still got the decoding equation for it on my laptop.”
“Tosh, you’re brilliant. We should tell you that more often.” Ianto still sounds a little choked up as he finally replies.
As the conversation becomes more technical, and Ianto seems more composed, Andy stops listening, deciding that his time is probably better spent doing something that he actually understands.
Giving Ianto’s shoulder a small squeeze, Andy leaves Ianto to his discussion with Tosh and goes to find a couple of torches and some spare batteries so that everything will be ready when they start to search storage room two.
* * *
Finding and then connecting the Helixian frequency modulator, which Andy decides looks like a Rubik’s Cube with added flashing lights, proves to be almost as time consuming as getting the original radio scanning equipment to work.
However, once it is done, having a relatively secure method of communication seems worth all the long hours and frustration of trying to fit together two very different technologies.
Tosh’s nightly broadcasts soon become their eyes and ears to the world, providing them with information that Andy thinks that they would never have otherwise known. Information such as the fact that Harold Saxon has started calling himself the Master, and that he is the one responsible for bringing the aliens, the Toclafane, to Earth.
There is news of the human cost as well. That in the initial attack a tenth of the world’s population had died, and in the days that had followed many more had perished attempting to fight back.
There will have been more deaths than that, Andy’s sure of it. Shock, lack of medical care, disease and even suicide would all still be adding to the death toll. It’s loss of life on a scale that Andy is thankful he can’t imagine.
The haunted look in Ianto’s eyes as he listens makes Andy wonder once again just what sort of things Ianto has seen, what nightmare situations he’s lived through. It makes Andy want to be able to do something to help, to drive away the sadness that so often seems to cling to him. But where to begin escapes him.
There is some good news though, like the existence of resistance groups. And the knowledge that, despite the fact that any groups that are found are ruthlessly crushed, more and more seem to take their place.
The news that there are resistance groups in the UK is tempered with the knowledge that none of them are near Cardiff, or even in Wales. Although neither of them talk about it. Andy is sure that Ianto is just as disappointed as he is that none of the groups are close enough for them to join up with.
* * *
It’s almost a month after their first contact with Tosh when they get the news that there’s a resistance group based in or very near to Southampton.
They listen to the minimal information that Tosh has on the group; that they appear to be reasonably well organised and that they have some form of radio equipment although they don’t know how to use it properly.
Once Tosh has finished relaying her information, Ianto switches off the radio to conserve what power they have, and turns to Andy asking, “So what do you think we should do?”
* * *
The option of staying where they are and hoping that another, nearer resistance group forms is barely discussed.
Getting to Southampton, Andy knows, will be difficult. Once it would have only been a few hours drive away;, now it’s a hundred and forty miles of the unknown.
Tosh has provided them with as much information as she can on the current state of the UK. But the fact that she’s several thousand miles away, having crossed from Nepal into China, means that the information is sketchy at best.
The decision to travel on foot as far as the Severn Bridge isn’t an easy one, especially given the amount of time that it will take. Eventually though, after some discussion, they decide that a full night of walking more than outweighs the risks associated with being in the only moving vehicle in Cardiff.
There’s a lot to arrange before they leave, and Andy finds that every waking moment seems to be filled with finding or organising something. Their route out of Cardiff needs to be planned, food that’s light to carry and easy to prepare has to be found, and despite Andy’s initial reluctance, there’s weapons training to complete as well.
Despite the fact that they are going to join a group of people who are fighting back against the Master and the Toclafane, the idea of being armed, and of shooting and possibly killing somebody, hasn’t been something that Andy’s allowed himself to think about.
The gun feels strange and heavy in Andy’s hand as he practices on the firing range, the sound and smell of the gunfire louder and stronger than he’d thought it would be.
Andy doubts he’ll ever be more than a very average shot, but Ianto reassures him that average is good enough, pointing out that average means better than fifty percent of other people.
It’s the sense of normality and even fun that Ianto brings to these training sessions that makes Andy decides that Ianto is actually quite a good teacher. The rather hands- on approach that Ianto takes to weapons training is something of a surprise to Andy, given how reserved Ianto usual is. However, having Ianto standing behind him, Ianto’s hands over his own as he takes his first few shots, doesn’t feel as awkward as Andy thought it would.
One of the last jobs that needs doing is releasing the weevils and Myfanwy, as there is no way to leave enough food for them in the Hub for whatever amount of time Andy and Ianto are gone. Especially as neither of them knows if they will ever be coming back.
Releasing the weevils is easy, relatively speaking. A tranquilliser is hidden in their food, and once it has taken effect, he and Ianto carry the sedated weevils up from the cells to the Millennium Centre car park. From there, Ianto assures him, the weevils will be able to find their way back in to the city.
Myfanwy is harder, and Andy is sure that he can see confusion in her eyes as the drugs he’s put in her food take effect.
Ianto’s mood seems sombre as well as he helps Andy carry Myfanwy up the stairs and through to tourist information office to lay her on the edge of the Plas.
Watching from the relative safety of the office, Andy waits with Ianto until Myfanwy comes round. It’s not a long wait, and Myfanwy squawks as she slowly circles the Plas, gaining height, as the sun rises across the bay.
“Just something in my eye,” Ianto says a little too quickly to be convincing, as he turns away from watching Myfanwy leave.
“She’ll be all right.”
Ianto nods, still not looking at Andy. “Of course she will. We should finish packing.”
* * *
There’s a strange, nervous excitement to packing, Andy thinks. It feels like an odd cross between going on his first holiday abroad and his first day out on the beat.
The radio transceiver and the power cell are amongst the last things to be packed. The alien power cell is now full charged after using the car batteries from most of the vehicles parked in the Millennium Centre car park. It had been a slow job done over several nights, but a necessary one as Andy knows that it means that they’ll have all the power they need for the radio while they make their way to Southampton. It also is a lot lighter than carrying several batteries around with them, which would have been the only other alternative.
Locking the door to the tourist office, having previously secured the entrance down to the Hub inside, Ianto slowly runs a finger across the worn and faded woodwork before turning to Andy and nodding.
Now that they’re finally leaving Cardiff, there doesn’t seem to be anything left to say, or nothing that Andy thinks he could put into words. The fact that neither of them might ever see Cardiff again hasn’t been something they’ve spoken about, although Andy is sure that they’ve both thought it.
They leave the Hub soon after dark, the only illumination as they walk though the deserted city is a half moon that is frequently hidden by clouds.
Following the railway line as far as the outskirts of Newport, they keep to the south of the town, crossing the river Usk by the first bridge they come to.
There are a few lights still on in Newport, and the decision not to investigate and find out if they belong to people who have survived the Toclafane attack is a difficult one.
Andy knows why they don’t: the people could be working with the Toclafane. It had been one of the harder pieces of news to take in that Tosh had told them, that some people were choosing to work with the Master and the Toclafane in subduing the rest of the world’s population.
The farmland beyond Newport seems strange and exposed after they have spent so long in the city. The cover provided by the occasional farm building and by small groups of trees seems insubstantial compared to the rows of shops and houses in Cardiff and Newport.
The sun is just starting to come up as they reach Llandevenny, a village a couple of miles short of the Severn Bridge. Although there has been no sign of the Toclafane so far, they decide to stop and wait until evening before attempting to cross the Severn.
Sheltering in a barn on the edge of Llandevenny, Andy is glad that they’ve stopped. Fifteen miles of walking combined with the unfamiliar weight of a backpack on his shoulders, and the constant fear that might be spotted at any moment, has been exhausting.
After eating a cold meal from their supplies, not wanting to chance a fire because of the risks of being seen, and of setting light to the hay stacked around them, they secure the door to the barn the best they can and try to sleep.
Andy wakes once during the day. Lying wrapped in his sleeping bag, he blinks a few times in the bright sunlight that’s streaming through a gap in the door of the barn, trying to work out what has woken him.
Ianto is sitting up, head resting on knees drawn up to his chest, his breathing shaky enough that Andy wonders for a moment if Ianto is crying.
“What’s wrong?” Andy asks quietly, hoping that there is nobody outside near enough to hear them.
Lying down, Ianto rolls over so that his back is facing Andy before he replies, “It’s nothing. I just don’t like the countryside.”
A nightmare, Andy decides, knowing that they’ve both had a few since the Toclafane have taken over. He wonders if he should go over to Ianto, and try to reassure him that it was just a dream. Only Andy doubts if Ianto would appreciate it, so he just watches and waits until Ianto has fallen in to what appears to be a nightmare free sleep, before going back to sleep himself.
* * *
Ianto is still quiet and a little more withdrawn than usual as they leave the barn and continue toward the Severn Bridge, and Andy wonders if he did the right thing in not trying to find out what had been wrong.
The sun is low on the horizon as they cut across county, approaching the bridge from the shoreline, so that they have a good view of it without easily being seen.
Crouching down behind a low wall that runs along the edge of the farmland, Andy watches as men and women in military fatigues patrol the Severn road bridge, while the Toclafane flit overhead.
Going around them and over land would add miles to their journey, but even attempting to cross the bridge looks like suicide. And turning back would be admitting defeat before they’ve even really begun, and Andy doesn’t think either of them are ready to do that.
Beside him Ianto nudges his shoulder, nodding his head towards the shoreline. “What do you know about boats?”
Andy scans the shoreline where a few small rowing boats are moored along a jetty. “They float, that’s about it. Why?” He’s not sure why he’s bothering to ask why, it’s pretty obvious what Ianto is thinking: that they should cross the Severn estuary by boat.
“It’s about three and a half miles across the estuary here, we could probably row across in a hour or so.” Ianto sounds a little doubtful, as though he doesn’t quite trust his own plan to succeed. “The only problem is the tides.”
“Only the tides.” Andy can’t help but smile. “There’s the army with machine guns over there and aliens who want to kill us, and you’re worried about the tides?”
“The tides here are some of the strongest in the world; we time this wrong and we could be swept inland towards the bridge or out to sea,” Ianto says, as he looks at the tide line. “The tide is coming in at the moment. If we leave just before it starts to turn, then any of the movement inland should be cancelled out when the tide starts to go back out again.”
“All right,” Andy says quietly, looking at where a few boats are moored at a jetty a few hundred yards down the river from them.
The daylight is fading fast as they cautiously make their way down to the jetty, keeping the low sea wall between them and the patrols on the bridge.
The few boats that are moored along a small pier are exposed, and with the sun setting in the west behind them they both know that they would make easy targets to anybody who is watching.
There are a few boats though which have been dragged up onto the beach, their hulls resting in the shingle above the high water line. The tide is still coming in, the water lapping high on the shore as they ease one of the small boats down into the surf.
The sea, although Andy supposes it's technically still the river Severn here, is cold. The stiff breeze blowing in from the west makes the otherwise warm summer night feel chill.
The water is colder still he discovers as, after taking off his boots, he wades out into the shallows and steadies the boat as Ianto puts their packs and the radio aboard.
The splash of the oars is louder than Andy had thought it would be, and the first few minutes as they slowly pull away from the shore, he’s worried that somebody will hear them.
Neither of them are particularly sure how sharp the Toclafane’s hearing is, if indeed they actually have any hearing at all. What they are both sure of, though, is that right now would be a very bad time to find out.
As the last of the daylight fades, Andy glances back, suddenly needing one last glimpse of home. It seems strange to be leaving Wales. Not that he hasn't done it a thousand times before: it's just that the last time had been only a few weeks before this madness had descended. He and about a dozen of the other lads from the station had gone over to Ireland on a combined rugby and stag night weekend. It feels like a lifetime or more ago now.
The lack of light and the constant fear that they are about to be discovered make the journey seem almost endless. Andy is sure that they have been rowing for hours when he chances a quick glance at his watch. It’s almost disappointing to realise that it’s little more than an hour since they left the muddy beach just outside Newport.
Andy estimates that they are just over half way across the estuary when they feel the tide start to change, the pull against the oars getting stronger.
Each stroke of the oars takes more and more effort to keep the boat on course, and for the first time since they started rowing Andy is glad that they don’t have any light; he really doesn’t want to see the blisters that he can feel on his hands.
They are both almost shaking with tiredness as they drag the boat up on to the shore, the first faint glow of dawn starting to appear on the horizon.
There’s no sign of the Toclafane or any people as they shoulder their packs and make for the houses overlooking in the bay. They would have been expensive houses once, Andy thinks as they cautiously approach the nearest of them.
The door to the house is ajar, the carpet in the hallway inside stained with dried blood and strewn with children’s toys. Andy swallows hard. It’s hardly the worst sight that they’ve seen or probably will see, but anything with kids is hard. It was something that he’d learnt soon after joining the force. That no matter how bad something was, if it involved kids, it was always worse.
For a moment Andy considers asking Ianto if they can find somewhere else. However, the early morning sunlight that is starting to creep in through the windows soon puts pay to that idea. The need for safety and rest overcomes the fear of what he might find if they venture further into the house.
There is nothing else in the house though, just the debris of people leaving in a hurry.
Carrying their packs down to the small cellar under the house they secure the door. Getting out his sleeping bag, Andy decides that anything else like eating or working out exactly where they are can wait until tomorrow.
* * *
Andy wakes just before nightfall to the distant sound of a dog barking and the smell of coffee brewing.
Ianto is already awake, the map that they’ve brought with them spread out on the floor in front of him, as he waits for the coffee to brew.
Stiff and a little sore from the previous night’s rowing and from sleeping on the floor, Andy groans quietly as he gets to his feet.
Ianto looks round at the sound before giving Andy a sympathetic look and saying, “Not just me then?”
Andy shakes his head before helping himself to some of the coffee. It’s black and slightly bitter, and Andy wishes that he’d got some milk to put in it, but knows that’s probably not going to be possible for some time, short of finding a cow and learning how to milk it.
Drinking his coffee slowly, Andy wonders why it’s stupid little things that he’s started to miss the most. Milk is fairly high on the list, and so are bread and eggs. Not being able to have a normal breakfast, Andy decides, makes everything seem worse. “So where are we?”
Ianto points to a small town on the map that is just north of Weston-Super-Mare, saying, “Clevedon. The current pulled us at lot further south than I thought it would.”
The map shows the Severn widening dramatically after Weston-Super-Mare, and Andy knows that if they’d drifted beyond there then they might not have reached land at all. He’s glad now that he’d been too tired when they’d finally reached land to even consider how close they’d come to not making it.
“Do you think we should keep walking or do you want to try to find a car?” Andy asks, looking at the map and at the hundred or so miles that still lay between them and Southampton.
Taking some cereal bars out of his pack, Ianto hands a couple to Andy before shaking his head. “Until we find out if the roads are being watched like the bridge was, I think that we should stay on foot.”
Andy nods, knowing what Ianto has just said is sensible, sometimes Andy doubts Ianto is capable of suggesting anything that isn’t sensible; It’s disappointing though, the thought of miles of walking carrying a heavy pack.
Ianto looks at the scale of the map, and then at the distance between Clevedon and Southampton, saying, “Even if we can’t get a car, we should be able to average twenty miles a night or so on foot. We’ll be there in about five or six days.”
Hoping that it really doesn’t come to that, Andy finishes his breakfast.
* * *
If there’s anybody still living in Clevedon, they are keeping themselves well hidden, Andy decides, as he and Ianto make their way between rows of houses.
The M5 that cuts along the eastern edge of the town is just as deserted, the six lanes of asphalt looking strange and bare without any traffic on them. Once, Andy knows, it would have been busy with lorries and cars making their way to and from the port at Bristol.
Scrambling down the steep embankment at the side of the motorway, Andy is about to cross it when he sees the glow of headlights in the distance, and Ianto grabs his arm putting him back to hide amongst bushes at the slope.
Lying amongst the scrubby trees and long grass, his heavy pack feeling like it’s pressing him into the ground, Andy watches as a convoy of buses, escorted by military vehicles, pass by.
They are moving too fast for Andy to be able to see anything beyond the fact that the buses are occupied and that the soldiers, who are mostly travelling in the back of old open backed Land Rovers, are armed
As the last of the vehicles pass him, Andy notices that a struggle has broken out on board one of the buses. Glancing over at Ianto, Andy wonders if he should suggest doing something to help the man on the bus.
There’s no time to do anything as the bus and the jeep that’s driving along side it stop a few hundred yards up the motorway from where Andy and Ianto are hidden.
Three soldiers get out of the jeep and onto the bus. A moment later they drag a man from the bus and make him kneel in the road, his hands on his head.
They are too far away to clearly hear the conversation between the man and the soldiers, but the sound of the single shot that strikes the man in the head is shockingly loud in the otherwise still night.
Sick. Angry. Scared. Andy’s not sure which he feels the most. Closing his eyes, Andy tries to blot out the way the man had crumpled to the ground as the bullet struck.
“Just breathe, slow and steady, that’s it,” Ianto says, rubbing his hand across Andy’s back, trying to calm him. “It’s all right, you’re all right.”
Andy wants to tell Ianto that no, it’s not all right, that he’s just seen somebody murdered in front of him, but it’s too hard to form the words. Andy’s not sure when Ianto removed his pack for him, or when he started shaking, tears wet on his face.
The convoy has moved on and the motorway is dark and silent once more when Ianto helps Andy to his feet. Shivering, Andy finds he can’t look at the stretch of motorway where the body still lies, abandoned like so much road kill.
“I know it sounds awful, but it gets easier,” Ianto says quietly, as he helps Andy put his backpack back on. “The first time I saw someone die, I didn’t think I’d ever get it out of my mind. You do though.” Ianto looks away, his voice strained, “You realise that there are worse things than a quick death.”
Andy doesn’t answer. He doesn’t want it to get easier, to become desensitised to death like this, to any form of death; it just doesn’t seem right.
Still feeling shaky, Andy is grateful that Ianto stays close to him, occasionally reaching out to touch his arm as they cross the motorway and into the countryside beyond.
part three, part four.