VS3:10 -- "Family Business", Part One
A party on the Cromwell Estate ends in disaster, bringing Torchwood closer to home than ever before for Ianto Jones. As the team race to stop an unknown toxin from killing again, Ianto learns that some secrets can't remain hidden forever.
Family Business
by: misswinterhill
Jo shuffled awkwardly on the step, almost considered using her teeth for the knocker but instead put the bags into one handful and then knocked quickly.
"Good afternoon! Your Cosmetologica delivery is here!" she called. She'd rehearsed with Mum - they liked the sellers to say the catchphrase, just like on the ads. There was no response. She walked back along the path a little way until she could see the car, snug in the garage. Yeah. The car was there. So the old biddy was definitely home, just… asleep and deaf?
She walked back to the door, her sneakers scrungch-scruncghing on the the gravel, walking it up to the doormat, tapping on the door again.
"Hello? Mrs. Wilson?"
Jo sighed, juggling the thin plastic carrybags from hand to hand. They were bloody heavy.
"Look, Mam said I have to get a signature," she said, blowing a stray strand of hair out of her eyes. "If I don't get a signature, I can't prove that you…"
The bottom fell out of one of the bags.
"Shit."
The bottle of bodywash rolled down the gravel path and Jo chased it, finally catching it in a flowerbed, spring bulbs just sprouting up in clumps and other flowers starting to bloom now that the frosts were almost done. She had to reach past nettles and weeds amid the perennials, and she dusted the dirt off the shiny purple bottle onto her hoodie, looking at the green heads of the jonquils. A big bug crawled over the dirt, shiny against the still-damp earth. If there were slugs, Jo thought, she was outta here.
"Last chance!" she called. Her knees were damp now, and she wondered if there'd be a mark left on her jeans by the mud. This wasn't bloody worth it, not for 50p a house. "Okay then."
She wrote up the little Cosmetologica called! card and went to put it in the letterbox, but when she got back there, it was overflowing.
"Joanne Cartwright!" It was Mam. "Haven't you done that one house yet?"
"Mam, how long since you've seen Mrs. Wilson?" asked Jo, feeling a bit hot and prickly under her skin. "There's a lot of letters in this letterbox."
"Oh, stop being an idiot," said her Mam, snatching the card from Jo, stomping up past the overgrown garden to the door. She knocked on the door, loud enough to rattle it on its hinges. Jo hung about by the gate, scuffing her shoes in the dirt. "Come on, then. We'll go round the back."
"But…"
"Jo!"
Sighing, Jo went around the back.
"Door's unlocked. Maybe she's just gone for a walk?"
"Well. We can just leave it on her kitchen table," said her Mam. Jo paused. "Oh, don't be pathetic, Joanne. Come on."
The smell of rotting garbage filled the kitchen, carrying an acrid, nasty undertone, and a cat bolted past them to the door and out as they crept in.
"Marjorie? You in? It's Deb from down on Mill Road. I've got your order! Sorry it took a little while; they had some of it on backorder…"
"Mam," said Jo, covering her nose. "Should we…?"
"We might just go upstairs. See if she's in." Mam was looking discomfited now, a little wobbly around the edges of her confidence. "She might've had a fall or something."
"I'll take a look down here," said Jo. There was dust on everything, cat crap on the floor. It stank. She was picking her way across the sitting room, looking at the photos on the mantel. There was a woman with Mrs. Wilson in most of them; across photographs and years, she wore all sorts of things that ranged from a skeevy old tracksuit to a smart business suit. Jo brushed the dust off one, wondering why this happy woman from the frames hadn't come checking on the old lady, when she heard her mother scream.
She ran upstairs, her heart thudding loudly, feeling like it was about to break out of her chest. "Is everything okay? Did she have a fall?" The smell was worse up here, if that were possible, all rotten and acidic.
Silence.
"Mam?" she asked, ice-hot.
"Get your phone," her Mam said. "Call the cops, sommat, I don't know."
"What is it?"
"Just get your fucking phone!"
Jo pulled out her mobile, dialing with shaking fingers as she rounded the corner to see what her mother was screaming about.
Mrs. Wilson was home. It looked like she'd been home for a while. "Hullo?" asked the operator, into Jo's ear. "What is the nature of the emergency?"
"She's dead," said Jo, her stomach turning as the maggots crawled over a body that was barely recognisable, except for the floral dressing gown. "Oh my god. Mrs. Wilson… she's dead."
It was a Friday, and Friday meant pastries. Although it was never discussed, someone showed up with a box of pastries every Friday for the morning meeting, and no one ever coincided. It was Jack's turn this morning, and he'd bought a box that was leaking greasily through the cardboard and smelling like hunger that lasted for a thousand years, even before he'd opened the top.
"Doughnuts!" said Jack, happily. "Well, doughnut holes. How do you think they make the holes? Do they pop out the centres?"
"I think they use a doughnut cutter. Like for gingerbread men. Piles cushions for gingerbread men," said Gwen, reaching out to tip the box towards her with her fingertips.
"Honestly, have you two ever bothered to look when they're making them?" Ianto asked, slapping Gwen's hand away. "Mine."
They slowly became aware of a silent presence in the boardroom, standing by the computer screens. Dr. Muli had a laser pointer and a dour expression, and on the screen there were photos of…
"Well, I'm glad I didn't get the jam filled ones, then," said Jack, wincing a little as Gwen trod on his foot.
"When you've all finished?" Muli asked.
Jack proffered the box. "Come on. Live life on the edge."
"I don't need more palm oil in my diet, Jack."
"I do," said Gwen.
Muli rapidly flipped through photos onscreen, and playtime stopped. "Seven people are dead."
These were not road deaths, or death by robot, or guns, or fire. These were people in their pyjamas, in their old grotty gardening clothes, in bedrooms with floral wallpaper. Muli stopped on one, zooming in on the viscera of someone dead for a month. Jack chewed slowly. No, not like the weevil deaths. These people had died doing normal things, everyday things like making dinner, or planting spring bulbs.
He remembered London, during the Blitz. He'd gone into a house, looking for a place to hide out for a night, get some period-appropriate clothes for when he showed up at the barracks. There'd been a family there, the building still standing, but bullet holes in their heads and maggots feasting.
He'd been sick in the yard before he stole the dead man's shoes.
"Seven people are dead," Jack said, his throat suddenly dry. "And you're grandstanding. What happened?"
"That's what Torchwood needs to work out," said Muli, and Ianto's phone rang.
He pulled it out of his pocket, looked at the number. "Sorry," he said, and got up and left.
Jack sat back. Curiouser and curiouser.
"Did Ianto just…?" Gwen asked.
Jack wiped his mouth with his sleeve. "Yeah."
He could see Ianto through the frosted glass, pacing. He was uncomfortable but not agitated; talking to someone he cared for, then. Not an emergency. Jack sat back.
"Shall I continue?" asked Muli, drily.
"No," said Jack and Gwen together. They met each other's eyes. Jack laughed first, looking away and grabbing another doughnut.
"Ianto will tease you about getting pudgy."
"I like pudgy," said Jack, stretching out, putting his arms around the chairs beside him as if encircling imaginary friends. "There's more to explore. Curves and hugs and…"
"Does every meeting have to deteriorate into a discussion of Jack's sexual preferences?" Muli asked, running a hand over her hair.
"Not every meeting," Gwen said, as Ianto came back.
"Sorry. Sorry," he said, taking his place again, mobile in his hands. Thunk. Ianto tipped it onto one edge, and then -thunk- another.
"So. Now that Ianto's back, what do we know about them?" Gwen asked, popping a doughnut hole into her mouth.
Thunk, went Ianto's mobile, as he flipped it between his fingers.
"Single women," said Muli. "Living alone, but most had family alive. Still waiting on toxicology - there was nothing particularly wrong physiologically. I mean, it's not as if they all had a stroke, or a heart attack."
Thunk. Jack grabbed Ianto's wrist, tried to take the mobile phone, but Ianto slipped it into his pocket, shaking his head a little.
"Their families didn't…" Gwen swallowed, "…didn't?"
Ianto broke in. "What the hell happened to their bodies? Number five and number three look like they've been eaten. It's not like the weevils, is it?"
The images were high-resolution, gory; in close-up, one could have been mistaken for modern art, an arrangement of red and bone, maggots like little sequins shining in the camera flash.
"There was some… predation," said Muli. "Domestic cats, when hungry enough, will eat any available source of meat."
Ianto's leg was jiggling. Jack sighed, putting a hand on Ianto's knee under the table. Ianto stopped.
"Symptoms?"
"Those we could get details about had withdrawn from contact in their last days," said Muli. "The doctor of Victim number two had her booked in for some testing because she'd shown some disorientation during a routine visit, and her blood sugars were out. Thought she might be developing pancreatic cancer."
"Disorientation?" Jack asked. "Specifics?"
"We don't know," Muli said slowly. "It's… there are correlations between the victims. But there's not a defined set of symptoms, because we haven't had a live one. They've all been decomposing corpses by the time anyone gets to them."
"Says something sad about the way that families don't get on now, doesn't it?" Gwen said. "I mean, I can't imagine a week where I didn't call my mam."
"A week is enough in this weather, with… external influences," said Muli.
There was an uncomfortable silence.
"So," Ianto said. "I'll just… go upstairs then? I think I left the jug on."
"Yeah, I need to…" Gwen said. "I need to go to the loo."
"Yes, Gwen needs to go to the loo," Ianto added.
"She can't go on her own?" Jack asked, as Gwen vanished.
Ianto shrugged, following her quickly.
Muli sat back down, drumming her fingers against the table in a slightly off-beat rhythm. Behind her, the screen scrolled through the correlations. Single. 80% in bedrooms or bathrooms.
"Are we perhaps being too cautious here, Megan?" Jack asked. All decomposed: no one to check on them. Cats? Cat-lady stereotype?
"I don't think so," she replied. "I thought it was coincidence when it first came up on the computers, but I think it's moving beyond that."
"Oh, you're using the computers in the med bay," Jack said, pleased. "I had a bit of a poke, but I've left Owen's desktop alone. If you find a folder of porn, don't try to sue me, okay?"
"Depends on the kind of porn," Muli said, taking one of the remaining doughnut holes. "This needs to be on our radar, Jack."
"We can't investigate everything; as far as I know, Gwen still has some stuff outstanding from a while ago. We're only four people," Jack said. "But this is weird; I'll give you that. If you come up with something on the tox screen, I'll be willing to give it man-hours."
Muli looked at the ceiling, presumably to disguise the fact that she was taking another doughnut hole. Jack smiled. Everyone had a weakness.
"Who are they calling? Family?" she asked, eventually. "I wasn't aware that Ianto even had any family."
"He has a sister," Jack said, absently. "Hang on."
He went up into the main Hub. Gwen was curled up on the lounge, knees to her chest.
"…yeah. No. Oh, you take care of yourself," she said, as she spotted him. "I've gotta go, Mam. I'll talk later. Mm. Love you, too."
She mouthed 'Sorry!' and he mouthed 'It's okay!' and sought out Ianto. He found him in the kitchenette, pacing a bit as he set out fresh cups on the countertop.
"Yeah," Ianto was saying. "No, I'll definitely be able to get the day off. I'll be there."
Jack smiled, moving in to join Ianto. Made his presence known; no secrets. Ianto looked at him, smiled a little.
"Okay. Okay. Bye. Yeah, bye. Bye."
Ianto hung up, and Jack cracked a grin. So, Ianto wanted to be mysterious?
"Which day have I given you off?" Jack said, as Ianto pocketed his phone.
"Saturday," Ianto said. "You know, normal people don't actually work seven days a week."
"Normal people also don't live at work," Jack replied. Ianto mimed a shot to the heart, and Jack laughed.
"You going to tell me where you're going?" Jack asked.
"Do I have to?" Ianto asked.
Jack sighed, leaning against the cupboards. "No. You don't."
"Can you give me this one, then?" Ianto asked. "It's not anything… bad."
"You'll have your phone?"
Ianto scowled. "I'm not an idiot. And it's not espionage or anything."
"I know," Jack said, hooking his fingers into Ianto's belt, using the tiny bit of leverage and Ianto's extreme reluctance to have the beltloops on his trousers stretched out. "I trust you."
Once he could get his hands on Ianto's hips, Jack pulled Ianto even closer, but he didn't try to kiss or ruffle. Ianto relaxed a little, leaning in to the touch; he liked to be close, but hated to ask. Especially hated it when other people were…
"Oh, so this is checking," said Muli, from behind them.
Ianto stiffened, stepping back. "Sorry, Doctor. I'll get some more coffee ready."
Jack watched Ianto retreat into a familiar role. He sighed, slapped his hand on the countertop, and left for the boardroom again, the moment well and truly fled.
"Mica! Leave that poor bloody cat be!"
Mica dragged the cat with her. Ianto smiled, feeling the tightness across his face as he tried desperately to remember names and match them to faces all grown up. Mica ran ahead of them, vanishing into another room. There was a noise that seemed to indicate an extremely unhappy cat, and Ianto sort of wished he'd been able to follow her as he was all-but-shoved into the middle of a busy kitchen.
"…and then I said that I wasn't going to accept her friend request unless she agreed to come to Daniel's third birthday. I mean, really…"
"Oh my god, is there any way to blacklist people that you don't want to talk to?"
There were four women in the kitchen. Far too many people for the space, especially when you added a very aggressive perfume and a generalised sense of discomfort from recognising four women that Ianto knew that he should know but whose names he couldn't remember.
"Yeah, it's in the settings," said the first woman. "Oh my god, Rhiannon, where did you dig this one up from? He's gorgeous."
"Oh, shut it, Nerys," said Rhiannon. "It's Ianto. Ianto, you remember Nerys and Susan? And Claire and Annie?"
"That's Ianto?" asked Susan, patting his arm. "Oooh, he's grown up well!"
Ianto could feel the blush starting, and he fought the compulsion to roll his eyes. He did not blush. He just didn't. Even when people played with his tie. Ianto had a strict area of personal space; even Gwen, touchy-feely Gwen, respected that. Jack, of course, had no concept of personal space. Ianto took a deep breath. What would Jack do in this case?
"Hi," he said, warmly, pretending that his face wasn't currently changing colour to shade in with his shirt. "It's been awhile, Nerys, Susan, Annie, erm, Claire."
Sadly, whatever magical powers seemed to come with Jack's perfect jawline had not passed to Ianto through kissing said jawline. Susan laughed, and Nerys adjusted his lapels. Ianto tried not to stiffen.
"Oooh, takes a brave man to wear a pink shirt! Do you remember when we used to make you join in when we did that Spice Girls thing?" cooed Nerys, happily. "So, are you single?"
"Nerys!" Rhiannon said, pulling a tray of little pastry things out of the oven. "That's my little brother!"
"That's your gorgeous little brother," said Nerys, and Ianto blurted out:
"I'm seeing someone."
Rhiannon looked at him. That big-sister-you-are-going-to-tell-me-everything look. Nerys sighed, put-upon, and too late Ianto saw the half-full bottle of bubbly on the surface and three more sitting next to the bin.
"So? Why didn't you bring her?" asked Susan, taking a little pastry thing. "You'll have to get her to come along on Tuesday."
"Tuesday?" Ianto asked.
"Don't you check your bloody Facebook?" Rhiannon asked, and Ianto breathed a little sigh of relief. Annoyed that she wasn't the first to know about him seeing someone, yes. Annoyed to the point of anger, no. This was nosey annoyance, the sort that could be placated with a few stories about...
…oh god, he'd just dug himself an even bigger hole. This, Ianto decided, had been a terrible idea. He heard someone shuffling behind him.
"All right, girls, get off him," said Johnny, cheerfully. "You're married, Nerys. And you're dating Steve-with-the-car, Claire."
"We're not flirting," said Nerys, still patting Ianto's arm.
"Johnny," said Ianto, desperate.
Johnny put a friendly arm around Ianto's shoulders. "Ianto."
"I need a beer," said Ianto.
Johnny pressed a bottle into Ianto's hand. "Thought you might. Come on. I got a new game on the Xbox; leave the ladies to their champers."
Ianto felt relief flood his system as they escaped, moving through the house. Johnny turned on the Xbox as a token gesture, and both men sagged back into the tatty old sofa, thankful that the back on it was high enough to hide them from the party proper.
"So," Ianto said, taking a swig, "how've you been?"
"Yeah, good. You?"
Ianto thought of the things he could say: Oh, saved the world a few times. Lost some friends. Dating a guy. Not much new.
"Yeah, good," he replied.
Johnny sighed, sitting back. "Another year, hey?"
"Yup."
They sat in comfortable silence as Johnny scrolled through the menus, the TV whirring in time to the press of the buttons. Ianto heard the incoming child before he saw her.
"Uncle Ianto!" Mica announced. "Look what I got for my early un-birthday! He's called Boots and he came from the cat's home!"
"Please don't put it-" Ianto suddenly had a lapful of cat, quickly followed by a niece leaning on his knees, "-on my lap."
Boots looked equally displeased with being on Ianto's lap, and launched off him, using his thigh as a springboard. Ianto winced as sharp claws went through his trousers, and he wondered if the stupid thing had pulled a thread. Mica seemed not to care, and she clambered onto his lap anyway.
"Where are you going to take me for my birthday?" she asked, almost accusingly. "David got a new Xbox game and you took him to McDonalds."
"I've… been busy. Haven't worked anything out yet," Ianto said, brushing her hair back. "And besides, you came along to McDonalds, too."
"Mam said you're working in town. I wanna go out to the Bay and feed the seagulls."
"Okay," Ianto said. "I think we can do that."
"And I want Mario Brothers for the Xbox, anna controller, because daddy sat on my one."
"Okay," Ianto said, and Johnny laughed.
"They can smell fear, you know. Get off him, you little beggar."
"It's okay," Ianto said, as Mica snuggled, turning a pouting glare onto her father. "I'll… I'll ask my boss for an afternoon off, shall I? You'll have to show me which game."
"Your jacket is funny," Mica said in reply. "Why's it stripey?"
"I… like stripes?" asked Ianto, looking at the pinstripes on his leg.
"And you're wearing pink. Pink is for girls," Mica said, wriggling a bit. "Dora wears pink. I like Dora."
"Okay," said Ianto, meeting Johnny's eyes. Johnny had this big, shit-eating grin on his face that somehow successfully managed to convey I told you so. Mica's inability to stay on one topic for longer than a sentence was starting to wear a bit thin, but she was warm and lively and his niece, so Ianto was prepared to put up with it a little while longer.
"I've got purple perfume!"
"That's… aren't you a bit young for perfume?" Ianto asked.
"It's this stupid Cosmetologica crap," said Johnny. "Rhi went to a party for it and came home with all this makeup and stuff. She got me moisturiser. She's gonna be a distributor."
"Oh," said Ianto, with a little wince.
"What in the bloody hell am I meant to do with moisturiser? It's got a picture of a cordless drill on the tub," said Johnny. "No man who owns his own drill wears Royal Purple scented moisturiser with Real Botanical Extracts."
Johnny finished his beer, and then looked at Ianto with something approaching horror.
"You don't wear moisturiser, do you? You look a bit fancy in that suit."
"I don't wear moisturiser," Ianto said, only lying a little bit. "And the suit's for work. It's… good that Rhi's able to work from home, eh?"
"Yeah, and guess who has to do the driving round and delivering the bloody stuff?" asked Johnny. Ianto nodded sympathetically.
"Yeah, I know how that feels," he said.
There was a squeal from the kitchen. "Oh god, I bet Sarah just arrived," said Johnny, dully. "Women, eh?"
"Yeah," said Ianto. "Erm, you mind if I get us both another beer?"
Several more husbands-and-boyfriends came to join them as the party grew; there were little pastries and bits of cake and prunes with bacon wrapped around them. Ianto made a little fort out of toothpicks as David tried to balance a tray on his head.
"Hey, Uncle Ianto. Mica reckons you're gonna get her Rock Band for the Xbox."
"Oh," Ianto said. "I… suppose."
"Don't be stupid, it's bloody expensive. You've got to be on the ball, Ianto, or these two will take you for all you've got," said Johnny.
"Aw, like you didn't play it when Dav brought it across," said David.
"Dav?" Ianto asked.
"Dav from school. I'm David and he's Dav. Don't you know anything?" asked David, whirling away. Ianto picked at the label of his beer bottle.
"No," he said quietly. "I suppose I don't."
There was a crash from the kitchen. "OHMIGOD!"
"Ignore it," said Johnny. "Mica's probably dressed the cat in Cabbage Patch clothes again."
Ianto stood. He wasn't able to ignore it - too long in Torchwood, he supposed, but he made his way into the kitchen as if drawn by an irresistible force. He could hear Rhiannon issuing orders.
"Give her some air! Give her some air!"
"Move!" Ianto said, sharply. "What's happened?"
The woman was elderly, thin. Crumpled oddly on the floor, as if she were a doll discarded by a child. Ianto pushed up the sleeves on his jacket, kneeling beside her.
"Rhiannon, call an ambulance," he said, checking her pulse. "She's alive. Pulse is sluggish. Tell them that she's breathing."
"Ianto…?"
"Do it," he said, roughly, and Rhiannon vanished to the phone. He didn't know who this was, but he gently rolled her into the recovery position. "Get me a blanket. She's freezing. Who knows her?"
"That's Mrs. McKenzie from number eight," offered someone.
"Family?" Ianto asked, keeping his fingers on her pulse.
"They live down Swansea. Her husband died in '05."
"Who's seen her, last few days?"
"Ah…" said Nerys, into the silence. "I saw her on Monday. She was watering the garden."
Ianto bent in to listen to her breathing. It was slow, measured, whistling. An elderly woman, living alone. Collapsed.
Shit.
He was going to have to call Dr. Muli.
"Get everyone out," he ordered.
"But…" said Nerys or Carys or Claire or someone. Ianto shook his head.
"No. Out."
They filed out slowly, disappointed, and he pulled out his phone, willing them to move faster. It shouldn't take five minutes for a tiny handful of people to leave a room. Ianto hated gawkers - if someone was hurt, then they were hurt; they didn't need people staring at them.
"Hi," he said, when she answered. "It's Ianto. I need you to meet me at the hospital."
"Explain the situation," said Muli.
He was, in some small way, vaguely impressed by her absolute readiness for action. He just wished that she'd temper it a little sometimes. He sighed.
"Elderly woman. Lives alone. Just collapsed," he said, quietly. "Pulse is slow. Breathing is slow. She feels cold… I don't have a thermometer, but she feels bloody freezing."
"I'll be there," said Muli. "Too many of the variables for it to be a coincidence."
"Exactly my thoughts," Ianto said, hearing the sirens in the distance. "See you there."
He hung up, looking at the ones who'd refused to leave. They were silent, gathered around. No one spoke for a while; it was Rhiannon who eventually broke the silence.
"Ianto?" asked Rhiannon, quiet. "I… I called the ambulance a while ago, and they're not here yet. What's going on?"
"I don't know," he said.
"Who'd you just call then?" asked Nerys. "Who's meeting you at the hospital."
"Someone I work with," he said. "A doctor… Dr. Megan Muli. She's looking into the deaths that've been happening out in the country."
"You work in a Tourist Office," said Rhiannon, cold. "You can't expect…"
"Rhi," Ianto said. "I… I don't think that this is the right time for this conversation. Can you… go and make sure that people are okay?"
He was saved by a sharp rap on the door, and the entrance of paramedics. Ianto managed to have a brief flush of relief before he was confronted with a paramedic, and he realised that today was turning into a workday. Someone, thank god, had shepherded the guests outside, leaving just Ianto and his sister with Mrs-unconscious-McKenzie.
"Ianto Jones," he said, as the man checked over the patient. "Torchwood. Dr. Megan Muli will meet you at the hospital."
The paramedic sat back on his haunches. "Why?"
"This case bears similarities to others recently referred to us," said Ianto. "Dr. Muli needs to do an examination to work out if it's the same thing."
Rhiannon was silent. Ianto could feel her looking at him, and he looked up at her, at her pinched expression, at the shock in her eyes. He swallowed.
"Rhi?" he asked.
"Let's get this sorted," she said, soft. "I'll leave the kids with Susan, and then once we know Mrs. M is okay, then you and I are going to have Words."
"Yeah," said Ianto, as the patient was loaded onto a stretcher. "We probably should."
The ambulance ride was one of the most frightening things Rhiannon had ever experienced in her entire life. No one had been there when Dad had died - nothing like this beeping and people talking urgently in conversations made up almost entirely of numbers.
"Five cc's" said the paramedic next to her, and Rhiannon squeezed Mrs. M's hand.
"It's okay," she said, wondering if she'd even be heard. "It's okay, love. I'll call Timbo and get him up here, and he'll look after you."
The ambulance lurched, and Rhiannon felt a little carsick. They'd probably mounted the curb, avoiding the traffic. There'd be cars slipping into the clear spot behind the ambulance, drivers using a tragedy to gain a little more time on their trip across town. Mrs. M was so pale, so still. And Ianto had taken over; her shy little Ianto, quiet Ianto. Ianto who'd vanished off to London and come back with a different accent and expensive suits and no time for his family.
Ianto who'd called someone at Torchwood. Rhiannon wasn't an idiot. There were things you paid attention to in Cardiff, and things that you didn't, and things that you ignored from a sense of self-preservation more than anything else. Everyone knew about Torchwood, right? If the kids weren't getting up to bed quickly enough, you'd tell them that Torchwood would come and take them away.
"Okay, love. I'll get you to fill this in," said the paramedic. "When we get there, I'll be taking her through, and this'll help the doctors."
"I…" Rhiannon floundered, pen in hand. "She's my neighbour, not my…"
"Just fill it in."
She did what she could, feeling supremely useless. Address. Full name. Didn't even know it, not middle names and stuff. Did they use middle names? What would they use a middle name for in a hospital?
Ianto was there when she was ushered from the ambulance, standing straight and tall, hair ruffled a little by the wind. She'd been watching him today, and all the warmth that had filled her chest when he'd sat and played Xbox with Johnny was melting away, being replaced by a cold sense of dread. This tall man in a dark suit wasn't her little brother.
"You okay?" he asked, taking her arm. "Rhi, do you know her well? The woman?"
"Mrs. M," she said, feeling her throat tighten. "She has a name, Ianto."
He gave her a half-hug, arm around her shoulders. "I know, Rhi. Come on."
They followed the trolley inside, and Ianto showed an ID that had people getting out of his way. Rhiannon trailed along helplessly behind him. He even had a bluetooth thing that no one told him to get rid of; she caught a few of the nurses greeting him as if they knew him. Which was crazy.
"We're in A&E. I've got her isolated," said Ianto, into his bluetooth thing. He looked up. "I can see you."
He waved at a woman who was striding down the corridor towards them. She was pocketing her phone, and she fell into step beside Ianto as they made their way towards a back room somewhere. Oh god. The woman was lovely. Was she Ianto's girlfriend? No, too old. Or was she? It was hard to tell - she fell into that sort of vague age range that Rhiannon herself fell into - could be anywhere from mid-thirties onwards, wouldn't like to say because oh god it reminded her of the time that the shop girl congratulated her on being pregnant and she… but where Rhiannon was a bit short, a bit on the heavy side, this woman was slim, smooth-skinned, effortlessly graceful. She looked at Rhiannon as if she were a bug. A fat, slightly sweaty, bug.
"Who is this? Is she related to the patient?" the woman demanded, as they walked through a set of double doors. Mrs. M was in the room, sleeping in some sort of plastic tent - the sort of thing that she remembered from TV shows where deadly viruses got out and killed everyone in the city. Rhiannon swallowed.
"Ah. Dr. Megan Muli. This is Rhiannon Davies. My sister," said Ianto, just as Muli was about to start dissecting Rhiannon with her fingernails.
"Oh. But she was present when the incident occurred?"
"I was," said Rhiannon, wondering when someone would show up and tell her to get out. She wasn't Torchwood, or even useful. She was just a hanger-on.
"So what did you give her?" asked the woman. "Was the poisoning deliberate?"
"I… what?" asked Rhiannon.
"Did you give her anything? She's elderly, possibly with money or a will…"
"Dr. Muli!" Ianto said, his voice an angry whisper. Rhiannon wondered who was in charge; if this woman wanted to take her in for questioning, could Ianto stop it? Ianto folded his arms.
Muli raised an eyebrow. "It's a reasonable question."
"It's my birthday," said Rhiannon. "She's a lonely old woman, and she lives up the road. It's what you do, right. It's neighbourly. Friendly." Ianto took her hand, twining their fingers together.
"Okay, I'll rephrase the question. Can you think of anything she might have consumed that she was allergic to? What did she eat at your home?" asked Muli, as the Jones siblings drew closer to each other. It was comforting. When they were kids, it had been the two of them, and something bone-deep drew them back together under the onslaught of questions.
"That's two questions," said Ianto, rolling his eyes. "Megan, I was there."
"Well?" Megan looked unperturbed. There was something almost feline about her; Rhiannon felt as if she were being toyed with, that if she answered the question then Megan might later twist it, make it seem as though the reason why Mrs. M was lying here in this… this tent was that Rhiannon had done something.
"We'll discuss it later," said Ianto. "You do your job, and I'll do mine. Come on, Rhi, I'll take you downstairs. Johnny's waiting in the cafeteria for you."
He waited until they were out in the corridor before he turned to her.
"I am so sorry," he said.
"About which part?" Rhiannon asked, pulling away from him. "The bit where your colleague insinuated that I tried to murder Mrs. M, or the bit where you forgot to tell me that you work for Torchwood?"
"I… er… sort of ruined your birthday, too," he said, going pink, and that was enough to make her laugh and hug him tightly.
"At least you were there, you twit," she said, as he hugged back. "You and me, we're going to have a talk about this, yeah?"
"I'll bring the vodka," he said, into her hair, and she knew they'd be okay. They always were. Relieved, she led the way toward the cafeteria.
"The other-Joneses from number fifteen have the kids," Ianto said, and he stopped still when he saw someone else get off the lift. Tall guy, still wearing his coat indoors. "Oh god."
"What?" she asked. "What is it? Who is it?"
Ianto stiffened, eyes going wide. He looked around, almost as if he was going to attempt to bolt, but as the man drew closer, he gave up, turning to her with a panicked expression.
"Rhi, there's something else I haven't…"
She wondered if this were an old enemy, maybe; someone who Torchwood had done wrong by, someone out for revenge. But Ianto seemed reluctant, not angry, and the man was beaming as he walked towards them. That wasn't the face of an enemy.
"Oh you can not keep hiding your family from me," called the man, charmingly. "You said you had a sister - you never said that you're both gorgeous."
It was a line, a cheap and tawdry line, but so few people ever looked at Rhiannon like that; so she was willing to take it and keep it, and ignore the little voice in her head that said you're being taken in.
"You're trying too hard," Ianto murmured, looking at the floor. "Rhi, this is Jack. My… um."
There was something in the tone of that um that was not just Ianto being Ianto and evasive. It was Ianto's please-god-don't-make-me-say-it voice. He was fiddling with his cufflinks, when she tried to meet his eyes. This was… possibly something that a bottle of vodka and more pizza than they could eat couldn't fix.
"Cap'n Jack Harkness," the man said, shaking her hand. His handshake was firm, warm, and Rhiannon hoped that her palms weren't sweaty. "Ianto's told me about you."
"Bullcrap," Rhiannon said. It had taken nearly a year for her to introduce Johnny and Ianto, and even then she'd been so scared that Ianto would disapprove. Johnny was a bit rough, yeah, but he loved her and he was a good man. She wasn't sure what she'd've done if Ianto hadn't liked him. Ianto coughed, loudly, and Jack shifted his hand to the small of Ianto's back. They exchanged a look like… like…
"Oh my god you're dating," Rhiannon said, louder than she'd intended, and Ianto choked. "Oh, no, I didn't mean it like…"
"I was going to tell you. But probably once we'd had some vodka," Ianto said, helplessly. He was bright pink, and from the heat in her cheeks she knew that she'd gone the colour of a tomato. "I'm not… It's not…"
It's not Jack I'm embarrassed about, Rhiannon realised. Jack was gorgeous, and he was looking at Ianto like they were a couple on the front of a romance novel. A gay romance novel. Oh. Oh. Ianto looked like he'd just swallowed a bowlful of live snakes, and this was potentially going to be the most awkward conversation ever. More awkward even than when she'd asked about Lisa and Ianto had said that she'd died, and that had ended with both of them in tears and then not talking for six months. It was almost a relief when someone behind them spoke.
"Jack, Ianto." It was the doctor-woman. Megan. "I think you'll want to see these readings."
And the guilt - she'd been so wrapped up in Ianto that she'd forgotten about Mrs. M - threatened to swamp Rhiannon for just a second, but she was made of stronger stuff. They'd go round tonight, break in (Johnny swore he learned how from the movies) and make sure it was all okay. Clean up a bit, find Timbo's number, feed the cat.
"Oh," said Ianto, with massive relief. "Gotta go. You'll be right to get yourself to the canteen, yeah?"
"Yeah. You go then," said Rhiannon, feeling the hot, embarrassed feeling stick in her chest.
"Lovely to meet you," said Jack, beaming.
Rhiannon smiled back. "Ah, the same."
"I'll call you. I will," said Ianto, blushing again.
"When you've the time," she said and watched them join Dr. Muli, who was already striding back down the corridor, all like they were from Spooks. Rhiannon twisted her wedding ring around her finger, watching them go, and she wondered if Ianto really would call.
"Muli!" It was Jack. He leaned lazily over the handrail into the medical bay, and Megan could see right up his nose. "Meeting in ten."
"Aye-aye," she said, looking up from the gas chromatograph. One thing you could say about Torchwood: if you wanted it, you got it. She'd presented a list to Jack, two weeks ago, and within a week Ianto had been complaining about lugging boxes down to the medical bay. He'd been wearing a red beret - a UNIT cap - and no one had said anything about it, despite the fact that Jack had been watching him like a hawk.
This case was driving her up the wall.
She had the blood test samples from the patient that Ianto's sister had phoned in - and she didn't want to know how that had happened - and there was definitely an organic compound in there that shouldn't be there, but…
Megan was quickly coming to realise that working with aliens meant that she was working with things that were, well, alien. She'd never seen anything like this before. She'd spent the evening looking in the records in the med bay computer, and every time she thought she'd come close, something else had been a mitigating circumstance. It had been illuminating, though; where an archivist had classified more than half of the main Hub's systems, no one had touched the doctor's records, probably hadn't even known where they were to touch them. There were tantalising glimpses of a Torchwood prior to her tenure there; oblique references to Project Goldenrod, occasional mentions of whale meat, and one folder full of shootings that she'd opened, stared at in horrified fascination, and then closed. She was another voice in the files now, a new doctor adding her experiences.
Despite the sweeping sense of grandeur she felt at that, there were some downright ridiculous bits in there. She made a mental note to ask Gwen about the note on an extraterrestrial insect that read, in sprawling handwriting that had to be a doctor's, because no one else is quite that illegible: Paul McCartney and fucking WINGS.
Megan transferred the stuff she'd need onto the data slate, and then sorted through the physical files.
"Megan!" Jack called, from across the Hub. The man was loud. With a sigh, she picked up the files that she had, and then used the handrail to help herself leap up the stairs.
"Okay," said Jack, as Ianto handed around coffee. "What do we know?"
"I called Andy," said Gwen, brightly. "He reckons there's not really… well, there's no increase in violent incidents, or anything."
"Yes, because one of the harbingers of the apocalypse is a bunch of grannies getting really violent," Ianto said, taking his seat at Jack's right hand.
"What I was going to say," Gwen said, sipping her tea, "was that Andy reckons there's been a lot of traffic accidents. Like, they're being called out around the bloody clock to go and attend to people mounting the pavement and stuff."
"Weird," said Jack. "But it's not people collapsing and dying in their houses, and then being eaten by their pets."
"That's what I told Andy," Gwen said, with a sigh. "Look, Jack, you have to give him points for trying."
"I don't have to give him points for anything," Jack said.
"Unless he gives you a pointer. Then he gets points for pointers," Ianto said, and Jack sighed.
"Ianto, please tell me you have something more useful than cars banging into each other in the high street," he said.
"I checked out our latest victim against the correlations from the others. It's not looking good for grannies," Ianto said. "And there're more possible cases, looking back through the records for the last few months. Recorded as women taking a fall, or just… death whilst sleeping."
"There has to be something we're overlooking here," said Gwen. "Something… like, why are they all women?"
"There could be men in there," Ianto said, with a shrug. "It's a pretty nebulous set of symptoms. I found a few that I thought were possibilities, and put them on the graph, but they fell into the 'possible' range."
"Graph?"
"I like graphs," Ianto said, with a little smile, and he flicked up something onto the screen. A graph, lots of dots like one of those puzzles in a colouring book. Connect the red dots, and you'll get a pony! Connect the blue dots, and you'll get a shark!
"What're the green dots?" asked Megan, looking for patterns.
"Ah," Ianto said, shifting. "Children. I found the same symptom set in some pediatric reports. The cause of death in all cases was listed as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, but it seemed that most of the parents had visited the doctor beforehand, reporting listlessness, abnormal breathing, glassy eyes."
"Children?" Jack asked, quietly.
"I'm just working from the information I have," Ianto replied. "It's in pockets. There's one up in Grangetown. And there's…" he looked at the table, "one on the Cromwell Estate."
Jack tapped the table. "Okay, action plan."
"You aren't even going to listen to me?" Megan asked, as the dots on the graph stared down at her. Children. Jack ignored her.
"Ianto, Gwen. I want you to go to the Cromwell Estate and talk to people," said Jack. Ianto stiffened.
"I'd really rather go alone," he said.
"Too bad. I want the two of you to go. People talk to Gwen where they might not to you; you're a geek in a suit," said Jack.
Ianto's voice was deep, authoritative. "No."
"I'm sorry, I thought that was an order I just gave you," said Jack, and Megan was surprised at the bite in his tone; he'd been in a pissy mood for the whole meeting, and this seemed such a stupid thing to set off a fight.
"I'm sorry, I thought that we were a team," said Ianto, mimicking Jack's intonation. Ianto glared at Jack, mouth pressed in a thin line, colour high on his cheeks. Megan wondered if he knew that he looked like he was about to burst a blood vessel. She exchanged a look with Gwen; Gwen's eyes were wide, worried.
"It's okay," Gwen said. "I mean, it doesn't have to be me."
"Yes it does," Jack snapped. "Those people are a tight-knit community. Megan and I are obviously from out of town."
"And we're not?" Gwen asked, frowning.
"Excuse me," said Ianto, standing. He was, if possible, even redder than before, hands clenched on the back of his chair so hard that his knuckles had gone white. Something Jack had said - had just said - had made him furious.
"Sit down," said Jack.
Ianto stayed standing. Jack put his hands flat on the table.
"Excuse me," Ianto said again, thinly veiled anger behind the words.
"Sit down," Jack replied, and Ianto turned and left the room.
Megan didn't really want to look at Jack. He thumped the palm of his hand on the table, and then sat back, his voice smooth again.
"As I was saying," he said, all charm, "Gwen, you and Ianto will go to the Cromwell Estate. Muli, report on what you've found."
"Shouldn't we wait for…" Gwen said, and Jack glared at her. "Jack, we should wait for Ianto."
Jack leaned back in his chair, folding his arms, and inclined his head to Megan, a little indication that she should continue. She swallowed, catching Gwen's expression of betrayal and Jack's sharktoothed smile.
"I…" said Megan, picking up her tablet computer. "I'm not very conclusive, I'm afraid. I've got an unknown toxin in the blood. As far as I can tell, it's organic, but it's not… it's not any organism I've ever seen."
"Animal, plant, virus…?" Jack asked, and she pulled a close-up from the electron microscope onto the main screen.
"I think it's maybe a poison. From a bite or scratch," she said. "I've not had a chance to observe the patients and check for bites, but that's my current working assumption."
"What could be biting them?" asked Gwen, chewing on her lip. "I mean, people would have noticed something, wouldn't they?"
"Not if it was little," Jack said. "Could be bugs, or something."
"Oh god," Gwen replied. "Don't talk to me about bugs. Got bloody weevils or something into my pantry on the weekend."
"Weevils?" Megan asked, quickly losing the thread of the conversations. Gwen waved a hand.
"Not… you know, weevil-weevils. Like, the little squirmy weevils. You should have seen our rubbish this week. I had plans for that scone mix."
"This is not a productive area of discussion," Jack said, steepling his fingers. "So we assume it's something small. The Black Death was spread by fleas. Headlice, maybe, if it's children."
"I could…" Megan frowned. "I could look further into the domestic situation of the victims. Maybe some of them have animals that could have spread the toxin to them through fleas or lice. Could be bigger, though; cats carry subacute regional lymphadenitis - cat scratch fever."
"I thought that the data said that most of them lived alone?" Jack asked. "Are we talking… cat ladies?"
"That's a stereotype," Megan said, and Jack shrugged.
"Tell me when you know something that can help us," he said, and got up, leaving the room. Gwen looked at her helplessly.
"What the hell was that?" Megan asked, once Jack had left. Gwen shook her head.
"I don't know," she said. "It's like… something Jack said really got to Ianto, but I don't know what it was."
"Well, it's not helping," said Megan. Gwen grimaced.
"Tell me about it," she said. "I'm going to go and see if I can get any sense out of Ianto."
"I'll talk with Jack," said Megan.
"Your funeral," Gwen warned. Megan steeled herself, heading up to Jack's office. He was behind his desk, writing something, his penmanship angry loops and whorls that she could see even from the door.
"What was that?" she asked, quietly.
"That was nothing," said Jack, looking up. "That was you not doing your job. I didn't hire you to tell me that you don't know what's going on."
"I didn't take the job to get landed with a boss who throws a tantrum every time things don't go his way," said Megan, folding her arms. "I could go and work for UNIT tomorrow."
"Not if I tell them what I know about you," said Jack.
She rolled her eyes. "Oh, yes, and what terrible things have I done?"
"Who says I'll give them your real file?" Jack asked, looking up at her, his desklamp casting his face into planes of shadow. She stood her ground and looked at him. He met her eyes, and she didn't think he was going to back down. This was ridiculous; it wasn't like they were children in a playground.
"I don't think that I'm the one who you're trying to have this conversation with," Megan finally said. "I'll be in the medical bay if you want to know what I've actually found."
She left him, hunched over his scribblings, and went back to her workspace, blasting the playlist she'd found already loaded up in the computer. It wasn't her sort of music, but it was loud and there was a beat, and it was good stuff for blocking out the rest of the world.
Eventually, someone appeared at the top. Gwen. She looked a little wan, and Megan sighed. This was why she wasn't so keen on teams. Teams meant attachment, and attachment meant sentimentality and weakness. Attachment meant that you might make a decision that was personal, not the decision that would benefit the whole. Gwen sat on the stairs, hands on her belly. Silently, Megan handed her the data slate, all the information that she'd need to make up her own mind before she and Ianto went looking for animals with nasty big sharp pointy teeth at the Estate tomorrow.
Gwen waved a hand at the speakers. "Um." She wiped her eyes. "Do you mind if I turn that down?"
"You okay?" Megan asked. Gwen nodded.
"Bloody hormones. You know I cried over a cat food commercial the other night?" she said, and Megan grinned. Gwen sighed. "I'm just… I'm fine."
"Did Ianto say something to you?"
Gwen shook her head. "He offered me a cup of peppermint tea."
"Then why the tears?" Megan gestured to her eyes.
"Did I ever tell you about the guy who worked here before you?" asked Gwen, apropos of nothing, only it wasn't nothing, because Megan had been playing the music she'd found on the computer. She shook her head. Gwen sat, examining the images on her data slate, as if she even understood what they said.
"Do you want to know?" Gwen asked, and Megan nodded.
"Yeah," she said. "You guys are crazy. Of course I want to know."
Family Business: Part Two
Family Business
by: misswinterhill
Jo shuffled awkwardly on the step, almost considered using her teeth for the knocker but instead put the bags into one handful and then knocked quickly.
"Good afternoon! Your Cosmetologica delivery is here!" she called. She'd rehearsed with Mum - they liked the sellers to say the catchphrase, just like on the ads. There was no response. She walked back along the path a little way until she could see the car, snug in the garage. Yeah. The car was there. So the old biddy was definitely home, just… asleep and deaf?
She walked back to the door, her sneakers scrungch-scruncghing on the the gravel, walking it up to the doormat, tapping on the door again.
"Hello? Mrs. Wilson?"
Jo sighed, juggling the thin plastic carrybags from hand to hand. They were bloody heavy.
"Look, Mam said I have to get a signature," she said, blowing a stray strand of hair out of her eyes. "If I don't get a signature, I can't prove that you…"
The bottom fell out of one of the bags.
"Shit."
The bottle of bodywash rolled down the gravel path and Jo chased it, finally catching it in a flowerbed, spring bulbs just sprouting up in clumps and other flowers starting to bloom now that the frosts were almost done. She had to reach past nettles and weeds amid the perennials, and she dusted the dirt off the shiny purple bottle onto her hoodie, looking at the green heads of the jonquils. A big bug crawled over the dirt, shiny against the still-damp earth. If there were slugs, Jo thought, she was outta here.
"Last chance!" she called. Her knees were damp now, and she wondered if there'd be a mark left on her jeans by the mud. This wasn't bloody worth it, not for 50p a house. "Okay then."
She wrote up the little Cosmetologica called! card and went to put it in the letterbox, but when she got back there, it was overflowing.
"Joanne Cartwright!" It was Mam. "Haven't you done that one house yet?"
"Mam, how long since you've seen Mrs. Wilson?" asked Jo, feeling a bit hot and prickly under her skin. "There's a lot of letters in this letterbox."
"Oh, stop being an idiot," said her Mam, snatching the card from Jo, stomping up past the overgrown garden to the door. She knocked on the door, loud enough to rattle it on its hinges. Jo hung about by the gate, scuffing her shoes in the dirt. "Come on, then. We'll go round the back."
"But…"
"Jo!"
Sighing, Jo went around the back.
"Door's unlocked. Maybe she's just gone for a walk?"
"Well. We can just leave it on her kitchen table," said her Mam. Jo paused. "Oh, don't be pathetic, Joanne. Come on."
The smell of rotting garbage filled the kitchen, carrying an acrid, nasty undertone, and a cat bolted past them to the door and out as they crept in.
"Marjorie? You in? It's Deb from down on Mill Road. I've got your order! Sorry it took a little while; they had some of it on backorder…"
"Mam," said Jo, covering her nose. "Should we…?"
"We might just go upstairs. See if she's in." Mam was looking discomfited now, a little wobbly around the edges of her confidence. "She might've had a fall or something."
"I'll take a look down here," said Jo. There was dust on everything, cat crap on the floor. It stank. She was picking her way across the sitting room, looking at the photos on the mantel. There was a woman with Mrs. Wilson in most of them; across photographs and years, she wore all sorts of things that ranged from a skeevy old tracksuit to a smart business suit. Jo brushed the dust off one, wondering why this happy woman from the frames hadn't come checking on the old lady, when she heard her mother scream.
She ran upstairs, her heart thudding loudly, feeling like it was about to break out of her chest. "Is everything okay? Did she have a fall?" The smell was worse up here, if that were possible, all rotten and acidic.
Silence.
"Mam?" she asked, ice-hot.
"Get your phone," her Mam said. "Call the cops, sommat, I don't know."
"What is it?"
"Just get your fucking phone!"
Jo pulled out her mobile, dialing with shaking fingers as she rounded the corner to see what her mother was screaming about.
Mrs. Wilson was home. It looked like she'd been home for a while. "Hullo?" asked the operator, into Jo's ear. "What is the nature of the emergency?"
"She's dead," said Jo, her stomach turning as the maggots crawled over a body that was barely recognisable, except for the floral dressing gown. "Oh my god. Mrs. Wilson… she's dead."
It was a Friday, and Friday meant pastries. Although it was never discussed, someone showed up with a box of pastries every Friday for the morning meeting, and no one ever coincided. It was Jack's turn this morning, and he'd bought a box that was leaking greasily through the cardboard and smelling like hunger that lasted for a thousand years, even before he'd opened the top.
"Doughnuts!" said Jack, happily. "Well, doughnut holes. How do you think they make the holes? Do they pop out the centres?"
"I think they use a doughnut cutter. Like for gingerbread men. Piles cushions for gingerbread men," said Gwen, reaching out to tip the box towards her with her fingertips.
"Honestly, have you two ever bothered to look when they're making them?" Ianto asked, slapping Gwen's hand away. "Mine."
They slowly became aware of a silent presence in the boardroom, standing by the computer screens. Dr. Muli had a laser pointer and a dour expression, and on the screen there were photos of…
"Well, I'm glad I didn't get the jam filled ones, then," said Jack, wincing a little as Gwen trod on his foot.
"When you've all finished?" Muli asked.
Jack proffered the box. "Come on. Live life on the edge."
"I don't need more palm oil in my diet, Jack."
"I do," said Gwen.
Muli rapidly flipped through photos onscreen, and playtime stopped. "Seven people are dead."
These were not road deaths, or death by robot, or guns, or fire. These were people in their pyjamas, in their old grotty gardening clothes, in bedrooms with floral wallpaper. Muli stopped on one, zooming in on the viscera of someone dead for a month. Jack chewed slowly. No, not like the weevil deaths. These people had died doing normal things, everyday things like making dinner, or planting spring bulbs.
He remembered London, during the Blitz. He'd gone into a house, looking for a place to hide out for a night, get some period-appropriate clothes for when he showed up at the barracks. There'd been a family there, the building still standing, but bullet holes in their heads and maggots feasting.
He'd been sick in the yard before he stole the dead man's shoes.
"Seven people are dead," Jack said, his throat suddenly dry. "And you're grandstanding. What happened?"
"That's what Torchwood needs to work out," said Muli, and Ianto's phone rang.
He pulled it out of his pocket, looked at the number. "Sorry," he said, and got up and left.
Jack sat back. Curiouser and curiouser.
"Did Ianto just…?" Gwen asked.
Jack wiped his mouth with his sleeve. "Yeah."
He could see Ianto through the frosted glass, pacing. He was uncomfortable but not agitated; talking to someone he cared for, then. Not an emergency. Jack sat back.
"Shall I continue?" asked Muli, drily.
"No," said Jack and Gwen together. They met each other's eyes. Jack laughed first, looking away and grabbing another doughnut.
"Ianto will tease you about getting pudgy."
"I like pudgy," said Jack, stretching out, putting his arms around the chairs beside him as if encircling imaginary friends. "There's more to explore. Curves and hugs and…"
"Does every meeting have to deteriorate into a discussion of Jack's sexual preferences?" Muli asked, running a hand over her hair.
"Not every meeting," Gwen said, as Ianto came back.
"Sorry. Sorry," he said, taking his place again, mobile in his hands. Thunk. Ianto tipped it onto one edge, and then -thunk- another.
"So. Now that Ianto's back, what do we know about them?" Gwen asked, popping a doughnut hole into her mouth.
Thunk, went Ianto's mobile, as he flipped it between his fingers.
"Single women," said Muli. "Living alone, but most had family alive. Still waiting on toxicology - there was nothing particularly wrong physiologically. I mean, it's not as if they all had a stroke, or a heart attack."
Thunk. Jack grabbed Ianto's wrist, tried to take the mobile phone, but Ianto slipped it into his pocket, shaking his head a little.
"Their families didn't…" Gwen swallowed, "…didn't?"
Ianto broke in. "What the hell happened to their bodies? Number five and number three look like they've been eaten. It's not like the weevils, is it?"
The images were high-resolution, gory; in close-up, one could have been mistaken for modern art, an arrangement of red and bone, maggots like little sequins shining in the camera flash.
"There was some… predation," said Muli. "Domestic cats, when hungry enough, will eat any available source of meat."
Ianto's leg was jiggling. Jack sighed, putting a hand on Ianto's knee under the table. Ianto stopped.
"Symptoms?"
"Those we could get details about had withdrawn from contact in their last days," said Muli. "The doctor of Victim number two had her booked in for some testing because she'd shown some disorientation during a routine visit, and her blood sugars were out. Thought she might be developing pancreatic cancer."
"Disorientation?" Jack asked. "Specifics?"
"We don't know," Muli said slowly. "It's… there are correlations between the victims. But there's not a defined set of symptoms, because we haven't had a live one. They've all been decomposing corpses by the time anyone gets to them."
"Says something sad about the way that families don't get on now, doesn't it?" Gwen said. "I mean, I can't imagine a week where I didn't call my mam."
"A week is enough in this weather, with… external influences," said Muli.
There was an uncomfortable silence.
"So," Ianto said. "I'll just… go upstairs then? I think I left the jug on."
"Yeah, I need to…" Gwen said. "I need to go to the loo."
"Yes, Gwen needs to go to the loo," Ianto added.
"She can't go on her own?" Jack asked, as Gwen vanished.
Ianto shrugged, following her quickly.
Muli sat back down, drumming her fingers against the table in a slightly off-beat rhythm. Behind her, the screen scrolled through the correlations. Single. 80% in bedrooms or bathrooms.
"Are we perhaps being too cautious here, Megan?" Jack asked. All decomposed: no one to check on them. Cats? Cat-lady stereotype?
"I don't think so," she replied. "I thought it was coincidence when it first came up on the computers, but I think it's moving beyond that."
"Oh, you're using the computers in the med bay," Jack said, pleased. "I had a bit of a poke, but I've left Owen's desktop alone. If you find a folder of porn, don't try to sue me, okay?"
"Depends on the kind of porn," Muli said, taking one of the remaining doughnut holes. "This needs to be on our radar, Jack."
"We can't investigate everything; as far as I know, Gwen still has some stuff outstanding from a while ago. We're only four people," Jack said. "But this is weird; I'll give you that. If you come up with something on the tox screen, I'll be willing to give it man-hours."
Muli looked at the ceiling, presumably to disguise the fact that she was taking another doughnut hole. Jack smiled. Everyone had a weakness.
"Who are they calling? Family?" she asked, eventually. "I wasn't aware that Ianto even had any family."
"He has a sister," Jack said, absently. "Hang on."
He went up into the main Hub. Gwen was curled up on the lounge, knees to her chest.
"…yeah. No. Oh, you take care of yourself," she said, as she spotted him. "I've gotta go, Mam. I'll talk later. Mm. Love you, too."
She mouthed 'Sorry!' and he mouthed 'It's okay!' and sought out Ianto. He found him in the kitchenette, pacing a bit as he set out fresh cups on the countertop.
"Yeah," Ianto was saying. "No, I'll definitely be able to get the day off. I'll be there."
Jack smiled, moving in to join Ianto. Made his presence known; no secrets. Ianto looked at him, smiled a little.
"Okay. Okay. Bye. Yeah, bye. Bye."
Ianto hung up, and Jack cracked a grin. So, Ianto wanted to be mysterious?
"Which day have I given you off?" Jack said, as Ianto pocketed his phone.
"Saturday," Ianto said. "You know, normal people don't actually work seven days a week."
"Normal people also don't live at work," Jack replied. Ianto mimed a shot to the heart, and Jack laughed.
"You going to tell me where you're going?" Jack asked.
"Do I have to?" Ianto asked.
Jack sighed, leaning against the cupboards. "No. You don't."
"Can you give me this one, then?" Ianto asked. "It's not anything… bad."
"You'll have your phone?"
Ianto scowled. "I'm not an idiot. And it's not espionage or anything."
"I know," Jack said, hooking his fingers into Ianto's belt, using the tiny bit of leverage and Ianto's extreme reluctance to have the beltloops on his trousers stretched out. "I trust you."
Once he could get his hands on Ianto's hips, Jack pulled Ianto even closer, but he didn't try to kiss or ruffle. Ianto relaxed a little, leaning in to the touch; he liked to be close, but hated to ask. Especially hated it when other people were…
"Oh, so this is checking," said Muli, from behind them.
Ianto stiffened, stepping back. "Sorry, Doctor. I'll get some more coffee ready."
Jack watched Ianto retreat into a familiar role. He sighed, slapped his hand on the countertop, and left for the boardroom again, the moment well and truly fled.
"Mica! Leave that poor bloody cat be!"
Mica dragged the cat with her. Ianto smiled, feeling the tightness across his face as he tried desperately to remember names and match them to faces all grown up. Mica ran ahead of them, vanishing into another room. There was a noise that seemed to indicate an extremely unhappy cat, and Ianto sort of wished he'd been able to follow her as he was all-but-shoved into the middle of a busy kitchen.
"…and then I said that I wasn't going to accept her friend request unless she agreed to come to Daniel's third birthday. I mean, really…"
"Oh my god, is there any way to blacklist people that you don't want to talk to?"
There were four women in the kitchen. Far too many people for the space, especially when you added a very aggressive perfume and a generalised sense of discomfort from recognising four women that Ianto knew that he should know but whose names he couldn't remember.
"Yeah, it's in the settings," said the first woman. "Oh my god, Rhiannon, where did you dig this one up from? He's gorgeous."
"Oh, shut it, Nerys," said Rhiannon. "It's Ianto. Ianto, you remember Nerys and Susan? And Claire and Annie?"
"That's Ianto?" asked Susan, patting his arm. "Oooh, he's grown up well!"
Ianto could feel the blush starting, and he fought the compulsion to roll his eyes. He did not blush. He just didn't. Even when people played with his tie. Ianto had a strict area of personal space; even Gwen, touchy-feely Gwen, respected that. Jack, of course, had no concept of personal space. Ianto took a deep breath. What would Jack do in this case?
"Hi," he said, warmly, pretending that his face wasn't currently changing colour to shade in with his shirt. "It's been awhile, Nerys, Susan, Annie, erm, Claire."
Sadly, whatever magical powers seemed to come with Jack's perfect jawline had not passed to Ianto through kissing said jawline. Susan laughed, and Nerys adjusted his lapels. Ianto tried not to stiffen.
"Oooh, takes a brave man to wear a pink shirt! Do you remember when we used to make you join in when we did that Spice Girls thing?" cooed Nerys, happily. "So, are you single?"
"Nerys!" Rhiannon said, pulling a tray of little pastry things out of the oven. "That's my little brother!"
"That's your gorgeous little brother," said Nerys, and Ianto blurted out:
"I'm seeing someone."
Rhiannon looked at him. That big-sister-you-are-going-to-tell-me-everything look. Nerys sighed, put-upon, and too late Ianto saw the half-full bottle of bubbly on the surface and three more sitting next to the bin.
"So? Why didn't you bring her?" asked Susan, taking a little pastry thing. "You'll have to get her to come along on Tuesday."
"Tuesday?" Ianto asked.
"Don't you check your bloody Facebook?" Rhiannon asked, and Ianto breathed a little sigh of relief. Annoyed that she wasn't the first to know about him seeing someone, yes. Annoyed to the point of anger, no. This was nosey annoyance, the sort that could be placated with a few stories about...
…oh god, he'd just dug himself an even bigger hole. This, Ianto decided, had been a terrible idea. He heard someone shuffling behind him.
"All right, girls, get off him," said Johnny, cheerfully. "You're married, Nerys. And you're dating Steve-with-the-car, Claire."
"We're not flirting," said Nerys, still patting Ianto's arm.
"Johnny," said Ianto, desperate.
Johnny put a friendly arm around Ianto's shoulders. "Ianto."
"I need a beer," said Ianto.
Johnny pressed a bottle into Ianto's hand. "Thought you might. Come on. I got a new game on the Xbox; leave the ladies to their champers."
Ianto felt relief flood his system as they escaped, moving through the house. Johnny turned on the Xbox as a token gesture, and both men sagged back into the tatty old sofa, thankful that the back on it was high enough to hide them from the party proper.
"So," Ianto said, taking a swig, "how've you been?"
"Yeah, good. You?"
Ianto thought of the things he could say: Oh, saved the world a few times. Lost some friends. Dating a guy. Not much new.
"Yeah, good," he replied.
Johnny sighed, sitting back. "Another year, hey?"
"Yup."
They sat in comfortable silence as Johnny scrolled through the menus, the TV whirring in time to the press of the buttons. Ianto heard the incoming child before he saw her.
"Uncle Ianto!" Mica announced. "Look what I got for my early un-birthday! He's called Boots and he came from the cat's home!"
"Please don't put it-" Ianto suddenly had a lapful of cat, quickly followed by a niece leaning on his knees, "-on my lap."
Boots looked equally displeased with being on Ianto's lap, and launched off him, using his thigh as a springboard. Ianto winced as sharp claws went through his trousers, and he wondered if the stupid thing had pulled a thread. Mica seemed not to care, and she clambered onto his lap anyway.
"Where are you going to take me for my birthday?" she asked, almost accusingly. "David got a new Xbox game and you took him to McDonalds."
"I've… been busy. Haven't worked anything out yet," Ianto said, brushing her hair back. "And besides, you came along to McDonalds, too."
"Mam said you're working in town. I wanna go out to the Bay and feed the seagulls."
"Okay," Ianto said. "I think we can do that."
"And I want Mario Brothers for the Xbox, anna controller, because daddy sat on my one."
"Okay," Ianto said, and Johnny laughed.
"They can smell fear, you know. Get off him, you little beggar."
"It's okay," Ianto said, as Mica snuggled, turning a pouting glare onto her father. "I'll… I'll ask my boss for an afternoon off, shall I? You'll have to show me which game."
"Your jacket is funny," Mica said in reply. "Why's it stripey?"
"I… like stripes?" asked Ianto, looking at the pinstripes on his leg.
"And you're wearing pink. Pink is for girls," Mica said, wriggling a bit. "Dora wears pink. I like Dora."
"Okay," said Ianto, meeting Johnny's eyes. Johnny had this big, shit-eating grin on his face that somehow successfully managed to convey I told you so. Mica's inability to stay on one topic for longer than a sentence was starting to wear a bit thin, but she was warm and lively and his niece, so Ianto was prepared to put up with it a little while longer.
"I've got purple perfume!"
"That's… aren't you a bit young for perfume?" Ianto asked.
"It's this stupid Cosmetologica crap," said Johnny. "Rhi went to a party for it and came home with all this makeup and stuff. She got me moisturiser. She's gonna be a distributor."
"Oh," said Ianto, with a little wince.
"What in the bloody hell am I meant to do with moisturiser? It's got a picture of a cordless drill on the tub," said Johnny. "No man who owns his own drill wears Royal Purple scented moisturiser with Real Botanical Extracts."
Johnny finished his beer, and then looked at Ianto with something approaching horror.
"You don't wear moisturiser, do you? You look a bit fancy in that suit."
"I don't wear moisturiser," Ianto said, only lying a little bit. "And the suit's for work. It's… good that Rhi's able to work from home, eh?"
"Yeah, and guess who has to do the driving round and delivering the bloody stuff?" asked Johnny. Ianto nodded sympathetically.
"Yeah, I know how that feels," he said.
There was a squeal from the kitchen. "Oh god, I bet Sarah just arrived," said Johnny, dully. "Women, eh?"
"Yeah," said Ianto. "Erm, you mind if I get us both another beer?"
Several more husbands-and-boyfriends came to join them as the party grew; there were little pastries and bits of cake and prunes with bacon wrapped around them. Ianto made a little fort out of toothpicks as David tried to balance a tray on his head.
"Hey, Uncle Ianto. Mica reckons you're gonna get her Rock Band for the Xbox."
"Oh," Ianto said. "I… suppose."
"Don't be stupid, it's bloody expensive. You've got to be on the ball, Ianto, or these two will take you for all you've got," said Johnny.
"Aw, like you didn't play it when Dav brought it across," said David.
"Dav?" Ianto asked.
"Dav from school. I'm David and he's Dav. Don't you know anything?" asked David, whirling away. Ianto picked at the label of his beer bottle.
"No," he said quietly. "I suppose I don't."
There was a crash from the kitchen. "OHMIGOD!"
"Ignore it," said Johnny. "Mica's probably dressed the cat in Cabbage Patch clothes again."
Ianto stood. He wasn't able to ignore it - too long in Torchwood, he supposed, but he made his way into the kitchen as if drawn by an irresistible force. He could hear Rhiannon issuing orders.
"Give her some air! Give her some air!"
"Move!" Ianto said, sharply. "What's happened?"
The woman was elderly, thin. Crumpled oddly on the floor, as if she were a doll discarded by a child. Ianto pushed up the sleeves on his jacket, kneeling beside her.
"Rhiannon, call an ambulance," he said, checking her pulse. "She's alive. Pulse is sluggish. Tell them that she's breathing."
"Ianto…?"
"Do it," he said, roughly, and Rhiannon vanished to the phone. He didn't know who this was, but he gently rolled her into the recovery position. "Get me a blanket. She's freezing. Who knows her?"
"That's Mrs. McKenzie from number eight," offered someone.
"Family?" Ianto asked, keeping his fingers on her pulse.
"They live down Swansea. Her husband died in '05."
"Who's seen her, last few days?"
"Ah…" said Nerys, into the silence. "I saw her on Monday. She was watering the garden."
Ianto bent in to listen to her breathing. It was slow, measured, whistling. An elderly woman, living alone. Collapsed.
Shit.
He was going to have to call Dr. Muli.
"Get everyone out," he ordered.
"But…" said Nerys or Carys or Claire or someone. Ianto shook his head.
"No. Out."
They filed out slowly, disappointed, and he pulled out his phone, willing them to move faster. It shouldn't take five minutes for a tiny handful of people to leave a room. Ianto hated gawkers - if someone was hurt, then they were hurt; they didn't need people staring at them.
"Hi," he said, when she answered. "It's Ianto. I need you to meet me at the hospital."
"Explain the situation," said Muli.
He was, in some small way, vaguely impressed by her absolute readiness for action. He just wished that she'd temper it a little sometimes. He sighed.
"Elderly woman. Lives alone. Just collapsed," he said, quietly. "Pulse is slow. Breathing is slow. She feels cold… I don't have a thermometer, but she feels bloody freezing."
"I'll be there," said Muli. "Too many of the variables for it to be a coincidence."
"Exactly my thoughts," Ianto said, hearing the sirens in the distance. "See you there."
He hung up, looking at the ones who'd refused to leave. They were silent, gathered around. No one spoke for a while; it was Rhiannon who eventually broke the silence.
"Ianto?" asked Rhiannon, quiet. "I… I called the ambulance a while ago, and they're not here yet. What's going on?"
"I don't know," he said.
"Who'd you just call then?" asked Nerys. "Who's meeting you at the hospital."
"Someone I work with," he said. "A doctor… Dr. Megan Muli. She's looking into the deaths that've been happening out in the country."
"You work in a Tourist Office," said Rhiannon, cold. "You can't expect…"
"Rhi," Ianto said. "I… I don't think that this is the right time for this conversation. Can you… go and make sure that people are okay?"
He was saved by a sharp rap on the door, and the entrance of paramedics. Ianto managed to have a brief flush of relief before he was confronted with a paramedic, and he realised that today was turning into a workday. Someone, thank god, had shepherded the guests outside, leaving just Ianto and his sister with Mrs-unconscious-McKenzie.
"Ianto Jones," he said, as the man checked over the patient. "Torchwood. Dr. Megan Muli will meet you at the hospital."
The paramedic sat back on his haunches. "Why?"
"This case bears similarities to others recently referred to us," said Ianto. "Dr. Muli needs to do an examination to work out if it's the same thing."
Rhiannon was silent. Ianto could feel her looking at him, and he looked up at her, at her pinched expression, at the shock in her eyes. He swallowed.
"Rhi?" he asked.
"Let's get this sorted," she said, soft. "I'll leave the kids with Susan, and then once we know Mrs. M is okay, then you and I are going to have Words."
"Yeah," said Ianto, as the patient was loaded onto a stretcher. "We probably should."
The ambulance ride was one of the most frightening things Rhiannon had ever experienced in her entire life. No one had been there when Dad had died - nothing like this beeping and people talking urgently in conversations made up almost entirely of numbers.
"Five cc's" said the paramedic next to her, and Rhiannon squeezed Mrs. M's hand.
"It's okay," she said, wondering if she'd even be heard. "It's okay, love. I'll call Timbo and get him up here, and he'll look after you."
The ambulance lurched, and Rhiannon felt a little carsick. They'd probably mounted the curb, avoiding the traffic. There'd be cars slipping into the clear spot behind the ambulance, drivers using a tragedy to gain a little more time on their trip across town. Mrs. M was so pale, so still. And Ianto had taken over; her shy little Ianto, quiet Ianto. Ianto who'd vanished off to London and come back with a different accent and expensive suits and no time for his family.
Ianto who'd called someone at Torchwood. Rhiannon wasn't an idiot. There were things you paid attention to in Cardiff, and things that you didn't, and things that you ignored from a sense of self-preservation more than anything else. Everyone knew about Torchwood, right? If the kids weren't getting up to bed quickly enough, you'd tell them that Torchwood would come and take them away.
"Okay, love. I'll get you to fill this in," said the paramedic. "When we get there, I'll be taking her through, and this'll help the doctors."
"I…" Rhiannon floundered, pen in hand. "She's my neighbour, not my…"
"Just fill it in."
She did what she could, feeling supremely useless. Address. Full name. Didn't even know it, not middle names and stuff. Did they use middle names? What would they use a middle name for in a hospital?
Ianto was there when she was ushered from the ambulance, standing straight and tall, hair ruffled a little by the wind. She'd been watching him today, and all the warmth that had filled her chest when he'd sat and played Xbox with Johnny was melting away, being replaced by a cold sense of dread. This tall man in a dark suit wasn't her little brother.
"You okay?" he asked, taking her arm. "Rhi, do you know her well? The woman?"
"Mrs. M," she said, feeling her throat tighten. "She has a name, Ianto."
He gave her a half-hug, arm around her shoulders. "I know, Rhi. Come on."
They followed the trolley inside, and Ianto showed an ID that had people getting out of his way. Rhiannon trailed along helplessly behind him. He even had a bluetooth thing that no one told him to get rid of; she caught a few of the nurses greeting him as if they knew him. Which was crazy.
"We're in A&E. I've got her isolated," said Ianto, into his bluetooth thing. He looked up. "I can see you."
He waved at a woman who was striding down the corridor towards them. She was pocketing her phone, and she fell into step beside Ianto as they made their way towards a back room somewhere. Oh god. The woman was lovely. Was she Ianto's girlfriend? No, too old. Or was she? It was hard to tell - she fell into that sort of vague age range that Rhiannon herself fell into - could be anywhere from mid-thirties onwards, wouldn't like to say because oh god it reminded her of the time that the shop girl congratulated her on being pregnant and she… but where Rhiannon was a bit short, a bit on the heavy side, this woman was slim, smooth-skinned, effortlessly graceful. She looked at Rhiannon as if she were a bug. A fat, slightly sweaty, bug.
"Who is this? Is she related to the patient?" the woman demanded, as they walked through a set of double doors. Mrs. M was in the room, sleeping in some sort of plastic tent - the sort of thing that she remembered from TV shows where deadly viruses got out and killed everyone in the city. Rhiannon swallowed.
"Ah. Dr. Megan Muli. This is Rhiannon Davies. My sister," said Ianto, just as Muli was about to start dissecting Rhiannon with her fingernails.
"Oh. But she was present when the incident occurred?"
"I was," said Rhiannon, wondering when someone would show up and tell her to get out. She wasn't Torchwood, or even useful. She was just a hanger-on.
"So what did you give her?" asked the woman. "Was the poisoning deliberate?"
"I… what?" asked Rhiannon.
"Did you give her anything? She's elderly, possibly with money or a will…"
"Dr. Muli!" Ianto said, his voice an angry whisper. Rhiannon wondered who was in charge; if this woman wanted to take her in for questioning, could Ianto stop it? Ianto folded his arms.
Muli raised an eyebrow. "It's a reasonable question."
"It's my birthday," said Rhiannon. "She's a lonely old woman, and she lives up the road. It's what you do, right. It's neighbourly. Friendly." Ianto took her hand, twining their fingers together.
"Okay, I'll rephrase the question. Can you think of anything she might have consumed that she was allergic to? What did she eat at your home?" asked Muli, as the Jones siblings drew closer to each other. It was comforting. When they were kids, it had been the two of them, and something bone-deep drew them back together under the onslaught of questions.
"That's two questions," said Ianto, rolling his eyes. "Megan, I was there."
"Well?" Megan looked unperturbed. There was something almost feline about her; Rhiannon felt as if she were being toyed with, that if she answered the question then Megan might later twist it, make it seem as though the reason why Mrs. M was lying here in this… this tent was that Rhiannon had done something.
"We'll discuss it later," said Ianto. "You do your job, and I'll do mine. Come on, Rhi, I'll take you downstairs. Johnny's waiting in the cafeteria for you."
He waited until they were out in the corridor before he turned to her.
"I am so sorry," he said.
"About which part?" Rhiannon asked, pulling away from him. "The bit where your colleague insinuated that I tried to murder Mrs. M, or the bit where you forgot to tell me that you work for Torchwood?"
"I… er… sort of ruined your birthday, too," he said, going pink, and that was enough to make her laugh and hug him tightly.
"At least you were there, you twit," she said, as he hugged back. "You and me, we're going to have a talk about this, yeah?"
"I'll bring the vodka," he said, into her hair, and she knew they'd be okay. They always were. Relieved, she led the way toward the cafeteria.
"The other-Joneses from number fifteen have the kids," Ianto said, and he stopped still when he saw someone else get off the lift. Tall guy, still wearing his coat indoors. "Oh god."
"What?" she asked. "What is it? Who is it?"
Ianto stiffened, eyes going wide. He looked around, almost as if he was going to attempt to bolt, but as the man drew closer, he gave up, turning to her with a panicked expression.
"Rhi, there's something else I haven't…"
She wondered if this were an old enemy, maybe; someone who Torchwood had done wrong by, someone out for revenge. But Ianto seemed reluctant, not angry, and the man was beaming as he walked towards them. That wasn't the face of an enemy.
"Oh you can not keep hiding your family from me," called the man, charmingly. "You said you had a sister - you never said that you're both gorgeous."
It was a line, a cheap and tawdry line, but so few people ever looked at Rhiannon like that; so she was willing to take it and keep it, and ignore the little voice in her head that said you're being taken in.
"You're trying too hard," Ianto murmured, looking at the floor. "Rhi, this is Jack. My… um."
There was something in the tone of that um that was not just Ianto being Ianto and evasive. It was Ianto's please-god-don't-make-me-say-it voice. He was fiddling with his cufflinks, when she tried to meet his eyes. This was… possibly something that a bottle of vodka and more pizza than they could eat couldn't fix.
"Cap'n Jack Harkness," the man said, shaking her hand. His handshake was firm, warm, and Rhiannon hoped that her palms weren't sweaty. "Ianto's told me about you."
"Bullcrap," Rhiannon said. It had taken nearly a year for her to introduce Johnny and Ianto, and even then she'd been so scared that Ianto would disapprove. Johnny was a bit rough, yeah, but he loved her and he was a good man. She wasn't sure what she'd've done if Ianto hadn't liked him. Ianto coughed, loudly, and Jack shifted his hand to the small of Ianto's back. They exchanged a look like… like…
"Oh my god you're dating," Rhiannon said, louder than she'd intended, and Ianto choked. "Oh, no, I didn't mean it like…"
"I was going to tell you. But probably once we'd had some vodka," Ianto said, helplessly. He was bright pink, and from the heat in her cheeks she knew that she'd gone the colour of a tomato. "I'm not… It's not…"
It's not Jack I'm embarrassed about, Rhiannon realised. Jack was gorgeous, and he was looking at Ianto like they were a couple on the front of a romance novel. A gay romance novel. Oh. Oh. Ianto looked like he'd just swallowed a bowlful of live snakes, and this was potentially going to be the most awkward conversation ever. More awkward even than when she'd asked about Lisa and Ianto had said that she'd died, and that had ended with both of them in tears and then not talking for six months. It was almost a relief when someone behind them spoke.
"Jack, Ianto." It was the doctor-woman. Megan. "I think you'll want to see these readings."
And the guilt - she'd been so wrapped up in Ianto that she'd forgotten about Mrs. M - threatened to swamp Rhiannon for just a second, but she was made of stronger stuff. They'd go round tonight, break in (Johnny swore he learned how from the movies) and make sure it was all okay. Clean up a bit, find Timbo's number, feed the cat.
"Oh," said Ianto, with massive relief. "Gotta go. You'll be right to get yourself to the canteen, yeah?"
"Yeah. You go then," said Rhiannon, feeling the hot, embarrassed feeling stick in her chest.
"Lovely to meet you," said Jack, beaming.
Rhiannon smiled back. "Ah, the same."
"I'll call you. I will," said Ianto, blushing again.
"When you've the time," she said and watched them join Dr. Muli, who was already striding back down the corridor, all like they were from Spooks. Rhiannon twisted her wedding ring around her finger, watching them go, and she wondered if Ianto really would call.
"Muli!" It was Jack. He leaned lazily over the handrail into the medical bay, and Megan could see right up his nose. "Meeting in ten."
"Aye-aye," she said, looking up from the gas chromatograph. One thing you could say about Torchwood: if you wanted it, you got it. She'd presented a list to Jack, two weeks ago, and within a week Ianto had been complaining about lugging boxes down to the medical bay. He'd been wearing a red beret - a UNIT cap - and no one had said anything about it, despite the fact that Jack had been watching him like a hawk.
This case was driving her up the wall.
She had the blood test samples from the patient that Ianto's sister had phoned in - and she didn't want to know how that had happened - and there was definitely an organic compound in there that shouldn't be there, but…
Megan was quickly coming to realise that working with aliens meant that she was working with things that were, well, alien. She'd never seen anything like this before. She'd spent the evening looking in the records in the med bay computer, and every time she thought she'd come close, something else had been a mitigating circumstance. It had been illuminating, though; where an archivist had classified more than half of the main Hub's systems, no one had touched the doctor's records, probably hadn't even known where they were to touch them. There were tantalising glimpses of a Torchwood prior to her tenure there; oblique references to Project Goldenrod, occasional mentions of whale meat, and one folder full of shootings that she'd opened, stared at in horrified fascination, and then closed. She was another voice in the files now, a new doctor adding her experiences.
Despite the sweeping sense of grandeur she felt at that, there were some downright ridiculous bits in there. She made a mental note to ask Gwen about the note on an extraterrestrial insect that read, in sprawling handwriting that had to be a doctor's, because no one else is quite that illegible: Paul McCartney and fucking WINGS.
Megan transferred the stuff she'd need onto the data slate, and then sorted through the physical files.
"Megan!" Jack called, from across the Hub. The man was loud. With a sigh, she picked up the files that she had, and then used the handrail to help herself leap up the stairs.
"Okay," said Jack, as Ianto handed around coffee. "What do we know?"
"I called Andy," said Gwen, brightly. "He reckons there's not really… well, there's no increase in violent incidents, or anything."
"Yes, because one of the harbingers of the apocalypse is a bunch of grannies getting really violent," Ianto said, taking his seat at Jack's right hand.
"What I was going to say," Gwen said, sipping her tea, "was that Andy reckons there's been a lot of traffic accidents. Like, they're being called out around the bloody clock to go and attend to people mounting the pavement and stuff."
"Weird," said Jack. "But it's not people collapsing and dying in their houses, and then being eaten by their pets."
"That's what I told Andy," Gwen said, with a sigh. "Look, Jack, you have to give him points for trying."
"I don't have to give him points for anything," Jack said.
"Unless he gives you a pointer. Then he gets points for pointers," Ianto said, and Jack sighed.
"Ianto, please tell me you have something more useful than cars banging into each other in the high street," he said.
"I checked out our latest victim against the correlations from the others. It's not looking good for grannies," Ianto said. "And there're more possible cases, looking back through the records for the last few months. Recorded as women taking a fall, or just… death whilst sleeping."
"There has to be something we're overlooking here," said Gwen. "Something… like, why are they all women?"
"There could be men in there," Ianto said, with a shrug. "It's a pretty nebulous set of symptoms. I found a few that I thought were possibilities, and put them on the graph, but they fell into the 'possible' range."
"Graph?"
"I like graphs," Ianto said, with a little smile, and he flicked up something onto the screen. A graph, lots of dots like one of those puzzles in a colouring book. Connect the red dots, and you'll get a pony! Connect the blue dots, and you'll get a shark!
"What're the green dots?" asked Megan, looking for patterns.
"Ah," Ianto said, shifting. "Children. I found the same symptom set in some pediatric reports. The cause of death in all cases was listed as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, but it seemed that most of the parents had visited the doctor beforehand, reporting listlessness, abnormal breathing, glassy eyes."
"Children?" Jack asked, quietly.
"I'm just working from the information I have," Ianto replied. "It's in pockets. There's one up in Grangetown. And there's…" he looked at the table, "one on the Cromwell Estate."
Jack tapped the table. "Okay, action plan."
"You aren't even going to listen to me?" Megan asked, as the dots on the graph stared down at her. Children. Jack ignored her.
"Ianto, Gwen. I want you to go to the Cromwell Estate and talk to people," said Jack. Ianto stiffened.
"I'd really rather go alone," he said.
"Too bad. I want the two of you to go. People talk to Gwen where they might not to you; you're a geek in a suit," said Jack.
Ianto's voice was deep, authoritative. "No."
"I'm sorry, I thought that was an order I just gave you," said Jack, and Megan was surprised at the bite in his tone; he'd been in a pissy mood for the whole meeting, and this seemed such a stupid thing to set off a fight.
"I'm sorry, I thought that we were a team," said Ianto, mimicking Jack's intonation. Ianto glared at Jack, mouth pressed in a thin line, colour high on his cheeks. Megan wondered if he knew that he looked like he was about to burst a blood vessel. She exchanged a look with Gwen; Gwen's eyes were wide, worried.
"It's okay," Gwen said. "I mean, it doesn't have to be me."
"Yes it does," Jack snapped. "Those people are a tight-knit community. Megan and I are obviously from out of town."
"And we're not?" Gwen asked, frowning.
"Excuse me," said Ianto, standing. He was, if possible, even redder than before, hands clenched on the back of his chair so hard that his knuckles had gone white. Something Jack had said - had just said - had made him furious.
"Sit down," said Jack.
Ianto stayed standing. Jack put his hands flat on the table.
"Excuse me," Ianto said again, thinly veiled anger behind the words.
"Sit down," Jack replied, and Ianto turned and left the room.
Megan didn't really want to look at Jack. He thumped the palm of his hand on the table, and then sat back, his voice smooth again.
"As I was saying," he said, all charm, "Gwen, you and Ianto will go to the Cromwell Estate. Muli, report on what you've found."
"Shouldn't we wait for…" Gwen said, and Jack glared at her. "Jack, we should wait for Ianto."
Jack leaned back in his chair, folding his arms, and inclined his head to Megan, a little indication that she should continue. She swallowed, catching Gwen's expression of betrayal and Jack's sharktoothed smile.
"I…" said Megan, picking up her tablet computer. "I'm not very conclusive, I'm afraid. I've got an unknown toxin in the blood. As far as I can tell, it's organic, but it's not… it's not any organism I've ever seen."
"Animal, plant, virus…?" Jack asked, and she pulled a close-up from the electron microscope onto the main screen.
"I think it's maybe a poison. From a bite or scratch," she said. "I've not had a chance to observe the patients and check for bites, but that's my current working assumption."
"What could be biting them?" asked Gwen, chewing on her lip. "I mean, people would have noticed something, wouldn't they?"
"Not if it was little," Jack said. "Could be bugs, or something."
"Oh god," Gwen replied. "Don't talk to me about bugs. Got bloody weevils or something into my pantry on the weekend."
"Weevils?" Megan asked, quickly losing the thread of the conversations. Gwen waved a hand.
"Not… you know, weevil-weevils. Like, the little squirmy weevils. You should have seen our rubbish this week. I had plans for that scone mix."
"This is not a productive area of discussion," Jack said, steepling his fingers. "So we assume it's something small. The Black Death was spread by fleas. Headlice, maybe, if it's children."
"I could…" Megan frowned. "I could look further into the domestic situation of the victims. Maybe some of them have animals that could have spread the toxin to them through fleas or lice. Could be bigger, though; cats carry subacute regional lymphadenitis - cat scratch fever."
"I thought that the data said that most of them lived alone?" Jack asked. "Are we talking… cat ladies?"
"That's a stereotype," Megan said, and Jack shrugged.
"Tell me when you know something that can help us," he said, and got up, leaving the room. Gwen looked at her helplessly.
"What the hell was that?" Megan asked, once Jack had left. Gwen shook her head.
"I don't know," she said. "It's like… something Jack said really got to Ianto, but I don't know what it was."
"Well, it's not helping," said Megan. Gwen grimaced.
"Tell me about it," she said. "I'm going to go and see if I can get any sense out of Ianto."
"I'll talk with Jack," said Megan.
"Your funeral," Gwen warned. Megan steeled herself, heading up to Jack's office. He was behind his desk, writing something, his penmanship angry loops and whorls that she could see even from the door.
"What was that?" she asked, quietly.
"That was nothing," said Jack, looking up. "That was you not doing your job. I didn't hire you to tell me that you don't know what's going on."
"I didn't take the job to get landed with a boss who throws a tantrum every time things don't go his way," said Megan, folding her arms. "I could go and work for UNIT tomorrow."
"Not if I tell them what I know about you," said Jack.
She rolled her eyes. "Oh, yes, and what terrible things have I done?"
"Who says I'll give them your real file?" Jack asked, looking up at her, his desklamp casting his face into planes of shadow. She stood her ground and looked at him. He met her eyes, and she didn't think he was going to back down. This was ridiculous; it wasn't like they were children in a playground.
"I don't think that I'm the one who you're trying to have this conversation with," Megan finally said. "I'll be in the medical bay if you want to know what I've actually found."
She left him, hunched over his scribblings, and went back to her workspace, blasting the playlist she'd found already loaded up in the computer. It wasn't her sort of music, but it was loud and there was a beat, and it was good stuff for blocking out the rest of the world.
Eventually, someone appeared at the top. Gwen. She looked a little wan, and Megan sighed. This was why she wasn't so keen on teams. Teams meant attachment, and attachment meant sentimentality and weakness. Attachment meant that you might make a decision that was personal, not the decision that would benefit the whole. Gwen sat on the stairs, hands on her belly. Silently, Megan handed her the data slate, all the information that she'd need to make up her own mind before she and Ianto went looking for animals with nasty big sharp pointy teeth at the Estate tomorrow.
Gwen waved a hand at the speakers. "Um." She wiped her eyes. "Do you mind if I turn that down?"
"You okay?" Megan asked. Gwen nodded.
"Bloody hormones. You know I cried over a cat food commercial the other night?" she said, and Megan grinned. Gwen sighed. "I'm just… I'm fine."
"Did Ianto say something to you?"
Gwen shook her head. "He offered me a cup of peppermint tea."
"Then why the tears?" Megan gestured to her eyes.
"Did I ever tell you about the guy who worked here before you?" asked Gwen, apropos of nothing, only it wasn't nothing, because Megan had been playing the music she'd found on the computer. She shook her head. Gwen sat, examining the images on her data slate, as if she even understood what they said.
"Do you want to know?" Gwen asked, and Megan nodded.
"Yeah," she said. "You guys are crazy. Of course I want to know."
Family Business: Part Two