Moving On - 12/18
Title: Moving On
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, references to past Ianto/Lisa
Rating: R
Disclaimer: If I was the one who owned Torchwood, you think I'd admit it now?
Spoilers: Some information and events from s1,2. None for s3.
Summary: Lisa is gone, and Ianto is starting to move on with his life, but it isn't always as easy as it sounds.
Author's Note: Sequel to Guilt and Turning Point.
Thanks to: My sister angelzbabe1989 for stepping in as beta, morbid_sparks for all of her support and idea bouncing through the writing of this, and pinkfairy727 for cheerleading even when she doesn't know what happens.
For previous chapters see Master list for this fic
Note #2: Sorry this is a day late - I had the day off work yesterday and totally forgot it was Wednesday!
Chapter Twelve
Jack waited impatiently for the cog door to roll back, the… whatever it was weighing heavy in his coat pocket. They had to figure out what this thing was, and soon. There were still a few scans to try out on it, and he hoped one of them came up with something.
Owen had clearly been deeply affected by whatever he had seen - or experienced, Jack wasn’t sure how it should be described. Jack’s previous plan of a controlled experiment had therefore been thrown right out of the window; he wasn’t risking putting any more of his team through that.
As the door rolled back and allowed them entry to the Hub, he wrapped his fingers around it in his pocket. He knew that the others all followed him through the door, but he paid them little heed. Not even stopping to take his coat off first, he strode purposefully across the space and placed the tech inside one of the remaining untried scanners, pressing the ‘Start’ switch. The sooner they had more information, the better.
As he shrugged his coat off, hanging it up in his office, he looked around. Ianto was nowhere in sight, and Jack hoped he wasn’t still struggling to find the part he needed to fix the coffee machine. He’d sounded rather frustrated with the process when he’d talked to him early that afternoon.
He also hoped Ianto had stuck to his word and eaten something, but he didn’t have time to go and find him to check. There was a mystery to solve.
He turned back and watched the monitor attached to the scanner for a few seconds. It was still displaying a swirling graphic that indicated the scan was in progress. The team bustled around him, gathering together everything they’d discovered about the item and all of the associated people so far.
He turned away before he could become mesmerised by the swirls and watched the team settle, gathering his thoughts.
“So,” he started, “the first time, it happens to Gwen. Small boy, at the railway station.”
Gwen had a handful of documents and photographs and was busy sticking them up on the glass panel they’d long since abandoned to any other purpose. “Who is now in his 70s, alive and well and living in Butetown.”
Jack nodded thoughtfully. The discovery that Thomas Flannigan was a real man, that the events that Gwen had seen mimicked exactly those that had actually happened, had crossed a lot of possibilities off the list already.
“And then today, it happens to Owen, under the bridge,” Gwen continued. She finished sticking up the last sheet of paper and walked towards Owen. “And just like me, you didn’t just see it, did you? You felt it, emotions that weren’t your own.”
Owen nodded, a mixture of sadness and anger on his face. “She was terrified.”
Just another clue that all added up to… Jack still didn’t know what. “Victim’s name was Lizzie, yes?” He looked at Owen for confirmation. “About 40, 45 years ago. What can we find out about her, Tosh?”
Tosh was typing search terms into a program that searched old police reports and birth and death records. It took barely a second to spit out a result. “Elizabeth Lewis,” she read from the screen. “Known as Lizzie. Only child of Mabel Ann Lewis of Hafod Street. Died March 29th, 1963. Raped and murdered. Her body was found on Penfro Street, under the bridge. Seventeen years old.”
Jack felt his heart sink. Seventeen, far too young. And no one deserved to go out like that.
“He killed her,” Owen spat out, clearly angry at the news.
Tosh had scrolled down further on her report. “No one was brought to trial,” she told them.
When he looked at Owen, Jack wasn’t sure he’d even heard the words; he was clearly drifting into a world of his own, into the memory of that afternoon. “She told her mum she’d be home by nine,” he said in a faraway voice. He straightened a moment later, back in the room. “Ed Morgan. What about him? That’s what she called him. ‘You’re a bad one, Ed Morgan,’ she said. Look him up.”
“It’s kind of a common name,” Tosh said, voice filled with doubt as she started to type the name into a search anyway.
“So where’s the connection?” Gwen asked, looking confused. “Where are they coming from? It’s like they’re haunting the places, or something.”
There was a quiet beep from the scanner behind him, and Jack spun to look at the results. He bent forward for a moment to take a closer look at the nano-circuit it had highlighted and nearly kicked himself. Of course! “Quantum transducer!” he called out. “Look!” He pointed at the circuit in question.
Tosh was by his side in a flash, studying the screen intently. “Wow,” she whispered reverently. “I’d kill for one of those.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Jack caught Gwen shooting Owen an utterly clueless look. Clearly Tosh had caught it too, as she straightened and explained for them. “Transducers convert one form of energy into another,” she started. “You find them in headphones, where they convert electrical energy into sound. In this device, they’re converting and amplifying quantum energy.”
“Into ghosts?” Gwen asked unsurely. Jack could tell she wasn’t convinced.
“Yes,” he said simply, trying to think of the best way to explain it. “It’s… it’s emotion. Human emotion is energy. You can’t usually see it, or hear it, but you can feel it.”
Tosh left his side and went to clear a space among the papers and folders Owen was still flicking through.
“Did you ever feel like someone was watching you in an empty room? Had déjà vu? Felt like someone had ‘walked over your grave’?”
Gwen nodded, still clearly uncertain about where he was going with this.
“Well that’s because there was,” Jack explained. “The energy from that emotion is still there, waiting.”
“A ghost,” Gwen said slowly.
He nodded. “A ghost.”
There was a moment of silence and he could almost see the cogs spinning in Gwen’s head as she tried to fit this new information into her world order.
“So what else do we have, then?” Owen said, breaking the stillness that had settled in that moment. “On Lizzie Lewis.”
Tosh shook her head doubtfully. “Well, it was 1963… they didn’t always keep the most detailed of…”
“There must be something,” Owen interrupted her intently. “Newspaper reports, witness statements, coroner’s findings…”
Jack sighed internally. He didn’t know what Owen thought he was going to accomplish with any of this.
“What exactly do you want me to find, Owen?” Tosh asked, echoing Jack’s thoughts.
“Something,” Owen cried. “Anything. Anything we can use.”
“If the case was going to be re-opened, you’d need new evidence,” Jack warned, hoping to pull Owen back a bit before he went too far, before he got too invested in an impossible solution. “Or a new witness coming forward.”
“I saw it!” Owen said, shifting forward.
Jack shook his head. “No, you didn’t. You saw an echo of a moment from the past, amplified by alien technology. How exactly do you think that one’s going to go over in court?”
“Since when did we care about the courts?” Owen burst out.
Jack bit his lip. Owen had at least part of a point; they didn’t usually worry about what would or could stand up in court. But then, they were usually dealing with either alien criminals or human criminals committing crime strongly related to aliens or alien devices. This crime, despite the insight Owen had gained with alien tech, was rightly the work of the police.
It wasn’t their place to interfere, not this time.
“Tomorrow,” he said slowly, “we’re going to go looking for this Bernie Harris again, and we’re going to find out what he knows about the tech, the… ghost machine. Find out where it came from. Do our job.” He looked at each of them in turn. “Right now, go home.”
Gwen looked at her watch, obviously surprised. “Really?”
Jack nodded. “Really. Now get out of here before I change my mind.” He shooed them away with a grin.
Neither Owen or Tosh looked as pleased with the early finish as he’d have expected or hoped, but Gwen’s smile split her face; she was clearly looking forward to being home early enough to spend some actual time with her boyfriend.
Jack knew that despite his best efforts, she didn’t always get enough opportunity to do that. Torchwood was hard on relationships, especially where one partner was completely in the dark. Maybe, possibly in the future… that was something to think about another time. Rhys - who he’d finally placed days after ‘meeting’ him at Ianto’s fated birthday party - didn’t seem the type to go running screaming to the masses, but they couldn’t be too careful.
He watched Gwen, Tosh and Owen gather belongings for a few moments before turning and heading towards the rest of the Hub. Ianto had to be around here somewhere.
His first instinct - to head for the kitchen area - proved to be the correct one, and he was rewarded with an Ianto who had shucked his jacket and tie and had rolled his shirt sleeves up to the elbows.
He… he looked like he was trying to sweet talk a panel of the coffee machine into slotting back into place.
“All fixed, then?” he asked lightly, stepping close.
Ianto didn’t jump; despite his apparent immersion in his work, Jack knew he’d probably been aware of them all since they got back to the Hub.
“Just about,” he replied, straightening and rolling his shoulders. “The broken part is replaced, and if I could just get this final part back on, in theory it should be fully operational again.”
Jack reached out and, with a hand on Ianto’s shoulder, spun him so they were face to face. The look on Ianto’s face screamed frustration.
“Is the machine going to suffer if you leave it now and come back to it fresh in the morning?” he asked plainly.
Ianto’s mouth twisted. “Well, no, but…”
“But you’ll be less tired and frustrated in the morning, and will probably find it slides in easily for you,” Jack interrupted before Ianto could complain about not finishing the task in one day. He slid his hand down Ianto’s arm from his shoulder to grasp his hand. “Right this minute, you have two options.”
He took a few steps backwards, pulling Ianto along behind him. Ianto tilted his head in mock-thoughtfulness and didn’t resist. “And those would be?” he demanded playfully.
“One,” Jack started, pausing at the top of the steps, “you can go home. Or two, you can stick around here and keep me company for a bit.” He made no effort at all in disguising his preference in Ianto’s choice.
Ianto hummed musingly. “I may have to think about this one,” he said. “On the one hand, if I stay here I get to spend time with you. But on the other hand, if I stay here…” He pulled his head back and put on a clearly-exaggerated expression of distaste. “I get to spend time with you.”
Jack pouted even more theatrically. “Hey!” he exclaimed. “I thought you were supposed to like me.”
“Well, I do,” Ianto grinned, stepping in closer again. “But I’m reserving the right to change my mind.”
Although it was clearly meant in a joking fashion, the thought that it could actually happen suddenly hit Jack hard in the gut. After everything that had happened, he certainly wouldn’t be able to blame Ianto if he did, but just the thought of it…
He tugged Ianto closer, gripping him gently by the upper arms. “While you are entirely within your rights to do so,” he said softly, a note of pleading slipping into his voice despite his best efforts. “Please don’t?”
Ianto blew out a breath slowly, his eyes closing for a long moment. “Jack,” he said intently, looking him right in the eye. “Trust me when I say it took a lot of thought for me to come to this decision in the first place. I won’t turn my back on this lightly, I promise.”
The tight knot in Jack’s stomach didn’t completely dissolve, but it eased significantly at Ianto’s clear statement of intent. “Good,” he whispered harshly. “I…” He couldn’t help but push forward, pressing a chaste but tender kiss to Ianto’s lips. “Good.”
He rested his forehead on Ianto’s, closing his eyes as his heart rate stabilised.
“If I’m staying,” Ianto said after a minute’s silence, “Then I’m going to have to insist we go sit down. Before one of us ends up falling down these steps.”
Jack nodded, having forgotten entirely that they were still standing at the top of said steps.
They separated to make their way across the Hub, settling down together on the sofa, more closely than their long familiar positions.
“So,” Ianto started eventually, leaning slightly into Jack. “While I’ve been battling the innards of the coffee machine, how did things go out in Splott?”
“Well, we didn’t find the kid,” Jack said, his frustration from earlier in the day seeping through just a little. “But we did inadvertently get another demonstration of the workings of the machine.”
Ianto nodded. “Yeah, I heard you all talking about it when you came in, although I couldn’t make out enough to work out what had actually happened.”
“Owen pressed the button,” Jack replied; he still wasn’t entirely sure what had brought Owen to do it. There was nothing in what they’d discovered of the tech so far that would suggest it actually exerted any influence over the holder pressuring them to use it. And goodness knows they’d had enough of that already this month.
“And?”
“He saw… well, he saw the beginning of what we discovered when we got back turned into the rape and murder of a young girl, back in the 60s.”
He could almost physically feel Ianto just stop at the revelation. “Ah.”
“It’s awful, horrible,” Jack added when the silence began to stretch out. “And I wish that poor young girl hadn’t had to go through that, but there’s nothing we can do.”
“Let me guess,” Ianto said flatly. “Owen isn’t seeing it that way. He needs to find a way to help. It’s who he is.”
Jack nodded. “I can’t blame him, really, after what he saw, but… I have to say I’m worried.”
Ianto twisted so they could look at each other properly face to face as they talked. “About Owen, or about what he might do?”
“Both,” Jack replied immediately; he hadn’t actually considered the question until Ianto asked it, but it hadn’t taken any conscious thought to reach a conclusion. “Either he’ll find out that there’s absolutely nothing he can do to help, or he’s going to find something incredibly stupid to do that might possibly help but also might backfire drastically.”
“Despite outwards appearances, Owen’s got a bit of sense,” Ianto reassured him. “I’m sure he’ll do the right thing.”
Jack wrapped an arm around Ianto’s shoulders and pulled him against his chest. “I hope you’re right,” he said quietly. “I’m just not so sure. After all, he felt everything the young girl did under that bridge. That’s a lot of emotion to take in.”
Ianto pulled back. “Wait, so he didn’t just see it, he felt it too?” He looked horrified at the thought.
Jack nodded. “Yeah. Hence my worry.”
Ianto’s forehead furrowed in thought. “So, did you actually figure out how it worked then? Because emotions sounds a bit more complex than just visions.”
“We did, actually,” Jack answered, settling more comfortably back against the back of the sofa. “Well, mostly.”
Ianto made himself similarly comfortable, clearly curious to hear the explanation. Which didn’t surprise Jack, really; Ianto liked knowing how things worked. He seemed to like knowing things full stop, come to think of it. It was a trait that already appeared to be serving him well in the task he’d appointed himself as archivist.
“It’s some sort of transducer,” he started, “which means it…”
“Transforms one sort of energy into another, yes, I know,” Ianto interrupted, shooting Jack a briefly scathing look. “So what energy is this one transforming into what?”
Jack grinned wryly, feeling suitably chastised for doubting Ianto’s knowledge. “It’s amplifying and converting the latent quantum energy left behind by strong emotions into… well, we’ve been calling them ghosts. But that’s not really that accurate. We just don’t have anything better to call them.”
Ianto was nodding slowly. “Quantum energy from emotions…” he repeated, sounding like he was trying to decide if he believed it or not.
“Human emotions - and those of pretty much every properly sentient life form in the universe, actually - are energy,” Jack expounded, trying to remember everything he’d learned about this phenomenon back at school - ever so long ago, now. “Strong emotions produce so much energy, in fact, that some of it gets left behind, lingering in that point in space. It’s what causes that feeling you get like someone’s watching you in an empty room.”
“And this tech is taking that leftover energy and using it to recreate the original event for whoever is holding it?” Ianto clarified warily.
Jack nodded; Ianto shuddered uncomfortably. “I’m glad it wasn’t me out there with you today,” he said. “I don’t like the sound of that at all.” He shifted a little closer to Jack and looked around them. “And who knows what’s lurking in this place.”
That thought caused Jack to shiver. He knew all too well some of the horrors that had taken place inside the walls of the Hub in the last century or so. He’d witnessed more than he’d ever have wanted to, and he’d only been there on and off for the first several decades. Many more he’d heard second or third hand.
Ianto had a point; he definitely had to make sure that the device was never activated inside the Hub. None of his team deserved the horror of seeing any of that.
“I know there must be some terrible energy left behind just from things I’ve seen here in the last eight months,” Ianto said quietly. “Add that up over more than a hundred years…”
Jack sighed softly at the unknowing echoing of his own thoughts, the words bringing to mind all too easily some of the incidents Ianto was referring to; Ianto’s near death after the breach of the Rift. Lisa’s final day, final minutes.
The lingering energy in Lisa’s room didn’t need a ghost machine to make itself known, it was evident just from stepping in. Jack had avoided the room diligently almost from the moment Lisa had gone, and he knew Ianto hadn’t been back either, the practicalities afterwards having been left to Owen, Tosh and Suzie.
Maybe one day, but not quite yet.
They sat in silence for a while, huddled together as they contemplated the possible ramifications of the machine.
“There are a lot of good things in here too, though, you know?” Jack eventually ventured, trying to push the sorrow and grief his memories had brought to the surface back down.
Ianto smiled and nodded, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. His mind was clearly still awash with sadder thoughts, and Jack couldn’t bear to see it. “Did I ever tell you the story of the New Year’s party they decided to throw in 1967?”
And there it was, a spark of interest and amusement in Ianto’s eyes. “No,” he said curiously.
“Well,” Jack started, trying to bring to mind as many details as he could. “It was the late 60s, so you can probably imagine some of it. All of the resident refugees were invited - there weren’t as many as there are now but there were a few - and a few selected agents from other branches...”
As Jack told the tale, he found other funny stories from the Hub’s past coming to mind, so he told those too… and if there was a bit of embellishment here and there, well, Ianto would never know.
It wasn’t until he finished what he was sure was a hilarious tale and Ianto didn’t laugh that he noticed that the exertions of the day had finally won out and Ianto had fallen asleep where he sat, head tucked against Jack’s shoulder, one foot tucked underneath him.
Jack knew he should wake him, send him home, but he didn’t quite have the heart even to move him. Instead, he settled against the back of the sofa and just pulled Ianto closer.
Chapter Thirteen
As always, comments and concrit are loved!
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, references to past Ianto/Lisa
Rating: R
Disclaimer: If I was the one who owned Torchwood, you think I'd admit it now?
Spoilers: Some information and events from s1,2. None for s3.
Summary: Lisa is gone, and Ianto is starting to move on with his life, but it isn't always as easy as it sounds.
Author's Note: Sequel to Guilt and Turning Point.
Thanks to: My sister angelzbabe1989 for stepping in as beta, morbid_sparks for all of her support and idea bouncing through the writing of this, and pinkfairy727 for cheerleading even when she doesn't know what happens.
For previous chapters see Master list for this fic
Note #2: Sorry this is a day late - I had the day off work yesterday and totally forgot it was Wednesday!
Chapter Twelve
Jack waited impatiently for the cog door to roll back, the… whatever it was weighing heavy in his coat pocket. They had to figure out what this thing was, and soon. There were still a few scans to try out on it, and he hoped one of them came up with something.
Owen had clearly been deeply affected by whatever he had seen - or experienced, Jack wasn’t sure how it should be described. Jack’s previous plan of a controlled experiment had therefore been thrown right out of the window; he wasn’t risking putting any more of his team through that.
As the door rolled back and allowed them entry to the Hub, he wrapped his fingers around it in his pocket. He knew that the others all followed him through the door, but he paid them little heed. Not even stopping to take his coat off first, he strode purposefully across the space and placed the tech inside one of the remaining untried scanners, pressing the ‘Start’ switch. The sooner they had more information, the better.
As he shrugged his coat off, hanging it up in his office, he looked around. Ianto was nowhere in sight, and Jack hoped he wasn’t still struggling to find the part he needed to fix the coffee machine. He’d sounded rather frustrated with the process when he’d talked to him early that afternoon.
He also hoped Ianto had stuck to his word and eaten something, but he didn’t have time to go and find him to check. There was a mystery to solve.
He turned back and watched the monitor attached to the scanner for a few seconds. It was still displaying a swirling graphic that indicated the scan was in progress. The team bustled around him, gathering together everything they’d discovered about the item and all of the associated people so far.
He turned away before he could become mesmerised by the swirls and watched the team settle, gathering his thoughts.
“So,” he started, “the first time, it happens to Gwen. Small boy, at the railway station.”
Gwen had a handful of documents and photographs and was busy sticking them up on the glass panel they’d long since abandoned to any other purpose. “Who is now in his 70s, alive and well and living in Butetown.”
Jack nodded thoughtfully. The discovery that Thomas Flannigan was a real man, that the events that Gwen had seen mimicked exactly those that had actually happened, had crossed a lot of possibilities off the list already.
“And then today, it happens to Owen, under the bridge,” Gwen continued. She finished sticking up the last sheet of paper and walked towards Owen. “And just like me, you didn’t just see it, did you? You felt it, emotions that weren’t your own.”
Owen nodded, a mixture of sadness and anger on his face. “She was terrified.”
Just another clue that all added up to… Jack still didn’t know what. “Victim’s name was Lizzie, yes?” He looked at Owen for confirmation. “About 40, 45 years ago. What can we find out about her, Tosh?”
Tosh was typing search terms into a program that searched old police reports and birth and death records. It took barely a second to spit out a result. “Elizabeth Lewis,” she read from the screen. “Known as Lizzie. Only child of Mabel Ann Lewis of Hafod Street. Died March 29th, 1963. Raped and murdered. Her body was found on Penfro Street, under the bridge. Seventeen years old.”
Jack felt his heart sink. Seventeen, far too young. And no one deserved to go out like that.
“He killed her,” Owen spat out, clearly angry at the news.
Tosh had scrolled down further on her report. “No one was brought to trial,” she told them.
When he looked at Owen, Jack wasn’t sure he’d even heard the words; he was clearly drifting into a world of his own, into the memory of that afternoon. “She told her mum she’d be home by nine,” he said in a faraway voice. He straightened a moment later, back in the room. “Ed Morgan. What about him? That’s what she called him. ‘You’re a bad one, Ed Morgan,’ she said. Look him up.”
“It’s kind of a common name,” Tosh said, voice filled with doubt as she started to type the name into a search anyway.
“So where’s the connection?” Gwen asked, looking confused. “Where are they coming from? It’s like they’re haunting the places, or something.”
There was a quiet beep from the scanner behind him, and Jack spun to look at the results. He bent forward for a moment to take a closer look at the nano-circuit it had highlighted and nearly kicked himself. Of course! “Quantum transducer!” he called out. “Look!” He pointed at the circuit in question.
Tosh was by his side in a flash, studying the screen intently. “Wow,” she whispered reverently. “I’d kill for one of those.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Jack caught Gwen shooting Owen an utterly clueless look. Clearly Tosh had caught it too, as she straightened and explained for them. “Transducers convert one form of energy into another,” she started. “You find them in headphones, where they convert electrical energy into sound. In this device, they’re converting and amplifying quantum energy.”
“Into ghosts?” Gwen asked unsurely. Jack could tell she wasn’t convinced.
“Yes,” he said simply, trying to think of the best way to explain it. “It’s… it’s emotion. Human emotion is energy. You can’t usually see it, or hear it, but you can feel it.”
Tosh left his side and went to clear a space among the papers and folders Owen was still flicking through.
“Did you ever feel like someone was watching you in an empty room? Had déjà vu? Felt like someone had ‘walked over your grave’?”
Gwen nodded, still clearly uncertain about where he was going with this.
“Well that’s because there was,” Jack explained. “The energy from that emotion is still there, waiting.”
“A ghost,” Gwen said slowly.
He nodded. “A ghost.”
There was a moment of silence and he could almost see the cogs spinning in Gwen’s head as she tried to fit this new information into her world order.
“So what else do we have, then?” Owen said, breaking the stillness that had settled in that moment. “On Lizzie Lewis.”
Tosh shook her head doubtfully. “Well, it was 1963… they didn’t always keep the most detailed of…”
“There must be something,” Owen interrupted her intently. “Newspaper reports, witness statements, coroner’s findings…”
Jack sighed internally. He didn’t know what Owen thought he was going to accomplish with any of this.
“What exactly do you want me to find, Owen?” Tosh asked, echoing Jack’s thoughts.
“Something,” Owen cried. “Anything. Anything we can use.”
“If the case was going to be re-opened, you’d need new evidence,” Jack warned, hoping to pull Owen back a bit before he went too far, before he got too invested in an impossible solution. “Or a new witness coming forward.”
“I saw it!” Owen said, shifting forward.
Jack shook his head. “No, you didn’t. You saw an echo of a moment from the past, amplified by alien technology. How exactly do you think that one’s going to go over in court?”
“Since when did we care about the courts?” Owen burst out.
Jack bit his lip. Owen had at least part of a point; they didn’t usually worry about what would or could stand up in court. But then, they were usually dealing with either alien criminals or human criminals committing crime strongly related to aliens or alien devices. This crime, despite the insight Owen had gained with alien tech, was rightly the work of the police.
It wasn’t their place to interfere, not this time.
“Tomorrow,” he said slowly, “we’re going to go looking for this Bernie Harris again, and we’re going to find out what he knows about the tech, the… ghost machine. Find out where it came from. Do our job.” He looked at each of them in turn. “Right now, go home.”
Gwen looked at her watch, obviously surprised. “Really?”
Jack nodded. “Really. Now get out of here before I change my mind.” He shooed them away with a grin.
Neither Owen or Tosh looked as pleased with the early finish as he’d have expected or hoped, but Gwen’s smile split her face; she was clearly looking forward to being home early enough to spend some actual time with her boyfriend.
Jack knew that despite his best efforts, she didn’t always get enough opportunity to do that. Torchwood was hard on relationships, especially where one partner was completely in the dark. Maybe, possibly in the future… that was something to think about another time. Rhys - who he’d finally placed days after ‘meeting’ him at Ianto’s fated birthday party - didn’t seem the type to go running screaming to the masses, but they couldn’t be too careful.
He watched Gwen, Tosh and Owen gather belongings for a few moments before turning and heading towards the rest of the Hub. Ianto had to be around here somewhere.
His first instinct - to head for the kitchen area - proved to be the correct one, and he was rewarded with an Ianto who had shucked his jacket and tie and had rolled his shirt sleeves up to the elbows.
He… he looked like he was trying to sweet talk a panel of the coffee machine into slotting back into place.
“All fixed, then?” he asked lightly, stepping close.
Ianto didn’t jump; despite his apparent immersion in his work, Jack knew he’d probably been aware of them all since they got back to the Hub.
“Just about,” he replied, straightening and rolling his shoulders. “The broken part is replaced, and if I could just get this final part back on, in theory it should be fully operational again.”
Jack reached out and, with a hand on Ianto’s shoulder, spun him so they were face to face. The look on Ianto’s face screamed frustration.
“Is the machine going to suffer if you leave it now and come back to it fresh in the morning?” he asked plainly.
Ianto’s mouth twisted. “Well, no, but…”
“But you’ll be less tired and frustrated in the morning, and will probably find it slides in easily for you,” Jack interrupted before Ianto could complain about not finishing the task in one day. He slid his hand down Ianto’s arm from his shoulder to grasp his hand. “Right this minute, you have two options.”
He took a few steps backwards, pulling Ianto along behind him. Ianto tilted his head in mock-thoughtfulness and didn’t resist. “And those would be?” he demanded playfully.
“One,” Jack started, pausing at the top of the steps, “you can go home. Or two, you can stick around here and keep me company for a bit.” He made no effort at all in disguising his preference in Ianto’s choice.
Ianto hummed musingly. “I may have to think about this one,” he said. “On the one hand, if I stay here I get to spend time with you. But on the other hand, if I stay here…” He pulled his head back and put on a clearly-exaggerated expression of distaste. “I get to spend time with you.”
Jack pouted even more theatrically. “Hey!” he exclaimed. “I thought you were supposed to like me.”
“Well, I do,” Ianto grinned, stepping in closer again. “But I’m reserving the right to change my mind.”
Although it was clearly meant in a joking fashion, the thought that it could actually happen suddenly hit Jack hard in the gut. After everything that had happened, he certainly wouldn’t be able to blame Ianto if he did, but just the thought of it…
He tugged Ianto closer, gripping him gently by the upper arms. “While you are entirely within your rights to do so,” he said softly, a note of pleading slipping into his voice despite his best efforts. “Please don’t?”
Ianto blew out a breath slowly, his eyes closing for a long moment. “Jack,” he said intently, looking him right in the eye. “Trust me when I say it took a lot of thought for me to come to this decision in the first place. I won’t turn my back on this lightly, I promise.”
The tight knot in Jack’s stomach didn’t completely dissolve, but it eased significantly at Ianto’s clear statement of intent. “Good,” he whispered harshly. “I…” He couldn’t help but push forward, pressing a chaste but tender kiss to Ianto’s lips. “Good.”
He rested his forehead on Ianto’s, closing his eyes as his heart rate stabilised.
“If I’m staying,” Ianto said after a minute’s silence, “Then I’m going to have to insist we go sit down. Before one of us ends up falling down these steps.”
Jack nodded, having forgotten entirely that they were still standing at the top of said steps.
They separated to make their way across the Hub, settling down together on the sofa, more closely than their long familiar positions.
“So,” Ianto started eventually, leaning slightly into Jack. “While I’ve been battling the innards of the coffee machine, how did things go out in Splott?”
“Well, we didn’t find the kid,” Jack said, his frustration from earlier in the day seeping through just a little. “But we did inadvertently get another demonstration of the workings of the machine.”
Ianto nodded. “Yeah, I heard you all talking about it when you came in, although I couldn’t make out enough to work out what had actually happened.”
“Owen pressed the button,” Jack replied; he still wasn’t entirely sure what had brought Owen to do it. There was nothing in what they’d discovered of the tech so far that would suggest it actually exerted any influence over the holder pressuring them to use it. And goodness knows they’d had enough of that already this month.
“And?”
“He saw… well, he saw the beginning of what we discovered when we got back turned into the rape and murder of a young girl, back in the 60s.”
He could almost physically feel Ianto just stop at the revelation. “Ah.”
“It’s awful, horrible,” Jack added when the silence began to stretch out. “And I wish that poor young girl hadn’t had to go through that, but there’s nothing we can do.”
“Let me guess,” Ianto said flatly. “Owen isn’t seeing it that way. He needs to find a way to help. It’s who he is.”
Jack nodded. “I can’t blame him, really, after what he saw, but… I have to say I’m worried.”
Ianto twisted so they could look at each other properly face to face as they talked. “About Owen, or about what he might do?”
“Both,” Jack replied immediately; he hadn’t actually considered the question until Ianto asked it, but it hadn’t taken any conscious thought to reach a conclusion. “Either he’ll find out that there’s absolutely nothing he can do to help, or he’s going to find something incredibly stupid to do that might possibly help but also might backfire drastically.”
“Despite outwards appearances, Owen’s got a bit of sense,” Ianto reassured him. “I’m sure he’ll do the right thing.”
Jack wrapped an arm around Ianto’s shoulders and pulled him against his chest. “I hope you’re right,” he said quietly. “I’m just not so sure. After all, he felt everything the young girl did under that bridge. That’s a lot of emotion to take in.”
Ianto pulled back. “Wait, so he didn’t just see it, he felt it too?” He looked horrified at the thought.
Jack nodded. “Yeah. Hence my worry.”
Ianto’s forehead furrowed in thought. “So, did you actually figure out how it worked then? Because emotions sounds a bit more complex than just visions.”
“We did, actually,” Jack answered, settling more comfortably back against the back of the sofa. “Well, mostly.”
Ianto made himself similarly comfortable, clearly curious to hear the explanation. Which didn’t surprise Jack, really; Ianto liked knowing how things worked. He seemed to like knowing things full stop, come to think of it. It was a trait that already appeared to be serving him well in the task he’d appointed himself as archivist.
“It’s some sort of transducer,” he started, “which means it…”
“Transforms one sort of energy into another, yes, I know,” Ianto interrupted, shooting Jack a briefly scathing look. “So what energy is this one transforming into what?”
Jack grinned wryly, feeling suitably chastised for doubting Ianto’s knowledge. “It’s amplifying and converting the latent quantum energy left behind by strong emotions into… well, we’ve been calling them ghosts. But that’s not really that accurate. We just don’t have anything better to call them.”
Ianto was nodding slowly. “Quantum energy from emotions…” he repeated, sounding like he was trying to decide if he believed it or not.
“Human emotions - and those of pretty much every properly sentient life form in the universe, actually - are energy,” Jack expounded, trying to remember everything he’d learned about this phenomenon back at school - ever so long ago, now. “Strong emotions produce so much energy, in fact, that some of it gets left behind, lingering in that point in space. It’s what causes that feeling you get like someone’s watching you in an empty room.”
“And this tech is taking that leftover energy and using it to recreate the original event for whoever is holding it?” Ianto clarified warily.
Jack nodded; Ianto shuddered uncomfortably. “I’m glad it wasn’t me out there with you today,” he said. “I don’t like the sound of that at all.” He shifted a little closer to Jack and looked around them. “And who knows what’s lurking in this place.”
That thought caused Jack to shiver. He knew all too well some of the horrors that had taken place inside the walls of the Hub in the last century or so. He’d witnessed more than he’d ever have wanted to, and he’d only been there on and off for the first several decades. Many more he’d heard second or third hand.
Ianto had a point; he definitely had to make sure that the device was never activated inside the Hub. None of his team deserved the horror of seeing any of that.
“I know there must be some terrible energy left behind just from things I’ve seen here in the last eight months,” Ianto said quietly. “Add that up over more than a hundred years…”
Jack sighed softly at the unknowing echoing of his own thoughts, the words bringing to mind all too easily some of the incidents Ianto was referring to; Ianto’s near death after the breach of the Rift. Lisa’s final day, final minutes.
The lingering energy in Lisa’s room didn’t need a ghost machine to make itself known, it was evident just from stepping in. Jack had avoided the room diligently almost from the moment Lisa had gone, and he knew Ianto hadn’t been back either, the practicalities afterwards having been left to Owen, Tosh and Suzie.
Maybe one day, but not quite yet.
They sat in silence for a while, huddled together as they contemplated the possible ramifications of the machine.
“There are a lot of good things in here too, though, you know?” Jack eventually ventured, trying to push the sorrow and grief his memories had brought to the surface back down.
Ianto smiled and nodded, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. His mind was clearly still awash with sadder thoughts, and Jack couldn’t bear to see it. “Did I ever tell you the story of the New Year’s party they decided to throw in 1967?”
And there it was, a spark of interest and amusement in Ianto’s eyes. “No,” he said curiously.
“Well,” Jack started, trying to bring to mind as many details as he could. “It was the late 60s, so you can probably imagine some of it. All of the resident refugees were invited - there weren’t as many as there are now but there were a few - and a few selected agents from other branches...”
As Jack told the tale, he found other funny stories from the Hub’s past coming to mind, so he told those too… and if there was a bit of embellishment here and there, well, Ianto would never know.
It wasn’t until he finished what he was sure was a hilarious tale and Ianto didn’t laugh that he noticed that the exertions of the day had finally won out and Ianto had fallen asleep where he sat, head tucked against Jack’s shoulder, one foot tucked underneath him.
Jack knew he should wake him, send him home, but he didn’t quite have the heart even to move him. Instead, he settled against the back of the sofa and just pulled Ianto closer.
Chapter Thirteen
As always, comments and concrit are loved!