Turning Point - 9/64
Title: Turning Point
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairings: budding Jack/Ianto, references to past Ianto/Lisa
Rating: PG-13
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: In the aftermath of Lisa's death, Ianto is struggling to cope - and new surprises don't help matters much. Can his friends on the team at Torchwood help him carry on?
Author's Note: Sequel to Guilt.
Thanks to: My lovely beta cazmalfoy, angelzbabe1989 for idea bouncing, and morbid_sparks for cheerleading even when she doesn't know what happens.
Previous chapters at master list
Chapter Nine
Jack quickly gave up on even trying to convince Tosh or Ianto to go home early that night. They both spent far too much of their lives in the Hub - he told them so again, even though he was sure they both already knew it - but he was well aware that he wasn’t necessarily the best person to be making that argument.
Owen had gone willingly, disappearing almost the moment the words ‘home time, people’ had escaped Jack’s lips. Suzie, it appeared, had already disappeared at some point. She might have mentioned where she was headed, but Jack had spent much of the afternoon on the phone with a highly irritating UNIT official, and most of the rest of it watching Ianto and Tosh as the Welshman trekked back and forth from the archives, so he couldn’t be entirely sure.
He hoped she had some sort of social engagement for once, and she wasn’t just doing research on something elsewhere.
Tosh and Ianto, however, proved impossible to budge. Ianto had paused in one of his numerous journeys back and forth about an hour ago, had stayed just a little bit longer watching Tosh work, and she had eventually told him to just pull up a chair and give her a hand.
The last time Jack had gone over and interrupted, he had been shushed and waved away simultaneously by them both, in an odd moment of perfect synchronisation. They had been busy, apparently - too busy to appease their boss’s curiosity about their latest progress - and he wasn’t so determined to know that he was willing to risk the wrath of two of his favourite people at once. That would be terrifying.
It was late when he looked up from his still slightly backlogged pile of paperwork and noticed Tosh stop typing and share a look with Ianto that was either hope, triumph, or a mixture of the two.
He tossed his pen down and stood up, striding over to Tosh’s desk and hoping that the lack of actual activity meant he wouldn’t be wordlessly told to go away again.
“Are you stuck, or have you had a breakthrough?” he asked as he dropped a hand on both of their shoulders from behind.
“Hopefully, a breakthrough,” Tosh said, twisting to look at him briefly.
“We’ve managed to line up several periods of data recordings with the Weevil reports from the archives,” Ianto added.
“Not including the last couple of years,” Tosh continued. “So I’ve set the program running now to manipulate the data sets and see if there’s a historical correlation between Rift activity and Weevil sightings and attacks.”
Ianto picked up the explanation again, “And, if there is, we can put the last year of Rift data through a model of that correlation, and see what it predicts Weevil activity should have been, for that Rift activity.”
“If it matches reality, then it’s all down to the Rift,” Tosh elucidated
“If it doesn’t, then there’s some other factor at play, and we can look at when it diverged from the prediction to see when this new factor appeared.”
Jack blinked a couple of times as he tried to process the mass of information Tosh and Ianto had just imparted, his brain rushing to keep up through the seamless handovers of speech between them. If this is what resulted, he wasn’t sure how good an idea it was to let them spend a lot of time together.
“How long do you think it will take for it to work out if there’s a correlation or not?” he asked, once he’d managed to sort it all out in his head.
“That depends on what sort of correlation it is, if there is one,” Tosh replied, neither she nor Ianto taking their eyes back off the screen. “If there is a correlation, it will find it much faster than it would be possible to rule out the possibility of one completely. It’s running through a series of regression techniques, and…” She paused, evidently realising she was going into a lot more detail than Jack really needed. “Sometime tomorrow at the latest, if there is one,” she informed him. “Hopefully.”
“And the mainframe can just work on this alone, with no further input?” Jack clarified.
Tosh nodded absently.
Jack glanced down at his watch and grabbed the back of the two chairs Ianto and Tosh were sitting on, spinning them around to face him. “In that case, as it is past 11pm, I am sending you both home.” He folded his arms and tried to look firm. “And if that means forcibly escorting you from the building, believe me, I will.”
Tosh and Ianto exchanged a look, sighed, and disappeared.
Chapter Ten
Comments and concrit are loved!
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairings: budding Jack/Ianto, references to past Ianto/Lisa
Rating: PG-13
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: In the aftermath of Lisa's death, Ianto is struggling to cope - and new surprises don't help matters much. Can his friends on the team at Torchwood help him carry on?
Author's Note: Sequel to Guilt.
Thanks to: My lovely beta cazmalfoy, angelzbabe1989 for idea bouncing, and morbid_sparks for cheerleading even when she doesn't know what happens.
Previous chapters at master list
Chapter Nine
Jack quickly gave up on even trying to convince Tosh or Ianto to go home early that night. They both spent far too much of their lives in the Hub - he told them so again, even though he was sure they both already knew it - but he was well aware that he wasn’t necessarily the best person to be making that argument.
Owen had gone willingly, disappearing almost the moment the words ‘home time, people’ had escaped Jack’s lips. Suzie, it appeared, had already disappeared at some point. She might have mentioned where she was headed, but Jack had spent much of the afternoon on the phone with a highly irritating UNIT official, and most of the rest of it watching Ianto and Tosh as the Welshman trekked back and forth from the archives, so he couldn’t be entirely sure.
He hoped she had some sort of social engagement for once, and she wasn’t just doing research on something elsewhere.
Tosh and Ianto, however, proved impossible to budge. Ianto had paused in one of his numerous journeys back and forth about an hour ago, had stayed just a little bit longer watching Tosh work, and she had eventually told him to just pull up a chair and give her a hand.
The last time Jack had gone over and interrupted, he had been shushed and waved away simultaneously by them both, in an odd moment of perfect synchronisation. They had been busy, apparently - too busy to appease their boss’s curiosity about their latest progress - and he wasn’t so determined to know that he was willing to risk the wrath of two of his favourite people at once. That would be terrifying.
It was late when he looked up from his still slightly backlogged pile of paperwork and noticed Tosh stop typing and share a look with Ianto that was either hope, triumph, or a mixture of the two.
He tossed his pen down and stood up, striding over to Tosh’s desk and hoping that the lack of actual activity meant he wouldn’t be wordlessly told to go away again.
“Are you stuck, or have you had a breakthrough?” he asked as he dropped a hand on both of their shoulders from behind.
“Hopefully, a breakthrough,” Tosh said, twisting to look at him briefly.
“We’ve managed to line up several periods of data recordings with the Weevil reports from the archives,” Ianto added.
“Not including the last couple of years,” Tosh continued. “So I’ve set the program running now to manipulate the data sets and see if there’s a historical correlation between Rift activity and Weevil sightings and attacks.”
Ianto picked up the explanation again, “And, if there is, we can put the last year of Rift data through a model of that correlation, and see what it predicts Weevil activity should have been, for that Rift activity.”
“If it matches reality, then it’s all down to the Rift,” Tosh elucidated
“If it doesn’t, then there’s some other factor at play, and we can look at when it diverged from the prediction to see when this new factor appeared.”
Jack blinked a couple of times as he tried to process the mass of information Tosh and Ianto had just imparted, his brain rushing to keep up through the seamless handovers of speech between them. If this is what resulted, he wasn’t sure how good an idea it was to let them spend a lot of time together.
“How long do you think it will take for it to work out if there’s a correlation or not?” he asked, once he’d managed to sort it all out in his head.
“That depends on what sort of correlation it is, if there is one,” Tosh replied, neither she nor Ianto taking their eyes back off the screen. “If there is a correlation, it will find it much faster than it would be possible to rule out the possibility of one completely. It’s running through a series of regression techniques, and…” She paused, evidently realising she was going into a lot more detail than Jack really needed. “Sometime tomorrow at the latest, if there is one,” she informed him. “Hopefully.”
“And the mainframe can just work on this alone, with no further input?” Jack clarified.
Tosh nodded absently.
Jack glanced down at his watch and grabbed the back of the two chairs Ianto and Tosh were sitting on, spinning them around to face him. “In that case, as it is past 11pm, I am sending you both home.” He folded his arms and tried to look firm. “And if that means forcibly escorting you from the building, believe me, I will.”
Tosh and Ianto exchanged a look, sighed, and disappeared.
Chapter Ten
Comments and concrit are loved!