Turning Point - 61/64
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 beta cazmalfoy, angelzbabe1989 for idea bouncing, and morbid_sparks for cheerleading even when she doesn'tdidn't know what happens.
Previous chapters at master list
Chapter Sixty-One
Ianto took a roll of crime scene tape - regularly appropriated from the Cardiff police force - from the collection of items he and Tosh had just retrieved from their camp and started stringing it in a wide circle around the body, wrapping it around trees here and there to secure it as he went.
He was glad to leave the job of taking Owen his kit to Tosh - he didn’t want to get any closer to the corpse than he absolutely had to. He’d seen far too many of them, but it never really got any easier - even when they no longer actually resembled a human body, like this one.
“Okay, this is definitely not our missing young woman - what was her name, Ellie? - for a start,” Owen said after a few minutes of examination.
“No?” Jack queried.
Owen shook his head. “This is a male. Maybe late 40s, early 50s at a guess. And this is a dump. There’s no blood, no sign of a struggle; he wasn’t killed here.”
“If you’re going to take the trouble to come out here to dump a body, why just leave it, why not bury it?” Gwen asked from where she was leaning against a tree several meters from the body. Ianto suspected she didn’t want to get any closer to it than he did.
“Maybe you disturbed them,” Tosh said, looking around them at the trees surrounding them. “You said you heard a noise. You could have disturbed them in the act, and they ran away.”
Ianto took another glance at the body, noting with a little disgust the swarm of maggots that all but covered it, the tiny scraps of flesh left between the bones being decimated quickly. Someone who could - would - do this to a body didn’t seem like the same sort of person who would dump a body somewhere with even the small chance of discovery that there was here.
“Maybe it’s a warning, a threat to get off their territory or else face the consequences,” he posited, hoping he was wrong.
Gwen twisted to look at him, a worried expression on her face.
“So,” Jack said, with the clear air of someone changing the subject. “Cause of death, Owen?”
Owen sighed. “No idea. It’s impossible for me to tell, the body’s been completely stripped, and I’m no anthropologist. Could have been anything.”
Tosh looked around again. “The Weevils wouldn’t be out this far, would they?”
Ianto considered how long they had been driving for and started to shake his head. Jack did the same. “Unlikely. And they don’t strip their victims like this.”
“So what could have…?” Tosh trailed off as the sound of a car engine starting up nearby reached them. “What’s…?”
“Is that ours?” Gwen asked sharply, pushing off the tree.
Ianto turned and ran back in the direction of camp, hearing Jack’s voice calling, “Yeah!” behind him.
He reached the campsite just in time to see the SUV being driven across the ropes supporting the third tent. He took chase, noticing the others doing the same, but knowing all the time that, realistically, they had no chance of catching the car.
Within almost seconds, the SUV had picked up speed and was hurtling into the distance. “Dammit,” Ianto muttered to himself. He heard Jack yell out in frustration as he too stopped trying to catch the car.
“Okay, who left the keys in the ignition?” Jack shouted as they turned as one back towards the flattened tents.
Ianto held up his hands - he knew it wasn’t him. Owen, Tosh and Gwen exchanged looks, with both of the girls eventually fixing on Owen.
“Okay!” he shouted after a minute. “It was me, okay? I’m sorry!”
Jack shook his head and started picking up the equipment that had been scattered by the SUV’s trip through the middle of their camp.
Ianto dug a PDA out of his back pocket while the others - for once - did the picking up. Hoping that the SUV tracker hadn’t been deactivated, he wandered around the site, trying to find the strongest signal so he could log in to the Torchwood servers and access the tracker program.
There. He could hear the rest of the team carrying on the argument about whose fault it was that the SUV had been taken as his login processed. A moment later and a tiny diagram appeared at the top of the screen, his position and that of the SUV both clearly marked on it.
He only caught the end of Jack’s question, just hearing the words ‘tracking signal’.
“Got it,” he called, waving the PDA. “I took the liberty of doing that while you were bickering.” He grinned at them. “It is currently…” He looked down at the bottom window on the screen, which was giving a rolling numerical update on the status of the SUV. “… 3.4 miles from here.”
“Gunning at ninety, no doubt,” Owen sighed, tossing a couple of pegs on the ground. “You steal a piece of equipment like that, you drive straight on till morning.”
Ianto looked again at the PDA screen. “Actually… it’s been stationary for… nearly four minutes now.” He looked back up, raising an eyebrow at Owen. “I’d even go so far as to say it was parked.”
Gwen turned around, dug in a bag for a moment and pulled out the map they had been consulting earlier. “So if we’re here,” she started, pointing a finger at the map and trailing it across. “There is a small village in that area. And then nothing for miles.”
Ianto shoved the PDA back into his pocket. He had a feeling he knew where this conversation was going.
“This sounds worryingly like a trap,” Toshiko said, nevertheless digging out a few pieces of simple equipment that she could fit into her pockets.
“I was just thinking the same thing,” Jack replied, twisting to face them all. He had a reckless smile on his face, and Ianto wondered if he was the only one on the team that knew somehow that he would follow that smile into anything. “Anyone up for a walk?”
Chapter Sixty-Two
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 beta cazmalfoy, angelzbabe1989 for idea bouncing, and morbid_sparks for cheerleading even when she doesn'tdidn't know what happens.
Previous chapters at master list
Chapter Sixty-One
Ianto took a roll of crime scene tape - regularly appropriated from the Cardiff police force - from the collection of items he and Tosh had just retrieved from their camp and started stringing it in a wide circle around the body, wrapping it around trees here and there to secure it as he went.
He was glad to leave the job of taking Owen his kit to Tosh - he didn’t want to get any closer to the corpse than he absolutely had to. He’d seen far too many of them, but it never really got any easier - even when they no longer actually resembled a human body, like this one.
“Okay, this is definitely not our missing young woman - what was her name, Ellie? - for a start,” Owen said after a few minutes of examination.
“No?” Jack queried.
Owen shook his head. “This is a male. Maybe late 40s, early 50s at a guess. And this is a dump. There’s no blood, no sign of a struggle; he wasn’t killed here.”
“If you’re going to take the trouble to come out here to dump a body, why just leave it, why not bury it?” Gwen asked from where she was leaning against a tree several meters from the body. Ianto suspected she didn’t want to get any closer to it than he did.
“Maybe you disturbed them,” Tosh said, looking around them at the trees surrounding them. “You said you heard a noise. You could have disturbed them in the act, and they ran away.”
Ianto took another glance at the body, noting with a little disgust the swarm of maggots that all but covered it, the tiny scraps of flesh left between the bones being decimated quickly. Someone who could - would - do this to a body didn’t seem like the same sort of person who would dump a body somewhere with even the small chance of discovery that there was here.
“Maybe it’s a warning, a threat to get off their territory or else face the consequences,” he posited, hoping he was wrong.
Gwen twisted to look at him, a worried expression on her face.
“So,” Jack said, with the clear air of someone changing the subject. “Cause of death, Owen?”
Owen sighed. “No idea. It’s impossible for me to tell, the body’s been completely stripped, and I’m no anthropologist. Could have been anything.”
Tosh looked around again. “The Weevils wouldn’t be out this far, would they?”
Ianto considered how long they had been driving for and started to shake his head. Jack did the same. “Unlikely. And they don’t strip their victims like this.”
“So what could have…?” Tosh trailed off as the sound of a car engine starting up nearby reached them. “What’s…?”
“Is that ours?” Gwen asked sharply, pushing off the tree.
Ianto turned and ran back in the direction of camp, hearing Jack’s voice calling, “Yeah!” behind him.
He reached the campsite just in time to see the SUV being driven across the ropes supporting the third tent. He took chase, noticing the others doing the same, but knowing all the time that, realistically, they had no chance of catching the car.
Within almost seconds, the SUV had picked up speed and was hurtling into the distance. “Dammit,” Ianto muttered to himself. He heard Jack yell out in frustration as he too stopped trying to catch the car.
“Okay, who left the keys in the ignition?” Jack shouted as they turned as one back towards the flattened tents.
Ianto held up his hands - he knew it wasn’t him. Owen, Tosh and Gwen exchanged looks, with both of the girls eventually fixing on Owen.
“Okay!” he shouted after a minute. “It was me, okay? I’m sorry!”
Jack shook his head and started picking up the equipment that had been scattered by the SUV’s trip through the middle of their camp.
Ianto dug a PDA out of his back pocket while the others - for once - did the picking up. Hoping that the SUV tracker hadn’t been deactivated, he wandered around the site, trying to find the strongest signal so he could log in to the Torchwood servers and access the tracker program.
There. He could hear the rest of the team carrying on the argument about whose fault it was that the SUV had been taken as his login processed. A moment later and a tiny diagram appeared at the top of the screen, his position and that of the SUV both clearly marked on it.
He only caught the end of Jack’s question, just hearing the words ‘tracking signal’.
“Got it,” he called, waving the PDA. “I took the liberty of doing that while you were bickering.” He grinned at them. “It is currently…” He looked down at the bottom window on the screen, which was giving a rolling numerical update on the status of the SUV. “… 3.4 miles from here.”
“Gunning at ninety, no doubt,” Owen sighed, tossing a couple of pegs on the ground. “You steal a piece of equipment like that, you drive straight on till morning.”
Ianto looked again at the PDA screen. “Actually… it’s been stationary for… nearly four minutes now.” He looked back up, raising an eyebrow at Owen. “I’d even go so far as to say it was parked.”
Gwen turned around, dug in a bag for a moment and pulled out the map they had been consulting earlier. “So if we’re here,” she started, pointing a finger at the map and trailing it across. “There is a small village in that area. And then nothing for miles.”
Ianto shoved the PDA back into his pocket. He had a feeling he knew where this conversation was going.
“This sounds worryingly like a trap,” Toshiko said, nevertheless digging out a few pieces of simple equipment that she could fit into her pockets.
“I was just thinking the same thing,” Jack replied, twisting to face them all. He had a reckless smile on his face, and Ianto wondered if he was the only one on the team that knew somehow that he would follow that smile into anything. “Anyone up for a walk?”
Chapter Sixty-Two
Comments and concrit are loved!