Fic: Doppelganger - Chapter 10, "Autopilot" [WIP 13/?]
Title: Doppelganger: Chapter 10, "Autopilot"
Author: heddychaa
Pairings: John/Ianto, Jack/Ianto, Jack/Alonso, Mickey/Martha, other canon relationships
Rating: R, with NC-17 chapters clearly labelled.
Genre: Timey-wimey Post-CoE eventual fix-it
Disclaimer: "Doctor Who" and "Torchwood", including characters, concepts, and events, belong to their respective owners, including but not limited to Russel T Davies and the BBC. This is a work of fan-appreciation and no profit is being made.
Summary: Ianto Jones is searching for someone, and he's willing to risk and give anything if it brings him just one step closer. After materializing on an alternate Earth, the first person he happens upon is the smug and decidedly untrustworthy Captain John Hart, Time Agent. Hart seems to know what's going on in this world, and also knows more about Ianto himself than he's letting on, but most importantly he promises to take Ianto to Torchwood in London where he can continue his desperate search. However, when Hart's vortex manipulator takes them a crucial few months into the future, Ianto finds himself depending on him for much more than just directions . . . but at what cost?
A/N: Thank you _lullabelle_ for being my beta / emotional support for all this crazy nonsense.
Chapter 10: Autopilot
They spend the trip practicing with the psychic paper: the ship on autopilot, Jones sitting on the ship’s bunk and John perched on the Captain’s chair, turned round to face the cabin of the small ship. At first, the paper shows John more gibberish, all of which makes John laugh and snicker and Jones feel more and more harassed. Every time he protests, however, or suggests they take a break, John says, very seriously, “No, continue,” with his cold eyes, and Jones resignedly flashes him the wallet again. This time it is his birth certificate, but it says he was born in London. This time it is a paycheque that says he makes 20,000 more a year than he does. A clean criminal record check. (Does that mean he wishes he’d never shoplifted, or that he’d never been got caught shoplifting, he wonders?)
“Try to focus,” John instructs. “Try something simple. Think of your Torchwood ID, but with a different name.”
Ianto Jones, son of a master tailor. That old lie. What a strange thing to say about one’s father, though. Why not “fireman”? Company CEO?
“Even if the psychic paper does show what you want it to, it won’t help if you’re not acting convincingly. You’ve got your poker face down, I’ll give you that, but you need more of a liar’s swagger. You’re not confident enough. You just seem like you’re hiding something just as a part of your nature.”
Ianto Jones, acting captain in Torchwood 1 after a long list of promotions and recommendations, never stuck behind a desk. Much more flattering than the reality: most of Torchwood 1’s staff converted when Cybus industries unleashed the Cybermen on London.
“Let’s start with the fake name though. At the Agency we stick with the ‘Three Js’: Jack, John, and James. Joseph, sometimes, too, but let’s not get too fancy, Eye-Candy. If you stick to the main three it’s less complicated. You need something that you can pick on a moment’s notice without hesitation. The plainer, the better. Pick something exotic, people start asking questions.”
“So, ‘John Hart’?” Jones asks, tentatively.
“Haven’t gone by my real name since I joined up. Not about to start to, now, so forget about it.”
“What about last names?” Jones asks. He’s looking down at the crisp surface of the psychic paper, willing it to show the familiar Torchood ID, his unsmiling face. “I could just say ‘Jack Jones’ but it’s a little alliterative don’t you think?” Sounds like a lounge singer. He smiles down on the blank paper.
Jones, Jack Jones. I’m Torchwood, he rehearses silently, and then flashes the paper with a flourish, like a grizzled cop on a crime procedural.
John claps his hands once. “Eureka, he’s done it!” he exclaims. “‘Jones, Jack. Torchwood Infantry!’ and a picture of your cheerful face, even!”
Jones can’t help but match his smile, and suddenly the two of them are grinning like idiots at each other.
“Okay, now for the hard part. ‘Jones, Jack’ needs to be a member of the PFA, the target’s-Cormac Scully’s, that is-organization, because otherwise there’s no way you’re getting anywhere near him.”
“What is the PFA?” Jones asks.
“Well it’s hardly the time for a lesson in 51st century Earth history, but the long and short of it is, right now your lovely home planet is ruled by a series of squabbling and increasingly violent and despotic military groups called ‘Alliances’, all while being in the middle of a major environmental crisis. The military groups, even the more benevolent of them, are acting out what most would consider massive war crimes in the name of fleeting control of territory and materiel, and every time one of them falls, which they all do eventually, there’s chaos and a dangerous power vacuum. Meanwhile, the rich are basically abandoning the planet wholesale, leaving the meek to, well, inherit the Earth.” John hands him back the psychic paper. “Try it again,” he instructs.
Jones does.
“Nope, still ‘Torchwood’,” John says.
“So Scully, he’s a military despot then, yeah? Arms dealer?” He looks straight into John’s eyes, searching them.
John sighs heavily. “He’s a civil rights activist, Ianto. Of sorts. Maybe a bit of a militant. His organization wants more equality in how refugee status is granted for people leaving the Earth, so that it’s not just the super rich. He’s also heavily involved in talks in the founding of the new world government of Earth to end the rule of the Alliances. Are you happy now? You’re killing a fucking saint.”
Jones slumps forward, the psychic paper in its wallet slipping from his fingers, falling lightly to the cabin’s floor. He can’t do this. This is too much. Too far. Too wrong. But he has to. He’s come this far, hasn’t he? He’s sacrificed this much. Why does this Cormac Scully get to live when. . . His hands ball into fists. That isn’t his decision to make. Maybe John-when did he start thinking of him as ‘John’?-maybe John is egotistical enough that he can swan around the universe like a minor god, making these kinds of decisions as though they are his to make, but not Jones. Jones may be ruthless, may have some black marks on his character, may have lied, may have cheated, may have stolen, but murder? Presumptuous cold-blooded murder?
“There has to be another way,” he says, and his skin burns, as though he’s covered in insects, as though he has a rash, as though he’s scalding himself over a steaming pot on the stove.
“There is no other way. I didn’t know who the target was until after I accepted the job, and by then it was too late. That’s what assassination is. You take the job that’s offered. You don’t only kill people who are in some way distasteful to you.” Jones doesn’t lift his head, but he can see that John’s posture is stiff, uncomfortable. His hands on his knees draw up into fists.
“Your old partner would have,” he says, lowly, the tone not as petulant as the words themselves.
“What do you know?” John snaps. When Jones doesn’t answer, he grabs him by the hair at the back of his scalp, tearing his head upward and making tears prick at his eyes. Jones screws up his face into a glower. “I asked you a damn question,” John says, and his voice is artificially calm and easygoing, as though he’s making small talk in an elevator, contrasting with the tight hand lodged in Jones’ hair. “What. Do. You. Know.”
“I know he was a better man that you, John,” Jones says, the name gritting through his teeth like sand. He wants to spit it out, or swallow it, but it sits heavy on his tongue, or maybe it is his tongue, swollen in his mouth.
“He was a coward,” John retorts. “He was a coward who went to Earth, got soft, and got fat. And I am not him. We are going through with this. You are going through with this. You are going to infiltrate the PFA and Cormac Scully is going to die. You’re going to get your fucking dimension jump fixed and then you can get the hell out of here.” He releases his grip on Jones’ head.
“Why are you doing this?” Jones asks. The question he should have asked a long time ago, was too proud to ask. Thought he’d figured out. “This is a lot of effort on your part just for a shag.”
John laughs through his nose, a snooty hmph. When he answers, his voice is artificially cheerful, the voice of a gameshow host. “Eye-Candy! Exactly the right question, but I’m sorry, we’re out of time for today. How about. . . keep your mouth closed for the rest of the flight.”
Jones feels his mouth falling shut, even as he’s gearing up to protest, arguments spinning in his head. He feels a cold horror creep up his limbs like spider legs. What has John done to him? John avoids his eyes.
John puts on some music to drown out the sound of Ianto breathing through his nose, an unpleasant reminder of his hasty order, an order which, judging by the look in Ianto’s eyes, he daren’t take back even though he kind of regrets it now.
Eventually, John finds himself turning to the viewscreen, monitoring the controls a little more closely than strictly necessary. The ship skips in and out of the time vortex like a sewing needle dipping through fabric, travelling in time even as it travels in space. It cuts the long time that it should take to make it back to Earth down to something manageable, even tolerable, or at least it would be tolerable if it weren’t for the morose Ianto Jones glowering daggers into the back of his head with his creepy lurking butler presence.
Earth blinks into existence quite suddenly ahead of them, and John turns just in time to see the flicker of surprise on Ianto Jones’ face: the twitch of his eyelids, the quirk of his eyebrows. “Welcome home,” John says to him, voice flat. The planet below is blue and grey; almost entirely urbanized, much changed from the landscape Jones is most likely used to, that John has seen most recently. John can tell he wants to ask something, wants to question or comment on what he’s looking at: his mouth twists impotently against John’s orders and then relaxes into that soft line again. He fixes John with a look of pure resentment.
“You’d better sit down,” John instructs him, ignoring the look. “Even in a ship outfitted with top-of-the-range features like this one,” he continues, laying on the sarcasm, “the atmosphere’s rough going.” He turns back to the viewscreen, fastening the straps of the captain’s chair over his chest. He hears Ianto, (sullen, resentful, seething) shifting behind him in the cabin. He takes hold of the ship’s steering, pointing the nose of the ship down and gritting his teeth. Flying. It’s barbaric.
His teeth rattle the whole way through the atmosphere, and he risks a glance back at Ianto, who is perched on the bed, gripping whatever he can to steady himself, white-knuckled and ill-looking. Suddenly he hears the thrum of air outside the ship’s chassis, sound and noise after hours of the silence of the vacuum of space. Now they are in the rumbling grey of cloud cover, and now they can see the shape of cities growing beneath them. There it is, London, the new blitz, rising up beneath them, red and grey and black, smoke and fire and brick and tarmac. He flicks the switch of the ship’s invisibility camouflage. Ianto’s face looms up over his shoulder, peering out the viewscreen as they make their landing in a dusty carpark.
“But this,” Ianto says, and then stops, obviously shocked that he can talk again. “But this looks like a council estate.”
“An abandoned council estate,” John elaborates. “Haven’t you ever read Frantz Fanon? ‘The peasants alone are revolutionary, for they have nothing to lose and everything to gain.’” He recites the quote in his best stuffy literature professor voice, putting on a posh affection.
Ianto has one eyebrow twitched up in disbelief, and there’s even a hint of a smile playing at his lips.
“Oh, what, a scoundrel like me can’t be well read, is that it? Well, Ianto Jones, I’ll have you know that I am just full of surprises.”
“You’re full of something, all right,” Ianto says.
John puts the psychic paper, the blaster, into Ianto’s hands. “Get it over with,” he commands, all business. “Like we rehearsed. Find Cormac Scully and kill him.” Ianto’s fingers curl around the grip of the blaster, as though it is something foreign, like he has never seen one before. The look in his eyes is pleading. “I’m sorry,” John says. Sorry for what? For everything, he supposes. For the patch, for the sex, for the lies, for keeping him away from Jack who must be out there somewhere, for making him kill an innocent man. “It has to be done.” He tries to make it sound reassuring.
Gwen is up in Jack’s office. He knows that because he can hear her pacing back and forth, her boots clunking back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth over the grating. He only hears half of the call from his station, but he knows what it was about. They’ve finished reconstruction of the Hub’s morgue and cryogenic storage under the plass, even recovered 46% of the bodies stored there that managed to survive the blast with minimal or no damage. He knows, because at first she’s so shocked at the news that she keeps dumbfoundedly repeating what’s said to her in a lifeless tone. They’re going to transfer Ianto Jones’ body there today. He knows that because Gwen refuses, suddenly all fire and brimstone, suddenly a commander again. Gwen has different plans. Bring it here to Hub 3, she wants Doctor Smith to look over it one last time, make sure there’s nothing else. (She must be talking to some nameless bureaucrat lackey, to be calling Martha ‘Doctor Smith’.)
Nothing else what?
“Traces of the virus.”
And what would you need that for? Suspicion. Government-types, always worried about biological terrorism. They’re the ones who started the fear in the first place! He wonders if they’ve already extracted it themselves. Poor Ianto Jones, used to help in the creation of a biological weapon. Not exactly a dignified end.
“An antidote.”
A little late for that now don’t you think?
“We need to prepare for all contingencies. We could use the composition to find out more about the 456, find out where they’re from.” And then what? Mickey wonders. Declare war? With what army? The only ally humanity has in all of space is the damn Doctor, and some use that insufferable pacifist is. He’s hardly going to help them hunt down the unknown species for revenge, when his protection of them as a species seems entirely contingent on whether or not he just happens to be there at the time.
He can hear the anxiety in Gwen’s voice smooth out somewhat, knows that they are agreeing to her demands. He hears Martha shuffling about in her medical quarters, cleaning, tidying. He makes eye contact with her briefly. She looks ill.
“And have Johnson escort it here personally. An armed guard. Yes. She’ll make the time for Torchwood. Tell her it’s for Jack Harkness himself, then. She owes him a bloody favour or two.” Her voice is clear, hard. He hears the phone hitting the cradle.
Above them, Gwen kicks Jack’s desk. The shock reverberates right through the grating, and a layer of dust falls through the still air over Mickey’s head. He ruffles it out of his hair. “He should fucking be here!” she cries out, and her voice is tinged with hysteria. Gwen, who shoulders her responsibility so nobly and without complaint. He hears her fall into his chair. Martha hurries up the stairs, casting him a look as she passes. She looks heartbroken.
They’re all so irrevocably fucked up.
“I’ll take care of it,” Martha says. “Why don’t you take an early day, I’ll call Rhys to come pick you up. You go home, have a glass of wine. Mickey and I will run the tests, and then we’ll run the body over to the Plass, make sure it’s interred properly and that everything’s running okay.” She uses her doctor voice, her “ma’am I regret to inform you but we did all we could” voice. It’s calm, soothing, practiced, just the right measures of emotional distance and human compassion, striking the balance of professionalism and personal caring.
“He’s Ianto!” Gwen chokes out. “He’s not an ‘it’! He’s not a ‘body’!”
“Gwen, you need to go home,” Martha says, firm. Mickey is already dialling Rhys.
“Where’s Jack,” Gwen says, but she’s not crying, just defeated, her voice so soft Mickey can barely hear it over the sound of the ringtone in his ear.
“Wherever he is,” Martha replies, carefully. “He can’t run away from this forever.”
Go to Interlude III: "Kisses For Scraped Knees" (NC-17 Chapter ahoy!)
View the Masterlist for full chapter list and complete header info.
Author: heddychaa
Pairings: John/Ianto, Jack/Ianto, Jack/Alonso, Mickey/Martha, other canon relationships
Rating: R, with NC-17 chapters clearly labelled.
Genre: Timey-wimey Post-CoE eventual fix-it
Disclaimer: "Doctor Who" and "Torchwood", including characters, concepts, and events, belong to their respective owners, including but not limited to Russel T Davies and the BBC. This is a work of fan-appreciation and no profit is being made.
Summary: Ianto Jones is searching for someone, and he's willing to risk and give anything if it brings him just one step closer. After materializing on an alternate Earth, the first person he happens upon is the smug and decidedly untrustworthy Captain John Hart, Time Agent. Hart seems to know what's going on in this world, and also knows more about Ianto himself than he's letting on, but most importantly he promises to take Ianto to Torchwood in London where he can continue his desperate search. However, when Hart's vortex manipulator takes them a crucial few months into the future, Ianto finds himself depending on him for much more than just directions . . . but at what cost?
A/N: Thank you _lullabelle_ for being my beta / emotional support for all this crazy nonsense.
Chapter 10: Autopilot
They spend the trip practicing with the psychic paper: the ship on autopilot, Jones sitting on the ship’s bunk and John perched on the Captain’s chair, turned round to face the cabin of the small ship. At first, the paper shows John more gibberish, all of which makes John laugh and snicker and Jones feel more and more harassed. Every time he protests, however, or suggests they take a break, John says, very seriously, “No, continue,” with his cold eyes, and Jones resignedly flashes him the wallet again. This time it is his birth certificate, but it says he was born in London. This time it is a paycheque that says he makes 20,000 more a year than he does. A clean criminal record check. (Does that mean he wishes he’d never shoplifted, or that he’d never been got caught shoplifting, he wonders?)
“Try to focus,” John instructs. “Try something simple. Think of your Torchwood ID, but with a different name.”
Ianto Jones, son of a master tailor. That old lie. What a strange thing to say about one’s father, though. Why not “fireman”? Company CEO?
“Even if the psychic paper does show what you want it to, it won’t help if you’re not acting convincingly. You’ve got your poker face down, I’ll give you that, but you need more of a liar’s swagger. You’re not confident enough. You just seem like you’re hiding something just as a part of your nature.”
Ianto Jones, acting captain in Torchwood 1 after a long list of promotions and recommendations, never stuck behind a desk. Much more flattering than the reality: most of Torchwood 1’s staff converted when Cybus industries unleashed the Cybermen on London.
“Let’s start with the fake name though. At the Agency we stick with the ‘Three Js’: Jack, John, and James. Joseph, sometimes, too, but let’s not get too fancy, Eye-Candy. If you stick to the main three it’s less complicated. You need something that you can pick on a moment’s notice without hesitation. The plainer, the better. Pick something exotic, people start asking questions.”
“So, ‘John Hart’?” Jones asks, tentatively.
“Haven’t gone by my real name since I joined up. Not about to start to, now, so forget about it.”
“What about last names?” Jones asks. He’s looking down at the crisp surface of the psychic paper, willing it to show the familiar Torchood ID, his unsmiling face. “I could just say ‘Jack Jones’ but it’s a little alliterative don’t you think?” Sounds like a lounge singer. He smiles down on the blank paper.
Jones, Jack Jones. I’m Torchwood, he rehearses silently, and then flashes the paper with a flourish, like a grizzled cop on a crime procedural.
John claps his hands once. “Eureka, he’s done it!” he exclaims. “‘Jones, Jack. Torchwood Infantry!’ and a picture of your cheerful face, even!”
Jones can’t help but match his smile, and suddenly the two of them are grinning like idiots at each other.
“Okay, now for the hard part. ‘Jones, Jack’ needs to be a member of the PFA, the target’s-Cormac Scully’s, that is-organization, because otherwise there’s no way you’re getting anywhere near him.”
“What is the PFA?” Jones asks.
“Well it’s hardly the time for a lesson in 51st century Earth history, but the long and short of it is, right now your lovely home planet is ruled by a series of squabbling and increasingly violent and despotic military groups called ‘Alliances’, all while being in the middle of a major environmental crisis. The military groups, even the more benevolent of them, are acting out what most would consider massive war crimes in the name of fleeting control of territory and materiel, and every time one of them falls, which they all do eventually, there’s chaos and a dangerous power vacuum. Meanwhile, the rich are basically abandoning the planet wholesale, leaving the meek to, well, inherit the Earth.” John hands him back the psychic paper. “Try it again,” he instructs.
Jones does.
“Nope, still ‘Torchwood’,” John says.
“So Scully, he’s a military despot then, yeah? Arms dealer?” He looks straight into John’s eyes, searching them.
John sighs heavily. “He’s a civil rights activist, Ianto. Of sorts. Maybe a bit of a militant. His organization wants more equality in how refugee status is granted for people leaving the Earth, so that it’s not just the super rich. He’s also heavily involved in talks in the founding of the new world government of Earth to end the rule of the Alliances. Are you happy now? You’re killing a fucking saint.”
Jones slumps forward, the psychic paper in its wallet slipping from his fingers, falling lightly to the cabin’s floor. He can’t do this. This is too much. Too far. Too wrong. But he has to. He’s come this far, hasn’t he? He’s sacrificed this much. Why does this Cormac Scully get to live when. . . His hands ball into fists. That isn’t his decision to make. Maybe John-when did he start thinking of him as ‘John’?-maybe John is egotistical enough that he can swan around the universe like a minor god, making these kinds of decisions as though they are his to make, but not Jones. Jones may be ruthless, may have some black marks on his character, may have lied, may have cheated, may have stolen, but murder? Presumptuous cold-blooded murder?
“There has to be another way,” he says, and his skin burns, as though he’s covered in insects, as though he has a rash, as though he’s scalding himself over a steaming pot on the stove.
“There is no other way. I didn’t know who the target was until after I accepted the job, and by then it was too late. That’s what assassination is. You take the job that’s offered. You don’t only kill people who are in some way distasteful to you.” Jones doesn’t lift his head, but he can see that John’s posture is stiff, uncomfortable. His hands on his knees draw up into fists.
“Your old partner would have,” he says, lowly, the tone not as petulant as the words themselves.
“What do you know?” John snaps. When Jones doesn’t answer, he grabs him by the hair at the back of his scalp, tearing his head upward and making tears prick at his eyes. Jones screws up his face into a glower. “I asked you a damn question,” John says, and his voice is artificially calm and easygoing, as though he’s making small talk in an elevator, contrasting with the tight hand lodged in Jones’ hair. “What. Do. You. Know.”
“I know he was a better man that you, John,” Jones says, the name gritting through his teeth like sand. He wants to spit it out, or swallow it, but it sits heavy on his tongue, or maybe it is his tongue, swollen in his mouth.
“He was a coward,” John retorts. “He was a coward who went to Earth, got soft, and got fat. And I am not him. We are going through with this. You are going through with this. You are going to infiltrate the PFA and Cormac Scully is going to die. You’re going to get your fucking dimension jump fixed and then you can get the hell out of here.” He releases his grip on Jones’ head.
“Why are you doing this?” Jones asks. The question he should have asked a long time ago, was too proud to ask. Thought he’d figured out. “This is a lot of effort on your part just for a shag.”
John laughs through his nose, a snooty hmph. When he answers, his voice is artificially cheerful, the voice of a gameshow host. “Eye-Candy! Exactly the right question, but I’m sorry, we’re out of time for today. How about. . . keep your mouth closed for the rest of the flight.”
Jones feels his mouth falling shut, even as he’s gearing up to protest, arguments spinning in his head. He feels a cold horror creep up his limbs like spider legs. What has John done to him? John avoids his eyes.
John puts on some music to drown out the sound of Ianto breathing through his nose, an unpleasant reminder of his hasty order, an order which, judging by the look in Ianto’s eyes, he daren’t take back even though he kind of regrets it now.
Eventually, John finds himself turning to the viewscreen, monitoring the controls a little more closely than strictly necessary. The ship skips in and out of the time vortex like a sewing needle dipping through fabric, travelling in time even as it travels in space. It cuts the long time that it should take to make it back to Earth down to something manageable, even tolerable, or at least it would be tolerable if it weren’t for the morose Ianto Jones glowering daggers into the back of his head with his creepy lurking butler presence.
Earth blinks into existence quite suddenly ahead of them, and John turns just in time to see the flicker of surprise on Ianto Jones’ face: the twitch of his eyelids, the quirk of his eyebrows. “Welcome home,” John says to him, voice flat. The planet below is blue and grey; almost entirely urbanized, much changed from the landscape Jones is most likely used to, that John has seen most recently. John can tell he wants to ask something, wants to question or comment on what he’s looking at: his mouth twists impotently against John’s orders and then relaxes into that soft line again. He fixes John with a look of pure resentment.
“You’d better sit down,” John instructs him, ignoring the look. “Even in a ship outfitted with top-of-the-range features like this one,” he continues, laying on the sarcasm, “the atmosphere’s rough going.” He turns back to the viewscreen, fastening the straps of the captain’s chair over his chest. He hears Ianto, (sullen, resentful, seething) shifting behind him in the cabin. He takes hold of the ship’s steering, pointing the nose of the ship down and gritting his teeth. Flying. It’s barbaric.
His teeth rattle the whole way through the atmosphere, and he risks a glance back at Ianto, who is perched on the bed, gripping whatever he can to steady himself, white-knuckled and ill-looking. Suddenly he hears the thrum of air outside the ship’s chassis, sound and noise after hours of the silence of the vacuum of space. Now they are in the rumbling grey of cloud cover, and now they can see the shape of cities growing beneath them. There it is, London, the new blitz, rising up beneath them, red and grey and black, smoke and fire and brick and tarmac. He flicks the switch of the ship’s invisibility camouflage. Ianto’s face looms up over his shoulder, peering out the viewscreen as they make their landing in a dusty carpark.
“But this,” Ianto says, and then stops, obviously shocked that he can talk again. “But this looks like a council estate.”
“An abandoned council estate,” John elaborates. “Haven’t you ever read Frantz Fanon? ‘The peasants alone are revolutionary, for they have nothing to lose and everything to gain.’” He recites the quote in his best stuffy literature professor voice, putting on a posh affection.
Ianto has one eyebrow twitched up in disbelief, and there’s even a hint of a smile playing at his lips.
“Oh, what, a scoundrel like me can’t be well read, is that it? Well, Ianto Jones, I’ll have you know that I am just full of surprises.”
“You’re full of something, all right,” Ianto says.
John puts the psychic paper, the blaster, into Ianto’s hands. “Get it over with,” he commands, all business. “Like we rehearsed. Find Cormac Scully and kill him.” Ianto’s fingers curl around the grip of the blaster, as though it is something foreign, like he has never seen one before. The look in his eyes is pleading. “I’m sorry,” John says. Sorry for what? For everything, he supposes. For the patch, for the sex, for the lies, for keeping him away from Jack who must be out there somewhere, for making him kill an innocent man. “It has to be done.” He tries to make it sound reassuring.
Gwen is up in Jack’s office. He knows that because he can hear her pacing back and forth, her boots clunking back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth over the grating. He only hears half of the call from his station, but he knows what it was about. They’ve finished reconstruction of the Hub’s morgue and cryogenic storage under the plass, even recovered 46% of the bodies stored there that managed to survive the blast with minimal or no damage. He knows, because at first she’s so shocked at the news that she keeps dumbfoundedly repeating what’s said to her in a lifeless tone. They’re going to transfer Ianto Jones’ body there today. He knows that because Gwen refuses, suddenly all fire and brimstone, suddenly a commander again. Gwen has different plans. Bring it here to Hub 3, she wants Doctor Smith to look over it one last time, make sure there’s nothing else. (She must be talking to some nameless bureaucrat lackey, to be calling Martha ‘Doctor Smith’.)
Nothing else what?
“Traces of the virus.”
And what would you need that for? Suspicion. Government-types, always worried about biological terrorism. They’re the ones who started the fear in the first place! He wonders if they’ve already extracted it themselves. Poor Ianto Jones, used to help in the creation of a biological weapon. Not exactly a dignified end.
“An antidote.”
A little late for that now don’t you think?
“We need to prepare for all contingencies. We could use the composition to find out more about the 456, find out where they’re from.” And then what? Mickey wonders. Declare war? With what army? The only ally humanity has in all of space is the damn Doctor, and some use that insufferable pacifist is. He’s hardly going to help them hunt down the unknown species for revenge, when his protection of them as a species seems entirely contingent on whether or not he just happens to be there at the time.
He can hear the anxiety in Gwen’s voice smooth out somewhat, knows that they are agreeing to her demands. He hears Martha shuffling about in her medical quarters, cleaning, tidying. He makes eye contact with her briefly. She looks ill.
“And have Johnson escort it here personally. An armed guard. Yes. She’ll make the time for Torchwood. Tell her it’s for Jack Harkness himself, then. She owes him a bloody favour or two.” Her voice is clear, hard. He hears the phone hitting the cradle.
Above them, Gwen kicks Jack’s desk. The shock reverberates right through the grating, and a layer of dust falls through the still air over Mickey’s head. He ruffles it out of his hair. “He should fucking be here!” she cries out, and her voice is tinged with hysteria. Gwen, who shoulders her responsibility so nobly and without complaint. He hears her fall into his chair. Martha hurries up the stairs, casting him a look as she passes. She looks heartbroken.
They’re all so irrevocably fucked up.
“I’ll take care of it,” Martha says. “Why don’t you take an early day, I’ll call Rhys to come pick you up. You go home, have a glass of wine. Mickey and I will run the tests, and then we’ll run the body over to the Plass, make sure it’s interred properly and that everything’s running okay.” She uses her doctor voice, her “ma’am I regret to inform you but we did all we could” voice. It’s calm, soothing, practiced, just the right measures of emotional distance and human compassion, striking the balance of professionalism and personal caring.
“He’s Ianto!” Gwen chokes out. “He’s not an ‘it’! He’s not a ‘body’!”
“Gwen, you need to go home,” Martha says, firm. Mickey is already dialling Rhys.
“Where’s Jack,” Gwen says, but she’s not crying, just defeated, her voice so soft Mickey can barely hear it over the sound of the ringtone in his ear.
“Wherever he is,” Martha replies, carefully. “He can’t run away from this forever.”
Go to Interlude III: "Kisses For Scraped Knees" (NC-17 Chapter ahoy!)
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