Tales Of A Time Agency - 18 B/?
Title: Tales of A Time Agency - 18 B/?
Rating: 15 - NC-17, the usual.
Pairings: Jack/Ianto but it’s the Time Agency so expect Jack/John, Tosh/Owen, Ianto/John, Tosh/Mary, John/ OFC, John/the consenting population of the universe……
Spoilers: Anything Torchwood could be hinted at.
Summary: Ianto Jones is thrown into the world of excess of the Time Agency Academy, but will he sink or swim? Especially when the enigmatic Jack Harkness starts looking his way…. In this chapter, Ianto finds the answers that he’s been looking for, Telmaya finds herself running from John and Toshiko is demanding more from Owen.
Disclaimer: Regrettably I own nothing, none of the characters, zip. Wish I did though. I will take the credit for Telmaya though; I’m quite fond of her.
Author’s Notes: Well I bring TOATA, and as a warning kids, it’s a long one today. I really hope you likes it, its not my best work, but I’m blaming that on my fuzzed up head. But as always, I owe absolutely everything to thehubsitter and tonaddypants for beta’ing this for me, and somehow managing to make me feel slightly less insane. And of course, I have to thank you too, for sticking with TOATA for this long! As always, any comments you leave me are completely cuddled to death too.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five A
Chapter Five B
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight A
Chapter Eight B
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven A
Chapter Eleven B
Janto Interlude
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen A
It was with great surprise that she had found herself hiding inside a metallic wardrobe.
And after half an hour, Toshiko Sato was beginning to feel quite ridiculous.
Owen Harper. The words were twisting around her head, the voice in her brain rolling over them with renewed frustration. She could hear him, just the other side of the metal, talking medical protocol with a woman whom she could only assume to be his commanding officer by the proper tone he had suddenly taken to using. She sighed, leaning back and resting her head against one of his medical tunics, unwittingly breathing his scent in as she did so. The air inside the cramped box was beginning to become heated on her skin, and she wriggling slightly in an effort to cool herself down, glancing down at her half naked body in the process. In the flustered seconds before Owen had crammed her into the wardrobe she had barely even had the chance to grab her underwear.
Guilt had seemed to have made the medic drop his guard. Although he now no longer tried to keep his care for Toshiko hidden from her, they both knew that there had to be set rules. They could see each other at night, go back to each other’s rooms and lose themselves in mind blowing sex. But they could never stay the night. When it was late and the streets and dormitory corridors were shrouded in darkness it was easy to leave someone’s room anonymously no suspicions raised no matter how many times you did it. But in the light of morning there was too much of a risk at being seen, and both knew that they would stand to lose far too much if they were ever discovered. So the night before had been like any other night, Toshiko lying there in Owen’s bed whilst he lavished attention across every scrap of soft pale skin that he endeavored to uncover. However, when his wrist strap had beeped into action, interrupting them and tearing Owen’s body harshly from her own. Something about a medical emergency in the medibay, to which Owen had to attend to immediately.
“I better go.” She nodded quickly, sitting up and reaching for the closest item of clothing beside her, one hand sweeping a straying lock of hair behind her left ear.
“No…” A brief kiss pressed along the back of her shoulder, electric sparks coursing up into her neck and down her back in milliseconds. “I won’t be long, I promise.”
“But…-”
“No buts.” He laughed softly behind her, quickly pulling on his clothes and moving to stand in front of her. “I want you here when I get back ok?”
“But I can’t stay long…its getting late.”
“Forget that.”
“What?”
“Fuck it Tosh.” He grinned, leaning down and pressing a tender kiss to her lips this time, almost reluctant to pull away himself. “I want you here, all night okay?”
“But…”
“What have I told you about that?” The medic laughed softly, backing away. “Wait here, I’ll be back as soon as I can be.”
So he had felt guilty about leaving her, and in order to make amends he had let her stay the night, given her the one thing that he knew deep down she had wanted. And at the risk of sounding sickening sentimental, Toshiko had loved every second of it. For once she didn’t feel cheap at the end of the night. She felt wanted, cared for as she fell asleep with her body pressed into her back, his arms loosely around her waist and his breath tickling her ear. She’d felt, valued, at peace when she woke up to find a pair of deep brown eyes watching her softly. They’d shared a kiss and for a brief second it had been as if they were the only two people alive.
And then, there had been a loud knock at the door, a stern voice and Tosh had been bundled into a wardrobe in hiding without a second thought.
Resisting the urge to drum her nails impatiently on the metal, Toshiko sighed again, listening out closely when she heard the familiar bang of Owen’s door closing. Soon Owen was opening the wardrobe doors, an amused smile smeared across his features.
“It’s not funny.” She rolled her eyes, stepping out and feeling the cool air wash over her body as soon as she left the confines of the wardrobe. “Couldn’t you have gotten rid of her any faster?”
“She’s my boss.”
“So?”
“She was demanding to know why I didn’t make a report on last night’s incident.” He paused, grinning. “You’re getting me into trouble.”
“How is that my fault?”
“Every time a cadet suffers an injury, it has to be logged, just like everything else. Last night I was so eager to get back to you…well let’s just say I forgot.” He smirked quickly. “I thought I could get away with it this morning, but it appears news travels fast.” He rolled his eyes. “Either way, it was a little too close for comfort.”
“Easy for you to say, you didn’t have to hide in there.” She shuddered slightly, glancing over her shoulder to the wardrobe.
“Seriously though Tosh…we need to be careful.” Owen sighed, sitting down on the edge of the bed and looking at her exasperated. “If she’d have caught you in here…”
“But she didn’t…”
“She nearly did.” He shook his head quickly. “Like I said, too close.”
“You told me you didn’t care about the rules, remember?” The frustration in Tosh’s voice could not be masked with all the good intention in the world. “You told me that they didn’t mean anything.”
“And I never thought thing’s would become serious.” He laughed weakly. “Believe me Tosh, I’ve slept with cadets before, fuck I don’t think there are many officers at TARA who haven’t… But this, this is something new.”
“How?”
“Because emotions make you blind, make you stupid, make you do things that put you at risk.” He shrugged. “We just need to remember that.”
“But when will it end Owen? When I graduate in a year and a half’s time and we can finally be together?” She laughed darkly. “I’m not sure I can take that, its soul destroying.”
“I know…but what other options do we have?”
“We could leave.” Tosh paused, biting her lip as soon as she realised what she had suggested.
“Leave?”
“Yes…leave TARA, leave the Time Agency. There’s my home, the Delta system…we could go there, its underlying enough.”
“And do what?”
“Live our lives Owen!” She sighed, running a hand anxiously though her hair. “Forget all about time ethics, guns, rules that try to keep us apart. We could just be happy being human.”
“I have a job to do here Tosh. You have to finish your training. We have commitment here.” He scoffed. “We can’t just pretend that none of this exists.”
“We could…if you wanted it enough.”
“No…that’s not fair.” The medic was standing up in standing up in seconds, his eyes meeting Toshiko’s severely. “I see what you’re doing, and you’re not twisting this into that.”
“It’s true though isn’t it? That I’m not enough to leave TARA for?”
“No…and don’t you even think for a second that it is.”
“Why?”
“Because…how I feel about you has nothing to do with this. I can’t leave…I can’t waste every year of training I did to get here.” He sighed, his face softening slightly apologetically. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do it Tosh.”
And with those seven words, Owen Harper broke Toshiko’s heart for a second time…
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Ianto Jones’ life had blurred around him in seconds.
Everything he had known, everything he had believed in. Gone. Dissipated so quickly that it made his world spin around him.
He was stumbling although he didn’t care as he fell back against the wall, sliding down it so that he was sat with his knees bunched up under his chin. In front of him he could still see the shock on Jack’s features, all the emotion of disbelief so clearly written into his eyes as he searched the file that was now emblazoned upon the far wall, his eyes desperately checking every word to ensure that what they had both read had been true.
Because the answers that Ianto Jones had just discovered were so much darker than he had even contemplated.
His plan had been simple. He knew that the Time Agency was able to track everyone of its graduated cadets through the use of genetic mapping. After all, the Time Agency held the capability to track a person’s lifeline through history, and no matter what timeline you occupied they would always be able to track you. Ianto knew that if Darko was still alive, then his files should show his true whereabouts; give Ianto a pin-point location at which to find him. He had hoped to find the information in the archives, but it was too confidential, and from that moment onwards he knew that he would need access to the Time Agency archives themselves, stored at the highest level possible at the Time Agency base on Adronax Major. He had hoped that Tosh might help him, but when she refused, Ianto had realised that he would have to wait, develop his own technical skill as far as possible and then access the files himself. But the shackles that bound him to his past had become too tight and too heavy for him to bear, the feeling of being so close to his goal almost suffocating. And so he had turned to Jack, and despite his better judgement, Jack had helped him.
But now…now Ianto Jones knew so much more than Darko Traven’s whereabouts.
He knew the truth. Every bitter and twisted syllable of it.
The Time Agency was corrupt.
For it was the Time Agency that had ordered Darko to murder Ianto’s father.
Ianto closed his eyes, willing away the words of the order that he could now see imprinted across his vision. They were burning into him, snapping every moral fibre in his body, making him see the world around him for what it really was. He could taste bile in his throat, could feel his stomach twist and churn within his body, his blood feeling like boiling venom as it flowed through his veins, pounding against the walls of his arteries as if trying to break out of his body. He could feel bitter and salted tears run down his cheeks, and yet he was unable to understand whether they were tears of betrayal or tears of rage. All he could do was feel, feel the anger, the frustration build within him, causing wrath to flash before his eyes as red flashes in front of a bull.
“No…” Jack’s voice was coarse as he spoke, swallowing hard as he reached Ianto’s side, his hands resting on his shoulders. “They can’t do this…not to one of their own. This isn’t right Yan, listen to me.”
“Read it.” Ianto’s voice was barely a murmur and yet Jack heard him perfectly.
“What?”
“Read it.” He looked up, dark eyes mingling with Jack’s instantly. “You heard me.”
“Yan I can’t-”
“Read it.” The deep aggression of Ianto’s tone shook Jack to his core. The other cadet looked at him appalled, his blue eyes lost and confused as he watched Ianto’s contorted expression. Jack swallowed hard, turning around to the projection on the wall, closing his eyes as if to wait for Ianto to reconsider. He didn’t.
“Target: Ieuan Jones. Location: Jeketter, slum district, Salax 9. Designation: Current Time Agent, 1st Class, active for fifteen years in the field. To be executed by any means possible under the jurisdiction of protocol 17. Order sanctioned and approved by Time Agency command alpha 1, beta 2. Target has become too sentimental and sympathetic towards non-Time Agency causes, therefore has shown himself to be a liability. Termination commissioned to Darko Traven.”
“Now tell me that that isn’t true.” Ianto said bluntly, standing up and taking a step towards the projection, his hand reaching out and flickering through the blue light causing the image to fizzle momentarily. “Because I see it Jack, I’ve heard it. They killed my father.”
“Ianto…”
“They murdered him.” The other cadet spoke on regardless, his voice shaking. “In cold blood. He’d been loyal for fifteen years and it meant nothing to them…”
“They thought he was a liability-”
“Are you justifying this Jack?!” In a second Ianto’s voice was a yell, his eyes drenched in more tears as he took a step forward, face inches from Jack’s. “Are you defending what they did to him? To me?”
“No.”
“Then what does this mean?” His voice trembling again, Ianto shook his head, tears falling solidly from his eyes and dampening his cheeks. “For any of us? That they can just dispose of us whenever we become obsolete? What gives them the right to do this?”
“Nothing does.”
“Then how can they do it? They bring us here, they show us the secrets of time, they teach about time ethics, the importance of being a passive observer, of making sure that history plays out the way it is supposed to.” He laughed darkly although tears continued to bloom in his eyes, growing in size until they became so heavy that the fell quickly, streaking down onto his neck. “How many times have they done this? How many lives have they taken? How many families have they lied to?”
“Yan…please, you have to calm down…”
“Why should I?” Ianto’s eyes were barely recognisable, his eyes glazed over with misted anger. “How the fuck am I supposed to deal with any of this?” He reached upwards, collapsing down to sit on the bed, his hands gripping at his hair as he took a death breath inwards. “What the hell do I do Jack?”
“You breathe…” The other cadet smiled weakly, sitting beside him a resting a concerned hand on his shoulder. “You can’t think about anything like this.”
“I don’t want to think.”
“The shock will pass…” He soothed, seeing the sadness in Ianto’s features and moving his arm around his shoulders, pulling him into an automatic embrace, his thumb stroking across the curve of Ianto’s shoulder.
“I can’t do this…stay here, not now that I know what I know.” The other cadet said softly, after what felt like an age of silence. He tilted his head to look up at Jack. “I can’t be a time agent after this.”
“Then what will you do?”
“I…I don’t know.” He paused, biting his lip as pained thoughts continued to power through his mind, causing Ianto to bunch both his hands into tight fists. “I have to find him.”
“What?!”
“Darko…this changes nothing.”
“Yan, it changes everything.”
“It doesn’t! The order was to kill my father…but what he did-” The younger cadet took a deep breath inwards. “He betrayed us all. What he did didn’t just kill my father, but it killed our whole family, the fires that spread from the fighting killed the families that lived around us.” Ianto sighed hard. “What he did was so much beyond his orders…no matter how wrong they were.”
“You can’t appoint yourself judge and jury Ianto…”
“Then who will Jack?!” Ianto hissed in reply. “He’s alive…and I still have to find him.”
“Ianto…please…”
“No.” He was shaking his head before Jack could even finish his sentence. “Jack…listen to me, let me explain myself. Please…”
“Ok…I’m listening.” He sighed softly, dropping his arm and swivelling slightly so that he could look Ianto in the eye. “Make me understand.”
“All this information…it’s running through my head. Everything I thought I knew about what happened, it all changed in seconds. And I can already feel it driving me insane, because I have nothing to justify it with. I have no explanation other than what is written there.” He pointed over to the far wall quickly. “I need more than that Jack, I’m sorry.”
“Nothing is going to stop you is it?”
“No…I have to finish this. It can’t end.”
“Ianto Jones…” It was Jack’s turn to sigh, lifting his hand upwards to rub at his eyes before continuing. “You’re going to be the death of me aren’t you?”
“What?”
“There’s no way in hell I’m letting you do this alone.”
“You’re…coming with me?”
“Looks like it.” Jack laughed weakly, resting a hand on Ianto’s thigh and squeezing softly.
“You can’t…”
“But I will.”
“I won’t let you.”
“You will.” He smiled, nodding slightly before continuing. “You won’t get far without me. Admit it Yan…you need me this time.”
“It’s not about that though is it?”
“Then what is it about?”
“You…getting hurt. If this all goes wrong, I don’t care about myself, but you…” He paused, sighing hard, his head resting in his hands to prevent him meeting Jack’s eye. “That’s different.”
“It’s not your choice Yan. Whether I choose to do this or not is my choice, my risk.” He smiled, leaning forward and pulling Ianto’s face into what he hoped was a reassuring kiss. Pulling back he grinned, smoothing a thumb across his cheek quickly. “You’re stuck with me.”
It was the first time someone had stood by him in ten years, and somewhere amongst all the shock and confusion in Ianto’s brain that actually meant something to him. It was something steady, something constant, a thought that his mind could latch onto through all every other thought that passed through his mind.
After all Jack was right. Ianto did need him. Just not for the reasons he thought that he did.
Ok, so if you stuck with me through all that…you really deserve a medal. And as always, me and my pesky pink writing is here to plead with you to leave a comment. Well ok, that sounded a bit desperate, but as I always say, TOATA is written for you and every bit of feedback I get means so so much. :) But, thank you for making it this far too!
Just Being Me a.k.a Siany
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Chapter Nineteen