Jack’s and Ianto’s Private Archives - Season 2 - 07/28 - part two 2/7
Title: Jack’s and Ianto’s Private Archives - Season 2 -07/28
Part 2: Jack’s Travel Diaries - 02/07
POV: from Ianto’s point of view.
Characters/ pairings: Jack/Ianto, Amy Prescott.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Jack is back and trying to settle in, he introduces Ianto to more of his past.
Disclaimer: The usual, I don’t own what you’ll be able to recognize, the rest is all mine.
Beta: czarina_kitty
“Hmm, Jack, tell me there’s a shower hidden behind this curtain,” Ianto mumbled.
“A present from Annabel,” Jack replied, but without releasing his embrace. Since his return, Jack had a great need for tenderness after sex and Ianto always had some difficulty disentangling from him.
“Jack, I’d love a shower and some coffee,” Ianto proposed, trying not to drag his Captain back to real life too harshly.
“You’re not going to like it,” Jack replied holding Ianto even closer, if that was possible.
“What do you mean?”
“No hot water.”
“No? As in none at all?”
“Yep! And there never was.”
“That’s some present!”
“Before that, I had to use the cell’s tap, down the corridor, to wash myself,” Jack replied. “It was quite an improvement.”
“If you say so,” Ianto grunted. He knew perfectly well from his sneaking through the Torchwood archives that staff showers had long been forbidden to Jack. Until Annabel’s arrival, in fact, as she’d been the first of Torchwood director to consider him a human being.
“You read all her diaries while I was gone, right?”
“Yes,” Ianto admitted. “Didn’t you?” he asked.
“Why would I?” Jack replied.
“I don’t know... I mean...”
“I only looked through what I needed to while I researched the transplant contamination cases, nothing more,” Jack replied. Ianto stared at him in disbelief. “I assume you wouldn’t want me reading you diary,” he added.
“Of course,” Ianto said, even if the diary he kept in the Hub, at more or less anyone disposal, was a decoy. As was the little notebook in which he noted anything that someone not granted with his fabulous memory would have to. Jack had found out about his little secret, but it was still something unspoken.
“Unless those are not her personal diaries, but the official Torchwood ones, we’re talking about,” Ianto pointed out.
“I know, but I never felt comfortable sneaking through them. They’re too personal, too close to home, I guess. That’s why when you offer to help I left you with them and focused on the teams’ old reports.”
“So you’ve never read the whole thing,” Ianto commented, as Jack finally let go of him to get up.
“No, never,” Jack confirmed.
Going to the vanity the Captain took the big pitcher and disappeared behind the curtain. Ianto heard water running.
If Jack had never read Annabel’s diaries, Ianto considered, he might not know what Ianto had found in those pages. And that was probably for the best; Jack had enough to worry him right now. Ianto could still feel how disturbed he was. And it was, more or less, Annabel’s last wish. There is no way Jack should ever know, no point except to hurt him more, and I don’t want that, she had written two weeks before she was killed.
“What are you doing?” Ianto asked.
“I’d better let the water run a bit; I haven’t use it since a while,” Jack explained. “Wait in bed, keep yourself warm.”
Ianto wasn’t feeling any urge to face the frigid water, but at the same time, he knew he could hardly escape. There were staff showers near the parking entrance, but it was fifty yards of corridor away. Corridor equipped with brand new cameras, installed by Jack himself, during the week after he’d found out about Lisa.
Jack finally came back, soaked from head to toe and carrying the pitcher full of water. He sat it on the vanity.
“Brrrr, that’s refreshing!” he laughed as he plunged into the small cabinet to retrieve two large towels from another age, and a suspicious looking electrical instrument.
“Hey, you're going to electrocute yourself with that thing!”
“Don’t worry! But stay on the bed, just in case!”Jack replied with a grin. He plunged the appliance in to the pitcher and only then started to dry himself off. Ianto admired the view. Jack was both muscular and slightly graceful, which gave him a sensual quality without making him look in anyway feminine. Oops! Ianto though, he’d better turn his attention to something else, or Jack would be due for another cold shower!
“These diaries, why did you write them? To keep yourself busy?” he asked.
“Mostly,” Jack replied. “But also to remember who and what I was. I needed something that couldn’t be drowned out or get lost in my mind.”
“Knowing what you’ve been through, I can only imagine...” Ianto said while skimming over the dates noted on the diaries’ spines.
“Your water’s warm,” Jack said taking the appliance out of the pot. “How much time do you think you would need to translate one of those?” he asked matter-of-factly.
Well done Jack, Ianto thought. He could refuse the test, drop the ball Jack was throwing, and pretend it would take weeks...
“No more than a few hours, if there isn’t too much Phoenician, of course,” he replied mimicking Jack and wondering how he would react.
With a pleased grin Jack grab him to plant a chaste kiss in his hair and then let him proceed with his wash up. It would be a cat like cleaning, as there was very little water for a man of his size. While Ianto was washing up, using the large porcelain basin and a corner of the towel Jack had provided, the Captain stowed the notebook Ianto had picked and retrieved two others.
“Take these two, take them home but don’t make a copy of any kind, not even notes. I know you can perfectly memorize them, and that’s okay. But you need to keep this to yourself, and I mean it, whatever happens...”
“Jack,” Ianto tried to protest, but Jack’s finger gently pressed on his lips silence him.
“Tomorrow,” Jack said. “Read that first.”
................................................
Ianto had been a little disappointed when he checked the dates on the notebooks Jack had chosen for him. He’d have rather liked more exotic dates. One of those beginning with a minus sign, for example. He’d also spotted a few about the Renaissance ... but Jack had clearly not chosen these two books at random. It was up to him to find the reason why.
As for the first one, 1941, he could take a guess: it was the date on Rose Tyler’s pendant. The other, 1901, had him at a complete loss. That would be the one Ianto would start with for reasons of chronology, of course, but also out of curiosity. He put the two diaries, as well as the Latin dictionary and grammar he’d bought on his way home, on the living room table. His Latin was very limited, even if it was better than his ancient Greek used to be.
He was about to make a sandwich when the phone rang.
"Hello, may I speak to Mr. Jones, if he’s available, of course!” a woman's voice said.
“Hi, there ... I'm sorry, you're gonna say I’m repeating myself...”
“Ianto, if you don’t want to see me anymore, just say it!”
The fact was, since Jack’s return, Ianto had forsaken her more than could possibly be forgivable. And Amy didn’t deserve to be treated so disrespectfully.
“I have a job to do for tomorrow morning ...” he’d replied anyway.
“Because now you’re bringing work home? Ianto ...”
“Listen, I’d really love to see you--” he started. “You know what? Pick up some takeaway on your way and come over here. Let’s have some fun, and great sex, then I call you a taxi at midnight. Are you game?”
“I’ll be there in thirty minutes,” she replied. “Are you okay with Chinese?”
“Awesome! You’re the best.”
Ianto should have hurried to the shower, he knew that. But instead, he opened the Latin dictionary and began skimming through, memorizing words and definitions as he’d look at them. He knew his mind would make the necessary connections when he needed them, yet he was content to simply register the data.
He’d just closed the dictionary when the bell rang. He took the time to stash it, along with Jack’s precious diaries, among the other books on the living room shelf.
As soon as Ianto opened the door, the young woman caught him by his tie to pull him in an eager kiss. Then, just as suddenly, she pushed him back shoving the bag paper containing the meal in his hands.
“Ianto Jones, despite appearances you're not a gentleman!” she stated, taking her coat off.
"I thought that fact was long established,” he replied while unpacking the contents of the bag. He really ought to have taken a shower, his cat clean up in Jack’s small cell, had hardly rid him of the Captain’s pheromones. Of course, all his suits were hopelessly steeped with it anyway... Getting Amy into a taxi at midnight might turn into a challenge!
As soon as she’d put her things in the entry closet she went into the kitchenette to help him. That was new!
Although she was a very independent girl, as a Lord’s daughter she was used to being served. Amy and her brother had lost their parent while they were still toddlers. Her brother had inherited the title and they’d been both raised by their maternal uncle, Lord Henry Lothian, himself one of Jack’s former lovers. Long ago, Lord Prescott's father had also hung around with Jack, and that was probably the case of the beautiful late Lady Shirley Prescott as well...
“The problem is that as daddy's good girl, I have a soft spot for strays and bad boys-and all that with them,” she said, pointedly sucking the tip of her fingers that she’d accidentally put into the sauce.
As for Ianto, the thing was, this girl was nothing more, but also nothing less, than a female version of Jack - at least when coming to sex. With a lot more curves and all of them in the right places. Caught between these two he wasn’t bound to grow old. But, working at Torchwood, who would besides Jack?
First chapter of the Achives season one here and Master list of both seasons here
To be continued….