Damaged Souls - Part 2/?
Title: Damaged Souls - Part 2/?
Pairings: Mentions of past Jack/Ianto (This chapter)
Word Count: 1,883
Rating: PG-13 (This chapter)
Status: Incomplete
Note: This is the third and final fic of a series I've begun. This story begins shortly after Buffy's Chosen.
Summary: BTVS crossover - When Ianto returns to Cardiff, Jack and the Torchwood team must figure out how to react to the changes in him, as well as how to react to the new friends this unfamiliar Ianto brought with him.
Previous Stories:
Story One: Moving On
Story Two: While You Were Gone
This Story:
Previous Chapters:
Chapter 1
New Chapter:
Noon that day found Ianto rolling his eyes at Owen’s voicemail message.
“You’ve reached Doctor Owen Harper. I’m not available at the moment, but leave your name and number, and I may call you back. Let me know if you want a full body exam.” Beep.
“A bit hypocritical, don’t you think? You yell at me for not answering, then you don’t pick up when I call? Rude. Call me back. Oh, and Owen? That message is so many levels of inappropriate. The hospital still calls you!” He snapped the already broken phone closed, amazed it hadn’t broken in half yet. He glanced down at the phone, chuckling.
A year ago he never would have believed that he and Owen would be so used to each other, so-dare he say it?-close that they didn’t even need to identify when they left a voicemail full of ridicule. He wouldn’t have believed it, would have taken the closest file to hit Jack over the head.
Jack.
Ianto clenched his eyes shut, his hand gripping the cell phone hard. He could hear the plastic creak in protest. He’d tried. God, he’d tried to hold on after Jack left, but he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t look at Jack’s office without his Captain’s signature grin flitting across his vision. He’d kept making Jack’s industrial strength coffee, always forgetting that Jack wouldn’t look up from whatever file he’d been looking over and ask him if he wanted a sex break. He couldn’t climb up to feed Myfanwy without the fleeting thought of how long it would take him to fall those five hundred feet.
He’d had to leave.
“You okay?”
Ianto jumped, gasping soft as he turned his neck to fast. Willow. “Yeah.”
“Ianto.”
“I’m fine, Wills.” He smiled soft at her, squeezing her hand before he stood up. “Has Buffy called?”
“Xander’s on with her now.”
Ianto nodded, walking towards the kitchen that held their only landline.
It had barely been a week since Sunnydale fell. When the battle had ended, and they’d finally been able to pull themselves away from the crater that remained, they’d gotten back on the bus, and drove. He could barely remember the two day ride it had taken to get to Cleveland, most of it spent in a daze from the magic drain and blood loss from when a vampire had gone at him with a jagged pole. It hadn’t hit anything vital, but Willow had still put an abrupt halt on all things magic until it was completely healed.
They’d spent another two days in Cleveland, completely taking over the first motel they’d come across before Giles had mentioned the sightings in Cardiff. He’d gone cold when he heard the word, his imagination running wild and showing him images of Owen, Tosh, and Gwen being drained.
He shook himself, pushing those thoughts away. They were okay. They were alive. And he was making sure they stayed that way.
The activity in Cardiff wasn’t anything major, just some demons and vampires being lured towards the Rift. It was nothing near what Cleveland’s Hellmouth was experiencing and he’d volunteered before he could realize what he was doing. He hadn’t been ready to go back to Cardiff, but there had been something in him, telling him to go. Willow and Xander had offered themselves seconds after, Willow saying she still needed to train him and Xander with the explanation that he didn’t want to live on another Hellmouth so soon after losing Anya. Buffy hadn’t been happy to let them leave, and she would have gone with them, but Faith couldn’t have trained all the girls alone, not on a Hellmouth as active as Cleveland’s. The three of them could handle it on their own.
Ianto walked into the kitchen, sitting on the bar stool beside Xander, nodding towards the phone. He smiled at the other man as the phone was handed over, raising the phone to his ear. “Hi, Buffy.”
“Hey. Everything going okay on the other side of the pond?”
“Other than me wanting to kill Xander after the first five minutes on the plane? Yeah, it’s been awesome.”
“Has anyone ever told you you’re way too sarcastic for your own good?”
“Me? Sarcastic? Never!”
“Liar,” Xander coughed.
Ianto glared at the other man, sending him the two finger salute as he turned back to the conversation. “What? I missed that.”
“I said, did you get in touch with your parole officer?” Buffy repeated.
Ianto snorted at the nickname Buffy had given to Owen after his first week. It had really been Owen’s fault, calling every hour to make sure he was okay. The Londoner could be a mother hen sometimes. “Yeah.”
“And? Is he pissed?” Buffy half joked. She’d listened to Ianto’s phone ring more times than either of them wanted to count, each time glancing at Ianto when he let it ring to voicemail.
“Pissed? Why would you think that? He asked me out for tea.”
“Really pissed?”
Ianto sighed. “I think I’m deaf in one ear.”
Buffy laughed.
Ianto scowled. “You’re not supposed to get joy from my pain.”
Buffy kept laughing.
---
“Aw, come on, Owen. Buck up!”
“Buck up? Buck up? We just spent three hours searching for a Weevil that didn’t exist!” Owen shouted at Jack, climbing back into the SUV.
“Technically, Owen, it did exist, just went back down into the sewers,” Tosh said from behind her monitor.
“Did I ask for technical?”Owen snapped back, causing Tosh to shrink back into her seat a bit.
“Owen! Stop acting like a child. We know you were worried about Ianto, we all were, but you got through. He’s okay,” Gwen reprimanded.
“He’s not telling us everything,” Owen grumbled.
“He will when he’s ready.”
Owen snorted. “And maybe Jack will start wearing a coat that fits the decade.”
“Hey!”
---
Ianto had almost forgotten what night in Cardiff was like. He’d only been gone for a little over a year, but Sunnydale had become such a main focus of his life, he’d begun to forget what it was like being surrounded by Welsh accents and cars driving on the other side of the road.
He smiled, shaking his head. He’d snuck out of the Ritz the minute the sun was down and Willow’s back was turned. She’d kill him when he finally got back, but he’d wanted to patrol, maybe find a vampire to work his nerves out on.
He let his feet carry him, following familiar paths, stopping with a jerk when he recognized the view of the bay. He turned slowly, cursing as he saw the Plass behind him, and jumped out of the way before the CCTV cameras could pick him up. It didn’t help matters that he was wearing the coat Tosh had given him for Christmas the year before.
Lights began to flicker around him, and Ianto pivoted, backing up against a street light as the swirling mass feet away from him grew larger. He knew those lights. He’d seen them enough in his years in Torchwood to know what they were.
The Rift.
Shit.
He knew he should be moving, running before he got sucked in, or worse, the others came out, but he couldn’t move. Years of seeing lives destroyed because of it had instilled a fear in him. He could deal with half-cyber girlfriends (barely), cannibalistic wackjobs, coworkers brought back from the dead, and the apocalypse, but those lights terrified him.
The lights grew brighter, almost exploding, and Ianto flinched, pressing himself further into the metal pole that was already digging into his spine. He clenched his eyes shut, waiting to be sucked in and carried off to some far away planet, but curiosity won over and he peeked out through a slit lid, both eyes popping open when he saw the figure that stumbled out.
No. Way.
“Bloody purple penguins!” the figure shouted, Cockney accent almost muffled by the blazing car alarm not too far away, but not so much that Ianto didn’t recognize the voice.
“Spike?”
---
“Jack! Rift activity outside the Plass!” Tosh called, trying to get a reading on what had come through. “It’s knocked out the CCTV footage!”
“Everyone with me,” Jack ordered, rushing for the lift as he pulled his gun from its holster. He heard the others following, barely giving Owen a chance to jump on before he activated the lift. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, anxious as the lift ascended. He hated it when the Rift spit out stuff on his front yard. It always left a mess and it would always put Ianto in a bad mood.
He set his jaw, eyes hardening as he gripped his gun tighter. Ianto was gone.
The lift reached the top and they jumped off, Owen on Jack’s right and the girls flanking their sides. They all trained their guns at the two figures; humanoid. They looked male, but no one could ever be sure with what came through the Rift.
The one furthest from the Rift reached out, grabbing the other’s arm before they seemed to shimmer away, their bodies encased in a soft light.
Then they were gone.
“Damn it,” Jack muttered, lowering his gun. “Tosh, get whatever you can on those things. I want to know what they are, where they’re from, and what they can do.” He didn’t move his eyes from where the two…things had been just before.
Tosh nodded, softly giving an affirmative as she watched the last bit of light from the rift fade away and the street lights fix themselves. She’d thought…no, it was nothing. Just her mind playing tricks.
---
Ianto dropped Spike’s arm as they reappeared in the entry hall of the Ritz-a handy trick Willow had taught him before the battle. “What the hell are you doing here?!”
“Me? I’m supposed to be dead…well, dead-er. This doesn’t look like any kind of hell I’ve heard about,” Spike said, looking around, “Nothing like where I was.” He shuddered. “Purple penguins and pink snow. They kept singing.” He looked at Ianto desperately. “There’s no singing here, right?” he begged.
“Not unless you get Xander drunk,” Ianto replied slowly, whether in shock from seeing Spike again or Spike’s world of purple penguins and pink snow, he wasn’t sure. This wasn’t right. Spike had died (again) in Sunnydale. He’d seen it, watched the blonde sacrifice himself. He raised a hand, cupping Spike’s cheek and felt the familiar jaw bone under his hand. “How…”
Spike stared back at him, their gazes even at their even height. “Not hell?”
“Not hell.”
“Ianto Jones! What were you thinking going out alone?!” Willow’s voice yelled from one of the side offices she’d claimed for her magic supply. “We don’t know how many vampires there are here or how strong they are! You could have gotten-” She stopped short in her tirade as she walked into the entry way, the crystal she was holding slipping from her hands and shattering against the floor. “S-S-Spike?”
“Willow? You okay?” Xander called, appearing in another doorway. He stared at Willow’s pale, shocked face, following her gaze to the figure behind Ianto. He froze. “Captain Peroxide?”
Spike turned his head to Ianto. “You lied to me. This is hell.”
TBC
Story 3: Damaged Souls - Part 3 >>
Pairings: Mentions of past Jack/Ianto (This chapter)
Word Count: 1,883
Rating: PG-13 (This chapter)
Status: Incomplete
Note: This is the third and final fic of a series I've begun. This story begins shortly after Buffy's Chosen.
Summary: BTVS crossover - When Ianto returns to Cardiff, Jack and the Torchwood team must figure out how to react to the changes in him, as well as how to react to the new friends this unfamiliar Ianto brought with him.
Previous Stories:
Story One: Moving On
Story Two: While You Were Gone
This Story:
Previous Chapters:
Chapter 1
New Chapter:
Noon that day found Ianto rolling his eyes at Owen’s voicemail message.
“You’ve reached Doctor Owen Harper. I’m not available at the moment, but leave your name and number, and I may call you back. Let me know if you want a full body exam.” Beep.
“A bit hypocritical, don’t you think? You yell at me for not answering, then you don’t pick up when I call? Rude. Call me back. Oh, and Owen? That message is so many levels of inappropriate. The hospital still calls you!” He snapped the already broken phone closed, amazed it hadn’t broken in half yet. He glanced down at the phone, chuckling.
A year ago he never would have believed that he and Owen would be so used to each other, so-dare he say it?-close that they didn’t even need to identify when they left a voicemail full of ridicule. He wouldn’t have believed it, would have taken the closest file to hit Jack over the head.
Jack.
Ianto clenched his eyes shut, his hand gripping the cell phone hard. He could hear the plastic creak in protest. He’d tried. God, he’d tried to hold on after Jack left, but he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t look at Jack’s office without his Captain’s signature grin flitting across his vision. He’d kept making Jack’s industrial strength coffee, always forgetting that Jack wouldn’t look up from whatever file he’d been looking over and ask him if he wanted a sex break. He couldn’t climb up to feed Myfanwy without the fleeting thought of how long it would take him to fall those five hundred feet.
He’d had to leave.
“You okay?”
Ianto jumped, gasping soft as he turned his neck to fast. Willow. “Yeah.”
“Ianto.”
“I’m fine, Wills.” He smiled soft at her, squeezing her hand before he stood up. “Has Buffy called?”
“Xander’s on with her now.”
Ianto nodded, walking towards the kitchen that held their only landline.
It had barely been a week since Sunnydale fell. When the battle had ended, and they’d finally been able to pull themselves away from the crater that remained, they’d gotten back on the bus, and drove. He could barely remember the two day ride it had taken to get to Cleveland, most of it spent in a daze from the magic drain and blood loss from when a vampire had gone at him with a jagged pole. It hadn’t hit anything vital, but Willow had still put an abrupt halt on all things magic until it was completely healed.
They’d spent another two days in Cleveland, completely taking over the first motel they’d come across before Giles had mentioned the sightings in Cardiff. He’d gone cold when he heard the word, his imagination running wild and showing him images of Owen, Tosh, and Gwen being drained.
He shook himself, pushing those thoughts away. They were okay. They were alive. And he was making sure they stayed that way.
The activity in Cardiff wasn’t anything major, just some demons and vampires being lured towards the Rift. It was nothing near what Cleveland’s Hellmouth was experiencing and he’d volunteered before he could realize what he was doing. He hadn’t been ready to go back to Cardiff, but there had been something in him, telling him to go. Willow and Xander had offered themselves seconds after, Willow saying she still needed to train him and Xander with the explanation that he didn’t want to live on another Hellmouth so soon after losing Anya. Buffy hadn’t been happy to let them leave, and she would have gone with them, but Faith couldn’t have trained all the girls alone, not on a Hellmouth as active as Cleveland’s. The three of them could handle it on their own.
Ianto walked into the kitchen, sitting on the bar stool beside Xander, nodding towards the phone. He smiled at the other man as the phone was handed over, raising the phone to his ear. “Hi, Buffy.”
“Hey. Everything going okay on the other side of the pond?”
“Other than me wanting to kill Xander after the first five minutes on the plane? Yeah, it’s been awesome.”
“Has anyone ever told you you’re way too sarcastic for your own good?”
“Me? Sarcastic? Never!”
“Liar,” Xander coughed.
Ianto glared at the other man, sending him the two finger salute as he turned back to the conversation. “What? I missed that.”
“I said, did you get in touch with your parole officer?” Buffy repeated.
Ianto snorted at the nickname Buffy had given to Owen after his first week. It had really been Owen’s fault, calling every hour to make sure he was okay. The Londoner could be a mother hen sometimes. “Yeah.”
“And? Is he pissed?” Buffy half joked. She’d listened to Ianto’s phone ring more times than either of them wanted to count, each time glancing at Ianto when he let it ring to voicemail.
“Pissed? Why would you think that? He asked me out for tea.”
“Really pissed?”
Ianto sighed. “I think I’m deaf in one ear.”
Buffy laughed.
Ianto scowled. “You’re not supposed to get joy from my pain.”
Buffy kept laughing.
---
“Aw, come on, Owen. Buck up!”
“Buck up? Buck up? We just spent three hours searching for a Weevil that didn’t exist!” Owen shouted at Jack, climbing back into the SUV.
“Technically, Owen, it did exist, just went back down into the sewers,” Tosh said from behind her monitor.
“Did I ask for technical?”Owen snapped back, causing Tosh to shrink back into her seat a bit.
“Owen! Stop acting like a child. We know you were worried about Ianto, we all were, but you got through. He’s okay,” Gwen reprimanded.
“He’s not telling us everything,” Owen grumbled.
“He will when he’s ready.”
Owen snorted. “And maybe Jack will start wearing a coat that fits the decade.”
“Hey!”
---
Ianto had almost forgotten what night in Cardiff was like. He’d only been gone for a little over a year, but Sunnydale had become such a main focus of his life, he’d begun to forget what it was like being surrounded by Welsh accents and cars driving on the other side of the road.
He smiled, shaking his head. He’d snuck out of the Ritz the minute the sun was down and Willow’s back was turned. She’d kill him when he finally got back, but he’d wanted to patrol, maybe find a vampire to work his nerves out on.
He let his feet carry him, following familiar paths, stopping with a jerk when he recognized the view of the bay. He turned slowly, cursing as he saw the Plass behind him, and jumped out of the way before the CCTV cameras could pick him up. It didn’t help matters that he was wearing the coat Tosh had given him for Christmas the year before.
Lights began to flicker around him, and Ianto pivoted, backing up against a street light as the swirling mass feet away from him grew larger. He knew those lights. He’d seen them enough in his years in Torchwood to know what they were.
The Rift.
Shit.
He knew he should be moving, running before he got sucked in, or worse, the others came out, but he couldn’t move. Years of seeing lives destroyed because of it had instilled a fear in him. He could deal with half-cyber girlfriends (barely), cannibalistic wackjobs, coworkers brought back from the dead, and the apocalypse, but those lights terrified him.
The lights grew brighter, almost exploding, and Ianto flinched, pressing himself further into the metal pole that was already digging into his spine. He clenched his eyes shut, waiting to be sucked in and carried off to some far away planet, but curiosity won over and he peeked out through a slit lid, both eyes popping open when he saw the figure that stumbled out.
No. Way.
“Bloody purple penguins!” the figure shouted, Cockney accent almost muffled by the blazing car alarm not too far away, but not so much that Ianto didn’t recognize the voice.
“Spike?”
---
“Jack! Rift activity outside the Plass!” Tosh called, trying to get a reading on what had come through. “It’s knocked out the CCTV footage!”
“Everyone with me,” Jack ordered, rushing for the lift as he pulled his gun from its holster. He heard the others following, barely giving Owen a chance to jump on before he activated the lift. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, anxious as the lift ascended. He hated it when the Rift spit out stuff on his front yard. It always left a mess and it would always put Ianto in a bad mood.
He set his jaw, eyes hardening as he gripped his gun tighter. Ianto was gone.
The lift reached the top and they jumped off, Owen on Jack’s right and the girls flanking their sides. They all trained their guns at the two figures; humanoid. They looked male, but no one could ever be sure with what came through the Rift.
The one furthest from the Rift reached out, grabbing the other’s arm before they seemed to shimmer away, their bodies encased in a soft light.
Then they were gone.
“Damn it,” Jack muttered, lowering his gun. “Tosh, get whatever you can on those things. I want to know what they are, where they’re from, and what they can do.” He didn’t move his eyes from where the two…things had been just before.
Tosh nodded, softly giving an affirmative as she watched the last bit of light from the rift fade away and the street lights fix themselves. She’d thought…no, it was nothing. Just her mind playing tricks.
---
Ianto dropped Spike’s arm as they reappeared in the entry hall of the Ritz-a handy trick Willow had taught him before the battle. “What the hell are you doing here?!”
“Me? I’m supposed to be dead…well, dead-er. This doesn’t look like any kind of hell I’ve heard about,” Spike said, looking around, “Nothing like where I was.” He shuddered. “Purple penguins and pink snow. They kept singing.” He looked at Ianto desperately. “There’s no singing here, right?” he begged.
“Not unless you get Xander drunk,” Ianto replied slowly, whether in shock from seeing Spike again or Spike’s world of purple penguins and pink snow, he wasn’t sure. This wasn’t right. Spike had died (again) in Sunnydale. He’d seen it, watched the blonde sacrifice himself. He raised a hand, cupping Spike’s cheek and felt the familiar jaw bone under his hand. “How…”
Spike stared back at him, their gazes even at their even height. “Not hell?”
“Not hell.”
“Ianto Jones! What were you thinking going out alone?!” Willow’s voice yelled from one of the side offices she’d claimed for her magic supply. “We don’t know how many vampires there are here or how strong they are! You could have gotten-” She stopped short in her tirade as she walked into the entry way, the crystal she was holding slipping from her hands and shattering against the floor. “S-S-Spike?”
“Willow? You okay?” Xander called, appearing in another doorway. He stared at Willow’s pale, shocked face, following her gaze to the figure behind Ianto. He froze. “Captain Peroxide?”
Spike turned his head to Ianto. “You lied to me. This is hell.”
TBC
Story 3: Damaged Souls - Part 3 >>