We All Have to Start Somewhere
TITLE: We All Have to Start Somewhere
AUTHOR: lawsontl
RECIPIENT: solsticezero
BETA: amand_r sussed me out based on a comment I made in the prompts thread, so I enlisted her, and she responded graciously (after doing a victory dance at having caught me, natch).
SUMMARY: Gwen and Ianto have a little chat about scotch and Dalek guns.
RATING: TWH Standard
SPOILERS: Minor for "The Stolen Earth" and "Journey's End."
DISCLAIMER: THEY'RE NOT MINE. EXCEPT WHEN THEY ARE. IN MAH PANTS.
"Jack screams like a banshee when he comes."
"Come again?"
"Exactly."
() () () () ()
Ianto is hunched over the coffee table in the Hub, having abandoned the sofa for the cool concrete floor. Gwen finds him in that position, and in a dire state of inebriation, just as she is about to finally leave for home.
They've helped save the world yet again. Provided the rope that towed Earth back to the proper solar system. She's desperate to see Rhys and reestablish a sense of normalcy, but she's been stuck underground instead. Panicked people had fled from the cities -- or fled to the cities, depending on the specific irrational impulse -- the upshot being jammed roads in both directions for hours.
As irrational fears go, Jack is the top of Torchwood's list. They've not heard a word about or from him since the Doctor's assurance that he was fine. Even taking the Time Lord's notoriously off-kilter navigation into account, they've been expecting Jack to return for hours: gigantic grin, swaggering stories, another mysterious wound in the coat for Ianto to repair. But there's been no sign. No contact. Just the disquieting knowledge that Jack is flitting around time and space with one of the most powerful beings in the universe. Not exactly a minor temptation in comparison to workaday Rift-sitting. Getting to Rhys will help her shunt the worry aside, but Ianto has no one to turn to for distraction. Apparently, he's decided Jack's scotch is the next best thing to the man himself.
She gazes longingly at her purse and coat, aching to slip them into her arms and slip herself out of the Hub. And she could, quite easily: a chipper goodbye, which Ianto would acknowledge without fanfare, followed by a moment on the Invisible Lift. Sorted. But, God, they've been through so much in the past day. The Hub is only superficially back in order. The husk of exploded Dalek is still disintegrating in the bowels of the incinerator. And Tosh and Owen's absence hangs as heavily in the air as the dust that Myfanwy is kicking up, too excitable to stay in her nest, instinctively wary of getting too far from home.
"Her magnetic North is bolloxed," Ianto offers, apropos of nothing and evidently having noticed the direction of Gwen's gaze. "She'll be fine once she readjusts."
Gwen sighs, knowing she has to do the right thing. "And how about you?" she asks, stepping closer, stuffing her hands into the front pockets of her denims.
"Never better," he replies, raising his glass with only the slightest hint of bitterness in his voice. He isn't as good at hiding things as he used to be. Maybe he's not trying.
"He'll be back. He promised." She isn't certain who she's hoping to convince.
"Yup," he replies. He hasn't bought that assertion any more than she has. Sighing, she settles down on the floor next to him, stealing his glass and taking the dregs in a single swig. It tastes like lighter fluid, and gasping for air only serves to strike a match.
"Smooth, eh?" Ianto chuckles. He pours her another finger then leans back against the cushions, cradling the decanter to his chest with fisted hands.
She tries to nod, but it takes all her concentration to remember how to raise a hand and wipe the tears from her eyes. Finally, she gives it up for a lost cause and laughs with him.
"It's meant to be sipped," he adds, nodding to her glass. She stares at the amber liquid sceptically, sniffing it. It smells far nicer than it tastes. Still, she takes a step in the direction of salvaging her dignity by moistening her lips with it. It burns, and she fans her mouth, hissing in a painful breath.
"Yeah, I know. It's terrible."
She rattles her head with eager agreement, coughing only once. "Why d'you drink it?"
"It keeps things in perspective. So long as the whisky hurts more than life, you know you're good to go." He reels a bit, as if he hadn't intended to say it aloud. "Sorry. I'm being dramatic. Next thing you know, I'll be spouting inappropriate declarations about my sex life, like how Jack screams like a banshee when he comes."
"Come again?" she gasps, eyes bugging. She knows how silly she probably looks but honestly, a banshee?
"Exactly," Ianto says, closing his eyes with a satisfied smile and lapsing into determined silence.
Gwen stares at anything she can find, so long as it's not Ianto: her desk, her chair, a bit of scale building up at the water line at the base of the fountain. Eventually, the awkward silence is too much. "Are you having me on?"
"Birds navigate using the Earth's magnetic field, so being pulled to an entirely different galaxy's going to cause her problems."
"You know that's not what I meant."
"Yup," he replies smugly. He tilts the decanter to his lips, winces.
"Idiot," she says, elbowing him in the side.
He pretends it hurts, letting out an exaggerated 'oof.' "Mostly, he makes faces."
"Rhys is the same way," she replies, demonstrating her favorite from Rhys' repertoire, even though Ianto isn't looking at anything besides the inside of his eyelids. She dares another sip of the scotch. "Are you going to be okay if I leave?"
"Of course I will. I'm always fine."
"That's not what I meant, either."
He sighs, opening his eyes, lids flagging a bit as he tracks Myfanwy's flight path. He's actually giving the question some thought. "Yes," he finally finishes. "I'll be fine."
"He's probably on his way back right now."
"We were going to die today, weren't we?" Ianto asks, dragging her train of thought to an entirely different set of rails.
She remembers the electronic voices, the arterial spray of radar hits all over the monitors, and Jack's childlike anticipation as he transported out of the Hub with the only gun they could have used to defend themselves.
"Why didn't you tell him we'd been located?" she asks, putting down the glass and pulling her knees to her chest.
"Why didn't you?"
She knows both their answers will involve some variation of 'it was the right thing to do.' Instead, she switches the train to a track she wants to follow, finally allowing herself to ask the question that's burned at her mind since she first learned of Ianto's history, but no more so than it has today, knowing Ianto was ready to hold the line at her side. "What was it like? The attack on Canary Wharf?"
Ianto shrugs. "I dunno. I wasn't there."
"But I thought…"
He takes another sip of the scotch, half his attention still on Myfanwy, the other half far away if his expression is any indication. "Research wasn't on the front line, such as it was. We were underground. We didn't even know anything was wrong until the alarms started going off. By then, it was too late to do anything but avoid conversion."
"Oh." She's not sure what else to say.
"Torchwood One wasn't ready," he continues, voice curiously flat. "And neither was Three. We still haven't learned our lesson."
She shakes her head, chin in the groove between her knees. "Yes we have. Tosh built the Time Lock."
He sighs, leaning forward to unsteadily drop the decanter onto the coffee table. He stays that way, back to her. "That was luck, Gwen. The only sure way to defend ourselves is with the one member of our team who doesn't need saving. But even if we'd had the gun, one of us still would have died."
"How d'you reckon?"
He flops back again, giving a tiny grunt of pleasure as something snaps in his spine. The pleased expression on his face is completely wrong for his words. "Daleks exterminate in pairs."
"We only had one." She's protesting automatically, but there's a sinking feeling already building in her stomach. "Where's the other one?" she asks, preempting his dramatic revelation.
He glances at her quickly. "In the hall behind the Tourist office." He clears his throat. "I think it was waiting for the lift to come back up."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I can take care of it. That's what I do."
She thinks back to how he'd looked while they'd dismantled the Dalek, lugging chunks down to the incinerator: terrified, angry, even sad. She'd seen more expressions pass over his face in that hour than she's seen in the previous two years. "You shouldn't have to do it alone."
"I need to."
"Bollocks," she replies. "That hasn't been true since…" She stumbles on the name, unsure if she's even allowed to mention her, but the look on Ianto's face tells her she'd better not dance around the subject. "Since we killed Lisa."
He chokes out a laugh. "You know what I just realized?"
"What's that?" That's not quite the response she'd expected when bringing up his deceased girlfriend.
"You saw more action in the Battle of Canary Wharf than I did."
"How's that possible?"
Ianto looks her straight in the eye, unflinching. "You killed the last Cyberman."
It's hard to look back. It might be easier if he was angry, or sad, or anything but quietly accepting. It shouldn't come as a surprise, though, not if she's been paying attention, and she kicks herself for not putting it together sooner. Then she tries to imagine what made him the way he is, what Ianto was like when he was just an average kid growing up in Newport. She can't.
"Do you ever think back to life before you knew about Cybermen?" she asks.
"Constantly," he replies, tapping two fingers against his temple. "Mind like a sieve."
"Don't you mean steel trap?"
"No. Too much polishing."
She snorts, not following his logic, not really caring. The smile that accompanies his convoluted argument is genuine, if exhausted, and that's enough. "Auntie Beeb says the roads are passable again. Let's get out of here. We'll worry about the other Dalek tomorrow."
"Tomorrow is another day?"
"Something like that, Scarlett. C'mon. If our power's back, I'll have Rhys whip up a spag bol." She climbs up, extending a hand.
He shakes his head, just one time to and fro. "Someone should be here in case something comes up."
"If it does, there's no guarantee it'll be any closer to the Hub than to my flat." She waves her hands at him, directing him from the floor. "Jack may be fine living here, but it's not good for us Welsh."
"Well, if you're going to play the Cymru card," he says, mangling the pronunciation and climbing to unsteady feet. She doesn't bother correcting him. She's not so sure of her own Welsh, to be honest. All that really matters is that they are, and that Rhys is, and that the three of them are going to be just fine, Jack or no Jack. At least that's the lie she'll continue telling herself until something proves her wrong. In the meantime, she's still not going down without a fight.
Ianto offers her an arm, though it's as much to balance himself as it is to be chivalrous. She takes it, patting his hand as she leads him through the cog door and into the lift.
The doors close slowly, and they both stare at the place they're leaving behind, burning it into their minds as if it might be gone next time they blink.
Ianto turns to her. "He's coming back," he says.
She nods. "Yes, he is."
() () () () ()
In a dark corridor of Torchwood Three, a slightly singed, mostly demolished Dalek stands sentry outside the lift, its plunger probe forever one millimeter away from the 'Down' button. Hastily taped to its shattered husk, a note flaps in the inexplicable breeze that occasionally wafts down the hall.
Jack:
We're out of coffee, scotch, bin liners and Dalek guns. Ianto will take care of the first three; you need to see to the last.
Gwen
PS: I've stolen your boyfriend. It's not exactly a planet, but we all have to start somewhere.
AUTHOR: lawsontl
RECIPIENT: solsticezero
BETA: amand_r sussed me out based on a comment I made in the prompts thread, so I enlisted her, and she responded graciously (after doing a victory dance at having caught me, natch).
SUMMARY: Gwen and Ianto have a little chat about scotch and Dalek guns.
RATING: TWH Standard
SPOILERS: Minor for "The Stolen Earth" and "Journey's End."
DISCLAIMER: THEY'RE NOT MINE. EXCEPT WHEN THEY ARE. IN MAH PANTS.
"Jack screams like a banshee when he comes."
"Come again?"
"Exactly."
() () () () ()
Ianto is hunched over the coffee table in the Hub, having abandoned the sofa for the cool concrete floor. Gwen finds him in that position, and in a dire state of inebriation, just as she is about to finally leave for home.
They've helped save the world yet again. Provided the rope that towed Earth back to the proper solar system. She's desperate to see Rhys and reestablish a sense of normalcy, but she's been stuck underground instead. Panicked people had fled from the cities -- or fled to the cities, depending on the specific irrational impulse -- the upshot being jammed roads in both directions for hours.
As irrational fears go, Jack is the top of Torchwood's list. They've not heard a word about or from him since the Doctor's assurance that he was fine. Even taking the Time Lord's notoriously off-kilter navigation into account, they've been expecting Jack to return for hours: gigantic grin, swaggering stories, another mysterious wound in the coat for Ianto to repair. But there's been no sign. No contact. Just the disquieting knowledge that Jack is flitting around time and space with one of the most powerful beings in the universe. Not exactly a minor temptation in comparison to workaday Rift-sitting. Getting to Rhys will help her shunt the worry aside, but Ianto has no one to turn to for distraction. Apparently, he's decided Jack's scotch is the next best thing to the man himself.
She gazes longingly at her purse and coat, aching to slip them into her arms and slip herself out of the Hub. And she could, quite easily: a chipper goodbye, which Ianto would acknowledge without fanfare, followed by a moment on the Invisible Lift. Sorted. But, God, they've been through so much in the past day. The Hub is only superficially back in order. The husk of exploded Dalek is still disintegrating in the bowels of the incinerator. And Tosh and Owen's absence hangs as heavily in the air as the dust that Myfanwy is kicking up, too excitable to stay in her nest, instinctively wary of getting too far from home.
"Her magnetic North is bolloxed," Ianto offers, apropos of nothing and evidently having noticed the direction of Gwen's gaze. "She'll be fine once she readjusts."
Gwen sighs, knowing she has to do the right thing. "And how about you?" she asks, stepping closer, stuffing her hands into the front pockets of her denims.
"Never better," he replies, raising his glass with only the slightest hint of bitterness in his voice. He isn't as good at hiding things as he used to be. Maybe he's not trying.
"He'll be back. He promised." She isn't certain who she's hoping to convince.
"Yup," he replies. He hasn't bought that assertion any more than she has. Sighing, she settles down on the floor next to him, stealing his glass and taking the dregs in a single swig. It tastes like lighter fluid, and gasping for air only serves to strike a match.
"Smooth, eh?" Ianto chuckles. He pours her another finger then leans back against the cushions, cradling the decanter to his chest with fisted hands.
She tries to nod, but it takes all her concentration to remember how to raise a hand and wipe the tears from her eyes. Finally, she gives it up for a lost cause and laughs with him.
"It's meant to be sipped," he adds, nodding to her glass. She stares at the amber liquid sceptically, sniffing it. It smells far nicer than it tastes. Still, she takes a step in the direction of salvaging her dignity by moistening her lips with it. It burns, and she fans her mouth, hissing in a painful breath.
"Yeah, I know. It's terrible."
She rattles her head with eager agreement, coughing only once. "Why d'you drink it?"
"It keeps things in perspective. So long as the whisky hurts more than life, you know you're good to go." He reels a bit, as if he hadn't intended to say it aloud. "Sorry. I'm being dramatic. Next thing you know, I'll be spouting inappropriate declarations about my sex life, like how Jack screams like a banshee when he comes."
"Come again?" she gasps, eyes bugging. She knows how silly she probably looks but honestly, a banshee?
"Exactly," Ianto says, closing his eyes with a satisfied smile and lapsing into determined silence.
Gwen stares at anything she can find, so long as it's not Ianto: her desk, her chair, a bit of scale building up at the water line at the base of the fountain. Eventually, the awkward silence is too much. "Are you having me on?"
"Birds navigate using the Earth's magnetic field, so being pulled to an entirely different galaxy's going to cause her problems."
"You know that's not what I meant."
"Yup," he replies smugly. He tilts the decanter to his lips, winces.
"Idiot," she says, elbowing him in the side.
He pretends it hurts, letting out an exaggerated 'oof.' "Mostly, he makes faces."
"Rhys is the same way," she replies, demonstrating her favorite from Rhys' repertoire, even though Ianto isn't looking at anything besides the inside of his eyelids. She dares another sip of the scotch. "Are you going to be okay if I leave?"
"Of course I will. I'm always fine."
"That's not what I meant, either."
He sighs, opening his eyes, lids flagging a bit as he tracks Myfanwy's flight path. He's actually giving the question some thought. "Yes," he finally finishes. "I'll be fine."
"He's probably on his way back right now."
"We were going to die today, weren't we?" Ianto asks, dragging her train of thought to an entirely different set of rails.
She remembers the electronic voices, the arterial spray of radar hits all over the monitors, and Jack's childlike anticipation as he transported out of the Hub with the only gun they could have used to defend themselves.
"Why didn't you tell him we'd been located?" she asks, putting down the glass and pulling her knees to her chest.
"Why didn't you?"
She knows both their answers will involve some variation of 'it was the right thing to do.' Instead, she switches the train to a track she wants to follow, finally allowing herself to ask the question that's burned at her mind since she first learned of Ianto's history, but no more so than it has today, knowing Ianto was ready to hold the line at her side. "What was it like? The attack on Canary Wharf?"
Ianto shrugs. "I dunno. I wasn't there."
"But I thought…"
He takes another sip of the scotch, half his attention still on Myfanwy, the other half far away if his expression is any indication. "Research wasn't on the front line, such as it was. We were underground. We didn't even know anything was wrong until the alarms started going off. By then, it was too late to do anything but avoid conversion."
"Oh." She's not sure what else to say.
"Torchwood One wasn't ready," he continues, voice curiously flat. "And neither was Three. We still haven't learned our lesson."
She shakes her head, chin in the groove between her knees. "Yes we have. Tosh built the Time Lock."
He sighs, leaning forward to unsteadily drop the decanter onto the coffee table. He stays that way, back to her. "That was luck, Gwen. The only sure way to defend ourselves is with the one member of our team who doesn't need saving. But even if we'd had the gun, one of us still would have died."
"How d'you reckon?"
He flops back again, giving a tiny grunt of pleasure as something snaps in his spine. The pleased expression on his face is completely wrong for his words. "Daleks exterminate in pairs."
"We only had one." She's protesting automatically, but there's a sinking feeling already building in her stomach. "Where's the other one?" she asks, preempting his dramatic revelation.
He glances at her quickly. "In the hall behind the Tourist office." He clears his throat. "I think it was waiting for the lift to come back up."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I can take care of it. That's what I do."
She thinks back to how he'd looked while they'd dismantled the Dalek, lugging chunks down to the incinerator: terrified, angry, even sad. She'd seen more expressions pass over his face in that hour than she's seen in the previous two years. "You shouldn't have to do it alone."
"I need to."
"Bollocks," she replies. "That hasn't been true since…" She stumbles on the name, unsure if she's even allowed to mention her, but the look on Ianto's face tells her she'd better not dance around the subject. "Since we killed Lisa."
He chokes out a laugh. "You know what I just realized?"
"What's that?" That's not quite the response she'd expected when bringing up his deceased girlfriend.
"You saw more action in the Battle of Canary Wharf than I did."
"How's that possible?"
Ianto looks her straight in the eye, unflinching. "You killed the last Cyberman."
It's hard to look back. It might be easier if he was angry, or sad, or anything but quietly accepting. It shouldn't come as a surprise, though, not if she's been paying attention, and she kicks herself for not putting it together sooner. Then she tries to imagine what made him the way he is, what Ianto was like when he was just an average kid growing up in Newport. She can't.
"Do you ever think back to life before you knew about Cybermen?" she asks.
"Constantly," he replies, tapping two fingers against his temple. "Mind like a sieve."
"Don't you mean steel trap?"
"No. Too much polishing."
She snorts, not following his logic, not really caring. The smile that accompanies his convoluted argument is genuine, if exhausted, and that's enough. "Auntie Beeb says the roads are passable again. Let's get out of here. We'll worry about the other Dalek tomorrow."
"Tomorrow is another day?"
"Something like that, Scarlett. C'mon. If our power's back, I'll have Rhys whip up a spag bol." She climbs up, extending a hand.
He shakes his head, just one time to and fro. "Someone should be here in case something comes up."
"If it does, there's no guarantee it'll be any closer to the Hub than to my flat." She waves her hands at him, directing him from the floor. "Jack may be fine living here, but it's not good for us Welsh."
"Well, if you're going to play the Cymru card," he says, mangling the pronunciation and climbing to unsteady feet. She doesn't bother correcting him. She's not so sure of her own Welsh, to be honest. All that really matters is that they are, and that Rhys is, and that the three of them are going to be just fine, Jack or no Jack. At least that's the lie she'll continue telling herself until something proves her wrong. In the meantime, she's still not going down without a fight.
Ianto offers her an arm, though it's as much to balance himself as it is to be chivalrous. She takes it, patting his hand as she leads him through the cog door and into the lift.
The doors close slowly, and they both stare at the place they're leaving behind, burning it into their minds as if it might be gone next time they blink.
Ianto turns to her. "He's coming back," he says.
She nods. "Yes, he is."
() () () () ()
In a dark corridor of Torchwood Three, a slightly singed, mostly demolished Dalek stands sentry outside the lift, its plunger probe forever one millimeter away from the 'Down' button. Hastily taped to its shattered husk, a note flaps in the inexplicable breeze that occasionally wafts down the hall.
Jack:
We're out of coffee, scotch, bin liners and Dalek guns. Ianto will take care of the first three; you need to see to the last.
Gwen
PS: I've stolen your boyfriend. It's not exactly a planet, but we all have to start somewhere.