Dedicated to, well *shrug* myself I guess...
Disclaimer: Yeah, Torchwood's not mine. It's merely the colouring book I found when bored, and after colouring in for a while decided to show to my parents- the crayon might have gone slightly over the edges as this is not inside the imaginary Russel T Davies shaped line.
It will however include all of Series 1 and 2 of Torchwood, along with Utopia-The last of the Time Lords and The Stolen Earth-Journey's end- so only a few spoilers. ( I'm still unsure about whether or not to include COE). While this will have all the major events they will happen in a different way, as is the convention of Fanfiction.
Life was always taken for granted.
That was what he decided as he heard the distinctive noise of the 'clanking' footsteps. This wasn't the first time he had been faced death before. In fact he had faced this particular enemy before; in the agency he had fought them in their invasion of Earth. The cybermen. They had won, but at a cost, so when he looked across the room, at the survivors that littered the corridor-all having fought their way down to the archives to regroup and rearm- and met the frightened eyes of the only Archivist researcher still alive he did not try to feed him lies of everything turning out alright because, in truth, he had no idea how this would end. The man -Nathan- was his age but inexperienced in comparison to himself and had no skill with weaponry.
He was from the fifty first century, and had been recruited into the time agency at seventeen years old. However, what a better way to learn how to use some of the previously unused torchwood technology, the last scraps that they had scavenged in order to get an advantage over the cybermen, than to press a load of buttons and hope everything went okay. It was a live or die situation, but as Ianto recalled that was how he had been trained. He knew that he had three options: to be deleted, get upgraded or die doing what Ianto Jones did best- kicking ass.
He glanced over at Nathan, and the two shared a look of comradeship and Ianto knew that if they survived he had just earned himself a lifelong friend. The moment was broken however when looked down at what Nathan was holding and snorted. At the others questioning look he gestured at the object with a smirk, "in a life or death situation I do not think that a forty second century...toy... will be much use in fighting the cybermen." He laughed at the disgusted look on his colleges face as he dropped the object as though it had burnt him before throwing him a disbelieving look. Ianto's smiled widened, he and Nathan had never been close but everyone had heard of his ability to have a sense of humour in the most hopeless of situations, but had evidently Nathan had not witnessed this first hand.
"How the hell did you know that?" Nathan demanded of him, he just grinned back at him.
"It's complicated." Nathan threw him an unimpressed look.
"I've got approximately 10 minutes left to live; you think I care about complicated?"
"Good point. Long story short. I'm from the future." He watched the other divulge that before the other turned to him, his face sombre.
"Then you must know, do we live past this day?" Immediately Ianto felt his face go devoid of emotion and as he quoted the first and most important rule of the time agency he heard the clanking growing ever louder.
CLANK. CLANK. CLANK. CLANK.
"Time can be rewritten. Tell you what; if we get out of this alive I'm taking you to a drink." The other nodded in understanding, knowing that both wanted-no needed- to have something to work towards. To fight for.
Nathan made a good attempt at a smile, but Ianto could see the terror lying beneath. "Sorry mate, I don't swing that way. And I have a girlfriend"
Ianto grinned, forcedly, eyeing up the other's slim frame. "Shame."
"I heard you had a girlfriend too."
Ianto's thoughts immediately went to Lisa. His best friend of three years. And of course the constant bearer of Ianto's flirting, but nothing had ever happened; Ianto would never risk their friendship that way. He wondered where she was now. Or if she was even still herself... "We're best friends." He offered Nathan, by way of explanation.
They heard shouting overhead but they ignored it in favour of the 3 cybermen at the end of the corridor. Ianto opened his wrist strap, activating the electrical barrier that he had set up at the beginning of the chaos. Ianto knew it wouldn't last long but it bought them time as the first cybermen to cross the invisible barrier crippled.
He saw Nathan cast a glance at the wrist watch and then meet his eye. "Future tech?" The other asked and he winked. The other rolled his eyes, both refocused on the fight.
Ianto heard shouts of commotion upstairs and could only hope that they were doing better than those whose bodies now lined the sublevels above. The electrical barrier failed and Ianto gripped his M1911 standard torchwood employee gun knowing it would do little good against them.
He heard the voice from across the room even above multiple shouts of "FIRE!" Two cybermen fell, but more just kept on coming.
"Delete. Delete. Delete." He looked into the emotionless pit of one cyberman's eyes, trying with all his willpower not to remember that they had once been human too. He pulled the trigger. The cyberman fell.
One man came running in from the other side of the-non infested-corridor, yelling at the top of his voice. "Daleks! There are daleks incoming!" Immediately Ianto's blood ran cold. The two cruelest creatures in one place, what had Earth ever done to deserve that?
"Shit." He grabbed Nathan and started to run with the crowd of about thirteen others. "How the hell are we going to get out of this?" He yelled.
A shiver ran through him as he heard a scream reverberate through the air, and the emotionless voice sounded. "The human has been deleted."
"Don't worry," Ianto's head whipped round to stare at the other man, incredulously, was this man joking? The man was dark skinned and wore a white lab coat. The thing that reassured him however was the huge gun that the man held in his hands. "I'm Mickey." Personally Ianto couldn't care less what the man's name was but couldn't find it in himself to tell the other man as he pulled the trigger of his gun again. "And the Doctor's got this under control." Controlled was the last thing that Ianto would describe the chaos that surrounded them, however every Torchwood member had heard of the miracles the Doctor performed. Ianto prayed this was one of those times, where they could be saved but as he looked down at a lifeless body and the glassy eyes that stared up at him, he doubted that very much.
The agency had never prepared him for this.
0o.0o.0o.0o.0o.0o.0o.0o.0o.
He had lost Nathan; he realised this as he looked over his shoulder only to find an empty space where seconds ago Nathan had been on his tail. He cursed loudly; he had promised himself not to lose the other man. He glanced quickly around the corridor, finding that it was eerily empty, with only a couple of bodies lining the corridor.
Ianto approached the first, he recognised the face. It was Maria Wills; he'd never been close with her but at that moment he could easily recall a conversation they had had over coffee-them laughing at an article they had seen in the paper. The sound of 'clanking' echoed throughout the corridor and he closed his eyes in defeat. They say your life is supposed to flash before your eyes before you die, and Ianto had to say if the black that showed the back of his eyelids was his life, his life had been shit. But Ianto supposed, maybe he wasn't going to die. Ianto grinned. That was the spirit. He immediately slipped into an alcove, reloading his near to useless gun.
Just then a man, in a trench coat and converses ran into the corridor, but before he could get far Ianto yanked him into the alcove with him. The man was flush against him but for once Ianto couldn't care any less, he clamped his hand over the complaints the other man was about to make. "Look, I really don't want to see you dead so keep your mouth shut." The man immediately quietened and Ianto relaxed as the clanking noise subsided.
"Thank you, you just saved my-what are you doing?" Ianto was already walking in the direction of the clanking when the other started to talk.
"Fighting, what does it look like?" The other looked startled.
"But you've got no weapon, that's suicide." Ianto shrugged, with an easy smile.
"Well someone's got to show the cybermen whose boss." Ianto looked at the body of Maria. "Not all of us wanted this." He said spontaneously. "I'm just trying to right the mistakes that Torchwood's made, stop our actions from affecting the rest of the human race, and if that means I die, then so be it."
The man stared calculatingly at him before asking, "What's your name?"
Ianto paused, before deciding to tell the title given to him by the agency, after all the agency loved military titles. "Lieutenant Jones, sir." The other nodded, the other didn't offer his name and he didn't push.
"Maybe there is still hope for some." The other stated.
Ianto grinned. "I've got work to do," he indicated down the hall to the dying sounding of the cybermen. "I hope you live handsome, it would be a shame for the world to lose a pretty face like yours." The other rolled his eyes, and for a moment they both stood awkwardly before spurring into action, both heading in opposite directions.
0o.0o.0o.0o.0o.0o.0o.0o.0o.
The battle was over; blood covered his suit and hands. The Doctor- who Ianto was disappointed he hadn't met after all the stories that had told about him, it would have been interesting- had saved the world but as Ianto looked around he knew that nobody would forget the horrors they had witnessed. He felt sick as he looked at his red hands, but as a man who had been trained to deal with such situations he took a deep breath and straightened up, making an attempt at normality and started to help co-ordinate some of the UNIT helpers, trying to recover a list of the dead just so he could know what had happened to his friends. To Lisa.
"Ianto! Ianto immediately turned at the sound of his name, in a very familiar voice- if not slightly croaky.
"Lisa!" He called, pushing through the. He found her lying on the floor, slumped against the wall. "I thought you were dead." He gasped in relief, though it was short lived as he heard her croak, "I wish I was." She then held up her arm and he felt his blood run cold as he saw it was half converted; a quick scan of her body told him that she also had a bullet to the lower abdomen.
"This can't be happening." Ianto immediately took her into his arms, ignoring her weak objections.
"Ianto you need to leave me here, "She continued firmly as he made to protest. "No, listen to me. I'm not stupid, I know what will happen next. I'll become one of them. You need to promise me you won't let that happen no matter what it takes."
Ianto had no doubts about what she meant. "No. You cant ask me-"
"I can and I will." Lisa responded and Ianto felt his breath hitch in his throat, his eyes started to sting. "I want to die being able to remember who I am, who my family, who my friends are..." Ianto knew that she had asked him knowing he could never resist a dying woman's wish. A hero complex, she called it.
"How will I do without you though?" Ianto sniffed, tears flowing freely.
"How will you without my ass you mean?" Ianto managed a shaky smile at her attempt at humour.
"Yeah, yours was the only decent one around here." They both avoided looking at their actual surroundings, trying to forget the reality of the situation, desperately grasping for a normal thread of conversation.
Lisa let out a shaky laugh, before gasping in pain. "I want you to do it."
He nodded in understanding, he could not let another do it in his stead. It must be him to do it. To end Lisa's life. She met his eyes in understanding. "Thank you." Ianto heard the unspoken words, and as he aligned the gun, he whispered, "I'll miss you too."
He pulled the trigger.
0o.0o.0o.0o.0o.0o.0o.0o.0o.
Ianto was in shock. He stood unseeingly on the curb outside the remains of Torchwood One.
"Lieutenant...?" A tentative voice caught his attention and he looked up to see Nathan standing two metres away. It was clear by the look on the others face that he had been trying to get his attention for quite some time, and Ianto quickly cleared his throat, indicating clearly that the other should not breach the topic.
"Drop the title and I'll buy you that drink I owe you." Ianto smirked, and he watched as the other struggled to react.
"Yeah, you do, but I'm bringing my girlfriend along to act as a buffer. You'd just feel me up."
Ianto grinned. "And we wouldn't want that now."
"Plus I think she'll want to meet the man who saved my life." Ianto looked away awkwardly, he didn't want nor like hero worship and he hoped against hope that Nathan didn't either. Nathan, sensing that the other was uncomfortable, changed the topic, although admittedly to an equally emotional and therefore uncomfortable topic. "Your friend. Is she-?"
"Dead." Ianto finished. His throat one again dry and suddenly it was hard to speak.
"Oi, you two!" Ianto turned round gratefully at the sound of the London accent, and sure enough there was a skinny man in a doctor's lab coat, looking at him. There was a mix of emotions conflicting on the others face: weariness, annoyance, a tad of concern but thankfully he couldn't find any pity on the others face. Now this was someone he could deal with right now.
"Are you talking to me, handsome?" He asked, making sure to run his eyes down the others figure trying to regain any semblance of normality-for him anyway. Contrary to the usual reaction of the 21st century men, the doctor just rolled his eyes, letting out a long sigh, with the air of a man who had to put up with crap every day.
"Hey hey hey," Nathan said jokingly, "and I thought it was only me you flirted with." Ianto threw him an amused look.
"You expect me to remain devoted to one person. Who already has a girlfriend?" Ianto fake shuddered. "Never." Nathan smiled widely and the doctor cleared his throat loudly, once again attracting their attention.
"Look I'm Doctor Owen Harper and need to check you over, for any injuries."
"If you wanted to check me out you could have just asked." Ianto grinned at the annoyed look on the others face.
"God, you would get along nicely with my boss. Only he could find something to flirt with in a mess like this. Names?" The doctor asked a clip board at the ready.
"Nathan Rosser."
Before Ianto could open his mouth to reply however, a beeping noise sounded from his wrist strap. Ianto looked at his wrist in surprise and fear. That meant a time agent was near. He growled in frustration, could he ever catch a break?
"Hey, that wrist strap looks like my boss'. Captain Jack Harkness." Immediately Ianto's head snapped up to look at the other. Captain Jack Harkness? Must be an alias. What kind of fifty first century time agent would want to live in twenty first century Britain. It was too socially against everything that a time agent would do that he didn't think any would turn up here.
"Oh?" Ianto prayed beyond hope that they were someone he had not made an enemy of, or they weren't here so he had time to run.
"Yeah, that's him over there," Doctor Harper pointed across the street to a man standing in a military coat and Ianto felt his heart stop. Suddenly there was a lot more life in the world and the colours recently dimmed were more vibrant than ever, for standing infront of him was his childhood best friend of ten years- five of which they were lovers- and the last time he had seen him was when they were both on the run from the time agency at risk of memory loss, or in Ianto's case death.
Ianto grinned wickedly, a plan already hatching in his minds' eye.
Let the games commence.
My first Torchwood Fanfiction. What do you think...? Press that little blue button to let me know :)
Lazi x
(Word count: 2833)