So I'm back! Here is the sequel to Secrets: Whoever Said Being Immortal Was Easy. This story will be following the episodes of series 2 more than the first story did. The first few chapters are based on the the first episode, when I first started writing around Kiss Kiss Bang Bang the chapter would have been originally thirteen pages so I decided to split it into two chapters. There are going to be quite a few chapters focusing on Ianto and Jack's relationship, how Jack is going to make it up to Ianto, and can any of imagine that the Cullen's are going to be over the moon about Jack's disappearance and reappearance. I've also planned to look through the relationships of the team more, and I'll most likely will be going quite AU around episode 7 or 8 especially in the terms of some people's relationships.
I'll be covering some things that I've been wanting to write ever since I got the basic idea for secrets. I can't promise that updates will always be regular, because even though I'm now my summer holidays, I also tend to go out more (I feel terrible if I spend my whole day on my laptop, especially if it's a really nice sunny day) and I'm going to be away for quite a bit wherever I'm on holiday or camping, but I can promise to try my hardest to update as often as I can. I'm planning to sit down and just write at least once a week, when I'm on holiday I'm planning on spending time that I'm at an airport and on the plane writing in my notebook. I've written up chapter two already and am starting on chapter three as this is being posted.
Hope you enjoy :)
It had been almost four months since Captain Jack Harkness had left his team to be with the Doctor. It hadn't been easy to cope without their boss, but after a few weeks, the remaining members of Torchwood accepted that he wouldn't be returning any time soon, and they needed to up their game.
Things hadn't gone well for them in the first week of Jack's absence, the hub had been pure chaos, the only remaining calm being Ianto. Everyone else, either panicking or not focusing on their jobs in hand. After one too many weevil attacks gone wrong, Ianto had called a board meeting to try and sort out the mess Jack had left behind. He was probably the most surprised when it actually worked out, figuring Tosh would take his words to heart and Gwen would try, but ultimately get frustrated by the added workload and fail, at the very best.
After that, things had started going a bit more smoothly, especially when Ianto convinced his family, the Cullens, that entering the hub whenever they felt like it, to try and find Jack wasn't the best thing to do, seeing as none of them were actually staff members and the presence of so many vampires and a werewolf (even if they were vegetarian) at one time, in one very claustrophobic hub could unnerve the best of people.
Carlisle had managed to get everyone to agree that they wouldn't go round to the hub, unless they had permission or it was an emergency. He also made them promise that they wouldn't go looking for Jack ("Alice I don't care how much you want to kill him over and over again, you probably won't find him, as the chances of him actually still being on this planet, let alone this century are slim" Ianto had said one night exasperated. "And even if you do find him, then I wouldn't let you kill him anyway, he felt the need to go to the Doctor, I know that as does everyone else at Torchwood.")
Owen hadn't liked the idea of being in charge- the memories of his betrayal still fresh in his mind- and instead the team had decided to even out Jack's responsibilities. Gwen would more often than not take charge in the hub and going over data whilst Owen took charge out in the field, but if it got too much Ianto would calmly take over, being able to keep a cool head at the worst of times.
It was something he had easily proven he could do, but when Gwen had offered him the position full time he hadn't let her even finish her sentence.
("We both know that Owen is fantastic at his job, and that he deserves this. He's good at taking charge and anyway I've always been much better following orders than giving them, and I know I would never feel comfortable doing that. Anyway you two are much better at the whole peace talking with other species, I might be able to talk the talk, but they can normally sense I'm dangerous, and it's sometimes best to keep me in the background for as long as possible.")
Of course then Harold Saxon had sent them on a wild goose chase around the Himalayas, they had been trekking around the mountains aimlessly for over a week until they got a call from Alice saying that Saxon had assassinated the president on National television. They had immediately returned to Cardiff, trying to sort out the mess Saxon had left behind.
One night, the team had found themselves chasing after an alien blowfish, who wasn't doing the best job at remaining hidden.
"Some aliens can be so stupid," Owen had chuckled. "I know, I'll nick a bright red sports car, no-one will notice me then."
They finally managed to track down where it was, Ianto and Tosh in the back seats of the SUV, trying to find information on it, any natural defence mechanisms and the best way to get rid of it, whilst Gwen and Owen were lightly bickering in the front, keeping their eyes peeled for him.
Gwen spotted the blowfish first and a chase began. Until it lost them by swiftly turning around a roundabout.
"If you had let me drive this wouldn't have happened," Ianto said in a singsong voice.
"Shut it fangs," Owen grunted, sharply turning the car around and catching up with the bright red convertible once more. Then he pulled one of the most stupid moves ever. He let go of the wheel and shot at the car. Luckily for him it worked, and nobody died.
"He's not in the car," Ianto said, once they jumped out of the SUV, watching Owen and Gwen run over to the now empty vehicle, looking around in vain. Sniffing the air, Ianto caught a scent of fish.
"He's over-" Two gunshots interrupted him. The team kicked down the small house's door, and ran into the living room.
The blowfish was holding a young woman by the neck, gun pressed into her skull. Another woman was by the door frame not daring to move, whilst a middle aged man was lying on the floor, clutching at his wound. Owen barked out orders, the others following them swiftly.
Ianto, Gwen and Tosh kept their guns trained on the blowfish, Owen tending to the man's wounds whilst Tosh read out the fish's body levels, confirming that he was high, and very at that.
But the blowfish wasn't finished there, he taunted them all, calling them kids.
"The doctor with his hands full of blood, the carer with her oh so beating heart, the technician with her cold devices which leaves me with the most interesting of the lot. The office boy, promoted beyond his wildest dreams, but that's not all, you're so much more than that, keeping what you are for so long a secret. You're a monster just like me, but you've been denying yourself from the kill too long. You've lost your nerve, could never pull the trigger on me now. None of you could. You're all so scared without your master, all of you pretending to be so brave, all of you so scared," he mocked. "So vampire how brave are you feeling. Can you do it, can you kill me? Watch the life leave my body like all those innocent people you've claimed over the past."
Ianto's gun shook, his finger not pressing down on the trigger no matter how much he tried. The blowfish continued to jeer at him, shoving the gun at the girl even more, until one final bang rang out.
The blowfish slumped to the floor dead, it's brains smeared all over the curtains. Ianto looked at his gun, he hadn't shot, he knew he hadn't, but who had?
He turned around slowly, at the same time as the others, to come face to face with Captain Jack Harkness. "Hey kids. Did you miss me?" he smiled cockily.
TWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTW
When Jack had left the Doctor and Martha, he kept hidden in the shadows, not entering the base straight away. The pair couldn't see him but he could see them. They searched for him fruitlessly for a few moments before walking off, joking and smiling, glad that the world was back to how it once was.
"Goodbye Doctor," he whispered. Staring at his vortex manipulator, Jack sighed. He didn't need to travel in time, but it would be nice to have the option. Now the only time related thing it could do, was read it. Deciding that maybe checking at what time the Doctor had dropped him off would be a good idea- after all he didn't want to run into his past self, especially with his team, that wouldn't be the best situation to be in- he pressed a few buttons. "4:16pm on the 16th of March 2008. Oh shit they're all going to kill me,"
Deciding that heading down to the hub now instead of in a few hours time would be the best idea, especially if they could see him down there. Jack knew where every camera had been placed on the Plass, and knew he was in direct view of at least three. At this time of day, the base should have everyone there and at the very least, one person would be there, manning the fort in case of an emergency.
He climbed onto the invisible lift, and let it lower him down slowly. Seeing the base for the first time in over a year was probably the most comforting thing Jack could have imagined. Myfanwey was flying overhead, giving the occasional squawk.
"Hey girl," he called out. Climbing off of the lift, he looked around for any sign of human life. Tosh's computers were all whirring and beeping, Gwen's and Owen's had their screen savers flashing, but apart from that, it was silent.
"Guys," He called out warily. Maybe they were all in the boardroom.
Climbing the stairs to the boardroom, Jack saw at once it was empty. But laptops were still lying open on the desks and coffee mugs with half drunken coffee were cooling down. Jack placed a hand on the closest mug, and noted it was still warm.
"They couldn't have left until recently then," he mused. " But where will they have gone," He looked up at the screen that had been inserted into the boardroom's wall and started to read the information. It was about a blowfish alien (one of many Jack had encountered) who seemed to be stealing as much as he could. Champagne, fancy clothes and a bright red sports car were all in the list that the blowfish had... acquired.
Obviously the team had been talking about the blowfish, when it had popped back up again. Letting them give chase. Jack opened up the vortex manipulator and pressed a few buttons until he had got what he wanted.
The Captain had installed the tracker on the SUV a few years ago, ever since Owen and Suzie had got lost in the middle of no-where surrounded by weevils, there was no way that Jack or Tosh could track them down, so Jack had brought the back up SUV, driving it around aimlessly, in the spot where Owen and Suzie were last seen until he finally found them.
He couldn't risk that again, so without telling anybody he put a tracker on both of the SUVs, they were easy enough to get access to, but at this moment in time he was the only one who knew about them.
If there was an emergency, then he would tell someone about the trackers, but until then, there just wasn't any need. He knew that Owen would probably turn the tracker on, to see where he went, when he disappeared to one of his old haunts, which he had done many a time without telling the team. He didn't need to have his privacy disturbed any further. Nor did he want it.
It took mere seconds to track down the SUV, they were just about to leave Splott, and quickly at that. Obviously Owen was driving by the way, the SUV seemed to occasionally swerve. Gwen and Tosh never drove that quickly and Ianto kept in control of the car much better, with his vampire reflexes.
Jack missed his team, whilst a few days travelling with the Doctor was fantastic and one of the best things in the world, Jack knew that he would never as stayed as long as he was forced to. The year that never was, gave Jack a lot of time to think, between all the torturings that is.
Everyday the Master had killed him, each one worse and more painful than the one previous. About three months in, the Master had got bored of just killing him, so upped his game at tracking down Torchwood. And he found them.
They had been hiding out in a deserted warehouse, which had an underground bunker connected to it. The whole team and the Cullens had been there. But only the team had been brought to the Valiant. The others had been killed on earth, the Toclofane ripping them to shreds, their blades not even having a scratch on them by the time they had finished with the Cullen's and then their remains had been burnt to a crisp.
When his team had been brought onto the Valiant, the Master tortured them all mercilessly. Ianto more than the most, there were many reasons why he did that. He was closest to Jack, his whole family had been killed on earth, so he had the biggest reason to snap first and because he was a vampire. Practically indestructible.
The Master would laugh with glee as he chopped off Ianto's hand or leg and watch as it would slowly reconnect itself with his body.
But soon enough the Master got bored of just torturing them, Jack's pleas for them to let them go wasn't enough any more, so he killed them. One by one, in the most slow and painful way he could imagine.
Tosh was the first to be killed, with the whole team, Jack, Martha's family and even the Doctor forced to watch. A couple of weeks later it was Owen's turn, he didn't scream or beg for mercy, he stayed silent, until his body fell limp, a bloody mess by the end of it.
The Master didn't get bored for another month after that, just content with torturing the two remaining members of the Torchwood Institute. Gwen was just an empty shell of her former self by this point, Rhys had been killed in the first month of the Masters reign, her family also had been murdered early on and she had been forced to watch her team-mates die.
When she stopped screaming and begging for the torture to end, she was also killed. Leaving only Ianto.
His death was by far the worst, the master had chained him up, with a special type of metal from galaxies away, so he couldn't escape, he'd then been doused in oil and set alight, the death was slower and more painful than if he had been destroyed first, but the Master wanted him to be whole as he burnt. He had wanted him to suffer.
Shaking himself from the depressing thoughts, Jack climbed up the stairs to his office. He was mildly surprised when he saw it was exactly the same as when he left it. Sure there were no forms or other papers on the desk, but it was obvious that no-one had decided to inhabit it.
Someone obviously kept the place in good nick though, nothing had moved around on the desk, but no dust had collected either, so once in a while one of his team must do a bit of dusting. Opening the top draw of his desk Jack couldn't help but smile, his webley was still lying there, a few full magazines next to it. He pulled them out, before leaving the hub once more, fully intent on finding his team.
TWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTW
It was a good thing that Ianto didn't need to breathe, because at that moment in time, he had completely forgotten how to. The others needed to breathe to ultimately survive, but it seemed they had all gone into shock, the sobbing from the two women snapping them all out of it.
Owen finished patching up the man, making sure that no more blood was escaping the wound before helping him up. Gwen brought the two women to the kitchen, away from the dead fish's remains, making three cups of tea, slipping retcon pills into each of them. When Owen had finished with the man, he brought him to his family and Gwen started to comfort them.
Whilst they were doing that, Tosh and Ianto placed the dead alien into a body bag and carried him into the back of the SUV, away from prying eyes.
Once they had done that, Tosh made sure that all devices had been cleaned away as Owen and Ianto silently removed the curtains, before messing the house up enough, to convince the family that their had been a break in.
Whilst they were doing this, not one word was said between anyone, Jack for once was in the background, his team had grown up and no longer felt the need to look to him for guidance. They knew exactly what to do and when to do it. The clean up process took no longer than twenty minutes, and when they had finished they all climbed into the SUV, minus Ianto who offered to drive the sports car back to the hub.
No-one argued with him, they all knew how awkward he must feel with his boss and lover returning after four months of unexplained absence. Owen didn't give up the drivers seat, and he noticed with grim satisfaction that Gwen didn't let Jack sit in the other front seat, instead he slipped into the back with Tosh, who refused to look him in the eye. He glared at Jack through the cars front mirror before driving to the hub.
TWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTW
The drive back to the hub was pretty much like the clean up process. Silent. No-one dared talk. Everyone was waiting for Jack to start talking whilst he was trying to think of what to say. When they reached the hub however the others jumped straight into a professional mood. Unloading the body into the autopsy bay, and turning on computers looking over more information.
"Are you sure no more like him came through?" Gwen asked.
"Cross referencing with the rift activity monitor," Tosh said furiously typing away on her keyboard. "Doesn't look like it,"
"The car's been impounded. I'll get it back to the owner in the morning," Ianto informed Gwen, after he had rushed back up to the main hub.
"How you doing Owen?" Gwen asked, nodding at what Ianto had said.
"Bio-profile's on screen now." he said brushing past Gwen. "Nothing in his genetic make-up is likely to contaminate the city."
Gwen skimmed over the file before asking Tosh to add it the data-base. Once Tosh had confirmed she turned to Ianto, puppy dog eyes at the ready if need be. She didn't need to use them, as Ianto swiftly agreed to tend with the body once it had froze.
Any other time he might have made Gwen work for it, before he inevitably agreed, but now everyone was remaining professional, they didn't want to show Jack that his leaving had left the team broken, they weren't going to let him come swanning in, thinking that they couldn't manage without him, it was an unspoken agreement with all of them, one they all intended to keep.
Jack noticed that what the level of professionalism that the team were showing wasn't the whole story almost immediately and called them up on it.
Gwen's biting tone, didn't shut up the Captain, but her pushing him into a wall certainly did. By now the whole team was watching the exchange between the two.
He apologised and when Toshiko asked where he was, he answered more truthfully than he had in the past.
"I found my Doctor," he said, confirming what Ianto had been saying since he first disappeared.
"Did he fix you?" Owen asked softly. Ianto looked away, it was no secret that Jack hated the burden of him being immortal and if he could he would get rid of it, after all watching the people you love dying, never would get any easier, but Ianto had thought that maybe now that he and Jack had got together that maybe he didn't mind not ever dying and staying that way. Obviously it still bothered him, which in turn bothered Ianto.
Of course Jack hid his hurt behind a joke once more. "What to fix? You can't mess with this level of perfection." But everyone saw how the smile didn't reach up to his eyes.
"Are you going back to him?" Ianto said softly, the first words he had said to the Captain, they were laced with fear and uncertainty. He had seen the way Jack had talked about the Doctor and had read all the files on him.
He knew there would be no contest, if Jack had to choose between the man who understood and travelled through time, able to take him to all these wonderful planets or the vegetarian vampire, who had hidden his identity for so long then the choice was obvious. Ianto knew who he would have chosen, and more importantly he knew who Jack would choose and who he would always choose.
"I came back for you," Jack said, looking Ianto straight into his amber eyes. They had a silent staring competition before Ianto looked away, obviously uncomfortable with the looks Jack had been giving him. They weren't just lust with a bit of caring thrown in there, the looks he was being given had caring and respect and need and regret, and Ianto wasn't used to that. "All of you," looking at each member of the team.
A loud beeping interrupted them, signalling rift activity. The team sprung into action, loading their weapons and closing down projects. As they left none of them noticed the red beeper in the blowfish's pockets.
TWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTW
A man in his early thirties had been found, obviously having fallen off the four storey building, the only suspicious thing was the amount of rift activity that was around his upper body and neck area.
"He was grabbed and pushed," Jack said helpfully. Once Tosh had finished her scan, Jack took charge immediately, he might have been gone for four months- a year for him- but he was born to be a leader.
Gwen made a snide comment before walking off, Jack only retaliating by being as sarcastic as he could, all the while remaining professional. Gwen thanked Andy, as she always did before walking down to the SUV with the others.
Jack went to open the SUV door, but was interrupted by his vortex manipulator beeping.
"Whoa that thing never beeps," Ianto said confused.
"That's what I was thinking," Jack said, maybe the Doctor hadn't fully turned off some programs, he might have missed a couple. Hopefully the good ones he thought.
He tapped a button, a hologram of one man he thought he would never see again appeared. He was still the same, still cocky, still sarcastic, still doing anything to grab Jack's attention including throwing people off buildings and walking into bars full of people and threatening them with guns.
Jack knew he couldn't let his team meet that man, whatever name he was going by didn't change the fact that he was still dangerous.
He drove off to the bar in the SUV, it wouldn't stop them, Tosh would be able to track him down and they'd either follow him on foot or find another method of transportation. Maybe a taxi?
Jack knew he didn't have a long time to get rid of his former lover, he had missed Ianto so much, and letting him find out that he was spending time with one of his exes was not the best thing to do to make up for the whole going missing thing.
TWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTW
The team was annoyed. In fact they were more than annoyed, they were beyond pissed off. Ianto half-heartedly listened to them as they started raving. He couldn't help but wonder who the man that had contacted Jack was. They had obviously meant something to each other.
Why would Jack have run off like that otherwise? Maybe that was why he wanted to become mortal again, so he could be with that other man. Ianto knew he and Jack had never had the most conventional relationship, a few quick snogs here and there, hell they had only made out properly once or twice, and only when Jack knew about Ianto being a vampire.
Jack had said he wanted to be with Ianto, had said that he wanted to have a proper relationship with him, but the two hadn't even been on a date with one another. It might have been all talk anyway? What if Jack had only been saying those things because he was bored of his bed being cold at night. The man that had contacted him might have been travelling with the Doctor, or lost somewhere? Obviously Jack cared about him more.
How could Ianto have been so stupid. He gave a quiet sigh, watching the dark background whiz past them, occasionally giving a witty comment when there was a lull in conversation. Ianto was dreading arriving at the pub though, who knew what they would find. He shuddered at the mental image.
Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Just in case any of you were confused, in this story Jack left in November 2007, and returns in March 2008. So he would have been missing for almost four months. I confused myself whilst writing the dates, looking at the air dates, for not only the two Torchwood air dates but also the Doctor Who date for Utopia. Once I thought I had everything figured out, I then realised that Secrets was set in Winter, which once again confused me. I'm a simpleton at heart :P
See you soon!
Lollzie xox
