Title: Perspicacity (The Long Goodbye Series)
Author: Syberin5 or tsarcasm
Word Count: 3,250
Beta: dork-a-rrific Freakykat
Summary: Ianto… is off on a date… with a woman—named Janelle—who's a stone cold fox.
Disclaimer: I'm stealing. It's wrong. Send them after me.
Dedicated: To unsentimentalf, who has been entirely undemanding of her help_haiti winnings of a Spike/Muppet story. I told her she could have this while I continued to work on Spike/Muppet (it's so not as easy as I thought to get Spike not to just punch Big Bird).
Author's Notes: This is last chronologically in the series and really best read last but was where this whole mess started and wasn't originally going to have any playmates. When I started it I couldn't help it and had no idea what it was, where it was going. It was an alien life form born of my brain. I didn't know if there'd be more or when in canon it happened—though I suspected, but couldn't promise, post season two. It's come a long way since then. I'm still not positive what it really is but mostly, like any perplexing child, I love it anyway.
per·spi·cac·i·ty/ˌ pɜrspɪˈkæsɪti/ [pur-spi-kas-i-tee]–noun
1. keenness of mental perception and understanding; discernment; penetration.
2. Archaic. keen vision.
Origin: 1540–50; earlier perspicacite LL perspicācitās sharpness of sight, equiv. to perspicāci- (s. of perspicāx sharp-sighted; see perspicuous) + -tās -ty2
—Synonyms
1. shrewdness, acuity, astuteness, insight, acumen. See perspicuity.
—Antonyms
1. obtuseness.
"Look at you, all duded up. I don't think I've ever seen you out of a suit, Ianto."
"Thank you, Gwen." He nodded and continued scooping up a tray full of empty tea cups and coffee mugs.
"Suits you." She swung her hair from her face and followed him round the room. "What's the occasion?" Her eyes involuntarily cutting to Jack where he stood monkeying with an astral projector.
"I've got a date."
"A date," she looked at him smiling and shocked. "That's delightful. Where's he taking you then?"
"Janelle's meeting me at a bar, down city centre."
"I'm sure she's a lovely girl, if you're interested in her." And Gwen meant it. Ianto was too lovely himself, even if she was flummoxed over the lack of Jack in the conversation.
"She's a stone cold fox." Ianto finished and swept out with the dishes.
She watched him go, listened to Jack wish him a goodnight from his hunched position over the AP. Still confused over the whole exchange she turned and walked to Jack, eyed his steady hands on the device, while chewing a nail.
"Yes?"
"Ianto… is off on a date… with a woman—named Janelle—who's a stone cold fox."
"And?" Jack asked still deep into the work on his hands.
"Oh, nothing." She tossed up a hand. "Just making sure it actually happened is all."
He finally looked over his shoulder at her, his eyes sparkling and his lips twisted. "I heard it too."
"So the chances that we've both gone a bit off…are …um?"
"Pretty good actually." He straightened and turned to her. "Historically speaking."
"Right. So should we…" she trailed a finger off after Ianto.
"No," he said, his face losing some of the luster.
"Right," she shifted weight. "Then should I…"
"No," he smiled again. "Ianto can take care of himself." He went back to the AP device.
"But what if she's a…"
"Telepathetic alien?"
"Yeah. Or …"
"A shape-shifting father to be?"
"Course. Perhaps a…"
"Soul-sucking entity or an ex-girlfriend half-robot, rift trash, or for fun all of the above?"
"Thinking about this a while, huh?"
"A bit," he said, dropping the tool in his hands and sighing, stretching his back. "He'd kill us."
"Or me." She offered. Because really, what were the chances of this going well? Historically speaking?
"No," he shook his head and stood straight again. "He's got a right, Gwen, same as you do to Rhys."
"But what if," she waved a hand, "all those things?"
"Then we do what we do. Then we deal with it." He locked eyes with her, steady to her still worried gaze. "Not before."
"You say so, Jack." Her arms fell in defeat to her sides.
He laughed, "You're actually going to listen to me this time?"
"You don't want me to?"
She watched him tilt his head back and groan, not sure of what he wanted her to do professionally, sure he wasn't sure he knew himself personally. "Just order pizza."
"Ok, Jack."
"Then go up and wait for it."
"Right-oh."
So she did and when she brought it back down Jack and she ate it in the conference room, like the whole thing had never happened.
*
"So?" Gwen siddled up to him and trilled happily, expectantly.
"Did you want coffee or tea, ma'am?"
"Neither, Ianto. I want gossip." She smiled and watched his brow quirk.
"Sorry, ma'am?"
"You're date, Ianto, how did it go?"
"It was fine," he said, turning back to the plate of biscuits he was arranging. "She's a lovely girl."
"I knew she must be to get you out on the pull."
"The pull. No, Gwen. I don't…" His eyes darted away and he flushed.
"But you… Janelle?" As if the situation couldn't get more confusing.
"She was on the pull," his eyes back on the goodies she'd try desperately not to eat and Jack would slowly inhale, "not me. She's a stone cold fox."
"You're pretty foxy too, Ianto."
"I know," he waggled his eyebrows and she laughed, tapped his arm.
"You going to see her again?"
"Don't know." He shrugged, proper, stiff Ianto, like a little boy.
"Were you happy, last night, with her?"
"Happy? I had a good time, it was nice not to think about everything here for a while."
"Hmmm." She knew that feeling but it could be a trap too, could make you crazy not to say something that was such a part of your life. "Well, I would say if you enjoyed it, try it again. Maybe you'll enjoy it just as much the next time. Maybe more. You won't know till you give it a shot."
"Yeah."
"Unless…."
"Unless?" He left the tray be and looked up to face her, eyes hopeful and shy and a might terrified and trying to hide it all.
"Unless there's something, someone who does make you happy." She watched his quiet face, wished that more of his thoughts rather than his general emotions were visible there. He was torn. She could guess between what fairly easily but she'd hoped to know what he really wanted, which direction to nudge him, to help him. All she really wanted was for him to be happy, for all of them to be happy. She clapped hands on his shoulders. "Give it time, Jan. You don't have to know right this minute. You've got until at least lunch." She kissed his cheek and went back to the seismograph, catching a glimpse of his smile.
*
She saw him sweeping papers into piles and dishes—with what remained of biscuits and pizza—onto a cart and whosywhatits and thingamabobs into their archives boxes and bags without the usual air of indifferent glum. She scooted up behind him then, held her breath and listened. It wasn't a whistle. It wasn't a hum. She was fairly certain it wasn't a deviated septum. But it was far from misery and broaching on cheery.
"Made a decision then, have you?"
"I guess you could say." he said without raising his head from a bunch of crumbs and balled up papers he was pushing into a rubbish bin.
"Giving it a go, eh?"
"I guess you could say." And he did turn and look up at her, an almost hidden grudging smile on his face.
"Aye, alright then." She bobbed around a bit as he moved on to another messy surface and another rubbish bin. "Sorted." She nodded at her own hard work and then went off to find something real to do until Ianto left and she could have a go—as it were—at Jack.
*
"He's going after her," she said without preamble or warning in the middle of their studying the micronormic activity of something that they'd likely fish out of the water tomorrow, trying to pinpoint its location and depth.
"Yeah and?"
"I think it's good. I mean, after Lisa he was so moopy."
"He's kind of moopy guy. You'll remember he mooped the day you met him."
She cut him with her eyes and growled, "You'll remember you drugged me. It's all still a bit hazy in spots. Well, anyway he was hiding Lisa then, we weren't to know."
She watched him think that over while staring at the readout on screen. "I guess none of us have any idea what he was like before the Great Lisa Depression." He did a few jerky, robotic movements that reminded her of her youth.
She giggled and smacked him with the back of her hand. "Oh, now. He should be happy, Jack."
"Yeah. He should." She saw the lights in his eyes dim a couple notches and wondered if Tosh had ever worked up a graphic algorithm for it. "But then he begged to work here so…"
"Oh," she sucked in a breath. "You didn't? Jack. You didn't tell him he—"
"Had to keep his trap shut—"
"Like that's a danger—"
"That he couldn't dope her up with retcon once a week or plead for a resurrection or—"
"Jack," she wrapped her hands around his arms and shook him once so he'd look at her. Saw how flat his eyes were, how pale his lips. "You didn't tell him. Did you?"
"No, he's as welcome to a shot at a real life as any of us. As long as it's safe."
"Jack. I mean you didn't tell him how you feel, did you?"
"I told him I hoped it worked out, that I was sure she—"
"—Was a lovely girl. You didn't tell him how you feel about him. That you love him?"
"I've never made a secret about how I feel about you, all of you. You're my team and as long as you don't make a mess and I don't—"
"Oh, Christ alive, Jack, no wonder he went for it." She stomped away. "Bloody hell." Not sorted then.
*
Bollocks.
Ianto was moving closer to a true hum and while she was happy to see and hear it, Jack just got bit testier.
"Ianto," she called out, the information on her screen pulling her mind out of the team's intrapersonal dilemmas, and felt him slip quietly up beside her, "look at that." She nodded to a spike in rift activity near a location they'd had problems in before.
"Can you call up the history for that one location?"
"I don't know. Give me a moment here."
When she'd struck the right keys they both let out a little air. Before simultaneously calling for Jack.
"Why didn't that sound good?" Jack asked almost magically popping out nearby.
"Because it's not," Ianto said matter-of-factly.
"An alarmist, Ianto?"
"Jack, lay off. This is not good." Her eyes were still glued to the screen but she could feel some sort of byplay going on between the two men.
"What have we got?"
"Rift activity at the same place. Over and over and over again."
"Cardiff is only so big kiddies."
"It's not random Jack. Look." She watched his face as he scrolled down the frequently reoccurring dates going back to start of the observation net they'd created.
"How come we've never noticed this before?"
"We have," Ianto said simply and received the stares of Jack and Gwen in return. "See? Here," he highlighted a date, "here," again, "here," and again. "These dates the activity is more random, spiked compared to the rest and those correspond to cases we've had. This one just a few weeks ago is what tipped Gwen and I off. Looking into it we discovered the others. They are even, the patterns in energy exactly the same. They seem controlled."
"Created. Somebody knows what they're doing."
"And doing it frequently but not with any set schedule. Look here," Gwen highlighted to sets of dates. "Six months apart. And later on there's a three month break. It's not quiet predictable."
"Not to the human eye," Ianto qualified.
"Tosh had to have a thing… some sort of way to figure out randomized patterns."
"Run Conway." They both looked at him again.
"It's the name of the program she created to find patterns in the seemingly uncontrolled randomness of life." Gwen didn't blink and felt Jack tense beside her.
She sent the section of data they'd isolated through it and watched it begin to process.
"Gwen, with me," Jack said striding away and when she glanced at Ianto he only had eyes for the processor.
*
"Gwen, with me." She didn't bloody well care about the sudden two-day rain storm over a village library. All she wanted was the rest of her sandwich, which she fully intended to eat.
"Gwen."
"Hell," she muttered, taking the thing with her out of the hub.
*
"There's a report that sounds like Weevils two miles south on—"
"Send it to the car. Gwen, with me."
Which stopped her in her tracks. Ianto went on Weevils with Jack. She looked to him and he just nodded at her to go.
It was getting worse.
*
Gwen collapsed on the wooly goodness of the couch and, while her feet hurt like the very blazes of hell, she was too tired to raise them to the table before her so she just slumped to the side. She could hear Ianto telling Jack something, hear Jack respond. Probably filling him in on all the things that they'd missed while they'd been out trying to track the group of teenage girls who'd somehow come in contact with a Shnract colony—disgusting gooey creatures who were worse than Tribbles.
"Gwen, with me," Jack said on his way to the lift exit.
"Jack, I'm tired and I smell like slime crisps. Take Ianto."
"We wouldn't want him to get anything on his nazzy duds for his date tonight, would we? Race you to the top," he said already shouting distance away and clearly winning.
"Janelle at the least owes me dinner and a snog for this." She peeled herself begrudgingly off the cushions.
"No she doesn't," Ianto spoke tapping at a program readout.
"What?"
"She's in Northumbria with her mother."
"Then you're not…."
"No. It's just a suit, Gwen. I wear them every day."
She huffed and shuffled and felt her phone vibrate. Jack had won.
*
"Gwen, with me."
"No," she called out adamant. "I won't bloody go, Jack. I won't."
"We're losing time here."
"So stop being unreasonable."
"Do you want them to get away?" He was already moving, knowing she'd give in.
"It's all right. I'll just stay here and feed the pterodactyl. Felt like a bit of a lie-in with chocolate anyway."
*
"Jesus," Gwen breathed as Jack narrowly avoided hitting Ianto on their way into the garage. Her heart was pounding and she was tempted to vomit.
Jack was breathing hard as well but, by the way his jaw was working, she had the feeling it originated elsewhere. Ianto however just stood there, in the beams, hands in his pockets, calm as you please.
Jack slammed out of the car and over to Ianto who only turned him round and moved them back towards the car. Jack got in, slamming again, while Ianto moved quietly.
"Head west," was all he said.
Jack made a face at the wheel but headed west.
*
"This is Janelle." And there was dead silence while all three of them regarded a seemingly marble statue of a lithe, beautiful woman whose features appeared to be—for lack of a better term—foxy. There were rough, spiked indicators in the stone of fur around her face, the proffered hands were paws, the ears were pointed and perched high, the jaw turned down and much too angular to be purely human. The rest of the body—though clearly barrel-chested—was hidden by the swirls of a tumbling sort of gown.
"What? I told you."
Gwen stood, her mouth working, her brain and her vocal chords clearly out to the shop.
"I think what Gwen is trying to say here Jan, is that you forgot to mention that she was an actual 'stone cold fox.' "
"I clearly stated—"
"Oh, sod it." She sighed, finally able to speak. "It's not like this is the most ridiculous thing we've ever encountered. It's not even the most ridiculous this year."
"It's just the most like a Chinese parable."
"You mean fable."
"I mean—"
"Shut up. Both of you." She sighed again. "How long do we have until the….stone coldness goes away?"
"By my calculations, about an hour."
"Right, then. Let's get her transferred into the vaults. See if there's something we can do about this."
"Hey, when did I stop being in charge here?"
She groaned and half laughed and glared and said in a language that had more in common with Weevil than English that he'd lost command when he'd transformed into a primary school boy with an unrequited crush.
*
She watched the woman, a girl really, move gracefully around the cell a league or two below where she stood. Janelle had started crying at the start of Ianto's visit with her, crying because she had thought she'd been keeping her secret all this time. She'd barely spoken, barely made a noise, while Jan had explained about Torchwood, their desire to help her—not study her—because clearly she hadn't been controlling the transformations.
Transformations that, they'd discovered from confronting her, were familial.
The girl was still noiselessly crying, Ianto still standing outside the barrier without a word passing between them. She couldn't stand it another minute. Couldn't watch Ianto try and rescue another Lisa.
*
Jack tossed the book on his desk and the leather emitted a cloud of dust. She waved it away and picked it up.
"It's in Chinese." And so old the leather was rubbing off on her palms.
"Very good. Pu Songling. Liaozhai Zhiyi. Not the first, and far from the last to tell strange tales of beautiful foxes who could transform, who could entice, who could live off the life forces and possessions of those who fell for their charms."
"You think she was hurting him? Using him?"
"No, at least not based on the tests. That part of the fairy tale ending seems to be more human angst then historic."
"More mythical aliens?"
"Or ancient earthly bad'uns. But why the mime act? That's what I can't figure. None of the stories had that."
"What?" Gwen asked still flipping through the pages of strange characters she couldn't readily discern.
"The temporary, involuntary calcification."
"Defense mechanism? One so deep, so instinctual she couldn't control it, even when her family had raised her to be able to."
"What exactly about Ianto is that scary?"
"Falling in love with him." She said it quietly, firmly, knowing, and watched his face register it but not as a hit.
*
"At least my ex never blew up half of Cardiff."
"At least I don't keep getting involved with transmogrified women."
"At least I've never gotten involved with anything with more than two heads."
"Hey, three of them were gorgeous. It was the one in the back that could have done with a paper bag."
She was having a hard time hiding her smile, even as she tuned into the police scanner running in her ear piece. "I've got reports that sound like Weevils near Pryderi Park. Southwest corner."
"Gwen, with me." Jack was swinging on his coat before she finished relaying.
"Sorry, Jack. I've got a date and if I show up covered in mud Rhys will kill me. Then he'll come and kill you."
"But it would be such a lovely funeral. Ianto."
"Yes, sir."
*
She shouldered the door open—somewhat distracted—then tripped over whatever had been blocking it only to hear grunting and rustling. When she caught herself and looked up it was to see hastily handled folders blocking chunks of flesh she'd seen flashes of before with sparks of teeth and eyes around the edges.
"Oh. God. Sorry," she stammered and tripped again as she shielded her eyes and stumbled backwards towards the door. She pulled it closed and fell back against it, letting it hold her up while she processed a bit more what she'd just walked in on. Again.
"Thank bloody God." She called out triumphantly to the heavens with her fists raised. She thought she heard a giggle behind her but that could have been her; she was too relieved, too happy, to really care.