Author's Note: Fabulous response to last week's chapter - thank you, everyone! And I'm trying the Cardiff photos link again, with gaps: furiousdee dot tumblr dot com slash post slash 28213100509 slash cardiff-photos
MASSIVE thank you to riftintime for completely saving my arse with this chapter (more than usual, I mean), and of course, to all of my readers and reviewers. Especially the reviewers.
Chapter Twenty-Six
"I'm talking to you! Are you deaf, or something?"
Ianto felt as if his body's vital motions – breathing, heart beating, eyes blinking – were moving in slow motion as he stared at the woman before him. She was a living image of the sepia-tinted photographs he'd seen of her from before he was born, when she was at her happiest and healthiest, and merely twenty-five years old, he realised. She was also, it dawned on him as his eyes scanned her apron-clad frame, five or six months pregnant... with Rhiannon, he thought, in awe. That's my sister. The thought was sobering, and offered Ianto enough clarity to grope for his badge.
"Detective Inspector... Jones" he stated, his voice hoarse as he flicked open his ID. "There's been a spate of burglaries in the area. We're, err... we're checking the rubbish for discarded weapons, masks, stolen goods... that sort of thing."
She raised an eyebrow at him, so reminiscent of his own habit that he could have sobbed. She was round-faced, like his sister had always been, grey-eyed and pale, her cheeks tinged pink. She glowed in the way that he was led to believe all pregnant women glowed, even as her stance and expression exuded wariness and disapproval.
"Sounds like a waste of police time, if you ask me" she grumbled, taking a long look at his sombre suit. "I've not heard of any crimes 'round here."
"No, well, we're trying not to worry people. We want to make sure you feel safe in your own homes" Ianto replied, the tightness in his chest throbbing at the reminder of his mother's eventual chronic paranoia.
"I do feel safe, thank you" she replied, her tone dry, flicking a wave of dark, bobbed hair away from her cheek before placing her hands firmly on her hips. Ianto fought the urge to crumple completely in the face of such a familiar childhood gesture.
"Well... uhh... we might be making further door-to-door enquiries in the area, if we deem it necessary" he replied, making a last-minute (and potentially idiotic, he berated himself) decision. "Would you be available for questioning during the next week?"
She narrowed her eyes, her gaze firm but wary. Please. Let me see you again, as you once were.
"Yes, alright" she eventually replied, slowly moving backwards in the direction of a house Ianto had never known. This was long before his parents and Rhiannon had moved to Newport prior to his birth, but he hadn't realised they'd ever lived so close to the centre of Cardiff. His father had often stated that the capital was dangerous. Little did Ianto know, prior to Torchwood, that he'd been right all along.
"My husband's away on business, but I should be around" she continued, offering Ianto a nod before turning on her heel and marching back towards the nondescript terraced building.
"Thank you, ma'am" Ianto called after her, unable to tear his eyes away until she'd disappeared fully into the house.
The intrusive honk of the Land Rover's horn startled him into spinning around, and he was irritated when Jack tapped his wrist strap as if it were a watch.
"Finished flirting?" the Captain asked as Ianto slid back into the passenger seat.
"It's called civilian relations; maybe you should try it, one day."
"Ouch!" Jack exclaimed with a short laugh, switching on the ignition. "Kind've harsh, Detective Inspector."
If Jack expected an apology, Ianto wasn't prepared to give it. The image of his young, healthy mother was burnt into his mind, and he didn't have any inclination to discuss it just yet. Could this be the reason I'm here? Can I alter her future? Can I change her life and have my mum back?
Jack apparently tired quickly of the conversation, choosing that moment to speed away from Planet Street without questioning Ianto any further. This was far too huge to discuss with anybody, even the Captain. He felt quite certain Jack would have something to say about him visiting his own family members years before he was born, and this was something he had to work out on his own.
Ianto couldn't shake his daze for the remainder of the afternoon. His mother's image haunted him as if she were in the Hub itself, in every corner, her grey eyes trailing him. She had looked at him with more familiarity today than every day since he was nine or ten years old. He inadvertently tortured himself by replaying that very moment when he realised that his mum no longer recognised her only son, and he had found his sense of emotional maturity developing at an astonishing rate in response to that childhood-shattering event. She had been the youngest case of Alzheimer's in medical history, at the time. As if that was some kind of achievement to be congratulated.
Owen roped him into assisting with the examination of their steel-blue pet, while the rest of the team scoured both the digital and non-digital archives for any mention of such a creature. Ianto was idly aware of Jack disappearing into his office and returning with a fresh pair of trousers on, and assumed he must have dressed the wound. The limp was gone; hopefully, he had succumbed to weakness and taken painkillers. The distinct aversion to fuss when obviously hurt was something Ianto found annoying; the blatant display of macho toughness was not remotely appealing to him, but he supposed it was all part of The Hero Mask.
Reflecting on Jack's behaviour distracted Ianto briefly, as did Suzie discovering information about the navy ocelot from 1940's Torchwood who found one in a bomb shelter, helping itself to tinned cans of corned beef (and rejecting most of the beef), but the focus of his thoughts remained. And for the first time in over a week, when his colleagues invited him out to The Hole in The Wall (the witty name they had affectionately labelled Adam's pub), he declined.
"Got somewhere else to be?" Jack asked him as he shrugged on his military coat, his tone sharp though he was smiling. The slight upwards tilt of his head suggested suspicion. Or jealousy.
"In the flat. Alone" Ianto replied, standing wearily up to leave, glancing around to confirm that the others had already left. "I'm not used to regular carousing. I need a quiet night on my own."
He was halfway to the stairwell, having neatly sidestepped Jack, when a thought occurred to him. I could use Torchwood's database to look my mum up. See what they know about her. I was only ever told such precious little.
"Actually, thinking about it, I might stick around here for a while" Ianto coolly announced, turning back to Jack as he made up his mind. "I could keep an eye on our little blue friend, just in case it wakes up and turns out to have the ability to chew through titanium cat-boxes... and I'd still like to get a little more used to the Hub and its computer systems."
Jack flicked his coat aside from his legs in a gesture that it looked as if he'd been doing all his life, and placed his hands upon his hips.
"Are you sure you don't want some company? I could stay here, if..."
The Captain, uncharacteristically, trailed off with a certain air of awkwardness, though his stance and facial expression were the antithesis of that. Ianto actually felt a little sorry for rejecting him.
"I'd just... appreciate the quiet."
Ianto folded his arms, struck by the sudden urge to do something with his hands.
"Okay" Jack replied with a nod, sounding unconvinced by Ianto's reasoning. "Well... radio us if you need to."
"I will. Have fun."
"Yeah. You too."
With a last questioning frown, Jack was gone, his shoulder brushing Ianto's as he strode towards the stairwell. Ianto took a moment to ensure he was gone, watching him ascend and slip through the electronic door, before shrugging his jacket back off and settling at his desk. The first step was to write down everything that had happened surrounding meeting his mother in his notebook, but he found that for once, words failed him. His initial notes when arriving in 1973 were concise and as factual as possible, if littered with question marks, but how the hell was he supposed to express the fact that he had met his twenty-five year old mother this afternoon? Of the endless list of things that boggled the mind, it was number one – in bold, underlined, and highlighted.
In the end, it took an hour of step-by-step reflection to get it down on paper, and a further twenty minutes to pluck up the courage to type her name into Torchwood's database. Even as he did so, his throat tightened once more in response typing out her full title, and to the grainy photograph the search produced.
Caron Jones... born in 1948, daughter of Gladys and Ioan, wife of Roderick, residence on 9 Planet Street, Cardiff... the information was disappointingly scant, yet it confirmed her existence, here and now. That she had a life and a background and she was once a complete and functioning human being. It was all that Ianto had wished for her once he was old enough to understand her condition, but by then, of course, it was far too late.
Unfocussing his eyes – something that came easily, given his state of tiredness – Ianto returned his gaze to the single photograph and sighed, rolling his shoulders. That he would return as soon as possible to speak to her again was an irrefutable fact; what gave him pause, however, was the issue of having absolutely no clue what to say.
He awoke to footsteps, hard rubber on metal, the unmistakable echo of an underground location suggesting that he was still at the Hub. The fact that his eyes were closed and appeared unwilling to re-open confirmed the vague conclusion that he'd fallen asleep at his desk. Wonderful.
"Hard at it, huh?" a familiar, amused voice asked, a single strong hand landing upon his shoulder and squeezing. With a sudden twist in his gut, Ianto remembered his mother's profile upon the screen, and lifted his head to check it with such speed that it left his mind spinning. To his eternal relief, the screen was blank, and he remembered that the machines shut down by themselves after two hours without use. Which also meant that it was potentially two or three in the morning.
"I was" Ianto lied, running his hands vigorously over his face while Jack chuckled beside him, pulling up Toshiko's seat to sit close.
"Here, thought you might be hungry" Jack said softly, handing Ianto a newspaper-wrapped package from one of the many mysterious pockets inside his coat. The smell of something deep-fried caressed Ianto's nostrils, and he couldn't help but smile through his hazy headache.
"Thank you" he replied, offering Jack a tired nod.
"It's late" the Captain said, as if Ianto couldn't have guessed. "You shouldn't be here."
"Neither should you" Ianto countered, "you should be going home to a home at night, Jack, not to Torchwood."
Half expecting Jack to bristle with offence, Ianto was surprised when Jack huffed out a laugh.
"Yeah, I know" he replied, his voice quietening further. "Call it laziness."
"I call it obsessive dedication" Ianto corrected him, "I've been there. I wouldn't be surprised if the only thing holding me back from moving into my office was Lisa."
Ianto found himself almost choking on her name, still barely able to think it without being swallowed up by sorrow and guilt. Unnervingly, it was a gentler touch of Jack's hand on his shoulder which seemed to suck the worst of those emotions directly from the pit of his stomach, and Ianto turned to him, expecting a fresh insight into Jack Harkness and his well-hidden wisdom.
"Go home."
Ianto simply blinked at him, startled by the short-and-simple command.
"That was less poignant than expected" he stated, smiling again when Jack laughed.
"Yeah, well, I can't be brilliant and perceptive all the time" he replied, giving Ianto's shoulder a tiny shove. "Go. Eat chips. Sleep."
Ianto stood, slipping his arms back into his jacket and picking up his still-warm cargo. Jack was looking up at him with warmth, tempered by resignation. Ianto decided to try for one more favour.
"Could I have the morning off, Jack?"
"Of course" the Captain replied without hesitation, encouraging Ianto out with a little wave of his hand. "Just get out of here, or I might change my mind."
"Thanks" Ianto said, a weak surge of pre-emptive adrenaline beginning to flow at the potential of mid-morning tea on Planet Street.
"No problem. Be good."
Ianto responded with a lazy, amicably mocking salute and turned, summoning up the energy to make his way quickly out of the building and into the Cortina. He fully expected to be tossing and turning all night with half-plans and questions, but come morning... oh, it would be worth it to see her again.