Gypsies of the Rift - Chapter Four

Author: Milady Dragon

Disclaimer: I don't own it, it's not mine

Author's note: Next chapter up! Thanks to everyone again, you guys are amazing. Hope you like it!


19 December 2007

It was late afternoon before Ianto got their three visitors bundled into his car and off to do their shopping.

He decided to take them to the nearest Tesco's; it would have the best selection, and it was closest to the Hub. Emma seemed excited about going; Diane did too, after her talk with Jack about her pilots' license. Ianto knew what it was like not to be free, and if he was any judge at all then he could safely say that, with a single bit of paper, they'd managed to ease Diane's integration that little bit more.

John Ellis, though, didn't act like he really wanted to go. The man was giving them nothing but problems; it was as if he'd decided he wasn't even going to try to adapt to his new circumstances, and was digging his heels in to keep things from going smoothly.

It was like the identification. Both ladies had accepted their new names – even if Diane thought Sally-Anne was a bit girly – but Ellis was determined to keep his own. Ianto didn't see what the big deal was; he'd changed his name so many times over the centuries, he'd realized very early on that names weren't who a person was. It was what was on the inside; the personality, the intelligence, the heart of a being that determined just who they truly were. Names were simply an identifier, nothing more. Ianto could have easily taken another back when it had come time to change once more, and he would still have been the same person he was now.

No, Ianto thought it was just the man wanting to argue about something else. The dragon really wanted to cut him a bit of slack, but if John wasn't going to help himself there really wasn't anything anyone could do for him.

The dragon parked his vehicle and they all got out. He ushered them forward; Diane approached the door first, and it slid open as she got closer.

She stopped, gasping. "How did it do that?"

"It's automatic," Ianto answered, and he couldn't help but grin at her surprise. "It knows you're there."

"But how?" The door began to close, and she stepped forward again. It halted its slide and whooshed back open once more.

"There are detectors," Ianto explained, "that emit radio waves, and when something reflects – "

"Bananas!" Diane interrupted in an almost-squeal, moving past the once- fascinating door and into the market proper.

It was funny that someone could be that excited about a yellow fruit. "Of course," he said dryly, letting the others in before him, "bananas are far more interesting."

Emma headed down the closest aisle, just staring at the items on the shelves. Diane stood in front of the display of bananas, and she lifted a bunch almost reverently, as if she was touching something divine.

"Look at all this!" John gasped. Ianto turned to look at him; for perhaps the first time since arriving in 2007, the man actually looked excited about something. "We'd just come off rationing in '53."

Ianto knew about rationing; even though Ddraig Llyn had been fairly self-sufficient, there'd still been things that they'd needed, and the dragon could remember never getting enough of certain items. He could certainly understand why this was such a surprise to all three. "Yes," he said, "humanity is a consumer society."

"It's bloody fantastic," John said in awe.

After the initial shock was over, the three Rift victims went wild.

Ianto found it almost too hard to keep up.

He found himself following Emma around. The young woman seemed absolutely captivated by the sheer number of types of candy there was. "How much food money do I have left?"

Ianto wanted to tell her she should be keeping track herself, but he was absolutely charmed by her child-like wonder…and over candy, of all things. "Fifteen pounds forty."

Emma promptly stepped up to the shelf, and began grabbing all sorts of candy, putting it all in her basket. Ianto wanted to laugh, but managed to keep it down to a broad smile.

She stopped, and looked at him expectantly. "Twelve pounds ten," he reported. "You know, you're going to ruin your teeth."

Emma rolled her eyes. "You sound like my Mum."

The young woman continued down the aisle, leaving Ianto standing there, wondering why people seemed to insist he was the mother.

Why couldn't Jack be the mother?

He caught up with her, as she made for where Diane was standing in Electronics, a DVD box in her hand. "They sell films in boxes and you can watch them at home!" she told Emma, grinning.

Emma was just as excited. "I love going to the pictures!" she enthused.

They start perusing the shelves together, chattering about movies they recognized, curious about the ones they didn't, and Ianto decided to leave them to it and try to find John.

He found the man standing next to a magazine rack, looking positively horrified.

When Ianto saw what he was holding, it was all he could do not to laugh at the man's distress, telling himself that back in the 50's cover models wore considerably more than the one on the magazine John was clutching.

"Good God," John breathed, his eyes wide as Ianto approached.

"Welcome to the wonderful world of scantily-dressed celebrities," Ianto deadpanned. Personally, he didn't quite understand it himself, but then the human form wasn't something the dragon was particularly interested in.

Jack's form, on the other hand…

No, he couldn't go there, not in the middle of Tesco's.

"There's children around," John said forbiddingly.

Ianto nodded. "I believe she's a children's TV presenter." He seemed to remember seeing her on telly one time, but wasn't all that sure of his facts.

John blanched, and he put the magazine back on the rack using two fingers, as if the thing would give him cooties or something equally vile.


Check-out was almost a let-down, after the manic behavior his charges had displayed while shopping.

John went first, and he even bagged his own, seemingly surprised that a woman was going to do it for him. The plastic bags frustrated him for a couple of seconds, until he worked out how to separate them. Emma was next, sidling up next to Ianto and depositing her finds on the belt.

Ianto noticed the DVD within all the candy she'd picked up. "So you like musicals?" he asked, genuinely interested. Dragons were, of course, musical creatures, and anyone who enjoyed a good song ranked pretty highly in his book.

She nodded enthusiastically. "My best friend Kate and I saw Calamity Jane five times," she answered. "I've got the LP."

Ianto returned her smile. He personally had seen the film, but then Jack teased him about his musicals collection. He made a mental note to see if he could find tickets to a local production for her.

Diane walked up to them, and she looked confused. She held a pack of cigarettes, as if she'd never seen one before.

"Is something wrong?" he asked, stepping past Emma to stand next to her.

She held up the pack. On it, in large words, was written 'Smoking Kills'. "What does that mean?" she asked.

Ianto explained.


"I want to be let out at the stadium," John spoke up from the back seat, as Ianto drove back to the Hub. He'd stopped for a traffic light, and glanced up into the rearview at the man.

"I don't think that's a good idea," the dragon murmured. "It's late, and you don't know your way around well enough – "

"It's my decision," the man said angrily.

The atmosphere in the car changed dramatically. Suddenly Diane and Emma both looked uncomfortable, and Ianto felt irritation.

Ianto slid his fingers over the child-lock mechanism that his car had come with; it had come in handy a couple of times, mostly while taking an inebriated Owen Harper home. No use taking chances, and Jack would have his hide if anything happened to any of them

"We're not that far from the Hub," Ianto tried to reason. "If you want to come back then, I can make sure you have bus timetables and maps, so you don't get lost."

"I'm perfectly capable of asking for directions," John answered hotly.

"I didn't say you weren't," Ianto said calmly. "I'm simply saying we can make sure you're prepared for your first solo foray into Cardiff."

John must have gone for the door handle; it wouldn't open, of course. "Am I a prisoner?" he snarled.

"No," Ianto said. "However I believe you're behaving irrationally. We're almost to the Hub now, and when we get back Jack will let you know if it's fine to let you explore on your own." The light turned green, and Ianto pulled the car forward.

"You're not my minders," John snapped. "I'm an adult, and I don't have to take orders from two men younger than I am."

The dragon wanted to chuckle. "Mr. Ellis, Jack and I are both much older than we appear. Now, since I was asked to take you to the market and then take you back to the Hub, with no stops in between. Certainly you wouldn't want me to get in trouble with my boss, would you?"

That seemed to shut the man up, and Ianto was grateful. He didn't know what the reason was for John wanting to get out of the car, but he wasn't about to let him out into a Cardiff that he wasn't familiar with. Anything could happen, and Ianto was responsible for their well-being.

Still, he thought it was past time he and Jack sat John Ellis down and talked to him.

They arrived back to the Hub with no more drama, for which Ianto was grateful. He ushered them all back through the garage, the ladies discussing everything they'd seen, while John Ellis looked very sullen. He stifled a sigh, heading up to Jack's office while Emma went to share with Toshiko and Gwen what she'd purchased. Owen cut Diane off from the rest of them, saying something to her that had her nodding her head. He wondered what that was all about; then dismissed it as best he could, remembering his and Jack's conversation from before.

Jack looked up from his computer as Ianto entered. "How did it go?"

The dragon took the chair opposite the desk; Jack raised an eyebrow at that, and Ianto smirked at surprising him by not taking his usual position leaning against the desk, within the immortal's reaching distance.

He proceeded to tell Jack what had happened at the store, then John's demands on the way back in. Jack leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled in front of him. His eyes were narrowed. "Sounds like we need to have a talk with John," he said, once Ianto was done.

Ianto nodded. "It's as if he doesn't even want to try to fit in. I don't know what we're going to do if doesn't at least meet us halfway."

"I really don't want to have to resort to Flat Holm," Jack sighed.

Even though Flat Holm was a triumph against old-school Torchwood, Ianto knew Jack didn't see it that way; he knew it was necessary, but it disturbed him to even have to have something like it. Ianto felt the same, and he felt just as badly for the Rift victims they had to send out there as much as Jack hated it. They both completely helpless in the face of the capricious power of the Rift.

John Ellis didn't fit into the damaged beyond repair victimology that were the souls they sent out to Flat Holm. He could take care of himself; he wasn't physically or mentally scarred, and could very easily fit in to today's society…if he only tried.

"I think we should talk to him," Ianto said. "Find out what the exact problem is. Perhaps we can help him if we knew what was going on…"

"I agree. In fact, it might be past time." Jack got up, heading toward the office door. Ianto stood, as his lover shouted out into the Hub proper if anyone had seen John Ellis.

"He was right here…" Ianto heard Toshiko answer.

The dragon cursed, as he followed Jack down to the tech's workstation. Gwen and Emma moved away as the pair arrived. "See if you can find him," Jack ordered.

Toshiko's fingers flew across the keyboard, and she frowned. "He's not in the Hub," she answered.

It was Jack's turn to curse. "He couldn't have gone through the cog door, we'd have heard it." The invisible lift wasn't mentioned, since none of the Rift refugees had known about it.

"He must have used the garage entrance," Ianto growled. There were alarms on that door; why hadn't they gone off when the man left?

"Looks like Ianto's right," Toshiko reported.

"But the alarm should have alerted us to Ellis' leaving?" Jack asked, echoing Ianto's thoughts. "And wasn't the door locked?"

"No," she said. "Those alarms only sound if someone comes in; not if someone leaves. I'm surprised you didn't know that."

"I didn't know it either," Ianto said angrily. How had he not known? "And I'm afraid I didn't lock it; I had my hands full of shopping and didn't expect the man to run off on us!"

"Okay," Jack snapped. "Toshiko, find him. I want to know what that man's up to." He strode toward his office. "And get an alarm on that door!" he shouted.

Ianto shrugged his coat back on. He was going with Jack; he felt responsible for what had happened, and wanted to get John Ellis back as soon as possible.