Torchwood: Divergence
Book One: Dychwelyd
Chapter 19
The team settled to the business of lunch, hoping for a span of quite after the morning they'd had. But Jack was a bit preoccupied by the heat he could feel radiating from his partner even though there was a good two feet between them. Add that the young Welshman wasn't showing much of an appetite as the meal began, and the worry won out over the earlier reassurances.
"Turlough," Lois called tentatively as she passed the bottle of malt vinegar to the redhead across the table. "Can I ask you a personal question?"
"I never guarantee answers," the young man replied with a slight smile. "But you can ask all you like."
"I was just wondering," Habiba continued hesitantly. "Is Turlough your first name or your last name?"
"Where I come from, we only have one name," he explained with a shrug. "If you're military you also have a rank, if you're royalty you have a title. I happen to have both, but they don't make much sense to anyone who isn't a native of my home-world. I've used my title as a first name a few places because I'm used to answering to it, but it's a bit odd for Earth."
"Doesn't anyone here ever want to know why you only give one name?" Gwen put in curiously.
"I sometimes give a second name just to keep the nosier types at bay," the sharp featured twenty-nine-year-old admitted. "My old Headmaster was sure I was Irish and drove himself mad trying to find Turlough among the ancient clan listings."
"Junior Ensign-Commander Vislor Turlough VTEC9/12/44," Ianto stated unexpectedly, drawing a startled look from the named redhead. "Vislor, or Prince, of Trion's deposed royal family. Branded and exiled to Earth through a Temporal vortex to the year 1980 at the age of sixteen. Attended several boys' boarding academies across England and Scotland, under the name Byron Turlough for a year before disappearing with a certain blue call-box. Returned to Earth in 2001 at the age of nineteen under mysterious circumstances. Believed to be in possession of Gallifreian based Time and Space technology, no confirmation available. Has acted as occasional consultant for UNIT for the past six years. Other employment unknown."
"How…?" Cooper began, staring from one of the young men to the other. "That's not in his UNIT profile or anything else I checked."
"While Jack was showering this morning, I did a little poking about waiting for that Archive search to cycle," Ianto replied in a matter-of-fact tone. "I checked the files Torchwood has on the Doctor, since you'd mentioned Turlough travelled with him for a while, and found a linked folder with information about a whole string of 'Companions'. One of which was the lady we spoke to on the sub-wave during the open warfare Dalek invasion when they stole the Earth for their Crucible thing… Sarah Jane Smith."
Turlough met Jack's gaze across the table, bowed his head with a slight smile.
"First time in ten years that anyone on any planet has been able to find information on me that I didn't give myself," he informed the team. "I'm quite impressed, Mr. Jones."
"Just Ianto, please," the young Welshman insisted solemnly. "'Mr. Jones' was my father."
"Speaking of your Tad," Gwen said suddenly. "When Rhys and Andy and me went to your sister's house after what happened at Thames House, she said you'd been lying to us about your father. That he worked at a department store."
"Gwen," Harkness called warningly, seeing his partner wince and reach for his water with a hard, convulsive swallow. "Not exactly lunch time conversation material."
"It's fine," Ianto stated quietly after taking a long drink of water. "My Taid, Gethin Jones, was the Tailor, had a shop in Bettws that was sold on when he died to meet the cost of his funeral. My father apprenticed in the trade from the time he was twelve though, had the talent to be a Master Tailor as well. He couldn't afford his own shop straight off, and the man who trained him after Taid passed away offered him a partnership. Was brilliant for about a year, but then Mr. Krause died in a motorway accident and his family sold the shop out from under my dad. The loss tore him up, but he pressed on, hoping he could open his own someday. He made a good living managing the men's department at Debenhams, had worked there part time since he was eighteen while training with his mentor. One of the better houses on the Estate, couple of vacations abroad when I was young, did his best to give Rhi and me everything no matter how tight the budget. It was definitely a lot harder for the family after I was born. Our mother had undiagnosed post-partum depression; made his life a living hell sometimes and he drank a lot more than he should because of it. After the economy guttered in the late `90s, they had to struggle to put me through university, even with my working odd jobs to help. I only made it through two full years before we just couldn't afford it. I managed a rushed Bachelor in History and Library Sciences mostly online, Honours in enough courses to get me the job with Torchwood-London later, but that was all out of my own pocket.
"My father tried to be a good dad, didn't always succeed... especially in the later years, when he'd get drunk and stay that way for days. I caught a lot of the fallout from the fights between him and Mom, partly because Rhi got out as soon as possible being almost six years older and all. There was a lot of 'you could have done better' thrown Dad's way toward the end, countered by 'you wanted to have kids'... probably part of what made him die of a coronary in 2002 just after I turned nineteen. When he was gone, Mom became a nagging worry-wart who spent periods of time sectioned at Providence Park for her depression, Rhi was already married with a baby, I made sure to finish school as best I could and moved around a lot till I got hired in London. But if things hadn't been so tight when they started their lives together, my father would've had his own shop easily, so it wasn't a total lie."
"I'm sorry," Gwen murmured contritely, toying with one of the chips on her plate. "I was just wondering. Your sister seemed so angry that you told us he was a Master Tailor, intimated that things were bad a lot with your dad and mom."
"My father broke my left leg in two places when I was five," Ianto confessed tightly. "Pushed me too hard on the swings at the park. He was preoccupied a lot over the problems with Mom, didn't always pay attention. Beat the crap out of me when I was fifteen over being convicted of shoplifting and getting grilled by the constables when I told them the charges were bollocks. Not one of his finest moments. But he tried his best when he could focus. He was sad and hen-pecked at home, worked too hard at the store to take his mind off it, and pushed me even harder trying to make me 'better' when he wasn't actually pushing me around during a drunk. I always wished he could have had his shop, so I just told people he did when I got out on my own. I hoped it would take the edge off the harder times we went through."
"Did it work?" Lois queried uncertainly.
"Sometimes," the young Welshman across the table breathed, right hand going to his injured side as he pushed his chair back. "Excuse me."
He left the Boardroom, Jack rising to follow as the door hissed shut.
"I'll go," Gwen volunteered, starting to get up as well. "I upset him; I'll make it right."
Harkness hesitated, then nodded and resumed his seat.
"Call if he needs me," he advised, his tone and gaze indicating that he expected absolute obedience to the injunction.
Cooper hurried out of the room with a nod, trying to figure out where her friend had gone. Rather than hunt the entire Hub over, she jogged to her workstation and had the system do a biometric search for the young Archivist. It took a few minutes to sweep the base's labyrinthine sprawl, then displayed the results... which showed his position as stationary, four floors below the Vaults, outside the storeroom he'd once hidden his Cyberman altered girlfriend in. The former PC headed that way, feeling incredibly guilty for upsetting the injured Changeling, honestly not having thought her original comment would elicit the response it did. She took the stairs down and cut through one of the cell blocks, coming out along the dimly lit, perpetually damp corridor her companion was in. He was sitting on the floor outside the storeroom, hunched up in a knees-to-chest position with both arms around his legs and his head back against the clammy wall, staring at nothing. Gwen came to sit beside him, tentatively rested one hand on his shoulder.
"I didn't mean to stir up bad feelings, sweetheart," she murmured, hoping he'd look at her. "I'm sorry if I got you upset and made your side hurt. I shouldn't've brought it up like that, but what you told Turlough reminded me of what your sister said. I didn't know things at home were so rough for you. Honestly, the way you all talked, it seemed Owen was the only one who had issues with his parents. You've always been so proper and well mannered, raised right... it just never occurred to me that you didn't have the perfect family life growing up."
"They did do a good job on that..." Ianto whispered, still staring blankly at the far wall of the corridor. "And I suppose the bickering and breakable object throwing had a hand in it as well. It made me never want to be like them... sad, bitter, angry, cold, defeated. I decided that whatever was important to me I was going to fight for and protect it, not give up on it. And I wouldn't blame others if I made mistakes or failed at anything. I'd accept the consequences of my actions and just try harder to make things right. I even went to my mother's funeral in mid-2008; the quick solo trip I took that I said was for Jack. It's not that I didn't love her, she was my mom... but for every good visit or phone conversation we'd had since dad had died, there were a dozen when she'd hounded me about settling down to give her grandchildren or told me my dad had been right and I was worthless, just wasting my life and squandering the 'good education' they'd paid for. So, I really didn't want to attend the services and have our two remaining aunts and crazy cat lady cousin have a go at me for it as well, but I did because it was the right thing and Rhiannon needed me there."
There was silence between them for several minutes, then the young Welshman spoke again, his voice nearly inaudible.
"The ugly things that happened with my parents still hurt sometimes," he breathed shakily. "What hurts worse, is that I don't actually have a family anymore. I died trying to protect them when we faced the 456, and I can never be a part of their lives again. I don't think there's any way to explain things that Rhi and the kids could accept, and it's honestly safer if it stays that way. She'd question whatever she was told; keep pushing for answers, pushing me away. It hurts to think about that right now... probably always will. More at the moment, because I don't believe I've fully settled from having all my memories of Hell stuffed back in my head and everything sets me off."
"I know you can't be with your sister and her kids anymore," Cooper tried to comfort the twenty-six-year-old. "But you do have family, Ianto. You've got Torchwood, me, Rhys, Ebrill, and most importantly you've got Jack. He's in an even worse place than you are with family. He was forced to sacrifice his own grandson to stop the 456; his daughter disowned him after then committed suicide and left a note that said 'You know why'. So, all he truly has now is his team and you. But the two of you are the only family either of you really need, because you'll both be together when everyone else is dust and distant memories."
She realised then that the young brunette beside her was crying, his blue eyes burning with misery and pain. The raven-haired woman wasn't sure if she'd just made matters worse, but she definitely felt that now was a good time to call for back up. A quick tap activated the headset she still wore, and she quietly asked their leader to join them in the corridors past the level four Vaults.
Jack arrived so quickly that she was sure he must have already been on his way when she contacted him. The Captain came to take her place at his partner's side, got the younger man to shift so he could put his good arm around him. Ianto went beyond that, moving from his knees to chest position to curl up on the cold stone floor with his head in Harkness' lap, right hand pressed to his injured side, left arm up where he could hold onto the man's belt and hide his face.
"I'm here, Ianto," Jack reassured, slowly stroking the young Welshman's hair even as he looked questioningly at their friend nearby.
"Family," Gwen stated simply, making a gesture to indicate that they needed to talk privately later. "I'll go wrap up your plates for later. We'll let you know if the Rift spouts off again. Oh, there's a cot by the firing range now if you need it."
Then she headed off down the hall, glancing back to see Harkness quietly comforting his distraught lover with gentle caresses and soft words she couldn't hear. Cooper sighed and continued on toward the main Hub, her heart aching for them both.
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AN: So not as peaceful a break as hoped for, but such things are bound to come to light now…
Early posting this week. I get my Covid-19 Booster on Saturday morning, and don't want to miss posting if I'm sleeping it off.
Thank you to those reading the story. And thank you to those who have followed, favourited, and reviewed. NM
