29.04.2009 - 09:30
Ally sat down on the floor next to him and pressed a scalding hot cup of tea into his hands. It burned and his hands shook, but he hugged it to his chest anyway. "Thanks," he muttered. "I just need..."
"Take your time. Gordon has been diverted to the police station to get the lowdown from somewhere less... low down." She nudged his shoulder. "I've bought you an hour or two."
"You shouldn't have had to do that."
She reached over for his hand. "Ianto, you just lost someone you care about, got shot at, saw a psychopath try to destroy your city. You aren't an outsider in this, you're not a dispassionate observer like Stewart and Mace. This is your home. And your partner!" She trailed off and squeezed his hand. "Be careful. Be so careful. There's going to be a lot of demands on you, and nowhere more than from Jack. He needs you."
He sagged against the wall. "I don't know if I can do this again. I put him back together after the Master, but by the time it was over... it was like there was nothing left of me. He asked me to marry him and I... I couldn't do it. I knew that if I stayed with him, I'd only ever be part of Jack and Ianto. And now I can do things, I've made my own mark on the world. I don't know if I can give that up and go back to being a part of him."
"You won't," she promised. "You're so much more than just a part of his story. This time tomorrow, you'll be the man who brought Torchwood out of the shadows, the Director of Torchwood, world expert on extraterrestrial life. Kids will learn your name when they're growing up. But you will also be a husband. Not because he needs you, but because you want to be there for him. Tell me I'm wrong."
"I... I don't know if you are. I don't know that you're not, either." He stared into his mug. "I don't know anything right now."
She got to her feet and offered him her hand. "Come on. You always handle things better when you have work to do, so let's draft this script. I assume you have a basic version ready?"
It took him a while of staring at her hand for his thought processes to catch up, before he was able to take it and let her pull him to his feet. "Yeah, of course I do. I need to amend some of the details, work out what we're going to say about this..."
"You can do this." She looked down at his hand and frowned. "What did you do? Where's your ring?"
"Uh... I had a row with the filing cabinet and it won." He pulled his hand back. "I'm fine. Let's get on with this."
# # #
29.04.2009 - 10:00
"Ianto." Gordon strode forwards with his hand outstretched. "Thank God you're alright. I was so worried when you went racing off into the jaws of the shark." He squeezed Ianto's hand and looked past him, dropping his voice. "How is he? Has he said, yet, what happened to him?"
"He's..." He paused, lost for words to explain it. How do you even begin to understand what Jack was going through in that moment, or how hard it was for him to keep going from one minute to the next? "He's getting by," he said at last. "Not doing well or badly, really. Just doing."
Gordon nodded. "Sometimes that's all we can aspire to. I'm sorry for your loss. I hear that Tosh is the hero of the day, though."
He finally managed a smile. "As always. She got the power station at Turnmill back online in no time, stabilised and powering the rescue efforts. We sent her to bed a few hours ago. Owen is with her, just in case."
"And when did you last sleep?" He sighed at Ianto's grimace. "You can't go around looking after everyone else and neglect yourself."
"I'm fine. Jack and I went back home for a bit, fed Tybalt, got out heads down. We've both been on the go longer. We'll clock off tonight, once it's all..." He'd been about to say 'when it's all over', but this wasn't going to end any time soon. "When it's more under control," he said in the end. "Don't worry about us. There's coffee, that's more than enough for us to see this through."
"I understand. These situations are immensely trying. Believe me, I've been through enough myself. Not quite at the coal face like you are, of course, but floods, storms, the occasional terror attack. You're not alone in this, Ianto. Just look at what has been achieved." He reached out and squeezed Ianto's shoulder whilst his other hand gestured around the Hub, to the bustling activity of UNIT and Torchwood working together with the city's police. "You're a remarkable man, but you can't do this on your own, and you don't have to. People will, by and large, get on with helping each other."
He smiled back. "I know. You're right. I just want to help."
"You have helped and will help. But as soon as this press conference is over, I want you to go home and sleep. You'll be no good to anyone if you don't."
"Yes, sir!" He saluted and let his hand drop to his side. It still throbbed; not as badly as it had, but he hadn't been able to get his ring back on once it had swollen up. He'd tucked it into his pocket for safe keeping and kept having to find it to reassure himself it wasn't lost. He caught Gordon looking and figgled his fingers. "Lost a fight with a filing cabinet. Of course that would be my only injury of the whole affair. Anyway. You've seen my draft?"
"Yes, I have. Are you sure we're ready for this? It will be a lot for people to accept."
He rubbed at the back of his neck and looked over to where Jack was with Kathy Swanson, mapping out patrol routes and hotspots. Andy Davidson was around somewhere too, fielding panicked calls from PCSOs who'd never expected to have to deal with a terror attack on their home city. It was, in a way, all too familiar. "I don't think there will be much surprise," he admitted. "Anger that it's been kept a secret for so long, perhaps. But after the last few years, I doubt there's anyone who doesn't suspect."
"Well, I guess we will see." Gordon gave him another of his looks. "If it all goes tits up, you can sleep after you've fielded questions."
# # #
29.04.2009 - 11:30
The press corps had gathered in the foyer of the Senedd building, rows of uncomfortable black chairs filling the floor and filled with reporters. Their photographers crowded around the back of the room, checking lighting levels and jostling for the position that gave them the best view of the podium. Ianto swept his gaze across them with a practiced eye but there was nothing out of the ordinary, if a massive press pack of national and international journalists could be considered normal. He recognised some of them, top level field journalists who he'd seen reporting from warzones and crime scenes. Some of them were even wearing flak jackets and stab proof vests.
A couple of the local reporters, looking as exhausted as he felt, had claimed the front row seats and were looking as out of their depth as he felt. They were used to reporting on strange happenings, and not reporting on them in some cases, and knew enough to watch him warily. He'd made sure that they got a good position for this. For years they'd had to jump from covering car accidents and house fires to Weevil attacks and Rift disappearances they couldn't put details to. Now, at last, they'd get the full picture.
The clock was ticking down to showtime. Gordon's press officer had advised them on the best time to start., It would avoid the main news bulletins but get out in time for the papers, and of course the rolling news stations were already broadcasting live, their reporters speaking across each other at the back of the hall. The buzz was overwhelming, and reduced the vast hall to something claustrophobic. The back of Ianto's neck itched, and he rubbed at it as he slipped through the doors into the antechamber and approached Gordon again. "All set, sir."
"Then we should begin." He checked his tie one last time and smiled. "Time to step boldly into the future."
As soon as he entered the room, the clatter of camera flashes brought an expectant hush down on the gathered reporters. Those broadcasting live hurried to finish their reports, and those with recording devices leaned forwards to get the best recording they could. The more familiar faces from the South Wales Echo, Western Gazette and Penarth Times watched with the weary faces of people who had seen it all before, but clutched their pens tightly regardless. No one dared to call out, and by the time Gordon reached the podium the silence was deafening.
"Yesterday, Cardiff saw destruction on a scale our country has not seen in many years," Gordon intoned gravely, his eyes sweeping over the assembled press packs. There was an anticipatory hush around the room that was almost a vacuum, drawing words out. "We grieve with the community, and offer our unconditional support in the recovery over the difficult days to come. Cardiff is a resilient community, and the UK stands with you.
"However, the first step to recovery is open, honest and frank acceptance of what has happened here. I must therefore inform you that today's attack was carried out by visitors from beyond our world."
That got a reaction. A hum of surprise built to a roar, and camera flashes dazzled. Gordon gave the room his best 'disappointed headteacher' look until they settled down and he could continue.
"It is, we must accept, far from the first attack of this nature. It is, after all, only a few years since a spaceship crashed into Big Ben, and not long after that the attack on Canary Wharf. But the history of these attacks on our world goes back far further." He looked around the room once more to let that sink in. "For most of that time, we have been protected by a silent army, whose work has gone unacknowledged and unrewarded for too long. Today it is my great honour to recognise their work - today, Cardiff's recovery has been led by the combined forces of Torchwood and UNIT, without whose fast responses and vast experience our losses could have been significantly worse. And I must acknowledge the huge contribution that has been made to our defence by aliens. For just as our own race is capable of both great cruelty and great beauty, so is every race across the universe and throughout time.
"So here today, we mark a new beginning. Our age of isolation is at an end, and it is in our grief that we start a new age and take our place on the interstellar stage."
The roar was back. It rippled around the room, journalists leaping to their feet with a million questions. Ianto's head span as the reality started to sink in. The ball he had set at the top of its path and nudged on its way was now careening around the world, unstoppable no matter how destructive it proved to be. He really quite wanted to run down to the Archives and never emerge, but that would have to wait for another day.