TITLE: To Separate The Lies From Truth
PART THREE OF SERIES: The Five Elements (AU Verse)
CHAPTER SUMMARY: Er…spoilers. Sorry
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Torchwood or Doctor Who which is unlucky because Jack and Ianto deserve so much more!
WORDS: 3900
Notes: Ok…here it is, the next chapter! Not much I can really say here that won't spoil it so…have fun!
Chapter 26: Frozen Lives (2008)
20th January 1941
Ianto stopped alongside everything else a few paces behind Jack, only for him it was from shock and confusion, as he spun around on the spot. From the shadows he'd seen in every nook and cranny of the hallway, the Fae appeared and hovered all around him, moving so fast between the frozen forms of Jack and the other few party guests, that all he could see was the white sparks of light and hear the light breeze of wings echoing around him in his ears.
He focused on one as it darted down to land on the marble floor before him, transforming before him into their second form as it settled, the large dragonfly wings of the green creature creating gusts twice as powerful.
"You are far from your time, Little one." The Fae greeted him; he was most likely the leader of the group. "You should pay more attention to what's around you. The Rift is a puzzle to even us and a danger to all. We can search for you through time but not space."
Ianto frowned at the title of little one, he was almost the same height as the Fae in front of him, and considerably taller than the Fae's other form, but didn't comment. It was at least preferable over being called a 'human child' which he what they named him throughout his childhood.
Despite all that he'd now learnt and remembered about the Fae, he knew better to trust them explicitly. They couldn't hurt him, or any innocents, but they were master of trickery and word play, and still had a grudge against Jack that he doubted would ever be absolved – at least not anytime soon.
"It wasn't our intention to be here, the rift didn't warn us of it opening." Ianto objected, his powers and bond both unsettled within him from the still air around him. No matter how much he'd practiced over the years, he still felt unease at not have complete control over his gifts. "And speaking of that, maybe could you give me some warning next time you intend to freeze time around me."
"To freeze time is a feat unmastered even to us, little one." The creature growled in return. "To slow and manipulate it's speed is another matter entirely to us Fae."
Now the Fae mentioned it, Ianto looked closer around him. It was almost impossible to see even the slightest of movements, but every so often he noted a shift in the air around him.
"Time? Is that the fifth element?" Since learning that there was a fifth spirit element that he could use, he'd researched many sources, but as usual there was a clear lack of uncertainty what it meant. Though not as widely believed as others, time had been one of the theories.
"The full power of the fifth element, is not revealed to even the greatest Chosen One or Fae until said time they require it." The Fae leader hissed in reply, as abstrusely as Ianto had expectedly. "Now, it is time to return to your usual setting or a great danger would be afoot in your present."
"What danger?" Ianto returned hurriedly, thinking of Tosh, Owen, and Gwen back – or rather forward – in 2008. They'd probably have noticed him and Jack missing by now and called Tosh back to Hub, but down two teammates and distracted trying to find them, they wouldn't be at full strength if something happened. They needed to get back, now. "Jack should hear this too."
"If you want the Undying One in these talks then you must include him yourself." The leader contended, rather disdainfully. "We'll not waste our gifts on such trivial matters."
"It's not trivial! He has done nothing to you, yet you blame him for the acts of others." Ianto argued. "He let you have your last Chosen One unhindered, the least you can do is unfreeze him, or tell me how to do so myself."
The Fae's wings ruffled angrily but answered. "While a few acts require more focus than other, our powers thrive the same way, no matter the feat we aim to achieve. Still our gifts allow only ourselves or other Fae around us to perceive time differently." It snapped, and Ianto felt the beginnings of disappointment but they were soon unfounded. "Yet, the power of touch is oft underestimated in its ability to conduct and enhance such power."
Ianto internally prayed it'd stop talking so old-fashionably and mysteriously, but these were the Fae, creatures of Earth that had been around since almost the planet's birth, and doubted they'd ever will.
His eye's widened, however as he figured what the Fae had meant, and quickly took two steps behind them to grasp Jack's nearest hand in his and the air shifted around him as their bond strengthened once more.
~ * o ~ * o ~ T ~ o * ~ o * ~
7thJanuary 2008
"So, we just open the Rift and bring them back. Easy."
"Jack would never allow it." Tosh's voice was tinny over the speakers in the Hub. Seeing she'd been driving, it's taken three tries to get Tosh to answer her phone, but the device was now on loudspeaker as she hurtled back in the opposite direction soon as she'd heard Jack and Ianto were trapped in 1941. "Opening the Rift, without the proper equations and instructions could devastate the city and I've only finished half the equation from the current patterns."
"Okay, then finish it as soon as you get here. "Owen protested. "Meanwhile, we'll find the instructions."
"It's not going to just be in the archives, Owen." Gwen chimed in from beside him. "It's probably in the secure archives in Jack's office."
"Okay, then…"
"Which only he and Ianto know the passcode for." Tosh finished, cutting Owen off who immediately cursed angrily.
"Shit!"
"There are no more photographs of Jack and Ianto after that night." Gwen added, ignoring him. "That's encouraging."
"Yeah, unless the bombs got 'em." Owen noticed Gwen turn to look at him, and combined with the silence on the phone he objected. "Come on, you can't tell me not to be pessimistic here. They're stuck in the middle of the Cardiff Blitz."
"What source did the images come from?" Tosh asked. "Is it a personal collection, or private?"
Owen didn't quite understand the request but responded anyway. "The manager, Bilis Manger, kept them for posterity."
"Bilis Manger?" Gwen froze at the name, looking directly at Owen. "That's the name of the caretaker who let me in."
"Can't be the same guy, can it?" Owen was already returning to the array of photographs as he spoke, flicking back through to find the right one.
"Not old enough. Although he does look a bit out of his time he…" She slowed mid-sentence as the photograph depicted the exact man she'd met less than an hour before, wearing the exact same clothes. "…wore a cravat."
"What? What is it?" They'd forgotten Tosh couldn't see the screen over the phone.
"He's in the photo with Jack and Ianto." Owen confirmed, then stabbed the desk his finger angrily. "He's the answer. He's come through the Rift."
"All the reports of the haunted dance hall were anonymous. What if it was him? It was a trap, but what for?"
"We need to get them back. Tosh gets back here ASAP so you can finish that equation." Owen ordered, waiting for the affirmative response before dropping the line and moving to Jack's office. "We can figure out how to open the safe."
"You can't open it, Owen." Gwen returned, watching him riffle through the draws from the door, not moving either to stop or help him. In fact, her words, didn't sound like a protest, but instead a simple matter of fact. "It's called the secure archives for a reason. There's stuff in there we don't know about and that's the way Jack likes it."
"I'm not going to play with his toys, Gwen, plus if he gave teaboy the code, why shouldn't we know? Aha!" Owen pulled out Jack's notebook from the bottom draw of his desk and opened it at a marker. "Rhea Silva, the god of war's missis, and a nine-digit number. Not so clever, Jack."
Jumping over the desk to the secure archives, Owen attempted to open the safe but it beeped rejectingly. "Oh."
"Not so clever after all, Owen?" Gwen teased with a smirk. "I'm pretty sure that's his computer password. I've seen him use it."
"Shit!" Owen repeated.
~ * o ~ * o ~ T ~ o * ~ o * ~
20th January 1941
The last thing Jack remembered, Ianto had been trailing paces behind him as they left Bilis' Office, but less than second later, he appeared right beside him. There was a tingle of magic in the air, but from what he remembered Ianto's abilities did not include teleporting. However, the second thing he noticed as he turned around – or was it the third, his brain felt sort of slow – was that nobody else was moving and the hallway was filled with light.
No, not light. The Fae.
Their forms were small and white, familiar to how they were portrayed in almost every children's book, but one single one stood out among the others, its colour hideous green, with long awkward legs and sharp claws. It crouched and glared up at him as he came to stand in front of it. "Ianto?"
"Don't let go or you'll be frozen again." Ianto responded, drawing his attention to the hand clasped tightly around his, but his words only half explained the situation.
Jack nodded in answer, staring warily between the scowling form in front of him and the several frozen party guests around him. His alarm at the Fae might have changed since Ianto's reveal, but it hadn't vanished completely. "Mind telling me what's going on?"
"You say that like I know the answer." Ianto deadpanned. "They just showed up and froze everyone but me. Think they could sense I was out of time, and that we need to get back."
"You have gifts mastered but unused, Little One, for you fear their such outcomes." The Fae foretold pointedly ignoring Jack. "You must learn to trust all elements at your command, for far greater challenges lie ahead once you return."
"What challenges?"
"What do you know?"
Jack and Ianto both spoke simultaneously, but the Fae gave no reaction to either of them, as it still chose to address Ianto
"Fae can only witness one future of many, but it is our ancient law not to share the knowledge we bear witness to as we move through time." The leader replied. "To know one possible path is a curse upon oneself, for the future is not set in stone."
"Can you take us back or not?" Jack asked, quickly becoming as annoyed as Ianto with the vague answers. The dangers the Fae referred to, kept him thinking of his worries on using the rift to return. If they offered another way, then it needed to be taken.
"None but us travel by our means." The Fae answered, indifferently but at least it made the Fae turn towards him at last.
"What does that mean?" Ianto returned, his tone saddled with an unusual edge to it.
"It means what I said. The Undying One shall stay here."
"No! We both go, or not all." Ianto opposed, and Jack could sense his lover's anger rising. It was rare for Ianto to get angry enough to shout; Jack could probably count the occasions on one hand. Ianto got annoyed yes, but not angry. "We'll find another way back that doesn't involve your pointless grudges."
The Fae reared back up to its towering height, similarly riled, and Jack stepped forward. He didn't put it past the Fae to simply leave them both here, if Ianto continued to fight their choices.
"They're right, you should go." Jack spoke up, his decision made. "I'll survive until the present, but you won't. And if this way avoids the others trying to navigate opening the rift then we have to take it."
"No. I'm not leaving you here. Living through it once killed you too many times. You shouldn't go through it again." Ianto protested turning to him. "What if you accidently change things? Last time I did you collapsed. You can't avoid your past self for 70 years!"
Jack recognised the reference to when Ianto met his own past self in 2005 - the paradox it caused and the effect that had on his body, but this was the best option they had. Opening the rift was even more risky. If it came to it he'd move to some hidden island across the world, until the time came to return to the Hub.
"We've got no choice." He nodded to the Fae leader once, then turned to Ianto. "I'll see you the other side. You won't even notice I was gone."
Jack took a step back, his hand slipping from Ianto's before the latter got the change to retighten his grip. He was fully prepared to refreeze and then later comeback to himself to find the Ianto gone, but instead the entire hallway unfroze as the Fae leapt back into the air and vanished.
A weightless whirlwind of air began to spin around Ianto, as if a storm had morphed from nothing with him at the centre. The wind seemed to get closer and seemed to swirl even faster as Ianto started to lift upwards, not too dissimilarly from that time in Estelle's garden. Only this time, he knew he would not be hurt.
Murmurs and frightened whispers came from the crowd that started the gather around them in the corridor, and Jack knew they'd need a huge cover up from this. Torchwood would most likely arrive if they heard, and for a moment Jack was grateful his own past self was most likely abroad right now.
A spark of an idea formed at the thought of Torchwood, and it's cryogenic chambers that promised that maybe he didn't have to wait 67 years to see his lover once more.
He turned a smiled reassuringly and warmly at Ianto, hoping his mind could share his new respite with the other before their bond severed with the distance of time, but instead Jack saw only a determined and defying look on Ianto's face as he began to vanish from view, before familiar hand grabbed his from nowhere.
He felt a vicious tug forward and a loud hissing screech of protest resonated through his mind as he felt something rip through him and everything faded to black.
~ * o ~ * o ~ T ~ o * ~ o * ~
7thJanuary 2008
"No sign of Bilis leaving the area, he must be still in the building." Gwen mused, flicking through the CCTV as Owen passed by wearing his leather jacket. She looked up, confused. "Wait where are you going?"
"The dancehall." Owen answered curtly. "Bilis must know how the Rift works to use it, so we need to talk to him."
"I agree but we should at least wait until Tosh comes back to…"
"I'm here." Tosh interjected, hurrying through the garage door, dressed smartly as she immediately shredded her jacket and bag and sat at her workstation. "You go, I'll start on the equations."
Owen nodded, him and Gwen hurrying from the Hub. His own car pulled up, not long after, alongside the abandoned SUV, glad there were multiple sets of keys to the high-end vehicle as they both unlocked and unloaded some equipment from the boot, before entering the run-down building, searching the place methodically.
"Nothing. The whole place's deserted." Owen lowered and holstered his weapon as the finished searching the building, ending up in Bilis' Office. "I'll set up some detectors to let us know when he's back."
"I'll stay here." Gwen returned, also lowering her gun. "Maybe there's a clue in here."
Setting up the devices didn't take long, and soon Owen attached the last he had in place on the front entrance. "Tosh? They're all in place. You receiving?"
"All online."
"Gwen, I'll meet you by the car." There was no response on the line and Owen sighed, making his way down the corridor.
"Gwen! What are you doing?" Owen asked again. He wrapped his head around the office door to find Bilis' office a mess, an old previously hidden safe, open but empty, while Gwen riffled through the mechanism of Bilis timepieces. "Come on, I've finished, let's go."
"Hang on, I think I've found something." Gwen reached inside the clock chiming the half hour, pulling out a scroll of paper. "It's blueprints for the Rift machine. There's instructions in here, and a metal cog, like some sort of key."
"Gwen, no. It's a trap." Tosh's warned over the comm. "Bilis wanted you to find it. Think about it Gwen. Why suck out teammates back through time, only to leave instructions on how to get them back in plain view."
"They're probably faked. Where would he have got it from?" Owen snatched the plans from Gwen as he spoke. "He wants us to open the Rift. You heard Tosh, one wrong move and it'll create chaos and destruction."
"But why? What motive would he have to cause destruction? What would he get out of it?"
"I have no bloody idea, but then that is why we want to speak to him." Owen snarked. "Now, we're leaving and waiting outside for him."
Owen stalked off, taking the faked plans with him, leaving Gwen no choice but to follow. They reached the car, his own only slightly more discreet that the SUV.
"Owen, wait!"
Owen rolled his eyes. "Oh, what now?"
"Hey! What's with the …"
"Guy's enough. We all want them back, but arguing is not helping!" They paused with their hands on the car door handles, as Tosh interrupted them. "Now, are you outside?"
"Yeah, why?"
"There's movement inside."
"Bilis?" Gwen tested.
"No, there's multiple places tripped. I don't get it though, none of the sensors on the entrances have tripped."
"Which location? We'll check now." Owen asked. "Do you think it could be another timeslip?"
"Nothing on the Rift monitor." Tosh answered. "It's centred near the office. Be careful."
~ * o ~ * o ~ T ~ o * ~ o * ~
The world around him was bright white and disorientating as he felt himself almost plummeting through a sense of nothingness. The Fae were screeching angrily, but he didn't care, the weight in his hand the only proof he needed that his last-minute choice had not gone to waste.
Eventually the whiteness faded into colour as the hallway they'd been in rematerialized, only this time the noticeable tells of age were enough to prove they were in the present. The whirlwind around them would to anyone outside appear wild and powerful, but he felt nothing but a gentle breeze that lowered him to the floor, Jack landing on top of him seconds later with more of a thump, though their hands were still clasped.
The Fae reappeared around them as well, the leader touching down nearby, but Ianto's attention was drawn away from the creatures that had brought them back, and to the heavy weight above him that still hadn't moved.
"Jack?"
A familiar feeling of dread rose in him as he rolled out from under him, his movements still sluggish from the transportation, or whatever the Fae had just done. Jack was still and silent, the subtle movements of his chest proving he was still alive, but something wasn't right.
Tearing his gaze away from the prone from of his lover, he glared at the large form of the Fae leader a few feet away. "What did you do!"
"Nothing!" The leader fumed, baring it's sharp teeth. "We warned you! None but us can travel by our means, where our powers protect us. If you chose not to heed our words, then the consequences are on you. You are merely fortunate the Undying One will awaken in time for in this instance, the power his body has absorbed will slowly kill him."
Without another sound, the Fae leapt into the air, his wings flapping powerfully, disturbing the air around them, within seconds it large green form transformed into the same sparks of white light as the others surrounding them, before they all vanished completely once more.
Ianto gently lifted Jack into his lap, as much as he could with their hands still clasped tightly. His thumb tracing circles over Jack's hand. He didn't know how long it'd take for him to die, but a part of him hoped maybe it'd be quicker than what the Fae suggested, but they were soon dashed as he felt a returning pressure in his grasped hands, glancing down to see Jack stirring.
"Ianto? Did it work?"
"You're awake." Ianto smiled, but it slipped from his face as Jack eyes stayed closed exhaustion etched in his face. "It worked, I'm sorry. I didn't think this would happen when I brought you with me."
Jack squinted his eyes open a fraction, pushing himself up at Ianto's apology, though he looked barely able to do so. His face was pale, with dark circles under his eyes and Ianto tried not to let his guilt show at the obvious signs of what the Fae had explained. "What do you mean? What happened?"
"I brought you with me, I shouldn't have." Ianto digressed, apologetically. "There was a reason the Fae wouldn't take you."
"Did I die?" Jack asked quietly, leaning back against the wall.
"Not yet."
"Oh." Blue eyes flashed briefly with pain and sorrow at the realisation, but then Jack's lips tugged upwards into a smile. "Still better than 70 years without you, though. Thank you."
"Jack, I…."
A light creak of a floorboard in the distance stopped him, as both he and Jack's heads snapped around, Jack's albeit slower, to the direction it came from. Now they both weren't talking, they could hear the quiet footsteps approaching, just as Gwen and Owen appeared around the corner, guns drawn.
"Oh, you made it. You made it. You made it." They both hurried forward, putting away their weapons as they saw the two of them on the ground. "Tosh, it's Jack and Ianto. They're back!"
Ianto didn't see Tosh, or hear a reply, but from the blue light from their ears, he guessed she must be on comms.
"What happened? Are you okay? How did you get back?"
Ianto stood, straightening his suit out as Gwen bombarded them with a load of questions he really wasn't sure how to answer at that moment. Beside him, he saw Jack start to move as well, but as he shakily got his feet under himself, his hand went to head before doubling over sideways, a hand half catching himself on the wall, as Ianto felt an echo of an agonising burst pain that swept through Jack's body.
"Jack!"
Notes: The Fae paid a visit! Please comment - who was/wasn't expecting that!?
Next chapter will be the final one of this part (!) and will be up as soon as it's finished. I'll try get it done asap for you. I have all afternoon tomorrow, but I'm an incredibly slllllooooowwww writer so no promises. I have ASD & ADHD, and it never shows more than when I find myself getting soooo distracted when writing. Legit, I'll write like a paragraph, and then get reminded of something I need to do, write another, and repeat!
