"...And this will be your room. Walls are thin, so be thoughtful of your neighbours. Erm... Toshiko is on the right and on the left is Lisa. They are both very nice, so you don't have to worry. Dinner is at seven. Any questions?"
"What was your name again?"
The boy in the suit smiled at her. He must be about Jack's age, but he gave a much calmer expression then the american.
"Jones. Ianto Jones."
"Gwen Cooper. Can I...?"
"Oh! Of course!"
He opened the door for her, even held out his hand like a butler, and it did make her smile, even if it barely reached her eyes.
The room wasn't all bad. Smaller then her former, but not cramped in any way. Basic furniture, bed, desk chair wardrobe. An armchair by the window and a small bedside table. All that plus a thick carpet on the floor that made her want to take her shoes off and dig her toes into it. Maybe later.
"It's nice..."
"It's old. This house was one of the first institutions. It opened before queen Victoria died."
"Do you know everything?"
"Pretty much, yes."
She smiled again. Maybe the world wasn't ending after all.
"So what do you do? Everyone here does something, right, so what's your thing?"
"That's it."
"What?"
"What you said, that's my power. I know things."
"I don't get it..."
Ianto smiled understandingly and stepped carefully into the room. He held out his hand, inclining she should take it. When she did, she felt something warm at the back of her neck and Ianto closed his eyes for a second.
"You have a birthmark on your left arm shaped like a diamond."
"How did you...?"
He let go of her, still smiling.
"When I touch things, they call out to me. When I touch a book, I know what it's about and how the author felt when he wrote it and how the people who've read it felt when they did."
She stared at him, blank as a fresh page. He chuckled a bit.
"Don't worry, that bit about the birthmark is all I got. I can control it pretty much now. I don't like to snoop."
"Well, that's good I guess."
"Did I scare you?"
He looked so damn honest and just the tiniest bit scared, so she put on the best grin she could muster and shook her head.
"No, not really. I'm still getting used to this though... Yesterday irregulars where those weird, creepy people that you were suppose to stay away from, and now I'm one of them. It's just... Weird."
He nodded, not the tiniest bit offended. He knew how scary it could be.
"You'll do fine. Jack says you'll be in our class, so we will take care of you."
"How many are there in one class?"
Ianto held up his hand, counting his fingers.
"Well, it depends on the class. In ours it's me and Jack, Tosh, Owen and you."
"That's it?"
"Mh, since Su..."
He bit his lip. Not in an obvious way but the abrupt halt said enough. She suddenly grew scared again.
"What I did... Is anyone...?"
"The police don't get involved in what we do. And Jack told us what happened. Suzie went nuts and tried to kill you, you defended yourself. I'll miss her, she was a good friend, but no one will blame you, Gwen. If anything, it's my fault."
"Your fault? How would it be your fault?"
Something beeped in his pocket and he glanced down at his phone before smiling sadly.
"Because I should have sensed that there was something wrong with her. She was my friend, and I didn't realise that she was hurting. Before you blame yourself, blame me. I'll see you at dinner, and if you have any trouble, call me. Alright?"
She nodded and he waved and left down the old, dark stairs.
It was a big, victorian townhouse, almost like a museum. It had belonged to some doctor who donated it for the noble cause of keeping the freaks of the street.
There was a garden encircling the house, and tall brick walls with an iron gate keeping the public out.
The walls where white, carpets turkish, wood dark with age and the rooms where big and bright with enormous windows.
The top floor, just under the slopping roof, where the dorms. There where about thirty students, more boys then girls. The boys lived in the north end, and the girls in the south. They had separate bathrooms, but they shared the kitchen in the middle.
Most meals where to be taken in the dinning hall, though dinner was optional. Breakfast and lunch where mandatory on school days.
They had full access to all rooms at all times, except the teachers offices.
They had no curfew, no uniforms and the classes where held by older students most of the time. Teachers just assisted.
She had a hard time believing that last bit of information. Jack did not strike her as the teaching type.
"You're joking?"
"Nope, most of the time I'll be teaching you. Sixteen and above is mostly focused on how to handle your abilities, and that's sort of a trial-and-error thing. Couple of years ago, they decided that it would be better to let the students form their own classes and let the more experienced ones help the new."
"That is messed up..."
"Just a bit. I like it though, means I don't have to put up with aunti so much."
"Who?"
Jack grunted, clearly not happy about what he had just let slip. He twisted a bit in the leather chair and then he shrugged.
"I grew up here, in this house. The teachers here raised me, and the worst one was aunti Donna."
"Donna?"
"Donna Noble. English literature. Everyone else loves her, but she always picks on me...!"
"Noble... Why is that familiar...?"
Jack waved at a couple of students that appeared in the door to the lounge, then turned back to her.
"Donna Noble is one of those few precious Regulars that treats us like we're human. She's on TV from time to time."
"She's not an irregular?"
"Nope. No powers what so ever."
"Wow...!"
"Mh... She's amazing..."
"I thought she was annoying?"
"She manages to be both at the same time. Like I said, Amazing!"
She grinned a bit back at his smile. He seemed to be one of those people who would always see the glass as half full.
The lounge was off limits to the teachers, just like their offices where banned from the students. It was a sign of respect and trust that the students would take care of themselves. Gwen did understand that it was probably a bit of practise for the real world. Out there, they would only have themselves. They would be alone.
Jack got up for a moment, and when he came back it was with two bottles of something Gwen knew he was not old enough to drink.
"Are we allowed to have that on school grounds?"
The american boy shrugged and simply bit his bottle open, while Gwen used the edge of the table.
"In here, they don't care. And besides, government laws don't apply to us."
"What? Why not?"
Jack drank, wiped his mouth on his sleeve and looked at her with an expression that made her feel like he was a hundred years older.
"We have no rights, no humanity. We could be killed on the street and the cops wouldn't lift a finger. We're lower then dogs, Gwen."
The beer in her mouth tasted bitter, thick and dark.
"But on the plus side, we are not subjected to the laws either. We have no protection, but we don't have any obligations either. It's about as fair as it gets."
"It's horrible!"
"It's been like this for centuries."
"It's not right...!"
"Gwen, it's the very thing we are trying to change..."
She sat back, kicking her legs up on the table.
"How do you change something like that?"
Jack leaned back as well, sipping on his bottle.
"You change the way people think. That's what Donna does every time she's on the telly. Only reason she does it, really. The Doctor helps too, and I suppose the fact that we grow in numbers every year is another factor."
"Yeah I heard the irregular population was rising... Wait! Who's the Doctor?"
There was something different this time. Jack smiled a lot, that much was clear, but this one was different.
"Oh, he's the most brilliant man in the world. He's almost a thousand years old, still looks like he's mid-twenties. It was because of him that queen Victoria founded Torchwood in the first place."
"Wait! Hold it...! A thousand years old?"
"Yeah!"
"That's a bloody load of crap that is!"
"What and extortionately british sentence... Well, he is! He told me so himself."
"He was lying! Must have been...!"
"He has no reason to lie to me."
"Oh, what makes you so special? Except that you apparently can't die..."
The boy next to her leaned in, almost seductively, and whispered.
"Because he's my foster father."
[I promise shit will go down in the next chapter! I must also warn about the fact that the swearing will get worse, there will be some blood and guts in the future and that this story contains hetrosexual pairings (in case you didn't know)! This mean there will be people of DIFFRENT genders swaping saliva and other bodily fluids! Of course there will be some gayness, but if you could wait one season, you can wait a few chapters... And since I got so many comments, I shall write instead of watching A2A! See what you can acomplish with just a little line to the author! XP]