A/N:
First off, a HUGE Thank You to Kitsa for so patiently helping me sort out this chapter.
And as always a HUGE Thank You to everyone who has been reviewing, as well as for all the fave/alert lists this has gone onto. I've also gotten a couple of "favourite author" listings lately – THANK YOU!! I can't tell you how much all of that makes my day.
Chapter Seventeen:
Day Three, Part One
"Every man has his own destiny: the only imperative is to follow it, to accept it, no matter where it leads him."
Henry Miller
"I see we've got a new car outside, very nice, smart," Ianto said by way of hello when he returned to their make-shift home—the Hub 2, Rhys had dubbed it. Nerys was already up out of her chair, helping him with the armload of bags he'd come in with. "Thanks," he gave her a wan smile. It was impossible to tell how she was holding up.
Last night she'd seemed ok, but she they hadn't had a chance to really properly talk about everything she'd seen yesterday. He wasn't even sure how to. It was one thing to have told her that Jack was from another time, that he was a stranded traveller who'd lost his ride home and made the best of it—because he certainly wasn't going to try explaining how the Doctor had left him or why—but now she knew the real truth. Jack would never, ever die. He would. They all would. He would worry about it later.
He glanced over at both Jack and Mickey, wondering which one of them was responsible for the flashy convertible he'd passed as he came in. When it came to cars they had similar tastes, fast and sporty. God. What did that say about him and Nerys, he wondered; he'd read somewhere that there was some odd correlation between the types of cars men drove and the partners they chose…on second thought, he decided he didn't want to have thoughts like that about his sister.
"What is all this?" she asked she asked of the plastic sacks she'd helped him carry over to the work table.
"Where've you been?" Jack snapped before Ianto could answer her. "We thought you'd been arrested."
The Welshman flashed him a smile. "Just out buying essentials," he answered smoothly. "Technology's one thing, but let's not forget the creature comforts. Coffee for starters," he knew that would earn him a little gratitude and not just from Jack. He'd picked up some basic food items as well, other necessities.
They'd spent last night curled up in the semi-darkness, in the cold. None of them had slept well; his Captain hadn't slept at all. Ianto had just held him while he lay there, staring off into the shadows…
"You should sleep," Jack told him at one point, well past midnight.
"I'm ok," he snugged his arm tighter around the older man. Usually when the slept, it was Jack wrapped around him; tonight it was him wrapped around Jack.
The older man turned in his arms then and found those blue grey eyes in the dark. He searched his face, trying desperately to memorize every detail. He never wanted to forget what he looked like. The sound of his voice, those beautiful Welsh vowels. What it felt like when they kissed. "We should figure out a way to get in touch with the rest of the team," he said, instead of giving voice to all of the things he was thinking. "Sara must be worried sick by now." Jason. Seren. His mother. Sarah Jane…they didn't always see eye to eye, but he counted her amongst his closest friends. He was just grateful very few people knew about that connection, his connection to the Doctor through his other former Companions. That was why he hadn't wanted to drag any more of this to her door than they had already in sending the kids to her—but he was glad Ianto had done it. No one could keep them safer right now than she could right now.
"We'll find a way to get in touch with them in the morning," Ianto promised him. "The rest of the team, too. Right now we need to rest."
"Which is why you need to sleep."
He smiled. He leant in. He kissed him. He held Jack while he stared off into the shadows and didn't press him about what he was thinking… remembering…
"….and last but not least," he couldn't help the grin of smug satisfaction that played across his face as he handed over the large paper wrapped bundle to Jack, having already doled out the rest of the things he'd picked up for the others, fresh clothes, toiletries. "Army surplus special, Sir," he explained.
"Oh, you're kidding me," the older man couldn't help the grin that mirrored his partner's. "God, I love you."
"So you keep saying," Ianto accepted the kiss he pressed to his lips. Returned it. Savoured it. No matter what Jack said, he was always so afraid that some day… but not today. Today they were together. "What next?" he asked, getting his own things sorted out so he could clean up and change.
"I was just about to run Clement MacDonald through the system again," Mickey answered first, "see if there've been any changes. There's got to be some reason this one man is sayin' the same thing all those kids are sayin'."
"We should run those names we got from Lois, too," Gwen advised. "Captain Andrew Stains…. what was it, Ellen Hunt? And Michael…?"
"Sanders," Rhys supplied.
"Yeah, right, Michael Sanders," she agreed, looking over at Jack. "Do those names mean anything to you? They were killed the same day you were."
He frowned, but the names didn't ring any bells. "No, nothing. Come on, let's get cleaned up and then we can get to work." He was more anxious than the others to get out of the clothes he was wearing.
"Just let me..." Mickey began. He didn't the chance to finish his sentence, Nerys was already hauling him to his feet.
"Come on, you heard the man," she cajoled. "You stink! It was like sleeping next to a bum last night."
"How was that any different from the other times you've slept next to him?" Jack wanted to know.
"Oi!" was the best comeback Mickey could muster as Nerys shoved him along in front of her, pointedly ignoring the look her brother was giving them. He'd been quite clear in the past about not wanting to hear about what she and Mickey did or didn't do.
"You shouldn't be so oversensitive, Ianto," Gwen said to him. "Your sister's a grown woman, you know."
He gave her a look. "How would you feel if you had a sister and she was dating Mickey Mouse there?" he asked, not quite having meant for that to come out so snarkily.
Gwen just laughed. "I suppose you've got a point. Find a corner to change, you!" she yelped in Jack's direction. He was already out of the t-shirt he'd borrowed off Rhys and looked like he was about to strip down the rest of the way right in front of her.
"I've never had any complaints about my body before," he was quick to quip back.
"Right then," Ianto pulled him off away from the area they'd designated as the main-stay of their new base of operations while Gwen giggled at him. Or maybe at them. He didn't care any more.
"We still have to make contact with Sara, the rest of the team," said Jack, as he shimmied out of the much-hated track pants.
"Already on it," his Welshman told him. "But…I haven't been able to get Bobby and Wendy or Tim and Abby," he tried very hard not to be bothered by that. Wendy could handle herself, she wouldn't let anything happen to Bobby and Tim and Abby were both resourceful. They were fine. They had to be fine.
"I'm sure they're all right," the other said, although it was obvious they shared the same fears. "What about Sara and the kids?" he prompted a return to the subject of making contact with people they could actually reach.
"I used a computer at a cyber café to send an email to Sarah Jane," he explained. "I set up an anonymous email address."
"Are you sure that was a good idea? If someone intercepts—"
"No one else but her will understand the message, Cariad."
"All right," he nodded. He should have trusted him. It looked like they were just going to have to wait for Sarah Jane to check her email and get back to them. Until she did, he was going to believe that Sara had made it to her and that his mother and the kids were fine, they together Sara and Sarah Jane were working on what was going on with the rest of the Earth's children.
He opened the package Ianto brought for him from the army surplus and smiled, stealing a brief glance over to his partner. He was naked. Usually the sight of his beautiful Welshman standing there in nothing but his birthday suit made him grin from ear to ear, but this time all it did was bring a stab of pain to his heart. There were cuts and bruises that hadn't been there two days ago, more than just that scrape on his cheek. He set aside the bundle of clothes and laid his hands gently on the younger man's hips, placing a soft kiss between his shoulder blades. "I'm sorry."
Ianto's smile, brought on by the strong, soft touch of the other's hands, faltered at the unexpected apology. "What for?"
"Not being able to give you a better life. A safer life."
He turned so he was facing the other man. "This is the life I chose, Cariad. I wouldn't want anything else."
"I just…I wish…"
"I love you. That's all that matters." He leant in, found his lips…Jack responded eagerly. He deepened the kiss as that intoxicating scent of the older man's rose off his skin…he pressed his body closer, arms wrapped around him, fingers digging into his back. "Think the others'll notice if we take a few extra minutes to get dressed?" he whispered between heated, almost needy kisses.
"The world could be ending and you want to…?"
"The world is always ending, Jack. And I have missed that coat," he added with a mischievous smile.
Jack returned it. "I think we could get away with twenty minutes…"
"Thirty."
His grin broadened. "Thirty minutes it is."
A moment later, however, they were interrupted by Gwen calling for them. "Are you two decent yet?" she queried into the dark corner that seemed to have swallowed them up whole.
"Never!" the Captain yelled back while his partner grumbled under his breath about bloody rotten timing.
Jack silenced his complaints by kissing him one last time before hollering past him to let Gwen and the others know they'd just be another second. Ianto had already started getting dressed. Since he dressed faster than the younger man (he always dressed faster), he turned and helped him with his tie, tying the knot just right, snugging it into place, smoothing the shoulders his shirt when he was done. He looked perfect. Handsome. "Definitely love the suit," he teased…well, it was true, he did love the suit… but then in a much more serious tone, "I was afraid I'd never see you again," he admitted softly.
"You can't get rid of me that easily. Now come on. Let's go save the world so we can get back to what we started before Gwen interrupted us."
He nodded in agreement; Ianto buttoned up his waistcoat and slid on his jacket before helping Jack on with the new greatcoat, just like always... he brushed his fingers over the younger man's entirely intentionally when he did, then he strode back to the main area of the Hub-2 with the other at his side.
"I'm back," Jack announced with a gleeful smile to the rest of his team.
"Yes you are," Gwen agreed heartily.
"You can knock us down but not out, yeah?" Mickey grinned up at him. He'd booted up the second laptop they'd 'borrowed' off the streets, and was logging into the Torchwood server.
"Yeah," their Captain agreed.
"What's first on the agenda, then?" Ianto inquired, needlessly. He knew the answer, he just wanted to hear Jack say it.
"First things first. I need you to work some of that coffee magic."
"Of course, Sir," he smirked quietly to himself and turned to the supplies he'd purchased earlier, while Jack sat down at the second computer.
"Forbisher has to be the key to all this," the Captain mused as he typed. Gwen had filled him in on the information she and Rhys had gotten from Lois Habiba yesterday. The order to kill him and those other three people, people Jack had never heard of before, came directly from John Frobisher's office—from Forbisher himself. "But what I don't understand is how—or why," he said aloud. "He's just a middle man, a civil servant. No way he has the authority to start ordering government sanctioned executions."
"Maybe if we knew why he wanted you out of the way," said Gwen, "why he wants us out of the way, then maybe we'd know how. We need get inside Whitehall."
Ianto spoke up from behind them, "Sarah Jane has a friend who might be able to help, he used to be a Deputy Director for MI-5. He's probably still got connections at Thames House."
The others turned and gaped.
"What? I know everything, remember?" He quipped with a jocular smile.
Jack returned it. "Yeah. But unfortunately, we don't have a whole lot of time here. According to the last message 'they' are coming back today—whoever they are."
"Hey, Mickey," Gwen sat up in her chair, leaning toward him, "do you have access to the I-five software?"
"Should have, why?"
"Because I have an idea," she said, holding up the contact lenses case they'd discovered last night, when the searched the warehouse to see what kind of supplies they had to work with.
"Contact lenses?" Jack inquired.
She grinned. "Torchwood contact lenses, Jack. All we have to do is get somebody inside wearing these and we can see everything that they see."
"Who's going to do that, then?" Mickey wanted to know. If any of them tried, they ran the risk of being identified and shot on sight.
"We do have one person on the outside still talking to us," Gwen reminded them. "Lois."
"Are you sure you want to involve her any further?" asked Jack. "She's just a civilian. A temp." Then again, Donna Noble had been a temp…
"She helped us find you, didn't she?"
But before he could answer, she was on her feet and out the door.
Ianto handed Jack his coffee. "I guess that settles that then," his tone was dry.
He just smiled and stepped away from the computer to think, coffee in hand. He'd been staring at John Fobisher's picture for the last ten minutes. It wasn't helping. There was no discernable connection, other than Forbisher was their contact in the Home Office… which made the situation make even less sense. He should be calling for their help, not ordering their deaths.
Jack rubbed the back of his neck, trying to ease some of the tension out… he found a pair of Welsh hands on his shoulders.
"If you'd care to sit…?"
He shook his head. "Why don't you check that email account you set up to see if Sarah Jane's answered you yet," he suggested instead. He didn't want to voice how anxious he was to hear from her to know that Sara and the kids, his mother, had arrived safely. But when he looked more closely at his partner, he realized he didn't have to say it.
A few moments later, Ianto reported that Sarah Jane had received his email and was suggesting they meet near where they met the first time—and most importantly, that everybody was fine.
Jack closed his eyes. If he believed in God, he might have thanked Him or Her or It or Them… but he didn't share his partner's convictions on the subject of the Divine. Nonetheless, he was grateful that his family was all right. And he realized Ianto was waiting for him to say something.
"You go on without me," he said.
"Cariad…"
He shook his head. "Go. Fill Sara and Sarah Jane in on everything we've got so far. I have to stay here and work, I need to figure this out. But if you see them…" Jason…Seren… she was too young, but what was his son thinking…?
"I'll tell Jason that you love him," Ianto assured him. "I'll give Seren a kiss for you. And I'll ask Sarah Jane if she can get in touch with Harry Sullivan."
"Thank you."
"You're welcome." He went over to the table where they'd lain out the guns and ammunition they'd found to chose a weapon. Jack followed him; he was standing very close. "Do you have an opinion, Sir? Or are you just enjoying feeling me up?"
Jack's smirk was audible. He reached around Ianto with both hands (one on either side of him) and picked out a gun. "This looks just about the right size, don't you think?"
"You are the expert," he smirked right back without missing a beat.
"And don't you forget it," Jack purred into his hear.
The younger man turned to face him, a smart remark poised on the tip of his tongue, but his partner's expression stopped him. It wasn't his usual cocky grin, but something much softer. His own smile warmed when he looked into those amazing blue eyes.
Jack pressed a soft kiss to his lips. "I love you," he said. "Be careful out there."
"I will. I love you too."
He waited until Ianto had gone (and made no attempt to hide his appreciation of the view of his Welshman's retreat) before settled back in front of the computer.
Forbisher wasn't the answer. He couldn't be. There had to be something more, something he wasn't seeing. Something besides an empty coffee cup… "Hey Mickey," he called over as he stood. "Bring up Clement MacDonald's history for me, would you?"
"You're the boss, Boss."
"Don't get cute," the Captain said over his shoulder, "That's Ianto's job."
Mickey just laughed and went to work while their fearless leader headed towards the make-shift kitchenette where there should be…yes! there was still enough coffee in the pot for one more cup.
He refilled his mug…and realized that although Rhys and Nerys had been standing there deep in conversation when he walked over, they'd gone suddenly gone silent now that he was standing there with them. Rhys was doing a fine job of trying too hard to look like he was finding the job of washing up entirely too scintillating to be distracted from. Nerys was looking past him at a spot on the wall that was apparently incredibly interesting.
"Am I interrupting something?" Jack inquired of the pair.
Nerys cleared her throat. "Can—can I talk to you a minute?" she asked him in a timid sounding tone.
Jack looked at her; he could tell that she wasn't seeing him the same way she had forty eight ours ago. He glanced back over his shoulder towards Mickey. It looked like he had the file up, but he supposed Ianto's sister had the right to ask him a few questions, given everything she'd been through, even if it was her own fault for tagging along. He wasn't sure how many of them he could or would answer, but he changed course and sat down on the old sofa instead of heading back to the computers.
Nerys sat down next to him, but not too close. Not as close as she would have two days ago. "They said you can't die. Even Rhys."
Jack regarded her a long moment. He drank his coffee. So far he wasn't hearing a question, so he remained silent.
"How is that possible, Jack?"
"That's…it's a long story. Something happened to me a long time ago. A long time from now."
She frowned, but didn't ask for clarification. "Ianto said…he told me you're over two thousand years old."
Jack smirked, "Yeah, but I'll bet I don't look a day over one thousand—"
"That's not funny, Jack! If you can't die, if you're really that old, if nothing can ever kill you—Ianto is going to grow old in front of you, isn't he? He's going to turn into a shrivelled up old man and you're going to stay exactly the same as you are now."
He decided against telling her how few of Torchwood Three's employees had ever lived into old age; those who had, had only survived because they'd retired early, something her brother refused to do.
"I found a new grey hair the other day," he told her instead; it was the same thing he'd told his daughter just a few days before. Nerys, appreciated the light heartedness of his tone even less than Alice had. At least she'd been able to tease him back, stained though the attempt had been, telling him that it really must be the end of the world, then, Jack Harkness finding a grey hair.
"You're going to watch us all grow old and die, aren't you, even your own children?" Nerys asked…accused. It reminded him of the way Alice's mother had sounded, the very last time that they'd spoken. She told him to get out of her life, to stay away from her and her daughter—their daughter. He'd abided her wishes, waited until Alice was old enough to understand, but by then she didn't want anything to do with him, either. Maybe he'd waited too long…not long enough… maybe it didn't matter what he did. She wanted him to stay away and yet she got angry at him for not being there.
He wondered if someday Seren and Jason would do the same thing. He hadn't been lying when he told Ianto he was a lousy father, even if he'd only told him half the story. He hadn't told him about Alice…her son… her mother.
It was one thing for him to tell his partner about Laura, their girls, long dead and gone, but Alice was still alive and well, and she was nearly twice Ianto's age. His worst fear, after all the other 'worst fears' he had every single day about losing him in the line of duty, was that some day his Welshman was going to do the same thing Alice's mother had, and that maybe meeting his forty year old daughter would push him closer towards that moment. Some day Ianto was going to realize that only one of them was looking any older…
Not that Alice would want to meet his twenty six year old husband any more than he wanted to introduce them. She never asked if he was seeing anybody, he never volunteered that kind of information. Their conversations were few and far between and started with did she have enough money and ended with how his grandson was doing in school.
"What will you do after he's gone, Jack?" Nerys' voice cut through his thoughts. "Will you move on, meet somebody else, start a new life?"
He stared into the depths of his coffee, but didn't find any answers there. "What do you want me to say? That I'll never love anybody else?"
"You've done this before, haven't you? Not just Jason's other parent, you've…you've had other families, other lives before this." It wasn't a question. "How many Jack?"
He didn't answer.
"Tell me. How many?"
He looked up at her, "Does it really matter?"
"It does to me. Ianto's my brother, he's the one I care about. What's going to happen when he's an old man, Jack? Will you still look at him the same way? Will you leave him because he's not handsome any more?"
"No."
"Did you leave any of the other Mr or Mrs Harknesses?" her tone was scathing.
He took a sip of his rapidly cooling coffee as he considered his answer. "A few," he admitted the truth. "But that was different. Those relationships…they were different." Alice's mother… Estelle… Roan… they were all so different.
"Different how?" she wanted to know.
"All you need to know is that they were," he stood up. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have more important things to do than sit around arguing with you about my exes." He stalked off.
………………………………………………………
"It's happening again," Wendy breathed… they were just disembarking from the transport plane that had gotten them back home—or at least as far as just outside of London.
"What's happening again?" Gibbs wanted to know. It took him only a half a second to realize that none of the others needed to ask, not even the UNIT doctor. There was a remarkable lack of the usual interagency friction between her and the Torchwood team.
"The children," Wendy told him. "It's happening again with the children."
"How did you know that?"
"She can feel it," Bobby explained; he eyed the troops near by, but they didn't seem to be paying any attention to them. He manoeuvred himself so he was standing between Wendy and Tim and Abby's old boss, while leading the entire team further away from the soldiers. He was grateful to Gibbs for whatever strings he'd pulled to get them back, no questions asked, and he desperately wanted to avoid complications, now…. Not for the first time did he wish he knew what Jack would do in a situation like this… probably start flirting and try to charm his way out and end up getting himself shot for his trouble, he thought acerbically. But the thought made him smile anyway.
He turned back to Gibbs. "Every time it happens, every time whoever, or whatever 'they' are, send a message through the kids, she feels it. She doesn't hear the words, but she knows its happening."
"How?"
"I don't know," Wendy told him. She was visibly shaken enough that he believed her.
"It must have something to do with you being…" Abby stopped midsentence, a guilty look playing across her face. It didn't help that Gibbs was staring at her. "Don't look at me like that, Gibbs, please," she implored. "Wendy is one of the best people I know—and she's beautiful," she added, knowing that was one of Wendy's sore spots because most people called her other skin monstrous. She turned back to her old boss. "You have to believe me. Please?"
He looked at her. At Tim. He cast a quick glance towards Martha Jones Milligan, but it appeared that she knew what was going, even if he didn't.
"All that matters—" Bobby began.
"All that matters," the older man cut him off, "is figuring out what's going on. Now what can you tell us?" he asked Wendy.
"Honestly nothing. I just… feel… something."
His eyes narrowed. "Would you like to explain that or should I just start guessing?"
Bobby tightened his grip on her hand, moving her further behind him.
"I'm not human," she said anyway, her tone softer than usual.
"Yeah," Gibbs gave Abby a sharp glace. "I kinda figured that."
"Is there a problem—?" Bobby began.
"I don't know, you tell me," the other responded.
"All right, look," Martha stepped in before things got any worse. "There are aliens on Earth, have been for years. Some are like the Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans—others are just regular people, trying to get buy. They're just like we are. And anyway, Wendy isn't technically an alien, she was born here, this is her planet, too," she added. "So we can either work together or stand around arguing…"
"Who's arguing?" Gibbs asked.
She nodded and turned her gaze to Bobby.
He took a breath and let it out. He took another. "All right," he agreed. "We're going to need access to a computer, weapons, ammunition," he said, looking at his own people, obviously open to suggestions.
"There's an old Torchwood facility in London," said Tim. "There might be some equipment that was left behind."
Bobby gave him questioning look.
"Maybe I don't know everything," he replied with a wry grin, "but I've been working in the archives the last year now. So maybe I know… almost everything?"
Martha grinned, "And after we check that out, I have a pretty good idea who in London has a big enough computer for you," she told them.
"Maybe we should split up," Tim suggested. "We could cover more ground…"
Bobby shook his head. "No, we stay together. If it really is happening, if 'they' are here, we can't risk spreading ourselves out like that." He swallowed back the cold lump in his throat and decided that someone had to put to voice the thing he knew they'd all been thinking the past two days. "This could be it, guys," he looked at each in turn, even Gibbs, even though he wasn't going to understand what he was saying. "Jack is always telling us that the twenty first century is when it all changes. Maybe this is how it happens."
