Time Trap - Chapter Eight

Author: Milady Dragon

3 June 2014

Cardiff

The silence in the office was broken by a single question. "How are they?"

Ianto blinked the dragon away, smiling as he leaned back forward, lifting the picture frame that Jack kept on the cluttered desk. He passed it over, and Phil accepted it, looking down on the photo, smiling sadly.

He ran his finger along the frame, looking longingly at the photograph of Patrick, Clint, and Steven, all gathered around a tired looking yet beaming Alice, who was cuddling the newest addition to their family, taken right after the proud mother and daughter had been released from the hospital. "I wanted to be there," he murmured.

Ianto nodded, recalling just how excited Phil had been about the prospect of being an uncle once more, since Patrick had officially adopted Steven.

"Are you going to London?" Ianto asked quietly. "To see them?"

"I have to, only I've most likely left it for too late." Phil handed the frame back, and Ianto replaced it in its preferred space.

"What happened? Why didn't you let them know you were alive?"

Phil sighed, slumping down a little into his seat. He opened his mouth, obviously to answer, but was interrupted when Deborah came in, carrying a tray where two mugs of coffee sat, along with the milk and sugar bowls and a plate of biscuits that she sat down onto the desk. "Is there anything else I can get you?" she asked, giving them both a smile.

"No, thank you," Ianto said, exchanging smiles. "Although you can please shut the door on the way out…and tell the team to stand down. We'll be fine."

There was a minute shifting in Deborah's demeanour, and her smile was just that much more genuine. She turned that on Phil. "Again, welcome back, Agent Coulson. We're glad you're here and we'll help in whatever way we can."

Phil's smile matched hers. "Thank you, Ms Morrison."

"It's Deborah, please." With those parting words, she left them alone, pulling the door closed softly.

"Alright," the SHIELD agent said, helping himself to the coffee, "why suddenly do you believe I'm who I say I am? It was fairly obvious you weren't sure before you gave me the dragon eyes of doom."

Ianto shook his head, laughing. "You're not the first one to call them that."

"Let me guess…it was Barton, wasn't it?"

"Actually, it was Owen first. But yes, Clint has said the same thing to me." Mentioning Clint's name brought Ianto back to seriousness. "I'm actually still putting things together," he confessed. "There's something very different about you, I can see it…but I can't explain it yet. Perhaps if you could explain how you're alive, when I know it was your corpse in that coffin at your memorial…"

Phil took a sip of his coffee, sighing as he pulled the mug away from his lips, holding it in both hands. "I really was dead for days. The procedures used to resurrect me were agonising, immoral, and while I'm grateful to be alive it's not something I would wish on anyone else. I'm still suffering from…effects of it all, from what I remember about it. There was some erasing of my memories as well, and I eventually did beg to die."

He'd gone pale, and it was all Ianto could do not to get up from his seat and offer some form of physical comfort, but he knew that Phil wasn't the touchy-feely sort and wouldn't appreciate it. "Is that why you didn't let Patrick and Clint know you were alive? You didn't remember them?"

"No, I can't hide behind that. It was more the fact that I didn't feel like myself for a long time, and I wasn't certain what that meant. By the time I did realise what had been done to me, SHIELD had fallen and it was just too dangerous to draw attention to my family by revealing myself. I wasn't about to put them in the line of fire."

Ianto had to agree with that. His family was much too important to him not to protect them in any way he could. "Tell them that when you see them," he urged. "They're going to be angry, but I'm sure they'll forgive you. They both love you far too much to hold it against you."

"I do hope you're right," Phil answered.

The dragon didn't say anything to that. Instead, he asked, "What brings you to Torchwood?"

The change in subject seemed to relax his guest, judging from the way he leaned further back in his chair, still cradling his mug of coffee. His eyes went from concerned to determined, almost like an internal switch was flipped. "Before SHIELD fell, there were certain agreements between us and Torchwood. I wanted to check to see if those agreements would still be honoured."

That brought a smile to Ianto's face. "Am I correct in assuming that there's some sort of rebuilding happening, then?"

Phil nodded. "I've been tasked with bringing SHIELD back the way it should have been from the beginning."

"Should I congratulate you, Director?"

"I don't know about that." He looked slightly embarrassed, as if he couldn't quite believe it was happening to him. "But yes, I'm now Director of SHIELD…what's left of it."

"You don't know how glad I am to hear that." Ianto set his own mug down onto the desk, leaning forward. "There are a few things you might want to know about though."

Phil didn't say anything; he just lifted an eyebrow and waited.

"Her Majesty wasn't at all pleased with what happened at the Triskelion," the dragon went on. "She understands that HYDRA had to be exposed, but she doesn't agree with how it was done, especially with the burning of so many loyal SHIELD agents at the expense of outing the rot within SHIELD itself. As she put it, 'You don't kill the patient in order to destroy a cancer'. It doesn't help that she personally knew Peggy Carter and genuinely respected her, and even referred several people to her when things were just starting out. Also, when Captain America and the Black Widow so thoroughly exposed SHIELD's secrets, there were also files pertaining to Torchwood released to the general public…which is an act of treason on British soil. Toshiko managed to re-capture much of what was dumped, but not before Torchwood House was compromised to several agencies that had no business knowing about our main archive."

He could read the flinch Phil gave as a combination of sympathetic and horrific. He didn't have to say anything, because Ianto knew that his visitor was aware of just what was being stored up at Torchwood House.

"We had to arrest a certain Colonel Talbot and his strike team before the other agencies got it into their thick heads that Torchwood wasn't about to roll over and play dead for them," Ianto said. "Our main London team personally escorted Talbot and his men off, warning them that if they tried it again they would be incarcerated for life. It's put Torchwood into a position we would never have been in if Captain Rogers and Ms Romanoff hadn't taken the steps they did, and Her Majesty is going to declare them persona non grata to the British Empire. If they ever set foot into the country or any of its territories they will be arrested and tried for treason. In fact, she has a meeting scheduled with the UN next month in order to explain Great Britain's stance regarding SHIELD and HYDRA."

"And just what is her stance?" There was a glimmer of hope in Phil's eyes.

"Her Majesty feels that the entire situation was mis-handled. She is going to publicly announce that every and any SHIELD agent who was left in the wind will be welcome within the UK as long as they pass a check using Torchwood's own lie detector, and possibly our mind probe as well if the results from the lie detector come out inconclusive. Their families are welcome as well." He sighed. "There have been cases of harassment by security forces against the innocent families of outed SHIELD agents. I'm sure you've had reports of it."

Phil nodded. "We've tried to help as best we can, but there aren't that many of us and we're stretched thin as it is." He paused. "No one's tried to do anything to my family, have they?"

Ianto shook his head. "No, everyone's alright. We do know one of Talbot's other mission parameters – besides getting into Torchwood House – was to try and apprehend Clint because of his former associations with SHIELD and for what happened with Loki."

Phil went pale. "But you said he was okay?"

"Perfectly fine," Ianto reassured him. "The closest Talbot got was the arrow that Clint shot into the tarmac at the local RAF base as they were boarding a military transport out of the country. We would have fought for him if it had come to it, you know that."

"Yes, I do." Phil regained some of his colour. "There aren't many people I'd trust with the welfare of my family, and you and Harkness are two of them."

Ianto felt warm at the confidence that was being placed in him. "We would do nothing to betray that trust. They're our family as well." He leaned back, smiling. "I'm looking forward to letting Her Majesty know just who's in charge of SHIELD now. She'll be very pleased."

"And we need all the allies we can get. Please thank her for me."

"I will, but chances are she'll want to speak to you herself at some point. She won't interfere, don't worry about that, but she will want to offer aid to you personally."

"Well," Phil said dryly, "that's not at all intimidating."

The dragon grinned. "She really is a sweetheart…unless you make her mad, of course. Then it's like watching a force of nature. There are times when I wished she worked for Torchwood, because I believe she'd make a Dalek quake in its armour."

They shared a laugh, and then Ianto cocked his head, regarding his friend closely. "Are you safe where you are?"

The faint smile that decorated Phil's face was sweet to see. "We have a base. It's secret, and only Fury knew about it, so we should be fine. I have a team, and it's growing slowly. I can trust them."

"Good. Just remember, if you need to, you can always come here. We'll watch your back."

"I appreciate that, especially after one of my original team turned out to be HYDRA. He's now a 'guest' in my basement."

Ianto could have guessed that; HYDRA had been everywhere. "We had one at Torchwood House, and one in London."

"Which agents were they?"

"Laura Paulson, based in London; and Dr Peter MacBride, at Torchwood House. Paulson won't be spying on anyone ever again, not in her condition…as for MacBride, well…you don't make a break toward Loch Ness when there's a hungry monster waiting. There wasn't enough of him left to fill a child's beach pail."

"Is it so wrong of me to hope that Nessie didn't get indigestion?" Phil asked fiercely.

"Not at all, and she was fine. It didn't even affect the milk our resident Zygons use for their nutrition." They'd acquired a small colony of the shape-changing aliens after whatever happened last year in London, before the last of the Black Archives had been closed down. They'd been somewhat resistant at first to being relocated, but the treaty that the Zygon leader and Kate Stewart had brokered was still holding strong. It had helped that the Skarasen that had long lived in the loch was amenable to having a new group of Zygons milking her once more.

There were even two Zygon scientists currently working at Torchwood House.

It had been almost impossible to get Josh Gates back to London after he met Nessie, he'd been so infatuated with her. He'd gone around for days with the dopiest smile on his face and muttering things like, "I was right," and "She does exist." Copies of the videos that Patrick had taken of him were safe and well on the mainframe, and there was even a photograph floating around of Josh petting Nessie on the snout. It was adorable.

"Jeff Cable and Cassandra Conover are still in London," Ianto went on. "They've become invaluable members of our tertiary team. However, if they choose to go back to your new SHIELD then we won't stand in their way." He would hate to see the pair go; they worked hard, and were in the midst of investigating the underground alien weapons trade, but the dragon would respect their decisions. They both had been SHIELD agents a lot longer than Torchwood operatives, and he wouldn't try to get them to stay if they decided to return to their old positions.

"I appreciate that," Phil said warmly, "but I think they'd be much better off staying with Torchwood. Of course, I won't decide for them, but SHIELD isn't what it used to be, and I do believe they'd be happier in London than going dark with us." He thought for a moment. "In fact, I'm wondering if Fitz wouldn't be happier back at Torchwood House than with us."

Ianto's heart thumped hard, once, and he couldn't stop the smile that spread across his features. "Leo Fitz is alive?" He remembered the young engineer from his six months at Torchwood House with his partner, Jemma Simmons, and had been very close to offering them both positions within Torchwood if they hadn't been recalled back to SHIELD before he could get the paperwork settled. And, when records for both of them had completely vanished from every server but mainframe and from the internet, they'd all been particularly worried.

"He and Simmons, both," Phil answered. "Although the HYDRA agent that had been on my team tried his hardest to kill them." He swallowed. "Simmons is fine, but Fitz suffered brain damage. He has some issues with expressing his thoughts, he talks to himself, and he withdraws from people. We've tried everything we can to get him out of his shell, but nothing seems to work."

That made the dragon within threaten to come out and destroy something. Leo Fitz had been a gentle soul, and he certainly didn't deserve what had apparently happened to him. "And you say this HYDRA agent is in your basement?" he growled, unable to keep his dragon-ness out his words.

"He is." Phil didn't look at all bothered by the show of temper.

"I would offer to eat him for you, but that would be too quick."

"While I appreciate the thought, we're hoping to get information out of him, although he's being very uncooperative. He's formed an attachment to another member of my team, and insists he'll only talk to her, but I don't want him to gain any more power over Skye than he has already. Whatever he knows isn't worth damaging her over."

Ianto got the distinct impression that his young lady meant quite a lot more to Phil than he was letting on, but he wasn't getting a romantic vibe from it, which was good news for Clint if the archer decided to get back into a relationship with the man…which Ianto thought could be a distinct possibility from what he knew about the archer's feelings.

It seemed as if Phil had gained his own family just as Torchwood was its own close-knit group.

"We may be able to help you with that. We do have certain pieces of equipment that make gaining information very easy."

"The aforementioned mind probe?"

"Exactly. We're perfectly willing to lend you help and equipment, and if that happens to include our mind probe…"

Ianto's phone ringing interrupted what he was going to say.

He glanced at the caller ID, and saw it was Jack calling. "I need to take this," he excused himself. "I'll have Deborah bring in some more coffee." He stood as he answered the call. "What's going on?" he asked as he made his way out of the office. He motioned to Deborah, who was standing by Rhys' desk, and she got the hint immediately, making her way back to the kitchenette.

"Hart's here," Jack said without preamble.

Ianto couldn't help but curse. He'd thought Hart long gone after that mess with Jack's brother, Gray. "What does he want?"

"Seems he's here for our guest."

That didn't sit well with the dragon. "Something's going on, Jack."

"You're not telling me anything I don't already know." He sounded frustrated, and Ianto couldn't blame him.

"Then let me tell you something you don't know." He'd been so caught up with Phil Coulson's visit that he really hadn't thought about what was going on in London for a while. "I have Phil Coulson in our office…a very much alive Phil Coulson, and he's here to ask for our support as he's rebuilding SHIELD."

There was silence on the other end; it wasn't often that Jack was struck speechless. Ianto was beginning to wonder if they hadn't somehow gotten disconnected – and with their mobile network running on the former Archangel Network, that was practically impossible – when Jack spoke once more.

"Keep him there. I'll call you back."

Then his mate hung up.

Ianto pulled the phone from his ear, staring at the now-blank screen as if he thought it would hold the answers he needed. He frowned and tucked the phone back into his jacket pocket to prevent himself from calling Jack back and demanding to know what the hell was going on.

"Ianto?" Toshiko's voice brought his eyes toward her, where she was still seated at her workstation. She looked concerned, and he couldn't blame her really.

He took those several steps over to her area, not even realising he was chewing on his lip until he bit down just a little too hard. "Something's up," he told her quietly. "Hart's in London."

Toshiko said something not at all polite in Japanese. "I thought we'd seen the last of him."

"So did I." It had taken months to clean things up after Gray's rampage through Cardiff, and that was even after they'd managed to keep the damage down. Both Owen and Patrick had needed physical therapy after Gray had shot the pair of them, and that wasn't even counting the nearly two thousand years Jack had spent buried under Cardiff before he'd been recovered. Yes, Hart had been under Gray's control with that explosive device that he'd worn, but it had been obvious that the ex-Time Agent had enjoyed some of what Gray had made him do.

"Jack did say he was there to get their visitor," the dragon added.

Toshiko's eyes darted toward Jack's office, where Phil awaited. "Are you sure he's Phil Coulson?"

"Yes, absolutely." He had no doubt at all over Phil Coulson's identity. It was difficult to explain, but he'd try if his friend asked.

To Toshiko's credit, she didn't. "And what about the man in London?"

"Your guess is as good as mine. But you and I both know there's no such thing as a coincidence." Phil Coulson and Phillip Pendragon were connected, Ianto just didn't know how. And now with John Hart back on the scene and in the middle of it all… "I want us on partial lockdown. Can you do it without the bells and whistles?"

"Sure, no problem." Her fingers began working her keyboard.

"I also want the scanners set so that any intruder in the Hub sends us into total lockdown," he instructed. "That includes your time bubble." Any time travellers wouldn't be able to get through the bubble and would be trapped inside the Hub, and perhaps easier to take down.

She nodded. "Understood."

"Good. I'm going back up to the office. Let me know if anything strange happens."

"This is Torchwood," Toshiko snorted. "Strange is a way of life."

She wasn't wrong.

Ianto shook his head as he strode back up to the office where Deborah was just exiting with her empty tray. She looked at him, her eyes narrowed, and he tilted his head toward Toshiko. The young woman was sharp and understood the silent cue immediately.

Ianto passed her, and walked back into the office. Phil was sitting, relaxed, with his fresh coffee in hand. "Is there a problem?" he asked, concerned.

Ianto sat down with a sigh. "Jack's in London. There's something going on there; one of our former enemies is back, but he's claiming to be on a mission that should be a good thing but we all know him far too well to trust that. You may have heard of the man…Captain John Hart."

Judging from the anger that flashed across Phil's face, he had indeed been privy to those reports. "He's the one who was responsible for getting my nephew shot, as well as destroying large chunks of Cardiff."

"Yes he was. He's Jack's former partner in the Time Agency, and Jack hopes to be able to control him." Jack didn't say as much to Ianto, but the dragon knew his mate, and figured Jack would do everything in his power to keep Hart to heel. He also wasn't about to reveal that there was a Phil Coulson look-a-like in London who had been stranded from the future who was seemingly involved with Hart. That was something Ianto was still wrapping his own head around.

Instead, he deflected. "So, let's talk about just how Torchwood can help SHIELD with its rebuilding…"