Disclaimer: I don't own Torchwood, I don't own Lucy. Many thanks to RTD and the BBC, and to Happy-rea that I get to play with them on a regular basis. - Sunny
"No, Doctor Tanizaki, there are no cybermen available for you to study!"
Ianto was setting Tosh's coffee down at her workstation when Jack's voice burst out from behind the cracked door of his office.
He froze.
"There ARE no remains from Canary Wharf. I don't know where you're getting your information, but it's not true."
"Oi, tea-boy!"
"No, they were all incinerated. All of them. I don't know why UNIT even told you to call me, they should have told the same thing."
"OI! Earth to Tea-boy, come in Teaboy!"
Tosh nudged Ianto, and he finally realized Owen had been calling him.
"Tosh! Quit flirting with the tea-boy and let him bring me my coffee!"
He hurried over with the doctor's coffee - Tosh, flirting with him? Didn't Owen realize she only had eyes for one person on this team, and it certainly wasn't Ianto?
Jack's voice had died down to an indistinguishable mumble, but the irritated tone was still pretty obvious, even through the filthy glass window-walls.
Ianto stepped into Jack's office, just as the handset went flying through the air. Without even thinking, he'd reached out and caught it before it could crash through the office window.
He looked at the phone, and then over at Jack. He raised an eyebrow.
"I wasn't aware the cricket team were holding try-outs."
Jack cracked a smile.
"I hate these modern phones. Push a button, the call's over. Where's the satisfaction in that? Time was, you could slam that baby down as hard as you needed to. Try it now, you'll break the phone."
"And you won't if you hurl it through a window?"
Ianto stepped forward and handed Jack his mug of coffee.
"You know what I just don't understand?" Jack blurted out, as he took the mug from Ianto.
"I just don't understand how anyone could WANT to study the cybermen. You were at Canary Wharf, right?"
Ianto stood rigid as Jack addressed him.
"I mean, you know what those things can do - why would ANYONE want to keep one, even if just to study it?"
"I...what brought this on, sir?"
Jack sighed, settled back into his seat.
"I'm sorry, Ianto, I know it doesn't have anything to do with you. It's just… this IDIOT from Kobayashi Prosthetics has this insane idea that if he could study the 'remains of those robots from Canary Wharf' that he could, I don't know, reverse engineer it or something. Hell, he even thinks if he could reverse engineer one, he could reverse the whole process, make them human again."
He slammed his hand down on the table, nearly knocking his mug over in the process.
"That's just not how it works. Can you believe he called us irresponsible, for destroying the remains? Damn it, if we hadn't destroyed them…"
Jack sighed and slumped in his chair. He stared through Ianto, as if he saw something else, someone else perhaps.
"Oh Rose." he muttered, almost too quiet for Ianto to even hear.
Jack sighed again, then looked up, as if surprised to see anyone standing there.
"I'm sorry, Ianto. Didn't mean to dump all that on you."
"Quite all right sir. I'll just get going now."
"Of course. Don't let me keep you."
Jack turned his focus back to whatever papers littered his desk. Ianto was essentially invisible again.
He walked silently out of Jack's office - quietly pocketing the handset that Jack had hurled at him before anyone noticed he still had it.
As soon as he had settled himself back at his desk in the tourist office, Ianto took out the phone, and pressed the button that called up the 'call history.' He selected the most recent incoming call, took a deep breath, and pressed 'send.'
"Kobayashi Prosthetics, how can I help you?"
"Yes, I would like to speak with Dr. Tanizaki, if I may."
"One moment. Who can I say is calling?"
Ianto hesitated.
"Sir?"
"Tell him… Torchwood."
"Please hold."
He was left to hold for quite a few minutes. Ianto used that time to find out what he could about Kobayashi Prosthetics - they did seem to be a leader in cutting-edge cybernetic research, and reading between the lines it was clear that Dr. Tanizaki was not overscrupulous if there were an opportunity to advance the field, and most particularly to increase the prestige of his company.
Finally, the click of the line being opened again.
"What is it, Captain Harkness? I have already told you that I do not wish to join you in Cardiff for a drink unless you can help me, which you tell me you are unable to do."
Join him for a drink? Oh, of course. Jack wanted to retcon the man. He would.
"This isn't Captain Harkness, Doctor Tanizaki."
There was a pause.
"It's not? I was told that it was Torchwood on the line."
"Yes." Ianto breathed slowly in and out. "I do work with Torchwood. That is how I became aware of your quest."
"Who are you, and what do you know of my so-called quest?"
"My name is Ianto Jones, and I believe that you wish to study the remains of those converted in the battle of Canary Wharf, am I correct?"
"You are. However Captain Harkness has insisted to me that there is nothing to study - that all remains had been incinerated."
Ianto took a deep breath. There was no going back if he continued.
"Captain Harkness was wrong. Not all the remains were incinerated."
"But, this is wonderful news! Would it be possible for you to arrange for me to examine these remains?"
"I believe that it would. When can you come?"
"They are in Cardiff?"
To talk of Lisa in such impersonal terms, it hurt.
"Yes, she is."
"I am in New York until this weekend, and Los Angeles for the remainder of the following week. Then I have important business in Sendai, followed by an important meeting at our headquarters in Tokyo. I can be in Cardiff in three weeks time - will that work for you?"
Three weeks - three weeks to wait until Lisa could be saved.
Three weeks - only three weeks to wait and Lisa could be saved.
"Yes, Tanizaki-san" Ianto used the honorific he remembered was important in Japanese culture. "Three weeks will work very well. I will see you then."
"Thank you, Mr. Jones. I look forward to our meeting."
(*).(*).(*).(*)
There was just enough time to slip down to the basement to tell Lisa the exciting news before it was time to leave the Hub for the day to go home. It would have been terrific to walk home with Lucy and share Dr. Tanizaki's upcoming visit, but she decided to stay late to wrap up the day's start on her weapons database project.
Instead, he walked alone, wandering the streets lost in thought.
Finally he turned for home, expecting to find Lucy there, hoping that talking to her could help him sort out his overwhelming hopes and fears - but the flat was still and quiet and dark. He let himself in, and turned on the telly to watch the news.
He barely paid attention - it all blurred together anyway. Someone had been killed in a smash-up in Penarth, a charity shop was first in line for a makeover, a five-year-old girl from Blackwood was going back to school after months of treatment for severe burns.
He did find it amusing that the public was being assured that even though the Gwent police were taking part in a ten month trial to allow non-firearms officers to carry Tasers, routine officers on patrol would NOT be carrying the 'electric-shock weapon.'
That actually was somewhat comforting, actually. He didn't really relish the thought of anyone on the team taking injuries from nervous PCs if the Rift happened to send them any 'gifts' in the Penarth area. Although he could just imagine the reaction of any poor beat constable who made the mistake of tazing Lucy. That would certainly never happen again.
As if his musings had summoned her, the door to the flat opened.
"I thought you'd be back earlier." He commented without looking.
She gave a deep, exhausted sounding sigh, and he turned.
He was on his feet before he even noticed. Not only did she look utterly drained, but she had a dark red stain on the sleeve of her hoodie, and a look he'd never seen before on her face - at least, he'd never seen it unless you count his own in the mirror in the days following his rescue of Lisa.
"What happened?"
He quickly muted the TV. She slumped her way towards the sofa, clearly moving almost entirely on autopilot.
"Where should I start?"
She sagged down into the sofa, and Ianto sat down again beside her.
"From the beginning."
She held her left hand up and started counting on her fingers, slamming her other index finger onto each one as she made each new statement.
"Well, we've got a team meeting at nine a.m. tomorrow morning, it turns out Suzie was the one behind those murders, she blew her brains out in front of Gwen - who was already close to defeating the Retcon - she remembers everything now."
"Suzie did WHAT?"
"Gave herself completely to the glove. It worked better with fresh and traumatic deaths, so that's what she did."
"Bloody hell!"
"Exactly." Lucy agreed. "Jack got there in time to stop her killing Gwen so she killed herself instead. I was watching on the CCTV."
No wonder she looked like death warmed over.
"Are you ok?"
"I wasn't nearly shot, and my brains are still in my head," she grumbled irritably.
"You know what I mean."
"I'm fine. I need a bit more food and a lot of sleep." She smiled - Lucy had one of the best 'I'm fine' masks Ianto had ever seen, but he could still see just how shaken she was underneath it. "Kind of ruined my plans for tonight."
He decided to pretend that the mask was still firmly in place, instead of making it worse by letting her know he saw it for how it actually was - hanging by less than the thinnest of threads.
"We'll get a DVD another night." He shrugged, fitting his own mask in place. This was not the time to tell her about Dr. Tanizaki. "So is the meeting tomorrow about Suzie then?"
"Yeah."
Lucy pushed herself off the sofa to head to the kitchen. It took every bit of restraint Ianto possessed not to wrap his arm around her shoulders, lest she stumble and fall headlong. She needed the fiction that she was fine, and he knew what it was like to need that normality.
"Plus Jack wants to check that the others haven't taken an alien artifact home" She spoke back over her shoulder. "I said that we hadn't, so if you have please hand it back in and let Jack know that I didn't know - I don't want him to think that I'm a liar."
"I've not got anything." Ianto smiled, hoping his mask was in place a little better than hers. "Don't want to get any attention because of Lisa."
"Well, that's ok then." The words were like a punch to the gut - even though he knew she couldn't possibly intend them to be.
His mask must have slipped, because she stopped suddenly.
"Not about Lisa, just that I didn't lie." She wandered around the kitchen, going first to the refrigerator to get milk, then to the cupboard to get the box of cereal, then back to the drawer next to the sink for a spoon, before pulling a bowl and a second spoon out of the dish drainer.
"I'm not thinking straight."
She stared at the cereal box as if she expected it to pour itself. Ianto reached around her, opened the box top, turned the bowl right way up, the poured the rice crispies into the bowl.
"It's fine, I knew what you meant."
He'd never seen her this shaken, not even when she'd first woken on the Plas to the faces he now knew were as familiar as her own family - and a lot more welcomed, from what he could gather.
"Yeah, so the meeting is about what's happened along with how to act with alien artifacts."
She poured the milk over her cereal - Ianto was relieved to see that she didn't fill it more than was needed. Puddles on the sideboard would have been annoying to clear up.
"It's probably also about Gwen joining the team." She took a bite of her cereal, started to reach for the milk but Ianto whisked it up to put in the refrigerator. "He's invited her as well although she's turning up half an hour after us."
Lucy didn't think highly of this Gwen - not that he hadn't already suspected from grumblings he'd heard under her breath over the past few days.
"Hmm…" there had to be a silver lining - he couldn't bear to see how vulnerable his friend and flatmate was after what she'd witnessed. "It will keep his attention off me with a new member."
She gave him a ghost of a smile, before it faded away.
"Yeah, although he hinted that it'll be my job to get her up to scratch."
"It probably is, you're the most recent" he admitted. He was suddenly struck with an image of PC Cooper in the place of the nameless, faceless Gwent police officer who made the mistake of trying out a new Taser on Lucy. He carefully schooled his features before he dared to say more. "Only joining two and a half months ago."
She looked up at him, suddenly suspicious. He grinned to let her know that he was teasing - she rolled her eyes and turned back to her cereal.
"Great. That will be fun."
He sat down next to her, pouring himself his own bowl of cereal. They ate together in silence. Finally he broke it.
"So, are you going to tell her about Jack?"
"You mean the immortality that none of us officially know about?"
He smirked. It was nice having a harmless secret for once.
"Yeah, that one - except I'm pretty sure he knows that you know. No show on the telly would leave something like THAT out, would they?"
"Yeah, well - he knows I know. He also knows Gwen knows."
"What?"
"Yeah. Suzie killed him before she killed herself, before she tried to kill Gwen. Him coming back was why she's the one in the morgue."
"Did you…?" He trailed off.
"Did I have to put her there?"
He nodded.
"Yep."
Oh Lucy. No wonder she looked so fragile tonight. He stepped closer, and put one arm around her shoulders. He pulled her close, and she leaned her head on his shoulder.
"You know, Yan? This sucks. It absolutely sucks."
He nodded, resting his head against of the top of hers.
The moment was broken when Lucy gave an enormous yawn. Ianto smiled, gave her shoulder one last squeeze, and let go.
"Are you sure you're all right?" He asked gently.
"I'm fine. I just need to get some sleep.
She smiled at him, even though he knew she was lying. Still, after the evening she'd had, he allowed her to think he was fooled.
"Good night, then. I'll see you in the morning."
"Yep. I'll see you…" a ginormous yawn seemed almost to split the entire room "I'll see you tomorrow."
She stumbled out of the kitchen and into her room. Ianto waited until he heard her collapse onto the mattress, before he cleared the cereal, the milk, and washed her dishes. Technically, it was her turn, but that was ok.
Just this once, she'd needed it.
Before he turned in to his room, he paused next to Lucy's door. There was no sound - he hoped she was resting soundly.
"Good night, Lu," he murmured. "Sleep well."