Sorry fluff lovers, if you're smiling in anticpation, don't. This is 'stuff' not fluff. More Ianto than Janto, but more Annie the Pizza girl than anything else. Set during Cyberwoman.
Annie tossed her apron aside with a feeling of relief. Her shift was over. If she could get the smell of garlic out of her clothes, she might even hit the bars.
"One last delivery," Danny told her as she passed him on her way to the staff bathroom, "Tourism office."
"I suppose I could take it," she offered with feigned reluctance, trying to pretend her throat hadn't just gone dry. "It's just across the Plass."
Danny smirked, seeing straight through her pretence. "Thought you might. Thanks, love."
Annie didn't blush. She was used to it. Everyone teased her about having a crush. "On an older man, too."
And here she is, heart thumping while she brushes her hair, eyes sparkling as they look back at her from the mirror, and admitting to herself that they're right.
She doesn't understand why everyone thinks it's so funny though. She hasn't got one of those ridiculous unobtainable crushes on an actor or a rock star. He's not her tutor or her boss or anything else that would make it on the creepy side. And yeah, he's probably older than her, but he isn't old. At least she doesn't think so. He looks young, anyway, except for his eyes. He doesn't live in a different country. And yet, as she sighs to her girlfriends over chocolate and ice cream, he's as unreachable as the stars.
He's the man who works in the tourism office. And he is young. Face as smooth as if he hasn't started shaving yet, though that's probably just impeccable grooming. No wrinkles, no receding hairline. He's young, except for those eyes. Too young for those eyes. An old soul, as her mother would say.
All Annie's friends agree, he's gorgeous. They've had several tours of Cardiff castle and countless ferry rides, Annie and her gang, just for the excuse to go in and book a tour with him. His nametag says 'Ianto', a good Welsh name for a good-looking local boy, well, local man.
Local gentleman, actually, in a world where the word is fast losing meaning. He's got such lovely manners. Once, Annie was walking out of Jubilee with her arms full of pizza boxes, and Ianto (always Ianto in her mind, though she's never actually called him that to his face. She will, one day, she will) held the door open for her. So he is a gentleman. A very rare thing, these days, as Annie's mum also says, far too often. Whenever she'd brought a bloke home, actually.
Mum'd be rapt if Annie ever brought Ianto home. Not that it's gonna happen. Annie's only conversations with Ianto so far are of the 'Here's your order' variety. Because in that time-honored tradition, all the witty things she practices in the mirror get stuck on the knots in her tongue in the presence of the The Crush.
The first time Annie wangled her way into delivering his pizza order – much more than one man could eat, by the way – he remembered her from all the times he'd been in Jubilee when Annie was on the register, wearing her tacky plastic nametag. Ianto remembered her. "Thank you Annie," he'd said, furnishing a week's worth of dreams just from the way he said her name.
Another time, she'd snagged a delivery just before she went off shift, hoping she'd have the nerve to ask Ianto for a drink. He met her at the door, after she buzzed the external intercom they always used for after-hours deliveries, and if she'd been hoping he'd ask her into the closed office, she was disappointed. He had the money ready in his hand, and thanked her with a frown, so the invite she'd rehearsed all day stuck in her throat. "It's dark out there," Ianto said finally. "They shouldn't have sent you out alone."
Annie tried to say something clever and lighthearted. She wasn't a wimp, after all, she knew how to handle herself. But his eyes were dark and troubled, as if he knew more than he should about what lurked in the streets of Cardiff after dark, and she couldn't help the shiver that ran through her at his tone. Not a good shiver, that time.
But her heart stayed right where it'd stuck in her throat, and her imagination went wild at the thought that maybe he'd walk her back. It hadn't been quite that good, but the pizzas cooled on the counter while Ianto hovered at the door, watching until she was safely inside Jubilee. Another week worth of dreams, right there, and it was horrible to admit, but most of them involved her getting into danger and Ianto racing to the rescue – and even Annie's diary would never learn how those dreams ended.
Annie sighs at the mirror and checks her clothes for stains. Clear, thank all the fates. She doesn't want Ianto to see her with tomato spattered on her shirt. He's always beautifully dressed, never a stain, never a wrinkle. It's a mystery how he manages to afford clothes like that. Surely the Tourism Board doesn't pay that well.
But if you ask about Torchwood, people point to that office. Danny says there's a Torchwood on the books, good customers, and their drop-off address is the tourism office.
That office is strange. When people go in there, they don't come always back out. At least not through the same door. And there's always far more pizza than one man can possibly eat. It's only a small office, too, far too small for – Five people?
Annie hasn't seen that elegant aloof lady for a while, now. Dark haired, with skin like expensive honey. There's a different one, a new one, a local girl by the voice. Dark hair, pale skin, and when she smiles, which she does more than the rest of them, there's a gap between her two front teeth, like Annie used to have before those years in braces.
There's another lady that usually hurries past with her head down. Pretty Asian lady. Shy-looking and dark haired as well. Why don't they have any blondes there? Every team of secret agents has a blonde, don't they? They need a blonde. Sometimes Annie thinks maybe she could be that missing part of the team. Maybe she's not quite blonde, but a bottle of peroxide would fix that, no problem.
But then she'll see them, with that thin pale bloke hovering over whichever one can't walk without help. She'll see the makeshift bandages darken as they rush across the Plass and vanish somewhere around the water tower. There's panic and pain, and it doesn't look glamorous anymore.
Still, he's there in office, paying for pizza and smiling a lovely smile that doesn't quite reach his old, old eyes. He's part of it, but apart from it. Sometimes Annie wonders if the secrets in Ianto's eyes all belong to Torchwood, or are some of them his own? Because the others don't look like that.
Except for that other bloke. The tall, movie-star handsome one. Annie's friends all have crushes on him instead. That's fine with Annie. She doesn't need the competition.
The movie-star bloke is competition enough. Annie isn't blinded by her crush. She can see the way the bloke in the coat looks at the young man she's already started thinking of as hers. She sees the admiration, the appetite. And she's jealous.
Annie sees the way Ianto's eyes change when the older bloke looks at him, when he talks to him in that sultry voice her girlfriends swoon over. Ianto's eyes don't look old anymore, they look young, and scared and hopeless, too. But his mouth flirts back, while his lips twist into something that passes for a smile, but it isn't, and Annie's hands twist into useless fists, because the bloke in the coat never looks at Ianto's face. And maybe it's only Annie who sees the way Ianto looks past him, too. She wonders who he sees, and why he just doesn't tell the bloke in the coat where to go.
Annie knows she could make Ianto smile. A real smile that warms those cold, old eyes. If only he'd look at her, and really see her.
Maybe tonight's the night. Ianto's there alone. Annie watched the rest of them leave, saw them stroll past Jubilee, heading towards the pub. All of them except Ianto, and she burned with anger that they'd leave him behind.
Then the order came through. Two pepperoni delights, with coleslaw, because his boss says he doesn't eat enough vegetables. That burns worse, because surely the boss is the one in the coat. How dare he pretend to worry about Ianto's diet when he never really sees him?
But if Ianto is alone in the office, maybe tonight Annie will finally be able to get past the lump in her throat. Her shift's over. Danny doesn't expect her to come back to Jubilee after this last delivery. And if Ianto's workmates are all at the pub, surely it wouldn't be that hard to convince him to leave, too. He was worried about her walking back alone last time; maybe she can convince him to walk with her.
And if she can do that, it wouldn't be too much of reach to buy him a thank-you drink, would it? Danny yells that the order's ready, but Annie's still in the bathroom, fixing her makeup and tidying her hair and blushing as she undoes a button on her shirt. Annie isn't that sort of girl, but she wants to catch his eye tonight, and the mirror tells her she's in with a chance, now. God knows she could do with the confidence boost, she thinks as she hits the exposed skin with a blast of perfume to cover the lingering scent of garlic bread.
The pizzas are heavy on her arm. Yeah, tonight's the night. If it doesn't work out, at least she'll know she's tried. It's an effort, but Annie's rapt that she sounds so beautifully casual as she calls into the intercom. It cranks her confidence up another notch. She can do this. Dreams can come true. You just need to put in the work.
Annie's heart isn't in her throat, this time. It's hammering in her chest so hard she can barely hear her own voice echoing around the empty office. Her voice, calling his name for the first time, and it feels so right on her tongue.
There's another door. Odd that she hasn't noticed it before. It opens for her, inviting her in. Ianto inviting her in? It must be. The others are gone, she watched them go,k and all those dreams are about to come true. Two pizzas. One for him – maybe one for her?
Maybe this isn't real. Maybe it's another dream. Annie's never been this brave before, except in her dreams. But she has to do this, she absolutely has to, or she'll miss her only chance. A bloke as handsome as him won't bother trying again. He could have anyone.
The door creaks, and there's a gloomy hallway beyond. Annie's not just nervous now, she's bloody near terrified. But Ianto's down there, maybe waiting for her, and only the brave deserve the fair, right?
This was actually written to weave around the Cyberwoman ep in Breaking my Heart, if you're reading that, but there's way too much going on to add this in as well. Thanks for reading.