FIC: Clean Up, Aisle Five (Torchwood)
Title: Clean Up, Aisle Five
Author: Jewels (bjewelled)
Web Link: http://www.bjewelled.co.uk/fanfic/twfic.shtml
Fandom: Torchwood
Disclaimer: Torchwood is the legal property of the BBC. In case you didn’t know.
Summary: Post DW’s “Journey’s End”, because we all wanted to see Jack back at the Hub, and yet were denied.
Notes: I’m not a big fan of writing the post-episode reactionary fic, mostly because everyone always writes the same thing (and usually better than I could), but sod it, I want my ending, and it also contains a bit of dialogue I’ve wanted to include in a fic but could never find a place. And yes, I’m aware it’s a bloody stupid title.
Word Count: ~2,350
Everything may be alright with the world, the villains vanquished and the good guys triumphant, but nothing will ever, ever, persuade the British public transport system to run in a convenient and robust fashion. It was this thought that had Jack Harkness standing in a London suburb, having just waved farewell to Martha Jones and Mickey Smith (after giving the young man his phone number and the suggestion that he call should he need a job), realising that he wasn’t exactly certain as to how to get back to Cardiff. He was hardly going to be able to just hop on a train.
First thing was first though. He rummaged around in the pocket of his coat, pulling out his mobile and looking at the screen. Remarkably, it had survived everything on the Dalek’s station, from extermination, to near vaporisation. It was a little worse for wear, the casing cracked and the screen damaged and unable to decide what it wanted to display, but when Jack dialled the Hub’s number and held the phone to his ear, he could hear the ringing even though the speaker crackled and popped.
“Jack?!” Gwen answered on the third ring, her voice rising. “Are you alright? Where are you?”
“Gwen.” Jack held up a hand to forestall her questions, even though she couldn’t see him. “Gwen, I’m fine. I’m…” He spun on the spot, looking at the leafy trees, cars lying abandoned in the roads, and the pretty redbricked houses from which people were tentatively emerging. “I’m in a suburb somewhere in London. Just working out how to get back. I might have to hotwire a car. Don’t tell Ianto, would you? He’ll just go on about my poorly suppressed criminal tendencies.”
“Jack…” Gwen’s voice was quavering, with exhaustion or relief or something else.
“Gwen,” he said, gently, “I’m fine. I’m coming back, just like I promised.”
There was a long silence, and then Gwen said, softly, “Hurry home.”
Jack found himself grinning. Home. Yeah, he could do that.
**
“I mean it,” Ianto said, pausing in the middle of coiling a length of cable. It was heavy and made his arms ache, but he didn’t put it down. “Go home. Go see, Rhys.”
“I don’t know…” Gwen looked dubious. Ever since Jack had called to say he was on his way back, she’d been making nervous glances towards the tower lift (the only exit, since neither of them were willing to pick their way past the Dalek that still stood, destroyed, in the doorway), and it hadn’t been too hard to work out exactly what she was thinking. “I should wait for Jack.”
He gave her a smile. “Go home to Rhys,” he told her, “Even if Jack left the moment he put the phone down, he was in London. It’ll take a few hours. Go home and celebrate surviving.”
Gwen put down the bin she’d retrieved to throw junk into, and threw her arms around his neck, squeezing hard. “Give Jack a kiss for me,” she said, and then he felt her grin against the side of his neck. “Do a bit of celebrating of your own,” she added, teasingly.
Ianto laughed, the relief that they were alive and the Earth was safe and Jack was coming back managing to swamp any embarrassment he might have felt. Gwen let him go and picked her coat off the floor, shaking it free of dust and debris as she hurried over to the lift, jumping on it as it started to rise at Ianto’s command.
“I’ll be back later!” she called out, as she started to disappear from sight.
“Don’t you dare,” Ianto retorted, with a smile.
And then there was silence, or as close to silence as it ever got in the Hub. Half the systems were offline, the usual hum of power systems and ventilation silent and still. The pterodactyl was surprisingly quiet; she’d been caught in the Time-Lock and had made a hell of a racket when it was released, but she’d settled down quickly enough, and if he listened hard, Ianto thought he could hear the faint whistling sound that he’d come to think of as her snoring. He wondered if he should be concerned that even their pet prehistoric monster had become accustomed to the chaos of a Hub under attack.
Involuntarily, he turned away from the computer station and looked towards the cog door, where the destroyed husk of the Dalek still sat, wires and strips of dead flesh still hanging out of the casing, pieces of it scattered all around by the force of its destruction.
Ianto took a deep breath, and focused on the Rift Manipulator. He had to prioritise things, keep them in their order, and tackle one small part of the problem at a time. The Hub was in a state of half-destroyed chaos, if he stopped to think about the enormity of the cleanup then he’d never be able to get started.
It was how he’d managed to get through the aftermath of Canary Wharf, only taking each problem as it arrived, focusing on small accomplishable goals, rather than consider the enormity of what he was doing, and never, ever, think of what the final consequences might be.
So he ignored the Dalek, pushing it aside as not immediately important. It was dead, not a threat, while there was exposed electrical cabling and damaged machinery all over the place that could be a danger, never mind all the rubbish on the floor. So Ianto started with the small tasks, making the Hub safe and secure in a calm methodical fashion.
He didn’t once glance over to the Dalek.
He didn’t know how long he’d been working, but he’d managed to secure most of the worst damaged systems with patch jobs that would have to be properly fixed later, and had managed to pick up the worst of the debris littering the floor. He’d dumped the bits of broken tile and brick and glass into the bin, and managed to sweep most of the main working area clear.
He could hear footsteps coming down the staircase. Of course. The lift must still be out. When the Doctor had used the Rift to drag Earth across space (and wasn’t he just going to have some sleepness nights trying to wrap his brain around exactly how that was possible?), the Rift Manipulator had drawn so much power that it had blown half the breakers and then exploded a few power conduits for good measure. It was one of these conduits that he was sweeping up as he heard Jack yell, “Gwen! Ianto! Where-” His voice abruptly trailed off.
“Through here,” he called out, emerging from Jack’s office, broom still in hand.
Jack had stopped in the doorway, walking carefully around the Dalek, staring at it, open mouthed. “Ianto,” he said, looking from the destroyed alien to Ianto and back again, “What…?”
“I sent Gwen home,” Ianto said abruptly. His chest had gone tight, and it was suddenly hard to breathe as he saw Jack’s face, pale and shocked and suddenly drained of animation. Maybe it was just that the whole situation hadn’t seemed quite so real until that moment. They had survived a Dalek come to kill them. “No sense her hanging around worrying about Rhys, and I could take care of the cleanup myself.”
Jack stepped around the Dalek, cautiously, staring at Ianto. “There’s a Dalek in the Hub,” he said, “When did it get here?”
Ianto put the broom down. “Picked up the subwave network and got here not long after you left.” He turned away, towards Tosh’s old workstation, tapping the keyboard. Several screens flickered into life, and he flipped through them without looking at any of them. “Tosh left behind a time lock that froze it and protected the Hub. She was a genuis. And, apparently, she still has a great sense of timing even now.”
Jack climbed the stairs, brow furrowed in concern. “Ianto-”
“Then it just blew up,” Ianto said, still speaking, realising dimly that he was babbling but unable to stop himself. “I’m guessing that was your Doctor. I can see why you love him so much. Saves the world, saves everyone, what’s not to like? I mean, it would have been fantastic if he’d arrived a few days earlier, but I suppose it’s a case of better late than never, hmm?”
Jack had reached the work station, and resting his hands on Ianto’s, stilling them from their restless tapping on the keyboard. Ianto fell silent, slowly raising his eyes to meet Jack’s.
“So,” Jack said, conversationally, “I just got to relive my worst nightmare of being killed on a space station full of Daleks about to destroy the world. How about you?”
Ianto drew breath, maybe to laugh weakly at the godawful attempt at humour, but in the action, something seemed to snap in his chest, and he staggered, sagging, gripping the edge of the desk tightly to prevent himself from just falling over. He felt a warm weight around his shoulders, supporting him. Jack’s arm.
“Oddly enough,” he said, when he was capable of speaking, feeling light-headed. “This is not the worst day I’ve ever had.”
Jack drew him closer, and touched warm lips against his temple. He drew Ianto away from the workstation and over to the sofa. Too dizzy with pent-up relief, Ianto let himself be led, though he grimaced as he sat down. There were still discarded shell casings on the cushions, and they dug into his legs as he sat. Jack picked up one of the spent bullets, held it between thumb and forefinger and frowned.
“You have to have known they were coming when I left,” he said, after a moment. “And you didn’t say anything.”
Ianto sat on the sofa, hand bent down, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He clasped his hands together and stared at his fingers as if they were the most fascinating thing on Earth. “You had to go,” he said, “We couldn’t stop you.”
“But…” Jack’s hand clenched around the casing. “You could have died. You knew you could have died and you let me go.”
“Because you had to go,” Ianto repeated. After a moment, he reached out, and took Jack’s hand, uncurling his fingers and taking the casing out of his palm. He looked at it contemplatively for a moment. It was probably one of the more normal looking items in the Hub, for all that the alloy was the product of a manufacturing technique from another world, and the rifles augmented with recoil dampening that wouldn’t be invented for another fifty years.
“Have I ever told you,” Ianto said, thoughtfully, “What a comfort it is knowing you’re immortal?”
Jack stiffened beside him briefly, though Ianto couldn’t see his expression. “I don’t understand,” Jack admitted.
“We die young in Torchwood,” Ianto said, rolling the casing between thumb and forefinger, “Except for you.”
Jack sat frighteningly still, saying nothing.
“You’ll outlive us all. You’ll never die. I’m not saying watching you come back to life is a comfort, every time it happens I’m vaguely convinced that it’ll be the last time, and you’ll never get up again. But it’s nice knowing that even if we were to all get killed tomorrow, someone would remember us, remember Tosh and Owen, and Suzie and Lisa, remember what happened and why.” Ianto handed back the casing and looking into Jack’s face. “It’s nice, knowing that even though this is a secret organisation, someone’ll always know about us.”
Jack took the shell, and threw it in the bin.
“You remember how I told you that Martha looked familiar?” Ianto asked. Jack nodded. “I finally remembered. Adeola Oshodi. I met her once, at one of London’s Christmas parties. She’s Martha’s cousin. I’m not even sure Martha knows her cousin worked for Torchwood. She’d have been completely forgotten, if I hadn’t remembered.”
Jack took his hand, gripping in a tight, but not painful, fashion. “I’d never forget you,” he said, fiercely, “Not you, not Gwen or Tosh or Owen, not for however long I’m going to live. But…” He gave a small smile. “I’d rather not have to worry about that just yet. You shouldn’t have let me go.”
Ianto shrugged, sitting up straight. “You had to go,” he said, and offered a faint smile, though he knew it had to look tired and worn, “And we both love you too much to stop you.”
Jack stared at him for a long moment, and briefly, Ianto wondered if he should maybe have kept his mouth shut, but then Jack was pulling him forward into a bone-crushingly tight hug, pressing his face into Ianto’s neck.
“Ianto Jones,” he said, sincerely, “Don’t ever change.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, sir,” he said, snaking his arms under Jack’s coat and taking an indulgent moment to revel in the warmth. After a moment, he pulled back far enough to tilt his head and press a gentle kiss against Jack’s lips. “From Gwen,” he said, at Jack’s bemused look.
“I don’t get anything from you?” Jack asked, quirking an eyebrow in amusement.
Ianto’s mouth twitched in amusement. “Well, I thought I’d save that for somewhere other than a half-destroyed secret underground lair.”
“I like the way you think. But first,” Jack jerked his head in the direction of the Dalek. “Let’s get rid of that thing.”
Ianto frowned. “There’s other stuff we should sort out first,” he started, dubiously.
Jack shook his head. “No there isn’t,” he said, overriding Ianto’s half-formed protests about power cables and shattered glass. “I don’t want that thing sitting in my Hub.”
Ianto nodded, finding, somehow, a vague relief that the decision had been taken away from him, and that, more importantly, he didn’t have to deal with it on his own. “Ok,” he said, “But, for the record, we are not mounting its eyestalk on the wall like a trophy. I have enough nightmares already.”
“Spoilsport,” said Jack, rolling his eyes.
- Fin -
Author: Jewels (bjewelled)
Web Link: http://www.bjewelled.co.uk/fanfic/twfic.shtml
Fandom: Torchwood
Disclaimer: Torchwood is the legal property of the BBC. In case you didn’t know.
Summary: Post DW’s “Journey’s End”, because we all wanted to see Jack back at the Hub, and yet were denied.
Notes: I’m not a big fan of writing the post-episode reactionary fic, mostly because everyone always writes the same thing (and usually better than I could), but sod it, I want my ending, and it also contains a bit of dialogue I’ve wanted to include in a fic but could never find a place. And yes, I’m aware it’s a bloody stupid title.
Word Count: ~2,350
Everything may be alright with the world, the villains vanquished and the good guys triumphant, but nothing will ever, ever, persuade the British public transport system to run in a convenient and robust fashion. It was this thought that had Jack Harkness standing in a London suburb, having just waved farewell to Martha Jones and Mickey Smith (after giving the young man his phone number and the suggestion that he call should he need a job), realising that he wasn’t exactly certain as to how to get back to Cardiff. He was hardly going to be able to just hop on a train.
First thing was first though. He rummaged around in the pocket of his coat, pulling out his mobile and looking at the screen. Remarkably, it had survived everything on the Dalek’s station, from extermination, to near vaporisation. It was a little worse for wear, the casing cracked and the screen damaged and unable to decide what it wanted to display, but when Jack dialled the Hub’s number and held the phone to his ear, he could hear the ringing even though the speaker crackled and popped.
“Jack?!” Gwen answered on the third ring, her voice rising. “Are you alright? Where are you?”
“Gwen.” Jack held up a hand to forestall her questions, even though she couldn’t see him. “Gwen, I’m fine. I’m…” He spun on the spot, looking at the leafy trees, cars lying abandoned in the roads, and the pretty redbricked houses from which people were tentatively emerging. “I’m in a suburb somewhere in London. Just working out how to get back. I might have to hotwire a car. Don’t tell Ianto, would you? He’ll just go on about my poorly suppressed criminal tendencies.”
“Jack…” Gwen’s voice was quavering, with exhaustion or relief or something else.
“Gwen,” he said, gently, “I’m fine. I’m coming back, just like I promised.”
There was a long silence, and then Gwen said, softly, “Hurry home.”
Jack found himself grinning. Home. Yeah, he could do that.
**
“I mean it,” Ianto said, pausing in the middle of coiling a length of cable. It was heavy and made his arms ache, but he didn’t put it down. “Go home. Go see, Rhys.”
“I don’t know…” Gwen looked dubious. Ever since Jack had called to say he was on his way back, she’d been making nervous glances towards the tower lift (the only exit, since neither of them were willing to pick their way past the Dalek that still stood, destroyed, in the doorway), and it hadn’t been too hard to work out exactly what she was thinking. “I should wait for Jack.”
He gave her a smile. “Go home to Rhys,” he told her, “Even if Jack left the moment he put the phone down, he was in London. It’ll take a few hours. Go home and celebrate surviving.”
Gwen put down the bin she’d retrieved to throw junk into, and threw her arms around his neck, squeezing hard. “Give Jack a kiss for me,” she said, and then he felt her grin against the side of his neck. “Do a bit of celebrating of your own,” she added, teasingly.
Ianto laughed, the relief that they were alive and the Earth was safe and Jack was coming back managing to swamp any embarrassment he might have felt. Gwen let him go and picked her coat off the floor, shaking it free of dust and debris as she hurried over to the lift, jumping on it as it started to rise at Ianto’s command.
“I’ll be back later!” she called out, as she started to disappear from sight.
“Don’t you dare,” Ianto retorted, with a smile.
And then there was silence, or as close to silence as it ever got in the Hub. Half the systems were offline, the usual hum of power systems and ventilation silent and still. The pterodactyl was surprisingly quiet; she’d been caught in the Time-Lock and had made a hell of a racket when it was released, but she’d settled down quickly enough, and if he listened hard, Ianto thought he could hear the faint whistling sound that he’d come to think of as her snoring. He wondered if he should be concerned that even their pet prehistoric monster had become accustomed to the chaos of a Hub under attack.
Involuntarily, he turned away from the computer station and looked towards the cog door, where the destroyed husk of the Dalek still sat, wires and strips of dead flesh still hanging out of the casing, pieces of it scattered all around by the force of its destruction.
Ianto took a deep breath, and focused on the Rift Manipulator. He had to prioritise things, keep them in their order, and tackle one small part of the problem at a time. The Hub was in a state of half-destroyed chaos, if he stopped to think about the enormity of the cleanup then he’d never be able to get started.
It was how he’d managed to get through the aftermath of Canary Wharf, only taking each problem as it arrived, focusing on small accomplishable goals, rather than consider the enormity of what he was doing, and never, ever, think of what the final consequences might be.
So he ignored the Dalek, pushing it aside as not immediately important. It was dead, not a threat, while there was exposed electrical cabling and damaged machinery all over the place that could be a danger, never mind all the rubbish on the floor. So Ianto started with the small tasks, making the Hub safe and secure in a calm methodical fashion.
He didn’t once glance over to the Dalek.
He didn’t know how long he’d been working, but he’d managed to secure most of the worst damaged systems with patch jobs that would have to be properly fixed later, and had managed to pick up the worst of the debris littering the floor. He’d dumped the bits of broken tile and brick and glass into the bin, and managed to sweep most of the main working area clear.
He could hear footsteps coming down the staircase. Of course. The lift must still be out. When the Doctor had used the Rift to drag Earth across space (and wasn’t he just going to have some sleepness nights trying to wrap his brain around exactly how that was possible?), the Rift Manipulator had drawn so much power that it had blown half the breakers and then exploded a few power conduits for good measure. It was one of these conduits that he was sweeping up as he heard Jack yell, “Gwen! Ianto! Where-” His voice abruptly trailed off.
“Through here,” he called out, emerging from Jack’s office, broom still in hand.
Jack had stopped in the doorway, walking carefully around the Dalek, staring at it, open mouthed. “Ianto,” he said, looking from the destroyed alien to Ianto and back again, “What…?”
“I sent Gwen home,” Ianto said abruptly. His chest had gone tight, and it was suddenly hard to breathe as he saw Jack’s face, pale and shocked and suddenly drained of animation. Maybe it was just that the whole situation hadn’t seemed quite so real until that moment. They had survived a Dalek come to kill them. “No sense her hanging around worrying about Rhys, and I could take care of the cleanup myself.”
Jack stepped around the Dalek, cautiously, staring at Ianto. “There’s a Dalek in the Hub,” he said, “When did it get here?”
Ianto put the broom down. “Picked up the subwave network and got here not long after you left.” He turned away, towards Tosh’s old workstation, tapping the keyboard. Several screens flickered into life, and he flipped through them without looking at any of them. “Tosh left behind a time lock that froze it and protected the Hub. She was a genuis. And, apparently, she still has a great sense of timing even now.”
Jack climbed the stairs, brow furrowed in concern. “Ianto-”
“Then it just blew up,” Ianto said, still speaking, realising dimly that he was babbling but unable to stop himself. “I’m guessing that was your Doctor. I can see why you love him so much. Saves the world, saves everyone, what’s not to like? I mean, it would have been fantastic if he’d arrived a few days earlier, but I suppose it’s a case of better late than never, hmm?”
Jack had reached the work station, and resting his hands on Ianto’s, stilling them from their restless tapping on the keyboard. Ianto fell silent, slowly raising his eyes to meet Jack’s.
“So,” Jack said, conversationally, “I just got to relive my worst nightmare of being killed on a space station full of Daleks about to destroy the world. How about you?”
Ianto drew breath, maybe to laugh weakly at the godawful attempt at humour, but in the action, something seemed to snap in his chest, and he staggered, sagging, gripping the edge of the desk tightly to prevent himself from just falling over. He felt a warm weight around his shoulders, supporting him. Jack’s arm.
“Oddly enough,” he said, when he was capable of speaking, feeling light-headed. “This is not the worst day I’ve ever had.”
Jack drew him closer, and touched warm lips against his temple. He drew Ianto away from the workstation and over to the sofa. Too dizzy with pent-up relief, Ianto let himself be led, though he grimaced as he sat down. There were still discarded shell casings on the cushions, and they dug into his legs as he sat. Jack picked up one of the spent bullets, held it between thumb and forefinger and frowned.
“You have to have known they were coming when I left,” he said, after a moment. “And you didn’t say anything.”
Ianto sat on the sofa, hand bent down, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. He clasped his hands together and stared at his fingers as if they were the most fascinating thing on Earth. “You had to go,” he said, “We couldn’t stop you.”
“But…” Jack’s hand clenched around the casing. “You could have died. You knew you could have died and you let me go.”
“Because you had to go,” Ianto repeated. After a moment, he reached out, and took Jack’s hand, uncurling his fingers and taking the casing out of his palm. He looked at it contemplatively for a moment. It was probably one of the more normal looking items in the Hub, for all that the alloy was the product of a manufacturing technique from another world, and the rifles augmented with recoil dampening that wouldn’t be invented for another fifty years.
“Have I ever told you,” Ianto said, thoughtfully, “What a comfort it is knowing you’re immortal?”
Jack stiffened beside him briefly, though Ianto couldn’t see his expression. “I don’t understand,” Jack admitted.
“We die young in Torchwood,” Ianto said, rolling the casing between thumb and forefinger, “Except for you.”
Jack sat frighteningly still, saying nothing.
“You’ll outlive us all. You’ll never die. I’m not saying watching you come back to life is a comfort, every time it happens I’m vaguely convinced that it’ll be the last time, and you’ll never get up again. But it’s nice knowing that even if we were to all get killed tomorrow, someone would remember us, remember Tosh and Owen, and Suzie and Lisa, remember what happened and why.” Ianto handed back the casing and looking into Jack’s face. “It’s nice, knowing that even though this is a secret organisation, someone’ll always know about us.”
Jack took the shell, and threw it in the bin.
“You remember how I told you that Martha looked familiar?” Ianto asked. Jack nodded. “I finally remembered. Adeola Oshodi. I met her once, at one of London’s Christmas parties. She’s Martha’s cousin. I’m not even sure Martha knows her cousin worked for Torchwood. She’d have been completely forgotten, if I hadn’t remembered.”
Jack took his hand, gripping in a tight, but not painful, fashion. “I’d never forget you,” he said, fiercely, “Not you, not Gwen or Tosh or Owen, not for however long I’m going to live. But…” He gave a small smile. “I’d rather not have to worry about that just yet. You shouldn’t have let me go.”
Ianto shrugged, sitting up straight. “You had to go,” he said, and offered a faint smile, though he knew it had to look tired and worn, “And we both love you too much to stop you.”
Jack stared at him for a long moment, and briefly, Ianto wondered if he should maybe have kept his mouth shut, but then Jack was pulling him forward into a bone-crushingly tight hug, pressing his face into Ianto’s neck.
“Ianto Jones,” he said, sincerely, “Don’t ever change.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, sir,” he said, snaking his arms under Jack’s coat and taking an indulgent moment to revel in the warmth. After a moment, he pulled back far enough to tilt his head and press a gentle kiss against Jack’s lips. “From Gwen,” he said, at Jack’s bemused look.
“I don’t get anything from you?” Jack asked, quirking an eyebrow in amusement.
Ianto’s mouth twitched in amusement. “Well, I thought I’d save that for somewhere other than a half-destroyed secret underground lair.”
“I like the way you think. But first,” Jack jerked his head in the direction of the Dalek. “Let’s get rid of that thing.”
Ianto frowned. “There’s other stuff we should sort out first,” he started, dubiously.
Jack shook his head. “No there isn’t,” he said, overriding Ianto’s half-formed protests about power cables and shattered glass. “I don’t want that thing sitting in my Hub.”
Ianto nodded, finding, somehow, a vague relief that the decision had been taken away from him, and that, more importantly, he didn’t have to deal with it on his own. “Ok,” he said, “But, for the record, we are not mounting its eyestalk on the wall like a trophy. I have enough nightmares already.”
“Spoilsport,” said Jack, rolling his eyes.
- Fin -