Fic: The Sea After a Storm (25/?)
Title: The Sea After a Storm, Chapter 25
Rating: R
Warnings: None really, just don’t feel like changing the rating :)
Spoilers: Season Two thru Sleeper (2x02)
Pairings: Jack/Ianto
Disclaimer: Torchwood and all its wonderfulness belong to the Mighty Beeb and He Who Must Not Be Named. All ©'s to James Moran for situations and dialogue borrowed from Sleeper. No infringement, only worship intended!
Summary: In which the team has to decide what to do with Beth…
Notes: Sorry for the delay this week. I'd love to say it won't happen again, but with work being what it is and the holidays upon us… I'll keep you posted. Thanks for your patience! Previous chapters found here. Sequel to Vizzini’s Rule and To The Pain. Thanks to my amazing beta and wonderful friend thrace_adams for all the help and support; any mistakes are mine!
The Sea After a Storm: Chapter Twenty-Five
Tosh and Owen left the boardroom shortly after Jack and Gwen. Ianto stayed behind for a few minutes to make sure everything was put to rights. He debated filling the brandy decanter but decided not to bother. He slid the pocket doors closed behind him and hurried back up to the Hub. A quick glance at the cell's CCTV monitor told him Jack and Gwen were still talking to Beth. By the looks of it, things were not going well.
Ianto sighed and looked around for something to do. Tosh was at her workstation, alternating spurts of furious typing with long moments of staring into space. Recognising her typical 'working out something brilliant' pattern, Ianto didn't disturb her. He merely snagged the stack of filing from her outbox and moved on to Gwen's desk where he found a few files to go back to the archives amidst the piles of bridal magazines. He noticed one of the dresses on the glossy pages was marked with a sticky note that read, This one! Ianto smiled and added a comment to the bottom of the note: Lovely! You'll look beautiful - I
Ianto went to Owen's desk next and grabbed the most recent autopsy reports from his outbox and then looked around with a frown, wondering where the doctor had gone. He spotted him in the new hothouse, babying some of his recent, unusual plantings. Several of the seedlings might well be of alien origin, but Ianto was sure that one of them, at least, was simply a very ugly specimen of cacti.
Glancing at his watch, Ianto was surprised to see it was almost noon. He rubbed his eyes after dropping the files he'd collected at his own workstation and headed over to the coffee machine. It had been a while since Torchwood had pulled an all-nighter. Well, other than the night Jack came back, Ianto thought as he started to grind the beans. As soon as the coffee was brewing, he pulled his mobile out of his pocket and dialled Jubilee Pizza, acknowledging, as always, the sharp stab of guilt as he pictured Annie's face while the phone rang. He wasn't sure anyone was in the mood to eat, but knew that eventually they'd need some sustenance or things would get ugly when the blood sugar dropped. He paid by credit card and told the boy to leave the food on the Tourist Office counter if he didn't happen to be there.
He'd just finished the call when Jack came up from the cells. He headed straight for his office, not sparing a glance for anyone. Ianto quickly filled Jack's blue and white striped mug and followed.
"Coffee, sir?" he asked as he rapped politely on the doorframe.
Jack started and looked up from his desk. "Huh? Oh, yeah, thanks, Ianto. That sounds good."
"How're you holding up?" Ianto asked.
With a shrug, Jack took the coffee and sipped it gratefully.
"I called for - "
"Jack!" Gwen yelled.
Ianto glanced out into the Hub to see Gwen striding towards them.
"Jack, you can't just - oh, sorry, Ianto, I didn't see you," Gwen said as she barrelled into Jack's office.
"Quite all right. Coffee?"
"No, thanks," she said and then advanced on Jack's desk. "You can't just dismiss her as some alien, Jack. She's got the right to - "
"To what?" Jack said, meeting Gwen's anger with his own. "She's not a human being, she's a member of a hostile alien species and she doesn't have any rights here. How can I make you understand that?"
Ianto took that as his cue and quickly exited the office. He shared a look with Tosh and Owen as he made his way across the Hub. They all knew the score - neither Jack nor Gwen would be in a place to listen to anyone else until they'd yelled it all out. They're really so much alike in some ways, Ianto mused as he sat down at his workstation and started putting his files in order.
It only took about ten minutes before the shouting died down and Jack and Gwen joined the rest of them in the Hub.
Tosh glanced up from her computer and asked Jack if there was a plan for dealing with Beth.
Jack shrugged and put his hands on his hips. "She's an alien. Full stop. Nothing we can do will change that."
"But she doesn't feel like an alien, Jack," Gwen said, still arguing. "That has to be worth something. She wants to be Beth, to be a normal human being."
Owen's snort of amusement and his muttered, "Whatever that is," floated down from the catwalk where he was now misting his plants.
"Not helping," Gwen sang out.
Jack moved to stand right in front of Gwen. Arms crossed, he looked down at her. "Gwen, what exactly do you see happening here?"
"We… we find some way to help her, to make sure she doesn't what did you call it? Activate? Otherwise what good are we?"
Jack just shook his head.
"What?" Gwen asked, her colour rising. "We find a way to stop her implant and let her go home to her husband. We could check in with them and - "
Jack stalked away, pacing back and forth in front of the armoury. "We can't let her go, she's too dangerous."
"We could freeze her," Tosh suggested.
At last, an actual suggestion, Ianto thought with relief. He appreciated Gwen's passion but she just never could translate it into practical action and sometimes it drove him mad.
"Use the alien cryogenics," Tosh was explaining. "Wake her up if we figure out how to stop her memories from coming back."
"Freeze her?" Gwen parroted. "For how long?"
Tosh gave a little shrug. "For as long as it takes," she said as if it were obvious. "At least she'd be alive."
Jack didn't look convinced. "Her implant would still gather information," he pointed out.
"Can't we deactivate it?" Gwen asked.
Tosh nodded. "I can isolate the transceiver and fry it in an EM pulse. Right now it's not sending or receiving anything. I've checked it five times on every frequency."
"Won't that let them know we're onto them?" Owen asked.
"No, if we freeze her, she'll never activate and they'll never know."
Ianto nodded to himself and began to find the forms he would need for the morgue file. He was sure Tosh's solution was the only option that Jack and Gwen would be able to agree upon.
"What about her husband?" Owen asked, surprising Ianto who would have expected a question like that to come from Gwen.
Jack looked up at Owen. "She'd have to disappear completely," he said and then dropped his gaze to look right at Gwen. "No goodbyes." He walked away before Gwen, or anyone else for that matter, could argue.
Owen sighed and set down the little tree he'd been misting. "I'll get the cryo prepped," he said and then began putting the plants back in the hothouse.
Tosh nodded and went back to her computer.
Gwen just stayed where she was, biting her lip as she obviously tried to come to terms with all this. Ianto took the long way around the Hub with his forms, pausing for a moment to rest his hand on her shoulder. Gwen looked up at him, the worry in her big eyes fading for a second. He gave her a reassuring smile and then headed for Jack's office.
Jack was pacing the length of his office, from the safe to the window over the interrogation room and back. He paused at the window when Ianto came in, staring at the two-way mirror, down into the dank little room.
"This is a mistake," he said softly without turning his head, as if sensing it was Ianto who'd joined him.
"What else can we do?" Ianto asked reasonably.
Jack huffed out a short breath. "I could go down to the cells and put a bullet in her brain," he said, his voice harsh and cold.
Ianto paled a bit, but kept the dismay out of his voice when he spoke. "Only if Tosh deactivates the force-field around her first. And I think you'd have a little trouble convincing her to help you execute someone."
"It's what Torchwood does best," Jack muttered.
"Not your Torchwood," Ianto said firmly. He dropped the papers on Jack's desk and joined him by the mirror. He grabbed the rail with both hands and looked down into the blackness of the interrogation room, careful not to touch Jack. "Torchwood One? Yes. Yvonne Hartman wouldn't have hesitated. Hell, she probably would have enjoyed being the one to pull the trigger. But what you've built here, it's different, better. You changed it."
"I told him that, but he didn't believe me," Jack whispered. "What if he's right?"
Ianto narrowed his eyes and glanced at Jack's faint reflection in the glass. He tightened his grip on the railing. He must be talking about the Doctor. "He's not," Ianto said shortly.
Jack looked at him then, turning and stepping a bit closer. Ianto met him halfway until they were mere inches apart.
"And I happen to think that I am much more qualified to judge the differences between Torchwood One and Torchwood Three than the Doctor. Don't you think?"
Jack nodded but didn't speak. He reached out and cupped Ianto's cheek, running his thumb over Ianto's cheekbone. He leant forward and rested his forehead against Ianto's, closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, as if taking in Ianto's scent. "What would I do without you, Ianto?" he whispered.
Ianto caught a glimpse of Tosh out of the corner of his eye and he sighed. "They're ready for you, sir," he said softly.
Jack matched his sigh and then slowly opened his eyes. He leant forward to place a quick kiss on Ianto's lips before turning and following Tosh to the med bay.
Ianto stood there for another moment, emotions rioting around his brain as he let his fingers trail over his mouth. Then he gave himself a shake and sat down at Jack's desk to finish the paperwork for adding one Beth Halloran - alien; designation Cell 114; hibernation/storage only, not deceased - to the morgue records.
TBC in Chapter Twenty-Six
Rating: R
Warnings: None really, just don’t feel like changing the rating :)
Spoilers: Season Two thru Sleeper (2x02)
Pairings: Jack/Ianto
Disclaimer: Torchwood and all its wonderfulness belong to the Mighty Beeb and He Who Must Not Be Named. All ©'s to James Moran for situations and dialogue borrowed from Sleeper. No infringement, only worship intended!
Summary: In which the team has to decide what to do with Beth…
Notes: Sorry for the delay this week. I'd love to say it won't happen again, but with work being what it is and the holidays upon us… I'll keep you posted. Thanks for your patience! Previous chapters found here. Sequel to Vizzini’s Rule and To The Pain. Thanks to my amazing beta and wonderful friend thrace_adams for all the help and support; any mistakes are mine!
The Sea After a Storm: Chapter Twenty-Five
Tosh and Owen left the boardroom shortly after Jack and Gwen. Ianto stayed behind for a few minutes to make sure everything was put to rights. He debated filling the brandy decanter but decided not to bother. He slid the pocket doors closed behind him and hurried back up to the Hub. A quick glance at the cell's CCTV monitor told him Jack and Gwen were still talking to Beth. By the looks of it, things were not going well.
Ianto sighed and looked around for something to do. Tosh was at her workstation, alternating spurts of furious typing with long moments of staring into space. Recognising her typical 'working out something brilliant' pattern, Ianto didn't disturb her. He merely snagged the stack of filing from her outbox and moved on to Gwen's desk where he found a few files to go back to the archives amidst the piles of bridal magazines. He noticed one of the dresses on the glossy pages was marked with a sticky note that read, This one! Ianto smiled and added a comment to the bottom of the note: Lovely! You'll look beautiful - I
Ianto went to Owen's desk next and grabbed the most recent autopsy reports from his outbox and then looked around with a frown, wondering where the doctor had gone. He spotted him in the new hothouse, babying some of his recent, unusual plantings. Several of the seedlings might well be of alien origin, but Ianto was sure that one of them, at least, was simply a very ugly specimen of cacti.
Glancing at his watch, Ianto was surprised to see it was almost noon. He rubbed his eyes after dropping the files he'd collected at his own workstation and headed over to the coffee machine. It had been a while since Torchwood had pulled an all-nighter. Well, other than the night Jack came back, Ianto thought as he started to grind the beans. As soon as the coffee was brewing, he pulled his mobile out of his pocket and dialled Jubilee Pizza, acknowledging, as always, the sharp stab of guilt as he pictured Annie's face while the phone rang. He wasn't sure anyone was in the mood to eat, but knew that eventually they'd need some sustenance or things would get ugly when the blood sugar dropped. He paid by credit card and told the boy to leave the food on the Tourist Office counter if he didn't happen to be there.
He'd just finished the call when Jack came up from the cells. He headed straight for his office, not sparing a glance for anyone. Ianto quickly filled Jack's blue and white striped mug and followed.
"Coffee, sir?" he asked as he rapped politely on the doorframe.
Jack started and looked up from his desk. "Huh? Oh, yeah, thanks, Ianto. That sounds good."
"How're you holding up?" Ianto asked.
With a shrug, Jack took the coffee and sipped it gratefully.
"I called for - "
"Jack!" Gwen yelled.
Ianto glanced out into the Hub to see Gwen striding towards them.
"Jack, you can't just - oh, sorry, Ianto, I didn't see you," Gwen said as she barrelled into Jack's office.
"Quite all right. Coffee?"
"No, thanks," she said and then advanced on Jack's desk. "You can't just dismiss her as some alien, Jack. She's got the right to - "
"To what?" Jack said, meeting Gwen's anger with his own. "She's not a human being, she's a member of a hostile alien species and she doesn't have any rights here. How can I make you understand that?"
Ianto took that as his cue and quickly exited the office. He shared a look with Tosh and Owen as he made his way across the Hub. They all knew the score - neither Jack nor Gwen would be in a place to listen to anyone else until they'd yelled it all out. They're really so much alike in some ways, Ianto mused as he sat down at his workstation and started putting his files in order.
It only took about ten minutes before the shouting died down and Jack and Gwen joined the rest of them in the Hub.
Tosh glanced up from her computer and asked Jack if there was a plan for dealing with Beth.
Jack shrugged and put his hands on his hips. "She's an alien. Full stop. Nothing we can do will change that."
"But she doesn't feel like an alien, Jack," Gwen said, still arguing. "That has to be worth something. She wants to be Beth, to be a normal human being."
Owen's snort of amusement and his muttered, "Whatever that is," floated down from the catwalk where he was now misting his plants.
"Not helping," Gwen sang out.
Jack moved to stand right in front of Gwen. Arms crossed, he looked down at her. "Gwen, what exactly do you see happening here?"
"We… we find some way to help her, to make sure she doesn't what did you call it? Activate? Otherwise what good are we?"
Jack just shook his head.
"What?" Gwen asked, her colour rising. "We find a way to stop her implant and let her go home to her husband. We could check in with them and - "
Jack stalked away, pacing back and forth in front of the armoury. "We can't let her go, she's too dangerous."
"We could freeze her," Tosh suggested.
At last, an actual suggestion, Ianto thought with relief. He appreciated Gwen's passion but she just never could translate it into practical action and sometimes it drove him mad.
"Use the alien cryogenics," Tosh was explaining. "Wake her up if we figure out how to stop her memories from coming back."
"Freeze her?" Gwen parroted. "For how long?"
Tosh gave a little shrug. "For as long as it takes," she said as if it were obvious. "At least she'd be alive."
Jack didn't look convinced. "Her implant would still gather information," he pointed out.
"Can't we deactivate it?" Gwen asked.
Tosh nodded. "I can isolate the transceiver and fry it in an EM pulse. Right now it's not sending or receiving anything. I've checked it five times on every frequency."
"Won't that let them know we're onto them?" Owen asked.
"No, if we freeze her, she'll never activate and they'll never know."
Ianto nodded to himself and began to find the forms he would need for the morgue file. He was sure Tosh's solution was the only option that Jack and Gwen would be able to agree upon.
"What about her husband?" Owen asked, surprising Ianto who would have expected a question like that to come from Gwen.
Jack looked up at Owen. "She'd have to disappear completely," he said and then dropped his gaze to look right at Gwen. "No goodbyes." He walked away before Gwen, or anyone else for that matter, could argue.
Owen sighed and set down the little tree he'd been misting. "I'll get the cryo prepped," he said and then began putting the plants back in the hothouse.
Tosh nodded and went back to her computer.
Gwen just stayed where she was, biting her lip as she obviously tried to come to terms with all this. Ianto took the long way around the Hub with his forms, pausing for a moment to rest his hand on her shoulder. Gwen looked up at him, the worry in her big eyes fading for a second. He gave her a reassuring smile and then headed for Jack's office.
Jack was pacing the length of his office, from the safe to the window over the interrogation room and back. He paused at the window when Ianto came in, staring at the two-way mirror, down into the dank little room.
"This is a mistake," he said softly without turning his head, as if sensing it was Ianto who'd joined him.
"What else can we do?" Ianto asked reasonably.
Jack huffed out a short breath. "I could go down to the cells and put a bullet in her brain," he said, his voice harsh and cold.
Ianto paled a bit, but kept the dismay out of his voice when he spoke. "Only if Tosh deactivates the force-field around her first. And I think you'd have a little trouble convincing her to help you execute someone."
"It's what Torchwood does best," Jack muttered.
"Not your Torchwood," Ianto said firmly. He dropped the papers on Jack's desk and joined him by the mirror. He grabbed the rail with both hands and looked down into the blackness of the interrogation room, careful not to touch Jack. "Torchwood One? Yes. Yvonne Hartman wouldn't have hesitated. Hell, she probably would have enjoyed being the one to pull the trigger. But what you've built here, it's different, better. You changed it."
"I told him that, but he didn't believe me," Jack whispered. "What if he's right?"
Ianto narrowed his eyes and glanced at Jack's faint reflection in the glass. He tightened his grip on the railing. He must be talking about the Doctor. "He's not," Ianto said shortly.
Jack looked at him then, turning and stepping a bit closer. Ianto met him halfway until they were mere inches apart.
"And I happen to think that I am much more qualified to judge the differences between Torchwood One and Torchwood Three than the Doctor. Don't you think?"
Jack nodded but didn't speak. He reached out and cupped Ianto's cheek, running his thumb over Ianto's cheekbone. He leant forward and rested his forehead against Ianto's, closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, as if taking in Ianto's scent. "What would I do without you, Ianto?" he whispered.
Ianto caught a glimpse of Tosh out of the corner of his eye and he sighed. "They're ready for you, sir," he said softly.
Jack matched his sigh and then slowly opened his eyes. He leant forward to place a quick kiss on Ianto's lips before turning and following Tosh to the med bay.
Ianto stood there for another moment, emotions rioting around his brain as he let his fingers trail over his mouth. Then he gave himself a shake and sat down at Jack's desk to finish the paperwork for adding one Beth Halloran - alien; designation Cell 114; hibernation/storage only, not deceased - to the morgue records.
TBC in Chapter Twenty-Six