Fic: The Sea After a Storm (47/?)
Title: The Sea After a Storm, Chapter 47
Rating: R
Warnings: None really, just didn't feel like changing the rating
Spoilers: Season Two thru Meat (2x04)
Pairings: Jack/Ianto
Disclaimer: Torchwood and all its wonderfulness belong to the Mighty Beeb and He Who Must Not Be Named. All ©'s to Catherine Tregenna for situations and dialogue borrowed from Meat. No infringement, only worship intended!
Summary: In which Rhys is formally introduced to Torchwood...
Notes: My sincere apologies for the huge lag between chapters! Hopefully this will be the beginning of more regular posting. :) You can find all the previous chapters to The Sea After a Storm here. This is a sequel to Vizzini’s Rule and To The Pain. Thanks again and forever to my amazing beta, wonderful friend thraceadams for all the help and support; any mistakes are mine!
The Sea After a Storm: Chapter Forty-Seven
Previously on The Sea After a Storm, Torchwood's investigation of the mysterious meat was interrupted by the appearance of Gwen's fiancé at the warehouse...
Ianto and Owen didn't speak on the way back to the Hub. Owen drove carefully enough not to attract unwanted attention, but otherwise went as fast as traffic would allow. Ianto kept tapping his comm, waiting for Jack to give them more details but after his cryptic reference to Gwen's fiancé there was only silence.
"What the hell happened out there?" Tosh asked as soon as the cog door rolled back.
Owen and Ianto exchanged a surprised glance.
"I figured you'd know more than us," Owen said as he tugged of his jacket.
Tosh shook her head. "Everyone went silent after Jack said that Rhys was there. And just what the hell was Rhys doing there?"
"No idea," Ianto said as he hurried to his computer. He called up the CCTV of the warehouse but there was no activity to be seen. "What the hell is going on?" he muttered to himself.
The three of them looked helplessly at each other, unsure what to do next. Eventually, they all drifted over to Tosh's computer where they started going over the data she'd collected from the borrowed satellite, throwing out random hypotheses about the alien meat while Owen ran simulations on the wall of the med bay.
"I think -" Tosh broke off as the door finally rolled back again to reveal the Captain. "Jack! What -"
"Gwen's gone home," Jack said abruptly as he stalked through the Hub to his office. "We waited outside the warehouse and followed Rhys back. I just dropped her off. She's going to find out what he was doing there and then she's bringing him in."
"In?" Owen parroted blankly.
"In!" Jack bellowed from his office where he savagely tore off his coat and threw it on the little sofa in the corner. He appeared at the door again, clearly out of sorts. "We're about to have company," he said. He opened his mouth as if to add something, but instead he just shook his head and climbed the stairs to the greenhouse, leaving Tosh, Owen, and Ianto standing behind him, staring at his back.
Ianto broke the game of statues first, heading to Jack's office to hang up his coat properly. He stopped at the fridge on the way back, snagging two beers, an open bottle of wine, and one glass. He poured Tosh a glass of the wine, almost finishing the bottle, giving her a smile when she joined him over at the sofa. Owen simply rolled his chair over and took the proffered bottle of beer with a nod.
Ianto sighed and leant against the support beam, watching Jack pace along the catwalk between one of the portholes and the greenhouse. "Well... this is unprecedented... the fiancé finding out," he observed.
"Mainly because we're all sad and single," Tosh said with a humourless laugh and a sideways glance at Owen.
Ianto smiled around his mouthful of beer. He hadn't really considered himself single since Jack got back.
"Speak for yourself," Owen said, spinning his chair around to face Tosh. "I am better off without all that kind of hassle."
Ianto winced. He started to interject something to take the sting out of Owen's words, but Tosh beat him to it.
"Maybe the answer is to go out with someone who knows what you do," she suggested, looking over at Owen hopefully.
"Look around you, Tosh," Owen said. "Only we know what we do." He rolled over to the med bay overlook again.
Tosh drooped in defeat and took a drink of her wine. Ianto wanted to kick Owen for being so clueless. If he thought Owen was being deliberately cruel, he would have cheerfully booted Owen's arse down the hard, white tile stairs of the med bay, but he was pretty certain that Owen literally did not have an inkling that Tosh had feelings for him. Jack moved again, drawing Ianto's attention. He met his lover's eyes for a second and then looked back down at his beer, wondering when his life had turned into an episode of Coronation Street.
Jack paced like a caged lion until the gears of the invisible lift ground to life. The team assembled quickly, surrounding the base of the lift without crowding it. When Rhys and Gwen got within earshot, the couple was arguing over Myfanwy who had flown over to see the new arrival.
"They're extinct, Gwen," Rhys was saying patiently as the stone lowered.
"In your time line, yes," Jack agreed, interrupting the conversation.
Ianto's eyes shot to Myfanwy. He'd always thought the pterodactyl had flown through the rift from the past; he'd never imagined that there might be a parallel time line to theirs where dinosaurs weren't extinct. He shook his head and refocused on the conversation, giving Rhys a brief smile when Gwen introduced him. Ianto noticed that Jack had positioned himself with the armoury at his back and sighed inwardly. If Jack had been a pufferfish, he would've been completely inflated, spines at the ready.
"Welcome to our headquarters," Jack said grandly.
Rhys looked around, obviously uncomfortable but trying not to show it. "It's a bit bigger than mine," he joked.
Gwen chuckled and Jack grinned delightedly. He turned to share the joke with Ianto who managed to refrain from rolling his eyes and give his Captain a smile. It's like throwing petrol on a flame, he thought to himself.
"So," Rhys said, obviously deciding to get right to it. "Gwen tells me you catch aliens."
"That's right," Jack said with a nod.
Owen piped up, summarising Torchwood's raison d'etre in one sentence. "There’s a rift through space and time that runs through Cardiff, Rhys, and stuff slips through it from other time lines and planets and it's our job to monitor it."
His cheerful smile at the end seemed to put Rhys off even more than the content of the comment itself.
"Are you sure they're not some kind of weird cult?" he asked Gwen more quietly, moving closer to her.
"You saw that alien in the warehouse. Come on."
Jack stepped forward, all business now. "What did you see?"
"Er... It was like this huge, shapeless beast, filling the space. Like a mound of flesh."
"So it's one massive entity as opposed to several organisms?" Tosh clarified, garnering nods from Rhys and Gwen.
Well, that explains the heat signature, Ianto mused.
Owen looked down at Tosh from his perch on an upper stairway. "The latest tests reveal high levels of chloride, so it probably lives in the water. I reckon it came through the rift, into the sea and it’s beached itself."
"Like a giant alien manatee," Jack said getting a nod from Owen.
"But how did they get it there?" Ianto asked aloud. "That warehouse must be fifty metres long."
"Um," Rhys spoke up again. "Maybe it was smaller when they found it, because they said it's growing."
Ianto raised his eyebrows and glanced at Jack. Well, that just took this from bad to horrible, he thought.
"It's not dead?" Jack hurried to clarify.
"No," Rhys said. "It's breathing, its eye opened."
Owen glanced up, his brow furrowed in thought. "So the protein chains regenerate despite the mutilation, so not only is it replenishing its own flesh... but it's increasing it, giving them a brand-new meat supply."
"It will last them for years, then," Gwen said, horrified.
"If we understood how it worked, we could feed the world," Tosh, ever the scientist, interjected excitedly.
"We could release a single," Ianto deadpanned, not dropping his eyes from Jack who was already rolling his eyes at his team.
"Before we get ahead of ourselves, we're talking about dodgy pies in Merthyr, okay, and the fact that they're cutting it up alive which we could have put a stop to already if it wasn't for you," Jack said, turning his attention back to Rhys.
"I thought my fiancée was in danger," Rhys protested.
Jack strode slowly towards Rhys and Ianto held his breath, wondering how bad things were about to get.
"Well, Mr. Caveman, she wasn't," Jack said cuttingly. "She can handle herself."
The rest of the team watched as Jack and Rhys squared off, Gwen trying in vain to get Jack's attention from behind her fiancé’s shoulder.
Jack ignored Gwen's wave and continued berating Rhys. "All you did tonight was mess things up. Now we have to think of a way to get back in and, thanks to you, they'll have tightened security."
Rhys didn't back off, stepping up to follow Jack when he turned, yelling right back at him. "Well, if you stopped and asked me exactly what I saw in there, instead of showing off 'round the place -"
"Do I show off?" Jack interrupted, looking back at Ianto curiously.
Ianto curbed the desire to laugh out loud and settled for a staid nod. "Just a bit," he said gravely.
Jack turned back to Rhys who was still yelling. "...You'd know that I got out by telling them I wanted a job. As a delivery boy. So rather than cock things up, I've found you a way to get in, but if you can't handle that, big boy, then you can stuff it!"
Jack didn't flinch when Rhys got right up in his face and practically head butted him at the end of his rant. He paused for a second and then his eyes shot to Gwen. "This is quite homo-erotic," he observed in mild tones.
Ianto rolled his eyes as Gwen moved between the two men. "No, no, no, Jack, he is not getting us in."
Jack ignored Gwen's objection and jabbed a pointed finger at her. "Team meeting," he ordered. He turned the finger on Rhys. "You, too."
Jack turned and stalked towards the stairs with Gwen following, still protesting. Ianto, Tosh and Owen fell into line, leaving a baffled Rhys to bring up the rear.
TBC in Chapter Forty-Eight
.
This entry was originally posted at http://buttononthetop.dreamwidth.org/99011.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Rating: R
Warnings: None really, just didn't feel like changing the rating
Spoilers: Season Two thru Meat (2x04)
Pairings: Jack/Ianto
Disclaimer: Torchwood and all its wonderfulness belong to the Mighty Beeb and He Who Must Not Be Named. All ©'s to Catherine Tregenna for situations and dialogue borrowed from Meat. No infringement, only worship intended!
Summary: In which Rhys is formally introduced to Torchwood...
Notes: My sincere apologies for the huge lag between chapters! Hopefully this will be the beginning of more regular posting. :) You can find all the previous chapters to The Sea After a Storm here. This is a sequel to Vizzini’s Rule and To The Pain. Thanks again and forever to my amazing beta, wonderful friend thraceadams for all the help and support; any mistakes are mine!
The Sea After a Storm: Chapter Forty-Seven
Previously on The Sea After a Storm, Torchwood's investigation of the mysterious meat was interrupted by the appearance of Gwen's fiancé at the warehouse...
Ianto and Owen didn't speak on the way back to the Hub. Owen drove carefully enough not to attract unwanted attention, but otherwise went as fast as traffic would allow. Ianto kept tapping his comm, waiting for Jack to give them more details but after his cryptic reference to Gwen's fiancé there was only silence.
"What the hell happened out there?" Tosh asked as soon as the cog door rolled back.
Owen and Ianto exchanged a surprised glance.
"I figured you'd know more than us," Owen said as he tugged of his jacket.
Tosh shook her head. "Everyone went silent after Jack said that Rhys was there. And just what the hell was Rhys doing there?"
"No idea," Ianto said as he hurried to his computer. He called up the CCTV of the warehouse but there was no activity to be seen. "What the hell is going on?" he muttered to himself.
The three of them looked helplessly at each other, unsure what to do next. Eventually, they all drifted over to Tosh's computer where they started going over the data she'd collected from the borrowed satellite, throwing out random hypotheses about the alien meat while Owen ran simulations on the wall of the med bay.
"I think -" Tosh broke off as the door finally rolled back again to reveal the Captain. "Jack! What -"
"Gwen's gone home," Jack said abruptly as he stalked through the Hub to his office. "We waited outside the warehouse and followed Rhys back. I just dropped her off. She's going to find out what he was doing there and then she's bringing him in."
"In?" Owen parroted blankly.
"In!" Jack bellowed from his office where he savagely tore off his coat and threw it on the little sofa in the corner. He appeared at the door again, clearly out of sorts. "We're about to have company," he said. He opened his mouth as if to add something, but instead he just shook his head and climbed the stairs to the greenhouse, leaving Tosh, Owen, and Ianto standing behind him, staring at his back.
Ianto broke the game of statues first, heading to Jack's office to hang up his coat properly. He stopped at the fridge on the way back, snagging two beers, an open bottle of wine, and one glass. He poured Tosh a glass of the wine, almost finishing the bottle, giving her a smile when she joined him over at the sofa. Owen simply rolled his chair over and took the proffered bottle of beer with a nod.
Ianto sighed and leant against the support beam, watching Jack pace along the catwalk between one of the portholes and the greenhouse. "Well... this is unprecedented... the fiancé finding out," he observed.
"Mainly because we're all sad and single," Tosh said with a humourless laugh and a sideways glance at Owen.
Ianto smiled around his mouthful of beer. He hadn't really considered himself single since Jack got back.
"Speak for yourself," Owen said, spinning his chair around to face Tosh. "I am better off without all that kind of hassle."
Ianto winced. He started to interject something to take the sting out of Owen's words, but Tosh beat him to it.
"Maybe the answer is to go out with someone who knows what you do," she suggested, looking over at Owen hopefully.
"Look around you, Tosh," Owen said. "Only we know what we do." He rolled over to the med bay overlook again.
Tosh drooped in defeat and took a drink of her wine. Ianto wanted to kick Owen for being so clueless. If he thought Owen was being deliberately cruel, he would have cheerfully booted Owen's arse down the hard, white tile stairs of the med bay, but he was pretty certain that Owen literally did not have an inkling that Tosh had feelings for him. Jack moved again, drawing Ianto's attention. He met his lover's eyes for a second and then looked back down at his beer, wondering when his life had turned into an episode of Coronation Street.
Jack paced like a caged lion until the gears of the invisible lift ground to life. The team assembled quickly, surrounding the base of the lift without crowding it. When Rhys and Gwen got within earshot, the couple was arguing over Myfanwy who had flown over to see the new arrival.
"They're extinct, Gwen," Rhys was saying patiently as the stone lowered.
"In your time line, yes," Jack agreed, interrupting the conversation.
Ianto's eyes shot to Myfanwy. He'd always thought the pterodactyl had flown through the rift from the past; he'd never imagined that there might be a parallel time line to theirs where dinosaurs weren't extinct. He shook his head and refocused on the conversation, giving Rhys a brief smile when Gwen introduced him. Ianto noticed that Jack had positioned himself with the armoury at his back and sighed inwardly. If Jack had been a pufferfish, he would've been completely inflated, spines at the ready.
"Welcome to our headquarters," Jack said grandly.
Rhys looked around, obviously uncomfortable but trying not to show it. "It's a bit bigger than mine," he joked.
Gwen chuckled and Jack grinned delightedly. He turned to share the joke with Ianto who managed to refrain from rolling his eyes and give his Captain a smile. It's like throwing petrol on a flame, he thought to himself.
"So," Rhys said, obviously deciding to get right to it. "Gwen tells me you catch aliens."
"That's right," Jack said with a nod.
Owen piped up, summarising Torchwood's raison d'etre in one sentence. "There’s a rift through space and time that runs through Cardiff, Rhys, and stuff slips through it from other time lines and planets and it's our job to monitor it."
His cheerful smile at the end seemed to put Rhys off even more than the content of the comment itself.
"Are you sure they're not some kind of weird cult?" he asked Gwen more quietly, moving closer to her.
"You saw that alien in the warehouse. Come on."
Jack stepped forward, all business now. "What did you see?"
"Er... It was like this huge, shapeless beast, filling the space. Like a mound of flesh."
"So it's one massive entity as opposed to several organisms?" Tosh clarified, garnering nods from Rhys and Gwen.
Well, that explains the heat signature, Ianto mused.
Owen looked down at Tosh from his perch on an upper stairway. "The latest tests reveal high levels of chloride, so it probably lives in the water. I reckon it came through the rift, into the sea and it’s beached itself."
"Like a giant alien manatee," Jack said getting a nod from Owen.
"But how did they get it there?" Ianto asked aloud. "That warehouse must be fifty metres long."
"Um," Rhys spoke up again. "Maybe it was smaller when they found it, because they said it's growing."
Ianto raised his eyebrows and glanced at Jack. Well, that just took this from bad to horrible, he thought.
"It's not dead?" Jack hurried to clarify.
"No," Rhys said. "It's breathing, its eye opened."
Owen glanced up, his brow furrowed in thought. "So the protein chains regenerate despite the mutilation, so not only is it replenishing its own flesh... but it's increasing it, giving them a brand-new meat supply."
"It will last them for years, then," Gwen said, horrified.
"If we understood how it worked, we could feed the world," Tosh, ever the scientist, interjected excitedly.
"We could release a single," Ianto deadpanned, not dropping his eyes from Jack who was already rolling his eyes at his team.
"Before we get ahead of ourselves, we're talking about dodgy pies in Merthyr, okay, and the fact that they're cutting it up alive which we could have put a stop to already if it wasn't for you," Jack said, turning his attention back to Rhys.
"I thought my fiancée was in danger," Rhys protested.
Jack strode slowly towards Rhys and Ianto held his breath, wondering how bad things were about to get.
"Well, Mr. Caveman, she wasn't," Jack said cuttingly. "She can handle herself."
The rest of the team watched as Jack and Rhys squared off, Gwen trying in vain to get Jack's attention from behind her fiancé’s shoulder.
Jack ignored Gwen's wave and continued berating Rhys. "All you did tonight was mess things up. Now we have to think of a way to get back in and, thanks to you, they'll have tightened security."
Rhys didn't back off, stepping up to follow Jack when he turned, yelling right back at him. "Well, if you stopped and asked me exactly what I saw in there, instead of showing off 'round the place -"
"Do I show off?" Jack interrupted, looking back at Ianto curiously.
Ianto curbed the desire to laugh out loud and settled for a staid nod. "Just a bit," he said gravely.
Jack turned back to Rhys who was still yelling. "...You'd know that I got out by telling them I wanted a job. As a delivery boy. So rather than cock things up, I've found you a way to get in, but if you can't handle that, big boy, then you can stuff it!"
Jack didn't flinch when Rhys got right up in his face and practically head butted him at the end of his rant. He paused for a second and then his eyes shot to Gwen. "This is quite homo-erotic," he observed in mild tones.
Ianto rolled his eyes as Gwen moved between the two men. "No, no, no, Jack, he is not getting us in."
Jack ignored Gwen's objection and jabbed a pointed finger at her. "Team meeting," he ordered. He turned the finger on Rhys. "You, too."
Jack turned and stalked towards the stairs with Gwen following, still protesting. Ianto, Tosh and Owen fell into line, leaving a baffled Rhys to bring up the rear.
TBC in Chapter Forty-Eight
.
This entry was originally posted at http://buttononthetop.dreamwidth.org/99011.html. Please comment there using OpenID.