Moving On - 09/18
Title: Moving On
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, references to past Ianto/Lisa
Rating: R
Disclaimer: If I was the one who owned Torchwood, you think I'd admit it now?
Spoilers: Some information and events from s1,2. None for s3.
Summary: Lisa is gone, and Ianto is starting to move on with his life, but it isn't always as easy as it sounds.
Author's Note: Sequel to Guilt and Turning Point.
Thanks to: My sister angelzbabe1989 for stepping in as beta, morbid_sparks for all of her support and idea bouncing through the writing of this, and pinkfairy727 for cheerleading even when she doesn't know what happens.
For previous chapters see Master list for this fic
Chapter Nine
“Tosh!” Owen called as he clambered up the steps to the computers. “Are you absolutely sure that the device we took from Chandler and Bell a couple months back was definitely what was causing all those extra Weevil sightings?”
They’d picked up thirteen in the last four days alone, and Owen was beginning to feel like he’d seen quite enough of the back alleys of Cardiff for this week. They were even surfacing in daylight, which was unusual. Although at least it minimised the number of late-night call outs. The few there were, Jack had mostly been handling on his own.
“Quite certain,” Tosh replied, pulling up… something on her screen and gesturing towards it. Owen peered at it, but he wasn’t really sure what Tosh was trying to demonstrate; it just looked like a lot of numbers and graphs to him. “The recent spate of Weevil incidents is entirely down to the Rift; it’s been relatively quiet recently and it seems it’s bouncing back from that now.”
“You getting anywhere on predicting when it might quieten down a bit?” Jack called as he strode up from the cells, looking entirely too happy for a man who had been on just as many Weevil retrievals as Owen had. More, in fact. And yet the cheery grin hadn’t left his face all week. If it kept up much longer, Owen pondered, he might have to confront Jack and ask him just what he was on.
Tosh’s nose wrinkled slightly and she looked deep in thought for a moment. Owen quickly quashed any voices in his head that declared the look adorable. “I think it should be soon, but I can’t say for sure. The latest few tweaks to the program say any time between today and Monday.”
Owen glanced at the display on his watch to check. Yes, today was Friday. He really hoped that the Rift went for ‘today’; another four days of this would just be insane.
“I’m running more thorough scans than usual,” Tosh continued. “Hopefully the data will allow me to refine the prediction. There’s still a lot of work needing done on the program.”
Jack nodded in Owen’s peripheral vision. “Let us know.”
Owen paused for a moment as Jack disappeared into his office, deliberating how to fill his time before the next inevitable Weevil incident. He had a backlog of alien creatures of unknown origins left to autopsy, but when the likelihood of not being able to finish it in one go was as high as it had been lately, he didn’t want to make a start. Half-finished autopsies were such a mess to have to clear away.
He could clean out and reorganise the storage areas in the autopsy bay - Ianto had been pestering him about it on and off for weeks - but, well, the reason Ianto was still pestering him was that Owen really didn’t want to do it. He was rather hoping if he left it long enough, someone else (probably Ianto, seeing as he was the only one who appeared to care) would do it for him.
He wandered aimlessly down to the base of the water tower, watching the water splash into the pool as he wracked his brain for something to do - something fun.
He almost slapped his own forehead when it came to him - he couldn’t believe he’d forgotten it. Although it had probably been a year since he’d last even looked at it.
The unit had fallen through the Rift barely meters from the entrance to the Hub garage about eighteen months before. It wasn’t one Owen had recognised from his youth - and none of the others knew enough on the topic to say one way or another - so they’d made the assumption it had found it’s way here from the probably quite near future.
It hadn’t worked at all when they first brought it back to the Hub, but after Suzie and Tosh had poked around inside, they’d declared it fixable, and the project had begun. For the next month, Tosh and Owen had devoted many a quiet hour to restoring the game to working order. Jack had tried to help, but as most of his comments and suggestions had been more trouble than help, they’d quickly discouraged him from continuing.
Once fixed, it had provided entertainment in many a quiet spell - mostly for Owen, but he knew for a fact that the others had all taken a turn or two as well.
It took a few minutes of searching around the main area of the Hub to find the machine. For a moment he rather expected it to be gathering dust, but he realised that at some point over the last few months Ianto had clearly included it in his cleaning rounds. Before that, it probably had been collecting a thick layer of dust and grime.
He gripped at the edges and tried to tug it away from the corner it had been tucked into - there was no way it was playable with the controls pressed against the wall like that. It was no use - it wouldn’t budge. He didn’t remember it being quite as heavy, although he did now remember it taking two of them to put it out of the way in the first place.
He looked around; he couldn’t see Ianto anywhere, but that wasn’t unusual. Owen had only been down to the archives a few times, all before Ianto had joined them, and he wouldn’t fancy the task of tidying them up. Tosh looked immersed in her project - he didn’t fancy having his head handed to him if he disturbed her. Jack would probably welcome the chance to get out of his pile of paperwork, but disturbing him would only bring down Ianto’s wrath on Owen’s head. And he did actually want to be paid this month, after all.
Gwen, however, had that expression on her face that said she was trying to look busy, but was really floundering around for something to do much in the same way Owen had been.
“Oi, Gwen!” he called out. “Come give me a hand with this!”
Six hours later and Owen found himself running through the streets of Cardiff again, although at least this time it wasn’t after a Weevil. He didn’t know exactly what it was they were chasing this time, in fact. Tosh had only been able to narrow it down to ‘alien’ so far.
Tosh’s voice sounded in his ear again as he ran. “Owen. Gwen. Left into the alley, right, thirty meters.”
Another alley. It was always the alleys - Cardiff just had too many of them, Owen thought occasionally. Which wasn’t to say he hadn’t put them to good use, back when his social life had revolved around forgetting, which meant a lot of alcohol and a lot of girls. The sort of girls who weren’t averse to a fumble in one of said alleys. But that was behind him now; it wasn’t what he wanted for himself.
“What is it? What can you see?” Although Gwen was barely a couple of metres away, he could only hear her words through the comms. The noise of the crowds around them as the shops closed for the day was drowning everything else out.
A train had arrived at the nearby station just a few minutes earlier, disgorging its passengers onto the streets; some walked purposefully, clearly eager to get home after a long day, but a few lingered. Perhaps waiting on someone. All Owen knew was that they were getting in the way.
“I can't get a visual...” Tosh replied, sounding frustrated. “Just a signal. Definitely alien in origin. Diagonal right, towards the castle.”
Owen swerved around a young couple as he ran in the direction Tosh was pointing them. He ignored the slight pain in his legs, complaining after several days of hard running. Whatever mysterious object or being they were after, it better be worth it.
He cursed under his breath as a group of teenage girls appeared in front of him, bringing him almost to a halt. Gwen sped off ahead of him.
“Sharp right, Jack.” Owen made his way through the group of girls and started running again, vaguely wondering how close Jack now was.
“Any luck on that identification, Tosh?” Jack’s voice boomed over the comms.
“Sorry, no. Ianto’s scouring the computerised energy signal records for anything similar, and I’m still trying to get a visual. Estimated twenty seconds to contact.”
Owen pushed in an attempt to make up the distance on Gwen.
“Be careful, we don’t know what we’re dealing with here,” Jack said. A moment later there was the faint sound of screeching brakes in Owen’s ear, and then Jack was suddenly there just behind him.
“Got it!” Tosh cried in their ears. “Visual confirms suspect is a young man in a dark hoodie. Ten seconds to contact.”
Owen and Jack followed Gwen into one of the shopping arcades. Shops around them were locking their doors, but there were still people milling around, causing an obstruction.
“I see him,” Gwen panted into the comms.
They all rounded a corner into a quieter passage, narrowly missing a cleaner’s bucket of soapy water.
Owe tried to push himself faster, but Gwen clearly had more left in her reserves after the last week as she pulled further away from them.
He could see what was about to happen before it did, but he was powerless to stop it.
Their target and Gwen both managed to slip under the shutter as it closed. Owen and Jack, just a second later, were caught.
“Open up, open up!” Jack shouted at the man standing at the nearby controls. Owen smacked his palms against the metal for emphasis, rattling it.
“It’s no use, I’ve lost him.” Gwen’s voice came despondently through their earpieces as they waited for the shutter to begin lifting again.
“No, you got it,” Tosh told her, sounding surprised at Gwen’s defeated tone. “Whatever it is, you’re holding it now.”
Once the bottom of the shutter was a foot or so off the ground, Owen ducked under it, Jack close behind him.
They emerged into the street, dashing off in the direction the young man and Gwen had gone in. They passed an entrance to the train station a few moments later, and even through the milling people, Owen spotted Gwen.
She was a short way down the entrance tunnel to the station, standing stock still with a glazed look on her face and a small device cradled in her hands.
Chapter Ten
As always, comments and concrit are loved!
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, references to past Ianto/Lisa
Rating: R
Disclaimer: If I was the one who owned Torchwood, you think I'd admit it now?
Spoilers: Some information and events from s1,2. None for s3.
Summary: Lisa is gone, and Ianto is starting to move on with his life, but it isn't always as easy as it sounds.
Author's Note: Sequel to Guilt and Turning Point.
Thanks to: My sister angelzbabe1989 for stepping in as beta, morbid_sparks for all of her support and idea bouncing through the writing of this, and pinkfairy727 for cheerleading even when she doesn't know what happens.
For previous chapters see Master list for this fic
Chapter Nine
“Tosh!” Owen called as he clambered up the steps to the computers. “Are you absolutely sure that the device we took from Chandler and Bell a couple months back was definitely what was causing all those extra Weevil sightings?”
They’d picked up thirteen in the last four days alone, and Owen was beginning to feel like he’d seen quite enough of the back alleys of Cardiff for this week. They were even surfacing in daylight, which was unusual. Although at least it minimised the number of late-night call outs. The few there were, Jack had mostly been handling on his own.
“Quite certain,” Tosh replied, pulling up… something on her screen and gesturing towards it. Owen peered at it, but he wasn’t really sure what Tosh was trying to demonstrate; it just looked like a lot of numbers and graphs to him. “The recent spate of Weevil incidents is entirely down to the Rift; it’s been relatively quiet recently and it seems it’s bouncing back from that now.”
“You getting anywhere on predicting when it might quieten down a bit?” Jack called as he strode up from the cells, looking entirely too happy for a man who had been on just as many Weevil retrievals as Owen had. More, in fact. And yet the cheery grin hadn’t left his face all week. If it kept up much longer, Owen pondered, he might have to confront Jack and ask him just what he was on.
Tosh’s nose wrinkled slightly and she looked deep in thought for a moment. Owen quickly quashed any voices in his head that declared the look adorable. “I think it should be soon, but I can’t say for sure. The latest few tweaks to the program say any time between today and Monday.”
Owen glanced at the display on his watch to check. Yes, today was Friday. He really hoped that the Rift went for ‘today’; another four days of this would just be insane.
“I’m running more thorough scans than usual,” Tosh continued. “Hopefully the data will allow me to refine the prediction. There’s still a lot of work needing done on the program.”
Jack nodded in Owen’s peripheral vision. “Let us know.”
Owen paused for a moment as Jack disappeared into his office, deliberating how to fill his time before the next inevitable Weevil incident. He had a backlog of alien creatures of unknown origins left to autopsy, but when the likelihood of not being able to finish it in one go was as high as it had been lately, he didn’t want to make a start. Half-finished autopsies were such a mess to have to clear away.
He could clean out and reorganise the storage areas in the autopsy bay - Ianto had been pestering him about it on and off for weeks - but, well, the reason Ianto was still pestering him was that Owen really didn’t want to do it. He was rather hoping if he left it long enough, someone else (probably Ianto, seeing as he was the only one who appeared to care) would do it for him.
He wandered aimlessly down to the base of the water tower, watching the water splash into the pool as he wracked his brain for something to do - something fun.
He almost slapped his own forehead when it came to him - he couldn’t believe he’d forgotten it. Although it had probably been a year since he’d last even looked at it.
The unit had fallen through the Rift barely meters from the entrance to the Hub garage about eighteen months before. It wasn’t one Owen had recognised from his youth - and none of the others knew enough on the topic to say one way or another - so they’d made the assumption it had found it’s way here from the probably quite near future.
It hadn’t worked at all when they first brought it back to the Hub, but after Suzie and Tosh had poked around inside, they’d declared it fixable, and the project had begun. For the next month, Tosh and Owen had devoted many a quiet hour to restoring the game to working order. Jack had tried to help, but as most of his comments and suggestions had been more trouble than help, they’d quickly discouraged him from continuing.
Once fixed, it had provided entertainment in many a quiet spell - mostly for Owen, but he knew for a fact that the others had all taken a turn or two as well.
It took a few minutes of searching around the main area of the Hub to find the machine. For a moment he rather expected it to be gathering dust, but he realised that at some point over the last few months Ianto had clearly included it in his cleaning rounds. Before that, it probably had been collecting a thick layer of dust and grime.
He gripped at the edges and tried to tug it away from the corner it had been tucked into - there was no way it was playable with the controls pressed against the wall like that. It was no use - it wouldn’t budge. He didn’t remember it being quite as heavy, although he did now remember it taking two of them to put it out of the way in the first place.
He looked around; he couldn’t see Ianto anywhere, but that wasn’t unusual. Owen had only been down to the archives a few times, all before Ianto had joined them, and he wouldn’t fancy the task of tidying them up. Tosh looked immersed in her project - he didn’t fancy having his head handed to him if he disturbed her. Jack would probably welcome the chance to get out of his pile of paperwork, but disturbing him would only bring down Ianto’s wrath on Owen’s head. And he did actually want to be paid this month, after all.
Gwen, however, had that expression on her face that said she was trying to look busy, but was really floundering around for something to do much in the same way Owen had been.
“Oi, Gwen!” he called out. “Come give me a hand with this!”
Six hours later and Owen found himself running through the streets of Cardiff again, although at least this time it wasn’t after a Weevil. He didn’t know exactly what it was they were chasing this time, in fact. Tosh had only been able to narrow it down to ‘alien’ so far.
Tosh’s voice sounded in his ear again as he ran. “Owen. Gwen. Left into the alley, right, thirty meters.”
Another alley. It was always the alleys - Cardiff just had too many of them, Owen thought occasionally. Which wasn’t to say he hadn’t put them to good use, back when his social life had revolved around forgetting, which meant a lot of alcohol and a lot of girls. The sort of girls who weren’t averse to a fumble in one of said alleys. But that was behind him now; it wasn’t what he wanted for himself.
“What is it? What can you see?” Although Gwen was barely a couple of metres away, he could only hear her words through the comms. The noise of the crowds around them as the shops closed for the day was drowning everything else out.
A train had arrived at the nearby station just a few minutes earlier, disgorging its passengers onto the streets; some walked purposefully, clearly eager to get home after a long day, but a few lingered. Perhaps waiting on someone. All Owen knew was that they were getting in the way.
“I can't get a visual...” Tosh replied, sounding frustrated. “Just a signal. Definitely alien in origin. Diagonal right, towards the castle.”
Owen swerved around a young couple as he ran in the direction Tosh was pointing them. He ignored the slight pain in his legs, complaining after several days of hard running. Whatever mysterious object or being they were after, it better be worth it.
He cursed under his breath as a group of teenage girls appeared in front of him, bringing him almost to a halt. Gwen sped off ahead of him.
“Sharp right, Jack.” Owen made his way through the group of girls and started running again, vaguely wondering how close Jack now was.
“Any luck on that identification, Tosh?” Jack’s voice boomed over the comms.
“Sorry, no. Ianto’s scouring the computerised energy signal records for anything similar, and I’m still trying to get a visual. Estimated twenty seconds to contact.”
Owen pushed in an attempt to make up the distance on Gwen.
“Be careful, we don’t know what we’re dealing with here,” Jack said. A moment later there was the faint sound of screeching brakes in Owen’s ear, and then Jack was suddenly there just behind him.
“Got it!” Tosh cried in their ears. “Visual confirms suspect is a young man in a dark hoodie. Ten seconds to contact.”
Owen and Jack followed Gwen into one of the shopping arcades. Shops around them were locking their doors, but there were still people milling around, causing an obstruction.
“I see him,” Gwen panted into the comms.
They all rounded a corner into a quieter passage, narrowly missing a cleaner’s bucket of soapy water.
Owe tried to push himself faster, but Gwen clearly had more left in her reserves after the last week as she pulled further away from them.
He could see what was about to happen before it did, but he was powerless to stop it.
Their target and Gwen both managed to slip under the shutter as it closed. Owen and Jack, just a second later, were caught.
“Open up, open up!” Jack shouted at the man standing at the nearby controls. Owen smacked his palms against the metal for emphasis, rattling it.
“It’s no use, I’ve lost him.” Gwen’s voice came despondently through their earpieces as they waited for the shutter to begin lifting again.
“No, you got it,” Tosh told her, sounding surprised at Gwen’s defeated tone. “Whatever it is, you’re holding it now.”
Once the bottom of the shutter was a foot or so off the ground, Owen ducked under it, Jack close behind him.
They emerged into the street, dashing off in the direction the young man and Gwen had gone in. They passed an entrance to the train station a few moments later, and even through the milling people, Owen spotted Gwen.
She was a short way down the entrance tunnel to the station, standing stock still with a glazed look on her face and a small device cradled in her hands.
Chapter Ten
As always, comments and concrit are loved!