Yesterday Is But Today's Memory - 14/19+Interlude
Title: Yesterday Is But Today's Memory
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairings: Jack/Ianto
Rating: R
Disclaimer: If I was the one who owned Torchwood, you think I'd admit it now?
Spoilers: Takes place post 2x05 'Adam', but mentions briefly minor info from later s2 eps. AU
Summary: It wasn’t the lost days that were really giving Ianto Jones nightmares. It was the fact that ever since, he’d suddenly been having flashes from another period of his life he’d thought was lost forever - his first ten years.
Warning: Some chapters of this fic will contain material some may find offensive. To go into more detail would be spoilery for the plot, but DO NOT READ if you are easily offended.
Thanks to: My wonderful betas morbid_sparks, cazmalfoy and angelzbabe1989, who talked me into writing this, then held my hand while I worked through the plot and filled all its holes.
Previous chapters at master list
Chapter Fourteen
John had seemed positively excited about the prospect of going to steal - or ‘acquire’ as he’d called it - a dose of the KamiTab reversal compound.
“They still have a permanent guard on duty at the chemical and drug storage facility,” he’d grinned. “Just the one, but it still makes it that little bit more fun to break into.”
Ianto had to wonder a little at what it was in someone’s personality that made breaking into a facility ‘more fun’ the higher the chance of being caught, but since in this instance it was motivating Hart to keep helping them, he didn’t comment.
A wide grin on his face, John had pressed a few buttons on his vortex manipulator and disappeared back into another swirl of Rift energy, leaving Jack and Ianto alone in the Hub.
The silence was deafening.
They looked everywhere but at each other, and an awkward pall descended over the Hub while they waited; it couldn’t have been more different to their previous wait.
Ianto wanted to say something, do something to break it, but there was nothing. Everything that came into his head was quickly dismissed; everything that came to mind would have been a perfect thing to say just an hour ago, back when Jack was his Jack and he was still Ianto.
But now, none of it was. Not when there was an all too likely possibility that their relationship could never be the same again.
He wanted to subscribe to Jack’s optimism, wanted to believe it was possible, but he couldn’t - and he suspected that deep in his heart, Jack didn’t either.
He wanted, even more than anything else, to be able to run into Jack’s arms and let them comfort each other - but that wasn’t possible either.
Ianto paced nervously around the raised area, avoiding Jack where he remained slumped on the sofa, his footsteps sounding loud in his ears on the metal grating.
A movement caught his attention at the edge of his eye, and he spun around in time to watch John reappear, seemingly empty-handed. His relief at the other man’s return surprised him slightly; his worry that he didn’t seem to have returned with anything did not.
“Did you…?” he started anxiously.
John interrupted him, answering the unfinished question by pulling what looked to Ianto to be some sort of blister pack out of a pocket. “Ye of little faith,” he said, his voice full of mock hurt. “I even managed to swipe a pack of KamiTab itself too - much harder, by the way, because that stuff they still keep in a bloody safe. But I thought you might rather need it, after you’ve done your little test here.”
Ianto nodded gratefully. “Thank you. I hadn’t even thought of it, but you’re right. I can’t exactly be wandering around with my ‘real’ DNA showing up on tests, not after all these years with whatever false result the KamiTab has been causing. And whatever else it changed, too. If nothing else, Owen would be bound to notice eventually, and I’d rather not have to answer those questions.”
Jack stood up and joined them, still studiously not meeting Ianto’s eyes. “So, are we going to get this over and done with, then?”
Ianto nodded vehemently. “Yes. As soon as possible. Whatever the results, it can’t be worse than this not-quite knowing, right?”
Jack made a sound in his throat that Ianto interpreted as uncertain disagreement.
“I need to know,” Ianto insisted. “I can’t hang on like this, suspecting but not knowing.” He turned to John. “What do I need to do for the reversal?”
John held out what turned out to actually be a blister pack, no different to what Ianto would have expected to get off a pharmacy shelf in the 21st century. “Just take one of the pills. They don’t try to make these things overly complicated. Makes it simpler for surreptitious administration, too.”
Ianto just nodded and took the packet, breaking out a pill and popping it into his mouth, swallowing instantly.
“How… how long does it take to work?” he asked. “And how will I know when it has?”
“They’re usually pretty fast acting,” Jack told him, staring at a point just over his shoulder. “So maybe 10 minutes at the outside.”
“And there’s no way of just ‘telling’,” John continued. “The only way to know is to actually take a sample and check it.”
“So we wait.”
“We wait.”
If Ianto had though the long minutes waiting for John to return with the drugs were awkward, he decided then that he was wrong. This was awkward. He stared at the face of his stopwatch, waiting for ten minutes to be up and trying not to think of other, more pleasurable, times when he had done exactly the same thing.
“That’s time,” he finally said when it came around, his voice gruff.
The three of them made the seemingly long journey down to the medical bay, where Ianto hopped up to sit on the table.
Jack rummaged around in a drawer for a moment before coming up with a sterile swab, packaged in paper. He passed it back to Ianto without turning around to look at him.
Ianto took the sample and handed it back, not looking at Jack either.
The machine they had that could extract a DNA profile from a sample was, thankfully, alien-tech enhanced and could perform the extraction many times faster than anything any police department in the country - or the world - had access to.
Ianto’s buccal sample was quickly processed and inserted into the machine, and they were faced with yet another uncomfortable wait.
The computer beeped when the sample was done, and they brought up Jack’s profile from his file, and clicked open the new profile for Ianto the machine had just produced.
Both profiles came up on the screen for them to compare.
Ianto took a good look, and his legs promptly collapsed under him.
In shock? In relief? Find out in Chapter Fifteen
Comments and concrit welcomed - comments are love!! &hearts
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairings: Jack/Ianto
Rating: R
Disclaimer: If I was the one who owned Torchwood, you think I'd admit it now?
Spoilers: Takes place post 2x05 'Adam', but mentions briefly minor info from later s2 eps. AU
Summary: It wasn’t the lost days that were really giving Ianto Jones nightmares. It was the fact that ever since, he’d suddenly been having flashes from another period of his life he’d thought was lost forever - his first ten years.
Warning: Some chapters of this fic will contain material some may find offensive. To go into more detail would be spoilery for the plot, but DO NOT READ if you are easily offended.
Thanks to: My wonderful betas morbid_sparks, cazmalfoy and angelzbabe1989, who talked me into writing this, then held my hand while I worked through the plot and filled all its holes.
Previous chapters at master list
Chapter Fourteen
John had seemed positively excited about the prospect of going to steal - or ‘acquire’ as he’d called it - a dose of the KamiTab reversal compound.
“They still have a permanent guard on duty at the chemical and drug storage facility,” he’d grinned. “Just the one, but it still makes it that little bit more fun to break into.”
Ianto had to wonder a little at what it was in someone’s personality that made breaking into a facility ‘more fun’ the higher the chance of being caught, but since in this instance it was motivating Hart to keep helping them, he didn’t comment.
A wide grin on his face, John had pressed a few buttons on his vortex manipulator and disappeared back into another swirl of Rift energy, leaving Jack and Ianto alone in the Hub.
The silence was deafening.
They looked everywhere but at each other, and an awkward pall descended over the Hub while they waited; it couldn’t have been more different to their previous wait.
Ianto wanted to say something, do something to break it, but there was nothing. Everything that came into his head was quickly dismissed; everything that came to mind would have been a perfect thing to say just an hour ago, back when Jack was his Jack and he was still Ianto.
But now, none of it was. Not when there was an all too likely possibility that their relationship could never be the same again.
He wanted to subscribe to Jack’s optimism, wanted to believe it was possible, but he couldn’t - and he suspected that deep in his heart, Jack didn’t either.
He wanted, even more than anything else, to be able to run into Jack’s arms and let them comfort each other - but that wasn’t possible either.
Ianto paced nervously around the raised area, avoiding Jack where he remained slumped on the sofa, his footsteps sounding loud in his ears on the metal grating.
A movement caught his attention at the edge of his eye, and he spun around in time to watch John reappear, seemingly empty-handed. His relief at the other man’s return surprised him slightly; his worry that he didn’t seem to have returned with anything did not.
“Did you…?” he started anxiously.
John interrupted him, answering the unfinished question by pulling what looked to Ianto to be some sort of blister pack out of a pocket. “Ye of little faith,” he said, his voice full of mock hurt. “I even managed to swipe a pack of KamiTab itself too - much harder, by the way, because that stuff they still keep in a bloody safe. But I thought you might rather need it, after you’ve done your little test here.”
Ianto nodded gratefully. “Thank you. I hadn’t even thought of it, but you’re right. I can’t exactly be wandering around with my ‘real’ DNA showing up on tests, not after all these years with whatever false result the KamiTab has been causing. And whatever else it changed, too. If nothing else, Owen would be bound to notice eventually, and I’d rather not have to answer those questions.”
Jack stood up and joined them, still studiously not meeting Ianto’s eyes. “So, are we going to get this over and done with, then?”
Ianto nodded vehemently. “Yes. As soon as possible. Whatever the results, it can’t be worse than this not-quite knowing, right?”
Jack made a sound in his throat that Ianto interpreted as uncertain disagreement.
“I need to know,” Ianto insisted. “I can’t hang on like this, suspecting but not knowing.” He turned to John. “What do I need to do for the reversal?”
John held out what turned out to actually be a blister pack, no different to what Ianto would have expected to get off a pharmacy shelf in the 21st century. “Just take one of the pills. They don’t try to make these things overly complicated. Makes it simpler for surreptitious administration, too.”
Ianto just nodded and took the packet, breaking out a pill and popping it into his mouth, swallowing instantly.
“How… how long does it take to work?” he asked. “And how will I know when it has?”
“They’re usually pretty fast acting,” Jack told him, staring at a point just over his shoulder. “So maybe 10 minutes at the outside.”
“And there’s no way of just ‘telling’,” John continued. “The only way to know is to actually take a sample and check it.”
“So we wait.”
“We wait.”
If Ianto had though the long minutes waiting for John to return with the drugs were awkward, he decided then that he was wrong. This was awkward. He stared at the face of his stopwatch, waiting for ten minutes to be up and trying not to think of other, more pleasurable, times when he had done exactly the same thing.
“That’s time,” he finally said when it came around, his voice gruff.
The three of them made the seemingly long journey down to the medical bay, where Ianto hopped up to sit on the table.
Jack rummaged around in a drawer for a moment before coming up with a sterile swab, packaged in paper. He passed it back to Ianto without turning around to look at him.
Ianto took the sample and handed it back, not looking at Jack either.
The machine they had that could extract a DNA profile from a sample was, thankfully, alien-tech enhanced and could perform the extraction many times faster than anything any police department in the country - or the world - had access to.
Ianto’s buccal sample was quickly processed and inserted into the machine, and they were faced with yet another uncomfortable wait.
The computer beeped when the sample was done, and they brought up Jack’s profile from his file, and clicked open the new profile for Ianto the machine had just produced.
Both profiles came up on the screen for them to compare.
Ianto took a good look, and his legs promptly collapsed under him.
In shock? In relief? Find out in Chapter Fifteen
Comments and concrit welcomed - comments are love!! &hearts