Does Africa Know A Song Of Me? - Part 8/10
Title: Does Africa Know A Song Of Me?
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, mentions of Gwen/Rhys, Martha/Tom
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: No, I don't own Torchwood. Things would be rather different if I did.
Spoilers: Set sometime late in an alternate version of S2 (where no one is dead)
Summary: Jack gets a call from UNIT. They need his help... in Namibia. And when they arrive, Jack and Ianto (because Jack wouldn't leave him behind) discover the only communication they have with the team is letters...
Author's Note: The title is taken from a quote from the film 'Out Of Africa'. This was written for tw_bigbang
Thanks to: The wonderful morbid_sparks for beta'ing, cheerleading and letting me complain about not knowing where the plot was going.
Also huge thanks to my lovely bigbang artist, wrenriddle - find her fanmix and beautiful cover art for this story here.
Previous Parts: One Two Three Four Five Six Seven
Does Africa Know A Song of Me?
Namibia
9th May 2008
Dear All,
I know you must all be nearly as concerned about Ianto as I’ve been, so I’ll start with an update on how he is.
Owen and Martha, thank you both so much for the assorted medicines you sent - they arrived yesterday and Ianto tells me they’re really working. He’s not constantly curled up in pain anymore and he’s throwing up a lot less, so I’m inclined to believe him. He’s got a bit of colour back in his cheeks, too (yes I do know he’s normally quite pale anyway, but no one should look as pale as he has since he’s been ill. And he’s actually quite tanned at the moment too).
The next few days will, I guess, tell us if the anti-toxin has had any effect or not.
He’s managing to sleep a lot better now too - I had actually figured out the ‘blanket as an extra curtain’ thing before I received your letter, Owen, although it took a few hours after I sent mine. (I’m not sure I was thinking entirely clearly when I wrote to you last - I don’t remember everything I said but I think worry over Ianto may have addled me a little.) Even with the light blocked out the pain and nausea had been too much for him to rest properly, let alone the jitters he’s been having, but he’s sleeping well now; actually, he’s slept almost the whole time since he managed to get those pills down yesterday. Both you two and the doctors here said he needs lots of rest, so I’m assuming that sleeping is good.
The activity here hasn’t, unfortunately, stopped just because Ianto is sick, but it hasn’t been increasing and there have been no reports of any new types of occurrence. I’ve been monitoring all the readings from here - it seems that we did at least get the beacons positioned in the right places before we made the acquaintance of the scorpion - and once Ianto is better enough I will go out there on my own and have another look around.
I’m still sure I recognise some of the energy signals, but what time isn’t taken up by monitoring the scans is spent looking after Ianto, so I haven’t had much time to think about it thoroughly. As soon as Ianto is better, I’ll get onto it - I have a feeling it could be the key to what’s going on and thus us getting back home.
I hope that by the time you receive this letter, things have calmed down there. I’m sorry we couldn’t be there to help you deal with the Rift storm, but I’m very glad to hear you are keeping on top of it and not getting yourselves seriously hurt in the process. I’m also impressed at how well you have handled working in co-operation with UNIT.
I told you I had my suspicions about Commander Brown, and I’m not entirely convinced that there might not have been a little meddling going on there with the timeframes. I know the three of you could have handled him - I don’t doubt that he underestimated you all - but thank you, Martha, for dealing with it so swiftly. He won’t try to mess with Torchwood Three again so quickly in the future!
Still, it could come in handy in the future if we (well, by ‘we’ I mean you, because the officers do all pretty much hate me - don’t ask me why!) could cultivate good professional relations with a few of the local UNIT soldiers. You never know when we might need just a little bit more manpower to deal with something, and I’m sure we could offer some expertise in return. Although all of our tech remains our tech. Even if he’s been warned, I don’t want Brown getting his hands on it.
By the way, Gwen - do you think Rhys might be willing to drop in home-cooked food in for us on a semi-regular basis? It does sound quite nice, and I’m sure we all eat more takeaway than is healthy. Ask him, would you?
Anyway, I can hear a noise in the other room so I think Ianto might have just woken up and I better go see if he needs anything.
Hoping things are better there,
Jack & Ianto
P.S. Owen, I know I have more than a bit of a reputation, but surely you don’t think I’m that bad! Comforting cuddles and forehead kisses only, I promise. And no, Martha, he doesn’t object one little bit.
Cardiff
11th May 2008
Dear Jack and Ianto,
We’re all very glad to hear that you’re starting to feel better, Ianto. With a bit of luck this letter will find you well on your way to being fully recovered. I’m sure Jack is quite capable of passing on all of our love. Don’t try to get up and do everything too soon, though, okay? We all know you hate being laid up, but let Jack look after you until you’re properly better. We don’t want you making yourself sick again.
The Rift finally settled itself back down and stopped spitting things out at us several times daily yesterday. It’s actually been pretty much completely silent since mid-afternoon yesterday, and I’m not sure if that doesn’t worry me more than when it was going crazy and dropping things all over the place, left, right and centre.
Whenever the Rift goes silent I feel like it’s working up to something - even now when it has just spent ten days making our lives hell!
The last of our UNIT soldiers left us the day before yesterday. I think - other than that day in the middle when they were being forced to ignore our command and listen only to Commander Brown - most of them quite enjoyed working with us. I don’t think any of them would be averse to helping us out again if we needed - although I get the feeling some of them would only do it if we could definitely keep Commander Brown firmly out of it. Tosh befriended a couple of them (not like that, Jack Harkness, get your mind out of the gutter) and from what they told her, the Commander isn’t the most well liked man on the base. Martha says he isn’t the most liked person in UNIT full stop.
They all left us contact details (well, all but one) so if we really do get into a situation where we need them in the future, we could probably just contact them directly. Like you said, always a good idea to have some more manpower as backup if required.
Tosh got to the root of the problem with the Rift predictor, and why it failed to warn us about the Rift storm, and she’s working on improvements now so it shouldn’t happen again. She did explain it to me, but you’ll have to ask her to tell you directly because it just went over my head.
I asked Rhys about the home-cooked food thing. He said he’d be happy to, as long as it wasn’t too often, we didn’t use it as an excuse for being able to work even longer hours, and as long as we washed out the Tupperware and got it back to our flat promptly. Oh, and as long as he got to stay well out of any ‘weird shit’ - I assured him we’d be keeping him as far away from any of that as we could.
He also warned me that we might be the recipients of his experiments with new recipes - he does like to try out some odd things from time to time, and even though he’s a wonderful cook, they don’t always quite turn out how he expected. (Don’t tell him I told you that, please.)
Right, so keep looking after each other, and hopefully you’ll be able to figure out that signal soon, sort it out and come back to us. It’s been a month now and we all miss you two.
Love,
Gwen
Part Nine
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, mentions of Gwen/Rhys, Martha/Tom
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: No, I don't own Torchwood. Things would be rather different if I did.
Spoilers: Set sometime late in an alternate version of S2 (where no one is dead)
Summary: Jack gets a call from UNIT. They need his help... in Namibia. And when they arrive, Jack and Ianto (because Jack wouldn't leave him behind) discover the only communication they have with the team is letters...
Author's Note: The title is taken from a quote from the film 'Out Of Africa'. This was written for tw_bigbang
Thanks to: The wonderful morbid_sparks for beta'ing, cheerleading and letting me complain about not knowing where the plot was going.
Also huge thanks to my lovely bigbang artist, wrenriddle - find her fanmix and beautiful cover art for this story here.
Previous Parts: One Two Three Four Five Six Seven
Does Africa Know A Song of Me?
Namibia
9th May 2008
Dear All,
I know you must all be nearly as concerned about Ianto as I’ve been, so I’ll start with an update on how he is.
Owen and Martha, thank you both so much for the assorted medicines you sent - they arrived yesterday and Ianto tells me they’re really working. He’s not constantly curled up in pain anymore and he’s throwing up a lot less, so I’m inclined to believe him. He’s got a bit of colour back in his cheeks, too (yes I do know he’s normally quite pale anyway, but no one should look as pale as he has since he’s been ill. And he’s actually quite tanned at the moment too).
The next few days will, I guess, tell us if the anti-toxin has had any effect or not.
He’s managing to sleep a lot better now too - I had actually figured out the ‘blanket as an extra curtain’ thing before I received your letter, Owen, although it took a few hours after I sent mine. (I’m not sure I was thinking entirely clearly when I wrote to you last - I don’t remember everything I said but I think worry over Ianto may have addled me a little.) Even with the light blocked out the pain and nausea had been too much for him to rest properly, let alone the jitters he’s been having, but he’s sleeping well now; actually, he’s slept almost the whole time since he managed to get those pills down yesterday. Both you two and the doctors here said he needs lots of rest, so I’m assuming that sleeping is good.
The activity here hasn’t, unfortunately, stopped just because Ianto is sick, but it hasn’t been increasing and there have been no reports of any new types of occurrence. I’ve been monitoring all the readings from here - it seems that we did at least get the beacons positioned in the right places before we made the acquaintance of the scorpion - and once Ianto is better enough I will go out there on my own and have another look around.
I’m still sure I recognise some of the energy signals, but what time isn’t taken up by monitoring the scans is spent looking after Ianto, so I haven’t had much time to think about it thoroughly. As soon as Ianto is better, I’ll get onto it - I have a feeling it could be the key to what’s going on and thus us getting back home.
I hope that by the time you receive this letter, things have calmed down there. I’m sorry we couldn’t be there to help you deal with the Rift storm, but I’m very glad to hear you are keeping on top of it and not getting yourselves seriously hurt in the process. I’m also impressed at how well you have handled working in co-operation with UNIT.
I told you I had my suspicions about Commander Brown, and I’m not entirely convinced that there might not have been a little meddling going on there with the timeframes. I know the three of you could have handled him - I don’t doubt that he underestimated you all - but thank you, Martha, for dealing with it so swiftly. He won’t try to mess with Torchwood Three again so quickly in the future!
Still, it could come in handy in the future if we (well, by ‘we’ I mean you, because the officers do all pretty much hate me - don’t ask me why!) could cultivate good professional relations with a few of the local UNIT soldiers. You never know when we might need just a little bit more manpower to deal with something, and I’m sure we could offer some expertise in return. Although all of our tech remains our tech. Even if he’s been warned, I don’t want Brown getting his hands on it.
By the way, Gwen - do you think Rhys might be willing to drop in home-cooked food in for us on a semi-regular basis? It does sound quite nice, and I’m sure we all eat more takeaway than is healthy. Ask him, would you?
Anyway, I can hear a noise in the other room so I think Ianto might have just woken up and I better go see if he needs anything.
Hoping things are better there,
Jack & Ianto
P.S. Owen, I know I have more than a bit of a reputation, but surely you don’t think I’m that bad! Comforting cuddles and forehead kisses only, I promise. And no, Martha, he doesn’t object one little bit.
Cardiff
11th May 2008
Dear Jack and Ianto,
We’re all very glad to hear that you’re starting to feel better, Ianto. With a bit of luck this letter will find you well on your way to being fully recovered. I’m sure Jack is quite capable of passing on all of our love. Don’t try to get up and do everything too soon, though, okay? We all know you hate being laid up, but let Jack look after you until you’re properly better. We don’t want you making yourself sick again.
The Rift finally settled itself back down and stopped spitting things out at us several times daily yesterday. It’s actually been pretty much completely silent since mid-afternoon yesterday, and I’m not sure if that doesn’t worry me more than when it was going crazy and dropping things all over the place, left, right and centre.
Whenever the Rift goes silent I feel like it’s working up to something - even now when it has just spent ten days making our lives hell!
The last of our UNIT soldiers left us the day before yesterday. I think - other than that day in the middle when they were being forced to ignore our command and listen only to Commander Brown - most of them quite enjoyed working with us. I don’t think any of them would be averse to helping us out again if we needed - although I get the feeling some of them would only do it if we could definitely keep Commander Brown firmly out of it. Tosh befriended a couple of them (not like that, Jack Harkness, get your mind out of the gutter) and from what they told her, the Commander isn’t the most well liked man on the base. Martha says he isn’t the most liked person in UNIT full stop.
They all left us contact details (well, all but one) so if we really do get into a situation where we need them in the future, we could probably just contact them directly. Like you said, always a good idea to have some more manpower as backup if required.
Tosh got to the root of the problem with the Rift predictor, and why it failed to warn us about the Rift storm, and she’s working on improvements now so it shouldn’t happen again. She did explain it to me, but you’ll have to ask her to tell you directly because it just went over my head.
I asked Rhys about the home-cooked food thing. He said he’d be happy to, as long as it wasn’t too often, we didn’t use it as an excuse for being able to work even longer hours, and as long as we washed out the Tupperware and got it back to our flat promptly. Oh, and as long as he got to stay well out of any ‘weird shit’ - I assured him we’d be keeping him as far away from any of that as we could.
He also warned me that we might be the recipients of his experiments with new recipes - he does like to try out some odd things from time to time, and even though he’s a wonderful cook, they don’t always quite turn out how he expected. (Don’t tell him I told you that, please.)
Right, so keep looking after each other, and hopefully you’ll be able to figure out that signal soon, sort it out and come back to us. It’s been a month now and we all miss you two.
Love,
Gwen
Part Nine