People Only Know What You Tell Them - Chapter One
Title: People Only Know What You Tell Them
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairing(s): Jack/Ianto
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own either Torchwood or Catch Me If You Can. Would that I did.
Spoilers: None in particular for Torchwood, indirect for the movie.
Summary: There's a conman on the run, and Agent Jack Harkness is determined to catch him. But then things take a turn for the complicated.
Warnings: Contains timelines that might make your head hurt.
Author's Notes: Written for the reel_torchwood challenge, using the prompt Catch Me If You Can.
Thanks to: morbid_sparks for being my wonderful beta, and putting up with my slightly madcap style of writing this. Also angelzbabe1989 for helping me work out plot variations.
Chapter links at Master List
Chapter One - Chaneuve Penitentiary, Jextron 4, February 5060
Jack shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he stood in the foyer of the correctional facility, waiting for someone to come and meet him. He’d already explained to the man at the desk why he was there.
He grimaced at the condition of the building around him - it didn’t look like it had been maintained properly for centuries.
It was certainly out of the way - he couldn’t imagine why Ianto had chosen to come out here, not for any reason. And if he ever had to be imprisoned, this was the absolute last place he’d choose for it to be in.
Eventually, one of the prison security team came to find him, and took him through three secure gates and then down a long system of corridors. All around there were signs of disrepair and neglect, and - Jack shuddered - it wasn’t the cleanest prison he’d ever visited.
The conditions just got worse the further into the system they got, and Jack grimaced thinking of Ianto in these conditions. The last time he’d seen him, although it had been so very brief, he’d been happy and healthy - and lying through his teeth, of course.
He just hoped that he and his department held enough sway with the rest of the Time Agency managers that they would agree to his plan. They may have finally caught him here, and technically the travel authorities did have a case to hold him, but Ianto couldn’t stay out here.
Jack had always known the conditions here were some of the worst in the known and explored universe, but he hadn’t expected them to be quite like this.
It had taken some serious pleading and the cashing in of a favour or two even to get permission to come and speak to Ianto tonight. He was supposed to be in solitary confinement.
The temperature was starting to drop as they walked down the final corridor, and it was distinctly uncomfortable when the security officer finally stopped and pointed him towards a hard plastic chair next to a closed and locked reinforced door.
The guard banged hard on the door once then stepped back.
“Don’t try to pass him anything through the slot. You’ve got half an hour,” the warden said before stalking off - presumably back to a more comfortable, warm section of the prison.
Jack peeked with difficulty through the tiny slot in the door. He could just make out a small, broken-looking figure huddled in a thin blanket in the corner of a lumpy mattress.
“Ianto!” he called. There was no response. “Ianto?” he tried again. “Hello? Ianto!”
This time Ianto’s head lifted slightly, but he didn’t speak.
“Come on, Ianto, talk to me, please,” Jack continued. “It’s Jack. And I know you know who I am. You know who I was, too, even if you pretend that you don’t.”
“Please, help me,” Ianto said, his voice scratchy. Jack hoped it was just from disuse and not from any illnesses that he might have picked up in the cold and unsanitary conditions he was being held in.
“That’s why I’m here, Ianto,” Jack said. “I’m trying to get you out of here.”
Ianto looked up properly, and Jack could almost meet his gaze through the tiny slot in the door. “Why?” he croaked, breaking off into a coughing fit. “What do you want to do to me?” he asked when he recovered enough.
Jack quenched the random rush of images his much younger self provided him with at that question and concentrated on the matter at hand. “I want to take you back with me, to Earth. Then you’ll be locked up for a very long time, and quite deservedly, but it will be in somewhere better than this hellhole.”
There was a pause, and Ianto dropped his gaze back to his knees. The blanket had dropped away a little, and Jack could see now that all he was wearing under it were a set of thin scrubs. He had to be freezing - no wonder his voice was hoarse and he was coughing horribly.
Jack sank into the chair he had been provided with, unable to bear looking any more.
“Please.” The single word was quiet, and husky, but Jack could still make it out through the door.
Jack sighed - it was a start at least. Despite the conditions, he’d been worried Ianto wouldn’t want to come back, even if he could get the higher-ups to agree to it. Jack wasn’t without influence - fifteen years of hard graft through the ranks had seen to that - but when the prisoner in question was on quite so many ‘wanted’ lists as Ianto was, they could be rather particular.
“Ianto,” he started, not quite sure how he should best word it. “I’m really trying, and I’m going to keep trying, and with a bit of luck I might manage to have you out of here and on a transport with me back to Earth tomorrow morning, but there are a few things you could do that would really help me out.”
There was a shuffling behind the door. Jack twisted so he could look through the slot again and noticed that Ianto had shuffled to the closer end of the mattress. Closer now, Jack could see how thin Ianto had become just in a month spent in this dreadful place. He dreaded to think what he would look like when he’d finished his entire sentence.
“Like what?” he asked scratchily, looking up at the slot in the door.
“Plead guilty; confess,” Jack said matter-of-factly. “It would definitely make those in management think a little more favourably on bringing you back into Earth’s on planet legal system.”
Jack thought that Ianto started to say “No,” but it was interrupted by another coughing fit.
“Just think about it,” he urged. “With the manner of crimes you’ve committed, a full confession would definitely go a long way to easing how harsh they’ll want to be on you. You never physically hurt anyone directly, you weren’t intending to be malicious, but they’ll never understand that if you don’t confess.”
“How do you know?” Ianto asked, looking at the floor and rubbing at his chest as he tried not to launch into another coughing fit.
Jack sighed and looked at him - he was still so young. “It may have been a lot longer for me than it has been for you, but I do remember you, Ianto. I remember what you were like. Obviously, I didn’t know at the time what you were up to, but I don’t think that negates everything I learned about you as a person.”
He smiled a little. “You’re not a cruel man. Just maybe a little more opportunistic than I knew about back then. I know you want to do this, really.”
Ianto looked back up, and Jack waited with bated breath for his answer.
Ianto jumped a little at a bang on the door, and then settled back against the wall, pulling the thin blanket tighter around himself. There were a multitudes of bangs and noises outside the door nearly every day, and the only time they actually meant anything was when it was mealtime.
He no longer had a watch, and in solitary confinement there was no way to tell if his circadian rhythm had gone off track, but he didn’t think it was another mealtime yet.
Then there was another noise. After over a month - well, by his best estimates anyway - with no real human contact at all, it took him a moment to realise that it was a voice. And that the voice was calling his name.
The man, for now that he was listening he could tell that it was a man’s voice, called out to him again, and he lifted his head a little in acknowledgement.
“Talk to me, please. It’s Jack. And I know you know who I am.”
The voice continued speaking, but Ianto’s wasn’t listening to the words anymore. He was simply analysing the voice in his head, matching it up to those from his memories. Yes, it was Jack.
Jack, his onetime lover, and more recently, his… he would hesitate to call them enemies. Yes, they had been on opposite sides of an epic cat and mouse game for the last eighteen months, but Ianto wasn’t even sure he’d go so far as to call Jack his nemesis. They were certainly something to each other, however indefinable that something was.
“Please, help me,” he said, surprised at how sore it made his throat to talk. He’d been coughing painfully for over a week, but having had no one to talk to, he hadn’t tried. But now, Jack was here, and Ianto really, really hoped it wasn’t just to gloat that he’d been caught finally. The trap had snapped closed and the mouse would run no more. He just couldn’t live like this.
“That’s why I’m here, Ianto. I’m trying to get you out of here.”
Ianto’s head snapped up and he looked directly at the tiny slot in the door that was usually only used to pass food through. If he squinted, he could just about make out part of a face on the other side. “Why?” The word irritated his throat, and a wave of coughing overtook him for a minute.
When it finally abated, he looked up again. The offer sounded far too good to be true. “What do you want to do to me?” he asked. Each of the possibilities that rushed through his brain was less fun than the last. He strained to hear Jack’s reply.
“I want to take you back with me, to Earth.”
Earth. The word was almost synonymous with a heaven in Ianto’s mind. It couldn’t have been longer than a couple of months - in his personal timeline, anyway - since he’d last been there, but his living conditions since made it seem so much longer.
In comparison, even the dingiest homes he’d occupied on Earth in the past seemed like perfection. Although he knew that he wouldn’t get even an option as nice as that if he was taken back to Earth.
But Jack had continued. “Then you’ll be locked up for a very long time, and quite deservedly, but it will be in somewhere better than this hellhole.”
Ianto continued to look at that slice of face though the door for a moment, then dropped his gaze to his own knees. Would being locked up on Earth really be that much better than being locked up here? Especially knowing that he was likely to be sentenced for a lot longer on Earth, as they’d be taking a lot more into account.
He shivered, the thin blanket and scrubs not doing much to counter the chill of the air. He glanced around the walls; the cell was dark, and dingy, and even less comfortable than he’d ever imagined a prison cell would be. He wasn’t sure he’d even survive his entire three year sentence in this place; he felt awful after just a month or so.
Yes, it would be worth it. He looked back up at the gap in the door, but Jack’s face was gone.
“Please,” he said quietly. Get me out of this place. Save me.
He thought he heard Jack sigh, but through the thick door, and with his own breathing loud in his ears, he couldn’t be sure. “Ianto, I’m really trying, and I’m going to keep trying, and with a bit of luck I might manage to have you out of here and on a transport with me back to Earth tomorrow morning, but there are a few things you could do that would really help me out.”
Ianto frowned and shuffled down the mattress he was sitting on, closer to the door. What on Earth could he do when he was stuck in a dank prison cell? “Like what?” he asked, looking up intently at the slot in the door. Jack’s face reappeared a few seconds later.
“Plead guilty; confess,” Jack said, his tone sounding almost pleading to Ianto’s ears. “It would definitely make those in management think a little more favourably on bringing you back into Earth’s on planet legal system.”
Ianto shook his head uncertainly. Confess? He didn’t like the sound of that - surely a confession would just result in an even longer prison sentence, especially if he inadvertently confessed to something they hadn’t actually known about. It seemed completely unintuitive.
“Just think about it,” Jack urged. “With the manner of crimes you’ve committed, a full confession would definitely go a long way to easing how harsh they’ll want to be on you. You never physically hurt anyone directly, you weren’t intending to be malicious, but they’ll never understand that if you don’t confess.”
“How do you know?” Ianto couldn’t help but ask. Jack seemed to be very confident that he knew Ianto’s motivations, that he knew all about his actions the last few years. A tickle started in his throat and he rubbed at his chest, trying to avoid another painful coughing fit.
“It may have been a lot longer for me than it has been for you, but I do remember you, Ianto,” Jack told him. “I remember what you were like.”
Ianto sighed to himself. It had been nearly two years since he met Jack, on one of his little ‘business’ trips, but he knew it had to be at least ten years for Jack. And he’d never confirmed that it was him, but once Jack knew the whole of what he’d spent his time doing, there was little point denying it.
“Obviously, I didn’t know at the time what you were up to, but I don’t think that negates everything I learned about you as a person. You’re not a cruel man. Just maybe a little more opportunistic than I knew about back then. I know you want to do this, really.”
Ianto paused and looked back up at what he could see of Jack’s face. If this really was his one chance to make it out of here, even if it meant a longer sentence, should he take it? Was Jack right, would a confession - even a partial confession - get him off this planet and back on Earth? Get him a more lenient sentence?
Deciding to trust Jack’s superior knowledge of the inner workings of the upper echelons of the law enforcement divisions of the Time Agency, he took as deep a breath as he could manage without sending himself into a coughing fit and nodded.
“I’ll do it,” he said quietly. “I’ll confess.”
Chapter Two
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairing(s): Jack/Ianto
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own either Torchwood or Catch Me If You Can. Would that I did.
Spoilers: None in particular for Torchwood, indirect for the movie.
Summary: There's a conman on the run, and Agent Jack Harkness is determined to catch him. But then things take a turn for the complicated.
Warnings: Contains timelines that might make your head hurt.
Author's Notes: Written for the reel_torchwood challenge, using the prompt Catch Me If You Can.
Thanks to: morbid_sparks for being my wonderful beta, and putting up with my slightly madcap style of writing this. Also angelzbabe1989 for helping me work out plot variations.
Chapter links at Master List
Chapter One - Chaneuve Penitentiary, Jextron 4, February 5060
Jack shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he stood in the foyer of the correctional facility, waiting for someone to come and meet him. He’d already explained to the man at the desk why he was there.
He grimaced at the condition of the building around him - it didn’t look like it had been maintained properly for centuries.
It was certainly out of the way - he couldn’t imagine why Ianto had chosen to come out here, not for any reason. And if he ever had to be imprisoned, this was the absolute last place he’d choose for it to be in.
Eventually, one of the prison security team came to find him, and took him through three secure gates and then down a long system of corridors. All around there were signs of disrepair and neglect, and - Jack shuddered - it wasn’t the cleanest prison he’d ever visited.
The conditions just got worse the further into the system they got, and Jack grimaced thinking of Ianto in these conditions. The last time he’d seen him, although it had been so very brief, he’d been happy and healthy - and lying through his teeth, of course.
He just hoped that he and his department held enough sway with the rest of the Time Agency managers that they would agree to his plan. They may have finally caught him here, and technically the travel authorities did have a case to hold him, but Ianto couldn’t stay out here.
Jack had always known the conditions here were some of the worst in the known and explored universe, but he hadn’t expected them to be quite like this.
It had taken some serious pleading and the cashing in of a favour or two even to get permission to come and speak to Ianto tonight. He was supposed to be in solitary confinement.
The temperature was starting to drop as they walked down the final corridor, and it was distinctly uncomfortable when the security officer finally stopped and pointed him towards a hard plastic chair next to a closed and locked reinforced door.
The guard banged hard on the door once then stepped back.
“Don’t try to pass him anything through the slot. You’ve got half an hour,” the warden said before stalking off - presumably back to a more comfortable, warm section of the prison.
Jack peeked with difficulty through the tiny slot in the door. He could just make out a small, broken-looking figure huddled in a thin blanket in the corner of a lumpy mattress.
“Ianto!” he called. There was no response. “Ianto?” he tried again. “Hello? Ianto!”
This time Ianto’s head lifted slightly, but he didn’t speak.
“Come on, Ianto, talk to me, please,” Jack continued. “It’s Jack. And I know you know who I am. You know who I was, too, even if you pretend that you don’t.”
“Please, help me,” Ianto said, his voice scratchy. Jack hoped it was just from disuse and not from any illnesses that he might have picked up in the cold and unsanitary conditions he was being held in.
“That’s why I’m here, Ianto,” Jack said. “I’m trying to get you out of here.”
Ianto looked up properly, and Jack could almost meet his gaze through the tiny slot in the door. “Why?” he croaked, breaking off into a coughing fit. “What do you want to do to me?” he asked when he recovered enough.
Jack quenched the random rush of images his much younger self provided him with at that question and concentrated on the matter at hand. “I want to take you back with me, to Earth. Then you’ll be locked up for a very long time, and quite deservedly, but it will be in somewhere better than this hellhole.”
There was a pause, and Ianto dropped his gaze back to his knees. The blanket had dropped away a little, and Jack could see now that all he was wearing under it were a set of thin scrubs. He had to be freezing - no wonder his voice was hoarse and he was coughing horribly.
Jack sank into the chair he had been provided with, unable to bear looking any more.
“Please.” The single word was quiet, and husky, but Jack could still make it out through the door.
Jack sighed - it was a start at least. Despite the conditions, he’d been worried Ianto wouldn’t want to come back, even if he could get the higher-ups to agree to it. Jack wasn’t without influence - fifteen years of hard graft through the ranks had seen to that - but when the prisoner in question was on quite so many ‘wanted’ lists as Ianto was, they could be rather particular.
“Ianto,” he started, not quite sure how he should best word it. “I’m really trying, and I’m going to keep trying, and with a bit of luck I might manage to have you out of here and on a transport with me back to Earth tomorrow morning, but there are a few things you could do that would really help me out.”
There was a shuffling behind the door. Jack twisted so he could look through the slot again and noticed that Ianto had shuffled to the closer end of the mattress. Closer now, Jack could see how thin Ianto had become just in a month spent in this dreadful place. He dreaded to think what he would look like when he’d finished his entire sentence.
“Like what?” he asked scratchily, looking up at the slot in the door.
“Plead guilty; confess,” Jack said matter-of-factly. “It would definitely make those in management think a little more favourably on bringing you back into Earth’s on planet legal system.”
Jack thought that Ianto started to say “No,” but it was interrupted by another coughing fit.
“Just think about it,” he urged. “With the manner of crimes you’ve committed, a full confession would definitely go a long way to easing how harsh they’ll want to be on you. You never physically hurt anyone directly, you weren’t intending to be malicious, but they’ll never understand that if you don’t confess.”
“How do you know?” Ianto asked, looking at the floor and rubbing at his chest as he tried not to launch into another coughing fit.
Jack sighed and looked at him - he was still so young. “It may have been a lot longer for me than it has been for you, but I do remember you, Ianto. I remember what you were like. Obviously, I didn’t know at the time what you were up to, but I don’t think that negates everything I learned about you as a person.”
He smiled a little. “You’re not a cruel man. Just maybe a little more opportunistic than I knew about back then. I know you want to do this, really.”
Ianto looked back up, and Jack waited with bated breath for his answer.
Ianto jumped a little at a bang on the door, and then settled back against the wall, pulling the thin blanket tighter around himself. There were a multitudes of bangs and noises outside the door nearly every day, and the only time they actually meant anything was when it was mealtime.
He no longer had a watch, and in solitary confinement there was no way to tell if his circadian rhythm had gone off track, but he didn’t think it was another mealtime yet.
Then there was another noise. After over a month - well, by his best estimates anyway - with no real human contact at all, it took him a moment to realise that it was a voice. And that the voice was calling his name.
The man, for now that he was listening he could tell that it was a man’s voice, called out to him again, and he lifted his head a little in acknowledgement.
“Talk to me, please. It’s Jack. And I know you know who I am.”
The voice continued speaking, but Ianto’s wasn’t listening to the words anymore. He was simply analysing the voice in his head, matching it up to those from his memories. Yes, it was Jack.
Jack, his onetime lover, and more recently, his… he would hesitate to call them enemies. Yes, they had been on opposite sides of an epic cat and mouse game for the last eighteen months, but Ianto wasn’t even sure he’d go so far as to call Jack his nemesis. They were certainly something to each other, however indefinable that something was.
“Please, help me,” he said, surprised at how sore it made his throat to talk. He’d been coughing painfully for over a week, but having had no one to talk to, he hadn’t tried. But now, Jack was here, and Ianto really, really hoped it wasn’t just to gloat that he’d been caught finally. The trap had snapped closed and the mouse would run no more. He just couldn’t live like this.
“That’s why I’m here, Ianto. I’m trying to get you out of here.”
Ianto’s head snapped up and he looked directly at the tiny slot in the door that was usually only used to pass food through. If he squinted, he could just about make out part of a face on the other side. “Why?” The word irritated his throat, and a wave of coughing overtook him for a minute.
When it finally abated, he looked up again. The offer sounded far too good to be true. “What do you want to do to me?” he asked. Each of the possibilities that rushed through his brain was less fun than the last. He strained to hear Jack’s reply.
“I want to take you back with me, to Earth.”
Earth. The word was almost synonymous with a heaven in Ianto’s mind. It couldn’t have been longer than a couple of months - in his personal timeline, anyway - since he’d last been there, but his living conditions since made it seem so much longer.
In comparison, even the dingiest homes he’d occupied on Earth in the past seemed like perfection. Although he knew that he wouldn’t get even an option as nice as that if he was taken back to Earth.
But Jack had continued. “Then you’ll be locked up for a very long time, and quite deservedly, but it will be in somewhere better than this hellhole.”
Ianto continued to look at that slice of face though the door for a moment, then dropped his gaze to his own knees. Would being locked up on Earth really be that much better than being locked up here? Especially knowing that he was likely to be sentenced for a lot longer on Earth, as they’d be taking a lot more into account.
He shivered, the thin blanket and scrubs not doing much to counter the chill of the air. He glanced around the walls; the cell was dark, and dingy, and even less comfortable than he’d ever imagined a prison cell would be. He wasn’t sure he’d even survive his entire three year sentence in this place; he felt awful after just a month or so.
Yes, it would be worth it. He looked back up at the gap in the door, but Jack’s face was gone.
“Please,” he said quietly. Get me out of this place. Save me.
He thought he heard Jack sigh, but through the thick door, and with his own breathing loud in his ears, he couldn’t be sure. “Ianto, I’m really trying, and I’m going to keep trying, and with a bit of luck I might manage to have you out of here and on a transport with me back to Earth tomorrow morning, but there are a few things you could do that would really help me out.”
Ianto frowned and shuffled down the mattress he was sitting on, closer to the door. What on Earth could he do when he was stuck in a dank prison cell? “Like what?” he asked, looking up intently at the slot in the door. Jack’s face reappeared a few seconds later.
“Plead guilty; confess,” Jack said, his tone sounding almost pleading to Ianto’s ears. “It would definitely make those in management think a little more favourably on bringing you back into Earth’s on planet legal system.”
Ianto shook his head uncertainly. Confess? He didn’t like the sound of that - surely a confession would just result in an even longer prison sentence, especially if he inadvertently confessed to something they hadn’t actually known about. It seemed completely unintuitive.
“Just think about it,” Jack urged. “With the manner of crimes you’ve committed, a full confession would definitely go a long way to easing how harsh they’ll want to be on you. You never physically hurt anyone directly, you weren’t intending to be malicious, but they’ll never understand that if you don’t confess.”
“How do you know?” Ianto couldn’t help but ask. Jack seemed to be very confident that he knew Ianto’s motivations, that he knew all about his actions the last few years. A tickle started in his throat and he rubbed at his chest, trying to avoid another painful coughing fit.
“It may have been a lot longer for me than it has been for you, but I do remember you, Ianto,” Jack told him. “I remember what you were like.”
Ianto sighed to himself. It had been nearly two years since he met Jack, on one of his little ‘business’ trips, but he knew it had to be at least ten years for Jack. And he’d never confirmed that it was him, but once Jack knew the whole of what he’d spent his time doing, there was little point denying it.
“Obviously, I didn’t know at the time what you were up to, but I don’t think that negates everything I learned about you as a person. You’re not a cruel man. Just maybe a little more opportunistic than I knew about back then. I know you want to do this, really.”
Ianto paused and looked back up at what he could see of Jack’s face. If this really was his one chance to make it out of here, even if it meant a longer sentence, should he take it? Was Jack right, would a confession - even a partial confession - get him off this planet and back on Earth? Get him a more lenient sentence?
Deciding to trust Jack’s superior knowledge of the inner workings of the upper echelons of the law enforcement divisions of the Time Agency, he took as deep a breath as he could manage without sending himself into a coughing fit and nodded.
“I’ll do it,” he said quietly. “I’ll confess.”
Chapter Two