People Only Know What You Tell Them - Chapter Two
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 Two - Earth, June 5058
Jack ripped his manipulator off his arm and threw it across the room. What use was it being able to travel through the vortex to outrun criminals and fraudsters when, it appeared, they could too?
This one was smart, and the case was giving him a headache. Three and a half million credits had been siphoned off into this guy’s hands, and that was just in the last four months. Who knew how much more might have gone missing before then, that they just hadn’t connected to this same case?
He sank into his desk chair and looked over the pile of papers on his desk one more time. They’d missed something, again. Somehow this guy was pulling the wool over their eyes, and Jack didn’t know how he was doing it - he didn’t like it one bit.
Four times they’d thought they might just have a handle on the guy, might just have worked out where he was going to be next. Four times they’d either been dead wrong or just a little bit too late. Their mark was outsmarting them somehow.
They knew he was smart - he’d managed to bypass numerous systems to prevent the sort of fraud he was committing, and no systematic checks had been able to pick the activity up. And they simply didn’t have the manpower required to go through every relevant transaction by hand to pick him up quickly.
Jack picked up the latest report - it had evidently been left on his desk while he was out. The latest account had been traced back even further, and was right back into the 22nd century now.
Whoever this was, he was dedicated - everything took a lot more work when you got as far back as the 22nd century.
He dropped the report on his desk and leant back in his chair. It had been nearly a decade since he’d been anywhere near the 22nd. Back in the days when he’d still been practically a rookie, still in the regular Agency forces.
Back when he’d been overly determined to live life to the full, and virtual notches on his bedpost had been more important than just about anything else.
That trip had been the beginning of the end of that level of hedonism, he realised when he thought back on it. Just a few short weeks, barely into the 21st century let alone the 22nd, but during them, he’d been knocked for six by a beautiful boy, barely younger than himself at the time.
They’d had a whirlwind affair, spending every spare moment together for several weeks. Jack had barely managed to think of anything else the whole time, despite being on a job.
He’d found himself tumbling into love for the first time in his life, and as much as it had hurt to have to leave him behind and return to his own time, the experience had changed Jack - whether it was for the better or for the worse he hadn’t quite decided yet. Over the following year, he’d come to realise that meaningless encounters - no matter how exotic the creature was or just how flexible they were with their tentacles - just couldn’t match up.
Not that he’d stopped flirting, or didn’t enjoy all of the varied pleasures that the universe could provide sexually, but jumping from random bed to random bed no longer held the appeal that it once had.
It was how he’d found himself transferring from the regular force into the more specialised and settled field of Temporal Fraud. He still got to travel all over the known universe, visit time periods he wouldn’t see any other way, but more nights than not, he was able to sleep in his own bed.
It made maintaining both friendships and romantic relationships much easier when he could make plans to meet someone for lunch or go to a movie and know that - unless something really huge happened in a case - the chances were that he would actually be able to make it.
And the job itself wasn’t so bad.
Most of the time it was a rewarding field - he knew he was doing something useful, and it was just challenging enough to keep him thinking. This one was something different though.
He didn’t even have a clue as to the identity of the perpetrator yet. Usually by a few weeks into a case they had a name, often even a picture and a few known addresses. It was just a matter of tracking them down. Not with this one.
Four months in, and they had nothing. Even descriptions of the guy seemed to vary wildly depending on who they asked. They knew he had the appearance of a human male, but from there on there was nothing they could say for certain.
And even the human male thing wasn’t completely certain - there were products to be found on a few planets out on the fringes of the galaxy that would give a false appearance of species, although they were notoriously unreliable and in more cases than not, actually dangerous.
Despite himself, Jack was a bit impressed. And more than a little bit intrigued. He wanted to know how he was doing it. He wanted to watch him in action. He wanted to sit down with the man and have a conversation - about anything. Jack harboured a suspicion that he would be an interesting conversationalist.
Most of all, he wanted to be the one who finally caught him.
This little cat and mouse game would eventually end, and Jack was determined to be the winner. Whoever this man was, he was clever, but Jack knew that he and his team were too.
And no one was perfect, especially when they were trying so very hard to be. Eventually, he would slip up, and then Jack would have him. He just had to wait for that one tiny mistake - he and the team were watching closely, and they wouldn’t let that opportunity pass them by.
Toshiko, his senior officer, poked her head in his office door. “Hey, Jack, I’m heading out. So are the others. No point hanging around here beating ourselves up over this all night.” She looked at Jack pointedly. “He got lucky, that’s all. And he’s good at hiding his tracks. He’ll make a mistake eventually.”
Jack swivelled around back and forth in his chair and nodded. “I know. And I promise, I’ll go home soon. Now go, make the most of what’s left of the evening, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Jack listened as she left the office, and the faint noises from outside in the main department floor quietened as she and the others went home.
He picked up the new document on his desk one more time and skimmed through it. They were getting closer to catching him, he was sure of it.
Another twenty minutes of deep thought and paperwork perusal later, he pulled himself to his feet and picked his manipulator up from the floor next to the wall. He rubbed a finger over the front - no damage sustained, thank goodness. The Agency said they were indestructible, but Jack was never quite sure how far to believe that.
He looked back at the files on his desk once more as he closed the door behind him.
Just one little mistake.
“Finish reading pages sixty-eight and sixty-nine in the textbook, and see if you can answer the questions on page seventy before next week,” Ianto said as a low buzzer sounded, signalling the end of class - and, Ianto noted when he looked at the clock, the end of the day.
The class of trainees all dutifully nodded as they got to their feet and filed out of the room.
Checking first to make sure that the door was closed and locked behind them, Ianto went back to his desk. He picked up the textbook that he’d been using to teach all but one of his classes that month. He flipped forward - the classes had been working on pages in the mid and late 60s, depending on how quickly or slowly any particular class was moving.
He stopped when he reached page eighty-five, set the book down on the desk, and started reading. He was trying his best to stay at least twenty pages ahead of the class, lest he be discovered.
It was actually proving very interesting. He’d been using these theories, indirectly and without even really noticing it, for months. He wasn’t sure he’d actually be able to use the appropriated vortex manipulator any better for having read it, but he definitely understood a lot more about why he had been so successful in using it so far.
Most of the kids - and he’d somehow developed a habit of calling them kids, despite the fact that many of them were older than even he was, and none of them were more than three years younger than him. Of course they all thought, as his employers did, that he was twenty-eight, but that was another matter entirely.
Most of the kids in his classes wouldn’t even get their hands on a vortex manipulator for at least another six months. But by that point, they’d know all the theory like the back of their hands.
He read through another four pages, answering the questions at the end of the fourth page and checking his own answers with the ‘teacher’s answer booklet’. It wasn’t as hard as it was made out to be.
Still, teaching was beginning to get a little boring. He’d been doing it a long time, and as much as working in the Time Agency training college was useful from an equipment and information point of view, it wasn’t necessarily the safest place to work, considering what he was doing.
He just didn’t know yet what he should do next. Maybe after his next trip he’d have a better idea.
He looked again at the clock, and realised just how long he’d been there past the end of classes. If he stayed much longer, it would start to look suspicious.
And if there was one thing he was desperate to avoid, it was looking suspicious.
He packed up his things and prepared to go home. It had been a long week, and he was glad it was the weekend now. He knew that, in theory, he didn’t actually have to work. At least not for another few years. He had enough credits stashed away in various accounts to see him through another decade, if he didn’t fritter it away.
But not to work would look even more suspicious than doing the job he was doing would.
And besides, he enjoyed it. He couldn’t bear just sitting around and doing nothing, had never been able to bear it. Even as a kid he’d been bored when left with nothing to do - his parents had kept him perpetually busy, to keep him out of trouble, or so they had said.
He repressed a sigh at the thought of his parents. They’d been torn out of his life so suddenly, and nothing had quite felt the same since.
As he locked his classroom door behind him, he pondered the idea that it was time for another little trip. There were opportunities just waiting to be taken advantage of in all sorts of times and places. A trip to somewhere or somewhen a little bit different, with a dash of business thrown in on the side to keep things interesting, could be just what he needed this weekend.
He would have to look into his papers when he got home, make a decision on a time and place.
Barcelona, 3135? No, he’d dismissed that one before. The opportunities there were fantastic, but he’d never liked the sound of the place. Artelon 4, 2978? He shook his head. Lovely place - or at least it had been when he’d been there on holiday with his parents as a child, in 5047 - but the systems there were just a little bit too complex when he was really looking for a nice easy, relaxing trip.
No, really, he needed somewhere that was still on Earth. It opened up a lot more opportunities, as he could go much further back if he stuck to Earth. Oh, there were a number of planets out there where he could probably fit in well enough not to be noticed in their own pre-space-travel eras, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to risk it.
Not yet, not when there were still so many safer options still waiting for him.
He flicked through another chunk of the pile of papers on his little desk in his study. Almost all of them could be immediately discarded - either off-world, or just in downright dives of locations or time periods.
He was never going back to 24th century Earth again, not after what he’d had to put up with the last time. And the same went for anywhere in central Africa any earlier than the 37th century.
After perusing the shortlist he’d left himself when he’d discarded all the definite ‘no’s, he finally fixed upon a location, and a time period. He hoped the house was still in good repair. It would definitely need a good clean when he arrived, but he wasn’t aware of any major incidents in the intervening time, no world wars or the like, so he assumed it was probably still standing, still filled with the detritus he had accumulated the last time.
He pulled out his trusty backpack, and filled it with all the items that would be necessary for a stay of anything up to a fortnight. Important items so he could acquire or forge the required documents when he arrived, personal care items, a few clothes - he knew he had quite a few clothes still there from his last visit, but he suspected - having researched the fickleness of the fashions in those early centuries - they would be conspicuously out of date by now.
With everything stowed safely away, he pulled his - or, well, he called it his, the Time Agency would no doubt beg to differ - Vortex manipulator from the secret compartment in the drawer he stored it in when he wasn’t using it.
He pulled on a coat, strapped the manipulator to his wrist, settled the backpack on his back and entered the co-ordinates. He pondered for just a moment and then settled on July - at least there was a chance it would be warm and sunny.
Cardiff, Wales, 2009. Just the place for a little business holiday.
Chapter Three
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 Two - Earth, June 5058
Jack ripped his manipulator off his arm and threw it across the room. What use was it being able to travel through the vortex to outrun criminals and fraudsters when, it appeared, they could too?
This one was smart, and the case was giving him a headache. Three and a half million credits had been siphoned off into this guy’s hands, and that was just in the last four months. Who knew how much more might have gone missing before then, that they just hadn’t connected to this same case?
He sank into his desk chair and looked over the pile of papers on his desk one more time. They’d missed something, again. Somehow this guy was pulling the wool over their eyes, and Jack didn’t know how he was doing it - he didn’t like it one bit.
Four times they’d thought they might just have a handle on the guy, might just have worked out where he was going to be next. Four times they’d either been dead wrong or just a little bit too late. Their mark was outsmarting them somehow.
They knew he was smart - he’d managed to bypass numerous systems to prevent the sort of fraud he was committing, and no systematic checks had been able to pick the activity up. And they simply didn’t have the manpower required to go through every relevant transaction by hand to pick him up quickly.
Jack picked up the latest report - it had evidently been left on his desk while he was out. The latest account had been traced back even further, and was right back into the 22nd century now.
Whoever this was, he was dedicated - everything took a lot more work when you got as far back as the 22nd century.
He dropped the report on his desk and leant back in his chair. It had been nearly a decade since he’d been anywhere near the 22nd. Back in the days when he’d still been practically a rookie, still in the regular Agency forces.
Back when he’d been overly determined to live life to the full, and virtual notches on his bedpost had been more important than just about anything else.
That trip had been the beginning of the end of that level of hedonism, he realised when he thought back on it. Just a few short weeks, barely into the 21st century let alone the 22nd, but during them, he’d been knocked for six by a beautiful boy, barely younger than himself at the time.
They’d had a whirlwind affair, spending every spare moment together for several weeks. Jack had barely managed to think of anything else the whole time, despite being on a job.
He’d found himself tumbling into love for the first time in his life, and as much as it had hurt to have to leave him behind and return to his own time, the experience had changed Jack - whether it was for the better or for the worse he hadn’t quite decided yet. Over the following year, he’d come to realise that meaningless encounters - no matter how exotic the creature was or just how flexible they were with their tentacles - just couldn’t match up.
Not that he’d stopped flirting, or didn’t enjoy all of the varied pleasures that the universe could provide sexually, but jumping from random bed to random bed no longer held the appeal that it once had.
It was how he’d found himself transferring from the regular force into the more specialised and settled field of Temporal Fraud. He still got to travel all over the known universe, visit time periods he wouldn’t see any other way, but more nights than not, he was able to sleep in his own bed.
It made maintaining both friendships and romantic relationships much easier when he could make plans to meet someone for lunch or go to a movie and know that - unless something really huge happened in a case - the chances were that he would actually be able to make it.
And the job itself wasn’t so bad.
Most of the time it was a rewarding field - he knew he was doing something useful, and it was just challenging enough to keep him thinking. This one was something different though.
He didn’t even have a clue as to the identity of the perpetrator yet. Usually by a few weeks into a case they had a name, often even a picture and a few known addresses. It was just a matter of tracking them down. Not with this one.
Four months in, and they had nothing. Even descriptions of the guy seemed to vary wildly depending on who they asked. They knew he had the appearance of a human male, but from there on there was nothing they could say for certain.
And even the human male thing wasn’t completely certain - there were products to be found on a few planets out on the fringes of the galaxy that would give a false appearance of species, although they were notoriously unreliable and in more cases than not, actually dangerous.
Despite himself, Jack was a bit impressed. And more than a little bit intrigued. He wanted to know how he was doing it. He wanted to watch him in action. He wanted to sit down with the man and have a conversation - about anything. Jack harboured a suspicion that he would be an interesting conversationalist.
Most of all, he wanted to be the one who finally caught him.
This little cat and mouse game would eventually end, and Jack was determined to be the winner. Whoever this man was, he was clever, but Jack knew that he and his team were too.
And no one was perfect, especially when they were trying so very hard to be. Eventually, he would slip up, and then Jack would have him. He just had to wait for that one tiny mistake - he and the team were watching closely, and they wouldn’t let that opportunity pass them by.
Toshiko, his senior officer, poked her head in his office door. “Hey, Jack, I’m heading out. So are the others. No point hanging around here beating ourselves up over this all night.” She looked at Jack pointedly. “He got lucky, that’s all. And he’s good at hiding his tracks. He’ll make a mistake eventually.”
Jack swivelled around back and forth in his chair and nodded. “I know. And I promise, I’ll go home soon. Now go, make the most of what’s left of the evening, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Jack listened as she left the office, and the faint noises from outside in the main department floor quietened as she and the others went home.
He picked up the new document on his desk one more time and skimmed through it. They were getting closer to catching him, he was sure of it.
Another twenty minutes of deep thought and paperwork perusal later, he pulled himself to his feet and picked his manipulator up from the floor next to the wall. He rubbed a finger over the front - no damage sustained, thank goodness. The Agency said they were indestructible, but Jack was never quite sure how far to believe that.
He looked back at the files on his desk once more as he closed the door behind him.
Just one little mistake.
“Finish reading pages sixty-eight and sixty-nine in the textbook, and see if you can answer the questions on page seventy before next week,” Ianto said as a low buzzer sounded, signalling the end of class - and, Ianto noted when he looked at the clock, the end of the day.
The class of trainees all dutifully nodded as they got to their feet and filed out of the room.
Checking first to make sure that the door was closed and locked behind them, Ianto went back to his desk. He picked up the textbook that he’d been using to teach all but one of his classes that month. He flipped forward - the classes had been working on pages in the mid and late 60s, depending on how quickly or slowly any particular class was moving.
He stopped when he reached page eighty-five, set the book down on the desk, and started reading. He was trying his best to stay at least twenty pages ahead of the class, lest he be discovered.
It was actually proving very interesting. He’d been using these theories, indirectly and without even really noticing it, for months. He wasn’t sure he’d actually be able to use the appropriated vortex manipulator any better for having read it, but he definitely understood a lot more about why he had been so successful in using it so far.
Most of the kids - and he’d somehow developed a habit of calling them kids, despite the fact that many of them were older than even he was, and none of them were more than three years younger than him. Of course they all thought, as his employers did, that he was twenty-eight, but that was another matter entirely.
Most of the kids in his classes wouldn’t even get their hands on a vortex manipulator for at least another six months. But by that point, they’d know all the theory like the back of their hands.
He read through another four pages, answering the questions at the end of the fourth page and checking his own answers with the ‘teacher’s answer booklet’. It wasn’t as hard as it was made out to be.
Still, teaching was beginning to get a little boring. He’d been doing it a long time, and as much as working in the Time Agency training college was useful from an equipment and information point of view, it wasn’t necessarily the safest place to work, considering what he was doing.
He just didn’t know yet what he should do next. Maybe after his next trip he’d have a better idea.
He looked again at the clock, and realised just how long he’d been there past the end of classes. If he stayed much longer, it would start to look suspicious.
And if there was one thing he was desperate to avoid, it was looking suspicious.
He packed up his things and prepared to go home. It had been a long week, and he was glad it was the weekend now. He knew that, in theory, he didn’t actually have to work. At least not for another few years. He had enough credits stashed away in various accounts to see him through another decade, if he didn’t fritter it away.
But not to work would look even more suspicious than doing the job he was doing would.
And besides, he enjoyed it. He couldn’t bear just sitting around and doing nothing, had never been able to bear it. Even as a kid he’d been bored when left with nothing to do - his parents had kept him perpetually busy, to keep him out of trouble, or so they had said.
He repressed a sigh at the thought of his parents. They’d been torn out of his life so suddenly, and nothing had quite felt the same since.
As he locked his classroom door behind him, he pondered the idea that it was time for another little trip. There were opportunities just waiting to be taken advantage of in all sorts of times and places. A trip to somewhere or somewhen a little bit different, with a dash of business thrown in on the side to keep things interesting, could be just what he needed this weekend.
He would have to look into his papers when he got home, make a decision on a time and place.
Barcelona, 3135? No, he’d dismissed that one before. The opportunities there were fantastic, but he’d never liked the sound of the place. Artelon 4, 2978? He shook his head. Lovely place - or at least it had been when he’d been there on holiday with his parents as a child, in 5047 - but the systems there were just a little bit too complex when he was really looking for a nice easy, relaxing trip.
No, really, he needed somewhere that was still on Earth. It opened up a lot more opportunities, as he could go much further back if he stuck to Earth. Oh, there were a number of planets out there where he could probably fit in well enough not to be noticed in their own pre-space-travel eras, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to risk it.
Not yet, not when there were still so many safer options still waiting for him.
He flicked through another chunk of the pile of papers on his little desk in his study. Almost all of them could be immediately discarded - either off-world, or just in downright dives of locations or time periods.
He was never going back to 24th century Earth again, not after what he’d had to put up with the last time. And the same went for anywhere in central Africa any earlier than the 37th century.
After perusing the shortlist he’d left himself when he’d discarded all the definite ‘no’s, he finally fixed upon a location, and a time period. He hoped the house was still in good repair. It would definitely need a good clean when he arrived, but he wasn’t aware of any major incidents in the intervening time, no world wars or the like, so he assumed it was probably still standing, still filled with the detritus he had accumulated the last time.
He pulled out his trusty backpack, and filled it with all the items that would be necessary for a stay of anything up to a fortnight. Important items so he could acquire or forge the required documents when he arrived, personal care items, a few clothes - he knew he had quite a few clothes still there from his last visit, but he suspected - having researched the fickleness of the fashions in those early centuries - they would be conspicuously out of date by now.
With everything stowed safely away, he pulled his - or, well, he called it his, the Time Agency would no doubt beg to differ - Vortex manipulator from the secret compartment in the drawer he stored it in when he wasn’t using it.
He pulled on a coat, strapped the manipulator to his wrist, settled the backpack on his back and entered the co-ordinates. He pondered for just a moment and then settled on July - at least there was a chance it would be warm and sunny.
Cardiff, Wales, 2009. Just the place for a little business holiday.
Chapter Three