Stumble
Title: Stumble
Series: Something that starts with "S", epilogue
Characters: Jack & Ianto, OFC
Rating: PG
Summary: Jack's made mistakes in his life; but he doesn't regret some of them.
A/N: This is a strange beast to close out the horizonssing July challenge; but is actually written for the lovingthecoat "Mistake" challenge. Apparently I can't write unless its for a challenge now.
"What the bloody hell did you think you were doing! Did you really think I wouldn't find out!" Ianto slammed the data pad down onto Jack's desk. Jack flinched as it rattled several items cluttering the surface and the coral under the heat lamp tried to retract from the confrontation. "Do you have any idea how many things could have gone wrong because of your meddling!" Ianto walked around Jack's desk and spun his chair so he was staring right at him. "Look at me!"
Jack looked up at him, Ianto wore his fifty years incredibly well considering more than half his years were with Torchwood. He still wore impeccably tailored suits, if slightly larger in size; and his blue eyes now burned behind sharp spectacles. The only telltale sign of his years was his purely white hair instead of the the raven black of his youth. "You know that no matter how much Branwen and iTosh think they've limited the variables, there's still a chance of corrupting the timelines." Ianto slammed Jack's chair into the wall, "and you didn't use it just once, but eight times! Eight times in one period! You're lucky the damn cannon didn't blank out the rest of history!" Ianto pushed himself away from Jack's chair and walked over to the window looking out over Nash Point. "What in all that's holy could be so important that it needed eight incursions?" Ianto crossed his arms and glared at Jack waiting for an answer.
Jack looked down at his hands and mumbled under his breath.
"I didn't quite catch that Jack." Ianto cocked his head and shot an eyebrow into his hairline.
Jack took a deep breath and looked Ianto straight in the eye, "I said, you are." Jack rose from his chair and walked to the safe in his office. Ianto just looked on in shock. "Do you trust me, or do you have to see the records." Jack leaned against the safe waiting for Ianto's answer.
"I found the records in the cannon's activity logs. I give you credit for trying to delete them, but you might want to remember that iTosh can't scrub the hard logs that print in the archives." Ianto walked over to Jack ignoring his question, "you saw what happened to Gwen when we tried to shift events. She's never forgiven you Auntie Jack." Ianto pressed hard against Jack resting his mouth against his ear, "you also forgot my diary, that was just careless."
Jack pushed Ianto away and looked shocked, "but, we? Damn. I can't believe we forgot that." Jack walked back to his desk and sat, "if you knew, why didn't you try stopping us. Why didn't you stop me?"
Ianto sighed, walked back and sat on the edge of Jack's desk. "Did you ever think that I might trust you, even a little Jack? That maybe there was the remotest chance I could have mapped the causalities better since they mostly involved me?" He rested his hand on Jack's cheek, "of course not. How many times are you going to make the same mistake? After all these years, can't you get it through that thick head of yours?" Ianto gave Jack a light kiss and walked out of the office.
---
"So, what did we miss?" Branwen was scanning through a dense report of rift activity trying to see if a pattern was emerging since the rift migrated to Nash Point. She looked up at Jack's miffed expression, "come on Captain, do you really think he'd go to you first when he could try parental guilt on me?" She selected a segment of data on the virtual terminal and set a pattern search running. "I've taken care of the hard copy if we need to do it again. You can authorize silent running and the logging facilities will shutdown."
"The diary." Jack answered plainly, "we keep forgetting that your Tad is a bit of an anachronism." He smirked at the comment and received a very Ianto-like eye roll in return. "No more ops behind his back. If there's an event, I'll tell him and he can voice his opinion; but last time I checked, I still run things here." Jack placed a hand on Branwen's shoulder, "even if some people keep forgetting that fact."
Branwen looked up at him with a sneer, "please Captain, he only lets you think you run things. Do you even know how to access Torchwood funds?" She looked at his rather blank expression, "scratch that, do you even know where your own money is?"
Jack answered with a sheepish grin.
"Yeah, that's what I thought. There's no doubt who wears the trousers in that relationship." She spun back to her research and started another query.
"Jack? School gets out in ten, you need to get going." Ianto's voice issued from Jack's wrist computer.
"Run along Mrs Jones, mustn't keep the little prince waiting." Branwen's comment was dripping in sarcasm but she gave Jack a quirked half-grin. He just shook his head and worked his way out of the room.
---
Ianto watched the little scene play out between Jack and Bran and gave her credit for being able to keep Jack off balanced. Of course he'd expect no less from her- she had all of Jack's charm and a big streak of Welsh stubbornness that even scared him a bit. He flicked the viewer off; no need to watch Bran as she scanned through rift logs looking for patterns- she was better at it than he ever was. Ianto secured the main facility and headed to the little office at the base of the lighthouse. "Bran, I'll be in the office if you need me. Try not to rip a hole in the fabric of space and time- again." He chuckled to himself at the quietly grumbled sarcastic response he got back. When they confirmed that the rift was slowly migrating West, Nash Point was the logical location for the new monitoring station. After wresting the lighthouse from the Trinity House control, it was a relatively easy process to convert the empty buildings into a fully functional Torchwood complete with rift manipulator and a bud from the hub's mainframe. Ianto was sure that iTosh actually caused the organic mainframe to create the small offspring just for this purpose since it miraculously appeared shortly after securing the lighthouse.
One thing he really appreciated was the faux visitor's centre. It reminded him of the tourist office they used to have as a front for the hub, long gone now, but it was always a place to escape the chaos of the hub and pretend, if for only a little while, that the world didn't involve killer alien sex gases or creatures that could really use good orthodontics. Now, Ianto could be reminded of those days when he would sit reading a magazine while listening to the radio, ever ready to do some attacking like a good guard dog. He unlocked the visitor's centre and flipped on the radio to whatever the last station was. It was Radio Four, where he'd left it during their last rotation out here; obviously the other teams didn't go to the effort of opening the centre- or they were mindful to return the radio to Ianto's station. Nothing needed restocking, so he just wiped up four weeks of dust, only having to do one weekend shift out here each month was great- it was warped family time in his book, but then everything about his family was a bit warped. Ianto checked his watch, Jack should be on his way back with the kid, so he decided to leave a note and go down to the beach. It was always a good idea to tire him out before letting him in the base. "Bran, I'll be down on the beach waiting for them; let me know if you need anything." Ianto got a click-click confirmation that she'd heard him as he made his way down the path to the beach below.
Twenty-five years ago, Ianto helped push a temporally unstable vessel back into the rift on this beach. He remembers the terror he felt that day, as he'd watched Jack die on the Plass while carrying Branwen, and the cold hate he felt for the Gelth when he shot them to keep them from leaving the temporal bubble. Some of the details were clouded now, but his diary told him that a future Jack and Branwen had travelled to that time to help. That intellectual detail let him shred through the paradox-avoiding retcon and now he even knew which day it was in his current time that Jack and Branwen had done it. Ianto clutched at the slugged void-ship bullets in his pocket, he'd spent months searching the beach to find them and now he kept them close- to remind him that there wasn't a limit to what he'd do to save his family. He rubbed his left shoulder, it had been bothering him most of the day, and walked over to the bench they'd build of stones and drift wood. He'd need to visit the new medic to get a checkup, or maybe he'd use it as an excuse to visit Martha. Ianto smiled at the thought, Torchwood Cardiff had drifted over the years, Martha was needed back at the newly reorganized UNIT, and Gwen was the iron-fisted Welshwoman running Torchwood London- Ianto never told her that she was second choice for the post.
"Penny for them."
Ianto twisted around and felt another sharp pain shoot down his left arm and then sparks in his peripheral vision. "Hey. Where's he run off to?" Ianto felt slightly hot, even with the cool breeze coming off the water. "Jack?" Another sharp pain like a dagger and it registered in Ianto's head what was happening, "oh god! Jack! Call Branwen- I'm having a heart attack!" Ianto tried to standup, but between the sweat and his dizziness, he fell to the ground, "Jack?"
"Its okay. I'm here Ianto, I'll take care of you. You said you trusted me, remember?" Jack's voice was calm and then Ianto felt the needle sink in, followed by warmth.
As Ianto was slowly passing out and breathed, "always."
---
"Tad? Tad!" The little boy was running towards the bench, "Daddy! Bran! Something's wrong with Tad- come quick!" The boy was lanky but used every ounce of his strength to turn Ianto over into a recovery position- he'd seen them do that on missions lots of times, even when he was strapped in a child seat. "Tad? Come on Tad, wake up, please?" He gasped when Ianto flinched as tears dropped on his face, "please Tad? Please wake up." He was only ten, he couldn't do this all on his own, "Daddy! Bran! Anybody? Hurry!"
His face was wet, was it raining now? Ianto tried to open his eyes, but the lids were too heavy. He could hear some muffled sounds, but he couldn't make out any words. As the buzzing started to clear, he could hear a tiny voice sobbing in between words. Ianto forced his eyes open to see the very upset face of his young son, it felt surreal. Ianto remembered the terrible day he'd walked into his father's shop after school to find him on the floor not breathing. With effort, Ianto lifted his hand to rest on the cheek of his sobbing child, "hey. Come on Frankie, I'm okay. Captain Dad took care of me." Ianto could feel his head clearing and his limbs get lighter, "see, I'm okay now. Why don't you be big boy and help your old Tad sit up, okay?" With a little help from the still shaking boy, Ianto was able to pull himself into a seated position, using the bench as a backrest. "See, here comes Captain Dad and your sister now. Everything is okay." Ianto could see them running at full speed with the big medical kit. "It'll be fine Frankie, just calm down."
"Ianto! What happened? Are you all right. Bran, get the medical scanner going, see what we need. Frankie, babe; you need to calm down. You need to be strong for Tad here, he might get scared." Jack was checking Ianto over carefully and Ianto took the cue to let the boy comfort him. "Ianto, can you tell me what happened?"
Ianto looked at Jack, a little confused, "you were here Jack, I told you I thought it was a heart attack, then you gave me a shot. Why did you go back up the hill? You could have just called Bran." Ianto was running his fingers through his son's hair as the boy slowly calmed down.
Branwen looked at Jack trying to figure out what Ianto was talking about, "it could be delusion from the heart attack; his blood shows the enzymes you'd expect after an attack, but I'm not seeing any specific damage. We should get him back up the the base." She hefted the emergency kit back on her back before reaching for her little brother's hand, "come on Franklin, let Captain Dad help Tad up the hill." The boy grimaced at his sister for calling him by his full name. She rolled her eyes at him and began walking away, "I guess Tosh will need to delete all of the new game levels she's developed for you." The boy looked shocked and jumped up to chase after his sister but paused to look at his parents, making sure they were coming.
Jack gave the boy a smile and was relieved to see the his face lighten as he chased up the hill. Jack had his hand around Ianto's waist as they made their way up to the base, but Ianto wasn't really leaning in for support; just the contact. "Ianto, I wasn't there when you had your attack. Frankie dashed from the SUV just as soon as we got back." Jack looked at him for a moment, "Ianto?"
Ianto was looking up the hill, past the base towards the old radio tower; he could see two people standing there, one very familiar and the other- well, he had a feeling he knew who that doppelganger was. Ianto looked at his Jack, with a smile, "doesn't matter. Maybe I was having a hallucination." They entered the Torchwood Nash Point station and closed the door.
---
Captain Jack Harkness watched the fifteen year old memory play out in front of him as he stood by the radio tower. His breath caught when Ianto looked over to where they were for just a moment before continuing to move on towards the lighthouse. "Damn."
"I'm calculating the paradox probability, this could be really messy." The young man rapidly moving his eyes behind his glasses. "We only incurred about a zed point three, I can't believe its that low." In Jack's head, the voice was a warm reminder of the past.
"Sorry to disappoint you Franklin, but the time lines show only minor realignment. I told you this wouldn't..." Bran's voice stopped, "holy crap! You two need to get back here right now! I'm initiating an emergency jump- you're going to want to see this for yourself."
Jack looked at his son as they turned into the rift storm and closed his eyes. It was better not to get his hopes up. He wasn't going to make that mistake again.
The world continues in Syntropy
Series: Something that starts with "S", epilogue
Characters: Jack & Ianto, OFC
Rating: PG
Summary: Jack's made mistakes in his life; but he doesn't regret some of them.
A/N: This is a strange beast to close out the horizonssing July challenge; but is actually written for the lovingthecoat "Mistake" challenge. Apparently I can't write unless its for a challenge now.
"What the bloody hell did you think you were doing! Did you really think I wouldn't find out!" Ianto slammed the data pad down onto Jack's desk. Jack flinched as it rattled several items cluttering the surface and the coral under the heat lamp tried to retract from the confrontation. "Do you have any idea how many things could have gone wrong because of your meddling!" Ianto walked around Jack's desk and spun his chair so he was staring right at him. "Look at me!"
Jack looked up at him, Ianto wore his fifty years incredibly well considering more than half his years were with Torchwood. He still wore impeccably tailored suits, if slightly larger in size; and his blue eyes now burned behind sharp spectacles. The only telltale sign of his years was his purely white hair instead of the the raven black of his youth. "You know that no matter how much Branwen and iTosh think they've limited the variables, there's still a chance of corrupting the timelines." Ianto slammed Jack's chair into the wall, "and you didn't use it just once, but eight times! Eight times in one period! You're lucky the damn cannon didn't blank out the rest of history!" Ianto pushed himself away from Jack's chair and walked over to the window looking out over Nash Point. "What in all that's holy could be so important that it needed eight incursions?" Ianto crossed his arms and glared at Jack waiting for an answer.
Jack looked down at his hands and mumbled under his breath.
"I didn't quite catch that Jack." Ianto cocked his head and shot an eyebrow into his hairline.
Jack took a deep breath and looked Ianto straight in the eye, "I said, you are." Jack rose from his chair and walked to the safe in his office. Ianto just looked on in shock. "Do you trust me, or do you have to see the records." Jack leaned against the safe waiting for Ianto's answer.
"I found the records in the cannon's activity logs. I give you credit for trying to delete them, but you might want to remember that iTosh can't scrub the hard logs that print in the archives." Ianto walked over to Jack ignoring his question, "you saw what happened to Gwen when we tried to shift events. She's never forgiven you Auntie Jack." Ianto pressed hard against Jack resting his mouth against his ear, "you also forgot my diary, that was just careless."
Jack pushed Ianto away and looked shocked, "but, we? Damn. I can't believe we forgot that." Jack walked back to his desk and sat, "if you knew, why didn't you try stopping us. Why didn't you stop me?"
Ianto sighed, walked back and sat on the edge of Jack's desk. "Did you ever think that I might trust you, even a little Jack? That maybe there was the remotest chance I could have mapped the causalities better since they mostly involved me?" He rested his hand on Jack's cheek, "of course not. How many times are you going to make the same mistake? After all these years, can't you get it through that thick head of yours?" Ianto gave Jack a light kiss and walked out of the office.
---
"So, what did we miss?" Branwen was scanning through a dense report of rift activity trying to see if a pattern was emerging since the rift migrated to Nash Point. She looked up at Jack's miffed expression, "come on Captain, do you really think he'd go to you first when he could try parental guilt on me?" She selected a segment of data on the virtual terminal and set a pattern search running. "I've taken care of the hard copy if we need to do it again. You can authorize silent running and the logging facilities will shutdown."
"The diary." Jack answered plainly, "we keep forgetting that your Tad is a bit of an anachronism." He smirked at the comment and received a very Ianto-like eye roll in return. "No more ops behind his back. If there's an event, I'll tell him and he can voice his opinion; but last time I checked, I still run things here." Jack placed a hand on Branwen's shoulder, "even if some people keep forgetting that fact."
Branwen looked up at him with a sneer, "please Captain, he only lets you think you run things. Do you even know how to access Torchwood funds?" She looked at his rather blank expression, "scratch that, do you even know where your own money is?"
Jack answered with a sheepish grin.
"Yeah, that's what I thought. There's no doubt who wears the trousers in that relationship." She spun back to her research and started another query.
"Jack? School gets out in ten, you need to get going." Ianto's voice issued from Jack's wrist computer.
"Run along Mrs Jones, mustn't keep the little prince waiting." Branwen's comment was dripping in sarcasm but she gave Jack a quirked half-grin. He just shook his head and worked his way out of the room.
---
Ianto watched the little scene play out between Jack and Bran and gave her credit for being able to keep Jack off balanced. Of course he'd expect no less from her- she had all of Jack's charm and a big streak of Welsh stubbornness that even scared him a bit. He flicked the viewer off; no need to watch Bran as she scanned through rift logs looking for patterns- she was better at it than he ever was. Ianto secured the main facility and headed to the little office at the base of the lighthouse. "Bran, I'll be in the office if you need me. Try not to rip a hole in the fabric of space and time- again." He chuckled to himself at the quietly grumbled sarcastic response he got back. When they confirmed that the rift was slowly migrating West, Nash Point was the logical location for the new monitoring station. After wresting the lighthouse from the Trinity House control, it was a relatively easy process to convert the empty buildings into a fully functional Torchwood complete with rift manipulator and a bud from the hub's mainframe. Ianto was sure that iTosh actually caused the organic mainframe to create the small offspring just for this purpose since it miraculously appeared shortly after securing the lighthouse.
One thing he really appreciated was the faux visitor's centre. It reminded him of the tourist office they used to have as a front for the hub, long gone now, but it was always a place to escape the chaos of the hub and pretend, if for only a little while, that the world didn't involve killer alien sex gases or creatures that could really use good orthodontics. Now, Ianto could be reminded of those days when he would sit reading a magazine while listening to the radio, ever ready to do some attacking like a good guard dog. He unlocked the visitor's centre and flipped on the radio to whatever the last station was. It was Radio Four, where he'd left it during their last rotation out here; obviously the other teams didn't go to the effort of opening the centre- or they were mindful to return the radio to Ianto's station. Nothing needed restocking, so he just wiped up four weeks of dust, only having to do one weekend shift out here each month was great- it was warped family time in his book, but then everything about his family was a bit warped. Ianto checked his watch, Jack should be on his way back with the kid, so he decided to leave a note and go down to the beach. It was always a good idea to tire him out before letting him in the base. "Bran, I'll be down on the beach waiting for them; let me know if you need anything." Ianto got a click-click confirmation that she'd heard him as he made his way down the path to the beach below.
Twenty-five years ago, Ianto helped push a temporally unstable vessel back into the rift on this beach. He remembers the terror he felt that day, as he'd watched Jack die on the Plass while carrying Branwen, and the cold hate he felt for the Gelth when he shot them to keep them from leaving the temporal bubble. Some of the details were clouded now, but his diary told him that a future Jack and Branwen had travelled to that time to help. That intellectual detail let him shred through the paradox-avoiding retcon and now he even knew which day it was in his current time that Jack and Branwen had done it. Ianto clutched at the slugged void-ship bullets in his pocket, he'd spent months searching the beach to find them and now he kept them close- to remind him that there wasn't a limit to what he'd do to save his family. He rubbed his left shoulder, it had been bothering him most of the day, and walked over to the bench they'd build of stones and drift wood. He'd need to visit the new medic to get a checkup, or maybe he'd use it as an excuse to visit Martha. Ianto smiled at the thought, Torchwood Cardiff had drifted over the years, Martha was needed back at the newly reorganized UNIT, and Gwen was the iron-fisted Welshwoman running Torchwood London- Ianto never told her that she was second choice for the post.
"Penny for them."
Ianto twisted around and felt another sharp pain shoot down his left arm and then sparks in his peripheral vision. "Hey. Where's he run off to?" Ianto felt slightly hot, even with the cool breeze coming off the water. "Jack?" Another sharp pain like a dagger and it registered in Ianto's head what was happening, "oh god! Jack! Call Branwen- I'm having a heart attack!" Ianto tried to standup, but between the sweat and his dizziness, he fell to the ground, "Jack?"
"Its okay. I'm here Ianto, I'll take care of you. You said you trusted me, remember?" Jack's voice was calm and then Ianto felt the needle sink in, followed by warmth.
As Ianto was slowly passing out and breathed, "always."
---
"Tad? Tad!" The little boy was running towards the bench, "Daddy! Bran! Something's wrong with Tad- come quick!" The boy was lanky but used every ounce of his strength to turn Ianto over into a recovery position- he'd seen them do that on missions lots of times, even when he was strapped in a child seat. "Tad? Come on Tad, wake up, please?" He gasped when Ianto flinched as tears dropped on his face, "please Tad? Please wake up." He was only ten, he couldn't do this all on his own, "Daddy! Bran! Anybody? Hurry!"
His face was wet, was it raining now? Ianto tried to open his eyes, but the lids were too heavy. He could hear some muffled sounds, but he couldn't make out any words. As the buzzing started to clear, he could hear a tiny voice sobbing in between words. Ianto forced his eyes open to see the very upset face of his young son, it felt surreal. Ianto remembered the terrible day he'd walked into his father's shop after school to find him on the floor not breathing. With effort, Ianto lifted his hand to rest on the cheek of his sobbing child, "hey. Come on Frankie, I'm okay. Captain Dad took care of me." Ianto could feel his head clearing and his limbs get lighter, "see, I'm okay now. Why don't you be big boy and help your old Tad sit up, okay?" With a little help from the still shaking boy, Ianto was able to pull himself into a seated position, using the bench as a backrest. "See, here comes Captain Dad and your sister now. Everything is okay." Ianto could see them running at full speed with the big medical kit. "It'll be fine Frankie, just calm down."
"Ianto! What happened? Are you all right. Bran, get the medical scanner going, see what we need. Frankie, babe; you need to calm down. You need to be strong for Tad here, he might get scared." Jack was checking Ianto over carefully and Ianto took the cue to let the boy comfort him. "Ianto, can you tell me what happened?"
Ianto looked at Jack, a little confused, "you were here Jack, I told you I thought it was a heart attack, then you gave me a shot. Why did you go back up the hill? You could have just called Bran." Ianto was running his fingers through his son's hair as the boy slowly calmed down.
Branwen looked at Jack trying to figure out what Ianto was talking about, "it could be delusion from the heart attack; his blood shows the enzymes you'd expect after an attack, but I'm not seeing any specific damage. We should get him back up the the base." She hefted the emergency kit back on her back before reaching for her little brother's hand, "come on Franklin, let Captain Dad help Tad up the hill." The boy grimaced at his sister for calling him by his full name. She rolled her eyes at him and began walking away, "I guess Tosh will need to delete all of the new game levels she's developed for you." The boy looked shocked and jumped up to chase after his sister but paused to look at his parents, making sure they were coming.
Jack gave the boy a smile and was relieved to see the his face lighten as he chased up the hill. Jack had his hand around Ianto's waist as they made their way up to the base, but Ianto wasn't really leaning in for support; just the contact. "Ianto, I wasn't there when you had your attack. Frankie dashed from the SUV just as soon as we got back." Jack looked at him for a moment, "Ianto?"
Ianto was looking up the hill, past the base towards the old radio tower; he could see two people standing there, one very familiar and the other- well, he had a feeling he knew who that doppelganger was. Ianto looked at his Jack, with a smile, "doesn't matter. Maybe I was having a hallucination." They entered the Torchwood Nash Point station and closed the door.
---
Captain Jack Harkness watched the fifteen year old memory play out in front of him as he stood by the radio tower. His breath caught when Ianto looked over to where they were for just a moment before continuing to move on towards the lighthouse. "Damn."
"I'm calculating the paradox probability, this could be really messy." The young man rapidly moving his eyes behind his glasses. "We only incurred about a zed point three, I can't believe its that low." In Jack's head, the voice was a warm reminder of the past.
"Sorry to disappoint you Franklin, but the time lines show only minor realignment. I told you this wouldn't..." Bran's voice stopped, "holy crap! You two need to get back here right now! I'm initiating an emergency jump- you're going to want to see this for yourself."
Jack looked at his son as they turned into the rift storm and closed his eyes. It was better not to get his hopes up. He wasn't going to make that mistake again.
The world continues in Syntropy