Ferals (3/6)
Title: Ferals (3/6)
Author: nancybrown
Characters: Ianto, Jack, Steven, Alice, Gwen, Martha, Mickey, OCs
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Martha/Mickey, past Jack/others, past Ianto/OMC
Rating: for adults only
Words: 31,800 (4000 this part)
Warnings: suicide, character death including child death, gore and violence
Spoilers: plot spoilers through CoE, (very) brief mention of characters and events from MD, some parts based on early spoilers from the current season of DW, but finished before the season premiere aired
Beta: Eldar and fide_et_spe both kicked this into shape, and have my deepest thanks.
Summary: Ianto and Steven have returned home, but as Ianto tries to solve an alien's murder, he learns home isn't ready to take them back.
A/N: Sequel to Strays and Rescues. eldarwannabe did a lot of heavy lifting in breaking this fic, and without her, it would not exist. If you like it, tell her thank you.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
***
Chapter Three
***
The photographs Martha included with the autopsy results make his stomach churn in the way it hasn't since he cleaned Suzie's body for her first interment. Sharky's second head, the one he always kept tucked inside his shirt when he was pretending to be human, is half-disintegrated, is even more otherwordly. But this is someone Ianto knew once, alien or not, and death is ugliest on a known face.
Another unhappy rush goes through him. Was his own body autopsied and laid out this way? Did Gwen or Rhiannon or Jack have to look at a stark list of details and a cold, dead thing on the slab? He came back alive, undamaged, but that's a hiccup, an accident of timelines spray-painted atop one another like overlapping graffiti. He has a grave that he's never visited, and he doesn't know if it's empty. If he opens his coffin and finds his own body rotting inside, he's not certain if he'll lay down beside it or just blow away like sand. So he's not going to look. Not yet.
Sharky's species doesn't do burial. Most of the resident aliens opt for private cremation of their remains as a final sop to secrecy, no matter what their beliefs might be otherwise. To this end, Mickey added a note that the body has already been turned over to Sharky's lover.
The damage he can see in the photos is similar to what he remembers from the Parmerian: the same kind of wounds, the same charring. Martha's notes meticulously describe the carbon deposits, and the depth of cooked flesh.
"Thanks," he sends back to Mickey.
He texts Jack. "R U busy?"
There's a long pause before the reply comes: "Y."
Heart pounding in his throat, Ianto goes back to the computer. Jack is not supposed to log into Mainframe from here, but he's done it before, and only a minute ticks by before Ianto has recovered the password. If Jack's occupied, the team is out handling something important. They won't notice Jack's credentials logging in from home.
Dr. Pol's autopsy report on the Parmerian is as detailed as the one Martha performed. The causes of death are virtually identical. A quick scan through Torchwood's recent records for dead aliens confirms the pattern in two other corpses.
Mainframe's off-site backups were never intended to host the full records, but a little digging pulls up what he's been hoping but hasn't asked about: they've restored from the backup at Torchwood Two. After Toshiko died, Ianto was saddled with technical support, and the first thing he did was to archive every record they had, everything they'd created or scanned from the old paper files at Three, and everything Tosh had managed to salvage from the surviving records of One. He burned the database to discs, and sent them all to Archie. Someone apparently retrieved the files when Ianto was away, just as he'd intended. Pride and grief burn fresh in the back of his throat. Torchwood agents live and die, and their work goes on.
He's not sure what he's looking for as he skims through file after file. Something he read when he first joined the Cardiff team? A cross-reference from a case? His memory teases him with familiarity, but what if it's because he's succumbing to the same timeline overwrites? He might be remembering details from one of Richard's same-ish science fiction novels.
There.
Clarity slaps him backwards. Torchwood once scoured the entire Empire in search of alien goods, locking away anything they found for later study. Ianto's department in London examined artefacts from cold storage, researching their origins and properties. The digital photograph of the weapon was snapped three months after he started work. He himself wasn't on that project, but he remembers his colleagues who were.
The file is complete. His own notes, made when he catalogued all the artefacts scavenged from the London site, indicated it hadn't been recovered by Torchwood Three. That left UNIT, the local authorities, and the other vultures who'd descended less officially. So much was lost: most of the stored alien technology Torchwood had spent over a century collecting, most of the lives of their people.
This isn't the first time he's found tech fallen into the wrong hands; he remembers too well running searches with Tosh to track down missing items from Torchwood London that had made their way onto the alien and alien-knowledgeable black markets. Amateurs went to eBay, the real collectors went everywhere. Henry Parker alone had scrounged hundreds of artefacts from Deep Web auction sites and clandestine transactions in alien-occupied slums. Simply cataloguing Parker's collection after his death had sent Ianto into a depression as he ticked off artefact after artefact once studied by his dead colleagues. Now another piece of alien technology has come out of someone's private stores, bought or stolen or rediscovered, and the new owner is going after alien lowlifes.
Ianto considers his options.
He can go to the new Hub, wait for them to return. He'll be scolded for interfering, and when he confesses to breaking into the system, he'll be lucky if Jack only yells. He may end up not remembering the last several days. Or more.
He can go to London. He has no idea where to begin looking, other than to retrace the route between the dead Parmerian and Sharky, look for connections between them and the other bodies. The two he knows were a druggie and a loan shark, respectively. Were the other victims criminals as well? Perhaps the killer is doing them a favour. Asking questions of the resident aliens in and around the city may turn up more deaths that haven't made Torchwood's radar.
He can play his hand close, mention to Jack over dinner or after sex that the Parmerian's death reminded him of the weapon, guide the case without directly involving himself. Torchwood London would turn a blind eye to aliens preying on each other, but Jack will want to know who's causing trouble, even if he chooses not to intervene. Ianto just wants answers, and getting that artefact back into custody would ease his mind.
The team might be back any time. He squeezes out a few minutes utilising the enhanced searches Mainframe allows, looking for police reports mentioning human victims with the same wounds. Nothing turns up.
After saving what he needs to a thumb drive, Ianto closes the connection and wipes his tracks. He uses one window to search more job openings. He uses another to map out where the weapon was used. Three of the bodies were found in London, the other in Swindon. Dr. Pol's autopsy notes on the Swindon corpse, a Hoix, include references to heavy decomposition. Ianto assumes that was the first murder. The other data points don't indicate a location pattern, and the alien community is hidden enough that more murders may never have been reported, certainly not to Torchwood.
When Jack gets home, Ianto is ready with a late supper and a bullshit story about visiting one of Amy's Friends in hospital tomorrow.
"Another overnight?" Jack sounds wistful.
"I don't have to go."
"No, it's good to see you going out. You didn't used to spend time with your friends."
Ianto doesn't say he used to not have any friends. He plays a card carefully, with a teasing smile. "You could go with me."
"Wish I could. I'm not even sure I'll be home all night tonight. Albert's running a scan, and if he turns up anything, I'll have to go back in. But," he says, seeing Ianto's practised look of disappointment, "why don't we plan something for next week? Maybe take a drive along the coast, check into the first place that looks good, scandalise the locals."
It's a good plan, one that can be modified around Torchwood's needs. In the old days, they managed this kind of getaway exactly once, only to be interrupted in the middle of the night by an apologetic call from Gwen and a hurried checkout to speed back to Cardiff.
"That sounds perfect."
He pulls the conversation around twice to the subject of the dead Parmerian, but Jack changes the subject twice, the second time with a glare. "Let it go."
"I was only curious if you'd found anything else out."
"There's nothing to find out." He's annoyed, and they finish supper in a fuming silence that fades as Jack takes the plates to the kitchen.
Ianto leaves the washing-up and takes advantage of Jack's easily distractable nature. There's no opportunity to ask detailed questions when Jack is bent over the sofa, huffing and gasping at the intrusion of Ianto's tongue and slick fingers. Ianto remembers this, remembers the thrill and the fear of Jack learning his secrets, even as Jack begs him to go faster in a broken voice. He remembers tracing the lies into the broad lines of Jack's back with lips and fingernails, and muttering obscenities into his ear instead of truths. He hasn't any room for guilt, not with Jack this tight around him, not with their bodies so close he can nearly hear Jack's thoughts racing under his skin with his pulse.
The mobile goes off two seconds before Ianto does.
Jack fumbles it, and manages to answer. Ianto's proud of the deep drag in his breath between words. Let Albert guess what they were doing. He flops to the sofa beside Jack, tingling and trembling.
"I have to go," Jack says, voice ragged as he closes the phone. He hesitates, pulling Ianto in for an open-mouthed kiss. This part is almost better than the sex: the warmth and closeness of this man, and the reluctance to leave he expresses with touch instead of words. Jack strokes his cheek and brushes away all thoughts of dead things and open graves.
***
Steven doesn't call.
***
The first thing he does is check in with Sally. On the off-chance Jack contacts her, she thinks Ianto has gone to visit Laura in hospital. He does in fact visit Laura, to say hello and drop off flowers from the shop, but her gaze is accusing, and he doesn't linger.
Torchwood London referred to the known enclaves of alien refugees as "Little Mars" or "Greentown." The first time Ianto referred to visiting "Greentown" for a Torchwood Cardiff case, Jack put him down coldly. "People get to choose their own names," he said, and Ianto was startled, both by the annoyance in Jack's tone, and by hearing extraterrestrials referred to as 'people.' Retraining his mouth has been easier than retraining his brain. As he passes through to the area of Croydon where the Forbani have their homes and businesses that cater only to one another, bad jokes run through his head.
"What do you call a good alien? The corpse."
"How many Sontarans can you fit into a truck? Depends on how finely chopped they are."
No-one's out on the street, at least no-one born on another planet. Or for that matter, whose parents or grandparents were born elsewhere. Jack says several of the alien groups that have settled on Earth did so decades ago and are as much native-born Londoners as Owen was.
He hesitates in the middle of the pavement, considering. He's here on a hunch, nothing more. If someone is killing aliens, surely the aliens themselves have taken notice. He can't just swagger into Greentown demanding answers, not like Torchwood London would, nor like Jack. But Sharky's place of business will be crawling with well-wishers and not-so-well-wishers today, and former client Lloyd Fellowes doesn't need to be seen there without more information in hand.
Nervously, Ianto picks a shop with last year's styles in the window, and he goes inside. Open for business, yes. A higher concentration of patrons than one would expect, also yes, and most of them trying like mad not to notice him. As he walks deeper into the shop, he takes in the cut of fabrics designed to minimise certain features, the patterns chosen to blend in with current clothing trends without making any kind of impression. Sturdy cottons and wools, he can tell with a brush of fingers, designed for quality wear by consumers who won't be comparison-shopping but who do have long memories for incidents of shoddy workmanship. Ianto won't find a thing that fits him here.
The first two salespeople he approaches quickly find other customers to serve.
The cashiers are at the back of the shop, which means by the time he reaches the counter, there are over a dozen aliens between him and the exit. He ought to be panicking or calling for backup right about now. Instead, he stands at the counter, hands folded, waiting to be waited on.
Finally, the boldest of the cashiers breaks away from her nervous pile of co-workers and comes to the station where Ianto stands patiently. "May I help you?" she asks, just the faintest susurration in her words. Forbani are taller and slimmer than humans, their heads rounder. The wings are vestigial, small, and easily disguised with the right clothing choices, many options on display around him. With the right hat and jacket, a Forbani is just another face in the thrum of a South London crowd.
Ianto feels the stares on his back, catches the glances the other cashiers are pretending not to give.
"I'm investigating the murder of an Uldaritan known as Sharky. I know he provided services for your community." If he tells her he's with Torchwood, he won't walk out of the shop alive.
She looks him up and down. "You're human. Why do you care?" She's not surprised to hear about the murder. The name on her tag is Christina, but many of London's resident aliens take on English names, and give them to their offspring. This offers a convenient opening for Ianto to exploit.
"I look human. Sharky got me set up a while back." Both are true statements. The Forbani aren't truth-tellers but anyone can get their hands on the right equipment. "I saw a Parmerian murdered in front of me a few days ago. It died the same way Sharky did."
Sibilant mutters pass behind his back, but he doesn't speak the language.
"Torchwood killed the Parmerian." She spits the first word like an epithet.
He shakes his head. "I know for a fact they didn't. They showed up after."
"You're wrong." She glares at him. From another door, an older Forbani male emerges, walking their way.
She says, "We don't want trouble." The way she says the words insinuates she'd like plenty of trouble, thank you, but she knows instigating same would only make the consequences on herself and her loved ones that much worse.
"I'm not here with trouble," Ianto says placatingly. "I've come to ask if you've heard of more killings."
The crowd disperses from around him, many people who don't want to be seen listening in, or who don't want to be asked questions. Even Christina fades into the background warily.
"We don't know anything," says the manager. "Buy something or get out." He brings an angry fist down to the counter. Ianto jumps. He also notices the slip of paper the manager leaves behind when he pulls the fist away, and the guarded, appraising look in the alien's eyes.
Ianto leans on the counter, palms down. "I never liked Sharky but he didn't deserve to die. I'd like to see his killer stopped before anyone else gets hurt."
He spins, aiming for a dramatic sweep but he's aware that he looks foolish.
The paper, which he doesn't read until he is well clear of the shop, says, Tonight, ten o'clock, behind the store.
He steers clear of the butcher shops, remembering the rumours about Forbani dietary habits, and spends the next several hours asking questions no-one will answer. There's a hive of Restitits which isn't far. They're more open than the Forbani, but they're also very close-knit and have little to do with the other alien groups. The only rumour that's made it to their floppy ears is the same thing the Forbani woman said: Torchwood's in operation again, and they're back to cleaning up aliens. He doesn't dare contradict them. Enough of the regular watchers saw Jack show up at the scene of the Parmerian's murder, and a few of them know he was in Sharky's office not long ago.
Dropping by his hotel to check his email, Ianto finds a pornographic love note from Jack and a reply to an earlier email from Sarah Jane Smith. Against his better judgement, Ianto snaps a naughty webcam photo of himself, and he triple-checks the address when sending it back. Sarah Jane gets a longer, and non-pictorial, response. She's been investigating the same string of murders, and put Torchwood onto the other body they found here. Her contacts haven't yielded more victims, but everyone is on edge. Ianto thanks her and gives her the little information he's gathered today. She doesn't talk to Jack often enough to piece together that Ianto shouldn't be asking these questions.
As he eats a quick supper alone, he admits to himself that he doesn't have a good reason to pursue this. Yes, he wants answers, but the truth is, the assassin embarrassed him. Ianto had an alien in his sights, was talking it down, and someone murdered it in front of him and got away. Ianto's been doing this job for years, but he doesn't matter, not to alien killers, not to Torchwood. He's an afterthought, a useless witness who can't remember the assailant well enough for an ID. He's a civilian.
His hand hurts. With an effort, he focuses his eyes on the cutlery in his grip, on the glint of the low light along silvery metal, clean and sleek and sharp and oh so easy. With even more of an effort, he sets the knife down and gets up from the table.
***
At ten, Ianto returns to the clothing shop, and finds his way to the alley behind where the store takes deliveries. The streetlamps provide little comfort and less illumination. This area sees as much crime as anywhere else, though Ianto wouldn't try to rob the Forbani. He doesn't relish becoming a string of sausages.
There are five Forbani waiting for him beside the locked back door, including Christina the cashier and the manager. A certain turn of eye and nose suggests a familial relationship among the group, none of whom look pleased to see him. Ianto worries that he's judged them wrong and that he's not armed well enough to be here. He hates to consider his last message to his boyfriend this time around might be an emailed jpeg of his penis.
Christina breaks from her family and approaches him with something in her hand. It's a snap, he realises, as she shows him: another Forbani, a girl, perhaps ten years old in human age, with dark hair and light eyes. She's smiling winsomely at the camera.
"My sister Alisha." She gives the photograph to Ianto, although more close examination doesn't tell him anything new. Instead he tries to read the expressions on the faces around him. The little girl clearly isn't here.
"What happened to her?"
"She died. Three weeks ago." Aside from the lisp, her inflections are perfect South London, and the grief he hears is as well. A family, yes, come to Earth some time ago, raising their children and making a living on the edges together. And the youngest child has died.
"I'm sorry for your loss." Ianto takes a long moment to trace the girl's face, note the mischievous sparkle in her eyes. "How did she die?"
"She was killed in the street. Walking home from playing. The other children watched, but they were children. What could they do?"
"Did they see the killer?"
"Nothing useful. He ran. And Alisha was dead." Her body will have been cremated already, nothing left for Martha to examine.
Ianto looks at the store manager. The father. "You think it's related to Sharky's murder."
The father says, "No-one cares what happens to us here. We look human, too, but not enough. Sharky was ... " he lets out a spew of syllables in no Earth-based language, but the meaning is clear.
"But he cared," says Christina to her father. To Ianto she says, "Sharky put out word to the other families. They have been kind. And there are other deaths."
"How many?"
She shrugs in a very human fashion. "Ask their families."
This is bigger than Ianto thought, and the beginnings of fear nibble at him. Torchwood has only scratched the surface.
"May I make a copy of this?" he asks her, and she glances to the woman Ianto assumes is her mother, who nods. He pulls out his mobile and snaps a picture in the dim light. "Thank you."
"They'll kill you." Christina puts her sister's picture away. "Even if you look human. They don't want us here."
"You think there's more than one killer?"
"Torchwood. They went quiet after they played with the Cybermen, and now they are back to their old tricks. If it's alien, it's dead."
Now's not a good time for bad memories. "Torchwood isn't behind your sister's murder. I will do what I can to find out who is."
She doesn't believe him. She's sure he's going to be killed. He wants to tell her Torchwood has already killed him once, but he doesn't have the heart.
***
Ianto phones Jack when he's back at the hotel.
"Hey," comes the warm voice at the other end. "I was just thinking about you."
"Got my email, did you?"
"I did."
Ianto settles on the bed, closing his eyes. On the one hand, phone sex sounds like a grand idea, and something to clear his head of the craziness he's uncovering. On the other hand, the mobile he's holding has a picture of a dead child stored in it, and that's enough to quash his libido for the evening.
Jack asks, "When do you think you'll be home tomorrow?"
Ianto gnaws on his lip before speaking. "Actually, I've run into some old friends and I'm thinking about staying here another couple of days to catch up."
"Anyone I know?"
"I don't think so. Some friends from when I was in London the first time." The lies roll off his tongue. "Did I ever tell you about Dustin or Gillian?"
"Doesn't sound familiar. Are they hot?"
"By your definition or mine? Because they do both have a pulse." Another lie. They both died in conversion units, screaming in pain from multiple amputations, pleading with the UNIT troops not to fire.
The memory is so clear he bites his tongue.
"All right. We're up to our arses here anyway. Gwen hasn't seen Rhys in two days and she'd throw a fit if I got to see you first."
Ianto can picture that easily enough. And he cannot deny the smile that spreads over his face each time Jack casually points out parallels between their relationship and Gwen's marriage. "Probably."
"Do you know where you'll be with your friends? I know this great restaurant in Crouch End I've been meaning to revisit, and if you like the place, we can go there sometime together." It's another wistful promise they both know won't come true.
"Give me the address. I'll suggest it." Ianto writes down the name and address of a restaurant he has no intention of visiting tomorrow.
"Don't stay in London too long."
Ianto is tempted to close the call with, "I love you," but he's filled their conversation with falsehoods, and he doesn't want to sully the words with such neighbours. If he doesn't get himself killed, he'll tell Jack properly. Over a meal or tangled together in their bed, he'll find a way.
***
Steven still doesn't call.
***
Chapter Four
Author: nancybrown
Characters: Ianto, Jack, Steven, Alice, Gwen, Martha, Mickey, OCs
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Martha/Mickey, past Jack/others, past Ianto/OMC
Rating: for adults only
Words: 31,800 (4000 this part)
Warnings: suicide, character death including child death, gore and violence
Spoilers: plot spoilers through CoE, (very) brief mention of characters and events from MD, some parts based on early spoilers from the current season of DW, but finished before the season premiere aired
Beta: Eldar and fide_et_spe both kicked this into shape, and have my deepest thanks.
Summary: Ianto and Steven have returned home, but as Ianto tries to solve an alien's murder, he learns home isn't ready to take them back.
A/N: Sequel to Strays and Rescues. eldarwannabe did a lot of heavy lifting in breaking this fic, and without her, it would not exist. If you like it, tell her thank you.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
***
Chapter Three
***
The photographs Martha included with the autopsy results make his stomach churn in the way it hasn't since he cleaned Suzie's body for her first interment. Sharky's second head, the one he always kept tucked inside his shirt when he was pretending to be human, is half-disintegrated, is even more otherwordly. But this is someone Ianto knew once, alien or not, and death is ugliest on a known face.
Another unhappy rush goes through him. Was his own body autopsied and laid out this way? Did Gwen or Rhiannon or Jack have to look at a stark list of details and a cold, dead thing on the slab? He came back alive, undamaged, but that's a hiccup, an accident of timelines spray-painted atop one another like overlapping graffiti. He has a grave that he's never visited, and he doesn't know if it's empty. If he opens his coffin and finds his own body rotting inside, he's not certain if he'll lay down beside it or just blow away like sand. So he's not going to look. Not yet.
Sharky's species doesn't do burial. Most of the resident aliens opt for private cremation of their remains as a final sop to secrecy, no matter what their beliefs might be otherwise. To this end, Mickey added a note that the body has already been turned over to Sharky's lover.
The damage he can see in the photos is similar to what he remembers from the Parmerian: the same kind of wounds, the same charring. Martha's notes meticulously describe the carbon deposits, and the depth of cooked flesh.
"Thanks," he sends back to Mickey.
He texts Jack. "R U busy?"
There's a long pause before the reply comes: "Y."
Heart pounding in his throat, Ianto goes back to the computer. Jack is not supposed to log into Mainframe from here, but he's done it before, and only a minute ticks by before Ianto has recovered the password. If Jack's occupied, the team is out handling something important. They won't notice Jack's credentials logging in from home.
Dr. Pol's autopsy report on the Parmerian is as detailed as the one Martha performed. The causes of death are virtually identical. A quick scan through Torchwood's recent records for dead aliens confirms the pattern in two other corpses.
Mainframe's off-site backups were never intended to host the full records, but a little digging pulls up what he's been hoping but hasn't asked about: they've restored from the backup at Torchwood Two. After Toshiko died, Ianto was saddled with technical support, and the first thing he did was to archive every record they had, everything they'd created or scanned from the old paper files at Three, and everything Tosh had managed to salvage from the surviving records of One. He burned the database to discs, and sent them all to Archie. Someone apparently retrieved the files when Ianto was away, just as he'd intended. Pride and grief burn fresh in the back of his throat. Torchwood agents live and die, and their work goes on.
He's not sure what he's looking for as he skims through file after file. Something he read when he first joined the Cardiff team? A cross-reference from a case? His memory teases him with familiarity, but what if it's because he's succumbing to the same timeline overwrites? He might be remembering details from one of Richard's same-ish science fiction novels.
There.
Clarity slaps him backwards. Torchwood once scoured the entire Empire in search of alien goods, locking away anything they found for later study. Ianto's department in London examined artefacts from cold storage, researching their origins and properties. The digital photograph of the weapon was snapped three months after he started work. He himself wasn't on that project, but he remembers his colleagues who were.
The file is complete. His own notes, made when he catalogued all the artefacts scavenged from the London site, indicated it hadn't been recovered by Torchwood Three. That left UNIT, the local authorities, and the other vultures who'd descended less officially. So much was lost: most of the stored alien technology Torchwood had spent over a century collecting, most of the lives of their people.
This isn't the first time he's found tech fallen into the wrong hands; he remembers too well running searches with Tosh to track down missing items from Torchwood London that had made their way onto the alien and alien-knowledgeable black markets. Amateurs went to eBay, the real collectors went everywhere. Henry Parker alone had scrounged hundreds of artefacts from Deep Web auction sites and clandestine transactions in alien-occupied slums. Simply cataloguing Parker's collection after his death had sent Ianto into a depression as he ticked off artefact after artefact once studied by his dead colleagues. Now another piece of alien technology has come out of someone's private stores, bought or stolen or rediscovered, and the new owner is going after alien lowlifes.
Ianto considers his options.
He can go to the new Hub, wait for them to return. He'll be scolded for interfering, and when he confesses to breaking into the system, he'll be lucky if Jack only yells. He may end up not remembering the last several days. Or more.
He can go to London. He has no idea where to begin looking, other than to retrace the route between the dead Parmerian and Sharky, look for connections between them and the other bodies. The two he knows were a druggie and a loan shark, respectively. Were the other victims criminals as well? Perhaps the killer is doing them a favour. Asking questions of the resident aliens in and around the city may turn up more deaths that haven't made Torchwood's radar.
He can play his hand close, mention to Jack over dinner or after sex that the Parmerian's death reminded him of the weapon, guide the case without directly involving himself. Torchwood London would turn a blind eye to aliens preying on each other, but Jack will want to know who's causing trouble, even if he chooses not to intervene. Ianto just wants answers, and getting that artefact back into custody would ease his mind.
The team might be back any time. He squeezes out a few minutes utilising the enhanced searches Mainframe allows, looking for police reports mentioning human victims with the same wounds. Nothing turns up.
After saving what he needs to a thumb drive, Ianto closes the connection and wipes his tracks. He uses one window to search more job openings. He uses another to map out where the weapon was used. Three of the bodies were found in London, the other in Swindon. Dr. Pol's autopsy notes on the Swindon corpse, a Hoix, include references to heavy decomposition. Ianto assumes that was the first murder. The other data points don't indicate a location pattern, and the alien community is hidden enough that more murders may never have been reported, certainly not to Torchwood.
When Jack gets home, Ianto is ready with a late supper and a bullshit story about visiting one of Amy's Friends in hospital tomorrow.
"Another overnight?" Jack sounds wistful.
"I don't have to go."
"No, it's good to see you going out. You didn't used to spend time with your friends."
Ianto doesn't say he used to not have any friends. He plays a card carefully, with a teasing smile. "You could go with me."
"Wish I could. I'm not even sure I'll be home all night tonight. Albert's running a scan, and if he turns up anything, I'll have to go back in. But," he says, seeing Ianto's practised look of disappointment, "why don't we plan something for next week? Maybe take a drive along the coast, check into the first place that looks good, scandalise the locals."
It's a good plan, one that can be modified around Torchwood's needs. In the old days, they managed this kind of getaway exactly once, only to be interrupted in the middle of the night by an apologetic call from Gwen and a hurried checkout to speed back to Cardiff.
"That sounds perfect."
He pulls the conversation around twice to the subject of the dead Parmerian, but Jack changes the subject twice, the second time with a glare. "Let it go."
"I was only curious if you'd found anything else out."
"There's nothing to find out." He's annoyed, and they finish supper in a fuming silence that fades as Jack takes the plates to the kitchen.
Ianto leaves the washing-up and takes advantage of Jack's easily distractable nature. There's no opportunity to ask detailed questions when Jack is bent over the sofa, huffing and gasping at the intrusion of Ianto's tongue and slick fingers. Ianto remembers this, remembers the thrill and the fear of Jack learning his secrets, even as Jack begs him to go faster in a broken voice. He remembers tracing the lies into the broad lines of Jack's back with lips and fingernails, and muttering obscenities into his ear instead of truths. He hasn't any room for guilt, not with Jack this tight around him, not with their bodies so close he can nearly hear Jack's thoughts racing under his skin with his pulse.
The mobile goes off two seconds before Ianto does.
Jack fumbles it, and manages to answer. Ianto's proud of the deep drag in his breath between words. Let Albert guess what they were doing. He flops to the sofa beside Jack, tingling and trembling.
"I have to go," Jack says, voice ragged as he closes the phone. He hesitates, pulling Ianto in for an open-mouthed kiss. This part is almost better than the sex: the warmth and closeness of this man, and the reluctance to leave he expresses with touch instead of words. Jack strokes his cheek and brushes away all thoughts of dead things and open graves.
***
Steven doesn't call.
***
The first thing he does is check in with Sally. On the off-chance Jack contacts her, she thinks Ianto has gone to visit Laura in hospital. He does in fact visit Laura, to say hello and drop off flowers from the shop, but her gaze is accusing, and he doesn't linger.
Torchwood London referred to the known enclaves of alien refugees as "Little Mars" or "Greentown." The first time Ianto referred to visiting "Greentown" for a Torchwood Cardiff case, Jack put him down coldly. "People get to choose their own names," he said, and Ianto was startled, both by the annoyance in Jack's tone, and by hearing extraterrestrials referred to as 'people.' Retraining his mouth has been easier than retraining his brain. As he passes through to the area of Croydon where the Forbani have their homes and businesses that cater only to one another, bad jokes run through his head.
"What do you call a good alien? The corpse."
"How many Sontarans can you fit into a truck? Depends on how finely chopped they are."
No-one's out on the street, at least no-one born on another planet. Or for that matter, whose parents or grandparents were born elsewhere. Jack says several of the alien groups that have settled on Earth did so decades ago and are as much native-born Londoners as Owen was.
He hesitates in the middle of the pavement, considering. He's here on a hunch, nothing more. If someone is killing aliens, surely the aliens themselves have taken notice. He can't just swagger into Greentown demanding answers, not like Torchwood London would, nor like Jack. But Sharky's place of business will be crawling with well-wishers and not-so-well-wishers today, and former client Lloyd Fellowes doesn't need to be seen there without more information in hand.
Nervously, Ianto picks a shop with last year's styles in the window, and he goes inside. Open for business, yes. A higher concentration of patrons than one would expect, also yes, and most of them trying like mad not to notice him. As he walks deeper into the shop, he takes in the cut of fabrics designed to minimise certain features, the patterns chosen to blend in with current clothing trends without making any kind of impression. Sturdy cottons and wools, he can tell with a brush of fingers, designed for quality wear by consumers who won't be comparison-shopping but who do have long memories for incidents of shoddy workmanship. Ianto won't find a thing that fits him here.
The first two salespeople he approaches quickly find other customers to serve.
The cashiers are at the back of the shop, which means by the time he reaches the counter, there are over a dozen aliens between him and the exit. He ought to be panicking or calling for backup right about now. Instead, he stands at the counter, hands folded, waiting to be waited on.
Finally, the boldest of the cashiers breaks away from her nervous pile of co-workers and comes to the station where Ianto stands patiently. "May I help you?" she asks, just the faintest susurration in her words. Forbani are taller and slimmer than humans, their heads rounder. The wings are vestigial, small, and easily disguised with the right clothing choices, many options on display around him. With the right hat and jacket, a Forbani is just another face in the thrum of a South London crowd.
Ianto feels the stares on his back, catches the glances the other cashiers are pretending not to give.
"I'm investigating the murder of an Uldaritan known as Sharky. I know he provided services for your community." If he tells her he's with Torchwood, he won't walk out of the shop alive.
She looks him up and down. "You're human. Why do you care?" She's not surprised to hear about the murder. The name on her tag is Christina, but many of London's resident aliens take on English names, and give them to their offspring. This offers a convenient opening for Ianto to exploit.
"I look human. Sharky got me set up a while back." Both are true statements. The Forbani aren't truth-tellers but anyone can get their hands on the right equipment. "I saw a Parmerian murdered in front of me a few days ago. It died the same way Sharky did."
Sibilant mutters pass behind his back, but he doesn't speak the language.
"Torchwood killed the Parmerian." She spits the first word like an epithet.
He shakes his head. "I know for a fact they didn't. They showed up after."
"You're wrong." She glares at him. From another door, an older Forbani male emerges, walking their way.
She says, "We don't want trouble." The way she says the words insinuates she'd like plenty of trouble, thank you, but she knows instigating same would only make the consequences on herself and her loved ones that much worse.
"I'm not here with trouble," Ianto says placatingly. "I've come to ask if you've heard of more killings."
The crowd disperses from around him, many people who don't want to be seen listening in, or who don't want to be asked questions. Even Christina fades into the background warily.
"We don't know anything," says the manager. "Buy something or get out." He brings an angry fist down to the counter. Ianto jumps. He also notices the slip of paper the manager leaves behind when he pulls the fist away, and the guarded, appraising look in the alien's eyes.
Ianto leans on the counter, palms down. "I never liked Sharky but he didn't deserve to die. I'd like to see his killer stopped before anyone else gets hurt."
He spins, aiming for a dramatic sweep but he's aware that he looks foolish.
The paper, which he doesn't read until he is well clear of the shop, says, Tonight, ten o'clock, behind the store.
He steers clear of the butcher shops, remembering the rumours about Forbani dietary habits, and spends the next several hours asking questions no-one will answer. There's a hive of Restitits which isn't far. They're more open than the Forbani, but they're also very close-knit and have little to do with the other alien groups. The only rumour that's made it to their floppy ears is the same thing the Forbani woman said: Torchwood's in operation again, and they're back to cleaning up aliens. He doesn't dare contradict them. Enough of the regular watchers saw Jack show up at the scene of the Parmerian's murder, and a few of them know he was in Sharky's office not long ago.
Dropping by his hotel to check his email, Ianto finds a pornographic love note from Jack and a reply to an earlier email from Sarah Jane Smith. Against his better judgement, Ianto snaps a naughty webcam photo of himself, and he triple-checks the address when sending it back. Sarah Jane gets a longer, and non-pictorial, response. She's been investigating the same string of murders, and put Torchwood onto the other body they found here. Her contacts haven't yielded more victims, but everyone is on edge. Ianto thanks her and gives her the little information he's gathered today. She doesn't talk to Jack often enough to piece together that Ianto shouldn't be asking these questions.
As he eats a quick supper alone, he admits to himself that he doesn't have a good reason to pursue this. Yes, he wants answers, but the truth is, the assassin embarrassed him. Ianto had an alien in his sights, was talking it down, and someone murdered it in front of him and got away. Ianto's been doing this job for years, but he doesn't matter, not to alien killers, not to Torchwood. He's an afterthought, a useless witness who can't remember the assailant well enough for an ID. He's a civilian.
His hand hurts. With an effort, he focuses his eyes on the cutlery in his grip, on the glint of the low light along silvery metal, clean and sleek and sharp and oh so easy. With even more of an effort, he sets the knife down and gets up from the table.
***
At ten, Ianto returns to the clothing shop, and finds his way to the alley behind where the store takes deliveries. The streetlamps provide little comfort and less illumination. This area sees as much crime as anywhere else, though Ianto wouldn't try to rob the Forbani. He doesn't relish becoming a string of sausages.
There are five Forbani waiting for him beside the locked back door, including Christina the cashier and the manager. A certain turn of eye and nose suggests a familial relationship among the group, none of whom look pleased to see him. Ianto worries that he's judged them wrong and that he's not armed well enough to be here. He hates to consider his last message to his boyfriend this time around might be an emailed jpeg of his penis.
Christina breaks from her family and approaches him with something in her hand. It's a snap, he realises, as she shows him: another Forbani, a girl, perhaps ten years old in human age, with dark hair and light eyes. She's smiling winsomely at the camera.
"My sister Alisha." She gives the photograph to Ianto, although more close examination doesn't tell him anything new. Instead he tries to read the expressions on the faces around him. The little girl clearly isn't here.
"What happened to her?"
"She died. Three weeks ago." Aside from the lisp, her inflections are perfect South London, and the grief he hears is as well. A family, yes, come to Earth some time ago, raising their children and making a living on the edges together. And the youngest child has died.
"I'm sorry for your loss." Ianto takes a long moment to trace the girl's face, note the mischievous sparkle in her eyes. "How did she die?"
"She was killed in the street. Walking home from playing. The other children watched, but they were children. What could they do?"
"Did they see the killer?"
"Nothing useful. He ran. And Alisha was dead." Her body will have been cremated already, nothing left for Martha to examine.
Ianto looks at the store manager. The father. "You think it's related to Sharky's murder."
The father says, "No-one cares what happens to us here. We look human, too, but not enough. Sharky was ... " he lets out a spew of syllables in no Earth-based language, but the meaning is clear.
"But he cared," says Christina to her father. To Ianto she says, "Sharky put out word to the other families. They have been kind. And there are other deaths."
"How many?"
She shrugs in a very human fashion. "Ask their families."
This is bigger than Ianto thought, and the beginnings of fear nibble at him. Torchwood has only scratched the surface.
"May I make a copy of this?" he asks her, and she glances to the woman Ianto assumes is her mother, who nods. He pulls out his mobile and snaps a picture in the dim light. "Thank you."
"They'll kill you." Christina puts her sister's picture away. "Even if you look human. They don't want us here."
"You think there's more than one killer?"
"Torchwood. They went quiet after they played with the Cybermen, and now they are back to their old tricks. If it's alien, it's dead."
Now's not a good time for bad memories. "Torchwood isn't behind your sister's murder. I will do what I can to find out who is."
She doesn't believe him. She's sure he's going to be killed. He wants to tell her Torchwood has already killed him once, but he doesn't have the heart.
***
Ianto phones Jack when he's back at the hotel.
"Hey," comes the warm voice at the other end. "I was just thinking about you."
"Got my email, did you?"
"I did."
Ianto settles on the bed, closing his eyes. On the one hand, phone sex sounds like a grand idea, and something to clear his head of the craziness he's uncovering. On the other hand, the mobile he's holding has a picture of a dead child stored in it, and that's enough to quash his libido for the evening.
Jack asks, "When do you think you'll be home tomorrow?"
Ianto gnaws on his lip before speaking. "Actually, I've run into some old friends and I'm thinking about staying here another couple of days to catch up."
"Anyone I know?"
"I don't think so. Some friends from when I was in London the first time." The lies roll off his tongue. "Did I ever tell you about Dustin or Gillian?"
"Doesn't sound familiar. Are they hot?"
"By your definition or mine? Because they do both have a pulse." Another lie. They both died in conversion units, screaming in pain from multiple amputations, pleading with the UNIT troops not to fire.
The memory is so clear he bites his tongue.
"All right. We're up to our arses here anyway. Gwen hasn't seen Rhys in two days and she'd throw a fit if I got to see you first."
Ianto can picture that easily enough. And he cannot deny the smile that spreads over his face each time Jack casually points out parallels between their relationship and Gwen's marriage. "Probably."
"Do you know where you'll be with your friends? I know this great restaurant in Crouch End I've been meaning to revisit, and if you like the place, we can go there sometime together." It's another wistful promise they both know won't come true.
"Give me the address. I'll suggest it." Ianto writes down the name and address of a restaurant he has no intention of visiting tomorrow.
"Don't stay in London too long."
Ianto is tempted to close the call with, "I love you," but he's filled their conversation with falsehoods, and he doesn't want to sully the words with such neighbours. If he doesn't get himself killed, he'll tell Jack properly. Over a meal or tangled together in their bed, he'll find a way.
***
Steven still doesn't call.
***
Chapter Four