Fic: Back, and Back, and Back a Little More (Future Optional) (7/7)
Title: Back, and Back, and Back a Little More (Future Optional) (7/7)
Author: nancybrown
Prompt: Back to the Future
Characters: Ianto, Jack, Jenny, Madame Vastra, Strax, Parker, Martha, Gwen
Rating: R
Warnings: violence, character death, mention of sexual assault, prostitution, language, and severe bending of time travel plausibility even taking all three canons into account
Spoilers: through TW: "Exit Wounds" and through DW: "The Snowmen"
Words: 32,500 (6,800 this part)
Beta: tymewyse and fide_et_spe both had a hand in making this far more comprehensible than it would have been. All remaining aspects of wtfery are mine alone.
Summary: Accidentally shot into the past by a time-travelling car, Ianto has to fix his own mistakes or he won't have a future to go back to.
AN: Written for reel_torchwood Screening 6. Also fills the Trope Bingo space: au:fusion
Disclaimer: BBC, Universal, RTD, Steven Moffat, and Robert Zemeckis own these characters and situations, and want nothing to do with this ridiculous fluff piece of faux-Victoriana.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
***
Chapter Seven
***
Ianto swore and ducked at another blast. Through the haze, he'd sworn he'd seen something Strax-shaped with a large laser weapon shooting at the clouds, but God alone knew if he was hitting anything.
"We need to find Jack," he said. Not only was he their best hope with the Lysans, Ianto needed to get to his car or he wasn't getting home. Home seemed farther away than ever.
"We shall. Gather these humans and tell them to run for cover."
Ianto watched them running. "I think they have that handled."
One of the Lysan ships came in for a landing, crushing an already-dilapidated tenement. Vastra ran to them, shouting a cry with her sword raised. Ianto followed, his cry more of fear. Two squishy blue aliens emerged from their vessel, only to have limbs sliced neatly from their forms. He watched her work for a moment, then set his own useless sword aside and grabbed the three nearest humans he could find.
"Help me. There will be people trapped under this."
He was met with frightened stares, and people who were surely about to run. He added, "And those who don't want to help can deal with my boss when she's done killing these aliens, yeah?"
He suddenly found himself with a surfeit of volunteers.
***
Jack headed directly to where he'd asked Strax to stash the car. For a moment, he again contemplated just climbing in, driving head-on into a Lysan's cannon, and zooming forward one hundred years. The last time he'd met the Doctor, it had been courtesy of a stolen time machine. Surely another wouldn't upset his karmic balance terribly?
He still wasn't used to having a proper conscience. On days like these, it weighed heavy on him, and he spent more time than he should those days watching the world from the bottom of a glass.
The Doctor wouldn't like that much, either.
The trick was getting the car up to speed just as the Lysans fired. He'd rigged the motor to operate again, but catalytic converters were ancient tech which he'd barely studied. Strax hasn't exploded when he turned the key. That didn't mean the whole thing wouldn't fly apart as Ianto drove at breakneck speeds through the city during an invasion which Jack really ought to think about stopping.
He'd mapped this out in his head and on a piece of paper. Given the acceleration needed, he was pretty sure that driving along the shore would work, if the fleeing humans didn't head there themselves. He'd be drawing the Lysans in that direction, and he'd have to hope the tide was high enough to make the river salty enough to repel the aliens.
Jack climbed into the car. As in any other cockpit, he felt instantly at ease. If the TARDIS was the home of his heart, the driving seat or cockpit of any vehicle was like the safety of a grandmother's house. Longing for this, he started the time car and drove her into position.
***
"Let me go," said the girl. She wasn't squealing yet, nor trembling. He'd have to do something about that.
"Shut your mouth if you want to live."
Buford Parker had learned some time ago that no-one cared what he wanted, and no-one asked what he did. If he turned up to work on time with his clothes freshly scrubbed and his body bathed, not even his reptilian employer cared to notice what he did with his time. He'd thought she would have observed how the young maids never stayed more than a few days. For some great detective, she believed his quick tales that they feared her and left, but she had so much trouble with human emotions. Why wouldn't she believe her monster of a face drove them away? Most had walked out on their own feet, eventually, except that last lass. He hadn't meant it. He liked the feel of his hand around a small throat, was all. He hadn't meant to squeeze so hard.
He should have spaced the maids out more, but now she'd brought in that mandrake of a butler.
When they didn't have maids in, there were always the dollymops with their painted faces. He could pick out the hungry ones who'd follow him back to a dark corner well away from their friends, and wouldn't snitch him out later. These too had stopped being fun after the maid. Even leaving welts all over some poxed fanny, he'd only found his end thinking about how she'd flailed and choked. He'd considered the complexity involved in recreating the experience, even going so far as to stake out which Judy he'd bring out here to his secret place where no-one would find them.
Since he'd seen this girl, a little older than he liked but unspoiled, his thoughts had turned back to the one he'd killed. They had much the same manner. Jenny had even donned her apron, a sight which had forced Parker to take a breath out in the stables when he'd seen her reaching for the duster. She would make a fine squeak as he hurt her. Holding her tightly now, he felt his pulse race with excitement in his ears. She'd struggle. He knew she would, biting and fighting him as he enjoyed her.
This area by the docks had been abandoned. He could keep her locked up here for weeks. Months. But as her breath came faster, with the rise and fall of her breast under her neat corset, he knew he wouldn't pass up his opportunity to feel her life draining away under his body.
"You're in a world of trouble," she warned him.
"Jones isn't coming for you, so don't even let your silly head imagine he will." Parker had spied into the kitchen yesterday when Mr. Jones had been alone with his "friend." He'd tell sweet Jenny when he was done, let her know her catamite sweetheart would find himself in prison as soon as Parker mentioned to his own friends in the Yard. Two problems sorted at once, he thought. No more annoying butler, and no-one to ask questions like why his winsome companion had stopped calling.
The trembling began, shaking up her arm. He breathed in, intoxicated by her fear. Jenny asked, "Does your mistress know what you are?"
"Does it matter? Perhaps I let her watch."
Jenny frowned. "No. You clean yourself too much. You're hiding from her. Beat up some street girl, come home smelling of roses. That's you. You know she'll kill you when she finds out."
"She's too stupid." He grabbed her by both shoulders and pulled her in tight for a kiss.
The motion yanked the blade that had shot out of her sleeve directly into his abdomen. Parker gasped, pushing her away as she dragged herself closer, never losing the expression on her face. "I had to ask," she said, jerking her arm up in a rush of exquisite agony. His blood poured out through his gut. He couldn't speak through the pain.
As his vision greyed, he heard her say, "I had to know if I had to kill her as well." She raised her arm as he hunched over, one arm thrown out to ineffectively block her very precise, and very lethal, blow.
***
The aliens centred in on their location. Ianto hadn't noticed at first, being too busy with the impromptu rescue. Yet, as he worked, lifting broken bricks and digging for those he could hear crying under the rubble, he began to see more and more blasts in their area, scaring away many would-be rescuers.
Beside them, in the street, Strax had joined them, firing on each vessel with a delighted cry. As the Lysan craft fell, Madame Vastra made short work of their crew, her sword wet with gore.
Ianto pushed aside a broken plaster wall, and found a man huddled around his two children. His helpers moved in, helping the trio to safety. Strax or another doctor could look at them when time allowed. Ianto thought he'd caught a glimpse of Ignatius and Doctor Brown hurrying determinedly through the fleeing crowd, bent on assisting at another destroyed building.
"Hold this position!" Vastra shouted to Strax, as more Lysans came their way.
Ianto turned to the nearest rescue worker. "Keep at this." He lifted his abandoned sword. He'd likely cut off his own head if he wasn't careful. He had to lure one out, though. He had to get to the car, get up to speed, and get shot. As much as he wanted to help here, that had to be his priority.
Vastra cried out. Ianto was already at her side, as Strax set down his weapon and began pounding on it with his fist. "Blasted thing always jams when it's hot."
"Ma'am, how bad is it?" A blast had glanced off her, leaving a scorch down one side, and her sword arm gravely injured.
"I can fight," she said through gritted teeth, lifting her sword with her left arm. A second later, she tossed the broken katana aside in disgust. Without a word, Ianto handed his to her. She'd be better with his sword in her off hand than he would using both good ones.
Her breath came in gasps. Strax paused in his abuse of his weaponry to examine her arm. "I can heal this, but not if we're dead."
"Mr. Jones, is this how the world ends?" she asked him, gathering her strength as more ships loomed into view. They would lock onto their position any moment.
"No."
"They are aliens." Insulted pride stood high in her voice, and outrage. Her people owned the Earth before humans evolved. How dare these interlopers come from the skies and attack her home.
"Aliens invade us a lot. Sometimes they're vicious, sometimes they're lost tourists. They're interesting. They don't end the world, not here."
"No," she said, standing with the sword raised in challenge, and a growl in her throat. "Not here."
Over the shouts and screams, Ianto heard two noises. One was a carriage running out of control. The other was a car engine. Both were getting closer.
Moments later, the carriage won, skidding to a stop on the corner. Vastra only cast a quick glance. "Ah. Parker has arrived."
Instead of Parker, Jenny stepped down from the driver's box, her dress covered with blood. "I thought I'd find you lot here with all the bother."
Ianto went to ask her if she was all right, but she was already digging inside the carriage. "Strax, I went by our flat. I didn't know which ones to bring, so I brought 'em all." She tossed him a large pulse rifle. Another appeared, one Ianto recognised from long-term storage in sub-basement 2.
"I'll take that one," he said, grateful for the feel of a gun. "Madame?"
"My sword will do." She watched as Jenny swung a third rifle that was more tiny cannon, and fired on the closest Lysan ship. She smiled. "My dear, you may have arrived just in time to save us all. Tell me, where is Parker?"
Jenny made a face. "If I could explain that to you later, ma'am, it'd be best." Her eyes flicked down to the stains on her dress.
Vastra jerked back. "Did he suffer?"
"I made sure he didn't."
Before she could ask more, Jack brought the time car into position with a screech of tyres and a spin that would have given Jeremy Clarkson an erection. Jack popped out with his trademark grin. "Did I arrive in time to save the day?"
"No," said Vastra and Jenny at once. They stood next to each other, making a rather pretty, if blood-soaked, picture.
Jack pouted before he handed Ianto the keys. "Go. It's a straight shot from here to the river. If I know these guys, one will chase you. Get to speed, hold it there, and look like a target."
"Thank you." Ianto closed his eyes. "Jack, the night I left, something happened. It's important you know."
"Spoilers. Don't tell me. I'll see it soon enough." He clasped Ianto's arms. "It's been good knowing you, Ianto Jones. I'll see you again." Jack kissed him, quickly but firmly.
He looked at Jack, and behind him to the other three. Strax was mouthing something like, "Man one," but he was preoccupied with his gun.
Ianto handed the keys back to Jack. "I'm staying."
"You can't stay. You've already messed up the timeline by being here. If you stay longer, you'll wind up rewriting everything."
"I can't go," he said in a softer voice, hoping Jack heard him over the reports of the guns. Their friends blasted away at the invaders. "I can't leave you here like this. Besides, the two of them aren't together yet."
"Don't worry about it. They seem to be getting on fine."
"And that's the worst part. Jack, they're Torchwood's first case. Torchwood London will kill the three of them. That's how the site earns their charter."
Jack pulled away from him, dark clouds covering his face. "You knew this whole time?"
"I'm not completely rubbish at time travel. Just mostly rubbish."
Jack turned back to the two women. Jenny had brought down another ship. Vastra didn't look well, but she did appear determined as she stalked towards the small pod. "When?"
"Ten years from now." Long enough for Madame Vastra to be forever in love with her beautiful companion, for her to have no other thought than to go in after her mate should she be captured by a man with a grudge against non-humans.
"But if they're not, your future falls apart, and you can't go home."
"Exactly." Amid the explosions, his own voice sounded hollow. He brought his hand before his face, but everything had gone strange. Had he been shot?
Jack stared at him. "Ianto?"
He could feel himself fading out. He'd be in two places at once, one stuck in the past due to an accident at Torchwood, the other somewhere unknown, unknowable. The rifle fell through his hands.
"It's too late."
Like a ghost, he watched. Around him, the laser blasts grew more concentrated. One struck Jack, killing him instantly. Another ricocheted, hitting Strax in the leg. Ianto couldn't move. He'd fade away here, and someone else would replace him in another life, in another time. But as the cold clenched him, he knew that wasn't the case, whatever he'd told himself. Without Torchwood London and thus later Torchwood Cardiff, the world had indeed come to an end at the hands of some threat yet to come. Perhaps he'd been killed. Perhaps he'd never been born. Tosh, Owen, Lisa, they'd faded away from history, not to other lives but into this same non-existence oiling through him.
The laser fire began to focus, now that the Lysans had determined where the resistance came from, and they bore down like angry wasps.
"Run," Vastra told Jenny, pushing her. "Get to safety."
"There isn't any safety, ma'am," she said, hefting her own rifle with a grim expression.
Vastra watched her, exasperated, as Jenny poured a stream of laser fire at their attackers. "You are holding that incorrectly."
"Won't matter in a few minutes, ma'am." One of her shots brought down another ship. Ianto saw a second ship land. Three aliens emerged, squishy and annoyed, to bring the fight to them.
Neither woman saw them, focused as they were on the zippy little ships. He leaned heavily against the side of the car, but he felt it give in a sickening fashion, as though his body passed through the metal. He tried shouting. His voice came out in a whisper, unheard over the noise of the scene around him. With no strength, he pushed off anyway, shoving his rapidly-vanishing body at the oncoming attackers who crept up on his friends from behind. They'd be slaughtered.
He stumbled in front of the Lysans. They walked through him, and he fell to the ground. The squishy guy in the lead aimed his weapon at the back of Jenny's head.
With no strength, no energy, no air, and no hope, Ianto shouted in a whisper, "Jenny!"
Vastra turned. She shouted a war cry, and lifting her sword, parried the first blast. Then she swooped like a dancer, neatly slicing an arc of destruction through the three of them, and swinging back to deliver the coup. All had been with her left arm; the right hung useless at her side. Jenny kept firing, but glanced back at her, seeing the carnage.
She smiled.
Jack had described to him, when asked one night in the dark after a session of not-very-comforting comfort sex, how it felt to be dragged back into his life. His veins thrummed with blood, he'd said. His chest compressed and sucked in air, burning his throat with the first gasp. Broken glass scratched over every centimetre of his skin and inside his guts as each individual cell suddenly and painfully knitted back to its pristine state of rebirth.
Ianto's return to life from near-nothingness was exactly like that, and exactly the opposite. He'd never be able to describe the sensation of solidifying and coming fully alive. As he rocketed to his feet, he heard Jack's first gasp of resurrection, and reckoned Jack would understand regardless. He helped Jack up, and searched the ground for his abandoned rifle.
"Ah, the two of you finally joined us," said Vastra, her attention returned to the skies.
"Three," said Strax, huffing. He'd bandaged his leg expertly, and had his own weapon trained on the incoming ships. "I believe we should go on the attack."
This drew the attention of all four. "Why?" Jenny asked.
"How?" Ianto added.
"We will have the advantage of surprise! They will never expect us to bring the campaign to the skies."
Jack said, "That's because we can't fly. Also, we'd be obliterated before we made contact."
Vastra said, "Some of us would, Captain." They shared a look. So she had seen everything.
"Precisely why they would not expect such an attack!"
Jack said, "Ianto, take the car. Do like we planned, and drive to the river."
"But...."
"We've got this." Jack tilted his head at the Paternoster trio, all of whom wore matching expressions of determination. Ianto kept his eyes from pointing out that Madame was holding hands with Jenny. He was relieved, and alive.
And heartbroken.
"Stay safe," he told them, wishing he could say more. He climbed into the car without another word.
The dash hadn't changed. The controls fit his hands as easily as ever. She purred to life under his touch with the turn of a key. He paused. The controls were set to the exact time he'd left. If he arrived early, say half an hour, he'd easily have time enough to get Gwen and Martha out of the doomed warehouse before the cultists returned. Quickly, he punched in the new time. He gave one last look to his four friends, then he screeched his way into reverse, spinning around.
He could say this for alien invasions: the streets were cleared as everyone had gone underground or into hiding. Ianto floored it.
Buildings that would never see vehicles of this speed go whizzing by again stood still as photographs as he roared past. In the rear view, he could see one of the remaining Lysan ships break off from the cluster and give chase.
He peeled out faster, praying to any god who'd listen not to throw a small child or similar in his path whilst he sped, finally ticking over to 88 KPH. He maintained his pace, trying to hold at the red line on the speedometer.
The Lysan ship fired.
It missed.
Ianto found his way blocked by a fallen pile of masonry. He hit the brakes, nearly colliding with the broken tenement. The Lysan ship shot past him. "Shit shit shit." The car shook, unhappy with the abuse. He eased it out again, nosing around the destruction. Did he have the space to get up to speed again? There were no other options. He gunned the engine again.
The Lysan didn't pursue him this time, veering off to rejoin the others attacking Jack's position. "Fuck."
Ianto reversed the car and turned around. He zoomed back down the road he'd just come. "See me. Come on, see the nice car, you slithery blue bastards."
At last, the small ship noticed him, swinging around for another go. Ianto dropped into a hard reverse once more, surely killing the transmission. He backed into something that gave with a wet thud. With no time to check behind him, he dropped into first, grinding the gears. Then he punched it as the Lysan fired where he'd been.
The car screamed down the road, juttering over the cobblestones. The shocks were on their last legs. The body of the car had taken damage from the first impact, and he wasn't sure if it would continue to hold together. How much stress did a jaunt through the Time Vortex put on a secondhand frame out of the decline of Detroit?
The Lysan fired, hitting just ahead of him. 75 KPH. 80 KPH.
Ahead, he could see the road down to the river's edge. If he wasn't hit, he'd have to turn and race along the embankment, where scores of people had fled. 85 KPH.
He heard the whine of the Lysan's weapon. He watched the speed click over to the red line marking 88 KPH. He wondered if he had a future to go back to.
He was overtaken by white flame.
***
Mary Dalton, aged ten, watched the whole thing from where her mum and her gran had dragged her and her three smelly brothers when the weird stuff started to happen. When she was a grandma herself, she'd pull the little ones onto her lap, and she'd tell them what she saw:
- A shiny black thing like a fish, but more like one of them automobiles, sped down Kings Road as fast as anything,
- and a silvery thing like a bird, but maybe one of them aeroplanes, flew at it, like the others had been flying, spitting light.
- and as the car neared the river, one of the lights from the aeroplane hit it,
- and the car went all white-like and vanished,
- but the aeroplane kept going and crashed into the river, where it sank,
- then we all shouted hurrah.
The rest of the aeroplanes were gone after that, most of them exploding in a pile of smoke and not much else, especially after an odd man, foreign he said when Mary asked, dropped little balls inside them. He smiled a lot.
There was a fine lady, her face hidden behind a demure veil, who called orders for people to help clean up and find those who might be trapped. A girl helped her, assisting as the odd foreign man patched up the injured. And there was another man, a handsome man who made Mary blush when he winked at her then directed her mum to take her family home.
Mary could not think of a single person she'd known who'd died in the whole event, and since the buildings that had fallen were all in parts of the city that Themselves never bothered much with, there wasn't even much of a stir. Some people came by, weeks later. She remembered them because they were all Scottish. Belonged to some College or Institute or something. The Scottish people asked loads of questions and they even handed out boiled sweets after they got their answers. Mary couldn't eat sweets because of her bad tooth. After the questions and the sweets, hardly anyone seemed to remember the silver aeroplane or the black car.
She'd stopped talking about them after her mum threatened Mary with the switch if she didn't stop telling stories. She did wonder about the one dead body she'd seen, though.
***
They gathered around the sad lump of clothes and flesh.
Strax didn't need to take a pulse, but propriety demanded. "The laser appears to have evaporated half his skull."
Jack made a face. He'd seen all this before, of course. He'd also seen skidmarks before, and noticed how these ended directly at the body before shooting off again. If this fellow had been backed into by, say, a nicely-tuned vehicle that wouldn't be invented for years, perhaps hard enough to stun him, then he would have made a very easy target for the Lysans to pick off.
Speaking of picking, he leaned down to the man's clothes, but Jenny's hands were faster.
Madame Vastra startled. "You are surely not going to rob the poor man's corpse?"
Jack and Jenny exchanged glances. Dead men had no use for purses. "No," Jack said. "We should look for identification." He noticed Jenny slip her hand into his pockets anyway for loose coins. He'd have done the same. "Hm. Reginald Poopin. That's someone who was teased at school." He knew the name from somewhere.
He frowned. From his own pockets, a bit stained from his untimely death, Jack removed two pamphlets. He set aside "A brief history of alien invasions in London, 1875-1900" and flipped through the other title that had caught his attention when he'd looked inside the boot of the time car the other day. He held the pamphlet up against the man's half-remaining face, comparing the corpse with the photostatic copy of an old photograph gracing the bottom of one side of the paper.
"Oops." That could be a much bigger issue than whether or not Vastra and Jenny shagged.
Vastra said, "Write down his name. I'll send a note of condolence to the family when I have the time." She sighed. "I understand this is hardly an issue of any worth, but I must say, I've lost both my driver and my only servant today. That will make things difficult."
Jack took a look at the pair to either side of her. "Something will work out, I'm sure. You might want to consider alien-hunting professionally."
Strax sputtered, "I beg to differ!"
"Only the bad aliens," said Jenny. "Right? The good aliens are interesting."
Jack watched them again, watched how naturally Jenny fit leaning against Vastra's side. "They are." He wiped his hands on Poopin's jacket and stood. "I should take this opportunity to say farewell. It's time I got back to Cardiff." That's where he'd be when he had his adventures. Ianto had as much as told him so.
"Really, Captain?" said Vastra. "I was hoping you'd stay. Your unique ability seems like it would be of good use, especially should I take your advice in careers."
He took her gloved hand, the one not in a makeshift sling, and kissed her knuckle. "When you need me, I'm a telegraph away. Keep in touch." For fun and because he could, he kissed Jenny on the head, and then Strax.
He wondered what kind of future Ianto would find himself in without a Sir Reginald Poopin to found his precious Torchwood London. He also wondered when Jenny would notice Jack had lifted Poopin's purse.
***
White light blinded him, and Ianto screamed. The car emerged into clear daylight, speeding towards the Embankment. Ianto wrenched the wheel, skidding as he flew towards the Thames. "Fuck. Fuck. Turn!"
He got the car spinning 180 degrees and still going as his foot was glued to the accelerator. With an effort, he yanked his leg away, but momentum pushed him forward into traffic. Rushed with adrenalin and terror, almost certain that he was home and wondering if that meant he'd died and this was a dream, he decelerated to a more normal speed, inching through London evening traffic like someone who hadn't been very, very late to work.
Oh God, he was back. Oh God, he was here. And oh God, he was early. He had to get back to the warehouse. Gwen and Martha were still alive. Jack was still alive. He gunned the engine again, but it gave up its last, sputtering and dying just as he crossed a rail.
"Shit." Ianto pounded on the dash. Nothing. He cranked the key, but the starter was dead. Whatever Jack in the past had done to fix the car, Ianto's mad journey through the cobblestone streets of Victorian London had killed it again.
Ianto got out, to the annoyed honks of the cars stuck behind him. He waved them on, starting to push, when he heard the sound.
"Oh fuck."
The train gates came down, and he was on the wrong side of them. "Fuck!" He tried pushing the car, but even if he could get it moving, he'd run into the gate.
The train was coming, and it wasn't stopping. He took one last look at the car. He legged it.
He should probably have known that attempting to hail a taxi whilst standing beside the ruin of his time car, bloody-faced, wearing Victorian dress, and waving a broken piece of coral was not going to end well.
***
Ianto heard the rumble from the exploding warehouse from three streets away. He ran as fast as he could, but it was too late, far too late. He wouldn't cry. Sobbing would accomplish nothing, would not bring the dead back be they dead one hundred years or one minute.
He crested the small hill, and stared.
There was the time car, zooming with someone inside that looked a lot like him. There were the fucking Saxon loonies, chasing him until his car vanished in a bright flash, then confused by his disappearance although they'd built the accursed thing.
And there were Gwen and Jack, armed to the teeth, steeping out from behind a skip, shouting at them to surrender now or they were going to blow their damn heads off. Martha stood to one side, shouting on her mobile for someone to get here NOW.
Ianto was very confused, if pleased to note how angry they all were. They thought he was dead. He was a bit chuffed to see, as it were, a preview of his funeral and know for a fact his friends were properly upset. He owned up to how petty that sounded. Still, it felt good to hang back a moment and watch as Jack rounded up the remaining cultists and Gwen went into copper mode on playing at arresting them before Jack could stuff them so full of Retcon they would forget their toilet training.
A figure moved over the tyre tracks he'd left behind. Before he could shout a warning, the figure rose. Ianto stumbled back a step.
"I'm definitely getting temporal readings here," Toshiko said, pushing her hair from her face. "Do we know where he went?"
Jack said, "Best guess? 1885."
"Good guess," said Ianto, scrambling down to join them.
He met three relieved faces and one somewhat amused one, who said, "You're late."
"Got held up by a train. Which reminds me...." He trailed off, unable to meet Jack's eyes.
"You destroyed the car."
"I did. A bit. Sorry."
"I spent how long fixing that thing?"
Gwen broke in, "When did you fix it, Jack?"
Martha said, "Bad guys. Focus. You can play Top Gear later." But the distraction had cost them their advantage. At once, the cultists shouted and ran. Several grabbed broken bricks from the ruins of the warehouse, and lobbed them hard.
"Duck!"
Ianto dodged the first brick. That put him in perfect line-up for a second to hit him hard on the temple. Everything went black.
***
Epilogue
***
He woke up to the sound of the phone ringing, and groggily, he reached out to pick up the receiver. The warm body he met along the way prevented him from grabbing it. Ianto smiled, wondering when Jack had crawled into bed. He sat up to reach the phone, lifted the handset from the cradle long enough to hear "Good morning! This is your wake up call!" before he dropped it and let his head hit the pillow again.
His eyes drifted open, and shut, then popped open. He sat up hard, adrenalin drenching his system.
Beside him on the other pillow, Lisa mumbled, "Fucking concierge."
"Lisa?" he managed to ask in a breathless squeak.
"Urnf," she said, or something like it, yanking his pillow over to cover her own eyes like she always had.
Afraid, he prodded her shoulder: same warm, yielding yet gym-muscled flesh under her blue-grey t-shirt, same cute grunt that promised she would bat him away in another few seconds if he didn't knock it off. Ianto tossed the pillow. He took her shoulders in his hands, moving her to her back, and he kissed her. She even had the same morning breath she swore was his problem alone.
Lisa smiled around the kiss, and kissed him back for a second before pulling away. "Enough of that, now."
"You're here," he said, because he couldn't imagine explaining to her the terrible dream he'd had, of death and destruction, and time travelling cars. Come to think of it, most of what he remembered was taking on the eerie countenance of a bad dream, complete with dinosaurs and zombies. In another minute, his head would clear, and he'd remember he was some minor tour guide for a museum, and Lisa was his gorgeous wife.
The pleasant yet sad glimmer in her eyes said that might not be quite right, either.
"Of course I'm here. But I remind you that my boyfriend doesn't mind me having the occasional drunk weekend with my ex, as long as he's convinced you're hopelessly head over heels for your boyfriend."
Ianto lay his head on his own pillow again. The quickest check he could make told him he, too, wore rumpled clothes under the sheets. Lisa was alive. She had a boyfriend who wasn't him. He had a boyfriend. He touched his head, and felt a plaster wrapping. Bits of last night came back.
"I got hit on the head pretty hard," he said. "Boyfriend. Mine. A picture emerges. Tall, ridiculously good-looking, unfortunately aware of it, has no doubt propositioned you and your boyfriend several times?"
Lisa lay her own head on her own pillow. "I don't know what you see in him. All right, I know exactly what you see in him, but I think you're mad."
"Toss a lifeline to your concussed ex. Did he break us up?"
Lisa shook her head sadly as she made him open his eyes and stick out his tongue. "You know, if multiple doctors hadn't assured Jack you'd be fine as long as someone kept an eye on you last night, he'd have banged you into hospital instead of calling me up to babysit. You start in with the amnesia, and he certainly will."
"That's not a no."
"How's your headache?"
"Sore."
"I'm taking you downstairs. Get dressed." He let himself be pulled up, and she didn't object to one more quick kiss before she booted him into the en suite to change into fresher clothes.
Downstairs, the UNIT briefing had just broken up. Terror, out of proportion to the reality, shook him. Had he slept through his second meeting? Jack would be furious. But Lisa stopped to talk with two people he vaguely recognised, dressed as civilians rather than military.
"Any word?" she asked.
The taller of the two men shrugged. "Same as always. UNIT on our arses, complaints and turtles all the way down." Unexpectedly, he socked Ianto on the shoulder. "Your end came out all right. Commendation. Flash bastards." He smiled as he said the words, though.
"Oh." Ianto wasn't sure quite what to say. His head was still groggy, as though this was a fuzzy dream. Perhaps he should get checked out. The bloke's name was Gareth, wasn't it? Another Torchwood London casualty standing alive in front of him, smoothing his own hair. Ianto didn't miss the wedding band.
Then another voice joined them. "Well, if you twats would work harder, you'd wind up with shiny commendations of your own, wouldn't you?"
Ianto's breath sucked out of him like he'd been punched. "Owen?" He tried to make sense of the crazy image in front of him. "But you're…." It seemed rude to point out Owen was supposed to be dead. "You're in a suit."
Owen glanced down at his well-made if rumpled three-piece suit. "Yeah? What about it? I always wear a suit when I have to coordinate with UNIT wankers." Without preamble, he dragged Ianto closer. "Open your eyes and follow my fingers."
He'd no doubt resisted making this gesture through the meeting, and Ianto humoured him.
"Vision blurry? Headache?"
"Head hurts, my vision's fine."
"You'll live. No booze for a week, no driving for a day, no sex for a month."
Lisa said, "You'll kill him."
"Why no sex?"
"No reason," Owen said. "Just wanted to see if you'd believe me. You have your doctor's permission to go back to the site. Tell Jack I'll be along after the afternoon session."
Lisa rolled her eyes, leading Ianto out towards sunlight and coffee. "He really has to learn how to behave in public. Can't you do anything with him?"
"Never could," said Ianto. Bemused, he let Lisa shove a styrofoam cup of not-great coffee into his hand before she put him in a cab with a kiss on the forehead and a reminder he needed to come back to check out because she wasn't taking his things home with her again after the last time.
The warehouse was a ruin. Police tape covered everything, but Jack was clearly in charge of the scene. Beside him, Gwen pored over some scanner while Martha and Tosh discussed something.
Jack saw him and a smile lit his face. "You should be convalescing."
"Owen says I'm fine. Which is pretty interesting as Owen was dead when I left. Jack?"
"What?"
"What changed?" Ianto knew before he asked that Jack would say what he always did, that the twenty-first century was where it all happened, and he'd use the maddening 'everything changes' because God forbid Captain Jack Harkness give a straight answer.
Jack looked around them both. Then he shrugged. "A lot?"
***
Not all of the warehouse had been demolished by the blast. "It's an old Torchwood London holding," Jack explained. "It can take a lot of damage." He led Ianto, with hard hat, through the remnant of the building.
Ianto tapped his torch on. Fallen racks of jars greeted his eyes, and souvenirs from what had to be dozens if not hundreds of alien encounters. Only, these weren't quite right. No floating heads, or stuffed specimens. The wall of badly-filed pamphlets he passed included, along with "Gerald's New Genitals," titles such as, "Our Friends, the Atraxi," and "Learn Basic Enterian in Three Days."
Jack said quietly, "If it's alien, it's interesting."
"Well, yes."
"No." Jack pointed to a small plaque on a shelf, with 'If it's alien, it's interesting' engraved in bronze. "It's the motto."
"Well. Obviously. I knew that."
"No, you didn't," Jack said, gently. "There are going to be a lot of things you don't know, but I'll help you through."
"You changed all of it," Ianto said, wondering at this friendly new Torchwood London. Had Glasgow and Cardiff gone soft as well, or had they gone their separate ways?
"No. Just a few things here and there. You left a mess. I helped put the pieces back in place." He found a corridor half blocked with a fallen and twisted shelf. They budged it together, hefting the thing out of the way. "With a little help."
He dug into his pocket for two very old pieces of paper that once were pamphlets: one about alien invasions, one about the history of this branch of Torchwood.
"You stole those."
"Borrowed. See, I'm giving them back now." He handed both to Ianto.
"You shouldn't have read them."
"Time Agent, remember? I only took what I needed to know, and they didn't say much." He frowned. "They said nothing about Emily and Alice, for one example. Anyway, I thought you might like to see something. I checked last night to see if this part of the warehouse had survived."
Ianto followed him, curious, as they went into an old storage room with paintings on the walls. He lurched back, not wanting to see the painting of Poopin standing on Strax. Jack shone his own torch. There was a photograph, sepia-tone and old, blown up to portrait size. Three figures stared at the camera.
Of course Strax had tried to look stern. Even Jenny's face was serious. But Madame Vastra smiled across the years, finally pleased with him after all this time. The plaque at the bottom of the photograph read:
"Torchwood London, Est. 1895. The Founders."
***
The End
***
Previous reel_torchwood fics:
Jack Harkness and the Chocolate Factory
The Extraterrestrial
The Day the Dragons Came (by Mica Davies, Age 7)
Just Because They Protect You Doesn't Mean They Like You
Author: nancybrown
Prompt: Back to the Future
Characters: Ianto, Jack, Jenny, Madame Vastra, Strax, Parker, Martha, Gwen
Rating: R
Warnings: violence, character death, mention of sexual assault, prostitution, language, and severe bending of time travel plausibility even taking all three canons into account
Spoilers: through TW: "Exit Wounds" and through DW: "The Snowmen"
Words: 32,500 (6,800 this part)
Beta: tymewyse and fide_et_spe both had a hand in making this far more comprehensible than it would have been. All remaining aspects of wtfery are mine alone.
Summary: Accidentally shot into the past by a time-travelling car, Ianto has to fix his own mistakes or he won't have a future to go back to.
AN: Written for reel_torchwood Screening 6. Also fills the Trope Bingo space: au:fusion
Disclaimer: BBC, Universal, RTD, Steven Moffat, and Robert Zemeckis own these characters and situations, and want nothing to do with this ridiculous fluff piece of faux-Victoriana.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
***
Chapter Seven
***
Ianto swore and ducked at another blast. Through the haze, he'd sworn he'd seen something Strax-shaped with a large laser weapon shooting at the clouds, but God alone knew if he was hitting anything.
"We need to find Jack," he said. Not only was he their best hope with the Lysans, Ianto needed to get to his car or he wasn't getting home. Home seemed farther away than ever.
"We shall. Gather these humans and tell them to run for cover."
Ianto watched them running. "I think they have that handled."
One of the Lysan ships came in for a landing, crushing an already-dilapidated tenement. Vastra ran to them, shouting a cry with her sword raised. Ianto followed, his cry more of fear. Two squishy blue aliens emerged from their vessel, only to have limbs sliced neatly from their forms. He watched her work for a moment, then set his own useless sword aside and grabbed the three nearest humans he could find.
"Help me. There will be people trapped under this."
He was met with frightened stares, and people who were surely about to run. He added, "And those who don't want to help can deal with my boss when she's done killing these aliens, yeah?"
He suddenly found himself with a surfeit of volunteers.
***
Jack headed directly to where he'd asked Strax to stash the car. For a moment, he again contemplated just climbing in, driving head-on into a Lysan's cannon, and zooming forward one hundred years. The last time he'd met the Doctor, it had been courtesy of a stolen time machine. Surely another wouldn't upset his karmic balance terribly?
He still wasn't used to having a proper conscience. On days like these, it weighed heavy on him, and he spent more time than he should those days watching the world from the bottom of a glass.
The Doctor wouldn't like that much, either.
The trick was getting the car up to speed just as the Lysans fired. He'd rigged the motor to operate again, but catalytic converters were ancient tech which he'd barely studied. Strax hasn't exploded when he turned the key. That didn't mean the whole thing wouldn't fly apart as Ianto drove at breakneck speeds through the city during an invasion which Jack really ought to think about stopping.
He'd mapped this out in his head and on a piece of paper. Given the acceleration needed, he was pretty sure that driving along the shore would work, if the fleeing humans didn't head there themselves. He'd be drawing the Lysans in that direction, and he'd have to hope the tide was high enough to make the river salty enough to repel the aliens.
Jack climbed into the car. As in any other cockpit, he felt instantly at ease. If the TARDIS was the home of his heart, the driving seat or cockpit of any vehicle was like the safety of a grandmother's house. Longing for this, he started the time car and drove her into position.
***
"Let me go," said the girl. She wasn't squealing yet, nor trembling. He'd have to do something about that.
"Shut your mouth if you want to live."
Buford Parker had learned some time ago that no-one cared what he wanted, and no-one asked what he did. If he turned up to work on time with his clothes freshly scrubbed and his body bathed, not even his reptilian employer cared to notice what he did with his time. He'd thought she would have observed how the young maids never stayed more than a few days. For some great detective, she believed his quick tales that they feared her and left, but she had so much trouble with human emotions. Why wouldn't she believe her monster of a face drove them away? Most had walked out on their own feet, eventually, except that last lass. He hadn't meant it. He liked the feel of his hand around a small throat, was all. He hadn't meant to squeeze so hard.
He should have spaced the maids out more, but now she'd brought in that mandrake of a butler.
When they didn't have maids in, there were always the dollymops with their painted faces. He could pick out the hungry ones who'd follow him back to a dark corner well away from their friends, and wouldn't snitch him out later. These too had stopped being fun after the maid. Even leaving welts all over some poxed fanny, he'd only found his end thinking about how she'd flailed and choked. He'd considered the complexity involved in recreating the experience, even going so far as to stake out which Judy he'd bring out here to his secret place where no-one would find them.
Since he'd seen this girl, a little older than he liked but unspoiled, his thoughts had turned back to the one he'd killed. They had much the same manner. Jenny had even donned her apron, a sight which had forced Parker to take a breath out in the stables when he'd seen her reaching for the duster. She would make a fine squeak as he hurt her. Holding her tightly now, he felt his pulse race with excitement in his ears. She'd struggle. He knew she would, biting and fighting him as he enjoyed her.
This area by the docks had been abandoned. He could keep her locked up here for weeks. Months. But as her breath came faster, with the rise and fall of her breast under her neat corset, he knew he wouldn't pass up his opportunity to feel her life draining away under his body.
"You're in a world of trouble," she warned him.
"Jones isn't coming for you, so don't even let your silly head imagine he will." Parker had spied into the kitchen yesterday when Mr. Jones had been alone with his "friend." He'd tell sweet Jenny when he was done, let her know her catamite sweetheart would find himself in prison as soon as Parker mentioned to his own friends in the Yard. Two problems sorted at once, he thought. No more annoying butler, and no-one to ask questions like why his winsome companion had stopped calling.
The trembling began, shaking up her arm. He breathed in, intoxicated by her fear. Jenny asked, "Does your mistress know what you are?"
"Does it matter? Perhaps I let her watch."
Jenny frowned. "No. You clean yourself too much. You're hiding from her. Beat up some street girl, come home smelling of roses. That's you. You know she'll kill you when she finds out."
"She's too stupid." He grabbed her by both shoulders and pulled her in tight for a kiss.
The motion yanked the blade that had shot out of her sleeve directly into his abdomen. Parker gasped, pushing her away as she dragged herself closer, never losing the expression on her face. "I had to ask," she said, jerking her arm up in a rush of exquisite agony. His blood poured out through his gut. He couldn't speak through the pain.
As his vision greyed, he heard her say, "I had to know if I had to kill her as well." She raised her arm as he hunched over, one arm thrown out to ineffectively block her very precise, and very lethal, blow.
***
The aliens centred in on their location. Ianto hadn't noticed at first, being too busy with the impromptu rescue. Yet, as he worked, lifting broken bricks and digging for those he could hear crying under the rubble, he began to see more and more blasts in their area, scaring away many would-be rescuers.
Beside them, in the street, Strax had joined them, firing on each vessel with a delighted cry. As the Lysan craft fell, Madame Vastra made short work of their crew, her sword wet with gore.
Ianto pushed aside a broken plaster wall, and found a man huddled around his two children. His helpers moved in, helping the trio to safety. Strax or another doctor could look at them when time allowed. Ianto thought he'd caught a glimpse of Ignatius and Doctor Brown hurrying determinedly through the fleeing crowd, bent on assisting at another destroyed building.
"Hold this position!" Vastra shouted to Strax, as more Lysans came their way.
Ianto turned to the nearest rescue worker. "Keep at this." He lifted his abandoned sword. He'd likely cut off his own head if he wasn't careful. He had to lure one out, though. He had to get to the car, get up to speed, and get shot. As much as he wanted to help here, that had to be his priority.
Vastra cried out. Ianto was already at her side, as Strax set down his weapon and began pounding on it with his fist. "Blasted thing always jams when it's hot."
"Ma'am, how bad is it?" A blast had glanced off her, leaving a scorch down one side, and her sword arm gravely injured.
"I can fight," she said through gritted teeth, lifting her sword with her left arm. A second later, she tossed the broken katana aside in disgust. Without a word, Ianto handed his to her. She'd be better with his sword in her off hand than he would using both good ones.
Her breath came in gasps. Strax paused in his abuse of his weaponry to examine her arm. "I can heal this, but not if we're dead."
"Mr. Jones, is this how the world ends?" she asked him, gathering her strength as more ships loomed into view. They would lock onto their position any moment.
"No."
"They are aliens." Insulted pride stood high in her voice, and outrage. Her people owned the Earth before humans evolved. How dare these interlopers come from the skies and attack her home.
"Aliens invade us a lot. Sometimes they're vicious, sometimes they're lost tourists. They're interesting. They don't end the world, not here."
"No," she said, standing with the sword raised in challenge, and a growl in her throat. "Not here."
Over the shouts and screams, Ianto heard two noises. One was a carriage running out of control. The other was a car engine. Both were getting closer.
Moments later, the carriage won, skidding to a stop on the corner. Vastra only cast a quick glance. "Ah. Parker has arrived."
Instead of Parker, Jenny stepped down from the driver's box, her dress covered with blood. "I thought I'd find you lot here with all the bother."
Ianto went to ask her if she was all right, but she was already digging inside the carriage. "Strax, I went by our flat. I didn't know which ones to bring, so I brought 'em all." She tossed him a large pulse rifle. Another appeared, one Ianto recognised from long-term storage in sub-basement 2.
"I'll take that one," he said, grateful for the feel of a gun. "Madame?"
"My sword will do." She watched as Jenny swung a third rifle that was more tiny cannon, and fired on the closest Lysan ship. She smiled. "My dear, you may have arrived just in time to save us all. Tell me, where is Parker?"
Jenny made a face. "If I could explain that to you later, ma'am, it'd be best." Her eyes flicked down to the stains on her dress.
Vastra jerked back. "Did he suffer?"
"I made sure he didn't."
Before she could ask more, Jack brought the time car into position with a screech of tyres and a spin that would have given Jeremy Clarkson an erection. Jack popped out with his trademark grin. "Did I arrive in time to save the day?"
"No," said Vastra and Jenny at once. They stood next to each other, making a rather pretty, if blood-soaked, picture.
Jack pouted before he handed Ianto the keys. "Go. It's a straight shot from here to the river. If I know these guys, one will chase you. Get to speed, hold it there, and look like a target."
"Thank you." Ianto closed his eyes. "Jack, the night I left, something happened. It's important you know."
"Spoilers. Don't tell me. I'll see it soon enough." He clasped Ianto's arms. "It's been good knowing you, Ianto Jones. I'll see you again." Jack kissed him, quickly but firmly.
He looked at Jack, and behind him to the other three. Strax was mouthing something like, "Man one," but he was preoccupied with his gun.
Ianto handed the keys back to Jack. "I'm staying."
"You can't stay. You've already messed up the timeline by being here. If you stay longer, you'll wind up rewriting everything."
"I can't go," he said in a softer voice, hoping Jack heard him over the reports of the guns. Their friends blasted away at the invaders. "I can't leave you here like this. Besides, the two of them aren't together yet."
"Don't worry about it. They seem to be getting on fine."
"And that's the worst part. Jack, they're Torchwood's first case. Torchwood London will kill the three of them. That's how the site earns their charter."
Jack pulled away from him, dark clouds covering his face. "You knew this whole time?"
"I'm not completely rubbish at time travel. Just mostly rubbish."
Jack turned back to the two women. Jenny had brought down another ship. Vastra didn't look well, but she did appear determined as she stalked towards the small pod. "When?"
"Ten years from now." Long enough for Madame Vastra to be forever in love with her beautiful companion, for her to have no other thought than to go in after her mate should she be captured by a man with a grudge against non-humans.
"But if they're not, your future falls apart, and you can't go home."
"Exactly." Amid the explosions, his own voice sounded hollow. He brought his hand before his face, but everything had gone strange. Had he been shot?
Jack stared at him. "Ianto?"
He could feel himself fading out. He'd be in two places at once, one stuck in the past due to an accident at Torchwood, the other somewhere unknown, unknowable. The rifle fell through his hands.
"It's too late."
Like a ghost, he watched. Around him, the laser blasts grew more concentrated. One struck Jack, killing him instantly. Another ricocheted, hitting Strax in the leg. Ianto couldn't move. He'd fade away here, and someone else would replace him in another life, in another time. But as the cold clenched him, he knew that wasn't the case, whatever he'd told himself. Without Torchwood London and thus later Torchwood Cardiff, the world had indeed come to an end at the hands of some threat yet to come. Perhaps he'd been killed. Perhaps he'd never been born. Tosh, Owen, Lisa, they'd faded away from history, not to other lives but into this same non-existence oiling through him.
The laser fire began to focus, now that the Lysans had determined where the resistance came from, and they bore down like angry wasps.
"Run," Vastra told Jenny, pushing her. "Get to safety."
"There isn't any safety, ma'am," she said, hefting her own rifle with a grim expression.
Vastra watched her, exasperated, as Jenny poured a stream of laser fire at their attackers. "You are holding that incorrectly."
"Won't matter in a few minutes, ma'am." One of her shots brought down another ship. Ianto saw a second ship land. Three aliens emerged, squishy and annoyed, to bring the fight to them.
Neither woman saw them, focused as they were on the zippy little ships. He leaned heavily against the side of the car, but he felt it give in a sickening fashion, as though his body passed through the metal. He tried shouting. His voice came out in a whisper, unheard over the noise of the scene around him. With no strength, he pushed off anyway, shoving his rapidly-vanishing body at the oncoming attackers who crept up on his friends from behind. They'd be slaughtered.
He stumbled in front of the Lysans. They walked through him, and he fell to the ground. The squishy guy in the lead aimed his weapon at the back of Jenny's head.
With no strength, no energy, no air, and no hope, Ianto shouted in a whisper, "Jenny!"
Vastra turned. She shouted a war cry, and lifting her sword, parried the first blast. Then she swooped like a dancer, neatly slicing an arc of destruction through the three of them, and swinging back to deliver the coup. All had been with her left arm; the right hung useless at her side. Jenny kept firing, but glanced back at her, seeing the carnage.
She smiled.
Jack had described to him, when asked one night in the dark after a session of not-very-comforting comfort sex, how it felt to be dragged back into his life. His veins thrummed with blood, he'd said. His chest compressed and sucked in air, burning his throat with the first gasp. Broken glass scratched over every centimetre of his skin and inside his guts as each individual cell suddenly and painfully knitted back to its pristine state of rebirth.
Ianto's return to life from near-nothingness was exactly like that, and exactly the opposite. He'd never be able to describe the sensation of solidifying and coming fully alive. As he rocketed to his feet, he heard Jack's first gasp of resurrection, and reckoned Jack would understand regardless. He helped Jack up, and searched the ground for his abandoned rifle.
"Ah, the two of you finally joined us," said Vastra, her attention returned to the skies.
"Three," said Strax, huffing. He'd bandaged his leg expertly, and had his own weapon trained on the incoming ships. "I believe we should go on the attack."
This drew the attention of all four. "Why?" Jenny asked.
"How?" Ianto added.
"We will have the advantage of surprise! They will never expect us to bring the campaign to the skies."
Jack said, "That's because we can't fly. Also, we'd be obliterated before we made contact."
Vastra said, "Some of us would, Captain." They shared a look. So she had seen everything.
"Precisely why they would not expect such an attack!"
Jack said, "Ianto, take the car. Do like we planned, and drive to the river."
"But...."
"We've got this." Jack tilted his head at the Paternoster trio, all of whom wore matching expressions of determination. Ianto kept his eyes from pointing out that Madame was holding hands with Jenny. He was relieved, and alive.
And heartbroken.
"Stay safe," he told them, wishing he could say more. He climbed into the car without another word.
The dash hadn't changed. The controls fit his hands as easily as ever. She purred to life under his touch with the turn of a key. He paused. The controls were set to the exact time he'd left. If he arrived early, say half an hour, he'd easily have time enough to get Gwen and Martha out of the doomed warehouse before the cultists returned. Quickly, he punched in the new time. He gave one last look to his four friends, then he screeched his way into reverse, spinning around.
He could say this for alien invasions: the streets were cleared as everyone had gone underground or into hiding. Ianto floored it.
Buildings that would never see vehicles of this speed go whizzing by again stood still as photographs as he roared past. In the rear view, he could see one of the remaining Lysan ships break off from the cluster and give chase.
He peeled out faster, praying to any god who'd listen not to throw a small child or similar in his path whilst he sped, finally ticking over to 88 KPH. He maintained his pace, trying to hold at the red line on the speedometer.
The Lysan ship fired.
It missed.
Ianto found his way blocked by a fallen pile of masonry. He hit the brakes, nearly colliding with the broken tenement. The Lysan ship shot past him. "Shit shit shit." The car shook, unhappy with the abuse. He eased it out again, nosing around the destruction. Did he have the space to get up to speed again? There were no other options. He gunned the engine again.
The Lysan didn't pursue him this time, veering off to rejoin the others attacking Jack's position. "Fuck."
Ianto reversed the car and turned around. He zoomed back down the road he'd just come. "See me. Come on, see the nice car, you slithery blue bastards."
At last, the small ship noticed him, swinging around for another go. Ianto dropped into a hard reverse once more, surely killing the transmission. He backed into something that gave with a wet thud. With no time to check behind him, he dropped into first, grinding the gears. Then he punched it as the Lysan fired where he'd been.
The car screamed down the road, juttering over the cobblestones. The shocks were on their last legs. The body of the car had taken damage from the first impact, and he wasn't sure if it would continue to hold together. How much stress did a jaunt through the Time Vortex put on a secondhand frame out of the decline of Detroit?
The Lysan fired, hitting just ahead of him. 75 KPH. 80 KPH.
Ahead, he could see the road down to the river's edge. If he wasn't hit, he'd have to turn and race along the embankment, where scores of people had fled. 85 KPH.
He heard the whine of the Lysan's weapon. He watched the speed click over to the red line marking 88 KPH. He wondered if he had a future to go back to.
He was overtaken by white flame.
***
Mary Dalton, aged ten, watched the whole thing from where her mum and her gran had dragged her and her three smelly brothers when the weird stuff started to happen. When she was a grandma herself, she'd pull the little ones onto her lap, and she'd tell them what she saw:
- A shiny black thing like a fish, but more like one of them automobiles, sped down Kings Road as fast as anything,
- and a silvery thing like a bird, but maybe one of them aeroplanes, flew at it, like the others had been flying, spitting light.
- and as the car neared the river, one of the lights from the aeroplane hit it,
- and the car went all white-like and vanished,
- but the aeroplane kept going and crashed into the river, where it sank,
- then we all shouted hurrah.
The rest of the aeroplanes were gone after that, most of them exploding in a pile of smoke and not much else, especially after an odd man, foreign he said when Mary asked, dropped little balls inside them. He smiled a lot.
There was a fine lady, her face hidden behind a demure veil, who called orders for people to help clean up and find those who might be trapped. A girl helped her, assisting as the odd foreign man patched up the injured. And there was another man, a handsome man who made Mary blush when he winked at her then directed her mum to take her family home.
Mary could not think of a single person she'd known who'd died in the whole event, and since the buildings that had fallen were all in parts of the city that Themselves never bothered much with, there wasn't even much of a stir. Some people came by, weeks later. She remembered them because they were all Scottish. Belonged to some College or Institute or something. The Scottish people asked loads of questions and they even handed out boiled sweets after they got their answers. Mary couldn't eat sweets because of her bad tooth. After the questions and the sweets, hardly anyone seemed to remember the silver aeroplane or the black car.
She'd stopped talking about them after her mum threatened Mary with the switch if she didn't stop telling stories. She did wonder about the one dead body she'd seen, though.
***
They gathered around the sad lump of clothes and flesh.
Strax didn't need to take a pulse, but propriety demanded. "The laser appears to have evaporated half his skull."
Jack made a face. He'd seen all this before, of course. He'd also seen skidmarks before, and noticed how these ended directly at the body before shooting off again. If this fellow had been backed into by, say, a nicely-tuned vehicle that wouldn't be invented for years, perhaps hard enough to stun him, then he would have made a very easy target for the Lysans to pick off.
Speaking of picking, he leaned down to the man's clothes, but Jenny's hands were faster.
Madame Vastra startled. "You are surely not going to rob the poor man's corpse?"
Jack and Jenny exchanged glances. Dead men had no use for purses. "No," Jack said. "We should look for identification." He noticed Jenny slip her hand into his pockets anyway for loose coins. He'd have done the same. "Hm. Reginald Poopin. That's someone who was teased at school." He knew the name from somewhere.
He frowned. From his own pockets, a bit stained from his untimely death, Jack removed two pamphlets. He set aside "A brief history of alien invasions in London, 1875-1900" and flipped through the other title that had caught his attention when he'd looked inside the boot of the time car the other day. He held the pamphlet up against the man's half-remaining face, comparing the corpse with the photostatic copy of an old photograph gracing the bottom of one side of the paper.
"Oops." That could be a much bigger issue than whether or not Vastra and Jenny shagged.
Vastra said, "Write down his name. I'll send a note of condolence to the family when I have the time." She sighed. "I understand this is hardly an issue of any worth, but I must say, I've lost both my driver and my only servant today. That will make things difficult."
Jack took a look at the pair to either side of her. "Something will work out, I'm sure. You might want to consider alien-hunting professionally."
Strax sputtered, "I beg to differ!"
"Only the bad aliens," said Jenny. "Right? The good aliens are interesting."
Jack watched them again, watched how naturally Jenny fit leaning against Vastra's side. "They are." He wiped his hands on Poopin's jacket and stood. "I should take this opportunity to say farewell. It's time I got back to Cardiff." That's where he'd be when he had his adventures. Ianto had as much as told him so.
"Really, Captain?" said Vastra. "I was hoping you'd stay. Your unique ability seems like it would be of good use, especially should I take your advice in careers."
He took her gloved hand, the one not in a makeshift sling, and kissed her knuckle. "When you need me, I'm a telegraph away. Keep in touch." For fun and because he could, he kissed Jenny on the head, and then Strax.
He wondered what kind of future Ianto would find himself in without a Sir Reginald Poopin to found his precious Torchwood London. He also wondered when Jenny would notice Jack had lifted Poopin's purse.
***
White light blinded him, and Ianto screamed. The car emerged into clear daylight, speeding towards the Embankment. Ianto wrenched the wheel, skidding as he flew towards the Thames. "Fuck. Fuck. Turn!"
He got the car spinning 180 degrees and still going as his foot was glued to the accelerator. With an effort, he yanked his leg away, but momentum pushed him forward into traffic. Rushed with adrenalin and terror, almost certain that he was home and wondering if that meant he'd died and this was a dream, he decelerated to a more normal speed, inching through London evening traffic like someone who hadn't been very, very late to work.
Oh God, he was back. Oh God, he was here. And oh God, he was early. He had to get back to the warehouse. Gwen and Martha were still alive. Jack was still alive. He gunned the engine again, but it gave up its last, sputtering and dying just as he crossed a rail.
"Shit." Ianto pounded on the dash. Nothing. He cranked the key, but the starter was dead. Whatever Jack in the past had done to fix the car, Ianto's mad journey through the cobblestone streets of Victorian London had killed it again.
Ianto got out, to the annoyed honks of the cars stuck behind him. He waved them on, starting to push, when he heard the sound.
"Oh fuck."
The train gates came down, and he was on the wrong side of them. "Fuck!" He tried pushing the car, but even if he could get it moving, he'd run into the gate.
The train was coming, and it wasn't stopping. He took one last look at the car. He legged it.
He should probably have known that attempting to hail a taxi whilst standing beside the ruin of his time car, bloody-faced, wearing Victorian dress, and waving a broken piece of coral was not going to end well.
***
Ianto heard the rumble from the exploding warehouse from three streets away. He ran as fast as he could, but it was too late, far too late. He wouldn't cry. Sobbing would accomplish nothing, would not bring the dead back be they dead one hundred years or one minute.
He crested the small hill, and stared.
There was the time car, zooming with someone inside that looked a lot like him. There were the fucking Saxon loonies, chasing him until his car vanished in a bright flash, then confused by his disappearance although they'd built the accursed thing.
And there were Gwen and Jack, armed to the teeth, steeping out from behind a skip, shouting at them to surrender now or they were going to blow their damn heads off. Martha stood to one side, shouting on her mobile for someone to get here NOW.
Ianto was very confused, if pleased to note how angry they all were. They thought he was dead. He was a bit chuffed to see, as it were, a preview of his funeral and know for a fact his friends were properly upset. He owned up to how petty that sounded. Still, it felt good to hang back a moment and watch as Jack rounded up the remaining cultists and Gwen went into copper mode on playing at arresting them before Jack could stuff them so full of Retcon they would forget their toilet training.
A figure moved over the tyre tracks he'd left behind. Before he could shout a warning, the figure rose. Ianto stumbled back a step.
"I'm definitely getting temporal readings here," Toshiko said, pushing her hair from her face. "Do we know where he went?"
Jack said, "Best guess? 1885."
"Good guess," said Ianto, scrambling down to join them.
He met three relieved faces and one somewhat amused one, who said, "You're late."
"Got held up by a train. Which reminds me...." He trailed off, unable to meet Jack's eyes.
"You destroyed the car."
"I did. A bit. Sorry."
"I spent how long fixing that thing?"
Gwen broke in, "When did you fix it, Jack?"
Martha said, "Bad guys. Focus. You can play Top Gear later." But the distraction had cost them their advantage. At once, the cultists shouted and ran. Several grabbed broken bricks from the ruins of the warehouse, and lobbed them hard.
"Duck!"
Ianto dodged the first brick. That put him in perfect line-up for a second to hit him hard on the temple. Everything went black.
***
Epilogue
***
He woke up to the sound of the phone ringing, and groggily, he reached out to pick up the receiver. The warm body he met along the way prevented him from grabbing it. Ianto smiled, wondering when Jack had crawled into bed. He sat up to reach the phone, lifted the handset from the cradle long enough to hear "Good morning! This is your wake up call!" before he dropped it and let his head hit the pillow again.
His eyes drifted open, and shut, then popped open. He sat up hard, adrenalin drenching his system.
Beside him on the other pillow, Lisa mumbled, "Fucking concierge."
"Lisa?" he managed to ask in a breathless squeak.
"Urnf," she said, or something like it, yanking his pillow over to cover her own eyes like she always had.
Afraid, he prodded her shoulder: same warm, yielding yet gym-muscled flesh under her blue-grey t-shirt, same cute grunt that promised she would bat him away in another few seconds if he didn't knock it off. Ianto tossed the pillow. He took her shoulders in his hands, moving her to her back, and he kissed her. She even had the same morning breath she swore was his problem alone.
Lisa smiled around the kiss, and kissed him back for a second before pulling away. "Enough of that, now."
"You're here," he said, because he couldn't imagine explaining to her the terrible dream he'd had, of death and destruction, and time travelling cars. Come to think of it, most of what he remembered was taking on the eerie countenance of a bad dream, complete with dinosaurs and zombies. In another minute, his head would clear, and he'd remember he was some minor tour guide for a museum, and Lisa was his gorgeous wife.
The pleasant yet sad glimmer in her eyes said that might not be quite right, either.
"Of course I'm here. But I remind you that my boyfriend doesn't mind me having the occasional drunk weekend with my ex, as long as he's convinced you're hopelessly head over heels for your boyfriend."
Ianto lay his head on his own pillow again. The quickest check he could make told him he, too, wore rumpled clothes under the sheets. Lisa was alive. She had a boyfriend who wasn't him. He had a boyfriend. He touched his head, and felt a plaster wrapping. Bits of last night came back.
"I got hit on the head pretty hard," he said. "Boyfriend. Mine. A picture emerges. Tall, ridiculously good-looking, unfortunately aware of it, has no doubt propositioned you and your boyfriend several times?"
Lisa lay her own head on her own pillow. "I don't know what you see in him. All right, I know exactly what you see in him, but I think you're mad."
"Toss a lifeline to your concussed ex. Did he break us up?"
Lisa shook her head sadly as she made him open his eyes and stick out his tongue. "You know, if multiple doctors hadn't assured Jack you'd be fine as long as someone kept an eye on you last night, he'd have banged you into hospital instead of calling me up to babysit. You start in with the amnesia, and he certainly will."
"That's not a no."
"How's your headache?"
"Sore."
"I'm taking you downstairs. Get dressed." He let himself be pulled up, and she didn't object to one more quick kiss before she booted him into the en suite to change into fresher clothes.
Downstairs, the UNIT briefing had just broken up. Terror, out of proportion to the reality, shook him. Had he slept through his second meeting? Jack would be furious. But Lisa stopped to talk with two people he vaguely recognised, dressed as civilians rather than military.
"Any word?" she asked.
The taller of the two men shrugged. "Same as always. UNIT on our arses, complaints and turtles all the way down." Unexpectedly, he socked Ianto on the shoulder. "Your end came out all right. Commendation. Flash bastards." He smiled as he said the words, though.
"Oh." Ianto wasn't sure quite what to say. His head was still groggy, as though this was a fuzzy dream. Perhaps he should get checked out. The bloke's name was Gareth, wasn't it? Another Torchwood London casualty standing alive in front of him, smoothing his own hair. Ianto didn't miss the wedding band.
Then another voice joined them. "Well, if you twats would work harder, you'd wind up with shiny commendations of your own, wouldn't you?"
Ianto's breath sucked out of him like he'd been punched. "Owen?" He tried to make sense of the crazy image in front of him. "But you're…." It seemed rude to point out Owen was supposed to be dead. "You're in a suit."
Owen glanced down at his well-made if rumpled three-piece suit. "Yeah? What about it? I always wear a suit when I have to coordinate with UNIT wankers." Without preamble, he dragged Ianto closer. "Open your eyes and follow my fingers."
He'd no doubt resisted making this gesture through the meeting, and Ianto humoured him.
"Vision blurry? Headache?"
"Head hurts, my vision's fine."
"You'll live. No booze for a week, no driving for a day, no sex for a month."
Lisa said, "You'll kill him."
"Why no sex?"
"No reason," Owen said. "Just wanted to see if you'd believe me. You have your doctor's permission to go back to the site. Tell Jack I'll be along after the afternoon session."
Lisa rolled her eyes, leading Ianto out towards sunlight and coffee. "He really has to learn how to behave in public. Can't you do anything with him?"
"Never could," said Ianto. Bemused, he let Lisa shove a styrofoam cup of not-great coffee into his hand before she put him in a cab with a kiss on the forehead and a reminder he needed to come back to check out because she wasn't taking his things home with her again after the last time.
The warehouse was a ruin. Police tape covered everything, but Jack was clearly in charge of the scene. Beside him, Gwen pored over some scanner while Martha and Tosh discussed something.
Jack saw him and a smile lit his face. "You should be convalescing."
"Owen says I'm fine. Which is pretty interesting as Owen was dead when I left. Jack?"
"What?"
"What changed?" Ianto knew before he asked that Jack would say what he always did, that the twenty-first century was where it all happened, and he'd use the maddening 'everything changes' because God forbid Captain Jack Harkness give a straight answer.
Jack looked around them both. Then he shrugged. "A lot?"
***
Not all of the warehouse had been demolished by the blast. "It's an old Torchwood London holding," Jack explained. "It can take a lot of damage." He led Ianto, with hard hat, through the remnant of the building.
Ianto tapped his torch on. Fallen racks of jars greeted his eyes, and souvenirs from what had to be dozens if not hundreds of alien encounters. Only, these weren't quite right. No floating heads, or stuffed specimens. The wall of badly-filed pamphlets he passed included, along with "Gerald's New Genitals," titles such as, "Our Friends, the Atraxi," and "Learn Basic Enterian in Three Days."
Jack said quietly, "If it's alien, it's interesting."
"Well, yes."
"No." Jack pointed to a small plaque on a shelf, with 'If it's alien, it's interesting' engraved in bronze. "It's the motto."
"Well. Obviously. I knew that."
"No, you didn't," Jack said, gently. "There are going to be a lot of things you don't know, but I'll help you through."
"You changed all of it," Ianto said, wondering at this friendly new Torchwood London. Had Glasgow and Cardiff gone soft as well, or had they gone their separate ways?
"No. Just a few things here and there. You left a mess. I helped put the pieces back in place." He found a corridor half blocked with a fallen and twisted shelf. They budged it together, hefting the thing out of the way. "With a little help."
He dug into his pocket for two very old pieces of paper that once were pamphlets: one about alien invasions, one about the history of this branch of Torchwood.
"You stole those."
"Borrowed. See, I'm giving them back now." He handed both to Ianto.
"You shouldn't have read them."
"Time Agent, remember? I only took what I needed to know, and they didn't say much." He frowned. "They said nothing about Emily and Alice, for one example. Anyway, I thought you might like to see something. I checked last night to see if this part of the warehouse had survived."
Ianto followed him, curious, as they went into an old storage room with paintings on the walls. He lurched back, not wanting to see the painting of Poopin standing on Strax. Jack shone his own torch. There was a photograph, sepia-tone and old, blown up to portrait size. Three figures stared at the camera.
Of course Strax had tried to look stern. Even Jenny's face was serious. But Madame Vastra smiled across the years, finally pleased with him after all this time. The plaque at the bottom of the photograph read:
"Torchwood London, Est. 1895. The Founders."
***
The End
***
Previous reel_torchwood fics:
Jack Harkness and the Chocolate Factory
The Extraterrestrial
The Day the Dragons Came (by Mica Davies, Age 7)
Just Because They Protect You Doesn't Mean They Like You