Fic: The Valentine's Day Massacre (6/6)
The Valentine's Day Massacre (6/6)
Words: 35,300 (4500 this part)
***
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
***
Chapter 6
***
They already had the best weapons out and readied by the time Albert got back from London. Ianto had spent his time carefully selecting each one for range and fire power, ensuring the mechanisms were clean and oiled or otherwise charged. This did not prevent Albert from rechecking each one whilst Ianto quietly fumed at the slight.
"I do know how to do this. It used to be my job."
"Still not interested in getting killed because you fucked up."
"Boys," said Jack from across the room. "Can it."
He and Gwen went over maps of the area Freda had indicated. "Industrial estate just off Clydesmuir Road. Lot of hiding places." She pulled up photographs in one window, and the rental agreement in the other. "There are a lot of homes there, too."
"Yeah," said Jack. "And Mopolite's already digging in." He pointed to the map. Ianto couldn't make out where he meant, and leant in for a better view. "We'll set up here."
"That's right out there in the open," Ianto said. "They can't miss us."
"That's the idea."
Gwen smiled at him and patted his arm. "Look at it this way. If it doesn't work, we'll be the first ones killed and we won't have to bother with the fallout."
Lois looked up from getting her kit together. "Everyone says you used to be the optimistic one."
Pol said, "Everyone lies, dear."
Rhys stayed out of the way in the corner, occasionally casting glances at Alice, who had her own rifle. "Am I going to get one of those?"
"No, love," Gwen said.
"But Alice does."
Alice rolled her eyes, then unslung her weapon, and shot off a round at the target down the corridor. Three shots, dead centre. "Alice knows how to use this," she said, slinging it again.
"Ah." Rhys chuckled, and nodded at Jack, but before he could say anything, Jack interrupted.
"And that's why your mother was the best weapons trainer I've ever met."
Steven said, "Cool! When are you going to show me how to do that?"
"Never," Ianto said, at the same time Jack said, "Next week," and Alice said, "Not until you're much older." She glared at her father. Steven deflated.
Pol clucked and said, "For the best. Guns make trouble." This didn't, Ianto noticed, stop her from stashing a gun in her handbag to match the one in her holster. "Are we ready?"
Lois said, "No," but no-one listened.
Gwen kissed Rhys on the cheek. "Stay here with Alice. Keep an eye on Anwen and Freda for me."
"Keep yourself safe," he said, hugging her. "This is a mad plan."
"But it's the only one we have." She spent a longer moment fussing over her sleepy daughter, kissing her hair and her face and making quiet promises to come home soon.
Albert led the way to the car whilst Alice and Rhys took the children, and Freda, into the locked rooms in the heart of the new Hub. Lois had triple-checked the electronic codes and made sure everyone knew them by heart. That didn't stop the worry Ianto felt as Steven passed out of his sight, nor the leaden weight in his heart as he heard the door slam and lock. He'd be fine. His mother would protect him. This was just for tonight.
Jack grabbed his arm, holding him back as the rest walked out. "I need a minute with you."
"If you only plan to take one minute, I'll pass, thanks."
Jack smirked. "You know me. I would happily take all night. But someone says he has to sleep."
"Someone does, and so do you. Your minute's half up." He watched Jack's face. "I'm coming with you on this no matter what, and half a minute won't convince me otherwise."
Jack's eyes softened. "I know. Look, when we're out there, if this goes sour, I want you behind me."
Ianto straightened up a bit. "I'm always behind you, Jack. You know that."
"I mean, I want you standing there. Don't get any bright ideas about running out and being a hero. And don't get in front of me because the last thing in the world I want is to accidentally shoot you again."
Jack squeezed his arm as Ianto unconsciously stepped away, pulse hammering. He hadn't known. He hadn't wanted to know. "I asked you not to tell me."
"I know." Jack met his eyes. "I needed you to know. I'm sorry. Please don't get shot again, and do not die again because I can't take it. All right?"
Still perplexed, Ianto nodded. He could forgive Jack anything. He knew that, and Jack knew it as well. His own memories of that mad day were still clear whatever the timeline currently said. He remembered the grey skies, and his heartbreak when Martha didn't know his face. He remembered his sudden insight, that one artefact on Earth that might defeat a perception filter, and his own desperate grab for Martha's TARDIS key, which had startled Mickey, Gwen, and Jack into action. He remembered the cold metal in his hand, and Jack's shout to the others, before he'd thrown the precious key to Steven, before the sound of the shot and the ice cold pain.
Jack could never have been the one, and Jack wouldn't lie to him to protect Mickey Smith.
With a cold rush, Ianto found that, for all he'd claimed that the details didn't matter to him, the knowledge filled him like a balloon, leaving him full when he hadn't understood he'd been empty for so long. He couldn't forgive her what he hadn't exactly forgotten. His old injury twinged and throbbed. Yet as the ache returned, he noticed the pain was lessened even from this morning. The last cut, made with care, excised the last bit of emotional shrapnel he'd been hoarding from that terrible day. If he survived the night, he'd heal cleanly.
"Yes, sir."
***
The streetlights glared sodium yellow on the last of the snow. Cold air bit into exposed skin. Jack worried, remembering too many winters past when friends' fingers went too numb to shoot. This wasn't France during the hellish winter of '17. These friends had thermal lining and warm beds to get back to, if they lived.
He looked over them, as they nervously checked their weapons one last time. Every team was his best team. He couldn't function if he spent his life mourning those he'd lost from each iteration of Torchwood. He'd never forget any of them, not Harriet or Gerald, not Charles or Greg, not Lucia or Meg, and not Toshiko or Owen. When these good people passed on to that place he couldn't follow, he'd remember them.
Sparing a glance for the man beside him, he hoped he wouldn't lose his mind the next time. Because there would be a next time. It could be tonight. It could be seventy years from now. Jack would lose another of the great loves of his life, and he would have to go on.
Ianto caught his eyes. "This had better work. If we get killed, I intend to haunt you this time."
"You won't be alone," Gwen said. "I've been practising my chain-rattling."
Pol tutted. "You promised not to tell us about what Rhys likes to do in your bedroom."
Albert rolled his eyes. Lois admitted she could be up for making spooky noises, then asked timorously, "Is it too late for me to point out I'm just the admin, and go home?"
"Admins get eaten by insane cannibal villagers, too."
"Once!" Jack said, turning on Ianto in exasperation. "You almost got eaten by insane cannibal villagers once."
Gwen said, "I got shot that trip, don't forget."
Albert said, "You may get another chance tonight, unless you packed your Kevlar knickers."
"You also promised not to tell us about your knickers."
Lois asked if she should order the team a set of incontinence pants for their next mission. Ianto suggested brands. Polly disagreed with most of his suggestions, and touted the medical-grade brand from the hospital. Gwen refused, citing the bad fit under her jeans. Albert stared at the butt of his gun as though he'd like to start beating himself to death with it.
Jack watched them fondly as they bickered over underwear instead of panicking. "Does anyone need a rousing speech? I've come up with a good one."
"No," came the chorus of voices.
"Right."
In the shadows of the buildings around them, forms moved and readied. Jack was almost sure this would be ground zero, where the two groups clashed. But what if they went for the safety of doors and walls, and attacked one another from the rooftops? Midnight fast approached them, with too many variables.
Albert said, "Boss, do not fuck this up. The rest of you, it's been a honour and I'll buy the first round in Hell."
The alarm Jack had set on his wrist strap beeped, a purposefully tinny alarm reminiscent of the worst clock he'd owned in the mid-80s. He held up his arm. The alarm beeped and echoed between the buildings, from the windows and the metal doors.
"Do you hear that?" Jack shouted, letting his voice follow the reflected beeps, casting audible footprints down the road. "That's the warning. Two minutes to midnight. Two minutes until the truce is over."
He stepped out, a little away from the band of warmth that was his team.
"You know who I am." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "You know who we are. Some of you think we burned down your warehouse and stole a ship. Some of you think we stormed into a garage this morning and murdered seven of your people."
"You did, you bastards!" came a shout from a doorway, with as thick a South Glamorgan accent as Jack had ever heard.
"I'm standing here telling you we didn't. We didn't kill those people. We didn't take your things." He took a breath, stinging cold air filling his lungs. "And you've been fighting, but I'm here to tell you, you didn't kill one another, either. The assassinations, the thefts, yeah, some of it's been you, but a lot of the escalation has come from a third party."
"Torchwood," said a voice from a different shadow. A different accent, East London.
"Okay, a fourth party. There's a group, they keep quiet but you may have heard of them. They're called Firestone Finance. They set you up, set us up. They want us all fighting so we'll do their dirty work for them, and kill one another. They want us dead, and they want to swoop in and pick up our toys." And we almost missed their play.
He touched the playback button on his arm. Miss Valentine's voice boomed through the estate:
"I don't care if Mopolite cuts all the Bugs down. I don't care if the Bugs eat him and his people alive. I would enjoy watching both groups take your fossil of a dead organisation with them. It doesn't matter who wins this stupid little war. I'll be there at the end with a bag and a long list of ready buyers for the weapons, the trinkets, and even the bodies. Whatever happens, I win."
He shut off the recording. A moment later, his strap beeped again. He let the sound go five times before silencing it. "That's midnight."
"What if we don't believe you?" asked a shadow. Behind that shadow, voices rumbled in languages Jack had barely heard of.
"Then you come out here and you tear each other apart. Your people will be slaughtered, and Miss Valentine wins the game."
"Maybe we will start with you." This voice was much closer. Not all the species here tonight were entirely corporeal. Wouldn't be the first time he'd had to deal with a temperamental gas bag.
"Maybe you will. You'll have to go through us to get to each other."
He stepped back, until the back of his coat felt the heat of the other five standing together. His team.
"And I guess, since this is my town, I get to make the first play."
He gave the hand signal. The six of them lowered their weapons and placed them on the ground in front of their feet, metal clicking sharply against the asphalt. Jack raised his hands above his head.
"Your call," he said. "Fight each other and die for nothing." He pressed play again:
"They aren't people. They are clever animals, and I want their pelts."
"Your choice," Jack said, and he waited.
The Boss Bug walked out of the shadows. It approached him, walking into the thin light of the sodium lamps. Jack watched the tip of the weapon point at his head, and idly identified the model. That would shear off the top of his skull, shattering bone and spilling brain. He could not read the Bug's face at all. Close by, he heard Pol clutch at her handbag.
The Bug set down its weapon. "If this is another trap, you will wish you could die, Captain."
"It's not."
"It could be," said Mopolite's cultured tones, as he strolled into the light. He shook his mandibles at them. "I could kill you both right now and have this dreadful nonsense sorted."
"You could," Jack said. He kept his hands up. "You could kill them. You could spend time until you got bored trying to kill me. But I'm unkillable, and they're Welsh, and neither of us will ever give up. You've lost before you begin. Make a deal. Prove you're smarter than Miss Valentine thinks you are." He grinned. "I happen to have her Cardiff and London offices," he said, reaching into a pocket and gingerly retrieving a small bit of paper. "You can register a complaint with her."
Mopolite reached out a hand for the addresses, which Jack pulled back. "Gwen would like to have an extra word with you later, by the way. She has a few concerns about some of your business interests." Jack felt Gwen's eyes on the back of his neck. He'd promised her but he wasn't sure he should press his luck tonight. Shut down the war today, and she could shut down his brothels and the drugs ring tomorrow. It'd give her a project, assuming Jack hadn't just killed the entire deal and all of them as well.
He held his breath.
Mopolite tilted his head. Then he set down his gun with exaggerated grace. "Give me the address. We will talk."
***
February 15th
***
Lois took Dr. Pol back to her own house, and offered to stay and help the last of the clean-up. Albert joined them unasked. "You should be safe now," she assured the doctor in the car, catching Albert's eye as she did. They might have to offer to stay on tonight, one of them anyway, until Pol was more secure in her home. Invaded once, frightened forever.
Albert said, "They're not coming back. Ever."
Pol sat back in her seat. "I know the first fellow won't. I'm not sure about his friend."
"I am." And nothing either of them asked of him ever yielded a more detailed answer than that.
They parked in front of the house. As they stepped out with Pol and her bag, Lois took note of their surroundings. The slushy snow on her front walk had been ploughed. The door, which had been broken in its frame by the invaders, now sat tidily closed. The wood clearly needed fresh paint over the repair, but paint wouldn't set in this cold.
Albert glanced at Lois and got his gun ready as they approached the house. The door opened in front of them before they could reach it, and a young man with untidy hair and a nervous smile peeked out. Albert almost shot him. Pol's hand shot out and grabbed his arm.
"Darren, hello," she said loudly. "What are you doing here?"
Darren grinned. "You're back!" He opened the door to let them inside. As they entered, Lois saw how their quick clean-up effort from the other day had been completed. The carpet was cleaned of glass and blood, and a new (ish, her eye said; this was second-hand with years of scratches in the old wood but lovingly polished) coffee table in the centre of the room. Even the dishes in the sink had been scrubbed and tidied away.
Darren fumbled with his hands. "We, um, that is, the other neighbours and I. Well, you were gone. And your house was a tip. So we fixed it up, me and Miss Suwali and Mrs. Pettidear and everyone." The nervous smile was back. "You're so good at taking care of everyone, they all said. They wanted to take care of you for a change."
Pol sat heavily on her settee. Then she stared up at Darren. "Thank you," she said, a choke deep in her throat.
"It's all right, isn't it?"
Lois said, "It was very kind of you."
"Only we were worried," Darren nattered on,"because Torchwood showed up, and we thought maybe they'd take you away." He looked at Lois and Albert. "You know, on account of her being an alien and all."
"What's Torchwood?" Lois chimed in on cue.
"You think I'm a what?"
Albert said nothing, but Lois watched a knife drop smoothly from the sheathe in his sleeve into his hand. He stepped, casually but squarely, between Pol and Darren.
Darren raised his hands. "It's all right. Everyone knows. Except Mrs. Pettidear, I think, but she's a bit daft." He smiled again. "It's Cardiff, you know." He nodded at Lois. "When you've been here a bit longer, you'll learn. It's all aliens and such. Most of them are all right, like Dr. Pol here. The ones that aren't, that's Torchwood's business. You'll see them around the city. I met them once. They're okay. Bit weird but they mean well."
Pol smiled weakly at him. "So I've heard. You really aren't frightened of me?"
"Nah. None of us are."
Lois saw the knife shift and push back into place.
"Anyway, come round when you can. We're all doing supper for you this week, no arguments." He nodded amiably at Lois and Albert. "Your friends can come along, too. Make it a real party."
Before either of them could decline, Pol said, "That'd be lovely."
***
"I don't have to drive you home," Gwen said, as Freda stepped into her car. "If you don't want to go, you could stay with us."
Freda's shoulders slumped even deeper into her jacket. "I have to sort out the funeral," she said in a small, tired voice. Resident aliens didn't go much for burials, choosing cremation and disguise unless they had a religious prohibition.
Gwen had nearly forgotten Slaus had died, so caught up she'd been with not dying herself. She was forgetting too much these days. She used to be the one who remembered birthdays, and anniversaries, and who was getting married. It seemed that every time she turned around, she'd lost another thought. She didn't want to lose this one.
Gwen said, "Hold on a moment." She dialled Rhys. "All right, we're putting off dinner."
Rhys sounded confused over the phone. "But it's Valentine's. You said we had to go out."
"We'll make it up another time."
He let out a breath. "I'm allowed to say it this time. Bloody Torchwood again?"
"Not this time. Love you. I'll be home later." She rang off. To Freda she said, "That's my day cleared. I'm taking you back, and I will help you with this. All right?"
Freda shrugged again. "Yeah. Thanks."
And when the funeral was over, Gwen thought as she drove, she'd talk with Freda and with Rhys. They had gone through three nannies already. Perhaps Freda would be up for the job. It would do her some good to move out of her sad little flat with the terrible memories and into a home where she'd be cared for, and where Gwen wouldn't ever forget her again.
Not a perfect solution. Torchwood never offered those.
***
Jack told the rest of the team not to come in for the whole weekend unless the west coast fell into the Irish Sea. They were all tired, and they'd done him proud, he said, but only where Ianto could hear. Jack had a terrible habit of not praising his people when they did well, which only served to make them try even harder to please him. Ianto was of course above all that, except when he wasn't.
They drove Alice and Steven as far as the train station. Jack would happily drive them the entire way, but Alice insisted the train was better.
"But it's the weekend," Steven said, without much hope. "I get to stay over weekends."
Alice squeezed him. "Their flat is a wreck, and we need to get home. I've got to get things sorted out. Besides, we need to pick up Dribble and bring her home before Mrs. Emerson kicks her out."
"Her name is Batman," he said with a grumpy glare.
Ianto said, "I believe that dog generally answers to 'Supper,' actually."
Steven gave him a quick, somewhat embarrassed hug. He was getting old for hugs, especially hugs with someone who wasn't his dad. But he wasn't too old just yet. "Be good," Ianto said. "We'll pick you up next weekend."
Alice didn't have a hug for her father, though she shook Ianto's hand warmly before boarding the train. "Call him tonight," she said. "He'll settle in better back home."
"I will."
Steven waved, and then they boarded, and he couldn't see where they walked or sat. Beside him, Jack watched the train load, and slowly pull away from the station.
"Some day, that woman is going to like me again."
"Doubtful. She is working her way back to loving you, if that's any consolation." Ianto took his hand, mindful that people would stare and not caring. "We should go home. We have a mess to clean up, and a long weekend ahead of us to do it in."
Jack grimaced at the prospect of cleaning. "Maybe the west coast will fall into the sea?"
"Don't be that way, Captain. You, me, a broom, and a large pot of coffee. It'll be like the old days."
Jack squeezed his hand. "Hey, it's the day after Valentine's, and we never did anything."
"Romance isn't really us. You're not going to convince me to skive off."
"Pity."
They walked to the observation platform, listening to the trains, and the bustle of people around them. He admitted to a bit of fascination with trains ever since Rhys had had that odd experience at Grangetown Station. Watching now, he knew Jack had walked these platforms, and their predecessors, for years. Ianto himself had been shot just over there. Hell of a thing.
Jack said, "They found a dead body on a train that left here a few days ago. Weird thing was, the guy had deteriorated in place and no-one noticed he was there until this morning when someone sat on him."
Ianto wrinkled his nose. "Alien?"
"Human."
"Not our department, then."
"I suppose not." Jack pulled him away from the observation platform and towards the car park. "I didn't say thank you for the coral."
"You didn't have to. We were occupied." Ianto got in, picking the driving seat without comment. He really wanted a car of his own again. "I thought you might like having it back."
"She's a bit of TARDIS. She broke apart on the shore here seventy years ago. I've grown her from a piece the size of a pea."
Ianto, reaching for the key, stopped dead. "You kept a TARDIS as a desk ornament?" So many questions asserted themselves at once. Jack's obsession with the Doctor, with escaping Earth properly, and his returning here over and again despite both, and how the TARDIS of his dreams hated the very touch of him, and what it meant to keep a bit of one alive, like a broken-off piece of spider plant stuck in a hopeful glass of water. Which had watched them have sex numerous times.
Carefully, he turned the key. The engine growled to life. "You're growing another one, then."
"I was. Then after everything that happened, and I found out what happened to me, I thought, the TARDIS made me this way. She didn't mean to pour the whole Vortex into me, or turn me into a fixed point. She never intended for me to outlive everyone I've ever loved." As Ianto pulled out into traffic and headed towards their home, Jack said, "And I thought, maybe if this one grows up, I can ask her to take it all back from me."
Or place the same curse on someone else, Ianto thought but kept off his own face. Jack might not ever be cured, but there was a chance, however small, that he wouldn't have to go through eternity alone.
"I never knew why you had it. Her," he corrected himself.
"Thank you for finding her."
"You're welcome."
"I didn't get you anything."
"Like I said, we don't really do romance."
"Maybe we should."
Ianto turned on the radio, searching for something he liked. Driver picked the music, passenger shut up and listened, that was the rule. He looked for Red Dragon, and remembered it didn't exist any longer, the station was Capital South Wales now. Although he wasn't certain, he thought the current presenter might be one of the Welsh aliens from last night. Everything changed, even the radio. Even Jack.
He turned the car suddenly.
"Where are we going?"
"I haven't decided."
"Okay. What are we going to do?"
Ianto kept driving as he considered places to go, things to see. They'd promised to visit Rhiannon, but that was Sunday, which was a million years away from tonight. They could take in dinner and a film, and relive their first date, with fewer arrests for public indecency this go. They could drive to the country and watch the stars, or see if that nice place down the coast where they stayed last year had any openings.
He turned the car. "We're going to Barry."
Jack snorted. "There's nothing romantic in Barry."
"Ah, you're wrong there. We're married in Barry." He chosen the ruse for the rhyme, and saw the quirk of Jack's lips as he took in the joke. "The flat is rented through the end of next month. Seems a shame to waste it. Tonight we can pretend we're newlyweds. Tomorrow, we need to clean."
Jack sat back, listening to the next song start on the radio. "I like it."
***
The End
***
Previous reel_torchwood fics:
Jack Harkness and the Chocolate Factory (Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory)
The Extraterrestrial (E.T.)
The Day the Dragons Came (Reign of Fire)
Just Because They Protect You Doesn't Mean They Like You (Clerks)
Back, and Back, and Back a Little More (Future Optional) (Back to the Future)
Words: 35,300 (4500 this part)
***
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
***
Chapter 6
***
They already had the best weapons out and readied by the time Albert got back from London. Ianto had spent his time carefully selecting each one for range and fire power, ensuring the mechanisms were clean and oiled or otherwise charged. This did not prevent Albert from rechecking each one whilst Ianto quietly fumed at the slight.
"I do know how to do this. It used to be my job."
"Still not interested in getting killed because you fucked up."
"Boys," said Jack from across the room. "Can it."
He and Gwen went over maps of the area Freda had indicated. "Industrial estate just off Clydesmuir Road. Lot of hiding places." She pulled up photographs in one window, and the rental agreement in the other. "There are a lot of homes there, too."
"Yeah," said Jack. "And Mopolite's already digging in." He pointed to the map. Ianto couldn't make out where he meant, and leant in for a better view. "We'll set up here."
"That's right out there in the open," Ianto said. "They can't miss us."
"That's the idea."
Gwen smiled at him and patted his arm. "Look at it this way. If it doesn't work, we'll be the first ones killed and we won't have to bother with the fallout."
Lois looked up from getting her kit together. "Everyone says you used to be the optimistic one."
Pol said, "Everyone lies, dear."
Rhys stayed out of the way in the corner, occasionally casting glances at Alice, who had her own rifle. "Am I going to get one of those?"
"No, love," Gwen said.
"But Alice does."
Alice rolled her eyes, then unslung her weapon, and shot off a round at the target down the corridor. Three shots, dead centre. "Alice knows how to use this," she said, slinging it again.
"Ah." Rhys chuckled, and nodded at Jack, but before he could say anything, Jack interrupted.
"And that's why your mother was the best weapons trainer I've ever met."
Steven said, "Cool! When are you going to show me how to do that?"
"Never," Ianto said, at the same time Jack said, "Next week," and Alice said, "Not until you're much older." She glared at her father. Steven deflated.
Pol clucked and said, "For the best. Guns make trouble." This didn't, Ianto noticed, stop her from stashing a gun in her handbag to match the one in her holster. "Are we ready?"
Lois said, "No," but no-one listened.
Gwen kissed Rhys on the cheek. "Stay here with Alice. Keep an eye on Anwen and Freda for me."
"Keep yourself safe," he said, hugging her. "This is a mad plan."
"But it's the only one we have." She spent a longer moment fussing over her sleepy daughter, kissing her hair and her face and making quiet promises to come home soon.
Albert led the way to the car whilst Alice and Rhys took the children, and Freda, into the locked rooms in the heart of the new Hub. Lois had triple-checked the electronic codes and made sure everyone knew them by heart. That didn't stop the worry Ianto felt as Steven passed out of his sight, nor the leaden weight in his heart as he heard the door slam and lock. He'd be fine. His mother would protect him. This was just for tonight.
Jack grabbed his arm, holding him back as the rest walked out. "I need a minute with you."
"If you only plan to take one minute, I'll pass, thanks."
Jack smirked. "You know me. I would happily take all night. But someone says he has to sleep."
"Someone does, and so do you. Your minute's half up." He watched Jack's face. "I'm coming with you on this no matter what, and half a minute won't convince me otherwise."
Jack's eyes softened. "I know. Look, when we're out there, if this goes sour, I want you behind me."
Ianto straightened up a bit. "I'm always behind you, Jack. You know that."
"I mean, I want you standing there. Don't get any bright ideas about running out and being a hero. And don't get in front of me because the last thing in the world I want is to accidentally shoot you again."
Jack squeezed his arm as Ianto unconsciously stepped away, pulse hammering. He hadn't known. He hadn't wanted to know. "I asked you not to tell me."
"I know." Jack met his eyes. "I needed you to know. I'm sorry. Please don't get shot again, and do not die again because I can't take it. All right?"
Still perplexed, Ianto nodded. He could forgive Jack anything. He knew that, and Jack knew it as well. His own memories of that mad day were still clear whatever the timeline currently said. He remembered the grey skies, and his heartbreak when Martha didn't know his face. He remembered his sudden insight, that one artefact on Earth that might defeat a perception filter, and his own desperate grab for Martha's TARDIS key, which had startled Mickey, Gwen, and Jack into action. He remembered the cold metal in his hand, and Jack's shout to the others, before he'd thrown the precious key to Steven, before the sound of the shot and the ice cold pain.
Jack could never have been the one, and Jack wouldn't lie to him to protect Mickey Smith.
With a cold rush, Ianto found that, for all he'd claimed that the details didn't matter to him, the knowledge filled him like a balloon, leaving him full when he hadn't understood he'd been empty for so long. He couldn't forgive her what he hadn't exactly forgotten. His old injury twinged and throbbed. Yet as the ache returned, he noticed the pain was lessened even from this morning. The last cut, made with care, excised the last bit of emotional shrapnel he'd been hoarding from that terrible day. If he survived the night, he'd heal cleanly.
"Yes, sir."
***
The streetlights glared sodium yellow on the last of the snow. Cold air bit into exposed skin. Jack worried, remembering too many winters past when friends' fingers went too numb to shoot. This wasn't France during the hellish winter of '17. These friends had thermal lining and warm beds to get back to, if they lived.
He looked over them, as they nervously checked their weapons one last time. Every team was his best team. He couldn't function if he spent his life mourning those he'd lost from each iteration of Torchwood. He'd never forget any of them, not Harriet or Gerald, not Charles or Greg, not Lucia or Meg, and not Toshiko or Owen. When these good people passed on to that place he couldn't follow, he'd remember them.
Sparing a glance for the man beside him, he hoped he wouldn't lose his mind the next time. Because there would be a next time. It could be tonight. It could be seventy years from now. Jack would lose another of the great loves of his life, and he would have to go on.
Ianto caught his eyes. "This had better work. If we get killed, I intend to haunt you this time."
"You won't be alone," Gwen said. "I've been practising my chain-rattling."
Pol tutted. "You promised not to tell us about what Rhys likes to do in your bedroom."
Albert rolled his eyes. Lois admitted she could be up for making spooky noises, then asked timorously, "Is it too late for me to point out I'm just the admin, and go home?"
"Admins get eaten by insane cannibal villagers, too."
"Once!" Jack said, turning on Ianto in exasperation. "You almost got eaten by insane cannibal villagers once."
Gwen said, "I got shot that trip, don't forget."
Albert said, "You may get another chance tonight, unless you packed your Kevlar knickers."
"You also promised not to tell us about your knickers."
Lois asked if she should order the team a set of incontinence pants for their next mission. Ianto suggested brands. Polly disagreed with most of his suggestions, and touted the medical-grade brand from the hospital. Gwen refused, citing the bad fit under her jeans. Albert stared at the butt of his gun as though he'd like to start beating himself to death with it.
Jack watched them fondly as they bickered over underwear instead of panicking. "Does anyone need a rousing speech? I've come up with a good one."
"No," came the chorus of voices.
"Right."
In the shadows of the buildings around them, forms moved and readied. Jack was almost sure this would be ground zero, where the two groups clashed. But what if they went for the safety of doors and walls, and attacked one another from the rooftops? Midnight fast approached them, with too many variables.
Albert said, "Boss, do not fuck this up. The rest of you, it's been a honour and I'll buy the first round in Hell."
The alarm Jack had set on his wrist strap beeped, a purposefully tinny alarm reminiscent of the worst clock he'd owned in the mid-80s. He held up his arm. The alarm beeped and echoed between the buildings, from the windows and the metal doors.
"Do you hear that?" Jack shouted, letting his voice follow the reflected beeps, casting audible footprints down the road. "That's the warning. Two minutes to midnight. Two minutes until the truce is over."
He stepped out, a little away from the band of warmth that was his team.
"You know who I am." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "You know who we are. Some of you think we burned down your warehouse and stole a ship. Some of you think we stormed into a garage this morning and murdered seven of your people."
"You did, you bastards!" came a shout from a doorway, with as thick a South Glamorgan accent as Jack had ever heard.
"I'm standing here telling you we didn't. We didn't kill those people. We didn't take your things." He took a breath, stinging cold air filling his lungs. "And you've been fighting, but I'm here to tell you, you didn't kill one another, either. The assassinations, the thefts, yeah, some of it's been you, but a lot of the escalation has come from a third party."
"Torchwood," said a voice from a different shadow. A different accent, East London.
"Okay, a fourth party. There's a group, they keep quiet but you may have heard of them. They're called Firestone Finance. They set you up, set us up. They want us all fighting so we'll do their dirty work for them, and kill one another. They want us dead, and they want to swoop in and pick up our toys." And we almost missed their play.
He touched the playback button on his arm. Miss Valentine's voice boomed through the estate:
"I don't care if Mopolite cuts all the Bugs down. I don't care if the Bugs eat him and his people alive. I would enjoy watching both groups take your fossil of a dead organisation with them. It doesn't matter who wins this stupid little war. I'll be there at the end with a bag and a long list of ready buyers for the weapons, the trinkets, and even the bodies. Whatever happens, I win."
He shut off the recording. A moment later, his strap beeped again. He let the sound go five times before silencing it. "That's midnight."
"What if we don't believe you?" asked a shadow. Behind that shadow, voices rumbled in languages Jack had barely heard of.
"Then you come out here and you tear each other apart. Your people will be slaughtered, and Miss Valentine wins the game."
"Maybe we will start with you." This voice was much closer. Not all the species here tonight were entirely corporeal. Wouldn't be the first time he'd had to deal with a temperamental gas bag.
"Maybe you will. You'll have to go through us to get to each other."
He stepped back, until the back of his coat felt the heat of the other five standing together. His team.
"And I guess, since this is my town, I get to make the first play."
He gave the hand signal. The six of them lowered their weapons and placed them on the ground in front of their feet, metal clicking sharply against the asphalt. Jack raised his hands above his head.
"Your call," he said. "Fight each other and die for nothing." He pressed play again:
"They aren't people. They are clever animals, and I want their pelts."
"Your choice," Jack said, and he waited.
The Boss Bug walked out of the shadows. It approached him, walking into the thin light of the sodium lamps. Jack watched the tip of the weapon point at his head, and idly identified the model. That would shear off the top of his skull, shattering bone and spilling brain. He could not read the Bug's face at all. Close by, he heard Pol clutch at her handbag.
The Bug set down its weapon. "If this is another trap, you will wish you could die, Captain."
"It's not."
"It could be," said Mopolite's cultured tones, as he strolled into the light. He shook his mandibles at them. "I could kill you both right now and have this dreadful nonsense sorted."
"You could," Jack said. He kept his hands up. "You could kill them. You could spend time until you got bored trying to kill me. But I'm unkillable, and they're Welsh, and neither of us will ever give up. You've lost before you begin. Make a deal. Prove you're smarter than Miss Valentine thinks you are." He grinned. "I happen to have her Cardiff and London offices," he said, reaching into a pocket and gingerly retrieving a small bit of paper. "You can register a complaint with her."
Mopolite reached out a hand for the addresses, which Jack pulled back. "Gwen would like to have an extra word with you later, by the way. She has a few concerns about some of your business interests." Jack felt Gwen's eyes on the back of his neck. He'd promised her but he wasn't sure he should press his luck tonight. Shut down the war today, and she could shut down his brothels and the drugs ring tomorrow. It'd give her a project, assuming Jack hadn't just killed the entire deal and all of them as well.
He held his breath.
Mopolite tilted his head. Then he set down his gun with exaggerated grace. "Give me the address. We will talk."
***
February 15th
***
Lois took Dr. Pol back to her own house, and offered to stay and help the last of the clean-up. Albert joined them unasked. "You should be safe now," she assured the doctor in the car, catching Albert's eye as she did. They might have to offer to stay on tonight, one of them anyway, until Pol was more secure in her home. Invaded once, frightened forever.
Albert said, "They're not coming back. Ever."
Pol sat back in her seat. "I know the first fellow won't. I'm not sure about his friend."
"I am." And nothing either of them asked of him ever yielded a more detailed answer than that.
They parked in front of the house. As they stepped out with Pol and her bag, Lois took note of their surroundings. The slushy snow on her front walk had been ploughed. The door, which had been broken in its frame by the invaders, now sat tidily closed. The wood clearly needed fresh paint over the repair, but paint wouldn't set in this cold.
Albert glanced at Lois and got his gun ready as they approached the house. The door opened in front of them before they could reach it, and a young man with untidy hair and a nervous smile peeked out. Albert almost shot him. Pol's hand shot out and grabbed his arm.
"Darren, hello," she said loudly. "What are you doing here?"
Darren grinned. "You're back!" He opened the door to let them inside. As they entered, Lois saw how their quick clean-up effort from the other day had been completed. The carpet was cleaned of glass and blood, and a new (ish, her eye said; this was second-hand with years of scratches in the old wood but lovingly polished) coffee table in the centre of the room. Even the dishes in the sink had been scrubbed and tidied away.
Darren fumbled with his hands. "We, um, that is, the other neighbours and I. Well, you were gone. And your house was a tip. So we fixed it up, me and Miss Suwali and Mrs. Pettidear and everyone." The nervous smile was back. "You're so good at taking care of everyone, they all said. They wanted to take care of you for a change."
Pol sat heavily on her settee. Then she stared up at Darren. "Thank you," she said, a choke deep in her throat.
"It's all right, isn't it?"
Lois said, "It was very kind of you."
"Only we were worried," Darren nattered on,"because Torchwood showed up, and we thought maybe they'd take you away." He looked at Lois and Albert. "You know, on account of her being an alien and all."
"What's Torchwood?" Lois chimed in on cue.
"You think I'm a what?"
Albert said nothing, but Lois watched a knife drop smoothly from the sheathe in his sleeve into his hand. He stepped, casually but squarely, between Pol and Darren.
Darren raised his hands. "It's all right. Everyone knows. Except Mrs. Pettidear, I think, but she's a bit daft." He smiled again. "It's Cardiff, you know." He nodded at Lois. "When you've been here a bit longer, you'll learn. It's all aliens and such. Most of them are all right, like Dr. Pol here. The ones that aren't, that's Torchwood's business. You'll see them around the city. I met them once. They're okay. Bit weird but they mean well."
Pol smiled weakly at him. "So I've heard. You really aren't frightened of me?"
"Nah. None of us are."
Lois saw the knife shift and push back into place.
"Anyway, come round when you can. We're all doing supper for you this week, no arguments." He nodded amiably at Lois and Albert. "Your friends can come along, too. Make it a real party."
Before either of them could decline, Pol said, "That'd be lovely."
***
"I don't have to drive you home," Gwen said, as Freda stepped into her car. "If you don't want to go, you could stay with us."
Freda's shoulders slumped even deeper into her jacket. "I have to sort out the funeral," she said in a small, tired voice. Resident aliens didn't go much for burials, choosing cremation and disguise unless they had a religious prohibition.
Gwen had nearly forgotten Slaus had died, so caught up she'd been with not dying herself. She was forgetting too much these days. She used to be the one who remembered birthdays, and anniversaries, and who was getting married. It seemed that every time she turned around, she'd lost another thought. She didn't want to lose this one.
Gwen said, "Hold on a moment." She dialled Rhys. "All right, we're putting off dinner."
Rhys sounded confused over the phone. "But it's Valentine's. You said we had to go out."
"We'll make it up another time."
He let out a breath. "I'm allowed to say it this time. Bloody Torchwood again?"
"Not this time. Love you. I'll be home later." She rang off. To Freda she said, "That's my day cleared. I'm taking you back, and I will help you with this. All right?"
Freda shrugged again. "Yeah. Thanks."
And when the funeral was over, Gwen thought as she drove, she'd talk with Freda and with Rhys. They had gone through three nannies already. Perhaps Freda would be up for the job. It would do her some good to move out of her sad little flat with the terrible memories and into a home where she'd be cared for, and where Gwen wouldn't ever forget her again.
Not a perfect solution. Torchwood never offered those.
***
Jack told the rest of the team not to come in for the whole weekend unless the west coast fell into the Irish Sea. They were all tired, and they'd done him proud, he said, but only where Ianto could hear. Jack had a terrible habit of not praising his people when they did well, which only served to make them try even harder to please him. Ianto was of course above all that, except when he wasn't.
They drove Alice and Steven as far as the train station. Jack would happily drive them the entire way, but Alice insisted the train was better.
"But it's the weekend," Steven said, without much hope. "I get to stay over weekends."
Alice squeezed him. "Their flat is a wreck, and we need to get home. I've got to get things sorted out. Besides, we need to pick up Dribble and bring her home before Mrs. Emerson kicks her out."
"Her name is Batman," he said with a grumpy glare.
Ianto said, "I believe that dog generally answers to 'Supper,' actually."
Steven gave him a quick, somewhat embarrassed hug. He was getting old for hugs, especially hugs with someone who wasn't his dad. But he wasn't too old just yet. "Be good," Ianto said. "We'll pick you up next weekend."
Alice didn't have a hug for her father, though she shook Ianto's hand warmly before boarding the train. "Call him tonight," she said. "He'll settle in better back home."
"I will."
Steven waved, and then they boarded, and he couldn't see where they walked or sat. Beside him, Jack watched the train load, and slowly pull away from the station.
"Some day, that woman is going to like me again."
"Doubtful. She is working her way back to loving you, if that's any consolation." Ianto took his hand, mindful that people would stare and not caring. "We should go home. We have a mess to clean up, and a long weekend ahead of us to do it in."
Jack grimaced at the prospect of cleaning. "Maybe the west coast will fall into the sea?"
"Don't be that way, Captain. You, me, a broom, and a large pot of coffee. It'll be like the old days."
Jack squeezed his hand. "Hey, it's the day after Valentine's, and we never did anything."
"Romance isn't really us. You're not going to convince me to skive off."
"Pity."
They walked to the observation platform, listening to the trains, and the bustle of people around them. He admitted to a bit of fascination with trains ever since Rhys had had that odd experience at Grangetown Station. Watching now, he knew Jack had walked these platforms, and their predecessors, for years. Ianto himself had been shot just over there. Hell of a thing.
Jack said, "They found a dead body on a train that left here a few days ago. Weird thing was, the guy had deteriorated in place and no-one noticed he was there until this morning when someone sat on him."
Ianto wrinkled his nose. "Alien?"
"Human."
"Not our department, then."
"I suppose not." Jack pulled him away from the observation platform and towards the car park. "I didn't say thank you for the coral."
"You didn't have to. We were occupied." Ianto got in, picking the driving seat without comment. He really wanted a car of his own again. "I thought you might like having it back."
"She's a bit of TARDIS. She broke apart on the shore here seventy years ago. I've grown her from a piece the size of a pea."
Ianto, reaching for the key, stopped dead. "You kept a TARDIS as a desk ornament?" So many questions asserted themselves at once. Jack's obsession with the Doctor, with escaping Earth properly, and his returning here over and again despite both, and how the TARDIS of his dreams hated the very touch of him, and what it meant to keep a bit of one alive, like a broken-off piece of spider plant stuck in a hopeful glass of water. Which had watched them have sex numerous times.
Carefully, he turned the key. The engine growled to life. "You're growing another one, then."
"I was. Then after everything that happened, and I found out what happened to me, I thought, the TARDIS made me this way. She didn't mean to pour the whole Vortex into me, or turn me into a fixed point. She never intended for me to outlive everyone I've ever loved." As Ianto pulled out into traffic and headed towards their home, Jack said, "And I thought, maybe if this one grows up, I can ask her to take it all back from me."
Or place the same curse on someone else, Ianto thought but kept off his own face. Jack might not ever be cured, but there was a chance, however small, that he wouldn't have to go through eternity alone.
"I never knew why you had it. Her," he corrected himself.
"Thank you for finding her."
"You're welcome."
"I didn't get you anything."
"Like I said, we don't really do romance."
"Maybe we should."
Ianto turned on the radio, searching for something he liked. Driver picked the music, passenger shut up and listened, that was the rule. He looked for Red Dragon, and remembered it didn't exist any longer, the station was Capital South Wales now. Although he wasn't certain, he thought the current presenter might be one of the Welsh aliens from last night. Everything changed, even the radio. Even Jack.
He turned the car suddenly.
"Where are we going?"
"I haven't decided."
"Okay. What are we going to do?"
Ianto kept driving as he considered places to go, things to see. They'd promised to visit Rhiannon, but that was Sunday, which was a million years away from tonight. They could take in dinner and a film, and relive their first date, with fewer arrests for public indecency this go. They could drive to the country and watch the stars, or see if that nice place down the coast where they stayed last year had any openings.
He turned the car. "We're going to Barry."
Jack snorted. "There's nothing romantic in Barry."
"Ah, you're wrong there. We're married in Barry." He chosen the ruse for the rhyme, and saw the quirk of Jack's lips as he took in the joke. "The flat is rented through the end of next month. Seems a shame to waste it. Tonight we can pretend we're newlyweds. Tomorrow, we need to clean."
Jack sat back, listening to the next song start on the radio. "I like it."
***
The End
***
Previous reel_torchwood fics:
Jack Harkness and the Chocolate Factory (Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory)
The Extraterrestrial (E.T.)
The Day the Dragons Came (Reign of Fire)
Just Because They Protect You Doesn't Mean They Like You (Clerks)
Back, and Back, and Back a Little More (Future Optional) (Back to the Future)