TW/DW Fic: Rescues (3/3)
Title: Rescues (3/3)
Author: nancybrown
Characters: Ianto, Steven, Jack, Gwen, various Who and TW characters, OCs
Pairings: canon pairings, Ianto/OMC, past Ianto/others
Rating: R
Words: 13,000 (4,700 this part)
Warnings: child endangerment, mentions of child abuse, emo as hell, wtfpresenttense
Spoilers: TW: CoE, DW: The Big Bang (written before series 6 premiered, mentions the gender of Gwen's baby)
Betas: fide_et_spe and humantales
Summary: Brought back by Amy but unable to return home, Ianto and Steven attempt to build a new life.
AN: Sequel to Strays. Familiarity with that story is not required to read this one. (That one was Ianto/Amy porn. This is what happens next.)
Part One
Part Two
***
Part Three
***
"Sharky!"
Sharky's primary head snaps up at the jovial voice. His secondary head is under his shirt today. Humans. Living among them is more bother than it's worth sometimes. He sees a human-looking being, though if half the stories are true, Harkness is no more human than Sharky is. "Captain. I thought we weren't due for an inspection for another two months."
"You know me, always interested in what's going on with you. I heard the Forbani are getting a foothold in Croydon." His bright eyes are sharp.
Sharky is good at not looking guilty. He'd be dead or handed over to the Judoon years ago if he were likely to wear his feelings on his primary face. His secondary one is free to be worried. "I talked to them about the butcher's shop. No more eating humans, not even on feast days."
"I want them shut down if they do. We understand each other? The last thing anyone needs is UNIT stomping around the place. You've got nice, hard-working people, keeping their heads down. Good salt-of-the-home-planet types. Don't make things bad for them. Deal with the butcher. I'm asking nicely."
"Yes, Captain."
It's an arrangement, not perfect. Sharky's not the only fish in this sea, but he's got tentacles (literal and figurative) in every area of extraterrestrial immigration to Great Britain. Want a new start on this backwater planet, without showing your neck to the Shadow Proclamation or getting shot by one of the big anti-alien groups? For a modest sum, available on a loaned basis ("interest" is a concept Sharky and his fellow greasers-of-the-rails-of-life have gladly embraced since arriving in London), you can have paperwork under the name Bob Smith, the locations of others of your kind so you can join them or avoid them, and protection from some of the hazards of city life, like being eaten by your blood enemy.
Way back when, Torchwood London was a thorn in the sides of the local aliens, always raiding their nests and shipping people off-world. Sharky still gets cold sweats remembering the detentions and dissections. Torchwood Cardiff wants regular reports, self-enforced rules, and an annual census, with a threat to return to the old way of running things if the new system breaks down. It's an improvement, medicine instead of poison, though it still tastes bad.
"I need you to put out the word. I'm looking for these two humans." He shows Sharky a photograph. "The adult could be familiar with our procedures and may come to an unofficial guy like you for new identification. Find out who he used, find out where he is."
Sharky takes a long, hard look. "Lloyd Fellowes. I don't know his old name. He came to me a few months ago. Just paid me back the rest of his loan." The man had acted as though he knew Sharky, but one of Sharky's talents is never forgetting a face. Except … He felt sick after seeing the guy, needing a break, and Sharky never rests on the job. His secondary head had a headache. At the time, he figured the man was from some psychic species that could pass for human.
"Where is he now?" The Captain's expression doesn't change, but there's something about him that scares Sharky.
"What's he done? I don't want my people getting into trouble."
"Let me worry about that."
Sharky pulls up the current address he has for Fellowes. There's a note attached to the file. "They're moving overseas. No forwarding address. You might still catch them if you go now." He doesn't have to know where they're going once they're out of his territory. Let the Area 51 clods deal with them.
The Captain takes the information. "If other humans come to your door, I want names. Got it?"
"I got it."
Oh yes, he's got plenty, he thinks, watching the Captain flounce out. Sharky's got the contact numbers for some of the less-official members of the alien-hunting and alien-abetting culture. He doesn't do all the work himself when it comes to wrangling the locals while avoiding scrutiny from the government. Lloyd Fellowes just bought himself extra trouble.
There's no thanks from the Captain, but the annual review gets pushed back three months, giving Sharky time to explain things to the Forbani, using smaller words this time. Soylent Green is off the menu.
***
Jack bluffs his way past the police tape and into the flat. There's been no physical crime, though the forensics team is examining the two small beds and the ratty sofa for DNA traces. The real investigators are the computer experts. They hunch over the second-hand laptop for evidence of a complex cyber-theft with Toshiko's fingerprints all over it.
The pair were here less than a day ago. There aren't any photographs, but Jack sits down on the bed that could be Steven's, looking at the books and the few toys. The room that could be Ianto's has nothing personal in it, and Jack can't trust himself even to recognise the scent on the cheap sheets, but the bathroom holds the same toothpaste and shampoo brands he used to see every morning, and the cups and plates in the kitchen are lined up neatly as soldiers.
"You were right," says the tech working on the laptop. Jack stares at him, confused until he remembers his story that the suspect was attempting to hack into Torchwood files.
"Show me." He walks up behind the technician, and views the recovery, his stomach a hard stone. The crack had been rerouted through false ISPs, but an attempt had been made to log in to Mainframe's newly-rebuilt system using credentials which Jack had personally de-authorised.
He scans the rest of the information they find in the recent history. Airline tickets. Flowers. A red toy dragon. Breadcrumbs leading Jack back to the same place, the impossible place. If the person who did all these things isn't Ianto, he's made an extraordinary effort to pretend.
Jack calls Gwen with numb fingers.
"If they can't leave the country," she says sensibly, "where would they go?"
***
Think. Think. The police have the computer, which means they have all the purchases. They'll know about the trip. Ianto drops the tickets into a bin, and with a twinge, he also drops their now useless passports. Lloyd and Christopher no longer exist. He won't miss them.
Tonight there's a meeting for Amy's Friends. Did he ever contact any of them via email? Did he ever visit a website? Terror clouds his thoughts, and he's holding Steven's hand too tightly. No. They can go to the church hall, have tea and biscuits and time to plan. He can ask Anne to watch Steven, because the police only want Ianto. But if he does, he'll never see the boy again. Ianto will vanish, or be taken into custody, and Steven will be in the care of someone else.
"I'm running out of ideas," he confesses over dinner at a restaurant far from their most recently-vacated home. "We have some money. We can probably cross into Ireland. I can find us new identities, and we can try to go to America. Or Australia. You can have a pet kangaroo."
Steven smiles, but it's wan, distant. He's stopped believing. "Okay."
Ianto shrivels a little more inside. Bad enough he has completely ruined his own chance at a new life -- twice! -- but he's dragging this child down with him. Steven will be better off with Anne, with anyone. Send him back to the Foundation, send him back to Amy, send him into care, he'll still have a chance.
Sitting back in the booth, Ianto orders more coffee for himself, some ice cream for Steven, wonders how to say, "I know I promised I would never leave you, but right now, you'd be better off raised by wild dogs than by me."
Unable to look at the boy any more, he shuts his eyes. He thinks about Lisa, and about wishes. If this is a fairy tale, he gets three, and he's spent them all long ago: wishing not to die at Canary Wharf, wishing to find Lisa amongst all the rubble and screams, wishing for a reason to live again when everything went wrong. Since returning to this shell of an existence, he's wished for a purpose, and found himself with a child he's terrible at raising, wished idly for a lover, and found wet Richard.
He ought to leave the wishing to the fairy tale princess. She's better at this than he is.
"Tell me," he says at last. "Tell me what you want. Tell me where you want to go, what you want to do. I'm no good at this. I can run and hide, but you should have a home. I'll gladly go to prison if it means you have a roof over your head, and someone to read you stories at night." He knows it's true as he says the words. Steven was a duty, and a link to Jack, but Ianto has spent months convincing the world this boy is his son, and while he doesn't know how that ought to feel, not really, he knows that if he has to cut off his own arm to protect Steven, he'll do it.
He wonders if Amy had any inkling, when she first suggested they leave together.
"I want to go home." His voice is thick from ice cream, thick from trying not to cry. He's died, he's lost his home, he's had to run for his life and walk across half the country alone. (Possibly not alone. He refuses to talk about his journey to find Amy, and he has a lot of nightmares.) All this, and he is just a little boy of not quite eleven years.
Ianto wishes he could do better by Steven, wishes for him to be happy again instead of despondent, wishes more than anything for him to be safe and home and loved.
"All right," Ianto says, leaving some notes on the table for the meal and taking Steven's hand. "All right. We'll go home."
***
There's a new face at the meeting tonight. Sally smiles, and shakes his hand. "I'm Anne. Welcome to Amy's Friends."
The man is thin, and young. He scans the faces in the small crowd, but seems not to find what he's looking for. "Albert," he says. "The Mr Copper Foundation sent me. You're some of the strays they've helped into new lives, yes?"
Sally frowns. "Why are you here?"
"I'm looking for a man and a little boy, but I don't see them."
She laughs bitterly. "That's not unusual."
"It may be. What did your name used to be, Anne? I may be able to help you as well."
***
The train goes to Bath, Bristol, and Cardiff. They get off at the first stop. Steven wants to see his mother again one more time, and Ianto can't blame him. They'll visit her, and they will go to visit Rhiannon, and then they will leave this place behind them. Steven picks flowers from gardens they pass as they walk; what's another theft among all those they've committed so far?
He's crying by the time they reach his house, and Ianto brings him into a hug, lets him sob on his collar. Steven is trembling. The last time he was here, his mother screamed at him to leave.
"It's going to be all right. I'm here. I'll always be here."
Steven wipes his nose and rings the bell. There's no answer.
She's not home.
"We can wait," says Ianto. From a few doors down, one of the neighbours looks out, unknowing. It's a dark magic, Ianto thinks, and the fairy tale version of events is the true one after all.
Alice walks up the pavement. It has to be Alice. Something about the set of her face reminds him so strongly of Jack that his own heart is cracking again. "Sorry, can I help you?" She's brittle, specifically not looking at Steven. Maybe it's her perception of him, perhaps she simply doesn't like looking at children anymore. Ianto's thoughts stutter and stumble on an idea just out of reach.
Steven lets go of Ianto's hand. He's going to call her Mum. She's going to start screaming.
He says, "These are for you." He gives Alice the flowers, bent and wilted. She stares at him.
"Thank you."
He smiles. "Come on, Dad. We have to go."
Alice nods at Ianto, and then frowns, like she's trying to remember something. "Why did you give me flowers?" she asks Steven, again not quite looking at him. The idea turns over in Ianto's mind, like a tumbler in a lock.
"Do you know what a perception filter is?" he asks her suddenly. "Did Jack ever take you on the invisible lift?"
Her face is blank now, with a twitch at her father's name. "Get out."
"It was the TARDIS. Amy brought us back because of the TARDIS, but she said the crack wiped memories. I think whatever happened, they must have combined. That's why you can't see us for who we are, no-one with a memory of us can. We've got a perception filter on us. Alice, this is your son." It's the answer, it has to be, the crazy words spilling out into truth.
She backs away from them. "Get out of here, both of you. My son is dead. I watched him die. I'll call the police."
If the police come, he will lose even this. "Alice … "
"Mum, please."
"Go!" She's shouting again, crying, and he wants to help her. How long did she scream at Steven before he ran off in tears last time?
"If you see Jack, tell him." He takes Steven's shoulder and they hurry off while Alice breaks down into sobs, bent over on her front step.
***
The ticket agent recognises the photograph. Jack doesn't have time to pick up Albert before he is racing the train to Cardiff. A man and a little boy. Jack won't know them, can't know them, but surely he can narrow it down. This has to work.
He practically jumps out of his car when he reaches the train station. Gwen's already there, but it won't help, she can't see them, either.
They're not the first to arrive.
***
Ianto has spent the train ride considering what to do. Knowing what's happened does not give him answers on how to fix their situation. He'll send Amy a letter when he and Steven are settled. Perhaps she'll have an idea. Perhaps, he muses sadly, she already knows and nothing can be done. They are ghosts, shadows, forever banished from the lives they once led.
Cardiff sinks into him like a lead weight, dragging his spirits down as they pull into the familiar station. He's escaped before, and he gets yanked back, but this is the last time. One more goodbye for his sister, one more moment at the ruins of the quay, and he will leave everything behind for another shore.
Before they can disembark, two people get on the train at the far end of the carriage. It's strange to be in a position where he recognises someone, but they don't know him. Ianto can't see their guns, but he can tell from the way they walk that they're armed.
He bends over Steven. "We need to separate." Steven shrinks, and Ianto touches his shoulder. "It's all right. There's a ticket counter. Wait there for me. I'll come for you. Go on."
Steven is frightened, but he gets up from his seat and takes the backpack with him, half their funds carefully hidden inside. He walks right past the pair with the guns. The woman gives him a bit of a smile, but it's distant, like she smiles at children every time she sees them. She probably does. Ianto waits for him to exit the carriage before he makes a small show of getting his own bag.
His heart is in his throat. But Martha knew him, and her new husband met him briefly, and they'll have a hole in their memories where Ianto used to be. Convincing them otherwise will be as impossible as convincing Alice. He'll walk by them unnoticed, and never see either one again.
As he stands to go around them, nodding pleasantly, there's a firm hand on his arm. "Lloyd Fellowes?"
He only freezes for a moment, but the moment is long enough. "Sorry, no," he says, as the hand clamps down.
Martha's smile is gone. He remembers her smiles, her coy questions and the way she quietly filled the spaces in the Hub. He wants her to remember him. Her stare is hazy, like she's trying to punch through fog as she says, "Sharky would like to have a word with you."
Sharky? "I paid my loan back. He's nothing to do with me now."
Mickey's voice is quieter. "He says you've caused trouble for the local immigrant population."
"I'm not an alien. Check my DNA." God, would that work? "Please, Martha. Check my DNA."
Mickey looks over to her. "Sharky said he was psychic. Got the dampeners?"
Martha is already digging through the pack on her hip, pulling out a pair of small earbuds which she and her husband slip on without ever letting Ianto loose. He could still break away. He doesn't want to hurt either one, though, and he really doesn't want to be shot. And Steven will be waiting at the ticket counter.
He lets them lead him away. There's more room to manoeuvre outside, and he might be able to make an escape among the bustle of other travellers. They won't want to cause a scene.
Martha closes her pack with a loud snap.
***
There are people everywhere at the station at this time of day, and Gwen has no idea where or how to look. This is Jack's mad quest, brought on by Albert's silly notion, but she can't refuse Jack and never could. Ianto is dead. Steven is dead. She has been to both graves, watched her friend's coffin be lowered into the ground, she has mourned, and she has moved on, and if this is what it takes for Jack to finally do the same, she'll help him.
This is the third train from London today. They may not have come here. They may have gone somewhere else entirely, or walked right past her.
Jack said the Mr Copper Foundation has hundreds of names, but that can't be right. There can't be that many people returned from the dead with no-one to see them. She would have known. Surely they would have known. She can't allow herself to think coincidences make up a pattern. Many people share a birthday with Rhiannon Davies, and there's no reason to think Nathan Goodwin is the same man who tried to hack into Mainframe, and even if he is, too many people try and fail to do that all the time.
But Jack is starting to believe with a childlike faith. After all they've been through, it's enough to break her heart.
A little boy is standing at the ticket counter alone. He looks nothing like the blond child in Alice's photographs. Gwen finds herself wanting to look away from him, wanting to pass on.
There's a train emitting the last of her passengers, and unexpectedly, Martha and Mickey are leading someone out in that way they've developed. Don't frighten the civilians, no dangerous alien to see here. She feels the familiar smile slide over her face and the child slips out of her mind like grains of sand.
As she approaches them, she sees Jack coming from the far end of the platform. She shakes her head so he can see: no luck. His shoulders fall. She wishes he had never let himself hope.
At least Martha is here. He's happier when she's near, for all the bad memories they share.
"Do you two need any help? Haven't seen you in town for a while."
"Thanks, no," says Martha. "Just doing a quick retrieval."
"Better stay back," Mickey says. "This one's psychic. He's been pulling thoughts from our heads."
Gwen's eyes pass over the man in their custody. He's plain, and so unremarkable she almost hesitates, because she's had training on this, she knows how to get a description. He's watching her, but he's not speaking nor moving a muscle, and her gaze passes off him again. She's getting a headache. This day, this whole mad hunt, it's all been too long. She turns away. There's a child standing at the ticket counter, watching them.
She frowns again.
***
Later, Martha will remember the day in still-shots of sepiatone.
Cardiff is grey, threatening more rain. She's getting a headache from the barometric pressure that she can feel in her sinuses. One click, and she's turning her head to Mickey, watching him restrain their catch, but carefully. Some aliens look and act too human, and they've been caught out before.
Another click, and Gwen is there, although neither of them called ahead. Martha is full of memories now, from her brief, mad time in Cardiff when their friends were still alive, or in Owen's case, not entirely dead. Grief wells hard inside of her, too much sorrow from too many events the world doesn't know about, or can't remember, or wants to forget, and they few, they absolutely miserable few, they carry those memories because someone should.
Jack is suddenly at the end of the platform, walking towards them, and he's a pile of memories she wants to forget but can't. Each step closer, and it's another reel from her life: Utopia, Japan, Switzerland, and he carries even more lost dreams than she does.
Click. The prisoner says, "Sorry," and he twists out of Mickey's grip and punches him. Mickey ducks and catches the blow on his shoulder instead, but the man is free. They're armed, he won't get far. As if he knows this, he comes for Martha.
Gwen's gun is out. Mickey's is out a moment later. In the closing gap, she can hear the click-snap of the safety on Jack's antique. She's safer than the prisoner can ever know, and she's calm to his fluster.
Click, and she's bringing her own arms into a sledge, keeping him from her gun. Click, and he's already snapped the quick-release on her pouch and he is falling to a crouch before the moment of hesitation ends for the others now that he's no longer a threat to Martha.
Click, and he's pushed off with his feet from the ground, hands scrabbling in her pouch. She doesn't keep much in there, no weapons, just some basic items that come in handy in her new line of work. The pouch on the other side is her first aid kit, and for half a click, she pictures him digging for plasters.
Click, there's the glint of light from no light source, shining on a key. Martha's heart skips; it's the only thing in her pouch worth taking, and if this alien knows it, he's a much larger threat then she anticipated.
He wads up the string and throws it. The next click is the retort of one of their guns, no telling which one, and a bloom of blood. The throw lands by a little boy, who is watching them, frightened. He picks up the key. Click. Martha goes to him, while Mickey and Gwen are subduing the prisoner again. Jack has broken into a run, his boots making sharp noises on the platform.
"Wait!" Jack's shout echoes through the silent film. Click.
Martha is almost there, and the child looks at the string she uses as a necklace when she needs not to be seen. "That's mine," she says, as gently as she can. Before she can take it back, the boy slips it over his head. She curses, expecting him to disappear.
Instead, he changes, strangely, subtly. Features she hadn't noticed come into sharp view. It's the same boy, and it isn't.
Click.
Jack is beside her, beside the child, holding him and weeping. He tells Martha, "Go. Help him," and he's nodding at the bleeding figure on the platform. She thinks Jack means for her to help Mickey, because they've drawn a lot of attention now, but Jack is digging into his own pocket. He pulls out a key that matches hers, and presses it into her hand as he holds the child.
This whole day has been like mist, but whatever Jack's looking at, he sees clearly now, and even as he patters kisses into the boy's blond hair, his eyes are focused on the prisoner.
Martha goes back to them, back to her husband and her friend and the man bleeding out, and she slips the chain over his neck.
Click.
***
Epilogue
***
Technically, Martha lost her registration a year ago, due to that unfortunate run-in with the Judoon. The medicine she practises is off-the-cuff, strictly first aid and emergency treatment only. The lack of paperwork doesn't mean she's not still good at it. Ianto's alive when they reach the hospital, and they all wait outside during his surgery, unable to go in, to ask.
Jack spends the time on the phone with Alice. There's lots of shouting. There are some tears. Steven is still wearing Martha's key, one perception filter cancelling out the other like a red glass over a hidden message that was in plain sight all the time. He talks to his mum. There are more tears. Jack never, ever takes a hand off Steven, his shoulder, his hand, his arm, like he doesn't want to let go, and there isn't one person in the room to blame him.
These slow hours are like living inside glass, inside a crystal diorama of a life: here they are forever, frozen in their worry, unravelling explanations that don't make sense to anyone who hasn't seen the end of the universe, clinging to bodies, hands, friends. Waiting.
The crystal cracks with a new sound like a bell, the ring of Martha's mobile phone.
The voice on the other end is new, and young, and she still loves him and always will, as he says, "Amy tells me there's been a small problem?"
***
His eyes peep open, but there's too much light. He closes them again.
"Hey, no sleeping on the job," he hears in a stern tone, and his eyes open again. Jack is there, looking at him. Seeing him. Smiling, with worry gracing his features, and then Ianto has his own worries back.
A dry, dusty throat strangles him as he grinds out, "Where's - " and Steven is piling into his side, the uninjured side where he wasn't shot but does have an IV line, and it doesn't matter. Steven's all right, the TARDIS key safely around his neck. Ianto's hand comes up, painfully, to his own neck. He feels another key.
Jack sits down beside him, holding his hand. Around him, Ianto can see things more clearly now. Flowers cover every flat surface. As he heals, more will arrive and he will read the cards over and over until they are dog-eared in his hands. He will keep the cards for as long as he lives, these small reminders with his real name written down in ink: from Gwen, from Martha and Mickey, from Amy and her husband, from Richard, even from Sally (she has taken her old name back, it suits her best, Ianto thinks) and the others from Amy's Friends. There's an enormous bouquet from Alice. Well-wishes and good thoughts, and gratitude from those who are getting a visit from the man in the blue box, Ianto will treasure each one. This is the last legacy of the crack, the last gift of the TARDIS explosion. Amy dreamed the universe back, and now there are a thousand homecomings waiting to happen.
Ianto hugs Steven close to him, and his smile matches the one he sees on Jack's face.
Nine-hundred ninety-eight to go.
***
The End
***
Sequel (dammit): Ferals
Author: nancybrown
Characters: Ianto, Steven, Jack, Gwen, various Who and TW characters, OCs
Pairings: canon pairings, Ianto/OMC, past Ianto/others
Rating: R
Words: 13,000 (4,700 this part)
Warnings: child endangerment, mentions of child abuse, emo as hell, wtfpresenttense
Spoilers: TW: CoE, DW: The Big Bang (written before series 6 premiered, mentions the gender of Gwen's baby)
Betas: fide_et_spe and humantales
Summary: Brought back by Amy but unable to return home, Ianto and Steven attempt to build a new life.
AN: Sequel to Strays. Familiarity with that story is not required to read this one. (That one was Ianto/Amy porn. This is what happens next.)
Part One
Part Two
***
Part Three
***
"Sharky!"
Sharky's primary head snaps up at the jovial voice. His secondary head is under his shirt today. Humans. Living among them is more bother than it's worth sometimes. He sees a human-looking being, though if half the stories are true, Harkness is no more human than Sharky is. "Captain. I thought we weren't due for an inspection for another two months."
"You know me, always interested in what's going on with you. I heard the Forbani are getting a foothold in Croydon." His bright eyes are sharp.
Sharky is good at not looking guilty. He'd be dead or handed over to the Judoon years ago if he were likely to wear his feelings on his primary face. His secondary one is free to be worried. "I talked to them about the butcher's shop. No more eating humans, not even on feast days."
"I want them shut down if they do. We understand each other? The last thing anyone needs is UNIT stomping around the place. You've got nice, hard-working people, keeping their heads down. Good salt-of-the-home-planet types. Don't make things bad for them. Deal with the butcher. I'm asking nicely."
"Yes, Captain."
It's an arrangement, not perfect. Sharky's not the only fish in this sea, but he's got tentacles (literal and figurative) in every area of extraterrestrial immigration to Great Britain. Want a new start on this backwater planet, without showing your neck to the Shadow Proclamation or getting shot by one of the big anti-alien groups? For a modest sum, available on a loaned basis ("interest" is a concept Sharky and his fellow greasers-of-the-rails-of-life have gladly embraced since arriving in London), you can have paperwork under the name Bob Smith, the locations of others of your kind so you can join them or avoid them, and protection from some of the hazards of city life, like being eaten by your blood enemy.
Way back when, Torchwood London was a thorn in the sides of the local aliens, always raiding their nests and shipping people off-world. Sharky still gets cold sweats remembering the detentions and dissections. Torchwood Cardiff wants regular reports, self-enforced rules, and an annual census, with a threat to return to the old way of running things if the new system breaks down. It's an improvement, medicine instead of poison, though it still tastes bad.
"I need you to put out the word. I'm looking for these two humans." He shows Sharky a photograph. "The adult could be familiar with our procedures and may come to an unofficial guy like you for new identification. Find out who he used, find out where he is."
Sharky takes a long, hard look. "Lloyd Fellowes. I don't know his old name. He came to me a few months ago. Just paid me back the rest of his loan." The man had acted as though he knew Sharky, but one of Sharky's talents is never forgetting a face. Except … He felt sick after seeing the guy, needing a break, and Sharky never rests on the job. His secondary head had a headache. At the time, he figured the man was from some psychic species that could pass for human.
"Where is he now?" The Captain's expression doesn't change, but there's something about him that scares Sharky.
"What's he done? I don't want my people getting into trouble."
"Let me worry about that."
Sharky pulls up the current address he has for Fellowes. There's a note attached to the file. "They're moving overseas. No forwarding address. You might still catch them if you go now." He doesn't have to know where they're going once they're out of his territory. Let the Area 51 clods deal with them.
The Captain takes the information. "If other humans come to your door, I want names. Got it?"
"I got it."
Oh yes, he's got plenty, he thinks, watching the Captain flounce out. Sharky's got the contact numbers for some of the less-official members of the alien-hunting and alien-abetting culture. He doesn't do all the work himself when it comes to wrangling the locals while avoiding scrutiny from the government. Lloyd Fellowes just bought himself extra trouble.
There's no thanks from the Captain, but the annual review gets pushed back three months, giving Sharky time to explain things to the Forbani, using smaller words this time. Soylent Green is off the menu.
***
Jack bluffs his way past the police tape and into the flat. There's been no physical crime, though the forensics team is examining the two small beds and the ratty sofa for DNA traces. The real investigators are the computer experts. They hunch over the second-hand laptop for evidence of a complex cyber-theft with Toshiko's fingerprints all over it.
The pair were here less than a day ago. There aren't any photographs, but Jack sits down on the bed that could be Steven's, looking at the books and the few toys. The room that could be Ianto's has nothing personal in it, and Jack can't trust himself even to recognise the scent on the cheap sheets, but the bathroom holds the same toothpaste and shampoo brands he used to see every morning, and the cups and plates in the kitchen are lined up neatly as soldiers.
"You were right," says the tech working on the laptop. Jack stares at him, confused until he remembers his story that the suspect was attempting to hack into Torchwood files.
"Show me." He walks up behind the technician, and views the recovery, his stomach a hard stone. The crack had been rerouted through false ISPs, but an attempt had been made to log in to Mainframe's newly-rebuilt system using credentials which Jack had personally de-authorised.
He scans the rest of the information they find in the recent history. Airline tickets. Flowers. A red toy dragon. Breadcrumbs leading Jack back to the same place, the impossible place. If the person who did all these things isn't Ianto, he's made an extraordinary effort to pretend.
Jack calls Gwen with numb fingers.
"If they can't leave the country," she says sensibly, "where would they go?"
***
Think. Think. The police have the computer, which means they have all the purchases. They'll know about the trip. Ianto drops the tickets into a bin, and with a twinge, he also drops their now useless passports. Lloyd and Christopher no longer exist. He won't miss them.
Tonight there's a meeting for Amy's Friends. Did he ever contact any of them via email? Did he ever visit a website? Terror clouds his thoughts, and he's holding Steven's hand too tightly. No. They can go to the church hall, have tea and biscuits and time to plan. He can ask Anne to watch Steven, because the police only want Ianto. But if he does, he'll never see the boy again. Ianto will vanish, or be taken into custody, and Steven will be in the care of someone else.
"I'm running out of ideas," he confesses over dinner at a restaurant far from their most recently-vacated home. "We have some money. We can probably cross into Ireland. I can find us new identities, and we can try to go to America. Or Australia. You can have a pet kangaroo."
Steven smiles, but it's wan, distant. He's stopped believing. "Okay."
Ianto shrivels a little more inside. Bad enough he has completely ruined his own chance at a new life -- twice! -- but he's dragging this child down with him. Steven will be better off with Anne, with anyone. Send him back to the Foundation, send him back to Amy, send him into care, he'll still have a chance.
Sitting back in the booth, Ianto orders more coffee for himself, some ice cream for Steven, wonders how to say, "I know I promised I would never leave you, but right now, you'd be better off raised by wild dogs than by me."
Unable to look at the boy any more, he shuts his eyes. He thinks about Lisa, and about wishes. If this is a fairy tale, he gets three, and he's spent them all long ago: wishing not to die at Canary Wharf, wishing to find Lisa amongst all the rubble and screams, wishing for a reason to live again when everything went wrong. Since returning to this shell of an existence, he's wished for a purpose, and found himself with a child he's terrible at raising, wished idly for a lover, and found wet Richard.
He ought to leave the wishing to the fairy tale princess. She's better at this than he is.
"Tell me," he says at last. "Tell me what you want. Tell me where you want to go, what you want to do. I'm no good at this. I can run and hide, but you should have a home. I'll gladly go to prison if it means you have a roof over your head, and someone to read you stories at night." He knows it's true as he says the words. Steven was a duty, and a link to Jack, but Ianto has spent months convincing the world this boy is his son, and while he doesn't know how that ought to feel, not really, he knows that if he has to cut off his own arm to protect Steven, he'll do it.
He wonders if Amy had any inkling, when she first suggested they leave together.
"I want to go home." His voice is thick from ice cream, thick from trying not to cry. He's died, he's lost his home, he's had to run for his life and walk across half the country alone. (Possibly not alone. He refuses to talk about his journey to find Amy, and he has a lot of nightmares.) All this, and he is just a little boy of not quite eleven years.
Ianto wishes he could do better by Steven, wishes for him to be happy again instead of despondent, wishes more than anything for him to be safe and home and loved.
"All right," Ianto says, leaving some notes on the table for the meal and taking Steven's hand. "All right. We'll go home."
***
There's a new face at the meeting tonight. Sally smiles, and shakes his hand. "I'm Anne. Welcome to Amy's Friends."
The man is thin, and young. He scans the faces in the small crowd, but seems not to find what he's looking for. "Albert," he says. "The Mr Copper Foundation sent me. You're some of the strays they've helped into new lives, yes?"
Sally frowns. "Why are you here?"
"I'm looking for a man and a little boy, but I don't see them."
She laughs bitterly. "That's not unusual."
"It may be. What did your name used to be, Anne? I may be able to help you as well."
***
The train goes to Bath, Bristol, and Cardiff. They get off at the first stop. Steven wants to see his mother again one more time, and Ianto can't blame him. They'll visit her, and they will go to visit Rhiannon, and then they will leave this place behind them. Steven picks flowers from gardens they pass as they walk; what's another theft among all those they've committed so far?
He's crying by the time they reach his house, and Ianto brings him into a hug, lets him sob on his collar. Steven is trembling. The last time he was here, his mother screamed at him to leave.
"It's going to be all right. I'm here. I'll always be here."
Steven wipes his nose and rings the bell. There's no answer.
She's not home.
"We can wait," says Ianto. From a few doors down, one of the neighbours looks out, unknowing. It's a dark magic, Ianto thinks, and the fairy tale version of events is the true one after all.
Alice walks up the pavement. It has to be Alice. Something about the set of her face reminds him so strongly of Jack that his own heart is cracking again. "Sorry, can I help you?" She's brittle, specifically not looking at Steven. Maybe it's her perception of him, perhaps she simply doesn't like looking at children anymore. Ianto's thoughts stutter and stumble on an idea just out of reach.
Steven lets go of Ianto's hand. He's going to call her Mum. She's going to start screaming.
He says, "These are for you." He gives Alice the flowers, bent and wilted. She stares at him.
"Thank you."
He smiles. "Come on, Dad. We have to go."
Alice nods at Ianto, and then frowns, like she's trying to remember something. "Why did you give me flowers?" she asks Steven, again not quite looking at him. The idea turns over in Ianto's mind, like a tumbler in a lock.
"Do you know what a perception filter is?" he asks her suddenly. "Did Jack ever take you on the invisible lift?"
Her face is blank now, with a twitch at her father's name. "Get out."
"It was the TARDIS. Amy brought us back because of the TARDIS, but she said the crack wiped memories. I think whatever happened, they must have combined. That's why you can't see us for who we are, no-one with a memory of us can. We've got a perception filter on us. Alice, this is your son." It's the answer, it has to be, the crazy words spilling out into truth.
She backs away from them. "Get out of here, both of you. My son is dead. I watched him die. I'll call the police."
If the police come, he will lose even this. "Alice … "
"Mum, please."
"Go!" She's shouting again, crying, and he wants to help her. How long did she scream at Steven before he ran off in tears last time?
"If you see Jack, tell him." He takes Steven's shoulder and they hurry off while Alice breaks down into sobs, bent over on her front step.
***
The ticket agent recognises the photograph. Jack doesn't have time to pick up Albert before he is racing the train to Cardiff. A man and a little boy. Jack won't know them, can't know them, but surely he can narrow it down. This has to work.
He practically jumps out of his car when he reaches the train station. Gwen's already there, but it won't help, she can't see them, either.
They're not the first to arrive.
***
Ianto has spent the train ride considering what to do. Knowing what's happened does not give him answers on how to fix their situation. He'll send Amy a letter when he and Steven are settled. Perhaps she'll have an idea. Perhaps, he muses sadly, she already knows and nothing can be done. They are ghosts, shadows, forever banished from the lives they once led.
Cardiff sinks into him like a lead weight, dragging his spirits down as they pull into the familiar station. He's escaped before, and he gets yanked back, but this is the last time. One more goodbye for his sister, one more moment at the ruins of the quay, and he will leave everything behind for another shore.
Before they can disembark, two people get on the train at the far end of the carriage. It's strange to be in a position where he recognises someone, but they don't know him. Ianto can't see their guns, but he can tell from the way they walk that they're armed.
He bends over Steven. "We need to separate." Steven shrinks, and Ianto touches his shoulder. "It's all right. There's a ticket counter. Wait there for me. I'll come for you. Go on."
Steven is frightened, but he gets up from his seat and takes the backpack with him, half their funds carefully hidden inside. He walks right past the pair with the guns. The woman gives him a bit of a smile, but it's distant, like she smiles at children every time she sees them. She probably does. Ianto waits for him to exit the carriage before he makes a small show of getting his own bag.
His heart is in his throat. But Martha knew him, and her new husband met him briefly, and they'll have a hole in their memories where Ianto used to be. Convincing them otherwise will be as impossible as convincing Alice. He'll walk by them unnoticed, and never see either one again.
As he stands to go around them, nodding pleasantly, there's a firm hand on his arm. "Lloyd Fellowes?"
He only freezes for a moment, but the moment is long enough. "Sorry, no," he says, as the hand clamps down.
Martha's smile is gone. He remembers her smiles, her coy questions and the way she quietly filled the spaces in the Hub. He wants her to remember him. Her stare is hazy, like she's trying to punch through fog as she says, "Sharky would like to have a word with you."
Sharky? "I paid my loan back. He's nothing to do with me now."
Mickey's voice is quieter. "He says you've caused trouble for the local immigrant population."
"I'm not an alien. Check my DNA." God, would that work? "Please, Martha. Check my DNA."
Mickey looks over to her. "Sharky said he was psychic. Got the dampeners?"
Martha is already digging through the pack on her hip, pulling out a pair of small earbuds which she and her husband slip on without ever letting Ianto loose. He could still break away. He doesn't want to hurt either one, though, and he really doesn't want to be shot. And Steven will be waiting at the ticket counter.
He lets them lead him away. There's more room to manoeuvre outside, and he might be able to make an escape among the bustle of other travellers. They won't want to cause a scene.
Martha closes her pack with a loud snap.
***
There are people everywhere at the station at this time of day, and Gwen has no idea where or how to look. This is Jack's mad quest, brought on by Albert's silly notion, but she can't refuse Jack and never could. Ianto is dead. Steven is dead. She has been to both graves, watched her friend's coffin be lowered into the ground, she has mourned, and she has moved on, and if this is what it takes for Jack to finally do the same, she'll help him.
This is the third train from London today. They may not have come here. They may have gone somewhere else entirely, or walked right past her.
Jack said the Mr Copper Foundation has hundreds of names, but that can't be right. There can't be that many people returned from the dead with no-one to see them. She would have known. Surely they would have known. She can't allow herself to think coincidences make up a pattern. Many people share a birthday with Rhiannon Davies, and there's no reason to think Nathan Goodwin is the same man who tried to hack into Mainframe, and even if he is, too many people try and fail to do that all the time.
But Jack is starting to believe with a childlike faith. After all they've been through, it's enough to break her heart.
A little boy is standing at the ticket counter alone. He looks nothing like the blond child in Alice's photographs. Gwen finds herself wanting to look away from him, wanting to pass on.
There's a train emitting the last of her passengers, and unexpectedly, Martha and Mickey are leading someone out in that way they've developed. Don't frighten the civilians, no dangerous alien to see here. She feels the familiar smile slide over her face and the child slips out of her mind like grains of sand.
As she approaches them, she sees Jack coming from the far end of the platform. She shakes her head so he can see: no luck. His shoulders fall. She wishes he had never let himself hope.
At least Martha is here. He's happier when she's near, for all the bad memories they share.
"Do you two need any help? Haven't seen you in town for a while."
"Thanks, no," says Martha. "Just doing a quick retrieval."
"Better stay back," Mickey says. "This one's psychic. He's been pulling thoughts from our heads."
Gwen's eyes pass over the man in their custody. He's plain, and so unremarkable she almost hesitates, because she's had training on this, she knows how to get a description. He's watching her, but he's not speaking nor moving a muscle, and her gaze passes off him again. She's getting a headache. This day, this whole mad hunt, it's all been too long. She turns away. There's a child standing at the ticket counter, watching them.
She frowns again.
***
Later, Martha will remember the day in still-shots of sepiatone.
Cardiff is grey, threatening more rain. She's getting a headache from the barometric pressure that she can feel in her sinuses. One click, and she's turning her head to Mickey, watching him restrain their catch, but carefully. Some aliens look and act too human, and they've been caught out before.
Another click, and Gwen is there, although neither of them called ahead. Martha is full of memories now, from her brief, mad time in Cardiff when their friends were still alive, or in Owen's case, not entirely dead. Grief wells hard inside of her, too much sorrow from too many events the world doesn't know about, or can't remember, or wants to forget, and they few, they absolutely miserable few, they carry those memories because someone should.
Jack is suddenly at the end of the platform, walking towards them, and he's a pile of memories she wants to forget but can't. Each step closer, and it's another reel from her life: Utopia, Japan, Switzerland, and he carries even more lost dreams than she does.
Click. The prisoner says, "Sorry," and he twists out of Mickey's grip and punches him. Mickey ducks and catches the blow on his shoulder instead, but the man is free. They're armed, he won't get far. As if he knows this, he comes for Martha.
Gwen's gun is out. Mickey's is out a moment later. In the closing gap, she can hear the click-snap of the safety on Jack's antique. She's safer than the prisoner can ever know, and she's calm to his fluster.
Click, and she's bringing her own arms into a sledge, keeping him from her gun. Click, and he's already snapped the quick-release on her pouch and he is falling to a crouch before the moment of hesitation ends for the others now that he's no longer a threat to Martha.
Click, and he's pushed off with his feet from the ground, hands scrabbling in her pouch. She doesn't keep much in there, no weapons, just some basic items that come in handy in her new line of work. The pouch on the other side is her first aid kit, and for half a click, she pictures him digging for plasters.
Click, there's the glint of light from no light source, shining on a key. Martha's heart skips; it's the only thing in her pouch worth taking, and if this alien knows it, he's a much larger threat then she anticipated.
He wads up the string and throws it. The next click is the retort of one of their guns, no telling which one, and a bloom of blood. The throw lands by a little boy, who is watching them, frightened. He picks up the key. Click. Martha goes to him, while Mickey and Gwen are subduing the prisoner again. Jack has broken into a run, his boots making sharp noises on the platform.
"Wait!" Jack's shout echoes through the silent film. Click.
Martha is almost there, and the child looks at the string she uses as a necklace when she needs not to be seen. "That's mine," she says, as gently as she can. Before she can take it back, the boy slips it over his head. She curses, expecting him to disappear.
Instead, he changes, strangely, subtly. Features she hadn't noticed come into sharp view. It's the same boy, and it isn't.
Click.
Jack is beside her, beside the child, holding him and weeping. He tells Martha, "Go. Help him," and he's nodding at the bleeding figure on the platform. She thinks Jack means for her to help Mickey, because they've drawn a lot of attention now, but Jack is digging into his own pocket. He pulls out a key that matches hers, and presses it into her hand as he holds the child.
This whole day has been like mist, but whatever Jack's looking at, he sees clearly now, and even as he patters kisses into the boy's blond hair, his eyes are focused on the prisoner.
Martha goes back to them, back to her husband and her friend and the man bleeding out, and she slips the chain over his neck.
Click.
***
Epilogue
***
Technically, Martha lost her registration a year ago, due to that unfortunate run-in with the Judoon. The medicine she practises is off-the-cuff, strictly first aid and emergency treatment only. The lack of paperwork doesn't mean she's not still good at it. Ianto's alive when they reach the hospital, and they all wait outside during his surgery, unable to go in, to ask.
Jack spends the time on the phone with Alice. There's lots of shouting. There are some tears. Steven is still wearing Martha's key, one perception filter cancelling out the other like a red glass over a hidden message that was in plain sight all the time. He talks to his mum. There are more tears. Jack never, ever takes a hand off Steven, his shoulder, his hand, his arm, like he doesn't want to let go, and there isn't one person in the room to blame him.
These slow hours are like living inside glass, inside a crystal diorama of a life: here they are forever, frozen in their worry, unravelling explanations that don't make sense to anyone who hasn't seen the end of the universe, clinging to bodies, hands, friends. Waiting.
The crystal cracks with a new sound like a bell, the ring of Martha's mobile phone.
The voice on the other end is new, and young, and she still loves him and always will, as he says, "Amy tells me there's been a small problem?"
***
His eyes peep open, but there's too much light. He closes them again.
"Hey, no sleeping on the job," he hears in a stern tone, and his eyes open again. Jack is there, looking at him. Seeing him. Smiling, with worry gracing his features, and then Ianto has his own worries back.
A dry, dusty throat strangles him as he grinds out, "Where's - " and Steven is piling into his side, the uninjured side where he wasn't shot but does have an IV line, and it doesn't matter. Steven's all right, the TARDIS key safely around his neck. Ianto's hand comes up, painfully, to his own neck. He feels another key.
Jack sits down beside him, holding his hand. Around him, Ianto can see things more clearly now. Flowers cover every flat surface. As he heals, more will arrive and he will read the cards over and over until they are dog-eared in his hands. He will keep the cards for as long as he lives, these small reminders with his real name written down in ink: from Gwen, from Martha and Mickey, from Amy and her husband, from Richard, even from Sally (she has taken her old name back, it suits her best, Ianto thinks) and the others from Amy's Friends. There's an enormous bouquet from Alice. Well-wishes and good thoughts, and gratitude from those who are getting a visit from the man in the blue box, Ianto will treasure each one. This is the last legacy of the crack, the last gift of the TARDIS explosion. Amy dreamed the universe back, and now there are a thousand homecomings waiting to happen.
Ianto hugs Steven close to him, and his smile matches the one he sees on Jack's face.
Nine-hundred ninety-eight to go.
***
The End
***
Sequel (dammit): Ferals