Martha Jones (walkedtheearth) wrote in tw_newworlds, @ 2013-07-25 14:33:00 |
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Entry tags: | ianto jones, jack harkness |
Who: Ianto and Jack
What: Talking
When: Afternoon, 2010-08-18
Where: Cardiff: Hub Archives
Rating: Starting PG13 to be conservative. May change.
Status: Incomplete
Even after dealing with the Rift activity and angel, Ianto had been reluctant to spend too much time with his team, and instead had been spending the last week in the Archives, his place of solitude and comfort. He'd worked for years to get these perfectly in order, everything documented and sorted out. There were rarely any surprises here, most things were inactive or just dead, or paper. Peaceful and boring.
A great place to be if you wanted to avoid people in your team and the outside world. Things just seemed to be a bit hectic at the moment and until his bruised ribs healed from the cannibals 'tenderizing' he was reluctant to jump into another field mission. For the moment he was happy with coffee and sorting.
Jack wandered into the archives, hands stuck into the pockets of his trousers. He smiled and arched an eyebrow when he spotted Ianto. "Should've known you've been hiding down here," he teased.
"We're out dealing with Subsiders and vampires, and you're nowhere in sight. Just kidding though... I know things haven't been easy on any of us since we lost Tosh and Owen." Jack walked over and gently placed a hand on Ianto's shoulder, squeezing gently.
Ianto didn't answer when Jack first came down. He wasn't quite sure when Jack had decided to be friendly again, but that was Jack's way. Mood swings and unpredictable behavior. The hand on his shoulder, though, made him start ever so slightly, and he turned to look at it before he glanced up at Jack. Then he looked back at his work quickly, trying to figure it out in his his head without making too much of it.
"Vampires and Subsiders. Sounds interesting, sir," he said, filling out a label properly before fixing it to a container. His eyes did narrow, however, at Jack's final statement. "Lost Tosh and Owen? They take off for UNIT or something?" It didn't sound like them, well, perhaps Owen, but certainly not Tosh. And why had nobody told Ianto? A message on his desk to take the pair off the Torchwood systems didn't seem like too much to ask, even if things were still tense.
Jack frowned in concern and stared at the younger man. He hadn't retconned himself, had he? What the hell was going on?
"Ianto... they died," he finally replied softly. "That's why Martha came back from UNIT to work with us permanently."
Folding his arms over his chest, he leaned against one of the filing cabinets and asked, "You okay? You fall or hit your head on something down here?"
Ianto started at that, straightening and turning to stare at him. "Dead? They're not dead," he snapped, the shock hitting him hard for a moment and manifesting as disbelief. "When the hell did they die?"
The idea that they'd be dead when he had seen them, talked to them, only days before was a bit of a slap in the face, but moreso was the apparent calm with which Jack was taking it. It was stunning and, to be frank, it made Ianto angry. Was Jack really so detached that loosing two teammates of years didn't even warrant a memo? Or was this some sort of sick punishment because of what happened with Lisa?
"Ianto, this isn't funny." Jack narrowed his eyes slightly as he glared at the young man. "Look... we all miss them. But pretending not to remember losing them isn't going to help! What the hell's wrong with you?
Ianto glared right back, infuriated that Jack would think he would be that stupid. "I'm not pretending, sir. Or perhaps you forgot to mention that they died," he snapped. "What happened to them? Was it anything to do with the cannibals?"
Perhaps Tosh had been hurt worse than they'd all thought, and bled out. Or something. But unless they'd all run off on a mission and not let Ianto know (and, truth be told, that was entirely possible) he couldn't think of what would happen to them. "Did ever cross your mind to tell me they'd died?! At the least I'd have thought you'd send me to take care of their files even if you didn't care to let me know for my sake."
"You were there when Gwen and I did the final log outs for both of them! And you watched Tosh's farewell video with us," Jack snapped back in return.
"And what's with calling me 'Sir' again all of a sudden?"
He paused though, the word cannibals finally sinking in. "Ianto... what date is it?"
Ianto remembered none of this, of course, but it did make him hesitate. This didn't seem to be a joke.
"I've never called you anything else, have I?" he mumbled, thinking about the date. He hadn't considered it since they got back "We went camping on the twentieth so... first, second, it's the twenty third." He nodded and looked at Jack. "At least, it was when I came down here. What of it?" He was starting to get an uneasy feeling about all of this, and stared at Jack, waiting for an answer.
"Come with me." Jack grabbed Ianto's arm and practically hauled him towards the med room, needing to confirm his suspicions.
He pointed and ordered Ianto to sit, then dashed up to his office to retrieve something. Jack returned a few minutes later with the scanner, fiddled with a few dials, and began actively scanning Ianto. "Damn it... I was right..."
Ianto resisted for a second, then let himself be dragged upstairs, sitting obediently and then staring at the device in Jack's hands. "What? What is that?" he demanded, looking at the device intensely and then up at Jack, his wariness of the man gone as he looked to find out what was wrong with him and what could be done about it.
"Residual Rift energy. The camping trip with the cannibals? That was over a year ago, Ianto. Somehow you've been taken from a different point in time and the Rift brought you into your future. Or if you're from an alternate reality, to this one," Jack tried to explain.
Ianto stared at him for a moment, then turned to absorb this information. He bit the inside of his cheeks, then shook his head. "Does explain why my phone wasn't working though," he said at last. He looked at his watch again, then shook his head, realizing how useless that was. "Tosh... Tosh and Owen...." He still didn't believe it, not really, the medical area looked nearly the same, just about what it would be like if Owen were maintaining it. He swallowed. "How long?"
He and Owen had never been buddies, and he wasn't close with Tosh either, but they were his teammates, and they'd both been here longer than him. That meant.... he was the senior of the underlings. Gwen and this Martha person. He wasn't sure he liked that.
"A few months now." Jack turned off the scanner and frowned.
"The question though is if you've been brought here, then what's happened to our Ianto? Did the pair of you get swapped, or has something else happened?"
"I'm surprised you've still got one," he muttered to himself. The idea that he'd outlast those two, of all people. He got up. "What would you like me to do, sir? Your systems aren't any different than I've noticed. I could look for him."
Jack rubbed his chin, trying to decide what to do. He was worried about Ianto. But at the same time, now they had to deal with this Ianto, who was about a year out of the loop on things.
"The systems are the same. See what you can find out, while I go check the Rift readings."
"Yes sir," Ianto said, getting up and straightening his tie before he walked up to the computer panels, starting to work and pausing to glance over at Tosh's old work station. Her personal effects were all gone....
He turned his face back to his work, jaw clenching as he searched every corner of electronic tracking he could think of, placing it back a few days to when he remembered his phone cutting out.
He printed off a few reports and then looked up the videos of himself in the Hub, noting a slightly different dressed Ianto moving about and interacting with Gwen, Jack, and the woman he assumed was Martha normally until he recognized himself, moving much more discreetly and trying to stay out of the way. He sighed and then turned, going back to Jack. " "Normal activity on his card and phone, sir, till.... well, as far as I can tell, I showed up. We probably just switched somehow," he said, offering his findings. "No action from him, no matching descriptions on any John Does that have popped up. It's like he just vanished."
Jack nodded as he listened, walking over to Tosh's old station and starting to do some digging of his own. Poeple normally didn't just disappear. Unless...
"Shit," he whispered under his breath. But the results were clear and there was no mistaking things. Negative Rift spike... oh god... Ianto...
He squeezed his eyes closed and took a breath to steady himself. If they were lucky, Ianto had just changed places with this one. If not... Jack didn't want to think about it.
Jack still wasn't exactly Ianto's favorite man, but he still could recognize the look on his face, and he still trusted the older man's experience to know when things were bad. He felt a clench in his gut, and watched Jack carefully, expression tightening as it set to keep from showing his own anxiety.
"Is he dead?" he paused, then shook his head. He didn't want to know. Really... just didn't. Nothing ever good happened in Torchwood. Not in the end. He put the papers down and then put his hands in his pockets. "What do you want to do with me, then?"
"I don't know," Jack admitted. "There was a negative Rift spike at the same moment as the positive one. So I'm hoping that means you two just swapped places."
He swiveled around in the chair and looked over at the young man. "And I don't know what to do with you. I remember what you were like back at this point in your life and it was hell for a while. I'm not really in the mood to deal with it again, especially considering what I've just lost," he snapped irritably.
Ianto looked away, then frowned and turned back to him. He had lost something, more than a coffee boy and filing clerk. He stared at Jack for a long moment, then took his hands out of his pockets. This was an unusual situation, and an unsettling one. The rules of eternal hatred didn't seem to apply, especially since as far as he could tell this Ianto and Jack had gotten along. Maybe more.
"I can continue my duties or go to the apartment and wait for a decision," he said softly, then realized Jack might not want him filling the other Jones' shoes at all. "Or... someplace else."
"Just..." Jack sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Just do what you normally do while Gwen, Martha, and I try to sort this out. You know how the Rift works... not like we could just send you back anyways."
Ianto nodded and turned to leave, though he hesitated and looked at Jack. "You and he were close?" he said slowly. It was an easy conclusion to come to, even if Ianto didn't understand it. Still, things here could change in the blink of an eye. Who knew what happened in this Ianto's past, perhaps Ianto's own future. At the least he was too uncertain and concerned to be angry anymore.
"Yeah... very."
Jack stood up and started walking towards his office, not really wanting to discuss it.
"I'm sorry," Ianto said after him, and he meant it, too. He knew what it was like to lose somebody you loved. Not that Jack had loved the other Ianto, but still. "If there's anything I can do. Or not do."
He turned and went back to the computer desk without saying anything else, sinking into the chair and staring at the screen. He wondered if his own Jack missed him at all, or if he was just relieved that he was gone. There was certainly no love between them to make him miss Ianto like this one did. And, for some reason, that made Ianto sad.