sam_storyteller (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sam_storyteller) wrote2005-07-17 09:10 am
sam_storyteller) wrote2005-07-17 09:10 am
Entry tags:
The Doctor And Mr. Jones; Torchwood/Who, R, 3/5
Title: The Doctor And Mr. Jones (Torchwood/Who crossover)
Rating: R for some Jack/Ianto naughtiness, but not much.
Summary: The Doctor thought he was alone in the universe -- but Torchwood is about to prove him wrong.
Characters/Pairing: Jack/Ianto; otherwise, gen.
Spoilers: Through 2008 Christmas Special (Dr. Who), 2.03 "To The Last Man" (Torchwood).
At six fifty-five in the morning Ianto was making the coffee and putting on the first kettle of the day. The day, in fact, after the day he'd died.
Dying had not bothered him as much as his own stupidity, in all honesty. Twelve-sixteen pm, offered his heart to his immortal time-traveling employer. Twelve sixteen pm and nine seconds, employer declined. Ianto knew it hadn't been meant that way, but he was still staggered by his idiocy. What on earth had he been thinking?
They still had no bread, and the oranges were still a good idea. He'd rather not be there when the others arrived anyway, because the whole thing was so dreadfully awkward. So, he scribbled down a quick list of what they needed, signed some money out of petty cash, and hesitated on his way out the door. He returned to his desk and scribbled a note to tape to the inner door.
Went out.
Buying groceries.
NOT rampaging, murdering, building machine to end world, etc.
Back by nine.
I. Jones
He ran into Gwen in the entryway, which figured.
"Morning," she said. "Going out somewhere?"
"Yeah -- we need bread. And a new watch," he added, holding up his wrist.
"I haven't had breakfast yet, have you?"
"No..."
"Right! I'll come with you," she said, with the false cheer of someone who didn't trust him not to set fire to the first stranger he met. Still, he wasn't planning anything and Gwen was oddly reassuring, as a person.
They walked across the Plass and into Cardiff proper in silence, Ianto with his hands in his pockets, Gwen toying with the cuffs of her coat. Not much was open this early except for the little shop that he was going to; Gwen browsed the magazines while he made his purchase. His maths hadn't failed him, anyway. He was already counting out the correct change while the clerk was still ringing it up.
"No cheap watches from the grocers' for you?" Gwen asked, as they left.
"No. There's a pawnshop round the corner, they have some decent pieces," Ianto said.
"Is that where you got your stopwatch?"
"I've had that old thing for years. Worked pretty well, but it wasn't anything special. Don't want to owe Owen anything, is all. He'd bring it up next time I got sarky with him for something."
Ianto pushed open the pawnshop's door, gesturing for Gwen to go first. There was a lick of movement on the edge of his vision; he turned in time to see someone duck back behind the edge of the building.
"Someone there?" he called. No reply. He waited a second more, then followed Gwen into the shop.
He was familiar with the pawnshop, in part because it sold a lot of old machines that were useful when repairing various things that went wrong around Torchwood. When you needed pieces from a radio from the sixties, you couldn't just mail-order it from Amazon, delivery to Torchwood care of Ianto Jones, after all.
There was a cheap sales rack at one end of the store with sunglasses, bracelets, hair clips, and wristwatches hung on it haphazardly; Ianto inspected them carefully while Gwen tried on sunglasses. He didn't bother to point out that she didn't know where those earpieces had been before they went behind her ears.
There were plenty of broken ones, plenty of incredibly ugly ones, and plenty of womens' ones; working for Torchwood you tended to shop for durability, waterproof materials, and ease of cleaning. He also wanted one with a stopwatch function; it seemed strange to him now that he'd never bothered to simply buy a wristwatch with a stopwatch function on it. Eventually he turned to Gwen, offering her two options. One was a large brass frame with a white face, stopwatch hand, and leather strap; the other had a metal-link strap, two watch faces, and a calendar dial. Tough decision. Details were important.
"Which one?" he asked. "D'you think, I mean."
She considered them. "This one," she said, tapping the one with the leather strap. He liked it better too, but it didn't have a calendar dial. Then again, things would have come to a pretty pass when he didn't know what day it was.
Ianto purchased it and they walked out of the shop into a Cardiff that was waking up, the streets filling and the shops opening their doors. They stopped and bought croissants, though Ianto would have been happy boiling an egg back at Torchwood. Gwen broke hers into tiny pieces and ate it as they walked, taking the long way round to the Hub. She spoke a little more freely now, as Ianto tested the tightness of the leather band on a wrist that was inexplicably different from the one he'd had before. He half-listened; as fond as he was of Gwen, it was hard to be at all interested in her relationship with Rhys, who was in Ianto's opinion beneath the notice of any intelligent woman.
Then he felt something, an almost physical tug, and he halted. Gwen stopped too, breaking off mid-word.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Dunno," Ianto answered. He turned east and felt the tug again, almost like a hand on his elbow if the hand was invisible and intangible and his elbow was in his brain.
That hadn't made much sense, but not much in Ianto's life did these days.
Across the street was a small overgrown child's park, the most excellent kind of child's park with rusty playsets and giant rocks to fall off of and a thousand health risks begging to be explored. It was hemmed in by high hedges and shops and looked like nobody'd played in it for years. There were two swings, a go-round, and one of those geodesic frameworks for climbing on. Quite a large one really.
"D'you see something?" Gwen asked, peering at the park.
"No..."
He started to cross the street -- carefully looking both ways this time -- but even as he stepped off the kerb sparks exploded to his left.
Ianto turned before he thought about it, shoved Gwen back into an alley and pulled an orange from the bag he carried, throwing it up at the angle the fire had come from. There was a fizzing noise and a crash as he darted into the alley himself. Gwen already had the Hub on her earpiece and was calling for backup.
He peered around the corner of the building, but there didn't appear to be any airborne laser snipers. In fact...
"Ianto!" Gwen tried to grab his sleeve as he walked out of the alley, but he hardly noticed. Lying on the sidewalk was an oddly-shaped cone of metal, with prongs sticking out of the side. "Ianto, you're going to get shot!"
"I think I killed it," Ianto called back. He nudged it with one finger and, when it didn't electrocute him, picked it up. Exhaust plumed from the base of the cone like some kind of final exhalation. There was a tremendous dent where he'd pegged it squarely with the orange. It must have been knocked into something.
"Ianto," Gwen said, as the air filled with humming. And metal. At least two dozen flying cones filled the air, no bigger than a loaf of bread but viciously spiked. "Ianto, I think maybe you should put down the -- "
"OI!" Ianto cried, holding up the cone. Some daft instinct was urging him onwards, saying if you're going to go out in a shower of sparks from a small army of flying megaphones... "YOU LOT! ONE MOVE AND THIS ONE GETS IT!"
He pointed to the shopping bag at the alley mouth. "AND THERE'S MORE WHERE THAT CAME FROM! SOD OFF THE LOT OF YOU!"
They seemed to hesitate. A few turned slightly, as if consulting each other.
"I MEAN IT!" Ianto shouted, shaking the one in his hand for good measure.
At first he thought the roaring noise was the sound of the SUV that he could see approaching, but then he realised it was dozens of little engines firing up. Even as the SUV skidded to a stop and Owen threw the door open, gesturing for them to get in, the cones took to the air and disappeared. The one in his hand made a sad, spitty little noise. He tossed it to Tosh and clambered inside after Gwen.
"That was brilliant!" Gwen said, as Jack floored the gas.
"What the hell is it?" Owen asked, leaning into the front seat where Tosh was to study the small metal device.
"Why'd they leave?" Jack asked, leaning over the dashboard to peer up into the sky. "Where did they go?"
"The bread!" Ianto said suddenly, turning to stare out the back window. They turned a corner and Ianto nearly fell into Owen's lap. "We left the groceries!"
"Never mind the damn groceries!" Jack said. "What happened? Why did they leave?"
Ianto glanced at Gwen, who was suddenly fascinated by the back of the driver's seat. She looked like she was trying not to giggle. All things considered, there was plenty to laugh at; Ianto could just picture how ridiculous it looked for a man in a business suit to be throwing oranges at tiny alien gunmen...
Then he was trying not to laugh with relief, and he glanced at Gwen and she sniggered.
"What's so funny?" Owen asked, sandwiched between them.
"What did you say?" Gwen asked. "Oi, bugger off home?"
"No, no," Ianto managed, choking back insane laughter. "I said -- oh, god, Gwen..."
He leaned forward, resting his forehead against the back of the seat.
"Oh god," he said, more serious now. "I said, One move and this one gets it."
He breathed deeply for a few minutes until he felt sane, then leaned back and looked at Jack's reflection in the rear-view mirror. Jack gave him the most appraising stare he'd felt since they were first introduced.
"Then he told them there was more where that came from," Gwen said, wiping her eyes.
"Well, that was stupid," Owen said.
"Incredibly stupid," Ianto agreed.
"But it worked," Tosh said.
"Let's get it back and see what we can make of it," Jack said.
"Did you get your watch?" Gwen asked Ianto. He pulled back his sleeve to show her, then reached into his pocket, offering Owen's watch back to him. "Cheers, Owen."
"Yeah, whatever," Owen said, putting it on. "You're mental. I say that as a doctor."
"They went away, though," Ianto said, more reflectively now.
"From now on," Jack said, "nobody goes anywhere alone. We don't know what they are. Ianto, you're on hold while we deal with them."
"I'm very much behind us finding out what tried to kill us, sir," Ianto said. Tosh had managed to pry the base of the thing open. The smell of charred flesh filled the air, and she closed it again quickly.
"I want you on watch when we get back, Ianto. Owen, clearly something died in there."
"Teeny tiny Xenopsy," Owen agreed. Then he jerked forward -- they all did -- as Jack brought the car to an abrupt halt.
They had almost reached the Hub, could see it from where they were in fact, but there was something in the street. Technically, probably, someone.
"Tosh," Jack said.
"Searching database now," Tosh said, keying words into her handheld.
"Blimey," Owen said. "That is one ugly alien."
"He's an Energy Baron," Ianto said, as the computer files scrolled past his eyes from memory. "That's right, isn't it, Tosh?"
"Still looking..." Tosh clicked a button. "He's right, Jack."
Jack was in a staring contest with the yellow, reasonably humanoid figure in the street. It had spikes all over its head and dangling from those spikes were floppy, bedraggled green feathers.
"Friendly?" he asked.
"They're in the files by hearsay. Supposedly they're merchants. They sell power systems and fuel."
"So we've been stopped by an interstellar petrol man?" Owen asked.
"Not nice people," Tosh said. "And this one's armed."
The alien reached around his chest and pulled a small, curved blade from a sheath on its arm.
"Oh seriously?" Jack said. Just then, the alien flicked the blade gently and a curved beam of blue light sheared his side-view mirror off.
"Give me the Time Lord!" he called.
"Everybody got their seatbelts on?" Jack asked. They gave quiet affirmatives. Ianto braced his hands on the seat.
Jack threw the car into reverse and they sped backwards up the street, chased by flashes of blue light. Ianto turned around, watching the traffic behind them.
"Jack," he said. "on my word turn the wheel clockwise."
"Ianto, you'd better know what you're doing."
"Wheel, sir, clockwise -- NOW."
Jack turned the wheel and the SUV skewed around.
"Forward gear!" Ianto called, as they barrelled backwards towards a lorry. "Forwardgearforwardgearforwardgear!"
The car slammed forward.
"Defensible position! Who's got weapons?" Jack called as they sped away.
"I have an idea," Ianto said quietly. "Turn right, ahead."
"If you go left we can bunker in near the abandoned warehouse," Owen pointed out.
"Ianto, what's your plan?"
"Not as good as that one, actually."
"How many guns have we got?"
"Three handguns..." Owen leaned over the seat to rummage in the back. "Two missile-launchers and some alien thing with whirring blades we took off that busker last week."
The alien had caught up with them and had a straight line again; the back window of the SUV cracked inwards.
"And he's got a jedi light sabre," Owen added.
"O-kay," Jack said, and turned right. "Ianto, make up a better plan. Fast."
"When I say stop, turn the car sideways. You can defend behind it. Stay with the car until I call," Ianto said, unbuckling his seatbelt.
"Ianto, don't you dare -- "
"Not giving myself up," Ianto answered. "Loyalty much appreciated. Stop!"
Jack skewed the SUV sideways expertly, and Ianto leapt out the door as the tyres hissed and creaked. The park he'd been about to investigate was ten feet away; the car was taking the brunt of the alien's attack, and he ran past the go-round and the swings without a second thought. He probably looked utterly mad, but he was certain --
He grasped a bar of the climbing-set, kicked the corner of another with a gesture so old he must have learned it as a child, and pulled. The bar swung out and, with it, an invisible door just tall enough to admit a human. Inside he could see lights and wood paneling.
"COME ON!" he shouted. He saw Owen's face in the rear hatch window, and then the lot of them poured out of the car, Jack firing for cover.
"Winged it," Gwen said as she ran past him.
"JACK!"
Jack scrambled out the driver's-side door and bolted past the car. Ianto followed him in, pulled the door shut, and nearly fell down steps he hadn't been expecting. There was a thud on the door, then silence.
Ianto stood at the top of the stairs and looked around, awed.
The room was more or less a large dome; it had a high arching ceiling with shiny wooden beams, a handful of doorways, and a platform in the center with a raised circular table surrounding a column that went into the ceiling. It had the feel of a place where no-one had been in a long time.
It felt so much like home that he shivered.
"What the bloody hell is going on?" Owen demanded. "Why didn't anybody tell me about the secret bunker in the middle of downtown?"
"It's not a bunker," Jack said, walking to one of the screens embedded in the table. He touched it lightly and it turned from black to a bright grey. "It's a space-ship."
"It's a lot bigger on the inside," Owen observed.
"They usually are," Jack murmured. Ianto descended the steps slowly, tracing his fingers along the brass railing. At the end was a brighter spot where someone had rubbed a high shine on it. He touched it, a memory on the tip of his tongue.
He crossed to where Jack was working at the monitor.
"Do you want to tell me now what I am?" he asked, low and intense and suddenly angry.
"No," Jack retorted, without looking up. "I want to get rid of the homicidal alien who might try to slaughter civilians. I think I remember enough..."
The others crowded around as he worked, turning dials and flicking switches and keying information into the screen. Eventually, a small window appeared, showing the alien pacing around and around the climbing-dome, slicing a band of light at it occasionally. Against the hull of the ship, the light did absolutely nothing.
"Come on back around," Jack whispered. "That's it. You saw the door. A little closer...go on, you know you want to."
They watched as the alien stepped back and let loose with a flying kick against the frail-looking structure. His toe seemed to stick and he began to convulse; just as his black, knobbly tongue began to protrude from his mouth, Jack flicked another switch and he collapsed to the ground.
"I'll go tie him up," Gwen sighed.
"I'll help," Owen said. "This is giving me the crawling creeps."
Tosh was exploring the rest of the central table, marveling at the gauges and dials encrusting the surface. Jack stepped back, pressed his hands to his eyes, and sighed.
"How did you know what to do?" Tosh asked.
"Luck," Jack said.
"He's been in one before," Ianto corrected. Jack looked up at him. Ianto could see the words in his head so clearly..."He's lived in one before. It's called a TARDIS. But it's not your TARDIS, is it, sir?"
"It's not the one I knew," Jack said, returning to the monitor. "The one I traveled in was...different."
"Is this what time agents use, then?" Tosh asked. Jack laughed.
"No. It's alien technology. It's -- to discover a TARDIS...it'll be an amazing step forward for Torchwood. The technology is incredible." Jack touched the table, looking troubled. "Possibly too fast a step forward."
"How'd you get in?" Tosh asked, looking at Ianto. He frowned. "How'd you even know it was here?"
Fortunately there was a thunk on the door that let them know Gwen and Owen were waiting. Ianto opened the door and held it for Tosh and Jack. Jack paused in the doorway and looked at him.
"A Time Lord," he said quietly. "A Time Lord has two hearts, and once they traveled throughout the universe in ships called TARDISes that could span space and time. They protected things that were good and beautiful. They died. All but one."
"Your Doctor," Ianto said.
"This isn't his ship. It's probably yours," Jack said. He glanced at where the others were waiting by the car. "So maybe two survived and somehow you...forgot. More than that I honestly don't know, Ianto."
He walked away and Ianto pulled the door shut after him, the TARDIS disappearing into the image of the playset.
***
The skies over Earth were practically bristling with ships by the time the Doctor arrived; most of them looked as if they were waiting and watching, and it wasn't hard to scare at least a few of them off. The sight of the small blue police box was not unknown to many races and they gave it wide berth, disappearing one by one or pulling far back. The Doctor allowed himself to be a trifle smug about this.
He put down outside of Cardiff and walked into the town, taking the opportunity to stretch his legs. He hadn't really thought about what he would say; he'd been in such a hurry to get here, and now he was oddly reluctant to go the last few miles to the Other -- the only surviving Time Lord aside from himself, now that the Master was dead.
His footsteps led him to Torchwood first; the Other was very nearby, but you couldn't be too careful. He stood for a long time on the side of a nearby road, hidden from the cameras but able to see the plaza. He could taste the charge in the air; somewhere his distant relative was bleeding energy from the regeneration like a burst water balloon. Some of the predators in orbit were no doubt after the energy; the rest were probably just curious. A Time Lord was a rare thing, and an encounter with one was nothing if not an adventure.
He crossed the open plaza slowly, stopping to look up at each of the cameras in turn. That ought to be all the warning Jack needed, unless the Captain was falling off his game. Then he passed into the small front office, opened the door effortlessly, and stopped in the entryway to Torchwood.
"Hullo?" he said, when nobody looked at him. This was because nobody was there. "Anyone home? Alien on premesis."
No answer.
"Jack?"
Just the echo of his own voice, bouncing off the ceiling.
"Bit anticlimactic, all this," he said to himself.
He wandered into the room proper, circling the desks with their primitive computers and slightly more advanced alien technology. From his point of view, it was half-laboratory, half-museum; amazing what you could do with some old technology and a little innovation. And they were so very proud of it, like a child with a new toy.
He heard footsteps above and ducked back into a nook near the entrance, pressing himself to the wall as the door slid open and the room filled with voices.
" -- to sedate him and take him down to the cells. Tosh, get to work on the tiny spaceship. Leave the body for Owen."
Jack's voice, confidently calling orders. Jack's boots on the grating of Torchwood's floor, moving him forward into the Doctor's line of vision through a tangle of wires.
"Gwen, help Owen with the body, then see if Tosh needs help. You might need the microtools, they're in storage bin nine."
Two more figures appeared, carrying a third; That must be Owen and Gwen, carrying the body. Energy Baron. Figured. Another woman followed carrying a deactivated proton blade, and that must be Tosh. Terrible name for a person. In her other hand she had a small metal cone of a make he'd never seen before, which took some doing.
"Ianto, get on the city cameras and the satellites. Watch the skies. I want to know where they're coming from. Yell out if anything shows up. I'm going to call London. We may have to have some help on this one."
A final figure passed through the door, the man Jack had called Ianto. The Doctor inhaled sharply but softly; the man didn't notice, just strode to a desk piled high with computer screens and began tapping commands into a keyboard with one hand, working a complex joystick with the other. He moved like a Time Lord, even; no hesitation, not a gesture lacking confidence. He studied the monitors with a tilt of his head, his hand leaving the joystick and reaching into the shelf for something --
Oh. A handgun. An real internal-propulsion barreled lead slingshot. Adorable.
"I can see you," he called, aiming the toy at the Doctor unerringly. The others looked up from their tasks. "Come out. NOW!"
"All right, all right, don't shoot," the Doctor said, holding his hands up slightly and stepping away from the wall. "Unarmed, me. Don't bite either. Well, not people anyway."
"How'd you get in?" the Other demanded.
"Sonic screwdriver," the Doctor said.
"What?"
"Picked the lock. Look, this is a huge misunderstanding," the Doctor said. "I'm a friend of your Captain Jack. He'll be very annoyed if you shoot me. Not as annoyed as I'll be, but still, seriously put out. You know how he gets. I'm here to help -- "
"HEY! I gave some orders, down there," Jack called from an upper level. "It's not tea-time with the Quee -- "
He stopped as he took in the tableau; the Other holding a gun on the Doctor, the rest of his team closing slowly around the Other.
"Hi Jack," the Doctor said, waving one of his upraised hands slightly. "Just introducing myself, not to worry. Nice digs."
"He was hiding behind the Lithonic Scale Inverter," the Other said.
"Wow, is that what this is? I've never seen one up close," the Doctor said, turning to examine the wires. "Brilliant. Where'd you get it?"
"Boot sale," Jack replied. "You can put the gun down, Ianto. He's harmless."
"Well, I wouldn't say harmless," the Doctor replied. He lowered his hands as the Other eased the safety back onto the gun and Jack came down the stairs at a pace that was only just short of embarrassingly fast. He brushed past the rest and the Doctor found himself enveloped in Jack Harkness's fierce, affectionate hug. He patted one shoulder reassuringly.
"Are we glad to see you," Jack said. "What the hell's going on?"
"Wish I knew. Getting a lot of visitors, are we?"
Jack stepped back. He looked good, but also tired and worried.
"Two this morning alone," Jack answered. "Got any idea how we sedate an angry Energy Baron?"
The Doctor glanced at the unconscious form lying on the table nearby. He walked over to it, tugged on its feathers, and gave it a ringing slap across what passed for its face. Its eyes opened.
"Listen you," he said. "This is my planet. I've already run off your mates. Hop it or you'll feel more than the back of my hand."
The Baron's eyes widened.
"S - Sorry," he said. "Sorry sir. Didn't realise, sir."
"Off you go."
The Baron tapped a sequence of numbers into his armband with shaking hands and promptly teleported. The Doctor turned to see the humans -- and the Other -- staring at him.
"Well. I'm knackered. Long journey, et cetera. Tea would hit the spot..."
"I'll put the kettle on," the Other murmured, and the Doctor watched in amazement as the humans all let a Time Lord wander off to make them some tea.
Chapter Two | Chapter Four
Rating: R for some Jack/Ianto naughtiness, but not much.
Summary: The Doctor thought he was alone in the universe -- but Torchwood is about to prove him wrong.
Characters/Pairing: Jack/Ianto; otherwise, gen.
Spoilers: Through 2008 Christmas Special (Dr. Who), 2.03 "To The Last Man" (Torchwood).
Down behind the terraced houses
In between the concrete towers
Compost heaps and scarlet runners
Secret gardens full of flowers
In between the concrete towers
Compost heaps and scarlet runners
Secret gardens full of flowers
At six fifty-five in the morning Ianto was making the coffee and putting on the first kettle of the day. The day, in fact, after the day he'd died.
Dying had not bothered him as much as his own stupidity, in all honesty. Twelve-sixteen pm, offered his heart to his immortal time-traveling employer. Twelve sixteen pm and nine seconds, employer declined. Ianto knew it hadn't been meant that way, but he was still staggered by his idiocy. What on earth had he been thinking?
They still had no bread, and the oranges were still a good idea. He'd rather not be there when the others arrived anyway, because the whole thing was so dreadfully awkward. So, he scribbled down a quick list of what they needed, signed some money out of petty cash, and hesitated on his way out the door. He returned to his desk and scribbled a note to tape to the inner door.
Went out.
Buying groceries.
NOT rampaging, murdering, building machine to end world, etc.
Back by nine.
I. Jones
He ran into Gwen in the entryway, which figured.
"Morning," she said. "Going out somewhere?"
"Yeah -- we need bread. And a new watch," he added, holding up his wrist.
"I haven't had breakfast yet, have you?"
"No..."
"Right! I'll come with you," she said, with the false cheer of someone who didn't trust him not to set fire to the first stranger he met. Still, he wasn't planning anything and Gwen was oddly reassuring, as a person.
They walked across the Plass and into Cardiff proper in silence, Ianto with his hands in his pockets, Gwen toying with the cuffs of her coat. Not much was open this early except for the little shop that he was going to; Gwen browsed the magazines while he made his purchase. His maths hadn't failed him, anyway. He was already counting out the correct change while the clerk was still ringing it up.
"No cheap watches from the grocers' for you?" Gwen asked, as they left.
"No. There's a pawnshop round the corner, they have some decent pieces," Ianto said.
"Is that where you got your stopwatch?"
"I've had that old thing for years. Worked pretty well, but it wasn't anything special. Don't want to owe Owen anything, is all. He'd bring it up next time I got sarky with him for something."
Ianto pushed open the pawnshop's door, gesturing for Gwen to go first. There was a lick of movement on the edge of his vision; he turned in time to see someone duck back behind the edge of the building.
"Someone there?" he called. No reply. He waited a second more, then followed Gwen into the shop.
He was familiar with the pawnshop, in part because it sold a lot of old machines that were useful when repairing various things that went wrong around Torchwood. When you needed pieces from a radio from the sixties, you couldn't just mail-order it from Amazon, delivery to Torchwood care of Ianto Jones, after all.
There was a cheap sales rack at one end of the store with sunglasses, bracelets, hair clips, and wristwatches hung on it haphazardly; Ianto inspected them carefully while Gwen tried on sunglasses. He didn't bother to point out that she didn't know where those earpieces had been before they went behind her ears.
There were plenty of broken ones, plenty of incredibly ugly ones, and plenty of womens' ones; working for Torchwood you tended to shop for durability, waterproof materials, and ease of cleaning. He also wanted one with a stopwatch function; it seemed strange to him now that he'd never bothered to simply buy a wristwatch with a stopwatch function on it. Eventually he turned to Gwen, offering her two options. One was a large brass frame with a white face, stopwatch hand, and leather strap; the other had a metal-link strap, two watch faces, and a calendar dial. Tough decision. Details were important.
"Which one?" he asked. "D'you think, I mean."
She considered them. "This one," she said, tapping the one with the leather strap. He liked it better too, but it didn't have a calendar dial. Then again, things would have come to a pretty pass when he didn't know what day it was.
Ianto purchased it and they walked out of the shop into a Cardiff that was waking up, the streets filling and the shops opening their doors. They stopped and bought croissants, though Ianto would have been happy boiling an egg back at Torchwood. Gwen broke hers into tiny pieces and ate it as they walked, taking the long way round to the Hub. She spoke a little more freely now, as Ianto tested the tightness of the leather band on a wrist that was inexplicably different from the one he'd had before. He half-listened; as fond as he was of Gwen, it was hard to be at all interested in her relationship with Rhys, who was in Ianto's opinion beneath the notice of any intelligent woman.
Then he felt something, an almost physical tug, and he halted. Gwen stopped too, breaking off mid-word.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Dunno," Ianto answered. He turned east and felt the tug again, almost like a hand on his elbow if the hand was invisible and intangible and his elbow was in his brain.
That hadn't made much sense, but not much in Ianto's life did these days.
Across the street was a small overgrown child's park, the most excellent kind of child's park with rusty playsets and giant rocks to fall off of and a thousand health risks begging to be explored. It was hemmed in by high hedges and shops and looked like nobody'd played in it for years. There were two swings, a go-round, and one of those geodesic frameworks for climbing on. Quite a large one really.
"D'you see something?" Gwen asked, peering at the park.
"No..."
He started to cross the street -- carefully looking both ways this time -- but even as he stepped off the kerb sparks exploded to his left.
Ianto turned before he thought about it, shoved Gwen back into an alley and pulled an orange from the bag he carried, throwing it up at the angle the fire had come from. There was a fizzing noise and a crash as he darted into the alley himself. Gwen already had the Hub on her earpiece and was calling for backup.
He peered around the corner of the building, but there didn't appear to be any airborne laser snipers. In fact...
"Ianto!" Gwen tried to grab his sleeve as he walked out of the alley, but he hardly noticed. Lying on the sidewalk was an oddly-shaped cone of metal, with prongs sticking out of the side. "Ianto, you're going to get shot!"
"I think I killed it," Ianto called back. He nudged it with one finger and, when it didn't electrocute him, picked it up. Exhaust plumed from the base of the cone like some kind of final exhalation. There was a tremendous dent where he'd pegged it squarely with the orange. It must have been knocked into something.
"Ianto," Gwen said, as the air filled with humming. And metal. At least two dozen flying cones filled the air, no bigger than a loaf of bread but viciously spiked. "Ianto, I think maybe you should put down the -- "
"OI!" Ianto cried, holding up the cone. Some daft instinct was urging him onwards, saying if you're going to go out in a shower of sparks from a small army of flying megaphones... "YOU LOT! ONE MOVE AND THIS ONE GETS IT!"
He pointed to the shopping bag at the alley mouth. "AND THERE'S MORE WHERE THAT CAME FROM! SOD OFF THE LOT OF YOU!"
They seemed to hesitate. A few turned slightly, as if consulting each other.
"I MEAN IT!" Ianto shouted, shaking the one in his hand for good measure.
At first he thought the roaring noise was the sound of the SUV that he could see approaching, but then he realised it was dozens of little engines firing up. Even as the SUV skidded to a stop and Owen threw the door open, gesturing for them to get in, the cones took to the air and disappeared. The one in his hand made a sad, spitty little noise. He tossed it to Tosh and clambered inside after Gwen.
"That was brilliant!" Gwen said, as Jack floored the gas.
"What the hell is it?" Owen asked, leaning into the front seat where Tosh was to study the small metal device.
"Why'd they leave?" Jack asked, leaning over the dashboard to peer up into the sky. "Where did they go?"
"The bread!" Ianto said suddenly, turning to stare out the back window. They turned a corner and Ianto nearly fell into Owen's lap. "We left the groceries!"
"Never mind the damn groceries!" Jack said. "What happened? Why did they leave?"
Ianto glanced at Gwen, who was suddenly fascinated by the back of the driver's seat. She looked like she was trying not to giggle. All things considered, there was plenty to laugh at; Ianto could just picture how ridiculous it looked for a man in a business suit to be throwing oranges at tiny alien gunmen...
Then he was trying not to laugh with relief, and he glanced at Gwen and she sniggered.
"What's so funny?" Owen asked, sandwiched between them.
"What did you say?" Gwen asked. "Oi, bugger off home?"
"No, no," Ianto managed, choking back insane laughter. "I said -- oh, god, Gwen..."
He leaned forward, resting his forehead against the back of the seat.
"Oh god," he said, more serious now. "I said, One move and this one gets it."
He breathed deeply for a few minutes until he felt sane, then leaned back and looked at Jack's reflection in the rear-view mirror. Jack gave him the most appraising stare he'd felt since they were first introduced.
"Then he told them there was more where that came from," Gwen said, wiping her eyes.
"Well, that was stupid," Owen said.
"Incredibly stupid," Ianto agreed.
"But it worked," Tosh said.
"Let's get it back and see what we can make of it," Jack said.
"Did you get your watch?" Gwen asked Ianto. He pulled back his sleeve to show her, then reached into his pocket, offering Owen's watch back to him. "Cheers, Owen."
"Yeah, whatever," Owen said, putting it on. "You're mental. I say that as a doctor."
"They went away, though," Ianto said, more reflectively now.
"From now on," Jack said, "nobody goes anywhere alone. We don't know what they are. Ianto, you're on hold while we deal with them."
"I'm very much behind us finding out what tried to kill us, sir," Ianto said. Tosh had managed to pry the base of the thing open. The smell of charred flesh filled the air, and she closed it again quickly.
"I want you on watch when we get back, Ianto. Owen, clearly something died in there."
"Teeny tiny Xenopsy," Owen agreed. Then he jerked forward -- they all did -- as Jack brought the car to an abrupt halt.
They had almost reached the Hub, could see it from where they were in fact, but there was something in the street. Technically, probably, someone.
"Tosh," Jack said.
"Searching database now," Tosh said, keying words into her handheld.
"Blimey," Owen said. "That is one ugly alien."
"He's an Energy Baron," Ianto said, as the computer files scrolled past his eyes from memory. "That's right, isn't it, Tosh?"
"Still looking..." Tosh clicked a button. "He's right, Jack."
Jack was in a staring contest with the yellow, reasonably humanoid figure in the street. It had spikes all over its head and dangling from those spikes were floppy, bedraggled green feathers.
"Friendly?" he asked.
"They're in the files by hearsay. Supposedly they're merchants. They sell power systems and fuel."
"So we've been stopped by an interstellar petrol man?" Owen asked.
"Not nice people," Tosh said. "And this one's armed."
The alien reached around his chest and pulled a small, curved blade from a sheath on its arm.
"Oh seriously?" Jack said. Just then, the alien flicked the blade gently and a curved beam of blue light sheared his side-view mirror off.
"Give me the Time Lord!" he called.
"Everybody got their seatbelts on?" Jack asked. They gave quiet affirmatives. Ianto braced his hands on the seat.
Jack threw the car into reverse and they sped backwards up the street, chased by flashes of blue light. Ianto turned around, watching the traffic behind them.
"Jack," he said. "on my word turn the wheel clockwise."
"Ianto, you'd better know what you're doing."
"Wheel, sir, clockwise -- NOW."
Jack turned the wheel and the SUV skewed around.
"Forward gear!" Ianto called, as they barrelled backwards towards a lorry. "Forwardgearforwardgearforwardgear!"
The car slammed forward.
"Defensible position! Who's got weapons?" Jack called as they sped away.
"I have an idea," Ianto said quietly. "Turn right, ahead."
"If you go left we can bunker in near the abandoned warehouse," Owen pointed out.
"Ianto, what's your plan?"
"Not as good as that one, actually."
"How many guns have we got?"
"Three handguns..." Owen leaned over the seat to rummage in the back. "Two missile-launchers and some alien thing with whirring blades we took off that busker last week."
The alien had caught up with them and had a straight line again; the back window of the SUV cracked inwards.
"And he's got a jedi light sabre," Owen added.
"O-kay," Jack said, and turned right. "Ianto, make up a better plan. Fast."
"When I say stop, turn the car sideways. You can defend behind it. Stay with the car until I call," Ianto said, unbuckling his seatbelt.
"Ianto, don't you dare -- "
"Not giving myself up," Ianto answered. "Loyalty much appreciated. Stop!"
Jack skewed the SUV sideways expertly, and Ianto leapt out the door as the tyres hissed and creaked. The park he'd been about to investigate was ten feet away; the car was taking the brunt of the alien's attack, and he ran past the go-round and the swings without a second thought. He probably looked utterly mad, but he was certain --
He grasped a bar of the climbing-set, kicked the corner of another with a gesture so old he must have learned it as a child, and pulled. The bar swung out and, with it, an invisible door just tall enough to admit a human. Inside he could see lights and wood paneling.
"COME ON!" he shouted. He saw Owen's face in the rear hatch window, and then the lot of them poured out of the car, Jack firing for cover.
"Winged it," Gwen said as she ran past him.
"JACK!"
Jack scrambled out the driver's-side door and bolted past the car. Ianto followed him in, pulled the door shut, and nearly fell down steps he hadn't been expecting. There was a thud on the door, then silence.
Ianto stood at the top of the stairs and looked around, awed.
The room was more or less a large dome; it had a high arching ceiling with shiny wooden beams, a handful of doorways, and a platform in the center with a raised circular table surrounding a column that went into the ceiling. It had the feel of a place where no-one had been in a long time.
It felt so much like home that he shivered.
"What the bloody hell is going on?" Owen demanded. "Why didn't anybody tell me about the secret bunker in the middle of downtown?"
"It's not a bunker," Jack said, walking to one of the screens embedded in the table. He touched it lightly and it turned from black to a bright grey. "It's a space-ship."
"It's a lot bigger on the inside," Owen observed.
"They usually are," Jack murmured. Ianto descended the steps slowly, tracing his fingers along the brass railing. At the end was a brighter spot where someone had rubbed a high shine on it. He touched it, a memory on the tip of his tongue.
He crossed to where Jack was working at the monitor.
"Do you want to tell me now what I am?" he asked, low and intense and suddenly angry.
"No," Jack retorted, without looking up. "I want to get rid of the homicidal alien who might try to slaughter civilians. I think I remember enough..."
The others crowded around as he worked, turning dials and flicking switches and keying information into the screen. Eventually, a small window appeared, showing the alien pacing around and around the climbing-dome, slicing a band of light at it occasionally. Against the hull of the ship, the light did absolutely nothing.
"Come on back around," Jack whispered. "That's it. You saw the door. A little closer...go on, you know you want to."
They watched as the alien stepped back and let loose with a flying kick against the frail-looking structure. His toe seemed to stick and he began to convulse; just as his black, knobbly tongue began to protrude from his mouth, Jack flicked another switch and he collapsed to the ground.
"I'll go tie him up," Gwen sighed.
"I'll help," Owen said. "This is giving me the crawling creeps."
Tosh was exploring the rest of the central table, marveling at the gauges and dials encrusting the surface. Jack stepped back, pressed his hands to his eyes, and sighed.
"How did you know what to do?" Tosh asked.
"Luck," Jack said.
"He's been in one before," Ianto corrected. Jack looked up at him. Ianto could see the words in his head so clearly..."He's lived in one before. It's called a TARDIS. But it's not your TARDIS, is it, sir?"
"It's not the one I knew," Jack said, returning to the monitor. "The one I traveled in was...different."
"Is this what time agents use, then?" Tosh asked. Jack laughed.
"No. It's alien technology. It's -- to discover a TARDIS...it'll be an amazing step forward for Torchwood. The technology is incredible." Jack touched the table, looking troubled. "Possibly too fast a step forward."
"How'd you get in?" Tosh asked, looking at Ianto. He frowned. "How'd you even know it was here?"
Fortunately there was a thunk on the door that let them know Gwen and Owen were waiting. Ianto opened the door and held it for Tosh and Jack. Jack paused in the doorway and looked at him.
"A Time Lord," he said quietly. "A Time Lord has two hearts, and once they traveled throughout the universe in ships called TARDISes that could span space and time. They protected things that were good and beautiful. They died. All but one."
"Your Doctor," Ianto said.
"This isn't his ship. It's probably yours," Jack said. He glanced at where the others were waiting by the car. "So maybe two survived and somehow you...forgot. More than that I honestly don't know, Ianto."
He walked away and Ianto pulled the door shut after him, the TARDIS disappearing into the image of the playset.
***
We have fed our seas for a thousand years,
For that is our doom and pride,
As it was when they sailed on the Golden Hind,
Or the wreck that struck half tide
For that is our doom and pride,
As it was when they sailed on the Golden Hind,
Or the wreck that struck half tide
The skies over Earth were practically bristling with ships by the time the Doctor arrived; most of them looked as if they were waiting and watching, and it wasn't hard to scare at least a few of them off. The sight of the small blue police box was not unknown to many races and they gave it wide berth, disappearing one by one or pulling far back. The Doctor allowed himself to be a trifle smug about this.
He put down outside of Cardiff and walked into the town, taking the opportunity to stretch his legs. He hadn't really thought about what he would say; he'd been in such a hurry to get here, and now he was oddly reluctant to go the last few miles to the Other -- the only surviving Time Lord aside from himself, now that the Master was dead.
His footsteps led him to Torchwood first; the Other was very nearby, but you couldn't be too careful. He stood for a long time on the side of a nearby road, hidden from the cameras but able to see the plaza. He could taste the charge in the air; somewhere his distant relative was bleeding energy from the regeneration like a burst water balloon. Some of the predators in orbit were no doubt after the energy; the rest were probably just curious. A Time Lord was a rare thing, and an encounter with one was nothing if not an adventure.
He crossed the open plaza slowly, stopping to look up at each of the cameras in turn. That ought to be all the warning Jack needed, unless the Captain was falling off his game. Then he passed into the small front office, opened the door effortlessly, and stopped in the entryway to Torchwood.
"Hullo?" he said, when nobody looked at him. This was because nobody was there. "Anyone home? Alien on premesis."
No answer.
"Jack?"
Just the echo of his own voice, bouncing off the ceiling.
"Bit anticlimactic, all this," he said to himself.
He wandered into the room proper, circling the desks with their primitive computers and slightly more advanced alien technology. From his point of view, it was half-laboratory, half-museum; amazing what you could do with some old technology and a little innovation. And they were so very proud of it, like a child with a new toy.
He heard footsteps above and ducked back into a nook near the entrance, pressing himself to the wall as the door slid open and the room filled with voices.
" -- to sedate him and take him down to the cells. Tosh, get to work on the tiny spaceship. Leave the body for Owen."
Jack's voice, confidently calling orders. Jack's boots on the grating of Torchwood's floor, moving him forward into the Doctor's line of vision through a tangle of wires.
"Gwen, help Owen with the body, then see if Tosh needs help. You might need the microtools, they're in storage bin nine."
Two more figures appeared, carrying a third; That must be Owen and Gwen, carrying the body. Energy Baron. Figured. Another woman followed carrying a deactivated proton blade, and that must be Tosh. Terrible name for a person. In her other hand she had a small metal cone of a make he'd never seen before, which took some doing.
"Ianto, get on the city cameras and the satellites. Watch the skies. I want to know where they're coming from. Yell out if anything shows up. I'm going to call London. We may have to have some help on this one."
A final figure passed through the door, the man Jack had called Ianto. The Doctor inhaled sharply but softly; the man didn't notice, just strode to a desk piled high with computer screens and began tapping commands into a keyboard with one hand, working a complex joystick with the other. He moved like a Time Lord, even; no hesitation, not a gesture lacking confidence. He studied the monitors with a tilt of his head, his hand leaving the joystick and reaching into the shelf for something --
Oh. A handgun. An real internal-propulsion barreled lead slingshot. Adorable.
"I can see you," he called, aiming the toy at the Doctor unerringly. The others looked up from their tasks. "Come out. NOW!"
"All right, all right, don't shoot," the Doctor said, holding his hands up slightly and stepping away from the wall. "Unarmed, me. Don't bite either. Well, not people anyway."
"How'd you get in?" the Other demanded.
"Sonic screwdriver," the Doctor said.
"What?"
"Picked the lock. Look, this is a huge misunderstanding," the Doctor said. "I'm a friend of your Captain Jack. He'll be very annoyed if you shoot me. Not as annoyed as I'll be, but still, seriously put out. You know how he gets. I'm here to help -- "
"HEY! I gave some orders, down there," Jack called from an upper level. "It's not tea-time with the Quee -- "
He stopped as he took in the tableau; the Other holding a gun on the Doctor, the rest of his team closing slowly around the Other.
"Hi Jack," the Doctor said, waving one of his upraised hands slightly. "Just introducing myself, not to worry. Nice digs."
"He was hiding behind the Lithonic Scale Inverter," the Other said.
"Wow, is that what this is? I've never seen one up close," the Doctor said, turning to examine the wires. "Brilliant. Where'd you get it?"
"Boot sale," Jack replied. "You can put the gun down, Ianto. He's harmless."
"Well, I wouldn't say harmless," the Doctor replied. He lowered his hands as the Other eased the safety back onto the gun and Jack came down the stairs at a pace that was only just short of embarrassingly fast. He brushed past the rest and the Doctor found himself enveloped in Jack Harkness's fierce, affectionate hug. He patted one shoulder reassuringly.
"Are we glad to see you," Jack said. "What the hell's going on?"
"Wish I knew. Getting a lot of visitors, are we?"
Jack stepped back. He looked good, but also tired and worried.
"Two this morning alone," Jack answered. "Got any idea how we sedate an angry Energy Baron?"
The Doctor glanced at the unconscious form lying on the table nearby. He walked over to it, tugged on its feathers, and gave it a ringing slap across what passed for its face. Its eyes opened.
"Listen you," he said. "This is my planet. I've already run off your mates. Hop it or you'll feel more than the back of my hand."
The Baron's eyes widened.
"S - Sorry," he said. "Sorry sir. Didn't realise, sir."
"Off you go."
The Baron tapped a sequence of numbers into his armband with shaking hands and promptly teleported. The Doctor turned to see the humans -- and the Other -- staring at him.
"Well. I'm knackered. Long journey, et cetera. Tea would hit the spot..."
"I'll put the kettle on," the Other murmured, and the Doctor watched in amazement as the humans all let a Time Lord wander off to make them some tea.
Chapter Two | Chapter Four
Fic: The Doctor and Mr Jones Chapter 3
But yay. I love the Doctor's impression of Torchwood. And dealing with the energy baron.
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Arwen, reading on.
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If I may suggest, if you do watch, Torchwood will make WAY more sense if you watch Dr. Who first. Don't be scared by the fact that the show's been around for 44 years and has more backstory and lore than GOD -- go for the new series, and start with the Doctor played by Chris Eccleston. :D
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Funny thing is that with Ianto's reactions, the attacking cones and Ianto throwing oranges it feels more like a Doctor Who than a TW episode . Which is not bad, just funny.
I love it, thanks!
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(Anonymous) 2008-07-10 04:49 pm (UTC)(link)Perfect. Just perfect.
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lol! Why do I want to say "only Ianto" would leave a note like that?
(^_^)/
BEM
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"I've seen whole armies turn their backs on him and run"
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I so love this!
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I also love how all the 'invaders' have a healthy respect for the Oncoming Storm XD
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Glad that the Doctor's arrived, if only for the fact he's chased some of the other aliens away. With a bit of luck, he can help Torchwood get rid of the rest of them, while answering some of Ianto's questions.