sam_storyteller (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sam_storyteller) wrote2005-07-17 09:15 am
sam_storyteller) wrote2005-07-17 09:15 am
Entry tags:
The Doctor And Mr. Jones; Torchwood/Who, R, 4/5
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).
The Doctor, for all his chatter, did not miss a beat; he watched Ianto as he made the tea and handed out mugs, passing through Torchwood to the various stations -- Tosh and Owen carefully probing the metal cone, Gwen collating satellite images, Jack tapping out messages to London. They stopped near Jack, and the Doctor leaned on the railing.
"These are your people, then," the Doctor said, sipping his tea.
"Yeah!" Jack said, looking like a proud father. Ianto smiled to himself. "This is Gwen Cooper, formerly of the South Wales police...Toshiko Sato, our computer specialist..."
"If this is the Doctor you were talking about -- " Owen began, and Jack slapped him on the back so hard he couldn't continue.
"Dr. Owen Harper, our resident medical man, and Ianto Jones, general support."
"Pleased to meet you, sir," Ianto said politely.
"Ianto Jones. Wow," the Doctor said. "I mean, could you be more Welsh? What's your real name?"
"That...is my real name," Ianto said, perplexed.
"No, but really."
"Really, Doctor. Ianto -- Ianto Meredith Jones," Ianto said.
"Meredith?" Owen asked, looking like the teasing would never end.
"Ianto's been with Torchwood Three since Canary Wharf," Jack said significantly. The Doctor frowned. "He was in London before that, with Torchwood One."
"But I was born and raised in Wales," Ianto added.
"How old are you?" the Doctor asked.
"Twenty-five, sir."
"How long've you been human?"
Ianto blinked. "Until two days ago, all my life."
"Nah, that can't be. Don't you remember?" the Doctor asked.
"Remember what?"
"If I could ask a question -- " Owen began.
"Shh," the Doctor said. Ianto grinned. "Have you changed your appearance recently? Had any kind of...er, terminal encounter?"
Ianto looked to Jack for permission. Jack nodded.
"I was killed," he said. "Obviously not permanently, but it changed something."
"Chameleon Arch," Jack said softly.
"Can you fix it?" Ianto asked.
"You are fixed," the Doctor said. "Well, sort of. You must've been human for a long time. Let's see...sit down."
Ianto sat. Jack, he noticed, circled around to stand behind his chair, practically radiating protectiveness. The Doctor sat also and turned his chair, facing them.
"May I?" he asked, holding out his hands. Ianto nodded, leaning forward. Fingers touched his face, light and cool. The Doctor's eyes were dark and bottomless; Ianto found himself unable to look away.
"This might hurt," the Doctor said, and then the world went away.
Not away, not quite; it wasn't so much that everything disappeared as that it changed. Ianto saw silver and red first, forming themselves into something approaching a landscape. There was a man there, pointing over his shoulder, leaning down as if Ianto were quite small.
"Gallifrey," the man said. "Ga-li-frey."
His hand moved, indicating a sparkling orange city in the distance. "Home."
"Gallifrey," Ianto breathed, and there was an enormous commotion.
"Did you hear that?" the man demanded of someone in the distance. "He said Gallifrey!"
"Yes, all right, we're all very impressed by the boy," someone else said. "About bloody time he started to speak."
"Dad!" the man said.
"Well! I have fifteen grandchildren and not one of them has been as much trouble as him."
Ianto turned his head to see a white-haired man in an enormous, resplendent collar, reclining on a chair on the hillside.
"He's going to be a genius," the first man said.
"Every father thinks that. Go on, give him back to his mother. The war doesn't stop just because you've had a son."
Ianto felt himself lifted, a nauseating feeling but short-lived. The world tilted and twirled and reformed itself again, and now he was sitting inside the ship they'd been in earlier. People were rushing around in a panic and he wanted to get up and try to help, but a strap held him in place and it was very hard to move.
A woman with dark hair and bright blue eyes knelt in front of him. She held up a silver object -- his stopwatch, the one he'd had forever.
"Keep it very safe, my love," she said. "Some day you'll understand."
She set it into a panel on a machine that hadn't been there when they were in the ship that afternoon, and a strange metal chandelier began to descend. Ianto instinctively tried to duck away but the strap held him fast and then the world was filled with so much pain...
***
When Ianto said Gallifrey, Jack crouched to be nearer to both men; when they both began to scream, he and Gwen separated them almost immediately, pulling them apart without hesitation. The scream was not by far the worst Jack had ever heard, having served through the trenches, but it was definitely in the top ten. The others came racing up the stairs.
Ianto covered his face with his arms, hands clenching his hair, and whimpered; the Doctor rocked backwards, horrified surprise on his face.
"You were a child," he said. "Why would they do that to a child?"
"You hurt him!" Owen said, trying to pull Ianto's hands away from his face.
"Memories," the Doctor said. "I didn't do anything to him. Someone else hurt him."
Ianto was breathing heavily; Jack tried to press past Owen but the other man wouldn't move.
"Ianto. Ianto!" Owen said, struggling with him. Ianto's body uncurled, slowly, and Owen pulled his hands away.
"No wonder you think like a human," the Doctor said, as Ianto lifted agonised features to him again. "You can't have been more than five. They -- " he looked up at Jack. "They sent him away. They locked him up in a bit of machinery and sent him -- through the rift. Somewhere he'd be safe."
Gwen was standing back now, watching anxiously; Tosh, next to her, held the open metal cone in her hand. Jack picked up his own cup of tea and held it to Ianto's lips, pleased when he drank.
"He'll be all right," the Doctor said.
"No thanks to you," Owen retorted.
"Who're you, his dad?" the Doctor asked. Jack saw a flash of defiance in Owen's eyes.
"Did you find anything?" Jack asked. The Doctor nodded. "What?"
"There was a war..." the Doctor said. "Our war. You know which."
Jack nodded. He did know; the horror of it was unimaginable, incomprehensible, but he knew there had been a war.
"My people -- " the Doctor glanced at Ianto. "The Time Lords and the Daleks destroyed each other. I thought there were no survivors..."
"There were survivors," Jack said. Cold filled him. He remembered the Dalek survivors. He remembered them killing him for the very first time.
"It must have been near the end of the war. It must have been desperate," the Doctor said. He looked at Ianto again. "Your mother hid you. She masked you and sent you here. To safety. Such as it is."
"So what, he's Superman now too?" Owen asked.
"Hm?" the Doctor said. "He must have been very young. Fitted himself in somehow, grew up. Joined up."
"I've seen his file," Jack said. "He's talked about his parents. He wasn't adopted."
"And time travel and aliens don't exist. I don't have all the answers, Jack," the Doctor said. Jack had rarely seen the Doctor annoyed, not at him anyway, and he'd never heard him admit he didn't know something. "I know he's a Time Lord. The only other Time Lord. He's regenerated, which is going to draw attention. It's going to be a bum few days but..." he pursed his lips and shrugged, a move Jack knew by heart. "Should blow over pretty quickly."
Ianto took the cup from Jack's hands, giving him a grateful smile as their fingers touched.
"And you have a decision to..." the Doctor began, then almost visibly changed gears as Tosh set the cone down on the desk. "What is that?"
Tosh slid it across the desk to him. He picked it up and examined it, peering into the hollow centre.
"This was inside it," she added, holding out a plastic container with a snap-on lid. The Doctor opened it, sniffed, and lifted out what looked like a half-charred octopus.
Jack recoiled. Fear and horror filled him. He knew what it looked like; he knew what the little round-tipped cone was, and what it meant. The Doctor frowned, placed it back in the container, closed the lid, and lifted the cone once more.
"Daleks," Jack breathed.
"Drones," the Doctor replied, reaching into the cone. Something sparked and fizzled inside it. "No...more like scouts..."
He winced, grimaced, and pulled something out of the tip, offering it to Tosh. She looked at Jack, apparently wondering if Jack's reaction meant she shouldn't touch it. The Doctor offered it to her again.
"Patch it in," he said, tilting his head at one of the computers. Jack wanted to go with her, because the computer seemed impossibly far from where the rest of them were huddled, but he couldn't move.
Daleks. Daleks on Earth. All of Torchwood's power was useless against Daleks. Jack was useless against Daleks. Jack had stood and fired and watched good men and women fall to protect the Doctor -- from the Daleks. He had died at the hands of the Daleks. They were unloving, uncaring, having no sense of beauty or mercy or any of the things Jack treasured in the world. There was nothing about them that he did not loathe with every atom of his being.
"How did you run them off the first time?" the Doctor asked.
"Oranges," Ianto said, still trying to control his breathing. "I hit one. Then I shouted at the rest of them. They just...went away."
"When?"
"Eight forty-six," Ianto answered.
"Right when I touched down," the Doctor said. "You didn't scare them off...there was just a new factor in play."
"Got it," Tosh said. An odd block of text appeared on the laptop, tapering like an upside-down pyramid. The Doctor didn't take his eyes from it as he stood and moved around the table.
"Marching orders," he said. "Daleks like orders."
"What does it say?" Tosh asked.
"It's a chain. Almost an algorithm," the Doctor replied. "Observe and track items of interest. Report items of interest. Track as commanded. Observe. Target."
"Exterminate," Jack finished. The Doctor nodded. Jack saw Tosh back away, and Owen reach out for her hand; Gwen moved closer as well, casting a scared look at the computer screen. Ianto shoved the plastic tub away from him as he stood, his shoulder brushing Jack's.
"Here we are," the Doctor said, either ignoring or ignorant of the fear in the air. "This subclause..." he tapped the screen with a finger. "Evacuation orders. In case I show up."
"No it's not," Ianto said, and the Doctor glanced over his shoulder at him.
"You can read that?" he asked.
"No. But I can read you. It's not just evacuation."
"No, it's not," the Doctor agreed.
"Then what is it?" Tosh asked.
"Evacuate," the Doctor said. "Regroup. And then invade."
***
Ianto was trembling.
He knew that Jack was far more intimate with the horrors of Dalek warfare than he was, but he had been at Canary Wharf. He knew the Daleks and he knew that deep in this new body was a born-in hatred and fear of them. They had destroyed the Doctor's race -- they had destroyed his race, he supposed. The white-haired man in the collar who must be his grandfather, the woman with the bright blue eyes who was his mother -- murdered by Daleks.
The thoughts flew though his head as he busied himself with other tasks -- Gwen was speaking to the Welsh authorities, readying the civilian defence for war while Jack spoke urgently to the Prime Minister and heads of state in his office. Even Owen was frantically contacting hospitals while Tosh focused the combined power of every telescope observation-tower, satellite, and radio transmitter she could get hold of into scanning the skies for the invasion fleet. The Doctor was working at the laptop still, scrolling through the information on the Dalek scout's chip. Ianto did what he could, making sure the telephone lines stayed clear and that connections got through, transmitting emergency protocols as requests came in. His hands would not stop shaking.
He glanced across the room to see that the Doctor had cleared the screen and was accessing Torchwood now, scrolling through their arms catalogue.
"Access the mainframe," he called. The Doctor looked up at him. "You're only reading ours. Get into the mainframe, that'll give you the other Torchwood offices as well."
"What do you have that's any use?" the Doctor asked.
"Locally, only small weaponry. Nuclear warheads -- the US has more. Tosh can get in if she has to."
"Advance knowledge," the Doctor said. "And the TARDIS."
"Two TARDIS," Ianto replied. "TARDISes? Tardes?"
"Two?"
"We found one. Mine, I suppose," Ianto said. Odd to think of himself owning anything so amazing; he had still hardly got used to having a flat of his own.
The Doctor straightened slowly.
"You have a TARDIS?" he asked.
"I reckon so," Ianto said, clearing a telecom tower and dropping about fifteen hundred peoples' calls to get it open for Owen. "That's what Jack called it. I've no idea how to use it."
"I do," the Doctor said. "You will. Come on."
"But -- "
"Come on!" the Doctor said, grabbing his arm and pulling him away from the computer. Ianto picked up his keys as they ran, shouting over his shoulder.
"TOSH! CLEAR THE COMMS!"
"Where are you going?" Jack yelled.
"To save the world! Keep at it!" the Doctor answered, before the door slammed shut behind them. The comm hooked over his ear beeped.
"Did he say to save the world?" Jack asked in his ear.
"I think so, sir," Ianto replied, still running. "Doctor! Car!"
"Looks bad, runs well?" the Doctor asked, hurling himself into the passenger's seat of the much-battered SUV.
"Something like that," Ianto replied, starting the ignition. He backed and wheeled it, tapping his comm. "Somebody clear the roads?"
"On it," Gwen's voice answered.
"Ianto?" Jack's voice.
"Doing my best, sir," Ianto answered. "I think the Doctor has a plan."
"All right. Patching you into the Torchwood network."
"Is that wise?"
"I trust the Doctor," Jack said. Hot jealousy flared in Ianto's gut, but he concentrated on driving. "All hands Torchwood, this is Captain Jack Harkness operating out of Torchwood Three Cardiff. We have a redcode situation. Control has been handed to Ianto Jones, Torchwood Three. This is high priority over-ride, A-eight-nine-four-two. Say hello, Ianto."
"Sir?" Ianto asked. He knew code A8942; it overrode everything, including military and police command structures.
"Few words to the troops, Jones."
Ianto took a deep breath, turned a corner, and nearly passed out. "This is Ianto Jones, Torchwood Three. Status report."
"General Corcoran, Mr. Jones. Military is standing by for orders."
"American Troops Overseas are standing by for orders, Mr. Jones."
"European Alliance Troops standing by for orders, Mr. Jones."
"UNIT standing by, Mr. Jones."
"Cardiff Police standing by, Mr. Jones."
"Torchwood Two, Mr. Jones, standing by."
"Torchwood Five standing by, Mr. Jones."
"We have a Torchwood Five?" Ianto asked.
"It's really just me, Ianto."
"Melissa?" Ianto asked. Melissa used to sit two desks over at --
"Torchwood One forever, Ianto," she said, her voice sad and amused at the same time.
"Copying all," Ianto said. He looked at the Doctor.
"Scramble fighters," the Doctor said.
"Military, all units, air fighters, scramble," Ianto relayed.
"Let's keep this in the air."
"Let's keep this in the air," Ianto repeated. Then they turned another corner and drove straight into a shower of sparks.
"Keep going!" the Doctor said. The Dalek scouts had assembled in front of the playground and were firing freely.
"We'll never get through -- "
"Keep driving!"
Ianto plowed into an explosion of fire, metal clanking off the bumper and windscreen.
"Ground forces and Torchwoods, arm," he said as they bumped over fallen scouts. "Load yourselves up and get to the city centres. Prepare to defend. Three, stay on comm."
"Three standing by." Jack's voice, reassuring.
"Ground forces deployed."
"Two out."
"UNIT out."
"Five out. Good luck, Ianto."
The Doctor threw the door open and aimed what looked like a small electric torch at the cloud of smoke. Ianto drew the car to a stop.
"Get out very slowly," the Doctor said. Ianto opened his door and slid out. The scouts just hung there, silent, menacing. "Where's the TARDIS?"
"Playground," Ianto said, backing towards it.
"Ianto, we have first visual," Tosh said.
"Every moving thing in the sky has buggered right off," Owen added. "It's hard to get a clear view..."
"It's not one big ship," Tosh said. "Oh, my god."
As they walked carefully backwards towards the TARDIS, Ianto looked up. It looked like a silver cloud was blotting out the sun.
"First visual," he said. "Dalek invasion forces are massing over Great Britain. Military converge."
"UK Military copy."
"European Alliance copy."
"UNIT copy."
"US Overseas Military, copy. Scrambling additional fighters, Mr. Jones, but it'll take some time to get to Britain."
Ianto reached behind him, kicked back with his heel, and pulled the door open. The Doctor shoved him inside and followed. As he closed the door, Ianto saw the scouts priming up their weapons. A few seconds after the door shut, there was a hissing noise.
"It'll stand," the Doctor said, running to the control panel. He kicked a few levers, twisted two knobs, and beamed. "Hello, beautiful," he crooned. "Aren't you posh. Nice to see you."
"Daleks are in the upper atmosphere," Jack said. "Ianto, what are you doing out there?"
"TAKING OFF!" the Doctor shouted.
"Did you copy, sir?"
"Copy, Mr. Jones," Jack replied. The floor beneath Ianto began to shake, and then there was a sensation of upwards movement, like an elevator. "We have visual -- Jesus, Ianto."
Ianto turned to one of the monitors, typing without thinking. An image appeared on his screen of an enormous vessel, breathtakingly graceful, incredibly sleek. Slowly, he realised he was seeing the TARDIS as it truly was.
"TARDIS is airborne," Ianto said. "Military, you will see a large object over Cardiff. I am in that object. Don't fire on us, please."
"Copy." A chorus of voices.
"Lower atmosphere!" Tosh said.
"What the hell are we doing?" Ianto hissed.
"You're piloting. Get to these coordinates," the Doctor said, pointing to a post-it note sticking to one of the screens.
"Me? What are you doing?"
"Sodding off. Don't worry, I'll be right behind you. Look for a little blue call box." The Doctor clapped him on the shoulder. "Good luck."
"But I don't know how to -- "
"Do what comes naturally!" the Doctor said, tapping a sequence directly onto a screen. Then he began to disappear.
Ianto was alone in a spaceship he didn't know how to pilot, with half the world's military at his command.
"Bugger fuck," he said feelingly. He tapped his comm. "Status!"
"Daleks leaving lower atmosphere." Tosh sounded tense. Can't imagine why.
"Firing range in five," an American.
"Fire when ready," Ianto said.
"Always wanted to hear you say that," Jack said.
"All due respect, sir, is now the time for levity?" Ianto asked, panicking as he took in just how many controls there were.
"About to die? Exactly the time for levity," Jack replied. Ianto had to admit that he heard a chorus of laughter from the fighters.
He didn't realise he had taken grip on a circular globe in the table until he twirled it slightly and felt the TARDIS lift again. He turned it the other way and punched a button. The TARDIs responded. Ianto let go of the comm, leaving it open, and began piloting with both hands.
"Ianto Meredith Jones," came a voice, the Doctor's voice. A Time Lord. A fellow Time Lord. "You're learning fast. Are you ready to save the world?"
"Is that all?" Ianto asked. "I do that twice a week and still keep the loos stocked."
"Was that levity?" Jack asked.
"Might have been, sir. Doctor, are you hooked in?"
"Hallo, Earthlings!" the Doctor said, sounding crazed. "Below the giant thing over Cardiff you will notice a small blue box. Do not fire on that either."
"Copy, Small Blue Box."
"Where are we going, Doctor?" Ianto asked.
"Listen closely, Ianto," the Doctor said, and Ianto began to grin as he realised what the Doctor was planning.
***
The bright, sleek ship, which had twenty minutes before been a rusty child's jungle-gym, rose up through the swarm of fighter planes like a giant beetle through a crowd of gnats. There was an ever-growing sea of silver as the Dalek forces bore down on the small blue planet, intending to do two things: destroy the Time Lords and exterminate the humans. It didn't matter which happened first.
Only the few who were watching the blue box as avidly as the glittering ship saw it break off and speed away, circling the silver mass of the Daleks, turning gold momentarily as they passed into Earth's atmosphere. On the television, it looked like fireworks. On the advanced three-dimensional radar screens at Torchwood Three, it looked like death impending.
"Ianto?" Jack asked.
"Not to worry," Ianto said.
"I'm worrying anyway."
"Me too, sir."
"In possibly our last ten minutes alive I think you can call me Jack, Ianto."
"Not to break up the party," the Doctor interrupted, "but we do have work to do. Ready, Mr. Jones?"
"Ready," Ianto's voice sounded terrified. "All fighters, whatever you see, don't fire until the Daleks reach you."
"Copy."
The Doctor's voice suddenly sounded odd and echoing. "COOO-EE! HEY! DALEKS!"
The descent of the Daleks stopped.
"HEY! OVER HERE!" Ianto's voice, also strangely reverberating. "TWLL DIN POB DALEKH!"
Jack began to laugh. He couldn't help it. Only Ianto would sail into battle with a warcry in Welsh.
"Arseholes to Daleks?" Gwen asked, disbelieving.
"Look," Tosh said, pointing at the screen.
The Daleks were dividing down the center. The left side were turning left, where a small blue box floated defiantly; the right half were turning to the other TARDIS, Ianto's TARDIS.
"Jack?" Ianto said faintly.
"Yes?" Jack said.
"You get one of the hearts anyway."
There was a click, and the TARDIS went off-comm. Something blipped on the radar screen. The Dalek force seemed to ripple. On the television it looked like a school of silver fishes, suddenly changing direction.
The Daleks opened fire.
Chapter Three | Chapter Five
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).
Where angel's footprints mark the land
Where castle rocks and towers high
Kneel to valleys wide and green
All my thoughts are turned to you
My waking hope, my sleeping dream
Where castle rocks and towers high
Kneel to valleys wide and green
All my thoughts are turned to you
My waking hope, my sleeping dream
The Doctor, for all his chatter, did not miss a beat; he watched Ianto as he made the tea and handed out mugs, passing through Torchwood to the various stations -- Tosh and Owen carefully probing the metal cone, Gwen collating satellite images, Jack tapping out messages to London. They stopped near Jack, and the Doctor leaned on the railing.
"These are your people, then," the Doctor said, sipping his tea.
"Yeah!" Jack said, looking like a proud father. Ianto smiled to himself. "This is Gwen Cooper, formerly of the South Wales police...Toshiko Sato, our computer specialist..."
"If this is the Doctor you were talking about -- " Owen began, and Jack slapped him on the back so hard he couldn't continue.
"Dr. Owen Harper, our resident medical man, and Ianto Jones, general support."
"Pleased to meet you, sir," Ianto said politely.
"Ianto Jones. Wow," the Doctor said. "I mean, could you be more Welsh? What's your real name?"
"That...is my real name," Ianto said, perplexed.
"No, but really."
"Really, Doctor. Ianto -- Ianto Meredith Jones," Ianto said.
"Meredith?" Owen asked, looking like the teasing would never end.
"Ianto's been with Torchwood Three since Canary Wharf," Jack said significantly. The Doctor frowned. "He was in London before that, with Torchwood One."
"But I was born and raised in Wales," Ianto added.
"How old are you?" the Doctor asked.
"Twenty-five, sir."
"How long've you been human?"
Ianto blinked. "Until two days ago, all my life."
"Nah, that can't be. Don't you remember?" the Doctor asked.
"Remember what?"
"If I could ask a question -- " Owen began.
"Shh," the Doctor said. Ianto grinned. "Have you changed your appearance recently? Had any kind of...er, terminal encounter?"
Ianto looked to Jack for permission. Jack nodded.
"I was killed," he said. "Obviously not permanently, but it changed something."
"Chameleon Arch," Jack said softly.
"Can you fix it?" Ianto asked.
"You are fixed," the Doctor said. "Well, sort of. You must've been human for a long time. Let's see...sit down."
Ianto sat. Jack, he noticed, circled around to stand behind his chair, practically radiating protectiveness. The Doctor sat also and turned his chair, facing them.
"May I?" he asked, holding out his hands. Ianto nodded, leaning forward. Fingers touched his face, light and cool. The Doctor's eyes were dark and bottomless; Ianto found himself unable to look away.
"This might hurt," the Doctor said, and then the world went away.
Not away, not quite; it wasn't so much that everything disappeared as that it changed. Ianto saw silver and red first, forming themselves into something approaching a landscape. There was a man there, pointing over his shoulder, leaning down as if Ianto were quite small.
"Gallifrey," the man said. "Ga-li-frey."
His hand moved, indicating a sparkling orange city in the distance. "Home."
"Gallifrey," Ianto breathed, and there was an enormous commotion.
"Did you hear that?" the man demanded of someone in the distance. "He said Gallifrey!"
"Yes, all right, we're all very impressed by the boy," someone else said. "About bloody time he started to speak."
"Dad!" the man said.
"Well! I have fifteen grandchildren and not one of them has been as much trouble as him."
Ianto turned his head to see a white-haired man in an enormous, resplendent collar, reclining on a chair on the hillside.
"He's going to be a genius," the first man said.
"Every father thinks that. Go on, give him back to his mother. The war doesn't stop just because you've had a son."
Ianto felt himself lifted, a nauseating feeling but short-lived. The world tilted and twirled and reformed itself again, and now he was sitting inside the ship they'd been in earlier. People were rushing around in a panic and he wanted to get up and try to help, but a strap held him in place and it was very hard to move.
A woman with dark hair and bright blue eyes knelt in front of him. She held up a silver object -- his stopwatch, the one he'd had forever.
"Keep it very safe, my love," she said. "Some day you'll understand."
She set it into a panel on a machine that hadn't been there when they were in the ship that afternoon, and a strange metal chandelier began to descend. Ianto instinctively tried to duck away but the strap held him fast and then the world was filled with so much pain...
***
There's two buried 'neath the stable floor
At the well below the valley-o
Another two 'neath the kitchen door
At the well below the valley
Two buried beneath the well
The well below the valley-o
At the well below the valley-o
Another two 'neath the kitchen door
At the well below the valley
Two buried beneath the well
The well below the valley-o
When Ianto said Gallifrey, Jack crouched to be nearer to both men; when they both began to scream, he and Gwen separated them almost immediately, pulling them apart without hesitation. The scream was not by far the worst Jack had ever heard, having served through the trenches, but it was definitely in the top ten. The others came racing up the stairs.
Ianto covered his face with his arms, hands clenching his hair, and whimpered; the Doctor rocked backwards, horrified surprise on his face.
"You were a child," he said. "Why would they do that to a child?"
"You hurt him!" Owen said, trying to pull Ianto's hands away from his face.
"Memories," the Doctor said. "I didn't do anything to him. Someone else hurt him."
Ianto was breathing heavily; Jack tried to press past Owen but the other man wouldn't move.
"Ianto. Ianto!" Owen said, struggling with him. Ianto's body uncurled, slowly, and Owen pulled his hands away.
"No wonder you think like a human," the Doctor said, as Ianto lifted agonised features to him again. "You can't have been more than five. They -- " he looked up at Jack. "They sent him away. They locked him up in a bit of machinery and sent him -- through the rift. Somewhere he'd be safe."
Gwen was standing back now, watching anxiously; Tosh, next to her, held the open metal cone in her hand. Jack picked up his own cup of tea and held it to Ianto's lips, pleased when he drank.
"He'll be all right," the Doctor said.
"No thanks to you," Owen retorted.
"Who're you, his dad?" the Doctor asked. Jack saw a flash of defiance in Owen's eyes.
"Did you find anything?" Jack asked. The Doctor nodded. "What?"
"There was a war..." the Doctor said. "Our war. You know which."
Jack nodded. He did know; the horror of it was unimaginable, incomprehensible, but he knew there had been a war.
"My people -- " the Doctor glanced at Ianto. "The Time Lords and the Daleks destroyed each other. I thought there were no survivors..."
"There were survivors," Jack said. Cold filled him. He remembered the Dalek survivors. He remembered them killing him for the very first time.
"It must have been near the end of the war. It must have been desperate," the Doctor said. He looked at Ianto again. "Your mother hid you. She masked you and sent you here. To safety. Such as it is."
"So what, he's Superman now too?" Owen asked.
"Hm?" the Doctor said. "He must have been very young. Fitted himself in somehow, grew up. Joined up."
"I've seen his file," Jack said. "He's talked about his parents. He wasn't adopted."
"And time travel and aliens don't exist. I don't have all the answers, Jack," the Doctor said. Jack had rarely seen the Doctor annoyed, not at him anyway, and he'd never heard him admit he didn't know something. "I know he's a Time Lord. The only other Time Lord. He's regenerated, which is going to draw attention. It's going to be a bum few days but..." he pursed his lips and shrugged, a move Jack knew by heart. "Should blow over pretty quickly."
Ianto took the cup from Jack's hands, giving him a grateful smile as their fingers touched.
"And you have a decision to..." the Doctor began, then almost visibly changed gears as Tosh set the cone down on the desk. "What is that?"
Tosh slid it across the desk to him. He picked it up and examined it, peering into the hollow centre.
"This was inside it," she added, holding out a plastic container with a snap-on lid. The Doctor opened it, sniffed, and lifted out what looked like a half-charred octopus.
Jack recoiled. Fear and horror filled him. He knew what it looked like; he knew what the little round-tipped cone was, and what it meant. The Doctor frowned, placed it back in the container, closed the lid, and lifted the cone once more.
"Daleks," Jack breathed.
"Drones," the Doctor replied, reaching into the cone. Something sparked and fizzled inside it. "No...more like scouts..."
He winced, grimaced, and pulled something out of the tip, offering it to Tosh. She looked at Jack, apparently wondering if Jack's reaction meant she shouldn't touch it. The Doctor offered it to her again.
"Patch it in," he said, tilting his head at one of the computers. Jack wanted to go with her, because the computer seemed impossibly far from where the rest of them were huddled, but he couldn't move.
Daleks. Daleks on Earth. All of Torchwood's power was useless against Daleks. Jack was useless against Daleks. Jack had stood and fired and watched good men and women fall to protect the Doctor -- from the Daleks. He had died at the hands of the Daleks. They were unloving, uncaring, having no sense of beauty or mercy or any of the things Jack treasured in the world. There was nothing about them that he did not loathe with every atom of his being.
"How did you run them off the first time?" the Doctor asked.
"Oranges," Ianto said, still trying to control his breathing. "I hit one. Then I shouted at the rest of them. They just...went away."
"When?"
"Eight forty-six," Ianto answered.
"Right when I touched down," the Doctor said. "You didn't scare them off...there was just a new factor in play."
"Got it," Tosh said. An odd block of text appeared on the laptop, tapering like an upside-down pyramid. The Doctor didn't take his eyes from it as he stood and moved around the table.
"Marching orders," he said. "Daleks like orders."
"What does it say?" Tosh asked.
"It's a chain. Almost an algorithm," the Doctor replied. "Observe and track items of interest. Report items of interest. Track as commanded. Observe. Target."
"Exterminate," Jack finished. The Doctor nodded. Jack saw Tosh back away, and Owen reach out for her hand; Gwen moved closer as well, casting a scared look at the computer screen. Ianto shoved the plastic tub away from him as he stood, his shoulder brushing Jack's.
"Here we are," the Doctor said, either ignoring or ignorant of the fear in the air. "This subclause..." he tapped the screen with a finger. "Evacuation orders. In case I show up."
"No it's not," Ianto said, and the Doctor glanced over his shoulder at him.
"You can read that?" he asked.
"No. But I can read you. It's not just evacuation."
"No, it's not," the Doctor agreed.
"Then what is it?" Tosh asked.
"Evacuate," the Doctor said. "Regroup. And then invade."
***
We’ve patched her rents, stopped her vents,
Dogged hatch and porthole down
Put cables to her ‘for and aft and girded her around
Tomorrow noon we hit the air and then take up the strain
And watch the Mary Ellen Carter rise again
Dogged hatch and porthole down
Put cables to her ‘for and aft and girded her around
Tomorrow noon we hit the air and then take up the strain
And watch the Mary Ellen Carter rise again
Ianto was trembling.
He knew that Jack was far more intimate with the horrors of Dalek warfare than he was, but he had been at Canary Wharf. He knew the Daleks and he knew that deep in this new body was a born-in hatred and fear of them. They had destroyed the Doctor's race -- they had destroyed his race, he supposed. The white-haired man in the collar who must be his grandfather, the woman with the bright blue eyes who was his mother -- murdered by Daleks.
The thoughts flew though his head as he busied himself with other tasks -- Gwen was speaking to the Welsh authorities, readying the civilian defence for war while Jack spoke urgently to the Prime Minister and heads of state in his office. Even Owen was frantically contacting hospitals while Tosh focused the combined power of every telescope observation-tower, satellite, and radio transmitter she could get hold of into scanning the skies for the invasion fleet. The Doctor was working at the laptop still, scrolling through the information on the Dalek scout's chip. Ianto did what he could, making sure the telephone lines stayed clear and that connections got through, transmitting emergency protocols as requests came in. His hands would not stop shaking.
He glanced across the room to see that the Doctor had cleared the screen and was accessing Torchwood now, scrolling through their arms catalogue.
"Access the mainframe," he called. The Doctor looked up at him. "You're only reading ours. Get into the mainframe, that'll give you the other Torchwood offices as well."
"What do you have that's any use?" the Doctor asked.
"Locally, only small weaponry. Nuclear warheads -- the US has more. Tosh can get in if she has to."
"Advance knowledge," the Doctor said. "And the TARDIS."
"Two TARDIS," Ianto replied. "TARDISes? Tardes?"
"Two?"
"We found one. Mine, I suppose," Ianto said. Odd to think of himself owning anything so amazing; he had still hardly got used to having a flat of his own.
The Doctor straightened slowly.
"You have a TARDIS?" he asked.
"I reckon so," Ianto said, clearing a telecom tower and dropping about fifteen hundred peoples' calls to get it open for Owen. "That's what Jack called it. I've no idea how to use it."
"I do," the Doctor said. "You will. Come on."
"But -- "
"Come on!" the Doctor said, grabbing his arm and pulling him away from the computer. Ianto picked up his keys as they ran, shouting over his shoulder.
"TOSH! CLEAR THE COMMS!"
"Where are you going?" Jack yelled.
"To save the world! Keep at it!" the Doctor answered, before the door slammed shut behind them. The comm hooked over his ear beeped.
"Did he say to save the world?" Jack asked in his ear.
"I think so, sir," Ianto replied, still running. "Doctor! Car!"
"Looks bad, runs well?" the Doctor asked, hurling himself into the passenger's seat of the much-battered SUV.
"Something like that," Ianto replied, starting the ignition. He backed and wheeled it, tapping his comm. "Somebody clear the roads?"
"On it," Gwen's voice answered.
"Ianto?" Jack's voice.
"Doing my best, sir," Ianto answered. "I think the Doctor has a plan."
"All right. Patching you into the Torchwood network."
"Is that wise?"
"I trust the Doctor," Jack said. Hot jealousy flared in Ianto's gut, but he concentrated on driving. "All hands Torchwood, this is Captain Jack Harkness operating out of Torchwood Three Cardiff. We have a redcode situation. Control has been handed to Ianto Jones, Torchwood Three. This is high priority over-ride, A-eight-nine-four-two. Say hello, Ianto."
"Sir?" Ianto asked. He knew code A8942; it overrode everything, including military and police command structures.
"Few words to the troops, Jones."
Ianto took a deep breath, turned a corner, and nearly passed out. "This is Ianto Jones, Torchwood Three. Status report."
"General Corcoran, Mr. Jones. Military is standing by for orders."
"American Troops Overseas are standing by for orders, Mr. Jones."
"European Alliance Troops standing by for orders, Mr. Jones."
"UNIT standing by, Mr. Jones."
"Cardiff Police standing by, Mr. Jones."
"Torchwood Two, Mr. Jones, standing by."
"Torchwood Five standing by, Mr. Jones."
"We have a Torchwood Five?" Ianto asked.
"It's really just me, Ianto."
"Melissa?" Ianto asked. Melissa used to sit two desks over at --
"Torchwood One forever, Ianto," she said, her voice sad and amused at the same time.
"Copying all," Ianto said. He looked at the Doctor.
"Scramble fighters," the Doctor said.
"Military, all units, air fighters, scramble," Ianto relayed.
"Let's keep this in the air."
"Let's keep this in the air," Ianto repeated. Then they turned another corner and drove straight into a shower of sparks.
"Keep going!" the Doctor said. The Dalek scouts had assembled in front of the playground and were firing freely.
"We'll never get through -- "
"Keep driving!"
Ianto plowed into an explosion of fire, metal clanking off the bumper and windscreen.
"Ground forces and Torchwoods, arm," he said as they bumped over fallen scouts. "Load yourselves up and get to the city centres. Prepare to defend. Three, stay on comm."
"Three standing by." Jack's voice, reassuring.
"Ground forces deployed."
"Two out."
"UNIT out."
"Five out. Good luck, Ianto."
The Doctor threw the door open and aimed what looked like a small electric torch at the cloud of smoke. Ianto drew the car to a stop.
"Get out very slowly," the Doctor said. Ianto opened his door and slid out. The scouts just hung there, silent, menacing. "Where's the TARDIS?"
"Playground," Ianto said, backing towards it.
"Ianto, we have first visual," Tosh said.
"Every moving thing in the sky has buggered right off," Owen added. "It's hard to get a clear view..."
"It's not one big ship," Tosh said. "Oh, my god."
As they walked carefully backwards towards the TARDIS, Ianto looked up. It looked like a silver cloud was blotting out the sun.
"First visual," he said. "Dalek invasion forces are massing over Great Britain. Military converge."
"UK Military copy."
"European Alliance copy."
"UNIT copy."
"US Overseas Military, copy. Scrambling additional fighters, Mr. Jones, but it'll take some time to get to Britain."
Ianto reached behind him, kicked back with his heel, and pulled the door open. The Doctor shoved him inside and followed. As he closed the door, Ianto saw the scouts priming up their weapons. A few seconds after the door shut, there was a hissing noise.
"It'll stand," the Doctor said, running to the control panel. He kicked a few levers, twisted two knobs, and beamed. "Hello, beautiful," he crooned. "Aren't you posh. Nice to see you."
"Daleks are in the upper atmosphere," Jack said. "Ianto, what are you doing out there?"
"TAKING OFF!" the Doctor shouted.
"Did you copy, sir?"
"Copy, Mr. Jones," Jack replied. The floor beneath Ianto began to shake, and then there was a sensation of upwards movement, like an elevator. "We have visual -- Jesus, Ianto."
Ianto turned to one of the monitors, typing without thinking. An image appeared on his screen of an enormous vessel, breathtakingly graceful, incredibly sleek. Slowly, he realised he was seeing the TARDIS as it truly was.
"TARDIS is airborne," Ianto said. "Military, you will see a large object over Cardiff. I am in that object. Don't fire on us, please."
"Copy." A chorus of voices.
"Lower atmosphere!" Tosh said.
"What the hell are we doing?" Ianto hissed.
"You're piloting. Get to these coordinates," the Doctor said, pointing to a post-it note sticking to one of the screens.
"Me? What are you doing?"
"Sodding off. Don't worry, I'll be right behind you. Look for a little blue call box." The Doctor clapped him on the shoulder. "Good luck."
"But I don't know how to -- "
"Do what comes naturally!" the Doctor said, tapping a sequence directly onto a screen. Then he began to disappear.
Ianto was alone in a spaceship he didn't know how to pilot, with half the world's military at his command.
"Bugger fuck," he said feelingly. He tapped his comm. "Status!"
"Daleks leaving lower atmosphere." Tosh sounded tense. Can't imagine why.
"Firing range in five," an American.
"Fire when ready," Ianto said.
"Always wanted to hear you say that," Jack said.
"All due respect, sir, is now the time for levity?" Ianto asked, panicking as he took in just how many controls there were.
"About to die? Exactly the time for levity," Jack replied. Ianto had to admit that he heard a chorus of laughter from the fighters.
He didn't realise he had taken grip on a circular globe in the table until he twirled it slightly and felt the TARDIS lift again. He turned it the other way and punched a button. The TARDIs responded. Ianto let go of the comm, leaving it open, and began piloting with both hands.
"Ianto Meredith Jones," came a voice, the Doctor's voice. A Time Lord. A fellow Time Lord. "You're learning fast. Are you ready to save the world?"
"Is that all?" Ianto asked. "I do that twice a week and still keep the loos stocked."
"Was that levity?" Jack asked.
"Might have been, sir. Doctor, are you hooked in?"
"Hallo, Earthlings!" the Doctor said, sounding crazed. "Below the giant thing over Cardiff you will notice a small blue box. Do not fire on that either."
"Copy, Small Blue Box."
"Where are we going, Doctor?" Ianto asked.
"Listen closely, Ianto," the Doctor said, and Ianto began to grin as he realised what the Doctor was planning.
***
Mister Jones is a worthy man,
And to his house I brought my wran
I brought my wran to visit him here
To wish him a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
And to his house I brought my wran
I brought my wran to visit him here
To wish him a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
The bright, sleek ship, which had twenty minutes before been a rusty child's jungle-gym, rose up through the swarm of fighter planes like a giant beetle through a crowd of gnats. There was an ever-growing sea of silver as the Dalek forces bore down on the small blue planet, intending to do two things: destroy the Time Lords and exterminate the humans. It didn't matter which happened first.
Only the few who were watching the blue box as avidly as the glittering ship saw it break off and speed away, circling the silver mass of the Daleks, turning gold momentarily as they passed into Earth's atmosphere. On the television, it looked like fireworks. On the advanced three-dimensional radar screens at Torchwood Three, it looked like death impending.
"Ianto?" Jack asked.
"Not to worry," Ianto said.
"I'm worrying anyway."
"Me too, sir."
"In possibly our last ten minutes alive I think you can call me Jack, Ianto."
"Not to break up the party," the Doctor interrupted, "but we do have work to do. Ready, Mr. Jones?"
"Ready," Ianto's voice sounded terrified. "All fighters, whatever you see, don't fire until the Daleks reach you."
"Copy."
The Doctor's voice suddenly sounded odd and echoing. "COOO-EE! HEY! DALEKS!"
The descent of the Daleks stopped.
"HEY! OVER HERE!" Ianto's voice, also strangely reverberating. "TWLL DIN POB DALEKH!"
Jack began to laugh. He couldn't help it. Only Ianto would sail into battle with a warcry in Welsh.
"Arseholes to Daleks?" Gwen asked, disbelieving.
"Look," Tosh said, pointing at the screen.
The Daleks were dividing down the center. The left side were turning left, where a small blue box floated defiantly; the right half were turning to the other TARDIS, Ianto's TARDIS.
"Jack?" Ianto said faintly.
"Yes?" Jack said.
"You get one of the hearts anyway."
There was a click, and the TARDIS went off-comm. Something blipped on the radar screen. The Dalek force seemed to ripple. On the television it looked like a school of silver fishes, suddenly changing direction.
The Daleks opened fire.
Chapter Three | Chapter Five
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"All due respect, sir, is now the time for levity?" Ianto asked, panicking as he took in just how many controls there were.
"About to die? Exactly the time for levity," Jack replied.
I love this fic! I fear Torchwood will be a letdown after this.
Arwen
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I loved the image of the two TARDISs flying together.
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LOVE AND JOY.
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I love this story! ::shakes you by the shoulders:: My GOD, I love this story!!
I'm going to HATE you when this thing ends. Because I don't have another excellent, long, compelling, AWESOME story lined up with which to console myself for this excellent, long, compelling, AWESOME story being over. And I can only blame YOU for bring me TOO MUCH JOY. Too much transient joy. I think I hate you a little bit already.
::scurries off to part 5::
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This made me laugh like a mad thing. I don't know why. :)
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"Meredith?" Owen asked, looking like the teasing would never end.
so I've been wondering. I completely forgot about this til now (I'm rereading), but I thought I'd ask. stargate reference? because it almost has to be but I know you aren't a fan. honestly I'm surprised no one else has asked yet.
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"what have you gotten yourself into, meredith?"
"meredith?"
"...it's a long story"
"it's his name."
"your name is meredith mckay?"
"meredith rodney mckay, yes, but I prefer rodney."
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WOW!
(Anonymous) 2008-06-05 09:09 pm (UTC)(link)no subject
*squees*
McKay would go nuts! "See Sheppard, I told you, not just a girl's name!"
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Um.
There needs to be a fic where McKay and Ianto can outsnark each other.
Stan!
XOXOXO
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