sam_storyteller (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sam_storyteller) wrote2005-07-17 10:14 am
sam_storyteller) wrote2005-07-17 10:14 am
Entry tags:
The Rules Of Torchwood Three, Nicholas Redux: 3 of 4
Title: The Rules Of Torchwood Three: Nicholas Redux 3 of 4
Rating: PG-13 for shenanigans and greenhouses.
Characters: Jack, Team, OMC. Canon pairings.
Summary: After Jack disappears, Torchwood hires a new tea boy -- someone to fetch and carry and take some of the burden off Ianto's shoulders. Nicholas knows his place is in the shadows, but he watches and listens as the dramas of Torchwood play out around him. And he learns all the rules.
Notes: AU for the second season, but only slightly. Spoilers through 2.12.
***
At the first sign of disembodied music of any kind (especially Pipe Organ) we will alert Jack immediately. If we are Jack, we will alert everyone else.
None of us speak Polari, Jack, and none of us want to learn.
After the Night Travelers are vanquished, Jack is ebullient over saving one boy. This, by Nicholas's standards, is not that awesome. "Hey kid! You're alive! And your whole family is dead!"
Still, he guesses Jack grabs joy where he can.
Ianto is subdued, and actually maybe that's why Jack's so noisy. He's kept out the reel-to-reel and put on an old film, a different film -- the Marx Brothers. Owen goes off to wherever he goes at night, and Gwen goes home to Rhys, but they and Tosh stay on and watch, sipping cocoa and laughing at the film.
"There was a whole different language," Jack says, when the inevitable discussion of the work they've done comes up. "When I traveled with the show, there was a carnie language -- full of French and Italian."
"Polari," Tosh mumbles.
"O vada mi bona omi, the feely omi, the bona riah, the fantabulosa paliasse and leucoddy," Jack says, one hand on Ianto's shoulder. Ianto is asleep next to him, nose resting on Tosh's shoulder. Tosh's face is squashed up against Ianto's hair, and she's all but unconscious. "Vada the dolly dona, tosheroon worth of savvy to spare."
Nicholas raises an eyebrow. Jack looks at him.
"And the bona eek of the new omiette. Charper his eek; charper his dolly drag, his lallies in those bethnals. A feele in the lattie of the butch omis, but savvy as the soleil." Jack tilts his head back again. "Dove all my bona palones and omis, nish a naph barnet or dull ogle in the lattie."
"You're very good at it -- Polari?" Nicholas asks. Jack nods without lifting his head much. "It's pretty. I've never heard of it before."
"So many languages," Jack says, more consideringly. "They come and go, live and die..."
"We keep what we can," Nicholas says, only meaning Tosh's linguistics programs.
Jack closes his eyes.
***
We do not eat Tosh's lunch. It is Tosh's lunch and, no matter how hungry we are, we do not eat it. Unless, obviously, we are Tosh.
Nicholas can't count how many lunches and dinners he's ordered for the team, but he's sure they're keeping Jubilee Pizza in business. He doesn't even like their pizza, but he likes their delivery girl.
With him along, occasionally Ianto and Tosh can out-vote the Owen-Gwen-Jack trifecta and convince the others to order kebabs or curry, but not always. Nicholas supposes the mighty power of Being The One Who Has To Order The Food confers on him the ability to simply decide what they will eat, but it is one he knows he must never abuse.
He passes out the plates and sets out drinks, handing the pizza boxes around. There's no rank at table; everyone takes the first seat they come to, and the only rule is that Jack is always at the head. This time, the empty seat is next to Owen, between him and Jack. Owen has a piece of pizza on his plate, for appearance's sake.
Jack's already talking, around his mouthful of pepperoni, because apparently table manners cease to matter after one's fourteenth decade. Nicholas sits next to him and takes a large chunk of garlic bread and a small piece of pizza.
"Look at this, I found a new party trick Tosh can do," Jack says, pointing at her. "Thirty-seventh decimal point of pi."
"One," Tosh says, looking pleased.
"Fiftieth?"
"Six."
"Six multiplied by eight place."
"Seven."
"How do we know she's right?" Nicholas asks Owen.
"Buggered if I know," Owen replies.
"Which is sorta the point, in some cases," Jack says.
Nicholas looks at him, confused.
"As long as you say it with speed and confidence, nobody wonders if it's true," Jack says, his eyes somewhere distant. After a second he snaps back. "Tosh knows Pi to the thousandth place."
"It's a quirk," Tosh murmurs.
Nicholas watches Jack watch the team. It must be so lonely, not having anyone to be responsible to.
"Sixty-ninth," Nicholas says impulsively. Gwen chokes on her cola, Tosh flushes, and Owen cracks up laughing. Ianto is staring at him, and Jack is staring at Tosh.
"I don't -- "
"Ha!" Jack points.
"Seven!"
***
Gwen's handwriting: No sex in the greenhouse.
That's not going to help much, Gwen.
Nicholas is quite capable of going out all night and being in on time for work, but some nights everyone yearns for Torchwood. The quiet light of the medical bay or the darkness around the computers or the sofa in the shadows or the greenhouse or the archives. Nicholas is quite capable of staying in all night and working, as well.
Still, one needs must have tea breaks, and one might as well check in on Jack to see if he wants any.
He sees a shadow in the greenhouse and passes along the walkway without a thought in his mind except whether Jack wants tea; he pushes open the door without knocking, because it is the greenhouse after all.
"Jack, I was wondering if you'd..." he trails off.
Jack has nice hips. Ianto is less bony than he would have thought.
Oh. That would be Ianto's hand down Jack's trousers. And that would be Jack's face pressed against Ianto's neck, and that would be Ianto's eyes huge and dark as he stares at Nicholas and Jack lifts his head.
Nicholas can't think what to do. It's hilarious and beautiful. Jack isn't even embarrassed and, as if to prove it, his hips twitch lightly. Ianto looks like he might not quite be all there.
"There'll be tea in the kitchen in five minutes," Nicholas hears himself say. Jack laughs, but it's missing the edge anyone else's would have. Like he's just been caught playing a video game or something.
Five minutes later there is tea. There is also Ianto, his shirt back on, and Jack, his shirt hanging off his shoulders, trousers low on his hips.
"You should have told us you were in the archives," Jack says, accepting a cup of tea. "We'd have made you referee naked hide-and-seek."
"Cheats, he always cheats," Ianto says ruefully.
"There's room for one more," Jack murmurs. It should be a joke. It sounds like a filthy proposition. Well, it's Jack. He can make reading a budget report sound like a filthy proposition.
Nicholas looks at Ianto, who doesn't seem at all perturbed. Then again, Jack's kissed a lot of people since his return, and Ianto's seen a lot of those kisses. He wonders if Ianto's desperate, or has just learned not to care.
Or if he gets off on it. Knowing he has the Captain, and everyone else only gets a taste. Can people actually be that secure?
Jack eyes Nicholas over the rim of his mug.
"Coming back up?" he asks Ianto. "Work to do."
"Yep," Ianto replies. He smiles at Nicholas as he passes.
When Gwen comes in a few minutes later, Nicholas catches her arm before she can climb the stairs.
"I wouldn't," he murmurs.
"I need to talk to -- "
"He's not alone."
Gwen looks down, backs down.
"There's a package on your desk," Nicholas offers. "Saw it there earlier."
Gwen takes the package and leaves; Nicholas stays near the stairs, contemplatively sipping his tea. Well, if they don't care, why should he?
(Upstairs, though Nicholas doesn't hear it, Jack laughs into Ianto's mouth.
"No really, can we keep him?")
***
Doors exist to be knocked upon. Knock thou, and nip trouble in the bud.
Jack is always having to slap some member of the team down a notch. He's the Captain, and sometimes the team gets uppity, and they need to be gently pushed back into place. That makes sense.
Nicholas has just never seen Jack try it on Ianto before.
He's caught, because he was bringing up a file to ask Jack about and heard them and ducked back into a niche behind Jack's door on the hallway side, and now he can hear everything going on in the office and if he tries to move he'll be seen.
"I trusted you," Jack is shouting. "Ianto, I trust you, and every time -- "
"Don't you dare," Ianto is snarling, which is even more scary than Jack shouting. "Don't you dare fling Lisa in my face. Not after what you did to us. And don't compare that betrayal to this. This is minor, this is nothing!"
"Tell me how this is different! You knew, and you told her, and the whole thing went to hell. You didn't even -- how could you think you wouldn't get caught?"
"I didn't! I knew I would, and I knew you'd shout, and maybe you'll finally fucking listen to me!"
Nicholas can hear Jack's harsh breathing. He has no idea what they're on about.
"You wanted me to listen? I'm listening," Jack says. More silence. "Come on, Ianto, let's have it with both barrels."
"You think that nothing changes because you're living through it, you've been living through it for decades," Ianto says, his voice low and intense. "You think that we're still the same. Our tiny little early-history brains haven't changed since the thirties. Keep mum -- they're not so dumb."
Nicholas grins a little. Jack has an extensive collection of old propaganda posters, and that one's hanging on his wall. He can picture Ianto pointing at it.
"But we aren't them, Jack! You can't lead us the same way you led them. You pick us up out of our quiet lives where we've been trained to question and think for ourselves, and then you expect us to soldier on and bite our lips when you say no. But that's not who we are."
More stony silence from Jack.
"It doesn't work that way. Not anymore. If you even pretended to care about her research, if you pretended to tell her some kind of half truth she'd have been satisfied! Why couldn't you let her have her project? What would she have found, Jack? She'd have burnt herself out and found nothing and it would have gone away. Or you could have told her everything and maybe if she weren't hysterical from fear she'd have understood."
"It's not your place to make my decisions for me."
"No. It's my place to tell you when you're making stupid ones. It's your place to consider the fact that once in a while I might be right!"
There's a scuffle and a thud next to the door, and Nicholas thinks Jack's finally lost it and gone after Ianto, but the next person who speaks is Ianto.
"You want it with both barrels, Jack?" he rasps. "Then take it point-blank. Act like you have something to hide, and we'll always, always find out what it is. Because you picked the smart ones. So this is your fucking fault, Jack. Not mine."
Jack huffs out a breath of air, then another. Nicholas desperately hopes he can escape soon.
Then there's a chuckle from Jack.
"So are we gonna make use of this wall, or what?"
Which everyone in Torchwood knows means Jack's lost this fight, because that's what Jack does when he loses. He changes the subject. To sex.
Nicholas risks a bolt when he thinks they're probably kissing, and apparently gets away with it.
For the next few days, Jack is more talkative than usual, tells stories, smiles at people, even pins down Nicholas to ask how he's doing.
Gwen is quiet, and strangely obedient.
***
Jack's handwriting: Consider the idea that when Jack says no, perhaps there is a reason.
Consider the idea that some reasons are less valid than others.
Jack's handwriting: Consider the idea of being unemployed.
Consider myarse coffee.
Weeks after he hears the fight, Nicholas wakes up on Gwen's sofa one morning. Which is weird, because he's sure last night he brought someone home with him to his very own flat.
And he's quite sure it wasn't Jack, who is sitting on the sofa, Nicholas's head in his lap.
When he tries to move, his body complains stridently and his head aches.
"Stay down," Jack says, pressing a hand to his head. "You're safe."
Nicholas stays. They are there in that moment, Nicholas still fuzzed from sleep, Jack resting his hand lightly on Nicholas's head, his leg warm against Nicholas's cheek. It goes on for a while.
When Jack shifts slightly, Nicholas finally speaks.
"What is..." he stutters. "What day is it?"
"Monday the twenty-fourth," Jack says. Which is stupid, last night was Friday the twenty-first...
"What happened?" he repeats. Jack is silent, fingers stroking his hair lightly. Nicholas waits, feeling each muscle in his body slowly; legs are okay, but his stomach and chest are sore, and it hurts to breathe. He looks at his hand, lying on Jack's leg in front of his face. There are red marks around his wrist, and what looks like a burn on the inside of his forearm.
"I don't want you to ask me that again," Jack says. "Because if you ask I'll tell you, and it's better this way."
Nicholas eases up slowly, Jack's hand now under his shoulder, helping him.
"Did I do something?" he asks hesitantly. "Did I -- "
"No," Jack replies. Jack is watching him with cold, birdlike blue eyes -- revealing nothing, hard as steel -- but his voice is reassuring, even affectionate. "You did nothing wrong, Nicholas."
"But it's Monday -- "
"You were retconned." Jack says, then corrects himself. "We retconned you."
Nicholas doesn't ever know what happened to him. He believes that by Sunday night he must have been in such a state that he couldn't give or revoke permission to be retconned, and that Jack really did think it best and the others must have agreed. He believes that someone thought he would be their doorway into Torchwood, maybe tortured him, obviously beat him with something thick and heavy, definitely put those electrode burns in his scalp. He believes that this someone is the new body in the vaults, the one Ianto catalogued when really that's Nicholas's job.
He believes that this might be the final snap of Torchwood's collar-buckle around his neck.
In the nights following he will sleep untroubled by trauma. In the daytime he will go about his work with healing physical wounds and no mental ones. Jack or Ianto would tell him if he asks, but he never does. He's learned from Gwen's mistakes.
Still, in that moment, he looks sideways at Jack.
"Don't ever fucking retcon me again."
Jack's eyes are still hard and full and cold. But he nods and before the tension can rise any higher Rhys appears, glorious in a pink dressing-gown, hair still damp from the shower.
"Hi-ya. Gwen's just getting up. Want some toast?" Rhys asks, as if it's the most natural thing in the world.
***
If it's on Tosh's desk, don't press its buttons. No. Really.
Above and beyond death, which everyone's afraid of, and old age, which is inevitable (barring death, naturally), Nicholas is only really afraid of two things. Losing his team, and the little white pill.
He doesn't administer retcon. Back before Jack returned, Ianto made him do it once, but he telegraphed his anxiety so badly he nearly fucked it up, scared the poor guy out of drinking the water he brought him. Owen made him do it again, on the principle that you have to get back on the horse, and that time eventually Gwen had to take it from his hand and do it herself.
Once, knowing no better, Jack offhandedly told Nicholas he was on retcon duty. The entire team shook their heads a little, and Ianto stepped up and did it instead.
Only the team understands. Only the team knows what is in each others' minds. Owen's desperate posturing, Tosh's anxiety when she's in the Hub alone, Gwen's pathological need to understand things nobody can understand, Ianto's hatred of live flame. Jack's constant missing part, his quest for the promise of an end. Nicholas's terror of the retcon. Only the team knows this about each other and none of them will use these things as ammunition in the fights they have, because then their own fears might be thrown at them in return. It is a strange kind of love, but it is love.
There are machines in the archives that can kill painlessly, and ones that can kill for hours and hours on end with the most decided torment. Nicholas knows where each of them is. If his team is hurt, he knows how to use one or two of the nastier ones on Torchwood's would-be enemies. If he is ever told he can't come back, and the white pill appears in the fold of Jack's palm, Nicholas knows which one is closest, easiest to reach, so that he will stay in Torchwood forever, in the morgue.
He is collared to them now, well and truly, collared and tagged too. But like Jack he feels immortal; he feels that he will always belong to Torchwood, and will serve her to his furthest reach and final breath.
***
We do not refer to Rhys as SuperRhys, however much he may deserve the title. It'll only go to his head.
Gwen's handwriting: He will always be Super Rhys to me.
I may gag.
Semi-anonymous sex loses its glitter after a while, as do the crowds at the bars and in the clubs. Nicholas finds that he likes his life; work every day (some nights), coming home to his flat, his books, his kitchen, his bed.
He learned in service school that the gratitude or notice of his employer is not something to strive for, but for some reason these people are different, they see and thank him, they talk to him. Tosh has told him once, in a quiet moment while he helped her install some new equipment, that he has Ianto to thank for that. Ianto went without notice, and it ended badly, and now it doesn't matter because Ianto is one of the field team and Ianto has Jack. But back then it did matter, and everyone paid a price.
This is perhaps why Gwen comes to him one afternoon when he's doing the washing-up, brings him some mugs and hitches her hip against the counter.
"Where do you go, when you leave the Hub?" she asks.
"Home, mainly," he replies, wiping off a plate with sudsy water. "Out to a nice dinner, if there's time."
"You haven't really dated anyone since Amy. It's been a while." She smiles at him. "Can't find the right person?"
"More or less stopped looking," he answers.
"Why?"
He shrugs. "It's not as high on my priority list as it used to be."
Gwen nods. "And you don't worry about that?"
Does he? No, not really. It strikes him that Gwen is worried about him. He's the closest any of them come to normal; no deep traumas, no personal problems because of the job, no moral dilemmas, no fighting with Jack. He gives her a reassuring smile.
"We're told we're supposed to do things in our lives, in certain ways and at certain times," he says, setting a warm, damp mug on the towel next to the sink. He slides the mugs she's brought into the water. "Marry, have a steady job, have children, live our lives. We're told work is what we're supposed to do in order to enjoy the two-weeks-paid-holiday and the weekends. That's good, it must work for the majority, otherwise it wouldn't be what we're told to do."
Gwen is watching him now, eyes slightly narrowed.
"But I don't work to pay the bills. The bills exist so that I can come to work. This place mirror-flipped my life. Without it, I would be...incomplete."
"What do you want from life?" she asks, and he honestly doesn't have an answer for her, so he turns back to washing the mugs and thinks about it.
"I want to -- learn, I suppose. I want to touch on the infinite, however small and briefly. One of those tiny humans on that tiny planet, reaching towards the stars. That's better than two-weeks-paid in Majorca, don't you think?"
"Who do you talk to?" she asks. He raises his eyebrows. "Your problems, your fears. Who do you talk to?"
"You lot," he says, baffled. "Do you think I'm lonely, Gwen?"
"I don't know. Are you?"
"With Torchwood to look after and all the universe in front of me? No." He dries one hand and touches her wrist, rubbing his thumb across her knuckles. "If you think I'm a mystery, I give you leave to try and solve me, though that seems fairly boring. But for god's sake, don't worry about me."
She nods and leaves, and Nicholas goes back to washing.
He sees Jack's shadow, leaning in the doorway; Jack was watching, Jack was listening. He doesn't credit Jack with putting Gwen up to it, but Gwen's inquiries so often yield Jack results.
"One can try to balance this life and the outside world," Nicholas says carefully, and Jack doesn't twitch or move. "As Gwen does. One can look for solace inside Torchwood, like you and Ianto do."
"Or?" Jack says. He still hasn't moved.
"Or, if of the proper temperament, one can decide that Torchwood is solace. Torchwood is the stars," Nicholas sets another mug on the dishtowel. "Why would I need anything more?"
"If you were offered the chance to see the stars -- the chance to go out there, instead of taking what comes here to us, would you take it?"
Nicholas considers.
"That would depend on what sort of person did the asking," he says, and Jack looks deeply unsettled. "And whether Torchwood would take me again when I came back."
"You'd come back?"
"Of course. This is where I belong."
***
Were we unclear about the part where we don't like the time-traveling ex-partners?
John Hart's Handwriting: That's hardly nice, Eyecandy.
When he can't raise anyone on the comms, Nicholas carefully does not panic. It's happened before, after all. He starts methodically trying their mobiles, but their mobiles all go straight to voicemail. He leaves an identical message on each.
"This is Nicholas. I can't reach the team on comms or mobiles. I will be checking in half-hourly. When you receive this message please notify the team and contact me. If I do not make contact with any Torchwood staff within two hours I will initiate protocol twelve."
Protocol twelve, everyone but Owen will probably recall, involves Nicholas locking down the Hub securely, notifying UNIT that Torchwood is potentially compromised, and proceeding to the last known coordinates. A UNIT team will meet him there, and they will...
Well, they'll do something.
Gwen finally calls him and tells him she's heading to the investigation site; when he tells her he can't reach anyone, she assures him she'll find out what's wrong.
Half an hour later there's a spike in Rift activity; he sees Tosh's handheld downlinking, but God alone knows where they are. Three spikes in sensitive areas, the server hub and the police station and St Helen's hospital. He hesitates; he should stay in the Hub and act as central comm for the team, that's his job, but three spikes with the entire team off comm means all hands on deck.
Gwen texts as he's checking the guns and strapping them on any old way he can -- shoulder holster, two thigh-straps, one on his left ankle. Stun gun in his right pocket.
and a second later
He checks the calendar. Yep, it's four weeks from the last time the world nearly ended. Right on schedule.
This, no doubt, is going to be a long day.
Nicholas is useless at the police station; they don't know who he is and don't care, so he's grateful when Gwen sends him out with the rest to knock on doors, to try and salvage what he can from the city. He hardly remembers it later, but that's not because he was in shock; he's been trained for this, and Torchwood takes over, guiding his movements and his decisions.
He saves eight or nine lives. Shoots about twenty Weevils. Secures an entire section of the city and stops a small fire. Goes for nearly two days without sleep, without summons, blindly obeying his commander's last orders.
It's not that he was in shock.
It's that when he returns to the Hub, exhausted and grease-smudged and feeling sort of triumphant in spite of everything, when he comes down the steps and through the cogwheel door, the world changes.
Jack and Ianto and Gwen are standing in the Hub, huddled together, and the room smells of blood and gunpowder. Jack turns slightly.
"Nicholas," he says. Nicholas glances down. There's blood on the floor.
"Where are Owen and Tosh?" he asks.
***
Jack's Handwriting:MOST IMPORTANTLY: We're all in this together. Let's make sure it stays that way.The end is where we start from.
Nicholas sends Gwen home to her husband and, through a haze of exhaustion, prepares food and tea for Ianto and Jack. Ianto comes and stands beside him for a while, not speaking, just standing, presence. Presence in the face of death.
Nicholas really liked Tosh. Owen wasn't so bad either. He got a lot more tolerable after he died.
Ianto takes the food and tea from him and doesn't meet his eyes. "Are you eating?"
"No," Nicholas answers.
"Jack's in his office. I'll bring the food up. You should rest."
Nicholas nods.
"But you won't, will you, Nicholas." Ianto inhales. "There are a lot of bloodstains in this Hub. Most of them you can't see. It won't care if there's one more for another day."
"I'll care," Nicholas says. "I want to, Ianto."
Ianto nods. "Go on then."
Nicholas is on his knees with the bleachy water and the brush, scrubbing Tosh's blood out of the cement. He is in the medical bay, scrubbing it off the tiles. He is scrubbing up hints of footprints where -- that's Gwen's trainers, those are Jack's boots, Ianto's boots -- someone has trod in her blood.
He doubles over, arms around his waist, and makes one low, keening noise of pain. Just one, and the little tiled chamber will swallow the noise so that Jack and Ianto don't hear.
***
Gwen is not allowed to touch the coffee machine.
Gwen's handwriting: You're a bastard, Ianto.
I love you too, Gwen.
They reel in shock for days, it seems, though there's hardly time to think; Nicholas sleeps in bits and snatches, constantly collating reports from the city, trying to assemble what happened, to make some kind of jigsaw sense out of the chaos that struck Cardiff. His mum often wakes him, calling long-distance from Newcastle, checking four or five times daily to be absolutely certain the Terrorists Didn't Hurt Him. Amy calls him too, but she's part of another life, and he tells her he's okay and then stops answering her calls (so she calls his mum, who calls him again, and the vicious cycle starts over).
Jack is never far from the tattered remains of his team. Nicholas doesn't think he's seen him alone since -- since the world ended, and then somehow didn't. He stands close to Ianto as they work to repair the computers, or hovers around Gwen as she monitors the police reports and passes them on to Nicholas. Jack sits with Nicholas as both of them work, elbow to elbow, their soft breathing the only sound in the conference room. Jack has new shadows in his eyes.
But over time the phone calls taper off and Jack stops hovering, and Gwen stops crying every afternoon right at three-thirty (her and Tosh's coffee-run time) and Ianto starts going near the medical bay again. He wouldn't, at first.
"I've been thinking," Ianto says to him quietly, leaning on the railing of the balcony outside Myfanwy's nest. Nicholas has been feeding her, lately, and he likes to take a few minutes each day after feeding-time to look down on the Hub and keep himself from falling to pieces.
"About?" Nicholas asks.
"We can't go long without a medic," Ianto says. "Or a technician. Really, honestly, I mean -- Gwen has plenty of organisational skills and she's good with the computer, and I'm pretty handy, but -- "
He stops, as if someone is pressing hard on his chest.
"You think you and Gwen were more expendable," Nicholas whispers.
"Don't start on me with survivor's guilt, Nicholas, I could write the book. In terms of skill sets, we were expendable. Torchwood could do without me. Especially now we've got you trained on the coffee machine," he adds, with a small smile, and Nicholas smiles back. "But we'll need a medic, and Jack and I have reached the limit of the repairs we can do without To -- without a technician."
"We need to hire new people."
"Yes."
"Jack's not going to agree to that, not so soon. Gwen'll back him to the hilt. Time to heal and all that."
"Jack was a soldier. He knows we need to fill our ranks. I think we can lure Martha away from UNIT, through guilt if nothing else. And...well, I have a few contacts I can speak to about the engineering side." Ianto ducks his head. "But you're right. He won't agree. He's also human, he's not perfect, and for him it's too soon."
"So what do we do?"
"I don't know," Ianto says. "I was hoping you would."
"Sorry. I'm just the pterodactyl-handler." Nicholas doesn't move as Ianto rests his forehead against his shoulder. Perhaps he's seeking contact or comfort or something else; Nicholas just likes the weight of another person depending on him. "We just have to keep...changing the bandages. Cleaning the wound. Healing. Things will feel more normal soon. I hope. Gwen laughed today."
Ianto is smiling, though Nicholas can't see it. He just knows. "We keep healing," he agrees.
"And I'll give Martha a call," Nicholas adds.
***
JACK I TOLD YOU ABOUT LEAVING ALIEN LIFE FORMS IN THE FRIDGE.
The first time he hears Jack laugh -- after -- Nicholas has to put down the tray he's carrying and lean on the desk for a minute, but it's not a bad thing.
It's how he knows they're going to be okay.
***
Chapter Four
(Note: This chapter is post-season, and does not directly conform to the canon of Children of Earth. It's a complicated timey-wimey thing.)
A note on Polari: Polari is a "cant" or offshoot of a language, used by carnies at the turn of the century. In the later twentieth century it was absorbed into the British gay subculture as a form of slang. The vocabulary Jack uses is a combination of Polari and "pure" Cockney rhyming slang. As with many cants, the literal meaning of the translation is somewhat corrupted if intent is not taken into account, so the translation below is accurate but not literal.
(Referring to Ianto) Look at my pretty boy, my young boy, his beautiful hair, his beautiful body. (Referring to Tosh) Look at my small, pretty woman with intelligence to spare. (Referring to Nicholas) And the good face of the new little one. Look at his face, look at his lovely clothes, his legs in those jeans. A child playing with the big kids, but bright as the sun. (Generally) I love all my people, not a bad brain or a dull eye among them.
For more information on the study and vocabulary of Polari, you can see my research here.
Rating: PG-13 for shenanigans and greenhouses.
Characters: Jack, Team, OMC. Canon pairings.
Summary: After Jack disappears, Torchwood hires a new tea boy -- someone to fetch and carry and take some of the burden off Ianto's shoulders. Nicholas knows his place is in the shadows, but he watches and listens as the dramas of Torchwood play out around him. And he learns all the rules.
Notes: AU for the second season, but only slightly. Spoilers through 2.12.
***
At the first sign of disembodied music of any kind (especially Pipe Organ) we will alert Jack immediately. If we are Jack, we will alert everyone else.
None of us speak Polari, Jack, and none of us want to learn.
After the Night Travelers are vanquished, Jack is ebullient over saving one boy. This, by Nicholas's standards, is not that awesome. "Hey kid! You're alive! And your whole family is dead!"
Still, he guesses Jack grabs joy where he can.
Ianto is subdued, and actually maybe that's why Jack's so noisy. He's kept out the reel-to-reel and put on an old film, a different film -- the Marx Brothers. Owen goes off to wherever he goes at night, and Gwen goes home to Rhys, but they and Tosh stay on and watch, sipping cocoa and laughing at the film.
"There was a whole different language," Jack says, when the inevitable discussion of the work they've done comes up. "When I traveled with the show, there was a carnie language -- full of French and Italian."
"Polari," Tosh mumbles.
"O vada mi bona omi, the feely omi, the bona riah, the fantabulosa paliasse and leucoddy," Jack says, one hand on Ianto's shoulder. Ianto is asleep next to him, nose resting on Tosh's shoulder. Tosh's face is squashed up against Ianto's hair, and she's all but unconscious. "Vada the dolly dona, tosheroon worth of savvy to spare."
Nicholas raises an eyebrow. Jack looks at him.
"And the bona eek of the new omiette. Charper his eek; charper his dolly drag, his lallies in those bethnals. A feele in the lattie of the butch omis, but savvy as the soleil." Jack tilts his head back again. "Dove all my bona palones and omis, nish a naph barnet or dull ogle in the lattie."
"You're very good at it -- Polari?" Nicholas asks. Jack nods without lifting his head much. "It's pretty. I've never heard of it before."
"So many languages," Jack says, more consideringly. "They come and go, live and die..."
"We keep what we can," Nicholas says, only meaning Tosh's linguistics programs.
Jack closes his eyes.
***
We do not eat Tosh's lunch. It is Tosh's lunch and, no matter how hungry we are, we do not eat it. Unless, obviously, we are Tosh.
Nicholas can't count how many lunches and dinners he's ordered for the team, but he's sure they're keeping Jubilee Pizza in business. He doesn't even like their pizza, but he likes their delivery girl.
With him along, occasionally Ianto and Tosh can out-vote the Owen-Gwen-Jack trifecta and convince the others to order kebabs or curry, but not always. Nicholas supposes the mighty power of Being The One Who Has To Order The Food confers on him the ability to simply decide what they will eat, but it is one he knows he must never abuse.
He passes out the plates and sets out drinks, handing the pizza boxes around. There's no rank at table; everyone takes the first seat they come to, and the only rule is that Jack is always at the head. This time, the empty seat is next to Owen, between him and Jack. Owen has a piece of pizza on his plate, for appearance's sake.
Jack's already talking, around his mouthful of pepperoni, because apparently table manners cease to matter after one's fourteenth decade. Nicholas sits next to him and takes a large chunk of garlic bread and a small piece of pizza.
"Look at this, I found a new party trick Tosh can do," Jack says, pointing at her. "Thirty-seventh decimal point of pi."
"One," Tosh says, looking pleased.
"Fiftieth?"
"Six."
"Six multiplied by eight place."
"Seven."
"How do we know she's right?" Nicholas asks Owen.
"Buggered if I know," Owen replies.
"Which is sorta the point, in some cases," Jack says.
Nicholas looks at him, confused.
"As long as you say it with speed and confidence, nobody wonders if it's true," Jack says, his eyes somewhere distant. After a second he snaps back. "Tosh knows Pi to the thousandth place."
"It's a quirk," Tosh murmurs.
Nicholas watches Jack watch the team. It must be so lonely, not having anyone to be responsible to.
"Sixty-ninth," Nicholas says impulsively. Gwen chokes on her cola, Tosh flushes, and Owen cracks up laughing. Ianto is staring at him, and Jack is staring at Tosh.
"I don't -- "
"Ha!" Jack points.
"Seven!"
***
Gwen's handwriting: No sex in the greenhouse.
That's not going to help much, Gwen.
Nicholas is quite capable of going out all night and being in on time for work, but some nights everyone yearns for Torchwood. The quiet light of the medical bay or the darkness around the computers or the sofa in the shadows or the greenhouse or the archives. Nicholas is quite capable of staying in all night and working, as well.
Still, one needs must have tea breaks, and one might as well check in on Jack to see if he wants any.
He sees a shadow in the greenhouse and passes along the walkway without a thought in his mind except whether Jack wants tea; he pushes open the door without knocking, because it is the greenhouse after all.
"Jack, I was wondering if you'd..." he trails off.
Jack has nice hips. Ianto is less bony than he would have thought.
Oh. That would be Ianto's hand down Jack's trousers. And that would be Jack's face pressed against Ianto's neck, and that would be Ianto's eyes huge and dark as he stares at Nicholas and Jack lifts his head.
Nicholas can't think what to do. It's hilarious and beautiful. Jack isn't even embarrassed and, as if to prove it, his hips twitch lightly. Ianto looks like he might not quite be all there.
"There'll be tea in the kitchen in five minutes," Nicholas hears himself say. Jack laughs, but it's missing the edge anyone else's would have. Like he's just been caught playing a video game or something.
Five minutes later there is tea. There is also Ianto, his shirt back on, and Jack, his shirt hanging off his shoulders, trousers low on his hips.
"You should have told us you were in the archives," Jack says, accepting a cup of tea. "We'd have made you referee naked hide-and-seek."
"Cheats, he always cheats," Ianto says ruefully.
"There's room for one more," Jack murmurs. It should be a joke. It sounds like a filthy proposition. Well, it's Jack. He can make reading a budget report sound like a filthy proposition.
Nicholas looks at Ianto, who doesn't seem at all perturbed. Then again, Jack's kissed a lot of people since his return, and Ianto's seen a lot of those kisses. He wonders if Ianto's desperate, or has just learned not to care.
Or if he gets off on it. Knowing he has the Captain, and everyone else only gets a taste. Can people actually be that secure?
Jack eyes Nicholas over the rim of his mug.
"Coming back up?" he asks Ianto. "Work to do."
"Yep," Ianto replies. He smiles at Nicholas as he passes.
When Gwen comes in a few minutes later, Nicholas catches her arm before she can climb the stairs.
"I wouldn't," he murmurs.
"I need to talk to -- "
"He's not alone."
Gwen looks down, backs down.
"There's a package on your desk," Nicholas offers. "Saw it there earlier."
Gwen takes the package and leaves; Nicholas stays near the stairs, contemplatively sipping his tea. Well, if they don't care, why should he?
(Upstairs, though Nicholas doesn't hear it, Jack laughs into Ianto's mouth.
"No really, can we keep him?")
***
Doors exist to be knocked upon. Knock thou, and nip trouble in the bud.
Jack is always having to slap some member of the team down a notch. He's the Captain, and sometimes the team gets uppity, and they need to be gently pushed back into place. That makes sense.
Nicholas has just never seen Jack try it on Ianto before.
He's caught, because he was bringing up a file to ask Jack about and heard them and ducked back into a niche behind Jack's door on the hallway side, and now he can hear everything going on in the office and if he tries to move he'll be seen.
"I trusted you," Jack is shouting. "Ianto, I trust you, and every time -- "
"Don't you dare," Ianto is snarling, which is even more scary than Jack shouting. "Don't you dare fling Lisa in my face. Not after what you did to us. And don't compare that betrayal to this. This is minor, this is nothing!"
"Tell me how this is different! You knew, and you told her, and the whole thing went to hell. You didn't even -- how could you think you wouldn't get caught?"
"I didn't! I knew I would, and I knew you'd shout, and maybe you'll finally fucking listen to me!"
Nicholas can hear Jack's harsh breathing. He has no idea what they're on about.
"You wanted me to listen? I'm listening," Jack says. More silence. "Come on, Ianto, let's have it with both barrels."
"You think that nothing changes because you're living through it, you've been living through it for decades," Ianto says, his voice low and intense. "You think that we're still the same. Our tiny little early-history brains haven't changed since the thirties. Keep mum -- they're not so dumb."
Nicholas grins a little. Jack has an extensive collection of old propaganda posters, and that one's hanging on his wall. He can picture Ianto pointing at it.
"But we aren't them, Jack! You can't lead us the same way you led them. You pick us up out of our quiet lives where we've been trained to question and think for ourselves, and then you expect us to soldier on and bite our lips when you say no. But that's not who we are."
More stony silence from Jack.
"It doesn't work that way. Not anymore. If you even pretended to care about her research, if you pretended to tell her some kind of half truth she'd have been satisfied! Why couldn't you let her have her project? What would she have found, Jack? She'd have burnt herself out and found nothing and it would have gone away. Or you could have told her everything and maybe if she weren't hysterical from fear she'd have understood."
"It's not your place to make my decisions for me."
"No. It's my place to tell you when you're making stupid ones. It's your place to consider the fact that once in a while I might be right!"
There's a scuffle and a thud next to the door, and Nicholas thinks Jack's finally lost it and gone after Ianto, but the next person who speaks is Ianto.
"You want it with both barrels, Jack?" he rasps. "Then take it point-blank. Act like you have something to hide, and we'll always, always find out what it is. Because you picked the smart ones. So this is your fucking fault, Jack. Not mine."
Jack huffs out a breath of air, then another. Nicholas desperately hopes he can escape soon.
Then there's a chuckle from Jack.
"So are we gonna make use of this wall, or what?"
Which everyone in Torchwood knows means Jack's lost this fight, because that's what Jack does when he loses. He changes the subject. To sex.
Nicholas risks a bolt when he thinks they're probably kissing, and apparently gets away with it.
For the next few days, Jack is more talkative than usual, tells stories, smiles at people, even pins down Nicholas to ask how he's doing.
Gwen is quiet, and strangely obedient.
***
Jack's handwriting: Consider the idea that when Jack says no, perhaps there is a reason.
Consider the idea that some reasons are less valid than others.
Jack's handwriting: Consider the idea of being unemployed.
Consider my
Weeks after he hears the fight, Nicholas wakes up on Gwen's sofa one morning. Which is weird, because he's sure last night he brought someone home with him to his very own flat.
And he's quite sure it wasn't Jack, who is sitting on the sofa, Nicholas's head in his lap.
When he tries to move, his body complains stridently and his head aches.
"Stay down," Jack says, pressing a hand to his head. "You're safe."
Nicholas stays. They are there in that moment, Nicholas still fuzzed from sleep, Jack resting his hand lightly on Nicholas's head, his leg warm against Nicholas's cheek. It goes on for a while.
When Jack shifts slightly, Nicholas finally speaks.
"What is..." he stutters. "What day is it?"
"Monday the twenty-fourth," Jack says. Which is stupid, last night was Friday the twenty-first...
"What happened?" he repeats. Jack is silent, fingers stroking his hair lightly. Nicholas waits, feeling each muscle in his body slowly; legs are okay, but his stomach and chest are sore, and it hurts to breathe. He looks at his hand, lying on Jack's leg in front of his face. There are red marks around his wrist, and what looks like a burn on the inside of his forearm.
"I don't want you to ask me that again," Jack says. "Because if you ask I'll tell you, and it's better this way."
Nicholas eases up slowly, Jack's hand now under his shoulder, helping him.
"Did I do something?" he asks hesitantly. "Did I -- "
"No," Jack replies. Jack is watching him with cold, birdlike blue eyes -- revealing nothing, hard as steel -- but his voice is reassuring, even affectionate. "You did nothing wrong, Nicholas."
"But it's Monday -- "
"You were retconned." Jack says, then corrects himself. "We retconned you."
Nicholas doesn't ever know what happened to him. He believes that by Sunday night he must have been in such a state that he couldn't give or revoke permission to be retconned, and that Jack really did think it best and the others must have agreed. He believes that someone thought he would be their doorway into Torchwood, maybe tortured him, obviously beat him with something thick and heavy, definitely put those electrode burns in his scalp. He believes that this someone is the new body in the vaults, the one Ianto catalogued when really that's Nicholas's job.
He believes that this might be the final snap of Torchwood's collar-buckle around his neck.
In the nights following he will sleep untroubled by trauma. In the daytime he will go about his work with healing physical wounds and no mental ones. Jack or Ianto would tell him if he asks, but he never does. He's learned from Gwen's mistakes.
Still, in that moment, he looks sideways at Jack.
"Don't ever fucking retcon me again."
Jack's eyes are still hard and full and cold. But he nods and before the tension can rise any higher Rhys appears, glorious in a pink dressing-gown, hair still damp from the shower.
"Hi-ya. Gwen's just getting up. Want some toast?" Rhys asks, as if it's the most natural thing in the world.
***
If it's on Tosh's desk, don't press its buttons. No. Really.
Above and beyond death, which everyone's afraid of, and old age, which is inevitable (barring death, naturally), Nicholas is only really afraid of two things. Losing his team, and the little white pill.
He doesn't administer retcon. Back before Jack returned, Ianto made him do it once, but he telegraphed his anxiety so badly he nearly fucked it up, scared the poor guy out of drinking the water he brought him. Owen made him do it again, on the principle that you have to get back on the horse, and that time eventually Gwen had to take it from his hand and do it herself.
Once, knowing no better, Jack offhandedly told Nicholas he was on retcon duty. The entire team shook their heads a little, and Ianto stepped up and did it instead.
Only the team understands. Only the team knows what is in each others' minds. Owen's desperate posturing, Tosh's anxiety when she's in the Hub alone, Gwen's pathological need to understand things nobody can understand, Ianto's hatred of live flame. Jack's constant missing part, his quest for the promise of an end. Nicholas's terror of the retcon. Only the team knows this about each other and none of them will use these things as ammunition in the fights they have, because then their own fears might be thrown at them in return. It is a strange kind of love, but it is love.
There are machines in the archives that can kill painlessly, and ones that can kill for hours and hours on end with the most decided torment. Nicholas knows where each of them is. If his team is hurt, he knows how to use one or two of the nastier ones on Torchwood's would-be enemies. If he is ever told he can't come back, and the white pill appears in the fold of Jack's palm, Nicholas knows which one is closest, easiest to reach, so that he will stay in Torchwood forever, in the morgue.
He is collared to them now, well and truly, collared and tagged too. But like Jack he feels immortal; he feels that he will always belong to Torchwood, and will serve her to his furthest reach and final breath.
***
We do not refer to Rhys as SuperRhys, however much he may deserve the title. It'll only go to his head.
Gwen's handwriting: He will always be Super Rhys to me.
I may gag.
Semi-anonymous sex loses its glitter after a while, as do the crowds at the bars and in the clubs. Nicholas finds that he likes his life; work every day (some nights), coming home to his flat, his books, his kitchen, his bed.
He learned in service school that the gratitude or notice of his employer is not something to strive for, but for some reason these people are different, they see and thank him, they talk to him. Tosh has told him once, in a quiet moment while he helped her install some new equipment, that he has Ianto to thank for that. Ianto went without notice, and it ended badly, and now it doesn't matter because Ianto is one of the field team and Ianto has Jack. But back then it did matter, and everyone paid a price.
This is perhaps why Gwen comes to him one afternoon when he's doing the washing-up, brings him some mugs and hitches her hip against the counter.
"Where do you go, when you leave the Hub?" she asks.
"Home, mainly," he replies, wiping off a plate with sudsy water. "Out to a nice dinner, if there's time."
"You haven't really dated anyone since Amy. It's been a while." She smiles at him. "Can't find the right person?"
"More or less stopped looking," he answers.
"Why?"
He shrugs. "It's not as high on my priority list as it used to be."
Gwen nods. "And you don't worry about that?"
Does he? No, not really. It strikes him that Gwen is worried about him. He's the closest any of them come to normal; no deep traumas, no personal problems because of the job, no moral dilemmas, no fighting with Jack. He gives her a reassuring smile.
"We're told we're supposed to do things in our lives, in certain ways and at certain times," he says, setting a warm, damp mug on the towel next to the sink. He slides the mugs she's brought into the water. "Marry, have a steady job, have children, live our lives. We're told work is what we're supposed to do in order to enjoy the two-weeks-paid-holiday and the weekends. That's good, it must work for the majority, otherwise it wouldn't be what we're told to do."
Gwen is watching him now, eyes slightly narrowed.
"But I don't work to pay the bills. The bills exist so that I can come to work. This place mirror-flipped my life. Without it, I would be...incomplete."
"What do you want from life?" she asks, and he honestly doesn't have an answer for her, so he turns back to washing the mugs and thinks about it.
"I want to -- learn, I suppose. I want to touch on the infinite, however small and briefly. One of those tiny humans on that tiny planet, reaching towards the stars. That's better than two-weeks-paid in Majorca, don't you think?"
"Who do you talk to?" she asks. He raises his eyebrows. "Your problems, your fears. Who do you talk to?"
"You lot," he says, baffled. "Do you think I'm lonely, Gwen?"
"I don't know. Are you?"
"With Torchwood to look after and all the universe in front of me? No." He dries one hand and touches her wrist, rubbing his thumb across her knuckles. "If you think I'm a mystery, I give you leave to try and solve me, though that seems fairly boring. But for god's sake, don't worry about me."
She nods and leaves, and Nicholas goes back to washing.
He sees Jack's shadow, leaning in the doorway; Jack was watching, Jack was listening. He doesn't credit Jack with putting Gwen up to it, but Gwen's inquiries so often yield Jack results.
"One can try to balance this life and the outside world," Nicholas says carefully, and Jack doesn't twitch or move. "As Gwen does. One can look for solace inside Torchwood, like you and Ianto do."
"Or?" Jack says. He still hasn't moved.
"Or, if of the proper temperament, one can decide that Torchwood is solace. Torchwood is the stars," Nicholas sets another mug on the dishtowel. "Why would I need anything more?"
"If you were offered the chance to see the stars -- the chance to go out there, instead of taking what comes here to us, would you take it?"
Nicholas considers.
"That would depend on what sort of person did the asking," he says, and Jack looks deeply unsettled. "And whether Torchwood would take me again when I came back."
"You'd come back?"
"Of course. This is where I belong."
***
Were we unclear about the part where we don't like the time-traveling ex-partners?
John Hart's Handwriting: That's hardly nice, Eyecandy.
When he can't raise anyone on the comms, Nicholas carefully does not panic. It's happened before, after all. He starts methodically trying their mobiles, but their mobiles all go straight to voicemail. He leaves an identical message on each.
"This is Nicholas. I can't reach the team on comms or mobiles. I will be checking in half-hourly. When you receive this message please notify the team and contact me. If I do not make contact with any Torchwood staff within two hours I will initiate protocol twelve."
Protocol twelve, everyone but Owen will probably recall, involves Nicholas locking down the Hub securely, notifying UNIT that Torchwood is potentially compromised, and proceeding to the last known coordinates. A UNIT team will meet him there, and they will...
Well, they'll do something.
Gwen finally calls him and tells him she's heading to the investigation site; when he tells her he can't reach anyone, she assures him she'll find out what's wrong.
Half an hour later there's a spike in Rift activity; he sees Tosh's handheld downlinking, but God alone knows where they are. Three spikes in sensitive areas, the server hub and the police station and St Helen's hospital. He hesitates; he should stay in the Hub and act as central comm for the team, that's his job, but three spikes with the entire team off comm means all hands on deck.
Gwen texts as he's checking the guns and strapping them on any old way he can -- shoulder holster, two thigh-straps, one on his left ankle. Stun gun in his right pocket.
get out
and a second later
get out get out get out
He checks the calendar. Yep, it's four weeks from the last time the world nearly ended. Right on schedule.
This, no doubt, is going to be a long day.
TWOOD NICHOLAS: am out how to help where to go? away from hub, police station, CJH TWOOD NICHOLAS: police copy. request status when convenient O uninjured T brkn arm G with RW both safe CJH ok, IJ TWOOD NICHOLAS: Status of IJ, when convenient. dislc shldr ok now john hart at hub, IJ. TWOOD NICHOLAS: am at police. sr. officers dead. orders plz wtf wtf fitting. wait for gwen, IJ. TWOOD NICHOLAS: standing by
Nicholas is useless at the police station; they don't know who he is and don't care, so he's grateful when Gwen sends him out with the rest to knock on doors, to try and salvage what he can from the city. He hardly remembers it later, but that's not because he was in shock; he's been trained for this, and Torchwood takes over, guiding his movements and his decisions.
He saves eight or nine lives. Shoots about twenty Weevils. Secures an entire section of the city and stops a small fire. Goes for nearly two days without sleep, without summons, blindly obeying his commander's last orders.
It's not that he was in shock.
nicholas come home now TWOOD NICHOLAS: can't nicholas please come home nicholas please answer TWOOD NICHOLAS: ok done now on my way
It's that when he returns to the Hub, exhausted and grease-smudged and feeling sort of triumphant in spite of everything, when he comes down the steps and through the cogwheel door, the world changes.
Jack and Ianto and Gwen are standing in the Hub, huddled together, and the room smells of blood and gunpowder. Jack turns slightly.
"Nicholas," he says. Nicholas glances down. There's blood on the floor.
"Where are Owen and Tosh?" he asks.
***
Jack's Handwriting:
Nicholas sends Gwen home to her husband and, through a haze of exhaustion, prepares food and tea for Ianto and Jack. Ianto comes and stands beside him for a while, not speaking, just standing, presence. Presence in the face of death.
Nicholas really liked Tosh. Owen wasn't so bad either. He got a lot more tolerable after he died.
Ianto takes the food and tea from him and doesn't meet his eyes. "Are you eating?"
"No," Nicholas answers.
"Jack's in his office. I'll bring the food up. You should rest."
Nicholas nods.
"But you won't, will you, Nicholas." Ianto inhales. "There are a lot of bloodstains in this Hub. Most of them you can't see. It won't care if there's one more for another day."
"I'll care," Nicholas says. "I want to, Ianto."
Ianto nods. "Go on then."
Nicholas is on his knees with the bleachy water and the brush, scrubbing Tosh's blood out of the cement. He is in the medical bay, scrubbing it off the tiles. He is scrubbing up hints of footprints where -- that's Gwen's trainers, those are Jack's boots, Ianto's boots -- someone has trod in her blood.
He doubles over, arms around his waist, and makes one low, keening noise of pain. Just one, and the little tiled chamber will swallow the noise so that Jack and Ianto don't hear.
***
Gwen is not allowed to touch the coffee machine.
Gwen's handwriting: You're a bastard, Ianto.
I love you too, Gwen.
They reel in shock for days, it seems, though there's hardly time to think; Nicholas sleeps in bits and snatches, constantly collating reports from the city, trying to assemble what happened, to make some kind of jigsaw sense out of the chaos that struck Cardiff. His mum often wakes him, calling long-distance from Newcastle, checking four or five times daily to be absolutely certain the Terrorists Didn't Hurt Him. Amy calls him too, but she's part of another life, and he tells her he's okay and then stops answering her calls (so she calls his mum, who calls him again, and the vicious cycle starts over).
Jack is never far from the tattered remains of his team. Nicholas doesn't think he's seen him alone since -- since the world ended, and then somehow didn't. He stands close to Ianto as they work to repair the computers, or hovers around Gwen as she monitors the police reports and passes them on to Nicholas. Jack sits with Nicholas as both of them work, elbow to elbow, their soft breathing the only sound in the conference room. Jack has new shadows in his eyes.
But over time the phone calls taper off and Jack stops hovering, and Gwen stops crying every afternoon right at three-thirty (her and Tosh's coffee-run time) and Ianto starts going near the medical bay again. He wouldn't, at first.
"I've been thinking," Ianto says to him quietly, leaning on the railing of the balcony outside Myfanwy's nest. Nicholas has been feeding her, lately, and he likes to take a few minutes each day after feeding-time to look down on the Hub and keep himself from falling to pieces.
"About?" Nicholas asks.
"We can't go long without a medic," Ianto says. "Or a technician. Really, honestly, I mean -- Gwen has plenty of organisational skills and she's good with the computer, and I'm pretty handy, but -- "
He stops, as if someone is pressing hard on his chest.
"You think you and Gwen were more expendable," Nicholas whispers.
"Don't start on me with survivor's guilt, Nicholas, I could write the book. In terms of skill sets, we were expendable. Torchwood could do without me. Especially now we've got you trained on the coffee machine," he adds, with a small smile, and Nicholas smiles back. "But we'll need a medic, and Jack and I have reached the limit of the repairs we can do without To -- without a technician."
"We need to hire new people."
"Yes."
"Jack's not going to agree to that, not so soon. Gwen'll back him to the hilt. Time to heal and all that."
"Jack was a soldier. He knows we need to fill our ranks. I think we can lure Martha away from UNIT, through guilt if nothing else. And...well, I have a few contacts I can speak to about the engineering side." Ianto ducks his head. "But you're right. He won't agree. He's also human, he's not perfect, and for him it's too soon."
"So what do we do?"
"I don't know," Ianto says. "I was hoping you would."
"Sorry. I'm just the pterodactyl-handler." Nicholas doesn't move as Ianto rests his forehead against his shoulder. Perhaps he's seeking contact or comfort or something else; Nicholas just likes the weight of another person depending on him. "We just have to keep...changing the bandages. Cleaning the wound. Healing. Things will feel more normal soon. I hope. Gwen laughed today."
Ianto is smiling, though Nicholas can't see it. He just knows. "We keep healing," he agrees.
"And I'll give Martha a call," Nicholas adds.
***
JACK I TOLD YOU ABOUT LEAVING ALIEN LIFE FORMS IN THE FRIDGE.
The first time he hears Jack laugh -- after -- Nicholas has to put down the tray he's carrying and lean on the desk for a minute, but it's not a bad thing.
It's how he knows they're going to be okay.
***
Chapter Four
(Note: This chapter is post-season, and does not directly conform to the canon of Children of Earth. It's a complicated timey-wimey thing.)
A note on Polari: Polari is a "cant" or offshoot of a language, used by carnies at the turn of the century. In the later twentieth century it was absorbed into the British gay subculture as a form of slang. The vocabulary Jack uses is a combination of Polari and "pure" Cockney rhyming slang. As with many cants, the literal meaning of the translation is somewhat corrupted if intent is not taken into account, so the translation below is accurate but not literal.
(Referring to Ianto) Look at my pretty boy, my young boy, his beautiful hair, his beautiful body. (Referring to Tosh) Look at my small, pretty woman with intelligence to spare. (Referring to Nicholas) And the good face of the new little one. Look at his face, look at his lovely clothes, his legs in those jeans. A child playing with the big kids, but bright as the sun. (Generally) I love all my people, not a bad brain or a dull eye among them.
For more information on the study and vocabulary of Polari, you can see my research here.