Timelord!Ianto: Trapped 4
May. 19th, 2011 11:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
galadriel1010Title: Trials of a Timelord
Chapter Title: Trapped by Torchwood part 4
Challenge/Fest: LongliveIanto cliché bingo
Prompt: Timelord!Ianto
Rating: G
Dedication:
Summary: A young Timelord crosses paths with Torchwood, and his life is forever changed.
Characters: Ianto Jones and OCs. Mentions of Jack and the Doctor
Contains:
Disclaimer: Torchwood and its environs, occurrences and persons belong to the BBC. The original characters have disowned me.
Brendan sat against the console next to the archivist, leaning their shoulders together in silent support. The world was falling apart around them, and there was nothing he could do. “We could be the last survivors,” he said at last. “I might have to breed with Trish to restart the species.”
The archivist laughed and nudged his shoulder with his own. “You all have to breed with everyone, to ensure the most varied genetic pool possible.” He rested his head back against the console and closed his eyes. “The Doctor will fix things. It's what he does.”
“And will you go with him?” Brendan asked quietly. “He can take you back to your people. You can get a new ship, be a Timelord again.”
“No. Well, maybe.” He ran his hands through his thick, dark hair, clenching his fingers and tugging. “I've been here so long. And I failed her...” He got to his feet and started flicking switches, bringing up more CCTV coverage on the screens around the console. “They've gone.”
Brendan scrambled up behind him and looked around the screens, a sick feeling growing in his stomach. “Did anyone else survive?” he asked quietly. “What happened here?”
“The Daleks and the Cybermen,” the other man said simply. “Neither has any concept of mercy. They're war machines.” He flicked the screens off and headed for the door. “Brendan, I need you to come with me. The rest of you stay should here. Don't go wandering into the TARDIS, because I have no idea what's in here after so long.”
Brendan nodded his agreement at them and hurried after Ianto, catching him up as he pushed the small wooden doors open and peered out. “Ar... Ianto?”
Ianto shot him a glare for his slip and stepped out into the containment room. “It's safe. If I had to guess I'd say that the Doctor found some way to suck them into the gap between dimensions.”
“How do you know that?” he asked, closing the door behind him.
“I can lipread.” Ianto rested his hand against the wardrobe, but pulled it away as if burned. “Come on. I need his help, loath though I am to admit it.”
Brendan matched his stride, longer than it had been before, and noticed the flash of skin where his jeans didn't quite fit. The T shirt too was tighter across his shoulders, although a previously sedentary life on a Torchwood diet meant that it was looser around the waist of this body. “How much of you changed?” he asked. “Not just your face?”
“Whole new me,” Ianto agreed. “New face, new hair, new body. New personality even.”
“I've not noticed much difference,” Brendan admitted. “Mind you, could be the stress.”
“Could be.”
They came across the first bodies and Brendan closed his eyes. He hadn't known them, exactly; they were just more of the nameless guards that Torchwood employed to keep the more dangerous prisoners in their place, but the place reeked of death and fear. “How many, do you think?”
Ianto crouched by one of the bodies and closed her eyes gently. “No way of knowing,” he sighed. “It depends on how they came through and how fast. IT, Finance and Level Five Research can all lock down fairly effectively. They could just be waiting for rescue...”
“Or they could have decided to sit it out and been found,” Brendan finished for him. “We only just got out.”
“Yep, I know.” Ianto straightened up and moved on down the corridor, picking his way over the bodies and out into the next corridor. If Yvonne had listened to us...”
“Do you think she's?” Brendan fell silent at Ianto's look and dropped his gaze to concentrate on where he was going. “Look... Ianto. I'm sorry about your ship. If I'd known...”
“Not your fault,” Ianto said dully. “I wouldn't have asked you to risk your life like that, not really. She's probably been dead since before you got here.”
He swallowed and glanced back over his shoulder. “What happened to her? Was it something we did?”
“Probably not. She feeds... fed on Vortex energy. Without an active Rift or at least being in the Vortex, she had nothing to live on.” He clenched his fists, trying to hide it from Brendan. “She starved, basically.”
Brendan searched for something to say that didn't sound woefully inadequate, but he hadn't got anywhere near before he was interrupted by a telephone ringing into the silence.
Ianto held up a hand and strode towards it, smoothing his face into a mask of compliance. “This is Torchwood Tower, who's calling please?” He looked across at Brendan and raised his eyebrows. “Thank you, Captain. We have a group of twenty one survivors; two of us are currently going after the Doctor, but we've not seen anyone other survivors... Yes, he was here. I don't know anything more than that, sir. Good, we'll meet you in the foyer as soon as possible.” He hung up and dropped the phone back into its holster. “Harkness,” he explained, already heading out of the room. “And he can deal with everyone else.”
“What did they do to deserve that?” Brendan asked. He heard a ghost of a sound and held up his hand. “Can you hear that?”
“That's a TARDIS,” Ianto confirmed, already sprinting past Brendan and down the corridor. “Down here somewhere.”
Brendan realised that Ianto didn't know the corridors as well as he did, and quickly passed his friend to drag him down a side corridor. “Main examination room,” he explained, “down here.”
Of course, they burst through the doors as the noise and wind faded away, and Ianto dragged his hand through his hair, blinking back tears. “Shit!” He slammed a hand against the wall and swore in a language Brendan didn't understand.
Brendan waited him out, figuring that he'd earned the right to swear, and pulled up the CCTV footage from the room whilst he was at it, mainly to give him some privacy. He frowned at what he'd found and took advantage of a pause for breath to beckon Ianto over. “He lost someone,” he said simply, streaming through the footage at high speed. “Look, blonde girl comes out... Doctor goes in.”
Ianto nodded his agreement and touched the screen. “He always did love his human companions. Couldn't seem to function without them.” He sighed and straightened up again, pushing his hands into his jeans pockets and frowning in distaste. “I need new clothes.”
*~*
“I don't suppose anyone will notice,” Brendan mused a while later, keeping his eyes fixed firmly on the white wall of the field team's changing rooms. “Unless they're not wearing their clothes because they're out in the field. That could be interesting.”
Ianto tossed a soft pink jumper aside and opened the next locker. “I'm not going to give them a chance to notice,” he murmured distractedly. “Brendan, you have to forget what you know about me. All of you do. I'm not... I can't do this again, and if I'm going to be stuck on Earth then I have to pretend to be normal.”
Brendan glanced at him and saw pale skin and too-prominent ribs, covered with a scatter of dark hair. “I'll keep your secret,” he promised.
The next locker supplied a pale blue shirt and a smart suit. Ianto pulled it on and checked the cuff lengths, tutting when they didn't reach quite far enough. “I think my father was a master tailor,” he mused. “I like the idea. What do you think, Brendan?”
“Very nice,” he answered, watching Ianto bend over to pull his trousers on. “You are spoiling me.”
Ianto chuckled and straightened up to fasten the fly. “What would your wife say?”
He shrugged. “She's already divorcing me. Don't think another would matter.”
“Oh...” Ianto pulled on the suit jacket and frowned at him. “Why is she divorcing you?”
“I've been having an affair with...” he cut himself off and shook his head. “Doesn't matter. But she guessed, or found out, and that was that.”
“I'm sorry.”
Brendan shrugged one shoulder. “Worse things happen at sea.” He changed the subject, gesturing to the clock on the wall above them. “We should go down and meet Harkness. And then get the others out.”
Captain Harkness was leaning on a desk in the foyer, not looking around at all. Brendan didn't blame him. The area was a scene of carnage, bodies piled on top of each other in the corners – people fleeing the building had clearly been trapped in here. His stomach rebelled and he vomited on the pristine floor, vision swimming. Ianto rested a hand on his back and he waved him off, muttering anything to get rid of him, and he moved away again, towards the Captain.
“Captain Harkness,” he heard Ianto saying. His voice wavered, but he kept up the forced confidence. “Thank you for coming.”
“I didn't come for you,” Harkness snapped. “Who are you?”
“Jones,” Ianto answered. “Ianto Jones. Archive team, I spoke to you on the phone. We locked down and got out through the ventilation system.”
“Just the two of you?” Harkness's voice approached Brendan and he tried to pull himself together. “You said twenty one.”
“The others are in the wardrobe,” Ianto explained. “It's... bigger on the inside.”
Brendan managed to get himself back under control in time, although from Ianto's expression he must have looked dreadful. “Captain Harkness, sir.” He leaned heavily on a desk and ignored their looks of concern. “I'm sorry. We don't see much... anything, really, in the archives.”
Harkness nodded and offered him a handkerchief. “That was always the problem with London.” He buried his hands in the pockets of a long dark coat and looked around once more, as if proving that he could. “This place will be shut down completely. For now we look for survivors.”
“Naturally,” Brendan agreed. “Ianto, could you pull up the employee records, please? We need to check everyone who was in the building.”
Ianto frowned curiously, but went to the desk obediently to find the information. “You'll be taking the contents of the archives, I imagine?” he said carefully.
Harkness shot him a glare. “My team will handle it.”
Brendan licked his lips and nodded in Ianto's direction. “Take Ianto with you. He knows the archives better than everyone, and he's good at what he does.”
“There's no space in my team,” Harkness insisted with a death glare. “And I cut myself off from One years ago.”
“Captain.” Brendan grabbed his arm before he could move away. “Ianto is the best. He learned from the Archivist...” He waited with baited breath to see if Harkness would understand him, and smiled when he did. “You travelled with the Doctor. You'll understand each other.”
Harkness nodded and looked over at Ianto. “You'd give him a reference?”
“Glowing,” he agreed smoothly. “One of the best team players I've ever had the pleasure of working alongside, and an excellent archival mind. Plenty of potential, and I think he'll fit in well with your team.”
He smiled at Brendan and tilted his chin up in challenge as Ianto approached. “Jones, was it?”
“Yes, sir?” Ianto shot Brendan a half-glare, although he tried to hide it. “We spoke not five minutes ago, if you remember.”
Harkness laughed. “We're going to be taking the London Archives to Cardiff after this, security measure and all that. Brendan tells me that you're the man to do it.”
Ianto raised his eyebrows. “Did he now? I'm pleased he thinks so.”
“Will you do it?”
He glanced down at the list in his hand and worried at his lower lip, then nodded decisively. “Ianto Jones, reporting for duty, sir.”
Harkness clapped him on the shoulder and took the list from him. “Welcome to Torchwood Three, Ianto Jones. Hell of a day to start.”
Next chapter
Chapter Title: Trapped by Torchwood part 4
Challenge/Fest: LongliveIanto cliché bingo
Prompt: Timelord!Ianto
Rating: G
Dedication:
Summary: A young Timelord crosses paths with Torchwood, and his life is forever changed.
Characters: Ianto Jones and OCs. Mentions of Jack and the Doctor
Contains:
Disclaimer: Torchwood and its environs, occurrences and persons belong to the BBC. The original characters have disowned me.
Brendan sat against the console next to the archivist, leaning their shoulders together in silent support. The world was falling apart around them, and there was nothing he could do. “We could be the last survivors,” he said at last. “I might have to breed with Trish to restart the species.”
The archivist laughed and nudged his shoulder with his own. “You all have to breed with everyone, to ensure the most varied genetic pool possible.” He rested his head back against the console and closed his eyes. “The Doctor will fix things. It's what he does.”
“And will you go with him?” Brendan asked quietly. “He can take you back to your people. You can get a new ship, be a Timelord again.”
“No. Well, maybe.” He ran his hands through his thick, dark hair, clenching his fingers and tugging. “I've been here so long. And I failed her...” He got to his feet and started flicking switches, bringing up more CCTV coverage on the screens around the console. “They've gone.”
Brendan scrambled up behind him and looked around the screens, a sick feeling growing in his stomach. “Did anyone else survive?” he asked quietly. “What happened here?”
“The Daleks and the Cybermen,” the other man said simply. “Neither has any concept of mercy. They're war machines.” He flicked the screens off and headed for the door. “Brendan, I need you to come with me. The rest of you stay should here. Don't go wandering into the TARDIS, because I have no idea what's in here after so long.”
Brendan nodded his agreement at them and hurried after Ianto, catching him up as he pushed the small wooden doors open and peered out. “Ar... Ianto?”
Ianto shot him a glare for his slip and stepped out into the containment room. “It's safe. If I had to guess I'd say that the Doctor found some way to suck them into the gap between dimensions.”
“How do you know that?” he asked, closing the door behind him.
“I can lipread.” Ianto rested his hand against the wardrobe, but pulled it away as if burned. “Come on. I need his help, loath though I am to admit it.”
Brendan matched his stride, longer than it had been before, and noticed the flash of skin where his jeans didn't quite fit. The T shirt too was tighter across his shoulders, although a previously sedentary life on a Torchwood diet meant that it was looser around the waist of this body. “How much of you changed?” he asked. “Not just your face?”
“Whole new me,” Ianto agreed. “New face, new hair, new body. New personality even.”
“I've not noticed much difference,” Brendan admitted. “Mind you, could be the stress.”
“Could be.”
They came across the first bodies and Brendan closed his eyes. He hadn't known them, exactly; they were just more of the nameless guards that Torchwood employed to keep the more dangerous prisoners in their place, but the place reeked of death and fear. “How many, do you think?”
Ianto crouched by one of the bodies and closed her eyes gently. “No way of knowing,” he sighed. “It depends on how they came through and how fast. IT, Finance and Level Five Research can all lock down fairly effectively. They could just be waiting for rescue...”
“Or they could have decided to sit it out and been found,” Brendan finished for him. “We only just got out.”
“Yep, I know.” Ianto straightened up and moved on down the corridor, picking his way over the bodies and out into the next corridor. If Yvonne had listened to us...”
“Do you think she's?” Brendan fell silent at Ianto's look and dropped his gaze to concentrate on where he was going. “Look... Ianto. I'm sorry about your ship. If I'd known...”
“Not your fault,” Ianto said dully. “I wouldn't have asked you to risk your life like that, not really. She's probably been dead since before you got here.”
He swallowed and glanced back over his shoulder. “What happened to her? Was it something we did?”
“Probably not. She feeds... fed on Vortex energy. Without an active Rift or at least being in the Vortex, she had nothing to live on.” He clenched his fists, trying to hide it from Brendan. “She starved, basically.”
Brendan searched for something to say that didn't sound woefully inadequate, but he hadn't got anywhere near before he was interrupted by a telephone ringing into the silence.
Ianto held up a hand and strode towards it, smoothing his face into a mask of compliance. “This is Torchwood Tower, who's calling please?” He looked across at Brendan and raised his eyebrows. “Thank you, Captain. We have a group of twenty one survivors; two of us are currently going after the Doctor, but we've not seen anyone other survivors... Yes, he was here. I don't know anything more than that, sir. Good, we'll meet you in the foyer as soon as possible.” He hung up and dropped the phone back into its holster. “Harkness,” he explained, already heading out of the room. “And he can deal with everyone else.”
“What did they do to deserve that?” Brendan asked. He heard a ghost of a sound and held up his hand. “Can you hear that?”
“That's a TARDIS,” Ianto confirmed, already sprinting past Brendan and down the corridor. “Down here somewhere.”
Brendan realised that Ianto didn't know the corridors as well as he did, and quickly passed his friend to drag him down a side corridor. “Main examination room,” he explained, “down here.”
Of course, they burst through the doors as the noise and wind faded away, and Ianto dragged his hand through his hair, blinking back tears. “Shit!” He slammed a hand against the wall and swore in a language Brendan didn't understand.
Brendan waited him out, figuring that he'd earned the right to swear, and pulled up the CCTV footage from the room whilst he was at it, mainly to give him some privacy. He frowned at what he'd found and took advantage of a pause for breath to beckon Ianto over. “He lost someone,” he said simply, streaming through the footage at high speed. “Look, blonde girl comes out... Doctor goes in.”
Ianto nodded his agreement and touched the screen. “He always did love his human companions. Couldn't seem to function without them.” He sighed and straightened up again, pushing his hands into his jeans pockets and frowning in distaste. “I need new clothes.”
*~*
“I don't suppose anyone will notice,” Brendan mused a while later, keeping his eyes fixed firmly on the white wall of the field team's changing rooms. “Unless they're not wearing their clothes because they're out in the field. That could be interesting.”
Ianto tossed a soft pink jumper aside and opened the next locker. “I'm not going to give them a chance to notice,” he murmured distractedly. “Brendan, you have to forget what you know about me. All of you do. I'm not... I can't do this again, and if I'm going to be stuck on Earth then I have to pretend to be normal.”
Brendan glanced at him and saw pale skin and too-prominent ribs, covered with a scatter of dark hair. “I'll keep your secret,” he promised.
The next locker supplied a pale blue shirt and a smart suit. Ianto pulled it on and checked the cuff lengths, tutting when they didn't reach quite far enough. “I think my father was a master tailor,” he mused. “I like the idea. What do you think, Brendan?”
“Very nice,” he answered, watching Ianto bend over to pull his trousers on. “You are spoiling me.”
Ianto chuckled and straightened up to fasten the fly. “What would your wife say?”
He shrugged. “She's already divorcing me. Don't think another would matter.”
“Oh...” Ianto pulled on the suit jacket and frowned at him. “Why is she divorcing you?”
“I've been having an affair with...” he cut himself off and shook his head. “Doesn't matter. But she guessed, or found out, and that was that.”
“I'm sorry.”
Brendan shrugged one shoulder. “Worse things happen at sea.” He changed the subject, gesturing to the clock on the wall above them. “We should go down and meet Harkness. And then get the others out.”
Captain Harkness was leaning on a desk in the foyer, not looking around at all. Brendan didn't blame him. The area was a scene of carnage, bodies piled on top of each other in the corners – people fleeing the building had clearly been trapped in here. His stomach rebelled and he vomited on the pristine floor, vision swimming. Ianto rested a hand on his back and he waved him off, muttering anything to get rid of him, and he moved away again, towards the Captain.
“Captain Harkness,” he heard Ianto saying. His voice wavered, but he kept up the forced confidence. “Thank you for coming.”
“I didn't come for you,” Harkness snapped. “Who are you?”
“Jones,” Ianto answered. “Ianto Jones. Archive team, I spoke to you on the phone. We locked down and got out through the ventilation system.”
“Just the two of you?” Harkness's voice approached Brendan and he tried to pull himself together. “You said twenty one.”
“The others are in the wardrobe,” Ianto explained. “It's... bigger on the inside.”
Brendan managed to get himself back under control in time, although from Ianto's expression he must have looked dreadful. “Captain Harkness, sir.” He leaned heavily on a desk and ignored their looks of concern. “I'm sorry. We don't see much... anything, really, in the archives.”
Harkness nodded and offered him a handkerchief. “That was always the problem with London.” He buried his hands in the pockets of a long dark coat and looked around once more, as if proving that he could. “This place will be shut down completely. For now we look for survivors.”
“Naturally,” Brendan agreed. “Ianto, could you pull up the employee records, please? We need to check everyone who was in the building.”
Ianto frowned curiously, but went to the desk obediently to find the information. “You'll be taking the contents of the archives, I imagine?” he said carefully.
Harkness shot him a glare. “My team will handle it.”
Brendan licked his lips and nodded in Ianto's direction. “Take Ianto with you. He knows the archives better than everyone, and he's good at what he does.”
“There's no space in my team,” Harkness insisted with a death glare. “And I cut myself off from One years ago.”
“Captain.” Brendan grabbed his arm before he could move away. “Ianto is the best. He learned from the Archivist...” He waited with baited breath to see if Harkness would understand him, and smiled when he did. “You travelled with the Doctor. You'll understand each other.”
Harkness nodded and looked over at Ianto. “You'd give him a reference?”
“Glowing,” he agreed smoothly. “One of the best team players I've ever had the pleasure of working alongside, and an excellent archival mind. Plenty of potential, and I think he'll fit in well with your team.”
He smiled at Brendan and tilted his chin up in challenge as Ianto approached. “Jones, was it?”
“Yes, sir?” Ianto shot Brendan a half-glare, although he tried to hide it. “We spoke not five minutes ago, if you remember.”
Harkness laughed. “We're going to be taking the London Archives to Cardiff after this, security measure and all that. Brendan tells me that you're the man to do it.”
Ianto raised his eyebrows. “Did he now? I'm pleased he thinks so.”
“Will you do it?”
He glanced down at the list in his hand and worried at his lower lip, then nodded decisively. “Ianto Jones, reporting for duty, sir.”
Harkness clapped him on the shoulder and took the list from him. “Welcome to Torchwood Three, Ianto Jones. Hell of a day to start.”
Next chapter
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-05-20 05:58 am (UTC)But yay Brandon. I chuckled when he checked out Ianto, and I loved that he helped Ianto into TW3. I wonder if Jack keeps a certain piece of coral on his desk in this AU.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-20 02:29 pm (UTC)I love Brendan. I want to keep him and bring him back. Maybe I will ;)
Gxxx
no subject
Date: 2011-06-11 03:46 pm (UTC)