Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The first time Ianto purposefully touches Harkness is the second time they meet. The sheer living warmth of the man seems to seep into his bones and he wants to touch him again.  

The sound is coming closer. A heavy thud-thud-thud and he knows what it is. They are hunting him, hunting them all. The battle proper started when the Cybermen began grabbing Torchwood staff and the word ‘conversion’ echoed through the corridors. He has a sick feeling he knows what that means now. 

At first it was only Cybermen they faced, and it’s a measure of how desperate the situation has become that he can use the word ‘only’ there. By the time the Daleks entered the fray and made things ten times worse, the Cybermen had already beaten the humans back twice. Since then, the three-way battle has raged throughout the building, and every time he uses the comm. system there are fewer voices answering his call.

He doesn’t know where Lisa is. She was in a meeting two floors down when everything went to hell and he doesn’t know where she is. Neither she nor her PA has answered over the comm. and no-one else he’s spoken to was on Floor 10 when the battle started. 

Their lines have fallen back time and time again, repelled by both the Daleks and the Cybermen. Twice now, they’ve been on the verge of being wiped out (deleted, exterminated) by one side or the other only to have the third and final side of this maelstrom launch an assault on their fellow aliens, by chance allowing the ragtag band of humans to escape. Moving down was impossible so even though it’s going to trap them, they are moving up, floor by floor. He hopes that some of his colleagues on the floors below being driven downward since then there is at least a chance that some of them will get out alive. Because he doesn’t think there is any hope left for himself and his five surviving companions. 

If he’d been in the Archives when everything went to Hell he’d have been able to get into the Weapons Section and then they might have a chance. As it is, they are almost unarmed. The Cybergun is heavy in his hands, a spoil of battle snatched from the first defunct Cyberman they found. The others forced it on him on the grounds that he is the only one with any field experience. Fortunately, given just how short his time in the field was, it’s easy enough to use. Despite the hysterical reports earlier that stated that no weapon seemed to affect the initial Daleks from the Sphere, it’s dealt with both sets of invaders adequately; but the power level is on the wane and he doubts it will last them much longer. When they met up with Lucas, who has far more field-hours than Ianto, he had a second Cybergun. Maggie is holding it now, but it’s clearly got even less charge than Ianto’s.
 
They’ve had to give up on bringing their wounded with them and that is tearing at him inside. Lucas, the only survivor of another tiny band, When, on the previous floor, they'd had to abandon Lucas and Stephanie with the corpses of six others and one fallen Cybermen, they’d left Steph holding Lucas’s pistol, which had proven so useless against either set of foes. The first shot sounded before they even reached the stairs, the second echoing faintly up the stairwell moments later. 

So now they are on Floor 16, trying to find signs of life or anything that they can use to help themselves and the floor is shaking slightly under his feet as the phalanx of Cybermen turn the corner and he knows then that something is wrong. Because although there are six figures marching towards him as always, the two in the lead are not identical to the others. One is Lisa, shrouded in silvery metal, more of it wrapped around her head leaving only her beautiful face revealed, warm brown eyes gone cold and blank. The other is a man, towering above Lisa, a good four inches taller than Ianto himself. He’s heavy-set, green eyes empty and dead, close-cropped red hair framing a face that should be pleasant to look at but for the familiar anger twisting it into ugliness. Blood covers his chest, coursing in rivulets from the hole torn in his throat. Oliver.

Ianto can’t move. He can hear the others behind him, falling back again, firing past him but everything seems to pass through the foremost couple and he can’t move and everything else fades away until all he can see and hear are the two figures stalking towards him. Then cold hands reach out and he frantically tries to back away because if those hands touch him, one pair metal-over-flesh and the other drenched to the wrists in Oliver’s own blood, he will finally come undone; but he has nowhere to go and nowhere to hide and the hands close on his arms and he can hear the whirring noise of the conversion unit and his own voice screaming and……

He snaps awake, going from sleep to lucidity with a suddenness that is as shocking as it is a relief. He jolts upright, nearly falling off the chair as he does, panicked gaze flying around the large, bare ward.

No Daleks. No bodies. No Cybermen. No Oliver. No conversion unit. Just the patched-up support unit and Lisa within it, so still and quiet that his heart skips a beat until he realises that he can still hear the drone of the respirator. She’s alive; he sags back into the chair with relief. It’s only when his muscles protest that he grasps what must have happened – despite his intention to go and get dried off and changed last night before kipping on the camp bed next to the support unit, he fell asleep in soaking wet clothes, sitting on a metal chair, slumped against the unit. Small wonder that he aches from head to toe as though he’s been beaten.

He pushes himself slowly to his feet and forces his muscles to stretch, unable to completely swallow the gasp of pain. He looks at his wristwatch, feeling a flicker of surprise at the realisation that he got just over three hours sleep. Whether there were any other dreams, he can’t remember. His old nightmares have been almost entirely replaced these days, with the main feature of what little sleep he does get being Canary Wharf. Occasionally though, other.... things creep back in and his whole body twitches suddenly at the thought. He knows damn well why Oliver was there this time. After last night…. No. He won’t let himself think about that. Not now.

It’s not quite 5 am but there is no point in trying to sleep again. He can vaguely recall Keith storming off last night to the friend’s flat where he is staying – a friend who thankfully is out of the country at the moment - and Lisa is asleep and as peaceful as she ever gets, so he sets the sensor alarms and walks stiffly from the ward towards the bathroom. 

Thank God for institutional incompetence because it means that Dwr Cymru has never turned off the water supply to the hospital even though St Teilo’s has been abandoned since before Ianto was born. Once Ianto and Keith found the stop-cock, all it took to get potable water was opening the taps for hours until they ran clear. Good job the hospital wasn't on a meter; Dwr Cymru are still digging up local roads looking for the ‘leak’. The water is cold, of course – neither man trusts the decades-old gas-fired boiler enough to try and light it. Not that it matters; he barely notices. He is always cold these days, chilled to the bone. Warmth has become a memory, a privilege of another life.

He takes his wallet and the stopwatch from his pockets and puts them to the side and then quickly strips the damp clothes off, not wanting to be away from her for longer than he can help. As he starts the shower, the cold water stings his left temple where the Weevil caught him last night. He reaches up to touch it and finds little more than a scrape. Weevils being Weevils, though, he makes a mental note to slap some antiseptic cream on. 

As he lowers his left arm, the harsh overhead light catches the faint scars and long-healed burns scattered across it, overlapping the white line that runs from wrist half-way to elbow. For a moment he stands still under the freezing spray, staring. Oliver had asked about the scars. They were just months old, back then. When Lisa in her turn asked, soon after they started dating, he’d told her the truth about the scars and let her assume the same was true of the burns. She’d begged him to talk to her if he ever thought he was going down that road again. What he couldn’t tell her then was that the burns were Oliver’s handiwork, often with Ianto’s own lighter. What he can’t tell her now is how close he is to that road, because she will just blame herself and it isn’t her fault. It’s his.

He turns the shower off within minutes and steps out of the cubicle to grab the towels from the small suitcase sitting around the corner. There’s some hot water still left in the thermos standing on the sink which does for shaving, then he pulls a change of clothes from the case. As he slips one hand into the inner zip-up pocket for a pair of socks, he feels something else brush his fingers. His breath catches, disbelief warring with sudden hope as he turns his hand to take hold of the unexpected object. The day he abandoned the flat, he had hunted high and low for… he sits back on his haunches as he opens his fist and stares down at the necklace. Marco’s necklace.

They lay in the makeshift double bed, Marco on his stomach with his chin resting on his crossed arms and Ianto lying next to him on his side, head propped up on one hand. Up here in the cramped attic rooms given over to staff, the two tiny, high windows would have given little air even if they’d been open to the November rain and wind, and so there was no denying the heavy scent of sweat and sex. Probably a good job they were the only two who ever came into the room, considering that no-one else was supposed to know Marco spent most of his nights here. Marco’s room on the floor below might be bigger and his bed an actual double, but after the first night they’d decided the risk wasn’t worth taking. The owner’s grandson's vacant room could be overlooked; no-one would dig too deeply to find out whose room he was actually in, but if the upper management heard another man was sharing Marco’s room, Ianto would be out of a job faster than you could say ‘homophobia’.

The only sound aside from their gradually steadying breath was the faint noise of Marco flicking his lower lip with his teeth. 

“Penny for them?” Ianto asked. 

“Que?”

“Sorry – English phrase.” Ianto smiled at him. “I meant – what are you thinking about?” He was still revelling in this…normalcy. Being able to ask a question or make a comment without having to be afraid of the consequences. Not having to watch the other’s every move and try to predict every response to his own actions. There was no need to with Marco. But he still froze when Marco raised his voice and he still flinched at an unexpected touch. 

Marco looked away for a moment, then turned his gaze back and suddenly Ianto had an idea what was coming before his…boyfriend? lover? even spoke.

“My father. He sent me an e-mail this morning. I have to go home.”

Ianto rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling. They’d both known it would happen, of course. Known this wasn’t going to last. They’d known from the night of their joint 21st, when they fell into Marco’s bed too drunk to walk in a straight line but sober enough to get it up, that it was just a fling. For Marco, he knew, it was something of an experiment, a bit of fun away from the eyes of the old women and priests and free from his father’s demands. For Ianto – it had been a revelation. Teaching him that it could be good, it could be fun. 

He sighed and looked back at Marco, forcing his voice to calmness.

“Why now? I thought he wanted you to stay over here through the winter season as well?” We’ve only had three months…. He tried to push the disappointment away. No regrets.

“Yes, I was to…learn the ropes, that is the phrase?” At Ianto’s nod, he continued. “But now, things have changed. My grandfather has died.”

“Oh.” Ianto hesitated, wondering whether to offer condolences; whenever Marco had spoken about his grandfather before it had only been to mention that when the old man died, his father would gain full control of the hotel chain. Clearly, even if there was no rancour, there was no strong family affection. When Marco spoke again, the causal tone gave no hint of any grief.

“It was his heart. He died last night. Now I am to go home and prepare to marry. It is all arranged. I told you, yes?” 

Ianto nodded. They’d been honest with each other from the first morning when they woke to find themselves tangled together in the sheets. Marco had to return to Spain to marry and keep the family tradition going but for now he wanted experiences that would be difficult or impossible to have once he was home. For his part, Ianto had neither asked for or offered love but simply enjoyed the novelty of not being hurt.

“Is she pretty?”

For a moment, he tensed, cursing himself for letting the question slip out. What if Marco got angry? He hadn't got angry yet but... Then he felt himself relax as surprise flickered over Marco’s face.

“You like girls as well? All the waitresses, they say to each other you’re gay.”

He shrugged with one shoulder. “I don’t flirt with them like you do. Doesn’t mean I don’t like girls. So – is she?”

“Ah, she’s beautiful! Long hair, eyes to drown in and a figure…..” Marco moved both hands through the air in a manner that left no doubt as to what the girl’s figure was like, then suddenly shifted onto his side, facing away from Ianto to rummage in the trousers abandoned on the bedroom floor. He pulled out his wallet and drew out a photo. 

“Here!” He rolled back, holding it out. “That is Maria. Pretty, no?”

Ianto took the photo and looked. The girl in the picture was barely more than sixteen, but…

“No.” He shook his head solemnly as he handed the photo back and waited until Marco’s jaw dropped with shock. “Not pretty – gorgeous!” 

“Ah – you and your wicked tongue!” Marco scowled and then grinned. That sounded like an opening line if ever there was one and Ianto was just leaning back in when Marco lifted his other hand into view. He held out a small plastic bag with the 'H Samuels' logo on it. He looked slightly embarrassed but also vaguely hopeful as he held it out.

“Here. I bought this today while you were serving lunch. If you were a woman, I’d give you something pretty to say goodbye, but….” He shrugged. “You are a man and men don’t like to be called pretty. So. This is not pretty, but - I like it. I like you.” He looked up into Ianto’s face. “Something to remember me by?”

Puzzled, Ianto sat up and took the bag. Inside was a small bundle of white tissue-paper. He lifted it out, feeling the weight of it and unravelled the paper until something fell into his hand. For a moment, he sat still and looked at the necklace. The twisted metal chain gleamed softly, almost hidden under the short cylinders that encased it's length. Marco was right – it wasn’t pretty, certainly wasn’t something any man would buy for a girlfriend. But... He looked up into Marco’s half-hopeful, half-cautious expression and smiled. 

“Hey – thanks. I…I don’t have…. I don’t have anything to give you to remember me…”

“Oh, really?” Marco’s now empty hands snaked out and wrapped themselves round the back of Ianto’s neck, pulling him back in. “I would not say that….”

At 21, recovery time is really not an issue. And this was goodbye.

They’d fallen asleep afterwards, woken later for more sex and then slept again, tangled together, til morning. Marco had left that day and a week later Andy rang with one of his warnings and Ianto ran again. But he kept the necklace, wearing it constantly until his transfer within Torchwood made a suit essential for work and wearing the necklace became impossible. Even then he kept it safe and wore it outside work. Not to remind him of some great love – love hadn’t been part of it. Marco hadn’t even known his real name; he’d been Ifan at the hotel. But because, like the stopwatch, it reminded him of some good times. And, like the battered old medallion of St Jude, it was a solid reminder that sometimes people actually cared. Marco had never hurt him, and had never been anything but considerate about his hang-ups.

He puts it on, because right now he could do with as many good memories as he can find. Lisa has seen it before – had even asked where it was from. A previous lover, he’d said. Truth enough, if not the full truth and his choice of words made her laugh. ‘Old-fashioned’, she’d called him. She’s never questioned his wearing it, though. Never asked him not to wear it. Another reason why he loves her.

The denim jacket is too wet for comfort so he shrugs into the canvas one, transferring the stopwatch as he does. The coat hangs awkwardly, pulling to the left and he shoves one hand into his pocket and pulls out two large bars of dark chocolate. What the hell…oh! They’re from last week, he recalls. Some people down the bay, handing out free samples of some new dark chocolate. He doesn’t like the stuff but Keith does so he accepted a few bars. Given how dead their friendship is, he’s not sure why. He’s not even given them to Keith.

After re-filling the thermos with cold water for boiling, he heads back into the ward to check on Lisa. He wonders, as he crosses the room, when the sight of the support unit stopped making him feel sick and became…..normal. It’s probably not a good thing but just now he doesn’t care. It’s keeping her alive. That is all that matters. 

She’s still asleep, so he moves to the table set up to one side of the ward where they’ve put some basic essentials for themselves. Lisa neither eats nor drinks now (one reason for the massive energy needs of the support unit) but she worries if the other two don’t eat. The small microwave heats up the ready meals Keith eats every day and the kettle and dried milk do for his tea, but for Ianto the important item is the coffee machine. That and the laptop were the only things that wouldn’t fit into the single suitcase he brought from the London flat, ignoring Keith’s incredulous looks. He’s virtually living off coffee again these days but without the fags this time. Though there are moments when he’d kill for one despite it being well over a year since he's last smoked, there’s not enough money for him to be burning it. For the same reason he’s tried to cut back on the coffee, a difficult habit to break, but an expensive one with him currently at more than 12 mugs of strong coffee a day (actual beans, not that instant flavoured water). He spends far more on coffee than food, nowadays.
 
The harsh noise as the first pot of the day starts wouldn’t disturb Lisa even if she wasn’t drugged – she’d become used to hearing it at all hours since he'd moved in. When the nightmares woke him and left him unable to go back to sleep, he’d make coffee and turn on all the lights in the main room and sit and read for an hour or two until he’d calmed down enough to try and sleep again. He had finally been getting better, the nightmares less frequent, in the last few months before Canary Wharf. Lisa had even commented that she could get used to not being woken in the middle of the night by him shouting and lashing out; that she was enjoying starting to find him still in bed with her if she woke before the alarm. 

She’ll have that again, he tells himself firmly. When they cure her, when she is back to normal and they find somewhere safe to live, away from Cardiff and Torchwood, when they have each other - the nightmares will stop again.

He gathers everything he’ll need for the day: the other two thermos flasks, the two PDA-sized devices – the Rift Activity Locator and Meson Energy Scanner (both prototypes that Hartman demanded London receive a copy of, though if these are only the prototypes, he’d love to get a closer look at what Ms Sato has developed them into) - and the comm. intercept and puts it all in a backpack small enough to fit into one side of the bike’s box. The other bag is stored behind a loose pipe near the outer door. It contains bits and pieces of Torchwood London tech, his Colt and spare ammunition, and the stun-gun - none of which he wants Keith knowing he has.

Food. He isn’t hungry – he hardly ever is, now, and when he is the urge often goes before he’s had time to do something about it, much as it did last night. But she’ll be awake soon and she seems to like talking to him as he eats whatever breakfast he can choke down. He doesn’t know how much she acknowledges that it’s nothing but a parody of the past. She could never face food before 8 so their days off were the only times they actually ate breakfast together – either his fry-ups or the American-style pancakes and waffles that she fell in love with on a year-long exchange at university. On workdays, she’d drink a cup of tea and he’d have coffee and some breakfast and then she’d take some of her oat-and-fruit muffins with them to eat on the hour-long Tube journey. And now he sits at her side and drinks coffee and forces food down his throat and smiles at her as he tries to pretend it’s the flat and it’s normal.

Bowl. Water. Instant oats. Stir. Microwave. It tastes like crap, even worse than when he makes it with milk, but everything tastes like ashes these days and milk costs money while water is free. Cost is now the over-riding factor for everything. Neither Lisa nor he has been paid since two weeks before the Battle, and they paid the month’s rent and most of their bills out of that. Keith’s “family emergency sabbatical” is unpaid. The drugs she needs he can only get on the black market by buying other people's prescriptions, and the running repairs to the cobbled-together life-support system have required all sorts of purchases, some having had to be made via Internet access at cybercafés with the added expense of hiring a Post Office Box for delivery. They maxed out the last credit card five days ago and with no income there’s no hope of loans or overdraft extensions. 

As of this morning, they have precisely £213.35 left in overdrafts between them all – about enough to get them through to the middle of next week, with the drugs they’ve still got. After that… Steal? His skills in that line aren’t exactly lousy, but they need more money then half-a-dozen CDs from HMV or the odd wallet will fetch. Beg? Borrow? Who the hell from? Neither Andy nor Mary could afford the kind of help he needs, even if they knew he was back. Gethin might be able to help, but he doesn’t know Ianto is back either and anyway, he doesn’t deserve lies but Ianto can hardly tell him the truth. Lying to The Bitch wouldn’t bother him, but as the song went – she wouldn’t piss on him if he was on fire. A loan from her is about as likely as the Second Coming. Earn? When? Lisa isn’t safe here, one of them always has to be with her and he spends the rest of his time stalking Harkness and doing what cybernetics research he dares to do via the cybercafés, always aware that Torchwood might be watching, that any one of his searches might raise a flag on monitoring software. 

No. There is only one way he can think to get the kind of money they will need if he can’t get into the Hub soon. He knows Frank Robb is still around, and the old bastard would be delighted to have Ianto in his debt. 

The very idea is enough to make his skin crawl. The repayments that would be demanded….to stop his thoughts going down that path, he pours himself the first mug of coffee for the day. Balancing mug and bowl, he moves back to the metal chair and sits down. Moments later, her eyes flicker and open. He can’t help but glance at his watch and he notes that it’s 5.15 - the sixth day running she’s woken up at exactly this time. No variation, even by a second. It scares him.

For a few seconds she stares at the ceiling and there is nothing in her face. No feeling, no life even. Briefly, he wonders…. Then her gaze shifts to him and she smiles. It lights up the room, her smile. It warms him. Makes him feel so alive. Even now, even after everything, she still looks at him like that. This wonderful, beautiful, brilliant, warm, funny, amazing woman looks at him like that. With so much love in her eyes that for a moment, he can’t speak. She could have had anyone. He knows for a fact that there were three men and (unbeknown to Lisa) one woman in the 500-strong Research Department who were angling to ask her out – and she asked him on a date. He won’t let her down. He can’t.

“Bore da, cariad,” she says, the phrase flowing as smoothly as if she’s been saying it all her life, the words and the smile chasing away his momentary doubt. Of course she is still his Lisa; of course she is still real and alive under the encasing metal. 

“Sabalheri, kipenzi.” When Hartman sent a generic e-mail throughout the Tower stating that although ‘office relationships’ weren’t a disciplinary matter, all staff were ‘expected to remain strictly professional in their manner to all colleagues throughout the working day’, Ianto promptly took advantage of being the only fluent Welsh-speaker in Torchwood to teach Lisa some native words – a few of which would decidedly not have been worksafe even without Hartman’s doctrine. Two days later, after a conversation with her maternal grandmother, Lisa had started teaching him the same sorts of phrases in Swahili. It became a joke between them, him using Swahili and her Welsh to do what Lisa called ‘sweet-talk’ each other. After that, she’d bought some Swahili language courses on CD and once joked that their kids would be the only ones in London who could switch from Welsh to Swahili with a bit of English thrown in. The assumption of their future had both exhilarated and terrified him. 

“How are you this morning, then?” 

“Alive,” she answers. “With you. So – not so bad really.” Then the smile fades. “What were you and Keith arguing about last night?” He shakes his head.

“Nothing much. He’s just a bit stressed. Don’t worry about it.” Of the many things that Lisa doesn’t need to know, the fact that her brother is days away from turning on them both is at the top of the list. She looks into Ianto’s face for a long moment before seemingly deciding to take his words at face value.

“Are you sure this is going to work, love? I mean, Captain Harkness…no-one knows very much about him. And I heard the way Hartman spoke about him once…..”

“Sweetheart, Hartman not liking him is not a point against him! And it’ll work – it has to. He knows I exist now – so all I have to do is persuade him that they need me.”

“But – what as?” Her words are coming faster now, always a sign she’s anxious. “I mean, you said as well as all being field agents, they were specialists, and love, I mean – you never…you’re not a specialist, Ianto, and you were only in the field for what – six weeks? And …” He cuts in – it’s been two years since Becca and the others died, but it still hurts. He still wonders if he could have saved them. Them and all of the people who died at his side in the Tower eight weeks ago.

“Doesn’t matter,” he says firmly. Of course, as far as Lisa is concerned, the plan is to get hold of Harkness and persuade the man to hire him for his Torchwood-related skills. He hasn’t told her about the files that show that every time Hartman tried to suggest that Cardiff could do with some ‘help’ from London, the Captain refused point-blank. She doesn’t know that the two times Hartman ignored those refusals and sent personnel over, Harkness took it upon himself to run his uninvited guests (both men) ragged by dragging them to every Rift incident going while ‘harassing’ (according to the files) them both to the extent that one of the men punched him and the other threatened to shoot him. Harkness clearly wants no interference from anyone from London. No, Ianto has no intention of trying to get Harkness to take him on for his Torchwood credentials alone. But she’s partly right - he still needs some sort of work to do once he’s got the man hooked. 

“Field agent, researcher, archivist, driver….don’t care what the job is, Lisa-bach, so long as he says yes. I’ll even man that fucking Tourist Office!” And it’s a sign of how stressed he is that he’s swearing, because he doesn’t swear aloud anymore although he used be as foul-mouthed as any Cardiff teenager. One of the many things he carries with him from Oliver. He twitches again as he thinks of that, but she puts her hand on his and he listens to her to distract himself. 

“Ianto Jones offering to go back into the tourist trade – it must be love!”

“Hey!” He manages a smile, trying to go along with her teasing so they can both forget reality just for a second. “You don’t know the true horrors of tourism. Have you heard some of the idiotic questions?” He gives an exaggerated shudder and she smiles broadly for once as she answers.

“What was that one you told me about the day you transferred?”

“Was that the one about the bloke who wanted me to ring ahead to Tower Bridge and get them to open it for a good photo as we went past? Or the one about the woman who wanted to know how tourists went about getting their photo taken with the Queen?”

Lisa laughs, or tries to. He flinches at the harsh, discordant noise she makes. She looks up at him and he can see the fear in her eyes.

“Ianto…” she starts. He leaves the bowl balanced on the edge of the unit and takes her hand, squeezing gently.

“We’ll do it, Lisa-bach. We will. It’ll be all right – I promise.” He doesn’t know if he believes it himself anymore, but he can’t bear to think of the alternatives so he keeps telling her the same things over and over again. 

“Hey…” She reaches up with difficulty and her heavy hand brushes the necklace briefly before she lets it drop. “You found it. Thought that was back at the flat.”

“So did I – must have taken it off the morning after we got back from Brittany and just popped it into the bag for safety.” That was two days before the Battle, just a little over two months ago now. A lifetime ago. 

“Ah. Glad you’ve got it – I know it means something to you.” There is a pause and then: “Was she special - the girl who gave you that?”

He manages a smile, knowing she is clinging to this topic of conversation to try and act as though things are sane – normal. But of course, she’s touched on one of the things he’s never told her. Has never had the courage to tell her. Coward.

“No girl I’ve ever known is as special as you.” It’s true, but she groans and tells him he’s being corny. It helps though and she relaxes a little and there is, for a brief moment, something approaching peace in her face. She starts to talk now about friends from outside Torchwood while he eats, forcing himself to swallow even as his throat tries to close and his jaw tries to lock. He learned to over-ride such unforgivable reactions a long time ago. But that thought is traitorous – he’s too on edge as it is these days and last night, between Harkness and the nightmare, means that memories far less pleasant than Marco are too close and suddenly he chokes, coughing and retching. For a moment, his stomach nearly betrays him. By the time he has himself under control again, throat stinging, Lisa is staring at him with concern all over her face.

“Are you all right?”

He manages to force a smile, but he puts the half-full bowl onto the floor and holds his mug in both hands. He doesn’t realise how much he’s shaking until the coffee almost slops over the edge of the mug.

“I’m okay,” he manages. He takes a couple of deep, slow breaths, inhaling the rich odour and letting it calm him. “I’m okay. Just…” He meets her gaze. “Tired,” he hears himself admit and wants to kick himself when guilt flashes across her face.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I…I’m sorry, Ianto, I…” Her voice quavers and cracks and he leans forward quickly, bringing one hand up to brush the side of her face.

“You have nothing to be sorry for, do you hear? This is not your fault. And things will get better once we’re in the Hub.”

She draws as deep a breath as she can manage and he can see her struggle to calm down. She nods slowly.

“You’re going to try and talk to him again today?” Ianto knows exactly who she means – there is only one ‘him’ in their conversations these days.

He nods. “Soon as Keith gets here, I’ll head out. Want to be there as early as possible. It should be his turn to do the 10am coffee run today,” he explains, referring to the Captain, “but there’s always the chance something will bring him out earlier. I don’t want to miss any opportunities” 

As though he’s been summoned by his name, Keith arrives minutes later. He slams open the ward door and stamps across the floor, glaring at Ianto as he approaches. Lisa turns her head and smiles at him.

“Keith! How’re you?” 

In response, Keith scowls, shrugs and leans down to kiss her forehead. His eyes meet Ianto’s as he does and the sheer hate in them sends a chill down the Welshman’s spine. They are in danger, Lisa and he. He knows it as definitively as he knows that he will die for Lisa if he has to. 

As Keith straightens, Ianto leans forward and kisses Lisa himself. As always, he refuses to let himself think about how cold her lips are. Straightening up, he looks at Keith, raising an eyebrow.

“Keys?” 

Keith yanks the key-ring from his jacket pocket and hands it over, still glaring. Ianto pockets it and slings the backpack over one shoulder.
 
“Back in a sec.” 

On his way out, he collects the second bag and takes both to the bike, which Keith has left in the half-derelict shed they use to hide both it and the van. Before he stores the second bag in the storage box, he transfers the stun-gun to his jacket pocket. He heads back into the ward, where Keith is sitting in the metal chair, running his gaze over the unit’s readouts. 
 
“Keith, can I have a word? Love, I’ll be back as soon as I can.” 

Still scowling, Keith stalks back across the floor and follows Ianto out of the door.

The moment the door has shut behind them, Ianto spins around. He grabs Keith by the shoulder and drives him sideways and backwards until the smaller man’s back slams into the wall. Stepping forward, he grabs Keith’s jaw and forces the man’s head up, elbow firmly against the other’s chest. Releasing Keith’s shoulder, he pulls the stun-gun from his pocket, lifting it into the shaken man's field of vision and pulling the trigger. A spark leaps between the two prongs and Keith’s shocked eyes widen. Ianto keeps his voice soft – Lisa’s hearing is phenomenal these days and he doesn’t want her to know what is happening.

“I’m going back to the Plass. If you hurt her, if you endanger her, you’d better get a good head start on running away. Because I will come after you and I will find you. And make no mistake, Keith – you won’t survive it when I do.” He shifts his grip, moving his right hand from Keith’s jaw to his Adam’s apple, and squeezes. Only slightly, but the fear in Keith’s eyes turns into panic for a second before Ianto relaxes his grip just enough for the other man to speak.

“What the fuck are you on, Jones? What the hell are you talking about? I’m her fucking brother for God’s sake – what do you take me for?” But his tone isn’t right for the indignation the words should carry – he’s blustering.

I take you for a fucking coward and a traitor, Keith. When he speaks, Ianto lowers his voice even further so Keith has to strain to hear. A shout might make people jump, but in Ianto’s experience a whisper is actually more frightening.

“I take you for the man who’s going to listen to me very carefully and do exactly as I say until your sister is safely in the Hub. Then I take you for the man who’s going to walk away and keep his mouth shut.” Which won’t be a problem because you’ll be retconned. “Because you see, Keith…” He steps even closer to the smaller man, standing body-to-body against him, speaking right into his ear. “What you need to remember is that Lisa’s life is the only one that’s actually worth a damn to me. No-one else matters, you follow me? No-one.”

He pulls back now so that Keith can see him and lets his mind go….empty, is the only way he can think to describe it. Blank. He has no idea what it does to his facial expression but Becca, with five years experience in the field, said it freaked her out. From the way Keith’s throat convulses under Ianto’s hand as he swallows suddenly and the way his gaze snaps away from Ianto’s face, he’s not finding it very reassuring either.

Ianto says nothing after that, just lets go and walks away.

“What if she has an attack whilst you’re out?” Keith calls after him, his tone sullen now. “You gonna blame me anyway? What am I supposed to do then?”

Ianto doesn’t stop moving but he half-turns briefly, almost side-stepping, so he can look straight at Keith. “Pray she survives.”

He gets as far as the bike before he throws up, his stomach emptying itself of what little he managed to eat earlier. God, what am I turning into? Keith was a friend, once. They’ve gone out on the lash together; got bawled out by Lisa for being hungover together; watched rugby together – on the same side when it’s the Lions and jovially scorning each other when it’s the Six Nations or any of the Southern teams on tour. And now he mistrusts the man’s every move and has just threatened to kill him.

But he has to keep Lisa safe. He has to. And he can’t risk Keith deciding to euthanize his sister. Whatever it takes to keep her safe he will do - whether that means keeping Keith in line by force or, with Harkness, playing the wh… playing on the man’s foibles. He will keep Lisa safe.

Taking a deep breath, he forces himself to calmness, pushing the memory of what he has just done away. Locking it away along with everything else he doesn’t have time to think about now. They told him he had no psychic or empathic skills during training, but the defence techniques they taught everyone do seem to help in shutting away those memories that he doesn’t want, doesn’t need. Of course the memories come screaming right back out at night but for now he just shoves them away, slams the door and ignores the faint whispers at the back of his mind.

He puts the stun-gun back into his right-hand pocket and pulls the black helmet on before swinging onto the bike. It doesn’t take him long to get into Cardiff proper – there’s not that much traffic at this time in the morning. When he gets to the Bay, he leaves the bike stashed by one of the language schools at the cost of yet another precious three quid (a parking fine he’d just ignore, but they clamp anything without a proper ticket) and walks the last few hundred yards to the Plass, the bag with the flasks over one shoulder. What’s in the lock-box is safe – he took the liberty of acquiring some Torchwood-style locks when he hunted through the Tower’s ruins. Bike and box are theft-proof short of a sonic device. 

It’s not quite 6.30 yet and nowhere is open – the area is silent but for the seagulls. At this time of day, the Torchwood team are almost equally likely to use either entrance, so he positions himself such that he can see both the water-tower and the top of the steps leading down towards the office and turns on the comm. intercept. There is nothing but a low crackle of static. He’s not yet even sure if he’s managed to correctly hack into their communication system: London was supposed to have over-ride codes for the comm. systems for all other branches, but he quickly learned on arrival in Cardiff that the team here had changed their systems. So far he’s managed to hack into First Great Western’s train-to-train communications, Cardiff Ambulance Service, Dragon Taxis and what sounded like a pizza delivery service. Late yesterday evening, just after Harper and the two women went home, he picked up another channel. There’s been only silence so far but if he’s lucky, it’s the Torchwood channel and they’ve just been quiet since last night.

An hour later, there has been nothing over the possible comm. channel and no sign of Harkness. He’s so tired his muscles keep jerking in brief, harsh spasms, and as he rubs his thumb and forefinger across his eyes and the bridge of his nose he wonders whether to have some of the coffee in the flask he made for himself. On the one hand, he has no idea how long he’s going to be here and he can’t afford to buy any if he runs out. On the other hand, if he doesn’t, he’s going to fall asleep standing up.

Exhaustion wins out and he pours some coffee carefully into the flask cup, drinking it slowly. As he finishes, there is a brief flare in the crackle of static from the interceptor. He yanks it out and listens, and to his delight, he can hear a phone ringing. Please let this be the one! After three rings, a woman’s voice answers and he thinks it’s Costello but he’s not sure. She sounds snappish.

-"What is it?"- 

There is a brief second of silence in which his nerves stretch almost to breaking point and then relief floods through him as he hears Harkness’s voice, the other man sounding far too bright and breezy for Ianto’s taste right now. The Captain sounds as fresh as if he’s had a 12-hour rest, though he can’t have had much more sleep than Ianto did.

-"And a good morning to you, too, Suzie! Listen, the system’s put up a red flag: Barry Police had a call five minutes ago from a man who swears he just saw a baby mammoth wandering across a school playing field. No Rift flare, but there was that one the day before yesterday that we assumed was a blank, so I’m out to see to it. Need you to cover the Hub.”-

Still listening, Ianto kneels down next to the backpack and yanks out the second flask and the mug. Costello groans.

-"Damn it, Jack; it’s Owen’s turn to come in early."-

-"It is? Sorry Suzie, guess I got mixed up. Did I…interrupt anything?"- 

The level of innuendo in his voice makes Ianto raise an eyebrow. Hard to imagine Hartman saying anything like that. Hard to imagine Hartman saying “sorry”, truth be told. Costello snorts.

-"I should be so lucky!"-

-"Hey now, Suzie, if that’s the way it’s going these days you know you only need to ask….."- 

Unscrewing the flask and pouring the mug half-full, Ianto shakes his head, torn between admiration and disbelief. The more he sees of Harkness, the clearer it is that those anecdotes in the London files didn’t even come close to painting an accurate picture of the extent of the man’s flirting. Which will hopefully make his own job easier. Costello chuckles but there is something in her voice, an undertone…. not for the first time, Ianto shivers slightly. Costello makes his skin crawl. There is something…off about her. He’s unsure what it is, but there is something

-"Jack, you’re too much of a bastard to be my type and I’m certainly not yours!"- 

-"I have a type>?"- The Captain sounds honestly surprised, and it doesn’t escape Ianto’s notice that the man has ignored the first part of Costello’s comment.

-"Young and pretty, as a general rule."-

-"Suzie, you are a handsome woman and you age like a fine wine."- Ianto rolls his eyes as he shoves the bag behind a bollard and heads down towards the Tourist Office. Costello answers dryly, her words echoing Ianto’s thoughts.

-"If that’s supposed to be a compliment, Jack, you need practise."-

-"You wound me, Suzie, you wound me."-

-"Bah! Like I said – too much of a bastard. Get off to Barry and the mammoth sighting. I’ll be at the Hub in fifteen."-

-"Make it ten."-

Harkness rings off and Ianto just has time to turn the interceptor to silent alert and drop it into his jacket pocket before the door opens and Harkness comes striding out.

“Morning!” Ianto calls. “Coffee?” He sees the slight hitch in Harkness’s stride as the older man notes his presence, but he holds out the mug as though it’s perfectly reasonable for him to be standing out on the Bay at barely seven-thirty in the morning, offering  coffee to a man he’s supposed to have only known for about six hours. For Harkness, the only unusual thing about the scenario is probably the setting.

Last night was too dark for Ianto to really get a good look at the other man, but now in the daylight it’s easy to understand some of the comments he'd read in the London files. He’s not done anything more than admire anyone other than Lisa in two years, but Harkness has looks enough to draw everyone's eye. 

Harkness stops in front of him and takes the mug, looking somewhat baffled. He lifts it and sniffs the contents and there’s a flicker of surprise on his face. He takes a swallow and Ianto watches, face neutral. He’s followed Harkness on several coffee runs over the last few weeks and knows the general tastes of each member of the team. From the look on Harkness’s face, that little bit of incidental research has just paid off. 

“Wow!” But then the mug is shoved back into Ianto’s hands and that wasn’t how he’d hoped this would go. Alarmed, he hears his own voice before he can stop it.

“I want to work for you.” Think, man! Think first, then talk!  But Harkness is already answering and his tone is dismissive.

“Sorry, no vacancies.” 

“Look, let me tell you about myself.” He means to play off what he’s learned from reading the files and watching the team. Means to continue playing the cards that Harkness’s habit of flirting and their shared sexuality give him. Means to use those memories he hates in order to further the plan. But before he can say anything more Harkness speaks again, reeling off what he’s learned since last night.

“Ianto Jones, born August 19th, 1983.” He starts to walk again and Ianto turns to keep pace, listening silently. Does that mean he didn’t read the full file?  “Able student but not exceptional, one minor conviction for shoplifting in your teens.” That makes his hackles rise. Getting caught was a stupid mistake and sent things from bad to worse, but in any other job it would have been regarded as spent long ago. Bloody Torchwood. “Number of temporary jobs, mainly a drifter…” He wants to laugh at that, because that’s not what he would have called it. Drifting implies choice – and where was choice in those years? “Until two years ago you join the Torchwood Institute in London. Junior researcher. Girlfriend, Lisa Hallett.”

“Deceased.” The word is out immediately: it’s always been the plan to prevent Harkness from even thinking about Lisa. Officially she’s on the ‘missing’ list, but of course if that were true there would be no hope after this long so he has to pretend he’s ‘accepted the inevitable’. 

“I'm sorry,” Harkness says, but it has the same air that Ianto has already heard dozens of times – a meaningless phrase, trotted out for social niceities.

“Look,” Ianto moves in front of the older man, putting out a hand to bring him to a verbal and physical halt, deliberately standing with his body open to his target. He can feel the cesspit of memories trying to open up under his feet, courtesy of his own actions and the nightmare, but he has to focus on the job he has set himself, even though Harknesss’s reference to the years before Torchwood is making that hard. 

“You checked me out…” The words are deliberately ambigious, a purposeful hint of innuendo, but before he can lead Harkness any further, the Captain verbally steamrolls forward.

“You knew what a Weevil was.” There is something causal in his tone, as though he sees checking out random strangers who stumble on Torchwood affairs as a mundane thing. But then, perhaps it is to him. London, of course, had whole teams dedicated to ‘clean-up’ as Becca called it. The thought of Becca makes him realise Harkness hasn’t mentioned her, or the others. So perhaps he has only read the general file. “Thought I was gonna have to come…deal with you.” There is just the tinest hesitation before the word ‘deal’, enough to make Ianto hope his ploy is getting somewhere despite the fact that Harkness hasn’t taken advantage of Ianto’s outflung line. So: 

“But instead you could see I have the right qualifications for the job.” As he hasn’t named a job, he has to hope Harkness either challenges him on that or looks no further than Ianto’s appearance and flirting. Not that the job itself matters - it’s the Hub he’s after. But he needs to get Harkness interested (hooked and wanting more), needs him to think that Ianto is…willing. Partly in order to deflect any qualms the older man might have about his London history and partly because he will need to be in the Hub virtually around the clock and he cannot risk Harkness ever wondering why. So long as he gets in, he’ll do any job Harkness throws at him - and accept any use the Captain has for him. 

Whore. He barely manages to hide the flinch at that internal whisper but Harkness speaks again, yanking his mind back to here-and-now just as he did last night. Any spark of gratitude for that, however, is dowsed by Harkness’s actual words.

“There is no job. We're nothing to do with Torchwood London. I severed all links.”  Harkness brushes past Ianto, dismissing him as though he is unworthy of notice.

He should be scared, or alarmed, because the plan has unexpectedly run into a brick wall of disinterest, but instead Ianto is suddenly furious. Because he knows the truth of that – Cardiff offered no help before or after the Battle and has ignored the battered survivors, leaving them to the tender mercies of Retcon and nightmares and whatever-the-hell it is that has happened to his ‘disappeared’ colleagues. All Cardiff did was to come down like a flock of vultures; Costello and Sato ignoring everything that was going on around them, focusing solely on their own needs and wants. Achieving their aims by literally stepping over the bodies of the dead, both fully human and partly-converted. Oh, Lisa wasn’t the only one, just the only one he'd had the time to get to safety. There were at least a dozen others, each and every one shot dead by nameless, faceless figures in black, and he has no idea who was behind it – the Institute? UNIT? Glasgow, Cardiff, the Crown? Was it Harkness who ordered those deaths, while grinning like a shark? The unknown Suits with their badges and their disdain? The Queen, ignoring the fact that they’d all sworn to serve ‘Queen and Country’? There’s an oath they’ll never get from him again. Nothing else has any meaning now; all there is in the world is protecting Lisa. The rush of anger fuels him and his words come out almost as a snarl.
 
“Yet when it burned,” and he’s in front of Harkness now, seething, and this time he moves closer to the other man and shoves a hand into his chest. In that first split second, it feels like he’s been scalded and it takes all his self-control not to yank his hand away “two members of your team scavenged the ruins.” His hand is hard against the other’s chest and he can feel the heat surging from Captain Harkness. The sheer, living warmth of the man seems to sink into Ianto’s flesh as waves of heat coil up his arm, racing through him. For the first time in weeks, the bone-deep cold dissapates. Suddenly, it feels so damn long since he touched something warm, something alive. The only human touch he has had in eight weeks is Lisa, and Lisa is so very cold now and Harkness is there, under his hand, vibrant and fiery and alive. He doesn’t want this contact to end and now he can smell wool, leather, cinnamon of all things and something else; something that makes the heat slide down his spine and shoot up his legs, and the two blazing trails meet and for just a second, he wants more than just this one hand on Harkness’s clothed chest, he wants… Stop! he snaps at himself. Focus.Lisa. 

And then fingers reach up and Harkness literally lifts Ianto’s hand away between finger and thumb, like a man might touch a dead rat or something rotten, pushing it back, releasing his grip as soon as possible. The exhiliration and heat of touch is gone and the anger is back even as Harkness speaks, his voice contemptous.

“Don't want the equipment getting into the wrong hands.”

“And you're the right hands, are you?” Before he can even tell himself this is not the way to get a job, his mouth seems to realise it needs to change track. “Trial period, three months.”

“No.”

“Three weeks. Three days. Let me prove myself to you. I'll work for nothing.” Somewhere, at some point, he’s lost control of this conversation and now he is floundering.

“No.” Harkness starts to move again and Ianto moves as well, desperation robbing him of most of his remaining self-control.

“I saw what they did at Canary Wharf.” This time, he grabs Harkness by one shoulder and pulls him slightly backwards, forcing himself in front, well into Harkness’s personal space once more despite the man’s reaction to that the night before. Right now, he’s lost all ability to flirt or imply an offer. The memories are coming up like bile, bitter and foul and he’s not actually sure which ‘they’ he means  - the Daleks, the Cybermen or his own people. “What am I supposed to do with those memories?” 

“You are not my responsibility. And we're not hiring.” Having utterly dismissed him, Harkness moves past and walks off once more. Ianto stands motionless, desperately trying to think of a way to rescue something from this mess.

“Same time tomorrow then.” He forces his voice back to the tone he’d started with, letting Harkness know he’s not going to give up. 

“There is no job for you here and there never will be,” Harkness calls back. 

“I really like that coat.” The daft thing is, it’s true. It suits him. Flamboyant, exuberant.

This time, Harkness doesn’t even seem to break stride. He walks away, disappearing from sight as he climbs the steps into the Plass. For a moment, Ianto stands frozen. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. With all the stories about Harkness, it didn’t occur to him the man would turn down what Ianto was offering him.

#I always said you were a whore, didn’t I? Now you’re proving me right. Do anything for the right price, won’t you? Nothing but a pretty whore.#

The cold voice sounds so real that he whips round, staring wildly about half-convinced he can smell Embassy cigarettes; almost expecting to see Oliver standing there with that look on his face that always promised pain. The old fear comes charging back and he starts to shake, his breath coming in harsh sobs. He raises both hands to his face, vaguely aware of the mug tumbling from his grip, and presses the heels of his palms against his closed eyes.

#Whore# the remembered voice hisses again.

So what if I am? The sudden thought is bitter, angry. I learned how to be because of you. Because of what you made me do. And now I’ll do the same with Harkness. This time round, the price is keeping Lisa safe.

The laugh seems to echo in his mind, the harsh sound that used to freeze him in place. 

#You think he won’t know you for what you are? Those men last night, while you waited for him? They knew what you were. Any man who’s ever looked at you knows, why do you think they keep wanting to know how much you cost? Whore. Putting yourself on show for Harkness. Offering yourself to him. You think he’ll treat you any better than I did? If you do, you’re a fool.  He’ll treat you like the whore you are. Just like I did. Just like you deserve.#

His legs give out and he falls to his knees as the memories start to surge up, shameful and loathsome. It’s what he hasn’t allowed himself to think about beyond the acknowledgement that he has to let Harkness think himself in control, that he has to play this to Harkness’s tastes, whatever they are. The idea that Harkness might share Oliver’s tastes, Oliver’s kinks - Oh God. That he might have to go back to that. He remembers the last time he was on the verge of having to go back to it....

Later, he would blame his lack of observation on the head-splitting migraine. He was normally very aware of everything around him, alert for any sign of danger, but that day he’d barely been at work an hour and the heat was already starting to build when some little shits in another open-top bus had snatched his hat from his head as the two vehicles eased past each other. 

Eight hours later, after a day spent bare-headed in the searing late-August heat dealing with the noise and chaos of central London traffic and idiotic tourist questions, he backed out of the Great August Birthday Piss-Up (so-called because 21 of the 30 tour guides and bus drivers hired that summer had birthdays in August) even though it had been planned since May. 

“Ach, c’mon man – you have to come, you’re only 22 once!” Fliss poked him in the ribs but when he lifted his head from his hands to look at her, her face flooded with shock. 

“Fuck, pet – you look about to puke!” 

He nodded tightly and bit back a moan of pain at the movement. 

“Go on, get home! See you tomorrow if you’re up to it,” she said, looking honestly worried. “No-one came in by car – you gonna be ok on the Tube?”

“Mmmm.” Not up to his usual standard, but about all he could say for fear of vomiting on her shoes.

By the time he reached the surface after the Tube journey, he was nearly in tears with the pain. Lights kept flaring in the corners of his vision and even the sound of his own breathing hurt. As migraines went, this one was pretty spectacular. As he neared the flat, able to think of nothing but painkillers and sleep in a dark room, his phone beeped from his hip pocket. He flinched in renewed pain and snatched at the phone, just wanting the noise to stop. It was only ingrained habit that made him lift the phone to eye-level to see the caller ID instead of simply declining the call.

When he forced his gaze to focus on the tiny screen and he saw the name there, his heart gave a huge leap in his chest and he would have sworn it stopped beating for a second. He brought the phone closer, hitting “answer”.

“Mary.”

“Laddie, you need to run.”

At the words, he stopped dead and stood in the middle of the pavement, swaying on his feet as despair surged through him. He’d known what she was going to say from the second he saw her name. Sunday night was the time Mary rang to chat and check up on him. Andy always sent him a text once a week, whenever his shifts allowed, and he’d call back to talk. They only contacted him at any other time for this – to warn him. 

He pressed the palm of his left hand to his forehead and forced the words out past the pain. 

“You’ve heard from Andy?”

“No, boy – I was in evening Mass. You’re in the Intercessions Book, you always are, and as soon as the reader said “we pray for our own intentions”, I knew I had to call you. Boy, I’ve left Mass to call you.”

Startled, he looked at his watch. She had as well: it was barely 8pm – even a weekday Mass wouldn’t be over yet. 

He stopped praying after Mam died. Then Oliver killed any last gasp of belief in a benevolent God. But even after three years, he still had no idea what to make of Mary’s conviction that it was the saints or his ‘guardian angel’ who told her when he was in danger. Part of him wanted to say she was crazy but it was impossible to deny that twice before she’d called to warn him, and both times she'd been right. She must be seriously worried this time – she regarded it as the next thing to blasphemy to leave Mass before the last note had faded. 

“Ianto? You hearing me, lad?”

“Yes.” He looked up the road. From here, he could see the front gate of the flat, but York had taught him not to hesitate when Mary called. His wallet was in his back pocket, containing his drivers licence and the battered old medallion she’d given him three years ago. The stopwatch was in his hip pocket – it hadn’t left his possession since Gethin brought it back to him in Cardiff Royal. The necklace he hadn’t taken off since he'd put it on two hours after Marco gave it to him. Nothing else was important enough to worry about – he still hadn’t had the insurance payout for the bike, written off by an idiot taxi driver. 

“Talk about minimalist living,” he muttered. 

“What? Where are you boy? You home?”

What home? “No. I’ll….” He sighed. Sorry Fliss, guess you won’t be seeing me tomorrow. “I’ll get out of London tonight. I’ll call you when I’m somewhere for the night.” When the insurance money finally came it would have to go on rent for yet another new place, rather than on the replacement bike he’d picked out as his birthday present to himself. Anger curled in his gut. 

“Stay safe, boy. Love you.”

He closed his eyes against the sudden prickle. “Love you, Mary. And – thank you. I owe you. Again.”

“Now, lad – you owe me nothing, you know that.”

She hung up and he turned to head back to the Tube station. Where to? Euston? Paddington? King’s Cross? Hard, through the pain in his head, to remember which stations led to which parts of the country. To remember where he’d been and where he’d already run from. He’d started to think he was safe. Stupid. You’re not safe, you’re never going to be safe. Ever. Hard, sometimes, to remember why running had seemed like a good idea in the first place.

His leaden steps took him past an alley-way that cut down the back of a row of long gardens. With the houses at the far end of the gardens on one side and the derelict factory on the other, it was an isolated spot, always littered with used needles and condoms, the sort of place he normally viewed with caution. He started to glance into the entryway when he heard a nearby surface train, horn blasting, and the renewed surge of pain nearly took him to his knees.

“Iesu Grist!”

“Now, now - you know I don’t like a foul mouth.”

He froze where he was, half-crouching, hands pressed to his head. My imagination, my imagination, my imagination he chanted to himself frantically. He knew that voice. Night after night, it haunted his dreams though he hadn’t heard it in his waking life since York, as he threw himself onto a train even as the guard went to slam the door, that voice snarling from the platform. Nearly three years since that voice had been a part of his everyday life. My imagination. Please.

He straightened slowly, turning to face the mouth of the alley. To face Oliver. The other man stepped forward, coming just to the edge of the pavement. His red hair had a hint of grey in it these days, and he was smiling that polite, disarming smile that he always displayed to outsiders. At first glance, you’d think the smile touched his eyes. A handsome, charming man. Until you got to know him. 

“And you’ve cut your hair,” Oliver observed with a small shake of his head. “You know I don’t like it when you cut your hair.”

“Ol….Oliver.” He couldn’t move, could barely breathe and the name came out as a rasp. Oliver took another step forward and Ianto’s eyes were drawn to the heavy, inch-thick leather-and-chain leash dangling from Oliver’s hand. The dog-lead. Oh God His skin seemed to crawl and he wrenched his eyes away, shooting a glance up and down the road. No sign of life, not even a car. A quiet area, at this time of day: Oliver had chosen well. In the alley, no-one would notice. No-one would hear. No-one would see whatever Oliver did to him.

“Seems to me you’ve been doing quite a few things I don’t like you doing,” Oliver said, his voice oh-so-reasonable, so matter-of-fact. “I thought we’d been over that before. But maybe you’ve forgotten what happens when you do that.” He paused for a beat. “Just going to have to remind you, aren’t I, before I take you home? Remind you what happens when you do things I don’t like. When you disobey me. And while I’m at it, I’ll remind you who you belong to.”

“I don’t belong to you.” The words were out, almost guttural, before Ianto could think to hold them back. The wrong thing to say and he knew it, but before he could get his feet to even try and move Oliver was on him, dragging him down into the alley and then slamming him backwards to hit the wall. One hand gripped Ianto’s face at the junction of jaw and throat, forcing his head up and back as a thigh shoved in between his legs, the pressure hard enough to cause pain. The other hand slammed into the wall next to his head, the lead dangling from his fingers. All Oliver’s good looks were gone and all that remained was the rage and the heat in his eyes that said he wanted to see pain. Ianto’s pain.

“Yes, you do.” Oliver hissed the words, his hard weight against Ianto, face just inches away. His breath stank of alcohol. “You’re mine, you little shit. I took you in, I put a roof over your head, I fed you, I put clothes on your back, I gave you a bed to sleep in and what did you do, you ungrateful little bastard? You ran away. You got me demoted with your lies, did you know that? Dropped me and half the squad in the shit. They didn’t prosecute because they knew you were lying but they said we’d brought the Force into disrepute. So they disbanded the squad. I got demoted and lost the fucking squad - after everything I’d worked for. All because of you. All those lies you told, all those things you said. Three years I’ve been trying to find you and every time I’ve been close, you’ve run again. How the hell has an idiot like you managed to stay ahead of me, eh? Who’s been helping you? Was it Davidson? I know the scrawny cunt helped you leave Cardiff. Tried to make him pay but his boss wouldn’t listen to me and that was because of you as well. You’ve just cost me my job, you little bastard, did you know that?” He bared his teeth, a vicious travesty of a smile. “I went to Nottingham. I found that boy at the art gallery.” 

Ianto fought for breath, trying to twist free of Oliver’s grip, but at those words he froze. Oh God, no. Not Peter. Don’t let him have found Peter. With the surge of concern for his last partner, he felt a shameful wave of fear for himself, for what Oliver would do to him for Peter. For Marco.  

“I was only trying to find out where you were, but the stupid little shit claimed he didn’t know. So I lost my job just for trying to get him to answer a few questions. Why wouldn’t he answer, hmmm? Were you letting him fuck you? Were you letting Davidson fuck you as well? You must have been - no other reason I can think of that they’d help someone like you. Using all your little tricks weren’t you, whore? Don’t try and deny it. I went to the hotel in Portsmouth – found out about that Spanish bastard. You let him fuck you, didn’t you? Whore. You always were a slut. Never satisfied, always wanting it, always asking for it, always wanting a cock in you, never caring whose it was. How many, whore? Twenty? Thirty? Can’t be less, you’re too much of the slut for that. How did they have you, whore? Against a wall? Over a desk? Did you put your arse in the air for them? How many of them have there been? How many men have you begged to fuck you, Ianto?”

He pushed closer to Ianto and suddenly it was obvious how much the situation was affecting him.  Terrified, Ianto felt the old, familiar feeling of sick helplessness flood over him. But buried in there was something else. The subject matter was familiar – God help him if another man so much as met his eyes or if he smiled at one without permission, though how that squared with the ‘parties’ where he was handed to any man who asked or who called in a favour or a loan, he’d never dared question – but the irony of it all suddenly made him want to laugh. Here was Oliver, assuming he’d been fucking his way around the country whereas in truth, it had been almost a year before anyone could so much as touch him without him jumping out of his skin. He’d thought, hoped, that Susan was the rock he could cling to – but when he tried for honesty about who the ‘Oliver’ who haunted his dreams was, she’d left him the same night. “Disgusting” she’d called him, as she’d pulled her clothes on. “Pervert.” Nothing he hadn’t heard before but it still hurt. It was almost six months after that before he’d been able to even think about sleeping with another man again, when Marco arrived. It had then taken two more months and the excuse of getting blind drunk before he could ignore the fear enough to respond in kind when Marco made a move. Marco was everything Oliver wasn’t – and even then, he couldn’t bring himself to step over those mental lines. And Peter…. That had started with a drunken kiss on New Year's Eve and then Peter had dumped him after three months saying there was no point in having a boyfriend ‘too head-fucked to be fucked and too freaked-out to blow me’. Three partners in three years and the last man to fuck him had been Oliver himself. Hardly the whore. Not that Oliver would believe him, of course.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you!” Oliver bellowed, and all urge to laugh fled as Ianto’s gaze automatically snapped up to met the cold green eyes. That phrase was a bad one. That phrase was always the last prelude to one of the beatings that left him unable to stand, never mind walk. The only worse words were….

“I’m going to give you a choice, Yan.”

Suddenly Oliver wasn’t just holding him pinned to the wall, he was holding him up, because Ianto’s legs gave out at those words, at the nickname he only ever heard when Oliver was angry with him, and he shook so hard he could hear the faint sound of his jacket rasping against the brick wall behind him. Oliver forced his head to the left so he could see the lead dangling from blunt fingers.

“For every time you’ve let another man fuck you over the last three years – I’ll give you a choice. This…” He moved his right hand slightly, making the lead sway hypnotically. Then his left hand moved, coming forward along Ianto’s jaw, forcing his mouth partly open. At the same time, he shifted his grip on the dog-lead and pushed his thumb briefly into Ianto’s mouth. “…Or this.” He tasted of ashes and metal.

Ianto’s stomach roiled even at the thought and he tried to wrench his head away. Oliver’s grip shifted again, strong fingers closing over his Adam’s apple. Pain lanced through his neck as his breathing was cruelly restricted.

“Your choice, Yan. What’s it going to be?” Once he had realised how much Ianto hated going down on him, it had become a sick game for Oliver to play when he was in a particularly savage mood: make Ianto choose his own punishment. If he didn’t choose, he got both. And when he did choose, he had to tell Oliver why he had to be punished and ask for what he’d chosen. No, not ask - beg. Beg Oliver for a beating, or beg to be ‘allowed’ to go down on his knees. And if he didn’t beg well enough, he got both punishments and more besides.

In the long moment that stretched out after Oliver’s words, it felt as though Ianto could hear the roaring of his blood as his heart hammered against his chest. Choose!, a terrified voice whispered in his head. He hadn’t heard that voice for years but it was back now. Back so quickly and what did that say about him, about how weak he was? Choose, quickly! You know what’ll happen if you don’t….

Then Oliver’s eyes narrowed and his left hand forced Ianto’s head further up and back and now his right hand reached down and Ianto realised with a sick rush of dread that Oliver had seen the necklace.

“What the hell’s this, you little slut?” He leaned slightly back, his fingers twisting into the necklace, pulling so that it dug into the back of Ianto’s neck. “This a pay-off from one of the cocks you’ve had? This one of your payments, whore? Who was it?” He paused for a second, almost as though he was honestly expecting an answer and then he twisted the chain even tighter, turning his hand so his knuckles pressed into Ianto’s throat. “Can’t remember, Yan? Too many of them, is that it? Too many men to remember any one of them, eh? Well, you’re not keeping this payment, whore. You’re not flaunting any of those men in front of me, you little bastard. You’re not taking this back home.” He started to pull down on the necklace, his left hand still holding Ianto’s head against the wall. The pressure of the chain against the back of Ianto’s neck became painful.

You deserve it. The same old voice with the same old words. You slept with Marco, you slept with Peter. You got Oliver into trouble. You deserve it. All the pain, all the punishments. You deserve it all.

All. Suddenly, it was as though he could feel every bruise, every cut, every burn, every bite; every broken bone and dislocated joint Oliver had ever inflicted on him. Every humiliation, every abuse. For one single second, the world was nothing but pain. But the necklace was warm against his neck, warm enough to remind him of Marco’s touches, Peter’s caresses; Susan’s embraces. Three lovers in three years and none of them, not one, seemed to think he deserved what Oliver had dealt him every day. And now Oliver was going to take the only thing he had of Marco, the single best thing of those three years. Take it and force him back into the old life.

The first time it went beyond a slap, Ianto had hit back. Oliver, nearly four inches taller and almost three stone heavier, had pinned him down on the sofa and then afterwards used the dog-lead to beat him black and blue. The second time Ianto had tried to hit back left him with one of the blank spots in his memory. He didn’t know what had happened, he only remembered waking up in pain. He’d never dared raise a hand to Oliver again. Until now.

The right hook carried years of pain and fear and rage and hate. Oliver went stumbling backward almost clear across the alley before he fell. Ianto didn’t stop to see what happened next – he ran.

Out of the alley and down the road that ran alongside the factory. From here it was just a few minutes to the Tube station where there was bound to be a cop who could help and dear God but wasn’t that ironic? Half of Oliver’s squad had known what was going on and the neighbours had called the police three times, but when the cops who showed up realised whose house it was…

Ahead, down the slight incline, he could see the surface line that lay between him and the Tube station. Flashing lights signalled the level-crossing barriers coming down and he could just see the slow-moving goods train edging towards the crossing that now blocked his route to the Tube. The level crossing was unmanned and there was no-one else in sight. On his right, across the road, the unbroken wall of the local secondary school blocked any escape attempt. Behind him, running footsteps sounded on the concrete pavement. 

Not daring to even glance over his shoulder Ianto headed left, plunging down the steep grassy slope that led to the Common. There was refuge on the other side of the Common, houses and shops and a 24-7 supermarket. The footsteps were still pounding behind him: Oliver had always been fast on his feet for such a bulky man. Ianto pushed himself to run faster, trying not to fall as the ground dropped away under his feet, fresh pain jolting through his head with every step. 

The sloping grass changed to level concrete as he found himself on a path, and then the trees closed in around him as the walkway led into a wooded area. From somewhere ahead, he heard rustling and movement, but it was the sounds behind that were of more concern. He could still hear footsteps, the leaves crunching under Oliver’s feet and he tried to run faster still even as he tore out of the copse. The path he was on ended here at a ‘T’ junction, intersecting with another trail and he wrenched himself round to the right, aware of the smooth expanse of grass spreading out from the other side of the new lane. Up ahead he could see a woman and two small children walking towards him, a dog trotting behind. The first people he’d seen and there was no way she could help him. 

Then the rustling from the trees he’d just come out of increased and something burst out of the thin woods and darted across the grass onto the path, right between him and the family.

It looked like something out of a horror film, all leathery skin and misshapen head and razor-sharp teeth as it stood there in between them and looked from Ianto to the woman and children. Ianto skidded to a stop and stared at the creature. Can’t be real. Can’t be real, has to be….a joke….someone…dressing up? But the breeze brought the stench of the creature to him and it snarled, and even from here he could see the saliva dripping from its jaws. Oh Jesus Lord, it’s fucking real.

Behind it, the woman screamed and the children shrieked and the creature turned and made straight for them as Ianto stood frozen to the spot. From beyond them, the dog, a full-grown Alsatian, leapt past the family right at the… thing, but the creature literally caught the dog in mid-air and threw it against the tree-line. It swung around to face the dog as the pet struggled back to its feet with a snarl almost as vicious as the creature’s own. 

Even as the dog leapt for the creature again, Ianto found himself moving. He ran straight past the creature towards the woman and children. She had them both by their arms and was dragging them back, away from the creature, eyes wide with horror. Ianto didn’t stop or waste breath on speech but simply swept one of the children up into his arms and ran on, off the path and across the grass towards the nearest tree away from the copse itself. As soon as he got there, he shoved the child up as high as he could reach, into the middle branches of the tree. The little girl, who couldn’t have been more than five years old, grabbed the branches around her and stared down at him in now-silent terror. 

“Climb!” he snapped at her and spun round to find her mother was two paces behind him, her son in her arms, her eyes terrified. He grabbed the boy from her and turned to push him up into the tree after his older sister. He turned again to face the woman. It was then he realised that she had a bright piece of cloth draped across her chest and tied around her. He could see a pair of tiny hands just poking their way out of the wrapping. A baby.

Beyond her, he could see the… thing fighting the dog. In that moment, the creature lifted the dog up in both clawed hands and brought it down hard against a raised leg. The crack! echoed even to where they were standing and he heard the horrible, high-pitched yelp before the dog went limp. Staring, terrified, into his face, the woman flinched at the sound. 

Oh fuck. That thing just killed an Alsatian with its bare hands. He could see the baby’s bald little head now, a head he could have held in the palm of his hand. It must be just days old, eyes closed, blissfully unaware of what was happening while it slept curled against its mother. Why the hell did your Mam have to choose tonight to take you all for a walk in the park, bachgen?

He reached out, grabbed her by the arms and wrenched them both round so her back was to the tree. She was nearly a foot shorter than him and he disregarded all dignity and moved his hands to her hips, lifting her up to shove her onto the bottom-most branches of the tree. As she went up he spotted the dog-lead in her hand and snatched it from her. As he turned, slipping the leather handle around his wrist, the crazy urge to laugh returned. He heard the rustling behind him as she scrambled higher into the tree towards her children.
 
The thing was far closer already, and there was something just wrong in the way it moved. Something…. alien. But there was no time to wonder or worry about that now, no time to wonder what the hell was going on and what this creature was. No time even to dwell on the irony of the fact that just minutes ago he’d been running from Oliver and that fucking dog-lead that still cropped up in his nightmares. All there was time for was stepping away from the tree and spinning the Alsatian’s lead so it hissed through the air like a whip, forming a metallic circle in the air in front of him. The creature tried to leap forward and Ianto let the spinning chain catch its arm. It jerked back with a hiss, spitting at him. Yeah, I know - hurts like fuck doesn’t it?

And beyond it, back up on the path, a second alien thing stepped out of the copse just as Oliver arrived on the T-junction.

“What the……” It was only then, as Oliver spoke, that Ianto realised how quiet everything had gone. After the initial screams, the woman and her children had gone silent and no sound of traffic carried from the roads around. Since the dog’s death, the only sounds had been the snarls of the creature and the hiss of the spinning chain. Oliver’s voice sounded incredibly loud in that near-silence. 

The two creatures turned to the new sound immediately and Ianto suddenly knew what was going to happen. Instinct took over and surpassed everything, even hatred.

“Oliver, run!” But it was too late – the second creature was too close, Ianto was too far away and even if he’d been closer, there was no way in hell he would have left the woman and her children to their fate. The second creature covered the few feet between itself and Oliver in seconds. 

The summer evening gave plenty of light. He saw the expression on Oliver’s face as the creature closed in. In that last second, their eyes met. He saw the realisation, and the fear.

The scream seemed to echo from the trees, a horrible sound that started low and went higher and higher in just the few seconds it lasted before it changed to a gurgling, gasping sound which simply faded away.

For a moment, everything seemed to slow down and every little detail became crystal-clear. Ianto could see the second of the two creatures, hunched on the ground, its teeth buried in Oliver’s throat. He could see Oliver’s arm go limp, the hated dog-lead falling out of his hand and lying there, glinting silver-and-blue against the black path. He could see the first creature start to move forward, as though to go join its fellow. Then it turned and he knew it had remembered the victims it had cornered. And he knew they were all going to die. There was nothing he could do against two of these creatures, no way he could save this family. Even as he stood his ground he knew this was it, the end. From somewhere buried in the back of his mind, words he’d not spoken in nearly five years came back: Holy Mary Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. This time, he did laugh and even to his own ears it sounded half-mad. The lead spun hissing through the air, light glinting off it.

And then suddenly, there were voices. Two bulky figures came running out of the tree-line, each clasping something in their hads and there were sharp, muted noises. Then the two creatures were slumping to the ground, unmoving and the new arrivals closed in on them, one dark-clothed silhouette standing over each of the fallen creatures. A third, smaller, figure crouched briefly over Oliver before standing up and heading for the tree. 

Someone else came walking between the bodies and up to Ianto: a woman, somewhere in her late twenties, with shoulder-length hair so white it seemed to glow. She was tall, nearly his own height and she walked straight up to him as he let the chain slow and stop. She looked up into the tree and then at him. Then she suddenly smiled.

“Hey there, good-looking. Don’t suppose you’re looking for a job?” Abruptly, she held out a hand and Ianto automatically shook it. Her hand was warm, her grip firm and assured.

“Rebecca DuPris: Team Leader, Field Team Seventeen, Torchwood London,” she continued. “Fuck Hartman’s recruitment protocols – my team’s one man down and….” Her gaze slid up and down his frame and she grinned, a mischievous light in her eyes. “I like what I can see.”

  
The sound of feet approaching the steps down to the boardwalk bring him snapping back to the present and he realises that he’s huddled on the ground, face buried in his shaking hands. He hastily scrambles to his feet, scooping up the now-empty mug, trying to regain control even as Costello comes down the stairs. He keeps close to the wall and walks past her, his head down, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible as he gives her a wide berth. He's hoping to God he won’t look at him because it’s far too early to even pass himself off as a would-be visitor to the Tourist Office. Luck is (briefly) with him it seems, because she goes past without giving him so much as a second glance. 

He reaches the steps and throws one quick glance at the office door, but she’s already gone. There is something about Costello, something that has bothered him since he first saw her in London. He rarely forms snap judgements of people, but he cannot shake his first impression of the woman. He dislikes her, distrusts her. She is hiding something, he knows that much; knows it with all the conviction of a man carrying more than his own fair share of secrets.

He stands at the foot of the steps for a moment, taking long slow breaths, trying to bring himself back under control. He hasn’t let himself actually think about Oliver for over two years now, although until Daleks and Cybermen took over his dreams the man was still the cause of most of his nightmares. After several nights spent listening to the name ringing off the walls, Lisa had asked him who ‘Oliver’ was. Memories of Susan clear in his head, he’d lied to her - one of the only outright lies he’d ever told her. Placed Oliver into his early childhood, which he’d already told her something about. She’d been sympathetic, gentle. 

She wasn’t the only one he lied to about Oliver. Becca had openly told him that the mother was too deeply in shock to remember anything other than that he had saved her life, and that she was going to be given (in light of the fact that she was nursing her four-day-old daughter) just enough low-level Retcon to make her think she’d stumbled across a bunch of first-year Film Studies students making a video. The children in the meantime, she'd said were too young at four and two for Retcon and would be simply be told that what they’d seen was adults playing a game. Understanding all that had required a quick explanation of retcon, but he’d then snatched at the opportunity offered to disavow all knowledge of Oliver. As far as Torchwood was concerned, Ianto had happened to be in the park at the right time, while Oliver had been in London for unknown reasons and had simply been there at the wrong time. Death due to Weevil attack, the paperwork had said and they’d stowed his body in the morgue with the official story being that he’d gone under a bus. Somewhere in Cardiff lies the body of a homeless man; one of the many nameless bodies Torchwood London appropriated for the purpose of a good cover story. Above the grave, the headstone reads ‘Oliver Phillip Grant’. Even Mary, Andy and Gethin think it’s Oliver who’s buried there, think he was a not-so-tragic victim of a normal accident. 

For two years Ianto has been doing his best to forget, to bury the memories. And now, if Harkness does turn out to want what Oliver wanted…It won’t be the same, he tells himself firmly. You won’t be trapped. Won’t be a prisoner this time. As soon as she’s better, we’ll leave. Slowly, his hands stop shaking. Lisa, he reminds himself. It’s for Lisa. Whatever it takes, remember? Doesn’t matter what it costs. You can handle it. It’s for her. But he feels so cold.