Fic: Time Enough and Life. (2/6)
Feb. 28th, 2012 07:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silver_sunTime Enough and Life part 2
Link to part one
The space in the bed beside him is empty and has already grown cold when Jack wakes.
Looking round in the dimly lit room, Jack can't see any of Ianto's clothes that had been left on the floor. Not wanting to jump to any conclusions about why Ianto has sneaked out of bed without waking him, Jack calls out, “Ianto.”
He waits a moment for a reply. When there isn't one, Jack gets out of bed, and after a brief pause to pull on a pair of trousers, he climbs up the ladder to his office.
His office on first inspection appears to be as he left it the previous night, with the paperwork needed for writing the report on the Electro and the Night Travellers still on his desk. Looking closer though he can see that the mugs are gone, and the glass Ianto had used has been washed up and place back next to the decanter.
Sure that Ianto is around somewhere, rather than having surreptitiously gone home without waking him, Jack heads out into the Hub. “Ianto, you still here?”
“Over here,” Ianto says, standing up from where he'd crouched down to open the cupboard under the coffee machine. He places a bowl and packet of instant oats on the counter.
There aren’t many home comforts in the Hub, and despite living there for over a century Jack hasn’t really felt the need to add many. The decontamination showers work well enough, launderettes takes care of his clothes, and cafes and takeaways. The coffee machine, a kettle, a fridge and a mircowave are about the only other concessions that have been made to normal, everyday life.
There are, after all, only so many takeaway pizza leftovers you can eat before you want something else for breakfast.
Jack is relieved to see that Ianto seems calmer than he’d done the night before, although he still looks tired.
“You could have woken me you know,” Jack says walking over to him.
“You usually sleep less than I do. I didn't want to disturb you.” Ianto busies himself with the coffee machine and mugs. Putting a second one down next to his own, he asks, “Do you want some?”
“Sure,” Jack smiles at him, and gets some breakfast for himself out of the cupboard. “Have I ever turned down your coffee?”
“No.” Ianto laughs. “You turning down coffee should be added to the list things signalling the apocalypse. Rain of toads, rivers running backwards, you refusing coffee.”
They sit down on the old sofa under the Torchwood sign to eat, while around them the workstations flicker and buzz quietly as they start to power up and run Tosh's system checks for the day.
Jack knows that this is probably about as domestic as it’s ever likely to get for them. And while he doesn’t care about it for himself, he wonders sometimes if he should make some kind of effort for Ianto, so that he's got at least one normal thing in his life. Something that is likely to be more important than ever now. Maybe he should suggest spending a couple of nights a week at Ianto's flat, have breakfast there before coming to work.
“You're quiet this morning,” Ianto says, when they've sat there for a while in silence.
“Just thinking.” Jack's not quite sure that he wants to share what about with Ianto just yet, in case Ianto takes the view that he's only considering it now that he knows about him potentially living for a long time.
“About last night?”
“Kind of,” Jack says, knowing that can’t avoid the subject, although he would have liked to finish his coffee before they start talking about it.
“I’ve been thinking about it as well.” Ianto pushes the half eaten remains of his porridge around the bowl with his spoon. “And I’ve come to a decision.”
“You have?” Jack hopes it founds interested rather than worried.
“I want the team to investigate what happened,” Ianto says, abandoning the bowl in favour of his coffee. “Well if you'll let them.”
“If it's want you want, I will.” Jack looks at Ianto trying to gauge how he’s coping, but gets nothing. It worries him just how well Ianto can hide what he’s thinking and feeling, and that he believes that it is still necessary to do so. “You're sure about this?”
Ianto nods. “Yes. I don't want to keep secrets from them or you. Not for something like this. Not again.”
And that, Jack thinks, pretty much explains everything about why Ianto has decided this is necessary. The hurt feelings and sense of betrayal that had lingered between Ianto, the rest of the team and himself, following what had happened with Lisa had been difficult. This really isn't the same, but he knows that Ianto won't be able to help but draw parallels with it.
Getting up, Ianto says, “I'll need about an hour to get the briefing details together.”
“Take as long as you need, nobody is going to be in for at least two.”
Ianto nods. “There isn’t that much information for me to get together. It’s just what I remember, what I told you last night. Unless you've found anything to add to that?”
Jack knows there's no point in denying that once Ianto had fallen asleep he'd searched the mainframe. He doesn't want Ianto to think that he did it out of lack of trust in his version of events, so he says, “I wanted to be able to give you some good news.”
“But there wasn't anything, was there?”
“No. I'm sorry.” Jack just hopes his lack of success was simply down to not knowing what he was searching for, rather than the fact that they haven't got the information at all.
Ianto sighs. “I suppose it was always too much to hope that something would go right one of these days.”
“We can get Tosh to take a look,” Jack says, not wanting him to give up hope on it. If anybody can find it, Jack thinks, it would be Tosh. She knows how the mainframe works and what it can and can't do better than any of them.
Gathering up their breakfast things, Ianto says, “Once everybody is in could you get them to assemble in the boardroom. I think it's best to tell them all together, I don't want to have to do this more than once.”
Once Ianto has gone, Jack takes to opportunity to get dresses and to finish the report on the Night Travellers.
Writing up reports is, in Jack’s opinion the most tedious part of the job. He’d rather be helping Ianto look into what had happened to him, but knows that he almost certainly would prefer to be alone to get his thoughts in order.
Ianto’s need for time alone had confused Jack at first. The only times when he wants to be left alone for any length of time is when he knows he worried or unhappy about something to the point where he's sure he won't be able to hide it. The rest of the time he needs people around him to remind him why it's all worth it.
It had taken Ianto telling him in no uncertain terms that constantly having people around him means that he can't relax, because he's sure they'll want something or expect him to behave in a certain way, for him to understand that Ianto wanting some time alone wasn't actually a bad thing.
The report on the Night Travellers is almost complete when he sees Ianto come back from the archives, and head for the boardroom.
Following him in, Jack says, “You don't have to do this right now. If you want time to look into to it before you tell them, you can have it.”
“The Rift is in a quiet phase for the next few days,” he says, putting the three thin, cardboard folders he'd been holding down on the table. “Now is as good a time as we're ever likely to get. And I told you before I don't want this to be a secret we keep from them. Torchwood has too many secrets as it is. ”
“Can’t argue with that,” Jack says, although he knows that sometimes some of those secrets are better staying just that. There are so many things that he's seen and done that will always remain so.
“Everyone is here now,” Ianto says looking down through the glass wall of the boardroom that overlooks the main area of the Hub, as Gwen arrives, waving to Owen and Tosh as she does. “It's probably best to do it before they get started on something else.”
“You want me to call them in?”
Ianto hesitates for a moment, watching the team chatting, a melancholy look on his face, before saying, Yes. I need...” He stops and turns away from both the glass and from Jack. “I can't put this off. So please, Jack, just do it.”
Putting a hand on Ianto's shoulder, Jack give it a squeeze, and then leaves the room.
“Team meeting, kids,” Jack shouts down from the walkway between the boardroom and Owen's greenhouse. “We've got a new case.”
Jack and Ianto remain standing by the projection screen that occupies the far end of the room, while the rest of the team find seats and sit down.
“So what’s the case then?” Owen asks.
There's no easy way of doing this, so Jack just says, “Ianto.”
They all turn to look at Ianto, assuming that Jack means that Ianto is to tell them the information.
“He means I'm the case,” Ianto says, his voice calm, although his posture is tense.
Gwen, Tosh and Owen all look at Jack, confused.
“What’s he done now?” Owen asks, when nobody else has spoken.
“Owen,” Tosh says, giving him a pointed look.
“It's not like that,” Ianto says wearily, looking like he's starting to have second thoughts about the idea.
“So this is just a training thing, right?” Gwen asks, sounding relieved. “We pretend you’re an alien and investigate. We did a few exercises like this in the police. Disaster recovery exercise sort of thing.”
“No,” Ianto says, voice measured and cautious, as he watches their reactions. “This is for real.”
“Jack.” Gwen turns to him. “What is going on? Ianto's one of us.”
Jack shakes his head, letting her know he’s not going to be the one giving the answers. “This is Ianto's idea. Give him a chance to explain.”
Taking a deep breath, Ianto picks up the files and hands one them each of them, saying, “I've not been entirely honest with any of you about how I first started work with Torchwood, or when it was. Or even how old I am. All the basics are in here.”
Owen has barely glanced at his copy before he dumps it down on the table. “This is bollocks. All the times I've patched you up I've never found anything odd. You and Jack have had your fun, seeing how long you can wind us up for. You know if you'd only put the cryogenics bit in I might have believed...” Owen stops and looks at Ianto. “This isn't a joke, is it?
“I really wish it were,” Ianto says sadly. He digs his hands into his pockets, uncomfortable with how they are all looking at him. Taking a deep breath he walks towards the door. Pausing just before he leaves, Ianto says, “If you'd all take a few minutes to read through it, I’ll make us some coffee.” He smiles tightly, the uncertainty and fear that Jack knows are just below the surface starting to show through, despite his best attempts to hide it. “I'm sure you’ll all have questions and I’ll answer them as far as I’m able when I get back.”
“So anybody else got a mysterious past they'd like to share?” Jack says jokingly once Ianto has left. “Because if anyone used to be a champion mud wrestler I want to see pictures.”
Rather awkward laughter follows. Then Gwen asks, “How long have you known? I mean is this why you’re with Ianto? Because he' not getting any older, that he's like you?”
“No, and I only found out last night.” Jack decides that the fact that he’d confronted Ianto about it rather it having been information that he’d volunteered, isn’t something that they need to know.
“There's not any chance he caught it from you is there?” Owen asks, then makes an irritable noise at the looks on both Gwen and Tosh's faces. “What? I'm just saying what we're all thinking here.”
“Believe me if it was catching in that way the whole world would have known about it years ago.” Jack's lost count of the amount of men, women and aliens that he's been with in the long years since what happened to him on the Gamestation. It's not because he doesn't care, or didn't think anything of them at the time, but that some of it is such a very long time that details start to get a bit hazy.
“Well that's something to be grateful for,” Owen says sounding relieved. “Because a sexually transmitted immortality epidemic would be too bloody weird even for us.”
“Anybody got any other questions?” Jack says asks.
They shake their heads.
Leaving them to look at the files, Jack goes to find Ianto.
Ianto is standing at the coffee machine. He doesn't turn round as Jack walks over to him, and there's a resigned slump to his shoulders as he says, “They're angry with me, aren't they?”
“No,” Jack reassures him. “They’re just worried.”
Gripping the edge of the counter, Ianto lets out a slow breath. “About what I am?”
“About you.” Jack steps closer, until they are nearly touching. “They care about you. I care about you.”
Ianto nods, although doesn't look as convinced of it as Jack would like.
By the time the coffee is made, and they've carried it back to the boardroom, Owen, Gwen, and Tosh have finished looking at the files.
“I can try to locate the study data, using some alternative search methods. There might be something that Jack missed,” Tosh says, as Ianto starts handing out the drinks. “The schematics for the cryo units may be somewhere on the system. So even if we can't find the research data, I might be able to reconstruct their likely methodology from what they were using.”
“Thank you.” Ianto smiles gratefully at her.
“And I suppose I'd better give you a full check up,” Owen says, sounding less than enthusiastic about it. “Try and figure out just how weird you really are. Although if Tosh don't find any records, it's going to be waste of time, because I'm need something to compare the results to.”
“I’m not sure what I can do,” Gwen says, sad that she can’t do more to help. “I could probably find out what happened to your family, if you want me to.”
“I know what happened to them.” Ianto sits down next to her. “It was one of the first things I did once I was out of the cryo chamber and cleared for work. My tad died a few months after I was frozen. There are a few distant cousins, but nobody close.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s probably easier like this really,” Ianto says, sounding more like he's trying to convince himself of it than Gwen. “I'm not going to having to see them grow old. Thank you for offering though.”
Jack remains silent while Ianto talks to the rest of the team. He hopes that letting them work together on it like this will prevent any lingering hard feelings about Ianto having been less than honest with them for so long.
“So what do you know about these other freezer geezers then?” Owen says, flicking back through the notes, looking for anything he might have missed.
“Not a great deal,” Ianto admits. “There were only four of us in the twenty year group. There had been another four in each of the five and ten year groups.”
“But there's nothing freaky about them or you'd have said.”
Ianto nods to Owen. “The project was still operational when they completely their research times. If there had been something anomalous with their results I very much doubt that the project would have been shelved in the way it had.”
Jack has to agree with Ianto on this, although it does make finding out what had happened harder. There is no way that a project that had the effect of stopping ageing would have been wound up on account of money.
“Maybe it was an unintentional side effect of being in the chamber for so long,” Tosh suggests, then dismisses the idea as she works through the hypothesis. “Although I would have thought that cryo chambers were designed to work for far longer than twenty five years without such side effects.”
“We don't know for certain that none of the rest of your group haven't had the same problem,” Gwen says, searching for another route of investigation. “We should contact them, make sure they are okay.”
“We can't.” Ianto looks at the table top rather than at the team. “They're all dead.”
“How?” Gwen sounds surprised. “Are you sure?”
“One died in cryo, there had been some kind of energy surge or malfunction through her unit back in the late seventies before the project was shelved. We weren't told any more than that.” He stops and then takes a deep breath. His voice is flat, emotions all pressed down when he continues. “The other two were thawed at the same time as I was and were also given jobs at Torchwood One. They were both amongst the people partially converted during the attack on Torchwood Tower, and were pulled into the void and killed.”
“So we're back to needing the original records then,” Owen says, sounding rather fed up with every route on enquiry being blocked before they even start.
“I don't think we ever really got away from that,” Tosh says. “If the research wasn't on what was left of the London database where do you know where the files might have been stored?”
“If there's nothing on the system then it probably means that the old records where never digitised. A lot of the old paper files were kept off site,” Ianto says rather evasively. “They could be at any number of archives locations. They might have even moved them to the historic archive at Torchwood House. I'm not sure how easy it will be to get to them.”
“Why do I get the feeling there's an 'actually I know how, but I don't like it' in there somewhere,” Jack says, knowing that Ianto is hesitating about something.
“The Future Options Committee will know,” Ianto says not sounding happy about it. “They did a full audit of everything recovered from Torchwood One, well anything that wasn't brought here.”
“So we can ask them,” Gwen says brightly at Ianto. “It'll be okay. We'll sort it this out.” She turns to Jack. “We can just tell them to hand them over, right?”
“It's not that simple,” Ianto says wearily before Jack has had a chance to answer. “They were set up to look into the fall of Torchwood One, whether it should be rebuilt, and if not, how to dispose of its assets.”
Gwen's eyes widen, and she sounds horrified as she repeats, “Dispose of its assets. Oh Ianto, we'd never let them do anything to you.”
Ianto looks baffled for a moment, then realises what Gwen means and says, “Just the artefacts and research. Even they aren't that ruthless.”
“Not anymore, at least,” Jack says, remembering his first encounter with Torchwood. Emily Holroyd and Alice Guppy wouldn't have thought twice about it – or it they had it would have only been to decide the most entertaining method of getting rid of him.
“It's all okay then,” Gwen says relieved. “We just ask them for it. I mean we have more right to it than them, don't we? With Ianto having been part of it surely they'll have to let him see his own files?”
“They don't know,” Ianto says, looking down and refusing to make eye contact with any of them. “And I would rather keep it that way. Having to explain why I falsified my personnel file and employment history isn't likely to count in our favour.”
“I could hack into their databases,” Tosh offers. “There are a couple of data mining programs that I've been working on since we encountered Beth Halloran and the other sleepers agents, that I would like to test.”
“I'd prefer to try asking for the information first, rather than running the risk of alerting them to the fact that we're looking into something that we don't want them looking too closely at.” Ianto looks at Jack. “It's not up to me though.”
“If you think they'll listen, I'll give them a call.” Calling Bureaucrats and being nice to them isn't Jack's idea of fun. Especially as in his experience most seem to object to flirting as a negotiation tactic.
“It may be best if I do it, as I am in charge of the archives,” Ianto says. “It would make the request seem less irregular.”
“If you're sure.” Jack doesn’t want Ianto to feel that he has to be the one to do it, but he knows that he does have a valid point. He might not always be the best or easiest boss to work for, but he knows where each of his teams talents lie, and if Ianto can't talk them into handing over the information then he doubts anybody would have any success either.
“I'm sure.”
“Okay, then.” Jack claps his hands together and smiles at them, knowing he seems far more confident about their chances of success like this than he actually feels. “It looks like we've got a plan. Owen you get together whatever you need to run your tests. Tosh, see what the mainframe has got for us. Gwen, can you check the names of the two other test subjects against the personnel files we've got. I want to know if they've got family left behind who might have thought there was something up with their ageing.”
“And Ianto.” Jack moves closer to him. “It's time we gave London a call.”
Part three
Link to part one
The space in the bed beside him is empty and has already grown cold when Jack wakes.
Looking round in the dimly lit room, Jack can't see any of Ianto's clothes that had been left on the floor. Not wanting to jump to any conclusions about why Ianto has sneaked out of bed without waking him, Jack calls out, “Ianto.”
He waits a moment for a reply. When there isn't one, Jack gets out of bed, and after a brief pause to pull on a pair of trousers, he climbs up the ladder to his office.
His office on first inspection appears to be as he left it the previous night, with the paperwork needed for writing the report on the Electro and the Night Travellers still on his desk. Looking closer though he can see that the mugs are gone, and the glass Ianto had used has been washed up and place back next to the decanter.
Sure that Ianto is around somewhere, rather than having surreptitiously gone home without waking him, Jack heads out into the Hub. “Ianto, you still here?”
“Over here,” Ianto says, standing up from where he'd crouched down to open the cupboard under the coffee machine. He places a bowl and packet of instant oats on the counter.
There aren’t many home comforts in the Hub, and despite living there for over a century Jack hasn’t really felt the need to add many. The decontamination showers work well enough, launderettes takes care of his clothes, and cafes and takeaways. The coffee machine, a kettle, a fridge and a mircowave are about the only other concessions that have been made to normal, everyday life.
There are, after all, only so many takeaway pizza leftovers you can eat before you want something else for breakfast.
Jack is relieved to see that Ianto seems calmer than he’d done the night before, although he still looks tired.
“You could have woken me you know,” Jack says walking over to him.
“You usually sleep less than I do. I didn't want to disturb you.” Ianto busies himself with the coffee machine and mugs. Putting a second one down next to his own, he asks, “Do you want some?”
“Sure,” Jack smiles at him, and gets some breakfast for himself out of the cupboard. “Have I ever turned down your coffee?”
“No.” Ianto laughs. “You turning down coffee should be added to the list things signalling the apocalypse. Rain of toads, rivers running backwards, you refusing coffee.”
They sit down on the old sofa under the Torchwood sign to eat, while around them the workstations flicker and buzz quietly as they start to power up and run Tosh's system checks for the day.
Jack knows that this is probably about as domestic as it’s ever likely to get for them. And while he doesn’t care about it for himself, he wonders sometimes if he should make some kind of effort for Ianto, so that he's got at least one normal thing in his life. Something that is likely to be more important than ever now. Maybe he should suggest spending a couple of nights a week at Ianto's flat, have breakfast there before coming to work.
“You're quiet this morning,” Ianto says, when they've sat there for a while in silence.
“Just thinking.” Jack's not quite sure that he wants to share what about with Ianto just yet, in case Ianto takes the view that he's only considering it now that he knows about him potentially living for a long time.
“About last night?”
“Kind of,” Jack says, knowing that can’t avoid the subject, although he would have liked to finish his coffee before they start talking about it.
“I’ve been thinking about it as well.” Ianto pushes the half eaten remains of his porridge around the bowl with his spoon. “And I’ve come to a decision.”
“You have?” Jack hopes it founds interested rather than worried.
“I want the team to investigate what happened,” Ianto says, abandoning the bowl in favour of his coffee. “Well if you'll let them.”
“If it's want you want, I will.” Jack looks at Ianto trying to gauge how he’s coping, but gets nothing. It worries him just how well Ianto can hide what he’s thinking and feeling, and that he believes that it is still necessary to do so. “You're sure about this?”
Ianto nods. “Yes. I don't want to keep secrets from them or you. Not for something like this. Not again.”
And that, Jack thinks, pretty much explains everything about why Ianto has decided this is necessary. The hurt feelings and sense of betrayal that had lingered between Ianto, the rest of the team and himself, following what had happened with Lisa had been difficult. This really isn't the same, but he knows that Ianto won't be able to help but draw parallels with it.
Getting up, Ianto says, “I'll need about an hour to get the briefing details together.”
“Take as long as you need, nobody is going to be in for at least two.”
Ianto nods. “There isn’t that much information for me to get together. It’s just what I remember, what I told you last night. Unless you've found anything to add to that?”
Jack knows there's no point in denying that once Ianto had fallen asleep he'd searched the mainframe. He doesn't want Ianto to think that he did it out of lack of trust in his version of events, so he says, “I wanted to be able to give you some good news.”
“But there wasn't anything, was there?”
“No. I'm sorry.” Jack just hopes his lack of success was simply down to not knowing what he was searching for, rather than the fact that they haven't got the information at all.
Ianto sighs. “I suppose it was always too much to hope that something would go right one of these days.”
“We can get Tosh to take a look,” Jack says, not wanting him to give up hope on it. If anybody can find it, Jack thinks, it would be Tosh. She knows how the mainframe works and what it can and can't do better than any of them.
Gathering up their breakfast things, Ianto says, “Once everybody is in could you get them to assemble in the boardroom. I think it's best to tell them all together, I don't want to have to do this more than once.”
Once Ianto has gone, Jack takes to opportunity to get dresses and to finish the report on the Night Travellers.
Writing up reports is, in Jack’s opinion the most tedious part of the job. He’d rather be helping Ianto look into what had happened to him, but knows that he almost certainly would prefer to be alone to get his thoughts in order.
Ianto’s need for time alone had confused Jack at first. The only times when he wants to be left alone for any length of time is when he knows he worried or unhappy about something to the point where he's sure he won't be able to hide it. The rest of the time he needs people around him to remind him why it's all worth it.
It had taken Ianto telling him in no uncertain terms that constantly having people around him means that he can't relax, because he's sure they'll want something or expect him to behave in a certain way, for him to understand that Ianto wanting some time alone wasn't actually a bad thing.
The report on the Night Travellers is almost complete when he sees Ianto come back from the archives, and head for the boardroom.
Following him in, Jack says, “You don't have to do this right now. If you want time to look into to it before you tell them, you can have it.”
“The Rift is in a quiet phase for the next few days,” he says, putting the three thin, cardboard folders he'd been holding down on the table. “Now is as good a time as we're ever likely to get. And I told you before I don't want this to be a secret we keep from them. Torchwood has too many secrets as it is. ”
“Can’t argue with that,” Jack says, although he knows that sometimes some of those secrets are better staying just that. There are so many things that he's seen and done that will always remain so.
“Everyone is here now,” Ianto says looking down through the glass wall of the boardroom that overlooks the main area of the Hub, as Gwen arrives, waving to Owen and Tosh as she does. “It's probably best to do it before they get started on something else.”
“You want me to call them in?”
Ianto hesitates for a moment, watching the team chatting, a melancholy look on his face, before saying, Yes. I need...” He stops and turns away from both the glass and from Jack. “I can't put this off. So please, Jack, just do it.”
Putting a hand on Ianto's shoulder, Jack give it a squeeze, and then leaves the room.
“Team meeting, kids,” Jack shouts down from the walkway between the boardroom and Owen's greenhouse. “We've got a new case.”
Jack and Ianto remain standing by the projection screen that occupies the far end of the room, while the rest of the team find seats and sit down.
“So what’s the case then?” Owen asks.
There's no easy way of doing this, so Jack just says, “Ianto.”
They all turn to look at Ianto, assuming that Jack means that Ianto is to tell them the information.
“He means I'm the case,” Ianto says, his voice calm, although his posture is tense.
Gwen, Tosh and Owen all look at Jack, confused.
“What’s he done now?” Owen asks, when nobody else has spoken.
“Owen,” Tosh says, giving him a pointed look.
“It's not like that,” Ianto says wearily, looking like he's starting to have second thoughts about the idea.
“So this is just a training thing, right?” Gwen asks, sounding relieved. “We pretend you’re an alien and investigate. We did a few exercises like this in the police. Disaster recovery exercise sort of thing.”
“No,” Ianto says, voice measured and cautious, as he watches their reactions. “This is for real.”
“Jack.” Gwen turns to him. “What is going on? Ianto's one of us.”
Jack shakes his head, letting her know he’s not going to be the one giving the answers. “This is Ianto's idea. Give him a chance to explain.”
Taking a deep breath, Ianto picks up the files and hands one them each of them, saying, “I've not been entirely honest with any of you about how I first started work with Torchwood, or when it was. Or even how old I am. All the basics are in here.”
Owen has barely glanced at his copy before he dumps it down on the table. “This is bollocks. All the times I've patched you up I've never found anything odd. You and Jack have had your fun, seeing how long you can wind us up for. You know if you'd only put the cryogenics bit in I might have believed...” Owen stops and looks at Ianto. “This isn't a joke, is it?
“I really wish it were,” Ianto says sadly. He digs his hands into his pockets, uncomfortable with how they are all looking at him. Taking a deep breath he walks towards the door. Pausing just before he leaves, Ianto says, “If you'd all take a few minutes to read through it, I’ll make us some coffee.” He smiles tightly, the uncertainty and fear that Jack knows are just below the surface starting to show through, despite his best attempts to hide it. “I'm sure you’ll all have questions and I’ll answer them as far as I’m able when I get back.”
“So anybody else got a mysterious past they'd like to share?” Jack says jokingly once Ianto has left. “Because if anyone used to be a champion mud wrestler I want to see pictures.”
Rather awkward laughter follows. Then Gwen asks, “How long have you known? I mean is this why you’re with Ianto? Because he' not getting any older, that he's like you?”
“No, and I only found out last night.” Jack decides that the fact that he’d confronted Ianto about it rather it having been information that he’d volunteered, isn’t something that they need to know.
“There's not any chance he caught it from you is there?” Owen asks, then makes an irritable noise at the looks on both Gwen and Tosh's faces. “What? I'm just saying what we're all thinking here.”
“Believe me if it was catching in that way the whole world would have known about it years ago.” Jack's lost count of the amount of men, women and aliens that he's been with in the long years since what happened to him on the Gamestation. It's not because he doesn't care, or didn't think anything of them at the time, but that some of it is such a very long time that details start to get a bit hazy.
“Well that's something to be grateful for,” Owen says sounding relieved. “Because a sexually transmitted immortality epidemic would be too bloody weird even for us.”
“Anybody got any other questions?” Jack says asks.
They shake their heads.
Leaving them to look at the files, Jack goes to find Ianto.
Ianto is standing at the coffee machine. He doesn't turn round as Jack walks over to him, and there's a resigned slump to his shoulders as he says, “They're angry with me, aren't they?”
“No,” Jack reassures him. “They’re just worried.”
Gripping the edge of the counter, Ianto lets out a slow breath. “About what I am?”
“About you.” Jack steps closer, until they are nearly touching. “They care about you. I care about you.”
Ianto nods, although doesn't look as convinced of it as Jack would like.
By the time the coffee is made, and they've carried it back to the boardroom, Owen, Gwen, and Tosh have finished looking at the files.
“I can try to locate the study data, using some alternative search methods. There might be something that Jack missed,” Tosh says, as Ianto starts handing out the drinks. “The schematics for the cryo units may be somewhere on the system. So even if we can't find the research data, I might be able to reconstruct their likely methodology from what they were using.”
“Thank you.” Ianto smiles gratefully at her.
“And I suppose I'd better give you a full check up,” Owen says, sounding less than enthusiastic about it. “Try and figure out just how weird you really are. Although if Tosh don't find any records, it's going to be waste of time, because I'm need something to compare the results to.”
“I’m not sure what I can do,” Gwen says, sad that she can’t do more to help. “I could probably find out what happened to your family, if you want me to.”
“I know what happened to them.” Ianto sits down next to her. “It was one of the first things I did once I was out of the cryo chamber and cleared for work. My tad died a few months after I was frozen. There are a few distant cousins, but nobody close.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s probably easier like this really,” Ianto says, sounding more like he's trying to convince himself of it than Gwen. “I'm not going to having to see them grow old. Thank you for offering though.”
Jack remains silent while Ianto talks to the rest of the team. He hopes that letting them work together on it like this will prevent any lingering hard feelings about Ianto having been less than honest with them for so long.
“So what do you know about these other freezer geezers then?” Owen says, flicking back through the notes, looking for anything he might have missed.
“Not a great deal,” Ianto admits. “There were only four of us in the twenty year group. There had been another four in each of the five and ten year groups.”
“But there's nothing freaky about them or you'd have said.”
Ianto nods to Owen. “The project was still operational when they completely their research times. If there had been something anomalous with their results I very much doubt that the project would have been shelved in the way it had.”
Jack has to agree with Ianto on this, although it does make finding out what had happened harder. There is no way that a project that had the effect of stopping ageing would have been wound up on account of money.
“Maybe it was an unintentional side effect of being in the chamber for so long,” Tosh suggests, then dismisses the idea as she works through the hypothesis. “Although I would have thought that cryo chambers were designed to work for far longer than twenty five years without such side effects.”
“We don't know for certain that none of the rest of your group haven't had the same problem,” Gwen says, searching for another route of investigation. “We should contact them, make sure they are okay.”
“We can't.” Ianto looks at the table top rather than at the team. “They're all dead.”
“How?” Gwen sounds surprised. “Are you sure?”
“One died in cryo, there had been some kind of energy surge or malfunction through her unit back in the late seventies before the project was shelved. We weren't told any more than that.” He stops and then takes a deep breath. His voice is flat, emotions all pressed down when he continues. “The other two were thawed at the same time as I was and were also given jobs at Torchwood One. They were both amongst the people partially converted during the attack on Torchwood Tower, and were pulled into the void and killed.”
“So we're back to needing the original records then,” Owen says, sounding rather fed up with every route on enquiry being blocked before they even start.
“I don't think we ever really got away from that,” Tosh says. “If the research wasn't on what was left of the London database where do you know where the files might have been stored?”
“If there's nothing on the system then it probably means that the old records where never digitised. A lot of the old paper files were kept off site,” Ianto says rather evasively. “They could be at any number of archives locations. They might have even moved them to the historic archive at Torchwood House. I'm not sure how easy it will be to get to them.”
“Why do I get the feeling there's an 'actually I know how, but I don't like it' in there somewhere,” Jack says, knowing that Ianto is hesitating about something.
“The Future Options Committee will know,” Ianto says not sounding happy about it. “They did a full audit of everything recovered from Torchwood One, well anything that wasn't brought here.”
“So we can ask them,” Gwen says brightly at Ianto. “It'll be okay. We'll sort it this out.” She turns to Jack. “We can just tell them to hand them over, right?”
“It's not that simple,” Ianto says wearily before Jack has had a chance to answer. “They were set up to look into the fall of Torchwood One, whether it should be rebuilt, and if not, how to dispose of its assets.”
Gwen's eyes widen, and she sounds horrified as she repeats, “Dispose of its assets. Oh Ianto, we'd never let them do anything to you.”
Ianto looks baffled for a moment, then realises what Gwen means and says, “Just the artefacts and research. Even they aren't that ruthless.”
“Not anymore, at least,” Jack says, remembering his first encounter with Torchwood. Emily Holroyd and Alice Guppy wouldn't have thought twice about it – or it they had it would have only been to decide the most entertaining method of getting rid of him.
“It's all okay then,” Gwen says relieved. “We just ask them for it. I mean we have more right to it than them, don't we? With Ianto having been part of it surely they'll have to let him see his own files?”
“They don't know,” Ianto says, looking down and refusing to make eye contact with any of them. “And I would rather keep it that way. Having to explain why I falsified my personnel file and employment history isn't likely to count in our favour.”
“I could hack into their databases,” Tosh offers. “There are a couple of data mining programs that I've been working on since we encountered Beth Halloran and the other sleepers agents, that I would like to test.”
“I'd prefer to try asking for the information first, rather than running the risk of alerting them to the fact that we're looking into something that we don't want them looking too closely at.” Ianto looks at Jack. “It's not up to me though.”
“If you think they'll listen, I'll give them a call.” Calling Bureaucrats and being nice to them isn't Jack's idea of fun. Especially as in his experience most seem to object to flirting as a negotiation tactic.
“It may be best if I do it, as I am in charge of the archives,” Ianto says. “It would make the request seem less irregular.”
“If you're sure.” Jack doesn’t want Ianto to feel that he has to be the one to do it, but he knows that he does have a valid point. He might not always be the best or easiest boss to work for, but he knows where each of his teams talents lie, and if Ianto can't talk them into handing over the information then he doubts anybody would have any success either.
“I'm sure.”
“Okay, then.” Jack claps his hands together and smiles at them, knowing he seems far more confident about their chances of success like this than he actually feels. “It looks like we've got a plan. Owen you get together whatever you need to run your tests. Tosh, see what the mainframe has got for us. Gwen, can you check the names of the two other test subjects against the personnel files we've got. I want to know if they've got family left behind who might have thought there was something up with their ageing.”
“And Ianto.” Jack moves closer to him. “It's time we gave London a call.”
Part three