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m_findlowTitle: The value of dumb luck
Fandom: Torchwood
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: Spoilers for Torchwood audiobook "Ghost Train".
Author notes: Written for Challenge 89 - Success at![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomweekly
Summary: Rhys is almost as surprised to have succeeded as the rest of the team.
"Let's just assume your brilliant plan worked." Jack's words are still buzzing around inside my head.
Never mind the fact that there's every chance my plan didn't actually work. Jack had made a point of suggesting that seeing a past version of myself at the last second before the train arrived had created a massive temporal disruption that caused the train and everything it was bringing with it through the rift to smash apart in some freaky collision of unformed particles. Pretty sure he wouldn't have mentioned it unless he knew that was the real reason the world hadn't just ended. Still, he had pushed me out of a train hurtling through the rift, sending me two weeks back in time with the hopes that I would somehow find a way to stop it all. Maybe not the way I'd planned it, but yeah, Rhys Williams, saving the world. It had a nice ring to it.
'Nice work, Ianto,' Jack said, finally wrapping an arm around his waist and giving him the hug he'd attempted earlier.
Ianto blushed at the sudden profusion of affection. 'I didn't do much. Just pointed Rhys in the right direction every so often. Mostly, I didn't want to know what he was up to. Time paradoxes and all. There might have been a bit of retcon involved as well.'
Jack nodded, as if he'd known this all along when he'd bungled me out through that speeding train. I suppose if anyone was going to notice Ianto had been acting a little strange on account of his secretly harbouring someone from the future, it would be Jack.
'Hang on,' Gwen said in that serious voice that questions everything that doesn't make the slightest bit of sense. 'Are you telling me you both knew Rhys would be here?'
'All part of the grand plan, Gwen Cooper,' Jack said, beaming with unrepentant pride. 'For a while there the whole fate of the world rested on the shoulders of your husband, and he didn't even know it. It almost makes up for knocking me out cold with a bucket of sand.'
Ianto's usually placid expression rounded on me with a look more like that of a bloke who's just found out you've been secretly sleeping with his girlfriend. 'You did what?'
'Not on purpose! Thought he was one of those alien shape-shifter assassin thingies!'
'And it's a good thing he did,' Jack said, squeezing Ianto's hip in an attempt to rein in his temper. 'Otherwise those Powells never would have had me tied up and put on that train,' he added, thumbing over his shoulder at the smouldering mess of nineteenth century steam locomotive. It looked sad and broken now that it didn't have terrifying creatures latched onto its burgundy carriages, hitching themselves a ride through the rift to Earth. They were all gone now, along with the three hundred Powells who'd been standing at the end of the platform, waiting for it to arrive to complete their invasion. I wanted to ask Jack how it was that he was still here when everything else aboard the train had been obliterated, but I didn't. Jack was full of mysteries like that.
Gwen looked at me, then at Jack and Ianto. 'I think I'm going to need that drink now.'
'There's a vending machine over by the conductor's office,' Jack offered, teasing her with the promise of semi-flat lemonade at the outrageous price of two pound fifty.
'Wouldn't bother,' I said. 'Tried it a few nights back and couldn't even manage a weak tea.'
Jack's smile grew more sombre. 'So, go home, then. Pour a glass of scotch, kick back on the sofa, and let Rhys explain everything.'
Well, maybe not everything, I thought, quickly catching Ianto's eye. I certainly wasn't going to mention the alien shape-shifter assassin that had turned up looking like Ianto and snogged me right there in his kitchen. Pretty sure Ianto wasn't going to mention that to Jack either.
'I am going to miss having a man about the house,' Ianto declared. 'It was nice having someone around to clean and come home to a home-cooked meal every night.'
'Rhys was staying at yours?' Gwen's hackles were up, like that time she caught me out picking up coffee and talking to Sandra Evans from uni as we waited in the queue. 'When was this?'
I felt the need to defend myself. It suddenly sounded like two people who'd hooked up and started living together after one date. 'He put me up rent free, love. And I wasn't like I could stay at ours the past two weeks. Not with other me already living there. It's what Jack told me to do.' Not strictly speaking. He'd said "tell Ianto". Being offered a set of keys was just Ianto being polite, or perhaps worried. If I was Ianto, I'd have been worried about putting me in charge of saving the world.
'You'll be wanting your things back,' Ianto said. 'I can probably drop them round in the morning.'
'Ah, you might have to wait a few days. I uh, put a load of washing on before I left and mine's all mixed up with yours now.'
Jack grinned. 'You got him all domesticated, Ianto. Should I be worried? You know what they say when you start washing someone else's underwear…'
Ianto coughed awkwardly. I imagine he was thinking about the fact that most of the time I spent in his laundry was sleeping on that camp bed whilst he and Jack were in the bedroom next door doing… well, more than I ever wanted to hear two men in a serious relationship doing.
Jack reached out a hand. 'Thanks for not screwing up, Rhys.'
'So, that's me done, then?' Admittedly, I'd always thought Torchwood was harder - more guns and aliens and life-threatening peril, and maybe it was if you're Gwen and Ianto - but I'd done alright. I just didn't fancy having to do it again anytime soon.
Fandom: Torchwood
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: Spoilers for Torchwood audiobook "Ghost Train".
Author notes: Written for Challenge 89 - Success at
fandomweekly Summary: Rhys is almost as surprised to have succeeded as the rest of the team.
"Let's just assume your brilliant plan worked." Jack's words are still buzzing around inside my head.
Never mind the fact that there's every chance my plan didn't actually work. Jack had made a point of suggesting that seeing a past version of myself at the last second before the train arrived had created a massive temporal disruption that caused the train and everything it was bringing with it through the rift to smash apart in some freaky collision of unformed particles. Pretty sure he wouldn't have mentioned it unless he knew that was the real reason the world hadn't just ended. Still, he had pushed me out of a train hurtling through the rift, sending me two weeks back in time with the hopes that I would somehow find a way to stop it all. Maybe not the way I'd planned it, but yeah, Rhys Williams, saving the world. It had a nice ring to it.
'Nice work, Ianto,' Jack said, finally wrapping an arm around his waist and giving him the hug he'd attempted earlier.
Ianto blushed at the sudden profusion of affection. 'I didn't do much. Just pointed Rhys in the right direction every so often. Mostly, I didn't want to know what he was up to. Time paradoxes and all. There might have been a bit of retcon involved as well.'
Jack nodded, as if he'd known this all along when he'd bungled me out through that speeding train. I suppose if anyone was going to notice Ianto had been acting a little strange on account of his secretly harbouring someone from the future, it would be Jack.
'Hang on,' Gwen said in that serious voice that questions everything that doesn't make the slightest bit of sense. 'Are you telling me you both knew Rhys would be here?'
'All part of the grand plan, Gwen Cooper,' Jack said, beaming with unrepentant pride. 'For a while there the whole fate of the world rested on the shoulders of your husband, and he didn't even know it. It almost makes up for knocking me out cold with a bucket of sand.'
Ianto's usually placid expression rounded on me with a look more like that of a bloke who's just found out you've been secretly sleeping with his girlfriend. 'You did what?'
'Not on purpose! Thought he was one of those alien shape-shifter assassin thingies!'
'And it's a good thing he did,' Jack said, squeezing Ianto's hip in an attempt to rein in his temper. 'Otherwise those Powells never would have had me tied up and put on that train,' he added, thumbing over his shoulder at the smouldering mess of nineteenth century steam locomotive. It looked sad and broken now that it didn't have terrifying creatures latched onto its burgundy carriages, hitching themselves a ride through the rift to Earth. They were all gone now, along with the three hundred Powells who'd been standing at the end of the platform, waiting for it to arrive to complete their invasion. I wanted to ask Jack how it was that he was still here when everything else aboard the train had been obliterated, but I didn't. Jack was full of mysteries like that.
Gwen looked at me, then at Jack and Ianto. 'I think I'm going to need that drink now.'
'There's a vending machine over by the conductor's office,' Jack offered, teasing her with the promise of semi-flat lemonade at the outrageous price of two pound fifty.
'Wouldn't bother,' I said. 'Tried it a few nights back and couldn't even manage a weak tea.'
Jack's smile grew more sombre. 'So, go home, then. Pour a glass of scotch, kick back on the sofa, and let Rhys explain everything.'
Well, maybe not everything, I thought, quickly catching Ianto's eye. I certainly wasn't going to mention the alien shape-shifter assassin that had turned up looking like Ianto and snogged me right there in his kitchen. Pretty sure Ianto wasn't going to mention that to Jack either.
'I am going to miss having a man about the house,' Ianto declared. 'It was nice having someone around to clean and come home to a home-cooked meal every night.'
'Rhys was staying at yours?' Gwen's hackles were up, like that time she caught me out picking up coffee and talking to Sandra Evans from uni as we waited in the queue. 'When was this?'
I felt the need to defend myself. It suddenly sounded like two people who'd hooked up and started living together after one date. 'He put me up rent free, love. And I wasn't like I could stay at ours the past two weeks. Not with other me already living there. It's what Jack told me to do.' Not strictly speaking. He'd said "tell Ianto". Being offered a set of keys was just Ianto being polite, or perhaps worried. If I was Ianto, I'd have been worried about putting me in charge of saving the world.
'You'll be wanting your things back,' Ianto said. 'I can probably drop them round in the morning.'
'Ah, you might have to wait a few days. I uh, put a load of washing on before I left and mine's all mixed up with yours now.'
Jack grinned. 'You got him all domesticated, Ianto. Should I be worried? You know what they say when you start washing someone else's underwear…'
Ianto coughed awkwardly. I imagine he was thinking about the fact that most of the time I spent in his laundry was sleeping on that camp bed whilst he and Jack were in the bedroom next door doing… well, more than I ever wanted to hear two men in a serious relationship doing.
Jack reached out a hand. 'Thanks for not screwing up, Rhys.'
'So, that's me done, then?' Admittedly, I'd always thought Torchwood was harder - more guns and aliens and life-threatening peril, and maybe it was if you're Gwen and Ianto - but I'd done alright. I just didn't fancy having to do it again anytime soon.
