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m_findlowTitle: The truth hurts
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Gwen
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG.
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: Spoilers for CoE.
Author notes: Written for Challenge 115 - Breaking news at ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomweekly
fandomweeklySummary: Gwen and Ianto are having to face up to the enormity of their leader's collective past.
Gwen couldn't stop from just staring at the screen. She told herself it was so that she didn't miss a moment of what was happening, and yet everything had gone eerily quiet. Thames House just sat there, inactive. There was no video or audio feed from the room housing the alien threat because there was no one else in there right now. Lois, her eyes and ears on the ground inside the MI-5 headquarters, had stopped providing her with any more intelligence for now. The I-Five contact lenses that she'd been using to spy on Torchwood's behalf had been removed whilst nothing was happening.
All Gwen had now were the rolling news feeds from the BBC and across the globe. They had as little to offer Gwen as anyone on the inside. Yesterday they'd been blowing up with reports from all over the world of children chanting in unison - in English, no less - stating that they were coming tomorrow. Who or what was coming no one knew. No one except Torchwood and the handful of COBRA representatives who were watching things from afar in the safety of their Downing Street briefing rooms.
It hadn't stopped the media from treating the whole thing as one continuous stream of breaking news, even if there'd been no real news for a solid twenty four hours. "They were coming, tomorrow," and now tomorrow had been and gone. Apart from another wave of children all being taken over in unison, pointing in the general direction of London, and the few grainy images that had been captured from people's smartphones of the pillar of fire that had descended from the sky, straight over Thames House, nothing else had happened. For once Gwen, who had spent the last three years of her life trying to cover up alien incursions, wished that someone on the ground somewhere was reporting more than what they currently were. She kept watching, hoping that someone might blow the lid off what was going on. For once, the world needed to know what was going on, and to stop it. The fate of the world's children hung in the balance, and right now, Gwen didn't trust the collective government representatives to agree that the world would refuse to yield to such a request in the face of destruction of their entire global population.
Her concentration on the mindless news feed was broken by the almost silent shuffle of shoes on the dusty concrete floor, Ianto slumping down into the chair next to hers. 'Where's Rhys?' he asked.
'Sleeping,' she replied. 'Where's Clem?'
'Sleeping,' he said, 'though the sedative I slipped in his tea helped.'
Gwen couldn't even bring herself to smirk at the admission. Poor Clem. He needed a lot more than a sedative to calm the raging storm of confusion and fear he must be going through, seeing Jack again after all these years, and everything he'd been through. That brought about her next question. 'Where's Jack?'
Ianto pointedly averted his eyes, pretending he was watching the scrolling videos on the laptop screen with the same intense concentration as she'd had earlier. 'Gone. Again,' he added.
Gwen held back her desire to curse. Bloody Jack. That was the real breaking news of course. This wasn't the first time these aliens had been here, threatening to wipe them from the face of the planet if they didn't provide them with human children; a gift they had the audacity to call it. And Jack had handed them over - twelve orphans handed over in 1965 without so much as a backward glance.
'Did he say anything more about 1965 - about what happened - before he left? Did he say where he was going?' She realised it was probably too many questions all at once and that she was bound to only get the answer to one at best. With Ianto, trying to get anything out of him was often challenging enough, but Gwen wanted the same answers for herself.
Ianto wiggled the mouse under his hand for something to do. 'You mean tell us the truth? That seems unlikely. I suspect he's gone off to brood on some rooftop somewhere. Not that we're likely to ever confirm that either.'
There was such a bitterness in his voice that Gwen felt compelled to reach out and touch his elbow. She had her own feelings on the matter, but they'd been tempered by perspective. She didn't expect Jack to share all his deepest secrets with her, though he bloody well ought to have mentioned this at some point in the last umpteen years. It hurt Ianto more than it hurt her. He was utterly loyal and loved Jack deeply, and even though he managed to hold that stoic expression in place, Gwen knew inside he was reeling. 'It was over forty years ago,' she said, not quite able to comprehend why she was defending Jack's secretive nature.
'You saw that child hooked up to the alien like a dog on a leash…' his sentence trailed off as his emotions threatened to get the better of him. She felt sick remembering that image herself, the strange umbilical that tethered the two entities together - the child pale, hairless and catatonic, having not aged a day. 'Jack did that.'
It had been a protection racket, and now Jack was having to face the consequences of having given in to it all those decades ago. He'd opened up Pandora's box and now the racketeers were coming to collect. Not just twelve children this time, but millions. Small wonder Jack couldn't bear to face his team.
Gwen gave his elbow a reassuring squeeze. 'He's still going to need us - you - when he gets back,' she said. 'If we can't find a way to forgive him, then who can? We need him. A chance to stop this once and for all. No more kids are going to be sacrificed, you hear me? Jack won't let that happen. But he needs us to believe that.'
Gwen couldn't stop from just staring at the screen. She told herself it was so that she didn't miss a moment of what was happening, and yet everything had gone eerily quiet. Thames House just sat there, inactive. There was no video or audio feed from the room housing the alien threat because there was no one else in there right now. Lois, her eyes and ears on the ground inside the MI-5 headquarters, had stopped providing her with any more intelligence for now. The I-Five contact lenses that she'd been using to spy on Torchwood's behalf had been removed whilst nothing was happening.
All Gwen had now were the rolling news feeds from the BBC and across the globe. They had as little to offer Gwen as anyone on the inside. Yesterday they'd been blowing up with reports from all over the world of children chanting in unison - in English, no less - stating that they were coming tomorrow. Who or what was coming no one knew. No one except Torchwood and the handful of COBRA representatives who were watching things from afar in the safety of their Downing Street briefing rooms.
It hadn't stopped the media from treating the whole thing as one continuous stream of breaking news, even if there'd been no real news for a solid twenty four hours. "They were coming, tomorrow," and now tomorrow had been and gone. Apart from another wave of children all being taken over in unison, pointing in the general direction of London, and the few grainy images that had been captured from people's smartphones of the pillar of fire that had descended from the sky, straight over Thames House, nothing else had happened. For once Gwen, who had spent the last three years of her life trying to cover up alien incursions, wished that someone on the ground somewhere was reporting more than what they currently were. She kept watching, hoping that someone might blow the lid off what was going on. For once, the world needed to know what was going on, and to stop it. The fate of the world's children hung in the balance, and right now, Gwen didn't trust the collective government representatives to agree that the world would refuse to yield to such a request in the face of destruction of their entire global population.
Her concentration on the mindless news feed was broken by the almost silent shuffle of shoes on the dusty concrete floor, Ianto slumping down into the chair next to hers. 'Where's Rhys?' he asked.
'Sleeping,' she replied. 'Where's Clem?'
'Sleeping,' he said, 'though the sedative I slipped in his tea helped.'
Gwen couldn't even bring herself to smirk at the admission. Poor Clem. He needed a lot more than a sedative to calm the raging storm of confusion and fear he must be going through, seeing Jack again after all these years, and everything he'd been through. That brought about her next question. 'Where's Jack?'
Ianto pointedly averted his eyes, pretending he was watching the scrolling videos on the laptop screen with the same intense concentration as she'd had earlier. 'Gone. Again,' he added.
Gwen held back her desire to curse. Bloody Jack. That was the real breaking news of course. This wasn't the first time these aliens had been here, threatening to wipe them from the face of the planet if they didn't provide them with human children; a gift they had the audacity to call it. And Jack had handed them over - twelve orphans handed over in 1965 without so much as a backward glance.
'Did he say anything more about 1965 - about what happened - before he left? Did he say where he was going?' She realised it was probably too many questions all at once and that she was bound to only get the answer to one at best. With Ianto, trying to get anything out of him was often challenging enough, but Gwen wanted the same answers for herself.
Ianto wiggled the mouse under his hand for something to do. 'You mean tell us the truth? That seems unlikely. I suspect he's gone off to brood on some rooftop somewhere. Not that we're likely to ever confirm that either.'
There was such a bitterness in his voice that Gwen felt compelled to reach out and touch his elbow. She had her own feelings on the matter, but they'd been tempered by perspective. She didn't expect Jack to share all his deepest secrets with her, though he bloody well ought to have mentioned this at some point in the last umpteen years. It hurt Ianto more than it hurt her. He was utterly loyal and loved Jack deeply, and even though he managed to hold that stoic expression in place, Gwen knew inside he was reeling. 'It was over forty years ago,' she said, not quite able to comprehend why she was defending Jack's secretive nature.
'You saw that child hooked up to the alien like a dog on a leash…' his sentence trailed off as his emotions threatened to get the better of him. She felt sick remembering that image herself, the strange umbilical that tethered the two entities together - the child pale, hairless and catatonic, having not aged a day. 'Jack did that.'
It had been a protection racket, and now Jack was having to face the consequences of having given in to it all those decades ago. He'd opened up Pandora's box and now the racketeers were coming to collect. Not just twelve children this time, but millions. Small wonder Jack couldn't bear to face his team.
Gwen gave his elbow a reassuring squeeze. 'He's still going to need us - you - when he gets back,' she said. 'If we can't find a way to forgive him, then who can? We need him. A chance to stop this once and for all. No more kids are going to be sacrificed, you hear me? Jack won't let that happen. But he needs us to believe that.'
