BTBD Challenge 24 - Under scrutiny

[m_findlow]

Title: Under scrutiny
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Jack
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 3,104 words
Content notes: Written for Challenge 24 - Press at beattheblackdog
Summary: Sometimes even being outside the government and beyond the police can't protect you.

Ianto was almost in tears when he saw the CCTV feed from outside the door of the tourist information office, seeing the graffiti plastered all over the timbered walls in a deep red that resembled blood. There were a half dozen people standing out there, just waiting and hoping for him to stick his head out of the door so that they could snap a photo. Wouldn't that be delicious? His face with the headline already printed in the picture. Front page stuff.

"Child killer," the graffiti read. It might not have been a child, but he was a killer.

It didn't matter what the truth was. It didn't matter that the cafe had been held up by an alien. She'd come here to exact a vendetta against another universal immigrant who'd been happily living here and blending into the community for years. She'd come to claim what justice was rightfully hers. The problem being that her species idea of revenge was to decimate entire planets that sought to offer refuge to their quarry. She carried with her a warp star, capable of disintegrating the entire planet and everyone else along with it. And she was prepared to do it. Her death meant nothing if she could get her revenge.

And it was only luck that he and Jack had been there when it all kicked off. They'd been up since three am, following up on a minor rift alert, whilst the rest of the team remained asleep in their beds. They'd rolled into the cafe just after the peak period, slumping down in hard plastic chairs but grateful for the respite, and looking forward to tucking into crispy bacon and warm toast with lashings of jam and piping hot mugs of tea.

He honestly couldn't say he'd even noticed them enter the cafe. The first hints of trouble had been somewhere between him chastising Jack about the way he ate, and the muffled cry from one of the waitresses as a tall man pushed his way behind the counter and dragged the kitchen hand out into the open. When some of the cafe's customers looked up to see what was happening, the kitchen hand shouted at them to run, before receiving a punch to the gut to silence him. The tall man warned them all to stay where they were, and corralled them to one corner, instructing them to sit on the floor and be silent.

Jack and Ianto had complied with the rest of them. There was no use going guns blazing into the situation until they knew what was going on. The little girl and her father were far from what they looked like. They were from the Vandusia Cluster, and the females were only half the height of their male counterparts, making them look almost childlike. The man travelling with her was a bodyguard of some sort. As soon as she began addressing the frightened kitchen hand, Jack remembered who he was, and how he'd been settled here on earth, like so many he'd helped over the years. The woman, for she might have looked like a girl, but was far from it, was here to exact her "justice" for the slight that he'd committed, abandoning her and their betrothal. He tried to explain how the rift had taken him and he couldn't get back, but she wanted none of it. Their's was a proud species. When she extracted the tiny glinting object from the pendant around her neck, Jack squeezed Ianto's hand tightly. It was one of a whole series of wordless signals they'd unknowingly developed to communicate. It meant that they were in big trouble.

Jack stepped up and tried to intervene, observing that she was holding a warp star and that it was capable of obliterating everything within five light years of here. That was for Ianto's benefit, so he knew just how much trouble they were in. He explained who he was, about the rift, and how the story that the Vandusian male had told was true. He couldn't have returned to their planet even if he'd wanted to.

In retrospect, it was a poor choice of words, because the female took it to mean that he hadn't wanted to return to her. It affirmed for her that he should suffer and die. Jack cast a glance at Ianto and received a small nod in return. They had to stop her, and Jack was going to be the distraction, whilst Ianto slowly and carefully extracted his gun from its holster inside his jacket.

Jack stepped further forward, insisting that the woman not do this, and that she'd be killing billions of innocent lives. She laughed in his face and pulled tight on the pendant's chain. Jack lunged forward to stop her, but the bodyguard caught him full on, wrapping him in an almighty grip that nearly choked him. She praised his pitiful efforts and assured him that had he stopped her, her companion would detonate the star in her stead. Ianto watched on, unsure what to do until Jack fixed him with a firm stare that left no question in his mind. Take out the bodyguard and free Jack to stop the woman. Whatever you do, don't hesitate.

Someone in the corner with him must have seen the gun and cried out, because all heads seemed to turn in his direction suddenly. The woman flashed with anger and motioned to tear the top of the star from the chain. He didn't think, he just aimed and fired. The bullet felled her immediately. The grip on Jack loosened enough for him to dive forward, lunging for the pendant that was falling to the ground, catching it and preventing it from exploding on impact, falling on top of the stricken woman. The bodyguard then lunged for Jack, determined to finish what she'd started, and Ianto's second shot rang out, stopping him where he stood.

There were screams and cries from the cafe hostages in the chaos. Ianto stumbled over to Jack and confirmed if they were okay. Jack clutched the tiny jewel in his hand and breathed a sigh of relief. They were okay.

Someone from the tabloids had managed to snaffle the CCTV footage from the cafe itself, and that was how the whole thing had gotten blown up as big as it had. It was bad enough that the hostages who'd been eye witness to the events had been retconned just enough that the particulars were a bit hazy. It was a going to be hard to explain a whole cafe full of people suddenly asleep at their tables, so they'd opted for a low dosage. The hostages remembered the little girl and her father, and they remembered an altercation with one of the kitchen hands, but their recollections had them thinking that it was the father who was the aggrieved party, not the little girl. They remembered Jack, trying to talk down the situation and prevent anyone from doing anything stupid, and they remembered how he had thrown himself over the little girl, trying to save her life. But most of all, they remembered Ianto. The gunman who had killed the little girl and her father.

The team had been alerted to the situation via police chatter, but had only arrived just in time to hear the two clear gunshots ring out before the place went deathly silent. There was something definitive about the sound that marked it as the sound of death. It's all Jack can think of as he stands out in the darkness and the cold, angrily  scrubbing hard at the graffiti on the walls outside, whilst his anxious lover tosses in bed, unable to sleep, and Jack standing there, seething at the treatment of his team after everything they've done to protect the city.

The media frenzy had been unlike anything any of them could remember in recent years. It brought journalists all the way from London to cover the aftermath, with everyone baying for blood and justice. There were endless editorials and articles reporting the alarming statistics of gun crime in Britain, and espousing everything from tighter gun laws, to mandatory sentencing, and even suggestions that they bring back the death penalty. They'd tried to dredge up Ianto's history to add colour to their stories but luckily found very little apart from the fact that that he'd grown up poor, and that somehow that alone had leant weight to his being a murderer later in life. It broke his heart to have to delete whole chunks of his personal records, just to make sure that they couldn't tie him back to his sister, and spare her family from being ravaged by the press. Fortunately for him, many of the people he'd grown up with on the estate were still friends to his sister, and kept away from the media, not prepared to sell out for fifteen minutes of fame. A couple had even stuck up for him. 'He's a good lad and he wouldn't have harmed no one. You've got it wrong. Whoever told you he was a murderer is a bloody liar!'

Try as they might there seemed to be no way to quell the rising tide of media that was feeding on itself. For every computer that Tosh hacked, every picture they found of Ianto she scrambled, and every article she corrupted, much to the displeasure of several editors, another three would be published in their wake.

The police of course, knew that they were Torchwood, and had been briefed on only the vaguest of details, but had done nothing beyond an initial press conference stating that no criminal charges would be laid against Mr Jones. None of them wanted to get involved with Torchwood politics if they could help it. That only served to incense the press even more. How on earth could the police not arrest him? It didn't matter what circumstances had lead to him opening fire, two people were dead as a result. How many more might he have killed?

And that was to say nothing of the media storm that hit when they discovered that their hero of the hour was harboring Britain's most wanted. Jack couldn't go anywhere without being recognised, which wasn't hard with his looks, his accent, and of course, his coat. People had taken to following the big, black SUV around town whenever they spied it, and accosting them when they got out, half praising him for trying to save the little girl, and half spitting in his face for condoning Ianto's actions. Jack had gotten so fed up with it, having refused to make any sort of comment to the media himself, that he'd swallowed his pride and called the Home Office, almost begging them to intervene and put a stop to the media circus that had become their lives. It wasn't as if they could publicly declare that the girl and her father had been aliens intent on blowing up the whole planet, and that had it not been for Ianto's brave actions they'd all be dead, but surely they could issue some sort of statement confirming that the father had in fact been some sort of terrorist, and take some of the vitriolic sting out of their denunciation of Ianto.

Ianto hadn't left the safety of the hub for over two weeks now. Someone had found out where he lived, and they'd defaced the front yard and the fence. Anti-gun lobbyists had camped themselves out the front, making a scene and protesting for the benefit of television crews. He couldn't have gone home even if he wanted to. The strain was more than evident to all his teammates. Coffee stopped being made, the hub was left to fester in whatever mess the others manged to create for themselves, and even as researcher and general support whilst they were out in the field, he was inattentive and distracted. He spent whole chunks of time hidden away in the darkness of the archives, or hours up in Myfanwy's eyrie, spending time with the only person he claimed still thought he was a decent human being. He barely even spoke to the others, try as they might to cheer him up, and tell him to ignore the idiots, especially since he hadn't done anything wrong.

Jack felt disheartened that his lover and best friend felt so unworthy, and was taking it all so personally. Jack himself had much tougher skin, and was used to being generally despised on occasion, but even he had to admit that the public's reaction and ongoing sentiment was starting to wear him down as well. It had to blow over soon, surely. What he wouldn't have given for a whole invasion of weevils across the city to give the press something else to talk about. Perhaps he could try to figure out a way to flush them all out of their sewer hiding holes, just for one night.

Jack went looking for Ianto late into the evening after the others had all finally gone home, having had to sneak out various ways to make sure that they too weren't subject to the same level of media scrutiny. He couldn't find him anywhere down in the archives, though they were vast, there were only a few places Ianto seemed to favour, and neither was he up in Myfanwy's nest, their pet having gone out hunting for the night. Jack was worried about Ianto. He couldn't stay down here forever, wasting away, and becoming a shadow of his former self. When was the last time Jack had heard him make a joke, or smile? They barely even slept together.

Jack ran a hand through his hair, trying to figure out where Ianto had gotten to. He wouldn't have left the hub,  that much he knew. He hadn't yet gotten that desperate, or was perhaps past trying or caring. That worried him more. He ran a trace on his Bluetooth, knowing that Ianto wouldn't go anywhere without it, despite everything. When he traced the location, it suddenly all made perfect sense. He grabbed his coat and headed out.

He passed out through the door of the tourist information office, pleased to see that it was too late and too cold for any of the sharks to still be lurking about, hoping for that elusive photograph. Their numbers had dwindled in the past fortnight, but they were still keeping tabs on the off chance that they could catch something to stoke the fire with. It infuriated him. The next journo that crossed his path was getting fed to a hoix, he decided. Even that was too good for them by half.

He trotted up the wooden steps to the plass and pulled up his collar as the chill wind ripped across its flat open space. He walked along its length, past the numerous pillars of light, towards the Millennium Centre. The water tower shone brightly in the clear evening, its water turned off when there were no tourists to admire it. He focused his eyes on the tower's base and the flag stones that surrounded it. Even though he knew what he was looking for, the perception filter worked its magic, obscuring the object from view. He sat against the far edge of the water tower and shuffled over until he felt the warm body pressed against his side, and Ianto came into view, the pair of them now sat huddled in just the right spot.

'It's cold out,' Jack observed, hearing the sound of cars passing along the road nearby.

'Predicting snow tomorrow,' Ianto replied. 'I just needed some fresh air,' he added, before Jack could ask the question that was on his lips.

'Hardly surprising.'

He sat there for a few more minutes before getting up and standing in front of an invisible Ianto, holding out his hand.

'Let's go take a walk down to the Norwegian Church and back.'

'Jack, no.'

'Why not?'

'Someone will see us.'

'Look around, it's late and there's no one else here. Besides, what difference does it make? I don't care if the whole city sees us standing here snogging like teenagers and runs with the headline "Hero falls for serial killer". This'll pass, and everyone will forget all about it, and you'll go back to being plain old you.'

Ianto reluctantly let Jack pull him to his feet, and they slowly and wordlessly strolled down along the edge of the bay until they were in front of the old church.

'They're right, you know,' Ianto said, finally breaking the silence. 'I am a killer. Lisa, Annie, Beth. How many more?'

'What does that make me then? I don't even remember them all anymore, there's so many.'

'It wasn't your fault.'

'But it's yours?' Jack asked skeptically.

Ianto swallowed hard and turned away from him, staring out over black water and even blacker sky. Jack thrust his chilled hands deep into his pockets.

'I came to tell you that I spoke to the Joint Operations Chief. He's agreed to issue a statement to the press, stating that for security reasons they weren't allowed to release information until they'd finalised investigations. They'll be announcing that we were special ops agents off duty, and that the father and child were terrorists, who were planning on detonating bomb vests in the cafe. Your actions are to be commended in helping to stop the attack and prevent the murder of innocent lives. Not entirely inaccurate, I'm sure you'll agree. Let the press chew on that humble pie. You might even get a public apology from a few of them.'

Ianto turned around and hugged Jack tightly, burying his face deeply in the wool of Jack's coat as Jack placed a hand on the back off his head, stroking the soft curls, breathing him in.

Despite the desperate hug, Ianto didn't seem nearly as cheered by the news as Jack had hoped. That was why he had plan B up his sleeve.

'I was also thinking now might be a good time for us to take a vacation.'

'A vacation?'

'Yeah, let the media make of this what they will. Two weeks away somewhere sunny and this will all be behind us.'

'What about Torchwood?'

'The others can handle it. They've managed before. And I promise, if the world is ending, we can come straight back. Right now though, I think what you need is two weeks of being pampered and rewarded for being a hero.'

'I'm no hero,' Ianto disagreed.

'You're a hero to me.'

Comments

[jo02]

I really enjoyed this.

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

Thanks! It's one of my faves I've written this year.

[bk_forever]

Poor Ianto (and Jack, though he's used to such things). Just goes to show how utterly underappreciated Torchwood really is when they can save the world and wind up being targeted by hatemongers. If they only the people who painted those hateful slogans knew the truth...

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

It's a really horrible consequence of working for a secret organisation, and a reflection of society as a whole.
Luckily Jack should be able to smooth things over with enough time. Definitely one of my favourite fics I've written.