Torchwood: Fanfic: Betrayed

[m_findlow]

Title: Betrayed
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Torchwood team, OCs
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 4,276 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for badly_knitted's prompt "Any, any, betrayed" at fic_promptly
Summary: Ianto has to put his feelings aside to complete their latest mission.

He woke up to find her arm draped over his waist. It wasn't the comforting presence it was meant to be. One day he'd stop letting Jack talk him into these things. He knew it was all part of the plan, but it didn't make him feel any less like he was just whoring himself out to all and sundry on the premise that he was doing it for the betterment of the city.

He'd meekly accepted the task when they'd all been siting here in the boardroom, but as soon as they were alone, he found his backbone again.

'You're sure there's no other way?'

Jack looked at him, a little surprised but not overly concerned. 'You're backing out on me?'

'No. Well, it's just, this is more Owen's thing than mine, isn't it?'

He saw Jack's chest heave up and down in one long slow breath, considering him.

'You and I both know there's a whole bunch of reasons why Owen can't do this anymore.'

Because Owen's dead, he felt like saying. How does a dead man win over an attractive young girl? He's cold to the touch and couldn't get it up if he had to. Ianto didn't feel any more qualified on that front. Instead Jack's reply surprised him.

'I can't have Owen getting emotionally attached. I know that sounds like a terrible thing to say, but he needs someone right now, and I can't have him jeopardising the mission because he decides to become involved. Going undercover is hard work, and it's all too easy to get lost in becoming someone else. Right now, Owen I think would gladly be someone else.'

'I think you're right,' he replied, trying to avoid the obvious undertones that he could be the unemotional actor they needed.

It wasn't meant to be a hard ask. All he was supposed to do was strike up a friendship with the girl. She was working as part of some underground operation, but every time they'd tried to put surveillance on her, she disappeared into thin air, down an alley, around a street corner, a car that slipped off the motorway never to be seen again. They needed someone on the inside. They'd develop a rapport with her and then find a way to get her to take them wherever it was they were hiding their operation.

Ianto hadn't liked the thought that this would be a long term project. It could take weeks or even months to gain her trust. Weeks or months away from his real job. Sure, he'd be able to slip back to the hub during the day and help out with basics like feeding and cleaning, but he couldn't tie himself down to retrievals or other cases, needing to keep steady hours and be appearing to have a normal life.

Their opening came at a fortuitous time. She had a bedsit for rent. Ianto applied and was immediately accepted as her new tenant. Less than a week later, he'd moved from sleeping in the bedsit to sleeping in her bed.

Jack had known it would come to this, he thought ruefully. And worse was that he was okay with it. He'd needed to get into her good graces, he'd understood that, but he hadn't truly thought that good graces was a euphemism for something else. Nor did he think he could pull it off, yet at every turn as she kissed him, slowly peeling his clothes off and touching him all over with her hands and her lips, his body betrayed him. He now knew why Owen couldn't have taken this on. If he could no longer find the line between work and pleasure, Owen certainly would have crossed it. He wasn't even sure he hadn't crossed it.

He didn't want to rush things, but he also knew he couldn't carry on like this for weeks on end, or he worried he might indeed lose himself. He loved Jack, but being intimate with someone else had turned his world on its head far more than he expected.

Lying there in the dark, he mulled over his options. She'd fallen for him hard, believing every lie that fell so easily from his lips. He'd had years of practice, and now telling a lie came as simply to him as telling the truth. No wonder it was easy to lose yourself. He could move things forward now if he played his cards carefully.

He tossed in the bed, risking slipping a hand on her smooth hip as she woke against his movements. He tossed again.

'What is it?' she murmured.

'Nothing,' he replied, laying the trail of crumbs for her.

She sat up slightly, rolling over so that she could run her fingers up and down his stomach. He loved it when Jack did that.

'Tell me,' she implored.

He sucked in a long breath. 'I lost my job yesterday. Cost cutting, they said.' He hesitated purposefully. 'I didn't want to tell you because it means I probably won't be able to afford the bedsit anymore.'

'I don't care about the bedsit,' she replied, lying her mahogany head down on his bare chest. 'You can stay with me down here.'

'That's not the point. I needed that job. I'm down to my last quid most weeks as it is. Where am I going to get another job?'

'Come work with me,' she said. 'I can get you a job. Then we can spend even more time together.'

'You could get me a job? You're sure?' he asked, not wanting to sound too keen too soon.

'Come with me tomorrow. I know Tony will give you a job.'

'That would be amazing.'

'You're amazing,' she purred, snuggling closer, pressed bodily against him as she drifted back to sleep.

Halfway there, he thought, letting the relief of progress lull him back to sleep, dreaming of Jack pressed against him.

His call was unexpectedly diverted the next morning when he went to check in with Jack whilst Adriana was showering.

'Boss says you're shagging her, lucky bastard,' came Owen's voice.

Thanks for sharing that little bit of info, Jack, he thought. 'Happy to swap places,' he replied. 'Where's Jack?'

'On the phone with the PM.'

'Right, of course.' It had only been a week and already he'd completely lost track of Jack's calendar. His normally highly organised brain had been turned to mush.

'He's right bloody grumpy today,' Owen added. 'When you get finished with this case, your arse is going to be aching for a week.'

'Wonderful, thanks Owen.' He didn't need to hear that. Right now, he thought he might go celibate for a few months. This casual sex thing was going to kill him one day.

'Any update?' Owen asked.

'Yeah, I think I'm up for a job interview this morning.'

'Excellent. You've got the I-fives?'

'Yep.'

'Alright. Well, we'll be watching. Just try and keep it in your pants.'

'Har har.' He heard the bathroom door creak open as Adriana stepped out, wrapped in nothing more than a towel.

'Okay, well got to go. Love you,' he said, smirking.

'Who was that?' she asked.

'Just my sister. She's always nagging me about something.'

'I'll bet you give her no end of trouble,' she said, smiling, and pulling the towel off, letting him watch her standing there rifling through her wardrobe.

Oh boy. 'You have no idea,' he replied.

The little red Fiat zoomed through the city streets on the cold, wintery morning. Sitting in the passenger seat, he slipped on the contact lenses.

'You wear contacts?' she said.

'Glasses never suited me.'

She smiled. 'All the better to see those gorgeous blue eyes.'

He took in the visual of every street corner and road sign, tracing their path and drawing up a map in his head. The team would be able to cross reference the locations even if he couldn't communicate with them. He wasn't really sure what he'd find when he got there, assuming they let him in, but at least they'd have a location, which was more than they had right now.

Whilst she was peppering him with friendly questions about his sister and her family, which at least didn't require him to lie openly, he saw the car take the left slip lane off the A48, headed toward Pontcanna, when the view in front of him suddenly changed. He expected to see the large Staples store, but instead was surrounded by a bunch of murky looking old buildings.

'What just happened?' he asked.

She just shrugged. 'We took a shortcut,' she replied.

The others hadn't noticed the sudden change in scenery. They didn't know the streets the way he did. Rather than alert them straight away, he tried to get his bearings, but couldn't find a landmark that he could pick out.

The car pulled up next to a handful of others and she lead the way inside a rundown three storey office block.

There was no front desk, no receptionist, and nothing that resembled an office on the inside of the building, apart from a small row of rooms down one side of a long hallway. The rest of the building seemed to be compartmentalised into larger rooms. What was inside them, he couldn't yet see.

She marched down to the office at the end of the hall, knocking only briefly before heading in.

'Hiya,' she greeted the thick set man behind the desk.

'Glyn, this is Tony. Tony, this is Glyn Edwards. He's looking for a job.'

Tony eyed her with suspicion. 'And who's he?'

'He's my new squeeze,' she said, wrapping an arm around Ianto's waist. 'I was thinking he could help us out.'

'How?'

'Well, you're always complaining that I'm rubbish with the paperwork, and Glyn here is well organised.'

'You want to give him your job?'

'Not all of it, just some. Come on Tone, he's hard up for a job, and I know he'll be fab. He's no dummy.'

Tony sighed and looked at her hard. 'Alright, but no more stray dogs after this one.'

'Oh, thanks Tony. Have I ever told you you're a gem?'

'Once more won't hurt.' He extended his hand out to Ianto. 'Welcome aboard, Glyn.'

'Thank you, sir.'

'Come on, Glyn,' she said, tugging his hand. 'I'll give you the fifty pence tour.'

The place was far more elaborate than anything he'd expected. They'd known someone was making certain aliens disappear, but where and what for were two very big unanswered questions.

'Aliens?' he'd said when she showed him, playing dumb. 'Like real outer space aliens?'

'Uh huh,' she said excitedly. 'They're creating the next technological advances. They know stuff we can hardly comprehend yet.'

'And they're doing this willingly?'

'Why wouldn't they? They've got nowhere else to go, and here they can make a difference.'

For all her apparent cleverness, she seemed blindly naive to the fact that these aliens looked anything but happy to be here, forced to work for their keep. They weren't stealing just any old aliens off the streets Cardiff, only the highly intelligent ones. That's how Torchwood had come to discover the problem. Several families of aliens that had been happily settled in the city had approached them, claiming relatives had gone missing. With no one else to turn to, they came knocking on Torchwood's door. And Jack was less than happy to know that the citizens he was charged with protecting were being grabbed off the streets and taken.

All in all, he surmised that the place had maybe two dozen employees, most whom looked to be scientists of some kind or another, working alongside the aliens. There was another man, Gary, who looked after their administration and IT in the office two doors down from Tony, and Adriana's little office sat between them. She was responsible for all of their contracts, most of which was quickly doled out to Ianto to sift through. Briefly skimming the first batch of paperwork, he could already see several tenders with major tech companies for everything from photon drives to new food preservatives. For good or ill, whatever they were doing here had to stop.

Adriana settled him in the office next to Gary's, and gave him a temporary login and password.

'Most of the contracts are boilerplate, but you just need to customise these few pages with the project specs.'

'Think I can manage,' he replied.

'Good.' She pecked him on the cheek. 'I'll see you at lunch. There's a cleaner's cupboard upstairs where no one will disturb us.'

Ianto made quick work of opening up a document on screen and typing out everything he'd learned, so that the others could read it off the screen. Tosh tried hacking the computer, but it seemed that some of the tech they'd been developing had included highly sophisticated encryption software so she was unable to break in and download the files, nor obtain the IP address, which was being bounced off about twenty different satellites and passing through just as many countries.

'Where are you?' The question was direct, so he knew it was Jack.

That was problematic. In truth, he was still confused about his location. He didn't need to hang around here for days, he just needed a location so that the rest of the team could come in and shut the place down. His phone had been confiscated by Tony earlier, on the premise that they couldn't risk breaching confidentiality for their intellectual property.

After an hour or so, he risked leaving his office to have another poke around. He was looking for a window so he could try and figure out where he was, but the office seemed to have covered over most of them. Probably so the aliens couldn't escape, he thought.

Climbing the stairs to the top level, he finally found a room with a view. It looked like the lunch room. Outside it was still grey and bleak, but at least from three storeys up, he could see a fair distance. He frowned. Nothing looked familiar at all. All around was nothing but dirty old warehouses and a tall smoke stack next to a large loading crane.

"Running location diagnostics," the text in front of his eyes read.

'Hey,' the voice came from behind him, causing him to jump. It was Adriana. 'I came looking for you and you weren't there.'

'Oh, hey. I was looking for the bathroom and found the lunch room instead. '

'Well, you walked right past it,' she laughed. 'What did you think that thing was next to your office?'

'Silly me.'

She came over and wrapped her arms around him. 'Having you here is the best. Can I get you a coffee, babe?'

'No thanks. I don't drink coffee.'

'Ah, finally. A chink in Mr Perfect's armor.'

Ianto spent the rest of the afternoon collating whatever information he could and cross referencing it to their missing alien files. All of the missing aliens were accounted for here, plus several more. What bugged him was the nagging sensation from the view out of the kitchen window. Tosh's scans had come up empty, but for some reason the smoke stack kept niggling at him. He was sure he'd seen it before somewhere.

It didn't help that right now all he could think about was Adriana pressed up against the wall of the cleaner's cupboard, whilst he gave her what she wanted during lunch, his eyes shut tight, or firmly fixed on the wall in front of him so that the rest of the team couldn't see. At this rate, he was going to need to buy more condoms on the way home. Jack was going to owe him triple pay for going well above and beyond. He just wasn't going to admit that some tiny little part of him enjoyed it. He'd have been getting his gratification from Jack every other day, and those physical needs didn't go away just because was on a case.

It wasn't until nearly five o'clock that he finally realised where he was. He could hear Tony in the next room, chatting with Gary.

'They ought to sack him; he's not a manager's bootlaces. My old man would be fuming if he saw the state of things. "Built on the back of hard graft, Newport County is," he'd say.'

Newport! Of course. That's where he'd seen the smoke stack. His Dad had taken them down to watch them loading the big cargo ships when they were kids. But how the hell had they gotten all the away out here? Adriana must have had some kind of transmat device. Probably built them here. That's what she meant by taking a shortcut. No wonder Tosh couldn't pinpoint his location. They'd been cross referencing the wrong city!

He quickly typed out the words "I'm in Newport", then deleted them before Tony wandered in.

'How's your first day, son?'

'Brilliant,' he replied.

'Good. Adriana's a nice girl.'

'She is,' he agreed.

'Mmm. Hurt her and I'll break your fucking kneecaps.'

Ianto swallowed hard. Tony looked like he could do it with his bare hands too. 'Understood.'

'Good,' he said, handing Ianto back his phone. 'Now get out of here and take her somewhere nice for dinner.'

'Yes, sir.'

He didn't really want to leave. Not when he knew the others were speeding their way to Newport, readying to shut the place down, but what choice did he have? Tony had probably already told Adriana that he was taking her out to dinner. That or she'd made the suggestion to Tony to plant the idea. Either way, if he backed out now, his cover would be blown.

It was with disappointment that she drove them all the way back to Cardiff for dinner. He'd hoped she might pick somewhere local, so at least he would be close by when he got the signal that it was done. Whilst she was fetching her coat off the back seat, he quickly reached inside her handbag and slipped out her phone. Just in case, he thought. He didn't want anyone accidentally tipping her off.

Instead he mulled over the view of the bay, his glass of wine untouched, and the pasta in front of him serving only as a distraction as he twirled it round and round the fork without actually eating it. The longer he could stretch out their meal, the better. He didn't want to have to go back to hers and spend the rest of the night with her legs wrapped around his hips. The assignment was taking its toll on him.

'You alright, babe?' she asked. 'You've hardly touched your food.'

Babe. He really hated being called that. It was so Valleys, but then she was a girl from the Valleys, so what could he expect.

'Long day,' he replied.

She reached out a hand across the table. 'You did great. And Tony will love you. Once these contracts start getting delivered, we'll all be millionaires. Won't that be great?'

And a few innocent aliens will be slaves and never see their families again, he felt like saying.

'Yeah,' he agreed.

'You look tired. Why don't we grab the bill and head home?'

'Maybe we could go for a walk first? Just around the bay?' he suggested.

'It's freezing out.'

'I could use some fresh air.'

'Alright,' she said, almost rolling her eyes at him. 'But only because I love you.'

Halfway down to the plass, his phone beeped. "Facility secure. Staff being rounded up and retconned."

He breathed a sigh of relief. The scientists would have stayed back and worked late, but the only ones who would need to be tracked down were Tony, Gary, and Adriana. Ianto had already given them addresses for the other two, and Gwen and Tosh were on their way there now. All that remained now was to deal with Adriana.

He lead her across the plass until they were standing next to the water tower.

'What are you doing?' she said, as he pulled her up onto the flagstone right in front of the silvery monolith.

'I want to kiss you.'

She readily complied, not noticing the flagstone slowly descending into the ground. They were halfway down before she opened her eyes and yelped out. He grabbed her firmly around the waist to prevent her falling.

'It's okay,' he said.

'Where are we?'

'We took a shortcut.'

'What is this place?' she said, looking around, astonished.

'My other job.'

She frowned. 'Your other job? Glyn, what are you talking about?'

'My name's not Glyn, it's Ianto. I work for Torchwood.'

'What's Torchwood?'

'We protect aliens that come here through the rift. Ones like those you've been keeping at your laboratory. Ones which Tony kidnapped. The rest of my team are over there, shutting the place down as we speak.'

Finally with the platform on solid ground, she pulled away from him, putting a few yards distance between them.

'No, Tony said he was looking after them.'

'He took them from their families, locked them up and forced them to work for him.'

She was shaking her head violently. She really hadn't known the extent of Tony's operations.

'You lied to me!'

'Yes.' It was the first honest thing he'd said all week.

'You just used me to get inside so you could find out what you wanted to know.'

'I was doing my job,' he replied, feeling like a cad.

She reached for the first thing she could wrap her hand around, which happened to be a stapler, and threw it at him. He put his arms up and it hit him hard. He probably deserved that.

'Just doing your job,' she spat. 'Is that what you told yourself when you were fucking me?'

Yes, that was exactly what he'd told himself.

'It wasn't what I intended.'

She'd been the one to come onto him. He'd never wanted any part of it, but perhaps he should have resisted a little harder. Jack had told him to do whatever it took, no matter the cost. But just what had it cost him?

'Take me back up,' she demanded. 'I want out of here. You can't lock me up here.'

'I brought you here to protect you. The others will be back soon, and they'll have Tony and Gary and the other scientists questioned. They'll want to question you too.'

She looked pale and frightened. 'But I don't know anything!'

'I know,' he said softly. He reached out a hand towards her. 'I needed you to know first. Let me take you home.'

She looked wary. 'You're not going to lock me up?'

'No. Tomorrow the company will be as if it never existed. Tomorrow you'll get up and start your first day at a new internship at Deloittes. I've already organised the paperwork.'

She did a double take. 'You got me a job?'

'Thought I'd return the favour.'

'I don't know what to say, Glyn.'

'Ianto,' he corrected.

'Sorry, Ianto.'

'Come on,' he said, guiding her towards the lift.

Back at her apartment, he quietly packed up his things upstairs whilst she changed. He even made her coffee whilst he was waiting.

'Now you're going to tell me you really do drink coffee?' she asked.

'It's kind of my thing,' he replied, handing her the mug and sitting down on the sofa next to her. She sipped it slowly.

'I'm sorry if I did anything to hurt those aliens. I really thought they wanted to be there.'

'It's okay. I think they'll just be glad to go home.'

'Like you?' she yawned. 'You could always stay here, you know. At least I'd know I wasn't renting out to some crazy rapist.' She yawned again, snuggling against his shoulder. 'We could start over,' she said, her voice drifting off.

He waited until she was completely asleep, before making sure her alarm clock was set for six am, clothes pressed and hung neatly on the door, and making sure the address for her new job was prominently marked on her fridge. She wouldn't remember anything from the last week, only the letter from Tony advising her that she'd been fired, which was still lying open on her coffee table, looking like it had been read a hundred times.

Ianto was at the hub when the rest of the team returned. Tony and Gary were quietly lead down to the cells to cool off until the morning. A night sharing the cell block with Janet always helped to loosen a few lips.

'Ianto Jones, good to see you,' Jack beamed.

He smiled back. 'Likewise.'

'So where's number three in our trio of bad guys?'

'At home sleeping off a week's worth of retcon.'

Jack's expression grew dark. 'You were supposed to keep her here for questioning.'

'She didn't have anything further to add. She was innocent.'

'That wasn't your decision to make.'

He folded his arms and stared back at Jack. 'Well, it's done. I can't undo it. You'll just have to take my word for it.'

'I told you not to get emotionally involved,' Jack lectured.

'And I didn't,' he snapped back. 'I acted like a human being. You ought to try it some time.'

They stared each other down for a few moments, oblivious to the rest of the team looking on.

'Go home and get some rest,' Jack said. 'I'll look forward to seeing you back at work tomorrow.'

He did go home, and followed it with a very long, very cold shower. He didn't want anyone warming his bed tonight.

Comments

[jo02]

I really enjoyed this, it was gritty and kept me uneasy all the way through.

I also think it has the potential to be fleshed out into a much longer story.

[bk_forever]

That was a really good Torchwood case. I loved the way Ianto set Adriana up with a new job and everything, but I think there's going to be some friction (and not the good kind) between Ianto and Jack for a while. undercover work is tough, having to be someone else and do things that are less than pleasant, like making someone fall for you and then betraying them. Poor Ianto.

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

He won't be keen on any more undercover work for a good long while. It's all too easy to forget who you are when you spend so long having to be someone else.