m_findlow

Title: Film star for a day
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Jack, Gwen, OCs
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 4,020 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for prompt "Pixilation"
Summary: A school project goes wrong.

'This is going to be so cool,' Sian said, practically jumping up and down with the camera in her hand. 'Ours is going to be the best film in the whole class.'

It was impossible not to get caught up in the infectious excitement. The three of them had been waiting all semester for their major assignment.

'It's really cool,' Tom explained over the kitchen counter as Ianto cut up vegetables for dinner. 'We get to create the whole background story and make it using the computer to generate all the scenery and stuff, and then we film real life people and they get put into the film.'

'Sounds like fun,' he said. 'And what is the story about?'

'It's about a super cool hero that fights aliens and saves people.'

Ianto resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Of course it was. What else would children of Torchwood agents write a story about?

'And who is playing this dashing hero of yours?' he said, already knowing that answer.

Tom looked furtive, an unusual expression. Usually he was confident and casual, but not in the arrogant sort of way. Just a kid who wasn't fussed by whatever life threw at him.

'D'you think Dad would say yes?'

'Can't see why not.' As if Jack's ego needed stroking. He'd literally jump at the chance. For once, Ianto didn't mind playing second fiddle. He could help them with their English, math and French, but photography and media studies were much better suited to someone who craved attention of any sort. He knew he'd married a show pony long ago. Jack should be an expert in that department.

Sian brought it up over dinner, hoping that with Ianto's support, Jack would be bound to say yes. Naturally, Jack was more than happy to accommodate the request, which sent another flurry of excitement around the table.

'I rehearsed with Marlena Deitrich once,' he said. 'She was a real fireball.'

'Gave her a few pointers, did you?' Ianto quipped, sipping his drink.

'Well, I don't like to boast...'

'Never,' Ianto smirked.

'Who's Marlena Dietrich?' Eleri asked.

'An actress from the 1940's,' Ianto answered. 'She was very famous.'

'Dad, why do you always talk about the forties?' Sian asked.

'It's one of Dad's favourite times,' Ianto replied. 'He hasn't grown up any since then, which is why he feels stuck there.'

'Hey! She was hot, okay? You'd have liked the forties.'

'Hotter than Dad?' Tom asked.

'Tom!' Ianto exclaimed. Where on earth had his son gotten that gumption from, he wondered.

Tom just shrugged.

'No one's hotter than Dad,' Jack replied, trying hard to make Ianto blush.

Come Sunday, the kids were itching to get started on their film.

'I have to go finish up a few things at work. You guys will be okay?' Ianto asked.

'We're coming with you, Dad,' Eleri said, clambering into the car.

Ianto turned around, watching the other two pile in behind her. 'Hang on, I thought you were working on your movie with Dad?'

'We are,' Sian replied. 'But the extra props are at work.'

'Props?'

Tom flipped around a list of things they'd made. Ianto took it and examined it.

'Jack, were not seriously going to let them use these, are we?'

'It's fine,' Jack said, stealing the list off him. 'It's not like they're going to be actually using the meso blaster. I'm just touting it because the hero needs a gun and it looks way cool.'

Ianto sighed. 'Other kids are going to have to make do with props made out of household items. It hardly seems fair that you can stand there brandishing a Sontaran meso blaster.'

'Other kids at school have ponies in the countryside they ride on weekends. So what if just for once our kids have the upper hand?'

'Is that the lesson we should be teaching them?'

'It's not cheating,' Jack said, 'it's just helping out with a school project. All parents do it. Besides, they needed someone to star in their film, and who has more star power than yours truly?'

'Johnny Depp?' Ianto suggested.

Jack scoffed. 'Please. Check out this face. I was made for the camera.'

Ianto snagged the list back again, finishing reviewing it before saying yes. 'You can't use Myfanwy in your film,' Ianto said. 'She'll never stay still long enough.'

'But, Dad...' Sian whined.

'How are you going to explain a lifelike dinosaur to Mrs Elkin? Everyone else will be using people.'

'But you trained her, Dad. You could make her behave for us.'

'Myf's not as young as she used to be, and she doesn't have the same amout of patience.' In truth, she'd never had much patience, but now she was a right grumpy old gal when she wanted to be. Being subjected to a bunch of teenage film makers was always going to end badly.

'They didn't have a computer generated pterodactyl we could use in the animation.'

'Well, you'll just have the edit the story a little bit, then.'

'So, we can use the rest?'

Ianto sighed. Jack would be there the whole time, and he'd never endanger the kids. He flicked the car keys at Jack. 'Looks like you've got a film to make.'

Once they were at the hub, the kids disappeared downstairs to one of the empty storage rooms to set up. They didn't need much in truth, just the large roll out green screen that their teacher had loaned them for the weekend. Everything Jack did would be staged in front of the green screen so that they could import the footage into their animated scenes.

'They haven't given me a script to rehearse yet,' Jack complained, and Ianto passed him a mug of coffee, sitting in Jack's office while he waited for the kids to give him the green light.

'I don't think you're going to need one.'

'Why? Because I'm just such a natural talent?'

Ianto scoffed. 'No, because the film isn't going to move fast enough for you to worry about it. They'll dub in the voice layer, so you can just read it off the script later.'

'Dub in the voice?' Jack asked. 'I don't get it. Why would you dub me in later?'

'You do understand what pixilation is, don't you?'

'Sure I do,' Jack said, smiling. Then he frowned. 'Actually, no.'

'You remember that documentary we watched on stop motion photography?'

'Was that the Wallace and Grommit one where they make the clay figures look like they're moving?'

'Uh huh. Pixilation is sort of the same thing, but instead of taking pictures of clay people, you use real people.'

Jack thought about this for a moment. Hang on, are you saying that I'm going to be the clay model? Am I going to have to stand there for ages whilst they take photos of me moving inch by inch?'

Ianto clapped him on the shoulder, grinning. 'You said you wanted to help with their project.'

'But...'

'Have fun, cariad,' he said, pecking Jack on the cheek. 'I'll be teleconferencing with Torchwood Miami if you need me.'

'You're not staying?'

'I don't want to interrupt a film star from their process. I'm sure you have lots to prepare for... hair and, makeup and all that.'

'You're very not funny, Ianto.'

'Bye, Jack,' he said, giving him a dismissive little wave.

'Say hi to Rex for me,' he yelled at Ianto's retreating form.

Jack stood in front of the bathroom mirror, readjusting his hair. Why couldn't all school projects be this fun, he wondered. Most of the time it was boring stuff, like the history of the Norman invasion, or the impact of salinity on the water table. The most exciting thing they'd ever done was build a diorama of an African savannah, and even that Ianto had taken charge of, making sure all the plastic animals were to the correct scale. You couldn't have the lion being bigger than the elephant, that was just stupid, he'd said.

Jack clicked and pointed at the image facing him in the mirror. 'Still got, it tiger,' he told himself. He felt older, even if he didn't look it. He supposed having three teenagers and having settled into a lazy domesticity had done that, but his best years weren't behind him yet.

'Go knock em dead, you handsome devil.'

On the whole, Ianto wasn't a fan of working weekends. Days were long enough most of the time, and their family needed to take priority. Still, it was nice to be able to get a few things done, knowing that he wasn't really denying them quality time. Jack was just a stones throw away, keeping them out of trouble, and ticking off their homework all at the same time. That left Ianto free reign to tick a few things off his own list. Trying to coordinate times wasn't always easy when you ran a global network of offices, and no one liked a three AM phone call. Unkess of course you were Rex, and you had nothing better to do.

'How's Miami treating you these days?' Ianto said, leaning back in his chair, the work-related part of their call over.

'Sunshine and lots of ladies in bikinis. What's not to like?' Ianto chuckled at the response. 'Am I supposed to thank you for moving me?'

'You always hated DC,' Ianto replied. How many times had Rex moaned about the cold and the traffic and the politics? 'Mind you, I'm thinking about setting up an office in Edmonton. They've got a significant population of Felthosians I wouldn't mind keeping an eye on.'

'Man, that's like in the middle of Canada, right?'

'Interested? I could use a dab hand over there to get things going.'

'No way. I don't do less than eighty-five degrees. Cold weather plays up with my immortality.'

'Does it, now?' Ianto said, knowing he'd never do such a thing. He owed Rex a few favours still.

'Dad! Dad!' Eleri was running towards his office, looking panicked.

'Uh, Rex I gotta go,' Ianto said, hanging up on him. Instinctively he already had his top drawer pulled out, hand wrapping around the gun that was in there, ready to defend her against whatever it was she was running from.

'What is it, Angel?'

'It’s Dad! He’s gone!'

'Gone where?' he said, standing up and following her as she started moving back towards the main hub and the door that lead downstairs.

'He was there and then he was just gone.'

Ianto felt sick. Had a negative rift spike happened inside the hub? Weren’t they supposed to be protected from that sort of thing?

'Hurry up, Dad!' she said, tugging insistently on his arm as he tried to check his phone for rift readings.

'You did it wrong,' he heard Sian declare as he entered the room. Tom sat cross-legged on the floor, laptop resting in front of him as he tapped madly at the keys.

'I didn’t,' he protested.

'What happened?' Ianto asked.

'Dad disappeared!' Sian said. 'One second he was here, and then he was just gone.'

Ianto looked around the room, seeing nothing but the large green screen against one wall and the pile of props littered near the other. He quickly walked over and surveyed them, one by one, making sure each of them was safe and hadn't played any part in Jack's disappearance. Satisfied that everything was okay, he turned back to face the three of them, who were all looking at him expectantly.

'Nobody panic,' he said, as if that wasn't going to plant the seeds of panic.

'We're not panicking,' Sian replied. 'We're worried. We were just starting to import all the footage of Dad into the film. What if we hit the wrong button and activated some portal that sucked him into the other side of the universe?'

'Don't be silly,' Ianto said. 'This has nothing to do with you.'

'But, we were the only ones down here.'

'I know, but strange things sometimes happen around here.'

'But, Dad...' Eleri trailed off.

'Dad will be fine. He can't die, remember? Whatever has happened, we'll sort it out. Come on,' he said, starting to herd them back out through the door. 'Come upstairs.' He already had his phone out, calling Gwen, before he realised he was still one teenager short.

'Tom, come on!' he said, turning back to see Tom still stuffing his laptop and other gear back into his backpack.

'I'm coming!'

'Thanks for coming in,' Ianto said, when Gwen rolled in through the door, Rhys in tow.

'No worries. We were only a few blocks up the road. To be honest, you probably saved our marriage from another argument about the new sofa. So, what's all this about Jack just disappearing?'

He flipped his laptop screen around so that she could see the CCTV footage for herself. There was Jack, with the kids, unloading the SD card from the camera once they were done filming, then moments later, he just popped right out of existence.

'You couldn't go down there and double check all the stuff they were using, could you? I had a look and it all seems safe to me, but,'

'I get it,' Gwen said, trying to be reassuring. 'A second pair of eyes never hurts. You want me to call the rest of the team in?'

Ianto shook his head. 'Not until we know more. I don't want to scare the kids.'

'How are they doing?'

'A bit freaked out, understandably.'

'You'd think they'd be used to this sort of thing by now,' Gwen said. 'Jack's always getting into trouble.'

'Yeah, but feeling like they're directly responsible for it... Not so much.'

'Fair point. They're not, though, are they?'

'Responsible? I doubt it, but I guess we're about to find out.'

'Well,' Gwen said, coming back upstairs to where Ianto had the three of them all perched anxiously on the sofa. 'I've had a look at everything done there, and I can't see anything wrong.'

'I went back through the CCTV again, and analysed the room for every kind of alien energy I could think of, but there's been absolutely nothing unusual happen down there, or anywhere within a mile radius of here.'

'The only thing we haven't checked is the laptop and the camera,' Gwen said.

'They'll be fine,' Ianto replied. 'They're both from home.' There was no reason to think they were connected to Jacks disappearance.

'Ours was,' Tom muttered.

'Oh my God,' Sian said. 'The camera!'

Ianto turned and looked at them. 'What about the camera?' When none of them replied he tried again. 'Which camera did you use?' he asked.

Sian looked down at her feet.

'Sweetie?' he said.

'Dad said it was okay,' Eleri piped up, sparing her sister a confession. 'He said our camera wasn't very good, and that he had a better one we could use.'

Ianto sucked in a breath and let it out very, very slowly. Don't be mad at the kids, be mad at Jack. 'Can you show me which one?' Tom pulled it out of his backpack and handed it over.

'And you didn't film anyone else?'

'No,' all three of them answered.

'Good. Now why don't you let Uncle Rhys take you home. Gwen and I are going to stay here and fix this thing with Dad, okay?'

'Can't we stay?' Sian pleaded.

'Not this time.'

'Eh, come on guys,' Rhys said, clapping his hands together. 'I'll make my special mac and cheese.' The response was less than enthusiastic.

'Go on, you lot,' Ianto ordered.

'We're too old for mac and cheese, these days,' Sian said. Ianto wanted to roll his eyes. Thirteen was suddenly too old for a lot of things they'd taken for granted when they were younger.

'Alright,' Rhys said, determined not to be put off. 'We'll go into town and you can pick something out. Maybe we'll go bowling or a movie afterwards. One of those ones they've got down there with the 3D glasses that make stuff jump out at you.'

'Wait!' Ianto said. He suddenly had a panicked look about him, as if twenty different thoughts were all clamoring to be considered. 'Gwen, do you remember that case we had, years ago now. The one with the people from the circus?'

'The ones that were stealing people's breath?'

'Yes. They were trapped on that old film until...'

'Until someone played the film and let them out,' she finished for him.

'What if this is the same kind of thing? The kids film him, well, take pictures of him, using this particular camera. Then when they go to load the pictures into the laptop...'

'Jack disappears.'

'Is Dad trapped in the pictures?' Tom asked.

'I think maybe yes.'

'And we can get him out the same way,' Gwen said.

'Hang on,' Rhys interrupted. 'It's one thing to play a piece of film, but you're saying he's stuck on this SD card. How'd you plan on getting him off that?'

They all sat there, lost for ideas.

'We need to make the film,' Ianto said.

'We ought to test the theory first,' Gwen said.

'Definitely,' Ianto agreed. He grabbed the camera and slotted the SD card back in. 'Tom, can you make a copy of your animation background for me?'

Tom nodded and flipped open his laptop, bringing up the software and making a copy.

'Eh, you're not planning on trying that on one of us, are you?' Rhys said, looking worried.

'Of course not,' Ianto replied. He walked into his office and returned with an apple that had been on his desk all afternoon. He set it on the coffee table and took two dozen photos of it, before popping the SD card back out and handing it to Tom.

'Load in the pictures of the apple. Only the apple,' he said.

As he did, the apple suddenly disappeared off the coffee table.

'Well, that's proves it was the camera,' Gwen said. 'Now we just have to see if we can get it back.'

A few minutes later, Tom had imported the images into the duplicate film. Ianto retrieved a data cable and hooked up the laptop to a portable screen.

'Here goes nothing,' he said, pressing play. The apple appeared in the film, unmoving, and then as the film ended, it reappeared back on the coffee table.

'That's so cool,' Sian said, forgetting herself.

'You were right, Ianto,' Gwen said. 'It worked.'

'Now we just need to do the same for Jack.'

It took a lot longer to piece together all the images the kids had collected of Jack. The film was meant to go for ten minutes, so they'd had to stitch together several hundred images.

'Not that bit,' Tom said, as Ianto hovered over his shoulder. 'We weren't going to use that,' he said.

'We are now. I want every last picture you guys took included in that film.' He wasn't going to risk it that some small fragment of Jack might be lost forever because they didn't use all of it.

Several hours later they finally managed to piece it all together.

'That's all of them?' Gwen asked.

'Yup,' Ianto replied. 'Time to get Jack back.'

'Daddy? What if it doesn't work?' Sian said, looking worried.

'Then we'll try something else, baby,' he said, wrapping an arm around her. He reached across a tentative hand toward the key on the laptop that would start the animation running. As he did, he caught a glimpse of the crumpled up script the kids had used to piece together their project. The title stood out on the top of the page. "The Magnificent Captain Jack." He made a quick prayer to whatever gods were listening and hit the key.

They all stood there in silence as the short film played out on the screen. Had it not been for the fact that Jack's very life hung in the balance, he might have stopped to appreciate just how good a job the kids had done. Instead, it was all he could do to want it to end. Ten minutes had never felt so long.

As the last frame of the film played, there was a pop and a crackle, and suddenly, Jack reappeared out of thin air, crashing into Rhys in the process who just happened to be standing in about the same spot.

'Oi, watch it!' Rhys complained as Jack trod on his foot, though his complaint was drowned out by the squeal from the girls.

'Hey,' Jack said, looking around confused. 'How did I get here?'

The two girls rushed at him, hugging him fiercely, and Tom wasn't far behind. Thirteen wasn't too old and too uncool for hugs yet, at least.

'Woah, what's going on?' he said, hugging them back by instinct. 'Oh, hey Gwen. What are you and Rhys doing here?'

'Jack, what's the last thing you remember?' Gwen asked.

He narrowed his eyes at her. 'Why? What happened?'

'Last thing, Jack,' Ianto insisted.

'Ah... we were downstairs. We'd just finished filming. Man, do I have such a crick in my neck. You don't understand how hard it is to look cool and hold that pose for an hour.'

'You got sucked into the camera, Dad,' Tom said.

'I got what?'

Ianto picked up the camera and held it out for him. 'Remember this? You swapped it for the one the kids were going to use. Only I think there's something more to this camera than just a device for taking pictures.'

Jack turned it over in his hand. 'It's been in the archives for ages. They won't invent one this good for a decade yet. But it's still made here on Earth, see?' he said, pointing to the brand logo on the side.

'I think someone might have tampered with it. It might look like a garden variety camera, but what it did was anything but.'

'Did aliens do that?' Eleri asked.

'Maybe. I wouldn't mind getting the team in London to break it down and take a good look at it. They're the tech specialists. Whether it was intended to store live consciousnesses or not will have to remain a question for another day.'

'All's well that ends well, then, eh?' Rhys asked, grinning.

'Looks that way,' Ianto agreed. 'Just another day at Torchwood.' He checked his watch. 'It's late. We should get you lot home. You've got school tomorrow.'

There was a series of groans at the prospect of yet another weekend being over.

'Yeah, but now we don't have any footage for our film,' Tom moped. 'It's due tomorrow morning.'

'I'd rather fail some stupid project and have Dad back,' Eleri said, leaning against Jack and wrapping her arms around him,.

'Me too,' Sian agreed.

'I'm sure your teacher will understand,' Gwen said, trying to placate them. 'We could tell her the camera broke, or something.'

'S'pose,' Tom said.

'Actually, I think I've got a better idea,' Ianto said.

'Isn't this cheating?' Jack asked, watching as Ianto edited in the images of himself.

'We've kept the last ten years of CCTV. I always knew it would come in handy. Lucky you almost always wear the same clothes. It makes pulling together the footage a whole lot easier. Plus, it pretty much matches with what the kids had you doing anyway, being all gun wielding and dashing.'

'I still say it's cheating.'

'You were the one who said all parents help their kids with their projects, and that if our help gets them on the inside rail, well, that wouldn't be completely unfair on occasion.'

'Paraphrasing, but yeah,' Jack said.

'Don't worry. I've intentionally put a few jitters in the images to make them look less professional and more school project.'

'And that's not irritating your sensibilities that everything has to be perfect? I thought you'd be aiming for the A plus.'

'Jack, as far as I'm concerned, they've already got an A plus plus just for saving you.'

'Well, they are our kids. They're bound to be top of any Torchwood class.'