m_findlow

Title: Kept in the dark
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters/Pairings: Ianto, Jack
Word Count: 500 words
Rating: PG
Notes: Written for Challenge 25 - Blackout at anythingdrabble
Summary: Ianto is never using The Doctor as their travel agent ever again.

'This wasn't my idea of fun,' Ianto complained, pulling his knees up to his chest to conserve warmth.

'You said you wanted to see what Wales was like in your grandfather's day,' Jack argued, 'so I got the Doctor to drop us off exactly where you said.'

Ianto growled under his breath, the sound carrying across the room in the darkness. The Doctor had absolutely no sense of timing whatsoever. A whole decade of years he could choose from, and he'd landed them right smack in the middle of 1942.

What he'd really wanted was just to see the valleys in their heyday, at the height of the industrialisation of his homeland. He wanted to see the lush green valleys with their small tight knit communities, the streets lined with the sound of a hundred voices as they returned from the mines for the day, home to their families. It was before technology made steam power redundant, before the Tories and the unions squeezed the life out of the mines and the men who worked them. It was when Welsh people still spoke Welsh and the scent of Welsh cakes could be smelled from every window.

But no. The Doctor had to dump them in the middle of wartime Britain, when food rations were shrinking by the day, the men were barely seen for all the hours they toiled underground, and those that could had left to join the fighting. All that was left in the village were the women and more children than he could count. The government argued they'd be safer here than in the cities where German planes were dropping bombs. Every house must have had four or five children to every adult.

They'd been treated with mistrust when they arrived, saved only by Ianto's accent and his ability to converse in the local tongue. Jack simply looked like an American soldier. Recuperating from injury was the story he used when trying to arrange them accommodations. They met whilst in hospital in Cardiff, Ianto explained, and become fast friends. He'd suggested coming here until they were called back for service. They'd have to tread carefully in a world of God fearing folk where homosexuality was forbidden. Jack's often innocently wandering hands worried him endlessly.

Initally Ianto might have said it was an interesting experience, but after a fortnight he was fed up. They'd been wrangled into Home Guard, forced to go around imposing the rules set down by Churchill's administration. Tonight however the shoe was on the other foot, as an MP scolded them for not properly sealing their windows, light still visibly leaking from a few places. The nightly blackout was taken very seriously even though not a single bomb would ever come within fifty miles of here. Now they were just dark, cold, and hungry. The Doctor wouldn't come back for them for at least another two weeks, assuming he was on time. If not, they could be here months.

In short, wartime Wales sucked.