Fffc May Special Daily Challenge (May 21st) - Homecoming

[m_findlow]

Title: Homecoming
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Gwen, Rhys, Rhiannon, Agent Johnson
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 2,880 words
Content notes: Spoilers for Children of Earth (and a fix-it)
Author notes: Written for fffc May Special Daily Challenge - May 21st - Accidental Heroes (Danielle Steel)
Summary: Ianto is left to deal with the aftermath of the 456.

Ianto cursed himself for arriving too late. Everything he'd done in these last few days had always been a few moments too late. Too late to uncover the bomb that had been planted inside his lover, too late to realise London were watching and waiting for them, too late to stop the creature from killing everyone inside Thames House, himself included, and too late in waiting to tell Jack how he really felt.

He was still reeling from the fact that he had somehow survived Thames House, waking up in a hospital bed, much to the surprise and alarm of nurses. It was the second time he'd given them a shock, their first being when they'd brought in the bodies of all those who'd been killed, having the doctors double check them all to confirm. When they'd found a pulse, he'd been whisked away, causing a fervor between the staff, checking everyone else again in case they'd missed more survivors. Even then, his prognosis had seemed dire, and no one truly expected he'd live much longer. Then he'd woken up, alert and in perfect health.

There wasn't time to think about the why or the how, all he knew he needed was to get back in touch with the team. He'd desperately tried to track down Jack before the 456 came and took all the Earth's children or unleashed a plague on them. He'd tried calling Jack's phone but it didn't answer. Using it and the Torchwood software that had survived the obliteration of the hub, he put a trace on Jack's vortex manipulator, finding it emanating from a condemned research facility eight miles away. With nothing but the clothes on his back, his phone, and a few stolen credit cards in his wallet, he ran the entire way there, dodging cars and black cabs that had jammed up the entirety of the capital. The city was in chaos, though it was impossible to tell if it was good chaos or bad. Society was falling apart and there was no time.

By the time he reached the facility his heart was pounding in his chest, more from anxiety than from exertion. Gone was the weariness in his bones resulting from days without proper sleep. Instead he felt full of energy, like he could run another eight miles. His appearance at the doors didn't take long to cause a fuss from the few special ops personnel there.

'You're dead,' Agent Johnson declared when she walked up to the entrance where they'd so far kept him at bay.

'And now I'm not,' he quickly replied, finding it of no importance right now. 'Please, I'm here to help. You have to let Jack go so we can stop this thing.'

She raised an eyebrow at him. 'Let him go? We're the ones who took him to help us in the first place.'

'I don't understand'

'Haven't you heard, Jones?' she asked. 'It's over.'

'What do you mean it's over?' They couldn't just give up! The whole world was at stake. They couldn't just sacrifice ten percent of the world's children. If they did, he knew it wouldn't end there. They'd come back for more. They'd be forever at the mercy of aliens with the power to wipe them all from the face of the planet. The only option was to defeat them, whatever the cost.

'The creature was destroyed.' She explained something about a resonance pattern, using the Earth's children to send a signal back at the creature. 'It was that old guy,' she said. 'The one they tried to take before.'

'Clem,' Ianto corrected. The one Jack had meant to sacrifice.

'The thing killed him because he was hurting it. Dekker figured it out, but we needed more technical know how to get it to work. That's where Jack came in.'

Poor Clem. His whole life he'd lived in fear of those creatures, all because of that fateful day in 1965. No wonder he'd been terrified of Jack.

'Let me see Jack.' He needed to see him. It only made things worse to know that Jack must have thought he was dead and never coming back.

'He's gone. I would be too if I were him,' Johnson said dispassionately.  

'Gone where?'

Johnson looked around at what was left of her team, finishing up what they had to do before bugging out. No doubt there'd be disciplinary action for all of them, but hopefully the resulting outcome would help ease some of the ire out of her superiors. 'Perhaps you'd better come inside and I can tell you everything.'

 

By the time she'd explained events from beginning to end, Ianto felt shaken, like his world had been turned upside down and inside out.

'Cooper is back in Cardiff,' Johnson said, ending their conversation as she lead him to the door. 'I'd suggest you do the same. Go home to your family and hug your kids. Lord knows at least you still have them,' she said, casting a glance down the hall at the figure huddled in shadow. She was Johnson's last task to fulfill.

Ianto saw Alice sitting disconsolately on the bench, unable to move in her grief. Jack's daughter, he realised as the thought dawned on him, whom he'd known nothing about. The grandson he'd never meet was somewhere, probably encased in a small bodybag. It was a terrible price to pay. He searched her features for any trace of Jack but couldn't find it. Past lives and current lives all tangled together. There was no comfort he could offer her. They'd all just become people whose lives had been wreaked by the havoc that was Jack.

Feeling hollow, he took Johnson's advice and left. Torchwood and the government, Gwen and Rhys, and everything else could go to hell right now. Even Jack. He'd tried to pick up the tracing signal for Jack again, only to find it was no longer transmitting. Perhaps he thought Gwen might try to find him, now that everything was over. For his part, he no longer wanted to see Jack, or even speak to him. What he'd done had been so unthinkable it made him shake with anger even contemplating it.

We need a child. Jack's earlier words reverberated around his head as he headed for the Underground, which remarkably was operating. Ianto had been so close to bringing him one, having gone over to his sister's with that purpose alone in his mind. If Jack could have sacrificed his own grandson, he surely wouldn't have thought twice about using David or Mica. It made him feel sick. It was one thing to have wanted to understand what was connecting them all, but it was another entirely to use them as a weapon. How could he have ever considered it okay? If only he'd gotten here sooner, he would have stopped Jack, made him find another way, any other way.

The train journey was long, the carriages almost completely empty. It left him more time than he'd like to ponder over the question of how the hell he'd survived. No one else had, that was what Johnson told him. The virus had been lethal, and he'd felt it killing him, yet somehow he was here. It had to have had something to do with Jack and his ability to revive from death. It was a hollow victory, since he couldn't share it, and he didn't feel worthy of it. Jack had cared enough to try and save him, but not enough to find another way of stopping the 456. The closer to Cardiff he got, the more he knew he wanted to go straight over to his sister's house and make amends. She had to know by now why he'd come over in the first place. He wouldn't blame her if she hated him for it. Nothing else mattered right now.

Cardiff was nothing like London had been. Everyone seemed to have retreated inside, their earlier protests against defence force personnel having dissipated in the wake of the realisation that the alien entity was gone. The round ups had ended. A few people were spilling out of local police stations, having been released on summons for assaulting law enforcement, but otherwise it was eerily quiet, and not at all like that city he was used to. That was until he was standing outside his sister's, hearing the squeal of a whole pack of children emanating from within. Typical that his family's house should be the only one upsetting the peace, he thought.

He didn't normally knock, but felt compelled to on account of everything that had happened. The last thing he want was to get clapped over the head and mistaken for someone trying to take their kids.

The face at the door shocked him almost as much as his own shocked them. His only warning had been the shout from the other side that called out "don't worry, I'll get it!" The voice was distinctly Gwen's.

'Oh my God,' she said when she opened the door, hand flying to her mouth. 'Bloody hell,' came a mutter from Rhys behind her.  

Confused, there wasn't time to say more than "what are you," before Gwen had thrown herself at him, hugging him as hard as she could.

'Oh my God, Ianto,' she muttered again, though he could hear she was crying. 'We thought you were dead.'

'Who is it?' he heard his sister call out, shuffling down the hall, before the sound of a glass shattering all over the floor broke the two apart.

'Iesu Mawr,' he hear Rhiannon swear, before she bustled past Rhys, then bungled Gwen out of the way to envelop him in a bone crushing hug. He put two and two together, figuring Gwen had come here to tell her he was dead. As noble as that was, he wished he hadn't put his sister through that. He hadn't ever mentioned his sister and her family to Gwen. How had she known? Was this more of Jack's handiwork?

'I'm sorry,' he said, squeezing her back tightly.

'What the hell are you sorry for, you daft sod?' She peppered his cheek with kisses until it felt damp all over before finally letting him go. 'It is really you, isn't it?'

'Of course it's me.' At least he was pretty sure it was.

'You told us he was dead,' she said, turning on Gwen.

'Believe me, I'm in as much shock as you,' Gwen said, wiping tears from her cheek with the back of her hand.

'They came to try and take them away,' Rhiannon said. 'They very nearly succeeded. Forced to hide down in that old cannery, we were. We had all the doors locked just in case they came back. They're not taking anyone's kids.'

Something tugged at his leg and he looked down to see Mica there. 'Are you hiding here too, Uncle Ianto?' He could tell she was trying to put on a brave face despite being terrified. He dropped to his knees and wrapped her up in his arms. He'd never been one for affection, but Johnson had been right, the people in this house were all he really had in this world.

'No one's coming to take you,' he promised, kissing her forehead and sweeping away a loose lock of blonde hair. He'd protect them with his last breath if he had to.

'What happened?' Gwen asked. 'I haven't been able to find out anything. And where's Jack?'

He let out a long breath, finally letting go of his niece to make eye contact with Gwen. 'I'll fill you in on what I know.'

 

He wasn't much of a tea drinker, but there was something comforting about wrapping his hands around the mug in his sister's pokey kitchen, and the sound of kids happy and screaming around the house that brought it all back to him why they did this job. It was so they could go about their lives in safety, never having to know how close they sometimes came to destruction. After everything from the past few hours, just being here was a comfort. Everything and everyone important to him was right here. All except Jack.

'So, you're saying it was the kids that killed it?' Rhys asked, as everyone else remained quiet throughout his brief explanation.

'The creature's own method of communication was able to be turned back on it somehow. Something in the connection that had remained between it and Clem, only it needed every child across that world to bounce the resonance back to it,' he said.  

'So, they're not coming back?' Rhiannon asked.

'I shouldn't think so. If they know we have a way of defeating them.' He looked towards Gwen. 'What's the government's stance on us?'

She ran a hand through her hair. 'I don't know, though I doubt they'd have allowed me to go if they meant to get rid of us. Not that it stopped them arresting Jack,' she said, eyes drawn to the mug in front of her as she said it.

'Well, you're not going home, safe or not,' Rhiannon said, fixing Ianto with a firm stare. 'You're staying right here with us until this whole mess is sorted.'

'Sharing with David or Johnny?' Ianto replied, unable to resist the quip. The house was hardly big enough for the four of them, though the gesture was sweet.

There was a pause before Gwen spoke. 'I still can't believe Jack would sacrifice his own grandson.'

Part of Ianto had wanted to leave out that bit, but it seemed impossible. Without it, Jack was the hero of the hour, saving the world again. One child versus millions. Even so, it felt like one child too many. He cast another glance at David and his friends, playing a fiercely competitive game of something on their Playstation, seemingly oblivious to the last few hours. He was probably only a year younger than Steven had been. They were the real heroes, even if it was accidental. Seeing a whole house full of them filled him with a pride for humanity. Torchwood had been powerless, but it was the innocent that had saved them all. Without them, they might never have stopped it. He didn't even want to imagine what a world like that might look like.

Jack knew more about technology and science than any of them, even if he often played dumb or feigned ignorance. He'd known exactly what he was doing.

'We need to find him,' Gwen declared. 'He has to know that you're alive.'

'He doesn't want to be found,' Ianto said, having thought long and hard about this on his journey back. It was as much a relief as it was incontrovertible fact. He'd been trying so hard to mend the rift that had opened up between them, made worse by Jack's admission that he had a daughter and grandson. Now after everything Agent Johnson had told him, he didn't think he could even look him in the eye, much as he'd loved him.

'Would you?' she challenged him. 'He's still Torchwood, though. And you being here changes everything.'

'Torchwood's dead, Gwen,' he said with more anger than he intended. The hub was gone, Jack was gone, and right now, he didn't think he'd go back even if it were an option. Their own government had tried to kill them to cover up the truth. He'd be crazy to think the government would pat them on the back for their contribution to events. He'd be happy just to crawl under the covers and stay there for a month, before making a long list of all the things he'd ignored since joining Torchwood, his family top of that list. Add to that the fact that Gwen was pregnant. How could they just carry on with Torchwood as if nothing had happened? Why couldn't the rift be someone else's problem? 'Jack doesn't care about us,' was all he could manage to say.

'Then why was the last thing he told me to come back here and keep your family safe?'

He didn't have an answer for that. Guilt, most likely, he thought, knowing Jack. And to give Gwen something to do. He appreciated it, truly. He'd never really stopped to think about his own family being in danger, perhaps because he'd always been in control, but now everything was spinning out of control. He wished he could go back to how things had been a few days ago, before all of this had happened. He wanted to be able to walk into his flat and find Jack's clothes screwed up in a ball on the floor, toothpaste still clinging to the side of the washbasin, ready to tell him off for those dozen things that drove him mad. They'd started something, and now he just wanted to be in Jack's arms again, though this new Jack made him want to recoil against the thought. They were all expendable to Jack.

'It's not like he's not coming back ever, is it?' Rhys asked, looking at the pair of them for confirmation.

'If he wants to come back, he will,' Ianto said. What happened then, when he discovered the truth, was anyone's guess.

Comments

[bk_forever]

*weeps for Ianto, and for Jack, Steven, and Alice* If thee'd been time to find another way, Jack would have, but te government's kill squad kept them from doing their jobs until they'd left him no other choice. If Jack hadn't used Steven, Dekker would have, and he wouldn't have been gentle and kind about it.

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

You're probably right. Some child somewhere would have had to die to save them. It's just awful that Jack had to be the one to do it. All he wanted was to get them back and keep them safe, and instead they ended up in the one place where they were most in danger. It'll be a long, rocky road to redemption for all of them.