Torchwood: Fanfic: Parted

[m_findlow]

Title: Parted
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,051 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for m_findlow's prompt "Any, any, stranded on opposite sides of the universe" at fic_promptly
Summary: A trip to the other side of the universe ends in disaster.

Jack's heart dropped into his stomach as he watched the teleport's lights first flash a brilliant, bright white, before the whole thing fizzled and crackled, going dark. The whole space port's lights flickered once, then twice, before coming back to life, sending a wave of mutterings through its many travellers. Jack was less concerned about the lights than he was the teleport - the one his husband had just stepped through.

'What happened?' he demanded.

Everyone around the space port began rushing around, a mixture of panic and perplexment. For Jack, panic was definitely the overriding emotion. Just a few moments ago, he and Ianto had been on their way to the Nafrail Galaxy. It was more than a year to fly there, even with a ship flying the whole way in hyperspace mode, so they'd opted to use the transmat network to get there instead. It was exciting, even for Jack. This was the biggest network of transmat ports anywhere in the known universe. Four million individual transmat portals strategically placed to send you from one end of the universe to the other in just a few seconds. A marvel of fifty-fourth century technology. There really wasn't anywhere you couldn't go these days, even the most remote places in the universe.

At least it had been a marvel. Ianto had stepped through just a split second before the whole thing had gone haywire. Jack could tell from the slightly smoking remnants of the transmat portal in front of him that something had gone terribly wrong.

He accosted a Marvon, tall and lithe, like a grasshopper, who looked like he knew what he was doing, going about a lot more patiently than most. He didn't have time for their usual polite introductions and all the blessing protocols that usually entailed in striking up a conversation with one. He just needed information.

'What happened? Is it working?'

'Greetings to you, human,' the Marvon said, bowing. 'I am afraid not. Some terrible power surge has broken several of the links between portals.'

'What about travellers? There were people using it when it choked.'

'Their fate is... uncertain. Whether the matter stream was able to reconstitute before the failure, none can say.'

Jack choked out a sob. Ianto couldn't die, but what would happen if his atoms were scattered all across space? Don't think about that, Jack. He made it. You know he did. He just had to. 'When will you know? When will it be fixed?'

'Oh. Well, that is difficult to say. There appears to be much damage. It could take a year to assess the damage and repair the broken modules. Four million of them that will need to be checked in turn.' The Marvon tutted. 'No travel to that part of the universe will be problematic. There's no way of communicating with them to find out whether they know what went wrong.'

A year? Sweet goddesses! Jack couldn't wait that long. He had to find out if Ianto was okay. He ran all the way to their ship, just as fast as he could. A whole year at hyperspace speed, and that was without stopping. But if he had to fly all the way there and stop at every planet along the way, then that's what he'd do. He'd never stop until he found Ianto.

There was a moment of confusion as Ianto came to, finding himself sprawled on the ground. He didn't recall a transmat journey ever being so rough, let alone enough to have knocked him out cold on arrival. As he pushed himself up off the ground and looked around, seeing tendrils of black smoke issuing from the portal he'd just stepped though, he got a bad feeling. He looked around. Where was Jack? Wasn't he just behind Ianto? As he spotted the curious and worried faces of aliens standing around him, he knew something bad had happened.

The portal looked very broken from what he could tell. What did that mean? Had Jack been travelling through it before Ianto had been ejected out of it? Ianto pulled out his phone and dialed Jack. It was a long shot, he knew. His phone was connected to Jack's vortex manipulator, so that they would be able to get in touch with one another anywhere, but he was a very long way away. Even Jack's vortex manipulator might not be strong enough to reach this far across time and space. He tried several times to get a call to connect, but there was nothing.

An alien approached him and garbled something at him, but he had no idea what it was, apart from the tone that suggested concern, and that he'd been lucky.

'Do you speak Galactic Standard?' he asked. The alien frowned at him and said something else unintelligible.

He pushed past them, looking around at the other beings gathering to rubberneck the situation. 'Hello? Does anyone here speak Standard? Can you tell me what just happened?'

He was met with blank stares. Apparently no one here understood him.

He knew coming here was removing himself from the better part of the known universe. Jack said he'd been here once or twice and had the local lingo down pat. Within twenty minutes however, Ianto had very quickly established that no one here understood him, nor he them.

More concerning though was the transmat portal. How did he get back home, assuming Jack was still waiting for him on the other side? How long until it was up and running again? He pointed uselessly at it as some mech tinkered at the edges, before setting his tools back in his bag. The alien mech just shook his head at Ianto. He didn't need to speak the local language to know it wasn't good news. For now he was stranded, far from home and without a shred of language. He only prayed his credits were good this far from home, or he was about to add homeless and hungry to his ever growing list of problems.

Jack would be trying to find a way to get to him, though. He knew that much. He wasn't sure yet what he could do to aid in that attempt, but he knew Jack wouldn't ever give up, so neither would he.