Torchwood: Fanfic: Lost in a good book

[m_findlow]

Title: Lost in a good book
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Torchwood team
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 2,626 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for m_findlow's prompt "any, any, a well thumbed book" at fic_promptly
Summary: Ianto gets lost in a good book

It was late. Jack was wandering through the hub, shutting down this system and that, ready to hit the sack. It seemed he was on his own tonight. Well, at least for the moment. Ianto must have gone out for drinks with the rest of the team, after all. If he was lucky, a slightly drunken and rather more amorous version might find his way back to the hub later. Jack kept his fingers crossed.

He skirted the coffee table, picking up a stray mug before spying the other object on the table. It was a book of some kind. It looked not old exactly, but well thumbed. That's when he realised it wasn't a book, it was a diary. Ianto’s diary.

Jack's body flushed with excitement. Finally! Ianto had managed to keep it hidden for years from Jack's prying eyes, but now, here it was, in all its glory. Jack dropped the mug back on the table and made himself comfortable on the sofa. This was going to be great.

His impatience lead him to the most recent entry. There'd be time to go back and read through the rest later. He wanted to know what was going on in that brain right now.

He'd always admired Ianto's handwriting. It wasn't the long cursive script that Jack's was, bred from a lifetime living through the late nineteenth and earlier twentieth centuries, but more of a neat print, each letter shaped and spaced uniformly as if perfectly typeset, with just a hint of serif and a subtle slant.

He finally found the last entry, dated today, and read it.

It wasn't what he expected.

"Help! Can anyone hear me? I don't know where I am. Please help! Is anyone there?"

The entire last page was covered in repetition after repetition of various permutations of the same thing. Over and over again it ran across the page.

Jack flicked back to read the last few pages before it, trying to search out some context for the disturbing pleas. It didn't make any sense. One minute he was writing about some experiment Owen had left in the kitchen fridge and forgotten about, the next he was listing ideas for Christmas presents for the team. There was nothing that indicated danger or peril, or any sort of mental anguish. That worried Jack the most. Had he done something or said something to upset the young man? Had something happened he didn't know about?

He looked back at the page curiously. For once it was the neatness of it that worried him. The words on the page didn't equate with the unhurried penmanship. If he was in trouble or needed help, why would he write it in his diary?

The last words concerned him most. "Help, please...."

He closed the diary and leaned back against the sofa lost in thought, before panicking and realising he had to find Ianto. Right now.

He grabbed his phone and hit the speed dial.

The number you have called is currently out of service.

He tried Owen, praying he'd answer.

'The world had better be ending, Harkness,' came the reply.

'Owen, is Ianto with you?'

'No. Last time he's getting an invite to drinks. Thought you two must've been going for some shagging world record.'

Jack snapped the phone shut on him. He began a frantic search of the hub and the archives. When that turned up nothing, he sped over to Ianto's flat, rarely used as it was. He wasn't there either. He returned to the hub, checked Ianto's car, still parked there. Nothing.

He took to the streets around the bay precinct. The usual Saturday night diners and revellers filled the place with light and noise and laughter. He brushed past most of them, bumping into a few in his mindless search for his lover amongst the throng. Two hours later, the diners had gone home, the restaurants closed for the night. The revellers had moved into the city centre, where the bars and nightclubs would take them in for the night and spill them back onto the streets in the morning.

Standing at the edge of the plass, overlooking the water, he was now completely alone.

Jack dialled Owen's number again.

'End of the world?' he sounded reasonably sober.

'It is. Ianto's gone.'

At three in the morning they were all sat around the boardroom table. Not because Jack had called them in, but because he'd called them and they'd wanted to be here.

He showed them the CCTV he'd found. Ianto sitting on the sofa, writing in his diary. One second he was there, the next he was gone without a trace.

Tosh was running CCTV searches city wide, whilst Gwen and Owen were coordinating a thorough search of the hub and the archives, in case he was injured or incapacitated somewhere, unable to call for help. Jack had been forced to sit in his office with the cup of tea Tosh had made him, telling him not to worry.

He sat there and stared at the page again. The words came across as frightened, and Jack was frightened. What had happened to his lover? A single tear dropped down his cheek and spattered onto the open page.

He made to wipe it away when the words appeared.

"Please, is anyone there?"

At first he thought he must be hallucinating, the stress having gotten to him. Then more words.

"Help me. I don't know where I am."

Jack jumped back from his desk in alarm.

'Tosh!' he yelled out.

She came running in. 'What is it?'

'Ianto's diary. I think he's in the diary!'

The others had rejoined Jack in his office, looking at the same words Jack had seen being penned earlier.

'How could he be inside the diary?' asked Gwen. 'Besides, we don't even know for sure it's him.'

'It's him, I'm sure.'

'Has he said anything else?'

'Nothing.'

'So how do we find out for sure? How do we communicate?'

Jack held up the diary and reopened it to the last page. 'Ianto! It's me, Jack. Can you hear me? Say something if you can hear me.'

They waited desperately for words to appear on the page. Nothing.

'Ianto, please.' Jack stroked the page lovingly. 'Please, say something.'

Still nothing.

'If he can only communicate by writing,' Tosh began, 'maybe we have to write something back,' she suggested.

Jack grabbed for the nearest pen and began writing underneath the last words.

"Ianto? Are you there?"

The wait for a response felt like an eternity. Just when Jack had almost given up hope, a new word appeared below his own.

"Jack?"

He frantically scribbled back a reply, waves of relief washing over him.

"Yes, it's me! Is that really you? Are you okay?"

"I'm here, but I don't know where here is. What's happening? Where are you?"

"You're inside your diary. We don't know how it happened, but we'll get you out. What's the last thing you remember?"

"I was about to write in my diary. I was waiting for you to come back. But I don't remember actually writing anything."

'Tosh, go back and check our systems for any readings at all at the time Ianto disappeared. Anything, however small. Gwen, Owen, go help her.' Tosh nodded and left, the others following behind.

Jack went back to writing in the diary.

"You didn't answer my other question. Are you okay?"

"I suppose. It's hard to tell."

"What's it like?"

"It's dark. Like a small black room, but without walls or edges. You can't see them, but they're there. And it's cold."

"How did you know I was writing in your diary?"

"The words appeared on the wall in bright white light. It was your handwriting."

"How did you write back?"

"I don't know. I'm just sort of thinking it."

"That explains the page of cries for help."

"Sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen."

"Not your fault. We'll fix this."

Jack paused for a few minutes, trying to figure out what to do next.

"Please don't stop writing! Write something. Anything. Write out the dictionary if you have to. Just please don't leave me here alone in the dark."

"I won't. I promise."

"Xo," came the reply.

Jack penned "xoxo" back.

Jack wandered out of his office, towards Tosh's desk, the diary tucked safely in his arms.

'Anything?'

'There's a slight dimensional warp, right around the time Ianto disappeared. It's tiny. Barely registered on our systems,' Tosh reported.

'What caused it?'

'Not sure. But it must have been fairly small. Most dimensional jumpers are at least the size of a small dog, so I don't see how this could have happened. There's nothing in the hub that could have caused it.'

'Exactly how small do you think?'

Tosh frowned, doing the calculations in her head. 'About the size of a matchbox?' she guessed.

'Or a pen,' Gwen suggested, catching Jack's eye.

Jack quickly wrote the question down.

"What were you writing with before you got teleported?"

"A pen. Duh."

"What pen? There wasn't any pen."

"Of course there was a pen. I wasn't writing in blood!"

Tosh re-ran the CCTV. Ianto definitely had the pen in his hand.

Owen scoured the area around the sofa and the coffee table, until, finally he found it tucked far under the sofa itself.

'Must've rolled away when he dropped it.'

'Dropped is probably not the right term.'

'You know what I mean.'

'Oi, this is my pen!' Owen exclaimed.

They all looked at him oddly. Now wasn't really the time or place for such pettiness.

"What's happening?" Ianto asked, panicking at the silence.

"We found the pen. Just Owen griping that you stole it."

"He stole mine first. And I was only borrowing it."

Tosh examined the pen closer. 'It could be just big enough for a single dimensional teleport.'

'Where did you get this pen, Owen?' Jack demanded.

'How am I supposed to remember?' he huffed. 'No, wait, actually I do remember. It was down at that club. You know, the one with all the alien weirdos.'

'The Star Bar?'

'Yeah that's the one. Cheeky cow behind the bar wanted my number. I gave her back the serviette and kept the pen.'

'Last of the great romantics, you are,' mused Gwen.

'Yeah, well three eyes is a bit much, even for me.'

'Let me run some scans and see if I can figure it out,' Tosh offered.

'Okay. Gwen, Owen, why don't you head back down to the club and see if Owen's date knows anything more.'

"How much longer?" Ianto asked.

"I don't know," Jack replied honestly.

"It's so cold."

"Think of warm beaches."

"Tell me a story?"

"A story?"

"Well, there's nothing else to do here except sit in the cold and the dark. I didn't think the inside of my diary would look like this. It's a little bit scary to be honest."

"Okay. Are you comfy?"

"I'm lying on the nonexistent floor. Does that count?"

"I suppose. What story would you like?"

"A happy one."

"Okay. Once upon a time there was a man called The Doctor. He travelled with his two very attractive companions called Rose Tyler and Jack Harkness. One day they arrived in Cardiff and met up with Rose's old boyfriend Mickey, and they had burgers and milkshakes on the pier, and shared stories of their adventures in time and space. Then they discovered that the mayor of Cardiff was actually a Slitheen..."

Gwen had only been down here twice, and both times she'd stuck close to Jack's side. It was impossible to tell which were human, and which were alien in the main bar area. Only the exclusive area upstairs was reserved for those who couldn't cut the human look. All of them were apparently harmless, else Jack wouldn't have allowed them to live in the city, but it still made her feel a bit on edge.

They made their way upstairs and straight across to the bar. The girl they were after was on shift at the other end of the long counter. With the exception of the third eye, she could have passed for a regular.

'Hello treasure,' she called to Gwen in a churlish London accent, her tall bouffant blonde hair bouncing towards her. 'What can I get you?'

Then she saw Owen sidling up beside her.

'Oh, it's you again. You Torchwood too?' she asked eyeing Gwen more suspiciously.

She leaned over the bar and smiled sweetly at Owen. 'I don't do second chances love. One time offer only.'

'Not here for a shack up, sweetheart. I want to know what you know about that pen you gave me.'

'You mean the one you knicked?'

'It's not a pen though, is it?'

'Don't know what you're talking about,' she replied, idly wiping the counter.

'Please,' asked Gwen, 'we need to know if it's capable of more.'

'Well if some silly bugger was messing around with it, that's not my fault. Shouldn't take what isn't yours.'

'Right, you listen to me,' Owen snarled, 'my mate's currently stuck in his own memoirs because of you. Now tell us how to fix it!'

'Alright, don't get your panties in a twist! Shift's over in ten minutes. Buy me a drink and I'll tell you what you want to know.'

Tosh was interrupted from her train of thought by the alarms of the cog wheel door sliding open, and Owen bounding up the stairs.

'We've got it. We know how to get him back.'

'That's great! I think I've figured out the mechanics, but without the correct combination there's no telling what it might do. And I don't fancy getting myself teleported into the computer by accident.'

'Where's Jack?'

'In his office, keeping Ianto company.'

'Right, let's go get Teaboy out.'

It was a series complicated clicks and taps that reversed the teleport.

Upon review of the earlier CCTV, it appeared that Ianto had been doing something very similar with the pen, clicking the top with his thumb and tapping the base against the worn leather cover of his diary, collecting his thoughts before committing them to paper. He must have inadvertently clicked and tapped the exact sequence that set off the dimensional teleport. The odds of it were astronomical.

When Owen activated the final tap, Ianto was suddenly stood there before them, released from his paper prison.

Jack wrapped him up in a huge hug, and he squeezed back just as tightly.

'You're frozen,' Jack stated.

'Told you it was cold,' he replied, not letting go.

Ianto brought in two cups of steaming hot coffee and set them down on the desk. He picked up his own and cupped it in his hands, glad for the warmth.

'I think I've got writer's cramp,' Jack complained, massaging his wrist dramatically.

'Thank you for writing to me. I think I would have gone mad in there otherwise.'

Jack smiled. 'You're welcome. Anytime.'

'There was one other bonus I only just realised.'

'What's that?' Jack said, whilst peering over the top of his coffee.

'Whilst you were busy writing to me, you didn't have time to read the rest of my diary.'

'That's okay,' he replied, opening his top desk drawer, 'I still have it he-,'

The diary was gone.

'You stole it?'

'Technically it's mine. And technically, you stole it first. It's safe and sound back in its secret hiding place.'

'You know there's an inordinate amount of theft going on around here lately.'

'Stolen hopes of reading my most intimate thoughts?'

'Something like that,' Jack grumbled.

'Well, maybe we can create some other intimate memories instead. And I do need warming up.'

'I like the way you think, Mr Jones.'

Comments

[jo02]

That was quite a scary interpretation of your prompt - very Twilight Zone.

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

It was very scary for poor Ianto. He thought for a while he might have died and would be trapped in the darkness forever. Not to mention Jack who was worried the same thing might have happened.

It just goes to prove you shouldn't ever steal someone else's pen.

[bk_forever]

Poor Ianto, lost in his own diary! Sounds scary as well as cold Tankfully he's safe now, no douby snuggled up with Jack getting warm!