Chapter Text
He squinted through his binoculars towards the two men running down the street below him. He was crouched on the roof of a small apartment complex, successfully avoiding two of the security guards to get up there, ignoring the one he had to knock out by the stairs. A machine next to him beeped. Beep. Beep. Beep. Steady rift activity. The two men below stopped running. The one in the suit reached his hand out to the other, wearing a large blue coat, and pointed at the small device in his hand. He gestured further up the road, and they began running again, both drawing guns from their waistbands. A camera clicked. Click. Click. Taking pictures of them. The man on the roof noted the direction they were running and wrote quickly in his notebook. He grabbed his bag and stuffed his binoculars, along with the small beeping device, inside. He picked up his camera and rushed across the roof and down the stairs, being careful to step over the unconscious security guard.
The man emerged onto the street; it was a cool night in Cardiff, the air rustling the leaves on a nearby tree. The man looked up and down the street, checking the coast was clear, then he began following the two men. He eventually reached the opening to an alleyway, and he heard voices as he approached. Slowing, he readied his camera and peaked it around the corner. The two men were there, standing over a body and arguing quietly. “I don’t want to lift it, Jack, this is a new suit” “Well, you’re going to have to help me, this weevil is a fully matured male, and it weighs more than I can carry alone.” “Well whose fault is that? If you tried to go to the gym more oft-”
Click. Click. Click. The camera snapped picture after picture of the two men as they gently lifted the body and began waddling towards the alleyway entrance. The man lowered his camera and smiled to himself, then backed away from the alley, and began to run the other way. He ran past a large black SUV, and made sure to get a couple of pictures of that too. He ran all the way back to an empty warehouse just outside of Cardiff town centre. He let himself in through a side door and whistled gleefully as he came across his humble sleeping arrangements. He first reached for his computer, set up on a small table shoved into a corner. He inserted the SD card from the camera and watched as the images began to upload. He smiled and moved towards the mattress pressed up against the dirty wall. He landed heavily onto it, and smiled up at the pictures in front of him, plastered onto the wall. Hundreds of pictures of the two men, as well as two women and another man who always wore a leather jacket. Different coloured string joined the pictures to different locations on an enlarged map of Cardiff, pins marked the spots the man had seen all of them. And right at the centre of all of it, was a picture of the Torchwood One tower at Canary Wharf, burnt and destroyed, with red letters scratched underneath: Revenge.
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Jack and Ianto dragged the weevil back towards the SUV; they moved slowly in almost silence, aside from Jack grumbling about why they didn’t park the car any closer. Ianto rolled his eyes and tried in vain to keep as much of the weevil dirt off of his new suit. When they reached the car, they unceremoniously dumped their newest resident into the boot, and brushed their hands off. Jack grinned.
“Another successful mission, ay tiger?” Jack’s smile could light up a whole room, and bring warmth to any chilly Cardiff night, but Ianto wasn’t having it. He shook his head and walked round to the driver’s side of the car.
“It was hardly a mission, Jack. We do weevil pick-ups every other day.” Ianto slammed the car door and started the engine. Jack climbed in the passenger side and frowned at Ianto.
“Well, excuse me for trying to bring a bit of wonder and excitement to this Thursday evening regularity. Just trying to keep the flame alight.” Jack settled back into his seat and gave Ianto a side look that he hoped told Ianto he was messing about and to please not yell at him. Ianto rolled his eyes fondly and started the car.
“If there’s one thing I’m confident you don’t need to worry about, Jack, it’s us managing to keep the ‘flame’ alight.” He smiled at Jack, who was grinning ear to ear. They drove back to the hub in comfortable silence, with only minimal groping from Jack, then went straight to bed after settling Janet’s new roommate, and woke up to three separate alarms blaring loudly from the main hub above them.
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Toshiko jumped awake. She’d barely slept, the August heat heavy in her bedroom, keeping her from the deep sleep she desperately needed. It’d been a hell of a few months. Non-stop really. So of course, the first night she’d made it back to her bed before midnight turned out to be the hottest, sweatiest and most unbearable night Cardiff had seen all summer. Jack had let them leave early after she’d informed him that her rift activity monitor was predicting a night of absolutely nothing. They’d all jumped at the chance of an early night for each of them to do whatever they wanted. Owen had b-lined straight for the pub, pausing briefly to be blown off by Ianto who apparently had other plans. Gwen had rung Rhys and disappeared with her phone pressed between her ear and her shoulder, grinning like crazy. Tosh had headed home herself after waving to Jack and Ianto, who were sharing a drink in Jack’s office. She called the pizza place from her car, planning a perfect evening of good food, a good film and a bottle of bloody good wine. That explained the slight headache as she rubbed her eyes awake.
Her alarm was going off. No… she blinked and rolled over in bed. It wasn’t her alarm. It was her PDA. She reached over to her bedside table and grasped for the device, always within arm’s reach. Tosh rubbed the sleep from her eyes as she blearily looked over the readings. Then she jumped up. Almost as soon as she had registered what the readings were, her phone started ringing. She answered it immediately.
“Toshiko?”
“Jack.”
“Have you seen?” Jack sounded panicked, his voice flat. He was clearly trying to stay calm. Tosh nodded, even though she knew Jack couldn’t see her.
“Just. I’ll be in now, give me 10 minutes.”
“Make it 5.” Jack hung up. Tosh flung the duvet off her body and raced to her wardrobe. No time for a shower. No time for anything except getting to the hub as fast as she possibly could.
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Owen stared at his ceiling. He was looking at the way the tiles slotted together. The shapes they made. The endless squares, rectangles, and if he tilted his head sideways, diamonds, that he could see. Sleep was evading him again, there had been plenty of nights recently spent memorising the patterns of the ceiling above him. It didn’t help that is was unbearably hot, even the thin sheet covering him from the waist down felt clingy and warm. He could hear the girl breathing next to him. Deep breaths. Almost like she was reliving last night in her mind. Owen thought back to last night himself. He’d left work early, the boss had predicted a quiet night, so he’d staggered across the way to the Dockside and picked up the first pretty thing he could find. Ianto had turned down his offer to go on the pull together, it didn’t take a genius to see why. Jack was clearly interested, Owen wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out they were shagging again.
He’d brought the girl back to his flat, and the rest was a bit of a blur. He knew they’d shagged, but he’d bought her a lot of drinks before they’d made it back to his, and by extension, he’d got absolutely battered himself. The girl moaned in her sleep and Owen half grinned over at her. She was a hell of a bag. He only felt a little bad he’d slept with her. He’d promised himself he’d stop doing this; stop the one-night stands and the excessive drinking and the hurting everyone around him. Oh well. Relapses were natural. Rome wasn’t built in a day, after all. And she was quite the girl to break his promise to himself over.
His phone ringing made him jump. The girl rolled over and blinked her eyes hazily up at him. Owen groaned and reached to the bedside table for his phone. Jack. Of course. Owen checked the time: 6am. He wasn’t late, not by any means. So why the hell was Jack ringing so early. He answered.
“What the hell Harkness? This better be good.” Owen listened to Jack on the other end of the phone, and sat up higher in bed. “Is Ianto okay?” Owen closed his eyes and scrubbed his free hand down his face. The girl was well and truly awake now, and hanging off his arm, peppering kisses up his neck. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Owen hung up the phone and chucked it on the side. He stood up quickly, shaking the girl off, and started looking for his clothes.
“You have to go. I’m sorry.” The girl looked upset and confused.
“Why? Come back to bed…” She stretched her body across his mattress. The sheet slipped, revealing the supple body underneath. Owen shook his head and hopped into his jeans.
“I can’t. And you can’t stay. I’ve got to go into work, there’s an emergency.”
“But it’s so early…” Her voice was smooth like sweet cream. But Owen felt himself getting angry. He stormed towards her, and she shot up in bed, scared of how serious he suddenly was.
“Get. Out.” Owen spat through gritted teeth. The girl wasted no time. She stood quickly, gathered her clothes and ran off to the bathroom to get dressed. She was out the front door before Owen had even found his wallet and keys. He grabbed his gun, stuffed it into his waistband, and ran out the door not far behind her.
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Gwen was in a deep sleep. Last night was the best she’d had in months. Jack had let them all leave early after a particularly gruelling past few weeks, and she and Rhys had had the most wonderful night. They’d gone to a gorgeous restaurant. Gwen had even worn heals, a true testament to how momentous the evening was. She never wore heals anymore, her feet always too tired from days chasing aliens here there and everywhere. They’d wined and dined, and laughed and kissed pressed up against the wall of a building on the walk home. And they’d stumbled into bed and had the most wonderful night Gwen could remember. She’d fallen asleep relaxed and in a state of post-coital euphoria you only really read about in trashy romance novels.
She was roused from her bone deep sleep by Rhys. He was nudging her arm and grumbling about something. Gwen blinked her eyes open. And was greeted with an image of Rhys’s bare leg. She sat up and realised she was the wrong way up on the bed. She smiled dopily, seeing now more than just Rhys’s bare leg. The duvet was flung halfway across the room, the combination of sex and the sweltering summer heat enough to make anyone despise the thought of a thick duvet over them. She prodded Rhys on the bum and laughed when he grumbled again. Her phone started to ring. She picked it up and stared at the screen. Shit. 4 missed calls from Jack and another incoming. She answered the call, already climbing out of bed and starting to look for her pants.
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Ianto was sat on the tattered sofa under the Torchwood sign, biting his thumbnail and bouncing his leg. Up and down. Up and down. The movement almost blurring his knee. The room felt as if it was moving in slow motion, yet all too quickly at the same time. Jack was in his office, on the phone to someone. UNIT probably. Tosh was at her computer, typing furiously. Ianto watched her with glassy eyes, barely seeing her. He could see Owen across the hub, emptying the armoury of everything they might need and gearing himself up. The too bright lights above the cog door lit up and it began to open, Gwen rushed in. She threw her coat on the sofa next to Ianto without even looking at him and stormed into Jack’s office.
The lights. The alarm. The clunk clunk as Owen heavily landed guns onto a trolley cart. Tosh’s erratic typing and the voices from Jack’s office. It was all too much. Ianto clamped his hands over his ears and closed his eyes tightly. He could feel his heart rate increasing and his breathing speeding up. Somewhere in the back corner of his mind, he registered Toshiko shouting for help, and the clattering of footsteps nearby. He felt rough hands on his arms and a soothing voice next to his hear. He increased the pressure on his ears, desperate to block out all the sounds he could near. Not only in the hub, but the ones in his head too. The heavy stomp of incoming footsteps, the nearby explosions, the screams… god, the screams…
Ianto felt a small prick in his thigh and opened his eyes, gasping. Jack and Owen were there, the latter holding a small needle and looking worried. Ianto looked over to Jack and grasped at his shirt. Jack was right there. Ianto wasn’t where he thought he was. He was safe. For now.
“Jack, we’ve got to go.” Jack looked over at Owen, and nodded grimly. Owen called Gwen over and started gearing her up: bullet proof vest with electricity resistant shoulder pads, 2 guns and a specialty comm unit. Jack smoothed a hand down Ianto’s cheek, and Ianto felt the pull of a deep sleep. He tried to speak, to object. To tell Jack that he was okay and that he could do the mission. But it was too late, the sedative was taking over. Ianto vaguely heard Owen telling Tosh to look after him, and to notify them if anything happened. They would be back soon, and hopefully having put a stop to this before it ever has the chance to begin. The last thing Ianto saw on the screen before forced sleep took him was the message they’d picked up that morning, plastered across all of their screens. The message that had caused Torchwood to explode with activity, the message that had terrified its members. The message that brought back such terrible memories of two different nights in years too recent. A dangerous message accompanied with rift activity co-ordinates in the middle of Cardiff city centre. A message that simply read: Delete.