Work Text:
The skies above Cardiff could best be described as ‘brooding’. Heavy, grey clouds obscured every inch of the blue, and made the August day almost as dark as mid-December. To Jack Harkness, as he observed the clouds from the roof of the Millennium Centre, there was something which didn’t quite sit right about them. He’d been witness to over a hundred years of skies above Cardiff, but none had given him a sense of unease like this one did. The clouds didn’t seem to be moving much; as though they were somehow ‘parked’ above the city.
“You planning on being up here much longer?” came the soft, deep voice of Ianto Jones, from behind the captain.
Jack didn’t turn around, but allowed the corners of his mouth to turn up slightly as the Welshman wrapped his arms around Jack’s waist, and pressed a kiss to the back of his neck.
“You’re supposed to be calling the PM in twenty minutes,” he reminded him.
Ordinarily, Ianto would have simply called Jack on the comms, but the temptation of fresh air and a moment of alone time with his lover, was too much to resist. Jack didn’t move, other than to lean back slightly into the other man’s embrace.
“The clouds are wrong?” he murmured, continuing to observe the sky.
Ianto looked up. While the cloud cover was definitely dark and ominous, to him it was pretty much a standard, Welsh, pre-storm summer sky.
“What makes you say that?” he asked.
Ianto had known Jack long enough to learn to trust his instincts. While he himself could see nothing wrong, he knew from experience not to outrightly dismiss what the older man was picking up. The captain often sensed things that the others didn’t, and Ianto chalked it up to the extra three thousand years of human evolution.
“Not sure,” Jack answered, finally turning around in Ianto’s arms.
He mirrored him by wrapping his arms around him, and they enjoyed a slow, but passionate kiss. Jack then broke away, far too soon for Ianto’s liking, and leaving the younger man a little breathless.
“I’ll get Tosh to run some scans,” Jack said, as he strode off towards the exit.
Ianto watched him go, with a slightly soppy smile on his lips, and a feeling of light-headedness. How was it that this absolutely gorgeous man could affect him like that with just a kiss? Not all that long ago, Ianto wouldn’t even have considered kissing a man. As far as he was concerned, he was only attracted to women. Of course, he still wasn’t attracted to men. Just this one, particular man. A man who could send his senses into freefall with a mere twitch of a flirty eyebrow.
He knew what it was, of course, and Jack’s powerful pheromones were only partially to blame. He’d fallen completely for the captain; not that he would ever say that out loud. Every touch, from a light caress, to full blown sex, always made Ianto feel hot and flustered, cherished and lov…. Realising that he was acting like a lovesick teenager, he shook himself and followed Jack down from the roof.
*
“Toshiko!” Jack called, as he and Ianto came into the main Hub. “Are you busy?”
He felt Ianto touch his shoulders as an indication to take his coat off. He shrugged off the heavy wool, and smiled at the Welshman as he passed by to take the coat to the office. Ianto smile warmly in return.
“Nothing I can’t put off,” Tosh replied, taking her glasses off. “What do you need?”
“This may sound weird…”
“We’re Torchwood,” Owen interrupted, from his workstation. “Everything’s bloody weird.”
“As I was saying,” Jack continued. “There’s something not right about the clouds. Could you run every kind of scan you can come up with?”
“I thought that when I was coming in this morning,” Gwen chimed it, as Tosh put her glasses back and got to work. “They somehow looked… what’s a good word… malevolent.”
Owen scoffed.
“Come off it!” he exclaimed, spinning his chair to face everyone. “How can a cloud be malevolent?”
“You’ve literally just said that everything here is weird?” the ex-police officer countered, huffily. “We’ve seen stranger stuff.”
“We’ll find out one way or the other when Tosh finishes her scans,” Jack cut them off, before they could get into one of their regular battles.
“Do you need me for anything?” asked Ianto smoothly, re-emerging from the office.
“Well…,” Jack began, raising an eyebrow.
“Relating to work!” The Welshman quickly interrupted, internally admonishing himself for giving Jack the opportunity for innuendo. Although, when it came to Jack, he could make the most innocent of words sound like an innuendo. Just the way he said ‘hello’ could be tantamount to an invitation for adult fun times.
“In that case, no,” Jack answered with a pout. “What do you have planned?”
“Taking your shirts to the dry cleaners, then to Asda to replenish the emergency microwave meals, and the snack cupboard.”
“Don’t forget the chocolate hobnobs.”
Ianto reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his shopping list. He held it up for Jack to see. The top item, written in capitals, and bigger than anything else, were the words ‘CHOCOLATE HOBNOBS’.
He leaned in so that his mouth was as close as he could get to Jack’s ear, so no-one else could hear.
“Anything for you,” he whispered, causing a massive grin to appear on Jack’s face.
*
“Jack, I’ve got something!” Tosh called across to Jack, who was in his office, failing to tackle his paperwork.
The captain was instantly out of his chair, and he bounded across to her workstation. It had only been forty-five minutes since the technician had begun her scans, and he hadn’t been expecting anything from her yet.
“Was I right?” he asked, expectantly.
“Every scan I’ve run has returned the same result,” Toshiko told him, indicating several graphs on different screens. “The clouds are 99.6 percent made up of the usual constituent parts we would generally expect to find.”
“Christ Tosh!” Owen exclaimed. “Did you really need that many words for ‘normal cloud’?”
Ignoring Owen, she enlarged one set of the results so Jack could see them for himself.
“I don’t recognise remaining 0.4 percent?” he said, leaning in to peer more closely. “Any ideas?
“That, I can’t answer,” she replied. “It appears to be something unknown on Earth.”
Jack rubbed his face as he dredged through his memories, trying to work out if he’d ever come across something similar. Nothing came to him.
“Okay,” he said. “Keep digging.”
“What worries me,” Tosh continued. “Is that it starting raining fifteen minutes ago. If the unknown elements are harmful, we could have a serious problem on our hands.”
Reaching into his pocket, Jack took out his phone and dialled Ianto. His main motivation was to warn him that there could be a problem with the rain, but he also wanted to get him back to the Hub as quickly as possible. It hurt Jack that he had to send his lover into danger so often, when all he wanted to do was protect him, and shield him from the horrors of the world. Not that Ianto would ever allow that. The Welshman had been given opportunities to step away from Torchwood, but he took his duty to the institute seriously.
“Damn!” Jack cursed, as the call failed to connect for the third time. “Is the rain blocking mobile signals, Tosh?”
Toshiko tapped a few keys and quickly found the answer to Jack’s question.
“It isn’t the rain,” she told him. “There’s currently a massive surge in mobile phone usage.”
*
Ianto heaved a frustrated sigh as he paused on the threshold of the supermarket upon seeing the douwnpour. The last thing he needed, after the nightmare inside the shop, was a rain storm. For some reason, half the shoppers were in a foul temper, and taking it out on anyone and everyone around them. Ianto had almost caught a stray fist when two women reached for the same product and each took exception to the other being in her space.
He looked up at the falling rain and cursed his usual decision to park at the far end of the car park. It was a tiny thing, but the brief time it took him to walk the length of the car park, was a little more time above ground. As he hurried to his car, two men emerged from between two cars, in the throes of a vicious fist fight. Ianto tried to step aside, but they were still able to barrel into him, and he was knocked from his feet.
“Watch it!” he yelled.
The two ignored him, having not even noticed him, as their fight continued to propel them across the car park. Ianto got to his feet, angrily straightened his clothing, and stalked towards his car. Reaching the vehicle, he carelessly threw his bags in the boot, before getting into the driver’s seat and slamming the door. He sighed again, knowing that he would have to clean the seat when he had the chance.
“Not that I’ll get the bloody chance,” he muttered angrily to himself. “God forbid anyone else pull their weight around place.”
Ianto’s suit was still dripping as he squelched into the Hub. Resolutely ignoring everyone, he stomped over to the kitchenette and dumped his bags, not caring about the fate of Jack’s Chocolate Hob Nobs. All he wanted to do was get dried off, and into fresh clothes.
“You got caught in the rain!” Jack exclaimed, with a slightly panicked tone.
“Actually, I fancied a swim,” the Welshman responded, with bitter sarcasm. “So dived into the bay.”
“There’s no need for that tone,” Jack warned. He usually admired Ianto’s dry sarcasm, but there wasn’t usually a harsh edge to it. That was more Owen’s style.
“Then don’t state the bloody obvious!” Ianto snapped back.
“It looks like there is something unknown to Earth in the clouds,” the older man continued, trying not to rise to Ianto’s attitude. “Remember, I said this morning that they looked strange.”
“You’re always saying shit like that,” Ianto snarked, causing Tosh to gasp at his unusual use of a swearword. “Not every weird thing is alien. You’re being paranoid. It’s just bloody rain!”
Not wishing to get tangled up in Jack’s histrionics, Ianto turned away from him, and resumed his stalk to the locker room. As Ianto passed by, Jack took hold of his arm to stop him. It briefly occurred to him that he probably shouldn’t touch Ianto’s wet attire, but it was too late to worry about that now.
“I want you to hand your clothes over to test the water,” he told the younger man. “Then Owen is going to check you over.”
“Like fuck he is!” Ianto snarled, pushing Jack away. “And get your hand off me!”
“Hey! I could make it an order.”
Without warning, Ianto swung a fist, which connected painfully with Jack’s jaw. The surprise of it meant the captain had no time to brace himself, and he fell heavily to the floor. Before Jack could even think of recovering himself, Ianto straddled him on his knees, and began to rain more punches down on him.
“Shit!” exclaimed Owen, jumping up from his chair.
He sprinted over to the pair and tried to pull Ianto away, only for the Welshman to viciously push him away. Not wishing to risk any damage to his dead body, Owen darted off to autopsy to grab a sedative. When he returned, Jack and Ianto were still grappling on the floor, with the older man desperately trying to defend himself without retaliating to the younger man’s blows.
“Hold him still!” the medic yelled.
Jack was about to ask what Owen was expecting him to do when he caught sight of the syringe. Drawing on all of his strength, Jack rolled Ianto onto his back, sat on him, and held him long enough for Owen to plunge the needle into Ianto’s thigh. Thankfully, the sedative worked quickly, and he slumped into unconsciousness.
“What the fuck was that?!” Owen demanded.
“I don’t know, but it’s probably fair to say the rain has something to do with it,” Jack replied, rubbing the bruises on his face, that would soon disappear. He clambered to his feet, picked Ianto up, and carried him to the autopsy bay.
“What if the water affects you or Owen?” Gwen squawked, causing both men to quizzically look her way.
“I’m dead, Gwen,” Owen reminded her. “I doubt I have to worry?”
“If it affects me, we’ll cross that bridge then,” Jack replied. “If necessary, someone could shoot…”
“Nope” Owen cut in. “If it comes to that, you do it yourself. Ianto will make our existences a misery if any of us do it. Hurry up and get him down stairs.”
Gwen’s mobile phone rang in her pocket as she followed the others to autopsy.
“Hello… hello… I can barely hear you, the signal is really bad. Andy, is that you? Yeah… oh… No, we don’t know… Andy?... I’m losing you… Andy?”
She cut the call when she could no longer make out what Andy was saying.
“It seems this issue goes way beyond Ianto,” she told the others. “The police switchboards are jammed with reports of people attacking others, and the hospitals are becoming overrun with the injured.”
“Tosh, continue analysing the rain,” Jack instructed. “See if this goes farther than Cardiff. Gwen, start trawling the digital archives for anything similar.”
“When I’m ready, I’m going to be pulling the screen across,” Owen told them, as he opened a cupboard and pulled out a set of medical restraints. “No-one outside of this room is to open it again. Without express permission from me.”
“Are those necessary?” she asked with shock, indicating the restraints.
“I only gave him enough to knock him out for a few minutes,” Owen explained tersely, wondering if Gwen had somehow forgotten what had just happened. “Now, I need you to bring some towels. As many as you can carry, as quickly as you can.”
The Welshwoman opened her mouth to ask more questions, but snapped it shut again when Jack yelled at her to move.
As soon as the towels arrived, Owen pulled the screen across the entryway.
“We need to completely strip Ianto and ourselves,” he told his boss. “All our clothes will go in a biohazard bag, along with the towels as soon as we are all completely dry. There’s fresh scrubs and disposable shoes in that cupboard over there, and latex gloves on top of it.”
They worked in silence, and it only took a few minutes to get themselves and Ianto changed. It was a testament to the captain’s worry, that he didn’t even make a half-hearted comment about them all being momentarily naked. After making sure the floor was also dry, Jack placed the biohazard bag in a containment box. He then helped Owen fasten Ianto’s wrists and ankles to the table. He hated having to do it but, until they could be sure the Welshman would hurt anyone, or himself, it was a necessary precaution.
Owen began a raft of scans and blood tests, with Jack acting as lab assistant. The captain didn’t possess the skills of the medic, but he could use the equipment well enough. Owen directed him to look for the same unknown elements as Tosh had found in the clouds.
Ianto came to a few minutes later, and it became immediately obvious that nothing had improved with him.
“Why the fuck am I tied down!” he yelled, pulling against the restraints, and becoming more irate when they wouldn’t budge.
“Ianto, mate, you need to calm down,” said Owen, laying a placating hand on the Welshman’s shoulder.
“Don’t touch me!” the younger screamed, as he thrashed in his bonds.
Jack did everything in his power to prevent his feelings from showing in his expression. He hurt him to see Ianto like this. The younger man was usually so calm and steady, and the only time Jack really heard him swear was when he was watching the rugby. The captain found it difficult to admit, even to himself, that Ianto had firmly entrenched himself in his heart, so to see him in such distress was devastating.
“Jack.”
Toshiko’s voice was like a lifebelt for Jack; pulling him from the storm that was an angry Ianto.
“What have you got?” he asked, opening the screen of autopsy bay, but not stepping out.
“The rain is covering a three-mile radius,” the technician told him. “The weird part is that it’s a perfect circle.”
“That would suggest it is centred around something,” Jack replied.
“My thought’s exactly,” Tosh agreed. “I checked the overnight rift logs, and there was a blip at 3:30 this morning, exactly where the centre of the rain is. It was too small to trigger an alert.”
“Where?”
“Whatever came through is either on, or under, the Penarth Pier.”
Jack frowned, and hoped that it was on the pier. He would prefer not to go diving.
“I’ve got something too,” Gwen called over to them.
“Something useful?” Jack replied, still not moving from the entrance to the autopsy bay.
Behind him, Ianto was grunting with the effort of trying to free himself from the restraints, and swearing like a sailor.
“There was a very similar event in May 1917,” Gwen told them. “The information I’ve found says Torchwood’s medical officer was working on a solution, but these digital files are incomplete.”
“I would guess the rest haven’t been digitised yet,” Toshiko postulated.
“Okay,” said Jack. “We now have two priorities. We need to find the object causing this, and someone needs to search the undigitised files.”
“Stay out of my archives!” Ianto yelled aggressively.
The older man sighed. Though, he had to admit, there was something quite reassuring about Ianto still being precious about the archives. That didn’t mean Jack was going to let him get away with it. He went back down into the autopsy bay and stood, with his arms folded, at the foot of the table.
“Ianto,” he said, with his captain’s tone. “The solution to making you well again could be down there.”
“There’s fuck-all wrong with me,” the Welshman snarled. “And I’ve worked too hard on those archives to let people run rampant among them.”
Owen stepped up to the table with a syringe in his hand, and plunged the contents into Ianto’s arm. The restrained man fought against the sedative which ran through his system and against the straps holding him, but quickly lost consciousness.
“Sorry Jack,” he said. “But his heart-rate and blood pressure were spiking, and I don’t want to risk a stroke.”
Uncrossing his arms, Jack stepped around the table. He reached out a hand and brushed Ianto’s damp hair away from his forehead.
“I’ll find the answer, cariad,” he whispered. “I promise.”
Owen watched on in silence. Under normal circumstances he would have a snarky comment to hand whenever Jack showed any affection towards his lover. However, in situations like this, the medic could never bring himself to say anything. For all Jack’s cocky flirtations, Owen fully recognised the true depths of the feelings between the two men.
“Gwen and I can go and search for the object,” Toshiko called down.
She could clearly see that Jack was conflicted. He needed to resolve the rain situation, but she could tell he didn’t want to stray far from Ianto’s side.
“Absolutely!” Gwen concurred. “Out of all of us, you’re the one Ianto probably trusts the most with his domain.”
Jack snorted derisively, but had to agree.
“Wear hazmat suits,” he instructed. “And try to neutralise it before bringing it in.”
“How are you going to know where to look?” asked Owen, after Jack told him he was heading to the archives.
“Ianto has already pre-sorted all the old, undigitised files chronologically,” Jack told him. “And we have a month and date. That should quicken things immensely.”
*
It thankfully only took half an hour for Jack found what he was looking for.
“Lactose!” he announced, as he returned to the autopsy bay with the mission file in hand.
He handed the file to Owen, and went back to Ianto’s side. Ianto was beginning to regain consciousness again, and Jack tried to forestall any outbursts by gently stroking Ianto’s hair. It didn’t work, and the Welshman was soon back to screaming and fighting.
Owen quickly scanned the relevant information in the file, and learned that the solution had been a matter of serendipity. A Torchwood operative who had been affected slaked his thirst, caused by his angry shouting, with the first thing that came to hand. It had happed to be a bottle of milk. The operative was back to his usual self in a matter of minutes. Owen darted off to the Hub’s kitchenette and grabbed a carton of milk from the fridge.
“Won’t it need to be whole-fat,” Jack asked upon seeing Owen with a carton of semi-skimmed milk.
“There’s no discernible difference in lactose levels between them,” the medic informed him. “Raise his head for me.”
“You can fuck off with that!” Ianto yelled. “I’m not drinking it.”
“Listen you stupid twat,” growled Owen. “If you want to be released from those restraints, you have to drink this.”
Ianto clamped his mouth shut, and turned his head away.
“Either you drink it voluntarily, or I’ll fit a feeding tube,” the medic cautioned. “And I won’t be bloody gentle about it.”
Jack shot Owen a warning look; not wanting his lover to suffer more than he already was. He then turned back to the younger man.
“Please, Ianto,” he begged. “Do it for me.”
Ianto defiantly glared at Jack, but then looked away.
“You gonna drink it?” Owen asked.
The Welshman glanced back to Jack then nodded his head.
*
It took seven minutes and eighteen seconds before a huge change came over Ianto; not that Jack was clock watching. He suddenly stopped fighting against the restraints and sagged. The expression of rage on his face became one of confusion.
“Ianto?” said Jack, softly.
The Welshman turned to face at Jack, and his heart almost broke at his look of fear and concern.
“Jack? Are you okay?”
“I should be asking you that,” the older man replied, with a slight chuckle. “You’ve had quite the ordeal.”
Ianto finally took full stock of his situation. Regaining consciousness on the autopsy table, with no knowledge of why, was nothing new. The restraints were new addition.
“Why am I tied down?” he asked, much more calmly than he had earlier.
“For everyone’s bloody safety,” Owen cut in. “If Jack wasn’t such a quick healer, he’d be sporting a darkening bruise from your right hook.”
“Oh my God!”
“You weren’t yourself,” Jack soothed, as he released the restraints. He then pulled Ianto into a tight hug
*
Ianto disappeared shortly after being given a clean bill of health by Owen. This came as no surprise to Jack. Ianto was never keen on being the centre of attention at the best of times and, even though he had no memory of the day’s events, the thought of acting so far out of character distressed him. Just being given a cursory report of his actions was enough to send him running for sanctuary. The worst part for him was that he had attacked Jack. The man who had saved him in more ways than one.
Jack found Ianto in his customary bolt-hole, deep in the un-sorted item storage area. It was a place in which he could push aside whatever was upsetting him, and allow his professional side to take control for a while.
“Toshiko and Gwen found the device that caused the problems,” he said, leaning against the rack of shelving that Ianto was sorting through. “Tosh was able to switch it off, and there’s a beautiful blue sky out there now.”
“Do you need me to put out a plausible reason?”
Ianto didn’t look at Jack as he spoke. Another indication to Jack that he was feeling vulnerable.
“It’s sorted,” the captain replied. “Tosh was seeded a story about a chemical leak contaminating the water supply. She’s also published a bulletin, purportedly from the NHS, telling everyone to boil their water before drinking it, and that anyone affected should drink a glass of milk.”
The Welshman nodded in acknowledgement of a good plan, but still refused to look round. Jack stepped over to him, and physically turned him to face his direction. Ianto dropped his head, so Jack placed a finger under his chin and gently raised it. Finally, the younger man looked his lover in the eye, and Jack could have cried at the anguish he saw.
“You aren’t to blame for anything that happened today,” he explained.
Into pulled away from him and went back to sorting through the shelves. Jack watched him for a minute, trying to get a handle on the situation.
“What’s really going on?” he asked.
Somehow, Ianto’s shoulders managed to slump even more, and he was a picture of wretchedness. Lifting his head, he took a deep breath, and pulled himself up straight. He turned to the other man.
“I love you, Jack.”
The captain opened his mouth to say some something but, realising he had no words for once, he shut it. He once again closed the distance between them and pulled Ianto into a hug. He rubbed the younger man’s back in comfort as he broke down in tears.
“Loving me can’t be that bad, surely,” he said, trying to inject a little levity.
“It’s bloody terrifying,” Ianto replied, his voice muffled by Jack’s shoulder. “But in a good way.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It does to me.”
Jack steered Ianto to the small office Ianto had made for himself, and the tiny sofa he’d somehow managed to cram into it. Sitting him, and himself down, he pulled his hankie from his pocket and handed it to Ianto.
“It’s clean,” he assured him. “Now, tell me, what has got you so upset?”
“On the roof this morning,” Ianto began, as he dried his tears. “I fully realised how I felt about you. Though, I knew before but didn’t want to admit it to myself.”
He proffered the hankie back to Jack, who waved it away.
“Then, not two hours later,” the Welshman continued. “I beat the crap out of you. What does that say about me?”
“It says that you, along with thousands of others, were affected by an alien chemical,” Jack told him, matter-of-factly. “Personal feelings had no bearing on it.”
“But still…”
“Ianto, stop!” Jack commanded. “You’re always so determined not to let yourself feel good about anything.”
“Sorry.”
The Welshman suddenly found himself with Jack’s lips on his, and he quickly melted into the kiss. When they finally parted, he had a soppy smile on his face, exactly as he’d had that morning.
“Better?” asked Jack.
“Much,” Ianto replied. “Though you’re taking my declaration well. I was half expecting you to run a mile.”
“That’s because I know something you should have been told well before now,” Jack told him, with a curiously nervous smile. “I love you too and, like you, I was too scared to admit it.”
They kissed again.
“I will love you until the day you die,” Jack breathed. “And beyond.”
“I wish I could say the same,” Ianto replied. “But, given that you die every other week, it would be somewhat of a hollow promise.”
The captain barked out a laugh.
“And you always accuse me of ruining a moment.”
Ianto laughed too as he stood up. After smoothing his jacket and fully composing himself, he pulled Jack to his feet. He began to shoo his lover out of the archives.
“I’ll be up shortly to make the coffee,” he promised. “Hopefully, the chocolate Hob Nobs I got for you have survived.