m-findlow.livejournal.com

Title: Black and white
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Owen, Gwen, Tosh, Rhiannon
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 3,954 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Challenge 177 - Amnesty and Challenge 112 - Stripes
Summary: A trip to the zoo goes awry

'Have you found it yet?' Jack's voice chirped in his ear.

'Nope,' he replied, studying his phone, trying to get a lock on the signal. 'I just hope none of the animals try eating it, or think it's a play toy. How are you going?'

'Having a hard time explaining to the crowd that this is nothing more than an impromptu special exhibition.'

'Might I suggest moving the crowd?'

'Working on it,' Jack replied, sounding a little harried.

Ianto sighed. This was the last time they tried going on a date to the zoo, he vowed. Something always went wrong when they came here. In fairness, it probably wasn't the zoo's fault; their dates managed to go pear shaped pretty much anywhere they went.

They'd been having such a good time too. They'd spent the morning touring the different areas, starting with the penguins, which were everyone's favourite, then the butterfly house, where Ianto took a picture of Jack with a butterfly on his head that was the size of a dinner plate. After that, they'd admired elephants and tigers in the Asian section, and had been astonished by the strange looking creatures in the Oceania area, spending a good thirty minutes in the darkened room with the platypus, watching them swimming around and stealing kisses in the dark.

He'd almost been convinced that things were going along smoothly, whilst they were standing at the kiosk, debating which flavour of ice cream to have, when the large object had come dropping out of the sky, falling right in the middle of the long parade walkway which branched off into many smaller paths in various directions to different animal enclosures. Luckily, no one had been hurt when it had come crashing down.

It appeared to be a small space ship of some kind, but long and tubular, about the size of a large station wagon, and very much worse for wear, though how much of that was rift related and how much had been sustained before it had been sucked into the rift was hard to say. Jack wasn't familiar with the particular make of the vessel, though they both agreed it would have only been big enough to house two people at most, making assumptions about the relative size of their passengers.

Jack naturally didn't hesitate in approaching to look for survivors. Any injured aliens took priority over what the onlooking crowd thought.

Whilst Jack was prising open the small hatch on the underside, Ianto immediacy started taking scans of the vessel, checking it for any other traces of dangerous radiation or anything that might be harmful. Nothing immediately dangerous came up, but he did find several more smaller rift alerts dotted all around the immediate area.

Jack stumbled back from the main craft.

'No one inside,' he reported, 'but she's very banged up.'

'Mmm,' Ianto agreed, still studying the readings on his phone. 'I think we've got a  debris field of other bits that came through. They're all over the place.'

Jack leaned over and studied the screen. 'Small, but we should make sure we gather them all up, just to be safe.'

'Okay, you stay here and call in the rest of the team. I'll go treasure hunting.'

There were a half dozen alerts, most of which he was able to easily track down. They did indeed seem to be bits broken off the ship as it had been spat out of the rift. There's was a piece of metal piping nestled in amongst some plush toys in the gift shop, a few more scraps of metal tucked away under a park bench, and another small canister in the otter enclosure, which was very kindly retrieved by the otters from their swimming pool and placed on the bank where Ianto could easily retrieve it, slipping it in his pocket and thanking them for helping out.

The last piece however was proving far more elusive. 'At least none of them dropped in the enclosures for lions, tigers or bears,' he said when Jack asked him for an update.

'Keep at it, Dorothy,' he'd said, trying to make a joke.

That had been half an hour ago, and still he couldn't find any trace of their last object. Even the residual rift traces were a little on the weird side, flickering on and off in different locations, unable to lock on to an exact spot. Then they'd stopped altogether. It was thoroughly frustrating, and he certainly wasn't going to leave with one piece still missing.

'Do you want me to send Gwen over to help?' Jack asked.

'No, it's fine.' It wasn't that he didn't appreciate the offer, but this had become a matter of pride now.

Something pinged on his phone. Ah ha, finally, he thought, consulting the readings. His face fell when he saw them. It wasn't a rift trace signal, it was an energy spike. Something was powering up in the savannah lands.

He dashed along the path, ignoring the signs that pointed him in the right direction, simply following the signal as it got stronger, which lead him around the back of the  huge enclosure. He deftly picked the lock and rushed inside. The animals knew something was wrong, and they flitted and rushed past him, ignoring him. He was  unafraid of the wild animals when there was something far more dangerous ahead, though being trampled would not have been good.

He didn't get any closer before there was a loud explosion, which knocked him off his feet.

The team were busy cordoning off the area around the small spacecraft and ushering the public out of the zoo when the loud explosion sent a shockwave rippling through the air. Jack was running towards it within seconds, the others not far behind him. He called Ianto's name over the comms but received no response, his heart dropping into his stomach, trying to think up all the reasons why Ianto might not be responding, which didn't include him being dead.

A fire was blazing through the tall yellow grasses, and a few panicked animals that had survived the explosion were frantically running about. They survived, Jack thought. Ianto must have too. Jack spied the door at the back of the enclosure hanging open on its hinges and knew Ianto must have unlocked it, sweeping through and into the enclosure. Right near the door was a tap with a hose attached.

'Owen, Gwen, grab the hose and start putting out some of the fire.' Jack threw his coat off and plunged headlong into the smoke, in search of his lover.

In the thick smoke it was chaos. He could barely see nor breathe as he staggered aimlessly around. Something came rushing past him, a small antelope or some such, which knocked him to the ground. He fell on top of something and realised it was body. It was large and muscular with long hooved legs. A zebra. He struggled off of it, before tripping over another body tucked underneath it. This time, it was smaller, confirming it was the one he'd been looking for. He grabbed Ianto by the shoulders and dragged him backwards, out from under the animal, and hoping it was the right direction towards the exit door. He was coughing hard by the time he reached Owen and Gwen, who were dumping water over the grassland near the exit. There was no way they'd be able to put out the entire blaze, and save the animals, but the fire department were on their way. All they could do was provide enough protection to get both Jack and Ianto safely out.

Owen checked over his unconscious teammate who was head to toe covered in thick black soot, amazed to find a pulse and hardly a scratch on him.

'He should be dead,' Owen muttered.

'Well he's not,' Jack coughed again, his own face equally sweaty and black. 'Just help him.'

When emergency services arrived a few minutes later, Owen commandeered one of the ambulances and piled the pair of them inside, and instructed the driver to make for Cardiff Bay, leaving Gwen and Tosh to coordinate having the spacecraft removed and the zoo completely shut down, whilst the fire department put out the blaze. Until they were sure what had exploded and why, no one was going near the place.

Halfway to the hub, Ianto came to, finding himself lying down with an oxygen mask on his face. Owen was hovering over him, and he could see Jack also nearby, sitting up, but holding a mask to his own face, blackened and filthy.

'It's alright, mate,' Owen said, putting a reassuring hand on his shoulder, noting the torn material but no bloody wound underneath.

He pulled the mask off. 'What happened?'

'There was an explosion. We think you got knocked out.'

'Energy spike,' he muttered, before starting to cough hard, lungs full of smoke.

Owen pulled the mask back on and settled him back on the gurney. 'We can talk about it later.'

Back at the hub, Jack helped Owen to carry Ianto down to the medical bay and to start peeling off the tattered remains of his clothes so that Owen could patch him up. Remarkably, there were no cuts, scratches or bruises anywhere to be found on his arms, legs or torso. The suit however was a mess, and his phone in his pocket was melted right through. In his other pocket, Owen pulled out a small metal canister.

'Must've been one of the bits of debris he collected,' Jack shrugged.

Owen continued his exam whilst Jack soaked a flannel beginning to wipe away the layer of black that covered Ianto's face and neck. As he began wiping with gentle stokes, the colour on Ianto's face reappeared. As he continued to wipe away the soot though, he noticed some of it refusing to budge. Once he'd cleaned the entire face it was clear that it wasn't soot. It was stripes. Ianto's nose was completely black, and long thick stripes emanated from the centre of his face outwards, covering it completely.

'Uh, Owen,' Jack said.

'Bloody hell. What are they?'

'I was hoping you could tell me.'

Ianto was resting downstairs when Jack came to visit him, ready to bring him the bad news.

'Hey,' he said, sounding wheezy.

'How are you feeling?'

'I'm okay. I think.'

Jack sat down and filled him in on the events of the past few hours. He'd returned to the zoo once Owen as was satisfied that the stripes weren't causing any harm. The savannah land was completely destroyed and a good many of the animals had died, either from the explosion itself or from the smoke. Jack scoured the place, looking for traces of whatever had set off the explosion in the first place. He discovered the remnants of a neutron drive, which must have been jettisoned from the spaceship when it fell through the rift. More disturbing was just how close it had been to the spot where he'd found Ianto. Owen had been right all along. By rights, he should have been dead.

'There's something else,' Jack said, sounding nervous.

'What?'

'Something happened when that neutron drive exploded.' He held up a small mirror in front of Ianto, letting him see his face for the first time.

'What the hell? What happened to my face? It is burnt?'

'We don't know yet.'

Ianto was out of bed the next day and back at work. He'd spent half the morning inspecting his face in the bathroom mirror before finally letting out a long sigh and heading back upstairs. It was hardly attractive, and no matter how he scrubbed, the stripes wouldn't budge. At least they were only on his face, he supposed.

Try as they might, it was almost impossible not to stare at Ianto's face as he went about his day. Owen had run another swathe of medical tests, but everything came back showing Ianto to be in perfect health. Better in fact, than he'd been beforehand.

The neutron drive had been obliterated in the explosion, so any chances of figuring out how it had affected Ianto were beyond them, and Owen's tests kept coming back empty. He was alive and well, but seemingly stuck with his new appearance.

After a day of putting up with the staring, and the occasional fright he gave when someone turned and saw him unexpectedly, he was feeling thoroughly down. Gwen and Tosh tried to help out by bringing in makeup to cover up the markings. It took them an entire stick of concealer and a lot of foundation powder, but they finally got the worst of it covered up, now only faint grey markings instead of black ones. It took all of Ianto's patience to sit there and let them do it.

'You seriously do this to yourself every day?' he asked.

'Well,' Gwen began, 'it's not quite so labour intensive as this.'

For a few hours he felt a little better, since from a distance it looked like he was back to normal, but being unaccustomed makeup, as soon as he scratched his nose or swept the back of his hand against his brow, he pulled off the thick layer of concealer, leaving splodgy black patches. In the end he decided it was too much, and washed the whole lot off, before retreating to the archives, where he and his black stripes could hide out in the dark.

Jack refused to be deterred by Ianto's black mood. If a few stripes was the price to pay for having his lover alive, then he would pay it gladly.

'Ianto,' he called out, searching in the darkness. They really needed more lighting down here.

'Go away.'

'But I just got here.'

'Then you can just go. There's no one down here except for the phantom of the archives.'

Jack smiled in spite of himself. Even the phantom couldn't hide away from love.

He finally spotted a small shape huddled on the floor between two rows of shelving, parking himself next to Ianto in the dark.

'You can't hide down here forever.'

'Well, I can't very well go out in public looking like I've been attacked by a tattoo artist on LSD.'

Jack didn't know what to say, so he just reached out to wrap a hand around Ianto's, feeling instead a smooth metal object clasped in it.

'What's that?' Jack asked.

'Just the rest of the scraps from the crashed spaceship. I was putting them away.'

Jack pulled the small canister from his hand, inspecting it more closely, spying a tiny crack in one end, now melted over, probably from the explosion.

'Did we runs scans on them?'

'I don't think so. They're just scraps.'

'Hmm,' Jack hummed. 'I think I want a closer look at this one.'

Jack dragged Ianto back upstairs with him and placed the small canister in one of their portable scanners. His eyes lit up when he began to scroll through the readings.

'Well that explains a lot.'

'What explains what?'

'This isn't empty,' Jack replied holding up the canister. 'It's got nanogenes inside.'

'Nanogenes?'

'Uh huh. See this crack down here?' he said, pointing at the base of the canister. 'Think of it like a portable space age first aid kit. It was probably broken when it fell through the rift.'

'I put it in my pocket,' Ianto said.

'And I suspect some of the nanogenes leaked out. When the explosion went off, they were there to heal you, before the heat caused the canister to seal back up. Owen said there was no way you could have survived that explosion. Looks like he was right.'

Ianto looked at the canister, frowning. 'Nanogenes saved me?'

'Just enough to repair the worst of the damage.'

Ianto touched his face. 'Are they the reason I'm like this?'

Jack nodded. 'When I found you, you were half buried under a dead zebra. If these nanogenes had never seen a human before, they might have gotten confused as to what was the right way to fix you. I've seen it happen before.'

Ianto couldn't help but laugh. 'Well, lucky they didn't get too confused. I could've ended up half zebra.' When the moment of levity passed, he looked back at Jack.

'So I'm stuck like this forever, then?'

'Maybe not. I told you I'd seen this happen before. Before there was a way to fix it too.'

'How?'

'The nanogenes need superior DNA to be able to understand what they're supposed to fix and how it should look. The mother's DNA was enough to fix what was wrong with her little boy and cure him for the mistakes the nanogenes made the first time they tried to heal him.'

Ianto frowned. How was that supposed to help him. His parents were both long dead.

'My parents are gone Jack.'

'Not your parents; your sister.'

Ianto looked confused. 'My sister?'

'She's older than you. The nanogenes left inside this canister should be able to identify that she's a blood relative and use her DNA to fix yours.'

Ianto sat there and thought it through for a few minutes. 'No,' he finally said.

Jack was surprised. 'No?'

'I don't want to bring my sister into this. It's too risky. You saw what those things did to me. What's to stop them doing something to her as well?'

'Ianto, I promise you, I can fix this.'

Ianto wanted to belive him, he really did, but he'd seen what Jack was capable of when push came to shove. He'd willingly sacrificed his own family to save the planet. He knew Jack meant well, but he couldn't let him sacrifice his sister for his own benefit.

'Ianto, please,' Jack begged, reaching out for him.

Ianto pushed him away and left. If being a hideous tattooed person was the cost to keep his sister safe, then so be it. He'd wear it like a badge of honor.

Jack knew he should respect Ianto's wishes, but he couldn't let this go. He was confident that he could fix this, and that they were no more at risk than living in a city that was full of aliens and weevils prowling the streets. Ianto loved his sister and he'd do anything to protect her, but he thought he'd be sacrificing her for his own needs. There'd be no convincing him otherwise unless he tried a different tact.

He went against his better judgment and knocked on the door.

'Shut up you lot!' he heard the voice yell as it approached the door from the other side.

Rhiannon was surprised to see Jack standing there.

'Jack. What is it? Oh my God, it's Ianto isn't it? Is he hurt? Is he dead?' She went white within seconds, her eyes wide and fearful.

'What? No, no he's fine.'

She thumped him hard on the arm, causing him to wince in pain.

'Christ almighty, Jack! You scared the dickens out of me.'

'Sorry,' he apologised, rubbing the sore spot on his arm.

She folded her arms, growing suspicious. 'Why are you here exactly?'

'I need a favour.'

Ianto was lying curled up on the sofa when the pounding started on his door. He didn't get up, assured it was Jack, and that if he really wanted in he'd just unlock the door with his spare key like he always did. He didn't want to speak to Jack tonight. Maybe tomorrow he'd feel less agitated about the whole thing.

'Ianto Jones, you open this door right now', came the authoritative tones of his sister.

Oh God, he groaned, pulling himself up off the sofa, and plodding to the door.

As soon as the door was open, she didn't wait for an invitation, simply pushing her way inside.

'Oh my God, Ianto, what happened to you?' She reached out to touch his face and he flinched away. When he looked back he saw Jack standing behind her, and his anger returned.

'I told you to leave her out of this,' he growled.

'She wants to help.'

'She doesn't know what she's risking.'

'She can make her own decisions,' Rhiannon said.

'Listen to me,' Ianto implored.

'No, you listen to me, Ianto. Jack's told me all about what happened and how he can fix things.'

He shook his head. 'It's too dangerous.'

'I don't care. Every day I have to put my trust in Jack that he's going to look after to you and keep you safe. You and bloody Torchwood. That's supposed to be my job.'

Ianto ran a hand through his hair. 'I can't ask you to do this. It's really not that bad. I'll even start up my own punk rock band. At least then I'll have an excuse for it.'

'You'd rather I hate myself every day for not helping you?'

'Better than hating myself every day if something bad happened to you,' he replied.

'You're my little brother. You'll always be my little brother. I love you and I know Jack loves you too. If I can trust him, so can you.'

Ianto had almost forgotten Jack was still in the room. He looked at him hard.

'Swear to me she'll be okay.'

'I swear.'

Jack pulled the small canister from his coat pocket.

Ianto raised an eyebrow. 'We're doing it here? Should we be in some kind of containment unit?'

'Once the nanogenes have the correct programming, they'll be safe. Besides we only need a couple.'

Jack pulled a small Swiss army knife from his pocket and punctured a small hole in the canister, just near the melted crack. A few tiny golden specks fluttered out and he trapped them in his palm, letting them analyse him for a few seconds. These ones were new, just like the ones that had escaped at the zoo, and had limited knowledge of what humans should be like. He opened up his palm and placed them in Rhiannon's hand, closing her fingers over them.

'It tickles,' she said. 'What do I do now?'

'When you're ready just let them go.'

She took Ianto's hand in hers and stared at him, her fierce brown eyes meeting his blue ones. She let her hand unclench around the tiny golden balls of light. They floated upwards and danced around the pair of them, sensing the connection between them, understanding they were of the same blood. The woman was the elder, the man was the younger. Something wasn't right with him. She was the pattern they had to use. Finally they had what they needed, zooming around Ianto's head. The dark black lines that emanated from his nose, across his cheeks, forehead and chin began to be fade, returning it to the pale vanilla complexion that they both shared, before the tiny specks of light flew away and disappeared, their task complete.

Rhiannon lifted a hand up to stroke his cheek, smiling at him.

'My little baby brother.'

'Yeah, alright,' he said, turning away, embarrassed at the attention and the mollycoddling. Jack was standing there, watching him.

'Sorry, I didn't trust you to help.'

'I haven't always given you reason to trust me, but I would never put you or your family in danger. I love you too much for that.' He stepped over and reached for Ianto's cheek, in much the same way his sister had done moments ago. This time he didn't flinch away.

'Much more handsome without the stripes. The only stripes I want to see on you from now on are the pinstripe kind.'

'I think I can mange that. Just promise me one thing,' Ianto said.

'Anything.'

'No more dates at the zoo.'