Title: The Storm
Fandom: Torchwood
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Ianto, Jack, TARDIS.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1193
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Storms aren’t peculiar to earth, they can happen on most planets, but they’re almost always a spectacle worth watching.
Content Notes: None needed.
Written For: Challenge 338: Horizon.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
A/N: Set in my Through Time and Space ‘Verse.



A storm was approaching, inky purple-black clouds gradually piling up over the ocean far off on the horizon. How long they’d have before it reached the shore was impossible to judge; this was an alien world, not earth, where Ianto could have made an educated guess based on wind speed and direction. He could have asked his TARDIS, but it wasn’t important for him to know, and in a way, knowing would have taken all the fun out of it. Sometimes it was better to just experience things as they happened.

“Dramatic, isn’t it?” he murmured, arms wrapped around his bent legs and chin resting on his knees. He was sitting on a warm, smooth, weatherworn rock, well above the high tide line, enjoying the sunshine and a gentle breeze from off the water.

“Hm?” Jack was sprawled out on the rock beside him, eyes closed, half drowsing.

“The storm.” By now, Ianto could see flickers of lightning against the darkening sky, although he still wasn’t hearing any tell-tale thunder. He wondered how far it was from where he was sitting to that distant bank of clouds. This planet was three times the size of earth, so the horizon was consequently further away.

“What storm?” Jack pushed himself up on his elbows, looking in the direction his husband was facing. “Oh. Why does the weather have to spoil itself everywhere we go? Anyone would think we were still on earth.”

“Nothing’s spoiling anything, not yet. It’ll be a while before the storm reaches us, if it even does. Maybe it’ll blow itself out over the sea, or pass us by to one side or the other. It’s got plenty of room to manoeuvre. Go back to your nap if you want; I’ll wake you if it looks like we’re going to get wet.” Ianto stretched his legs out, shifting towards the edge of the rock.

“Where are you going?”

“Thought I’d take a stroll along the beach. Don’t worry, I won’t go far.”

‘I will keep a watch on Ianto, and on the storm,’ their TARDIS assured Jack in his head. ‘I detect no danger.’

“Well, if you’re sure.” With one last glance out towards the far-off storm clouds, where lightning was flickering almost continuously, Jack stretched out on the rock again. As he closed his eyes, he thought he could just detect a rumble of thunder, faint with distance. “Enjoy your walk. Let me know if you find anything interesting.”

“Knowing the kinds of things you’d consider interesting, that seems unlikely,” Ianto teased, scrambling off the rock and dropping down onto the reddish sand. The planet was inhabited only by a few species of herbivorous herd animals, some meat-eating predators, and something similar to birds. Intelligent life had yet to evolve. There were probably aquatic or semi-aquatic creatures living in the sea, but if so, they either lived their lives a long way from shore or were too timid to show themselves. Maybe they sensed the approaching storm and had gone into hiding.

Ianto set off along the beach, walking slowly, taking in his surroundings but keeping half an eye on the horizon in order to gauge the storm’s progress. He wasn’t worried, the TARDIS would alert both him and Jack to any potential danger in plenty of time for them to seek shelter. She was no doubt monitoring the storm herself, as well as watching his surroundings through Ianto’s own eyes. Being immortal helped too; there wasn’t much for him to be afraid of, although that didn’t mean he was as reckless as Jack could be.

After walking about a mile and a half, Ianto turned back. The wind was getting up, churning the surface of the sea, and tossing waves further up the beach. He was still walking in bright sunlight, but the roiling clouds were a lot closer and darker now, lightning flickering in their depths, and he could hear the thunder clearly, a bass drumroll echoing off the cliffs that enclosed this wide bay.

Reaching the rock he’d started from, he scrambled up onto it. Jack was awake and sitting the way Ianto had been earlier.

“You were right; it’s very dramatic. Find anything interesting?”

“If I had, you’d know about it. We should probably move up onto the clifftop; we don’t know how far up the waves are going to come. We can watch the storm from there.”

Jack followed Ianto to their TARDIS, who’d taken the form of a rock, making the door that opened into her interior as they approached even more incongruous than usual. As soon as they were aboard and the door closed behind them, she purred into life and dematerialised, rematerializing well back from the edge up on the clifftop overlooking the bay.

Ianto led the way outside to sit on rough, tussocky grass that wasn’t really grass but more like the sea thrift on earth. They remained near the TARDIS, who was a rock once more, a good form for coping with wild weather. They’d go back inside before the rain reached them.

Soon, the black clouds were filling the sky for as far as they could see. Lightning flashed and flickered in sheets, sometimes confined to one small area of the sky, sometimes illuminating everything in one massive burst of light like a camera flash going off.

They saw the rain start to fall long before it reached them, far out over the water, sheets of silver in the uncertain light, joining with the pounding surf below. As the first spatters struck the top of the cliff, the two men hustled back inside and stood in the doorway, watching as the rain poured down around then, a forcefield generated by their TARDIS keeping them safe and dry. Below them, the sea crashed against the cliffs, and they felt the impact through their feet; they’d been right to seek a different vantage point to watch from.

After perhaps half an hour, far off on the horizon the sky began to lighten, a narrow band of silver slowly widening, dividing the sky from the sea. The ocean far out from shore grew steadily calmer, becoming placid once more as the storm continued inland to water the wide plains where the herds grazed.

Stepping out into a light drizzle, Jack and Ianto made their way to the cliff edge and looked down at the bay. The rocks looked much the way they had before the storm, although the smooth expanse of sand was now littered with detritus left behind by the storm surge. The air was fresh and clean, the scent of ozone strong, tingling their noses and making Ianto sneeze.

“Bless you.”

“Thanks. Shall we go down and see what’s been washed up?”

“In a bit.” Jack draped his arm around Ianto. “Let’s just stay here for a little while longer.”

“Okay.” There was no rush, sunset was still a long way off. “That was quite something.”

“Mm. You can’t beat a good storm.

It didn’t matter what planet they were on, there was something about storms that always made them feel exhilarated and alive. Ianto doubted they’d ever tire of them.


The End