Fandom: Torchwood

Characters: Ianto, OC

Author: m_findlow

Rating: PG

Length: 2,782 words

Content notes: none

Author notes: Written for Challenge 342 - Protection

Summary: An alert at a Torchwood safe house brings an unwanted guest.

Ianto had been about ready to call it a night when one of the computers began beeping at him. Only it wasn't just any computer flagging something for his attention, it was Jack's computer, or at least the computer that resided in Jack's office, even though no one had been able to find a trace of him for nearly three months. Ianto still thought of it as Jack's though. He hadn't quite given up that he might come back, though that feeling grew a little bit weaker every day. Whatever he was doing or wherever he'd gone in that blue police box was either very important, or they simply weren't important enough for him to want to stay a minute longer. He hadn't even said goodbye or left them a note. He'd just run the second their backs were turned. Maybe he'd had a change of heart having survived death - even if it seemed that wasn't the first time he'd managed the feat. Still, the kiss he'd given Ianto made him rethink any desire on Jack's part to have departed suddenly and without word. That or Jack really was just the biggest flirtatious heartbreaker on the planet. That was certainly how it made Ianto feel. Live you and leave you. That motto had Jack's name stamped all over it.

He sighed, putting down the tray on which he'd been collecting mugs for the kitchen sink, moving to slot it away where it belonged after having done all the dishes - once again without the offer of help from anyone else - and slowly made his way across the hub towards Jack's office. It was late now and there was no one else around. The others had all gone home hours ago and now it was only him left keeping an eye on things. He usually enjoyed the time alone, able to decompress from the day, reveling in the relief that they'd made it through yet another day without being responsible for the world ending.

He jiggled the mouse, waking up the screen as the pining sound continued to emanate from somewhere deep within the computer. Jack's password hadn't been hard to crack, leaving them access to most things on his computer profile except for a little known hidden cache Ianto had once heard him refer to as his Captain's Log. That was encrypted with seventeen layers of protection that Ianto knew even Tosh would never be able to hack. There was very little that the average Torchwood employee couldn't access so Ianto knew that whatever was in there was either deeply personal or deeply dangerous.

The pinging sound continued even after Ianto brought up the desktop screen. It was a different sound to their normal alerts. The few times Ianto had heard it Jack just brushed it off as unimportant, before leaving and saying no more, arriving back a few hours later as if nothing had happened. Ianto couldn't understand why he was still surprised to discover Jack had so many secrets. By now he should have just come to expect it. Not being able to stay dead was a pretty big thing to not tell anyone so everything else paled by comparison. Ianto already knew about Flat Holm. Jack had let him in on that one ages ago, and he was glad Jack had. Since he'd been gone, Ianto had been called upon twice to have to answer that particular call, both times as unpleasant as the first time. He still hadn't told the others about it. He should, but something held him back, like he'd become too much like Jack in being horrified by it to want anyone else to know. There just never felt like a good moment to bring it up.

'What surprise have you left me this time?' he murmured as he tried to find the source of the alert.

A window popped up, showing a single blinking red dot on a map of streets that Ianto instantly recognised as Adamstown. He even knew the exact address, one of Torchwood's safe houses, though currently not in use. It wasn't a burglar alarm or some other intrusion, but rather a signal being sent from that location, as if the sender knew the significance of the place. That puzzled Ianto. The safe houses by their very nature were not public knowledge. To the untrained eye they were registered in the names of innocuous sounding people, with lights that went on and off making the place look lived in, and fake mail delivered by real postmen, collected by fake residents who were often seen keeping the front yard tidy.

He stared at the alert, blinking like a beacon out in the dark unknown. He could just choose to ignore it, pretend he'd never seen it because this was an alert for Jack and Jack alone. If he hadn't been here now, he might never have known it was even there. Playing dumb was the easy way out.

Then again, maybe it was a call for help. Maybe it was Jack sending them a message. Maybe there was some very good reason he couldn't come back yet and it was too dangerous to send them an open message. A one in a million possibility, but still a possibility. So long as that possibility existed, Ianto couldn't ignore it. He grabbed his coat from the rack in the corner, slipping his arms into the sleeves. 'You have so much explaining to do when I get there,' Ianto said.

He drove out there in his own car. He could have used the SUV but somehow turning up to a secret safe house in a vehicle with the word Torchwood branded all over it seemed counter-productive. He also had his gun, set in a holster under his jacket. It wasn't the most comfortable thing to wear, but it was better than having the gun simply stuck into the waistband of his trousers. He hoped he was going to find Jack here, but if not, he was going to be prepared for that too.

He slowed the car and crawled it along the ordinary looking residential street, keeping his eyes out for any signs of movement from number 24. There were no lights on and the house stood still and silent, butted up against the two terraces either side of it. He almost would have felt better to see light steaming out of the front windows than to see it looking as if its occupants had gone for a weekend away, leaving it empty. He pulled the car to a stop and walked the last three houses along, finally coming to stand by the front gate and sliding it quietly open. His ears strained for any sound from the house but there was nothing. He slipped the gun from its holster and readied it, holding it by his side as he pulled the house keys from his pocket and slid them into the lock, letting himself inside. He allowed a second for his eyes to adjust to the unfamiliar setting. He moved right into the living room and found himself face to face with a huge looming shadow. Ianto's gun was raised without him even having to think about it.

'Don't move.'

'Who the hell are you?' came a gruff voice.

'Torchwood,' Ianto snapped back. He didn't have to be subtle for trespassers.

There was a huffed sigh. 'About time. Where's Jacky boy? He here with you?'

Jacky boy? Ianto tensed at the words and the familiarity with which they were said. 'How about I ask the questions?'

There was a non-committal sound. 'You're the one with the weapon. You do whatever you like if it makes you feel special.'

Ianto reached for a light switch so that he could properly see who he was dealing with. In some respects he wished he hadn't. The muted yellow light from the seventies light fitting revealed a seven foot tall alien, built like a wrestler with a bald head and gills in the side of its neck. It was otherwise bipedal but just from its size alone Ianto knew he'd never win a fight with it, and judging by the scars on the backs of its hands and arms, it had been in plenty. 'Who are you?' Ianto asked.

'Jenk. Who are you?'

'Someone who wants to know how you got here and what you want.' Since there'd been no rift activity logged, Ianto could only assume he'd gotten here under his own steam, and what that meant for them was anyone's guess.

There was another sigh. 'Now see if Jack were here he wouldn't bother asking. All you need to know is that I'm in a bit of strife and need your help to lay low here for a bit.'

'Lay low?' Ianto's eyebrows knitted together. 'Just what exactly kind of trouble are you in?'

'The kind that comes from a con job gone tits up. Nothing you need to concern yourself with.'

'If you want our help then I'd say it's very much something to concern ourselves with.'

Jenk sighed vexatiously.' Look, just call Jack and tell him old Jenk is here.'

'Jack's away. Unfinished business,' Ianto added, hoping that was all it was.

'Oh, well that's just great. So, I've got to deal with you?'

Ianto smirked. 'You could always deal with my colleague Owen. He's even more of a bundle of joy than I am. Your choice.'

'Hmph. Spose I have to talk to you then.' He didn't sound enthused at the idea.

'Sit,' Ianto commanded, indicating the battered sofa, whilst he perched on the edge of the opposite armchair. 'Tell me more about this con job.'

Jenk rolled his two beady eyes. 'Just some dodgy nanogene technology. Flipped it to a Judoon medical Corp. Not that you can tell from their ugly mugs whether they'd been mauled or that's just how they were born. Had the whole lot packaged up in a containment unit that was programmed to have a small leak so they'd never know the nanogenes inside were defective.'

'Let me guess. No leak?'

'I'm a dead Smreck if they find me.'

'Maybe you should have thought of that before you went and stitched them up.'

Jenk shrugged. 'We all have to make a living.'

'How do you know Jack, anyway?'

Jenk relaxed at the question. 'He's like me. Two peas from the same pod.'

Ianto shook his head. 'Jack's nothing like you.'

'Oh, yeah? Then I guess he didn't tell you about all the scams we used to run. Right little partnership we had going there for a while.'

'When?'

Another shrug. 'Few years back.'

'Not possible.' Jack was running Torchwood for the last six years, and worked for them for years before that. He couldn't have been off travelling the stars and getting into scrapes with this crook. You couldn't be in two places at once, even if you were Jack. And Jack was no crook. Devious, yes. A little bit scary at times, definitely. But he had a good heart and gave his everything for the job.

Jenk leaned back on the sofa, spreading his beefy arms along the back of it. 'Guess you don't know him as well as you thought, then.'

Ianto's jaw clenched. More bloody secrets. When would they ever end? 'It doesn't matter. You're here. I'm here. That means it's time to decide what to do with you.'

Jenk looked worried for the first time since their meeting. 'You have to help me. I just need to stay here for a while until they lose the scent. Backward little place like this is the last place they'll think to look for me.'

'All the more reason why it makes me think letting you stay would be a bad idea.'

'Jack would do it.'

'Yeah, well Jack's not here.' As much as Ianto missed Jack, he also didn't need the endless comparisons. The rest of them were still Torchwood, even if Jack wasn't there at the helm.

Jenk gave a little sneer. 'Evidently.'

Despite being a man down, Ianto found himself with a lot of time in his hands. Perhaps it was just because he found it hard to sleep. He'd always known more about Torchwood than the rest of them. He just hadn't realised how little he knew until he started digging properly. He'd known about things like Protocol One but now he knew more about how Torchwood fit into the wider universe. They weren't just set up to defend Earth anymore. Jack's ties with the Shadow Proclamation ran deeper than he knew. And it wasn't just that Earth's limited knowledge about this place in the universe afforded it some protection, it was that those rules cut both ways. There were things they couldn't do; things that would put them in contravention of those intergalactic laws which normally kept them safe. Harbouring criminals was a huge mistake. Harbouring someone who'd ripped off the Judoon, the Shadow Proclamation's version of military olce, was even worse. Not only would he be endangering their planet's status, he could be personally arrested and tried. He didn't imagine prison life on other planets or locked up in some intergalactic space station would be any kinder than prison here. He might spend the rest of his life breaking rocks fourteen hours a day. Was it worth risking that to do this alien a favour, even if he knew Jack?

Ianto had found himself keeping a lot of Jack's secrets. At first he'd done it because Jack had asked him to, then he'd done it because doing anything else felt too hard, and now he was having to keep the biggest of all - the kind that could put the whole planet in jeopardy.

'How long have you been on the run from them?'

'Bout a week by your planet's reckoning. Trail's starting to go cold but I could really use somewhere to freeze it dead. A few months and they'll forget all about me. Too many other people they'd like to kill more.'

Maybe Jack would have said yes, or maybe it was all a lie and he'd have told Jenk to take a hike. He wasn't sure whether to stick or twist. 'What's in it for us?'

'Nothing.'

'Hardly an incentive.'

'And I didn't expect I'd have to bargain with someone that wasn't Jack. Friends help each other out.'

'We're not friends.'

'But you do what Jack tells you, don't you? How's he going to like it if he found out you sent his old friend Jenk off to face the music?'

Ianto could feel his teeth grinding. How would he explain this to Jack if and when he ever came back? He might be furious for not helping a friend. Or he might be furious if Ianto got locked up by the Shadow Proclamation for doing something so stupid.

'You can stay a week,' Ianto finally said. 'And then we'll review it. That would buy him time to reconsider. It would also buy him time to figure out if he was going to tell the rest of the team about offering protection to some alien crook. He suspected he already knew the answer to that one.

Jenk gave him a brutish smile. 'You're a gem.'

'You were never here,' Ianto reminded him forcefully. 'And if you get caught you're going to tell them that Torchwood had no idea you were hiding out here because that's what I'll be telling them if I get asked the question.'

Jenk gave him a funny sort of salute. 'Swear it on my mother's sacred bone stack.'

'For whatever that's worth,' came Ianto's skeptical reply as he stood to leave. 'Wear a scarf if you have to go out. People around these parts aren't accustomed to seeing gills.' Big guys built like rugby players however were perfectly pedestrian.

'Couldn't lend us a bit of cash, could you?'

Ianto's eyebrows raised. 'You're a conman without any money?' Not a very good one it would seem.

'Nothing I can use on this little backwater. Fella's got to eat, you know.'

Ianto reached into his wallet and rolled his eyes as he pulled out a hundred pounds worth of notes and dropped them on the coffee table. He was sure he was being swindled but he was also past wanting to argue the point. 'There'll be another envelope with cash at the end of the week if I decide to keep you. Otherwise, this will be the last time we meet.'

Ianto walked out into the chill night air before he changed his mind and wondered what the hell kind of slippery slope he'd just started himself on.