Torchwood: "Suspension", one (Jack/Ianto)
Nov. 9th, 2008 05:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mclachlandSuspension
Chapter One (of a projected 18 chapters)
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mclachlan
Summary: "If you're asking if I would follow Jack into death… then yes. Yes."
Prologue
Thanks to my belovedetharei for being the most awesome beta EVAR.
When Ianto wakes, there is a woman in a gray dress crouching in front of him. He is seated. She hums in her throat and, in a single fluid movement, slides up to stand, a clipboard holding a series of papers clutched in her hand, bright red nails stark against the white.
"Awake, then, sir?" she asks, bored, as if this sort of thing happens all the time, and hands him the clipboard. "Once you've completed all the forms, bring them back to me and someone will place you."
"I'm sorry," he says, hoarse, throat dry and attempting to close around the rest of the words. "But place me where?"
The woman is not a woman at all, but rather a spotty teenager, like a secretarial temp for the summer holiday. She's wearing far too much eye make-up. "Where do you think? You do know where you are, right?"
Without waiting for an answer, she walks away, moving across the floor and lifting a counter top to slide behind it, taking a seat at what looks like a customer help window.
Then it hits him.
It's a waiting room. Almost laughable, but it's just that, like the kind one would find at a dentist's office, all starched walls and thin, navy carpeting, rows of uncomfortable chairs disguised as drab thrones. Gripping his paper ticket, he sits near an end table that's cluttered with magazines, old and new, from Time's Person of the Year issue (dated 1978) to last week's The Sun's exposé on the rise and fall of Amy Winehouse.
He sits back against the hard plastic "cushions" of his chair and glances about. There is one other person in the room: a man in a sharp business suit with a rather messy wound at his temple, matting his hair with blood and bits of bone, is reading a newspaper written in what looks like Czech.
The clipboard nearly unbalances on his knees. It looks like a tax form. Then he sees the header.
AFTERLIFE PLACEMENT APPLICATION
"But I'm not dead," Ianto calls to the girl, who is currently popping a strip of gum into her mouth. She blows a bubble and then closes her crooked teeth around it, snapping it.
"Of course you aren't. Just fill out the forms, sir."
He shakes his head and makes to stand up. "No, you don't understand --"
She reaches up and slides the glass partition over, effectively silencing his protest.
There’s an odd sense of disconnection, a buoyancy that dredges up the nausea he’d felt the moment Owen’s gun discharged, the sound of Jack’s body slumping to the floor, glittering slug embedded in tissue and brain matter. His hands are trembling, just like they had before he touched Jack’s rapidly-cooling skin, brushing over the still-smoking hole between two, open eyes.
He clenches his shaking hands into fists and buries them between his knees, hunching over, swallowing against the sour taste making its home in his jaw. The clipboard clatters to the floor, forgotten. There is nothing to take solace from in this austere room, ignored by the lone, framed poster on the white wall to his left that depicts a man and a woman, both grinning, one wearing white and the other black. "Don’t Wait Long!" it proclaims in a bold-set type, and underneath like a forgotten footnote are the words: "Purgatory Is Not A State Of Mind, It Is A Queue".
Laughter forces its way out of him, and he lowers his head in an attempt to stifle it without moving his hands.
Bring back the one you love, Mr. Jones.
He'd loved Lisa. Loves. Loved. Past tense. She's in the past tense now. But Jack…
He didn't love Jack. He doesn't love Jack. But he could have. He could have loved him; he'd been well on his way before Abaddon. Jack made it so easy, too easy, to fall in love with him. Jack inspired it wherever he went, without discrimination, without exception, and Ianto couldn't deny that he'd fallen victim.
Exhaling sharply, Ianto glances down at the clipboard on the floor dispassionately, rolling his shoulders and forcing the trembling to cease. He reaches down and picks it up, smoothing out the creases in the form. Afterlife Placement Application.
It doesn't surprise him, that this is all real. After fighting aliens, everything else is just… believable. Immortality, angels, Heaven, Hell. Epic tasks that the old heroes would have leapt at the chance to complete. Here he is. Odysseus, in the land of the dead and waiting for Tiresias to tell him what to do. But he still can't fill out the form.
Biting his lip, he looks at the Czech man, still reading his newspaper, and then turns his attentions back to the form, pen firmly in hand.
A bit numb, Ianto lowers the clipboard to his lap and looks to the reception desk again, wondering for a moment if things behind the counter run as a normal office would, with copiers and information labels and the like, if there are others working in cubicles, entering data and stuffing envelopes. He'd spent time during his own summer holidays as a secretary at his uncle's law firm; he knows how things work. It must run that way here, he thinks, a well-oiled machine that processes and places souls into either Heaven or Hell. Charon got an upgrade, probably retired with a pension plan.
He shakes his head, reluctantly smiling, feeling tentative tendrils of insanity creeping.
He takes the clipboard into his left hand and walks quietly to the window, eying the Czech man who is now doing a crossword puzzle from a magazine. The man glances up briefly, lifts his pen in a silent 'you too, huh?', and then goes back to his puzzle, muttering unintelligibly and scratching out something he'd written.
Ianto spares a look for his blank application and then knocks on the glass partition, snatching his hand back just as the receptionist slams it open. The heady scent of nail polish smacks him in the face, invading his nostrils and clinging to the sensitive tissue inside his nose. The receptionist's nails on her left hand are now a garish yellow. He winces.
"Miss --"
She snaps her gum at him. "Have you filled out the forms, then?"
He blinks and glances at the empty application. "Have I -- No. No, I can't fill them out."
The receptionist gives him a less-than-impressed look, peering up at him through the thicket of her lashes, tangled and matted with blacker than black mascara. "And why not?"
"Because I'm not dead," Ianto says again, a bit overwhelmed, a bit impatient with her general apathy. If one is to do a job, make the best of it and do it right. And politely. It doesn't cost to be polite, really.
"Sir, this is Circle I," the receptionist sighs, dipping the polish brush into the little vial and bringing it out, tapping it twice against the glass mouth to get rid of excess polish. She starts with her thumb, coating it three times before submerging the brush again. "You wouldn't be here if you weren't dead."
Ianto rolls his eyes. "I know where I am. My da read me "The Inferno" when I was younger. But I'm not dead, I'm not. Isn't there someone else I can speak to?"
"Sir," the receptionist growls, "do not yell at me."
"I … pardon? I wasn't --"
She's on her feet in one, fluid movement, eyes flashing from behind their mascara shields, and brandishing a yellow claw like a Viking would an axe. "If you don't lower your voice, I will be forced to call my superior."
Relief washes over him at her words and he presses down the urge to throw his arms out dramatically. "Yes! Please. Please, may I speak to your superior?"
"Fine," the receptionist snarls, slamming herself back into her chair and stabbing one nail against a white button on her phone. The polish smudges but she doesn't seem to notice or care. "Excuse me, Mr. Baron? I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm having a spot of trouble down here and was wondering if you might come down and sort things."
"I'll be right down," crackles the intercom, a light Surrey accent audible over the static. The receptionist takes her finger off of the button and sits back, all cheery professionalism again.
"Mr. Baron will be right with you."
Ianto feels the subtle pounding of an oncoming headache and simply nods, handing her the clipboard and stepping away from the window. There had been a day like this, Ianto remembers, dealing with UNIT trainees that had left Jack fuming by the time they'd finally left.
Stupidity is a disease, Ianto, Jack had told him, grinning, a frighteningly manic glint in his eyes. And it's catching.
I've already been inoculated, sir.
It had won a hearty laugh. Probably only against last year's strain. All right, Jones, drop your pants and bend over. Just a little prick…
This is harassment.
This is your boss, worrying about your health. Indulge me.
Ianto smiles to himself. Too easy. Jack made it too easy. Had there been more time, more time to forgive, more time to apologize, more time to try, he would have fallen and that would have been it.
Just then, a panel in the wall opens up to reveal a set of stairs, on which a short, slightly portly man is descending, the sweater vest over a dress shirt and the glasses perched precariously on an aquiline nose implying a sort of Oxfordian intelligence. He smiles at Ianto like a favorite uncle does to a misbehaving nephew, affection and warning melded into the upturned corners of his mouth.
"Well!" Mr. Baron exclaims softly, tucking his hands into the pockets of his trousers. "What seems to be the --"
He pauses, stares at Ianto for a long and silent moment, before jerking in shock. "JESUS CHRIST!"
The receptionist sticks her head out of the window, looking around wildly. "Oh! Where?!" She beckons to Ianto and whispers, "He's so sexy."
But Mr. Baron pays no heed to the girl, just quickly moves to stand in front of Ianto, pressing a hand over Ianto's heart and gasping at the steady thrum under his palm. Swallowing, he removes his hand and pastes on a ghastly smile for the receptionist's benefit, scurrying behind Ianto and herding him to the stairs.
"I'm going to take our friend to my office for a little chat. I'll sort this all out. You can handle things without me, yes? No calls, now! I am not to be disturbed!"
"Your coat, sir!" The receptionist calls, and Ianto starts in surprise, glancing over his shoulder at the folded wool that's sitting innocuously in the chair he had vacated. Jack's coat.
"Ah, yes," Ianto breathes, hurrying over and snatching the coat up, pressing it hard against his chest. Mr. Baron waves him back into the passageway and then shuts the wall panel behind them, shoving Ianto upwards. "Move! Get up there! Hurry now!"
As soon as they reach the top, Ianto stumbles into a rather quaint office and Mr. Baron slams the door shut, dramatically throwing himself back against it, arms out wide, barricading the room from escaping guests or intrusive visitors. He then rushes behind a large mahogany desk, sitting down at a computer. "Who are you? What are you doing here? Were you in an accident? Perhaps you flatlined for a moment. Oh, you had to go and ruin our perfect record! Circle I has had no mistakes since it came under my management! Well, mistakes do happen, I suppose. Easily fixed, no need to even mark it on your record! We'll just keep this between us and I'll send you back right away --"
Eyes wide, overwhelmed, Ianto shakes his head and says, "No."
Mr. Baron freezes. "N-no?"
"No. Don't send me back," Ianto says firmly, leaning forward, heart pounding. "I'm supposed to be here."
"But… you're alive!"
"Yes."
Mr. Baron stares at him for a long moment, his gaze so heavy that Ianto can feel the seconds stretching between them, the slow trickle of saline from an IV bag crawling into him and diluting his insides. Mr. Baron blinks and turns his gaze to the computer, tapping a key. The monitor bursts to life.
"Name?"
"Ianto Jones," he says quietly, leaning forward to catch a glimpse of the computer monitor.
"Wow, can't get more Welsh than that," Mr. Baron hums, typing it into a search engine of sorts, the results endlessly sliding up the screen, each one carrying a date of birth and a genealogy option.
"Could your name be any more common? I have over 5,000 hits for you." Mr. Baron mutters, then waves his hand at Ianto. "Can I have a place of birth?"
"Newport." He hasn't been back to Newport since that fateful August night when his mother thrust him out into the bright and antiseptic world, forcing him to breathe in Langstone's damp air. "Langstone, Newport."
Mr. Baron obligingly keys in the words and sits back with a smile. "August 19, 1983?"
Ianto inclines his head, glancing at the varying paragraphs of information on the screen. His entire life, exposed to the eyes of a complete stranger. "That's right."
"Ianto Alway Jones, born at 20.37pm. It was raining that night."
He swallows and his eyes find a framed portrait of Elizabeth I above a stack of old tomes, all marked with colored post-its. "I believe it was, yes."
"Parents are…" Mr. Baron pauses and squints at the screen, drawing Ianto's attention back to him. Tiny pockets of skin at the corners of Mr. Baron's eyes ripple as he reads the information there. Ianto doesn't understand why his parentage is so interesting. Llewellyn and Enid Jones, a master tailor and a school teacher. Hardly the stuff of legends, or even anything to pause over. But Mr. Baron tuts to himself, something akin to the beginnings of a smile pulling at his lips. "Oh, now that's interesting. My, my, my."
"It shouldn't be," Ianto says without a hint of irony or bitterness. "What makes it interesting?"
Mr. Baron blinks slowly, as if waking from a daydream. "Hmm? Oh, nothing. Nothing at all. Wait, it says here that you've died once before."
Ianto is too caught up in a haze of fire, water, blood, and the taste of Jack in his mouth to say anything about the subject change. God, he has, hasn't he. He's died. Died. He remembers now, the cool feeling of absolutely nothing, the last string tethering him to the earth snapping and releasing him to the promise of eternal forgiveness for what he'd wrought. Until a hand had taken hold of his and pulled him back, reforging broken ties and trapping him. Until Jack had poured himself into Ianto and he was forced to open his eyes again.
He'd died.
And Jack…
Then it's only fair that Ianto is here. It's only fair. Except, that's a lie. He would have come even without the debt that now hangs over him. He had come without incentive.
Exhaling, Ianto nods. "Yes. I have."
Mr. Baron purses his lips and peers closely at him, spectacles slipping over the little bump on his nose. "Not to repeat myself, but you're alive."
"Yes."
Nudging his spectacles back onto the bridge of his nose, Mr. Baron turns back to the screen. "Torchwood, eh? Protecting the Earth from extraterrestrial threats. I thought those lunatics at the Time Agency did that sort of thing."
The name resonates within him, but Ianto can't remember where he ought to know it from. "The what?"
"Never mind. Well, Mr. Jones, I'm stumped. Why are you here?" Mr. Baron sits back in his chair and takes his glasses into his hand. "I mean, do you know what could happen if --"
Ianto sits up straight, because one always ought to be aware of their posture, no matter the situation. "I'm to bring someone back to Earth, sir."
"You mean the M.P."
"The what?"
Mr. Baron huffs a gust of air onto one of the lenses and uses the condensation to clean it. "The Mortal Plane." He places the spectacles on his nose and looks up at the monitor. "Okay. Let's find your someone, shall we? Name?"
Ianto leans forward. "Jack Harkness. Captain."
Pudgy fingers fly over the keys. "No matches."
"I believe it's an alias, sir," Ianto says, fingers touching the edge of the desk. Mr. Baron keys something in and sits back with a triumphant smile.
"Ah, that'd do it. Boy, your captain has a lot of 'em, doesn't he? Well, there he is. Jack Harkness, real name Egan Orléaj, born on the Boeshane Peninsula in 5138, spring."
His eyes slide shut and he wraps himself up in the revelation, fingers tightly clutching wool. A name. A homeland. This is your boss, worrying about your health. Indulge me. "Egan."
"Quite a life on this one," Mr. Baron murmurs. "Bit surprising since -- HE WAS IMMORTAL?!"
Ianto opens his eyes and nods once. "Is immortal. I need to bring him back."
"Well someone does! An immortal mortal! Impossible!"
Ianto snorts. "So I've been told."
"But you -- why you? I mean, were you in love with the guy or something?"
"… Gavril said I needed to take Jack's contract to the last choir."
Mr. Baron pauses and fixes an appraising gaze on Ianto. There's something frightening there: the shadows that judge one when they are walking to their car alone at night, the sound of a phone ringing in a completely empty house. Ianto shivers but holds the stare, unwilling to fail whatever test he's taking at the moment. Mr. Baron nods once.
"You were in love with him."
Ianto smiles bitterly and shakes his head. "No."
An eyebrow raises. "No?"
"But… It was a close thing." Close enough that something hard in his chest, forged together by shell, stone and seawater, cracks.
Mr. Baron leans back and bounces his leg a little in thought, absently taking a pen from his desk and tapping it against his bottom lip. "… The last choir, eh? Gavril's lot doesn't do things by halfsies, do they? Your destination is Heaven, Mr. Jones. Top floor."
Ianto sighs heavily and feels impending defeat loom. "Of course."
"You have a long way to go. You'll probably die before you even make it half-way through Hell."
At this point, it's just par for the course. "Lovely."
A smile breaks over Mr. Baron's face and he swivels his chair to face Ianto fully. "You'll need a guide."
Ianto's heart stirs in his chest, picking up the beat of a steady thrum. Hope, flighty and frail, sings from deep inside of him in the way it didn't when Jack didn't wake up again. This, this right now, is hope. There's hope for success, for a resolution.
"Probably," Ianto agrees, and he can't help the smile that threatens to split his face in two. Mr. Baron gets to his feet and holds out a hand.
"I have a feeling they'll be telling your story for eons to come, Mr. Jones."
Mr. Baron's grip is tight, but warm, and Ianto exhales. "When do we begin?"
At his words, another panel opens up in the wall behind him, sliding over and knocking down a pile of rolled-up maps. There is a door. A simple, non-descript door marked "2".
Mr. Baron smiles and gestures to it. "Now."
It starts now. Breathing shallowly, anxious to see whatever awaits him beyond door number two, Ianto takes Jack's greatcoat and slips his arms into the sleeves, the unfamiliar weight settling over his shoulders like the burden of Atlas. It smells like Jack, and it's all he needs to steel his resolve and move slowly toward the door. He stops in front of it and reaches out for the knob.
"Shall we, Mr. Jones?" Mr. Baron asks from behind him. Ianto focuses on the "2" and nods. This is your teaboy, doing his job. I'm coming, Jack.
"Yes."
His fingers curl around the silver bulb and turn it quickly.
The door opens.
Chapter One (of a projected 18 chapters)
mclachlanSummary: "If you're asking if I would follow Jack into death… then yes. Yes."
Prologue
Thanks to my beloved
etharei for being the most awesome beta EVAR. When Ianto wakes, there is a woman in a gray dress crouching in front of him. He is seated. She hums in her throat and, in a single fluid movement, slides up to stand, a clipboard holding a series of papers clutched in her hand, bright red nails stark against the white.
"Awake, then, sir?" she asks, bored, as if this sort of thing happens all the time, and hands him the clipboard. "Once you've completed all the forms, bring them back to me and someone will place you."
"I'm sorry," he says, hoarse, throat dry and attempting to close around the rest of the words. "But place me where?"
The woman is not a woman at all, but rather a spotty teenager, like a secretarial temp for the summer holiday. She's wearing far too much eye make-up. "Where do you think? You do know where you are, right?"
Without waiting for an answer, she walks away, moving across the floor and lifting a counter top to slide behind it, taking a seat at what looks like a customer help window.
Then it hits him.
It's a waiting room. Almost laughable, but it's just that, like the kind one would find at a dentist's office, all starched walls and thin, navy carpeting, rows of uncomfortable chairs disguised as drab thrones. Gripping his paper ticket, he sits near an end table that's cluttered with magazines, old and new, from Time's Person of the Year issue (dated 1978) to last week's The Sun's exposé on the rise and fall of Amy Winehouse.
He sits back against the hard plastic "cushions" of his chair and glances about. There is one other person in the room: a man in a sharp business suit with a rather messy wound at his temple, matting his hair with blood and bits of bone, is reading a newspaper written in what looks like Czech.
The clipboard nearly unbalances on his knees. It looks like a tax form. Then he sees the header.
"But I'm not dead," Ianto calls to the girl, who is currently popping a strip of gum into her mouth. She blows a bubble and then closes her crooked teeth around it, snapping it.
"Of course you aren't. Just fill out the forms, sir."
He shakes his head and makes to stand up. "No, you don't understand --"
She reaches up and slides the glass partition over, effectively silencing his protest.
There’s an odd sense of disconnection, a buoyancy that dredges up the nausea he’d felt the moment Owen’s gun discharged, the sound of Jack’s body slumping to the floor, glittering slug embedded in tissue and brain matter. His hands are trembling, just like they had before he touched Jack’s rapidly-cooling skin, brushing over the still-smoking hole between two, open eyes.
He clenches his shaking hands into fists and buries them between his knees, hunching over, swallowing against the sour taste making its home in his jaw. The clipboard clatters to the floor, forgotten. There is nothing to take solace from in this austere room, ignored by the lone, framed poster on the white wall to his left that depicts a man and a woman, both grinning, one wearing white and the other black. "Don’t Wait Long!" it proclaims in a bold-set type, and underneath like a forgotten footnote are the words: "Purgatory Is Not A State Of Mind, It Is A Queue".
Laughter forces its way out of him, and he lowers his head in an attempt to stifle it without moving his hands.
Bring back the one you love, Mr. Jones.
He'd loved Lisa. Loves. Loved. Past tense. She's in the past tense now. But Jack…
He didn't love Jack. He doesn't love Jack. But he could have. He could have loved him; he'd been well on his way before Abaddon. Jack made it so easy, too easy, to fall in love with him. Jack inspired it wherever he went, without discrimination, without exception, and Ianto couldn't deny that he'd fallen victim.
Exhaling sharply, Ianto glances down at the clipboard on the floor dispassionately, rolling his shoulders and forcing the trembling to cease. He reaches down and picks it up, smoothing out the creases in the form. Afterlife Placement Application.
It doesn't surprise him, that this is all real. After fighting aliens, everything else is just… believable. Immortality, angels, Heaven, Hell. Epic tasks that the old heroes would have leapt at the chance to complete. Here he is. Odysseus, in the land of the dead and waiting for Tiresias to tell him what to do. But he still can't fill out the form.
Biting his lip, he looks at the Czech man, still reading his newspaper, and then turns his attentions back to the form, pen firmly in hand.
A bit numb, Ianto lowers the clipboard to his lap and looks to the reception desk again, wondering for a moment if things behind the counter run as a normal office would, with copiers and information labels and the like, if there are others working in cubicles, entering data and stuffing envelopes. He'd spent time during his own summer holidays as a secretary at his uncle's law firm; he knows how things work. It must run that way here, he thinks, a well-oiled machine that processes and places souls into either Heaven or Hell. Charon got an upgrade, probably retired with a pension plan.
He shakes his head, reluctantly smiling, feeling tentative tendrils of insanity creeping.
He takes the clipboard into his left hand and walks quietly to the window, eying the Czech man who is now doing a crossword puzzle from a magazine. The man glances up briefly, lifts his pen in a silent 'you too, huh?', and then goes back to his puzzle, muttering unintelligibly and scratching out something he'd written.
Ianto spares a look for his blank application and then knocks on the glass partition, snatching his hand back just as the receptionist slams it open. The heady scent of nail polish smacks him in the face, invading his nostrils and clinging to the sensitive tissue inside his nose. The receptionist's nails on her left hand are now a garish yellow. He winces.
"Miss --"
She snaps her gum at him. "Have you filled out the forms, then?"
He blinks and glances at the empty application. "Have I -- No. No, I can't fill them out."
The receptionist gives him a less-than-impressed look, peering up at him through the thicket of her lashes, tangled and matted with blacker than black mascara. "And why not?"
"Because I'm not dead," Ianto says again, a bit overwhelmed, a bit impatient with her general apathy. If one is to do a job, make the best of it and do it right. And politely. It doesn't cost to be polite, really.
"Sir, this is Circle I," the receptionist sighs, dipping the polish brush into the little vial and bringing it out, tapping it twice against the glass mouth to get rid of excess polish. She starts with her thumb, coating it three times before submerging the brush again. "You wouldn't be here if you weren't dead."
Ianto rolls his eyes. "I know where I am. My da read me "The Inferno" when I was younger. But I'm not dead, I'm not. Isn't there someone else I can speak to?"
"Sir," the receptionist growls, "do not yell at me."
"I … pardon? I wasn't --"
She's on her feet in one, fluid movement, eyes flashing from behind their mascara shields, and brandishing a yellow claw like a Viking would an axe. "If you don't lower your voice, I will be forced to call my superior."
Relief washes over him at her words and he presses down the urge to throw his arms out dramatically. "Yes! Please. Please, may I speak to your superior?"
"Fine," the receptionist snarls, slamming herself back into her chair and stabbing one nail against a white button on her phone. The polish smudges but she doesn't seem to notice or care. "Excuse me, Mr. Baron? I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm having a spot of trouble down here and was wondering if you might come down and sort things."
"I'll be right down," crackles the intercom, a light Surrey accent audible over the static. The receptionist takes her finger off of the button and sits back, all cheery professionalism again.
"Mr. Baron will be right with you."
Ianto feels the subtle pounding of an oncoming headache and simply nods, handing her the clipboard and stepping away from the window. There had been a day like this, Ianto remembers, dealing with UNIT trainees that had left Jack fuming by the time they'd finally left.
Stupidity is a disease, Ianto, Jack had told him, grinning, a frighteningly manic glint in his eyes. And it's catching.
I've already been inoculated, sir.
It had won a hearty laugh. Probably only against last year's strain. All right, Jones, drop your pants and bend over. Just a little prick…
This is harassment.
This is your boss, worrying about your health. Indulge me.
Ianto smiles to himself. Too easy. Jack made it too easy. Had there been more time, more time to forgive, more time to apologize, more time to try, he would have fallen and that would have been it.
Just then, a panel in the wall opens up to reveal a set of stairs, on which a short, slightly portly man is descending, the sweater vest over a dress shirt and the glasses perched precariously on an aquiline nose implying a sort of Oxfordian intelligence. He smiles at Ianto like a favorite uncle does to a misbehaving nephew, affection and warning melded into the upturned corners of his mouth.
"Well!" Mr. Baron exclaims softly, tucking his hands into the pockets of his trousers. "What seems to be the --"
He pauses, stares at Ianto for a long and silent moment, before jerking in shock. "JESUS CHRIST!"
The receptionist sticks her head out of the window, looking around wildly. "Oh! Where?!" She beckons to Ianto and whispers, "He's so sexy."
But Mr. Baron pays no heed to the girl, just quickly moves to stand in front of Ianto, pressing a hand over Ianto's heart and gasping at the steady thrum under his palm. Swallowing, he removes his hand and pastes on a ghastly smile for the receptionist's benefit, scurrying behind Ianto and herding him to the stairs.
"I'm going to take our friend to my office for a little chat. I'll sort this all out. You can handle things without me, yes? No calls, now! I am not to be disturbed!"
"Your coat, sir!" The receptionist calls, and Ianto starts in surprise, glancing over his shoulder at the folded wool that's sitting innocuously in the chair he had vacated. Jack's coat.
"Ah, yes," Ianto breathes, hurrying over and snatching the coat up, pressing it hard against his chest. Mr. Baron waves him back into the passageway and then shuts the wall panel behind them, shoving Ianto upwards. "Move! Get up there! Hurry now!"
As soon as they reach the top, Ianto stumbles into a rather quaint office and Mr. Baron slams the door shut, dramatically throwing himself back against it, arms out wide, barricading the room from escaping guests or intrusive visitors. He then rushes behind a large mahogany desk, sitting down at a computer. "Who are you? What are you doing here? Were you in an accident? Perhaps you flatlined for a moment. Oh, you had to go and ruin our perfect record! Circle I has had no mistakes since it came under my management! Well, mistakes do happen, I suppose. Easily fixed, no need to even mark it on your record! We'll just keep this between us and I'll send you back right away --"
Eyes wide, overwhelmed, Ianto shakes his head and says, "No."
Mr. Baron freezes. "N-no?"
"No. Don't send me back," Ianto says firmly, leaning forward, heart pounding. "I'm supposed to be here."
"But… you're alive!"
"Yes."
Mr. Baron stares at him for a long moment, his gaze so heavy that Ianto can feel the seconds stretching between them, the slow trickle of saline from an IV bag crawling into him and diluting his insides. Mr. Baron blinks and turns his gaze to the computer, tapping a key. The monitor bursts to life.
"Name?"
"Ianto Jones," he says quietly, leaning forward to catch a glimpse of the computer monitor.
"Wow, can't get more Welsh than that," Mr. Baron hums, typing it into a search engine of sorts, the results endlessly sliding up the screen, each one carrying a date of birth and a genealogy option.
"Could your name be any more common? I have over 5,000 hits for you." Mr. Baron mutters, then waves his hand at Ianto. "Can I have a place of birth?"
"Newport." He hasn't been back to Newport since that fateful August night when his mother thrust him out into the bright and antiseptic world, forcing him to breathe in Langstone's damp air. "Langstone, Newport."
Mr. Baron obligingly keys in the words and sits back with a smile. "August 19, 1983?"
Ianto inclines his head, glancing at the varying paragraphs of information on the screen. His entire life, exposed to the eyes of a complete stranger. "That's right."
"Ianto Alway Jones, born at 20.37pm. It was raining that night."
He swallows and his eyes find a framed portrait of Elizabeth I above a stack of old tomes, all marked with colored post-its. "I believe it was, yes."
"Parents are…" Mr. Baron pauses and squints at the screen, drawing Ianto's attention back to him. Tiny pockets of skin at the corners of Mr. Baron's eyes ripple as he reads the information there. Ianto doesn't understand why his parentage is so interesting. Llewellyn and Enid Jones, a master tailor and a school teacher. Hardly the stuff of legends, or even anything to pause over. But Mr. Baron tuts to himself, something akin to the beginnings of a smile pulling at his lips. "Oh, now that's interesting. My, my, my."
"It shouldn't be," Ianto says without a hint of irony or bitterness. "What makes it interesting?"
Mr. Baron blinks slowly, as if waking from a daydream. "Hmm? Oh, nothing. Nothing at all. Wait, it says here that you've died once before."
Ianto is too caught up in a haze of fire, water, blood, and the taste of Jack in his mouth to say anything about the subject change. God, he has, hasn't he. He's died. Died. He remembers now, the cool feeling of absolutely nothing, the last string tethering him to the earth snapping and releasing him to the promise of eternal forgiveness for what he'd wrought. Until a hand had taken hold of his and pulled him back, reforging broken ties and trapping him. Until Jack had poured himself into Ianto and he was forced to open his eyes again.
He'd died.
And Jack…
Then it's only fair that Ianto is here. It's only fair. Except, that's a lie. He would have come even without the debt that now hangs over him. He had come without incentive.
Exhaling, Ianto nods. "Yes. I have."
Mr. Baron purses his lips and peers closely at him, spectacles slipping over the little bump on his nose. "Not to repeat myself, but you're alive."
"Yes."
Nudging his spectacles back onto the bridge of his nose, Mr. Baron turns back to the screen. "Torchwood, eh? Protecting the Earth from extraterrestrial threats. I thought those lunatics at the Time Agency did that sort of thing."
The name resonates within him, but Ianto can't remember where he ought to know it from. "The what?"
"Never mind. Well, Mr. Jones, I'm stumped. Why are you here?" Mr. Baron sits back in his chair and takes his glasses into his hand. "I mean, do you know what could happen if --"
Ianto sits up straight, because one always ought to be aware of their posture, no matter the situation. "I'm to bring someone back to Earth, sir."
"You mean the M.P."
"The what?"
Mr. Baron huffs a gust of air onto one of the lenses and uses the condensation to clean it. "The Mortal Plane." He places the spectacles on his nose and looks up at the monitor. "Okay. Let's find your someone, shall we? Name?"
Ianto leans forward. "Jack Harkness. Captain."
Pudgy fingers fly over the keys. "No matches."
"I believe it's an alias, sir," Ianto says, fingers touching the edge of the desk. Mr. Baron keys something in and sits back with a triumphant smile.
"Ah, that'd do it. Boy, your captain has a lot of 'em, doesn't he? Well, there he is. Jack Harkness, real name Egan Orléaj, born on the Boeshane Peninsula in 5138, spring."
His eyes slide shut and he wraps himself up in the revelation, fingers tightly clutching wool. A name. A homeland. This is your boss, worrying about your health. Indulge me. "Egan."
"Quite a life on this one," Mr. Baron murmurs. "Bit surprising since -- HE WAS IMMORTAL?!"
Ianto opens his eyes and nods once. "Is immortal. I need to bring him back."
"Well someone does! An immortal mortal! Impossible!"
Ianto snorts. "So I've been told."
"But you -- why you? I mean, were you in love with the guy or something?"
"… Gavril said I needed to take Jack's contract to the last choir."
Mr. Baron pauses and fixes an appraising gaze on Ianto. There's something frightening there: the shadows that judge one when they are walking to their car alone at night, the sound of a phone ringing in a completely empty house. Ianto shivers but holds the stare, unwilling to fail whatever test he's taking at the moment. Mr. Baron nods once.
"You were in love with him."
Ianto smiles bitterly and shakes his head. "No."
An eyebrow raises. "No?"
"But… It was a close thing." Close enough that something hard in his chest, forged together by shell, stone and seawater, cracks.
Mr. Baron leans back and bounces his leg a little in thought, absently taking a pen from his desk and tapping it against his bottom lip. "… The last choir, eh? Gavril's lot doesn't do things by halfsies, do they? Your destination is Heaven, Mr. Jones. Top floor."
Ianto sighs heavily and feels impending defeat loom. "Of course."
"You have a long way to go. You'll probably die before you even make it half-way through Hell."
At this point, it's just par for the course. "Lovely."
A smile breaks over Mr. Baron's face and he swivels his chair to face Ianto fully. "You'll need a guide."
Ianto's heart stirs in his chest, picking up the beat of a steady thrum. Hope, flighty and frail, sings from deep inside of him in the way it didn't when Jack didn't wake up again. This, this right now, is hope. There's hope for success, for a resolution.
"Probably," Ianto agrees, and he can't help the smile that threatens to split his face in two. Mr. Baron gets to his feet and holds out a hand.
"I have a feeling they'll be telling your story for eons to come, Mr. Jones."
Mr. Baron's grip is tight, but warm, and Ianto exhales. "When do we begin?"
At his words, another panel opens up in the wall behind him, sliding over and knocking down a pile of rolled-up maps. There is a door. A simple, non-descript door marked "2".
Mr. Baron smiles and gestures to it. "Now."
It starts now. Breathing shallowly, anxious to see whatever awaits him beyond door number two, Ianto takes Jack's greatcoat and slips his arms into the sleeves, the unfamiliar weight settling over his shoulders like the burden of Atlas. It smells like Jack, and it's all he needs to steel his resolve and move slowly toward the door. He stops in front of it and reaches out for the knob.
"Shall we, Mr. Jones?" Mr. Baron asks from behind him. Ianto focuses on the "2" and nods. This is your teaboy, doing his job. I'm coming, Jack.
"Yes."
His fingers curl around the silver bulb and turn it quickly.
The door opens.
