Chapter Text
If there was one thing Ianto excelled at in life it was the art of faking things. Faking a smile, a laugh, or very recently faking calmness. He had been faking things for as long as he could remember. “How are you?” “Fine.” The answer was always fine. Even if he had just got a beating, his mum freaked out on him in the ward. Things were always fine. They had to be. If he panicked his sister would panic and he could bear the idea of it. She deserved better. It was bad enough he couldn’t always protect her from their dad. The least he could do was make it seem like the rest of time thing were relatively normal.
So in spite of his raging heartbeat, a gun pointed at his back, he pretended none of it was there.
Owen pushed him in one of the cells. It still smelled like a previous owner. He got a pat down, and Owen took his phone and the inhaler from his pants.
“It’s not a weapon.” He said. “And I really do need it. With all the lack of cleaning this place gets.”
Owen tossed the inhaler back to him and closed the door. There was nowhere to sit, but enough room to pace. Pacing showed nervousness, so he settled for leaning against the wall. Opposite of him was the Alien.
“Ah, we meet again.” Ianto addressed it.
It stared at him, did it remember? “I like your outfit. Red is a better colour on you.” He tried to joke. “Can you talk for me again?” He had heard it before, he could copy it if asked, but he wondered if the Alien had more range, more ‘words’. Or if one wail was all it possessed. It was better to occupy his mind with that creature than wonder about what would happen next. Lisa and UNIT would come here within the coming hour. That had been the deal. He really hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
It didn’t take long for the leader to arrive at his door. “You’re coming with me.” He said stoical.
Ianto figured the man might still be upset much more than the rest of the team would be. He didn’t say a word the whole way.
This must be their interrogation room, he hadn’t seen it before, but it was very small and basic, no glass window, just a railing where the other members stood. He didn’t look up at them, they did not matter right now. The man in front of him did.
“Ianto Jones, Born 19th of August 1998.” Jack read the file that was in front of him. “Bit young.” He commented.
Ianto shrugged. “I’ve been a bit young all my life, sir.” He answered back.
“I can see that. Graduated University at 17. Impressive.”
“Thank you. It's wasn’t that hard.” Ianto admitted. He figured it best to tell the truth considering they might be using some sort of truth device.
“Neither was breaking into our hub apparently.” Straight to the point, Ianto realised. “How did you do it?”
“The lock work is good, but not if you know what you are doing. I knew what to look for since Dr. Harper went behind the curtain to retrieve the first aid kit. The lack of room meant a doorway, which meant there had to be a way to open the door from this side.”
“You already knew who we were when you saw Owen?”
Ianto nodded, “I’ve known for a long time.”
“How long?” There was an annoyance in his voice now, not that Ianto blamed the man for it.
“I first saw you, Dr Harper and Miss Sato in London after the events with Torchwood one. I overheard you talking and fled to Cardiff. I didn’t want to be retconned.” Jack looked at him but said nothing, “I didn’t know you were based here until I saw you again when the Alien Fish in the bay appeared.”
“You were there.”
“I saw it, I saw you leave on a boat behind it.” Ianto noticed he was picking his nails and placed his hands on the table. “I didn’t know the location of your base until I fell two months ago and came here.”
The man nodded, “Why wait two months to break in?”
“I didn’t want to at first. I just wanted know how many of you there were, how you got in and out of this place. What your job was? Then it took me awhile to figure out that there was no structure whatsoever. Last night was the first opportunity that presented itself, because all of you had left. I decided to take it. Bit impulsive.”
“Note to us: always have someone in the hub.” The woman with glasses mumbled.
Ianto had made the mistake of looking up. “Eyes on me, kid.” The man directed at him. He quickly looked back at him. “Enough small talk. Who do you work for?”
“Nobody.” He answered. He saw the man look down, “You can put me on a lie detector but it won’t change the answer.” He added.
“What do you want from us?” The man wasn’t going to comment on his remark.
“I want to work here.” Ianto stated, “Like I told Dr. Harper. I would like to clean things up. No offence but you look like you could use someone that can clean.”
“We can clean.” He countered.
“I’m not saying you can’t, however I don’t think you do. The pizza boxes, the papers, the stickiness, the dust.” He knew he was pulling a face there. “So unnecessary, so unsanitary.”
“What did you like about this place?” He heard the other woman ask, with her heavy welsh accent.
“There are many things to like, the Alien is fascinating for sure, but what really drew me in were the books.”
“You broke into a secret base and the most amazing thing were books?” He could hear the confusion in Dr. Harper’s voice.
“Not the books itself. The knowledge they have. The stories that they tell. Things that they wanted the future to remember, things that once upon a time mattered. History is the most important lesson the world has to teach us and there is a lot of it in this place.”
“A lot of that is classified.” The man in front of him said.
He looked at him, “For very good reasons, I am sure. But if those books remain untouched their lessons remain forgotten or unlearned. There was no organisation, some books looked like would they fall apart when opened. They need to be read, scanned into computers, or copied. Now you just have a room filled with knowledge and I have a hard time believing you could locate the right book if you needed it.”
“And you would want to organise it.” Miss Sato asked.
“Yes, I would. I’m good at it.”
“You can organise anywhere in the world, why pick us? Why not UNIT?” The man said. He was getting a little annoyed that he didn’t know the man’s name. He had guessed Jack, but it had never been confirmed.
“Sir, if you look at the file, you can probably see UNIT has been begging me to work for them for years. I have turned them down every single time. I’m not interested in an organisation that is more like a well-oiled machine than one like this where every member matters. You safe the world, you work hard, you’re a small team almost like a family. Each of you is worth something. Nobody here is just a number. That makes all the difference in the world to me.”
“Yet Torchwood one wanted you, they are no different from UNIT.” Jack commented.
“I wouldn’t know, I never worked there. But they seemed better,” Ianto said.
“Those cybermen you know about, Torchwood one helped make that happen.”
Ianto looked down, “And they paid the price. Even the innocent paid the prize. The bill is always due.” He wondered if anyone would call him out on his clear Dr. Strange quotation, but everyone stayed quiet.
“Boardroom meeting.” Jack said. He got up from his chair. “Stay here.” He ordered.
Ianto simply nodded. Running now would only make things worse anyway.