Title: Vizzini's Rule, Chapter 47

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: Um...nope

Spoilers: Season One thru Random Shoes (1x09) and Season Two for the episode Adrift (2x11)

Disclaimer: Torchwood and all its wonderfulness belong to Russell T. Davies and the Mighty Beeb. Just goofin' around!

Summary: In which we find out about the mysterious "FH"...

Notes: Thanks to my lovely, wonderful, awesome and oh-so-much-fun-to-sit-in-line-with beta thrace_adams, I am able to bring you the next chapter tonight. Thanks hun!!  :D   Hope ya'll enjoy!

Previous Chapters


Vizzini's Rule: Chapter Forty-Seven

Previously on Vizzini’s Rule:
“What’s wrong with that rift spike, Jack, and why wouldn’t you just tell Tosh?”

Jack regarded him for a moment. “Damn, you’re right.”

“About what?”

“You can always tell when I’m lying.”

Ianto laughed quietly. “I told you. Now what’s going on, Jack?”

Jack sighed. He looked at the printout and then back at Ianto and seemed to come to some kind of decision. “Have a seat,” he said as he stood up and crossed the room to the cabinets on the wall. He unlocked one, pulled out the secure-phone and returned to his desk.

Noting the sadness that was back in Jack’s eyes, Ianto asked, “Jack, does this have something to do with FH? Who is it?”

Jack smiled. “You are way too smart for your own good, Ianto. Yes, this has to do with FH. And this rift spike. And why I was lying to Tosh. I… I need to talk to someone about this. It’s unpleasant, in fact it’s downright horrifying. It’s also Torchwood’s biggest secret, so I need you to swear that you won’t tell the others. Okay?”

“I promise,” Ianto said solemnly.

Jack ran a hand through his hair. “Where to start?” He looked at Ianto for a moment and then rifled through one of his lower drawers. He pulled out a folder with a single piece of paper in it – another rift monitor report from six weeks before. He set it on his desk so it was facing Ianto. Using a pen, he pointed to a spot on the report where the spike went below the “safe” line that ran along the bottom of the graph. “Do you see this? It’s called a negative rift spike.”

Ianto nodded. This was all part of Jack’s ‘Welcome to Torchwood: This is the Rift, Don’t Mess With It’ speech.

“I told you it’s just residual energy. That was a lie.”

“So what is it?”

“Well, you know how rift spikes can leave behind objects, aliens, whatever? Well, negative spikes take things away.”

“Things?” Ianto asked, dreading clarification.

“Things – objects, cars, animals… people.”

Ianto swallowed hard. “And this report?” he asked, tapping the one Tosh had just delivered.

Jack slid it closer to Ianto. “If you look here,” he said, pointing with his pen again, “can you see anything different about this spike?”

Ianto studied the paper, lifting it up to the light, looking for anything out of the ordinary. He sighed in defeat. “I can’t. It looks like a normal rift spike to me,” he said as he set the paper back down. But even as he spoke, something caught his eye. “Wait a minute… are those little feathery edges just from the printer being dirty?”

Jack looked proud. “No. That’s a signature. That’s what I look for every day when I look at these reports.”

“But what does it mean?” Ianto asked in confusion.

“Very simply, it means that whatever came through the rift during this spike, has already been through it once before. It means that something or someone has been returned.”

“They can come back?”

“Sometimes.”

“Alive?”

“Sometimes, although I wonder if it’s a miracle or a curse,” Jack said in a voice that made Ianto’s heart ache.

“What… what’s wrong with them?”

“A million different things. It’s… it’s the most godawful part of this job, Ianto. When I took over Torchwood, we had already found two survivors, merely by chance. We didn’t know what was wrong with them when we found them. Hell, one of them? We weren’t even sure he was human. Alex locked them in the vaults next to the weevils. He kept them alive, but that was about it. I tried to talk to them whenever I could, find out what had happened to them. I finally put it together from things they’d said, planets, galaxies they could name that no human in the 21st Century should have any knowledge of. Then I started to keep an eye on the rift. I went through the archives of reports and finally put two and two together.”

Jack took a drink of his coffee and rubbed his hands over his face before he continued.

“When Alex… died and I took over, the first thing I did was to create a place for Alice and Jules and the others that would come, somewhere they could live, so they could have some semblance of a life. It’s on Flat Holm Island.”

“FH,” Ianto said.

“Yes. There’s a medical facility there now, with staff who believe their patients were rescued from illegal medical testing and experiments gone wrong. They don’t pay any attention when the victims babble about aliens and time travel. They just care for them, take them out to watch the birds, make sure they eat.”

“God Jack that’s…”

“Awful, I know. I never wanted to burden anyone with this, but I… I can’t do it alone anymore. I know it’s weak, but I just need someone to talk to.” Jack sighed. “I think I’m starting to understand how Suzie felt.”

Ianto swallowed the lump in his throat. Jack needed someone to confide in and he chose me. Not Gwen or Tosh or… well, no one in their right mind would confide in Owen, but he chose me. He reached for the report with the strange rift spike again, looking down at it as he said, “It’s not weak to admit you need help with something, Jack. It’s smart. What I don’t understand is why you or Torchwood, whoever decided, need to keep it a secret.”

“We’re here to monitor the rift, to keep people safe and there’s nothing we can do to stop this from happening. I’ve had Tosh working on a rift predictor program since they day she arrived, but there is just no way to know when or where these negative spikes will hit.”

“I understand all that, but why keep it secret at Torchwood? Surely the fact that we’re helping those who return is the important part.”

“It’s just… We see too much of the horror in the world as it is. This job, the things we deal with every day, the things we know are out there, are coming. You can see too much of that. It can make it impossible to go on.”

“I still don’t understand. What you’re doing here is a good thing–”

Jack interrupted. “It is a good thing, but it can’t erase what happened to these people. Trust me, Ianto, I’ve seen what happens when this job gets to you,” Jack said with a shudder.

“You’re talking about Suzie again, aren’t you?” Ianto asked.

“No,” Jack said. “Suzie was… well, Suzie was different. No, I’m talking about Alex. He… he saw something, I never knew what, but whatever it was, it drove him mad. He said we weren’t ready. That something was coming, everything was going to change and that we weren’t ready. He… he killed the entire team and then he shot himself right in front of me.”

Jack’s eyes clouded over, lost in the painful memories of the past. Ianto was silent, not wanting to intrude. So that’s what happened, he thought. If Alex had shot Jack that night as well… Ianto’s throat closed up and he swallowed hard. He reached across the desk to place his hand over Jack’s.

At the touch, Jack jerked, startled by the contact. He looked down at Ianto’s hand and turned his over to return the reassuring grip. They sat like that for a moment until Ianto glanced down and the rift activity report caught his eye.

“Jack, how long since this report came through?”

Jack glanced down at his watch. “Almost twenty minutes now.”

Ianto jumped to his feet. “We have to get out there. See who came back.”

“Ianto, wait a minute. We don’t even know for sure it was a person. I have to wait for the SUV to be ready to drive again.”

“That’s stupid,” Ianto said bluntly.

Jack looked surprised. “What?”

“We don’t need the SUV, we can just take my car. Jack, please! I can’t stand the thought that someone might be out there, hurt and… and lost and–”

“Whoa, Ianto, you’re not coming with me. I meant it, I don’t want the team involved with Flat Holm and that goes for you too.”

“You can’t be serious,” Ianto said.

“I’m completely serious. I don’t want you to see this, Ianto, I just needed someone to talk to,” Jack said, his voice fading a bit at the end as if he realized how lame his excuse sounded.

“Then you should have chosen someone else because if you think I can sit idly by when I could be helping, then you don’t know me at all,” Ianto said with a touch of anger and sadness in his tone.

Jack just looked at Ianto for almost a full minute, then his face softened. He stood up and walked from behind his desk to stand in front of Ianto. He reached up to cup his face and placed a soft kiss on his lips. “I do know you, Ianto. Let’s go.” Jack grabbed his coat and started to walk out the door. He turned to see Ianto still standing motionless by his desk. “You coming?” he asked.

Ianto nodded slowly. “Just like that?” he asked, joining Jack at the door.

“Just like that,” Jack agreed. “I’ve learned not to argue with you about this sort of thing. Plus,” Jack paused for a second. “I think maybe I told you because I knew wouldn’t give up on it.”

“I can handle this, Jack. I’m stronger than you think,” Ianto said as they stepped into the elevator.

“Ianto,” Jack said, pulling him into his arms. “You are the strongest person I know. Someday, I’d really love to stop being the guy who has to keep finding out just how strong. I meant what I said this morning. I only want you to be happy.”

“Helping you makes me happy,” Ianto mumbled into Jack’s shoulder.

“What did I do to deserve you?” Jack wondered.

Ianto just smiled and kissed him as the elevator slowed to a stop.

“Come on, Captain. Work to do.”

TBC in Chapter Forty-Eight