Title: The Siege of Annwfn (2/10)

Author: Emma

Characters: Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones, Torchwood Three Team, Others.

Rating: R

Disclaimer: Oh, please. If I owned them, would I let some of those idiots write the scripts? And if I were making any money off them, would I be where they could find me?

Spoilers: None. This takes place in my Homecoming AU, a few months after The Eye of Neith.

Summary: The only things that stand between our Universe and disaster are Torchwood Three and Ianto’s growing powers…

            Ianto grabbed Gwen’s arm and pulled her down. “Sit the hell down, woman, before you fall over!”

            Torchwood’s second-in-command sank into the armchair with a sigh of relief. “I can’t believe how long that took. Sometimes I think they do it for the pleasure of hearing themselves talk. And then that ridiculous ceremony, and me in high heels!”

            Ianto straddled the ottoman and patted the leather in front of him invitingly. Gwen kicked off her shoes and obliged, moaning in appreciation as his strong fingers rubbed her abused extremities from toes to calf.

            “Bureaucrats live for pomp and circumstance. Being invited to participate in an Ixen High Court treaty ceremony must have given them all orgasms.” He dug his thumbs into her heels, making her moan again. ‘And you still haven’t gotten over your fondness for these things.”

            “Blame Toshiko. I was a nice Welsh girl who wore sensible trainers on the job until I became friends with a shoe demon.”

            They grinned at each other. I was lovely to be able to talk about the friends they had lost without feeling terrible grief. There had been a time when neither one of them believed it would happen.

            “How she managed not to break her neck, I’ll never know.” Ianto snickered. “And I hear Toshi’s heading the same way.”

            “Nothing makes that girl happier than to clack about the house in my Jimmy Choos. My three-hundred-quid-on-sale Jimmy Choos!”

            They were still laughing when the cog door opened and Jack and Martha walked in.

            “Oi!” Jack said mock-aggrieved.  “How come she gets foot massages?”

            “Because her feet are prettier than yours?”

            “There’s something to that.”

            Jack leaned down to press his lips to Ianto’s, sighing softly. Ianto could feel the exhaustion and grief emanating from his lover.

            “You two, sit down. I’ll go make us all coffee.” He kissed Martha’s cheek in passing. “Tea for you?”

            “No, I think I need coffee today.” Martha plopped down into the ottoman he had vacated. “It’s been a miserable two days.”

            In the kitchen Ianto washed the assortment of crockery he found in the sink – twenty-odd years and they still couldn’t wash their own mugs! – then started the coffee. He decided to make enough for everyone and add a little extra pickup. Thankfully the Penderyn was still kept on the same shelf. He considered the tray thoughtfully and decided to add another pot of coffee; knowing Jack, this meeting he had called could go on until all hours.

            By the time he finished with preparations, the team had moved to the conference room. When Ianto entered with the loaded tray, John Hart clapped his hands mockingly.

            “The tea-boy’s home! Talk about flashbacks.”

            “Prat,” said Ianto. “I still owe you a shooting. Don’t tempt me.”

            “Ooooh, scary.” John grabbed his mug and sipped. His whole body seemed to melt down until he was slouched in his chair. “Wow. This I could happily get shot for.”

            Ianto distributed the other mugs then sat down next to Jack. He wondered if leaving his old space open had been a coincidence or if the Torchwood team was sending him a subtle message.

            ‘Thank you.” Jack stroked his wrist briefly. “I needed this.”

            Martha took a long appreciative sip of her coffee, but, very Martha-like, was already worrying about the problem at hand. “Ianto, Jack said you warned him about what has happening to Donna. How did you know?”

            “The TARDIS told me.” He pulled his sleeve back to expose the bracelet. “I was at the Castle doing some location scouting and suddenly I was in the hospital room, standing in a corner, looking on.”

            “Did this… Gwair… kill Donna?”

            “No. That was very clear.” Ianto answered. “He was holding her, singing to her, as she died.”

            “At least it wasn’t murder,” Jack said. “But what the hell was that thing I saw coming out of her body?”

            “That was Donna’s Potentiality.”

            “Her what?” exclaimed John.

            Ianto took a few moments to organize his thoughts. “The way the Doctor’s TARDIS explained it to me, a TARDIS starts out as something she called a Metastructure. During the last battle with the Gallifreyans, the Daleks targeted the TARDIS nursery. Metastructures were shattered and the fragments flung out across time and space. The Metastructure fragments are attracted to a certain type of mind and can attach themselves to them at birth. That event triggers a Potentiality in the carrier.”

            “And Donna Noble had a Metastructure fragment inside her?”

            “Yes. It was probably the reason why she was able to survive the biological metacrisis.” Ianto said thoughtfully. “What happened to her was the equivalent of the Hub computer downloading all its files into my laptop at high speed. Not only did she survive something that should have blown all her circuits instantly but she was able to function at a very high level for quite a while.”

            “So when she died” Gwen said, “this Potentiality was set free?”

            “It was supposed to. And another thing, Potentialities are not visible. They are just that, a Space-Time mathematical possibility. Somehow someone made its energy signature visible, so it was possible to grab it.”

            John seemed about to speak, then he subsided. Ianto cocked an inquiring eyebrow. “You were going to say something?”

            “Do you have a Potentiality?”

            “It would be more accurate to ask if I am a Potentiality.” Ianto smiled. “Not… anymore.”

            John’s eyes flickered to the bracelet. “So, someone could use a Potentiality as a link to a TARDIS? Or as the nucleus for a new TARDIS?”

            “Both, I think. Except that Donna was also a Time Lord for a while, so… it’s anybody’s guess.”

            “From the policeman’s point of view,” Andy spoke up for the first time, “I’d say we need to find this Gwair fellow. Did you get anything on him?”

            “Only his name and that he was from Caerau,” Martha said. “The people at the hospital couldn’t find any records on him, and there should have been a considerable number. Getting a job at St. Michael’s is harder than getting a job at Buckingham Palace, but this guy just waltzed in. Everyone at the hospital remembers Gwair from Caerau, and that is all they remember.”

            “What’s making me nuts,” Jack said, pouring himself another cup of coffee, “was what he said to me. What the hell does only seven returned mean? I’ve run the computer ragged with searches and nothing.”

            “Was that what you were looking for?” Andy snorted. “Sometimes you’re too clever and subtle by half. I can tell you what it means, though not how it fits into all this insanity.”

            Everyone looked at him as if he’d grown a second head. He stared back at them, his deadpan expression marred only by the suggestion of a tiny smirk. He pointed at Gwen and Ianto. “You two should be ashamed of yourselves. These are foreigners, but you are Welsh. You learned it in school.”

            The penny dropped for Gwen and Ianto at the same time.

            “Bloody hell!” Ianto cursed, chagrined. “My Tad would have my hide for lining fabric for forgetting it.”

            “You? Me!” Gwen said. “I had to recite the thing from memory every time my Nan and Grantad Cooper came to visit!”

            Jack gave an exaggerated sigh. “If you good and true Welshmen could enlighten the rest of us…”

            “It’s the Preiddeu Annwfn, Jack.” Ianto answered. “The Spoils of Annwfn. One of our most famous poems. It tells the story of King Arthur’s quest to steal the cauldron of the King of Annwfn, the Netherworld. According to the poem, Arthur sailed to Annwfn with three boatloads of men, but only seven returned. There’s even a list of survivors somewhere.”

            “Manawyddan, Taliesin, Pryderi, Llwch Lleminawg, Gwalchmei, Bedwyr, and Cei,” said Andy. “And Gwair mab Gwystyl was the prisoner.”

            “This poem mentions a Gwair?” asked Martha.

            “Gwair is a young warrior who is kept eternally prisoner in Annwfn, bound by a blue or gray chain, depending who translated the poem.”

            “So if I understand this correctly,” said John, “our hypothesis is that some mythological hero from the mythological Welsh underworld stole Donna Noble’s Potentiality?”

            “No quite,” said Jack. “But maybe… I don’t think Gwair was very happy with what he was doing, and he really wanted us to pay attention to that poem. It wouldn’t be the first time information was encrypted into some innocent piece of writing.”

            “Jack,” Ianto said, “The Preiddeu Annwfn has been dated to between the ninth and twelfth centuries. That’s a lot of time to wait to pass on information.”

            “Some people have all the time in the Universe. Ianto… can you ask the TARDIS if it knows who took Donna?”

            “I can try, but don’t expect much. It certainly hasn’t answered anything I’ve asked before.”

            “Try.”

            Ianto touched his fingers to the bracelet as he closed his eyes. He had tried this before but the results had been discouraging. The TARDIS had seemed to be waiting for something; some signal that Ianto did not know how to give or some moment that hadn’t been reached yet. There was a patience to a TARDIS that was wholly unhuman and even though it was Ianto who was being transformed, it would happen on its timetable, not his.

He was therefore utterly astonished when a detailed image arose in his mind before he even asked the question. He had never seen them, but he knew immediately who they were. His eyes snapped open.

            “You knew!” he said to Jack.               

            “I guessed. Was I right?”

            Ianto nodded.

            John snapped his fingers impatiently. “Well, don’t keep us in suspense, Eye-Candy.”

            “Time Lords. The TARDIS says Donna was taken by Time Lords.”