Title: The Siege of Annwfn (5/10)

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…

             By late afternoon they had run out of leads. The toxicology report showed the “hound” to have no trace of the kind of chemicals that normally accumulated in a modern human’s body. He also had no antibodies against most common childhood diseases – which, according to Martha, meant no vaccination – but he did have all the signs of having survived a number of diseases that had been long eradicated in modern Europe. As ridiculous as it would have sounded if it hadn’t been Torchwood, everything pointed to his having lived at least six to seven hundred years earlier. It was impossible to trace him by any method available to them.

            All tests on the torque proved equally frustrating. It was definitely a Gallifreyan artifact and it showed signs of having been through the Rift, which confirmed the results of the artron energy scan. The amount of artron energy accumulated in the circuitry showed it to have been in use over five hundred years, which confirmed the results of the autopsy on its wearer, and much like him, they had no way to trace it.

            “A great deal of information,” growled Gwen, who had made it back to the Hub exhausted and in a semi-homicidal state of mind, “and we can do damn all with it.”

            “Our best bet is still the poem,” Jack said. “John, Andy, find as many versions of it as you can and feed them to the mainframe. Set up the broadest analysis parameters you can. Anything you can think of, John, and tell your girlfriend to make as many wild-ass guesses as she wants to.”

            “That’ll take a while.”

            “Time is all we have at this moment. Martha, Gwen, go home to your families. Ianto and I can hold down the fort while John and Andy work.”

            From a Torchwood point of view, it was a quiet night, with heavy rain and wind keeping weevils underground. John and Andy had spent a couple of hours setting up the search, and then the four men had idly discussed dinner. Nobody felt like braving the rain or the possibility of more hounds, so they ended up retreating to John’s flat to see what they could find.

            Years before, John had taken over from Jack as the Hub’s permanent resident, but, unlike Jack, he had not been content with a Spartan cubbyhole under the office floor. He had remodeled three unused rooms in one of the older tunnels into living quarters, including a small but very well equipped kitchen. One look at the contents of the fridge freezer had Andy looking at John incredulously.

            “You make your own pizza?”

            John shrugged. “I hate the greasy stuff that passes for pizza around here. I’ll just pop this into the oven. One taste of this, Cop Boy, and you’ll never want another bite of takeaway Italian again.”

            They had to admit John was right. The crispy-crusted pie layered with fresh vegetables and dusted with mozzarella and parmesan was wolfed down in record time. A second one was baked and consumed at a much more leisurely pace, accompanied by a nice Chianti.

            “It occurs to me,” Andy said, snatching the last slice of pizza from under Jack’s hand, “that my life in Torchwood consists of long stretches of boring office work broken up by moments of sheer panic and punctuated by really, really strange meals.”

            “Are you calling my pizza strange, Cop Boy?”

            “No, the pizza’s delicious. It’s just that I’m eating it in an underground flat built into the secret base of a not-so-secret alien-catching organization with two time travelers from the future and a Welshman who has a time machine around his wrist.” As Jack and John lifted their arms to show their straps, he amended with a laugh, “alright, three guys who have time machines strapped to their wrists. And I’m not supposed to think it all strange?”

            Ianto snickered. “Around here? That’s very…”

            Whatever he was going to say was drowned out by the klaxons of the Hub’s alarms. The mainframe monitor on John’s desk lit up, the screen quartered to show the main work areas. A ghostly figure in an elaborate robe and skullcap could be seen standing near the fountain. He was ignoring the racket as he surveyed the Hub.

            “Time Lord,” Ianto hissed.

            John reached under the table. They could hear a soft click and a wall panel slid open to reveal a small collection of neatly mounted weapons. He picked up some palm-sized ovoids with a depression at one end and a bell-shaped muzzle at the other.

            “Energy disruptors,” he whispered, demonstrating as he went. “Just aim and press down on the button inside the depression. They're a bit like a point-and-shoot camera, but they do the job.”

            Jack and Andy accepted the offer. Ianto shook his head, pointing at his wrist.

            “All right, let’s go,” Jack said. “John, Andy, take the side tunnels, come up behind him. Ianto, use the back entrance into my bedroom and come up into the office.”

            “And you’ll be bait,” Ianto said over his shoulder as he moved to obey. He hated those times when Jack set himself up as a target, but he could see the logic of it in this case. Going up against Time Lords was at best a chancy proposition; they needed information, and Jack was their best bet of getting some.

            It didn’t make it any easier to accept.

            Everything in Jack’s old bedroom was where it had been; even in pitch dark Ianto was able to locate the ladder and climb noiselessly into the office. From there he could see the Time Lord. He was moving from work station to work station, obviously looking for something.

            “If I had known I was going to have guests,” Jack said as he emerged from the tunnel, using his wrist strap controls to silence the alarms, “I would have ordered refreshments.”

            The Gallifreyan turned, and Ianto could see his face clearly for the first time. It was a severe, scholarly face, with high arched eyebrows and a mouth like a slash. He carried himself with the conscious arrogance of a man who knew exactly how important he was and expected others to acknowledge it without question.

            “You will cease to interfere.”

            “In any other circumstance I would be more than willing to oblige you. After all, I have a great deal of respect and affection for a particular Time Lord. But” Jack shook his head regretfully, “you have taken something that does not belong to you.”

            “We will not be questioned by an ape!”

            “You need to work on your delivery. Good insults have a certain rhythm you seem to lack.” Jack closed the distance between them slowly. “I will repeat myself. The Donna Noble Potentiality does not belong to you.”

            “We will take what we need.”

            “No, you will not.”

            From his vantage point, Ianto could see John crouched behind his work bench, the converted scanner pointed at the Time Lord. Andy was somewhere in Medical, waiting for Jack’s signal.

            “I will tear you from time itself, ape.” The Time Lord extended his hand towards Jack, making a reach-and-grab motion that ended in an impotent fist. “You are a monstrosity!”

            “You should have done your research, Gallifreyan,” Jack said contemptuously. “I am a fixed point in the space-time continuum, and Time flows around me. I will live until the end of the Universe and I have already seen it. And I will tell you a third time. You have taken something that does not belong to you. We will not allow you to keep it.”

            The Time Lord’s superiority seemed to collapse under Jack’s verbal attack. Snarling, red-faced, he drew himself up and gestured violently with both hands. The mainframe sensor alarms blared as energy was pulled from the Rift.

            Ianto felt time slow around him. He could feel the energy surge as a current along his muscles. He realized he had felt something similar in the Plas while fighting the hounds, but there it had been such a natural part of his body that he hadn’t even noticed it consciously.  This was different; it was wrong.

            *It is out of phase with this Universe. It tears the quantum wave.*

            *What happens if it hits Jack?*

            *Your One’s perception fields will be permanently damaged, even after rebirth.*

            “Jack!” Ianto barreled out of the office at top speed and vaulted over the railing, rolling on his shoulder as he landed. As he came to his feet he realized he was still too far from his lover. “Get out of the way!”

            *Like this.*

            The instructions poured into his mind and he acted instantaneously. Now that he knew how to look he could see the Rift cascading around him in great green-and-gold sheets. There were dull gashes in the places where the Time Lord had torn them. Ianto reached out and threaded his fingers through the energy. It came away easily, coiling into a glimmering ball that floated between his palms. He was conscious of the Time Lord turning in his direction, his hands full of ugly lightning and his mouth open in horror.

            “What are you?”

            Ianto thought the energy he was holding right into the space between the Time Lord’s hands.

            The blast from the implosion hammered their eardrums, drowning out the Gallifreyan’s agonized scream. As the ghostly figure faded out, the TARDIS sent a probing beam along his escape route.

            “Ianto?”

            “I don’t understand, Jack.” Ianto looked at his lover, and Jack saw that Ianto’s eyes were full of green-and-gold fireflies. “They’re ghosts. They don’t have bodies at all.”