| Date: 10 December 2007
Characters: Ianto Jones, Martha Jones Location: hotel bar Link to IJ: thread #652 |
 Ianto settled into his usual seat, where he could watch the door as he waited for the light snack and scotch he'd ordered. He didn't think any of the Torchwood directors had found out how to make their way here, but he didn't care to be caught by surprise, regardless.
He wasn't certain who he'd like less to see walking in the doors. Yvonne, her sister, or Jack; all were on his list of people he didn't care to deal with at the moment. Though perhaps the safest of them to deal with at the moment would be Jack. "At least he isn't threatening dire retribution if certain archives aren't deleted," he muttered to himself, his attention briefly taken away from his careful observation of the door. |
 Stuffing her phone back into her pocket after checking she'd really turned it off this time, Martha shook her hair back from her face and strode into the bar. It wasn't really one she'd visited often, but it had the big bonus that it wasn't going to hold Leo. Or Tish. Or Annalise. Mostly not Annalise.
The guy at the bar looked vaguely familiar, like someone she'd seen around once, maybe one of Adeola's work colleagues or something, not that she'd ever really said what she'd done but some kind of office work anyway and well. Yeah. A drink. She really needed a drink. Perching on a stool and ordering a rum and coke, she turned her attention to the man in the suit. Yeah, she'd definitely seen him somewhere before. "You would not believe," she announced generally, though mostly in his direction, "the day I have had." |
| Ianto looked up, keeping a bland expression on his face from long practice. He knew the face of the young woman who'd sat next to him, and it took him a moment to connect it with a name. Martha Jones, Doctor, Torchwood One, medical department. At least, in his own world. He couldn't be sure she was from his world as well.
"I would believe just about anything, I would think. It doesn't do to have a closed mind when working at Torchwood." A small smile curled at the corners of his lips. "Otherwise, one might find one's entire career consists of filing papers at Torchwood Tower." He accepted his drink, and the basket of chips as they were set in front of him. "I'm Ianto," he added. |
| "God, I would kill for a day filing papers." Martha rolled her eyes, and then grinned. She wouldn't literally kill. Well, probably not. Sometimes it was really, really tempting to kill Annalise.
Sliding a fiver across the bar in return for her drink, she took a sip, then held out a hand. "Martha Jones. Pleased to meet you." A brief memory of Jack's methods of greeting crossed her mind, and her smile broadened for a second. "Wait, Torchwood Tower? Down at Canary Wharf?" |
| Ianto accepted her hand briefly, nodding when she asked about Torchwood. "That is where the Tower is." Her inquiry made him certain she wasn't from his world. "Are you familiar with Torchwood, then?" |
| "Yeah, you could say that."
Not so much familiar, but, well, after spending time with Jack, and...yeah, Adeola, shadowing her smile. "My...my cousin used to work there. Before...well, yeah. Before." |
| Ianto's brow furrowed a moment. "I don't believe we know the same Torchwood, Martha. Perhaps you could tell me what happened?"
He hoped nothing had happened to the Tower, or he would have to add to the Master's file in the archives, likely with a new face for the director. It was disconcerting, knowing his employer could change his face, though that he could cheat death in the process was merely an irritation, though Ianto was certain the difference came from knowing the Master wasn't the only one who could do so. |
| Martha could hardly believe her ears, though, really, after the last couple of years, nothing should surprise her any more. "You mean, you don't know? About the cybermen, and the daleks?" |
| "Captain Harkness did make sure the archives contained a file on Daleks, but there's no mention of Cybermen." Ianto picked up the bottle of vinegar next to his chips, liberally dousing them. "I'm certain the Director would be quite disturbed to find Daleks in his tower. He doesn't like threats to his power and position."
He took a bite from one of the chips, watching Martha a moment. "Who do you know as the Director of Torchwood?" |
| "Captain Harkness? You mean, Jack?" Martha's curiosity was growing by the second, as was the urge to steal a chip. "You know Jack?"
She supposed, really, Jack would count as the director, from what he'd said. After all, the Torchwood Tower where Adeola had worked ...and died... didn't exist any more. |
| "Sometimes to my despair." Ianto shook his head slightly, before reaching for his drink. "Though I do not envy him his responsibility. Keeping the Director from destroying the world on a whim is a bit more than I would care to do." He watched her as he dropped the tidbit of information, wondering what sort of reaction he'd get from her. |
| Okay, so, not the Jack she knew. "I don't think," Martha said carefully, giving into temptation and taking a chip, "we know the same Jack Harkness."
Although stopping people destroying the world, yeah, that sounded pretty like Jack, but keeping one guy from doing it as a full time thing? "My Jack - well, okay, he's not my Jack, not really, but the Jack I know? - he heads up Torchwood in Cardiff. I think he said Three?" |
| Ianto nodded. "Torchwood Three, the Cardiff Hub, current staff of three, Director Captain Jack Harkness, second in command and engineer Suzie Costello, and Doctor Owen Harper, medic. Captain Harkness is also often see in London, either at Torchwood One or at Masterwork Creations," he rattled off from memory before taking a sip of his drink, pretending to ignore Martha's stealing a chip. |
| "Oh." Well, that took a moment's thought, and enough time to chew thoughtfully on the chip. They were really good chips, so it was kind of a shame that Martha wasn't really tasting it. "Well, there's no Torchwood One, for a start. Not any more, anyway, and I think...well. Jack never mentioned a Suzie."
Of course, he hadn't talked about his team much at all. "Look, this is going to sound really mad, but..." But it needed saying, and Martha shifted on her stool. "You look awfully familiar." |
| Ianto shrugged, eating another chip before responding. "Perhaps you saw me while I was working in London. I only took over the position in Glasgow two years ago." He rolled his glass in his hand a moment. "How did Torchwood One fall? I can't imagine the Director doing anything to cause that to happen. Or Captain Harkness allowing him to do so." |
| Martha shook her head. As far as she knew, Jack hadn't even been there at Canary Wharf, and as for the Director, well, that didn't mean a thing to her. "I don't know. They never told us. I mean, they couldn't exactly hide the cybermen all over the planet, but I don't know how they got here - there - or, well, they never told us."
And probably never would, either. "It was something to do with them, anyway, and the Doctor said something about a rift in time and space that he sealed. Oh." She took a pensive sip. "And something about Rose." |
| "Rose? Rose Tyler?" Ianto blinked. "She's on the list of people to keep an eye on, but to leave alone. There's a note in her archive file that there is to be no contact between her and Torchwood personel, so we can preserve her timeline. The Master killed the last field agent who got too close to her." |
| "The Master?!" Martha exclaimed, setting her drink down rather more firmly than she'd intended. "No. No way, you're kidding me, right? He's dead. I saw him die!"
And if he wasn't, after everything he'd done to the Earth, to the Doctor, to her family, to Jack, Martha was perfectly prepared to kill him herself. Well. Or get in touch with Jack. Jack was better at killing people than she was. |
| "Dead?" Ianto stared at Martha. "When? And how?" He reached for his drink, taking a larger sip than he would normal, before taking a deep breath, trying to regain control of himself. |
| The news actually seemed to disturb Ianto, which had Martha even more confused. "Look. I mean, you look sort of...and you know about Torchwood, right, and Rose," ::who's blonde:: "but I don't even know that, I mean, who are you, Ianto Jones?"
She didn't move away, despite most of the muscles in her body screaming to. Intead, she curled her fingers around her glass, raised her chin a little firmer, and looked steadily into eyes that revealed nothing. "You know the Master, you know Jack, but you don't know about cybermen and the daleks and the Battle of Canary Wharf and the Valiant..." |
| "I'm the Head Archivist at Torchwood Two, Glasgow. I visit London every couple of months, my immediate superior is Emma Hartman, and her younger sister is the Assistant Director of Torchwood." Ianto picked up another chip. "And you, Martha Jones?" he asked quietly, trying to deflect conversation away from himself. |
| "Me?" Martha wasn't quite sure what to say to that. Because by rights she shouldn't know anything about Torchwood at all, really. "Oh, I'm just a medical student, you know, nearly qualified. Not long to go now."
She lifted the glass, realised she was drinking too much too fast on an empty stomach, and settle for taking another chip instead. |
| "Just a medical student?" Ianto raised an eyebrow. "You said earlier something about 'the Doctor'. I doubt anyone who is just a medical student would be quite so aware of a Time Lord."
He sipped at his scotch again, discovering the glass was nearly empty. He contemplated a second for a moment before asking for a glass of water, and eating another of his chips. |
| Okay, Martha was pretty certain that she'd let too much slip there. Although, after the day she'd had and the fact that Ianto had mentioned Torchwood Tower, it had seemed reasonable at the time.
"Oh, well," she said brightly, biting the chip in half, vinegar stinging her tongue, mentally backpedalling madly, "lots of doctors in hospitals, you know." |
| Ianto smirked, leaning in a little closer. "You didn't say a Doctor, you said the Doctor, Martha Jones. Have you traveled with him?" He had already filed most of the conversation under 'things to be entered into the archives', and this... just added to that. |
| Martha fought the urge to lean back when Ianto got closer. It wasn't easy. Pretty much anything she said was going to give her away. "Why do you want to know?" |
| "Merely curious." Ianto shrugged, leaning back again, and taking another chip. "The Doctor is a mystery to most of Torchwood, and it is intriguing to meet someone who has traveled with the man the Master is so interested in seeing. Even if they aren't quite the same." |
| "The same as what?" Martha queried, confused. "I mean, the Doctor travels everywhere and everywhen, he could be the same man, couldn't he?"
Or not-man, or alien, or Time Lord. Or whatever he was. |
| "He could be. I don't know." Ianto paused, considering how much to share about what sketchy knowledge he had of the Doctor the Master was trying to entice back to Earth.
"He traveled with a Rose Tyler - though he has yet to ask her to travel with him as of the year in which I am living - and later also with Jack Harkness. We're not entirely certain what happened next, though he did leave Jack behind." In the end, he doubted anything in thee archives from before Rose Tyler was important. He wasn't aware that what happened with Jack would actually tell Martha that the Doctor she traveled with probably wasn't the one the Master was looking for. |
| "Rose was gone before I met him." It slipped out before Martha could stop it, puzzling through the familiarity. "But not...Jack wasn't...he chose to stay behind. With Torchwood." |
| "Jack was left on a satellite full of dead bodies." Ianto shook his head. "Not on Earth, not in Cardiff, and certainly not with Torchwood. He joined Torchwood in 1973, the same time the Master came to Torchwood." |
| "Oh, no." Martha was more confident on that one, even if she didn't know when Jack had joined Torchwood. "I mean, that was before. Before and afer, I guess? It's just, I think, three months since he left?"
The same time the Master had died, and Martha had been pretty glad to have Jack around then. "And he stayed in Cardiff." |
| "I see." Ianto finished the last of his scotch, letting the bartender take the empty glass away. "When did all this happen, did you say?" |
| Not answering, Martha curled fingers tighter around her glass, and didn't drink. "You're a very curious man, Ianto."
And she wasn't stupid enough to not notice when she was being pumped for information. |
| "I'm an archivist, Martha. It's part of the job description." Ianto noticed the tighter grip on her glass, bringing his glass of water up, watching her as he took a sip. "It helps to ensure every archive is accurate and complete." |
| "Maybe some archives shouldn't be." She drained her glass in one attempt, shaking her head a little against the bite of rum sunk to the bottom of the glass. |
| "Public archives, perhaps. But I prefer to keep Torchwood's archives as accurate and complete as is possible." Including the one he kept for his trips here, though that was not a piece of information he would share with anyone here. |
| "I guess you've never heard of the data protection act," Martha retorted, less and less inclined to actually give the guy anything. She'd not really got a clear idea of what Jack's Torchwood did, and Ianto had said enough that she knew his was different again. |
| "The law is not applied to archives containing information about aliens and their technology, and archives concerning employees are not availible to the public. Nor are archives concerning persons of interest." Ianto held her gaze, no hint of any concern for his blatent dismissal of the law when applied to Torchwood. "Nor are our non-public archives accessable from off-site, so I've little concern that someone might hack those files with sensative data without my knowledge." |
| "Then I'm definitely not going to give you any more." Martha slipped off her stool, no longer resisting the urge to step away. This guy was seriously creepy, and couldn't be anyone Adeola had worked with. At least, she really hoped not. |