The Hunt

Disclaimer: Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones, and Andy Davidson do not belong to me, but to Russell T Davies, the BBC, their wonderful writers, and to John Barrowman, Gareth David-Lloyd and Tom Price for being brilliant and gorgeous. I’m just borrowing them, and will put them back in the same condition I found them. I also make no money from this. Please don’t sue me. I mean, I think you’re all fantastic – why would you want to sue me?

Chapter Ten


“I can’t believe you told him,” Jack said, shaking his head as Andy walked up behind the two of them. They hadn’t heard the opening of the Hub door, which was interesting, but they were both stood together, staring at the monitor in front of them intently. Ianto had let him in, therefore they must know he was on his way down. But to hear them talking about him stopped him from announcing his presence just yet.

“He would have found out sooner or later,” Ianto argued back, and Andy began to worry he was about to disturb something. Obviously, he shouldn’t have been told that they kept CCTV footage.

“When did you put it together?” Jack asked, troubled, and Andy did a double-take. So! Jack hadn’t known about it either? Intrigued, he padded silently closer to see if he could get a glimpse of what it was they were looking at.

“When you started wanting to draw the curtains,” Ianto said, and it was a bizarre thing to say until Andy remembered about the camera in the flat. “It was a dead give-away.”

“That obvious, huh?” Jack queried with some disappointment, and Ianto looked up at the ceiling briefly.

“Well, I know you didn’t want to draw the curtains, which meant you wanted to stop me from doing it. It wasn’t a difficult conclusion to come to that there was something I wasn’t supposed to see.”

Jack pointed at the screen happily as if none of it mattered. “That’s my favourite bit,” he said, and Andy peered past them, getting a glimpse of naked skin and suggestive movement. It took a second before he realised he was watching himself from the night before, and he drew in a deep breath that was so loud both Jack and Ianto turned to look at him. Andy smiled at them both and inclined his head, point-blank refusing to feel self-conscious.

“I really like that bit at the beginning,” he said, remembering, with a little nod at Ianto’s slight smile.

“Which?” Jack queried, and something utterly evil came to life in Andy. He considered for a full three seconds before moving to stand behind Jack and pulling him back before reaching down to the top button of his shirt. He looked at Ianto over Jack’s shoulder.

“Right,” Andy said to Jack, as if he was about to explain, and then said something he knew was confusing. “You’re him, he’s me, and I’m you.”

Ianto got it immediately, and smirked at him a little as he came forward, helping with the buttons, just like Jack and Andy had done that night, with him. “Yeah?” Jack said, looking down at his shirt, obviously a little taken aback. “Okay…” His voice changed when he realised that he liked it, and Andy found himself smiling at Ianto again over Jack’s shoulder as he pulled the shirt down to trap his hands, feeling the braces slip from his shoulders at the same time.

“Oh! Wait…” Jack said as if he’d finally remembered what happened next as Ianto dragged his thumb across Jack’s naked left nipple. Ianto fell into a half-crouch, and between them Jack shivered as Andy kissed the back of his neck while Ianto’s tongue tormented him. After a minute or so of listening to Jack’s heavy, quickened breathing, Andy put a hand around Jack, resting it in Ianto’s hair until he stood up, and it fell to his shoulder.

“That was nice. I think we should watch that,” Ianto said, and Andy almost laughed.

“Okay,” he said happily, well aware of what he was doing when he let Jack go, only for he and Ianto to gather before the monitor as Ianto reviewed the footage.

“I see!” Jack said loudly, resentful, but not enough to be serious. “I’m just like a toy to you!”

“Hardly a boy, though,” Ianto pointed out without looking around, and Andy followed the banter easily, arms folded casually as it carried on.

“Go on…” Jack invited with a sweep of his arm, “go ahead… just wind me up!”

“That’s a bit old-fashioned,” Andy put in with a frown at Jack, then looked to Ianto confidentially. “Doesn’t he take batteries?”

“Oh, yeah,” Ianto said coolly, and winked, “they’re rechargeable.”

There was a moment between Jack and Ianto then where Ianto looked at him apologetically. Either Jack didn’t see it, or he didn’t see the reason for it, because he carried on with the game. Andy would bet on the second, and realised there were things about these two that he couldn’t know, things that he might never know. “Yeah,” Jack said. “You just have to turn me on.”

It was so bad that Andy winced and shook his head a little. Jack glared at him with mock exasperation. “Okay! I can tell when I’m not wanted! Just remember where I am when you’re both tired of your own subtlety… I’ll show you something obvious, and I bet you both like it then.”

They both laughed at that, but it fulfilled an aim, which was apparently an excuse to leave them alone together to work. And they did work, for a while at least.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The list he and Andy worked on remained and it lengthened over time. Over days that fell into each other, waiting for the time when they were alone again. Over nights of work that were flavoured with coffee and sex and well worn after-shave. Several weeks passed. Andy worked ten-hour shifts in a pattern of four on, and three off. The week of the month he worked nights was kind of vaguely melancholy, until Ianto realised he was missing Andy. And it warmed him when Jack admitted to missing him too.

It was a long list, and they could keep adding to it indefinitely, because the Weevils had been in Cardiff long before there was a Torchwood. He shouldn’t look forward to the project so much. He shouldn’t want to deal with murder and blood and terror – but he did. Because it meant Andy was back with them for another night.

They didn’t do it in bright sunshine or sparkling snow. They didn’t say it with flowers. They did it amongst the pictures of the dead, begging to be recognised as victims. They did it amongst the ruined lives of people who would never know anything about them. It shouldn’t be there, so easy to find in the devastation, but it was. Just like it had been with Jack. It was there in the midst of the dark, a smidgen of light-hearted… Well, it really shouldn’t be fun – but it was.

Balance was in the contrast between the work they did and the fun they had. The silly, scribbled notes they passed to each other while working on case files, the instant messages from Jack’s office telling them to stop playing with each other and get back to work, which invariably led to them staring at each other and forgetting about the work completely. The wrestling matches that Jack always won until he and Andy learned to team up against him, and he strongly suspected Jack enjoyed that all the more.

Yet still they were a secret that had to be kept, away from the others and away from Gwen. The Hub had always been a different place when it was just Jack and himself. Now that was doubly true. And after a period of time, Ianto began to realise that for all the others didn’t know, Andy was a member of Torchwood. They’d tried to keep the rest of it from Andy at first, but then, inevitably, things began to slip, until he knew as much as any of them knew. There were enough secrets involved, really.

He relished their mornings, waking up, the three of them together and it was so good there had to be a law against it, but Andy assured him there wasn’t any such law. Sitting on the side of the bed, waking Jack up with Andy sat behind him, arms linked loosely around his waist and chin resting on his shoulder – it was like Heaven. Discovering things with Andy was like discovering them for himself again, and Jack was with them too. Wasn’t there a societal taboo? Wasn’t one of them required to be jealous – at least a little?

He’d faced Jack with it one day – asked him outright – and he’d received an answer so honest it made him think on it for hours.

“Does he change who you are when you’re with me? Does he change us?” Jack had asked, as if he already knew the answer, and Ianto had answered with an instant reassuring negative, because of course it didn’t change anything. He and Jack were… well, forever, in as far as forever could last.

Ianto experienced it all, and he asked himself the question for days, still slightly uneasy until it occurred to him that choice was an illusion. The idea of choosing between Jack and Andy was as ridiculous as choosing between the moon and the stars. They both gave different things to the night. He and Jack were good. He and Andy were good. Jack and Andy were good. And all of them together, well – they were brilliant. Choice was not only an illusion, it was a limit, and he knew very well that Jack didn’t do limits.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The darkened streets weren’t his alone. Somewhere out there, Chris (his new partner since Gwen left) was shadowing his own route on the other side of the little maze of alleys. As he walked, Andy fingered the personal mobile phone in his pocket. There was a time it would have been his radio in case Gwen needed him, but not now, not anymore. He smiled just very slightly, remembering, anticipating the night to come. On afternoons, he was usually off work by midnight, which was just over an hour away, and he knew where he would go. Not home. Not anymore.

When had the text messaging started? He couldn’t remember, but he knew he wouldn’t be happy now without it. Another monotonous shift, in every hour moving the local kids off from somewhere else, reassuring old ladies who really called because they wanted someone to talk to, not because they were worried about whatever noise it was they heard. He found himself watching the people just down the road who spilled out of the pub there and skirmished with each other for taxis and perceived slights. He eyed up a few of the more aggressive men and tilted his head slightly. Probably need to go and sort that out first, before he went anywhere.

Funny. There wasn’t a manual anywhere in existence that was titled: How to bring down a six-foot twenty-five stone man drunk on lager with nothing but a yellow jacket and a small plastic stick. He kind of thought there should be one.

Just to put it off for a little longer, he checked the phone when it vibrated, and saw the first new message of the night. He thought about it for all of a millisecond before deciding that the message from Ianto was definitely more important. No one was watching him, anyway. He pressed the button to read it.

I’m watching you. Right now. And I’m wondering – when are you going to do some real work?

Andy shook his head slightly and laughed under his breath. Ianto was the only person he knew who put correct punctuation in text messages. He never abbreviated any words either. He wanted to answer, but the aforementioned work called, just down the road, so he satisfied himself with muttering sarcastically about the law regarding surveillance of employees under his breath. To his surprise, the phone vibrated in his hand, and he thumbed the button again.

I can lip read.

Another surprising talent. Andy looked up – straight ahead – and his quick eyes caught a tiny blinking red light. He smiled, checked he was alone, and then mouthed at the camera: “Have a look down the road. Any ideas on how to subdue that lot?”

A few seconds later the phone vibrated, and he glanced down to it from the camera.

Well, I can show you how best to subdue Jack, but I wouldn’t suggest you try any of that on them. Back to work – for the both of us. See you soon, not later.

Yeah, right. With a deep breath, Andy gave a kind of casual salute to the CCTV camera and headed off down the road, meeting up with his partner Chris as he did. By the time they got there, though, there was a riot van, and the crowd had calmed considerably. Enough so that after around forty minutes or so, there were only stragglers still shouting the odds at them from halfway down the street. The disturbance had already been radioed in, so he checked his watch and reckoned on moving the local kids on from the off license down the road for one last time before going off shift.

“You need me, Andy?” Chris asked, and Andy just gave him a slightly reproachful look.

“Do I need you to help me deal with Josh and the others?” he said rhetorically, as if considering. “No, I think I’ll be fine. The most they’ll do is try and offer me a drink of their cider.” Chris laughed and Andy nodded. “Go on and get gone. Sign me out while you’re there and I’ll get straight off from moving them on.”

“Will do. See you tomorrow.” Andy nodded and watched Chris walk away to their patrol car. He’d take it back to the station. Andy didn’t want to go all the way back there. He didn’t want there to be any delays between him and Torchwood when midnight came along in the next twenty minutes or so.

The streets were dark once Chris and the headlights had disappeared around a corner. And with the pub’s lights flicking off one by one, Andy found himself alone in the night as he walked back up along the maze of alleys with just the occasional streetlight for company.

There was a scream.

It wasn’t an overdone scream. It didn’t pierce the night. It was the kind of involuntary panicked scream people came out with when they were also self-conscious and covering their mouth. In his experience, people rarely screamed out loud without being aware of the noise they were making. He walked quickly in search of it, and what he found had him standing in the mouth of the tiny, darkened alley for just a brief second.

There were two women. One of them was on the ground, quite still. The other – well, she was the one who’d screamed, because she turned large, frightened eyes on Andy who immediately held out his hands in a calming gesture as he walked forward, scanning the shadows for any possible danger that might be lurking, trying not to make assumptions.

The area clear, he kept his eyes on the first girl as he knelt by the side of the other. They didn’t look as though they were together. “I’m Andy,” he said, reassuring and coaxing. “What’s your name?” he asked, still looking up.

“Ch-charlie,” she stammered, caught between looking at him and the girl on the floor. Andy found his gaze flitting down, to see how bad it was. He caught his breath silently. Even in the weak streetlight that reached them, there was a lot of blood, but she was still breathing. He observed so many things, his training kicking in so that he hardly had to think about it. He picked his radio out of his belt as he looked up at the girl who’d called herself Charlie. She was terrified, probably just a passer-by who’d come upon the mess.

“Okay, Charlie,” he said, his voice in control, soothing, “I need your help, all right?”

The girl nodded hesitantly. “Can you give me your scarf?” he asked, gesturing at it encouragingly, and she looked a little surprised. He would have asked for something else, but he didn’t think there would be anything in that tiny bag of hers. He held his hand out as she pulled it from around her neck – a floaty thin cotton thing, but it would work. He took it from her and began folding it into a compress. The girl watched him, wide-eyed and trembling. She wouldn’t be able to help with this.

“Right,” Andy said, looking at her again, keeping his tone carefully low and calm. “I need you to do something else. There’s going to be an ambulance, and some policemen. Now, they’re going to be looking for us, so I want you to stand at the end of the alley and tell them where we are, all right?”

He pointed towards the brightly lit street at the end of the alley, watched for the girl’s relief, and smiled a little when he saw it, along with the gladness at being useful. “Can you do that for me?” he asked, and she nodded. He watched her begin to walk away before paying attention to the girl at his knees. Again, he checked the shadows for danger, knowing that if danger was here, Charlie was likely walking away from it.

He gingerly pressed the makeshift bandage to the wound in the girl’s neck, applying pressure and thumbing on his radio.

“Charlie Bravo One, this is PC one-eight-six. We have an emergency. Over.”

“Come in, one-eight-six. Over.”

“We’ll need an ambulance, and CID here. It’s an alley just off the western end of Smith Street at the junction with Queen’s Road. I’ve one victim of a violent attack. A girl in her mid to late twenties with severe lacerations on her neck and abdomen. She’s lost a lot of blood, but she’s conscious,” he said, seeing her open eyes looking at him. “The attacker appear to have fled the scene. No description. There’s a possible female witness. We’re going to need someone from victim support.” He considered the width of the alley. “Access is limited, and I’d suggest it’s left to the ambulance. Over.”

“Understood, one-eight-six. They’re on their way. We’ve got your GPS up here. We know where you are. Over.”

“Thanks. I’ll leave the channel open, but I’m attempting first aid. Over.”

“Go ahead, one-eight-six. I’ll keep you updated on progress, but it shouldn’t be more than a few minutes. Over.”

Emergency called in, he turned his full attention to the girl, keeping the pressure over the wound in her neck. “My name is Andy,” he repeated, this time for her benefit. Can you speak? Can you tell me your name?”

The girl pulled in a breath that shouldn’t rattle the way it did. She gurgled at him a little, and he immediately shushed her. “It’s all right. I’m going to help you. I’m going to look after you.” She seemed to calm a little at that, and he considered, looking around a bit. There wasn’t a handbag. “I’m going to put my hand into your pocket, all right?”

The girl nodded her understanding, a movement he felt in his hand rather than saw, and he took it as permission, slipping his hand into her jeans pocket and coming out with her ID. Driving licence, some kind of store card, and a blood donor card. But the information he wanted was on all of them.

“All right. Is it Laura?” The girl attempted a weak smile, and Andy smiled back at her. “Don’t worry, Laura. You’re going to be all right. I promise.” He was somewhat surprised when she shook her head minutely. “What is it?” he asked, trying to avoid looking around.

“Evan,” she said clearly, swallowing and then drawing in another of those rattling breaths as if it had cost her to say just that one word. “Son.”

Andy flicked a little further through the ID, finding a picture of the girl with a little boy. He showed it to her. “Evan?” he queried, and she swallowed again, looking panicked.

“It took him! Oh, God, it… Evan…” She closed her eyes, as if for good, and Andy resisted the urge to shake her.

“Laura? You have to try to stay awake. Help me to help you. Stay awake just for a bit longer.”

Laura reached up to grab his arm, with more strength than he would have imagined. He supposed it might be the fear in her eyes when she opened them. “It was a monster!” she said, a tear falling from her eye and trickling down the side of her face into her ear. “It was a monster, and it took him! It took Evan!”

Something cold and chilling settled in the base of his spine at her words. He remembered all of those case files they’d been looking at, and here he was in the middle of one. He knew what she’d seen all right. He’d been taken down to the cells by Jack and seen them up close. A monster. He remained professional though, despite the dread, and squeezed her hand reassuringly with his free one, trying to ignore the coppery smell of her blood as it rose in the air around them in the filth of the alley.

“Try not to think about it. When we get him back, Evan will want his Mum, so you just try and be calm. Try and stay awake until the ambulance gets here. Can you do that for him?” She looked like she didn’t believe him, the way he didn’t believe himself, but nodded, not saying anything further, and Andy let her hand go to pick up the radio.

“Charlie Bravo One, this is one-eight-six. Let the paramedics know we have a blood type of A Positive.” He stared down at the picture. It was recent. “The victim will need an emergency transfusion. And it’s likely that the suspect has taken a small child. Male, Caucasian, four or five years old, short dark hair, brown eyes, named Evan. Over.”

He took the girl’s hand again to wait with her for the paramedics as his information was acknowledged, and they looked at each other. What had she been doing here with a small child? As if in answer, she began to speak, and he didn’t hush her because it meant she was awake.

“Rob took the car,” she said, reliving something from earlier, and Andy just watched her, keeping the pressure on the scarf that was already soaked through with warm blood. “We argued, about his mother of all things. I told him to fuck off, and he took the car. I said we’d walk. It never would have…” She shuddered. “It’s my fault! It took Evan and it’s my fault…” she breathed. Andy sighed.

“Now don’t talk like that,” Andy said, feeling useless.

“No… It’s his fault! It never would have attacked us if he’d been there,” she answered, and Andy raised an eyebrow.

“Wouldn’t it?” he asked, and the girl turned blue eyes on him. He could see they were blue now because there were lights at the end of the alley. The ambulance was backing in while paramedics raced to where they were. No time for anything else.

“It was a monster,” she said, and he couldn’t lie. But he couldn’t say he knew, so he said nothing, and it was an admission he hoped she was too far gone to notice.

He let himself be pushed back and away by the paramedics as they went to work, and he gave as much as he knew to the CID policemen that attended the scene with them. He was tired, but it wasn’t over. This was his now, and that was confirmed when he’d determined that Charlie was being taken care of by the WPCs in Witness Liaison.

“You all right to carry on, Andy?” the attending DI asked, and Andy nodded, rubbing his neck a little, looking around at Laura to find her conscious and speaking to the paramedics. He caught his name. He was a friendly face, and she’d need him.

“Yeah,” he said, “I just need to make a personal call.” He held up his mobile and was nodded off to a more quiet area away from the commotion. As soon as he was sure no one could hear him he called. The phone rang once, twice, and then was picked up.

“Yep?” came the voice, sounding part worried, part wary, and Andy smiled genuinely, happily. Well, he was late now.

“Ianto,” he said, happy just to say it, then he continued, his heart heavy as he shared it. “I’ve got a weevil victim, still alive, but just barely.”

“Where?” Ianto asked immediately, the concern being replaced with businesslike precision. He knew immediately he’d called Ianto for help, and it was going to come. He told Ianto where the victim had been found, and explained about the missing child. Ianto was quiet for a second or two, until Andy prompted him.

“We’re on it,” he said, his words clipped and short, meaning him and Jack. “If it’s possible – we will get him back.” Andy nodded thankfully, thinking Ianto wouldn’t see it, remembering that he probably could. There was a full silence between them on the line. He wanted to say something else, but they were putting Laura in the ambulance, and they were all looking to him, expectant, paramedics and policemen alike.

“I have to go,” Andy said quickly, his voice low and husky with something that was more than mere gratitude.

“Me too.” And then Ianto was gone. Andy closed the phone and agreed readily to take the ambulance, which was worth it for the relief when Laura saw him, and she reached out for his hand. He nodded and sat with her while the ambulance drove them to hospital and he told her not to be afraid, and that it would be all right. He hoped he was telling the truth.

She didn’t speak again until they got there.