fairyd123

Title: The End of the Universe
Pairing: Mentions of past Jack/Ianto
Spoilers for Utopia and guesswork for The Sound of Drums and Last of the Time Lords

Summary: Ianto is captured by Saxon and held as a traitor to the British people.

Author's Notes: Inspired by the entry about Jack on Saxon's MySpace page
Disclaimer:All copyright retained by the original copyright holders - no infringement intended

They came for him in the dead of night.

Ianto awoke from uneasy dreams of cold, dead blue eyes, gentle caresses and kisses that could damn and forgive in the same fevered breath, to the sound of his front door disintegrating into splinters; to the ominous rhythmic thud of boots ascending his stairs. Gas filled the room before he could react. He was quickly overwhelmed, eyes and nose streaming, lungs desperately gasping for oxygen that wasn't forthcoming. They'd found him curled up on the floor of his bedroom - a sobbing, mewling ball of agony, unable to do anything to protect himself. He was powerless against the hands that dragged his arms behind his back, that pulled his weakly kicking legs straight, securing them tightly with plastic ties which bit cruelly into his flesh. Powerless to stop his captors from using him as a football, multiple feet kicking hard into his sides and stomach. He heard the sickening crunch of his ribs snapping, the excruciating pain forcing an agonised wail out of his starved lungs. Blackness started to gather at the edges of his vision and he welcomed it and the promise of oblivion that whispered to him. But the beating stopped as abruptly as it had begun. He was unceremoniously hauled off the floor, broken ribs grinding against each other with every movement and carried hog tied like a pig on a spit out of his own house.

He was embarrassed at how easily he had been captured. He was sure that if Jack had been in the same position not only would he have escaped without a single scratch but he would probably have successfully seduced his would-be captors for good measure. Hell, even Owen, scrappy, belligerent wiry little Owen would have probably gotten a good few licks in before being hauled off to his fate.

But not him. Not the man who had gone to pieces on his first field mission with Torchwood Three, who had dissolved into hysterics whilst the tiny girl with him had kept a cool head. Every time he managed to convince himself that he was very good at what he did, that he was more than just a human coffee machine and someone for Jack to occasionally fuck when he felt in the mood, that he was needed, truly needed, something would happen to make him realise just how pathetic and worthless he really was. He'd stood and watched as Owen had fired bullets repeatedly into the man he loved, stood by uselessly as Gwen had attempted to assuage her own guilt by sitting with Jack's corpse day after day, a ridiculously showy display of grief while he had been forced to grieve quietly, going through the mechanics of his daily life trying not to let things like the lingering scent of the Captain on that blasted silly coat of his enough bring him completely undone. And then he'd been forced to watch a newly resurrected Jack running wildly across the Plass flinging himself onto the de-materialising Tardis, happy to risk life and limb just to see his precious Doctor again. Left behind without a moment's thought - story of Ianto's life.

He hadn't fought against his captors during the long trip up to London. Hadn't screamed, hadn't shouted, hadn't reacted to the dark murmurs of "traitor." He had thought they were Torchwood One come to bring him to account for his crimes. With Jack gallivanting across time and space with the Doctor it had been inevitable that Torchwood Three, long thought of as the backward cousin of Torchwood One would once again come to the attention of the powers that be. Granted Jack had never been one for paperwork but Ianto didn't know whether he would have told the top brass about the incident with Lisa. He ran Torchwood Three like his own personal kingdom but even Jack had to answer to somebody. Had he told them about Lisa, about Mary, about Owen opening the rift in a futile attempt to bring Diane back?

Even if he hadn't the incident with Abaddon could hardly have escaped their attention. Hundreds of people snuffed out in a single moment because of the selfish actions of four desperate people driven to the brink of utter insanity by loss. He was soaked in the blood of innocents and would have been responsible for the whole scale slaughter of millions more had Lisa escaped from his team mates.

He thought that Torchwood One had him, that they wanted to make an example of him, to execute him for his crimes. He'd been wrong.

They'd stripped him naked on his arrival, tied him to a chair and interrogated him for hours. But they hadn't been interested in Lisa and Abaddon. All they cared about was Jack. What had Jack told him about the Doctor? Had he discussed the time he spent travelling with him? Had he mentioned the Tardis? What had Jack told him about that freaky hand in a jar which Jack had kept as some kind of macabre pet? What were Jack and the Doctor's plans where the Earth was concerned? What did he know about Jack's ability to rise from the dead?

But Ianto had no real answers for them. He'd realised moments after the classily dressed blonde with the dead eyes had started speaking to him that it didn't really matter how he answered their questions. This was only going to end one way - with his death. And besides what did he actually know that he could tell them? He'd found evidence of Jack having been on earth for more than a century, a hand written note from the 1880's, a reference to a "Jack Harkness" in a journal of a well to do lady in the 1920's, a familiar signature scrawled on a docket from the 1930's, photos of him in the 1940's, a newspaper reference to a man having been hit by lightening (twice!) and surviving. But of the Doctor Ianto knew nothing except what was contained in Unit and Torchwood's files. He'd only seen him the once, in the aftermath of the Battle of Canary Wharf. He'd cut an odd figure, with his bedraggled hair, neat suit and scruffy trainers, brown cloak like coat, befitting of a modern day superhero. But his face had mirrored the desolation Ianto felt. They had looked at one another for one long moment, brothers in agony, before it had passed and they had gone their separate ways without speaking.

His captors had been angered at Ianto's ignorance. They knew somehow of his sexual relationship with Jack and were convinced that he must have told Ianto something useful, something of worth. Ianto was sure that part of him should be pleased that they were so convinced that the fact that he occasionally shared Jack's bed made him privy to all manner of earth shattering secrets. The fact that a person doesn't share the secrets of his existence with his "part time shag" seemed to have passed them by.

His days developed into a pattern. They would keep him naked, sometimes gifting him with a shower, sometimes not. They fed him enough to keep a mouse alive, answered none of his questions about who they were and what had happened to Owen, Gwen and Tosh and would instead interrogate him for hours about the Doctor and Jack, questions interspersed with beatings, before dragging him back to a tiny pitch black cell until they were ready for him again.

Once in the midst of a marathon interrogation Harold Saxon himself had appeared. Before his capture Ianto had been following the election campaign closely and had found Saxon to be a fascinating candidate- witty and verbose with a manic, barely contained energy about him. But there had been something about him that had deeply unsettled Ianto, a zealot's gleam in his eyes when he spoke of making the "British Empire" great once more. Yvonne had shared similar ideals and her passion had nearly resulted in the downfall of the human race.

But being faced with Saxon in a shabby interrogation room god knows where Ianto had gone from being slightly unsettled to completely terrified in a heart beat. Saxon's eyes when they had looked at him had held such dark malevolence. There was no empathy to be found within their stone depths. Watching him Ianto had realised with dawning horror that somehow Torchwood and UNIT had gotten it horribly, horribly wrong.

Again.

This time the threat wasn't external. It wasn't the Sycorax playing games with human blood, wasn't the Daleks and the Cybermen using sheer force of numbers to try and exterminate or upgrade the entire human race, wasn't Abaddon with his life extinguishing shadow, wasn't the Empress of Racnoss with her deadly lasers. No, this time the threat was from within and contained in the seemingly benign, ever smiling face of Harold Saxon.

Harold Saxon whom the British people, bewildered by Cybermen in their homes and London hospitals being transported to the moon, loved for his no nonsense attitude and his willingness to discuss the "extra-terrestrial" menace. Harold Saxon, who was using the people's terror of the unknown to gain a foothold in power. Harold Saxon who promised greatness and a new era of prosperity for all, when his eyes only spoke of total destruction. A monster elected by the very people he would go on to crush. Even Ianto had to admit that was rather brilliant. In his experience few species keen on conquering the earth took the time to actually organise an electoral campaign first.

Saxon's visit had been brief. He'd told Ianto that his relationship with Jack, a wanted enemy of the British people due to his alliance with the Doctor, made him a traitor by association. Saxon wanted to know about Jack's ability to re-generate. Saxon seemed to be fascinated by the idea that Jack couldn't age. That if he died he would awaken exactly the same as he'd been before. The perfect way of cheating death, of cheating time.

Ianto had refused to answer him. There seemed little point as nothing he could say could help his situation even if he had wanted to sell out Jack (which he fervently didn't). So he had remained dumb, eyes easily meeting Saxon's deathly glare, silence his only means of rebellion. He had thought that the beating that resulted would have ended him, but luck as ever wasn't on his side.

After a while the interrogations became less regular and he would just be left for hours on end in his cramped, cold cell with nothing but his thoughts for company. They hadn't come for him for three days now (or what he thought was three days - it was hard to track time in here) and the food had stopped two day before. From his darkened pit he had heard the cheers of celebration, the chanting of "Saxon, Saxon, Saxon" as the election results had been announced, and he had held his head in his hands and finally wept as he listened yesterday to the cheering turn to seemingly never ending screams. The monster was in control and he stood unopposed with the Doctor and Jack nowhere to be seen.

And Ianto? He'd been forgotten. Left to find out which would kill him first- hypothermia or starvation. He could see that his body was already beginning to digest itself. He was a walking, well crawling, skeleton, eyes sunken into a skull like face; his cheeks had hollows he could put his fists in. He was always so cold and the knife sharp pain of his ribs, broken repeatedly through sustained beatings was with him constantly.

Ianto had no idea what had happened to Owen, Gwen and Tosh. He prayed that they had run as soon as they realised he'd been taken, had escaped to sunnier and (temporarily) safer climes and retconned their previous lives into oblivion. He couldn't bear to think of shy, brave Tosh or wonderfully contradictory and oh so human Gwen locked away in a hell hole like this awaiting the inevitable. For all his (many) faults Ianto also hoped that Owen had lived to annoy another day.

He hoped that Jack was off living a wonderful life with the Doctor, swash buckling his way across the galaxy, bedding every beauty, tentacles or not, that came his way and storing up thousands of outrageous stories for the future. He hoped that maybe one day he might feature affectionately in one of those stories "Hey I once knew this cute Welsh boy, great cheekbones, beautiful vowels, looked fantastic in a suit. He could run rings around me let me tell you!."

He hoped that perhaps the Doctor would hear about Saxon and ride to the rescue - a dishevelled knight with a blue police box.

He hoped that oblivion would come for him soon as he had listened to enough screams for a thousand lifetimes and he didn't care to find out just how slow and painful death from starvation actually is.

He hoped.