Title: A Study in Aqua
Author: sqyd
Characters/Pairings: Jack/Ianto
Rating: R (just to be safe)
Warnings: AU
Spoilers: none
Word count: 5200
Disclaimers: I don't own Torchwood or any of the characters. If I did, I'd take better care of them.
Summary: They are not Holmes and Watson, but almost.
Beta: The wonderful Rootesie without whom I'd be lost.
Preface: This is not the story I was going to write. I was going to write a Sherlock Holmes / Torchwood story for reel_torchwood, but I felt I should start with an introduction - a paragraph or two. However, I kept writing and writing and ended up with this fic. There were two short stories swirling in my mind at the time.

The first Sherlock Holmes story by Arthur Conan Doyle was a short story titled "A Study in Scarlet". It didn't garner much attention, with good reason: It wasn't very good. Its mystery of Mormon love triangle culminating in murder in London is preposterous. However it had the characters of Holmes and Watson and their relationship down pat. Neil Gaiman wrote a short story titled "A Study in Emerald". It takes those essential elements of the Doyle narrative and marries them with H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu world. Its an amazing tale. It inspired me more than Doyle.

To be honest, I'm not even a Doyle fan, but he created an enduring character that have will continue to inspire adaptations. I enjoyed the recent Guy Ritchie Holmes, not because it's a cinematic masterpiece, but because it's damn good fun. Other Holmes and Holmes-inspired films I can recommend are The Private Live of Sherlock Holmes (directed by the brilliant Billy Wilder), The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, Zero Effect. Interestingly, none of those are built on actual Doyle stories. My own little bit of fic is a mash-up of a few things. Its neither Holmes, nor Torchwood, but has elements of both.

******************

From the Journals of Ianto Jones

I should start with how I met Captain Jack Harkness, back in 2006, after my return to Cardiff from London. But before I do that, I need tell you a little about myself. I joined Torchwood London in 2004. I was young and eager back then, filled with a yearning for purpose. Working as a junior researcher, and spending most of my time in the archives, I came to appreciate the systematic thoroughness of Torchwood's information gathering. However, I quickly became disenchanted by the bureaucratic avarice that was festering at the core of the institution.

In the end it was ego and hunger for power that made Yvonne Hartman blind to the dangers that the organization she led was supposed to protect against. She opened a door between dimensions that was never meant to be opened, and Cybermen and Daleks came pouring through. The ensuing battle was bloody, and we won it only with the unanticipated help of the alien known as "The Doctor". The invaders were defeated, but the battle consumed Torchwood itself. That I survived was a miracle. I was injured, but the full use of my left arm was the least of my losses; I lost colleagues, friends, and the woman I loved. That day changed me irrevocably.

The slower pace of Cardiff, and the familiar sounds and smells of the bay soothed my shattered nerves. For my "hardship" I received a stipend from The Crown that, while short of "generous", allowed me to live in relative comfort. It was more my PTSD than the physical injuries that prevented me from obtaining regular employment. Mostly though, after all I'd seen, an ordinary job wouldn't have suited me any more. Instead, since idleness didn't fit me, I opted to occupy my mind with the study of a variety of subjects, taking classes at the local University. It filled my time, but didn't alleviate my feeling of uselessness.

I felt isolated. All my friends in London had been from, and had perished with Torchwood. I hadn't been back to Cardiff since I had left after the death of my father, and had never truly had friends there even back then. I tend to be solitary by nature, but my isolation was getting hard to bear. I longed for the presence of another human being around me. I came to the idea of sharing a house with someone - it would also mean that we both could have more opulent living arrangements than those which either of us could afford alone. I was brought together with Harkness by Stamford, whom I met at uni, and to whom I had mentioned my plans. Stamford informed me of a man he knew from the chemistry lab - another student of many interests, and few obligations, like myself. He seemed perfect, but Stamford appeared to be hesitant to recommend him fully.

"Out with it." I urged him. "What's wrong with the fellow?"

"Oh, I don't know..." He waffled. "He is very friendly, too friendly even, if you know what I mean, but there is something odd about him. For one thing, nobody can figure it out what his experiments here are all about. He has special permission from the head of the department to use the labs, and that in itself is highly unusual."

I did my best to assure him that the eccentricity of the fellow didn't trouble me. So Stamford introduced me to Harkness, and left us to it. I must say that I liked him right from the start. I was surprised to find that he was at least a decade and a half older than myself. He was strikingly handsome, and flirtatious, but his eyes were deadly serious as he looked me over. His accent and directness of manner identified him as an American.

"Do you believe aliens exist?" He posed the question unexpectedly.

"I know they do." I replied, in a sudden fit of honesty.

It had been strict Torchwood policy to deny even the possibility of aliens, and blame all evidence on weather balloons and mass hypnosis, and other such nonsense. 'Torchwood could stuff itself, for all I care', I thought. Still, this man could have been a plant of MI5 or UNIT, but something unexplainable about him made me want to trust him. The guardedness in his eyes softened at my answer. He told me of the house for rent on Baker Street, that he had his eyes on. It sounded ideal; a good neighborhood, plenty of space.

"I scream in my sleep," I told him.

"I keep irregular hours," he said. "I'm moody and secretive, and have a propensity to loaf around the house in various stages of undress. Will that be a problem?"

It was my turn to look him over.

"No, not at all." I said.

He smiled and we shook hands.

********************

Our new accommodations were more than satisfactory. There was plenty of room to stay out of each other's way when we so wished, but not so much that the homelike atmosphere would have been lost. We even had a housekeeper, Mrs. Hudson, who came in three times a week to clean and cook.

Harkness and I settled in. My nightmares continued, but slowly became less frequent. If my night terrors disturbed him, he didn't make mention of it. True to his word, he came and went at all times of the day. On occasion he was gone for days, other times he spent days without leaving the house, lazing around or locked up in his room, doing who knows what. Once or twice I caught him lounging around in the altogether. He was neither embarrassed nor apologetic about it. I would never be able to be so uninhibited, but it somehow fit him perfectly. He was in surprisingly good shape for a man who had a fondness for sweets, and didn't engage in any form of regular exercise as far as I could tell. I myself had to resume my daily runs to combat the effects of Mrs. Hudson's cooking.

We fell into an easy rapport. We talked about many subjects, but steered cleared of anything personal - an arrangement that I sensed suited him as much as it did me. Jack - we had disposed of formalities and called each other by first names - was a veritable fountain of information on a wide range of topics and arcane facts. However, his knowledge of the cinema was astoundingly deficient. Seeing my dismay he laughingly acquiesced to allowing me to remedy the situation. Obviously, we had to start with the classics. Luckily, I had the James Bond Collector's Set in my possession. We spent many a night watching films, and engaging in light banter. On one such night he produced an unmarked bottle of dark amber liquid. I was surprised, since I'd never seen him drink, or smelled alcohol on him. I myself am not against the consumption of alcohol, but only engage in it in social settings, and had not been very social for a long time. It was the finest brandy I'd ever imbibed. Maybe it was because I was so out of practice, but the alcohol loosened up my tongue more than is customary for me. Somehow, our conversation steered to London, and my time spent there.

"What made you return to Cardiff?" He asked.

"I was running away from grief and bad memories," I admitted. "I had grown up in Cardiff, and whilst it was not a place of happy childhood, and I'd even ran away from it, in time of my distress I thought that the familiar sights and scents of the place would ease my mind."

"You were in Torchwood London when it was destroyed, weren't you?"

"How did you know that?!" I was alarmed. Was this a trap? Was he here to wipe my memories? But if he was, surely he wouldn't be asking questions.

"Relax," he replied. "At times I deal in fairly sensitive matters, so I had to check out the person with whom I share lodgings."

"I don't believe that anything about Torchwood is a matter of public records."

"I have my means. The destruction of Canary Wharf, and the events of the preceding days are hard to dismiss by anyone who choses to live with eyes open."

"Most people had no problem dismissing them." I responded with some bitterness.

"I'm not most people, and neither are you, Ianto Jones. So tell me, how does a man like you get mixed up with a place like Torchwood?"

"I was young and directionless back then. Joining Torchwood seemed like the right thing to do. It gave me purpose, and it seemed like a worthy organization at first."

"At first?"

"The leaders turned out to be arrogant and foolish. They caused the death of many good men, and would have destroyed the world. Bloody idiots!" The anger I felt against Yvonne Hartman and her power-hungry puppets made my voice shake.

"I'm sure you know there is a small Torchwood branch in Cardiff. Ever thought of joining them?"

"I'm done with Torchwood, and all those who tamper with things they don't understand. I survived them once, I'll not be mixed up with them again."

I realized that I'd been absently rubbing my injured arm when he put his hand on mine.

"You lost a lot at Canary Wharf." It wasn't really a question.

"Everything, but my life." I admitted.

He pushed up the sleeve of my shirt - I always wore long sleeves - to reveal the scars that disfigured my arm from the shoulder almost to the wrist. His hand was large, his fingers strong, but their touch was gentle as a lover's caress as they brushed over the glossy, rough skin. There was no pity in that touch, but there was warmth and compassion, and perhaps even something more; something I had long since given up on. Perhaps it was the alcohol coursing through my veins, but I wished to be closer to him; wished to feel his heat, his heartbeat. I leaned into him, burying my face into his shoulder, filling my lungs with that fantastic scent of his.

"Ianto Jones, you're amazing," I heard him whisper.

I kissed the inviting flesh under his ear. I felt him shudder, and then he pulled away.

"Let's watch the movie," he said.

I cursed myself for being such a bloody fool. I managed to recover, and spent the rest of the night trying to shake off the awkwardness I felt. The next day he went out and didn't return for three days. For the first time I realized how much I missed having him around. When he returned we went on like nothing had happened. I realized that he had became a part of my life; even if we would never be anything more, I hoped we were friends.

I resolved to keep a respectful distance - I didn't want him to think of me as a nuisance. I thought I caught him looking at me with a remorseful expression a few times. I redoubled my efforts to be inoffensive in his company. To my relief, the established patterns of our lives continued and my momentary indiscretion was forgotten and forgiven. He began to have visitors at all hours. Some came only once, others were repeat visitors. There was a middle-aged man with weary eyes, a pretty Asian woman, a young black woman with a brilliant smile, a small man who looked like a librarian, and many more. I often wondered what they had in common with him, but I felt it improper to pry. When they came, I retired to my own quarters to give them privacy.

One evening, we were enjoying a generous supper prepared by Mrs. Hudson when my friend received a phone call. I expected him to leave at once, but instead he leaned back in his chair and looked at me appraisingly.

"You never asked what I do." He said.

"I believe if you wanted me to know, you'd have told me."

"Would you believe me if I told you I deal in matters pertaining to humans and aliens."

Truthfully, it was not a surprise after our previous conversation, but my trepidation must had shown, because he hurried to put my worries at rest.

"I'm not beholden to any government or organization, but from time to time they ask for my advice or assistance. There are more aliens on Earth than your Torchwood was aware of. Many of them... well most of them aren't hostile. The Rift, that you are surely aware of," he went on as I nodded. "acts like a great river, washing up sentient beings and a great many other things from far parts of space and time. Some come by design, others by chance. I have unique qualifications to liaise between aliens and humans in sensitive situations. The call I've just received was from Lestrade from a special division of UNIT. There is an urgent matter he feels needs my attention. I'd like you to come with me."

I couldn't suppress my surprise.

"But why?"

"You're hardly a civilian, and two sets of eyes see more than one."

I have to admit, I felt certain unease both on account of being drawn into matters I had sworn to stay away from, but also because I had a sense that I was being tested - for what purpose, I couldn't fathom. However, my curiosity was strong, and even back then I found it hard to say no to a direct request from my friend. A few minutes later we departed together to our rendezvous with Lestrade. Our destination was a second floor bedsit in a crumbling building in a seedy part of Cardiff. At the door we found two strapping young lads clad in the unmistakable black uniforms and red berets of UNIT, accompanied by a man in civilian clothes - the short man I mistook for a librarian. At the sight of me he cast a questioning look at my friend.

"Mr. Jones is my partner," he declared, causing me to blush. "Whatever is said to me, is said to him."

"As you wish, Captain," the small man nodded." We introduced ourselves and shook hands. With the formalities out of the way, he waved the uniformed men aside and showed us inside.

The bedsit we entered was shabby and miserable looking. I had gotten intimately acquainted with rooms just like that during the lean years immediately following my flight from Cardiff at sixteen. That alone would had been enough to put me in a sombre mood, if it wasn't also for the dead body. It was humanoid, but without a doubt not human. Its limbs and whole body were slender and elongated, even the hairless skull. The most obvious clue of course was its colour: the skin; the flesh exposed by the savage slashes across the body; the exposed innards; and even the blood, splashed all over the walls, and now congealing in a great big pool on the cuffed-up floor - it was all a brilliant shade of blue-green. Inexplicably, the scene filled me with a great sense of sorrow.

I noticed that Jack's eyes were on me.

"I'm sorry," I said. "We all heard rumours of aliens kept captive by Torchwood, but my security clearance was nowhere near high enough to know anything more than that. My area was artefacts. I can't even tell what gender this creature might be."

"They aren't gender specific. Their home world is a planet entirely covered by water. The name of the planet is the same as the name of their race, but it's not a sound the human larynx can produce. So we just call them 'Aqua'."

If he was disappointed with my lack of knowledge, he didn't show it. I looked around the room, just to avoid having to look at the body again. On one wall someone had scribbled with the victim's blood: ALIENS GET OUT!

"See why I called you in, Captain?" Lestrade fixed his gaze on Jack. "The victim is a member of the Aqua ambassador's staff. If this turns out to be the work of some anti-alien provocateurs, we have an intergalactic incident on our hands."

I stepped closer to the scribble, and took a better look.

"There are hesitation marks," I blurted out. "as if written by someone not familiar with the Roman alphabet, possibly trying to copy the letters from a template." Something at the back of my mind was prodding at me about those letters, but it vanished as soon I tried to grasp at it.

I turned around and I saw Lestrade looking at me with a small degree hopefulness. Jack had a pleased grin on his face.

We spent another twenty minutes there, Jack taking readings of the room and the body with a small PDA-like device, Lestrade and myself doing our best to stay out of his way.

"I'll have to talk to the Ambassador." Jack finally said.

"It'll be impossible tonight, but come to the headquarters tomorrow at ten, and I'll make sure you're given an audience."

In the end we said our farewells to Lestrade and took our leave. On the drive home Jack seemed to be deep in his thoughts, and I didn't wish to interrupt him. I had a thought or two to ponder myself.

********************

Once we got home, on a hunch I did a search on the internet. I found what I was looking for on the BBC World News website. It was a clip from the previous night's show, about anti-alien protesters in the US. Needless to say, the "aliens" that the Yanks were hot and bothered over were of the brown-skinned variety, not blue-green. I had only half-watched the show at the time, but it must had registered in my memory. I apprised Jack of my find, but he just nodded.

"You already knew it, didn't you?" I asked him, irritated.

"Yes, but that's not the point."

"Then what is? Was it a test? Did I pass?"

"With flying colours." He smiled, and it only made me more irate.

"Did it occur to you that maybe I didn't want to be tested, or dragged into your affairs?" The sheepish look on his face reinforced that nagging feeling I had since we had left that room with its gruesome display. "That's not all is it?"

"No, it's not. You must understand; I once worked for Torchwood. It was not my choice, I was coerced to do so. I had first-hand experience of their hubris. I freed myself from them, but I've been wary of them ever since. The Cardiff base under the leadership of Alex Hopkins is much different to what it once was, but it's still Torchwood. The London office was the worst. They tried getting at me for years. I'm somewhat under the protection of UNIT, but I don't have full confidence in them either. So, when Stamford brought you to me, it was just too much of a coincidence."

"Then why did you agree to share this house?" I asked nonplussed.

"To be truthful, you intrigued me too much. You seemed too implausible to be for real, but I couldn't believe you were a spook. The only way I could solve the mystery of you was if I had you close by. I've been watching you for months. I was once a con man and I'm a pretty good judge of character. After you made me watch all those Bond movies, I was convinced you were the real deal, but I had to be sure."

It dawned on me...

"That night, with the brandy... What was in it, sodium thiopental?" I assumed it had to be a truth serum of some sort.

"No. Something far more effective. An alien compound, under the influence of which it's impossible to lie."

"You drugged me!" I was shaking with anger by then.

"I didn't have a choice."

"There is always a choice!"

"I'm sorry. I had to be sure I could trust you."

"Yeah, well, how can I trust you now?"

"What if I tell you my secrets?"

Surely, he knew he was wearing my defences down. I have seen him since then working his tenacious charms on others, and he never fails. It's the honesty that makes him irresistible. I nodded and he went on.

"I'm not from here." He began.

"Well, obviously." I grumbled, and he laughed at it.

"I don't mean from America. I'm from a different planet far in the future. I was born at place called the Boeshane Peninsula, on a human colony, in the 51st century - by Earth time. I was once a Time Agent, a con man, and for short while travelled with The Doctor. I'm sure you have heard of him."

"How did you end up here, and why do you stay? Oh yeah, what is a Time Agent?"

"I ended up here because of the Rift. I stay because I know the Doctor will make his appearance here in due course, and I have a few questions to ask him. Time Agents travel in all directions in time and space to set the time lines right, when needed. At least that was the idea. The Agency took two years of my memories, and I left them. I had a vortex manipulator to travel in time, but it burned out when I landed here. I could leave this planet if I so wished, but not this time period, and I have grown fond of this place."

"How long have you been here?"

"For over a century."

"How long do you live? Are you an alien?"

"No, I'm not an alien, although by the 51st century nobody is purely human. At least a couple of percent of the DNA is alien. The natural life span is longer than now, but that's not it. I can't die. To be exact, I can't stay dead. I always come back."

"That's ridiculous. You can't seriously expect me to believe that."

"It's the truth."

He put his hands on my arms, and drew me closer to him.

"Listen, Ianto Jones, I knew the moment I set eyes on you that you were an extraordinary person, but now I'm more sure than ever that fate brought us together for a reason. I trust you the same as I trust myself. You already know more about me than anyone else alive. I've never been able to share this much of myself with anyone. I believe we are meant to be together. Please say you forgive my trespass against you, and accept my promise that it will never be repeated."

I would have been more prone to stand my ground were he not rubbing his thumb against my jaw. His touch was sending shivers down my spine. We were chest to chest by then, and his state of arousal was as apparent as mine. I barely had enough presence of mind to present the one query that still nagged me.

"Just one more question: How did you put the drug in my glass without me noticing it? You were pouring it in front of me."

"It was in the bottle," he murmured his reply into my neck.

"I'd wager that you're immune to it," I managed to sigh.

"You'd lose. I'm not."

"Then why..." I remembered how I felt then, how much I wanted him. No doubt, the serum loosened more than just tongues.

"You were drugged."

"So were you, it appears."

"Not a good enough excuse. I wanted you since I met you, but I couldn't act upon it till I was certain that it wouldn't constitute any form of coercion."

I ardently assured him that I wasn't under the influence of drugs or sense of duty. I let him know how much I wanted him. We stumbled into his bedroom, tearing at each other's clothing.

********************

"So how will we apprehend the killer?" I asked him the next morning.

He scooped me against him and rested his chin on my shoulder.

"If the writing on the wall was a red herring, as I'm most certain it was, then the killer has a hidden agenda. It could conceivably be to get the Aqua off the planet. I will know more after my talk with the Ambassador."

"Is there anything I could do to help?"

"Yes, very much so. My computer in the study is connected to all the CCTV cameras in town. You could look through last night's footage, see if you can find out how our blue friend ended up at the wrong side of Cardiff. It shouldn't have been anywhere outside a safe house or the headquarters. Its kind doesn't blend well with humans. There are rules for that."

He left after breakfast and I took a seat in front of the computer and set to work. For the first time since I returned to Cardiff I didn't feel useless. It was late evening by the time Jack returned. We greeted each other with a passionate embrace and a kiss in the same fashion, however there was work to be done.

"What have you found?" I inquired when we broke apart.

"A series of dead ends. The Ambassador is on Earth to barter a peace treaty between two other races. It seemed like a good starting point; if insurgent elements of either side wanted to sabotage the treaty that would have been a sufficient motive for murder. I spent the whole day running down every possible lead, with nothing to show for it. Have you had any better luck?"

"Well, I'm not entirely sure. I started from the building where the body was found. Two nights ago at 2 am a cab dropped off two Aquas, then left. The second Aqua never left the house, only humans. I tracked the cab back to a nightclub called Sanguine. It's the kind of high-concept establishment where outrageous costumes are the norm. Two aquamarine-skinned aliens would fit right in, not that one can really see anything with all that pulsing lighting. If they have cameras inside, they are on their own circuit."

He sat down next to me, his interest visibly picking up.

"Here comes the interesting part," I went on. "Those two Aquas arrived at the club in a cab at 10 pm. I couldn't track back the cabs to their starting point, because it's in a CCTV blind spot. There is a UNIT safe house there I bet. I interviewed the cabbie over the phone. He said he picked up the two "freaks" on a corner. They didn't say a word, gave him the address on a piece of paper. Nothing perturbs cabbies, you know. Especially if the passengers are headed to Sanguine. Everyone in town knows about that place. At midnight one of the Aquas took a cab back to towards the same blind spot. Our Aqua left the club at 1: 35 - accompanied by the other one who already left hours before! Can you explain that to me?"

"My God Ianto, I think you just solved the case!" He exclaimed.

"Perhaps you could clarify it to me how?"

"Can you go back to the footage of the house after the Aquas were dropped off?"

I did as he asked.

"Now fast-forward about twelve hours."

I did, and we sat there staring at the footage of people coming for half an hour. I began doubting the usefulness of the task when Jack jumped.

"That's it! Follow her!"

It was a woman, human, by all appearances, carrying a bundle. It might have been a trick of the light, but I could have sworn the bundle squirmed. I followed her progress from camera to camera till she ducked into an alley without coverage. Jack stood up and left the room, a minute later he returned with two handguns, handing one of them to me.

"I trust you know how to use it," he said.

"Of course I do, but I never have, not on anything other than paper targets," I protested. "I'm not going anywhere till you explain what's going on."

"That "woman" is a Nostrovite - a shape shifter. They travel in pairs. They have a fascinating reproductive process. The male lays the egg in an unsuspecting third party - it could be through a bite or a kiss. I'd bet it was a kiss. Aquas' metabolic system is notoriously bad at processing alcohol. Take a high-spirited Aqua and a handsome shape shifter and you have instant surrogate mother."

"But why risk an Aqua, why not pick a human?"

"Aquas are more nourishing, and Nostrovites are not particularly astute."

"I see. Go on."

"Once the egg is laid the Nostrovite father has outlived its usefulness and it soon dies. The mother however goes after the surrogate. The young takes 10-14 hours to hatch. At that time the Nostrovite mother rips it out of the body of the surrogate."

"So the whole murder scene, the extra cuts, the writing on the wall was to cover up that something was removed from the victim?"

"Correct. We have no notion what the Nostrovite looks like now, so we'll have to go to the last place it's been seen. I have a hunch that it is still close by."

********************

Jack's hunch turned out to be a sewer grate in that alley. I blessed my foresight to wear sturdy boots. The canal was narrow and barely high enough for us to walk upright.

"Are you sure we'll find it here?" I hissed at him.

"It's the ideal place. The young Nostrovite needs lots of meat. The mother can hide it here and can bring it food."

"Like what?"

"Stray cats, dogs, vagrants."

"What will we do when we find it?"

"We kill it."

"It's just a baby."

"Remember that movie you showed me, Alien?"

"I see your point."

We wandered around in that foul smelling place, following Jack's hunch and a gadget of his that scanned for life signs, for nearly an hour till we finally found the nest. The creature was a blobby thing surrounded with bones and scraps of cloth, and a lone shoe. When it saw us it attempted to shift, but plainly it didn't yet have the skill. What it turned into was a mass of furry lumps; there was even a patch of blue skin there. It was more monstrous than its true form. A few bullets was all it took to finish it off. The mother appeared out of nowhere just then, and charged us with furious rage. We both emptied our clips into her, but it barely slowed her down. Jack shoved me back and tackled the beast with his bare hands. I madly scrambled to load a fresh clip into my gun. By the time I did they were in a bloody heap on the ground. I emptied the whole clip into the alien's head at point blank range. It did finish her off at last.

Jack was bleeding profusely from his jugular vein. I tried in vain to staunch the flow of blood, but the wound was too severe.

"Don't worry," he croaked with his last breath.

I sat there, holding his lifeless body, worried. I would likely have gone out of my mind if it wasn't for the huge gash on his neck healing itself up right in front of my eyes, just minutes later. Fifteen minutes or so passed before he came back to life with an immense gasp.

That was the first of my many adventures with Captain Jack Harkness.
 

Fin