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fandomweekly2025-08-29 07:02 pm
badly_knitted) wrote in fandomweekly2025-08-29 07:02 pm
Entry tags:
[#271] Perfect Timing (Torchwood)
Theme Prompt: #271 – In The Nick Of Time
Title: Perfect Timing
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating/Warnings: PG
Bonus: Yes
Word Count: 1000
Summary: Des Llewellyn, Intergalactic Man of Mystery, aka Ianto Jones, along with his faithful sidekick, take on a mission to rescue a kidnapped child.
“Relax, Ianto! We have plenty of time. We have a time machine, remember?”
Ianto scowled at his husband. “I can’t believe you just said that! You should know better than I do the dangers of crossing our own timeline. If we fail this time, we can’t just keep going back and trying again! There’d be multiple versions of ourselves, all in the same time and place, and that would be very bad!”
“Alright, point taken, but I still don’t know what you’re worrying about.”
“I have a reputation, or at least Des Llewellyn does, for dealing with situations in a… shall we say timely manner.”
“In the nick of time? Last second rescues and such?”
“No, because Des Llewellyn doesn’t leave anything to chance, or to the last possible moment.” Neither did Ianto Jones, which Jack should have remembered from Torchwood. He pulled off miracles at exactly the right moment. Well, they tended to SEEM like miracles, but only because of all the planning and thinking that went into them.
On this occasion, they were attempting to rescue a kidnapped child. The parents were preparing to pay the ransom, a hefty sum in uncut gemstones. They had a time and place for the ransom drop, and the kidnappers promised that the child would be released as soon as the gems had been collected and evaluated, to make sure there were no tricks on the part of the parents.
The idea was to extract the child before the ransom was paid, because once the kidnappers had the gems, there would be no reason to keep the boy alive, especially since he’d probably seen the kidnappers’ faces, and could perhaps identify them.
Well, the term ‘boy’ was a bit misleading, since the family in question were Adresians, a race of vaguely humanoid beings with copper-coloured skin, large, black eyes, plumes of greenish feathers instead of hair, four arms, and three distinct genders. The kidnap victim was not precisely male, but even now, Ianto still tended to think in human terms, mostly out of habit.
Adresian family units were usually made up of three individuals, one of each gender, since all three were required in order to produce offspring, and the kidnap victim was this wealthy throuple’s only child, since their other eggs had failed to hatch due to an issue with genetic incompatibility between two of the parents. That made their child more valuable to them than everything they owned, and they were quite willing to pay the ransom, even though it would leave them virtually penniless.
The kidnappers were no doubt aware of this, but they didn’t care. They only wanted whatever riches they could extract from their target family. If they were successful this time, they would strike again, and again, until stopped… Ianto had no intention of letting this gang get away with their plan even once, so he and Jack had to get this rescue right first time, and see to it that the gang didn’t get another opportunity.
They could, in theory, have prevented the kidnapping from ever happening, but then the kidnappers would probably have just picked another target, and someone else would have lost their child, which would be an unacceptable outcome, so instead they had carefully planted a microscopic tracking chip on the victim to be, less than half an hour before the crime was due to be committed. As soon as the gang sent someone to collect the ransom, they would have to swoop in and rescue the child, and also get to the ransom drop and retrieve the gems, switching the bag out for an identical one filled with pebbles, before they were collected.
At the same time, the TARDIS would transmit details of the crime to the local law enforcement agency, ensuring they would be ready to arrest the kidnappers immediately on delivery… It would be a bit of a juggling act, which was why it had to go right first time, otherwise the various threads might unravel. Jack would lie in wait at the ransom drop, ready to handle the switch, and Ianto in the TARDIS would collect the child, trading places with him so that he could disarm the gang and gift-wrap them for the police.
Jack clapped his hands. “Right, let’s do this!”
Ianto rolled his eyes at Jack’s enthusiasm. “Activate your camouflage field before you go out there.”
“I do know how to do this!” Jack pressed a small button and vanished from sight.
“Sometimes I wonder.” Ianto stared at where Jack had been. “Be careful, and I’ll see you later.
Jack, having crept around behind his husband, went to slap his arse, only for Ianto to sidestep. “Hey! You moved!”
Ianto laughed. “I may not be able to see you, but our TARDIS can, so don’t even think of using your new toy to cheat at naked hide and seek.”
Thanks to Ianto’s meticulous planning, everything went relatively smoothly. He stayed inside the TARDIS, disguising herself as the closet in one corner of the room, until the courier was sent to collect the ransom. Then he slipped out, gave the boy a message from his parents, urged him into the ‘closet’ and waited for the gang to enter. When they did a few minutes later, they found not a frightened, cowering child who could be easily disposed of, but an armed human, who quickly relieved them of their own weapons, recorded their confession, and dropped them off, tied up and with all the incriminating evidence, including their victim, at the headquarters of the law enforcement agency. Job done.
The courier was picked up with the substituted ransom shortly afterwards, and taken in for questioning. He willingly spilled everything he knew in return for immunity since he’d only taken a job to collect a package; he would likely have been killed as soon as he’d delivered it anyway.
“The Intergalactic Man of Mystery strikes again,” Jack teased.
“Of course. Timing is everything, Jack. Didn’t you know that?”
The End
Ianto scowled at his husband. “I can’t believe you just said that! You should know better than I do the dangers of crossing our own timeline. If we fail this time, we can’t just keep going back and trying again! There’d be multiple versions of ourselves, all in the same time and place, and that would be very bad!”
“Alright, point taken, but I still don’t know what you’re worrying about.”
“I have a reputation, or at least Des Llewellyn does, for dealing with situations in a… shall we say timely manner.”
“In the nick of time? Last second rescues and such?”
“No, because Des Llewellyn doesn’t leave anything to chance, or to the last possible moment.” Neither did Ianto Jones, which Jack should have remembered from Torchwood. He pulled off miracles at exactly the right moment. Well, they tended to SEEM like miracles, but only because of all the planning and thinking that went into them.
On this occasion, they were attempting to rescue a kidnapped child. The parents were preparing to pay the ransom, a hefty sum in uncut gemstones. They had a time and place for the ransom drop, and the kidnappers promised that the child would be released as soon as the gems had been collected and evaluated, to make sure there were no tricks on the part of the parents.
The idea was to extract the child before the ransom was paid, because once the kidnappers had the gems, there would be no reason to keep the boy alive, especially since he’d probably seen the kidnappers’ faces, and could perhaps identify them.
Well, the term ‘boy’ was a bit misleading, since the family in question were Adresians, a race of vaguely humanoid beings with copper-coloured skin, large, black eyes, plumes of greenish feathers instead of hair, four arms, and three distinct genders. The kidnap victim was not precisely male, but even now, Ianto still tended to think in human terms, mostly out of habit.
Adresian family units were usually made up of three individuals, one of each gender, since all three were required in order to produce offspring, and the kidnap victim was this wealthy throuple’s only child, since their other eggs had failed to hatch due to an issue with genetic incompatibility between two of the parents. That made their child more valuable to them than everything they owned, and they were quite willing to pay the ransom, even though it would leave them virtually penniless.
The kidnappers were no doubt aware of this, but they didn’t care. They only wanted whatever riches they could extract from their target family. If they were successful this time, they would strike again, and again, until stopped… Ianto had no intention of letting this gang get away with their plan even once, so he and Jack had to get this rescue right first time, and see to it that the gang didn’t get another opportunity.
They could, in theory, have prevented the kidnapping from ever happening, but then the kidnappers would probably have just picked another target, and someone else would have lost their child, which would be an unacceptable outcome, so instead they had carefully planted a microscopic tracking chip on the victim to be, less than half an hour before the crime was due to be committed. As soon as the gang sent someone to collect the ransom, they would have to swoop in and rescue the child, and also get to the ransom drop and retrieve the gems, switching the bag out for an identical one filled with pebbles, before they were collected.
At the same time, the TARDIS would transmit details of the crime to the local law enforcement agency, ensuring they would be ready to arrest the kidnappers immediately on delivery… It would be a bit of a juggling act, which was why it had to go right first time, otherwise the various threads might unravel. Jack would lie in wait at the ransom drop, ready to handle the switch, and Ianto in the TARDIS would collect the child, trading places with him so that he could disarm the gang and gift-wrap them for the police.
Jack clapped his hands. “Right, let’s do this!”
Ianto rolled his eyes at Jack’s enthusiasm. “Activate your camouflage field before you go out there.”
“I do know how to do this!” Jack pressed a small button and vanished from sight.
“Sometimes I wonder.” Ianto stared at where Jack had been. “Be careful, and I’ll see you later.
Jack, having crept around behind his husband, went to slap his arse, only for Ianto to sidestep. “Hey! You moved!”
Ianto laughed. “I may not be able to see you, but our TARDIS can, so don’t even think of using your new toy to cheat at naked hide and seek.”
Thanks to Ianto’s meticulous planning, everything went relatively smoothly. He stayed inside the TARDIS, disguising herself as the closet in one corner of the room, until the courier was sent to collect the ransom. Then he slipped out, gave the boy a message from his parents, urged him into the ‘closet’ and waited for the gang to enter. When they did a few minutes later, they found not a frightened, cowering child who could be easily disposed of, but an armed human, who quickly relieved them of their own weapons, recorded their confession, and dropped them off, tied up and with all the incriminating evidence, including their victim, at the headquarters of the law enforcement agency. Job done.
The courier was picked up with the substituted ransom shortly afterwards, and taken in for questioning. He willingly spilled everything he knew in return for immunity since he’d only taken a job to collect a package; he would likely have been killed as soon as he’d delivered it anyway.
“The Intergalactic Man of Mystery strikes again,” Jack teased.
“Of course. Timing is everything, Jack. Didn’t you know that?”
The End