The Big Applesauce

This is it. Ianto has reached the end of his proverbial rope, the metaphorical straw that broke the camel's back. He can't take it anymore. He has had it up to here [not indicated, but probably a spot well above his head].

Aliens. He's going to go mad if he has to spend another day living with aliens inside of another alien. There was a nice period after Callie settled in where everything was a bit domestic and relatively quiet and nothing went unmanageably wrong. He wonders now if he wasn't just resolutely ignoring all the little things that were driving him so slowly up the wall that he hasn't noticed 'til now that he's at the ceiling. He can't even recover with a stiff drink because his house, which is actually an alien, won't let him near any alcohol, ostensibly for his health, which the house (the HOUSE WHICH IS AN ALIEN) claims he has been neglecting. So he's gone on a long walk (for his health) to the riftie Pub for a drink (for his mental health). It's refreshing and slightly bizarre to walk the relatively normal streets of Manhattan. The strangest people he walks past are a welcome change, just for being people. Even the unsettling man in the alley before the door to Wilmot's is some kind of a relief.

He orders a pint of cider at the bar and sits at one of the little tables, trying to soak in the warm and extremely human surroundings, and maybe work his stomach up for some definitely human food.

There's a trail of sweets leading him, labyrinthine, through the TARDIS. The rooms, the corridors, swirled along the walls, all within approximate arm's reach of a certain troll. Ianto follows it, fearing for the inevitable candied Lot's wife, though eventually he gives in and plucks a sherbet lemon off of what used to be a doorknob. The TARDIS probably wouldn't allow it inside if it weren't safe. Sugary occurrences aside, it's not been a bad day so far - the nerve pain in his legs is particularly unnoticeable, and dare he say he's even feeling well enough to go without the cane. He carries it still, just in case, but he's feeling optimistic (for once).

The first kitchen he finds has been ransacked by licorice and caramels, leaving him nowhere to sit and nothing to drink. He finds another, blessedly unmarked, although this one has the arguable downside of containing the Doctor, who does not seem as preoccupied by the possibility of some kind of candy minotaur as Ianto is. "Doctor," he starts hesitantly from the doorway, in that companion-esque 'there's something I've noticed that you haven't and I'm waiting for you to tell me if I should be scared of it' way.

Ianto is on a mission. He's got a wheelchair - not because he needs one, really, the TARDIS is just really big sometimes and her libraries tend to be so disordered that hobbling around with his cane would be a really inefficient search method. He rolls down the aisles, pulling a book every so often and stacking them in his lap. He lingers in the science fiction section, or a section that just happens to have a lot of science fiction in it, noting the occasional interesting title and taking what he assumes to be an alien tabloid. He could use a little gossip.

He stacks the books on a table he finds near the center, or what feels like the center, anyway, if the hub and spoke design of the space is to be believed. He's found a new diary as well, and a new phone, and he sets these out too, trying to make sense and give order to what he's gathered. Should he use the first letters of sentences? The last letter of the book? Chapter titles? He left himself a few options. He's already done book titles, he doesn't want to repeat himself. Important decisions, here. He twists around to reach the pocket on the back of the chair and pulls out a thermos. Hot cocoa, no coffee, because he needs to ease back into caffeine slowly. It's perfectly hot, sweet, and chocolately, and somehow the little marshmallows in it have not dissolved into foam.

Leaving the drink at his elbow, he changes tacks and pulls out a different book from the pile, checking the table of contents before he flips to a particular page. He taps his pen against the edge of the page, contemplating its contents, before he starts to take down details of a certain magical Prefect bathroom in his diary.

It's drizzling. New York City is wet and foggy around the edges. It almost feels like Wales, except for the soaring buildings and strange accents and the button next to his bed that lets him call cute nurses to his aid. He owes a call to Zach, eventually, the cute nurse who's gone Nightingale on him, to tell him that he left his mobile in Ianto's room. He left it there because Ianto distracted him after he put it down, but, semantics. He thumbs the rubber buttons, wondering if it matters to anyone else that he's being discharged. Technically he's just transitioning from in-patient to out-patient, but they can't very well get him to come to physical therapy once a week if they can't find him once he's left.

He leaves the mobile on his bedside table and buzzes the nurse station. Zach will find it. He wraps his hand around the bane of his existence and pushes himself slowly, laboriously, out of bed. He doesn't mind having a cane, necessarily. It's got a Bond villain sort of vibe. It's more that it's ugly as sin, a plastic tortoiseshell monstrosity with a padded handle and clawed feet. There's no way he's walking around New York with it; he'll need to get a new one once he's released. Stop by the... cane store.

He shuffles past the nurse station, smiling at the boys on duty. He'll miss the steady supply of attractive nurses morally and legally obligated to help him. He won't miss needing to be helped. He stops by the childrens' ward, oncology, psychiatric, Agatha downstairs, wishing well as he goes. Who doesn't like a visit from a handsome young foreign boy? More to the point, Ianto was curious to see if there were any other rifties in the hospital. If there are, they're keeping mum.

He stops by the cafeteria for a cup of tea and a breather. He's never made the rounds like this - he's taken to walking around (or rather, Zach makes him) to gather his strength bit by bit, but only short trips, never to the point of feeling winded. It'll do more harm than good to overexert himself now, they keep telling him, but Ianto's had rather enough of underexertion to last him a good long while.

He returns to his room with another cup of tea. The sterile, off-white linoleum and pale blue curtains are so familiar now as to almost feel like home, and it disgusts him to his core. Someone's left the clothes he arrived with on the bed, neatly folded, just as charred as they were five months previous. He closes the door and sits to dress himself. The shirt and pants aren't bad off, and they've been laundered to lose the smell of ozone and smoke. The coat, however, has been eaten through on the back, the wool patchy and holey around the shoulders and the arms. Good thing he doesn't need it today. None of it fits, of course, and the sick feeling he compartmentalizes into a very deep part of his brain settles in his stomach. He pulls the belt tighter and rolls up the sleeves of his shirt to hide their looseness. He leaves the tie off; he feels like a clown even as he thinks about putting it on.

The rain has relented, the haze lifting a little, and Ianto stares out the window, barely filling in the shape of his previous life.

If there were any witnesses - but there aren’t, Ianto makes sure of that, smuggling his equipment out into the Ramble after the park has closed for the night, as close to the rift center as he can get without a boat. As far as rift manipulators go, it isn’t much:: two car batteries, a laptop, and what might be (underneath heavy modification and a liberal amount of cables) two tall computer towers. If he’d had space and funding and probably a lorry he might’ve gone for something enclosed, maybe a homemade Stargate sort of aesthetic, but. Needs must.

He rubs his gloved hands together as he waits for the laptop to boot up. According to his exhaustive mental checklist, all that’s left is a final software check and calibration. It will all check out, of course, he’s spent the two months since he arrived writing and rewriting the software based on Tosh’s work. That was patchy in places, although it was easy enough to fill in the blanks. The rift manipulator itself might’ve been more of a challenge, had he not the blueprints of Torchwood’s original committed to memory. Getting the requisite parts (or their equivalents) was more difficult, but he didn’t take up with Romac for the cushy flat. Though that was a bonus. He would’ve liked to get in with the rebels as well, undercover, maybe, nick some of their rift knowledge and equipment (if any), but getting caught by either side was too great a risk.

The laptop bleeps and begins the checks. For tonight’s test - because he’s hardly going to throw himself into this thing headfirst without a trial run - he’s got his jumper from when he first arrived. If all goes well, he’ll try his trousers the next go around, and if necessary, his shoes. The socks are already gone, disappeared accidentally in a preliminary test to determine the right frequency. They’re in some New York, somewhere, he supposes.

He sets the jumper in its place equidistant from the towers as the laptop gives its final bleep. The dialogue box gives the all-clear, but he scrolls through the results just to make sure everything is within set parameters. He may be giddy with excitement, but he’s not stupid. After a double-check of the equipment, the batteries, and the connections, and quick prayer to Saint David, Ianto initializes the program and brings up the timer. The machine is set to power down after three minutes total, one to warm up, one to run, and one to cool down. He can’t very well come close to turn it off when it’s running, not without lead boots and a tether or three. That gives him a minute to get a safe distance away - very generous for the five meters that he walks, taking up place behind a small tree on the path, but better safe than sorry.

After an interminable wait filled only by the hum of the rift manipulator, something gives, tugging the jumper through the dirt with an unseen hand. It inches slowly at first, then tumbles in jumps and starts, until suddenly, as though buffeted by the wind, it’s pulled through the doorway and disappears into the light. Ianto breathes a heady sigh of relief and chuckles. Some homeless New Yorker in his universe will probably find themselves a nice new jumper. He has no way of knowing for certain if it made it through to the other end, but the rift manipulator has acted accordingly with his calculations so far. That’s as certain as he’ll ever be.

The machine makes a knocking sound and its whine changes, kicking up in frequency. In another minute, it should be safe to approach. Ianto’s nerves are thrumming with anticipation to examine the readings and the adrenaline of an impossible experiment. It’s almost overwhelming, his need to get to the machine, to see the results - every second faster that he works is one second sooner he’ll be home. ( He almost trips over his own feet. )