Fic: Green And Gold
Apr. 18th, 2025 06:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
badly_knittedTitle: Green And Gold
Author:
badly_knittedCharacters: Ianto, Jack.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1035
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Practically overnight, the daffodils have come into bloom.
Written For: Prompt ‘Any, Any, Golden and Green,’ at
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spring_renewal 2025.Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
It seemed to Ianto as if, almost overnight, Cardiff’s gardens and parks had gone from the dull greys and browns of winter to a vista of greenery topped with the nodding golden yellow heads of daffodils. The flowers came in every shade from white and cream, through the palest lemon, so subtle it barely looked yellow at all, to some that were so deep that the outer frill of petals bordered on the same orange as the inner trumpets, but it was the bright yellow ones that always captured Ianto’s eyes, like sunlight fallen to earth. Those were the true Welsh daffodils, the national flower of his country, the clearest sign that, after a typically dreary winter, spring had finally arrived.
There were times when Ianto thoroughly disliked his country of birth. Usually that was in the cold, drab depths of winter, when all the colour seemed to have been leached from the world, and even the water of the bay looked greyish and scummy, or the summers when all it did was rain incessantly, and he got drenched every time he had to go outside. Spring, though… Spring made him rejoice in being Welsh, gave him a fierce surge of national pride, because surely there could be no country on the planet, maybe nowhere in the entire universe, more beautiful that Wales when the daffodils were in full bloom.
“Ianto?”
Jack’s voice dragged Ianto from his happy reverie, and he blinked, turning to his lover.
“Hm?”
“You can admire the flowers later; right now we have a job to do.”
“Right. Sorry. It’s just…” Ianto made a sweeping gesture with one arm, encompassing the picture postcard view. “Bit difficult not to notice them. Yesterday, there were just a handful of buds open, and this morning…” He trailed off again, smiling. The carpet of yellow blooms spread across the park almost as far as he could see. “I knew the council was putting in a lot of bulbs last year, but I didn’t expect it to look quite this spectacular.”
“And somewhere out there is what we’re out here at five-thirty in the morning to look for. Weren’t you complaining not so long ago about having to get up so early?”
“I got less than four hours’ sleep last night, I’m entitled to complain. Seeing this sort of makes up for it though.”
“I’m not denying that it’s beautiful, but it’ll still be there once we’ve done our job.”
Ianto’s smile faded. “You hope. We have no idea what came through the Rift, it could be a bomb, and then if it goes off, all this might be nothing but a smoking crater.” Pulling his phone out, Ianto quickly snapped a few pictures, capturing the view, just in case. Maybe he’d use one of the photos as the desktop wallpaper on his laptop, so he could enjoy it every day. “Right, let’s get moving. And watch where you’re stepping with those bloody great boots of yours.”
“No trampling on the daffodils, got it.”
“Good. I’d consider it disrespectful.”
Splitting up, each of them with a scanner to home in on the traces of Rift energy, the two men picked their way carefully between the clumps of daffodils sprouting from a meadow of lush green grass, looking for what the Rift had brought them. When they found it, all Ianto could do was laugh.
There, sitting in the middle of the daffodil meadow, was a battered old plant pot containing a small clump of bright yellow daffodils.
“Well, would you look at that.” Ianto smirked at his lover. “And you’re always telling me the Rift isn’t sentient, that it doesn’t have a sense of humour.”
“It isn’t, and it doesn’t,” Jack insisted. “This is just a coincidence, or… natural affinity, like calls out to like.”
“A pot of daffodils was drawn here because there were already so many daffodils here, they attracted their lost relative to them?” Ianto teased. “Plant based magnetism?”
“It could be! We’ve seen weirder things!” Which was, of course, perfectly true. Torchwood, and therefore Cardiff, was the home of weird. For anyone employed by the secret alien hunting organisation, weird was the new normal.
Ianto scanned the new arrivals, then scanned several other clumps of flowers in the vicinity, comparing them.
“What’re you doing now?”
“Just checking it is what it seems to be. Wouldn’t be the first time a shapeshifter’s tried to fool us by disguising itself as something innocuous.”
Jack frowned. “Right. Hadn’t thought of that. What’s the verdict?”
“Well, unless shapeshifters have learned to mimic genetic structure as well as appearance, these are daffodils, closely related to the ones that were already here. Perhaps an alien sometime in the past, or the future, made off with a few bulbs, and now their descendants have come home. Aside from the traces of Rift energy, there isn’t much to distinguish between these, and the ones the council planted.”
“That’s good then. We can just take the pot back to the Hub, brighten the place up a bit. They’ll be a nice splash of colour.”
“Or we could just let them stay here, dig a hole and pop them in.” Ianto raised a questioning eyebrow. “One more clump of daffodils, who’s going to notice? They’ll be a lot happier here than in an underground bunker. Daffodils belong outside in the fresh air, enjoying the sunshine and the breeze.”
Jack wavered for a moment, then sighed. “Fine, who am I to tell a Welshman what to do with his daffodils? Go ahead and plant them.”
Ianto smiled, crouching down to dig out a small hole using one of the tools on his ever-useful pocketknife. Less than five minutes later, the small clump of nodding flowers was settled in its new home, looking like they’d always been there.
And that was how, in the middle of a wildflower meadow that was part of Pontcanna Fields, there came to be a slowly spreading patch of golden yellow daffodils that flowered all year round. Even in the depths of winter, their bright trumpets nodded gaily through wind and rain, frost and snow, like a permanent patch of sunlight, a promise of warmer, brighter days to come.
The End
There were times when Ianto thoroughly disliked his country of birth. Usually that was in the cold, drab depths of winter, when all the colour seemed to have been leached from the world, and even the water of the bay looked greyish and scummy, or the summers when all it did was rain incessantly, and he got drenched every time he had to go outside. Spring, though… Spring made him rejoice in being Welsh, gave him a fierce surge of national pride, because surely there could be no country on the planet, maybe nowhere in the entire universe, more beautiful that Wales when the daffodils were in full bloom.
“Ianto?”
Jack’s voice dragged Ianto from his happy reverie, and he blinked, turning to his lover.
“Hm?”
“You can admire the flowers later; right now we have a job to do.”
“Right. Sorry. It’s just…” Ianto made a sweeping gesture with one arm, encompassing the picture postcard view. “Bit difficult not to notice them. Yesterday, there were just a handful of buds open, and this morning…” He trailed off again, smiling. The carpet of yellow blooms spread across the park almost as far as he could see. “I knew the council was putting in a lot of bulbs last year, but I didn’t expect it to look quite this spectacular.”
“And somewhere out there is what we’re out here at five-thirty in the morning to look for. Weren’t you complaining not so long ago about having to get up so early?”
“I got less than four hours’ sleep last night, I’m entitled to complain. Seeing this sort of makes up for it though.”
“I’m not denying that it’s beautiful, but it’ll still be there once we’ve done our job.”
Ianto’s smile faded. “You hope. We have no idea what came through the Rift, it could be a bomb, and then if it goes off, all this might be nothing but a smoking crater.” Pulling his phone out, Ianto quickly snapped a few pictures, capturing the view, just in case. Maybe he’d use one of the photos as the desktop wallpaper on his laptop, so he could enjoy it every day. “Right, let’s get moving. And watch where you’re stepping with those bloody great boots of yours.”
“No trampling on the daffodils, got it.”
“Good. I’d consider it disrespectful.”
Splitting up, each of them with a scanner to home in on the traces of Rift energy, the two men picked their way carefully between the clumps of daffodils sprouting from a meadow of lush green grass, looking for what the Rift had brought them. When they found it, all Ianto could do was laugh.
There, sitting in the middle of the daffodil meadow, was a battered old plant pot containing a small clump of bright yellow daffodils.
“Well, would you look at that.” Ianto smirked at his lover. “And you’re always telling me the Rift isn’t sentient, that it doesn’t have a sense of humour.”
“It isn’t, and it doesn’t,” Jack insisted. “This is just a coincidence, or… natural affinity, like calls out to like.”
“A pot of daffodils was drawn here because there were already so many daffodils here, they attracted their lost relative to them?” Ianto teased. “Plant based magnetism?”
“It could be! We’ve seen weirder things!” Which was, of course, perfectly true. Torchwood, and therefore Cardiff, was the home of weird. For anyone employed by the secret alien hunting organisation, weird was the new normal.
Ianto scanned the new arrivals, then scanned several other clumps of flowers in the vicinity, comparing them.
“What’re you doing now?”
“Just checking it is what it seems to be. Wouldn’t be the first time a shapeshifter’s tried to fool us by disguising itself as something innocuous.”
Jack frowned. “Right. Hadn’t thought of that. What’s the verdict?”
“Well, unless shapeshifters have learned to mimic genetic structure as well as appearance, these are daffodils, closely related to the ones that were already here. Perhaps an alien sometime in the past, or the future, made off with a few bulbs, and now their descendants have come home. Aside from the traces of Rift energy, there isn’t much to distinguish between these, and the ones the council planted.”
“That’s good then. We can just take the pot back to the Hub, brighten the place up a bit. They’ll be a nice splash of colour.”
“Or we could just let them stay here, dig a hole and pop them in.” Ianto raised a questioning eyebrow. “One more clump of daffodils, who’s going to notice? They’ll be a lot happier here than in an underground bunker. Daffodils belong outside in the fresh air, enjoying the sunshine and the breeze.”
Jack wavered for a moment, then sighed. “Fine, who am I to tell a Welshman what to do with his daffodils? Go ahead and plant them.”
Ianto smiled, crouching down to dig out a small hole using one of the tools on his ever-useful pocketknife. Less than five minutes later, the small clump of nodding flowers was settled in its new home, looking like they’d always been there.
And that was how, in the middle of a wildflower meadow that was part of Pontcanna Fields, there came to be a slowly spreading patch of golden yellow daffodils that flowered all year round. Even in the depths of winter, their bright trumpets nodded gaily through wind and rain, frost and snow, like a permanent patch of sunlight, a promise of warmer, brighter days to come.
The End
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Date: 2025-04-19 11:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2025-04-20 09:32 am (UTC)