Ficlet: Faraway Lands
Jun. 2nd, 2025 06:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
badly_knittedTitle: Faraway Lands
Author:
badly_knittedCharacters: Ianto.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 633
Spoilers: Some for Cyberwoman and Children of Earth. Fix-it.
Summary: As a boy, Ianto had dreamed of travelling to far off places, but he’d never imagined he’d go so far.
Written For: The prompt ‘any, any, A far away land’, at
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threesentenceficathon.Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
When he was a boy, Ianto had sometimes dreamed of travelling to a faraway land, maybe America, or Africa, or even Australia, to see the kangaroos and koala bears. But he hadn’t thought anything like that would ever really happen, because kids who lived on council estates, especially kids whose dads worked dead-end jobs in Debenhams, didn’t have the kind of money it would take to travel the world. Family holidays were usually a caravan near Aberystwyth, or camping in the Brecon Beacons for a week, and that was only if his mam could save up enough from her part-time cleaning job, because any spare money his dad had after paying the bills usually went on booze.
But as Ianto had grown up, he’d decided he wasn’t going to fall into the same trap as the kids he grew up with. He wanted more from life than working some tedious minimum wage job, getting married, and living from one payday to the next, trying to make ends meet while raising kids who’d have nothing better to look forward to than more of the same.
As soon as he was old enough, Ianto had turned his back on the estate, all his old friends, and even his family, and headed to London, determined to make something of himself. He’d bounced from job to job, taking anything he could get to earn enough money to live on, applying to anywhere that was hiring until at last he landed himself a good job in the Canary Wharf tower.
He’d known right away that this was it, his ticket to the kind of life he wanted, his chance to really show what he was made of. If only the kids from the estate could see him now! That had only been the beginning, an entry level job, but it hadn’t taken long before he was on his way up. Suddenly he’d been earning enough for himself and Lisa, his gorgeous new girlfriend, so much more sophisticated than the girls he’d grown up with, to take the occasional trip overseas, to France, or even Spain. And okay, they’d usually thrown the tent and sleeping bags into the boot of Ianto’s car, camping instead of staying in hotels, but they’d been in Europe instead on the UK. Maybe it wasn’t the faraway lands he’d longed to visit all those years ago, but it was still a step in the right direction, and who knew where they might be able to go in the future.
Only the future hadn’t happened the way he’d hoped. Instead, the Cybermen and Daleks had come, destroying Torchwood One, half-converting Lisa, and though he’d done everything he could to save her, a few months later she’d been dead, executed by the Torchwood Three team. Three years after that, he’d died too, making a heroic if misguided attempt to keep evil aliens from taking ten percent of the world’s children. He’d thought that was the end of him, and he’d taken comfort in the fact that at least he was dying in the arms of the man he loved. He’d closed his eyes, and taken what he'd believed to be his final breath, only to find himself unexpectedly alive again, and…
Well, now he was really seeing far-off lands, but they weren’t the ones of his childhood imaginings. Not Africa, or Australia, or even America, in fact nowhere on earth at all. These far-off lands were on other planets, orbiting distant stars, further away than he ever could have dreamed of travelling, and yet despite everything he’d already seen, he knew his adventures were still only just beginning. The universe spread out around him in every direction, and he was going to see all of it. Now that he was immortal, he had plenty of time.
The End
But as Ianto had grown up, he’d decided he wasn’t going to fall into the same trap as the kids he grew up with. He wanted more from life than working some tedious minimum wage job, getting married, and living from one payday to the next, trying to make ends meet while raising kids who’d have nothing better to look forward to than more of the same.
As soon as he was old enough, Ianto had turned his back on the estate, all his old friends, and even his family, and headed to London, determined to make something of himself. He’d bounced from job to job, taking anything he could get to earn enough money to live on, applying to anywhere that was hiring until at last he landed himself a good job in the Canary Wharf tower.
He’d known right away that this was it, his ticket to the kind of life he wanted, his chance to really show what he was made of. If only the kids from the estate could see him now! That had only been the beginning, an entry level job, but it hadn’t taken long before he was on his way up. Suddenly he’d been earning enough for himself and Lisa, his gorgeous new girlfriend, so much more sophisticated than the girls he’d grown up with, to take the occasional trip overseas, to France, or even Spain. And okay, they’d usually thrown the tent and sleeping bags into the boot of Ianto’s car, camping instead of staying in hotels, but they’d been in Europe instead on the UK. Maybe it wasn’t the faraway lands he’d longed to visit all those years ago, but it was still a step in the right direction, and who knew where they might be able to go in the future.
Only the future hadn’t happened the way he’d hoped. Instead, the Cybermen and Daleks had come, destroying Torchwood One, half-converting Lisa, and though he’d done everything he could to save her, a few months later she’d been dead, executed by the Torchwood Three team. Three years after that, he’d died too, making a heroic if misguided attempt to keep evil aliens from taking ten percent of the world’s children. He’d thought that was the end of him, and he’d taken comfort in the fact that at least he was dying in the arms of the man he loved. He’d closed his eyes, and taken what he'd believed to be his final breath, only to find himself unexpectedly alive again, and…
Well, now he was really seeing far-off lands, but they weren’t the ones of his childhood imaginings. Not Africa, or Australia, or even America, in fact nowhere on earth at all. These far-off lands were on other planets, orbiting distant stars, further away than he ever could have dreamed of travelling, and yet despite everything he’d already seen, he knew his adventures were still only just beginning. The universe spread out around him in every direction, and he was going to see all of it. Now that he was immortal, he had plenty of time.
The End
(no subject)
Date: 2025-06-04 04:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2025-06-04 06:08 pm (UTC)Thank you!