Will My Arms Be Strong Enough 44/45
Title: Will My Arms Be Strong Enough? 44/45
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Gwen/Rhys...and others!
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Gwen, Rhys, John Hart, two OC's, Andrea (Andie) Carlowe and Nick Jones.
Spoilers: Set after Exit Wounds.
Summary: Jack talks with Ianto - but what's the Rift doing?
Chapter 44
The next day…
“Rift activity!” shouted Gwen from the sofa. Sure enough, the monitor was beeping loudly.
“I knew today was too quiet to be true,” muttered John, who was already picking up his coat “Where’s the signal coming from?” he asked.
“It looks like the old wasteland in front of the docks, up near the warehouses,” answered Nick, as he went to grab his own coat. “Come on, John.”
Ianto came back upstairs from where he’d been organising something in the Archives just in time to hear this. “You…you two are going on your own?” he asked, trying (and failing) to keep the surprise out of his voice.
Nick blinked at him a few times. “Of course we are,” he said. His voice was deceptively calm; it was his eyes which were doing all the talking. “It shouldn’t be a problem for just the two of us, should it, John?”
“Not at all!” smiled John, tossing his coat around him like a cape. “No job is too great for Captain John Hart and his trusty partner, Nick Jones!” He was acting the clown, but everyone knew perfectly well that he was being serious.
Ianto shrugged and nodded, watching the two men leave. “Just,” he started to say before realising that his cousin wouldn’t appreciate it and stopping himself. However, the words simply tumbled out of his mouth anyway. “Just be careful!”
Nick stopped. Slowly, he turned around and looked at Ianto. No one said anything; they all wanted to see how this would pan out considering the tense atmosphere between the two young men at the time. However, Nick simply set his face, nodded and turned away to leave with John.
There was a long silence, broken only by the closing of the cog door. Everyone looked at each other for several moments. No one seemed sure what to say or do. Even Myfanwy seemed to sense it; she wasn’t even scuffling around in her nest as she would often do.
Eventually, however, Jack called out from his office. “Come on, kids, back to work - there’s nothing to see here!” His words were light, but his voice held an undercurrent of tension that nobody could have missed, even if they had tried. Gwen went to her desk to do some more of the pile of paperwork that she had been putting off recently, while Andie made her way back down to the autopsy bay, in case she had to prepare for another alien form coming through the Rift.
With a small sigh, Ianto disappeared into the kitchenette and started making Jack’s cup of evening coffee, gently stroking the blue and white striped mug. The older man had been unusually tired lately; the stress of the last few weeks had caused him to lose a lot of sleep, which was a worrying occurrence, although Ianto couldn't deny that he liked waking up in Jack's arms, even if he was being held a little too desperately.
“Thanks, Ianto,” murmured Jack, taking the time to look up and give his lover a small smile, even though his heart really wasn’t in it. “What would I do without you?” he murmured, closing his eyes as he savoured the rich taste of the coffee on his tongue.
“Be completely caffeine-deprived,” answered Ianto with a small laugh. It was true; no one else in the Hub was allowed to touch the coffee machine, simply because no one else could make anything remotely resembling a decent cup of coffee.
He was about to continue this train of thought out loud, when something caught his eye. It was a picture frame resting calmly in the corner of Jack’s desk. His stomach contracted sharply when he realised that it was a picture of when the team had gone for an impromptu trip into the city on Boxing Day. It didn’t sound too exciting put like that, but in reality, it had been one of the best days out Ianto had had in a long time.
Jack saw what he was looking at and laughed. “That was some day, wasn’t it?” he remarked. “Look at us; it’s as if we’ve just walked into the middle of the Alps. We look -”
“We look happy,” interrupted Ianto, who had suddenly reached out to stroke the glass. “We were happy,” he amended hastily, perching himself on the edge of the desk. “It wasn’t exactly what we planned to be doing, but we were happy. Gwen got to spend some time with Rhys, you had the chance to be who you really are…and Nick got to be with the kids…” He swallowed softly, unable to tear his eyes away from his cousin’s smiling face; he was grinning even as little Trevyn was making a grab for his glasses.
Jack sighed. “It seems like such a long time ago, doesn’t it?” he remarked. “It seems like such a long time since…oh, Ianto, I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” repeated Ianto, turning round sharply. “What are you sorry for?”
Jack sighed. “You told me how broken Nick was; you said you hoped that I could save him the way…the way you said I saved you.” He laughed slightly bitterly. “But I haven’t saved him, have I? All I’ve done - all Torchwood has done - is break him even more.”
Ianto almost fell of the desk in shock. “You think you’ve broken him?” he exclaimed incredulously. “Jack, that’s ridiculous! You’re the one who’s saved him. You’ve shown him how to live again after everything he’s been through. Look at him yesterday - look at how brave and determined he was. You did that to him, Jack. You brought him back from his lowest point. John may have shown him that he can love again, but you’re the one who saved him so that he could do that.”
He didn’t give Jack a chance to reply before he added, much more quietly, “If anyone’s got to take responsibility for hurting him, it’s me.”
Jack stared at him. “What are you talking about?”
“I’ve betrayed him, Jack!” Ianto was quickly starting to lose the last remnants of his self-control. “I was so desperate to have control over…over knowing something that I kept what Alison did from Nick and now look what’s happened! I’ve hurt him so badly, Jack…he’s torn apart over what I kept from him…and yet, he still saved my life yesterday…”
He trailed off, his body shaking with heavy sobs as he waited for the sound of footsteps moving away from him. It was the least he deserved after what he had done to Nick.
However, to his amazement, he felt a hand drop onto his shoulder and a pair of strong arms wrapped around him and held him against a firm chest. At the same time, gentle fingers began to wind their way through his hair and a pair of soft lips brushed against his forehead.
“It’s okay, Ianto.” Jack’s voice was quiet and gentle. “I’m here now, just calm down and breathe slowly.” He stroked Ianto’s back and rocked him, slowly soothing him until the despairing sobs had deteriorated into quiet sniffles. Slowly, he tilted Ianto’s face upwards and wiped away the tears. “Come on, sit down here.”
Once Ianto was safely perched on his lap, Jack wrapped an arm around his waist and looked straight into his eyes. “Now, what’s the matter?”
“It’s just,” Ianto shifted uncomfortably, “Jack, all my life, I’ve been surrounded by secrets - secrets of my own and secrets that other people keep. It’s been going on from when I was a child and thinking for years that Nick was my brother right up to working in London.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was a junior researcher in London, Jack; I was barely told anything that wasn’t strictly necessary. I was almost completely in the dark about what Torchwood was really about and what little I did know was what I’d looked up myself. I understood the reasoning - having too many people knowing too much could be dangerous - but it made me change myself too. I became obsessed with having secrets and I stopped opening up to people as easily as I used to. I had even started shutting Nick out of my life by then. The only reason he knew about Torchwood was because he was there when the Tower was destroyed.”
Jack nodded. He understood where Ianto was coming from only too well. It was all very well keeping things under wraps when it wasn’t necessary for people to know them, but that made it very difficult to distinguish between simple privacy and dangerous secrecy.
“Somewhere between adopting the ‘If it’s alien, it’s ours’ policy and the battle, Torchwood London crossed that line,” he murmured. “It’s one thing to have some secrets; no one expects to know everything about you, but the secrets you keep could cost lives…”
“Or could seriously hurt someone else unnecessarily,” interrupted Ianto. “Secrets can be disastrous if you keep the wrong ones.” He sighed and rested his head on Jack’s shoulder. “I’ve had so many secrets to keep and kept from me, Jack…and now, it’s all suddenly come to a head and sometimes I don’t know where my secrets start and the others end.”
Jack felt something inside him clench as he heard Ianto’s voice tremble at the end. “I know.” At that moment, he realised just how young his lover really was - far too young to have suffered everything that he had. Torchwood had taken so much away from him; there was no way he was going to lose anything else.
“Listen,” he said cautiously, running his hands through Ianto’s hair. “I’ve set things up for Nick to go and see a counsellor I know in a couple of days. I understand that you’re not sure about saying too much to a stranger, but if you think it would help, I can ask her to see you too.”
Ianto looked uncertain. “What about you?”
“I’ll be with you every step of the way. I want you to have the help you should have had right from the start - right from when I recruited you. I made some terrible misjudgements then, and I’m truly sorry for that. I can’t turn back the clock, but I can at least try and help you now.” He stroked Ianto’s cheek gently. “You don’t have to make a decision now - just think about it.”
“I will,” replied Ianto. “I will think about it. Thank you, Jack.”
Jack was about to answer, but before he could, he suddenly realised that the Rift monitor was beeping. He stood up and frowned. “Did that even stop?”
A moment later, Gwen knocked on the door, looking flustered. “Jack, something’s happening. It looks like the Rift spike that John and Nick went to deal with is moving.”
“Moving?” repeated Jack, racing out of the door and towards the monitor. “Where’s it going?”
Ianto’s swift fingers pressed the keys, tracking what was happening. “It looks like it’s coming towards the Plass,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this before.”
“I can’t reach John or Nick on the comms either,” said Andie, her face worried. She came over and helped Ianto with what he was doing. “Wait, it’s stopped. It’s down the end of the Plass nearest to the water.”
“It’s not moving,” Ianto said quietly. “It’s spreading.”
“Could the spike be drawn to something over here?” asked Gwen. She turned round to look at her leader. “What do you think, Jack? Have you ever seen anything like this before?”
But Jack was watching the screen, his face slowly turning white with shock and confusion. “No,” he whispered. “Ianto’s right. It’s not moving.” He fiddled with something. “It is spreading.”
Everyone was stunned into silence after that statement. Gwen and Andie looked at each other in astonishment, both of them silently asking the same question: Have this happened before?
“Jack?” Ianto finally broke the silence when he reached over and cautiously touched his lover’s hand. “What is it?”
“It can’t be.” Jack seemed unaware of Ianto’s touch. “It can’t be.”
“What can’t it be?” asked Andie, who was tapping her foot against the floor, the only suggestion of the true level of how agitated she was. “What is it, Jack?”
But at that moment, Jack snapped out of it and raced into his office, pulling on his coat as he came out. “Come on!” he shouted, his eyes suddenly alight. “Let’s move!”
“What’s happening?” asked Andie as they followed the older man to the garage and jumped into the SUV. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” replied Ianto, turning round from where he was sitting in front. “But it certainly doesn’t look good.”
***
Next Time: What’s happening with the Rift? Stay tuned for the finale, people!
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Gwen/Rhys...and others!
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Gwen, Rhys, John Hart, two OC's, Andrea (Andie) Carlowe and Nick Jones.
Spoilers: Set after Exit Wounds.
Summary: Jack talks with Ianto - but what's the Rift doing?
Chapter 44
The next day…
“Rift activity!” shouted Gwen from the sofa. Sure enough, the monitor was beeping loudly.
“I knew today was too quiet to be true,” muttered John, who was already picking up his coat “Where’s the signal coming from?” he asked.
“It looks like the old wasteland in front of the docks, up near the warehouses,” answered Nick, as he went to grab his own coat. “Come on, John.”
Ianto came back upstairs from where he’d been organising something in the Archives just in time to hear this. “You…you two are going on your own?” he asked, trying (and failing) to keep the surprise out of his voice.
Nick blinked at him a few times. “Of course we are,” he said. His voice was deceptively calm; it was his eyes which were doing all the talking. “It shouldn’t be a problem for just the two of us, should it, John?”
“Not at all!” smiled John, tossing his coat around him like a cape. “No job is too great for Captain John Hart and his trusty partner, Nick Jones!” He was acting the clown, but everyone knew perfectly well that he was being serious.
Ianto shrugged and nodded, watching the two men leave. “Just,” he started to say before realising that his cousin wouldn’t appreciate it and stopping himself. However, the words simply tumbled out of his mouth anyway. “Just be careful!”
Nick stopped. Slowly, he turned around and looked at Ianto. No one said anything; they all wanted to see how this would pan out considering the tense atmosphere between the two young men at the time. However, Nick simply set his face, nodded and turned away to leave with John.
There was a long silence, broken only by the closing of the cog door. Everyone looked at each other for several moments. No one seemed sure what to say or do. Even Myfanwy seemed to sense it; she wasn’t even scuffling around in her nest as she would often do.
Eventually, however, Jack called out from his office. “Come on, kids, back to work - there’s nothing to see here!” His words were light, but his voice held an undercurrent of tension that nobody could have missed, even if they had tried. Gwen went to her desk to do some more of the pile of paperwork that she had been putting off recently, while Andie made her way back down to the autopsy bay, in case she had to prepare for another alien form coming through the Rift.
With a small sigh, Ianto disappeared into the kitchenette and started making Jack’s cup of evening coffee, gently stroking the blue and white striped mug. The older man had been unusually tired lately; the stress of the last few weeks had caused him to lose a lot of sleep, which was a worrying occurrence, although Ianto couldn't deny that he liked waking up in Jack's arms, even if he was being held a little too desperately.
“Thanks, Ianto,” murmured Jack, taking the time to look up and give his lover a small smile, even though his heart really wasn’t in it. “What would I do without you?” he murmured, closing his eyes as he savoured the rich taste of the coffee on his tongue.
“Be completely caffeine-deprived,” answered Ianto with a small laugh. It was true; no one else in the Hub was allowed to touch the coffee machine, simply because no one else could make anything remotely resembling a decent cup of coffee.
He was about to continue this train of thought out loud, when something caught his eye. It was a picture frame resting calmly in the corner of Jack’s desk. His stomach contracted sharply when he realised that it was a picture of when the team had gone for an impromptu trip into the city on Boxing Day. It didn’t sound too exciting put like that, but in reality, it had been one of the best days out Ianto had had in a long time.
Jack saw what he was looking at and laughed. “That was some day, wasn’t it?” he remarked. “Look at us; it’s as if we’ve just walked into the middle of the Alps. We look -”
“We look happy,” interrupted Ianto, who had suddenly reached out to stroke the glass. “We were happy,” he amended hastily, perching himself on the edge of the desk. “It wasn’t exactly what we planned to be doing, but we were happy. Gwen got to spend some time with Rhys, you had the chance to be who you really are…and Nick got to be with the kids…” He swallowed softly, unable to tear his eyes away from his cousin’s smiling face; he was grinning even as little Trevyn was making a grab for his glasses.
Jack sighed. “It seems like such a long time ago, doesn’t it?” he remarked. “It seems like such a long time since…oh, Ianto, I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” repeated Ianto, turning round sharply. “What are you sorry for?”
Jack sighed. “You told me how broken Nick was; you said you hoped that I could save him the way…the way you said I saved you.” He laughed slightly bitterly. “But I haven’t saved him, have I? All I’ve done - all Torchwood has done - is break him even more.”
Ianto almost fell of the desk in shock. “You think you’ve broken him?” he exclaimed incredulously. “Jack, that’s ridiculous! You’re the one who’s saved him. You’ve shown him how to live again after everything he’s been through. Look at him yesterday - look at how brave and determined he was. You did that to him, Jack. You brought him back from his lowest point. John may have shown him that he can love again, but you’re the one who saved him so that he could do that.”
He didn’t give Jack a chance to reply before he added, much more quietly, “If anyone’s got to take responsibility for hurting him, it’s me.”
Jack stared at him. “What are you talking about?”
“I’ve betrayed him, Jack!” Ianto was quickly starting to lose the last remnants of his self-control. “I was so desperate to have control over…over knowing something that I kept what Alison did from Nick and now look what’s happened! I’ve hurt him so badly, Jack…he’s torn apart over what I kept from him…and yet, he still saved my life yesterday…”
He trailed off, his body shaking with heavy sobs as he waited for the sound of footsteps moving away from him. It was the least he deserved after what he had done to Nick.
However, to his amazement, he felt a hand drop onto his shoulder and a pair of strong arms wrapped around him and held him against a firm chest. At the same time, gentle fingers began to wind their way through his hair and a pair of soft lips brushed against his forehead.
“It’s okay, Ianto.” Jack’s voice was quiet and gentle. “I’m here now, just calm down and breathe slowly.” He stroked Ianto’s back and rocked him, slowly soothing him until the despairing sobs had deteriorated into quiet sniffles. Slowly, he tilted Ianto’s face upwards and wiped away the tears. “Come on, sit down here.”
Once Ianto was safely perched on his lap, Jack wrapped an arm around his waist and looked straight into his eyes. “Now, what’s the matter?”
“It’s just,” Ianto shifted uncomfortably, “Jack, all my life, I’ve been surrounded by secrets - secrets of my own and secrets that other people keep. It’s been going on from when I was a child and thinking for years that Nick was my brother right up to working in London.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was a junior researcher in London, Jack; I was barely told anything that wasn’t strictly necessary. I was almost completely in the dark about what Torchwood was really about and what little I did know was what I’d looked up myself. I understood the reasoning - having too many people knowing too much could be dangerous - but it made me change myself too. I became obsessed with having secrets and I stopped opening up to people as easily as I used to. I had even started shutting Nick out of my life by then. The only reason he knew about Torchwood was because he was there when the Tower was destroyed.”
Jack nodded. He understood where Ianto was coming from only too well. It was all very well keeping things under wraps when it wasn’t necessary for people to know them, but that made it very difficult to distinguish between simple privacy and dangerous secrecy.
“Somewhere between adopting the ‘If it’s alien, it’s ours’ policy and the battle, Torchwood London crossed that line,” he murmured. “It’s one thing to have some secrets; no one expects to know everything about you, but the secrets you keep could cost lives…”
“Or could seriously hurt someone else unnecessarily,” interrupted Ianto. “Secrets can be disastrous if you keep the wrong ones.” He sighed and rested his head on Jack’s shoulder. “I’ve had so many secrets to keep and kept from me, Jack…and now, it’s all suddenly come to a head and sometimes I don’t know where my secrets start and the others end.”
Jack felt something inside him clench as he heard Ianto’s voice tremble at the end. “I know.” At that moment, he realised just how young his lover really was - far too young to have suffered everything that he had. Torchwood had taken so much away from him; there was no way he was going to lose anything else.
“Listen,” he said cautiously, running his hands through Ianto’s hair. “I’ve set things up for Nick to go and see a counsellor I know in a couple of days. I understand that you’re not sure about saying too much to a stranger, but if you think it would help, I can ask her to see you too.”
Ianto looked uncertain. “What about you?”
“I’ll be with you every step of the way. I want you to have the help you should have had right from the start - right from when I recruited you. I made some terrible misjudgements then, and I’m truly sorry for that. I can’t turn back the clock, but I can at least try and help you now.” He stroked Ianto’s cheek gently. “You don’t have to make a decision now - just think about it.”
“I will,” replied Ianto. “I will think about it. Thank you, Jack.”
Jack was about to answer, but before he could, he suddenly realised that the Rift monitor was beeping. He stood up and frowned. “Did that even stop?”
A moment later, Gwen knocked on the door, looking flustered. “Jack, something’s happening. It looks like the Rift spike that John and Nick went to deal with is moving.”
“Moving?” repeated Jack, racing out of the door and towards the monitor. “Where’s it going?”
Ianto’s swift fingers pressed the keys, tracking what was happening. “It looks like it’s coming towards the Plass,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this before.”
“I can’t reach John or Nick on the comms either,” said Andie, her face worried. She came over and helped Ianto with what he was doing. “Wait, it’s stopped. It’s down the end of the Plass nearest to the water.”
“It’s not moving,” Ianto said quietly. “It’s spreading.”
“Could the spike be drawn to something over here?” asked Gwen. She turned round to look at her leader. “What do you think, Jack? Have you ever seen anything like this before?”
But Jack was watching the screen, his face slowly turning white with shock and confusion. “No,” he whispered. “Ianto’s right. It’s not moving.” He fiddled with something. “It is spreading.”
Everyone was stunned into silence after that statement. Gwen and Andie looked at each other in astonishment, both of them silently asking the same question: Have this happened before?
“Jack?” Ianto finally broke the silence when he reached over and cautiously touched his lover’s hand. “What is it?”
“It can’t be.” Jack seemed unaware of Ianto’s touch. “It can’t be.”
“What can’t it be?” asked Andie, who was tapping her foot against the floor, the only suggestion of the true level of how agitated she was. “What is it, Jack?”
But at that moment, Jack snapped out of it and raced into his office, pulling on his coat as he came out. “Come on!” he shouted, his eyes suddenly alight. “Let’s move!”
“What’s happening?” asked Andie as they followed the older man to the garage and jumped into the SUV. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” replied Ianto, turning round from where he was sitting in front. “But it certainly doesn’t look good.”
***
Next Time: What’s happening with the Rift? Stay tuned for the finale, people!