'Tis better to have loved and lost 1/1
I need more Mickey/Jake icons, anyone wanna point me in the right direction to some?
Title: 'Tis better to have loved and lost
Part: 1/1
Word Count: 4,781
Characters: Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones, Mickey Smith, Gwen Cooper, Jake Simmonds, Rose Tyler.
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Mickey/Jake
Rating: PG
Genre: Angst! Much angst, and some fluff.
Warning: Spoilers for Exit Wounds and The Journey's End.
Disclaimer: Alas the Torchwood character's are not mine, they belong to other more fabulous people. Which makes me sad.
Un-beta'ed, sorry. Any and all mistakes are my own (i'm known as the typo queen around friends), and i apologize for them.
Author's Note: This is the first Torchwood fic i've posted since January, the muse had left me. But hopefully thanks to this my muse will have been kick started again and i'll be able to finish my other TW fic. Anyway, this was written for mistakenelegant who left me the world's vaguest prompt in my Writing Meme lol. But that's okay because i love her none the less ^_^ It took me a while to find the story that was floating around in my head, but once i did it ran wild. So there's much angst and a little fluff thanks to Jack and Ianto, hopefully you like it babe ^_^
Summary: After a car crash that left Mickey with a bump on the head, he begins to remember someone he would much rather forget.
'Tis better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all - Tennyson
Jack drove like a maniac, everyone in knew it. Every time he got behind the wheel the rest of the team groaned, he always ignored it. He would ignore Ianto stomping his foot on the imaginary break peddle on his side to the car, or the way Gwen would grip the back of the seat and her seat belt every time he made a sharp turn. This was because Jack knew he drove like a maniac, they had already told him. Yet that never stopped him from taking the drivers seat, ignoring their protests and speeding off like a teenager on a drunken bender with stolen car. His driving technique had only ever gotten them into a few small crashes, and they were always the other drivers fault. Or the lamp posts, or the curbs fault. Really it was, ask anyone. Normally he’d get a whack on the shoulder from Gwen or an annoyed glare from Ianto whenever he got them into a accident, which didn’t happen with much regularity. But when it did happen, that’s what he got. Back when Owen and Tosh were alive, the snippy doctor would point out rather rudely that Jack was the only one that could walk away from a burning car wreck. And the young technician would chastize him for rocking her equipment around, her very expensive equipment. But none of those things stopped Jack’s crazed driving. That was until the day one of them didn’t walk away from a small fender bender unscathed, the day Mickey got hurt. It was just a simple bump on the head, or at least it should have been. But the days following the newest member of Torchwood’s head injury, it became more and more obvious that something was wrong.
Mickey was sitting on the sofa in the Hub, a file of papers open on his lap. Only he wasn’t paying any attention to it, instead he was staring off into space. His face was blank, although his eyes held a thoughtful look to them, like he was silently contemplating something. Jack, who had been watching him from his office door, sighed. “I wish Owen was here.” Jack didn’t often voice the fact that he missed his fallen colleagues, so when he did, Ianto took notice.
“I do too.” Ianto said softly from where he stood near Jack’s desk, putting something away in one of the drawers.
“No, not because I simply miss him.” Jack said, turning to face his lover. “Because, he’d know what to do with Mickey.”
“You mean horribly offend him?”
Jack chuckled, shaking his head. Even though Owen was gone, Ianto still spoke of him in the same way as he did when he was alive. “Besides that. It’s just that we’re not doctors -”
“Obviously.”
“So we’re not really sure he’s okay.” Jack said with another sigh before turning around to stare at Mickey again.
“Jack, it was just a concussion. I’ll admit, he’s been a little blank. But perhaps he’s just suffering some sort of post traumatic stress, I don’t think it’s anything to worry about.” Ianto attempted to quell Jack’s fear about Mickey, he knew how important the other man was to Jack. They had been friends for a long while, and they both shared two pieces of very common ground. Rose, and of course The Doctor. Two people Jack would never be able to face again in a million years if he allowed anything to happen to Mickey, especially if it was due to his lousy driving.
Jack shook his head, not convinced. “It’s something else, he’s acting so odd.”
“Jack.” Ianto moved to stand next to him, placing his hand on Jack’s cheek forcing him look at the young Welshman. “This is Torchwood, we all act a little odd now and then.” He leaned in and placed a sweet yet chaste kiss on Jack’s lips. “Stop worrying, I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
“You’re right.” Jack nodded, placing his hand over Ianto’s. “You’re right, I’ve got enough to worry about as it is.” He smiled. “Including the paper work of doom you just slip into my desk.”
Ianto nodded. “I do enjoy dealing out the paper work of doom.”
“Coffee would help make it go faster.” Jack smirked in a cheeky manner..
“Subtle.” Ianto quipped, before kissing Jack once more and leaving to make a fresh batch of coffee. As Jack watched his lover move through the Hub, he saw Mickey looking up at him, a little lost look on his face. When he saw that Jack had caught him staring, he quickly got up and walked away. Jack wanted to believe Ianto when he said that Mickey was fine, but everything in Jack just screamed at him that there was something wrong and that he needed to keep a close watch on the young man until he knew what it was.
•°
Mickey marched right out of the main level of the Hub and down into the lower levels, feeling like a fool. He had just chanced a look up at Jack’s office when he caught Jack and Ianto sharing a moment, a small kiss. The sight caused a knot of pain to twist in his gut, followed by a pounding headache. He didn’t know what was going on, but it was driving him mad. With an annoyed groan he leaned against one of the walls, slowly slipping down against it until he was seated on the floor. His head hurt constantly it seemed, and at first he just assumed that it was from the accident. But as the days dragged on, he was starting to wonder. His mind kept wandering, and his dreams were becoming a nuisance. He never remembered them when he woke up, but his emotions were always shot none the less. Perhaps he was losing his mind, it was quite possible. After all, Mickey didn’t know what losing ones mind felt like, so how could he possibly know?
“Fuck!” He swore softly, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Get it together man!” He spoke to himself, leaning his head back against the wall. His mind wandered as he allowed his eyes to slip closed, he was barely aware of his surrounds.
Let's go and liberate Paris.
What, you and me? In a van?
Nothing wrong with a van. I once saved the universe with a big yellow truck.
“Mickey?” Gwen’s voice caused the man in question to jump.
“What?” He asked quickly, looking up at her.
“Are you okay? You’ve been sitting down here for like twenty minutes.” She told him. Funny, he didn’t feel like he had been sitting there that long. He must have spaced out again, not good.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” He assured her, although he knew it would take more than that to placate the noisy woman. Which she only proved to him by sitting down on the floor next to him, opposed to leaving.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.” He nodded
“Just, don’t take this the wrong way. But, do you like Jack?” She asked.
“Of course.” Mickey seemed a little confused by the question, of course he liked Jack.
“No, I mean, do you fancy him?”
At the question Mickey’s face screwed up in a rather unflattering appalled look, “Good god no! Why would you even think that?”
“I’m sorry, it’s just lately - Every time you look at him and Ianto together, you seem a little jealous.” She paused, as if something just dawned on her. “You don’t fancy Ianto do you?” She asked quickly.
“No! Christ Gwen!” He scoffed. “I don’t fancy either one of them, honestly.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
Mickey sighed. “I don’t know! I wish I could tell you, I really do, but I haven’t got a bloody clue.” He sounded exasperated. “All I know if just whenever I see them together I feel.... lost.” He shook his head. “The last couple days, it’s like I’m missing a part of me. Like I’m trying to remember something that I can’t remember, and they just seem to make that feeling worse for some reason.”
Gwen just watched Mickey with her large sympathetic eyes, patting his arm reassuringly, mostly because she didn’t know what to tell the man. “Why don’t you go home? Take some pain killers and lay down, rest your head a bit.”
“I can’t.” Mickey shook his head.
“Go, I’ll tell Jack. Don’t worry he won’t be upset, I have a way with him.”
“Oh really? And exactly what ‘way’ is that?” Mickey asked in a skeptical manner.
“I’ll get Ianto to tell him.” She said with a laugh and a shrug.
•°
It only took Mickey about a half an hour to get from the Hub to his flat, his large and very empty flat. He exhaled heavily as he shut the door behind him, dropping his keys onto a small table by the front entrance. He had only been back in Jack’s world for barely a year, and even though he was paid well enough by Torchwood, he had yet to actually go shopping for his place. Which seemed a tad odd considering he could clearly remember his old place in the parallel universe having so much stuff in it, the place he got when he eventually moved out of Pete’s mansion after his Gran died. But he hated shopping for housewares, so someone else must have helped him then. Only if he could remember, I must have been Rose. It had to have been, right?
With a groan he flopped onto the sofa, kicking his shoes off as he did. His head was pounding, yet again. Bloody headaches, they just wouldn’t stop. He rolled over, closing his eyes, willing his mind to relax if only for a moment. He was so tired -
“So, where does this leave us?”
Mickey looked up from the kitchen table he was sitting at, looking around, he was in Pete’s mansion again.
“Nowhere, everywhere, I - it, this doesn’t change anything.” He heard himself say, stumbling over his words in a nervous manner.
“Rose is back Mickey!” Someone said loudly, sounding almost angry.
“I know!” Mickey shouted back.
“You live in the same house with her, she was your first love!”
“That doesn’t change anything! She was my first love, was being the operative word. As in, isn’t anymore. I don’t love her like that anymore. And as for the living together, you live here too, or have you forgotten?” When there was no answer, Mickey pushed on. “You know why I live here, you know why were all live here. It’s the safest place around, and with my Gran’s health I can’t have her living alone. It’s just a practicality, you don’t have to be jealous.”
“I’m not jealous!”
“Bollocks.” Mickey scoffed.
“You know what!” The person rounded on him. “I don’t need this right now! I’m not jealous, I just can’t help but notice when my boyfriend is willing to jump through fucking hoops for his ex that he supposedly no longer has feelings for!” And with that the person stormed away, leaving Mickey alone.
“Balls.” He muttered to himself, pounding the table with his fist in frustration.
The sound of the phone ringing woke Mickey with a start, causing him to forget where he was for a moment. The sun had begun set, bathing his living room in a pinkish glow from the quickly approaching evening. Sighing, he propped his hips up long enough to grab his cell phone from his back pocket before flopping down again. He checked the small screen, seeing Jack’s name.
“What?”
“You always answer your phone like that?” Jack asked in an amused tone.
“Only when I know it’s you.” Mickey said plainly.
“Nice.”
“What do you want?”
“I was just calling to make sure you were okay, Gwen mentioned earlier this afternoon that you weren’t feeling so hot.”
Mickey smirked. “I think I may have lost my mind, because you actually sound worried about me.”
“Of course, if you’re really hurt do you have any idea how high the insurance on the SUV will go?”
Mickey chuckled. “Of course, how stupid of me. I’m fine.”
“Really?”
“Really.” Mickey assured him.
“Okay then, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
When they hung up, Jack leaned back in his chair, propping his booted feet up on his desk much to the chagrin of Ianto.
“Is he okay?”
“Not one bit, he was dazed and sounded a little confused at first.” Jack said tiredly. Ianto was sat in the chair on the other side of the desk, a glass of brandy in his hand. “We’re going to run some tests tomorrow.” The captain affirmed. Ianto just nodded, finally starting to think that perhaps Jack was on to something about Mickey. He may not know the man as well as Jack did, which was why he wasn’t seeing it at first, but it was becoming more obvious that perhaps maybe, just maybe, something was wrong.
•°
That night Mickey tossed and turned in his sleep, his body twitching with restlessness. His mind a million miles away, barely even worrying about the need to sleep -
“Mickey?” A small knock followed the sound of his voice being called, the door squeaking softly on it's old hinges as it was pushed open slowly.
“Rose.” He turned his head to look at his best friend standing in the door way, her eyes tear stained.
“Do you need anything?” She asked, sniffling.
Mickey just shook his head, turning back to look at the prone form of his Gran laying in the bed before him. She was gone, the only parent Mickey had left was dead, died in her sleep peacefully. “No.” He whispered. He could almost feel Rose nod sadly before closing the door again, leaving him alone in the room. Mickey had been with his Gran for a while, unable to say goodbye. Not wanting to say goodbye, not again. He remembered when his Gran died back from his universe, he sobbed for days, clinging to Rose and Jackie. They were his family, his friends, his loves. Their love for him grounded him when he felt he was going to fade away. But this time, this time he didn’t have that. True he still had both Rose and Jackie, but the dynamic had shifted. They weren’t the same, he wasn’t the same. Only one thing would ground him, and it wasn’t there.
There was another squeak from the door, causing him to look over his shoulder again. “Rose, really I don’t -“ He trailed off when he saw who was standing in the doorway.
Mickey really had expected him to say something, anything. But he didn’t, because really, what could he say? Mickey shook his head sadly, unable to believe that his mere presence was about to reduce him to tears. The one thing he needed to finally let go and mourn was there, and nothing was stopping him. With one swift moment Mickey was across the room being welcomed into loving arms, a wave of emotion pouring out of him. He sobbed, tears streaming down his cheeks. All the while there was a small calming “shushing” sound from the person holding him, rocking him slowly as the pain of loss crashed over him again.
The alarm on the bedside table blared loudly, jostling Mickey awake. He rubbed his forehead with one hand as he expelled air roughly from his puffed cheeks, making a soft wooshing sound. What hell had he been dreaming about? Whatever it was had left Mickey feeling drained and more than a little depressed, the last thing you wanted to feel when you had to work at six in the morning. “This sucks.” He mumbled to himself, dragging himself out of bed. It looked like he was in for a long day, his least favorite type of days by far.
•°
First thing that morning Jack had dragged Mickey into the med bay and forced him to play a good patient as the other three performed various tests on him, all under the guise of a Torchwood physical since he refused to let them fuss over his bump on the head. By the time they were done it was mid afternoon, and Mickey was about ready to wring all their necks.
When he was finally allow free of the medical bay, he only got as far as the sofa before falling onto it and closing his eyes. The rest of the team let him be, all congregating in Jack’s office.
“Well?” Jack asked as Ianto looked over a clipboard.
“Retcon.” The Welshman said simply.
“What?”
“By the truck load.”
“Wait.” Gwen cut in. “Does this mean he’s going crazy and is going to kill everyone?”
“No.” Ianto shook his head. “The Retcon levels in his blood aren’t that high, but pretty close.” He handed the clipboard over to Jack.
“Christ! That’s a pretty potent strain as well, what the hell has he done to himself?”
“You think he did it to himself?” Gwen sounded skeptical.
“Well he’s worked for Torchwood for years, longer than either one of you by parallel earth’s standards. And Torchwood One taught it’s field agents how to recognize Retcon drugging, just so they would be aware if they were ever doped on a job.” Ianto just nodded, he knew all this already. Gwen on the other hand looked a little confused.
“Why would they do that? Then they wouldn’t be able to Retcon any of their people if they needed too.”
“They just used a stronger dosage if that happened.” Jack said.
“So you’re sure that he did this to himself?” She asked.
“He wanted to forget something, badly.” Jack said, looking out at Mickey’s resting form. “So badly he wiped entire parts of his memory just to get away from it. That bump on the head he suffered, it’s causing the memories to resurface.”
“Jack, maybe we should Retcon him again. Just a small dosage, enough to stop whatever is resurfacing.” Ianto said.
Jack shook his head. “With the amount that’s already in his system, even a small amount could prove to be dangerous for both him and us.”
“But Jack, he obviously doesn’t want to know whatever he’s forgotten.” Gwen said.
“I’m not going to lose another member of this team.” Jack said firmly. “Especially not to something as pedestrian as drugs. No, he’s going to have to live with the memories. Whether he likes it or not.”
•°
While the rest of the Torchwood team stood speculating about what could have driven Mickey to pump himself full of drugs and walk away from his life, Mickey laid on the small old couch in the main level of the Hub, recalling just that. His faces twisted up in pain as his headache rocked his mind, the uneven sleep he had fallen into swimming dizzily in his head -
“Mulliagn!” Mickey snapped in his best commanding officer voice. “I need a tight reading on this one, I don’t want any fuck ups!”
“Yes sir.” A female employee nodded, keeping her eyes trained on a computer screen in front of her.
He turned to look at the man standing before him, a small smile on his face hiding his underlining terror. “You come back.”
“I will.” He nodded. The two shared a chaste kiss before Mickey stepped back, away from the dimension jump platform.
“Control, we’re ready.” Mickey said over his com, static sounding in his ear before Rose’s voice rang out.
“Roger, we’ve got a green light, we’re going to go.” She said, sounding very official.
Mickey held his breath as he watched a flash of blue light remove the one person in the world that meant more to him than life itself, right out of thin air. He silently begged any power above that he wouldn’t hear any alarms, and that in the short span of twenty nine minutes he’d be back, good as new. But about a second after he begged, the sound of computerized alarms went off.
“Sir! We’ve got trouble!” Mulligan said sounding panicked.
“Rose! Get down here!” Mickey ordered into his com. “What is it?” He asked as he ran over to the computer the woman was standing at.
“There’s interference from the Void.”
“That’s impossible, the Void’s dead. The darkness destroyed it.” Mickey pushed her aside, taking her place at the computer.
“Not completely.”
At that moment Rose ran into the room, looking frantically around. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s the void, it’s scattering him!” Mickey’s voice was panicked as he typed furiously at the computer console.
“What!?” Rose almost yelled. “Well stop it!” She said as she ran to stand next to him, looking over his shoulder at the computer screen.
“Okay, wait, give me a minute. I can do this, I can do this -“ He gasped in shock suddenly, his sentence cut off.
“Mickey?” Rose questioned before looking closely at the screen. “He just - he didn’t - he.” She seemed unable to form a coherent sentence.
“He’s been torn apart.” Mickey said numbly, his mouth hung open in shock.
“Oh my god!” Rose gasped, her hand flying up to her mouth in horror.”Mickey.” She whispered as she watched her friend walk slowly over to stand in front of the now empty dimension jump platform.
“Jake.” Mickey breathed his lover’s name, his whole body shaking. “He’s dead.” He slumped onto the floor, sitting in front of the platform, just staring. “He’s gone.”
“God!” Rose sobbed, running over to Mickey and tossing her arms around him as she kneeled on the ground next to him. She buried her face against his shoulder, crying as he just continued to stare.
“Jake.” Mickey whispered, not even noticing the tears that began to stream down his face.
Mickey sat bolt up right, gasping for breath like he had just spent the last hour attempting to hold it. “Jake!” He almost shouted, looking around with wild eyes.
“Who’s Jake?”
Mickey looked over and noticed Jack, Ianto and Gwen all standing near a work station. They were all looking at him over their shoulder, they obviously had been paying attention to the monitor when Mickey woke up from his night terror. With a dejected sigh, Mickey flopped back on the sofa. Yep, this day sucked.
•°
Mickey was sat in Jack’s office, Jack was across from him, the desk in between them. The older man just watched Mickey with expectant eyes, waiting for him to start explaining.
“Jake was beautiful.” Mickey begun, a fond smile on his face. His eyes held a far away look to them as he reminisced about the past. “He was the first friend I made in the parallel world, he meant everything. We had three years of perfection, one as mates and two as lovers. True we were fighting off Cybermen at the time, but we enjoyed it.” He said with a chuckle. “Then Rose came. We went through, to help her and the Doctor fight off the Cybermen and the Daleks.”
“The battle of Canary Wharf.” Jack said.
“Yeah.” Mickey nodded. “She came back through with us, not by choice though.” Jack just nodded. “We had been living together in Pete’s mansion, with my Gran. Everything was fine and then - “ He shook his head. “Then Rose and Jackie moved in, and then we weren’t fine. He was jealous, he didn’t understand. I loved Rose, she was my best friend. But I wasn’t in love with her, I was in love with him. That was the first time we ever took a break from each other, four months after they moved in, he left..” Mickey sighed, his heart hurting from having to retell all his painful memories so soon after getting them back.
“A few weeks later after I got back from Norway my Gran passed away, and suddenly he was there. Whenever I needed him he was always there. It was after that we decided to move out of the mansion, we got a flat in the city. After that we were okay again, Rose was still a sore spot for him. But after a while he got over it, even went as far as becoming her friend. Couple years later the darkness came.”
“Davros.” Jack muttered.
“Yeah, that’s when Rose decided her little pet project of trying to get back to the Doctor was no longer that. Instead suddenly it became the focus of all of Torchwood, knowing full and well we had to get to the Doctor somehow.”
“So what happened?”
“The dimension jumps needed to be tested.” Mickey said mournfully. “It needed to be tested by a real human person, of the flesh and bloody variety. Jake was always so headstrong.” Mickey’s voice broke slightly as he fought back tears. “So stubborn, I couldn’t talk him out of it.” He paused, swallowing the lump in his throat. Jack pretty much knew where Mickey’s story was going, but he also knew that he needed to finish telling it. “The calibrations were wrong. We sent him through a patch of the Void that wasn’t quite dead, resulting in him being scattered. The dimension jumps worked by sending us through holes in the various dimensions walls that were breaking down. When someone is sent through a wall that isn’t breaking down, like the Void, it tears them apart. They get sent to all dimensions, pieces of them anyway.” Mickey sounded disgusted and on the verge of throwing up.
“He died.” Jack stated.
“Horribly.” Mickey took a minute to compose himself before continuing on. “Afterward I couldn’t go on, I was useless. I blamed myself, I blamed Rose. My memories of him hurt so much, I hated him for leaving me. So I made a choice, subject specific retcon.”
Jack looked taken aback, he could hardly believe what he was hearing. Subject specific recton was not only rare, but horrendously dangerous. “Are you insane!?” He asked.
“I was very nearly. I wasn’t mourning Jack, I was dying. It’s only ever been used in server cases, and my case fit the profile.”
“So you went and erased one person out of nearly five years of your life?”
Mickey nodded. “Rose was so mad at me, she couldn’t understand. After I did it I couldn’t understand why she wasn’t speaking to me, I know now. She was pissed off at my for doing it.”
“Yeah, I bet.”
“You don’t understand.” Mickey said with a weary sigh.
“I don’t understand?” Jack asked. “I have lost more lovers than you will every have. And trust me when I say, I loved them all. Wives and husbands, all of them, gone. Hundreds of years of living through broken heart after broken heart. So don’t you sit there and tell me that I don’t understand loss, because I understand it more than you ever will.”
“Then why do you keep falling in love?” Mickey questioned.
Jack just shrugged, glancing out of his office window at Ianto down in the Hub. “Isn’t it worth it?”
Mickey was silent for a moment, thinking over Jack question. He looked up slowly, meeting the older man’s bright blue eyes. “No.” He said plainly, shaking his head.
•°
Later that night Jack sat in his office, his computer screen tuned to the CCTV of Mickey’s flat. He was keeping a close eye on the man now that he had his memories back, worried what he might do in his depressed state. Jack sighed, watching Mickey stare blankly at his telly, tears slowly dripping down his cheeks. It was going to be a long couple of days, Jack knew that.
“Jack?” Ianto’s voice rang out from the door way. Jack looked up at his young lover, who was carrying a cup of coffee and a stack of papers. “I come bearing more paper work of doom.” He smirked, walking up next to Jack’s chair and placing both the paper and the mug down on the desk. “As well as coffee to speed things along -“ He was cut off rather suddenly when Jack took hold of his necktie and pulled him down into a kiss. Once they parted, Ianto chuckled. “Not that I’m complaining, but what was that for?” He asked.
Jack just smiled up at him from his chair, an earnest look on his face. “For giving me hope.” He said simply.
Ianto just smiled, leaning down to place a kiss on Jack’s forehead. “It’s just one more of my many jobs.” He teased. “I’m going to go finish cleaning up.”
Jack just nodded, watching the younger man walk away. When he turned back to the computer screen, he saw Mickey curled up on his couch trying to sleep. Jack clicked his tongue, shaking his head. Now if only he could find a way to restore Mickey’s hope, then everything would be okay.
Author's Note part 2: Yes, you can hate me for what i did to Jake :( What can i say, i'm a sucker for the unhappy endings. Anyway, there's still nine spaces left in my Writing Meme if anyone want's to toss me a prompt and ask for a fic ^_^ Yes, i'm self promoting, but it's not something i ever do so i figure it was about time ^_^
Love it? Hate it? Wanna take it home and cook it dinner? Let me know, comments are love ^__^
Title: 'Tis better to have loved and lost
Part: 1/1
Word Count: 4,781
Characters: Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones, Mickey Smith, Gwen Cooper, Jake Simmonds, Rose Tyler.
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Mickey/Jake
Rating: PG
Genre: Angst! Much angst, and some fluff.
Warning: Spoilers for Exit Wounds and The Journey's End.
Disclaimer: Alas the Torchwood character's are not mine, they belong to other more fabulous people. Which makes me sad.
Un-beta'ed, sorry. Any and all mistakes are my own (i'm known as the typo queen around friends), and i apologize for them.
Author's Note: This is the first Torchwood fic i've posted since January, the muse had left me. But hopefully thanks to this my muse will have been kick started again and i'll be able to finish my other TW fic. Anyway, this was written for mistakenelegant who left me the world's vaguest prompt in my Writing Meme lol. But that's okay because i love her none the less ^_^ It took me a while to find the story that was floating around in my head, but once i did it ran wild. So there's much angst and a little fluff thanks to Jack and Ianto, hopefully you like it babe ^_^
Summary: After a car crash that left Mickey with a bump on the head, he begins to remember someone he would much rather forget.
'Tis better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all - Tennyson
Jack drove like a maniac, everyone in knew it. Every time he got behind the wheel the rest of the team groaned, he always ignored it. He would ignore Ianto stomping his foot on the imaginary break peddle on his side to the car, or the way Gwen would grip the back of the seat and her seat belt every time he made a sharp turn. This was because Jack knew he drove like a maniac, they had already told him. Yet that never stopped him from taking the drivers seat, ignoring their protests and speeding off like a teenager on a drunken bender with stolen car. His driving technique had only ever gotten them into a few small crashes, and they were always the other drivers fault. Or the lamp posts, or the curbs fault. Really it was, ask anyone. Normally he’d get a whack on the shoulder from Gwen or an annoyed glare from Ianto whenever he got them into a accident, which didn’t happen with much regularity. But when it did happen, that’s what he got. Back when Owen and Tosh were alive, the snippy doctor would point out rather rudely that Jack was the only one that could walk away from a burning car wreck. And the young technician would chastize him for rocking her equipment around, her very expensive equipment. But none of those things stopped Jack’s crazed driving. That was until the day one of them didn’t walk away from a small fender bender unscathed, the day Mickey got hurt. It was just a simple bump on the head, or at least it should have been. But the days following the newest member of Torchwood’s head injury, it became more and more obvious that something was wrong.
Mickey was sitting on the sofa in the Hub, a file of papers open on his lap. Only he wasn’t paying any attention to it, instead he was staring off into space. His face was blank, although his eyes held a thoughtful look to them, like he was silently contemplating something. Jack, who had been watching him from his office door, sighed. “I wish Owen was here.” Jack didn’t often voice the fact that he missed his fallen colleagues, so when he did, Ianto took notice.
“I do too.” Ianto said softly from where he stood near Jack’s desk, putting something away in one of the drawers.
“No, not because I simply miss him.” Jack said, turning to face his lover. “Because, he’d know what to do with Mickey.”
“You mean horribly offend him?”
Jack chuckled, shaking his head. Even though Owen was gone, Ianto still spoke of him in the same way as he did when he was alive. “Besides that. It’s just that we’re not doctors -”
“Obviously.”
“So we’re not really sure he’s okay.” Jack said with another sigh before turning around to stare at Mickey again.
“Jack, it was just a concussion. I’ll admit, he’s been a little blank. But perhaps he’s just suffering some sort of post traumatic stress, I don’t think it’s anything to worry about.” Ianto attempted to quell Jack’s fear about Mickey, he knew how important the other man was to Jack. They had been friends for a long while, and they both shared two pieces of very common ground. Rose, and of course The Doctor. Two people Jack would never be able to face again in a million years if he allowed anything to happen to Mickey, especially if it was due to his lousy driving.
Jack shook his head, not convinced. “It’s something else, he’s acting so odd.”
“Jack.” Ianto moved to stand next to him, placing his hand on Jack’s cheek forcing him look at the young Welshman. “This is Torchwood, we all act a little odd now and then.” He leaned in and placed a sweet yet chaste kiss on Jack’s lips. “Stop worrying, I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
“You’re right.” Jack nodded, placing his hand over Ianto’s. “You’re right, I’ve got enough to worry about as it is.” He smiled. “Including the paper work of doom you just slip into my desk.”
Ianto nodded. “I do enjoy dealing out the paper work of doom.”
“Coffee would help make it go faster.” Jack smirked in a cheeky manner..
“Subtle.” Ianto quipped, before kissing Jack once more and leaving to make a fresh batch of coffee. As Jack watched his lover move through the Hub, he saw Mickey looking up at him, a little lost look on his face. When he saw that Jack had caught him staring, he quickly got up and walked away. Jack wanted to believe Ianto when he said that Mickey was fine, but everything in Jack just screamed at him that there was something wrong and that he needed to keep a close watch on the young man until he knew what it was.
•°
Mickey marched right out of the main level of the Hub and down into the lower levels, feeling like a fool. He had just chanced a look up at Jack’s office when he caught Jack and Ianto sharing a moment, a small kiss. The sight caused a knot of pain to twist in his gut, followed by a pounding headache. He didn’t know what was going on, but it was driving him mad. With an annoyed groan he leaned against one of the walls, slowly slipping down against it until he was seated on the floor. His head hurt constantly it seemed, and at first he just assumed that it was from the accident. But as the days dragged on, he was starting to wonder. His mind kept wandering, and his dreams were becoming a nuisance. He never remembered them when he woke up, but his emotions were always shot none the less. Perhaps he was losing his mind, it was quite possible. After all, Mickey didn’t know what losing ones mind felt like, so how could he possibly know?
“Fuck!” He swore softly, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. “Get it together man!” He spoke to himself, leaning his head back against the wall. His mind wandered as he allowed his eyes to slip closed, he was barely aware of his surrounds.
Let's go and liberate Paris.
What, you and me? In a van?
Nothing wrong with a van. I once saved the universe with a big yellow truck.
“Mickey?” Gwen’s voice caused the man in question to jump.
“What?” He asked quickly, looking up at her.
“Are you okay? You’ve been sitting down here for like twenty minutes.” She told him. Funny, he didn’t feel like he had been sitting there that long. He must have spaced out again, not good.
“Yeah, I’m fine.” He assured her, although he knew it would take more than that to placate the noisy woman. Which she only proved to him by sitting down on the floor next to him, opposed to leaving.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.” He nodded
“Just, don’t take this the wrong way. But, do you like Jack?” She asked.
“Of course.” Mickey seemed a little confused by the question, of course he liked Jack.
“No, I mean, do you fancy him?”
At the question Mickey’s face screwed up in a rather unflattering appalled look, “Good god no! Why would you even think that?”
“I’m sorry, it’s just lately - Every time you look at him and Ianto together, you seem a little jealous.” She paused, as if something just dawned on her. “You don’t fancy Ianto do you?” She asked quickly.
“No! Christ Gwen!” He scoffed. “I don’t fancy either one of them, honestly.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
Mickey sighed. “I don’t know! I wish I could tell you, I really do, but I haven’t got a bloody clue.” He sounded exasperated. “All I know if just whenever I see them together I feel.... lost.” He shook his head. “The last couple days, it’s like I’m missing a part of me. Like I’m trying to remember something that I can’t remember, and they just seem to make that feeling worse for some reason.”
Gwen just watched Mickey with her large sympathetic eyes, patting his arm reassuringly, mostly because she didn’t know what to tell the man. “Why don’t you go home? Take some pain killers and lay down, rest your head a bit.”
“I can’t.” Mickey shook his head.
“Go, I’ll tell Jack. Don’t worry he won’t be upset, I have a way with him.”
“Oh really? And exactly what ‘way’ is that?” Mickey asked in a skeptical manner.
“I’ll get Ianto to tell him.” She said with a laugh and a shrug.
•°
It only took Mickey about a half an hour to get from the Hub to his flat, his large and very empty flat. He exhaled heavily as he shut the door behind him, dropping his keys onto a small table by the front entrance. He had only been back in Jack’s world for barely a year, and even though he was paid well enough by Torchwood, he had yet to actually go shopping for his place. Which seemed a tad odd considering he could clearly remember his old place in the parallel universe having so much stuff in it, the place he got when he eventually moved out of Pete’s mansion after his Gran died. But he hated shopping for housewares, so someone else must have helped him then. Only if he could remember, I must have been Rose. It had to have been, right?
With a groan he flopped onto the sofa, kicking his shoes off as he did. His head was pounding, yet again. Bloody headaches, they just wouldn’t stop. He rolled over, closing his eyes, willing his mind to relax if only for a moment. He was so tired -
“So, where does this leave us?”
Mickey looked up from the kitchen table he was sitting at, looking around, he was in Pete’s mansion again.
“Nowhere, everywhere, I - it, this doesn’t change anything.” He heard himself say, stumbling over his words in a nervous manner.
“Rose is back Mickey!” Someone said loudly, sounding almost angry.
“I know!” Mickey shouted back.
“You live in the same house with her, she was your first love!”
“That doesn’t change anything! She was my first love, was being the operative word. As in, isn’t anymore. I don’t love her like that anymore. And as for the living together, you live here too, or have you forgotten?” When there was no answer, Mickey pushed on. “You know why I live here, you know why were all live here. It’s the safest place around, and with my Gran’s health I can’t have her living alone. It’s just a practicality, you don’t have to be jealous.”
“I’m not jealous!”
“Bollocks.” Mickey scoffed.
“You know what!” The person rounded on him. “I don’t need this right now! I’m not jealous, I just can’t help but notice when my boyfriend is willing to jump through fucking hoops for his ex that he supposedly no longer has feelings for!” And with that the person stormed away, leaving Mickey alone.
“Balls.” He muttered to himself, pounding the table with his fist in frustration.
The sound of the phone ringing woke Mickey with a start, causing him to forget where he was for a moment. The sun had begun set, bathing his living room in a pinkish glow from the quickly approaching evening. Sighing, he propped his hips up long enough to grab his cell phone from his back pocket before flopping down again. He checked the small screen, seeing Jack’s name.
“What?”
“You always answer your phone like that?” Jack asked in an amused tone.
“Only when I know it’s you.” Mickey said plainly.
“Nice.”
“What do you want?”
“I was just calling to make sure you were okay, Gwen mentioned earlier this afternoon that you weren’t feeling so hot.”
Mickey smirked. “I think I may have lost my mind, because you actually sound worried about me.”
“Of course, if you’re really hurt do you have any idea how high the insurance on the SUV will go?”
Mickey chuckled. “Of course, how stupid of me. I’m fine.”
“Really?”
“Really.” Mickey assured him.
“Okay then, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
When they hung up, Jack leaned back in his chair, propping his booted feet up on his desk much to the chagrin of Ianto.
“Is he okay?”
“Not one bit, he was dazed and sounded a little confused at first.” Jack said tiredly. Ianto was sat in the chair on the other side of the desk, a glass of brandy in his hand. “We’re going to run some tests tomorrow.” The captain affirmed. Ianto just nodded, finally starting to think that perhaps Jack was on to something about Mickey. He may not know the man as well as Jack did, which was why he wasn’t seeing it at first, but it was becoming more obvious that perhaps maybe, just maybe, something was wrong.
•°
That night Mickey tossed and turned in his sleep, his body twitching with restlessness. His mind a million miles away, barely even worrying about the need to sleep -
“Mickey?” A small knock followed the sound of his voice being called, the door squeaking softly on it's old hinges as it was pushed open slowly.
“Rose.” He turned his head to look at his best friend standing in the door way, her eyes tear stained.
“Do you need anything?” She asked, sniffling.
Mickey just shook his head, turning back to look at the prone form of his Gran laying in the bed before him. She was gone, the only parent Mickey had left was dead, died in her sleep peacefully. “No.” He whispered. He could almost feel Rose nod sadly before closing the door again, leaving him alone in the room. Mickey had been with his Gran for a while, unable to say goodbye. Not wanting to say goodbye, not again. He remembered when his Gran died back from his universe, he sobbed for days, clinging to Rose and Jackie. They were his family, his friends, his loves. Their love for him grounded him when he felt he was going to fade away. But this time, this time he didn’t have that. True he still had both Rose and Jackie, but the dynamic had shifted. They weren’t the same, he wasn’t the same. Only one thing would ground him, and it wasn’t there.
There was another squeak from the door, causing him to look over his shoulder again. “Rose, really I don’t -“ He trailed off when he saw who was standing in the doorway.
Mickey really had expected him to say something, anything. But he didn’t, because really, what could he say? Mickey shook his head sadly, unable to believe that his mere presence was about to reduce him to tears. The one thing he needed to finally let go and mourn was there, and nothing was stopping him. With one swift moment Mickey was across the room being welcomed into loving arms, a wave of emotion pouring out of him. He sobbed, tears streaming down his cheeks. All the while there was a small calming “shushing” sound from the person holding him, rocking him slowly as the pain of loss crashed over him again.
The alarm on the bedside table blared loudly, jostling Mickey awake. He rubbed his forehead with one hand as he expelled air roughly from his puffed cheeks, making a soft wooshing sound. What hell had he been dreaming about? Whatever it was had left Mickey feeling drained and more than a little depressed, the last thing you wanted to feel when you had to work at six in the morning. “This sucks.” He mumbled to himself, dragging himself out of bed. It looked like he was in for a long day, his least favorite type of days by far.
•°
First thing that morning Jack had dragged Mickey into the med bay and forced him to play a good patient as the other three performed various tests on him, all under the guise of a Torchwood physical since he refused to let them fuss over his bump on the head. By the time they were done it was mid afternoon, and Mickey was about ready to wring all their necks.
When he was finally allow free of the medical bay, he only got as far as the sofa before falling onto it and closing his eyes. The rest of the team let him be, all congregating in Jack’s office.
“Well?” Jack asked as Ianto looked over a clipboard.
“Retcon.” The Welshman said simply.
“What?”
“By the truck load.”
“Wait.” Gwen cut in. “Does this mean he’s going crazy and is going to kill everyone?”
“No.” Ianto shook his head. “The Retcon levels in his blood aren’t that high, but pretty close.” He handed the clipboard over to Jack.
“Christ! That’s a pretty potent strain as well, what the hell has he done to himself?”
“You think he did it to himself?” Gwen sounded skeptical.
“Well he’s worked for Torchwood for years, longer than either one of you by parallel earth’s standards. And Torchwood One taught it’s field agents how to recognize Retcon drugging, just so they would be aware if they were ever doped on a job.” Ianto just nodded, he knew all this already. Gwen on the other hand looked a little confused.
“Why would they do that? Then they wouldn’t be able to Retcon any of their people if they needed too.”
“They just used a stronger dosage if that happened.” Jack said.
“So you’re sure that he did this to himself?” She asked.
“He wanted to forget something, badly.” Jack said, looking out at Mickey’s resting form. “So badly he wiped entire parts of his memory just to get away from it. That bump on the head he suffered, it’s causing the memories to resurface.”
“Jack, maybe we should Retcon him again. Just a small dosage, enough to stop whatever is resurfacing.” Ianto said.
Jack shook his head. “With the amount that’s already in his system, even a small amount could prove to be dangerous for both him and us.”
“But Jack, he obviously doesn’t want to know whatever he’s forgotten.” Gwen said.
“I’m not going to lose another member of this team.” Jack said firmly. “Especially not to something as pedestrian as drugs. No, he’s going to have to live with the memories. Whether he likes it or not.”
•°
While the rest of the Torchwood team stood speculating about what could have driven Mickey to pump himself full of drugs and walk away from his life, Mickey laid on the small old couch in the main level of the Hub, recalling just that. His faces twisted up in pain as his headache rocked his mind, the uneven sleep he had fallen into swimming dizzily in his head -
“Mulliagn!” Mickey snapped in his best commanding officer voice. “I need a tight reading on this one, I don’t want any fuck ups!”
“Yes sir.” A female employee nodded, keeping her eyes trained on a computer screen in front of her.
He turned to look at the man standing before him, a small smile on his face hiding his underlining terror. “You come back.”
“I will.” He nodded. The two shared a chaste kiss before Mickey stepped back, away from the dimension jump platform.
“Control, we’re ready.” Mickey said over his com, static sounding in his ear before Rose’s voice rang out.
“Roger, we’ve got a green light, we’re going to go.” She said, sounding very official.
Mickey held his breath as he watched a flash of blue light remove the one person in the world that meant more to him than life itself, right out of thin air. He silently begged any power above that he wouldn’t hear any alarms, and that in the short span of twenty nine minutes he’d be back, good as new. But about a second after he begged, the sound of computerized alarms went off.
“Sir! We’ve got trouble!” Mulligan said sounding panicked.
“Rose! Get down here!” Mickey ordered into his com. “What is it?” He asked as he ran over to the computer the woman was standing at.
“There’s interference from the Void.”
“That’s impossible, the Void’s dead. The darkness destroyed it.” Mickey pushed her aside, taking her place at the computer.
“Not completely.”
At that moment Rose ran into the room, looking frantically around. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s the void, it’s scattering him!” Mickey’s voice was panicked as he typed furiously at the computer console.
“What!?” Rose almost yelled. “Well stop it!” She said as she ran to stand next to him, looking over his shoulder at the computer screen.
“Okay, wait, give me a minute. I can do this, I can do this -“ He gasped in shock suddenly, his sentence cut off.
“Mickey?” Rose questioned before looking closely at the screen. “He just - he didn’t - he.” She seemed unable to form a coherent sentence.
“He’s been torn apart.” Mickey said numbly, his mouth hung open in shock.
“Oh my god!” Rose gasped, her hand flying up to her mouth in horror.”Mickey.” She whispered as she watched her friend walk slowly over to stand in front of the now empty dimension jump platform.
“Jake.” Mickey breathed his lover’s name, his whole body shaking. “He’s dead.” He slumped onto the floor, sitting in front of the platform, just staring. “He’s gone.”
“God!” Rose sobbed, running over to Mickey and tossing her arms around him as she kneeled on the ground next to him. She buried her face against his shoulder, crying as he just continued to stare.
“Jake.” Mickey whispered, not even noticing the tears that began to stream down his face.
Mickey sat bolt up right, gasping for breath like he had just spent the last hour attempting to hold it. “Jake!” He almost shouted, looking around with wild eyes.
“Who’s Jake?”
Mickey looked over and noticed Jack, Ianto and Gwen all standing near a work station. They were all looking at him over their shoulder, they obviously had been paying attention to the monitor when Mickey woke up from his night terror. With a dejected sigh, Mickey flopped back on the sofa. Yep, this day sucked.
•°
Mickey was sat in Jack’s office, Jack was across from him, the desk in between them. The older man just watched Mickey with expectant eyes, waiting for him to start explaining.
“Jake was beautiful.” Mickey begun, a fond smile on his face. His eyes held a far away look to them as he reminisced about the past. “He was the first friend I made in the parallel world, he meant everything. We had three years of perfection, one as mates and two as lovers. True we were fighting off Cybermen at the time, but we enjoyed it.” He said with a chuckle. “Then Rose came. We went through, to help her and the Doctor fight off the Cybermen and the Daleks.”
“The battle of Canary Wharf.” Jack said.
“Yeah.” Mickey nodded. “She came back through with us, not by choice though.” Jack just nodded. “We had been living together in Pete’s mansion, with my Gran. Everything was fine and then - “ He shook his head. “Then Rose and Jackie moved in, and then we weren’t fine. He was jealous, he didn’t understand. I loved Rose, she was my best friend. But I wasn’t in love with her, I was in love with him. That was the first time we ever took a break from each other, four months after they moved in, he left..” Mickey sighed, his heart hurting from having to retell all his painful memories so soon after getting them back.
“A few weeks later after I got back from Norway my Gran passed away, and suddenly he was there. Whenever I needed him he was always there. It was after that we decided to move out of the mansion, we got a flat in the city. After that we were okay again, Rose was still a sore spot for him. But after a while he got over it, even went as far as becoming her friend. Couple years later the darkness came.”
“Davros.” Jack muttered.
“Yeah, that’s when Rose decided her little pet project of trying to get back to the Doctor was no longer that. Instead suddenly it became the focus of all of Torchwood, knowing full and well we had to get to the Doctor somehow.”
“So what happened?”
“The dimension jumps needed to be tested.” Mickey said mournfully. “It needed to be tested by a real human person, of the flesh and bloody variety. Jake was always so headstrong.” Mickey’s voice broke slightly as he fought back tears. “So stubborn, I couldn’t talk him out of it.” He paused, swallowing the lump in his throat. Jack pretty much knew where Mickey’s story was going, but he also knew that he needed to finish telling it. “The calibrations were wrong. We sent him through a patch of the Void that wasn’t quite dead, resulting in him being scattered. The dimension jumps worked by sending us through holes in the various dimensions walls that were breaking down. When someone is sent through a wall that isn’t breaking down, like the Void, it tears them apart. They get sent to all dimensions, pieces of them anyway.” Mickey sounded disgusted and on the verge of throwing up.
“He died.” Jack stated.
“Horribly.” Mickey took a minute to compose himself before continuing on. “Afterward I couldn’t go on, I was useless. I blamed myself, I blamed Rose. My memories of him hurt so much, I hated him for leaving me. So I made a choice, subject specific retcon.”
Jack looked taken aback, he could hardly believe what he was hearing. Subject specific recton was not only rare, but horrendously dangerous. “Are you insane!?” He asked.
“I was very nearly. I wasn’t mourning Jack, I was dying. It’s only ever been used in server cases, and my case fit the profile.”
“So you went and erased one person out of nearly five years of your life?”
Mickey nodded. “Rose was so mad at me, she couldn’t understand. After I did it I couldn’t understand why she wasn’t speaking to me, I know now. She was pissed off at my for doing it.”
“Yeah, I bet.”
“You don’t understand.” Mickey said with a weary sigh.
“I don’t understand?” Jack asked. “I have lost more lovers than you will every have. And trust me when I say, I loved them all. Wives and husbands, all of them, gone. Hundreds of years of living through broken heart after broken heart. So don’t you sit there and tell me that I don’t understand loss, because I understand it more than you ever will.”
“Then why do you keep falling in love?” Mickey questioned.
Jack just shrugged, glancing out of his office window at Ianto down in the Hub. “Isn’t it worth it?”
Mickey was silent for a moment, thinking over Jack question. He looked up slowly, meeting the older man’s bright blue eyes. “No.” He said plainly, shaking his head.
•°
Later that night Jack sat in his office, his computer screen tuned to the CCTV of Mickey’s flat. He was keeping a close eye on the man now that he had his memories back, worried what he might do in his depressed state. Jack sighed, watching Mickey stare blankly at his telly, tears slowly dripping down his cheeks. It was going to be a long couple of days, Jack knew that.
“Jack?” Ianto’s voice rang out from the door way. Jack looked up at his young lover, who was carrying a cup of coffee and a stack of papers. “I come bearing more paper work of doom.” He smirked, walking up next to Jack’s chair and placing both the paper and the mug down on the desk. “As well as coffee to speed things along -“ He was cut off rather suddenly when Jack took hold of his necktie and pulled him down into a kiss. Once they parted, Ianto chuckled. “Not that I’m complaining, but what was that for?” He asked.
Jack just smiled up at him from his chair, an earnest look on his face. “For giving me hope.” He said simply.
Ianto just smiled, leaning down to place a kiss on Jack’s forehead. “It’s just one more of my many jobs.” He teased. “I’m going to go finish cleaning up.”
Jack just nodded, watching the younger man walk away. When he turned back to the computer screen, he saw Mickey curled up on his couch trying to sleep. Jack clicked his tongue, shaking his head. Now if only he could find a way to restore Mickey’s hope, then everything would be okay.
Author's Note part 2: Yes, you can hate me for what i did to Jake :( What can i say, i'm a sucker for the unhappy endings. Anyway, there's still nine spaces left in my Writing Meme if anyone want's to toss me a prompt and ask for a fic ^_^ Yes, i'm self promoting, but it's not something i ever do so i figure it was about time ^_^
Love it? Hate it? Wanna take it home and cook it dinner? Let me know, comments are love ^__^