Fic: Reunion (Torchwood)
Title: Reunion
Author: hllangel
Characters/Pairings: Jack/Ianto, the Doctor
Rating: PG 13
Spoilers: Through “End of Days” (Torchwood); Through “Doomsday”
(Doctor Who)
Disclaimer: Torchwood, Doctor Who et. Al. belong to the BBC. No copyright infringement is intended and no money is being made.
Notes: Many many thanks to fallen_arazil for the beta and her help in solving the Great Jack Dilema.
Ianto had always been dismissive towards the Doctor. He was a myth; an alien who traveled in a blue box and popped up whenever there was a big disaster. Of course, that had changed. Everything had, after Canary Warf. When the Cybermen came through to their world and killed the only woman he’d ever loved, he blamed the Doctor. When he was reassigned to Torchwood Three when nothing was left in London save a smoking wreck, he blamed the Doctor. It was the Doctor’s fault that the Torchwood institute existed in the first place.
So when Jack went missing, Ianto blamed the Doctor. He had never met the legendary Time Lord, but the man had unwittingly shaped Ianto’s entire adult life. Ianto wondered just how many lives one man could possibly ruin without realizing it.
He never mentioned his suspicions to the rest of the team: he was fairly sure that they didn’t know about the Doctor, because none of them had ever had access to the founding documents for the institute. London dealt with adapting technology. The Cardiff branch existed to deal only with the Rift.
Ianto’s knowledge made his quest much easier. He’d spent enough time in Jack’s office to know which artifacts could be explained by business and which must have more sentimental reasons. He’d watered the strange plant tucked away in the corner long enough to realize that it wasn’t from Earth ... and yet it wasn’t in the archives. He knew enough of Jack to know that the severed, preserved hand belonged to someone that had once meant something to Jack.
The second week after Jack's disappearance, Ianto found the notebook. A list of objects, dates and places. A scarf from the Powell estate in London, TVs from a shop in London, a pair of 3-D glasses and a gas mask, and the Hand. The dates were scattered in time from the London blitz to just after the battle of Canary Warf. It made no sense, these random objects, and so Ianto started looking for the dates in the Torchwood archives.
With each new discovery, Ianto felt his suspicion growing. Jack had been tracking down the Doctor. And with this discovery, Ianto’s bitterness towards the Doctor grew into full-blown hate.
For weeks it grew inside him, though he never showed it to the others. For months it festered. He knew now that Jack had been kidnapped by the alien he’d been tracking for decades, and it was up to Ianto to get him back. So he studied the Rift, learned the equations until he knew them better than Tosh. He studied each artifact in the vault until he knew all of their properties. He taught himself to fight with the sword he found buried in the back of the archives. At night, after everyone else had gone home, he searched Torchwood’s records, looking for anything that would help him to find the Doctor and rescue Jack.
Six months after Jack was kidnapped, they ran out of leads. There were no hostile aliens to interrogate, no rogue artifacts that could have carried him off and nothing to explain how he’d disappeared from right out of the Hub. Still, Ianto kept quiet, nursing his anger, his hate and planning his revenge.
Eventually, Torchwood One stopped asking them about his whereabouts, and even Gwen gave up the search. Owen was put in charge of the Hub and life moved on. Ianto was still the Tea Boy to the others, but for now it suited him; in between getting their coffee and doing their dishes, Ianto was free to do what he wanted, what he needed.
Nine months after Jack's disappearance, he was fully prepared. He’d even started carrying a gun on his belt, just in case. He waited.
Exactly a year after he left, Ianto walked into the Hub to find Jack locked in his office with two strangers. He looked over at Tosh, the only other person who ever arrived early to work.
“I’ve no idea who they are, but all three of them were there when I got here. They’ve not come out yet.”
“I wonder who they are,” Ianto said before forcing himself back into his normal capacity. “I’d better get a pot of coffee on before the others get here.”
All morning, Ianto found excuses to walk by Jack’s office trying to see the two people with Jack. He even knocked on the door to ask if they wanted anything, but Jack just cracked the door and politely asked to be left alone. He drew the curtains after that. When Gwen went to get herself some lunch, he sat down at her station and looked for anything he might have overlooked about the Doctor, and he found a picture. The man on his screen looked nothing like the man in Jack’s office, and so Ianto concluded that they were just staff members from one of the other branches, questioning Jack on his missing time.
Disappointed, he knocked off early for the first time in a year and went home.
The next day, Ianto was the first person in. Well, aside from Jack and his two friends. They were all still in his office, but the door was open this time, and so as soon as Jack’s favorite coffee was finished brewing, he took three mugs upstairs.
“Ianto! Wonderful,” Jack exclaimed, taking a mug, “No matter where I go, your coffee is always the best.”
Ianto passed the other two mugs to the guests and set the tray down. “Aren’t you going to introduce us?” he asked Jack.
Jack at least had the good grace to look sheepish. “Right. Ianto Jones, meet Martha Jones,” he paused while they shook hands, “and the Doctor.”
If Ianto had been carrying anything, it would have dropped straight to the floor. He turned on his heels and left the office, taking shelter in the legitimate backroom of the tourist office, and tried not to be disappointed that Jack didn’t come looking for him. He opened the doors for Owen, and Gwen when they came in, but offered no explanation for not being in the Hub. He watched bitterly as all six of them went for lunch. Jack invited him along, but he refused. He couldn’t watch Jack chatter harmlessly to the man who’d ruined his life.
It was much, much later when Jack finally came to talk to him. “What’s wrong, Ianto?” he asked, sounding concerned.
“It’s none of your business, Jack. You gave up that right when you left for a year.”
Jack raised his hand to Ianto’s cheek, “Ianto -“
Ianto stiffened as Jack’s fingers made contact; he shivered and closed his eyes. How could Jack not know who he had down in the Hub?
He pulled away, not wanting Jack’s touch, because he knew it could (and likely would) ruin his resolve: he wanted the Doctor dead. He discreetly felt for his belt, and the gun he kept there. The Doctor was still in the main room of the Hub; he could see him talking to Gwen on the CCTV, laughing as though there was nothing wrong. He wrenched himself away from Jack’s gaze and ran to the lift, closing the door before Jack could follow him in there.
There was no camera in the lift, he knew that. He slumped against the door and pulled out his gun, cocking it so that it would be ready when he stepped into the Hub proper.
“Get away from him, Gwen,” he shouted as the doors opened, raising the gun and walking towards the Doctor. “This man is not who you think he is.”
“Ianto, he’s harmless,” Gwen said, using her best calming voice. She’d probably been trained to talk people out of these sort of things.
“Torchwood charter names him as the Enemy. We should lock him up, keep him in a cell. But you won’t do that, will you. None of you will, because Jack likes him, and you all follow Jack. But I’m sick of it.”
He took aim, all too aware of Martha standing next to the Doctor, of Gwen inching towards him, still speaking in a low tone, ready to take the gun, of Owen standing dumbfounded by the wayside, of Tosh staring at him blankly.
“I lost my home, my job, my girlfriend, my life because of you,” he said to the Doctor. “I was much more than the Tea Boy before he came along.”
Ianto started to squeeze the trigger, but this time, the Doctor spoke.
“I need you to listen to me, really listen. The battle of Canary Warf wasn’t my fault. You had Daleks in your building, you were pulling Cybermen through the void. Two of the most destructive races in the universe in London at the same time. I lost someone in that battle, too. I didn’t get to say goodbye to her. She’s gone, and I can’t ever see her again. But you! You’ve rebuilt your live here in Cardiff. I know you do more than carry tea. I know your work is thankless and seemingly hopeless. But nothing here would get done without you. I need you to see that. I’m not your enemy, I promise you.”
“Why should I believe you? Queen Victoria did, and she almost died.”
“I’m sorry for what happened. Really, I am,” the Doctor said in his most sincere tone. “But there’s nothing to be done about it now, and killing me is not going to make anything better. I know, really, I do.”
“You can’t know that, how could you?” Ianto said quietly. He closed his eyes and squeezed the trigger. The shot echoed around the chamber, and Ianto kept his eyes closed for two seconds longer. He’d hoped to feel some sort of release from the all-consuming pain of Lisa’s death and Jack’s disappearance but he felt nothing. He felt empty.
The gun slipped from his fingers and hit the floor, but the noise was lost in the chaos of voices. When Ianto opened his eyes, it was Jack on the floor, motionless with the Doctor standing over him, blood on his hands. Owen was putting pressure on the wound with his own shirt and Ianto could hear quick footsteps as Tosh ran for the medical kit. Gwen was holding Jack’s hand, muttering. The Doctor looked up and met Ianto’s eyes, his face showing pain, loss and anger. Ianto’s hands curled into fists. The Doctor had no right.
Tosh came running in with the kit and Gwen stood up, allowing Tosh to kneel beside Jack. Ianto was frozen as he watched the scene in front of him: Owen and Martha working frantically, Jack’s head pillowed on the Doctor’s knees. He barely felt Gwen’s firm hand on his shoulder until she was pushing him away, guiding him harshly down to the cells. She said nothing as she shoved him roughly into the first one and slammed the door shut, turning back and running up the stairs without a second glance.
Ianto sat down on the bench and leaned against the wall, trying to remember if there could possibly be a weak spot in the cell. He had to get out and get to the Doctor. Jack would be ok. He was always ok. Ianto had seen him rise from the dead before; that would not a problem. He’d just have to make sure that he got the Doctor alone next time. He closed his eyes and let his head fall back, thoughts of just how to do that swirling around in his head.
He didn’t notice when he fell asleep, but he woke up to find Gwen pounding on the cell door. “I hope you’re happy now, Ianto. He’s dead.” She looked tired; her clothes and hair were disheveled and her eyes were red.
“He can’t be dead, Gwen, you know that. You should know better than anyone.” Ianto’s eyes were hard, staring her down, trying to see if she was lying as a form of revenge for his shooting Jack in the first place.
She didn’t respond, only turned no her heel and strode out, raising a hand to her face just before she reached the steps.
Ianto leaned back again, staring at a patch of stone on the wall across from him for awhile before lying down and sleeping. Jack would be fine.
This time when he woke up, Tosh was there, crouched outside the cell. “Why?” she asked. She didn’t say anything else. She didn’t need to say anything else. But Ianto didn’t answer; he closed his eyes again and listened to the hitch in her breath. He eventually heard her get to her feet, and listened as the thump of her footsteps receded to the door.
There wasn’t anyone there the next time Ianto opened his eyes, and he could only assume that Owen hadn’t wanted to talk to him. He closed his eyes again, wondering how much time had really passed.
“Jack told us about you, you know,” Martha said by way of waking him up. “He obviously liked you, wanted to come back to see you, offer you a place to travel with us.” She paused. “I know you didn’t mean to hit him, you were aiming for the Doctor. But it seems to me that if the two of you were really as close as he described, you’d have listened to him more.” She took a step closer to the cell door. “I know you think he’s not dead, but he is. He had no vital signs and we couldn’t revive him.” She moved again, taking a few steps backwards before leaving.
It felt like it had been days, but when he bothered to pull out his watch, it told him that it had been just over twelve hours. Jack should have woken up by now; a simple gunshot shouldn’t keep him down for this long. They were probably all just conspiring to get him to talk. But he wouldn’t. He’d nursed his secrets for so long that telling them would be like cutting out a part of himself. The only person he’d ever considered talking to was Jack, but that was impossible now. As long as Jack believed that the Doctor was a friend, Ianto couldn’t trust him.
For lack of anything else to do, Ianto fell asleep.
This time, when he woke, the Doctor was sitting in a chair just outside the cell, patiently. Ianto idly wondered how long he’d been there.
“I know you’ve been hurt. Jack told me about Lisa. I’m sorry for what happened to her, but I couldn’t save everyone. I couldn’t even save …” his voice choked off.
“Rose Tyler?” Ianto spat. “Don’t even try to get my sympathy. I was there, I know she’s been carried off safe to another universe, safe, alive, with her mother, her father, even her boyfriend! Don’t compare her to Lisa. Lisa was partially converted in the battle. I kept her alive for months, strapped into the conversion unit. Jack killed her in the end, right in front of me. They all shot her. And you’re telling me that you understand what happened? I don’t believe you. I don’t even know why I’m speaking to you.” Ianto turned to the wall.
“It’s my face, it gets people to talk,” the Doctor deadpanned. But Ianto wasn’t in the mood for humor.
“Everything in my life has gone wrong, all because of you,” he said.
“I…I can’t deny that I was involved with Canary Warf. But you have to understand that I was trying to stop the battle. I knew the ghosts weren’t what they seemed to be, I tried to stop it. But by the time I got there, it was inevitable. The only thing I could do was save as many as I could. I’m sorry, so sorry about Lisa.”
“And what about Jack? You take him away for a year, brainwash him into forgetting who you really are, into forgetting everything they told us about you. You make him believe that you’re not an enemy, not an alien that we need to lock up. And I end up in the cell.”
“I’m not your enemy, Ianto, I promise.”
“And how can I trust you? After everything you’ve done?”
“I wish I could change your mind, but if you won’t listen to me now, I can’t make you.” The Doctor sat in silence, watching Ianto.
Ianto stared right back, eyes hard, jaw clenched. He wouldn’t trust this man, he couldn’t.
They sat like that for hours, it seemed, until Martha came down and said something in an undertone to the Doctor, and they both left Ianto alone again. And so, he leaned back again and closed his eyes.
He woke this time to the nearly silent sound of the door opening. Jack stood on the other side of it, feet planted, face hard set and arms crossed. Ianto was too relieved to see that he was alive to take in his posture until he reached out to hug Jack, only to find himself gripping air as Jack deftly moved away.
“Jack,” Ianto managed to gasp out, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hit you - “
“I know you didn’t,” Jack said, voice deep and harsh. “You meant to hit a very old friend of mine.”
“He’s the enemy, Jack. He’s the reason Torchwood exists - to protect the earth from aliens like him.”
“I’ve read the founding charter, I know what Torchwood says about him. I tried to get Victoria to change it, but she had her mind made up by that time.”
Ianto hung his head.
“I’ve known about Torchwood since it’s foundation. Hell, I’ve been a part of it for nearly that long. Not by choice, but it was my best shot at finding him again. Even if it meant working for people who thought he was an enemy,”
“Jack, he’s brainwashed you! Can’t you see that? He’s changed you, turned you against us - “
“No,” Jack stated, “you did that all by yourself. I don’t ever want to see that sort of behavior from my staff again. Is that clear?” Jack turned and left without another word, hands in his pockets, purpose in his step, and a frown on his face. The cell door was left wide open.
Ianto sat down for a few minutes, not quite willing to leave the safety of his prison for the open, disapproving hub above. But he had to face them eventually and so he put on his armor, straightening his jacket and tie so that he looked as presentable as possible after having been in a cell for days. He took a breath and stepped out of the cell, slowly walking up the stairs and into the outside world.
When he emerged, it seemed as though nothing had changed. Tosh was at her computer; Gwen was paging through files in the conference room; Owen was fiddling with a body in the lab. His footsteps sounded deafening in the quiet. He knew that they all heard him approaching, but no one looked up. No one wanted to meet his eye. Ianto couldn’t see inside Jack’s office from where he was walking, and he didn’t try. The light voices floating out told him everything.
He noticed the large amount of disposable coffee cups littering up the place and silently started to clean them up while a pot of fresh coffee started brewing. They all accepted the coffee gratefully, but they didn’t try to talk to him.
Only Jack dared to look him in the eye, but the person he saw looking back wasn’t one he recognized.
Author: hllangel
Characters/Pairings: Jack/Ianto, the Doctor
Rating: PG 13
Spoilers: Through “End of Days” (Torchwood); Through “Doomsday”
(Doctor Who)
Disclaimer: Torchwood, Doctor Who et. Al. belong to the BBC. No copyright infringement is intended and no money is being made.
Notes: Many many thanks to fallen_arazil for the beta and her help in solving the Great Jack Dilema.
Ianto had always been dismissive towards the Doctor. He was a myth; an alien who traveled in a blue box and popped up whenever there was a big disaster. Of course, that had changed. Everything had, after Canary Warf. When the Cybermen came through to their world and killed the only woman he’d ever loved, he blamed the Doctor. When he was reassigned to Torchwood Three when nothing was left in London save a smoking wreck, he blamed the Doctor. It was the Doctor’s fault that the Torchwood institute existed in the first place.
So when Jack went missing, Ianto blamed the Doctor. He had never met the legendary Time Lord, but the man had unwittingly shaped Ianto’s entire adult life. Ianto wondered just how many lives one man could possibly ruin without realizing it.
He never mentioned his suspicions to the rest of the team: he was fairly sure that they didn’t know about the Doctor, because none of them had ever had access to the founding documents for the institute. London dealt with adapting technology. The Cardiff branch existed to deal only with the Rift.
Ianto’s knowledge made his quest much easier. He’d spent enough time in Jack’s office to know which artifacts could be explained by business and which must have more sentimental reasons. He’d watered the strange plant tucked away in the corner long enough to realize that it wasn’t from Earth ... and yet it wasn’t in the archives. He knew enough of Jack to know that the severed, preserved hand belonged to someone that had once meant something to Jack.
The second week after Jack's disappearance, Ianto found the notebook. A list of objects, dates and places. A scarf from the Powell estate in London, TVs from a shop in London, a pair of 3-D glasses and a gas mask, and the Hand. The dates were scattered in time from the London blitz to just after the battle of Canary Warf. It made no sense, these random objects, and so Ianto started looking for the dates in the Torchwood archives.
With each new discovery, Ianto felt his suspicion growing. Jack had been tracking down the Doctor. And with this discovery, Ianto’s bitterness towards the Doctor grew into full-blown hate.
For weeks it grew inside him, though he never showed it to the others. For months it festered. He knew now that Jack had been kidnapped by the alien he’d been tracking for decades, and it was up to Ianto to get him back. So he studied the Rift, learned the equations until he knew them better than Tosh. He studied each artifact in the vault until he knew all of their properties. He taught himself to fight with the sword he found buried in the back of the archives. At night, after everyone else had gone home, he searched Torchwood’s records, looking for anything that would help him to find the Doctor and rescue Jack.
Six months after Jack was kidnapped, they ran out of leads. There were no hostile aliens to interrogate, no rogue artifacts that could have carried him off and nothing to explain how he’d disappeared from right out of the Hub. Still, Ianto kept quiet, nursing his anger, his hate and planning his revenge.
Eventually, Torchwood One stopped asking them about his whereabouts, and even Gwen gave up the search. Owen was put in charge of the Hub and life moved on. Ianto was still the Tea Boy to the others, but for now it suited him; in between getting their coffee and doing their dishes, Ianto was free to do what he wanted, what he needed.
Nine months after Jack's disappearance, he was fully prepared. He’d even started carrying a gun on his belt, just in case. He waited.
Exactly a year after he left, Ianto walked into the Hub to find Jack locked in his office with two strangers. He looked over at Tosh, the only other person who ever arrived early to work.
“I’ve no idea who they are, but all three of them were there when I got here. They’ve not come out yet.”
“I wonder who they are,” Ianto said before forcing himself back into his normal capacity. “I’d better get a pot of coffee on before the others get here.”
All morning, Ianto found excuses to walk by Jack’s office trying to see the two people with Jack. He even knocked on the door to ask if they wanted anything, but Jack just cracked the door and politely asked to be left alone. He drew the curtains after that. When Gwen went to get herself some lunch, he sat down at her station and looked for anything he might have overlooked about the Doctor, and he found a picture. The man on his screen looked nothing like the man in Jack’s office, and so Ianto concluded that they were just staff members from one of the other branches, questioning Jack on his missing time.
Disappointed, he knocked off early for the first time in a year and went home.
The next day, Ianto was the first person in. Well, aside from Jack and his two friends. They were all still in his office, but the door was open this time, and so as soon as Jack’s favorite coffee was finished brewing, he took three mugs upstairs.
“Ianto! Wonderful,” Jack exclaimed, taking a mug, “No matter where I go, your coffee is always the best.”
Ianto passed the other two mugs to the guests and set the tray down. “Aren’t you going to introduce us?” he asked Jack.
Jack at least had the good grace to look sheepish. “Right. Ianto Jones, meet Martha Jones,” he paused while they shook hands, “and the Doctor.”
If Ianto had been carrying anything, it would have dropped straight to the floor. He turned on his heels and left the office, taking shelter in the legitimate backroom of the tourist office, and tried not to be disappointed that Jack didn’t come looking for him. He opened the doors for Owen, and Gwen when they came in, but offered no explanation for not being in the Hub. He watched bitterly as all six of them went for lunch. Jack invited him along, but he refused. He couldn’t watch Jack chatter harmlessly to the man who’d ruined his life.
It was much, much later when Jack finally came to talk to him. “What’s wrong, Ianto?” he asked, sounding concerned.
“It’s none of your business, Jack. You gave up that right when you left for a year.”
Jack raised his hand to Ianto’s cheek, “Ianto -“
Ianto stiffened as Jack’s fingers made contact; he shivered and closed his eyes. How could Jack not know who he had down in the Hub?
He pulled away, not wanting Jack’s touch, because he knew it could (and likely would) ruin his resolve: he wanted the Doctor dead. He discreetly felt for his belt, and the gun he kept there. The Doctor was still in the main room of the Hub; he could see him talking to Gwen on the CCTV, laughing as though there was nothing wrong. He wrenched himself away from Jack’s gaze and ran to the lift, closing the door before Jack could follow him in there.
There was no camera in the lift, he knew that. He slumped against the door and pulled out his gun, cocking it so that it would be ready when he stepped into the Hub proper.
“Get away from him, Gwen,” he shouted as the doors opened, raising the gun and walking towards the Doctor. “This man is not who you think he is.”
“Ianto, he’s harmless,” Gwen said, using her best calming voice. She’d probably been trained to talk people out of these sort of things.
“Torchwood charter names him as the Enemy. We should lock him up, keep him in a cell. But you won’t do that, will you. None of you will, because Jack likes him, and you all follow Jack. But I’m sick of it.”
He took aim, all too aware of Martha standing next to the Doctor, of Gwen inching towards him, still speaking in a low tone, ready to take the gun, of Owen standing dumbfounded by the wayside, of Tosh staring at him blankly.
“I lost my home, my job, my girlfriend, my life because of you,” he said to the Doctor. “I was much more than the Tea Boy before he came along.”
Ianto started to squeeze the trigger, but this time, the Doctor spoke.
“I need you to listen to me, really listen. The battle of Canary Warf wasn’t my fault. You had Daleks in your building, you were pulling Cybermen through the void. Two of the most destructive races in the universe in London at the same time. I lost someone in that battle, too. I didn’t get to say goodbye to her. She’s gone, and I can’t ever see her again. But you! You’ve rebuilt your live here in Cardiff. I know you do more than carry tea. I know your work is thankless and seemingly hopeless. But nothing here would get done without you. I need you to see that. I’m not your enemy, I promise you.”
“Why should I believe you? Queen Victoria did, and she almost died.”
“I’m sorry for what happened. Really, I am,” the Doctor said in his most sincere tone. “But there’s nothing to be done about it now, and killing me is not going to make anything better. I know, really, I do.”
“You can’t know that, how could you?” Ianto said quietly. He closed his eyes and squeezed the trigger. The shot echoed around the chamber, and Ianto kept his eyes closed for two seconds longer. He’d hoped to feel some sort of release from the all-consuming pain of Lisa’s death and Jack’s disappearance but he felt nothing. He felt empty.
The gun slipped from his fingers and hit the floor, but the noise was lost in the chaos of voices. When Ianto opened his eyes, it was Jack on the floor, motionless with the Doctor standing over him, blood on his hands. Owen was putting pressure on the wound with his own shirt and Ianto could hear quick footsteps as Tosh ran for the medical kit. Gwen was holding Jack’s hand, muttering. The Doctor looked up and met Ianto’s eyes, his face showing pain, loss and anger. Ianto’s hands curled into fists. The Doctor had no right.
Tosh came running in with the kit and Gwen stood up, allowing Tosh to kneel beside Jack. Ianto was frozen as he watched the scene in front of him: Owen and Martha working frantically, Jack’s head pillowed on the Doctor’s knees. He barely felt Gwen’s firm hand on his shoulder until she was pushing him away, guiding him harshly down to the cells. She said nothing as she shoved him roughly into the first one and slammed the door shut, turning back and running up the stairs without a second glance.
Ianto sat down on the bench and leaned against the wall, trying to remember if there could possibly be a weak spot in the cell. He had to get out and get to the Doctor. Jack would be ok. He was always ok. Ianto had seen him rise from the dead before; that would not a problem. He’d just have to make sure that he got the Doctor alone next time. He closed his eyes and let his head fall back, thoughts of just how to do that swirling around in his head.
He didn’t notice when he fell asleep, but he woke up to find Gwen pounding on the cell door. “I hope you’re happy now, Ianto. He’s dead.” She looked tired; her clothes and hair were disheveled and her eyes were red.
“He can’t be dead, Gwen, you know that. You should know better than anyone.” Ianto’s eyes were hard, staring her down, trying to see if she was lying as a form of revenge for his shooting Jack in the first place.
She didn’t respond, only turned no her heel and strode out, raising a hand to her face just before she reached the steps.
Ianto leaned back again, staring at a patch of stone on the wall across from him for awhile before lying down and sleeping. Jack would be fine.
This time when he woke up, Tosh was there, crouched outside the cell. “Why?” she asked. She didn’t say anything else. She didn’t need to say anything else. But Ianto didn’t answer; he closed his eyes again and listened to the hitch in her breath. He eventually heard her get to her feet, and listened as the thump of her footsteps receded to the door.
There wasn’t anyone there the next time Ianto opened his eyes, and he could only assume that Owen hadn’t wanted to talk to him. He closed his eyes again, wondering how much time had really passed.
“Jack told us about you, you know,” Martha said by way of waking him up. “He obviously liked you, wanted to come back to see you, offer you a place to travel with us.” She paused. “I know you didn’t mean to hit him, you were aiming for the Doctor. But it seems to me that if the two of you were really as close as he described, you’d have listened to him more.” She took a step closer to the cell door. “I know you think he’s not dead, but he is. He had no vital signs and we couldn’t revive him.” She moved again, taking a few steps backwards before leaving.
It felt like it had been days, but when he bothered to pull out his watch, it told him that it had been just over twelve hours. Jack should have woken up by now; a simple gunshot shouldn’t keep him down for this long. They were probably all just conspiring to get him to talk. But he wouldn’t. He’d nursed his secrets for so long that telling them would be like cutting out a part of himself. The only person he’d ever considered talking to was Jack, but that was impossible now. As long as Jack believed that the Doctor was a friend, Ianto couldn’t trust him.
For lack of anything else to do, Ianto fell asleep.
This time, when he woke, the Doctor was sitting in a chair just outside the cell, patiently. Ianto idly wondered how long he’d been there.
“I know you’ve been hurt. Jack told me about Lisa. I’m sorry for what happened to her, but I couldn’t save everyone. I couldn’t even save …” his voice choked off.
“Rose Tyler?” Ianto spat. “Don’t even try to get my sympathy. I was there, I know she’s been carried off safe to another universe, safe, alive, with her mother, her father, even her boyfriend! Don’t compare her to Lisa. Lisa was partially converted in the battle. I kept her alive for months, strapped into the conversion unit. Jack killed her in the end, right in front of me. They all shot her. And you’re telling me that you understand what happened? I don’t believe you. I don’t even know why I’m speaking to you.” Ianto turned to the wall.
“It’s my face, it gets people to talk,” the Doctor deadpanned. But Ianto wasn’t in the mood for humor.
“Everything in my life has gone wrong, all because of you,” he said.
“I…I can’t deny that I was involved with Canary Warf. But you have to understand that I was trying to stop the battle. I knew the ghosts weren’t what they seemed to be, I tried to stop it. But by the time I got there, it was inevitable. The only thing I could do was save as many as I could. I’m sorry, so sorry about Lisa.”
“And what about Jack? You take him away for a year, brainwash him into forgetting who you really are, into forgetting everything they told us about you. You make him believe that you’re not an enemy, not an alien that we need to lock up. And I end up in the cell.”
“I’m not your enemy, Ianto, I promise.”
“And how can I trust you? After everything you’ve done?”
“I wish I could change your mind, but if you won’t listen to me now, I can’t make you.” The Doctor sat in silence, watching Ianto.
Ianto stared right back, eyes hard, jaw clenched. He wouldn’t trust this man, he couldn’t.
They sat like that for hours, it seemed, until Martha came down and said something in an undertone to the Doctor, and they both left Ianto alone again. And so, he leaned back again and closed his eyes.
He woke this time to the nearly silent sound of the door opening. Jack stood on the other side of it, feet planted, face hard set and arms crossed. Ianto was too relieved to see that he was alive to take in his posture until he reached out to hug Jack, only to find himself gripping air as Jack deftly moved away.
“Jack,” Ianto managed to gasp out, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hit you - “
“I know you didn’t,” Jack said, voice deep and harsh. “You meant to hit a very old friend of mine.”
“He’s the enemy, Jack. He’s the reason Torchwood exists - to protect the earth from aliens like him.”
“I’ve read the founding charter, I know what Torchwood says about him. I tried to get Victoria to change it, but she had her mind made up by that time.”
Ianto hung his head.
“I’ve known about Torchwood since it’s foundation. Hell, I’ve been a part of it for nearly that long. Not by choice, but it was my best shot at finding him again. Even if it meant working for people who thought he was an enemy,”
“Jack, he’s brainwashed you! Can’t you see that? He’s changed you, turned you against us - “
“No,” Jack stated, “you did that all by yourself. I don’t ever want to see that sort of behavior from my staff again. Is that clear?” Jack turned and left without another word, hands in his pockets, purpose in his step, and a frown on his face. The cell door was left wide open.
Ianto sat down for a few minutes, not quite willing to leave the safety of his prison for the open, disapproving hub above. But he had to face them eventually and so he put on his armor, straightening his jacket and tie so that he looked as presentable as possible after having been in a cell for days. He took a breath and stepped out of the cell, slowly walking up the stairs and into the outside world.
When he emerged, it seemed as though nothing had changed. Tosh was at her computer; Gwen was paging through files in the conference room; Owen was fiddling with a body in the lab. His footsteps sounded deafening in the quiet. He knew that they all heard him approaching, but no one looked up. No one wanted to meet his eye. Ianto couldn’t see inside Jack’s office from where he was walking, and he didn’t try. The light voices floating out told him everything.
He noticed the large amount of disposable coffee cups littering up the place and silently started to clean them up while a pot of fresh coffee started brewing. They all accepted the coffee gratefully, but they didn’t try to talk to him.
Only Jack dared to look him in the eye, but the person he saw looking back wasn’t one he recognized.