Guilt - 22/70ish
Title: Guilt
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Ianto/Lisa
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Torchwood is not mine. No matter how much I sometimes wish it was.
Spoilers: Better say everything through s2, just to be sure. Begins pre-S1.
Summary: Ianto starts work in the archives.
Thanks to: My beta cazmalfoy for all her wonderful work, and my cheerleaders angelzbabe1989 and piper08 for putting up with me when I whine about being stuck.
Author's Notes: Voting is open at Children Of Time - Brokeback Manor is nominated in the AU category - go vote!
Author's Notes 2: I finally got round to making a Master List - check it out for all my past work!
Fic starts here
Previous chapters at my master list
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ianto threw his file to the floor, sinking down next to it, and wondered, not for the first time, what insanity had gripped him when he’d offered to organise the archives. It was a truly mammoth task, and it was difficult to even see where was best to start.
Several hours ago, he had taken the plunge, choosing arbitrarily to start at the opposite end to the one at which he had begun his search the previous day. It was going to be slow going no matter where he started, but he held out hope that he would find the all-important artefact Tosh was talking about faster starting from this end.
When he had taken him his coffee that morning, he had asked Jack if there was any particular sorting method he wanted Ianto to use in the archives. The blank, slightly hesitant look he had received in response went a long way to explaining why Jack had never tried to organise the archives before.
Eventually, in a tone that suggested he was trying to sound like he knew what he was talking about, Jack had simply told him that he trusted him to use whatever method he thought was best, which didn’t help Ianto much at all.
He’d been working almost non-stop for hours, with regular breaks to make the rest of the team coffee and make a quick check on Lisa, and he’d barely made a dent in the shelves and cabinets of alien tech and archived information.
He’d been relieved to discover that the majority of items were at least labelled and numbered, although some of the information on the labels was seriously lacking.
He wasn’t entirely sure what he was supposed to do with labels like the one he’d found on item 53-273, for example. ‘Probably does something but the buttons seem to be stuck, if they’re even buttons,’ wasn’t exactly particularly informative, and he had a feeling it would have to be placed with the unlabelled items in an ‘unknown’ section.
Conversely, some items were labelled so thoroughly that he began to believe that the mythical archivist from the 1920’s that Jack had mentioned may actually have existed. A few older artefacts even had cross-referencing tags written on the bottom of the labels.
As he cleared the shelf, he’d taken note of the label information and archive number of each item, logging them in a notebook.
Sitting wearily on the floor, notebook in front of him, he made a mental note to talk to Tosh later about implementing the information he was taking down into the artefact database. After all, there was no point in him even recording the data if it was inaccessible and now that he had started this job, he wanted it done properly.
Even if, as he was beginning to fear, that took years to accomplish.
Glancing down, he noticed that it was nearly lunchtime, and wondered briefly if the team would actually manage to feed themselves if he just stayed down here and worked.
Theoretically, he knew they must have managed to keep themselves fed during the day before he arrived. But in the past few weeks they had somehow come to rely upon him to appear at lunchtime, food in hand, and it seemed a very real possibility that they would miss lunch completely if he were to suddenly stop.
Picking up his notebook, he got to his feet and began to wend his way back out of the archives. After checking once more that Lisa was resting comfortably, he returned to the main body of the Hub.
He raised his voice just enough to be heard by everyone as he climbed the small steps to the ‘office’ area. “Unless anyone has any particular lunch preferences, I’ll just…”
Jack’s voice cut in, interrupting him. “Already sorted. Should be arriving in a few minutes.” He smiled affably. “You’re not the only one who can pick up a phone and a take-away menu, and we thought you deserved a day off from feeding us.”
Ianto was silent for a long moment, stunned. It certainly made a difference to only be responsible for his own lunch, and no one else’s. “Right. Okay then. Guess I only have to…”
He was interrupted by Jack again before he could finish his sentence. “You’re part of ‘us’, Ianto. We got yours too.”
Ianto hovered, momentarily at a loss as to what to do next. “If you’re desperate for something to do,” Jack continued, apparently noticing his indecision, “I wouldn’t say no to another mug of your wonderful coffee.”
Glad to have a task, Ianto dropped his folder on a desk and disappeared to the kitchenette, returning with a tray of coffee just as Tosh came through the cog door with her arms full of lunch.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Any and all comments and concrit welcomed! (Comments = Love <3)
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Ianto/Lisa
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Torchwood is not mine. No matter how much I sometimes wish it was.
Spoilers: Better say everything through s2, just to be sure. Begins pre-S1.
Summary: Ianto starts work in the archives.
Thanks to: My beta cazmalfoy for all her wonderful work, and my cheerleaders angelzbabe1989 and piper08 for putting up with me when I whine about being stuck.
Author's Notes: Voting is open at Children Of Time - Brokeback Manor is nominated in the AU category - go vote!
Author's Notes 2: I finally got round to making a Master List - check it out for all my past work!
Fic starts here
Previous chapters at my master list
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ianto threw his file to the floor, sinking down next to it, and wondered, not for the first time, what insanity had gripped him when he’d offered to organise the archives. It was a truly mammoth task, and it was difficult to even see where was best to start.
Several hours ago, he had taken the plunge, choosing arbitrarily to start at the opposite end to the one at which he had begun his search the previous day. It was going to be slow going no matter where he started, but he held out hope that he would find the all-important artefact Tosh was talking about faster starting from this end.
When he had taken him his coffee that morning, he had asked Jack if there was any particular sorting method he wanted Ianto to use in the archives. The blank, slightly hesitant look he had received in response went a long way to explaining why Jack had never tried to organise the archives before.
Eventually, in a tone that suggested he was trying to sound like he knew what he was talking about, Jack had simply told him that he trusted him to use whatever method he thought was best, which didn’t help Ianto much at all.
He’d been working almost non-stop for hours, with regular breaks to make the rest of the team coffee and make a quick check on Lisa, and he’d barely made a dent in the shelves and cabinets of alien tech and archived information.
He’d been relieved to discover that the majority of items were at least labelled and numbered, although some of the information on the labels was seriously lacking.
He wasn’t entirely sure what he was supposed to do with labels like the one he’d found on item 53-273, for example. ‘Probably does something but the buttons seem to be stuck, if they’re even buttons,’ wasn’t exactly particularly informative, and he had a feeling it would have to be placed with the unlabelled items in an ‘unknown’ section.
Conversely, some items were labelled so thoroughly that he began to believe that the mythical archivist from the 1920’s that Jack had mentioned may actually have existed. A few older artefacts even had cross-referencing tags written on the bottom of the labels.
As he cleared the shelf, he’d taken note of the label information and archive number of each item, logging them in a notebook.
Sitting wearily on the floor, notebook in front of him, he made a mental note to talk to Tosh later about implementing the information he was taking down into the artefact database. After all, there was no point in him even recording the data if it was inaccessible and now that he had started this job, he wanted it done properly.
Even if, as he was beginning to fear, that took years to accomplish.
Glancing down, he noticed that it was nearly lunchtime, and wondered briefly if the team would actually manage to feed themselves if he just stayed down here and worked.
Theoretically, he knew they must have managed to keep themselves fed during the day before he arrived. But in the past few weeks they had somehow come to rely upon him to appear at lunchtime, food in hand, and it seemed a very real possibility that they would miss lunch completely if he were to suddenly stop.
Picking up his notebook, he got to his feet and began to wend his way back out of the archives. After checking once more that Lisa was resting comfortably, he returned to the main body of the Hub.
He raised his voice just enough to be heard by everyone as he climbed the small steps to the ‘office’ area. “Unless anyone has any particular lunch preferences, I’ll just…”
Jack’s voice cut in, interrupting him. “Already sorted. Should be arriving in a few minutes.” He smiled affably. “You’re not the only one who can pick up a phone and a take-away menu, and we thought you deserved a day off from feeding us.”
Ianto was silent for a long moment, stunned. It certainly made a difference to only be responsible for his own lunch, and no one else’s. “Right. Okay then. Guess I only have to…”
He was interrupted by Jack again before he could finish his sentence. “You’re part of ‘us’, Ianto. We got yours too.”
Ianto hovered, momentarily at a loss as to what to do next. “If you’re desperate for something to do,” Jack continued, apparently noticing his indecision, “I wouldn’t say no to another mug of your wonderful coffee.”
Glad to have a task, Ianto dropped his folder on a desk and disappeared to the kitchenette, returning with a tray of coffee just as Tosh came through the cog door with her arms full of lunch.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Any and all comments and concrit welcomed! (Comments = Love <3)