What if...Retcon?
Title: What if...Retcon?
Author: Iantojjackh
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating: PG
Length: 338 (same word count as last week. Sheer coincidence.)
Characters: Ianto Jones w/ brief appearance by Jack Harkness and mention of the rest of the Torchwood Team
Summary: An AU look at the episode aftermath of Cyberwoman. I'm continuing on the Cyberwoman theme.
Content notes: Drugging others unbeknownst to them.
Author notes: written for fan-flashworks challenge: Drugs. I might have a slight obsession with the episode Cyberwoman. I also payed around with writing in a different tense than I normally do. Yeah, RL is still kicking my backside. Hopefully, after my cousin's wedding this weekend things can calm down and I can get to writing properly again. So, sorry to those waiting on other pieces. My muse is fickle when not in hibernation.
What if...Retcon?
Ianto watches as the team succumbs to the Retcon one by one. It was the only way to go. When the team finally wakes from their drug induced slumber, no one but Ianto would have the memories of the previous and horrific evening. Ianto could not deal with the look of betrayal on everyone's face again.
The blood would be washed away and the bodies disposed of. The CCTV would be wiped and Ianto would spin a tale about a rift alert gone awry to explain the gap in their memories and any injuries they had.
They would never know of the betrayal and how close they were to dying at the hands of the half-converted Cyberm...woman.
Alone Ianto would shoulder the grief and guilt of his actions. Slowly, the guilt and grief would eat away at him, having no one to share this burden with.
No one saw it coming. No one paid attention to the one lurking in the shadows. Nothing had changed since that day. How could it? No one saw Ianto become more distant and withdrawn. A literal and figurative ghost.
Six months after the night no one remembered, on a cold snowy December morning Jack arrived in the Hub early in the morning to find Ianto crumbled on the floor beside a half empty bottle of Retcon and a note that read: I'm sorry.
Jack could only think of what Ianto said to him on their second meeting; I saw what they did at Canary Wharf. What am I supposed to do with those memories?
The only logical conclusion Jack drew was that the memories of Canary Wharf had become too much for Ianto to handle. After all, four other survivors has committed suicide since the battle, but what Ianto resigned himself to was much worse: a permanent state of catatonia with a perpetual tear rolling down his face.
"You have nothing to be sorry for," Jack reminds Ianto every day he visits the young man at the care home.