maybe she's just pieces of me you've never seen (Ianto/OFC, Jack/Ianto (implied), R)
Title: maybe she's just pieces of me you've never seen
Author: imagination55
Pairing(s)/Characters: Ianto/Alice Portland (OFC), Jack/Ianto (implied), Louis Portland, Mr & Mrs Jones
Part: 1/1 - Standalone
Rating: R - for possible upsetting, emotional scenes (nothing graphic)
Word Count: 7,700 (whoa, neat lol)
Summary: Love was the vice, the only vice perhaps, which so easily could embroil him in its metaphorical, almost physical at times, grip.
Disclaimer: I own not a single thing associated with Torchwood. This is all just fiction. I only own my Other Character creations.
Spoilers: Small but significant one From Out Of The Rain (2x10).
A/N: It's a sort of coda to From Out Of The Rain (2x10) but mostly just my pre-series take on that line from Ianto in that scene. I just want it OUT. I started this on the 17th of this month and just finished it last night. It's been driving me batty! I'm not in love with what I've done but I'm posting because I worked hard on it and in a roundabout way I'm still proud of it. It's choppy, deliberately, because it ended up protracted enough as it is! I'm so damn late to this party. *le sigh*
Tamping = a Welsh colloquilism for being angry.
Title is a lifted lyric from the Tori Amos song Tear In Your Hand. I listened to her stuff a lot during the writing of this actually. ♥
Two decades ago, Ianto Jones and everyone around him would’ve classed him as a lonely little boy. He had a mam and a dad, sure, and they did everything that doting parents was supposed to do. He was neither neglected nor worriedly pushed to be more extrovert, more talkative, more like ‘the other kids’ in his class at school or in the playground. He suspected then, at that early age of around six, that Mr and Mrs Jones would’ve liked him to be less of a loner but they never talked to him about it and the issue just became one of the white elephants he’d procure in his lifetime. They loved their son unconditionally, the best kind of love, but that didn’t stop Ianto Jones from having a sneaking suspicion that he was different. Not different in the Clark Kent/Superman sort of way, just…different. It was probably the wariness and the reluctance that would sometimes lead to good boy, polite compliance that helped (hindered?) him to wordlessly reassure his parents that they needn’t worry at all, his eyes quietly taking in his world around him, even if inside his mind didn’t feel like it quite fit with the rest of him.
Nowadays, he’s used to people telling him that he’s “wise beyond his years”. He was a good student at school, at university, still spent a lot of time alone but never to the noticeable extent that it piqued people’s interest or concern. Bit ironic, really. It should be almost amusing that he can even see that well known, well used, complimentary phrase reflected sometimes in the adoring way Jack looks at him, like he can’t quite believe it or him, can’t work out what makes him tick, of all people.
The fact that he was plodding along nicely in everything he did, excelling even, alone with his thoughts despite having people, family at least, to share them with, meant that he went beyond expectations too and that notion would probably apply to Torchwood and his dealing with them, it, him, if people who knew him outside of his colleagues knew where he was at in the present time, in his life. All except for love. Love was the vice, the only vice perhaps, which so easily could embroil him in its metaphorical, almost physical at times, grip.
The first time it happened, he was barely a teenager.
++++
Providence Park had stood halfway between the nucleus of the city and suburbia, the perfect mix of incentive for those who would return to the outside, a second chance, but enough peace and quiet for patients who weren’t as fortunate.
The building itself looked like a simple three storey house in its beginnings, then, as the capital moved further inwards, the plot grew like the trees which were planted to give even the most hopeless of patients something lush to gaze at, often vacantly. The staff were amiable, but hadn’t always been, a new breed of nursing. The people they cared for were the same, some literally stagnant, but all with an air of empty friendliness, no matter the details of their specific ills.
Ianto used to sit in parks, on their benches of peeling forest green paint, and think in most weather. When he was thought old enough by his timid, graceful mother, he grew accustomed to the night and probably cherished those hours the best. The sky lost its azure to burnt oranges and dusky pinks before navy took the day away for a while and replaced the blank with the sparkle of stars.
Opposite Providence Park, there was an open, grassy space. Ianto found it in the daytime, grey day of normality, and returned once more before the intriguing calm of the dark sucked him in again. It wasn’t a park as such, in a children’s sense, but he saw dog owners letting their pets off of their leads, watching as the animals threw obedience momentarily into the whipping evening wind and ran free. Places to sit were sparse and Ianto suspected that in this nook of the neighbourhood the hospital wouldn’t wish to actively encourage visitors to the area, however passive. Still, even back then, the part that didn’t quite fit, the part that would ultimately lead him to Torchwood, decided to dismiss the unspoken warning and Ianto sat.
On his third visit to the exact spot across the road, fourteen years old and on a break from self-imposed containment within his bedroom and studying wonders through his telescope, Ianto Jones met a man.
Well, actually, the man dropped beside Ianto on the bench and had startled the teenager when he spoke.
“I’ve seen you”
Forgetting all about his thought to ignore whoever was around, this was his time, Ianto turned surprised blue eyes onto the man beside him. In that quick glance he was able to estimate that this person was older than him, in his mid twenties at least, and unkempt. His dark hair stuck up in tufts and he had more than a little stubble covering a well defined jaw. He didn’t turn to look at Ianto like he was being looked at so Ianto shifted his gaze back, posture perfect but not harsh.
“Have you lost something?” the man spoke again, curling one of the hands resting on his knees into a fist. He didn’t wait for an answer, “You look like something’s inside there and you’re waiting to come in and get it. It’s alright, that place y’know? Once you get used to it”
Ianto watched, silently, from the corner of his eye as the man’s fist unclenched and he felt his shoulders sag a little with relief. At least he didn’t seem dangerous or unpredictable. In fact, he sounded lucid and that only intrigued the teenager even more. He saw the man lift up the sleeve of his jumper, a soft green colour that was distorted in the yellowy glow of a nearby streetlamp and the darkness where the light couldn’t reach. Ianto guessed that he was looking for his watch then let out a sigh when he realised that he’d either forgotten to put it on before he’d come out for a midnight stroll or that he wasn’t allowed one anymore. Ianto didn’t know about the protocols in a place like Providence Park and the fear, or at least anxiety, which had loosened a little in his gut, changed its mind. It was compounded by the flash of white, malleable plastic tied around the man’s wrist, where he had briefly searched for the time and where Ianto knew for certain that he was a patient. Now, any sort of wrist cuff or strap reminded him of Jack and his impressive gizmo, even if the way the captain liked to press the buttons made him and the item seem slightly dramatic and showy, but then. Then all Ianto thought was that this man belonged somewhere, somewhere that wasn’t here.
“Shouldn’t we-“ he began to say nervously, halfway from a quiet child into a quiet man, before words were abruptly cut by the sound of assured footsteps and a jabbering Welsh voice.
“There you are! Matron’s been looking all over for you! Actually she’s been ordering the rest of us about to look for you, bloomin’ tamping she is!”
A woman in her forties with short blonde hair came to stand in front of the man and Ianto, barely paying the teenager any attention at all as she placed her hands on her rounded hips and stared at her patient. The fact that he had escaped made Ianto’s throat seize into dryness and he had to swallow hard. At least the guy seemed suitably sheepish, head bowed slightly as he rubbed at the sleeve of his jumper with his thumb. Twisting the mess inside his head even further, Ianto noted that his patterns were surprisingly gentle and he began to wonder, despite the bouts of uneasiness, why the man was actually being kept in the hospital. There had to be a reason.
“Come on,” the nurse said, softer then as she stepped forward and put a hand to his elbow, “It’s time we got you into bed”
The man sighed in exasperation but admitted defeat, getting to his feet and allowing himself to be led back into the warmth of the building across the road. He tossed a glance over his shoulder and a “see you, mate” to Ianto before he and the nurse slowly walked to the hospital. Ianto studied the man’s pyjama bottoms and vowed to take note of the details in life from then on. He could smirk happily now, knowing that he very rarely broke that promise.
++++
Unable to sleep that night, Ianto found himself back at the hospital the following afternoon, straight after school and, instead of going to any bench; he walked across the road and to the visitor entrance.
Providence Park inside was just like the building and its location on the outside, everything fit. It was modern without being stiflingly clinical, cosy but not a complete home away from home. There was a reception area with a desk and a receptionist, plus a few nurses milling around. Still not fully understanding why he was actually there in the building and not watching and thinking aimlessly at a distance, Ianto decided that the best place to start was at the beginning. In fact, he distinctly remembered that as being one of his parents’ pearls of common sense wisdom and he was grateful for the push forward.
“Um, hello” he muttered, an uneasy smile gracing his face as the middle aged woman behind the desk looked up in the direction of his voice, “I’m looking for…”
Ianto paused, although it was more that he’d let his sentence trail off because he had no idea what to say next. What or who was he looking for exactly? He looked over his shoulder at the closed entrance, not automatic back then. They were white and the paint and wood was slightly peeling and crumbling under the years of greeting and saying goodbye to many a patient or visitor. Puddles were forming on the concrete outside as the rain lashed down, grey onto grey, bleak and without answers.
A woman’s voice broke through his sudden reverie and he slowly returned his gaze to her, feeling lost and like he was scrabbling around in the darkness for his meeting with the man the day before to mean something. He gave the receptionist another anxious, apologetic twitch of his lips and distractedly patted the desk with a flat palm before deciding that there was only one answer left, one certainty.
“Hello again! Wait, it is you, isn’t it, mate?”
Feeling like he’d pushed himself from pillar to post in a few short, disorientating seconds, Ianto turned again to see dark blue pyjamas adorned with what looked like green cartoon aliens. Ianto let out a breath of relief and his eyes found the face of the man he’d barely spoken to yesterday. Ianto hadn’t broken his silent promise. He’d remembered. The man in his twenties was sat in a wheelchair to the left of him, having just appeared from one of the corridors. A nurse, different from yesterday, wasn’t far behind and Ianto briefly thought that he was just being friendly, that empty friendliness because he had no one else and recognising something or someone from the outside world was a small, glorious victory. He was surprised when the man wheeled himself forward, the action pushing his designated carer’s hand away from the handles and leaving her standing, staring at his back and Ianto with a perplexed frown on her face. Not one to be at all comfortable in situations of social idiosyncrasy, Ianto took a small step backwards then swallowed hard when a hand extended towards him.
“I’m Louis” he grinned and his whole face seemed to come alive and the simple expression made him almost immediately seem a fair few years younger, “Didn’t get ‘round to introducing myself last night”
Tentatively, but with a calmness and warmth settling over him, Ianto returned the gesture, shaking Louis’ hand, “Jones. Ianto Jones”
Louis arched an eyebrow and leaned forward, conspiratorial, “Bond fan?”
Ianto looked down at their still joined hands and offered another small smile, “Absolutely”
++++
“And where do you think you’re going, Iefan Jones?!”
Ianto stilled his hand on the front door and shut his eyes for a moment. He heard the soft footsteps of his mother on the hallway carpet and turned to regard her with the posture of a harassed teenager as soon as she was near enough. It was unlike him, they had a close relationship, but he’d recently found a purpose he thought could lead somewhere, personally or maybe even professionally.
“Mam” he sighed, unwilling to get into a discussion over something so trivial, “I told you not to call me that. It’s Ianto. And I’m going out. I promise I’ll be back before tea. With Dad”
Giving her a peck on the cheek, Ianto opened the door and made his exit before his mother could utter another word. He knew that being able to convince his father to come home early from the family shop would swing anything in his favour. He chanced a look at his mother from over his shoulder as he walked away and was pleased to see that fond expression on her face. Maybe she’d realised how good it was for her boy to be about and about, despite not knowing details like where or with whom.
“Why shouldn’t I?!” she shouted after him, but with amusement clear in her voice, “It is your name!”
Ianto rolled his eyes.
++++
Approaching the street where Providence Park stood, Ianto ran the rest of the way and didn’t halt when spluttering a hurried hello to Polly on reception to which her response was an affectionate laugh.
He was beginning to lose count of the amount of times he’d strolled through the doors of the hospital in recent weeks. Louis and he were bonding more and more, although they never talked about anything too personal. It was like an unspoken rule between them - Ianto never asked why the seemingly fine Louis was holed up there and Ianto had had no questions about his life beyond the old building and its gardens. Maybe Louis was secretly curious, sometimes there were silences in their conversations, like he was waiting for Ianto to fill them, but he never let any interest spill out into words.
Ianto was a handful of rooms away from Louis’, the agreement that he’d meet his fast, unusual friend there still standing, when he stopped short. If he didn’t pride himself on a certain physical poise he knew he probably would’ve fallen flat on his face. He couldn’t say the same for mentally.
The door, the room, was just like all the others from the outside. Plain, inoffensive, easy to deal with from a staff point of view and in relation to patients. Nobody ever complained about off white walls and doors, unless they were to be treated for a phobia of the colour. Ianto didn’t know many of the patients but he suspected he could safely say that that had never been a case. Then again, perhaps he would turn out to be wrong.
In the plain, off white room, with the same colour door pushed wide open, Ianto’s eyes fell onto the figure sitting by the large window. He could tell she was female from the curtain of long, slightly wavy hair that hung down the length of her spine, naturally red and exquisite, intensely so against such a sparse backdrop. She didn’t even have any personal decorations to her lived space, unlike Louis, and she was sitting in an awkward manner on a darkly varnished wood chair, the back to the side instead of there to support her body. Ianto craned his neck a little, round to the left and spotted a hint of a pale elbow leaning against the sill of the window. He felt drawn to her, again a lot like he had with Louis, but somehow entirely different. He got the feeling that she was closer to his age, a teenager, but much more lost than he could imagine, lost inside a headspace, lost inside this place that she’d been put in to help her. Ianto found himself unequivocally falling into the juxtaposition of depth and barrenness that she seemed, to him, to represent. It was an intriguing, intoxicating swirl of meaning.
“Can’t keep ya away, can I?”
Ianto blinked quickly, part of the spell dissipating and he automatically glanced down to regard Louis, only today he was standing. He’d told Ianto not long ago that some of the nurses fussed around him too much and insisted he used the offered help. Some days he acquiesced because he agreed, felt too fatigued with himself and whatever was going on, but others, like today, he wanted to embrace life a little more, be as free as he could be within his restrictions. Ianto teased him sometimes that he just wanted to be a rebel and Louis often simply grinned, appearing older before the moment passed. Ianto sometimes wondered whether those flickers were part of his condition, not knowing where he belonged. It made Ianto, in his present time, think of Jack.
Being older, Louis was naturally taller than Ianto, although Ianto was no slouch in that department either. He was growing and growing fast, body and mind. He felt Louis’ hand rest on his jacketed shoulder.
“Who is she?” he whispered, watching the girl and then Louis’ face for a reaction.
“She’s…” he paused and took a visible breath in before chuckling quietly, “…Alice”
“Alice?” Ianto questioned, expecting an answer that was vague, descriptive, so as a consequence of his surprise the volume of his voice turned to normal.
His eyes snapped back to the room as he heard movement. Alice had turned around sharply, her hands gripping the sill of the window behind her. She didn’t appear to be frightened by the call, in fact, from his position by the door, it was possible for Ianto to make the sensible guess that her face actually seemed impassive as she stared at the two mystery people, a boy and a man, staring right on back at her. Louis stepped towards her and Ianto’s eyes widened fractionally but he said nothing. Louis smiled at Ianto as his hand reached out for Alice.
“Jones” Louis said and Ianto could tell that an announcement of some sort was to follow, “This is Alice. My sister”
Ianto pushed the tip of his tongue against his clenched teeth to prevent any shock from showing. He gave a curt nod and stuffed his hands into his dark denim jacket. Louis turned to Alice.
“Alice, this is Ianto Jones. He’s a friend of mine”
Much like at the window, there was barely any recognition that her big brother had spoken to her. Her eyes, a brown abyss, flickered between Louis and Ianto’s faces but that was all. Louis smiled on a deep breath in, obviously used to such discomfited introductions. It made more sense why she had her own room, peace and quiet. Ianto felt the pull again, maybe he could distantly relate.
He watched Louis guide her gently into her chair again, even pushing her legs around to face the window as if she didn’t have the strength to do it herself. He kissed the top of her head, smoothing a hand over her shiny hair. Ianto felt his hand curl in his pocket, muscle aching.
They left soon afterwards, both of them falling easily into conversations about how much Aston Martins cost and hypothesising about futuristic gadgets which the existence of, for one of them, would begin to be somewhat fulfilled in a decade or so.
Alice sat and gazed out the window, at the rain and the gazebo half hidden by the contrasting lushness of leaves. Ianto didn’t forget her.
++++
Ianto didn’t visit Providence Park everyday. He visited frequently but not so that his parents would worry or question him on the minutiae of his ‘going out’. He was fifteen and a half now and hadn’t seen Alice since that surprising afternoon when he felt like he’d accidentally intruded on a secret. It was absurd as the hospital’s patients couldn’t exactly be kept from his line of sight. Those fit to roam, did, around corridors and the gardens with its gazebo and sat perched in front of the little television in a communal, cosy room. Louis never mentioned Alice nor where she’d seemingly disappeared to after the one and only day Ianto had met her. Met her. It sounded strange because all she’d done was stare at him but he was half sure he’d felt a connection, shared something with her, maybe it was their similar age and even then that was an assumption by him on the basis of her obvious youth.
It was sometime after the light lunch cart with its squeaky wheels and before it trundled around the place again at dinnertime that Ianto shuffled into the communal living area to get a plastic cup filled with water from the water cooler in the corner of the long room. He was using the few minutes as a breather too, having just had a few heated words with Louis. Something told Ianto that he’d been asking too many questions lately, however tentative, curiosity getting the better of him and becoming quite a recurring theme. Again, with hindsight, small significances added up to make the rich tapestry of his life at present. If his memories of Providence Park weren’t so bittersweet, he’d probably smile, even thank it.
Back then, he hadn’t realised what he was facing and how open he had been to getting caught up in wanting to belong, wanting to be needed and to give love so freely. He turned from the water cooler and his eyes strayed towards a green armchair and even from metres away its texture looked soft and warm, comforting. He was just about able to spot deep red hairs over the top and some spreading across the arms of the seat. Alice. Like in their previous, impromptu meeting, her back was to Ianto, turned towards another window. There were a few people, mostly a lot older, slouched in front of the small television set and even more kept wandering by, both patients and staff, busy with their lives and just leaving the silent girl by the window as if she didn’t seem the type to cause trouble. Something in Ianto sparked and twisted. He felt different about it, about her, and saw her one and only symptom that she wasn’t healthy as a worry in itself. The need to help, to fix, began.
Glancing quickly around himself, possibly to check whether Louis had come to find him, maybe to apologise for being such a moody git, Ianto slowly but smoothly walked towards the green armchair and the redheaded girl, still clutching the flimsy, plastic cup of water. If he concentrated hard enough, it was almost like he could feel his anxious heartbeat at his fingertips as well as thumping merrily in his chest. There was nothing merry about this though.
Once at her side, he stopped but didn’t make to sit down. It felt odd to just automatically take a seat near her even if it was thought odd only by him. Sitting in his father’s shop on weekends as a younger boy, the grandeur of the master tailor’s world and the politeness he’d witnessed, from his father to his customers at least, whilst perched on the counter and swinging his legs back and forth (getting reprimanded once or twice in case he cracked the glass), had subconsciously instilled some of the same values inside of him. He had his teenage moments, who didn’t, but difference in personality and values mostly held onto him.
Ianto took a deep breath in and was about to leave, expression empathetic, when a pale arm shot out like the drawing of a pistol and Alice knocked the cup clean from his hands, water soaking into the carpet. He went to swear but gently bit the inside of his cheek to keep it at bay, instead smiling tightly, hopefully reassuringly. He knelt down to retrieve the lopsided cup and uselessly pat away the spilt water but was startled as Alice stopped him. He stared at her slender, china white fingers clasped around his wrist for a moment then dared to look up at her face, most of which was obscured by her hair, like a waterfall. Thinking of blood made Ianto want to shiver so he thought of roses in its place and, after a few more beats of silence, put his hand over hers that was keeping his other wrist prisoner. In such close proximity, he noticed her eyes again, really noticed them, beautiful brown and he knew.
Their connection, however mute, had formed. First love, first foray into the unknown.
++++
Alice Portland was born on the outskirts of London but made Wales and, more specifically, Cardiff, her home when her parents moved to the Welsh city after her father’s job required them to up sticks. She was young enough that the move didn’t have an effect on her, her older brother, by seven years, suffering the loss of friends and a disrupted education instead.
Despite the age difference, Louis and Alice were always close. Settling over the other side of the border had solidified their relationship until Louis could get into another school and luckily their bond had never fractured afterwards. He was the protective big brother but it didn’t seem to bother his rather shy, redheaded sister. Alice got her looks from her mother, all cheekbones and finesse and that noticeable fiery colour to her hair. Louis was always told by many that he was the spit of his paternal grandfather. Funnily enough, Ianto could relate.
The Portlands weren’t short of money so their house was large and not one, but two cars stood in their tarmac driveway. It was like seeing a homier Providence Park, framed by leafy trees that turned allsorts of colours in the autumn.
Ianto learned more and more of these little details of their second home through talking to Louis, trying to pose his questions casually until one day, Louis sighed heavily, in resignation, as if he knew Ianto wouldn’t give up unless he heard the answer to the question that was suspended between them.
Thinking he should know, Ianto told his friend about the second meeting between him and his sister and that it had been a lot less fruitless than the first. He watched Louis’ eyebrows shoot upwards in astonishment when he explained about Alice’s silent communication and then he smiled, confessing that she hardly responded to anyone but him and was glad to hear of the slight change. He even beamingly recounted the new information to his nurse later on that afternoon.
“Fancy going outside?” Louis asked Ianto, following rules for once by keeping to his wheelchair.
Ianto agreed and they leisurely made their way out into the slightly blustery day. Louis pointed to the gazebo and in an arse backwards roundabout way, memories of earlier on in the present day, of sitting near the elderly lady Christina, driven to the hospital by wicked, trapped creatures, came flooding into Ianto’s mind. He felt much like he had when he pushed Louis along in his wheelchair past Alice’s room. He noticed that the window sill had seemed to have been transformed into a window seat, probably because she spent so much of her time watching what was on the other side of the pane of glass. Momentarily, he felt like his heart was being pressed down and he purposefully took in and exhaled a breath before turning his back towards the window and pushing Louis the rest of the way there. He stayed silent as they sat down, eyes eagerly awaiting an explanation, as if it held the key to understanding Alice more.
“Shortly after we moved to Cardiff, when Alice was about three years old, a fire broke out in our house” Louis began, cautious and quiet, “It was at night, we were asleep. Or at least Alice, Mum and Dad were”
Louis broke eye contact with Ianto and stared down at his hands, moving his fingers as if he’d only just noticed that they’d belonged to him. Ianto pulled his legs up to his chest, feet on the seat, for warmth and an expression of interest. He watched Louis smile a little, gaze wistful as he obviously thought of his ten year old self, thought of happier times with all his family together. Ianto had never met Mr and Mrs Portland and that he found strange.
“I was hiding under the covers, reading about my hero, Spiderman, by torchlight and suddenly I heard what sounded like our fire alarm screeching underneath the stairs. I jumped out of bed and opened my door. The heat…already…” he was altogether avoiding looking at Ianto at all now and the teenager had no idea what to do. His decision was postponed for him as Louis continued the tale that, with a sense of horrible foreboding, Ianto knew was soon to become the details of a nightmare “…It shocked me, I stumbled backwards actually, but I couldn’t seem to shut my eyes against the smoke and the intense warmth. Then I thought about my family, couldn’t hear them moving around, trying to get out like me”
“Louis, you don’t-“
“No” he interrupted Ianto firmly, offering a twitch of his lips to show he meant no offence by being so adamant, “It’s okay. I can tell y’know?” Ianto feigned ignorance but inside knew exactly what his friend was alluding to. “I’m cool with it. Honestly Ianto, I think Alice likes you too. Well, at least you intrigue her, which is more than anyone’s done in the last ten years. So, it’ll be good for you to know what happened. For her” he grinned, “and for me. I waited in my room for a few minutes, pacing, looking at my belongings, trying to work out whether I should try and save anything. I heard my father yelling for me and without another thought, I opened the door again. I thought they were safe, that they were getting out. He…he told me to fetch my sister from the next room. By this time, the smoke was making it hard to see”
“You carried her out?”
Louis nodded, swallowing back his emotions. Ianto could see that the memories were still painful. “I didn’t want to leave my parents but my father was stubborn. Guess you can see where I get it from now, can’t you?” he smiled, a valiant effort to break the tension and the difficulty of regaling such a tale. “I ran, could feel the heat snapping at my heels, and hopped over the threshold. Breathless, I turned around and I still remember what I saw. It didn’t feel as bad inside, in the thick of it, but…but it was. The house, our home, just looked like a box of fire. I kept staring at the front door, willing my mum and dad to appear. I couldn’t hear anything over the roar of the flames so I had to rely on my eyes. There was so much smoke...”
He paused for a long while and they simply sat, facing each other. Ianto dared not look at his hands for fearing his physical reaction was true. Emotion was palpable and he didn’t think showing weakness, pity or sympathy, was going to help matters. He wondered how much of this the hospital knew and, again, why indeed he was there and not living his life. He could make an estimation of why Alice was ensconced because anyone could see that she was damaged. He glanced up and found Louis watching him with sad, shining eyes. Brown, just like Alice and Ianto wanted to shiver. He never wished to see Alice even close to tears.
Nonchalantly, Louis quietly retold the last few words; something that Ianto suspected, the foreboding was coming true. “They died, trying to get out. Smoke inhalation, mostly. Alice was a late developer as it was, but for many, long years, she hasn’t spoken a word since. The bigwigs here have let me know their theories, y’know the usual, PTSD and she does still suffer from nightmares on particularly bad days. I just think she misses her Mummy and Daddy”
Ianto stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets and blinked rapidly, “Was it an accident? Or d’you think…”
Louis’ gaze shifted abruptly, as if stung by the question, “I don’t know. I’ve thought about all the possibilities, depending on my mood. My father was a scientist, working with lab rats mostly, from what I understood at the time. He was a good man. But I guess not everyone would’ve seen him in that light, rightly or wrongly”
Ianto was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that Louis had no parents left in this world. Alice had no parents. That was enough of a hardship to bear but to think that their lives had been deliberately snuffed out by crazy protestors, or whoever, who didn’t know the first thing about the real Portlands was almost too much to handle.
“But the…the police? Didn’t they ever find out if it was arson or not?”
Ianto would’ve probably snorted now at the memory of asking such a question. He wasn’t as dismissive of the forces as maybe Jack could be, but he knew of their downfalls and times of incompetence too.
Louis shook his head and barked a short, humourless laugh, “Why’d you think I’m in here? To keep Alice alive, sure, to take care of her in a safe environment with people around us to help, but they thought I was mad for even thinking that someone had basically murdered my parents, or suffering some kinda psychological trauma, maybe both. Maybe I am” his hand crawled to his thigh and he waited until Ianto’s eyes was following his every move before he pulled up the material of his pyjama leg and saw his friend’s expression split open raw. “But I know this is real”
“My God, Louis” Ianto breathed, reflexively reaching a hand out then quickly drawing back in embarrassment when he realised what he was doing, “I never…I never realised”
His elder counterpart, this man who had a few years on him yet, laughed again, only this time it sounded a lot less hollow and that thought horrified Ianto just as much as the shock sight of Louis scarred leg. It was obviously a price he paid from the fire, a lucky escape, all things considered, but there was no denying the slightly fresher marks too, the marks of a person who felt he had to stay strong for his little sister and silently brave the emotional consequences of what they’d been through somehow by himself. Feeling a wave of that teenage gawkiness again, Ianto was lost for anything meaningful to say but he forced himself not to look as helpless as Louis probably felt inside. He could be the strong one, he could take the mantle and let the balance be of love, for his first, real friendship and maybe even his first, real romantic love. He wished that Louis wasn’t stuck in that wheelchair now, some days anyway, (despite finally grasping the reason why) and that he could nudge his shoulder with his, something tactile but not stifling. His mental choice of words for his thoughts nearly made him wince and he could almost taste phantom smoke at the back of his throat because of it. Suddenly, the fresh air grew chillingly cold. Ianto stood up and Louis cottoned on pretty quickly for someone who’d just told of his tragically sad life story. He grabbed Ianto’s wrist just as he was walking round to the handles of his wheelchair.
“I meant what I said” he was serious to get his point across but Ianto could see that his eyes were kind, “If you think you can take it, stick with Alice. She’s still a loving person, Ianto, and you deserve that as much as she does”
Ianto can’t be sure if he audibly gasped or not. It was like Louis had looked into his heart, found the different part, the clawing need for a purpose, and granted him the key towards one.
Suffice to say, they quickly made their way back inside. Nothing more was said. They both had suddenly too much to think about. Alice was still waiting by the window. Waiting. Really?
++++
“Come on, Alice, please”
Ianto sighed and glanced up apologetically at the nurse who was with him in Alice’s room. The room hadn’t changed in the last few years of Ianto frequenting the hospital, probably more than he used to. They’d tried that once, the staff, and in an uncharacteristic, frightening show of vocal emotion, Alice had thrown a fit, a proper tantrum, although her screams were just that, unintelligible and exhausting, reminding Ianto flinchingly of a displeased toddler. Still, he stuck by her side, just like Louis had hoped.
His parents knew better than to ask where he went though, obviously just content in knowing that he was going somewhere and he had a glow to his face that suggested he was happy. Whilst Providence Park wasn’t the ideal location for romance, it was true, over his time spent there, he fell in love. Conversation between him and Alice was always pretty much one sided but the feel of her soft, red locks slipping through his fingers as her head rested in his lap was enough. Sometimes he was sure he even saw the flicker of a smile. Louis always teased him that she’d never smile at Ianto because the day she did would be the day she’d speak at last and the first words out of her mouth for more than a decade were sure to be shut up along with stop fussing!
Louis and Alice became as constant to Ianto as his own mother and father. He stopped going to see his father at work when he had nothing to do and went to visit his friend and well, he guessed, his girlfriend, instead. When he noticed such a change was beginning to happen, over dinner one night he resolved to tell Mr and Mrs Jones where he scuttled off to. He didn’t want to drift apart from them and he hoped it would strengthen their trust in him and lessen any secret worry. They were a little perplexed, their only son who they positively doted on, making friends with a man in his twenties who stayed at Cardiff’s busiest psychiatric hospital (saying “oh by the way, he has a sister and I think I’m in love with her” was going a little too far, even towards the people who were most kind-hearted souls that he knew), but they didn’t forbid Ianto from going back and that was the best blessing he could ever have imagined to get.
Three months from that night, try as he might, a selfish part of Ianto was wishing that they had. The nurses had noticed that Alice was losing weight. She had always been a little slip of a thing anyway but something like weight loss, especially considering her other…eccentricities, was never ignored.
And it snowballed. They found food everywhere you could think to stash it in a bedroom - in drawers, down the side of the bed, underneath the bed, even inside the lift up cushioned lid of the window seat. It made perfect sense to Ianto why Alice had suddenly stopped spending so much time sitting and looking out the window. Foolishly, he’d thought it was because of him, that his presence had become a welcome distraction from the thoughts in her head she would’ve, at this stage probably even couldn’t, voice. Then after weeks of this and the result of her weight dropping off, there was the smell. Mould. And it was that that had brought her secret out and why Ianto spent half his visiting time desperately placating and pleading with her.
“Hey, come on” he repeated softly, reaching up to her face from his crouched position by that old wooden chair and struggling to get her to look at him. Sometimes it worked; it was a connection, harking back to the handful of first, fateful meetings. “Please, cariad”
Not even gentle, loving Welsh broke her determination. She seized Ianto’s wrist between spindly, pale fingers and pushed his hand away from her cheek but still kept a hold on him. If anything, her grip tightened until they were locked in a mute battle of sorts. She was looking out the window, face a picture of serenity, and Ianto was staring at her but not letting on that the vice-like pressure on his wrist was starting to hurt. When he felt the force all too much, like she wouldn’t stop before she crushed the bone, he yelped at the same time she miraculously released him, causing him to fall backwards into an undignified heap on the floor. In his late teens and he was beaten, some might say quite literally, by a girl. It pained him, but not the usual, cocky guy with a deflated ego way. He was losing her to sights that had unfortunately found her young subconscious and without being actively pessimistic, he knew of very little he could do to put a stop to it.
In the night, the nightmares came off and on and he found Louis in much the same state sometimes, worried sick by his little sister caught in her emotional trap. Huddled on top of the covers, Ianto would stare at her when she was afforded the luxury of a few hours peaceful sleep and just feel the urge to put his fingers inside her mouth, as if he could drag something out when he retracted them, whether that be her inner demons or at least the ability to talk, yell, scream words. He thought backwards often and felt his heart clench when a memory of her crying never came. He couldn’t remember if she ever had, definitely not while he was there. He’d wished to never see that once but towards the end that’s all he ever wished for.
The end. Alice, beautiful, unusual Alice Portland weakened more and more each day Ianto spent with her and at least he stubbornly kept his vow. Of course, he’d wanted to chicken out many a time, but his heart, filled with his first love, hadn’t let him and when she slipped away and not awoken again, he was glad. Glad he’d stayed for the extraordinary, heartbreaking journey, glad he’d learnt how to love and glad that some days she’d fought. It was those days that mattered, those days that he’d take forward with him when he moved on.
Despite not wanting to leave Louis just because Alice wasn’t around anymore, there was little time between her untimely death and Ianto’s decision to leave Cardiff, leave Wales, and inevitably end up in life filled with something else - Torchwood.
“I…”
Louis had looked at him and smiled, small but genuine, then grabbed his hand. They were old enough now to work through such physical contact without it being awkward. Today, Ianto would see it as a bit of a joke. They sat on Louis’ bed, in Louis’ room and he understood what Ianto was scared to say.
“Yes” he nodded sagely, “I know”
They thought of Alice and talked of Alice and nothing else all day. And then the rest of Ianto’s life began.
++++
With his eyes flickering across the pages of the diary he wrote in at least every week, Ianto made sure that, in his assured, careful way, the Ts were crossed and the Is were dotted before pressing the last full stop to the end of what he had been writing. He had always found the process somewhat therapeutic and with the topsy turvy world of Torchwood at his disposal, a constant, again, like writing his thoughts and experiences had come in handy. Lisa wasn’t here, Lisa was somewhere else in another diary and metaphorically (he hoped), and thinking about it now, Ianto realised that he rarely wrote about anything too emotional in his own little space these days.
Still, the day had been slightly more stressful than usual, even if it did have a small, happy ending, so a perfect opportunity had presented itself. Sifting through his memories of Providence Park and thinking of the people he had met made him feel considerably lighter in spirit now. He’d intended to go home and write, probably late into the night, but looking up from his diary and seeing Jack had him feel at peace anyway. So much had changed, in his life, between him and Jack, but he knew his past had moulded him into the imperfect, genuine person he was today. Really, not much had changed then. That and him and his colleagues knew best how wishing to mess with time was a dangerous notion.
He smiled a little and closed the book in his lap with a swift, decisive snap. The texture of the leather cover against his fingertips reminded him of Jack’s wrist strap and his eyes strayed to his boss, his lover, once more. He could just about see Jack from his position on the well worn sofa, sat in his office, at his desk and for once, seemingly absorbed in the papers in front of him. Ianto felt the mischief rise up within him and he gave in much quicker than normal, of the mind that they’d both had a day of it and, whilst the Hub was empty until morning, they deserved to have some, hard earned fun…
FIN.
Author: imagination55
Pairing(s)/Characters: Ianto/Alice Portland (OFC), Jack/Ianto (implied), Louis Portland, Mr & Mrs Jones
Part: 1/1 - Standalone
Rating: R - for possible upsetting, emotional scenes (nothing graphic)
Word Count: 7,700 (whoa, neat lol)
Summary: Love was the vice, the only vice perhaps, which so easily could embroil him in its metaphorical, almost physical at times, grip.
Disclaimer: I own not a single thing associated with Torchwood. This is all just fiction. I only own my Other Character creations.
Spoilers: Small but significant one From Out Of The Rain (2x10).
A/N: It's a sort of coda to From Out Of The Rain (2x10) but mostly just my pre-series take on that line from Ianto in that scene. I just want it OUT. I started this on the 17th of this month and just finished it last night. It's been driving me batty! I'm not in love with what I've done but I'm posting because I worked hard on it and in a roundabout way I'm still proud of it. It's choppy, deliberately, because it ended up protracted enough as it is! I'm so damn late to this party. *le sigh*
Tamping = a Welsh colloquilism for being angry.
Title is a lifted lyric from the Tori Amos song Tear In Your Hand. I listened to her stuff a lot during the writing of this actually. ♥
Two decades ago, Ianto Jones and everyone around him would’ve classed him as a lonely little boy. He had a mam and a dad, sure, and they did everything that doting parents was supposed to do. He was neither neglected nor worriedly pushed to be more extrovert, more talkative, more like ‘the other kids’ in his class at school or in the playground. He suspected then, at that early age of around six, that Mr and Mrs Jones would’ve liked him to be less of a loner but they never talked to him about it and the issue just became one of the white elephants he’d procure in his lifetime. They loved their son unconditionally, the best kind of love, but that didn’t stop Ianto Jones from having a sneaking suspicion that he was different. Not different in the Clark Kent/Superman sort of way, just…different. It was probably the wariness and the reluctance that would sometimes lead to good boy, polite compliance that helped (hindered?) him to wordlessly reassure his parents that they needn’t worry at all, his eyes quietly taking in his world around him, even if inside his mind didn’t feel like it quite fit with the rest of him.
Nowadays, he’s used to people telling him that he’s “wise beyond his years”. He was a good student at school, at university, still spent a lot of time alone but never to the noticeable extent that it piqued people’s interest or concern. Bit ironic, really. It should be almost amusing that he can even see that well known, well used, complimentary phrase reflected sometimes in the adoring way Jack looks at him, like he can’t quite believe it or him, can’t work out what makes him tick, of all people.
The fact that he was plodding along nicely in everything he did, excelling even, alone with his thoughts despite having people, family at least, to share them with, meant that he went beyond expectations too and that notion would probably apply to Torchwood and his dealing with them, it, him, if people who knew him outside of his colleagues knew where he was at in the present time, in his life. All except for love. Love was the vice, the only vice perhaps, which so easily could embroil him in its metaphorical, almost physical at times, grip.
The first time it happened, he was barely a teenager.
++++
Providence Park had stood halfway between the nucleus of the city and suburbia, the perfect mix of incentive for those who would return to the outside, a second chance, but enough peace and quiet for patients who weren’t as fortunate.
The building itself looked like a simple three storey house in its beginnings, then, as the capital moved further inwards, the plot grew like the trees which were planted to give even the most hopeless of patients something lush to gaze at, often vacantly. The staff were amiable, but hadn’t always been, a new breed of nursing. The people they cared for were the same, some literally stagnant, but all with an air of empty friendliness, no matter the details of their specific ills.
Ianto used to sit in parks, on their benches of peeling forest green paint, and think in most weather. When he was thought old enough by his timid, graceful mother, he grew accustomed to the night and probably cherished those hours the best. The sky lost its azure to burnt oranges and dusky pinks before navy took the day away for a while and replaced the blank with the sparkle of stars.
Opposite Providence Park, there was an open, grassy space. Ianto found it in the daytime, grey day of normality, and returned once more before the intriguing calm of the dark sucked him in again. It wasn’t a park as such, in a children’s sense, but he saw dog owners letting their pets off of their leads, watching as the animals threw obedience momentarily into the whipping evening wind and ran free. Places to sit were sparse and Ianto suspected that in this nook of the neighbourhood the hospital wouldn’t wish to actively encourage visitors to the area, however passive. Still, even back then, the part that didn’t quite fit, the part that would ultimately lead him to Torchwood, decided to dismiss the unspoken warning and Ianto sat.
On his third visit to the exact spot across the road, fourteen years old and on a break from self-imposed containment within his bedroom and studying wonders through his telescope, Ianto Jones met a man.
Well, actually, the man dropped beside Ianto on the bench and had startled the teenager when he spoke.
“I’ve seen you”
Forgetting all about his thought to ignore whoever was around, this was his time, Ianto turned surprised blue eyes onto the man beside him. In that quick glance he was able to estimate that this person was older than him, in his mid twenties at least, and unkempt. His dark hair stuck up in tufts and he had more than a little stubble covering a well defined jaw. He didn’t turn to look at Ianto like he was being looked at so Ianto shifted his gaze back, posture perfect but not harsh.
“Have you lost something?” the man spoke again, curling one of the hands resting on his knees into a fist. He didn’t wait for an answer, “You look like something’s inside there and you’re waiting to come in and get it. It’s alright, that place y’know? Once you get used to it”
Ianto watched, silently, from the corner of his eye as the man’s fist unclenched and he felt his shoulders sag a little with relief. At least he didn’t seem dangerous or unpredictable. In fact, he sounded lucid and that only intrigued the teenager even more. He saw the man lift up the sleeve of his jumper, a soft green colour that was distorted in the yellowy glow of a nearby streetlamp and the darkness where the light couldn’t reach. Ianto guessed that he was looking for his watch then let out a sigh when he realised that he’d either forgotten to put it on before he’d come out for a midnight stroll or that he wasn’t allowed one anymore. Ianto didn’t know about the protocols in a place like Providence Park and the fear, or at least anxiety, which had loosened a little in his gut, changed its mind. It was compounded by the flash of white, malleable plastic tied around the man’s wrist, where he had briefly searched for the time and where Ianto knew for certain that he was a patient. Now, any sort of wrist cuff or strap reminded him of Jack and his impressive gizmo, even if the way the captain liked to press the buttons made him and the item seem slightly dramatic and showy, but then. Then all Ianto thought was that this man belonged somewhere, somewhere that wasn’t here.
“Shouldn’t we-“ he began to say nervously, halfway from a quiet child into a quiet man, before words were abruptly cut by the sound of assured footsteps and a jabbering Welsh voice.
“There you are! Matron’s been looking all over for you! Actually she’s been ordering the rest of us about to look for you, bloomin’ tamping she is!”
A woman in her forties with short blonde hair came to stand in front of the man and Ianto, barely paying the teenager any attention at all as she placed her hands on her rounded hips and stared at her patient. The fact that he had escaped made Ianto’s throat seize into dryness and he had to swallow hard. At least the guy seemed suitably sheepish, head bowed slightly as he rubbed at the sleeve of his jumper with his thumb. Twisting the mess inside his head even further, Ianto noted that his patterns were surprisingly gentle and he began to wonder, despite the bouts of uneasiness, why the man was actually being kept in the hospital. There had to be a reason.
“Come on,” the nurse said, softer then as she stepped forward and put a hand to his elbow, “It’s time we got you into bed”
The man sighed in exasperation but admitted defeat, getting to his feet and allowing himself to be led back into the warmth of the building across the road. He tossed a glance over his shoulder and a “see you, mate” to Ianto before he and the nurse slowly walked to the hospital. Ianto studied the man’s pyjama bottoms and vowed to take note of the details in life from then on. He could smirk happily now, knowing that he very rarely broke that promise.
++++
Unable to sleep that night, Ianto found himself back at the hospital the following afternoon, straight after school and, instead of going to any bench; he walked across the road and to the visitor entrance.
Providence Park inside was just like the building and its location on the outside, everything fit. It was modern without being stiflingly clinical, cosy but not a complete home away from home. There was a reception area with a desk and a receptionist, plus a few nurses milling around. Still not fully understanding why he was actually there in the building and not watching and thinking aimlessly at a distance, Ianto decided that the best place to start was at the beginning. In fact, he distinctly remembered that as being one of his parents’ pearls of common sense wisdom and he was grateful for the push forward.
“Um, hello” he muttered, an uneasy smile gracing his face as the middle aged woman behind the desk looked up in the direction of his voice, “I’m looking for…”
Ianto paused, although it was more that he’d let his sentence trail off because he had no idea what to say next. What or who was he looking for exactly? He looked over his shoulder at the closed entrance, not automatic back then. They were white and the paint and wood was slightly peeling and crumbling under the years of greeting and saying goodbye to many a patient or visitor. Puddles were forming on the concrete outside as the rain lashed down, grey onto grey, bleak and without answers.
A woman’s voice broke through his sudden reverie and he slowly returned his gaze to her, feeling lost and like he was scrabbling around in the darkness for his meeting with the man the day before to mean something. He gave the receptionist another anxious, apologetic twitch of his lips and distractedly patted the desk with a flat palm before deciding that there was only one answer left, one certainty.
“Hello again! Wait, it is you, isn’t it, mate?”
Feeling like he’d pushed himself from pillar to post in a few short, disorientating seconds, Ianto turned again to see dark blue pyjamas adorned with what looked like green cartoon aliens. Ianto let out a breath of relief and his eyes found the face of the man he’d barely spoken to yesterday. Ianto hadn’t broken his silent promise. He’d remembered. The man in his twenties was sat in a wheelchair to the left of him, having just appeared from one of the corridors. A nurse, different from yesterday, wasn’t far behind and Ianto briefly thought that he was just being friendly, that empty friendliness because he had no one else and recognising something or someone from the outside world was a small, glorious victory. He was surprised when the man wheeled himself forward, the action pushing his designated carer’s hand away from the handles and leaving her standing, staring at his back and Ianto with a perplexed frown on her face. Not one to be at all comfortable in situations of social idiosyncrasy, Ianto took a small step backwards then swallowed hard when a hand extended towards him.
“I’m Louis” he grinned and his whole face seemed to come alive and the simple expression made him almost immediately seem a fair few years younger, “Didn’t get ‘round to introducing myself last night”
Tentatively, but with a calmness and warmth settling over him, Ianto returned the gesture, shaking Louis’ hand, “Jones. Ianto Jones”
Louis arched an eyebrow and leaned forward, conspiratorial, “Bond fan?”
Ianto looked down at their still joined hands and offered another small smile, “Absolutely”
++++
“And where do you think you’re going, Iefan Jones?!”
Ianto stilled his hand on the front door and shut his eyes for a moment. He heard the soft footsteps of his mother on the hallway carpet and turned to regard her with the posture of a harassed teenager as soon as she was near enough. It was unlike him, they had a close relationship, but he’d recently found a purpose he thought could lead somewhere, personally or maybe even professionally.
“Mam” he sighed, unwilling to get into a discussion over something so trivial, “I told you not to call me that. It’s Ianto. And I’m going out. I promise I’ll be back before tea. With Dad”
Giving her a peck on the cheek, Ianto opened the door and made his exit before his mother could utter another word. He knew that being able to convince his father to come home early from the family shop would swing anything in his favour. He chanced a look at his mother from over his shoulder as he walked away and was pleased to see that fond expression on her face. Maybe she’d realised how good it was for her boy to be about and about, despite not knowing details like where or with whom.
“Why shouldn’t I?!” she shouted after him, but with amusement clear in her voice, “It is your name!”
Ianto rolled his eyes.
++++
Approaching the street where Providence Park stood, Ianto ran the rest of the way and didn’t halt when spluttering a hurried hello to Polly on reception to which her response was an affectionate laugh.
He was beginning to lose count of the amount of times he’d strolled through the doors of the hospital in recent weeks. Louis and he were bonding more and more, although they never talked about anything too personal. It was like an unspoken rule between them - Ianto never asked why the seemingly fine Louis was holed up there and Ianto had had no questions about his life beyond the old building and its gardens. Maybe Louis was secretly curious, sometimes there were silences in their conversations, like he was waiting for Ianto to fill them, but he never let any interest spill out into words.
Ianto was a handful of rooms away from Louis’, the agreement that he’d meet his fast, unusual friend there still standing, when he stopped short. If he didn’t pride himself on a certain physical poise he knew he probably would’ve fallen flat on his face. He couldn’t say the same for mentally.
The door, the room, was just like all the others from the outside. Plain, inoffensive, easy to deal with from a staff point of view and in relation to patients. Nobody ever complained about off white walls and doors, unless they were to be treated for a phobia of the colour. Ianto didn’t know many of the patients but he suspected he could safely say that that had never been a case. Then again, perhaps he would turn out to be wrong.
In the plain, off white room, with the same colour door pushed wide open, Ianto’s eyes fell onto the figure sitting by the large window. He could tell she was female from the curtain of long, slightly wavy hair that hung down the length of her spine, naturally red and exquisite, intensely so against such a sparse backdrop. She didn’t even have any personal decorations to her lived space, unlike Louis, and she was sitting in an awkward manner on a darkly varnished wood chair, the back to the side instead of there to support her body. Ianto craned his neck a little, round to the left and spotted a hint of a pale elbow leaning against the sill of the window. He felt drawn to her, again a lot like he had with Louis, but somehow entirely different. He got the feeling that she was closer to his age, a teenager, but much more lost than he could imagine, lost inside a headspace, lost inside this place that she’d been put in to help her. Ianto found himself unequivocally falling into the juxtaposition of depth and barrenness that she seemed, to him, to represent. It was an intriguing, intoxicating swirl of meaning.
“Can’t keep ya away, can I?”
Ianto blinked quickly, part of the spell dissipating and he automatically glanced down to regard Louis, only today he was standing. He’d told Ianto not long ago that some of the nurses fussed around him too much and insisted he used the offered help. Some days he acquiesced because he agreed, felt too fatigued with himself and whatever was going on, but others, like today, he wanted to embrace life a little more, be as free as he could be within his restrictions. Ianto teased him sometimes that he just wanted to be a rebel and Louis often simply grinned, appearing older before the moment passed. Ianto sometimes wondered whether those flickers were part of his condition, not knowing where he belonged. It made Ianto, in his present time, think of Jack.
Being older, Louis was naturally taller than Ianto, although Ianto was no slouch in that department either. He was growing and growing fast, body and mind. He felt Louis’ hand rest on his jacketed shoulder.
“Who is she?” he whispered, watching the girl and then Louis’ face for a reaction.
“She’s…” he paused and took a visible breath in before chuckling quietly, “…Alice”
“Alice?” Ianto questioned, expecting an answer that was vague, descriptive, so as a consequence of his surprise the volume of his voice turned to normal.
His eyes snapped back to the room as he heard movement. Alice had turned around sharply, her hands gripping the sill of the window behind her. She didn’t appear to be frightened by the call, in fact, from his position by the door, it was possible for Ianto to make the sensible guess that her face actually seemed impassive as she stared at the two mystery people, a boy and a man, staring right on back at her. Louis stepped towards her and Ianto’s eyes widened fractionally but he said nothing. Louis smiled at Ianto as his hand reached out for Alice.
“Jones” Louis said and Ianto could tell that an announcement of some sort was to follow, “This is Alice. My sister”
Ianto pushed the tip of his tongue against his clenched teeth to prevent any shock from showing. He gave a curt nod and stuffed his hands into his dark denim jacket. Louis turned to Alice.
“Alice, this is Ianto Jones. He’s a friend of mine”
Much like at the window, there was barely any recognition that her big brother had spoken to her. Her eyes, a brown abyss, flickered between Louis and Ianto’s faces but that was all. Louis smiled on a deep breath in, obviously used to such discomfited introductions. It made more sense why she had her own room, peace and quiet. Ianto felt the pull again, maybe he could distantly relate.
He watched Louis guide her gently into her chair again, even pushing her legs around to face the window as if she didn’t have the strength to do it herself. He kissed the top of her head, smoothing a hand over her shiny hair. Ianto felt his hand curl in his pocket, muscle aching.
They left soon afterwards, both of them falling easily into conversations about how much Aston Martins cost and hypothesising about futuristic gadgets which the existence of, for one of them, would begin to be somewhat fulfilled in a decade or so.
Alice sat and gazed out the window, at the rain and the gazebo half hidden by the contrasting lushness of leaves. Ianto didn’t forget her.
++++
Ianto didn’t visit Providence Park everyday. He visited frequently but not so that his parents would worry or question him on the minutiae of his ‘going out’. He was fifteen and a half now and hadn’t seen Alice since that surprising afternoon when he felt like he’d accidentally intruded on a secret. It was absurd as the hospital’s patients couldn’t exactly be kept from his line of sight. Those fit to roam, did, around corridors and the gardens with its gazebo and sat perched in front of the little television in a communal, cosy room. Louis never mentioned Alice nor where she’d seemingly disappeared to after the one and only day Ianto had met her. Met her. It sounded strange because all she’d done was stare at him but he was half sure he’d felt a connection, shared something with her, maybe it was their similar age and even then that was an assumption by him on the basis of her obvious youth.
It was sometime after the light lunch cart with its squeaky wheels and before it trundled around the place again at dinnertime that Ianto shuffled into the communal living area to get a plastic cup filled with water from the water cooler in the corner of the long room. He was using the few minutes as a breather too, having just had a few heated words with Louis. Something told Ianto that he’d been asking too many questions lately, however tentative, curiosity getting the better of him and becoming quite a recurring theme. Again, with hindsight, small significances added up to make the rich tapestry of his life at present. If his memories of Providence Park weren’t so bittersweet, he’d probably smile, even thank it.
Back then, he hadn’t realised what he was facing and how open he had been to getting caught up in wanting to belong, wanting to be needed and to give love so freely. He turned from the water cooler and his eyes strayed towards a green armchair and even from metres away its texture looked soft and warm, comforting. He was just about able to spot deep red hairs over the top and some spreading across the arms of the seat. Alice. Like in their previous, impromptu meeting, her back was to Ianto, turned towards another window. There were a few people, mostly a lot older, slouched in front of the small television set and even more kept wandering by, both patients and staff, busy with their lives and just leaving the silent girl by the window as if she didn’t seem the type to cause trouble. Something in Ianto sparked and twisted. He felt different about it, about her, and saw her one and only symptom that she wasn’t healthy as a worry in itself. The need to help, to fix, began.
Glancing quickly around himself, possibly to check whether Louis had come to find him, maybe to apologise for being such a moody git, Ianto slowly but smoothly walked towards the green armchair and the redheaded girl, still clutching the flimsy, plastic cup of water. If he concentrated hard enough, it was almost like he could feel his anxious heartbeat at his fingertips as well as thumping merrily in his chest. There was nothing merry about this though.
Once at her side, he stopped but didn’t make to sit down. It felt odd to just automatically take a seat near her even if it was thought odd only by him. Sitting in his father’s shop on weekends as a younger boy, the grandeur of the master tailor’s world and the politeness he’d witnessed, from his father to his customers at least, whilst perched on the counter and swinging his legs back and forth (getting reprimanded once or twice in case he cracked the glass), had subconsciously instilled some of the same values inside of him. He had his teenage moments, who didn’t, but difference in personality and values mostly held onto him.
Ianto took a deep breath in and was about to leave, expression empathetic, when a pale arm shot out like the drawing of a pistol and Alice knocked the cup clean from his hands, water soaking into the carpet. He went to swear but gently bit the inside of his cheek to keep it at bay, instead smiling tightly, hopefully reassuringly. He knelt down to retrieve the lopsided cup and uselessly pat away the spilt water but was startled as Alice stopped him. He stared at her slender, china white fingers clasped around his wrist for a moment then dared to look up at her face, most of which was obscured by her hair, like a waterfall. Thinking of blood made Ianto want to shiver so he thought of roses in its place and, after a few more beats of silence, put his hand over hers that was keeping his other wrist prisoner. In such close proximity, he noticed her eyes again, really noticed them, beautiful brown and he knew.
Their connection, however mute, had formed. First love, first foray into the unknown.
++++
Alice Portland was born on the outskirts of London but made Wales and, more specifically, Cardiff, her home when her parents moved to the Welsh city after her father’s job required them to up sticks. She was young enough that the move didn’t have an effect on her, her older brother, by seven years, suffering the loss of friends and a disrupted education instead.
Despite the age difference, Louis and Alice were always close. Settling over the other side of the border had solidified their relationship until Louis could get into another school and luckily their bond had never fractured afterwards. He was the protective big brother but it didn’t seem to bother his rather shy, redheaded sister. Alice got her looks from her mother, all cheekbones and finesse and that noticeable fiery colour to her hair. Louis was always told by many that he was the spit of his paternal grandfather. Funnily enough, Ianto could relate.
The Portlands weren’t short of money so their house was large and not one, but two cars stood in their tarmac driveway. It was like seeing a homier Providence Park, framed by leafy trees that turned allsorts of colours in the autumn.
Ianto learned more and more of these little details of their second home through talking to Louis, trying to pose his questions casually until one day, Louis sighed heavily, in resignation, as if he knew Ianto wouldn’t give up unless he heard the answer to the question that was suspended between them.
Thinking he should know, Ianto told his friend about the second meeting between him and his sister and that it had been a lot less fruitless than the first. He watched Louis’ eyebrows shoot upwards in astonishment when he explained about Alice’s silent communication and then he smiled, confessing that she hardly responded to anyone but him and was glad to hear of the slight change. He even beamingly recounted the new information to his nurse later on that afternoon.
“Fancy going outside?” Louis asked Ianto, following rules for once by keeping to his wheelchair.
Ianto agreed and they leisurely made their way out into the slightly blustery day. Louis pointed to the gazebo and in an arse backwards roundabout way, memories of earlier on in the present day, of sitting near the elderly lady Christina, driven to the hospital by wicked, trapped creatures, came flooding into Ianto’s mind. He felt much like he had when he pushed Louis along in his wheelchair past Alice’s room. He noticed that the window sill had seemed to have been transformed into a window seat, probably because she spent so much of her time watching what was on the other side of the pane of glass. Momentarily, he felt like his heart was being pressed down and he purposefully took in and exhaled a breath before turning his back towards the window and pushing Louis the rest of the way there. He stayed silent as they sat down, eyes eagerly awaiting an explanation, as if it held the key to understanding Alice more.
“Shortly after we moved to Cardiff, when Alice was about three years old, a fire broke out in our house” Louis began, cautious and quiet, “It was at night, we were asleep. Or at least Alice, Mum and Dad were”
Louis broke eye contact with Ianto and stared down at his hands, moving his fingers as if he’d only just noticed that they’d belonged to him. Ianto pulled his legs up to his chest, feet on the seat, for warmth and an expression of interest. He watched Louis smile a little, gaze wistful as he obviously thought of his ten year old self, thought of happier times with all his family together. Ianto had never met Mr and Mrs Portland and that he found strange.
“I was hiding under the covers, reading about my hero, Spiderman, by torchlight and suddenly I heard what sounded like our fire alarm screeching underneath the stairs. I jumped out of bed and opened my door. The heat…already…” he was altogether avoiding looking at Ianto at all now and the teenager had no idea what to do. His decision was postponed for him as Louis continued the tale that, with a sense of horrible foreboding, Ianto knew was soon to become the details of a nightmare “…It shocked me, I stumbled backwards actually, but I couldn’t seem to shut my eyes against the smoke and the intense warmth. Then I thought about my family, couldn’t hear them moving around, trying to get out like me”
“Louis, you don’t-“
“No” he interrupted Ianto firmly, offering a twitch of his lips to show he meant no offence by being so adamant, “It’s okay. I can tell y’know?” Ianto feigned ignorance but inside knew exactly what his friend was alluding to. “I’m cool with it. Honestly Ianto, I think Alice likes you too. Well, at least you intrigue her, which is more than anyone’s done in the last ten years. So, it’ll be good for you to know what happened. For her” he grinned, “and for me. I waited in my room for a few minutes, pacing, looking at my belongings, trying to work out whether I should try and save anything. I heard my father yelling for me and without another thought, I opened the door again. I thought they were safe, that they were getting out. He…he told me to fetch my sister from the next room. By this time, the smoke was making it hard to see”
“You carried her out?”
Louis nodded, swallowing back his emotions. Ianto could see that the memories were still painful. “I didn’t want to leave my parents but my father was stubborn. Guess you can see where I get it from now, can’t you?” he smiled, a valiant effort to break the tension and the difficulty of regaling such a tale. “I ran, could feel the heat snapping at my heels, and hopped over the threshold. Breathless, I turned around and I still remember what I saw. It didn’t feel as bad inside, in the thick of it, but…but it was. The house, our home, just looked like a box of fire. I kept staring at the front door, willing my mum and dad to appear. I couldn’t hear anything over the roar of the flames so I had to rely on my eyes. There was so much smoke...”
He paused for a long while and they simply sat, facing each other. Ianto dared not look at his hands for fearing his physical reaction was true. Emotion was palpable and he didn’t think showing weakness, pity or sympathy, was going to help matters. He wondered how much of this the hospital knew and, again, why indeed he was there and not living his life. He could make an estimation of why Alice was ensconced because anyone could see that she was damaged. He glanced up and found Louis watching him with sad, shining eyes. Brown, just like Alice and Ianto wanted to shiver. He never wished to see Alice even close to tears.
Nonchalantly, Louis quietly retold the last few words; something that Ianto suspected, the foreboding was coming true. “They died, trying to get out. Smoke inhalation, mostly. Alice was a late developer as it was, but for many, long years, she hasn’t spoken a word since. The bigwigs here have let me know their theories, y’know the usual, PTSD and she does still suffer from nightmares on particularly bad days. I just think she misses her Mummy and Daddy”
Ianto stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets and blinked rapidly, “Was it an accident? Or d’you think…”
Louis’ gaze shifted abruptly, as if stung by the question, “I don’t know. I’ve thought about all the possibilities, depending on my mood. My father was a scientist, working with lab rats mostly, from what I understood at the time. He was a good man. But I guess not everyone would’ve seen him in that light, rightly or wrongly”
Ianto was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that Louis had no parents left in this world. Alice had no parents. That was enough of a hardship to bear but to think that their lives had been deliberately snuffed out by crazy protestors, or whoever, who didn’t know the first thing about the real Portlands was almost too much to handle.
“But the…the police? Didn’t they ever find out if it was arson or not?”
Ianto would’ve probably snorted now at the memory of asking such a question. He wasn’t as dismissive of the forces as maybe Jack could be, but he knew of their downfalls and times of incompetence too.
Louis shook his head and barked a short, humourless laugh, “Why’d you think I’m in here? To keep Alice alive, sure, to take care of her in a safe environment with people around us to help, but they thought I was mad for even thinking that someone had basically murdered my parents, or suffering some kinda psychological trauma, maybe both. Maybe I am” his hand crawled to his thigh and he waited until Ianto’s eyes was following his every move before he pulled up the material of his pyjama leg and saw his friend’s expression split open raw. “But I know this is real”
“My God, Louis” Ianto breathed, reflexively reaching a hand out then quickly drawing back in embarrassment when he realised what he was doing, “I never…I never realised”
His elder counterpart, this man who had a few years on him yet, laughed again, only this time it sounded a lot less hollow and that thought horrified Ianto just as much as the shock sight of Louis scarred leg. It was obviously a price he paid from the fire, a lucky escape, all things considered, but there was no denying the slightly fresher marks too, the marks of a person who felt he had to stay strong for his little sister and silently brave the emotional consequences of what they’d been through somehow by himself. Feeling a wave of that teenage gawkiness again, Ianto was lost for anything meaningful to say but he forced himself not to look as helpless as Louis probably felt inside. He could be the strong one, he could take the mantle and let the balance be of love, for his first, real friendship and maybe even his first, real romantic love. He wished that Louis wasn’t stuck in that wheelchair now, some days anyway, (despite finally grasping the reason why) and that he could nudge his shoulder with his, something tactile but not stifling. His mental choice of words for his thoughts nearly made him wince and he could almost taste phantom smoke at the back of his throat because of it. Suddenly, the fresh air grew chillingly cold. Ianto stood up and Louis cottoned on pretty quickly for someone who’d just told of his tragically sad life story. He grabbed Ianto’s wrist just as he was walking round to the handles of his wheelchair.
“I meant what I said” he was serious to get his point across but Ianto could see that his eyes were kind, “If you think you can take it, stick with Alice. She’s still a loving person, Ianto, and you deserve that as much as she does”
Ianto can’t be sure if he audibly gasped or not. It was like Louis had looked into his heart, found the different part, the clawing need for a purpose, and granted him the key towards one.
Suffice to say, they quickly made their way back inside. Nothing more was said. They both had suddenly too much to think about. Alice was still waiting by the window. Waiting. Really?
++++
“Come on, Alice, please”
Ianto sighed and glanced up apologetically at the nurse who was with him in Alice’s room. The room hadn’t changed in the last few years of Ianto frequenting the hospital, probably more than he used to. They’d tried that once, the staff, and in an uncharacteristic, frightening show of vocal emotion, Alice had thrown a fit, a proper tantrum, although her screams were just that, unintelligible and exhausting, reminding Ianto flinchingly of a displeased toddler. Still, he stuck by her side, just like Louis had hoped.
His parents knew better than to ask where he went though, obviously just content in knowing that he was going somewhere and he had a glow to his face that suggested he was happy. Whilst Providence Park wasn’t the ideal location for romance, it was true, over his time spent there, he fell in love. Conversation between him and Alice was always pretty much one sided but the feel of her soft, red locks slipping through his fingers as her head rested in his lap was enough. Sometimes he was sure he even saw the flicker of a smile. Louis always teased him that she’d never smile at Ianto because the day she did would be the day she’d speak at last and the first words out of her mouth for more than a decade were sure to be shut up along with stop fussing!
Louis and Alice became as constant to Ianto as his own mother and father. He stopped going to see his father at work when he had nothing to do and went to visit his friend and well, he guessed, his girlfriend, instead. When he noticed such a change was beginning to happen, over dinner one night he resolved to tell Mr and Mrs Jones where he scuttled off to. He didn’t want to drift apart from them and he hoped it would strengthen their trust in him and lessen any secret worry. They were a little perplexed, their only son who they positively doted on, making friends with a man in his twenties who stayed at Cardiff’s busiest psychiatric hospital (saying “oh by the way, he has a sister and I think I’m in love with her” was going a little too far, even towards the people who were most kind-hearted souls that he knew), but they didn’t forbid Ianto from going back and that was the best blessing he could ever have imagined to get.
Three months from that night, try as he might, a selfish part of Ianto was wishing that they had. The nurses had noticed that Alice was losing weight. She had always been a little slip of a thing anyway but something like weight loss, especially considering her other…eccentricities, was never ignored.
And it snowballed. They found food everywhere you could think to stash it in a bedroom - in drawers, down the side of the bed, underneath the bed, even inside the lift up cushioned lid of the window seat. It made perfect sense to Ianto why Alice had suddenly stopped spending so much time sitting and looking out the window. Foolishly, he’d thought it was because of him, that his presence had become a welcome distraction from the thoughts in her head she would’ve, at this stage probably even couldn’t, voice. Then after weeks of this and the result of her weight dropping off, there was the smell. Mould. And it was that that had brought her secret out and why Ianto spent half his visiting time desperately placating and pleading with her.
“Hey, come on” he repeated softly, reaching up to her face from his crouched position by that old wooden chair and struggling to get her to look at him. Sometimes it worked; it was a connection, harking back to the handful of first, fateful meetings. “Please, cariad”
Not even gentle, loving Welsh broke her determination. She seized Ianto’s wrist between spindly, pale fingers and pushed his hand away from her cheek but still kept a hold on him. If anything, her grip tightened until they were locked in a mute battle of sorts. She was looking out the window, face a picture of serenity, and Ianto was staring at her but not letting on that the vice-like pressure on his wrist was starting to hurt. When he felt the force all too much, like she wouldn’t stop before she crushed the bone, he yelped at the same time she miraculously released him, causing him to fall backwards into an undignified heap on the floor. In his late teens and he was beaten, some might say quite literally, by a girl. It pained him, but not the usual, cocky guy with a deflated ego way. He was losing her to sights that had unfortunately found her young subconscious and without being actively pessimistic, he knew of very little he could do to put a stop to it.
In the night, the nightmares came off and on and he found Louis in much the same state sometimes, worried sick by his little sister caught in her emotional trap. Huddled on top of the covers, Ianto would stare at her when she was afforded the luxury of a few hours peaceful sleep and just feel the urge to put his fingers inside her mouth, as if he could drag something out when he retracted them, whether that be her inner demons or at least the ability to talk, yell, scream words. He thought backwards often and felt his heart clench when a memory of her crying never came. He couldn’t remember if she ever had, definitely not while he was there. He’d wished to never see that once but towards the end that’s all he ever wished for.
The end. Alice, beautiful, unusual Alice Portland weakened more and more each day Ianto spent with her and at least he stubbornly kept his vow. Of course, he’d wanted to chicken out many a time, but his heart, filled with his first love, hadn’t let him and when she slipped away and not awoken again, he was glad. Glad he’d stayed for the extraordinary, heartbreaking journey, glad he’d learnt how to love and glad that some days she’d fought. It was those days that mattered, those days that he’d take forward with him when he moved on.
Despite not wanting to leave Louis just because Alice wasn’t around anymore, there was little time between her untimely death and Ianto’s decision to leave Cardiff, leave Wales, and inevitably end up in life filled with something else - Torchwood.
“I…”
Louis had looked at him and smiled, small but genuine, then grabbed his hand. They were old enough now to work through such physical contact without it being awkward. Today, Ianto would see it as a bit of a joke. They sat on Louis’ bed, in Louis’ room and he understood what Ianto was scared to say.
“Yes” he nodded sagely, “I know”
They thought of Alice and talked of Alice and nothing else all day. And then the rest of Ianto’s life began.
++++
With his eyes flickering across the pages of the diary he wrote in at least every week, Ianto made sure that, in his assured, careful way, the Ts were crossed and the Is were dotted before pressing the last full stop to the end of what he had been writing. He had always found the process somewhat therapeutic and with the topsy turvy world of Torchwood at his disposal, a constant, again, like writing his thoughts and experiences had come in handy. Lisa wasn’t here, Lisa was somewhere else in another diary and metaphorically (he hoped), and thinking about it now, Ianto realised that he rarely wrote about anything too emotional in his own little space these days.
Still, the day had been slightly more stressful than usual, even if it did have a small, happy ending, so a perfect opportunity had presented itself. Sifting through his memories of Providence Park and thinking of the people he had met made him feel considerably lighter in spirit now. He’d intended to go home and write, probably late into the night, but looking up from his diary and seeing Jack had him feel at peace anyway. So much had changed, in his life, between him and Jack, but he knew his past had moulded him into the imperfect, genuine person he was today. Really, not much had changed then. That and him and his colleagues knew best how wishing to mess with time was a dangerous notion.
He smiled a little and closed the book in his lap with a swift, decisive snap. The texture of the leather cover against his fingertips reminded him of Jack’s wrist strap and his eyes strayed to his boss, his lover, once more. He could just about see Jack from his position on the well worn sofa, sat in his office, at his desk and for once, seemingly absorbed in the papers in front of him. Ianto felt the mischief rise up within him and he gave in much quicker than normal, of the mind that they’d both had a day of it and, whilst the Hub was empty until morning, they deserved to have some, hard earned fun…
FIN.