Fic: The Fix - Torchwood *Major Spoilers* for Children of Earth Part 4/?
Title: The Fix
Author: BlaiddJD
Disclaimer: I own nothing, Torchwood belongs to the Beeb and RTD
Rating: PG-13 for swearings and naughties.
Summary: Jack tries to fix things. He tries everything to have what he had... he succeeds in finding Ianto again but what if the man you loved loved someone else?
Part Four
Jack was waiting in front of Rose's office when she came in the next morning, he looked tired but a lot more happier than he was when she'd last saw him
“Morning” he greeted her coldly, she unlocked her door and left it open for him. He followed her into the room watching as she sat down and placed her coffee on the desk, she jumped when he slammed his hands down on the desk “You lied to me!”
“I had no choice” she cried back “Shut the door Jack and I'll tell you everything”
“No. I don't want to hear it! You lied to me! Why didn't you tell me you knew he was here?!”
“Because he's married!” she yelled feeling tears well up in her eyes, she wasn't used to be people angrily shouting her like this. Rose chanced a look at Jack, he looked winded and had gone pale
“No.” he shook his head
“Jack”
“No. He can't be! I saw him! I kissed him! He kissed me back!”
“You did what?!” she gasped
“Last night I saw him. I came here and he was in the elevator” he explained waving his hand in front of him
“Jack he's a married man, he's a father... he'll never be with you” she told him but he wouldn't listen “He's about to have another kid, for God sake! I want you to leave him alone”
“I can't do that!” he shouted, there was a knock at the door and her assistant was standing there looking worried. Jack turned on her ready to yell for her to get out but he stopped
“Is everyone okay, Rose?”
“You. It's you” he hissed “You're Lisa... oh my God. He married Lisa?!”
“Who are you?” Lisa snapped angry at this man in front of her who was yelling at her boss and best friend
“Leaving...” he stalked out of the office with Rose calling his name to come back.
He stomped down the seventh floor in search of the offending Welsh man, Jack was fuming as he stepped out of the lift and onto the busy floor. The office was certainly a lot more crowded than it had been last night and it was difficult to get to booth three.
Ianto was sat at his station with a headset on and tapping away at his keyboard when someone grabbed him by the shoulder and whirled him around. It was that man again, that Jack... to say that he was surprised to see him showing up like this was an understatement!
“How the hell can you be married?!” Jack yelled “You're supposed to be with me!”
“I don't know who the hell you are!” shouted Ianto back at him, there was a crowd gathering to witness the argument.
Rose had come down from the top floor and brought some security guards with her just in case, she had told Lisa to stay upstairs while she sorted this
“He isn't yours, Jack” she came towards him “Let Ben take you home”
“You don't understand” whispered Jack to her not taking his eyes off Ianto “I travelled through the void to find him... I need him. You must know what if feels like to need someone”
“That's different, I love John” she hissed
“And I love him! I never told him before he died” he turned his head glaring at her “He told me how he felt with his dying breath and all I said was 'don't'!”
“Please, Jack, it's best if you go home. Or even if you go to see John at the mansion...”
“Like a little pet?” he sneered
“We need to keep tabs on you, Jack, you travelled through the void in no ship or shielding. By all rights you should be dead”
“So I'm becoming a labrat for Torchwood again?” he demanded, she shook her head even thought both of them knew better
“It's not like that, Jack...”
“I saved the world in that reality, I saved all those children... I want to be happy. I lost Tosh and Owen, I'm never going to see my daughter again or Gwen! I've earned this!”
“Don't I get a say in this?” spoke Ianto suddenly voicing his protest between this strange man that he was trying to deny his attraction to and his boss “I'm a married man, I have a son and another child on the way. I'm happy... I have no intention of being with you, I'm not gay and I will never love you so go away and leave me alone”
“Ianto...” sobbed Jack as tears came to his eyes
“I wanted to save you from this” Rose told him, all she had wanted to do was protect her friend's heart from being destroyed and she failed “Ianto, Jack... come up to my office. The rest of you get back to work”
The security guards ushered a very broken Jack and a very confused Ianto after Rose as she led the way to the elevator and back up to her floor. Once the two of them were sat down in the chairs opposite her and the security guards had gone she picked up her coffee taking a long swig then wincing when she found it was cold. Rose had thought it best to leave Lisa out of this for the time being even
“Ianto, I'd like you to meet Captain Jack Harkness” she introduced him to the Welsh man “He comes from the same reality that I do”
“I don't understand”
“The company you work for is a organisation run by the crown, on the surface it just looks like a regular company but underneath... we're here to protect against alien threats to the empire”
“Aliens?” he smirked, his mouth turning up at the corners
“Yes. I wasn't born here and neither was Jack” she explained “I was born in a different reality and several years ago I came through the void and was stuck here. You know John... he's not human, well not completely, he's part Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey and Jack was born...” she trailed off not knowing where Jack had been born. He looked up realising she'd stopped talking then turned to look at Ianto
“I was born in the Boeshane Peninsula in the 51st Century. I was a Time Agent before the Agency was closed down. I ended up on Earth working for Torchwood... you worked for Torchwood in that reality too but you weren't a junior researcher”
“I don't believe this! It's nonsense!” he jumped up from the seat and began to pace the small space
“I came through the void because... in my reality you died” he stated, Ianto stopped pacing then came to sit back down next to Jack
“I died? How?”
“Gas poisoning” he told him simply
“What's the void? How did you travel through it?” then he closed his eyes and shook his head “This isn't real, why the hell am I even asking?”
“Rose, do you have a gun?” she glanced at the Dalek gun on the wall then shook her head. Jack stood up and moved to the windows behind her “I can prove this is real, you see I can't die. That's how I was able to travel through the void, I was ripped to shreds over and over and I'm still here”
“I don't believe you” he said simply then glanced pointedly at Rose “Either of you”
Rose sighed then pulled out a set of keys and handed them to Jack behind her then told Ianto to watch. Jack opened the window, stepped up onto the ledge and jumped out
“Oh God!” Ianto gasped “He jumped out!” there were several screams from outside and without thinking about it he rushed from the room.
Outside Jack was splayed out on the pavement and now a circle was forming around him, by the time Ianto got there someone was on the phone crying as she called an ambulance. He leapt from the revolving doors and sprinted across the walkway to the crowd that had formed around Jack just in time to see him jerk up sucking in sharp breathes and making the entire crowd jump in fright.
Ianto hurried over pulling him into his arms holding him safe, Jack clung desperately to the other man who held him
“It's okay, I've got you. You're safe”
“Ianto” he smiled sinking into that safe feeling and feeling content for the first time in a very long time.
Rose came out a few minutes later escorting a medical and SWAT team, looking extremely pissed off
“You have to make such a show” she snapped “I'm too young for this!”
“Then take a vacation. Travel” shot Jack back at her still enjoying the fact that Ianto was holding him.
“Retcon the lot of them apart from them two. Ianto I think you need to go see Lisa” she crossed her arms “I'm going home. Terry, you're in charge for the rest of the week” then she walked away in search of Ben to drive her home.
Ianto stood up pulling away from him without so much as a backward glance; his wife needed him even though he wanted to make sure that Jack was okay. There was something about that man that compelled him, made him feel things he'd never felt before... not even with Lisa.
*
She was shouting, yelling actually, and he'd kept quiet because of her condition... he couldn't even tell her to keep calm because that would just make things worse. He'd had one hell of a day and it still wasn't over yet
“I can't believe you've been cheating on me! You don't even have the guts to lie and tell me that this is all a big mistake!”
“Lise... I've never seen that man before today. I have no idea who he is! All I know is he's some lunatic stalker” he protested. Liar, he thought to himself... you know exactly who he is, he's an alien who can't die and he travelled through 'the void' whatever that was to be with you, he sighed deeply as his thoughts ran away with him.
“So you're not having an affair?”
“No. I love you, I married you didn't I?” he offered her a smile slowly walking towards her in fear of her using her firsts in objection to Captain Jack Harkness “And I love Taren and I love our little girl...”
She shook her head as he wiped her tears away and held her carefully in his arms, he was treating her like a china doll again but this time she didn't mind
“But why did Rose know him? I heard her yelling back at him when he was in her office before you came up”
“They were friends. I'm assuming that her, John and Jack all travelled together a long time ago” he explained
“Well then why hasn't she or John ever mentioned them before?” she continued, he shrugged his shoulders
“I don't know. Let's go to bed, it's late and we've got the whole weekend to ourselves. How about we drop Taren off at your mom's then go shopping for baby clothes?” he suggested, he knew how to make her smile.
They went upstairs and went to bed, three hours later Ianto was still alive thinking about the man who couldn't die. Sleep evaded him so he went downstairs and got a beer, sitting at the kitchen table in the dark sipping his bottle he knew he needed to see Jack again but he had no idea how to find him. He felt guilty that he wanted to know more about him, that he was still thinking about that first kiss. Ianto knew he should leave it alone but he just couldn't... he needed to see Jack again.
*
There was a firm knock at the door. It was Rose. She walked in looking tired with a weary sort of smile on her face. He'd not long gotten out of the shower and was ready for bed in his pyjama pants
“Wasn't expecting to see you tonight” he commented easily
“Retconned the bystanders, just finished up the paperwork...” she was wobbling on her feet so she tumbled down onto the couch “Cleaned up all the blood... you didn't have leave a mess”
“I'm giving Ianto up” he blurted suddenly, she stopped and looked at him like he'd grown another head, she shook her head gesturing why “Because I lost him. It was nice to pretend that he was still alive. I know that the Ianto Jones in this reality isn't mine... it was nice to pretend that he was... that I hadn't lost him”
“Oh Jack” she breathed rising up on tipsy feet to pull him into a hug, his tears dampened her hair “I'm so sorry”
“Not as sorry as I am” he replied then pulled away, she looked down fiddling with the hem of her suit jacket
“I came here to tell you” she began nervously “I'm leaving. John and me, we're can't stay here... I was put in charge of Torchwood by UNIT... it's killing me so we've decided to travel. He surprised me last weekend, he's built a ship! It's not like the Tardis but it can get us out there...”
“You're leaving Earth?”
“Not forever” she replied
“What about your mom?”
“She's not here anymore... not since Tony. When the 456 came and the children... they took my little brother Tony. He was only three years old... mom lost it, some days she's all there and she cries a lot and other days it's like she's... she hardly recognises me anymore, even on the good days. Besides, she's got my dad...”
“When are you leaving?”
“On Sunday, John finished all the flight testing. We're going to have a party at the mansion Sunday before we leave then get in the car and go... the thing is Jack” she finally looked up at him meeting his eyes “There's still Torchwood. I decided that I'm going to give it to you, the paperworks all set up and everything you need to know is on this” she held out a PDA and he took it from her
“Torchwood destroyed me in the other reality. I lost everything! My friends, my family... my lover! How can you ask me to do this?”
“Because I know you would make it a good place, and I think you need it” she told him “You can start over again... all the people you lost in the other reality, because this reality's Jack Harkness died in 1941, they're all alive. You can find them and have them work for you again”
“No” he shook his head “I'll look after Torchwood for you until you come back but I will not bring them into this, that's how they died!”
“I'm sorry” she looked down
“Don't” he shook his head then went over and pulled her into a hug “You need to go home, spend time with John and I'll be there on Sunday before you leave”
“Thank you, Jack” she said as she leaned her head against his shoulder he wasn't sure that he should thank her for giving him charge of Torchwood Tower so he didn't. She called a cab then left when it arrived leaving Jack alone.
He'd been thinking about his decision to let Ianto go ever since the Welsh man walked away from him earlier that day. It wasn't fair on either of them to keep up the pretence that his Ianto was alive and well and it was an insult to his late lover's memory. He had just wanted so much to be happy.
Tomorrow he would exercise his new power as head of Torchwood but now he just needed to sleep for a very, very long time.
TBC...