Broken World. Prologue.
Title: Broken World
Chapter: Prologue
Rating: R
Pairing: Ianto/Gwen. Mentions of Gwen/Rhys
Synopsis: Sometimes your world is broken and there seems to be no way back.
Spoilers: Season 1.
Warning: Oh it be angstilicious!
Disclaimer Not mine sadly. I just like to play with them
A/N; This is set in a world where Rhys couldn't be saved during EOD. AU i suppose but everything else is the same. Also,, this is a prologue to a fic I will post after i've finihed Just Like A Jones. It can also be read as a 1/1.
Feedback greatly appreciated.
Gwen sat on the ground beside the grave and stared at the white rose that she held between her fingers. She picked the petals off one by one and lay them in a line on the soil.
“White roses,” she said, “I always wanted to carry white roses when we got married. You would be there in your suit and your ridiculous top hat and tails, and I would be wearing some sort of meringue. Mam would comment on how nice I could have looked if only my hair was a little classier and Dad would try not to cry. Then your battleaxe of a Mother would remind me how you're too good for me and go on about Sarah Collins, your high school girlfriend with the perfect teeth.”
Gwen smiled sadly and wiped away a tear with the back of her hand. She had learned to be strong, learned to cut herself off from her emotions just enough to carry on living, but this was too much. There was a Torchwood pamphlet of course, 'how to cope with grief', but that wasn't enough. There wasn't anything on the earth, or even in the universe that could take away the stabbing pain in what used to be her heart.
Gwen Cooper didn't have a heart any more. It was buried six foot below her in a box with the only man she had ever loved.
She saw a pair of shoes appear in her line of blurred vision. She knew who it was from the charcoal grey and white pinstriped hems that fell crisply over the perfectly polished leather.
“Are you ready?” Ianto's voice was soft and almost breaking. “Everyone is waiting back at the house.”
Gwen shook her head and tucked her knees into her chest. “Go without me.”
“Not going to happen.”
“Why should I go?” she said. “How can I look his Mother in the eyes when I know he died because of me?”
“Because you have to.”
“Why?” She asked, looking up at him with a bitterness that eroded the life away from her eyes. “Because I'm Torchwood?”
“No.” Ianto took off his Jacket and draped it over her shoulders then sat down beside her. “Because it's what we all have to do.”
“I don't care.”
Ianto tucked his knees up to his chest an rested his chin on them. “When my dad died I had to hold everything together. I had to arrange the funeral, keep my sister from falling apart, do the speech without shedding a single tear. It's what was expected. I'm the hard one, the one that never breaks.”
“We all break, Ianto.”
“Not me. I'm not allowed.” He sighed. “Nobody expects that of you. You can cry if you want to. You can be angry and bitter and everyone will understand.”
“How can they understand?” Gwen said, her voice cracking. “They don't understand my guilt and I can't even tell them.”
“I can understand it,” he said, “we're really not so different, you and I.”
“We're not?”
Ianto shook his head. “Losing a loved one is hard, it's even harder when it's death by Torchwood.”
“How do you get over it?”
“You don't. Every day you wake up and you turn to their side of the bed to find it empty and your heart breaks just a little more. It gets worse and worse every day because the longer you go without them the more you start to realise they will never come back. Then one day it hurts a little less and you learn to live with the eroding in your heart. After a while you learn to live again.”
“What if I can't?”
“You don't have an option.” Ianto wrapped his arm around her and pulled her head into his chest. He let her rest against him, tears falling as her heart crumbled and fell from her eyes. “You have to learn to live with the pain. After a while it gets better, and you carry on with your life.”
“I don't want to.”
“You have to.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead and held her for a while; she gripped onto him, digging her fingernails through the material of his best suit until they started to pinch at his skin.
“Ianto?” Gwen tried to hold her tears long enough to speak.
“Mmm?”
“Will you Retcon me?”
“No.” Ianto shook his head.
“Why?”
“I need you. I've already lost Jack, maybe for good, I can't lose you too.”
“But I can't do it any more.” Gwen took a white pill out of her pocket. “I don't want to remember this.”
“And you really want to wake up tomorrow and have nothing at all?” Ianto caressed her cheek. “Taking this can't bring him back and it won't make you forget him. You'll wake up and lose him all over again and you wont even know how it happened. Gwen, you'll go insane.”
“Torchwood ruined everything.”
“I know.” Ianto slipped the pill out of her hand and put it into his pocket, then held her against him. “But that doesn't mean you should give up, Rhys would have never wanted that.”
“Maybe he would if he knew.”
“He wouldn't and you know it.” Ianto sighed. “I can't believe Jack left us at a time like this.”
“I couldn't look at him anyway.”
“But to leave when you need him the most.” He shook his head. “I never thought he'd do that.”
“I don't need him Ianto.” Gwen pushed herself away from him and stood up. “I need Rhys.” She walked over to the flowers beside the grave and looked own at them. “All these people sending flowers that he didn't even fucking know!” She picked up a large bunch of flowers and threw it across the graveyard “Who the fuck is Trevor?”
“Gwen, don't.”
She picked up another arrangement and pulled out the card. “Mrs. Patterson? Who the hell signs a sympathy card with their surname?” She ripped the flowers from their stems. “Tomorrow Mrs. Patterson will wake up and make herself some tea and go to work and forget Rhys ever existed!”
Ianto walked towards her and touched her shoulder but she moved away quickly and continued. He stood back and ran his fingers through his hair, watching her as she dismantled every flower arrangement by the graveside.
She started to kick the remaining flowers around the graveyard. When they were all gone, blossoms scattered over the dirt, she knelt down beside the soil and started to claw it away with her fingernails.
Ianto grabbed Gwen from behind and wrapped his arms around to her stop her from moving. She struggled in his grasp, trying desperately to break free.
“Let me go!”
“No.”
“I need Rhys!”
“He's Gone.” Ianto held her tightly against him and waited for her to stop struggling then lowered his lips to her ear. “He's not coming back.”
Gwen turned around in his arms and looked at him, mud in the sockets of her eyes. “Why?”
“He's dead.” Ianto stroked her hair, tucking it behind her ears. “You die and that's it. You can't come back.”
“Jack comes back.” Gwen looked at him her eyes full of hope.
“Jack's different. Rhys can't come back now, it's too late for him.” Ianto pressed his forehead against hers as he held her against him; he was sure if he let go she would fall down. “I'm really sorry.”
Gwen gripped onto his waist and buried her head into the warmth of his chest. “How am I going to get through this?”
Ianto kissed her head and closed his eyes, trying to hold back the tears that fell for her. “I'll help you.”