Jack's Capture (Epilogue)
This has taken a very long time to be put up. Not because it took so long to write - it was finished quite a while ago. Within the realms of reasonable timing after the third part, actually. I just had to leave it alone for a while and edit it a bit and eventually kick myself into putting it up, even though I'm not too sure it's worth it. Pah. But I said I would, so here it is.
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating: R
Warnings: Swearing, angst...
Word Count: 1869 (Total of 7600 for all four parts)
Summary: Post season one. Jack's returned from travelling with the Doctor, only to be snatched away again - and this time there's nothing voluntary about it.
Optional Epilogue for 3-parter
Prompt: 019. White.
Jack's Capture
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Epilogue
It was dark in Jack’s quarters at this time of night - so dark it was black. So late it was early. So quiet that Jack could hear every breath Ianto took. That, in itself, was not so surprising, considering that Ianto had curled around him, his chest pressed to Jack’s back so that Jack could feel the bandages rub against his spine whenever Ianto moved. The wound hadn’t impeded him earlier, but they had both tired quickly, and so now they were just lying here, Jack staring blankly at the wall a few inches from his face, occasionally wondering if Ianto was asleep, or if having Jack lying on his arm had sent it completely numb yet.
Eventually, he felt Ianto shift slightly, tightening his arms around Jack’s body (not numb, then) and sighing warmly against his neck.
“I was worried about you,” he murmured, and Jack sighed himself, wishing that Ianto had been asleep. “Tell me what happened.”
“Don’t ask me that,” Jack told him softly.
Ianto was silent for a few moments, then said, “Okay. But if you ever want to talk…”
“I don’t,” Jack said flatly, and they went quiet again, Ianto radiating rejected hurt despite the fact that he was still wrapped around Jack and cuddling him closer than ever.
Jack fidgeted for a while, then went still. He sighed again, and then said, “They tortured me. They kept torturing me.”
Ianto made a noise of sympathy and kissed the back of his neck, saying, “You don’t have to tell me. I can imagine.”
“Can you?” Jack asked. “Really? Do you know about nanogenes, Ianto? They’re little robots that fix wounds almost as fast as you can make them. They can heal anything. But that doesn’t stop it from hurting when people start cutting you open.”
Ianto said nothing, and Jack continued, “I didn’t talk, so it got worse. I had to kill myself to escape. Had to kill some of them, too.”
“Don’t,” Ianto said. “I don’t -”
“You don’t want to know,” Jack supplied, and pulled Ianto’s arms from around his body, turning over to face him. “You don’t like hearing about the things I have to do to survive, do you? As long as I’m here keeping you warm at night, you’ll play deaf and blind to whatever I’ve done to get back.”
“That’s not fair,” Ianto snapped, shuffling backwards from him.
Jack snorted, and said, “No, sure it’s not. What did you want me to say - it was fucking miserable and I’m glad I’m back, hell of a vacation?”
“No,” Ianto sighed, clearly trying to calm things down by saying soothingly, “I just wanted to know if I could help in any way. I’m sorry I asked.”
He reached out to stroke Jack’s arm, but Jack shook him off, rolling onto his back and shifting uncomfortably for a few moments, then glaring at the ceiling, head pillowed on his arm. Ianto paused briefly, then put his hand on Jack’s chest, saying, “I was worried about you. I thought I’d lost you.”
Jack said quietly, “I thought you were dead.”
Ianto leaned over to kiss him, but he turned away. Ianto kissed his cheek instead.
“As if I’d die without some decent last words,” he said, smiling a little and clearly hoping to lighten the mood, but Jack didn’t respond as he’d expected.
“You don’t get it,” he said, turning to look at Ianto again. “I thought you were dead. I thought they’d killed you. I hated them. You have such trouble dealing with the idea that I killed six or seven of the bastards, try this. I blew the fucking ship up.”
Ianto went very still, and said quietly, “What?”
“Deal with it,” Jack muttered, and Ianto stared down at him for a few moments, then whispered, “But you’d beaten them. You said you were sending them back.”
Jack just lay there, holding his gaze unrepentantly, and said, “They would’ve tried again. They’d never have just left me here.”
“How many people, Jack?” Ianto breathed.
Without hesitation, Jack said, “I don’t know.”
“Liar.”
Jack glared at him, and he asked again, quietly, “How many people?”
There was a pause, and then Jack said, “Maybe seventy.”
“Oh fuck,” Ianto moaned, and rolled away from him, burying his face in the pillows and curling up on the edge of the bed. Jack made no move to follow him, simply saying, “You wanted to know the truth.”
He kept staring at the ceiling even when Ianto scrambled out of bed, and he heard him getting dressed hurriedly.
“Leaving so soon?” he asked bitterly. “But there’s so much you haven’t heard yet.”
“I’ve heard more than enough,” Ianto choked, throwing on his shirt, and Jack turned his head to watch him.
“You know, you really need to sort out exactly which set of your double standards we’re working on tonight.”
Ianto grabbed one of Jack’s shoes and hurled it at him, narrowly missing him when he jerked aside, rolling onto his stomach and still watching Ianto.
“Don’t you fucking dare, Jack,” Ianto hissed. “You expect me to just nod and smile and say I forgive you? I’ve tried so hard to find reasons for everything you’ve done, to excuse all the deaths and suffering, but this is too much. I can’t… I don’t… I can’t deal with this any more.”
“You want more reasons?” Jack asked quietly, fury simmering in his voice. “It’s not enough for you that they kidnapped me and tortured me and tried to kill you -”
“You didn’t do it for me,” Ianto snapped. “Don’t try and make this my fault.”
“So you think you’ve got me figured out?” Jack sneered. “Why did I do it, then?”
Ianto glared at him, and said, “I don’t know. I can’t see any good reason for killing them. They weren’t even dangerous. If they’d been a threat I could have understood. Fuck, I even forgave you for Lisa because -”
“What the fucking hell has she got to do with anything?” Jack shouted, and Ianto yelled back, “I loved her!”
“I loved you,” Jack cried, furious, “but that doesn’t seem to bother you! You don’t give a shit about what happens to me if I don’t have a fucking breakdown just to make you feel needed. You decide you hate me because I did what I had to to get back here and stay here, you throw Lisa’s name at me every time you want to make me feel guilty, you -”
“You told me she had to die to prevent mass slaughter,” Ianto interrupted, hands bunched into fists, shaking with anger. “I accepted that. And then you go on a killing spree instead.”
Jack had grabbed his shoe and thrown it back at Ianto before he knew what he was doing, yelling, “I’ve told you! If I’d let them live they’d have come back and taken me again, and I would never have escaped. And they’d’ve fucking killed you this time.”
“So you became a mass murderer to save my life,” Ianto said sarcastically, “rather than covering your own arse. You’ll forgive me if I find that a little hard to believe.”
“Believe what you like,” Jack snarled. “Clearly nothing I say is going to change your mind.”
“It might,” Ianto told him quietly. “If there was anything you could say.”
“They were murderers and torturers and thieves,” Jack muttered. “They deserved everything they got.”
Ianto just looked at him, face blank of all expression, and said, “Every single person on that ship, Jack? I really don’t think so. How many of them were just doing their jobs? You told me you used to be a Time Agent. It could easily have been you in the crew.”
“It wasn’t,” Jack pointed out sharply.
“What about the prisoners?” Ianto asked. “Were you the only one?”
Jack hesitated, then said, “There were eleven others.”
“Did they deserve to die as well?” Ianto said quietly. “Murderers, torturers and thieves? Or just innocent people, like you’ve never been.”
“Don’t you judge me,” Jack said fiercely, pointing accusingly at him. “You have no idea what it was like. What it is like. You don’t know how many times over we’d have died if I hadn’t been willing to go this far. We can’t all be saints.”
“We don’t have to be monsters either,” Ianto snapped, and grabbed his suit jacket and tie as Jack yelled, “I had no fucking choice! Why can’t you see that?”
Ianto turned towards the ladder, and Jack slid out of the bed, going over to him and catching his arm, saying pleadingly, “Ianto. I need you to understand me on this one. I need -”
“You don’t need me for anything,” Ianto said softly, avoiding his eyes. “I’m nothing to you. You only want me for sex, and you can easily find someone else for that. There’s plenty of people in Cardiff. You’ll replace me quickly enough.”
“No,” Jack said, trying to get Ianto to look at him, and feeling a sudden thrill of fear when Ianto pulled away from him and moved towards the ladder. “Ianto, no. You’re so much more than that.”
“If that’s true,” Ianto said, looking up, “then why did you wait to tell me about the ship until after you’d got me into bed?”
Jack stopped, deathly still, and Ianto watched him for a moment, then said, almost in a whisper, “I’m going home.”
“You can’t drive when you’re wounded like that,” Jack told him, and he snapped, “I’ll walk.”
“Ianto, you need to rest. Stay here,” Jack said gently, trying to approach him again. Ianto slapped away the hand he reached out, saying flatly, “I’ll be at work tomorrow, sir. I don’t think we should talk about this again.”
“Please,” Jack whispered as he started climbing the ladder. Ianto paused, then said, without looking back, “It would be best if we resumed a normal working relationship, as well,” and continued on his way out.
Jack stared after him, feeling the unaccustomed burn of tears in his eyes, then found his voice, yelling hoarsely, “Fine! You want it to be over, it’s over! And don’t come crawling back!” because he didn’t have the words for what he really wanted to say. He retreated back to the bed, despair and grief and guilt eating him from the inside out now he didn’t have Ianto to wash away his sins with kisses and caresses and soothing reassurances that he’d done the right thing - or at least, the only thing he could. He’d never needed that as much as he did now.
He stared at his hands, remembering red on white and seeing the same stains on his own skin. Even the tears that dropped onto his palms couldn’t wash them away.
Shaking, he curled up in his bed and pulled the covers over his head, starting to sob as it began to sink in that the one person he had come to rely on, to lean on, had stepped away and let him fall, alone. He didn’t know if he would ever stop falling.
Cocooned in the whiteness of the sheets, Jack felt like his soul had never been blacker.
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating: R
Warnings: Swearing, angst...
Word Count: 1869 (Total of 7600 for all four parts)
Summary: Post season one. Jack's returned from travelling with the Doctor, only to be snatched away again - and this time there's nothing voluntary about it.
Optional Epilogue for 3-parter
Prompt: 019. White.
Jack's Capture
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Epilogue
It was dark in Jack’s quarters at this time of night - so dark it was black. So late it was early. So quiet that Jack could hear every breath Ianto took. That, in itself, was not so surprising, considering that Ianto had curled around him, his chest pressed to Jack’s back so that Jack could feel the bandages rub against his spine whenever Ianto moved. The wound hadn’t impeded him earlier, but they had both tired quickly, and so now they were just lying here, Jack staring blankly at the wall a few inches from his face, occasionally wondering if Ianto was asleep, or if having Jack lying on his arm had sent it completely numb yet.
Eventually, he felt Ianto shift slightly, tightening his arms around Jack’s body (not numb, then) and sighing warmly against his neck.
“I was worried about you,” he murmured, and Jack sighed himself, wishing that Ianto had been asleep. “Tell me what happened.”
“Don’t ask me that,” Jack told him softly.
Ianto was silent for a few moments, then said, “Okay. But if you ever want to talk…”
“I don’t,” Jack said flatly, and they went quiet again, Ianto radiating rejected hurt despite the fact that he was still wrapped around Jack and cuddling him closer than ever.
Jack fidgeted for a while, then went still. He sighed again, and then said, “They tortured me. They kept torturing me.”
Ianto made a noise of sympathy and kissed the back of his neck, saying, “You don’t have to tell me. I can imagine.”
“Can you?” Jack asked. “Really? Do you know about nanogenes, Ianto? They’re little robots that fix wounds almost as fast as you can make them. They can heal anything. But that doesn’t stop it from hurting when people start cutting you open.”
Ianto said nothing, and Jack continued, “I didn’t talk, so it got worse. I had to kill myself to escape. Had to kill some of them, too.”
“Don’t,” Ianto said. “I don’t -”
“You don’t want to know,” Jack supplied, and pulled Ianto’s arms from around his body, turning over to face him. “You don’t like hearing about the things I have to do to survive, do you? As long as I’m here keeping you warm at night, you’ll play deaf and blind to whatever I’ve done to get back.”
“That’s not fair,” Ianto snapped, shuffling backwards from him.
Jack snorted, and said, “No, sure it’s not. What did you want me to say - it was fucking miserable and I’m glad I’m back, hell of a vacation?”
“No,” Ianto sighed, clearly trying to calm things down by saying soothingly, “I just wanted to know if I could help in any way. I’m sorry I asked.”
He reached out to stroke Jack’s arm, but Jack shook him off, rolling onto his back and shifting uncomfortably for a few moments, then glaring at the ceiling, head pillowed on his arm. Ianto paused briefly, then put his hand on Jack’s chest, saying, “I was worried about you. I thought I’d lost you.”
Jack said quietly, “I thought you were dead.”
Ianto leaned over to kiss him, but he turned away. Ianto kissed his cheek instead.
“As if I’d die without some decent last words,” he said, smiling a little and clearly hoping to lighten the mood, but Jack didn’t respond as he’d expected.
“You don’t get it,” he said, turning to look at Ianto again. “I thought you were dead. I thought they’d killed you. I hated them. You have such trouble dealing with the idea that I killed six or seven of the bastards, try this. I blew the fucking ship up.”
Ianto went very still, and said quietly, “What?”
“Deal with it,” Jack muttered, and Ianto stared down at him for a few moments, then whispered, “But you’d beaten them. You said you were sending them back.”
Jack just lay there, holding his gaze unrepentantly, and said, “They would’ve tried again. They’d never have just left me here.”
“How many people, Jack?” Ianto breathed.
Without hesitation, Jack said, “I don’t know.”
“Liar.”
Jack glared at him, and he asked again, quietly, “How many people?”
There was a pause, and then Jack said, “Maybe seventy.”
“Oh fuck,” Ianto moaned, and rolled away from him, burying his face in the pillows and curling up on the edge of the bed. Jack made no move to follow him, simply saying, “You wanted to know the truth.”
He kept staring at the ceiling even when Ianto scrambled out of bed, and he heard him getting dressed hurriedly.
“Leaving so soon?” he asked bitterly. “But there’s so much you haven’t heard yet.”
“I’ve heard more than enough,” Ianto choked, throwing on his shirt, and Jack turned his head to watch him.
“You know, you really need to sort out exactly which set of your double standards we’re working on tonight.”
Ianto grabbed one of Jack’s shoes and hurled it at him, narrowly missing him when he jerked aside, rolling onto his stomach and still watching Ianto.
“Don’t you fucking dare, Jack,” Ianto hissed. “You expect me to just nod and smile and say I forgive you? I’ve tried so hard to find reasons for everything you’ve done, to excuse all the deaths and suffering, but this is too much. I can’t… I don’t… I can’t deal with this any more.”
“You want more reasons?” Jack asked quietly, fury simmering in his voice. “It’s not enough for you that they kidnapped me and tortured me and tried to kill you -”
“You didn’t do it for me,” Ianto snapped. “Don’t try and make this my fault.”
“So you think you’ve got me figured out?” Jack sneered. “Why did I do it, then?”
Ianto glared at him, and said, “I don’t know. I can’t see any good reason for killing them. They weren’t even dangerous. If they’d been a threat I could have understood. Fuck, I even forgave you for Lisa because -”
“What the fucking hell has she got to do with anything?” Jack shouted, and Ianto yelled back, “I loved her!”
“I loved you,” Jack cried, furious, “but that doesn’t seem to bother you! You don’t give a shit about what happens to me if I don’t have a fucking breakdown just to make you feel needed. You decide you hate me because I did what I had to to get back here and stay here, you throw Lisa’s name at me every time you want to make me feel guilty, you -”
“You told me she had to die to prevent mass slaughter,” Ianto interrupted, hands bunched into fists, shaking with anger. “I accepted that. And then you go on a killing spree instead.”
Jack had grabbed his shoe and thrown it back at Ianto before he knew what he was doing, yelling, “I’ve told you! If I’d let them live they’d have come back and taken me again, and I would never have escaped. And they’d’ve fucking killed you this time.”
“So you became a mass murderer to save my life,” Ianto said sarcastically, “rather than covering your own arse. You’ll forgive me if I find that a little hard to believe.”
“Believe what you like,” Jack snarled. “Clearly nothing I say is going to change your mind.”
“It might,” Ianto told him quietly. “If there was anything you could say.”
“They were murderers and torturers and thieves,” Jack muttered. “They deserved everything they got.”
Ianto just looked at him, face blank of all expression, and said, “Every single person on that ship, Jack? I really don’t think so. How many of them were just doing their jobs? You told me you used to be a Time Agent. It could easily have been you in the crew.”
“It wasn’t,” Jack pointed out sharply.
“What about the prisoners?” Ianto asked. “Were you the only one?”
Jack hesitated, then said, “There were eleven others.”
“Did they deserve to die as well?” Ianto said quietly. “Murderers, torturers and thieves? Or just innocent people, like you’ve never been.”
“Don’t you judge me,” Jack said fiercely, pointing accusingly at him. “You have no idea what it was like. What it is like. You don’t know how many times over we’d have died if I hadn’t been willing to go this far. We can’t all be saints.”
“We don’t have to be monsters either,” Ianto snapped, and grabbed his suit jacket and tie as Jack yelled, “I had no fucking choice! Why can’t you see that?”
Ianto turned towards the ladder, and Jack slid out of the bed, going over to him and catching his arm, saying pleadingly, “Ianto. I need you to understand me on this one. I need -”
“You don’t need me for anything,” Ianto said softly, avoiding his eyes. “I’m nothing to you. You only want me for sex, and you can easily find someone else for that. There’s plenty of people in Cardiff. You’ll replace me quickly enough.”
“No,” Jack said, trying to get Ianto to look at him, and feeling a sudden thrill of fear when Ianto pulled away from him and moved towards the ladder. “Ianto, no. You’re so much more than that.”
“If that’s true,” Ianto said, looking up, “then why did you wait to tell me about the ship until after you’d got me into bed?”
Jack stopped, deathly still, and Ianto watched him for a moment, then said, almost in a whisper, “I’m going home.”
“You can’t drive when you’re wounded like that,” Jack told him, and he snapped, “I’ll walk.”
“Ianto, you need to rest. Stay here,” Jack said gently, trying to approach him again. Ianto slapped away the hand he reached out, saying flatly, “I’ll be at work tomorrow, sir. I don’t think we should talk about this again.”
“Please,” Jack whispered as he started climbing the ladder. Ianto paused, then said, without looking back, “It would be best if we resumed a normal working relationship, as well,” and continued on his way out.
Jack stared after him, feeling the unaccustomed burn of tears in his eyes, then found his voice, yelling hoarsely, “Fine! You want it to be over, it’s over! And don’t come crawling back!” because he didn’t have the words for what he really wanted to say. He retreated back to the bed, despair and grief and guilt eating him from the inside out now he didn’t have Ianto to wash away his sins with kisses and caresses and soothing reassurances that he’d done the right thing - or at least, the only thing he could. He’d never needed that as much as he did now.
He stared at his hands, remembering red on white and seeing the same stains on his own skin. Even the tears that dropped onto his palms couldn’t wash them away.
Shaking, he curled up in his bed and pulled the covers over his head, starting to sob as it began to sink in that the one person he had come to rely on, to lean on, had stepped away and let him fall, alone. He didn’t know if he would ever stop falling.
Cocooned in the whiteness of the sheets, Jack felt like his soul had never been blacker.