Kryptonite | Chapter 1
Title: Kryptonite
Rating: M (NC-17). Strong mentions of sex, suicide, and other angst in a similar vein.
Characters/Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Gwen/Rhys, Martha, Rhiannon, others may crop up as well.
Spoilers: Set after Exit Wounds
Summary: After 2,000 years buried beneath Cardiff, Jack's mind is crumbling. Ianto will do anything to avoid losing him again - but how do you fix a broken man?
A/N: This was originally a one-shot of the same name for my "What Cannot Be Expressed" Series. I was encouraged by several people to feel that this was a subject that hasn't received enough coverage, and that it would be better suited as a series. It's named after a song called "Kryptonite" by 3 Doors Down; I'm trying to put a relevant line from the song as a subheading for each chapter. I have no beta, therefore all mistakes are mine - if you spot any mistakes grammatically, please do not hesitate to let me know and I'll change it.
Disclaimer: If I owned Torchwood, the long-lasting repurcussions of actions and events would be properly explored. Obviously, I do not own Torchwood. Hence...FanFiction.
Masterlist | Next Chapter
Kryptonite
"I watched the world float to the dark side of the moon."
The mortuary door closed smoothly and cleanly, the body inside catalogued and filed; just one more number on a long, long list of numbers.
The clipboard in Ianto's hand trembled ever so slightly as he stared at the smooth, polished surface. The silver metal of the mortuary seemed to shimmer slightly in the aged, flickering lights of the oldest part of the Torchwood Hub, giving the room an uncertain, timid feel. It was serene, almost, in its dull quaintness. Had the casual observer been given the choice, they would certainly not have perceived this room to be the place where a thousand dreams had shrivelled and died.
Ianto shivered again, the cold breeze of the room clinging to his skin and causing the hairs on his neck to rise. He had been in this room a thousand times before; his job was decidedly morbid, enough so that he had been numbed to the thought that a thousand dead bodies lay behind each of those numbered doors. That's all they were to him now - numbers. Files in a draw, locked away and out of sight. It was easier that way.
At least, he thought it was.
That was until he found himself closing the door on Toshiko Sato. Something about the once olive skin, turned paler than should be natural with the trauma of death; those bright, intelligent eyes that had once flickered sarcastically across the room, lit up with an indescribable light whenever that infamous "Eureka!" moment had hit, now dulled to a endless stare; something about the empty void that he could feel with every breath, made this so much harder. This was not like any other body he had sorted and catalogued, not like any other life he had diminished into a few words in a yellowing filing cabinet.
Every stroke of the pen on the paper brought images of Toshiko, smiling, crying, sparkling and so damned alive. Each reminder of a life cut short was like a knife being run across his skin, each word noted down like a punch deep into his gut. His whole body trembled with the pain, the uncertainty, his writing unsteady and unlike the neat scrawl that littered so many documents in the archives. He closed his eyes, breathed in slowly, and opened them again; something within him told him that all he was doing was destroying the memory of his friend, diminishing and reducing her with each "i" dotted and each "t" crossed.
But it had to be done - he gripped the pen tighter in his grasp, his teeth sinking deeply enough into his bottom lip to draw blood as he struggled to still the uncontrollable spasms running through the muscles of his arm. The filing, the numbers, usually brought him a sense of security, a sense that he was somehow in charge of a situation that was steadily spiralling out of control. This was protocol, this was duty, this is what had always been done and would continue to be done, even when it was him lying motionless in that cold, silver coffin.
It had to be done…it had to be finished.
Completing the form with a final swipe of his pen, Ianto released the breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding and let the clipboard fall to his side. The wooden corner hung limply by his left leg, deflecting gently off his thigh as he tried to force some oxygen back into his brain. It felt as though there were hands tightening around his neck, and he struggled to push the blood-flow back into his brain; he could barely conjure up a coherent thought, and yet he knew he had to. It was what he needed to do, because that's what he did. He was Ianto Jones, the oil that kept the cogs of Torchwood turning, and that wasn't going to change now.
Straightening his shoulder and reasserting that butler posture he had perfected, Ianto began to turn, forcing his brain to concentrate only on putting one foot in front of the other. This was just another body, another job, another Torchwood casualty filed away and forgotten.
Only, this time, it wasn't.
Stopping suddenly, Ianto swallowed hard and let his body turn around of its own accord, walking back and crouching down next to the silvery dullness of the mortuary drawer. A painful lump gathering at the back of his throat, he reached up and ran his hand gently over the un-polished surface. He let his fingers trail across the letters as slowly as a single tear tracked a steady path down his face.
" 'Bye, Tosh."
***
Ianto emerged into the uncomfortable silence of the Hub just as Gwen was getting ready to leave. Her bottom lip was trembling gently, her face contorted with the effort of keeping her face as steady as possible. As much as she tried to hide it, her pain was obvious to Ianto even from the other side of the base. He turned his face away, heading down to the autopsy bay to begin the grim task of cleaning away the red stain across the white tiles. It wasn't a job that he was looking forward to, but it was his job; considering the circumstances, it was all he could do.
A hand on his arm stopped him as he reached the stairs, lips brushing gently onto his cheek as slim arms drew him into a soft hug.
"Promise me you'll look after yourself as well, okay?"
Ianto nodded as Gwen pulled back, flashing her a slightly watery smile. She squeezed his arm one more time, her mouth turning upwards as far as she could manage, before leaving him to the job that she knew he wouldn't let himself not do. The lights at the cogwheel door flashed as she left, leaving the heavy air of the Hub for what was hopefully some semblance of comfort in the arms of her husband. Ianto smiled sadly, the thought causing him to cast a glance towards Jack's office; he knew he would probably have to be comforter tonight, and the prospect scared him.
Ianto had never felt himself to be particularly good at comforting. It had been one of the most painful things to tug at his heart when he was still hiding Lisa - watching her scream and cry, try to fight the monstrosity inside her, and unable to do or say anything to make it feel better. If she had had someone else, he had thought, maybe they could have alleviated the pain with their words, with their touch. Maybe, he had often told himself, she would have survived, would have been able to fight the cyber-technology successfully if only she had had someone who knew the right words.
For now, however, he had a job to do. Descending quickly to the white glossiness of the autopsy room, he retrieved the mop bucket and got to work removing the last remnant of Tosh's brief life from the floor. His heart clenched as he thought of what she had been reduced to; a white figure in a morgue drawer, a number on a file, a red stain on the floor. Perhaps he was making it worse, confining her to her metal coffin and removing her last trace as if it were a spilt drink. Perhaps it would be easier to leave it.
But he couldn't. There would be new teams, new missions, new Toshes and Owens and Iantos and Gwens, new lives and deaths, new numbers on a file and new mortuary drawers filled. Life had to move on because that was what it did, he thought, that was what it always bloody did, never giving you time to grieve and to hurt and to get over the pain. If you didn't move with it then you shrivelled and died. Jack had taught him that.
"You can't be helped unless you help yourself."
Suddenly, a shot rang out, shattering the stillness of the Hub. Ianto's head jerked upwards, the echo ringing in the air around him; he could feel his heart beating frenetically, almost jumping out of his chest with sheer panic. He remembered all those time when a gun had taken everything away from him…Lisa, Tosh, Owen…his childhood.
Blood pooling on the floor…white tiles stained red…screaming…lots and lots of screaming…
A second gunshot shattered his reverie, pulling him out of his memories and forcing his limbs to move. He hadn't moved this fast since he'd heard Jack's panicked cry upon finding Tosh; sprinting as fast as his tired muscles would carry him, he took the stairs of the autopsy room two at a time, his sense leading him instinctively to Jack's office. He knew he should have been there, should have followed Jack out of the morgue instead of staying to complete the paperwork...but there was just so much he'd had to do. The filing, the recording, the cleaning - Ianto had needed to do it, needed some pretence at normality, at control. He gulped as he neared the door to Jack's office; it obviously wasn't enough.
The sight of Jack lying motionless on the floor hit him like an arrow between the eyes, his hands instinctively going into spasm, clutching at the doorframe and to keep himself upright. He wanted to gag, to curl into a ball and pretend that the last twenty-four hours had never happened, that he wasn't seeing this, wasn't feeling this. But, of course, he couldn't. He was the one who kept Torchwood working, kept it all running smoothly - that role hadn't changed.
Inching forward, he lowered himself to the floor beside the prone form of his lover. The redness soaked into the material of his trousers, mingling with the flecks of Tosh's blood that were already there. He could see the weapon, Jack's Webley, still clutched in Jack's fingers, cold and clawed in the spasms of death. There was something strangely surreal about the situation - he had seen Jack die many times, seen him sacrifice himself for the greater good, but this was different. It was almost as if some ritual had taken place, something sacred which Ianto couldn't quite comprehend.
Reaching out tentatively, Ianto ran his fingertips up Jack's chest, pulling away the tattered fragments of his shirt so that the bullet hole in his chest would heal cleanly. His eyes flickered to the wound on Jack's forehead as he did so, the gentle stream of red leaking in between his eyes sending an uncomfortable tremor through his gut. Why Jack didn't just shoot himself in the head, he didn't understand; a macabre part of Ianto's brain needed to understand why Jack would cause himself the pain of a chest shot before ending it all. Why did he…?
"Oh God."
The sudden realisation of what Jack had been trying to do caused him to tug at the collar of Jack's shirt, drawing his head onto his lap and cradling him as gently as possible. Jack had wanted to hurt before he died…he'd been trying to punish himself, to take away the pain in his heart by transferring that pain to his body. A slow tear trailed down Ianto's cheek, the only sign that he was breaking inside. He'd trained himself to hold his emotions in check for as long as was humanly possible, and he was not going to be a mess when Jack woke up.
A gargled cry filled the air as Jack lurched forward, dragged cruelly back into life for the thousandth time. Ianto clutched at him as tightly as possible without hurting him, trying to reassure both Jack and himself that he was real, and solid, and here. Jack flailed madly for longer than was normal, pushing against Ianto frantically - more for selfish reasons than anything else, Ianto refused to let him go, carding his fingers trough his hair and clasping him to his chest.
Eventually, Jack calmed down, his breathing steadying as his eyes met Ianto's. Ianto tried a smile, feeling it slip of his face as the light of recognition in his lover's eyes failed to come on.
"Jack?" Ianto cupped his face gently, running a tentative finger along his jawbone. "It's Ianto."
Jack's gaze faltered, his irises moving uncertainly around the room before resting back on Ianto's face. Ianto felt a flip in his stomach as he saw some semblance of recognition, of memory in Jack's eyes. He tried to smile again, brushing his thumb across Jack's lips, frowning as Jack pushed his hand away and sat up. Ianto pulled his hand back abruptly, not wanting to do anything Jack didn't want him to do; he didn't know what was wrong, what was happening, but there was something missing in Jack's eyes.
Before he could figure out what, the Captain turned to him again, letting his weight sag slightly against the young Welshman's chest; Ianto responded by slipping his arm around Jack's shoulders, pulling him as close as he dared. Ianto could see that Jack recognised him, and that, at least, lifted a heavy weight from his shoulders.
But when he looked into Jack's eyes, saw the dull emptiness behind those pupils, felt the tremors in Jack's body as he held him; he felt a heavy pressure pushing down on him again, forcing the air from his lungs.
Something was very wrong.
Masterlist | Next Chapter
Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it. The next chapter is already written, so it should be up very soon. After that, however, you're going to have to bear with me, as it's been a long time since I tried to write a multi-part fic. Don't be afraid to shout at me if I'm taking too long.
I love constructive criticism, and depend on it to improve my work. So, please, don't hesitate to speak youir mind.
Again - thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed.