It's Been A While (1/1)
TITLE: It's Been A While...
AUTHOR: naddypants
RATING: 15
CHARACTERS: Jack, Ianto, Tosh, Gwen, Owen.
SUMMARY: A year after Exit Wounds, they look back. (Totally not wanting to reveal too much)
WARNINGS: This is completely AU in terms of what happens. Ie, Owen and Ianto do a little swap.
A/N: Okay, firstly, this was a prompt from the lovely
just_being_me08 who is ever so supportive and always knows how to make me smile. Anyway, before she says anything, under SANSAP, I'm saying she deserves this. :P Also, thanks must go to to the amazing melthorne for betaing this for me, and generally being awesome.
DISCLAIMER: I own the action figures, 'cause I'm cool like that. The actual series etc, belongs to RTD and the big ole Beeb. I can't afford to be sued, I'm still in school!
Owen glanced at his mangled hand again. It was a constant reminder of how fragile he really was, and how he wasn't always capable of saving every single person all of the time. Today of all days, when he should want to feel completely alone, drown himself in sorrow, he wanted to be among friends, have something - anything - to distract him. Instead, he was wallowing in depression, left in total self-pity at the knowledge that even if he wanted to (and believe me, even if it was the last thing Owen Harper ever did, he'd want to) he couldn't cry. Not even the whirlwind of emotions swirling ferociously in his mind could urge a tiny drip of liquid out of his eyes...
He knew if he was still alive, he'd have gone on a self-destructive rampage to try and silence the thoughts that were cursing him, and nursed himself back from oblivion the next day. Now, all he could do was sit, sit and wait...
Although he'd never admit it, Owen cared, and sometimes it felt like he cared too much. He wondered how Jack coped through it all, a constant succession of love and loss. Now Owen had only been cursed with it for a brief while, and yet it already felt like too much...
He remembered back to that day, exactly one year ago and rage and hurt and a whole world of emotions he couldn't begin to describe welled up inside him. Sitting in the empty hub, slouched on the sofa as he couldn't bare the thought of the pain of seeing the graves again...
He remembered hearing a muffled conversation over the comms whilst he'd sprinted around the hospital, trying to save those whose life support had been cut off. He knew very few of them had a chance, but he had to do what he could.
He froze when he heard the chill in Tosh's voice. "We need to restart the Turnmill servers"
"What if you can't?"
"Then the reactor goes into meltdown"
"Then I'm going up there" He hadn't caught this much, forced to help revive a patient who had gone into VF, but somewhere subconsciously, his heart had skipped a beat at Ianto's decision.
"But Ianto-"
"Look, if we can't fix the remote servers, there must be something I can do on-site to prevent nuclear meltdown."
"That could be suicide"
"Are we gonna discuss it or are we gonna do it?"
"....Okay, but we both go."
Owen had been completely focussed on what he was doing, needing to save innocent people. Someone, anyone, but then with that almighty screech came an army of weevils and a panicked voice over the comms...
"Stay there......Owen, Gwen, can you hear me? The streets are flooded with Weevils. They came out of nowhere. There's no chance we'll get to the nuclear power station in time"
"Ianto leave it to me. I can get there," he replied, a plan forming in his head.
"How?"
"King of the weevils, remember?"
"No, I won't let you. You're fragile enough as it is. I can make it," Ianto responded, defiant, heroic.
"No Ianto"
"No Owen. I can get there in time. I just need Tosh to guide me through the codes. Owen you stay there and do what you're best at, Tosh go to the hub, help Gwen," and with that Ianto's comm unit clicked off and the sound of Tosh gently sobbing into hers filled his ears.
"Tosh," he whispered.
"Yes?"
"He's gonna be okay. Man of Welsh steel and all that"
"He's going to get ripped to shreds before he even gets there Owen," she half-screamed in his ear. "Please, follow him..." she whispered quietly.
Owen sighed, "Okay Tosh, I'll be with him soon, I promise. I'm not letting him go anywhere"
He heard her smile as the sound of her footfalls grew more rapid. "You better not"
Owen didn't know what had happened between him running after Ianto and arriving at the nuclear plant, but from Tosh's panicked voice raising in pace until it suddenly stopped, returning minutes later sounding somewhat strained he knew something was wrong. And suddenly he was torn. He knew he should help Ianto, but there was a part of him that thought Tosh had needed him, until she'd quietly reassured him...
Suddenly Ianto's voice was on the comms, sounding calm, but a hint of trepidation filling every vowel. "Tosh! It needs more. What's going on?"
She talked him through what was needed, a permanent lockdown, whilst Owen sprinted to find Ianto, time slowly running out...
"Thanks Tosh."
"IANTO GET OUT OF THERE! There's a power surge in the system; when that hits, it'll trigger an emergency lockdown-" Owen sprinted all the faster watching as a door with Ianto's face rapidly disappearing behind it come into view. His mind told him he had to stop it. There had to be some way to get Ianto out, and so as he neared it, the door just inches from closing, he thrust his hand between the wall and it, shouting as he did so, not in pain, but in the knowledge Ianto was now trapped inside...
"TOSH! I can't get him out!!!!" He shouted as his hand fell limply from between the pieces of metal.
And Ianto's cool, calm voice floated into his ear. "Really Owen, there's no need for such a ruckus. It's fine. The meltdown's stopped. My job is done."
"How the FUCK can you be so calm Tea Boy?! You're about to die and you're making like it's nothing. Stop it. Freak out! SOMETHING"
"Well you seem to be doing all the freaking out for me, so there's really no need. Uhm...Tosh?"
"Yes?"
"Is Jack about?" He asked, his voice suddenly wavering.
"I don't know..."
"Well, if you find him...can you tell him something for me?"
"Anything," she whispered, her quiet voice thickening with tears, her Japanese accent becoming more prominent as she became more emotional.
"Make sure he knows it wasn't painful. Even if you hear me screaming. Just make sure he doesn't know. Tell him it wasn't in vain...that I love him."
After that Owen did all he could to break down that door, raging, feral, completely controlled by his wayward emotions. He didn't need this. Ianto wasn't supposed to die. No one else was supposed to die. Not after he had...
"Owen stop!"
"Why? Why the bloody hell should I Ianto?"
"For a start it's making Tosh cry. And another," he heard Ianto's footfalls move closer to the door as his comms clicked off, feeling a weight rest on the other side of the door, and the noise of Ianto sliding to the floor against it ringing out loud and painful in the devoid of life building, a contrast to the screeching alarms, and a quiet Welsh voice whispered above it all, "I love you. Don't let this be the way I die... Now get out of here. Save yourself. Quickly!"
And Owen ran, ran as fast as he could from the one place he knew he wanted to be, to another where he was needed more desperately than he thought. He wanted to ask Tosh what was going to happen to Ianto, but the feeling that gripped his heart when he thought about it nearly crippled him. And so he put on his doctor face and made his way back to the hub...
Then a quietly defiant voice rang in his ear, "I should have been able to stop it!"
Owen shook his head and stopped running, knowing the worst had happened. "That means...? Look Tosh...there's no way you could have anticipated that power surge. Come on."
"I should have been able to save him"
A few minutes later he heard Jack's voice on the comms. "OWEN GET BACK HERE NOW!!!"
"And where the hell have you been?"
"Look Owen, Tosh is hurt, we can talk about this later, but I need you now!"
Then Gwen's voice sounded, questioning, "What about the nuclear plant?"
"Ianto's sealed inside," she gasped, Owen feeling completely helpless as he pelted down the streets of Cardiff, knowing he was going to be too late to save another life, "Stopped the blast...couldn't save him..."
And everything went silent. Owen could practically feel the tears running down Jack's face...
And he heard Tosh again, struggling, her voice getting weaker, like she was gathering the last of her strength to relay the message Ianto had given her. "Jack...he...he wanted you to know that it wasn't painful...that...that he loved you"
"Come on now Tosh!" Gwen said, desperately positive, but Owen knew by the sobs that followed from both her and Jack over the comms that he was too late.
And he had to live with that for the rest of his unnatural life...
Sighing, Owen sat up and unconsciously rubbed his face, as if he'd been crying, momentarily forgetting that he couldn't. That year had been filled with such guilt, such trauma, that he'd barely been able to look at his two co-workers, the ones who remained, and as much as they tried to hide it, he could see in their eyes that they thought at least Tosh's death was his fault.
But he had nowhere else to go. Where could a dead man go? He was left suffering, wallowing in his guilt as it threatened to swallow him whole, his remorse building every day.
Still they'd carried on though, a fractured unit they were, but they'd carried on nonetheless. It's not like the rift ever stopped to think that maybe it was a bad time.
Slowly but surely Gwen and Jack had forgiven him, citing grief as their reason for their bitterness, but Owen knew deep down that there was still a glimpse of hatred every time Jack looked at the lonely untouched coffee machine or Gwen glanced over to the seat next to her to find it empty. He dealt with it because it was the only way he could feel any redemption, like it was his punishment for it all...
Owen shook his head, trying to rid himself of the thoughts, to remember something positive... And then memories of the the six months Jack was away came flooding back, and he could almost see them in perfect clarity, Tosh quietly searching while Ianto peered over her shoulder, each happy in a way, of each other's company.
Falling back onto the sofa, his head thrown back, eyes screwed tightly shut, that pain around his heart gripped tighter and tighter. He'd held his head high for a year, but he couldn't stave off the memories any longer...
"Ianto he's been gone two months mate, you've been searching tirelessly, he isn't coming back."
"Take that back," the other man snarled at him.
Owen sighed and raised his hands. "This is me, backing off. Look, you've been at that bloody computer for days. At least go home and get some rest. Please, put my raging doctor's ego at ease for at least a few hours"
He watched Ianto shake his head. "No, I have to keep searching"
Owen shook his head in response and raised the flat of his hand, somewhat regretfully. "Snap out of it man!" he said, sending a sharp slap across Ianto's cheek; the sound echoing around the archives, making it sound like a succession of slaps rather than just the one, and if Ianto's reeling was anything to go by, he could have been forgiven for thinking Ianto had been repeatedly beaten round the head.
"Firstly, ow. Secondly, did you treat all your patients like that when they didn't do what they were told? Because really...Ow."
"I'm worried about you, you blind bloody idiot! You're going to exhaust yourself!"
"Since when did you care?"
"Uhm...since I was your friend, and technically your doctor too," he said, his voice wavering, giving away his hidden agenda. His hold on Ianto's gaze fell as the other man raised an eyebrow suspiciously, and within seconds he felt two surprisingly soft lips collide with his....
*****
"Iantoooooooooo. Do we have to? I mean I'm tired...and don't let that boost your ego either. Honestly, I don't think I can move my legs"
Ianto removed his arm from where it was possessively slung over Owen's stomach, sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. Owen watched as the soft light of dawn illuminated the young man's face, revealing tiny features that Owen had never noticed, and also reminding him of how young Ianto really was.... "As amazing as the sex was, I think we both know that you need to get up."
"Oh I can get that up just fine. It's rather standing vertically I'm worried about"
Ianto shrugged, "Crawl then. I can't wait to see the look on Tosh's face when you show up on all fours"
Owen pretended to scowl and slowly raised himself up. "You know sometimes I wonder why I put up with you"
"Because my coffee is amazing, you like my suits, I have the comfiest bed on earth and as you so delicately put it to the UNIT boss, "fuck Ianto that's the best blow job I've ever had"."
"More than that, but that's most of it yeah," he said, pressing his lips to Ianto's quickly before pulling his clothes on with haste.
Raising a hand to his lips Owen closed his eyes, remembering the taste on Ianto's lips perfectly, the subtle but ever present taste of coffee, and the more full flavour of salt, mixed with a soft perfume...
"Owen," he heard a sharp voice above him, snapping him from his memories.
"S-sorry," Owen stuttered out, without knowing why he needed to apologise, but that for the first time, as it was drawn from him so suddenly, that he'd genuinely meant it. It had been what felt like aeons since he'd meant an apology...
"Ianto what the hell are you playing at?"
"I told you already; how can I break it down any more?"
"What, and so just like that I become the part time shag's part time shag?" He spat.
"It's not like that!" Ianto had pleaded, knowing that he couldn't have the best of both worlds.
"Well why does it bloody feel like it?!"
"I'm sorry Owen," was all he'd had to say as he'd turned and stalked to the kitchenette, his expression returning to professionally cool as he disappeared from Owen's view.
"No I'm sorry Ianto. I'm sorry for falling in bloody love all over again," Owen whispered.
"Anything happen while I was gone?"
"Not a sound"
"Good"
"Nice day?"
"What do you think Owen?"
Well it's been a while since I've fucked things up irreversibly with my flippant attitude, he thought bitterly, mentally kicking himself... "Sorry," he repeated, pathetically, as he watched Jack swoop into his office without a glance back.
"Remind me again why we're putting a gravestone where there technically isn't a grave?"
Gwen shot him a warning look as Jack stared into the distance, eyes glazing over, before breaking down, collapsing on the floor as tears wracked through his body again. "Because it's the least he deserves," the older man gasped out between sobs.
And once more Owen felt guilt threaten to drown him...
As much as he was tempted to follow Jack into his office he knew it would do no good, and so instead he left, pacing along the quay as he tried to block out the consequences of that day. The succession of bad choices falling together like a house of cards, swiftly but nearly irreversibly, and now there were two very important cards missing, meaning the structure couldn't be completely rebuilt, more unstable than ever. If all it had taken to knock it over before was a soft rustling of the wind, the tiniest movement would cause it to come tumbling to the ground. If Owen was perfectly honest, it didn't feel like anyone had bothered to come and rebuild it at all.
And much as Owen longed to feel the wind on his face, have Ianto shout at him and tell him that he could pull through it, that death apparently wasn't the end for him, and he shouldn't let it be, he felt as though it had been too long since he'd had the chance to release any of his pent up emotions...
He knew he'd let his friends down, but what he didn't realise was that Gwen and Jack felt they'd let everyone else down too, they were all just too terrified to talk it over with each as they all knew they couldn't face the words that would be torn from each other and the raw edges of the emotions that would be harshly revealed to their team members. It was as if they were still afraid to be vulnerable, to tell each other of the feelings and trauma that they were sharing, to take some comfort from it....
*bites nails* Oh I do hope you liked it. :S Anyway, drop me a line and let me know what you thought. :) I'd appreciate it muchly, as I was terribly apprehensive about posting this. :S