This was originally posted as part of the Janto challenge on
http://www.torchwoodforum.co.uk on a kiss between Jack and Ianto after Countrycide. I've put it here so it's easy for me to find again.
First time writing a fic, so please be gentle. Apologies for the length.
Diary
Week 42
Monday
Suspension finished last week. They are still tentative around me, all taking the time to thank me for little things. It makes it worse, I need meaning again. Jack has been trying to act the same as before he found out about Lisa. I know better, he still watches me. I said he was the biggest monster, those words lie between us. Do I want to take them back?
Tuesday
Report came in about a disturbance outside Cardiff out near the village of Brynnblaid (whoever named that village didn’t have a sense of humour). I had to locate the camping equipment from the archives, it obviously hadn’t been used since the 70s. Need to ask Jack who was in charge back then as they were not very tidy and very poor at cataloguing. Some of the items needed repairing, I thought I was over stitching things up. I was surprised to be told that I would be joining the team in the field. I am not sure why, I wanted to question Jack further but I can’t seem to speak to him like we used to. Flirting and banter was so easy before, now I feel that I don’t want to hurt him hurt anymore, I can’t find joy anywhere. Sometimes I want to stare at him, make him acknowledge me, but I am afraid of what I will see.
Friday
I was wrong, Jack is not the biggest monster. I hurt physical and mentally. Owen said luckily they are only bruised ribs, well I don’t feel so lucky. Bashed on the head, tenderised they called it and I had a cleaver at my neck and the hero saved the day. Tosh tried to shield me, I refuse to be shielded, I need to see everything. They are still trying to protect and coddle me, except Jack. Jack was fuming as he heard from Torchwood 2 today. They requested the lie detector. Jack refused, they still have the Dethlian Amos I sent up 6 months ago. Tardiness is not a virtue. Jack did ask Tosh to look at it before he sent it up and I suspect he ‘tweaked’ it so it doesn’t work properly. They haven’t seemed to have noticed that the Amos doesn’t work. Torchwood One had limited contact with T2 and now I start to understand why. That man is not all there.
Saturday
Jack told me to go home and rest, he said he was sorry to take me out into that field assignment. I wanted to yell at him but I can’t. I need Torchwood, I need to help, two innocent lives lost because of me. I stayed up at the front desk most of the day. Ventured out to look over the bay but the noise of the seagulls fighting teenagers for chips in the Plas was not calming. Jack might have said that he loves to hear my beautiful welsh vowels but there is nothing musical about a Cardiff girl screeching at a seagull and what ever boy she was with. So tired, my head hurts less from the beating. But the underlying pain is constant and never ending, does it actually stop during sleep? I think not as I wake each day with it still there.
Week 43
Thursday
Jack yelled at the Prime Minister yesterday. I know he thinks it is fun but I have to send the reports through and liaise with his Office. That man needs to have some things explained to him.
Well now I’m not the only one to bring a significant other into the hub without clearing it with Jack. Tosh, poor soul. She now looks at me even more with her sad eyes, it was bearable before but she hasn’t volunteered what she heard from me, I won’t ask her as she is struggling with loss. I know that pain.
Jack got me to interview Tosh, I think he knew that she would open up with me more than with Gwen. Maybe he thought I needed to do it too. He cares, I don’t want to see that, but I have to face it. Gwen and Owen have been hormonal all week. Rhys sounds like a nice chap. It would be nice to have a nice chap someone to come home to. Why do I feel like I am the only one that notices everything around here?
Saturday
I rambled Thursday and then Friday I couldn’t put it down on paper. I tried. I still
My pen hovers above the page and I can’t write it. If I write it, does that make it more real? Did I really do that? I need to write it.
I told Jack off. There I started. Can I finish? For the first time in over two months I looked him in the eye. I lie, last Wednesday I looked him in the eye after I lied. I was angry. At myself. He left me an opportunity to ‘fess up’ as he would say. I looked him in the eye and lied. Maybe I didn’t lie, semantics, do I want to argue ethics with myself?
Why does it hurt when I lie to him now, 3 months ago I lied with no compunction towards him. No that’s a lie, I lied the whole time I have been here and each time a little bit of me faded away. There is not much of me left I thought and yet yesterday I felt a small amount of joy.
I watched Jack and Tosh on the CCTV the other night, he looked so sad, he wanted to comfort her and protect her but knew that we each need to face loving and losing. Hard decisions need to be made, if we can’t make them we will die and so will many innocents. What loss has he suffered, who has he lost, who has betrayed him. Am I the biggest betrayal in his life? I have cried more in the past month in a very long time and yet the tears didn’t come when I watched Jack wipe the tear off from Tosh’s face. Mesmerised by that tenderness. I watched him walk away from her, back to the hub, back to me waiting at the front desk. I let him in and he walked in, no words said to me, I felt the pit of my stomach drop away, I wanted to call out to him, say something, watch him turn around. Then my stomach did drop away, he turned back and smiled that little smile where only the corner of his lips lift up and his remarkable eyes twinkle. “Dinner, Friday”. That’s it. That’s all he said and he walked into the hub. I misfiled. I never misfile.
Sunday
I’m still not sure if I can write it, I think of it and yet have hidden it from him, for them. I feel lighter. First time, no, not the first time. He brought me back. He kissed me, there in writing, does that make it more real. In the dark of night, in the shadows I have replayed waking and feeling soft lips on mine, tenderness, a hand gentle on my throat. Many a time I lay in bed and run my fingers over my lips, trying to replicate the feeling, the little tingles of wonder that I felt for those brief seconds where I felt more alive than I had for a long time. I remember back to my stalking of Jack. That moment lying on top of him, breath mingling, noses touching, his hand moving down my arm ever so slightly and I had not felt that tenderness in a long time, that need, that desire. My fascination with this man started then. He had to have known, I knew that he was fascinated with me. He’s not dense. Did I stop loving Lisa, can you love one and be fascinated by another? I was so absorbed in this man’s world. He made me forget Lisa when he touched me. I made sure after that day that I would flirt and tease but never touch. Touching him and I lost Lisa. I couldn’t do that; she had so much pain, so much promise. I loved her. But him
He said that he wanted to see the real me back. The Ianto that made him employ me. Not the jeans, not the coffee and aggression, the one that argues with him, the one that corrects him, the one that uses his brain and makes him laugh. He waggled his eyebrows when he said the one that wears those nice suits so well. The man would flirt with a chair if it could get him what he wanted. I know this and still I laughed. Still I watched that mouth and wondered if he could make me feel again. Still I told him about me, my Tad, about Lisa. I blamed it on the beer but I knew what I did. A kiss. Such a little thing to make one feel alive, real, meaning. So chaste, so quick and yet so poignant. Then a yell from lads on the other side of the road, and we broke apart. I swayed, pretended I was too drunk. Oh god lying to him again. I can’t stand to lie. I need to be honest with him. Do I dare? Please let this be a quiet week.
It’s the little things that become turning points. Will I dream of him again tonight, how long can I go before I touch him again?