Patchwork
Title: Patchwork
Author: sariagray
Characters/Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Gwen/Rhys, Esther, Mentions of original team.
Word Count: ~2200
Rating: PG13
Spoilers: Spans ALL seasons, and also references events from the radio play, The House of the Dead.
Warnings: Mentions of canon character deaths. Perhaps tissues should be had?
Disclaimer: I do not own Torchwood, its characters, or its environs, nor do I receive any monetary gain.
Beta: No one. All mistakes are mine.
Summary: Their lives are simply little moments, stitched together by a single thread.
Author's Note: Written for analineblue for her donation to help children in East Africa. She requested: Gwen + Ianto + Rhys friendship fic and then went on to say that she’d “take anything, really.” I hope this…delivers? ;)
Patchwork
We do not live an equal life, but one of contrasts and patchwork;
now a little joy, then a sorrow, now a sin, then a generous or brave action.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
In the days following Ianto’s death, Jack spent most of his mental energy composing letters in his head.
They were addressed plainly, and started with the same three words. “I’m sorry I….” Often, it would be an apology for some deep grievance they’d never actually addressed while Ianto was still alive, too afraid to speak anything aloud. “I’m sorry I left you” and “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner” and “I’m sorry I couldn’t save Suzie, or Lisa, or Owen, or Toshiko. Or you.”
Then the letter would inevitably devolve into a sort of one-sided, rambling dialogue as Jack organized his grief and tried to fold it away. “It was cold today. I checked on your family, please don’t be mad. They miss you. Gwen misses you, too. So does Rhys. They brought me lasagna, said you’d liked the sauce and Rhys had meant to make a batch for you a while back. It was good. Remember when she brought in that casserole he’d made and Owen ended up picking at it all day, finishing off the whole thing before lunch?”
But other times, Jack apologized for his smaller faults.
“I’m sorry I put your socks on the wrong cycle.”
“I’m sorry I never emptied the dishwasher.”
“I’m sorry I left the remote on the sofa.”
“I’m sorry I forgot to take my boots off when I came in.”
“I’m sorry I would rest my cold feet on your thigh.”
“I’m sorry I always woke you up in the middle of the night.”
Oddly, those letters seemed to hurt the most.
Rhys Williams was an ordinary man, not a dashing hero posing atop high, windswept towers. He was also no debonair suited man with twinkling, secretive eyes. He was certainly not a clever, jaded zombie medic, either, and thank goodness for that.
He was grateful for his ordinariness, as it made him an absolutely rare find in Gwen’s circle of male acquaintances.
As his wife slept, Rhys crawled out of bed. It’d just gone six in the morning and daylight was creeping in. He adjusted the blinds so that the sun wouldn’t wake Gwen up when it burst through the window. He bumped into the nightstand when he tried to pull on a pair of sweatpants and had to steady it with his hand, knocking Gwen’s mobile to the floor. He picked it up.
It was blinking at him incessantly and so he checked it. A text from an unidentified number. The message, though, was clear.
Temporal anomaly. Hub in lockdown. Tosh set up temporary base in her flat. Meet there @ 7. -IJ
Well, that was that, then. Sighing, he pressed a hand on Gwen’s shoulder.
“Love? Time to save the world.”
Gwen blinked awake blearily, groaned, and rolled over, covering her head with the duvet. “Just five more minutes?”
“Nope, you’ve got to be at Tosh’s for seven. Into the shower with you. I’ll fix breakfast.”
She swept the duvet off of her head and scowled, her hair going in all directions and her eyes barely open. “How do you know I have to be at Tosh’s for seven?”
“You’ve got a text from Ianto. You left your phone on silent. Come on, out of bed.”
She sighed and crawled wearily out of her nest of blankets and pillows. He watched as she padded barefoot around the room, picking up bits of clothing and putting them down again. He stretched, his back cracking. They needed a new mattress.
Gwen looked entirely lost, like their bedroom was alien territory.
“Go on, then, love,” he prompted gently. “Get in the shower.”
Finally, she smiled at him and kissed his cheek. This, surprisingly, was something that Torchwood hadn’t taken away from her; she was still just as utterly useless in the morning as she had been in uni. And Rhys wouldn’t change that for the world.
“But Cardiff beat Glamorgan!” Rhys protested as he took a swig of beer.
Gwen watched him fondly from her position in the kitchen. While she wasn’t a proper cook in the slightest, snacks were something that she could handle, especially the little frozen packaged ones that required only the ability to turn the oven on. Some game or another was blaring on the screen, an announcer rattling off stats the way Toshiko would rattle off a bit of maths or code that only Jack seemed to understand.
She heard Ianto laugh. “Yeah, 26-3. You’ve said. A real bollicksing, I know. But Newport-Pontypridd was more…exciting.”
“You’re just a hometown boy. Bloody Newport doesn’t know what they’re doing,” Rhys scoffed and took another swig.
Gwen used to follow the matches, as enthusiastic as Rhys when Cardiff won, but lately she’d lost track of it all. She blamed Torchwood, and wedding planning, and a whole host of other little things that got in the way of spending time in front of the telly. She wondered how Ianto had managed to find the time to keep up, and what Jack thought of it all. Speaking of….
“Is Jack coming by tonight?” she called, opening the oven door just as the timer beeped. She tried to turn the blasted thing off with her elbow and ended up knocking it into the sink.
“He said he’d try,” Ianto called back, “but I doubt it. He’s on a call with the PM and a representative from UNIT, and you know how long those can go on.” He paused. “Do you need any help in there?”
“No, not at all! Everything’s fine, just -” The side of the sheet pan caught her forearm and she cursed, dropping it on top of the stove with a clatter. She glanced at the small pink welt that had formed and sighed. The timer was still going off, muffled and echoing by the metal of the sink.
Somehow, Ianto and Rhys had managed to materialize right next to her. Ianto picked up the offending timepiece as Rhys guided her to the sink to run cool water over her arm. She laughed and swatted them.
“Go watch your match,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”
“Nope,” Rhys said, shooing her and Ianto out of the kitchen. “I’ll finish up here, you go watch. I’d like my food to be edible, thank you, and I’m sure Ianto feels the same.” He winked at Ianto and turned his attention to the range.
She settled on the sofa next to Ianto and picked up Rhys’ half-finished beer. She tried to pay attention to the match, but her focus kept drifting from Rhys, humming and bustling in the kitchen, to Ianto, watching intently and occasionally fiddling with his mobile.
It was nice, really, and normal. She let the simplicity settle around her like a warm blanket. Ianto picked up his mobile again and typed something out, a small smile on his face. Gwen nudged his calf with her foot.
“You’re missing the action,” she teased and her eyes widened comically as her mouth formed a small ‘o’. “Or are you?” She nodded at the device in his hand, her face breaking out into a grin.
He smirked through his blush and shrugged, reaching for his beer. “Jack’s been put on hold again. He’s bored and stroppy, but he says he’ll try to stop by.”
She nodded, hopeful, and nudged him again, this time with her shoulder. It was good when Jack stopped by; he was pleasantly subdued when he did, as though the domesticity soothed his unquiet mind. She was surprised to discover that he wore normalcy as well as he wore anything else, and it seemed to make Ianto happy, too. It looked good on them both.
Rhys stepped into the sitting room and put a hand on Ianto’s shoulder for leverage as he reached over to snatch his beer back from Gwen’s hand. Gwen pouted and Ianto reached into the case on the floor to hand her a new one, his eyes never leaving the game.
“Who’s winning?” Rhys asked, glancing at the screen.
Both Gwen and Ianto shrugged simultaneously and Rhys laughed.
Jack’s chin dug into Ianto’s shoulder as he brewed the first coffee of the morning, his hands coaxing the liquid from the machine with various twists and pulls. Arms encircled his waist and Ianto rolled his eyes with a small smile.
“Anyone ever tell you you’re clingy?” he asked and Jack snorted.
“I am not clingy,” he mumbled into the curve of Ianto’s neck. “Hm. You smell good.”
Ianto tilted his head to the side, giving Jack better access to the expanse of his throat, which was a decidedly bad idea; while he was showered and dressed, Jack was still in his vest and boxers, and a pair of ridiculous wool socks to keep his feet warm. They’d never get in to work on time at this rate. Sighing, he turned in Jack’s arms and pushed him away.
“Go,” he said. “Shower or no coffee.”
Jack scowled but did as he was told. It was strange, this new Jack who had appeared after Toshiko and Owen, after Gray and John, after baptism by Cardiff’s rich soil. He was more tactile than before, even compared to his return from his months-long hiatus, more desperate for affection.
Ianto leaned his hip against the counter and waited for the machine to finish its work, the warm smell of coffee filling his tiny kitchenette. He bit the inside of his cheek in thought and then opened the refrigerator. A quick catalog of the items within revealed that he had enough non-expired ingredients to put together a decent omelette. It’d be quick, and it’d been a good deal of time since they’d eaten more than a pastry for breakfast.
As he pulled out the carton of eggs, the shower shuddered on. In the kitchen, he could hear the water traveling through the clanking pipes. He glanced toward the bathroom door; there was a trail of clothing between it and the bedroom. Jack would pick it up on the way back from the shower to change, so Ianto simply smiled and shook his head. Somehow, they’d managed to meet each other halfway, and that was perhaps the scariest thing he’d experienced working for Torchwood; he felt that he was more on the line right now than he ever had been facing down weevils or crazed time travelers or armies of aliens bent on the domination of earth.
But there was nothing he could do about it, and he wasn’t sure that he’d want to change it, anyway.
Gwen resists the urge to tear apart the Styrofoam cup and instead rests her hands firmly on her thighs.
Esther’s watching them from the corner of the room. Gwen knows this, not because she can see, but because the typing has slowed to a staccato rhythm and her breathing has gotten quieter. Besides, Gwen knows she would do the same (had done, in fact) if given the opportunity.
Jack’s eyes flick from Gwen to the ceiling to the floor. Then he stares at his own hands, fidgeting with a napkin on the tabletop, a leftover relic from the Chinese they’d eaten earlier in the evening. She half expects him to fold it into a crane, but there’s too much of a tremor in his fingers to do more than crumple.
She takes a breath and lets it out slowly. Jack’s eyes fly back to stare into hers, to hold her in place. It’s partially her fault, she realizes, but in the midst of all of the newness, she’d wanted to talk about something she remembered, something familiar. The way things were, the way they should’ve been. Now she’s torn between wanting to console him and the urgent need to punch him in the jaw.
“It was right before you left Earth?” she asks, finally, unsure what else to say. So she interrogates. It’s what she’s good at.
Jack nods.
“And you didn’t tell me? You didn’t think I’d want to see him again, too?” Her voice rises and she can hear the absence of typing, the held breath, from the corner of the room.
“It was a suicide mission,” he grinds out between clenched teeth. “I wasn’t coming back.”
It’s a bit romantic, she thinks, and also the most insane thing she’s heard all month. “You can’t die. Or,” she waves her hand agitatedly, “you couldn’t then.”
“Oblivion. Nothing. Just nothing forever. I saw him again, and that’s all that mattered.”
Gwen’s hands clench at the fabric of her jeans. She knows that there’s something he isn’t telling her, but she’s long since learned to let him keep his personal secrets. It doesn’t matter now anyway, she tells herself. Jack stands up and runs a hand through his hair.
“He - he…really cared about you,” Jack stumbles through the words. “He trusted you. Probably more than he trusted me.”
And then he leaves. She doesn’t call him back, just stares at the place he had recently occupied and tries to see past the emptiness to the man she once knew. But he’s changed, and she’s changed, and the world’s changed, too. Los Angeles is sunny, bright and bold and warm, and all she wants is cold, dark, damp Cardiff, a pterodactyl, and a cup of coffee.
There’s a gentle hand on her shoulder, hesitant and barely making contact, but it’s enough to jolt her back into the present. Gwen smiles and Esther returns it.
The End
Author: sariagray
Characters/Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Gwen/Rhys, Esther, Mentions of original team.
Word Count: ~2200
Rating: PG13
Spoilers: Spans ALL seasons, and also references events from the radio play, The House of the Dead.
Warnings: Mentions of canon character deaths. Perhaps tissues should be had?
Disclaimer: I do not own Torchwood, its characters, or its environs, nor do I receive any monetary gain.
Beta: No one. All mistakes are mine.
Summary: Their lives are simply little moments, stitched together by a single thread.
Author's Note: Written for analineblue for her donation to help children in East Africa. She requested: Gwen + Ianto + Rhys friendship fic and then went on to say that she’d “take anything, really.” I hope this…delivers? ;)
Patchwork
We do not live an equal life, but one of contrasts and patchwork;
now a little joy, then a sorrow, now a sin, then a generous or brave action.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
In the days following Ianto’s death, Jack spent most of his mental energy composing letters in his head.
They were addressed plainly, and started with the same three words. “I’m sorry I….” Often, it would be an apology for some deep grievance they’d never actually addressed while Ianto was still alive, too afraid to speak anything aloud. “I’m sorry I left you” and “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner” and “I’m sorry I couldn’t save Suzie, or Lisa, or Owen, or Toshiko. Or you.”
Then the letter would inevitably devolve into a sort of one-sided, rambling dialogue as Jack organized his grief and tried to fold it away. “It was cold today. I checked on your family, please don’t be mad. They miss you. Gwen misses you, too. So does Rhys. They brought me lasagna, said you’d liked the sauce and Rhys had meant to make a batch for you a while back. It was good. Remember when she brought in that casserole he’d made and Owen ended up picking at it all day, finishing off the whole thing before lunch?”
But other times, Jack apologized for his smaller faults.
“I’m sorry I put your socks on the wrong cycle.”
“I’m sorry I never emptied the dishwasher.”
“I’m sorry I left the remote on the sofa.”
“I’m sorry I forgot to take my boots off when I came in.”
“I’m sorry I would rest my cold feet on your thigh.”
“I’m sorry I always woke you up in the middle of the night.”
Oddly, those letters seemed to hurt the most.
Rhys Williams was an ordinary man, not a dashing hero posing atop high, windswept towers. He was also no debonair suited man with twinkling, secretive eyes. He was certainly not a clever, jaded zombie medic, either, and thank goodness for that.
He was grateful for his ordinariness, as it made him an absolutely rare find in Gwen’s circle of male acquaintances.
As his wife slept, Rhys crawled out of bed. It’d just gone six in the morning and daylight was creeping in. He adjusted the blinds so that the sun wouldn’t wake Gwen up when it burst through the window. He bumped into the nightstand when he tried to pull on a pair of sweatpants and had to steady it with his hand, knocking Gwen’s mobile to the floor. He picked it up.
It was blinking at him incessantly and so he checked it. A text from an unidentified number. The message, though, was clear.
Temporal anomaly. Hub in lockdown. Tosh set up temporary base in her flat. Meet there @ 7. -IJ
Well, that was that, then. Sighing, he pressed a hand on Gwen’s shoulder.
“Love? Time to save the world.”
Gwen blinked awake blearily, groaned, and rolled over, covering her head with the duvet. “Just five more minutes?”
“Nope, you’ve got to be at Tosh’s for seven. Into the shower with you. I’ll fix breakfast.”
She swept the duvet off of her head and scowled, her hair going in all directions and her eyes barely open. “How do you know I have to be at Tosh’s for seven?”
“You’ve got a text from Ianto. You left your phone on silent. Come on, out of bed.”
She sighed and crawled wearily out of her nest of blankets and pillows. He watched as she padded barefoot around the room, picking up bits of clothing and putting them down again. He stretched, his back cracking. They needed a new mattress.
Gwen looked entirely lost, like their bedroom was alien territory.
“Go on, then, love,” he prompted gently. “Get in the shower.”
Finally, she smiled at him and kissed his cheek. This, surprisingly, was something that Torchwood hadn’t taken away from her; she was still just as utterly useless in the morning as she had been in uni. And Rhys wouldn’t change that for the world.
“But Cardiff beat Glamorgan!” Rhys protested as he took a swig of beer.
Gwen watched him fondly from her position in the kitchen. While she wasn’t a proper cook in the slightest, snacks were something that she could handle, especially the little frozen packaged ones that required only the ability to turn the oven on. Some game or another was blaring on the screen, an announcer rattling off stats the way Toshiko would rattle off a bit of maths or code that only Jack seemed to understand.
She heard Ianto laugh. “Yeah, 26-3. You’ve said. A real bollicksing, I know. But Newport-Pontypridd was more…exciting.”
“You’re just a hometown boy. Bloody Newport doesn’t know what they’re doing,” Rhys scoffed and took another swig.
Gwen used to follow the matches, as enthusiastic as Rhys when Cardiff won, but lately she’d lost track of it all. She blamed Torchwood, and wedding planning, and a whole host of other little things that got in the way of spending time in front of the telly. She wondered how Ianto had managed to find the time to keep up, and what Jack thought of it all. Speaking of….
“Is Jack coming by tonight?” she called, opening the oven door just as the timer beeped. She tried to turn the blasted thing off with her elbow and ended up knocking it into the sink.
“He said he’d try,” Ianto called back, “but I doubt it. He’s on a call with the PM and a representative from UNIT, and you know how long those can go on.” He paused. “Do you need any help in there?”
“No, not at all! Everything’s fine, just -” The side of the sheet pan caught her forearm and she cursed, dropping it on top of the stove with a clatter. She glanced at the small pink welt that had formed and sighed. The timer was still going off, muffled and echoing by the metal of the sink.
Somehow, Ianto and Rhys had managed to materialize right next to her. Ianto picked up the offending timepiece as Rhys guided her to the sink to run cool water over her arm. She laughed and swatted them.
“Go watch your match,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”
“Nope,” Rhys said, shooing her and Ianto out of the kitchen. “I’ll finish up here, you go watch. I’d like my food to be edible, thank you, and I’m sure Ianto feels the same.” He winked at Ianto and turned his attention to the range.
She settled on the sofa next to Ianto and picked up Rhys’ half-finished beer. She tried to pay attention to the match, but her focus kept drifting from Rhys, humming and bustling in the kitchen, to Ianto, watching intently and occasionally fiddling with his mobile.
It was nice, really, and normal. She let the simplicity settle around her like a warm blanket. Ianto picked up his mobile again and typed something out, a small smile on his face. Gwen nudged his calf with her foot.
“You’re missing the action,” she teased and her eyes widened comically as her mouth formed a small ‘o’. “Or are you?” She nodded at the device in his hand, her face breaking out into a grin.
He smirked through his blush and shrugged, reaching for his beer. “Jack’s been put on hold again. He’s bored and stroppy, but he says he’ll try to stop by.”
She nodded, hopeful, and nudged him again, this time with her shoulder. It was good when Jack stopped by; he was pleasantly subdued when he did, as though the domesticity soothed his unquiet mind. She was surprised to discover that he wore normalcy as well as he wore anything else, and it seemed to make Ianto happy, too. It looked good on them both.
Rhys stepped into the sitting room and put a hand on Ianto’s shoulder for leverage as he reached over to snatch his beer back from Gwen’s hand. Gwen pouted and Ianto reached into the case on the floor to hand her a new one, his eyes never leaving the game.
“Who’s winning?” Rhys asked, glancing at the screen.
Both Gwen and Ianto shrugged simultaneously and Rhys laughed.
Jack’s chin dug into Ianto’s shoulder as he brewed the first coffee of the morning, his hands coaxing the liquid from the machine with various twists and pulls. Arms encircled his waist and Ianto rolled his eyes with a small smile.
“Anyone ever tell you you’re clingy?” he asked and Jack snorted.
“I am not clingy,” he mumbled into the curve of Ianto’s neck. “Hm. You smell good.”
Ianto tilted his head to the side, giving Jack better access to the expanse of his throat, which was a decidedly bad idea; while he was showered and dressed, Jack was still in his vest and boxers, and a pair of ridiculous wool socks to keep his feet warm. They’d never get in to work on time at this rate. Sighing, he turned in Jack’s arms and pushed him away.
“Go,” he said. “Shower or no coffee.”
Jack scowled but did as he was told. It was strange, this new Jack who had appeared after Toshiko and Owen, after Gray and John, after baptism by Cardiff’s rich soil. He was more tactile than before, even compared to his return from his months-long hiatus, more desperate for affection.
Ianto leaned his hip against the counter and waited for the machine to finish its work, the warm smell of coffee filling his tiny kitchenette. He bit the inside of his cheek in thought and then opened the refrigerator. A quick catalog of the items within revealed that he had enough non-expired ingredients to put together a decent omelette. It’d be quick, and it’d been a good deal of time since they’d eaten more than a pastry for breakfast.
As he pulled out the carton of eggs, the shower shuddered on. In the kitchen, he could hear the water traveling through the clanking pipes. He glanced toward the bathroom door; there was a trail of clothing between it and the bedroom. Jack would pick it up on the way back from the shower to change, so Ianto simply smiled and shook his head. Somehow, they’d managed to meet each other halfway, and that was perhaps the scariest thing he’d experienced working for Torchwood; he felt that he was more on the line right now than he ever had been facing down weevils or crazed time travelers or armies of aliens bent on the domination of earth.
But there was nothing he could do about it, and he wasn’t sure that he’d want to change it, anyway.
Gwen resists the urge to tear apart the Styrofoam cup and instead rests her hands firmly on her thighs.
Esther’s watching them from the corner of the room. Gwen knows this, not because she can see, but because the typing has slowed to a staccato rhythm and her breathing has gotten quieter. Besides, Gwen knows she would do the same (had done, in fact) if given the opportunity.
Jack’s eyes flick from Gwen to the ceiling to the floor. Then he stares at his own hands, fidgeting with a napkin on the tabletop, a leftover relic from the Chinese they’d eaten earlier in the evening. She half expects him to fold it into a crane, but there’s too much of a tremor in his fingers to do more than crumple.
She takes a breath and lets it out slowly. Jack’s eyes fly back to stare into hers, to hold her in place. It’s partially her fault, she realizes, but in the midst of all of the newness, she’d wanted to talk about something she remembered, something familiar. The way things were, the way they should’ve been. Now she’s torn between wanting to console him and the urgent need to punch him in the jaw.
“It was right before you left Earth?” she asks, finally, unsure what else to say. So she interrogates. It’s what she’s good at.
Jack nods.
“And you didn’t tell me? You didn’t think I’d want to see him again, too?” Her voice rises and she can hear the absence of typing, the held breath, from the corner of the room.
“It was a suicide mission,” he grinds out between clenched teeth. “I wasn’t coming back.”
It’s a bit romantic, she thinks, and also the most insane thing she’s heard all month. “You can’t die. Or,” she waves her hand agitatedly, “you couldn’t then.”
“Oblivion. Nothing. Just nothing forever. I saw him again, and that’s all that mattered.”
Gwen’s hands clench at the fabric of her jeans. She knows that there’s something he isn’t telling her, but she’s long since learned to let him keep his personal secrets. It doesn’t matter now anyway, she tells herself. Jack stands up and runs a hand through his hair.
“He - he…really cared about you,” Jack stumbles through the words. “He trusted you. Probably more than he trusted me.”
And then he leaves. She doesn’t call him back, just stares at the place he had recently occupied and tries to see past the emptiness to the man she once knew. But he’s changed, and she’s changed, and the world’s changed, too. Los Angeles is sunny, bright and bold and warm, and all she wants is cold, dark, damp Cardiff, a pterodactyl, and a cup of coffee.
There’s a gentle hand on her shoulder, hesitant and barely making contact, but it’s enough to jolt her back into the present. Gwen smiles and Esther returns it.
The End