Fic update!
Title: A DANCE TO THE BEAT OF EVOLUTION
Characters: Jack/Ianto
Rating: Open
Disclaimer: Not mine; they belong to RTD and to the BBC
Spoilers: Up to Series 2, episode 4
Summary: Tag to the end of the episode Meat
He'd been sitting and staring at the CCTV screen for a while before he registered the silent presence. "You can come in, you know," he said over his shoulder.
There was the faintest whisper of sound and then Ianto was there, a warmth just behind him. "You looked like you wanted to be alone," the younger man said gently.
Jack shuddered involuntarily at the thought. Alone. Dear Lord, he had had enough of being alone. He knew that Ianto had caught the shudder when he moved that little bit closer and Jack felt the feather-light touch of the back of Ianto's hand as it brushed against his cheek. He leaned into the touch, revelling in it.
"No, I didn't want to be alone," he murmured. There will be time enough for that, he thought bleakly and struggled to win free of the black mood that was claiming him. He reached forward to turn off the screen. Rhys and Gwen had long since left the area and he had been staring at the empty space they had left in their wake.
"I could retcon them both if you like," Ianto said mildly. "Rhys to forget everything and Gwen to forget that he ever knew."
After a moment, Jack blinked and gave Ianto a nonplussed look. "What about Tosh and Owen?"
Ianto shrugged. "It would take more work, and I'd have to doctor our records, but I could do it. I've done bigger jobs." He smiled faintly at the expression on Jack's face. "I had to organise a cover-up that involved an entire village when I was at London, not to mention an entire UNIT battalion. Now that was a challenge." The smile faded as he gazed at Jack. "Would it solve your problem?"
After a moment, Jack identified the feeling that was nudging the confusion to one side: alarm. He knew what Ianto was capable of when his emotions were running in harness with his intellect and the idea that he might get it into his head that Jack would be happier if this latest problem was swept under the carpet.... "No," he managed after a moment. "It wouldn't solve anything." He sighed and swung his chair completely around to face Ianto. "The problem isn't with the others. It's with me." Ianto said nothing but merely inclined his head. Jack blinked and then huffed a laugh. "But you already knew that," he realised, "and said what you said to make me realise it as well."
Ianto gave him that slow, secretive smile that Jack loved to see. It was always accompanied by the soft sparkle of mischief in his eyes, as he invited Jack to share in whatever marvellous joke had occurred to him. "I don't know anything about you for certain," he corrected. "I guess and I theorise and sometimes you let me know that I've got it right. That's one of the things I love about you."
Jack felt an unaccountable surge of happiness. "I have a great many sterling qualities," he agreed with becoming gravity. "Including modesty," he added, beating Ianto to it by a few seconds.
Ianto laughed and scoffed, but the gleam in his eyes told a different story and he was perfectly willing to let Jack pull him that little bit closer. Lacing their fingers together, Jack gave him a grateful look. "I appreciate the offer, 'Yan, but I'd rather not mess with the others unless it's for their own good. Right now it would just be for my peace of mind."
"I might be so bold as to point out that I consider your peace of mind to be of great importance," Ianto pointed out softly, gazing down at where their fingers were intertwined. He flicked a quick look up at Jack before looking away again. "I'm good at what I do, Jack. They wouldn't know any different."
"I don't doubt it," Jack conceded. "But I would know and so would you, and I'd really rather we cut back on the secrets and lies this time around."
This time the look he got was almost shy. "It was just a suggestion," Ianto admitted. "And I would prefer not to do it, if truth be told."
"Then we'll file it under Idea We Decided Not To Use and move on," Jack said with a smile. "Can I come round tonight?"
It was Ianto's turn to give him a bemused look. "You have to ask?"
"No," Jack shrugged, "but I prefer to. I like to."
"In that case I'm quite happy to have you keep doing so, and the answer is yes, please do. I might even cook."
Jack's eyes lit up. "I'd love to have bacon, eggs and mushrooms."
Ianto gave him a confused look. "I would have thought you'd like to have that for breakfast." Jack continued to look at him, and the light belatedly dawned and he laughed as he swatted at his Captain and got to his feet. "All right, I think I can be persuaded to cook you such a meal, sir, but in the meantime I have some paperwork to finish up and some shopping to plan."
Jack gazed after him with pleasure as he left. Damn, but he had been lucky. Lucky that Ianto was still alive, lucky that Ianto had somehow put his broken pieces together yet again after Jack's abrupt departure and lucky a thousand times over that the other man had been willing to give their relationship another try. It could have gone so horribly wrong at any given point in the timeline and there wouldn't have been a thing Jack could have done to prevent it.
He sighed as he flicked a glance at the darkened CCTV screen. Somewhere out there, Gwen had burned her bridges and committed herself to bringing Rhys into their world. Jack knew that she was storing up a world of potential heartache, but he knew she wouldn't listen to him if he tried to tell her. No-one walked their path and went untouched. It wasn't that you lost your humanity; it was that you learned that sometimes humanity wasn't enough. When the monsters came, they didn't care about hope or love or mercy. They came with rage and greed and malice, self-interest instead of self-sacrifice.
Every time he looked at Gwen he thought of Rose. He hadn't seen it, at first. He'd known an intense attraction, an instinctive rapport which had confused him. He'd mistaken it for desire, then realised it was nothing of the kind, and then had been thrown into confusion all over again when he had known a sense of devastating loss when she had told him she was getting married. He'd had plenty of time to think during the year-that-never-was and during that time he had come to realise that his attraction for Gwen was more spiritual than anything else. (And that had come as a considerable shock to him!)
He finally made the connection between her and Rose and realised that he had unconsciously looked to her to work the same kind of miracle on him that he had seen Rose work on the Doctor. Away from Rose, the Ninth Doctor had been a brooding and dangerous entity, brother to Chaos and full of dark, restless energy. In her presence, the anger became conviction, the chaos became creation, and the brooding was displaced by fond memories. She had taken a broken Timelord and forged him anew, turning his gaze outwards and tempting his spirit out of its self-imposed cage. Jack had recognised a lot of the Ninth Doctor in himself while he was hanging from those chains, and he had realised that he had hoped that Gwen would be able to remake him in the same way.
But she wasn't Rose. She had never been Rose. Jack had been doing a serious disservice to both Rose and Gwen by trying to make her into something she wasn't, and had no interest in being. Since he'd come back, Jack had been trying to force her back into that mould. He hadn't tried to do that with Ianto. He'd only made a half-hearted attempt to do it with Owen and Tosh. They'd refused to dance to his tune and he'd let them dictate their own dance-steps and he'd been pleased with what he had seen. Gwen, however, was a different matter. Gwen had to stay the way he had envisaged her in his mind's eye while he had died, been reborn and had died again. It had become an obsession, and like all obsessions, it blinded Jack to the truth.
Gwen had never been his talisman. Gwen had been his catalyst. She had been necessary - vital! - to make him see that the road he was travelling led to madness and despair. She had been the one to make him stop and really think about what he was doing and why. Ianto had been too distracted by his doomed attempt to save Lisa to either notice or care what Jack was up to. Tosh had been too diffident, Owen too self-absorbed and Suzie.... Jack winced and decided that he really didn't want to think about Suzie. He had many mistakes and regrets to mull over, but Suzie had a special ache all of her own. Gwen had come along at the right time and her fire and innocence had shaken him out of his complaisance, making him justify his actions and never taking a flat no for an answer. It had infuriated him even as it had intrigued, and somewhere along the line he had let her become something more than human.
It wasn't fair to her. It wasn't fair to himself, he admitted. He needed to change for his own sake, rather than for anyone else. There were things in his past that he would never want any of the others to find out about, but they had shaped him and he had to acknowledge them before he could set them aside. He wanted desperately to draw a line beneath those years and move on, seeking his own form of redemption in the man he was right now. Gwen always wanted answers and Jack simply couldn't give them to her. Better to let her go and find his own strength from inside himself. She deserved Rhys, who was a good and decent man, with a rare courage and conviction. Jack smiled softly to himself. They would have superlative children, full of fire and humanity, and he would be there to watch over them and see them grow.
He glanced down at his hands to see that he had bunched them into fists. He consciously relaxed them, spreading the fingers wide and breathing deeply. He had been marked by the past year, even if the scars weren't visible. Ianto knew something was wrong, but he was wary of asking too much, too soon. Jack sighed. He didn't want to burden Ianto with this. Too much of the younger man's life had been filled with blood and death; the last thing Jack wanted to do was to burden him with Jack's problems. Except that he already knew that something was wrong and Jack had already promised him that there would be fewer secrets and lies.
Breathing out a long lungful of air, Jack got to his feet and turned to look out over the Hub. A Hub that was different from the one he remembered but still had fundamental similarities. Just like his team. Looking out, he was in time to see Ianto come into sight and turn his head to look up towards him, a faint frown on his face. Jack slowly started to smile. Some things were still the same. He watched as Ianto's face cleared and he made an unmistakeable nod in the direction of the exit. Jack's smile widened as he nodded.
Maybe some things were better.
Characters: Jack/Ianto
Rating: Open
Disclaimer: Not mine; they belong to RTD and to the BBC
Spoilers: Up to Series 2, episode 4
Summary: Tag to the end of the episode Meat
He'd been sitting and staring at the CCTV screen for a while before he registered the silent presence. "You can come in, you know," he said over his shoulder.
There was the faintest whisper of sound and then Ianto was there, a warmth just behind him. "You looked like you wanted to be alone," the younger man said gently.
Jack shuddered involuntarily at the thought. Alone. Dear Lord, he had had enough of being alone. He knew that Ianto had caught the shudder when he moved that little bit closer and Jack felt the feather-light touch of the back of Ianto's hand as it brushed against his cheek. He leaned into the touch, revelling in it.
"No, I didn't want to be alone," he murmured. There will be time enough for that, he thought bleakly and struggled to win free of the black mood that was claiming him. He reached forward to turn off the screen. Rhys and Gwen had long since left the area and he had been staring at the empty space they had left in their wake.
"I could retcon them both if you like," Ianto said mildly. "Rhys to forget everything and Gwen to forget that he ever knew."
After a moment, Jack blinked and gave Ianto a nonplussed look. "What about Tosh and Owen?"
Ianto shrugged. "It would take more work, and I'd have to doctor our records, but I could do it. I've done bigger jobs." He smiled faintly at the expression on Jack's face. "I had to organise a cover-up that involved an entire village when I was at London, not to mention an entire UNIT battalion. Now that was a challenge." The smile faded as he gazed at Jack. "Would it solve your problem?"
After a moment, Jack identified the feeling that was nudging the confusion to one side: alarm. He knew what Ianto was capable of when his emotions were running in harness with his intellect and the idea that he might get it into his head that Jack would be happier if this latest problem was swept under the carpet.... "No," he managed after a moment. "It wouldn't solve anything." He sighed and swung his chair completely around to face Ianto. "The problem isn't with the others. It's with me." Ianto said nothing but merely inclined his head. Jack blinked and then huffed a laugh. "But you already knew that," he realised, "and said what you said to make me realise it as well."
Ianto gave him that slow, secretive smile that Jack loved to see. It was always accompanied by the soft sparkle of mischief in his eyes, as he invited Jack to share in whatever marvellous joke had occurred to him. "I don't know anything about you for certain," he corrected. "I guess and I theorise and sometimes you let me know that I've got it right. That's one of the things I love about you."
Jack felt an unaccountable surge of happiness. "I have a great many sterling qualities," he agreed with becoming gravity. "Including modesty," he added, beating Ianto to it by a few seconds.
Ianto laughed and scoffed, but the gleam in his eyes told a different story and he was perfectly willing to let Jack pull him that little bit closer. Lacing their fingers together, Jack gave him a grateful look. "I appreciate the offer, 'Yan, but I'd rather not mess with the others unless it's for their own good. Right now it would just be for my peace of mind."
"I might be so bold as to point out that I consider your peace of mind to be of great importance," Ianto pointed out softly, gazing down at where their fingers were intertwined. He flicked a quick look up at Jack before looking away again. "I'm good at what I do, Jack. They wouldn't know any different."
"I don't doubt it," Jack conceded. "But I would know and so would you, and I'd really rather we cut back on the secrets and lies this time around."
This time the look he got was almost shy. "It was just a suggestion," Ianto admitted. "And I would prefer not to do it, if truth be told."
"Then we'll file it under Idea We Decided Not To Use and move on," Jack said with a smile. "Can I come round tonight?"
It was Ianto's turn to give him a bemused look. "You have to ask?"
"No," Jack shrugged, "but I prefer to. I like to."
"In that case I'm quite happy to have you keep doing so, and the answer is yes, please do. I might even cook."
Jack's eyes lit up. "I'd love to have bacon, eggs and mushrooms."
Ianto gave him a confused look. "I would have thought you'd like to have that for breakfast." Jack continued to look at him, and the light belatedly dawned and he laughed as he swatted at his Captain and got to his feet. "All right, I think I can be persuaded to cook you such a meal, sir, but in the meantime I have some paperwork to finish up and some shopping to plan."
Jack gazed after him with pleasure as he left. Damn, but he had been lucky. Lucky that Ianto was still alive, lucky that Ianto had somehow put his broken pieces together yet again after Jack's abrupt departure and lucky a thousand times over that the other man had been willing to give their relationship another try. It could have gone so horribly wrong at any given point in the timeline and there wouldn't have been a thing Jack could have done to prevent it.
He sighed as he flicked a glance at the darkened CCTV screen. Somewhere out there, Gwen had burned her bridges and committed herself to bringing Rhys into their world. Jack knew that she was storing up a world of potential heartache, but he knew she wouldn't listen to him if he tried to tell her. No-one walked their path and went untouched. It wasn't that you lost your humanity; it was that you learned that sometimes humanity wasn't enough. When the monsters came, they didn't care about hope or love or mercy. They came with rage and greed and malice, self-interest instead of self-sacrifice.
Every time he looked at Gwen he thought of Rose. He hadn't seen it, at first. He'd known an intense attraction, an instinctive rapport which had confused him. He'd mistaken it for desire, then realised it was nothing of the kind, and then had been thrown into confusion all over again when he had known a sense of devastating loss when she had told him she was getting married. He'd had plenty of time to think during the year-that-never-was and during that time he had come to realise that his attraction for Gwen was more spiritual than anything else. (And that had come as a considerable shock to him!)
He finally made the connection between her and Rose and realised that he had unconsciously looked to her to work the same kind of miracle on him that he had seen Rose work on the Doctor. Away from Rose, the Ninth Doctor had been a brooding and dangerous entity, brother to Chaos and full of dark, restless energy. In her presence, the anger became conviction, the chaos became creation, and the brooding was displaced by fond memories. She had taken a broken Timelord and forged him anew, turning his gaze outwards and tempting his spirit out of its self-imposed cage. Jack had recognised a lot of the Ninth Doctor in himself while he was hanging from those chains, and he had realised that he had hoped that Gwen would be able to remake him in the same way.
But she wasn't Rose. She had never been Rose. Jack had been doing a serious disservice to both Rose and Gwen by trying to make her into something she wasn't, and had no interest in being. Since he'd come back, Jack had been trying to force her back into that mould. He hadn't tried to do that with Ianto. He'd only made a half-hearted attempt to do it with Owen and Tosh. They'd refused to dance to his tune and he'd let them dictate their own dance-steps and he'd been pleased with what he had seen. Gwen, however, was a different matter. Gwen had to stay the way he had envisaged her in his mind's eye while he had died, been reborn and had died again. It had become an obsession, and like all obsessions, it blinded Jack to the truth.
Gwen had never been his talisman. Gwen had been his catalyst. She had been necessary - vital! - to make him see that the road he was travelling led to madness and despair. She had been the one to make him stop and really think about what he was doing and why. Ianto had been too distracted by his doomed attempt to save Lisa to either notice or care what Jack was up to. Tosh had been too diffident, Owen too self-absorbed and Suzie.... Jack winced and decided that he really didn't want to think about Suzie. He had many mistakes and regrets to mull over, but Suzie had a special ache all of her own. Gwen had come along at the right time and her fire and innocence had shaken him out of his complaisance, making him justify his actions and never taking a flat no for an answer. It had infuriated him even as it had intrigued, and somewhere along the line he had let her become something more than human.
It wasn't fair to her. It wasn't fair to himself, he admitted. He needed to change for his own sake, rather than for anyone else. There were things in his past that he would never want any of the others to find out about, but they had shaped him and he had to acknowledge them before he could set them aside. He wanted desperately to draw a line beneath those years and move on, seeking his own form of redemption in the man he was right now. Gwen always wanted answers and Jack simply couldn't give them to her. Better to let her go and find his own strength from inside himself. She deserved Rhys, who was a good and decent man, with a rare courage and conviction. Jack smiled softly to himself. They would have superlative children, full of fire and humanity, and he would be there to watch over them and see them grow.
He glanced down at his hands to see that he had bunched them into fists. He consciously relaxed them, spreading the fingers wide and breathing deeply. He had been marked by the past year, even if the scars weren't visible. Ianto knew something was wrong, but he was wary of asking too much, too soon. Jack sighed. He didn't want to burden Ianto with this. Too much of the younger man's life had been filled with blood and death; the last thing Jack wanted to do was to burden him with Jack's problems. Except that he already knew that something was wrong and Jack had already promised him that there would be fewer secrets and lies.
Breathing out a long lungful of air, Jack got to his feet and turned to look out over the Hub. A Hub that was different from the one he remembered but still had fundamental similarities. Just like his team. Looking out, he was in time to see Ianto come into sight and turn his head to look up towards him, a faint frown on his face. Jack slowly started to smile. Some things were still the same. He watched as Ianto's face cleared and he made an unmistakeable nod in the direction of the exit. Jack's smile widened as he nodded.
Maybe some things were better.