The Man in the Tower (Part 3)
Rating: PG-13 (for now)
Word count: ~ 2,000
Warnings: Angst, canon character death in a decidedly non-canon way.
A/N: So this is still going, and I really have a ridiculous number of WIPs right now, don't I? -.- And there are more in the process of being fleshed out; someone needs to smack me and tell me to stop. Really. Please?
(Introducing McCaffrey’s antagonists into this universe, because they're just too good to waste. So, meet the Hive. I've taken liberties, of course, with them as well as the ethics of Talents killing with their abilities. I don't remember anything specific from the books-though it’s been a long time since I read them-but in my weird-ass universe, imagine it like a doctor taking part in torture; that's the kind of taboo it is. Not unheard of, but horrifying.)
Chapter Three
Nightmares drive Ianto from his bed before the off-shift cycle is even half done. He gives in, flees them and his too-cool sheets, because Tosh is no longer there to warm them and the surrounding darkness. He doesn't begrudge her the happiness she’s found with Owen, but he misses her all the more on nights like this.
When he retreats to the Prime station at the top of the tower and opens the clear dome, the stars above are bright enough that he can overlook the shadows. He curls up in his chair, feet tucked underneath him, and tips his head back to watch the universe slowly rotate past.
Jack finds him there, perhaps an hour later. His footsteps are silent as he approaches, and for once Ianto can’t hear the hum of another mind getting closer. Only the hiss and swish of cloth over cloth marks the Captain’s presence.
Because Jack is Jack-and Ianto is already familiar with his habits, his personality, after only a few weeks with him-he takes one look at Ianto and drops to the ground at his feet, leaning back against the chair.
“Lisa?” he asks after a moment. There's no pity in his voice, only regret and sympathy.
Ianto closes his eyes, feeling as though he should be surprised even when he isn’t. it seems inevitable that no matter what universe he’s in, Lisa will always be there, will always be the one to break him apart, drive him to the very brink and then leave him shattered, heartbroken, and utterly remade in her wake.
He nods, just once.
“Ah,” Jack says, and that’s all. He doesn't ask for the story, or how it happened.
Maybe that's why Ianto tells him anyway.
“I wasn't born a Prime,” he says softly, into the warm silence that’s filled the room. “My family is from a colony world, where Talents are rare. The central worlds have a higher population, and more chances for Talents to work. And Primes are usually born already showing their abilities. I was tested, as a child, but I was normal. There was nothing.”
Ianto hesitates, the next words impossibly difficult, and suddenly realizes that he’s never told anyone this before, that when it happened everyone already knew, had felt it themselves and didn't need his accounting. It’s a shock to realize.
He clears his throat sharply. “Lisa was a low-level empath, not powerful enough for anything but the most basic training. We grew up together, and I loved her.” Involuntarily, his hands clench into fists, and the arms of the chair creak warningly, even though he’s not physically touching them. “I loved her so much, Jack,” he whispers, feeling helpless.
Somehow, it’s not the shock it should be, Jack's head coming to rest gently against his thigh. The Captain doesn't look up at him, but out at the stars, giving the impression of openness without the expectation of waiting. Ianto loves him for it, just a bit, and reaches down to touch the solid firmness of his shoulder.
“There's an alien race we’ve been fending off for years now,” he manages after a moment, ignoring the roughness of his voice. “The Hive, we call them. They're a hive mind directed by Queens, and they want our worlds. One of the reasons UNIT and the Torchwood Towers exist is to guard against them, because though they're psychic, the Primes are better.”
There's a reason Ianto has never spoken of this to anyone, because the rage is already building, a living thing that wraps around his spine and eats at his gut. Jack's weight against his side is the only thing keeping him seated, keeping him from standing up and throwing things about, abusing his telekinesis as he hasn't in years. “They're supposed to be better, Jack. That's why we have them, why we have a First Prime on Earth. But Hartman was chosen for political reasons, not her power. When the Hive ships came to my world, Hartman should have linked all of the Torchwood and UNIT Primes together and used their Talents to drive the Hive off. But she wasn't strong enough, and there was no one else who could do it.”
The memory burns along his bones, sharp and bitter. A beautiful day, suddenly darkened by the shadows of countless dark ships. He’d been fifteen, hopelessly, helplessly adoring of Lisa, who was three years older, and who-improbably, impossibly-seemed to adore him in return. They were on a date when the Hive ships came, walking back to the town. Lisa was in his head, her emotions bright and sunny, the dark circle of an empath tattooed on her forehead no barrier to intimacy. Some people resented her for knowing their emotions, but to Ianto it was just another part of her.
And then the Queens struck, a vast hive-mind that overwhelmed every Talent on the entire planet, burst into their heads like the sharp stab of a blade and ripped them apart from the inside out.
They died, all of them, because Yvonne Hartman had maneuvered her way into a position that by rights shouldn't have been hers.
The Primes in the nearby Towers had tried to link together and drive the Hive away, but they were too week without the presence of the Primes from the central planets, who were on the whole far more powerful. The ships had started to send out drones, ready to wipe out the normals on the planet below, and twenty Primes had cried out simultaneously, reaching for anything, any way to stop the massacre that was coming.
And Ianto, only fifteen, had had Lisa in his head as she died. He had felt her life disappear into the darkness, seen her fall. And it did something to him, broke a part of him, remade the rest. He caught her limp, lifeless body and bore it to the ground as a normal, a non-Talent, and when he stood up again there were a hundred thousand voices in his head, two dozen Primes and a hundred Queens and countless drone-soldiers all beating at his mind like he’d never felt before.
It was Ianto who reached out to all of the other Primes, who grabbed them and reeled them in, wove them together and used the web of their power to hurl himself into space, to pull the Hive ships out of the air and break them into pieces. Always, always before they’d simply driven the Hive away, sent them spinning far back towards their point of origin, but Ianto had just seen his world all but destroyed, ten thousand Talents snuffed out in an instant, and he didn't care that all Talents were trained from birth to never, ever use their powers to kill.
Ianto reached out, seized every mind on those ships, every Queen on her throne, and shut them off forever.
He tells Jack, because he’s wanted to tell someone for years now, even though it’s never really registered. The old pain is there, the helpless fury, the rage at Hartman for being so grossly overconfident and dooming ten percent of a newborn colony’s population for the sake of her political position.
What he doesn't tell Jack is the horror that followed, the revulsion and dismay at the thought of a Prime with the ability to kill, and his exile to Torchwood Tower Three.
Jack is smart, though, Ianto’s fairly certain he knows anyway.
*.~.*.~.*
It’s petty and disrespectful to the dead, but Jack wants to curse Lisa Hallett and her hold on Ianto, the way she has-twice now-taken a bright and happy young man and turned him into something dark and broken.
He blames Hartman, too, of course; it’s her pride and arrogance that led to both tragedies, after all. But this tragedy was on a far different scale, ten thousand lives lost instead of eight hundred, and it’s sickening. There are so many parallels here, so many echoes and analogous events and equivalent people, that it’s driving Jack to distraction trying to keep everything straight.
He half-wonders what the Doctor will do when Jack doesn't make it to their planned meeting outside the Vespiform camp, but can't bring himself to care right now. Not with his head in Ianto’s lap, and Ianto’s fingers curled so gently in his hair. Not when Ianto is grieving here, and Tosh and Owen are in love, and Jack can have everything he’s lost, all at once.
He half-turns his head, catching Ianto’s hand as it slides from his hair, and presses a delicate kiss to the soft skin of his inner wrist. “Shh,” he murmurs, closing his eyes and bringing Ianto’s palm up to his cheek. “Shh. It’s in the past, and nothing you can do will change what happened. Sometimes, you just have to let things go.”
The experience behind the words is bitter. Jack's been alive for a long time, long enough to lose so many, many people. He knows how to deal with grief, even though he never does so particularly well. Eventually, it fades, and all that's left are the good memories, the happier times. Even though he’ll never forget, Jack can at least grieve and move on, rather than remaining stagnant forever.
He only hopes that Ianto can do the same, even without so many painful lessons behind him.
But, of the two of them, Ianto has always been the more practical. His fingers stroke gently over Jack's cheek as he sighs, long and soft, and sits back in the chair. “Yes,” he agrees on a breath, weary and heartsore but grudgingly acknowledging. “You're right, of course.” His smile is so very, very sad. “She’s gone, and she’s been gone for almost ten years now. It’s probably time I stop mourning.”
At those words, Jack has to wonder if anyone has ever actually listened to Ianto, because the man he sees now isn’t the same man he came across an hour ago, burdened and bent double under the weight of tragedies, sins, and dark memories. This man he sees now is lighter, if only a little, and his eyes are a bit brighter. When he looks at Jack, it’s no longer as if from a distance, but closer.
Almost close enough to touch, Jack thinks as Ianto looks down at him. Before he can think better of it, he’s reached forward, cupped Ianto’s cheek in his palm, and pulled him down into a kiss.
It’s good, for all it’s light and brief and flavored with surprise. Ianto only hesitates for a brief moment before he kisses back, mouth beautifully soft and pliant under Jack's fingers coming up to curl in Jack's braces. He’s warm and smoky and a little sweet, like the coffee he drinks far too much of, and his skin is smooth and firm under Jack's fingers.
It’s Ianto, no matter what universe he’s in, and Jack wants to cry.
He’d never thought to have this again, no matter how good the universe could ever possibly be to him.