Moving On - 14/18
Title: Moving On
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, references to past Ianto/Lisa
Rating: R
Disclaimer: If I was the one who owned Torchwood, you think I'd admit it now?
Spoilers: Some information and events from s1,2. None for s3.
Summary: Lisa is gone, and Ianto is starting to move on with his life, but it isn't always as easy as it sounds.
Author's Note: Sequel to Guilt and Turning Point.
Thanks to: My sister angelzbabe1989 for stepping in as beta, morbid_sparks for all of her support and idea bouncing through the writing of this, and pinkfairy727 for cheerleading even when she doesn't know what happens.
For previous chapters see Master list for this fic
Note #2: It's still Wednesday! For once!
Chapter Fourteen
“Do you think Gwen will be okay?” Ianto asked Jack, as he walked up behind him where he was examining the photos and documents that had been stuck up on the transparent board earlier that evening, before Jack had sent everyone home.
Jack turned, shrugging a little and looking worried. “I really don’t know. I hope so, but I couldn’t say. I’m not sure she completely believed my explanation of the possibilities surrounding future events.”
Ianto nodded thoughtfully. “It’s not going to be easy for her to get out of her head though. And you know she’s probably going to try to do something to stop it.”
“I know,” Jack replied. “Hopefully it won’t land her in trouble.”
Ianto could tell that Jack was very worried that it would; he could sympathise, he was worried himself. Sometimes Gwen let her heart rule her head, and when she thought she could help, would dive into a situation blindly without thinking it through. So far, in the month and a half she’d been at Torchwood, she’d been lucky; it hadn’t caused her any serious trouble. Ianto had a horrible feeling that might not continue indefinitely.
“I’m sure she…” he started, intending to reassure Jack, but was cut off when Jack’s phone rang. Jack frowned as he glanced at the display.
“Tosh? Is something wrong?”
Ianto watched as the furrows in Jack’s forehead deepened the longer he listened to whatever Tosh was telling him; evidently, it wasn’t good news.
“Okay,” he eventually said, sighing. “I’ll see you both in a few minutes then. We might have to go check up on this, just in case.”
He shook his head as he hung up. Ianto raised an eyebrow queryingly.
“Owen paid a visit to Ed Morgan this morning,” Jack said, tapping a few keys on his phone, presumably finding a number.
“And?” As worrying as that prospect was, Ianto wasn’t sure it warranted immediate investigation, so was sure there was more to the story.
“So, apparently, did Bernie Harris. Who furthermore tried his blackmailing trick on him.”
“Ah.” Given what both Gwen and Bernie had seen with the device, that could be a concern.
Jack tapped his foot as he waited for the other end of the phone line to be picked up.
“Gwen,” he said after a few seconds. “We may have a problem with Ed Morgan. Owen went freelance earlier and paid him a visit. Wanted to frighten him. Sounds like he succeeded. I think our friend Bernie Harris got there first. Tried to blackmail him.”
The cog door rolled open as Jack talked to Gwen, Tosh and Owen appearing through it.
Ianto didn’t even have time to greet them before Jack was bustling past. “Owen, with me!” he called back, twisting to walk backwards towards the door. “Tosh, Ianto, do what you can to find out something about this Ed Morgan. And keep an eye on the CCTV, in case Bernie does a runner.”
A moment later, he and Owen had disappeared across the Hub to the garage. Ianto drew across the chair he usually used in situations like this and sat down next to Tosh.
“I actually found Ed Morgan last night,” Tosh said as Ianto set up the CCTV monitors. “Well, his medical records anyway.”
Ianto nodded. He would never bet against Tosh in a search like that. “Anything interesting?”
Tosh brought up a new window on the closest monitor to her, fingers flying across the keyboard as she entered logins and security codes. Moments later, a page of text appeared, a washed out looking photo at the side. Ianto leant forward to read it.
“Paranoid delusions, severe depression, agoraphobia, violent fantasies,” he read off. “That’s a cheery combination.”
Tosh bobbed her head in agreement. “Apparently he hasn’t left his house in years.”
Ianto glanced around the monitors tuned to the CCTV network and something caught his eye on the corner of one screen. He looked back at Tosh’s screen for a moment to check; yes, that was him. “Until now, it seems,” he said, pointing out the staggering figure.
Tosh’s eyes widened and she tugged her desk comms. out from underneath a few papers. “Jack,” she said urgently, tapping them on. “Jack, we’re looking at the CCTV here and… it’s Ed Morgan.”
“What? Where?”
“Just turning the corner into Evelyn Street,” Ianto said, squinting slightly at the identifying text at the bottom of the CCTV image.
“That’s Bernie’s street!” The foreboding in Jack’s voice was evident even over the comms. “Keep an eye on him, let me know if anything changes.” The other end of the comms. went silent.
Ianto and Tosh had to switch to a different CCTV camera at the other end of the street to keep the man in frame as he made his way down the street. It wasn’t a brilliant picture - the camera was focussed more on the traffic lights at the nearby junction than on the quiet street behind - but it was clear enough that they could follow his progress.
He’d made it quite some way down the street when a figure appeared from one of the houses, stopping in the middle of the road, mere meters away from Ed Morgan.
“Damn, that’s Bernie Harris,” Ianto breathed as he recognised him.
He was joined a moment later by another person, coming out of the same house.
“And Gwen,” Tosh added, sounding concerned.
Ianto knew that, like him, she must be thinking about what Gwen had told them of her vision earlier that day.
Gwen and Bernie moved towards Ed Morgan, Gwen looking like she was trying to talk him out of something.
“Does… does he have a knife in his hand?” Ianto asked, squinting at the fuzzy image on the screen.
Tosh shook her head uncertainly, leaning forward. “I can’t tell. Maybe. There’s definitely something in his hand that’s worrying Gwen and Bernie.”
They moved closer again to Ed, and in the back of the picture, two shapes appeared that were instantly recognisable as Jack and Owen.
Ed lunged towards Gwen and Bernie - it was clear now from his movements that he did in fact have a knife, and he was aiming to use it on young Bernie.
Almost in a flash, Jack and Owen sprang forward and had Ed Morgan restrained between them. Bernie was sprawled across the ground where Gwen had shoved him out of the way.
Ianto breathed a sigh of relief. It looked like everything was going to work out okay after all. No one would die tonight.
Owen left Jack holding Ed, ducking to the ground to pick up something… Ianto assumed it was Ed’s knife.
His calm was swept away when, instead of packing it away safely, Owen stepped back to Ed Morgan’s side, the hand he’d used to pick up the knife hovering close to the older man’s face.
“What’s he doing?” Ianto said in puzzlement.
“He saw that attack, just like Bernie Harris did,” Tosh reminded him quietly. “He remembers feeling terrorised by Ed Morgan. It might not be rational, but I’d bet he’s looking for payback.”
“Just put down the knife,” Ianto chanted under his breath, willing the words to somehow reach Owen’s consciousness.
From the looks of it, Jack and Gwen were shouting something similar in person. Ianto could only hope Owen listened.
There was a long tense moment as Gwen inched towards Owen and Ed, her hands out non-threateningly in front of her. Ianto knew this could all go very wrong - it was the sort of thing you read in the papers every week. He could feel Toshiko on edge beside him, knew she recognised where this could end up too.
Even when Owen handed over the knife, he couldn’t quite bring himself to relax. The scene playing out before them was taking twists they could never have expected, and he wasn’t going to accept that it was truly over until everything was safely stored away and everyone had gone their separate ways.
Just for a second, it looked like it was over, and then Ed Morgan moved, running into Gwen and the knife without even a moment’s warning.
Ianto found himself frozen, watching the CCTV image in shock as Owen dropped to his knees, trying to save a man that only minutes before he had looked determined to harm.
Tosh was the one to make the move, typing in a few short commands to switch the CCTV images off. “Sorry,” she said softly. “I just couldn’t watch anymore.”
Ianto shook his head. “I don’t blame you.” He sighed. “Gwen is going to blame herself.”
He could see Tosh’s nod from the corner of his eye.
Jack’s voice burst through the comms. into the silence that had fallen over them. “We’ll be back in ten minutes,” he said, sounding weary. “I’ll see you then.”
The words spurred Ianto and Tosh into action. They spent the next ten minutes doing their best to prepare the Hub for the return of the others. All the photos and reports regarding the case were swept into a file folder; Ianto would get Jack to sort through it with him another time, after Gwen had gone.
Ianto also dug a thick fleecy blanket from a cupboard, and set some water to boil for hot sweet tea. From the little he’d seen just on CCTV, Gwen would probably be nearing a state of shock. He pulled out a few glass tumblers and a decanter too; if ever there was a night they would be needed, this was it.
Jack and Owen were supporting a shaky Gwen between them when they appeared from the garage a little over ten minutes later. Making one last check on the slowly steeping tea, Ianto grabbed the blanket and went to meet them.
Gwen barely seemed to notice as he, with a little help from Owen, wrapped it around her shoulders. Her gaze was fixed on the wall behind him.
“Hot tea in your office?” he asked Jack as they started to move again. Jack nodded silently.
By the time Ianto joined them in Jack’s office with the mug of sweet tea for Gwen, the others had discovered the glasses and decanter.
“Trouble is, you can’t just sit and look at it. You have to try to change it, make it different,” Jack was saying, head shaking, as Ianto handed the mug to Gwen, making sure her fingers were wrapped around it securely.
There was one filled glass left on the desk; Ianto picked it up, taking a sip.
“It’s not meant for us,” Jack continued, picking up the device. “Too many ghosts. We’d be lost.”
There was a moment of silence, all of them sipping from the drinks in their hands.
“Ianto,” Jack said, holding the device out to him without even looking.
Ianto drained the last few sips from his glass before taking it. “Secure archives?” he asked, more a formality than anything else. He knew that they all knew that was where this thing belonged.
Jack nodded.
It was the work of only a few minutes to sort out a holding box for the item before it would be entered into the secure archive, but it was long enough for the others to finish their drinks and - with a weary goodnight - drift out towards the cog door.
He was just closing the safe when Jack followed them, tugging a worn-out looking Gwen along behind him. Ianto hoped he could find a way to ease Gwen’s mind even a little before sending her home. He hoped even more that Gwen would find some way to talk to her boyfriend about it without giving away pertinent details. She needed that.
He’d almost finished drying Gwen’s now clean mug and their glasses by the time Jack reappeared, looking a little drained himself.
“She going to be okay?” Ianto asked as Jack came to join him in the kitchen.
Jack shrugged one shoulder. “I think so. Once she sorts it out in her head. A night’s sleep should help. Or, well, a morning’s sleep, now.”
Ianto glanced down at his watch and was shocked to see how late it was - or, as Jack had pointed out, how early.
“Yes, that really is the time,” Jack said just behind his ear, evidently having caught the glance. “You should go home too. Get some sleep.”
An unexpected yawn cut off the words Ianto had been about to say in response.
“Exactly,” Jack chuckled, spinning Ianto on the spot with a hand on his hip. “Go, sleep, and I’ll see you… later.”
The more they talked about it, the more tired Ianto found himself feeling, so he simply nodded and reached for his jacket.
“Oh, and Ianto?” Jack added before he could move away. Ianto paused and looked back, waiting for Jack to finish the sentence. “Tomorrow-tonight - Rift allowing, of course - I’m taking you to dinner.”
Ianto blinked at him, too tired to feel more than a faint burst of gleeful anticipation at Jack’s pronouncement. “Okay.”
“There are too many traumatised ghosts in this town,” Jack continued. “Let’s go out and make some happy ones.”
Chapter Fifteen
As always, comments and concrit are loved!
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, references to past Ianto/Lisa
Rating: R
Disclaimer: If I was the one who owned Torchwood, you think I'd admit it now?
Spoilers: Some information and events from s1,2. None for s3.
Summary: Lisa is gone, and Ianto is starting to move on with his life, but it isn't always as easy as it sounds.
Author's Note: Sequel to Guilt and Turning Point.
Thanks to: My sister angelzbabe1989 for stepping in as beta, morbid_sparks for all of her support and idea bouncing through the writing of this, and pinkfairy727 for cheerleading even when she doesn't know what happens.
For previous chapters see Master list for this fic
Note #2: It's still Wednesday! For once!
Chapter Fourteen
“Do you think Gwen will be okay?” Ianto asked Jack, as he walked up behind him where he was examining the photos and documents that had been stuck up on the transparent board earlier that evening, before Jack had sent everyone home.
Jack turned, shrugging a little and looking worried. “I really don’t know. I hope so, but I couldn’t say. I’m not sure she completely believed my explanation of the possibilities surrounding future events.”
Ianto nodded thoughtfully. “It’s not going to be easy for her to get out of her head though. And you know she’s probably going to try to do something to stop it.”
“I know,” Jack replied. “Hopefully it won’t land her in trouble.”
Ianto could tell that Jack was very worried that it would; he could sympathise, he was worried himself. Sometimes Gwen let her heart rule her head, and when she thought she could help, would dive into a situation blindly without thinking it through. So far, in the month and a half she’d been at Torchwood, she’d been lucky; it hadn’t caused her any serious trouble. Ianto had a horrible feeling that might not continue indefinitely.
“I’m sure she…” he started, intending to reassure Jack, but was cut off when Jack’s phone rang. Jack frowned as he glanced at the display.
“Tosh? Is something wrong?”
Ianto watched as the furrows in Jack’s forehead deepened the longer he listened to whatever Tosh was telling him; evidently, it wasn’t good news.
“Okay,” he eventually said, sighing. “I’ll see you both in a few minutes then. We might have to go check up on this, just in case.”
He shook his head as he hung up. Ianto raised an eyebrow queryingly.
“Owen paid a visit to Ed Morgan this morning,” Jack said, tapping a few keys on his phone, presumably finding a number.
“And?” As worrying as that prospect was, Ianto wasn’t sure it warranted immediate investigation, so was sure there was more to the story.
“So, apparently, did Bernie Harris. Who furthermore tried his blackmailing trick on him.”
“Ah.” Given what both Gwen and Bernie had seen with the device, that could be a concern.
Jack tapped his foot as he waited for the other end of the phone line to be picked up.
“Gwen,” he said after a few seconds. “We may have a problem with Ed Morgan. Owen went freelance earlier and paid him a visit. Wanted to frighten him. Sounds like he succeeded. I think our friend Bernie Harris got there first. Tried to blackmail him.”
The cog door rolled open as Jack talked to Gwen, Tosh and Owen appearing through it.
Ianto didn’t even have time to greet them before Jack was bustling past. “Owen, with me!” he called back, twisting to walk backwards towards the door. “Tosh, Ianto, do what you can to find out something about this Ed Morgan. And keep an eye on the CCTV, in case Bernie does a runner.”
A moment later, he and Owen had disappeared across the Hub to the garage. Ianto drew across the chair he usually used in situations like this and sat down next to Tosh.
“I actually found Ed Morgan last night,” Tosh said as Ianto set up the CCTV monitors. “Well, his medical records anyway.”
Ianto nodded. He would never bet against Tosh in a search like that. “Anything interesting?”
Tosh brought up a new window on the closest monitor to her, fingers flying across the keyboard as she entered logins and security codes. Moments later, a page of text appeared, a washed out looking photo at the side. Ianto leant forward to read it.
“Paranoid delusions, severe depression, agoraphobia, violent fantasies,” he read off. “That’s a cheery combination.”
Tosh bobbed her head in agreement. “Apparently he hasn’t left his house in years.”
Ianto glanced around the monitors tuned to the CCTV network and something caught his eye on the corner of one screen. He looked back at Tosh’s screen for a moment to check; yes, that was him. “Until now, it seems,” he said, pointing out the staggering figure.
Tosh’s eyes widened and she tugged her desk comms. out from underneath a few papers. “Jack,” she said urgently, tapping them on. “Jack, we’re looking at the CCTV here and… it’s Ed Morgan.”
“What? Where?”
“Just turning the corner into Evelyn Street,” Ianto said, squinting slightly at the identifying text at the bottom of the CCTV image.
“That’s Bernie’s street!” The foreboding in Jack’s voice was evident even over the comms. “Keep an eye on him, let me know if anything changes.” The other end of the comms. went silent.
Ianto and Tosh had to switch to a different CCTV camera at the other end of the street to keep the man in frame as he made his way down the street. It wasn’t a brilliant picture - the camera was focussed more on the traffic lights at the nearby junction than on the quiet street behind - but it was clear enough that they could follow his progress.
He’d made it quite some way down the street when a figure appeared from one of the houses, stopping in the middle of the road, mere meters away from Ed Morgan.
“Damn, that’s Bernie Harris,” Ianto breathed as he recognised him.
He was joined a moment later by another person, coming out of the same house.
“And Gwen,” Tosh added, sounding concerned.
Ianto knew that, like him, she must be thinking about what Gwen had told them of her vision earlier that day.
Gwen and Bernie moved towards Ed Morgan, Gwen looking like she was trying to talk him out of something.
“Does… does he have a knife in his hand?” Ianto asked, squinting at the fuzzy image on the screen.
Tosh shook her head uncertainly, leaning forward. “I can’t tell. Maybe. There’s definitely something in his hand that’s worrying Gwen and Bernie.”
They moved closer again to Ed, and in the back of the picture, two shapes appeared that were instantly recognisable as Jack and Owen.
Ed lunged towards Gwen and Bernie - it was clear now from his movements that he did in fact have a knife, and he was aiming to use it on young Bernie.
Almost in a flash, Jack and Owen sprang forward and had Ed Morgan restrained between them. Bernie was sprawled across the ground where Gwen had shoved him out of the way.
Ianto breathed a sigh of relief. It looked like everything was going to work out okay after all. No one would die tonight.
Owen left Jack holding Ed, ducking to the ground to pick up something… Ianto assumed it was Ed’s knife.
His calm was swept away when, instead of packing it away safely, Owen stepped back to Ed Morgan’s side, the hand he’d used to pick up the knife hovering close to the older man’s face.
“What’s he doing?” Ianto said in puzzlement.
“He saw that attack, just like Bernie Harris did,” Tosh reminded him quietly. “He remembers feeling terrorised by Ed Morgan. It might not be rational, but I’d bet he’s looking for payback.”
“Just put down the knife,” Ianto chanted under his breath, willing the words to somehow reach Owen’s consciousness.
From the looks of it, Jack and Gwen were shouting something similar in person. Ianto could only hope Owen listened.
There was a long tense moment as Gwen inched towards Owen and Ed, her hands out non-threateningly in front of her. Ianto knew this could all go very wrong - it was the sort of thing you read in the papers every week. He could feel Toshiko on edge beside him, knew she recognised where this could end up too.
Even when Owen handed over the knife, he couldn’t quite bring himself to relax. The scene playing out before them was taking twists they could never have expected, and he wasn’t going to accept that it was truly over until everything was safely stored away and everyone had gone their separate ways.
Just for a second, it looked like it was over, and then Ed Morgan moved, running into Gwen and the knife without even a moment’s warning.
Ianto found himself frozen, watching the CCTV image in shock as Owen dropped to his knees, trying to save a man that only minutes before he had looked determined to harm.
Tosh was the one to make the move, typing in a few short commands to switch the CCTV images off. “Sorry,” she said softly. “I just couldn’t watch anymore.”
Ianto shook his head. “I don’t blame you.” He sighed. “Gwen is going to blame herself.”
He could see Tosh’s nod from the corner of his eye.
Jack’s voice burst through the comms. into the silence that had fallen over them. “We’ll be back in ten minutes,” he said, sounding weary. “I’ll see you then.”
The words spurred Ianto and Tosh into action. They spent the next ten minutes doing their best to prepare the Hub for the return of the others. All the photos and reports regarding the case were swept into a file folder; Ianto would get Jack to sort through it with him another time, after Gwen had gone.
Ianto also dug a thick fleecy blanket from a cupboard, and set some water to boil for hot sweet tea. From the little he’d seen just on CCTV, Gwen would probably be nearing a state of shock. He pulled out a few glass tumblers and a decanter too; if ever there was a night they would be needed, this was it.
Jack and Owen were supporting a shaky Gwen between them when they appeared from the garage a little over ten minutes later. Making one last check on the slowly steeping tea, Ianto grabbed the blanket and went to meet them.
Gwen barely seemed to notice as he, with a little help from Owen, wrapped it around her shoulders. Her gaze was fixed on the wall behind him.
“Hot tea in your office?” he asked Jack as they started to move again. Jack nodded silently.
By the time Ianto joined them in Jack’s office with the mug of sweet tea for Gwen, the others had discovered the glasses and decanter.
“Trouble is, you can’t just sit and look at it. You have to try to change it, make it different,” Jack was saying, head shaking, as Ianto handed the mug to Gwen, making sure her fingers were wrapped around it securely.
There was one filled glass left on the desk; Ianto picked it up, taking a sip.
“It’s not meant for us,” Jack continued, picking up the device. “Too many ghosts. We’d be lost.”
There was a moment of silence, all of them sipping from the drinks in their hands.
“Ianto,” Jack said, holding the device out to him without even looking.
Ianto drained the last few sips from his glass before taking it. “Secure archives?” he asked, more a formality than anything else. He knew that they all knew that was where this thing belonged.
Jack nodded.
It was the work of only a few minutes to sort out a holding box for the item before it would be entered into the secure archive, but it was long enough for the others to finish their drinks and - with a weary goodnight - drift out towards the cog door.
He was just closing the safe when Jack followed them, tugging a worn-out looking Gwen along behind him. Ianto hoped he could find a way to ease Gwen’s mind even a little before sending her home. He hoped even more that Gwen would find some way to talk to her boyfriend about it without giving away pertinent details. She needed that.
He’d almost finished drying Gwen’s now clean mug and their glasses by the time Jack reappeared, looking a little drained himself.
“She going to be okay?” Ianto asked as Jack came to join him in the kitchen.
Jack shrugged one shoulder. “I think so. Once she sorts it out in her head. A night’s sleep should help. Or, well, a morning’s sleep, now.”
Ianto glanced down at his watch and was shocked to see how late it was - or, as Jack had pointed out, how early.
“Yes, that really is the time,” Jack said just behind his ear, evidently having caught the glance. “You should go home too. Get some sleep.”
An unexpected yawn cut off the words Ianto had been about to say in response.
“Exactly,” Jack chuckled, spinning Ianto on the spot with a hand on his hip. “Go, sleep, and I’ll see you… later.”
The more they talked about it, the more tired Ianto found himself feeling, so he simply nodded and reached for his jacket.
“Oh, and Ianto?” Jack added before he could move away. Ianto paused and looked back, waiting for Jack to finish the sentence. “Tomorrow-tonight - Rift allowing, of course - I’m taking you to dinner.”
Ianto blinked at him, too tired to feel more than a faint burst of gleeful anticipation at Jack’s pronouncement. “Okay.”
“There are too many traumatised ghosts in this town,” Jack continued. “Let’s go out and make some happy ones.”
Chapter Fifteen
As always, comments and concrit are loved!