Fic: Ginko version 2
Okay, I'm posting a bunch of fic written over the last few months before the finale. This is the first of those. It's an alternate version of Ginko Biloba.
Title: Taiga
Rating: Mild
Characters: Mostly Ianto, Jack. Hints of Ianto/Jack
Spoilers: Up and including to Countrycide. Set shortly after that.
'Gwen, do you have that report yet? Now and again I like to pretend I care about the archives. Sorry to say, today is one of those days. Ianto, you and I are going for a little ride later this afternoon. There's something there I'd like to check on. So if there's anything you need to get done today, do it this morning.'
Gwen gave Jack a vague wave from her console, where she was typing. Judging by the same expression of too-studious concentration on Owen's face, they were up to something.
'I thought I was banned from field work, Sir' Ianto said, too stiffly.
'Relax. It's not a violent something. Probably. And you weren't banned. You're keeping your multiply-fractured skull out of the way of baseball bats and shotgun butts and safely in the hub until Dr Distracted over there pulls his nose out of his IM account and gives you the okay.'
Ianto nodded- a tiny, tight gesture. It hurt, but there was no way he was going to admit the headache to anyone, least of all Jack. The bruises were fading. Nothing else was. Just getting worse. Ianto needed them, but at the same time he was also angry at them for not being there. The worse the pain got, the more he craved something- friendship or kindness or respect- from the others, and the harder it was for him to connect with them. Ianto tried, sometimes desperately, to join in the jokes and do his job well, but it was getting harder, not easier. He couldn't watch them all laughing without bitterness that he'd been left out again, and so the distance between them grew even wider.
The grief wasn't easing. Jack knew from what Tosh had said, he hadn't been able to forget it even with death staring him in the eye. She couldn't remember exactly, but Jack had got the impression of loss ruling Ianto. Comments about all the others liking the danger, never thinking that they might lose someone they love. About no-one being there to protect him. Fear of being hacked apart and devoured had only brought the pain to the surface.
The worst thing was, Ianto knew what was happening and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Jack knew just how that felt. He was watching Ianto sink further into pain and rage, and there was no way in. If he could just grab the man and fuck him til he passed out, that might help. It would make Jack feel better anyway. But he couldn't. Couldn't even touch him anymore.
Aside from the way Ianto flinched when a hand came anywhere near his face, which spoke of more pain than he let on to Owen, Ianto hadn't even looked at him since they left the Brecons. As the police and the ambulances were loading up what was left of the village, he'd come out of the building and seen Ianto sitting on the open back of the rover, alone and holding his head in his hands, and again he'd done nothing. Too focused on the dynamic between Gwen and Owen, and the after-effects of adrenaline.
Ianto hadn't looked at Gwen since that day either. She'd been the one to grab him and hold him when Jack had broken in, but then she'd let him go and let him fall, because she needed to know. At the moment Jack had looked around, Ianto was lying completely motionless on the floor. Tosh and Owen were trying to deal with the blood and the screaming. As Jack saw him, Ianto pulled himself back up into a sitting position and worked the gag out of his mouth by rubbing it against his shoulder. A second later Tosh was kneeling beside him and Jack was already going with Gwen. It was only later that he realised that the cannibal freak hadn't been important. Jack deeply regretted not shooting the bastard and doing what really needed to be done. He should have ignored them all and gone and held Ianto and told him everything was going to be alright. If he'd said it then, maybe it would have been true.
Ianto shouldn't have had to drag himself back to his feet and stagger out the door, still handcuffed but leaving behind Tosh and Owen and all the gunshot howling in pain, which is how Tosh told the story. She was the only one Ianto even tried to talk to anymore. He was giving up, and Jack had let the one moment where he could have fixed it all pass by.
They walked out of Torchwood as the afternoon was fading into the evening. Jack was dressed like Jack, Ianto in the outdoor clothes he kept in his locker. Jeans, boots, and a heavy black jacket. If Ianto was surprised they weren't taking the rover, he didn't say so, and he didn't ask Jack what was in the big duffel bag he carried. He didn't raise an eyebrow when Jack bought train tickets, one way to Cardiff Rhoose Airport, and he sat quietly while Jack checked his bag and picked up two tickets. Ianto didn't ask where they were going.
He watched quietly as the plane for London Heathrow took off and the lights of Cardiff came on below them. Jack watched him looking down through the window and wondered if he was alright enough to realise it was beautiful.
Obediently, Ianto stood in line behind Jack at an international check-in desk at Heathrow. He showed them the documents- solid fakes, in Ianto's opinion, and his opinion was an educated one- Jack had handed him five minutes earlier.
'St Petersburg, Sir?' he finally asked, five minutes into the two hour wait for the plane.
'Sure, why not?' Jack grinned. Ianto nodded and settled back in the uncomfortable gate lounge chair. An hour into the flight he fell asleep. Every so often, Ianto reached up and touched his forehead where he'd been hit with the shotgun butt in Brynblaidd, without waking. Jack gritted his teeth and did not watch.
Late at night in a tiny Russian train station, they sat together under the harsh lights and watched trains come and go in the early morning cold. Jack was chilly even in the greatcoat, even though both he and Ianto had put on extra clothes from the duffel bag. Ianto said little and ate less. Both he and Tosh had gone vegetarian after the incident in the Brecons. Neither said a word about the awful cheap coffee. Without speaking a word of Russian, he couldn't be the one to go and get it, or buy tickets or take care of anything. Jack spoke the language perfectly. Ianto was completely dependent on him and withdrawn from the rest of the world. He sat silently, barely even there. His behaviour, or the complete absence of it, convinced Jack he was doing the right thing.
It was easier than Jack thought, to say nothing and sit next to Ianto watching the landscape pass by the train window.
They got off the train at a provincial stop and rested the night out in cold hotel beds that smelt of damp. When Jack went to wake him at dawn, Ianto was already up and shaving with a cheap disposable razor. In the cracked mirror, his eyes caught Jack's for a fraction of a second, and then he leaned down to wash his face with the icy water in the sink.
At the end of the train line, Jack hired a beaten-up four-wheel drive and loaded the back with cans of petrol, cheap sleeping bags and a box of wilting food. Jack drove on the tarmac until it ran out and then on the dirt and gravel. The forest closed in around them and their pace slowed. Ianto got out to move branches off the track without complaining about the frost on his hands. On long rutted stretches he walked beside the jeep and cleared the debris because it was quicker than getting in and out again. The cold grew more intense. Snow patched the road and the larch and pine branches. It wasn't winter yet, but their breath misted the air and Ianto kept his hands shoved deep in his pockets.
Jack pulled over early in the afternoon, easing the wheels off the track far enough that another car could pass, although they hadn't seen one since leaving the sealed road. He swung the duffel bag over his shoulder and passed Ianto a heavy canvas bag he'd bought in the village where they'd hired the car. They walked into the forest together.
It was dark under the trees, but there were patches of lighter space every few miles. Instinctively, Jack was steering the way from clearing to clearing even though they were boggy and difficult, moving from one bright place to another. Ianto followed quietly, paying attention to nothing but keeping the best path under his feet. As they walked, they ate cold boiled potatoes and chunks levered off a block of cheese for lunch.
Night came early and unexpectedly. In the gloom under the trees, it crept up on them. Ianto set up the tent and together they built a fire. Quickly and efficiently, Ianto boiled water and cut up the ageing vegetables. Even out here, the soup was hot and filling. Ianto was still Ianto, deep underneath. It was a comforting though for Jack as he lay awake and freezing in his sleeping bag, listening to Ianto breathe and wondering what would happen in the morning.
Dawn brought more tea and apples and cheese, and more walking, and more silence. As they got closer, Jack started to smile. Ianto noticed and shot him a look that might have been curiosity. They arrived at the promontory in mid-morning, and Jack called a halt by setting the bag down and gesturing at the rocks. They sat on rolled sleeping bags and waited, looking out over the wide patch of clear meadow from the little rocky knoll. Ianto rubbed his hands and wiggled his toes to try and keep warm, but he did it quietly, aware without asking that they were waiting for something.
Jack passed him a chocolate bar just in time to watch him almost choke on it when they appeared. Ianto's eyes widened and the hand holding the chocolate bar fell away, disregarded. The creatures lumbered out of the forest and across the clearing, first one, then a pair, and then the whole group of a dozen with three young ones close to their mothers.
'Jack-' Ianto whispered. Jack put a finger to his lips and pointed at the animals again.
The enormous red-brown, shaggy beasts were shaped like elephants, but their tusks curved differently and ice stuck to their pelts. They picked their way ponderously across the marshy, frosty clearing. Frequently, one would stop for long enough to grasp a particularly tasty plant with its trunk and sweep the whole thing into a huge waiting mouth. The little ones played, lumbering around the massive legs of the bigger animals chasing each other in an ungainly gallop. None of them cast so much as a glance towards the rocks where the watchers sat.
The herd took more than an hour to cross the clearing. Ianto stared into the darkness under the trees where they'd disappeared.
'Woolly mammoth...' he muttered.
'Yep. Don't you just love them?'
'I... Is there a rift here?'
'No rift. These guys have been here since the last ice age. Well, not these guys specifically. They're born, they die, in between they make more mammoths. They're kind of a secret, so this has to stay between us.'
'Why did you bring me here?' Ianto asked. There was no anger in his eyes, just enquiry.
'It's another 240 years before anyone notices the mammoths in the taiga. This whole forest is declared a reserve the week after. I thought you might like to get in before the tourist rush.' Jack shrugged.
Ianto looked back at the tracks of the mammoth, and Jack continued. 'I've got a soft spot for them. They've survived, through everything the world could throw at them, including the sum total of humanity, which is no small weight on the earth, let me tell you. They're fantastic, one of the universe's hidden treasures-' Jack paused and laid a hand on Ianto's knee. 'I'm so glad they held on. No matter how hard it was, and is. The world would be poorer without them. I'd be poorer without them.'
They sat under the edge of the trees for another few minutes. When the cold really started to bite, Jack looked back over at Ianto. He was still looking toward the place where the mammoth had left the meadow, but not at it anymore.
'You ready to go? We can probably get back to the road tonight if we pick up the pace a little.' Ianto said nothing, but he stood and hesitated for a split second, before offering Jack a hand up.
Half an hour later, the sound of Jack's laugh rang through the dark under the trees.
Title: Taiga
Rating: Mild
Characters: Mostly Ianto, Jack. Hints of Ianto/Jack
Spoilers: Up and including to Countrycide. Set shortly after that.
'Gwen, do you have that report yet? Now and again I like to pretend I care about the archives. Sorry to say, today is one of those days. Ianto, you and I are going for a little ride later this afternoon. There's something there I'd like to check on. So if there's anything you need to get done today, do it this morning.'
Gwen gave Jack a vague wave from her console, where she was typing. Judging by the same expression of too-studious concentration on Owen's face, they were up to something.
'I thought I was banned from field work, Sir' Ianto said, too stiffly.
'Relax. It's not a violent something. Probably. And you weren't banned. You're keeping your multiply-fractured skull out of the way of baseball bats and shotgun butts and safely in the hub until Dr Distracted over there pulls his nose out of his IM account and gives you the okay.'
Ianto nodded- a tiny, tight gesture. It hurt, but there was no way he was going to admit the headache to anyone, least of all Jack. The bruises were fading. Nothing else was. Just getting worse. Ianto needed them, but at the same time he was also angry at them for not being there. The worse the pain got, the more he craved something- friendship or kindness or respect- from the others, and the harder it was for him to connect with them. Ianto tried, sometimes desperately, to join in the jokes and do his job well, but it was getting harder, not easier. He couldn't watch them all laughing without bitterness that he'd been left out again, and so the distance between them grew even wider.
The grief wasn't easing. Jack knew from what Tosh had said, he hadn't been able to forget it even with death staring him in the eye. She couldn't remember exactly, but Jack had got the impression of loss ruling Ianto. Comments about all the others liking the danger, never thinking that they might lose someone they love. About no-one being there to protect him. Fear of being hacked apart and devoured had only brought the pain to the surface.
The worst thing was, Ianto knew what was happening and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Jack knew just how that felt. He was watching Ianto sink further into pain and rage, and there was no way in. If he could just grab the man and fuck him til he passed out, that might help. It would make Jack feel better anyway. But he couldn't. Couldn't even touch him anymore.
Aside from the way Ianto flinched when a hand came anywhere near his face, which spoke of more pain than he let on to Owen, Ianto hadn't even looked at him since they left the Brecons. As the police and the ambulances were loading up what was left of the village, he'd come out of the building and seen Ianto sitting on the open back of the rover, alone and holding his head in his hands, and again he'd done nothing. Too focused on the dynamic between Gwen and Owen, and the after-effects of adrenaline.
Ianto hadn't looked at Gwen since that day either. She'd been the one to grab him and hold him when Jack had broken in, but then she'd let him go and let him fall, because she needed to know. At the moment Jack had looked around, Ianto was lying completely motionless on the floor. Tosh and Owen were trying to deal with the blood and the screaming. As Jack saw him, Ianto pulled himself back up into a sitting position and worked the gag out of his mouth by rubbing it against his shoulder. A second later Tosh was kneeling beside him and Jack was already going with Gwen. It was only later that he realised that the cannibal freak hadn't been important. Jack deeply regretted not shooting the bastard and doing what really needed to be done. He should have ignored them all and gone and held Ianto and told him everything was going to be alright. If he'd said it then, maybe it would have been true.
Ianto shouldn't have had to drag himself back to his feet and stagger out the door, still handcuffed but leaving behind Tosh and Owen and all the gunshot howling in pain, which is how Tosh told the story. She was the only one Ianto even tried to talk to anymore. He was giving up, and Jack had let the one moment where he could have fixed it all pass by.
They walked out of Torchwood as the afternoon was fading into the evening. Jack was dressed like Jack, Ianto in the outdoor clothes he kept in his locker. Jeans, boots, and a heavy black jacket. If Ianto was surprised they weren't taking the rover, he didn't say so, and he didn't ask Jack what was in the big duffel bag he carried. He didn't raise an eyebrow when Jack bought train tickets, one way to Cardiff Rhoose Airport, and he sat quietly while Jack checked his bag and picked up two tickets. Ianto didn't ask where they were going.
He watched quietly as the plane for London Heathrow took off and the lights of Cardiff came on below them. Jack watched him looking down through the window and wondered if he was alright enough to realise it was beautiful.
Obediently, Ianto stood in line behind Jack at an international check-in desk at Heathrow. He showed them the documents- solid fakes, in Ianto's opinion, and his opinion was an educated one- Jack had handed him five minutes earlier.
'St Petersburg, Sir?' he finally asked, five minutes into the two hour wait for the plane.
'Sure, why not?' Jack grinned. Ianto nodded and settled back in the uncomfortable gate lounge chair. An hour into the flight he fell asleep. Every so often, Ianto reached up and touched his forehead where he'd been hit with the shotgun butt in Brynblaidd, without waking. Jack gritted his teeth and did not watch.
Late at night in a tiny Russian train station, they sat together under the harsh lights and watched trains come and go in the early morning cold. Jack was chilly even in the greatcoat, even though both he and Ianto had put on extra clothes from the duffel bag. Ianto said little and ate less. Both he and Tosh had gone vegetarian after the incident in the Brecons. Neither said a word about the awful cheap coffee. Without speaking a word of Russian, he couldn't be the one to go and get it, or buy tickets or take care of anything. Jack spoke the language perfectly. Ianto was completely dependent on him and withdrawn from the rest of the world. He sat silently, barely even there. His behaviour, or the complete absence of it, convinced Jack he was doing the right thing.
It was easier than Jack thought, to say nothing and sit next to Ianto watching the landscape pass by the train window.
They got off the train at a provincial stop and rested the night out in cold hotel beds that smelt of damp. When Jack went to wake him at dawn, Ianto was already up and shaving with a cheap disposable razor. In the cracked mirror, his eyes caught Jack's for a fraction of a second, and then he leaned down to wash his face with the icy water in the sink.
At the end of the train line, Jack hired a beaten-up four-wheel drive and loaded the back with cans of petrol, cheap sleeping bags and a box of wilting food. Jack drove on the tarmac until it ran out and then on the dirt and gravel. The forest closed in around them and their pace slowed. Ianto got out to move branches off the track without complaining about the frost on his hands. On long rutted stretches he walked beside the jeep and cleared the debris because it was quicker than getting in and out again. The cold grew more intense. Snow patched the road and the larch and pine branches. It wasn't winter yet, but their breath misted the air and Ianto kept his hands shoved deep in his pockets.
Jack pulled over early in the afternoon, easing the wheels off the track far enough that another car could pass, although they hadn't seen one since leaving the sealed road. He swung the duffel bag over his shoulder and passed Ianto a heavy canvas bag he'd bought in the village where they'd hired the car. They walked into the forest together.
It was dark under the trees, but there were patches of lighter space every few miles. Instinctively, Jack was steering the way from clearing to clearing even though they were boggy and difficult, moving from one bright place to another. Ianto followed quietly, paying attention to nothing but keeping the best path under his feet. As they walked, they ate cold boiled potatoes and chunks levered off a block of cheese for lunch.
Night came early and unexpectedly. In the gloom under the trees, it crept up on them. Ianto set up the tent and together they built a fire. Quickly and efficiently, Ianto boiled water and cut up the ageing vegetables. Even out here, the soup was hot and filling. Ianto was still Ianto, deep underneath. It was a comforting though for Jack as he lay awake and freezing in his sleeping bag, listening to Ianto breathe and wondering what would happen in the morning.
Dawn brought more tea and apples and cheese, and more walking, and more silence. As they got closer, Jack started to smile. Ianto noticed and shot him a look that might have been curiosity. They arrived at the promontory in mid-morning, and Jack called a halt by setting the bag down and gesturing at the rocks. They sat on rolled sleeping bags and waited, looking out over the wide patch of clear meadow from the little rocky knoll. Ianto rubbed his hands and wiggled his toes to try and keep warm, but he did it quietly, aware without asking that they were waiting for something.
Jack passed him a chocolate bar just in time to watch him almost choke on it when they appeared. Ianto's eyes widened and the hand holding the chocolate bar fell away, disregarded. The creatures lumbered out of the forest and across the clearing, first one, then a pair, and then the whole group of a dozen with three young ones close to their mothers.
'Jack-' Ianto whispered. Jack put a finger to his lips and pointed at the animals again.
The enormous red-brown, shaggy beasts were shaped like elephants, but their tusks curved differently and ice stuck to their pelts. They picked their way ponderously across the marshy, frosty clearing. Frequently, one would stop for long enough to grasp a particularly tasty plant with its trunk and sweep the whole thing into a huge waiting mouth. The little ones played, lumbering around the massive legs of the bigger animals chasing each other in an ungainly gallop. None of them cast so much as a glance towards the rocks where the watchers sat.
The herd took more than an hour to cross the clearing. Ianto stared into the darkness under the trees where they'd disappeared.
'Woolly mammoth...' he muttered.
'Yep. Don't you just love them?'
'I... Is there a rift here?'
'No rift. These guys have been here since the last ice age. Well, not these guys specifically. They're born, they die, in between they make more mammoths. They're kind of a secret, so this has to stay between us.'
'Why did you bring me here?' Ianto asked. There was no anger in his eyes, just enquiry.
'It's another 240 years before anyone notices the mammoths in the taiga. This whole forest is declared a reserve the week after. I thought you might like to get in before the tourist rush.' Jack shrugged.
Ianto looked back at the tracks of the mammoth, and Jack continued. 'I've got a soft spot for them. They've survived, through everything the world could throw at them, including the sum total of humanity, which is no small weight on the earth, let me tell you. They're fantastic, one of the universe's hidden treasures-' Jack paused and laid a hand on Ianto's knee. 'I'm so glad they held on. No matter how hard it was, and is. The world would be poorer without them. I'd be poorer without them.'
They sat under the edge of the trees for another few minutes. When the cold really started to bite, Jack looked back over at Ianto. He was still looking toward the place where the mammoth had left the meadow, but not at it anymore.
'You ready to go? We can probably get back to the road tonight if we pick up the pace a little.' Ianto said nothing, but he stood and hesitated for a split second, before offering Jack a hand up.
Half an hour later, the sound of Jack's laugh rang through the dark under the trees.