Forgiven - 3/?
Tosh had never had a one night stand. She had never drank so much that she blacked out. She had never done drugs. Therefore, she was understandably confused why she woke up on her sofa with the light smell of male cologne in the air. Keeping her eyes closed in case whoever was in her house was watching, she thought back over the night. She remembered Mary and Jack and a deposition. She remembered coming home and curling up in a comforter that smelled like Mary, the same comforter she was wrapped in now. She remembered crying for hours on end, not knowing if it was day or night. She remembered a voice, a lone voice, calling for her, pulling her from her nest of comforter and bedpillows. She remembered….Ianto!
Apparently she had called his name aloud, for the object of her concern answered. His “Yes, Tosh? Are you awake?” was a bit muffled. Tosh sat up and looked around, jerking in surprise when Ianto came out of the hallway without his jacket and waistcoat, his tie undone, and his sleeves rolled up.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, bowing his head. “I meant to be right next to you when you woke up.” Tosh said nothing, just watching him. He slowly eased himself closer to her, taking small steps and holding his hands by his side in a nonthreatening gesture. She took pride in watching him approach her like she was a frightened animal. She's always liked playing zoo as a child. She'd never picked carnivores though, only the soft, cuddly pandas or the bright, cheerful tucans. She was proud that he had become the hunter. It was better than seeing him frightened in the Beacons. It was a bit like watching a child take its first step.
So lost in her thoughts, he was suprised that he was suddenly standing in front of her. He reached down and gently pushed the comforter from around her shoulders. He pulled it from her iron grasp, slid his hands under her arms, and pulled her up against his chest. Her arms went instinctively around his waist. They stayed like that for a long time, Ianto’s hands rubbing soothing circles on her back and carding through her now-greasy hair. When he finally stepped back, Tosh noticed just how cold she was when she wasn’t next to him. How was it that he seemed to know exactly what she needed?
Ianto smiled gently when he saw her start to shiver. “Come on then,” he said. “I noticed you start moving around before so I drew you a bath. Added a bit of lavender oil; it boosts endorphins in the brain.” He grabbed one of her hands and began guiding her down the hallway.
Tosh’s mind couldn’t fathom why Ianto would be drawing her a bath and so latched onto the only thing she could understand. “But I don’t own lavender oil.”
He chuckled. “I know. You’re usually strictly mango and peaches. I brought the lavender.” When Tosh still looked confused, he elaborated. “You body and mind are still in shock. You need to warm up and relax; a bath does that at the same time.”
When the entered the bathroom, Tosh saw that Ianto had indeed filled the tub with water and soap bubbles. The light smell of soothing lavender filled her nose, and she didn’t even realize that she had closed her eyes and taken a deep breath until she heard Ianto laugh. He turned to her, shrugging, and said, “I’ll leave you to it, then. Take as long as you want; I’ve got enough to keep me busy.”
“Please, Ianto….I just….I mean….I don’t want to be alone right now.”
Ianto’s pale cheeks turned pink. “But Tosh, you’ll be in the bath. Without clothes. Naked. I mean, you’ll be naked and I”ll be here, and I’ll see you naked and-“
Tosh laughed for the first time all night. Here was a man who handled dead bodies, weevils, cannibals, and Canary Warf. And what flustered him? Tosh in her birthday suit. She held up a finger, motioning for him to wait a moment, and went into her bedroom. She emerged a few minutes later in a rather old, but well-loved, bathing suit. Ianto smiled.
“Right, then,” he said. “In with you.”
When Tosh lowered herself into the bubbles, Ianto dipped a washcloth in the water and lathered up some soap he had found on the side of the tub. Her heard Tosh’s intake of breath, saw her face blanch.
“She…Mary, she used that soap,” Tosh said anxiously. Ianto looked at the bottle, nodded, and threw both the soap and the cloth into the hallway. He rummaged in the cupboard under the sink and found an old bottle of peach bath gel and a new cloth. When he looked back at Tosh, her face was blank, her knees pulled up to her chest, and her arms wrapped around them. He gently began washing her neck, slowly crooing old Welsh lullabies that his father had sung whenever he was ill. At first, Tosh didn’t respond. But slowly, her arms loosened and her legs lowered. She let her head drop forward as Ianto washed that as well.
Finally, Ianto called to her. “Um, Tosh…I know we worked out the whole ‘seeing your coworker naked’ thing, and believe me, I’d do just about anything for you right now, but would you be able to wash your legs? That’s just a bit, well….personal…for me.”
Tosh’s head popped up and she smiled at Ianto. She touched the side of his face and nodded. “It’s ok. You go on outside. I’ll be out in a few minutes.”
Ianto stood and motioned to a small pile of warm woolen bedclothes next to the toilet. Tosh hadn’t noticed them before, but was thankful that he seemed to have chosen the least sexy and most comforting pair she owned.
Ianto had expected Jack’s call much sooner. It had been four hours since the bath, during which time Ianto had gotten Tosh to eat half a bowl of soup and a slice of thick crusty bread. She didn’t question where the food came from. For all she knew, Ianto was the keeper to a secret doorway into another world filled with magically refilling coffee and an endless supply of sweets. Perhaps that’s the same world socks went when they were in the dryer. She giggled.
When Ianto answered Jack’s call on his mobile, Tosh lifted her head from the crook of his shoulder. They were laid out on her sofa, watching horrible evening trash television, two mugs of cooling tea on the floor. Ianto had refused to make coffee; she didn’t understand why. While Ianto was reassuring Jack that everything was fine and that he would see to it that a delivery of coffee from the shop round the corner made its way to the Tourist office every hour, Tosh took the opportunity to really look around her sitting room.
Where once her bookshelves had been coated in dust, now they shined. There was a light smell of lemon in the air, and she was amazed to see that she could actually see out her window. But it was the floor that surprised her. Originally rich mahogany, it was the floor that sold Tosh the apartment. But after years of neglect and long hours at Torchwood, she had let the wood become dull and faded. Now, though, it gleamed, its original brilliance restored.
When Ianto ended the call, she looked up at him “Ianto? Did you clean my flat?”
Ianto had the good sense to look embarrassed. “I may have picked up a bit here and there while you were asleep to make it a bit easier for you.”
“And you cooked soup?” Ianto nodded.
“Ianto, you held me, let me cry, gave me a bath, cleaned my flat, scrubbed my floors, cooked soup, and are watching TV with me.” She looked at him curiously. “Who did this for you?”
Now Ianto was the one confused. “How do you mean, Tosh?”
“When Lisa was…well, after Lisa. Who stayed with you? Who held you and made you soup?”
Ianto swallowed and looked away, refusing to allow his feelings to affect Tosh in any way. Today was about her, her pain, her anger, her hurts. It wasn’t about him. He grieved alone, in silence, not when others needed him more.
“Oh, Ianto. I’m so sorry. You were gone for a month, and I just thought….Well I don’t know what I thought. I assumed Jack or Owen was checking up on you.”
Ianto looked back and attempted a grin. “It was different with me, Tosh. I betrayed them.”
“How is what I did any different?!”
“Because you didn’t knowingly do it. You did it because you loved her and thought she loved you. I tricked Jack into taking me in, stalked him and begged him. Practically bribed him with a dinosaur. Then I betrayed him and almost killed anyone. It’s just different.” Ianto took a deep, shuddering breath and pasted his professional work face back on. “I should be going. If I’m going to be any use tomorrow I’ll at least need a fresh set of clothes. What would you like me to tell Jack?”
“How can you stand him, Ianto? After everything he did to you, to me?”
“He loves us, Tosh, all of us. He flirts and he shags, but there’s this emptiness inside him. We fill part of it, and because of that he loves us. He never wanted to hurt you. I may not agree with how he did it, but he was so worried that Mary’d hurt you or Gwen or Owen, or even the world if she got that far. “
“And what about you? He ordered you to kill her, Ianto! He ordered you!”
“Were you there, Tosh? At the Tower for the clean-up?”
Tosh was confused by this sudden turn. “Yes. Jack had us come down.”
“There was no power, just emergency generators. Nothing. Emergency lights, but nothing other than that. The units….they just stopped. All of them. The knives…oh god, Tosh…the knives coming down from the ceiling. You could feel them, moving the air above your head. One minute they were moving and you were screaming and crying and pleading and begging god for it to end just so you wouldn’t have to think about it anymore….and then they just stopped. Everything stopped. Lisa…..Lisa stopped. That’s why she was only partly converted.”
Ianto opened his eyes and two tears drifted down his face. His voice cracked with the telling. “She was in so much pain, Tosh. I had to rob a chemist for pain meds, just to keep her lucid. She screamed, begged me to end it at first, and I couldn’t…I just couldn’t…..But maybe I should have. I don’t know. I couldn’t see it, Tosh, couldn’t see the threat. All I saw was the woman I loved, the woman I was going to ask to marry me that weekend. And no matter what happened, I would never have seen the threat. Jack had to stop her. I hate it, and part of me still hates him for hurting her, but he had to do it.”
Ianto stood up, peeling himself away from an astonished and silenced Tosh. She watched as he gathered his things, put on his waistcoat, tied his tie, added his jacket, and laid his coat over his arm. She was frightened by how many layers he put on, finally realizing just how much of a shield the tailored suits and expensive fabrics were. He turned back to her, gave her a small smile with no hint of the demons he had just spoken of and said, “I’ll tell Jack you’ve decided to take tomorrow off, eh? I have a surprise for you, something I think you’ll enjoy. Have a good night Tosh. Try not to stay up too late. You slept a lot today, but your body still needs the rest.”
He opened the door and walked out into the hallway. As he clicked the door shut, Tosh whispered a pained thank you. He never heard it.