Forgiven - 4/?
Instead of going straight home as he planned, Ianto drove. He drove for hours, down highways, country lanes, one-car bridges. He drove until he hit water. He didn't realized how far he’d driven, adn the only town name he'd seen was for Kingston-upon-Hull, and that had been a while ago.. He had no idea where he was exactly, save that it was somewhere north of London. And apparently on the water. He parked his car under an old oak tree and, pocketing the keys, made his way down to the sandy beach.
By now the sun had set, but Ianto didn’t feel the cold. His mind was too concerned with memories. But for once, these were not memories of Canary Warf or Lisa or his Mam after she took the psychosis developed. It wasn’t memories of his father trying desperately to care for the woman he loved, only to have her sink too far; he resolutely was NOT thinking of how similar he and his father had turned out. Both had been desperate to save their women; both had failed miserably.
Instead, Ianto forced himself to think of Torchwood Three. He had accused his teammates, Jack especially, of not wanting to know him. Yet, there on the beach surrounded only by the darkness, the stars, and the sound of the crashing waves, he decided to be honest with himself. While he had wanted to be noticed, to be liked, to be part of the team, and while there had been times he had tried to engage himself more, he had never actually let them get to know him. Outside of his public persona at the Hub, what had he shown them? Had he accepted their single invitation to the pub for karaoke? Had he ever invited them to his home like Gwen had for dinner? (Not that that had turned out great. He had gone home alone, only to be called back in for cleanup when a weevil tried to enter Gwen’s local Tesco. Apparently the weevils have a thing for fresh asparagus; can smell it miles off and Tesco was having a sale.)
Admitting to himself that he had kept himself secret from the others was almost as painful as the times when he had tried to open up and had been shot down. The mushroom comment, for one. There, he had tried to show his sense of humor only to have Jack shut him down. At least, that’s what it had felt like. Then again, was Jack just trying to be funny? He could never tell with that man.
So lost in berating himself for his failure to become a part of the team, Ianto never noticed Jack walk up until he felt the older man plop down beside him in the sand. Ianto’s head shot up in Jack’s direction, and he jumped, fully prepared to shoot whoever was about to attack him.
“Easy, Ianto!” Jack said, smiling. He raised his hands in defense when Ianto pulled his firearm. “Just me.”
“Jesus Sir! I…I thought you were trying to rob me or something. What are you doing here?”
“Well see, there I was, sitting at the Hub having a grand old time with Myfanwy...”
“Myfanwy hates you, Sir. She wouldn’t be having a grand old time with you.”
“Hey! I’ll have you know the Harkness Charm hasn’t failed to win over a lady yet!” Ianto snorted. “Well fine then. I was at the Hub, cowering away from Myfanwy. She’s still a bit crazy since the Mary incident.”
“Didn’t you give her any chocolate, Sir?”
“I learned my lesson the last time, Ianto. I’m going nowhere near that mouth! Remember the trousers?”
Ianto smiled and looked away. Jack noticed his slumped shoulders and bowed head.
“So anyway, there I was, enjoying my night with a bit of SkyTV and Owen’s Playstation, and my mobile rings. Guess who?”
“The PM? You rescheduled your meeting with him 3 times. His PA’s a bit upset, Sir, though I did send him some Belgian truffles on your behalf.”
“No, not the PM, Ianto. Tosh. Imagine that. Tosh called me, and before you ask, it wasn’t to talk about Mary. Apparently we’ve entered some form of truce about that. Documents were signed, parades held, ticker tape dropped. It was all rather uneventful; once you’ve seen one armistice, you’ve seen them all.”
Ianto raised an eyebrow, looking at Jack once more. “Okay. So you and Tosh are alright then?”
“Yeah, we’re good. But then she starts yelling at me. In Japanese. I think. Once I got her to calm down and speak in English, guess what she was yelling at me for?”
“Downloading porn? To the extent that you and Owen download it, it slows Mainframe. Tosh’s been trying to come up with a porn filter for weeks now.”
Jack cupped Ianto’s face in one hand. “No, Ianto. Not porn. She asked why I never went to visit you during your suspension.”
“Oh.” Ianto pulled his face away and looked out at the moon reflected on the water. “I never expected you to, Sir. That would have been….odd….given the circumstances.”
Ianto took a deep breath and, just as Jack was about to speak, cut in. “I want to apologize, Sir. Not for trying to save Lisa. I don’t think I could ever apologize for that.”
Jack smiled softly. “I would never expect you to.”
Ianto nodded once. “Good. Well, then, like I said, I’m sorry. I accused you of being a monster, of wanting nothing to do with me. I never really gave you the chance though, did I?”
“No, not really,” Jack replied. “But there were times, times when maybe you forgot why you came to Three. There were times when you seemed to open up a bit, and I should have spotted those, should have noticed. It wasn’t just your fault, Ianto. You never really tried to become part of the team, and I never tried to bring you in.”
“Why not, Sir?” Ianto whispered hoarsely.
“Because….Because I think I blamed you? For London.”
“What?”
“I looked at you and all I could see was the clean-up after. I looked at you and didn’t see a victim. I saw the personification of everything that London was. Basically, I saw Hartman.”
“I’m nothing like Yvonne!”
“I know, Ianto, I know. But I was so angry at what London had done, what they’d allowed to happen. You had absolutely nothing to do with it, but it was easy to take my anger out on you. I could see you and blame you. And so I did. And by the time I thought any differently, well, we’d already had our patterns.”
Ianto nodded softly.
“But that ends now, Ianto. I want you to be a part of the team. No more standing in the shadows, no more hiding for either of us.”
Ianto snorted. “You may wish to rethink that, Sir. The last time I you brought me out of the shadows, we were almost pate.”
“Which is different from every other mission how?” Jack chuckled. “Seriously, though. You already know how to handle yourself in hand to hand combat. With a bit of firearms training, you could make a decent field agent.”
“Respectfully, Sir, I disagree. I’ve never been in the field, except for the Beacons and-“
“That’s a lie and you know it, Ianto,” Jack tutted, flicking Ianto’s nose to get him to shut up. “You go into the field every time you clean up after a weevil attack. Weevils are scavengers, they’re attracted to the smell of blood. Don’t think I haven’t seen you come back limping some nights.” Ianto blushed in embarrassment.
“Now then, what say he head back to Cardiff, eh?” Jack said as he stood up, brushing sand from his trousers. “I’m freezing my ass off, and so are you. They’re nice asses; we should preserve them”
Jack spun around when he heard Ianto laugh. Not the normal snicker or smirk that he was accustomed to, but a full-body guffaw, larger and more real than the night in Myfawny’s nest. “Seriously, Sir? Do you never stop?”
Jack’s smile grew. He would never have guessed that making Ianto laugh would send a tingle down his spine. “Nope! Never ever! And you don’t even have to buy me a drink first!”
Ianto just shook his head and joined Jack as they headed back to the cars. “Just out of curiosity, Sir, how did you find me? I didn’t even know where I was going.”
Jack looked over sheepishly. “Honestly? During your suspension, I put a tracker on your car. Didn’t want you driving off a pier or running away or something.”
Ianto frowned, considering this. Jack thought he was about to get yet another fist punched through his jaw. “If I were going to run away, Sir, I’d hardly take my own vehicle. You should have bugged my neighbors’ cars or the ones at the local rental agency.”
Jack just stood there for a moment, stunned. He chuckled and shook his head. “Only you, Ianto Jones, would find out he was being tracked and only be concerned about something like that. Come on, let’s go home. You need to sleep, and then I have a bit of a mission I need your help with tomorrow.”
“Actually, Sir, could it wait until tomorrow evening?”
“Why?”
“Well, it’s just that….Remember how I mentioned a memorial for Tosh?” Jack nodded. “I’ve got something planned in the morning.”
“What is it?”
Ianto squirmed under Jack’s gaze. “There’s a kubuki convention at the Millenium Center tomorrow. Tosh’s mam just won a free round trip, last minute ticket to attend.”
“You’re bringing Tosh’s mom to Cardiff?! Ianto, that’s against her contract! She can’t have any contact with her!”
“Actually, Sir, if you read the contract, it just says that Tosh is unable to contact her mother. Therefore, Tosh would not be breaking the contract if her mother happened to see her cross the Plass and contacted her first.”
“Maybe that’s what the contract says, but it’s certainly not what it means and you know that! Dammit Ianto! Why are you doing this?”
Ianto stood his ground, convinced that he was in the right. “You said you wanted to see me, Sir? Well here I am. Tosh needs her mother right now. She needs her. And I’ll be damned if she’s in pain because you refuse to let her hug her mam. It’s the right thing to do, Sir.” Jack just stared, dumbfounded at this new Ianto.
The pair faced off in the darkness. Finally, Jack relented. He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “Yeah, alright. But it can only be this one time. And she knows nothing about Torchwood.”
“Of course not, Sir. She’ll only be here long enough for the funeral service. She’ll leave after the priest chants the funeral sutra prayer and we’ve picked through the ashes with the chopsticks.”
Jack just looked confused. “What do you plan to cremate and why are you using chopsticks?”
“I planned a traditional Japanese funeral service, Sir. I consulted with a Japanese priest for the finer points. I snagged one of Mary’s shirts, as well as her cigarette butts from Tosh’s flat. We don’t have a body, but we can still cremate those.”
“And the chopsticks?”
“Used to transfer the larger clumps of ashes, generally the bones, to the urn. I’m not sure we’ll use them, but I’ll have them on hand.”
“And does Tosh know about any of this?”
“Not really, Sir. She had a night terror yesterday, though. It was…horrible. She was crying in Japanese. She wanted to say goodbye. This is a way for her to do that. Don’t mention it to her, Sir. She wouldn’t want to know she had a terror.”
Jack nodded and walked Ianto to his car. “What time is the funeral scheduled for?”
“Half 12 tomorrow afternoon. I’ve pulled a few strings with a friend who owns a mortuary. We’ll be using his crematorium.”
Jack swallowed. “I’d like to come.”
Ianto looked at him for a moment. “I think Tosh’d like that, Sir.”
With that, the two men headed to their cars and began the drive back to Cardiff. Ianto’s mind was filled with plans for tomorrow. He still had to pick up Mrs. Sato and position her outside the Millenium Center, get Tosh to the Millenium Center at the right time, pick up the flowers, order the food for the service after….The list continued. Jack, however, was not thinking of funerals or floral arrangements. Instead, his mind was on Ianto, this new Ianto, who stood his ground. He found he rather liked this Ianto over the eternally submissive Ianto he had known before. With a smile on his face, Jack began planning for the mission he wanted Ianto’s help with. If this stubborn Ianto was the real Ianto, Jack was certainly going to enjoy it.