Truth and Consequence
Characters : Ianto
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine, they belong to the BBC and RTD
Spoilers: General for series 1.
Summary: Jack's gone and Ianto has had enough. (A prequel to Reclaiming Camelot but you don't have to have read this to make sense of the other story.
He just wasn't cut out to be the saviour of the universe. Every time he tried it all went pear-shaped with a vengeance. The fact that he still kept trying was bloody depressing, since it made a mockery of all those IQ tests he'd taken. Like Owen, he might be intelligent but he sure as hell wasn't wise.
The fact that he was now comparing himself to Owen was the most depressing thing of all, top of a list so long he'd need a rainforest for the paper to print it on.
The world was coming to an end. Again. It sometimes seemed to him that the Earth was a reincarnated lemming, the way it kept trying to embrace some apocalypse or other. If it wasn't an alien invasion, it was something humans had dreamed up to make their lives more interesting, be it nuclear war or the slow death of global warming. Maybe the planet was trying to say something to the human race? Something along the lines of 'eff off, I've had enough of you'?
This time, however, Armageddon was personal, because they were the ones responsible for it. He'd love to be able to shove all the blame on to Owen's shoulders, but he had to take a portion of it himself. If that treacherous little inner part of him hadn't wanted Jack back so bad, he would have put a bullet through Owen's head, rather than his shoulder. A dead Owen would have meant that Jack and Toshiko remained in the 1940s, yes, but they would have still been alive and able to make new lives for one another. Jack was a survivor, had already been in that time period, and he would have made sure that Toshiko was all right. The Doctor would have been along in a couple of years, and while Jack wouldn't have been able to go near him for fear of a paradox, he could have sent Toshiko with a letter explaining and the Doctor would have brought her home.
But Ianto had given in to that selfish impulse and now all hell was breaking loose. He still burned with embarrassment when he remembered what he'd said to Owen. He'd deserved the set-down Owen had given him. Jack didn't need him any more than he needed any of the others. All of them were just temporary fixtures until the real object of Jack's affections turned up and the Doctor took him away. Ianto didn't really resent that fact - well, all right, he didn't resent it that much - and Jack was careful not to rub it in his face too much. The fact that he sometimes let himself daydream that maybe, just maybe, he was more to Jack than just another in an endless stream of lovers was not something he'd wanted anyone to know, least of all Owen.
They were caught fast in a trap. That much he was sure of. From the moment that Jack and Toshiko had been snatched and deposited in 1942, Ianto had seen the pattern starting to unfold and then congeal around them, like old blood. Bilis - oh, call him by his real name Iblis, prince of lies - was setting them up like a pro and for some reason he seemed to be the only one who noticed. Everything arranged so as to pressure them into opening the Rift.
And Jack... Jack. Why wasn't he leading them? Why wasn't he giving them a focus? Just when they needed him to be strong, to be their leader, he was being nothing of the sort. Ianto was bewildered and a little lost. Bad enough that he had had to cope with Lisa materialising in front of him, raking open a barely healed wound, and demanding that he open the Rift. Yes, Lisa, of course I'll do what you tell me. After all, the last time we spoke you were talking about converting me into a Cyberman, so there's no doubt about your pure intentions, is there? He had been a little taken aback to realise that his dominant emotion on seeing her had been horrified rejection and sarcasm had always been his defence against something he couldn't cope with.
But Jack still didn't do anything apart from tell them he couldn't fix it. Damn it, Jack, that's not going to work! Ianto wanted to yell, but habit kept him silent. Give them something concrete. Lie to them, if you have to! Owen rebelled and Jack briefly came alive, throwing him out of the Hub. Ianto heaved a sigh of relief, because Owen was the weak leak, the one most likely to do what he wanted and to hell with anyone else. Ianto kept trying to keep a lid on things, single-handedly trying to contain all the temporal castaways and rogue Weevils, until he was reduced to taking stimulants to keep going. Tosh kept monitoring the Rift, looking for a solution or some kind of hope. Gwen....
Ianto had been wrong. Big surprise, he thought bleakly. Owen wasn't the weak link. Gwen was. Gwen who was so desperate to have her perfect world that she forgot that perfection was a kind of death and that perfection was only for gods. Iblis had played her and now she was singing humanity's death knell by her all-consuming need to bring Rhys back, to assuage her guilt - because it was guilt that was driving her, not love. Ianto, of all the people in the room, could understand that, because when Lisa had appeared to him he had realised that it had not only been love that had driven him to try and save her. It had been guilt, because he had escaped the Cybermen and she had not.
And still Jack didn't act. Ianto couldn't understand what was going wrong. It was almost as though Jack had given up, had already written them off as a hopeless case. Ianto had seen Jack in a hopeless situation. He had seen the way the man came alive, even more so than usual, and that devilish look came into his eyes and you knew it was last-stand time and you found yourself grinning like an idiot. They needed that now and he wasn't giving it to them. Not for the first time, Ianto felt an impulse to kick the other man.
And then Owen was back. A perfect day made even more so. Owen and Gwen in the same room. Both of them raw from loss and both of them desperate to fix it. Things were escalating out of control and there was no time for Ianto's usual subtleties. No careful manipulations behind the scenes. The right word, the right action, a suitably guileless statement calculated to stimulate the right train of thought. It was all or nothing, make or break, and he had to push Jack out of this paralysis he was in. So when Owen decided that he was going to open the Rift and Jack ordered Ianto to stop him, Ianto refused.
He couldn't think of anything else to do. If he tried to stop Owen - and he had a feeling that this time he would probably have to kill the doctor to do it, since Owen wasn't likely to let him have a second chance at incapacitating him - then Gwen would still be set on opening the Rift. Then there was Bilis/Iblis, who was able to slip in and out of time and who was so set on them opening the Rift. Unless this matter was resolved here and now, the chances of disaster happening became so overwhelming it was inevitable.
He had to get Jack to react. He had to back Jack into that corner and bring him back from that strange place he was at. So he acted the traitor and tried not to see the betrayal in Jack's eyes because that wasn't what he was after. They stood as a group, united against Jack, forcing him into that corner. And, oh, it started to work. Ianto saw Jack starting to come alive again. He held a gun but he used words as a weapon and yes, he knew exactly how to hurt. Even knowing that he wanted this, that he had called it down on himself, Ianto still felt the wound as Jack flayed him with such careful words. He would never be forgiven for his treachery, he knew, but it hurt to have it stated so publicly.
And then it blew up in Ianto's face. Gwen couldn't face the truth that Jack threw at her and attacked him. Owen got hold of the gun and then shot Jack. Killed him stone dead, and with it any chance they had of regaining the world. Ianto couldn't hold back his "what have you done?". Not because Jack was dead. A bullet wound wasn't going to keep Jack down for long. But because killing Jack had shattered any last chance of a sane solution to this mess.
Ianto did his best to think about what to do next, but he had run out of options. The others were hell-bent on opening the Rift and he had little doubt that if he showed signs of backing out, he'd be joining Jack on the floor, albeit more permanently. He'd run out of ideas, so he pinned his hopes on Jack waking up before they reached the point of no return. Except that Jack stayed dead. Longer than he had before from a simple gunshot wound, and Ianto began to think that maybe it was the end of the world. And he was afraid, because his chief emotion at the thought was one of relief.
The Rift opened. Jack came back from the dead, startling a scream out of Gwen and making Ianto jump. Owen suffered the murderer's ultimate nightmare in having his victim get back up and if the Hub hadn't been shaking apart on them, Ianto might have allowed himself a self-satisfied grin. There was no time, however, and they fled the Hub. Afterwards, Ianto would remember that he had grabbed Jack's coat on the way out and shake his head in disbelief. There were times when he scared himself.
And it turned out that opening the Rift was a trap. Big surprise. And Jack was finally backed into that corner - world eating demons had that effect - and came up with a solution. And died. Again. This time for good. Ianto had known it was for good when Gwen had brought his body back to what remained of the Hub. It was cold. Every other time Jack had died, his body had stayed warm until he revived. This time it was like ice to the touch. The moment he had laid a hand on him, Ianto had known that this time Jack had succeeded in finding that peace he had always been hunting. And he'd done it saving the entire world.
It didn't help.
Gwen refused to believe that he was gone. She refused to leave Jack's side. Ianto had fielded the worried phone calls from Rhys, who had expected her back days ago. He had been deeply, truly tempted to answer Rhys' questions with a terse statement to the effect that Gwen couldn't come back to him because she was in a morgue trying to bring her boss back from the dead. He didn't, of course, and was mildly surprised that Rhys bought his story of a chemical spill that meant that Gwen had to spend a little time being decontaminated and that she'd be fine, it was just routine.
And Gwen pulled it off. She brought Jack back from the dead. When Ianto had first seen him walking towards Toshiko and bracing himself for her hug, he had felt... afraid. He'd lost Jack (even though he had never really had him), and the grief had been unbearable. He'd spent hours, curled up in Jack's chair with Jack's coat held close to him, trying to come up with alternative solutions that wouldn't have cost Jack his life. He'd come up with dozens, which had left a sour taste in his mouth, and all of them too late. Now his deepest fantasy was standing there waiting for him to approach and Ianto knew that he had to face the music. And he didn't care. He didn't care what hell Jack damned him to. He didn't care if he was retconned to within an inch of his life or if Jack settled for a more pragmatic bullet in his head. Jack was alive and that was all that mattered.
He risked putting out a hand, more than half-expecting Jack to ignore it. Instead his hand was grabbed and he was drawn into an embrace. Hardly daring to believe such generosity but desperate to touch the man he thought he had lost forever, Ianto hugged him back. Soft and gentle in his ear came the words: "I know why you did it. I'm sorry." And when he'd pulled back to stare at Jack in surprise, Jack had drawn him back and kissed him. A gentle caring kiss that sank right into the very heart of Ianto and tore him apart. Because there was no way this kiss was a cheerful 'hey let's have sex and some fun' kiss. And receiving it made every shitty thing that had ever happened to Ianto seem worthwhile, and it also scared the living daylights out of him because it meant that he didn't really understand anything about Jack any more.
Owen had been forgiven. Ianto had felt just the tiniest bit bitter about that. It had taken nearly two months for Jack to get over Lisa. Owen got forgiven right off. And Owen had killed Jack. The confusion was back again, but he knew better than to think that he would ever get some straight answers. Jack was Jack. You either accepted that or you moved on. Ianto regularly decided he was going to move on. Then he told himself not to be such a twpyn and went right on accepting it.
And now he was gone. Again. Ianto was back to sitting in his chair, but this time he didn't even have a coat to hug. Jack had sent him out for coffee and when he had come back, Jack was gone. The CCTV footage had told him all he needed to know. The Doctor had finally come. Ianto would never forget his last sight of Jack as he had lunged for the TARDIS. Jack had never looked so happy to see him come into a room. The others had spent the last three weeks trying to think of a way of tracking him down, but Ianto had told them they were wasting their time. Jack was gone and Ianto knew he was never coming back. He had nothing to come back for.
Ianto stared at the glass on the desk in front of him. He'd calculated the doseage exactly. Enough retcon to make him forget the four and a half years in Torchwood. He'd set up a new job for himself at Aberystwyth University and a cover story about a car crash that had robbed him of those years in a coma. He couldn't risk staying in Cardiff where something might trigger a memory return. He'd hired a removal company to take his stuff up to his new house and sold the old one. He'd also removed all of Jack's personal papers and effects, packed them away and put them in a storage vault. Totally against Torchwood regulations but he wasn't feeling very obedient at the moment. The money he had got from his house sale would fund the storage vault for years. He'd left a message to that effect for Jack on the Torchwood database, encrypted under a password he knew Jack would get in a minute.
He picked up the glass just as Owen walked in. It hadn't taken the doctor long to shed his humility and the tension had been building between them for a week now. If he stayed, it would only get worse and Ianto was tired of fighting. He was tired of everything, to be honest. He lifted the glass in a mock toast.
"Don't get too comfortable in the boss' chair, Ianto. That's going to be mine when we tell London that Jack's gone."
Ianto almost laughed. Did Owen really think that London would allow one of the people who had almost destroyed the world to stay in charge on Torchwood Three? They were all likely to be replaced, which was why Ianto was leaving of his own free will. In this small tiny thing, he would be master of his destiny. Owen must have seen something in his expression, because he suddenly focused on the glass.
"How much you put in?" he demanded, the doctor in him suddenly surfacing. Ianto smiled mirthlessly and told him. Owen frowned. "Bloody hell, that's a high dose."
"I have to get rid of four and a half years of fun and high jinks," Ianto pointed out sarcastically. "I can't wait."
Owen glowered at him. "So where will you go?"
As if I'd tell you! Ianto thought in contempt. "Blackpool. I thought I'd run a little guest house on the Parade." Owen blinked and for one moment an incredulous Ianto realised that the doctor was buying the story. He sighed. "Away from here. Far away from here. Don't worry, Owen, I won't be coming back. There's nothing to come back to."
"You don't have to go."
Ianto wondered how much it had cost Owen to say that, and who had pressured him into saying it. "Yes, I do," he said quietly. "New boss won't be needing me as a part-time shag-" he was quietly pleased at the wince that earned him, "-and I'm tired of cleaning up shit." Especially my own. He started to raise the glass to his lips, but Owen leaned forward and stopped him.
"No, really, you don't have to go."
Ianto looked, really looked, at the doctor and saw the fear in his eyes. He realised that Owen had finally understood the vulnerable position they were now in. Jack had been their shield as well as their leader. Few people felt capable of taking him on in a straight fight, so he had gained concessions and permissions that no-one else could have. That was all gone, now. Whoever stepped into the leader's shoes would have to inherit all the leader's responsibilities. Owen might have relished telling Ianto that he would soon be in charge and then Ianto would know his place, but now Owen was finally understanding that the job he was after was very much a poisoned chalice.
"Maybe I don't have to go, but I want to," Ianto said quietly.
He shook off Owen's hand and drank the retcon down in one gulp, knowing that the impression of a sour taste was purely his imagination. He got up and went for his coat, aware that Owen had followed him as far as the office door and then stayed behind. Ianto hesitated as he passed Tosh' workstation. Of all the remaining team, he would miss her the most. He was about to say something when he saw that she had the details of his new life up on screen.
"Clever Tosh," he said, with the first genuine smile in a long time. She was crying, he realised in surprise. "Hey, what's all this for?" he asked, reaching out to rub her cheek.
She shook her head and then turned to throw her arms around him. "Be happy, Ianto. Please be happy, for all of us," she said.
Feeling a little bewildered, Ianto patted her awkwardly on the arm. "I'll try my best, cariad. I have to go. I need to be back at the hotel by the time the retcon hits me."
She released him and he stepped away, then turned back before his courage failed him and kissed her on the cheek. "It's better to choose your exile than have it forced upon you," he warned her softly. Something in her eyes told him that she understood the warning.
"I'm going to destroy these files as soon as you've gone," she promised.
He smiled at her and then left. Gwen was off somewhere, hopefully with Rhys, although Ianto doubted she would be that sensible, and he was glad of her absence. He had always known that Jack was half in love with her and he had been ashamed of his jealousy of the fact. He really wasn't up to her emoting all over him.
He got to the hotel just in time. He felt the first blurring around the edges of his mind as he let himself into his hotel room. He undressed quickly, knowing that the high doseage he had given himself would knock him out for several hours. He pulled out the file he had made of his cover story and the details of his new life and put it beside the bedside table, along with an envelope marked 'Read This'. He lay down in the bed and closed his eyes.
"Goodbye, Jack," he whispered. "I love you."
OOO
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine, they belong to the BBC and RTD
Spoilers: General for series 1.
Summary: Jack's gone and Ianto has had enough. (A prequel to Reclaiming Camelot but you don't have to have read this to make sense of the other story.
He just wasn't cut out to be the saviour of the universe. Every time he tried it all went pear-shaped with a vengeance. The fact that he still kept trying was bloody depressing, since it made a mockery of all those IQ tests he'd taken. Like Owen, he might be intelligent but he sure as hell wasn't wise.
The fact that he was now comparing himself to Owen was the most depressing thing of all, top of a list so long he'd need a rainforest for the paper to print it on.
The world was coming to an end. Again. It sometimes seemed to him that the Earth was a reincarnated lemming, the way it kept trying to embrace some apocalypse or other. If it wasn't an alien invasion, it was something humans had dreamed up to make their lives more interesting, be it nuclear war or the slow death of global warming. Maybe the planet was trying to say something to the human race? Something along the lines of 'eff off, I've had enough of you'?
This time, however, Armageddon was personal, because they were the ones responsible for it. He'd love to be able to shove all the blame on to Owen's shoulders, but he had to take a portion of it himself. If that treacherous little inner part of him hadn't wanted Jack back so bad, he would have put a bullet through Owen's head, rather than his shoulder. A dead Owen would have meant that Jack and Toshiko remained in the 1940s, yes, but they would have still been alive and able to make new lives for one another. Jack was a survivor, had already been in that time period, and he would have made sure that Toshiko was all right. The Doctor would have been along in a couple of years, and while Jack wouldn't have been able to go near him for fear of a paradox, he could have sent Toshiko with a letter explaining and the Doctor would have brought her home.
But Ianto had given in to that selfish impulse and now all hell was breaking loose. He still burned with embarrassment when he remembered what he'd said to Owen. He'd deserved the set-down Owen had given him. Jack didn't need him any more than he needed any of the others. All of them were just temporary fixtures until the real object of Jack's affections turned up and the Doctor took him away. Ianto didn't really resent that fact - well, all right, he didn't resent it that much - and Jack was careful not to rub it in his face too much. The fact that he sometimes let himself daydream that maybe, just maybe, he was more to Jack than just another in an endless stream of lovers was not something he'd wanted anyone to know, least of all Owen.
They were caught fast in a trap. That much he was sure of. From the moment that Jack and Toshiko had been snatched and deposited in 1942, Ianto had seen the pattern starting to unfold and then congeal around them, like old blood. Bilis - oh, call him by his real name Iblis, prince of lies - was setting them up like a pro and for some reason he seemed to be the only one who noticed. Everything arranged so as to pressure them into opening the Rift.
And Jack... Jack. Why wasn't he leading them? Why wasn't he giving them a focus? Just when they needed him to be strong, to be their leader, he was being nothing of the sort. Ianto was bewildered and a little lost. Bad enough that he had had to cope with Lisa materialising in front of him, raking open a barely healed wound, and demanding that he open the Rift. Yes, Lisa, of course I'll do what you tell me. After all, the last time we spoke you were talking about converting me into a Cyberman, so there's no doubt about your pure intentions, is there? He had been a little taken aback to realise that his dominant emotion on seeing her had been horrified rejection and sarcasm had always been his defence against something he couldn't cope with.
But Jack still didn't do anything apart from tell them he couldn't fix it. Damn it, Jack, that's not going to work! Ianto wanted to yell, but habit kept him silent. Give them something concrete. Lie to them, if you have to! Owen rebelled and Jack briefly came alive, throwing him out of the Hub. Ianto heaved a sigh of relief, because Owen was the weak leak, the one most likely to do what he wanted and to hell with anyone else. Ianto kept trying to keep a lid on things, single-handedly trying to contain all the temporal castaways and rogue Weevils, until he was reduced to taking stimulants to keep going. Tosh kept monitoring the Rift, looking for a solution or some kind of hope. Gwen....
Ianto had been wrong. Big surprise, he thought bleakly. Owen wasn't the weak link. Gwen was. Gwen who was so desperate to have her perfect world that she forgot that perfection was a kind of death and that perfection was only for gods. Iblis had played her and now she was singing humanity's death knell by her all-consuming need to bring Rhys back, to assuage her guilt - because it was guilt that was driving her, not love. Ianto, of all the people in the room, could understand that, because when Lisa had appeared to him he had realised that it had not only been love that had driven him to try and save her. It had been guilt, because he had escaped the Cybermen and she had not.
And still Jack didn't act. Ianto couldn't understand what was going wrong. It was almost as though Jack had given up, had already written them off as a hopeless case. Ianto had seen Jack in a hopeless situation. He had seen the way the man came alive, even more so than usual, and that devilish look came into his eyes and you knew it was last-stand time and you found yourself grinning like an idiot. They needed that now and he wasn't giving it to them. Not for the first time, Ianto felt an impulse to kick the other man.
And then Owen was back. A perfect day made even more so. Owen and Gwen in the same room. Both of them raw from loss and both of them desperate to fix it. Things were escalating out of control and there was no time for Ianto's usual subtleties. No careful manipulations behind the scenes. The right word, the right action, a suitably guileless statement calculated to stimulate the right train of thought. It was all or nothing, make or break, and he had to push Jack out of this paralysis he was in. So when Owen decided that he was going to open the Rift and Jack ordered Ianto to stop him, Ianto refused.
He couldn't think of anything else to do. If he tried to stop Owen - and he had a feeling that this time he would probably have to kill the doctor to do it, since Owen wasn't likely to let him have a second chance at incapacitating him - then Gwen would still be set on opening the Rift. Then there was Bilis/Iblis, who was able to slip in and out of time and who was so set on them opening the Rift. Unless this matter was resolved here and now, the chances of disaster happening became so overwhelming it was inevitable.
He had to get Jack to react. He had to back Jack into that corner and bring him back from that strange place he was at. So he acted the traitor and tried not to see the betrayal in Jack's eyes because that wasn't what he was after. They stood as a group, united against Jack, forcing him into that corner. And, oh, it started to work. Ianto saw Jack starting to come alive again. He held a gun but he used words as a weapon and yes, he knew exactly how to hurt. Even knowing that he wanted this, that he had called it down on himself, Ianto still felt the wound as Jack flayed him with such careful words. He would never be forgiven for his treachery, he knew, but it hurt to have it stated so publicly.
And then it blew up in Ianto's face. Gwen couldn't face the truth that Jack threw at her and attacked him. Owen got hold of the gun and then shot Jack. Killed him stone dead, and with it any chance they had of regaining the world. Ianto couldn't hold back his "what have you done?". Not because Jack was dead. A bullet wound wasn't going to keep Jack down for long. But because killing Jack had shattered any last chance of a sane solution to this mess.
Ianto did his best to think about what to do next, but he had run out of options. The others were hell-bent on opening the Rift and he had little doubt that if he showed signs of backing out, he'd be joining Jack on the floor, albeit more permanently. He'd run out of ideas, so he pinned his hopes on Jack waking up before they reached the point of no return. Except that Jack stayed dead. Longer than he had before from a simple gunshot wound, and Ianto began to think that maybe it was the end of the world. And he was afraid, because his chief emotion at the thought was one of relief.
The Rift opened. Jack came back from the dead, startling a scream out of Gwen and making Ianto jump. Owen suffered the murderer's ultimate nightmare in having his victim get back up and if the Hub hadn't been shaking apart on them, Ianto might have allowed himself a self-satisfied grin. There was no time, however, and they fled the Hub. Afterwards, Ianto would remember that he had grabbed Jack's coat on the way out and shake his head in disbelief. There were times when he scared himself.
And it turned out that opening the Rift was a trap. Big surprise. And Jack was finally backed into that corner - world eating demons had that effect - and came up with a solution. And died. Again. This time for good. Ianto had known it was for good when Gwen had brought his body back to what remained of the Hub. It was cold. Every other time Jack had died, his body had stayed warm until he revived. This time it was like ice to the touch. The moment he had laid a hand on him, Ianto had known that this time Jack had succeeded in finding that peace he had always been hunting. And he'd done it saving the entire world.
It didn't help.
Gwen refused to believe that he was gone. She refused to leave Jack's side. Ianto had fielded the worried phone calls from Rhys, who had expected her back days ago. He had been deeply, truly tempted to answer Rhys' questions with a terse statement to the effect that Gwen couldn't come back to him because she was in a morgue trying to bring her boss back from the dead. He didn't, of course, and was mildly surprised that Rhys bought his story of a chemical spill that meant that Gwen had to spend a little time being decontaminated and that she'd be fine, it was just routine.
And Gwen pulled it off. She brought Jack back from the dead. When Ianto had first seen him walking towards Toshiko and bracing himself for her hug, he had felt... afraid. He'd lost Jack (even though he had never really had him), and the grief had been unbearable. He'd spent hours, curled up in Jack's chair with Jack's coat held close to him, trying to come up with alternative solutions that wouldn't have cost Jack his life. He'd come up with dozens, which had left a sour taste in his mouth, and all of them too late. Now his deepest fantasy was standing there waiting for him to approach and Ianto knew that he had to face the music. And he didn't care. He didn't care what hell Jack damned him to. He didn't care if he was retconned to within an inch of his life or if Jack settled for a more pragmatic bullet in his head. Jack was alive and that was all that mattered.
He risked putting out a hand, more than half-expecting Jack to ignore it. Instead his hand was grabbed and he was drawn into an embrace. Hardly daring to believe such generosity but desperate to touch the man he thought he had lost forever, Ianto hugged him back. Soft and gentle in his ear came the words: "I know why you did it. I'm sorry." And when he'd pulled back to stare at Jack in surprise, Jack had drawn him back and kissed him. A gentle caring kiss that sank right into the very heart of Ianto and tore him apart. Because there was no way this kiss was a cheerful 'hey let's have sex and some fun' kiss. And receiving it made every shitty thing that had ever happened to Ianto seem worthwhile, and it also scared the living daylights out of him because it meant that he didn't really understand anything about Jack any more.
Owen had been forgiven. Ianto had felt just the tiniest bit bitter about that. It had taken nearly two months for Jack to get over Lisa. Owen got forgiven right off. And Owen had killed Jack. The confusion was back again, but he knew better than to think that he would ever get some straight answers. Jack was Jack. You either accepted that or you moved on. Ianto regularly decided he was going to move on. Then he told himself not to be such a twpyn and went right on accepting it.
And now he was gone. Again. Ianto was back to sitting in his chair, but this time he didn't even have a coat to hug. Jack had sent him out for coffee and when he had come back, Jack was gone. The CCTV footage had told him all he needed to know. The Doctor had finally come. Ianto would never forget his last sight of Jack as he had lunged for the TARDIS. Jack had never looked so happy to see him come into a room. The others had spent the last three weeks trying to think of a way of tracking him down, but Ianto had told them they were wasting their time. Jack was gone and Ianto knew he was never coming back. He had nothing to come back for.
Ianto stared at the glass on the desk in front of him. He'd calculated the doseage exactly. Enough retcon to make him forget the four and a half years in Torchwood. He'd set up a new job for himself at Aberystwyth University and a cover story about a car crash that had robbed him of those years in a coma. He couldn't risk staying in Cardiff where something might trigger a memory return. He'd hired a removal company to take his stuff up to his new house and sold the old one. He'd also removed all of Jack's personal papers and effects, packed them away and put them in a storage vault. Totally against Torchwood regulations but he wasn't feeling very obedient at the moment. The money he had got from his house sale would fund the storage vault for years. He'd left a message to that effect for Jack on the Torchwood database, encrypted under a password he knew Jack would get in a minute.
He picked up the glass just as Owen walked in. It hadn't taken the doctor long to shed his humility and the tension had been building between them for a week now. If he stayed, it would only get worse and Ianto was tired of fighting. He was tired of everything, to be honest. He lifted the glass in a mock toast.
"Don't get too comfortable in the boss' chair, Ianto. That's going to be mine when we tell London that Jack's gone."
Ianto almost laughed. Did Owen really think that London would allow one of the people who had almost destroyed the world to stay in charge on Torchwood Three? They were all likely to be replaced, which was why Ianto was leaving of his own free will. In this small tiny thing, he would be master of his destiny. Owen must have seen something in his expression, because he suddenly focused on the glass.
"How much you put in?" he demanded, the doctor in him suddenly surfacing. Ianto smiled mirthlessly and told him. Owen frowned. "Bloody hell, that's a high dose."
"I have to get rid of four and a half years of fun and high jinks," Ianto pointed out sarcastically. "I can't wait."
Owen glowered at him. "So where will you go?"
As if I'd tell you! Ianto thought in contempt. "Blackpool. I thought I'd run a little guest house on the Parade." Owen blinked and for one moment an incredulous Ianto realised that the doctor was buying the story. He sighed. "Away from here. Far away from here. Don't worry, Owen, I won't be coming back. There's nothing to come back to."
"You don't have to go."
Ianto wondered how much it had cost Owen to say that, and who had pressured him into saying it. "Yes, I do," he said quietly. "New boss won't be needing me as a part-time shag-" he was quietly pleased at the wince that earned him, "-and I'm tired of cleaning up shit." Especially my own. He started to raise the glass to his lips, but Owen leaned forward and stopped him.
"No, really, you don't have to go."
Ianto looked, really looked, at the doctor and saw the fear in his eyes. He realised that Owen had finally understood the vulnerable position they were now in. Jack had been their shield as well as their leader. Few people felt capable of taking him on in a straight fight, so he had gained concessions and permissions that no-one else could have. That was all gone, now. Whoever stepped into the leader's shoes would have to inherit all the leader's responsibilities. Owen might have relished telling Ianto that he would soon be in charge and then Ianto would know his place, but now Owen was finally understanding that the job he was after was very much a poisoned chalice.
"Maybe I don't have to go, but I want to," Ianto said quietly.
He shook off Owen's hand and drank the retcon down in one gulp, knowing that the impression of a sour taste was purely his imagination. He got up and went for his coat, aware that Owen had followed him as far as the office door and then stayed behind. Ianto hesitated as he passed Tosh' workstation. Of all the remaining team, he would miss her the most. He was about to say something when he saw that she had the details of his new life up on screen.
"Clever Tosh," he said, with the first genuine smile in a long time. She was crying, he realised in surprise. "Hey, what's all this for?" he asked, reaching out to rub her cheek.
She shook her head and then turned to throw her arms around him. "Be happy, Ianto. Please be happy, for all of us," she said.
Feeling a little bewildered, Ianto patted her awkwardly on the arm. "I'll try my best, cariad. I have to go. I need to be back at the hotel by the time the retcon hits me."
She released him and he stepped away, then turned back before his courage failed him and kissed her on the cheek. "It's better to choose your exile than have it forced upon you," he warned her softly. Something in her eyes told him that she understood the warning.
"I'm going to destroy these files as soon as you've gone," she promised.
He smiled at her and then left. Gwen was off somewhere, hopefully with Rhys, although Ianto doubted she would be that sensible, and he was glad of her absence. He had always known that Jack was half in love with her and he had been ashamed of his jealousy of the fact. He really wasn't up to her emoting all over him.
He got to the hotel just in time. He felt the first blurring around the edges of his mind as he let himself into his hotel room. He undressed quickly, knowing that the high doseage he had given himself would knock him out for several hours. He pulled out the file he had made of his cover story and the details of his new life and put it beside the bedside table, along with an envelope marked 'Read This'. He lay down in the bed and closed his eyes.
"Goodbye, Jack," he whispered. "I love you."
OOO