A/N: This is for veritas6_5, who loves Gwen so wonderfully much. It's my first story from Gwen's POV, just for her. Plus, I keep reading sweet little Gwen/Ianto fics and thought I'd throw my hat into the ring.
Overwhelming
She found him sitting on a park bench along the Plass, staring at the fountain and holding a cup of coffee, but not drinking it. She had been looking for him for at least twenty minutes in the Hub, having sent Owen and Tosh home after Owen made sure Jack was sleeping off the headache and exhaustion of a particularly violent death earlier that day. She looked for him but couldn't find him and had actually given up, thinking he'd gone on home himself, and she thought she'd head home in hopes of convincing Rhys to cook up a hot meal, but she saw his figure out of the corner of her eye as she headed to the car park.
She stood still for a moment, taking in the thin frame, the suit Jack seemed to like so much (now stained along the sleeve and down the front of the shirt with Jack's blood), the tired slump of his shoulders, the exhausted face staring blankly into his coffee cup. She watched as he sat, and she weighed the advantage of leaving him alone since she knew he still hadn't noticed her. But that fact alone was bothersome enough to keep her there, so she finally made herself known by sitting down heavily beside him on the bench. He didn't look up.
"Ianto," she said gently, leaning into his shoulder. He looked up slowly, eyes glazed with tears and a dazed look on his face.
"Oh. Hey," he responded dully.
"What're you doing out here?" she tried.
A pause, and he dragged his gaze back down to his coffee cup. "Nothing."
What should she say? Nothing sounded right in her head. So she sat for a minute looking at him again. His hair was tousled and she saw a streak of blood on his right cheekbone and dirt mixed with sweat coating the rest of his face. She looked more closely at his hands and they were still stained with blood, like he'd tried to wash it off but couldn't get it all, and they were trembling. She looked at his eyes and they were dull, still filmed with unshed tears. He was quietly falling apart on this park bench. There was nothing, really, to say.
"Come home with me," she demanded quietly, and she gripped his arm and pulled gently as she stood. He stood with her, looked in her eyes, and she watched as whatever magnet on the ground was pulling his chin won again and he dropped his gaze. But he nodded, and she tugged him gently along with her to the car, feeling like she was leading a prisoner from a cell block.
They rode in silence back to her flat. She had texted Rhys from the car park that she was bringing Ianto home for dinner. Rhys texted back that he'd open a bottle of wine and asked if Jack was coming, too. No, she'd told him, just Ianto. So she drove home, allowing the young man his silence, noting how he leaned his head against her car window and rode with his eyes
closed all the way there. When they arrived, he did manage to get himself out of the car, but he wavered on the stairs up to her flat and they had to stop for a moment while he caught his breath. She watched as he steadied himself with the railing, thinking that he must be very used to steadying himself after everything he'd seen.
She led him into her flat and Rhys reached out to shake his hand but pulled back when he saw the suit and Ianto's eyes.
"Could I use your bathroom to clean up a bit?" Ianto asked quietly, still not looking at anything but the floor.
Rhys led him to the bathroom and Gwen pulled a washcloth and towel from the linen closet.
"You can take a shower if you want to, Ianto. I'm afraid none of Rhys' trousers will probably fit you, but we can get you a jumper if you want to borrow it." He nodded yes and then disappeared into the bathroom and she heard the water running a moment later.
She deflected Rhys' questions while Ianto showered; only explaining that Ianto had a bad day, and she was trying to figure out what was wrong with him while Jack rested from being hurt in the field.
A few minutes later Ianto emerged sheepishly, wearing only his trousers and asking for the jumper Gwen had offered. She gave it to him and watched as he pulled it over his head, looking every bit just the twenty-four years that he was. Rhys wordlessly offered him a glass of wine and he took it with a small smile. "Thanks for having me over." He looked at Gwen and added, "I'm okay now."
"Sure. Okay," she returned lightly, gesturing him to the table where a dinner of spaghetti and bread and salad was laid out nicely. Rhys could certainly do domestic, she thought. Right when she needed it, too. They all sat down and Rhys served the pasta and Ianto helped himself to salad and another sip of wine. Rhys asked about rugby and the two men held a lively discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the current Cardiff team and they ate pasta and drank more wine. Ianto even offered a funny story of when he played rugby for his school and Rhys told about a bad incident with a rugby ball and Banana Boat.
Gwen learned more about Ianto over spaghetti than she'd known before, including his unwillingness to talk about his father and the sparkle in his eye when he spoke of his niece and nephew and his obvious passion for Cardiff rugby. He had another glass of wine after dinner as they sat on the couch and after Rhys bid them goodnight, sensing Gwen's desire to talk with Ianto alone, he settled back and smiled at her.
"Thanks," he said warmly. "I needed this."
She smiled at him. "I could tell." She took another sip of her wine and asked, "Do you want to talk about it?"
He hesitated, took a sip of his own wine, and said, "I got overwhelmed is all." He paused and added, "Sometimes he's overwhelming."
She nodded and thought she knew what he meant. "Today was a hard death for him."
He sighed, "Yes."
They sat quietly for a few minutes and then Ianto suddenly leaned forward and set his wine on the table in front of the couch and started talking, keeping his eyes on the glass in front of him. "It's not so much that. The death I mean. It's like. . . it's like he comes back to life and in that one gasp for air he's pulling back in all the years he's lived, and," he drew a sharp breath, "and he's lived so long, Gwen. There are so many years for him to pull back in with that breath and I get. . . I got overwhelmed." He shook his head, as if the explanation he just gave wasn't quite right. He leaned forward and took another drink of wine. She waited patiently.
"I don't care how old he is, usually," he said quietly, and she suddenly understood the dazed look on his face when she found him on the park bench.
She leaned into his shoulder and put her arm around him, gently pulling him to her and letting him lean against her with a sigh. He wasn't heavy, and after just a moment he relaxed his head onto her shoulder and they sat for a while, just drinking their wine.
"He needs you, you know," She said finally, her voice heavy with the wine and truth.
"Why," he retorted, almost petulantly.
"Because you don't have the years to match, but you still accept him for what he is," she replied.
"What is he, Gwen, because sometimes I don't know. And usually that's okay but on days like today it's not and all I could think of as I sat outside before you came along was that I needed to run. I needed to grab some Retcon and run. But I don't want to run, not really. It's just that," and his voice suddenly broke and he paused to gather himself and then continued, "I just get overwhelmed sometimes."
She began rubbing small circles on his back and running her fingers through his hair, and after a moment she answered, "He's just Jack, Ianto. And he's overwhelming sometimes."
And Ianto nodded and let Gwen rub his back and she held him as his breathing evened out and deepened, and when she realized he was asleep she held him a while longer because it felt good, like she was holding him together, and then she finally laid him down on the couch and stood. She found a blanket and covered him, and an hour later as she lay in bed reading, she heard Ianto's phone ring from the bathroom where he'd left it after his shower. After the ringing stopped for a moment, her own phone by her bedside rang and she picked it up.
It was Jack, looking for Ianto, and she told him he should come get him and take him home, that waking up with Jack would be better than waking up to a morning Rhys. So Jack came and gently gathered a groggy Ianto from her couch, thanking Gwen for looking out for him.
And after Jack and Ianto left together, she woke Rhys and convinced him to make love to her, and she let him overwhelm her in his own way that she loved so much.