Savior/Traitor

You watch them shout, watch them gesture, watch them stare deep into one another's eyes, and your heart turns to stone. Just like that, it's ice and it's unbreakable, and you can do what needs to be done.

Jack and Gwen finish their charged confrontation, Gwen storming out through the cogwheel door and Jack stomping into his office to sit and wallow. Brood, you think. Jack is going to brood now; later he'll brood some more on a rooftop high above the city. Yet he's not brooding over you, or the space whale, or even Rhys Williams. He's brooding over bloody Gwen Cooper. Again.

You understand, you really do. Because you understand Jack—more than any of the others, especially Gwen. She supports his hero complex; you see the real man. Gwen reminds him who he is fighting for, while you remind him what you are fighting against and the sacrifices it takes to survive and succeed. You are the super-ego to their ego and id, the mind to their body and spirit.

It was a role you accepted willingly, until now. It's not about envy or jealousy, sexual or otherwise; it's about balance and survival. The fragile stability of your unconventional triad has been disrupted too many times, the risk of catastrophic failure suddenly unavoidable. Gwen's bleeding heart has taken control, forced Jack into ignoring his gut instinct and logical brain to instead follow his heart. And still you understand, having followed your own heart more than once, usually to a terrible end. You know from experience the fatal consequences of taking that path, and so you accept what you must do to save them: to save Rhys, to save Tosh and Owen, and even yourself.

You leave Jack to his brooding. You set out coffee and a brief note, heading home without a word when Tosh and Owen sign off for the night. Jack will probably try to contact you once he realizes that you've left without a pity shag, so you put your mobile on vibrate. And he will almost certainly track you down to your flat, so you do not stay long. You shower, change, and bandage your wrists to calm the rope burns cutting into your skin. If a flash of anger threatens to overwhelm you, that no one noticed, no one even thought to ask if you were all right after the struggle in the warehouse, you try to suppress it, or at the very least, ignore it. It isn't about you anyway; it never is, never will be.

You move swiftly through the flat, taking only what you need and throwing it into the small bag on the bed. More goes into a black rucksack, including your laptop; anything left behind will undoubtedly go into storage. You hold no false hope of ever seeing the detritus of this life again.

Slipping a cap onto your head, you glance around the flat one last time before stepping out into the night. Your car will certainly give away your location, so you leave it behind as well and walk several miles to a local café with internet access and fairly decent coffee. You stop for cash on the way, emptying the majority of your account; it will not matter, as you will be deleting it soon anyway. Most of the CCTV cameras are easily avoidable, and you make sure to sit in a far corner of the café with your laptop and espresso as you set up the complicated firewalls that will ensure even Tosh will have to put in some effort to track you down. Really, you should be finished by the time Jack begins to worry and calls her in.

Especially if he doesn't even realize you are gone.

To your surprise, he does, for it is less than an hour when your mobile first begins to vibrate. You ignore it and the next three calls, and don't even bother with the text messages. Then Tosh calls, and you ignore her too, though you feel guilty about it. A second cup of coffee with a stale Welsh cake gets you through your task without allowing anything to distract you: old records destroyed, new records created, and no trace of either having appeared just that night.

Bank accounts are hacked, deleted, and transferred; a flat purchased, movers hired. Harwoods Haulage is easy to break into; the police records prove more difficult, and a third cup is needed to make sure everything else is up to the level you know will ensure success.

Canceling a wedding is almost as much work as planning one, you suspect.

Closing your laptop, you take a deep breath, finish your coffee, and check the time. It is not too late, and you are glad, because you did not want to spend the night in a questionable hotel, or worse, on the street. You walk a few blocks until you find a cab and give the driver the address to Gwen's flat while you palm the small vial in your coat pocket. You are calm, and this both surprises and frightens you. In many ways, you feel dead inside, as if you have locked all of your doubts and fears away, moving only on instinct and determination. There will be time to doubt, panic, and collapse when it is all over. Literally, perhaps.

Gwen is surprised to see you, even more surprised to see the bag. Rhys does not stand to greet you; his eyes are dull with pain, but he smiles and nods, and he is the one—the only one—who asks how you are doing. How is it that Rhys Williams, a man you barely know, is the one to ask? He gestures at your bandaged hands, and Gwen gasps and fawns while you barely suppress the urge to roll your eyes.

"Would you like a cuppa?" asks Rhys. "I know I could go for another." He gives Gwen a pointed look, and she starts to rise. Ianto shakes his head and smiles.

"I'll do it. I've been known to make a decent cup now and then."

Rhys laughs heartily. "I've heard embarrassing things about your coffee, mate. That would be brilliant."

You bury the tiny surge of guilt, that Rhys is really not that bad of a man. You bury another as you bitterly sympathize with him, that he is probably a good man who has fallen for the wrong person. He deserves better in so many ways. And yet, as Gwen leads you to the kitchen, talking nonstop about him, you realize that she does love him, and that they are good for one another.

And that strengthens your resolve, because they need this. They need each other, and the normal life they were meant to have together. Not chasing aliens or sleeper cells or space whales. A normal life where neither one of them has to worry about getting shot anymore.

You slip the small white pills into the coffee and carry the mugs out to the sitting room. Gwen finally asks about the elephant in the room, the bags you'd left by the door. You smile and set down your mug and spin your first lie; she won't remember any of it anyway.

You are going away for a while. Now that Jack is back, you can take the time off and attend to some important family matters. She sips at her mug before setting it down and taking your hand, concern radiating from her eyes, dripping from her voice. Though you sense she is sincere, you cannot accept it. It is too little, too late, and you are tempted to tell her the truth: you just erased the last year of their lives, and they are now safe from Torchwood and aliens and Jack.

And that you will be turning yourself over to UNIT as soon as you leave, because you would rather wallow in prison or forced servitude to UNIT than stay with Torchwood after all you've done.

But you do not go into graphic detail; the less said with Retcon, the better. Vague suggestions are more likely to hold than detailed falsehoods. As Gwen and Rhys begin to nod off, you arrange them on the sofa, murmuring lies of the last year into their ears. You tell them of the new flat waiting for them in Aberystwyth, of the movers coming that weekend, of the transfers they'd arranged after deciding to elope and move north.

You leave them on the sofa and begin to clean up the flat. You start some packing, so that it looks as if they are truly preparing to move. You rearrange things on their computer, adding and deleting as necessary. And you comb the flat for each and every possible trace of Torchwood that you can find and place it into your bag: Gwen's weapon, dirty clothing, files, pictures, even the book on aliens Owen had got her as a joke for her birthday.

You take their cell phones, pdas, and laptop.

You trash everything that has to do with the wedding; you've already canceled it all anyway.

You cover each and every point you can think of to maintain the illusion: Gwen Cooper and Rhys Williams, preparing to elope and move north. Rhys, injured in a random mugging at Bute Park. Gwen, leaving policework for a new married life.

Torchwood is scrubbed from her memory, her body, and soul. You leave the flat impeccable, knowing that while Tosh may see through your work, local authorities will not. And it will not matter what Tosh discovers as you sit down at the computer to complete your last, damning action.

It is an email, carefully composed in your head over the last several hours.

Jack,

I have decided to give Rhys the Retcon. I have also decided to take it myself. I can't work with people who cannot accept me as I am, who cannot understand what it is like to keep such terrible secrets from the man I love. I know this will hurt you deeply, but it is the right decision for us both. I wish I could say that I will always remember you and the amazing things that I experienced with Torchwood, but I won't, and for that I am more sorry than you could possibly imagine.

All my love,

Gwen

You hesitate over the send button. With one last glance toward the sofa where Gwen sleeps with Rhys, you take a deep breath and steel your resolve. This will change everything. Gwen and Rhys will be safe, but you could end up in prison, or worse. After Jack's confrontation with Gwen earlier in the day, you wonder if he might kill you for what you are about to do. It was only a year ago, after all, that he threatened to execute you if you did not kill the woman you loved.

That memory—of Jack's angry words to you then, while earlier he simply let Gwen go home to her boyfriend without so much as slap on the wrist for insubordination—bring back feelings you had thought buried: guilt, anger, resentment, self-hatred. God, how twisted is it that you are sleeping with the man who once held a gun to your head? Even worse that you love him and would do anything to protect him from himself.

You hit send and close your eyes as the electronic stream of data zooms across the vague pathways of the internet toward Jack's computer. Within hours, everything will change. Gwen and Rhys will have the chance to move on, live happily ever after; Tosh and Owen will have the chance to survive a little longer, now that Gwen is no longer obfuscating the mission of Torchwood with her stubborn insistence on being right, being human; and Jack can go back to being who he was before she barged into the Hub and started questioning everything he did, everything he believed in. He can be the strong, confident, dedicated man you met in the park, unburdened by Gwen's lack of faith and his own guilt.

Your life, however, is over. Your career, your freedom, possibly your very existence. It is the sacrifice you must make in order to ensure long-term success, and it is one you are willing to make because you have always been the one to see the big picture. Torchwood cannot continue as it is, and so you have made the decision to return it to as it was, before you conned your way into the Hub and Gwen literally fell into a job she was simply not damaged enough to handle.

Shut down the computer. Put away the food and drink. Take out the trash. Tidy up. One last look around the flat. A final kiss to Gwen's forehead.

Without looking back, you leave the flat. You leave the city. You leave everything behind as you make your way to London.

At the gates to the Tower of London, you offer your wrists to the UNIT officers stationed on guard. Once in custody, you offer your confession, as well as your service or your life, whichever they see fit to take from you. And you do so willingly, knowing that in your own way, you have saved the planet. Because you have saved Torchwood, have saved Jack from himself, have saved Tosh and Owen and the countless others that they in turn will save. You have allowed them to do what they were meant to do, and you face your fate as both savior and traitor.

After two months in a solitary, dark cell, you hold tight to your conviction, refusing to let it go because you know what you did was right.

After four months, you begin to doubt yourself, but refuse to think otherwise because it is all you have left to believe in.

After six months, Jack comes to visit you, and you finally break, shattering into pieces before him. You betrayed him once before, and he saved you, but this time you cannot be saved, not from yourself.

Your life is truly over.

Forever.

Author's Note:

This is another one shot I started quite a while ago, and another born of the ongoing conversations that Tamaar and I continue to have just about every day when it comes to Jack, Ianto, and Torchwood. We were talking about post-Meat reactions, or maybe Retcon fics, and wondered whether Ianto might Retcon Rhys himself, not in a pique of jealousy, but in a fit of protection. And thus this very AU idea came to be. We are both wondering why my darker writing comes out as second person; I'm not sure I want to know. Thank you for reading, as uncomfortable as it was! At least now I can cross off post-Meat on the fic bucket list. My next chaptered fic is also an AU story that explores the use of Retcon as well.