Author notes: If anybody made it passed the summary, I am impressed by your dedication to the fandom! Anyway, there is no Ianto in this chapter but I promise he will be in the next one...all supposing I get enough positive feedback to actually carry on with it. As said in the summary, I am not a writer so please don't expect much from this. But, without further ado...
Gwen ordered Chinese for lunch. None of them felt like eating pizza, not when their usual pizza delivery girl was in their morgue. They gathered in the boardroom to eat, all trying, unsuccessfully, to ignore the empty seat.
It was Owen who eventually broke the silence to address the elephant in the room. "Ianto?" he asked, raising a questioning eyebrow towards Jack. The question may not have been eloquently worded but they all knew what he was asking.
"Suspended for a month." Jack gave up on his pretence at eating and shoved his chopsticks back in the carton, sliding the meal away from him as he did so. "Afterwards he decides whether he comes back and works hard enough to try to make up for what he did or whether he takes enough retcon to take him back to before he ever knew Torchwood…or Lisa."
The only response was three slight nods of acknowledgement but the relief in the room was almost touchable.
"You didn't really think I'd have killed him, did you?" Jack asked, disbelievingly.
"You were rather angry." Tosh ventured timidly.
"No, I was mildly angry; I was rather scared." Jack corrected.
"I didn't think anything ever scared you." Gwen commented, dripping sweet and sour sauce down her chin and grabbing a napkin to clean it up.
"Not many things do now, I've seen too much." Jack leaned back in his chair and cradled his hands behind his head. "But Cybermen do; Cybermen and Daleks. They're unstoppable because you can't reason with them and they don't die that easily."
"They were stopped at Canary Wharf." Owen reminded him, wincing slightly at the memory of what he had seen when they went to retrieve equipment from the fallen Torchwood One.
"Only because there was an expert there. If the Cyberwoman had gotten loose in Cardiff, if she had succeeded in upgrading Gwen…well, he wouldn't have been there to stop it."
Gwen, ever the optimist, patted Jack's arm. "I'm sure he would have come. It can't have just been luck that had him at Canary Wharf, surely."
"No, he chases trouble…or maybe attracts it." Jack closed his eyes and let a nostalgic smile flitter across his face. It was gone as soon as it arrived. "But he wouldn't come here. He's avoiding me."
"There's no point worrying about what might have been," Tosh put in hurriedly, no doubt sensing Jack's unhappiness at the direction the conversation had taken. "We did stop her. One day we might even come to terms with that."
"You mean the fact that we shot Ianto's girlfriend?" Owen asked bluntly. At Tosh's nod, he reached over and squeezed her hand. "You do know that the thing we shot was no longer Ianto's Lisa, don't you? It was a cyber-converted brain in a pizza delivery girl's body. It was in no way Ianto's girlfriend."
"I know that." Tosh looked down at her hands, which were folded in her lap. "But I don't think Ianto does. To him, we're the people who murdered his girlfriend…and I'm not sure how to deal with that. I know I never really spoke to him, or even paid much attention to him, but I still thought of him as a friend, like I do all of you."
"Ianto's a sensible man," Gwen said, slipping an arm round Tosh's shoulders. "I'm sure he'll realise the truth once he's had time to think about it and mourn her." She gestured towards Tosh's untouched meal. "Aren't you going to eat anything?"
Tosh squirmed a little. "I didn't think when I gave you my order; I forgot that it has barbecue sauce on it." Her eyes filled with tears and she blinked them back hurriedly.
Gwen cleared her throat, looking slightly green and Jack looked away from the table. Owen, putting aside the snarky persona he usually showed the world, calmly switched the rest of his lemon chicken for Tosh's pork dish.
"Can't have you fainting away," he said gruffly, in response to her tremulous, grateful smile. "We're one man down as it is."
"Speaking of which," Jack braced his hands against the table, forcing his Captain persona back into the forefront. "We are going to have to sort out some kind of rota for who does what and when whilst Ianto's away. We'll all have to clear up after ourselves but all the others things he did will still need to be done."
"What exactly does Ianto do?" Gwen asked sheepishly. "I mean, I know he makes the coffee and keeps everywhere tidy but he doesn't spend all his time doing that, does he?"
"He researches stuff." Tosh answered quietly. "He always seems to know everything. And he's probably the only one of us who can find anything in the archives."
"Bagsy not me to do any of that archive stuff." Owen garbled round a messy mouthful of pork, rice and barbecue sauce. "Ianto nearly killed me after the last time I went in there."
"I don't think it was you going in the archives that upset him, it was the state you left them in when you came out." Jack pointed out with a lopsided smile. "Tosh or I will do archive stuff. Tosh is better with the Tech than I am but I can find stuff better."
"Only because you probably put the stuff down there to begin with." Tosh muttered. "If you had actually used a system, I would be fine."
"I did use a system." Jack protested.
"I don't think chronological order of finding things really counts, Jack." Owen said scathingly. "Maybe we should just hope that anything we need is in the bit Ianto has already sorted."
Tosh shook her head. "No, if we're going to mess anything up, it would be better if it happened in the bit he hasn't done yet. Can you imagine his reaction if he has to redo it?" she shuddered.
"So all the times I don't see Ianto, he's down in the archives?" Gwen asked incredulously. They all nodded. "Good grief, I haven't dared go down there on my own, they are so creepy. A month away from there, with time for his hobbies, will probably do him a world of good."
"What kind of hobbies do you suppose he has?" Tosh asked. "I don't really see him being a football player or gamer."
"I don't know…" Gwen thought for a moment. "Running maybe. He's got quite a fit body."
"Sorry to burst your bubble." Owen belched as he pushed away his empty carton. "I don't think the Teaboy had the time for hobbies."
"What do you mean?" Jack leaned forward and stared piercingly at the medic.
"I, uh, did an autopsy on Li…the Cyberwoman this morning." Owen purposefully didn't look at Jack, having been given clear orders to incinerate the body directly. "She was in a right state inside. It wouldn't have mattered once that computer doctor switched on the Cybernetics but up to then, well, Ianto must have been with her every spare minute he had to have got her through."
Silence met this statement. Silence that was eventually broken by Gwen.
"So you're saying that all the free time he has now will just serve to remind him that he doesn't have anything to do in his free time now."
"Pretty much."
Jack sighed heavily, watching the worried glances flittering between the others. "I'll check in on him this evening." He assured them.
"No offence, mate, but I think you're probably the last person Ianto wants to see right now." Owen said bluntly. "I could go this afternoon, you know, as his doctor."
"He probably won't want to see a doctor either," Tosh said quietly. "I'll go. I'd like to see him, let him know he has a friend if he wants one."
"It should be me who goes," Gwen argued. "After all, isn't that what I was hired for? The people stuff?"
"Enough!" Jack planted his fist heavily on the table, making them all jump. "I appreciate that you're all concerned, and that's great, it says a lot about you as people. But I'll be the one going. Yes, I am the last person he will want to see but, frankly, he won't want to see any of you either. We all shot the Cyberwoman so we are all guilty in his eyes. At least with me, all he will be is mad. I won't make him feel guilty."
Gwen bristled. "None of us would be going to send him on a guilt trip."
"I know." Jack held up a placating hand. "But he will feel guilty anyway. You nearly got upgraded, Owen was knocked out and Tosh…well, Ianto has a soft spot for Tosh so will be feeling guilty for putting her in danger. I am the monster, he won't feel guilty over me."
The others couldn't deny the logic behind that but they still looked disturbed.
"You will be kind to him, won't you?" Tosh asked cautiously.
"That depends." Jack got up and started picking up the rubbish from their takeaway.
"On what?" That was Gwen.
"On what I find when I see him. Kindness might not be what's best for him. But don't worry; I'll make sure he's ok, even if that means provoking him into trying to kill me."