Author: Ceindreadh
Title: Mea Culpa
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Angst
Warnings: Angst
Summary: Some days it feels like his life has been one long apology

Prompt: Torchwood apology list

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Some days it feels like his life has been one apology after another. Moving from one messed up situation to another, with the only changes being the faces of the people he'd let down...the people he should have apologized to.

The parents, who had deserved a better son, a more reliable one. One who would have lived up to his responsibilities and not brought pain to his family.

The teachers who tried their best to get him to live up to his potential instead of coasting through their classes on his natural talents combined with the bare minimum of work.

The legal representative who had stood beside him in the courtroom arguing the case on his behalf, only to see all her hard work undone by an ill timed remark from his lips just when the judge was about to show leniency towards him.

The people who fell beside him while he survived. He doesn't know why he was spared when so many died. Some days he wishes he hadn't. Wishes that the burden of surviving hadn't fallen on his shoulders. He feels like he should apologize every day of his life for still being alive while they are dead.

The woman he's loved and lost. He'd promised to look after her, vowed that he wouldn't let anything happen to her. But in the end it was her blood on his hands and another in a long line of broken promises.

The people he's lied to, hidden his true face from, betrayed their trust.

The people who have died as a result of his actions or inactions. The people that he himself has killed. He wants to remember their faces, their names. But while their details may wither and fade in his mind, blurred by the sheer numbers that exist in his past, the guilt will never leave.

So many lives ruined thanks to him. He knows that no matter how many words of remorse he may utter in his lifetime, it will never be enough to make up for the failings of his past.

But all he can do is try, again and again, over and over in the hope that it may make some small difference. That maybe a simple expression of remorse may go some small way towards easing the pain that he has caused.

So he turns once again to a man that he has hurt, and even though he knows that it was for the greater good, it doesn't make his guilt any the less as he says, "I am so sorry about Lisa, Ianto."

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The End