Discovery
I was slightly annoyed as I entered the Hub. Why was I suddenly remembering Gray, and my dad, and everything else? Why? I had given them a thought for hundreds of years. It didn't add up at all. As I made my way up the stairs, it was the only thing on my mind.
"Jack!"
I heard someone calling my voice by the coffee machine. I looked over. It was Ianto. A small smile found its way o my lips.
"Ianto." I said quietly, laughing a little. I was already thinking of ways to end what had been a pretty shit day. I made my way towards him. "Hey!" I called back to him.
As I made my way back over to him, I noticed he was lying back in his chair. Normally, he had a cheeky smile on his face when he sat like that, but tonight, he was distant, he looked like he'd been crying. Now I was worried; it took a lot to get my Welshman upset.
"What's wrong?" I asked him.
When he spoke, it was obvious he'd been crying."You have to put me in the vaults. Lock me up. I killed three girls." He sniffed. Whenever he did that, my heart broke a little for him. He continued, "Strangled them."
He was joking. He had to be. I wasn't in the mood for jokes that night. But the look on his face and the tone of his voice suggested otherwise. He couldn't be serious; Ianto wasn't very strong mentally (physically was another story) and he was terrible at keeping secrets; whenever he was he was always jumpy around people. There was no way he could have kept something like this a secret for so long. No way.
"Stop kidding around." I told him. I was genuinely concerned for his mental health now. Not that that was a hard thing to be; his mental health wasn't the best anyway.
His face was still distant. Still tear-stained. "I'm serious." He couldn't be. He just couldn't be. "I murdered them in cold blood. I took their bodies…" he then jumped up, started looking around him nervously, as if he was doing something really bad by telling me. "You have to lock me away. Before I turn on you! None of you are safe."
He stormed past me. I grabbed hold of him. "Hey, hey, come here, come here." I forced him to look at me. The look on his was a mix of grief, fear and self-pity. I have never been so confused in my long life.
"What's happened to you?" I pulled him into a hug. Holding him in my arms, I knew that there was something seriously wrong with him. I've always cared about Ianto more than anyone else I've ever known, but I've never cared about him more than I did during that hug. He returned it; at least that hadn't changed. If he hadn't, god only knows what I would've done!
I stroked the back of his head; that always calmed him down. He just stood there, with his arms around me, completely at a loss for words. Then he said, very quietly, right in my ear, "I'm a monster." That was it. The final straw.
TWTWTWTWTWTWTWTW
It had taken a while, but I'd finally managed to set up the lie detector. Taken a while because half of it had been under Adam's desk. Under it. What was that about! I made a mental note to ask Adam about it in the morning. For now though, I had to fix Ianto.
"Best lie detector on the planet." I told him when I saw the confused look on his adorable face. I continued, "If something's untrue, the light turns red. Go." I braced myself, having no idea what would come out of my young Welshman's mouth.
"My… hands on her throat." He stared shaking, far away. I could feel my heart breaking in my chest. "And it felt so good." I looked at the lie detector; it read true. It was just thinking about it, it had to be. There was no way on Earth my Ianto was capable of murdering someone in cold blood. No way, not ever.
I looked up and he went on, "Squeezing…the life out of her." He looked at the lie detector, and saw what I saw. The tears in his eyes were getting harder and harder to ignore, so I looked down, hoping that if I didn't see them they would stop existing. "It reads as truth." He reminded me. I didn't need to look at him; I could hear the tears in his eyes.
I looked at him, trying to be strong for his sake. "I don't believe it." I thought about it. Maybe it just needed more information; Ianto hadn't actually said that much, after all. "Okay, tell me about the second girl."
He shifted in his seat a little, and then whimpered. God, was he trying to see how much he could break my heart in one night. If he was, he was up to about 87.
"She tried to get away," the tears in his eyes finally fell. 88. "but I was too quick. Pleading…and I…I didn't care." More tears. 101. "Something in me wants to kill." Infinity.
I had to stop him talking then. "No. This is not you." I turned the lie detector off. I'd get Toshiko to fix it later. "Something's changed you." I got out of my chair, furious. With what, I wasn't sure. Myself. Ianto. Everyone and everything. "You're not a murderer. I'm certain of it." I touched his shoulder as I walked away and heard his gasp, saw him flinch.
A/N: This is where I kinda abandon what actually happened, and just write it the way I think it should have happened.
I turned back around and saw him begin panting in panic. I couldn't take it anymore. I knelt down beside him. I moved away from me. I grabbed his shoulders.
"Listen to me Ianto." He struggled, I tightened my grip, and forced him to look at me. "I'm not gonna hurt you. You're not gonna hurt me. You could barely hurt a fly. You, Jones, Ianto Jones, are the nicest, kindest, sweetest, best person I have ever met, and I love you to pieces for it."
He looked at me, looking scared to death. I stood him up, and gave him another hug. He didn't return it. He pushed me away, grabbed my shoulders and stood nose to nose with me. "You mean it? You really, truly mean it?"
I looked right into his eyes. "I do." He stared at me for a moment, then smacked his lips against mine.
I had no idea who was comforting who during the kiss, but someone was definitely comforting someone. At some points it felt like he was comforting me, at others like I was comforting him. Either way, it was the best kiss I have ever had. And there's a lot of competition for that title.
Eventually, I had to pull away. Slightly breathless, I looked directly at him again. "Okay, we are going to work out what has done this to you. Okay?" he nodded, smiling weakly, making me smile. "Let's get to it then."