Hello!
So this story has been niggling at me for a while now, and I'm going to give it a go. I've not written a proper full length fic for YEARS so please stick with me...Reviews are adored, concrit even more so :-)
AU - Ianto is stuck in a drained relationship and is about to embark on his first 'six' as a trainee barrister; but then he meets his Pupil Master. Will Jack Harkness QC be the making of him, or bring about the breakdown of everything he's worked so hard to achieve?
He woke to a dissatisfying sense of dread. Lying deathly still, he half believed that if he pretended to be asleep then the day might not be so insistent on getting started. It was the first day of his first six, and the newly called barrister was about to meet his pupil master.
He hadn't wanted to go into the law, but after taking a First in History his girlfriend had cajoled him into completing a law conversion course. For want of a better career prospect and addled by the first flushes of love, he'd happily agreed. She had visions of big houses, law society dinners and Manolo Blahniks which weren't likely to be funded by her teaching salary, and so it fell to him to make her dreams come true. It seemed like a good decision at the time, and on a good day he'd even go as far as to say that he'd enjoyed it; but after those 18 months things had begun to decline. Lisa hadn't appreciated how long it takes to complete legal training, and was beginning to tire of nothing but student loans, tuition fees and increasing debt. She was impatient and as the cold light of realistic expectations began to seep into their rented flat in Islington, Ianto had to acknowledge that his interest in becoming a barrister was waning together with his relationship.
That was some time ago.
He shifted gently onto his side to get a better look at the alarm clock, which was threatening to go off in 6 minutes.
He was almost there now, almost certain that the tatters of his relationship wouldn't make the next 12 months until he could get a job in chambers. He wasn't even sure if he wanted them to. Whilst Lisa wanted the money she was convinced he could bring in, he still occasionally saw a spark of the girl he fell in love with: and for Ianto that was enough to not break it off. There was enough of that girl still in his girlfriend that the thought of leaving her wasn't a notion he could seriously entertain, not for long. Besides which they had fallen into a routine, and though it might not have held any of the passion and longing he once ascribed to love, he'd grown up enough to know that he should be grateful for a functional, if not particularly satisfying relationship. Lord knows in his line of work he'd seen much worse.
The shrill of the alarm broke through his reverie, and he felt Lisa stir next to him before sitting up sharply, remembering what the day entailed.
"Ianto!" she snapped, "you'd better get in the shower first. Get in early, make a good impression yeah?"
He grunted.
"You know how important today is for us" she whined, and he tried to remember when his career progression had become their career progression. He found he couldn't much care. "He can do wonderful things for your career in the next year, you could at least be a bit excited!"
It was true at least, that Jack Harkness QC had a formidable reputation.
The jewel in the Crown Prosecution Service, he had a wickedly quick tongue and could turn a case around in his clients favour before the witness had even realised they'd been questioned. He was known for being wildly unpredictable and mildly unreliable; but always without doubt effective and unyieldingly Just. Politically he was dangerous to associate with, he had famously fallen out with the Minister for Defence and refused to have any sway from the government affect any of his court cases, no matter how volatile the outcome could be.
And they had been.
Foreign diplomats on trial, cases of war crimes, Jack had heard them all and worked up a reputation for disliking bureaucracy and holding himself up as the champion of the Law. He had alienated colleagues and judges alike, and didn't seem to care. He didn't seem have a problem with alienating women, so the stories ran in the tabloid columns.
But Ianto didn't hold much store by office rumour. He had applied to Jack to be his pupil master having never met the man before because he was the best, and Lisa wanted the best.
He had moved from his home city in Cardiff where they could afford to rent a house to a bedsit in London which was hardly big enough to store his case books let alone his girlfriends wardrobe.
He had bought the suits, and the shoes, and the expression of arrogance, and the place at the table with the big guns.
Now he had to prove he belonged there.
And for the life of him as he quickly dressed and fastened his waistcoat, attaching his grandfathers antique stopwatch for luck: he didn't know how.
Glancing quickly at the mirror on the back of the door he saw someone he didn't recognise stare back at him. He didn't particularly like him either, and not for the first time Ianto wondered if it would all be worth it in the end.
