Warnings: Angst, excessive introspection.
Summary: Ianto is waiting. It rather feels like he's always waiting, these days.
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the creators, and no copyright infringement is intended.
A/N: Hee. I lied. This will be my last update before heading off to the Wild Coast. My lovely wife challenged me to write an Ianto character study in the time it took our flight to land. This is the result. Please note: this was written on an iPad. I hate typing on an iPad. Autocorrect is awful to me, even when I try to set it to English. Therefore, any mistakes are not my fault.
A Taste of Sky
There is a soft whisper in the air, like rain almost too soft to be felt but still present. Ianto feels it on his skin, though, can trace each drop of moisture as it rolls across his face.
He's waiting.
It rather feels like he's always waiting, these days.
Cardiff is wet, though that's hardly new. It's cold, too, which is; winter has come a little early this year.
Jack has been gone for three months now.
Ianto has never been one to pine quietly when there are other options, but in this case, there are no other options. Jack is gone to god knows when or where, back with the Doctor for the first time in what must surely be centuries. And, while Ianto can't truly begrudge him that, he does, if only just a little. After all, they're the last functioning branch of Torchwood, the last bastion against alien invasion when the Doctor fails to put in an appearance - which happens far more than the Time Lord's supporters want to acknowledge. Ianto is of the firm opinion that, if a situation can be handled by humans, it most certainly should be. Otherwise, what is the point?
Three months, and Ianto has felt every single one of them deep in his chest. Before, Ianto would not have said that what he felt for Jack was love. It was convenience and recreation and a bit of stress relief in a highly stressful job, and if Ianto happened to get a bit emotionally invested, well, that was just the way he was. It meant nothing.
Now, with the rain on his face and a chill worming its way under his heavy coat, Ianto knows that love is the very least of what he feels.
Love is supposed to be simple, easy. It always was with Lisa, the two of them just fitting. The was no divide between them, or at least none greater than between any man and woman. The few arguments they had were quickly resolved, ending in slow, gentle sex more often than not. But with Jack, it's entirely different. There's betrayal and anger and hurt between them, months of lies and hidden agendas and willing blindness. Ianto is in love with Jack, most definitely, but there area a thousand words he can use to define their relationship, and not a single one of them is a synonym for easy.
Three months, and Ianto is still waiting.
He turns his eyes towards the dark, heavy clouds, low enough that he could reach up and touch them if he wanted, and thinks that, like this, he'll wait forever.
The Hub is dark when Ianto arrives, and the light mist has long since turned to true rain - soon to be snow, no doubt, Ianto suspects. He's the first one there, even though Gwen volunteered to take the early morning monitoring shift. However, she has a propensity to get distract by Rhys, especially at times like this, so Ianto turns on the lights and the coffee machine and the computers, in that order. As the thick, heady smell of coffee fills the air, he feeds the occupants of the cells and then Myfanwy, then pours himself a cup and heads up to Jack's office - and it will never not be Jack's office, even if it takes him twenty years to return - to check emails.
Technically, this isn't Ianto's job. Technically, it isn't even Gwen's. Tosh has seniority. She's the one who should be taking over for Jack, but for all that Tosh is a lovely person and Ianto love her to pieces, she's not a leader. She's content to do the behind-the-scenes work, to stay with her machines and gadgets, and Ianto can't blame her. Owen isn't leadership material, either; he'd manage alienate every single contact Torcwood has in a matter of days. In the end, the only real choice is down to Gwen and Ianto himself, and Ianto has a feeling that he knows who Jack would have picked.
So Ianto stays in the shadows, hangs back and lets Gwen lead while he tries his best to keep Torcheood running, to be the power behind the throne. It's not hard, really, because it's all work that he's seen Jack do before, but it exhausts him, having to learn all the steps as he goes. Ianto is the kind of person who likes to have all of the instructions laid out beforehand, the steps memorized and prepared well before they're needed. Working like this - even though flying by the seat of one's pants is nearly a Torchwood Three tradition at this point - makes him a bit twitchy at the best of times, and this is hardly that. They've stopped four invasions in three months, as though some massive beacon has been sent out to all hostile forces, declaring Jack Harkness' absence.
Ianto pauses in the doorway to Jack's office, lingering on the threshold. The air in here is still and silent, as eerie as a tomb. It doesn't feel like Jack's just stepped out for a moment, and will be back at any time. It's dark and dim and a little threatening, and though Ianto knows logically that there was a time before Jack ran Three, it feels as though the Hub is some great beast, crouched and ready to spring if her master isn't returned to her soon.
But that's a foolish thought. Ianto shakes his head, steels himself, and goes in.
They're all waiting for Jack these days, it seems.
It's a quiet day, for once. Ianto is fairly certain that they've earned it twice or thrice over in the last few weeks.
Gwen is all apologies for being late, and offers to take Ianto's evening shift watching the Hub. Ianto accepts, because he feels almost obligated to do so. He's spent so many hours during the last three months leaping from one thing to another, doing whatever is asked of him, and in this it's no different. Gwen asks him for the evening shift, so he accepts, pulls on his coat as Tosh leaves, and heads out into the dimness of a rainy Cardiff twilight.
He's rather at loose ends, now, because Ianto has become accustomed to being the first to arrive and the last to leave every day, taking care of the last matters that require his attention - namely Flat Holm, which Ianto is aware none of the others know about or would approve of. It's extremely rare for him to have the energy to do more than go home and collapse into bed, and he knows that there are basic bits of housework waiting for him back at his apartment. But right now, just this once, he can't bring himself to turn back towards the empty, dusty space where he and Jack cooked dinner, or laughed over silly movies, or used Ianto's bed so thoroughly that it's never been the same.
Most of all, Ianto can't bring himself to go home and wait any longer, lonely and weary and scared that Jack will never return, and three months of quiet, tired vigil will stretch out endlessly into the future, entirely in vain.
Instead, he wanders. Cardiff is beautiful at night, even in the cold and rain, and there's something liberating about a good drenching when you have nowhere to go and nowhere in particular to be. Ianto stands out in the middle of the street, the normal evening crowds dwindled down to nearly nothing, and tips his head back to stare up at the sky. Perhaps he looks like a madman, soaking wet and uncaring, but the rain clings to his eyelashes and streams over his cheeks, gathering on his lips.
Just for a moment, Ianto swears that he can taste the sky. How many years has it been since he stood out in a Cardiff rainstorm, happy to be there?
How long has it been since he's allowed himself to find joy and hope in such a simple thing as rain?
Far longer than three months, Ianto guesses.
Jack has always been waiting for something. Ianto knew it even before Gwen told them about Jack looking for "the right kind of Doctor" - and really, three guesses who that is. Jack's not great at subtle. But this whole time, with Jack gone and the four of them left to fend for themselves against an entire galaxy of creatures that would be quite happy to take over Earth, Ianto has held on to the thought that this is what Jack needs, that this is something he requires to be happy, complete, free of the past that haunts his eyes far too often.
But now, for the first time, Ianto wonders if this isn't what he needed as well, a break in the madness to be able to look back and say, "Here, yes, this is what I have. Now what will I do to keep it?"
The answer, as it turns out, is "anything."
Ianto's just fine with that.