Rating: T
Word count: ~ 3700
Warnings: Light angst, drama, fairy-themed fix-it.
Summary: Five times Tosh and Ianto talked, and one time they didn't have to. Series two fix-it.
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: I really should stop writing things after 2 a.m. This was supposed to be a story about could-have-been-a-Chosen-One!Ianto, and it somehow mutated into a 5+1 Tosh/Ianto friendship thing. I've got no clue how this kind of thing happens. Really. And the fix-it that was the whole point is barely there. I'm so sorry.
(The title is from Sylvia Plath's poem Lesbos: "We should meet in another life, we should meet in air/me and you.")
We Should Meet In Air
1.
The Hub is full of frosty silence when Ianto arrives, his first day back at work since his suspension. Jack gives him a quick nod before retreating to his office, and that's a bit heartening. It helps to calm the rats twisting and gnawing in his stomach, and cleaning up the disaster that the main area has become further distracts him from the ache of guilt in his chest.
But then Owen and Gwen arrive.
Owen snarls at him, anger clearly still present, and stalks down to the autopsy bay. Delicate equipment rattles and slams, and Ianto flinches. It doesn't sound like anything is breaking, though, so that's a plus.
The coffee that Ianto delivers is pointedly left untouched.
Gwen's just as bad—maybe even worse—though in an entirely different way. She looks at Ianto with wide, betrayed eyes, but worse yet, she tries to be understanding. She puts her hand on his arm, smiles sympathetically at him, asks him if he wants to talk, and hovers to the point of smothering him.
Ten minutes of that and Ianto is man enough to admit he turns tail and flees.
He sequesters himself in the Tourist Office, which looks like it hasn't even been tidied since the last time Ianto set foot in it, and tries his best to bury himself in his work. It works, well enough that Ianto startles slightly when the bells over the door chime, and it opens to admit Tosh.
Quickly, Ianto drops his eyes back to the stack of pamphlets he's organizing, afraid to look up. Of the others, Tosh is the only one whose opinion he really cares about, after Jack. She's also the most sensitive, wary and guarded with her friendship, even if she always has a smile to offer when Ianto brings her coffee.
It hurts to think that he might have lost that.
Booted footsteps cross the floor, and hesitate in front of the desk. Ianto tenses, eyes turned firmly downward, and doesn't move.
Then a tall cup of Starbucks coffee is set gently in front of him, and Tosh says softly, "I got you a coffee."
Ianto doesn't want to look up, but he does anyway, and the expression on her face just about breaks her heart. It's hope and regret and sadness and sympathy, all trapped behind a slightly tentative smile.
His heart flutters, and Ianto takes the cup between careful hands, feeling the warmth seep into him. He hadn't even realized he was cold.
"Thank you," he manages after a moment. "This is—I don't—"
But Tosh just looks at him, and her dark eyes are just as warm as the cup he holds. "No one ever gets you a coffee," she says, and there's guilt traced through her smile, but it's still there nevertheless.
Ianto takes a deep breath, and tries to pretend it doesn't shake. He takes a sip of coffee to cover it, and the foamy sweetness of a vanilla latte slides over his tongue. It's been years since the last time Ianto had one, and he'd forgotten how good they are.
"It's all right," he says after a moment, because he has to say something. "I—Jack took me on as a butler. Someone to take care of all the mess and keep his nose out of everything else. I just…forgot that for a little while."
Tosh shifts her own coffee from hand to hand, looking down at it, and somehow it's a relief that she's just as awkward about this as Ianto. They're neither of them very good with feelings. "It shouldn't be," she says softly. "Maybe that's how you started out, Ianto, but now you're one of us. We're the ones who forgot that, and we shouldn't have. I'm sorry." Even more quietly, she adds, "You were in pain, and we didn't even notice. That's…a bit not good."
The coffee is sweet, and hot, and it warms Ianto right to his core. He wraps his fingers more firmly around the cup and looks up at Tosh, and steels himself to ask, "Do you…have plans for lunch?"
"No," Tosh answers, and her smile is brilliant. "How about Thai?"
Ianto looks down at the crowded desk, at the papers that need organizing, and then back up. "That sounds perfect," he says, and for the first time since Canary Wharf and the fall of Torchwood One, the world has stopped crumbling away beneath his feet.
2.
It's ten in the morning, and the cannibals should be a distant memory. Ianto's flat is full of sunlight, warm and golden, which is a rarity for Cardiff this time of year. The day is sweet and mild, and the city is rich with the scent of growing things. It's as though nature itself is trying to make up for what they suffered in Brynblaidd.
It doesn't help.
Ianto stands in the middle of the room, staring out the wide bay window which was his reason for choosing this apartment to begin with—
(Lisa will love it, he had thought, but that's all gone now, vanished with her corpse into the incinerator)
—and all he can see is a dark basement with a fridge full of people. The smell of blood is harsh in his nose, copper and iron and death, and dread lies heavy on his tongue, weighting it down. It's morning, and it's bright, and Jack has given all of them the next few days off, but it's not enough. The horror is still there, and Ianto can't banish it, regardless of the daytime and the sunlight.
Horror moves his feet, and before he's even aware of it, he's out of the flat, stumbling down the stairs with only the thought of away, away, away to drive him. His heart is pounding in his chest, hummingbird-quick, and he can't draw a full breath, but that's all right. He's moving, he's escaping, and that's enough.
At the foot of the stairs, he nearly crashes into Tosh, who's on her way up.
They stare at each other for a long moment, Ianto in battered jeans and a threadbare oxford and Tosh in a baggy sweater and equally worn jeans. Comfort clothing, Ianto recognizes, in the corner of his brain that isn't full of surprise or horror. They're both doing all they can to get comfortable, all they can to escape. And on that note—
"Out?" Ianto asks.
"Oh god yes," Tosh answers instantly.
*.~.*.~.*
They end up in the Plass, because Ianto lives within walking distance and they're both always, always drawn back to the Hub, to the drug that is life as a Torchwood operative. There's a bakery a block over that the team favors, and they stop there for pastries and coffee, even though neither of them is hungry.
Tosh is the one who leads the way to the waterfront, and a bench overlooking the Bay. The wind is still mild, and the sun is warm, and Ianto's chocolate-filled croissant is perfectly flaky. He lets out a long, slow breath. It feels like the first time he's done so in years, and beside him, Tosh does the same. They sit together on the hard metal bench, letting the wind and sun and hum of city life unwind them, and for the first time since they found that stripped corpse in the woods, Ianto lets himself relax.
"How do you want to die?" he blurts, before the question even registers as having been thought.
Tosh glances at him in surprise, blinking, but she tilts her head to consider the issue, taking it seriously. "If I had the choice?" she offers at length. "I don't know. But I don't want to get eaten, either before death or after it."
"Not fire," Ianto agrees. "Too much like being cooked."
"Not steam." She makes a face. "Being burned and boiled, ugh."
"Not electricity."
"Hypothermia is supposed to be a fairly nice way to go."
They trade looks, remembering a cold basement filled with mementoes of earlier deaths, and a refrigerator filled with meat, and shake their heads in unison.
"Not drowning, either," Ianto suggests after a moment.
Tosh shivers, twisting her paper coffee cup between her hands. "Not suffocation," she murmurs. "Like with the fairies, choking on rose petals—I'd hate to die that way."
There's a bird, far out at sea—a gull, maybe, though Ianto can't tell from this distance. He keeps his eyes fixed on it as he shrugs, just a little. "The fairies aren't evil," he remarks, voice absent, though in reality he's anything but. "They just…can't abide threats to their Chosen Ones."
It's easy to forget that Tosh is a genius, sometimes. After only a heartbeat of silence, she puts the pieces together, and shoots Ianto a sharp glance. "You?" she demands, a touch incredulously. "You were a Chosen One?"
Ianto shakes his head, his gaze still on the horizon. "Not exactly," he says, and he's never put this into words for anyone before, never explained it even to Lisa. "I had…potential, I suppose. But my mam was ill, dying, and I didn't want to leave her. So they just stopped appearing, one day. I still feel them, sometimes, watching me, but it's…safe. Like family." When he glances over, Tosh is watching him thoughtfully. "The Chosen Ones have a choice, really. And sometimes, I feel like I could still ask them to take me, and they would."
Tosh puts her hand over his on the sun-warmed metal of the bench, and she's smiling again a bit. "I hope you never have to ask them," she says, and it's surprisingly fierce, coming from this beautiful, brave, battered woman.
Ianto looks at her, and then back out at the ocean.
"I…don't think I ever will."
3.
When the knock comes, Ianto isn't surprised at all. He sets down the plate of chocolate biscuits and the two cups of tea on the table and then heads for the door, undoing the chain and throwing it wide.
Tosh manages a shaky smile from his doormat, her arms wrapped around herself. There's a faint tremble running through her, and at this time of year it's not from the cold.
"Sorry," she says, and it's more lost than apologetic. "I'm sorry, but I didn't know where to go."
Ianto grasps her elbow and gently tugs her inside, directing her to the nearest chair. "Sit," he orders. "Drink. You're going to be fine, Tosh."
She looks up at him as he takes the seat across from her, and there's steel in her eyes. "I know," she says, and takes a defiant sip of tea, as though daring him to contradict her.
Ianto does no such thing, just wraps long fingers around his own mug and takes a careful sip, waiting her out.
He doesn't have to wait long. Before he can count to twenty, Tosh straightens in her seat and says, "I destroyed the pendant."
A slow nod is the only response Ianto gives her. "Did you use a hammer? That would have been satisfying, I think."
"Stepped on it," she admits. "You don't…think it was a bad idea?"
"No." Ianto shakes his head. "Just like Cybertechnology, I think we're a few centuries too early, as a species, to be trusted with telepathy. If we ever get there at all. You did the right thing."
With a huff of cinnamon-scented breath, Tosh slumps back in her seat and smiles weakly. "Thank you, Ianto. I didn't realize how much I wanted to hear that." Then she bites her lip guiltily, losing the smile, and winces a little. "I…overheard you. When you were cleaning. It…it was wrong of me, and I'm sorry."
The cup in front of Ianto is full of pale golden liquid—chamomile mixed with lemongrass and lavender, a blend Ianto makes himself. It trembles, just a little, as Ianto sets it down and blows out a breath that isn't quite a sigh. "I thought you might have," he admits. "Today was…a rather bad day. Sometimes, it's easy to go on, but then I'll see something or hear something, and it will remind me of Lisa, and I'll lose all the ground I've gained." His own smile is bare and sad. "It would have been our anniversary today. Three years together. And when I woke up, our song was playing on the radio."
Tosh sighs and leans forward, resting her forehead on her crossed arms. "I miss Mary," she says, and her voice is muffled by the wood and her emotions in equal measure. "I know she was a traitor, and I know she was using me, and I'm angry about that, but I still miss her."
The silence lingers between them, full of understanding rather than awkwardness, until Ianto pushes his chair back and stands up.
"You know what we need?" he says firmly. "Drinks. Lots of them. I'm going to get falling-down drunk tonight and call in sick to work tomorrow, and if you'd care to join me, Tosh, I'd appreciate the company."
Tosh's answering smile is wry and a little sad, but also challenging. "First one to the bottom of the bottle wins?"
"You're on."
4.
"Hmm…all right. Try this: Jack, Owen, and Hart."
Tosh wrinkles her nose, leaning back in her chair. They're in one of the nicer Italian restaurants near Roath Park, Zio Pin. It's been two days since Captain John Hart appeared and two and a half since Jack came back, and it's nice to get away and take a few hours for themselves in the middle of the day.
"That one's harder than it should be," Tosh admits after a moment. "I suppose…marry Owen, shag Jack, cliff Hart. What about you?"
"Marry Jack, shag Hart, cliff Owen," Ianto answers promptly, grinning at the mutter of outrage Tosh directs at him. "I'm sorry, but Owen's an arse, and I wouldn't let him near mine for all the money in Switzerland."
Tosh chokes on her next bite of Chicken Parmesan, waving her fork at him threateningly. "Ianto!" she hisses when she can breathe again. "That's—I didn't want to know that!"
Ianto just smiles at her, and after a moment they both break down into giggles.
It's over plates of tiramisu that Tosh finally ventures, "So…you and Jack, then? Back together?"
Ianto drags his fork through a bit of whipped cream, carving away at it. He doesn't meet her eyes as he shrugs jerkily. "I suppose. He wants a date, wants to do things properly. I just…can't see Jack doing that. It's always been me here, and him over there, and me carrying all of the feelings between the two of us. Jack…doesn't connect. Not like that."
"Maybe that's what Jack wants to change," Tosh suggests, scraping off a bit more whipped cream and dumping it on Ianto's plate, keeping the espresso-soaked ladyfingers for herself. "Something happened while he was away, even Owen can see that. Maybe it's changed his mind about the two of you."
Ianto looks politely skeptical, but there's a seed of hope in his chest that hasn't been there since they'd come back to find Jack simply gone. He breathes out once, slow, and then smiles. "Anything's possible, yeah? Anyway, it's your turn."
Tosh's smile is full of mischief. "Nathan Fillion, Adam Baldwin, and Sean Maher."
"Now that," Ianto informs her dryly, "is entirely unfair."
5.
There have been fairies around Ianto for as long as he can remember. Carefully caring eyes on him whenever he needs them, the susurration of wings whenever he's feeling particularly alone—they've always been there, and he's developed a sort of sixth sense about them.
When the Cybermen invaded Torchwood One, they were there, hiding him in plain sight, concealing him in the space between seconds until the very last Cyberman had vanished. As a child, even after he refused them, they protected him from his father's rages and bouts of drunken melancholy.
Like a warning shiver down his spine, like spider-sense or a twist of ice in his gut, the fairies warn him of danger and push him away from it. It's always been that way.
He feels that same sudden, wrenching knowing now, as Owen takes a careful step towards Aaron Copley. There's a rush of fluttering wings that only Ianto can hear, a high-pitched chitter of warning, and Ianto shoves Owen to the side just as the gun goes off. Almost simultaneously, pain explodes through Ianto's torso, and he finds himself tumbling backwards.
But Ianto is both taller and broader than Owen, and where the bullet would have struck Owen directly in the heart, Ianto catches it high up in the abdomen.
Somewhere distant, another gun goes off, and someone falls. There's shouting—Jack definitely, maybe Martha, possibly even Owen—but it doesn't matter anymore.
Darkness takes him, borne on overwhelming pain, and Ianto can't bring himself to fight it.
*.~.*.~.*
He wakes to light and the hum of background noise he's always associated with hospitals, and the weightless, foggy feeling that speaks of an excess of exceedingly effective painkillers. It takes more effort than it should to turn his head, but when he does, Jack is the first thing he sees, draped over the side of the bed. One of his big, broad hands is wrapped almost painfully tight around Ianto's, and Ianto's arm is numb where Jack lies on top of it, but the Captain's eyes are closed and he looks relatively peaceful.
Beyond him, in the far corner of the room, Owen is sprawled in one of the uncomfortable hospital chairs. His head is tipped at an angle that Ianto's never seen this side of a broken neck. He's snoring, face lined, bags under his eyes.
But he's alive, they're both alive, and that's all that matters.
"Ianto," Tosh murmurs from his other side, putting gentle pressure on his left hand, and he turns to look at her, summoning a faint smile from the depths of sedation. The relief in her eyes is warming, and her expression is sweet, full of softness. It's a good look on her, and Ianto suspects that Owen has something to do with it, if the awkward agreement of a date that he overheard wasn't just a figment of his imagination.
"Hey," he manages after several tries. "How…?"
His voice dies before he can finish more than the first syllable, but Tosh is able to guess what he was about to say. "Four days," she answers, her grip on his hand tightening. "You were officially out of danger after two, but the doctors wanted to keep you sedated for another two, for safety, and Owen—"
This time, it's her voice that breaks, and she closes her eyes for a heartbeat, and then another. Ianto knows she's thinking of what would have happened if he hadn't pushed Owen out of the way. It takes nearly more strength than he has at the moment to squeeze her hand, but he does it anyway, and they sit in silence for several minutes.
At length, Tosh sits up a little straighter, and says softly, "Ianto, do you remember when you asked me how I'd prefer to die?" When he nods, she gives him a brief, watery smile, and murmurs, "We listed all the ways that we didn't want to. What about how you do?"
Ianto offers her a wry smile. "Already know how it'll happen," he rasps. "I'll die with my boots on, and that's all I need to know."
Tosh's next smile is sad, but sweet, and she leans down to kiss Ianto on the forehead. "Me, too," she whispers. "But hopefully not for a long time, in both our cases."
+1
They find the body below Cardiff Castle, at the foot of the hill on which the fortress sits, three hours after the explosion in the abandoned building. There's a tracer on the body, a ring, and Captain John Hart is nowhere to be seen.
When Jack rolls Grey over, rose petals tumble from his lips, and his eyes are wide and sightless.
"He said he was going to tear your world apart," Gwen ventures after a moment, even though she's deathly pale herself. "Maybe the fairies thought he was a threat to one of the Chosen Ones?"
Tosh looks at Ianto, and Ianto looks back at her.
Neither one of them says anything at all.