A/N: I am so late to the Torchwood game that I feel kind of silly writing a post-Exit Wounds story, but I love the idea of the few days afterward, and if there's one thing missing from the end of the episode, it's how absolutely close to the edge of insanity Jack must have been. I may turn this into a series of one-shots about the things he would have to deal with upon his return from being buried for two-thousand years. Here's a first offering. If you like it, let me know and I'll poke around with more of what's on my mind about this time in his life. Oh, and I own nothing related to TW. Oh well.
Method Acting: a dramatic technique in which actors identify as closely as possible with the character played by correlating experiences from their personal lives to thecharacter.
The first lesson was the computer system. The day after the chaos happened, Jack asked Ianto to log Tosh and Owen out of the system while he and Gwen packed up their belongings. It was partially because he wanted to touch what was left of them, but it was also because, at the moment, he couldn't remember the process for getting into the system. Hours later he sat there in front of the monitor and figured it out on his own, memories coming back to him, but they had to be jogged, and, of course, the grief kept getting in the way of him thinking clearly.
The next lesson was when Jack sat down at his desk, numb with grief from the past three days of cleaning up the mess that Grey had left behind in his wake, knowing that UNIT and the Prime Minister's office would be expecting a report about the destruction in Cardiff. He couldn't remember the liason's name, the one he was supposed to report to, and he had to go back through old files to find the name. Ianto found him standing at the filing cabinet in his office angrily sifting through a file, slamming the drawer when he was finished.
"Jack, are you all right? Do you need help with a file?" It was, after all, a primary job of Ianto's, keeping up the filing system.
Jack looked startled at Ianto's presence, and just shrugged it off, saying, "No, thanks. I found what I needed. I just," He started to try and explain his anger, "it's nothing." He went back to his desk and Ianto knew something was wrong. Of course, these days everything was wrong, so it was tough to discriminate. He chose lighthearted as the approach, "Jack, ever since you tricked me into fixing the filing system and the archives, you've been complaining." He smiled. Jack just frowned into his paperwork.
"I tricked you?" Jack asked, looking up after a moment. He looked lost and puzzled and, to Ianto's surprise, sincere.
Ianto chuckled, "You know you did. Lured me in on a day when you knew I couldn't say no and made me think it was a one-time job. I was a sucker, though, I'll admit." His smile faded as he watched Jack stretch to remember that day, and then smile awkwardly, laughing to cover his effort.
Lesson number three was at the firing range, also three days after the chaos ended. Jack thought Ianto and Gwen were out to lunch together (food was another lesson he wasn't willing to tackle yet), and he wandered downstairs to check himself on weapons. He knew that Rift activity wasn't going to stop because of all of this, and he also knew that two thousand years without firing a gun might make him a weak spot in the field; he wanted to brush up on his technique. He stood at the weapons cabinet staring at the guns, and his stomach kept turning somersaults. His eyes just seemed able to focus in on one gun, the weapon that Grey had stolen to carry through the Hub, the one he'd used to kill Tosh. Jack had his grip on the cabinet door and it increased, with his knuckles turning white from the pressure. He couldn't tear his gaze away from the one gun. Finally, he pulled it down, hands shaking, and laid it on the table nearby. He methodically took down four other guns and put them on the table as well. He stood still until his hands stopped shaking, fully aware that perhaps this wasn't the safest thing to be doing right now, but determined to be ready to go out when they needed him. The problem now was that he couldn't remember which gun took which ammunition. He had to physically match the style number on the gun with the boxes of ammunition against the wall. Gwen found him holding a box next to a gun to compare it. She asked if he needed help, startling him enough for him to drop the ammunition all over the floor.
"Shit!" He exclaimed, watching the mess spread as the bullets rolled in different directions. "You two keep sneaking up on me, Gwen! What the hell?" He was flushed, embarrassed, and angry.
Gwen knew she'd made plenty of noise descending into the room. She also knew that Jack was having trouble loading the guns. She asked, "Jack, do you want me to load them so you can practice?" He nodded, and after a few minutes she left him to shoot, having put the right boxes next to each gun for him as he watched her load each one. It took a while, but at the end of a sweaty hour or two, Jack had the targets hit precisely and he had relearned the loading and unloading of the guns.
Who would have thought that lights and darkness would be a lesson? Jack didn't want to be anywhere where lights weren't, and it took a few times for Ianto and Gwen to catch on. Ianto realized the afternoon after the filing incident that every time he came into the Hub from the tourist office or anywhere, ever since the chaos subsided, that the lights were all on, blaring, whether anyone was in the room or not. At first he thought it was a mistake on Jack's part, and had turned off any that weren't really necessary. The next time Jack came out of his office he turned them all back on, without saying a word. Ianto left them on this time. They stayed on, too. Gwen learned as well, after she turned out the lights in the autopsy bay since no one was down there, after she stood at the railing staring blankly at the bay where Owen's grumbling had so often been heard. She didn't want to see it, his place, and had turned out the lights. An hour later she walked by and the lights were back on, and after that happened two more times that day, she just sighed and left them on.
Another lesson came at night. Once the physical mess and the cleaning mess and the reorganization of duties mess had been dealt with, Jack sent Gwen home to allow Rhys to help her get through this tough time. He knew she and Ianto needed rest, and he was trying desperately to give it to them. That first night after the chaos, Ianto was beat down. His body ached, his heart ached, and he didn't know what to do with himself when it seemed that Jack was going to stay up all night. He knew his lover was tired, too, and he needed rest. But Jack didn't head for the bunker or ask if Ianto wanted to go to bed. They worked very late, and then sat on the couch drinking tea, not really wanting the coffee ritual at the moment. Rituals of before were somehow unspokenly off limits right now, hence all of the rearranging. All Ianto really wanted to do was sleep, though, and after a space of comfortable silence, he told Jack as much.
"You go on. I'm not tired yet. I'll come down soon." He told Ianto, staring off into space.
"Jack, you shouldn't stay up here alone. Come on, " Ianto reached over to pull Jack up from the couch. He didn't notice the fear and hesitation in Jack's eyes. Jack said, "No. I'm not going down there," as he indicated the bunker. Ianto was too tired to realize what was wrong. He just shrugged and kissed Jack tenderly, telling him not to work too much. He climbed down to Jack's bed and was asleep before his head hit the pillow. The next morning he could tell that Jack hadn't come down there at all. The next night, he had to tell Jack to go to sleep. Again, Ianto was exhausted, and by the looks of Jack's face, he was, too. He tried to pull Jack down to the bed in the bunker again, and Jack stiffened. "No." Jack said simply. "You go on down. I'll stay here and sleep later. I'm okay." He lied.
Then Ianto realized what was wrong. A hole in darkness. Of course. He sighed, "We don't have to sleep in the bunker. Come back to my flat with me, Jack. We'll sleep there. Okay?" He practically pleaded.
Jack hesitated. That would mean leaving the Hub. Of course, he didn't have to sleep if they were at Ianto's flat. He could help Ianto get to sleep and then. . . not sleep. The decision felt much harder than it should have been. He really, really didn't want to leave the Hub. He really, really didn't want to sleep. Ianto needed to sleep and he needed Jack. Jack sighed. "Okay. We'll go to your place."
When they were leaving for Ianto's flat, another lesson occurred. When the two men entered the car park, Jack hesitated. He couldn't remember what Ianto's car looked like, but he knew he didn't want to drive at all. Ianto felt the hesitation and thought he understood. "Come on, Jack. I'll drive." He led Jack to his car and they climbed inside.
A few minutes later they were at Ianto's flat, and after a while they stripped down and lay down together, Jack holding Ianto in his arms, waiting for him to go to sleep so that he could get up. Ianto sighed, thinking back over Jack's behavior the past few days and suddenly realizing what was going on.
"What?" Jack asked, wanting more than anything to get back to normal, to sleep, to manage the office, to manage living again.
"I think I figured something out tonight." Ianto said softly, turning so that he was holding Jack instead of Jack holding him.
"What did you figure?" Jack asked, closing his eyes knowing it was about him, and knowing that he hadn't been anything close to normal the last few days, that he didn't really even know how to start getting back to normal.
Ianto gripped Jack tighter. "You're learning, aren't you?" His voice was soft, knowing, and comforting. "You're learning how to do the things at the Hub that you knew before two thousand years got in the way. You're figuring out how to deal with me and Gwen knowing little things that you can't remember." This time he paused a long time, rubbing Jack's back and then stroking Jack's hair, looking down at Jack's face where tears were silently streaming down his cheeks. "You're learning how to be you again, aren't you?" Ianto whispered.
Jack just nodded, turning over, giving into the one thing that he'd been putting off relearning the past few days, and he kissed Ianto long and deep, running his hands over Ianto's body and tracing Ianto's face with his hands, and learning that here, with the one who's name and image Jack had never lost over the course of two thousand years, here he could feel safe, and loved. He would learn the other things again in time, but tonight he learned about the one he needed most: Ianto; and it was the first thing that felt good in centuries.