A/N: Part Two! This chapter is basically two conversations. The first is Jack and Gwen, and offers a glimpse of what's going on in Jack's head. The second is Ianto and Martha, talking about Gray, and Jack, and love.
Standard Disclaimer applies. Same spoiler warnings as Part One
Please review!
The next day, Martha called Gwen as her train was about to arrive. At the time Gwen was busy, so Ianto took the SUV to the station to pick her up. Not long after he had left, Gwen finished her (current) work, and sat back in her chair for a moment. Her gaze fell on the door of Jack's office, where he was still refusing all contact, and she headed up the stairs. She knocked on the door softly. "Jack?"
"Go away." He was sitting in his chair, facing away from the door.
"Jack, can I come in? I need to talk to you."
"Say what you need to say and get out."
She stepped inside, pushing the door shut behind her. "Uh… we need you, Jack. Ianto and I are trying to keep going, but we can't. There's just too much. I know you're grieving, but we are too, you know. Only we don't have the luxury of locking ourselves away, because there's work to do. We've had to deal with our grief and get on with it. I know how you feel, but you need to stop hiding away in here and start living your life again."
"You know how I feel?" He got up and turned to face her. "You know how I feel? You have no idea how I feel, Gwen. It wasn't your brother who just destroyed half the city and killed two of your best friends because of you, was it? You have no idea what I'm feeling at the moment. If that's all you have to say, you can get out."
"Okay. Yeah, there are a lot of things about you that I don't know. But I do know that locking yourself up and refusing to talk to us is not going to bring anyone back and it's certainly not going to help!"
"Just go, Gwen. I didn't ask you to stay anyway. Go and be with Rhys, go and do whatever you want. Just get out."
"No!" She stepped closer and slapped him, hard. "No, I am not going anywhere, Jack, and neither is Ianto. We're both worried about you. We're trying to help you but you won't let us."
"You can't help me."
"Actually, I thought that might be the case. So I made a call to someone who might be able to."
"Who?"
"I called Martha yesterday. She's on her way down here right now."
"Why her?"
"She's your friend. She travelled with you and that Doctor of yours. She knows you better than we do."
"When did you say you called her?"
"Yesterday afternoon. Ianto's gone to get her from the station. She'll be here in half an hour. Why?"
"Just wanted to know how much time I had to work out how to tell her to get lost as well."
"Jack. We're trying to help. Stop pushing us away." She opened the door to leave, but turned back to look at him for a second. "You can get through this, Jack."
He didn't reply, and she walked away. She felt tears welling in her eyes as she sat down at her desk.
While Gwen was trying, and failing, to reason with Jack, Ianto was driving to the station to pick up Martha. He parked the SUV outside the station building, and looked at his watch. Martha's train wasn't due for another ten minutes. He sat in the car for a while, thinking. Or, rather, he was trying not to think, because these days thinking meant thinking about Owen, or Toshiko, or Gray, or what the ordeal of last week had done to Jack. He had spent the week trying to think about anything but what had happened. He had thrown himself into work, trying to keep Torchwood running and maintain some semblance of normality. It didn't help. He would be working on something, and think Owen would know that or I'll get Tosh to look at that, and then the fact of their absence, their eternal, definite, unchangeable absence would hit him like a blow to the chest, and he'd have to fight back the tears yet again.
It had been a week, and he had found only one thing that helped. He had started keeping a small hipflask in his pocket, filled with Scotch. He would take a drink when he felt like he couldn't cope, and then the memories and the pain would go away for a few more hours. Each night, he drank several glasses of the same Scotch just to be able to grab a few hours of dreamless sleep before getting up at five to get back to work.
He reflected, somewhat bitterly, that the three survivors all had their own ways of making the pain go away. Jack hid himself away in his office. Gwen threw herself into her work. Ianto had a bottle of Scotch.
He looked at his watch again. Martha's train should have arrived by now. He got out of the car and went to find her. The train from London had pulled into platform one, and he arrived just in time to see her step off the train, a bag hanging from one shoulder.
"Ianto!" She hurried over to him, and immediately hugged him. "Gwen told me what happened. I'm really sorry. It must be hard for you."
"It is. Come on, the SUV is outside." They walked outside, and got into the car, and Ianto started the drive back to the Hub. For the first few minutes, neither of them spoke. Martha looked at him, and broke the silence.
"Um… Gwen said it was Jack's brother who did… everything. I didn't even know he had a brother."
"His name is Gray. They were separated as children. Apparently Gray was tortured…. John said he found him chained to a ruined fortress, surrounded by corpses. He was mad. He… he said he wanted to destroy Jack's life from the inside out."
Martha stared at him. "Why?"
"He blames Jack for what he went through. Jack's the older brother… I think he was meant to be looking after Gray when they were children, and they got separated."
"But they were just kids… Jack was just a kid."
"Gray's insane, Martha. I don't think he particularly cares about distinctions like that."
"Wait a minute… he's still alive?"
"Jack put him in the deep-freeze."
"Oh. Right. Um… how is Jack?"
"I don't know."
"What?"
"He won't talk to me. We've been trying to get him to communicate with us all week. He won't talk to us. He barely leaves his office. I leave him food and coffee, but he never eats it. Gwen clears it away and thinks I don't notice, but I do."
"I… Gwen said he was isolating himself… I thought she was exaggerating, oh god, I thought she was exaggerating… is it really that bad?"
"Yes. It's really that bad. Worse, probably."
"I might have to make that call after all."
"What call?"
"Gwen suggested that we get the Doctor involved. I wasn't sure… but we might need him. The three of us might not be enough."
"You know Jack better than we do. You're probably right."
"What makes you say that? You and he are…"
"He doesn't confide in me. We have a thing, but mostly it's a physical thing."
"Really?"
"It's
Jack. When I'm with him it's amazing, but he doesn't confide in
me. He tells me anecdotes, funny stories, things like that. But he
doesn't tell me how he feels. He doesn't tell anyone how he
feels."
"You love him, don't you?"
"Yes."
"And you don't know how he feels about you?"
"I thought I did."
"I think I know how you feel… there was someone I was in love with. He didn't even see it."
"Did you tell him?"
"I couldn't. I haven't seen him for a while, now. I have no idea where he is. But I've got Tom, now, so I'm okay."