Title: Yellow
Author: Ceindreadh
Characters/Pairing: Ianto, team, Ianto/Jack implied
Word Count: about 700
Rating: T for angst and dark themes
Summary: Courage can be hard to come by Warning: Set post Countrycide (mild spoilers for eps 7 and 8)
WARNING: may need tissues Unbeta'ed Part 4 of the Spectrum sequence.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Torchwood characters, I'm only borrowing them, and I promise to return them in minty fresh condition when I'm finished.

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Everybody thought he was so brave the way he'd faced up to the cannibals. Tosh had called him her hero the day after, insisting that if it hadn't been for his bravery, she'd never have escaped even for only a short period of time. Even Owen had grudgingly admitted that he hadn't done too bad for a tea boy. "Course I always figured you had a thick head on you," he'd added, but there'd been a note of respect in his voice.

They all thought he'd been brave to fight the cannibals and help Tosh escape...but they were wrong. Ianto hadn't done it because he was brave...he'd done it because he didn't have anything left to lose. Even as he'd told Tosh to watch for his signal, he'd been weighing up his options...and there weren't many. Best-case scenario, Tosh and he both got away...worst-case scenario, they killed him. He hadn't really cared whether that happened or not.

So much for being brave, in reality he'd been just a coward, a big yellow streak down his back. If any of the team had known what he'd been thinking, they wouldn't have been praising and hugging him, they'd have scorned him for the coward he was. Too scared to live, yet even more scared of being the one to pull the trigger...but maybe not too scared to let somebody else pull the trigger...or wield the meat cleaver.

At least that's what Ianto had thought when he'd head butted the leader. He hadn't really thought much beyond that point, figuring that he'd either escape with Tosh or be killed where he stood. Lying on the ground, head spinning, body aching, he heard them chase after Tosh and almost smiled, knowing that he'd given her at least a fighting chance. He'd seen the butt of the gun coming towards him as if in slow motion, and he hadn't flinched, welcoming the darkness it brought.

He'd almost cried when he woke up to the realization that it hadn't been a fatal blow. Although at first, in the blackness, with the taste of blood in his mouth, he hadn't been sure whether he was alive or dead. It wasn't until he felt the blade at his neck that he knew he was still alive, and more than that, knew that he *wanted* to live...or at lease not to die, not like this, bound and gagged and filthy, his unheard screams echoing in his mind.

Yet another example of the yellow streak of cowardice running through him, that he couldn't even face his death with dignity and courage, but then there was nothing dignified about this crude and dirty ending that was facing him.

Gwen was the brave one, he thought, willing to put herself in the same room as the leader. Willing to face him again to seek out answers. All Ianto could do was hide in the daylight...the daylight he'd once thought or maybe hoped he'd never see again.

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It took a month of shape shifting aliens and mind reading pendants and crazy weevils, before Ianto told anybody the truth about that night in the Beacons.

A near miss when he and Jack had been tracking a Weevil had Jack yelling at Ianto for not getting out of the way in time and shouting at him about having a death wish.

"Not anymore, Sir," had been Ianto's involuntary reply. It had almost shocked him to say it out loud, and more so to realize that it was true. Not that he was especially fond of this world any more, but it was better than the alternative...the unknown. Probably just another sign of his yellow streak he told himself.

But to his surprise, it was Jack who had convinced him otherwise. "Sometimes the bravest thing you can do in this life is live it," he had told Ianto. "Every day, just surviving...just getting through another twenty four hours without giving up. That's what takes real courage, and don't let anybody tell you otherwise."

They'd drunk to that and other things, and a week or so later Ianto had taken his courage in his hands and clicked on a stopwatch and started to find that there were more reasons to live than he had once believed.

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The End