The tone of this chapter is going to be considerably angsty. I don't usually write like this, but for this chapter, I have decided to do so.
Spoilers: "Cyberwoman"
Some of the Flock and the team may be a little off character in this chapter. Nothing dramatic, I hope, and I will get back to writing them as their trueselves.
I describe how Ianto felt when Jack left, before "Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang". Nothing that I write about how he feels is true. I mean, it might be, but it's not confirmed. I'm writing what I THINK he would have felt.
Max turned and snarled at Jack. "What've you done to her?" she shouted, over Angel's sobs. All Max could think about was that there was her baby girl, on the floor crying. Angel may have been only six, but none of the flock cried, no matter what pain they were going through. Something really must have shaken her, and all Max could think of in her haze of rage was that it had something to do with those Torchwood agents.
Jack, however, was concerned with Ianto who had leaned against the couch. "Jack, I'm so sorry," whispered Ianto. "She can read my mind..." He trailed off, then with one last look at Nudge, who was completely bewildered, he ran off down towards the archives. Jack stood rooted to the spot. On one hand, he had a hysterical child, and on the other he had his broken lover running off.
Tosh looked at Jack. "Go," she said. "We've got it handled here." With those words, Jack turned around and ran after Ianto, his coat flying behind him.
Max was trying her best to comfort Angel, who had stopped sobbing since Ianto left, but was still visibly shaken. The rest of the flock crowded around them, murmuring consoling words. Tosh tried to approach her, but Max gave her an icy look and put her arms protectively around Angel.
"What is it honey?" she said in a soothing voice. "What did you see?"
Angel whispered to her, her voice breaking. "I saw Lisa."
At that name Max saw the remaining Torchwood agents stiffen. "Who is it?" she demanded. "Who is Lisa?"
Tosh replied in a heavy voice, "That was Ianto's girlfriend. She's dead now."
"But why was he looking at me?" came the timid voice of Nudge, who was still shaken by Angel's breakdown.
Tosh looked closer at Nudge and began to see. "He showed us pictures, you know, of Lisa, when they were together. Something about 'learning to move on', or so the Torchwood therapist had said. She looked a lot like you. Same bone structure, same nose, same eyes even. I guess it was too much of a reminder of what had happened, and he just fell apart."
"But what happened to her" asked Fang. "I mean, she died, I get that, but why did it make him break down like that?"
Tosh looked at the kids. She didn't want to tell them the story but she had to.
She began, "Well, this isn't the only Torchwood. In fact, this is Torchwood 3. Torchwood 1 was based in London and Torchwood 2 was based somewhere else, but we lost contact a while ago. A few years ago, Ianto was working at Torchwood 1, along with his girlfriend Lisa. They were at Torchwood 1 around the time of the Battle of Canary Wharf, you may have heard of the 'ghosts' when you were in America."
The kids shook their heads, at the time they had been locked up in dog crates and were having experiments done to them.
Tosh began to explain, "Well, basically, there were these giant robot men, called Cybermen, and they began appearing out of nowhere. They were trying to convert humans into Cybermen, which basically removed all their emotions and replaced their bodies with metal. 'Upgrades' they called them. Do you understand so far?"
The Flock nodded. Human experiments were not something that they were unfamiliar to. They had seen hundreds of different human combinations.
Tosh took a shaky breath and continued. This was where she got emotional. She had had friends at Torchwood 1, friends that had died. "Torchwood 1 was trying to fight them off before they could upgrade the whole of London, and eventually the whole world, but a lot of agents died or were converted in the process. Lisa was partially converted before Ianto found her and the machines were shut off." Tosh continued explaining the story of Ianto and Lisa.
TORCHWOOD TORCHWOOD TORCHWOOD TORCHWOOD
Jack found Ianto in the farthest corner of the archive. He had collapsed on his knees and Jack could see his shoulders, shaking as he sobbed.
He softly approached Ianto, "Ianto, what's wrong. What can I do for you?" He kneeled down and pulled the Welshman off the ground, then he led him to a couch, were he sat down and comfortingly embraced him in a hug. Meanwhile, the Welshman continued to sob into Jack's chest.
"L-Lisa..." His voice broke. "She looks so much like Lisa."
Jack mentally slapped himself on the forehead. He should have seen this coming! He knew what Lisa looked like. Many a dull day in the Hub was spent by Ianto looking at pictures of Lisa. Jack would constantly walk in on him reminiscing about those happy times with a sad expression on his face. At first, Ianto would hide the photos, ashamed of his weakness, but as his and Jack's relationship got stronger, he began to open up. He saw pictures of Ianto smiling with Lisa, as they drank a beer, Lisa watching T.V., Lisa and Ianto playing games. All of these pictures had one thing in common. They were happy. Both Ianto and Lisa were smiling and Jack sometimes felt a little jealous. He didn't think he would ever be able to make Ianto smile like that.
But it was the smile, Jack knew that. It was the smile from that small black girl that set Ianto off. She already looked so much like Lisa, and when the little girls began smiling, it must have seemed to Ianto that Lisa was back again. But then he remembered all that had happened to her, everything that had gone wrong at the Battle of Canary Wharf. And so that little girl, Angel, had to pay the price when she looked into Ianto's mind and saw what he was seeing. Lisa, half human, half machine. That dead doctor, partially converted. Myfawny attacking Lisa. Finding Lisa dead on the floor. Seeing that pizza delivery girl, like the bride of Frankenstein, approaching him, saying she was Lisa, and then being taken down by an assault of bullets. It would have been too much for anyone to handle. And Jack knew, he could tell, that Ianto wasn't handling it either. Sometimes, when they lay in bed together, Ianto would begin to whimper in his sleep, like an injured puppy and Jack would put his arms around him and hold him, stroke his hair and tell him everything was going to be alright.
"It's just...Jack," Ianto's voice trailed off, but came back again. "I think of her all the time, Lisa. It's been so long but I still thing about her. And that smile, those eyes, that was Lisa. That was my Lisa when the cybermen took the rest of her away from me. And it was like they were shoving it back in my face that she was gone. That was my Lisa..."
Jack hushed Ianto as his voice broke again. "It's going to be alright, Ianto, everything is going to be alright." And Jack held Ianto tighter. They lay there on the couch for a few minutes. Ianto's sobbing gradually came to a stop, and soon he was gently weaseling himself out of Jack's grasp.
"Sir, I think we should go back up to the main Hub." he said in his monotone voice. "I'm afraid I may have given poor Angel a scare." He attempted a weak laugh, which trailed off at the end pathetically.
Jack just looked sadly at the young man. He had seen this happen so many times before with Ianto. Something would happen, and his mask would slip. Just for a few seconds, Jack would see the true man that Ianto really was, grief-stricken and broken, but then he would slip it back on. The only indication of his deceptiveness would be his eyes, they were always full of pain, even in the moments that he appeared happy. And no one else would notice the pain, unless they knew to look for it. Jack only knew about it because he had seen Ianto without the mask, when they lay in bed together. It was then that Ianto would show his true pain. He would close his eyes and tears would trickle down his face, and all Jack could do was hold him close. Jack hated that he could never do anything to ease the pain. From what he saw, what Ianto felt seemed more excruciating than dying the thousands of times that Jack had.
He sighed, there was no point in trying to get Ianto to open up again. Once the mask was pulled on, it was awhile before it could be slipped off. Instead, he got up off the couch and took Ianto's hand in his, giving it a reassuring squeeze. "Let's go then," he said. "Tosh will probably have told them everything by now." Ianto smiled, a genuine smile with less pain behind it, and they turned to walk out of the archives.
TORCHWOOD TORCHWOOD TORCHWOOD TORCHWOOD
"And so, we were forced to shoot the woman that Lisa had implanted her brain in. It was too far converted for us to do anything, and she was going to start trying to take over the whole world. But to Ianto, it was still HIS Lisa and it devastated him. We didn't know him very well before the incident, he was very secretive with us and we took him for granted, but he seemed immensely changed by her death. He became even more cold and withdrawn towards us. But then, he got together with Jack."
Tosh paused at this moment in the story. She looked at the kids uncertainly, she didn't want to creep them out to much. Gays had mostly been accepted into society, but with them, she wasn't sure. They hadn't had the same upbringing as most kids, but Max just nodded, to show that she understood. Tosh took another deep breath and once again continued.
"I don't know when it happened exactly, but we all noticed the change. He was a little more happy, more spring in his step. Jack did him good, when he was with him. But then, it all fell apart again. You see, Jack left. He was gone for a few months and Ianto became broken again. Whether it was because he loved Jack and lost him, or just because he didn't have a distraction from Lisa anymore, he was worse than ever before. Now he was depressed, entirely engrossed in his work. After Lisa, at least he still talked to us, but now it was like he lived in a shell, separating him from the rest of the humans. The only time he came out was when he had a job that needed to be done. And then Owen found the scars. One time, after an alien encounter, Ianto was badly injured on the waist. Despite his many pleas, Owen got Ianto's shirt off to treat his wounds. He didn't just find the alien claw marks. There were also scars, weeks old, on his arms. Thousands of tiny cuts made over a period of several months since Jack had left, which is what Owen assumed based on the oldest scars. Ianto refused to say anything about it, but afterwards, Owen began slipping anti-depressents into Ianto's coffee. You should have seen Ianto's face when he found out, he was furious. I'd never seen him get so emotional, except when Lisa had died. He told us to 'stay the bloody hell' out of his life. Jack came back a week later, when Ianto was still mad at us. And then, the anger and depression stopped. Jack was back and Ianto was happy. Only he wasn't. Jack didn't offer any explanation, and often times I would find Ianto in the break room or the archives, crying. He would quickly wipe away his tears when I came in. Acted like nothing was wrong and plastered a smile on his face, but I knew. I knew that he was broken and that he had been broken so many times that he couldn't be fixed, not even by Jack. And then, you."
Tosh looked at Nudge, not with anger, but with sadness. "He was healing, slowly, but surely. Never to be completely repaired, but still getting better. I don't think he had really thought about her for months. But you, you were too much of a reminder for him."
"I'm sorry," whispered Nudge. "I didn't...I mean, I wasn't trying to.."
"I know sweetie," replied Tosh, with kindness in her eyes. "You've just got to give him a little time. It's not your fault. You can't help how you look."
As Tosh said those words, the team and the Flock both heard the two pairs of footsteps coming up from the archives.
Hope you liked this chapter. I'm a little disappointed. Apparently, I'm getting hits and visitors, but not too many comments. Thanks to Kallik of Gallifrey, MaeganM.0816, and feather1 for commenting. You guys inspire me to keep writing. With that said, if you read, please review if you want this story to go on. It's not a threat or anything, I promise, I just have a lot on my plate and I want to know that what I'm writing here isn't completely wasting my time.
Speaking of having a lot on my plate, finals are coming up and I HAVE to study. Like, if I don't get passing grades my parents will absolutely murder me, and then I can say good bye to my summer vacation. I will, however be posting on my birthday, for sure, on June 4th, so you can look forward to that.(This is my secret plot to get more people to recognize the date June 4th, mwahahaha.)
P.S. to feather1: Thanks for the idea! And here I was running out of ways to make the story more interesting. Who knows...maybe its Ianto child that he never knew about. Guess you'll find out in my next post. DUN DUN DUN.
