Chapter Seven
They were all in early the next morning. Jack had picked up pastries for the conference room, and Ianto brought coffee, and they went over everything they had—which wasn't much. Tosh still wanted to hack into any satellites she could find to see if they'd picked up any useful information from the park on Friday afternoon, while Ianto wanted to hack UNIT to comb their classified records.
"Tosh, go ahead. Ianto…" Jack sighed. "As much as I hate to say it, let's call them first. Ask nicely."
Ianto nodded reluctantly, then winced slightly. He was still taking painkillers for the ongoing headache that didn't seem to be resolving.
"Owen, is there any chance this might wear off eventually?" Gwen asked. "Like when someone is in an accident and has temporary amnesia for a few days?"
"Those people tend to lose a few hours, not years, and not such specific memories," Owen said. "Tosh and Ianto's brains are suppressing certain memories and then working around them, creating new memories to explain the events surrounding the ones they've suppressed. I don't think it's going to wear off when it's so specific to both of them."
"What about triggering them with something that helps them remember what actually happened?"
"This isn't some BBC drama, Gwen," Jack said, leaning forward in annoyance.
"I didn't say it was," she answered. "But there are always stories about people who regained their memories from a single trigger—a photograph, a special song. It seems worth trying."
"I watched the CCTV footage of Jack and I returning to the Hub Thursday night," Ianto told her. "He told me about Lisa. I still don't remember any of it." He did not mention reading his diary.
"I don't remember going out with Tommy either," Tosh said. "Even though I found a picture of us at my flat. I thought he was a good friend that we all lost."
Gwen looked disappointed and glanced at Owen for help. He threw his hands in the air in frustration.
"There's nothing I can do. I can see what's wrong in their heads, but I don't have the ability or the technology to fix it. The only thing that could do that for certain would be the device itself. Which is usually the case when we get tangled up in alien technology around here."
Tosh shook her head. "But it may as well be scrap metal! As far as I can tell, it's completely inactive. I don't see how I can possibly get any information from it to help us, let alone get it working again."
"So our best bet is tracking down any measurements of the pulse itself, or finding something similar," Jack concluded. "Let's get to it, then. I'll call UNIT and—"
"Really?" Ianto interrupted. "You don't think I should call them?"
"I can be perfectly nice," Jack replied.
"In a perfectly overbearing way," Ianto answered back. "I'd also prefer we didn't tell them why we needed access to their records, and I can be discreet."
"I know how to be discreet, too," Jack said, exasperated.
"Oh, is that why General Brightman only takes your calls when I send him a bottle of MacCallans?" Ianto asked lightly. Jack gave up and waved him off. He didn't like playing nice with UNIT anyway, but sometimes he wished the team understood his methods a little better.
"So Tosh is working on the pulse, Ianto is working on more records, Owen is—" Jack paused. "What are you going to do, Owen?"
"I was reading up on neurobiology and psychiatry last night, thought I'd continue down that line of research," the doctor replied. "There's an expert in the field I'd like to call in the morning, if that's okay." He didn't look at Jack, but at Tosh and Ianto. "I'll be discreet."
They both nodded, and Jack approved. "That leaves Gwen—how about you do everything else that needs to be done?"
"What?" she asked. Everyone looked at Jack in surprise.
"We've got experts on tech, medical, and records working their angles, but no one to work upstairs, feed the residents, get us some food, monitor the Rift—basically, everything else."
"And what are you going to do?" Gwen asked. "Sit around and watch the rest of us?"
"It's called supervising," Jack replied more cheerfully than he felt. "For your information, I spent half the night talking to contacts, trying to gather any information I could. I also threw some more Weevils back into the sewers."
"Talking?" Owen asked, his voice tinged with disbelief and the implication clear. "Right."
Jack's eyes flew to Ianto. "I didn't do anything," Jack protested. "I was trying to help."
"Don't look at me," Ianto replied. "I remember how much you like to flirt." He stood up to leave, completely unbothered, and Tosh followed, leaving Jack sitting with Gwen and Owen.
"That was low, Owen," Gwen hissed across the table. "You only said that because Ianto doesn't remember being with Jack!"
"Maybe," Owen replied with an unconvincing shrug.
Jack pushed his chair away and stood abruptly. "Get to work, Owen. Find a way to fix this, and stop making it worse."
He hoped he stormed out with appropriate dramatics. He heard Gwen tell Owen off again, then she came jogging up next to him.
"He's just trying to rile you up, Jack," she said.
"Yes, well it's working," Jack muttered.
"Don't let it," she replied. He stopped and stared at her, trying not to snap.
"It's not that easy, Gwen," he said. "Despite what you may think about me and my cold-hearted ways, this is hard for me. I don't like knowing two of my people have lost their memories. Owen making bad jokes about it doesn't help!"
"It's Owen," she soothed. "Deep down, he does it because he's jealous."
Jack snorted and started back upstairs again.
"I'm serious," Gwen said, her voice quieter. "He's always been a wanker when it comes to other people's relationships, but now he'll never have another one. He's dead, Jack, and yet he's not. He's not going to meet someone, get married, have kids. He can't eat, he can't have sex—nothing. So he takes it out on us every now and then."
Jack glanced sideways at her. "You really think that's it?"
"Yes," she replied without hesitation. "And I think he picks on Ianto more because deep down he cares, like an older brother." She grinned. "Or, in your case, like the prodigal son."
He bumped her shoulder and laughed, some of the tension relaxing from his body. She was right, both about Owen's current state of living, and about his general approach to taking the piss. He always had, always would. The day Owen Harper didn't give one of them a hard time was the day he was truly gone.
"Is there anything else I can do?" she asked before they stepped into the main part of the Hub. "Anything to help?"
"I meant what I said about keeping an eye out on everything else," Jack replied. "I know it's not much when it comes to solving this, but we still need someone to stay on top of all the other things we do, especially considering how busy it's been. If there are any Weevils or Rift alerts, we'll take them while the others keep working on the memory issue."
She laid a hand on his arm, much like she had the other night. "It's fine, Jack. I can do whatever is needed. You take a break, clear your head."
He thanked her and went to his office. He didn't need a break, he needed to get Tosh and Ianto's memory break.
He didn't get a break at all. He took Gwen out on a Rift alert only to find a broken television from 1969, followed by more space junk near the docks. They returned for lunch, and then the entire team were all out to Morganstown tracking a group of duck-like creatures who had mysteriously appeared in the middle of a cemetery pond. Jack was half tempted to let them roam free, passing them off as unusually large waterfowl, only these had long, sharp teeth. When one took out an actual duck along the river, they knew it was inevitable: the Hub would gain some new residents. Jack hoped to find them more permanent homes, but for the near future they would have a room to themselves, a small child's pool, and a steady diet of meat and potatoes. Ianto was not happy.
It took most of the afternoon, and Gwen got bit by one of the damn things. They trudged back to the Hub, threw the buggers in a cage, and cleaned up before grabbing dinner at the nearest pizza place. Jack paid the bill and told everyone to go home, but no one moved.
"Jack, we barely had a chance to work on our memory loss!" Toss protested.
"I know," he soothed. "We'll try again in the morning, I promise."
"We're running out of things to try," she said, sounding frustrated. "I've found nothing, Ianto's found nothing, you have nothing. Only Owen has half an idea—"
The doctor shrugged. "I'll talk to the psychiatrist tomorrow and see what he says. It may be our best shot at recovering those memories if we can't figure out anything about that device."
"What is?" asked Gwen.
"Probably hypnotism," Ianto told her, his tone clearly dismissive.
"What, you don't like therapists either?" Owen asked in mock surprise. "No one does, you know."
"I worked for Torchwood One," Ianto said. "Which is one of many reasons I don't like having someone poking around inside my head."
"I'll try it," Tosh said. "It doesn't bother me, not too much."
"And if it doesn't work?" Gwen asked. "Jack, maybe we need more help."
"We've only been at it three days," Jack protested. "We'll figure it out! Besides, we happen to be the experts on this sort of thing, so I'm not sure who we would call."
"Someone higher up," she suggested.
"Higher up?" Jack repeated. "Like God?"
"No," she replied, her voice taking on that stubborn tone she did so well, and to so much frustration. Jack could feel his body tensing up. "What about UNIT?"
"I went through most of their computer network this morning," Ianto reminded her. "I don't think they can help us."
"What about…I don't know, someone else who deals with this sort of thing? Maybe the United States, or that Russian group? Or maybe your doctor?"
"The Doctor?" Jack finished his drink, motioning for a second. He needed it, as the thought of calling the Doctor for help made hisskin crawl. "Why would we do that? We've gone through plenty of other tough spots and not called in the cavalry."
"We're running out of options," she replied. "Why wouldn't we take advantage of any resource we could to help them? Especially a doctor?"
"He's not actually a doctor," Jack said.
"But could he help us?" she pressed. Jack shrugged, because he didn't know the answer.
The others seemed to agree with Gwen. "She might have a point, Jack," Owen said. "You ran off with him to get some answers about weird stuff. Maybe he could do something about this."
"This device is not in any of our records," said Tosh. "I can't tell you the first thing about it, and Ianto didn't find anything about it in the UNIT files. We can contact neurologists and psychiatrists and maybe even some psychics, but in the end, we still don't know how it works, and Owen said that may be the only way to reverse this. Whether it's alien or something from the future, the Doctor might be the only resource for information we don't have and can't get on our own."
Jack looked to Ianto, hoping that he, of all of them, would see that it was a bad idea. Ianto was familiar with Torchwood One's policy on the Time Lord, and he knew, in part, how Jack felt about the Doctor…only he didn't remember the latter. Instead, Ianto looked conflicted. "If he could tell us what it is, or how it works, maybe we could figure out how to reverse it."
"I thought Torchwood One considered the Doctor anathema," Jack said. "Capture at all costs."
"We did," Ianto said. "Because that's what they told us, but we knew there was more to it. Torchwood wanted the Doctor because Queen Victoria wanted the Doctor. We captured him at Canary Wharf. He was a bit mad, but he saved us, or what was left of us." A brief look of pain crossed Ianto's face. He swallowed the rest of his pint in one go and motioned for another one; clearly no one was leaving any time soon. "Maybe he's not the enemy. Maybe he could help."
Jack sighed. To be honest, he wasn't sure what the Doctor could do. Yes, he might know about the device, but what then? Maybe the Doctor could repair it with his sonic screw driver. Maybe he could even bring them another one. But would he? The Doctor tended to involve himself in world-ending events. Would he even respond to a call about two of Jack's Torchwood agents losing their memory?
And did Jack want to call him for help? He'd left the Doctor on good terms, having worked through the hurt, anger, and resentment of his long wait for answers during the year that never was. He'd also realized that the Doctor was fallible, as capable of making a mistake as any of them. Yet the driving impetus behind Jack's takeover of Torchwood, to make the Doctor proud, would never fully dissipate. It felt like admitting weakness to call him for help, especially when Jack hadn't contacted the Doctor for anything else since he'd returned. Jack wanted to do this himself, with his team. To prove himself, and them.
"It might be a last resort," he finally admitted. "Though maybe we should call—"
"Martha first," Ianto finished. "If Owen's lead doesn't pan out?"
"Martha is a doctor, and she's with UNIT, so even without her connection to the Doctor, she's a good person to have as a resource," Jack admitted. "I'll talk to her, see if she has any ideas. She's traveled with the Doctor and went through a lot during the year I was gone, so—"
"A year?" Gwen asked, exchanging surprised looks with the others. "You were gone an entire year?"
"Time travel," Jack offered with a forced smile, kicking himself for the slip. It was not something he'd talked about with the rest of the team. They suspected it had been longer for him than them, but he had not shared the grim details with anyone but Ianto. "Not always a good thing."
Owen shook his head, equally astonished. "Did you know that, teaboy? That he was gone so long?"
"I had no idea," Ianto replied. He seemed both surprised and confused. Jack looked away, irrationally disappointed that Ianto did not remember. He had told Ianto months ago, laying in the dark, confessing secrets to one another. It had been after Tommy had gone back to 1918, and Jack had realized how much Ianto had quickly come to mean to him. He hadn't wanted to lose that closeness, and had told him everything about his time away.
"I'll give Martha a call if we don't make any progress," Jack said, bringing the conversation back to the topic at hand and hoping no one asked him any questions about the year he'd been gone. "If that's all right with you?" he directed to Owen. He didn't want to step on the doctor's toes by calling in a second doctor.
"Fine by me," Owen said. "She was good last time she was here, and if she's got any connections that might help us solve this, I can set my ego aside to take advantage of it."
"Thanks, Owen." Jack motioned for the check and quickly paid the bill. They finished their drinks and headed out. When they all started back toward the Hub, Jack stopped them and told them to go home—no arguments this time. Tosh looked disappointed, but Owen offered to walk with her. Gwen tried to argue, until Ianto told her he was fine with getting back to work on the case in morning. He urged her to go home and rest after her injury, assuring her he was going to grab a few things from his desk and go home as well since his headache had returned. Jack wondered if Ianto actually needed something from his desk, or if he was looking for an excuse to go back to the Hub and keep working. Or if he wanted to see Jack.
They walked back toward the Hub together, stopping outside the tourist office while Ianto got out his keys. Jack had been thinking about the conversation from the restaurant the entire way and couldn't hold it in any longer.
"I told you," Jack said, standing behind Ianto. "About the year I was gone. I told you everything, months ago."
"You did?" Ianto once again had that same look on his face from the previous night, one of complete surprise.
"Everything I could," Jack replied, unable to hold back a sad sigh. "We were lying in bed, in the dark."
"I suppose that's why I don't remember," Ianto mused. "Although I wonder why my mind didn't rewrite it—sitting in your office or something."
"Probably because it would mean something about us your mind doesn't recognize right now," Jack said quietly. "It was an emotional conversation, and not one I've had with anyone else."
"Not even Gwen?" Ianto asked, his tone more curious than not. "In my mind, you're very close, you know. We even wondered about it when you came back, how that would affect her engagement."
Jack wondered, with a twinge of horror, if that was Ianto's memory rewiring itself or something he had actually discussed with the others. He had asked Ianto on a date the night he had returned, had made good on that promise and started a relationship with the Welshman. Had Ianto wondered all along if Jack had done the same with Gwen? The thought pained him.
"Ianto, you have to understand something…" Jack toed the ground before looking up to meet Ianto's eyes. "You are the one I am with, the only one I have been with since I came back. And more than anyone, you helped me through a difficult time. My trip with the Doctor was hard, harder than I ever thought traveling with the Doctor could be. I came back for you, and you helped ground me after a terrible year away."
He swallowed the lump in his throat as he remembered laying in the dark, telling Ianto about his year in chains, confessing as much as he could as if purging the dark memories would somehow help. And it had: Ianto had accepted Jack's pain and guilt without question and helped Jack adjust those first months back on a world he'd seen destroyed by the Master.
Ianto seemed to notice Jack's sudden turn of mood. "I'm sorry I don't remember," he said quietly.
"Not your fault," Jack said brightly. "And it's not high on the list of things you'd want to remember, that's for sure."
"It was that bad?" Ianto asked.
"Very." Jack sighed. "But it was months ago. I'm where I want to be, with the person I want to be with."
Ianto abruptly turned back to the door. "I should go," he started. "I want to grab some files, then I'll—"
They were interrupted by an alert from Jack's wrist strap. He swore as he brought up the information from the Hub.
"Weevils again," he said, then glanced up at the sky; it was cloudy, but a fuzzy white circle was still visible. "Grangemoor Park. You might be right about that full moon."
"I wish I wasn't," Ianto replied as they hurried inside and sped through the Hub toward the car park and the SUV. Fortunately, they both had their weapons, and the SUV was supplied with anything they might need for Weevil chasing, so there was no need to stop. Ianto called Owen to let the others know he and Jack were on it.
One Weevil turned out to be three large Weevils, tricky for even the two of them working together with their usual rapport. They took down one of them quickly, then split up to go after the last two. Already distracted by Ianto's memory loss and thoughts of his year with the Doctor, Jack misjudged the beast that turned on him and was clawed brutally across his chest and gut, an injury he wasn't getting up from. The Weevil pinned him down for the kill.
"Jack!" He felt the Weevil collapse on top of him, shot dead. Ianto shoved it off Jack, looking terrified. "Shit—are you—Jack, what can I do?"
"Don't die," Jack wheezed, hoping there weren't any other creatures around. "And maybe help me somewhere less conspicuous so I can?"
Jack literally held his guts in as he staggered with Ianto toward a copse of trees where he could die and revive without anyone seeing him. He fell to the ground, gasping with pain.
"Are you all right?" he managed to ask Ianto. He looked far more scuffed up than the previous night, with a cut across his temple that Jack didn't like.
"I'm fine. I had to shoot the one that came after me, as well as the one on top of you," he murmured. "So that's all three—a bitch to clean up, that's for sure."
"I'm sorry," Jack started, but he knew he wouldn't finish. He closed his eyes against the pain, relaxed, and let the darkness claim him.
When he came to, he was still laying in the grass, though he was sitting against a tree and covered with Ianto's coat. He started shivering uncontrollably in the cold night air, before panic took over and he shot to his feet. "Ianto?" he whispered, then called, then shouted into the night. He stepped away from the trees, frantically glancing around the area for Ianto.
Ianto had left him.
It was as if he were dying all over again as a black cloud covered his vision. He tried to breathe, but felt his chest constricting with painful gasps, and he fell to his knees, trying not to sob. Ianto rarely left him to die alone—it had been weeks, even months—and when he did, Ianto was always there when Jack woke up, sometimes holding him, or simply nearby to steady him with calm words. Why had Ianto left? Was he safe? Had he been dragged away by another Weevil?
No, they'd got all the Weevils. Ianto had left because he had no reason to stay. He didn't remember the first time he'd held Jack, didn't know it was something Jack had come to rely on. He had no idea Jack was suffering alone, waking up by himself instead of cradled in warm, supportive arms. He didn't remember being with Jack—why would he stay with his dead body?
Jack's chest heaved with unspoken sobs, until he felt a hand rubbing his back, murmuring soft words, helping him stand and steadying him. Ianto looked surprised, and worried, but he was all right, he was alive. Jack pulled the other man to him in a fierce hug, ignoring the protests and simply reveling in the feel of Ianto's body against his after three long days.
Too soon Ianto untangled himself and stepped away, looking even more concerned. "Are you all right?" he asked. "I mean, aside from the obvious?"
Jack laughed, the sound harsh and hysterical to his ears. He nodded and tried to calm his racing heart. "I'm fine, I'm alive. I'm just relieved to see you. You're okay."
"I'm okay," Ianto agreed. "Few more cuts and bruises compared to last night, but not bad for the odds. Ruined my suit, though," he added, showing Jack a long tear in the arm.
"Is it bad?" Jack asked. He couldn't see that well in the dark, but it looked like it was bleeding. He remembered he had Ianto's coat, and handed it to him so the Welshman wouldn't freeze.
"I can't take it to the tailor," Ianto replied, but there was an element of forced levity to it, and he sighed. "It stings, but I can't complain when you're…when you…" He waved his hand around.
"I'm all right," Jack reassured him. "Walking, talking, totally healed, although it was different—" He broke off too late. "Never mind."
Ianto frowned, but did not question him. "I picked up the other two Weevils and brought the SUV closer. We should get our last friend inside."
Jack was glad for the excuse not to talk as they carried the last Weevil to the boot and tossed it in the back with the others. Although Jack hated killing the creatures, these had been vicious, and attacking in a pack. They'd had no choice. Ianto must have taken the keys from his pocket earlier and got into the driver's seat again, waiting patiently for Jack to buckle himself in.
"How was it different?" he asked. "Something to be concerned about?"
Since he couldn't very well tell Ianto that he usually stayed until Jack revived, Jack deflected. "Haven't been eviscerated by a Weevil in a while. Nasty buggers."
Ianto gave him a skeptical look, but turned the car toward the Hub and they drove back in silence. After disposing of the Weevil's bodies, Jack offered to help clean Ianto's wounds, but he shook his head, then winced.
"I can do it at home," he said.
"I can help," Jack insisted.
"I know," Ianto said. "And I appreciate it, but I don't know if it's a good idea, given how things stand between us."
Jack shook his head. "We're still coworkers, Ianto. Still friends. I'd help Tosh, or Gwen, or even Owen if they were injured."
"I've got a kit at home," Ianto said. "And I'll have Owen look at my arm in the morning."
Jack wanted to argue—hell, he wanted to go over every inch of Ianto and make sure the man was all right—but he knew he had to let it go. Ianto had to relearn how to be comfortable around him, and Jack had already said he would be patient.
Only he wasn't sure if he could.
"Be careful," he said, not entirely sure what his warning was for. "Get some rest, and I'll see you in the morning."
"Yes, sir," Ianto murmured. He held back a yawn, then grinned sheepishly. "If I don't nod off on the way home."
"You're welcome to—never mind," Jack said. "Thanks for your help tonight. I appreciate it."
"It still got you," Ianto said. "I'm sorry for that."
"Don't be."
There was an awkward moment of silence, then Jack glanced down at his bloodied shirt and trousers. "I'm going to go clean up. Good night, Ianto."
"Good night, Jack."
Ianto turned and left without another word or a look back. Jack went into his office, but watched until the cog door closed. Then he slumped into his chair and covered his face. Any other night, and he and Ianto would be cleaning up together. Jack would be tending to Ianto's arm, and they would reassure one another that they were both alive with passionate lovemaking—sometimes quick and hard, sometimes slow and deliberate, yet always comforting, even as they skirted around deeper feelings.
As he fell into his tiny bed alone for the third night in a row, Jack tried not to think about Ianto, or about how he'd not been there with Jack for the first time in months. And yet the sense of loss that had been growing within him all weekend was overwhelming, because Ianto had not only lost his memories of Jack, he had abandoned Jack completely back in the park.
Like the Doctor.
Author's Notes:
This story really does a number on Jack, I know. I can see something like this hitting him harder than anyone might expect, though. I did say this would be about Jack, as I wanted to explore his character more than we sometimes see. Someday I should try to explore what he does with a stretch of happiness. I wonder if he'd even know what to do! Thanks for reading!
