TITLE: To Separate The Lies From Truth
PART THREE OF SERIES: The Five Elements (AU Verse)
CHAPTER SUMMARY: Trouble's in the air for Jack and Ianto – but mainly Ianto.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own Torchwood or Doctor Who which is unlucky because Jack and Ianto deserve so much more!
WORDS: 2100
Notes: Random next day update as I have no self control ahaha.Same again hope this isn't too OOC for Ianto. Thanks for everyone's amazing reviews with the last chapters.
Chapter 9: Come What May (2006)
26th December 2006
With the rift scheduled to be quiet, Jack had relented to the team's protests about working Christmas Day, only on the promise that they'd be into work early the following day. Okay, it may have appeared as if he'd 'conceded', when truthfully he had in fact planned to let them off anyway, but he had to keep up some semblance of command.
He'd spent the day monitoring the Rift for the others, and while it hadn't been his first Christmas spent alone – I mean technically where and when he'd been born, it was never even celebrated - he had missed spending the day with Ianto after the last few years. With the latter currently still avoiding him, he had known long before Christmas that it would happen. He just hoped the latter had been with his family instead, if he'd hadn't wanted to be with him, rather than on his own.
Boxing Day however, had currently been equally as quiet and the team had planned a late Christmas pub brawl that evening, but not long afterwards a debate on who would pay had begun. Then Owen had suggested the current basketball competition and all forms of work had gone out the window. First to five baskets and as Ianto couldn't play due to his leg, the teams this time were even of an equal size: him and Tosh vs Owen and Gwen. Although at one point he'd suspected Myfanwy had decided to create her own team, as she swooped to try grab the ball in her claws.
"Oh, come to Daddy." Owen crowed. The ball dropped down through the hoop from the above catwalk effortlessly. "Yes! First round's on you, boss. Girls, get your handbags."
"Of course, that was an illegal move." Jack protested light-heartedly, catching the ball as it bounced before grabbing his greatcoat.
"Totally illegal." Tosh added, shouldering her handbag.
"Yeah. Keep telling yourself that, yeah? Losers."
Jack flashed a quick "W" with his hands towards Owen in response before slowly chucking the ball to Ianto. The latter caught it easily with one hand, but Jack couldn't help but notice how heavily he was leaning on his cane. Though his injury wasn't as bad as it had been when the incident first happened, it was often still painful at the end of the day, which only came to show how long the younger man must have been standing. It was only early evening.
"You sure you don't want to come?" Jack asked as he passed, the others already at the lift. The Welshman had declined his invitation earlier that afternoon, but looking at him now, Jack couldn't help but push, hoping the latter would agree to take a break.
"No, you can go." Ianto answered, rather monotonal. "Some of us have actual work still."
Jack frowned at the tone, but shook his head internally, knowing there was no point arguing. Arriving at the bar, however, he ordered their drinks rather distractedly. Ianto had looked particularly tired recently, and a part of him wondered whether he'd been getting enough sleep. Over the years, there had been times the younger man's nightmares had returned, though usually Jack was around to help ease their effects, but however it had been a while since Ianto had actually spent the night. In fact, Jack realised looking back over the last two months, that maybe Ianto had been actively avoiding him for longer than he'd first thought.
A sharp beeping pulled him from his thoughts, and he glanced at Tosh as she pulled her PDA from her bag. "UFO sighting over Cardigan Bay." She reported. "Seven calls to emergency services."
Owen groaned in frustration. "Can we at least finish our drinks, please?"
"Sure." Jack answered, flippantly. "Take ten seconds."
He swallowed the last of his water, while the others did the same with their own drinks. He was glad for the alert; being at the pub without Ianto didn't feel the same. He figured he could use the chance to finally get to speak to Ianto. He was afraid to admit it, even to himself, but the Welshman meant far too much to him to let this continue for any longer. He wasn't sure what he'd done to cause Ianto's avoidance tactics, but he felt it was somehow his fault for not seeing through Ianto's techniques before it got this far.
~ * o ~ * o ~ T ~ o * ~ o * ~
Returning to the Hub, Jack shrugged off his coat before turning to the workstations. "Tosh, call up the radar within a fifty-mile radius of the Bay for the last six hours, and any footage of the area."
Tosh pulled up some amateur footage of the UFO on her screen. The image was hazy at best, but showed a tiny spacecraft in the distance. Despite the pixelated image, Jack felt he recognised the ship from somewhere, but from where his mind was refusing to pinpoint.
"That's a UFO?" Gwen asked intrigued.
"Only just." Owen chipped in and strangely the two insignificant words sparked his memory.
"It's an Arkan leisure crawler, first generation. Collectors' item. Don't see many of those around these days." Jack explained. He knew it'd seemed familiar. "Tosh, send a polite message saying great to see them, but could they please get the hell out of our atmosphere, they're spooking the locals.
"Done." Tosh said after only a few seconds. Sometimes, he swore that woman would be able to break into all the computer systems in history (and the future) in under a minute is she tried.
"Shouldn't we be apprehending it? Investigating it?" Gwen's voice still held its curiosity.
"Oh, please. You interrogate an Arkan, you'll be in there for a month. And that's just the first question. They are so boring. Besides, they're mostly made of liquid. The cells would be a mess."
Confident everything was now resolved, Jack left towards his office but turned as he sensed Ianto enter from the archives. The latter was still leaning heavily on his cane, clearly exhausted and Jack knew he couldn't delay their conversation any longer.
"Ianto! Just the man I wanted to see. Any chance for some coffee magic?" He pressed the palms of his hands together, playfully begging. He kept his smile warm but Ianto simply nodded tensely in return, his posture rather cold towards Jack.
Oh well, coffee would at least give him an excuse to get Ianto alone in his office.
Jack paced his office as he waited for the other to arrive with the aforementioned tray of coffee, unsure how to break the ice on the subject. Jack lowered his own shields momentarily as Ianto entered, hoping to get a read of the latter's frame of mind, but was hit with nothing, Ianto still blocking him strongly. To block that effectively for so long must have been another reason of many of why he looked so tired.
"How are you, Ianto?" The question sounded almost lame considering the state the other looked in, but Jack hadn't been sure what else to say.
The empath's expression didn't even slip as he answered monotonously. "I'm fine, sir."
"You don't look fine." Jack commented in reply. "When did you last sleep?"
"Last night."
Again, there was no change in his voice or expression, but Jack could clearly see the dark smudges under Ianto's eyes.
"For how long? Because I'm guessing it wasn't the whole night."
"I'm fine, Jack." Ianto repeated. He shields slipped slightly, finally allowing Jack to gauge some emotion, but he got only the slightest hint of anger before they strengthened again which did nothing but confuse him further. "Why wouldn't I be?"
The answer to that exact question was what Jack actually wanted to know. "Look, I know a lot's been going on recently and we haven't had much time to talk, but it seems as if you've been avoiding me lately." Jack paused, gauging Ianto's reaction. "You're angry at me. Did I do something wrong?"
"I'm not angry."
"Well, you're something at me!" Jack returned, getting frustrated at the short answers. "You might be blocking me, but there are other ways I can read you; you know."
"Can you?" Ianto pressed, and Jack thought he saw his eyes narrow a little. "Because it doesn't seem like it. I fooled myself into believing…you know never mind. It doesn't matter."
"It does matter, Ianto." Jack took a step towards him. "Tell me, please. Maybe I can help."
"Don't. Just don't." Ianto stepped back in response. Now that he'd started, it seemed everything that had been building up was about to be released in one go. "I don't know how to trust any word that comes out your mouth anymore."
Jack froze, feeling as though he'd just been slapped. In the space of a few seconds, his expression went from confused, to angry, to just plain hurt. "Ianto, you know I've never lied to you, so what the hell has brought this on?"
"I'm saying you're a hypocrite, Jack." Ianto snapped. "And if you can't figure it out for yourself then I'm not going to bother."
Before Jack could say another word Ianto slipped from the office, leaving him stood there, utterly shell-shocked and wondering what the hell he had supposedly done.
~ * o ~ * o ~ T ~ o * ~ o * ~
As soon as he'd left the Hub, Ianto felt the guilt suddenly drown him, the utter dejection that had materialised on Jack's face seared in his mind.
Before finding the file, he would have never believed that Jack would ever intentionally deceive him, without a definitive reason. Usually that reason aimed to protect him or others, at least that was what Jack had always tried to do in the past.
He sighed, he would go back and talk more, apologise and properly hear him out. The realisation almost had him running back to Jack instantly, but his phone bleeping held him back. It was a message from Lisa.
Lisa: Roath park 9pm
He checked the time at the top of the screen. There was only half an hour before the meet, and it would take at least 20 for a taxi to get him there. There was no time to go back now. He would have to speak to Jack tomorrow, maybe by then he'd have more answers and could think straight.
The park was dark and empty when he arrived, and Ianto hesitated momentarily before he entered. A small, dark-skinned woman sat on a bench a few metres into the park. This was the first time he was seeing the other, but since the first text message they'd struck up quite a few text conversations in the last month. He couldn't remember much about the time in the facility before the two of them had supposedly escaped in the raid, but Lisa did. Not that she wanted to, she had often commented.
Yet as he limped across the uneven grass towards her, he couldn't quite shake the feeling something wasn't quite right. Maybe he should have explained what he'd found better to Jack, let the other justify why'd he'd hidden it from him, but it was too late to turn around now as the woman noticed his presence.
"Hi, I'm Lisa and you must be Ianto. Sorry for the late time. I'm not comfortable around large crowds anymore." She passed over one of the two takeaway coffee cups. "Don't worry, it's decaf."
He sipped at the coffee, thankfully still warm in the cold of the evening. It wasn't the best considering what he could make him, but it gave him something to occupy his hands. Murmuring his thanks, he sat down and wondered where to begin.
Lowering his shields, he tried to get a sense of what Lisa felt, but instead of the expected emotions of excitement and anxiety that he himself was feeling, he was instead confronted by a steady roll of deception, boredom and greed that made his stomach sink, as well as practically destroying every dream and desire he'd come to have about not being the only one with his abilities.
He swallowed roughly around his mouthful of coffee as he stood up from the bench.
"This was a mistake. I shouldn't be here."
The urge to get the hell away from there was overwhelming him, but his limbs suddenly felt heavy, and his words sounded strange coming from his own mouth as a wave of dizziness swept over him. The coffee cup clattered to the ground, the noise drawing his attention to the cup as his mind made the connection.
"You-"
The words failed as he felt the air flee from his lungs and he slid down the side of the bench into a crumpled heap. With the last of his strength, Ianto tried to scramble away but his injured leg screamed in resistance and his cane lay abandoned a few feet away on the ground. His efforts however, succeeded in earning nothing but a vicious kick to his skull. His head lolled to the side as everything faded to black.
Notes: I know I know. Short chapter and a cliff-hanger. It just the chapter was becoming nearly 5000 words long (2000 more than usual) and this was the half-way point. I'll post the next chapter tomorrow I promise!
Two more chapters until the midstory break (or i.e. the midstory hiatus while I figure out all the details in the next half haha) It's getting there with almost 4/11 chapters nearly done but not quite.
I love all reviews!
