Summary: Following orders always reminded Ianto of Torchwood 1. Occasionally, Jack has to remind him that he isn't like Yvonne Hartman. Five times Jack Harkness punished Ianto Jones and one time he didn't.
Disclaimer: Torchwood belongs to RTD and the BBC. And yes, that rhymes.
Warning: spoilers for 2x11 "Adrift".
Orders Disobeyed
Fifth Time
"He's asking for you."
Gwen had appeared so suddenly behind him that Ianto almost dropped the coffee cup that he'd been holding. He turned around to face her, nervous. "How angry is he?"
Gwen sighed. "Angry enough to suspend me for three days." She waved away his impending apology. "I deserved it. I kept looking for Jonah, despite his explicit orders not to. You just sped up the process by giving me the GPS." She placed a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. "Look, I'd better leave. Jack told me to go home straight away. You should go up." She squeezed his shoulder for a moment. "Good luck. I'm sure it'll be fine."
Ianto took a deep breath, then began the ascend the stairs. He knocked on the door to Jack's office and was invited in almost immediately.
"Sit down," Jack commanded.
Ianto obeyed instantly. Ever since his relationship with Jack had started to get more serious, they had decided there had to be a clear separation between their roles at work and after hours. It was clear that Jack was now acting as his boss, and not his lover.
"I made it very clear to you that Gwen wasn't to know about Flat Holm. You disobeyed my orders and gave her the directions anyway, is that right?"
"Yes, sir."
"So what am I going to do with you now?" Jack said regretfully. He went to sit behind his desk and sounded more sincere than angry.
"Sorry?" Ianto asked bemusedly.
"This is not the first time, Ianto," Jack told him sternly. "Once, I had to send you home early for a whole week after you had disobeyed my orders for the third time by staying in the hub after I told you to leave. I've suspended you for a month, after you hid Lisa from me. I made you and Owen stand in a corner one time after you'd been fighting. You sided with the team when it came to opening the rift. And today, you went against my wishes. Again. Nothing seems to work with you and I can't have that on my team. I need my employees to trust and obey me."
Ianto flinched at his last remark. "I do trust you," he said quietly.
Jack shook his head. "I don't think you do. I don't blame you, Ianto. Especially not after I left with The Doctor."
Ianto shook his head before Jack had even finished talking. "It's not that. I trust you. I just thought that I -"
"You just thought that you knew better," Jack interrupted grimly. "And that's the problem."
"I stand by my decision," Ianto argued. "I still think Gwen and the families had the right to know."
Jack sighed. "Fine. Then this discussion is pointless." He got up from behind his desk and walked past Ianto towards the door of his office.
The younger man turned around in his chair. "Wait! What are you going to do with me?"
Jack shrugged. "Nothing I'll do to you will make the tiniest bit of difference, I believe. I just want you to go to Nikki Bevan's house tomorrow and do a follow-up. Write a report about what happened to her and how she is coping."
Before Ianto had a chance to reply, Jack disappeared through the door, leaving him alone. Ianto clenched his fists and decided to go home himself, trying to ignore the heavy weight of guilt settling into his stomach.
TW
Ianto Jones arrived at Nikki Bevan's house at the respectable hour of ten o'clock in the morning. He'd avoided going to the hub, because he didn't want to face Jack. The words they'd exchanged yesterday night still hurt. He didn't feel like driving, so he'd taken the bus to the other side of Cardiff, where Nikki lived.
He rang the doorbell and waited patiently. The assignment that Jack had given him wasn't too unusual. Ianto had been asked to do follow-up interviews many times throughout his time with Torchwood 3. He rang the doorbell again. There was still no movement inside.
Ianto stepped back and looked at the house. It seemed as if no-one was home. There was, however, a neighbour in the garden next to Nikki Bevan's house.
"Excuse me, sir?" Ianto spoke up. The man looked at him. "This is Nikki Bevan's house, right?"
"Sure is," the man told him cheerfully, before a shadow passed over his face. "Shame what happened to her. Tragedy. She was a real nice lady."
"What happened to her?"
"You don't know?" The man asked him. He stepped a bit closer to Ianto, almost as if he wished to impart a particularly good piece of gossip to him. "Apparently, she tried to kill herself yesterday morning. Slit her wrists. Her sister found her and she was taken to hospital. The paramedics were there just in time."
"What hospital?" Ianto asked quickly.
"Cardiff General, I believe."
Ianto thanked the man and stalked away from the house. He hailed a cab in the street and told the driver to take him to the hospital. He couldn't help but wonder whether Jack had known this when he'd given him the assignment yesterday evening.
Torchwood identification allowed Ianto immediate access to the hospital. He quickly found a kind nurse willing to take him to Nikki Bevan's room. She was still in Intensive Care. They paused in the corridor.
"How is she?" Ianto asked quietly. It always felt wrong to talk loudly or even at a normal volume in a hospital.
The nurse looked in through one of the windows at the still figure on the bed. "I'm afraid her condition is still critical. She lost a lot of blood and has been in a coma ever since she was brought in. Technically, she should be able to wake up, but it's almost if she doesn't want to. We've seen this before with victims of a traumatic event. They somehow lack the willpower to continue living."
Ianto was silent for a moment. He knew exactly what the traumatic event was to which the nurse was referring. "Can I go in and sit with her for a while?"
"Of course." She held the door open for him.
Ianto slowly entered the room. He felt like an intruder. Nikki Bevan's eyes were closed. She was connected to several monitors. Ianto heard the steady beeping of the one that displayed her heart beat. The stark white bandages around her wrists were very noticeable against her pale skin. Ianto looked helplessly around at the nurse. She followed him into the room and put a chair beside the bed. He reluctantly sat.
"It's okay for you to talk to her, you know," the woman told him. "There's always a chance she'll be able to hear you."
"I'm not much of a talker," Ianto replied, his eyes fixed on the figure in the bed.
The nurse briefly laid a hand on his shoulder. "I'll give you a moment alone. Call me if you need anything."
He nodded once and she left. It felt like he sat there for hours, while in reality it probably wasn't even fifteen minutes. Mentally, he reviewed his and Gwen's actions. Together they'd put this woman here. Gwen had been searching for the truth, without any consideration for the feelings of the families of the missing people. Ianto had been operating out of more selfish motives. He'd found out about Flat Holm not long after he'd started working at Torchwood 3. It had taken him several months to broach the subject with Jack. The older man was still reluctant to talk about it, even years later. He'd hoped that when Gwen found out about it, he'd have someone to share the experience with. Someone he could talk to about what it felt like to hear those horrible screams.
He'd led Gwen to Flat Holm and Gwen had led Nikki there. Nikki had been looking for her son for months and they'd taken that search away from her. With that, they'd taken any hope that Nikki would ever see her teenage son again. It was more than the woman had been able to handle. Ianto didn't blame her.
Eventually, he got up. He leaned forward. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
Then he quickly left the room.
TW
Jack answered his cell phone as soon as it rang. "Ianto?"
"Sir." His voice sounded thin and soft.
"Where are you?"
"At the hospital." Ianto seemed like a lost little boy and Jack felt a pang of sympathy for him.
"Wait right there. I'm coming to get you."
"Okay."
TW
Jack parked the SUV in the hospital parking lot. Ianto was sitting on a bench near the entrance, his elbows on his knees, staring at the concrete floor. Jack joined him. For a while, neither of them spoke.
"Did you know?" Ianto eventually asked, looking sideways at Jack. "What she had done?"
"I knew." Jack replied. "The hospital called me yesterday."
Ianto nodded, accepting the information without comment. He didn't blame Jack. "I thought knowing where her son was, would give her closure. I thought she could move on then."
"It doesn't work like that," Jack said gently. "Sometimes, it's better not to know."
Ianto nodded again. "It scares me," he told Jack suddenly. "Following your orders all the time without question. It's what they expected us to do at Torchwood 1. It's what Yvonne Hartman expected from us. And it led to the battle of Canary Wharf in the end." He made eye-contact with Jack, almost begging for some level of understanding. "I do trust you. I really do. But sometimes, it's just difficult," he finished lamely. He tried to get up without knowing where he wanted to go, but Jack pulled him back.
"I'm not like Yvonne Hartman, Ianto. You do know that, right? I've tried to do everything to distance myself from Torchwood London."
"Yes, I know," Ianto sighed. "I'm sorry. About everything, I mean."
"Me too," Jack told him. Ianto looked up in surprise. "I shouldn't have questioned your trust in me. You've proven yourself time and time again. And I should've realized that it would be difficult for you to follow my orders without me explaining my motivation behind them. I should have told you what I thought the knowledge of her son's fate would do with Nikki Bevan."
"You sent me here as a punishment, didn't you?" There was no resentment in Ianto's voice.
"Yes," Jack admitted. "Yesterday I told you that I didn't believe I could get through to you. That was lie. But I did feel like you had to see this."
"I think I did," he looked at Jack, feeling oddly vulnerable after talking so frankly to him. "The report will be on your desk tomorrow, sir."
Jack nodded. He hesitated whether to tell Ianto not to bother with the report, but in the end, decided to let him write it. They needed to end this episode properly. He got up from the bench and offered Ianto his hand, making it clear that as far as he was concerned, the conversation was over. The younger man took it and Jack pulled him up, before giving him a brief hug. Ianto stiffened at first, but then relaxed.
"Come on," Jack said. He was very much aware that this was the first time Ianto had apologized to him after a punishment. That made this also the first time Jack was able to extend forgiveness without just having to move on in silence. He started walking towards the SUV. "I'm taking you home."
Ianto followed him.
TBC
A/N: I hope you liked this one! Bit longer than the last one, hopefully not too out of character. Would love to know what you think! (And I'm going to see Gareth David-Lloyd tomorrow! He's giving a concert in Amsterdam. I'm impossibly excited, that's why I'm mentioning it here, :P)