Confessions

It was a few days later when Megan walked into Jack's office; she didn't bother knocking because she knew everyone had gone home.

Jack looked up from the paper work that littered his desk and grinned at the young girl, but his smile faltered when he saw the coffee.

"Has Ianto gone home?" he asked hoping nothing was wrong after all Ianto practically never left with the others and he always came to say good night to Jack

"Yep" she said placing the two mugs on the table "sorry, afraid you're stuck with me"

"Now that's not what I meant I…"

"I know" and looking into her eyes Jack had a feeling that she really did. But frowned when she shut and locked his office door, then sat in front of him

"Megan what's going on?"

"It's my fault, I was stupid, I never should have trusted them" Megan rushed out, like she couldn't help it, Jack frowned confused, they had the guy, what was she on about

"Megan what do you mean, we got the guy?"

"No, no that's not what I meant, I mean…"

"Megan, look just calm down ok. Take a breath and start at the beginning"

"I don't know what Ianto has told you about how he joined Torchwood but… he did it to save our lives he moved to London when he was 16, I used to go and stay with him on the weekends. A year later, when I was 13 and Ianto was 17 we were coming back from the theatre and we heard someone screaming so went to see if she was alright. We got to her but it was too late. Her body had been ripped apart and chunks taken out of her, it was a Weevil but obviously we didn't know that then. We were leaving to go call the police and it just came out of nowhere blocking off the exit to the alley. We managed to get out before it hurt us too bad but by then the Torchwood team came; they knocked us out and took us to Torchwood.

We woke up in an interrogation room, Yvonne and Dr Steinberg came in and she forced Ianto to work for them, Dr Steinberg said Ianto was to work for him as an assistant. He didn't get the weekends off so Yvonne kindly suggested I come to Torchwood on the weekends I was with him, and at the same time they could keep an eye on me. It wasn't dangerous; I mean the deadliest thing that could happen with Dr Steinberg would be if he blew up the lab, so we didn't see the problem with it."

Megan looked up at Jack, he stared back out of hard eyes, she looked away and was about we speak when Jack got up and moved away from her, looking out of his office down at the main Hub.

"Don't look like that" Jack turned to see her stood behind him "It's just as much my fault as it is his, he tried to keep me away, told my parents to keep me in Cardiff but I ran away, so don't look like he forced me to stay."

Jack was surprised by her little outburst but guessed it was far, he couldn't blame Ianto entirely for getting Megan involved after all he had joined to save her.

"Is this what you came to tell me?" he asked, his voice taking on a more serious tone, from the way she looked at the floor Jack guessed it wasn't "go on, what else?"

He looked at Megan, who suddenly found studding the floor very interesting "come on Megan, I need to know" she looked up at him carefully wanting to see what was in his eyes and what she saw was confusion and… something else… Megan let out a long breath and slumped back into the chair, waiting for Jack to do the same before she started telling him.

"I was stopped one day by these two soldiers, they said they knew about my family history in the army and said they would show me what it's like to be a soldier. I went with them, after a while they took me to the cells, said they had to deal with the prisoners. They took me to a cell with this weird looking alien in, said it was called a Teller; it had great mental ability, if it wanted to it could turn a person's brain into soup. It was all chained up and it looked in pain but they didn't care. They set up this weird machine, pointing it at the Teller, and then they switched it on. They'd found out that it interfered with the Tellers brainwaves, torturing it. I just wanted to stop them it was screaming and the room was shaking. I shouted at them to stop but they wouldn't I had to do something, I tried to pull the one in charge away but the other grabbed hold of me so I kicked him to get him to let go of me and I ran in front of the machine, the beam hit me and it all went black."

Jack watched from behind the desk as she quickly wiped a tear from her face "I didn't mean to, I just wanted them to stop hurting him"

Jack was in slight shock at what he had been told; he'd always known Torchwood London was bad but this…

"What happened?" he whispered, anything louder almost seemed disrespectful.

"I don't know, I don't really understand it, Doctor Steinberg knows more about it, all I do know is that the Teller saved my life."

"What about the Teller, what happened to him?"

"Some other soldiers came to kill him but Yvonne stopped them, the Teller was taken back to his cell. He died in the battle. We couldn't save him, after everything he did for us." she mumbled tiers threatened to spill from her eyes. Jacks eyes hardened at the mention of Canary Wharf and couldn't help thinking how they had kind of brought it on themselves; he didn't see Megan's whole body tense.

"It wasn't your fault Megan" Jack cringed at his own corny words, pretty sure they wouldn't make any difference "After all you weren't there at the battle" this time he did see her tense, the same as she had when she had first gone into the boardroom and Owen was talking about cybermen, of course he had thought it was just because of Lisa, but now he wasn't too sure, but he knew better then to push it.

"Ok thank you for telling me. Is there anything else?" He asked when she didn't move.

"Um yeah… Dr Steinberg said that the Teller touched my head he said afterwards that the Teller must have opened my mind to show it there was no threat and encouraged it to unfold."

"Megan I'm…"

"I'm not finished yet" Jack frowned at the look into her eyes, and gave what he hoped was an encouraging smile "by opening my mind he allowed me to become susceptible to other people's emotions and thoughts or in other words… I'm slightly empathic." Jack opened his mouth to speak but Megan held up her hand "I'm still not done. Look I don't pretend to understand what happened because I don't its… well it's alien to me but Dr Steinberg does and he thinks…" Megan's head fell forward and her hair covered her face, Jack had seen her do this before and afraid of her clamming up he moved slowly to kneel in front of her, resting his hands on the young girl's shoulders, turning her slightly so she was facing him again.

"What Megan? What does he think?"

"It's getting stronger"

"What?" Jack frowned as Megan stood up and turned away

"Well you saw what happened when Tosh had the necklace, the headaches I got are because I could feel Tosh trying to get inside my head, the more she pushed the more it hurt."

"Which is when you dropped the mug and ran off" Jack said understanding beginning to dawn on him as she nodded. "Did Ianto tell you to tell me?"

"Huh… oh no it was Tosh" Jack raised his eyebrows, he would admit that was not what he had been expecting, sensing his confusion Megan explained. "It was the night after what happened with Mary I went to see her to make sure she was ok and it just kind of came out and she said I should tell you because it could be… useful."

"Yes it could be, I'd have to discuss that with Ianto though." He smiled but felt a bit hurt that she had needed to be told to tell him and that she had told Tosh of her own accord but at least she had told. "Thank you for telling me, I understand that this must be very difficult."

Realising she had effectively been dismissed she nodded and got up to leave but before she reached the door Jack put a hand on her shoulder and pulled her into a short, tight hug.

–XXX–

The next morning Jack sat in his office, no one was in yet but he was waiting… waiting… wait - aha. The sirens echoed around the Hub indicating someone's arrival which meant two things, one he would soon have coffee and two he could finally talk to Ianto about what Megan told him yesterday. He wasn't kept waiting long as about ten minutes later Ianto appeared with two cups of coffee. This had become the 'norm' for the two men, they would drink their first coffee of the day together and often the last one at the end of the day before Ianto went home, they didn't always talk about Torchwood but Jack found that Ianto was a good listener, he didn't force secrets out but, whereas other people might cloud over when Jack talked about the 'old times' Ianto would lean forward and get a small smile, a smile he didn't use for anyone else, and Jack knew he had the man's full attention. Ianto hadn't made a move yet concerning Jack's proposition but even if he said no or Jack never got an answer he was surprisingly happy with this new friendship he had with the younger man.

Ianto sat opposite Jack, clearly waiting for him to start and Jack had a sudden thought, he had told Ianto stories, talked about himself but he couldn't remember a single tale told by Ianto. Well today that would change.

"I missed you yesterday." Ianto's head shot up, that had clearly not been what he was expecting, Jack just gave him a smile

"Uh… well Megan said she wanted to talk to you about something" Jack nodded and took a sip of his coffee, barely containing the moan that the delicious liquid made. To his delight he saw a slight blush creep up Ianto's neck. But 'anyway' he told himself 'back to the matter at hand.'

"Do you know what she talked about?"

"I have an idea, yes"

"She told me that when she was at Torchwood One she got zapped trying to save a Teller. She also gave me a better idea of how Yvonne got you to join" Ianto flinched and Jack felt a wave of pity go through him, but he quickly hid it knowing the young man wouldn't appreciate it. "And I don't blame you for wanting to hide it" Ianto looked at him, obviously trying to see if Jack was lying, a small genuine smile grace his face.

"What did Megan tell you about when she was 'zapped'?" Ianto asked

"That she blacked out doesn't know what happened til she woke up and that the Teller saved her. But she also said that Doctor Steinberg told her that the Teller had opened her mind in order to save her but this has made her empathetic which is why she was so affected by the pendent." Ianto nodded but he couldn't look Jack in the eye

"One of the soldiers came to the lab, said there'd been an 'accident'" Ianto scoffed, tightening his grip on his mug "Doctor Steinberg and I ran down and she was just lying there, Lisa was trying to get a response from her with a medi-scanner, one of the soldiers started saying it was her own fault, that she jumped in front of the beam, and I… well I… anyway that was when Yvonne came, the two soldiers were taken to an interrogation room. The scanners showed Megan was still alive but that her mind had sort of folded in on its self to try and protect it from the beam. No matter what we did we couldn't get through to her, and then the Teller started making this noise. I don't know what it was but there was something so calming about it, we untied him and he put his hand against Megan's head. Well you know the rest."

"Is that why you sent her away to Belgium?"

"I never made her go there ok, she didn't like Oxford so she looked around, she found Belgium herself. Although I will admit the distance between her and Torchwood was a bonus and you know I thought she'd be fine"

"But she wasn't?"

"Huh oh as far as I know while she was over there she was fine but then again I doubt there are many telepathic aliens over there"

"I thought she was just empathetic?" aha now Jack had him.

Ianto closed his eyes and cursed his slip of the tongue "she… is mildly telepathic, very mildly."

"Damn it Ianto" Jack shouted jumping from his seat "this is important, you should have told me"

"I know"

"We said no more secrets involving Torchwood"

"I know"

"Then why didn't you?"

"I…" Ianto looked away but Jack wasn't having this anymore, no more secrets no more half explanations he wanted the entire truth. He put his hands on either side of Ianto's face, forcing it up so he could look deep into his eyes. What he saw was guilt, shame and anger before the younger man pulled his head away. Jack didn't understand those emotions usually came up when someone had done something wrong, and the only immediate thing for Ianto was… Lisa. Shit. Lisa, who had been different, had been wrong and Jack had tried to force him to kill her, but surely Ianto didn't think that he'd…

"Ianto nothing would have happened to her, we could try and help her Owen can run some…"

"Doctor Steinberg ran every test humanly possible and then others; he's trying to make a machine that should give us a better understanding of what's happening. Please Jack I'd rather it just stayed between us four. Please.

Jack knew he should fight more, should insist on the tests but he really couldn't be bothered and he knew the others would start arriving soon so he just nodded.

"But I want Doctor Steinberg down here soon with the results for every test he has ever ran on her and for him to explain all the results. Understand?"

"Yes, he said he'd be down for the weekend."
"Ok." Jack sat back down in his chair to let Ianto go "Ianto, please trust me"

"I do, honestly. It's just been so long we've gotten used to it." Ianto left the office as the cog door opened and he shouted down a greeting to Tosh, Jack heard her reply. He should really get an account of what happened from her as well. But that could wait till later.

-XXX-

"Okay Tosh what happened?" They were sat in Jack's office while the others were working below to get Tosh's side of what happened the other night.

"She was just trying to make me feel better, she said about how we all already knew about Owen and Gwen's affair and Ianto being sad, but she knew too much and I got a bit suspicious so I made her tell me, then I told her to tell you."

"Okay and you haven't mentioned any of this to Owen or Gwen have you?" Jack asked

"No, Jack she trusts me to keep it to myself I would never betray that."

Jack smiled, he had a feeling that from now on they were going to see another side of Toshiko and Jack was glad her and Megan had become such good friends, after everything that had happened to them they deserved some 'normalcy' of their own.