Silver Service by a_silver_story | 18
Oct. 15th, 2009 01:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
a_silver_storyTitle: Silver Service
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
a_silver_story
Chapter: 18/?
Genre: AU, Romance, Angsty, fluffy
Rating: NC17 / 18
Pairings: Main Pairing is Jack/Ianto. Also includes Ianto/Martha, Ianto/Tosh friendship, Ten/Tosh, Mickey/Martha (mentioned)
Warnings: M.M, rentboy!Ianto, Alternate Universe
Disclaimer: If I owned anything in this, I'd be a rich rich rich bitch. However, I am not a rich rich rich bitch so you may all, therefore, assume I own nothing. Which I don't. It all belongs RTD and the BBC, in case any of you didn't know. Now pass the retcon ...
Summary: Started as a PWP, but since it's me (sorry folks!) and I really can't do things by halves, it grew and grew and grew (and not in an innuendous sort of way). Doctor Smith owns a posh Cardiff hotel, and the respectable Sixth Earl of Boeshane is coming to stay - and he brings with him some very specific demands.
The story follows Ianto from being born, meeting Toshiko and them running away together to the city, right up until Ianto is taken to work in the Doctor's hotel as a 'service' butler for - you guessed it - Jack.
Everyone's fave OTP ensues. BOO YA!
Torchwood Index/Masterlist
FIRST PART | Chapter 1
Silver Service | 18
It's been three weeks. The Christmas lights are up, and for once the snow has timed it right, fluttering and falling thickly over the roads and cars, making the fairy lanterns stutter through the white haze. Everyone's asleep - it's the twenty-fourth of December, and midnight is coming. Jack walks through the untrodden snow, thankful Saxon had been 'understanding' and given him 'extra time'. Really he had beautiful Toshiko to thank for that - sleeping with Button and letting Saxon watch and join in had been what persuaded him into leniency. He was supposed to be following the sound of voices and music coming from the middle of the street. Where was he, again? He could hardly remember. He was in the UK again - possibly Scotland. A little fishing village. He glanced around the small harbour, and could see a lighthouse across the little bay. It was a beautiful place - he could tell, even in the dark - and he found himself thinking that he might bring Ianto here one day. His heart ached with painful thoughts of losing Ianto, and he continued his way towards the sounds of voices.
It was a hotel, with a pub downstairs. It was called 'The Crown', and the only light on the waterfront other than the holiday lanterns spilled from between the curtains on its windows. Jack knocked on the closed door, and it opened a crack.
"What?"
"My name is Captain Jack Harkness. I need to see Faith."
The door opened slightly, and the burly man looked him up and down. There was a strange quiet within the pub now, and a mutter flittered around. An old woman came to the door, and her beady eyes bored into Jack as if she could see his soul.
"Hmmm ..."
She reached out a gnarled hand, veins knotted over arthritic joints, and grasped his chin, lowing his head to force him to maintain eye contact.
"Too selfish." she said bluntly.
"No! Please! My daug-"
"Too selfish. Even as you plead you think only of the pain that will come to yourself."
Jack stared at her, dumbfounded, shivering a little in the cold. "I ... I ... I've been ... traveling. Across continents ... following, and finding. I need to find her. I need to find it ... please ... I need to-"
"Listen to him!" harped the ancient woman, pulling the door open wide and letting the warm light properly spill across Jack's face. "Listen to him talk! 'I did this' ... 'I did that' ... 'I need' ... 'I have' ... 'I, I, I, me, me, me'. How many times a day do you use the word 'I', Captain Harkness?"
"I ... I ... I don't know. Please ... please just listen. I need Faith. I need Faith and I need her to help me."
The woman sighed melodramatically. "You need to learn to love others more than yourself before Faith will ever help you again."
"I do love others more than myself!"
"Then why is it that the first person you mention when stood on a doorstep to help another is yourself? True selflessness runs deeper than conscious thought, young man."
He scowled. "Not as young as I look."
"But still young by our standards."
A chuckle reverberated behind her, and Jack bristled. "Will you listen to me? I ... I'm ... I won't ask for your help. Just ... just listen ..."
The hag regarded him for a moment, then nodded once and stepped aside. The pub interior was homey and old fashioned - just like pubs were meant to be. There were tables, bench chairs running along a couple of walls, bar stools hanging around haphazardly and the occasional booth. The woman lead him to one of the booths, and he sat opposite her. A drab of whiskey appeared by his hand, and he drank it gratefully, reveling in the warmth of the pub. The other punters - all oddities, surrounded by smokes of varying colours, shawls covered in coins or black jackets concealing what looked to Jack like several cutlasses. He returned his attention to the ancient woman, who had lit a cigarette in a long cigarette holder, precariously balanced in her knotted hand. She took a drag as she waited for him to start.
"My daughter is dying - she ... she was poisoned."
"Why?"
"So that I would trade the gauntlet for the antidote." Jack replied, casting his eyes low and seeing his tumbler had been filled again. "But ... I didn't know that was why until a month and a half ago. They let her get bad - so bad. They let her condition deteriorate, waiting until I was desperate."
"You were searching out the gauntlet anyway." the old woman croaked matter of factly. "Not that you would ever find it without Faith."
"My intentions were selfish to a point - originally." He took a deep breath. "When ... when I was young - and I mean, really young. A child. Twenty-five, maybe ... I had another daughter. My own daughter. Alice."
He smiled to himself dreamily, remembering her smile, her shock of black hair and her happy little way of skipping around everywhere. His memories moved on, her adult face, glaring at him, hating him. Screaming at him to stay away from her and Stephen. Her son. His grandson.
The next time he saw either of them was at their joint funeral, after a collision on the new road near her town. Her husband didn't have a driving license - no one needed one in the nineteen twenties - and had lost control of the vehicle and killed all three within it.
The woman watched Jack carefully as he told her, catching her eye and feeling her rooting in his mind, checking the truth of his words.
"That must have been very painful for you." she said eventually, though no compassion shone through her words.
He nodded. "Lucia - my wife - never forgave me. She said it was my fault. I bought them the car - a peace offering of sorts. Stephen loved cars." Jack took his second drab of whiskey in one, unable to leave it by his side on the table any longer. "Lucia hanged herself within a month of Alice and Stephen's funeral."
"Poor you." She sounded almost sarcastic.
"I was ... shot ..." Jack swallowed heavily. "I shot myself. In the head."
"And yet here you are."
"Here I am." he repeated bitterly. "Will Faith know ...?"
"Faith does not know how." the woman cut him off. "Or why. Or when. These are things you already know - you just do not know you know them yet."
"You're speaking in riddles." Jack sighed, rubbing his eyes and noticing his tumbler replenished again.
"I only speak in riddles - you yourself are one."
Jack regarded her a moment. "Shall I continue?"
"By all means." The hag made an open gesture with her hand, and flicked a little ash into an ash tray from her cigarette.
"The loss of Stephen and Alice tore me apart - I became obsessed with resurrection, trying to figure out why I could do it myself but my offspring could not. I learnt of the gauntlet, and of its power. I learnt of it's twin, long destroyed, and far more dangerous. I know what it did, I know where they hid it, and I know it's connection to Faith. I searched out its history, I followed the accounts as they sprang up. But ... the trail ran cold during the war. I abandoned it, Alice and Stephen long ago rotted and beyond even the gauntlet's power to bring back ... I joined the Royal Air Force, and died over and over again. I came back, but my children remained dead. I loved others after this time - married only one: John. That was a stupid thing to do ... but ... no regrets. Not a single one.
"I ... eventually ... twenty-six years ago I married a woman who was already with child - my friend's widow. I loved her - but soon realised that I loved her because she ... because I saw her as a perfect woman who I previously could not have. The baby - not my baby, but her baby - was born three months after our wedding, and I promised myself I would be a good father for her. That I would take care of her, and do everything right that I did wrong with Alice."
"And did you?"
Jack averted his gaze and shifted uncomfortably, emptying his third tumbler before continuing. "No." he said, his voice a hoarse whisper. "I realised what I could become - the power I could have, the money I could make, the business I could do. Adeiola and Lisa fell back to fourth in my priorities." He'd never admitted it out loud or thought on it too hard, but now that he was spilling these home truths his heart was aching with grief and guilt.
"Fourth?" pressed the hag. Jack was fairly certain she had looked into his mind and seen all this, she was just making him say it out loud for his own benefit.
"Sex, power, money, family." he clarified.
"You are rather obsessive about sex." the old woman smirked. "The lengths you go to (or should I say 'went'?) to get great sex are extraordinary."
"But then I met Ianto."
"But then you met Ianto." the woman was smiling strangely. "An abandoned child, lost, afraid, crying in the rain. A John Doe. But don't let his past interfere now. Tell me about your present."
Jack didn't fully understand what she had been talking about, so assumed it was best not to ask questions. He took a deep breath, once more drained his forever-filled glass and spoke again. "He changed me. If you think I'm selfish now, you should have met me before Ianto came along. Within twenty-four hours I was a changed man, all because he refused to let me claim and control him. He made me realise ... yes, I feel. But ... so do other people. I mean - I knew other people felt. But ... so long, trapped in that high-society way of thinking, trampling over anyone who showed a chink of weakness. Even though you know people feel, you don't acknowledge it. Self-preservation, very little guilt." he added bitterly. "But he was different. He wasn't taking my shit. He laid down the ground rules, and ... and I love him for doing that. Structuring me. Finding a purpose to each day - even if that purpose is just to lounge around in bed doing nothing, that's what we're doing today, so make it last."
The old woman nodded her understanding. "It's amazing how hard it is to live when no one gives you structure, blowing around unchecked until you have to stop and look at yourself. It's all very well playing tennis on the street, but sooner or later you find yourself craving the net."
In a strange way, Jack understood what she meant. He sipped his glass, and found this time there was Coca Cola in the bottom of it rather than whiskey. He gulped it greedily, feeling the bubbles sizzle his tongue and the cool sweetness ease his vocal chords. "He gave me that structure. He took care of me. I took care of him, best I could - the only way I knew how: I kept him. I stole him and I kept him. I gave him anything he wanted, which wasn't really much. I dressed him, and paid for his food. Tried to keep him ... to keep him healthy ..."
"Is he sick?" Jack knew the old hag would already have the answer to that question.
"Faith was seen giving me the box." Jack sighed. "And they thought I had the gauntlet. So ... so they upped the ante when I told them I didn't have it. They poisoned Ianto too."
"Tut tut." The woman flicked her cigarette. "So you want the gauntlet to trade to save them?"
"Well ... yes ..." Jack looked at her hopefully.
"Why do you want to save them?"
"I ... I can't live without them. I don't know what I'd do if-"
"No. Not you. Not about you!" she snapped.
Jack's mouth closed with a click of teeth, he shut it that fast.
"These are people you have failed, are they not?"
"Well ... I ..."
"Are they not?"
"Yes." Jack conceded.
"They are sick and dying because of you, are they not?"
"Yes." Jack choked.
"Then why would they want to be saved?"
Jack froze and stared at her.
"Think about it Captain - you save Lisa, and she'll go straight back to Nairobi and write a letter once a month. She doesn't have much there, and refuses your money because she wants independence - even if that means living in the squalor of a Red Cross Camp, volunteering as a translator in return for bed and food."
"She ... she was happy ..."
"And Ianto?"
"He was happy! He told me! He told me ... if ... if I couldn't fix this ... then he would die happy!"
"And if he lives? Will he live happy? Will he live happily knowing he could never truly have you, constantly seconded to some bastard child in another country and a wife you don't even know any more? Could you watch him give in to the jealousy and eventually become bitter and resentful - and hate you too? Maybe it would be better to let him die happy now than trade the gauntlet to a psychopath for a few short years of happiness before he twists into the shadow of a man you will make him!"
Jack was staring at her. "I ... I never ..."
"You never considered the future. You never considered how he would feel in the future. You just assumed he would be as he is now: a naive child, hopelessly in love with you and willing to follow you to the ends of the Earth - and put up with you hankering after a worthless wife and a child so far detached from you, you hardly know her any more."
"It's not like that! I ... I can ... this is just ... Lisa ... I love Lisa ... she's ... she's my little girl! And ... this ... you talk ... this future you hypothesise will only happen if ... if ..."
"... if you continue to be selfish." the hag finished for him, tired of his stumbling.
Jack swallowed. "I was so hell bent on saving them, I never wondered what I was actually saving them for - other than for myself."
The ancient woman grinned broadly. "I think, Captain," she flicked her cigarette. "we're finally getting somewhere."
~*~*~*~
They would take him to Faith, and whether or not she helped would be entirely her decision - though the entire party seemed doubtful. They walked through the streets silently, a group of seven, including Jack, making their way towards the cliffs. Steps roughly hewn and laid with wooden beams lead the way up the steep face, and they seemed to climb for an age. Jack vaguely remembered a rickety rope bridge, before spotting the ominous ruins of a small castle rise into view, its silhouette even blacker than the night sky and a lone candle burning in the upper storey. There was a high fence surrounding the ruin and the cliff face to stop tourists and pedestrians getting to it, but the group simply walked through it as if it didn't exist. Jack rather gracelessly clambered over it, much to the amusement of his companions, and landed with a thud and a mock round of applause on the other side.
The old woman went first, leading them into the castle in a line, Jack right behind her. She took him into a small room, and there, knelt on the floor on a silk cushion, cards laid out in front of her, a goblet of wine by her side and a body guard stood protectively by, was Faith. The room was pretty much open to the elements, the roof having caved in years ago, but Faith showed no bother to it. The candle flickered a little, but Jack had a feeling that no matter how hard the wind blew, it would not go out.
"I've been looking forward to seeing the Captain again." Faith smiled solemnly. She indicated he sit opposite her, and he obliged, shivering in the cold the strange girl did not feel. Without waiting, she gathered up her cards and handed them to Jack, urging him to shuffle for her. He did so, with a little clumsiness as he was not used to their size, and handed them back. She silently dealt them, reading them to herself. The silence was making Jack's ears ache, and it seemed everyone else in the room was holding their breath, too.
"You've learnt much about yourself since our last meeting." smiled Faith, though it was creepy a smile with very little warmth - there was almost a sense of pride there, but it made Jack uneasy as she weighed him up with her eyes.
"I have." he replied hoarsely. "But ... I think all I really, truly learnt is that ... I don't know myself at all. The person I do know? He's ... he's not worth your time of day." he told her bitterly.
"I know." Faith smiled again. "But underneath him is that man you used to be, and you've been finding him again. Whether you will ever be as worthy as him again, the cards will not say. But they give you points for effort."
The people in the room chortled, but Jack and Faith maintained their expressions, almost staring each other down.
The candle went out with an ominous woosh, and silence fell in the room.
"Who's there?" a voice called from outside. "You're not allowed in the ruin, you stupid children!"
Faith's voice whispered harshly in the dark: "Go away!"
There was silence outside, then shuffling, confused footsteps on rock. The candle flickered back into life once it was safe to do so. Faith lowered her gaze to the cards, and Jack realised that in the dark, they had changed.
"One is already lost, but only to you." Faith said, frowning at the layout before her. "And one you are going to lose. Not in hatred, but in a forced separation."
"Lisa ... I've lost Lisa ... is she dead?"
"She is not dead. She will be lost only to you." Faith reiterated. "Your relationship will be civil, but you will not be father."
She turned over another card, but Jack couldn't make it out in the dark.
"You will not be father ..." her frown deepened further. "... you will be rival."
"Rival ... for what?"
"You have sent both of your poisoned loves to the same hospital, and when you meet Saxon in Lisbon next week he will have Copley administer the antidote."
"... and?"
"They are young, and of the same age. They are beautiful, and have such bright futures ahead of them."
"I ... I don't understand ..."
"Save them not for yourself, but so they can have each other. For as long as they can."
"Ianto ... and Lisa?"
"Lisa will die young. Ianto will turn to you for his happiness then, a full grown man; an independent soul. A free choice."
"I don't understand what you're asking of me."
"Save them, and let them meet - as they shall, when they recover, and they will recover before your plane lands in the airport - they will fall in love. You could tear them apart, keep Ianto and send Lisa back to Kenya. Force him to love you more, make him submit, break him. He will hate you."
Jack's head was in his hands. This was not what he expected to hear. "And if they never meet?"
"They will meet."
"What if I stop them meeting?"
"Ianto and Lisa are meant to be. It is written in more than just the cards, but in the runes and the stars and the fabric of time itself. No matter what you do, they will meet, and they will love - and Ianto will be unable to love you. They will hurt and they will cry, and Ianto will lose so much." She fiddled with the cards again, and took a sip of her wine. "But it is you he will die with."
Jack felt like his head was spinning.
"So, Captain Harkness." said the hag from the shadows. "This is the ultimate act of selflessness - for a man who cannot die, anyway. Can you give up everything that has made your life worth living, and everything that has made you thus far the man you could become, and keep your distance to ensure the happiness of those you say you love more than yourself? Will you trade the love of your man for his life?"
Jack lifted a random card, and on it he saw a stone tower. By the light of the candle, he could see a single window at the top of it glowing orange, and the figure of a man stood in the casement. He was wearing a crisp, well-cut suit, with milk-white skin and dark, chocolaty hair. Around his wrists were shackles.
Raising his eyes to Faith, he placed the card back onto her pile.
"Yes."
~*~*~*~
Daylight pierced his eyes as he drew in the first ragged breath of life, his aching lungs parched of oxygen and full of salty water. He choked and spluttered in the morning sun, and the people around him - random bystanders, he assumed - all gasped in relief.
"Oh thank God!" said a strong Scottish accent by his head. "I was so sure he was dead!"
"I'm ... I'm fine ... inflatable dinghy burst ... not the strongest swimmer ..."
"Has he washed up here from America?" a child's voice - also Scottish - asked.
"No." smiled Jack, trying to heave his soaking body up off the ground. It was the coat's fault - it tripled in weight when soaked through, he was sure of it.
"Is this yours?" the first voice asked him, and he turned to see a middle-aged woman holding a wooden casket. 'Capt. Jack Harkness' was embossed on the top.
"Yeah." he said gratefully taking it from her. It was heavy, and weighed ominously on his heart. He remembered the pact he made the night before, agreeing to Faith's conditions ... then blackness.
"Give Saxon the gauntlet. It will not work for him. He will experiment for six years, and then you will kill him, and free Button. He will go with you, for a while. From then on, you must keep the gauntlet safe, use it when you will, and return it to me when I call. Only then will Ianto be able to love you again."
Jack found a phone box by the park, and dialed Copley's number from memory. "I've got it." he said grudgingly. "I'm on my way to Lisbon."
"Ahhh Lisbon!" exclaimed Copley, as if Jack had just told him his holiday destination. "Such a beautiful, beautiful city. Be sure to pick up a painting for me from one of those Portuguese street artists! Y'know ... the ones with the trams on."
Jack hung up on him, and trudged, dripping wet to The Crown.
It was normal inside now, with Christmas decorations littering the walls and ceilings, with paintings of the little village they were in scattered over the walls. 'Portpatrick During the Great Storm' Jack read under one watercolour, and glanced out of the window to the little bay and lighthouse. Sighing heavily, he bought a can of Coke over the bar and took it with him to drink on the way to the car he had hired the previous day.
He lay the wooden casket on the passenger seat, and the padlock sprang open of its own accord. He moved it free and opened the catch, pulling up the lid. Dread, and a strange sense of wonder, filled his chest as he stared down at the gauntlet. He had wanted this for so long, and now he couldn't wait to get rid of it. Why had he been so obsessed? The thing was hideous. It was wrong. Just looking at it made him feel wrong. With a tentative finger he touched it, and the metal sang to him - it sang of Alice and of Stephen, and of ... Death.
Jack snapped the lid down and locked it again, concentrating on the two hour drive to the airport rather than the contents of the box, of what he was about to give up and why he had to save them.
Patience was all he needed to learn now - patience, to wait until life had played out its course and brought him and Ianto back together again. Lisa was already lost, Faith had made that clear. He just had to wait for Ianto. While he was waiting, he could mourn his failure of Lisa, but he would never win her back. She would always see him as her rival now.
He pulled sharply into the lay-by and broke down in tears.
~*~*~*~
The fluorescent hospital lights pierced his eyes like cold morning sun. He wrenched them open, squinting around the little room. He wanted Jack. He wanted Jack now. He needed familiar. He needed safe.
"It's worked on the boy, too!" a nurse shouted, and there was a flurry of activity.
"Amazing ..."
Ianto recognised that voice as belonging to Dr Patanjali. Jack had sent him back to Cardiff, then. He tried to sit up, and hissed in pain when the flaking scabs that covered his left arm and part of his neck - had it really spread that far? How long had he been in the coma? - rubbed and fell off with the movement, falling like grotesque snow. How ironic, he realised. Since there were Christmas decorations hanging around ...
"Ianto!" Toshiko cried, then hesitated as she stared at his scabbed arm. Where the scabs had flaked and dropped off, new, unmarred skin was instantly forming before it had a chance to bleed.
"Tosh!" he cried hoarsely. She hugged him on the side of him where the poison hadn't spread, while he watched himself heal with fascination. "Where's Jack?"
"He's on his way back from Lisbon." a strained voice said near them. Ianto looked up and saw Adeiola. Her face was a mess of make up and tears. "He submitted to Saxon's want. He's saved you both."
"You poisoned me." Ianto said bitterly.
"It kicked him into action, didn't it?" she retorted.
"He didn't know what Saxon wanted until the week we left Cardiff. He ... he was trying."
"Let me see him!" said an angry female voice behind her. "Mum! Let me see him!"
Lisa forced herself into the room, and swept her eyes up and down Ianto's form. Her mouth open and closed a few times, as if she suddenly couldn't remember why she was there. Ianto raised his eyes to her, ready to defend himself - to explain that Jack didn't just save her to save Ianto, but most probably saved Ianto to save her. His voice caught in his throat when her big brown eyes locked with his crystal blue ones, and time stopped for them.
He had known she was beautiful, but now Ianto could see her eyes - her deep, blissfully dark eyes, alive and passionate - he knew he could now see the beauty of her soul, too. She was so much like the man that had tried his best to bring her up, but in other ways she was his total opposite. And Ianto ... he found himself infatuated with her.
"H-hey." she breathed gently, and Ianto didn't dare believe she could possibly have felt something for him. "I'm Lisa."
"Ian ... Ianto. Ianto Jones is my name, Miss Lisa."
"Ianto." she repeated.
"Yeah." confirmed Ianto, unsure what to say.
Toshiko nudged his arm and excused herself, and Adeiola was staring between the two of them, mouth slightly open and doing the maths in her head. Doctor Patanjali carried on assessing the readouts from the machines around Ianto - deciding to ignore his suddenly increased heart rate as 'an anomaly'.
Lisa finally tore her eyes away and asked the other two people to leave.
"You're ... not what I expected." Lisa admitted, her voice shaky and a little low.
"You're more than anything I expected." Ianto replied before he could stop himself. Lisa gave a small, flirtatious laugh.
"I knew you'd be good-looking ... just ... you're not so ..." She struggled to convey her meaning. "... seedy." she finished, and gave him a nervous glance to check if he was offended.
Ianto nodded as she perched on the bed by his hip.
"How are you feeling?" she asked gently, taking his hand.
"Much better, thank you ma'am." he replied sheepishly.
"Don't call me ma'am. It makes me feel old!"
"You'll never be old to me, Miss Lisa."
The words tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop them. She laughed again as his cheeks turned a delicate shade of pink and squeezed his hand gently.
"I think you need to work on your flirtation technique, Mr. Jones." she smiled, and kissed his hand the way the gallant gentleman would do to a lady's. He flushed deeper, which she seemed to delight in, and kissed his hand again, closer to the wrist. His breath hitched and she moved lower, gently brushing over his racing pulse.
She pulled back suddenly and sprang to her feet, gazing at him in surprise. "What am I doing? Dad ... Dad'll kill me if ..."
Ianto's stomach plummeted and guilt crept through his veins. Since Miss Lisa had entered the room, he hadn't even thought of Jack. Given what she was just doing, the knowledge Jack hadn't even risen in his conscious thought was punishment enough. The semi-hardness hidden beneath the hospital sheets made his mind churn with guilt.
"Hey, kids."
They both turned in shock to see Jack stood in the doorway, and tried their best not to look suspicious. His voice was quiet and solemn, his eyes serious. He looked between them, at the distance they had but between themselves and the awkwardness in the room. Jack wasn't stupid, and Ianto knew that. He could get so jealous though ... would this escalate?
"Lisa ... are you ... are you okay?"
"I'm fine." she replied, but her eyes drifted to Ianto when she said it, and they betrayed a different story. "I'll ... I'll give you some space."
She bustled out of the room before Jack could say anything, and he stared down the corridor after her. "First thing you need to learn about women, Ianto," Jack began with a quirked lip. "If they say the words 'I'm fine', you've done something, very, very wrong." He sighed heavily and took the chair next to Ianto's bed. He was smiling, but still his eyes were sad.
"You did it." observed Ianto.
"I did it." nodded Jack somberly, and he took Ianto's hand in a gesture so similar to Lisa's his stomach turned unpleasantly again. He kissed Ianto's fingers, and brushed his lips over the pulse point as Lisa had done.
Ianto's heart did not quicken this time, and Jack glanced up at the regularly beeping heart monitor display that hadn't been disengaged yet. Ianto panicked silently: what was wrong with him? The Captain frowned at the monitor, and a realisation that Ianto didn't understand passed over his face, before being quickly hidden.
"Kiss me, Ianto." he ordered quietly, and Ianto eagerly obliged, expecting that usual explosion of feelings and emotions and pleasure that kissing Jack brought him.
Nothing.
"Oh ... oh, Ianto ..." sighed Jack. "I thought ... I thought ... I thought that ... just ... a little longer ..."
Jack held his head in his hands, and tried to compose himself.
"I love you." Ianto said, and it felt so false on his tongue and in Jack's ears it made him shudder to hear it. "Jack? What ... what's going on?"
Jack lifted his head, and Ianto was shocked to see Jack was crying. "I ... I had to ... I had to ... for you ... for both of you ... everything has a cost, Ianto."
"A cost?"
"I traded your love for your life."
"I ... don't understand."
"No ..." Jack reached out and touched his face, and Ianto allowed it even though his skin no longer tingled. "I didn't at first. But ... you will love me again, when the time is right. They will let you love me again, when the price is paid."
"Price paid for what?" Ianto demanded.
"The gauntlet. The cure. For keeping you and Lisa alive and making the two of you happy. As penance for my selfishness."
Ianto narrowed his eyes as Jack let a few more sobs escape. "You knew I would be infatuated with Lisa." he realised quietly.
"I just didn't realise so soon ..." Jack breathed.
"Please don't leave me. I can't do anything without you. I am nothing without you!" Ianto pushed the covers aside and fell to his knees in front of Jack, resting his head on Jack's thigh. "I can still be with you. I can still love you - no matter what you think you traded. It's all in our heads. Look ... I can still be yours ..." He pressed his lips to Jack's again, and kissed him with passion, though none of it he really felt. He found himself imagining kissing Lisa, how it would feel to hold her delicate body in strong arms, to touch her tongue with his, to feel her pressed up against him ...
Jack pushed him off roughly.
"You will be happy, and cared for." he told him matter-of-factly, and stroked his hair soothingly. "But not with me."
"What? NO!" Ianto grasped Jack's wrists in a plea.
"You will be with Lisa."
He froze and stared at Jack. "It ... it's just an infatuation ... it ... it won't last ... I'll get over it ..."
"You will be with Lisa. That will make me happy, you happy and her happy. Understand?"
"No!"
"Ianto!" Jack growled in exasperation. "You see me as some kind of ... constant. I took you from your life and made you happy - but ... look. Shit happens. We move on. I love you - I have no problem telling you that, and I will always love you. And when the time is right you will come back to me. But right now, you have to pull yourself together. You have to forget the idea that you need me - you don't. Right now, you need Lisa. And you will make a life with her. Where, or how, or whatever: it doesn't matter. You and her ... you're meant to be."
"You can't know that." whimpered Ianto, clutching Jack's cuff, still kneeling on the floor. "You can't ..."
"I didn't know it," Jack corrected. "but Faith did. It's written in the cards, in the runes, in the stars and the very fabric of time itself."
"Will it by any chance turn up in my alphabetti-spaghetti?" Ianto scowled sarcastically.
Jack gave a wistful laugh, and pulled Ianto onto his lap. "Shhhhh ..." he soothed. "Just take a moment ... close your eyes ... what do you feel when I hold you?"
Ianto breathed deep the scent of Jack. "Safe." he mumbled. "Cared for. Loved ... and ... and ... I'm missing something ..."
"You don't love me, Ianto. You can't. And that's what's missing."
"I don't believe that. It's not possible to stop someone loving someone. It's not! It's not!" Ianto sprang to his feet and paced angrily, his hospital pyjamas hugging his frame and stirring inappropriate thoughts in Jack's mind. "I hate this!" he fumed. "I hate this! Before ... before I knew ... I had meaning ... and ... Jack ... I'd rather die than not love you!"
Jack stood and stared at him for a couple of seconds. Then he slapped him. Ianto stood there in shock, and glared.
"I'll check in on you at Christmastime each year. And you birthday. I've never seen you on your birthday ..."
"Jack ... no! Don't!"
"The price has to be paid, Ianto! I have to learn. You have to learn. And when you've learnt who you are, and I've learnt who I am, we can be together again. I promise."
"How will we know?" Ianto sobbed, crying unashamedly.
Jack turned and hesitated in the door way, prising Ianto's hands from his coat. He smiled the first genuine smile he had for over a month.
"I know because ... because I have faith."
And with that, he was gone. Ianto collapsed and sobbed, and heard Jack's voice a little way down the corridor.
"Call it a gift. Take care of him, Princess."
He raised his eyes as Lisa hurried into the room, crouching by him and putting her arms around him. He sobbed into her shoulder. "He left me ..." he muttered between heaving breathes. "He left me, he left me, he left me ..."
"I know, sweetheart." Lisa said, kissing his hair. "I know. Don't worry. I'm here. I'm going to take care of you, no matter what. Okay?"
He raised his eyes to her, stilling his wracked breaths. "Oh-kay." he conceded.
She kissed him, and Jack, once again, vanished from his mind.
FIN
I've re-written this chapter three times, but I think I got it right. Ish. *shrugs* nahbody's poifect.
Next Part | Previous Part | Torchwood Index | Request a Convo/Prose Fic
Author:
a_silver_storyChapter: 18/?
Genre: AU, Romance, Angsty, fluffy
Rating: NC17 / 18
Pairings: Main Pairing is Jack/Ianto. Also includes Ianto/Martha, Ianto/Tosh friendship, Ten/Tosh, Mickey/Martha (mentioned)
Warnings: M.M, rentboy!Ianto, Alternate Universe
Disclaimer: If I owned anything in this, I'd be a rich rich rich bitch. However, I am not a rich rich rich bitch so you may all, therefore, assume I own nothing. Which I don't. It all belongs RTD and the BBC, in case any of you didn't know. Now pass the retcon ...
Summary: Started as a PWP, but since it's me (sorry folks!) and I really can't do things by halves, it grew and grew and grew (and not in an innuendous sort of way). Doctor Smith owns a posh Cardiff hotel, and the respectable Sixth Earl of Boeshane is coming to stay - and he brings with him some very specific demands.
The story follows Ianto from being born, meeting Toshiko and them running away together to the city, right up until Ianto is taken to work in the Doctor's hotel as a 'service' butler for - you guessed it - Jack.
Everyone's fave OTP ensues. BOO YA!
Torchwood Index/Masterlist
FIRST PART | Chapter 1
Silver Service | 18
It's been three weeks. The Christmas lights are up, and for once the snow has timed it right, fluttering and falling thickly over the roads and cars, making the fairy lanterns stutter through the white haze. Everyone's asleep - it's the twenty-fourth of December, and midnight is coming. Jack walks through the untrodden snow, thankful Saxon had been 'understanding' and given him 'extra time'. Really he had beautiful Toshiko to thank for that - sleeping with Button and letting Saxon watch and join in had been what persuaded him into leniency. He was supposed to be following the sound of voices and music coming from the middle of the street. Where was he, again? He could hardly remember. He was in the UK again - possibly Scotland. A little fishing village. He glanced around the small harbour, and could see a lighthouse across the little bay. It was a beautiful place - he could tell, even in the dark - and he found himself thinking that he might bring Ianto here one day. His heart ached with painful thoughts of losing Ianto, and he continued his way towards the sounds of voices.
It was a hotel, with a pub downstairs. It was called 'The Crown', and the only light on the waterfront other than the holiday lanterns spilled from between the curtains on its windows. Jack knocked on the closed door, and it opened a crack.
"What?"
"My name is Captain Jack Harkness. I need to see Faith."
The door opened slightly, and the burly man looked him up and down. There was a strange quiet within the pub now, and a mutter flittered around. An old woman came to the door, and her beady eyes bored into Jack as if she could see his soul.
"Hmmm ..."
She reached out a gnarled hand, veins knotted over arthritic joints, and grasped his chin, lowing his head to force him to maintain eye contact.
"Too selfish." she said bluntly.
"No! Please! My daug-"
"Too selfish. Even as you plead you think only of the pain that will come to yourself."
Jack stared at her, dumbfounded, shivering a little in the cold. "I ... I ... I've been ... traveling. Across continents ... following, and finding. I need to find her. I need to find it ... please ... I need to-"
"Listen to him!" harped the ancient woman, pulling the door open wide and letting the warm light properly spill across Jack's face. "Listen to him talk! 'I did this' ... 'I did that' ... 'I need' ... 'I have' ... 'I, I, I, me, me, me'. How many times a day do you use the word 'I', Captain Harkness?"
"I ... I ... I don't know. Please ... please just listen. I need Faith. I need Faith and I need her to help me."
The woman sighed melodramatically. "You need to learn to love others more than yourself before Faith will ever help you again."
"I do love others more than myself!"
"Then why is it that the first person you mention when stood on a doorstep to help another is yourself? True selflessness runs deeper than conscious thought, young man."
He scowled. "Not as young as I look."
"But still young by our standards."
A chuckle reverberated behind her, and Jack bristled. "Will you listen to me? I ... I'm ... I won't ask for your help. Just ... just listen ..."
The hag regarded him for a moment, then nodded once and stepped aside. The pub interior was homey and old fashioned - just like pubs were meant to be. There were tables, bench chairs running along a couple of walls, bar stools hanging around haphazardly and the occasional booth. The woman lead him to one of the booths, and he sat opposite her. A drab of whiskey appeared by his hand, and he drank it gratefully, reveling in the warmth of the pub. The other punters - all oddities, surrounded by smokes of varying colours, shawls covered in coins or black jackets concealing what looked to Jack like several cutlasses. He returned his attention to the ancient woman, who had lit a cigarette in a long cigarette holder, precariously balanced in her knotted hand. She took a drag as she waited for him to start.
"My daughter is dying - she ... she was poisoned."
"Why?"
"So that I would trade the gauntlet for the antidote." Jack replied, casting his eyes low and seeing his tumbler had been filled again. "But ... I didn't know that was why until a month and a half ago. They let her get bad - so bad. They let her condition deteriorate, waiting until I was desperate."
"You were searching out the gauntlet anyway." the old woman croaked matter of factly. "Not that you would ever find it without Faith."
"My intentions were selfish to a point - originally." He took a deep breath. "When ... when I was young - and I mean, really young. A child. Twenty-five, maybe ... I had another daughter. My own daughter. Alice."
He smiled to himself dreamily, remembering her smile, her shock of black hair and her happy little way of skipping around everywhere. His memories moved on, her adult face, glaring at him, hating him. Screaming at him to stay away from her and Stephen. Her son. His grandson.
The next time he saw either of them was at their joint funeral, after a collision on the new road near her town. Her husband didn't have a driving license - no one needed one in the nineteen twenties - and had lost control of the vehicle and killed all three within it.
The woman watched Jack carefully as he told her, catching her eye and feeling her rooting in his mind, checking the truth of his words.
"That must have been very painful for you." she said eventually, though no compassion shone through her words.
He nodded. "Lucia - my wife - never forgave me. She said it was my fault. I bought them the car - a peace offering of sorts. Stephen loved cars." Jack took his second drab of whiskey in one, unable to leave it by his side on the table any longer. "Lucia hanged herself within a month of Alice and Stephen's funeral."
"Poor you." She sounded almost sarcastic.
"I was ... shot ..." Jack swallowed heavily. "I shot myself. In the head."
"And yet here you are."
"Here I am." he repeated bitterly. "Will Faith know ...?"
"Faith does not know how." the woman cut him off. "Or why. Or when. These are things you already know - you just do not know you know them yet."
"You're speaking in riddles." Jack sighed, rubbing his eyes and noticing his tumbler replenished again.
"I only speak in riddles - you yourself are one."
Jack regarded her a moment. "Shall I continue?"
"By all means." The hag made an open gesture with her hand, and flicked a little ash into an ash tray from her cigarette.
"The loss of Stephen and Alice tore me apart - I became obsessed with resurrection, trying to figure out why I could do it myself but my offspring could not. I learnt of the gauntlet, and of its power. I learnt of it's twin, long destroyed, and far more dangerous. I know what it did, I know where they hid it, and I know it's connection to Faith. I searched out its history, I followed the accounts as they sprang up. But ... the trail ran cold during the war. I abandoned it, Alice and Stephen long ago rotted and beyond even the gauntlet's power to bring back ... I joined the Royal Air Force, and died over and over again. I came back, but my children remained dead. I loved others after this time - married only one: John. That was a stupid thing to do ... but ... no regrets. Not a single one.
"I ... eventually ... twenty-six years ago I married a woman who was already with child - my friend's widow. I loved her - but soon realised that I loved her because she ... because I saw her as a perfect woman who I previously could not have. The baby - not my baby, but her baby - was born three months after our wedding, and I promised myself I would be a good father for her. That I would take care of her, and do everything right that I did wrong with Alice."
"And did you?"
Jack averted his gaze and shifted uncomfortably, emptying his third tumbler before continuing. "No." he said, his voice a hoarse whisper. "I realised what I could become - the power I could have, the money I could make, the business I could do. Adeiola and Lisa fell back to fourth in my priorities." He'd never admitted it out loud or thought on it too hard, but now that he was spilling these home truths his heart was aching with grief and guilt.
"Fourth?" pressed the hag. Jack was fairly certain she had looked into his mind and seen all this, she was just making him say it out loud for his own benefit.
"Sex, power, money, family." he clarified.
"You are rather obsessive about sex." the old woman smirked. "The lengths you go to (or should I say 'went'?) to get great sex are extraordinary."
"But then I met Ianto."
"But then you met Ianto." the woman was smiling strangely. "An abandoned child, lost, afraid, crying in the rain. A John Doe. But don't let his past interfere now. Tell me about your present."
Jack didn't fully understand what she had been talking about, so assumed it was best not to ask questions. He took a deep breath, once more drained his forever-filled glass and spoke again. "He changed me. If you think I'm selfish now, you should have met me before Ianto came along. Within twenty-four hours I was a changed man, all because he refused to let me claim and control him. He made me realise ... yes, I feel. But ... so do other people. I mean - I knew other people felt. But ... so long, trapped in that high-society way of thinking, trampling over anyone who showed a chink of weakness. Even though you know people feel, you don't acknowledge it. Self-preservation, very little guilt." he added bitterly. "But he was different. He wasn't taking my shit. He laid down the ground rules, and ... and I love him for doing that. Structuring me. Finding a purpose to each day - even if that purpose is just to lounge around in bed doing nothing, that's what we're doing today, so make it last."
The old woman nodded her understanding. "It's amazing how hard it is to live when no one gives you structure, blowing around unchecked until you have to stop and look at yourself. It's all very well playing tennis on the street, but sooner or later you find yourself craving the net."
In a strange way, Jack understood what she meant. He sipped his glass, and found this time there was Coca Cola in the bottom of it rather than whiskey. He gulped it greedily, feeling the bubbles sizzle his tongue and the cool sweetness ease his vocal chords. "He gave me that structure. He took care of me. I took care of him, best I could - the only way I knew how: I kept him. I stole him and I kept him. I gave him anything he wanted, which wasn't really much. I dressed him, and paid for his food. Tried to keep him ... to keep him healthy ..."
"Is he sick?" Jack knew the old hag would already have the answer to that question.
"Faith was seen giving me the box." Jack sighed. "And they thought I had the gauntlet. So ... so they upped the ante when I told them I didn't have it. They poisoned Ianto too."
"Tut tut." The woman flicked her cigarette. "So you want the gauntlet to trade to save them?"
"Well ... yes ..." Jack looked at her hopefully.
"Why do you want to save them?"
"I ... I can't live without them. I don't know what I'd do if-"
"No. Not you. Not about you!" she snapped.
Jack's mouth closed with a click of teeth, he shut it that fast.
"These are people you have failed, are they not?"
"Well ... I ..."
"Are they not?"
"Yes." Jack conceded.
"They are sick and dying because of you, are they not?"
"Yes." Jack choked.
"Then why would they want to be saved?"
Jack froze and stared at her.
"Think about it Captain - you save Lisa, and she'll go straight back to Nairobi and write a letter once a month. She doesn't have much there, and refuses your money because she wants independence - even if that means living in the squalor of a Red Cross Camp, volunteering as a translator in return for bed and food."
"She ... she was happy ..."
"And Ianto?"
"He was happy! He told me! He told me ... if ... if I couldn't fix this ... then he would die happy!"
"And if he lives? Will he live happy? Will he live happily knowing he could never truly have you, constantly seconded to some bastard child in another country and a wife you don't even know any more? Could you watch him give in to the jealousy and eventually become bitter and resentful - and hate you too? Maybe it would be better to let him die happy now than trade the gauntlet to a psychopath for a few short years of happiness before he twists into the shadow of a man you will make him!"
Jack was staring at her. "I ... I never ..."
"You never considered the future. You never considered how he would feel in the future. You just assumed he would be as he is now: a naive child, hopelessly in love with you and willing to follow you to the ends of the Earth - and put up with you hankering after a worthless wife and a child so far detached from you, you hardly know her any more."
"It's not like that! I ... I can ... this is just ... Lisa ... I love Lisa ... she's ... she's my little girl! And ... this ... you talk ... this future you hypothesise will only happen if ... if ..."
"... if you continue to be selfish." the hag finished for him, tired of his stumbling.
Jack swallowed. "I was so hell bent on saving them, I never wondered what I was actually saving them for - other than for myself."
The ancient woman grinned broadly. "I think, Captain," she flicked her cigarette. "we're finally getting somewhere."
They would take him to Faith, and whether or not she helped would be entirely her decision - though the entire party seemed doubtful. They walked through the streets silently, a group of seven, including Jack, making their way towards the cliffs. Steps roughly hewn and laid with wooden beams lead the way up the steep face, and they seemed to climb for an age. Jack vaguely remembered a rickety rope bridge, before spotting the ominous ruins of a small castle rise into view, its silhouette even blacker than the night sky and a lone candle burning in the upper storey. There was a high fence surrounding the ruin and the cliff face to stop tourists and pedestrians getting to it, but the group simply walked through it as if it didn't exist. Jack rather gracelessly clambered over it, much to the amusement of his companions, and landed with a thud and a mock round of applause on the other side.
The old woman went first, leading them into the castle in a line, Jack right behind her. She took him into a small room, and there, knelt on the floor on a silk cushion, cards laid out in front of her, a goblet of wine by her side and a body guard stood protectively by, was Faith. The room was pretty much open to the elements, the roof having caved in years ago, but Faith showed no bother to it. The candle flickered a little, but Jack had a feeling that no matter how hard the wind blew, it would not go out.
"I've been looking forward to seeing the Captain again." Faith smiled solemnly. She indicated he sit opposite her, and he obliged, shivering in the cold the strange girl did not feel. Without waiting, she gathered up her cards and handed them to Jack, urging him to shuffle for her. He did so, with a little clumsiness as he was not used to their size, and handed them back. She silently dealt them, reading them to herself. The silence was making Jack's ears ache, and it seemed everyone else in the room was holding their breath, too.
"You've learnt much about yourself since our last meeting." smiled Faith, though it was creepy a smile with very little warmth - there was almost a sense of pride there, but it made Jack uneasy as she weighed him up with her eyes.
"I have." he replied hoarsely. "But ... I think all I really, truly learnt is that ... I don't know myself at all. The person I do know? He's ... he's not worth your time of day." he told her bitterly.
"I know." Faith smiled again. "But underneath him is that man you used to be, and you've been finding him again. Whether you will ever be as worthy as him again, the cards will not say. But they give you points for effort."
The people in the room chortled, but Jack and Faith maintained their expressions, almost staring each other down.
The candle went out with an ominous woosh, and silence fell in the room.
"Who's there?" a voice called from outside. "You're not allowed in the ruin, you stupid children!"
Faith's voice whispered harshly in the dark: "Go away!"
There was silence outside, then shuffling, confused footsteps on rock. The candle flickered back into life once it was safe to do so. Faith lowered her gaze to the cards, and Jack realised that in the dark, they had changed.
"One is already lost, but only to you." Faith said, frowning at the layout before her. "And one you are going to lose. Not in hatred, but in a forced separation."
"Lisa ... I've lost Lisa ... is she dead?"
"She is not dead. She will be lost only to you." Faith reiterated. "Your relationship will be civil, but you will not be father."
She turned over another card, but Jack couldn't make it out in the dark.
"You will not be father ..." her frown deepened further. "... you will be rival."
"Rival ... for what?"
"You have sent both of your poisoned loves to the same hospital, and when you meet Saxon in Lisbon next week he will have Copley administer the antidote."
"... and?"
"They are young, and of the same age. They are beautiful, and have such bright futures ahead of them."
"I ... I don't understand ..."
"Save them not for yourself, but so they can have each other. For as long as they can."
"Ianto ... and Lisa?"
"Lisa will die young. Ianto will turn to you for his happiness then, a full grown man; an independent soul. A free choice."
"I don't understand what you're asking of me."
"Save them, and let them meet - as they shall, when they recover, and they will recover before your plane lands in the airport - they will fall in love. You could tear them apart, keep Ianto and send Lisa back to Kenya. Force him to love you more, make him submit, break him. He will hate you."
Jack's head was in his hands. This was not what he expected to hear. "And if they never meet?"
"They will meet."
"What if I stop them meeting?"
"Ianto and Lisa are meant to be. It is written in more than just the cards, but in the runes and the stars and the fabric of time itself. No matter what you do, they will meet, and they will love - and Ianto will be unable to love you. They will hurt and they will cry, and Ianto will lose so much." She fiddled with the cards again, and took a sip of her wine. "But it is you he will die with."
Jack felt like his head was spinning.
"So, Captain Harkness." said the hag from the shadows. "This is the ultimate act of selflessness - for a man who cannot die, anyway. Can you give up everything that has made your life worth living, and everything that has made you thus far the man you could become, and keep your distance to ensure the happiness of those you say you love more than yourself? Will you trade the love of your man for his life?"
Jack lifted a random card, and on it he saw a stone tower. By the light of the candle, he could see a single window at the top of it glowing orange, and the figure of a man stood in the casement. He was wearing a crisp, well-cut suit, with milk-white skin and dark, chocolaty hair. Around his wrists were shackles.
Raising his eyes to Faith, he placed the card back onto her pile.
"Yes."
Daylight pierced his eyes as he drew in the first ragged breath of life, his aching lungs parched of oxygen and full of salty water. He choked and spluttered in the morning sun, and the people around him - random bystanders, he assumed - all gasped in relief.
"Oh thank God!" said a strong Scottish accent by his head. "I was so sure he was dead!"
"I'm ... I'm fine ... inflatable dinghy burst ... not the strongest swimmer ..."
"Has he washed up here from America?" a child's voice - also Scottish - asked.
"No." smiled Jack, trying to heave his soaking body up off the ground. It was the coat's fault - it tripled in weight when soaked through, he was sure of it.
"Is this yours?" the first voice asked him, and he turned to see a middle-aged woman holding a wooden casket. 'Capt. Jack Harkness' was embossed on the top.
"Yeah." he said gratefully taking it from her. It was heavy, and weighed ominously on his heart. He remembered the pact he made the night before, agreeing to Faith's conditions ... then blackness.
"Give Saxon the gauntlet. It will not work for him. He will experiment for six years, and then you will kill him, and free Button. He will go with you, for a while. From then on, you must keep the gauntlet safe, use it when you will, and return it to me when I call. Only then will Ianto be able to love you again."
Jack found a phone box by the park, and dialed Copley's number from memory. "I've got it." he said grudgingly. "I'm on my way to Lisbon."
"Ahhh Lisbon!" exclaimed Copley, as if Jack had just told him his holiday destination. "Such a beautiful, beautiful city. Be sure to pick up a painting for me from one of those Portuguese street artists! Y'know ... the ones with the trams on."
Jack hung up on him, and trudged, dripping wet to The Crown.
It was normal inside now, with Christmas decorations littering the walls and ceilings, with paintings of the little village they were in scattered over the walls. 'Portpatrick During the Great Storm' Jack read under one watercolour, and glanced out of the window to the little bay and lighthouse. Sighing heavily, he bought a can of Coke over the bar and took it with him to drink on the way to the car he had hired the previous day.
He lay the wooden casket on the passenger seat, and the padlock sprang open of its own accord. He moved it free and opened the catch, pulling up the lid. Dread, and a strange sense of wonder, filled his chest as he stared down at the gauntlet. He had wanted this for so long, and now he couldn't wait to get rid of it. Why had he been so obsessed? The thing was hideous. It was wrong. Just looking at it made him feel wrong. With a tentative finger he touched it, and the metal sang to him - it sang of Alice and of Stephen, and of ... Death.
Jack snapped the lid down and locked it again, concentrating on the two hour drive to the airport rather than the contents of the box, of what he was about to give up and why he had to save them.
Patience was all he needed to learn now - patience, to wait until life had played out its course and brought him and Ianto back together again. Lisa was already lost, Faith had made that clear. He just had to wait for Ianto. While he was waiting, he could mourn his failure of Lisa, but he would never win her back. She would always see him as her rival now.
He pulled sharply into the lay-by and broke down in tears.
The fluorescent hospital lights pierced his eyes like cold morning sun. He wrenched them open, squinting around the little room. He wanted Jack. He wanted Jack now. He needed familiar. He needed safe.
"It's worked on the boy, too!" a nurse shouted, and there was a flurry of activity.
"Amazing ..."
Ianto recognised that voice as belonging to Dr Patanjali. Jack had sent him back to Cardiff, then. He tried to sit up, and hissed in pain when the flaking scabs that covered his left arm and part of his neck - had it really spread that far? How long had he been in the coma? - rubbed and fell off with the movement, falling like grotesque snow. How ironic, he realised. Since there were Christmas decorations hanging around ...
"Ianto!" Toshiko cried, then hesitated as she stared at his scabbed arm. Where the scabs had flaked and dropped off, new, unmarred skin was instantly forming before it had a chance to bleed.
"Tosh!" he cried hoarsely. She hugged him on the side of him where the poison hadn't spread, while he watched himself heal with fascination. "Where's Jack?"
"He's on his way back from Lisbon." a strained voice said near them. Ianto looked up and saw Adeiola. Her face was a mess of make up and tears. "He submitted to Saxon's want. He's saved you both."
"You poisoned me." Ianto said bitterly.
"It kicked him into action, didn't it?" she retorted.
"He didn't know what Saxon wanted until the week we left Cardiff. He ... he was trying."
"Let me see him!" said an angry female voice behind her. "Mum! Let me see him!"
Lisa forced herself into the room, and swept her eyes up and down Ianto's form. Her mouth open and closed a few times, as if she suddenly couldn't remember why she was there. Ianto raised his eyes to her, ready to defend himself - to explain that Jack didn't just save her to save Ianto, but most probably saved Ianto to save her. His voice caught in his throat when her big brown eyes locked with his crystal blue ones, and time stopped for them.
He had known she was beautiful, but now Ianto could see her eyes - her deep, blissfully dark eyes, alive and passionate - he knew he could now see the beauty of her soul, too. She was so much like the man that had tried his best to bring her up, but in other ways she was his total opposite. And Ianto ... he found himself infatuated with her.
"H-hey." she breathed gently, and Ianto didn't dare believe she could possibly have felt something for him. "I'm Lisa."
"Ian ... Ianto. Ianto Jones is my name, Miss Lisa."
"Ianto." she repeated.
"Yeah." confirmed Ianto, unsure what to say.
Toshiko nudged his arm and excused herself, and Adeiola was staring between the two of them, mouth slightly open and doing the maths in her head. Doctor Patanjali carried on assessing the readouts from the machines around Ianto - deciding to ignore his suddenly increased heart rate as 'an anomaly'.
Lisa finally tore her eyes away and asked the other two people to leave.
"You're ... not what I expected." Lisa admitted, her voice shaky and a little low.
"You're more than anything I expected." Ianto replied before he could stop himself. Lisa gave a small, flirtatious laugh.
"I knew you'd be good-looking ... just ... you're not so ..." She struggled to convey her meaning. "... seedy." she finished, and gave him a nervous glance to check if he was offended.
Ianto nodded as she perched on the bed by his hip.
"How are you feeling?" she asked gently, taking his hand.
"Much better, thank you ma'am." he replied sheepishly.
"Don't call me ma'am. It makes me feel old!"
"You'll never be old to me, Miss Lisa."
The words tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop them. She laughed again as his cheeks turned a delicate shade of pink and squeezed his hand gently.
"I think you need to work on your flirtation technique, Mr. Jones." she smiled, and kissed his hand the way the gallant gentleman would do to a lady's. He flushed deeper, which she seemed to delight in, and kissed his hand again, closer to the wrist. His breath hitched and she moved lower, gently brushing over his racing pulse.
She pulled back suddenly and sprang to her feet, gazing at him in surprise. "What am I doing? Dad ... Dad'll kill me if ..."
Ianto's stomach plummeted and guilt crept through his veins. Since Miss Lisa had entered the room, he hadn't even thought of Jack. Given what she was just doing, the knowledge Jack hadn't even risen in his conscious thought was punishment enough. The semi-hardness hidden beneath the hospital sheets made his mind churn with guilt.
"Hey, kids."
They both turned in shock to see Jack stood in the doorway, and tried their best not to look suspicious. His voice was quiet and solemn, his eyes serious. He looked between them, at the distance they had but between themselves and the awkwardness in the room. Jack wasn't stupid, and Ianto knew that. He could get so jealous though ... would this escalate?
"Lisa ... are you ... are you okay?"
"I'm fine." she replied, but her eyes drifted to Ianto when she said it, and they betrayed a different story. "I'll ... I'll give you some space."
She bustled out of the room before Jack could say anything, and he stared down the corridor after her. "First thing you need to learn about women, Ianto," Jack began with a quirked lip. "If they say the words 'I'm fine', you've done something, very, very wrong." He sighed heavily and took the chair next to Ianto's bed. He was smiling, but still his eyes were sad.
"You did it." observed Ianto.
"I did it." nodded Jack somberly, and he took Ianto's hand in a gesture so similar to Lisa's his stomach turned unpleasantly again. He kissed Ianto's fingers, and brushed his lips over the pulse point as Lisa had done.
Ianto's heart did not quicken this time, and Jack glanced up at the regularly beeping heart monitor display that hadn't been disengaged yet. Ianto panicked silently: what was wrong with him? The Captain frowned at the monitor, and a realisation that Ianto didn't understand passed over his face, before being quickly hidden.
"Kiss me, Ianto." he ordered quietly, and Ianto eagerly obliged, expecting that usual explosion of feelings and emotions and pleasure that kissing Jack brought him.
Nothing.
"Oh ... oh, Ianto ..." sighed Jack. "I thought ... I thought ... I thought that ... just ... a little longer ..."
Jack held his head in his hands, and tried to compose himself.
"I love you." Ianto said, and it felt so false on his tongue and in Jack's ears it made him shudder to hear it. "Jack? What ... what's going on?"
Jack lifted his head, and Ianto was shocked to see Jack was crying. "I ... I had to ... I had to ... for you ... for both of you ... everything has a cost, Ianto."
"A cost?"
"I traded your love for your life."
"I ... don't understand."
"No ..." Jack reached out and touched his face, and Ianto allowed it even though his skin no longer tingled. "I didn't at first. But ... you will love me again, when the time is right. They will let you love me again, when the price is paid."
"Price paid for what?" Ianto demanded.
"The gauntlet. The cure. For keeping you and Lisa alive and making the two of you happy. As penance for my selfishness."
Ianto narrowed his eyes as Jack let a few more sobs escape. "You knew I would be infatuated with Lisa." he realised quietly.
"I just didn't realise so soon ..." Jack breathed.
"Please don't leave me. I can't do anything without you. I am nothing without you!" Ianto pushed the covers aside and fell to his knees in front of Jack, resting his head on Jack's thigh. "I can still be with you. I can still love you - no matter what you think you traded. It's all in our heads. Look ... I can still be yours ..." He pressed his lips to Jack's again, and kissed him with passion, though none of it he really felt. He found himself imagining kissing Lisa, how it would feel to hold her delicate body in strong arms, to touch her tongue with his, to feel her pressed up against him ...
Jack pushed him off roughly.
"You will be happy, and cared for." he told him matter-of-factly, and stroked his hair soothingly. "But not with me."
"What? NO!" Ianto grasped Jack's wrists in a plea.
"You will be with Lisa."
He froze and stared at Jack. "It ... it's just an infatuation ... it ... it won't last ... I'll get over it ..."
"You will be with Lisa. That will make me happy, you happy and her happy. Understand?"
"No!"
"Ianto!" Jack growled in exasperation. "You see me as some kind of ... constant. I took you from your life and made you happy - but ... look. Shit happens. We move on. I love you - I have no problem telling you that, and I will always love you. And when the time is right you will come back to me. But right now, you have to pull yourself together. You have to forget the idea that you need me - you don't. Right now, you need Lisa. And you will make a life with her. Where, or how, or whatever: it doesn't matter. You and her ... you're meant to be."
"You can't know that." whimpered Ianto, clutching Jack's cuff, still kneeling on the floor. "You can't ..."
"I didn't know it," Jack corrected. "but Faith did. It's written in the cards, in the runes, in the stars and the very fabric of time itself."
"Will it by any chance turn up in my alphabetti-spaghetti?" Ianto scowled sarcastically.
Jack gave a wistful laugh, and pulled Ianto onto his lap. "Shhhhh ..." he soothed. "Just take a moment ... close your eyes ... what do you feel when I hold you?"
Ianto breathed deep the scent of Jack. "Safe." he mumbled. "Cared for. Loved ... and ... and ... I'm missing something ..."
"You don't love me, Ianto. You can't. And that's what's missing."
"I don't believe that. It's not possible to stop someone loving someone. It's not! It's not!" Ianto sprang to his feet and paced angrily, his hospital pyjamas hugging his frame and stirring inappropriate thoughts in Jack's mind. "I hate this!" he fumed. "I hate this! Before ... before I knew ... I had meaning ... and ... Jack ... I'd rather die than not love you!"
Jack stood and stared at him for a couple of seconds. Then he slapped him. Ianto stood there in shock, and glared.
"I'll check in on you at Christmastime each year. And you birthday. I've never seen you on your birthday ..."
"Jack ... no! Don't!"
"The price has to be paid, Ianto! I have to learn. You have to learn. And when you've learnt who you are, and I've learnt who I am, we can be together again. I promise."
"How will we know?" Ianto sobbed, crying unashamedly.
Jack turned and hesitated in the door way, prising Ianto's hands from his coat. He smiled the first genuine smile he had for over a month.
"I know because ... because I have faith."
And with that, he was gone. Ianto collapsed and sobbed, and heard Jack's voice a little way down the corridor.
"Call it a gift. Take care of him, Princess."
He raised his eyes as Lisa hurried into the room, crouching by him and putting her arms around him. He sobbed into her shoulder. "He left me ..." he muttered between heaving breathes. "He left me, he left me, he left me ..."
"I know, sweetheart." Lisa said, kissing his hair. "I know. Don't worry. I'm here. I'm going to take care of you, no matter what. Okay?"
He raised his eyes to her, stilling his wracked breaths. "Oh-kay." he conceded.
She kissed him, and Jack, once again, vanished from his mind.
FIN
I've re-written this chapter three times, but I think I got it right. Ish. *shrugs* nahbody's poifect.
