While I Was Gone

Torchwood

I have no affliation with Torchwood, RTD, the BBC, the actors, or writers so don't sue.

Post 2.01

Spoilers for 2.01 and 1.13.

Adult content: nothing explicit. Rated... 15. Bad language and references to homosexuality

Jack/Ianto pairing, Tosh

- Jack returns and watches the cameras to discover how they dealt with him leaving. Ianto centric.

WHILE I WAS GONE

"Hey kids, did ya miss me?"

Jack was back. And after he'd helped save the day and proven his loyalty - something he found ironic considering that fact he was the one who'd been betrayed and killed by his team. Gwen had finally forgiven him and after hugs and 'see you tomorrow's' the team left with smiles on their faces and contentment in their hearts.

Now it was time to check up on what had really been happening while he'd been gone. The Hub cameras were easily accessible to him and he flicked through the entries to January 06.

His disappearing act was followed by the team returning to the Hub from a coffee run and Gwen joining them. Bewilderment, pain, fear, and worry skated across their faces until Gwen spoke. "Something's taken him. Jack's gone." They spent the next few hours attempting to figure it out, Gwen taking control of the team and Owen, to Jack's surprise, letting him. With Gwen in control Ianto spoke out more, offering his knowledge and advice. Tosh didn't correct her when she got something wrong but did it her own way producing better results than they had anticipated. But they came up with nothing and soon Owen forced them to go home.

"Come on, you sad lot. Can't stay at work forever, some of us have lives!" Owen taunted.

"But Jack-" Tosh began.

"Jack will be alright. He can't fucking die! We, however, can so fuck off and go home, all of you. Doctor's orders." Owen said. He guided Gwen out of the door and asked Tosh if she needed a ride. Then they turned to Ianto who was stood there, still and silent like the perfect English butler.

"I'll just tidy this up and lock up for the night. Then pop home." Ianto said. Believing him they left, shouting that someone needed to feed Myfanwy and Owen left a half eaten chocolate bar on the sofa. Ianto held a perfect smile up until the outer door finnaly closed and then he sagged with tiredness and grief.

Oh, Ianto. Jack thought. The reserved young Welshman had turned out to be enough of an enigma to made his head hurt and his dick hard.

Jack watched as Ianto worked throughout the night, furthering all the reseach and theories that the day had brought. It was obsessive and meticulous and he remained that was for an entire week, never leaving the Hub. It took Owen catching him in the kitchen, asleep on a very uncomfortable chair for the team to realise Ianto was far worse at following suggestions than they were at following orders. Owen then made him drive home and the whole team became closer after that, looking after each other. Owen would always make sure Ianto went home, that Toshiko had a ride home, and that Gwen had a gun when she went in the feild. Tosh made sure Ianto ate, that Gwen was emotionally okay, and that Owen wasn't over-doing it on the caffeine and booze. Gwen made sure Owen and Tosh were armed and that Ianto was eating. Ianto made sure everybody had sufficient coffee and refreshments and that all the paper work was done. And while he did leave, it was only for a few hours each night. He'd still arrive early after finishing late having poured over Torchwood documents and UFO sites; although Jack got the feeling he wasn't searching for an answer to where Jack had gone. It was more like he needed to be learning and working. After all, what else was there?

On the second night of the seventh week Ianto cried. He was studying an alien text when he balled up his fists and kicked the coffee table violently shouting 'fuck it all' unrestrainedly before falling back on the sofa. Tears streaming silently down his face as his teeth worried at his lips and his nails made half moon shapes in the skin of his hands. He stayed like that, shuddering, on on the sofa for several hours until the Hub was activated by Toshiko returning. The timecode on the tape read 01:13am, 3/3/06.

"Oh God, Ianto!" She was holding him, touching him, and he was letting her. Jack felt his heart breaking a little. What he saw was so... human, so beautiful. The kind of beautiful that made grown men cry with the sadness of it all.

"Oh Ianto, he'll be back." Tosh said trying to comfort the sobbing man although previous evidence suggested she herself had already given up on him.

Ianto laughed a hallow sound that made Jack flinch. A sound so vacant and dark should never have escaped lips so beautiful, shadows should never cloud eyes so young. "Jack will come back when Jack will come back." He said, full of wisdom beyong Jack, and an exhaustion he had only felt at the brink of death. But, unlike him, Ianto would not wake from death.

"This isn't all about him, you know." Ianto said. Tosh looked so worried. They were now sitting on the floor where the coffee table had once been. Ianto lay back, Tosh copying him. Ianto, however, looked far more comfortable than Tosh who squirmed trying to find a more comfortable spot on the cold metal grating.

"My mam called the other day." he confessed. Jack raised his eyebrows, Ianto offering personal information willingly was rarer than Christmas. They had that in common.

"Oh." Toish said, encouraging him to continue.

"She did that whole routine. 'Ianto, cariad, I haven't seen you in absolutely forever. Do come up and visit. Lorna's in town, you remember, the Belleview's youngest daughter?' If only we could choose our parents." Ianto said.

Tosh smiled. "Who's Lorna."

"That Jack of my youth. I went to London to escape her. No one around me could live up to her reputation, you know?"

"Umm." Tosh agreed heartily.

Ianto's lips curved at that. A genuine 'almost smile'.

"Owen?" Ianto assumed and Tosh coloured prettily.

"He's my Jack." Tosh admitted finally.

"Oh god. I cannot believe I'm havin a conversation in which we are compairing Jack and Own." Ianto said.

"Everybody can have a bit of Owen, except me." Tosh explained.

"With Jack it's more like; everybody can have a small part of him but no one can have all of him. At least, no one here." Ianto added.

"Have you and Jack ever..." Tosh asked carefully.

"No." Ianto snorted. "No. I've only ever been with four people besides my ill-faithed love for Lorna Belleview. Enid Llewellyn gave me my first blow job behind the public tennis courts at midnight and we slept together on the night of our year twelve summer ball. I lost my virginity to Carys Taylor when I was sixteen in her bed. I made the fatal mistake of falling asleep and woke up to her grandfather standing over us with a shot gun. Then there was Daffyd." Ianto finished on a sigh.

"He was important." Tosh assumed.

"I loved him, or at least I thought I did. And I definetely thought he loved me. We stayed together for three years before he was bashed outside a club in London. He wasn't the same afterwards. Always dragging me to religious meetings and therapy and groups who claimed they could change a gay person to a straight person. I couldn't stand it. He said he still loved me, he just needed to be normal. I finally left him after he told me he started seeing this girl who lived round the corner from his dad's flat in Kent. Then I met Lisa. I was twenty-five and feeling old. I loved her. And I know she loved me. We were going to get married in Wales at the church were I was Christened and raise our children in Cardiff. I'd already arranged to transfer to Torchwood Three when the Darleks and Cybermen attacked. I blame them for her death. I blame them for taking away everything normal and good in my life and leaving me with a metal machine that made me believed she was still the woman I loved."

They were silent for a long time, just lying there together. Then Tosh spoke up, asking a question that Jack had already formed in his mind. "So where does Jack fit into all this?"

"He doesn't." Ianto answered simply. "He's something else entirely."

Toshiko smiled in her soft loving way and kissed her friend on the lips, gently but passionately. The passion of two people who shared romantic love but weren't sexual or in love. It was sweet and comforting. "Wake up, Ian, and live again."

She left having deliberately used the nickname only Jack had ever used on him and Ianto lay there, thinking for a while.

The next night when the other three were leaving Tosh paused. "Are you coming, Ianto?" She asked. They were planning on heading to a local pub for a meal then clubbing with Rhys and a few of Owen's friends. They had asked him a couple of times but the answer had always been no. This time however, he paused and said 'yeah, just let me lock up.' It was only 9:48pm.

"Bout bloody time!" Owen grumbled as they left the Hub together, Gwen, Tosh, Ianto, and Owen. Jack felt proud of Tosh for helping Ianto, and proud of Ianto for letting go of the past and moving on.

In the morning Ianto arrived at his usual time, more relaxed and happy than Jack had seen him since before Lisa had tried to kill them all. Owen arrived looking hung over and glared over at Ianto who was as smug and sarcastic as ever.

"I can't bloody well believe it." Owen said. "The hottest babe in the whole club comes on to him," he pointed in Ianto's direction sounding outraged. "And he leaves with some guy. Fucking bloody typical."

"FDid you have fun, Ianto?" Gwen asked wickedly.

"It was okay." Ianto said, completely understated. The girls fell into fits of laugher as Owen glared and Ianto smirked.

From that point of the cameras recorded a closer team. Not only looking after one another but building bridges and getting to know one another. By the time Jack saw himself re-enter the hub eighteen months later the team was a well oiled machine who worked with each other not against each other. They had done well while he was gone.