Guilt - 46/69
Title: Guilt
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Ianto/Lisa
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Torchwood is not mine. No matter how much I sometimes wish it was.
Spoilers: Better say everything through s2, just to be sure, although it takes place pre-S1.
Summary: Why didn't you tell us? We could have helped you. - Well, what if he did?
This chapter: Jack finds out more about Ianto's troubled past.
Thanks to: My beta cazmalfoy for all her wonderful work, and my cheerleaders angelzbabe1989 and piper08 for putting up with me when I whine about being stuck.
Author's Note: This is a celebratory 'finished the fic!' extra chapter - regular chapter postings will remain at 2 per week (on Wednesdays and Sundays).
Fic starts here
Previous chapters at my master list
Chapter Forty-Six
“Yeah,” he breathed, when he had recovered. “Mine too.”
Jack waited, silently, to see if Ianto would expand on his statement.
“I know you’ve seen my file,” Ianto started, “so you know about the trouble I got into as a teenager.”
He paused, and Jack realised he was waiting for a sign from him that he remembered what Ianto was talking about. He nodded slightly.
“Well… if you’d known me before my father died, you would never have believed it. I was the model son… at least, as far as a teenage boy can be. Never got into trouble with the law, or at school.”
He shrugged almost imperceptibly, his movement clearly limited by his badly torn muscles. “But after my tad died… I went a bit off the rails, really.” There was another long pause, while Ianto clearly contemplated whether to continue or not. Jack wondered if Ianto had ever really talked through this with anyone before.
He was, under normal circumstances, such a private personality that he rather doubted it.
“My mam… had a sort of breakdown when she lost my tad. She’d never been completely stable, but that really was the final straw. Social services decided she couldn’t handle looking after us anymore…”
Jack swallowed hard. Ianto had, in reality, lost both parents in one fell swoop. No wonder the memories still distressed him. A few seconds later, one word from Ianto’s story hit him. “Us?”
“Me and my little sister, Rhiannon. She’s four years younger than me, at uni in Manchester at the moment.”
Jack smiled, imagining a younger female version of Ianto, and wondered why he’d never heard Ianto mention her before. “Are you close, you and Rhiannon?”
Ianto sighed shallowly and shook his head. “Not really, not anymore. We were, once… back when we were kids, but then…”
“Then?” Jack said, trying not to push but desperately curious to hear the rest of the story, to get to know Ianto just that little bit better.
“After… everything, Rhi went to stay with my aunt Catrin near Barry. She couldn’t take me - she didn’t think she could handle raising a teenage boy, so I was sent to live with one of my dad’s cousins in Essex. He had a couple of grown up kids of his own, so they figured he’d know what to do with me.”
Ianto broke eye contact, his attention again being drawn to the grey skies outside the window. “Who knows, maybe if I’d been the same boy I had been before, he would have, but as I already said… I went a bit crazy myself. I was mad at a universe that had just ripped my whole world away, and I didn’t care anymore.”
Jack swallowed a lump in his throat as he thought of Ianto as a scared teenager who didn’t think he had anything left to lose. It was a feeling he’d experienced a few times himself, and it very rarely led anywhere good.
“I fell in with a pretty bad crowd - the worst one that would take me, if I remember correctly. Skipped school, smoked, drank cheap beer on street corners. Experimented with drugs, although I was such a mess back then that I don’t even know which ones.” Ianto’s voice was faraway as he recalled what Jack hoped was one of the very worst periods in his life.
He turned his head slowly back to look at Jack drowsily. “You already know I was arrested for shoplifting not long before my sixteenth birthday, but that was a long way from the worst things I got myself caught up in, and even further from the first crime I committed.” There was silence for a few seconds, and Ianto yawned, the involuntary action clearly paining him.
Nevertheless, he continued the story, his voice slowing as he tired. “I did a lot of things in those years I’m not proud of, but actually getting arrested was a wake-up call for me. I was sent to jail - well, a young offenders’ institution - for five weeks. Terrified the wits out of me, and when I got out I decided to get myself sorted out.”
A slight smile graced Ianto’s lips for the first time since he’d woken up, just as his eyes began to drift closed. “And a few months later… when my life was slowly getting back on track… I met… Lis…”
The name went unfinished as Ianto slipped into a natural sleep for the first time in a week.
Chapter Forty-Seven
All comments and concrit welcomed! (Comments = Love <3)
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Ianto/Lisa
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Torchwood is not mine. No matter how much I sometimes wish it was.
Spoilers: Better say everything through s2, just to be sure, although it takes place pre-S1.
Summary: Why didn't you tell us? We could have helped you. - Well, what if he did?
This chapter: Jack finds out more about Ianto's troubled past.
Thanks to: My beta cazmalfoy for all her wonderful work, and my cheerleaders angelzbabe1989 and piper08 for putting up with me when I whine about being stuck.
Author's Note: This is a celebratory 'finished the fic!' extra chapter - regular chapter postings will remain at 2 per week (on Wednesdays and Sundays).
Fic starts here
Previous chapters at my master list
Chapter Forty-Six
“Yeah,” he breathed, when he had recovered. “Mine too.”
Jack waited, silently, to see if Ianto would expand on his statement.
“I know you’ve seen my file,” Ianto started, “so you know about the trouble I got into as a teenager.”
He paused, and Jack realised he was waiting for a sign from him that he remembered what Ianto was talking about. He nodded slightly.
“Well… if you’d known me before my father died, you would never have believed it. I was the model son… at least, as far as a teenage boy can be. Never got into trouble with the law, or at school.”
He shrugged almost imperceptibly, his movement clearly limited by his badly torn muscles. “But after my tad died… I went a bit off the rails, really.” There was another long pause, while Ianto clearly contemplated whether to continue or not. Jack wondered if Ianto had ever really talked through this with anyone before.
He was, under normal circumstances, such a private personality that he rather doubted it.
“My mam… had a sort of breakdown when she lost my tad. She’d never been completely stable, but that really was the final straw. Social services decided she couldn’t handle looking after us anymore…”
Jack swallowed hard. Ianto had, in reality, lost both parents in one fell swoop. No wonder the memories still distressed him. A few seconds later, one word from Ianto’s story hit him. “Us?”
“Me and my little sister, Rhiannon. She’s four years younger than me, at uni in Manchester at the moment.”
Jack smiled, imagining a younger female version of Ianto, and wondered why he’d never heard Ianto mention her before. “Are you close, you and Rhiannon?”
Ianto sighed shallowly and shook his head. “Not really, not anymore. We were, once… back when we were kids, but then…”
“Then?” Jack said, trying not to push but desperately curious to hear the rest of the story, to get to know Ianto just that little bit better.
“After… everything, Rhi went to stay with my aunt Catrin near Barry. She couldn’t take me - she didn’t think she could handle raising a teenage boy, so I was sent to live with one of my dad’s cousins in Essex. He had a couple of grown up kids of his own, so they figured he’d know what to do with me.”
Ianto broke eye contact, his attention again being drawn to the grey skies outside the window. “Who knows, maybe if I’d been the same boy I had been before, he would have, but as I already said… I went a bit crazy myself. I was mad at a universe that had just ripped my whole world away, and I didn’t care anymore.”
Jack swallowed a lump in his throat as he thought of Ianto as a scared teenager who didn’t think he had anything left to lose. It was a feeling he’d experienced a few times himself, and it very rarely led anywhere good.
“I fell in with a pretty bad crowd - the worst one that would take me, if I remember correctly. Skipped school, smoked, drank cheap beer on street corners. Experimented with drugs, although I was such a mess back then that I don’t even know which ones.” Ianto’s voice was faraway as he recalled what Jack hoped was one of the very worst periods in his life.
He turned his head slowly back to look at Jack drowsily. “You already know I was arrested for shoplifting not long before my sixteenth birthday, but that was a long way from the worst things I got myself caught up in, and even further from the first crime I committed.” There was silence for a few seconds, and Ianto yawned, the involuntary action clearly paining him.
Nevertheless, he continued the story, his voice slowing as he tired. “I did a lot of things in those years I’m not proud of, but actually getting arrested was a wake-up call for me. I was sent to jail - well, a young offenders’ institution - for five weeks. Terrified the wits out of me, and when I got out I decided to get myself sorted out.”
A slight smile graced Ianto’s lips for the first time since he’d woken up, just as his eyes began to drift closed. “And a few months later… when my life was slowly getting back on track… I met… Lis…”
The name went unfinished as Ianto slipped into a natural sleep for the first time in a week.
Chapter Forty-Seven
All comments and concrit welcomed! (Comments = Love <3)