Moving On - 08/18
Title: Moving On
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, references to past Ianto/Lisa
Rating: R
Disclaimer: If I was the one who owned Torchwood, you think I'd admit it now?
Spoilers: Some information and events from s1,2. None for s3.
Summary: Lisa is gone, and Ianto is starting to move on with his life, but it isn't always as easy as it sounds.
Author's Note: Sequel to Guilt and Turning Point.
Thanks to: My sister angelzbabe1989 for stepping in as beta, morbid_sparks for all of her support and idea bouncing through the writing of this, and pinkfairy727 for cheerleading even when she doesn't know what happens.
For previous chapters see Master list for this fic
Chapter Eight
Ianto walked through the cog door into the Hub, his step feeling lighter than it had in weeks. Or months, if he was honest with himself.
Kissing Jack - properly kissing Jack, intentionally kissing Jack - had been… good. Better than good, although he still hadn’t quite decided on the right word to describe it. He had a feeling he probably had a smile on his face.
He knew there was a lot they hadn’t talked about, a lot they probably should have talked about last night, but somehow, pressed against Jack on the sofa as they leisurely explored each other’s mouths, none of it had seemed important.
There had been no inclination to do anything else; Ianto couldn’t be sure of Jack’s feelings on the matter, but this - whatever it was, whatever it would be - almost felt too fragile to rush into headlong.
He glanced up at the desks as the door rolled closed behind him. Tosh was already there, her attention fixed entirely on the screen in front of her as she typed; Ianto assumed that she had probably had a brain wave on the prediction program she’d been developing in the middle of the night, and hadn’t been able to wait any longer to come in and work on it.
She didn’t look up - he doubted she’d even noticed the door opening, despite the sirens.
Jack, however, clearly had noticed his arrival. If he had actually been working on the reports on his desk before, he wasn’t now, his chair pushed back as he smiled genuinely across the Hub at Ianto. There was a part of Ianto that wanted just to bound up the steps and over to Jack, to kiss him again like last night, but he suppressed it.
They were at work - he ignored the fact that it was the same location; last night had been ‘off the clock’ as they said, and didn’t count as at work - and Ianto was determined that this new development wasn’t going to interfere with his professionalism.
Besides, he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted their colleagues to know just yet, not while it was so new. Tosh would guess, he knew she would - after all, she had been the one to talk him past his misgivings - but he didn’t want to make it obvious.
Dragging his gaze away, he turned and climbed to the kitchen area to start the first pot of coffee for the day. A cup of hot coffee and a smile, these he could give Jack.
There was plenty of work to fill his day. None of the small items of tech that had been discovered the day before had taken much time or effort to identify, so each of them had to be added to the archive system. With a discernible proportion of the archives now actually in some sort of order, Ianto had been developing a procedure to make sure all new additions were stored correctly, with all the associated paperwork filed in the right place and entered onto the database.
He harboured no illusions that the others would necessarily follow this new procedure properly were he absent - he’d seen the mess they’d managed to add to the already chaotic archives before his arrival - but he did hope it would limit the damage.
He found it almost ironic that after more than a week spent mostly in the archives avoiding Jack, now that he would much rather find something to occupy himself up in the Hub where he could surreptitiously watch his boss, he had no choice but to spend the majority of his day in the archives.
Tosh had to be almost physically dragged away from her computer keyboard when it came to lunchtime. Given what he now knew about the last time she’d demurred at the mention of lunch together, Ianto wasn’t going to let her skip out on them this time.
He felt rather guilty when, in the course of the afternoon, he realised he hadn’t been thinking, hadn’t realised just how hard the experience must have been on Tosh. Wrapped up in his own angst over Jack, and the effects of Tosh’s temporary ability on him, he hadn’t considered it from the other side.
He didn’t even know how the whole thing had been resolved. Did the others know too, or was he alone in being taken into Tosh’s confidence? No one had mentioned anything over lunch, but given his team-mates, that didn’t mean anything.
He didn’t know either if it was something he should ask Tosh, if it was something she’d want to talk about. It wasn’t that he wanted to know what she'd heard from them and might have talked about - although he couldn’t deny a vague curiosity; there had been moments where he’d longed to know what thought process had led to one action or another, but that was a very different case to hearing everything whether you wanted to or not.
He just didn’t know how he could help her - or even if she wanted or needed help. Tosh could be even more reserved about her troubles than he could be.
By the time he realised that he was going around in circles in his own mind and getting nowhere, it was getting late. Late enough, in fact, that when he finished up with the third-to-last artefact - leaving the remaining two for the next day - and went back up to the Hub, the others had gone.
He prevaricated for a moment. What he wanted to do was go and find Jack; he was sure to be around here somewhere. He wasn’t entirely sure if that was what he should do. If that’s what Jack wanted too. They may have grown very close over the last months, but sometimes Jack was still decidedly an unknown quantity.
The decision was taken out of his hands when Jack appeared just beside him, almost as if out of nowhere.
“I didn’t know you were still here,” Jack said, smiling. “Haven’t seen you for a few hours.”
“Been busy,” Ianto said, responding to Jack’s warm smile with one of his own, without conscious thought. “Nearly finished recording everything you lot dug up yesterday.” He leant sideways and bumped Jack’s shoulder with his own. “Properly recording, that is. Not like that mess every leader of Torchwood Three for the last century appears to have counted as recording.”
Jack nudged him back. “I know, I know. I even read that document you wrote on how to do it. Can’t promise I’ll do it, but…”
Ianto shook his head, suppressing a chuckle. Of all of the team, Jack was the one he least expected to even attempt all of the paperwork involved in the new archiving procedure. He had bribed Jack one too many times into even doing the budgets to expect much more of him when it came to admin.
“So, you heading out?” Jack asked, shifting his weight from one foot to another.
Ianto paused, trying to parse the tone in Jack’s voice. Was he suggesting it, or hoping that Ianto would answer no?
“Well, I’ve finished up for the day,” he eventually said, carefully not indicating one way or the other.
“You couldn’t be tempted into making some coffee, could you?”
Ianto looked at his watch and raised an eyebrow. “At this hour? I know you don’t sleep, but if I have coffee now, I’ll never sleep tonight.”
Jack opened his mouth to say something, but whatever it was, he clearly thought better of it, as he closed it again without saying anything.
Ianto wracked his brain for the contents of the tiny storage cupboard in the kitchen. “I might be able to rustle us up some hot chocolate instead, if you like,” he said a moment later, hoping that there was still enough milk left in the fridge.
Jack grinned - whether it was the prospect of hot chocolate or just that making it meant he was staying, Ianto couldn’t tell. “If your hot chocolate is half as good as your coffee, count me in.”
Luckily, there was still more than half of the 4 pint bottle of milk in the fridge left, and Ianto listened idly to Jack’s random chatter as he dug out the appropriate equipment from a shelf under the coffee machine.
He nearly hit his head on the shelf above when he jerked involuntarily at a completely outrageous claim Jack was making in the story he was telling. Part of him always wondered how much Jack was making up or embellishing when he started on one of these odd tales; the other part of him knew that with Jack’s history, he couldn’t really discount anything.
It wasn’t until they were settled on the sofa, thighs pressed together, large mugs of hot chocolate in their hands - Jack had been suitably appreciative after his first sip - that Ianto decided to bring up the real topic that had been keeping him busy all day.
“Jack… do you think Tosh…?” He trailed off, not quite sure how to phrase what he wanted to say.
Jack twisted and leaned away from him, squinting at him a bit. “What about Tosh?”
“I told you yesterday,” he replied, “that she told me about the pendant.”
Jack settled against Ianto’s side again, nodding. “Yes. Is something worrying you? Did she do something that…?”
“No, no, nothing like that,” Ianto interrupted, pausing. “She… mostly just talked about what she’d heard,” he explained in the end. “Only from me, not anyone else,” he added swiftly. “She didn’t betray any confidences. She just…”
He shook his head, going over the conversation again. “She didn’t really say much about the experience for her - she didn’t even tell me how it ended.”
“I took it off for her,” Jack told him. “She said her head was screaming at her when I did, but I don’t think there was any other way.”
Ianto nodded slowly, taking a long sip from his mug. “Do you think she’s okay now?” he asked uncertainly.
Jack sighed. “I don’t know. I hope she’d say something if she wasn’t. She chose not to have the thing destroyed, which I’m sure says something about how she’s handling the situation.”
Ianto nearly dropped his hot chocolate. “It wasn’t destroyed?”
Jack shook his head.
“Please tell me that it is at least locked up safely in the secure archives,” Ianto said, letting a pleading note enter his voice.
Jack scoffed at him. “Of course. What sort of idiot do you think I am?”
Ianto diplomatically said nothing.
“I’m keeping an eye out,” Jack said after a long moment. “If she says anything, or looks like she’s struggling, I’ll do something, but I…”
“…don’t want to interfere if it’s unwanted,” Ianto finished for him, understanding exactly what he meant. It was the same reason he hadn’t said anything to Tosh himself.
Jack nodded. “She’ll be okay,” he said earnestly. “We’ll make sure of it.”
“I know,” Ianto murmured, setting down his empty mug on the table in front of them. How could he not - it was what Jack and the team had been doing for him for months, almost since the moment he turned up on their doorstep.
He snuggled a little into the arm Jack brought around his shoulders. With a little bit of luck, they just might all be okay.
Chapter Nine
As always, comments and concrit are loved!
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, references to past Ianto/Lisa
Rating: R
Disclaimer: If I was the one who owned Torchwood, you think I'd admit it now?
Spoilers: Some information and events from s1,2. None for s3.
Summary: Lisa is gone, and Ianto is starting to move on with his life, but it isn't always as easy as it sounds.
Author's Note: Sequel to Guilt and Turning Point.
Thanks to: My sister angelzbabe1989 for stepping in as beta, morbid_sparks for all of her support and idea bouncing through the writing of this, and pinkfairy727 for cheerleading even when she doesn't know what happens.
For previous chapters see Master list for this fic
Chapter Eight
Ianto walked through the cog door into the Hub, his step feeling lighter than it had in weeks. Or months, if he was honest with himself.
Kissing Jack - properly kissing Jack, intentionally kissing Jack - had been… good. Better than good, although he still hadn’t quite decided on the right word to describe it. He had a feeling he probably had a smile on his face.
He knew there was a lot they hadn’t talked about, a lot they probably should have talked about last night, but somehow, pressed against Jack on the sofa as they leisurely explored each other’s mouths, none of it had seemed important.
There had been no inclination to do anything else; Ianto couldn’t be sure of Jack’s feelings on the matter, but this - whatever it was, whatever it would be - almost felt too fragile to rush into headlong.
He glanced up at the desks as the door rolled closed behind him. Tosh was already there, her attention fixed entirely on the screen in front of her as she typed; Ianto assumed that she had probably had a brain wave on the prediction program she’d been developing in the middle of the night, and hadn’t been able to wait any longer to come in and work on it.
She didn’t look up - he doubted she’d even noticed the door opening, despite the sirens.
Jack, however, clearly had noticed his arrival. If he had actually been working on the reports on his desk before, he wasn’t now, his chair pushed back as he smiled genuinely across the Hub at Ianto. There was a part of Ianto that wanted just to bound up the steps and over to Jack, to kiss him again like last night, but he suppressed it.
They were at work - he ignored the fact that it was the same location; last night had been ‘off the clock’ as they said, and didn’t count as at work - and Ianto was determined that this new development wasn’t going to interfere with his professionalism.
Besides, he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted their colleagues to know just yet, not while it was so new. Tosh would guess, he knew she would - after all, she had been the one to talk him past his misgivings - but he didn’t want to make it obvious.
Dragging his gaze away, he turned and climbed to the kitchen area to start the first pot of coffee for the day. A cup of hot coffee and a smile, these he could give Jack.
There was plenty of work to fill his day. None of the small items of tech that had been discovered the day before had taken much time or effort to identify, so each of them had to be added to the archive system. With a discernible proportion of the archives now actually in some sort of order, Ianto had been developing a procedure to make sure all new additions were stored correctly, with all the associated paperwork filed in the right place and entered onto the database.
He harboured no illusions that the others would necessarily follow this new procedure properly were he absent - he’d seen the mess they’d managed to add to the already chaotic archives before his arrival - but he did hope it would limit the damage.
He found it almost ironic that after more than a week spent mostly in the archives avoiding Jack, now that he would much rather find something to occupy himself up in the Hub where he could surreptitiously watch his boss, he had no choice but to spend the majority of his day in the archives.
Tosh had to be almost physically dragged away from her computer keyboard when it came to lunchtime. Given what he now knew about the last time she’d demurred at the mention of lunch together, Ianto wasn’t going to let her skip out on them this time.
He felt rather guilty when, in the course of the afternoon, he realised he hadn’t been thinking, hadn’t realised just how hard the experience must have been on Tosh. Wrapped up in his own angst over Jack, and the effects of Tosh’s temporary ability on him, he hadn’t considered it from the other side.
He didn’t even know how the whole thing had been resolved. Did the others know too, or was he alone in being taken into Tosh’s confidence? No one had mentioned anything over lunch, but given his team-mates, that didn’t mean anything.
He didn’t know either if it was something he should ask Tosh, if it was something she’d want to talk about. It wasn’t that he wanted to know what she'd heard from them and might have talked about - although he couldn’t deny a vague curiosity; there had been moments where he’d longed to know what thought process had led to one action or another, but that was a very different case to hearing everything whether you wanted to or not.
He just didn’t know how he could help her - or even if she wanted or needed help. Tosh could be even more reserved about her troubles than he could be.
By the time he realised that he was going around in circles in his own mind and getting nowhere, it was getting late. Late enough, in fact, that when he finished up with the third-to-last artefact - leaving the remaining two for the next day - and went back up to the Hub, the others had gone.
He prevaricated for a moment. What he wanted to do was go and find Jack; he was sure to be around here somewhere. He wasn’t entirely sure if that was what he should do. If that’s what Jack wanted too. They may have grown very close over the last months, but sometimes Jack was still decidedly an unknown quantity.
The decision was taken out of his hands when Jack appeared just beside him, almost as if out of nowhere.
“I didn’t know you were still here,” Jack said, smiling. “Haven’t seen you for a few hours.”
“Been busy,” Ianto said, responding to Jack’s warm smile with one of his own, without conscious thought. “Nearly finished recording everything you lot dug up yesterday.” He leant sideways and bumped Jack’s shoulder with his own. “Properly recording, that is. Not like that mess every leader of Torchwood Three for the last century appears to have counted as recording.”
Jack nudged him back. “I know, I know. I even read that document you wrote on how to do it. Can’t promise I’ll do it, but…”
Ianto shook his head, suppressing a chuckle. Of all of the team, Jack was the one he least expected to even attempt all of the paperwork involved in the new archiving procedure. He had bribed Jack one too many times into even doing the budgets to expect much more of him when it came to admin.
“So, you heading out?” Jack asked, shifting his weight from one foot to another.
Ianto paused, trying to parse the tone in Jack’s voice. Was he suggesting it, or hoping that Ianto would answer no?
“Well, I’ve finished up for the day,” he eventually said, carefully not indicating one way or the other.
“You couldn’t be tempted into making some coffee, could you?”
Ianto looked at his watch and raised an eyebrow. “At this hour? I know you don’t sleep, but if I have coffee now, I’ll never sleep tonight.”
Jack opened his mouth to say something, but whatever it was, he clearly thought better of it, as he closed it again without saying anything.
Ianto wracked his brain for the contents of the tiny storage cupboard in the kitchen. “I might be able to rustle us up some hot chocolate instead, if you like,” he said a moment later, hoping that there was still enough milk left in the fridge.
Jack grinned - whether it was the prospect of hot chocolate or just that making it meant he was staying, Ianto couldn’t tell. “If your hot chocolate is half as good as your coffee, count me in.”
Luckily, there was still more than half of the 4 pint bottle of milk in the fridge left, and Ianto listened idly to Jack’s random chatter as he dug out the appropriate equipment from a shelf under the coffee machine.
He nearly hit his head on the shelf above when he jerked involuntarily at a completely outrageous claim Jack was making in the story he was telling. Part of him always wondered how much Jack was making up or embellishing when he started on one of these odd tales; the other part of him knew that with Jack’s history, he couldn’t really discount anything.
It wasn’t until they were settled on the sofa, thighs pressed together, large mugs of hot chocolate in their hands - Jack had been suitably appreciative after his first sip - that Ianto decided to bring up the real topic that had been keeping him busy all day.
“Jack… do you think Tosh…?” He trailed off, not quite sure how to phrase what he wanted to say.
Jack twisted and leaned away from him, squinting at him a bit. “What about Tosh?”
“I told you yesterday,” he replied, “that she told me about the pendant.”
Jack settled against Ianto’s side again, nodding. “Yes. Is something worrying you? Did she do something that…?”
“No, no, nothing like that,” Ianto interrupted, pausing. “She… mostly just talked about what she’d heard,” he explained in the end. “Only from me, not anyone else,” he added swiftly. “She didn’t betray any confidences. She just…”
He shook his head, going over the conversation again. “She didn’t really say much about the experience for her - she didn’t even tell me how it ended.”
“I took it off for her,” Jack told him. “She said her head was screaming at her when I did, but I don’t think there was any other way.”
Ianto nodded slowly, taking a long sip from his mug. “Do you think she’s okay now?” he asked uncertainly.
Jack sighed. “I don’t know. I hope she’d say something if she wasn’t. She chose not to have the thing destroyed, which I’m sure says something about how she’s handling the situation.”
Ianto nearly dropped his hot chocolate. “It wasn’t destroyed?”
Jack shook his head.
“Please tell me that it is at least locked up safely in the secure archives,” Ianto said, letting a pleading note enter his voice.
Jack scoffed at him. “Of course. What sort of idiot do you think I am?”
Ianto diplomatically said nothing.
“I’m keeping an eye out,” Jack said after a long moment. “If she says anything, or looks like she’s struggling, I’ll do something, but I…”
“…don’t want to interfere if it’s unwanted,” Ianto finished for him, understanding exactly what he meant. It was the same reason he hadn’t said anything to Tosh himself.
Jack nodded. “She’ll be okay,” he said earnestly. “We’ll make sure of it.”
“I know,” Ianto murmured, setting down his empty mug on the table in front of them. How could he not - it was what Jack and the team had been doing for him for months, almost since the moment he turned up on their doorstep.
He snuggled a little into the arm Jack brought around his shoulders. With a little bit of luck, they just might all be okay.
Chapter Nine
As always, comments and concrit are loved!