Isn't Worth Living: Chapter 2

[galadriel1010]

Author's Note: Whoops, sory for the long delay, I went on holiday. This one is turning out to be much harder to write than I expected, and also much darker. I can't seem to find a way to cheer Jack up (you'll see what I mean). Next chapter should be much faster, as it's more on the original plot line. I've also had the best idea for a crossover, that's going to be cracking, but way way way in the future. If I can refrain from writing it that is...

OK, waffle over, I don't own anything in here. Anything that's original I give to my cat, he'll know what to do with it...

---

Jack stared unseeingly at the computer screen as it logged in. They hadn’t talked about the night before, he’d woken up to the sound of Ianto showering, and then they had made breakfast together and gone to work without mentioning the fact that they’d spent the night in each other’s arms. And Jack really wanted to talk about it, because it had felt so right, he didn’t know if he could live his life without Ianto anymore.

He was startled from his thoughts by the arrival if a cup of coffee and the day’s post in the company of the man haunting his thoughts. Stammering out a thank you he turned his attention hurriedly to the post as the young Welshman watched him. After a moment he looked up and smiled at Ianto, trying to hide his conflicting emotions, “Anything I can do for you Ianto?” he asked.

“No, Jack, I just wanted to say thank you, for last night.” And then he was gone before Jack could form a reply.

Pushing the thoughts to the back of his mind he went through the post, very little in these days of instant internet communications, and semi-filed it to make Ianto’s job easier, then turned to the internet communications he’d received. As well as the requests for information from other organisations, Facebook notifications, news shots and the usual dross that slipped through the filters, there was one message that drove everything else from his mind. He swore fiercely and startled Gwen who had just appeared in the doorway.

“Jack? What’s up?” she asked tentatively

“Oh.” He started up almost guiltily, but then his face became stony again, “Is Owen in?”

“No, I don’t think so. Why, has he…”

“Well as soon as he gets in I want you to gather everyone in the conference room. I’ll be there soon.” He interrupted. As she hurried away he advanced through further security levels and started serious research into activities of the last few months.

About quarter of an hour later, Jack strode into the conference room with a sheaf of papers. He plonked them down in this usual place and leant on the back of the chair, a sure sign that things weren’t right at Torchwood. They had only ever seen him this angry twice before, when he had found out about Suzie and then about Lisa. Ianto shifted uncomfortably, as he was well aware that the others would all be thinking about the last time. Jack broke the atmosphere by pulling his chair out noisily, for which the young man was extremely grateful.

Jack smiled at him tensely and pulled the sheaf of papers across to himself. “OK, before any of you gets any more uncomfortable, you haven’t done anything wrong.” They stared at him, “I got a message this morning, from Torchwood 1. They return to full operation on Monday.”

“What!?” Tosh and Owen yelled together. They looked as angry as he felt, Gwen looked confused and a bit scared, but Ianto was pale, clearly being swept along by a wave of painful memories. Jack wanted to take his hand to reassure him, but without knowing what their relationship was, let alone how they felt about it, or each other…

He did anyway, and Ianto’s eyes snapped to his, focusing on the here-and-now, “Sorry sir, I…”

Jack shook his head and smiled again, then released Ianto’s hand and turned back to the team, “Yep, it’s going to be called the Torchwood Archive, but it’s at Canary Wharf and…”

“What’s the difference?” Owen asked angrily, “After what they did! No offence Tea-boy, but they were shut down for a bloody good reason. Is there any way we can stop it?”

“It’s a sign of how angry I am that I actually considered it Owen, but we can’t. Officially it’s solely a research and archiving facility.”

“Officially?”

“Yeah, officially. How long that’ll last I don’t know.”

“So what can we do?” Gwen asked, trying to glean as much from the conversation as possible.

Jack frowned, “They have organised a meeting for all the agencies on Monday. They want to show us all their systems and how amazing and different to the old Torchwood 1 they are. Someone’s got to go and find out what’s going on, I suspect whoever goes won’t be the only one trying to get below the surface. If a couple of you go you can team up with someone from UNIT or, what’s the American one called? Liberty Towers, that’s the one. Find out what you can, then report back.”

“Why don’t you go?” Owen asked

“Because I’ve not made that many friends amongst the other organisations in my time here, and the last thing we need is me locking horns with Colonel Mace or whoever turns up.”

“I’ll do it.” Ianto even seemed to startle himself when he spoke but he sounded determined, “I’m the archivist, you lot won’t have a clue what’s going on there. Besides, I know my way around better than any of you.” He winced at the reminder and seemed to shrink back inside himself again.

Jack stared at him intensely and searched his face for any indications of his emotional state, “Are you sure? I’ll come if you want me to?”

He shook his head and smiled slightly, not entirely sure who he was trying to convince, “No, I’ll be fine.”

He hesitated a moment before nodding his approval, “OK, well the rest of us would be clueless anyway.”

“Probably, I still have nightmares about your filing system sir.”

“Cheeky.” He grinned his trademark hundred-watt grin and stood up, “Right. Ianto, I want you to tap your contacts at the other organisations and find out what they know, then make sure you know everything you need to for Monday. Owen, finish that autopsy, I want to know everything about her from birth to death. Tosh, I want you to keep working to find out what that thing I and try something else with the spam filter, someone keeps trying to sell me porn.”

“Well if you will keep buying it…” Owen muttered in a stage whisper

Jack grinned at him, “Not my type Owen. Gwen, come with me, you need to know what’s going on.”

She exchanged glances with the others and rested a hand on Ianto’s shoulder as she followed Jack out of the door, hearing the others leaving behind her, and went up to his office where he held the door open for her. The Captain gestured to the other seat and settled behind the desk, resting his chin on one hand to stare at her. It was extremely disconcerting, his eyes were so old compared to the rest of him, and so intelligent compared to the stuff he said sometimes. “So… You finished staring at me?”

“For the moment, I just wondered how you were taking this. Tell me Gwen Cooper, what’s running through your mind?”

“Ianto and Lisa worked for Torchwood 1, didn’t they?” He nodded, “So can we trust him? He volunteered very quickly to go back there and declined any help…”

“Do you trust him?” Jack asked sharply

“Yes.” She didn’t even need to think about it, she knew how badly his betrayal had hurt him, how he still struggled to cope with it, “Do you?”

Jack had the same lack of hesitation, “Yes. I know him, I…” he shook himself and smiled, “We can trust him. How much do you know about Torchwood 1?”

“Not a lot, Tosh and Owen don’t like to talk about it, I’ve never even tried with Ianto, Tosh told me when I joined about Lisa, but that was when we thought she’d died.”

He sighed and his eyes trailed away from her to a point somewhere in the distance, probably another time. “Torchwood was founded in Scotland to respond to any alien threat, but one in particular: The Doctor. He met Queen Victoria and saved her life. In return she founded the Torchwood Institute to hunt him down. Originally it was in Torchwood House near Aberdeen, for about six months, before a specially designed facility was built in London. They built on it for years and years, spreading and opening offices in Glasgow and Cardiff, both hotspots of paranormal activities, and I came to Cardiff searching for… Well, I was here for a purpose and it wasn’t Torchwood.” He didn’t know why, but he wasn’t ready to tell Gwen about the Doctor. Tosh knew, Ianto knew, but Gwen… “And let’s say that my participation wasn’t voluntary, not to start with at least. I’m not from this planet, not originally, so I’m a threat. Especially because I’m loyal to Torchwood’s worst enemy.”

“So how did you end up in charge?”

He closed his eyes, but before he did she caught a glimpse of pain, a deep and burning agony that ripped her heart apart. When he spoke it was brittle and broken, “I was the only one, there was no one else who could take over, no one else who knew.” He appeared to pull himself together, “And it was either that or let Torchwood 1 take over. And I wasn’t going to let that happen. Torchwood 1 were misguided to begin with, but they were inquisitive, they just wanted to know about the mysteries of space and to be able to protect the Earth. But before very long it had gone wrong. They had such power, and such technology. Can you imagine what a Victorian would do with a tazer? And from then on they started to use what they found for their benefit. No, actually, I’m being unfair. As soon as the empire started to fail they started developing technology to allow Britain to be the first to build an empire in space. That’s why there’s been no attempt really to retain the empire, because they know they’ll have one in the future.”

“And Torchwood expected to control it?”

“They did control it. They would have completely, they had so much. And Yvonne was a good woman, she believed that what she was doing was right, she was doing it to help. But it went wrong because they couldn’t stop messing. You know our policy, don’t press any buttons if you don’t know what they do. But Torchwood 1 had a policy more of push every button you find, and the more buttons they pushed, the more likely they were to find the one that would destroy the world.”

“What button did they push?”

He leaned back and put his hands behind his head, frowning slightly, “I don’t quite understand it, but basically they found a point where the dimensions were closer together than normal, or there was a weak point between them, and they decided to build the tower to reach it to investigate it. So far so good, until a sphere came through, but it wasn’t entirely there, or it was more there than they were. It wasn’t properly in this dimension I don’t think. And as well as the sphere, cybermen came through and started working behind the scenes to prepare an invasion, gaining strength. That was the ghosts. And then one day, the Doctor found out, he went to Canary Wharf, arrested actually, and they all came through, cybermen, Daleks, the lot. And he stopped it. I know he did, because his friend was on the list of the dead there. He saved the world again, but at such a cost.”

His eyes were full of such loss that she reached forwards and placed a hand on his knee, the only part of him she could reach. “You knew her?”

Jack took a deep breath and leant forwards again, “Yes, I knew her.”

“You loved her?”

A mysterious smile lit up his face, it was unlike anything she had ever seen, a mixture of sadness, happiness and mystery, “Yes, in a way. I loved them all, in different ways. I’m glad that, that I had a chance to say good-bye, even though it was long before she died, I said good-bye properly the last time I saw her.” He waved a hand and dismissed the subject, “After the battle Torchwood 1 was shut down completely on the orders of the Queen, but now it’s being restarted with a different set of instructions and goals.”

“And you don’t trust them?” Gwen frowned slightly

“Not as far as I could throw them. From what I can tell, UNIT are more involved than I would like them to be. I don’t trust them these days.”

“What do you mean, these days? Did you once?”

“Oh yes, completely. Alastair and Liz and all that lot were wonderful. The Doctor was heavily involved back in the 1970s and worked with them, they were like me, moulded and sculpted by him into fighters, rather than just soldiers. But the last of his… his children I guess, was Major Muriel Frost, who died in Downing Street back in 2006.”

“I remember that, that spaceship crashed into Big Ben and then Downing Street was blown up. I never imagined it could be true until I joined you lot, then I never imagined it could be a hoax.”

Jack looked sad again, “Yes, it was real. And people remember the crash and the explosion, but they never remember what came between, the deaths of the leading alien experts in the world. I knew all of them, I lost some of my closest friends that day. And I couldn’t go, couldn’t see them one last time.”

“I’m sorry, Jack.” She knew it wasn’t enough, but she had to say something, “What happened?”

“It was an alien criminal family, I don’t know how they killed them, most of the bodies were damaged beyond recognition by the explosion. The Slitheen they were called, and every day I dread meeting one of them again, because all I can do is send them to their deaths.”

“Don’t you want to?” His eyes, had they ever been that expressive and open; that full of pain?

“I’ve died more times than I could possibly count, Gwen. I’ve died in some of the most painful ways possible, and I would do anything to spare anyone that pain. Even a Slitheen.” He shook his head, trying to drag himself away from the dark pit that had lurked at the heart of his soul for as long as he could remember and which grew every year. God he needed Ianto to protect him, “But that’s beside the point, what matters is that Colonel Mace and his trigger-happy team have risen to the top and now there’s no-one in their place.”

“So what can we do?” she asked, worried by the defeated tone in Jack’s voice.

He rubbed his eyes and sighed, “I don’t know yet if there’s anything we need to do. Until Ianto gets back, until we know their policies, until we know if we need to oppose them…”

“They could agree with us, with you. They could be pro-Doctor.”

“They could, or they could be anti. And if they are…” he thought it through, “If they are against us, then we’ve got to get someone in there. We’ve got to, and I hate saying it, we’ve got to take control somehow, change their policies.”

“What’s the matter?” Jack sounded distraught; he avoided her eyes and stared instead at the empty coffee mug on his desk

“The only option I can think of is to get Ianto in there. He’s an archivist, he’s the best to send to an archive facility.” She could see the sense and told him so, but he shook his head, “I can’t do that. I can’t send him back there where there are so many memories. It’s bad enough that he’s going on Monday, but working there. He saw the aftermath of the battle, I know the kind of memories that linger after something like that.” Downing Street, Canary Wharf, the graveyards of Northern Europe. He wiped a lone tear from his cheek and looked back at Gwen to find her staring at him in compassion, as he choked back a sob she stood up and pulled him into her arms, holding him as he cried at the painful memories flooding him. But it was wrong, it felt wrong in Gwen’s arms, it should be Ianto. He cried harder at the realisation, choking out, “And I can’t let him go, I’ll lose you all, I can’t lose you any sooner than I have to.”

She rubbed his back soothingly, muttering soft nothings into his hair, she’d never seen him like this, never imagined that Jack could even be like this. He was so strong. The door opened slightly and she looked up to see Ianto watching them with concern. Pleading with him silently with her eyes to leave them, she tightened her arms around Jack protectively; he hadn’t yet noticed Ianto’s arrival. The young man surprised her, however, by advancing into the room and kneeling next to them on the floor. He rested his hand on Jack’s shoulder and looked at Gwen over Jack’s head, “I’ll look after him, don’t worry.”

Jack felt Gwen release him and panicked slightly at the loss, he needed someone even if it wasn’t Ianto, but before more than a couple of seconds had passed someone else had taken hold of his and wrapped him in a tight embrace. Someone stronger, warmer, more solidly reassuring: Ianto. As soon as the realisation seeped into his consciousness he shifted to cling on to his young friend. Just his being there helped calm Jack considerably and he pulled away after a few minutes, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. Ianto was smiling at him sadly. “Oh Jack, what’s the matter with you?” He reached out to brush hair off Jack’s forehead, an intimate gesture that took them both by surprise.

Jack dropped his eyes, “Bad memories, sometimes it gets a bit…”

“Too much?” his voice was full of understanding and compassion; he hadn’t yet let go of Jack. All the immortal wanted to do was sink into his arms and stay there forever, but he couldn’t. No one could give him forever.

“Yeah, one hundred years of life and death can be overwhelming.” His tone was bitter and Ianto pulled him closer, his heart breaking for the pain his friend had suffered over the years. “Anyway, enough about me.” He pulled away and rested his hands on Ianto’s arms, keeping him close to search his face, “Are you OK with going back there? Really? If you want me there…”

Ianto shook his head firmly, “No, but thank you. Aside from the fact that I’ve had confirmation that Colonel Mace is attending…” Jack winced, “I’ve got demons to fight, and it’s something I need to do alone.”

“OK, but we’ll be here, I’ll be here, when you get back.”

Ianto smiled and stood up, separating himself from Jack and gesturing to the coffee mug, “Refill, sir?”

The Captain smiled to cover the sudden emptiness, realising that the moment was over, they were back at work and they were nothing more than friends. Never would be, never could be. Ianto was there when he needed him, he was there when Ianto needed him, but the rest of the time… “Ianto, thank you.”