Ianto's Last Secret 5/7 + epilogue

[jooles34]

Title: Ianto’s Last Secret
Characters: Jack, Gwen, OC, and Ianto
Rating: 15 – mainly for themes and language.
Synopsis: Most people take their secrets to the grave with them, but not Ianto Jones.
Word count:  1,372
Disclaimer: Nope, I don't own Torchwood.
AN: This is a post COE fic (we say euphemistically) and I don’t want to give too much away, but for this to work you do need to ignore the last four minutes of Day Five with Jack and Gwen on the hill.  It is set about two-three weeks after the events of COE.

 

“But,” Gwen’s voice came from behind Carys, “there’s nothing left of the Hub.”

Carys’ eyes didn’t leave Jack. “Come on Jack. Tell me you haven’t thought about it.”

“Had other things on my mind.” Jack’s voice was still flat; still suspicious.

“Then think about it now. Victorian engineering, reinforced to withstand bombing during the War, and it’s Torchwood. You know the lower levels; the archives, the cells, were built to keep things out as well as in. There’s a very good chance they are intact. Look at how much of the blast was directed upwards.”

“How do you know all this?”

Carys rolled her eyes and tried to keep her sigh of frustration inside.

“I told you. Ianto was my Former, is my Former. I know everything that he knows. He knew everything about this place.” She raised a meaningful eyebrow at Jack. “Everything. Do you want me to prove it?”

“Jack, please?” interrupted Gwen. “Could she be right? Could there be some Hub left? And if she is who she says she is, isn’t it worth taking the risk?”

Jack ignored her. “If you know everything Ianto knows and you say he’s alive somewhere how come you don’t know where?”

Again Carys tried to keep her tone neutral. It was frustrating, but she had anticipated this. “I didn’t say he was alive, just that there is some of his life force somewhere. There must be something because I’m still here, but it’s not enough. If he doesn’t know where he is, then I don’t know.  I guessed it would be most likely something in the Hub as it’s not like you don’t have a lot of weird shit here, but it’s not something he knew had happened or I would know that too. But being here now...it’s close; I can feel it. Jack please.”

“Jack?” Gwen pleaded again, and urgency in her voice. “We have to try.”

“Fine.” Jack said, tight-jawed after a pause. “We’ll head in and see what we can find.”

He turned and stalked off down the corridor. Gwen moved past Carys and followed him, eager to see if there was anything of the Hub that could to be salvaged. She needed something, anything. She just needed something to remain, to be the same.

Carys paused for a beat before following them. This was actually proving easier than she had expected.

 

Jack led them to the end of the corridor where it opened into a T junction. Jack turned left and Gwen followed. Carys ignored them and turned right, walking away from them.

“Really Jack, I expected you test me, but I thought you’d be a little more inventive than that.”

She continued to walk and waited for Jack and a slightly confused Gwen to catch her up.

“Okay then,” said Jack, “you want to be tested. Fine. How old was was Ianto when Lisa died at Canary Wharf?”

Carys snorted. “Oh Jack that’s even worse. And be careful about bringing up Lisa around me. Shared thought remember? I loved her as much as he did.”

“You helped Ianto save her didn’t you?” Jack’s tone was accusing, but with a tone that indicat4ed sudden understanding.

Carys stopped dead and turned to face him, anger flashing across her face. “And I carried on helping him when you sent him home alone after killing her!”

Jack stopped as well, nose to nose with Carys. “You were there? At his house? You couldn’t have been. I visited often and I never saw you.”

Carys gave a twisted grin. “When you’re not shielding your thoughts like you have been since we came in here, your brain is very loud. I could hear you coming from streets away. It gave me plenty of time to get out before you arrived. Are you done?”

Without waiting for an answer Carys turned and walked away. Gwen stood, frozen to the spot at the exchange. She wanted to follow Carys; she wanted to be back in the Hub, see it, feel it, touch it, know something was still there. And she wanted to believe that they could get Ianto back. But she couldn’t leave Jack; couldn’t go against him. Not now.

Jack watched Carys go. He didn’t like this. He couldn’t let himself believe this. But he wasn’t stupid. He knew of the Abstracts, he knew how they existed. And as much as he tried to ignore it, there was no denying the similarities to Ianto this woman had. But he couldn’t let himself believe. Not really. But he would try. For Gwen, and for Ianto, he would try.

 

They continued to follow Carys along the corridors until she paused at a door. She took a deep, unnecessary, but bourn out of habit, breath, and opened it.

The archives. They were in the first level of the archives.

It was a mess. Boxes, files and artefacts were strewn across the floor. The room’s infrastructure may well have been intact, but it had obviously felt the affects of the blast.

The three of them stood and looked around at the chaos in silence. Gwen spoke first.

“I’m trying to decide if he would throw a fit right now or enjoy the prospect of getting to reorganise.”

“He’d throw a fit and secretly relish the prospect of reorganising.” Carys replied with a small smile.

“Are we going to joke or are we going to do this?” asked Jack, pushing into the room.

“Sorry Jack.” said Gwen. She followed him into the room and stood looking around. “But what do we do? Where do we start?”

“Just start going through things. We’re looking for anything that could potentially hold or capture someone’s life force.”

Gwen looked around the room again. “It could take weeks in this mess.”

“We’d better get started then.”

 

The three of them worked together for hours in near silence. They methodically worked their way through the artefacts that littered the floor as well as the ones that were still on the shelves. Carys had left them at one point, saying nothing more than “Won’t be long.” She had returned half an hour later with pizza, coffee and a selection of cold drinks. The others had taken them wordlessly, both too afraid that their voices would betray them if they tried to thank her.

They worked through until the early hours of the morning. They investigated a large assortment of items, but none of them were what they were looking for and all it did was show just how long a job they had ahead of them.

Carys suddenly realised what she had ceased to pay attention to. She didn’t need food or coffee or sleep, they were things she did out of habit to blend in. But the others did; even Jack, and she should have been concentrating on their needs. She put down the artefact she was holding.

“We should stop for a bit. You two get some rest. I can carry on and you can join me in the morning.”

Jack grunted. “I’m fine. I’ll keep going.”

“I’ll stay too.” Gwen said.

Carys could feel the emotions rolling of Gwen like a wave, but knew she was too proud, too stubborn to voice them.

“Gwen, go home. Go to Rhys. He’s going to need to see you; see that you’re okay.”

Relief fell from Gwen. “You’re right. He’ll be worried. I’ll be back. First thing, I’ll be back.”

Jack barely glanced up as she left.

 

Gwen rose early, after just a few hours sleep, and headed back to the Hub. She picked up coffee and pastries on the way, half wondering if Carys would have beaten her to it. Ianto would have done and it was already apparent she was trying to take on his role for them.

Following the maze of corridors back to the archives she stepped into the first room. There was no sign of Jack or Carys. She heard a slight noise to her left and turned to see the door to a side room open.

Gwen’s eyes opened wide and the coffees fell from her hands as she stared at the ghost in front of her.

In response to the noise Ianto’s head snapped up in her direction.

"Gwen, wait, it's not what it looks like."



 

Part six is here.