m_findlow

Title: Unequal division

Character: Owen, Ianto, Tosh, Gwen
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG

Length: 200 words

Content notes: none

Author notes: Written for Challenge 730 - Divide at

Summary: Jack's job is becoming increasingly difficult to split between the remaining team. A triple drabble.

‘So, where do we start?’ Owen asked, staring at each of them in turn as if they had answers he didn't. It was strange how Jack's presence had always filled the room even when he wasn't doing anything. It proved to Owen that for all his taunting that Jack was just a mouthpiece, he was an important mouthpiece that directed their efforts.

When no one responded, Ianto flipped open his leather folio and extracted a few pages. ‘Actually, I took the liberty of making a list of all of Jack's duties.’

‘Of course the caveat on that is that no one really knows everything he was responsible for doing,’ Tosh said, voicing what everyone knew to be true. Jack had been a serial secret keeper and his absence was only proving just how little they knew about him.

‘It's as comprehensive a list as I could make,’ he said, passing around copies of the neatly typed up duties. ‘I thought perhaps we should divide them up, at least for now.’ Everyone was still hoping that Jack's disappearance was a temporary thing. ‘We're all busy, but… perhaps we could agree on who is happy doing what?’

Owen scanned the list then looked up. ‘This is all well and good but who's actually going to do Jack's real job? Make the hard decisions no one else wants to, do the unpleasant things, hold this mess of a place together, and risk getting killed when it looks like there's no other option?’

‘Well,’ Ianto began, clearing his throat at the awkward and confrontational question. ‘You just listed it as four different tasks. Why not divide those too?’

‘Just so long as you're volunteering for the getting killed part. Maybe Jack didn’t mind it, seeing as how he can’t stay dead, but I do.’