Torchwood: Fanfic: Incurable

[m_findlow]

Title: Incurable
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Owen, Jack
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 794 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for m_findlow's prompt "Any, any, medicine can't mend a broken heart" at fic_promptly
Summary: This is one malady Owen can't cure

Owen wasn’t a people person, but it didn’t take a genius, or even a medical professional, to diagnose the condition from fifty yards.

It was hard to vent his own feelings on the matter when it was clear that the person he wanted to give a bollocking to looked to be suffering enough as it was. He wasn’t at all happy about having nearly been killed by that crazy Cyberwoman, and all of the stupid and blind decisions that had lead to them nearly being taken over. He’d been there to clean up the mess they’d made in London, and now here he was, doing the same thing all over again. He’d have every last bolt, screw and scrap of metal melted down and incinerated to ensure that it could never resurrect itself, no matter what anyone tried.

Ianto had almost brought them all undone, the stupid, selfish git. How’d he’d managed it was still a mystery to Owen. How could Jack not have known what was happening right under his nose? He was supposedly here twenty four seven, but some inexperienced tea boy had pulled the wool right over his eyes. Should’ve known Jack couldn’t resist a pretty face, he thought. They were all partly culpable of course, but Jack had well and truly let this one slip all the way through to the keeper.

Owen sat at his desk, pretending to be engrossed in whatever was on his computer screen as the quiet footfalls moved behind him, clearing away plates and mugs. Ianto was a quiet person by nature, but Owen knew full well that his silence now was one of shame, contrition and misery. Why he was even still here was beyond comprehension. If it had been him, he’d have cleared off and never come back. The last thing he’d want to do would be to face the people who'd stood against him.

Physically there was nothing wrong with Ianto, Jack had made sure that Owen screened him thoroughly. Mentally though was a completely different story. Owen had been there himself to know. He sighed, picking up the manila file on his desk and walking it across to Jack’s office.

His briefing was short and not strictly necessary, but Jack seemed to want to ask him something.

'How is he?' Jack didn’t have to specify who he meant.

'Same. Don’t know what else you expect,' Owen replied brusquely.

Jack glared through the glass window, watching the dark figure moving slowly and silently around the hub. Owen watched Jack’s expression and it was hard to tell which man looked more miserable.

'Isn’t there anything you can do?' Jack asked.

'Like what?'

'I don’t know,' Jack huffed, 'sleeping pills, antidepressants, vitamins, something! I’ve got a walking corpse out there. I’ve given him time and space but it’s useless trying to get more than two words out of him. He just shuts me out.'

'Medicine can’t fix a broken heart,' Owen found himself saying, surprised by his own compassion.

Jack sighed, staring out the window again, but Ianto was gone, probably downstairs to hide away in the archives that he loved so much. 'I can’t keep him here,' he said, 'and I can't let him go either.'

Owen wasn’t sure what Jack meant by the statement. 'I don’t think you get a say in the matter.'

'Why not?'

'He’s here because he doesn’t know what else to do. If he didn’t want to be here, he’d have disappeared first chance he got. Don’t even think you could’ve found him if he didn’t want to be found.'

Jack slammed the desk with his hand. 'That’s not good enough!'

Owen leaned back in his chair, unafraid of Jack’s sudden temper.

'See that’s the difference between him and us,' Owen said. 'You and I would get pissed off and go yell or hit something, get rotten drunk or stand on some bloody rooftop and mope. He’s not built like that. He’ll internalise it all, shove it into some dark corner and keep himself distracted with work until some point when it will all come crashing down on top of him. And even when that happens, there’s nothing I can prescribe that’s going to make it hurt any less.'

'So talk to him,' Jack said. 'Get him to unburden some of that bottled up pain.'

Owen chuckled mirthlessly. 'I’m a doctor, not a shrink or a counsellor. Human resources is your job.'

'My job?' Jack said, sounding incredulous. 'I killed his girlfriend. He won’t even speak to me apart from "yes, sir", "no, sir", and "would you like a coffee, sir".'

Owen pushed himself up and out of the chair. 'Well, you better find a way, boss, because when that proverbial time bomb goes off, it ain’t gonna be pretty.'

Comments

[bk_forever]

Thankfully, Jack did sort of find a way to help Ianto, even if it wasn't what either of them expected.