BTBD Challenge 85 - Spoilers ahead

[m_findlow]

Title: Spoilers ahead
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,216 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Amnesty and Challenge 85 - Peek at beattheblackdog
Summary: Jack finally stumbles on the one thing he's been desperate to find.

He hadn't really meant to look at it. For ages it had been a running joke between them. Since the day that Ianto had accidentally confessed he kept a diary, Jack had insisted his mission was to read it. Ianto had of course laughed him off and told him the diary was well hidden and that he'd never find it. That had only made Jack more determined.

At first he'd tried all of the obvious places, and then gotten more creative. He'd memorised a lot of the places Ianto had used to hide things during rounds of naked hide and seek, so he tried all of those places next, coming up empty. He'd been though desk drawers and upended half of the archives, certain Ianto was keeping it down there somewhere, but every search he'd conducted had turned up nothing. It wasn't that he'd given up entirely on the idea of finding it, since it still had to be regularly accessible for Ianto to add new entries, but there was clearly some skill involved in unearthing it.

He'd sent the team home to get some rest. After discovering that they'd all lost two days worth of memories and that it had been self inflicted, it seemed wise to let everyone go home. Retcon made you sleepy but it wasn't quite the same as real sleep.

He hadn't wanted to pry into whatever it was that had happened. The last thing he needed was to trigger a memory that would break through the retcon. If they'd done this to themselves, there had to be an almighty good reason.

On his desk he found two items he didn't remember being there. One was the alien equivalent of a lie detector, and the other looked like an old artifact from the archives, wrapped up in one of their standard issue plastic bags. The lie detector worried him, so he picked it up and took it back downstairs where it belonged. He got the nagging feeling that he'd been forced to use it on someone, so he didn't want it still here when the rest of them returned tomorrow.

On his way back from the archives, he passed by the small break out space, sofa and coffee table. It was usually so neat, Ianto having always made sure he passed through and tidying it up. Today however it looked like he'd forgotten, or avoided it altogether. It wasn't in bad shape, but there were odd things littered on the coffee table. One caught his attention, small and rectangular. He picked it up feeling how supple the leather cover was. There were thousands of books in the hub, but Jack was fairly certain there was only one that this could be. How had it come to be here, left out in the open? He supposed that given whatever had been happening these past two days, Ianto might have become distracted and left it behind.

Jack ran his hand over the cover. For so long he'd tried to find this and now that it was right here in his hot little hands he felt guilty. It seemed kind of wrong to take advantage now. Yet there was also that curiosity, wondering what was hidden inside those pages. He found Ianto to be the singularly most complex person he'd ever met, never truly sure what was going on in that clever mind. This was his opportunity.

He sat down on the sofa and placed the small journal in his lap. Should he? Shouldn't he?  Why did it have to be such a moral dilemma? What if he took just a little peek? Ianto never had to know. He could leave the diary right where he'd found it and Ianto would be none the wiser.

He tentatively pulled it open to a random page. Inside was that beautiful handwriting he'd come to know so well, adorning the pages in neat row after row of black ink. As he flicked several pages, in between paragraphs he made out tiny sketches; not detailed like ones Jack himself had once made in reports before photography had become commonplace, but vague outlines that left the exact details to the imagination. Whether that was intentional or not was hard to tell. Perhaps it was just doodling whilst he collected his thoughts.

He chanced reading a few lines, finding it much less of a diary than a chronicle of events, interspersed with thoughts and opinions. Before long he was engrossed in its pages, often thought provoking, or generating ideas that were missing from official reports he'd written on the same subjects. He'd never shared any of this with Jack. The conversations they could have had if he'd only chosen to share some of these thoughts.

Most curious however were the tiny fragments he wrote about the personal lives of his teammates. He found descriptions of Tosh endearing, and comments about Owen downright hilarious. But it was the moments he opened up about his thoughts on Jack that gripped him most. He had endless fears about their relationship and what it meant, though it was clear from the way he spoke that he cared very deeply regardless of any misgivings he might have held.. It twisted Jack's heart in knots. Somehow he'd always known, but seeing it in black and white made it all the more real.

He nearly burst out laughing when he read the next paragraph.

"Last night Jack insisted on getting the measuring tape out. Don't ask me why, but he likes to be the best at everything. There's really not that much difference, but I'm sure he had some alien tape that changes the measurements. Is there truly nothing he won't cheat at?"

Oh, Ianto, Jack chuckled. For once he really hadn't cheated. Nor could he remember how they'd gotten around to taking measurements. Time spent with Ianto was like that; it whirled by in the blink of an eye and left him in a semi drunken state where recollections became hazy and unimportant.

Closing the diary he felt that same warm comforting feeling he got from the man actually being here with him, as if his spirit were contained inside, allowed to roam free once Jack had prised back the cover. Gone was the guilt at reading Ianto's innermost thoughts. It felt like he'd been meant to find the diary, on today of all days, when he needed reassuring that the memories he'd lost weren't nearly as important as the ones preserved on the pages.

He'd been intending on leave it right where he'd found it, but decided instead to take it with him. It was important to Ianto, this diary, so he wanted to make sure it was safely delivered back to him, still unsure of the reasons why it had been so carelessly abandoned in the first place. That it would mean having to admit to having perused its contents mattered less now than it had. Ianto had firmly believed that Jack would read it if he ever found it, so what was the point in lying about it? Perhaps if he knew, he might decide to share some if those thoughts directly with Jack, rather than committing them to paper. Plus, he just had to let Ianto know that measuring tapes never lie.

Comments

[bk_forever]

Very sweet look at Jack giving in to temptation. I'm not sure I'd be able to resist either.