m_findlow

Title: Remembering to forget
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Rhys
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: Spoilers for "Ghost Train" audiobook
Author notes: Written for Challenge 1 - Songs by The Beatles ("I forgot to remember to forget") at ficlet_zone
Summary: Ianto is having a hard time keeping things straight in his head.

When Ianto stumbled in through his own front door, he thought he'd just flop straight onto the sofa and sleep until morning, he was so tired.

'Finally home, eh?' Rhys said, folding a tea towel whilst he kept an eye on the casserole he had cooking in Ianto's oven. 'Big day? What was it today, again? Locust plague, wasn't it?'

Don't remind me, he thought, tugging off his jacket and tossing it over the back of a chair. Bad enough that he'd forgotten Rhys was here. He was going to spend the first three hours of tomorrow morning clearing dead locusts out of the SUV's front grille so that the engine didn't overheat and explode. He'd have done it tonight except that Jack was still running the car around town, tidying up half a dozen other crises. He almost couldn't wait for this fortnight to be over. Apparently all the hellish rift activity would end just as soon as Rhys had put things right in the future, God help them. Until then, he was husband in residence at Ianto's flat.

'How's Gwen?' Rhys asked. 'I mean, since you get to see her and I don't. Not easy this living away from home, thing.'

'She's, uh, good,' Ianto replied, quickly skirting across the kitchen, avoiding making eye contact. 'Tea smells good.'

He hadn't been living with Ianto long, but he knew a guilty look when he saw one. Rhys folded his arms. 'Alright. What'd you do?'

'I, um, might have accidentally let slip that you were doing a delivery for me tonight and dropping it off at the warehouse.'

'You mean the warehouse with all the Powells in it? Soon to be more Powells after I dump a few more there tonight?'

'That one,' Ianto confirmed.

'Why would you tell her that?' Rhys cried. 'Now she'll want to go over there and have a bloody look! You know what she's like, mate.'

'I'm sorry,' Ianto apologised. 'It was a slip of the tongue.'

'It's meant to be a secret. You said no one can know what we're doing or the world collapses in on itself or something.' Klaxons were probably going off in Stephen Hawking's office as they spoke.

'I know. I just, er, forgot to remember to forget.' He frowned at the explanation. If it hurt his head, Rhys's head would be spinning. Bloody hell, but this retconning oneself was hard. Where in the Torchwood manual did it say "to prevent the end of the world we recommend taking retcon twice daily. If apocalyptic events persist, tell Jack.". He really needed to write that manual.

'What if she asks me about it?' Rhys said. 'I'm going to blank her because the me at home doesn't have a bloody clue about any of this. She might think I'm one of those bloody alien shapeshifter thingies and clock me over the head. What then? Future me isn't here to prevent the end of the world because past me is... what?' Even Rhys felt confused now.

'It's okay, though,' Ianto insisted. 'I said you'd be home for tea, and well, way things are going, Gwen probably won't have time for tea. She'll have forgotten all about it by tomorrow, I'm sure.'

'No thanks to you,' Rhys grumbled.

'It's not easy, you know,' Ianto said, sounding disenfranchised and unhappy. It was so very unlike him to get his feathers ruffled. 'The world is going to end some time this week and I can't tell anyone!'

He turned and leant over the kitchen sink, staring out the window into the blackness of night. It wouldn't stay that way, mind. Rain of fire tomorrow, according to Rhys. And dragons. He thought he'd be excited about dragons, but with everything else going on, he kind of wished they'd sod off and come back some other time when he could enjoy them properly.

This was all Jack's fault. He'd been the one to throw Rhys off that intergalactic steam train. "Tell Ianto." Yeah, thanks a lot. Could he blame Jack though? He'd been the one who'd identified Rhys's note as being written by him. Jack knew Ianto was in on it even before Ianto himself knew. All he did was close the loop on a self fulfilling timeline. If Rhys didn't involve him, he'd never leave the note for past Rhys, which he never would have shown to Jack, in which case, Jack would never have thrown him off the train and told him to tell him, and oh, where was that bloody retcon? He really needed it to take the edge off what was happening around him. There were already too many timelines jumbling themselves together, and he was meant to be mentally keeping track of it all. This was Rhys's task to fulfill. He was just the enabler, but if he lost it now, they were all screwed.

'Jack's coming over tonight, isn't he?' Rhys asked, sounding less and less happy about the prospect.

Yes, he was. Just as soon as he was done, so he'd promised. There wasn't much going to get between Jack and what he wanted, not even total global impending doom. And he was going to start wondering why Ianto was so distressed. Unlike Ianto, he didn't yet know about the rain of fire, dragons, Powells or the end of the world. Jack's idea of the world ending would be having to sleep on the sofa tonight.

'I've got to finish researching how to manufacture antibodies that will work against this Thursday's mutant plague before he gets here,' Ianto said, wishing he'd paid more attention at school when they'd been discussing genetics and RNA.

Rhys came over and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. 'If I were you mate, I'd take a double dose of those memory pills before he does.'

Good idea. Vague and sleepy tucked up in bed with Jack until all hell broke loose for another day. He could definitely do with forgetting today and what lay ahead tomorrow.