Torchwood: Fanfic: Forgiveness

[m_findlow]

Title: Forgiveness
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Jack, Gray
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,949 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for m_findlow's prompt "Any, any, reconciling with a family member after long years of anger" at fic_promptly
Summary: Jack never thought he'd get another chance to tell Gray how sorry he was.

Jack felt more nervous than he ever had in his entire life. Ianto looked over at him and that little concerned look crossed his face. The one he'd seen a hundred thousand times over the years, that was far more worried on the inside than it showed on the outside. He knew Jack had a right to be nervous and worried. How long had it been since that fateful day when they thought they'd lost everything? First it was the worry of thinking Jack was completely lost to them, and then just when he made his grand return, the real horror had befallen them, losing Tosh and Owen. There were still times when Ianto wished it could have been different, trying to understand how this could possibly have happened, and how completely unexpected it was considering everything else they'd survived.

He felt nervous on Jack's behalf. Jack hadn't been involved in any of this. It hadn't even been Jack's idea, but he'd gone along with it because at the end of everything, Ianto knew they all needed this. Jack would never be properly whole until he'd made things right.

'Are you okay?' Ianto asked. He wasn't even sure he was okay. What had he been thinking, sanctioning this? No, it'd be okay. This wasn't just some flight of fancy. They'd planned this, it had been going on for months and months. He wasn't even sure how she'd done it, this incredible woman whom he'd taken on board at Torchwood a year ago, but who'd spent almost all of that time on her own or with her subject, only occasionally briefing him on their progress. He hadn't even told Jack for the longest time, unsure whether this was a mistake. If things went horribly wrong, he'd have the man frozen and put back in the morgue, never to be spoken of again. It broke his heart to know Jack sometimes went down there to talk to him, but not knowing that he was speaking to an empty chamber. Gray was many miles away in a safe house in the remotest corner of mid Wales.

He expected Jack to be angry with him for not telling him, and for even attempting this. In the end, he was simply too shocked. He'd accepted that Gray could never be fixed and that was that. By all accounts, though he hadn't said it to Jack, it hadn't been an easy task. Gray was just as angry and volatile when he'd been woken as he was the last time Ianto had seen him. It was the only time he'd gotten involved, right at the outset, making sure Angie was safe. They'd begun in the deepest depths of the hub, working on breaking him down. He still cringed at the thought of the drugs that had been used to calm him in those first few weeks. Not until he was satisfied that Gray wouldn't do anything extreme, had the cuffs come off. More weeks locked away in isolation, until finally he was moved to the safe house. It was the first night in over two months Ianto slept soundly, knowing Gray was not somewhere directly below him in the hub.

After that, he stepped away, though part of him wanted to sit down face to face with Jack's brother, to understand what had driven him to such hateful thoughts. A lot of people he cared about had died that night, and many more injured. The whole city had been devastated, and that hurt just as much. Nothing however hurt as much as knowing it was Gray that had almost taken Jack away from them for good. There'd be time later to speak with him, once this was over. Angie had done what she could to break down Gray's anger and hatred, pinpointing the source of his pain and help him to process it in a meaningful way. It had been on her recommendation that he finally come face to face with Jack. 'It'll either break him or he'll break through it,' she said. That thought alone made Ianto's stomach twist in knots. He wanted so much for this to work out. Gray needed this, but so did Jack. He'd never felt more responsible for any decision he'd made since taking over Torchwood.

'Jack?' He reached down and squeezed his hand, trying for a response.

'I don't think I can,' Jack replied.

'You don't have to, then.' Just because Gray was ready didn't mean Jack was. He'd had weeks to process the reality of what was coming, but how could you ever really prepare for it? He didn't want to talk to Angie, to process his own feelings. He'd had hundreds of years to process. Another hour with someone he barely knew wasn't going to make a difference.

'I do,' Jack replied. He pulled his hand out of Ianto's and forced open the door, leaving the world he knew behind.

It shocked him more than he expected, seeing Gray sitting there, alive and awake, dressed in jeans and a loose fitting shirt. He looked so normal, yet all grown up. There were traces of the boy he'd grown up with, but the features were chiseled and hard in places as well. Where Jack always carried an easy smile, Gray's lips were held tight; not quite a frown, but the look of someone who'd known nothing but pain.

'Hello, Jack.' The world felt strange in his mouth. Jack wasn't his brother, not the name he'd gone by, but the name he'd since adopted. It was odd, like he was a person he'd never known, but like Jack, he could make out the traces of boyhood in his face, but most in his eyes. Those eyes hadn't changed.

Jack's breath hitched in his throat. Their last meeting had been anything but happy and he couldn't bring himself to feel happy now either.

'Sit,' Gray instructed, indicating the opposite side of the sofa in the small, pokey cottage where he'd been living. It looked perfectly plain, but it was highly secure. Ianto wouldn't run the risk of Gray trying to escape, or to harm Angie in any way. Every room had a lock, and there were hidden stores of drugs and weapons, just in case things went pear-shaped.

Jack didn't think he could sit, but nor could he keep himself upright on legs that felt like jelly.

'I had it all planned out what I wanted to say to you,' Gray said, 'but now I've forgotten all of it.'

'It's okay if you hate me,' Jack said, his voice barely above a whisper. 'I hate myself.'

'I did hate you,' Gray replied. 'But I hated everything. Everything that happened, everything I was, everything that was taken away from me. But I hated you most. It was all that got me through every single day, knowing that there was someone I hated more than those creatures.'

'If I could have swapped places with you, I would have,' Jack said.

'I know. When John told me you couldn't die, I wanted to destroy you. To avenge the fact that you got to enjoy life forever.'

'Believe me, it's a curse. I've wanted to die so many times, if for no other reason than because I didn't deserve to live when I'd lost you.'

'We were kids.'

'I was the eldest. It was my responsibility.'

'Dad shouldn't have left us alone.'

'He went back for Mum.'

All of this he knew. What he really wanted to know was what happened after. 'What happened to them?'

'Dad died,' Jack replied plainly. He'd never properly gotten over finding his dad lying there in the middle of the village, just a little way short of their house.

'And Mum?'

'She lived to old age but she was never the same.' It was one of the reasons he'd jumped at the first chance to leave Boeshane. Seventeen was too old to hide behind his mother's skirts when all she did was look at him and see his father's face in his own. His death broke her, and losing Gray made it so much worse. He never saw her again after that day he left for the Agency. A dozen times he considered going back to see her but he couldn't. Not until he'd found Gray and brought him home.

'Why didn't you kill me?' Gray's question nearly floored him as he gripped the edge of the sofa, barely able to look his brother in the eye. 'After everything I did to you, you let me live.'

'I had to hope that you could be fixed. That I could make things right between us. I never stopped looking, never stopped trying to find out what had happened to you. I went so many places.'

And he had. He'd loved the Time Agency, but it had always been a means to an end, a way to go places he never would have been allowed under normal circumstances, able to press people for information. He still couldn't shake that nauseating feeling that he'd pressed his luck too much one day, and that it was the whole reason he'd had those two years of memories wiped from his mind. He risked a glance across at the man next to him.

'This isn't anything like what I expected.' He felt like a fish out of water, where Gray looked calm and at ease. He hadn't ever contemplated waking Gray back up since the day he'd locked him away in the morgue. He was still trying to get used to the idea that Ianto had orchestrated all of this behind his back.

'I've had a lot longer to get used to this,' Gray replied. He understood that Jack hadn't instigated this. That someone else who cared about Jack had made this happen. Someone who didn't even know him had thought him worth saving.

'A whole year,' Jack mused. 'In a bungalow in the middle of nowhere with only a shrink for company. How was it?'

'Cold.'

Jack forced out a laugh at that. Wales was about as opposite to Boeshane as you could get. 'So, what now?' He thought he'd have a million things to tell Gray if he ever thought he could be forgiven, but he couldn't think of a single thing to say.

'I'm not going to live forever like you, Jack. I don't want to spend the rest of my life trying to hate you. You're all I've got left in this world.'

It felt like a punch in the gut. He'd just gotten Gray back only to realise that he was going to lose him all over again, even if it wasn't right now. 'I don't know how to start making things right.'

Gray turned to the side, facing Jack properly. 'You forgave me. I took so much from you, but you forgave me. Let me do the same.'

Jack's whole body shook as he watched Gray stand up and come to stand right in front of him. He didn't think he could stand up. Gray reached down a hand and he gripped it, harder than was strictly necessary. It was how hard he should have held it all those years ago.

Gray wrapped his arms around Jack and pressed his body close. 'I forgive you, Jack.'

It was too much for him, wrapping his arms around his brother and sobbing hard. He'd never thought he'd get any absolution for the worst mistake of his very long life.

'I'm still broken, Jack,' he whispered in his ear as he refused to let go. 'I need you.'

'You've got me,' he managed to say, voice clogged with tears. 'You will always have me.'

Comments

[rambleinblue.livejournal.com]

Whoa. This needs to become a series.

[jo02]

This was an intriguing idea and quite confronting.

I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, and at the end when Gray whispered he was still broken, I expected him to stab a knife into Jack's belly.

Like the comment above said, this could be the start of a much longer story, but I almost don't think I could stand the intensity it would involve.

[bk_forever]

This is heartbreaking but wonderful, to thin that Gray could be helped and Jack could have his brother back. They still have a lot to talk about, but perhaps now they can bot begin to heal.