Slashthedrabble Challenge 514 - Survivor's guilt

[m_findlow]

Title: Survivor's guilt
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Jack
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 500 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Challenge 514 - Frozen at slashthedrabble
Summary: Ianto and Jack are together at the end, yet they feel miles apart.

Ianto sat there staring off into space for a long time as he huddled halfway down the steps of Owen's autopsy bay. Just the autopsy bay now, he reminded himself, realising that Owen was never going to come back. He was never going to be able to lean over the railings again, watching their medic working away, up to his elbows in alien goo and yet still not put off as he reached a slimy hand around the coffee mug Ianto had left for him. He tried to remember the last time he'd made Owen a coffee. Was it this morning? Before they'd gotten that rift alert at the abandoned warehouse. Before they'd been blown up, before John Hart and Gray, before the city had burned, before he'd lost two of his closest friends.

It wasn't bad enough that Owen was dead, again. He'd stood here just a few hours ago, watching as Tosh let go of her tenuous grip on life. That was even worse. Gone was the blood she'd left behind, dutifully mopped and scrubbed by someone who wasn't him, or at least not him with any cognizant thought. Just some zombie that looked a lot like him. He could scarcely remember doing it. The two of them were gone and they were never coming back.

As he swallowed hard, he remembered that he wasn't alone. Whilst he'd been sat here, Jack had appeared and settled down silently next to him, both of them lost for words, trying to comprehend the terrible events that had lead them here, and no small amount of survivor's guilt.

He reached out a hand and tried to lace his fingers together with Jack's, the sudden touch making him jump slightly. 'You're ice cold,' Ianto observed, feeling how cold Jack's hand was. It was usually so warm and comforting.

'Been frozen for a hundred years,' Jack replied, his voice flat and unemotional. 'Takes a while to warm back up.'

Ianto's brow furrowed in confusion. He didn't want to bring up John but he couldn't help it. 'John said you were buried.'

'I was,' Jack said, pulling his hand out of Ianto's grip, clasping it instead around his other wrist as he hugged his knees. 'Two thousand years of reviving and dying over and over again. And then Torchwood found me. I made them freeze me so I wouldn't cross my own timeline, set to wake me up in time to stop Gray. Only I got here too late.'

Ianto mulled over the possibilities. Gray might still have killed them all. Five minutes earlier, an hour later, who knew what might have happened. Ianto leaned closer, trying to impart some of his own body heat against Jack's side. 'I'm sorry for what he did to you.'

Jack snorted. It was a tired sound. 'I'm sorry for what I did to him.'

Ianto continued to lean against him in silence. Whatever Jack thought he'd done, he seemed to accept that his punishment had been deserved.

Comments

[bk_forever]

They're both suffering, but Jack as usual is taking too much on himself. He's not to blame for what Gray became, or what he's done. He'll never e convinced of that though. =(

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

It's going to take a very long time to reconcile his feelings with the reality of the situation.

[jo02]

Very - very - moving.

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

Thank you!