Ficlet_zone Challenge 14 - Facing it alone

[m_findlow]

Title: Facing it alone
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 2,220 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Challenge 14 - Agents of SHIELD Reverse Fandom (The Things We Bury) at ficlet_zone
Summary: Ianto discovers that one person keeping a secret is harder than two.

Ianto groaned as his phone beeped, waking him out of a very deep sleep. Typical, he thought. The only night he'd finally managed to not toss and turn for hours and instead the rift had other ideas.

He rolled over in bed, clumsily picking up the phone from the bedside table, squinting at the overly bright display. His eyes watered from the sudden assault of light, sweeping them dry with the heel of his palm and taking another look at the screen. He prayed it was nothing major, or at least something he could just text to the others to take a look at. Why and how he'd become the gatekeeper for rift alerts was anyone's guess. Half of the time he still got left behind, even now that there was only the four of them. Perhaps if he was lucky, they'd let him be left behind now, able to curl back under the duvet until some more reasonable hour. More likely however was that they'd still make him get up, if only to be there as backup support at the  hub and to have coffee ready for them when they returned.

Once he saw the details of the alert though, he knew there was no going back to sleep. There wasn't even any calling in the team. He felt his stomach twist at the information being displayed from the Torchwood mainframe. How many times had he prayed never to see that particular rift signature since Jack had left them? He swallowed hard, knowing what he had to do.

He was up and dressed in a matter of minutes, sliding into his car and following the signal from his phone. It was easy to keep one eye on the signal and one on the road, given there was hardly another vehicle to be seen. Just a couple of late night shift workers, either drifting home or gearing up for a brand new day. Ianto's days felt like they never had a beginning or an end anymore. It was just one long stretch of interminable things to do. He could understand now why Jack claimed he never slept, because the job never slept, but unlike Jack, he needed sleep to be able to function. He wished he knew what Jack's secret was for being so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when he'd barely slept a wink. Maybe it had something to do with not being able to die. Too late to ask him now, Ianto thought.

He sighed as he came to a stop at a red light and an empty intersection. It just had to happen on his watch, this negative rift spike. He realised he should probably get used to this. Nobody knew if Jack was planning on ever coming back. Owen was convinced that he wasn't. Gwen staunchly believed he would, though of late they'd been so busy that he was starting to see a change in her - one that said she was losing faith in that conviction, and that they just needed to get on with things. Tosh as always, kept the peace between them, neither agreeing or disagreeing wholeheartedly. Even Ianto's belief was wavering. Three months and not a word, not  a trace of Jack anywhere. He'd just disappeared off the face of the earth, and given who he'd been seen running away with, Ianto could believe it. All of time and space to travel. Why would Jack ever want to stay here?

At least Jack had told him this much, about how that rift really worked, and what it did when it got bored of dumping stuff in their city. He'd thought that rift was dangerous beforehand, but now he'd seen the true horror of what it could do. It could steal you away in the blink of an eye and take you God only knew where, for God only knew how long. The revelation had terrified him for weeks afterward, but like everything Torchwood had to throw at them, he slowly came to accept it as part of his normal.

They'd done this three times before Jack left, picking up someone who'd been returned by the rift. Each time it had been awful in its own way, and each time he'd had to go out to Flat Holm to get a new person settled in there, he saw the toll it took on Jack, having to keep this awful thing a secret from everybody else. Jack felt responsible for it, like it was his fault the rift did what it did. No amount of encouragement and kind words seemed placate him. But now he was gone and so it fell to Ianto to carry on with the terrible task. He sucked in a breath and tried to prepare himself for it. It would be okay. He had a lot of empathy for what these people must have been through. Jack had even gone so far as to say he'd been impressed by how good Ianto was at helping to soothe their frightened and anxious patients. Everything tonight would be fine. He'd been prepared by Jack for this.

The alert for this kind of rift activity had always been via Jack's wrist strap, either waking them both up if Ianto had fallen asleep on top of Jack on one of their nights together, or Jack calling him at his apartment with the instruction that he'd be out the front in less than five minutes, ready to pick him up. Even so, it hadn't taken Ianto long to look up the specific kind of rift signatures that signaled a returned person, and to set up a special alert that went straight to his phone, bypassing all of their normal protocols. It didn't even log an entry in their systems. That was how Jack wanted it. No one else was to know about this. For now, Ianto would keep up his end of the bargain. There would be a right time to tell the others, he was sure, especially if Jack didn't come back. It just didn't feel like tonight.

He turned the car left into a street that ran parallel to the one where the signal had originated. Fortunately it hadn't moved since, though that likely meant whoever it was was in a bad way. Most of them were, according to Jack. You only had to hear the screams of Jonah Bevan to understand that there was truly no wrapping your head around what these people had experienced. All he could do was offer a blanket, some reassuring words and a promise that he could take them somewhere where they would be safe and cared for. There were a couple of regular fishing trawlers that were happy to have their palms greased and take people out to the island without asking too many questions. All he had to do was get them there.

He turned again at the T junction, where a large red brick wall cut the street off from the avenues on the opposite side. Up ahead next to a collection of wheelie bins he spotted a dull orange light on the ground. A few yards closer and he pulled the car to a halt, seeing now that the orange light was fire and that the shape burning looked like that of a body lying on the ground. He was out of the car in a heartbeat, rushing toward it. He tore at his jacket, pulling it off and immediately making to smother the small flames with it. It didn't take long to extinguish them as they were burning low. When they were out he could see why. Most of the body was already completely charred, almost beyond recognition. A blackened skeleton was all that remained, with one arm thrown out to the side, as if desperately reaching for aid.

The jacket was ruined but Ianto hardly noticed it, letting it fall to the ground by his side. A numbness crept over him as he took in the sight. He could already tell that no amount of effort to put out the residual flames would have made a difference. He wondered if being here a few minutes ago would have made a difference, or even fifteen minutes - the time it had taken from the alert coming through to his arrival on scene. If he'd hurried a bit more, might he have reached them in time to save them? Severe burns were difficult to treat at the best of times, so Owen had told him. Most died from infection anyway. They could have been smoldering for hours or been caught in a sudden fiery explosion just seconds before the rift captured them and sent them back. There was no way to tell. Even if he'd been here in the very moment it had happened, there might have been nothing at all he could do to prevent the outcome.

Ianto stared down at the body, unable to tell even it it had been male or female. It was blackened bones only, some burnt so badly they'd turned back to ashen white. He dropped down into the gutter, his head falling into his hands as a sob escaped throat, choking him on its way out. Jack hadn't prepared him for this. He'd expected some broken soul, maybe injured, but otherwise okay. He'd take care of them; him with his familiar Welsh lilt, assuring them that they were indeed home at a last.

He felt the abject weight of utter helplessness crushing down on him. Tears began to fall in thick drops as the hopelessness of it overwhelmed him. There was nothing he could do to fix this. This was why Jack hated it so much. He'd never felt so alone and unable to make things better. He hadn't signed up for this. Jack had thrust this awful burden on him and now he was gone. He wanted Jack here. He wanted Jack to tell him it was okay and that there was nothing they could have done.

He sniffed loudly, wiping his hand on the back of his sleeve, the smoky odor once again assaulting his senses. He'd already called ahead and told Helen he was coming. Now he'd have to call her and deliver the awful news. He couldn't give her details - most of those out at Flat Holm still thought these were victims of war crimes and horrible experiments gone wrong. All he'd be able to say was that the person had died en route. He wished he could tell her the whole truth of it. He needed someone to know what he'd been through - what this poor person whom he'd never be able to identify, had been through. Some family somewhere was never going to get closure.  

He sniffed again, swallowing down the claggy mess of tears and snot lodged in the back of his throat. He was going to have to deal with the body. He cast a sideways glance at it, twisted and mangled and black. He still had the blanket in the back of the car. He could probably gather it up in that, fold it in on itself and put it in the boot. Then he'd have to take it to the hub and incinerate what was left of it, as if it had never existed. Guilt tore through him at the idea. It felt wrong. They deserved better than that. He resolved to take them out to Flat Holm anyway. He'd bury them out there so that they wouldn't be forgotten. Then he might be able to live with himself.

He pushed himself up off the ground, trudging back the car. The street remained otherwise quiet. No one had noticed the flaming pile of human remains, the car that had approached it, or the man sitting there in the gutter in the middle of the night, crying.

He grabbed the blanket and walked back. Looking at the body again now, he knew he couldn't touch it. He'd thought he could just set the blanket down next to it and pick it up, laying it inside, but his hands went all shaky at the thought. Instead he draped it over the body and tucked it in around, scooping it up. He whimpered as he heard bones crack and crumble against his arms, hugging the bundle to his body and praying he'd gotten all of it. He didn't want to leave anything behind. Not because someone might start poking around or call the police, but because it felt wrong not to give this person a respectful end. They hadn't asked for any of this, anymore than he'd asked to carry this terrible secret.

He gingerly cradled the blanket against him, fighting back another wave of sobs as he carried it ever so slowly toward the car. It was still warm against him, like he was holding a life instead of a pile of ash and bones, setting it gently down in the boot and keeping the blanket folded over it, nice and snug like a baby in swaddling.

He gripped the edge of the boot, readying to close it before looking down at the sad pile of blanket. 'It's okay. You're home now,' he said. At least they hadn't died alone and a million miles from anywhere. That had to count for something.

Comments

[bk_forever]

*wibbles* This is heartbreaking! Poor Ianto, and poor unidentifiable person. Bad enough to have to deal with someone returned irretrievably broken, but this poor soul never stood a chance and will never know they're home. =(

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

It's definitely not what he'd mentally prepared himself for, and worse because he had to face it alone.

[mscatmoon.livejournal.com]

Powerful and sad. Poor Ianto.