Torchwood: Fanfic: Facing up to reality

[m_findlow]

Title: Facing up to reality
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Owen, Gwen, Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: M (language)
Length: 1,555 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for samuraiter's prompt "Torchwood, Jack Harkness, the morning after the truth came out" at fic_promptly
Summary: Jack's return has left him with some doubts over his position within the team.

If Jack had been a betting man, the last person he would have put money on fronting up to his office first thing was Owen. Especially after he'd put up the entire team at the St David's Hotel so that they wouldn't run into their past selves as they chased John Hart around the city. Jack decided it was the least he could do to reward them for his less than smooth return to the team.

Jack checked his watch. 'Did you even have time to sample one of everything from the hotel's buffet breakfast? I always make a point of sneaking a few extra pastries in my pockets.'

'I still have a blowfish to autopsy, in case you'd forgotten.'

'Big day, yesterday,' Jack replied. 'Lots going on. Might have slipped my mind.'

Owen's expression turned serious, ignoring Jack's blasé response. 'So, level with me, Harkness. You can't die, you're fucking the Teaboy, and your best friend, this Doctor of yours, is actually the sworn enemy of the organisation you now run. Is there anything else you'd like to tell us that we should know about?'

'I'm a scorpio with a penchant for dressing up in five inch heels?' Jack offered.

Owen groaned and rolled his eyes. 'As if we didn't know that already,' he said, clutching the file under this arm and wandering off.

Jack leaned his elbows on the desk in front of him and paused to consider everything that had happened in the past few months. Of course for him it had been more than a year, but even for his teammates, several months had flown by since he'd run off on them, hell bent on chasing after his Doctor. He really hadn't had time to get used to the idea that his team suddenly knew a lot more about him than he'd ever planned on them knowing. This thing he'd started up with Ianto, he thought, grinning over last night and the fun they'd shared - that wasn't such a big problem. At least not for him. He wasn't yet sure how Ianto felt about having their little menage out in the open. He supposed everyone had seen that kiss and that they'd all had a while now to get used to the idea. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. He quite liked the idea that he could now openly flirt with Ianto, and maybe get a little something back that was more than dry witted words.

The not being able to die thing was a much bigger issue. That had been a carefully guarded secret for the better part of the last five years. How he'd ever gotten away with it was still just as baffling. The job was ridiculously dangerous, and he'd died any number of times in the line of duty, but somehow he'd always managed to keep it out of sight of his team, or bluffed his away out of situations, claiming to have only been unconscious and not dead. It had become such a complicated dance that he was sure there was going to be some point at which he wouldn't be able to hide it anymore. He just assumed that by then he'd have come up with a brilliant cover story to explain it, or have caught up with his Doctor and gotten himself fixed so that it wasn't an issue anymore.

His greatest fear had always been that people would treat him differently once they knew he couldn't die. Dozens of Torchwood operatives over the years had known Jack's unusual ability, and he knew that they didn't see him as just another member of the team. Their leaders had of course used Jack's own immortality to their advantage, capitalising on his ability to throw himself into highly dangerous situations and walk out the other side without so much as a scratch. Others he'd grown close to had come to resent him for what he was. It wasn't their fault, but he could no  more change his circumstances than they could theirs.

What would happen now that his team knew the truth? They'd been so overwhelmingly happy to have him back that first time they'd thought him dead, but grief did funny things. His dying over and over again would lose its impact. Dying might take on the same gravity as getting dirty, sleeping over an alarm, or losing a button - a trivial inconvenience. They hadn't even known the full extent of it until yesterday. When he'd come back after the battle with Abbadon he'd never gotten around to telling him this wasn't just a one time thing, even if he had technically come back twice, once when  Owen shot him, and then again after the battle was over. Only because he couldn't help but gloat in front of John, telling him he couldn't die ever, did everybody now know this was a permanent thing.

He and Ianto hadn't even discussed it last night. He realised that he should have used the opportunity to sound out how they felt, or at least how the team felt about it, since Ianto was always so tight-lipped about his own feelings. He couldn't very well just come out and ask them now, could he? They had, after all, moved on to life without him, and now he was back, perhaps cramping their style. He didn't think he could go back to being just another member of the team, taking orders from someone else, and doing good just for then sake of staying on the payroll. Maybe he should have stayed with his Doctor after all. Things between them were okay now, if still a little awkward at the prospect of Jack hanging around for a few million millenia. He wouldn't cause that much trouble, would he?

'Morning, Jack,' Gwen chirped, leaning in the doorway of his office.

'Gwen Cooper!' Jack beamed. 'You don't know how good it is to see your happy smiling face.'

'Yeah, well a night at a five star hotel does wonders for the constitution,' she replied, smiling back.

'Remind Owen of that fact for me, would you?'

'It would be my pleasure, assuming he isn't hungover from emptying out the minibar last night.'

'Oh, he's already here. Just his usual snarky self. Like I never left.'

Gwen just nodded. 'Of course. And you? Not like you to turn down a night at a nice hotel. I presume you and Ianto...had some catching up to do?'

Jack didn't try to suppress the contrite smile. 'A little.'

'He missed you, you know,' she said, giving him her most earnest expression. 'I mean, we all did.'

'So, I guess he told you, huh?' He'd never pegged Ianto as the kiss and tell type, but no doubt the others would have ground it out of him eventually. Did you tell them you made the first move? he wondered.

Gwen came over and perched on the edge of his desk. 'See, now if there's one thing I've learnt in the past few months, it's that what Ianto doesn't say is almost as important as what he does say.'

Jack chuckled. 'That's Ianto Jones 101.' He'd learnt that lesson the hard way.

Gwen chuckled with him, before locking her gaze onto his. 'We really did miss you, Jack. This place... it's just not the same.'

'Well, I'm here now. Not planning on going anywhere, unless of course I'm surplus to requirements. Do I need to start calling you boss, now? Am I sitting in your chair? Ooh! If I have to move desks, can I have the one next to Ianto?'

'You are not going anywhere, Jack Harkness,' Gwen warned him. 'I've had all night to think about it and it'll be a bloody relief to not be in charge anymore. The job is all yours.'

Jack leaned back in his chair, feeling the familiar old leather contour to the exact shape of his body, embracing it like an old lover. 'If you haven't had fun being the boss, then clearly you've been doing it all wrong,' he teased.

'I'll leave it to the expert, then,' she said, pushing herself away from the desk. 'Oh, and before I forget, you'll be wanting to catch up on everything that's happened in the last four months. Ianto should have the stack of reports. I should think the pile is only about two feet high. That's sounds like loads of fun to me.'

Jack groaned. 'You're a cruel taskmaster, Gwen Cooper.'

'Don't blame me, blame the job,' she said, leaving with a toothy grin on her face.

Jack sighed and picked up the phone. 'Ianto, I believe you have some files for me that I need to review.'

Ianto didn't miss a beat. 'Would you like them in one large pile or several little piles, sir?'

'Any which way you like so long as they come with a bottomless cup of coffee.'

'If you manage to get through them all, I might have a reward for you.'

'What's that?' Jack asked, intensely curious.

'Me. Any which way you like.'

Jack hung up the phone and eased back into the chair once more, stretching out his muscles for the long grueling day of administration ahead of him. Maybe things wouldn't change nearly as much as he feared they would. If anything, things were looking up.

Comments

[bk_forever]

No matter what, Jack IS Torchwood, he's the one who made his little branch into something he could be proud of. No one can run things as well as he can. Now if only he didn't have so much paperwork...

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

There's definitely no one on the team that wants his job on a permanent basis, and no one who would do it half as well. It's his for as long as he wants it.