Torchwood: Fanfic: Reconciling

[m_findlow]

Title: Reconciling
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Owen
Author: m_findlow
Rating: M (language)
Length: 1,329 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for m_findlow's prompt "Any, any, "You were gone. We moved on." " at fic_promptly
Summary: Owen has a bone to pick with Jack now that he's back.

'We've got a rift alert people!' Jack announced. Gods but it felt good to say that again, slipping back into his old role as leader of Torchwood. After the year that never was, this was exactly where he needed to be. 'Owen, why don't you and me take this one?' He looked around on his desk, unable to find what he was after. 'Where are the keys?'

Owen stood in the doorway and held them up. 'I’ve got them.'

'Oh,' Jack said, waiting for Owen to hand them over, but not. 'So, you’re driving?'

'You’re back,' Owen replied bluntly. 'That doesn’t mean you just get to go back to how things were.'

Jack was well accustomed to Owen's shifting moods. 'Fine. You drive.'

As Owen hit the accelerator, Jack peered out through the windscreen, watching the lights of Cardiff's come to life in the growing dark of the afternoon. 'So, you’ve been having fun while I’ve been gone?' he asked.

'If by fun you mean late nights, no days off and shit every other day, then yeah, we’ve been having loads of fun.'

Jack felt thoroughly chastised by Owen's simple remark. 'Sorry.'

'Don’t be. You were gone. We moved on.'

Jack shifted in the seat, finding very little wriggle room. 'About that,' he began.

'We weren’t all sitting around crying in our teacups if that’s what you were about to ask.'

'You’re mad at me?' Jack asked.

'What do you reckon?' Owen sniped back. 'World nearly ends, you somehow come back from the dead and the next thing you nick off.'

Jack shook his head. 'It wasn’t how I planned it.'

'Hardly matters though, does it? You like to think this place just goes on without trying, but it doesn’t.'

'I wasn’t planning on staying away forever. I’d hoped to come back right where I left off. Things just got a little crazy.'

He knew it was only partly true. If and when he got his answers from The Doctor, he wasn’t sure what his next steps were. He intended on having a good time for a while, that much he knew. The last hundred years had been such a grind. All he really wanted was for someone to take over and be the one in charge so that he could just go along for the ride. He’d forgotten just how much better it was to not have responsibility for everyone else. Surely that was his reward for all the suffering he'd had to put up with since The Doctor had abandoned him on that game station all those years ago.

'You guys are more than capable. Torchwood doesn’t need me to keep it going,' he said.

'Oh, you think so, do you? That’s why the first thing you did was come back in all guns blazing, pushing us around with orders. '

'That’s not what I-'

'Yes, it is,' Owen said, cutting him off. 'You and Gwen were in a pissing competition within five minutes. She wasn’t a half bad replacement for you, I’ll admit, but none of us have been here as long as you. We don’t know half of what really goes on. We were forced to just make it up as we went.'

'Ianto knew.' Hadn't that been what he'd told himself as comfort?

Owen scoffed a laugh. 'More proof you have no idea. Teaboy was in all sorts trying to hold things together. I lost count of how many nights he was here trying to go through your files and lying to people on the phone about where you were. He was shit scared that they’d come shut us down if they found out you were gone. We all agreed to keep up the pretense, but any idiot could see the strain it took to keep everything on an even keel. He ran himself into the ground to keep things going.'

Jack went silent. He’d talked with Ianto for hours last night, tangled in the sheets, trying to make up for leaving. Ianto hadn’t mention any of this, though it was hardly surprising. Ianto wasn’t the kind to lay blame.

'You should be bloody grateful that Tosh is as smart as she is,' Owen said. 'She managed to hack into some of your secure files.'

Jack gripped the door. 'She did what?'

'Oh, no. You don’t get to be miffed. We needed that information. There wouldn’t even a city left to come back to if we hadn’t. All your bloody secrets nearly got us killed.'

'That wasn’t my intention.'

'Don’t care, Jack. Maybe everyone else is glad to have you back and all forgive and forget, but you screwed up. Think about how you’d feel if you'd come back and one or more of us weren’t here anymore, all because you had to keep everything a big secret. All because you fucked off and didn't give two thoughts as to what you were leaving behind.'

He didn’t think there'd been that many secrets. Clearly they knew some of it. Ianto would have told them whatever they needed to fill in the gaps. He knew enough about The Doctor from his Torchwood One days. Jack just hadn't ever mentioned that when the time came, he might leave. He supposed he’d always held on to the idea that the Doctor would hang around long enough for Jack to get his answers without having to leave Cardiff. He could show the Doctor all the work he’d done to change Torchwood for the better. Yes, he wanted answers, but he also wanted to show the Doctor he was better than he had been, and that he was the reason why. He'd built this team, and he'd been sure they would manage without him. What had he ever really done for them, except point the way?

'Gwen got engaged,' Jack said. 'Didn’t see that coming.'

'Don’t change the subject, Jack.'

He leant black in his seat, sulking. Even if he deserved it, it didn’t mean he had to like it. 'What do you want me to do?' Jack asked. 'I can apologise – again – but I get the feeling that doesn’t matter to you.'

'That’s where you’re wrong. You apologising matters a lot. I just don’t think you mean it.'

Jack wanted to say something vitriolic in his own defence but the words died on his tongue. He watched as the first raindrops fell from the darkening sky, dripping down the windshield like teardrops, catching the car lights in front of them, red and orange against a deepening blue.

'He can’t fix me,' Jack said, feeling utterly defeated.

Owen paused, checking the traffic both ways at a cross street. 'Your Doctor, you mean.'

'Yeah.'

Owen thought about this. 'You want to be fixed?'

'Yeah,' he replied. He’d had a long time to think about it this last year trapped on the Valiant. He'd died so many times, suffering every kind of pain imaginable. Every time he prayed it would be the last time, and that there would be no more pain after that. Spending last night with Ianto had made him certain of it. He didn’t want to stick around forever, watching all his friends and lovers die. He wanted just one life - one normal life - where he could love someone and grow old with them. And that was never going to happen now. He could have stayed with the Doctor and travelled for a very long time, but the thought of going on forever without any meaningful relationships was too awful to contemplate. He could see now just how lonely the Doctor was, and why he needed companions to travel with him. Jack needed someone too.

'So, what you're saying is we're stuck with you whether we like it or not?' Owen asked.

Jack heard the inflection of resignation. It wasn’t annoyance but rather acceptance. 'Yeah. I get the feeling I’m going to have a very long time to keep apologising.'

Owen grunted. 'S'pose there’s worse things.'

Comments

[bk_forever]

From Jack's POV I'd say there's nothing worse than having forever to keep apologising to the people he cares about, because they won't have forever and before long he'll be apologising for getting them killed...

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

Very true. It's hard for the others as well though, never really being able to truly understand what it must be like to be Jack.