Fandomweekly Challenge 35 - The monster within

[m_findlow]

Title: The monster within
Fandom: Torchwood
Author: m_findlow
Rating: M (language)
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Challenge 35 - Mirror mirror at fandomweekly
Summary: Jack despises himself and their current situation.

'All that deception because he couldn't bear to live without her,' Gwen muses. Her words cut painfully close to something I can't put my finger on, but it leaves me unsettled all the same. I try and shove the feeling aside. It's just the lack of sleep in the past twenty-four hours playing tricks on me.

The view of the hub from out through the boardroom windows drops out of focus. I can't stand there and watch Ianto any longer, just wandering around down there and picking up after everyone like nothing has happened. As his image blurs another one comes into focus. One of Gwen just off to my side and then right in front of me, the image of my own face.

I watch the expression turn hard and scowl back at me. The cut on my lip is still as angry and red as it was last night. I hate seeing it there. I wish it would've healed by now so that I wouldn't have to look at it. Funny how I can die and that's okay - a few minutes for a quick death, an hour maybe for something a little more brutal, and it's back to business as usual - but the cuts and bruises, the broken bones and the common colds take their good sweet time. Having your neck torn apart by a weevil is fixed before your soon to be newest recruit can even lay a sympathetic hand on it, but the same guy decks you for letting a giant prehistoric bird attack his girlfriend and you're sporting the results for days. Maybe the time it takes to heal is inversly related to how much I deserved it at the time. If I'd been in his shoes, the guy who'd done that to me would have gotten a lot more than a solid right hook for his troubles.

Let me tell you, it is impossible to be angry at someone who tries to move heaven and earth for the person they love more than life itself. How do I know this? Because I've probably done it more times than anyone who has ever lived. Being mad at someone who lies to you and pulls the wool over your eyes? That's a different matter. If I'm honest, it's myself I'm mad at, because I never thought anyone could be as good a liar as me. Now I know how everyone else must feel.

I need Gwen to go. I can feel her eyes boring into the back of me. Yeah, it's easy to stand there and judge someone else - to advocate for the guy who's been hardly done by - when you're not the one having to make the call as to whether to you take him out for the safety of everyone else. Easy to feel sorry for someone when it's not you they kept their secrets from. A little white lie here and there is okay. Hiding something in your basement that has the capability of destroying the whole world? Yeah, you try to see if you can see things from their point of view. Someone has to be the guy everybody hates for making the tough decisions.

'Can you go see if Tosh needs help recalibrating those damaged servers?'

She nods and leaves, but not before resting a hand on my elbow, just for a moment. It's all I can do not to flinch away from the touch. The sentiment comes from a good place but it doesn't make it any easier to take.

You stupid son of a bitch. Why didn't you just come clean from the beginning? What might we have done differently if we'd known? We might have at least given her a peaceful end; a painless one. We could have let Ianto down gently, explained why it was impossible to save her. We could have given him the chance to say goodbye properly. Then again, we didn't know him like we do now, assuming we know him at all. We would have taken her and destroyed her, locked him up and thrown away the key if he resisted us, or retconned him back so far that Torchwood would cease to exist for him.

Maybe that's cruel, but maybe letting him suffer like he is now is crueller still. A few days worth of memories and we could rewrite the story - say that she attacked him and we saved him. It's partly true, but there's too many people involved. One of them is going to slip up at some point, Gwen or Tosh most likely. The truth will come out, just like it always does. We'll all have to face up to what up we've done, Ianto included.

Ianto got one thing right, though. There's only one monster here now and I'm staring him right in the face. Ianto just doesn't know how close he came to not surviving. I know what I would've done if push came to shove. People who cross me don't have a good record of coming out the other side. I'm not proud of it, but it's true.

And now we have to find a way to move past it and keep going. By coming back, Ianto has made his choice. It's probably the right choice, or maybe it's just a lack of viable alternatives. One thing I've learned about Torchwood is that it isn't done with you until you're dead and buried - sometimes not even then. It seems like Ianto knows that, too.

I look back down at where he's standing there clutching the now full bin bag full of rubbish. He looks up again, bites the inside of his lip and then walks off, tying up the bag as he goes. There's that silent stoicism these Brits are famous for - keep calm and carry on, and all that shtick. How can he look me in the eye and tell me we made the right choice when I can't even face myself and believe it?