sariagray | Elegiac

Title: Elegiac
Author:

sariagray
Characters/Pairings: Jack/Ianto (past), Gwen/Rhys, Esther, Rex, Mentions of original team.
Word Count: ~1200
Rating: PG13
Spoilers: MAJOR SPOILERS for S4:05, The Categories of Life. Also, all previous seasons, as well.
Warnings: Mentions of canon character deaths. Mentions of upsetting imagery as seen on the show. Language. Perhaps tissues should be had?
Disclaimer: I do not own Torchwood, its characters, or its environs, nor do I receive any monetary gain.

Beta:

analineblue ♥
Summary: See prompt in author’s notes.

Author's Note: Written for

siobhan_jane for her donation to help children in East Africa. She gave me a list of prompts from which to choose and I went with MD Related: A scene where Jack tells one of the MD newbies about Ianto. Preferably Rex....maybe starting out as an angry conversation? It got away from me a bit. Because that’s how I roll. I hope it works for you, hun, and thanks for your donation!

Elegiac

It was late at night in California and the lighting in the appropriated flat was a flickering red-orange. The dazzling image of a fire played on the wall in high definition, replacing the soothing blue of Torchwood’s software. Jack and Esther watched, wide-eyed and unblinking, while Rex sat hunched over, staring at the floor.

Gwen was grateful to be over eight thousand kilometers from that room like an oven, in the cool morning air of Wales. She thought it was grotesque enough to see it all play out in a little window on her laptop screen, as though they were intruding. She felt like a bloody voyeur, like the scum of humanity, just watching.

She’d seen Jack die many times, of course. She'd watched Owen get shot, and Toshiko bleed out, and she saw the CCTV of Ianto’s death, too. But those final moments had been dignified and resigned; they made her weep, not rampage. They were the culminations of tragic romances, like a Romeo and Juliet story for the new millennium. But this? This was horror, pure and simple, and she wanted to rage at Rex for just standing by, videotaping as this poor woman begged for help and was burned alive for her troubles.

She didn’t say a thing, though. It wouldn’t do any good now, and at least they could use the images to spread the word, to seek out retribution. They could stop this; this woman’s torment would not be in vain and she would make sure of it. She clutched Anwen tighter and thought of her father, choking back a sob. And Rhys. God, if that’d been him….

Gwen took a steadying breath. There was work to be done.

“Jack?”

He turned to the webcam, his eyes hollow black and pixilated.

“What now?” she prompted.

He nodded and stood, facing the rest of the ragged team. Gwen felt a small thrill when she saw the old Jack return, the leader she had once known, the man she would follow anywhere. The dancing flames played across his face, Vera’s distorted features superimposed over his own.

“Right,” he announced, hands on his hips. “We distribute this, get the word out, but we have to focus on what’s behind all –”

“No!” Rex shot up from his seat, snarling. “We don’t just sit by and wait for shit to happen. I don’t know how you handled things back in fucking Wales, but we’re in America and here we fight back against the bullshit.”

Jack glared. “We are fighting back, but we –”

Rex was in Jack’s face in a heartbeat, but all Gwen could see from her angle were their backs. She held her breath.

“Stop it, both of you!” Gwen heard Esther shout, but no one listened.

“I stood there as she died,” Rex ground out, “and there was nothing I could do to save her. Do you understand? Do you fucking understand that? No, of course you don’t. You’re too busy prancing around like some precious fucking drama queen to know what it’s like to watch your lover fucking die like that.”

Gwen gasped. She couldn’t see anything but the blurred lines of blue-grey wool, but she heard the crackling impact of bone-on-bone, and a thump, and then Jack stormed away, his coat swishing behind him. She hadn’t seen him like that in a long time, and she wished that she could run after him. Or maybe punch Rex some more. She kissed Anwen’s forehead and hushed her when she began to cry.

“What the fuck was that?” Rex asked, rubbing his jaw, and she glowered at the screen before cutting the connection, just in time to see Esther as she ran out the door after Jack.

***

Jack sat on a hard bench along the beach with his head in his hands. The rush of waves lapping at the shore, the gulls overhead, and the sharp twang of voices created enough white noise to drown his thoughts. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been out there when someone settled down tentatively next to him. He felt himself tense instinctively, ready to fight or flee, but he didn’t bother looking up.

“You okay?”

He smiled slightly, grateful for Esther’s presence even as he wanted to be left alone. She reminded him of Toshiko, eager to please and heal but never one to pry. He missed her; he missed all of them. Suzie’s determination, Owen’s passion, Tosh’s brilliance, Ianto’s strength….

“I will be, eventually,” he responded and turned his head sideways to look at her, still bent over as though his spine had given up.

It was sunny. God, how he missed his windswept, dark roofs in Cardiff. His brooding had fit in well there. Here, the beach was too much like his childhood home, all warm sand and bright sun and clear water, and he hated it. He wondered just when he had started to consider Cardiff a haven. Probably around the same time that it became his own personal graveyard.

“You lost someone you cared about, didn’t you?” she coaxed gently.

Jack’s laugh was bitter. “Too many times to count.” He shook his head. “You read through the 456 files, right?”

She blinked, shook her head, and Jack remembered that he’d retconned her. “No, I didn’t have clearance.”

“Well, alien threat, and all that. I – I went in with my – anyway, it was stupid, we weren’t prepared when they released a virus. And he died. In my arms, just…died. There was nothing I could do.” His voice broke on the last word and he cleared his throat.

“You loved him,” she said, sadly, like she understood.

He paused and then smiled a little. “Yeah, I did. No, I do. I miss him. Seeing Gwen again, being in the middle of all this, I didn’t expect it to hurt so much. It’s been over a year, almost two.” He let his head fall forward into his hands.

“Rex is an idiot,” she murmured and Jack looked up, sharply.

“Sometimes I wonder why I hired him,” Jack sighed.

Toshiko snorted, clearly still annoyed. “I do, too. He’s an idiot, Jack.”

He laughed.

“What?” she smiled. “It’s true.” She looked at him seriously, tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear. It didn’t stay there, the wind blowing it back in her face. “What was his name?”

“Ianto,” Jack breathed, the first time he’d said his name in months. It felt good, like a burden had been lifted, and he was lighter for it. He smiled at her. “I think he would’ve liked you.”

Esther beamed at that, the small praise (no, Jack corrected himself, not small at all, but she wouldn’t have known just what Ianto’s approval would have meant) making her radiant.

“He wouldn’t think you were useless, either,” he said, nudging her shoulder with his own. Then he sighed. “I didn’t realize how much I relied on him until he was gone.”

“Well,” she said, brightly. “You’ll just have to rely on us, now. Well. Not so much Rex….”

He chuckled, pulling her close and pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

“And you know, any time you want to talk about him…I’d like to know what he was like.”

Jack smiled and closed his eyes, nodding. “He was incredible. And I’d like that.”

She pulled back and stood, offering him her hand. “All right, Captain. Back to work. We’ve still got monsters to fight.”

He took her hand and then stood up.

The End

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