jamoche

Title: Monster
Characters: Jack, Ianto
Rating: None
Tag to "Cyberwoman" - Jack and Ianto have a conversation.


Ianto carefully packed away the shattered pieces of the cyber converter. Nobody had asked him to - nobody had even talked to him since Lisa, or whatever it was that was left of her, had died - but he wasn't going to leave this particular mess behind for someone else to clean up. Not again.

"So, tell me exactly why you shouldn't lose the last, oh, three years, six months, and 18 days?"

Ianto hadn't heard Jack come in, despite having been expecting him. This was it; the end of Torchwood. Reset back to the idealistic person who'd signed up to protect England from unimaginable horrors. Ianto couldn't even remember who that person had been. "That's..." the day I met Lisa "before I'd ever heard of Torchwood," he said, stalling for time.

"So it is. But you haven't answered my question." Jack leaned against the doorway with a studied casualness that only had Ianto more on edge. "Consider yourself lucky. Thirty years ago, I'd have had to shoot you."

Something about the way Jack had phrased that struck Ianto as odd. He set it aside as a puzzle to be solved later - if there was a later. "Good thing we've got Retcon, then," he said, in a weak attempt to lighten the mood.

A misguided one. Ianto had thought an angry Jack had been frightening enough, but that was nothing to the cold menace he radiated now. "Yes, you'd think so. Typical Torchwood. All you people care about is what you can do with alien tech. You don't care who or what you hurt along the way." He stepped forward. "I took you in against my better judgement. Tell me why I shouldn't just shoot you."

Ianto frowned. "But you're..."

"A loyal member of Torchwood? Don't believe everything you read," Jack said bitterly. "My first ten years as a part of Torchwood was spent in a cell just like this one. After that, I found another way to be useful."

Ianto blinked. So many little details fell into place. "You're an alien."

Jack smiled, a twisted thing with no humour in it at all. "By your standards - yes. And I don't have to tell you what Torchwood's attitude towards aliens is."

Ianto had no trouble in reading the unsaid accusation. Monster, he'd called him, lashing out in anger and fear, but the word had to have cut deeper than he'd ever intended. He couldn't even argue that he wouldn't have gone along with whatever had been done to Jack - his thoughts shied away from some of the things he'd seen in the archives - because until he'd been faced with the reality of his Lisa vanishing into the depths of a research centre, he hadn't even given it a second thought. They were the first and only line of defence against incomprehensible alien threats; anything was justified so long as it protected the human race...and yet they'd practically given the Cybermen an engraved invitation. How had his whole life been twisted so badly? Maybe he deserved Retcon. Jack certainly deserved an explanation.

"You weren't there, after Canary Wharf," Ianto said. Jack had sent some of his people, had tracked all the reports, but hadn't shown up himself. "Damage control, they called it. Didn't want anyone to know what we'd been up to. How much of it was our fault. Who better to clean up the mess than the people who'd caused it? We couldn't give anything away - we already knew."

It was a relief to finally talk about this, even if he wasn't going to remember it after he was done. "If I was as loyal to Torchwood as you think, I'd have followed procedure." He didn't have to say what procedure was in this case. "But...I couldn't. When I found her, still alive, still Lisa..." He would have done anything for her - and had. Dr Tanizaki had known what he was getting into; he'd been more than eager to get his hands on the cyber technology, but Annie... How far would he have gone if Jack hadn't stopped him? "I thought..."

Jack was looking almost sympathetic, which was unexpected. "You thought that if you could save anyone, just one person, you wouldn't have failed," Jack said softly, staring off at a memory that Ianto decided he really didn't want to know about. "I know. I've...been almost as stupid as you were." He shook himself and glared at Ianto. "Damn it, what am I supposed to do with you? Why did you have to care about her?"

Then, you won't...? Ianto couldn't even bring himself to think the question. He didn't deserve mercy; he knew that now, finally, when it was too late.

Jack stared at him for what felt like an eternity. "Lie to me again, about anything, and I'll strip your memories so far back you won't even know your own name. Is that understood?"

Ianto nodded, almost too stunned to do anything else. This wasn't mercy; this was a second chance, and he knew he still had to earn it. "Understood. Sir."