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antigwenallies Aug. 12th, 2008 01:54 pm)
adia313.livejournal.com posting in antigwenallies Aug. 12th, 2008 01:54 pm)Title: A Quiet Night at Work 3.4
Pairings: Rhys/Gwen, Jack/Ianto; unrequited Jack/Gwen
Spoilers: entire series, especially 2.12
Warnings: Language, off-screen violence, adult themes
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The rest of Torchwood and Rhys react to Gwen’s plot against Ianto.
Word Count: ~2200
*
Part 3.3
Owen rested his head in his hands and sighed wearily. His tea sat untouched by his elbow; since the confrontation at dinner, he hadn’t felt much like eating. He had no idea how to help Ianto. Over the past hour, Owen had started every scan and test that he could think to run. Until the machines were done, they couldn’t even start scouring the Archives for an antidote. It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack without knowing what a needle looked like. Jack seemed to think that the past would stop working after a couple days, but he couldn’t give a definite timeframe. They might have lost a field agent for the upcoming week, which sucked, but it might be worse for Ianto, who would have to be confined to the hub.
Owen barely jumped when Jack announced his arrival by resting his large hand at the nape of Owen’s neck. It was easy to remember a time when Jack’s touch had seemed off-putting, even intimidating, but Owen had quickly learned that it was unnatural for Jack Harkness to keep his hands off his friends. Owen didn’t have to admit that he enjoyed it, or that when things were getting particularly insane, that he craved it. If Jack was around, it meant that things would probably turn out all right. “What’s running?”
As quickly as he could, Owen explained the tests that he had started on the paste. He didn’t have to worry about using medical jargon: Jack knew enough about twenty-first century medicine to understand most of what Owen said.
“That’s good work. Ianto’s settling. We’ll get you his blood, and you can running that,” Jack said, and although Owen could tell that the captain meant it, Jack wasn’t smiling. When Jack leaned back against Owen’s desk, Owen sat in his chair. He looked up at Jack expectantly. “I fucked up, didn’t I?”
A little wryly, and a little earnestly (he’d known Jack for five years, but there were still times when the mysterious man terrified him), Owen asked, “You want me to be honest?”
“Usually.”
“Pretty royally,” Owen said softly.
Jack ruffled Owen’s hair, and Owen relaxed a little. This conversation was going to be between friends not between captain and medic, at least for the moment. “You’re obviously being promoted… or, re-promoted.”
Owen shrugged. He wasn’t sure that he deserved to be Jack’s second-in-command, not after how his last tenure in the position had ended. Shooting the boss and opening a rift in time and space, all over a woman he’d known less than a week, was not good form. But Ianto certainly wasn’t ready, and UNIT would sooner blow Cardiff off the map than liaise with Toshiko. “I don’t have much of a choice, do I?” He sighed.
“I know you don’t like it, and I wish I didn’t have to ask you,” Jack murmured. He didn’t even mention the possibility of Toshiko taking the position. “I’m sorry, Owen. I need you.”
“Okay,” Owen said heavily. He owed his sanity and his life to Jack Harkness. It was his responsibility to support Jack however he could.
“You’ll be fine,” Jack said.
Owen mumbled, “If you say so.”
“I do,” Jack responded, his voice reassuringly warm. Sometimes Owen wondered if he could get lost in Jack’s confidence, become the kid he’d never let himself be. On his worst days, he thought that it was worth losing Katie to get Jack’s friendship. But those were dangerous thoughts, and he tried to stop them whenever they cropped up. It was harder than ever, though, with Jack’s hands lightly massaging Owen’s tense neck and occasionally straying to Owen’s hair and face. He couldn’t remember a time when this sort of affection was strange.
“What’re you going to do to Gwen?”
“I’ve got an idea, but I’m open to suggestions,” Jack answered. Jack’s hands on Owen’s face drew the young man’s gaze up to meet his. He looked concerned, but more rational than Owen had expected considering what had happened.
“If we give her Level Five and convince Rhys to move her away, she might not be able to fight it this time,” Owen offered. He felt himself faltering as he remembered Suzie’s bullet-ridden body on his autopsy table for the second time.
Toshiko’s hesitant call interrupted their conversation. She was leaning over the railing above the autopsy bay. Usually composed, Toshiko looked downright distraught. Owen was relieved that Jack beckoned her down. When the captain gathered her beneath his arm, Owen felt a stab of jealousy—what right did he have to be jealous?—and a touch of relief that he hadn’t needed to comfort her.
“Security footage backs up your suspicions,” Toshiko said in a small voice. “She dosed him.”
“Thank you, sweetheart,” Jack murmured.
“What are you going to do with her?”
“That’s the question of the hour.”
“Oh.”
“If you’ve got an opinion on the matter, I’d love to hear it,” Jack murmured. “Owen’s trying to push me toward retcon.”
Toshiko whispered, “Whatever you think is best.” She let Jack do as he wished when he was in these sorts of mood, and Owen made a different plan to bomb UNIT every time she did. How did she not see that Jack valued her opinion? Jack would let her get away with anything.
Jack smiled, that gentle smile that Owen imagined fathers smiled at their children. When he’d gotten over feeling condescended to by Jack, he started to realize that they were simply younger than Jack, that Jack was never condescending, not really. “Tell me what you think, Tosh.”
“Well… she has resisted retcon. As long as you revoke her security clearance, she wouldn’t be able to get into the hub again, and… I mean, no one’s going to believe some mad woman who claims that she’s led Torchwood. Why bother with retcon?”
“That’s my girl,” Jack said, and the gentle smiled widened. “I think we’re on the same page. Tosh, call Rhys. Owen, come on. I want to be there when you test Ianto.”
*
Rhys leaned against the desk in the tourism office and flipped through a pamphlet on Cardiff Castle. The room smelled like a Starbucks, only better, with a touch of something disturbingly like mold beneath the sink. After a rather tense phone call from Jack, he’d rushed to the hub, but he hadn’t seen anyone in nearly half an hour. He knew where to get downstairs, but not how, and he was staring to worry that the head of Torchwood would think that Rhys had ignored his summons. That probably wouldn’t be great for Gwen’s career—not that he felt in the mood to do her any favors at that moment. She’d been downright unbearable lately. It was like living with a different person.
Before Rhys could really panic, sirens wailed and a door rolled aside. That pretty Japanese girl—Toshiko, he was 95% sure—walked through. Smiling weakly, she said, “I’m terribly sorry about the wait. Please come down. We’ve been a bit busy this evening.”
“Aliens?” Rhys asked. He hated himself a little for feeling so excited. That mentality was what had changed Gwen.
Toshiko shook her head slowly. “Jack will explain,” she whispered.
His insides twisted and melted. Rhys might have his concerns about settling down with Gwen, but that hardly meant he didn’t love her. He did, and dearly. He couldn’t imagine a life without Gwen in it, and he’d kill Jack Harkness as many times as it took for the death to take if Torchwood took her away from him. Weakly, he asked, “Is Gwen…?”
“She’s fine. Well, she was fine when I came up. Whether Jack’s been able to restrain himself in the interim…”
Leaving good manners by the wayside, Rhys shoved past Toshiko and catapulted down to the hub. He calmed down as soon as he reached the hub. Jack was sitting on the rickety old sofa, looking much more like a concerned lover than a dangerous warrior. Ianto had tried to lie in Jack’s lap, but the tall, lanky youth hung half off the sofa even with his shoulder and torso over Jack’s legs. Jack’s hands moved slowly and intentionally beneath Ianto’s shirt. It looked like Jack knew what he was doing. Maybe he’d been a masseur in one of his lives. His face was buried between Jack’s hip and the arm of the sofa, and he’d flung his arm out. Kneeling beside them, Owen Harper had a few vials of blood in one hand and was carefully filling another.
“What’s going on?” Rhys demanded. He rushed toward his fiancée’s coworkers. “Where’s Gwen? What happened?”
Ianto answered in an indistinct murmur. Simultaneously, Jack growled, “Don’t ask any questions when Ianto’s in the room. Gwen’s poisoned him.”
The floor might as well have dropped out from under him. “What do you mean, poisoned?”
“He means exactly what he said,” Owen snapped. He pressed a cotton ball to the wound in Ianto’s elbow and taped it down carefully. “She stole a piece of alien technology and used it Ianto without authorization. He can’t stop himself from answering any question he hears.”
Rhys had noticed the worrying changes in Gwen’s attitude toward her job and her coworkers; her superiority complex had started to bother him ages ago. At first, it had been understandable: special ops and all that. But what happened when she thought she was beyond the rules of an organization that operated outside the law? “Where is she?”
Jack snapped, “In the vaults with the other monsters.”
Rhys knew that he should have protested, but Jack’s reaction overwhelmed him so that standing was difficult, never mind forming an argument. Torchwood was about to wash its hands of Gwen. From Gwen’s vague stories about how intense Torchwood was, Rhys had a good idea about what would happen next.
“What are—I’m sorry,” Rhys said when Jack glared at him. “I would like to know what’s going to happen to Gwen.”
“Congratulations, Mr. Williams,” Jack said, and Toshiko handed Rhys a thick manila folder. “You’ve just won an all-expense paid, three-month vacation to Swansea.”
“Swansea? What the hell do I want to go to Swansea for?”
“Because,” mumbled Owen, “Gwen is going to Swansea.”
Just as Rhys was about to pop one of Gwen’s arrogant coworkers, Jack explained, “UNIT has a training camp there. Gwen will report for basic at 0530 on Monday morning. She’ll have to stay in the barracks during the week, but she should have a couple hours R&R each day, maybe all day on Sunday if she keeps up.”
“I didn’t think Torchwood had anything to do with UNIT,” Rhys said vaguely. He was too stunned. He couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Not usually, no,” Jack said heavily. “I called in a lot of favors—all my favors. I think I’m officially persona non grata with UNIT now.”
Rhys set the manila folder on the nearest desk, on top of piles of unintelligible paperwork. “What if I don’t want to go to Swansea?” He couldn’t believe the words were leaving his mouth, but there they went—and he meant them.
If Rhys had expected an indignant response from Gwen’s coworkers, then he was sorely disappointed. Toshiko and Owen exchanged indifferent smirks as Jack said, “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to. I just wanted you to have the option. I am sorry about this, about Gwen, but I can’t let this stand.”
“I know,” Rhys sighed. “Will you--?”
Matter-of-factly, Jack interrupted him, “Ask a question, and I’ll rip your tongue out.”
“Jack, please, he wasn’t being malicious,” Ianto whispered. He made a halfhearted attempt to flip onto his back, but Jack rested his hand at the small of Ianto’s back, holding him in place so that even if he was asked a question, his response would be muffled and possibly unintelligible.
“I would like to know what you’ll do to Gwen when she’s finished at UNIT.”
“If she’s figured out how to work with people, I’ll let her back. I can’t stop her from moving back to Cardiff once UNIT’s done with her, whether I hire her back or not.”
“I understand,” Rhys whispered.
“Tosh is going to take you home. The rest of us have more work to do.”
Rhys was so relieved that the interview was over. He would never forget Ianto’s fear, the horrific results of Gwen’s leap to judgment. He let Toshiko lead him to her car and drive him home. It was a relief not to have to drive. He couldn’t focus on anything except Gwen, memories of the girl he’d fallen in love with at college, the sweet, loving, tolerant girl. She’d changed. He didn’t think he’d ever stop loving her, but he didn’t think that he could live with her, either. Knowing that he knew what she was capable of, the deception, the sneakiness, the violence, he wouldn’t trust her in his home. Never mind that her fixation on Ianto just proved what he’d always suspected about Gwen’s feelings for Jack. All he’d have to do would be to look at her oddly, or to look at someone or something she wanted, and who knew what she’d do to him. It would probably be better to rip her out of his life at once, like a Band-Aid. He was infinitely grateful to Jack Harkness for giving him the opportunity to do just that.
*
Thanks for reading! I’ll appreciate any feedback you have a chance to offer.
Pairings: Rhys/Gwen, Jack/Ianto; unrequited Jack/Gwen
Spoilers: entire series, especially 2.12
Warnings: Language, off-screen violence, adult themes
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The rest of Torchwood and Rhys react to Gwen’s plot against Ianto.
Word Count: ~2200
*
Part 3.3
Owen rested his head in his hands and sighed wearily. His tea sat untouched by his elbow; since the confrontation at dinner, he hadn’t felt much like eating. He had no idea how to help Ianto. Over the past hour, Owen had started every scan and test that he could think to run. Until the machines were done, they couldn’t even start scouring the Archives for an antidote. It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack without knowing what a needle looked like. Jack seemed to think that the past would stop working after a couple days, but he couldn’t give a definite timeframe. They might have lost a field agent for the upcoming week, which sucked, but it might be worse for Ianto, who would have to be confined to the hub.
Owen barely jumped when Jack announced his arrival by resting his large hand at the nape of Owen’s neck. It was easy to remember a time when Jack’s touch had seemed off-putting, even intimidating, but Owen had quickly learned that it was unnatural for Jack Harkness to keep his hands off his friends. Owen didn’t have to admit that he enjoyed it, or that when things were getting particularly insane, that he craved it. If Jack was around, it meant that things would probably turn out all right. “What’s running?”
As quickly as he could, Owen explained the tests that he had started on the paste. He didn’t have to worry about using medical jargon: Jack knew enough about twenty-first century medicine to understand most of what Owen said.
“That’s good work. Ianto’s settling. We’ll get you his blood, and you can running that,” Jack said, and although Owen could tell that the captain meant it, Jack wasn’t smiling. When Jack leaned back against Owen’s desk, Owen sat in his chair. He looked up at Jack expectantly. “I fucked up, didn’t I?”
A little wryly, and a little earnestly (he’d known Jack for five years, but there were still times when the mysterious man terrified him), Owen asked, “You want me to be honest?”
“Usually.”
“Pretty royally,” Owen said softly.
Jack ruffled Owen’s hair, and Owen relaxed a little. This conversation was going to be between friends not between captain and medic, at least for the moment. “You’re obviously being promoted… or, re-promoted.”
Owen shrugged. He wasn’t sure that he deserved to be Jack’s second-in-command, not after how his last tenure in the position had ended. Shooting the boss and opening a rift in time and space, all over a woman he’d known less than a week, was not good form. But Ianto certainly wasn’t ready, and UNIT would sooner blow Cardiff off the map than liaise with Toshiko. “I don’t have much of a choice, do I?” He sighed.
“I know you don’t like it, and I wish I didn’t have to ask you,” Jack murmured. He didn’t even mention the possibility of Toshiko taking the position. “I’m sorry, Owen. I need you.”
“Okay,” Owen said heavily. He owed his sanity and his life to Jack Harkness. It was his responsibility to support Jack however he could.
“You’ll be fine,” Jack said.
Owen mumbled, “If you say so.”
“I do,” Jack responded, his voice reassuringly warm. Sometimes Owen wondered if he could get lost in Jack’s confidence, become the kid he’d never let himself be. On his worst days, he thought that it was worth losing Katie to get Jack’s friendship. But those were dangerous thoughts, and he tried to stop them whenever they cropped up. It was harder than ever, though, with Jack’s hands lightly massaging Owen’s tense neck and occasionally straying to Owen’s hair and face. He couldn’t remember a time when this sort of affection was strange.
“What’re you going to do to Gwen?”
“I’ve got an idea, but I’m open to suggestions,” Jack answered. Jack’s hands on Owen’s face drew the young man’s gaze up to meet his. He looked concerned, but more rational than Owen had expected considering what had happened.
“If we give her Level Five and convince Rhys to move her away, she might not be able to fight it this time,” Owen offered. He felt himself faltering as he remembered Suzie’s bullet-ridden body on his autopsy table for the second time.
Toshiko’s hesitant call interrupted their conversation. She was leaning over the railing above the autopsy bay. Usually composed, Toshiko looked downright distraught. Owen was relieved that Jack beckoned her down. When the captain gathered her beneath his arm, Owen felt a stab of jealousy—what right did he have to be jealous?—and a touch of relief that he hadn’t needed to comfort her.
“Security footage backs up your suspicions,” Toshiko said in a small voice. “She dosed him.”
“Thank you, sweetheart,” Jack murmured.
“What are you going to do with her?”
“That’s the question of the hour.”
“Oh.”
“If you’ve got an opinion on the matter, I’d love to hear it,” Jack murmured. “Owen’s trying to push me toward retcon.”
Toshiko whispered, “Whatever you think is best.” She let Jack do as he wished when he was in these sorts of mood, and Owen made a different plan to bomb UNIT every time she did. How did she not see that Jack valued her opinion? Jack would let her get away with anything.
Jack smiled, that gentle smile that Owen imagined fathers smiled at their children. When he’d gotten over feeling condescended to by Jack, he started to realize that they were simply younger than Jack, that Jack was never condescending, not really. “Tell me what you think, Tosh.”
“Well… she has resisted retcon. As long as you revoke her security clearance, she wouldn’t be able to get into the hub again, and… I mean, no one’s going to believe some mad woman who claims that she’s led Torchwood. Why bother with retcon?”
“That’s my girl,” Jack said, and the gentle smiled widened. “I think we’re on the same page. Tosh, call Rhys. Owen, come on. I want to be there when you test Ianto.”
*
Rhys leaned against the desk in the tourism office and flipped through a pamphlet on Cardiff Castle. The room smelled like a Starbucks, only better, with a touch of something disturbingly like mold beneath the sink. After a rather tense phone call from Jack, he’d rushed to the hub, but he hadn’t seen anyone in nearly half an hour. He knew where to get downstairs, but not how, and he was staring to worry that the head of Torchwood would think that Rhys had ignored his summons. That probably wouldn’t be great for Gwen’s career—not that he felt in the mood to do her any favors at that moment. She’d been downright unbearable lately. It was like living with a different person.
Before Rhys could really panic, sirens wailed and a door rolled aside. That pretty Japanese girl—Toshiko, he was 95% sure—walked through. Smiling weakly, she said, “I’m terribly sorry about the wait. Please come down. We’ve been a bit busy this evening.”
“Aliens?” Rhys asked. He hated himself a little for feeling so excited. That mentality was what had changed Gwen.
Toshiko shook her head slowly. “Jack will explain,” she whispered.
His insides twisted and melted. Rhys might have his concerns about settling down with Gwen, but that hardly meant he didn’t love her. He did, and dearly. He couldn’t imagine a life without Gwen in it, and he’d kill Jack Harkness as many times as it took for the death to take if Torchwood took her away from him. Weakly, he asked, “Is Gwen…?”
“She’s fine. Well, she was fine when I came up. Whether Jack’s been able to restrain himself in the interim…”
Leaving good manners by the wayside, Rhys shoved past Toshiko and catapulted down to the hub. He calmed down as soon as he reached the hub. Jack was sitting on the rickety old sofa, looking much more like a concerned lover than a dangerous warrior. Ianto had tried to lie in Jack’s lap, but the tall, lanky youth hung half off the sofa even with his shoulder and torso over Jack’s legs. Jack’s hands moved slowly and intentionally beneath Ianto’s shirt. It looked like Jack knew what he was doing. Maybe he’d been a masseur in one of his lives. His face was buried between Jack’s hip and the arm of the sofa, and he’d flung his arm out. Kneeling beside them, Owen Harper had a few vials of blood in one hand and was carefully filling another.
“What’s going on?” Rhys demanded. He rushed toward his fiancée’s coworkers. “Where’s Gwen? What happened?”
Ianto answered in an indistinct murmur. Simultaneously, Jack growled, “Don’t ask any questions when Ianto’s in the room. Gwen’s poisoned him.”
The floor might as well have dropped out from under him. “What do you mean, poisoned?”
“He means exactly what he said,” Owen snapped. He pressed a cotton ball to the wound in Ianto’s elbow and taped it down carefully. “She stole a piece of alien technology and used it Ianto without authorization. He can’t stop himself from answering any question he hears.”
Rhys had noticed the worrying changes in Gwen’s attitude toward her job and her coworkers; her superiority complex had started to bother him ages ago. At first, it had been understandable: special ops and all that. But what happened when she thought she was beyond the rules of an organization that operated outside the law? “Where is she?”
Jack snapped, “In the vaults with the other monsters.”
Rhys knew that he should have protested, but Jack’s reaction overwhelmed him so that standing was difficult, never mind forming an argument. Torchwood was about to wash its hands of Gwen. From Gwen’s vague stories about how intense Torchwood was, Rhys had a good idea about what would happen next.
“What are—I’m sorry,” Rhys said when Jack glared at him. “I would like to know what’s going to happen to Gwen.”
“Congratulations, Mr. Williams,” Jack said, and Toshiko handed Rhys a thick manila folder. “You’ve just won an all-expense paid, three-month vacation to Swansea.”
“Swansea? What the hell do I want to go to Swansea for?”
“Because,” mumbled Owen, “Gwen is going to Swansea.”
Just as Rhys was about to pop one of Gwen’s arrogant coworkers, Jack explained, “UNIT has a training camp there. Gwen will report for basic at 0530 on Monday morning. She’ll have to stay in the barracks during the week, but she should have a couple hours R&R each day, maybe all day on Sunday if she keeps up.”
“I didn’t think Torchwood had anything to do with UNIT,” Rhys said vaguely. He was too stunned. He couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Not usually, no,” Jack said heavily. “I called in a lot of favors—all my favors. I think I’m officially persona non grata with UNIT now.”
Rhys set the manila folder on the nearest desk, on top of piles of unintelligible paperwork. “What if I don’t want to go to Swansea?” He couldn’t believe the words were leaving his mouth, but there they went—and he meant them.
If Rhys had expected an indignant response from Gwen’s coworkers, then he was sorely disappointed. Toshiko and Owen exchanged indifferent smirks as Jack said, “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to. I just wanted you to have the option. I am sorry about this, about Gwen, but I can’t let this stand.”
“I know,” Rhys sighed. “Will you--?”
Matter-of-factly, Jack interrupted him, “Ask a question, and I’ll rip your tongue out.”
“Jack, please, he wasn’t being malicious,” Ianto whispered. He made a halfhearted attempt to flip onto his back, but Jack rested his hand at the small of Ianto’s back, holding him in place so that even if he was asked a question, his response would be muffled and possibly unintelligible.
“I would like to know what you’ll do to Gwen when she’s finished at UNIT.”
“If she’s figured out how to work with people, I’ll let her back. I can’t stop her from moving back to Cardiff once UNIT’s done with her, whether I hire her back or not.”
“I understand,” Rhys whispered.
“Tosh is going to take you home. The rest of us have more work to do.”
Rhys was so relieved that the interview was over. He would never forget Ianto’s fear, the horrific results of Gwen’s leap to judgment. He let Toshiko lead him to her car and drive him home. It was a relief not to have to drive. He couldn’t focus on anything except Gwen, memories of the girl he’d fallen in love with at college, the sweet, loving, tolerant girl. She’d changed. He didn’t think he’d ever stop loving her, but he didn’t think that he could live with her, either. Knowing that he knew what she was capable of, the deception, the sneakiness, the violence, he wouldn’t trust her in his home. Never mind that her fixation on Ianto just proved what he’d always suspected about Gwen’s feelings for Jack. All he’d have to do would be to look at her oddly, or to look at someone or something she wanted, and who knew what she’d do to him. It would probably be better to rip her out of his life at once, like a Band-Aid. He was infinitely grateful to Jack Harkness for giving him the opportunity to do just that.
*
Thanks for reading! I’ll appreciate any feedback you have a chance to offer.
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Although I do feel sorry for Janet, she's not nearly as big a monster as Gwen is. Lol
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:)
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You wrote more!
Loving this series, as always, and I can't wait for more.
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Thank you.
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Please may we have some more??
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So Jack has been training Ianto to be his second?
I would love to see a sequel with that.