fandomweekly | [#165] Unexpected Apology (Torchwood)

Theme Prompt: #165 – Apology
Title: Unexpected Apology
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating/Warnings: PG
Bonus: Yes.
Word Count: 1000
Summary: While the team are holed up in the St. David’s Hotel avoiding themselves, Jack surprises Ianto with a genuine apology.

“I’m sorry.”

The words were whispered so quietly Ianto had to strain his ears to hear. Jack’s head was bowed as he sat in the bath at the St. David’s hotel, letting the hot water soak away the residual muscle spasms from the broken back he’d suffered earlier when John Hart had thrown him off the roof of the office building.

“Sorry? It’s not like this is the first time I’ve had to take care of you post-resurrection. You know, I could get you some painkillers if you want.”

“No, I’ll be okay, the heat’s helping. Anyway, I didn’t mean about this. I’m sorry for what I did. I’m not sorry I left, but I am sorry for the way I left.” Jack looked up then, his face tired and drawn. “I’m not explaining myself very well, am I?”

“At least you’re trying, which makes a change. You don’t usually bother explaining yourself at all.” Ianto perched on the edge of the bath, so they could talk more or less face-to-face. Whatever Jack was trying to tell him, Ianto wanted to be able to look him in the eye; he was still angry with his captain, but he was willing to listen; he owed Jack that much. “So, let me get this straight; you’re sorry but you’re not?”

Jack shook his head. “It’s complicated. I had to leave when I did; I needed answers, needed to know what happened to me and why I can’t stay dead. You have to understand, I’d been waiting for over a century, and when I heard the TARDIS… I was ready, I’d been ready since the start of the millennium. I didn’t have to pack; all I needed was the clothes I was wearing, and the hand in its jar. I couldn’t wait around and explain, there wasn’t time. I didn’t know how long the Doctor would stop for, refuelling the TARDIS doesn’t take long, and I couldn’t miss my chance, so the moment I heard it materialising, I ran.”

“Without so much as leaving a note to tell us you were going,” Ianto pointed out. “You just abandoned us without a second thought.”

“Yes.”

“You’d been ready and waiting for years, but you didn’t have a note prepared, or an email waiting to be sent? I find that hard to believe.” Just because he was sympathetic to Jack’s suffering, that didn’t mean Ianto was going to let him off the hook so easily.

“I did, but…” Jack sighed heavily. “I forgave you, all of you, but you betrayed me, and that hurt; it wasn’t something I could just forget. It was petty and selfish, I know, but I guess I wanted to retaliate, just in a small way. Let you feel a bit of what I felt when you all turned against me.”

“A small way?” Ianto raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “You abandoned us for over three months without a word! We had no idea whether you’d left of your own free will or been abducted. Worse, we didn’t know if you’d ever come back! All those months we were struggling to keep things running, doing our best to keep anyone from finding out you’d gone missing, and you did it just to punish us?”

“No! It wasn’t like that!”

“But you just said…”

Jack cut Ianto off. “I had a note written, and I didn’t leave it because I figured you all deserved to worry, to wonder if I’d left for good. But the TARDIS is a time machine; I thought I could go with the Doctor, get my answers, maybe travel with him for a bit, take some time to put everything that happened behind me, and be back in a day or two. Just enough time for the rest of you to get worried. Like I said, I was being petty, and I’m not proud of it.”

“So why didn’t you come right back?”

“I couldn’t! I meant to, but everything went wrong.” There was a haunted look in Jack’s eyes before he turned away. “I can’t talk about it.”

“Typical, you never can; it’s always the same tired excuse. Well, speaking for the team, we’ve heard that before and we’re sick of it. Anything important, anything we need to know, you just clam up and say you can’t talk about it. Can’t you just be honest for once?”

“I’m sorry.” Jack’s shoulders slumped. “I do want to tell you; not the others, just you, but it’s too soon. I can’t.” His face paled and he shivered despite the steam enveloping him. “I don’t even want to think… For you, it was three months, but for me it was… a lot longer.”

Ianto reached for Jack’s shoulder, only to have him flinch away. He dropped his hand. “So you weren’t off having fun then.” It wasn’t a question.

“Not fun, no. Just, please don’t ask me to explain. Not yet, not when everything’s still so fresh in my mind.”

What could Ianto say to that? Jack was never one to beg, not like this. Sighing, he raked one hand through his hair. “Okay, I won’t ask, but I can’t make promises for the rest of the team.”

“I don’t expect you to. I really am sorry though. I would have come back sooner if I could have. I don’t expect you to forgive me, I just wanted you to know; you deserve to know. I never meant to leave you alone for so long.”

“I believe you.”

“Thank you.”

“The others though… I don’t think they’ll forgive you quite as easily as you forgave us.”

“It wasn’t your fault, opening the Rift. Not really. Bilis Manger manipulated all of you, playing on your wants and fears. You thought you were doing the right thing. Forgiving you was the easy part. None of us knew what would be unleashed.”

“We almost destroyed the world.”

Jack smiled faintly. “Been there, done that.”

“You forgave us our mistakes, Jack. We’ll forgive yours. Eventually.”

The End