[#181] Impossible To Keep (Torchwood)

[badly_knitted]

Theme Prompt: #181 – Broken Promise
Title: Impossible To Keep
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 / Canon character death.
Bonus: Yes.
Word Count: 1000
Summary: He’d promised to save her, but some promises are impossible to keep.



“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Ianto’s mum had told him when he was a boy. “And never make promises you don’t intend to keep.”

“I won’t, mum. I promise.”

“Do you? Because promises shouldn’t be made if you’re just going to break them. Promises aren’t just words, they’re bigger than that. It’s better to never promise anything at all than to break the promises you do make.” She talked to Ianto about commitments and honouring them, and how people would judge him not just by his actions but by his words. He didn’t understand all of it at the time, he was only seven, but it stayed with him, and he grew up with her words imprinted on his memory.

Since then, he’d always done his best to only make promises he could keep, and to keep the promises he made, but they’d all been minor things. Promises to phone family and friends, promises to take care of himself, promises to keep secrets, or repay favours. Until now.

“I’ll get you out of here, Lisa, I promise. It’s going to be alright. You’ll see.”

Foolish promises, made out of fear and desperation, but promises that he had every intention of keeping, because this was the woman he loved with all his heart, and the thought of failing her when she needed him the most never crossed his mind.

He’d freed her from the cyber-conversion unit, being as gentle as possible but knowing he was causing her unimaginable pain. He’d continued to reassure her, even after she passed out. He’d got her into a ‘borrowed’ Torchwood van and rigged up life-support, following her gasped instructions. Things had improved once the machinery was helping her to breathe.

After that, he’d found ways around the roadblocks UNIT and the National Guard put in place, got Lisa out of London, and a few hours later they were in Cardiff.

“We’ll be safe here. I’ll get us into Torchwood Three, they’ll have everything I need to take care of you. This is just the first step. I’ll find someone who can remove the implants, and when you’re better, we’ll run away together, start over somewhere nobody knows us, that’s a promise. It’s just going to take a while. You trust me, don’t you?”

“Yes, Ianto, of course I do.” Lisa managed a wan smile. “You always keep your promises.”

“Rest now; you need to conserve your strength. I’ll take care of everything. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Getting a job at Torchwood’s Cardiff branch had proved harder than Ianto had been expecting. Captain Harkness hadn’t wanted anything to do with a Torchwood One survivor, certainly hadn’t wanted one on his team, and Ianto had eventually resorted to bribery in the form of a prehistoric creature.

It hadn’t been his finest moment; for a while, rolling around with the Captain on the filthy warehouse floor, he’d felt so exhilarated from the thrill of capturing a Pteranodon that he’d almost forgotten why he was doing it. The guilt when he’d remembered had almost brought him to his knees, but his plan had worked, he’d gained access to the Hub, and that had been all that mattered.

Within days Lisa and her machinery were installed in the lower levels, where no one would stumble across her. Then it had simply been a matter of caring for her, protecting her from discovery, administering painkillers and sedatives in an effort to keep her as comfortable as possible while he did his job and used every spare minute to research experts in cyber-technology.

Doctor Tanizaki’s arrival should have been the beginning of Lisa’s recovery, but instead everything had started to fall apart. The team had returned too soon, Lisa had gone berserk, trying and failing to convert Tanizaki before rampaging through the Hub. Ianto had tried to defend her, tried to reason with her, only to have her lash out at him. Jack had held him at gunpoint, threatened to kill him if he didn’t kill Lisa…

He shuddered. How had it all gone so wrong? All he’d been trying to do was keep a promise to his girlfriend, and now Lisa was dead along with two other people. He’d tried so hard, done everything he could, but it hadn’t been enough.

Ianto sat dripping wet and shivering in the bathtub of the small flat he’d rented. He didn’t remember turning the shower off and sitting down. He knew he should move, but he couldn’t. Lisa stood in the bathroom’s open doorway, staring at him; she looked so hurt, so disappointed in him.

“You gave your word.” Her lips didn’t move, but he heard the words anyway.

“I know. I’m so sorry, Lise. I tried. I did everything I could!”

“It wasn’t enough.” She stepped forward and the bathroom light flickered, glinting off the metal implants. “You promised you’d save me, but you didn’t, and now I’m dead. How could you do that to me, Ianto?”

“You only have yourself to blame. I told you: Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” his mother’s voice reminded him. “No one will ever trust you again.”

“I’m sorry!”

Ianto jerked awake, sitting bolt upright. He was on the cramped single bed in his flat, the room in darkness except for a faint orange glow from the streetlamps outside, seeping through the threadbare curtains. There was a figure standing in the doorway, and for an instant he thought Lisa had followed him out of his nightmares.

“There was nothing you could have done.” Jack came towards the bed, looming over him. “The Lisa you knew was doomed the moment the cyber-conversion process began.”

“I failed her. I promised I’d save her, that I’d do whatever it took, and I broke my promise.”

“You had good intentions, but they aren’t always enough. You promised the impossible, Ianto; you can’t blame yourself for not being able to deliver.”

“Can’t I?”

“Let it go. Grieve for what you’ve lost, but don’t torture yourself. You tried.”


The End