Fic: trudging along
Feb. 29th, 2024 03:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jupiter2932Title: trudging along
Author:jupiter2932
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating: T
Word Count: 2969
Characters: Ianto, Gwen, Tosh, Owen, Jack
Notes: Written for Febuwhump, day 23: Human Weapon (alternate prompt)
Content Notes: part five of the our blank to fill series, so like all others, blanket series warnings for rape/the aftermath of rape, ptsd, anxiety, flashbacks, and dissociation
Summary: The thing about other people is that they don't stop being the people they are just because you're having a bad time. Ianto hasn't forgotten this, but sometimes he wishes he could.
or;
Ianto talks with Gwen, and he talks with Tosh, and he overhears a conversation he wasn't meant to, and none of it is easy.
Gwen comes to him eleven days after the kidnapping.
She picks a good time; Jack and Tosh are out on a call, Owen's busy finishing an autopsy in the morgue, and Ianto's at his desk in the tourist centre, doing some rote data entry about visits to the centre.
He's not sure, sometimes, why they bother to keep up the front when it feels like everyone in Cardiff knows about Torchwood, but as long as they do he is going to do it to the best of his abilities.
Plus, it gets him out of the Hub when he needs some breathing space.
Gwen heads outside with a nod and comes back just a few minutes later with five paper cups in two cup carriers and a bag of pastries. Ianto wasn't surprised to see her go—whatever she and Owen had going on, it's well and truly over now, and they haven't seemed too keen on spending time around each other one-on-one—but he isn't expecting her back so soon, and has to shoot out of his chair to help her with the door.
"Oh, thanks, Ianto," she says. She's smiling, but it's an obvious put-on.
It's probably something to do with Owen or Rhys, Ianto knows, and so it's not any of his business—and, frankly, not something he even remotely wants to get involved with—but, still. She's not a bad sort, Gwen, though it took everyone a few weeks to get used to the new dynamic she brought to the team with her.
She has a kind heart, anyway.
"Thanks," he says when she sets a cup and a danish in a napkin by his computer.
She lingers, though, stops by the edge of his desk where the small brochure stand that broke during last week's unexpected scuffle used to sit.
"Are you," Ianto starts, when she clears her throat and doesn't move. "Can I help you with anything?"
"Oh," she says, and smiles, then grimaces, then jerks the hand that's holding the pastry bag up. "No, I'm fine, thank you. I just—"
So, not about Owen, then. Oh, God. Is it Jack? Of course Jack's free to see whomever he likes, and it's even less of Ianto's business if he wants to—
"I think there's something you should know," she says. She's got that look on her, the one she gives to victims who can't be Retconned, and his stomach sinks.
God. If she and Jack are—
"Listen," he starts. "If you and Jack, if you—"
Her splutter has him rocking back on his heels.
"Oh, Ianto," she says, and she gives him a wobbly smile, and her eyes tear up. "Ianto, sweetheart. No. No, Jack wouldn't—I mean, no, not at all. All right?"
He lets go the grip he had on the back of his chair—and when did he stand up?—and nods.
Not that it would be any of his concern.
Gwen shifts her weight to her right foot and bites her lip. "It's something—sweetheart, the first time I submitted my report on your—on the fingerprints we picked up at the office in Pentyrch, there was a glitch, and some of my files didn't go through. So after I resubmitted them, I went in again, last night, to make sure there hadn't been any other problems. I wanted to make sure there wouldn't be any mistakes when they prosecuted them. So I double-checked all of the evidence files we submitted."
His hands feel light, where they're sitting on the chair back. Numb, sort of.
"I noticed there was a mismatch in the number of files we submitted with the report, so I double-checked them and saw that Owen had submitted them. DNA profiles."
She doesn't go on, but she doesn't need to. Ianto took a peek at Owen and Jack's reports after they went out to UNIT; there was seminal fluid recovered from his neck and from his underwear, and a pubic hair that transferred to the inside of Jack's greatcoat, which is why Owen bundled Ianto into his own coat for his ride back home, the night of.
"I wouldn't have looked if I'd known," Gwen says. Her eyes are wet, still, and her voice is very soft. "I just wanted to make sure none of them got set loose because of a mistake, and when I saw—I'm so sorry I didn't notice, when we found you. That something was wrong."
She moves like she's going to reach out to him; she doesn't, just setting the coffee caddy down on the desk, but Ianto takes half a step back reflexively.
"If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine," Gwen says. "But I'm here if you do, all right? Or for anything you need, just say the word, yeah?"
He nods, because he doesn't think she'll go until he makes some sign he's heard her, and she mumbles a watery, "Good, okay, then," and heads off into the Hub proper with the coffees.
She forgets the pastry bag on the desk, but she doesn't come back out to get them. Ianto sets them down by his computer, after a while, but doesn't eat even the one Gwen gave him. His coffee sits untouched until, an hour or two later, he takes a sip out of habit and realizes it's gone cold. He sets it down and forgets about it, finishes up the photo he's working on and clicks to the next, puts in the description of the artefact and the history of its discovery, Jack's handwritten notes and speculation about its provenance and use, types it all up in the program he and Tosh adapted for the purpose, clicks on to the next.
And the next, and the next, and then he has to lock up his computer and get up from behind his desk because a group of French tourists drop in asking for information on historical tours in Cardiff, but after that he sits back down and brings up the program again and pulls up a picture and types up another and another and another until Jack says, "Hey, Ianto," and Ianto starts and sees him leaning up against the side of the desk where Gwen stood earlier, looking over at him with a polite smile and what might be concern in the slightest scrunching of his eyebrows.
"Hello," Ianto says knee-jerk, and then, dumbly, "It's dark," when he catches sight of the Plass through the front door and it has, in fact, gone dark outside since the last time he looked up.
He can't remember when it was, the last time he looked up. He must have, when the tourists came. At some point after that again, he's sure.
Everything after Gwen passed by's gone fuzzy, though.
"You planning on heading home soon?" Jack asks. He looks at Ianto for another second, then crosses over to the front door and locks it. "I have tea brewing in the Hub if you don't have anything pressing."
He doesn't have anything pressing, which Jack, being his boss, knows perfectly well. And it is late, enough Jack will probably call him on it and kick him out again if he tries to stay much longer—or, worse, try to get him to talk about it, which is probably what the tea is about, if everyone else has already left.
Thinking about talking right now—about laying it all out—makes Ianto want to throw up just a little, at the moment. No talking. But—
"I haven't had supper," he says instead, glancing up to meet Jack's eyes for a second before he has to look away. If they go out, there will be other people around and Jack won't expect him to talk about—about the thing. Or about Gwen. In fact Jack will probably be all right if Ianto doesn't want to talk at all. "Pub? If any of the others are still around—"
Jack smiles. "Just us, but I could use a square meal. Lead on, Ianto!"
Ianto wonders if he imagines the forced cheer, but decides it doesn't matter. If Jack had things he'd rather be doing, he probably wouldn't have offered tea in the first place. If he had somewhere else he'd rather be—someone else he'd rather be with—
"Coming?" Jack asks, holding out Ianto's jacket by the collar.
Ianto takes it and goes.
Gwen doesn't bring it up again, but she starts asking him how he's doing every morning. She tries to keep it lowkey, obviously, and never presses him for details, but it's noticeable enough, especially when she couples it with an end to any griping about taking over for any field runs that would normally be assigned to him.
Owen gives them both long, knowing looks one day, and Jack pats him on the back approvingly like Ianto's done something brave, talking to someone else about what happened.
Ianto doesn't bother to correct their misconception.
Tosh he doesn't find out about until later.
It's just shy of a month, since.
They go out, the two of them, on what was supposed to be a simple Rift Artefact Retrieval but end up staking out a small corner shop they're concerned is a front for—hell, god knows what. Something involving an alien artefact and people going in and out of the place in small groups at odd hours.
Ianto wonders, briefly, if Jack had suspected some of this and was trying to get Ianto used to missions involving other people again, but he dismisses it after thinking it over. Jack's left it up to him, when he wants to go back to proper fieldwork, and Ianto doesn't think he'd try to trick him like this.
This is a pretty good way to ease back in again, anyway, even if it's accident. It's all just sitting in a car with Tosh and watching a building. The only time he has to interact with anyone else is when, after several hours of waiting, when the sun has definitively set, he goes into the shop and buys some chips and drinks. Tosh offers to go, but he pretends he doesn't know why and says he'd like to stretch his legs.
He almost has a panic attack on the walk back to the SUV, has to count his breathing and clutches the sodas so hard that the indents from their caps bite into his palm.
It's not something Tosh needs to know, though, and, luckily, she's distracted chatting with Owen on a private channel over the comms when he ducks back inside.
"Right," she's saying when Ianto ducks back in. "Better make it eight, just to be safe. Yes. No, that—that sounds fine. Right. Listen, Ianto's back, we can sort it out when I get back to the Hub."
He's caught his breath by then, and manages a smile when she thanks him for the snacks.
"New horticulture experiment?" he asks.
She smiles back. "Something like that. I don't suppose you got lucky and saw anything while you were in there?"
"Sorry. Looks like we're stuck here for a while."
She cracks the cap on her coke zero and offers him a salt and vinegar chip. "I figure we give it another hour, then we call Gwen? Rhys is having a lads' night out, so she offered to sit in until midnight, and if we don't see anything suspicious by then..."
If they don't see anything suspicious by then, either they'll have been wrong and Jack, back at the Hub, will probably have figured out where the tech is ending up, or they'll have been right and Jack will just have them come in and snoop during daylight.
Torchwood One might have had the staff to conduct a dozen covert investigations at a time, but Three can barely manage to keep up with Rift retrievals and the odd baddie.
"You think Jack's ever going to hire more staff?" he asks, taking a chip and offering Tosh a barbecue one in return.
Tosh heaves a deep, long sigh and lets her head loll back against the passenger's side headrest. "God, I hope so. I know Jack has this thing about—oh, Ianto, it's half nine."
It is, in fact, half past nine when he looks at the clock. Ianto feels vaguely like there should be something he remembers about nine-thirty, but it's been a long day, and—and of course he's fine being out of the Hub for work, perfectly fine, but he feels just a little off-kilter. Not jittery, of course, he's fine, but just keyed up.
It's just the excitement of getting out.
"Is something supposed to happen now?" he asks when it becomes clear that Tosh is expecting him to say something.
She flicks her eyebrow up, which is entirely unfair, and frowns.
"It's when you take your PE—uh, pills, isn't it?"
Oh. So, Tosh knows he's taking Pep. And of course she's figured out why.
Well, that's just brilliant. Absolutely fucking brilliant.
"Ianto," Tosh starts, and her tone's so kind it makes his teeth grit.
There's movement outside the shop just then; they both sit up, intent, but it's just the cashier taking a bag out to the trash.
They both lean back at the same moment, Tosh slumping back in her seat with her arms crossed over her chest, Ianto looking out the window and taking a breath.
"I'm sorry," she says. "I didn't know whether I should tell you I knew, but I didn't want to make you uncomfortable."
And you've been a basket case the last few weeks and I didn't want to make it worse, she doesn't say, but he can fill in the blanks.
"Right." He curls his fist up in his lap and breathes, stretches each finger out and flexing his hand. "It's, it's fine." He takes his pill box out of his pocket—because he always carries it on him, just in case—and scoops the night's two pills out. Just three days left of the course, after this. Then a little more and it'll be a whole month gone, and—he takes a breath and swallows the pills down with a swig of his Arctic Burst Mountain Dew. "How'd you figure it out?"
Tosh is making a face, he can just see the edge of it out the corner of his eye, but he resolutely focuses on shutting the pill box and putting it back.
"I noticed you taking them whenever you worked late this month, and I've seen PEP pills before," she says. She doesn't elaborate, and regardless of his issues he knows it's none of his business, so he doesn't ask.
Doesn't make him feel any better about things, though.
"Right," he says instead. "Well, glad we got that sorted out. I would hate to think not every single person I work with knew I was raped by Cardiff's least competent kidnappers."
"Ianto," she chides. "No, it's not like—"
"On the bright side, it's something you can bond over with Owen. Feeling sorry for poor Ianto, trying to be kind. I should have known that's why—"
Why what? Why she's been kind? It's Tosh. She's usually kind, when she's not so stuck into a project she forgets about the rest of the world.
Fuck. He's being a twat.
"Shit," he says. He jams his fists into his pockets and takes a deep breath. "I'm being a twat."
He takes another breath. Counts it out. Looks at the shop and sees the cashier flip the sign on the door to closed.
"I'm sorry," he says.
Tosh shifts in the seat beside him.
"It's all right," she murmurs. Like she's talking to a scared cat, and that makes him huff and lean his head back.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you; I was going to bring it up later, once—"
Once you stopped acting like a traumatized princess scared of your own shadow.
"Once things settled down again."
Tears prick at the backs of his eyes, but he refuses to let them get any farther than that.
"I understand," he says. "Honestly, it probably would have been better if that's how it went."
It would have been better if she'd never found out at all, but that was never going to happen in this universe.
"I haven't told anyone else," she says. "You should know. And they haven't talked about it with me, if they know."
He swallows. "Thanks."
He believes her, of course, because she's Tosh, and also because she's a terrible liar. All the same, when they drive back to the Hub he lets her take the wheel, and he pillows his head against the passenger's side window and pretends he falls asleep so he doesn't have to talk the whole ride back.
It's four days later that he's taking Owen a coffee and hears him talking to Jack about UNIT's latest request for information about the kidnapping after hours in the morgue.
"I didn't become a doctor," Owen's snapping. "So I could re-traumatize rape victims. The initial exam was bad enough, Jack, I'm not making him go through any of this psychological bullshit they've—"
Ianto turns, soft-footed, and pads back to the kitchenette, cup in hand.
When Jack comes looking for him later, the coffee machine's empty, cups and saucers washed and dried and put away, and there's no sign that Ianto ever left his desk.
It's funny, he thinks the next morning, when Tosh gives him a good morning grimace and Gwen brings him a pastry and scurries away and Owen and Jack spend two hours on a speakerphone call in Jack's office with the door shut and locked. But he'd never thought that having people care about him could be such a miserable thing.
Author:
jupiter2932Fandom: Torchwood
Rating: T
Word Count: 2969
Characters: Ianto, Gwen, Tosh, Owen, Jack
Notes: Written for Febuwhump, day 23: Human Weapon (alternate prompt)
Content Notes: part five of the our blank to fill series, so like all others, blanket series warnings for rape/the aftermath of rape, ptsd, anxiety, flashbacks, and dissociation
Summary: The thing about other people is that they don't stop being the people they are just because you're having a bad time. Ianto hasn't forgotten this, but sometimes he wishes he could.
or;
Ianto talks with Gwen, and he talks with Tosh, and he overhears a conversation he wasn't meant to, and none of it is easy.
Gwen comes to him eleven days after the kidnapping.
She picks a good time; Jack and Tosh are out on a call, Owen's busy finishing an autopsy in the morgue, and Ianto's at his desk in the tourist centre, doing some rote data entry about visits to the centre.
He's not sure, sometimes, why they bother to keep up the front when it feels like everyone in Cardiff knows about Torchwood, but as long as they do he is going to do it to the best of his abilities.
Plus, it gets him out of the Hub when he needs some breathing space.
Gwen heads outside with a nod and comes back just a few minutes later with five paper cups in two cup carriers and a bag of pastries. Ianto wasn't surprised to see her go—whatever she and Owen had going on, it's well and truly over now, and they haven't seemed too keen on spending time around each other one-on-one—but he isn't expecting her back so soon, and has to shoot out of his chair to help her with the door.
"Oh, thanks, Ianto," she says. She's smiling, but it's an obvious put-on.
It's probably something to do with Owen or Rhys, Ianto knows, and so it's not any of his business—and, frankly, not something he even remotely wants to get involved with—but, still. She's not a bad sort, Gwen, though it took everyone a few weeks to get used to the new dynamic she brought to the team with her.
She has a kind heart, anyway.
"Thanks," he says when she sets a cup and a danish in a napkin by his computer.
She lingers, though, stops by the edge of his desk where the small brochure stand that broke during last week's unexpected scuffle used to sit.
"Are you," Ianto starts, when she clears her throat and doesn't move. "Can I help you with anything?"
"Oh," she says, and smiles, then grimaces, then jerks the hand that's holding the pastry bag up. "No, I'm fine, thank you. I just—"
So, not about Owen, then. Oh, God. Is it Jack? Of course Jack's free to see whomever he likes, and it's even less of Ianto's business if he wants to—
"I think there's something you should know," she says. She's got that look on her, the one she gives to victims who can't be Retconned, and his stomach sinks.
God. If she and Jack are—
"Listen," he starts. "If you and Jack, if you—"
Her splutter has him rocking back on his heels.
"Oh, Ianto," she says, and she gives him a wobbly smile, and her eyes tear up. "Ianto, sweetheart. No. No, Jack wouldn't—I mean, no, not at all. All right?"
He lets go the grip he had on the back of his chair—and when did he stand up?—and nods.
Not that it would be any of his concern.
Gwen shifts her weight to her right foot and bites her lip. "It's something—sweetheart, the first time I submitted my report on your—on the fingerprints we picked up at the office in Pentyrch, there was a glitch, and some of my files didn't go through. So after I resubmitted them, I went in again, last night, to make sure there hadn't been any other problems. I wanted to make sure there wouldn't be any mistakes when they prosecuted them. So I double-checked all of the evidence files we submitted."
His hands feel light, where they're sitting on the chair back. Numb, sort of.
"I noticed there was a mismatch in the number of files we submitted with the report, so I double-checked them and saw that Owen had submitted them. DNA profiles."
She doesn't go on, but she doesn't need to. Ianto took a peek at Owen and Jack's reports after they went out to UNIT; there was seminal fluid recovered from his neck and from his underwear, and a pubic hair that transferred to the inside of Jack's greatcoat, which is why Owen bundled Ianto into his own coat for his ride back home, the night of.
"I wouldn't have looked if I'd known," Gwen says. Her eyes are wet, still, and her voice is very soft. "I just wanted to make sure none of them got set loose because of a mistake, and when I saw—I'm so sorry I didn't notice, when we found you. That something was wrong."
She moves like she's going to reach out to him; she doesn't, just setting the coffee caddy down on the desk, but Ianto takes half a step back reflexively.
"If you don't want to talk about it, that's fine," Gwen says. "But I'm here if you do, all right? Or for anything you need, just say the word, yeah?"
He nods, because he doesn't think she'll go until he makes some sign he's heard her, and she mumbles a watery, "Good, okay, then," and heads off into the Hub proper with the coffees.
She forgets the pastry bag on the desk, but she doesn't come back out to get them. Ianto sets them down by his computer, after a while, but doesn't eat even the one Gwen gave him. His coffee sits untouched until, an hour or two later, he takes a sip out of habit and realizes it's gone cold. He sets it down and forgets about it, finishes up the photo he's working on and clicks to the next, puts in the description of the artefact and the history of its discovery, Jack's handwritten notes and speculation about its provenance and use, types it all up in the program he and Tosh adapted for the purpose, clicks on to the next.
And the next, and the next, and then he has to lock up his computer and get up from behind his desk because a group of French tourists drop in asking for information on historical tours in Cardiff, but after that he sits back down and brings up the program again and pulls up a picture and types up another and another and another until Jack says, "Hey, Ianto," and Ianto starts and sees him leaning up against the side of the desk where Gwen stood earlier, looking over at him with a polite smile and what might be concern in the slightest scrunching of his eyebrows.
"Hello," Ianto says knee-jerk, and then, dumbly, "It's dark," when he catches sight of the Plass through the front door and it has, in fact, gone dark outside since the last time he looked up.
He can't remember when it was, the last time he looked up. He must have, when the tourists came. At some point after that again, he's sure.
Everything after Gwen passed by's gone fuzzy, though.
"You planning on heading home soon?" Jack asks. He looks at Ianto for another second, then crosses over to the front door and locks it. "I have tea brewing in the Hub if you don't have anything pressing."
He doesn't have anything pressing, which Jack, being his boss, knows perfectly well. And it is late, enough Jack will probably call him on it and kick him out again if he tries to stay much longer—or, worse, try to get him to talk about it, which is probably what the tea is about, if everyone else has already left.
Thinking about talking right now—about laying it all out—makes Ianto want to throw up just a little, at the moment. No talking. But—
"I haven't had supper," he says instead, glancing up to meet Jack's eyes for a second before he has to look away. If they go out, there will be other people around and Jack won't expect him to talk about—about the thing. Or about Gwen. In fact Jack will probably be all right if Ianto doesn't want to talk at all. "Pub? If any of the others are still around—"
Jack smiles. "Just us, but I could use a square meal. Lead on, Ianto!"
Ianto wonders if he imagines the forced cheer, but decides it doesn't matter. If Jack had things he'd rather be doing, he probably wouldn't have offered tea in the first place. If he had somewhere else he'd rather be—someone else he'd rather be with—
"Coming?" Jack asks, holding out Ianto's jacket by the collar.
Ianto takes it and goes.
Gwen doesn't bring it up again, but she starts asking him how he's doing every morning. She tries to keep it lowkey, obviously, and never presses him for details, but it's noticeable enough, especially when she couples it with an end to any griping about taking over for any field runs that would normally be assigned to him.
Owen gives them both long, knowing looks one day, and Jack pats him on the back approvingly like Ianto's done something brave, talking to someone else about what happened.
Ianto doesn't bother to correct their misconception.
Tosh he doesn't find out about until later.
It's just shy of a month, since.
They go out, the two of them, on what was supposed to be a simple Rift Artefact Retrieval but end up staking out a small corner shop they're concerned is a front for—hell, god knows what. Something involving an alien artefact and people going in and out of the place in small groups at odd hours.
Ianto wonders, briefly, if Jack had suspected some of this and was trying to get Ianto used to missions involving other people again, but he dismisses it after thinking it over. Jack's left it up to him, when he wants to go back to proper fieldwork, and Ianto doesn't think he'd try to trick him like this.
This is a pretty good way to ease back in again, anyway, even if it's accident. It's all just sitting in a car with Tosh and watching a building. The only time he has to interact with anyone else is when, after several hours of waiting, when the sun has definitively set, he goes into the shop and buys some chips and drinks. Tosh offers to go, but he pretends he doesn't know why and says he'd like to stretch his legs.
He almost has a panic attack on the walk back to the SUV, has to count his breathing and clutches the sodas so hard that the indents from their caps bite into his palm.
It's not something Tosh needs to know, though, and, luckily, she's distracted chatting with Owen on a private channel over the comms when he ducks back inside.
"Right," she's saying when Ianto ducks back in. "Better make it eight, just to be safe. Yes. No, that—that sounds fine. Right. Listen, Ianto's back, we can sort it out when I get back to the Hub."
He's caught his breath by then, and manages a smile when she thanks him for the snacks.
"New horticulture experiment?" he asks.
She smiles back. "Something like that. I don't suppose you got lucky and saw anything while you were in there?"
"Sorry. Looks like we're stuck here for a while."
She cracks the cap on her coke zero and offers him a salt and vinegar chip. "I figure we give it another hour, then we call Gwen? Rhys is having a lads' night out, so she offered to sit in until midnight, and if we don't see anything suspicious by then..."
If they don't see anything suspicious by then, either they'll have been wrong and Jack, back at the Hub, will probably have figured out where the tech is ending up, or they'll have been right and Jack will just have them come in and snoop during daylight.
Torchwood One might have had the staff to conduct a dozen covert investigations at a time, but Three can barely manage to keep up with Rift retrievals and the odd baddie.
"You think Jack's ever going to hire more staff?" he asks, taking a chip and offering Tosh a barbecue one in return.
Tosh heaves a deep, long sigh and lets her head loll back against the passenger's side headrest. "God, I hope so. I know Jack has this thing about—oh, Ianto, it's half nine."
It is, in fact, half past nine when he looks at the clock. Ianto feels vaguely like there should be something he remembers about nine-thirty, but it's been a long day, and—and of course he's fine being out of the Hub for work, perfectly fine, but he feels just a little off-kilter. Not jittery, of course, he's fine, but just keyed up.
It's just the excitement of getting out.
"Is something supposed to happen now?" he asks when it becomes clear that Tosh is expecting him to say something.
She flicks her eyebrow up, which is entirely unfair, and frowns.
"It's when you take your PE—uh, pills, isn't it?"
Oh. So, Tosh knows he's taking Pep. And of course she's figured out why.
Well, that's just brilliant. Absolutely fucking brilliant.
"Ianto," Tosh starts, and her tone's so kind it makes his teeth grit.
There's movement outside the shop just then; they both sit up, intent, but it's just the cashier taking a bag out to the trash.
They both lean back at the same moment, Tosh slumping back in her seat with her arms crossed over her chest, Ianto looking out the window and taking a breath.
"I'm sorry," she says. "I didn't know whether I should tell you I knew, but I didn't want to make you uncomfortable."
And you've been a basket case the last few weeks and I didn't want to make it worse, she doesn't say, but he can fill in the blanks.
"Right." He curls his fist up in his lap and breathes, stretches each finger out and flexing his hand. "It's, it's fine." He takes his pill box out of his pocket—because he always carries it on him, just in case—and scoops the night's two pills out. Just three days left of the course, after this. Then a little more and it'll be a whole month gone, and—he takes a breath and swallows the pills down with a swig of his Arctic Burst Mountain Dew. "How'd you figure it out?"
Tosh is making a face, he can just see the edge of it out the corner of his eye, but he resolutely focuses on shutting the pill box and putting it back.
"I noticed you taking them whenever you worked late this month, and I've seen PEP pills before," she says. She doesn't elaborate, and regardless of his issues he knows it's none of his business, so he doesn't ask.
Doesn't make him feel any better about things, though.
"Right," he says instead. "Well, glad we got that sorted out. I would hate to think not every single person I work with knew I was raped by Cardiff's least competent kidnappers."
"Ianto," she chides. "No, it's not like—"
"On the bright side, it's something you can bond over with Owen. Feeling sorry for poor Ianto, trying to be kind. I should have known that's why—"
Why what? Why she's been kind? It's Tosh. She's usually kind, when she's not so stuck into a project she forgets about the rest of the world.
Fuck. He's being a twat.
"Shit," he says. He jams his fists into his pockets and takes a deep breath. "I'm being a twat."
He takes another breath. Counts it out. Looks at the shop and sees the cashier flip the sign on the door to closed.
"I'm sorry," he says.
Tosh shifts in the seat beside him.
"It's all right," she murmurs. Like she's talking to a scared cat, and that makes him huff and lean his head back.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you; I was going to bring it up later, once—"
Once you stopped acting like a traumatized princess scared of your own shadow.
"Once things settled down again."
Tears prick at the backs of his eyes, but he refuses to let them get any farther than that.
"I understand," he says. "Honestly, it probably would have been better if that's how it went."
It would have been better if she'd never found out at all, but that was never going to happen in this universe.
"I haven't told anyone else," she says. "You should know. And they haven't talked about it with me, if they know."
He swallows. "Thanks."
He believes her, of course, because she's Tosh, and also because she's a terrible liar. All the same, when they drive back to the Hub he lets her take the wheel, and he pillows his head against the passenger's side window and pretends he falls asleep so he doesn't have to talk the whole ride back.
It's four days later that he's taking Owen a coffee and hears him talking to Jack about UNIT's latest request for information about the kidnapping after hours in the morgue.
"I didn't become a doctor," Owen's snapping. "So I could re-traumatize rape victims. The initial exam was bad enough, Jack, I'm not making him go through any of this psychological bullshit they've—"
Ianto turns, soft-footed, and pads back to the kitchenette, cup in hand.
When Jack comes looking for him later, the coffee machine's empty, cups and saucers washed and dried and put away, and there's no sign that Ianto ever left his desk.
It's funny, he thinks the next morning, when Tosh gives him a good morning grimace and Gwen brings him a pastry and scurries away and Owen and Jack spend two hours on a speakerphone call in Jack's office with the door shut and locked. But he'd never thought that having people care about him could be such a miserable thing.
