Fic: Keep Running, But You Won't Forget

Title: Keep Running, But You Won't Forget
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Jack/Ianto
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: None.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Property of the BBC, etc. etc. ad nauseum. Except y'know, I pay my licence fee.
Summary: Somehow, despite being from different worlds and different times, Jack Harkness and Ianto Jones are alike.
Note(s): I have absolutely no idea where this came from. But it did. Thank you to ally_p_x for her help with it. To tazza_di_jo and erin_giles for reading it over & big thanks to pinkfairy727 for the beta.

Jack followed Ianto into the kitchen. Ianto made no protest. He walked straight to the fridge, pulling out a bottle of beer. He didn’t offer one to Jack, just opened the bottle and took a swig, resting his head against the fridge door as he closed it.

“You okay?” Jack asked

Ianto nodded. It wasn’t a lie, not exactly. He would be okay. Eventually.

“You’re very quiet.”

“We only managed to save one person tonight, I think I’m entitled to be.” He took another sip of beer. “One person. One little boy. Brought him back to be alone. I’ve just been thinking about it.”

It still wasn’t a lie. He had been thinking about that boy. An orphan, his whole life ripped out from under him, just like that. Torchwood had failed him. Ianto had failed him.

“You’ve been quiet since we left Providence Park,” Jack persisted. “What’s going on, Ianto? Talk to me.”

Ianto shook his head. “I’m fine, Jack.”

Jack sat down at the kitchen table. “Come on,” he said. “What’s bothering you?”

Ianto stared at him, but didn’t sit down. He pushed away from the fridge and stood near the table, looking at Jack.

“You knew what Providence Park was,” Jack said. “You didn’t have to check. You knew, and it’s not because you know everything. Something about that place has got you bugged.”

“Yeah,” Ianto said. He finished the bottle before he spoke again, Jack’s eyes trained on him the whole time. He sighed. “My mam.”

Jack froze for a moment. Unfamiliar territory. Ianto saw it in his eyes; the panic, the fear that he’d pushed too far. Ianto had never mentioned his mother before. He had a whole host of stories, of lies, about his father. His mother was too much of a secret even for fairytales.

Ianto sat down opposite Jack. “She was there for five years.”

Jack didn’t look overly surprised, but then it hadn’t been hard to work out.

“She was sent there when I was a teenager. She died there, too.” The words came far more easily than he had expected them too. “It’s why I got a bit out of hand, the shop lifting and stuff. My dad... it wasn’t easy.”

 

***

 

“You hit him, Ianto.”

Ianto looked up from the damp concrete to find his sister sitting beside him on the park bench. He couldn’t tell if she was angry or impressed and he turned away from her, looking over at the swings. Two boys from the high school were smoking, still in their uniforms, avoiding going home, no doubt. Ianto wished he could have done the same, but he wasn’t at school now, he couldn’t escape for those seven blissful hours a day.

He wished he hadn’t hated school so much.

Rhiannon was still staring at him, so he gave her a quick glance, a short response. “Yeah, and?”

“Are you mental?”

Ianto didn’t look at her. The teenagers were moving now, their fags discarded on the tarmac. Some toddler would no doubt pick them up the next day; try and eat them. He hated this place.

“It’s not like I had anything to lose, is it?”

“Ianto.” Rhiannon’s tone was clipped, critical. “He’ll go mad when you get home.”

Ianto shrugged. “Can stay at yours then, can’t I?”

Without looking Ianto knew that Rhiannon was shaking her head. “Johnny won’t let you. He’s had enough, Ianto, so have I. You can’t keep turning up in the night, drunk or worse. We’ve got David to think of.”

“I’m not drunk now. Not on anything.”

“Why’d you hit him?”

Ianto shrugged again. “Hate him, don’t I?”

“You don’t.” Rhiannon sounded caught between disbelief and resignation.

Ianto kicked at the ground. “I do.” He reached into his jacket pocket for a cigarette, then remembered he’d left them on the kitchen table. He frowned.

“It isn’t his fault,” Rhiannon was saying, “Mam and everything, it wasn’t down to him. She’s not well, Ianto.”

“And why’s that? Too many smacks to the head.”

When he glanced up, Rhiannon looked horrified. “Ianto-”

“Don’t pretend he’s a fucking saint,” Ianto snapped. “You know he hit her. You heard the rows. We didn’t have a perfect bloody childhood, no matter how much you pretend. Didn’t have normal parents.”

“Ianto, please,” Rhiannon was near begging now, but Ianto couldn’t lie to himself anymore.

“It’s his fault, Rhiannon. And as soon as I can I’m getting the hell out of this place. I’m not sticking around ’til I get arrested or get someone pregnant. Not spending the rest of my life on the dole, living in this hell hole, trying to raise more kids than I can count. No thanks.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ianto could hear the offence in Rhiannon’s voice.

He gave her a smile, but it was small and bitter. “Johnny’s not bad,” Ianto told her. “He’ll be good to you. But I won’t get trapped here. I won’t turn out like him. I won’t turn some poor girl into Mam.”

He stood up then, brushed off his jeans. He looked down at her, shoving his hands, bruised knuckles and all, into his pockets. “I’ll stay at Matt’s, help him with the baby or something. Jess is in hospital with the new one.” He gave another bitter smile. “See, that’ll be me if I don’t get out of this place. And I don’t want that, don’t want to be another statistic.”

“Be careful,” Rhiannon pleaded with him. “Don’t give up on Dad yet, you don’t have to run away. You won’t turn into him just because you stay.”

Ianto shook his head. “I’m not going ‘til the time’s right. If I leave now he’ll make your life hell. And Mam will never come home.”

“Ianto, Mam isn’t coming home. She’s not well, she’s not going to get better.”

“I’m not a little kid, Rhiannon,” Ianto told her. “But I pay attention. I was there when that doctor came, I listened to what he said. It’s Dad that’s the problem, if he was bloody normal she’d be... she’d be okay.”

He didn’t wait for an answer. He stalked off across the estate, heading for anywhere that wasn’t home.

 

**

 

“I was so scared I’d turn out like my dad,” Ianto confessed. “Blamed him for everything. I still do, some of it. It wasn’t... I was fifteen when they took her, Jack. Carted her off to Providence Park and left me with him. Rhiannon was getting out, she had Johnny, and the baby. It was just me and him, and I was so angry. I hated him.”

“You didn’t, Ianto, not really.”

“I did,” Ianto said, firmly. “He died and I hated him because I was so afraid of turning out just like him. That I’d turn someone into my mam.”

Jack reached over the table, but Ianto snatched his hand away before Jack could touch it.

“Your mum was ill, Ianto. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. You couldn’t have controlled that.”

Ianto nodded. “I was a kid, Jack. I wanted someone to blame. And he was so off the rails after she left. He didn’t know what to do with me. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I was into all sorts. I got arrested.”

“Shop lifting,” Jack said.

Ianto nodded. “I was out of control. I just wanted to have something ... something to hang onto.”

“But you got out,” Jack told him, his tone reassuring. “You got away from that life, you didn’t turn into your dad.”

“That’s the thing,” Ianto told him. “Providence Park just reminded me. I spent such a long time being afraid I’d turn out like my dad and it wasn’t until he died that I realised it. I didn’t have to turn out like my dad, I don’t have to be him. But,” he paused, his chest tightening as he spoke words he’d suppressed for years, “I can stop myself being my dad, but I can’t stop myself turning out like my mam.”

Jack reached out for Ianto’s hand again, and this time Ianto didn’t resist, allowing the contact. He needed it.

“There’s no guarantee that you will, either, Ianto.”

“I could, though,” Ianto told him. “So could Rhiannon. I was so desperate not to fall into their life, but I couldn’t stop it. That’s why I left. That’s why I... why I wasn’t here when she died. I was scared, and Dad was dead, and Rhiannon had her little family all set up. I just upped and left for London and I never...”

He pulled away from Jack, looking out of the window. “I blamed my dad for so long, because it was easy, because if it was his fault it wasn’t real. But it wasn’t anyone’s fault. I think it would have been easier if I could have blamed him forever.”

“You could have told me,” Jack said, his voice soft. “I wouldn’t have made you come with me.”

“I’ve been running from it for six years, Jack, I can’t run forever.”

 

***

 

“You’re leaving,” Rhiannon accused.

Ianto’s fingers tightened around the handles of his holdall. “What’s there to stay for?”

“Me,” she said. She adjusted David in her arms, and nodded to him. “David.”

“You’ll be fine. I’ll call. Visit. I told you I wouldn’t stay. I won’t make someone else’s life hell.”

Rhiannon shook her head. “You can’t still be blaming him, Ianto. None of this is Dad’s fault. Mam, she-”

“I know, Rhiannon, okay? I know. Mam’s ill. There’s nothing anyone can do about that. And I love her, I do. But we can’t pretend that life with her wasn’t hard. Dad was a useless bastard, and I won’t forgive him, not for any of it. But even without him... Rhiannon, if I turn out like Mam it’ll be just as bad as turning out like him.”

“She’ll miss you visiting,” Rhiannon said, her voice breaking a little over the words. David whimpered in her arms, taking her attention away from Ianto long enough for him to school his expression into something harder, less pained.

“She doesn’t know who I am, Rhiannon. Thinks I’m him half the time, thinks I’m the Prime Minister the other half.”

“You can’t go, Ianto.”

“I can,” Ianto said, lifting his bag. “I have to, Rhiannon. I want more than this. I need something real.”

Rhiannon’s eyes shone with unshed tears and he kissed her cheek. He was taller now, he had inches on her. He’d been so short for so long and she’d always taken her care of him, her little brother. He wasn’t so little now, though. “I’ll call,” he promised.

He knew he wouldn’t.

 

***

“It’s okay, Ianto,” Jack said, moving to stand behind him, a soft hand pressed to Ianto’s shoulder. He kept his face turned away from Jack.

“It’s not.”

Jack’s grip on Ianto’s shoulder became stronger then, more persistent, and Ianto turned to look at Jack. His expression was firm, a sadness floating in his eyes.

“You were young,” Jack told him. “Hell, you still are.”

“Don’t, Jack,” Ianto frowned. “Don’t treat me like a child.”

“You’re not the only one to have made mistakes, to have run away from someone, from a life you were too afraid to live.”

Ianto looked at him, long and hard. “What?”

“I ran, too.” Jack released his hold on Ianto, moving back to lean against the table. “I left my mother because I... I was too afraid to stay, I guess.”

“What did you have to be afraid of?”

Jack’s eyes dropped to the floor, he was quiet, considering his words. He looked up again and spoke, his tone serious. “When I was a boy something awful happened and my mother never looked at me the same way again. The longer I stayed the more I had to think about it, the more it hurt. The more afraid I was that that pain would never, ever go away. I took the first chance I got to get out of that world, away from the memories.”

Ianto hesitated before speaking. He could see in Jack’s face how hard it had been for him to admit to that, he had to tread carefully here. “So here were are,” he said, voice shaking. “A couple of runaway teenagers, wound up in Cardiff, falling apart.”

“Hey, who says I’m falling apart?” Jack joked, but there was none of the usual cheer in his eyes. “You can ask, you know,” he said.

Ianto shook his head. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“You’ve told me about your past. Fair’s fair.”

 

***

 

“That’s it, then?” His mother was standing at the front door. She didn’t look unhappy, but she didn’t look pleased either. He had imagined a moment like this, years ago, before everything, and he had expected tears, but pride, too. A smile that said that’s my boy.

She just looked defeated. Like this was the end of her story, not the beginning of his.

He nodded. “Chance of a lifetime,” he told her.

She shook her head. “For you, maybe,” then, with a flicker of the woman she used to be, “Will I see you again?”

“There’s a whole universe out there. All of time,” he said. It wasn’t an answer, but it told her everything she needed to know.

She forced a smile onto her face, but it was empty and he knew it. “Well then, I suppose, good luck.”

“I love you,” he whispered as he kissed her cheek. He hadn’t said that in the longest time. He had been afraid of her response.

He was shocked to find her arms around him, hugging him close like she hadn’t done since he was a boy. Her lips pressed to the side of his head, the way they would have done when he was a child, off on an adventure. “You take care, my boy. You come back to me someday.”

He kissed her goodbye, and there were tears in her eyes as he walked down the path. They both knew he wouldn’t be back.

 

***

Ianto moved to sit beside Jack, perching on the edge of his kitchen table and gripping Jack’s fingers in his own. It was a fierce hold, almost too tight. Not two hands fitting together, but fingers curled around one another, desperately clinging on.

He didn’t look at Jack, and as he felt the tears fall from his eyes he hoped that Jack wasn’t looking at him. Jack returned the tight grip on his fingers and together they stared out of the window, out at the dark night. The stars were barely visible in the harsh city lights and Ianto’s gaze was drawn to the tableau their reflections cast in the darkened window. Two grown men, side by side, crying silent tears for childhoods long lost.

They turned almost in unison, and Jack grabbed at Ianto’s face with his free hand, pressing their lips together. It was a desperate kiss, the need for a lonely child to feel cared for, and Ianto reflected to himself just how alike he and Jack were. From such different worlds, but feeling the same emotions, the same pains. Two orphan boys with nobody to love but each other.

They pulled apart, breathless, their foreheads pressed together, Jack’s palm clammy against Ianto’s cheek. “I’ll always be running,” Jack whispered against Ianto’s lips. “Always.”

Ianto shook his head, just a fraction. “Stop,” he said. “Just for tonight. We don’t have to be runaways forever. We can have one night just... just staying still.”

Jack kissed him again, and as the distance between them closed Ianto could feel the drying tears on Jack’s cheeks, the hammering of his heart. He pressed his lips to Jack’s neck, taking in his scent, revelling at how far removed this life was from his old one. They had been desperate to escape, both of them, and they had. They had escaped their old worlds, and they were together in this one; oh it was mad, and it wasn’t safe and it wasn’t happy, but it was theirs, and they weren’t alone.