Title: Atonement
Author: godsdaisiechain
Fandom: Torchwood
Type: Fic
Characters/Pairing: Jack and Ianto, Jack/John Hart (implied),
Challenge: Crack
Word Count: ~800
Rating: PG
Summary:  John does something to make it up to Jack for burying him alive.  As usual, his efforts are not well received.  AU set at the very end of Children of Earth. Ianto/Jack POV. Continuation of “Love, actually.”


Ianto

The room whirled around when he opened his eyes, so he closed them.   Someone moaned. A gentle hand settled on his shoulder before he understood that the sounds like a dying cow were him.  Where was he?  Had that thing done something to Jack?  The hand stroked his hair too softly. He knew it wasn’t Jack.

“Gwen?" The one word nearly cracked his skull open like an overripe melon, but it was important and he kept talking. "Did they save the kids?”

“Is that you awake, Eye Candy?”  John Hart’s voice was recognizable even as it cracked with some unidentifiable emotion. Ianto scrabbled for a gun or a blunt object, his hand closing only on Egyptian cotton sheets.  His sheets. John Hart in his bedroom.  And he thought things couldn’t possibly be any worse.

Ianto’s eyes opened.  The room spun sickeningly around the face of John Hart, and the eyes closed again.  “I’ll k…”  Ianto gagged, felt John pull him up and hold a bucket under his face while he vomited.  That took a long while and left Ianto doubled over limply.  John rushed the bucket into the loo and came back with a wet washcloth and a glass of water.

“The kids are fine. Rinse your mouth, Eye Candy,” John said, rubbing Ianto’s back.  Ianto was too weak to struggle.  “It’s the virus… and some other things.  I had to do something I’d have preferred….” A sort of whimper escaped Ianto’s throat instead of the threats he was trying to issue. John closed him in strong, warm arms and for the first time, Ianto understood what Jack might have found attractive. “But that will keep. You’ll be very ill for a few days until it all sorts itself out."  John chuckled. "And don't worry. You are delicious, even like this.”

“Where’s Jack?” Ianto whispered as John tucked him back into his bed and mopped his face with the washcloth.

“Don’t worry that pretty, pretty head. Your Jack will be here soon enough.”

Ianto’s eyes fluttered shut before he had a chance to wonder what John had meant.


Jack
It took quite a while before he realized the screams were his.   He’d never been blown up before.  He didn’t like it.

“Jack?”  John’s lips found his forehead, his cheek, his lips.  Jack tried to pull away, but John bounced back sheepishly.  “You’re not quite finished. I had to make do with scraps.”

That sounded bad, even from John.  “Scraps?”

“They got the best bits…most of the head.  An arm.  I had to make do with a few brain fragments, some fingers, teeth, and a leg.  Kind of cracked up, but still…”

Jack’s eyes flew open. “They? Bits?”

“Who knew that we could grow back two of you?”  John asked cheerfully.  “It wasn't pretty.  But I salvaged you a wristband.  Not as big as the last one, but big enough.”  He rubbed Jack’s naked thigh, then pulled the blanket to cover him again without a single suggestive comment.

“What?” Jack tried to sit up, tipped back when John pushed him down against soft pillows.  Ianto’s pillows.  He was in Ianto’s guest room.  Ianto would have a fit.  Come to think of it, why was Ianto not responding to the screams and whacking John in the back of the head with a cricket bat? Or, better yet, shooting him?  He looked up to see the quilted material lining the room. “Sound barrier? John, what the f*ck? Where are my pants?”

John took his hand, which was unusual.  Jack grew terribly frightened when he realized John trembled with something other than naked desire. There should have been some jokes about sex and a pass by now. This was not like him. “You have to listen, Jack.  It’s serious.”  Jack’s initial horror gave way to surprise, then sadness, then profound and utter grief, as he heard what had happened and then what John had done.  “I went back and I saved him for you.  Eye Candy.  But he wouldn’t… I didn’t think he would be, well, without you.  And you, well…you’re a mess.  So I went back and forth a bit and got a you together for him.  One that hadn't done such ....  But who am I to talk?  That virus was brutal.  I had to graft some Time Lord into him, some of your blood.  He’s not quite human any more, not quite like you, but enough.  And I got some sort of serum together.”

Tears rose in Jack’s eyes.  “He’ll never forgive me if he finds out all the things I’ve done,” he whispered, not understanding why he felt so guilty for what his other half had decided to do, until he realized that he would have done the same thing.  That he never chose to put his family, the people he loved, first.  And that that would be the thing Ianto could not forgive.

“Maybe,” said John, unperturbed.  He’d done so much worse.  “But he might not.  And you’ll have a lot of time to figure that out. And he… well he has a certain something, Jack. I see it more clearly now. Besides the looks.  You fit together.”

This generosity of spirit was not like John. Jack was bewildered. “Why? Why did you…”

“Because I could never forgive myself.”  John said.  “I told you.  I said I’d make it up to you for burying you alive.  For not going back and retrieving you sooner.  And you can see I've not quizzed you once about ignoring my scientific accomplishments.”

Jack smiled and sat up.  “I knew all that rehab was a bad idea.  Can I see him?”

“Maybe wait until your ears grow back.”