Fandom: Torchwood

Characters: Ianto, Jack, Gwen

Author: m_findlow

Rating: PG

Length: 1,779 words

Content notes: Spoilers for Ep 1.4 Cyberwoman

Author notes: Written for Challenge 204 - 24 Hours

Summary: For Ianto jones, time has finally run out.


Twenty four hours is a long time. People say a single day passes in the blink of an eye, but they're wrong. Try standing in one spot facing a blank wall for twenty four hours, and you'll see just how long it is. Count off the seconds one by one. There's 86,400 of them. That's more than if you counted all the grains in a kilo bag of rice, which, by the way, is about 50,000 grains. Try counting a bag and a half of rice and tell me a day passes quickly.

In the space of twenty four hours, you'll spend on average eight of them sleeping, and another eight to ten of them working. You'll consume three main meals, drink an average of one point five litres of fluids, that's about six cups of coffee, and burn 2,000 calories. Your heart will pump 7,000 litres of blood around you body, you'll breathe in as many as 30,000 times, taking in 11,000 litres of air, and your eyes will blink 28,800 times.

You can also lie to your boss, betray your fiends, kill a complete stranger, nearly end the entire world, and lose the only person you've ever truly loved.

It just goes to show you can fit a lot into a day.

Less than twenty fours hours ago, life seemed pretty normal. Well, normal for me that is. I did what always do. Got up, showered, dressed, made toast with marmalade. I checked everything twice before leaving, making sure it was just right. Then I went upstairs. Jack was there, as always. Having him live here has been hard. I'm amazed we weren't uncovered months ago. He came so close a couple of times. Funny how things are best hidden when they're right in front of your nose.

I made coffee. Jack always needs coffee. He stares at me in a lewd fashion and comments on my clothes, just like he always does. He doesn't see past the suit, which is fine. I know I look tired, but with everything else so crisp and perfect, it all fades into the background. It's nothing compared to how I'll look today, but today there's no bespoke suit that's going to hide the truth anymore. There's nothing to hide behind because there's nothing left to hide.

There's no one here when I wake up. They've probably all gone home for some sleep. I imagine it's been a long night for them, cleaning up the mess I've made. They've been cleaning up whilst I've been strung out on the sofa. Should've known Owen would pump me full of drugs. It wasn't necessary. I don't think I could feel anything anyway. It's all a bit of a haze, last night.

Suppose I should just be lucky I woke up at all, if you can call that lucky. Jack would have wanted to retcon me to oblivion and back. Can't say that I'd blame him. It's what I would have done. Maybe he still will. Maybe today is the day. In less than twenty four hours I'll go from member of a top secret organisation that protects the city from a rift in space and time to an amnesiac, unemployed Welshman. Maybe in another twenty four hours I won't even be me. Maybe Ianto Jones will cease to exist. I could be someone else. Wonder what I'll do then. Maybe it will be quite good; a chance to start over. No memories of all the terrible things I've done. Then again, now that I think about it, maybe Jack won't retcon me. A fresh start sounds like far more than I deserve. He could just lock me up and throw away the key. Nothing and no one for company except Janet. I probably wouldn't make for good company in any case.

I get up. For the immediate present, I'm still here. Somehow I find the shower block downstairs. Wasn't I here last night? Yes. Owen, washing the blood from my hands, forcing me out of the blood soaked suit. Oh, I realise, looking down; I'm wearing scrubs. I catch my opposite in the mirror. He's so thin and pale. Is that really me? I swear I looked different yesterday. Maybe those suits were hiding more than just the lies, or maybe it was just one more thing I was too blind to see.

If the average heart beats 115,000 times in a day, mines must have beat 300,000 times. Perhaps in doing so, it made me age overnight. Small wonder it had enough energy to beat at all. When was the last time I ate or slept or did anything that wasn't done to save Lisa? When was the last time I went outside, saw the sun, felt fresh air on my face? I had dreams of long walks in the park with Lisa, but even that feels like a lifetime ago. I press a hand to my chest, trying to feel for a heartbeat now. Is it even there, or has it been replaced by a heart of metal and gears? Something just under the skin still feels like it's beating. It's slow, but it's there. How fast does a broken heart beat?

Last night everything felt numb. Now it hurts more than I can bear. Every drop of water on my body feels like a knife plunging into me. Are you happy now, Jack? Is this what you wanted? Maybe I could stay here and drown myself. Perhaps being converted into a metal monster would be better. Cybermen don't have emotions. Maybe they're the lucky ones.

Instead I get dressed. Pants, shirt, socks, tie, jacket. The routine is so familiar it feels just like yesterday. Maybe it is. Perhaps last night was just a bad dream. No, not a dream, a nightmare. Today I'll go down there and Lisa will still be there. I'll do things differently this time. Take Dr Tanazaki downstairs, do everything there, hidden away from the team. I'll fix the circuit breaker to that she can't access the main power grid, not enough for them to notice, anyway. I won't let either of them out of my sight until this done. I won't leave that room until Lisa is whole again. I made a promise. I always keep my promises.

There's no one upstairs when I get there. No one to have to make coffee for, no one to have to pretend in front of that everything is fine, assuming they'd believe that now. Then I see the mess. Equipment broken, turned on its side or completely upended, blood spatter on the walls, rubbish strewn everywhere. It's the sickening realisation that I didn't imagine the last twenty four hours. They happened, and now there's nothing I can do to change them. The railing is cold underneath my hand, cold like death, like metal and death, but it's all that's keeping my knees from going out from under me. She's gone, and now you have to face up to what you've done.

The place is a mess. Some of it is there usual detritus left by that team, scrunched up balls of paper and half empty pizza boxes. The rest is mine. If Jack is coming to retcon me or lock me away, the least I can do is clean up before I go, otherwise it'll never be done. They'll just continue on every day, working around the squalor. They won't even notice it, any more than they noticed me. Will they even remember I existed, or will another twenty four hours go by and erase every trace that I was ever here?

Hours crawl by as equipment is put right way up, returned to desks, broken bits thrown away. The floors are mopped, the walls scrubbed. All the while, it's like I'm standing there watching someone else doing it all, replaying yesterday. Yesterday, that's where Dr Tanazaki fixed her so she could breathe on her own. Yesterday, that's where Jack held his gun to my head. Yesterday, that's where Lisa said we could be upgraded together.

Time passes inexorably and still no one returns. I half wonder if maybe they didn't succeed in killing her after all. Maybe she came back for them in the night, returning the favour, missing me by accident or by design. Perhaps downstairs is a pile of bodies, former coworkers, or maybe a fledgling army of new cybermen. Just a few more drops of blood on my hands. What does it matter now? I'll just keep doing this until she comes for me, or they do.

I shove yet another empty water bottle into the fresh bin liner bag and something catches my eye, upstairs in the boardroom. I look up. Jack, and behind him Gwen, standing there staring down at me. Not dead then. Looks like judgment day has come after all.

Jack's expression is inscrutable so I just keep going. He'll come for me when he's good and ready. Jack always does the hard things so that the rest of us don't have to. You can always count on him for that. Funny how things have changed. Yesterday, it would have been a wink and a smile, an overt leer and a demand for coffee. Now he just stands there like he always does, that hero pose he loves so much. Where was the hero yesterday when I needed him to save my Lisa?

And then there's Gwen. She tried to help - tried to stand up to Jack - to talk sense into him, and we repaid her by trying to kill her. Jack won't forgive that. Jack might have done all his flirting with me, but it's Gwen he fancies. If it had been her boyfriend who'd been transformed into a metal monster, he would have tried to help. He'd have done it because he loves Gwen. He'd do anything for her. Or maybe he wouldn't. Maybe he just likes to keep us all to himself.

If he has any decency, he'll wait until I've got my back turned and then shoot. He'll think it's unexpected, but it's not. He should have shot me last night and ended it there, down in the basement. Twenty four hours ago I'd have done anything to stay alive. Now I just want to be with Lisa, wherever that is. I can't stand the thought of being here without her. We should be dead together.

I turn my back and pick up another pizza box. Do it now, Jack. The hub is basically clean now. Just one final piece of rubbish to deal with. Amazing how much you can get done in a day.