Cursed

Toshiko followed Ianto out and found him sitting on one of the benches looking out over the water.

“Ianto?” she called out, and didn’t miss it when he quickly swiped at his eyes.  She hesitated, but then reached into her pocket before sitting down next to him.  “What’s wrong?” 

“It only took her, what?  A quarter hour?”

“To what?” she asked, but she thought she might know the answer.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said.

“No, it does matter, Ianto.  Tell me,” she demanded, becoming angry.

“It only took her those few minutes in his office to make him forget how angry he’d been with her and convince him that he doesn’t need to watch over me.”  He sniffed.  “He knows the nightmares are worse when he’s not there.  But now it’s ‘Ianto’s been sleeping a lot.  He won’t miss me.’  And he promised…” he choked.

After a moment, he cleared his throat.  “I should be grateful.  He got me through the curse breaking.  And he really doesn’t owe me anything.  He certainly deserves a break.”  He stared at the water before quietly adding, “He’s probably bloody sick of me, by now.”

“I know that’s not true,” Tosh protested, but Ianto was shaking his head.

“I was right.  He just stayed with me at St. Mungo’s out of pity and gratitude.  First opportunity to be rid of me, he takes it.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Tosh asked, but then she realized.  Ianto still wasn’t used to being able to ask for what he wanted or needed.  He might not even know how, really.  “Let’s go back in,” she said, taking his hand, but he shook his head and pulled away.

“I’m tired, Tosh.  I’m going to get a taxi home.”  He stood, and for a moment, silhouetted against the bay, he looked like an old man, stooped with exhaustion and dejection.

***

Toshiko stalked into Jack’s office and was enraged to find him talking and laughing with Gwen, who was perched on his desk in Ianto’s spot. 

“Tosh?” Jack looked up when he spotted her, and his grin began to fade.  “What’s wrong?”

Gwen gave her one of those condescending looks that always set Tosh’s teeth on edge.  “Tosh, pet, Jack and I are…”

“Get out,” Tosh snarled at the Welshwoman, who looked appalled.

“Gwen, give us a moment,” Jack said, wondering what was going on.  First Ianto, and now Tosh.  He vaguely wondered if they had fallen under the influence of some alien tech.

“Now!” Tosh roared, and with a squeak of surprise, Gwen scurried from the office.

“Toshiko, what’s going on?” Jack asked.

“You honestly don’t know, do you?” Tosh asked, livid.  “You just let Gwen talk you into willfully neglecting Ianto.” 

“What?” Jack laughed. “Don’t be…”

“No!” Tosh barked.  “You do not get to laugh this off.  You do this every goddamned time, Jack.  With all of us.  You let her wheedle you into giving her whatever the fuck she wants, and never mind how that may screw over the rest of us.”

“I do not…”

“Do you honestly think, as ill as Ianto has been, as unwell as he still is that he won’t miss you?”

Jack blinked.  Had he actually said that?

Toshiko growled in frustration.  “Jack, he thinks you’re sick of him!”

“What?  No!” Jack protested.

“What is this hold that she has over you?” Tosh demanded as she drew her phone from her pocket and cued up the recording she’d just made.  It was a terrible breach of trust, but she wasn’t sure how else to get through to Jack.  She hit ‘Play’ and placed the phone on the desk in front of Jack.

“It only took her what?  A quarter hour?” Ianto’s voice sounded muffled, but they could hear his weary, dejected tone, clearly enough.

As he listened, Jack remembered his rage at Gwen’s words.  And Ianto’s nightmares.  And his promise to his lover.  He blanched when he heard Ianto surrender to his insecurities, becoming convinced that Jack had only been helping him out of pity and gratitude.  And Jack knew better than Tosh why Ianto hadn’t protested.  Never mind the habits inculcated by the curses – he was simply too exhausted to fight.  Susan had warned Jack that even Ianto’s reserves were severely depleted.  The exhaustion was so critical that any overexertion could be dangerous until he recovered more.  And Jack could hear the defeat in his lover’s voice.

“Oh, goddess,” Jack whispered, taking out his phone and calling Ianto.  It went straight to voicemail.  “Can you try him?”

Tosh did so, but got the same result.  “I think you should go to him, Jack.”

Before Jack could stand from his desk, the rift alarm sounded.  He got up, grabbed his coat, and strode from his office with Tosh on his heels.

“Something’s come through,” Gwen called out.

“Call UNIT,” Jack ordered.  “I’m leaving.”

“But Jack,” Gwen reached out and grasped his forearm.  “I told them to stand down, since you’re back.”  Jack shook her off just as she added, “Remember?”

“You did what?” Jack stared at her, and the rage was back. 

“I’m sorry, Jack,” Tosh said, looking at the monitor.  “If UNIT is stood down, we’ll need you on this.  It looks like something big has come through.”

“I specifically told you not to stand them down,” Jack snarled at Gwen, who widened her eyes at him and adjusted her stance just enough to give him a better view of her cleavage.

Jack blinked, recognizing the subtle manipulation for what it was.  Had he really been that foolish?  That gullible?  That ridiculous?  Is that how they had ended up here, where he had clearly hurt and alienated Ianto?  And for what?  A peek at Gwen’s tits?

No.  Jack knew himself well enough to doubt that.  And he knew seduction.  Gwen wasn’t anywhere near as good at it as she thought she was, so that meant something else must be going on.  He checked his mental shielding, and as it re-engaged and threw off the manipulation it had been subjected to, he felt his mind shift.

Shit!Shit!Shit!

“Get to the SUV,” he growled, and Owen hustled Gwen out, honestly concerned for her safety.  Tosh made to follow but stopped when Jack put a hand on her forearm.  They both took out their comms so they wouldn’t be overheard.  “When we get to the SUV, check and make sure the callout is real,” he said, his voice low.  “Don’t let anyone see what you’re doing, though.”

“What?” she asked, surprised, then frowned, nodding.  “You’re right.  It’s not that hard to fake a rift spike.  I even put something in the manual about how to spot it.”

Jack nodded as they headed for the garage.  “From that, it wouldn’t be difficult to back into how to actually cause one.”

“Why would she do that?”

Jack smiled, relieved he didn’t have to explain his suspicion.  “I’m not sure, but I wonder if she is entirely herself.”  Tosh’s eyes went wide.  “Something was influencing me.  Only one member of our team has that kind of ability, but he’s exhausted and sorely out of practice.  And even if he was a hundred per cent, he’d only use that spell under the direst circumstances.  So either something is controlling her, or she’s using something.”

“Is it telepathic?” she asked, speaking quickly because they were almost to the SUV.

“I don’t think so.  She wasn’t convincing me until…” he slowed, shaking his head.  A wave of dizziness washed over him as his mind continued to right itself.  “Until she touched me.”

“Okay, got it.  No touchy,” Tosh nodded.  “And if the alert is fake?”

“We’ll play along and try to see what her game is,” Jack said, pulling out his mobile and trying to call Ianto again.  “Damn it,” he muttered as it went straight to voicemail, realizing he had probably just lost a lot of the ground he had gained with Ianto during their time at St. Mungo’s. 

His frustration only grew as they leap-frogged from one false call to the next, and he could only wonder how many rift alerts Gwen had fabricated.  Toshiko was able to find the coding for the bogus alerts, but they were forced to respond to them in order to buy enough time to figure out what her plan might be. 

Gwen seemed to be enjoying herself immensely, even as Owen became more and more vociferously annoyed.  Jack made sure his shielding was firmly in place, and after an hour or so, he began to recognize her sorties.  The word ‘remember’, combined with a touch, seemed to be her technique. 

Jack allowed her to attempt her manipulations in order to keep from giving away the fact that they were on to her, but now that his shielding was back in place, they were having no effect, other than to show her motivations, which seemed to revolve around winning him for herself.  Several times she tried to plant thoughts that would turn him from Ianto, and it was all he could do, not to snap her neck like dried kindling.

Toshiko had been able to identify all of the alerts by the time they got to their first destination.  They were set up so the team had to cross the city, eating up time between locations.  And they seemed to be scheduled so the team would have a quarter to half an hour to determine nothing had come through before the next one occurred.  Time had even been built in to allow for a stop for dinner around nineteen hundred. 

Jack teamed up with Tosh for their searches, and they were able to compare notes on what they were learning as the evening progressed.  It seemed that one purpose of the exercise was to show how busy the rift was keeping them, with Gwen trying to influence Jack to stay to help them and let Ianto fend for himself.  A second goal was to stall.  The longer Jack was kept away from Ianto, the more likely a rift of a different kind would form, ensuring Jack’s compliance.

Jack tried to reach Ianto dozens of times.  Each time the team split up, Owen and Gwen would actually search; but since Jack and Toshiko knew there was nothing to find, they would use the time for Jack to try to reach Ianto and for Tosh to pinpoint when Gwen might have been compromised.

It was approaching twenty-three hundred hours when they reached the site of the final alert that had been programmed into the system.  Toshiko found that the alerts had originally been entered for the following night, but Ianto suggesting that Jack stay had caused Gwen to move her timeline up by twenty-four hours.  More time to work on Jack, they concluded.  That, or Tosh’s challenge had triggered the change.

“Bingo,” Toshiko said a few minutes after Gwen and Owen had wandered off.  The Welshwoman seemed content to allow Jack to partner with Tosh and work on him in the SUV during the drives between alert sites.  It was probably more discreet, and her smug demeanor told them she had no idea they were on to her.

“What’ve you got?” Jack asked.

“We had a callout last week,” she said, looking at her readout.  “Owen and I were dealing with a couple of Weevils, and Gwen broke protocol.  She decided that since whatever came through appeared to be inorganic, she didn’t need to wait for backup from UNIT.”

Jack swore.  He had given them explicit orders not to respond to any alerts by themselves.  It was the best way he knew to try to keep them safe, in his absence.  That Gwen had, yet again, defied his orders angered and frustrated him, but they also deeply saddened him, since the odds of this ending well for her were slim.

“She came back with some strange, wooden puzzle box,” Tosh continued, “but a quick scan showed it to just be wood.  We put it on Ianto’s desk to be archived and didn’t think anything more of it.  But that’s got to be it.  Owen has been meticulous in making sure we all adhered to the protocols you put in place for us to follow, while you were gone.”

“Do you have a picture of the box?” Jack asked.

Toshiko pulled up an image, and Jack scanned it into his vortex manipulator.  He didn’t have time to do more, because Gwen and Owen rejoined them.  They piled into the SUV to return to the hub, but luck was not on their side.

Another alert came through as they drove.  “Weevils,” Tosh groaned.  “Multiple sightings.  At least three.  Bute Park.”  She looked at Jack apologetically, confirming that this call was legitimate.

“Time to hunt some Weevils,” Gwen grinned as Owen began cursing in earnest.

Jack dialed Ianto again, to no avail.

***