Cursed

It was a Friday, but there was a Very Important Match scheduled, so Rhys had taken the afternoon off.  His friends Daf and Banana Boat were there, helping arrange the beers and snacks so there would be maximum foodage with minimal rugby interruption. 

He was laughing when he opened the door, telling Banana Boat he was a nutter.  But then he saw the two men at his doorway, looking solemn and official.  His legs gave way, because he knew what they were there for.

“No!” he cried, and his friends turned to see him sat in the hallway in front of the door, looking up at whoever was there, trying to back away from them, but the hallway was too narrow, and when his back hit the wall, he tried to close the door. 

If he didn’t let them say it, then it wouldn’t be true. 

“No,” he whimpered.

“Rhys?  Mate?” Daf got to him, first.  He knelt beside his friend and looked up at the men in the doorway, and he realized what Rhys was trying to escape.  But it was already bearing down on him with an indisputable inevitability. 

There would be no escape.

“Aye, aye,” Banana Boat came down the hall, all swagger and bluster with a frying pan in his hand.  “Need to get rid of some pranksters?  I’m your man!”

He swung around the door before Daf could warn him off, but Jack snatched the frying pan from his hand with one deft move.  He pressed a hand to a slack-jawed Banana Boat’s chest and backed him against the wall as Ianto moved around him, taking the frying pan and heading to the kitchen to fix a cup of tea for Rhys.

“Let’s take this into the living room, alright?” Jack asked in a quiet voice, closing the door and reaching down to help Daf get Rhys up off the floor.

They sat him on the sofa, Daf next to him, trying to offer support as Banana Boat looked on, confused but at least having enough sense to know something was about to ruin their afternoon.

Ianto rejoined Jack as the tea brewed, and with his beloved at his shoulder, he found the strength to begin.  “Rhys Williams, it is with the deepest regret that I must inform you…”

“No!” Rhys shook his head, his eyes clenched shut.  “Please!”

“C’mon, mate,” Daf gently urged him.  “You’ve gotta let them say it.”

Rhys whimpered but his protests ceased.

But now it was Jack who had stalled out.  He swallowed, blinking fast.  Ianto clapped a hand on his shoulder and stepped forward.  “At approximately midnight, Gwen Cooper was involved in an accident during a training exercise.”  He forced himself to ignore the choking sound Rhys made and the gasp of realization from Banana Boat.  “Despite the best efforts of our medical team, she succumbed to her injuries, shortly after.”

“NO!” Rhys, his face a mask of rage, launched himself at Ianto, his hands wrapped around the younger man’s neck.

Jack intervened, managing to get Rhys off of Ianto, who dropped to the floor, coughing.  Jack had the older Welshman by his arms, understanding his grief but angry that it had been focused on Ianto rather than himself. 

“Enough,” Jack rumbled, and the anger on his face was sufficient to bring Rhys out of his own rage.  “We are sorry for your loss, Rhys, truly.  But Ianto was injured last night, trying to help Gwen, and you do not get to attack him!”

“If he was injured, then why is he here?” Banana Boat asked, belligerent in the face of his friend’s grief and helpless to do anything other than help Rhys fight this fruitless battle.

“Because he insisted,” Jack bit out.  “He knows what this is like, and he wanted to be here, to offer help and support.”

Rhys looked around Jack, but Ianto was no longer on the floor.  He was in the kitchen (and when the hell did that happen?), coughing and quietly trying to catch his breath.  The attack had been unexpected, and yet all-too familiar.  He willed his hands to stop shaking as he prepared a cup of very sweet tea before bringing it out to Rhys, who was now back on the sofa with Daf.

“Alright?” Jack asked, his concern evident as he took in Ianto’s decidedly not-disheveled appearance.  The younger man met his eyes and gave him a nod.

Rhys looked up and saw bruises blooming where his hands had closed around Ianto’s neck, just above his collar.  He absently noted that the tie was once more perfectly arranged.  He saw the pallor that was a bit paler than when they began.  “I…  Oh, God.  I’m so…” he choked as he took the tea from the younger man.

“Don’t give it another thought,” Ianto said, his voice rasping.  “You’re probably going to have a lot of anger come up as you move through this.  Just know that’s okay.  As long as you aren’t assaulting anyone,” he added, a wry smile barely forming on his lips.

Rhys nodded, then took a sip of the tea, trying to figure out what came next.  And bless him, it was Daf who spoke up.

“What about… arrangements?”

“Unfortunately, Gwen was exposed to toxic materials.  For safety reasons, we cannot release her body…” Jack began.

“What?” Rhys looked up.  “But I need to see her!”

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” Jack replied, his stoic mask slipping.

“Why the bloody hell not?”

“Mate,” Daf said gently.  “Toxic waste…”

“Yeah,” Banana Boat interjected, “She may be all disfigured and shit.  You don’t wanna see that.”

“Best remember her as she was,” Daf said, giving Banana a ‘you can shut up, now’ look.

But strangely, it was Banana Boat’s insensitive comment that got through to Rhys.

“Due to the nature of the materials she was exposed to, we cannot release her body,” Ianto said, seeing the shift in Rhys.  “However, we will assist you with a memorial service.  And we will carry those costs.”  He handed Rhys a card for the local undertaker that Torchwood used, when such services were required.  He had called them on their way to Rhys’ flat to engage their services.  “They are expecting your call.  They will take care of everything for you.  We hope you will spare no expense.”

“Yeah,” Rhys nodded blankly, taking the card.  “Thanks.”  Then something registered.  “Wait.  You’re Ianto?”

Ianto frowned, wondering how Rhys knew his name, and nodded.

“Gwen’s been ranting for a month about Jack going off with you to hospital,” Rhys shrugged.

“Looks like he should still be there,” Daf muttered.

“It was his first day back,” Jack stepped in.  “We decided to do the training exercise to re-acclimatize the team to working together.  Ianto’s not been released to full duty, so he was coordinating, but when…  When the accident occurred, he engaged.”

“You tried to help her?” Rhys asked.

Ianto stared at his toes and didn’t answer.  He did not want Rhys to feel grateful to him.  It would be perverse, given that it was Gwen’s resentment of him that had been the true cause of her demise.

“We all did,” Jack replied, his voice quiet.  “But it was just one of those freak accidents.  Honestly, I’m not sure how it could have been avoided.”

“Why do you do training exercises with toxic waste?” Banana Boat asked.

“It’s a fairly routine exercise, for us,” Jack replied.  “The task needed doing, and we needed a team exercise.”  It was a well-worn lie.  Someone always asked that question, so they had a script.  He sighed.  “I’m so sorry.”

Rhys nodded mutely.

“We’ll leave you now,” Ianto said, but reached into his pocket and handed over another card.  “But please, if you need anything, let us know.” 

Jack frowned as he caught a glimpse of one of the plain cards Ianto used for his contacts.  Plain, with just his name and mobile number printed on.  Jack doubted Rhys would take Ianto up on the offer, but it was very kind for the younger man to suggest it.

Daf took both cards from Rhys’ cold, numb fingers.  “Yeah, we’ll help him make the calls,” he said.

“Oh, God, her parents!” Rhys cried.

“We’ll help you, mate,” Daf put an arm around his friend, who was finally working his way past the shock and starting to crumble.

“I’ll see them out,” Banana Boat offered, and escorted Jack and Ianto down the hall and to the door.  “Sorry about the frying pan, mate,” he said as he opened the door.

“Protecting your friends is not a bad thing,” Jack replied with a sad smile.  “You’ll let us know if he needs anything, won’t you?”

Banana Boat blinked as Ianto handed him another card.  He wasn’t used to being relied upon.  “Uh…  Yeah.  Yeah, I can do that,” he stammered, then gave them a nod and shut the door, heading back in for a very different afternoon than the one they had originally been planning on.

***

They called Tosh and Owen when they left Rhys’ flat and invited them to lunch at a restaurant near the Plass.  Neither mentioned the fact that they had awakened well after noon wrapped around one another on Tosh’s sofa, and they had studiously ignored that fact as they’d had tea before Owen escaped to his flat to change.  Tosh had been unable to suppress the smile plastered on her face as she had showered and dressed.  Of course she was sad about Gwen; but waking up in Owen’s arms had been better than she’d dreamed.  And she had dreamt about that a lot.

Owen arrived last and launched into a series of curses that drew the attention of their fellow diners when he saw the bruises rising on Ianto’s neck.  Jack briefly told them about the visit to Rhys.  Ianto didn’t eat much, but Jack had deliberately ordered food that he knew Ianto liked, so he began urging his lover to “Try this” or ask, “What did they season this with?” as he plied the younger man with more food than he would have eaten, on his own.

As Jack, Owen, and Tosh talked quietly, Ianto dozed, his head on Jack’s shoulder.  At one point, Jack shifted to wrap his arm around Ianto, and the younger man snuggled against Jack’s chest, settling in to a bit more than a light doze.  Owen snorted and rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t pretend he wasn’t happy for them.  Toshiko giggled as she managed to get a picture, capturing Jack’s fond look as he looked at his sleeping partner.

Ianto didn’t sleep for long, and he was too tired to be embarrassed when he woke.  Jack took that as a win.  They headed to the hub, and Owen took the opportunity to examine Ianto while Jack and Tosh checked the containment unit in the locked down lab.  There were no life signs, so they took the necessary precautions in order to dispose of the unit in the furnace. 

Once ensuring it had been destroyed, they returned to the hub, where Owen and Ianto were sitting, having a quiet chat as Owen studied Ianto’s blood matrix on his scanner.  Jack sat on the sofa next to Ianto, smiling as the younger man curled into his side, enjoying the relief provided by the latest dose of painkillers.

“So assuming you’re not taking the piss, shouldn’t your blood look different, somehow?” Owen asked.  “And shouldn’t it have looked different from normal blood before, with the… unicorn blood?”  Not a question he’d ever imagined himself asking, but this was Torchwood, after all.

“Magic tends to hide itself,” Ianto explained.  “T1 had detected something different about my blood, but they never could determine what was strange.  I suppose if you compared my blood now to the last time you took it, you’d be able to see how the dragon’s blood has changed it.  That might give you a clue as to how a creature’s blood integrates, and maybe back into the unicorn blood markers, from there?”

Owen stared at him for a moment.  He always forgot how intelligent Ianto was, which was incredibly unfair.  He’d have to keep reminding himself to do better.  For now, he nodded, realizing that would be the most logical way to approach it, particularly if there was not a blood sample from before the unicorn.  He knew better than to ask about that.

Their conversation was interrupted by a pop that announced the arrival of Susan Bones.

“Ianto Jones, what in the name of Merlin’s bumhole are you doing at work?!”

***