Back To Square One (Torchwood au)(Immortals sequel)

The end

Ianto's pov

Jack is taking back his role as leader, he seems like he's fine and he's just happy to be back but I can see the pain in his eyes. There's no way that the kind of psychological torture that he went through wouldn't have any effect. However, I don't want to say anything in front of the others, they need someone to be strong. I just wish it could be Mickey or Gwen. They didn't go through what we did.

I get into the passenger seat of the SUV, next to Jack. Tosh and Alec join us but everyone else get into the other cars. Alec is on the phone. Martha must have lent him hers. That reminds me, we need to get our stuff back. Rose said that the hub was fine though, at least that's something. I can hear Alec reassuring his boyfriend over the phone, insisting that he doesn't need to drive down to London. In the end Alec gives up and just says ok. Magnus must know about Torchwood already. We set off as the other cars pull away from Canary Wharf. I feel like we should stay and sort everything out tonight but Jack definitely wasn't up to it and I didn't want to split everyone up. We need each other for a while.

In the backseat Tosh and Alec are both staring blankly out of the windows. They must have relived some pretty bad memories. Jack saw them all but he won't tell anyone anything that he saw. He said that it felt like too much of an invasion but I can't help but wonder which of my memories he saw.

***

We pull over to the side of the road outside Martha and Mickey's house. It feels like years since we were here. I get out of the SUV and move towards the house. Mickey has already got it unlocked and everyone is carrying in the supplies that Rose thought to pack from the hub. I realise that I'm the only one not helping but I don't move, it feels so good to breathe fresh air and feel wind on my face. I don't deal well with being trapped.

When we have got everything inside we set up places to sleep in the living room and office. Martha and Mickey offer to let some of us sleep on the floor of their bedroom but we decide against it. I'd rather be alone with Jack in the small office anyway. Everyone else is in the living room. When we got to the flat it was around 11pm but I'm exhausted. I can't wait to sleep but I need to make sure that Jack is ok first. I take the opportunity to talk to him alone when we're setting out camp beds.

"Jack it's ok if you're not ok, you don't have to be the strong one. No-one expects that." I say tentatively.

"Yes I do," he says, "Because who else will do it?"

"Me or Gwen," I say, "She didn't get treated as badly, she escaped the memory part and I didn't have it as bad. It's easier for me to be the strong one."

"Ianto, I'm Torchwood's leader. Like it or not I have to be strong for my team. Especially Alec. Some of the stuff that he relived was horrific." Jack doesn't expand on this and I can do nothing more than nod.

A knock on the door prevents me from saying anything else and I go to answer it. Alec beats me to it and he is enveloped in a hug as soon as he opens the door. As Alec pulls away I hear a voice say that he actually left for London a few hours ago when Rose told him that they were going to try to save us. Alec is smiling for the first time as Magnus walks into the flat. As I shake his hand I try not to show my surprise. When Alec said that his boyfriend was called Magnus I was expecting someone a bit more...flashy. Magnus is dressed in a simple T-shirt and jeans and he is quite short. His hair is just in a simple quiff and he looks like the kind of guy that you'd see on a university or college advert. Me and Jack follow them into the living room where Alec introduces Magnus. I notice that Alec hasn't let go of Magnus yet. I think that he's struggling a lot more than he's letting on.

***

The next day we head back down to canary wharf. We get into the basement without any trouble and Tosh quickly gets to work disabling the teleport. Owen, Martha and Magnus go with her. Alec sees me looking after him and he explains that he works as a computer technician and he had done some work for UNIT. I enter the computer room with the rest of the team.

The computer bank has been shut down, presumably the memories that Adam forced out of the others caused it to shut down, and Isaiah, Gray and Adam's bodies are where we left them. We are going to take them back to Torchwood and store them in the morgue so we brought body bags. I crouch in between Gray and Isaiah and close their eyes. I still can't bring myself to hate them, even after everything they've done. I guess I was just too close to them for too long. I place Gray into a body bag without zipping it shut and do the same for Isaiah bug I zip his shut. Mickey picks Isaiah up and I see that Ianto has Adam. John kneels on the other side of Gray, noticing me hesitating to zip it shut. He gently takes hold of the zip and closes the bag. I want to thank him but I feel numb so I just pick Gray up carefully and follow Mickey and Ianto back into the corridor. Tosh and the others have finished disabling the teleport and are waiting for us.

We make it back out of canary wharf without any trouble despite the three body bags that we are carrying. I guess people just don't want to know. We sealed the doorway back down to the basement with a triple deadlock and Tosh puts a perception filter on it. Hopefully that should stop any trouble. We also picked up the clothing in the room where Ianto, Gwen, Tosh, Owen and Alex were kept. I take one last look at my old bedroom which the camera feed for is still working. The bad memories have outweighed the good now but I still have them. One of the most clear ones is me and John lying together and his hard exterior finally coming down. That was the first time we kissed.

Back at the hub I get Adam, Isaiah and Gray into the morgue. I do it alone. When I go back upstairs I tell everyone else to go home, saying I have paperwork, and I go back down to my old room below my office. This room and the cells were the only parts of the hub to survive the bomb. It Was originally used as a bunker so the walls are strong. I have photos on one wall but other than that I never really decorated much. The photos are mostly of people I've lost. There's some of my family and Ianto but there's others too. One photo of me and Gray catches my eye. We're standing outside our house in the Boeshane peninsula. It must have been just before Gray got taken. He is smiling and I've got my arm looped casually around his shoulders. I fight back tears as I take the photograph of the wall. I think of Gray the last time I saw him alive. The hatred and pain in his eyes. It's my fault the smiling boy in the photo became the Gray with that pain. The Gray that was tortured and had nothing left. The Gray that only survived on his hatred for me.

The next morning Ianto finds me asleep in the room below my office. Apparently, Martha and Mickey are going back to London. I follow him out of my office and plaster a smile on my face. Martha and Mickey are waiting outside. Martha hugs me before I can say anything. She steps back with a sad smile on her face; she can tell that mine is fake.

"Take care of yourself ok? And call me if you need anything, even the Doctor needs a hand occasionally." She says.

"See ya' captain cheesecake." Mickey says, saluting.

I salute back, "Mickey mouse."

After they've left I call the team together. Rose and Magnus are still here as Rose has joined Torchwood and Magnus is on a trial period. He decided to join after he saw what had happened to Alec and he wanted to stop it from happening ever again. He's working with Tosh on some decoding of a signal coming from the moon at the moment.

"Ok everyone. Glad to see you all back today. Due to the recent events, we have a lot of work to do. Tosh and Magnus, I need you to keep working on that decoding but I need everyone else getting Torchwood back in shape. Make it a top priority, starting with the weevil epidemic that we have on our hands." I try to put as much positivity into my voice as possible but everyone is still quite subdued.

"Jack I don't know if we can...I mean what we all went through in there what we all had to see..." Gwen trails off.

"Trust me we can," I say, "Because we're Torchwood and it's only just beginning."

A:N/ Sorry this has taken so long to write. I had to rewrite it several times before I was happy with it.

Thank you so much to anyone who has taken the time to read this fic. It means a lot to me and to see some of you constantly in my notifications voting on each chapter has been amazing. It's hard to believe that I am done with this particular storyline. I may write Torchwood in the future but it won't be in the same universe as this story and Immortals. I have received a much more positive response to this story than I could ever have imagined so think you so much.

I will now be focusing on Insert title here and after that I will be writing a ClassxTorchwood fic called Ghosts.

Thank you so much for reading and please vote if you enjoyed this fic.

-Annie