Torchwood Fanfic!

[erastes]

Yes yes, I know I said I was not doing any more, but rosie_red73 is expecting and feels like an unexploded bomb at the moment so this is for her.  She is sharing my complete SQUEE over Torchwood, especially the Jack/Ianto that we so so SO want to happen.

This is completely canonical, and for some irritating reason refused to go beyond a G.

Ar Hyd Y Nos (All Through the Night)
Ianto/Jack (Torchwood)
By erastes
for rosie_red73 with love



How did it begin?

Before. 

A lad from the valleys, all hell bent on doing well.  Take a class, learn a trade. Don't be like your father - look you - you go to London and make your mam proud.  Nothing here for you.

Nothing here for me.  Nothing there, either.

Oh I went and I did well.  Our Ianto, she'd say, bustling through the village with her letter in her hand.  Our Ianto. Got a good job. Govermment he says.

Friend of a friend of a friend it was and next thing I knew I'm in a too-new suit looking at computers I had only seen in magazines.  But I could use them. Oh yes.  I can make a computer sit up and sing to Jesus.  Did well too.  Went from the Pool, to the main hub and after that…

After that I met Lisa, and after that, nothing else mattered.  Dark she was, but any other light is darkness, as it goes.  And I'd never understood that before.  I worried about taking her home, how could I not?  All well and good in London where no-one notices - but what would they say to her?  Mam said "When you coming home, cariad?" and I'd say soon.

Soon, mam.

Then the Meddyg came with his bold talk and his blonde women and his 3-d glasses and the world split in half as they all tried to kill him, and us all by implication.  Everything went wrong.  Then I remember, as I pulled her from the machine, and she screamed and screamed until I put her back, that I should have taken her home.  But it was too late by then and the world turned shining pewter and black, like the slag and the flint I'd spent a lifetime running away from.

And so I took her home, at last.  And I hid her, but for different prejudices than any I could have imagined.  I used to laugh, sometimes, when I wasn't crying, that they might have stood her black, but to see her silver, now, that they wouldn't stand.  They wouldn't have shot her for being black, would they? 

He thinks I didn't know that he kissed me.  Oh it brought me back, that's for sure. He gave me air, and the shock in my lungs pulled me back into the world. But he gave me more than that.  I saw something in his face that night, something terrible.

The others, they couldn't understand why I came back to work the next day.  But Jack did.  I saw the look in his face when I looked up.  I was heart-sick, empty, but he gathered me in with a nod. And I was home again.  Jack understood.  I saw then that he'd lost someone too, someone as special to him as Lisa was to me and that whoever that person was he would have threatened the world, left it trembling on the brink of extinction, the way I did.  If there was one chance that he could have kept that someone with him.

Well I won't let the team down.  I won't let him down.  We'll put our weak light together.  Against the dark.  All through the night.
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Holl amrantau'r sêr ddywedant  Ar hyd y nos.  Dyma'r ffordd i fro gogoniant  Ar hyd y nos.  Golau arall yw tywyllwch,  I arddangos gwir brydferthwch,  Teulu'r nefoedd mewn tawelwch  Ar hyd y nos. O mor siriol gwena seren Ar hyd y nos, I oleuo'i chwaer ddaearen Ar hyd y nos, Nos yw henaint pan ddaw cystudd, Ond i harddu dyn a'i hwyrddydd Rhown ein golau gwan i'n gilydd Ar hyd y nos

All the star's eyelids say, All through the night, "This is the way to the valley of glory," All through the night. Any other light is darkness, To exhibit true beauty, The Heavenly family in peace, All through the night. O how cheerful smiles the star, All through the night, To light its earthly sister, All through the night. Old age is night when affliction comes, But to beautify man in his late days, We'll put our weak light together, All through the night.