silkendreammaid | Bingo Fic - Leaving Torchwood

Title: Elegy
Author: silkendreammaid

Rating: PG13
Disclaimer: I do not and never will own Torchwood or the characters within

Characters: Ianto Jones, Jack Harkness
Notes: Part of my siren ‘verse. A different ending to ‘They Keep Killing Suzie’. Bingo card prompt 'Leaving Torchwood'.

Author’s Note: I have been suffering from a bad connection of brain to fingers to keyboard and I have no idea why. The bunnies have certainly been around. I guess it’s just been the fingers’ fault for not wanting to write them down. So, a small offering to hopefully get back into the right groove…

Summary: Suzie is dead again and this time Ianto can mourn for her.

Elegy

Captain Jack Harkness stood at his office window and looked around the Hub. Not all the lighting was back on and there was a shadowed melancholy air to the vast space.

He’d sent Gwen home. The ex-policewoman was still shocked and unnerved by her ordeal and Jack hadn’t really wanted to sit through another hour trying to explain to Gwen why her greatest gift was also her greatest weakness. He sighed. He was too tired to deal with her stubborn idealism. Suzie had died again.

Toshiko was still here. He watched her working at her computer running diagnostic after diagnostic. He knew she wouldn’t be going home until she was sure that never again could they be caught in their own Hub and that no trace of Suzie’s programming remained. Jack knew he could expect to have Tosh appear in his office tomorrow with several dozen programs and suggestions for the upgrade of their system. And half of them she would have already implemented, not waiting on his approval. He smiled slightly. Tosh was so very dependable and completely predictable when it came to the computers.

Jack rocked back on his heels and let his breath out, closing his eyes for a moment. He heard Owen’s low curse as something clanged in the autopsy bay. Owen was doing his own cleaning up for once. Jack smirked briefly then it faded away. Owen was hurting. He and Suzie had been lovers. It had been casual, everyone knew that, but it had been something between them. And Owen had autopsied her twice now. Goddess save him from a third, Jack pleaded silently.

Jack turned away from his window and looked at his monitor. Ianto was in the vault with Suzie and he was gently brushing Suzie’s hair from her face. Jack watched him, feeling the melancholy settle deeper within him. Suddenly Jack’s eyes narrowed and he leant forward. Ianto was talking to Suzie. Jack quickly turned the volume up and listened.

“… once tried to sing some of her poems, but her spacing made it difficult. I think she’s much better spoken. Or maybe it was just because I’m not human. I don’t understand the meanings behind those pauses. I think you understood those pauses better than most, Suzie ... you never paused. There’s a breath in those pauses, a breath that you never took. Perhaps there should be words in those spaces. Words that you didn’t want to hear. You always did use words carefully. Not always kindly and not always honestly but never carelessly. I’m going to miss your words, Suzie…”

Ianto was rambling and Jack could hear the thickness of sorrow behind the soft speech. Jack was not surprised when Ianto paused to clear his throat. The first soft notes of an unfamiliar song caught Jack off guard and he quickly focused on the screen. Ianto’s song was mournful, a dirge in a language Jack didn’t know. Jack listened for a moment and then stood up. He left his office at a run.

"Tosh! Owen! With me! Now!” he ordered as he flew across the Hub and into the tunnels below. He heard them protesting but hurrying after him.

Ianto sang softly as he finished preparing Suzie for her drawer. He didn’t need to sing loudly as each quiet note was carried up and around by the echoes of the open vault. He’d sung this dirge last for Lisa. It had been the last one he had sung for her on his last night of suspension. He hadn’t thought to ever sing it again, but Suzie needed something. And to show some sign of respect for her passing was ingrained into him and Ianto didn’t know any of her native songs. This, the last of the traditional Songs of Sorrow seemed the most appropriate.

As the song progressed he used the echoes, expanding single notes into lingering tones that filled the pauses and spaces between words. One voice seemed to become many and he played with the almost-choir effect. He sang in regrets and sorrows without the soul-crushing loss that had coloured all his songs for Lisa. He held notes for minutes, his voice soaring before dropping to the bass depths of the old dirge and he finally closed the door on Suzie with a last long note echoing forgiveness and finality.

He turned, wiping away stray tears and found Jack, Owen and Tosh standing in the doorway with equally wet eyes. He walked towards them and Tosh met him halfway, wrapping arms around him that gripped at his jacket. He carefully hugged her close and looked over her head at the Owen and Jack.

“Ya know Suzie would have killed you if she’d actually heard that, don’t you song boy?” Owen remarked in a cracking voice.

“I know,” Ianto nodded. “But she… before she …” Ianto sighed. “She was a friend first.”

“Yes she was,” Jack replied solemnly. “Thank you.” He came close and wrapped his arms around both Tosh and Ianto.

“There is a song I want you to sing when I die,” Tosh said without lifting her head from Ianto’s chest.

“Tosh…” Ianto began.

“No Ianto. Torchwood die young. I know that and you know that. When I die I want you to sing for me too.”

“You’re not going to die,” Ianto protested hollowly and they all knew it.

“No, it’s not dying, it’s leaving active Torchwood service,” Tosh said on a muffled broken laugh. “I want you to sing and I want you to remember, just like we’re remembering Suzie.”

Ianto barely managed to nod and Jack held them both closer unable to offer any promises that they knew he couldn’t deliver. Owen stood near them and placed his hand on Ianto’s shoulder and they stood there silent, lost in memories for the longest time.

“So Ianto, how long can you hold a note for?” Jack queried lightly as they followed Owen and Tosh up to the main Hub. Jack knew the young Siren was staring at Tosh’s back as if he could stop her from dying by willpower alone. “That last note got pretty long, even without the echoes,” Jack added with a teasing grin. Ianto missed a step and looked at the Captain. He could feel the sorrow that got deeper with each death and loss but he also saw the determination not to lose a single moment to regret.

“I still have that stopwatch, Sir,” Ianto replied with a tentative smile.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Utterly, heartbreakingly beautiful! I love that Jack gathered the others so they could all share in Ianto's final song for Suzie, mourning and remembering together. I think they needed that. Suzie had been a friend before the glove made her whatever it was she became, she deserved to have her passing marked by more than just the anger and pain she left them with.

I've really missed your writing, and I've missed Siren!Ianto too.