TITLE: Apathy

AUTHOR: Erin Giles

DISCLAIMER: Torchwood is property of the BBC and RTD.

CHARACTERS: Ianto, Owen, Jack

WORDS: 1700

SUMMARY: After the events of Cyberwoman Owen pays Ianto a visit, because they have more in common than either of them thought. "He doesn't say anything. He's already said too much."

Owen considered letting himself in but didn't fancy his chances of being thrown out on his arse. Ianto answered the door eventually; Owen watched as the shambling gait got closer to the frosted glass in the upper half of the door frame. He was still dressed in the suit that Jack had sent him home in. It was still soaked in blood; he was still covered in it, hands and face streaked with the stuff. His eyes were bloodshot, no more tears left to spill at this moment, heavy lidded with alcohol and emotional exhaustion.

Neither Ianto or Owen said anything. Eventually Ianto just turned from the doorstep, leaving the front door open and moving back down the hall. Owen hesitated on the doorstep, unsure whether he should have even come here to start with. He glanced back into the street, saw the curtains twitching across the road and made his decision.

He closed the front door quietly behind him and made his way down the hall. He found Ianto slumped on his couch, a bottle of whisky in one hand, a tumbler in the other. He inclined the bottle to Owen, asking him silently if he wanted a drink. Owen responded by picking up one of the tumblers on the sideboard and crossing the room to Ianto. He watched Ianto's hands desperately shaking as he tried to pour the liquor into Owen's glass. Half of it ended up sloshing over the side onto Owen's hand and the carpet, but Ianto didn't seem to care about being clean at the moment.

"You shouldn't be drinking with a head injury." Owen offers after the silence has gone on too long. Ianto doesn't reply, just fills his glass with whisky again which is answer enough for Owen.

"Look, Ianto mate –"

"I'd rather you just got it over and done with rather than give me the talk, although I'm surprised to see that Jack sent you to do the dirty work." Ianto's words slur into each other slightly and Owen blinks, confused for a moment.

"Jack doesn't know I'm here." Owen's voice is soft as he perches on the arm of the sofa, never taking his eyes off of Ianto.

"Oh." Ianto looks surprised for a moment, watching his glass like it's already laced with retcon before he suddenly realises that Owen is apparently only there because he cares. That stings more than the retcon and Ianto lets out a pained sob, his shoulders heaving slightly as he tries to drown himself in his glass. Owen looks uncomfortably into his own glass before he's talking.

"I lost my fiancée." It's a simple statement and Ianto turns to look at him, and for a moment isn't sure whether Owen is lying, spinning him a story just so he can bullshit him with the words 'I know how you feel'.

"That's how I came to join Torchwood." Owen stops looking into the depths of his glass and throws back most of the drink in one. Ianto passes him the bottle without a word and notes the tears in Owen's eyes that threaten to fall when he utters her name.

"Her name was Katie. We thought she had a tumour." The glugging of the liquid into Owen's glass filled the oppressive silence. "Turned out it was an alien growing in her brain." Owen let out a bitter laugh. "And of course in comes Jack, man of mystery, chloroforms me and leaves no trace so they all think I'm bloody nuts." Owen took another large gulp of whisky. "Next thing I know Captain America's offering me a job, offering me the chance to save more than one life at a time, and I was so," Owen's face screwed up, looking down at Ianto. "I was so lost that I didn't know what else to do anymore. So I took the job."

The silence clung to them again, the distant rumble of traffic as they both sat there, watching the headlights streak through the curtains. They illuminate the room just long enough for Owen to see that most of it is still packed in boxes, DVDs clustered in small piles round the television, a few photo frames on the bookshelf, but nothing overly homely. It's been six months since Canary Wharf and Owen wonders why he didn't do something more about it when he noticed Ianto had PTSD. Telling Jack apparently did fuck all, but Ianto was new, the epitome of Torchwood One, everything that Jack didn't want Torchwood Three to be, so he said nothing and then Suzie's untimely death and the new girl took precedence.

"Suppose I could tell you it gets better over time, but I don't know that." Owen shrugged, finishing his drink off and putting it down on the coffee table. He glanced at Ianto to see that he'd placed the bottle of the floor, staring intently at the remainder of the amber liquid in his glass. "You might go off the deep end for all I know. No one deals with the kinda shit you've gone through without being damaged. I mean fuck Ianto you survived Canary Wharf, you kept your half cybercized girlfriend in the basement. I saw the aftermath of that, Jack made me and Suzie pick through the rubble and it was fucking awful. People lying partial converted, dead eyes just staring up at you it was,"

"I don't need to hear about it again Owen. I was there." Ianto snapped, picking up the bottle of alcohol again. Owen looked suitably chastised as he worried his lower lip for a moment.

"Yeah, sorry." And Owen meant it. He was sorry; sorry that Ianto had had to lose someone he loved that much because he knew how much it hurt. He knew how much it tore you apart inside.

"What do you think Jack's going to do with me?" Ianto's voice is small and frightened sounding. He sounds so lost and scared that it makes Owen look at him, really look at him. And suddenly Owen can see past the suit to that small frightened child that's seen far too much, desperate for some comfort and Owen doesn't know what to do or say to him, because he can't even predict Jack's reactions to this catastrophic event.

"I dunno mate," Owen shrugs. "What do you want him to do?"

"I don't have anything else."

Owen's hand comes to his face, rubbing at the day's stubble, sighing slightly as he looks at the ceiling. A part of him wishes he had never come to see Ianto now because he can't stand the heartbreak and hopeless defeat in Ianto's demeanour. Owen reaches out and places a comforting hand on Ianto's shoulder and says the only thing he can, because he knows it's true.

"Then I guess you belong at Torchwood."

Ianto seems to sag with the relief of the words and Owen worries that he's given Ianto false hope and he suddenly feels awkward.

"Why don't you go get yourself cleaned up and I'll make you a cuppa." Owen pats him on the back to encourage him and Ianto nods, unable to form words now. Owen watches him stumble out of the living room before he pulls himself to his feet, following Ianto out into the hall to find the kitchen.

"Owen?" Ianto's voice draws his attention to where he's perched half way up the stairs trying to wrestle his suit jacket off. "Thanks." Ianto gives him a kind of half nod before he stumbles to his feet again, crawling the rest of the way up the stairs, leaving a shoe behind before he disappears out of sight.

While Owen's waiting for the kettle to boil Ianto's doorbell rings. Owen hesitates before he goes into the hall to answer it. Both men stand staring at each other for a long moment, trying to figure out what the other is doing there, but Jack's the first to find his voice.

"Owen, what are you doing here?"

Owen rubs at the back of his neck nervously like he's not sure himself.

"I came to check he's not killed himself."

"Has he?" Something passes over Jack's face but Owen can't decipher it before it disappears. Owen shakes his head, doesn't trust his voice to speak now.

"Can I come in then or are you his protector?" Jack half mocks before stepping round Owen and disappearing down the hall into the kitchen.

"Are you going to retcon him?" Owen asks as he steps into the kitchen behind Jack.

"Do you think I should?"

"No." Owen answers quickly, too quickly, and it causes Jack's eyebrow to quirk. "He hasn't got anything else Jack."

"He tell you that?" Jack's brows are knitted together and Owen looks at his feet as the kettle clicks off. He goes over to it and starts making a pot of tea. He doesn't plan on staying though.

"You told him about you and Katie didn't you?" It sounds like a question but Owen knows Jack already knows the answer.

"He's in the shower. You might want to make sure he's not passed out. He's drunk about half a bottle of whisky." Owen doesn't look at Jack as he moves back out into the hall and out the front door, slamming it shut behind him.

He pauses at the end of the garden path, watches the curtains across the road twitching again and he wants to go back, to tell Jack that 'Yes, Ianto fucked up, and yes he deserves to be punished, but Ianto can probably manage that one on his own without losing god knows how many years of his memory. But he did it for love and surely even you Jack can understand that, can understand what it's like to be so lost and alone, to feel like you have nothing left anymore.'

He doesn't though. He just walks away.

When he comes in next morning though he can't say he isn't surprised to find Ianto sat in the tourist office, eyes still bloodshot, body hunched over itself like he's physically hurting. He doesn't say anything though. He's already said too much.