WARNINGS: Spoilers for a lot of the first season. Language. Some minor sexual references that are so inexplicit you might miss them. Mentions of slash. (Does anybody in this category actually mind slash?)

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Torchwood, its characters or its plotlines. All rights belong to RTD and the BBC. Title inspired by Tori Amos.

The pub was almost barren at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, the only patrons being the mournful, silent kind who were already drunk, or heading there like a steam train. Ianto, fitting nicely into the first category, finished his drink and ordered another. He wasn't here for the people anyway. He was here because getting good and sauced sitting at home wasn't a good idea. There were too many memories, and too many things he wanted to do with them.

For a while Jack had made that all right, he'd made the memories bearable, he'd made the thoughts go away. But, Jack was gone now, too, and Ianto was back where he'd begun. Lost and alone, with no reason to fight except for the fact that he must. It hadn't been like that before Lisa. Before he'd met her life had been simple and straightforward. She'd shown him how complex and beautiful everything was, and losing her had been like losing sight of God. He couldn't find what she'd shown him, couldn't see the beauty if he couldn't see it thru her eyes. Sometimes he hated her. He hated knowing what he'd had and lost. He hated knowing there was all that magnificence he could no longer see. He hated what he'd made of himself, all to save her.

Jack had helped. He'd started to show Ianto other paths, other way's into the garden. He'd started bringing out new aspects of him, aspects Ianto wasn't ashamed or afraid of. Then he'd just left, gone without a trace, and his loss finished the job of breaking Ianto's heart. Jack had seen the worst of him, the cold and broken bits, and the primal pieces. He'd seen Ianto go crazy. He'd seen Ianto threaten his teammates. He'd seen Ianto's willingness to die for lost and evil causes. He'd wanted Ianto anyway. He'd even wanted the dark parts, wanted to nurture them into something that could be used for the good of the team. In short, he'd seen Ianto stripped bare and ragged, and he'd started to fuse all the pieces together into one, well-balanced whole. He'd left before it was finished though, and Ianto felt incomplete and worthless. He'd never felt like that before Jack. Before he'd met him, Ianto had never noticed how broken he was. He hated Jack most of the time. He wanted Jack all of the time. He wanted to be held by him, to be inside of him again, to feel Jack inside of him. He wanted to feel worth something. He really wanted another drink.

He ordered a double, pushing his glass towards the bartender with a practiced flick of his wrist. The bartender filled it and sent it back without a word. Ianto rolled the drink between his hands for a moment in an almost prayer like ritual before drinking. He raised the glass to his lips and slammed half the scotch in a gulp. He set the glass down on the bar, and felt a pair of hands touch his shoulders. Ianto froze, feeling the adrenaline trying to fight the alcohol. Half of him was sure, absolutely certain, that it was Jack, and the other half was just as certain that it was a threat. Ianto turned around slowly, and let out his breath when he saw it was only Owen. Owen smiled tightly at him, and slid into the empty barstool at his side.

"Having fun?" he asked, and Ianto shrugged.

"You are a very difficult man to find when you don't want to be, Jones. We've called your mobile, your home phone, checked your flat. You just seemed to disappear. Jack must have trained you well." Ianto glared at him and picked up his drink, but Owen grabbed it from his hands. He knocked it back quickly, and set the empty out of Ianto's reach. "I put myself in your place, though" Owen continued as if nothing had happened, "I asked myself 'If I were Ianto, and I was too busy to show up for work for two days straight, where would I be?' so, I checked the pubs in your neighborhood, and here you are. How long have you been here? Been drowning your sorrows all this time?" Ianto leveled his gaze at the bar. "I'm surprised you could put yourself in my place. I'm just a tea-boy, and you're the great doctor. You're so much better than me, how could you possibly lower yourself to asking how I'd feel?" Owen's mouth twisted. "How much have you had to drink, Ianto? You're well past shit-faced, I can see that." Owen sat back and studied him, his eyes cool and clinical. Ianto felt like a lab-rat being prepared for dissection. "What do you want, Owen? Is there something I can help you with? Because, frankly, I don't have time or patience for a lecture." Owen's lips quirked into a sardonic smile. "I can see your drinking is important to you," he said, "and it must be very time consuming, maintaining this level of drunkenness, but I think you should hear me out. I didn't track you all over fucking Cardiff just to lecture you. I came to tell you that we're already a man down, what with Jack pissing off to Christ knows where, and as much as I hate to admit it, we need you. Gwen is good, and she's taken charge, so God bless her. Tosh can run a computer better than anyone, and she tries her best. But, they aren't able to take up the slack of two grown men, and neither am I. We can't run the place with just the three of us, so get off your ass, get a shower, get some sleep and get to work. Am I clear?"

Ianto wanted to argue, but he suddenly found himself too tired. It had been a hellish couple of weeks. It had started so long ago, years ago it felt like, when Owen had opened the Rift and Ianto had shot him. Then they'd all mutinied against Jack, Owen had shot and killed him, Jack had come back, faced the Abaddon, died again, hadn't come back for days, and had finally abandoned them. Ianto couldn't remember the last time he'd slept, and when he put all the events together in his head like that it was so ridiculous it was funny. He started laughing heartily, the kind of laughter that sounded slightly hysterical and would soon turn dangerous. The kind that, once you started, you couldn't stop until someone sedated you. The kind of laughter you only heard from people who were falling down.

Owen grabbed him and slapped him sharply. The force of it caused Ianto to bite his lip, and he could taste blood welling up at once. Ianto took a deep breath, and Owen looked ready to slap him again, at the first sign of hysteria. After a minute had passed with both men staring at the other, and no laughter or acts of violence had occurred, Owen stood up and pulled Ianto to his feet. "Come on, you're going home. You're lucky I don't take you back to the Hub, pump your stomach, and stick you on an I.V. You'd deserve that. Come on, Ianto. Don't make me remove you by force." Ianto thought he should come back with something scathing about their vastly different sizes, but the effort of thought made his head hurt. He mutely followed Owen out of the pub, and down the four blocks to his flat. When they got there, Owen removed Ianto's keys from his jacket pocket, opened the door and pushed him inside.

"Okay," Owen said, "forget the shower, just get some sleep. Hold on, wait." He moved quickly to Ianto's refrigerator and eyed the contents. He pulled out two bottles of Gatorade, opened one, and handed it to Ianto. "I want you to drink all of that, then all of this one. From the looks of you, you've pretty much powdered your blood, and you'll be lucky if your hangover is only soul-sucking come tomorrow." Ianto took the bottle with shaking hands, and slammed it in one go. He felt it trying to come up almost at once. He barely made it to the sink before he vomited. He leaned against the counter, gasping, and then he threw up again. His stomach made another lurch, but he'd emptied it and he stood there dry heaving for what felt like hours. When his stomach finally, finally, settled down, he rinsed the sink out and then he drank water directly from the faucet. Ianto had never felt so thirsty in all of his life, and he sucked at the water greedily. "Easy, easy." Owen said, pulling him back. "We don't want you puking again."

Ianto shuddered and slid down the cabinets to the floor, resting his back against the counter. He buried his head in his hands and tried desperately not to cry. He felt Owen's hand on the top of his head, and he was for once grateful to be in the medics' presence. "Well, I've been where you are, mate. Many times. There's nothing worse than drinking 'til you puke. Especially since the drinking usually stops being fun long before you puke, right? It's a good thing, though. Gets some of the alcohol out of your system before it hits your bloodstream, and I think it probably helps with the headache the next day. If you stay hydrated; so you need to drink this now." Owen handed the other Gatorade to him, and Ianto took it gratefully. "Slowly, Ianto, small sips. If you puke on me, I'll make you wish you were bloody well never born." Ianto drank it slowly, head spinning, sitting on his kitchen floor, while Owen looked at him with a mixture of pity and disdain. Oh, yeah, life just didn't get better than this.

When the Gatorade was gone, and Ianto hadn't thrown it up, Owen lifted him gently to his feet. Ianto allowed himself to be guided into his bedroom and lay on the bed. He started to take off his tie, but his hands were shaking so badly he kept hitting himself in the throat. Owen brushed his hands aside, and had the tie off in about five seconds. He then removed Ianto's belt, followed by his shoes and socks. Owen did this with clinical precision, his face passive, showing no emotion. It was one of the rare times Ianto could see the doctor he must have been, once upon a time. Still, Ianto felt vaguely humiliated, and the small, adult-voice in the back of his head that always stayed sober no matter how much he drank, laughed at him. It told him he deserved to feel humiliated, because it was his fault he had to be undressed like a child. Ianto hated that voice, even though experience told him it was always right. He wondered drunkenly if other people hated the voice of their conscience as much as he did, and then he passed out.

xxXXxx

Ianto woke up at three a.m with the worst case of cottonmouth he'd ever had, and having to piss like a racehorse. His hands were shaking and he felt like his stomach had been pickled, but his head didn't hurt nearly as much as it should have. He climbed out of bed warily, testing the ground like he didn't expect it to be there. He looked down and saw he'd slept in his clothes. He hadn't done that since his time at Uni, when he and his roommate used stay up drinking while they studied, which was why he hadn't been an exceptional student. He cast his mind back to the previous nights events, and wished that just once, he could drink until black out. No such luck, he always remembered what had happened the night before, and last night was no exception. He remembered Owen dragging him home, and babying him while he threw up everything he'd ever eaten. He remembered being undressed like he was defective, and he groaned. When he got to work, he'd have to avoid Owen like the plague. Some things were just too embarrassing to face the next day. Ianto shook his head, and tried to focus on the tasks at hand. He needed the restroom, first thing, and then he needed to brush his teeth and shower. After that he would force himself to eat, drink lots of strong black coffee, get into work and see what happened from there. Ianto walked shakily to his closet and pulled out a faded pair of jeans and a tee shirt. He walked into the bathroom, completed all the tasks on his list, and pulled the clothes on. He was still damp, and the jeans stuck to him uncomfortably. He wiped the steam from the mirror, applied shaving foam to his face, and shaved without looking away from his beard line. He wondered in a brief, disconnected way, if he'd ever be able to look at himself in the mirror again. He rinsed his face, walked out into the living room and screamed.

Owen jumped a foot and spilled the soda he was drinking down the front of his shirt. "Shit, Ianto! Don't do that! You scared the hell out of me!"

"I scared you? I scared you? I'm not the one in your house. What are you doing here?" Owen looked at him like he was stupid. "I got you home last night, remember? Do you remember last night?" Ianto glared at him, and moved into the kitchen to make coffee. "Yes, Owen. I remember last night clearly, thank you. What are you still doing here?" "Well, I would have called Gwen or Tosh to sit with you, but I thought they would let you off too easily." Ianto shot him a look as he poured fresh water into the coffee machine. Owen remained silent, and even though he knew he was going to regret it, Ianto gave in. "What do you mean by that? Let me off too easily for what?"

"For being a complete wanker. For letting Jack fuck you up so much you can't see straight. Personally, I don't care if you want to go home every night and get completely blitzed on cheap brandy and rum. You want to become a functioning alcoholic, fine. That's almost respectable in a way. At least it shows you can stand up until five. As a doctor, I have to tell you it's a stupid thing to do, but hey, I don't even listen to that. What I won't stand for is you becoming a worthless drunk. There's nothing respectable about that, and it affects everyone. Me, Gwen, Toshiko, everybody. We need you at work, and we need you functioning. Completely functioning. Not hung over with your hands shaking too bad to fire a gun. I need you working, the way you used to."

Ianto had poured two cups of coffee without thinking, and he shoved the second at Owen forcefully. Owen almost had to grab it in self-defense. "First," Ianto said, "I find it funny, really, actually funny, that this is the second lecture you've given me on how much I'm needed. You never seemed that happy to have me around before. Don't worry, I'm not go to throw myself a pity party, I'm just making an observation. Second, don't talk about Jack and me, because you don't know what you're talking about. Don't try to put yourself in my place; don't tell me you understand; don' tell me you know how I feel, because you can't. You don't. So just don't, Owen." Owen's eyes blazed angrily, and he stepped forward quickly, putting himself inches from Ianto's face.

"I shot him, Ianto. I shot him in the head, and I didn't know he could get back up. I murdered him, and just because it didn't take, that doesn't mean it doesn't count. I shot him, and then he abandoned us. How do you think I feel?" Owen shook his head angrily. "Fuck it, tea-boy. Fuck you. I'm out of here."

He set the coffee cup down on the end table, grabbed his coat from the back of the sofa, and headed for the door. Ianto grabbed his arm, and spun him around, looking him squarely in the eye. "He forgave you for that. God knows how, but he forgave you. His leaving, it wasn't your fault." Owen threw his head back and laughed bitterly. "He forgave me. That's great, but I can barely forgive myself. Can you, Ianto? Can you forgive me for that?" Ianto released his arm, and stepped back. He looked at Owen stupidly. "What? Why would I need…?" Owen raised his eyebrows. "You were shagging him, right? Since when? The cannibals? Suzie? But for a while, yeah? You didn't know he could come back either; I saw it on your face. You must have thought I'd killed your lover. You must see it in nightmares. Can you forgive me for that?" His tone was accusatory, not the tone of a man asking for forgiveness, but the tone of a man daring someone to give it to him. Ianto stared at him numbly.

He wondered how the conversation had gotten to this point, and he almost wished they could get back to Owen calling him a drunk and being sanctimonious. It was true that they had never gotten along, but Ianto didn't want to think that Owen had been carrying this weight since the moment he'd pulled the trigger. He didn't want to think of Owen suffering under this much guilt alone. In a distant part of his mind, Ianto understood why Owen had chosen him to unload on. Jack, his sort-of victim, was gone, and the only place Owen could turn to for forgiveness was the other person it had affected the most. That was why Owen had taken care of him last night, why he was so adamant that Ianto pull his life together. Deep down in Owen's secret and guarded heart, he blamed himself for Jack's departure. Ianto knew all of this in a distant part of his mind, but the part he was using to deal with the situation was clueless and stuttering. "Owen, I… I never thought of it before. We all had a part in that."

"Yeah, but I was the only one who shot him."

The edge was draining out of Owen's voice, and he now sounded tired and worn. Ianto took a sip of his lukewarm coffee, and closed his eyes. "Okay, Owen. You want to know if I can forgive you? I shot you once, and you wouldn't have gotten up. Have you forgiven me?" Owen looked at him, and seemed to contemplate the question. "Yeah. I know you were only doing what you thought… oh, screw it. You shot me, tea-boy. I still can't believe you shot me. Mostly, I just didn't think you had it in you. It's okay, though. Long as you don't do it again." Ianto nodded, though he wasn't sure he believed him. "When you shot Jack, I didn't feel anything. Not when I watched him go down, and not when I saw him lying there with a bullet hole in his head. I felt nothing. When he got back up, when I saw him come back from the dead, I was so relived my knees went weak. It was like a nightmare, it wasn't real. There was no time for it to be real. When I dream about it, he doesn't come back, and that feels real. But, when it happened…" Ianto shrugged. "So, I never thought to blame you, or to forgive you. Then, you put it the way you have, that you murdered him, and I hate you a little. But, he did get back up, and you got a re-do. You're lucky, Owen, because you are the only person in the world to ever get that. I suppose I can forgive you, mostly because you haven't forgiven yourself. And because I felt nothing when I watched him die."

Ianto looked Owen in the eye as he said this, and he was surprised to see compassion there. "You were in shock, Ianto. It happens. A trauma like that… I'm so sorry." Owen looked like he was fighting back tears, and Ianto set his coffee down, wondering what he was supposed to do now. He shocked them both by pulling Owen into a hug. Owen hugged him back tightly, and they stood there, leaning on each other and taking the comfort they'd both needed for weeks. "This doesn't change anything." Owen said. "I still think you're a wanker, and I can't stand you." Ianto nodded "I really don't like you, either." Owen pulled back and sighed. "I need to go. I need to shower and change. Don't want the girls to think I was out partying all night. I'll see you at the Hub, yeah?" Ianto nodded in affirmation, and Owen let himself out.

That day at work Gwen and Tosh welcomed him back with hugs, and they doted on him like mothers. Ianto tried his best to rebuff the attention, especially since Owen kept making snide remarks. Time went on, and the girls eventually let him be. Nothing had changed between him and Owen, except that it had. The barbs were a little less venomous, the laughter a little less forced. They felt more like a family, and Ianto realized that was exactly what they were. Not in the lovey-dovey sense most people meant when speaking of their friends, but in the truest sense of the word. They were a group of people who sometimes didn't like each other all that much but loved each other anyway. Loved and relied on each other, trusted one another, and helped each other thru. It was a startling epiphany, and it was just as startling to realize that he was a part of it. Though Jack was gone, he still had a place with these people, and that was surprising and a little wonderful. Ianto still wanted Jack back, still missed him with every part of his being, but if he never came back, Ianto thought he'd be okay. It would hurt, and he would always suffer because of it, but he'd be okay. It wasn't great, it was pitiful in fact, but it was better than what he'd had, and it allowed him to sleep at night.

END.

A/N: I wrote this because I fell asleep with my iPod on repeat, and spent nine hours listening to Nine Inch Nails' 'Hurt'. I woke up super depressed, as you can probably imagine, and I needed something to alleviate it. This worked for me; I hope it did something for you. Thanks for reading it!