Drabble: Living Paradox

[bk_forever]

Title: Living Paradox

Author: badly_knitted

Characters: Ianto, mentions Jack

Rating: G

Written For: Challenge 314 – Weeds at tw100

Spoilers: CoE, House of the Dead radio play.

Summary: Ianto returns to earth far into the future.

Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.

A/N: Boy, this is an angsty, gloomy one! Sorry, I’m not at all sure what came over me…

Standing among weeds in an overgrown cemetery, Ianto stared at the gravestone. It was disconcerting to see his own name carved in marble, along with the dates of his birth and death, and a simple inscription.

Beloved brother and uncle

He’d been buried here almost five hundred years ago, yet thanks to a combination of Syriath, Jack blowing up the House of the Dead, and the Rift finally spitting him out again, he was standing here alive and immortal, a living paradox.

But he didn’t belong here anymore; everyone he knew was long gone.

Now he knew how Jack felt.

The End

Comments

[jsks.livejournal.com]

My heart just broke but you can fix it but the guys finding each other again.

[bk_forever]

I hope I will be able to continue with this at some point, but first Ianto needs to tell me what happens next. He's gone very quiet.

Thank you.

[jsks.livejournal.com]

Ianto of the mysterious ways but I guess that is he keeps Jack and us coming back.

[bk_forever]

We all love a man of mystery =)

[red-day-dawning.livejournal.com]

How sad!

[bk_forever]

I know! =(

But at least Ianto is alive, so there's that...

Thank you.

[awieatti.livejournal.com]

Aww, that's truly sad! Poor Ianto! :(

[bk_forever]

Thank you.

Yeah, it really is =(

I don't get angsty often, but when I do...

[bluelilacs.livejournal.com]

Five hundred years in the future lord only knows where Jack is, but I'm he must come back to check on Earth fairly often, right? Hopefully, for Ianto's sake. There has to be someone out there who'll eventually tip Jack off to Ianto being alive.

[bk_forever]

I think it'll be a har journey finding his way back to Jack. Ianto's probably not terribly stable at the moment with everything he's gone through trapped in the Rift. He needs fixing.

Thank you!

[too-beauty.livejournal.com]

the only things that kept my tears unshed is that Ianto is alive .... but it is sooooo sad!

[bk_forever]

It is =(

He's got a big task ahead of him now, trying to find Jack somewhere in the vast universe.

Thank you!

[milady-dragon.livejournal.com]

I think you just broke my heart. *wibbles*

[bk_forever]

Sorry *hugs and offers patented heart glue*

But at least Ianto's alive! Now if he could just fingd Jack...

[tardisjournal.livejournal.com]

Oh my! This was so bittersweet. Probably more bitter than sweet, but beautifully tragic nonetheless. Well-done!

[bk_forever]

Thank you.

Yeah, definitely tragic, and with a bitter edge. The universe is vast. Even immortal, he'll have a hard job finding Jack again. It's going to take time.

[owensheart.livejournal.com]

GULP this was heartbreaking.

[bk_forever]

I know! *wibbles* I think I got bitten by an angst demon. =(

Thank you.

[asia27.livejournal.com]

Wow... just wow... (and stupid question: who are the Syriath and what could they have done to him?) I just hope he can find Jack now...

[bk_forever]

Have you listened to the radio play House of the Dead? If not, read this transcription to understand who Syriath was and what she did.

http://sariagray.livejournal.com/81114.html

Thank you.

[asia27.livejournal.com]

Never heard the radio plays but this is stunning and so final for Ianto... I saw somewhere else that the writers actually were going to kill off Ianto in the first season but decided on later; why? He was far more crucial, imho, than Gwen, at least but then none of what the writers did made sense.

[bk_forever]

I don't know.Honestly, killing off characters is a waste of potential unless the actor wants to leave. there are far better ways of adding drama.

What I like about House of the Dead is that it doesn't have to be the end for Ianto. He's alive, stuck in the Rift, and we KNOW the Rift connects to other places otherwise it couldn't bring aliens and artefacts to Cardiff in the first place. Who's to say that it wouldn't dump him out somewhere else?

[asia27.livejournal.com]

I got that impression about the Rift too; Jack could run into Ianto somewhere or somewhen much later. I have to agree about the actor thing; this action really destroyed a terrific series for no reason.

[bk_forever]

So Torchwood could easily be resurrected as a new series, set far in the future (to explain JB
looking older), where Jack stumbles across Ianto living on another planet and at first doesn't believe it's really him until Ianto tells him things about the Hoiuse of the ead that he couldn't possibly know. Then it turns out that Ianto was spat out of the Rift hundreds of years earlier, which is why he looks a bit older too, and is now immortal. Simple!

[asia27.livejournal.com]

You just wrote the premise for Torchwood II: Redux and Ianto is the beginning chapter. I had heard of the House of the Dead but never heard it so that transcript was chilling but at the same time, hopeful. You nailed it with this.

[bk_forever]

Thank you! Now we just need to persuade the BBC that this is the way to go! No more crappy un-Torchwood series with Super-Gwen in the lead but the real thing with Jack and Ianto out among the stars!

[asia27.livejournal.com]

I have the sneaking feeling someone there has had this same idea but can't fight RTD on it. Gwen just dosen't rep Torchwood the way Ianto, Owen and Toshiko did. She basically did nothing; it seemed the local authorities preferred to talk to Ianto more than her. All she did do was argue with Jack and he didn't need a shrew in the group. Getting rid of her would have been far better and made a tighter series.

[bk_forever]

Precisely! She went on about being policed liaison, but after she joined Torchwood she turned really patronising and condescending to her ex-colleagues in the police. I can't imagine any of them wanting to hasve anything to do with her the way she behaved. Torchwood the organisation didn't need the friction she caused within the team, she made their work more difficult by constantly screwing up and refusing to follow orders. The show didn't need her either, she was the weak point in the whole thing. She should have been kept in the background if she had to be there at all.

[asia27.livejournal.com]

I wonder if her 'liaisoning' with the Cardiff Police is why Torchwood had so many problems with them and, in a small way, contributed to the eventual destruction of the Hub because I cannot see the CP allowing MI5 to slip under the radar and get at Jack like that. Not that jack couldn't have done some damage on his own, but I think that his military background would tell Jack not to burn those kinds of bridges; he would need them. (I have to admit to having a Police Chief, state trooper and lawyer (and possible Fibbie) in my family background; you just don't abuse your local LEOs like this; you work WITH them and cover each other's arse. This is why I couldn't stand Mulder.) IMHO, Gwen would have wrecked a lot of her own relationships with them and hurt Torchwood in the long run. Even in many of the stories I've read, she's more disruptive than constructive; more should focus on Tosh and her interactions with Jack than Gwen.

[bk_forever]

Well, I can cerainly asgree with that.

Although, I think when Jack antagonises the police, it's deliberate, to make sure they go away. Working WITH the police is often not an option for Torchwood, they don't want unarmed people in the line of fire in the kind of situations Torchwood has to face. Don't forget, over here the police don't usually carry guns. We do have armed response units, but the local police have only their batons, and possibly a taser. Also, Jack doesn't want the police to know what Torchwood does, because most of them would probably be as freaked out as any civilian and the fewer people who know the details, the less likely it is that information will get leaked.

Gwen, however, antagonises them at the wrong times, when they could actually be helpful.

[asia27.livejournal.com]

I think your country has it right though about guns; here, it's just obscenely crazy. I watched a cop actually lay hands on his gun as my son and I were walking in his direction; my son was in his Army uniform, active duty, and this bastard acted like he was a threat! (The cops over here are also so deep into racial profiling that what isn't said about those stop-and-frisks is that the cops are also taking money if the person stopped has it. They attempted to take my son's cash recently and demanded to know where he got it. Fortunately, he had his paystub otherwise they would have confiscated it. There are very few honest cops here. ) Torchwood could have benefitted from some extra help but Gwen just killed it totally. Maybe another drabble you write could explore this?

[bk_forever]

The prompts tend to dictate what I write, but you never know. Things just pop into my head sometimes.

Corruption in the police force is just so depressing. The people who are suposed to uphold law and order, to protect and serve, are as bad as the ones they're supposed to be protecting people from. It makes me feel disillusioned and without hope.

I'm glad the cops here don't carry guns, but the crooks still do.

[jedi-harkness.livejournal.com]

So heartbreaking, but I hope that he can find Jack.

[bk_forever]

I hope so too, but I doubt that it will be easy.

Thank you!

[carinas-carinae.livejournal.com]

Lovely. I hope Jack is lurking nearby.

[bk_forever]

Sorry, no he isn't. He doesn't know Ianto is alive - how could he? He left earth after House of the Dead,

Ianto was left trapped in the Rift for possibly hundreds of years before he was spat out on an alien world far in the future. He's made it back to earth, but how do you find one man in all of time and space? Where do you even start? Ianto has a monumental task ahead of him, tyring to find Jack.

I might revisit the idea at some point, if I come up with a good enough idea that I think I can write.

Thank you.

[iantojjackh.livejournal.com]

Aww poor Ianto.

[bk_forever]

Yeah, it's a grim situation - alive, immortal and completely alone. How will he ever find Jack again?

Thank you!

[maldeluxx.livejournal.com]

That sounds really lonely :( *hugs Ianto*

[bk_forever]

Thank you, Ianto appreciates the hugs.

I think it would be. He really needs to find Jack, but it's a vast universe, where to start?

[timelordshines.livejournal.com]

*Wibble*
This is heartbreaking.
Where is Jack??

Brilliant drabble - please expand on it?

[bk_forever]

No one knows where Jack is, least of all Ianto =(

The universe is a vast place, how do you find one man in all of time and space?

I hope I'll do more with this at some point, but Ianto won't tell me what happened or what he's going to do next. Apparently he's miffed that I'm not writing my cottoncandy_bingo fics. He wants some happy fluff.

[timelordshines.livejournal.com]

Yeah he does need some cotton-candy fluff.... :-)
How's that going?
Which prompts are you working on at the moment?

[bk_forever]

I'm not. I'm still completely stalled, due to my health issues and several betaing jobs that have taken up what little concentration I've had. I might take a look this week and see if I can make some progress but I'm not going to stress myself about it, I have enough stress at the moment. Writing should be fun.

[akawho.livejournal.com]

I LOVE THIS! I also had this idea, but I'm not a writer, just a daydreamer. I also had an idea how he could find Jack. Just look for trouble and he'd either find him or the Doctor (maybe he could help him find Jack?).

[bk_forever]

I'm not sure if Ianto has a means of travelling through time, so even finding one or other by looking for where there's trouble might not work, by the time he got there Jack (or the Doctor) would probably be long gone. I think Ianto has a long search ahead of him, but he's patient and determined, so he'll succeed eventually.

Thank you!

[black59.livejournal.com]

said, I hope that Jack is with him!

[bk_forever]

Not yet =(

Jack has no idea that Ianto is alive. Now Ianto must search through time and space for his captain.

Thank you!