Heart, and Brain, and All (Torchwood)

[starfishstar]

HEART, AND BRAIN, AND ALL

Summary: If Gwen is the conscience, and Tosh is clearly the brain – then what, Ianto ponders, are the rest of them?

Characters: whole team (Ianto, Jack, Gwen, Tosh, Owen)

Words: 800

Rating: G

Notes:

In honour of the fact that I’m IN CARDIFF RIGHT NOW (!!!), a Torchwood ficlet.

This was an idea I had a million years ago, inspired by a line Tosh says in “Wonderland” by nancybrown. I always wanted to incorporate this into a much larger, plottier fic, and maybe I still will someday; but for now, this. :-)

Read on AO3, or here below:


~ ~ ~ ~ ~

 

“We know Jack brought Gwen onto the team to be his conscience,” Ianto said. He leaned against Tosh’s desk for a moment, after setting her coffee down next to her elbow. She smiled up at him in thanks.

“We know that mainly because Jack never shuts up about it,” Owen yelled from down in the autopsy room.

Ianto rolled his eyes and ignored Owen. He went on, “And Tosh is the brain, I think that’s evident to all of us.” It was a slow day in the Hub, and the rest of them were knocking about at loose ends, but Tosh was decrypting a set of alien codes she’d found in the Archive and then re-encrypting them into a code of her own devising. Simply because Tosh did that sort of thing.

At Ianto’s words, she blushed and said, “I don’t know if that’s true –”

“It’s true,” Ianto said.

“It’s true,” Gwen agreed. She was over by the monitors, because checking the monitors even on slow days, just in case, was the sort of thing Gwen did.

Tosh ducked her head, but Ianto caught a flash of an appreciative smile.

“So I wonder, what does that make the rest of us?” Ianto mused. “What missing piece did Jack think each of us could fill?”

“Don’t I get any say in this conversation?” Jack asked. He was leaning against the wall a little distance away, with his arms crossed and his chin lifted as he surveyed them all. A classic Jack pose.

Ianto and Gwen both swivelled their heads to look at him.

“No,” Gwen said.

“No,” Ianto agreed.

Jack made a huffing noise that was also classic Jack, and Gwen and Ianto grinned at each other.

“Ianto, you’re the heart,” Gwen declared.

From the autopsy room, Owen made very demonstrative retching noises.

“No you are,” Gwen said to Ianto, as she studiously ignored Owen. She’d straightened up from the quiescent monitors and now she came over to Ianto, giving him a serious, studying sort of look. “You make Jack care about things. You make him want to try harder, even when he thinks he’s ready to give up.”

“I really don’t get any say in this, do I,” Jack muttered. But Ianto could hear the fondness he was never quite able to keep out of his voice.

Gwen wrapped one arm around Ianto’s shoulders and leaned her head against his. “You make us all want to do better, really.”

Ianto saw how Jack watched them both, with that look that was at once hungrily possessive, yet also frighteningly generous, as if he would give up the whole world for them if he thought it would do them some kind of good.

“What’s Owen, then?” Ianto asked, trying to distract himself from staring back at Jack just as hungrily.

Gwen snorted, and gave Ianto’s shoulder a last pat before releasing him. “Something terrible and rude, probably.”

Ianto raised both eyebrows. “Such as…?”

They stared at each other, contemplating a range of unsavoury possibilities.

“The stomach,” Gwen said hurriedly. “Because he, erm, reminds us that we have…appetites? Or something?”

Owen’s head popped up between the railings of the autopsy room. “Hey, I think I resent that. Even if I’m not sure yet on what grounds.”

There was a beat of silence where they all looked at each other. Then Jack laughed – a big, booming Jack guffaw – and the moment was light again.

Jack pushed off from the wall, and came to sling an arm each around Ianto and Gwen. He kissed Gwen on the cheek, and Ianto at the corner of his mouth. He leaned over to cup a hand affectionately against Tosh’s cheek. And he tossed a wink over at Owen, who glared back at him, unimpressed.

“You bunch of silly kids,” Jack said, somehow managing to make it sound like a compliment. “My team. Whatever parts you are, you know I couldn’t do it without you.”

Quietly, Tosh commented, “Well, then, the brain says you’d better have a look at this.” She’d picked up one of the small handheld monitors from her desk. Its screen showed a series of tiny spikes, almost imperceptible but growing.

“See?” Jack said. He bent down to kiss the top of Tosh’s head. “Brilliant. All right, let’s go, people. Let’s figure out what it is.”

Gwen rushed back to her post at the larger monitors, and Owen emerged from the autopsy room to lend a hand. Tosh turned back to her computer, her fingers flying over the keys, and Jack leaned over her shoulder, keeping up a running commentary.

Ianto took a small moment to watch them all, rushing about and full of purpose. Like a well-oiled machine. Or, indeed, like a single body.

He smiled, and stepped into the fray to join them.

.

Comments

[sanguinity]

Aw, look how fond Jack is of them all! And how themselves they all are, too!

[starfishstar]

Aw, thank you, I'm glad they seem like themselves, because it's been a long time since I last wrote the Torchwood team! (And wow, I was not expecting to have quite so many Torchwood feels just from being in Cardiff.)

[sanguinity]

Do you recognize anything other than the plaza?

And may I ask what you're in Cardiff for? I hear there's a vidding convention going on this weekend.

[starfishstar]

Ooh, vidding convention, I didn't know that was happening.

I'm just traveling, more or less at random – I was back in Scotland for some academic stuff, then determinedly carved out a little time for an actual vacation (which I hadn't done in much too long) and to go a couple places I've never been... Mainly Cornwall, but I realized I could stop in Bristol & Cardiff on the way!

It was mainly the excitement of just being there at Roald Dahl Plass/the Millennium Centre/Mermaid Quay/the Bay, but I did also spend a fair bit of time hanging around Ianto's shrine and grinning my head off. AND standing on the paving slab that's the entrance to the invisible lift down into the Hub! With the perception filter left behind by the TARDIS! Yeah, I had some real dork moments. ;-)

Or e.g. my first evening there I rewatched some bits of episodes to remind myself of Torchwood locations (it had been a long time) and was like, oh! That wooden walkway where Ianto is waiting to hand Jack a cup of coffee as he's trying to convince him to hire him, I just walked through there today! I walked past that very life buoy you can see on the wall! Stuff like that.

There you go, long answer to your short question. :-)

[sanguinity]

The con is vidukon_cardiff -- I've had some vids shown in vidshows their over the years, but I don't know much about them overall.

And of COURSE you stood on That One Paving Slab! Why would you not?? And rewatching some eps is a good way to refix it all in your head and take the best advantage of the oppty!

And that is exactly the length of answer I hoped for from that question, so there! :-)

[starfishstar]

Excellent, then you have received an answer of exactly the sort you were looking for. ;-)

Thank you for appreciating my enthusiasm for standing on paving stones of great relevance and import!! I had moments of feeling quite silly with all my fannishness in Cardiff...but also utterly unrepentant.