Ficlet: Undeserved Mercy
May. 22nd, 2026 05:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
badly_knittedTitle: Undeserved Mercy
Author:
badly_knittedCharacters: Ianto, Jack.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 705
Spoilers: Cyberwoman.
Summary: Ianto knows he messed up, and now he thinks he knows what the punishment for his crime will likely be.
Written For: The prompt ‘Any, any, unfounded fear’, at
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threesentenceficathon.Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
Lisa is dead, completely dead this time, gunned down to prevent the cyber- consciousness within her transplanted brain from asserting itself and beginning once more to convert the human race into a new cyberman army. Everything Ianto thought he was working towards in trying to save her was nothing more than an illusion conjured up by his deluded brain, but that doesn’t change anything. He’s guilty of almost causing the destruction of billions of people, and the weight of his guilt is unbearable.
He doesn’t know why he was brought back here, to his flat, doesn’t even remember who drove him, just that someone must have because how else would he have got here, covered in blood as he was? But now he’s here, alone, trying to get his thoughts in order, trying to make sense of events that are, in truth, senseless. He’s made such a mess of… well, everything. In a misguided attempt to save one person’s life, he almost committed genocide, and does it really matter that it wasn’t intentional? His reasons for what he did are meaningless in the scheme of things. Just because his intentions were good doesn’t change the facts; the road to Hell, and all that.
Still, here he is, in his home, such as it is, and Ianto knows what comes next. He knows because he worked at Torchwood One and he saw what happened to colleagues who committed ‘crimes’ far less treacherous than what he’s guilty of. His stupidity, his wilful blindness, cost two people their lives, one of them an innocent young pizza delivery girl, and could have destroyed the human race, caused every person on the entire planet to be either killed or converted into a soulless, emotionless metal monster, so he can’t even say he doesn’t deserve the punishment he’ll soon have to face.
He can’t turn back the clock, can’t undo any of the mistakes he made, but he can at least prepare for what comes next, by gathering everything together, all the memories of Lisa, everything to do with Torchwood, even in the most tenuous way, because… He doesn’t know which of the two alternatives Jack is most likely to choose. If it’s to be execution, he hopes he’ll at least be taken back to the Hub and dealt with there, because death tends to be messy, and he doesn’t want the rest of the team to have even more blood and gore to clean up. He’d spare them that, if he can; there’s been more than enough already.
He's not so much afraid of dying, in fact he thinks maybe that might be preferable. It’s the other possibility that scares him: that he’ll be left alive but that his memories, all he has left of Lisa, will be erased from his mind, the love they shared gone as if it had never existed. That thought is all but unbearable; Retcon will leave no one to mourn the loss of a beautiful, intelligent, vibrant young woman who didn’t deserve what happened to her. But it’s not his choice to make, only Jack can decide on his punishment, and when Torchwood’s leader shows up at his door, when Ianto lets him in and broaches the subject of his execution, his heart sinks when Jack says he’s not going to kill him…
Retcon then, exactly what he’d feared, to his mind the worst of the two possibilities, only… Once again Ianto is proven wrong, because Jack tells him his punishment is that he’ll have to live with what he did, remembering every detail, because anything else would be too easy, too merciful. Ianto almost breaks down in tears of relief, because his fears have come to nothing.
Being allowed to live and to remember feels less like a punishment and more like undeserved mercy, a chance to atone for his crimes and try to earn forgiveness from the people he betrayed. He would thank Jack if not for the fact that Torchwood’s leader might misconstrue his gratitude. Nevertheless, he is grateful, and he’s determined that he won’t waste this second chance. He’ll do whatever he can to prove that he regrets his previous actions. Somehow, he’ll make amends and earn back Jack’s trust.
The End
He doesn’t know why he was brought back here, to his flat, doesn’t even remember who drove him, just that someone must have because how else would he have got here, covered in blood as he was? But now he’s here, alone, trying to get his thoughts in order, trying to make sense of events that are, in truth, senseless. He’s made such a mess of… well, everything. In a misguided attempt to save one person’s life, he almost committed genocide, and does it really matter that it wasn’t intentional? His reasons for what he did are meaningless in the scheme of things. Just because his intentions were good doesn’t change the facts; the road to Hell, and all that.
Still, here he is, in his home, such as it is, and Ianto knows what comes next. He knows because he worked at Torchwood One and he saw what happened to colleagues who committed ‘crimes’ far less treacherous than what he’s guilty of. His stupidity, his wilful blindness, cost two people their lives, one of them an innocent young pizza delivery girl, and could have destroyed the human race, caused every person on the entire planet to be either killed or converted into a soulless, emotionless metal monster, so he can’t even say he doesn’t deserve the punishment he’ll soon have to face.
He can’t turn back the clock, can’t undo any of the mistakes he made, but he can at least prepare for what comes next, by gathering everything together, all the memories of Lisa, everything to do with Torchwood, even in the most tenuous way, because… He doesn’t know which of the two alternatives Jack is most likely to choose. If it’s to be execution, he hopes he’ll at least be taken back to the Hub and dealt with there, because death tends to be messy, and he doesn’t want the rest of the team to have even more blood and gore to clean up. He’d spare them that, if he can; there’s been more than enough already.
He's not so much afraid of dying, in fact he thinks maybe that might be preferable. It’s the other possibility that scares him: that he’ll be left alive but that his memories, all he has left of Lisa, will be erased from his mind, the love they shared gone as if it had never existed. That thought is all but unbearable; Retcon will leave no one to mourn the loss of a beautiful, intelligent, vibrant young woman who didn’t deserve what happened to her. But it’s not his choice to make, only Jack can decide on his punishment, and when Torchwood’s leader shows up at his door, when Ianto lets him in and broaches the subject of his execution, his heart sinks when Jack says he’s not going to kill him…
Retcon then, exactly what he’d feared, to his mind the worst of the two possibilities, only… Once again Ianto is proven wrong, because Jack tells him his punishment is that he’ll have to live with what he did, remembering every detail, because anything else would be too easy, too merciful. Ianto almost breaks down in tears of relief, because his fears have come to nothing.
Being allowed to live and to remember feels less like a punishment and more like undeserved mercy, a chance to atone for his crimes and try to earn forgiveness from the people he betrayed. He would thank Jack if not for the fact that Torchwood’s leader might misconstrue his gratitude. Nevertheless, he is grateful, and he’s determined that he won’t waste this second chance. He’ll do whatever he can to prove that he regrets his previous actions. Somehow, he’ll make amends and earn back Jack’s trust.
The End
