Work Text:
I wish we could post images but since we can't:
A.
One of my favorite scenes, the one that I think is a quintescential illustration of the isolation and lonliness Ianto had to have been feeling up to that point is when he enters the Hub at the beginning of Cyberwoman and stands behind the bars of the inner door watching the others have fun together without him. The bars and the security of the door symbolize the separation between him and them.
Ianto stood stiffly behind the bars of the inner security door, heart pounding as he watched his 'collegues' playing ball. The lot of them laughing and shouting and acting like children, barely noticing he was even there. The bars that stood between them at that moment felt as if they were engraved upon his soul itself, symbols if his life - separation from his father, separation from his fsmily, even the circumstacial separation from Lisa, the woman he loved more than life itself. He quickly squleched the hurt that flared in his chest, as he always did. It didn't matter. He was used to it by now. It wasn't like he was in the mood to play around anyway. He had, he reminded himself, sought separation from these people because it made lying to them and keeping his secret much easier. My God, he had started dressing like a right toff just to create a sort of physical barrier. Him nothing more than a working class lad from Newport* and here he was in suit and tie. How his mates from home would laugh if they caught sight of him. He couldnt even remember tha last time he had felt light hearted, felt happy, as the rest of them appeared this morning. But he didnt care! It was all for Lisa. And he had more imortant concerns today. Like Lisa. And Dr. Tanizaki. Jack and the others should have been off to breakfast together by now like they usually did, without him of course. If they didn't go soon...
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B.
The scene at the end of Cyberwoman when a solemn, pale faced Ianto returns to the Hub.
Ianto snugged up his ties with a nervous gesture, straightened his cuffs and brushed a hand over his suit coat. He was tense as hell, his stomach in knots, heart pounding, palms sweaty as he waited for the cog wheel door to open. Today was his first day back after…well, after. After all the drama and chaos and horror, and the grief four weeks ago. All of which had been his fault. Lisa dead. Dr. Tanizaki dead. Annie dead. Gwen almost. Close for all of them. Close, maybe, for Cardiff and the world. And it had been all his fault. His own inability to see the truth, to let go, his own selfishness really. His first day back after four weeks suspension and at least an attempt to survive and deal with his own trauma. Something he had done fairly well – with Jack’s help, something that still left him breathless with confusion. Ianto pushed the last four weeks ruthlessly from his mind. He couldn’t think about any of that now. He was about to face his colleagues. The people he had deliberately built a barrier against. The people he had purposefully stayed separate from and whom had really done nothing to try to breach that barrier. Their indifference toward him, his invisibility to them, had served his purpose yet it still brought a jolt of hurt. That he also squashed firmly. He had to focus on facing the people he had put in so much danger. Jack, who today would be his boss, the near stranger who had held a gun to his head and ordered him to kill the woman he loved, not the man who had, these last few weeks, begun to forgive him already, begun to become a friend, had become a lover. And Gwen who had almost died horrifically on the cyber conversion unit., the newby and only ine who had a somewhat normal life outside this place. Then Owen…well, Owen... Owen the snarky bitch who apparently despised Ianto, and most of the world besides. The man who started the nickname ‘tea boy’ and used it steadily as an insult. The only one of the four of them Ianto had ever had any real homicidal fantasies about. Ianto had read his employment file, had read all their employment files, and he supposed Owen had good reason for his anger and snark but it didn’t make liking him any easier. It didn’t make him easier to work with, or to ask forgiveness of certainly. And then there was Tosh. Toshiko. The only one who even half way acknowledged his existence outside his duties as a sort of butler and custodian. The only one who ever really saw him, the only one who, initially, made him feel guilty about his secrets. He had hurt them all, betrayed them all, endangered them, and today was the moment of reckoning. Today, now he realized with a surge of nauseating panic as the cog wheel opened fully and the inner barred door swung open. Thankfully the work stations on the ground floor were unoccupied. Tosh, Owen and Gwen weren’t in yet, thank God. One at a time would do. He had come in early in the hopes he would arrive before the others. He stepped into the Hub proper and glanced up. And there stood Jack. And Gwen. God, Jack looked so serious. So solemn despite they had spent together these past weeks. Lover or not, Ianto knew his position here was still in question for Jack as employer. Gwen looked more open and concerned. He had almost gotten her killed and she still looked down at him as if she worried about him. He gave Jack a slight nod of acknowledgment and received one in return but Jack’s expression didn’t change. He looked down like God on high upon an unrepentant sinner. When he saw Gwen say something to Jack and Ianto turned quickly away to surveyed the Hub - which looked exactly as if its sole custodian had gone missing for several weeks. God, Ianto thought, what have they been doing – or not doing – while he was gone? He dug out a bin liner and began to gather up only God knows how many days worth of accumulated garbage, all the time aware of Jack’s eyes on him.