Title: Forgiveness
Author: Stolendreams
Pairing: Jack/Ianto, Jack/Gwen, hints of Jack/Other
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine. Sadly. I'm a broke student. All I own is this computer I'm writing on and over half of that was paid for by the university.
Summary: Written for the 'name three fics I will never ever write' prompt: Jack cheats on Ianto with Gwen. Cultural differences and faithfulness.

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The case ends messily. Two of the three missing teenage girls are dead, their bodies destroyed almost beyond recognition, the third is badly injured. Jack does what he does every time things end badly, he takes the team out for drinks. Ianto declines, offering to stay behind and sort out the clean up operation. It's not a problem, at the end of the night Jack will help Owen, Tosh and Gwen into taxis and return back to the Hub, to Ianto.

Taking them out always helps. They get drunk while he stays sober. He spends the night preventing Owen from blurting out stories about heroically saving the world from alien invasion to every pretty girl who stands still long enough, distracting Tosh when she starts to get jealous of the way Gwen is looking at Owen, and listening to Gwen as she alternates between flirting with Owen and talking endlessly at Jack.

Gwen is the easiest to cope with really, the more she drinks the more she talks. After a while she doesn't even notice if he's listening or not, her words start to slur and her sentences make less and less sense. But unlike Tosh she never needs rescuing from retreating inside her own head, and unlike with Owen he never has to step in to break up a fight.

Jack manages to find two taxis at once. He shoves Owen into the first one and Tosh into the second, pays the fares for them and tells them both to be in sometime before lunch tomorrow. That just leaves him with Gwen. She's managed to drink more than Owen or Tosh, or maybe she just can't hold the alcohol as well, he's not sure because he wasn't keeping count. Whichever it is she's barely standing on her own and there's no third taxi in sight.

They've been standing there five minutes when it happens. He's got both his arms wrapped around her to hold her steady, when, without warning she leans up and kisses him. For a fraction of a second he's still, then he kisses her back. It's far from a good first kiss, she's too drunk and he's too surprised. Gwen doesn't seem to notice or care, maybe because she's the drunk one or maybe because she's judging him against Owen.

"Rhys isn't coming home tonight," she tells him, voice slurred.

The taxi arrives at that moment and he doesn't resist when she pulls him in with her. He doesn't stop to think before he follows her into her flat either, or into her bed. At four in the morning he quietly slips back into the Hub. Ianto is asleep when Jack slides into bed beside him, wrapping his arms around the young man.

In the morning it's the same as it always is. Owen doesn't ask how many fights Jack saved him from, Tosh doesn't ask if she embarrassed herself, they just slink in hung-over and hide away at their workstations. Ianto makes coffee and doesn't ask why Jack was so late coming back. Gwen shows up last, she catches Jack's eye and blushes, but she doesn't say anything. She's twice as friendly to Ianto as normal and she calls Rhys three times during the day.

Jack waits until he catches Ianto alone in the kitchen, before sliding his arms around the young mans waist and whispering an apology. Ianto interprets it as an apology for being so late back and accepts it instantly. Apologising should make him feel better, that's always his theory, but somehow it never works because Ianto never knows the real reason behind it.

That night, with Ianto sleeping beside him, Jack tries very hard to convince himself that Ianto would understand.

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