“That’s the third sighting we’ve had in the last twenty minutes.”

There was a buzz in the air of the Hub, it felt like something big was about to come through the Rift but naturally there was no way to tell if the situation was about to ignite or fizzle out.  Whatever was causing the Rift alarm to sound every ten minutes and the bizarre readings on their instruments was certainly upsetting the Weevils in the city, driving them out of the sewers and into contact with humans.

“We need to get out and start rounding them up,” Toshiko said as she took the latest incident report from Ianto and glanced over it.  “Or at least sedating them before someone gets killed.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“No.  We need someone here coordinating our efforts.  There’s so much information coming in we won’t be able to keep up with it in the field.”

“But two teams…”

“I thought I was in charge today.”

“You are,” Ianto conceded, sighing as he took a seat in front of Toshiko’s computer.  “We already have a fourth sighting, and…what looks like a potentially fatal wounding.”

The team members gathered, checked their Weevil hunting equipment, and ensured their trackers were functioning.

“I’ll need to call in at the hospital when we’re done,” Owen told them, unconsciously pulling a disturbed face as he read the details of the mauling Ianto had referred to.  “But I doubt if there’s much I can do.”

A last comradely look was exchanged and the Hub emptied except for Ianto, who gazed after his colleagues with subdued envy.  He wanted to get out in the field with them and be of practical use.  Out of sheer necessity he had gained experience due to Jack’s absence, and he was gradually overcoming his natural caution; he doubted that he’d ever develop a taste for the thrill of the chase, but he welcomed a challenge.  If they had another member, then two teams—

Who was he kidding?  He’d still be sitting here, watching bleeps on screens, only there would be four rather than three bleeps to keep an eye on.

More news in, and Ianto relayed the latest information about a further sighting – although this appeared to be a second report of a Weevil spotted earlier – and the unfortunate fact that Owen no longer needed to visit the hospital to do more than pick up a corpse for the requisite post-mortem.

The readings from the Rift showed it to be increasingly unstable.  That had to be bad.  Unless it was good.  He passed on those figures too.  Above him, Myfanwy made her presence known, and Ianto’s stomach rolled at the thought of Jack reappearing, but the dinosaur’s unease proved to be a case of more of the same on this troubling night, rather than a visit from the ex.

With growing anxiety Ianto listened and paced as the situation turned from bad to worse, Weevils crazed by the effects of the Rift and opting to be killed rather than captured.  Another civilian was found with horrific injuries and all Owen could do was pump her full of morphine in a bid to relieve the last of the pain before death took her.  Ianto wondered how bad it had to have been for Owen to sound so shaken.

The wretched feeling of helplessness escalated further as Ianto listened to the chaos on both their own and the local authority airwaves; although they’d managed to destroy four Weevils so far it only seemed to be a matter of time before the situation became unmanageable by such a small force.  The risk to the team soared, and eventually withdrawal became the only option: Ianto recalled them to base to restock their arms and regroup.

Having guided them safely through the majority of the journey back to the SUV, Ianto practically ripped the headset off as a first abrupt cry from Toshiko threatened to deafen him, his blood running cold as screams of pain and fear followed, his demands for information going unanswered as Gwen and Owen resumed the battle.

Toshiko’s headset went dead, her tracker unmoving; Ianto’s hands shook as he used their technology to hack into police communications and send an Armed Response Unit and medical backup to the area, continuously talking to Toshiko regardless of whether or not she could hear him, urging her to hold on, hold on.

The first backup, somewhat predictably, came from closer to home.  It was of little surprise when Ianto heard Owen and Gwen’s rattled exchange about Jack and quickly gathered that he’d appeared out of nowhere to save their fallen colleague.

“Jack?  Can you hear me?”

A moment’s pause then the familiar voice crackled in Ianto’s ear.

“I hear you, Ianto.”

“Tosh?”

“Gimme a moment to check her over.”

Ianto’s attention switched back to Gwen as she reported the first of the armed officers arriving on scene to cover them, and the situation began the slow process of being brought under control.

“Jack?”

“She’s going to be okay, but she needs medical treatment stat.”

“Should be there any moment.  North East.”

“Yeah, I hear—  Okay, I see them.”

“Fresh report of a Weevil in your vicinity.”

“I see that too.  They’re not going down without a fight tonight, are they?”

“Something’s destabilising the Rift.”

“The paramedics are with Tosh, I’ll deal with—”

Jack’s voice clicked out and Ianto hoped that was about action over words rather than anything more sinister.

Ianto had plenty of time to think as the night progressed and the threat was finally dealt with.  Jack was in the thick of it, exactly, Ianto had to admit to himself, as he should be.  No Jack and there would have been no Toshiko.  Tonight, no Jack didn’t bear thinking about.  This was where Jack belonged.  Ianto had plenty of time to think, and that was what he thought.

…

After visiting Toshiko in hospital the remainder of the team returned to the Hub, finding an outwardly serene Ianto serving hot drinks and supplying food; it was as if a switch had been flicked and they’d been taken back a year.  The change in security protocols didn’t stop Jack from being the first inside, or the first onto the computer to see the up-to-the-minute readings for the Rift.

“What happened?” Gwen asked, pressed shoulder-to-shoulder with him.

“At a guess?  There’s something pretty substantial bumping along the periphery of the Rift.”

“A vessel?”

“Or a space anomaly.  I doubt it’s about to encroach or we’d have known by now.  The Weevils would have been the least of our problems.”

“So…?”

“It will pass.  Probably already on its way.”

With a relieved sigh Gwen trudged over to the sofa and dropped onto it, next to where Owen was sitting slumped, absently picking at the dried blood and unnameable crud on his jeans.  Ianto came to Jack’s side and handed over his coffee without comment.  Jack smiled at him, unperturbed by the lack of response.

There didn’t seem any point to postponing the inevitable.  Ianto took a few steps back to include Gwen and Owen in what he had to say.

“I’ve been thinking,” he began, aware of complete attention falling on him and knowing that, in their heads, they were all pre-empting him.  Gwen was already trying not to smile in anticipation.

“Go on,” Jack encouraged.

“I was wrong to object to you coming back.  You should be here, Sir.  Torchwood needs you.”

“That’s a yes,” Gwen said triumphantly.

“It’s a yes,” Ianto agreed.

“Is this where I get to shoot you?” Owen asked.

“Oh, shut up,” Gwen slapped his arm.

Jack rose to face Ianto, open in his delight.

“Thank you.  You won’t regret it.”  Ianto fought down his last-second nerves and reached into his jacket, bringing out a sealed envelope and handing it to Jack.  “What’s this?” the captain asked.

“My resignation.”

Jack’s voice dropped to a dismayed whisper.

“You can’t be serious.”

“Ianto, no,” Gwen protested, on her feet and hurriedly crossing to him.  “You want to forget us?”

“It won’t come to that,” Ianto assured her.  “I’ve applied for a posting at Torchwood One; they’d already approached me a few months ago, so acceptance is a mere formality.  I’ll work out my notice here and…”

“Please don’t go, please.”

Gwen made to hug him but Ianto quickly backed up.

“I’ll resume my old position there.  It will be nice to be appreciated for more than making coffee and wearing a suit well,” Ianto finished frigidly as he sent a pointed look to Jack.  He patted Gwen’s arm as he passed her on the way out, trying to tell her this wasn’t personal, at least not where she was involved.  He paused as he heard the sound of paper ripping behind him; he didn’t even bother to look back.  “It’s on record, Sir.  The hard copy was a courtesy.”  With a polite nod at Owen as he went, Ianto fled the Hub, managing to retain the unruffled façade as he collected his coat and strolled to his car, even going so far as to fake a self-satisfied smile for the CCTV that he knew was trained on him.

Home was another matter.  Once inside his front door he methodically locked up and drew the curtains as he had the previous night.  That’s where the similarity ended.  He didn’t turn on a light or think about food or pour a drink.  He sat at the foot of the stairs, wondered what had happened to the life he’d planned, and granted himself permission to fall apart.

…

“What are you going to do?” Gwen was demanding, pacing back and forth and driving the men insane with her fidgeting.

Jack and Owen shared a pizza, picking over food they were no longer in any mood to eat.

“I don’t know,” Jack admitted.  “If I knew what to do I’d be doing it.”

“It shouldn’t be like this.  It wasn’t meant to be a choice, it wasn’t meant to be you or Ianto, it was meant to be you and Ianto.”

“Gwen…” Jack tried to get her attention.

“The rest of us will have to do something.”

“Gwen…”

“Tosh will have to talk to him, he likes her best, I know he does, they’ve become quite close since you buggered off.”

“Gwen.”

“Or maybe you, Owen, he’d take you seriously if you asked him to stay precisely because you don’t like him.”

“Oi!” Owen protested.

“At least that’s how he’d perceive it.”

“I don’t have a problem with Ianto.”

“Owen…” Jack pointlessly changed focus.

“You’ve only been back a couple of days, Jack, how did you manage to screw it up in a couple of days!”

“GWEN!”  Gwen finally shut up and fell still.  She glared accusingly at Jack until he promised, “I’ll do something.”

“What?”

“I don’t know!”

“You’re bloody hopeless,” Gwen told him as she gathered up her possessions and stormed out.  “This was meant to be a time for celebration…” her voice faded along the corridor.

Jack and Owen watched her go then turned back to the pizza.  Jack ate, Owen didn’t, he just finished up his coffee and stared into the mug.

“You’ve changed too,” Jack told him.

“Have I?”

“Haven’t you?”

Owen shrugged.

“Maybe after everything that’s happened…”

“Okay, okay, I left.  Enough.”

“I wasn’t thinking of you, actually; tough if that doesn’t sit well with your over-inflated ego.”

Jack threw down his unfinished food.

“I never expected to be welcomed back with open arms.  All I wanted – hoped for – was—”  Jack took a deep breath.  “No.  Okay.”  Another breath.  “What do you want, Owen?”

“I want as much normality as we’re due in this freak show of a place.  The last year’s been bloody hard, don’t let anyone con you over that.  So…normality.  I want to shag Gwen, tease Tosh, do the occasional bit of work that I’m lauded for and, yes, I’m even happy to sit back and watch you and Ianto carry out this courtship like two tits in a trance.”

“Are you and Gwen…?”

“No.  We’re friends,” Owen said sourly.

“Friends.  That’s…”

“Don’t go there.  Forget my love life and concentrate on your own.  You have to…”

“Relationship advice?  From you?  This should be pure gold.”

“Pay Ianto a visit.  Grab the daft tosser by the scruff of the neck, give him a good shake, and remind him that if he wanted to retain his self-respect he should have, a) joined Greenpeace instead of Torchwood, and b) refrained from worshipping the boss’s knob.”

“Aw, that’s so sweet,” Jack ladled on the sarcasm.  “I can’t imagine why you think you’re going to die alone and unloved.”

“Alone, unloved, but regularly shagged,” Owen corrected, standing and leaving without another word.

With the Hub to himself everything felt more normal, despite the passage of time, despite the evening’s troubling events.  Jack checked out his office and his sleeping quarters, both barely touched beyond having been kept scrupulously clean.  Ianto’s doing, no doubt.  Jack sat on his bed, picked up his pillow, and held it to his face.  He inhaled deeply, wondering if Ianto had done this at any time, maybe before he knew Jack had left through choice rather than coercion.

The bed – the whole room – held memories that were both joyous and painful, but Jack concentrated on the good and soon the wide grin on his face reflected that.

Jack had constantly flirted, but it was Ianto who’d made the first serious move – interestingly timed, considering that the corpse of Suzie Costello was playing third wheel – but he’d been so appealingly up-front about it that Jack hadn’t considered saying no, even for a second.  In fact, he’d been hard before he’d left the mortuary and not even the ominous thought of a second resurrection glove could quell his ardour.  He’d wanted Ianto for so long by then he could hardly believe his good fortune, so much so that he’d spent a whole two seconds of his precious time considering whether this was a cruel trick on Ianto’s part.

But Ianto had shown up in his office, exactly on time and presenting the stopwatch to prove the point, regarding Jack predatorily as he approached.

“Have you ever had sex with a man?” Jack asked as Ianto clicked off the watch and slid it into the front pocket of Jack’s trousers, patting it through the material and pretending to ignore the rather urgent hard-on the captain was sporting.

“No,” Ianto instantly, unashamedly, admitted.  “But how difficult can it be?  Bodies have this habit of…fitting together.  Naturally.”  Ianto’s gaze blazed a slow, smouldering trail over Jack, from hair to toes and back to his eyes.  “I think we might fit together quite nicely.”

Jack couldn’t find the breath to agree as Ianto inched closer and the sexual chemistry sizzled between them, so he silently waited for Ianto to take what he wanted, teasing himself with the prospect.  Ianto, his wonderfully astute Ianto, read him and knew.  The most unlikely and provocative smile Jack had ever witnessed on this deceptively innocent face curled the corners of Ianto’s mouth.

“You are so damn hot,” Jack murmured, barely aware he’d said that aloud, but the humour in Ianto’s eyes morphed into pure want and he leant forward to brush their lips together.  They sparked.  “Fuck,” Jack gasped, and Ianto nodded as he kissed him again, deeper, harder, hands coming up to clench in Jack’s hair.

“What will you say no to?” Ianto asked between fervent kisses as they manoeuvred toward Jack’s bedroom.

“Nothing.”

“So…”  Ianto pulled back to look into Jack’s eyes.  “Can I have you, Jack?”

“Oh, for God’s sake, yes!  Any which way you please.”

Ianto laughed at that and it was such a rare and gorgeous sound that Jack had taken thirty seconds out of their shagging schedule just to hold him tight; his hug was matched by a vice-like grip, which made him understand – happily – how much Ianto liked to be held, and realise – wretchedly – how starved the young man had been of this essential human contact.  The amount of affection in that embrace was a revelation to the both of them and, although lust soon bumped itself to the top of the agenda, the emotional warmth was apparent, all through the sex-riddled night.

Untroubled sleep was a rare blessing back then but Ianto had worn him out: Jack hadn’t woken until mid-morning, naked except for Ianto’s neatly knotted tie.  Needless to say it wasn’t around his neck.

He still had the tie, or at least he hoped he did.  Ianto may have reclaimed it in his absence, a fond reminder until the footage from the mangled cameras…

Fuck.  Ianto.

Jack switched on his headset and said ‘Ianto’, waiting for the automatic connection.  The fact his call wasn’t rejected threw him completely.

“What do you want, Jack?”

“I, umm…”  Jack laughed at himself.  “I didn’t think you’d answer.  I have no idea what I should say.  I can’t say what I want to say.”

“Then perhaps you shouldn’t say anything at all.”

“You okay?” Jack asked, his voice full of tender concern.  “You sound…”

“Tired.  I’m tired.”

There was a long pause as Jack gathered some courage.

“Can I…come and see you?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be leaving me alone?  Wasn’t that part of the deal?”

“This isn’t about harassing you, Ianto, this is about caring.  I only…”  There was a click, and Ianto was gone.  “Ianto?  Ianto!  Oh, for—”

Ninety seconds later, as Jack sat feeling sorry for himself, Ianto called back.

“Will you please listen to me?” Jack begged.

“I’ll be in late tomorrow.  I want to visit Tosh.”

“Good, yes, do that.  She’ll be missing her laptop.  I could drop it off to you…”

“I have it.  Gwen left it in the Tourist Office when you came back and I picked it up on the way out tonight.”

“You…  Oh.  Okay.”

Another long silence; Jack wasn’t sure if he’d been hung up on again.

“Thank you,” Ianto eventually said.  “For not reporting me.”

“Why would I…”

“Lisa.  Owen said you never included my involvement when you made out a report for head office.”

“No.  I couldn’t do that to you.  However much I hated you that day.  However much I—”

“What?”

Jack sighed.

“Envied you.”

“You—  Ah, Jack, you can’t be serious.”

“To love that much, to know it’s real, to be free to act upon it…”

“Don’t say that, don’t even think it,” Ianto insisted.

“Why?”

“Because it’s important for me to know I was wrong.”

“Yes, what you did was wrong.  But what you felt…”

“Shouldn’t have almost killed us all.”

Jack let out a frustrated groan.

“Why didn’t we talk about this?  You spent hours trying to convince me that rugby was entertainment, but we never spent five minutes on something this important.”

“I couldn’t have, not back then.  And now…  I don’t suppose it really matters.”

“It does.  We should talk before…before you leave.”

“Shit,” Ianto half-laughed, half-cried.  “Shit.  All I want is to be angry with you so I can get away from here without too many regrets.”

“Let me come and see you.”

“No.”

“Ianto…”

“No.  And promise me you’ll be a total pain in the arse tomorrow.  If you care for me at all you won’t even try to be nice, or considerate, or…”

“Can I make passes all day?”

“Yes.”

“How about endless smutty innuendo?”

“A necessary evil,” Ianto was smiling, Jack could hear, even if he was sniffling too.

“The others will hate me for breaking my word over leaving you alone.”

“That’s my added bonus.”

“So long as you remember that…”

“If your next words are going to be nice or considerate…” Ianto warned.

“Remember to bring coffee and doughnuts on the way back from the hospital.”

“Thank you, you insensitive bastard.”

“Whatever you want.”

Jack listened as Ianto took a deep breath and slowly exhaled.  When he spoke again he sounded significantly calmer.

“Goodnight, Jack.”

“’Night, Ianto.”

Jack’s hand rose to switch off his earpiece but faltered as he considered the possibility of Ianto needing to contact him again.  His gut told him it wasn’t going to happen.  His heart insisted he could rest just as easily with the device turned on.

Making himself comfortable on his old bed, Jack mentally re-ran the conversation with Ianto.  They’d talked.  Reasonably.  It was a positive step forward, wasn’t it?  If only Ianto hadn’t sounded so upset.  The thought of leaving Torchwood Three appeared to be causing him great distress.  Ridiculous, Jack thought, ridiculous.  It infuriated him to think of Ianto hurting over something that, as far as he was concerned, was absolutely never going to happen.

…

Ianto felt a lot better after speaking to Jack.  Gone was his earlier, all-encompassing despair, and he skirted the edges of it now, refusing to sink back into that frame of mind.  A month, that was all he had to survive.  One month.  If Jack continued to be as considerate as he had been on the phone, the next few weeks might be manageable after all.  Even if he knew Jack was playing, any flirtatious approaches would be sure to press all the wrong buttons.  He hoped.

He had to be strong, especially if he was to be bombarded with consideration and…yes, tenderness, he’d heard it, the concern in that expressive voice.  How he’d managed to refuse Jack’s offer of a visit he’d never know, but he could never have Jack again, not if he was going to see this through.  That was depressing.  It was more than depressing, it was a tragedy.  They were good together, physically.  Even Jack, with his vast experience, had admitted that they were good together.

“But am I good?” Ianto had cheekily pressed Jack.

“Good,” Jack had grinned right back.

“Why?”

“Because…you’re courageous.”

Courageous.  Ianto had wondered about that.  He’d loved that unlikely description but couldn’t help picking it to pieces and coming to the conclusion that Jack was piling on the flattery and choosing a sexy label that couldn’t be applied to Ianto in his real life.  Not that he’d cared if it was bullshit, not back then, not when he had Jack.

Denying depression any further hold, Ianto stood and stretched, and didn’t think of his day.  He tugged off his headset and tossed it onto the hall table, thought about what he could put in a sandwich, if he needed fresh milk for his tea, how Toshiko would be in the morning, whether he should phone Bryn and—

Bryn deserved better, he really did.

Ianto took his phone and started to dial.  Stopped.  He keyed his way to the camera folder and looked at picture after picture of Bryn before arriving at the single shot of Jack he’d been unable to part with at a time when he thought he’d never see the captain again.  Still, things were very different now.  With manufactured resolve, and on the fourth attempt, Ianto deleted the photograph of Jack.

‘xxx’ he texted to Bryn.

‘xxx’ Bryn immediately texted back.

Attrition 6       Attrition Index       Attrition Notes

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