“Okay,” Jack announced as his team gathered around the boardroom table, “we have footage from UNIT: possible clues as to where these Morphathings are emerging from.”

“Haven’t we had enough of those for one day?” Gwen groaned.  “Every time any of us move there’s another pile of grey shite in our wake.”

“We have to work on keeping a distance,” Toshiko stated the obvious as she laid out the huge feast of Chinese food that Jack had ordered and immediately found herself picking grains of grey particulate from the dishes.  “Plus that’s another coat ruined,” she grumbled.  “It’s going on expenses this time, Jack.”

“Sod your coat, what about my bloody neck?” Owen demanded.  “And why do they always try to strangle me?”  Gwen giggled to herself.  “Oh, yes, very funny.  Next time I’ll make sure it’s you having your head ripped from your shoulders.”

“Technically it would be ripped from your neck.”

Owen glared at Toshiko for that insight, then glared at Jack out of sheer habit.

“This is a little loud,” Jack apologised as he pressed buttons and set up the surveillance recording to view, “but it has to be that way so we can hear what appears to be some form of intelligent dialogue.”

Everybody cringed as the room was filled with the racket of heavy traffic and overhead flights and there, in the middle of all that, was a barely definable mumble from two spongy grey figures sitting in the opening of a partially burnt out shipping container.  Still benefiting from the last residual traces of the TARDIS’ translation skills, Jack began to catch the occasional word.  He moved into what he would always think of as Ianto’s chair, taking himself a little closer to the screen.

With everyone’s rapt attention so firmly on the footage, no-one noticed a door open and close, or the figure that crossed and sat in Jack’s seat, reaching out for food.

“Sorry I’m so late,” Ianto shouted over the noise.  “I’m glad you had the sense to get something in.  Enough for twelve, I see – you should never let Jack order—”

The cacophony of sound ended abruptly and Ianto looked up to find his colleagues on their feet and staring at him in what appeared to be extreme shock.

“Ianto?” came as a strangled whisper from Toshiko, and before Ianto could respond she was dragging him out of his chair and hugging him tightly.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, only to find himself with Gwen clinging to his other side, sniffling into his shoulder.

Trying to comfort them both was somewhat daunting, especially as he didn’t know the root of their distress, but Ianto patted and shushed and fought his inclination to wriggle away from the hugs until he knew what the hell was going on.  He felt an unfamiliar hand catch and squeeze his and realised with a start that it was Owen’s.  It was Owen’s?  Owen’s hand squeezing his.  Owen’s.  He glanced in Owen’s direction and the barely contained anguish on the man’s face was enough to shock Ianto into squeezing back.

Jack had skirted around the room to the far end of the table, and when Ianto looked to him for an explanation, he found himself staring down the barrel of the captain’s revolver.

“Jack?” he said weakly.

“Get away from him,” Jack ordered.  “Tosh, Gwen, Owen, back off.”

“Jack, it’s…”

“Back off, Tosh, now.”

The three reluctantly did so.  Ianto gazed at Jack in astonishment.

“What’s happened?”

“How did you get his DNA?” Jack snapped, eyes brimming, voice and gun-hand shaking.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“How about I shoot you, will that make more sense?  Shoot you, sweep you up, and—”

Jack’s voice broke and Ianto took an automatic step in his direction, wanting to comfort his partner.  Owen caught his arm and stopped him, studying him closely.

“Jack…  This isn’t a Morphathing, this is Ianto.”

“We’ve been fooled before.”

“You think I’m a…  Morphathing?”  Ianto grinned at Owen.  “That has to be one of yours.”

“It’s you, isn’t it,” Owen demanded.  “It’s you.”

Ianto’s grin faded.

“Will somebody tell me what’s been going on.  Jack, I’m…  Owen’s right, I’m me.”

“Okay, so…where have you been?”

“Just up the road,” Ianto explained, perfectly truthfully.  “I didn’t mean to get back so late, but…”

“Up the road,” Jack repeated with heavy sarcasm.  “For five months?”

“I went to—  What?  What did you say?”

“Five months.  Ianto’s been gone for five months so you picked the wrong victim this time.”

Ianto paled at the distinctive clicking as Jack cocked his gun.

“This is impossible.”  He looked around to Owen, then Gwen, then Toshiko, stunned by their mute support of Jack’s ridiculous story.  “I left just after you, this afternoon.  I went to Port Talbot.”

“Ianto drove north,” Toshiko quietly recalled.

“That’s right, the scenic route, I wanted to take my time.  I was cross with Jack and…”  Ianto sent a desperate look to Jack.  “You told me to leave the Hub, so I did, but that was only…”  Ianto glanced at his watch and tutted.  It remained on three-fifteen.  “Battery’s dead,” he said, almost to himself.  “The car’s gone haywire too.”  As his head rose his eyes once again met Jack’s; the pain there was overwhelming.  “Sod this,” he muttered.

Ianto had to put an end to Jack’s suffering, even if he got himself shot in the process.  He strode around the table, aware of Gwen and Toshiko stepping briskly aside, more than aware of Jack’s gun following his every move.

“Don’t,” Jack warned as Ianto approached, but Ianto brushed Jack’s hand aside and grabbed him, neck and waist, pulling him into a hard kiss.  If the fake Morphathing from their first encounter had tasted wrong, he could only hope that Jack would realise that he, the real thing, tasted perfectly right.

The kiss was wonderfully familiar, and it was only seconds before Ianto registered a clunk that was the revolver hitting the floor, then Jack’s arms enfolded him, gently, almost tentatively at first, but as reality sank in it became a stifling embrace.  Ianto’s point appeared to have been made, but when he tried to withdraw Jack was having none of it, whether or not they were unintentionally putting on a show for the troops.  When Ianto felt the wet on his cheeks he finally forced a gap between them, finding tears pouring down Jack’s face.

“Ah, Love,” he whispered compassionately, wiping the tears away with his thumbs.  “Is it true?  Five months?”

Jack nodded, and licked his lips, and closely inspected Ianto; more tears flowed when he found the mark he’d made on Ianto’s neck what felt like decades ago, but to Ianto, was still that morning.

“Ianto,” Jack breathlessly acknowledged.  “Cariad,” near-silent, private to them.

“All that time…  I didn’t know, I – I still can’t believe it.  I’d never do that to you, not deliberately.”  Ianto twisted to face the others.  “I wouldn’t do that to any of you, you must know that.”

Three nodding heads assured Ianto; it seemed that no-one quite trusted their voice.  Jack’s hands pulled him back into another kiss, brief this time, but pleasantly possessive and definitely surer.

“I have to check something in my office,” Jack told him croakily.

“You need me with you?  If not…”  He gestured to the table.  “I’m starving.”

“Stay here and eat, just…don’t go away.  Please, Ianto, don’t go away.”

“I promise.”

A last kiss and Jack picked up his gun and holstered it as he hurried downstairs.  With a worried expression, Ianto watched Jack leave, debating following him but guessing there was some serious checking up to be done: it would be easier and faster without the suspect’s presence.  Instead he went to his usual seat and helped himself to a heap of Chinese food.  As always, Gwen sat to his side, Toshiko opposite, Owen beside Toshiko.  Gradually they returned to life, taking their lead from Ianto and consuming their own meals and drinks.

“Where did you…”

“I’ll tell you everything when Jack gets back,” Ianto pre-empted Gwen.  “It’s…”  For a moment it looked like Ianto was going to bounce in his seat.  “Extraordinary.  Wonderful.”  Then he stopped and frowned.  “What’s the date?”

“Friday the fifteenth of May, two-thousand-and-nine,” Gwen supplied.

“Five months,” Ianto said quietly as he tried to take that information in.  “How can it be five months?”  His mind raced.  “Did someone think to keep an eye on my house?”

“It’s been under observation,” Toshiko assured him.

“No, I mean in a practical sense.  Anyone pay the bills?  Water the plants?”

“I think Jack’s taken care of everything.”

Ianto nodded, satisfied by that.  But…

“May.  No.  I missed Vienna.”

He caught Gwen’s glance out of the corner of his eye and turned to look at her, really look.

“What?” she asked.

Ianto shrugged – how much did anyone change in five months?  Although…  He reached over to pick up her left hand, grinning at the engagement ring that sparkled on her third finger.

“That’s new.”

“June the twentieth.”

“You’ll make a beautiful bride,” he told her, leaving Toshiko and Owen baffled as to why Gwen and Ianto should find that quite so funny.

…

In his office Jack was staring at his computer monitor, watching as the programme for Ianto’s personal tracker churned out streams of information about its subject.  The kiss had sealed it for Jack’s heart, but this confirmed it for his head: it was Ianto.  His Ianto.

He felt vindicated that he’d trusted his instincts: Ianto went away; Ianto came back.  Thankfully, no-one would ever know how close Jack had come to losing that trust due to guilt and depression.

Now his body didn’t know where to start: aching with relief, trembling with joy, tense with holding back the gallons of cathartic tears he wanted to shed, weak with love, and…horny.  A couple of kisses and he was seriously horny for the first time in months.  He laughed at himself; the sound was strange and unfamiliar.  That would change, and fast.

“Jack?” Ianto called him from the gangway beside the boardroom.

Jack hurried from his office and looked up to meet Ianto’s excited face.

“Ianto.”

“Bring up the phone charger, will you?  And get a move on, I can’t wait for you to see this.”

Ianto.  Jack blinked back more tears.

“Yes, Sir,” he joked, bowing his head in a deferential nod.

“You might need some more of that later,” Ianto cheerfully warned him.  “I still have to pay you back for this morning.”

“Five months too late.”

“Bloody hell.  Five months.”  Ianto beat a sudden tattoo on the handrail.  “C’mon.”

Jack found what Ianto needed and ran up the stairs to the boardroom, handing over the charger and standing back to watch Ianto plug in his phone and try his best at a little resuscitation.  It was quite entertaining to see the way that Owen and Toshiko were still gazing at Ianto in disbelief – Jack knew he’d eventually brow-beaten Gwen around to his way of thinking and she was definitely benefiting from that.

“How does it feel to be right all the time?” Gwen asked when she noticed Jack’s attention.

“Bearable,” Jack smiled, and then he was being shoved into his seat by Ianto, who brought his own chair closer and sat alongside him to explain what had happened.

“Right.”  He collected his thoughts.  “This afterno—  Five months ago, I left here to take a look at the site of the anomaly that keeps registering on our instruments, the one near Port Talbot.  Jack, I know you kept saying there was nothing there we could pin down but it was persistent, and I was curious.  It turns out that the readings originate from an area of the forest, just north-west of Pontrhydyfen.  I was driving along a track in the forest and suddenly the car stalled and…how to describe it?  Although the forest was still all around me, everything was frozen, silent, it was as if the real world was being held on a pause button.  I couldn’t get a phone signal, I couldn’t get the car to start, I couldn’t even get the door open.  Then, it was as if, outside this little bubble I was in, the world started to speed by.”

“It’s a temporal anomaly?” Jack clarified.

“Yes, and I’m assuming that’s why we can’t get accurate readings on it.  It may always be in the same place, but it’s rarely in the same time.”

“The five months are starting to make sense,” Toshiko said as she frantically scribbled notes in her PDA.

“Yes,” Ianto agreed.  “At first I had no idea what was happening, but then it started to remind me of a scene from the Time Machine, you’ve seen that?  When the outside rushes past and changes?  The forest was gradually stripped away and several buildings were erected, like a military camp, lots of people coming and going; a few minutes passed for me – how long that was in reality I have no idea – and there seemed to be some kind of civil unrest, people were dragged from the buildings and…and murdered, more than that, butchered.  After that all the units were abandoned and started to crumble away.  They were eventually bulldozed by men holding devices no larger than an iPod, they sent out a kind of ray that disintegrated the concrete in seconds, and…”

A series of beeps interrupted Ianto, and he looked down to see that his phone had finally decided to come back to life.  He quickly activated the Bluetooth facility, tapped a few buttons on the table console, and the boardroom screen was suddenly filled with the first of a series of photographs.

“Couldn’t get a signal but the phone’s camera worked well enough,” Ianto explained, flicking through the pictures.  “This is what I was just telling you about, the demolition men.  Some of these are a bit blurry because of the speed things were going at.”

“Always the same speed?” Jack asked, eyes fixed on the screen but hand creeping across to take Ianto’s.

“No, and not always in the same direction.  Some time after this everything went backwards and the forest re-grew, there were trees in the car with me, actually going through my body.  I couldn’t feel them, but I could see inside them, I could put my head into the trees.  Oh, here…”  Ianto indicated the latest picture, then pulled a disappointed face.  “Too close, I suppose.”

“Can you estimate how far into the future you got?” Toshiko asked.

“No idea.  After the area was cleared it was transformed into a water garden with a temple at its centre, and that seemed to last a very long time until…”  Ianto searched for a certain selection of pictures, rather clumsily as Jack refused to part with the hand he held.  “I think it was war,” he told them grimly, “or invasion.  The temple was damaged but there was a continual stream of refugees turning up, a lot of them badly hurt.  Some of the more able managed to drain the ponds and start farming but then…everything was gone.  One huge flash, so fast I didn’t have time to catch it on camera, and it was all gone.”

A sudden, crushing grip on Ianto’s hand made him wince, and he glanced at Jack, meaning to reprimand, but finding his attention caught by the captain’s expression.  Their eyes locked and held.  Shared.  Ianto’s post-time travel zeal mingled with Jack’s reprieve from mourning, his awe at having returned to him this marvellously unchanged Ianto, buzzing with excitement and carrying on exactly as if he hadn’t been lost for five months.  But then again…  In all honesty, it was Jack who had been lost the day that Ianto disappeared.  The look held and was tactfully ignored by their colleagues for many minutes, until a twitch of a sympathetic smile from Ianto broke the moment.  Jack found himself smiling back and discovered, to his astonishment, that it didn’t hurt.

“How many people?” Toshiko finally prompted, poised to enter the information into her PDA.

“People?” Ianto asked vaguely, attempting to recapture the thread.

“One huge flash, everything gone.  How many people?”

“Oh, right.  By then…couple of hundred perhaps.  But that was it for ages, none of the old visitors appeared, nothing until…  This photo, this is as close as I caught to the next beginning.  It’s quite a time later, look at the size of the trees that have managed to grow.”

“Those people look like…like…”

“Cavemen?” Ianto supplied for Toshiko.  “That’s what I thought.  No caves, but back to living in makeshift mud huts while they cleared and ploughed the area with rudimentary tools.  At first I thought I’d skipped back in time, but this was the future.  The community grew but very slowly, lots of the babies they had obviously died at birth, and some of the surviving children had terrible defects.  I assumed the catastrophe was, at least, nuclear.  Whether it was a war or an invasion.”

“What happened then?” Gwen prompted.  “Did the community survive?”

“Survived and thrived,” Ianto assured her; another picture.  “Here’s when they finally got some outside help, when the land was treated, presumably for radiation.”

Ianto glanced at Jack, who’d fallen very quiet.  They exchanged a knowing look and, at that moment, Ianto absolutely understood that Jack wasn’t being shown anything he wasn’t already aware of.

It was over an hour before Ianto ran out of photographs and future history.  He finally slumped back in his chair and stretched his legs out under the table, immediately feeling Jack’s booted foot rubbing against his calf.

“It ended as it began,” Ianto concluded.  “After a few haphazard jumps back and forth I found myself in the forest I’d first driven into, and whatever had surrounded the car dissipated.  I thought it was much later in the same day, and I didn’t want you to worry, but the phone’s battery was dead by then so I couldn’t call to let you know where I was.  The car’s electrics were all over the place, it was all I could do to get it started and mobile.  I didn’t want to risk stopping somewhere to phone in case I couldn’t get it going again.”

“I’d’ve come and got you,” Jack assured, the grip on Ianto’s hand tightening.

“As far as I knew we’d just had a blazing row and you weren’t about to take kindly to doing me any favours.”

“I would always come and get you.”

“Maybe you would,” Ianto smiled.  “I’ll remember that for next time.”

“Oh no, no next time.  From now on you’re locked inside this building and shackled to a wall.”

Luckily Ianto laughed at that, too buoyed by his adventures to take Jack seriously.

“If it was radiation, I should check you over,” Owen finally spoke as he stood and crossed to the boardroom door.

“I feel fine.”  Ianto spotted Jack opening his mouth to protest.  “But I’ll humour you,” Ianto quickly agreed; it took a little longer to reclaim his hand so he could follow Owen downstairs.

Toshiko was still absorbed in the pictures that went with Ianto’s extraordinary account, but Gwen exchanged a satisfied smile with Jack before moving up a seat and grabbing his forearm.  Jack waited, watching her think, expecting something insightful or moving or profound when she eventually spoke.

“Jack…  I know there’s a lot of catching up to do, but…  Do you think Ianto would work out the seating for the reception, because I’m buggered if I can.”

Ianto sat on the autopsy table as Owen carried out his tests, all in complete silence unless a question or instruction was absolutely necessary.  The bemusement grew until Ianto absolutely had to ask:

“Are you so unhappy to have me here?”

Owen fell still, staring unseeingly at the floor.

“I wrote you off,” he finally admitted.  “Before a week had passed, I wrote you off.”

Ianto thought about that and shrugged.

“So?”

Owen shook his head and manoeuvred Ianto around on the table, making him lie on his front so he could run a scanner over his head.  Ianto made himself comfortable, chin resting on his crossed arms, watching as Owen programmed the device to locate a specific signature.  The doctor noticed Ianto’s scrutiny.

“It’s just routine,” he assured.

“You look like shit.”

“That’s appropriate, I feel like shit.”

“Not because of me, I hope.”

“They thought I was glad to see the back of you.”

“Yeah, well…” Ianto said thoughtfully.  “They don’t get it.”  A grin broke out on Ianto’s face and Owen looked a question.  “S’pose if I publicly forgave you and we had a cuddle…”

“Weeping on shoulder optional?” Owen finally returned the grin.  “Jack’d blow a fuse.”

“Oh, him, he’d blow anything.”

Owen brought the scanner over and repositioned Ianto’s head, taking his time to find what he was looking for.  Once he saw the appropriate readings, he parted Ianto’s hair and marked the spot with iodine.

“There’s a…  There’s what looks like a bit of debris lodged under your scalp, can’t tell how long it’s been there,” Owen bluffed.  “I’d like to remove it.”

“Are you using this as an excuse to shave my head?”

“I wish I’d thought of that, but no.  Just be a tiny nick with a scalpel, won’t even need a stitch.”

“If you think it’s for the best.”

A quick injection to deaden the area then Owen did exactly as he’d said, re-scanning to ensure accuracy before making a tiny incision and suctioning out the minute tracker that Jack had planted.  Jack appeared, ashen-faced, at the top of the stairs as Owen was preparing to seal the cut with a blob of glue.

“Everything okay?” Jack asked, evidently shaken by the alert he’d received from the tracker’s programme.

“Is now,” Owen told him, staring hard and daring his boss to make any kind of fuss about his actions, but Jack was more interested in Ianto’s wellbeing.

“I thought, for a moment…”  Jack came down the stairs and rested his hand on Ianto’s back.  “Doesn’t matter.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Ianto reassured Jack in a reversal of their usual conversation.  “I never went anywhere.  Not even to Vienna,” he ended in a discontented mutter.

“Run along,” Owen ordered Jack before he could comment, and Jack reluctantly dragged himself away.

Ianto watched him go as he sat up.

“What’s the story?  You and Jack?  Anything to do with all the bruises?”

“Weevils, Morphathings, lack of personnel,” Owen counted off.  “Sort of Jack, sort of not.”

“Death wish?”

“Fuck off about the death wish.  If I cut myself shaving you think it’s a sodding death wish.”  Owen took up his Geiger counter and swept it over Ianto for a last time.  “Done.”

“Conclusion?”

Owen studied Ianto closely and drew a slow breath.

“You need a shave.”

Ianto chuckled and pushed himself off the table; at the foot of the stairs he paused and turned back, face now completely serious.

“Owen.”

“What?”

Ianto held out his right hand.  Owen hesitated before taking it.  Not exactly a handshake: this time the unlikely squeeze came from Ianto.

“I’m really sorry that Diane never came back.”

In the space of a second, Owen looked touched, pained, embarrassed and irritated, but he gave Ianto’s hand what could almost be described as an affectionate slap before withdrawing and – shockingly for Ianto – unbegrudgingly cleaning up after himself.

Emerging from the autopsy room Ianto paused, gazing around this familiar place and trying to see the passage of time.  Not obvious at all until he set eyes on the denuded Christmas tree that stood amongst heaps of dead needles and dusty gifts.  He felt a presence at his side and then Jack’s arm was sliding around his waist.

“Why wasn’t this thrown out?” Ianto demanded.  “Look at the mess!”

“I decided not to let the tree go until you came home.”

“Five months, and you were still waiting for me to come and clean up?”

“He was waiting for you to come and claim your presents,” Toshiko contradicted as she hurried to her desk.

“You could have taken them to the house,” Ianto told Jack, but his tone softened at the thought of Jack clinging to hope the way he himself had the previous year, and all that misery wrapped up in What It’s Like To Be Jack Harkness.

Regardless of where they were, Ianto turned to Jack and wrapped his arms around him, closing his eyes as Jack reciprocated and trying not to feel quite so intensely.

“I missed you,” Jack whispered, overwrought and still barely believing this was Ianto, his Ianto.

Ianto’s concerns shifted from practical to personal and all he could think of was getting Jack away from the Hub, to somewhere he could talk or cry or rant or be fucked into oblivion: however good the present act was, Jack – this changed Jack whose raw emotions were too near the surface – was trembling ferociously beneath his touch.

“We’ll go, I think,” Ianto said, to Jack, and then to Toshiko.

“Take your presents home with you.”  Toshiko quickly rounded up a couple of large bin liners to pack them in.  “If Jack’s on form I can’t imagine you’d want to open them in front of us anyway.”

Gwen came clattering down the stairs to help Toshiko, and they exacerbated the mess as they tried to ensure the needles stayed in the Hub rather than accompanied Ianto home.  Owen strolled out of the autopsy room in time for Ianto to pass him as he went to fetch Jack’s coat.

“You off?” Owen asked on Ianto’s return trip.

“I think we should go, Jack’s…” Ianto faltered.

“Wrecked,” was accurately supplied.

“If we take the weekend off, can you cover?”

“How about we all try to take the weekend off?” Jack suggested as he joined them, retrieving his coat and shrugging it on.  Everyone looked at him as if he were mad.  “Okay, okay.”

Toshiko crossed to Ianto and hugged him hard.

“We’ll manage.  I promise we won’t call unless there’s a dire emergency.”

Gwen manhandled Ianto from Toshiko and took over the hugging duties.

“I’m so glad you’re back.”

“This is ridiculous, I didn’t go anywhere.”

“I have this theory that you were returned to us to organise the seating plan for my reception.”

“I have no doubt that’s correct.  Monday?”

Gwen gave him another hug before releasing him.  Completely deadpan, Ianto held out his arms to Owen.

“How ‘bout bollocks,” came the immediate snarky response.

The façade cracked and Ianto laughed.

“Now everything’s back to normal.”

…

Normality.

In the wake of Jack and Ianto’s exit Owen restlessly wandered, Toshiko pored over the pictures, Gwen sang to herself to break the silence as she swept up the pine needles.  Owen came to a halt between the two women and, feeling his presence, they turned as one with questioning looks.

“Pub?” he suggested.

“I should really…”  “I wanted to…” emerged together, and stopped together.

The three exchanged expectant glances.  Toshiko looked at her watch.

“Just a quick one.”

Normality.

…

Ianto drew up outside his house, relieved that the now-temperamental Rover had got them there.  Jack’s hand was possessively clutching his thigh and didn’t show any sign of letting go.

“We going in?” Ianto enquired lightly as he rubbed his fingertips over Jack’s knuckles.

Jack seemed distinctly uncomfortable.

“Before we do, I have to tell you…”

Ianto looked enquiringly at Jack but it was only seconds before his expression turned to panic.

“No, Jack, please.”

“It’s only that…”

“Oh God, oh God, no.”

“Wait, what do you…”

“You’ve found someone else, haven’t you.  Five months, of course you have.”

The concept was so ridiculous that Jack had to laugh.  Ianto’s panic wavered toward upset.

“Found someone else?” Jack giggled, feeling more than a little crazy.  “Wait until you see.”

Jack left the car and rushed to open Ianto’s door for him, dragging his thoroughly confused partner from the driver’s seat and up the path to the house.  He gestured for Ianto to let himself in.  A few steps into the hall and Ianto could see what Jack had been trying to warn him about.  His home had become a shrine, there were pictures – posters – of him everywhere.

“Why?” was all he could manage as he walked into his living room to find every wall densely covered.

“I needed you to have a presence,” Jack explained, trying to pretend he wasn’t cringing with embarrassment.  “It started out with one or two, and then…this.”

Ianto charily peeled the first photograph of many from the nearest wall.  He sent up a quick word of thanks to whichever deity protected paintwork as it became clear Jack had been using that interesting little gadget from work and employing static to redecorate rather than any method that left behind holes or grubby marks.  Ianto removed another photo, and then another.

“Help,” he ordered Jack, and Jack semi-willingly leant a hand, unaware that this was the start of undoing the damage that the lonely months had inflicted on him.  “No more Jack the stalker,” Ianto insisted as he removed the living room’s final picture.  “I don’t mind a nice photo of us somewhere, but this—”  Ianto peered at Jack suspiciously.  “There isn’t anything scary in the bedroom, is there?  My head paint-shopped onto some anonymous rampant torso.”

“I have lots to admit to, but that isn’t on the list.”

“Should I be worried?”

“Not so much worried,” Jack replied cagily, reviving his best-but-blatantly-false penitent expression and winning himself a reprieve when Ianto simply laughed and grabbed him for a hug.  “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you quite like this before,” Jack murmured as he pressed his lips to Ianto’s neck.

“Like what?”

“Exuberant.  Ever since you got back.”

“I can’t help it after what happened to me today, it was so thrilling, I…  Ah, Jack, I envy you.  All the things you’ve seen, places you’ve visited.  I wish you could tell me about some of them.”

“I will,” Jack promised.  “Now I will.”

“Really?”

Jack leaned back to study Ianto: the excited grin was back and his eyes sparkled with fun.  With life.  Jack gave him a soft kiss before admitting,

“You make me feel old.”

“You’re not old, you’re…tired.  You look tired.”

“I am.  More than tired.”

“How about you go up to bed and I’ll join you when I’ve taken all the pictures down?”

Ianto’s tone suggested that he wasn’t in any mood to be argued with, so Jack agreed with a quick nod before raising a hand, running his fingertips across Ianto’s brow, down across his cheek, caressing his jaw.  He couldn’t remember how many times he’d touched flat, lifeless images in the same way – in fact, all he wanted now was to forget.

“You’re here,” he reminded the both of them, voice treacherously weak.

“I am,” Ianto agreed.  “Safe and sound.”

“I was so scared for you.  Not knowing…”

“C’mon, Love, you can stop torturing yourself now.”

“I couldn’t protect you.”

“I didn’t need protecting,” Ianto smiled kindly.  “In which case…you acted perfectly correctly.”

“Ianto…”

“I’m here, I’m safe, and I love you despite today – my today.  For the moment, shall we pretend that nothing else matters?”

Jack looked Ianto over for the umpteenth time and gave a shallow nod.

“I love you, Mr Jones.”

“My love is bigger than your love,” Ianto joked, before hopefully prompting, “I loved you all the way to…?”

“Approximately…the thirty-seventh century,” Jack supplied.

“The thirty-seventh century,” Ianto repeated, stunned all over again.  “I wish you’d been with me, you could have explained so much.  Although…I just wish you’d been with me.”

Pain glazed Jack’s eyes and he gave a watery smile before heading off to the bedroom, trying not to be terrified to let Ianto out of his sight.

Ianto methodically went through the downstairs of his house, removing all but one picture of him and Jack, then taking stock of the home he’d been away from for so long.  It was untidier, dustier, imprecise, lived in.  Jack lived there.  The thought made Ianto want to whoop with happiness, and he was halfway up the stairs to share that with Jack before being brought to a sudden halt by the sounds behind his bedroom door.

Jack was crying – sobbing – and Ianto was momentarily lost in the memories that stirred, of himself during the terrible time when it finally sank in that Jack had really gone.  Although it tore at his heart to do so, he crept back downstairs, knowing he had to offer Jack a little privacy.  He didn’t want to make a fuss and have Jack feel obliged to pull himself together too soon, he wanted him to have the chance to get some of that pent-up emotion out of his system, knowing that every tear would help dilute the trauma.

Five months.  Incredible.  Ianto didn’t want to believe it, but how could he deny it when he’d witnessed the damage it had caused.  He dithered at the foot of the stairs, stopping himself a dozen times before finally dashing up to his bedroom but then casually wandering in as if he suspected nothing.  No pictures left on the walls, that was a relief, and he commented because he knew it was expected.  Jack was sitting on the far side of the bed with his back to Ianto.  The coat was gone, thrown over a chair in the corner of the room, and his braces were down.

“Were you waiting for me?” Ianto asked as he moved to Jack’s side and gave him a comforting hug.  Jack didn’t even begin to pretend he wasn’t teary and sniffly, but he smiled as Ianto began to undress him.  “You’ve lost weight,” Ianto observed as he pulled Jack’s t-shirt off.

“I hadn’t noticed.”

“That’ll have to stop.”

Ianto knelt and attended to Jack’s boots.

“We need to talk,” Jack told him quietly.

“Isn’t tomorrow soon enough?”

“I don’t know.”

Jack’s socks were tugged off and thrown aside.  As Ianto leant in to make a start on Jack’s belt his hands were caught and held.  Ianto accepted that Jack didn’t want him to go further and, however out of character that appeared, the decision was respected.  Although…

“Tell me this isn’t about you having someone else.”

“It isn’t that.  It’s…  I’ve been here alone, Ianto, with enough time to go through every single fragment of your private life.”

“Oh,” was all that Ianto initially managed in return, mind racing as he slowly returned to his own side of the bed.  “Did you find something that’s turned you off me?”

“No,” Jack insisted.  “And I’m not sorry that I looked, I felt close to you.”

“So…?”

“You’re a very private person, and you’re bound to be mad about what I’ve done.  If I didn’t tell you until after we’d…”  Jack sighed and shrugged.

“If you insist we need to talk, then I imagine we’ll talk,” Ianto accepted.  “But, Jack…there’s nothing here that I wouldn’t have shared with you, nothing you could have learnt that I wouldn’t have told you if you’d known what question to ask.”

“You don’t mind?”

“It isn’t that I don’t mind.  But other things matter more.  Like the fact that you live here.”

“You gave me the keys,” Jack responded, trying his best not to sound defensive.

“Yes,” Ianto smiled, “I did, didn’t I.  I had no idea it was that easy.  I’m thrilled about it.”  The smile was finally reciprocated, and Ianto saw a little of Jack’s tension drain away.  “Not sure I can sleep,” he said as he stripped off and climbed beneath the duvet, “and, frankly, I doubt that you’re up to anything more.  Will the light disturb you if I read?  Or I might start making notes for my report on what happened today.”

“No point,” Jack yawned as he joined Ianto under the covers.

“What do you mean?”

“You can keep the photos provided they’re not labelled in any way that makes them identifiable, but there can’t be any written record of what you’ve seen.”

“Tosh was making notes.”

“She knows to keep them to herself and non-specific until they’re deleted.  If someone read a detailed report they might try to change the future.  I’m sure I don’t need to explain the problem there.”

“No,” Ianto agreed, voice heavy with disappointment.  “Lousy time-traveller I’d make, I can’t even remember the most basic rules.  I suppose I should be grateful I haven’t been RetConned.”

Jack smiled dozily and stretched, throwing an arm over Ianto and holding on tightly.

“You’re here,” he whispered.

“I am,” Ianto once again confirmed.

“What you saw: why don’t you tell me more about it.”

“You can barely keep your eyes open.”  Ianto shuffled around to face Jack, stroking fingertips through his hair, watching as he began to drift.  “When was the last time you slept?” 

“D’know.”

“Was I here?”

Jack nodded into the pillow and Ianto’s heart felt suddenly huge and sore.  Jack hadn’t slept in five months.  Manhandling Jack around, Ianto cuddled up to his back, nuzzling into his hair.

“Ianto?” was murmured, a last attempt to stay awake and in contact.

“Go to sleep.  I’ll be here in the morning, I promise.”

“You came back.”

“I never went away.”

It wasn’t long before Ianto felt Jack become still and heavy against him.  Despite feeling too wired to even consider nodding off, Ianto gradually absorbed Jack’s long overdue peace and he pressed himself closer, renewing his grip before joining his partner in a restful sleep.

Jack wouldn’t remember dreaming that he dreamt that Ianto had returned to him; Ianto wouldn’t notice for a long time that the nightmares had been almost entirely replaced by constantly evolving fantasies of a future world.

Attrition 35       Attrition Index       Attrition Notes

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