Work Text:
“Major!”
They’re on their way to work one morning when Ianto hears the shout like a whip-crack across the deserted Plass. He barely has time to wonder where it came from before Evan’s left hand grabs the lapel of his waistcoat and he is pulled downwards so roughly that his knees slam hard into the pavement. Evan’s right hand reaches for something at his thigh, but when he doesn’t find anything there, he raises it to his ear. When this search also proves fruitless, he looks around, obviously confused. He stares at Ianto for about ten seconds with no sign of recognition on his face.
By this time, the shouter, a man with short, dark hair, dressed in jeans and a Mr. Fantastic t-shirt, has reached them.
“Major, are you all right?”
Evan looks up at the man. “McKay?”
The man, McKay, helps Evan to his feet, not sparing a glance at Ianto. “It’s okay, Major. There’s nothing to worry about.”
Evan looks shaken. “My sidearm…my radio….Where’s the colonel?”
McKay looks quickly over at Ianto before answering. “You don’t have your sidearm, Major. And there’s no need for a radio. You’re in Cardiff.” He pauses and glances at Ianto again. “On Earth.”
Something finally seems to click in Evan’s mind and he looks from McKay to Ianto. “Ianto?”
Ianto reaches out and pulls him into a tight embrace. “It’s okay, Evan. I’m here.”
Evan trembles in his arms, clinging to Ianto as though letting go would make the universe collapse in on itself. McKay watches them with a confused look on his face, one eyebrow cocked, mouth tilted down in a crooked frown.
“So you and he are...huh.” He looks oddly impressed. “I had no idea he was...”
“Who the bloody hell are you?” Ianto cuts him off. He’s not sure if he’s more angry that Evan is so broken or that, in time of crisis, he turned to McKay instead of Ianto.
McKay draws up his chin and looks haughtily at Ianto. “Dr. Rodney McKay. Who are you?”
Ianto opens his mouth to make a smart remark, but Evan lifts his head. “This is Ianto Jones. Ianto this is McKay. I’ve told you about him.”
Evan’s still trembling, but he seems more lucid than he had been. “Hey,” Ianto says softly, tilting his chin up to look into Evan’s eyes. “Are you okay, cariadfab? Can you make it to the Hub?”
Evan nods, but when he tries to walk, his legs give way, so Ianto places one of Evan’s arms around his shoulder and looks pointedly at McKay.
“Oh, right, right, sorry,” he says and takes Evan’s other arm, hiking it over his shoulder and placing an arm around Evan’s waist. “Which way, then?”
Ianto leads them down towards the water and around a corner to the tourist office. He keeps an arm around Evan as he unlocks the door, shuffling inside. He gives Evan a questioning look.
“It’s okay. He’s fine. And we can always retcon him if we need to.”
Ianto reaches behind the desk and presses the button to open the door to the Hub proper. It’s too much to hope that Owen will be in yet, but at least Jack will be around. He’ll know what to do.
***
Lorne’s still a bit dizzy and disoriented when Ianto leaves him in the infirmary with McKay while he goes to find Harkness.
It was just like on Atlantis, before he’d left. McKay had yelled, and suddenly he was back on M5X-823. His first instinct had been to protect his civilian, pull him down by his tac vest, cover him.
Only, it wasn’t Parrish or Lindsey. It was Ianto. He can see the image in his mind, replay the experience in detail. The Plass replaced by a green, wet forest, reaching for a sidearm that wasn’t there. Trying to radio for backup, but finding nothing at his ear. And turning to look at Ianto, but not recognizing him. Knowing only that he wasn’t supposed to be there.
It wasn’t until McKay had told him he was on Earth that the hallucination had faded. He isn’t sure why, but McKay has always been the only one who could pull him back to reality. Maybe because McKay is the one person he could always trust to tell him the truth exactly as it is, with no attempt to make it more palatable.
He’s sitting on the examination table when Ianto comes back with Harkness.
“Ianto told me what happened. Are you all right?”
His voice is only a little shaky when he answers, “I’m fine, sir. I’ll be fine.”
Harkness raises an eyebrow at him. “If you say so, I believe you, but I’d still like to get Owen in to check you out.”
A wave of fatigue washes over him, and he suddenly has no strength to argue. “Whatever you say, sir.”
“That’s the most agreeable you’ve been since you started working here, Lorne.” Harkness is smiling at him, trying to get him to smile back, because they both know that Lorne has followed orders better than anyone else at Torchwood, including Ianto, since the day he started. Lorne offers a weak grimace.
“Who’s your friend?”
McKay stands up and holds out his hand to Harkness. “Dr. Rodney McKay. And you are?”
Harkness grins at him and gives him an obvious once over. “Captain Jack Harkness,” he says, leering slightly and leaning towards McKay as he takes his hand. “Medical doctor?”
McKay huffs. “No. Astrophysics and Engineering.”
“I do like a man with an education.”
McKay’s eyes widen. “Christ, Major, what is this? The rainbow brigade?”
Ianto stiffens, and Lorne puts a hand on his arm. “He doesn’t mean it.” He turns to McKay. “Still haven’t had that filter installed between your mouth and your brain, have you, McKay?”
“Ha ha, very funny.”
“Touching as this reunion is,” Harkness says, “it doesn’t explain why there’s a pudgy, yet attractive, astrophysicist slash engineer in my Hub.”
“Hey, I’m not pudgy!”
Harkness winks at him. “It’s okay, Rodney. Can I call you Rodney? I like pudgy. It’s...cute. And I like to have a little something to hold on to.”
McKay huffs again.
“Actually,” Lorne breaks in, folding his arms across his chest, “I was kind of wondering that myself. What brings you to Cardiff, McKay?”
Casting a nervous glance at Harkness, McKay says, “Can we discuss this in private?”
Harkness takes Ianto’s elbow and steers him towards the door. “Looks like these two have got some catching up to do, Ianto, and I could use some of your amazing coffee.” Looking at Lorne he adds, “I’m calling Owen as soon as I get to my office. You have until he gets here to sort this out.”
McKay perks up at the mention of coffee. “Actually I could use a cup...,” but Ianto and Harkness are already out the door.
“You can have some when you’re finished explaining what you were doing at the Plass at 0630 this morning. Think of it as incentive to be concise.”
“I was looking for you.”
“That’s pretty damn concise.”
“Can I have my coffee now?”
“Not yet.” Lorne stands. He’s still a bit woozy, but he feels more in control when he’s on his own two feet. “So, you were looking for me--we’ll get to the why on that later--and you thought that Cardiff Bay was the perfect place to start?”
“You still have your transmitter.”
Lorne sits down quickly. What little strength he had leaking out of him. He’d completely forgotten his subcutaneous transmitter. Had they been watching his movements since he left Atlantis? “So you tracked me to Cardiff?”
McKay smiles smugly. “It was easy, really. I just recalibrated the beams on the Artemis to locate your transmitter but not lock on for beaming.”
“The Artemis?”
“New Daedelus class battlecruiser. Just finished her last month.” He’s beaming with pride at the mention of the ship, so Lorne figures he must have made some upgrades himself. “We were just going to beam you straight to the bridge, but we haven’t been able to get you alone long enough to lock on. Guess that’s because of what’s his name. Ian?”
“Ianto.”
“Right. So you and he are...?”
“Fucking?”
McKay blushes. “No, right. None of my business. It’s just...I never figured you for the type.”
“The type to what?” Lorne’s not really angry. He knows McKay is completely socially inept and never seems to realize how offensive he’s being. But it’s easy to fall back into this role. Easy to needle him and get him flustered. Make him blush.
“You know...um...play for the other team,” he says confidentially.
“I’m a switch-hitter, actually.” The metaphor doesn’t entirely fit, but he figures McKay probably doesn’t know enough about baseball to put up a fuss.
McKay blushes scarlet. “Oh, right...I, uh...”
Lorne finally takes pity on him. “So I know how you found me. What I don’t know is why.”
It takes a moment for McKay to recover his composure before he answers. “We need you back.”
“You need me back,” Lorne repeats, incredulous.
“Yes.”
“Back in Atlantis?”
“Yes.”
McKay’s never been so sparing with his words, and that makes Lorne nervous. “Why?”
McKay laughs, that nervous laugh that means he’s about to try to lie. “Why? Because you’re you, obviously. I mean...Sheppard’s lost without you, always has been. The city hasn’t been the same since you left.”
“Since I left?”
“What, is there an echo in here?”
“Since I left,” he asks again, “or since I was kicked out? Because, as I recall, doctor, it wasn’t exactly my choice.” His voice is calm, but there’s an edge of steel to it.
“No, of course it wasn’t. Who would choose to leave Atlantis? No one ever wants to leave. Well, except for Kavanagh, but he hardly...”
“McKay!”
“What?”
“Why do they need me back?”
“It’s complicated.” He’s fidgeting, tapping his fingers on the edge of the counter he’s leaning on, not meeting Lorne’s gaze.
“Simplify it for me.”
McKay takes a deep breath. “You remember the people on M43-925?”
“The Senari?” Yeah, he remembers them. Though he’d been trying to forget. That had been one of his last missions.
“Yes. They...they have a weapon. We think it could take out the last of the Asurans.”
“Good for them. Doesn’t explain why you need me.”
“They won’t negotiate with anyone else. Seems you made quite an impression on them.” He’s blushing again and stuttering, and Lorne knows he’s hiding something.
“You sent Teyla already?”
“Of course we did. We sent Teyla, Sheppard, Carter...we even called Elizabeth back to see if she could deal with them. They want you.”
Lorne’s arms are crossed and he’s staring at the floor, thinking hard. “I’ll think about it.”
“What’s there to think about, Major?” He looks honestly confused. “It’s your chance to go back. If we can take out the Asurans, that’ll be it. The last of the Wraith fell last year. We do this, and Pegasus is free. Think of what that means for Atlantis. This is your chance to go home again.” He’s got that look in his eye. The one he gets when he believes something so strongly he can’t even begin to comprehend how someone else could disagree.
And Lorne can’t deny that he’s wanted to go back many, many times. But is it home still? He still wakes up at night sometimes, thinking he can hear the city humming around him, but he’s made a new life here. With Torchwood. With Ianto.
“I’ll think about it.”
McKay’s about to argue more, but the door opens and Owen steps inside.
“Not interrupting anything, am I?”
Lorne looks at McKay. “No. We’re done here.”
***
Evan has many scars.
When they first began dating, Ianto made a habit of mentally cataloguing each one. He knows which ones are from bullets, which are from knives, which are from shrapnel, which are from something called a staff weapon. He even knows the story behind the small scar on the inside of Evan’s left ankle from when he fell out of a tree when he was eight.
There is one scar, or rather a set of scars, that Ianto has never asked about. The first time he touched them, tracing them gently with a finger as he had done to the others, Evan stiffened and turned away. Since then, he’s left them alone.
This is how their relationship works. Things from the past that make good stories, that make each other laugh or smile, these they share. But the others, the ones that still cause a shadow to pass over their faces, the ones that might even now make them cry, these they keep to themselves. Ianto has never told Evan about Lisa, and Evan has never told Ianto why he left Atlantis.
But the night after McKay shows up, Ianto decides he needs to know. When Atlantis was just a part of Evan’s past, when it was just the symbol for what he was before, Ianto was quite happy to let Evan keep it to himself. But now that it looks like Atlantis will push itself into their life together, Ianto needs to know.
He begins carefully, lying next to Evan in bed, kissing his throat and shoulders softly, trailing his fingers up Evan’s side. Evan has not yet fully relaxed after the incident this morning, but Ianto knows that if he doesn’t push him tonight, he may never get his answers.
So he takes a deep breath and places his hand over the center of Evan’s chest. He feels the wide scar under his hand, longer than his palm. He stretches his fingers out, but they don’t quite reach the five perfectly symmetrical gashes that surround the larger scar. The tips of his fingers just barely graze the lower corners of each one.
Evan’s body goes rigid. Ianto had been expecting this. He opens his mouth to ask Evan about the scars, but before he can speak, Evan’s eyes roll back in his head and his face goes pale.
“No, please, no,” he mutters, eyes fluttering, head thrashing back and forth. “I can’t...I don’t know...I won’t tell you...”
Ianto pulls his hand back and tries to soothe him. “It’s all right, Evan. It’s just me,” he whispers. “No one’s going to hurt you.”
But Evan doesn’t respond. He’s thrashing on the bed. Ianto is about to call for McKay, who insisted on sleeping on their couch until Evan gave him an answer, when Evan sits straight up, nearly knocking Ianto off the bed. His eyes are wide and his nostrils flare. He looks at Ianto, and Ianto knows that whatever Evan sees, it’s not him. There’s fear and hatred in his eyes, and he lunges for Ianto.
They land on the floor, and Ianto tries to call out, but Evan’s fingers close around his throat and his breath is cut off.
“I won’t tell you!” Evan screams. “You can suck out my goddamn life, but I’m not going to tell you! I won’t tell! Goddamn it, just kill me!”
Ianto struggles, trying to fight him off, but Evan is stronger than him, and fear has given him an impossible strength. His vision is blurring around the edges when a voice from the door shouts, “Major!”
McKay pulls Evan off Ianto and holds him still, arms wrapped around his torso. “Major, this isn’t real. You’re not there. There are no Wraith here. Just you and me and Ianto.” It seems strange to Ianto that this man who blustered and shouted his way around the Hub this morning could be so soothing, but McKay speaks softly to Evan, gently pushing aside whatever vision he was living in, until the rage subsides and his breathing steadies.
When Evan finally looks at Ianto again, Ianto wants to reach out to him, but McKay shakes his head. He’s still holding onto Evan.
“Ianto?” Evan’s voice is shaky, much worse than it had been that morning.
“I’m here, Evan.”
Evan leans forward, shrugging off McKay’s arms. He brings a hand up to Ianto’s neck, fingers tracing the bruises that are already beginning to form there. “God, Ianto, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean....”
Ianto cups the back of Evan’s neck in his hand and pulls him forward. “It’s all right. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have tried to...”
Evan cuts him off. “No. No, I should have told you. I just didn’t think...I didn’t think it would happen again. Not so far from Atlantis.”
Ianto shoots a glare at McKay. If he hadn’t come, if he hadn’t showed up out of nowhere and brought all this with him, Ianto and Evan would still be all right. If not for McKay, he wouldn’t be holding the trembling body of his lover, trying to soothe him, but not knowing why he needed to be soothed.
McKay looks from Ianto to Evan and back again. “I’ll just go...uh...make some tea.” He gets up and walks to the door, then turns and says to Ianto. “You might want to move him to the living room until he’s a bit more steady.” He looks defeated as he leaves, and Ianto wishes he wouldn’t. It’s so much more difficult to hate him when he looks like a kicked puppy.
“Let’s get you up, love.” He pulls Evan off the floor and slowly helps him make his way out to the living room, pushing aside McKay’s blankets to sit him down.
Ianto sits next to him, and Evan curls up into him, legs across Ianto’s lap and face buried in Ianto’s neck. Ianto wraps his arms around him, kissing the top of his head and murmuring nonsense to him.
When McKay comes back with tea, Ianto takes a mug and offers one to Evan, who holds it in shaky hands, but doesn’t drink any. McKay sits in a chair across from the couch and watches them nervously.
“Evan?” Ianto says gently, tilting his face up to meet his eyes. “Cariadfab, we don’t have to do this tonight. It can wait until morning.”
Evan shakes his head. “No. I’ve waited too long. I should have told you ages ago.”
He takes a sip of his tea and looks across the room at McKay. Then he seems to steel himself to the task. His shoulders straighten, and though he leans into Ianto’s chest, his voice is stronger. “I guess I have to start at the beginning, yeah? I worked for a something called the Stargate Program. It was a top secret project of the U.S. Air Force. The stargates are a series of devices that create artificial wormholes for travel between planets. You’d have to ask McKay if you want more info than that. I don’t really understand the science behind it.
“Atlantis is a city in the Pegasus galaxy. It was the home of the Ancients. The SGC, uh, Stargate Command, sent an expedition there several years ago looking for a weapon to be used to protect Earth from certain enemies. A year after the original expedition shipped out, I joined them.” He pauses and takes another sip of tea.
“Because you have the gene,” Ianto prompts gently.
“Yeah. Because I have the gene.
“The main purpose of the Atlantis base at that point was to keep Earth from being discovered by the Wraith.”
“The Wraith?” Ianto looks at McKay.
McKay looks pained as he answers, “The Wraith are...were...a race of aliens who survived by sucking the life force out of humans.”
“Through their chests?” A few things start to slip into place.
“Yes.”
“They have...other abilities too,” Evan adds. “They’re a hive species, and the queens can read minds and manipulate thoughts.” A full body shudder passes through him, and Ianto holds him more tightly.
“My...my last mission...we were captured. My whole team. They kept me alive, but they made me watch while they fed on my men.” He’s shaking again. Ianto takes the half-empty mug from his hands and sets it on the coffee table, wrapping himself around Evan and pulling a blanket around them both.
“I didn’t know how long I was there. They tell me it was about a month. Every day, the queen would have me brought to her chamber. She would ask me where Atlantis was. We’d had to move it, you see.”
“The city?”
“It has a stardrive,” McKay adds, and it would sound ludicrous in any other circumstances, but Ianto accepts it.
“She wanted to know where we’d moved it,” Evan continues. “And when I wouldn’t tell her...she...she fed on me. Just a little each day. After a week, I was ready to die. But that would have ruined her fun.” His voice is harder now. Ianto can hear his hatred. “The Wraith don’t just have the ability to drain life, they have the ability to give it back as well. And she did. She gave me back years of my life. I was even younger than I’d been when they captured me. And then she sucked it all out again.”
Ianto’s voice is barely a whisper. “For a month?” He tightens his arms around Evan and rocks him slowly.
“It felt like a year. Like an eternity.”
“And you never gave in?”
Lorne looks at McKay and says, in an even voice, “No. I never gave in.” It’s not a statement so much as a challenge.
“I know, Major.”
“You know now. You didn’t believe me then.”
“What were we supposed to think, Major?” McKay says defensively. “They let you go. The Wraith never release captives, but they let you go, and three weeks later an armada shows up at our front door. And you couldn’t explain why they released you or how they found us.” As soon as McKay finishes, he seems to realise what he’s said. He looks embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Major. I know you didn’t tell them anything, but...you can’t blame us for being suspicious. We didn’t find the transmitter until after the Wraith had left.”
Ianto glares at him. His outburst caused Evan to retreat further into Ianto’s arms. “But you didn’t tell them anything, Evan. So what happened?” He gently brushes Evan’s hair back from his forehead.
“I don’t know. After a month, the queen said she wasn’t going to get any information from me. They dropped me on a planet somewhere with a radio and a day’s supply of food and water. I dialed the gate to Atlantis, and they sent a team through to retrieve me. I didn’t realise that they’d put a transmitter on me, to track my movements. They knew I’d go back to Atlantis, and I led them right to her.”
“And that’s why you left?”
Evan sighs. “No. I was discharged about a month later. Diagnosed with severe PTSD. I...I kept having flashbacks to that mission. I couldn’t be cleared for off-world duty until they stopped, and they didn’t stop. So,” he shrugs, as though he long ago made peace with this aspect of the story, “they sent me home.”
He looks at McKay again. “And now they want me back.”
“We need you back, Major.”
Evan looks exhausted, so Ianto steps in. “I think we can discuss this later. You need to rest,” he adds when Evan begins to protest.
He leaves Evan on the couch while he remakes the bed, then comes back and helps him down the hallway.
When they’re back in bed and under the covers, Evan reaches out to trace the dark, finger-shaped bruises on Ianto’s neck. “I’m sorry, babe. About all of this.”
Ianto just pulls him close. “We’ll get through this, cariadfab.”
They have to, because Ianto isn’t about to lose someone else.
***
Lorne tells McKay that he can have his answer in a week, and McKay seems to take this as an invitation to stay on their couch until Lorne makes up his mind.
After the third day of McKay making himself at home in the Hub, Jack banishes them both, telling Lorne to find some way to amuse McKay for at least the next day. This is done mostly for Tosh’s sanity, as McKay had spent a majority of his time hovering over her shoulder and “suggesting” improvements to whatever she was working on at the moment.
Lorne almost thinks Jack would have let them stay if it hadn’t been for McKay’s outburst when Tosh had asked him exactly when his last paper had been published.
Which is how Lorne finds himself on the top of a double-decker sightseeing bus one rainy Thursday morning, with a very grumpy McKay in tow. They get on the bus at Cardiff Castle, and by the time they get to the Bay, the tour guide is giving McKay murderous looks over her shoulder. Lorne grabs McKay’s elbow and steers him down the stairs and out the door. Apologizing profusely to the tour guide and telling her that McKay is a patient at the local psychiatric hospital who’s being slowly reintroduced to life in normal society.
McKay gives an indignant, “Hey!” to this suggestion, but Lorne gets him off the bus without too much trouble, and they have lunch at a Chinese restaurant overlooking Roald Dahl Plass.
“Are you seriously considering not going back, Major?”
Lorne gives him an exasperated look.
“Why?” If it were anyone but McKay, Lorne would take offense at that, but McKay seems honestly perplexed by the idea that anyone could even possibly want a different life than the one Atlantis has to offer.
Lorne sighs and says, “When I first came to Cardiff, I didn’t even know what I was doing here. I had no job, no ambitions, nothing I wanted from life except to go back. I was burning through my back pay, sketching imaginary landscapes. And then I met Ianto. And I realized that Atlantis is not the only place in the universe worth living. I have friends here, McKay. Good friends. They’re family to me the way the people in Atlantis used to be. I can’t just give that up. I can’t just abandon them the first chance I get to go back to a home I’d given up any hope of ever seeing again.”
McKay is leaning forward in his chair, as though getting closer to Lorne will make his reasoning easier to understand.
“What if it wasn’t permanent?”
Lorne rolls his eyes. “I was assuming it wasn’t permanent. If it were permanent, the answer would be no.”
“So what’s the problem then? You know it’s only for a short time. A month. Two at the most. What’s keeping you here?”
It’s a question Lorne has been asking himself a lot these past few days. He looks out the window at the drizzle running down the glass and beyond it to the coppery curves of the Millennium Centre. “It isn’t my home anymore, McKay. I don’t belong there.”
“Is that all?” McKay laughs. “Look, everyone was really excited when they heard you might be coming back. They all want to see you again. Sheppard and Radek and...and Parrish and...everyone.”
Lorne gives him a tiny smile. “It would be nice to see everyone again.”
“So you’ll do it?”
“I’ll have to talk to Ianto about it. And Harkness.”
From the way McKay is attacking his chow mein with a grin, Lorne knows he thinks things are pretty much settled. He’s probably already composing his triumphant email to tell Sheppard that Major Lorne is coming home.
***
Ianto’s been expecting this conversation since the day McKay arrived, but he still isn’t quite ready for it.
“You want to leave.”
“It’s only for a month, maybe two.”
“You want to leave Cardiff and go to a city in another galaxy to play diplomat to a bunch of aliens.”
Evan frowns. “If you don’t want me to go, I won’t,” he says, placing his hands on Ianto’s shoulders.
Ianto doesn’t answer right away. If he’s honest with himself, he’s been dreading this day for quite some time. The way Evan’s eyes would light up when he talked about Atlantis, the way he smiled when he got to use the LSDs they’d found in the archives, even the way he asked Jack about the Doctor’s ship, Ianto has always been afraid that someday someone would come along and offer Evan the chance to go back.
“I don’t want to keep you here if you want to go.”
Evan sighs and rolls his eyes. “That’s not an answer, Ianto. I won’t go without your blessing. Not just your permission.”
“It’s only for a month?”
“Maybe two.”
The thing is, Ianto isn’t sure he could deny Evan anything he really wanted. “If Jack says it’s okay, then I don’t see why you shouldn’t go.”
Evan holds Ianto’s head in his hands and looks into Ianto’s eyes. “You sure?”
His voice is so hopeful that Ianto knows he’d say the same even if he knew it meant he’d never see Evan again. “I’m sure. Go to your flying spaceship city, love.”
“Thank you, Ianto.” Evan grins and pulls him into a tight hug, and without even thinking, Ianto files this one away as Evan’s “going home” grin.
He wraps his arms around Evan and holds him tightly. “Just come back to me.”
***
Convincing Harkness is only slightly less difficult. When Harkness suggests Retcon, Lorne is glad Ianto insisted on coming with him to ask for time off.
“He’s not retiring, sir, just going for a leave of absence.”
“It’s just a precaution, Ianto. When he comes back, you can bring him to the Hub. That should be more than enough to trigger a recall.”
“Isn’t the point of Retcon to keep people who wouldn’t be able to handle the truth from finding out? These people, the SGC, they can handle it.”
Lorne watches them with mild amusement. He’d agree to the retconning if it came to it, but Ianto seems adamant that Lorne keep his memories.
Eventually, Lorne sees that Harkness is just playing with Ianto, getting him worked up over nothing. And, after reiterating his arguments against retconning for the third time, Ianto sees it to. “You’re incorrigible, sir.”
“You wouldn’t have me any other way,” Harkness says with a grin. He turns to Lorne. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Yes.”
“Any particular reason you’re so eager to go back?”
Lorne thinks about this. He could go on about the fate of the planet until he’s blue in the face, but he’s only just realized his true reason for wanting to return, and he thinks it will probably be the only one to convince Harkness.
“It’s not a question of wanting, sir. It’s a question of needing.” He pauses, and Ianto gives him a curious look. “These flashbacks...I thought they were over with, and maybe they might go away again if McKay weren’t around.”
Harkness snorts in amusement.
“The thing is, I can’t be sure. I think going back...I think being there again, it might be the only way to stop them for good. And if not, well, at least I’ll have tried, and that’s got to be better than ignoring them.” He glances over at Ianto. His shirt collar isn’t quite high enough to hide the fading, yellowish bruises on his throat. “I can’t risk hurting anyone else.”
***
They all gather in the Hub to see Evan off. Jack gives McKay a lingering hug and tells him it was very nice to meet him and if he’s ever in Cardiff again, Jack’s bed is infinitely more comfortable than Evan and Ianto’s couch. McKay flushes and says, “Whenever you’re ready, Major.”
Evan says goodbye to each team member in turn. When he gets to Ianto, he holds him close and kisses him softly. “I’ll miss you, babe,” he says, and brushes his fingers across Ianto’s forehead.
“I’ll miss you too, love.”
Evan kisses him again and whispers, “I’m coming home to you, Ianto. I promise.”
And then he stands by McKay, and there’s a flash of light, and they’re both gone.
Jack walks over to Ianto and places a hand on his shoulder. “He knows where his home is, Ianto. You can be sure of that.”
Ianto smiles sadly and says, “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
fin...sort of