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Jack walks back to the hub.
It’s a pretty long walk from the Pierce house to the hub, but he figures it’ll give the time to cool off a bit before they have to see him again.
It doesn’t work.
They still won’t look at him, all of them staring straight at their monitors, engrossed in their own projects, or at least pretending to be. Jack goes to his office to join in the game.
Ianto brings him a mug of coffee, and pauses for a moment in the doorway. He looks at Jack with his eyebrows raised, and Jack knows what it means.
“We’ll do the debrief tomorrow,” he says. “This one was rough.”
Ianto just nods and returns to the archives.
***
The team has defrosted a little with sleep, but the boardroom still feels like a fridge.
“So,” Jack says, looking at his team. Ianto is the only one who makes proper eye contact.
“That poor woman,” Gwen says.
“I know,” Jack says, “but believe me when I say we had no choice.”
“How do you know?” Gwen asks, finally looking up. Her eyes are always warm, but now they’re hot.
“They have to have their chosen one,” Jack says. He remembers that little girl from all those decades ago. There had been comments after the funeral - terrible of course, but she was always an odd one - off in her own world, her poor mother - not that I blame her, but it wasn’t the first time she’d been wandering in the middle of the road.
“And what if they couldn’t have her?” Gwen snaps. Her eyes are like fire.
“And how would you stop them?” Jack snaps back. “You saw what they did to your house. You think you could even touch them if they didn’t want you to?”
Gwen closes her eyes, deflates.
“What’s going to happen to that little girl?” Owen’s voice is soft.
“I don’t know,” Jack says. “I don’t know if any human can truly understand what the lost lands are like.”
“But will they hurt her?” He asks. Always someone else to protect, to heal.
“No. She’s precious to them, so she’ll be safe, at least. Maybe even happy.”
There’s quiet again after that, just the tapping of Owen’s pen against the table. He never quite stops moving.
“Would they have let her say no?” Tosh stares straight ahead, not looking at anyone’s face.
“I don’t know,” Jack says. Tells himself again that what he did for Tosh was a good thing.
“They would,” Ianto says. His voice is soft, but Jack’s never heard him use that tone and be wrong.
“How d’you-” Gwen’s staring at him, mouth metaphorically hanging open.
Ianto pauses, choosing his words.
“There have been other chosen ones, right?” He tilts his head towards Jack.
Jack nods.
“I was eight,” Ianto says.
Jack has been alive for quite a long time. It’s not often that he’s properly shocked these days, but now he wouldn’t be surprised if his eyes fell out of his sockets they’re so wide.
“I thought about it for a while,” Ianto looks at the table, at the photos of the Cottingley fairies. “They tried pretty hard to convince me, too.”
“What’d they say?” Gwen asks.
“Oh you know. I’d live forever and be more powerful than I could imagine and no-one would ever hurt me again.”
“So why did you say no?” Tosh asks. Jack notes the word “again” and tucks it away for later. Ianto didn’t talk about himself much; every word had three more unsaid behind it.
“There were people I didn’t want to leave behind,” Ianto says after a moment. It’s not the whole answer; the whole answer must be so deep and complicated that Ianto can hardly bear to think about it.
Jack wishes Ianto would let him in, just a little.
“That’s… wow,” Gwen says. It’s not often that she doesn’t know what to say.
“So what, we’ve all gotta be nice to teaboy now or we get horribly murdered?”
“Owen, if they were still protecting me you’d all be dead,” Ianto says. It’s a joke, they all know it’s a joke, but it’s a bit too close for comfort.
“Did you ever see them again? After you said no?” Jack asks. Ianto has such delicate features, he wonders how it never occurred to him before.
“I’m not sure,” Ianto says. “I think I might’ve once or twice, like they were checking up on me.”
“Out of the corner of your eye?” Gwen says.
“Exactly.”
“Huh. Well, next time you see them, tell them they’re bastards for trashing my flat.”
And Jack laughs, full bodied and loud, and the tension finally, finally seeps away as the rest of the team join in; Gwen and her melodious chuckle, Owen and his cynical huffs, Tosh and her quiet smile.
And Ianto, for the first time ever, laughs out loud. Normally he’s all polite smiles and contained gestures, but this laugh is almost harsh, his face crinkling all over.
Jack feels warm inside, for the first time in a long time. He tucks that away too.
“Come on you lot,” he says. “Work to do.”