Archive of Our Own ^beta

Jack had been dead for a day and a half – thirty-four hours and twenty-five minutes, as close as Ianto could figure it – when the lift started coming down. The three of them were doing as they had been for the duration: cleaning up, fixing damaged equipment, and talking as little as possible.

"Guys," said Tosh, the first to notice the familiar whir from above.

"Hold on." Owen leaned around to look at the monitor constantly displaying the morgue. "Still there," he reported. "Both of them. Gwen, trouble. Get up here," he barked into the mic.

"But that's impossible," Tosh said, scrabbling for her gun. Ianto calmly retrieved his from his suit jacket folded over the back of a chair. "No one should be standing on the lift, let alone triggering it."

The three of them lined up raggedly, joined by a panting Gwen.

"Bilis, you think?" she asked tensely.

"He appears to have altered his preference in footwear," Ianto observed, indicating the pair of white trainers descending into view. Trainers attached to a skinny pair of legs in brown, pinstriped trousers, which were in turn attached to a neatly dressed young man with unkempt hair and a quizzical smile.

"Well, here we are then," he said, waving energetically at them as the lift came to a halt. "Don't tell me – you're Torchwood. What is it with you lot – it's got to be a major landmark, and you're never happier than when you can dig a great big hole underneath to scurry around in. Hate to see your heating bill for this place."

"Excuse me," Owen interrupted. "Care explaining how you got in here?"

The man blinked. "I took the lift, you just saw me."

"How'd you know it was there?" asked Tosh.

"Well, the transcendental chameleon energy field fused to it was a bit of a giveaway," said the man, rolling his eyes. "Look, love to stand around and chat, but I'm actually in a bit of a hurry. Have you got a Captain Jack Harkness stashed anywhere around here?"

"What do you want with the Captain?" asked Ianto, suspicions flaring. Funny to feel this shock of steely protectiveness for the dead when he knew, logically, there was nothing left to protect. But that was it, really – nothing left to protect itself, so best that Ianto do it for him.

"Oh, not much, not much." The man gave an airy wave. "Just to catch up on old times, get his opinion on something. Go way back, Jack 'n me."

"Jack's dead," said Gwen.

The stranger's smile winked out, and his hands froze, half-open before him as if to release a flamboyant gesture. "He's . . . but that . . . did I come too late? Again?" Ianto swallowed hard. That was the look of an old friend right enough, gut-punched and shocky.

"Well, I mean, he seems dead," Gwen said. She'd been watching the man closely, and though she didn't holster her gun, something in her shoulders began to ease.

"Explain," said the man.

Gwen glanced around at the rest of them. Collective uncertainty reigned. It was at moments like these that Jack would step forward and make a decision, and Ianto knew he wasn't just speaking for himself when he thought he liked it better that way. Most of the time. "Well," said Gwen carefully, "he was hurt in a bit of an, erm –" she swallowed, struggling briefly for the proper vocabulary "—accident. He was killed, I mean. Erm. Maybe."

The stranger absorbed this with startling rapidity, and hopped off the lift. "Show me," he said. Then puffed out a breath at their continued hesitation. "I might be able to help."

Another moment of indecision, then Owen jammed his gun into his waistband and threw up his hands. "What could it hurt?" he asked.

Ianto resisted the urge to point out that thinking of that sort had done them no good of late. He rather thought no one needed the reminder. That, and it had been thirty-four and a half hours, and sometime along the way, as slow and inexorable as the fall of twilight, his internal monologue had shifted from any minute now he'll wake up, any minute now to he's gone he's gone, just like her, he's gone. They were foolish children all of them, hands still burning from where they'd reached into the fire just on the promise of a shiny prize, turning right around and ready to do it all over again. Ianto knew it, and he didn't care.

"Are you a doctor or something?" Gwen asked suddenly.

"Of a sort, of a sort," the man said, leaning forward impatiently on his toes.

Gwen blinked, a rush of emotions passing across her face – worry, fear, resolve. "Come on, then," she said, and gestured the man ahead of her. "He's down here."

Ianto hadn't been down to the morgue much. It was too disturbing to see Jack laid out still and silent like that, big hands folded so peacefully, well of cheerfully profane chatter finally exhausted. Ianto had never seen him like that before; Jack seemed to be one of those sleepers who woke at his partner's every twitch, so that Ianto'd never even caught him dozing. Jack had always just been there when he'd woken late in the night -- or, a few times recently, in the morning -- energized for the new day, and often another shag.

The stranger crossed to Jack and conducted a rapid examination – fingers to the pulse at the throat, ear to the chest, a peek behind the eyelids, sniff to the mouth and then, bizarrely, a quick flick of the tongue to the underside of his jaw. "Hmm!" said the stranger, and dug in his pocket for something which vaguely resembled a screwdriver, whose glowing tip he passed back and forth over the Captain's body. "Ah-ha," he said, straightening abruptly. "You actually had me worried there for a minute."

"What is it?" asked Gwen eagerly.

"He's not dead, for starters," said the man, then pulled up short. "Well. Mostly not dead – well. Temporarily dead. Come around in his own time, when he's good and ready." He puffed out his cheeks. "Unfortunately, I haven't the time to be standing around scratching my head waiting – well, I have got the time, but I'm bollocks at waiting."

"Does that mean you can help him?" Ianto asked.

The stranger flashed a sudden, toothy grin. "Always fancied me a bit of Prince Charming." He bent, running one finger along Jack's lips, parting them. Then he laid his own mouth over Jack's, one hand cupping him up under the jaw and his funny screwdriver thing waggling absently in the other. Ianto would swear he saw a soft glow passing between them as the stranger pulled back, exhaling a long, slow breath into Jack's mouth. "There now," he murmured. "It's all right. Come on home."

Jack gasped, jerked, limbs twitching as if electrified. His eyes popped wide, all pupil and startlingly dark as they rolled around the room. Ianto jumped forward instinctively to hold his shoulders, to pin him down or prop him up, he wasn't entirely sure. The stranger simply waited it out, hovering a foot from Jack's face, watching with visible fascination.

"Fantastic," he breathed.

Jack's eyes snapped to him, and Ianto could feel the way his breath immediately seized up in his chest, and then came rushing back in great gulps. Jack stared, coughed, swallowed hard. "You're late," he said rustily.

"Oh, I don't know. Seen the rift open once or twice, seen it a thousand times. And you seemed to have handled it all right. Mind you, city does look a bit kicked about. That little pastry shop across the square is still open, though – you remember the one we stopped in -- those fresh Viennese whirls? Good old Cardiff – takes a licking but keeps on ticking."

"Oh yeah," muttered Jack. "I took care of it. Piece of cake." He rolled his head back, appearing to just then become aware of Ianto's presence. Ianto carefully unclenched his sudden, reflexively tight grip. "Hello," said Jack, and smiled at him upside down.

"How are you feeling?" asked Ianto.

Jack pondered this, a frown creasing his forehead. "Weird," he said slowly.

Owen snorted, pushing suddenly forward, hands a frenetic blur as he checked Jack's pulse and temperature and poked a bit at his reflexes. "Should think weird is the least of it," Owen said, in that overly loud way he had when he was trying to take up lots of extra space because he'd rather not be there at all. His eyes kept sliding up to Jack's face, then skittering away. "Coming back from the dead, it's not exactly something to be done on a lark. Seem all right though," he said, reaching down as if to give Jack a pat on the shoulder, and then withdrawing his hand.

"No, I mean weirder than that," Jack said, frown still there. He reached up and touched his own face, then rubbed uncertainly at his temple. "Something's . . . different. I feel like I've just been switched over to solar power."

"Oh, that would be me," said the stranger, still hovering close. "Gave you a bit of a loan, just until you get your feet back under you. You can return it when you're through."

"Huh," said Jack, a little wonderingly. "That's . . . you?" He touched his head again, and slowly began to smile. And then to smirk. "Like I've said before – having you inside me. Nothing else like it."

The stranger snorted and straightened up. "Right as rain, you are. Come on, enough lazing about, let's get your blood flowing again."

They got him up between the two of them, Ianto pushing from behind and the stranger gripping Jack's hands to pull, while Owen hovered like an uncertain spotter. Jack sat there for a moment, wavering.

"How long was I—"

"A day and a half," said Ianto.

Jack blinked. "That's a new one." He looked to the stranger. "You know how long I'm going to be feeling like a towel that got wrung out by Godzilla?"

"Look at you, all twenty-first century," said the stranger. "When I met you, you didn't even know who Spock was. Can you imagine?" he appealed to the rest of the room. The four of them blinked back, exchanging looks as they added that tidbit to the communal knowledge pool. "And to answer your question, I haven't the faintest idea. You're rather unique, you know." He grinned. "I like unique." Then his face sobered up again – Ianto was beginning to get whiplash from his rapidly cycling moods. "Hoping it's not long, though, between you and me. There's a bigger problem than the rift acting up again, and I could use you."

Beneath Ianto's resting hands, Jack's shoulders dropped. "You mean I'm not done?" He sounded utterly exhausted.

The stranger frowned. "Beg pardon?"

"I thought that was it," said Jack. "Abaddon. The beast from the pit. I thought that's what I . . . I thought that's what I was for."

The stranger blinked. "It doesn't work like that. We're not here for anything, except the things we talk ourselves into when it all seems too senseless. Which is silly, because we're just here for living. And that makes perfect sense, if you ask me."

Jack was staring at him. The look on his face was dawning comprehension, horror, exulted relief. "You mean I'm not . . . why am I 'unique,' then?"

"Accident of the universe," said the stranger, incongruously bright. "That's all any of us are. Granted, you're not so much an accident as, well. Don't know if there exists a word for you. What happens when you give control of the cosmos over to a toddler who just wants to fix her busted teddy bear, I suppose."

"Oh," said Jack, in a very small voice. Ianto didn't have the best view of his face, but it looked to him as if Jack had just been relieved of a great weight and had his heart broken at the same time.

"Are you all right?" Gwen asked timidly.

Jack's head snapped around, his face smoothing out as he took in the rest of them clustered around him. "Fine," he said, all hail fellow well met. "What about you lot – everyone undamaged?"

"We're fine," Tosh said. "We were just worried about you. You were, uh, gone a long time."

Jack looked deeply uncomfortable. Which, per usual, displayed itself as a forbidding sort of inscrutability. "I'm fine," he said, then looked back to the stranger. "What problem? And what help?"

The stranger screwed up his face. "Sorta hard to explain, actually. Rather show you, if it's all the same."

Their eyes locked. "Ah. That kind of help," said Jack. "You need someone to worry about the shooting, because you're fucked if you'll pick up a gun yourself." Ianto prided himself on having a good read on the Captain's emotional barometer at any given moment, but for the life of him he couldn't tell whether that was cold fury or melting tenderness.

The stranger didn't blink. "You said once that you'd never doubted me. Promised you never would. Has that changed?"

Jack sighed, huffed out a rueful laugh. "No. Damn me. Or possibly you." He lifted his chin. "There are things I want. Answers."

"They're yours, to the extent of my power," said the stranger, and Ianto was left with the indelible impression that his power extended a great deal.

Jack nodded, his face momentarily unguarded in a flash of avidity and hunger. So that's what can tempt you to reach again, Ianto thought. Jack shifted forward, swinging his feet down. "Give me ten minutes to straighten some things out here, then we can go."

"Sir—" said Ianto, at the same time that Gwen said "But Jack—" and Owen said "You can't just—"

Jack flung out a silencing hand. "Okay, fifteen minutes." He surveyed them all, and sighed. "Should probably do this right, shouldn't I? Fuck. This is going to be complicated."

"Well you can start with who he is," said Gwen, jerking a thumb at the stranger, who was watching them all with his arms crossed.

"Yeah," said Jack, and rubbed at his forehead. "This is the Doctor."

Ianto blinked slowly. He had a decent amount of information on Captain Jack Harkness meticulously collated in his head, the reasonable conjectures and the logical leaps and the wild ass guesses and the very few certain facts painstakingly assembled. It all reordered itself now with a series of quiet clicks. The new picture was not exactly illuminated, but that was certainly a different angle. Jack knew the Doctor. This was the Doctor, the alien threat at the heart of Torchwood's founding, morphed over the decades from target to favored subject, like a feral wolf tagged for observation in the bloody wild. This was humanity's great meddler, intruder, salvation. Torchwood's old hands-off policy had been stringently renewed after the London disaster, but the Captain had added his own personal touch to the Torchwood history and orientation all new employees received. It was one of his big rules, up there with 'no alien technology used without permission' and 'no decaf' – if they ever saw the funny blue box TARDIS, they were to call him immediately and personally.

"And you're going with him?" Toshiko asked.

"Yep," said Jack, and slid off the table to his feet. Ianto scrambled to stay with him, and Jack leaned unobtrusively into his support for several deep breaths, before straightening and making for the stairs. The lot of them trailed him, the Doctor bringing up the rear.

"I'll just leave you to it, shall I?" said the Doctor as they emerged into the hub. "I'm parked—"

"No," said Jack, not turning.

"Beg pardon?"

"Stay." Jack pointed an emphatic finger over his shoulder. Ianto wondered what it was like, having the balls to order the Doctor around like that.

"But I was just—"

"You can stand fifteen minutes of domestic," said Jack. He turned a quick circle in the center of the room, then looked momentarily dizzy.

"Are you sure you should be up?" asked Gwen. "And . . ." she cast the Doctor a brief, ambivalent look, "going anywhere?"

Jack stopped surveying the damage to his domain and looked at her. "I'll be fine," he said. "Really." Gwen bit her lip. Jack watched her a moment, then extended an arm. "Hey. C'mere." He reeled her in, hugging her hard, then stretched and snagged Toshiko for the same treatment. The girls hugged him back, both sniffling a little into his shirtfront. "It's all right," Jack said, in that soft, soothing voice he used but rarely, the one that made Ianto feel like a cat in a patch of sun. "I'm fine, and I'll only be gone a little while, you'll see. You'll barely notice."

"But—" said Gwen, stepping back. Then she stopped, staring off to the side. Ianto looked, and saw that Jack's weird hand in the jar had surpassed its usual creepiness and gone right for fucking disturbing. It was thrashing frantically in its confines, and Ianto thought it might even be glowing. Jack looked from it to the Doctor, who was staring right back. And astoundingly, under his eyes, Jack . . . blushed. Before today, Ianto would have laid solid money that Jack was physiologically incapable of embarrassment.

"Well now," said the Doctor softly. "Isn't that . . . interesting." He flicked a look at the jar. "Be still." The hand froze, fingers extended as if to grasp. "Shouldn't leave that out for just anyone to see, you know," he said conversationally. "Could be dangerous."

"I know," Jack said. "I just liked to have – uh. I'll put it in the safe." He turned, then hesitated. "Unless you'd rather . . ."

The Doctor stuffed his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. "Got all I need, thanks, and you seem to be taking care of it. Carry on, then."

Jack scooped up the jar and made for the stairs, the lot of them still trailing like a pack of befuddled ducklings. Ianto glanced back to see the Doctor watching them go, his eyes thoughtful on Jack's back. And Jack could feel him there – Ianto could tell from the stiff way he held his shoulders. The Doctor seemed disinclined to skive off to his ship, though – he had turned away to have a good poke around the room when Ianto looked again. Ianto considered saying something about this, pondered briefly just what that ought to be, and gave the idea up.

He kept watching out of the corner of his eye as they piled into Jack's office. The Doctor. Inestimably old, mysteriously alien. Time traveler on this world, and how many countless others. A walking library of alien trivia and cosmic secrets, if the tales were right. Ianto wondered if, anywhere in that labyrinthine, alien mind, the Doctor knew how Jack took his coffee, his favored brand of aftershave, what he hummed when he was under pressure. Ianto clenched his hands, relaxed them, breathed. Below, the Doctor seemed fascinated by the stress-relieving squeeze toy in the shape of an excised human heart that Owen kept on his desk. Ianto watched him poke at it, saw the delighted grin flash, and turned away. He crossed quietly behind the rest of the team and retrieved Jack's coat from the hook; it still smelled of him, faintly, and Ianto's fingers ached from his grip on the collar.

"Um, we sort of opened the safe," Tosh was saying as Jack approached it.

He shot them a dry look over his shoulder. "I figured that." He worked the combination, opened the door, leaned in briefly to deposit the jar. "I'll just leave the combination as is for the moment," he said, re-emerging. "You might need to get in while I'm gone. To put things away, not take them out, I should clarify." He crossed to his desk, flicking rapidly through the stack of open case files put on hold during the recent crisis. "Nothing here you can't handle. And if you do have a problem, talk to Glasgow. Tell them I'm out of the country, on the trail of something, and I'm out of reach. Be vague. They'll buy it." He tapped at his wristband, and the computer bleeped. "Ianto knows where to find my security codes if you need to take something up with the Prime Minister or UNIT, but I'd rather you didn't. You've heard me brief – you know what to say. Owen, you're in charge."

"I am?" said Owen blankly.

"Yep."

"But I . . ."

Jack glanced up distractedly. "Just caused immeasurable suffering and carnage? I'm aware. Seems to me that ought to make you careful, if nothing else would."

Owen's mouth worked silently. Jack dropped the file he was holding, took two steps, and clapped him on the shoulder. "Don't fuck up," he said, and his smile was all teeth. "If you manage that, I might not kick all of your asses quite so hard when I get back."

He turned to retrieve his coat, smiled to find Ianto ready with it. Ianto held it for him the way he had his first day here, when it had made Jack's eyebrows shoot up to his hairline and his biggest grin flash. Ianto let his hands linger as he settled it around Jack's shoulders.

"Shall I pack you a bag, sir?" he asked quietly.

"Not necessary," said Jack. "Not with the universe's oldest packrat down there."

Ianto nodded, though Jack couldn't see him. He'd hoped to get a grip on Jack's absence, to meter out his time away in clean socks and extra braces. He had the strong urge to keep hold of Jack's collar, lean his face into the broad back, hold on tight.

Jack turned, studied him, smiled crookedly. "Ianto, Ianto, Ianto," he said, rolling the name around his mouth in that way he did when he was privately bemused or surprised or pleased.

"Sir," said Ianto.

The Captain took a half step closer. "I won't be gone long," he murmured. "Really, you'll hardly notice.

Don't do this. You need me, and I'm nothing if I don't have that. And he wants you for the shooting and I can't let go – you know that about me – I can't ever let go.

"Yes sir," Ianto said.

Jack gathered him in close with two quick movements, one hand at the waist and the other at the back of his head. Ianto burrowed into his neck, inhaled the antiseptic morgue smell off his warm, living skin, pressed his cheek into the coat collar where he'd wept a few short hours ago. You need me, and I have to have that.

Jack touched his face, tilted his head back, kissed him right there in front of everybody. Jack kissed like it was his native language, always had. But this didn't mean 'I'm going to put you on your knees and make you do and say outrageously dirty things and you're going to love every second,' and it didn't mean 'thanks for the coffee,' or 'my office, tonight.' Ianto clutched at him, breathless, utterly at a loss for a translation.

"Really, you'll hardly notice," Jack said, pulling back a bit.

Ianto swallowed hard. "Sir, are you sure about –" he cut his eyes over Jack's shoulder at Owen, who was staring the other way with a theatrically disgusted look on his face.

Jack laughed, a low rush of breath against Ianto's ear. "Oh, you guys will keep each other in line," he said, and kissed the hinge of Ianto's jaw.

"How long do you think you'll be gone?" Ianto asked finally.

Jack leaned back, blew out a long breath. "Haven't the faintest," he said. "And I know how you hate inexactness. But think about it this way – I could be back here in ten minutes, by your reckoning."

Ianto nodded silently. Time machine, right. Though by that logic, ten minutes could just as easily be ten weeks, or ten months. But Jack's eyes were already distant, already flicking impatiently beyond him, looking for whatever it was he needed so badly. Ianto smiled dutifully, stepping back. "Ten minutes, Captain."

Jack dropped him a wink, turned away, and nodded to the rest of the team. "I expect to see this place still standing when I'm back," he said, and strode out and down to the waiting alien. Ianto didn't follow him or the rest of the team. He stood still in the office, closed his eyes, listened to the murmur of voices, the rustle of movement, then the whine of the lift.

Ianto reached into his pocket. The stopwatch was cool and comforting in his cupped palm. He opened his eyes, set it for ten minutes, and pushed the button.