Archive of Our Own

Ianto could hear them arguing before the cog door even rolled back.

“He’s not useless, Jack! He’s just a bit clueless!”

“He touched this thing without any idea what it was! It could have killed him instantly!”

“He was curious.”

“He’s an idiot.”

The alarms flashed and the door finally rolled, revealing Gwen and Jack, carrying something heavy and dirty between them. They were covered in mud. Ianto noted with displeasure that he’d have to clean the floor again. And the SUV.

“Who are we yelling about now?” He came toward them, hoping they wouldn’t drop the heavy, dirty thing on the first table they saw.

Jack glanced up and smirked. “PC Andy, Cardiff’s last defense against alien threat.”

“Ah,” Ianto said. “Well, we’re in safe hands, then.”

Gwen rolled her eyes. “The two of you.”

They dropped the thing on the first table they saw.

Ianto sighed inwardly.

Jack started prodding at it, wiping the dirt away with his fingers. It looked incredibly complicated – but, Ianto noted, entirely symmetrical. Beneath the grime, it was a bright metal, cylindrical, about ten inches in diameter. From either side extended four thin, curved prongs. Pressed into the metal were symbols – some unfamiliar alien alphabet. Ianto stepped forward, taking a biro from the table and using it to knock some of the dirt away from the writing for a better look.

Jack, still using his fingers, explained what happened. “The police call – ‘we’ve dug something up in the woods, looks like one of your spooky-dos’ – and Gwen and I drag ourselves out there in the pouring rain to find that our dear police contact has been fiddling around with the thing for the better part of an hour. Raises hell when we kick him out of the police tent.” He glanced at Gwen. “You’re gonna have to keep a collar on that one, Gwen.”

Ianto dropped the relatively useless pen in favor of Jack’s hands-on method.

Gwen balked. “Why’s it my responsibility?”

“Your ex-partner? Gee, I dunno, let’s think about-”

Everything went black.

- - -

“Doctor, you’ve got twenty seconds maximum!”

Ianto landed on the ground against a red metal wall, the sound of shooting somewhere close by.

And Jack yelling.

He looked toward the noise; Jack came into view at the end of the hall, wielding a machine gun and shooting at – something. Ianto couldn’t see what it was; the wall blocked his view. The gun jammed and Jack slung it off and threw it down the passage. Ianto had to scramble out of the way to avoid being hit by it. Jack pulled out a pistol and kept firing – what the hell was he shooting at? Ianto got to his feet and started down the passage. Jack’s pistol ran out. He threw it – Ianto dodged it. Then, that voice.

“Exterminate.”

Ianto’s eyes went wide; his breath caught. Daleks.

Jack said, defiant, “I kind of figured that.”

Jack’s body flashed green and skeletal and he was thrown backwards against the wall. Ianto held himself still, fighting every part of him that wanted to run to Jack and pull him away. The Daleks went past him, into a room on the other side of the corridor. When they were gone, Ianto hurried to Jack’s side.

“Jack, come on, quickly.” Ianto spoke under his breath, eyes scanning everywhere, on alert. Someone was speaking in the room the Daleks had gone to. “Come on, come on, just come back-” He reached out to grab Jack’s arm.

His hand went around it.

Baffled, he tried again.

He couldn’t make his hand touch Jack – anywhere. Like there was a forcefield around him. His fingers slid an inch above Jack’s skin, Jack’s clothes.

And that was something else. Jack’s clothes were different. No braces, no coat. Just a vest that, frankly, made him look a little ridiculous. And he was younger. Much, much younger.

“What the hell?”

The sound of movement down the passage. Ianto looked. More Daleks. He froze, staring. Terrified. But they stopped. They stood still in the center of the passage, as if listening to some internal command.

Then they disintegrated into dust.

Ianto just stayed still, completely lost. Jack, younger, dead and taking too long to come back. Daleks dissolving. And in the next room he could hear shouting in monotone – then, nothing. Silence.

Then Jack came back to life.

Ianto fell back, surprised. Jack looked shocked, afraid. He looked around with eyes that, Ianto thought, were incredibly different from the ones he knew. “Jack,” he said, coming forward. “What the hell’s going on? How did we get here?”

Jack ignored him, painfully pulling himself to his feet.

“Jack, really, what just happened?”

He watched as Jack walked unsteadily forward, then knelt and incredulously took a handful of Dalek dust. As he let it run through his fingers, he heard something and looked up. Ianto heard it, too; a sound like a synthesizer mixed with an engine. It was remarkably similar to the sound file Tosh captured the day Jack disappeared-

Jack took off running.

Ianto shouted and went after him, but the first step he took went through the metal floor, and he fell forward into darkness.

- - -

He landed on his feet in the hub. Gwen and Jack whirled around to see him, identical shocked expressions melting into relief.

Ianto stared at them. “What happened?”

“You tell us!” Gwen came forward, holding out her hand to touch his arm, as if making sure he was real. “That thing kicked on and hooked into you two. When it fell off, Jack went to touch you and you disappeared.”

Ianto looked to Jack, eyebrows raised. Jack nodded and pointed. “Look at your arm.” Ianto did. Around his right forearm were four identical black marks. Jack held up his own arm; the same.

Ianto shook his head. “I don’t remember any of that.” To Jack, “And why the hell did you ignore me back there? Bloody Daleks and you go running for that noise again.”

Jack’s face clouded with confusion. “What are you talking about?”

Ianto stared. “Not three minutes ago. Hallway. You were-” Ianto stopped. It finally hit him. “I’ve just time traveled.”

“What?”

“I think I was in your past.” He looked at Jack, thinking hard. “There was a hallway with the number five hundred on the wall, and three Daleks. One of them shot you, then they left, and new ones came, and then they disintegrated. Then you woke up and ran. You didn’t see me. You couldn’t see me.”

Jack stared, his mouth nearly hanging open. He fell back into a chair. “What the hell?”

Gwen looked between them, annoyed, “I’m sorry, but what in God’s name are you two talking about?”

Jack looked at his arm for a moment, then smacked his own forehead, cursing. “We’re idiots! I know what this is.”

Ianto stepped forward. “What?”

“There’s a race of aliens, completely monogamous, born among their own gender and never allowed to meet the opposite until they’re going to get married. This thing,” he said, pointing at the device still sitting on the table, “implants a biological-telepathic-temporally specific time traveling device into the happy couple the first time they meet. Touch it in just the right place at just the right time, and it activates.” He met Ianto’s eyes. “It sends them back to specific points in each other’s lives. The times that they feel are the most important. So they know each other completely without having met each other before.”

Gwen took a breath. “And it works by touch?”

Jack nodded.

“How long?” Ianto asked.

Jack sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t know that much about this. Just vaguely how it works. Could be a day, could be a month.”

Ianto groaned. “This is a disaster.”

“You’re telling me,” Jack said, his face grim.

“But what did Ianto just see?” Gwen looked at Jack. “Why was that an important moment?”

Jack looked at Gwen, then Ianto. “You just saw the first time that I died.”

Ianto’s face clouded in confusion. “The first time-” He paused. “You were with the Doctor. I heard the TARDIS. Where was that?”

Jack shook his head. “A long way in the future. It doesn’t matter.”

Gwen protested. “Yes it does! How did-”

Ianto interrupted her. “Why couldn't you see me?”

Jack shrugged. “The time travel implant must have a built-in chameleon circuit perception filter, like the invisible lift. Could you touch anything?”

“No.”

“Well, there you go. Smart tech. You have no way of changing the time you’re sent back to. All you can do is watch.”

Ianto fell silent, thinking. “This is going to make it difficult to work together.”

Jack laughed without humor. “Among other things.” He sighed, then stood up. “All right, here’s what we do. Ianto, go home. If there’s an emergency, the end of the world, we’ll call you. We’ll hope that this is just a twenty-four hour thing. If it isn’t, we’ll figure it out from there.”

Ianto looked at him for a moment, then nodded. He made his way toward the door, swallowing his annoyance at being sent away. He heard Gwen quietly attack Jack the second his back was turned, badgering him about what Ianto had seen.

Ianto understood. Jack didn’t want to have to explain his past. For that matter, nor did Ianto. There was a lot that both of them had long ago decided to bury. Ianto was not the type of person who needed to know every intimate detail of someone’s life.

But.

The absolute resistance from Jack to share himself was sometimes grating. There are things that you keep – Ianto had plenty, stored tidily away in his head, that he was sure Jack and Gwen knew nothing about. But those things are offset by what you give away. And Jack gave nothing.

At the top of the first flight of stairs, Ianto wavered slightly. He brought a hand to his head, trying to focus. He called out, echoing in the stairwell, “Jack, I-”

A huge stab of pain struck behind his eyes.

He shouted and lost his balance. The world seemed to shift into slow-motion as his feet left the stairs and he was falling backwards through the air, his stomach knotted in panic.

He felt hands catch him, then he hit the floor.

- - -

Jack landed off-balance in a narrow hallway. He put his hand on a wall to steady himself, then looked around. The decorating was sort of old-fashioned; wallpaper, framed photos that looked like they were taken in the eighties. He heard running behind him and turned around just in time to leap out of the way of two young children in pyjamas, both laughing as they raced past him. The older one, a girl, a bit chubby but very cute, cried “Ianto, quit it!” as the younger boy steered her from behind to go faster.

The younger boy with bright blue eyes and a rather adorable bowl cut.

Jack grinned despite himself. Ianto had a bowl cut when he was a kid. He would have to try and find pictures to show Gwen.

He followed them down the hallway and into a cramped living room. The issue of space was not aided by the large Christmas tree in the corner, which seemed to push every other piece of furniture closer together. Ianto and – his sister, he supposed – stopped in front of the tree, reaching for wrapped gifts with their names on them. Jack stopped in the doorway, watching, and jumped when a second later someone else did the same right next to him. It was an older man – mustache, bit of a beer belly. Ianto’s father. Jack gave the man a once-over. He looked pleasant enough.

“Wait for your mother!” he called to the kids, who stopped and looked at him over their shoulders. “She’ll be out in a minute.”

Then, from somewhere in the house, someone screamed.

Ianto’s father jumped, then ran toward the sound. Jack followed, and heard two pairs of small feet behind him.

They crashed into the kitchen in time to see a woman with wildly mussed hair backed against a counter, holding a knife out in front of her.

“Stay away from me!” she shouted at Ianto’s father. “You’re with them!”

Ianto’s father motioned the kids behind him with one hand while approaching the woman slowly, his other hand held out to her. “Love, you’re meant to take your medicine when the doctor’s said.”

“No!” She waved the knife at him. “That’s how they keep me away! I won’t let you drug me!”

Ianto’s father looked back at them – Ianto, his sister, the unseen Jack – and waved them away. They didn’t move. They stared, terrified, at the woman.

Their mother.

Jack, for the first time, realized that he was intruding on something truly horrible.

While the father was distracted, the mother lashed out with the knife, cutting his extended hand. He howled with pain. Ianto’s sister screamed and tried to pull him out of the room. But Ianto didn’t budge. He stared with huge, horrified eyes, as his father bled on the kitchen floor and tried to fight the knife away from his mother.

Then everything dissolved.

- - -

Jack was back in the hub, in the stairwell. Gwen and Ianto were nowhere to be seen.

He leaned against a wall and exhaled. He was shaking.

He shouldn’t have seen that. He shouldn’t have followed – should have waited in the hall until it was over. Screw curiosity. There were things he should not know. That moment was definitely one of them. He looked up at the stairs above him, closed his eyes, took a breath, willed his hands to stop shaking. Then he went back out into the hub.

Gwen had dragged Ianto up to the couch and was sitting next to him, helping him hold an ice pack to his head. She caught Jack out of the corner of her eye and looked at him, her relief obvious. “God, Jack. That was stupid.”

He came closer and grinned sheepishly; even that didn’t reach his eyes. “I tried to catch you,” he said to Ianto.

Ianto looked up at him over the crook of his arm holding the ice pack. “You failed. No points.”

Jack sat on the coffee table. “Well, I would have. You okay?”

“He doesn’t have a concussion,” Gwen said, shifting a little to look at Jack. “Nothing broken. Otherwise, no idea.”

“I’m fine,” Ianto said, taking Gwen’s hand away from his head. “Where did you go?”

Jack looked at him. “Don’t worry about it.”

Ianto looked back. They stared that way for a few long moments, Gwen sitting awkwardly between them, her eyes doing the tennis-match bounce from one face to the other.

Finally, Ianto nodded and looked away.

Jack clapped his hands together. “Okay! So apparently being separated induces pain. This race is surprisingly sadistic.” He looked at Gwen. “Go home. Hug Rhys. Be grateful that your wedding ceremony didn’t involve this kind of thing.”

Gwen looked startled. “Why? It’s early yet.”

Jack looked at his watch. “Your concept of ‘early’ has been desperately skewed, working here. Make Rhys take you to a late dinner.” Jack glanced at Ianto. “I want to keep an eye on him, and I don’t want any unnecessary risk of sending either of us back. Forward. Wherever. If a call comes in, unless it’s a definite danger, it can wait until tomorrow, when these things will hopefully be gone.” He held up his arm, indicating to the little marks made by the device. “Okay?”

Gwen, reluctantly, sighed and nodded. She stood.

“I’ll see you later.” She patted Ianto’s fringe against his forehead. “Feel better.”

“Good night,” Ianto said.

She left.

Ianto looked at Jack as he heard the rolldoor close. “That is an incredibly touchy woman.”

Jack smirked. “Touchy?”

“Obsessively tactile. Likes to pat things.” Ianto groaned as he sat up, pressing the ice pack to his head.

“We should get you to bed,” Jack said, standing up.

Ianto looked up at him. “You can’t very well help me there.”

Jack deflated slightly. Ianto’s brow furrowed.

“Jack, where did you go?”

Jack looked at him, debating.

“It’s all right,” Ianto said.

Jack sighed. “Christmas. You were a kid. Your mother. In the kitchen.”

Ianto stared up at him, blinking. Then he winced, remembering. He nodded, looking away. “Rhiannon tried to get me out of the flat – to our neighbors’, to call the police. I wouldn’t go. Just stood there staring while my mum tried to kill my dad.” He grinned bitterly. “Nadolig Llawen.”

“You don’t have to explain.”

Ianto looked up at him. He paused for a moment. Then he nodded again and stood, using the arm of the couch for support. “I suppose we aren’t both going to sleep in your bed.”

“I’ll stay up.”

Ianto moved slowly across to Jack’s office. “Good night, then.”

“Do you need anything?”

He stopped, gripping the doorframe, and looked back at Jack. He looked like he was about to say something – but all he did was shake his head, then continue into the office.

Jack watched him descend the ladder to the bed, guilt eating away at his stomach.

“Good night.”

-------------------

Ianto woke up in the dark to his mobile ringing and a dull ache in his head. He flung his hand out to Jack’s bedside table, landing on either side of the singing, vibrating bit of machinery before finally grabbing it, flipping it open and pressing it to his ear.

“Ianto Jones.”

“Ianto? It’s Andy.”

Ianto looked at the time on the screen of the phone and huffed an aggravated sigh, bringing it back to his ear. “PC Davidson, unless the world is currently ending I suggest you call back at some point after the sun has risen.”

Andy went on as though he didn’t hear him. “There’s been – uh – an incident. I thought Torchwood might want to take a look.”

Ianto slung an arm over his eyes. “Incident?”

“A meteor kind of thing crashed in the woods just outside Cardiff. Big green fireball. Scared some of the locals.”

“Meteor kind of thing,” Ianto repeated.

“Yeah.”

“Andy, why didn’t you call Gwen?”

Andy sounded embarrassed. “She wasn’t – ah – wasn’t answering her mobile.”

Ianto smirked. “You’ve made her angry, haven’t you?”

“Can you please just come out here? The police don’t know what to do with it.”

“Fine,” Ianto groaned, rolling over. “You’re to have coffee for us.”

“Thought that was your job.”

“Watch it.” He hung up.

He slipped out of the bed and padded over to Jack’s wardrobe, not bothering to turn on the light, knowing his way around through repetition. He had an extra suit there, among Jack’s clothes, tucked away between his dated trousers and suspenders and shirts. He pulled it free and dressed in the dark, trying to ignore the ache at the back of his head.

At the top of the ladder, Ianto beheld Jack slumped over his desk, his head in his arms. Ianto came toward him and reached out, meaning to shake him awake, but he stopped, catching sight of his own arm. The four black marks. He remembered.

He looked at Jack for a moment, sleeping at his desk. The guilt that had been on his face last night. As thought it were his fault he had gone back to that particular moment. The sadness of it washed over Ianto in a very slow, gentle wave. That was something that he had not intended to reveal. He knew that Jack would find out eventually, but he would keep it quiet. He wouldn’t talk about it. Because if Jack was good at anything, he was good at not talking about things. And that was often for the best.

Quietly, Ianto said, “Jack.”

Jack stirred lightly, his forehead creasing.

“Jack,” Ianto said, a bit louder, though still gently. “Jack, wake up. We’ve had a call.”

Jack took in a breath and opened his eyes, and Ianto was immediately reminded of the way he looked when he came back to life. That breath. A sudden, complicated mixture of feelings pervaded his stomach as Jack blinked at him and sat up.

Jack rubbed the place between his eyes. “Dozed off,” he said, with a yawn. “What time is it?”

Ianto swallowed the unexpected emotional rush and managed to sound natural as he said, still quietly, “Four thirty.”

Jack groaned, leaning back in his chair. “I might as well have stayed awake.” He looked at Ianto. “You feeling all right?”

“Fine,” Ianto said. “Headache. Nothing I can’t manage.” He went to the coat tree and took Jack’s greatcoat down. “Shall we go?”

Jack sighed. “Suppose we have to.” He stood up and let Ianto slip the coat over his arms.

Ianto was about to settle the coat on his shoulders automatically when he caught himself and stepped back, pulling his hands away. Jack turned, brow furrowed. When it struck him, he smiled – it was dazzling. Ianto felt his butterfly-stomach feeling redouble at the sight of it.

“Guess we’re so used to that, by now,” Jack said, and his voice was uncharacteristically soft. He picked up his keys. “Come on. Let’s go.”

- - -

Jack called Gwen from the SUV on the way to the site – “Wouldn’t want to deny her the joy of this little adventure” – and she met them there, her hair still bed-mussed and her eyes half-closed.

“You drove in that condition?” Ianto asked, accepting a coffee from a nameless police grunt. He took a sip. It wasn’t terrible. He let his eyes follow the kid back through the crowd outside of the police tape.

“You bastards called me out here,” Gwen mumbled into the lid of her coffee. She couldn’t seem to raise her head any higher.

“Retribution for Davidson waking me up,” Ianto replied sunnily, scanning the crowd for Jack. He spotted him speaking to a police sergeant, who looked incredibly angry. Jack did have that effect.

The conversation subsequently ended with the sergeant turning on his heel and storming away, and Jack returned to them, looking pleased.

“All ours,” he said, and lifted the police tape to let them through.

The hole that the thing had made was impressive. It extended about nine feet in diameter, eight feet down into the wet earth. Whatever it was, it sat at the center, infinitely less impressive; two feet in diameter, the height of Jack’s knee. It glowed green through some cracks in the outer shell. It reminded Ianto of a prop from a bad 70’s science fiction movie.

Gwen moved a bit of blinking Torchwood kit over the surface of the meteor. “No radiation,” she said, moving to the other side carefully, her shoes nearly lost in mud. “High rift energy, though.”

Jack nodded. “This thing would never have made it through the atmosphere. Way too small. It must have fallen through the rift.”

Ianto squinted up at the sides of the crater. “How are we going to get it out?”

Jack grinned and looked at Gwen. “Think you can bully your ex-partner into rounding up some young and able bodies for us?”

Gwen took a moment to glare at him before resignedly scaling the crater. Ianto followed, Jack falling in behind him. At the lip, Ianto caught sight of Gwen and Andy – Andy looking the way Andy normally looked when he spoke to Gwen: half annoyed, half in love. Ianto pulled himself up to the surface and looked behind him, reaching out to help Jack out.

Jack grabbed his hand without thinking.

He disappeared the second their skin made contact.

Behind him, Ianto heard Gwen stop talking. He slowly turned his head to look at her, and met her glare with an apologetic smile.

- - -

Jack was somewhere with very terrible wood paneling. That was what he noticed first. Next, the sound of crying.

He turned around. Chairs arranged in rows. People huddled in little groups, sitting down, standing. Wearing black.

A casket at the top of the room.

Did Ianto have no good memories?

Jack hesitated, unsure of what to do. Was there a way that he could avoid seeing whatever he was meant to see?

The decision was taken out of his hands when Ianto walked through the door.

Even at sixteen, Ianto looked remarkable in a suit. That upright posture, that purposeful way of walking, all incredibly familiar but still so incredibly different.

The look on his face, though, was exactly the same.

Jack realized that here, today, at this moment, was when Ianto perfected his pleasant, emotionless mask.

He moved through the groups, shaking hands, whispering back and forth short, sympathetic conversations, and he never wavered. Not for a second.

Even as he stood next to his father’s coffin, looking down at the too-bright morticians’ makeup, Ianto’s formal expression did not slip once.

Jack came closer, getting a better look at him. Wanting to catch something, anything, that would show what he was feeling. He came around to Ianto’s side and looked.

His eyes.

The incredible weight in his eyes as he stared down at his father’s body. It was a weight that Jack knew well; the only way that Jack had been able to tell what Ianto was feeling, after Lisa.

Jack reached out to touch Ianto’s arm, but the world dissolved again before he got there.

- - -

Jack materialized with his feet halfway over the lip of the crater, but this time Gwen caught him, pulling him backwards before he was able to fall.

“Well, you got out of hauling the thing,” she muttered. “Good for you.”

Jack looked at Ianto, off to the side, directing the lifting of what they were apparently now referring to as The Thing into the SUV. He looked over and saw Jack, and a private sort of grin touched his lips, only to fade when Jack met his eyes. He quickly looked away from the expression on Jack’s face.

Gwen, beside him, asked suddenly, “What’s wrong?”

Jack shook his head. “Nothing.”

She grabbed his arm before he could wander away. “Where did you go?”

He looked at her. “Do you really think that’s your business?”

Her eyes widened, surprised, then turned stormy with anger. “It isn’t yours, either!”

“Yeah,” he said. “But I can’t help it.”

He walked off.

- - -

The ride back to the hub was silent. Jack had sent Gwen home to sleep and come in at a reasonable hour – she’d gone off angry, and Ianto wasn’t certain why, but he could manage a guess, taking into consideration the look she’d given Jack before she’d left. He stared down at his hands in his lap, aware of Jack’s unwavering gaze out at the dark road. Behind them, The Thing glowed dully in the backseat.

As though having come to some sort of decision, he turned his head purposefully to look at Jack, and felt the words Where did you go? at the base of his throat. Then, Jack’s words from the night before echoed through his head.

You don’t have to explain.

He looked away, out of the window, at the slowly brightening streets.

Jack said, “Your dad’s funeral.”

Ianto looked at him, surprised. He said nothing else. He didn’t take his eyes away from the road.

Ianto looked away again, aware of both of their breathing in the heavy silence.

- - -

They rolled The Thing into the hub on a dolly. It was, apparently, superdense – much heavier than its size warranted. It took them a few tries to lift it onto a table, and when they finally managed it, Jack told Ianto he could go back to sleep.

“I’ll stay up.” He looked at his watch. “I’ve slept enough.”

Jack looked at him, but said nothing. He turned back to The Thing – the meteor, the glowing rock – Ianto would have thought of a name for it, that being his presumed specialty, if he had not felt suddenly invasive. Unwelcome. Jack’s silence, his forced focus, filled the area around him, and pushed Ianto out.

He left the room.

Jack felt him go, then heard the clink of cups somewhere in the hub. He sighed quietly and relaxed against the table, leaning on his arms. This was not going to work.

He’d never been curious before – at least, not actively. Ianto was private. It had hardly occurred to Jack that he had a reason to be curious; the important parts of Ianto were here, physical, almost constantly close by. But, now. Forced in front of him. The things he didn’t know. The things he didn’t want to know.

He slowly began to examine The Thing, absentmindedly hooking it up to a bit of alien technology that Torchwood picked up in the 80’s, able to detect foreign energy levels.

It was – cheating. That’s what it was. The things that Jack had seen, those were moments that are shared in hesitant, hushed voices, in the dark. The types of conversations that he might have with Ianto, at some point. Just not yet.

(A low beeping began as the machine turned on.)

And maybe never. Because Jack could never reciprocate that sort of thing. There were so many things about himself, his past, that he could never explain.

(The beeping grew louder.)

He heard footsteps and the clink of china approaching, and turned to see Ianto carrying a tray with coffee and toast. He raised his eyebrows at Jack and nodded at The Thing. “Figured it out yet?”

“Not yet.”

(And louder.)

Ianto’s brow creased. “What’s that beeping?”

Jack looked surprised, then turned to look at the readout on the energy detector.

It was cycling to a point where the machinery could no longer measure it.

Jack looked at Ianto, eyes wide.

Fear flashed across Ianto’s face.

Jack quickly reached out and touched Ianto’s cheek.

Ianto vanished.

The Thing exploded.

---------------------

Ianto landed against a metal cage, in a room glowing red. It was familiar – huge branches of coral supporting the domed ceiling – but also disastrously unfamiliar. He could feel, in the air around him, in the sickly whine that hummed from the machine, an undeniable wrongness.

The TARDIS felt as though it were screaming.

He heard Jack’s voice, somewhere.

Jack.

Jack had just saved his life.

From outside, there was the sound of gunshots, and then Jack burst through the door – did his every memory involve a machine gun? – and paused to pant a few breaths. He looked terrible; his face and clothes were cut and burned, but he looked at the modified console with an expression of grim determination, and Ianto realized as he raised the gun that he was aiming directly for him.

He cried out and dropped to the floor, but not quite in time – and as he watched, his arms over his head, the bullets moved around him. They shifted their trajectory to miss him entirely, even though he was standing directly in front of the console as Jack came up the walkway, shooting wildly.

Smart tech.

Behind Ianto, the center console exploded into yellow flames, and he felt none of the incredible heat that he saw shimmering in the air. Then, there was a feeling like a kick to the stomach, and he sprawled out against the metal grated floor. He saw Jack fall, too, and followed his example of putting his arms over his head – only to lift them away when he realized that the TARDIS was repairing itself. The red glow began to fade, the metal cage around the console disappeared, and the damage done by Jack’s gun reversed itself, all while the world felt like it was shaking apart.

In a moment, it looked exactly the way it had when Ianto saw it in the background of the Doctor’s screen on the subwave network.

Jack stood up, let out a triumphant laugh, then ran out of the door again, slinging the gun away. Ianto followed.

They ran through white, unfamiliar corridors, littered with confused-looking soldiers, who stared at Jack as he passed. Ianto caught the view from out of a window – they were in the air. The Valiant?

It hit him. The confusion, the running, the looks of panic – this must be the day that the American president was killed. The day that Harold Saxon was murdered. This had happened while Jack was gone. This was what Jack had done.

His confusion mounting, Ianto skidded to a stop behind Jack as he pressed a button to open a door and caught Harold Saxon as he tried to run out.

“Woah, big fella! You don’t wanna miss the party.” Jack looked at the guards standing by the door. “Cuffs.”

Ianto slipped through the door behind him and took a moment to take in the scene. An unsteady-looking woman in a red dress off to the left; the Doctor at the top of a set of stairs, looking serious; Martha behind him, looking – well, badass. Looking like a spy. And a group of people who looked like they might be Martha’s family.

Jack stepped forward, dragging Saxon with him. “So! What do we do with this one?”

A man who Ianto assumed was Martha’s father said immediately, “We kill him.”

“We execute him.” Martha’s sister? She looked like she was prepared to do it herself; the way she said it, the way she stepped forward with purpose. But why?

The Doctor looked annoyed. “No, that’s not the solution.”

“Oh,” said Martha’s mother, as she raised a gun in both hands, her voice shaking, her eyes full of tears and absolute hatred, “I think so.” The Doctor, behind her, carefully began to walk down the stairs, looking at the gun. “Because all those – things. They still happened. Because of him.” What things? What happened? “I saw them.”

Saxon, taunting, whispered, “Go on. Do it.”

The Doctor stood beside her, reaching slowly for the hand that held the gun. “Francine. You’re better than him.”

She was, apparently; at the Doctor’s touch, she fell apart, dropping the gun and turning her face into his chest. Martha ran forward to take her, and the Doctor turned toward Saxon.

“You still haven’t answered the question,” Saxon said, still held by Jack. “What happens to me?”

“You’re my responsibility from now on. The only Time Lord left in existence.”

Jack came toward him. “Yeah, but you can’t trust him.”

“No,” the Doctor looked Saxon up and down. “The only safe place for him is the TARDIS.”

You mean you’re just going to – keep me?”

The Doctor nodded. “If that’s what I have to do.” He looked at Jack. “It’s time to change.” Martha. “Maybe I’ve been wandering for too long.” Saxon. “Now I’ve got someone to care for.”

And then, a gunshot.

Saxon staggered backwards. The woman in red – his wife, Ianto remembered - stared with huge, blank eyes, the gun in her hand. Jack ran for her, telling her calmly to put it down; the Doctor ran for Saxon, catching him as he fell, holding him in his lap.

“There you go, I’ve got you, I’ve got you.”

Saxon ground out, “Always the women.”

“I didn’t see her.”

Saxon breathed unsteadily. “Dying in your arms. Happy now?”

“You’re not dying, don’t be stupid, it’s only a bullet, just regenerate.”

Regenerate?

“No.”

“One little bullet, come on.”

“I guess you don’t know me so well. I refuse.”

“Regenerate, just regenerate.” The Doctor, getting more and more desperate, more and more emotional, “Please, please! Just regenerate, come on!”

“And spend the rest of my life imprisoned with you?”

Ianto came closer, unable to help it. The Doctor had tears in his eyes. Who was Saxon? What was all of this?

“But you’ve got to, come on. It can’t end like this. You and me, all the things we’ve done. Axons – remember the Axons? And the Daleks.” The Doctor was losing control of himself; his voice shook, tears rolling down his cheeks. “We’re the only two left. There’s no one else. REGENERATE!”

Ianto didn’t know the Doctor – had, in fact, a very mild grudge, so easily did he take Jack when it was convenient – but at this last word, he felt his heart break a little for the man.

“How about that,” Saxon said, sounding delighted. “I win.” His eyes widened; he tensed. “Will it stop, Doctor? The drumming. Will it stop?” His eyes widened further – his breath quickened. His eyes rolled back. He went limp.

The Doctor held Saxon’s body against himself, looking angry, disappointed, and just – infinitely, brutally sad. He let out a horrible, anguished cry.

Ianto looked from him to Jack, and saw there a terrible kind of understanding. A kindred ache.

And then everything was gone.

- - -

Ianto was up to his shins in water. The hub pool.

The hub was a disaster area.

The table where The Thing had sat was reduced to twisted metal, thrown across the hub. The wall beside it was blackened, several inches of concrete shed, leaving a jagged crater. The tray Ianto had been carrying lay on the floor, the mug and plate shattered and browned from the heat. Everything within ten feet of the explosion looked like it had been on fire; it still smoked, the acrid smell of it filling Ianto’s nose, lungs, making him cough.

Jack.

Ianto looked, half-panicked, unable to see him anywhere.

But, there.

The other side of the pool. Slung over the side. Thrown more than fifteen feet by the blast.

Ianto waded over to him, then grabbed him under the shoulders and dragged him out of the water, rolling him onto his back and kneeling next to him.

He watched him, waiting. Thinking.

Everything that had happened on the Valiant – that was when Jack was gone. That was what he had left to do. That was where he had gone running – across the Plass, to the TARDIS, caught by the CCTV. Ianto had played that footage over and over again during those months, trying to make sense of it. He hadn’t known about the Doctor then. And even with what he did know, now – he couldn’t explain what he had just seen. Harold Saxon, a Time Lord. Dying in the Doctor’s arms. Martha’s family, somehow broken, looking as though they’d been kept as hostages or – slaves. Jack; bloody, torn. Sad.

Time reversing itself.

Jack gasped awake and Ianto had to dodge away from his outflung hands. He sat up and looked over.

And Ianto was stunned to silence by the absolute relief on his face.

Jack just stared for a second, taking slow breaths, his eyes not leaving Ianto’s. Then, a flash of apprehension over his features. He looked at the floor.

Ianto edged forward slightly. “Are you all right?”

“Fine,” Jack said. He looked back over. “You?”

Ianto looked at him; shirt charred, trousers torn. Similar to how he’d looked back then. He opened his mouth, but Jack stopped him.

“Please don’t ask.”

He climbed slowly to his feet, not looking at Ianto. He started away.

Ianto stood. “Jack.”

“Please, Ianto.”

Ianto started after him. “Jack, please, just-”

Jack stopped and turned around. His face was calm, but Ianto could feel something beneath the surface – a dread, an undirected anger – that eked out with his voice. “I sent you back to keep you safe. I saved your life. The least you can do – the least you can do is not ask.”

It was true, and Ianto could feel his frustration building because of it, a rough anger clenching and unclenching his fists. To guilt him. To guilt him into keeping silent.

Fuck that.

“The Valiant.”

Jack’s face flashed fear, anger and sadness all at once. “I said-”

“I never asked, Jack,” Ianto said through clenched teeth. “I never asked where you were when you left. And you never explained. But what the fuck was that?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters, Jack!” Ianto took a step toward him. “Explain what I just saw. Martha and Saxon and the Doctor. The TARDIS. That was time reversing, wasn’t it? What happened? What did you undo?”

“It’s nothing!” Jack shouted, his voice carrying through the still-smoking hub. “Leave it! It’s better that you don’t know.”

“How can you know that?” Ianto came closer still, a foot away, staring down Jack the way Jack was staring him down.

“I just do.”

“How?”

“Because I know better than you!”

Ianto didn’t think before his fist connected with Jack’s face.

He was left alone in the hub, breathing hard, angry breaths, staring at the spot where Jack had been.

---------------------

It was dark, and Jack stumbled against a wall. The side of his head flared in pain, and he raised a tentative hand to touch his cheek and jaw. He winced; there would definitely be a bruise. He didn’t know whether to be angry or impressed.

Angry felt better.

He heard a giggle. Low voices, somewhere. He looked around. He was in another hallway; at the end, soft light flickered onto the floor and wall. He moved towards it, and the voices came a little clearer.

“You’re like a university student.”

A low laugh. Ianto. “I’m not allowed to have a hot plate?”

“You own a stove.”

“Yes. And it becomes useless when the power is out. Thus, battery-operated hotplate.”

“Couldn’t we just get take-away?”

“I promised I’d cook for you!”

Jack peeked around the hall corner. Every horizontal surface was choked with candles; windowsills, counters, the top of the refrigerator. Three uneven tapers stood at the center of the kitchen table, and threw their light onto a very familiar face.

Lisa.

She laughed, watching Ianto as he moved around the kitchen, taking things from cabinets and setting them on the counter. “I think that a power-out is a good enough excuse.”

Ianto looked over his shoulder and grinned. “All right, then I want to cook for you.”

She put her chin in her hand, her eyes following Ianto’s every movement. Jack came closer and let his own eyes do the same, taking in the easy way Ianto maneuvered through this familiar-unfamiliar place; his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, his suit jacket and tie tossed over the back of a chair, the top button of his shirt undone. He looked – simple. Happy. He smiled to himself as he worked.

Jack looked back to Lisa, and saw there in her face a feeling identical to his.

She smiled – slow, taking a few seconds to reach from one side of her mouth to the other. She sat up a little, taking her chin from her hand. She took a light breath.

“Ianto,” she said. “I love you.”

Ianto stopped. He looked over his shoulder at her, his expression surprised. Then, it slowly melted into a soft sort of delight – radiant in his eyes, in his smile. He walked over to her, took her face gently between his hands, and kissed her. She put her arms around his neck, leaning into him, kissing back. After a few moments, she pulled away very slightly and murmured, “Hotplate.”

Ianto grinned. “Take-away.” Then he kissed her again.

Jack watched as they slowly dissolved, the candlelight brightening and then fading away.

- - -

Ianto was on his knees, clearing up the mess made by the explosion. Or attempting to. It looked like a huge undertaking; he had at first taken a few moments just to look at it and wonder how the hell he was going to make it look any better. He was still angry; every movement he made was forceful, aggressive, a scowl carved into his face as if permanent.

Jack appeared five feet to his right.

He looked over and opened his mouth to start shouting (I hope that fucking hurt) when he stopped, and his anger slipped away.

Jack was visibly shaken. He was holding back tears.

Ianto stood quickly, coming toward him, “Jack, I’m-”

“I’m sorry,” Jack said. And Ianto knew it wasn’t that he was sorry for refusing to explain; he wasn’t sorry for what he’d said, or for anything so incredibly light. He was sorry for something – God, something huge, some unbearable weight suddenly upon him. He looked completely shattered, holding himself together only just barely, only enough to apologize again. “I’m so sorry.”

Ianto stared at him, his breath lost somewhere inside of him, words failing him. What did you see, Jack?

Jack moved past him, and Ianto watched him go. Watched him disappear into his office. And all he could do was stare. He couldn’t follow, couldn’t comfort, couldn’t ask. Because whatever it was – was his fault. Grief and guilt welled up in his chest, and he bit down against them. He looked away from Jack’s office.

He exhaled.

- - -

Gwen came in a few hours later. She stopped at the top of the stairs and her jaw dropped. “What the hell happened here?”

Ianto looked up at her from where he was on the ground – bucket beside him and brush in his hand, hardly making a dent. “The Thing exploded.”

She hurried over. “Are you all right?”

“No, I’m mortally wounded, but so dedicated to the job that I’m still scrubbing the black off the floor.”

She ignored the dry jab and looked around. “Is Jack all right?”

“Fine,” Ianto said, gesturing toward his office. Then he stopped. He looked away. “Not so fine, actually.”

Gwen looked down at him, caught sight of his face, then grabbed his arm and hefted him to his feet. “Come on,” she said, extricating the brush from Ianto’s grip and tossing it in the bucket. “Let’s have a break.”

- - -

Ianto set their coffees on the conference table. (Gwen, though sweet, was not allowed to touch the coffee machine, attempting to be supportive or no.) She smiled at him as he sat down across from her.

“All right,” she said. “What happened?”

Ianto stared into his cup, his hands wrapped around the outside. He sighed. “Jack touched me so that I wouldn’t be hurt by the explosion. I went back to – something he definitely didn’t want me to know about.” He looked at her, and she shut her mouth against the obvious question. He nodded. “It isn’t worth explaining. You won’t understand it any better than I do. I came back and asked him about it, and he wouldn’t tell me anything. Obviously. So,” he paused, smirking very slightly. “I punched him.”

Gwen stared. “You didn’t!”

Ianto shrugged. “He wasn’t expecting it. Although, he wouldn’t have been able to block it even if he was, if he wanted me kept out of his past. So he went back somewhere in mine.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know.” He looked at her. “He came back – in a bad way. And I really have no idea what he saw. He went into his office. He hasn’t come out since.”

“And you haven’t asked where he went?”

He took a sip of his coffee. “I can’t. How can I ask that? ‘Hey, Jack, I know you’ve just seen something that almost broke you, and it’s all my fault, but would you care to share?’”

Gwen grinned, taking her mug up into her hands. “That might not be the best way to phrase it.”

Ianto shook his head. Gwen frowned, reaching across the table to put her hand on his. “It isn’t your fault, Ianto. Whatever he saw. And it sounded like he needed a good smack, anyway.”

Ianto smiled a little bit, looking in the direction of Jack’s office, unseen from the conference room. “Jack’s memories make me angry, mine make him miserable. We’re perfect for each other.”

Gwen smiled sadly and sat back. She drummed her fingers on the table, giving him a searching look. “Ianto,” she said, looking slightly uncomfortable but unable to help herself, “What did Jack see last night? When he tried to catch you on the stairs.”

Ianto paused. He looked her up and down. Well, I’m not Jack.

He sighed. “When I was eight, my mother had a psychotic break. Schizophrenia.” He tried to keep his eyes on her shocked face. “She refused to take her medication. It had kept her stable up until that point. She tried to kill my father, so they took her away. Providence Park Psychiatric Hospital.”

He finally looked away, Gwen’s wide-eyed surprise was a bit too much.

“I’m sorry,” she managed.

He shook his head. “It’s long over, now. She died when I was fourteen. It doesn’t matter.” He took a sip of his coffee. He could feel her regretting that she had asked. But she had. And he’d answered. Go, team.

“I’m almost glad,” he surprised himself by saying. “That you cared to ask.”

Gwen looked confused. “How do you mean?”

“Jack didn’t.” Ianto looked down at the shining surface of the conference table. “He told me that I didn’t have to explain. He didn’t ask.”

Her face cleared. She reached back over to touch his hand. “Ianto,” she said slowly, looking into his face. “It isn’t that he doesn’t care.”

He looked at her, raising an eyebrow.

She smiled softly. “He said that for you. For your benefit. He wants to know – if I know anything about Jack, I know that he’s a prying bastard. But he didn’t want you to have to explain yourself if you didn’t want to. If you wanted to keep it. He didn’t want to force it out of you.”

Ianto’s eyebrows shot up. This was probably true, and it hadn’t occurred to him – and he couldn’t think why.

She grinned and answered for him. “You’d rather think he doesn’t care. It’s easier. Caring makes it complicated.”

He stared at her, stunned speechless. She sipped her coffee, eyeing him over the rim of the cup, smug and smiling.

He grinned. “Considering the man you married, you are surprisingly insightful.”

This made her laugh, and she almost knocked her coffee over in surprise. She looked at him and smiled, friendly, in confidence. He smiled back.

She shooed him. “Go. Talk to him. Work it out. Maybe this whole, horrible thing will turn out to be a blessing of honesty, or whatever.”

Ianto laughed and stood. “Knowing Jack, probably not. But I can try.” He nodded at her. She gave a little salute. He left the room, grinning back over his shoulder as the door swung closed.

- - -

Ianto opened the door to Jack’s office without knocking. He slipped inside as Jack looked up, and closed the door behind him. Jack looked surprised to see him – or just perhaps surprised to see him composed, carrying Jack’s mug, and not angrily preparing to punch him again.

Ianto stepped forward. “I’m sorry,” he said. “For hitting you. I shouldn’t have. For a lot of reasons.”

Jack shook his head. “I deserved it, I guess.” Jack still looked a bit bleary; his eyes were red-rimmed, his face slightly pink.

“You didn’t,” Ianto said. “I was just – frustrated.”

“I understand.” Jack looked at his desk, for some reason suddenly unable to look at him.

Ianto set Jack’s mug down. “Gwen’s here.” Jack just nodded, saying nothing. Ianto swallowed. “Jack, what did you see?”

Jack looked up at him. He looked miserable. Ianto could see the guilt churning in him, and the grief, and whatever else there was that was eating him from the inside. And Ianto did what he automatically felt the need to do, seeing such pain in someone he loved. He reached out and touched him.

Jack disappeared.

Ianto stared at his empty chair.

Goddamnit.

- - -

This time, Jack kept his eyes closed and held his hands over his ears.

It didn’t help. The sound of wherever he was still poured through, as though projected directly into his head. Goddamn sadistic aliens. Although, truth be told, the sounds were harmless at the moment; the breathing of machines, the computer hum, a swing of a door and then-

His own voice.

“Oh, yeah. Loving that officey feel. I always get excited in these places – to me, they’re exotic. Office romances. Photocopying your butt – well, maybe not your butt, but as we’re here why don’t we photo-”

Jack stared at the scene before him, listening to himself talk, watching himself, and Ianto, looking uncomfortable, interrupting him:

“The rift was active at these coordinates approximately two hundred feet above ground. That means this floor, or the roof.”

Ianto’s awkward, stilted walk around the desks. Jack remembered this. He smiled. He remembered this vividly.

Past Jack took up the uncomfortable air. “How are you, Ianto?”

“All the better for having you back, sir.” He turned around, walked away, shuffled through the litter on another desk.

“Can we maybe drop the sir now? I mean, while I was away, I was thinking – maybe we could – you know, when this is all done – dinner, movie.” Present Jack almost laughed, watching himself. So nervous. He looked like an idiot.

He turned to look at Ianto, who had his hands on his hips, his eyebrows raised – similarly nervous. A way Jack hadn’t seen him look in a long time. “Are – you asking me out on a date?”

“Interested?”

Ianto scoffed, sort of – tried to, anyway, but Jack, unbiased now, could see the weird relief on his face, past the desperately sarcastic mask. “Well, as long as it’s not in an office. Some fetishes should be kept to yourself.”

“Looks like we’re gonna have to go through every drawer, bin and plant pot.” Past Jack gave a nervous laugh. Present Jack wondered if he ever still sounded like that, and if he did he hoped that someone would put him out of his misery.

“Right, okay. I’ll do this floor. Don’t want you getting overexcited.” Mocking, but not too badly. Past Jack looked surprised. “You take the roof. You’re good on roofs.”

Past Jack made to leave, but Ianto stopped him. “Jack!” He turned. “Why are we – helping him?”

Jack remembered this, too. It came back to him in that way Past Jack dropped the awkwardness – the way he turned back to look at Ianto with purpose. “He’s a reminder of my past. I want him gone.” He’d been relieved, then. He remembered. Relieved, because Ianto still cared – enough to be jealous, at any rate, and at that point it was good enough for him.

Present Jack smiled, knowing what came next.

“By the way – was that a yes?”

“Yes,” Ianto answered, before the word was even out. “Yes.”

Past Jack grinned and left.

Present Jack moved to get a better look at Ianto as he knelt to look through a desk drawer. And he saw it – what he hoped to see. That little smile. That little pause. Ianto, relieved, happy.

Jack smiled, too, as the room faded away.

- - -

Ianto jumped when Jack reappeared sitting in his chair. He leapt up, leaning over the desk, feeling like an idiot. “I’m sorry! I didn’t think – God, you’d think I’d be used to it by now – whatever you saw, just, don’t worry about it, it doesn’t matter, it’s all in the pas-” Jack was looking at him with nothing but amusement. Ianto stopped rambling. He quirked a brow. “What?”

Jack closed his eyes. He took a very deep breath. He let it out. He reached across and touched Ianto’s hand.

- - -

Ianto stumbled in surprise, then looked quickly around. It was night; it was raining. The water fell around him rather than onto him, running down the protective field thrown by the device implanted in his arm. There was a single working streetlight, and it poured its orangeish light onto-

Ianto stepped closer. His heart did something complicated and wonderful in his chest.

Beneath a narrow awning hung over the door of a closed shop, away from the rain, highlighted by the streetlight, in perfect, vivid detail, Ianto saw himself. Himself, with Jack’s arms around him. Jack’s lips against his. They were soaking – they’d run from the sudden downpour, walking back from the movie. Their first date. Proper date. Ianto felt something – he didn’t know; love, joy, something – well up inside of him, in his chest, in his head.

This was their first kiss after Jack had come back. Hesitant, at first, but as he watched, Ianto saw – all of their apprehension, all of their distance, melted away, and they came closer – Ianto’s hands in Jack’s hair, Jack’s face entirely, beautifully happy.

They broke apart, breathed.

And the scene faded away.

- - -

Ianto reappeared in front of Jack’s desk, his surprise evident on his face. Jack looked up at him, smiling. “Where’d you go?”

Ianto breathed, “First date. In the rain.”

Jack looked delighted. “It worked. If I concentrate hard enough, I can decide where you go.”

“You did that – without knowing?”

Jack shrugged, still smiling. “I figured it might work. If it didn’t-” He put up his hands. If it didn’t work, it didn’t work.

Ianto stared at him. “That’s – that’s one of your most important memories?”

Jack’s smile diminished; his eyes became more serious. He met Ianto’s gaze, paused, then nodded.

Ianto felt a few seconds spool away, letting himself process this information. “And – we can control where we go?”

Again, that serious nod.

They were silent for a few moments, looking at each other.

Then they were both moving, reaching out over the desk at the same time with the same incredible intensity of purpose, colliding lips, fingers through hair, breathless and determined, concentrating.

Jack saw: The first time he saw Ianto after Lisa died; him alive after Abbaddon, pulling Ianto into a hug and then kissing him; the moment of breathy silence in the warehouse where they caught Myfanwy; dancing at Gwen’s wedding-

Ianto saw: His cheeky comment about the stopwatch; “So you’re not going to help me catch this pterodactyl, then?”; kissing Jack the day before Tommy was sent back; being pulled out of the rubble of John Hart’s trap by Jack and Gwen; meeting Jack with coffee outside of the hub, looking to be hired; Naked Hide and Seek-

They saw these things rapidly, like images on a screen, too quickly replaced by new memories to be entirely relived, but the feelings still there: relief, happiness, sadness, peace, love. They went on, there and not there, in and out of the office, flickering like static but still able to feel the other, hands on faces, lips-

And then, it stopped. Ianto felt a pain in his arm, then heard something fall to the surface of the desk.

Jack, still holding Ianto’s face close to his, looked down at the desk between them and let out a breathless laugh. “We broke it.”

Ianto looked down, too. “You’re kidding me.”

From out in the hub, they heard Gwen call out, “Is there a reason this wedding thing just started sparking?”

They looked into each other’s faces, inches away, and began to laugh.

They untangled themselves as Gwen came in, giving a raised eyebrow at their ruffled appearance. “Interrupting something?”

“Nope,” Jack said, grinning. He held out his arm for her to see. The black marks were no longer there; instead, eight glassy black beads lay scattered on his desk, four from Ianto and four from him. “We just figured out how to fix our problem.”

Gwen smirked. “It seems to have involved snogging.”

“Something like that, yes.” Ianto straightened his tie, casting a grin in her direction.

Jack picked up one of the beads. “We must have overloaded the device. It wasn’t meant for people who already share memories.”

“I wish that snogging was the answer to all of our problems.” Gwen sighed and left the room.

Ianto looked at Jack, a small smile on his face. “That was – interesting.”

Jack nodded, copying his expression. “It was.”

“Naked Hide and Seek? Really?”

Jack grinned. “Hey, if you’re going to relive something, might as well be something fun.”

Ianto sighed in faux-annoyance, then shifted slightly, looking at Jack sideways. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Just – thank you.”

Jack stepped around his desk and stood in front of Ianto, putting his hands on Ianto’s hips. He smiled. “You’re welcome.”

And he kissed him, properly, finally.