sam_storyteller (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sam_storyteller) wrote2005-07-17 02:30 pm
sam_storyteller) wrote2005-07-17 02:30 pm
Entry tags:
The Theory of Two Centres 8/8
Title: The Theory of Two Centres
Pairings: Canon. Set post-S2.
Summary: Ianto Jones woke up in a bed that wasn't his, in a flat that wasn't his, with a headache he definitely didn't remember deserving.
Notes: Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
la_rainette, adina_atl, and spiderine for advice on fighting, firearms, italics, titles, eggs, and grammar. All are important!
Chapter Eight
Now
Ianto Jones woke up in a bed that wasn't his, in a flat that wasn't his, with a headache he definitely didn't remember deserving.
On close inspection, he was also nearly naked; stripped to a pair of boxers (his, thankfully) and covered with a thick, heavy duvet so at least his modesty was spared. He still had a moment of panic, a good-god-what-have-I-done moment, and then he saw the blue-grey coat hanging on the door in front of his eyes. Jack's coat.
If Jack was nearby, wherever he was, then everything would be okay.
Sort of.
Most of the time, anyway.
He tried to sit up and realised there was something on his arm, as well, heavy and awkward -- a fibreglass cast, a cast he hadn't had when he went to bed the night before. He stared at it in surprise for a moment, then decided to ignore the bizarre spontaneous broken arm in favour of reconnaissance, shoving himself upright with his other arm and looking around.
It wasn't a hotel room. It was far too lived-in, and the furniture was mismatched. It wasn't anywhere in the Hub -- dim grey light was coming in through a window. As far as he knew Jack didn't have a secret flat somewhere but, even if he did, there would probably be less pink and more model airplanes or something.
There was a photo on the nightstand -- Gwen, leaning over Rhys, arms wrapped around his shoulders.
Oh, well then. Mostly-naked in Gwen's bed. He wasn't sure if that was better or worse than mostly-naked in a stranger's bed. Surely, though...after all this was Gwen...but on the other hand Jack had a weird thing for Gwen and it wasn't like Ianto hadn't noticed she was attractive and always smelled nice. He was only human. So, if he and Jack were both here, there was at least one logical conclusion he could draw, if he wanted to fully indulge in the horror of it.
Oh god, Rhys was going to wring his neck.
He was about to start casting around for his clothing, growing more worried by the second, when the door opened softly and Gwen put her head in. She saw him sitting up and smiled.
"Hi," she said.
"Hullo," he replied fuzzily. "Why'm I in your bed -- "
But she was already yelling down the hall. "JACK! RHYS! He's up!"
Somewhere, someone was brewing coffee. He could smell it. He started to get out of the bed, hesitated over whether he was prepared for Gwen to see him in his underwear again, and stayed where he was.
Jack put his head through the doorway as well, smiled at him, and gently elbowed Gwen aside so he could enter. Ianto watched in confusion as he sat on the edge of the bed and gave him one of those awful reassuring smiles that did not reassure at all. He must have learned those from Gwen.
"Feel all right?" Jack asked.
"Uh." Ianto held up his arm.
"Does it hurt?"
"No....it's just a surprise."
"You don't remember it."
"Did I bang my head?" Ianto asked, feeling for a lump.
"What's the last thing you remember?" Jack countered.
"Well, it wasn't going to bed in Gwen's flat," Ianto retorted.
"No, we brought you here. What do you remember?"
Ianto frowned. "Work -- leaving work? I left work, I cooked dinner -- you called to ask where the Kyleison report was, I told you it was on my desk...watched the news, went to bed. Did we have a call?"
Jack and Gwen were both staring at him.
"You....remember the Kyleison report," Jack said.
"Yes, I remember the Kyleison report, hard to forget tiny bitey aliens when they did for one's last good pair of shoes," Ianto said. "What's going on?"
Jack looked like he might actually answer a question for once in his life, but just then Rhys pushed through the door carrying a plate of food and a cup of coffee.
All of his focus was suddenly tightly aimed at the plate.
"Chicken sandwich and a banana," Rhys said, offering him the plate. "Captain's orders. Coffee."
"Cheers," Ianto replied, balancing the plate on his knees and sipping from the mug. It wasn't half-bad; better than Gwen's. He picked up a piece of sliced banana and chewed on it slowly. It felt like the best thing he'd tasted in years. "And now you're frightening me," he added, because Jack and Gwen hadn't stopped staring at him.
"You're back," Jack said. "She gave it back."
"Who? Gave what back?"
"The Kyleison report was...about three weeks ago," Jack said. Ianto choked on his food in surprise. "Drink your coffee."
He looked down at it suspiciously.
"It's not Retconned," Gwen told him. Gwen was not a good liar. She was probably telling the truth. He sipped. "Jack will explain everything. Won't you, Jack?"
Gwen couldn't see Jack's face from where she stood, but Ianto could. It looked almost...hunted.
"Aliens," Jack said succinctly.
"Oh, well, that clears it up," Ianto replied. "Shouldn't I remember Kyleison?"
"Not...it's good you do, but..." Jack looked haplessly at Gwen.
"We didn't think you would," she said.
"Why wouldn't I?"
"It's complicated," Jack said. Ianto rolled his eyes.
"All right, easy question. Broken arm," Ianto said, holding up the cast-bound arm again. "Recent acquisition?"
"You were in a fight. You weren't yourself," Jack said, putting a hand on the cast and lowering the arm gently.
Ianto considered this.
"I was possessed," he said finally. Gwen and Jack's looks told him all he needed to know. "That's why I don't remember. Oh, well done me. Brilliant."
"Memory-feeding aliens. One of them got its claws in you. Took about three weeks off you, is the simple version," Jack volunteered. He seemed like he was looking for something. Ianto met his gaze and held it and apparently whatever he wanted, he'd found. His smile was real this time, small and private, intimate.
"And in those three weeks I moved in with Gwen and Rhys," Ianto said slowly. Gwen laughed. Rhys snorted.
"We wanted you where we could watch you in shifts. You've been out for about nine hours," she said. "You owe Rhys a visit to the osteopath from sleeping on the couch. And therapy after Jack rearranged the kitchen."
"He always does that," Ianto mumbled into the coffee. "Keeps hiding my cheese-grater."
Jack looked like this was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to him; the smile lit up and he lifted the coffee away, leaning in for a rare and frankly quite bizarre public kiss. Jack would flirt with anything that moved (some things that didn't) and probably would happily shag anyone in front of anyone else, but -- well, work was work and play was play and Jack knew the full measure of how much he could get away with, when he was shagging someone on the team. A kiss in front of Gwen -- in front of anyone -- demanded a certain amount of savouring.
When he was done, Ianto glanced up at Gwen, who looked approving -- and then at Rhys, who looked like realisation was finally dawning.
"I'll go -- I've got -- dishes," Rhys said, red-faced, and hurried out of the room.
"You practically sneak him into the base, you refuse to Retcon him, but this you don't tell him?" Jack asked Gwen patiently.
"Wasn't my business," she said, still smiling. "Besides, keeps him on his toes."
"Sorry, can we come back to the three week possession and the broken arm?" Ianto asked, feeling as if a discussion of Rhys's epiphany that Gorgeous Captain Jack was sleeping with the secretary could probably wait. He picked up the sandwich clumsily with one hand and managed to get a satisfyingly huge mouthful in.
"You're back," Jack said.
"Yes, very happy we've exorcised me," Ianto said, swallowing his food.
"It's just..." Jack made a vague gesture.
"I'll give you some privacy," Gwen said, backing out of the room, probably to find Rhys and tease him mercilessly. Ianto gave Jack an expectant look. To his surprise, Jack reached out and stroked his hair, thumb grazing his temple.
"Eat," Jack said gently. "I'll tell you the whole story. You'll like it, there's lots of sex."
"Just to be clear, once and for all, I in no way slept with Gwen."
"No," Jack laughed. "Nobody but me."
"Well, that's all right then."
"Eat," Jack repeated. Ianto took another bite, gesturing with the sandwich for him to continue. Jack turned so that they were facing each other fully and began to talk.
It wasn't a pretty story -- parts of it were ugly and frightening, in fact, but Ianto ate and listened and set the plate aside and listened some more. He felt vaguely...unsettled by the idea that he and Jack had still come together, that there was a chunk of time where he hadn't been himself and had decided to sleep with Jack anyway. He remembered how it felt to be twenty-one. He remembered how it felt to be twenty-three and attracted to Jack in those miserable first months back in Cardiff.
Even before Jack had kissed him for the first time the plain fact of the attraction had made all his pieces fit into place somehow. Knowing himself fully, the breadth of his strength and all the biological and mental quirks that made him who he was -- having a place in Torchwood, outlined and defined -- had been one solid unyielding thing when Lisa's pain and misery had kept the world shifting continually under his feet.
When Jack finished, with an uncharacteristic "And that's all we know", Ianto let the silence spool out for a while, considering.
"I'm so sorry, Jack," he said finally. Jack looked up at him sharply.
"It's not your fault -- "
"No, I know that. I'm sorry it happened, that's all. I'm glad I'm...back."
"Even remembering....?" Jack never said Lisa's name if he could avoid it.
"They're my memories. They're all I have."
Jack nodded. "Eve said the grief is better than the missing of it."
Ianto chewed on his lip. "I was...not someone I particularly like anymore, when I was twenty-one. Bit of a loser, really."
"That's not -- "
"It is true. No aim, no drive, no purpose. Little bit of self-preservation, enough to get me to London. Otherwise, mostly a waste of talent." Ianto considered his blanket-clad knees. "London gave me direction. Something to work towards."
"Then killed it."
"No -- but -- what I mean is, Cardiff gave me more. Coming here gave me meaning. You," he said, then felt a blush creeping up his throat at the admission. "I'm proud of what we do. I do something worth being proud of."
"Good," Jack said, and kissed him again. And kept kissing him until Ianto pushed him gently back.
"Gwen's bed, Jack. Gwen's bed," he said. Jack waggled his eyebrows. "Absolutely not. Besides, I need a wash. And my clothes."
Jack helped him out of the bed -- not that he particularly needed the help -- and went to a nearby chair, lifting up pair of jeans and a t-shirt. Ianto recognised the jeans as bottom-of-his-wardrobe stuff, things he hadn't worn much in years now -- and the shirt looked like Jack's.
"That's a bit casual, isn't it?" he said, before his brain caught up with his mouth. "You couldn't have brought me a suit?"
Jack looked confused for a second and then strangely crushed. He took two steps to cross the space between them and pulled Ianto against his body, clinging tightly to his shoulders.
God, Jack was shaking.
He hugged back clumsily, wary of clubbing him with the cast, and let Jack tuck his face against Ianto's shoulder.
"I missed you," Jack said, almost incoherently, mumbling the words into his skin. He said something else that was totally inaudible and Ianto felt his hands spread on the bare skin of his back, warm where they pressed -- seeking as much touch as possible, knowing Jack.
He'd never seen Jack like this. Miserable, yes, and hurting, and sometimes just a little mad, especially right after he'd come back from the Doctor, but never this odd vulnerability.
"I love you," Jack added, as the trembling died down. He leaned back to look at his face. "I do. I love you."
Ianto gave him a reassuring smile. Saying it might be hard for Jack, but then Jack was a hard sort of person to be going on with.
He'd always liked a challenge.
"I love you too," he said, the words easy in his mouth. Jack nodded and released him. "Can I have a wash now?"
Jack laughed sharply, once. "Yeah. Go."
He ran a bath, time-consuming but necessary with one arm encased in fibreglass and cotton padding. It was incredibly weird to be in Gwen's flat, to see reminders everywhere of the life Gwen had outside of Torchwood: earrings in the sink soapdish, Rhys's razor next to them, a steam-damaged photo of Gwen and some of her mates stuck in the corner of the mirror. Socks on the floor where they'd missed the laundry basket, hairbrush on the back of the toilet, blow-dryer on the ledge of the window. The odd haphazardness that comes from a tidy person living with an untidy one. His place with Lisa had been like that.
He'd rather have the ache high in his chest, when he thought of Lisa, than not have had her at all. This woman, Eve, had obviously understood.
He couldn't find shoes, but he dressed in the jeans and the shirt and padded barefoot into the living room. Jack was sitting at the kitchen bar, eating and smiling. Rhys was doing the washing up, Gwen leaning on the other side of the bar across from Jack. When she saw him she circled round and gave him an almost ceremonial hug, then took his hand and pulled him to the kitchen, sat him down next to Jack. He took half the sandwich off the plate in front of Jack, still ravenous, and bit into it.
"Hey!" Jack looked wounded.
"Alien possession," Ianto said indistinctly. "Trumps."
Jack growled at him, but went back to eating his crisps. Gwen beamed. Rhys darted his eyes back and forth between them, more curious now, and Ianto smiled at him.
"It's good," he said. Under the bar, Jack's hand was resting warm on his thigh. Rhys smiled in return.
"Ta. So. You lot going out catching little green men today, then?" he asked.
Ianto didn't dare look at Jack, but when he looked at Gwen it wasn't much better. She was trying hard not to laugh, her lips puckering to prevent it.
"What?" Rhys asked. "Oh, you think you're so flash. Listen, I make pack lunches for a woman who chases round after things from other planets, I know what weird is!"
Jack couldn't contain the laughter anymore; it was deep and snorting, and that set Gwen off. Ianto chuckled.
"Yup," he said, as Jack buried his face in his hands and kept laughing, as Gwen rested her arms on the counter for support. "That's Torchwood. Aliens and pack lunches."
"Well, so long as you know which side your bread's buttered on," Rhys said to Gwen, and kissed her before pushing her out of the kitchen gently. She leaned on Ianto and kept giggling, her arm around his shoulders. He slid his own around her waist, which startled her for a moment before she relaxed against him.
This was him -- sitting with his people, Jack's hand still on his thigh, Gwen doing her touchy-feely thing. He wouldn't trade that. He wouldn't trade who he'd been for who he was.
"Not for anything," he said, though the others were laughing too hard to hear.
END
Post-Story Notes
Pairings: Canon. Set post-S2.
Summary: Ianto Jones woke up in a bed that wasn't his, in a flat that wasn't his, with a headache he definitely didn't remember deserving.
Notes: Thanks to
la_rainette, adina_atl, and spiderine for advice on fighting, firearms, italics, titles, eggs, and grammar. All are important! Chapter Eight
Now
Ianto Jones woke up in a bed that wasn't his, in a flat that wasn't his, with a headache he definitely didn't remember deserving.
On close inspection, he was also nearly naked; stripped to a pair of boxers (his, thankfully) and covered with a thick, heavy duvet so at least his modesty was spared. He still had a moment of panic, a good-god-what-have-I-done moment, and then he saw the blue-grey coat hanging on the door in front of his eyes. Jack's coat.
If Jack was nearby, wherever he was, then everything would be okay.
Sort of.
Most of the time, anyway.
He tried to sit up and realised there was something on his arm, as well, heavy and awkward -- a fibreglass cast, a cast he hadn't had when he went to bed the night before. He stared at it in surprise for a moment, then decided to ignore the bizarre spontaneous broken arm in favour of reconnaissance, shoving himself upright with his other arm and looking around.
It wasn't a hotel room. It was far too lived-in, and the furniture was mismatched. It wasn't anywhere in the Hub -- dim grey light was coming in through a window. As far as he knew Jack didn't have a secret flat somewhere but, even if he did, there would probably be less pink and more model airplanes or something.
There was a photo on the nightstand -- Gwen, leaning over Rhys, arms wrapped around his shoulders.
Oh, well then. Mostly-naked in Gwen's bed. He wasn't sure if that was better or worse than mostly-naked in a stranger's bed. Surely, though...after all this was Gwen...but on the other hand Jack had a weird thing for Gwen and it wasn't like Ianto hadn't noticed she was attractive and always smelled nice. He was only human. So, if he and Jack were both here, there was at least one logical conclusion he could draw, if he wanted to fully indulge in the horror of it.
Oh god, Rhys was going to wring his neck.
He was about to start casting around for his clothing, growing more worried by the second, when the door opened softly and Gwen put her head in. She saw him sitting up and smiled.
"Hi," she said.
"Hullo," he replied fuzzily. "Why'm I in your bed -- "
But she was already yelling down the hall. "JACK! RHYS! He's up!"
Somewhere, someone was brewing coffee. He could smell it. He started to get out of the bed, hesitated over whether he was prepared for Gwen to see him in his underwear again, and stayed where he was.
Jack put his head through the doorway as well, smiled at him, and gently elbowed Gwen aside so he could enter. Ianto watched in confusion as he sat on the edge of the bed and gave him one of those awful reassuring smiles that did not reassure at all. He must have learned those from Gwen.
"Feel all right?" Jack asked.
"Uh." Ianto held up his arm.
"Does it hurt?"
"No....it's just a surprise."
"You don't remember it."
"Did I bang my head?" Ianto asked, feeling for a lump.
"What's the last thing you remember?" Jack countered.
"Well, it wasn't going to bed in Gwen's flat," Ianto retorted.
"No, we brought you here. What do you remember?"
Ianto frowned. "Work -- leaving work? I left work, I cooked dinner -- you called to ask where the Kyleison report was, I told you it was on my desk...watched the news, went to bed. Did we have a call?"
Jack and Gwen were both staring at him.
"You....remember the Kyleison report," Jack said.
"Yes, I remember the Kyleison report, hard to forget tiny bitey aliens when they did for one's last good pair of shoes," Ianto said. "What's going on?"
Jack looked like he might actually answer a question for once in his life, but just then Rhys pushed through the door carrying a plate of food and a cup of coffee.
All of his focus was suddenly tightly aimed at the plate.
"Chicken sandwich and a banana," Rhys said, offering him the plate. "Captain's orders. Coffee."
"Cheers," Ianto replied, balancing the plate on his knees and sipping from the mug. It wasn't half-bad; better than Gwen's. He picked up a piece of sliced banana and chewed on it slowly. It felt like the best thing he'd tasted in years. "And now you're frightening me," he added, because Jack and Gwen hadn't stopped staring at him.
"You're back," Jack said. "She gave it back."
"Who? Gave what back?"
"The Kyleison report was...about three weeks ago," Jack said. Ianto choked on his food in surprise. "Drink your coffee."
He looked down at it suspiciously.
"It's not Retconned," Gwen told him. Gwen was not a good liar. She was probably telling the truth. He sipped. "Jack will explain everything. Won't you, Jack?"
Gwen couldn't see Jack's face from where she stood, but Ianto could. It looked almost...hunted.
"Aliens," Jack said succinctly.
"Oh, well, that clears it up," Ianto replied. "Shouldn't I remember Kyleison?"
"Not...it's good you do, but..." Jack looked haplessly at Gwen.
"We didn't think you would," she said.
"Why wouldn't I?"
"It's complicated," Jack said. Ianto rolled his eyes.
"All right, easy question. Broken arm," Ianto said, holding up the cast-bound arm again. "Recent acquisition?"
"You were in a fight. You weren't yourself," Jack said, putting a hand on the cast and lowering the arm gently.
Ianto considered this.
"I was possessed," he said finally. Gwen and Jack's looks told him all he needed to know. "That's why I don't remember. Oh, well done me. Brilliant."
"Memory-feeding aliens. One of them got its claws in you. Took about three weeks off you, is the simple version," Jack volunteered. He seemed like he was looking for something. Ianto met his gaze and held it and apparently whatever he wanted, he'd found. His smile was real this time, small and private, intimate.
"And in those three weeks I moved in with Gwen and Rhys," Ianto said slowly. Gwen laughed. Rhys snorted.
"We wanted you where we could watch you in shifts. You've been out for about nine hours," she said. "You owe Rhys a visit to the osteopath from sleeping on the couch. And therapy after Jack rearranged the kitchen."
"He always does that," Ianto mumbled into the coffee. "Keeps hiding my cheese-grater."
Jack looked like this was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to him; the smile lit up and he lifted the coffee away, leaning in for a rare and frankly quite bizarre public kiss. Jack would flirt with anything that moved (some things that didn't) and probably would happily shag anyone in front of anyone else, but -- well, work was work and play was play and Jack knew the full measure of how much he could get away with, when he was shagging someone on the team. A kiss in front of Gwen -- in front of anyone -- demanded a certain amount of savouring.
When he was done, Ianto glanced up at Gwen, who looked approving -- and then at Rhys, who looked like realisation was finally dawning.
"I'll go -- I've got -- dishes," Rhys said, red-faced, and hurried out of the room.
"You practically sneak him into the base, you refuse to Retcon him, but this you don't tell him?" Jack asked Gwen patiently.
"Wasn't my business," she said, still smiling. "Besides, keeps him on his toes."
"Sorry, can we come back to the three week possession and the broken arm?" Ianto asked, feeling as if a discussion of Rhys's epiphany that Gorgeous Captain Jack was sleeping with the secretary could probably wait. He picked up the sandwich clumsily with one hand and managed to get a satisfyingly huge mouthful in.
"You're back," Jack said.
"Yes, very happy we've exorcised me," Ianto said, swallowing his food.
"It's just..." Jack made a vague gesture.
"I'll give you some privacy," Gwen said, backing out of the room, probably to find Rhys and tease him mercilessly. Ianto gave Jack an expectant look. To his surprise, Jack reached out and stroked his hair, thumb grazing his temple.
"Eat," Jack said gently. "I'll tell you the whole story. You'll like it, there's lots of sex."
"Just to be clear, once and for all, I in no way slept with Gwen."
"No," Jack laughed. "Nobody but me."
"Well, that's all right then."
"Eat," Jack repeated. Ianto took another bite, gesturing with the sandwich for him to continue. Jack turned so that they were facing each other fully and began to talk.
It wasn't a pretty story -- parts of it were ugly and frightening, in fact, but Ianto ate and listened and set the plate aside and listened some more. He felt vaguely...unsettled by the idea that he and Jack had still come together, that there was a chunk of time where he hadn't been himself and had decided to sleep with Jack anyway. He remembered how it felt to be twenty-one. He remembered how it felt to be twenty-three and attracted to Jack in those miserable first months back in Cardiff.
Even before Jack had kissed him for the first time the plain fact of the attraction had made all his pieces fit into place somehow. Knowing himself fully, the breadth of his strength and all the biological and mental quirks that made him who he was -- having a place in Torchwood, outlined and defined -- had been one solid unyielding thing when Lisa's pain and misery had kept the world shifting continually under his feet.
When Jack finished, with an uncharacteristic "And that's all we know", Ianto let the silence spool out for a while, considering.
"I'm so sorry, Jack," he said finally. Jack looked up at him sharply.
"It's not your fault -- "
"No, I know that. I'm sorry it happened, that's all. I'm glad I'm...back."
"Even remembering....?" Jack never said Lisa's name if he could avoid it.
"They're my memories. They're all I have."
Jack nodded. "Eve said the grief is better than the missing of it."
Ianto chewed on his lip. "I was...not someone I particularly like anymore, when I was twenty-one. Bit of a loser, really."
"That's not -- "
"It is true. No aim, no drive, no purpose. Little bit of self-preservation, enough to get me to London. Otherwise, mostly a waste of talent." Ianto considered his blanket-clad knees. "London gave me direction. Something to work towards."
"Then killed it."
"No -- but -- what I mean is, Cardiff gave me more. Coming here gave me meaning. You," he said, then felt a blush creeping up his throat at the admission. "I'm proud of what we do. I do something worth being proud of."
"Good," Jack said, and kissed him again. And kept kissing him until Ianto pushed him gently back.
"Gwen's bed, Jack. Gwen's bed," he said. Jack waggled his eyebrows. "Absolutely not. Besides, I need a wash. And my clothes."
Jack helped him out of the bed -- not that he particularly needed the help -- and went to a nearby chair, lifting up pair of jeans and a t-shirt. Ianto recognised the jeans as bottom-of-his-wardrobe stuff, things he hadn't worn much in years now -- and the shirt looked like Jack's.
"That's a bit casual, isn't it?" he said, before his brain caught up with his mouth. "You couldn't have brought me a suit?"
Jack looked confused for a second and then strangely crushed. He took two steps to cross the space between them and pulled Ianto against his body, clinging tightly to his shoulders.
God, Jack was shaking.
He hugged back clumsily, wary of clubbing him with the cast, and let Jack tuck his face against Ianto's shoulder.
"I missed you," Jack said, almost incoherently, mumbling the words into his skin. He said something else that was totally inaudible and Ianto felt his hands spread on the bare skin of his back, warm where they pressed -- seeking as much touch as possible, knowing Jack.
He'd never seen Jack like this. Miserable, yes, and hurting, and sometimes just a little mad, especially right after he'd come back from the Doctor, but never this odd vulnerability.
"I love you," Jack added, as the trembling died down. He leaned back to look at his face. "I do. I love you."
Ianto gave him a reassuring smile. Saying it might be hard for Jack, but then Jack was a hard sort of person to be going on with.
He'd always liked a challenge.
"I love you too," he said, the words easy in his mouth. Jack nodded and released him. "Can I have a wash now?"
Jack laughed sharply, once. "Yeah. Go."
He ran a bath, time-consuming but necessary with one arm encased in fibreglass and cotton padding. It was incredibly weird to be in Gwen's flat, to see reminders everywhere of the life Gwen had outside of Torchwood: earrings in the sink soapdish, Rhys's razor next to them, a steam-damaged photo of Gwen and some of her mates stuck in the corner of the mirror. Socks on the floor where they'd missed the laundry basket, hairbrush on the back of the toilet, blow-dryer on the ledge of the window. The odd haphazardness that comes from a tidy person living with an untidy one. His place with Lisa had been like that.
He'd rather have the ache high in his chest, when he thought of Lisa, than not have had her at all. This woman, Eve, had obviously understood.
He couldn't find shoes, but he dressed in the jeans and the shirt and padded barefoot into the living room. Jack was sitting at the kitchen bar, eating and smiling. Rhys was doing the washing up, Gwen leaning on the other side of the bar across from Jack. When she saw him she circled round and gave him an almost ceremonial hug, then took his hand and pulled him to the kitchen, sat him down next to Jack. He took half the sandwich off the plate in front of Jack, still ravenous, and bit into it.
"Hey!" Jack looked wounded.
"Alien possession," Ianto said indistinctly. "Trumps."
Jack growled at him, but went back to eating his crisps. Gwen beamed. Rhys darted his eyes back and forth between them, more curious now, and Ianto smiled at him.
"It's good," he said. Under the bar, Jack's hand was resting warm on his thigh. Rhys smiled in return.
"Ta. So. You lot going out catching little green men today, then?" he asked.
Ianto didn't dare look at Jack, but when he looked at Gwen it wasn't much better. She was trying hard not to laugh, her lips puckering to prevent it.
"What?" Rhys asked. "Oh, you think you're so flash. Listen, I make pack lunches for a woman who chases round after things from other planets, I know what weird is!"
Jack couldn't contain the laughter anymore; it was deep and snorting, and that set Gwen off. Ianto chuckled.
"Yup," he said, as Jack buried his face in his hands and kept laughing, as Gwen rested her arms on the counter for support. "That's Torchwood. Aliens and pack lunches."
"Well, so long as you know which side your bread's buttered on," Rhys said to Gwen, and kissed her before pushing her out of the kitchen gently. She leaned on Ianto and kept giggling, her arm around his shoulders. He slid his own around her waist, which startled her for a moment before she relaxed against him.
This was him -- sitting with his people, Jack's hand still on his thigh, Gwen doing her touchy-feely thing. He wouldn't trade that. He wouldn't trade who he'd been for who he was.
"Not for anything," he said, though the others were laughing too hard to hear.
END
Post-Story Notes
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