Chapter One

"Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet."
-Plato

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 realized 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 hand 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. He 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. "How come you couldn't 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 gave a shout of pain 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 and sitting up slowly. "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 nodded again, then 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."

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Author's Note: "Nadolig Llawen" means "Merry Christmas" in Welsh. Google would have told you, but I'll be kind and include a translation.

This is probably going to be the last story that I'm able to write with such rapid updates. Classes start September 2nd, at which point I'll start having honest, not-self-imposed responsibilities again. But it's been fun! To all of you who have read most of what I've written, I'm really delighted that you enjoyed it, and I hope that you'll stay with me even as my update schedule becomes a bit less constant. I'll aim for one story/chapter per week, with more if I have the time and the ideas. For now, I hope that you like this story, which will update again either tomorrow or the next day. There will be either two or three chapters total, leaning toward two.

Thanks for reading!