Summary: Post-COE. Onward and upward are really the only directions left to go. Janto.

Warnings: Language, violence, sexual situations. Specifically, sex with ghosts. Well, ghost. Just the one, really.

Disclaimer: I don't own Torchwood, Doctor Who, or any other characters, places, themes, etc. that you might recognize. I'm not making any money of this, and I have no money to give should you decide to sue or whatever. Cheers.

A/N: So, this started as an exercise in writing dialogue (chapter two), and then I realized I might have a plot. Might. Still not quite sure. Probably a little OOC. Reviews adored. Thanks and enjoy:

Excelsior

There in the twilight cold and gray,

Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay,

And from the sky, serene and far,

A voice fell, like a falling star,

Excelsior!

-Excelsior, Henry Longfellow

Chapter One: No Place Like Earth

Fucking aliens.

You never could trust them.

(Okay, maybe not all aliens. That was a bit harsh. Kind of hypocritical, really. But Absquatians. Definitely Absquatians. Fucking Absquatians.)

They'd left him on Earth. Earth, of all places. The last place in the known universe Jack Harkness wanted to be.

Too much bad mojo.

Too many bad memories.

It had been nearly a year since Jack had left Earth for what he had hoped to be the last time. Turned his back on Torchwood and the whole fucking planet. Left Gwen Cooper-Williams there with her husband and left the rest of the world to rot.

There hadn't been anything left for him. Nothing but a frozen body in a highly classified tomb.

Fucking Earth.

Fucking aliens.

And now, here he was again.

Fucking aliens.

Since he'd stepped on that first spaceship away from Earth, Jack had been galaxy-hopping with abandon. Drinking and sleeping around and otherwise entrenching himself in the grieving process. Or something like that.

Okay, so maybe that last endeavor in Absquat had been a bad plan. But really, how was he supposed to know that the guy had been the son of a king? It's not like he had even been a crown prince, or anything. Geeze.

The leaders of Absquat had promised him hospitality in exchange for his rather impressive clean-up of their little invasion problem. Should he have suspected that sleeping with princes wasn't included in the deal? They really should have made that clearer.

Because if he had known they'd ship him off to Earth of all places for his little royal rendezvous he would've kept it in his pants, thank you very much.

Okay, probably not. But he would've at least considered discretion. Dismissed it, of course, but he would've considered it.

Now, here he was. No ID, no money, no psychic paper, no bullets. They'd let him keep his coat at least. Probably because he hadn't had on anything underneath it. His Webley and wristband had both been secreted away in the lining, and he'd put them in their rightful places once he'd hit earthen loam and the departing spaceship had disappeared into the atmosphere.

Of course, they hadn't just dropped him off on Earth. Oh no. They had dropped him off in the middle of fucking nowhere!

A few birds screeched and evacuated their respective trees before the rainforest fell deathly silent. Jack surmised that he had yelled that last part out loud.

He was in the jungle. The bloody jungle. It wasn't fair. Not a city or a drop of booze or a warm, attractive body other than his own for miles.

Fucking jungle.

Fucking aliens.

Jack was trudging.

And Jack didn't trudge.

He strutted, he stalked, he stormed, he sashayed. He did not trudge.

He needed to make a mental note not to trudge through the jungle mostly-naked again. He thought he had made a mental note the last time he'd done so, but apparently not.

The rainforest was not being kind to him. Screw conservation. They should burn the whole bloody thing down. He was getting mud in places mud definitely did not belong. And his feet hurt.

He had been walking for hours and miles. The rainforest was hot and muggy and filled with all sorts of weird creepy-crawly things he did not want so close to his privates. At least not without buying him a drink first.

After a while, Jack dimly became aware that he wasn't walking over decaying leaves and branches anymore. He was walking on a road. A shitty, bumpy road, but a road nonetheless. His torn feet were leaving bloody footprints on the dirt. A road. And roads meant civilization.

Jack looked up. The sun was setting, and the sky above the dark forest was a medley of gaudy gold and pink. In the distant gloom he could see the white and yellow lights of a town glowing steadily. Maybe a quarter of a mile away. Jack picked up the pace. He left a trail of red footprints into town.

The crumbling adobe town looked like it hadn't changed in the last few hundred years or so. Rusted cars and donkeys swerved around each other on the street. Dark-haired children with skinny legs were playing catch in the last dregs of twilight and a beautiful girl in a long skirt was pulling laundry off a clothesline strung between two apartments.

Jack outlined a plan in his head. Firstly, he'd get a room somewhere. A shower was high on his list of priorities. Getting some clothes would also be a good idea. Maybe try and find a decent dry cleaner's. Get some food. Something to drink. Drown his miseries in alcohol and get into a bar fight or two. Sleep with the pretty girl in the long skirt. Get off the fucking planet.

It was a good plan.

Jack approached an old building for the first phase of his plan. It had a long vertical sign with most of its lights out claiming "Hotel El Dorado" flickering weakly in front of it. The building looked like it had once been grand, a luxurious hotel catering to the rich and well-traveled, but had fallen hard and hadn't gotten back up. Perfect. How fucking appropriate.

Before going through the peeling double-doors of the front entrance, Jack checked his reflection in the window. Okay. So, he was mostly naked, barefoot, with leaves clinging to his tangled hair and rapidly-healing scratches twisting up his arms and face like roads on a map. Mud was clinging to his greatcoat and every inch of his skin. His eyes were tired and frighteningly haunted, surrounded by dark purple bags. He hadn't shaved since... he couldn't remember. If he kept this up he'd have a beard. Ew.

All in all, he thought he looked dashing enough to con his way into a hotel room.

Jack straightened his coat, squared his shoulders, and burst through the double-doors. He strode across the lobby to the check-in counter, and a bored receptionist looked up in surprise as he approached. Jack leaned one elbow on the counter and gave his most mind-blowing smile.

"Harkness. Captain Jack Harkness. I've had an awful day, lovely, and I'm in dire need of a bed. Your finest room, if you will. I don't know how long I'll be staying. Depends on the company, I suppose."

Jack waited. The receptionist stared.

"Okay, you're next to finest room would be fine. Just hand over the key, beautiful. I'd like to make this transaction quick. I've got important things to accomplish, you know."

The receptionist gaped. Jack fidgeted impatiently.

"Any room, really. Any one at all. Doesn't even have to be a suite! I just need the key and I'll sign and we'll all be on our way. Alright?"

The receptionist continued to gaze confusedly up at the Captain. Finally, Jack couldn't take it anymore.

"What's the matter?! Haven't you ever seen a mostly-naked man try and rent a hotel room before? Listen, I just want a goddamned room! You are a hotel, aren't you? You do have rooms, right? Well, I want one! I'm tired, muddy, and pissed off. I've been trudging through the goddamn rainforest for hours now! I slept with a prince-- who, mind you, wasn't even a crown prince, so it shouldn't even count-- got shipped off a perfectly good planet I had only just rescued from certain doom, had to spend a mind-achingly long spaceship-ride with a group of guards terrified I'd steal their virtue-- because, you know, I'd already diddled a prince! what levels would I stoop to next?-- and got booted to the last planet in the entire universe I want to be on! I'm being bloody haunted with memories of my dead... friend... lover... employee.... Ianto-- who's death, I'll have you know, I was responsible for-- and I got mud on my coat! This thing is a trademark! All I want is a room, a shower, and a shag! What is wrong with you?!"

Friend? Lover? Employee? Jack didn't do labels. Ianto was Ianto. That was enough.

Jack had jumped up somewhere in the middle of his rant and begun to flail his arms more wildly with each word. The dark-eyed receptionist was now huddled back in terror from his tirade. Finally Jack stopped, panting harshly.

"Perdóname señor," The receptionist whispered, "No hablo Inglés ."

"Oh, fuck it all!"

Jack finally managed to get a hotel room. It was rather impressive, really, seeing as he did it without money or ID or speaking the same language as the proprietors. And they always said he'd need more than charm to get through life. Hah.

He'd accomplished a good portion of his plan. He'd taken a shower, sent his coat to be cleaned, and wrangled up some decent clothes. He had thought about getting food, but as usual his stomach was too full of grief to be bothered. He still needed to find the beautiful girl he'd seen and sleep with her, get drunk, get into a fight, and leave Earth, but the night was still young.

Until then, the ceiling was occupying his attention nicely.

He'd collapsed on the bed, and hadn't moved in quite a while. The souvenir cuts the rainforest had given him were healing rather nicely, at least. He was cool and clean and comfortable. There was absolutely no need for movement. His examination of the stained ceiling continued.

"Took you long enough to come home, didn't it, sir?" A voice asked.

"Technically, I'm not home. I'm in Bolivia. And don't call me sir."

"I meant Earth, Jack. It's been bloody boring without you." Ianto explained.

Jack turned his head to the side. Ianto was sitting in the chair in his hotel room. Ianto. The dead friend/lover/employee/Ianto.

Sitting in his hotel room.

Oh, fuck.

Jack sat up quickly. "Who are you?"

"Ianto Jones. But you already knew that."

"Ianto Jones is dead."

"I know."

Jack looked at Ianto. Really looked at him.

He was wearing a suit Jack didn't recognize. Jack figured it was what he'd been buried in. He was sitting calmly and straightly in his chair, looking at Jack expectantly with familiar wide eyes.

He was also see-through.

"Are you a ghost?" Jack demanded.

"As best as I can tell." Ianto answered.

"Why are you here?" What?! What kind of question was that? Jack's brain wasn't working properly. Ianto was here. Who cared why?

Ianto blinked. "To see you, Jack."

"Are you haunting me?" Jack tried to shush the analytical part of his mind again. What was with the stupid questions? Ianto was here! And besides, that was one question he really wasn't sure he wanted the answer to.

"I don't think I'm haunting you, per se. Well, I suppose I am. But not in a creepy flickering lights and wailing noises kind of way. I just wanted to see you."

"Oh." Jack said stupidly. This was all rather hard to process. Ianto was dead. And in his hotel room.

In Bolivia.

"Yes." Ianto agreed. He certainly acted like Ianto. All the mannerisms were the same.

"Do you know that you're see-through?" Jack questioned.

"Oh. I suppose I am. I wonder..." Ianto concentrated. For a second he flickered in and out, like a TV with a bad connection. After a few moments he stilled, opaque and solid looking. Jack reached out to touch him, but drew his hand back.

"That's better." Ianto said with satisfaction once he was relatively not-dead-looking. He looked back at Jack. His eyes were full of love and fear and weariness and a hundred other things Jack couldn't grasp. Eyes of somebody who'd been in the darkness. The Nothingness.

"Ianto..."

"It's been a long time, Jack." Ianto whispered. The lights flickered. Jack looked up and then stared at the ghost with a raised eyebrow.

"Sorry," Ianto apologized embarrassedly.

Was Ianto really there? Was this some sort of alien technology fucking with him? Was this a dream? A hallucination? Had he gone mad?

Jack didn't know. And he wasn't sure he cared.

The point was, Ianto was back. Who cared about the who or how or why?

Jack had seen a lot of strange things in his rather long life. He wasn't even sure the scared ghost of his dead lover appearing in a hotel room in Bolivia counted in the top ten.

It might not have been the strangest thing to happen to Jack, but right then it felt like the best. His heart ached.

Ianto was back from the dead.