Jack's knock seemed hollow in the silence of the hall.
'It's open'. Was the quiet reply from behind the door.
Jack took a deep breath and pushed open the door to reveal Ianto's apartment. He'd never been so apprehensive about entering before. But then, he'd never done what he was about to do before. Things like that tended to make Jack nervous. Mainly because there weren't an awful lot of things he hadn't done at least once in his lifetime. And this was definitely one of those situations.
The apartment looked the same as before he'd left, everything neat and tidy, organised down to the alphabetically arranged paperbacks on the bookcase beside the door.
It sounded the same, a slight whirring coming from the old heating system, which on the rare occasion ceased to work entirely. It smelt the same, like Ianto: coffee with the slightest hint of cinnamon, vanilla and cotton.
But it felt wrong. Little things. Things you wouldn't normally notice in a room when first you entered. Ianto's almost obsessive-compulsive affinity with cleanliness seemed to have dissipated somewhat during the time he'd been away: a layer of dust blanketed the shelves, tables and the floor. Coffee mugs had been left standing on the kitchen counter, something that never happened in Ianto's private sanctuary.
An air of abandonment and emptiness seemed to enclose the once warm, welcoming room, as though nobody had been living there much for some time.
Jack noticed for the first time he was the only one in the room.
'Ianto?' He called, making the name a question.
'In here.' Came a subdued answer from the closet-sized bedroom.
The bedroom was dark. Curtains stood closed against the harsh glare of the streetlamps outside. Ianto lay on the bed, fully clothed, having only removed his suit jacket and shoes, the faint glow from the window silhouetting his slight figure. Neither of them moved. Neither of them spoke.
Jack ran his fingers through his ragged hair; he hadn't had time to get a proper cut. Martha had done the best she could with a pair of paper scissors, just so he could see again without a mop of hair swamping his eyes, but he hadn't had time to assess the results in a mirror yet.
Ianto's face was completely devoid of emotion in the faint light. Jack wasn't sure if that was a good sign or not. Surely he wouldn't have left the door open if he hadn't wanted you to come in. Jack thought to himself. Or maybe he was just being polite. Or maybe he just didn't want the neighbours to hear.
He wasn't sure which would be worse: Ianto welcoming him back with forgiving arms, or Jack being greeted with a cold silence or harsh words. Part of him wanted Ianto to scream at him. Tell Jack it was all his fault, and slam the door in his face. But the other part of him was just so relieved to see Ianto.
He's alive. Jack thought to himself. That's all that matters. He can scream at you, tell you he hates you. But he's still alive. That's all that matters.
Neither has spoken to each other much today in the hub. A polite thankyou, when Ianto had brought Jack coffee, along with some paperwork that required his attention. A sentence here and there, but only the minimum conversation that was required to deal with the task at hand. They had been ignoring each other all day. Pretending nothing was wrong. The blank polite faces of co-workers hiding the sea of emotions each were feeling. But now they were alone. And Jack was scared.
'Are you going to say anything, or just stand there, sir?' The first words spoken in the long minutes Jack had been standing there.
'I thought we'd gotten past all that formal shit', was Jack's reply, trying to ease the tension thick in the air between them.
'We had'. Ianto's voice was quiet in the dim twilight, as though he didn't trust himself to speak.
'What happened?' The words leaving Jack's mouth before he had a chance to swallow them back down again.
'Three months. Three months happened, Jack. Three months with you gone'.
Jack didn't know how to reply to that.
'You were just gone, Jack. No goodbyes, no phone calls.' Jack heard a sigh in the dark. 'God, would it have killed you to send a single bloody postcard?'
'Would it have helped if I had?'
'I don't know, Jack. Might have. Was is so good out there, away from all of us, that you couldn't even check in once?'
Jack swallowed. 'Time sought of got away from me. I'm sorry'.
'You're sorry? Three months gone without a trace. And you're sorry, Jack?'
Jack winced, but remained silent.
'I think we're a bit past that now'. Ianto was kneeling on the bed now, anger animating his face. 'Anything could have happened to you and we wouldn't have known. Wouldn't have known what to do, where to look for you if something had gone wrong. And you're sorry? Thank God the rift has been quiet, or we'd all be knee deep in I don't know what by now.'
The anger in Ianto's voice made his accent thick, letters rolling over each other in his rush to get the words out.
'God, Jack. You could have died, and we wouldn't have known'.
'I did'.
Silence filled the small room again. Ianto slumped back down on the bed, realising what he had said.
'And what else did you do? Did you find your Doctor? Can he fix you?'
'The fact that I'm here, and not still dead should give you the answer to that'.
Jack's voice was quiet, emotion seeping through the words. Not anger. He just felt so tired. His legs suddenly feeling weak, he slid to the floor, leaning against the side of the bed. He put his face into his hands.
'I found him. I found him. And no, he can't fix me.' Jack sighed. 'He doesn't know what happened to me, why I'm the way I am. Only that I'm wrong, and he can't do anything about it, and he can't fix it'.
He felt the bed behind him move. To his surprise, Jack felt Ianto slide to the floor beside him, wrapping an arm around Jack's shoulders.
'You're not wrong, Jack. Just different'.
Jack laughed weakly, tentatively leaning his head into Ianto's warm shoulder.
'Maybe I'm not. But I'm definitely not right'.
Jack felt Ianto's hands stroking his head. Slow. Soothing. Nothing sexual, nothing implied. Just comfort. He turned and leant his upper body against Ianto's, the false impression of strength, of bravery he'd been holding up for the last twelve hours slipping away. Leaving him tired, and weak. But mostly just tired.
He wrapped his arms around Ianto's slim waist. Leaning his face into his chest, inhaling the smell of his shirt. The smell of clean cotton, with the slight undertone of soap and masculinity. Of purely Ianto. It smelt like home.
Ianto reached down, catching Jack's face in between his large hands, forcing him to look up, to meet his eyes. Jack smiled weakly.
'This wasn't the reception I was expecting'.
Ianto didn't reply rubbing his fingers over Jack's cheek. Jack shivered slightly. Moving out of Ianto's hands, he wrapped himself around the other man's chest again.
'Aren't you going to tell me where you were?' Ianto felt Jack grip onto him tighter. As though Ianto was going to get up and leave. As though he was going to disappear.
'What happened to you, Jack?' Ianto whispered against Jack's hair.
Jack was silent for so long that Ianto wasn't sure he had heard him speak. What happened next shocked Ianto more than any answer could have.
He felt Jack's shoulders shudder. Noises Ianto could only describe as sobs, seemed to resonate through Jack's entire body, leaving him shaking. Jack Harkness was crying.
Ianto half-pulled the almost hysterical man up from the floor onto the bed, where he wrapped his arms around him, rocking the two of them back and forth, back and forth. He whispered small sounds into Jack's ear, soothing him, trying to ease the pain he was obviously in: 'Shhhh, Jack, don't cry, it's okay. I'm here, you're okay, don't cry, Jack'.
After Jack's sobs gradually subsided into whimpers, Ianto laid them both back against the pillows, pulling a blanket from the end of the bed over the two of them.
They lay there in silence for what seemed to be hours, just listening to each other's breathing. Ianto didn't know what to say. Didn't know what to do. Jack was the one to break through the quiet, to speak first.
'You were dead Ianto. And I killed you'.