Title: More Than Just A Memory

Author: LovelyxIrony

Rating: Eventually M

Summary: Ianto Jones had only joined Torchwood Three in the hopes of saving his girlfriend and getting his life back on track. What he didn't plan on was growing to care for his team...and getting tangled up with a certain Captain Jack Harkness. Rewrite of Time Heals.

Note(s): Rewrite of Time Heals/Trials (yes after two years) because it could have been so much better. Explores their relationship more deeply, starts before "Everything Changes".

Prologue

Ianto Jones was in over his head.

Of course, when he thought about it, he'd been in over his head since the fall of Torchwood One. Watching it all fall apart before his eyes as he'd pulled his unconscious girlfriend, Lisa, from the wreckage, the Welshman had been completely unsure of what exactly he was supposed to do next. That thought hadn't seated well with him. Ianto always had a plan, or at least an idea of what he was going to do next, but in one night, he'd lost his job, a good number of his friends, and had nearly lost his girlfriend. It had taken a few weeks for Ianto to get his head on straight, and then he'd realized his solution. When he thought about it, he hadn't been able to believe that he hadn't thought about it before.

Torchwood Three in Cardiff. He had been born in Wales, had lived in Cardiff for a brief amount of time before being recruited into Torchwood. It had been the only plausible way to help Lisa - they had the tools that would help him build something to ease her pain while Ianto searched for someone, anyone, who would be able to make her completely human again. He'd known that it would be difficult to find anyone who could really "fix" her, make his girlfriend better, but Ianto would do anything he could to bring her back. She was everything to him - he had Torchwood to thank for that as the two had been working in the same department, and thanks to the same damn place he'd almost lost her. It had scared the hell out of him.

To think that not so long ago, Ianto and Lisa had been discussing their future together. That, for weeks before the fall of Torchwood One, Ianto had carried an engagement ring in his jacket pocket and they'd been talking about finding a house and if it was a good idea to have kids.

Getting her into the Hub hadn't been easy once the conversion unit, which would sustain Lisa for the time being, had been installed in the basement. The team was almost always milling about, the occasional person staying later than expected, and more than once Ianto had run directly into his boss as he was trying to make sure everyone really was gone. It had at first made Ianto a little suspicious that Jack had an idea of what was going on, but then surely the man would have confronted him. He'd decided it was just his own bad luck. Finally, a week after he'd joined Torchwood, the team had been out late dealing with some alien spaceship and Ianto had then gotten enough time to run back, get Lisa ready, and bring her into the Hub. He'd taken the time to learn how to avoid the cameras scattered throughout the place, and it had paid off in the end.

A month had passed since that time and now Ianto was in the basement, seated in a chair next to the conversion unit and watching Lisa closely. It was late at night and he'd come up with an excuse to stay later than he had to in order to make sure his girlfriend was doing fine. Despite the fact that the machines that were recording her vitals reported everything was going well, Ianto couldn't help but worry.

With a small sigh, the Welshman reached a hand out and brushed his fingers along his girlfriend's cheek slowly, avoiding the metal that surrounded her face. There was no reaction from her, not that Ianto had expected any with the high amount of pain medication she was under, but it still sent a nervous thrill through his body and he took a deep breath to try and get himself under control again.

"I'll fix this, Lisa. I swear to you."