Author's Notes: When I started writing this I thought that this fic would be the end of me and here we are now. I took great pleasure in writing it, but I also have great expectations of it, it holds many firsts for me (pre-Doctor Jack and a threesome just to name a few) and it's two in the morning, so I hope you like it. I'm really kind of nervous about it, so feedback would be greatly appreciated.

When Ianto finally came back to his senses, his face was burning under a sun that felt about three times more powerful than anything Cardiff had ever seen. He wanted to get up and hide from it as quickly as possible – he knew from past experiences that his abnormally pale skin didn't take it well – and that was when he heard the voice.

It sounded like a young woman and, since it was a one-sided conversation, he assumed that she was talking on the phone. "I found him, yes. A human male, looks to be in his early twenties, dark hair, dressed in a suit. Who wears a suit nowadays?"

"Some of the oddballs in Branch Seven," another voice said on the other end of the line. "I like that description."

"I bet you do." There was a healthy amount of fond annoyance in the woman's voice.

"Seriously, though, if you're bringing him here, I'm calling dibs on that."

"You are not. I saw him first." Ianto tried – and didn't succeed completely – to smother the small gasp he let out when his memories hit him all of a sudden. "Hey, I think he's waking up. Talk to you later."

No point in pretending now. Ianto sighed and opened his eyes.

The woman was young, just like he had thought – maybe just a couple of years older than him – with chocolate hair and warm brown eyes. "Are you okay?"

"Yes." Ianto's voice was raspy, as if he hadn't spoken for days. "Yes, I'm fine."

He sat up and looked around himself. The scenery resembled a desert and he immediately knew that he wasn't on Earth – the sun was much closer and the sky was just a bit too blue; the bright colour almost making his eyes water .

"Who are you?" Her tone was full of mistrust and Ianto knew that he had to think fast. He'd fallen through the Rift. They'd been investigating Rift activity as it happened and he'd got just a bit too close. Jack had handed him his Vortex Manipulator in the last second in a desperate hope that he would be able to come back somehow if he had it.

Jack! The woman had been talking with Jack! If he could get to him, he could get home. And if not that, he could at least survive here.

"Jones," he said at last. "Ianto Jones. What about you?"

"Clara Oswin. Are you hurt?" When Ianto just shook his head, she went on. "Are you the one they sent from the Delta Vista branch? We weren't expecting you to arrive quite like that."

Ianto's eyes darted to Clara's wrist and the Vortex Manipulator there – a Time Agent, then – and he felt the beginnings of a plan coming up. "Yes, it's me." He grimaced as he lifted his own device. "This got burned up; I could barely make the trip."

"I'm sorry!" She sounded like she meant it; more out of panic than anything else. "Please don't tell Mr Maxwell about this. He wanted us to be as welcoming as possible, and we forgot to turn the shields off. That was probably what damaged your Manipulator. We'll have to do something about replacing it when we get in."

"It's nothing," Ianto assured. "No harm done, right? Now, if you could take me back to your base–"

"Of course." Clara nodded curtly. "Follow me."

o.O.o

The most pressing issue right now was getting rid of the actual agent from the other branch. The poor guy was probably on his way right now, but he'd asked Clara about the shield and she'd told him all about it, from which he gathered just enough to know that if it hadn't been from the Rift, he would have never landed. Which meant that this was already taken care of.

"Why are you in a lockdown?" He asked as they made their way to the Agency.

"Oh, you know," Clara said with a sigh. "The Rift. Someone opened it here months ago and we're still trying to find the source." She laughed mirthlessly. "Actually, scratch that. We deny that there's anything wrong and close ourselves from the inside."

"You're not happy about it, though, are you?" Ianto ventured tentatively.

"Of course not!" Clara exclaimed. "It's ridiculous. Some of us are trying to do something about it, but it's difficult when we get no support from the authorities."

"And there's Rift activity, I suppose," he said. Finally something familiar, Ianto thought ruefully when she nodded. It seemed to be a Universal rule – where there is Ianto Jones, Rift activity is soon to follow.

"And here we are," she said suddenly and it snapped him out of his thoughts.

Ianto was looking up at a four-storey mansion of sorts with a main entrance in the front and big enough to take about a hundred rooms. There were several additional buildings spread all around the yard and Ianto found it a bit difficult to take it all in with his eyes.

"Not what you were expecting, is it?" Clara asked with a small smile.

"Not quite," he said quietly. "Where do I need to check in?"

"Mr Maxwell isn't here, so you've just got to log into the system."

Perfect, Ianto thought. If there was one thing he could always do with little to no effort, it was insert himself into any system he didn't actually belong in.

Clara led him the way to the main office and waited outside for him as Ianto methodically entered himself first into Delta Vista's system as their newly employed agent and then transferred himself to what – after a quick check – proved to be the one on Cordia II. Never let it be said that Torchwood employees left the place without any idea how to function elsewhere.

The detail in the application form went into some rather disturbing level of invasion of privacy, but Ianto didn't mind. He had to fill everything out if he wanted to fit in and he even gave himself a room with one occupant on the fourth floor. He wanted somewhere to stay, but it was better not to be alone. He had to have someone to guide him here so he could learn as much as possible for minimum time wasted.

"You ready?" Clara asked and he nodded. "Good. Now we need to get you a new wrist strap. This thing is beyond repair."

As it turned out, even that involved several tests and finally he was handed a new, bigger one (and wouldn't he just love to share that little titbit with Jack if he ever came home) and a key card to his room.

"The food is sent three times a day to your room through the mini teleport and it's specifically balanced for your biological needs. The mini teleport is also used for receiving assignments without having to go to Mr Maxwell's office. The bathrooms are that way," Clara said, pointing ahead of them. "We both are in need of a shower, and you need to get a uniform. You're attracting attention."

Ianto felt compelled to ask why he wouldn't want to, but then decided not to push his already questionable luck.

The bathrooms were communal. Not that he had much of a problem with that – the situation had been the same in One and Three – but there had been at least sorting into men and women (although he suspected that, given that Torchwood had mostly been worked for by perverts all through the years, it had been more of a way of stopping them from doing anything they shouldn't than to protect their nonexistent modesty). Clara told him that all the rooms had small bathrooms for their additional needs, but the shower they'd need after every mission had to happen here.

"Now, are you ready to face your roommate?"

"Am I?" Ianto asked and she smiled just as he told her his room number. The smile died quickly.

"Oh dear." She seemed genuinely distressed. "You'll need a lot of luck here."

"Will I?" Ianto was suddenly on guard. "Who is it?"

"You'll meet him in a second," Clara said with a light-hearted pat on the shoulder. "Look, before you arrived, I was told that my next assignment is going to be with the guy from Delta Vista. Which means that you're given three hours to settle in before we've got to be at the main entrance downstairs. Think you can make it?"

"Well, who knows," Ianto deadpanned, lifting up his hands. "How can I sort out all that luggage in three hours?"

Clara gave a short laugh. "You know," she said. "I think you'll fit right in."

Ianto said his goodbyes and then followed the directions his newly acquired wrist strap gave him to his room. It was on the fourth floor, up through a good old fashioned set of curved stairs and then down a long corridor. He wondered how many agents there were here – if there were at least two beds in each room, apparently, which meant a greater capacity than he'd imagined.

He briefly wondered, as he took out his key card, whether he could get Clara to let him into the group of people that were all for investigating the Rift. Maybe if they managed it, he'd be able to get home sooner than he'd expected. Or get home, period.

The walls were painted in light blue and the small windows were letting in the even bluer light from outside. It was the first and only thing he noticed before the occupant of the room made himself known. "Oh, so you're the new one, aren't you?" Ianto's eyes darted to the bed where a man was laying down with his hands under his head. "Clara sent me a message to tell me that I'll be having company."

And really, Ianto though as he managed to unfreeze himself out of his shock and threw the key card on the free bed on the opposite end of the room, it would be just his luck.

o.O.o

"I'm Jack," Jack said as he sat up with apparent reluctance. "And you are?"

"Ianto," he said curtly. No reason to give him another name, he thought, especially since Jack had never mentioned anything about that to him. Maybe he'd been forced to forget it somehow and it was better to not to give him too much that could trigger his memory and create a paradox.

"What's with the accent?" Before Ianto could respond, Jack grimaced. "Don't tell me. You're from Velzia, aren't you?"

"Yes," Ianto said, finally self-assured in what he was talking about. Velzia was a planet he'd read about in the Archives back home. It had an opening to the Rift and a lot of things had fallen, and Ianto had made it his special project to place what he had. It had become a human colony in 4823 and had progressed wonderfully from there. The locals were beings of quartz and water and the humans had been a small part of the population of Starship UK – mostly the Welsh, which made Jack's explication to himself understandable. He even had photos from it and had been so fascinated with it that he could easily go around saying that it was his home planet.

"I've been there once. Full of idiots, that place," Jack continued. "Don't even have a branch of the Agency, so I had to talk to the local ambassador."

"At least my colony doesn't consist of five people and a Khtaii bird," Ianto sneered in response and then mentally slapped himself. He was used to engaging in verbal wars with Jack and knew about his planet from the Captain's own stories, but this wasn't his Jack. It wasn't even close to him and Ianto saw his eyes hardening at the comment when normally he would have shot back something immediately.

Now that Ianto took a good look at him, he quickly noted all the differences. This Jack was younger, clearly so – perhaps around thirty – and looked at the same time more burdened and somehow lighter than before.

"Ever been to Boeshane Peninsula, Ianto?" He asked, voice deceptively calm. Ianto shook his head. "Then shut it. I'm sick of the assholes here who think that I'm worth less than you just because of my birthplace."

"I didn't mean it like that," Ianto protested. "And you started it." Really, it had been a matter of national pride, given that Velzia was his country transferred in outer space.

"God, you people are so touchy," Jack said, but it was clear that he was giving in. "Your uniform arrived and you've got an assignment in nearly two hours, so I'd suggest you got going. They didn't send breakfast for you, though."

"It's okay," Ianto assured. "I'm not a breakfast person."

"No?" Jack asked, narrowing his eyes. "I thought Delta Vista did these things the same way we do."

"They do," Ianto said carefully. "I just don't eat it."

"Well, you should. The food here is–"

"–specifically balanced for your biological needs," Ianto intoned. "Yeah, I know." He took the uniform out of Jack's hands and took his clothes off without thinking much about it. He knew that he wasn't dealing with the Jack he knew here, but he still wasn't all that uncomfortable with getting his clothes off and realised that hiding in the bathroom would have been seen as a weakness. He was well aware of the pair of eyes focused on him as he took his suit off and tossed every bit of it in the corner – it was clearly not going to be useful around here.

"You're too thin," Jack commented and Ianto tried to resist the urge to roll his eyes. Three millennia and a thousand light years away, and yet here he was, about to have the exact same argument he had every day. "There's muscle too, yeah, but you're mostly just wiry."

"I get the point, thank you," Ianto snapped. He didn't like the way Jack was looking at him; assessing him as if he was trying to decide that he'd be potentially dangerous or helpful. He'd apparently settled on the latter, because the next question was, "What are you best at?"

"Running and shooting. It's proved to be enough until now." Suspicion took over him. "Why do you want to know?"

Jack shrugged. "I talked to Clara after she sent you on your way up here."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. And she said you could be useful."

"Useful for?" Ianto asked as he zipped up his jacket. The uniform was a perfect fit and he supposed that they'd made it by the measurements he'd set in the system, which made him wonder how much personnel this place had. Who could make a uniform for an hour and a half?

"Us. She must have told you about the Rift."

"She did," Ianto admitted. "And I'd like to help, of course. I think that putting a lockdown on an entire planet is a bit overdone for Rift activity."

"How would you know?" Jack asked immediately and Ianto made a mental note to keep his guard up. If there was someone here who could figure him out, it would be Jack. "Oh, yeah. You've got a permanent opening there on Velzia."

"We've got teams that deal with everything that falls through," Ianto said. It wasn't exactly a lie and this time, he was spared the supsicious looks. "But a planet that's unaccustomed to dealing with it might suffer a lot from it, so I'm all for investigating it."

"Good," Jack nodded. "You might as well go get your equipment. What are you usually used to working with?"

Ianto was well aware that a small semi-automatic from the nineties wouldn't have been the right response, as dear as it was to his heart. "A sonic blaster. I'm pretty flexible with weapons, though."

"Get yourself tested for them, then," Jack said. "They'll have sent the whole package up by the time you're back from your assignment."

o.O.o

"That was a test, wasn't it?" Ianto asked as they made their way back into the building. Clara sent him a questioning look. "This whole thing. He wanted to see how I would do. Jack, that is, not the boss."

"He probably did, yes," Clara was apparently not the type to beat around the bush, which was just fine with him. Torchwood One had gave him military training and he had no illusions that the Time Agency was anything short of an army. "I might have told him that you were interested in the Rift and he was sceptical at first, but I think he's getting there."

"And what about you? Do you think that I could be useful?"

"You're good," she conceded and then stopped him in his tracks. They were twenty feet away from Ianto's room and she looked around before leaning in. "But there's something else you are. Not from Delta Vista. I won't tell anyone," she assured when Ianto's eyes widened. "I just want to know what's going on here."

Ianto didn't see any point in lying any longer. "I fell through the Rift. Not dying was sheer luck, really, and finding this place was a miracle."

"And what about the Vortex Manipulator?"

"It's his." Ianto nodded to the room. "Well, future-him's anyway. He handed it to me right before I fell."

"It must be difficult for you," Clara said quietly. "You know, not slipping up with anything you shouldn't know."

"It is," Ianto shrugged. "But I can deal with it. You coming?"

"Sure," she smiled. "We've got things to discuss if you're joining us."

"You and Jack are the ones opposing the system?" Ianto asked, not without a decent amount of dread. When she nodded, he tried not to let hopelessness take over him. "Great. Now I'll have to work with Jack before he's even became Jack."

"Exactly," Clara said, firmly steering him towards the door. "If you want to get home, you'll have to work with what you've got."

o.O.o

"You can have it if you want," Ianto said after the fifth time Jack had glanced at his food longingly – and, specifically, at the chicken steak that he'd pushed away in favour of the boiled corn. "I hate meat."

"You've got to eat it," Jack said and stared at his own plate – baked potatoes and carrots. "According to the records, you apparently need more protein in your system."

"Wanna swap them?" he offered. "I'd like yours better."

Jack seemed to contemplate that for a moment before shrugging and handing his own food to him.

"You're really not supposed to do that, you know," Clara commented from her place at the edge of Ianto's bed. "What you're getting is supposed to keep you fully functioning in the field."

Ianto scoffed. "Back home I lived off soups and coffee and I've never had any trouble with it."

"Soups are inconvenient to make," Clara shot back immediately. "And we only get coffee or hot cocoa if we've done something especially well. Any other preferences? Jack's a meat person and I'd like anything sweet you can give me."

"I like nuts and fruits," Ianto said."No vegetables, though. Can't stand them."

"My apple for your corn?" Clara offered.

"Deal."

Things were significantly easier with her in the room, Ianto noted. Jack was more comfortable around her and Ianto couldn't exactly blame him – even his own Jack was paranoid enough to be suspicious of a guy that turns up from nowhere with knowledge he shouldn't really have, and only God knew how this version of him would feel.

Ianto would have been lying if he said he didn't feel like he was talking to a stranger. This Jack was younger, yes, and different, but there was something else here. Something missing, as if he wasn't quite finished yet. Ianto could make a daring guess as to what that something was. After all, Jack had always said that travelling with the Doctor had made him a new man and had shown him that the Universe could be good; that life didn't necessarily hate him. This was Jack who had yet to see that not everything out there was meant to make him suffer.

"So you want to help?" Jack asked through a mouthful of meat. That hadn't changed all that much, Ianto thought. "What's in it for you?"

"What's in it for you?" Ianto countered. "I'm living here now; I've been transferred. And I would like to come and go when I want to without nearly dying, which is how I arrived."

"No one else can know about this, do you understand?" He insisted and Ianto rolled his eyes.

"No, Captain, I work for the Time Agency and have yet to learn how to keep a secret."

Jack's hand stiffened over his plate. "What did you call me?"

"Nothing, I..." Ianto took a deep breath and shook his head, mostly annoyed by himself. "Nothing. I was being sarcastic."

"He's no good at sarcasm," Clara put in and Ianto could have kissed her. "Don't even try."

"Don't I know it," Ianto muttered under his breath and, as soon as the attention was away from him, went back to his lunch.

o.O.o

"Don't think the Agency will help you," Jack said quietly and Ianto chanced a look in Clara's direction. Her eyes were wide open and she seemed unable to look away. "Nobody knows where we are."

The woman in the chair whimpered and Ianto saw Clara clench her fists. In the last three months they'd been working together, he'd come to recognise the gesture as I don't approve of this. And he couldn't honestly say that he didn't sympathise.

"It's no use, Jack," he said. "Even if she knows something, she won't tell us."

"Just give me time, okay?" Jack snapped, turning to him and ignoring another small moan of pain coming from their captive. "Don't tell me how to do my job."

"I will if you're not doing it right!" Ianto returned, gesturing to the several scars from Jack's knife and blaster all over the woman's abdomen. "What you're doing is–"

"What?" Jack challenged, standing up and looking him dead in the eye. "Inhumane? Bad? Cruel?"

Ianto closed his eyes for a second, swallowed, and said goodbye to whatever had been left from his humanity. "Ineffective. Give me that." He took the knife from Jack's unresponsive hands. "You're healing her wounds; of course she's going to stand it." Ianto gritted his teeth and dragged the edge of the knife over the woman's reddened skin until he was sure it had dug deep enough to hurt at least for a while, then took Jack's blaster and set it to the option that released just enough nanogenes to heal it skin deep. "Feel that?" He asked quietly. "I can do it all day. And do you know what happens if the wound can't breathe?" The woman shook her head. "It doesn't heal. Do you want me to keep going?" Another shake of the head, more frantic this time. "Then tell me what you know. I'll let you go, I promise. Your people will never know that it was you who gave them away."

"I'm sorry," she said, voice so weak that Ianto could barely hear her. "I don't know anything about the Rift. It never got down to people like me."

"Then who runs it all?" Ianto asked and lifted the knife, making sure that her eyes followed the movement. "Who's in charge of it all and why are they doing it?"

"I don't know, I'm sorry," the woman sobbed and Ianto almost gave in. Almost. "My husband joined in months ago, and he asked me to come with him. He'd taken a vow of secrecy and we were constantly monitored."

"Just tell me a name, any name," Ianto insisted and gripped the knife. "It's the only thing I need and I'll let you go."

"I can't, I'm sorry–"

"Just tell me!"

"Leave her alone!"

Ianto turned around to see Clara kneel down next to him and look right at the woman. "Can you tell me just one thing? We'll let you go after that, I promise. What did your husband join?"

"I think it's a religious cult of sorts," the woman said quietly, sagging in her chair as if her will to fight had left her now that one of her captors was being careful with her. "I don't think it has a name. They believe that the Rift will cleanse the world of all evil."

"Bloody idiots," Ianto muttered. The woman flinched back at the sound of his voice and Clara glared at him until he stepped back into the shadows next to Jack.

Minutes later, their captive had been released and they were preparing to leave the small abandoned building they'd used for the occasion. They were confident enough in their own ability to keep it all in secret to be completely unprepared when the woman's backup came bursting in.

o.O.o

The first thing Ianto heard when he came back to his senses was, "I hate him."

"No, you don't," Clara said patiently.

"Bloody little fucker," Jack grumbled. "Thinks he knows everything."

"He was doing his job," she reminded gently. "And he did it well. He saved my life."

"By throwing himself in front of you, yeah." Jack's voice was muffled and Ianto supposed that he'd hidden his face in his hands. "Very dramatic. Big damn hero. I bet all the girls love that."

"You're just pissed off because you're worried and you don't want to be." Clara's tone was good-natured, but Ianto could feel the amusement lacing it. "You actually like him."

"One arrogant self-absorbed jerk per group is enough, thank you," Jack retorted. "He drives me mad sometimes."

"You love it."

"I do not." There was a pause. "Have you seen those cheekbones, though?"

Ianto decided that it was about time he made his wakefulness known before the conversation went into an even more disturbing territory. He knew that Jack found him attractive, of course, and they'd started sleeping together about a month ago. It had been inevitable, really, and Ianto liked to tell himself that it would have happened with anyone. Two men who were perpetually angry at each other had too much pent up frustration to not start something.

Just as he opened his eyes, two heads wearing identical expectant expressions came into focus. He smiled. "It's always good to wake up to someone pretty staring at you."

"Thank you," Jack said.

"Pity you're in sight," Ianto added and then gave a small, slightly pained laugh when Clara's forehead hit the side of the hospital bed.

"Shut it, both of you," she said hastily. "Jack, Mr Maxwell wants an explanation, so go give it to him. Cover story is, we were investigating a group of alien drug dealers. I'll help Ianto upstairs."

Jack gave a curt nod and disappeared.

Just a few minutes later, Clara and Ianto made their way back to the room. The bigger part of Ianto's body was hurting and she occasionally made him stop and rest so he wouldn't have to strain his cracked rib.

"You know that you'll likely never get back home now," she said as they slowly walked up the stairs. Ianto shrugged as much as he could with the bandages over his chest.

"I've accepted that fact about a week after I arrived."

"What was it like?" Clara asked softly. "Home?"

"Cardiff?" Ianto smiled. "It's wet and cold and grey and I miss it so much. There's a reason people like me are not born in the desert." He hated the constant sun and the heat and the sand, but he was adapting to it - the too-blue sky wasn't hurting his eyes any longer, the sun seemed just the right size and even the burns on his skin weren't that bad any more. It was how he'd got this far - the reluctant survivor of every tragedy life threw at him.

"Why are you still so eager to find out how to control it, though? There's nothing you can get out from it now." Clara seemed genuinely puzzled.

Ianto gave a small laugh. "For me, it's business as usual. Control the Rift and everything that falls from it. It's what I do." Even in London, it had always been that. Find the aliens, catch them, save the people. Everything he'd ever done was always for the people.

"You'll give up the life you've had back on Earth so you can help the locals of a planet you landed on by accident?" There was enough disbelief in Clara's voice to make Ianto feel just the slightest bit offended.

"Of course. Protecting the locals is my job; has been since I was nineteen. It doesn't matter where. If I can help, yes, of course I'd stay."

Clara twisted around to face him and Ianto forced himself to stop. She was just a step ahead of him and, while she still didn't have a vantage point over him, it was enough for their eyes to meet and for him to see the stunned disbelief of the look she gave him before she kissed him.

It was enough to make him forget the fact that everything in his body was hurting; it was different from any other kiss he'd had. The graceful power of her presence had always been something Ianto had found slightly intoxicating and it was on with full force now – her kiss was focused and demanding and yet her small hands and long fingers were framing his face with unnerving delicacy, as if she was leaning onto him for support and was afraid she'd break him at the same time.

And, for the first time in months, Ianto realised that he'd been missing a piece too.

o.O.o

"So?" Jack asked, looking up from his book as Ianto came in. "How did it go?"

"Magnificently," Ianto said, pointing at the bleeding wound on his arm. He waves off the incoming questions at Jack's alarmed look. "I'm fine; they said it'd heal quickly enough."

"For the hundredth time..." Jack started, but Ianto cut him off.

"...be more careful. Don't try to be clever when you should be shooting things. Yeah, I know." He rummaged through his nightstand and started playing with the settings of the sonic blaster he'd just thrown on his bed. "What?" he asked when Jack glared at him, even though he knew that what the look clearly wanted to tell him was, quit stalling "If we'd kept that up much longer, we could have mutually annoyed sex. And I don't think that this is what you had in mind."

Over the past several months – half a year, actually – the ice between them had finally melted enough for them to slip up into what they'd had before Ianto had fallen through the Rift. He didn't think much of home anymore; the Time Agency was equally as good for him now.

And of course, there had always been a distinct lack of something in Cardiff that he had here.

"Come on, then," Clara put in, snatching the blaster from his hands and turning it off. "You promised."

"I'm hurt," Ianto whined, extending his arm towards her. "You're supposed to kiss it better, not make me–"

"You did promise, though," Jack conceded and Ianto gave an exasperated sigh – that was mostly just for show, as the three of them very well knew – before leaning down to kiss Jack full on the lips. He'd never thought of sex as doing a performance for someone else and he'd thought that it'd feel intrusive and detached, but it didn't. It was just like usual; like when he was with Clara or with Jack, doing everything he had – wanted - to, just to please them both.

And really, he decided as Jack brought him down on the bed and unzipped his uniform jacket and he saw Clara's smile with the corner of his eye, for the first time in a long while, everything was just fine.