A/N; Hello, thanks for venturing in! This idea just wouldn't leave me alone, so I thought I'd present it to you for your, (hopeful), enjoyment. I wasn't planning on posting it now but I have just had the day from Hell and in an attempt to turn it into something productive I got down to writing. Just to warn you it may come across as a bit of a bitch-fic to start with, but there's no, (intentional), character-bashing here. Just stick with it.

Disclaimer; Torchwood and it's characters aren't mine – I couldn't afford to feed them.

Summary; Mid-Adrift, the others confront Ianto over what he knows. Slightly AU to the episode; it's been a while since I saw it now but I think it's pretty close aside from that. If not don't worry, there's some Jack/Ianto in here to keep you sweet!

'Ianto, could I have a word?'

'Sure, just give me a second Gwen.'

Ianto rearranged the copious amount of files he was carrying and followed Gwen through the door, figuring, 'a word', wasn't going to take long.

Of course he wouldn't have agreed had he known he was going to walk into what he pictured an intervention to look like, having only ever seen them on television. He'd already set down the files before he noticed the bizzare scene, and tried to imagine what substance they could want to keep him from. He barely even drank coffee.

The triad of Gwen, Owen and Tosh looked back at him as he smiled nervously. Something had to be going on to trigger the vague amusement in Owen's eyes and Tosh' refusal to look at him as Gwen stood front and centre; "PC Cooper" expression firmly in place. He wondered for a second if he'd fallen asleep at his desk, and was somewhat disappointed to think this was the best his subconscious could muster.

For an awkward moment no one spoke, and then Gwen started.

'I've been researching all those people who went missing– I know Jack told me not to, but it felt important.'

She paused, and by her tone of voice seemed to be expecting a defensive response. Uncertain as to where this was headed Ianto simply nodded and waited for her to carry on, reserving judgement for the time the point of this speech became apparent.

It only got stranger in progress. Owen and Tosh chipped in once or twice, but it didn't take a genius to see that Gwen was behind this. He realised pretty quickly that they were deadly serious, even speaking in that slightly structured manner that indicated they'd rehearsed the words, frequently anticipating responses he hadn't given. For his part he just listened to Gwen's theory, nodding every now and then for effect and trying to keep from cracking up at how ridiculous it all was. From what he could gather, they'd taken Jack's suspicious behaviour on the matter as license to investigate themselves, and they were under the impression that due to the nature of his relationship with Jack he would know the truth. They didn't say it explicitly, instead alluding to the fact that he spent a lot of time in the hub, 'around', Jack, but Ianto was far from stupid. He could read the subtext as clearly as he knew they were thinking it.

Unaware of how much she was offending him, Gwen eventually brought her spiel to a close.

'Ianto, if there's something going on here that we need to know about, you can tell us.'

She was being genuine. She'd outlined her reasons, her sources, what she would do if her conclusion was the case.. All that was missing was an overhead projector and some supporting slides showing Jack in a shadowy pose.

In fairness to Gwen, she'd correctly pinpointed and zeroed in on Ianto as the person most likely to know the answer aside from Jack. Her execution was flawless, but her motives were all off. Yes he knew what was going on with the disappearances, but it wasn't because of his connection to Jack. If anything he marveled at her ability to reach the right conclusion with the wrong information, it was quite a skill. One he might have found amusing if he weren't currently talking to a wall of his, 'friends', very sincerely attempting to illicit a confession out of him for something he'd never done.

After everything they'd been through, they seriously thought he was helping Jack in what was essentially a kidnapping scandal, all because he was sleeping with him. It was hilarious.

He looked at Gwen questioningly to gauge if she was done, and she nodded encouragingly. At some point he'd sat down, having lost the will to stay level with her once he realised he really had nothing to defend.

The three of them were watching for his reaction, and not wanting to disappoint he sat back heavily and sighed like it was all a lot to take in.

'Yes,' he stated simply.

Gwen nodded again, 'Go on.'

'Yes. You caught me.' He took a deep breath as if this were hard for him to say, which it was, but only because he had to stop himself from laughing. 'Jack and I are going to be the first people to take over the world through the cunning use of special sauce.'

He kept his voice so perfectly deadpan that it took a second before Gwen faltered and Owen rolled his eyes, which only made him press on.

'We've been kidnapping workers in order to manufacture more bottles.'

Tosh winced at his blatant sarcasm. 'Ianto–'

'No, Tosh it's too late, it's out in the open now.' He sighed again. 'Of course you'll have to arrest Myfanwy too.'

Tosh looked away and he felt guilty for a second; he'd no doubt the she'd been talked into this after all, but being ganged-up on like this was bringing out a sarcastic colour in him. He took her reaction onboard and decided to cut to the chase before the situation could get any further out of hand.

Shaking his head incredulously, he asked a question he knew he was going to regret.

'What do you think my job is?'

Deafening silence.

Good to know the rant about how they never asked after him had hit home.

'Seriously?'

Gwen tried to regain her composure. 'You're the administrator.'

'Exactly! Everything that happens here goes through me, there is nothing going on in this place that I don't know about.' He looked straight at Gwen and Owen, letting them know they had no place commenting on relationships in the workplace. 'Jack and I are nothing to do with it.' He stood up and gathered his files, all humour evaporated. 'Or with any of you.'

That was a personal note to leave it on, and he found he didn't care, having switched long ago from bemusement to disgust. He left without another word and wasn't surprised when they didn't call after him. Embarrassment had a way of silencing people. He heard them start to argue as he walked away – he assumed they believed him, and reflected bitterly how stupid they were if they did, given his successful history in lying to his coworkers. They were right not to trust him, just not for the reasons they thought; the fact he'd only ever betrayed them out of good intentions was irrelevant, they didn't think he was capable of his own motivations. When they looked at him, all they saw was Jack.

He wondered how much this had held true during the captains absence, all those missions he'd helped on – had they even seen his willingness to take part? Or just a gaping hole where Jack used to be?

Ianto realised as he thought that he'd ended up in the archives with nothing that actually needed to be filed, simply for the sake of getting away from the others. He felt a surge of anger towards them not just for thinking so shallowly of him, but for causing him to think so poorly of himself.

He searched for something to do to take his mind off the situation, but it was fairly late and he'd already completed most of his jobs for the day that didn't involve cleaning the main part of the hub. The last thing he wanted was to head back up there; he had an image of Gwen apologising, and he couldn't predict whether it would actually happen or not but it wasn't something he wanted to risk dealing with. If she apologised the decent thing to do would be accept it, and then he'd have to accept that he knew deep down Gwen was only doing what she thought was right, and that engendered sympathy for her that he didn't want to feel. He wanted to be mad at her. She'd made it personal by getting him involved, and worse, she'd got the others involved too. It could have just stayed between her and Jack.

He decided to go and feed Myfanwy. She didn't need feeding, but he'd come to treat her as a pet in his time here, and right now he felt like she was the only one in the hub he could handle being around. He found her preening on her perch, looking up when she saw him enter. Glad for her presence he fed her distractedly as he tried and failed to keep his mind from its previous train of thought.

He spent a good deal of time not thinking about Jack and Gwen. In fact he'd developed new cleaning tics solely to avoid it. He supposed he should thank Gwen – the night of her wedding his flat was the tidiest it had ever been. Maybe the tidiest any flat had ever been.

He wouldn't claim to know what Jack thought on the subject, nor would he ask. His own mind never stuck on it consciously, he wouldn't let it. The closest he got were occasional spikes of some emotion he tried to evade; moments where his subconscious toyed with the names, 'Jack', and, 'Gwen', and reached conclusions that he couldn't process into words, but which nonetheless made him very quickly think about something else.

He knew there were.. issues between the two of them. She got out of hand too often, as she'd proven tonight, and Jack was not a man to challenge openly. But he'd brought her in for the humanity angle. He needed that, even though he'd never admit it and forgot it every time she stepped out of line. So let her show him. Let her help all those people who'd lost someone, while she was still whole enough to care.

Before she lost someone she loved too.

All of that was why from the moment Jack had walked away from him after that first meeting he knew he was going to help Gwen. There was never a processing stage where he decided, the idea just formed of its own accord and from that second it wasn't in question that he would help her.

His subconscious really did need checking sometimes.

Myfanwy stirred next to him, bringing him back to reality. He suddenly noticed how tired he felt. He looked at his watch and saw he'd lost more time than he thought to his reflections, the others would be gone by now.

He set about fixing the CCTV so that no one would be able to witness as he altered a GPS device in order to expose a secret that was by all accounts nothing to do with him in the first place. When he was done, he left without saying goodbye. Jack had a lot to think about right now, and so did he.

Ianto didn't need to track Gwen's progress to know when the situation was resolved, (not that it stopped him). He knew by her demeanor and Jack's that something had changed, and he had no desire to follow it up any further than that. Instead he carried on as if everything were normal, and was greeted in return by Tosh being slightly softer with him than usual, and Owen being exactly the same as he always was. He found he wasn't mad with them anyway, having just needed that distance in order to put things in perspective. A gang confrontation had that effect, and he hoped they'd at least learned that lesson for the future.

He further hoped that the fact Gwen had dropped it showed that while he might not always be completely honest with them he'd never do anything he thought immoral, but supposed that was a lot to convey without actually saying it, and while they would be okay they were all still pretty keen to forget it and move on.

He hadn't said anything to Gwen, feeling in a strange way like he shouldn't be involved. He knew the whole incident had shaken her up; she was so confident that he forgot sometimes just how new she was to Torchwood. There were a lot of things she didn't understand yet, and out of respect for how that must have been making her feel he kept out of her way. She'd only done what she thought was right, and so had he. That was enough understanding between them to preclude any big apology scenes.

Of course that left Jack. If he didn't know what Jack thought about his relationship with Gwen, then he really didn't know what he thought now that Ianto was in the mix.

Actually he did know what Jack thought of the three of them together, just in a very different sense from the one Ianto was thinking.

He resolved to stay out of Jack's way too, which meant that when he made it through the entire working day only to get cornered that night in the hub he was distinctly unprepared.

'So, you went behind my back.'

Ianto suppressed the jolt that would have shown just how much Jack had startled him. He was standing against a pillar, arms crossed as always, and looking at him with a kind of challenging amusement that managed to look both unbearably smug and overtly attractive at the same time. Ianto turned back to his cleaning and carried on. He kept his voice light, in keeping with the playful tone Jack had established.

'Technically Sir, I delivered a package that can't be traced back to me and Gwen figured the rest out on her own.'

Jack said nothing, making Ianto nervous and leading him to re-evaluate his words in the ensuing silence. There was no use pretending he didn't know what Jack was talking about, but he guessed he wasn't supposed to know it had been resolved. He finished tidying and turned around leaning back against the desk, crossing his arms right back at him.

'At least, that's what I assume. You haven't actually told me what happened.'

That was better. He shouldn't be the one feeling bad for keeping secrets when Jack was doing exactly the same.

If Jack did feel guilty for leaving him out of the loop he did a frankly spectacular job of hiding it, raising his eyebrows in surprise at Ianto's audacity. He didn't even blink before bouncing back.

'I thought it would be boring for you to hear the story again, but I guess you like to experience things from new positions.'

Only Jack could say that with a straight face, and Ianto got the feeling that if he was going to pay for what he'd done it wasn't going to be in any way that could go on record. He just smiled back, refusing to make the first physical move but in no hurry to back away either. The others had long since gone home; this was hardly a stolen moment.

Jack eyed him, and seemed to understand that no apology was going to be forthcoming. He wasn't talking to a subordinate now – he was talking to an equal.

He moved away and headed back towards his office with the confidence of someone who knew they were being watched as they left. The fact that Ianto actually was watching didn't stop him from finding it cocky.

Jack called back, 'You coming?'

Ianto shifted easily from his place and followed him, content that Jack had lost the staring contest by moving first. He had no doubt Jack would disagree, probably instating a retroactive rule that whoever followed was the loser. Jack always cheated.

Given the time they had available to them Ianto was caught totally off-guard when he barely made it into the office before he was pinned hard against the door by the full weight of Jack Harkness, once again changing the rules mid-game. He was given a second to adjust so that when he was left breathless it was by the fierce feel of Jack's lips on his, and not his initial shock.

Jack pulled away just far enough to speak, his voice harsh, and Ianto was pretty sure he heard something about punishment over the pounding of his own blood and their mixed heavy breathing.

He pulled Jack closer and kissed him to shut him up, suddenly very keen to face the consequences of his actions.

A/N; Thanks for reading! This is somehow the longest thing I've written and I'd love to hear what you thought. I swear the angstyness came out of nowhere – I even wrote it when I still had a door to my bedroom, (Day From Hell). Anyway if you enjoyed it please let me know!