There was quiet knock on the door. Jack looked up from the report he was pretending to read to see Ianto standing patiently in the doorway.
"Ianto," Jack took a deep breath to clear his troubled thoughts, "What's the news?"
"We've finished the clean up at the flat, Tosh is working now on the cover story," He held up a box of papers. "Shall I incinerate these, sir?"
Jack furrowed his brow, trying to decide what might be the best course of action. "What sort…"
"Just, personal papers, sir. Letters…" Ianto offered a supportive smile and waited.
Jack was rubbing his chin, "Have the others seen these?"
"You mean aside from the ones they wrote?" This time a knowing smirk emerged, but was quickly repressed.
Jack smiled himself before placing both hands firmly on his hips. "No, you never know- we'll put those in the secure archives."
"Very good, sir," Ianto moved towards the safe on the wall.
Jack stepped forward and put his hands on the box. "I'll take care of it Ianto. It's what the boss is supposed to do…"
"You mean other than shooting people?" The smirk reemerged. "Alright sir, please do try not to make a mess." He removed his hands from the box and left the room.
Jack watched as he left before setting the box down on his desk and retrieving an empty secure storage case from within the safe. He set the case down next to the box and dug out one of the specialized padlocks he'd designed just for this purpose. Jack noted in the file on his desk the serial number of both the box and padlock before finally removing the lid from the file box Ianto had brought.
There were more than just letters and bank statements in the box; amongst the rubble Jack found a couple of cards and love notes, likely from women long gone, and photos. Jack was placing the papers in a neat stack at the bottom of the case, using as much care as possible to not scatter things or lose any of the smaller bits; he stopped suddenly when a photo caught his eye. Jack pulled the photo lose from the stack and looked at it. It was the whole team- Jack, Tosh, Ianto, Suzie, and Owen. Jack felt a pang of sadness as he looked at Owen and Suzie, their knowing smiles, leaning heavily on each other.
Jack signed, "Death by Torchwood…"
"He's not dead, sir." Jack looked up suddenly to see Ianto with a steaming mug in his hand.
"Right, but we're certainly setting a pattern that I'm not entirely comfortable with." Jack closed his eyes and drank contently from his mug. When he opened his eyes again Ianto had in his hands one of the last letters from the stack.
Ianto looked over the letter for a moment, reading it, unaware that Jack was looking at him. He turned it over to look at the back before looking at Jack.
"From Reggie? Sir, I thought we'd boxed all items pertaining to Ms. Martelli?" He held the letter out to Jack who took it and dropped it unceremoniously into the box.
"I promised her I'd give it to Owen. He needed to see it, and now we've got it back again." Jack furrowed his brow once again, thinking again of the happy photo of his now broken team. He snatched the letter from inside the archive case. "Incinerate this one."
Ianto took it back from him cautiously, "Sir?"
A subtle but definitive cloud had befallen Jack's face. "That letter is just another reminder of how we got here in the first place- we don't need it. It's been read; it's served its purpose. Burn it."
Ianto nodded and concealed his disappointed frown from Jack. He turned to leave the room. He paused and turned back once more, "Sir, why didn't we just Retcon Reggie, reinsert her back home in her old life, how do we know Central hasn't simply locked her away?"
Jack had been expecting this one, just not from Ianto. He let out a slightly exasperated exhalation. "The people we Retcon, especially after having seen Torchwood, have a bad habit of running into just the right mental trigger to undo all of our hard work. Since Reggie's entire life was tied up in this place…" Jack frowned again, explaining his decisions irritated him. "We just couldn't risk she'd see a photo of Diane at home and suddenly remember everything."
At Ianto's silence Jack realized how harsh his words had come across; he shook the frown from his face. "Are you feeling up for game night- just you and me?"
Ianto turned back to face Jack, a coy smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. "Not more chess, sir?"
"No… I was thinking something more… challenging, maybe with that stopwatch of yours." Jack waggled his eyebrows.
Ianto blushed and smiled. "Alright, sir, I think I can handle that." He turned and left the room.
Jack set the last of Owen's photos and papers in the case and secured the padlock. He slid open the top drawer of his desk and buried the group photo under some miscellaneous forms.