Jack emerged - half-dressed, rumpled, disheveled – from his foxhole in the hub. Ianto looked up from a stack of files he was depositing on Jack's desk and Jack almost stumbled, realizing he wasn't alone.

"Ianto…. It's," Jack checked his watch. "It's not even 5 in the morning."

"4:56, sir."

"What are you doing here?" Jack asked, ignoring the honorific he'd hoped they were passed.

"Working," Ianto said, as if it were obvious.

"Only we don't have a night shift."

"That's only because you are the night shift."

Jack shrugged and jiggled his left wrist to indicate his strap. His questioning expression had yet to change.

Ianto sighed. "Keeping an eye on you, sir."

Jack's hands went to his hips but his incredulous expression didn't match his sleepy state. "Has it been decided that I need to be watched? If Gwen -"

"I wanted to. I was worried."

"Worried about what?" Jack asked, pulling his desk chair out and dropping tiredly into it.

"You. You… have been a bit different since you got back. It's not that I'm keeping tabs, I just… wanted to be around. If you needed anything. To talk."

"Ianto, you… you've been staying here the last few nights?"

"Yes."

"Just in case I want to talk?"

Ianto nodded.

Jack stood up and wrapped his arms around Ianto. "Thank you," he said simply.

"You've been there for me when I needed it, sir."

"Ianto? Just call me Jack. Well, maybe sometimes 'sir' but that's a special circumstance." Jack felt Ianto relax in his arms and felt more than heard the barely-there laugh at his remark. "And, I gotta tell ya, keeping an eye on me would be a lot more effective if you were right there with me."

"Are you asking me to sleep with you?"

"Wouldn't be the first time," Jack grinned, unable to resist. "But maybe not at the moment. But you could stay. If you want."

Ianto nodded.

"Good. Come to bed."

Arms around Ianto, curled up together in his hidey-hole from the world, Jack thought of the year he'd just spent suffering and dying again and again and again. He thought of what had, fortunately, un-happened to Ianto. Jack kissed Ianto's jawline close to his ear, the spot that always got a tiny shiver from Ianto. There were three words he wanted to admit, but… well, if Ianto still wasn't passed "sir" that was surely not something he'd be comfortable hearing.

Instead Jack just held on tight and whispered "thank you" again.