"Where do you come from?" Ianto asks him quietly, words barely breaking the silence that has settled on top of the tiny room like a blanket, with long thin fingers tracing patterns over his hipbone. "Tosh can't find anything about you on the systems apart from the basics."
"You don't believe the basics?" Jack smirks because the basics, like most things official, are just glorified bullshit.
"I think that there's more to you than just the basics," the Welshman murmurs in such a way that Jack's next words get stuck in his throat.
"Isn't there more to everyone than just the basics?"
"Some would say that the basics are all we are?"
He frowns at that, "No one is 'just the basics', it's impossible."
Ianto raises an eyebrow, "Speaking from experience, are you, sir?" The 'sir' hits like a bullet, reminding them both that what they have is something fragile and breakable and almost so not there it's see-through. It isn't like Jack hasn't thought about it; what they have really is just the basics: comfort and touch, fulfilling two of the basics that humans need to survive and nothing more. Yet he can't ignore the fact that every time he pads down the stairs with the creaky bit of wood 2 steps up from the bottom one he wants to stay. Ianto had even told him once (and Jack would swear that the younger man was too perceptive for his own good, it was going to get him into trouble one day, it probably already had), 'You can stay, if you want to, you know? If...if everything is quiet and safe at the hub and everything, I don't mind. Would save me having to wake up in the middle of the night to put on another pair of socks' but Jack can't. Because once you start getting too comfortable with things as domestic as staying over and mucking about with the bubbles whilst you're washing up is when you're too far gone to stop and that's when it hurts. That's when it breaks your heart when they die or when they become bitter as they go grey and creaking and you stay exactly the same.
He can't do that to Ianto, because if he doesn't die young and angry that he doesn't love him back he'll die old and bitter having wasted his life on him and he can't do that to him. Been there and been doing that for the past two centuries and it doesn't get any easier for anyone.
There's also the fact that Jack sometimes (not all the time, just on the very are occasion not all that often) thinks the wrong name during sex or will wake up or look back whilst walking down the street and see a flash of something, of anything, and think he's back in any century other than the 21st.
The fingers tracing nonsensical patterns on his hip bone come to a stop, nails scraping and digging in ever so slightly, "You can stay, you know, if you want. I don't mind."
He might not now, but eventually he will and he'll crash and burn and Jack can't stay around to see that.
~0~
Jack comes back to life and after getting over the feeling of being dragged over broken glass, he wants to cry because he had hoped this time it might actually be permanent and now all his hopes have been dashed again and why won't it stop?!
Then the hand bubbles and he can hear the TARDIS after so long and he can't help himself. He snatched up the hand, kisses Ianto and runs.
~0~
When Jack enters the console room, the Doctor could be a ghost. Certainly not someone present and correct. But that's fine, absolutely A-Okay because Jack doesn't feel very correct either. It's all a bit…detached. Like looking at yourself in the mirror and realising that it's you. Though Jack doesn't remember having one of those moments in a while- he's had 150 years getting used to his face. And not dying. And everyone else dying.
(If anyone asked, Jack would say he was even more handsome than he was back then. He wouldn't say that he feels so old, now.)
The time lord pulls back from being nose deep in buttons and levers, lights flick on where he hadn't noticed they had been off before. "Right then," the Doctor cries, suddenly there and present and alive like nothing has changed. "Where next?"
Jack knows this is him trying to pretend Rose has just gone home for tea; like nothing has changed, like Martha isn't going to call once she and her family are back home, like this isn't just something brought on by guilt. Jack knows and he doesn't care. So he doesn't hesitate, he knows what will happen and he knows what he has to do, "Time Agency Academy, Bunk Room 52, almost midnight."
He ignores the hurt that pangs when the Doctor says "Allons-y!"
~0~
Calm eyes stare up at him and Jack would be surprised at the unsurprise in them if it wasn't for the fact that this is John Hart. Except no, he isn't. John Hart is a man who Jack occasionally conned people with. John Hart is one of a plethora of empty fake names and identities. The man on the bed is Xoc Adeki: son of Milo and Jill, from a space station far away. Jack prefers John to Xoc, or he did. Both have their advantages.
"Is this a time line thing?" and the lazy draw is almost exactly like he remembers.
"Explain later- right now, fuck me," lips twist into a crazy grin and the younger man doesn't pause to pull him onto the bed.
~0~
"Guessing you're trying to forget something?" Xoc muses, blowing out smoke from the 51st century equivalent of a cigarette. "No one fucks like that unless they want to forget." Jack 'hmms' in response. The afterglow is fuzzy and yellow and warm like he can remember. "Who're you with now?" he asks, like he doesn't want to but has to. Jack suppresses a smile; his partner always did have a jealous streak.
"Wouldn't you like to know?" he teases.
"What century, then?"
"21st- it's... slower."
Xoc wrinkles his nose, "Sounds boring as hell."
Jack just shrugs, "It's where everything changes."
A raised eyebrow so much like Ianto's it hurts, "Is it, now?"
~0~
In the TARDIS is an ever-present hum of engines and time and space. It's…comforting, for lack of a better word. It makes people feel safe and not alone and if Jack was back on the Boeshane he might call it Havuun, except he isn't back on the Boeshane, so he doesn't.
He knows why the Doctor is doing this; knows he should be insulted or angry, but he's too tired to feel right now. He just needs to enjoy this while he can, so he can go back to Cardiff (to Ianto) whole and unbroken.
It's a bit ironic, really, because he hasn't felt like that in a long time.
But Jack can't go back- not until he stops trying to remember what he fears he's forgot and not while the Year That Never Was is burned into his dreams. And certainly not whilst his thoughts run in one constant stream, with no distinction between fucks and smiles and places and times. He's doing this for Ianto, because he can't give the Welshman much as it is but he can give him what time he has left free of anyone else's memories tainting it.
~0~
It's January 1940 in London and it's entirely dark out in the city, with not even the tiniest slithers of light being let through heavy black curtains. Big Ben stands gloomy and demon-like, hasn't been switched on in almost six months and the atmosphere should by all rights be downright miserable.
It isn't.
"Doctor John Smith, Ministry of Asteroids," the Doctor waves the psychic paper and strolls through the hall. Jack flashes the ancient doorman an apologetic smile and follows. They're actually right on time for once, and get themselves a table at the back, with dim lights and smoky clouds. No one will bother them here- common courtesy and the knowledge of who sits on back tables will see to that. People don't bother people, in this time. Jack breathes in the smell of polish and wood and old-style cigarettes and lets a grin spread over his face. He's missed this.
Some stare at the Doctor's clothes- shabby for this place, but they melt away when they see Jack and his RAF coat; dismissing the Gallifreyan as 'one of those ministry types'.
The presentations start and Jack is glad the man got this- promotions aren't celebrated much for the rest of the way and this is the least he deserves. "Jack Harkness!" rings out the name and the man steps up and stands in line as he moved up the ranks to Group Captain.
The Doctor leans his chair back on two legs and taps his fingers against the seat. All around girlfriends and wives and sweethearts and sisters and mothers are looking on proudly, permed hair and short skirts with boot polish and eyeliner as stockings. He can see why Jack likes this era: there was something almost quaint about it. You knew who was good and who was bad and who to shoot whilst knowing your family was at home, making tea and writing letters every week.
"Tell me about him," he orders Jack, who somewhere along the way has lit a cigarette and looks more…peaceful.
"He's brave, selfless- a good man. That's why I took his name."
The Doctor leans back in his chair again as he takes in the American pilot. Tall, clean-cut, holds himself like he's confident but really isn't inside, "Let me guess: he's gay?"
"Yeah," Jack murmurs softly, blowing out smoke. He doesn't murmur how he kissed the man, how he condemned him to curious, disgusted stares and how he was too cowardly to stay behind when the rift opened. He doesn't tell him that, doesn't tell him that in another life he'd have loved him. That he reminds him so much of Ianto. The Doctor probably already knows.
"Right," the Doctor grins, falling back onto four legs with a 'thud'. "Where to next?"
~0~
Dew still clings to the orange carpet of leaves and the grey clouds will let loose rain soon. It's the 70s, big hair and loud clothes and so much change and the kids are stuck in half-rate schools out partying all night and feeling like their invincible. 'The generation that lived', Owen used to say when any of them were refusing to get drunk with him. (Gwen never wanted drink, just sex and fun, but Jack still misses her too.)
A blonde girl is playing on the slide whilst her mother watches, brown dog sniffing for any food left behind. "Mummy!" the girl cries happily and the woman smiles and swings her round, laughing. Jack has to look away, it hurts.
"Melissa and Lucia Moretti," the Doctor comes and sits next to him, clutching a carton of chips. "Well, until Lucia puts her into the witness protection programme."
The younger man says nothing- he's forgone his great coat lest Lucia recognises him and he feels oh so very vulnerable.
~0~
"Why do I keep picking the destination?"
The Doctor stops in the midst of his spiel about…something and looks guilty. Jack doesn't need any further explaining.
"Right, this time let's go somewhere we both like."
~0~
Another park and it's almost as if nothing has changed. The council has no place for old parks on council estates. They prefer to discuss gunfights and muggings from the safety of comfy office chairs. It reminds the Doctor of Gallifrey.
A rubber ball rolls over the grass, all blue and red stars and Jack kicks it back to the little girl chasing after it before she can get too close. "Thanks, mister!" she calls without looking up, legs carrying her back towards the playground.
Blonde locks are tied into pigtails and fly about under a pink sunhat and Jack thinks of Woman Wept in 5293, with snow falling onto pretty pink lips which end up kissing him five seconds later.
It's too far away and this little girl too close and from the way the Doctor is being unusually quiet he feels like that too.
~0~
Museums are never quiet, not even when they're barely full and chattering groups of schoolchildren are nowhere to be seen. The memories of people long gone are always whispering for anyone who wants to listen.
There's a memorial set up- a whole room dedicated to those who fought in the second war for the 50th anniversary of its end and the Doctor feels a little uncomfortable, here among the relics of the aged and long gone. He hates linear time; moves on before he can see it all happen but Jack has spent 150 years on the slow path, is more comfortable now with such processes than the Doctor could ever be.
They move a bit further along, to pictures of a squadron and a regiment squashed on the same wall together. Jack stops to stare so the Doctor sort of has to too.
"Black and white makes them look so old," he murmurs quietly. "But in here-"he reaches up and taps the side of his head "-in here they're all still young. Paddy is still complaining and Finn is swearing in Irish and Frank is pranking Jamie and Donnie and Dino and Ben are still getting drunk off black market whiskey." The time lord looks closer and some of the men look vaguely familiar, then he spies an old doctor in a ward full of children, a blonde boy standing beside his chair.
"There are the soldiers you knew?" he asks, but he doesn't need an answer- they're the ones who turned into gasmask zombies.
"I told them all I was on leave. Psychic paper- does wonders. Didn't go look for them, the second time round, time lines and all. Joined the RAF and served with the pilots. They were good men."
"So many are," the time lord remarks.
Both ignore the little voices reminding them how they're not.
~0~
"I really don't mind, you know. Come with me," the Doctor is saying but Jack knows he can't.
"…I kept thinking about that team of mine. Like you said, Doctor, responsibility," he finds himself saying. The Doctor nods minutely, he knows he didn't take responsibility on Satellite 5. He knows and he's acting so bloody calm about it. Even dismantles the vortex manipulator, the arsehole, but Jack doesn't have it in him to do anything. A year without Ianto's coffee will do that to a guy. He needs to go back to something that if he was on the Boeshane he would call Havuun.
So he says goodbye (without kissing, this time) and can't stop himself from running as he gets closer and closer to the entrance, Ianto is so close but not close enough (Jack secretly wonders if he ever will be again.)
~0~
Ianto isn't quite sure what a date with a 200 year old immortal man is meant to be like. But this is nice. Sitting in a tiny restaurant with a view of the bay and red and white checked cloths on the tables. It's nice, something he hasn't done in a long time (too long) and something he'll jump at the chance to do again, if Jack offers. Because Ianto isn't desperate, he isn't going to act like the two months with Jack not there hurt like bloody hell because he just doesn't. He's British, stiff upper-lip and all that. He isn't going to act like it's a matter of life and death. (Except Jack only has life and he only inevitably has death and it isn't even sanity and insanity because Ianto knows that sanity ceases to matter when the fate of the world and the future rests on your shoulders.) But even so, when they leave and Jack takes hold of his hand Ianto can't help but smile because this feels so good and nice and just so normal like he hasn't felt in a long time. They end up wondering around the lamp-lit streets, still hand in hand and not talking but in a comfortable silence.
Until, "D'you want to do this again?"
And Ianto has never heard Jack so unsure, but until he left he had never seen him look so vulnerable or thought about really actually doing a proper relationship with him either, "Yeah, I'd like to." The Welshman can't help smiling a little and Jack can't help smile back as they carry on walking.
~0~
"I'm glad you're back," Ianto tells him, Welsh vowels flowing into the corners like silk. "I missed you."
The bunker is tiny and compact and really should not be as comforting as it is. They've just been on a date- their first date, in a little restaurant near the bay and not an office. It was…nice, something Jack hasn't done for a long time.
"If I was back on the Boeshane- that's where I'm from, by the way," he starts uncertainly. "Then there'd be a word for this."
"What, this," Ianto asks, waving a hand between them both.
"Yeah," Jack nods. "If I was back on the Boeshane, I'd call this Havuun."