Aaarrgh! You lovely terrorists! You just had to go and siege me, demanding for a second chapter... well, I'm sorry, but as you can see, it's a sequel!
Warnings: "10 hours" practically wrote itself in two and a half hours. This sequel was decimated over several days! My mood had passed by the time I stared writing this down and I'm sure I wasn't able to catch the same feelings I did in the original story. So don't come complaining that you don't like how this one came out, because you asked for it... literally! You know I love you for all the reviews, right? And despite trying to be evil, you know I'll appreciate all comments I get, right? Good!
There will be no more angst (not that kind anyway), almost no Gwen at all and a surprisingly amount of Towen (it surprised even me!). Oh, and Jack gets to say big words once more ;) Enjoy!
As usual, Torchwood doesn't belong to me.
For a long moment, silence filled Ianto's bedroom.
The young man had his eyes wide open and was unconsciously staring at his windows, streaked by the night lights several levels below. Every once in a while, an unheard car would pass on the street, painting his ceiling for a several seconds in a bluish light and sending odd shadows across the room.
The lack of shivers in his body had him thinking for a moment that he might have, perhaps, died sometime after Jack had stumbled for the second time that night into his flat. But the cold wetness at the back of his neck and the arms that held him tightly had him thinking something entirely different. He was quite alive… and in a rather peculiar position, one he had never experienced before… not even with Lisa.
"What did you do?" a sudden rustle betrayed his movements. He disentangled the Captain's arms from around his torso, sat up from the warm cocoon and turned his head towards the continuous source of his angst. No lights were on, but he didn't need them in order to guess exactly what the other man looked like. The blue eyes, the tears, the dishevelled "almost beyond recognition" look… he'd seen them all before. The only difference was that all those signs now existed because of him. Not the evasive time lord, not some cute blonde from another Universe and not even a certain freckled Welshwoman… just him.
"I almost had sex with Gwen." Jack hadn't moved since Ianto left his arms. And now he was holding his breath as well, waiting for the verdict and sentence he knew would follow. And why shouldn't they, after all he had done?
"Almost?" an eyebrow was raised in the dark and the tone of the question betrayed a little bit of curiosity and disbelief, behind a curtain of pain.
"Almost."
"Why just "almost"? Why not "entirely" or "completely"? Why did you go through all that trouble, only to stop at an "almost"?" Had Ianto not heard his own words, he would have never believed he had been the one to speak them. They were so cold and detached. Only two minutes earlier he had been shivering like mad, and now he sat still in the middle of his own bed, almost like a statue staring down at those unworthy to touch it.
"Because I wanted more."
"Then why are you here?"
"Because I wanted your "more". I wanted… I want you "entirely" and "completely". I'm a selfish bastard and I want to be something for someone."
"So? You can very well be Gwen's hero."
"I wanted to be someone real! Not a dream or a myth. People don't love myths. They're fascinated by them, they respect them and, at times, they even shag them… but they never love. You can't fall in love with an idea."
"So you came here because you don't want to be my myth?"
"I came here… I came here for the same reason for which I hunted you down after Lisa died…"
"After you killed her, you mean." Ianto interrupted the verbal avalanche for a moment.
"… Back then I had come here because I wanted to know what a man who could love so much, looked like. For you, it wasn't adoration; it was just love… a love so complete that the boundaries of the real world no longer mattered. It was a love that could break through hundred-year-old curses and bloodthirsty armies… It was a love that could reshape the Universe through the simple fact that it existed… And I was jealous, because in my hundred-year-old life I had never loved like that and I had never been loved like that… and I wanted to see what it meant… I wanted someone who could love like that to love me like that as well. You, Ianto Jones, were the first such person I could find… and, despite all our history… I just had to have you… you and that incredible feeling you have wrapped around yourself. Don't take that away from me just yet. Please, I beg you!" Jack suddenly rose up as well, grabbed the archivist's frozen hands and held them tightly as even more tears bathed his cheeks in the darkness. "Punish me in any way you want! Demand anything from me! But don't leave me and don't take away your love just yet. I've been searching for you my entire life… please don't leave me! Don't leave me yet!"
Ianto Jones stared at the Captain, as he took in the words. They were every bit as passionate as those he had heard two hours earlier, but they were incredibly different. All that anger had dissipated, leaving behind tiredness and desperation. He'd never before seen the man react like this and he couldn't tell if this made him feel revenged or if it scared him. Dropping his eyes, the youth gazed the hands holding onto his own. So warm, so comforting…
He took a deep breath and spoke out for what ended up being almost an entire hour. And Jack listened to him quietly, never interrupting. Outside rain kept falling, filling the air with a soothing sound… almost like a lullaby. The thunders were finally gone.
After a night's fitful sleep, Owen decided he couldn't stay away anymore and drove to the Hub approximately 5 hours before his official shift was bound to start. He parked his car and crossed the Plass with large steps, grateful for the fact that the rain had finally stopped and he hadn't been forced to wear a hooded coat or, God forbid, carry an umbrella. He was planning to get into the Tourist Office as fast as possible, away from the chilled Welsh air, but changed his mind the moment he met the odd sight of an equally sleep-deprived Toshiko Sato, standing in front of the wooden door, wearing a hooded coat and holding an opened umbrella above her head.
"Tosh?" the medic asked and received a startled squeak as answer, the Japanese woman turning around sharply.
"Owen! What are you doing here?" she unsuccessfully tried to calm down her breathing.
"Couldn't sleep. Figured I might just finish those reports once and for all."
"But your shift doesn't start for another several hours."
"Neither does yours." He raised a questioning eyebrow and folded his arms over his chest. "What's going on?" he stared down at her patiently, quietly watching her bite her lips over and over again, eyes glancing everywhere, as she obviously tried to gather her thoughts.
"I'm afraid." She finally answered with a deep sigh.
"Of entering the Tourist Office?"
"After what happened last night, I'm afraid of going in." she suddenly exploded, words pouring from her mouth at an incredible speed. "I'm afraid I'll go in and see Ianto hanged from some ancient pipe. I'm afraid I'll catch Gwen and Jack in the middle of shagging! I'm afraid the little peace and organization we finally managed to achieve in the past year will all go to hell! I'm afraid one of us might go on a killing spree and the whole Alex Hopkins episodes will happen all over again! I'm afraid…"
"Tosh, calm down!" Owen grabbed her shoulders, trying to get her attention. But she kept going.
"I'm afraid some sophisticated bomb will drop one day from the Rift and I won't be able to disarm it fast enough. I'm afraid Jack will disappear again. I'm afraid you'll lock yourself in a cage with a weevil…"
"Tosh! Tosh listen to me!" he was now shaking her.
"I'm afraid something will go wrong and it will all be over before… before…" she finally paused, and not for catching her breath, but for fighting tears. "Before…" for some reason, the young woman couldn't pass beyond that word for anything in the world. Suddenly, she found herself enveloped in skinny arms and tucked against a cold leather jacket.
"It's alright Tosh. We're all afraid of one thing or another. It's alright. I've got you." He promised and forgot all about getting inside the warm Hub as fast as possible. After all, at the end of the day, body warmth was the best one out there… and if it came with a little extra, then it was more than worth a few minutes or hours spent under the cloudy Welsh sky.
"I'm going to Glasgow for a couple of months."
The announcement came late in the afternoon, once everyone was in the Hub, during one of the awfully short meetings the Torchwood Three team usually had in the boardroom.
Tosh looked up from the latest device they found (a sort of universal remote control that could work on any kind of electric device, apparently), shock written all over her face. She watched Ianto glance around the table in order to notice the reactions and found herself following his example.
Looking to her right, she shared a confused look with the medic that had remained quiet during the entire meeting. To her left, Jack was keeping a perfectly neutral, albeit tired, face. In front of her, Gwen was toying with the corners of a particularly uninteresting file. She'd also been unusually quiet that day. But not upset-quiet or angry-quiet… just confused-quiet. In the seat next to Gwen sat Ianto, dressed up in one of his perfect suits, smiling lightly at his team-mates. Tired marks could be noticed on his face as well, but, for some reason, he seemed incredibly calm… which usually made him unpredictable, hence the unexpected announcement.
"Why?" Tosh carefully asked. In the past few hours it had become clear that whatever she and Owen imagined had happened the night before, didn't. But, no matter how great the enigma was, she couldn't dare ask.
"Archie wants to implement a new archiving system, which I happen to be quite familiar with. So I offered my help and he accepted. I'm leaving this Saturday. But don't worry, I left clear instructions on how to use the coffee machine. Either that or I'm sure you won't mind visiting Starbucks for the next two months." He smiled, gathered his files and got up. A moment later he left the boardroom and Tosh automatically turned towards Jack. Owen glanced several times between the Welshwoman and the Captain, before standing up as well.
"Right then. Come on Tosh." He grabbed her right hand and nearly dragged her, chair, device and everything, out of the room.
"What was last night about, Jack?" Gwen asked less than a second after they were left alone.
"I'm sorry. I was out of line. I can promise you that it won't happen again, but please, feel free to suit me for harassment. No hard feelings and no questions asked." He grinned, shut his own folders and left his chair.
"And if I want it to happen again?" A day before, those cocky words would have brought out the worst in Jack, starting a wave of shameless flirting and innuendo. But now, the words only turned him cold, shame and guilt twisting his guts. Today he was a changed man.
"Then I'm afraid you're going to have to find a willing partner." He gave the hollow reply and walked away, leaving the dark-haired woman alone with her thoughts. Had he looked back, he would have noticed her glancing away from his departing self and outside the windows, at Owen's station. But the chair was empty. The medic was several meters away, leaning over Tosh and her new toy, teasing her for accidentally having turned off her computer with the device.
"So, how long do you intend to leave me in the darkness?" It was 9 o'clock when a weevil alert forced Jack, Owen and Gwen to leave the Hub, allowing the computer genius to interrogate at will her younger colleague.
"I don't know what you mean." Ianto replied and sent a set of coordinates to the SUV computers.
"Come on, Ianto. I know that last night something big happened. Now, I'm not asking you exactly what, but I do want to be sure that whatever it was didn't…"
"Destroy me?" he finished her sentence. Tosh just nodded. "It did… and it didn't. Last night I died and I was brought back to life. Figuratively speaking, of course." His explanation only confused his friend even more, but his tone was a calm and hopeful one, so she didn't mind. "But I do have a favour to ask." His features suddenly turned serious. "Keep an eye on Jack. Please."
"What going on, Ianto?"
"I need a safety net. I made a pact with him and I need to know if he'll stray."
"What kind of pact?"
"The kind that involves complete celibacy while I'm gone to Glasgow." He dropped the bomb and Tosh gasped loudly.
"But it's Jack!" her simple exclamation could very well stand in for a two-thousand-word essay. And apparently everyone did think that "Jack Harkness" and "sex" were different pronunciations of the same word. "Alright. It's your life. What if he strays?"
"I get the right to take Retcon, forget him and Torchwood, get a life and free him to go on his merry way."
"And if he doesn't?"
"Six months of grovelling as trial period, followed by a civil partnership, if he passes said trial." He dropped the second bomb and Tosh gasped again, this time even louder.
"Wow."
"Yeah… will you do it?" he turned his baby-blue eyes towards her and she could only nod, clearly still shocked by the news. "Thank you."
When Ianto opened the front door of his flat, on a very early Saturday morning, he met the sight of a serious-looking Jack Harkness, quietly waiting for him in the hallway. The scene seemed so bizarre that the young archivist thought for a moment that he was stuck in the twilight zone, and felt an itch to make a run for the Hub and scan the entire city for any Rift activity.
"I thought we discussed something." Ianto's voice came out patiently as he got out of his flat, holding onto a couple of large travel bags.
"I know and I'm not here to… harass you." Jack answered and got hold of the luggage, allowing the Welshman to carefully lock his door for the last time within the following two months.
"I'm not changing my mind."
"I'm not trying to make you change your mind!" He retorted and shuffled along the hallway, walking next to the archivist, after having returned only one bag: the lighter one. "I just wanted to see you one last time. And hear your voice." They got into the elevator and stood quietly side by side. The usual sexual tension, anticipation and buzz that tended to surround them, especially when they were in a confined space, were curiously nowhere to be found… or rather felt. But the calm and ease that had replaced them were beyond comforting. Silently, they got out of the elevator on the ground floor, exited the building and walked down to Ianto's car. "You know, Owen claimed this to be the weirdest form of couple counselling he's ever heard of. But I'm not so sure." Jack took a deep breath and spoke out, eyes never leaving Ianto's back as he carefully placed the bags inside the car and neatly arranged them.
"You sure sound confident that you're going to pass the test." The Welshman teased.
"I will." Ianto suddenly looked up and stared directly into the Captain's eyes.
"Don't think that you'll manage to keep something away from me."
"I won't."
"Don't think that you'll be able to wipe CCTV records or lie to Tosh."
"I won't."
"And don't even dare imagine that if you ever again do attempt some stupidity, I'll just forgive and forget."
"I won't have to." Jack's calm was odd and unnerving, causing Ianto's eyes to narrow almost dangerously. There was definitely some twilight zone thing going on here. "Because I love you." Despite the past week, Ianto's cheeks turned red in a heartbeat.
"Try not to get anyone killed. Not yourself and especially not anyone on the team. I'll be back in two months."
"I can't wait to hear you tell me all about your road trip tonight. Drive safely."
"Jack, I'm the one who's careful behind the wheel and you're the maniac… Even if we're going through this, don't let what we are ever change entirely. After all, I'm only trying to teach you monogamy here… not tame you completely." He confessed and the buzz returned. For a long moment, he just stood next to his car and stared at Jack. "Aren't you going to kiss me."
"You and I both know just how kissable your lips are, my darling devil, but doing that now would destroy my record before even starting the race. Be careful and don't forget that I'll be a phone-call away." Jack smiled warmly, opened the door for him and watched him get inside, start the engine and drive away. And, although he completely agreed with Owen regarding this whole settlement, he couldn't help but be thrilled by the thought that all this was eventually going to be more than worth the whole pain and trouble. So, he just sat there, in the cold Welsh morning, gazing away towards Scotland and wondering about how the Cardiff sky would look like two months later.
Thank you for reading!
I bet you want to kill me right now. Either that or siege me for a sequel again...
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