He enters my office just as he stepped off the bus: A little scuffed, unshaven, still dressed in denim and trainers. He's fighting so hard to conceal his limp that I let him think he's succeeded. It doesn't stop me from meeting him halfway, though. "Welcome back."

He presses his lips together and nods. Business, then.

I can't help being a little disappointed. He's only been gone two nights, but I've missed him. I want to welcome him with so much more than words, but I know he needs to finish the job first. That's how he works. You don't get to my age without learning how to read people, and I've invested a lot of practice in reading this one, in spite of his Olympic-caliber poker face.

I leave some extra space between us, so he doesn't feel pressured. "So, how did it go?"

"Made it back in one piece," he answers, giving me a tight smile that reveals there was some point during the mission when he thought he wouldn't. He hands me his report. "It's all in there. Pretty straightforward, I think."

The report is too neat to have been written on the bus back from Hengoed, but he hasn't been back in Cardiff long enough to compile the entire thing. He must have jotted it down on the journey, then copied it over to the official form before reporting to me. It explains the ten minute lag between Owen's entrance and his.

I skim the report quickly, because I know he's uncomfortable standing on that ankle, and also because I've already gotten the particulars from Owen. Ianto's report is meticulous and correct, but it leaves out the bar fight that gave Owen his black eye, as well as the endless litany of complaints I know Ianto must have endured from the doctor. Still, that had been self-inflicted. It was Ianto's own choice to take the Splenetic Medic with him on the journey.

(Ianto once saddled Owen with that sobriquet while venting privately to me. He's begged me never to use it in the doctor's hearing. I'm torn—part of me wants to spare Ianto, but I can't deny it would be fun to watch the fireworks if Owen ever found out about it.)

I toss the report on my desk; I'll sign off on it in the morning. There are more important things to get to right now. "Looks good. Congratulations on completing your first official mission."

He flashes that closed-off smile again. He doesn't look like someone who's just landed an achievement. "Jack… there's something I need to tell you. About this mission."

I know how hard this is for him, so I spare him the confession. "I know. Owen told me." He looks up, startled, and for an instant I wonder if there's something Owen didn't tell me—but no; Ianto has always been sensitive about this subject. He probably just didn't expect Owen to bring it up with me. "About you wanting to prove yourself. To be part of the team."

"Oh. That." He looks away again.

I put my hand on his shoulder. "Ianto, you don't have anything to prove. You have always been a part of the team, as much as anyone else here."

"It's not—" He shakes his head, frustrated. "I know I'm part of Torchwood. I work for Torchwood. Have done, for years, even when I was just Yvonne's PA. But I'm not—I haven't been Torchwood. Not like the others. Not properly, in the field."

I know only too well what being Torchwood means, what it does to your soul, just as I know he's already suffered the cost. I would give anything to have spared him the hell he's already experienced, to say nothing of whatever pain looms in the future. "You are so far beyond field training. You've seen as much action as anyone here, and you've come through it all stronger and better. You've saved lives. You've saved us. You are a vital part of this organization, and we couldn't function without you."

"Of course not." He smiles, but it's wry. "You'd collapse from caffeine withdrawal and bury yourselves alive in rubbish."

"That's not what I mean, and you know it." His frustration is bleeding over to me, and I have to take a breath to expel it before I continue. "Do you know why I've never assigned you a solo mission before now?"

He meets my eyes, and I see doubt in them. Not for me—he trusts me perhaps too much—but he doubts himself. "I wasn't ready."

"No. I didn't give you one because you didn't need a field test. You've proved yourself to me, to the whole team, a hundred times over. I gave you this mission because you asked for it, and because I thought maybe you needed to prove something to yourself. Well, now you have. You did good out there. It's okay to be proud of it."

He emits a little dismissive huff, not enough to be called a laugh. Self-deprecation swathes him like a cloud. "I haven't done all that much to be proud of."

"Haven't you?"

He looks away. I can see I'm not reaching him. There's still that flimsy barrier of professionalism between us, only now he's clinging to it like a shield, because he's so afraid to hope for approbation. I squeeze his shoulder, but it's not enough. This situation calls for heavier artillery. It's cheating, perhaps, to use my emotional influence, but it's for his own sake. He needs to realize his own value.

"Ianto, what you've overcome, what you've accomplished, who you are—" I close the gap between us, move my hand to cup his face, stroke my thumb over his cheek in that way that is guaranteed to put a crack in his defenses. "I'm proud of you, Ianto," I tell him. The feeling brims up in me, because it's true. "I am so proud of you."

His resistance crumbles, and suddenly there it is—the look I've been waiting for. That captivating kaleidoscope of expression: The light of wonder in his eyes, as though he can't quite believe what he's been offered. The dawn of understanding that he matters to someone, truly and vitally. The outpouring of love so pure, so profound, that if I ever let myself take it in completely it would end me.

It's glorious and captivating and utterly beautiful, but I have to look away from the light before I burn. It's a searing reminder of how alike we two are, both hiding from truths we can't bear to acknowledge. Perhaps I'm a hypocrite, trying to smash through his shield while maintaining my own, but I've had more years to layer my defenses, and more years to suffer once they're breached.

Even so, deep down, I know the truth. This close to him, the realization rises to smother me: Ianto Jones holds my heart in his hands, and one day, he'll shatter it.

Too late, I realize my mistake. In striving to reach him, in breaking down the barriers between us, I've sabotaged my own defenses. I try to shrink away, but that look is still in his eyes, and he wields it like a scalpel to flay me open. I wonder if he can read me as easily as I can read him. If he's seen through my facade all along, and glimpsed the mending fragments of an oft- broken heart. If he knows what he truly means to me, and how easily I could lose myself in him. How that could heal me, and how it would tear apart my soul.

It's ironic that the only man capable of fitting my broken pieces back together is the one who will finally destroy me.

All this passes through my mind in an instant, and I'm in my office again, touching his face, his blue eyes locked with mine. I'm sinking in their depths. I can't look away.

I need a lifeline, and he's generous enough to throw me one. "Thank you," he says, as though my soul hadn't just spilled out before him. "I needed to hear that."

I nod, because it's something to do, and because the rest of my body still seems paralyzed. "I meant it." And it's true. I've never meant anything more—and not just the words I'd said aloud. I wrest back control of my limbs and put space between us again, forcing casual, trying to hang the moment on conversation. "Anyway, I'm glad you're home."

He angles his head, and that one eyebrow arches. "Am I, though?"

Verbal deflection has always been my first defense, and I cling to it now. "Well, galactically speaking. I mean, if you want to break it down to imperial units, you're still a few miles—"

He smiles, shakes his head, and I know he knows. Everything.

Ianto Jones steps confidently into my arms, knowing they'll always open for him. With the closing of our embrace, he sinks his tethers directly into my soul. "Now I'm home."

And as another layer of my defenses shears away forever, I hear the truth echo deep within: So am I.