The topic of their conversation had just walked through the room, seemingly on his way to the toilet; even the brave and handsome Captain Jack needed to pee once in a while. Ianto fought the desire to follow him and engage him in some 'cottaging'. It took effort.

"Ianto, he's never going to love you" Gwen's smile was vicious rather than pitying. In his head he noted that Jack would at least never love her either. He hoped that, anyway; sometimes when Jack looked at Gwen he feared he was wrong. "I'll take what I can get", he replied; it was a simple statement of fact, slicing through him more effectively than any alien weapon they'd ever encountered. Tosh looked away, embarrassed for him. He sipped at his coffee, trying not to think about all the pain he was inviting with that statement.

Owen shook his head. "Dunno what all the fuss is about". It occurred to Ianto that Owen really didn't know what the fuss was about. He didn't have Jack on a pedestal, not like the rest of them. To Owen, Jack was just exactly who he was. Jack could love Owen in a minute if he chose to, because the man would make not demands of him and would harbour no expectations. If he could make himself that way, Ianto thought, he might have some hope of gaining what his soul so desperately craved; but, he added, we aspire to improving that which we love.

Ianto's coffee suddenly swirled ominously, threatening to provide him with a glimpse of his future. He consciously suppressed his latent ability, as he so often had to when he was at work. As well as anything else, he hated foreseeing when Jack was going to die, again. And Ianto already knew with certainty that loving Jack was going to destroy him, slowly and painfully; that had been obvious for months now, even without the input from his coffee-readings.