Jack tried not to jump as a pair of pill vials clattered against his desk. Abruptly pulled out of his wool-gathering, his gaze darted upward and he saw Owen looking down on him, his thin lips drawn flat in an expression of irritation. "What are these?"

"Sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication. Follow the directions on the bottles. To the letter. Don't flush them down the toilet. I'm going to run blood tests on you weekly to make sure you comply."

Jack folded his arms over his chest. He knew what this was about, but it didn't make it any easier. He'd been feeling rough since being freed from the Valiant. Not sleeping. Irritable. Emotions all over the damn place, and try as he might, he couldn't always keep them locked down until he was somewhere safe. He'd come perilously close to losing it completely after the business with the space whale and Gwen, and in the days that had followed, he hadn't been able to shake the feeling that the others had noticed that something wasn't quite right.

It was an ugly place he'd been before, usually after serving in one war or another. Different eras had different names for what he was experiencing: shell shock, battle fatigue, Soldier's heart, post traumatic stress syndrome, adrenaline exhaustion. The name really didn't matter. What did was that he had survived, but not entirely endured the traumas inflicted upon him and now he had to find a way to heal.

"How's Ianto?"

"A damn lousy liar," Owen replied, sourly. And then more softly he added, "But I let him keep his dignity and pretended I believed him, even though no one in their right mind would buy that load of horse shit that a weevil had anything to do with those fingermarks on his throat. I patched him up and then I sent him home. I don't suppose you'd care to tell me what happened?"

He waited a few beats. Jack hoped against hope that if he wished hard enough Owen would just drop it and go away. But it was obvious from the determined look on his medic's face that he'd seen and heard enough and wasn't about to sweep this latest incident under the rug.

"No, I suppose not. My professional advice, Jack, and I'm not messing about here, find someone to talk to. I know that seeing a regular therapist is straight out of the question, although I would be interested in seeing the long term effects of retcon on a subject minus Suzie's twisted conditioning. And I suppose that my colleagues at UNIT are probably unsuitable as well for security reasons. But find somebody." He turned on his heel and marched, quite straight backed for someone who had just given their superior officer a tongue lashing, out of the office and shut the door behind him.

Jack knew Owen had a point. Though he hadn't meant to, he'd nearly strangled Ianto into unconsciousness before Ianto had managed to break his grip and convince him that there was no threat other than the one he was creating. They stumbled together down the short hallway to the bathroom and into the shower. Ianto hadn't bothered to let the water warm first and the first jolt of the icy cold spray had brought him the rest of the way to consciousness and sent the blood that flowed from Ianto's nose and a gash above his right eye swirling down the drain in a crimson spiral.

Though he had no reason to and needed care, Ianto held him. Comforted him. Let him sob apologies and then after he dried Jack's tears, he tended his own wounds, hiding the necklace of bruises and the injuries to his ribs under a sharply tailored suit. But clothing could not conceal the damage Jack had done to his larynx, and the raspy sound of his voice had given his injuries away when he had replied, unthinking, to Toshiko's cheerful 'Good morning' upon their arrival at the Hub.

Fake it until he could make it had always been Jack's preferred method for dealing with the rough episodes in his life, vamping normality until the good days outnumbered the bad. The technique had served him well enough, at least until now. But before he'd always been just one more soldier, marching to someone else's orders. Soldiers could be replaced if they couldn't get their heads straight. Soldiers were expendable. But he was the CO now, and he was the problem.

He'd get through this, eventually, but he had the luxury of time. Fifty or a hundred years from now the Master and his homicidal laughter would be nothing more than a bad dream. But his team didn't have that kind of luxury. They needed a leader who could hold himself together and he wasn't. And as a result, they were suffering, reacting to the power vacuum he'd created by his frankly piss-poor attempt at reasserting his command.

Talk to someone, Owen had said. Ianto knew a little. He'd sussed some of it out on his own, and when he felt Jack was able to talk, he'd coaxed a little more. Jack rose from his desk, stuffed the pill vials in his coat pocket, and headed for the door. "I'm leaving," he called to the Hub at large. "Probably for a couple of days. Call if the world ends, but not before." He brushed past Gwen's protests and ignored Owen's brusque, "Thank God!"

On the way to Ianto's flat, Jack stopped at the market. He bought enough supplies to keep them fed and watered for several days. Ianto needed caring for, they both did. Maybe, if he didn't screw this up, they could care for one another.