Author's Note: This story contains spoilers through Parting of the Ways for Doctor Who and through End of Days for Torchwood. It was originally posted to a livejournal community in January of 2007.
The first time the man who will be known as Jack Harkness comes home from war, he does so with his best friend dead and his illusions shattered. He receives from his superiors six weeks' leave, followed by a psychological evaluation, followed by a transfer to the intelligence extraction division. Clearly a man who can survive seeing his friend tortured to death is perfectly suited for doing the same to the enemy. After the war is over, he gets transferred again, this time to the espionage department. When the cold war is over too, he asks for discharge papers and is instead presented with an offer of employment from the Time Agency.
Gwen hasn't betrayed him yet, not properly, and part of him wishes she would hurry up and get it over with. Everyone else currently on his team has already, Ianto and Toshiko and Owen, and it's only a matter of time.
Everyone who's worked for him has done it at one point or another, and Jack as the leader has never had the privilege of being allowed to stay angry. He can get over it or he can fire them, and Torchwood doesn't offer much in the way of a severance package.
Toshiko, quiet, dependable Toshiko, brings an alien menace into the Hub, and Jack kills it, and ends the night comforting her in her loss. He shouldn't be surprised, because he's played out the same scenario several times before. They'll probably be closer now than they were before; that tends to happen. Hell, he's just gone through the same damn thing with Ianto.
Well, maybe not exactly the same damn thing.
He doesn't even remember, later, what he says to Ianto to set him off, one night not long after the Lisa incident when everyone else has gone home. Something about how he won't apologize, perhaps, or about how Ianto has brought this on himself. He does remember Ianto setting down the dirty dishes in his hands, very carefully and precisely, and walking up to Jack and punching him hard in the stomach. Jack doubles over; Ianto goes back to the dishes.
"Are you trying to make me fire you?" Jack asks. Ianto doesn't answer. Jack gets up, peels the dishes out of Ianto's hands, turns the other man to face him. He catches Ianto's punches until the younger man sinks to the ground, sobbing. Jack sinks with him, wraps him in his arms, holds him until he's spent and silent.
"I'm sorry," Jack says, quietly.
"My Lisa was dead long before you killed her," Ianto says. "I should never have brought her here." He pulls away from Jack, stands, straightens his tie. "I'll finish clearing up."
Giving up his anger is so automatic these days that Owen barely has to open his mouth before Jack's forgiven him. The man tore open the Rift, nearly ended the world, then shot Jack and did it again. But he's messed up inside, clearly hurting, clearly damaged, and Jack forgives him.
He's not sure what he'd like more, the chance to keep his anger or the chance to be forgiven himself.
Gwen Cares with a capital C, which is pleasantly unusual for a member of Jack's team. She asks too many questions but she's concerned, comforting, a chance for human contact. After the incident with the fairies, though, Gwen's too disappointed in Jack to give a shit about his own anguish.
He's seated behind his desk, staring blankly at an old photograph of Estelle, when Ianto comes in. Everyone else is gone already. The other man moves silently to Jack's side, glances at the photograph, glances at the drained crystal glass and the matching decanter which is somewhat emptier than usual.
"Is there anything I can do for you?" Ianto asks.
"No, thank you. Go home."
"Coffee? Biscuits? A distraction?" Jack looks up. Ianto bends down, kisses Jack carefully on the lips. A moment later Ianto straightens and Jack looks at him, bewildered.
"My apologies, sir, if your frequent innuendos were not intended to imply-" Jack stands, and cuts the other man off with a kiss in return.
After the incident with the cannibals, Owen and Jack both insist that Ianto go to a hospital. Owen's long gone, however, when Ianto returns to the Hub later that night.
"Ianto, go home," Jack says.
"I'd prefer to be here," Ianto says, reaching for an empty pizza box.
"I can take out the damn trash myself for once," says Jack. "You need to rest."
"I'd prefer to be here, sir," Ianto repeats. "Perhaps you can stand the night alone after a day like this, but I can't."
Jack wonders if they will ever have an intimate encounter that is not fueled by some great trauma.
After the second incident with Suzie, Jack thinks of all the men and women he's lost during his life. Friends, comrades, soldiers young and old under his command, random civilians convinced to follow him in a crisis. Names and faces flash through his memory, tearing at his heart, and eventually Ianto wakes to a tear splashing his face. Jack makes excuses about dust in his eyes which Ianto clearly doesn't believe, so Jack forces a smile, takes his attention below the belt Ianto isn't wearing, and soon the other man isn't asking any more questions.
Ianto groans Jack's name; Jack, who's been left alive without any of his men more than once, thinks enviously of his namesake who got all his boys home safe and died. Jack finds himself wishing, not for the first time, that he could have the man's fate in addition to his name.
It all plays out over and over, betrayal and aborted anger and forgiveness. He tells himself it's because keeping the team going requires it, but he has a sneaking suspicion that if he ever meets the Doctor again it'll be the same thing.
Sending Rose home and letting Jack stay to die was the correct tactical decision, there's no question of that, but it still hurts like hell. Being abandoned, undead, on a space station full of corpses still hurts like hell. He wants to see the Doctor again, wants everything to be as it was, but he knows the latter is impossible. And he'd like it if he could just be angry about it all for a little while without guilt, without feeling that he deserves what he gets, without feeling obligated to forgive everyone else because he's survived better men and there's no absolution for that.