Jack let himself sag slightly in relief as the last of the cannibals were locked away. He felt truly horrified at the carnage, and after talking with Gwen to the lead cannibal; he began to understand that it was just like the last time he had seen something like this.

He felt the guilt beginning to rise inside of him like a serpent making itself at home inside his gut, he couldn't believe how wrong this mission had gone.

Gwen had been shot she was being checked out by the paramedics at the moment, but otherwise she was fine.

Owen was fine, he was only slightly bruised and would be right as rain in the morning. But he was very shook up about what he had seen, but Jack knew that he would deal with it in his own way and put it behind him.

He felt his face wince in sympathy when he saw Tosh walking with a slight limp. He had kept on saying that she and Ianto were fine and that they could look after themselves to stop himself from worrying about them, but because he didn't look harder they had both been injured and nearly killed. He felt an echo of the rage he had felt when he had entered the house pass through him and he managed to control himself so that no one could see his rage. Remembering seeing his team bound on the floor and Ianto, barely conscious with a cleaver held to his neck had shook his confidence down to his core.

Jack pulled Tosh close to him as she finally let out what she was feeling inside to surface. He whispered soothing nonsense 'till she calmed down.

"S-S-sorry Jack. It's just- all he wanted to do was make s-sure I got free, with no thought of himself and when they ha-had the c-c-cleaver against h-his throa-" Tosh's eyes welled up with tears again and Jack pulled her even closer.

"Shhh, it's okay Toshiko. You're fine, he's fine, no one else has died. Just concentrate on the good things that we have, try and forget about the bad things. Now, you've been checked out? Okay, so I expect to not see you at work for at least four days, no arguments okay?" Tosh nodded and went to sit in the backseats of the SUV. Gwen walked over, keeping a hand over her gunshot wound.

"I can't believe that these people would do this! It's just wrong. And I got shot." She complained and they both started to walk back towards the SUV together.

'Typical Gwen.' Jack thought to himself. 'She complains about me not having enough humanity, but she managed to forget her boyfriend and go off with Owen AND she forgets that both Tosh and Ianto were hurt.'

"I'm not really sure why they did it," he lied, "I'm just going to get Owen and find out how Ianto is." Gwen look shocked, as though she couldn't believe that she had forgotten about him and Jack allowed a smirk to cross his face when he turned his back on her.

Rushing over to the ambulance, he saw Owen conferring with two paramedics next to an unconscious Ianto on a stretcher.

"Is he okay." Jack asked, gently running his hand over Ianto's face, carefully avoiding the bruises.

"If it were any other day. I would make sure that he was taken to the hospital and kept there for at least a week. But under the circumstances, the hospital is full, and this doctor here says that you are able to take care of him, so I trust you with him. He has a severe concussion, broken ribs, a now-fixed dislocated shoulder, and a broken right tibia. He'll need constant care for at least five days. After that he'll just need someone to look after him and make sure that he rests."

"That'll be fine with us. I'll make sure that he rests, even if I have to tie him to the bed. Do we have to wake him? You said that he has a severe concussion." Jack asked, running his fingers through Ianto's soft curly hair.

"No Jack." Owen answered, "We don't have to because we gave him some painkillers and a sedative to put him under. When he wakes up I want to do a preliminary exam and then I'll see if I need to put him back under." He said this while he checked an unnoticed portable drip in Ianto's left arm. He and Jack then carefully rolled the stretcher as gently as they could towards the SUV.

"I'll drive Jack, it won't take us long to get back to the hub, but I'll need you to hold Ianto against you. He might not be 100 percent comfortable with you at the moment, but it's for his own good. Okay, I'll set him up with you in the hub and come and check on him periodically, but I have other commitments. I promised some people at the hospital that I would come. They need all the help they can get. That all right?"

Jack nodded and opened the backseat doors. Tosh was sitting on the far side and from he side vision Jack saw Owen nod to her and seemingly ask her a question to which he responded with a sigh and a tired nod. Between himself and Owen, they managed to get Ianto to they middle of the seat, being careful of his broken leg, with his back against Jack's chest. Owen then grabbed the keys he passed to him and got into the drivers seat.

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The drive back to the hub was silent, everyone was ingrossed in their own thoughts, not wanting to disturb the others. The only sound was the occasional rasping breath from Ianto's otherwise still body. Jack carefully ran his hand through Ianto's soft curly hair, trying to stop any nightmares from making a frontal assault on Ianto's subconscious when he was totally vulnerable.

Ianto sighed slightly and snuggled closer to Jack's warm body. Jack felt his insides glow warmly as he felt this. He knew that when Ianto was conscious he was too busy trying to hate him to consider his other feelings, but when he was asleep it was a different matter. Jack knew from past experience that Ianto suffered from truly horrifying nightmares and often woke up screaming or just not sleeping at all. Ianto had occasionally fallen asleep in the hub when he was supposed to be working and when Jack was there, he made sure that he was as comfortable as possible, but even when Ianto had first come to Torchwood Three, he'd had nightmares, and it was a common occurrence for Jack to sooth away his nightmares and make sure that he slept properly without Ianto knowing about it.

Unlike the other three, Ianto had his own room in the hub. He often stayed over all night and kept more than a few spare changes of clothing there. On late nights, Jack and he used to talk for ages and had got to know each other quite well. It was on one of those nights that Jack realised that he was falling in love with him. He had carefully hidden it and continued like normal until he found out about Lisa. He knew he should have been mad at him, but such talent, such devotion, such love. What it would feel like to have Ianto give such devotion to him.

Looking around at his team, he felt kind of happy, even amongst their biggest mistake yet. While it might not have worked out that well, his plan to get Ianto integrated into the team firmly had started off with a bang. He had already known that Tosh and Ianto were close friends, and instead of that friendship being ruined by Lisa, somehow it had made it stronger; Ianto had even taught Tosh a few tricks on the computer. She had always considered him an excellent person to stay at the hub but she had never realised that when he was at Torchwood 1 he was a field agent.

Jack remembered her face when she had found out and laughed silently to himself, continuing to stroke Ianto's hair, noticing his face scrunching up slightly in pain and frowning lightly. Jack felt his brow crease, as from what Owen had told him, Ianto should still be out for a while longer. Hoping that it wasn't a reaction to the medication, Jack gently shushed him and kissed the top of his head.

Turning his head around, he watched the gently flickering lights around him, light gentle candles waving in the light, almost glowing as the SUV passed them, as though happy with their being here, signifying their return to Cardiff and closer towards the hub and their on average everyday life.

Ianto mumbled slightly and Tosh leaned over and gently hushed him, singing a soft song in Japanese, by the way Ianto's face relaxed and how Tosh smiled, it was a lullaby.

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Finally, they pulled up at the hubs garage. Owen had dropped Gwen then Tosh at their respective houses and they had made their way slowly back here.

Jack watched Owen run out quickly and retrieve a stretcher, rolling it round until it reached the door and he then helped Jack gently place Ianto on it.

The trip down to the autopsy room felt completely unnecessary to Jack, because he was planning on taking Ianto down to his room to stay there while he recovered; but he knew that Owen needed to check him out properly and fix his leg and ribs.

Sitting down next to the examination table, Jack fixed himself a tumbler of whisky. He knew that he was in for a hell of a lot of trouble in the next few days. Watching silently, he felt a small pang inside him as he felt Ianto's pain telepathically. Ianto, like himself was a fully capable telepath, but he was also empathic. This was he was so quiet and shy and also why he didn't want to go out on field work with the team as he would need someone to ground him. Jack would quite happily offer, but at the moment Ianto was more likely to slit his own wrists than let Jack be his emotional anchor.

Things between them were slowly getting better though.

After the incident with the fairies and Estelle, with the rest of the team hating him and telling Ianto that they agreed with him and that he was a monster, Jack had expected Ianto to agree with them, but Ianto had not; he had stuck to the Captain and showed the others through persuasion that it wasn't Jacks fault, and that there was nothing else that he could have done.

The whole world would be turned to ice if he hadn't let Jasmine go and by the time he did, she wasn't truly human and there was no way for her to change back. Gwen had argued passionately against Ianto, asking him WHY he was siding with the Captain and Yan had simply replied in his calm voice,

"What would YOU have done if you were in his position Gwen, would you of had the world freeze because of one little girl who wasn't even that by the time you got to her? There was nothing else to be done, you just want someone to blame and to do your 'it's not fair' act against, if you're gonna do it. Do it for someone who deserves it, instead of someone who actually did the right thing."

Surprisingly, Owen and Tosh had agreed with Ianto and both had come up privately and apologised and told him that they had just been reacting to what they had seen, Jack letting a little girl go off with the creatures who had readily killed at least two other people for thinking of hurting her.

Jack shook himself slightly, noticing Ianto finally waking up, he leg in a crisp white cast and firm bandages around his chest, protecting his ribs.

Murmuring softly to him, Jack listened quietly to Owen's instructions and vaguely felt him leave.

He had already scanned Ianto to make sure that he was well enough to be left with Jack and was satisfied that Jack knew what he was doing.

The Captain watched Ianto's eyes flutter before opening to half mast, revealing tired, slightly bloodshot eyes.

"Sir?"

"Shh. Don't try to speak Ianto. You're safe, we're at the hub, and you're home. I'm gonna look after you. Everything's going to be alright. I'm here to take care of you. Just rest now."