Phoenix From The Ashes

by JolinarJackson

Jack had been the element that had kept her and Ianto apart. Now he was the element fusing them together.

Phoenix From The Ashes

Word Count: 4.162

Summary: Jack had been the element that had kept her and Ianto apart. Now he was the element fusing them together.

Characters: Gwen Cooper, Ianto Jones, Jack Harkness, Owen Harper, Toshiko Sato

Pairing: Jack/Ianto, Gwen/Rhys (hinted), Jack/Gwen (unrequited?)

Rating: R

Spoiler: Cyberwoman, Small Worlds, Captain Jack Harkness, End Of Days / Doctor Who: Utopia

Setting: during End Of Days, after End Of Days

Warnings: Sex, Language

Author's Note: Written at first for my prompt table and prompt #1 – He's not coming back. Then re-written to fit the ficlet_las prompt Brand New Day. It fits both.

Disclaimer: I'm not making money with this fanfic. The tv-show Torchwood and the characters appearing within it belong to their producers and creators. Any similarities to living or dead persons are purely coincidental and not intended.

XXX

XXX

Gwen cleared her throat, swallowed and stared at the ceiling. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly and repeated that exercise until she didn't feel anymore as if she had to scream her grief. When she looked down again, Jack was still dead and pale, still lying on the stretcher; the hand she was cradling in hers was cold, as if he'd never been alive. As if he'd been dead for centuries – and maybe, that was true. Maybe he'd never really been immortal, but a living dead. Maybe he'd died and had never really been revived again, maybe he'd been caught in some kind of purgatory the whole time – dead but not dead. Like in those pictures she'd seen once in one of her grandmother's books.

Humans burning in the purgatory, screaming … devils torturing them … and she could imagine Jack standing in one of those fires, screaming and …

… she startled awake, panting and shaking. Her fumbling hands found the cold stretcher, anchoring her to reality. A nightmare. She must have dozed off.

Gwen tucked her long hair behind her ears and took another deep breath. It was deathly quiet in the Hub and Gwen wondered if the others had left. Her mouth felt dry, and her back ached from the uncomfortable folding chair, but she didn't want to get up. She rarely took a break from her vigil. Sometimes, Tosh was sitting with her, trying to make her see that Jack was dead – really dead this time. But Gwen didn't want to believe her, and the savage hope in Tosh's eyes whenever she looked at Jack's body was just proof that she didn't want to believe her own words, either.

Owen never sat with her. He just stood with his hands shoved deep in his jeans pockets or with his arms crossed, staring at her accusingly while he reminded her that the Hub needed to be repaired after the Rift manipulator's overload and the resulting explosion. She always felt a bit guilty when he reminded her of that because she knew that the others needed her help. But then Owen always said that Jack was gone and her determination to stay with him grew stronger. Somebody had to believe in Jack, and if there was nobody else, then she would have to do it.

Out of the corner of her eye, she registered movement and turned her head. Ianto was closing in on her with a bottle and a sandwich wrapped in foil. He was moving soundlessly, wearing his immaculate suit as he always did. He only gave her a glance before his eyes focused on Jack. He swallowed thickly. Tosh had told Gwen during her last visit that she was worried about Ianto because he was so quiet. Gwen didn't know why Tosh was concerned at all. Ianto was always quiet, right? But then Gwen had never really made an effort to understand him, so she couldn't really tell, could she? Gwen and Ianto were colleagues, nothing more.

Jack was the element that kept her and Ianto apart.

Sometimes Gwen felt childish envy if Jack gave Ianto his full attention or just smiled at him, or when they touched in a way that obviously nobody was supposed to see. But Gwen saw. She'd never told Tosh or Owen about it but she knew that Jack and Ianto had sex. Of course, Tosh and Owen knew – they suspected, at least. It had been Owen after all who'd told Gwen in her first week on the job that Ianto had only been hired for his pretty face.

"We don't need an archivist or a secretary," Owen said, leaning back in his chair. He looked at Ianto who was working the coffee machine, pretending not to hear Owen's words. But the way he frowned and clenched his jaw told Gwen that he heard him. Owen seemed to know that, too, because he kept watching Ianto when he added, "But Ianto managed to convince Jack of his special skills."

Gwen had already noticed that Ianto wasn't really part of the team. He was hovering in the background, making sure that they had what they needed, but he rarely talked to them, choosing to be polite but detached, and when he wasn't needed he vanished for hours on end in the endless corridors of the Hub. When the team left in the evening to go to the pub Ianto never accompanied them. They never even asked him if he wanted to. Gwen had to admit to herself that she hadn't tired to change that. Usually, she wasn't one to exclude other people, but this whole job was so overwhelming. She – PC Gwen Cooper – was hunting aliens. That was why she hadn't found the time yet to think about the sad look in Ianto's eyes that only appeared when he thought nobody was watching him.

Ianto headed over to them with a tray and handed first Gwen, then Tosh a mug with coffee, before putting one for Owen on the desk. Owen gave him a challenging look. Gwen knew that facial expression from her days at the police. It was the same look youths wore when they tried to rile up policemen: curious how far they would be able to go but also aware that they were doing something forbidden.

Owen said, "Coffee and sex. He's Jack's favourite employee."

Ianto turned away, heading for Jack's office with the last mug. As soon as the door had closed behind him, Tosh asked, "Did you have to do that?"

Owen looked at her questioningly.

Tosh shook her head in disbelief. "Ianto's girlfriend died a few weeks ago. He survived a war. You can be such an arsehole!" She turned back to her screens, ignoring Owen and Gwen in favour of her work.

Owen's expression hardened. "Maybe, but I'm not the one getting on my knees for the boss."

"You don't even have proof that they're doing it," Tosh said.

Owen snorted. "I don't need one. I know Jack longer than you do. He's shagging everything that's young and eager. Believe me … they're doing it."

"Even if they are," Tosh said, "it's none of our business."

Gwen hadn't quite believed Owen back then, but only a few weeks later, she'd been the one to find proof. After they'd found out that Ianto had been betraying them. After the cyberwoman he'd hidden and nurtured back to health in the Hub's basement had tried to take over and almost killed them all in the process. After Gwen had spent the four weeks of suspension Jack had given Ianto blaming herself: why hadn't she noticed just how broken and lonely Ianto had been? He'd really believed that he would be able to turn that machine back to the human she had been – his girlfriend Lisa, who hadn't been killed in the battle of Canary Wharf after all. But now she was dead. Killed by the people who treated Ianto like a servant.

Fuelled by her own guilt, Gwen had tried to become Ianto's friend, but he'd rejected her, and Jack had told her to give him some time. But Gwen had been convinced that Ianto needed a shoulder to cry on immediately. That's why she'd taken his emergency key from the Hub one evening and headed for his flat. When he didn't answer the door after several rings and knocks, she'd used the key.

She was just about to call Ianto's name when she heard a moan, a whisper and then Ianto, "Ah … please ..."

Gwen wished for her gun, but it was lying in the Hub, useless. Another groan. Gwen didn't know what was going on, but Jack had taught her always to assume the worst. She grabbed an umbrella, trying to chase away the thought of how ridiculous she must look, quietly making her way to Ianto's bedroom with her weapon. She nudged the door open … and froze.

She'd expected an intruder hurting Ianto.

Instead, it was Jack.

He was pinning Ianto to the bed, naked, kissing him, swallowing Ianto's moans, his sweat-slick body on Ianto's, around Ianto's … in Ianto's. They were having sex.

Gwen turned away. It wasn't the fact that Ianto was having sex that was shocking her, it was the fact that he was sleeping with Jack. The guy he'd told that he'd gladly watch him suffer and die. The guy he'd betrayed and called a monster … and then it hit her that Jack was having sex with Ianto. Gwen was a bit surprised by how much it hurt. There was something between her and Jack. It was exciting and even after the last few weeks of working for Torchwood, it was still unexplored and kind of forbidden. They were dancing on the line between flirt and more than that. During working hours, she fantasized about her and Jack taking that last step to cross the line. He always seemed so focused on her, so interested to develop something between them, but maybe she'd fooled herself. He was always flirting with others, too, even with Ianto, he kept praising Tosh a lot and even those loaded arguments between him and Owen could just be a facade to hide some kind of attraction.

She wondered if she was just one of many possible conquests for Jack – if Ianto was just one of many –, but that thought was quickly droned out by the question of why Jack was sleeping with Ianto. Ianto had betrayed him and Jack had really seemed to hate him for that.

Owen's cynical words echoed in her mind ("Coffee and sex. He's Jack's favourite employee.") and Gwen felt disgusted before shame hit her. She was with Rhys. Rhys who accepted her weird working schedule and the fact that she couldn't tell him about her day like a girlfriend with a normal job.

Jack groaned deeply and Ianto let out a choked scream. Then it was almost silent. Only their panting breaths and the sound of lips meeting chastely, exhausted. Gwen realized that she had to leave. She hurried towards the hallway, towards the door, but when she heard steps behind her, she slid into the kitchen. The bathroom door fell shut and Gwen breathed a sigh of relief.

She was headed for the door when Jack suddenly appeared in front of her, pushing her back inside the kitchen. He closed the door softly and turned around to her, aside from pants still naked. "What the hell are you doing here?" he whispered.

In the bathroom next door, the shower started to run.

Gwen concentrated on not staring at Jack's naked chest – athletic, sun-kissed skin, still sweaty –, but to look into his eyes. "I wanted to see if Ianto's okay," she said softly.

"You did." He shook his head. "Fortunately, he didn't see you. He'd feel uncomfortable."

"Well," Gwen answered, her voice laced with poison, "we wouldn't want that."

"Exactly," Jack said, "and he will never know that you saw us. Now leave."

Anger gripped Gwen. Anger fuelled by a feeling she would never admit to: jealousy. "He's using you," she said, "to keep his job." She felt stupid just a moment later. She didn't want Jack to think that she didn't trust his judgement.

Jack's face hardened. "Ianto and I talked. I trust him."

She wondered if this was the same guy who'd sacrificed a little girl to the Fairies, who would do anything he thought was right no matter what the cost. That rage in is eyes, in his voice, when he'd found out about Ianto's betrayal … he could have killed him, but he didn't, and if that decision had anything to do with his cock taking control, then it had been the wrong one.

She shook her head, staring at him darkly. "Your decision."

"Yes," he hissed. "It's my decision." He rubbed his forehead. "Leave. I don't want him to see you." His eyes found hers. "And don't you dare mention this to him." With that he turned away. But at the door, he froze and turned back around to Gwen."I'm immortal and that means that I can't let anyone get close enough to start a relationship. I don't have the time to go out and look for one night stands and usually, I prefer my lovers to know me." He shrugged."Maybe he's using me because he's lonely or to get over Lisa's death, but I'm using him, too." He headed for the bathroom. To join Ianto.

Gwen remained standing in the kitchen, alone.

Now, sitting next to Jack's dead body, she felt badly about every glare she'd given Ianto in the last few months. Because he was standing here next to her, his eyes red and with a brave smile, offering her something to eat.

Gwen accepted the sandwich and the bottle of water. "Thanks."

"You should take a break," he said softly and Gwen remembered faintly Owen yelling the same words after Ianto several times in the last few days. To hear them now, sitting next to Jack's corpse … next to Jack only served to make her angry, because what if he could somehow hear them? He would think that they would just give up on him after everything he'd done for them. It didn't matter that Jack was immortal – and Gwen had to believe that hadn't changed, he would wake up sometime –, he'd sacrificed himself to save them.

"He'll wake up. He just needs some time." She raised her head to look at Ianto and maybe she wanted him to get angry, too, because then she could let loose all the rage and guilt she felt – they had betrayed Jack, all of them, even her, they'd killed him – and maybe she would feel better then. So she asked, "Or do you want him to stay dead?" She'd yelled those words at Owen just this afternoon and Owen had answered with an angry "Fuck you" before leaving her alone.

But Ianto just looked as if Gwen had slapped him, his eyes on Jack, his hands deep in the pockets of his suit, and so, so tired. "No." He took a deep breath. "I just wanted to suggest that I'll sit with him while you get some sleep."

He didn't become angry. Maybe he'd forbidden himself to feel that way after his suspension because he didn't want to risk losing his job after all. Since Lisa's death, he'd lost his calm only once: When he'd shot Owen, and the reason for that action was easy – loyalty towards Jack. It didn't matter what Owen had told her. Ianto hadn't shot him because Owen had said some nasty things – Ianto hadn't heard anything but insults from him for months –, but because Owen had tried to act against Jack's orders.

She realized just how blind she'd been. Ianto had made a mistake, and he knew that, and in the last few months, he'd done nothing else but trying to make up for it. No matter how many obstacles had been thrown his way, he'd overcome them. Ianto really wanted this job, but he didn't have to sleep with Jack to keep it. He was good at it. There were always coffee and snacks waiting when Gwen wanted them, he researched when no one else wanted to and he cleaned up after them.

One of Ianto's hands left the protective warmth of his pocket, hesitated for a second, but then the trembling fingers caught in Jack's hair. As if he was still alive. And Gwen understood. Owen doubted Jack's return from the dead. Tosh hoped that he would wake up. Gwen and Ianto – they believed that it would happen.

She put the sandwich on the small table next to her chair and set the bottle down next to it. Then she freed his other hand from the pocket and pulled him closer. "Sit down," she said softly, conciliatory, and pulled out the other chair Tosh sometimes used.

Ianto's eyes looked towards the main Hub. "There's so much to do. I have to get everything ready ..." He didn't say it, but the words for him hung in the air. So that was the reason Ianto hadn't sat with him. Gwen bit back a smile. He was still the perfect assistant, getting everything ready for the return of his boss. And everything Tosh had told her to make sure that Gwen knew what was going on outside the morgue made sense now. Ianto took the phone calls and coordinated the repairs. He took care of the team and made up the cover story for the evening news. He did Jack's paperwork. And while he did everything in his might to save Jack's lifework – Torchwood – Gwen did everything in her might to save Jack …

They completed each other.

Gwen's fingers brushed through Jack's hair and found Ianto's cold hand among the dark strands. She entwined their fingers and looked up at him. "He'll wake up."

Ianto's lips formed a thin line. Then he nodded. Gwen looked down at Jack, at their hands, entwined next to his head on the stretcher.

Jack had been the element that had kept her and Ianto apart.

Now he was the element fusing them together.

XXX

Jack woke up and then he left them. The team spent the first few days of his absence in the kind of silence only those feeling guilty could create. Jack had come back to life, had thanked them and then he'd left when nobody had been looking. Maybe because of their betrayal. Maybe not. The CCTV had caught him running across the Roald Dahl Plass and then clinging to a blue police box that just vanished, taking Jack with it. He'd left because he'd wanted to. The team kept on working. They had to.

XXX

Gwen felt guilty for not realizing sooner what Jack leaving them would mean for Ianto. She found him in Jack's office one evening, brushing tears from his cheeks.

"Ianto?"

Startled, he raised his head to look at her, but then he regained control of his face and the professional mask slid into place. "Gwen." He got up and tugged at his suit. "I didn't know you were still here."

"I came to get my mobile – I forgot it when I left earlier," she said, holding the phone up as if that would prove her story.

"Oh." He started shuffling papers on the desk that were already in perfect order.

"Are you okay?" Gwen asked hesitantly.

"Sure," he answered with a small smile.

Gwen bit her lip. "Ianto ..."

He looked at her and sighed deeply. "I'm fine. I'm just … exhausted."

"I know about you and Jack."

He froze.

She added, "That wasn't just a flirt. You … were a couple."

Ianto laughed helplessly. "We weren't a couple." He looked at her. "We were just … when we needed ..."

"Oh!" she said. That made sense. If she hadn't caught them having sex, she would have never known about them in the first place. They had always been so professional during work, even a bit distanced, not like a couple, really. The only open gesture of affection between the two had been the kiss after Jack had woken up from his long death.

"Yes," he said with a tiny, sad smile and left Jack's office. "Let's go home. If there's something wrong, our mobiles will alert us. We shouldn't stay here the whole night." He seemed to realize that was babbling and stopped talking.

Gwen stopped just before leaving Jack's office. There was a black bag standing next to Jack's desk as if it belonged there, but it didn't. She knew that bag. It was Ianto's, he'd had it with him when they'd set out to spend the night in the Brecon Beacons.

She cleared her throat. "Ianto?"

He was just about to put on his coat, seemingly trying to convince her that he was just about to leave anyway. But something was wrong. When she'd entered the Hub, almost all the lights had been out – like they always were when the team had left for the night. Ianto hadn't been working, he'd just sat in Jack's office and that bag ...

"Ianto, you weren't about to go home, right?" It was just a hunch. Ianto froze – just for a second – but it told Gwen she was right. "Where did you intend to sleep?" she asked. "Not on the couch, right? It's uncomfortable."

"Jack's bedroom is under his office."

"You sleep in Jack's bed," Gwen said. It wasn't a question, so Ianto didn't comment on it. He left the Hub.

When they arrived on the surface and the cold wind coming from the ocean ruffled their hair, Gwen grabbed Ianto's arm and led him to the banister at the edge of the Quay to look out towards the sea. The soft light of the nightly city made him appear older than he was, the dark shadows under his eyes were more pronounced and shadows were cutting the grief into his boyish face. He was standing next to her, stiff, not meeting her eyes. She could see that he wanted to leave, but professional courtesy was forcing him to stay.

Gwen asked, "Are you in love with him?"

Ianto didn't answer. He kept staring into the darkness, breathing deeply.

Gwen pressed closer to his side. "Ianto?"

"Does it matter? He's gone. He's not coming back." His voice was flat and lifeless, the usual sarcasm in his words dead.

"It matters to you." In her thoughts, she added, 'To me.' The old wound (Jack was pinning Ianto to the bed, naked, kissing him, swallowing Ianto's moans, his sweat-slick body on Ianto's, around Ianto's … in Ianto's)was still aching. She wondered how it would feel to be touched that way by Jack. If it was just as extraordinary as Jack himself was. But if it had been about love between Jack and Ianto – no matter, if Jack was in love with Ianto, or Ianto with Jack or maybe even both of them –, then that would change everything. It would mean that they hadn't had an affair just to conquer their loneliness, it hadn't been just a fumble between the boss and his assistant. Then Jack had been sleeping with Ianto, and that meant something. It meant that Gwen had no chance with Jack, should he ever return.

Ianto whispered, "Yes."

Gwen wondered if he'd ever told Jack, if he'd whispered it in his ear when he came. If he did, what kind of answer had Jack given?

Ianto turned his head to look at her. "But that doesn't matter, because Jack found his Doctor."

"He'll be back."

"No." Ianto shook his head. Gwen felt hopeless without her partner in crime. He'd been the one to believe in Jack coming back to life with her. Now he didn't believe in Jack like she did, and that made it so much more real and that bit more possible that Jack wouldn't return.

Ianto's eyes were gentle. "The Doctor … he's Jack's Rhys, his Lisa. Nothing can hold him back from staying with him. Nothing but the Doctor himself and he's ..." Ianto shook his head. "Who would reject Jack?" A helpless smile. "Who are we compared to the universe and the chance to travel between space and time? We were just a stopover."

And deep within her, Gwen knew that he was right. Jack's eyes had always lit up when he'd talked about his Doctor, the unreachable Doctor he'd waited centuries for. Now, Jack was unreachable, too. But his team couldn't wait as long as he had.

She entwined her fingers with Ianto's. "Then we'll get along fine without him. We have Owen and Tosh and there's the two of us. We'll start anew. Tomorrow. Brand new day."

She didn't know if there was a Torchwood without Jack but she didn't want to think about it. There was no other way.

She smiled encouragingly at Ianto and dropped a kiss on his cheek. He answered with a shy grin before putting his arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer.

Jack had been the element that had kept her and Ianto apart. Then he'd been the element fusing them together.

Now they would learn to live without him – together.

END

02/11