Oh wow! So I just got back, and man! Was I surprised when my Inbox literally flooded with reviews and alerts and favorites! And it was because of that that I decided to update tonight instead of tomorrow night after work.

Hopefully I don't make any of you guys cry!

Please read and review!

The first thing Ianto Jones realized when he came to was that Jack Harkness was yelling.

"Two seconds! Two seconds I set it down thinking 'Oh. It'll be fine. This is Torchwood. They should know not to touch it since they don't know what it is and its glowing red.' But no! They see a potential threat and think "Oh! Looks Dangerous! I should poke at it a bit and see what it does!'" Ianto could tell by the constant foot steps that Jack was pacing.

"Jack, calm down! Breathe for two seconds and tell me what the hell is going on!" It was Gwen's voice now, and by the frantic squeakiness of it, Ianto could guess that she was wearing that worried face of hers as she watched Jack pace.

"What's going on is that Ianto touched that thing," Jack spat out the word in distaste. "and he shouldn't have! He should've known better! I would've thought him out of everyone would've realized not to touch something alien!"

"Well what it is?!" Gwen shouted back, and Ianto couldn't take any more of it. He was too thirsty and confused. What was happening to him?

"Jack…?" He choked out, coughing weakly as he tried to roll over on his side. His body ached to move, and his head hurt something fierce. He guessed that had something to do with his fall. Ianto tried to open his eyes, but the lights were too bright. Now his eyes stun as well. Groaning, he opted to just lay as still as possible.

Ianto felt someone grab his hand. Jack. It was Jack's hand. He'd recognize Jack's hand no matter what. "Ianto? Ianto can you hear me?"

If he could, Ianto would've rolled his eyes. "Yes, jack. I can hear you. Just—" Ianto's body convulsed in a fit of coughs. Jack's hand squeezed his tighter. "Just… Just tell me what's going on."

There was silence in the Torchwood hub. A long painful silence that made Ianto worry. Jack never shut up. Literally never shut up and now he was completely quiet. That lead Ianto to believe he had done something completely stupid.

Jack cleared his throat weakly before starting. "That thing you touched is a bit of human technology from the future. It's a common device found in most hospitals, usually harmless. It's meant to give a child's mind an extra boost, maturing it faster than normal. Nothing too extreme, just an added couple of years. Helped the worlds out there to teach children. A child's mind has an infinite capacity to learn and store knowledge. Just think of what it could learn if it could understand all that it was learning."

"Well, what's that mean for Ianto?" Gwen interrupted as she glanced between the two men. "That Ianto will learn things quicker?"

Jack shook his head and looked gravely down at Ianto. "No. I wish that were the case. That device fell through the rift. On the journey it picked up a few different types of radioactivity, and it's slowly malfunctioning."

Ianto didn't like where this conversation was heading. "Malfunctioning? How?" He asked, his voice weak as the fear slowly started to creep up inside him. Jack's gaze grew darker.

"The calibration is off completely. It's still working, but working at a much larger scale than it should." Jack's eyes never left Ianto's as his thumb ran over the back of the younger man's hand.

Gwen gulped loudly. "what does it all mean, Jack?" For a second time there was a large silence in the Torchwood base, and Ianto suddenly felt cold.

"It means that Ianto's mind is going to mature a lot faster than it should. And since the stopping mechanism is shot, his brain wont know when to stop maturing." Jack sighed and ran his free hand through his brown locks. "So each day, Ianto's mind will mature years and years and years, and it wont stop until it's reached its maximum age."

The life expectancy of a Torchwood member was very low and very consistent. Hardly anyone that could die made it very far past their forties, and that was if they were lucky. Ianto Jones' knew this. He had read all the files, he saw all the body vaults. He even had to put his own friends in their own metal graves. Yet Ianto Jones never thought he wouldn't reach the age of thirty.

Ianto Jones was foolish.

Gwen didn't want to believe it. "Isn't there a way to reverse it? To stop it? Anything?" Her hands made wild gestures at her sides as she stared desperately at Jack.

Jack's eyes never lfet Ianto's face. "I don't know. I don't have the slightest clue as to how to reverse it. I'd need a full medical scan on him, a full scan on the device! But the only two that could help us are gone themselves!" Ianto Jones had never heard Jack Harkness' voice sound so defeated.

Gwen's eyes flashed in anger as she grabbed Jack by his coat and forced him to look at her. "Well you can't just sit there and watch our friend die!" She seethed, her fists clenching around his jacket as she shook him angrily.

"I'm not!" Jack snapped back, his face contorting in fury. "I'm going to do everything in my god damn power to make him better! Don't you even think for a second I'm not Gwen Cooper, or so help you, I will toss you out of this base and retcon you til you can't remember your own name!"

Gwen paused, her eyes wide in shock as she stared opened mouth at their captain. "Well then…" She started, blinking a few times before letting go of her grip on Jack. "Good. Brilliant." She nodded to make her point.

But even though Ianto Jones' found his captain's little outbreak to be endearing, he knew the truth. Because Ianto Jones knew everything.

"How long?" His voice came out weaker than he was hoping it would, but he couldn't help it. Shaking his head, Ianto gathered up as much courage as he could and stared directly into Captain Jack Harkness' eyes. "How long?"

"What do you mean?" Jack asked, feigning ignorance. This time, Ianto did roll his eyes.

"Don't play dumb with me Jack. I know just as well as you do that you might not be able to do anything. That anyone might not be able to do anything. I need to know. How long?"

Jack Harkness looked at the ground, his face showing utter pain. His mouth opened and closed three times before he managed to choke out the horrible truth.

"Two weeks. A month at most."