AN: Much thanks to captain-ally for the help on this one, but I'm still looking for a permanent beta… help? =S (Don't want to burden Ally with my whining any more!)

Jack shifted awkwardly in his less than comfortable perch on the kitchen counter top, clutching the slowly cooling mug of untouched coffee that he hadn't yet managed to convince himself that he'd made for caffeine rather than a repressed nostalgic longing for the past. The ache slowly blossomed into a sharp, biting knife that stabbed repeatedly into the large part of his mind that smelled like coffee and dark chocolate that he had so carefully cordoned off so long ago with one hand over his eyes. The pain flowered, dripping with the bitter nectar of his tears, and he fell to the floor, gasping and grasping for reality. A fine powder of china dusted his feet.

And all because of one stupid little hallucination.

Over the island that separated the kitchen from the living room Jack winced at the top of the still open door. He hadn't had the stomach to close it; close it, and admit to himself that the illusion of his former lover – lying in the doorway so still he could be dead – was just that: an illusion. A mirage. A lagoon in the desert where there was no water or an island in the ocean where there is no land. False hope. Weakness.

But that momentary glimmer had been strong enough to turn him into this. A broken shell, a ravaged flower. Lying on the kitchen floor gasping for oxygen because there was a hole where his heart should have been.

"Jack, what – oh my god!"

The broken Captain on the floor glanced up at the dark-haired Welshwoman in the doorway and frowned in amiable confusion.

"Oh," he said, smiling. It isn't Jack's smile. It isn't even real. "You see him too?"

Black.

-x-

"I thought he was a hallucination."

Those were the first words Captain Jack Harkness said since waking up on the living room sofa with a tearstained Gwen to his left, a steaming cup of tea with no milk and the teabag still in spilt all over the floor to his right…

And a very definitely real Welshman curled up on the loveseat opposite.

"Maybe…" Jack turned his head towards his uncharacteristically silent ex-colleague but did not take his eyes away from the sleeping man opposite who he was trying very hard not to name. A name would be almost equal to admitting that that man was real, and that would cost precious hope. Hope Jack wasn't even sure he had, any more. "Maybe… Jack… what if he is an illusion?"

The captain didn't need to say anything; if a picture was worth a thousand words, the vision of the American cynic with his eyebrow hitched up slightly was worth at least three. Million.

"Let me explain," Gwen pressed. A small nod and the lowering of the eyebrow allowed that. "What if it's not really Ianto? Aliens try to trick us all the time, Jack. He could be an alien." Across from them, the sleeping man shifted in a remarkably human way, sighing softly. Jack winced at the forbidden familiarity and Gwen hurriedly amended herself. "They could be trying to hurt you."

"And if they're not?"

Gwen winced at the restrained hope in her friend's voice before continuing.

"Then this…" she waved a hand at the sleeping Welshman. "It can't last, Jack. Just look at O-Owen." Jack moved only to squeeze his friend's trembling hand, but did not look away fore fear that Ianto might vanish – torn away in the blink of an eye by yet another cruel trick of fate. "You can't bring back the dead, Jack. You know that."

She had expected tears. Anger, maybe. She would gladly have swapped either for the dull apathy that followed her words that said that all hope was long dead.

"Sure, Timelines, right?"

The Welshwoman blinked back tears from wide eyes. Jack made no move to comfort her, nor any other that might suggest she was still there. The immortal stared at nothing in a way Gwen had never seen him stare at anything. Empty. Deserted. Vacant.

Brand new… she'd seen Jack fight aliens and speak with long dead friends and watched him as the pieces of the broken immortal multiplied and died, one by one. This was… different. How? She wasn't sure. There was something lurking behind the mask that had fallen so quickly – so uncharacteristically unannounced – that she'd never seen in Jack Harkness before… what is it? Hatred – at fate, their master puppeteer? Or sadness – red hot memories – wonderful memories – tinted with the frozen, impermeable touch of ice cold death?

Love?

On the sofa opposite, Ianto's eyebrow twitched.

-x-

"Jack…"

"No, seriously. Mind your back, ok? There are all sorts of people around these places."

Ianto snorted dubiously, raising an eyebrow as Jack swept the room with mockingly suspicious eyes. "Oh, of course. Plenty of axe wielding cannibals and drug addicted blowfish in the old people's home."

Jack narrowed his eyes at the half-irritated, half-amused Welshman. "You're mocking me."

"You're stupid."

"Sure. Allow me to prove my point." He hesitated for a moment before pointing decisively at an elderly woman drooling blankly across the room from them. "Why," he asked, "is that woman drooling?"

"Because she's old?"

"Wrong!" The immortal jabbed a triumphant finger at his lover. "She's an alien recently trapped in human form who hasn't quite figured out the spit gland yet."

Ianto managed to transform his laugh into a harsh cough, earning an irritated glance from the nurse dutifully feeding an old man peeled grapes. Jack glowered right back. Not any old glare, either – this was the back-off-bitch-he's-with-me kind of glare that he saved only for really special occasions (and had truly ticked off a few waitresses over the years). "She's in on it, too. Slave to the species helping them to regain their strength grape by grape. Despicable." He next turned his glare onto a man transfixed on the badly tuned TV in the corner resolutely streaming out reruns of Countdown. "As for that guy… he's evil. Pure evil. Definitely planning something."

"Ok." Ianto paused to point out a small man hobbling past them on a Zimmer frame. "What do you make of that guy? He can hardly walk."

Jack surveyed him carefully, face a picture of obscure determination to prove a point that only Jack Harkness had. He nodded decisively and clicked his fingers. "Paying for his incredible sex life."

The eyebrow twitched still higher.

"Jack? Jack!"

"What?" murmured the immortal, shaking away the residue of resilient memories he obviously hadn't buried deep enough.

"He's…"

"Jack?" the Welshman sighed. "What's going on?"