A/N: well, here we go, this the last chapter!! I want to thank everybody who has read, reviewed or even just glanced at this fic!! I hope this chpater is OK as it is a bit different from anything else I've writen!! enjoy!! NCxx
The next morning, Ianto arrived at Torchwood Three's headquarters at a more human hour then he had in previous weeks, 7 am, to be precise. He stood, straightening his suit jacket, waiting for the cog door to roll back, allowing him into The Hub. However, instead of the usual alarms and sirens, he was met by the sound of Elvis Presley singing at a ridiculously load volume over the PA system. Ianto rolled his eye and walked over to Owen's desk and turned the young Doctor's iPod, which was plugged into his computer, off.
'Oi!!' Owen's head popped up, almost comically, from the Autopsy Bay. Ianto just stood there, smirking at the Londoner.
'Never took you for an Elvis fan, Owen,' Owen coloured slightly and mumbled something, which Ianto didn't even bother to try and understand, before he started climbing the steps into the main area of The Hub, heading towards the cup of instant coffee on his desk.
Ianto rolled his eyes and headed towards the coffee machine, dumping his bag and coat on the coach in his way. Owen followed, carrying his empty mug and, after handing it to Ianto, perched himself on the edge of the table, watching his colleague closely.
'So, how's your back?'
'Twinges a bit when I move but the painkillers are pretty much taking care of it.'
Owen nodded, 'Great, just be careful you don't pull the stitches out, no heavy lifting or reaching or stuff like that, OK?'
Ianto nodded, perhaps a bit reluctantly and handed a full coffee cup to Owen, taking his own and perching on the table next to the doctor.
Owen glanced at Ianto out of the corner of his eye, noticing the young man looked less pale then he had been a few days ago and the circles under his eyes seemed smaller. 'How'd you sleep last night?'
Ianto took a sip of coffee before replying, 'Good, actually, the nightmares were still there but they weren't as bad, so I could get back to sleep afterwards, although the painkillers may have helped with that!'
Owen laughed, 'Yeah, probably, but they wouldn't have stopped the nightmares, so that's good!'
Ianto nodded and grinned, a real grin that reached his eyes, something Owen hadn't seen him do since Jack left.
The two men walked back to their desks and worked in silence until Toshiko walked in and hour or so later, smiling when she noticed her colleagues. Ianto looked up and smiled back at her, leaving his chair to go and get her a cup of coffee.
'Morning, Ianto,' she said to him when he brought her mug over, 'how are you today? Did you sleep OK?' she took a sip of her drink and hummed appreciatively.
'Yup, thanks Tosh, my back's still twinges but the painkillers help and they helped me sleep as well.'
'Good,' said Tosh, turning back to her computer which had just booted up. Ianto left her to it, going back to Suzie's – and now his when he wasn't in the Tourist Office– old desk to carry on with the seemingly endless amount of paperwork Torchwood Three had to complete, despite being 'outside the government.'
The three worked in relative silence, apart from Ianto humming 'Hound Dog' whenever Owen passed within hearing distance just to see the young medic scowl, until Gwen walked in at 9-30. Ianto got up to make them all another cup of coffee, answering Gwen's questions about his well being before, again, returning to his paperwork. However, the peace didn't last long as the Rift Alarm went of a few minutes later, alerting the team to something coming through the rift a few miles north of The Hub. Seeing as Ianto was banned from fieldwork, the other three left in the SUV, leaving him to direct them from The Hub. Owen drove, and whilst the two girls listened to him and Ianto bickering over the Comms, they looked at each other and smiled; this was what they were supposed to be, a team, laughing and joking together, supporting each other, helping each other through the rough times.
Over the next three months, things changed subtly within Torchwood Three; Owen and Ianto became closer, going out together, drinking and general 'being male' as Gwen would say. Gwen and Toshiko made sure they were always there, not only for each other, but for Ianto and Owen as well if they ever need to talk. They learnt more about each other, (on one night in the Pub, Owen and Tosh had even confided the background behind their joining Torchwood, Owen explaining about Katie and Tosh about her criminal record, secrets that they had kept from as many people as possible) and began to trust each other more, something that was vital in the work they did.
Ianto had never believed the saying 'time heals,' and he still didn't, but he began to believe that the support of friends and family (which is what he now considered the rest of the Torchwood team) people could heal.
He couldn't deny that he still didn't miss Jack – they all did – but everything around The Hub didn't remind him of the immortal time traveller anymore. It came to the point were they could talk about Jack without there being uncomfortable silences between them, his name was dropped in conversations now and a lot of their time was spent wondering where their leader had gone to. The favourite theory was that he has found 'his Doctor' and this was supported by the CCTV footage Tosh had shown them all of Jack running out of The Hub with his rucksack and his 'hand-in-a-jar.' Other theories (mainly Owen's) were that Jack had taken part in some alien orgy and they had forgotten to untie him afterwards or that some girl that he had pissed off had kidnapped him and he was being kept as a sex-slave.
It was six months after Jack left and the team had long since accepted that they couldn't make Jack come back, or trace him, and they just had to wait until their leader came back (if he did come back). During one particularly bad week, Ianto had suggesting employing someone else to take over the administrative duties seeing as, now he had his stitches removed, he was now a full time field agent. Gwen had looked like she was seriously considered it for a moment before Owen sarcastically reminded her what that advert would look like in the paper.
'General shit-tidier-upper wanted for top secret organisation which fights aliens here in the streets of Cardiff,' Owen had shouted up from the Autopsy Room.
Ianto had ignored the jab at his job and walked of, rolling his eyes, but he never brought up the topic again and neither did Gwen, partly because she refused to give up on Jack returning and partly because she couldn't be bothered to find someone who would be suitable for the job.
One night, the whole team returned from yet another Weevil hunt and settled down to pizza, beer for the boys and wine for the girls in the Conference Room. They sat there laughing and joking until their meal was interrupted by Tosh's PDA beeping urgently.
'Police report of a stolen vehicle and a 'blowfish-headed-man' was seen at the scene,' Toshiko reported, her eyebrows raised, 'car is heading east along Castle Street.'
Owen shoved the last of his pizza slice and took another swig from his beer bottle, 'Right, lets go, Tosh, tell the police we've got this and we'll return the car if we can.'
The team walked out, collecting their guns and comms from where they had left them on their desks and got into the SUV, heading towards where the stolen car was last seen.
They chased the blowfish driven sports car into a residential area, where it entered one of the houses and held a family hostage, shooting one of them and holding another at gunpoint. It fell to Ianto to control the alien, he even had his gun pointing right at it, but then it started talking and it was if it could see right into Ianto's mind, seeing all of his fears and throwing them back into his face. Ianto could feel his finger tightening on the trigger of his gun, but the things the blowfish were saying were getting to him. What if he did miss and hit the girl? That would be murder. But he didn't have long to think about it, all of a sudden, there was a gunshot and the alien's brains were splattered over the curtain behind it. Ianto spun around looking for who had shot the blowfish and his heart stopped when he saw the grinning face behind him.
Jack was back and the look of conflict on Ianto's face was enough to break Tosh and Gwen's hearts.
Dun, dun, dunnnn. Well, there we have it, Jack is back!! I know some of that was slightly cheesy so I do apologise for that!! Don't worry, I'm not going to leave it there!! The first chapter of the sequel Now You're Back should be written by the time I get back from holiday so hopefully I'll be posting it end of August time. It'll follow Jack and Ianto's reationship throughout Series 2 and I hope everyone who has followed this fic will read that as well!! See you then!! NCxx
