"You shouldn't be here."
Ianto turned at the touch of Jack's warm hand on his shoulder. Technically Jack hadn't given him permission to return to work, but he had grown restless during the final week of his suspension and was anxious to start moving forward with his life again, so he'd taken a chance and shown up early at the Hub. If Jack wanted to yell at him and send him home, at least it would happen before the others arrived.
Jack himself was only half-dressed and looked a bit ragged, and Ianto was reminded of the grief he'd seen in Jack's eyes the night they'd held each other in his kitchen. No one but Ianto seemed to know how Jack suffered in silence—and Jack had never taken the weeks off to recover that he had granted Ianto after Lisa's death. "Neither should you," Ianto returned.
Jack gave him a tiny nod of understanding, and with that, the air was cleared between them. "What have you got?"
Ianto turned back to the monitor he'd been using. "Funny sort of weather patterns," he began.
They fell back into their routine as though they'd never left. Ianto made coffee, fetched lunch, organized the archives, and cleaned up after his messy coworkers. The others didn't ignore him as they had before, but they regarded him with wariness, which he supposed was only natural after his betrayal. Owen, Gwen and Toshiko seemed reluctant to discuss mission details in his presence, which was absurd, as they all knew he would file their reports later and have full access to any case-related information. They were polite to him, and Toshiko brought him a coffee now whenever she made the food run, but no one asked how he was feeling.
No one mentioned Lisa.
Jack treated him with the same casual familiarity they'd developed during his suspension, but the level of intimacy in their conversations that Ianto had come to cherish vanished when they were at the Hub. Jack stopped visiting in the evenings, and Ianto once again found himself lonely and suffering with no one to speak to. Soon he found himself wondering if he'd imagined the sincere, vulnerable Jack he thought he'd met. At Torchwood, Jack was the same overbearing, results-oriented captain he'd always seemed.
Through all this, Mandy was Ianto's only confidant, and he found himself stopping regularly at The Ferret after work, even late at night when he should have been snatching a few hours' sleep. He came to rely on her advice and friendship, and when he attempted suicide after the living nightmare with the cannibals, it was Mandy he called. She'd saved his life that night.
"I don't know why I keep hoping," he confessed to her the next afternoon. He had the day off from work to recover from his injuries, and she had insisted he come to the pub so she could keep an eye on him, though his stomach was so twisted in knots he couldn't even manage to swallow the drink she offered him. "Every time I think I've found something good in my life, it's ripped away from me."
Mandy nodded sympathetically. "What about your boss? I thought you said you were getting along well, a couple weeks ago."
Ianto shook his head. "He's not the same at work. I thought we were really becoming friends, but…" He sighed deeply. "Now he just treats me like everyone else. Only less so. He doesn't let me work on the important projects, or ask my advice about anything. I just clean up the office."
"Well, maybe you should prove you're something more," Mandy suggested.
Ianto frowned. "How?"
"I don't know. Impress him. Go above and beyond. Get yourself noticed." She grinned. "That, or make him wildly jealous. Go snog someone else right in front of him."
Ianto's face flushed hot. "What?"
Mandy rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on, Ianto. It's obvious you fancy him, from the way you talk about him."
"I don't. I really don't. It's not like that at all. We're just… He's my boss, and that's all." Ianto took a gulp of his drink, which was something stronger than the beer he usually ordered. The alcohol burned his throat, and he coughed.
"Mm-hmm." Mandy didn't look convinced.
"He's not my signum, anyway," Ianto continued. "Jack doesn't even have a mark. He's too old."
"And you've sworn off seeing anyone who isn't your soulmate?"
Ianto looked away. "After what happened with Lisa, I don't really want to get involved with anyone else."
"Sounds lonely," Mandy opined, then shrugged. "Well, as far as your boss goes, you can still do something to impress him. Take on an extra project at work, or something. Show him you're capable of more than he thinks." She leaned across the bar to tap Ianto on the nose. "Because you are."
Ianto kept her words in mind over the next few days, and decided to prove himself by tackling a string of seemingly-unrelated missing persons cases that the others had relegated to low priority. Investigating felt good and useful, and he was making progress on the case. He was beginning to feel more confident and positive about his abilities, until he made a breakthrough.
One that implicated the only constant support remaining in his life.
He spent the next day wrestling with his conscience over the evidence he had uncovered. All signs pointed to The Ferret as the scene of the crime. But Mandy had been his friend. Mandy had given him advice when he needed it most. Mandy had saved his life, rushing to his side and throwing out the pills Ianto had tried to swallow to end his pain. How could she be responsible for the deaths or disappearances of so many people?
As he drifted through the Hub, collecting the detritus from his coworkers' snacks, the stress twisted his insides until his entire body ached. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised at this turn of events; after all, his entire existence could be boiled down to a succession of good things being wrenched violently out of his life, leaving him alone and abandoned. Mandy was just the latest in a series of such tragedies. I can't imagine the time when this isn't everything, he realized as he mechanically bagged a crumpled serviette. His stomach crawled, and he flinched at the physical pain. Feels like this is all I am now.
From time to time, he caught a glimpse of Jack across the Hub and wondered if he could confide in him. A few weeks ago, Jack would have sat with him on the sofa and offered him a sympathetic ear and a shoulder to cry on—sometimes literally. But somehow, here, now, things were different between them. The Hub—Torchwood itself, perhaps—had slotted them neatly back into their roles of boss and employee. The same roles that had put them on opposite sides of a gun when Lisa's life was at stake. No; he couldn't confide in Jack. Even if there had been the opportunity, Ianto realized he no longer wanted to—not while he was the charity case. Not while the others still looked on him as the prodigal, graciously permitted to serve them to atone for his mistakes.
Besides, Torchwood had enough problems to deal with: Toshiko's new girlfriend turned out to be an alien serial killer, and Jack, in his typical merciless fashion, had sentenced her to death. right in front of poor Tosh with no regard for her feelings. Ianto could not help drawing a connection to Lisa, and he wondered how he could ever have thought he and Jack were growing close.
The case came to a head that night in the basement of The Ferret, with Jack and Ianto facing down Mandy and her alien partner, the Saviour. The nightmare unfolded before him, and Ianto bent his head and plowed into the fray, as he'd always done. Such was his life now.
Or was it? Mandy had made him an offer... A new start...
For a moment, Ianto considered giving up on his mess of an existence here and going through the portal to the new life Mandy had promised.
For a moment, he gave in to temptation and took his revenge on the heartless man who had caused him so much pain.
For a moment, he considered leaving Jack to rot in slavery on an alien planet.
For a moment, he considered ending it all.
But those moments did not define him, and by the end of the night, he'd rescued Jack, eliminated the Saviour, and spared Mandy, giving her the slimmest of second chances. After all, he owed her that much.
When it was all over, Ianto sat in the SUV with Jack. He absently stroked the mark on his wrist as they talked—argued—through their differences. His stomach writhed. The pain hadn't subsided after the evening's events; if anything, it had intensified, and Ianto was nearing another explosion.
Jack, for his part, wasn't letting him off easy. "You're my friend," he snapped in a tone that suggested anything but. "You're not just my employee. And you keep lying to me, and you just nearly killed me, and you know, just occasionally your coffee isn't as good as we say it is, but you're still—"
"Stop the car!" Ianto ordered.
Reflexively, Jack swerved to the curb and put on the brake. "Why, what is it?"
Ianto found he was shaking so hard he could scarcely speak. "My… coffee?"
Jack stared in shock, then tried and failed to suppress a laugh. "Okay," he half-giggled, holding up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Okay, calm down. Obviously, most of the time, it is fantastic. But just occasionally, it's not your best work."
In an instant, watching him backpedal and lose control of the conversation while trying not to laugh at the absurdity of what they were arguing over, Ianto found that other Jack again. The one who had opened up to him and extended such compassion during his suspension. The one who had held him while he cried, told him silly stories about aliens to cheer him when he was melancholy, and paid attention to what foods he liked. The one who had revealed the tiniest glimpse of his own suffering and heartbreak, just to let Ianto know he wasn't alone.
That Jack had been there all along, hiding beneath the impervious facade of their brave leader—just as Ianto had concealed his own vulnerability behind a shell of "sir" and suits and sarcasm.
"Ianto, you are my friend," Jack professed again. "No matter what you do, I'm here for you."
This time, Ianto believed him enough to confess what he'd been suffering alone. It hurt to acknowledge the pain—and, if he were honest, it frightened him to share something so deeply rooted in his soul—but Jack understood. He clasped Ianto's hands, offering his support. "I would do anything in the world to take that pain away," Jack said softly.
One thing came immediately to mind, but Ianto pushed the image back. Even if they had found some common ground, Jack wasn't his signum. Jack was just his boss. Hadn't he told Mandy as much?
But then again, Mandy had pretended to be his friend while planning to sell him into slavery, which made his insightful conversations with her much less meaningful in retrospect.
Ianto glanced at the mark on his upturned wrist, juxtaposed beside Jack's strong fingers. He'd been searching for a match for years, with no success. If he continued waiting for his soulmate, suffering alone through this pain and the trials of Torchwood all the while, there might be nothing left of his soul to give when he did find his match.
Meanwhile, here was Jack beside him—a devastatingly attractive man who at the moment exuded warmth and genuine concern, and who had made no secret of his own carnal interest in Ianto over months of casual flirting. In the enclosed space of the SUV, bolstered by adrenalin and the high of victory, Jack's exotic pheromone-laced scent overwhelmed Ianto's senses. Jack may not be his soulmate, but he promised connection and pleasure and escape. And if ever Ianto had needed one night of mindless release, this was the night.
It took very little time for Ianto to make his decision. He tore his eyes away from the mark on his wrist and fixed them on Jack.
"Kiss me."
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I skimmed over events at the Ferret because I think most Janto fans have already listened to Broken (who am I kidding, I think we all probably have it memorized by now), which deals with how Jack and Ianto transitioned from enemies to lovers during the first series. If you haven't listened to the episode and are wondering who Mandy is and what just happened, run right over to the Big Finish site and download the episode!
