6. Jack

Jack could care less about being suspended. There's a child at stake.

Gwen apparently feels the same way, though she's briefly reluctant to sneak out of the Hub when they see strange weather patterns over a primary school.

"I don't know," she says, looking troubled. "It's just that I've already cocked up twice, and—"

"Which is more important, Gwen, your job or the life of this kid?" Jack demands, and Gwen sets her mouth in a grim, determined line.

They go to the school and determine that the girl's name is Jasmine Pierce, and she's been sent home early with all the other children. They drive to Jasmine's house, Jack yelling at Gwen to change all the green lights and Gwen yelling back that she doesn't know how to. Jack grips the steering wheel tighter and prays that the fairies haven't already gotten to her.

They're going to save this little girl. Ianto is an unfeeling, secretive bastard, and he has no idea what it's like for a family to lose their child. He's clearly spend his whole life in Torchwood, hasn't lost, hasn't loved, hasn't done anything but sit in his little underground base and write up paperwork for saving a world he doesn't live in.

They're going to save her.

Jack and Gwen tear out of the car as soon as it's parked, running into the backyard of the Pierce's house because there are screams coming from back there and all Jack can think is we're too late, we're too late, we're too late.

Jasmine is nowhere in sight. There's a man being killed on the lawn, people screaming, a woman crying.

Jack opens his mouth to demand where Jasmine is, when suddenly there's a sharp pinch at his neck and the world fades away.

ooo

Jack comes to and finds a tranq dart lodged in his neck, Gwen in a heap next to him with an identical dart in her own neck, and the dead body of the man still in the middle of the yard. All the guests have gone. Distantly, Jack can hear a wind shrieking and something speaking, a thousand voices in unison.

Jack struggles to his feet. His limbs are uncoordinated and weak, but terror at the thought of Jasmine being taken drives him forward, leaving Gwen alone with the dead man.

He follows the shrieks of the wind voices, though a hole in the fence and down a barely-there trail that leads him through a meadow and—

Jack's heart nearly stops when he takes in the sight of a small honey-blonde girl in a sundress, standing at the edge of the woods. She's standing at the center of some wind vortex, trees waving wildly, debris spinning everywhere, and at the very center with her are two adults, a woman and a man.

Ianto.

Ianto is holding the crying woman back, restraining her, and Jack goes cold.

"Ianto!" he screams, and a second later he's slammed with a gust of wind so strong it nearly knocks him on his ass. He stumbles back but as soon as he has his balance again he fights to move forward, eyes burning, struggling to breathe against the pressure on his chest.

He can just barely make out the sight of the girl waving and smiling, and the mother reaching out for her desperately.

"Ianto, you bastard!" Jack screams into the wind. "You bastard, you fucking bastard, don't you dare let her go! I'll kill you! I swear to fucking god, if you let her go—"

His screams are lost in the wind, Ianto not even appearing to hear him as Jasmine turns and starts to skip off into the forest.

Jasmine vanishes.

The wind vanishes.

Jack falls forward so suddenly that he barely catches himself, landing hard on his hands and knees. He crouches there in shock for the second it takes for the sobs of the mother to reach his ears, but as soon as they register his head comes up and he takes in the sight of the mother collapsed on the ground, utterly disconsolate.

He's failed. He's failed Jasmine—Gray—and her mother—his mother

He failed them all.

With a primal roar, he lunges for Ianto.

Ianto is clearly too busy being a voyeur to the mother's grief, probably curious at seeing what real human emotions look like, and goes down easily when Jack tackles him to the ground.

"Fuck you!" Jack screams, blind from rage and tears and the vision of Gray being snatched up before his eyes, and the feel of his fist slamming into Ianto's face only takes enough of the edge off for him to change tactics and grab Ianto by the shoulders, lifting him and slamming him back down into the ground. "What the fuck, you fucking—"

He loses the ability to make words and lets out a strangled scream, landing another punch to Ianto's face before he sees—

Sees—

Ianto's crying.

Jack's fist drops to his side and he stares at Ianto's tearstained face uncomprehendingly. Emotions. Ianto Jones is expressing emotions.

"I had to," Ianto sobs, reaching up to grip at Jack's shoulders. His face screws up something terrible, and he heaves in a great breath. "I had to. They would have killed everyone if I hadn't."

Jack knows he's right.

It doesn't matter.

"Fuck you," Jack snarls, shoving Ianto back onto the ground and pushing himself off of Ianto. His eyes go to the woods, where Jasmine and the fairies have all disappeared, and the wave of failure that slams into him is almost too much to bear.

He turns on his heel and stalks off.

ooo

Ianto is in his office with Gwen for nearly twenty minutes. Jack is still stuck in memories of Gray when Gwen exits Ianto's office, and when Ianto calls him in he has to force himself to focus on the present.

Jack recounts everything that he and Gwen did over the past twenty-four hours to Ianto's now-impassive face. It's different now, though, because Jack has seen that face ripped apart by emotion. He knows that there's a human being underneath it, even if Ianto's cleaned off the blood and the tear-tracks and has his mask back in place now.

"All right," Ianto says quietly, when Jack finishes with a 'You know the rest' after he describes arriving at Jasmine's house. "That matches up with Gwen's story just fine. You should know that you're likely to find rose petals all over your flat, when you get home tonight."

All Jack wants to do right now is rage at a punching bag. Avoiding his apartment for a few more hours won't be a problem. His gym is open 24/7.

Ianto leans back in his chair and sighs, eyes fluttering shut for a moment.

Jack resists the urge to tell him to hurry the fuck up, he wants to get out of here.

"This is not the first time I've seen them come for a Chosen One, Jack," he eventually says, opening his eyes. His voice is heavy. "The last time, the mother and father wouldn't let the boy go. They physically held the boy back, and the fairies killed the parents so that the boy would be free to go."

Jack frowns. "You were there?"

"I was—" Ianto looks away briefly, eyes containing some unknown emotion. "—there. I saw it. I couldn't let that happen again, especially not to you and Gwen. I had no choice. They would have had Jasmine either way."

Jack nods stiffly.

"But," Ianto goes on, "I should have told you and Gwen. I got wrapped up in my own emotions, got secretive, as I tend to be—" He offers a self-deprecating grin. "—and neither of you understood the gravity of your actions. I'm sorry. I should have been more honest."

Jack nods again. He can't say that, even with that tidbit of information, he wouldn't have done things exactly as he had the first time, but Ianto doesn't need to know that.

"And I do understand that you thought you were doing the right thing," Ianto continues, "but if I hadn't been there today, Jack, you and Gwen would have both died, along with Jasmine's mother. And Jasmine would still be gone. You and Gwen need to understand that I am the boss, and I don't run a democracy here. If I give you orders, I have good reasons for them, and I expect them to be obeyed. I'm not suspending you two this time, because I'm also partially at fault, but just so you know, if it were any other case you'd be looking at a suspension and a write-up on your—"

Something beeps.

Jack checks his own cell phone even though he knows it doesn't make any sounds like that (he's got everything set to vibrate, and he makes every effort to keep his phone as close to his crotch as possible). Unsurprisingly, it's not his phone. He looks up, and is puzzled to see that Ianto's fiddling with his leather wrist-strap.

"That thing beeps?" Jack asks.

He's never even seen Ianto use it before.

"Yes," Ianto says, fiddling with something on the strap that obviously means it's more than just a fancy watch. "Sometimes."

He fiddles a moment longer, then the beeping finally stops and he looks back up at Jack, a distracted look on his face.

"Right," Ianto says. "Um."

"Suspension?" Jack prompts.

"Ah! Yes. You'll be suspended, and receive a permanent write-up on your record," Ianto says. He pauses, frowning. "Um. Yes. I, er, think that covers everything, you can go. I've got to take care of something else. Sorry."

If the events of today hadn't happened— and if Ianto hadn't decided to run away after taking Jack home and shagging him senseless—Jack might have offered to help with whatever it was Ianto had to do. Instead, Jack just nods and stands to leave.

He grabs his coat, checks that his keys are in the left pocket, and then goes over to shut down his computer when the Rift monitor catches his eye.

It's the same as the night Gray came back.

Jack has stared at the Rift print-out from the night of Gray's return long enough that he could draw it out from memory and right now, the screen is displaying it exactly, right down to the funny little downward spike.

His heart rate doubles.

What if—

Jack abandons his computer and bounds over to the stairs, taking them two at a time until he reaches the catwalk, and he's feet from Ianto's office door when he hears Ianto's voice and realizes that Ianto is on the phone.

Jack stops outside, out of sight, and listens, his heart pounding to the tune of Gray, Gray, Gray, Gray.

"—yes, the highest-ranking person you've got on for tonight, please," Ianto's saying.

The night flashes before his eyes, the screaming and the struggling and the flashing lights.

Gray.

Gray.

Gray.

"Thank you. Hello, Sergeant, this is Ianto Jones over at Torchwood. I wanted to let you know that we've got a code B7209 on the bridge—"

"—a code B7209—"

Jack chokes.

"—code B7209—"

The Hub disappears.

Gray screams and struggles, Jack fighting against his own captor with all his might and—

Lights flash.

It's the police. They're saved, the police are here, they've been looking for Gray, they're here to help.

The man holding Gray sighs and says, "Buggering fuck—tell them this is a code B7209 and Torchwood has it under control, would you?"

Someone leaves.

Jack feels his heart drop into his stomach, and he stares up at the face of the man holding Gray in utter despair and—

It's Ianto.

"Jack?"

It's Ianto.

Ianto's face now and Ianto's face twenty years ago flash before his eyes, merging and unmerging like double-vision, and they're the exact same.

"Jack, are you all right?" Ianto's asking, face tinged with concern.

It occurs to Jack that he's on the floor slumped against the wall, and that he can feel tears pouring down his face, but it doesn't matter.

"You were there," he chokes out, staring Ianto as the two faces begin to fade away into one. "You were there, you were the one—"

Ianto goes pale and jerks back "No—"

"You were the one holding Gray. All those years ago, it was you. Wasn't it?"

"Jack, you have to let me explain—"

"You took my brother," Jack accuses, and he doesn't even care that you can hear tears in his voice. "You took my brother."

Ianto swallows. "I had to, Jack. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."

Jack reels.

"Why—how did you—"

Ianto takes in a deep breath, and offers Jack a wan smile. "I've been working for Torchwood for a long time. Jack, sometimes the Rift takes people—they get sucked into the Rift and deposited somewhere else in space and time. Anywhere. And sometimes, very rarely, the Rift will bring a person back."

Jack's mouth goes dry. "Gray—"

"Gray was taken by the Rift, when he went missing," Ianto confirms. "And then he was returned months later."

"So you took him," Jack says, straightening. Fury is beginning to stir in his veins, the shock finally wearing off. "He'd been touched by the Rift, he'd seen too much, and so you took him!"

"Jack, we had to," Ianto says. "You must know that. We couldn't just let him loose."

Jack's heart constricts. His fists clench. "Right. Because if it's alien, it's ours. What'd you do to him, huh?"

Ianto's eyes widen. "No, b—"

"What'd you do to him?" Jack demands, surging off the wall and grabbing Ianto by the collar, yanking in him forward. "Did you kill him? Huh? Did you put him down like you put down the Weevils, or did you give him a nice little injection and just let him go to sleep?"

"I didn't kill him," Ianto says breathlessly. "They wanted to, said he was too dangerous, but—"

"Dangerous?" Jack repeats incredulously. "He was eight!"

Ianto frowns. "Jack, he was mentally deranged!"

"What?"

"You—don't you remember?" Ianto asks, looking genuinely surprised.

"What I remember," Jack says through gritted teeth, "is my brother screaming for me. I remember the terror on his face, and how desperate he was to get to me, and how I failed him."

A strange look passes over Ianto's face. "Jack," he says slowly, "I think… I think there's something that you should watch."

Ianto sets Jack up with the computer in his office, pulling up a file from some database that he has to type in three different passwords to access, and then promises to return to the Hub to answer Jack's questions in about twenty minutes.

"Someone just came through the Rift," Ianto explains distractedly. "As soon as I get him situated, I'll return, all right?"

Jack nods, eyes straying to the file Ianto's pulled open on the computer.

Harkness, G.R. | 16-8-1986 | 000B7209-74-00032

This is it. The case report. After spending his entire adult life searching for the answers to what happened to Gray that summer evening, all those years ago—this is it.

His eyes skim over the reports filed (none filed by Ianto Jones, but there's one filed by an Emrys Jones in Ianto's handwriting, and Jack doesn't have time to concern himself beyond that).

apprehended child… …brother was present at scene, retcon administered… …mentally unstable… ...TR administered, relocating to Aberystwyth… …continued surveillance by E. Jones…

A video file catches his eye just as he goes to click on the third report, and he can't resist.

Jack takes in a deep breath, prays that it isn't Gray being tortured, and plays the file.

Gray is screaming.

They have him in a cell downstairs, the video camera set up so that only the cell is visible, and Gray is pressed right up against the glass, screaming, beating his fists against the glass, tears pouring down his face. In the clarity of the camera, not his own fuzzy memories, Jack realizes that Gray's face is older. He's not taller, but his face is a year or two older—ten, maybe?

"It's all right," Ianto's voice comes from next to the camera. "It's okay, we're not going to hurt you. We just want to ask you a few questions."

"Jack!" Gray shrieks.

"Who's Jack?" Ianto asks. "Is it Jack, your older brother?"

And Gray goes silent, slumping forward. His head falls forward with a thump against the glass, and he pants.

"No," Gray says, after a minute. His voice his hoarse, little more than a whisper. "I used to have a brother named Jack, but he abandoned me. He didn't come for me. I waited and he didn't—"

Gray's fingers curl into the air holes of the glass wall.

"Gray, you were taken by a rift in time and space that runs through Cardiff," Ianto's voice explains calmly. "Jack couldn't have helped you."

"I'm going to kill him," Gray says evenly.

"I know you've been through an ordeal—"

Gray slams his whole body into the glass panel, eyes bugging out of his head as he stares at an off-camera Ianto. "You don't understand," he says through gritted teeth. "I was so close. I saw him, after all this time I saw him and I was going to finally make him pay."

"Gray—"

"I'm Slave 079902!" Gray shrieks.

A pause.

"You think I haven't done it before?" Gray asks, his voice cracking from the screaming. "I have. I've killed people. You wrap your hands around their necks and you squeeze and you squeeze and you squeeze, until you can't feel anything moving under your fingers. Then they're dead."

"And that's what you'd do to your big brother?" Ianto's voice asks, sounding only curious.

"I'll kill you too if you don't let me out of here," Gray replies.

"You'll have a hard time doing that from inside the cell," Ianto points out.

And Gray flips.

He lets out a scream and starts beating his fists against the glass, screaming "Jack, I'm going to kill Jack, let me have him, Jack! Jack! I'll kill you, Jack! I'll kill you! I'll—

Jack grips the edges of the desk, the memory of that night playing clearly in his head for the first time, and he works not to vomit.

He remembers Gray screaming his name.

"Jack! Jack!"

Gray twisting, fighting Ianto's grip, face contorted horribly—

"I'll kill you, Jack! I'll kill you, I'll kill you, I'll kill you!"

Jack dives for the trashcan and vomits once, tries to breathe, then vomits again.

ooo

The next thing he's aware of other than the sound of his own breathing is Ianto.

Ianto doesn't force him to get up off the ground. He sits down on the ground next to Jack and leans back against his desk, then pulls Jack against his chest and holds him as he trembles, not crying, not speaking, just breathing harshly and trembling uncontrollably.

He lets Ianto hold him for a long time.

"Is he dead?" Jack finally asks, not sure that he wants to know but unable to stop himself from asking. "Gray, is he dead?"

"No," Ianto says quietly. "He's alive and healthy."

Jack nearly lets out a sob of relief.

"Is he—happy?"

"Yes."

Jack closes his eyes.

"Can I see him?"

Ianto hesitates.

"Please," Jack says, clutching at Ianto's shirt.

"Yes," Ianto agrees. "But there are—conditions. You won't be able to talk to him. And I don't know how much seeing him will help."

"I have to," Jack insists, pulling away from Ianto to stare it him through stupidly tear-filled eyes. "I have to see him, Ianto, I have to see my little brother. I won't let that—" He glances up at the computer on Ianto's desk, monitor gone dark from disuse. "—be my last memory of him."

"Okay," Ianto says softly, drawing his legs in and pushing himself off of his desk. "We can go see him."

"Wha—now?" Jack asks, staring at Ianto in surprise and no small amount of panic.

"It's just past six, Jack," Ianto says. "The sun won't be down for another three hours, it's plenty of time. Unless you want to wait for—"

"Yes," Jack says quickly, wiping at his eyes and pulling himself together. "Yes, let's go. Right now."

Before I change my mind.