Summary: Jack isn't the only Torchwood member with restorative powers. At least, not anymore. Jack/Ianto—Post COE.

Rating: R++ overall, this individual chapter…. PG-15ish?

Warnings for this chapter: Profanity, violence, angst… and that's it for now?

Disclaimer: In no way, shape, or form do I claim any ownership over the Torchwood/Doctor Who Universe. This is a slash fanfiction. Don't like it? Don't read it!

Author's note: Okay, so it is currently Monday morning, very very early Monday morning as I write this with the hope of being able to post today. Hopefully, that will happen. This chapter will be the shortest one that I've written yet for this story, and it was nearly posted unbetaed due to the rush (totally my fault, I promise). Vittani is awesome for getting this back to me before a good 10 hours had passed—I bow to her beta-ing skill!

And because this isn't really a full chapter, Jack and Ianto will not be meeting in this chapter—I need a few more pages before that can happen.

*Dodges rotten apples*

But I'll update before the end of the week to give you the second half of this chapter, guys. Hope you still enjoy this chapter besides that disappointment.

Also, there are quite a few POV shifts in this chapter. Sorry if it's a bit hard to switch back and forth.

Enjoy!

Chapter Six: Reunions and Meetings, Pt. 1

So, either Ianto had a damn convincing doppelganger out there somewhere or the other man had come back to life. Unfortunately, Jack was more likely to believe the former than the latter. He just wondered how in the hell whatever-it-was had managed to fool Gwen. And he couldn't help but be angry with her for not knowing—how dare something pretend to be Ianto and Gwen didn't notice? Hadn't being in Torchwood taught her anything about not letting that bleeding heart of hers overtake her common sense? Was she that eager to see one of her teammates back from the dead that she would take some crap 'miraculous revival' story at face value? God, it was enough to make his blood boil.

A small voice that he couldn't help but listen to urged him to be open to the fact that Ianto may, in fact, be alive. He couldn't deny the mere thought that somehow, somehow Ianto had managed to come back was enough to make his blood race with excitement and love and life—God, just the thought made Jack feel alive again. But he pushed down his elation as far as it would go, knowing it would hurt all the more when he found out that Ianto hadn't come back, that something alien was wearing his face. There was no one else in the world, hell Universe, like Jack—someone who would bounce back from death again and again, someone who would come back to life before his body started to get cold.

It was high time that he realized that, and stopped wishing for things that would never happen.

He left Swanson in the small diner not too long ago after extracting everything he possibly could about this 'Ianto' imposter. In return, he gave her a bare minimum account of what had happened in those days with the 456 and Earth's children. He could tell that she'd wanted him to elaborate on a few points (such as how exactly he was able to send a deadly signal back to the 456 representative) but she didn't voice any commands, seeming relatively content with the explanation he'd given her. Surprisingly enough, she promised to try and take care of things at her office so that the police force of Cardiff wouldn't have his face plastered on a 'Most Wanted' poster. It was then that Jack realized why she hadn't been Retconned with the others—give her a little bit of information, and Swanson was more than useful. Hell, it was likely that she could become the police liaison that they'd needed so badly, since Gwen hadn't really been able to fulfill that aspect of her self-assigned duties.

Not that he had any plan of staying longer than it would take to destroy this thing that was playing at being Ianto. He wasn't in any way interested in Torchwood any longer. He would just deal with this one issue and leave Earth. Well, kill John then leave Earth.

That was the plan and Jack was sticking to it.

Then he was standing outside of the Hub, memories hitting him so hard that all he could see was Ianto. Memories of the young man even before they'd begun a physical relationship, relentlessly made themselves known. Ianto's utter distain for the team's lack of cleanliness, his adoption of the chaotic Archives and outdated tourist shop. His suits and coffee, the way his voice sounded when he called Jack on his 'sexual harassment.' The passion and fire awoken when the 'Lisa' incident happened, perhaps the first time he'd ever really seen Ianto.

And he had fallen in love. Irrevocably, unimaginably, completely in love with a man so reckless that he'd nearly caused a Cyberman Holocaust because he loved his girlfriend too much to let her go.

His Ianto.

And staring into that tourist shop, Jack did the only thing he could.

He began to walk away.

Then he heard the distant sounds of a rather familiar alarm.


The child in holding cell nine was not a child at all.

Ianto had taken the liberty (and of course, he was the only person who would) to look in the Archives until he found something remotely resembling a creature that appeared as a child and could be shot several times without dying. His results informed him that that 'girl' was a Gyve, a kind of alien born with the intelligence of an adult (passed down through the genetic material of the parents) but remained in child form until they were activated as adults through some sort of device. What that device was, Ianto couldn't be completely sure about, but he suspected the necklace they'd found. It was under Gwen's observation—the woman had sworn to treat it with the utmost care and Ianto didn't have the heart to start an argument with her over it considering the fact that she wasn't on field assignments anymore.

They were also quite difficult to kill—they did not have organs in the way that humans did, instead they possessed a rather complex network of nerves and veins. In order to die in any way other than old age, they had to be dismembered to sever the major arteries and nerves. And the last thing any of them wanted to do was chop up anything resembling a child.

Ianto was supposed to be figuring out whether the Gyve had somehow fallen through the rift, or if she'd arrived through a ship (which might account for the third signal they still hadn't been able to find). Instead, he was thinking of Jack.

He'd been rather admirably avoiding the subject of 'Jack' for the past few days in his mind, but reading the information on the Gyve had been similar to a slap in the face with a cold, wet towel. The report, as were many of the reports on encountered aliens, was written by Jack. This one was rather old, hand written and containing so many spelling errors it made Ianto's head spin, slang from the 60s and 70s even though the report was penned in the 1920s, and had more than one side note on why Gyves were not ideal bed partners. Even if you were 'desperate enough to do an anthill.' It was ridiculous and unprofessional and it was a wonder that whoever was in charge back then allowed the file to pass any type of inspection.

God, the whole thing was so… so…

Jack.

He could practically hear his lover's voice as he'd read the damn thing, and it was bloody difficult to concentrate on anything when all he could think was Jack, Jack, Jack.

And while he thought of Jack, Jack, Jack, the 'child' in cell nine wasted away.

They'd tried to give her all types of sustenance—plant, animal, even a plethora of alien nutritional supplements, and nothing was working. She was starving slowly, and it was agonizing to watch.

It hadn't decreased the Gyve's aggression any, however, and any of their attempts to communicate had proven unsuccessful. After Ianto had yet another near miss with the alien's claws (which resulted in his favorite shirt—Jack's favorite on him—being completely ruined), he found himself suddenly less sympathetic to the Gyve's plight. Still, Gwen's well of compassion as well as his own conscious kept him looking for a solution. Lois, who was suitably cautious now, suggested that they send a sample of the alien's DNA to UNIT and perhaps see if any of their biologists could pinpoint something that might be edible for the creature. While he was happy that she was showing a bit more initiative, Ianto was reluctant to deal with UNIT, considering that would give them an 'in' to snoop around his resurrection. He was fending off enough calls from them as it was in regards to sudden reappearance, not to mention the fact that he was running Three now.

Yes, the last thing he needed was to be labeled as dangerous and thrown into some hellish UNIT cell.

But, they couldn't exactly let the Gyve waste away, either.

"Sir?"

He turned around, finally understanding how the word 'sir' could become somewhat tiresome. But he wouldn't tell Johnson to call him Ianto—not yet, at least. She was still on a probationary timeframe, and the last thing he needed at the moment was for her to lose respect in him. Johnson, after all, was one of the few people to whom the word 'sir' held real meaning.

"Yes, Johnson?"

"I think we may have a problem with the… alien in cell nine."

Ianto raised an eyebrow. "Besides the fact that it's unable to communicate with us, hostile, starving, and consistently ruining my wardrobe?"

There was hardly a pause. "Yes, sir." And, one of these days, Ianto was going to find a way to crack the hard mask Johnson was walking around with like it was her face. "I was looking at the CCTV feed from last night, and I noticed something… peculiar."

Ianto waited for her to elaborate, a bit confused by Johnson's uncharacteristic hesitance.

"It—"

A shrieking alarm sounded and they were suddenly plunged into darkness as something compromised the Hub's security. It only took him a moment to register what was happening and then he cursed, reaching backwards for Johnson and dragging her as he ran full speed towards where he knew the exit was. He had to get there before the lights turned back on, before the system had a chance to—

Ianto collided with the closed door a moment after he heard the deep sound of a steel lock clicking into place. Then the back-up lights turned on, shadowing everything in a dull orange hue. "Dammit," He hissed against the closed door, not even trying to push it open. That would be a futile action, and few things Ianto did were futile.

"What just happened?" Johnson's gun was out as she looked around the dimly lit hallway of the Archives, and Ianto could see the unease in her eyes.

"We're sealed in the Archives, that's what just happened. And now we're in lockdown for the next two hours, longer if I can't get in touch with Gwen to tell her how to disable the security," Ianto said with a sigh, not letting on his own unease at the idea of something dangerous roaming free in the almost-darkness with them. Because he had an idea of what had triggered the alarm.

He just didn't understand how.

"And what triggers this 'lockdown' mode?"

"A breach in security, either something breaking in or something—"

"Breaking out," Johnson finished grimly.

They shared a look, and she sighed. "Are you armed, sir?"

"Of course," Ianto said, pulling out his gun with a highly affronted look. And there it was, the slightest twitch upwards that merely suggested a hint of a smile.

Ianto smirked at her, knowing she was about to get her first real initiation into Torchwood. "Now might be a good time to tell me what you thought was so peculiar."


Gwen cursed, calling for Ianto with her comm as she tried to access the computer system on her desk.

There was no response, of course.

"Great," she muttered out from clenched teeth. "Just bloody wonderful."

"What's going on," Lois asked nervously, looking down at the remnants of the mug she'd shattered when the lights first went out.

"Breach in security," Gwen grunted as she bent over, trying to find the switch Tosh had told her about in the event of a lockdown in the back of her modem.

"You shouldn't be bending down," Lois said worriedly, her hands going out ineffectively to steady Gwen's crouched form that didn't need any steadying. Dammit, why didn't people understand she was only barely pregnant? From the way everyone acted, one would swear she was ready to pop! "Let me get whatever it is."

"Believe me," Gwen said with a relieved sigh as she clicked on the switch and the system booted up. "My bending down is the least of our worries if what just happened is what I think just happened."

"And what is that?" Gwen noticed, with a bit of almost maternal pride, that Lois had already reached for the gun she'd been given only two days earlier. She'd been the one to teach Lois how to shoot after they retrieved the Gyve, eager to prove that 'pregnant' was not a synonym for 'invalid.'

Especially not in Gwen's case.

And she'd done a damn fine job of teaching someone who was almost comically skittish of firearms how to handle a Torchwood standard issue handgun. Gwen would like to think that Jack would be proud of her, well, except for the fact that she hadn't used gun training as a way to feel Lois up. She had a feeling Jack would be a bit disappointed about that.

She let out a sad smile and pushed thoughts of Jack to the back of her mind. He wasn't here. Gwen was. And there was something loose in the Hub. Something dangerous.

Well, and what else was bloody new?

"Our little Gyve is out and about, I'm guessing," Gwen finally answered. "And I don't think she's very happy with us. Let's just hope that 'human' isn't in her diet."

Lois blanched, but her jaw was clenched in determination. "I did sign up for this, didn't I?"

"Yep," Gwen said a bit too cheerfully as she hacked into the mainframe without the genius of Tosh or Ianto's skill, but she could manage at least this—she was no dummy, after all. "About time you find out how mad it usually is around here."

"So… what do we do now?" Lois pressed after a minute of silence, gun clenched in her sweaty hand and facing the floor.

"First," Gwen replied, "We get in touch with Ianto."

And Gwen knew she must look mad, with a smile that couldn't be dimmed stretching across her face even though they would likely not be coming out of this unscathed, but by God, it felt good to finally be back in the game.

It felt so damn good.

She might actually get a chance to use her gun.


At first, Jack wondered if he was hearing something that wasn't there, if the memories were so loud in his head that he was hearing echoes of past encounters…. Past alarms.

Because there was no way that it could be heard all the way from underground, as faint as the sound might be. It had never had in all of his years at Torchwood. The Hub's lockdown siren just wasn't that loud—but this wasn't his Hub. It was a replication, not the original. It was new and likely updated and that was the alarm.

Jack was running before he registered his legs moving, nearly knocking down the tourist center's door in his haste—Ianto had always said Jack had a natural aversion to doorknobs—and he was not thinking of Ianto right now. The sound was even louder now, as Jack pressed hands against the secret door that he thought he'd never lay eyes on again.

He almost frantically punched in his code, somehow knowing that it would still work even though he'd told Gwen to forget him, that he'd never come back. And it opened just as the alarm stopped and Jack quickly pushed the heavy door, utilizing the remaining momentum the machine still had. It was just enough to squeeze through, and suddenly he was in darkness just before the sound of metal shutting behind him and the thick shuffling of bolt locks sliding into place reverberated through the long corridor. Then the grainy emergency lights lit his way, and Jack began to make his way underground.

And Jack didn't allow himself to hope that Gwen was alive, that she had somehow escaped being slain by this pretend-Ianto's treachery. Likely, she set off the alarm in her last moments to keep the thing from reaching the outside world. He was a fool to even think of hoping that Ianto may have come back to life, a fool to get caught in memories of what didn't exist anymore while Gwen was in danger. He should have come here the moment Swanson said the name 'Ianto Jones.' But he had been a coward, stalling and wishing and trying to live in denial.

And while he lived in denial, Gwen very well may have died.

God, he was likely too late. Unable to do anything but be left with another person to mourn. Jack held his despair in with a hard expression as he reached the lift, pressing a few handy buttons to his vortex manipulator (which wasn't completely fixed, but would now be even more handy for situations like this) and steel himself for this sight of the Cog door. There was no time for weakness.

Because at least Jack could kill the thing that did this personally, something he hadn't been able to manage with the 456. Feel the blood—whatever color it may be—splatter as he put his rarely used interrogation skills to test.

But it wouldn't be an interrogation.

No, just murder.

Slow. Torturous.

Two things Jack knew how to do well.

TBC!

Next chapter, guys, I promise!