A/N Apologies for the length of time it's taken me to get back to this. Real life has a habit of taking over, so I've not had the time to carry on recently. Hopefully that will change, and I hope you enjoy this next part. Thank you to everyone reading, and don't forget – for all of you who requested the sequel, this is dedicated to you! Enjoy, concrit and reviews welcome as always. xxGhostfishxx

Loss Of Sensation

Chapter Nine -

A Touch of Deja Vu

Two long days later and the team were gathered around the conference table, Tosh at the head of it by the main screen. There was a light in her eyes that suggested she had discovered something important, the hastily called meeting being the consequence.

Little had happened on the subject of Jack since Tosh's original discovery of the dust on the CCTV, the case dwindling down to just her working on it while the others, through lack of any leads to follow, had busied themselves with the usual call outs and alarms. It wasn't that they didn't want to find an answer, but there was so little to go on that they had come to a standstill. And of course, universal alien activity did not pause for anyone, not even the enigma that was Captain Jack Harkness.

Ianto was sitting neatly at the conference table in his usual place next to Owen, who conversely looked rather rough, even by his standards. The first thing he'd requested upon entering the Hub that morning had been four paracetamol and a duvet, to which Ianto had replied that if he wanted a duvet he'd have to nip down and share with Jack, who had not yet emerged. Owen had grimaced, holding his head and downgrading his request to just the drugs and a black coffee before collapsing into his seat. Strange that the doctor never seemed to remember the location of the medication that he used most frequently, Ianto had mused as he dug in the cupboards for the requested items.

Now Owen looked grumpy as well as hungover, squinting in the bright lights that glimmered on the polished tabletop. He and Tosh had been in conference together for the past couple of hours down in the mortuary pit whilst Gwen and Ianto had continued the developing trend of tiptoeing around the Captain.

Jack's mood had taken a serious turn for the worse over the past twenty-four hours. Not even Ianto's dry wit could perk him up now, and as it was, Jack had been avoiding the confused Welshman as best he could. This was no mean feat, seeing as Ianto had spent little more than a couple of hours away from the Hub since Jack had lost the ability to feel, but somehow the American managed to hide away from them all with an ease that said he knew far more about the architectural secrets of the Hub than any of his team.

Ianto didn't like the silence. Not only was it unusual for the Hub to be so lifeless, it was also a sign that Jack was sinking further into depression, a state of mind that didn't suit the usually chirpy head of Torchwood. At least before he'd been willing to tell them how pissed off he was, driving everyone mad with his complaining, but now any questions that were not related to general Torchwood business were either ignored or met with a stony silence. He simply refused to talk properly, not to Ianto, not to anyone.

Though Jack was there in spirit when the rest of the team went out to follow up a Rift alarm or a reported problem, he wouldn't come out with them, preferring to stay in the Hub. He could just about run the computers from there, but quite rightly pointed out that he was an uncoordinated liability in the field as he couldn't even shoot a gun straight. Ianto and Gwen had gone searching for Jack the previous morning, and had found him swearing spectacularly at a handgun he'd been practising with in the underground range. A quick glance at the target told the two spies everything they needed to know about Jack's aim. The gun had clearly been fired several times, the air sharp with residual smoke, but the weevil-shaped target had not a mark on it. Ianto and Gwen had snuck back up to the Hub without being noticed, leaving the cussing Captain to it.

However useful he may be back at base though, Ianto could tell that Jack was bored stiff, itching to go out and fight the fight and incredibly frustrated at his lack of ability to do so. He was slipping away slowly, bit by bit, becoming a shadow of the Captain Jack Harkness who usually occupied the Hub.

Ianto flicked his gaze to the opposing head of the conference table where Jack sat with his arms folded, watching Tosh steadily. It was the first time Ianto had seen him in person that day, having only caught glimpses of the man on the CCTV as he skulked around in the vaults. Lord knew what he was doing down there, but as he wasn't upstairs shouting at them for a change the team had decided to leave him to it.

Now though, his full attention was on the resident genius.

'So, I've been thinking about it,' Tosh was saying, pacing up and down, seeming to be addressing herself than the rest of them as she tended to do, organizing a train of thought. 'And I think I've come up with something. Owen agrees with me.'

'Yeah, in theory,' Owen murmured, drawing a sharp look from Jack.

'Get to the point, Tosh,' Jack said irritably.

Tosh beamed at him, apparently unaffected by the snappy manner. 'I think it was a weapon.'

'A weapon?' Gwen asked curiously, a frown on her face.

Tosh nodded enthusiastically. 'Yes. A very pretty weapon, granted, but a weapon all the same. Like a grenade, almost. I think it may have been used to lure an attacker in using that little light show, and then it would explode and render them powerless by removing all touch sense.'

'But...why not just explode like a normal bomb?' Gwen asked, regarding Tosh with interest. 'Surely if you want to kill someone off like that, that's the simplest way?'

'That's what I thought at first, it makes no sense,' Tosh agreed. 'But what if it's not designed to kill?'

Gwen leant her chin on her hand, a frown creasing her pale forehead. 'A weapon with no intention of killing its victim? I'm sorry, I don't get it.'

'I think I do,' Ianto muttered darkly. The rest of the team looked at him, and on lifting his gaze from his linked hands on the tabletop, Ianto blinked, as if surprised he had spoken out loud, and explained his train of thought. 'Maybe whoever owns the thing just likes their food really fresh.'

'What?' Gwen asked her frown deepening.

Ianto raised an eyebrow. 'Think about it. You lure someone in with the shiny lights, they pick it up. It explodes and leaves them confused, defenceless, but it doesn't damage the prey. Doesn't damage the meat. It all makes for a good, fresh meal, probably carved up while the victim is still alive. An easy job because they can feel nothing. No struggling, no fuss.'

Gwen was now staring at her colleague, a look of pure disgust on her face. Ianto couldn't help an internal grin. Even with everything they saw each day, all the things that were so out of the ordinary that they could drive you mad if you thought about them too much, it was still satisfying to know that the team could be shocked by the observation of a mere human.

'Beautifully put,' Owen said, voice dripping with sarcasm. 'You are one sick man, Jones.'

'Is that your theory?' Ianto asked, ignoring the doctor and looking up at Tosh.

Tosh nodded. 'Yes. I suppose whoever uses the device could use it on animals, or the alien equivalent of animals, but it is quite conceivable that they use it to hunt other members of their own species too. There are probably cannibals in every species. We know there certainly are in the human race.'

The team lapsed into silence for a moment, each lost in the memory of their own experience in Brecon Beacons for a moment before Gwen broke the silence.

'If what you say is true, it seemed rather discerning for a bomb, didn't it? It was perfectly happy with you Tosh, so why did it object to Jack? How does a machine pick a target?'

Tosh looked delighted, as if she'd expected the question. 'This is the other thing. I think it may have been partially sentient. Some sort of bio-mechanics that I can't quite get my head around yet. It may have been trained to an extent by the owner, they probably have loads of them because obviously they explode all the time. Once they're trained not to detonate at the touch of the owner, they can then tell the difference between the owner and a target. Like someone who trains dogs for the hunt: the dogs know what to attack but to leave their owner alone. Discern friend from foe.'

'Or good meat from bad,' Ianto added, biting back a smile once more.

'Alright, you're going to have to stop that now,' Owen said, directing a suspicious look at the secretary. 'There's something very wrong with you mate.'

Ianto smiled wickedly at the doctor, an expression very different from his usual almost-smile.

'Sorry. Too many horror film marathons when I was a teenager.'

'No wonder you're such a freak.'

'This from the embodiment of normality himself.'

'Don't you have coffee to make?'

'Don't you have a cactus to water?'

'Enough!' Jack said authoritatively, cutting off the bickering pair who immediately looked contrite under the aggressive rebuke. Attention now turned to Jack, who was looking thoughtful now rather than annoyed. He'd been listening in silence until that point, and Tosh actually looked startled at the sound of his voice. 'So we have a theory,' Jack continued. 'Question is, how did it decide that I was dangerous and not you then?' he asked, directing the question to Tosh.

Owen piped up again at that point. 'Maybe because you've travelled in time. Maybe because you're in the wrong era, have the wrong DNA sequence or something similar. You're weird, Jack, and you know it. Either way, it saw you as a decent meal and as it had already latched onto Tosh at that point it did its thing and...bam.' Owen made an exploding motion with his fingers. 'Kebabs all round. You really should have eaten him Tosh, your toy exploded him just for you.'

Jack directed a look so full of threat that Owen visibly winced, shutting up immediately.

'The question now is can we reverse it?' Gwen interjected, sensing the tension in the air.

Tosh was now chewing her bottom lip, eyes fixed blankly on the table as she lost herself in thought. 'It's as if what was absorbed into you has created a sort of anaesthetic. I'd originally thought it would wear off like a traditional anaesthetic, but apparently not.' She looked at Jack apologetically.

'So we still have no idea,' Jack said dully.

Tosh glanced at Owen, the look passing between them suggesting the complete opposite to what Jack had just said. It was obvious enough for the Captain to pick up on.

'What?' he demanded, a spark of hope in his eyes.

'You won't like it,' Owen said, shaking his head as if he knew he were going to get shouted at.

'Just tell me! What?'

Owen scratched the back of his neck, looking very uncomfortable. He glanced at Tosh before looking back at Jack. 'Er...we have a theory...'

Jack stood up suddenly, clearly irritated now as he slammed his hands on the table. 'Harper! Enough theory! Tell me now!'

'Alright, alright!' the doctor said quickly. 'We think you might have to die. Again.'

All eyes were on Jack, awaiting the reaction. Jack just blinked.

'That's it?'

Owen shrugged in response. 'It's the only thing we can think of. Nothing about your bloods is abnormal, none of the tests I did on you show anything. Like I said at the time, I don't think it's a physical thing I can treat. But you seem to heal completely when you die, so we figured that maybe it would work on this. And it's not like you'd feel it or anything...'

Jack stared at him for a moment. Then, straightening up, his face broke into a wide smile, the first he'd shown the team in days now. 'I thought you were going to tell me something a lot worse than that.'

'It's not a good thing though, is it?' Tosh said, hugging herself as if the mere thought made her feel ill.

'Are you sure it'll work?' Jack asked Tosh, arms crossed over his chest, a frown on his face. 'I mean, I tried cutting myself up a bit, and it healed obviously. But I still can't feel anything where the new skin is.'

'There's no way of knowing for sure,' Tosh shrugged. 'But it's the best solution we can come up with.'

'Well, it's not what I was expecting but it's simple enough,' Jack shrugged, eyes brighter then they'd been in days. 'No problem.'

'Need any volunteers to do it for you?' Owen asked, a bright grin on his face. 'After the mood you've been in all week I'll bet there's four willing ones right here.'

Jack gave Owen an I-am-not-amused look, his voice loaded with sarcasm. 'I'll just fetch the singularity scalpel then, shall I?'

Owen shrugged, refusing to be deterred. 'I was thinking more along the lines of shoving you in with the Weevils for a while.'

'This is sick, stop it!' Tosh protested as Owen and Jack started bantering about different ways of doing it, each of them more unlikely than the last.

'Parachute accident?' Owen suggested.

'Nah, too many witnesses. In front of a train, whack!' Jack smacked one hand into the other. 'Not done that yet.'

'You'll cause havoc with British Rail, they're bad enough as is,' Gwen said, obviously enjoying the sudden return to form of her boss.

Ianto listened to all this in silence. His hands were suddenly very cold, as if he weren't getting enough blood to his extremities, and an all-too familiar knot in his stomach tightened with every flippant suggestion as the rest of the team remained oblivious.

The knot was like an old friend, comprised of the same anger and pain he'd felt all those months ago. Rage at the lack of consideration sometimes shown by Torchwood Three. He couldn't ask them never to talk about death, the very nature of their work involved death at almost every turn. But a little tact on the subject of suicide - was that too much to ask for? Ianto glared at his hands so as not to betray his feelings to the happy group opposite. They were treating it as if it were a joke, as if it meant nothing.

Ianto didn't realize Jack was staring at him until he looked up from his hands, now clenched into fists so tight that his knuckles had gone white. Jack had seen the expression on the younger man from across the room, had sensed it before he saw it, even. Usually Jack would have picked up on the sudden dark turn of emotion emanating from Ianto, however as that ability was lost to him at the present time, it had been more about recognizing the sudden silence that surrounded the only member of the team left sitting.

Jack crossed the room, leaving the other three chattering away for a moment, and leant on the table by the prone Welshman. He spoke quietly so as to remain unnoticed at the other end of the table.

'Ianto.'

'Sir?' The tone was normal enough, but Ianto didn't look up.

'You okay?'

'Fine, sir. Thank you. If we're done here I'm going to get on with some work, if you don't mind.' Ianto realized he was babbling slightly, but he didn't care. He'd managed to force a light tone into his voice. The last place he wanted to make a scene was in front of everyone, but the need to get out of the room and be alone had suddenly become unbearable. Owen called Jack back over, and with a concerned look at Ianto, Jack reluctantly rejoined the small group.

Ianto swallowed heavily, trying to compose himself, and, as the others were talking about the logistics of it all, he managed to leave the table and slip away to the relative peace of the archives.

Leaning on a battered filing cabinet labelled 'Misc – Biological', Ianto breathed in and out deeply a couple of times. His head felt heavy, and where the air in the conference room had been oppressive, the atmosphere in the archives was musty and still. There was something comforting about the place, tall shelves full of information, huge vaulted rooms and small locked boxes, row upon row of filing cabinets. Quiet order that was always reliable. It offered a security that allowed Ianto to think.

The irony of it, the man that had more or less saved Ianto from making a huge, fatal mistake by burying a bullet in his skull was the same man now casually talking about his own suicide. It was different, he knew it was different. One of those rare occasions where taking your life really might be the only solution. Ianto was aware of how illogical he was being, and he could hardly compare his situation to that of Jack, but he still felt that the whole scenario was cutting a little too close to home.

Much as he hated to admit it, Ianto was far from recovered. He was making a slow, steady journey, and a successful one so far, but everything he had felt that had led him to breaking point before was still only just beneath the surface, Such flippant conversation on the subject of suicide, though merely a practical solution for the current problem, was still a sensitive topic for Ianto have to face.

'Hey.'

Jumping at the sound of another voice in the echo-y void of the archives, Ianto turned quickly and cast a startled glance at the speaker. Apparently his facade of being fine was as transparent as it usually was. Jack was standing there leaning against a cabinet, arms folded, regarding the younger man with a look of suspicious concern.

Composing himself immediately, the well practised mask slipping into place, Ianto forced a smile. 'Of course sir, why wouldn't I be?'

'Don't bullshit me Ianto, it doesn't suit you,' Jack said, the suspicion turning to a much harder stare from under a furrowed brow. 'You don't like this plan, do you?'

'Is it any wonder?' Ianto said tiredly, dropping the façade immediately. His days of hiding behind it were over, he'd come to realise, especially in front of Jack, but it was an automatic defence system he had yet to disable completely. 'I know it's selfish, but people nonchalantly talking about killing themselves makes...makes me...fuck, I don't know. It's just weird, that's all.'

Jack nodded. 'I understand. But this is different, Ianto, you know that.'

Ianto sighed heavily and rubbed his eyes. Of course it was different. Of course Jack would come back, it would be fine. Ianto knew that, sure as the tide came in every day in Cardiff Bay. But aside from his obvious personal issues around the subject of suicide, there was always that fear in Ianto's mind, that tiny, tiny chance that Jack would one day use up his limit and check out for good. It bothered Ianto every single time the Captain was maimed or killed in the line of duty, and had dome since he had first found out that Jack was apparently invincible. He'd been convinced that Jack's time had been up after he'd taken on Abbadon, the demon sucking years of life force out of the man and leaving him dead for days. Once again though Jack had seemingly thwarted the laws of the universe itself by dragging himself back to the living.

But this was the nature of life in the presence of Jack Harkness. It was all about the risk, the danger, and of course the death. That would never change, Torchwood would never change and Jack would never change either. It was something they all had to accept in order to do their jobs.

'You once told me that death is not the answer,' Ianto murmured, recalling a long-passed conversation with a small smile.

Jack's mouth twitched, obviously fighting a smile himself. 'Yeah, and what was it you said? Ah, yes.' He suddenly imitated a Welsh accent, a talent that apparently did not improve as time went on as it was as bad as ever. 'How would you know? You always come back!' Jack grinned at Ianto. 'Your own words, Ianto. It will be fine.'

Ianto glared, unable to join in the humour. 'That's not the point. I know you'll come back. I know it'll probably be fine. But you're all treating it like it's nothing.'

Jack's smile faded and he took a step towards Ianto, causing the younger man to flinch involuntarily much to Jack's surprise. Ianto felt a small stab of guilt at the hurt expression on the Captain's face, ashamed about treating the man this way, a man who had helped him so much. But he couldn't help it. He felt beaten down, pathetic in the face of this bravado. Jack remained the embodiment of everything Ianto was not. Strong. Confident. Invincible.

Jack smiled softly. 'You are strong, Ianto. Never doubt that.'

Ianto blinked. 'What? How...what? You heard that?'

'It's written all over your handsome face, kid.'

Ianto looked away, teeth gritted together in annoyance and embarrassment. Why did he have to be so bloody obvious? Could he keep nothing to himself now? He suddenly missed his facade, at least it protected him somewhat from looking a fool.

'Ianto...' Jack sighed, knowing all the jokes in the world wouldn't get through at this point. Now was the time for a little compassion. 'Look, don't worry. It'll be fine, I promise you. You don't even have to be there if you don't want. Just make damn sure you're there when I come back, I'd far rather wake up to you than Owen.'

Ianto dragged his gaze back to Jack, grasping for some kind of self control. He straightened a little. 'When?'

'No time like the present. I can only assume that I'm really, really hungry at this point. I'll be back before you know it. '

Ianto swallowed thickly. 'Okay. How?'

Jack shrugged. 'Gun. Apologies for being a copycat, but it's quick, easy, straight to the point.' He grinned wolfishly, unable to help himself. 'Not unlike the rest of me.'

Ianto managed a berating look. 'Fine. But I do want to be there. You'll need someone to catch you after all.'

'Falling into your arms? How could I resist that?' Jack laughed. Ianto smiled a little, still feeling faintly nauseous but not impervious to his boss's good humour. Jack reached out and put a hand on Ianto's shoulder.

'Come on then kiddo, let's get it over with.'