A/N: Um, what I said about RL not disrupting my posting...? Yeah, seems I was wrong. Sorry guys! I'll try and get another chapter up this weekend to make up for it!
Jack released Ianto's elbow as they stepped outside, the young man no longer insistent on trying to talk to the girl again. He looked around for a moment, breathing in the chill night air, and then turned back to his companion.
Before he could say anything, Ianto began to speak. "So the creepy little girl hints that Gwen's going to be okay and you just believe her, no questions asked?"
Jack pursed his lips. "That's funny, I recall asking a few questions."
"Right." Ianto glanced skyward and pulled his jacket tighter around himself. "Seriously, though, that's it? You've spent days chasing after not a cure, not a lead, but a prepubescent tarot reader who won't even make the effort to embellish her lies?"
"She's not lying."
"And you know this because...?"
Jack gave a half smile. "Because she proved herself when she helped me find the second resurrection gauntlet." He tilted his head thoughtfully, then added, "Also, shortly after I was stranded here, she correctly predicted when the Doctor would turn up again."
Ianto frowned at him. "'Shortly after'...?"
"Oh yes," the Captain declared in amusement, "she looks great for her age, doesn't she?"
"She's..." Ianto trailed off and wearily rubbed a hand over his face, almost poking himself in the eye as he did so with the card he still held. Jack watched as he stared at it, quick eyes taking in every minute detail, before sliding it silently into his coat pocket. "I don't know why I bother to be surprised by this city anymore," he eventually said with a sigh.
"What do you think she meant?" Jack asked, unable to hold back the question any longer. "Those things she said about you; did they make any sense?"
Ianto licked his lips and stared at a nearby street lamp. "No," he said pensively, still looking upwards. A moment later Jack witnessed the precise instant Ianto's scepticism kicked in again and he turned back to the older man with disdain in his eyes. "You can't seriously believe she could read my future by looking at a few cards?"
"It isn't necessarily your future," Jack told him.
"Well, whatever," Ianto said, shrugging, "it didn't mean anything." He started to walk away, shoving his hands into his pockets, only to spin abruptly on his heel and hurry back to the pub's entrance. "Forgot my mobile!" he called over his shoulder.
Jack waited for him by the door. He wasn't surprised by the Welshman's unwillingness to believe in such things. Aliens, spaceships, parasitic lifeforms...all these were well within his limits of acceptance. He had even experienced the existence of psychic abilities for himself, but remove the scientific explanation and put a few dog-eared tarot cards on a table and Ianto was utterly misogynic.
Jack shook his head wryly and thought back over their brief meeting with the little girl.
He hadn't been entirely positive that she would appear for Ianto, but he'd been willing to try and clearly his instincts had been correct. It had been a hunch, a gamble, but those were the foundations upon which Jack had once lived his life – still did in some instances – and they'd certainly proven themselves this time. After four days of searching for the evasive child, she had found Ianto barely two hours into his search.
Jack's desire to find the girl had always been in order to learn of Gwen's fate; he knew he wouldn't get a cure from her, but a clue about the future was all he needed to find the strength to keep going. He had indeed gained a glimmer of hope for Gwen's condition that night, but the additional plan of using Ianto to lure the little girl out had not proven so successful.
The reading she'd given was extraordinarily vague, and Jack wasn't sure he had enough pieces of the puzzle to even attempt to decipher it. He'd expected more precise details from the girl, as he had received himself in the past, but clearly Ianto wasn't so lucky to get that much guidance.
Or maybe, Jack thought darkly, his presence there had caused her to speak in riddles. Perhaps she wasn't one who freely shared the secrets of others. He sighed; wouldn't it just be typical if the best diviner he'd found in the city was also the most moral?
As the young man reappeared through the doorway, phone in hand, Jack was reminded of what else he'd discovered that night.
"You should check your messages," he said in an even tone. "Sounded like someone was eager to get hold of you earlier."
Ianto's response was almost one of panic, for just a brief a second, and then the expression was gone, replaced by the cool mask of impassiveness Jack had come to know so well over the past few years.
"It can wait," he said, slipping the mobile into his pocket without turning it back on.
"Really? Because people don't often ring so late at night just to say hello."
A muscle in Ianto's jaw twitched and Jack knew the baiting was starting to affect him. Unfortunately the immortal didn't have the patience right then to play tricky word games. "Who's Alex?" he asked bluntly instead.
Ianto's features remained impressively composed as Jack revealed just how long he'd been following the Welshman. "A friend," Ianto replied with a shrug. He turned away and began down the street in the direction of his flat, clearly opting to walk home rather than go all the way back to the Hub to pick up his car.
"Is that the same friend who put those scratches on your chest?" Jack asked casually.
Ianto's shoulders tensed and he stopped only three paces away. "I told you," he said after a long silence. "I was itching."
"You're lying. And it's obvious too. Which is worrying, because you normally do such a good job of it."
Ianto turned back slowly to look at Jack. He seemed both surprised and angry, as though he didn't quite know how to take the older man's accusations.
Jack, on the other hand, was becoming more and more baffled by the other's behaviour. He wasn't exaggerating when he praised Ianto's skills at deception, he certainly couldn't deny Ianto's gift for it after successfully hiding Lisa's existence in the Hub for so many months. For the young man to be having such trouble with this new secret now was truly alarming.
Not that Jack especially wanted Ianto to succeed in keeping things from him, but by his very nature the Welshman was self-contained and to have that control slip so far meant something very bad indeed was going on.
As Jack compared the current situation to the incident with Lisa, and found it even more disturbing, his determination to solve this mystery was made firmer than ever.
"Is there something wrong?" he asked, because he chose not to believe that Ianto could be doing something as dangerous as the last time; something that could cause harm to others. Of course if it wasn't that kind of secret, it meant it could be another kind of problem altogether. "Is someone bothering you?" he added solemnly.
Ianto continued to stare at him and for all Jack's experience of reading people, he was having trouble working out what was going through the other man's head at that moment in time.
"It's nothing," Ianto said. He then straightened his shoulders, strength returning to his voice as he continued, "It's none of your business."
"What?" Jack was actually stunned. "Of course it is. You're my business. If something's wrong, I need to know." Ianto shook his head but Jack ploughed right on. "I thought we'd agreed on no more secrets."
The young man gave a sharp laugh at that. "Not quite, Jack. We agreed that I would have no more secrets. You were very specific about that detail."
"Yeah, because some of the things I've seen should never be experienced. Even if it is only second-hand." Jack got a withering look in response and he felt his grip on his frustration starting to slide. "But we're not talking about me, we're talking about you. And you did agree to no more secrets."
"Maybe I realised it was a foolish promise to make," Ianto said, looking away.
"So you're not going to tell me?"
Ianto rolled his eyes. "There's nothing to tell."
"Other than the fact you're seeing someone who thinks it's okay to make you bleed?"
"Oh because you've never hurt anyone by accident?" came the snarky retort.
Jack immediately knew that he'd won, and by the dawning look of realisation on Ianto's face it was clear he'd also noticed the mistake in not correcting Jack's presumption.
"So you are seeing someone else," the Captain said quietly. He tried to work out how he felt about that, but only got as far as recognising the surprise that Ianto would be so promiscuous. The other emotions the revelation stirred up were a little too dangerous for Jack to consider at that time.
"I'm not seeing him," Ianto protested.
"Okay, fine, you're sleeping with someone else," Jack amended, disturbed to hear the bitterness in his own voice.
"I'm not sleeping with him either," Ianto said, his brow creasing as he continued to look away.
"So how do you explain those scratches?" Jack pressed. "Because the way I see it..." He moved suddenly, slipping behind the younger man and bringing his hands around to rest on Ianto's chest. "...he must have been right about here to make them."
Within the circle of Jack's arms, Ianto tensed, his breath catching loudly.
"So tell me, what was he doing back here if not fucking you?" Jack breathed into Ianto's ear and the younger man shuddered.
"Nothing," Ianto managed to choke out. His chest was beginning to heave beneath Jack's hands.
"I don't know why you're still lying," Jack went on. "It's not like I wouldn't understand if you were seeing someone else." He ignored the way those words tasted so sour in his mouth. "We haven't exactly made promises of fidelity to each other."
If it was possible, Jack suspected Ianto would have tensed even more. His breath slowed again but his voice was slightly strained as he asked, "So you've been seeing someone else?"
"What?" Jack hesitated; when had this become about him? "No, actually, I haven't." Only after he'd said the words aloud did they register in his mind and disbelief swept over him as he realised the depth of that truth. He hadn't slept with anyone else since the first night Ianto had propositioned him. He blinked, alarmed, then stepped back, breaking the contact with his young lover. "But that's not the point," he forced himself to say, "the point is it's not a problem if you and this Alex-"
"God, are you even listening to me?" Ianto exploded suddenly, spinning to face the immortal. "I told you I'm not seeing him, I'm not sleeping with him, he's no one, dammit, no one!"
Jack felt his lips twitch upwards; always inappropriately amused by Ianto's rare emotional outbursts. "So not a friend then?"
The Welshman's expression instantly closed up, belatedly realising that he'd given yet something else away.
Jack was now more convinced than ever that something big was amiss, as Ianto continued to prove with his lack of composure just how troubled he was.
The young man opened his mouth to say something, but evidentially decided against it and instead turned away to resume his walk home.
"Ianto!" Jack called after him.
"It's got nothing to do with you, Jack," Ianto said. "Just leave it."
"Bullshit," Jack muttered to himself, watching as Ianto vanished into the night without looking back once.
He stood outside the pub for a while longer, staring down the empty street, before finally heading in the opposite direction. As he walked, he mulled over what his next course of action would be. He knew continuing to pursue the matter would anger the reticent young man further, but he knew deep down he had no real choice; not if he wanted to make sure Ianto was truly safe.