Just a few words here about my writing of Gwen. In watching the show, I found her to be almost a caricature of a person rather than an actual human. She always reminded me of a walking Mary Sue on the show because she never suffered the consequences of her screw ups, she was portrayed as being the heart and humanity, yet she was a sneaky, immature, unfaithful wench. So, while it might show a bit strong in how I write her, that's the reason. Will she get better later on? Maybe, in fact in some ways yes. Wills he ever be the sympathetic bleeding heart that RTD claimed she was? Nope. Not in my world. Now, on we go and thanks for the continued support. :)

"Rhiannon?"

She must have heard him coming as she didn't do more than turn her head. "He's still sleeping." She looked back at Ianto's still face. "Should we leave him alone?"

"I'll have Tosh turn the sound up so we can hear if he gets restless. Has he been coughing or anything?"

"Not really, the oxygen seems to be helping a great deal with his breathing but you can hear the sounds in his chest. He's so ill, Jack. He's so ill and he must have been so afraid."

"I'm sure he was." Jack came closer and crouched next to the bed, reaching out to smooth the tangled hair off Ianto's brow. "It's not going to be easy or an immediate fix but he will get though this. If I have to drag him kicking and screaming to a better place I will."

"Make sure he knows he hasn't let you down. That you don't feel he's not worth saving." She smiled up at Jack when he rose. "Now I am starving. Where's the bloody food?"

Laughing, he offered his arm to lead her to the boardroom where the rest waited.

-TW-

Tosh had been correct about the food choices. Once everything was passed round and all had tucked in, Jack began the discussion. "We can't keep Ianto here indefinitely. I'm not sure how he's going to feel about us setting everything up without asking, but I'm hoping that Rhiannon's input will make him a little less likely to put me on decaf."

"You could put him in a broom closet and he wouldn't complain." Rhiannon looked round the table with narrowed eyes. "He's going to do everything he can to vanish. Not literally, but he'll be a shadow that passes by doing his job. He's sensitive to emotions, he always seems to know..."

"Oh goddess," Jack breathed, "he's an empath? How was that not in his records?"

"Not sure what one of those is so I can't answer that." Rhiannon frowned at the expressions on Jack, Tosh and Owen's faces. "Is it bad?"

"No, but it explains a lot," Owen said, dropping his chopsticks beside the container of prawns and rice he had been eating. "We certainly keep finding new ways of having buggered things up."

Jack, his appetite gone, got to his feet. "I can't do this now. I'm going to go sit with Ianto. Tosh, can you escort Rhiannon to her car when she's finished? You can head home yourself then. Gwen, clean up this before you go for the night. Owen, you can leave but make sure your phone is on." Ignoring any protests or comments directed his way, Jack left the boardroom and headed for the room where Ianto was sleeping, taking a moment to mute the CCTV on the way.

"So what's an empath?"

Tosh gave Rhiannon a weak smile. 'Someone who is sensitive to moods and emotions. They can't read your mind but a lot of the times, if the empathy is strong, they can anticipate what you want or need. Ianto's been good at that; always seeming to know when Jack needs an extra strong coffee, or when I need a chocolate biscuit. It's kind of a knowing anticipation." She glanced at Owen. "Medically, Owen needs to explain."

"It can't hurt him. But then again it can." Owen snorted loudly. "If you're round an empath and all you have are negative emotions like anger or unhappiness, it's like they are constantly feeling the same emotions on top of their own. It's not so bad when they're positive, or happy, but with all the problems he already has being here and dealing with the way people felt about One and how some felt about him I'm surprised it didn't break him mentally. But then again maybe it did and we were just too self-involved to notice." He picked up his chopsticks again. "We're not a happy bunch. We're fucked up, angry, and take it out on people that don't deserve it. Owen's eyes flicked toward Tosh. "He got the brunt of it from me and Gwen. And don't bother to claim you were innocent in all this and you know it, Cooper."

"I'd like to know why everyone seems to have forgotten that..."

"And here she goes. All about her. Why a good man like Rhys ever thought he was getting something decent when he got involved with you..."

Gwen leapt to her feet. "You'd best just shut it! Bloody no good estate trash like you...!"

"Enough!" Owen bellowed, causing both women to turn murderous glares on him. "Not doing a bit of good here, so can we just sit down, eat and maybe concentrate on what we're gonna do about the bloody Tea...er, I mean Ianto?" Owen held his hands up in Rhiannon's direction. "I know, he's not a tea boy. I'm a twat, like I said, but the I do give a damn as his doctor."

"Someone else can clean up after her, I'm going home." Gwen stormed out of the boardroom, the others hearing her slamming drawers in her desk before the sirens sounded as she left through the cog door.

"Much nicer now, don't you think?" Rhiannon grinned at them both before going back to her food.

Rolling her eyes, Tosh silently agreed.

-TW-

Jack dropped into the chair beside Ianto's bed and leaned forward to rest his forearms on his thighs. He wasn't surprised to find that Ianto was empathic; the way he anticipated and seemed to always know what was needed was a blatant clue. What it did was offer another layer of truth to what Ianto had said about Lisa, that indeed she had retained some of who she was and he could sense that from her. While he still firmly believed nothing could have been done to reverse the process Jack had to admit to himself that the reasons Ianto had for doing what he did were legitimate and only made his handling of the situation that much harder to bear. He reached out and took hold of Ianto's hand, curling his fingers round and holding it gently. The skin was far warmer than it had been but he had no illusions about any drastic change in condition - Ianto was sick, very sick, and while Owen was optimistic it was going to take for him to be well. Physically well. Mentally, Jack knew was going to take even longer.

"Hey. I've got so much to say to you so you need to wake up. Not just flutter your eyes although if you want to do that when you're well I'm all for it. In fact, when you're well you can..."

"Still harassing then, sir?" Very quiet and raspy but the sound was music to Jack's ears and the grin it brought to his face was blinding.

"Hey you. Don't try too talk much. Are you thirsty?"

Ianto gave a slow nod. Jack let go of his hand and opened the pitcher on the table beside the bed. "Ice?" Another nod and he grabbed the spoon to fish out a few chips. "Open." When Ianto did, he carefully tipped the spoon and promptly sent the contents sliding onto Ianto's face and down his cheek. "Oops. Um, wait, here." This time he picked up a larger chunk with his fingers and pressed it to Ianto's lips. "Open again and I promise to actually give it to you not your neck." Ianto did and Jack slipped the ice through his lips, somewhat reluctantly pulling his fingers back and wiping them on the serviette that had been let next to the pitcher. "Here, let me..." He stood and carefully helped Ianto to sit up a bit, quickly stuffing another pillow behind him. "There," he said, sitting back down, "is that better?"

"Would be but for the ice melting on my neck," Ianto deadpanned, "which is rather cold."

"And that would be oops again." Jack took the serviette and used it to blot at the water left by the melted chips. Setting the cloth back on the table he again leaned his forearms on his knees, his eyes roaming over Ianto's thin, pale face. "I though I'd lost you. I thought if I ever saw you again it would be as a corpse. We looked and looked for you and you were here. Do you have any idea what it would have done to me, and to Tosh, to find you had died so close to us?" He wasn't trying to sound accusing but he knew it was coming out that way when Ianto's face flushed and his eyes dropped to watch his fingers crimp and fold the blanket. "Ianto, I know what happened, what was said, was..." He caught hold of Ianto's fingers, trying to still the movement. "I'm angry." He felt and saw the flinch. "Wait, listen. I am angry. I'm angry at you for not telling me. I'm angry at you for bringing what could have been the beginning of an end of the world invasion into the base and hiding it. But I am also angry at myself, at Owen, at Gwen. I can't really be angry at Tosh except I am a little bit because she was smarter than me. The things we said, the way we behaved, so much that should have been done. But you let us. You wanted to be less than a part of us but I should never have allowed it. You failed me, but more than that I failed you. I should have realized that you were in far worse shape than I did but I was distracted. I also should have realized you were empathic."

"I didn't want you to. I know what Torchwood used empaths for and I didn't want that to happen." Whether it was the illness or the insecurity Jack didn't know but the words were so soft he was grateful for the heightened senses that came with his physiology.

"Ianto, what did I do to make you distrust me so much? Not only that you wouldn't tell me who you are but to hide something like that from me? You know I severed ties with One because I didn't agree with them. Hell, I made it clear enough what I thought of them from what I said after you were here. I never believed that crap Yvonne spewed. Why didn't you tell me?"

In the words Ianto heard the very real pain and the desire to understand. He hadn't had any trust in Jack, in fact in any of them although he was beginning to feel it with Tosh. If things had not gone the way they had, he might even have left some sort of goodbye message for her and by extension Jack. His feelings for Jack were muddled with his feelings for Lisa, and that in itself had kept him allowing only a surface relationship with the man. He had wanted so badly to say something, to ask for help, but his fear had won out over the desire every time. He knew Jack was waiting and he had to say something. "When you came to go through the remnants." He coughed and gestured toward the pitcher. "May I...?"

Jack poured some of the water and ice into a cup. "Careful, and not too much." He actually steadied it while Ianto took several small sips, setting it back on the table when Ianto indicated he was done.

"Thanks." He went back to crimping the edge of the blanket. "You were somewhere outside." His voice, broken and fraught with pain and disuse, was so quiet Jack sat further forward to make sure he caught every word. "Owen and Suzie were in the archives. I was..." he coughed again, this time a more prolonged spell that left him breathing hard and needing a few more sips of water before he could go on. "I was hiding, trying to find things to help with Lisa. Suzie was asking you something. You were using the intercom system to talk so I heard you answer her, then someone with you asked you something. I heard your reply."

Jack nodded. "Right, what did I say?"

Old eyes, burdened by horror and pain, rose to meet his. "You said kill them," Ianto whispered. "You said kill them all, leave none alive."

Jack wanted to close his eyes to avoid the depth of emotions he saw in Ianto's steady gaze. It was impossible though, in fact it was beyond his control to even blink. "Despite what you think I meant, it was done for them not to them. To live as they were, if you can call it living, was not an option. They were screaming Ianto, they were terrified and in pain and most were laying there with knives and metal imbedded in their flesh and there was nothing we could do. To get them out we would have had to turn the machines on and we couldn't. It wasn't done out of hate, it was done out of mercy. But I understand why you felt that way. I do. But once you knew me, once you had been near me, why didn't it change? Why didn't you feel that I had heart enough to at least try?"

Ianto dropped his eyes to stare at the blanket. "You would speak of One and I could feel your hate, your disdain. You believed it was deserved. You never asked me anything except when you wanted me to do something and then you told me. When you looked at Tosh you felt pride and love, almost like a father. When you looked at Owen you felt pride and affection, again like a father. When you looked at Suzie you felt pride and affection, sometimes a little desire. When you looked at Gwen you felt compassion, and lust, and warmth." Once more he looked at Jack. "When you looked at me you felt lust. And contempt."

Jack reared back. "No! If I did it was for what happened, not for you!"

Ianto managed a weak smile. "No difference, not when you feel nothing but hatred and distrust from everyone else. Tosh felt differently. Suzie had no use for me. Owen hated, well hates, me. Gwen thinks I'm worthless and beneath her. Tosh, she actually cares but she's so in love with Owen she's afraid to upset him. Add those to what I felt from you and I knew I was nothing. She was all I had. I'm tired sir, am I allowed to rest before we continue?"

"Of course." He helped Ianto sit forward and eased the extra pillow out from behind him. "Here, lie back. Are you hungry?"

"Thank you but no, sir." Ianto lay back and closed his eyes.

"Get some rest but we're going to talk more, Ianto. This isn't over." After tossing the pillow into the open bin that held the extra linens, Jack got up and moved the chair back from the bed.

"I know, sir." Exhausted, words laced with resignation and pain.

Jack stood and watched him for several minutes before going back to the bed. Bending over, he pressed a light kiss to Ianto's forehead. "Get better. We need you," he said softly, "I need you." Another kiss and he left the room, using his wriststrap to dim the lights, leaving behind silence and stillness and unseen tears.