"Um… excuse me…? If I could have everyone's attention, please?" Andy called out from the pub door. "I'm DI Davidson, and, I know this is going to be a bit of a bother, but I'm going to need everyone to remain here, inside the pub, just until we've dealt with the scene outside. I'm also going to need to collect contact information from everyone here tonight, in case we need to follow up with any witnesses. Now… as I said, I know that's a hassle and I'm genuinely sorry about it. The good news is I've been cleared by my superior officer to treat you all to a round while we get things processed. So that's not so bad, is it? Well, everyone who isn't driving, of course. Non-alcoholic beverages only for drivers or underage…. Anyway, as we've got that sorted, could I get someone to give me a hand with the orders and getting you all queued up?"

Rhys immediately stepped out of Gwen's hold and raised his hand. "Happy to help, mate. Just let me know where I'm needed. Uh… Rhys. Williams. If you want my information out of the way."

"Perfect, mate, 'preciate that. I think the easiest way to manage this will be to station you nearest the draught pulls so you can put in and hand back orders, and I'll just stand right beside you, make my notes, and keep everyone moving. Right. Could we get an orderly queue, then, please?"

"He'll wanna talk to me," Ianto murmured against Tosh's shoulder.

"He'll wait," Tosh said firmly. "They can clear everyone else out of here first. D'you want a sip of this, calm your nerves a bit?"

Ianto shook his head. "I don't want anything. Feel sick enough without it. Um… could you let me out a moment?"

Tosh quickly shifted away, letting Ianto out of the booth. She had a feeling he wouldn't be leaving the gents for a while, but still kept an eye on the door, ready to help him back over if he looked unsteady when he emerged.

By the time Ianto stepped out of the men's room, most of the pub had exchanged their phone numbers for a free drink. Tosh sat in the booth with half a glass of still water but looked about as unfocussed as if she'd had several shots instead. Ianto figured the whole thing had taken a toll on most of the patrons, they were all looking knackered. Ianto walked over to the bar where the cop who'd arrived to 'take care of' Jack stood talking to Gwen's boyfriend.

"Guessing you'll need more than my mobile number and email," Ianto said, sitting at the bar but still drawn in upon himself as much as possible.

Andy shook his head and put a hand on Ianto's shoulder. "There's a whole room of people here who can tell us you only ran out after he'd been shot. You're not a suspect."

"Why was he out there? He said he does IT – why would he be chasing a… a…. I thought the bloke in the mask was some student prank, but… what, is it terrorists in fish masks?"

"We don't know yet, exactly. Appears to be drug related though. The, uh, suspect had a bag of cocaine. Well… probably shouldn't be sharing details of the case just now, but… I figured you deserved to know. As to why… those of us in any sort of law enforcement sometimes are called on to do things we hope we never have to. Whatever he's 'meant' to do, your boyfriend is a hero. He stopped that individual from hurting anyone else."

"He said…. He said he wouldn't end up dead in his line of work. That's what he said to me."

Andy and Rhys glanced at one another. "Could be any of us, mate," Rhys said. "Nobody knows, do they? Just crossing the street's risky, isn't it?"

"Yep," Andy concurred.

Ianto just laid his head down in his arms and tried to tell himself he was just tired, not hiding his tears.

Rhys looked out the pub window when he saw a hand wave and gestured to Andy. That was their signal to quietly exit. Ianto paid no mind when the two of them stepped away, they were probably only going to discuss whether someone should stay with him through the night. Neither did he particularly notice that the rest of the pub had gone rather quiet, aside from a few snores coming from different tables where everyone else's heads were down as well.

Not even the jingling of the bell on the pub door made him look up.

Jack stopped and stared, his newly healed heart already tested and caught in his throat. They hadn't given Ianto retcon yet, they wouldn't!

Maybe Andy thought he'd give him the light, several-hours dose, just let Ianto forget seeing Jack dead on the pavement, and everything would be fine. But Jack knew better. Things might be alright for a while, but Jack would never be able to shake the guilt. It would steadily erode their relationship until things soured entirely. Anyway, it would only be prolonging the inevitable. It would only be a matter of time until Jack died again, or until it was Ianto caught in the crossfire. A relationship strung together with lies and evasions, even with claims of 'official secrets' to smooth things over, never had a chance. He'd known from the beginning he was making a terrible mistake, and now he had to do the only thing he could: say goodbye and let Ianto forget he ever existed.

"Ianto?" Jack whispered.

Ianto did nothing for a moment, sure he was hearing things.

"Yan? Are you awake?"

Finally Ianto lifted his head to look back and prove to himself there wasn't anyone there. He nearly fell off the barstool when he saw Jack standing there in a fresh undershirt but still in rain-and-blood soaked trousers. Ianto shook his head desperately. "You're not…. I'm hallucinating."

"No, you aren't," Jack said softly. "I'm ok, Ianto. Really," he said, taking a hesitant step forward.

"But I saw you. I was holding you when… you stopped, Jack… you just stopped."

"Yeah. I know. I died. But I'm ok now. Honestly. You can check," Jack said, holding out his hands to show Ianto he was real, not a ghost or audio-visual hallucination.

"That can't happen," Ianto said flatly.

"Usually, no, it can't. Remember the other day when I said that if something came up that I could tell you about, I would?"

Ianto nodded. Within the last hour, he was sure he'd mentally catalogued every word Jack had ever said or texted to him.

"Well, this is something I really shouldn't tell you, but… I'm going to anyway. Can I sit down, though? Still kinda wobbly."

"If you're telling me you've died and come back to life, I'm not surprised. Yeah, sit."

Jack smiled sadly. He was going to miss Ianto's dry wit so much, but it was at least some comfort that Ianto was still able to call up that bit of snark, even in his state.

"I can't die, Ianto," Jack said bluntly. "Well, I can, and do, frequently, but I don't stay that way. I always come back. So, when you asked if what I did was dangerous, I kind of misdirected you by saying that I wouldn't 'end up' dead. See, I never have ended up dead. Always end up alive, in the end."

"That's not possible. Medicine has done some pretty incredible things, and biology is nothing if not inconsistent, but…. Well, I guess there are people who technically stop breathing or flatline, but… that's not what you're saying, is it."

"No, it's not. Something happened to me, Ianto, a long time ago. Something that neither medicine nor biology have much to do with. It wasn't what I would call mystical… just something not really understood yet. Even I'm not evolved enough to really understand it myself, but I was killed, in battle, and then… I just woke up. And ever since then, I die and… don't stay that way."

"A long time ago?"

Jack nodded. "A really long time. Approximately 150 years, give or take. And, amazingly, I don't look a day older than I did then. Guess there's an upside to everything."

Ianto looked away for a long while. "Why are you telling me?"

"Because I owe you the truth. I'm sorry I couldn't have just been honest with you from the beginning. I would have been, but when you're like me, you learn pretty fast that either they believe you and hate you for it or they think you're a crazy liar… and hate you for it. It's easier when it's just flings," Jack said, staring down at the bar, trying to ignore the blurriness in his eyes. "Don't ever have to get into personal details that way. I fell so fast for you, though, I didn't even realise how far along I was getting."

"Presuming for just a moment that I did believe you," Ianto said slowly. "Why would something that happened to you make me hate you?"

"Depends who you ask," Jack laughed hollowly. "One partner… it was because I wasn't aging like she was. For another, it was because I was clearly some sort of demonic creature. He killed me again and again and again…."

Ianto turned to look at Jack. "I would never do that," he whispered seriously.

"That's what makes this so hard," Jack said miserably. "I think we had something real developing."

"I know we did. We do. I'm still willing to give this a go if you are," Ianto said, resting a hand on Jack's arm. "I don't really know why, maybe I'm out of my mind. But I've loved every second I've been with you, and when I thought you'd been killed… I didn't care if there was a terrorist running loose out there, I just… I didn't want to be anywhere you weren't at that moment."

Jack nodded. "Yeah. That's another reason why it can't go on. I put you in too much danger. And that's not just because of what I am. It's mostly because of what I do."

"Tech consulting, you mean?"

Jack shrugged. "When you've lived centuries in the future and visited civilizations of galaxies yet to be discovered, you kinda know a lot of technological stuff that nobody else does."

"So, what you really do is time travel?"

"Not anymore. But I did. Actually, I've been here ever since the not-dying thing started. And because I am pretty well-versed in other traveling civilizations, I lead a team who manage visitors and objects from other planets. Gotta keep this stuff under wraps from the general public, you know. And so… official secrets. And it's dangerous. Sometimes aliens are just scared and lost when they get here, sometimes they come here aggressively, and sometimes they stay, get integrated and assimilated… with all attendant vices. As in the case of blowfish."

"That wasn't a mask, then?"

"Nope. It was a humanoid alien species, the head of which happens to be what we think of as a fish."

"What exactly does this mean, Jack? You're telling me all this, but you tell me you shouldn't and that we can't stay together because it's too dangerous. You have to kill me or something?"

"I don't think I could if I had to. I've done a lot of things I'm not proud of, maybe a lot of things that were wrong. Maybe I'm getting old and soft. I couldn't hurt you. In fact, I was going to give you this," Jack said, opening his hand and revealing a little white pill.

"What's that meant to do? And is it the same thing the rest of these people were drugged with?"

Jack just barely glanced up. He'd need to react quickly if Ianto decided to bolt for the door, but Jack had a feeling Ianto wouldn't do that. "Essentially the same. It's an amnesia pill, with a comfortable dose of entirely non-habit-forming sleep aid mixed in. Everybody here will wake up rested and unable to remember anything about the hour or so before they fell asleep."

"So, that one there differs how?"

"It wouldn't be the last hour you'd be forgetting," Jack said bitterly.

The silence between them grew thick for several moments. "I wouldn't remember the first thing about you, would I?"

"Absolutely none of it."

Ianto firmly shook his head. "Then I'm not taking that. Not willingly. You want rid of me, it won't be done with a little pill. All you'd have to do is break up with me like a normal person. And there's no reason to worry about my silence. I'd probably end up a long-term resident of Providence Park if I told anyone half of what you've told me. No one would believe it, would they?"

Jack turned and looked at Ianto for the first time since sitting down. "Do you believe it?"

Ianto nodded briefly.

"Why?"

"Because I know what happened out there in the road. I may not be a medic, but you died. I watched the… spark just go out of you. And it was exactly the same as when my father died in hospital. There was nothing fake or temporary about it. But here you are now. And as for the rest… it makes sense now. Why you haven't got any personal things in your flat, no photos of family or mates. Why there's something about you, very deep inside, that just seems almost untouchably sad and alone. You let someone in and they get afraid of you because they can't understand what happened to you, or they get jealous because no one ever feels they have enough time, except for you. Fear and jealousy are things most people don't handle well, so they end up hurting someone they really cared about. And I don't think there're any magic little pills that would let you forget all those betrayals, are there?"

Jack sat, staring straight ahead again. It was like hearing someone reading aloud the pain and loneliness he'd lived with for decades. "Last weekend…," Jack started, his throat closing around the words. "When I called you that Wednesday evening to see about our date, I'd just revived after being mauled by an alien called a Weevil. All I wanted when I woke up was to hear your voice," Jack whispered. "It hurts, coming back. You can't imagine how much. And it never gets any better. I've died… I don't know, more than a thousand times, and there's no getting used to it. It's hell, every single time."

"I can't imagine the dying is much fun either," Ianto said quietly. "You're not likely to get the comfortable, palliative-care deaths, are you?"

Jack let out a half-laugh, half-sob and shook his head.

"I want to go home, Jack. The shock is wearing off and I'm not going to be awake much longer, with or without your pill." Ianto paused. "The earlier invitation still stands, if you don't want to be alone right now."

Jack looked up at Ianto again, not sure what to say. "Do you understand that you'll never really be safe as long as you're with me?" he asked wearily.

"I think I'm a lot safer with you than those aliens with heads like fish are," Ianto said, heading for door and hoping a free taxi came by soon.