Chapter 13: What a wonderful life

Ianto took a deep breath and closed his eyes. His nose was buried in Jack's neck and god, did the man smell good. He would've been completely fine just standing there with Jack for the rest of his life, but unfortunately it wasn't to be.

"Feeling better?" Jack asked softly.

Ianto swallowed thickly and took in one last breath of Jack's scent. Then he reluctantly stepped back and sniffed a little. "Yes," he croaked out and rubbed his eyes. "Sorry about that. And thank you."

Jack just smiled at him and gently squeezed his shoulder. "It's all right. I understand."

Ianto knew that already. Of course Jack Harkness understood what it felt like to lose someone. He was immortal. He was never going to stop losing people he loved.

That brought the pressure behind is eyelids back and he had to bit his lip to keep himself from bursting into tears. "Sorry," he sniffed out.

Jack tilted his head questionably at him. "You don't have to apologize for crying, Ianto," he said, bemused. "You loved her."

Ianto nodded, but couldn't meet Jack's gaze. "Yes, but I'm sorry to involve all of you in this mess... The cybermen and Lisa..." he said. "And now you're here comforting me, even though I was the one who could've caused all of us get killed."

Jack nodded, his face hardening a bit. "We'll have to talk about that."

Ianto closed his eyes for a second. He hated this. Why did he get a second chance? He couldn't even save Lisa, how was he going to save anyone else? How as he going to save Owen and Tosh-

He bit his lip again and sheltered his eyes with his right hands to stop Jack from seeing the new tears threatening to stream down his face. Fuck.

"Ianto," Jack said, "I don't think you should come to work tomorrow."

Ianto quickly wiped the tears away and looked up at him. Jack's mouth as a tight line. "What?" Ianto asked, "No, I can handle this, I've already done it once, I can work as well as anyone-"

"It's not about your capability to work," Jack said, sounding frustrated. "You brought a serious security threat under our own roof, and kept it here for months! I have to suspend you for at least four weeks."

Ianto's heart skipped a beat. "I don't understand," he said quickly. "I told you. I changed things. Why are you..."

"I have to give you a choice," Jack said, his voice and face void of any emotion. "You'll be suspended for four weeks, and after that you can choose to come back or leave Torchwood."

"But I've already made that decision!" Ianto said, "I don't want to forget!"

"You'll just have to do it again. I will explain everything to the team," Jack said. "You don't need to be there." He walked away.

Ianto stared at his retreating back until it disappeared. He couldn't comprehend what had just happened.

He was suspended.

For four weeks.

He wouldn't see Jack in four weeks.

Four weeks.

He heard a gasping sound and then realized it was his breath. He was panicking. Why was he panicking?

He decided to sit down and leaned his back against the vaults.

Okay. So he was suspended.

He tried to take a deep breath, but it turned into little gasps.

Shit.

He was suspended.

Last time during his suspension, he had just lied on his bed for the most of the time and stared at the ceiling. He remembered thinking about doing the deed himself so that Jack wouldn't have to get his hands dirty. He'd lost total five pounds by the end of it. Mostly because he hadn't bothered to get up to eat.

He didn't want to go back to that gnawing feeling between wanting to off himself and between thinking he was already dead.

He let out a short laugh at that. He was already dead, wasn't he?

And then he buried his head in his legs and groaned. This was going to be hell.

Ianto was right in thinking it was going to be hard. But he was wrong in thinking it wasn't going to be helpful to him.

He knew he couldn't off himself, mostly because that would be incredibly stupid thing to do now that he had a second change. Even though he wasn't doing very well on changing things yet, he knew he had to at least try to save Owen and Toshiko.

That's why he forced himself up from his bed every morning even though he hadn't slept for more than three hours, and forced himself to eat. He forced himself to go through the every day motions, and after the couple of days of moping, he even made plans.

How to change things. He decided that the first thing he could do, now that he wasn't working, was to increase his physical fitness. Right now, he was in pretty bad shape compared to his body in the future. He was malnourished and pretty much lacked muscle. So he put his laptop into good use an researched things, started eating more healthily and exercising. He went for an hour long run every morning and even bought weights to add some muscle to his body.

When he wasn't taking care of himself, he was writing down things from the future to keep himself from forgetting anything important. After three weeks, he had pretty much filled an entire binder with details he could remember.

He was just coming from an early run one morning, when he saw Jack shuffling around outside his door and banging on the door furiously. He stopped and stretched before taking off his headphones and walking up to him.

"How long have you been standing here?" Ianto asked, amused by the way Jack was obviously considering taking down the door.

"Ianto!" Jack said, his eyes wide as he took in Ianto's sports attire. "I thought..."

"That I was just going to mope around for four weeks?" he asked, and raised an eyebrow, amused. Even though he had done so in his past. "Not all of us are immortal and look forever like they're in their thirties."

Jack's eyes seemed to widen even further. "Wait-," he took a step closer and hissed. "You know about that?"

Ianto stared at him. Oh, right. Still not his Jack. "Umm, I forgot to tell you?"

Jack rolled his eyes and huffed. "You speak about it like it doesn't bother you."

Ianto walked past Jack and opened the door. "It doesn't anymore," he said and turned to look back at Jack. "Are you coming in to talk or did you just come here to stalk me?" he asked and raised an eyebrow at Jack's sudden urge to look elsewhere. "I'm going to take a shower. I'll make some coffee for you later if you really have something to talk about."

Ianto handed the coffee mug to Jack. He looked like he was in heaven after the first sip. "Remind me to never suspend you again," Jack mumbled.

Ianto stared at him with a tilted head and grabbed his own mug with both hands. It was warm against his cold fingers. "So you wanted to talk to me?"

Jack took another sip and nodded. "Owen kindly reminded me that you probably weren't in best of minds when you left the Hub. I had to check up on you to make sure you..." he trailed off awkwardly.

Ianto sighed. "Yeah, Owen probably saw the CCTV footage," he groaned. "He's going to haunt my arse when I get back."

Jack froze, his mug hanging in air and stared at him with his mouth open. "What footage?"

Oops.

"Uh, I kind of had a panic attack," he said grimacing at Jack's alarmed expression. "It's not the first time that has happened since I woke up back here."

"Did you talk to Owen about this?" Jack asked, narrowing his eyes.

"Didn't feel like it was important," Ianto said and shrugged. "It was only one time before. I was coming back to the Hub for the first time since..." he trailed off. He couldn't tell Jack that the Hub had been lost.

"Since?"

"Since... Ummm. Something happened in the future," he said hesitantly. "I can't tell you right now."

Jack frowned, but let it go. "Right," he said. "But how have you been feeling recently?"

"You were partly right. I was moping the first few days until I decided to stop complaining and start doing something about the future. So I started exercising." He decided not to mention how he hadn't slept more than three hours in a month now.

"Sounds good," Jack said and grinned. "Looks good too. So you're coming back?"

Ianto nodded. "This is still a second chance even though I couldn't do anything about Lisa," he said and swallowed. Her name still hurt. "I'm going to try my best."

"Man on a mission, as I said," Jack smirked and stood up, heading towards the door. Ianto followed, but not before placing the empty coffee mugs into the sink.

"I'll see you on Monday then," Jack said as he opened the door. He looked considerably more cheerful than he had looked outside his door. Probably had something to do with having his coffee.

"Sure," Ianto said, amused.

"Oh, and Ianto?" Jack said just before going through the doorway.

"Hm?"

Jack turned around, grabbed Ianto by his shoulders and met his lips in a delicious kiss. Jack's lips tasted like coffee and oh, so very Jack.

As their lips parted, Jack grinned down at him, said: "Thanks for the coffee," and left.

Ianto stared at the closed door and touched his slightly swollen lips. His life was completely ridiculous.