I want to start by wishing everyone a Happy Easter, and I hope you don't get too sick on Janto and chocolate.. I know I won't!

I found this particularly hard to write, purely because of the storyline that's emerging. I went through and I have all the lyrics now prepared for the chapters to be written, and the storyline is all set out for the rest of the Part. Hopefully, the next one will be more action packed, more bullets flying killing aliens stuff, as that's what I like. I just need to fit it in around what's happening between Jack and Ianto.

So yes. Folks, here's the start of the downward spiral, brace yourselves!

Disclaimer: I sadly do not own any of the characters below, as much as I'd like to. They belong to Russel T. Davies and I will wash them down and return them just as soon as I'm finished... or I'll have them wash each other... either way, he'll get them back in roughly the same state as before.

Chapter 5: Friend of a Friend

"He needs a quiet room, with a lock to keep him

In it's just a quiet room, and he's there…"

- Friend of a Friend, Foo Fighters

Jack looked at Ianto for a long moment. What should he say? He weighed up the look in Ianto's eyes, the trust and hope, with what could happen when he found out Jack had lied to him. He shook his head slightly. It wasn't worth the risk. Instead, he sat down next to Ianto on the sofa and put his empty hand on the young man's knee.

"Ianto, you know I can't authorise a retcon on you. You know that." He watched as the hope was extinguished by a grudging acceptance, and the traces of his Ianto faded with it. "Someone would say something and it would all be triggered again."

Ianto nodded slowly and looked at the floor. "Yeah, Jack. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have even suggested it, it was stupid."

Jack moved his hand up and pulled Ianto's head towards him, placing a gentle kiss on his forehead. "I swiped some sleeping pills, so at least you can get some sleep today." Ianto nodded again and picked up the pills from Jack's hand, knocking them back with a big mouthful of water. "We'll get you through this, Ianto, I promise."

He wrapped his arms around the young man and Ianto leant his head on Jack's shoulder, one hand resting on his chest. Jack rocked him gently and eventually, the Welshman's breathing slowed a little and the hand on his chest became heavier. When Jack was completely sure Ianto was asleep, he eased himself off the sofa and laid him down, reaching into his sleep space to pull out the pillow and blanket, arranging them to make Ianto more comfortable.

He crept out of his office and eased the door closed, keeping as quiet as possible. The effect was ruined when he heard an angry Owen yelling his name.

"HARKNESS!" The man was standing in the doorway to the autopsy bay and glowering at Jack, giving him a look that could've frozen his bones. "What the HELL have you-"

He was stopped as Jack pelted across the hub and slapped a hand over his mouth, desperately trying to get him to quieten down. Owen just looked daggers at him, pointing to the mess down below. Jack deemed it safe to remove his hand and then pulled him into the room.

"What the hell have you done in here?!" Owen voice was no more than a hiss, but it contained enough venom to make Jack flinch.

"I had to get some sleeping pills, but I couldn't remember where you'd put them." He knew his excuse was pretty feeble, and Owen reinforced that.

"So you trashed the place?" He was angry, Jack understood why and tried to makes amends.

"I'll clean it up, don't worry. Just go upstairs, I'll sort it out this morning." Owen glared at him, turned on his heel and stalked off to his workstation.

Jack looked around him and rubbed the back of his head, letting out a low whistle. He really had made a mess. He made his way down the stairs and started to pick up the dropped items, righting one of the racks on wheels and filling the trays up from where he'd emptied them onto the floor. Throughout the process, he couldn't help thinking that Ianto would've been much more efficient at cleaning it up.

Gwen walked through the huge cog door a little later than usual, on account of having to stop off at the nearest Starbucks to pick a coffee up for everyone. Owen had called her earlier on, almost hysterical at the fact that he hadn't had a cup of coffee yet that morning. He never bothered with one at home because he could always rely on Ianto to have one ready for him when he arrived. That morning had been different. He hadn't seen Ianto, and as the day progressed, he didn't turn up. When he'd asked Tosh, she'd given him the general idea that she didn't know where he was, but expected him not to be there. He had no idea why.

Gwen was starting to find it a little odd as well, and when lunchtime rolled around and they were getting ready to order in the food, her and Owen went to find Jack and interrogate him. They found him sitting in the greenhouse room, sitting behind the desk and going through some files.

"Jack, where's Ianto?" Owen was frank and straight to the point, earning himself a dig in the ribs from Gwen. Jack just looked up at him and smiled ruefully.

"He's in my office, sleeping." When he offered no further explanation, Gwen cleared her throat, but Owen stepped in again.

"It's all well and good for you two to be shagging each other, but you have to remember that Tea-boy's human and requires sleep!" That earned him a second dig in the ribs and a chuckle from Jack.

"It's not because of me." He put down his pen and closed the file before him. "It's after effects of Captain Hart's little prank; paranoia, insomnia, heightened negative emotions… It happened to everyone, but we never used to stick around long enough to see it."

There was a bitter tone to his voice that made Owen bite back the retort he had prepared. Instead, he nodded and motioned to Gwen to wrap up the conversation.

"Well, we're going to order pizzas in, and we were wondering if Ianto would want one?" She had adopted her I'm-sorry-for-your-loss voice which made Jack smile grimly to himself. He just shook his head.

"He hasn't eaten properly for a while, you must've noticed." Gwen watched as Jack rubbed his eyes and sighed. "Just get me a large and he'll probably have a slice or two mine. He wouldn't even touch it if he was faced with a whole one to himself."

Gwen nodded and turned, shoving Owen out of the room and back down to the workstations. Together with Tosh, they ordered the food and discussed what was going on with Ianto, trying to come up with a way to relieve Jack of some of the stress and responsibility that was currently resting on his shoulders.

When the pizza came, the team sat quietly, discussing the files they'd been going through that morning, talking about the best way to cover up a UFO sighting from earlier in the day and estimating how long they could go for without a serious callout.

At some point, Jack stood up with a slice of pizza and went to the kitchen area to pour a glass of orange juice before disappearing off into his office. The three spectators silently noted that the light stayed off for the entire time Jack was in there. He emerged a while later, a dark expression on his face, with an empty glass and the ends of the pizza slice. He tossed the crust into the bin and dumped the glass in the sink before walking over to Tosh's station to see if there was any rift activity.

Whilst standing behind her chair and watching the monitors, a warning started to flash.

"Weevil alert…" Jack muttered, figuring they'd jinxed themselves earlier.

"In a back street to the South east of the city." Tosh read off the location and looked up at him. "There's two of them Jack."

He nodded and looked around. "You go get the other two and get the SUV prepped and ready." He was walking off towards his office. "That includes topping up the weevil spray!"

He caught a glimpse of her nodding before he crept into his office to search for his gun and coat. He walked over to his desk and sat down, carefully rummaging through his desk drawers in search of the Webley, and pulled it out, holster and all, slipping it over his shoulders and fastening it. He was just moving back to the door when he heard a noise behind him.

"Jack?" Ianto was looking round and pushing himself up, obviously awake again. Jack made his way over and took hold of Ianto's hands as he stood up. "What's wrong, where're you going?"

Jack managed to stop him from rushing off by holding onto his arms. "It's just a couple of weevils, nothing to worry about. We're going to pick them up and we'll be straight back, simple as!" He tried to feign nonchalance, but Ianto wasn't buying it at all.

"Let me come, Jack. You might need another pair of hands if more turn up." Ianto was suddenly more awake and looked straight at him, slight desperation in his eyes. He didn't understand that Ianto wanted to get out, needed to do his job and occupy himself.

"No." Jack had to grip him harder to stop him from struggling free. "You're too tired, you're reaction times aren't good enough. If things get nasty, I don't need to be worrying about whether you're still alive or not."

"Jack, it's my job!" He twisted violently and one of Jack's hands came loose, but the other held firm, fingers painfully gripping onto the writhing upper arm. "You don't pay me to sleep on your sofa all day, so let me do my job!"

Ianto's free hand was trying to pry Jack's grip apart, but the older man was stronger. His grip was slackening, ever so slightly, so he brought his second hand up to grab Ianto's flailing one, twisting it round and pushing it up his back, forcing Ianto onto his knees, facing away from him. The young man let out a yell of frustration and pain and Jack forced him down onto his front, holding his arm firm and pinning him to the floor with his knee. With his free hand, he reached up and activated his ear piece.

"Owen? I need some sort of tranquilliser up here, NOW." His tone gave Owen no time to argue and within thirty seconds, the doctor was coming through the door, flicking the light on to survey the scene.

He was shocked to see Jack pinning the Welshman to the floor, but he was even more shocked to see the tears flowing from his eyes as Ianto howled in pain and fear beneath him. Jack was gritting his teeth and Owen had never sympathised with him more.

"Don't you fucking do it, Owen!" Ianto turned his anger on the doctor, knowing full well that there was nothing he could say to stop the injection. It was confirmed when he felt a sharp pain in his bicep, followed by a wave of fatigue. He felt the weight on top of him lessen and his arm was gently moved down to his side. He tried to fight as strong arms rolled him over and picked him up, but his aching muscles couldn't gather enough strength. He focused all his efforts on one thing as sleep threatened to take him again.

"Fuck you, Jack Harkness…" And with that, blackness closed in around him and he drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

The atmosphere in the SUV was extremely uncomfortable for the two women. They'd met Jack and Owen in the garage, but Jack's face had been so dark and thunderous that neither had dared to ask why, and Owen simply shook his head when they went to ask him. They climbed into the back seats without protesting as Owen got into the passenger side and Jack climbed in behind the wheel.

They'd been driving in silence ever since, Tosh occasionally calling out status and directions. It took them a little over fifteen minutes to find the right alleyway, and Jack jumped out, weevil spray in hand. He scanned the area in front of him for the beasts and saw one hunkering down halfway along the alley. Slowly, carefully, he picked his way down through the rubbish sacks.

"Come on, you miserable piece of crap." His voice had the tone of an owner praising their favourite dog, giving the sentence a sickeningly twisted echo between the walls. The thing turned its stubbly head towards him and he leered at it, lunging forward and spraying the canister in his hand directly into it's eyes. The thing howled and scrabbled away, but Jack pulled out his stun gun and tasered it's shoulder, making it drop to the group with a thump. He pulled out a hood and tied it over the creature's head, leaving it for Owen to inject with a sedative before moving off to find the other one.

He repeated the process quickly on the second one, not caring about the risk he was putting himself in. All he could think about was Ianto lying drugged up on his sofa, locked inside the room. It was for his own good, but the howls of fear and the look of betrayal in his eyes, lacing his words, made Jack feel like scum. He hated himself for it.

He hooded the fallen weevil and hoisted it over his shoulder, marching back to the SUV and shoving it roughly into the back, waiting for Owen and the two girls to drag the first one over, helping them pile it in on top of the other.

In less that ten minutes after arriving on the scene, they were returning to the hub. Jack's mood hadn't improved at all and Owen was still staying silent about it. Tosh had heard the yells echoing around the hub, heard Ianto screaming and pleading with Jack to get off him as she'd returned to fetch her tracker device from her desk. The sound had been almost haunting. She sympathised with Jack for whatever had occurred between them and kept up the appearance that she knew nothing out of respect.

The drive back was as equally uncomfortable as the outgoing journey, and everyone involved was relived when Jack parked the SUV and went round to gather up one of the weevils and drag it into the hub and down to a cell. Owen followed with the second one a few minutes later and found Jack leaning against the Perspex door and gazing blindly at the unconscious creature inside. He dealt with the weevil over his shoulder, then went to stand by his Captain.

"There was nothing else you could've done, Jack." Owen put a hand on his shoulder tentatively, feeling a little out of his depth. He felt the men give out a long, shuddering breath.

"The look in his eyes though, Owen." He was shaking his head. "It's all my fault. All of this, everything that's happening to him. It's all my fault…"

"Jack, without you, he would've killed himself a long time ago." Jack looked up sharply at that, staring intently at Owen's face. "He said it was knowing you'd given him another chance after Lisa, that you hadn't executed him, was what got him through her death."

That made him feel even worse. "Fuck you, Jack Harkness…" The malice of the words echoed through his mind like knives. This wasn't something that they could fix. He shouldn't have stopped Ianto from coming, or he should've stayed in the hub. Either way, he'd messed up the situation, he'd made the worst possible outcome happen. At least he's not dead… He silently thought to himself, but he immediately corrected himself. But I'm as good as to him.

He reached up and patted Owen's hand before sighing and trudging back up to the hub, trying to take his mind off Ianto and focus on his work. He knew he'd have to write up the weevil captures, make the reports and file them for future reference. It wasn't a particularly demanding task, but it was the best he could hope for.

He took the empty report papers over to the coffee table behind Tosh and sat down, ready to fill them out. He allowed himself one more wistful look at his office door before he turned his attention, whole heartedly, to the sheets in front of him.