Jack watched silently.
Ianto stood in silence.
Jack watched Ianto.
Ianto stared at the floor.
Too often Jack had come down here and found the young man standing right where Lisa had fallen. He understood, he really did and that is what frightened him the most. He realised that if he had loved someone half as much as Ianto had loved Lisa then he would spend an eternity anchored to that spot. Jack finally got why Owen was so wrapped in acidic anger and why Suzie had been slowly broken down under her obsessions. These people were mortal, fragile, breakable and human. Somewhere along the line he had lost what that meant.
It had been like any other day. Ianto had arrived at 6am, put the coffee on, prepared everyone's breakfasts and set to work going through his administrative duties for the start of the morning. At 7am Tosh had breezed in taking her coffee and bagels to her desk so she could eat and work on her programming at the same time. 8am and Gwen bounced in waving a bunch of hotel brouchers and kissing Ianto's cheek as he passed her some Danish pastries. 9:30 and Owen rolled in nursing a sore back and whinging about the price of a pint at Bar Reunion. A normal day.
Ianto wondered up to the tourist office and spent two hours customer facing the foreign visitors and Owen started cutting up a smelly rotting corpse. Gwen was on the phone catching up on the latest police reports and gossiping with Jill at the station and Tosh was buried hip deep in binary something or another.
Jack loved normal days. Having finished a somewhat dull conversation with the new defence secretary he sauntered out of his office and headed up to see tourist heaven, namely Ianto. He found the young man happily chatting away in German to a couple of students from Berlin and before long Jack had joined in the banter and the four of them were having a lively debate about sausages. It was so unbelievably random that Jack spent almost half an hour laughing about it once the tourists had gone. Ianto closed up shop and rang the local deli for their lunch order, still smiling to himself whilst fending off Jack's wandering hands.
The alarms went off at 4:33pm.
Six hours later and Ianto was standing in the basement staring at the concrete on which he stood, his tears splashing on his shiny shoes. Jack hung back in the doorway, the room like a headstone noosed around Ianto's neck. He knew there was nothing he could do except wait and so he did.
At 5:08pm they had found two people, human, a little battered and bruised but otherwise in good shape. They had crossed dimensions, using energy from the rift and some highly dangerous transportation technology. One was called Lisa Hallet, the other was Ianto Jones. Ianto and Tosh had remained at the HUB whilst Jack, Gwen and Owen dealt with the alert. It had taken every ounce of Ianto's will not to faint when Lisa, his beautiful undamaged Lisa had stepped into the Hub, closely followed by himself. Jack had immediately stepped round the visitors and taken 'his' Ianto up to his office, closing down the blind a moment later. He had expected Ianto to break down but the young had composed himself and gone about his duties as if nothing had happened.
Lisa Hallet and Ianto Jones were, given a medical examination, interviewed and then locked in the cells. Jack sent Owen, Tosh and Gwen out to get take outs and advised them to spend an hour in the pub before coming back. Jack followed Ianto down to the basement and waited.
"I'd forgotten Jack."
It was so unexpected that he half wondered if he had misheard. He leant against the door frame and folded his arms across his chest.
"What had you forgotten?"
Ianto toed at the concrete. "What she looked like before the Cybermen came. I only remember the.... well after, what she looked like after....." He trailed off.
Jack didn't know what to say, there was nothing to say.
Ianto continued on. "He's lucky, that other me, he'll never know. All I want is one perfect memory. I want to be able to think of her as Lisa not that thing she became."
Jack sighed knowing he had to explain to Ianto what their two visitors had just escaped from, but Ianto hadn't finished.
"I should be grateful that at least in some reality she lived and was not violated, but I'm not. All I feel is resentment. She escaped when my Lisa didn't. It's like God is rubbing my face in the shit because of what I did to her. I feel like I am being punished for my selfishness."
"That's hardly likely Ianto, you know as well as I do that alternate realities have infinite permutations, this is just one of them, our reality is just one of them. What you did for your Lisa was an act of love. I'm not saying it was the right thing to do, but it was for the right reasons. I know you know that. What you're feeling right now is perfectly natural. In their timeline Canary Wharf never happened, however Harold Saxon took over the world and turned it into a munitions factory. They ran from a different war to our world." He knew all about Jack's 'Year that never was' because he remembered it himself.
"So there was no Doctor and Martha Jones?"
Jack edged forwards and came and stood next to Ianto, their shoulders touching.
"Oh, there was.... Martha didn't make it and the Doctor is still being held by Saxon."
There was a silence before Ianto spoke again.
"At least they get to have a future together."
Ianto turned when he realised that Jack was shaking his head. "They're not together Ianto. My other self sent them through; you see you're my partner in their world as well as in this one. In fact they hadn't met until a couple of days ago."
They looked at each for a long time and Jack thought he saw a glimmer of hope in Ianto's oceanic orbs, but it quickly died.
"Can they return home?"
"No."
Ianto looked away. "What will happen to them?"
Jack shrugged. "Once I've decided I'll let you know, but I suspect we'll just resettle them somewhere a long way from here."
Ianto understood the meaning behind that statement.
"Don't worry Jack. I won't go chasing the ghosts of my past. It's why I came down here, to remind myself. I imagine that that woman in the cells is nothing like my Lisa."
Jack grasped his fingers and gently squeezed them. "I want you to stop coming here."
"I know but I need this place Jack. Part of me died in here. I want that part of me back."
"I want that part of you back, but this is the wrong place to be looking. This is past Ianto." Jack gestured around then at the naked Victorian brickwork.
"I know. I'm not ready, today made me realise that." He changed the subject. "So, our guests, are they Torchwood?"
Jack sighed at the deflection but went along with it. "No, there was no Torchwood on their world. You and I were working for UNIT, Lisa was a nurse. Their lives were completely different to ours.... get this and don't sulk when I tell you."
Ianto frowned at him and couldn't help but raise a faint smile when he saw Jack's cheeky grin.
"Go on."
"She's Owen's fiancé."
Ianto raised his eyebrows, hitched a breath and then sniggered. It descended into full blown laughter. Jack held on to his hand and watched, enjoying Ianto's moment of release. It was beautiful to see.