THANK YOU! Wow... all those reviews for the last chapter, thank you, everybody! (Especially since that was the sort of thing that's been done to death already.)
It was asked whether I would go into the time Jack was away. The answer is yes and no. Mostly flashbacks or memory/thought.
A/N:
Setting: Chapter title gives it away, huh? Jack has just made his dramatic reappearance…
I'm not really sure what the official time frame for Jack's absence is, but I'm going with three months here because that's what I think I remember reading somewhere. (I'm sure I used a different number elsewhere and will work to correct that…)
I'm not re-writing the episode verbatim (that would be dull) so it's truncated in places. Hope nobody minds.
Chapter Fifty Two: Did ya miss me?
……………………………………………
More than anything in the world, Gwen wanted to slap the cocky grin off Jack's face.
She composed herself however, stealing a quick glance at Ianto and half hoping he would do what she wanted to. Ianto was too professional. He stood there in the same state of shock they were all in for several heartbeats staring at Jack and his stupid smirk. None of them moved.
As soon as the Captain (or whoever he really was) took a step forward, Ianto snapped out of his daze. He turned to Gwen. "Right. We should probably start the clean up, yeah?" he asked her.
"Yes… yes of course," Gwen gave herself a good mental shake, silently thanking Ianto for not losing control. In his position, she might have shot Jack on principal. "Tosh, Ianto, would you take care of… whatever that is," she nodded towards the alien they'd dubbed a blowfish.
"They're mostly harmless, really," Jack chimed in.
"Oh yeah?" Owen's tone was scathing. "Tell that to him," he nodded at the man bleeding on the floor.
"Is he going to be all right?" asked Gwen.
"I think so, but he needs to get to hospital."
Gwen nodded and dialled the number; after that she called into the police to let them know that they had the situation under control before someone showed up to investigate the gunfire in an otherwise quiet neighbourhood.
Then Gwen offered to get the two women some of water and got them to sit down. Jack followed her into the kitchen and watched her dissolve Retcon into each glass of water.
He nodded his approval; Gwen ignored it. She didn't need his approval. She didn't want it. She wanted to scream at him, punch him, tell him what an ass he was. But this wasn't the time or place.
Jack leant in the doorframe between the kitchen and living room watching his team work. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen them doing their jobs this efficiently, without the usual bickering and banter. It didn't escape his notice that none of them would even look at him. Not even Ianto.
Just the same, they all accepted that he was coming back to the Hub with them. Gwen drove. Jack took the passenger seat. Ianto, Owen and Tosh slid into the back. No one spoke.
It had taken Jack most of the day to track his team down, only they didn't feel like his team any more. They were strangers who seemed to be only barely tolerating his presence while all he wanted to do was to put his arms around each of them and tell them how much he'd missed them… he'd missed them so much.
That past year, the year that never was, he'd watched the whole world wither and die… Jack drove it from his mind. It was better not to remember what had happened because it hadn't happened, not for them.
They were here. They were safe. He was back. But everything had changed. To the rest of the less than three months had gone by since he'd left.
Three months was all it had taken for his team to forget him.
Jack had expected a thousand questions, some anger, maybe even a good slap across the face from Gwen, but not cold silence. It was killing him.
Twice he tried to get Ianto to acknowledge his presence; twice the Welshman sidestepped him without even seeming to notice he was there.
"You got pretty organized without me," Jack finally spoke. He couldn't stand being ignored a second longer.
"Yeah, well, we had to," said Gwen in an absent tone without looking up from the computer screen.
Jack ignored the twisting in his gut. "Did you decorate in here…?"
"You left us Jack!" the brunette Welshwoman was on her feet and shoving him back into the wall before Jack or anyone else could react.
A thousand excuses played on the tip of his tongue, but none of them was good enough. "I know," he couldn't meet her gaze. "I'm sorry." Sorry wasn't good enough either, but it was all he had. He couldn't tell them what he'd seen the past year. It would kill them.
"We knew nothing, Jack!"Gwen snapped at him, looking near tears.
"Where were you?" Tosh's asked in a soft, cool tone. Cold didn't suit her.
Jack smiled despite the chill in the room, he couldn't help it. "I found my Doctor," he told them, wondering if he should have stayed with the Time Lord when he had the chance… but standing there on the Plass, he'd missed his team so much. He just wanted things to go back to being the way they used to be… but sometimes you can't go back, a little voice in the back of his head told him.
"Did he fix you?" Owen inquired, his voice just as soft as Toshiko's had been a moment before.
"What's to fix?" Jack tried to turn it into a joke. "You can't mess with this level of perfection," he offerd up a weak grin.
Ianto was looking at him finally, but when he spoke, his voice was barely audible. "Are you going back to him?" There was the tiniest crack in the Welshman's mask of professionalism.
"I came back for you," Jack told him the truth, but Ianto didn't react. He didn't smile, his eyes never changed, he just gave Jack a quick glance before the cold stone mask dropped back over his features. Ignoring how much that hurt, the Captain turned back to the others. "All of you," he told them, letting his gaze settling on Gwen, the only to have laughed at his stupid joke. The only one who would hold his gaze for more than two seconds at a time.
Maybe three months was all it took for them to forget him… And maybe that's my fault, Jack acknowledged silently.
He'd been so busy looking for the Doctor he'd missed all the good things he'd had right here. Ianto, Gwen, Tosh, Owen… his friends. His family… his adorable Welshman…
The shrill beeping of the rift monitor sliced through his thoughts.
Once again, there was no question that Jack was going with them, but no one spoke until they got to the crime scene.
Ianto watched Jack flirting with Gwen as he tried to assert himself as commander and chief once more. Naked wrestling, indeed, the Welshman thought acerbically when Jack suggested it. But she laughed. She always laughed at his stupid jokes. Jack seemed not to have noticed the engagement ring.
It didn't matter, though. Gwen's laugh made his heart ache because he couldn't even muster up a smile for the man who had been his lover for almost six months. His insides felt tight. Constricted. Raw, like rats gnawing at his stomach. A part of him wasn't sure he could do this and another part was so happy to see Jack… nothing made any sense. More than anything he wanted to tell Jack how much he'd missed him, but he would rather have his tongue pulled out by the root than to give the older man the satisfaction of letting him know how much he'd gotten to him.
Then suddenly he was standing right next to Jack with no one else around. Gwen was talking to the police, Owen was examining the body of a man who had probably been pushed off the roof; Tosh was checking for rift energy. And he was standing next to Jack near the SUV. He couldn't breathe.
He should say something. Anything. But he couldn't think of what. Nice to have you back… where the hell have you been… I hate you… I love you… it was all true, but none of it was what he wanted to say.
And then Jack's wrist strap beeped, startling the Welshman completely out of his stupor, just as the others joined them.
"Whoa… that never beeps," the words tumbled out of Ianto's mouth.
Jack met his gaze, "That's just what I was thinking."
They all watched as Jack hit a button on the ever present wrist strap and the holographic image of an oddly dressed man appeared. The message didn't make sense to anyone but Jack and in typical Jack style, as soon he heard it he swanned off without them, leaving orders for the others not to follow.
Just like old times, Ianto thought as they climbed into the back of the cab he'd hailed.
Although there were probably more important things for him to be considering, Ianto used the cab ride to start thinking about exactly how much like old times he wanted things to be between he and Jack… Although that's assuming an awful lot, he told himself.
Or maybe it wasn't. He doubted Jack had changed that much regardless of how long he'd really been gone (after all, when one couldn't die, one could go off for a hundred years and how would the people left behind ever know it?) God, I should hate him for that, Ianto realized.
But it really was more fun when Jack was around.
………………………………………………………
The Welshman eyed the Redcoat wearing blond carefully; he didn't like him. And it wasn't just because he was arrogant, flippant and a bigger flirt than Jack, or that he and Jack had been partners 'in every way and then some'. There was something about the man Ianto didn't trust.
It also didn't escape him that Jack didn't appear to trust the man either and no matter how angry he was at Jack – or how confused he was over his own feelings towards their Captain – Ianto knew that there were things he could always trust about Jack and if Jack didn't trust somebody than he knew he was right not to trust them, either.
Ianto noted the way Hart reacted to the name Torchwood, but he filed that away for later consideration. He would bring it up with Jack sometime if and when it ever seemed appropriate.
"Ianto," Gwen caught his arm as soon they were away from Jack, back at the Hub. "Are you all right?"
"Perfect, thanks," he flashed a wan smile without meeting her gaze directly.
She gave him a look that clearly said she didn't believe him.
The Welshman forced himself to look her in the eye. "I'll be fine, Gwen. Honest."
"You know him better than anyone, Ianto…"
"Don't remind me," he groaned.
"I just mean…"
"You mean did he ever mention this guy Hart before? No," he pulled away from her. Jack would be bringing Hart down the lift any moment now.
"Ianto…"
"Look, just… just for right now, let's carry on as if he was never gone, all right? It's obviously what he wants." It's what you want too, he thought at Gwen. She might not admit it and she might not be ready to give up leadership, but she wanted everything back to normal just as badly as the rest of them did.
Gwen sighed. "All right. But if you need to talk…"
Ianto stifled a sigh and nodded. For the past three months all any of them had done was trod on egg shells and tell him how they were there if he needed them, even bloody Owen. As if Ianto wanted to have a heart-to-heart with Owen Harper, a man who was no better than Jack when it came to the fact that he would shag anything that moved (although at least as far as Ianto knew, in Owen's case that only applied to females.)
When he'd wanted… needed… to talk to someone, he'd gone to see the only other person he knew who really knew Jack, Victoria Waterfield-Davies. She was someone he could talk to. She understood. She knew Jack's secrets.
Owen and Gwen were people he could go and have a pint with after work. Tosh was somebody he went to breakfast with once in a while because they were both always in early. They were his friends, but they didn't understand. There were too many things he couldn't tell them because he would never betray the trust Jack had placed in him. Gwen was right, he knew Jack better than any of them ever would and while at times that made him feel smug, most of the time it simply made him feel miserable.
…
"He may not be gone forever, you know," Victoria said gently, pouring his tea out of an antique teapot.
"I know. And that's what scares me… thank you," he said as she set the pot back down on the tray. They were outside in her garden. It was lovely, but he couldn't appreciate it. It had been three weeks since Jack left them and even though he went through the motions every day, it never got any better.
"Why does it scare you?" she inquired.
Ianto stirred his tea, suddenly remembered of all the times he'd sat like this with his mother… but Victoria wasn't his mother, she was somebody he could actually talk to. Somebody he could feel comfortable with. Somebody who didn't condemn him because of his mixed up sexuality.
"I still love him," he admitted without looking up at her. He felt the tears welling up again. He never let the others see it, but when he was alone he let himself be as miserable as he needed to be, just so he could get through the next day without cracking. "If he came back tomorrow I… I would forgive him."
"What's so awful about forgiveness?"
…
As the lift descended into the Hub, Ianto felt his chest tightening.
