Ianto was pacing back and forth, his hands flitting between his hips and his lips; when they were on his hips he worried his lips with his teeth, and when he gave up on that little bit of composure, he chewed at his thumb. Jack, looking away quickly before Ianto could catch his eyes, saw him flinch when he noticed he'd drawn blood.
Ianto turned again. His shoes didn't squeak on the floor after so many circles. His jacket had been discarded in the chair next to Jack's. His tie was askew. His face was still streaked with sweat and tears.
Next to Jack, Gwen shifted, taking out her phone. She took in a short breath and looked around worriedly. Jack met her eyes and nodded. It was the middle of the night; he understood.
She stood and walked towards the door. A few paces away from it, she stopped and turned around, hesitantly stepped towards Ianto, stopped him in his tracks, put a gentle hand on his shoulder, and exchanged a few words with him. Jack didn't hear them. He was half-convinced his ears were still ringing from the yelling and panic at the Hub, but all he heard was the standard hospital hubbub. The PA system. The hustle of nurses and receptionists. The gasps that Ianto let out when someone approached, the way he fought against hope and fear, waiting for news and terrified of receiving them.
Jack ached to go to him.
He was the last one here.
Owen had left first, his face pained and apologetic; there was a reason he never took the team to the hospital, and it was only partially because he didn't trust the NHS.
Tosh was next, citing exhaustion, promising to go into the Hub early in the morning; she knew Jack well, accurately predicting that he would want to stay with Ianto instead.
Gwen, last. Heading home to Rhys. Escaping the horror and pain of Torchwood in a way none of them would ever be able to.
Least of all Ianto.
Still wearing a hole in the floor, worrying at his skin, tears prickling at the corners of his eyes and resolutely not falling down his dirty face.
He should get Ianto to the bathroom, should get him a drink. Ianto was calm for all his fidgeting, too calm compared to his morning agony when he had come running up from the Archives and thrown his gun down on Jack's desk, and dragged him down to the bowels of the Hub—had shown him a half-converted cyberman, babbling through tears, swallowing words in his panic, needing to be slapped before letting out a single coherent thought.
Jack swallowed and stood. He walked slowly over to Ianto, stomping to announce his presence but not too loudly so as not to startle him, telegraphing his movements but not making a show of it.
"Hey." Ianto turned sharply, his face set halfway between anger and confusion. Jack took a small step back and softly repeated, "Hey."
Ianto rubbed at his face. "Hey."
His voice broke halfway and he cleared his throat. Jack lightly put a hand on his arm. "Come sit, you've been up for hours."
"I…" Ianto looked helplessly at the door they expected the doctor to come through. "I need to—I need to be ready, if Lisa—"
"They can find you if you're sitting."
Ianto let out a short, broken laugh. "Yeah. I just—"
"I know." And Jack did, had spent so much time at bedsides of dying loved ones. "You're no use to her like this."
"I can't—" He took a breath, but Jack knew it wasn't the time to take Ianto to calm down. "I need to be here, I don't know if she'll be okay, I don't—"
"I don't." Jack squeezed his shoulder when Ianto bristled. "But she's been through so much, you know there's a chance."
Ianto let out a short keening noise at the word. "You don't know that."
"You're the one that kept her alive for months. We got the cyber implants out. She was stable when we got here."
Ianto bent sideways over the arm of the rigid waiting room chair, face buried in Jack's chest, and shook. He made no sound anymore, and reminded Jack of the morning, when the secret had finally come out, sagging like a broken toy and begging for help.
He held Ianto close and tried to think of a being to pray to that hadn't let him down before.
.oOo.
Jack could stay awake far longer than a regular human, no matter how unpleasant it was. Ianto had fallen into an uneasy doze hours ago. He twitched at noises and made small huffing noises when the intercom sounded or someone walked by; Jack soothed him, keeping an eye out for the doctor that would take them to Lisa, but no one appeared.
Ianto hadn't let him near when they'd gotten to the hospital, especially not after Jack pulled him away from Lisa to let the doctors finish what Owen and Tosh had started. Now, the exhaustion had finally caught up to him.
Jack hoped that the doctors would soon finish with Lisa, but a part of him wished for them to take a few extra hours more, just to let Ianto sleep. A moment, and the thought was gone. Ianto needed rest. He also needed Lisa.
Lisa Hallett, half-cyberman… now human. Jack hadn't thought it possible, but then he'd thought partial conversion impossible as well. He knew that Lisa would survive. Not because he'd ever seen someone with her injuries do so, but because she had held on for so long, helped by Ianto, by her own strong will. Because it was about time for something to go right.
Torchwood didn't allow for happy endings. Perhaps Lisa would die when Ianto was asleep rooms away; perhaps she would survive, would heal, would go on to have a long life with Ianto far away from it all.
.oOo.
Jack stood in the hall, a sheer door separating him from Ianto and Lisa. Ianto, his shirt stained and his hands shaking, no doubt still fighting tears; Lisa, half-awake, mumbling to him, now covered in bandages instead of metal.
He'd held Ianto back when they heard the news, held him upright as they'd been shown to the room.
Ianto had looked back at Jack, his lips moving as if he'd wanted to say something.
He hadn't.
Jack had pushed him inside; he turned away now that Ianto was sitting. With a nurse and doctor in the room, the reunion wasn't a private moment. But it wasn't for him.
Outside of Ianto and Lisa's bubble, the hospital kept moving. Jack stood closer to the wall and kept an eye out for a breakdown. When none came, he flagged down the same nurse that had led him and Ianto away from the waiting room and told her he was leaving.
Ianto wouldn't be doing that anytime soon. He needed a change of clothes, some toiletries.
What he didn't need was Jack's hovering.
Minutes, hours, days would pass, and Ianto would recover from the shock of his work coming to fruition. He and Lisa would go home—once, in the middle of the night, upon waking from a nightmare, Ianto had sought refuge in Jack's arms. He'd babbled about blood and death and chocking and Lisa—
The nightmares would never disappear, but he had something real now. Someone he loved. He'd wanted to marry her. Jack had no doubt that, sooner or later, they would return to their semblance of normalcy.
Would Ianto even stay at Torchwood?
He had rejoined in the first place just to stay with Lisa. He had sought comfort in Jack's arms just... what? Just to gain extra security in case the treason—well-intentioned or not, successful or not, it was still treason—came to light?
Jack hoped not. He didn't think so.
But that whatever he and Ianto had was over? That was a fact. The twenty-first century just didn't have the same breadth of possibility and love as the future, wasn't ready to accept it.
He went to Ianto's flat and packed a bag for him. Dropped it off at the hospital, exchanging only a few words at Lisa's door without actually going inside, then went in search of a nice, tall roof.
.oOo.
Ianto didn't show up at the Hub for three weeks.
Not even Owen whined about the lack of coffee.
Jack, down to four people, started looking for new recruits. Not seriously, not really, just scanning UNIT prison logs and alien hideouts; anyone about to be recruited for by the police or private contractors and investigators. He searched on the computer, and whenever he hovered over a name, he moved away. He had barely spoken to Ianto but he'd seen him, seen the hope in his eyes and the lightness of his shoulders. Seen Lisa and the strides she was making, healing, hurt and broken just like Ianto was but finally free.
She had worked for Torchwood. It had doomed her.
It had saved her.
Jack wasn't about to pretend that any other partially-converted human would have been doomed. Someone else could have held on for long enough, but Lisa was exceptional. Torchwood technology and Owen and Tosh's quick thinking had saved her life, but it was Ianto who had worked day and night to keep her alive until that point.
Lisa would have to be insane to return to Torchwood after all that.
Ianto... Jack wouldn't say that the jury was still out, because it wasn't, because Ianto had lived through far too much already. A happy ending was in his grasp, and it wouldn't stay for long, they never did.
He would have to be stupid to come back.
And Ianto wasn't stupid.
.oOo.
Ianto was a little stupid. He had Jack's number. There was no reason for him to show up at the Hub, even if it was to pick up everything he'd forgotten there before finally saying his goodbyes. Jack could have delivered anything right up to his door.
And yet it was Ianto at Jack's door, holding a white mug full of coffee that Jack could smell even over the bay breeze.
He narrowed his eyes. "What are you doing here?"
Ianto held out the cup. "Coffee."
"No, I can see that." Despite his suspicious tone, Jack took a step closer and grabbed the mug. Hot. He could smell it even deeper now—it had been too long. "What are you doing here?"
He started to walk down the boardwalk. Ianto turned to follow.
"I know you're short-staffed."
"Why?" Jack took a sip. "You got any recommendations?"
"Recommendations?" Ianto echoed. "Why?"
"Because we're short-staffed."
"No, I just wanted... I wanted to ask. For another month." They were walking, so Ianto's hands couldn't go on his hips the way they usually did, and Jack saw his nerves in the flittering of his fingers. "Before I come back. Lisa—"
"Before you come back?" Jack stopped in his steps and whirled around, pointing an accursing finger at Ianto. From the sudden movement, the coffee in his other hand spilled over the rim, burning his skin. "What's wrong with you?"
"What— no, I—I'm still Torchwood, I checked, you can't just get rid of me. I... Unless it's the—the fact that I snuck a cyberman into the Hub, but I was right, she was there, it was Lisa, and she's—she's better, she's getting better—"
"Exactly." Didn't Ianto see? "Don't let her slip through your fingers. You've got a second chance, a life, don't throw it away."
Ianto put his hands on his hips and although the gesture was tense, he seemed to relax at its familiarity. "What if I could solve your staffing problem?"
"What?"
"Lisa."
"You're offering your girlfriend to Torchwood?"
"Fiancée."
"You're offering your fiancée to Torchwood?"
Jack wanted to hit him.
"I'm just offering myself. I'm Torchwood, Lisa's Torchwood—she'd offer herself, and she will, but she needs time. When she's ready, she wants back in. And so do I. You think it's that easy to go back to—to a normal life? Just look at Suzie! Torchwood turned her inside-out, but you can't tell me it would have been better for her to just leave!"
Jack didn't think it was a very good example. Still, he remembered Suzie as she had been before the glove, the hope she had for the world, the eagerness in her eyes whenever they came across a new problem.
He wouldn't do that to Ianto. "No. Get out while you can, I'm giving you this chance."
"Is that the same no as last time?"
Five weeks ago, Jack would have shoved Ianto against the nearest wall and kissed him.
Now, he sighed. It wouldn't be so bad to get an extra person.
"Fine. Six weeks. I'm coming to your flat, then, and we'll talk. No promises—you can still change your mind."
.oOo.
Jack was not surprised that Ianto had gotten a new flat.
It was bright and airy with surprisingly high windows and a complicated lock on the front door that was clearly alien in origin. Neither Ianto nor Lisa showed any sign of shame when he shot them a disapproving look.
That was London influence.
It must have been. They weren't endearing and mischievous, they were annoying and persistent, offering him incredible coffee and soft scones in hopes of him letting them rejoin Torchwood.
They weren't cute, sitting side by side on their couch across from him, legs pressed together, hands making their way towards each other even as they discussed matters of professionalism and passion with Jack.
They needed to go back to Torchwood, they argued, but how could he let them go seeing the flat they had already made their own? Seeing the scars they bore, Lisa's out for the world to see and Ianto's either invisible or hidden behind his too-formal clothing? Hearing them laugh, seeing more of the carefree, young Ianto that was buried beneath sharp suits and even sharper sarcasm in one hour than in all the months they'd worked together?
Jack wanted to dislike Lisa. Just a little bit.
He wasn't jealous. But he wanted her to remind him of London, to give him some excuse to keep them away.
But Lisa knew what she was doing, was quick to speak and even quicker to think; she was acing her physical therapy, was looking for the fast-paced lifestyle she had grown to love in London. Her resume spoke for itself, but she spoke louder, eloquent and disarming. Jack was only truly meeting her now and he was already half in love.
Ianto hadn't stood a chance.
And neither did he. With two sets of hopeful eyes boring into his, Jack capitulated.
At least he would have two gorgeous people to look at as he worked.
.oOo.
Lisa's new desk was next to Ianto's old one. Jack had worked with couples for long enough to know that nothing would keep them apart, and was rewarded with two grateful looks—Ianto's sheepish and Lisa's pleased.
Yeah, if Ianto was his boyfriend—"Fiancé," Lisa had said with a smile when Gwen had asked—he would be pleased, too. Those suits? Oh, yeah. The coffee? Definitely. Everything else? Fuck, he was screwed.
He was screwed with Lisa, too. She fit onto the team seamlessly. Tosh and Gwen had fully taken her in, spending time with her outside of work; Owen was surprisingly nice to her, showing her around and eager to tell embarrassing stories about Ianto.
She would seek him out, too, and her company made Jack understand Ianto's utter devotion. Lisa was clever and kind. She had an easy smile and a voice that made him want to ask constant questions just to hear her answers. She radiated warmth, pulled people closer with an easy confidence.
Jack stood on one of the Hub's many catwalks and watched Ianto look at Lisa. He was pretending to work but his monitor had long gone dark, and his eyes were directed past it to where Lisa and Tosh were working on something. Jack was too far away to see what exactly, but it didn't matter. What mattered was the look on Ianto's face, smug and soft all at once, screaming love.
He stood, finally dismissing work, and made his way over just as Lisa stood and walked over to her own desk. They met halfway—Jack felt like a voyeur, watching them smile at each other in the middle of the Hub, linking hands and returning to their corner.
They talked, each more animated and more comfortable in the other's presence. Just a little. Not enough to slight the rest of the team, just enough for something in Jack's heart to ache. He hadn't wanted them back at the Hub but now he couldn't imagine it without them. Ianto and Lisa had carved out more than a corner for themselves; they talked, their faces soft, now and then glancing towards Jack's office, but focused on each other more than anything else.
Jack hoped he didn't look just as gone for them as they were for each other, but he caught Owen's eye and grimaced. There was no way that Owen looked so pleased for any reason other than Jack's suffering.
He was in love with Ianto and Lisa; he was officially screwed.
.oOo.
A knock on Jack's desk snapped him out of his thoughts. He looked up, meeting Ianto's eyes, then Lisa's. He put down the file he was working on. "Yes?"
"I'm getting lunch." Lisa cleared her throat and Ianto shot her a look. "We're getting lunch. You want to come?"
Jack looked between them. Nothing looked wrong. But he wasn't busy. "You sure?"
Ianto winced as if someone had elbowed him. With an innocent smile, Lisa nodded. "Yeah. We've been here for weeks, you keep avoiding us."
"Lisa!"
"I'm sure Jack wants us to be direct." She turned a severe gaze on him. "I know you don't have a problem with us individually. But you keep looking at us when we're together—we're not excluding you. Gwen and Tosh are perfectly comfortable to hang out—we have dinner with Rhys once a week, even. We want you to get lunch with us."
"Maybe it's just the Hub that's making you so cranky."
"Cranky?" Jack's eyebrows rose. Ianto was bolder than ever and it was Lisa's fault; based on her pleased grin, she knew it, too. "Take that back and I'll come."
Ianto shrugged. "I take it back."
"You're quite easy."
This was something he could work with. Jack leered at them. "You know I am."
Ianto rolled his eyes. "Come on."
.oOo.
Jack followed them out of the Hub and onto the Plass. The restaurant was not far and the sun was out just enough for it to be warm enough to walk without being afraid of the sun getting in their eyes.
On the wide pavement, Jack walked beside them, content to weave in and out of their conversation. Lisa and Ianto were too nice for courtesy socialization, but he was still reeling from the realization that he was not simply attracted to them but interested in something more.
More—something that was near-impossible in the twenty-first century. Damn conventions.
"It seems a bit abrupt," Ianto said.
"He's been moping this whole time," Lisa replied—argued? Her tone was raised, full of conviction. "You needed a firm kick, too, before you got it together to ask me out."
"I'm just saying," Ianto replied, and Jack wondered if this was a repeated argument—had he missed its start? Very likely, with how lost in his thoughts he'd been. "Maybe we should woo him."
"Wait." Woo who?
Ianto and Lisa turned to him. Jack felt blood rush to his face; he thanked evolution for all but eradicating embarrassment-related blushing by the fifty-first century, but the sensation was there nonetheless. He swallowed. "Sorry, I missed the start of the conversation. Woo who?"
His companions exchanged a look. Ianto nodded. Lisa grinned.
"You."
.oOo.
Jack looked between Lisa and Ianto lying on either side of him. They were grinning, having a conversation with just their eyes over his body.
He hummed contentedly when they leaned close and kissed. He couldn't see well but he could feel their warmth pressing against his chest. He smiled, feeling their contentment, then let out a short gasp.
A hand had found its way to his hair, another had gripped his hand.
When Ianto and Lisa parted they looked directly at him, and Jack had to blink to come back to himself.
"Hey," he said to their smiling faces.
Lisa bent down and pressed a kiss to his cheek, softly; again, more firm; again, moving to his lips.
They were young. Young, happy, and insatiable, relishing in each other's company and now in Jack's—not a second time but a third, letting him stay the night and moving into the morning together.
Lisa sat up, shot him a blinding smile. She exchanged a look with Ianto and chuckled. "Can't believe you didn't know we wanted this all along."
Jack would have shrugged if he'd been sitting upright, hiding the depth of his insecurities.
"You'll overinflate his ego." Ianto rested a hand on Lisa's back and she shifted to lean into it. His twinkling eyes met Jack's. "And don't you dare."
"I wasn't going to say anything."
"You were—"
"—but that's okay."
Jack loved working with couples. Obvious benefits and current happy ending aside, they flirted and joked, finished each other's sentences, brought light and hope to any place they visited. Like the flat. It was beautifully decorated and spacious, but it was Ianto and Lisa that made it welcoming.
That made it welcoming for Jack.
Not only their bed, but their home—their life.
Thanks for reading, and let me know what you think! :D