AN/Warnings: implied suicide and childhood trauma/abuse.

It was seven days of forever since Owen had sampled Ianto's coffee and there was no dressing it up, he was grumpy. He could understand that Ianto didn't want to be in the Hub. But there came a point where the man had to realize that they all had needs that weren't currently being fulfilled by his hiding from the world at Jack's house. His only consolation, when he'd turned up a few days earlier with pizza, Jack didn't look like he'd been getting any coffee either for all he had a fancy machine in his kitchen. But it was a small moment of happiness in an otherwise crappy week.

He looked over at Suzie and Tosh pouring over the various pieces of tech and what he thought looked like crap they'd scavenged from London. He hadn't seen anyone that excited since Katie had found the perfect table cloths for a wedding he'd never gotten to enjoy. Which just reminded him that he did actually, in point of fact, have some inkling of what it was like to loose the woman you love to a fucking alien. He'd pointed that out to Jack but the door had still been slammed behind him as the American told him to fuck right off out of there. In hindsight, asking if Ianto could at least make him a thermos of coffee to go, perhaps hadn't been his best idea. But today there was hope that coffee could once more flow.

Jack called to say he was bringing Ianto in for a physical. His carefully considered joy at the prospect of a decent cup of coffee was cautious, when he considered the condition Ianto might be in. Jack's call filling him with concern at how much weight the already slender man had lost. But if he was willing to step foot in the Hub the medic was going to take that as a good sign.

Everyone looked up when the cog door rolled back and the alarm sounded as Jack led Ianto into the Hub. Suzie nodded her greeting and it was Tosh who moved to throw her arms around Ianto.
'I've missed you.'
Ianto hugged her back. 'I know.'
'I came to see you.'
'I'm sorry Tosh, I wasn't ready to see anyone.'
She looked up and brushed fingertips across his cheek. 'I understand.'
He gave her a sad smile and let her go. 'I'm not sure I'll ever be ready but what else can I do.'

She nodded at the raw honesty in his words that echoed in his usually smiling eyes. Patting him on the arm she hid the urge to wrap him in her arms and cry with him for all their losses. But she knew she couldn't. 'Even Owen missed you a little bit.'
'Missed my coffee you mean.'

Suzie laughed. 'We all missed that, but.' She shrugged.
Ianto decided to take that for as good as it got, Owen was visibly snarky and caustic to the touch, but Suzie's snark was buried much deeper and under a veneer of politeness that was truly British. She didn't do warm and fuzzy and he'd accepted that and would take what little she did extend in the spirit it was intended.

'Alright you lot, enough with the touchy feely.' Owen decided it was time to break up the hug fest before someone started crying. 'Now, teaboy, if you aren't going to make us a coffee get your arse into my office for your physical.' He waved Tosh aside and moved over to escort Ianto to either the coffee machine or the autopsy table. He wasn't going to express any further preference for which Ianto decided to visit first. Mostly worried Jack would just whisk the young man away again and they'd never get another decent cup of coffee. And yes he was disappointed when Ianto moved to the autopsy bay slash med lab area first.

Tosh remained where she was as Jack moved up beside her. 'Has anyone told his sister?'
He nodded, trying not to remember that conversation. 'I called her, she was going to see it on the news if I didn't. The names were released after the second day and she'd met Lisa.'
'I saw that and they called it a terrorist attack.'
Jack shrugged. 'It's the closest thing to the truth, we can't exactly say there was an attempted invasion by two opposing groups of aliens, that was aborted with the help of a third alien.'
'The sales of tinfoil would go though the roof if they did.'

Jack smiled as he nodded. 'Ah the conspiracy theory tin hat brigade. Maybe I should talk to my investment broker about buying those shares in Bacofoil after all.'
Tosh laughed for a moment. 'Maybe we should try wearing them ourselves. How did his sister take the news?'
'She wanted to be with Ianto but he said no. I'm not even sure he realized I was speaking to her.'
'What's she like, his sister?'
'Rhiannon Davies?'

Jack grinned as he considered how to answer of a woman he'd only met briefly. 'She's a few years older and a very striking woman, bright, friendly and quick as a whip.'
'So, a girl version of Ianto.'
'I think so, from the little I've interacted with her. I'm hoping he'll see her after today. We all need our friends and family around us when this sort of thing happens. Especially when you don't have a grave to visit.' Turning, Jack shrugged and walked away.

Tosh stared after him wondering who he'd lost and if that perhaps explained some of the loneliness she saw in eyes that had clearly seen too much. His haunted expression one now shared by Ianto.

Owen tossed his gloves in the bin and nodded at his patient. 'You can put your shirt back on. We don't need you blinding the girls with your London tan.'
'I thought about getting an Essex tan but I've never found orange to be my colour.'
'Funny bugger aren't you. But you're okay considering, and your injuries have healed up.'
Ianto looked at his hands, he'd done more than break a few nails trying to claw Lisa out of the ruins at One. 'Let me guess, restricted duties, counselling and make more coffee?'
'That and you need to make sure you don't skip any meals.' He looked up at Jack and pointed. 'You need to keep on top of that, and he's not sleeping proper is he.'

Ianto finished buttoning his shirt and reached for his tie. 'What possible reason would I have for not sleeping?' Knowing the dark circles under his eyes stood out in stark contrast to his pale Welsh complexion.
Owen patted his shoulder. 'Now I know you're feeling better if you're getting snarky.'
'Whatever, you just want me to make you a coffee.'
'If you're offering.'

Jack laughed at how hopeful Owen looked. 'Only if he feels up to it. I'm not above putting Ianto on administrative leave if I have to.'
'Easy tiger, he's lost a bit of weight but we can always switch back to full fat milk and drink a few more coffee's. The fancy ones with the foamy milk on them, I know I'd be willing to take a few for the team.'
Ianto snorted. 'I'm sure you would.' He looked at Jack as he pulled his jacket back on after straightening his tie. 'I think I'd like to stay busy and if making him coffee.' He indicated Owen with a jerk of his head. 'Keeps him in his box and helps then so be it.'
'You know.' Owen said, looking up from his notes. 'If it means I'll get my coffee I'm willing to let that slide.'

Ianto gave him a quick smile, one that didn't quite reach his eyes. Dressed and straightened up he moved away, stopping as he pulled up to Jack, knowing the older man had something to add.
'You're sister wants to talk to you.'
Ianto nodded. 'I know but, I don't know if I can.' He fell in step with Jack as they moved to the kitchen. 'I can make coffee and then I'd like to go to my archives.'

'I talked to Rhi.' Jack spoke quietly so only Ianto could hear. 'She's worried about you.'
'I know.'
'That we spoke or that she's concerned?'
'I know you spoke to her and concern is her default setting. Mine is to keep busy.'
'Don't be so busy that you forget there are people around you who care.' Jack let his hand linger on Ianto's shoulder. 'You know that right?' Blue eyes found his and nodded. There were still clouds in his eyes and Jack wondered if they'd ever laugh freely again.
'You know I've lost friends and lovers before.'
'Does it get easier Sir?'

Jack shook his head. 'Nope, and it shouldn't.'
'So what do you do? Stop trying?'
'We should never stop Ianto.'
'But you have.' He handed Jack a coffee. 'I don't even need to be able to pick up on your thoughts to know that.'
'Are you trying to distract me from focusing on you by pointing out my own intimacy issues?'
'Is it working?'
'No.' Jack leaned back and finished his coffee. 'Did you really think it would?'

Ianto handed him another coffee. 'Not really.'
'Come on, before Owen climbs up here for his coffee.'
'Are you going to tell him you're on your second cup?'
Jack shrugged. 'Maybe, if he gets really annoying.'
'That's a given.' Ianto smiled as Jack laughed.
'Yeah, and then he'll go into the archives.'
'Not if he wants to drink anything other than decaf or store brought ever again.'
'That mean you'll stay?'
Ianto paused, holding the tray of coffees, his smile sad. 'I have no where else to go.'

Jack watched as he walked away, his shoulders stooping under the weight of his pain his voice soft. 'Oh Ianto, you'll always have somewhere to go.' He turned and headed to his office. Today already felt like a two teacakes kind of day and it was barely nine o'clock.

Ianto stepped into his sanctuary, his archives and was relieved to find them how he left them.
He considered how much more room he was going to have to find now One had fallen. He would have to go though the servers to see what remained and which, if any, of his friends had survived. They would be feeling as lost as he did, but were they waking screaming in the darkness? Wondering what he would have done, if he could have saved her, was a moot point. As was cursing the Doctor for not saving them all or of heaping it all at Yvonne Hartman's empty grave.

Her pursuit of things the Doctor had warned her to stop was simply one more example of the woman's hubris. Of course if it had worked she'd have been a hero. The fact she allowed two such devastating alien races access to the world was going to colour the memories she had left behind. Few would remember the woman she was, just the devastation her actions caused. And even then, only those with the highest security clearances would ever really know.

To stop thinking he tried to lose himself in his archives. Cataloguing and sorting the seemingly endless collection of trash and treasure found by Torchwood over the years of guarding the rift in Cardiff. He found files by Emily and Alice mixed in with those written by George and Harriet as he lost himself in bringing order to the chaos. Until it was that time of day when he would reach for his phone and leave the archives to call Lisa. Only this time there was no one to call.

Owen was standing beside Tosh, looking over data at her station, they both looked up as Jack rushed past, knocking a pile of files to the ground without looking back.
'Oi, wanker.'
'Language Owen, did you see where he went?' Taking the pages he handed her.
'The archives, so unless teaboy's got a second coffee machine, what's going on.'
'How should I know.'

'Dial up the CCTV and look. Not like the Captain doesn't stalk the lad when he's in his office.'
'So, that doesn't mean we should all do it. Jack also likes to stand on the top of buildings but I'm quite happy to give that one a miss.'
'Oh shut up and have a look, he might need help or something. Teaboy could have accidentally set an artifact off.'
Tosh rolled her eyes and directed her computer to finding the archives on the CCTV. Some how she suspected Ianto Jones was the least likely member of the team to do that, but she complied with Owen's request.

Jack was working on paperwork when he felt Ianto's pain. Their connection was getting stronger and he hadn't even registered moving until he was picking Ianto up off the floor. Fearing the worst. Pulling the crying man into his arms he sat with him as he rubbed nonsense circles on his back.
'What happened? Is it too soon to be here?'
'I, it was time to call her Jack but.'
'Shh, I've got you Yan, and I'm not letting go.'
'She's not there.'
'I know, but we are and we're all here for you.'

Ianto hiccoughed. 'They only like me for my coffee.' Taking Jack's handkerchief.
'That's not completely true. Tosh and I genuinely like you.'
Ianto snorted, blowing his nose. 'So it's just the others that only like me for the coffee then.'
'I don't know, I think the others like you for you. The coffee's a bonus.'
'What if.' Ianto stopped.
'What if what Yan?'
He sighed. 'What if she was the one and now she's gone?'
Jack pulled him in and wrapped him in comforting thoughts. 'You think I know the answer to that? Even if I find my one, I'll still have to work out how to live when he, or she is gone.'

Ianto pulled back and looked at Jack, his expression absent any mirth. 'I swear to god, if you tell me it is better to have loved and lost. You wont have to worry about explaining to the others that you come back from the dead because they'll get to see it first hand.'
Jack felt the cold seriousness of Ianto's words not only in his tone and expression, but over the connection they had begun forming. And for the first time in a very long time, he was able to feel fear of his own. 'Understood.' He watched as Ianto pulled himself to his feet and began straightening his suit.

'Perhaps I should just make us all a coffee Sir.'
'If you need to talk to someone Ianto...' Jack let his voice trail off as he rose to his feet beside the Welshman. 'We've all been though a lot, if there was ever a group of people who you could talk to about the weird shit we deal with, it's us.'
'I'm sure that is correct Sir.'

Jack sighed as the mask fell into place and the man walk away. Following, he vowed not to let Ianto blend into the background of the Hub and fade away. And if it meant a group karaoke night, he was willing to take one for the team. And drag the rest of them out at gun point if he had to. He wasn't above coercion and old fashioned blackmail.

Ianto went though the motions of making coffee and was surprised when Owen pulled him aside.
'Do you actually want decaf?'
'No teaboy, I don't ever want decaf. But I want you to know something.' He pulled a worn photo out of his pocket and handed it to Ianto. 'Her name was Katie Russell and we should have been arguing over baby names by now. We would of, if she hadn't been killed by an alien incubating in her brain.' He took the photo back, running his thumb over her face. 'I think Tosh stitched the records up so I'm pretty sure she knows, and Jack who found me of course.' He closed his eyes as he remembered the worst day of his life. 'Don't think you're alone yeah.'

Ianto nodded as he watched the usually verbose Englishman tuck the photo carefully in his pocket. 'Please don't think I'm going to go on the pull with you. But, thank you.'
Owen snorted. 'Like I need you as my wing man. And I get the feeling Jack would drop me in the Bay if I took you out clubbing.' Owen shook his head. 'Just. Don't be like me and stop talking about her, yeah.' And with that, he walked away, coffee cup firmly in hand as if he hadn't just shared a little piece of his soul.

Handing out coffee's he saved Jack for last, taking the empty chair next to the older man's desk, his own cup untouched. Seeing this Jack set his own cup aside and reached for Ianto's hand.
'I wont ask if you're all right.'
'Good because I don't have enough energy to lie to you.' Ianto picked his cup up but just held it, feeling the warmth he hoped it would help. 'The others, what happened to them?'
'The survivors?' Jack watched as Ianto nodded. 'Two died from their injuries and one committed suicide. The other twenty three are in various states of shock, talking to counsellors. There's one willing to come to Cardiff to talk to you for as long as you need to.'

'Do you think I need to talk to a psychiatrist Jack? Because it did wonders for my mother.'
'You aren't your mother Ianto.' He considered the conversation he'd had with Rhi, filling in a few of the blanks in her brother's records. Their mother, who never recovered from the loss of her youngest child, had spent ten years in and out of psychiatric care by the time of her death.
'I'm not going to kill myself.'
'Good because I don't want to loose you because of this.'

Ianto shook his head. 'I think I'd like to go home now.'
'Will you talk to Rhi?'
Ianto nodded. 'I'll have to talk to her at some point.'
'Okay, how about I take you home and call her.'
'Do I even want to know how you got her number in the first place?'
Jack shrugged. 'I have a verified computer genius on staff, how do you think I got her number.'
'From my cell phone.'
Jack grinned as he sipped his coffee and chose not to answer.

They were home long enough for Ianto to change out of his suit when there was a knock at the door and Jack welcomed Rhi into his home.
'Found the place all right then?'
'I did.' She squared her shoulders back. 'Is he.' She sighed as Jack shook his head.
'Come on, he's through here.'

'I only met her twice she kept him pretty busy in London, he loved her, you know.'
'I know.' Jack agreed, showing her into the sitting room. 'I can make a pot of mediocre tea if you like.'
Rhi laughed. 'If it's only mediocre, forget it.'
'Your brother says that about my coffee.'
Ianto looked up at the voices. 'I never said you made mediocre coffee Jack.'
'No, you're right, I believe there was a polite suggestion, however, that I never touch my coffee machine again. I'll leave you two to talk.'

Rhi didn't wait for Jack to leave the room before wrapping her brother in her arms and held on. 'You look like Dav when I told him we weren't sending Mica back and getting a puppy.'
'To be fair Rhi, that was only a few weeks ago.'
She stepped back and pulled him onto the sofa, sitting beside him. 'How are you holding up Yan or are you trying to bottle it in?' She decided, other than his eyes he looked younger than his age. And tired.

'I hate how much it hurts.' He sniffed, trying to hold the tears back. 'I hate that she died like that.'
'Hang on, you were there?'
'We took a helicopter when we got the call, worst forty minutes of my life. Or I thought it was.' He knew he was radiating pain and looked up, half expecting Jack to burst into the room, again.

Rhi felt the room fill with a miasma of grief pouring into the space, wrapping them in her brother's distress. 'You were with her.'
He nodded. 'We. I, found her -.' His voice broke as tears filled his eyes.
'Oh Yan love.' She pulled him into her arms once more.

Time faded around them until he was a broken fourteen year old boy finding his mother dead in the bathroom of his childhood home. The sad reality, his childhood hadn't ended that day, but rather ten years previously. Both of them lost their childhood the day their brother Huw, only three weeks old, had stopped breathing. That became the day Ina Jones forgot she had two other children and a husband. Ianto had no happy memories of his mother, a woman who spent the last ten years of her life in and out of Providence Park. Until finally, in death she left her son with a drunken father and a sister who moved out of home as soon as she turned eighteen.

'I'm not going anywhere Yan.'
'But you did. You left me before.'
She sighed. 'I know and I wish I could have taken you with me.'
'Everyone leaves me. You left me, Huw and mam left, even tad couldn't wait to drink himself to death. And now Lisa.'

Rhi jumped as Jack appeared on the other side of her brother and held him.
'Christ Jack, where did you spring from.'
'That's an unimportant detail, he needed me.'
She had to concede he may have been right as she watched her brother cling to him. As children she'd always known what her brother was feeling whenever they were in close proximity. Something that at eighteen had made it both hard to leave, and harder to stay.

She knew it hadn't been easy after their mother died. Left with a father who blamed the unnaturalness his wife had shared with her children for her death. They drifted apart, it was only after he met Lisa he'd reached out to her once more and she didn't want to loose him again. They were each other's family, orphaned in a world filled with pain.

Ianto turned to Jack after hugging his sister goodbye and watching her drive away. 'What happens, when you die?'
'You don't want to know Ianto.'
'I do.'
'Okay. Nothing.'
'What, one moment you're alive, then you're alive again?'
'No.' Jack shook his head in the face of Ianto's raised eyebrows. 'I mean, there's nothing. It's just, empty.'
'No white light, no loved ones waiting for you?'
'Not for me, but I don't know how I come back. Maybe I'm just not dead long enough to see what's beyond this life.'
'And how does it feel, to come back?'

Jack considered his answer. 'It's like trying to swallow when you have a cold and your throat feels like it's filled with sand. You don't have a choice, even though you know you'll feel every moment of it like you're crawling over broken glass.' Jack clapped his hand on Ianto's shoulder. 'I wish I could tell you I hear Elvis jamming with John Lennon while sitting in a field of flowers.'
'I'd have had you pegged more for a Glenn Miller fan than Elvis.'
'I'm a multi-faceted man Ianto Jones.'

'Apparently.' He agreed. 'So, the flat in London, will you really send Tosh with Rhi to pack everything up?'
Jack nodded. 'It's what we were just talking about while your sister made us tea. Is that a Jones thing? Neither of you let me make drinks in my own kitchen.'
'Well if we needed paint thinner we would.'

'Owen's right, you are a funny bastard sometimes. But yes. I will call Tosh now and ask her to come by tomorrow and she and your sister can go to London to pack your flat up. I'll even put them up in a hotel for the night so they can talk about us and order room service.'
'You will, will you.'
'Me, Torchwood, same thing.' Jack pulled his phone out to call Tosh. 'Are you sure you want to just give the furniture to good will?'

Ianto nodded. 'And her clothes, I.' He sighed. 'It's that or I do a Havisham and hold on to everything and never leave the house.'
'Havisham?' Jack shook his head. 'Is that a Welsh thing?'
'No, it's a Dickens thing, the character in his book, Great Expectations? Miss Havisham? Jilted bride who still wore her wedding dress and stopped all the clocks in her house. Ring any bells?'
'Oh.'
'You have no idea do you.'

'I spent a great deal of time getting drunk when I first landed here, then Torchwood found me. They didn't exactly give me time off for reading.'
'I'm sorry Jack.'
'You didn't tie me to a chair and shoot me. Eventually they realized I could be, of use to them and they stopped trying to kill me. Sort of.'
'I would say I didn't know but I've seen the files.'
Jack nodded as his call connected. 'Tosh, can I ask you to do something for me?'

Ianto walked away, he didn't want to hear Jack organizing his life around him. He knew he couldn't keep paying rent on the London flat, and he knew something needed to be done with everything that was Lisa's. He just wasn't ready to make those sorts of decisions so he made more coffee instead. He wondered if he did need to talk to someone, he couldn't keep crying on Jack's shoulder every time he reached for his phone to call Lisa.

He also wasn't ready to look at why Jack felt like such a safe place that he could cry on his shoulder. He almost wished Jack would let him fade away but something told him that the older man wasn't ever letting go. And a little flame of hope fed the idea that maybe, just maybe, that would be okay.