Chapter 3

The night before Gwen's wedding was celebrated in a typical Torchwood fashion. With the discovery of a knew species that had bitten Gwen and somehow managed to impregnate the bride to be. Of course Gwen being the strong headed woman that she was insisted that their 'little' problem would not set her back. By end of day she would be Gwen Williams, well still Cooper really, but she would be married. Neither Jack nor Owen had been fond of the idea, but could not come up with a reason to dissuade her.

So the team worked together to give Gwen the wedding she desperately wanted. Ianto went out and picked up a dress to accommodate Gwen's knew figure, Tosh was sent early just in case anything should arise. While the three men followed suit shortly after learning that Gwen was being hunted by the Nostrovite mother who planned on ripping open Gwen's stomach and running off with the unborn child.

The wedding itself had gone as expect, Jack crashed at the last moment and all hell broke loose. Eventually Owen had used the singularity scalpel to perform an abortion on Gwen's alien baby and Jack had blown the thing to pieces by using an alien weapon that had Jack grinning like a kid for hours after the fact.

The fallout had been one fatality, poor Martin the groomsmen was eaten alive and they had a wedding party of people to Retcon. Ianto had been hurt too, at one point the Nostrovite had taken Gwen's mother hostage and shortly after Gwen emptied a round into the thing it made to retreat. Ianto had tried blocking its path and as a result got four sharp nails dug knuckles deep into his right shoulder. At the time he cried out, not in pain as he could no longer feel. It was simply the shock of seeing someone dig ones hand into your flesh. He was alright and his arm still seemed to function, but now he'd forever have four holes planted in his shoulder, along side the bullet wound over his heart, to always remind him of the day.

Jack had been livid and wanted to confine Ianto to the Hub for the foreseeable future, but as the team reminded Jack the cleanup was going to be a big job he settled for making him wait in the SUV until the creature had been dispatched.

Now here they were. Owen had caved and was dancing with Tosh while Gwen was seemingly in dream world caught up in fantasies of him and Gwen while Ianto looked on. Ianto had stood watching for a time, but eventually couldn't stomach the scene any longer and decided he needed to get some air. He wasn't need at the time anyway, the Retcon needed to run its course on the crowd before he would be again.

"I was looking for you," he heard Jack's voice approaching from behind him.

"Oh? I didn't think you even knew I was there," Ianto replied with more venom than he had intended.

"That's not fair. You been keeping your distance from me since…" Jack began as Ianto jumped in to finish his sentence.

"Since I died."

"I was going to say, since the accident," Jack refuted.

"Its fine Jack. I'm dead, couples tend to break up when that happens. You have no obligation to me."

"It doesn't have to be like that, we could still…"

"Still what, Jack?" Ianto spat. "Still be a couple? Still go on like me being dead changes nothing?"

Here it was, Jack thought. The blow out he had anxiously been anticipating.

"It doesn't have to."

"Don't patronize Jack, you're the most sexual person I know. It was the foundations of our relationship."

"So you don't breathe, its not all bad. No gag reflex," Jack attempted to lighten the mood. "Even if we can't have sex, sometimes its nice to just curl up with a warm body and…" Jack had said before realizing his slip up, but Ianto made sure to point it out to him.

"Warm body," Ianto chuckled sardonically. "I'm bloody dead Jack, no blood flow. My skin is stone cold. So tell me Jack, where does that leave us? Snogging? My salivary glands don't function any more. My mouth is as dry as a desert. Would be like making out with a sheet of sandpaper that's been in the fridge."

"Ianto…" Jack didn't really know what else to say. He never really thought about every detail that lack of body functions would imply.

"Jack, I can't feel anything. Its not just touch, its so much more. Being around you use to excite me, make me nervous, turn me on. Now I feel nothing. The body is responsible for releasing chemicals that cause emotions. Like when that Nostrovite attacked me today, there was no adrenaline. It was more my mind remembering how I would've reacted, so I shouted."

"What are you getting at, Ianto?" Jack asked, not liking what he was hearing. This was far worse then anything he had expected.

"Right now I can still remember what emotions felt like and I'm reacting to situations as such. But its fading. Like a distant dream, I'm forgetting how it felt to be happy, sad to love. It must be some cosmic joke that me and Lisa get to suffer the same fate. Both stripped of emotion and forced to cling to a life forced on you."

Jack couldn't help but feel like he just been struck by that last bit. He was the one who had forced Ianto back and why he was now stuck as he was. All because he wasn't ready to let to young man go.

"What do you need me to do?"

"Let me go."

"And if I can't?"

"I don't think you have a choice. Soon I wont be me. So while this carcass would still be here to follow you around, all the feelings that made me who I was will eventually be forgotten. And I'll simply just exist."

"How long do you think you can hold out?" Jack asked, hoping he could find some miracle to fix him. Maybe contact the Doctor and see is he can help.

"A few months I suppose."

"Please give me those months. I'll find a cure, I promise."

"Jack, I don't think its that simple."

"I'm not ready to give up on you yet," Jack was all but begging now.

"Three months Jack, then promise me you'll end this. No matter what."

"Three months."

AN: While writing this chapter I sat thinking for awhile about everything that might come up from body functions shutting down and realized your body really wouldn't release the chemicals that tell you how you are feeling and thought it would be interesting to include that. Of course not breathing should imply no talking, but lets over look that one.

I'll likely skip both Adrift and From Out of the Rain, cause lets face it, if Jack and Ianto cant dabble those episodes get a little boring the second time around.