Fandom: Torchwood.
Title: It's been good, yeah? - Chapter 2 - Normality
Rating: PG-13.
Beta: None, yet. So sorry for any mistakes made during the translation.
Genre: Sci-Fi, drama, angst, adventure. Tragedy?
Warnings: In future chapters, too much angst and sex. Don't expect a very happy ending.
Paring; Jack/Ianto.
Summary: Post Miracle Day. A not exactly fix-it fic. Torchwood has been rebuilt, and Jack, Gwen plus a new member find themselves traped in the middle of a collision between alternative realities, a conspiracy and a Ianto who's alive but had never known anything about Torchwood.
Author's Note: Oh, the Janto is really begining now. And the angst too. But don't worry there will be happy moments, not that many, and surronded by angst but they will be. Plus in this chapter I can explore all the characters better. Even Gwen a little. But well, I'm mostly proud of this chapter. Save for one part that I'm not entirely sure I had done it well, the rest, I'm proud of it.
I also noticed how in this first two chapter the title has an application for two moments. In the first, crash can refer to the crash of the team with the new reality, and Jack crashing into Ianto. In this second chapter, normality can refer to a very obvious part at the end and/or a part in the middle that I won't say just yet as to not spoil you but that I hope you can get.
And sorry if the translation is to crappy. Sometimes it's inevitable to fall into some grammar Spanglish... I hope you like it nevertheless.

.

.

Chapter 2

Normality

.

.

.

"Sorry, do I know you?" asked Ianto confused looking tot he brunette man with the penetrating blue eyes.

It was like a knife being stabbed directly into his heart, a sharp one that made a clean cut. The fact that Miranda had warned him about it didn't help to diminish the pain. Here was his Ianto, the same eyes, the same innocent, deep and strong look. The same hair, the same lips, even his suit seemed to be the same.

But he didn't recognize him.

"No, sorry," said Jack trying to hide the shaking of his voice, "I mistook you from someone I've known. He was named Ianto," he added after a pause, keeping the tears that wanted to escape away from his eyes.

Ianto raised an eyebrow before making a cordial smile.

"Wow, what a coincidence, so do I. Well, if you forgive me, I must go," said the young Welsh man after what he left towards the bar.

Jack stayed staring at him until he entered. He even continued looking at him trough the large windows while he sat and asked a coffee.

"Jack, are you okay?" asked Gwen caring as always.

"Yes," he answered hardening his look, "Now we must plan our next movement," continued Jack hiding behind the captain mask, "Miranda, when will it be the next spike in the Gap?"

"I don't know, Jack. I can't predict when there's going to be one with more than a few hours of difference," answered the brunette girl with hazel eyes who at that moment hated herself for having become a bird of ill omen, she only was telling bad news, "And yet, it doesn't guarantee that we go back to our reality, we could end up in anyone. It's like the Rift."

"But didn't you invent the Vortex Manipulator? Can you do something?" asked Gwen almost desperate, he hates this reality, not only because she was dead but also because of the pain in Jack's eyes after seeing an Ianto who didn't know him. Although she had long over grown the crush he had with him, she loved him the same and hated to see him suffer. Besides she was dead here and that was spooky.

"No, Gwen," exclaimed Miranda, "The Vortex Manipulator won't work to control the Gap, it is even complicated to do so with the Rift. Besides, mine is barely a prototype because the good one was stolen, and Jack's is broken in that sense. Maybe," she added trying to say something remotely good, "I could make something similar to helps us return, but it's going to be hard. I would need time and somewhere to work.

"How long would it take you to do it?" asked Jack seriously.

"Being too optimistic, I'd said several weeks," asked Miranda.

"All right, as soon as we get to the place where we're gonna stay I want you to start working on it," ordered Jack, "While Gwen and I are gonna investigate about those persons that attack us before coming, we need to know if they exist here too."

"But how are we going to get a place to stay?" asked Gwen remaking the flaw in the plan.

Jack looked at her with a very unfriendly face before speaking.

"We only know one person with... local knowledge," he said looking towards the place where Ianto was still taking his coffee.

"Jack, don't..." pleaded Gwen who didn't think that involving Ianto would be a good idea.

"As a boyfriend of mine used to say all the time, 'desperate times require desperate measures'," said Jack before starting to walk to the bar, hating himself for being the one who'll take Ianto out of his normality, "You wait outside."

.

Ianto was sat at his table as every morning and drinking his coffee of every morning. But today there was something different. Those blue eyes of the man who had stumbled upon this morning. They had been so intense, and the way they looked at him, they seem to adore him. The coffee of that day was too sweetened by those eyes.

Then, he saw him enter trough the bar's door. Long ago had Ianto known that he was bisexual, however, by general rule he wasn't that much attracted to men. He had gone out with one some years ago, but it hadn't been anything out of the ordinary. And it had been needed a lot of previous flirting before he even started seeing him attractive. It had never happened to him to find a man so attractive that just seeing him made him feel revolutions in his stomach that went directly to his groin.

The stranger seemed to be looking for someone, his look serious but deep had taken again that heartbreaking sweetness when he fixed it with Ianto's. He walked directly towards him and sat in front of him.

"Good morning," greeted him Ianto surprised, maybe he was thinking too much with his groin, but with some luck this Adonis had come to flirt with him.

"Hello, Ianto," replied the stranger with his american accent.

"Can I assist you in anyway?" asked the Welsh men, a suggestive line but normal enough to avoid him being embarrassed if he was wrong.

"I'm Captain Jack Harkness, it's a pleasure to meet you," smiled to him the not-so-unknown-man-now.

"I'm Jones, Ianto Jones," he clarified.

"I know," smiled Jack nostalgically.

There was a silence during which Ianto continued taking what was left of his coffee and Jack stared at him. In some bizarre way it wasn't uncomfortable, as if the silence was something usual for both of them. After a while, the captain started shifting his weight uncomfortable in his sit, as if he was searching the word to say something hard.

"Ianto Jones, there's something you should know."

The aforementioned stayed frozen in his place. A shiver went down his spine.

"I don't belong here. I come from somewhere else, from another place, from..."

"From United States?" asked Ianto confused, because if that was the case it was obvious from his accent, hardly anything mysterious about it.

"From another universe, from an alternative reality"

"What?" asked Ianto with a mix of surprised and scepticism.

Jack wasn't expecting a different answer, he knew he wouldn't believe him right away. He needed to show him proofs for that, but first he needed to tell him what he was probing.

"In the reality I come from, we worked together in an organization in charge of capturing aliens that come trough the Rift. Torchwood, it's called Torchwood. The Rift, is well, a rift between time and space. What you're seeing here," he said pointing his Vortex Manipulator, "it's a device from the future. We were working together for nearly three years and we were... close, you've told me things about you," it hurted not being able to tell him the true nature of their relationship, but he knew that it would be pushing it too far.

Ianto went from his you're-crazy expression to his stoic mas.

"All right," he said while he got up stretching his tie, "it's been a pleasure but I must go to work."

"Wait," asked him Jack raising a hand to make his point stronger, "look at your napkin."

He extended the beige fabric over the table, pointed his Manipulator to it and touched a couple of buttons after making sure that nobody else was watching. A blue ray ran trough the fabric, printing a text over it. When the whole size of the napkin was covered, he handed it to a surprise Ianto.

"Take it, read it," he said.

Ianto took it with unsure fingers, and took sit so he could read.

Life of Ianto Jones:*
-You were born on 19th August 1983.
-Your mum died when you were four.
-When you were eight your dad pushed you so hard so you socialized with other children that he ended up breaking you a leg.-At age ten you kill your sister's bird because you drop some cleaner in its drinking bowl and you forgot to change its water.
-At age sixteen one of your friends challenged you to steal a coat from a shop. You did it because it was the first time you were confused about what you felt for someone of the same sex.
-You like your coffee pure, with three sugar lumps and a bit of chocolate to add a touch to the flavour.
-After you finish preparing a coffee, you always like to smell it before drinking it, you feel as it rejuvenates you.
-You use to tell everyone that your father is a master tailor when he actually worked for Debenhams.
-You like old stuff because you remember that your mum used to show you a picture of your grandparents as children and said that you could almost see them play and laugh.
-When you were a kid you want to be a librarian until one day your father told you that wasn't a good career for you.
-When you went to the Electro with your dad, he remembered your mum and it was one of the few moments in which he didn't see angry nor disappointed at you.
*Any possible mistakes is because of the differences between realities.

"We were close, weren't we?" asked Ianto with shaking voice.

Written over there were things he hadn't told a living soul, things such as his crush at one of his friends at sixteen or his dream of being a librarian. Not even his sister knew about the bird, everyone thought that he was old. That napkin had secrets and intimate thoughts that he had never said out load. And that freaked the hell out of the young Welsh man.

"We were," sighed Jack, but when he saw the expression of terror still was in the other's face, he added, "Ianto," he said taking his hand into his, "believe me, there's nothing to be afraid of."

When Jack's hand touched his, all of Ianto's fears went away. And surprisingly, Ianto believed him. As if he could trust anything to this astonishing man of piercing blue eyes that he met no much more than thirty minutes ago.

.

TWTWTWTWTWTW

.

"This is an old storehouse of the company," explained Ianto while he opened the door, "Outlet clothes or with manufactured defects is stored here, so you can use it with no inconvenient."

Ianto worked, ironically, at Debenhams, the same thing that he was ashamed to admit of his father. Back in London, while he went from job to job, he ended up as assistant in one of its branchs. Soon, he was promoted to manager of the cash register, and he continued being promoted for two years, until when he was twenty-three he was transferred to Cardiff. Now he was the manager of all that was Debenhams Cardiff. Yet he was still ashamed to admit his father's true job, specially because now he had ended up having the same job that he had. Even so when he at his twenty-six years had already achieved more than him.

"The toilers have showers, so you can wash yourself with no inconvenient," continued saying Ianto, "I've already called to work to report myself sick, so I can go to buy you food and essentials."

"Thanks, sweetheart," said Gwen who had to control herself to no hug Ianto at any time.

They had already told him how his job at Torchwood had been, although without that much detail. Enough to satisfy Ianto and avoiding that he asked to many questions. No one knew what to say if he asked about that particular moment.

"How many weeks do you think that you're going to need here?" asked the young man.

"I couldn't say," answered Miranda, "I can't give you any estimate until at least I hadn't set to work."

"Here," said Ianto looking for a new topic and taking out a couple of keys from his big keyring, "here you have the keys for the storehouse," and he handed in to Jack avoiding his gaze, "I believe that in one of the rooms there were some mattress. I'm going to go and buy you food and stuff, I'll be back in a while."

Ianto couldn't almost look the captain into the eyes since they left the bar, his stare was too intense, too overwhelming. It was a look that told a story of passion, a story that Ianto wasn't sure if he wanted to listen. He didn't know if he could take it. Because even though Jack tried to hide it, there was too much admiration in those eyes, an admiration that he thought himself unworthy of.

.

"Are you all right?" asked Gwen while they took out one of the mattress from the small room where they were stored.

"No," answered Jack honestly.

"Do you wanna talk?" she asked him concerned.

"No, Gwen."

Despite he lover her a lot, the last thing he wanted right now was to get close to her emotionally.

Gwen, he thought with a sarcastic snort in his interior.

He was feeling like in the morning after Ianto's death. With a feeling of almost loath toward the woman. She wasn't the one to blame actually, it has all been his fault as always. But in moments like this, she remained him of all this time he had underestimated Ianto for being after her.

Jack had known from a beginning that his thing with her was a lost case. He would never stumble in the middle of a couple. Besides, it would have never worked. To star with, he wasn't the kind of man for Gwen, that was something like Rhys, that could give her stability. Secondly, that all the attraction and love that she felt towards him wasn't more than to his hero figure. And if they were together, she would've asked him to change for her. Ianto had never asked that, he had always accepted him for what he was. How many times had he seen him flirt with her and hadn't said a thing.

That was another stab at his heart,.

He was ashamed of how fast he had been in admitting his so-called feelings towards Gwen but how much it has taken him to do so with Ianto. It was that Gwen, being an impossible, was safe ground while Ianto... He always knew that he could fall in love with Ianto, after that time with the pterodactyl. So he sheltered himself and went after Gwen. He put Ianto as second best and thought that it was safe that way. But he fell in love nevertheless. And although little by little, after Gwen's wedding and finally losing her, he started to admit to himself his feeling, he never admitted them to Ianto. He'd been distracting himself with other things so he wouldn't surrender to the young Welsh man, and he took to much time. He worried so much with the possibility of losing him that he didn't enjoyed him enough.

And Gwen was a remainder of all those distractions, of the guilt.

And now he seemed to have him back, but it wasn't. All the years lived together weren't there. Shared experiences that were not. And yet, he still was his Ianto. Despite the experiences lived differently he was still the same person.

That was tearing Jack apart in the inside, having but not having.

Together, they finished taking the mattress to the main area of the storehouse, the only place more or less habitable of the place. Miranda, upon Jack's orders, had already started to work. She wasn't as tore apart as the rest for seeing a dead loved one living again, but as a stranger almost. But she did felt Jack's pain.

In spite of thinking that it was mainly on her side, she considered Jack a friend and she loved him. Besides she also kind of see him as a father figure. Despite her both parents were still alive and present, and they got along well, with them she couldn't share the three years lived on the future. For them she still was twenty years old, and even though they've seen her more mature, they assumed that it was because not long before being abducted by the Rift, she had moved out and went to live alone. Her childish build helped her hide those three years, she even looked as a high school teenager for the distracted observer.

Jack was the only one to whom she could talk about it. Well, there was Gwen too, and although she loved her and considered her a friend too, it was different. Jack understood her while Gwen only cared about her. And if there was something that Miranda couldn't stand was seeing her friends in pain, so she was going to get to the bottom of this. There was something here more than just Gap activity, she was sure about it.

The sound of the door being opened distracted her momentarily and she turned her head around to see Ianto entering with some bags. Even though she barely knew him she had already started to like him. That plus the love that she noticed that Jack looked at him with and the fondness that Gwen did too, made, by general rule, that he started to grow a little in her.

"I brought food, and cleaning and hygiene products," he said while he put the bags over a table, "And as I assumed that you were going to stay a long time awake working," he added looking particularly to Miranda bended over her computer, "I brought a coffee machine," he finished setting apart a box from between the bags.

"You didn't," exclaimed Jack showing his first genuine smile since he'd seen Ianto for the first time.

"I did," answered the young man with a smile.

"Ianto Jones, if there's something that doesn't change no matter the reality, is that you always know what I need," smiled to him Jack with his trade mark Harkness smile.

"Oh, a quality of mine, sir," answered Ianto looking at him in the eye mischievously.

There it was again, the flirting. And when he tasted once more the exquisite flavour of Ianto's coffee, everything seemed normal again. Exactly as it should be.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Apendix: The Vortex Manipulator and Miranda: Well, to clearify any doubts I'm writing this. When Miranda was dragged into the 33rd century and went to finish her studies in Physics, she searched for a way to return home. In her last year in the future she invented a first version of the Vortex Manipulator, a prototipe. With very basic hacking powers. But it was still rough and not very safe to use, so she invented a second version. This second version worked on slightly different principles, making the trable trough the Rift a lot smoother. However, this better second versions was stolen from her. Later, it was upgraded and perfected by several other people until we get a 'final version' and the Time Agency was created. And this is how we get to Jack's Vortex Manipulator. However, Jack's Vortex Manipulator was somehow broken and can't do any more time travels. If not he wouldn't have been waiting for a century for the Doctor. Miranda was able to repair the final details of the prototipe in order to allow her one time travel. She used it to return to Earth a few days earlier than the day she was gone missing. Jack and Gwen find her in that moment because of the Rift activity and she joins the Torchwood team. She hadn't been able to work in the Vortex Manipulator anymore for the amount of time that Torchwood required for her, plus she didn't need it anymore. She only kept it with her for it's rought (according to 33rd century standards) hacking skills.
(Any discordancies to Doctor Who, please forgive me I just watched the first chapter from series 1 yesterday's night. If that's the case, please tell me so I can adjust my story)

Author's Note: Well, first, I hope you liked this chapter. I don't know if Jack convicing Ianto was good, but well, that's part was the hard part and now it's gone. Now we get to have the 'fun' part. And by fun I mean romanctic, angsty, and sexy. Oh, and more action too. If my dream of this becoming a 2-episodes special of season 5 (is to come true (RTD are you reading this, please, say yes!) it needs to have sci-fi also, and not just Janto love. :P
Somehow this episode is shorter (I wanted to include more scenes into this chapter of the storehouse) but also longer (4 pages!) than I expected to.
As you have guessed Ianto's new reality hadn't been all that different from the original, save than instead of 5 years of Torchwood (London and Cardiff) he had 5 years more of normality. Plus, he's been in a couple more realitionships altough not Lisa. Therefore, his personality is slighty more secure than in Torchwood. He had more time to come over the abuses from his father on the past, plus not traumatic experience that would put him more in his shell. So, Ianto's true personality that we only see coming out in Torchwood is more out here. But basically he's the same person.
I really loved the storagehouse part because it allowed me to explore a bit of everyone. What you have there it's how I see Gwen-Jack-Ianto love triangle. As you see, there's not Gwen bashing because I don't hate her. I actually like her sometimes, but I must confess that sometimes I want to smash her head into a wall repeated times.
A reader asked me to describe more of Miranda, and altough I hadn't described her that much I hope that what I did was good enough. What I planned was to describe more of her in the storagehouse, but that part in this chapter was shorter so I couldn't put that . Maybe next chapter will have more of her style now that the basics of her appeareance been covered.
Well, I won't distract you much more from commenting, and I hope you do comment :P