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Jack Harkness had been distracted all morning. Again.

It had been a few weeks since the night he had spent with the mysterious Ianto; he clicked his tongue against his teeth as he mentally chastised himself for not getting his last name. Searching for "Ianto" in the welsh database was like looking for an atom in a hay barn- impossible. He closed his eyes as he replayed the night out in his mind for what felt like the 30th time that morning. It was like the boy had known exactly where all of his weak spots were, automatically responding to every ripple Jack's body had made before Jack had even made them.

After their initial encounter Jack had almost been ashamed to want more. He returned to the pub that he'd picked Ianto up in and asked the bartender every night for a week whether Ianto- Bond- had been in, receiving a negative reply every night. The only explanation the man had to offer Jack was that if Bond had a good run, or had made enough cash to last him a while then he would take a few nights off. Jack had nearly laughed; Ianto had been surprised at the amount he'd received so it must've been a lot more than he usually made in one night. Jack had even left him extra in the morning, despite Ianto's assurance that he hadn't needed to give him anything more.

Sighing in a particularly girly way, he returned his attention to the file he'd been compiling over the last few weeks. He'd needed a new team after...

So he was on the task of finding one. He'd already managed to find one recruit- Suzie Costello. She had a wicked head of hair and an unrelenting attitude to all things alien; he didn't think anything could bowl her over. He'd found her chasing down a Foamasi after it had taken her handbag to examine and had nearly doubled over laughing as the woman had berated the reptilian for rudeness. After that the rest was history, she'd began practically absorbing the alien database on the computers, working until Jack forced her to go home. She was surprisingly skilled when he'd trained her in hand to hand combat and even more so during her weapons training. However, Jack knew that two people were not going to be enough. Suzie was good on the field but he needed a range of skills to complete the team. In a perfect world he wanted to have five operatives, a field expert, a technician, a doctor and someone who would be able to coordinate the team, someone back at base- although that position wasn't really high up on the agenda- and himself of course.

Looking back at the file he re-read Toshiko Sato's life story, she was being held in a UNIT holding facility nearby but that didn't deter him from wanting her. He was well aware of what she'd done to end up there and part of that made his determination to get her out all the more. The poor girl had clearly been blackmailed into it. As soon as he'd found her mother he'd retconned the whole experience from her memory so that she might have a peaceful life instead of always watching out of the corner of her eye. Jack smiled as he picked up the phone, oh yes; he was going to have Toshiko for his team.

TWTWTWTWTWTWTW

Ianto rubbed a hand over his face as he dragged himself back to his flat. It had been a long night- the fridge had broken so he needed to earn an extra £500 to get it repaired, a sordid joke in his opinion seeing as the thing had cost less than that to buy...

Pulling out his keys the door swung open before he'd even put one in the lock, 'Rhiannon.'

His sister had a thunderous look on her face, 'Where the fuck have you been?'

'Language, Rhi.'

She smacked him upside the head, 'Sod the language, where have you been all night?' She slapped his again as he tried to get across the room, 'I'm used to you coming in late some nights but it's been like this for a week!'

Ianto shrugged, 'I'm just pulling a bit of overtime at the newsagents to get the extra for the fridge.'

'Fuck the fridge,' she cut him off before he had a chance to comment on the language again, 'I've been up all night, practically pulling my hair out when you didn't come back.'

'Well I'm back now aren't I?'

She shoved him backwards, 'And now I'm really gonna kill you!' she shoved him again, 'You can't keep working like this, you barely sleep as is and you're killing yourself. I can't watch you do it anymore!' tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, 'I don't want to watch you suffer anymore, it's like being back there...' she swallowed noisily, 'I want you to get another job.'

Ianto sighed, 'Rhiannon, we've been over this, how many times are you going to make me have this conversation? I have no qualifications, no experience, nothing to make me an eligible employee.'

There was also the daunting fact that if anyone got wind of the kind of job he'd been doing for the last four years...

'But you're smarter than anyone I know, and you're quick at learning! And-'

'And what about pay? There is nothing I can get immediately that will pay as much as my current position does.'

'What positions that?' Rhiannon snorted, 'On your back? Front? Against the wall?'

Ianto made sure to keep the shock off of his features, he felt his breath still in his lungs as he looked down at his sister, 'I don't know what you mean.'

'Ianto Jones don't treat me like a child!' she shoved him again, 'I can read you like book even if you have everyone else fooled,' she stared defiantly up at him, 'I know exactly what kind of job you do, you may have been able to lie to me when I was younger but I'm not ignorant. There's only one way you could be making the amount of money you do in such a short time,' she pulled out the financial folder from the desk and threw it at him, 'I've been looking at our finances. Deposits made almost every other day of £300 at least, we've got enough in there to last us four years without either of us working.'

Ianto stared down blankly at the folder in his lap, at some point he had sat down on the sofa. Ianto found that he wasn't listening to what she was shouting at him; he had to concentrate on drawing the breath into his lungs- why had breathing become so difficult? His heart was hammering against his chest, beating against his ribcage as if seeking a way to burst through. His palms were getting clammy and his vision was cloudy, not blurring- he wasn't crying.

Rhiannon knew...

And Ianto Jones was experiencing the first panic attack in his terrible life. He realised belatedly that Rhiannon was rubbing his back and whispering soothing words rather than shouting at him. Ianto could survive anything as long as Rhiannon was kept safe from the knowledge of what he had to do to keep them surviving. It was the thing that had kept him going during their awful life; he could do it for Rhiannon, for the protection of her mind.

What would she think of him now? Was everything for nothing, had he endured all the pain and suffering at the hands of their parents, his punters, for her to leave him now? The thought was terrifying, he couldn't remember how to breathe, the edges of his vision becoming dark as Rhiannon's face appeared in his line of sight. She was crying; her hands on his face trying to calm him down; she was shouting now, something incomprehensible to his ears, but she didn't look angry- she looked scared. He blinked rapidly, dispelling the tears that had gathered and focused on Rhiannon, grounding himself with her presence.

Slowly the blood rushing in his ears became a dull roar, his lungs greedily sucked in the air he had deprived them of and his equilibrium tried to straighten out as he sat up.

'Are you okay?' Rhiannon stopped Ianto from getting to his feet, 'I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said it like that.'

Ianto closed his eyes, 'How long have you known?' his voice was rough, foreign to his ears.

'A while...'

Ianto felt his breath escape him again, holding up a hand to stop her from saying anything else. He was trembling, something he hadn't allowed himself to do ever. He was scared, confused, and angry and a tumult of other emotions he'd thought he'd boxed away for good- emotions he thought he'd lost. He let out a shaky breath as he tried to reign in the emotions that had burst through, 'You must think I'm disgusting.'

Rhiannon wailed, 'Oh Ianto! I would never think anything like that of you. I love you, you're my brother,' she wrapped her arms around him, 'Please believe me.'

Ianto scarcely heard her. How else would she think of him now? Whoring himself out to any passing man who showed a fancy and had a fistful of notes. Ianto felt disgusting. Something he'd never really thought about, he'd never thought he'd been doing anything dirty until he saw it through Rhiannon's eyes- the one person he cared about. The only other time he'd felt remotely repulsed by what he was was when he'd been with Jack Harkness. The Captain had come dangerously close to making Ianto see himself for what he was; in fact Ianto had been out of sorts since that night. Especially when Tony told him that Jack had been in looking for him for practically every night for a week. Never in a million years had Ianto dreamed that Jack would come looking for him, and Ianto didn't know what he'd have done if Jack had found him...probably have another panic attack...but then, Jack knew what he was and had still treated him with kindness...and had still come looking for him. Mentally chastising himself for thinking about Jack, again, for the countless time that day, let alone week, he brought himself back to what Rhiannon was saying.

'I'll get a part time job, I'm in sixth form anyway so it's not like I'm in all the time...or I could get a weekend job? Please Ianto, let me help.'

'Rhi...I don't want you to get a job. I want you to be able to enjoy what time you have to be young before you grow up. I don't want you to be like me...'

Rhiannon hugged him again, 'Ianto you've given me a wonderful life for the last four years. Now let me help you. It's not like I'd be the only one to have a job at my age, plenty of my friends have weekend jobs,' she smiled impishly, 'like Johnny, he's got a job down the butchers at the weekend.'

Ianto raised his eyebrow but didn't question the affection in his sister's voice, 'I don't know, Rhi...'

'Ianto, I'll get a job with or without your consent and I'll follow you everywhere you go until you get a real job,' she chewed on her bottom lip, 'you'd be looking after me if you stopped. I've been going out of my mind with worry every time you go out.'

Ianto felt relief wash through his body, calming his tense muscles and chasing out the lingering thoughts of doubt from his mind: Rhiannon really did love him, she wasn't going to go anywhere. Closing his eyes again, he almost smiled, 'We'll start looking in the morning.'

TWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTWTW

'Suzie Costello this is Toshiko Sato- she's going to be our new technician for at least five years...'

Tosh nodded meekly as she shook Suzie's hand, 'Pleased to meet you.'

Suzie took Tosh's chin in her hand and turned her face towards the light, 'Ouch! That looks like you've had a nasty run in with a lamppost, or something similar.'

Tosh looked up at Jack uncertainly, 'I was having a particularly clumsy day...'

Jack shrugged nonchalantly; he'd told Toshiko that she was all but free. It was up to her whether she wanted to tell anyone about her past, he wasn't going to go out of his way to elaborate or divulge information. Jack had always prided himself on being a good secret keeper; he had been a con man in a previous life after all.

'Alright girls, let's get cracking!' he rubbed his hands together as he stepped up to a work station, 'Toshiko, this will be your work space complete with computer and not much else. I'd run you through the system but I'll wager you'll be able to understand it better than me by the time the weeks out, if not the hour,' he swept past her, 'But there will be time for that later. First I want to give you the grand tour and a rundown of your...requirements,' he led her down through the hub stopping at various points to explain what he was showing her and what happened in each room, 'I'll want you to be the tech expert, of course, so you'll need to familiarise yourself with the archives- good luck.

'I won't expect you to know everything so come to me for questions otherwise you can take as long as you need to find your feet,' he paused in the shooting range, 'I'll probably give you weapons training and hand to hand combat training as well...but we won't worry about that until you're running at full capacity,' he led them back to the main hub, 'Today is just a run through so you can have a look at the gadgets for preparation tomorrow...any questions?'

Tosh shook her head, 'I don't think so,' she put her arm out to stop Jack leaving, 'I just wanted to say thank you, for everything.'

Jack pulled her in a brief hug, 'Happy too,' he chuckled when she gave a small squeak, 'that's another thing with me- I'm a hands on person,' he laughed as he let her go, 'Better get used to it!'

Jack smiled as he returned to his desk, Tosh was going to be a fine addition to his team and he was confident that she would be able to start on one of his projects by the end of the week- he'd wanted an upgrade of the system for some time but lacked the time and the knowhow, after a hundred years of basic technology at best he'd forgotten a lot of his 21st century knowledge.

Picking up a folder from his desk he began flicking through it haphazardly as his thoughts returned to Ianto. He hadn't been back to the pub in a while and wondered blithely if Ianto was back out on the streets earning his next pay check. The thought didn't sit well with Jack, he wasn't possessive or jealous by nature but the thought of that stunning young man with anyone else- anyone who could do anything for the right price- made his blood stir angrily. Tapping a pen against his desk, he considered his chance of meeting the young man again in the pub. Jack shook his head, he couldn't afford to get into all of that again, and he was already in deeper than he should be...and with the Doctor arriving soon...no. He couldn't, shouldn't, pursue with Ianto anymore. He had to move on and accept that it was unlikely that he would ever see the young man again, a thought that bothered Jack far more than it should.

Sighing, for what he vowed to be the last time, over Ianto he pushed their night together to the back recesses of his mind and began putting together his project proposal for Toshiko.