Thanks ceywoozle as always! Again, I wrote about Ianto Jones rather than... Well, anyone else, really.

Written for Torchwood Fest, Day Four: "The Doctor's Hand"

Day Four - The Doctor's Hand

Ianto kept a careful eye on the water filling the jar. He turned it off when it was three quarters full then set it beside the kitchen sink and left it there. Then, taking a little bag, he emptied it into a bowl, added a bit of alien liquid and more water – from Earth – then adding it all to the jar he carefully mixed it all together.

Ianto was used to doing this. It was mechanical by now. Every two days he had to change the water, make the same mix for it, and every two days he winced at the weird and almost sticky texture of it.

This time was no different. Well, it was, but Ianto hadn't realised it yet. He should have, because it was all he could think about lately, but he hadn't.

Tosh jumped at the sudden sound of glass smashing on the ground while Ianto swore. She almost ran to him.

"Are you okay?"

He didn't answer, simply knelt to pick up the broken pieces from the floor beside the table the jar had always stood on.

"Ianto," Tosh said instantly, putting a strong hand on his shoulder. "Leave it, I'll clean this up. Just go see Owen."

Ianto looked at her, then his hands, bleeding from the broken edges. He nodded and left without looking at her.

"I heard noises. And my name," Owen said as Ianto walked down the few stairs of the Bay. "What the hell did you do?"

Ianto shrugged in answer and presented his hands. Owen dragged him to the sink to stop the bleeding and treat the wounds.

"Anything alien?" Owen asked.

Ianto nodded.

"Couldn't you say this first? What was it?"

"He tried to change the water," Tosh said from upstairs. Owen looked at her then sideways at Ianto.

"A colleague that speaks, hallelujah! What water?"

"The Hand's," Tosh sighed and looked at Ianto. "Will he be okay?"

"Apart from the brooding and not talking? He'll survive. Don't use cleaning products for the moment, please," he told Ianto as Tosh left the room. "You'll just make it worse, for both you and me." He looked exhausted and concerned as he wrapped the bandages around Ianto's hands. "Why did you try to change the water, anyway? The bloody thing is gone, and it was creepy."

"I'm fine," Ianto whispered. It wasn't answering the question, but it seemed to be implied. And he would rather lie than answer Owen's question.

"Yeah, right," Owen scoffed. "I'm a Torchwood doctor, not someone you need to protect from reality. I know what you feel, but it's not your fault."

"You were right."

"Thanks. Not sure what you're talking about, though."

"Jack," Ianto said and even the name hurt. He hated this feeling. "Didn't need me after all."

Owen was thinking while he cleaned up the med bay. He finally remembered what Ianto was referring to and rolled his eyes, a habit that seemed to run in the Torchwood Team.

"I'm not doing the pep talk. Nor am I saying I was right. I wasn't, or not entirely. But stop running around in the Hub hurting yourself for that stupid hand in a jar that isn't even here any more."

It was as close to a pep talk as Ianto would ever get from Owen. Not that he was asking for one, certainly not from the irascible doctor. He shrugged, to show he had heard, and went back to his mood from the past two days. His face was closed from any emotion, he didn't talk much, and his mind was a fucking mess.

As he went back to the spot the hand had been standing not so long ago, he picked up a few broken pieces of glass that Tosh had missed, and thought how nobody could do this for him – picking up pieces of his broken mind, maybe even broken heart – then shook the thought away and quietly made his way to the kitchen. There, he took the alien liquid and took it to store in the archives, staying up there a while. Jack had explained to that him the hand was alien in origin. He had admitted it was from the Doctor, and had briefly explained in his own words – not Torchwood One's biased opinion, though Jack was probably biased as well – who the Doctor was. An old friend, Jack had explained, and Ianto had nodded, filed the information away in his mind, and had taken care of the hand.

But now Jack was gone and so was the hand, and Ianto was lonely. As much as he liked the rest of the team, it wasn't the same without Jack. And they had leadership issues. Gwen felt it was her right to take over from Jack, but at the same time, she also hoped he would come back soon. Owen was pissed off and grumbling, as usual, and he didn't want to give too much power and authority to Gwen. Tosh and Ianto truly didn't give a damn about who wanted to lead them but they were affected as well, as the team's dynamic was even poorer than when Gwen had first joined them. They were repeating errors that Jack had already taught them to avoid.

And more than as their the leader, Ianto missed Jack. They had been... doing whatever they had been doing, which included not meaningless sex for Ianto, but he didn't know if Jack had seen it in the same way. But whatever it was, Ianto missed it. He missed staying a bit longer at the Hub to be with Jack. He missed sex, of course. But above everything, he missed the man himself and Ianto still hadn't properly realised he was gone, especially so soon after Jack had come back from the dead.

Bloody Hell. It sounded so ridiculous it almost made Ianto laugh. But he then remembered how lonely he actually felt and sighed. Life went on, as they said. He just had to get used to going home alone, eating alone, managing the secrets of the Hub alone. Nothing he had never done before, in the end.

And maybe, just maybe, he would keep the hope of one day seeing Jack again.