Mmh, probably not much of an end of the world, but hey, it could have been :D Apparently writing missions is not my cup of tea! (whereas writing Janto comes way more easily, or so it seems…)

Written for Torchwood Fest, Day Nine: "End of the world"

Day Nine - End Of The World

Tosh pouted as she realised that if Ianto wasn't here, it meant no coffee. She liked his coffee. She sighed and dramatically slumped into her seat, thinking the world could end and she probably would let it because, God, Ianto's coffee really had become a drug for her.

Then the alarm went off and she cursed. Well, maybe she wouldn't let the world die after all.

"Guys!" She called through the Hub as she was checking the Rift. "Incoming!" She yelled when she realised the Rift activity was within the Hub. Jack – already with his Webley – and Gwen ran to her, but a flash prevented them from reacting to the threat.

When Jack came to his senses with a loud and painful gasp, he groaned on the floor. He was alone. He avoided dying lately, and when he did, Ianto was there. And now he wasn't and Jack missed it, missed him. He didn't know which part was the worst, the death or the revival, but the absence of Ianto sure didn't make the latter any easier. He sat with difficulty, remembering just how painful that death had been, and he didn't even know how he had exactly died, but the team was gone and his Webley with it.

He stood up and looked at the floor, feeling bad for Ianto because of the mess he had made by slowly dying with an open wound – judging by the pool of blood he left behind. But searching for the team was more important right now.

"Look at your leader, all lost and turning in circles..."

"Piss off," Owen snapped, and the alien answered by slapping him in the face. They had been reckless and some alien – who hadn't given any name or even his species – had hopped in, apparently prepared for Torchwood. Which meant it probably knew how to control the Rift, and knew about them, which wasn't good news at all. It even knew Jack was immortal. All in all, the Torchwood team was at a loss, defenceless, and their only hope was their leader who indeed was walking the exact same path over and over.

Only Tosh realised that the CCTV was in a loop. Jack had set a not-so-discreet one but Tosh guessed he had run out of time.

It was quick, but it was painful. Jack finally located them and entered, shooting with Ianto's gun – probably the only one he really knew where was hidden. It was more of a warning shot or to make the alien bleed rather than a killing shot. The alien didn't have as much compassion and let Tosh go – whom he had been holding for a while to scare the two others – only to jump on Jack and violently hit him in the stomach. Jack growled, tried to defend himself, but soon fell to the ground with a cry of pain.

Tosh reacted and instantly shot the threat. The alien died instantly but Jack was still breathing heavily on the ground. When Tosh approached him, she saw the hole in his shirt where the alien had hit him, and his hair were painted in blood. He didn't have any visible wound however, but clearly was dying.

"What the hell was this?" Jack managed to ask from the ground. He straightened, his face closed from any emotion and trying not to flinch or faint.

"He told us he wanted to end the Universe. By killing you," Tosh explained.

"It was a crazy psychopath," Owen shook his head.

Jack nodded and waved at Owen, who helped him up, but he didn't let go and tightened his grip. Owen didn't say anything and helped him walk back to the main room, leaving both Gwen and Tosh the care of cleaning the mess up.

When they joined them, Owen was busy at his workstation and Jack's office was closed. Apparently, he had asked Owen to let him rest because his death had been exhausting. The team took care of everything, they cleaned the blooded floor, did the autopsy on the alien, concluded – or hoped – it was a unique case and even filed everything away, so Ianto wouldn't have to do it once he got back.
Owen hesitated to check on Jack, who still hadn't come back after a couple of hours, but decided to leave, asking Tosh to contact him if needed as she stayed back a little longer. Gwen left not long after.
When Tosh was done with her work for the day, Jack was still locked in his office and she decided to knock. She entered when nobody answered and frowned at the smell. It stank, and she wondered what Jack had been doing in the past few hours. She called him, but he didn't answer, and eventually heard him puking in his bunker.

"Jack, are you okay down there?" she called, loud enough so he would hear her.

"I'm fine, go home," Jack answered, his voice muffled by the closed bathroom's door. Tosh could nevertheless hear how weak he sounded. She sighed and decided to disobey Jack's first order of the day – which was to leave Ianto alone. He was away for the day, visiting his sister because his niece had gone to the hospital after some stupid accident and Ianto hadn't been able to refuse. And Jack had forbidden anyone to disturb him. But it was already late, and Tosh was sure Ianto wouldn't mind. So she left quietly and called Ianto, explaining that Jack really didn't feel good.

When Ianto took the ladder down to Jack's headquarters, he sighed. Tosh had briefly explained the situation and apologized, but Ianto had thanked her then sent her home. He opened the bathroom's door slowly, and felt his heart dropping when he saw Jack on the ground, leaning on the toilets, dead. He gathered him in his arms, ignoring the blood and puke around, and wondered what was wrong with Jack.

When Jack came back to life, he coughed blood and pushed Ianto away right on time to turn and throw up on the ground rather than on the man. Ianto put a soothing hand on Jack's back, patting it when Jack coughed for a while, until he finally spat a strange-looking object. He tried to take it, but was too weak, and Ianto carefully put it in a towel, hoping the thing wasn't going to jump at them – one never knew, with Torchwood

"How about a shower and I get you to bed?" Ianto asked as Jack sighed, now sitting against the cold concrete that his walls were.

Ianto smiled to show his support and helped Jack on his feet and out of his clothes. He got rid of his own clothes and stepped in the surprisingly big shower. Jack didn't move at all. He let Ianto move him, turn him, wash him, kiss him. Jack just leaned on the wall and waited.

Ianto had already seen Jack vulnerable, he knew what to do or not, and as he set him on the mattress, he knew that Jack needed to talk, but wouldn't if Ianto didn't push him. He closed the bathroom's door, activated the ventilation to make the stench go and sprayed some good-smelling product in the meantime. He then sat against the wall and Jack turned instantly to cuddle close.

"What was this thing?" Ianto asked, drawing a regular pattern with his finger on Jack's shoulder.

Jack muttered an answer that Ianto didn't understand.

"What?"

"Alien tech," Jack said, moving a bit so Ianto could understand him properly. "There are ways of defying death for a while or very easy ways to fake it. It's a counter-agent. A lot fake their own death just to avoid a death penalty, so they usually use this to check. Generally injected by a good punch, it stays in you until your body rejects it and it usually doesn't do any good to you. It makes you slowly bleed inside and die, in at least a couple of days. It's alien, it just sort of... clean your body. Of course, for someone like me it just means a lot of blood and a mess... I guess he thought it could kill me or somehow delete the 'keep reviving' factor..."

"Are you okay?" Ianto asked, filing the information away but knowing that Jack was done with the long talking.

"Better," Jack nodded against him.

"Sleep it off."

"I'm sorry."

"What for?" Ianto frowned. Jack had done nothing wrong, why was he apologizing?

"Didn't want Tosh to call you..."

"It's okay, I won't miss anything important."

"How's Mica?" Jack asked to change the subject.

"She asked me to draw on her cast," Ianto smiled.

"What did you do?"

"Well, I drew, obviously! Turns out, I'm as bad a drawer as I was back in high school. I wrote Torchwood everywhere to leave hints for my family. Maybe they won't see anything..."

Jack chuckled weakly against him then kissed his ribs. "Thank you," he whispered and Ianto ran a hand in his hair, humming thoughtfully as he tried to come up with something to reply, but said nothing.

He eventually talked randomly about his day, about Johnny's anger and constant complaints about how his daughter was not being taken care of, about Mica teasing and enjoying the fact she could annoy David as much as she wanted, about Rhiannon's worry but relief to see both her daughter being fine and her brother for once. Before Ianto was done talking, Jack had fallen asleep.

Ianto smiled, kissed him on the hair, and very slowly and carefully got out of the bed. He sighed when he managed to not wake up Jack and silently entered the bathroom. He winced at the smell and got to work. He cleaned and tidied the room and wiped the blood away.

It wasn't the worst threat they had dealt with, but Ianto could tell that Jack was more affected by this one. Not emotionally, but physically, which was rather unusual for Jack, a man with the painful habit of dying.

Ianto finished with the cleaning then took another shower and got back to bed, watching his lover sleep. He wondered what it felt like, to keep coming back, to be unable to die, to know it was a permanent thing. He wondered what it felt like to experience so many things and still be standing like Jack was, defending a planet that probably deserved its downfall, protecting its people but never, never being able to find something stable. Always moving, always losing, always caring. He respected the man, and loved him.