Author's Notes: So! The first one of the virtues, which also means that I'm jumping straight to the part after the reveal. There's a short summary sewn in for those who don't remember/haven't read the other story, which is probably why it came out a bit longer than expected and the theme isn't that easily recognizable – even if it is the backbone of the whole chapter – but I hope you like it anyway and don't be afraid to let me know what you think!

Chastity – courage and boldness; embracing of moral wholesomeness and achieving purity of thought.

Ianto was still curled up in one of the chairs by the TARDIS console when Jack entered the room, trying to be as careful in his approach as possible. Mere hours ago, when he and the Doctor had found Ianto – having fallen into the Vortex after the House of the Dead and pulled out by the Shadow Proclamation for examination – the reunion after a year of pain had been the Captain's most daring dream. Ianto, though, had been almost feverish after the treatment he'd been getting and the Doctor had thrown Jack out of the room as quickly as possible.

It hurt. He had to admit it, even if he knew that the Doctor had picked him up with the TARDIS only because he was trying to find the other Time Lord and because he knew that Jack had known him. It hurt to be treated like that even after he'd given up on expecting anything good from the Doctor. And it hurt even more because he had the audacity to take Ianto away from him.

"Hey," Jack said quietly. "The Doctor said that you'd feel better if I was as far away as possible, but–"

Ianto looked up. His face was still deadly pale and his eyes were slightly unfocused, but he managed to fix them on Jack anyway. "He's wrong. It's good to have you here."

"Oh. That's good to know." Jack let out a small, nervous laugh. "Because– well. He said that after being into the Vortex, your whole system went overload and that the Shadow Proclamation's experiments made it even worse. He thought that having me in the room would be a– bad idea." He'd also said that all a young, confused Time Lord needed was rest and the last thing said young, confused Time Lord needed was a fixed point in time, but Jack decided to skip the last part. It would only rile Ianto up.

"I think it's nice," Ianto said then and drew Jack's attention back to him. "Having you around, I mean." He reached for Jack's hand and Jack held it, desperate to feel Ianto's touch on his skin once again.

It was almost surreal, he thought as he fell down on his knees next to Ianto's chair and leant into the man's caress as he started kneading his fingers through Jack's hair. His skin was cold (still the skin of a dead man, or it would have been if he was human, despite the fact that he was here, here in every sense of the word), and when his wrist brushed Jack's fingers, the Captain could feel the frantic beating of his hearts, not yet having calmed down from the shocks his body had taken recently. It was surreal having Ianto looking down at him when all of a sudden Jack was aware that he'd lived an entirely different life from the one the Captain had heard about.

A Time Lord. His Ianto – the one with the dry humour and beautiful smile and just the right amount of attentiveness; the calm, reserved and controlled Ianto that he knew – had been something else entirely all along.

"What do you remember?" He asked, voice still quiet as if he was subconsciously afraid that he'd break a spell. "What happened from your point of view?"

Ianto sighed, but his fingers didn't cease the soothing motion over Jack's scalp. Hack wondered if he was even aware that he was doing it. "I remember two timelines," he started. "One more strongly than the other. In that one, we woke up and you told me that we had to meet a man at St. Helen's hospital for the hitchhiker thing. Then, when we were on our way, Gwen called us about the House of the Dead and the Rift activity she'd picked up there." And this was, Jack guesses, where the two timelines had parted. "Well, it turned out not to be Gwen in the end, but you already know that. She said that she was on her way and you told me that you'd get there later and that I should wait for you in the House of the Dead." Ianto took a deep breath as if it was extremely hard for him to keep talking. "I was waiting for you to come and when you did, I could tell that something was wrong. You looked– different, and you acted as if you hadn't seen me for months. I thought it might be a future you, but didn't say anything – paradoxes had to be avoided and all that. And then you dropped the bomb. In your time, I'd been dead for six months, and somehow, that time was now. You said, you've came to see me, but I wasn't like the other ghosts. You knew it, and I could feel it: the others weren't fully there; you couldn't touch them. I've been taken out of my own timeline and, as it turned out, Syriath was responsible for it, because she wanted the Rift opened. And you wanted to do it–"

"Of course I did," Jack cut him off. "What else could I do?"

"Leave me there!" Ianto's eyes were gleaming with anger now. "It wasn't your choice to make. The whole would burn."

"I'm tired of thinking about the world and giving up everything because of it," Jack gritted out. "I'm tired of sacrificing the people I love because the world needs saving. I want to think about what I want every once in a while."

"And would it have been worth it? Seeing an entire planet destroyed, taken over by someone like Syriath, just so you could save one single life?"

"Your life."

"It doesn't matter!"

"It does to me."

"And that was your main mistake," Ianto hissed. He seemed to be pissed off enough to forget for all the other problems they had on their hands right now – for example the fact that Jack still wanted to know why on Earth he was only now being informed of Ianto's species – and keep on the conversation. "That was your weakness. You would have let it all go to save one life."

"I love you." Jack's voice was low and pained and everything he hadn't allowed it to be until now, and silence settled over them. Ianto seemed to search for something to say, then closed his eyes.

"It still doesn't matter. It shouldn't have mattered when the world was in danger."

"Don't you think that maybe – just maybe – I've tried to tell myself that?" Jack was trying to keep his temper down, but it wasn't really working. "Don't you think I've been trying to convince myself for three years – one of which, I might add, I spent thinking you were dead – telling myself that I shouldn't love you? Don't you think that I noticed that we've been dancing around it for as long as we properly knew each other? And when you finally said it in Thames House, I thought I didn't deserve it. I was the one who wasn't worth it. And all I said was 'don't'. I don't know if you even remember that." Ianto shook his head wordlessly and Jack gave a short, bitter huff. "Well, I do. It's crystal clear. And I had to live with it for six months. I was desperate; I just wanted to see you again. And there you were. All the other ghosts were just echoes, but you... you were there. I could hold you in my arms, and it was overwhelming because you were everything. In that moment, you were everything. And I wanted it – you – more than I've ever wanted anything in my life. The world could quite literally go to hell and I wouldn't care, and that scared the hell out of me.

"But you tricked me. I was just allowing myself to hope that perhaps, just once, the world could give me everything it owes me. I could get you back, but no. Everyone else would leave and come back to the world of the living, but not Ianto Jones. No, what Ianto Jones does is lie. Lie and lie until I got lost in it all. You told me that you'd leave with me and then left me there. It wasn't your choice to make," he echoed Ianto's words from minutes ago.

"I couldn't let you kill yourself because of me. No, Jack," he raised his voice to avoid any potential protests. "That's exactly what it was; it was a suicide. And I couldn't let you do it."

"Then why did you have to be the big damn hero who had to save the day and then–"

"Would you love me if I wasn't?"

The question was quiet and yet it took Jack completely off guard. "What?"

"If I wasn't what I was there; if I had walked out with you and let you choose me over the world, would you love me then?" Ianto seemed genuinely interested in the response and Jack's shoulders sagged as realisation hit. "You told me you loved me when I decided that the world was worth it, because that was why you loved me in the first place."

"Because you've always tried to save everyone before thinking for yourself, yes." He had to admit it to himself. "And what happened then? After I saw you last?"

Ianto's hand had resumed its motions through Jack's hair. "Then I fell into the Rift. Straight into the Time Vortex. It was– well. I've seen it when I was a kid, of course, but being inside it is completely different. The Doctor said that a human would have been shattered to pieces. As it was, I could see everything at the same time – even more so than usual – and it hurt. Not gonna lie, it hurt a lot.

"And then they pulled me out. The Shadow Proclamation, I mean. There was a woman who spoke to me, but I couldn't answer. I couldn't do anything, really; I was completely delirious. She gave me the 'Time Lords aren't supposed to exist' speech every day and injected some strange things into me to keep me alive and get me in good enough health to answer her questions. It went on for about two weeks, and then I heard the TARDIS materialising and let me tell you," Ianto let out a bitter laugh, "at the time it was the best thing I've heard in my life." When there was no reaction from Jack, Ianto kept going. "How did you find me, actually? Were you travelling with the Doctor and just stumbled on that God-forsaken asteroid, because in that case, luck is on my side today."

"Travelling?" Jack shook his head. "He picked me up a few hours ago; he was trying to find you. He thought you were with me."

"...Oh." Ianto seemed surprised, but managed to smile anyway. "Well. Glad you managed it, then. Who knows how long I would've been there otherwise?"

Jack smiled in response and got up, carefully straddling Ianto's hips so they could make eye contact while on the same level. He was still tense, not letting his lover take his whole weight like he usually did, and Ianto seemed to pick up on it, because he looked irritated.

"I'm not going to break, Jack! I'm not made of glass."

Jack didn't respond but lifted his hand so he could trail his fingers over Ianto's cheekbones; those familiar cheekbones you could rest a coffee mug on and that were now even more prominent than usual. Ianto was even thinner than Jack remembered him being, but that was the most minor difference about him. He was colder, more alien, more unknown than before, and Jack was ready to get to know his body once again until he could recognise his lover in it all.

Ianto's hand mirrored him and came to rest on Jack's face as he brought the Captain in for a kiss. Even that was different, but not terribly so; Ianto's tongue still coaxed his lips open, just like Jack remembered him doing, and then he trailed it over Jack's teeth until he shivered in his arms.

"Everything is going to be fine, Jack," Ianto murmured against his lips. "If there's one thing I can promise you, it's that everything is going to be okay."

And this time, Jack knew, Ianto could afford to mean it.