The weevil hunt was both a success and a failure. They weren't successful in catching the creatures, but they were able to chase them back into the depths of the sewers. It wasn't necessarily the best result, but for four young men and women who were worried sick about their Captain, it was a tremendous relief not to have to worry about the follow-up details of catching a weevil.

Ianto walked back into the Hub ahead of the others, anxious to get back to the little room, to resume his vigil at Jack's side. Ignoring the voices of his colleagues, Ianto hurried down the long corridor and into the room. He was brought up short, though, as he walked in.

"What is it?" Ianto asked defensively, taken aback by the accusing look on the other man's face. Rhys pointed down at Jack's sleeping form, visibly fuming.

"He healed! Right in front of me! He bloody healed up like nothing happened!"

Ianto's stomach lurched unpleasantly. When Jack's accelerated healing hadn't kicked in immediately, they had all assumed it was going to happen at a more steady pace. It hadn't occurred to any of them that it might happen suddenly like this. Walking over, Ianto leaned in to look closely at Jack, and saw that Rhys was right. Where before it had been nearly unrecognisable for the damage that had been done, now Jack's face was utterly unblemished.

Taking extreme care, Ianto lifted the edge of one of the bandages that enclosed Jack's wrists to look, and was not surprised to see the torn flesh was well on the way to healing. Not fully healed yet, but definitely getting there.
He looked back at Rhys, and found himself the focus of a force-ten glare.

"You want to tell me what the hell is going on here? How can he be practically crippled one minute, and almost back to normal the next? It's not bloody natural, mate! He's not natural! He's a… a freak!"

Ianto felt a flush of anger on Jack's behalf, and he reacted vehemently.

"Don't call him that! Don't ever call him that!"

"What's going on?"

It was Owen, come to check on his patient. The medic frowned deeply, looking sharply from Ianto to Rhys, and back to Ianto again, waiting for an explanation for the raised voices. Ianto motioned towards Jack.

"He's started healing. His face looks like it's healed. His wrists and ankles aren't quite there yet."

Owen strode across and began to look Jack over. He carefully pried Jack's mouth open to confirm the healing was all the way through, and not just external. Satisfying himself that was the case, he turned his attention to the Captain's wrists and arm.

"Arm's not healed yet... and I doubt he'll have any feeling back in his hands and feet yet. Shouldn't be too far off, but I think I'll keep the IV going until he's fully healed. Those nerves repairing themselves are going to hurt like hell."

"Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on?" Rhys asked, starting to sound more plaintive than angry now. Owen turned to him, and spoke in the same matter-of-fact tone he had used when explaining the Rift to Rhys.

"Jack is not from our time. He's from the 51st century, and he used to travel through time. Somewhere along the line, something happened to him... exactly what, we're not sure. He's never explained it to any of us. Basically, though, he can't die. At least, not permanently. His body always repairs itself, even if he's been killed. And his body has accelerated healing, meaning even if he's injured, he won't stay that way for long."

Rhys sucked in a long breath.

"That's why you wanted to get him out of the hospital."

Owen nodded, quietly pleased that Rhys was catching on so quickly.

"Exactly. Now, we don't know the how or the why of it. We only know the what. This is what Jack's body does. He heals and he comes back to life."

Rhys ran his fingers through his hair, trying to wrap his mind around that concept. It was harder than he wanted to admit.

"I think... I'm getting a headache," he mumbled finally. Owen nodded.

"It does tend to have that effect. I'd say you get used to it, but we haven't yet. Look, Rhys, why don't you go back upstairs? Go join Gwen. Get yourself a cuppa, mate. I'll be back up soon, and we'll explain what we can to you."

Rhys headed for the door, still frowning. He paused in the doorway, looking back at the two men.

"By the way, he got a few words out before his meds kicked back in. Mostly just saying thanks for helping him drink some water... but the last thing he said got me wondering."

"And what would that be?" Owen asked, his focus exclusively on Jack.

"He said two words. He said 'Ianto', and 'why'."

Both Ianto and Owen froze, and then Owen looked around at Ianto with a dark look on his face. Ianto paled slightly, but didn't flinch. Rhys stood there for a moment later, watching them intently, before turning and walking out of the room, allowing the door to swing shut behind him.

"Looks like you're going to have to face the music sooner rather than later," Owen remarked coolly as he finally stepped back from the bedside. "I don't think it'll be long before he's back on his feet."

Ianto remained silent, his eyes fixed on his injured lover. Owen stripped off his gloves, quickly checked the IV and then headed for the door.

"I just hope you're ready for it, mate," he said as he headed out of the room.

Ianto waited until Owen's footsteps had faded before sitting down with a heavy thud and letting his head drop into his hands. He was not looking forward to facing Jack over what had happened between them, not at all. And on top of that, there was what had happened to him during his hours of captivity. The violence that Jack had suffered, the torture and the torment… And of course, there was the other business, the business that Ianto couldn't bring himself to confront.

Detective Swanson knew… and how could she not? After all, she must have been there whilst Jack was still a prisoner, bound so cruelly with barbed wire and tortured to within an inch of his life. Owen knew… At least, he was fairly certain that Owen knew. The medic had taken to spending lengthy periods in the autopsy bay, where he could frequently be heard throwing things around in anger.

Ianto shut his eyes.

'Assaulted' was the word he had used top describe the situation to his father, but that barely covered the truth of it. And again, he found himself harbouring the shameful thought that Jack surely wouldn't be too severely affected. Given his overtly sexual behaviour…

Once more, Ianto had to almost physically thrust that thought away. It really was a terrible betrayal to allow it to take hold. Jack, after all, no more deserved to be taken against his will than any other person, and his explicitly-declared enjoyment of sex in no way meant that he would enjoy being raped.

He shut his eyes tightly as the word cut through his mind like a shard of glass. He'd avoided thinking it all this time, but he knew full well that he needed to confront it before Jack recovered physically. He had to, if he had any hopes of giving his friend and lover the support that he was undoubtedly going to need.

There was, of course, no way to know just how Jack was going to deal with the knowledge of what had happened to him, but Ianto simply couldn't seem to bring himself to look beyond the Captain's tendency to blow off any personal issue that he considered to be a weakness of character. Showing pain and fear in front of his team was definitely near the top of that list, and Ianto inadvertently reminded himself of how much Jack must truly hate needing to be looked after like this.

Another case in point was what had happened to Jack whilst he'd been gone. The closest any of them had come to getting him to talk about it had been Gwen. She had apparently cornered him in one of the lower level tunnels, and demanded he tell her where he'd been. She'd come back to the rest of them looking deeply troubled, and saying that all he would tell her was that he had died multiple times, in what they all guessed were pretty horrific circumstances. Beyond that, he gave away nothing else and went on to behave as though nothing had happened that was worth talking about; as though nothing was wrong.

And yet, Ianto had seen a very different truth emerge over the couple of months that Jack had been back home with them.

Nightmares, vivid and terrifying, plagued what little sleep Jack got. More times than Ianto could count, he had been woken in the dead of night to either terrified screams, or desperate pleas to end the pain. Jack claimed to have no memory of the nightmares when daylight came, but his eyes always told a different story. What truths, Ianto wondered, would those beautiful, haunted eyes tell now?

He reached out on impulse and brushed his fingertips over the now unblemished flesh of Jack's lips.

Abducted, assaulted, raped. Jack's body might be recovering from the traumas inflicted on it, but Ianto knew only too well that the heart and mind were a lot harder to heal. Whatever happened from this point on, they were all steering an uncharted course — Jack included.

When Jack awoke next, he was blessedly free of physical pain. He lay unmoving, relishing the rare comfort that his painless state of being afforded him. However, it was only when he unconsciously shifted his position in the bed and didn't suffer for it, that he realised his lack of pain was not due any longer to Owen's concoction of drugs through the IV unit.

He had movement and feeling in his hands and feet once more, as well as his face. And although he couldn't be sure because of the cast on his arm, he suspected the bone was fully healed.

His body had finished repairing itself, and now it was as though the assault had never happened. He smiled bitterly. Kathy Swanson was going to have kittens when she saw him again. Not that he'd ever harboured any illusions, of course, that he would be able to let her continue investigating what had happened to him. If she couldn't be convinced to turn authority over to Torchwood, then she would have to be ret-conned.

Allowing her into the Hub to see him had been a courtesy, and that was all. He'd felt that he owed her for her kindness and care, but that was as far as it went. She couldn't be allowed to continue the investigation. Even if the police happened to identify any of his attackers, it could never be allowed to go to trial.

An icy numbness settled over him at the thought of dealing with his attackers. And they would be dealt with, Torchwood style. Meaning tracking them down, and ret-conning the shit out of them until they couldn't even remember their own names, and then dumping their sorry arses a thousand miles away, in the coldest and darkest corner of Wales that he could find.

He shuddered involuntarily, slightly spooked at how fast the rage surfaced within him, and had to make a conscious effort to release his grip on the bed sheets. Anger would do no one — least of all him — any good now. What had happened was over with. The best he could do for himself was to shove the memories as deep into the recesses of his mind as he could, and behave like it never happened. He'd done it before, he could do it again.

Grimacing, Jack started to push himself up, irritatingly aware of the tubes and wires still hooked up to his body. He started to pull them out, only to realise he was not alone in the room. Sitting in the chair beside the bed, slumped over and fast asleep, was Ianto.

Jack stared at him wordlessly, his emotions in turmoil. Slowly, he reached out with the intention of touching Ianto's head, but as his fingers came within reach, they began to tremble and his stomach began to twist into knots. One part — a very big part — wanted to wake Ianto up right then, drag the younger man onto the bed with him and screw him senseless. Another part, though, a smaller but no less equally powerful instinct, screamed out to avoid physical contact at all costs.

Slowly, distressed and confused, Jack withdrew his hand. His heart pounding in his chest so hard that it was almost physically hurting him, Jack slid carefully off the bed. He wore a pair of boxer shorts and nothing else, and there didn't appear to be any clothes in sight that he could put on. It didn't matter. He had clothes in his personal space beneath his office.

With a last glance at Ianto's sleeping form, Jack padded silently from the room to go and get dressed.

tbc...