The first thing that Ianto became aware of was a steady, irritating beeping that cut into his sleep-fogged brain, and dragged him protesting back into reality. He groaned and struggled to comprehend what the noise was that had so rudely interrupted his sleep, and it took him good five minutes to realise that it was the rift alarm, sounding through his mobile phone.
Ianto sat up slowly, carefully extricating himself from Jack's all-encompassing embrace, and reached for his phone. His attention first went to the time that shone out from the phone's screen. It was just after one in the morning, he noted with surprise. He and Jack had gone to bed at around two the previous afternoon, and had slept soundly for nearly twelve hours.
He looked down at Jack with affection. This was the sort of rest that Owen had advocated that he get – uninterrupted by anything untoward like nightmares. The difference was already noticeable. Jack appeared more at peace than he had for days... maybe even weeks. Giving in to a moment of indulgence, he leaned down and pressed his lips lightly to Jack's forehead. He desperately wanted to kiss his lover on the lips, but nor did he want to risk doing something that might result in a bad reaction. And so he kept his actions chaste, and innocent.
His phone beeped again persistently, and Ianto turned his attention reluctantly from Jack to look at the device. It was a weevil alert, and he cursed softly as he eased out of the warm bed to go and investigate further. Jack was sleeping soundly, undisturbed by nightmares, and he decided to risk leaving him alone for just a few minutes while he went to check it out, and arrange for the others to deal with it.
He made his way up into the main body of the Hub, and was busy examining Tosh's monitor when movement behind him alerted him to the fact that he was no longer alone. Turning, he found himself confronted by Jack, who was just fitting his braces over his shoulders.
"Weevil?" Jack queried, peering over Ianto's shoulder at the monitor. Ianto nodded.
"Yes. Just the one, by the looks of it. I'll just call Gwen or Owen..."
"Why?" Jack asked bluntly, momentarily throwing Ianto off his stride.
"Well... so they can catch it..." he stammered.
"No," Jack said, with the faintest hint of impatience in his tone. "Why bother them in the middle of the night, when we're already here? It's one weevil. We can take care of it."
"Jack..." Ianto protested. "I really don't think that..."
"That what? That it's a good idea to let me out yet? What do you think I'm going to do, Ianto? Seriously..."
And Ianto found himself conceding, even as a tiny part of brain whispered what a bad idea it was. Hoping fervently that he wasn't making yet another phenomenal mistake, Ianto picked up the portable locator, and he and Jack headed for the SUV together.
"My gun," Jack said suddenly with a frown as they headed up the stairs. Ianto drew in a steadying breath that, in reality, did nothing to settle his unease.
"It was one of the things that the police weren't able to recover, Jack. It was missing when they… when you were found."
"Great," Jack muttered sourly. "It'll probably turn up in some dingy little pawn shop, and I'll have to ret-con the owner to get it back. What about the stun guns?"
"They were missing, too."
"Huh."
They emerged into the garage and Jack froze as his gaze fell on the SUV, the driver's side window still cracked and bloody from where Jack's face had been smashed into it. Ianto silently cursed himself for forgetting that they had yet to get the SUV repaired. Anxious to stop Jack from getting a look inside the vehicle, at the blood that was soaked into the backseat, he gently touched his palm to Jack's shoulder to turn him in a different direction.
"C'mon. We'll take my car."
He offered no reason, and Jack asked for none.
A suffocating silence reigned as they drove. Ianto spared Jack frequent worried glances, all the while trying to convince himself that he wasn't doing the wrong thing in allowing Jack to go out like this. Owen, he suspected, was probably going to throttle him, but the truth was that he simply hadn't been able to deny Jack. Keeping him shut inside the Hub was just another form of captivity, and Ianto couldn't stomach the thought of subjecting Jack to any further forms of imprisonment, no matter how well-intentioned.
Jack, for his part, looked as though he was focused on the locator, but Ianto caught him throwing surreptitious glances out of the window at the passing cityscape. He wondered what Jack was looking at, or if he was looking for something in particular. Something... or, perhaps, someone…
Maybe, he mused grimly, Jack was looking for more than just a weevil.
"Stop the car," Jack said suddenly. "It's close, maybe a block or two at the most."
Ianto pulled over, and Jack was out of the car almost before it had stopped moving.
"Jack, wait!" Ianto called out, frightened that the Captain was going to take off in pursuit of the weevil, unarmed and unprepared. The Captain halted, giving Ianto an odd look, and Ianto indicated the boot of the car.
"Weapons, Jack? I don't fancy going up against a weevil unarmed."
Jack joined him at the rear of the car, and waited with visible impatience as Ianto produced a variety of weapons from a hidden compartment in the boot.
"You travel everywhere with this stash in your car," Jack said flatly. Ianto raised an eyebrow at him, as if to say 'so?'.
"Your orders. You keep telling me to be prepared."
"So the next time you get busted for carrying concealed weapons..."
"I'll blame you."
Jack smiled wryly.
"Of course."
Ianto loaded himself up with a gun and weevil spray, and was just starting to close the boot when Jack coughed loudly.
"What?" Ianto asked a touch defensively, only to blush red when Jack held out his hand expectantly.
"Gun. Now."
"Jack..."
"Ianto," Jack said in a soft, but tense voice when Ianto hesitated, "I promise you I'm not going to shoot myself. Please, give me a gun… unless you're planning on using me as bait?"
The Welshman blanched, and pulled out a gun, which he checked quickly before handing it over.
"Thankyou," Jack murmured. "Now, let's go get ourselves a weevil..."
Neither man had a chance to move, both of them momentarily blinded by a powerful flashlight that was suddenly in their eyes.
"This is the police," a young, quasi-authoritative voice announced from somewhere beyond the blinding light. "Both of you, put your weapons down, and step back from the vehicle, slowly."
Ianto tried to shield his eyes and peer at the owner of the voice, who was at that moment only a slightly fuzzy silhouette. He knew that voice.
"Andy?"
"Ianto? That you, mate?"
Ianto snorted loudly. "Yeah, it's me. Put the bloody light down, you fool!"
The light was lowered, and Jack and Ianto rubbed at their eyes as their vision slowly returned.
"Sorry about that," PC Andy Davidson remarked, sounding not in the least bit sorry at all. "Wasn't expecting Torchwood to be out prowling tonight. Haven't had any reports of anything spooky happening." His gaze went to Jack, then, and his eyebrows shot up. "Blimey, I wasn't expecting to see you up and about yet... and not a mark on you, by the looks of it! Bloody hell, how'd you manage that, then? Would've thouht you'd have permanent scars, going by those pictures they showed on the tellie."
Ianto had been acutely and uncomfortably aware of the increasing tension radiating off Jack as Andy prattled on. At that last statement, though, both men froze, and Ianto spoke hoarsely in shock.
"What pictures?"
Andy hesitated, suddenly conscious of the reactions from Jack and Ianto. Abruptly, Jack broke his paralysis, and advanced on Andy, virtually radiating aggression.
"What pictures, damn it!" he thundered. "Tell me!"
Andy stumbled backwards, straight into a lamp post, and suddenly found himself pinned there, with a faceful of angry Jack Harkness.
"P... Pictures... of you..." Andy stammered. "T... Taken at the c... crime scene... S... Someone passed them onto the tellie stations. They were shown on the news yesterday..."
Jack let go of Andy like the young constable was on fire, and stumbled backwards away from him. Ianto felt paralysed with shock, his gaze shifting from Jack, who looked sick with rage and shame, to Andy, whose eyes were saucer-wide with horrified realisation.
"You didn't know... Oh god... I'm sorry..."
Andy mumbled something else incomprehensible, and fled. Ianto watched him go with a bitter anger that was tinged strongly with jealousy. There was a not-so-small part of him that desperately wanted to do the same thing – to turn and run away as fast as he could. Instead, he found himself stepping towards Jack tentatively.
"Jack...?"
He stopped himself from asking Jack if he was okay. As far as he was concerned, it was perhaps the most phenomenally stupid question ever. Instead, he reached out for, but stopped just short of touching the Captain.
"Jack," he tried again. He desperately needed Jack to respond, and at the same time hoped that he wouldn't, purely out of fear over what his reaction might be. Finally, Jack looked up and Ianto felt an icy chill sweep down through his body, starting at the very top of his head and going all the way down to his toes.
Jack's expression was one that Ianto had only seen on his face once before, and that was three nights after Jack had come home to them. It was the look of someone who was trying to cope with reality in the wake of a horrific experience, and was failing abysmally.
"Everyone knows," Jack said dully. "It's public knowledge now. Everyone knows."
Ianto's stomach twisted painfully. He'd long assumed that shame and embarrassment were two words that simply weren't a part of Jack Harkness's vocabulary. Now, seeing the dull red flush that crept onto Jack's face and the look of sheer misery and humiliation in his eyes, Ianto finally knew different.
"Jack..." he said tentatively again. Jack abruptly wheeled around and strode away into the darkness.
"Let's go!" he snapped. "Weevil to catch!"
Ianto felt his heart and stomach sink, but in the end there was nothing he could do except follow.
He'd gone nearly two blocks before he realised that he could neither see nor hear Jack any longer. He reached up automatically to activate the Bluetooth, only to curse as he realised he wasn't wearing it, and neither was Jack. Yet another thing he'd foolishly forgotten to do before leaving the Hub. Owen and Gwen were both going to kill him.
Cursing his own stupidity, Ianto broke into a run, his heart pounding painfully in his chest as he searched for any sign of his errant Captain. He was almost to the next intersection when he heard a familiar snarl from somewhere behind him. Doubling back, Ianto followed the sound down a long, dark alley. When he got to the end, he was treated to a terrifying sight. Jack had the weevil cornered and was yelling taunts at it, while splaying his arms wide in a blatant 'come and get me' gesture. His right hand still clutched the gun, though, and Ianto could see he was ready to use it in the instant the weevil made a wrong move.
He breathed a soft sigh of relief, but that relief was short-lived when Jack suddenly reset the safety, and tossed the gun away.
"Jack!" Ianto yelled, charging forward, but he was not fast enough. The weevil lunged at Jack, tackling him to the ground with an angry roar. There was a flash of white as the creature opened its mouth wide to brandish razor sharp canines, before sinking those canines into Jack's throat.
Blood spurted everywhere, and a sickening gurgling sound could be heard somewhere beneath the snarl of the weevil, as Jack rapidly bled out from the torn flesh of his throat. Swearing loudly, Ianto took aim and fired, shooting the weevil four times in the head. The monster collapsed on top of Jack, dead.
Running forward, Ianto dragged the alien body off Jack, and knelt down beside him. As much as he knew it was a pointless gesture, Ianto pressed his hands over the wound in a futile attempt to stymie the flow of blood. He felt something brush lightly against his thigh, and looked down to find Jack's hand batting weakly against him. Keeping one hand pressed to Jack's throat, Ianto took Jack's hand in his other and squeezed tightly.
"I'm here, Jack," he said hoarsely. "I'm right here, anwylyd. It's okay... You can let go. I'll be here when you come back, I promise."
And then I'm going to smack you over the head for offering yourself up as a bloody chew toy for a weevil, he added with silent vehemence.
He didn't voice the thought, and watched with muted grief as the light left Jack's eyes, and he fell limp against the pavement.
Ianto had no way of knowing how long it would take Jack to come back to life. He guessed that ordinarily it might only be a few minutes, but he also figured that ordinarily Jack wasn't already weakened physically, mentally and emotionally. When ten minutes had gone by, and Jack still hadn't revived, Ianto decided it was time to be proactive.
Unwilling to leave Jack alone, in case he did revive, Ianto lifted the Captain's body up over his shoulder and headed back towards his car. He would then go back for the body of the weevil.
He reached the car, struggling under Jack's deadweight, and lay him carefully on the backseat. Breathing hard with exertion, he climbed into the driver's seat and drove the car the short distance back to where he'd left the weevil's body. Releasing the boot, he hauled the weevil inside, already calculating the cost of cleaning to get rid of the odour that the corpse would leave.
That done, he made a cursory check to ensure no other unwanted interlopers were present before heading back to the Hub. He was nearly there when a strangled gasp alerted him to Jack's resurrection. Whilst keeping one hand on the wheel and his eyes firmly on the road ahead, Ianto reached back and found Jack's hand and held on tightly.
"I'm here, Jack. I'm right here. Just breathe, love. Nice, slow breaths…"
"Wha… Where…?" Jack gasped, disoriented.
"You're in my car. We're almost back at the Hub. Just try to relax, all right? We'll be there soon."
Jack groaned and slumped back on the seat, giving up on any efforts to move into an upright position. He was intensely grateful for having woken up in the backseat of Ianto's car, and not the rear compartment of the SUV. That would have been more than he could have coped with, given he had very vivid, very terrifying memories of the last time he'd woken up to find himself in the back of the SUV. He shut his eyes tightly, and tried to focus on the reassuring sensation of Ianto's hand grasping his own. That was something he could easily do without remembering, ever.
He was vaguely aware of the car coming to a solid stop, and then Ianto was there, gently pulling him up and out of the vehicle. Jack tried to stand on his own, embarrassed by his own apparent weakness, but his body rebelled. His legs shook and he was saved from falling only by Ianto's strong arm around his waist, supporting him.
They made their way back down into the Hub, one shaky step at a time until Ianto was able to safely deposit the Captain onto the couch. Jack slumped backwards, his chest heaving from the exertion as he struggled to regain his equilibrium. Exsanguination always took it out of him, and left him thoroughly exhausted. It had become the Master's favourite method of killing him whenever he'd had to be moved within the Valiant, learning quickly that Jack was sluggish at best for a good hour or so after reviving from such a death.
Jack shuddered. That was not a memory he cared to be reliving – especially not now.
He felt movement beside him, and hazarded a glance left. Ianto sat beside him, watching with concern while at the same time threading his fingers lovingly through Jack's damp hair.
"Are you all right?" Ianto asked in concern. "I mean, really all right?"
Jack hesitated in answering, pausing to take stock of himself.
"Yeah, I think so," he mumbled finally. "Just… ruined another shirt, damn it… But yeah, I'm okay."
"Good," Ianto said simply. A moment later, Jack yelped in shock as Ianto smacked him squarely up-side the back of his head.
"Ow, what was that for?" Jack cried out indignantly, trying unsuccessfully to pull away even as the offending hand took to gently massaging the spot that it had just whacked.
"For being a bloody idiot," Ianto told him flatly. "Why did you do that, Jack?"
Jack shifted uncomfortably, not quite able to look Ianto in the eye.
"I… I heard you come up behind me. I thought it was going to go for you…"
"Bullshit," Ianto said softly. "That's the worst lie I've ever heard from you."
Jack fell abruptly quiet, his gaze fixed on his hands, which were clasped together tightly in his lap. Ianto went on in a low, calm voice, doing his level best to suppress his anger. Right at that moment, anger was the last emotion that Jack needed to be exposed to.
"You were yelling at it to come and get you, Jack. You were taunting it. And then, you threw away your gun. Why did you do that? Did you really want it to kill you?"
"Yes."
The answer was so soft that Ianto wasn't sure he'd heard right.
"Sorry? Did you say…"
"Yes!" Jack burst out, startling Ianto. "Yes, I wanted it to kill me! Is that what you want to hear? That I wanted it to rip my throat out?"
Ianto felt light-headed all of a sudden, and his mind tipped back to Owen's words of warning. It seemed he had been right. They had on their hands a suicidal man who couldn't die…
"Jack…"
Jack went on, the vehemence in his voice not quite masking a deeper agony that Ianto was starting to realise he could do nothing about.
"Because when I'm dead, at least for a little while, nothing hurts. That's what I wanted, Ianto. For everything to stop hurting… just for a little while."
Ianto felt his eyes burn with unshed tears as understanding finally dawned.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, hating himself for the utter inadequacy of his words. Jack looked away, but not in time to keep Ianto from catching a glimpse of the tears that glistened in the older man's eyes.
"This is wrong," Jack said brokenly. "This is all wrong, Ianto. I shouldn't be bothered by it, right? It's just sex. I shouldn't see their faces every time I close my eyes. I shouldn't still be able to feel the wire around my wrists and ankles… around my face… It shouldn't get to me like this, right?"
"Cariad, look at me," Ianto murmured, and he reached out to gently draw Jack's gaze back to him. I know you think you have to be strong, and pretend you're not affected, but you don't. You don't have to hide from us… or from me. It is okay to let us know you're hurting."
"I'm supposed to be strong," Jack said bitterly. "It's my responsibility to be strong... to not let things affect me. I'm in charge, I'm supposed to... to..."
Ianto reached across and covered Jack's hands with his own, encouraged when Jack didn't pull away from him.
"You're supposed to trust your team."
Jack looked at him again, and the bitterness was back.
"Why?"
Ianto flinched as though he'd been slapped, and for a split seconds he very nearly reacted before the reality of the last few days crashed into him again, and he remembered that Jack had every right nt to fully trust him. Trust was something that Ianto knew he was going to have to work very hard to earn again from Jack. Instead, he tried a different tactic.
"Jack, it's not being weak to admit that you're hurting and that you need help. I think you know that, cariad. Let us take care of Torchwood. Let us take care of you for once, please."
When Jack neither moved nor spoke, Ianto took the initiative and put his arm slowly around Jack's shoulders and urged Jack to lean against him. Jack offered some initial resistance before his shoulders slumped heavily, and he allowed Ianto to pull him into a protective embrace.
Again, Ianto resisted the urge to kiss Jack, even just an innocent brush of the lips over his temple or on his cheek. Even in holding Jack like this, he could feel the tension in Jack's body. He was truly scared, and Ianto felt a surge of helplessness that he had no solutionn to counter such a deepset fear. In fact, the last time he'd felt this helpless had been back at the height of the chaos of Canary Wharf...
But no, he was not going to let his thoughts go down that rocky path.
"Talk to me, Jack," Ianto murmured, adjusting his position to encourage Jack to lie cradled against his chest. "Tell me what happened."
"No," Jack whispered. "I don't want to talk about it. I don't even want to think about it. I just want to forget it every happened."
"You can't pretend it never happened, Jack," Ianto said softly, and Jack uttered a strangled laugh.
"No? I've got a bottle of retcon in my office that says otherwise."
Ianto felt his stomach churn a little at the unveiled threat. Oh, it was so easy to think of retcon as a solution, and Ianto himself had considered it in the past. It wasn't, though – all it did was serve as a fairly flimsy shield for memories that, sooner or later, would force their way back to the surface of the mind. No, retcon was no solution to a situation like this.
"You need to talk about it, Jack. Face what happened, not try to erase it from your memory."
"Suddenly an expert, huh?" Jack asked scathingly. Ianto smiled sadly.
"Just repeating what you once told me, anwylyd."
Jack was momentarily quiet, and Ianto fancied that he could almost hear the wheels turning in Jack's mind as he tried to place when he might have said such a thing to Ianto. After a long moment's silence, Ianto spoke again.
"It was after the Brecon Beacons, Jack. Do you remember? You brought me home, and then you sat with me through the entire night. I begged you to retcon me, so I wouldn't have to remember any of it, but you wouldn't do it. You made me talk about everything, even though I put up a fight over it. You made me go over every single thing that happened from the moment Tosh and I went off to find the SUV, and you know something? It worked, Jack. It didn't stop the nightmares completely, but it kept them frm being worse than I could cope with. Now, let me try and do the same thing for you."
Ianto stroked his fingers through Jack's hair, quietly aware of a damp patch that was forming on his shirt. Tears, he thought miserably.
Oh, Jack...
"I knew people could hate," Jack said suddenly, his voice muffled as he turned his face into Ianto's chest. "I've experienced it before. Anything that's different, that doesn't fit into their ideals... But the worst I ever got was a couple of punches. A few bar brawls... It was never personal."
"What do you mean?" Ianto asked, puzzled. Jack shuddered against him.
"They targeted me as soon as I walked into the pub, Yan. I didn't notice it at the time. I was feeling too damned sorry for myself to notice. But they did, they targeted me. Waited until I'd had a few drinks, and then sent their guy in. Cute kid, tried to talk me into leaving with him."
Ianto's eyebrows lifted slightly in surprise.
"Tried to?"
"I declined," Jack admitted dully. "Felt too much like I was cheating on you."
Fresh guilt gnawed at Iant at that admission, but he said nothing, waiting patiently for Jack to continue.
"I left. Don't know where I was going to go... Back to the Hub, I guess. I was standing by the SUV when I saw Chris... the kid who tried to chat me up... I saw his reflection in the window. Started to say I was flattered, but I really didn't want to follow through... next thing I know, my face was being mashed against the window, and there're five or six guys patting me down for weapons, keys... everything. Might've been a turn-on, 'cept the bastards shattered my cheekbone. Then they started..."
"Started what?" Ianto asked softly, dreading the answer.
"Calling me things," Jack whispered. "Poof... Things like that. They picked me for being gay, and that's why they... they did what they did."
Ianto shut his eyes, feeling thoroughly sick.
"A hate crime," he whispered in dismayed understanding.
"Hate crime," Jack echoed numbly. "Yes... That's what it was. They hated me... hated what they thought I was. Said I... I didn't deserve to live." He uttered a slightly hysterical laugh. "If only they knew..."
It was Ianto's turn to shudder. Thank God they hadn't known, he thought numbly. He lightly stroked Jack's hair, and then allowed his fingers to trail down over Jack's shoulder to his back, where he drew soothing circles.
"I don't understand," Jack went on shakily as he clung to Ianto. "I just don't get it... Why did they even care? What harm was I doing to them?"
Ianto felt a fresh wave of pain that Jack had been exposed to such vile hatred, while at the same time marvelling at the odd paradox that was his lover and Captain. For all his worldliness... and other-worldliness... there was a large part of Jack that was still incredibly innocent and naïve. He had fought wars, both on Earth and in other times and on other worlds, and yet he still found it so difficult to comprehend man's inhumanity to man. The Captain was nearly two hundred years old, and yet somehow managed to maintain an idealistic, almost childlike view of humans. And yet he knew better than any of them the sorts of atrocities that humans were capable of committing.
"What if I did retcon myself?" Jack wondered."Wipe my memory from Christmas Eve onwards... I could do that, couldn't I?"
Ianto paused in answering, searching desperately for the right words to bring Jack away from this particular, disturbing train of thought.
"Yes, I suppose you could," he conceded. "But do you really think that's the best thing to do? Remember what you told me after the Brecon Beacons? When I begged you to retcon me? You told me you wouldn't do it, and that one day I'd understand why. Well, I think I do now. Bad memories like that, they shouldn't be forgotten, because the only way to overcome them is to face them. You told me that, Jack, and you were right."
Jack didn't lift his head from where his face was burrowed in against Ianto's chest.
"One time I wish I was wrong."
The statement went over Ianto's head. He sensed there was more to it than Jack was willing to elaborate on, especially given the way he practically spat out the word 'wrong'. Right at that moment, though there was more to be concerned with than vague references and overly subtle nuances.
"Retconning yourself isn't the answer," Ianto murmured, stroking his fingers lovingly through Jack's hair. "And neither is deliberately trying to get yourself killed. Can we at least agree on that for the moment?"
Minutes passed with no response, but Ianto waited patiently. He knew Jack would respond eventually, given sufficient time to think things through. Finally, much to Ianto's quiet relief, Jack nodded mutely in reluctant concession.
"All right, then," Ianto whispered. "That's a start, at least. One step at a time, Jack. Just one step at a time, cariad."
He felt a rippling shudder pass through Jack as the tears began again, followed by soft, heart-wrenching sobs. Ianto didn't try to tell him to hush, but rather continued to cradle Jack to him, murmuring soothing words of comfort. Minutes slipped by, and gradually the muffled sobs eased and then faded altogether as a light, restless sleep took over. Ianto continued to stroke Jack's hair lightly, listening with a heavy heart to the soft, distressed whimpers that occasionally escaped the Captain's lips.
Owen had warned him that they were just starting to enter the difficult times, but only now, after witnessing first-hand Jack's apparent suicidal despair, did Ianto really begin to believe it.
tbc...