This is the last of the chapters currently written, but I'm halfway through the next chapter (there's 1 or two chapters left to the story) so never fear :D Thanks for reading!

CHAPTER 5

Jack walked across the plass with a determination that he didn't usually possess. He flicked his phone open and dialled the number of the local bistro. The young woman who worked there was good friends with Ianto and as soon as she heard that he was 'ill and confined to bed rest' she jumped at the chance to help.

Once she'd agreed to make some patches of bland soup, Jack arranged for a time to pick it up and moved off to the local Tesco. He wasted no time in grabbing a loaf of soft wholemeal bread and a tub of cream cheese, but he deliberated for a couple of minutes over which type of chocolate buttons to get. He settled on a bag of milk ones and another bag of white ones.

As soon as he'd paid for everything and checked his watch, he was heading back to the bistro, where he found himself bombarded by the young woman, Rosie, who shoved a bag of soup cartons into his arms. She put the cost on the tab Ianto had with her and Jack hurried back to the Hub.

He was back in the base twenty nine minutes after he left. He grabbed a couple of spoons and a knife and darted back through to his office. He shirked his coat off and hung it up before kicking his boots off and lowering himself and his bag of food into the bunker. He had to stand for a moment to let his eyes adjust to the gloom before he tentatively felt his way across to the bed.

"You can turn the light on if you want." Ianto sounded more than a little amused and it struck the Captain that he must've looked pretty funny to someone who could see perfectly well in the darkness. Jack was about to argue with his lover when he realised that he really couldn't see anything at all. It wouldn't be fun to try and eat soup in the current lighting situation.

He felt his way across the room to the desk and switched the lamp on, quickly throwing a discarded shirt over it to dull the light flooding from it. The bunker was lit by a half glow, tinged blue from the fabric wrapped around it. He let his eyes adjust to the dim lighting for a moment before he turned around and looked at Ianto, unable to help the smile that grew on his face.

For all intents and purposes, Ianto could just have been sleeping in. He was sitting up, one arm resting on his bent knees, blanket draped across his legs as his other hand rubbed his rather messy hair. He smiled back and gestured for Jack to come back over to the bed.

"What delights did Rosie whip up then?" Ianto wiggled his eyebrows suggestively and Jack was just about to ask how he knew he'd been to Rosie's when the younger man cut in again. "I can see the logo on one of the tubs in the bag."

"Ah, right." Jack snorted softly as he climbed back onto the bed, settling himself back against the wall as he pulled the bag down around the contents. "Well, first up, we have some gorgeous leek and potato soup with no added pepper or butter."

He pulled one of the pots from the bag and eased the lid off, Ianto snatching it from him almost straight away.

"God, that smells amazing." The complete sincerity in Ianto's voice made him roll his eyes. To Jack, it smelt vaguely warm, with no real aroma to it at all.

Jack watched in disbelief as Ianto held the pot to his face and inhaled the steam coming from the soup in huge lungfuls, his eyes closed and possibly one of his more erotic sighs escaping his lips. Jack couldn't stop himself from staring. It was another few moments before Ianto opened his eyes and looked at Jack sceptically, a smile tugging at his lips.

"Sorry, right, okay. Next up is," Jack snapped his eyes from Ianto's, retrieving the next pot and peeling the lid off, "chicken noodle – so this one's mine."

He forced himself to concentrate on the food and pulled some slices of bread out and set about covering them with cream cheese while Ianto watched him. He always marvelled a little at how natural it felt to see Jack as the domesticated man he was being now. It was so far removed from the person Torchwood needed him to be and he seemed to really enjoy the chance to be 'normal'. He couldn't help but smile as he watched Jack painstakingly cut the bread and cream cheese into slices that would dip easily into the soup pots and he took the one being proffered happily.

"Thank you for doing this… I mean, you could be eating pizza and jam doughnuts but you're settling for the food of invalids." Ianto looked down at his soup and the half eaten slice of bread and frowned slightly, sighing and shaking off the thought.

"Hey, I like chicken noodle soup! Besides, pizza's no fun when I can't make lewd remarks to you over it." Jack grinned but it soon softened. "You know me, Ianto. I like the normal stuff."

Ianto nodded, ducking his head slightly as they ate in silence for a while. Neither of them needed to say what Jack had really meant, the truth was all too present between them. Jack liked to be able to have the life that was nothing more than a charade for him. He loved being able to pretend for just a few hours that he was a regular guy in a normal relationship with nothing more pressing than what type of take-out they should get.

He'd been getting more and more comfortable with the pretence and Ianto was under no illusions as to why. It was the simple fact that Ianto wasn't getting any younger. For himself, he knew that each day that passed when he was still alive and with Jack, he got more attached to the other man. He didn't want to think about what it was like for Jack. Instead, he turned the conversation back to lighter and infinitely more mundane topics in the typical diversion tactic they both adopted.

"So, how's Myfanwy doing without me?" He glanced up and saw the genuine smile on Jack's face and knew he'd made a wise decision.

*

The soup cartons lay empty and discarded on the bedside table, along with half the loaf of bread and a nearly empty container of cream cheese. Ianto, meanwhile, was settled happily between Jack's legs, resting back against him with his lover's arms around him and a torn open packet of milk chocolate buttons in his lap.

"You know," Jack murmured as he picked up one of the buttons and held it up for Ianto to eat from his fingers, "this is possibly the weirdest erotic meal I've ever had."

"You know you love it." Ianto grinned and pressed himself just a little further back into Jack's arms, feeling the one around his waist tighten just a little. He claimed another chocolate button with his lips and felt Jack chuckle gently. He closed his eyes and felt the thin piece of chocolate melting in his mouth, tasting a thousand times more potent than they would've tasted the day before.

It didn't taste like chocolate, not the way he'd known for the twenty five years of his life, but it tasted good – unusual, yes, but good. The safe, familiar taste of the chocolate was suddenly thrown open to make his mouth water and his taste buds shoot into overdrive. It was good, but he was starting to get tired of the ADHD reaction of his neurons every time he deigned to sense something.

"Jack, when will Owen have something?" Ianto twisted his head slightly to lay it sideways against the front of Jack's shoulder. He felt Jack sigh and couldn't help but feel his heart sink a little. That couldn't be good. He linked his fingers gently through Jack's and stole another chocolate button.

"He's working as fast as he can, but I think it might be a bit hit and miss. We don't have any records on the compound so he's working from scratch." Jack leaned his cheek on the top of Ianto's head and Ianto shrugged a little.

"Well… at least I get the day off work." Ianto forced a grin and picked at a few more buttons, beating Jack's hand to the packet and laughing at the feigned growl of annoyance. It vibrated through Jack's chest and rung in his ears and Ianto felt himself get lost in it for a moment. No. He forced himself to concentrate on other things and pushed back the niggling voice telling him that having sex with Jack with his heightened senses would be fucking fantastic.

They returned to their pensive silences, interrupted only by the rustle of the packet as they each reached for chocolate buttons on occasion. Jack let his mind wander to his increasingly frequent daydream of having a normal life, away from Torchwood, where he could grow old and watch the world go by without being left behind. He was hit by the usual surge of fear and desperation and spoke before he could stop himself.

"When all this is over we should just pack up and leave." He spoke slightly too loud and Ianto sat up, turning round to face with a hint of a frown, as if trying to decipher his words. Jack just stared at him, a trace of a smile on his face.

"For good?" As Ianto settled back against him, Jack found himself stuck for words. He hadn't expected that reply. He'd expected a snark or some sarcasm, something about how much he'd love to apart from that inconvenient little fact that the Rift washed up all sorts of psychotic alien trash.

"Maybe." Jack wrapped his arms back around Ianto and the younger man nestled closer to him, the chocolate buttons pushed to one side and ignored for the time being.

He felt Ianto's fingers stroking his arm in absent, soothing patterns. How many times had he felt that in the pitch black, lying awake at night in that small moment of calm after a rocketing orgasm and before sleep claimed one or the other of them? Those were the moments that made him wonder if it was all worth it. Was the pain and the heartache that he'd suffered so far, and would undoubtedly continue to suffer, all worth it for those moments with Ianto? Jack was pretty sure it was.

He rested his palm surreptitiously against Ianto's chest, feeling his heartbeat gently through his ribs, skin and t-shirt. He began to imagine it as Ianto must be hearing his, loud and constant and completely reassuring. He felt Ianto shift against him slightly and looked down to meet his eyes.

"Where would we go?" He spoke softly, his gaze searching, half sincere, half playful.

"I've always wanted to go to Japan… Osaka, Hiroshima… you know, to see the temples and the culture." Toshiko had raved about her homeland for a long time when Jack had first employed her. They'd discussed their travels and Jack had been eager to learn all about Tosh's home. The ancient culture fascinated him.

"But you don't speak Japanese." Ianto grinned and Jack raised an eyebrow in contradiction.

"Sure, I do. How do you think me and Tosh passed the nights when it was just us two insomniacs?" He smirked at that and Ianto laughed gently. "And I know she taught you last year, when you were on leave."

Ianto sobered up a little them and nodded his agreement, looking away and resting his head back on Jack's shoulder. His fingers picked up their absent stroking patterns again and Jack focussed on Ianto and only Ianto, hoping he would continue the conversation.

"What about Egypt? I've always wanted to see the pyramids." Ianto's tone was casual – a little too casual. Jack was desperate to know what was going on inside his head, but he knew better than to ask.

"They aren't as great as you'd think." Jack had been to Egypt on several occasions – both before and after he'd become immortal. With the Time Agency, he'd locked some artefacts within the tombs, with the Doctor he'd been locked inside himself and with Torchwood, he'd scavenged everything in there that he'd left on his first visit. Despite his protests, his boss had maintained that as Jack was going to live forever, it didn't matter if he had some ancient Egyptian curses laid on him. "What about somewhere in Europe? Italy, maybe."

"Why not France? You've always taken… people to Paris." Ianto's voice suddenly fell back to normal, a trace of expectation and something akin to hurt. "I'd like to go to Paris with you."

They both knew that Jack had filed many 'weekend leave' forms over the decades to take whoever he was shagging at the time to Paris. He'd wine and dine them for three days, sex and champagne at his fingertips for whenever he wanted it. He'd not done it since he'd taken over the team, however. There just hadn't been the time. When he'd been shagging Suzie – for those few weeks between her arriving and him realising she really wasn't his type – the thought had crossed his mind, but never come to fruition.

When he and Ianto had first started their regular shagging sessions in the archives, he'd entertained the thought as well. He'd been seriously considering sitting down and booking them both out for a field trip to 'explore unusual readings abroad' when the visitors from the past fell into their lives. Everything had gone to hell then and before he knew it, Jack was with the Doctor and entertaining the sickening sensation that Ianto was a hundred worlds away. By the time he got back, Jack knew Paris was one place he'd never take the young man.

"So would I… but don't you think that fact that we've not gone says a whole lot more?" Jack looked down at his lover then, the younger man falling still in contemplation. He watched as a small smile grew slowly across Ianto's face as he sighed gently, the tension subtly leaving his body as he wove their fingers together.

Ianto silently wrestled with the thought Jack had just hinted at. He'd never really considered it before, just assuming that they hadn't gone away purely because they couldn't. Jack was the boss after all and was needed in Cardiff whenever possible. He'd never stopped to think that there might be reason. He hadn't even realised just how much of the niggling paranoia in the back of his head had been eased by such a simple sentence.

"I'm glad you're here, Jack." Ianto brought their joined hands to his lips and pressed a kiss to his lover's knuckles. Jack didn't reply – he didn't entirely trust himself to speak – but Ianto didn't mind. As per usual, they'd managed to skirt around the real topic completely.

After a long few minutes, he felt Jack shift and pull the almost empty packet of chocolate buttons back towards him, tipping the remaining handful into his palm and offering it to Ianto. Between them, they finished off the chocolate and returned, yet again to normal, mundane chat about nothing in particular.

*

Jack emerged from his office a little over an hour later. Ianto had been asleep for a good twenty minutes and he was eager to see whether Owen had made any real progress yet. He'd left the medic alone for longer than he would've liked and he was desperately hoping that the waiting had been worth it.

"What've you got for me?" He kept his voice as light hearted as he could, moving forwards to lean on the railing at the top of the autopsy bay and look down at Owen. The medic turned around with a sigh.

"I've got the first possibility and I've run it through all the tests I can. I want to give him a low dose injection and see how he fares over the next couple of hours. I should know whether it's working or not by then." Owen grimaced apologetically and Jack nodded slowly. It wasn't exactly what he'd hoped for, but it was better than nothing.

"How many times do you think he'll be needing injections over the next day?" Jack had the horrible vision of having to stick Ianto with needles every few hours for days on end.

"Three or four times, maybe? Hopefully only once or twice though… but I think the best way to get the proper dose into him in the end is via a drip, rather than overload his system with one concentrated injection." Owen glanced over his shoulder and the vial of blocker he'd been synthesising over the past few hours. He'd discovered in one of his tests that too much caused a reaction that would probably cause severe swelling in a human body.

"Would it be worth putting in a cannular at the beginning?" The thought was sudden, but he didn't really know enough about the method to judge himself.

"I don't know, they can be pretty painful to put in and sore for the rest of the time." Owen chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment and looked off to one side with a slight frown. He suddenly winced and turned back to Jack. "I think it'd be better to just take each injection as it comes. That way, the pain lasts for only a second or two and it's not quite so strong."

"Okay, fair enough. Do you want to give him the first injection now?" Jack gripped the metal rail and leaned back, stretching out his arms. Owen rubbed his eyes and nodded.

"Yeah, there's no better time really. I'll need you to monitor him for a few hours and check in with me every so often. I'll give him a once over at the end and take it from there." The medic turned around and collected a fresh syringe, a piece of cotton wool, some numbing gel and the vial of blocker. He turned around and met Jack's weary look for a moment. Finally, the Captain nodded.

"I guess we should get this over with then." Jack waited for Owen to join him at the top of the stairs and the two of them made their way down to the bunker.