Author notes: I do not own Torchwood or the characters contained therein. Thank you to everyone who is still reading this. I am overwhelmed. This was where my original idea ran out but I have a few ideas of different takes on other episodes so maybe I'll keep going till I get to 6000 words at least. I don't have anything together yet though so updates will likely be a lot slower. I apologise now for the ending of this chapter, it is flat but I couldn't think how to fix it.
Jack wasn't expecting a reply, having so far had no verbal response, so he was somewhat surprised by the hoarse whisper spoken into his neck.
"To be fair, Sir, if you'd left me where I was, you wouldn't have to do anything with me." The lack of emotion was chilling to say the least but Jack took the words as a positive sign nonetheless.
"Apart from mop you off the floor, you mean?" The words could have been accusatory but Jack managed to keep them simply mildly curious, as if they were discussing the weather.
"You could have got that nice old woman from the cleaners round the corner to do that for you. I don't think she particularly enjoys the messes we give her to clean up but she does enjoy the spa day she thinks she's had." Ianto replied, almost conversationally.
Jack shuffled them both back so that they were properly under the spray again, gently tipping Ianto's head back to rinse off the shampoo, suddenly having the bizarre thought that it was fortunate that he had bought scented shampoo this time.
"You thought it through pretty thoroughly, huh?" Jack kept his voice light even as his heart broke at the thought.
"Not really." Still no emotion, just profound weariness. "If I'd thought it through properly, I'd have left you instructions. You never were very good at back stories, Sir."
Jack shut off the water and reached for the towel that was hanging from the towel rack. It wasn't a clean one but he wasn't of a mind to leave Ianto long enough to find one.
"I'm not sure if I should find your willingness to camouflage your own death impressive or disturbing." Okay, that was a lie. Jack was disturbed. Very disturbed. "Can you take your own clothes off, or do I need to do it for you?"
"I don't think that's necessary, Sir."
Jack almost smiled at the discomfort in Ianto's voice. Almost. "Either you do it or I do, I didn't save you from the leather chicken just to have you die from pneumonia."
Ianto's fingers started fumbling with his buttons. "Why did you save me?" He didn't sound overly interested in the answer but at least he was talking.
"You're part of my team." As soon as Ianto's shirt was off, Jack wrapped the towel firmly round his shoulder, rubbing briskly to both dry and create some heat.
"You were holding a gun to my head yesterday."
"I know I was. I also know that I asked you to do something that you would never be able to do. Hating me was the only thing that kept you fighting hard enough to stay alive. Where are you going?"
Ianto had left the tiny bathroom and was heading to the ladder leading to Jack's office. "I'm not taking my trousers off in front of you, Sir. I'm going home to get dry and to change."
Jack caught Ianto's arm and turned him towards the bed. "Do you really think I'm letting you go home after what you tried to pull tonight? If it bothers you that much, I'll go up there whilst you get some of my clothes on. They'll be a bit broad on you but we're a similar height so they should fit well enough for tonight." He busied himself finding a set of his most casual clothes and some boxers so that he didn't have to look at Ianto.
"You don't understand, Sir. I can't stay here, not with you." At last, the emotion broke into Ianto's voice, the words coming out almost as a howl of distress.
Jack sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Ianto, I know that I made myself into a monster yesterday and that I'm the last person you want to see right now but I had no choice." He put the clothes he had picked on the bed. "There was just enough of Lisa left to give you the smallest chance, but that little bit was fading fast under the cyber control. If you hadn't been driven by hate and desperation, you wouldn't have got out alive and neither would the rest of Cardiff."
"So it was all playacting was it?" Jack winced at the disbelief in Ianto's voice.
"No, I won't insult your intelligence by claiming that." He clapped his hand on Ianto's bare shoulder. "It was a very little bit of playacting fuelled by a lot of fear."
"You don't do fear." Ianto negated in a flat voice. "You're an adrenaline junkie just like the rest of them."
"Believe me Ianto, I do fear. Those creatures terrify the life out of me. You were at One; you know about The Doctor. He only just stopped them, and he lost a large part of himself doing it. What chance did the rest of us have? And I nearly had to make the same sacrifice he did." Jack held his breath as he willed Ianto to understand.
Ianto looked up with an expression of confusion, meeting Jack's eyes for the first time that night. "What do you mean?"
Jack laid his hand against Ianto's cold cheek, keeping him looking up. "The Doctor lost his companion, Rose Tyler, at Canary Wharf; I nearly lost you."
Ianto raised his own hand to cover his eyes and shrugged his face away from Jack's hand, dropping his head in the process. Jack could hear broken sobs coming from the younger man and could see his shoulders shaking.
He sat down on the bed and urged Ianto down beside him. "Come on, get some dry clothes on and get some sleep. I know it's not what you want to hear right now, but time will make things better." Jack pulled his t-shirt over Ianto's head, and manipulated his arms down the sleeves. "Things might not be the same without Lisa, but they can be good again, in a different way."
Ianto turned his head so fast that Jack almost felt the whiplash himself. "Do you think that's what this is about?"
Jack raised his eyebrows. "Well, isn't it?"
"Of course not." Ianto got as close to yelling as Ianto probably ever got. "Don't you think I know that the chance of things being the same with Lisa died at Canary Wharf? Don't you think I didn't know that from the moment I pulled her from that conversion unit?"
"Frankly, no, I didn't think you knew that." Jack replied honestly. "You didn't seem to possess an equal degree of clarity yesterday."
"I knew it yesterday. I can't claim that you took Lisa away from me when you all fired your guns. What you took away from me was hope."
"I'm sorry, Ianto. Hope is a terrible thing to take away from a man."
"That's not what this is about either."
If Jack's eyebrows got any higher, they'd be part of his hairline. "That's slightly worrying Ianto; both of those are pretty good reasons for wanting to end things. How many reasons can one man have?"
Ianto shook his head.
"I think I deserve an answer, Ianto. Don't you?"
"Do you know what has kept me going since Canary Wharf, Sir?" Ianto sank his head back into his head.
"Apart from desperation and hope?" Jack asked, trying to get the conversation back onto slightly lighter ground.
"You." The single word reply fell between them like an undetonated bomb.
"Okay…" Jack breathed out slowly. "But I'm still here. Nothing's changed there. Why were you trying to, you know…"
"Nothing's changed?" Ianto laughed but there was no mirth in it. "Nothing's changed? Everything's changed! You'll never be able to trust me again. You'll always look at me differently. All of you will. You'll always be wondering what else I'm hiding."
"You're right." Jack lifted Ianto's face, so he could see what the other man was thinking. "Things will be different. But different doesn't have to be bad. If you promise me that you will show us the real Ianto, I will promise you that things will be better."
"Why would you believe me?"
"Well, for one thing, I simply can't believe you have anything else to hide; no man can have more than one secret like that." Jack smiled, the quirk of muscles that only lifted one side of his mouth. "And, secondly, I understand the reasons for what you did. All of us do. There isn't a single one of us who wouldn't go to any length for love. We've forgiven you, you just need to learn to forgive yourself."
"I'm not sure I can."
"Sure you can, and you can start by changing your trousers." Jack patted Ianto's leg, pleased that the storm was over. "Then come upstairs. You owe my pet an apology."
"Your pet?" Ianto asked incredulously, pulling his trousers and boxers down without seeming to notice that he was doing what he was told, or that Jack was still in the room. "Myfanwy is my pet."
"She lives in my house." Jack countered, smiling fully, not really invested in the argument but more than invested in seeing the life return to his young employee. The view didn't really hurt either.
"I found her, I named her, I feed her and clean up after her. She's mine." Ianto pulled on the rest of the clothes Jack had chosen for him.
Jack found the sight of Ianto in his clothes strangely appealing but knew that now was not the time for leers or innuendoes. "All the more reason for you to apologise. I guess you confused her, what with the sauce telling her to eat you but her own feelings telling her not to. What possessed you to choose that particular method anyway?"
Ianto shrugged. "It seemed like poetic justice. Going out the same way as Lisa. Well, as close as. I couldn't get up the courage to ask you to get the team to put together another firing squad."
"Shame." Jack ruffled his hair. "We could have gotten here without the mess. You do know that the team wouldn't have shot you, don't you? They are all a lot more understanding of you than you are."
"I don't seem to be very successful at anything, do I?" Ianto sighed. "Couldn't even die properly."
Jack grimaced. "You have no idea just how ironic it is that you said that to me of all people.