The first sign that Ianto had that not all was right in the world came after a couple of weeks spent in relative peace in the sanctity of Jackie Tyler's home. Ianto was busy in the kitchen, helping Jackie to make pie for dinner when Jack suddenly started screaming for him. Abandoning the potatoes he was peeling, Ianto ran into the lounge room where Jack was, expecting the worst.
Stumbling into the room, he found Jack cowering in the far corner of the room, shaking with fear.
"Jack, what is it?" Ianto asked anxiously, hurrying over and embracing him. "What's wrong?"
He was starting to suspect that Jack may have simply seen something on the television that had frightened him. A similar thing had happened just a couple of days ago when, in the process of channel surfing, he had come across a movie that depicted someone being tortured. It had taken the better part of the day to put an end to that particular panic attack – not to mention the nightmares that had plagued Jack throughout the night.
If this was going to keep happening, Ianto was going to seriously consider asking Jackie to invest in a child lock so that Jack would only be able to view cartoons and the like…
"Oh my god!"
Ianto turned abruptly at Jackie's exclamation, and finally saw what had sent Jack into a panic. On the other side of the room, there stood the silhouette of a man. There were no features visible – it was like looking at a shadow. It wasn't doing anything, just standing there, still and silent as a statue.
"What the hell is that?" Jackie burst out, backing away towards the archway that led into the kitchen.
"I don't know," Ianto answered. "I doubt it's anything good."
He was acutely aware of the panicked way that Jack was clutching at him, but it didn't concern him greatly. He was clutching at Jack with a rapidly increasing level of panic himself. His first and only thought was that this was some trick of Torchwood, and that they'd been found. His heart was starting to pound, and he realised with growing nausea that he fully expected Torchwood operatives to come crashing through the windows at any second, guns literally blazing.
"Yan toe," Jack said pleadingly, his eyes wide with terror as he stared at the featureless entity. "Make it go away!"
"I wish I could," Ianto said grimly, trying to guide Jack's head around so that he was looking away from the disturbing vision. "But I don't know what it is, Jack. I don't know how to make it go away."
Even as he spoke, though, he realised the entity was starting to lose its appearance of solidity.
"Look, it's fading!" Jackie exclaimed. "Almost like a ruddy ghost!"
Ianto lifted an eyebrow at the comparison, but refrained from asking Jackie what her basis of comparison was. She was right, though. The entity – creature – whatever it was – had almost completely vanished from sight. A moment later, there was no evidence left to suggest anything untoward had just happened.
Conscious of the fact that Jack had buried his face in his shoulder, Ianto murmured soothingly to him.
"Look, Jack. It's okay. It's gone."
Slowly, Jack raised his head to look and, though the relief on his face was palpable, Ianto could still read a very stark fear there.
"Was it them? The bad people?"
"I don't know," Ianto admitted. "But it's gone now. All right?"
"Not coming back?" Jack asked shakily. Ianto grimaced. That was not a promise he could reasonably make, no matter how much he wanted to offer reassurances.
"I hope not, love."
It was the best he could offer, and it was woefully inadequate, as was evidenced by Jack's reaction. For the rest of that day and into the next, Jack refused to stay anywhere in the apartment on his own. He followed Jackie and Ianto everywhere, refusing to be left alone. Early in the afternoon, Jackie headed out to pick up fresh groceries, somewhat reluctantly leaving Jack and Ianto alone in the apartment together. She returned an hour and a half later and was both upset and frustrated to find Jack sitting slumped on the floor outside the toilet, crying miserably.
It didn't take much effort to realise what was wrong.
"Ianto?" she called out tentatively. "Are you in there?"
"Yes," his voice came back in reply, muffled by the door. "I'm sorry, but I just couldn't hold on any longer. I'll be back out soon."
Sighing, Jackie turned her attention to Jack and spoke with just a hint of impatience.
"Oh, come on, then. Up you get, you silly thing."
"Yan wouldn't let me go in with him," Jack blurted out in between hiccupping sobs. Jackie, though, was unsympathetic, and favoured him with a stern look.
"Well, of course he wouldn't! Don't be daft. He doesn't follow you into the loo, now, does he?"
Jack sniffed loudly as he got clumsily to his feet.
"No..."
"No, he doesn't. Now, what are you really upset about?"
Jack wrung his hands together nervously, and he pointed jerkily towards the living room.
You're worried about that thing reappearing," Jackie guessed, and Jack nodded quickly. "All right, fair enough, but that's still no excuse for trying to follow Ianto into the loo. Just a few minutes on your own isn't going to hurt, and I know you're braver than that, so just settle down now."
She took him through into the kitchen and sat him down with a tall glass of milk, and a plate of freshly baked biscuits, and before long the upset was almost completely forgotten. Ianto emerged a few minutes later, and the only hint of his embarrassment was the red tinge to his cheeks. Jack looked up at him, a thoroughly sheepish look on his face.
"Sorry, Yan toe."
Ianto sighed and leaned down to give Jack a brief cuddle, pressing a tender kiss to the top of his head.
"It's all right, Jack. But you need to understand that we can't always be in sight twenty-four hours a day. You need to be able to cope when we go into another room, and not panic and get yourself into a state like that. Do you understand?"
"Yes," Jack answered. "I'm silly. Are you mad?"
Ianto raised an eyebrow in bemusement, but quickly shook it off.
"No, I'm not mad. I just need you to be a little bit more sensible. Nothing's going to happen to you here, Jack, as long as we do the right thing and stay inside. You don't have to be frightened every time you're left on your own. Okay?"
Jack nodded slowly. There was a slight frown on his face, as though he didn't fully comprehend what Ianto had said, but was trying hard regardless.
"Okay."
"So no more getting yourself all upset next time I need to use the bathroom?" Ianto asked, and had to struggle not to laugh at the hangdog expression Jack adopted.
"I promise."
Ianto smiled and ruffled Jack's hair affectionately.
"That's all I'm asking."
"Ianto," Jackie said finally, and for the first time Ianto noticed the worry that was etched into her features.
"What's wrong?"
"I need to talk to you," she said in a low voice. "Alone..."
Feeling a sharp prick of unease, Ianto spoke to Jack once more.
"We're going to give you a chance to show us that you can act grown up. Jackie and I are going to just go into the living room. You won't be able to see us, but we'll be right there. Okay?"
Jack looked uncertain, but made no attempt to get up.
"I'll... stay here?"
"That's right. You stay here and enjoy your biscuits and milk."
He followed Jackie into the living room, just out of sight of Jack, whom they could both hear humming loudly to himself in the other room.
"I know you told him you can't go with him when the Doctor comes back, sweetheart" Jackie said worriedly, "but maybe you ought to be rethinking that. I'm not so sure he'll cope too well without you."
Ianto sighed and ran his fingers through his hair.
"I've thought about it, Jackie. You have no idea how much I've thought about it, but I have family. I can't just run off and abandon them."
"You wouldn't be abandoning them," Jackie snorted. "Look at my Rose. She's off with him, hardly a thought to me, comes home when she feels like it. Tell me, when did you last see your family? Well?"
He couldn't answer, much to his own embarrassment. Jackie took hold of his hand, and squeezed it reassuringly.
"It's all right, love. I didn't mean to upset you. All I'm trying to say is that you could go with Jack when the Doctor takes him away, without giving up your family. Just like he says, it travels through time and space. Your family'd hardly know you were gone... 'Course, that's assuming the silly alien git doesn't do to you what he did to my Rose, and keep you away for a whole flippin' year! Gave him a right slap for that one, I did."
Ianto couldn't help but smile. He strongly suspected that she did, at that.
"I'll have to think about it, Jackie. Right now, I'm just concerned about what's best for Jack."
She raised an eyebrow at him.
"If you think letting him go off without you is the best thing for him, then you need to do some more thinking. He needs you, Ianto. No doubt about that."
"I know he does," Ianto agreed. "It's the main reason that I don't think I should go with him."
Jackie sighed and shook her head.
"I think you're wrong, but I suppose it's up to you in the end. Just... don't make a decision like that without thinking it through properly. Promise me that much?"
"I promise," Ianto murmured, and smiled tiredly as she pulled him in for a brief, bone-crushing hug.
"You're too ruddy thin, you are!" she exclaimed, not for the first time. "You and Jack both! Now come into the kitchen, and let me make you something to eat."
"Trying to fatten us both up, Jackie?" Ianto asked wryly, and she grinned at him.
"Well, you could stand to gain a few pounds. And so could that poor love in there."
"You keep baking biscuits, and I guarantee Jack will start to fill out more," Ianto said, and tried in vain to duck out of the way when Jackie whacked him on the arm.
"Oi, you being rude to your host?"
"Wouldn't dream of it," he answered with a grin. He was about to follow her back into the kitchen when the sound of Jack shrieking, followed by the distinct sound of a glass breaking reached them. They hurried back into the kitchen, only to freeze at the sight that met them.
Jack still sat at the table, but he seemed frozen in place and his eyes were almost comically wide with fear. The glass that he'd been drinking from was unnoticed on the floor at his feet, shattered into irreparable pieces. Across the way from him, near the door, was an exact replica of the shadowy entity that had invaded the apartment the day before.
Reacting instinctively, Ianto crossed the floor and wrapped his arms around Jack protectively, while Jackie took a couple of tentative steps towards the apparition.
"Hello? Can you hear me?" she asked in a steady voice that belied her own fear.
"Jackie!" Ianto hissed. "Come back here! Don't go near it!"
She ignored him, staring at the apparition with growing curiosity.
"Hello?"
It never moved or spoke, it simply stood there for nearly a minute before finally fading away into nothing once more.
"It's gone now," Ianto murmured, cuddling Jack reassuringly as the older man trembled violently. "It's all right, nothing to be afraid of."
"You know," Jackie said, still staring at the place where the apparition had appeared, "there was something familiar about him. He kind of reminds me of my dad."
Ianto looked up at her, confused and incredulous.
"Your father? Jackie, it was a faceless apparition! How could it possibly remind you of your father?"
"Couldn't you smell it?" she asked.
"Smell what?"
"The cigarettes! I'm sure I caught a whiff of cigarettes. My dad used to smoke all the time."
Ianto drew in a shaky breath.
"I didn't smell anything, Jackie. There wasn't anything to smell."
"Well, says you, but you were over there with Jack, weren't you? 'Course you weren't going to smell it."
Deciding against arguing with her, Ianto returned his attention to Jack.
"Are you all right, cariad?"
"Same time," Jack whimpered. For a moment, Ianto was confused, but then he glanced up at the clock on the wall, and realised that Jack was right.
"It happened at the same time yesterday, too. Ten past the hour... What on earth is going on?"
By that evening, news of the mysterious apparitions was all over the media. The strange entities had appeared not only in Jackie Tyler's apartment, but apparently all over London. There was a moderate state of panic across the city, but at the same time no one appeared to have been injured by the apparitions. By all accounts, the silhouettes appeared at ten past the hour, at noon, hovered in view for a minute or two, and then vanished again. It was unsettling at the very least, but apparently harmless.
Over the next couple of weeks, the apparitions appeared regularly at ten past noon, without fail. The one that appeared within Jackie's apartment became visible in the kitchen, and as a result Jack refused to venture anywhere near the kitchen around the time the apparition was due to appear.
By the time a month had gone by, the general panic of the populace had faded, and the appearance had been officially dubbed the Ghost Shift. Jackie was convinced by then that the apparition was, indeed, her father, and Ianto had long since given up trying to convince her otherwise.
He held growing suspicions that whatever was causing the disturbances quite probably originated from Torchwood, but he didn't have any proof and he had no intention of trying to seek said proof out. All he knew was that he shared Jack's opinion – that the apparitions were something to be feared, not welcomed. He simply couldn't share in Jackie's excitement, no matter what she said or what was reported through the media.
They had been hiding within Jackie's apartment for over a month when Jackie came home one evening with groceries, looking deeply worried. Sensing the tension radiating from here, Ianto left Jack in the living room happily reading a book and munching on a particularly large piece of chocolate cake, and joined Jackie in the kitchen.
"What's wrong?" he asked softly, taking care to keep his voice low. Over the last month, Jack had slowly been showing more signs of awareness of his surroundings, and Ianto had found it increasingly necessary to avoid talking about certain subjects where Jack could overhear him – subjects that specifically included the Ghost Shifts and Torchwood.
"They're looking for you," she said abruptly, causing an unwelcome shudder to pass through Ianto. He didn't need to ask who she meant.
"What happened?"
"I was just coming out of Tesco's, and I saw these two coppers handing out leaflets. Poor sods looked bored stupid. Anyway, they handed me one, and I swear I damn near had a stroke. Here, look."
Ianto took a slightly crumpled sheet of paper from her, and paled a little when he saw what was on it. There, in front of him, was a missing persons leaflet offering a substantial reward for any information. The reward information was accompanied by large, clear pictures of both him and Jack.
"They know we haven't left London," Ianto said heavily. "Damn it, I should have known better than to hope they'd given up."
"All right, don't start panicking on me," Jackie told him firmly. "As long as you both stay indoors, you'll be fine. There's only one person who even knows you're here."
"We're putting you in danger, though..."
"Stop right there, young man," Jackie said, cutting him off forcefully. "You're only here in the first place because I agreed to it. Now, even if I let you both leave – which I'm not, by the way – where do you think you could go?"
Ianto's shoulders slumped. He knew the answer to that without either of them needing to vocalise it. Jackie reached out and grasped his shoulders gently.
"Now you listen to me, Mr Jones. I can take care of myself. It's you and Jack that we need to worry about, not me. It's not me that they want."
Ianto couldn't dispute that. As with Sarah Jane, Jackie Tyler was not doing anything that she didn't want to do, and he had no right to disrespect her by arguing with her.
"We're just going to have to work harder to keep Jack occupied," Jackie went on. "We both know he's starting to get cabin fever."
Ianto nodded in wordless agreement. Multiple times, Ianto had had to chide Jack for peeking out through the curtains, and a couple of weeks back he'd nearly had a heart attack upon finding Jack out on the landing outside the apartment.
He understood Jack was restless and feeling increasingly confined, and he had to keep reminding Jack of the need to stay hidden. Jack complied, albeit sporting a pout that would put any three year-old to shame. Ianto grimaced. He was appalled to find that it was becoming more and more difficult to ignore that pout, and what was worse was that Jack seemed to be well aware that he was wearing his ad hoc guardian down.
Ianto headed back into the living room. As much as he'd been trying to keep Jack shielded from any news to do with 'the bad place', he felt it necessary to warn Jack afresh of the need to stay hidden. He just hoped that it wouldn't be long before the Doctor made an appearance, because he just wasn't sure how much longer he could carry on like this.
He faltered in the archway that led through the living room. Jack's book was abandoned on the couch, and the empty plate on the floor.
"Jack?" he called out, expecting that his charge had either gone to use the bathroom or perhaps retreated to his bedroom. "Jack, where are you?"
There was no answer. Ianto was about to go and look in the bedroom, when he felt a rush of fresh air. Walking around, he discovered the front door to the apartment was open.
"Jackie, did you leave the front door open?" he asked, trying to ignore the way his gut was suddenly twisting up.
She came around the corner with an indignant frown on her face.
"'Course I didn't. Don't be stupid."
Ianto felt light-headed with sudden fear, and he blurted out the frightening realisation that struck them both at the same moment.
"He's gone... Jackie, he's gone!"
to be continued...