This starts out as fluffy, ends much less so. It is based just after Sleeper and deals with something which has been bugging me about that episode.

Jack leaned back in his chair, arms extended behind him, ineffectively attempting to stretch out the day's tension. It could have been worse, he told himself bracingly. So much worse. The Sleeper Cell had been so close to winning. The line between saving the world and losing it had seldom been drawn so fine.

On the other side of his office wall, Beth had been killed, or made her sacrifice. Gwen was convinced it wasa sacrifice, and had gone home to cry on Rhys' shoulder about another one she couldn't save. Jack sighed at his own cynicism. It would be a sad day indeed when Gwen couldn't find a tear to shed for a life lost, and surely it was only right to feel worse about those she considered innocent. It was hardly her fault Jack had reached the stage where every loss, innocent or otherwise, lay equally heavy on his already overburdened conscience.

Jack shrugged it all away, to the hidden spaces in his mind where such matters lived, then rose from his chair, ignoring the protests of muscles still tension-tight. He would deal with it. He always did. And this time, unlike so often in the past, he had someone to help. Because also on the other side of that wall was the current cure for all of Jack's ills. A smile crept onto his lips and stayed there as he spied Ianto, poised on the frankly disgusting old couch, waiting. Waiting for him. The strain in Jack's muscles began to leach away, replaced by a far more pleasant source of tension. Unless he was terribly mistaken, this was date night.

It occurred to Jack that perhaps he wasn't so different from Gwen after all. He was certainly relying on a night of Ianto's company to chase his own demons back into hiding. Even the prospect raised his spirits. It would, he thought, be entirely inappropriate to whistle as he made his way over.

But Jack loved this stage, he really did. Early days, not quite the beginning with all its uncertainties, but this bit, this particular phase where you stopped being on your best behavior, stopped trying to impress, stopped making any and every effort not to offend. When you trotted out the real you, the one you kept hidden but really, deep down where you lived, wanted to show, and needed the other person to accept if the thing between you was ever to grow legs. And if it went well - which this had so far and showed no signs of disintegrating - you found that you quite liked each other regardless.

The Ianto whom Jack was discovering beneath the surface polish was damned cheeky, with a wicked sense of humor to back it up, taking an almost obscene joy in tripping the Captain up. Which was kind of handy, because the Jack beneath the Captain facade, hell, sometimes he wanted nothing more than to be able to trip, to fall, safe in the knowledge that he had someone he could trust to catch him, patch him up and prop him up so no-one else knew it'd happened.

Given today, indications were good that Ianto liked what he'd found, too. And he'd pushed, Ianto had. Teasing, showing his hand, flaunting the power Jack had given him – and then proving to Jack he could hold it safely. Backing down at a simple throat clearing, saying, if you understood the language, I could have, but I didn't. I won't.

On the down side, it appeared that at some point Ianto had taken steps to ensure that Gwen of all people knew exactly which lines had already been crossed. There might be just a touch of territory marking involved, which Jack really ought to say something about, just on principle. On the other hand, it had been done skillfully, tactfully, involving Gwen rather than ousting her, so on balance Jack thought he could live with it. He might even, just a tiny little bit - not that he'd ever admit it because it was an outdated, quaint little 21st century thing - not totally disapprove. At a low point, and no doubt there'd be plenty of them, Jack might actually hug to himself the knowledge that someone thought he was too good to share.

Jack closed his terminal down, checked his hair in a pocket mirror, brushed a speck of lint – or something less innocuous, but he was going with lint - off his clothes, and sauntered out to join his lover, anticipation buzzing from his toes up. Jack needed to forget today, needed to remember there was better than today.

Jack needed Ianto and today might be the day he admitted it to someone other than himself.

-XXX-

Ianto didn't look up as Jack approached, which wasn't unusual enough to ring any alarm bells. They were tuned to the sound of each other's footsteps; a talent pleasantly honed by hours of naked hide and seek, something which might not be off the cards tonight, if Ianto was agreeable. Though, given the events of the day, Jack wouldn't blame him for wanting to get out of the Hub. A tiny cloud of dust erupted from the couch cushions as Jack dropped into place beside Ianto and flung an arm around the younger man's shoulders.

Ianto's entire body flinched, his head snapping up to reveal a quickly hidden expression of guilt. Jack's brow furrowed, every delayed alarm clamoring. Ianto hadn't just been sitting there letting Jack appreciate him. He'd not known anyone was beside him.

Ianto offered a smile of apology that would have been breathtaking if the eyes above it weren't so clouded. "Sorry," he mumbled. "Miles away."

"I noticed," Jack agreed. He ran a hand lightly along Ianto's thigh, offering a distraction, an opportunity to brush it off and lose the day's miseries in a much more enjoyable pastime. Otherwise things were going to have to get serious, and serious wasn't on Jack's preferred agenda for the evening.

"You're gonna give me a complex if you start finding me this resistible," he added teasingly, fingers tracing a pattern on Ianto's trouser leg which he only later recognised as the text of a Boeshanian endearment.

Ianto gave an exasperated huff of laughter. "Can't have that, can we?" he asked, finally turning to Jack. It was nearly perfect, Jack thought, looking fondly into the face tilted towards his, lips parted in an unvoiced offer. Nearly perfect, except for the tension in the muscles beneath his hands, the painfully contrived smile which hadn't done a thing to lighten the shadows in the pale blue eyes.

Jack sighed, allowing himself a moment's indulgence in those soft lips, the warm embrace, before drawing Ianto into an uncharacteristically sexless hug. He himself could ignore the fallout of today, bury it safely away in the corners of his mind, but Ianto hadn't learnt the knack of it yet, and thank all the gods for that.

"What's wrong, Ianto?" he asked, barking out his own mirthless laugh immediately after. "I mean, what's more wrong than usual?"

"Doesn't matter," Ianto answered, tucking his head into Jack's chest in a move Jack immediately identified as 'hiding.' Regardless of what it was doing to Jack's insides, the gesture was so out of character that he couldn't interpret it as anything other than an invitation to persist.

"Oh, Ianto," Jack murmured. "Nice try, and I mean that in every way possible, but you're usually more convincing than this."

"Stupid," Ianto muttered, his breath ruffling Jack's collar. "Just…stupid. Ignore me and it'll be gone by tomorrow."

"But it's there now." Jack ran a hand through the dark hair, watching it sift through his fingers and settle immediately back into place. "So you should tell me anyway and it might be gone before tomorrow."

Ianto drew back with a sigh, just far enough that they could look at each other's faces without going cross-eyed while still remaining within the circle of Jack's arms. "Considering I'm supposed to be a fearless alien hunter, I appear to have developed an absurd distaste for killing."

Jack exhaled, gustily, something that might have been a laugh but was far too pained. Obviously Ianto expected him to be surprised by the confession, but Jack had never been in any doubt that Ianto's marked preference for the stun gun had nothing to do with Owen's claims about his lack of accuracy, and everything to do about his dislike of having to kill, anything, or anyone, regardless of the threat they posed. Oh, he could do it all right, and process the paperwork afterwards with barely a tremble in his writing hand, but Jack knew he hated it nonetheless.

Ianto gave Jack hope for the whole human race. Gwen did too, of course, just a bit more – loudly. And once the cog closed, Jack much preferred a bit of serenity. Though he'd prefer a less contrived version.

Jack smiled down at the man in his arms, trying not to look too indulgent. "One of the most appealing things about you," he agreed.

Ianto blinked at him. "You already knew?"

Jack pressed a kiss onto Ianto's forehead. "Of course I knew," he confirmed. "Why else would I have taken that shot at the Blowfish the night I got back?"

Ianto shook his head. "I thought you were showing off," he answered, surprised into candor.

Jack grinned. "Busted. But I was also trying to save you having to kill the blowfish."

Ianto gazed at him suspiciously for a moment or two, brow creasing into tiny lines which Jack had to firmly restrain himself from kissing away. "I'm not sure whether I should thank you for being considerate or thump you for sheltering me," Ianto said eventually.

"Thank me," Jack suggested, rubbing a hand across Ianto's neck and frowning at the amount of tension remaining. "But hell, Ianto, do you really think I want you - any of you - to become blasé' about killing? Of course I don't." The smile dropped away from his face. "And it might not have been your bullet that killed Beth. We don't know whose it was."

And they never would. Jack had refused Owen's request to perform an autopsy. He wanted to allow every member of the team to imagine that their bullet wasn't the fatal one. He really didn't know why Owen still argued the point, really. He thought they'd sorted that out after they'd had to kill…..oh…..oh yeah.

Sometimes Jack despaired at his own….thick-ness? Was that even a word? If not, he'd just invented it. On a different level he couldn't help but admire Ianto's diversionary tactics. Well aware of the futility of trying to fob Jack off completely, he'd thrown out a bone in the hope it'd put him off digging for more. And it'd damned near worked.

"Once again, nice try, and much more convincing," Jack said slowly. "But…it's not Beth, is it?"

"It is," Ianto protested, far too quickly, and from the wince that followed he knew it. "Mostly…" Ianto's face dropped into his hands, the sigh of resignation ruffling his hair as it worked its way up around his fingers. "This is a very bad idea," he mumbled. His head rose, looking at Jack with an air of entreaty. "I should go, Jack."

Jack shook his head. "We had a date, remember?" Then frowned. "A movie, wasn't it?"

Ianto sighed. "The last showing started over an hour ago. We might as well just wait for the DVD, don't you think?"

Jack shifted restlessly. Yeah, this happened, too often actually, but it wasn't like Ianto to rub his nose in it when Torchwood interfered with their plans.

"Y'know what?" he said thoughtfully. "Given that you're trying every sort of diversion except the one that might've worked…..I'm thinking not only has this gotta be me, but it's pretty damned big, too…"

Ianto twisted in his arms. "Please, Jack, let it go. I'm just….overtired, I guess. Just let me go home and get some sleep. I'll see you in the morning, yeah?"

That hurt a fair bit more than it should, the assumption that he'd not want to be with Ianto unless there was more than sleep on offer. And he'd thought, he'd really thought, they were getting past that.

Unless it was another diversion. Another good one. Layers of them. Sneaky little….Welshman.

Jack foiled Ianto's attempt to rise by the simple expedient of closing his arms, crushing the young man to him, one hand dropping to circle his waist, the other rising to draw Ianto's head to his shoulder. They'd rested like this countless times, countless nights, but Jack couldn't shake the uneasy feeling that maybe the count was over.

"Tell me, first," he ordered, and regardless of the intimacy of the embrace an order was exactly it was.

"You tried to save her," Ianto muttered, every word chilling even as it sent a puff of warm breath onto Jack's neck. "Beth. And Cerys, too. I remember how hard you tried to save Cerys, and back then, I thought, well I hoped, that maybe…."

Jack remained silent. Within him, every fragment of his earlier anticipation congealed into a lump of dread and adhered itself to his ribs.

"But you didn't," Ianto continued, still into Jack's shoulder, and maybe he was hiding again but Jack was letting him, 'cause he was hiding too. "But I told myself, maybe Cerys was a lapse, a risk you couldn't take again – and I ended up convincing myself, too."

Ianto looked up, traces of despair etching themselves into the corners of his eyes, drawing lines in the fine skin which shouldn't appear for decades yet. Jack wondered whether he'd remembered the man who put the there with fondness or hatred – or at all.

"But today," Ianto continued, "Today you did everything you could for Beth today, as well. Like Cerys. Unlike…"

The hand resting on Ianto's nape froze in the act of clenching and fell away, drifting lingeringly along Ianto's spine as it went, committing every bump and dip to memory.

Ianto sighed shakily, straightened slowly, pushing gently at the enfolding arms until he was clear of Jack's embrace. Jack let one of his dispossessed hands drop to lie between them, in a barely acknowledged hope that Ianto might take it in his own.

Instead, Ianto's hands twisted around each other. Jack watched the pale fingers twine, trying to decipher the exact cause of the weight within his chest. Anger, perhaps. Regret, inevitably. But no, neither, at least not yet. Instead, smoldering guilt. Ianto was holding his own hand, being his own support, because evidently Jack hadn't ever really proved he had someone else to lean on. While doing a fairly substantial amount of leaning himself.

You'd think, given a century to practice, he'd be slightly better at this.

Jack looked down at his own hand, still lying forlornly in the space between them. He'd rather leap at a rogue Weevil than reach across the gap, but he took a steadying breath and did it, laying a palm carefully across pale knuckles.

Hope fluttered. It was hard not to let it have its way, when Jack couldn't tell whether the trembling came from Ianto's fist, or the hand he'd wrapped around it. But if this was to end, this budding thing which had so much promise, then it was better it end now. Better to have the 'might have beens' than to contend with the long slow and bitter realization that it never could be.

"You might as well finish," Jack prompted. "Of course, telling me might smash this whole little shooting match we've got going…but whatever it is, whatever you're trying to find an excuse for, I'd rather hear it now, Ianto, than have it thrown back at me when I've got less armor to catch it on."

Brave words. Cold face. Jack wasn't too bad at masks himself. Ianto's had slipped big time, though, or been torn away. Something Jack had always wanted to do and now might never forgive himself for.

"Two women, possessed," Ianto began. His voice echoed oddly across the Hub, words and tone strongly reminiscent of something Bardic. And for all that Jack damn nearly corrected him. The third woman hovered in the air between them, as perhaps she always had, always would.

"One, today," Ianto continued, "Complete with what looked very much like a Cybernetic arm. And you risked us; you risked the world, to save her. To save them."

But not Her said the subtext. You could hear subtext, if you tried. If you needed to badly enough. If it was bad enough.

"The world," Jack repeated, rejected, shaking his head. "That's rich. How do you…?"

Ianto raised a hand, summoning silence. His face was strangely set. Determined to speak, for all that he'd insisted he didn't want to explain. Following orders, Jack realised. The good lieutenant, obeying a distasteful command. Jack could have laughed if it didn't hurt so bloody much. Whatever came next, he'd brought it on himself and he hoped it would keep him warm tonight.

"The thing inside Cerys," Ianto said stonily, "had already driven her to kill before we got her into the Hub. And the force controlling Beth already accounted for two that we knew about before we brought her in."

The words repeated endlessly inside Jack's mind. Possessed. Driven. Controlled. Finally, after all this time, Jack understood why Ianto had never given up. In his mind, Lisa hadn't changed, she was possessed. Imprisoned, not occupied. It explained things Jack had never asked about – but should have.

Ianto's head drooped, his eyes fixed on their hands, now entwined on his knee.

"But when they got out of the Hub, you still did everything you could to bring them back unharmed, but….." the flood slowed to a trickle. "You set Myfanwy on Lisa rather than let her get out of outside."

She might have heard her name uttered, in the intonation she likely loved as much as Jack did. As Myfanwy called again, giving voice to ancient regrets, emphasizing new ones, Ianto's hands twitched within Jack's. Jack understood the shudder this time, though he couldn't remember exactly when it had begun. Tonight, or that night? Memories smudged across the canvas of his mind, images of the leathery avian taking fish from Ianto's hand, back at the beginning. Try as he might, Jack couldn't pick exactly when she'd learned to eat from a bucket instead. Though he suspected he knew, now. He wished he'd noticed, then.

Jack's thumb ran idly over Ianto's knuckles. It was comforting to them both that neither pulled away. Small comfort. Brief comfort. It wasn't over yet, but it might be, soon. And again, better now than later. "And the point is?" Jack prompted woodenly.

"I keep asking myself," Ianto replied, his voice equally flat, all emotion carefully quashed. "Why them, not her? What made them worth your compassion and not…..not Lisa? And I can't come up with anything, except…"

Ianto paused at that, and raised his head, facing Jack squarely for the first time that evening. Only proper, because every warrior knew that when it came to the killing blow, a worthy opponent deserved to be looked in the eyes when you did it. "All I come up with is…...because Gwen asked."

Everything blurred, just for a moment, and Jack found himself slumped on the couch, hand entwined around nothing, and the sound of the cog alarm echoing in his ears.

Of course I won't leave it like that. Part 2 tentatively titled 'Walk Right Back' is in the works. Thank you for reading.