Jack, figuring the brunch stoppage was most likely an annoyed neighbor, was all set with a tale about a spider which refused to die being the cause of all the late night racket. What he was less prepared to open the door to was a short, grinning blond, greeting him with "Morning, big boy!" and a snog.

For a moment, Jack flailed helplessly, stunned to inaction before pushing away from his ex. "What the fuck are you thinking?" Jack sputtered.

"What?" John said, leaning against the door jamb. "You said you were taking the morning off. Just figured you might be bored and looking for something to…." John's gaze wandered over to the table in Jack's kitchenette where an attractive, albeit gobsmacked, young man sat. "Ah, found something to do, I see. Well…"

"Well what?" Jack growled.

"Well, as you said the night we met, two's company, but the more the merrier, huh?" John smirked.

"Not in this case," Jack said flatly.

John's brow arched. "No? Getting selfish in our old age, are we? Can he talk? Not that he needs to with a mouth like that, but doesn't he get a say?"

Jack slammed a hand against the wall, barring John from stepping into the flat.

"He can talk," Ianto said quietly behind Jack. "He can also see, hear, and walk. Let me by, Jack."

"Ianto, no, just let me -"

"I said let me by," Ianto said firmly.

"Please, Ianto -"

"Now."

Against every fibre of his being, Jack lowered his arm and let Ianto walk out of his flat, knowing that to refuse would only make things even worse. "Fuck," Jack whispered, watching Ianto walk down the corridor with more dignity than anyone else in that situation could have mustered. Jack grabbed John's collar and yanked him into the room. "You leave this apartment before I get back and what happened to that prisoner on Metebelis IV will look like a spa treatment. Clear?" he snarled, slamming the door behind him and running down the hall, just missing the elevator taking Ianto down to the lobby. Jack swore and burst through the door into the stairwell, pelting down the stairs and wishing he could just jump to the bottom without breaking his neck and having to wait to revive.

"Ianto!" Jack called, running out of the complex's courtyard just as Ianto reached the pavement. "Wait! Please wait!"

Ianto stopped but didn't turn.

"Ianto, please let me -"

"Was that one of your 'official secrets'? Was that what you meant by that?" Ianto snapped.

Jack shook his head. "No. That's not it at all. John is my ex – for a reason. He's a nutcase and -"

"Crazy ex? That's not very original."

"Well, he is. Particularly when it comes to having a sense of boundary. I am not with him, haven't been for years."

"And what he implied about you propositioning a three-way…?"

Jack sighed. "Yeah, that's how I met him. It was a long time ago. I was looking for something very different then."

Ianto didn't say anything for a long while. "And what are you looking for now, Jack?"

Jack reached out and put a hand on Ianto's arm. "Ianto… I haven't wanted to rush this because it's early still, but… I want to build something. Wild oats are fine, but I want to find something less transitory. And I know that can't happen overnight or be artificially cultivated."

Again, it was a long time before Ianto responded, and Jack was beginning to worry that if John hadn't run him off, talking of making things official too soon might.

"Jack, I'm going to say this once," Ianto said at length. "I understand that your work means you can't tell me everything. And I agree, its early days and I wouldn't want to rush this either. So, I don't expect you to tell me everything at once. But I need to be able to trust you, Jack. This isn't exactly my first relationship, either, and my last relationship didn't end well. There was a lot of manipulation and destructiveness - she wasn't the same woman I fell in love with by the end. Do you understand what I'm saying, Jack?"

"Yes. I do," Jack said. "And if something comes up that I can tell you about, I will. Ianto, I apologize for John showing up like that. Please, Ianto… don't let my past derail our future."

Ianto thought about that before sighing deeply. "I guess I can't blame you for someone else's poor behaviour. And I know enough about how an ex can hurt people you care about."

"John is nothing but poor behaviour," Jack grumbled. "I know I can't quite control him, but I can promise you I have no romantic or sexual interaction with him, whatsoever."

"Jack?"

"Yes?"

"Does that offer to spend the afternoon together still stand?"

Jack felt like he might fall over with relief and threw his arms around Ianto tightly. "You better believe it does! Uh… well, as soon as I have a strong word about boundaries with the jerk I left in my flat."

"Just one thing, Jack."

"Yeah?"

"Skip the apology flowers just this once? My flat is going to look like a florist's."

Jack laughed and kissed Ianto's cheek. "Ok. Just this once," he said, leading Ianto back up to his flat.

"You really have to work with him?" Ianto asked when Jack got up to put GoldenEye away and pop in Tomorrow Never Dies.

"Not very frequently; luckily he travels most of the time. But, unluckily, we are still essentially on the same… assignment, as it were. It's also not so lucky that we happened to be just about the only people on this planet with our particular expertise."

"Ex-partner and obnoxious colleague all in one. I shouldn't envy your luck."

"I don't know," Jack said, sitting back down and wrapping his arm around Ianto. "There's at least one piece of good luck I've had."

"Yeah, too me," Ianto smiled, snuggling against Jack.