Same Ianto, Different Jack
Chapter 20
by Gracefultree
A/N: Here's the next installment of the story, where Ianto finds himself in yet another new universe. Should I continue in this universe for a while? The next chapter isn't written yet, and I'm open to suggestions. Warnings for conversations about sex... (Hey, this is TW, for God's sake. ;-) Enjoy!
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Ianto fell to his hands and knees into the familiar Cell 27 of Torchwood Three when the Rift dropped him after what seemed like weeks of torture, much worse than the first time. Well, the second time. He still didn't remember the first trip through the Rift that brought him to New Jack's universe. He climbed to his feet and dusted off his jeans. No suit for him this time, since he'd been walking home from his job at the coffee shop when it took him. He hadn't even had any warning from his vortex manipulator. Speaking of the future tech, it was vibrating madly. He flipped it open and squinted at the display. There was another vortex manipulator within 100 meters of him. Could it be Jack?
Ianto shrugged off his carryall and put it in the corner of the cell, not wanting to be burdened by the extra weight. He still had a small gun in an ankle holster he always wore, but he probably wouldn't need it, being home. He hoped. He stepped into the hallway.
Jack appeared at the other end of the hall, clearly coming from the main Hub. He had his Webley drawn and pointing in Ianto's direction. "Back in the cell!" he barked as he walked forward.
Ianto raised his hands above his head. "It's ok, Jack. I'm back. The Rift brought me back," he said.
"Into the cell!" Jack shouted, louder. Ianto wondered how much time it had been since they'd seen each other, that Jack didn't recognize his voice. He knew it was too dark to properly see his features, even for Jack's advanced eyesight, so he walked to the middle of the cell and stood so the light could touch his face. Jack arrived at the cell, his gun unwavering as it pointed at Ianto's face. Jack blinked. His face contorted in horror. "On the floor! Now!" he shouted, cocking his gun.
"Jack, it's ok, I'm —"
"ON THE FLOOR!"
Ianto dropped to the floor. Jack didn't know him. Jack thought he was a threat. Shit, this wasn't good. It clearly wasn't his own universe, either. He heard footsteps in the corridor, the heels indicating it was a woman. Gwen or Tosh, probably. They'd be able to help calm Jack down. Ianto covered his head with his hands as he knew was expected.
"Jack?" a woman asked. Ianto started. It was a voice he never expected to hear again. It was a voice he loved. It was —
"Lisa?" Ianto asked, raising his head to meet the eyes of his long-dead girlfriend. Only she wasn't dead. She was very much alive, and clinging to Jack's arm.
"Ianto?" she whispered, her voice full of awe and something else. Fear, he identified. Why would she be afraid of him? Ianto got to his knees to look at them, not caring about Not His Jack's gun, still covering him.
"Lisa, you're alive!" he exclaimed before he could stop himself.
Not His Jack slammed his hand on the emergency button on the wall next to the cell and the perspex wall closed between Ianto and the two of them. He examined their body language. New Lisa was now curled in the crook of one of Not His Jack's arms, both her arms around his middle, staring at Ianto even as she burrowed into Not His Jack's embrace. Not His Jack's hand that wasn't occupied with his gun squeezed her hip reassuringly. An intimate gesture, it told Ianto all he needed to know. He wasn't in his own universe. In this one, Jack and Lisa were lovers. Which meant… what? What happened to him?
Suddenly, Not His Tosh's voice came through the intercom.
"He's armed. And he's got a bag full of alien technology."
"But why would he look like that?" New Lisa demanded of Not His Jack. "He looks whole! You burned the body! You told me!"
"That's not your Ianto, Lisa," Not His Jack said softly. "It's an alien impostor that just wants to rattle us." He holstered his gun and reached up to activate the comms in his ears. "Owen, gas the cell."
Ianto jumped to his feet and pounded on the glass wall. "Jack! Don't do this! I love you! Please, let me explain —"
The look of confusion on Not His Jack's face and hurt on New Lisa's was the last thing Ianto remembered as Not His Owen filled the cell with a sleeping gas that knocked him out.
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Icy water splashing on his face woke Ianto to the reality that he was cuffed to a chair in the interrogation room. He wore light blue hospital scrubs, and nothing else. His vortex manipulator was gone. His carryall was gone, and with it his diary and everything else New Jack gave him before he left. Before the Rift took him.
New New Jack sat in front of him, scowling. No, New Lisa's Jack, Ianto corrected himself in his head. Other than that, they were alone, though he assumed they were being recorded and watched. On the table was a closed file folder.
"We'll start with the easy questions," New Lisa's Jack said. "Who are you?"
"Ianto Jones," Ianto answered. "Born August 19, 1983. I worked at Torchwood One in London for two years before the Battle of Canary Wharf. Then I got a job at Torchwood Three."
"How did you get here?"
"The Rift brought me. This would appear to be the third universe I've visited since I left home."
"You've been to others?" Ianto nodded. "How can you tell you're universe-hopping?"
"There are a lot of similarities to my own home universe, but there are major differences, too."
"Such as?" New Lisa's Jack asked, leaning forward.
"In the world I just came from, Torchwood was a television show, and there were actors playing us. The DVDs were in my bag, which I assume you have. You were played by someone named John Barrowman. They go through 2008, though, so you might not want to watch too far ahead, depending on what the date is here."
"And the one before that?"
"I'd died in the Battle and never come to Cardiff. You were with Gwen."
New Lisa's Jack growled, opening the folder. He placed a piece of paper in front of Ianto. "Explain this."
Ianto glanced down. On the paper was what appeared to be a letter in an alien language of some kind. "It's a letter, I think," Ianto said. "I can't read it."
"And yet you had it in your bag," New Lisa's Jack accused. "Why would you have a letter in your bag that you don't understand?"
"Was it the one addressed to 'Ianto's Jack'?" Ianto asked after a moment of thought. "The one I kept in my diary? I never opened it, since it wasn't for me."
"Where did you get it?"
"New Jack gave it to me," Ianto answered.
"New Jack?"
"The second you I met when the Rift spit me out into his universe. The first one after the Rift took me."
"The one where I was with Gwen?"
"Yes."
New Lisa's Jack sighed and ran his fingers through his hair in a gesture Ianto knew well that screamed frustration. "How do you expect me to believe all this?"
"I could tell you something about yourself, that only you would know, that one of the other you's told me. I could tell you what's happened in the past."
"You could tell me the future," the captain suggested, his voice dropping to a seductive purr that sent a shiver of excitement and arousal down Ianto's spine.
"Too many spoilers," Ianto answered, though he couldn't help but think of any number of possibilities where Lisa and Jack were both a part of his life. If he wasn't careful, he'd distract himself from the serious business of being interrogated by a Jack that didn't know him and thought of him as a threat. He decided to stick to non-sexual topics, despite the heat New Lisa's Jack was projecting across the small table. And the pheromones. He resolved not to succumb to them until he had secured his safety.
God, he was sick if he was already thinking of sex with an alternate version of his lover and his dead girlfriend. Definitely the influence of being around so many Jacks.
"As a former Time Agent, you'd know that," Ianto added. "Temporal mechanics and time travel combined with Rift jumping and alternate universes could create a paradox here. I might not know much about time travel, but I know enough to prevent disaster. I hope."
New Lisa's Jack looked stunned, his mouth hanging open. Finally, he closed his mouth and eyes, taking a deep breath and realigning his thinking and the way he was going to work the interrogation. "Care to explain this?" He held up Ianto's vortex manipulator. "I know you're not a Time Agent."
"Jim Hurt gave it to New Jack for me," Ianto answered promptly. At New Lisa's Jack's look of confusion, he added, "He also went by John Hart. You know, your old Time Agency partner. The one with gorgeous cheekbones and a sadistic streak a mile wide that liked to be chained up and whipped when he got to the bedroom. The guy you were trapped in a two-week time-loop for five years with."
New Lisa's Jack stood up so quickly he knocked over his chair, anger now warring with confusion on his face. "How do you know him?" he demanded, advancing on Ianto menacingly. "Does he come to Cardiff?"
"He showed up in Cardiff after you got back from —" Ianto broke off. "Shit, what's the date? I can't tell you if it's in your future."
"December 21, 2007."
"Oh," Ianto whispered, looking away. "I, um, I can't tell you anything about him, then." He looked up, a frown creasing his face. "I'm sorry."
Suddenly, New Lisa's Owen's voice spoke over the intercom. "Jack? Would you come up here please? Something to show you."
New Lisa's Jack gathered his papers and stood. "Don't go anywhere," he ordered, pointing at Ianto to emphasize his point. The vortex manipulator disappeared into a trouser pocket.
"Still cuffed to the chair, sir," Ianto replied with a smirk. "Just how you like me," he added, unable to keep the flirtation from his voice. New Lisa's Jack looked at him oddly, calculatingly, though his eyes took a long look at his body and his chest, outlined by the wet scrubs. Ianto started becoming aroused at the scrutiny. New Lisa's Jack noticed, of course. Hospital scrubs didn't hide much, especially when one was cuffed to a chair.
"You were lovers with that other me from your universe?" he asked, his eyes locked on Ianto.
"Yes." He gave New Lisa's Jack one of his come-hither looks that His Jack particularly liked. "I seduced New Jack away from New Gwen," he added, licking his lips. "He couldn't resist me for very long. I'll sleep with you, too, if you want."
"Huh," New Lisa's Jack said, tilting his head speculatively. Then he shook his head, turned on his heel, and left Ianto alone and cold and wet in the interrogation room while he went to meet with New Lisa's Owen.
An hour after New Lisa's Jack left, New Lisa herself appeared, carrying a tray that held a mug of something hot and a sandwich. They looked at each other for a moment before she placed the tray on the table in front of him.
"Thank you," he said softly. He tried smiling at her. She smiled back. He'd missed her smile. "Could you — I suppose you can't release my hands?"
"No. I'm sorry." She paused, then went around the table to get Her Jack's chair and sit next to Ianto. She picked up the sandwich and offered it to him. He resigned himself to being fed. The only other time something like that happened between them was when he had the flu their first winter together, when she'd tried to spoon soup into his mouth, getting much of it on his chest because her hands were shaking. He took a bite and chewed carefully. He swallowed.
"You remembered that I don't like pickles," he said softly, feeling the beginnings of tears in his eyes. It had been so long since he'd been able to talk to her. It hurt, having her here, and yet, it was also exhilarating at the same time. New Lisa…
"Except with burgers," she answered, just as softly. "You insisted on having them on your burgers. I never understood it."
"Burgers aren't complete without pickles," he explained.
Quietly, she started crying. "That's what he always used to say," she whispered after a long time. She offered him another bite, which he took. "You look just like him. You sound like him."
"You look and sound like my Lisa," he replied. "But she died." He paused. "Like I died here?"
She nodded, wiping at her tears. "Three months ago, for the second time."
Ianto closed his eyes tightly, remembering one of the visions the Rift showed him, one of the lives he'd lived. The pain made his heart ache for them both. "I was half converted and you brought me here," he murmured. "You hid me from Jack. When Tanizaki came, I killed him and tried to take over the base. Jack had to kill me to stop me from getting away."
She looked up suddenly. "How do you know that?"
"It's what happened to you in my universe. I dragged you from the wreckage of the Tower."
"You were so heavy…" she added.
"We were both screaming…"
"There was fire everywhere…"
"I could smell people burning…"
"I wanted nothing more than to save you…"
"Did you sleep with Jack to get the job? Or to distract him from finding me?" Ianto asked as gently as he could. "Because that's what I did," he explained when she didn't answer. "I told myself I would do anything to save you, even that. Only, I forgot that sex isn't just sex for me. I started having feelings for him. I was so conflicted between the two of you. I wanted to save you, but I didn't want to hurt him, either, and I was doing it."
New Lisa burst into loud sobs.
"I lost both of you that night," Ianto finished. He could feel the tears on his own cheeks. "I failed both of you, and I hated myself." He paused. "I missed you so much!"
New Lisa moved quickly, reaching behind him to undo the handcuffs. He didn't hesitate to enfold her in a hug. Somehow, they slipped off the chairs onto the floor and just held each other, crying, whispering little nothings into each other's ears. When she could speak again, New Lisa wiped her eyes, ruining her makeup even more than it already was.
"I told myself that you would understand that I was sleeping with him," she said in a choked voice. "That you'd do the same thing for me, but I didn't really believe it."
"Believe it, darling. I did it. I wanted you back so desperately and I didn't know what else to do."
"How did you — How did you get through it? Losing me a second time, I mean."
"Jack helped. After my suspension he took me back, accepted me onto the team. A few months later we ended up in bed again. It's been a long road since then."
"How long? Can you tell me?"
"I was with him for another year, chronologically, until the Rift took me. It's been around a year and a half since then for me. I don't know how long it's been for him back where I'm from. I've meted about time a little bit between universes."
"You said in the cell —" she broke off.
"I said I loved him," Ianto supplied. "I do. I thought you would want me to be happy, that you wouldn't mind, that you wouldn't want me to mourn you forever."
"I wouldn't. I don't. But, it's just so strange, seeing you again. It hasn't even been that long since you've been gone."
"I know," he replied, hugging her tighter and kissing her cheek. She looked at him through her eyelashes. He knew that look. He bent to kiss her lips.
Ianto wasn't sure what he expected, kissing New Lisa. Passion, maybe. Sadness. Need and hunger for someone thought dead. He didn't expect it to be so soft, so tentative. She was the first woman he'd kissed in over two years, since it'd been before His Jack left with the Doctor that they last had a threeway that involved a woman. He felt his desire rising, but he tamped it down. Now wasn't the time to get carried away. He had Her Jack to convince he wasn't an alien (or a Cyberman) trying to destroy his team.
"You kiss like him, too," New Lisa said, touching his cheek in that way of hers that conveyed both caring and passion at once. He closed his eyes at the pain of seeing her again when he thought her long lost to him.
Ianto paused, thinking. If it's mid-December, the plane from 1953 hasn't come through the Rift yet, which means… Jack and I had been sleeping together again for about a month, but we were bringing others into bed, too, and he was going out on his own a lot… Is that what's happening for them? My Lisa wouldn't have put up with that kind of thing with me, but this is Jack, we're talking about. Hell, he convinced me to do it, and I wouldn't have thought I'd ever do it, either, so… Maybe New Lisa's going through the same thing I went through? Maybe she's still mourning me and feeling lonely and scared?
"Are you still sleeping with him?" he asked, opening his eyes to meet hers. "Or sleeping with him again?"
Lisa turned her face away, and he could feel the heat of her blushes. "Sort of. It's an open thing. We haven't really talked about it." She looked back to him, took his face. "And it hasn't been going on for very long. But you're here now. We could be together again!"
"Together again," Ianto mused. "But what about Jack?"
"It was you I wanted. I miss you all the time."
"Lisa…"
"She still calls me 'Ianto' in bed, sometimes," New Lisa's Jack said from the far side of the room, startling both of them. "Not that I mind, much. I understand loss." He walked over slowly, his face unreadable. "Our tests confirm that you're Ianto Jones," he said. "Same DNA, same everything. No Cyber-technology at all. 100% human. And you're covered in residual Rift energy, supporting your story of how you got here."
Ianto scrambled to his feet, bringing New Lisa up with him. Instead of clinging to Her Jack, as she'd done in the corridor downstairs, she clung to Ianto, fitting into the crook of his arm perfectly, like he remembered. He took a deep breath, smelling her perfume for the first time in years. Underneath it, however, was a lingering scent of Her Jack, indicating it probably hadn't been too long since their last shag, though she'd had a shower. Jack's pheromones tended to stick to his lovers long past the time one would expect them to.
"What are you going to do with me?" Ianto asked, stiffening his shoulders and meeting the other man's eyes directly.
"Well," New Lisa's Jack drawled, giving the two of them a leer.
"No," New Lisa protested. She grabbed Ianto tightly. "I'm not sharing him!"
"Lisa…" both men said at the same time.
She looked from one to the other of them. "What? You're not —"
"It's not that easy, darling. I'm a different man than the one you knew," Ianto said, watching Her Jack warily. He knew what that look in his eye meant. He turned back to her. "I have different experiences, different expectations for my life. I still love you, but you've been dead for two years. I've mourned you. I've let you go and moved on. I'm in love with My Jack, now. And he loves me." He paused. "And with all the Rift-hopping I've been doing, it's an even more confusing mess, what with New Jack, and now you're here, alive, but you're also me, kind of, since we did the same things in our own worlds…"
"I don't understand," she whispered, searching his face as if it would tell her the answers. "Don't you want to be with me?"
"I need to get back to My Jack," Ianto explained. "I'm — I haven't even processed that you're alive, that I can start loving you again, and I love him so much, and I came to love New Jack while I was with him…"
"Ianto," New Lisa said helplessly, sadly. She looked to Her Jack for an idea of what to do or say.
"Sorry to disappoint, kiddo, but I don't do love," Her Jack said. He stepped over and gave Ianto a much more thorough once-over now that he saw Ianto with New Lisa. "Sex, though, that I can do." He raised his hand to touch Ianto's jaw, staring into his eyes. He ran his thumb along the slight stubble on Ianto's cheek. "Yes, I could definitely have sex with you," he purred, igniting Ianto's libido once again. "You're gorgeous."
"If you three could stop your little domestic for just a few minutes, there's a small airplane coming through the Rift," New Lisa's Owen said through the intercom, sounding sarcastic and completely disgusted at the same time. "Tosh's diverted it to a private airport so we can meet it. Preliminary scans indicate that it's old enough that it doesn't have the standard transponder signals, so we don't have any more info than that."
New Lisa's Jack sighed and turned towards the exit of the room, running his fingers along Ianto's cheek as he dropped his hand. "Lisa, you and Tosh stay here and monitor things while the rest of us deal with it. Owen, Gwen, pack your kit and meet me at the SUV! You," he added, pointing at Ianto, "Make yourself useful and write up your job description. You're working for me, now, unless you want to live your life in our cells. Got it?"
"I'll get right on it, sir. Can I have my clothing back?" Ianto asked, giving New Lisa a squeeze and letting her go, already moving to do what Her Jack said.
"Lisa will sort it. Don't expect any of your other stuff."
"Of course not," Ianto replied, taking the hand New Lisa offered him as they climbed the stairs out of the interrogation room after the captain.
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"You really worked here, didn't you?" New Lisa's Tosh asked as she added an account for Ianto to their database. "You seem to know where everything is. I'm Tosh."
Ianto, now dressed in his jeans and t-shirt, smiled at her. "It's good to meet you again, Tosh," he said. "You're the third Tosh I've met, actually."
"Really?"
"I'm sure you heard Jack asking me questions," he answered. "I've been Rift-hopping through various universes trying to get home." He let her scan his fingerprints, palm-prints, and retina for the computer access.
"And you're from the future," she said, slightly awed.
"A few years. Nothing to write home about."
"What were you saying about a Time Agency?" New Lisa asked, coming over with three coffees on a tray. Ianto accepted his with a smile of thanks. "You called Jack a 'former Time Agent'. What's that?"
"Sorry. Can't say anything about it," Ianto answered, blowing on the drink to cool it slightly before taking a sip. He grimaced. "I'll take over the coffee-making, if you don't mind," he said to her. "It's one of my usual duties here."
"Please! I was never half as good as you."
"You were getting better," Ianto protested. "I'll start teaching you again, if you'd like," he offered. "Jack, on the other hand, is a lost cause. The man can't even figure out how to grind the beans correctly, and I've spent hours trying to teach him!"
New Lisa's Tosh suppressed a giggle. "I like you already," she said, before turning back to her computer screens.
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"This is home," New Lisa said, unlocking the front door to her flat and leading Ianto inside. He was amused to note that it was the exact same flat in the exact same building that he'd rented when he moved back to Cardiff after Torchwood Tower fell. He looked around the sitting room, finding it much the same as he'd had his, though the details were all her. The colors were her palate, as well, earthy rather than jewel tones. "You might recognize some of the furniture. I brought it all from our flat."
Ianto ran his fingers along the mantle, brushing at the dust that had accumulated. "I'll give the place a good cleaning in the morning," he said.
"You never could stand dust," she said with a laugh. His lips twitched. "I saved your clothes, you know. There's a few suits, some casual clothes. I never got around to getting rid of them. I thought I could save you, and it hasn't been that long since…"
"Yeah, I saved yours, too. Came in handy, once. I got zapped by something and turned into a woman. Strangest week of my life, let me tell you."
"Only at Torchwood," she said with a real laugh.
"Only at Torchwood," he echoed. "Jack was in ecstasy over the whole thing. Kept trying to seduce me at work." He picked up a picture of the two of them that he'd had in the basement room where he'd kept the Cyberman he thought was still his girlfriend. "But you probably don't want to hear about that."
"You really do love him. I can hear it in your voice." She paused. "You used to talk about me like that."
He looked back at her with a raised eyebrow. She continued.
"I don't love him. He's fun, he's exciting, he's good in bed, but he's not you."
"It was different for me. Us both being blokes. There wasn't as much to compare. Between the two of you, I mean."
"And you were ok with that? I didn't know you were even curious."
"I wasn't. Well, not enough to do anything. And it's not men. It's him. I've been with other guys at this point, but it's only because he's been there. It's him I'm attracted to. It's him I care about. The others, that was just his way of keeping his distance from me after I betrayed him, and I went along with it because I wanted him. Simple as that."
"So you didn't go seek out other guys just to try it?"
"No. He'd bring them over. I'd go along with it."
"It doesn't sound very fun," she commented.
Ianto sighed. "No, I suppose it wasn't. But we got through it, and it'd been just the two of us for a while before the Rift took me."
"You miss him," she said.
"I do. A lot."
"Jack's suggested threeways," New Lisa blurted. "With both men and women. I don't do it. I — It's too painful to think about."
"So he goes out on the pull on his own, then?"
"Yes. I don't like it much, but given what I did, I should have expected it, I suppose. It's not like me and him are in a relationship," she muttered bitterly. "I'm lucky he's even willing to be with me again as it is."
Ianto hugged her. "I'm sorry it's so hard."
"I don't like women!" she added vehemently. "He gets all tetchy when I tell him that. Not everyone is able to have sex with everyone else."
"It's a hard concept for him to understand," Ianto murmured.
They sat in silence for a long time.
"I love two Jacks," Ianto said. "They're such different men, even though they're the same, too. I could love you and your Jack, if we wanted it to go that way."
"Not just me?" she asked.
"New Jack taught me that it's ok to love more than one person at a time. He taught me to live it and believe it. Love grows when you spread it around. By loving both of them, I love each of them more than I would have otherwise. Do you understand what I'm trying to say?"
"You couldn't be faithful to me."
"Not anymore. Not with a version of Jack around. I've changed too much." He sighed and took her hand. "I'm sorry. If he weren't here…"
Silence stretched again, and Ianto willed himself quiet, knowing he was far more able to adapt to this kind of situation than New Lisa. He stroked his thumb over the back of her hand in the way she used to like when she was upset. Finally, she pulled her hand free and went to the kitchen, returning with two glasses of amber liquid.
"It's scotch," she said, handing him one of the glasses. "Jack left it here last week. I know you didn't used to like it, but…"
"I like it now. My Jack helped me develop a taste for it." They clinked glasses. "This is good. One of his more expensive bottles, I think."
She smiled slightly. "Yeah."
The silence as they sipped their drinks was more companionable than the last one had been.
They ordered in, an Indian curry Ianto especially liked that New Lisa had developed a taste for when she sat with the Cyberman-Ianto in the basement of the Hub because he liked the smell. Talk started flowing more freely after that, remembering shared experiences, comparing differences, and catching up on each other's lives. It was almost like he had His Lisa back, though Ianto remembered to keep them separate in his head. It was becoming a habit, he realized, one that he needed to keep up if he was going to stay sane as he jumped between universes.
Scotch flowed just as freely as the talk, and they were both more than tipsy when Ianto suggested bed. New Lisa giggled, then, launching herself at him, and they spent a pleasurable hour making out on the sofa before Ianto called a halt. He didn't want them having sex for the first time when drunk, he told her, and she sighed dramatically, complaining that he was always such a gentleman, and wouldn't he just fuck her already, though a minute later she admitted she wasn't ready for sex, either.
They got ready for bed next to each other in the tiny bathroom, everything seeming remarkably normal to Ianto, New Lisa supplying a spare toothbrush and offering a disposable razor she'd gotten for Hew Jack that he'd never used, so Ianto could shave in the morning. They made out for another forty minutes once in bed, wrapped in each other's arms, and if New Lisa came from the friction of Ianto's leg between her thighs, neither mentioned it, nor did they mention Ianto's quick stop in the loo immediately afterwards.
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The flat's front door hinges creaking woke Ianto from a fitful sleep. In his arms, New Lisa shifted but didn't wake. He listened to the darkness, hearing the unmistakable sounds of New Lisa's Jack taking off his shoes and coat, then making his way towards the bedroom. He paused in the doorway, no doubt taking stock of the situation, seeing New Lisa curled against Ianto comfortably, but also seeing that both were clothed. Ianto listened as New Lisa's Jack stripped, hearing the difference as each piece of clothing was removed and thrown in a pile on the floor in the corner by the door. His Jack liked the other corner, a small part of his brain remembered, the one farther from the bed.
New Lisa's Jack padded around the bed to Ianto's side because New Lisa was all the way on the edge on her side, with Ianto somewhere in the middle of the bed so he could hold her, meaning that the only room left was behind Ianto. New Lisa's Jack lifted the sheet to crawl in next to him, settling down with an audible sigh. He put an arm around Ianto and snuggled close, making Ianto realize that he'd kept his boxers on, though his chest was bare. Ianto smiled at the obvious regard for them New Lisa's Jack was showing. He could tell that something had shifted for New Lisa's Jack, just from the way the man moved. He was more relaxed, his footfalls lighter, and not just because he was trying to be quiet and not wake New Lisa or Ianto. He kissed Ianto's shoulder and sighed again.
"He's a lucky man, your Jack," New Lisa's Jack whispered in the dark. He stroked Ianto's arm. "I wonder how long I'll have you before I have to let you go." He paused and kissed Ianto's shoulder again before laying his arm alongside Ianto's so that his hand rested on New Lisa's thigh slightly behind and below where Ianto's hand rested on her stomach. "If you're here long enough, maybe I can learn to love you after all, like the other Jacks did."
New Lisa's Jack fell asleep as Ianto was still contemplating that statement, wondering what had happened to so change New Lisa's Jack's mind about him. There was a huge difference between just having sex with someone and actually loving them. That New Lisa's Jack wanted that… Ianto wasn't sure what to make of it. He yawned, slipping into sleep still thinking about the problem and praying that New Lisa's Jack hadn't read his diary, though he wouldn't put it past him.