AN- Thank you for all the positive reviews! Okay, update schedule, going to try for once a week hopefully but as a university student I obviously have to prioritise.

TW- mentions of suicide

Chapter 2- The Gone

Returning to Cardiff shouldn't have been an option. All Jack wanted to do was run away, across the galaxy as far as he could. Except he didnt even have his damned Vortex manipulator.

It had been months. He hadn't gone to Ianto's funeral, not after his sister's reaction to Gwen. He'd holed up outside the Powell estate in London for a bit, craving the familiar setting of a place where another friend had spent her life. Of course, Rose was gone now too, but at least she wasn't dead.

So why now was he stood on top of the Psychology Tower of Cardiff University, staring down at the students littering Park Place below. Maybe it was the deep gnawing desire to be able to leap from the building and fall and finally join Ianto again.

"Jesus I forgot how tall this building is. It's bloody freezing up here." A man's voice said wryly behind him. "You'd think after being dead for a year the cold wouldn't effect me but nope."

Jack spun. The figure that stood behind him was too skinny, sickly looking with a shock of limp dark hair, but gleaming emerald eyes. "Don't do drugs. God I don't know how Siobhan put up with me looking like this." He laughed. "Patience of a saint that woman. Anyway, doubt she's why I'm here. The universe wants to look after you Captain Jack Harkness, and for some reason they sent me. Penance probably."

"Who the hell are you!?" Jack exclaimed, circling the man.

"Daniel Ravenwood. I died of a drug overdose last year, left behind my boy and my wife. Met her on this spot actually. Snuck up here to chain smoke in peace, and there she was, stood right where you were standing. She was going to jump see, last year of university and seriously depressed- just broken up with her fiancé. I made some sly comment she was too hot to jump without even seeing her face, and she was so shocked she fell backwards and cracked her head open." He laughed.

"I didn't ask for your life story."

"But you needed to hear it. See me, they send me up places like this to help people like I did her. And from the looks of things, you need me mate." Daniel advanced on Jack slowly, arm held out as if to shake. Jack dodged him, and fled for the stairs. The man sighed, and faded away, leaving the roof empty and barren.

Jack found himself in Ianto's old flat, sat on the sofa surrounded by the faint smell and strong memory of Ianto. He couldn't bare to box it up like he had others over the years, to be cold and clinical and move on. He'd tried, dear god he'd tried, but he couldn't just Ianto go. Like he couldn't let the Doctor go or Rose go.

"If letting go was easy I wouldn't be here still." Daniel's voice came from behind him, making him jump.

"So what, you're stalking me now?" Jack pointed the Webley at the man, who raised his eyebrows.

"You realise I'm not exactly corporeal right? Shooting me won't work, and I'm dead anyways." The man took a instinctive pace away. "I'm not stalking you… If I was that would be a stupid waste of an afterlife." He suddenly strode forward and lept over the back of the sofa to land sitting, relaxed like he didn't have a gun pointed at his head. "Oh sit down for bloody hells sake." He patted the sofa next to him.

For some reason Jack found himself sinking down onto the sofa next to him. He reasoned that Daniel had a trustworthy (if drug ruined) face, and he seemed to be friendly, maybe even attractive if he didn't look like he'd gone through a clothes wringer.

"Who are you. And don't give me the reason why you're dead and here spiel." Jack kept the gun levelled at the man.

"I'm one of the last of an ancient race of humanoids that was made of the earth long before humans had claim to its soil. We're known as the Ke-anuri, and there's only about fifty of us these days, child and adult. Our genes are dying out, we've bred and changed and intermingled with the Homo sapiens. Practically human now, but the Ke-anuri genes win out. They've called us the Dragon Kind, the shape shifters and the beasts of no name. they've hunted us and shot us and run as to the point of endangerment."

Jack was speechless. He'd heard of the Dragon Kind in his wanderings, even seen one. He'd heard the speculation over what exactly they were, where they came from. Torchwood had sent him after one in the early 70s, and when he'd come across it he'd gazed at its majesty. Proud, with gleaming green scales. He'd shifted back to his human form to beg for his life. Jack's aim had waivered. He clipped the man in his shoulder and watched as the bullet wound healed. Jack had never told the others he let him go.

He dropped the gun. "You were one of them? Before you died?"

"So was my wife, and my son will be too. It's not a nice life, but its our life… well, was mine. Used to be that you couldn't escape it, that to run away was seen as treason because of the limits of gene pool. One family did run off when I was a kid… just starting to shift myself. Their son couldn't control it and the father was getting abusive, so they ran. Now Siobhan is in control it's a choice, to be one of us." The man lowered his head.

"Shape shifters have always been hunted. Most are aliens around here that fall through the rift. Dangerous bastards, one tried to rip my friend Gwen apart after using her as an incubator. Last time I saw one of your kind it begged for its life. I've never heard a shape shifter beg before. I don't know why he managed to convince me to let him go." Jack pursed his lips at the memory.

"He was hunting a Nostrovite. Killed it, just before you found him. His pack had already hunted down the mother, but he split off to chase down the male. He was my father, Dafydd. He died when I was a kid, but I remember the story." Daniel looked wistful. He suddenly stood, his brow furrowing. "According to the… beings that sent me, we're needed in a field between here and Newport… something important needs to happen. Come." He held a hand out.

For some reason, Jack took it.

TWTWTWTWTWTW

The field had a thin sheen of frost coating it as Jack and Daniel walked across it. As if to prove he was no longer alive, it didn't crunch under Daniel's feet like it did Jack's.

"You're the only one who can see me, what's coming wont be able to. Even I don't know what it is."

"Reassuring."

Daniel shrugged.

Suddenly, the trees on the far edge of the field began to rumble. There was a flash of red and a flash of silver, and then an explosion of fur and huge paws burst from the tree line, two wolves, bigger than bears crashed across the field.

Then one, the slightly smaller, silver and black wolf with a weirdly familiar scar on its muzzle stopped dead, eyes boring into Jack's.

Ianto Jones' eyes.

Let me know what you think!

Vikki ;)~