A/N: Ianto's waiting
Spoiler alert: Out of Time
Beta-ed: TattoedLibrarian
Ianto waited by the phone. Jack had taken off his ear piece when he left the car and he couldn't know what was happening. The suspense was almost unbearable. He watched the three people that arrived from a distance. They were only passing through and there were no need to get too involved. Tosh seemed to understand that, but the others were taken in by their destinies. Ianto did take care of them, he was the one finding them accommodation, driving them around, and helping them with shopping. But they were from a different time and didn't try to make contact with him. He was just a servant for them, an employee, and no one important. He was fine with that. His invisibility saved him a lot of grief over the years. Their loss was tragic, but that's life, it throws you left and right just to drop you in a place you couldn't imagine in your wildest dreams. Why would they be protected from its whims? They had an opportunity to live on after something that would mean their certain death. That was a gift that not many were offered.
He could clearly see that it was hard on the newcomers. They clung to their past, that was understandable, but there were nothing left to save, nothing at all. He knew everything about staying in the past so he stepped back.
Jack wasn't so composed like he was, of course he stepped closer drawn in by the suffering. Ianto watched Jack talking to John, listening. He didn't have to watch too closely to comprehend nature of that relationship. It clearly wasn't sexual. John Elis had that uptight personality that didn't accept just any kind of sexual approach. Jack was clever enough to adjust himself to that. He didn't show any of his everyday flirtatious nature, he didn't even try to impress either of the girls. They didn't even notice that he existed. That was strange to watch, a non-sexual Jack, serious and friendly. He even addressed Ianto in that formal business manner. Ianto adjusted to that but he would welcome Elis's departure.
He didn't find anything special about Elis but Jack did, so he did what he had begun to do lately, and watched him through Jack eyes. That way he could see the beauty of his withdrawn nature. He could understand what Jack saw in him because Elis looked like Jack when comparing Jack to Ianto. Jack looked young beside him. Ianto knew that was just a trick of light and shadow, and that Jack may be older than Elis. Ianto had no idea how old Jack really was. He heard rumours back in London branch about Jack's strange ability to age slowly. He even heard rumour that he was left behind like the Doctor's spy. What people wouldn't invent; anybody that was merely strange had to have something to do with the elusive Doctor that they all feared, and who came and saved them from their own stupidity.
Beside the rumours he knew things that he learned after he met Jack personally. Things he would say as a half joke with that smile of his. Ianto listened and didn't dismiss anything as preposterous; because he learned with Torchwood that even the wildest dreams became simple and dull compared to the reality of their existence.
He knew about 51st century pheromones, of course he knew that was real. He knew about that coat, you don't just wake up and decide 'I will dress up like I'm from WW2'. No you have to grow into something like that, and Jack blended with his coat. He always smiled while he thought about that coat. He didn't lie, that coat may be the reason he dragged Lisa all the way here. In that coat Jack looked like he could protect them from anything.
He always talked about the 21st century like it was something exotic and new, like he knew it from a distance, but the details were lost to him. Ianto helped him more than once on communication and rules. He didn't know things you learned by growing up in the century, things his dad, Mr. Elis or any of his teachers would know, things about should haves and must haves. On the other hand he knew things that were always difficult for them. Technology was easy game for him, alien tech and the newest inventions just made him smirk like he was looking at something old and outdated.
Ianto's latest theory was that Jack fell through time like Elis and the girls did, but he landed on his feet. His aging may be, like pheromones, a result of technology in the 51st maybe. Just how far did he fell? How long had he lived around here? Had he jumped forward from time to time? And why did he choose this place of all places?