A/N: here we are after longer pause, hopefully I'll speed up now to wrap this up, only two episodes left now, although it is shown that I can make it a long two episodes, but we shall see

No spoilers

Beta-ed: TattoedLibrarian

Ianto followed Jack as he paced through the Hub's corridors. He didn't hurry, in fact he was glad to let him gain some distance between them. Since they descended into the Hub he felt like he was daydreaming, everything looked surreal. It was ridiculous to think he came here to work every day, and still acted like a sane person. He should have given up that pretence a long time ago and just walk around naked, ready to be jumped. He wondered how come he loved that feeling while in a normal state, feeling that Jack could just reach for him, and he would have no choice to comply. Even now, when his skin felt like it itched all over, like he was irritated beyond any reason, he felt that if Jack imposed himself, Ianto wouldn't fight. He was very annoyed by that. He should find him repulsive, like he did most people when he was in panic. He just didn't like to be touched when he felt threatened. Despite that he didn't chase Jack away when he breathed down his neck, he wanted him to bite down hard and cause some real pain to chase away that unbearable feeling of horror that he couldn't see.

He looked at his palm when Jack disappeared behind a corner. The sharp pain was still there, but it was strangely damped by Jack's touch, like Jack's hands left a print on him. Ianto wondered how it would feel to make love with Jack in this state of mind, would it be a terror, or delight, or both intertwined, and would he be able to recover from that experience. As he approached the corner behind Jack he paused reluctant to enter to his domain again, he felt almost safe out of sight, but again he felt so alone. Ianto smiled sadly, that was always true for him, it was safer to be alone, to be out of sight, unnoticeable, that way he didn't have anything to lose. He stood still trying to convince himself to turn back and just go out and find another life when Jack's head appeared round the corner.

"Coming? I was getting lonely in here" he said and offered him a crooked smile. Ianto let his lips to curve up; Jack was such a yummy sight in any circumstance. That's why Ianto moved forward. There was a problem that needed to be solved, he didn't move just because Jack watched him walk by and Jack did watch with such intensity that it made Ianto's spine tighten again. Jack diverted his gaze like he saw that in him and started absently unbuttoning his sleeves and rolling them up showing off his arms that Ianto loved. The sight of vulnerable skin made Ianto breathe again. It wasn't lust, it was just a reminder that Jack still could get hurt, that he wasn't invulnerable, that he wasn't impenetrable. That thought made him smile and regain a small portion of his control. It helped that Jack continued his almost unconscious ritual of undressing. There wasn't anything seductive about it, he did it all the time, in front of the whole team, talking, and thinking. Changing clothes was natural for him, he got dirty, or bloody so many times during the day that he just stood there bare torso and talked. Nobody reacted anymore; except Ianto, inwardly. Now his reaction wasn't one of arousal, but simple relaxation. It was Jack beside him, he knew Jack, he really did; the smell of his skin, and the touch of it. Jack stopped his undressing at unbuttoning his shirt and dragged it out of his pants. It was a ritual really, he had done it so many times, that it wasn't voluntary anymore.

"Here" said Ianto evenly and Jack punched his code. The vault slid open, but nothing was there... except round hole on the back of it.

"Mystery solved" exclaimed Jack.

"No, not really" grunted Ianto "where is it? What's it doing? What does it want?"

"What do you mean 'want'?" Jack frowned at him. "It doesn't want anything except chaos and mayhem. It isn't invasion, if that's what you think; this isn't what an invasion looks like. Everybody got their favourite drug, or emotions in an instant, without any effort. That creates a lot of energy."

"How do they harvest the energy?" Tosh spoke up from the line and Ianto jumped, he forgot anyone was listening in.

"They don't have to" Jack smiled "that's the beauty of it. They just create a diversion, something that would set people off track, and change the future, so they can feed off the possibilities, and never was... or something like it. You can never be sure with them, they always change."

"Who are they?" Ianto was annoyed by Jack's giddiness; he was enjoying this far too much. "A name would be useful, for the filling, if for nothing else, a comparison, have we encountered them before?"

"No, not really, we wouldn't be here if we did... or maybe we would" he pondered tapping a finger on his chin. "It isn't important in the end, we are in this specific time and place, and here are the people and lives we are trying to preserve to the maximum, we don't want this to drift into nothingness, for us to be somewhere else in next moment, without even remembering."

"Don't we?" Ianto asked quietly and Jack twitched in surprise watching him with horror. His change of mood was so sudden and deep that Ianto felt his panic turn to hysteria, like the floor opened up beneath him and he discovered that there were greater depths of horror and fear then he ever imagined them to be. He suddenly realized how much he had come to depend on Jack to persist, and to just be himself, so he ignored screams that seemed to enter his ears and crossed the distance towards Jack. It was like fighting against water, but he continued and laid his palm against Jack's chest. That made Jack breathe in and the next second his smile was back up like nothing had happened.

"Tosh what is behind this vault, there must be some conduit in the wall, and does it connect to any of power stations for the Rift Manipulator.

"Already on it" she said with her voice strained with sadness "but what if Ianto's right? What if we're the bad guys postponing a good change, maybe we would emerge in some better places."

Ianto kept his palm firm against Jack's chest. He felt his skin tremble with strain and he wanted to back off, but that deeper place was shut off and the screams were gone. He didn't take his eyes of Jack's face searching for that gap, for a horror deeper than anything Ianto had ever seen, even in the cabins of the cannibals. Jack kept smiling unchanged, steady. He winked at Ianto.

"Don't worry Tosh, in a parallel universe you're surely leading a life full of leisure, but that's not you. Our experiences define us, if this place was gone, the people we are, the things and decisions that make us would be gone too, we would be destroyed. Don't know about you, but there are some things here I wouldn't change, and that I wouldn't like to forget."

Ianto started to shiver, like a cold breeze washed over him, showing him an unknown future full of dark, and uncertainty, it smelled like death, but Ianto refused to look straight into that image, it was just an alien playing with his mind. He was here now; he was here for Jack, for Gwen, for Tosh, for Owen even, for Rhiannon, for his niece and nephew. They all needed him in their own way, and if he let himself drift, like he almost did a moment ago, he was sure all of them would cease to exist the way he knew them, the way he loved them. He frowned at that last thought looking at Jack's clear smiling face, no, he wasn't thinking about him exclusively. He couldn't, could he? Why would he love him? What did he do to deserve it? He left without a word, returned likewise, offered nothing, but then again, what did his mother say? We love people for who they are, not what they do. It seemed like an excuse at the time, but now it sounded differently.

"Corridor to the left" Tosh interrupted his train of thought and he and Jack moved from their spot running towards an alien Ianto knew nothing about. Ianto only hoped that Jack knew what in the hell they were going to do about it.

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