A/N: Set between Dead Man Walking and A Day in the Death. I can imagine that the things Jack and Martha endured might be the sorts of things that stick with you for a long time, and so I wanted to provide them a little catharsis for them which I feel like we didn't get in either Doctor Who or Torchwood. I also wanted to take Jack and Ianto out and play with them for a while. This story has allowed me to do both! I hope you enjoy it. xxo -O.A.

Gwen: So you and Jack go back a long way, eh?
Martha: Forward and back, really.
Gwen: What brought you together?
Martha: Let's say... we were under the same Doctor."

The chaos at the hospital had finally passed. Back at the hub, Martha felt completely wrung out. The rapid aging (and de-aging) had taken its toll on her, for sure.

Jack was setting up Owen again in a room for the night, demanding that he stay for further observation, and both Gwen and Tosh had finally cleared out to go home and sleep, leaving Martha alone in the conference room with her heavy thoughts.

It seemed she would need to stay on at Torchwood 3 for awhile as their official medical doctor, much to Owen's chagrin. She wasn't thrilled about the idea either, truth be told. She was happy to help and she loved to be near Jack, but she felt as though her entire life with U.N.I.T was waiting for her at home, on hold.

Martha rolled her head from side to side and massaged her temples, closing her eyes for just a moment. That was when Ianto walked in with two mugs of his fancy coffee, startling her as he entered. Taking the cup he silently offered she smiled gratefully at him.

For a few moments they sat in silence, but Martha thought, as she observed him quietly, that he looked like he had something on his mind.

"You were with him," Ianto stated bluntly when he finally spoke. It wasn't a question. "You were there, when he left us. When he went off with his doctor."

Ah. This. Of course.

Martha smiled wryly at his guarded, slightly envious tone. She had heard it often enough from her friends and coworkers at U.N.I.T.

"Ah... yeah. Yeah, I was," she confessed. "For some of the time."

He sipped his coffee and stared at her.

"What happened?" he asked as she took a sip of her own coffee.

"You don't know?" Her voice even sounded hollow to her own ears. She wasn't particularly shocked. Martha had never breathed a word of her tale of The Year to anyone besides her family. Who else could ever understand?

But, then again, Jack didn't have family. She would have expected him to share his story with someone, and Ianto would have been the likeliest choice. Had he really spoken to no one? The idea worried her.

"He left us," Ianto said, sounding uncharacteristically meek. "He always looked after us. He was our leader. He didn't kick me out even after- He was good to me. To us. And... Then he left. Without a word. And he took that awful hand in a jar. He had said that this doctor was the only one who could help him, make him normal again. Two months later he reappears. And he's the same. Not "normal." Only now he has more nightmares, and he never talks about any doctors. What happened?"

Her throat burned and her eyes filled with tears as he spoke. Her heart sank as she relived hundreds of lonely nights, sleeping under the roofs of strangers as she traveled, alone, preaching her singular gospel as she clung to desperate shreds of hope and sanity.

Opening her mouth to speak, she found she couldn't. She looked at Ianto pleadingly and shook her head.

"That good, eh?" Ianto said bitterly, draining his coffee and setting the mug down on the table with a dull thump. "That doctor must be a real piece of work. Look at you two. You're both a wreck. And it's been months."

Ianto thought it was the Doctor who had hurt them? Martha's misery flared into rage and her gaze turned to ice.

"Do not ever say anything like that about him. Not one word. Not ever. You're only alive today because of the sacrifices he made. The things he and Jack survived-"

"You did a fair amount of surviving yourself, Martha Jones," came a low voice from the doorway.

Both Ianto and Martha jumped, startled. Jack walked towards them, coming to stand behind Martha and place a hand on each of her shoulders. She leaned back in her chair, resting her head on his chest and slowly inhaling his familiar, comforting scent to calm her pounding heart. Despite his cool demeanor, though, Jack was wound as tight as a bow string. She could feel the tension as she leaned against him.

Ianto looked at the contact between her and Jack and grew more agitated, running a hand through his hair.

"Ianto," Martha began again, less angry now, but more tired, "It's not that we're hiding things from you. It's that talking about it makes it feel real again."

Ianto nodded stiffly. Jack scoffed.

"I've told you all of this before, Ianto."

"He only wants to help," Martha offered uselessly to Jack, turning to look sadly into his beautiful face.

"He can't." Jack's voice was bitter and jaded and he wouldn't meet either of their eyes. "I'd say it's because you can't undo the past... But we did undo the past. And it still isn't okay."

They let that hang in the silence for a moment. And then she disengaged from him and walked to stand beside Ianto.

"Who is it that you do speak to, Jack?" Martha asked. "Is there anyone you confide in? You need to find a way to work through some of the things you've seen and endured, before you crack under the pressure."

"It wouldn't help."

"Liar," Martha accused. "You're a human being, Jack. Sharing your burden always helps."

"I wouldn't-" Jack began.

"Jack," Martha protested, "Every day. He killed you every day for a year. Every day, nothingness. No one should handle that burden alone."

"Martha..." Jack warned.

"Who?" Ianto asked. "Who did that to you? Was it that doctor?"

"No!" they chorussed in unison, appalled. And then they looked deeply at each other, bittersweet as they both remembered their Doctor who they loved so deeply cradling their dying enemy and begging him to live. As much as they understood his loneliness, that moment had cut like a betrayal.

"You lived a year?" Ianto asked, with a gulp, tearing them from their reverie. "How?"

"'Live' is a strong word," Jack replied mirthlessly, looking to the sky. "We survived for a year. We existed. And then we undid it. It was... There were time travelers."

That didn't actually explain what had happened at all, but Martha knew Jack still didn't want to get into any more specific details.

"Someone killed you every day?" Ianto asked with horror.

Jack nodded, refusing to meet his lover's eyes.

"And were you ever going to tell me?"

Jack looked at his feet. Martha glanced between them, seeing the disconnect.

Ianto started to walk away, eyes averted.

"No!" She implored. "Ianto, it's not like that. What we lived through... It didn't happen. It was reversed. The Doctor reversed it."

"You reversed it," Jack corrected her, pointedly.

"Whatever. That's not important. The point is, it was undone. It never happened. Only ten people in the universe remember that timeline. Can you blame us for wanting to bury it? Erase it? Banish it? It was hell."

Ianto shook his head in frustration.

"I just..." He was speaking to Martha but his words were obviously meant for Jack. "It's just one more place he goes in his head that I can't follow. Where I can't help. Where he's trying to protect me. And I'm not a child. I don't want to be protected."

Martha nodded her understanding, recalling how similarly she had felt about the Doctor's mercurial mood swings, back when she was traveling in the TARDIS, and she felt a fierce pang of sympathy for the young man.

Ianto took a deep breath and went on, facing Jack this time.

"Whatever this is," he gestured vaguely between the two of them, "it won't ever work if you can't see us as equals. And I do want it to work."

It was a huge thing for the taciturn Welshman to admit, and Martha knew it. Ianto cared. Ianto was strong, and he deserved to have a chance to prove it.

"Jack," she said softly, turning around to look at him, "you didn't let HIM carry his burden alone."

He met her eyes with a hard gaze, both of them thinking back to that desperate night in the warehouse a lifetime ago.

"I'm no good at talking."

"So don't talk. He didn't. But you can't just hold it in. It will eat you alive. You have to let go of your grief and tension somehow, too."

"What are you suggesting, Martha Jones?" Jack asked darkly. His eyes flashed with something wicked.

She just raised an eyebrow and stared at him, unwilling to let him see how he affected her, even as a sharp, hot desire began to pool in her belly.

Jack and Martha stood there for a moment, staring tensely at each other, until Ianto broke the silence.

"Fuck this. I can't deal with this today. Anyone fancy a drink?"