DISINTIGRATION

Ianto will do anything to save his girlfriend. There's only one problem…

It's nothing but smoke and fire now. The screaming has stopped; there's no one left but him and Lisa. Everyone else is dead, ripped apart by the Cybermen, vaporized by the Daleks, or gunned down in the crossfire. He hears footsteps and tries to keep quiet. They mustn't find him. If they do, they'll take Lisa away and kill her. He has to save her. He has to. He will.

"Owen, get your arse up here, I've got a live one!" Suzie called over the comms.

"Send him down!" replied Owen. "I'm busy trying to match parts to parts for identification. Do you have any idea how hard it is to identify a body when it's in half a dozen bloody pieces?"

It was all Suzie could do to hold the survivor down; as hard as she tried she couldn't loosen his grip on the dead woman in his arms. "Quit being a ghoul and come help me! And bring a sedative, he's fighting me, shouting something about saving his girlfriend. She's deader than dead, but he doesn't seem to understand."

"On my way. Sedative? Anything else?"

Suzie took a quick look over the man. "Burn dressings. He's got a couple of deep cuts, and maybe a broken arm, so bring stuff for that, too."

The man was still thrashing when Owen arrived, but a quick jab of Fentanyl calmed him before he did more damage to Suzie or himself. Once he was sedated, they were able to dress his wounds and call for a stretcher to take him to the SUV. Whatever had happened, he was Torchwood, and Torchwood would take care of their own.

"Ianto Jones, born August 19th 1983," Jack said, pacing across the conference room as he spoke. "Able student but not exceptional, one minor conviction for shoplifting in his teens. Number of temporary jobs, mainly a drifter, until two years ago he joined the Torchwood Institute in London. Junior researcher. Girlfriend, Lisa Hallett."

"Deceased," Suzie said flatly.

"Are we sure the woman he was with was his girlfriend? You said she couldn't be identified."

It was Owen who spoke up this time. "UNIT sent me photos and DNA files of all the unidentified to match up with the personnel records we recovered from London's servers. Once she was cleaned up her face was recognizable. She was definitely Lisa Hallett. Our boy had a picture of her in his wallet."

"What do we do with him now?" asked Tosh.

Owen shrugged. "We keep him medicated, for one. His physical wounds are healing, no problems there, we're only keeping him sedated because every time he comes out he starts pulling at the restraints and saying something about coming to Cardiff. He has no idea where he is. He keeps mentioning your name, Jack. No idea what that's about, and I don't want to know."

Jack shuffles the printouts in front of him and passes them to Suzie, who says, "If we can get him functioning, we could keep him on. His aptitude scores are impressive, and as a researcher he's already got the clearance. Plus, it looks like he spends a lot of his free time running. That'll be useful here."

"We've got plenty of stuff around here that he can do before he's completely healed," Tosh suggested, snatching Ianto's file from Suzie. "Look, he was helping to design a new system to catalogue files. Imagine being able to find what you're looking for!"

Jack drummed his fingertips on the back of the chair in front of him. "Tosh, see what else you can find out about his work in London. Suzie, take a look at our workload here with an eye to what we could shift to a support officer. Owen-"

"Yeah, I know. Fix him. He's no use to us if he's scrambled."

He can hear them talking, distant murmurs he can't understand, except that every now and again his name floats down. He's got to get loose. Harkness only took him in because he was injured while capturing a pterodactyl, but now that he's here, he can get Lisa moved in. She's not doing well in the warehouse, it's too cold and damp, and there's not enough electricity to keep the support unit going. He'll have to find a place that's out of the way, but that he can get to regularly to see to her needs. Maybe if they let him work on their filing system? There must be miles of archives under the Cardiff branch, surely there's a room that can be emptied.

Yes, he'll integrate himself into the team, but stay just enough apart that they'll never see. He'll make himself indispensable. He'll flirt with Harkness, sleep with him if he has to, and keep Lisa safe. He'll do anything to save her. Anything.

"I'm almost caught up on the filing, sir," Ianto called up from the main level. "What would you like next?"

"Coffee?" Jack suggested. Ianto was working out well; the team had never run so efficiently, and they were saving a fortune on the fancy coffees they'd all liked until they tasted what Ianto could do with the old espresso machine even Tosh hadn't been able to figure out.

Ianto nodded, turning back to the stairs down to the archives. "I'll go get my mug, then, and make a round for everyone. Suzie was out on a late call last night, and Owen is always more pleasant when caffeinated."

Jack laughed, watching as Ianto meticulously tucked a sheaf of files from Tosh's desk under his arm and descended into the bowels of the Hub. Ianto had been working with the team for 5 weeks, but it was always like that: invisible efficiency and light humor, followed by a polite departure. No one knew anything more about him than was in his personnel file, and every time one of them tried to draw him out, he deflected so smoothly that it was impossible to tell if it was deliberate.

Jack intended to try again, but when Ianto delivered his much-needed coffee he arrived with Suzie close on his heels.

As usual, Suzie didn't bother with pleasantries. "Jack, that constable from the murder site is sniffing around the Plass, and Tosh says someone was searching the database for you. Are we rolling out the welcome mat, or what?"

Jack grinned, all teeth. "The usual. Let her get good and turned around, then we'll blindside her with our brilliance."

"You mean overwhelm her with bullshit?" Suzie snorted.

"That too. Ten quid says Owen can't last a minute."

"You're on!"

They'd both forgotten Ianto was there until he quietly said, "I'll go wait for her upstairs, shall I?"

He was gone before either of him could ask what he intended to do.

"Toshiko Sato, computer genius; Suzie Costello, she's second-in-command. And this is Ianto Jones. Ianto cleans up after us and gets us everywhere on time."

"I try my best," Ianto said with a self-effacing smile.

They'd all been watching him on the CCTV when Gwen Cooper showed up in the Visitor Center with pizza. He'd played it to perfection, the polite civil servant giving nothing away. Then it was the mildly flirtatious butler, and later, after Jack Retconned the civilian, he was the conscientious hacker. Ianto was whoever he needed to be at any moment, fading into the background once they took their eyes off him. Suzi appreciated his distance, Tosh thought they might become friends but never did anything about it, and Owen didn't care so long as the coffee kept coming.

Jack wasn't satisfied with that; he was going to find out what Ianto Jones was hiding. As soon as he got the Cooper woman settled in.

It's a shame about Suzie, he thinks. She seemed all right. Not friendly- for which he was actually grateful- but competent and stable. Not obviously deranged, at least. Without Suzie, things change around the Hub. The new girl is a perfect distraction for the rest of the team, as long as he can keep her from asking questions. She's like a badger, sinking her teeth in and never letting go, but he's spent plenty of time avoiding answering questions and he doesn't think Gwen Cooper will be the one to break through. In any case, she keeps the team busy enough with her constant barrage that he has no trouble breaking away to care for Lisa several times a day. He has her life support working now, and he's doing better. Still not well, but she'll hold out until Tanizaki gets here.

After that, after Lisa is healed, they'll go away to a new life. He's set it all up, with new identities, CVs, back stories, a home, and money transferred from the old Torchwood One incidentals account. Tosh will probably be able to track them if she tries, but why would anyone bother? It's not like they've made any effort to know him. He just has to keep hidden a little while longer. While the rest of them work upstairs, he sits by Lisa's bed and reads to her from one of the books she always stockpiled for 'summer reading'. He'll have to bring down a blanket for her soon, and warmer bedding for himself; it's starting to get cold.

"Have you noticed that Ianto is a bit squirrely lately?" Owen asked Jack while he was dropping off the supply inventory and requisition forms.

Jack looked up from his budget paperwork. "Why Dr. Harper, I didn't know you cared."

"I'll deny it if you say anything, but have you? It's… I never really noticed him much, you know? But lately I've noticed myself not noticing him more than usual. So I started paying attention to the not-noticing, and I think he's doing it on purpose. And after Suzie-"

"After Suzie," Jack said, closing his eyes.

"We should have seen that something was wrong."

They hadn't. They had been so blind to the changes in Suzie that they hadn't even noticed when she started killing. In hindsight, they could see what they had missed: fewer lunches with the team, late nights on her projects, staying quiet when the topic of social lives came up. And all these things applied to Ianto, too. But what could he possibly be hiding? They'd handled everything he owned when they moved him to Cardiff, and the long hours he worked didn't allow for much more than supper and sleep at his flat, if that. He practically lived at the Hub.

Looking for anything Ianto might have taken, Jack inventoried the secure artifact storage, which he'd allowed Ianto to access for cataloguing. With the exception of Suzie's glove and the complete lack of dust, it was exactly as it had been. Owen had just inventoried his drugs; usage was high, but not unusually so. He asked Gwen and Tosh to keep alert and to try to draw Ianto out if possible. Maybe if he felt more like part of the team he'd be willing to open up.

It was Tosh who eventually found the first breadcrumb: a series of emails from Ianto's home computer to a Dr. Tanizaki. The emails themselves had been deleted, only the DNS trace remained. There were phone calls, but again, they had only the records, not the actual conversations.

Contacting Tanizaki, who spoke only Japanese, proved to be both helpful and unenlightening. The man was a chemist in Osaka, and he had all the emails, which spoke only in vague terms, mentioning a thing that would interest you and someone I'd like you to meet, and ominously, Canary Wharf. There were offers of travel and lodging should he be willing to come to Cardiff. Tanizaki also remembered the phone calls, but said that he couldn't understand English well enough to follow. He asked if they could stop the contacts, as they were interrupting his sleep.

Gwen floated the horrifying idea that it might be related to Ianto's girlfriend.

"She's dead," Owen reminded them. "Very dead. Cut up and bled out at the scene, then autopsied, with the cyber parts melted down and the remains cremated and returned to her family. I have the photos."

"Maybe he wants to know if she could have survived?"

"He's a smart man," Tosh pointed out. "Surely he understands that no one survives conversion, even if their body appears to. The records are quite clear. Lisa Hallett was no exception." Except that there was no way to know if Ianto had seen the records; they had never been digitized. That was Ianto's big project, actually.

Tanizaki is coming. Finally. In one week, he'll be here, and Lisa will be cured. She's so excited, talking about their new home and the life they'll have. She's talking about starting a family, too. He's never thought much about it- they're still very young- but if Lisa wants a family, he'll start a family with her. For Lisa, anything. All she has to do is get better.

She's not doing well lately. He can hear her breath rattling, the machine not doing enough to counteract weeks of immobility. He tries to shift her to avoid bedsores when he can but it causes her so much pain. Even Owen will notice of he steals more morphine than he already has. He's been working extra hard lately to avoid being noticed; it would be devastating to be discovered now, this close to success, but the others seem to finally be interested in knowing him. It's a bit of a bother.

But soon- soon Tanizaki will be here and everything will be as it should be. All he has to do is figure out how to get the rest of the team out of the Hub on Friday.

"Jack, come see this," Tosh called. Jack hummed questioningly as he leaned against her desk, so she continued, "Ianto's bought a plane ticket from Osaka and reserved a hotel room."

"When?"

"This Friday. Only, I checked with Tanizaki and he said that he's only had one more call, even more manic than the rest. He says he's certainly not planning a trip to Cardiff."

"Then I suppose we'll find out what all this is about on Friday. Rig the Hub for full monitoring, and put a tap on his mobile. We'll all pretend to go out and see what he does."

It was easy to get away; they played a bit of basketball and went 'out for drinks'. Ianto stayed behind, so used to fading into the background that he didn't even question that he hadn't been invited. Tosh had set up a monitoring station in the SUV; from there they watched as Ianto called to order pizza, even making some crack about eating more vegetables. Jack smiled a little at that, he actually had mentioned Ianto's diet a few times. Still, nothing out of the ordinary, except that he had ordered two pepperoni feasts, which was more than enough for one person.

The Hub itself wasn't wired for sound pickup, so once the call was over they had no idea what Ianto was saying. His actions were odd, to say the least. At first, Jack balled his fists nervously when Ianto triggered the cog door to open, but there was no one there. Ianto, though, acted as though there were, bowing and greeting an illusory guest in the Japanese fashion. He then led this 'person' into the underlevels of the base, dropping off camera when he reached a section that hadn't been used in decades. They debated whether to go back or to wait and see if Ianto reentered the Hub proper, but the argument was ended when the alert pinged, indicating that the monitoring system had picked up calls for UFO sightings.

Back at the Hub, Ianto rejoined them. While they investigated the disturbance, which turned out to be an Arkan ship, the power flickered slightly. Tosh ran a diagnostic, tapping the screen to show Jack that power had been diverted to the lower levels where Ianto had gone when he slipped off camera. It must have been something he had done while they were away, which was borne out when Ianto claimed generator problems and retreated back to the basement. When the power flickered after Ianto dropped of CCTV again, Tosh scanned for heat signatures, the only information they were able to get from the lowest levels. From the size of the power drain, Jack almost believed they could be under attack, but the scan showed only one person: Ianto. He sent Gwen and Owen down to investigate while Tosh and Jack continued to monitor system readings.

"Jack," Gwen called over the comms a few minutes later, "We need you down here right now."

"Any sign of Ianto?" he asked.

Owen responded, "He's down here, and he's crouched in the corner muttering. This is either an alien infestation or a psychotic break; I'm not approaching him without backup big enough to subdue him."

"Tranquilizer? Stun gun?" asks Tosh.

"Dangerous. If this is psychological it could cause permanent damage. I'd rather not hurt him if we can avoid it."

Tosh stayed behind while Jack went to join Owen and Gwen, ready to trigger a lockdown if the situation became dangerous.

In the basement, Jack found Owen and Gwen in an unused storage room, their firearms trained on Ianto, who appeared not to see them at all. The room- the room was surreal. It was set up like a hospice, with a small camp bed in the corner and a table with stacks of books and a little radio quietly playing smooth jazz. There were takeaway boxes in the bin and clothes hanging on a bar mounted on the far wall. In the center was a bed, neatly made up and adorned with bits of wire and random mechanical pieces, but with no actual connections made. The source of the power drain was obvious; an electric cable had been pulled free from a wall, its stripped end trailing into a trickle of water from a cracked pipe.

Ianto, still unaware of the others, was addressing the empty bed, shouting, "What have you done?! You've killed an innocent man!"

Oh god, Lisa's killed him. Tanizaki is dead, half converted and lying in a pool of his own blood. She says it's all right, but it isn't. He never meant for this to happen. He'll have to hide the body, the team will come looking for him any moment; if they see this they'll kill her. Or she'll kill them. She says she'll deal with them, but no. He can't let that happen. They haven't done anything wrong.

"Don't you go near them!" he says, his face sticky and itchy with tears. How can it have come to this? She must be damaged. Post-traumatic stress. He tells her to stay behind while he moves the body. When he turns, he sees Jack, Owen, and Gwen staring at him in horror. They know.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Don't hurt her," he pleads.

Whatever it was that he was seeing, Ianto was dangerous to both the team and himself. Jack subdued him quickly, cuffing his hands and using his gun to steer Ianto back to the main portion of the Hub.

Gwen, who didn't understand the strength of insanity or possession, demanded, "Jack, what are you doing?!"

"He's hallucinating. Go along with whatever he says, don't argue with him; We need to know what he thinks is happening. This has something to do with Lisa Hallett. I just know it."

"Resisting the urge to shoot."

Jack's going to kill him, then he'll kill Lisa. He has to make them understand that this isn't her, that she's trapped in this cyber body and they need to save her. He has to protect Lisa, has to get help before she hurts them. Jack's accusing him of keeping secrets, Owen of disloyalty, but he throws it back in their face. They hadn't even seen him, hadn't wanted to. His loyalty is to Lisa. He breaks free from Jack and runs, begs to talk to her. He can convince her. He can save her.

"Together. Yes. Transplant my brain into your body. The two of us...together. Fused. We'll be one complete person. Isn't that what love is?"

No. It isn't. She grabs him by the throat and throws him across the room. Then Jack kisses him.

Ianto had his hands around his own neck and was stumbling backwards across the pool at the base of the fountain. He tripped, fell, and hit his head, knocking himself out, face slipping deep enough into the pool to drown. Jack leapt over the railing and checked for respiration. None. Jack breathed into Ianto's mouth. When Ianto coughed back to consciousness, he pushed Jack away and struggled to his feet, running after nothing at all.

"Try getting him out of the Hub," Owen suggested. "Get him outside where it doesn't look anything like Torchwood, in case it's this place triggering him. Get him calmed down. If we can't get him under control I'm going to have to sedate him, and damn the consequences."

Jack is threatening Lisa with a blow torch. If they'd only listen, he could explain that she's frightened, disoriented, not a true threat. She needs medical care. They could put her in a cell until they figure out how to cure her. But no one is listening to him; they've got him held tight and are taking him up the lift while Jack sprays Lisa with the sauce they use for Myfanwy's food. How could he? Lisa will be killed, the pterodactyl will be hurt. And Ianto has to watch. It's inhumane.

Out on the Plass, they're still restraining him. He shouts at Jack, threatens to watch him die. If he can get loose, get back into the Hub, he can call Myfanwy off and save Lisa. He throws a punch, then runs.

They catch up to him in reception, but he's grabbed the gun he keeps behind the counter and is holding them at bay. He'll shoot if he has to. He has nothing left to lose.

"Ianto, don't be stupid!" said Gwen. "There's nothing there! Whatever you're seeing isn't real! Give Jack the gun and we can help you."

Ianto's hand was starting to shake, and Jack didn't trust that he wouldn't fire. He disarmed Ianto and pushed him against the wall.

"Get off me!" Ianto struggled, but Jack was stronger and kept him pinned.

"You wanna go back in there? You're trying to save her? She's dead. She's been dead all along. You need to come to grips with it."

For a moment, Jack thought he'd broken through, but what he said was clearly not what Ianto was hearing. In the background, Tosh was talking to Annie, promising that they'd pay for the pizzas with their next order as long as she went away right now, with or without the pies.

"I won't do it. You can't make me. You like to think you're a hero. But you're the biggest monster of all."

Jack let Ianto back into the Hub; being outside hadn't helped him, and he was clearly too dangerous to civilians to risk him getting loose. The Hub would keep him contained, and Owen would go for a tranquilizer. They'd have to risk it; Ianto was becoming more unhinged by the minute.

He's in. Myfanwy is keening in her nest, and there's blood everywhere. No Lisa, though. She's not been killed, then; there's still hope. He can still fix things. But… there in the corner. Pizza boxes? Oh god, Annie! Please, he begs, please don't let Lisa have hurt Annie. There's a trail of blood leading to the lower level. Ianto follows it.

There he finds a scene out of his nightmares. His actual nightmares, fueled by memories of the fall of Torchwood One. Blood, machinery, the stench of burning flesh. He sees Lisa, lifeless, slumped against the wall. He goes to her. It's over. He's broken, lost in his grief. Everything he's done, all their plans. Gone. He may as well die here.

"Ianto-"

Startled, he turns. There's Annie, covered in blood. She tells him that she's Lisa, proves it with a story, but he can't- can't believe anymore. His Lisa would never do this. He has to shoot her. He couldn't shoot Lisa, but this isn't Lisa. She wants to upgrade him too. He aims his gun.

"What's he doing?" Gwen whispered. "He hasn't even got a gun."

Jack shrugged. "Who knows what's happening in his mind. But he's not a danger to us right now. Let it play out."

So they did.

Whatever he was seeing, Ianto was devastated. His eyes were swollen and red, his face contorted in agony. He kept saying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." After a time, his arm dropped, and his head swivelled to stare at the team as if something had happened. As if they'd done something. Gwen looked away, uncomfortable, but the others stood, resolute. Ianto turned and stumbled over to something only he could see, dropped to his knees, and wrapped his arms around nothing at all.

"Jesus, Jack, what do we do now?" Owen whispered.

"Try to put back the pieces."

They've killed her. Lisa. Annie. Whoever, but she's dead, ripped apart by bullets. They all did it, but it was on Jack's order. He's cradling Lisa's body, crying out his grief. Mercifully, they leave him to it.

One by one, they leave, until it's only Jack, who leads him away, promising him that they can handle the cleanup another time. Telling him to rest now. He can feel himself drifting off. He isn't sure if he'll ever wake up, or if he wants to.

The Hub was a mess; it's astonishing how much destruction one unhinged person can cause. Ianto was awake, and appeared to be functioning, but they still hadn't talked to him about what happened, about what he'd experienced and what had actually occurred. Tosh was compiling records to show him that Lisa had never been there, that Tanizaki hadn't been killed, and that Annie never entered the Hub at all. Jack hoped seeing 'Lisa' die had broken Ianto's delusion, and that he could come to be a true part of the team. He couldn't let Ianto down. Again, he reminded himself. He couldn't let Ianto down again.

"He thought you were going to shoot him," Gwen said, coming to stand beside him as he looked down over the Hub while Ianto tidied up. He was collecting everything that had been broken and righting what had only been knocked over, but he wasn't trying to scrub any imaginary bloodstains, which gave Jack hope.

Jack nodded. "I never could," he admitted. "None of this was his fault. Not really. He couldn't let her go. His mind wouldn't let him."

"All that deception. Because he couldn't bear to live without her. So have you ever loved anyone, that much?"

Jack didn't say anything.

It all feels like a dream now. Owen tells him it never happened, shows him pictures of Lisa, dead at Canary Wharf. Tosh gives him a flash drive with footage of him fighting against nothing. He calls Jubilee, and Annie answers the phone. Tanizaki, it seems, is not only alive, he doesn't even speak English.

But Ianto remembers it all, feels it. It's real to him, every second. While he's coming to understand that none of it was real, he can't look at Jack without remembering being ordered to execute Lisa, without seeing Jack's face threatening to kill Ianto himself. Without feeling the kiss after 'Lisa' threw him. He can't stop the guilt of seeing Lisa almost convert Gwen. In his mind he's responsible for the deaths of Tanizaki and Annie, because even though Lisa was never in the Hub at all, if she had been, he'd have been the one who caused those things to happen. Real or not, he knows what he's done, what he could have- would have- done if things had gone just a little differently. And he'll stay with Torchwood as long as Jack will let him, in penance.

Author's Note: There I was working on other stories (the tapas date from Mending, the final chapter of Ashes, several things that have been in progress for a year) when this thing snuck up and whomped me over the head. It's not all that kind to Ianto, which I know many of you will hate, but it does have some of my favourite things: alternating viewpoint, unreliable narrator, tense wankery, and non-canon inclusion of canon events. So yeah, here you go. The rest will come as soon as I can.

As always, all the gratitude to Gmariam, who says 'you should totally write that!' whenever I come up with crazy ideas.