When All is Said and Done – a Torchwood One-Shot

Twelve Hours

It was finally all sorted. The Sleeper agents had been defeated and Owen, Gwen, Tosh and Ianto were sat in the main part of the Hub. Jack was upstairs, sorting out yet more paperwork – and probably recovering from an earlier incident. Ianto mentally snickered; Jack would not be toying with any aerials, especially when said toying with aerials had involved duct tape and especially not when that involved the SUV.

"Gwen!" Tosh suddenly shouted, startling the Welshman out of his thoughts. "Just stop beating yourself up, okay? I know you're upset about Beth, but there was nothing that could have been done! The Sleeper agents could have wiped out the world!"

"Or just Cardiff," quipped Ianto.

"She was still a human being!" growled Gwen, running her fingers through her hair. "She had humanity; she proved that she had humanity!"

"Yeah, the humanity of something waiting to end the world before she killed herself," replied Owen. "What choice did we have, Gwen? When all is said and done, you can't save everyone, you know. It doesn't work like that."

"It's over," said Tosh quietly, squeezing her friend's shoulder.

"Yeah, it's all over," agreed Ianto.

"I suppose," sighed Gwen, leaning against Tosh and taking Owen's hand.

There was a pause. Then –

"Well, it's not like the end of the world is imminent now," sighed Owen.

"I guess that's something to celebrate," admitted Gwen.

The young doctor nodded. "Let's all have sex," he said, completely serious.

Tosh and Gwen stared at him, but Ianto grinned. "Okay!" He pulled the now infamous stopwatch out of his waistcoat. "Oi, Jack!" He waited for his boss to reply, grinned and, as he pressed the button on the watch, yelled, "Torchwood orgy!"

The next thing he heard was a series of loud crash and thumps coming from upstairs, punctuated by various curses – some he knew, but most he didn't – for a while before Jack, his braces off and his shirt half-open, leapt into the fray.

The young Welshman smirked. "I'm disappointed, Sir," he said, stopping the clock. "That was two minutes and thirty seconds; far longer than I expected from you, knowing that I'm waiting." By now, he had managed to remove his jacket and unbutton his shirt. "You must be losing your touch in your old age."

Jack growled. "Loosing my touch, am I? Oh, we'll see about that!" He pushed the younger man against the desk and kissed him fiercely as he ripped off his shirt and tie. "I don't hear anything behind me!" he called out.

"You're a sick man – OWEN!" yelled Tosh

Jack smirked and turned back to Ianto. "Now…where were we?"

"Ianto?" said Owen from his place at the foot of Jack's tiny bed, where he was sprawled underneath Gwen who was almost asleep. Tosh was next to him, running her fingers up and down the front of his body, causing him to gasp.

"Yeah?" replied Ianto, who was squashed beside Jack.

Owen glared at his wrist, which was tied to the bedpost with Ianto's tie. "Wearing him out took…twelve hours," he gasped, looking at the clock.

Ianto grinned smugly. "I know," he replied.

Owen snorted. "You and that stopwatch," he said, and then sighed.

"That's twelve hours of my life I'll never get back," moaned Tosh.

Ianto grinned. "What's your point?"

The doctor groaned. "Ianto," he pleaded, "I know you love him, but PLEASE, just leave all of us OUT of your job as Jack's part-time shag. And for the love of all that is science, DON'T invite him to another Torchwood orgy EVER AGAIN."

"Hey!" Jack sat up, glaring blearily. "He's not my part-time shag!" He smiled then and looked Ianto straight in the eye, speaking softly. "He's my full-time shag."

Two years ago, a remark like that would have cut Ianto to the core. But looking into Jack's eyes, he could see that he was much, much more than that. "I love you too," he whispered, drawing him into a deep and passion-filled kiss.

Owen groaned again as he watched the archivist – for the want of a better description – and his boss doing things he'd never seen before and didn't even know about. Right at that moment, he made a resolution that he would never EVER suggest that they "all have sex" again. Not if it took this long to wear Jack out.

As for Jack, he simply smiled at the curly dark head that was tucked underneath his arm and realised that everything he went through for him was worth it – even if it did mean that his little white handkerchief would never be the same again.