INEVITABLE

After his girlfriend is killed by Cybermen, Ianto Jones has no intention of returning to Torchwood. Once he returns to Cardiff and meets Captain Jack Harkness, it's inevitable.

Midnight. Bute Park. Not a great place to be unless you were a rent boy, or looking for one, but Ianto Jones has nowhere else to go. UNIT kept him for several days after the battle, then turned him loose, but he can't bring himself to go back to the flat. Not without Lisa, not yet. Someday he'll have to go back, to box her things and try to remember her drinking from this cup rather than screaming as the knives cut into her, or twirling in that dress, rather than bleeding out and dying in his arms. When the soldiers came in to clear the victims and assess the damage, they found him there sticky with blood and half crazed, holding Lisa and rocking back and forth calling her name. They took him under observation, but once they determined that there was nothing wrong with him but burns, bruises, and overwhelming grief, they sent him on his way with no help beyond a prescription for narcotics and the reminder that he should call them if he 'experiences any after effects'.

Unwilling to go to his flat in London, he has come back to Cardiff purely on instinct, forgetting that he hasn't had a home here in years, and that he can hardly just drop in at his sister's place. She might not even know he survived. He'll have to call her eventually, yes, but that conversation will be a dramatic flurry of relief and accusations, and he can't face it just yet. So here he is, sitting on a park bench wishing he had remembered to take the painkillers UNIT gave him before they released him that morning. It's not just the physical pain they'd numb.

Lost in thought, he is startled to hear a struggle coming from a nearby wooded area. Expecting to find a whore and a punter quibbling over money, he investigates nonetheless, hoping for a distraction from his whirring mind. He arrives on scene just in time to see a tall, leathery creature lunge at a man. Within seconds, Ianto is grabbing a nearby fallen branch to join the fray. THUNK! The jolt of the branch hitting the creature is the most satisfying thing he's felt in days, so he keeps swinging even as the thing turns its attention to him, crashing into him and going for his throat. Maybe it will give the other man a chance to escape, he thinks, and while Ianto isn't actively seeking his end, he's not going to put much effort into avoiding it. He laughs at the irony of dying in Cardiff not a week after surviving Cybermen and Daleks.

Rather than fleeing, the other man approaches the distracted creature from behind. He yanks it away from Ianto, wrestles it to the ground, sprays it in the face, then whips a sack over its head, all in one smooth motion. He jabs it with a hypodermic, and the beast stops struggling. Ianto leans against a tree for a moment to catch his breath. He aches all over, even more than he did before, but his heart is beating fast and his blood is rushing, and he finds that having actually done something makes him feel a little better.

"Thanks," he says.

"No, thank you," the man replies. He looks Ianto up and down, and Ianto wishes he were wearing something other than the track suit UNIT gave him to replace his bloodied clothes from the battle; despite not caring what this man thinks of him, he feels more comfortable in his armor. "And you are?" the man asks.

"Jones," he says, automatically giving his surname, as he always had at work. Then he remembers he isn't a Torchwood employee any longer. "Uh, Ianto. Ianto Jones. "

"Nice to meet you. You all right?"

Ianto shrugs. "A little battered, I'll heal. You?"

"Had worse from shaving," says the man as he wipes a spot of blood from his throat. The skin under is unblemished; it must have been superficial.

Suddenly, Ianto is struck by a memory. "Looked like a Weevil to me," he says without thinking.

The man's face goes still. After slightly too long a pause, he replies, "I have no idea what you're talking about." His tone indicates that the conversation is over. He hefts the Weevil to his shoulder despite Ianto knowing that it must weight upward of twelve stone. "I'll take it from here. Thanks for the assistance."

"Yeah."

The man walks away, his coat swishing behind him. Ianto might have admired it if he weren't too worn out to care.

The next morning finds him once more in the park with a cup of take-away coffee that he will eventually drink but is currently on the bench beside him being ignored. He desperately needs the caffeine, but the only place nearby makes a sour brew, and he's been left with the option of choking it down as-is or adding enough sugar to make it sickeningly sweet. He's starting to second guess his decision to leave it black; he hasn't eaten much since the Battle, and he's not sure how the acid of this drink will feel in his empty stomach. He doesn't think he can go back to London yet, but he'll have to get some of the things from the flat, if only his clothes and his coffee supplies and equipment.

While he takes mental inventory of which things he wants to keep and which he'd rather never see again, a man approaches. The man from last night, in fact, and now that he sees him in daylight he can't imagine how he didn't recognize him the night before: Captain Jack Harkness of Torchwood Cardiff. Shit. He was hoping to stay off their radar, but he admits that joining fights with monsters in the middle of the night may not have been a good way to do that.

The man sits on the bench next to him. "Ianto Jones, Torchwood London," he says.

"Not anymore."

"And what brings you to Cardiff?"

Ianto's not sure how to answer the question. He finally settles on, "I'm Welsh."

Captain Harkness frowns a bit at the evasion. "Both August 19th, nineteen eighty-three. Able student but not exceptional, one minor conviction for shoplifting in your teens. Number of temporary jobs, mainly a drifter, until two years ago you join the Torchwood Institute in London. Junior researcher. Girlfriend, Lisa Hallett—"

"Deceased." Ianto says quietly. "Not many made it out."

"I'm sorry," the captain responds sincerely. The silence stretches uncomfortably, until Ianto realizes that the other man is eyeing his untouched coffee and offers it to him, rolling his eyes a bit when Harkness winces at the taste.

"I know," he says while Harkness recovers. "That's why I wasn't drinking it. I make better coffee myself, but all my things are still in London."

"It wouldn't be hard to do better than this. Are you relocating then?"

"For a while, perhaps. I haven't decided."

"There's no place for you here. Torchwood Three, I mean."

Ianto hadn't even considered that. "I'm done with Torchwood," he snaps. "After what happened? Your whole organization can go straight to Hell."

"I'm sorry," Harkness repeats. "We cut all ties with One. I had no idea what was happening there until it was too late."

"Yeah, I saw a couple of yours scavenging while UNIT cleaned up. They've offered us all jobs, you know. UNIT. Not like it's difficult for an organization that size to absorb the fifteen out of twenty-seven who are still fit to work. Only, I've turned them down. After everything, it's too much. The survivor benefit is enough to buy me some time and a quieter, less dangerous life."

"What will you do?"

"Not your problem, is it?" Ianto says dismissively.

Captain Harkness takes the hint, sets the vile coffee back on the bench, and stands. "Sorry to bother you," he offers, then walks away.

The nerve, Ianto thinks, suggesting that Ianto was here after a job. He's still not sure what he'll do, which is part of the reason he didn't answer the question– the other being that it truly isn't anyone's business– but he was telling the truth when he said he has plenty of time to think about it. Maybe he'll open a coffee shop. Maybe go back to uni– he's only twenty-three. MaMmybe a book shop. But not Torchwood. He hopes he never sees Captain Jack Harkness again. He pockets the card the man left on the bench nonetheless.

He still hurts, but things are getting better. It's been a week since UNIT released him, the cuts and scrapes are healing, the bruises fading. The emotional trauma is taking a little longer; he still can't bear to go to his flat and see the remnants of his life with Lisa. He tried. He went back to London, but only ended up sitting outside their building, crying. In the end, he gave the keys to a relocation company to have it packed and stored until he could sort a place to stay. While in London, he remembered the suits he left at the dry cleaner, grateful not to have to think about shopping. With his personal things being shipped, he'll have the rest of his clothing soon enough. He did pick up a few necessities: new mobile, small cafetière and coffee, decent shoes, and a few groceries.

Now back in Cardiff, he stuffs the track suit into the washing machine at the hotel he booked himself into after his encounter with the leader of Torchwood Three. He's still trying to decide where he wants to go from here. He dresses in a suit, figuring he'll wander through Cardiff a bit looking at options. Nothing sounds interesting, though. Despite his low position within the company, Torchwood One had been exciting. Fascinating. Always new.

The problem, and it's what got Ianto tangled up in Torchwood to begin with, is that he can't resist an adventure and a mystery. So when he sees a shadow against the night sky that is too large to be a bird and too quiet to be a plane, he follows it to the warehouse district. When it he's finally close enough to see it, he recognizes it as a pterodactyl (or pteranodon, he can't remember the difference) and knows that it's too dangerous to leave loose. Hoping that it, like most avians, is attracted to shiny things, he reaches into his coat pocket for the bit of chocolate he'd picked up hoping it would help him feel better; Lisa had always said it was good for serotonin levels. He flashes the foil wrapper in the street light.

The beast takes the bait, following Ianto through the delivery doors and into the warehouse. When it starts to crowd him, he throws the foil-wrapped chocolate bar to the opposite corner. He laughs as she (Ianto can't help but think of her as 'she') dives for it, screeching, then she's tossing it in the air and down it goes. She flaps her wings with delight and approaches him for another treat. He dodges out the door. What now? He can't just leave her there. Someone might walk in, and one of them would be hurt. Or she'll starve, and he doesn't think he could bear that.

He still has the card given to him by Captain Jack Harkness tucked into his pocket with his ID and bank card, and it has a phone number. He dials, entering his old access code when prompted. A familiar voice answers.

"Ianto Jones, it's good to hear your beautiful Welsh vowels. Have you decided to ask me for a job, after all?"

Ianto rolls his eyes despite knowing the captain can't see them. It's second nature. "No, but there's a pterodactyl in a warehouse in Roath. I thought you might like to come fetch her?" He can hear the captain's chair clatter back, and the flurry of him getting ready.

"On my way. Location?"

Ianto gives it to him. While he waits, he picks up another bar of chocolate, just in case.

It's easier than he expected to distract the pterodactyl with more chocolate while Captain Harkness grabs her by the leg to inject a sedative, until she launches herself into the air to try to shake him off. Then he's falling, and Ianto steps to catch him, and as she falls toward them they roll to the side, laughing. Ianto feels alive. He feels Captain Harkness'– Jack's breath, his arms around him, his hardness against Ianto's thigh, and his own body responding. Unable to stop himself, Ianto brushes his lips gently across the other man's, shocked at how right it feels.

Confused, he pushed himself to his feet. "I should go," he says softly.

He hears the captain roll to his feet. "Report to work tomorrow morning," Jack says as Ianto walks away.

Ianto turns to see Jack standing casually, as if he expects Ianto will accept. "I told you, I'm done with Torchwood."

"I don't think you are. You attacked a weevil to save someone you didn't know; you lured a dinosaur with candy. We need you, Ianto Jones, and I think maybe you need us." Jack holds out his hand. "Come save the world with me?"

"I… I'll think about it."

"Please do, as long as you need. There will always be a place for you," he says. The look in Jack's eye suggests that it's not just Torchwood on offer. It's too soon after Lisa, and Ianto's never been interested in a man before, but there is something there. He turns away and stuffs his hands in his pockets. When he thinks about it, really thinks about it, he can't imagine an ordinary life; it may not be tomorrow, but he will join Torchwood Three and Captain Jack Harkness. It's inevitable.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Yet another take on this scene we've all watched and/or read so many times. As always, a million thank yous to Gmariam, who thinks I ought to continue this. I'm leaving it 'In-Progress', the first time I'm posting story I'm not done writing. I hear other authors say that reviews help motivate them... shall we give it a go?