Nightmares of Immortality 11 final chapter

Here we are. I've done it. Actually got it finished before I go away. And what a big baby this turned out to be. I originally thought it would be about 3 parts. Never dreamed it would be this long, it seemed a lot smaller in my head.

This final piece is a smut/angst sandwhich. Smut either end and a real angsty bit in the middle. I have used a piece nearly straight from Janiqua's wonderful story "The Interrogation Glove". I hope she doesn't mind but it fitted exactly in with what I was trying to make my story do. Her take on this was much more harrowing than my original idea and I just had to use it. Many thanks Janiqua.

I am going away on holiday now. I've got a few more ideas I may play with while I'm away. I may also just decide to read a book. I haven't done that since I started this story.

Thank you to all of you who have reviewed and shared your thoughts. Much appreciated.

Jill

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Jack drove the SUV home with Owen and Tosh making out in the back. The "zinginess" was extreme. He thought longingly of Ianto following in Gwen's car, of getting him alone. Caught Owen's eye in the mirror, a triumphant look of possession and life. He returned it, approved, pressed his hand into his crotch to keep his own arousal under control as the couple dry humped in the back seat. He wasn't sure, but he thought Owen came in his pants. This was confirmed when he got out of the car.

Back at the Hub Ianto broke out the champagne. They only had the one bottle which didn't go far between them. Jack pulled out a bottle of his best hundred year old scotch whiskey and the alcohol fuelled the fire. But hey, this had to be one of the greatest things they had ever had to celebrate.

A group hug turned into something considerably more involving and when he noticed clothing starting to be removed Jack reluctantly shut it down, bringing them all up for air. While the idea of group sex on the conference table was an absolutely wonderful thought, he had a feeling it wouldn't be good for group morale come the next morning.

He called Gwen a cab and personally walked her up to the tourist office, stopping just before the door into the office which he knew to be a dead spot on the monitors. Pressing her up against the wall he proceeded to thoroughly snog her (God they were all using that word now) with a bit of mutual groping thrown in. Breaking off before he came in his pants he pulled back and rested his forehead against hers. 'It wouldn't worry me, you know that, God I'd love to shag you Mrs Gwen Williams, but I think your morals wouldn't be happy if you did this. Not anymore.' He gave her a gentle kiss. 'Go home and shag Rhys senseless. I'll see you in the morning.'

He stepped away, headed back just as the lift disgorged Owen and Tosh wrapped around each other. Good timing. He wondered just how much of a black spot this really was.

He charged back down the stairs shedding his upper clothing as he went to where Ianto was waiting for him. He flung him around, he couldn't wait any longer, ripped down his jeans, and with Ianto's cock in his hand took him spread eagled over the railing of the balcony. The Hub echoed to their cries.

Catching his breath, his body wrapped around Ianto who was still shuddering he realised what he'd thought was ringing in his ears was actually an alarm.

Somewhat hampered by their trousers around their ankles they moved over to a monitor to have a look. Their system that monitored the 999 emergency system had picked up key words that flagged their alarm. Jack stared at the screen. 'Damn,' he laughed. 'The pterodactyl's got out.'

Still drunk Ianto and Jack had a hilarious evening enticing Myfanwy back into the garage and down into the Hub. It was finally achieved with a bale of rabbits and some barbeque sauce. The clean up wasn't too bad either. She had only eaten three cats that 

anyone knew about and as Ianto dealt with their owners Jack thanked his lucky stars that she hadn't gotten out in daylight when there were small children about.

'I'm sure she enjoyed stretching her wings,' Ianto said, watching her swooping around the water tower in annoyance before taking herself up to her cave with every sign of a flounce.

'I'm sure she did,' Jack said nuzzling into this neck. 'What about you Ianto Jones, do you ever want to get out of here. Stretch you wings. Where would you like to go?'

Ianto leant back against him. Jack was feeling tired now, worn out from emotion, exertion, pain and lack of restful sleep. But Ianto smelt so good. Ianto turned for a kiss. 'New Zealand,' he said.

'New Zealand,' Jack laughed. He hadn't been expecting that. 'Why?'

'I want to see the All Blacks play at home. I want to cheer and wave flags for Wales when they play the All Blacks in Auckland.'

What? 'Rugby?' he finally asked. 'You're talking about rugby?' Ianto never stopped surprising him.

'Yes.' His hands were wandering up and down Jack's body making him hum. 'Yesterday morning, before you called me in and went and hurt yourself I was watching my neighbour's kids playing rugby. It was so normal. So happy. So much fun.' He shrugged, kissed Jack again. 'Doesn't matter.'

Jack laughed. 'I was thinking of other places in the universe, but New Zealand would be easier. If you want to go to New Zealand Ianto, I'll take you.' I'll do anything for you.

'You mean you'll come with me.'

'If that's the way you want to think of it. Okay. I'll come with you.'

'But not tonight yeah?' Ianto worked his hands into Jack's pants and cupped his bum. 'I've got other things I want to do tonight.'

'Oh,' Jack moaned. 'Tonight you are definitely sleeping over.'

'Hah,' Ianto shivered in his ear. 'Did you think you were going to have any say in that? Come on lover, let's find a bed.'

They made love – literally; slowly and leisurely building to a shattering climax that left them both exhausted and emotional. Jack found himself overflowing with love, nearly said it, but as usual no, he couldn't. Snuffling slightly he pulled an equally teary Ianto in close. He pulled the duvet back up over them and tucked it in close, keeping out the drafts. 'That spring water needs to be bottled. They'd make a fortune.'

'Stop talking,' Ianto put a finger on his lips. 'Need to sleep now.' He gave Jack a shove so that he rolled over then pulled him in against his chest. 'Go to sleep, I'll keep you safe. If you start to dream I'll wake you up. If you snore I'll wake you up and if you fart...' Jack felt Ianto rumble with laughter. 'God help me Jack, we have got to upgrade the air conditioning system.' He felt a kiss on the back of his neck. Moments later they were both asleep.

An immaculately turned out Ianto Jones kissed him awake and waved a coffee cup under his nose. 'God damn it Ianto.' He blinked. 'What the hell are you doing dressed already? Get out of that suit and get back into bed?'

'I'm afraid not sir. It's a quarter to nine. I though you might want to get up before the others start wondering what you're doing down here on your own.'

'Quarter to nine?' He sat up. 'It can't be. I never sleep that long.'

'You did sir. I left you as long as I thought I could.' He gave him another chaste kiss. 'You obviously needed it.' He stood up. 'Now shower. You reek.'

'Oh thanks.'

The next few days were as normal as life at Torchwood ever was. The rift woke up again and they chased five separate alien species around the city and a pissed off plesiosaur way out into the bay. There was barely time to sleep and when there was they were too exhausted for anything else. Ianto had initially been reluctant to leave Jack alone at night but both acknowledged they slept much better alone. Ianto was fairly sure he knew Jack well enough to tell that he hadn't had anymore night terrors. Jack greeted him brightly every morning and there was no tell tale odour of disinfectant. The reality was that somehow they had become shy with each other again and the idea of spending the night, the whole night was too big to contemplate right now.

They still wanted sex though. Jack and Ianto managed a quicky in the shower when Jack came back to change after his dealings with the aquatic dinosaur and Owen and Tosh were unable to keep away from each other. Ianto was pleased those two were finally being open about things, but he could do without walking in on them upsetting his quiet place in the archives. SNAFU – situation normal, all fucked up.

Ianto had organised a state of the art fume cupboard to be diverted from the chemical warfare testing facility and Owen and Tosh had had a glorious time rerouting the plumbing to make it work. It was designed to be vented, once the air was thoroughly scrubbed, to the outside through a series of large pipes. Being deep underground that wouldn't work here and it was eventually vented into one of the many disused railway tunnels that Torchwood had been built around. It was kept completely separate from their closed system air conditioning.

Once Owen was satisfied that it was working correctly and no fumes could possibly leak into the Hub, he had to have a play with his frog goo in it. Ianto was pleased to see that he kept a surreptitious watch on Jack just in case. Ianto watched Jack too and all the watching pissed Jack off and that may have been why he decided to go out in the field and personally try and attach a halter to a beast the size of a container ship, that looked like the Loch Ness monster with iridescent purple and green scales and then try to tow it out of the bay using a rubber ducky inflatable dingy.

Still, Ianto was actually quite happy with the eventual outcome of that adventure.

There was one problem. Now they had had time to process things, and especially now Owen was testing his anti-retcon compound they all felt the urge to talk about the transcript of Jack's missing time. Owen had showed Tosh, reasoning that she was the only one who didn't know and that wasn't fair. Like the others she had been appalled. They all cared about Jack, it hurt them to know that these things had happened to him; they needed to talk about it. But they couldn't say anything in front of Jack.

Jack was getting pissed off with all the conversations that stopped when he entered a room. He knew what they were talking about and he understood their need to do so, but it was driving him crazy. And wasn't that ironic.

In the end he called a meeting in the conference room. They debriefed the last few days happenings, allocated clean up duties then he stood up and moved to the door. 'Now talk about me,' he told them. 'Go on. I'm going out. I'll be out till at least four. Get it out of your systems. Discuss it thoroughly, cry if you want to.' He repressed a shudder as he thought of continual hanging, boiling in oil and any other tortures he may had endured. He looked at Owen, 'Come to a decision on what you want to recommend I do. I'll meet with you when I come back.' He swept out.

Although the subject matter was harrowing it was a relief to finally be able to discuss it. There was even a little gruesome relish in it, like discussing a good horror movie. They were each fascinated by a different aspect of Jack's story; Tosh found it amazing and wonderful that the whole earth could pull together and use the power of thought to bring down the tyrant. Ianto thought she was blocking out Jack's pain. Ianto couldn't pull himself beyond the cruelty and depravity that Jack had lived through and the strength of character that he had showed. Owen was fascinated by the gory medical details of the tortures described by Jack. Gwen however came up with the really interesting take on the missing year. 'What do you think we were doing while this was happening?'

'I suspect,' Owen said, 'that we turned up dead rather early on. There would be a snowball's chance in hell that we didn't try to do something about the situation and with the intelligence they must have had, I doubt we would have stood a chance.'

No one agreed with that possible outcome.

Owen shut them down. 'What are we going to advise Jack? Should he try to reverse the retcon? Remember, if he suffers a death like any of these, and I count forty eight 

different ways he died, it might trigger a flashback that could literally shut down his cognitive abilities.'

'And he'll go mad?'

'Yes Gwen, he'll go mad.'

'He's unlikely to have his head slowly crushed by a contraption of wires and pulleys.'

'But he might get stuck in a lift.'

'No one these days throws people to lions.'

Owen huffed, 'Come on, that one's the most likely. There are weevils.'

Ianto snorted, 'Knowing Jack he probably could get crucified,' although he actually felt anything but funny.

'Well,' Gwen said doggedly, 'I don't think there's much chance that he'll be continually drowned in an oversized fish tank.'

'But he might drown, that might be enough.'

'He did drown,' Ianto pointed out. 'Yesterday.'

'I think what with the dinosaur and all it wasn't anything like the same.'

'The sensation would have been. I gather he finds drowning rather unpleasant.'

Tosh shuddered. 'It is so distressing that you know that. That being said, obviously he didn't have a flashback. Did he?'

They all looked at Ianto. 'No,' he said. 'If he did he didn't say anything.' He thought. 'Doesn't seem likely, those flashbacks have all been so disturbing, I doubt he'd have had one without us knowing. He was quite happy yesterday afterwards. Quite zingy in fact.'

'Zingy?'

'Yes,' Ianto said deadpan. 'Zingy.'

Tosh grinned at him.

'Owen, how far have you got with the anti-retcon anyway?' Gwen wanted to know. 'Is it even safe to use? Can you control it?'

'Not yet,' he admitted, 'but I'm confident I can manage it.'

'But if you do, and he gets this all back, how is he going to cope?'

'That's the problem. We'd need to find him professional help. Make a good cover story; put him in the witness protection scheme or some such, so that although he can talk about trauma, he can't give details. A year of captivity and torture but no details. It might work.'

'Or we just retcon the shit out of the psychiatrist when we've finished with him.'

'Well there is always that. The poor bastard is unlikely to treat anyone else like Jack to suffer flashbacks himself.'

'Jack doesn't want to do it,' Ianto said.

They finally broke up, no closer to what they should recommend Jack do, but happier themselves just for talking about it.

'Yan, can I have a word?' Owen stopped him on his way out. 'Can we go somewhere private?'

Puzzled Ianto led him back into the archives, to the small area with a desk that he thought of as his office. 'What is it?' he asked with dread. He just had a feeling that this wasn't going to be good. 'No cameras here,' he added, just in case that was going to be important.

'Ianto, what's your relationship to Jack? Really?'

'What do you mean?'

'I mean, I know you don't actually sleep together, as in actually spend the night together and wake up in the morning together, so what are you to each other? Are you lovers, fuck buddies, what?'

Ianto bristled. 'What's it to do with you?'

'Yan, I need to know. I need to know if you are Jack's,' he made dit dit marks in the air, '"significant other". Are you the person the doctor talks to when the patient can't talk for himself? Is that you?'

'Ah…' Ianto thought. Was he? What was he to Jack? What was Jack to him? 'I don't know,' he finally said. 'I haven't thought about it. I guess there isn't anyone else for him so I suppose…'

'You suppose. Jesus Ianto.'

'Why? What is this about?'

'Christ Yan.' The look on Owen's face was frightening. 'Jack loves you. He loves you so much that he did this for you. He did all of this for you.' He waved some pages in the air. 'And you don't know whether you love him or not?' He was angry. Ianto 

jumped as he slapped the papers down on the desk. 'You need to work out what you think. I didn't give you all the transcript. There's more. You need to read it. Then you figure out if you can make the call. Are you the person to decide if Jack needs to remember this or not?' To Ianto's chagrin there were tears in Owen's eyes. 'I'll give you some time to read it.' Swearing softly he left.

With a sense of dread Ianto picked up the sheets of paper off the desk. What had Jack done for him?

The pages were part of Owen's report, the tidied up transcript of Jack's disc. He couldn't tell where they fitted into the narrative he'd already read. Owen seemed to have written them so that they could be removed from the rest. It only took a few sentences for Ianto to realise why.

During the year that Captain Jack Harkness was held prisoner on the Valiant he was tortured and abused. Many atrocities were practised on him and yet he managed to maintain his will to live. In his opinion the most distressing part of the year came roughly five months into his captivity. It was this incident that he so desperately wanted to forget that he decided to take retcon. Five months into The Master's domination of the world he managed to capture the Torchwood team. Harkness does not know the exact details of the capture as he was never allowed to speak to his team but understood from ship board gossip picked up later that they had been mounting either an assassination attempt on Saxon or a rescue of himself and he believes it was probably both.

He was brought into the main board room of the ship. The Doctor was also present. Saxon announced he had a nice surprise for him and proceeded to have brought in the four Torchwood team members, Owen Harper, Gwen Cooper, Toshiko Sato and the fourth member and Harkness' lover Ianto Jones. All four were in very poor shape having been severely beaten and were barely able to stay on their feet for the time they were in the room. However the Tolcafane, an alien killing robot/race were hovering and would not let any of them move, not even to hold each other up.

Harkness professes he was very distressed to see them but did his utmost to appear unconcerned as showing emotion greatly encouraged The Master. He announced that he didn't care for these people and told the Master to simply dispose of them. He knew that they would not leave the ship alive but was hoping to stop The Master from toying with them. The Master however decided to toy with him. He was given his own gun, with one bullet and told to choose one of the group to shoot. Taking the gun and endeavouring to hide his distress Harkness moved to stand in front of the group. He decided to shoot Jones in the head, offering him a quick and pain free death but when he stood there looking at him he was unable to do so. At his hesitation the Tolcafane attacked and Harkness died again.

Ianto had to put the paper down. He couldn't read this. He didn't want to know. He could barely breathe. He had to sit and calm himself, deliberately force the air in and out of his lungs. Jack would have shot him to save him dieing a dreadful death? It was ghastly. He wasn't sure how to take that. Jack however had obviously meant it well. Unhappily he kept reading.

On his reviving the Torchwood team were no longer in the room. The Master told him that his hesitation had proved his love for the group and therefore they deserved special treatment with the most spectacular to be reserved for Ianto Jones.

Later in his cell Harkness was to wonder why he had missed the chance of using that bullet to kill the Master. Even if the Tolcafane had killed him for doing so he could still have swung around and shot the Timelord. He bitterly berates himself for not having done so and ending things at least six months earlier.

He was returned to his cell and heard no more about his team for nearly five days by which time he was very distressed and concerned for them. He did not know whether they were alive or dead and none of his contacts he had dealings with knew anything either. He imagined many terrible things which may well have been true.

On the afternoon of the 5th day he was brought into the aircraft hanger as was normal when The Master wanted to kill him. However the other four were already there. Harkness was chained to the wall and a device fitted to hold his eyelids open so he had to watch as all four were tortured to death. Three deaths were by means that Harkness had himself suffered and knew to be prolonged and extremely painful. Owen Harper was crushed to death in the manner of a medieval stoning. Planks were laid on his body and weights added until he died. It apparently took a long time. Gwen Cooper was thrown in a large clear crate containing venomous snakes. Her death particularly distressed Harkness as her body swelled and discoloured with the venom. It also took a long time.

Nausea rolled through Ianto's gut. He was shaking with dread. He had to smooth the pages out on the desk top to read, he couldn't hold them.

Toshiko Sato was hung, cut down as she lost consciousness, revived and then had her abdomen slashed and her entrails removed before her heart was plucked out still beating - the traitor's death of being hung, drawn and quartered.

No!

Harkness screamed and pleaded for mercy for the people he loved but this just seemed to amuse The Master. It was nearly twenty four hours after it first started that The Master was ready for Ianto Jones. Harkness had been calling to him, telling him he loved him, that he was sorry, but by this stage if appeared that Jones was catatonic with terror. Harkness had screamed until his vocal cords bled. Jones in the end received a quicker death, but probably the one that Harkness feared the most. Harkness was sure that The Master knew this. Jones was beheaded by a guard wearing an old style executioner's mask and using a medieval executioners axe. Once the head was removed The Master picked it up by the hair and brandished it in Harkness' face. Harkness is sure that at that stage Jones was still conscious, he describes the eyes as being bright and full of pain before going dull.

Abruptly Ianto lurched up and vomited in the rubbish bin. Christ! Jesus Christ. His body shook. It was a long time before he could continue reading.

This is the vision that haunts Harkness. While the death of the others affected him severely he had come to terms with it to a certain extent. He knows that in reversing the time paradox he undid the whole episode and he therefore did manage to save them but he states that he is completely unable to look at Jones without seeing his severed head.

He states that in the weeks following the executions he realised that he had lost every remaining thing he valued. He had held on to the thought of escaping or otherwise being one day released and being able to return home to the group. Until he saw them die he had not even realised he had somewhere to call home and a family to be with. Their loss led him to a period of utter despair. He suggests that he was suicidal but couldn't die. He invited beatings and welcomed the deaths because however briefly physical pain masked his mental pain. The loss of Jones was a particular strain as he had only recently begun to discover that he had strong romantic feelings for the man.

A young woman, Tish Jones, Martha's sister was in charge of feeding prisoners. She eventually helped him come to see that he had more to live for; that if his mission with Torchwood was saving the earth, then he was needed in that role more than ever. It seems reading between the lines of this heartbreaking story that Tish made it her mission to save Jack.

That, thought Ianto, was the first time in his whole transcript that Owen had slipped and called him Jack.

It must have been extremely harrowing for her.

Ianto blessed the unknown Tish.

After returning home to a group who knew nothing of the events of what he calls The Year That Never Was Harkness decided that they should never know and kept his trauma to himself. He tried to revive his relationships with the team but they were suspicious and hurt over his unexplained absence. He desperately wanted to deepen his relationship with Ianto Jones but was unable to spend any real time with him without feelings of distress. This is the major reason he gives for taking the retcon.

He realises the irony of finally finding a sense of place and belonging and having to loose his memories of why he realised its importance in order to be able to belong and enjoy it.

That was the end. Ianto curled into a ball and wept.

Owen gave Ianto exactly an hour and then went and found him. He was already regretting some of the things he had said. It wasn't Ianto's fault that he didn't know how Jack felt about him, and he knew better than anyone how ambivalent a relationship with a work colleague could be. Ianto had every right and loads of very good reasons not to rush into a life partnership with Jack. It was just that Owen was so disturbed by Jack's revelations on the disc that he found it hard looking at Jack objectively, treating him as though this hadn't actually happened. He'd been able to 

treat it all as a bit of graphic fiction until Jack had starting having the flashbacks and he'd been shown a glimpse, a fraction of the dreadful trauma Jack had been through. Now at least someone else knew the full story, but he really hadn't had the right to subject Ianto to it, just because he didn't have the guts to make the decision about the anti-retcon on his own.

Jack had come back. He was in his office with loads of paperwork on his desk. He caught Owen's eye and motioned him in but Owen shook his head. He headed back down to the archives carrying a blanket and a mug of tea.

Ianto was sitting on the floor, back against the wall head on his knees. As Owen had expected, he was a soggy mess. His nose wrinkled as he caught the smell of vomit and he toed the waste paper bin further down the hallway. He placed the blanket around the other man's shoulders and proffered the cup of tea. 'Here. You're always dishing out tea to cure traumas. I thought I'd return the favour.'

Ianto sniffed and rubbed his hand across his eyes. He accepted the mug and inhaled the steam. 'Thank you.'

Owen sat beside him. 'Stupid question, but are you all right?'

Ianto's mouth quirked, 'Yeah, stupid question.' He blew into the top of the mug, took an appreciative sip. 'My Mam always made us a cup of tea when things were tough.'

'Yeah,' Owen grinned. 'Mine too.'

'That is so British.'

'Yeah. Everything will be fixed by a good cup of tea.'

Ianto turned to look at him. 'Why did you look at what was on that disc? When Jack gave it to you he told you not to look at it, right?'

'Yeah, well,' Owen shrugged apologetically. 'You know me. And,' he said sternly, 'before you get on your high horse just remember, if I hadn't read it then we wouldn't have had a clue what was going on with these flashbacks.'

'I'm not sure it would have made any difference. Would it?'

'Well at least I'm aware that he's retconned out a years' worth of memories and I know how dangerous that is.'

'So you can do something about it?'

Owen looked down. 'I don't know.' He found himself fiddling with the hem of his jersey. 'I don't know what outcome would be worse, going made if something should trigger a total recall, or going mad from these memories. I think it should be your call.'

'My call?'

'Yes.'

'My call is no.' Ianto said it very firmly. 'Jack does not need to remember this.'

'Okay.' Owen sat there breathing hard. He had to make sure that Ianto knew what he was consenting to. 'But just think of a couple of things. What if he looses one of us? How will he respond?'

'Badly, I've not doubt,' Ianto said bluntly. 'But the rest of us will be here to help. I also don't think any of us are likely to die like that in this universe.'

'Okay. What if you die; violently? Especially if he feels he is at fault? Face it Yan, it is a possibility.'

'He is used to people dieing on him, often violently. I don't think it is worth letting him remember this death just in case of another.'

'All right, last thing. What if we all die? What if he looses us all?'

'He will one day anyway, don't forget that. And if he looses us to a violent end that he feels is his fault,' Ianto lifted a set face to him, 'then perhaps he would be better off being mad.'

Owen swallowed, nodded. 'That's your answer then.'

'Yes. Don't undo it.'

'Okay,' Owen breathed a sigh of relief. 'I'm glad you said that because I don't want to undo it either. At least not for now. The flashbacks seem to have been caused by the Tyralian venom. When I didn't know that I was panicking, I thought he was on track for a major melt down. When it looked like I could reverse the process it seemed like a good idea. Now, well I may need to review things if they do happen again. In the meantime let's leave things alone. At least if you two do start actually sleeping together you'll know of any nightmares he has.'

Ianto's mouth nearly grinned. 'And he'll know of mine.'

'Yeah well, living together is a bitch like that.' Owen stood up, offered Ianto his hand. 'Shall we go and tell him?'

'Owen, before, in the meeting, why were you pushing us as if you wanted to do it?'

'I wanted to hear your arguments, make sure.' He held out his hand, stopped them just before they entered the Hub. 'Ianto, I'm sorry you know about this. I was a coward. I was too scared to make this decision on my own. That's the only reason I shared this with you. It was very unprofessional.' He took the blanket off him and pointed him towards the bathrooms. 'Best go tidy up a bit. If we go to Jack with you looking like that he'll have a heart attack.'

Rubbing water over his face really didn't improve things. His eyes were red and swollen, his face pale and blotchy. However washing and straightening his clothes made him feel better. He joined Owen and the two of them went up to the office. Jack looked up as they came in the door. His face was set in the blank mask he used when he needed to hide his feelings, he was scared of what Owen was going to say. The mask dropped however when he spotted Ianto.

'Ianto. Fuck. What happened to you?' He had his arms around him before he could blink. In spite of his resolve to stay calm and objective he'd had too much of an emotional shock. As Jack's arms infolded him he burst into tears. The arms tightened around him, then pushed him back slightly so he could look at him. 'Yan, what's happened? What's wrong? What happened to him Owen?'

Ianto tried to pull himself together, to speak. 'It's all right Jack. I'm all right.' God, now he understood what Jack meant, about not being able to look at him with out imagining, looking at Jack now he was picturing him, chained to a wall watching them all die, seeing his head held up in front of his eyes. He swallowed, tried to smile reassuringly. 'There was more to the transcript than Owen initially showed us. He just felt the need to rectify that in my case.'

'It was pretty harrowing,' Owen said quietly.

'Why?' Jack asked Owen. 'Why keep something back?'

'Because I didn't think anyone else needed to know the full story.'

'And now?' Jack's voice sounded a warning.

'I couldn't make this decision on my own. All right? It was too hard a call. Ianto is the closest thing you've got to family. He needed to be involved.'

Jack gave a strangled snort. 'Ianto?'

Ianto wasn't sure if he was agreeing, scoffing at the idea or just wanted his opinion.

The latter seemed the easiest. He pulled away, put his hands on Jack's shoulders and stared into his eyes; eyes that were clouded with concern for him. 'You did the right thing Jack, when you took the retcon. You did the right thing. Don't undo it.'

'O…kay…' Jack's eyes searched his testing his sincerity. 'And you concur do you?' Jack asked Owen.

'Absolutely. I do. Yes.' Owen was nodding emphatically. 'Now that we know about the effects of the Tyralian venom I think we could make a drug that would reverse the effect of retcon. I do plan to get working on that and find something usable in case we need it in the future. In the meantime, after quite a bit of discussion the whole team agrees that the chances of something else causing you uncontrollable flash backs is not worth the distress it would cause you to rediscover your memories.' He gave an awkward grimace, 'And that wasn't even taking into account the extra few pages.'

'I see.' Jack pulled Ianto back into his arms. 'So I say thanks but no thanks and that's the end of it?'

'It is yes,' Owen said sincerely, 'On your part anyway. You go ahead with your life, I'll watch you of course, keep an eye out for things that might cause trouble, but I think you were right.' He ignored Jack's raised eyebrow. 'It was the venom that triggered the flashbacks and as long as we don't waft any fumes of it through the place, I think you'll be all right.'

'What about in a hundred years time?'

'Yesss. Tricky. It might be one of the things I have to hand over to the incoming medic when I retire. And you never know, I might come up with some way of making retconning safe. Or, you might be over the trauma and able to cope. You can never tell what's going to happen.'

'Okay.' Jack shrugged. 'Thank you Owen. You might as well head home now. The girls have already gone.'

'Right,' Owen turned to leave. He pulled a small envelope out of his pocket. 'Ianto,' he pressed it into his hand. 'Here. You might want this?'

Ianto took the packet. He felt the small capsule inside and grinned when he realised what it was. 'Retcon?'

'Yeah. Ironic I know, but I just thought…' He shrugged. 'It's the three hour version. It is up to you, but if you don't want to remember that, well…It gives you the option.' He put a hand on Ianto's shoulder. 'One shot only though, tonight or nothing. It would be much more complicated if you waited till tomorrow to decide to forget what you read. If you take it about six you'll loose the later half of the afternoon. That should do it.' He gave a grin. 'I'm sure Jack can help you with a cover story if you need it.' He turned to leave. 'I'll be off now.'

Jack waited, his arms still tight around Ianto until the cog door closed behind Owen. Then he stood back and used his thumbs to wipe tears from Ianto's face. He cupped his jaw in a movement so tender it caused Ianto's breath to hitch again. 'What happened Ianto?'

He shrugged, finding it hard to put things into words. 'I read the rest of the transcript.'

Jack gave the side of his head a slap.

'Ow.'

'Not that you dimwit. What happened in the transcript?'

Ianto gave a watery grin. 'Like I'm going to tell you?' He leaned back in for the hug.

'If it was that bad… I'm trying to work out what would be so bad… that Owen didn't let you see it in the first place; something so horrible that you don't even want to remember reading about it. That's pretty extreme.' Jack looked up triumphantly. 'You died didn't you?'

'Jack please.' He was so tired. He just wanted Jack to stop.

'God I know,' Jack's look of triumph turned to one of compassion. 'I saw you die, didn't I?'

'Jack, for fuck's sake.' He gave him a strong shake. 'Stop it. I can't tell you, you know that.' He broke off to kiss him. 'I can tell you this though, I realised this afternoon that I love you. I love you so much.' He kissed him again. A rather surprised Jack was a little slow to catch on.

They pulled out for air, eventually.

'You love me?' Jack's smile was a mile wide.

'Yes,' Ianto said. 'I really do.'

'Wow!' Jack's eyes were full with tears.

'You don't have to say anything. I don't expect anything, I just want you to know what I feel.' He grimaced. 'Because, when I take that pill, unfortunately I won't remember saying it. And I'm sorry,' he nearly broke down again. 'I really want to take that pill.'

Jack pulled him back into a tight embrace. They stayed there locked together, head's on each other's shoulders, hand on the other's head for a long time. Jack was trembling with strong emotion, Ianto could feel it in his bones. After a time he moved back just enough to rest their forehead's together, breathe each other's breath. 'Is that a good thing?' he asked, his lips just millimetres from Jack's.

'You love me?'

'Yes.' He kissed his nose. 'I love you. I love all of you, your perverse little ways and your annoying talent for dying while saving the world. And your kindness, and your gentleness and the way you make me feel.'

'Perverse little ways?'

'Yes. All of them.'

'Name one?'

'Changing the subject when you can't cope with an emotional subject.'

'Okay, aside from that?'

'Talking when you should be kissing.'

'Other than that?' Jack was grinning like a loon.

'Shut up.' Ianto's smile was equally wide.

They kissed, and it was the most wonderful, profound, earth shattering experience that Ianto had ever had. It was different to sex. It was as if they had melded, body and soul. It was deeply satisfying. And they didn't follow it up by ripping each other's clothes off and having it off on the desk which Ianto found a little bit surprising. He certainly wouldn't have minded. Instead, when they finally did stop to breathe, Jack sent him off to change into casual clothes and then lead him by the hand up to the SUV. They drove up towards the spring, but stopped at an old building in the shopping centre at the bottom of the hill. Jack jumped out and went in. He was back in a few minutes with a cane hamper. 'Picnic,' he announced happily.

They drove up to the spring and got out. The sun was setting over the distant bay and the city lights were coming on. It was going to get cold soon but the view was fantastic. Ianto had to admit, it was kind of romantic.

Jack opened the hamper and pulled out a bottle of wine. Hand in hand they walked up to the spring and knelt beside it. It was rapidly getting dark under the trees and Ianto couldn't help but remember the last time they had been there, with Tosh so sick and the weirdness of the witches and the healing. There was a lot of mud and trampled grass that was probably the legacy of that night.

Jack knelt and used the spring water to bless them as he had the first time Ianto was here, when Jack himself and then Owen were healed. Then to Ianto's surprise he opened the wine and poured a good glug into the water. He grinned at Ianto a little embarrassed, 'An offering for the lady of the spring, to thank her for what she did for us.'

Ianto didn't think it was ridiculous at all.

They came back out of the trees to see the last of the colour wash across the sky. It was a clear night and the sky to the west was a clear gold that washed so delicately to indigo blue above their heads. Stars were appearing.

They turned and kissed again. The kiss this time turned passionate, hands finding their way inside clothes, desperate to touch skin. 'Shit, it's too cold for this,' Jack murmured into Ianto's neck, warm hands tight on his arse inside his jeans, pulling his hips closer. 'What say we get back to the Hub? We can have our picnic there. I need you now but I'm too old to do it in a car.'

'Mutual wank?' Ianto suggested, his hand working its way into Jack's pants. He found what he was looking for and gave it a pull.

'Mmmm.' One hand left his arse and worked its way to the front, returned the favour.

Ianto jerked against him as Jack expertly ran his finger around his glans. 'Oh, quickly,' he whispered. 'Just do it.' He swiped his tongue across Jack's lips making him moan. He held Jack while Jack held him, each of them working into a rhythm. The joy of the feel of each other's cock, hot and hard in his hand. They knew each other so well now, knew how the other man liked to be brought off. But when they got to the point where they usually broke off, Ianto went to drop to his knees but Jack stopped him. 'No,' he said breathlessly. 'Together. Like this together.' Jack's free arm came around Ianto's waist, while Ianto's held Jack's bum. The rhythm picked up, the intensity rocketed up and lips locked together they ground and thrust into their lover's expert fist. Ianto moved his other hand down between Jack's buttocks, his finger finding his hole and teasing round it as the hand on Jack's cock pulled deep. Jack whimpered, pressed back on the probing finger. Ianto found it hard to concentrate as Jack expertly worked his own aching shaft, god it felt good, but he managed to work his finger into Jack's arse. He was rewarded by Jack's surging cry and the tightening of his hand that felt so good. Jack was thrusting his hips with increased urgency, thrusting forward into Ianto's fist, back onto his finger. He was making the little mewling sounds he often made just before he came and Ianto crooked his finger in just the right way.

Jack was off, jerking and juddering, his sperm cascading hot into Ianto's hand; then Ianto was coming too. His balls tightened and his body spasmed, crying out Jack's name as his own sperm coated their hands, and their pants.

They stood there, holding each other up, enjoying the afterglow, catching their breath; trying to ignore the sticky wetness.

Eventually it was Ianto who pulled away. He suspected Jack could have stayed there all night. 'Well that was kinky.'

'A little bit exhibitionist,' Jack agreed. 'Lucky no one came past walking their dog or something.'

'Or heaven forbid, coming to give their kids a ride on the swing before bed. It's this spring isn't it?'

'No,' Jack said. 'I think it's you. When I'm with you I am just so different from who I am the rest of the time.'

They walked back to the SUV. Ianto pulled out the packet of tissues that lived in the glove box. 'You know Jack. I think I can live with what I read.' He mopped himself up and passed Jack the box. 'I'm not going to take the retcon because I really don't want to forget about this.'

Jack looked at the messy tissues and giggled. 'Good.' He kissed him again. 'Now, let's get somewhere with a bed. Your place is closest. Yeah?'

'Yes.' Ianto said happily. 'You can stay the night if you like.'

Jack gave him a beaming smile. 'Thank you. I'd like that.'

END