"Jack?" The voice that crackled over the comm was diffident, but Jack slammed his fist down on his desk anyway.

"What now?" It was almost a snarl. He was aware on some level that he was overreacting, but felt stretched too thin to do anything about it. Somewhere in the Hub, Tosh was now cringing, he was sure. At the moment, he didn't much care.

"It's-you're going to want to see this."

"Can't you just tell me what it is? I'm never going to get anything done if I have to keep looking at this and looking at that and..."

Owen's voice cut across the connection. "Jack, it's Ianto. He's not in his flat."

Jack ground his teeth. "So? He's not a prisoner, guys. He's allowed to go in and out. Probably went for chocolate or a newspaper or something."

"No one buys the bloody paper anymore, Jack. Besides, it's been over two hours. If he needs that much chocolate he should be in a chocolate rehab somewhere."

"That's still not unusual, Owen. Come back when you have something resembling an emergency."

Jack jerked his headset off, intending to throw it on the desk or perhaps, across the room. But before he could, he heard a tiny, tinny Tosh in the earpiece.

"The last image we got was him going down the steps in front of his building. After that, there's nothing."

Jack jammed the earpiece back in. "That's not possible. That neighborhood is crawling with shops with security cameras. Check again."

"I've checked twice, Jack. There's nothing anywhere within a two-mile radius of his flat," Tosh retorted, sounding much less diffident now. If Jack had been in a better mood, he would have smiled at that. As it was, he found little to smile about. If Ianto wasn't wasn't showing up on any of the security feeds in his neighborhood, there could be only one reason for that.

Ianto was deliberately avoiding detection. Ianto was doing something he didn't want them to know about. Or else he was doing a runner. Jack didn't know which made him angrier. Both options, frankly, made his blood boil.

"Tosh, widen the search of the security feeds. Gwen, you're on all modes of public transport out of Cardiff. Owen, check the hospitals, just in case."

"Widening the search," Tosh confirmed. Jack could hear the rapid-fire clicking of keys in the background.

"I've got the bus and train terminals as well as the airport onscreen and I'm running a check of all recent passenger activity for anyone matching his description. This could take awhile," Gwen reported. "Jack, what are you going to do?"

"I'm going after him," Jack decided, rising so fast he nearly knocked over his chair.

"Wouldn't it be better to wait until we have something?"

Jack ignored the former PC's question. He grabbed his coat off the hook and wrestled into it, swearing under his breath as his arm somehow got caught in the sleeve.

"Christ, Gwen. Just let him go. He's been on the verge of a major hissy fit since he told the teaboy not to darken our doorstep for a month. It'll give him something to do."

"Owen, I can still hear you."

"My bad. Been meaning to get that mute button fixed," said Owen, not sounding at all sorry.

Jack seriously that doubted it was broken, but he didn't bother to reply. After all, Owen had a point. The fact that Jack was too wound up to even bother to rise to the cranky medic's bait proved it. His focus was elsewhere.

After the Cyberman-in-his-house debacle, Jack had tried to take the high road with their errant admin. (Errant? That was the understatement of the year, maybe a lifetime. A Jack ifetime.) He had opted to suspend Jones from duty rather than prepare the Retcon cocktail that would wipe out a sixth of the young man's life, or to administer the bullet that would wipe out the young man's chance at a future, permanently. Both options were well within his authority, and if Torchwood's Rules and Regulations were anything to go by, one of them was required.

But Jack Harkness didn't give a damn about Torchwood's Rules and Regulations, except when it suited him to follow them. They were for other people, though he had to admit it would have made his decision easier if he had been more of a stickler for the rules. The decision, if not the follow-through. Because, frankly, the idea of giving Ianto either the pills or the bullet made him sick to his stomach. So he hadn't done it. He had told himself he was trusting his gut instincts.

'Literally,' he'd realized with some bleak amusement. But the internal certainty that he'd made the right decision didn't do a thing for the roiling emotions the whole incident had left in its wake. Betrayal, chagrin-and a sense of loss at not having Ianto's silent presence around him, anticipating his every need-had simmered just beneath the surface while he had tried to pretend it was back to business-as-usual in the Hub.

Clearly, he hadn't been fooling anyone. Ianto might be out of sight (except via the CCTV, which Jack had refused to check, instead delegating that task to the team on the off-chance that Ianto would try something rash) but he was never far from Jack's mind. And Jack's mood had suffered as a result. He had always preferred action to brooding and this was killing him. At last he had a chance to DO something.

With a mighty yank on the sleeve, Jack got his coat sorted. He stormed out of his office and took the stairs two at a time, the clatter of boots on metal echoing through the Hub. He didn't notice that his Team were pointedly staring at their monitors as he passed, except for Owen, who was gazing at the ceiling. His mind was already outside, on the streets, trying to divine where his renegade assistant might have got to.

"God help him if he's doing anything he shouldn't when I find him," Jack thought grimly.

It took Ianto the better part of the day and over 25 km worth of traveling on foot to get to his destination, a fishing lodge a mere 10 km from Cardiff. But taking the direct route was hardly an option what with Torchwood receiving feeds from every traffic camera, gas station, and shop along the way. His route had been soggier, dirtier and at times more hazardous than he would have liked, skirting along the waterfronts as he had for much of it, but it had been worth it to avoid detection.

He knew that they'd ferret him out eventually-=Tosh and the rest of the Team were too good for to evade for long. But he figured that he'd at least bought himself a little time. Time enough for what he had in mind.

He'd chosen this fishing lodge not because it had sentimental value-it didn't. He'd never been there, though he'd had an uncle that had spoken of it fondly, which was how it happened to be on his radar at all. He'd chosen it because it featured an array of little wooden pods arrayed around the edge of the lake that were just big enough and private enough for his purposes. He had figured the place would be fairly empty this time of year. It had been a stroke of luck when he had looked it up on the Web and found out that it would be closed all month for renovations.

If Ianto had believed in signs, he would have taken this as one. Once he had the destination selected, the rest of the plans had fallen into place. All he had left to do was get there in one piece, with a bit of a head start. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, alright, he was well aware that a lot of things could go wrong. But so much had gone wrong in Ianto's life of late, he thought that maybe he was due to have something go his way. It was irrational, perhaps, but wasn't all faith at its core?

At first it seemed that his luck had indeed changed. The day had been overcast, which would make grainy video feeds even harder to read, should he inadvertently be captured on one. (He had done his homework, but he had no illusions that he'd manage to avoid them all.) The temperature had dropped steadily since noon, but Ianto had pulled merely on some gloves and a knit hat and soldiered on, appreciating how the chilly weather kept people away from the docks.

Ianto reached the fishing lodge Saturday evening, and was gratified to find the place abandoned-not a worker or security guard in sight-and only one lock that needed picking to grant him access to the property. It had given way easily and Ianto had just knelt to return his shim to his rucksack when a shadow fell across him.

He looked up and froze.

"Hello, Ianto."

It was Jack. Framed in a halo of light from the security lamps, he looked impossibly tall, his greatcoat billowing behind him in the breeze,

Ianto's hand reflexively closed around the tool as he stood, his other hand dusting off the knees of his jeans as he did so.

"Jack." He was pleased with how calm his voice sounded.

"You picked a lousy time to go fishing. It's supposed to get below freezing tonight."

"I'd say it was nearly there now."

'Christ, we're talking about the weather,' Ianto thought. 'The weather!' Anyone passing by would think it was just a casual conversation between two acquaintances. However, the two men eyed each other up and down, each trying to get a read on the other, and there was nothing casual about that at all.

Ianto saw Jack's eyes flick down to the small metal bar he was holding, then back to Ianto's face, clearly evaluating whether the younger man posed a threat.

As if. In trained hands, perhaps, the pick might be a viable weapon. In Ianto's, the only thing in danger was a secured door and perhaps the dirt he'd acquired under his fingernails during this mad journey. He tossed the pick on top of his rucksack and held his hands carefully at his sides.

Jack might appear calm, but Ianto had become adept enough at reading his moods to sense the volatility lurking just beneath the surface. He figured his best bet was to appear as innocuous as possible, especially because he'd just been caught in highly irregular circumstances (as he was no outdoorsman-his city-boy pallor said as much) while he was on suspension from from a job where he'd been the cause of other highly irregular circumstances that had resulted in the death of two innocents and-no, he wasn't going to think about that, not now.

Not that he'd been been specifically forbidden anything during said suspension; there had been no orders not to leave town like in the movies. But no matter how you looked at it, this was going to be awkward to explain.

Strangely, Jack didn't seem interested in explanations at the moment. In fact, he now was peering at the sky.

"Wind's picking up," Jack observed. "We should get inside before we catch our death. You especially."

Ianto inwardly flinched at the word "death", for it was a little too close to what he'd been thinking about, or rather, trying not to think about. But his expression remained carefully impassive. He was determined to give nothing away, not until he knew what Jack intended to do. Until he figured that out, even asking a question could be dangerous. He settled for one raised eyebrow.

"Your shoes, your jeans. They're soaked," Jack explained. "Don't you want to get inside?"

Ianto glanced down, then shrugged. In truth, he had nearly forgotten the cold in the surprise of the moment. Jack's arrival had not been unexpected, but his timing was. Ianto had been so careful. He should have had more time.

The hell with it. He had to know.

"How did you find me so fast?"

"We checked your internet history for any unusual searches. This place came up with a red flag the size of a barn."

"My personal computer automatically deletes my history every five minutes."

"Backup files."

"I deleted them too."

"Tosh." As if that was explanation enough. Actually, it was.

"Ah." There was probably a backup to the backup somewhere. He had suspected as much, but had run out of both the time and the energy to search for it. In the end, he had done just as much as he'd thought he needed to.

Jack gestured expansively at the array of huts around them. "You're shivering. Your place or mine?"

"Not the SUV? Where is it, anyway?"

"Around. Come on, I want to see your digs."

"Seriously?" Ianto couldn't imagine what Jack was up to. He'd rather expected an interrogation, or at least a lecture, followed by an offer he couldn't refuse to be escorted back to the SUV. He shrugged again.

"If you insist. There's a hut back in the trees that I had my eye on. Of course, I haven't had time to properly check in yet."

Jack stood in the middle of the wooden hut and took in the scene. It didn't take long. The place was so small he that he wouldn't be able to fully extend both his arms in any direction had he wanted to. He'd had to duck to enter it, smiling wryly at Ianto's "check-in" comment as he did so. Despite everything, the young Welshman hadn't lost his dry sense of humor, for this was no hotel, motel or even a flophouse. It was a pod with room for two sleeping bags squeezed side by side and little else; it was a place to kip for a few hours between marathon fishing sessions and nothing more. It made your average garden shed seem like Cardiff Castle.

It was the last place he'd expect Ianto-with his taste for natty suits, gourmet coffee and high-end hair gel-to hole up in. Worrisome.

A glance at Ianto's flat rucksack, which he had tossed into a corner after following Jack into the hut, indicated that he could not have brought much with him. Certainly not a sleeping bag. Probably not even an extra sweater. Even more worrisome.

Jack turned to face Ianto, arranging his face into a fixed smile. "Nice place you got here, if extreme minimalism is your thing."

Ianto was drinking from a bottle of water. He regarded Jack over the top of the bottle as he drained it, then carefully replaced the cap.

"What can I say? I got tired of vacuuming." Ianto folded his arms and leaned against the door frame, watching Jack carefully, doubtlessly trying to anticipate what Jack's next move would be.

Jack wasn't sure what it would be, himself. He'd been momentarily distracted by the sight of Ianto's mouth around the water bottle and the liquid working its way down his throat. Damn, but the young Welshman had the most sensuous mouth Jack had ever seen. On more than one occasion, Jack had lost himself in fantasies of what those lips would feel like against his own, or around his...

'Focus, Harkness!' There had already been one catastrophe because he'd allowed himself to be misdirected by Ianto. Now it was up to him to prevent another. He decided to get straight to the point.

"You've come here to kill yourself."

Ianto's expression didn't change, but something shifted in his eyes and Jack knew that he was right.

He took a step forward, which was all that he needed to be right in Ianto's face. "Don't bother to deny it. You've got no gear, no change of clothes, not even a toothbrush as far as I can tell."

Ianto merely looked away, and Jack remembered a phrase he'd seen on a plaque somewhere: "You're nobody until you've been ignored by a cat." It should have read, "You're nobody until you've been ignored by Ianto Jones."

Jack's fury, which had largely dissipated as he had driven at wildly illegal speeds around Cardiff until he'd gotten the hit on Ianto's location, reignited.

"Look at me when I'm talking to you!" He slammed his fist into the wall next to Ianto, and it had the desired effect. The younger man jerked around and looked at him again.

"Suicide! What the hell are you thinking?" Jack growled.

For a brief moment, Ianto's eyes swam with emotion. Jack wasn't as good at reading Ianto as Ianto was at reading him, but he picked out a few (grief; a kind of dazed horror; and something else Jack couldn't identify, something that didn't seem to fit) before Ianto's gaze slid away and he slumped in the door frame.

"What do you care?" Ianto's voice was nearly a whisper, but in the quiet of the close cabin, Jack heard it loud and clear.

Though he probably wasn't aware of it, that question had once saved Ianto's life, for it had made a trigger-happy Jack realize that he was not dealing with a cold-blooded Cyberman collaborator who deserved a speedy execution but something far more complicated.

Now, it sounded like a plea to let him go.

Jack wasn't ready to do that yet. He wasn't sure that he cared, exactly, but he did know that if he hadn't killed Ianto then, he'd be damned if he'd stand by and let him off himself now. It was sheer stubbornness, maybe. Petulance, possibly.

Jack hadn't answered the question then and Ianto didn't seem to expect an answer now.

"Go away, Jack," he murmured, and slid to the floor.

"Oh, no you don't," Jack said. "That's not how this works. I give the orders around here. Get up."

Ianto's response to this was to close his eyes.

"Dammit, Ianto! Get up!"

Nothing. Ianto was the king of "passive-aggressive" and Jack had never found it more infuriating. He was thisclose to getting out his gun to enforce his point, but something stopped him.

Maybe it was the awareness that he'd done quite a bit of weapon-waving in the past few days, and it hadn't done much good. He'd also uttered a lot of threats, most of which in the end he hadn't followed up on, and Ianto had proved remarkably impervious to it all-breaking down into tears, yes, but then going ahead and doing whatever he damn well pleased anyway. Perhaps it was time to try another approach.

Jack knelt down in front of Ianto and forced himself to speak gently. "Hey. You don't want to do this, kiddo. You really don't. I know you've been through hell but this isn't the way."

He'd expected a retort of some sort-that he couldn't possibly know what Ianto wanted, or maybe just a "sod-off"-but Ianto turned his head to the side and made no reply.

"Look, Ianto," Jack sighed. "When I said there is always more to lose I meant it, though perhaps that wasn't the best way to put it. How about... there's always something to live for, even if you can't see it now. Trust me on this one."

Jack blinked when he realized what he'd just said, aware of the irony of asking for Ianto's trust after siccing the lad's pet pteradon on his girlfriend and then executing her right in front of him when that had failed (all of which, to Jack's way of thinking, had been perfectly justifiable, of course, but he knew Ianto would probably never see it that way). If Ianto had been in his right mind, he surely would taken grim delight in pointing this out. Or perhaps he would have delighted more in punching Jack in the face like he had before. Either of which, Jack thought, would be far more welcome than the silent treatment.

"Hey..." Though his hands were shaking with adrenaline, Jack managed enough self-control to brush his fingertips lightly across Ianto's cheek. And that's when he realized that Ianto wasn't ignoring him.

Ianto was unconscious.

It had been easy enough to take the pills when Jack wasn't looking. The bigger man had crowded Ianto out of the doorway and pushed in first like a detective expecting to discover incriminating evidence at a crime scene. By the time he had turned around with an almost comic look of surprise in his eyes at what he didn't find (for there was nothing in the little hut but bare wooden floors and walls), all that was left to do was wash them down. And wait.

This isn't how Ianto had wanted it to go. The whole point in fleeing to this frigid, godforsaken place had been to avoid discovery until it was too late. Doing this at home was out of the question, for it was no secret that the Team was monitoring his flat. He didn't know how often they checked the feed, but he would (had) bet his life (literally) that it was often enough that if he did something suspicious-like take a lot of pills, lie down, and not get up-that someone (Owen, probably, spewing invectives as sharp as his medical instruments) would arrive on the scene in time to save him.

Or god forbid, resurrect him, if they didn't quite arrive in time. Of all the eventual ways Ianto thought this could play out, being wrenched back from the dead was the most horrifying. The logical part of him knew that it wasn't very likely, but once the possibility had occurred to him he hadn't been able to get it out of his head. The Resurrection Gauntlet had been locked away in the safe, and no one was supposed to even think about touching it after what had happened to Suzie, but Ianto had been with Torchwood Three long enough to know that Jack had no trouble breaking his own rules when it suited him. Why Jack would do this to him was unclear, even in his most fevered imaginings, but Ianto knew that Jack was furious enough and enough of a bastard to be capable of exacting some final revenge if it suited him. Ianto had no desire to find out what that might be.

And so, he had come here, where it was theoretically possible that he wouldn't be discovered for days, maybe even weeks; where the was little chance of an unwanted rescue, and time for Jack to have cooled down when his body eventually was found.

Screw theory-it had all been for naught. The one person in the world Ianto had wanted to most avoid was less than an arm's length away, his eyes chips of blue diamond that were drilling into Ianto's rapidly fracturing facade in search of his secrets. And Ianto was so tired. Tired of maintaining the facade, tired of lying, tried of failing.

This was his last chance. If he allowed Jack to get him back to the Hub alive they'd put him on some sort of suicide watch, maybe even lock him in a cell. He'd truly go mad then. He'd just have to trust that out here in the middle of nowhere, Jack wouldn't be able to do anything to stop him. If only he wasn't so tired. It made it hard to think. It made it hard to talk to Jack, hard to deflect him for as long as possible... wait. Hard to think. More tired than he'd ever felt in his life. The pills were working.

"Go away, Jack."

But it was Ianto who was going away. He slid down the wall and closed his eyes, inwardly embracing the lethargy that spread through his limbs and stilled his mind.

Ianto's head lolled to the side and Jack caught it in his other hand.

"Ianto? Ianto, wake up!"

There was no reply. The hand that had been caressing Ianto's cheek slapped it lightly, then harder when there was no response.

"Don't do this! Stay with me!" Jack's hands moved down to Ianto's shoulders and he shook the younger man. Once, twice; the third time so hard that Ianto's head rocked back and hit the wall, which brought Jack to his senses. He sat back on his heels and forced himself to take stock of the situation.

He was no medic, but his years in the military and as a Torchwood field agent had taught him something about battlefield he saw was not encouraging. A few quick checks revealed that Ianto had not merely fainted. His breathing was shallow and labored. His pulse was weak and thready. Jack peeled back an eyelid and found that the pupil was a tiny pinprick of black surrounded by too much blue.

"Ianto, what the hell have you done," Jack breathed.

Poison? Drugs? Jack's mind skipped to the Torchwood Archives and all the alien things that Ianto had had access to, any number of which might come in handy of one wanted to off oneself. Things that Jack probably didn't even know they had, and would never know were missing. Damn.

Jack's hands slapped at Ianto's coat pockets and he found his answer in the form of an empty, label-less pill bottle. Drugs, then. Dammit. What did one do for an overdose, anyway? This was not a problem that came up much on the battlefield, or among Torchwood agents, for that matter. Soldiers and agents tended to prefer the gun or the knife to...

Jack shook his head, banishing the gruesome memories that had risen unbidden, and forced his mind back to the problem at hand.

'Got to get them out of him somehow.' And quickly. He had no idea what or how many pills Ianto had decided to dose himself with, but knowing how thorough Ianto was in everything he undertook, Jack was certain it would be enough to get the job done properly. What did one do for an overdose?

The options presented themselves to him quickly, and there weren't many of them. He needed a stomach pump, or to make Ianto throw up. The latter option he dismissed immediately. There was syrup of ipecac in the SUV's first aid kit, and though it remarkably effective in ridding the body of alien and terrestrial poisons alike, it wasn't recommended for use on an unconscious person.

That left either calling an ambulance or driving Ianto to the nearest A&E himself. Though he didn't much like the idea of carrying a carrying a dead-weight Ianto through the woods in the dark to where he had hidden the SUV, he figured he'd still be able to get him to the vehicle and both of them to the nearest hospital in less time than an ambulance would be able get to the lodge, find them in the unmarked cabin, and return. He'd call Owen on the way and have him meet them.

That decided, Jack rose to a squatting position and slid his arms under Ianto's shoulders to hoist him up. That's when he realized that Ianto hadn't taken a breath in some time.

Jack shook him again. "Ianto?"

There was no response.

Jack changed his mind and shoved the young man down onto the ground. He took a deep breath and put his mouth to Ianto's own. He'd use artificial respiration and CPR, then-he knew the techniques. It had been awhile since he personally had to employ them, but Owen tested the Team every year to make sure their skills were fresh.

After several long minutes of pressing rhythmically on Ianto's chest and breathing air into his lungs with no change in the young man's condition, Jack reconsidered his tactics.

There was another option, of course. Jack had a capability that in all the universe was unique to him, as far as he knew. It was a capability whose existence he guarded as carefully as the secret of his immortality, for the potential for abuse-both by himself and by others-was immense.

Sometimes he went years without thinking about his ability to transfer some of his life force to another being, though in the past few couple of months he'd used it twice; once to distract a sex-starved alien so that his Team could ready their trap, and just last week to revive Ianto himself after he'd been throttled and hurled across the Hub by that rampaging Cyber-horror.

Jack had never had occasion to use the ability twice in a row the same person. He had no idea what the side-effects might be, or if it would even work at all.

"Fuck it!"

Jack closed his eyes and summoned the energy, mentally gathering it from every organ and every cell until he could feel it, warm and bright and coiled inside his chest. He pressed his lips firmly against Ianto's and then pushed with all his mental might, willing the energy to pass from him into Ianto.

He had been cold, but now he wasn't. He had been grieving for so long, but now he wasn't. He had been afraid of so many things (discovery; failure; dying, though he'd never let that derail his plans; living-especially living) but now he wasn't. He was drifting in a twilight place where it was warm. Peaceful. He was dimly aware of Jack's voice coming from far away but couldn't make out what he was saying. It didn't matter.

The twilight thickened, and Ianto welcomed it. Jack's voice faded. There was no more sensation. Ianto was a spark of awareness and nothing more, but that enough.

Every part of Jack's body thrummed, awash in amaranthine energy. Usually it circulated unnoticed throughout him, like blood-essential but unobserved unless something went wrong. But now he was not only conscious of it, he was summoning it, directing it, pushing it into Ianto, willing it to infuse the younger man with warmth and heat and life.

Jack felt it leave him, a blaze of energy whose loss made him bereft even as he knew there would be more, there was always more. He felt it pause in the vast psychic space between the two men; felt it stop.Jack realized with horror that it might already be too late.

'No! No way. You can't be gone. I won't LET you go!'

Jack pushed again, releasing a tidal wave of energy that left him so weak in its wake his arms trembled and he struggled not to collapse on top of the supine man beneath him. He kept his lips pressed Ianto's, and though they were as soft as he'd imagined they'd be, they were also cool. Too cool.

'Ianto? Ianto, please...'

Light flared in the darkness. Mildly curious, Ianto turned to it, but then recoiled. He'd seen that particular kind of light before, although "seen" was an inadequate word to describe the experience. He'd known that light before, and it wasn't just light. It was power and it had a purpose. The last time he'd experienced it, he'd embraced without question. Now, he didn't want any part of it.

He turned away, back into the darkness. "Leave me alone."

The Light refused. It surrounded him, infused him. It widened his awareness increment by increment, until he was dimly aware of his body again. Dammit! He didn't want this.

And yet, and yet... part of him was clearly not content with wandering in the dark and welcomed the weight of the body settling around him. His limbs felt cold and heavy and his chest was tight and it hurt, but that part of him did not care. It settled into the weight and tried to take command of it. It tried to move, tried to breathe, to think, reason, remember...

Ianto remembered. The last time. He'd been flung into darkness unprepared, and had wandered, lost and afraid, until this Light had appeared. He'd followed where it lead him, then, and had come to and found that he was cold and wet and his head and body were throbbing with pain, but someone was kissing him and it was glorious.

'Lisa?' But when he had opened his eyes, it hadn't been Lisa at all. It had been Jack, and Ianto had been wracked with confusion. Jack, he was fairly certain, wanted him dead. Jack definitely wanted Lisa dead. Ianto hated Jack. But he couldn't hate the kiss, for energy was racing through him and he'd felt a great rush of well-being; of life. He'd never felt more alive, in fact. It might have been closest thing to a spiritual experience that Ianto had ever had.

He'd been dimly aware he should be fighting, or running, or something, but for a long moment he hadn't been able to move. He'd tried to speak, to ask "how" or maybe, "why", but Jack had 'shh'd' him and then helped him to his feet.

Ianto had remembered his own purpose, then. It wasn't over! Without further ado, he had dashed off to find Lisa, still determined to convince both her and the Team that she could be restored to her former self, though nobody had seemed interested in that but him. In the rush of ensuing events, the "how" and the "why" of Jack's strange kiss had been forgotten. Evading Lisa when she had come at him, murder in her eyes; fighting with Jack, getting back into the Hub to try again; those things had taken priority.

It had all been for naught. Worse than naught. Innocent people were dead. Lisa was dead, and with her, everything that kept him going after the cataclysm that had been Canary Wharf.

And Jack, well, Jack bore some of the blame for how things had played out, and Ianto despised him for it. Jack had refused to help; had refused to listen. Jack had given him the monstrous order to execute Lisa himself, and trying to obey it had nearly broken him. Jack hadn't left him in the darkness, where he'd been better off, the first time.

Jack had just brought him around AGAIN.

Ianto gasped and his eyes flew open.

Jack was on top of him, his face inches away, his fathomless eyes gazing into Ianto's own.

"Jack?" It came out a croak.

"Ianto! Welcome back!" Jack smiled and the white of his teeth was almost too blinding to bear.

Ianto muttered something.

"What did you say?" Jack leaned in, impossibly close now.

Ianto closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and gathered the energy that was, bidden or not, dancing through him.

"I said, get OFF me!" Ianto raised his arms and pushed at Jack's chest with all his might.

Jack, weakened by his efforts and taken by surprise, toppled over onto his side.

Jack watched in amazement as Ianto struggled into a sitting position and glared at him. Ungrateful bastard.

Jack sat up too, returned the glare. "That's the thanks I get for saving your life?"

"Thanks?" Ianto snorted. "You want thanks? What part of 'I came here to kill myself' don't you understand?"

Jack folded his arms across his chest. "Most people who fail at suicide are usually grateful for it later."

"I'm not most people, Jack," Ianto pointed out, bitterness evident in every clipped consonant. "Have you forgotten? Or are you just so fixated on playing god that you don't give a damn what anyone else wants?"

Jack wondered how it was possible that he could have such a strong desire to punch the man that he'd been so desperate to save mere minutes before.

'But you did want to save him. And now he's like a wild animal you've got backed into a corner. Proceed with caution," Jack's mind whispered.

Jack forced himself to concentrate on the content of Ianto's words rather than the tone. It was a technique that was remarkably effective in keeping his temper in check, when he bothered to employ it.

"I know you're not most people, Ianto. You're an intelligent, talented young man who has been through more tragedy in the last six months than most people experience in a lifetime." Ianto made a move as if to interrupt, but Jack put up his hand.

"No, wait, hear me out. You're also resilient, more resilient than you know. I was just trying to... prevent you from making an irreversible decision before you realized that."

Jack took a deep breath and continued. "The grief, the pain-it'll get better in time. I know it's a cliche, but take it from someone who's a bit older than he looks and has lost a hell of a lot-cliches become cliches because there's truth in them."

Ianto sighed. "Are you done?"

Jack's eyes widened but he forced himself to remain calm. "For now."

"Good. Because the more you talk, the more it's clear that you don't get it, Jack."

"Don't get it? Don't get what?"

Ianto fixed Jack with a gaze that was steady and clear.

"I'm not afraid of grief. I'm not afraid of pain. I've been through that already. I hated it, I still hate it, but I know I can handle it again because I already have. But this... this..." Ianto's voice trailed off as he appeared to struggle with words.

"What, Ianto?" Jack inquired, his admiration for the young man increasing despite his simmering anger. He'd figured that Ianto was strong. He hadn't known just how strong. 'Hadn't noticed'. "What's so bad that even you can't handle it, then?"

"You, Jack!" Ianto erupted. "You!"

Jack's jaw dropped. "Me?"

"Yes, you." Ianto ran his fingers through his hair and looked away. "It's like... it's like... the legend of Pandora's Box. I never understood it when I was a kid. I never understood it until..." here he waved his hand around. "Until a few days ago."

Jack himself was understanding very little at the moment. Of course he was familiar with the story of the ancient Greek woman who'd been gifted a mysterious box by some sort of god and been told never to open it. Which had been just asking for it, in Jack's opinion. But what did that have to do with him? He wondered briefly if Ianto hadn't come back quite right-that perhaps the drugs had damaged his brain in some way that Jack's energy hadn't been able to fix. Horrible thought. Jack pushed it away and leaned forward.

"What do you understand now, Ianto?"

"Why 'hope' was trapped in the box-which wasn't a box at all, by the way, but a jar-with all the evils of the world, like plagues and diseases. Who would put that in there, and why was it the last thing left? That part was never explained. But now I get it."

Ianto had clearly been paying way more attention in his Classics lectures than Jack ever did.

"Help me out here, because I still don't see."

Ianto looked back at Jack. "'Hope' is what makes you endure all the terrible things in the box. It's what keeps you going even though the absolute worst that you can imagine has happened and more besides. It belongs in the box because it's cruel, Jack. 'Hope' is the cruelest thing of all."

Jack tried to smile but felt it twist. "So I'm 'hope' in this little story then? Or just 'the cruelest thing' of all?"

Ianto's eyes flickered over Jack, appraising him. "Both, sometimes. And that's not all."

"Go on." There was an audible undertone of anger in Jack's voice now, but Ianto didn't seem to notice. He was on a roll, his words coming faster and faster.

"Look at you, Jack! You're powerful, you're brave to a fault, you think you're right all the time and you look like a goddamned movie star..." the words were pouring out of Ianto now, but Jack managed to get some in edgewise.

"You think I look like a movie star?" Jack interjected with a grin and a raised brow.

"... And you're impossibly vain and now you've apparently got god-like superpowers to boot. You're dangerous, Jack. You're like Li-you're someone I could get lost in. And I won't do that again. I can't."

Ianto's voice broke on the last word. He rose to his feet and started pacing the tiny room.

Jack watched Ianto cover the length of the room once, twice, three times. On the fourth pass, he reached up and caught his arm. Ianto tried to wrestle it from him but Jack held on tight.

"I can't," Ianto insisted, frantic.

"Hey," Jack said, projecting calm and reassurance. "Hey. Just take it easy for a minute, OK? No one's going to make you do anything you don't want to."

"That's just it," Ianto cried, with a bitter, self-deprecating laugh. "Of course I want to! And look how well it turned out last time."

Jack tugged on Ianto's arm again and this time, Ianto allowed Jack to pull him to his knees. Jack placed his hands on the younger man's shoulders and looked him in the eyes.

"What if I told you that I won't let you do that? That I won't let you get lost. In anything. Ever again."

Ianto frowned, shook his head frantically. "You can't stop me. No one can." He made to rise again but Jack held him fast.

"Try me. You might be surprised at what I'm capable of. I mean, look what I've accomplished here already." His eyes slid significantly to the empty pill bottle on the floor, then back to Ianto. "You look better than I've ever seen you."

"I feel better than..." Ianto started, then paused, realizing what he had been about to say. "I mean, I... Jack, what the hell did you do to me?"

Jack felt control of the situation slide back in his direction and allowed himself a wry smile. "Honestly? I'm not sure myself."

Ianto stared at him. "How can you not know? What ARE you?"

Jack rose to his feet and held out a hand to help Ianto up. "Come back to the city with me, come back to work when your month is up, and maybe you'll find out."

Ianto uttered a short, sardonic laugh. "And maybe I won't. I've watched you, Jack. You're full of secrets. Everyone knows it but not what they are. And you make sure it stays that way."

"Ah, but you're not 'everyone', are you? As you pointed out, you're not even 'most people.'"

"That's true enough," Ianto conceded, with a small but genuine smile.

Despite himself, Ianto's curiosity was piqued. He loved mysteries, always had. It's why he had sought out Torchwood One in the first place-he'd known they were involved in some sort of alien investigations (though not to what extent) and he'd wanted in. It's why he had asked to be assigned to the Research Department although there had been other entry-level jobs available. It's why he never picked up a detective novel unless he knew he had time to finish it in one sitting, because he hated not knowing how it ended.

Now a whacking big mystery stood before him, all twinkling eyes and dazzling grin, offering some answers. Maybe. Someday. If he was willing to stay alive long enough to find them out.

Perhaps he could do that, after all.

Ianto took the proffered hand and allowed Jack to tug him to his feet.

Suddenly, Ianto was seized with a powerful urge to get out of there. "Let's go." he said. "I'm restless. Why am I so restless? All I can think about is moving."

Jack scooped up Ianto's backpack and chuckled. "It's a side effect of the life energy. It should dissipate over time."

"Should?"

"Will. I'm just not sure when, exactly. You got a double-dose in less than a week. That's a bit unprecedented."

"Unprecedented? I don't like the sound of that. What am I, some sort of giant guinea pig, then?"

"Of course not! No guinea pig ever looked that good in a pair of jeans," Jack replied with a wink, earning one of Ianto's trademark eyerolls in return.

"In the meantime, you might as well enjoy it. We've got quite a hike to the SUV."

Ianto shook his head in exasperation and passed out the door into the night.

Jack followed, admiring the fine silhouette that Ianto's broad shoulders and slim hips made in the dim light.

His relief at seeing the young man restored to his charmingly facetious self had surprised even him, but now it was being eclipsed by a premonition that keeping Ianto at the emotional equivalence of arm's length might not prove as easy as he'd made it out to be.

He would do it, however, whatever it took. For both their sakes.

-fin

Cliches used:

Stranded in isolated place that may or may not be an abandoned hunting or fishing cabin in somewhere that may or may not be Canada (A/N: Canada? Please, the only positive thing about this story is it DIDN'T take place in Canada.)

post-Cyberwoman angst

CCTV