Rating: PG

Word count: ~ 2,500

Warnings: My usual brand of insane, sleep-deprived weirdness, which by now deserves its own warning. …None. ^.^"

Summary: Some say 'soul mate.' Some say 'other half.' Really, it's all the same to Ianto, even as a child. Someone who will be with me forever, he thinks when he is nine, and the smear on his hand is finally starting to separate into recognizable letters. Someone who will understand.

Disclaimer: All recognizable characters are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the creators, and no copyright infringement is intended.

A/N: Hah, yeah, I'm about to give up on any of my random plot idea making actual, you know, sense. So have some soul mate!Janto, because I am at heart a ridiculous to-the-ends-of-all-universes-Janto-shipper, and it makes me happy. (The title translates to, roughly, "the name of my soul." Or possibly "name my soul," idk—it's unbelievable how rusty my Latin is. -.-)

Nomen Animam Meam

Ianto, like everyone else in the world, is born with a name inscribed into the back of his non-dominant hand. It is unclear, smudged, as though written in ink and touched before it had a chance to dry, but it is undoubtedly the name of the person who will someday be his partner in all things.

Some say 'soul mate.' Some say 'other half.' Really, it's all the same to Ianto, even as a child.

Someone who will be with me forever, he thinks when he is nine, and the smear is finally starting to separate into recognizable letters. Someone who will understand.

Except that Ianto, even as a child, can already tell that his soul mate—and really, that's a trite way of putting it, but concise—will not be easy to find.

Because the name, the name he was born knowing, born with on his hand for the world to see, is not written in any language familiar to mankind. There are no records of such symbols, no way to translate them. Ianto's mother frets when the symbols are finally clear, and takes him to specialists across Europe. Those specialists are very thoughtful, very educated, and absolutely clueless.

A made-up language, one suggests. Have you created a code with anyone?

No, Ianto wants to shout, I bloody well haven't. don't you think I could figure something like that out my own bloody self?

(He's fifteen, angry at the world, and people point to him at school and whisper behind their hands, because everyone can read their soul mate's name. obviously, there's something wrong with him that he can't. And no one understands, because it's a name like any other, even if he can't make it out yet. They're all so stupid, and so are the experts he has to see. It's useless.)

At sixteen, he gives up on the specialists, refuses to see a single one, and starts looking for other explanation. That part's fairly simple.

Option one: it's a human language that hasn't been discovered yet. Possible, he supposes, but unlikely. He likes his fine clothes and tea and creature comforts far too much to think about being the soul mate of someone from a primitive tribe somewhere. Also, there's a lack of new cultures being discovered, so the odds are fairly slim.

Option two: it's not a human language.

Perhaps it's a fair bit desperate, but Ianto seizes on this as the most likely explanation, and throws himself into researching alien life and its myriad possibilities.

After that, it's probably inevitable that he should come to Torchwood's attention.

Ianto takes to wearing gloves on his eighteenth birthday, partly out of self-preservation and partly to stop himself from murdering one of the agonizingly obvious sods that stare and stare and think they're being subtle. Those types have made Ianto's hell since his mark first cleared up, and he's sick of it.

So. Gloves it is.

As they don't go ripped jeans and battered old band shirts (unless he wants to look like some sort of punk rocker), Ianto feels a change in wardrobe is required. Thankfully, Torchwood pays well, even its junior researchers, and he can afford several bespoke suits and some very fine oxfords, which compliment black kidskin gloves nicely. No one comments, because his fellow drones at Torchwood already know what it is he's trying to conceal, and strangers think he's lost his soul mate early in life and is in mourning. It's not terribly uncommon, unfortunately, and it means they take care to avoid all mention of the subject, which is an advantage.

It also makes forming any sort of romantic attachment impossible, but Ianto feels it's worth the sacrifice. After all, with access to Torchwood's file, he now knows that his other half could be from anywhere, any when in the vast expanse of time and space. There are so many possibilities, and Ianto's lived less than two decades of them. He's content to wait. And besides, sex with someone other than a soul mate is a bit of a taboo, even if it's still done.

There are some who do, of course—younger kids, before their names clear up, or those who've lost their other half and want a little bit of comfort in closeness. Ianto's had sex before, back when he was fifteen and he still had the mad hope that his name might resolve itself into actual letters at some point. His partner had been a boy named Ellis, who had Ianto written on his own hand.

It had been a brief, bleak attempt at finding normal, before Ianto realized that he in no way wanted normal, just what was his.

So he puts up with the stares, the whispers, and the curiosity. He faces it all down with a calm façade and a cool manner that makes people whisper "ice king" behind his back and then guiltily hush each other—because those who are only half of a pair are to be pitied, always. But he doesn't care anymore.

He works at Torchwood One until he can get a transfer to Torchwood Three, because takes care of the Rift and if Ianto is going to find someone from another time, or an alien who matches him (though that's doubtful, because Ianto is fairly certain that aliens aren't matched at birth the way humans are), it's going to be near the Rift.

He puts in for a transfer, impresses his superiors just enough that they'll put in a good word for him but not enough that they'll want to keep him around, and then sits back to wait.

By this time, he's been waiting for his other half for twenty-three years. He's patient enough to wait a few more.

But then the Battle of Canary Wharf happens, and the world as Ianto knows it simply…ends.

The man who will one day be called Jack Harkness is born in a small colony near the ocean, on the Boeshane Peninsula. He has an ordinary father, and average mother, and an annoying little brother who he nonetheless loves deeply, and inscribed into the back of his left hand is a name written in a language he cannot read.

Being as the colony is small, and not very well connected to the outside world, this isn't a terrible surprise. His mother and father simply assume that he will either travel when he is older or meet a stranger on the rare occasion one passes through the community. The boy who will be Jack is happy with this explanation. He wants to see the universe, to go further than the ocean someday. It's a good dream, that out in the wide universe there is someone else with his name on their hand, looking out at the stars and thinking about finding him someday, too.

But then an old man comes through the colony, a scholar who knows so much the boy is surprised his head hasn't stretched, and he takes the boy's hand when they're introduced and goes very quiet for a long while.

"Oh, my child," he says at last, and his voice creaks with sorrow like an old tree in a storm. "That language is from a very, very long time ago, I'm afraid."

And that, of course, means only one thing.

The boy who will someday become Jack goes against his mother's wishes, leaves behind the small colony where he was born, and joins the Time Agency.

It's not his brightest idea, not by a long shot.

But, he supposes, as he staggers through nineteenth century Cardiff, unable to stay the fucking hell dead, at least he's somewhere that speaks English, and he can read the name on his hand.

Ianto.

It's a very pretty name, he thinks groggily, because drinking his way through an entire wine cellar probably wasn't the brightest idea, either. He just wonders how long he'll have to wait to meet the man it belongs to.

(And he wonders, just a little bit, what name this Ianto will wear on his hand. There are, after all, two Jack Harknesses now. It's bound to get a tad confusing.)

When Torchwood One falls, and there are Cybermen on every continent, and it looks very much like the world is going to hell, there's only so much Jack can do. Still, when the dust clears and they can finally make it out of Cardiff without running over a metal invader every hundred yards, Jack leaves Tosh at the Hub to coordinate and takes Suzie and Owen to London with him. Torchwood Three is still Torchwood, after all, no matter how much Jack has divorced himself from One, and there were people in that tower who knew next to nothing about what Hartman was doing. Jack would like to hold a grudge, but he can't.

He expects, upon his arrival, to find chaos ruling with UNIT at its head, just barely managing to contain the disaster and squabbling with the remaining Torchwood operatives for rights. Instead, there is a man in the tattered, scorched remnants of what was once a nice suit, wearing a single glove that was clearly once part of a pair of widower's gloves, and directing soldiers like a particularly skilled conductor.

Faintly bemused—because this man is obviously a survivor of this disaster, but also clearly in control of both himself and the situation—Jack steps out of the SUV and taps his comm. "Tosh, can you get an ID on that guy?"

"One minute," Tosh says, and one of the few remaining CCTV nearby cameras rotates towards them. There's a pause, where Tosh hums under her breath the way she does whenever she's waiting for a program, and then the rapid click of keys. "All right, he's Torchwood. Ianto Jones, researcher, slated for promotion at the end of this quarter. Works in the Main Archives, specializes in xenolinguistics—it says here he's fluent in twelve alien languages—"

"Hold on," Owen interrupts sharply, listening over the channel, as Suzie snorts sharply. "Since when did One talk to aliens instead of dissecting them?"

"I don't know about One, but Jones is," Tosh counters, sharp the way she only gets in defense of her work. "He's been working at the Tower since he was seventeen, recruited for his eidetic memory and potential in research." She pauses, and then adds in surprise, "Jack, he's applied for a transfer to Cardiff every year since he started."

Jack pauses, worrying at his lower lip. A willingness to work under Captain Harkness is not something Yvonne Hartman ever encouraged in her employees, nor did she approve of taking too much time attempting to communicate with any alien who crossed Torchwood One's path. And yet this man seems to be cultivating both.

(He carefully ignores the sharp flutter of his heart at the name, because he's encountered far too many Ianto's living in Cardiff, and none of them have ever been his. Widower, he reminds himself again, fixing the man's glove firmly in his mind.)

"Right," he says decisively. "Owen, look for whatever sort of medical setup UNIT has and see what you can do to help. Suzie, oversee salvage and shipping. Dangerous items go back to Cardiff, simple stuff to Torchwood House. I'll get an overview of the situation. Tosh, keep your monitors up in case anything decides to take advantage of this."

Suzie and Owen break away with a murmur of agreement, and Jack heads for Jones, clearing his throat sharply as he approaches.

Jones turns, revealing dark hair, pale eyes, strong cheekbones, and a pert nose—but even more, the movement reveals hope quickly smothered, grief and rage and the icy fire of determination against all odds mixed in equal measure, and Jack is lost.

Then he sees that Jones' bare hand has a scrawl of terribly familiar writing across the back of it, not the faded grey that would belong to someone who's other half had died, but sharp, stark black against pale skin.

It's a word, a name, which he hasn't seen written out in over two hundred years, and hasn't heard spoken in longer.

There is no moment to stop and think. Jack seizes Jones' hand and whispers, "How do you know my name?"

He's not angry—no, not angry, never that—but wondering, overjoyed. Never in his too-long life (which this man will share, will be a part of, because he is Jack's other half and they will each live as long as the other, and whether that's forever or until the end of Ianto's mortal life, Jack can't bring himself to care) has he ever before been this happy.

Ianto Jones looks at him, looks down at the name on the back of his hand, and his eyes widen.

"Yours?" he whispers, barely a breath. But he turns his hand in Jack's, twists it until their fingers are meshed and the names lined up, and the black lettering shimmers softly before fading to a deep, pure gold.

"Mine," Jack affirms, and even he couldn't say whether he means the name or the man in front of him.

Ianto looks at him for a long moment, bruised and burned and smeared with ash, surrounded by destruction and death, and then he smiles, just a little twist of lips that somehow manages to convey warm and wry and joy and humor.

"Yes," he agrees, and squeezes Jack's fingers in return. "Yours."