Title: A Ray, Turned Back
Author: Clarity
Rating: AO
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Warnings: mpreg
Note: Yes, it's another work of fiendish convoluted crackfic from me, rewriting canon as I go along. Sorry if anybody's head explodes as this progresses. This story is what you would call an "mpreg", but avoiding anything too icky. It's a plot device, rather than the point of the story.
Summary: A visiting scientist's experiment goes wrong and sets in motion a chain of events that will reshape Jack's history and Ianto's future.

***

In visions of the dark night
I have dreamed of joy departed
But a waking dream of life and light
Hath left me broken-hearted.
- Edgar Allan Poe

 

They were so tangled up Ianto wasn't sure where he began and Jack ended. Arms and legs and sheets knotted up together all over the place, binding them. Jack was laughing trying to find his way out and the carefree, pleasant sound of his laughter was making Ianto feel warm and happy. He never wanted it to end.

'I love you,' he gasped, amidst amused chuckles, not really meaning for it to slip out.

Jack stopped still for a moment and went rigid. 'No you don't,' he replied, easily, and kissed him on the nose. Then he defeated the covers with a remarkable ease which made Ianto think he'd probably been exaggerating the mammoth struggle he'd been going through before. Jack stood up and stretched his arms out, scratching his bare bottom before wandering across to the chair with all his clothes laid over the back to start putting them back on.

No, YOU don't, Ianto thought and bit his tongue, electing to sigh instead of say what he really wanted to say.

'So, about this scientist you said was coming here today. Dr. Jones, was it?'

'Uh... yeah.' The abrupt headlong rush into a completely different subject caught Ianto off guard for a second. Everything about Jack's body language and voice told him that he was going to just pretend Ianto had said nothing, as usual, and let it pass. And as usual, Ianto knew he'd go along with it because he had no choice. It was one of the pitfalls of being in love with someone who just didn't seem to want to let themselves even consider loving back. Any time he let slip anything about his feelings it was deliberately ignored or laughed off. It hurt more every time.

'Any relation?'

'No, not at all, but he is Welsh. We worked in Torchwood One together. Well, actually I didn't ever really meet him. Not until... until the Cybermen invasion. He um... he was the one who stopped me getting caught and converted by them actually. Saved my life I suppose. Haven't seen him much since then, though. He works for UNIT now.'

Jack pulled on his boxers and started buttoning up his shirt. 'Right, and they've sent him over to test some rift monitoring device?'

'Yes. Apparently, if it works, we'll be able to get a reading every time something slips through. Not sure of the accuracy. We'll have to see when he gets here what it'll actually be able to do.' Ianto lowered his eyes and took a deep breath. He knew he had to tell Jack the secret he had been keeping, now that Jack seemed to have noticed something was a bit up with him. He'd remarked as such about it the night before when they'd had sex and Ianto hadn't known what to say for the rush of terror he felt. It wasn't something he ever wanted to have to confess but it was only a matter of time before he would have no choice but to tell Jack the terrible truth. It would be better to just get it over with now, while he had a little control over the situation, than for everything to get blurted out sometime in the future. 'Jack... there's something I need to tell you... and I'm not sure...'

'Sorry Ianto, gotta go. I need to call UNIT and just do a quick double check with the PM's office.' He was already scrambling up the ladder. 'Come up soon, will you? I could do with a coffee.'

As usual Jack had pulled a disappearing act whenever there was a hint that Ianto was about to involve him in a discussion which might be important. This was not new; he always did this. Ianto closed his eyes and lay back into the pillow, despair ebbing through him. He felt so stupid, to love someone so completely when he knew that person didn't feel anything more than passing affection in return. Stupid. Very stupid, and devastatingly irreconcilable.

In some small corner of his mind Ianto hoped that maybe, just maybe, his confession would change things. Maybe Jack would finally see him as more than his personal chew toy. That is, if he survived it. Ianto really wasn't sure if he would or not, this was so entirely new to him. Frightening even.

Ianto forced himself to get out of bed, knowing that if he started to dwell on it the fear would make him unable to move. Jack wanted coffee, and what Jack wanted Jack got. Ianto's current situation was more than ample proof of that. So he dutifully got dressed, climbed up out of the manhole into Jack's office, passed by him without intruding on his phone conversation, and trod the deck around to his coffee machine.

He had just pressed the button for it to start up when he felt a hot flush go over him and a pang of pain in his stomach, so strong he ended up on his knees cradling himself.

There was a thundering sound of footsteps climbing up the clattering metal steps and suddenly Owen was helping him to his feet. The speed at which he'd got there made Ianto smile a little. Quite the unexpected knight in shining armour was Owen; he'd been watching him so closely, all the time for the last month, incredibly attentive to his needs. He had to have been watching him just then as well. In Owen, Ianto had found, despite their fraught history and the fact that he had landed a bullet in him two inches from his heart once, a co-conspirator and a friend in his hour of need.

'You alright?' Owen grunted, helping him along, one arm around his waist.

'Yes I felt a pain. And hot.' He pressed a hand over his stomach, grimacing. 'God, you don't think?'

'Don't leap to any conclusions,' Owen said, under his breath. 'Come on, we'll take a look.'

Ianto wasn't oblivious to the looks Gwen and Tosh gave them as Owen half carried him over to the lift. They both seemed to be aware that something was going on but he was confident Owen hadn't told them anything. Gwen twigged it first, asking questions and being a little more watchful than usual. He guessed she'd probably had a chat with Tosh to see if she knew anything, as their curious stares in his direction tended to include covert glances between each other now as well.

Owen helped him out and down the corridor to the storage facility they'd claimed as a medical unit specifically for this little problem. Ianto felt much steadier on his feet by this time and managed to pull away from him and walk himself inside.

'You know the drill,' Owen said, making a big show of putting on some latex gloves with a grin.

'Yeah yeah.' He removed his jacket and tie, unbuttoned his shirt and trousers, and lay down on the medical stretcher.

'Christ,' Owen said when he got up close. 'You're seriously beginning to show, you know. You told Jack yet?'

He covered up the wince that question produced very well, he thought. 'Not yet.'

'Fuck me, it's getting big. How the hell has he not noticed that?'

Ianto shrugged, rubbing the protruding bulge of his stomach a little. 'He did. I blamed it on too many pizzas.'

Owen gave him an arched eyebrow which said volumes about what he thought of that response. He pulled over the ultrasound machine and started to warm up some gel on his hands. 'You're going to have to tell him sometime.'

'I know. I just... I don't think he's going to be thrilled.' The cynical look being directed at him annoyed him immensely. 'Look, Owen, if I wanted a psychology Doctor I'd get one. Just do your medical thing will you?'

'Doing it, doing it.' He spread the gel on Ianto's stomach and ran the ultrasound pen over it, watching the attached television screen. 'Well, it looks alright to me. Heartbeat is strong. All fine.'

The image on the screen made Ianto's heart ache. A baby that shouldn't be there but somehow there, inside him, all the same. His secret little miracle.

'In fact...' Owen craned his head aside a little, 'You said conception was two months ago right?'

'Two months three days.'

'Are you sure? Because, that does not look like a two month old foetus. That looks more like four months. I mean I knew it was big but this is ridiculous. No wonder you're showing already.' He pulled the pen away and carefully wiped the gel away with some tissue paper.

'Really? Are you sure?'

That made Owen chuckle for some reason. 'I would be if you were a woman. Hmmm, are you sure...?'

'Piss off.' He rubbed his forehead, feeling more pangs of worry. 'Maybe it's growing faster than normal. It could have inherited that from me. Owen, would that put it in any danger?'

The Doctor shrugged and pulled a face. 'How the hell should I know? Nothing about this pregnancy is normal. Remind me again, how the hell did Jack get you up the duff?'

'You need a birds and bees discussion, Owen? Would have thought you're a bit old for that.'

'Ha bloody ha.' He set about attaching a blood pressure monitor to Ianto's arm.

'I'm up the duff because the scientists at Torchwood One are a bunch of idiots who shouldn't have been let loose with a child's chemistry set, let alone a DNA sequencer. Actually, that could explain something else too now that I think about it. It took one year for them to grow me to a physical age of twenty in that pod in the lab. Maybe they programmed a fast early growth spurt into my DNA and that's been passed on somehow.' He sighed, emphatically and rolled his eyes. 'Who knows? Who knows why they wanted to grow employees from scratch rather than just hire in...'

'Free labour?'

Ianto snorted. 'Good answer. I was thinking more along the lines of science for science's sake.'

'Hmm. Bit late to go ask them what they're playing at now, I suppose.'

'Apparently. I'm the only one of their labrats left so far as I know. And Dr. Rhodri is dead.'

Owen made a few notes before removing the blood pressure armband. 'That's the Welsh guy who gave you your accent, right?'

'The one who taught me to speak, yes. He's the only one who'd know what this is and why it's happening. Guess he's not going to be much use nowadays.' He tried not to let the sadness he felt for losing Rhodri, the man who'd largely acted in the role of father figure to him, show in his eyes. He failed. 'This is a nightmare. My back is killing me, I get hot flushes, my feet keep swelling up and as for bladder control...'

'Oh quit whining. Take it like a man.'

'I do believe...' he grunted at the effort of sitting up, '... that is a contradiction in terms.'

Suddenly Owen's arm was behind him, helping him up. Again Ianto smiled privately at this. He really hadn't pegged him for the sensitive paternal type at all. Behind all those abrasive layers of vile abusive attitude, there were hidden depths of niceness in Owen that he fancied rarely saw the light of day. He was glad of the attention though. It was nice to know someone was watching over him, who would be there if something happened and would know what to do.

'Well, I am limited in what I can do here, but I should think the pain you felt was just your muscles cramping up. Looks to me like it's growing faster than you can accommodate, so from here on in it's going to get pretty uncomfortable. More uncomfortable, I should say.' Owen helped him to his feet and put his hands on Ianto's shoulders, holding him steady and forcing him to look him in the eye while he tried to press the point home. 'You have to tell him.'

'I know.'

'Sharpish. If it's growing this quickly already we have no idea when it's going to start trying to get out. Plus, the suspense is killing me. I have to see the look on his face when he finds out.'

Ianto smiled and shook his head. 'And there I thought you only had my welfare at heart.' As the man turned, he put a hand on his arm. 'Thanks,' he said, quietly, not quite meeting Owen's eyes. It was hard to say, guy to guy, but he knew the message was received when no witty scathing response was fielded in his direction.

'Sure.' Owen tossed Ianto his shirt and waited by the door for him to make himself presentable. Then they went back up to the main Hub together.

Jack, Gwen and Toshiko were just greeting a man Ianto recognised immediately. He looked exactly the same as he ever had; dark hair swept back, with just a hint of curl around the edges; piercing blue eyes hidden behind thick glasses held together with selotape; one of those broad smiles which could hide any sin and a tall, lean physique smothered by baggy, scruffy clothes. Dr. Emrys Jones had arrived.

When Ianto had first met Captain Harkness he'd been reminded of Emrys Jones a little, because they both had a nice big smile for people. That was where similarities ended however. Emrys was the biggest science geek Ianto had every met, to the point of almost being a cliché. He smiled seeing him introduce himself to them, all teeth and lisp and blushes trying to talk to the girls; he had forgotten just how socially awkward the guy was. Not that he knew him all that well, it was just something that radiated from him like a beacon.

When Emrys saw Ianto, he gave him a beaming grin with that attractive smile of his and went over to meet him. They shook hands and he introduced him to Owen, cringing a little at the patronising reaction Emrys got from him. Fortunately the visiting scientist didn't seem to notice, or if he did it didn't bother him. He returned over to the entrance and started to unpack the large suitcase filled with technology he'd brought over, giving a rundown on what all the things were as he did. Only Toshiko seemed to follow what he was saying, equations and all, and ended up lending a hand. From the awkward manner Emrys took on Ianto could tell he liked her.

'You forgot my coffee,' Jack commented to Ianto on his way back to his office.

'Sorry sir, I'll get it now.' He took orders and went to restart the coffee machine.

Business as usual then. Owen sat around surfing the net, keeping one eye on him, Gwen stood around trying to look useful although she really had nothing to do and Toshiko helped Emrys assemble the machine he had brought with him in parts. Jack stuck inside his office for the majority of the three hours it took for everything to be prepared. Then Emrys requested that they all be present for the testing.

'First of all, I want to thank you all for letting me come down here and give this thing a test run,' he said, ducking his head a little as he pushed his glasses up his nose. 'I've been working on it for just over a year now and I think it's could be pretty exciting if it works.'

'And if it doesn't work?' Jack asked, arms folded, entire manner one of cynicism.

'Uh... well, hmm.' Emrys sucked air through his teeth, clearly not liking having to consider that eventuality, whatever it was. 'But don't worry, I've taken precautions. Hold on a second.' He rifled through his bag and came out with another unrecognisable device. 'See, what we'll be measuring is the particles that make the rift happen. They're not particles we really know anything about. Not even sure what to call them actually, though my department tend to call them rifticles.' He sniggered, geekily, only stopping when nobody else did. 'Sorry, little joke. Anyway, um... This will measure the particles and if they get dangerous, then we'll stop the experiment. Now the reason I asked you all here is because they have a way of interacting with living matter. You'll be acting as buffers.'

'Hold up, are these particle things harmful?' Owen asked.

'Oh no, no no,' he replied and chuckled, 'I wouldn't ask you to be here if they were. I just need to get the right levels so if you use this machine while you're all in the room you don't overdo it. I need to set the levels properly. Besides, after a while you build up immunity. I'm immune, myself. They're completely harmless, that I can promise you.' Emrys pulled a handkerchief from the top pocket of his white coat and sneezed into it.

Owen smiled, wryly. 'Well if you can get immune to 'em, I guess that means we'll be fine.' He exchanged a smile with Tosh.

'Right then.' The scientist took out some gloves and put them on. Then he started fiddling with the various buttons and dials on the machine. 'Alright, then this should be it. Hold on to your hats everybody.' He turned up the levels.

At once a high pitched whining noise sounded and got louder. Toshiko took a step back and covered her ears. Suddenly everything started shaking. There was a big explosion a few metres ahead of the machine and a shining, swirling vortex opened out like a crack in space. Some of the computers fizzled out and the lighting flipped to emergency lights, the base's sirens indicating infrastructural danger going wild. The shaking got more and more violent. Emrys grabbed onto the machine, flipping dials and hitting buttons.

'What's happening?' Jack yelled, running over to see.

'I... I don't know! It's going into overdrive,' he yelled over the din. 'This shouldn't be happening!'

The water at the bottom of the tower started to bubble and glass was being shattered all over the place from various windows and screens.

'What do we do?!' Jack shouted back.

'This can't be right... this can't be...'

Jack grabbed Emrys and spun him around. 'What do we do to stop it?'

'Um...' He turned and looked at the readouts. 'According to this, we have one minute and ten seconds before it explodes. If that happens, the rift will crack and cause a fault line across the whole planet!'

'Then I'll ask you again! What do we do?'

'Can't you shut off the power?' Toshiko yelled.

'No, the rift is powering it now. There's nothing we can... unless...'

'Unless what?'

Emrys grabbed the readout device he had showed them earlier and ran it over each of them. It made noises with each of them except for Jack. 'Apparently you're immune,' he yelled at him, 'but the rest of you are saturated with the particles. The only way to close it down before it goes critical is for someone to go through. The return of the particles will block it and reverse the tide!' He did a quick spin and checked the machine again. 'Thirty seconds. Captain, which of your team is the most expendable?'

The question shook him to the core. That wasn't something he could answer.

'Captain?' Emrys yelled. 'If you don't send one of them through right now the whole world will be exposed to chaos on a scale you've never seen before! Please! Which one is least needed on your team?'

Horrified looks passed between them.

When again Jack hesitated, Emrys made a rough grab for Gwen. Jack grabbed him and separated them, throwing her at Owen, warning him away from his team with a manic look.

'Ten seconds! Pick one or people are going to die! Who is least needed on your team? Tell me now!'

Emrys followed Jack's gaze as it slowly settled on Ianto. Gwen, Owen and Toshiko looked around to him too.

Ianto's world fell out at the bottom as those eyes found him. All the noise and destruction disappeared and he felt like he was in a cold, isolated bubble. Jack had picked him.

He'd picked him.

Tea boy. Part-time shag. Words spoken to him by Owen a distant time ago now came back to tear his insides to shreds. It had been true. It had always been true.

He was too shocked to say anything as Emrys grabbed him by the wrist and rushed him over to the opening rift. He had time just to look back once, catching Jack's widened eyes once before he was pushed forwards and sucked away.

At once it closed up and the earthquake stopped shaking the facility. The sirens stopped going off and an eerie silence descended on them. Emrys took a deep breath and switched off the fizzing wreck of a machine in front of him. 'Thank God,' he gasped, half leaning over it.

'You... you...' Owen gasped, staring at Jack like he was a monster, jaw open and slack in utter disbelief.

Jack looked back, expression frozen. He couldn't think; could hardly breathe.

'Where did he go?' Toshiko asked, frantically. 'Where did he go?!'

'Go? Oh uh...' he fought to catch his breath, 'probably dead. Sorry.' He didn't sound particularly upset by that, too busy cleaning his glasses.

'Probably?!' She grabbed his lapels and shook him. 'What does that mean? How probably? Could he still be alive?'

He put his spectacles back on and peered at her. 'Chances are slim but he might have found his way through. Even if he did, he could have landed anywhere in the entire universe in any point of time. I am sorry about your colleague but there's really nothing we can do. Just be glad we averted a disaster. Now then, I need to figure out what went wrong.' Emrys peered at what was left of his rift opening machine, distastefully. 'Oh boy, it does look a little fried though. Wheu!'

Owen suddenly took off, his forearm over his face, running into the autopsy bay and sinking to the floor out of sight. Gwen ran after him.

Tosh turned to Jack and tentatively put a hand on his shoulder. He didn't react; still frozen, staring at the machine. Finally his legs gave way and he hit the floor, nearly taking her with him. She crouched down and put her arms around him, awkwardly trying to comfort him, her tears staining his shoulder.

Emrys glanced back around at Jack and took in the devastated expression on his face. He had to turn his back again and let the smile he was holding in out. It was a cruel trick to play, sure, but it was all necessary. Very necessary.

Things were going exactly according to plan. Now all he had to do was sit back and wait for the truth to out.

*

Ianto had never felt so cold. He staggered ahead, over the landscape of white and red, the night air above him alight with explosions and the sound of gunfire and screams. It was deafening. He had no idea where he was or what was happening, but he guessed it must be some kind of war. His head was too fuzzy to make any sense of it all.

He passed by a mangled corpse of a man in a uniform he didn't recognise, and the smashed up pieces of a machine he couldn't identify. Vaguely he knew he should do something other than just walk forwards. Run perhaps? Try to figure out what was going on?

A sudden explosion of pain in his shoulder caught him offguard and he was spun around, loosing his balance. Ianto slipped over onto his back in a mound of snow and screamed all of the air left in his lungs out. He looked over at the area of pain and saw a bloodied hole in his flesh, the fabric of his suit all charred around it. He'd been shot.

Panic gripped him and Ianto tried to move. The pain was too much. There was not one part of him which wasn't hurting from the fall out of the rift, and now from his wound. By far the worst of it was coming from inside. He wrapped his hands over the unnatural bulge of his stomach, shedding tears of heartbreak.

Jack had picked him. Sent him packing like so much rubbish. Not that he could fault the logic. Owen was their Doctor, Toshiko was their technical genius, Gwen gave them the personal, human touch, and she was Jack's favourite. He, on the other hand, wasn't even an official part of the team. He was nothing by comparison. Yes, Ianto could see the logic. He just couldn't see the heart. Obviously that had never been part of the equation, no matter how much he'd wanted it to be.

He stared up at the sky, above, filled with explosions, fireworks, lasers and strange ships exchanging fire. Beyond that were stars. Vaguely he wondered why none of the constellations looked familiar.

Tears rolled down the sides of his face but he put the urge to wail and scream aside. Ianto was too cold and too tired. So he just let them fall, running down to mingle with the red staining the snow around him, and waited, letting the cold consume him, snowflakes drifting over him like ashes.

***

Ah! what is not a dream by day,
To him whose eyes are cast,
On things around him with a ray,
Turned back upon the past?
— Edgar Allan Poe

 

Gwen stared at Owen for a long moment, frowning, not quite able to take in what he had told her.

The tears on his cheeks told her that he wasn't lying. In all the time they'd known each other, she had never once seen him cry before. Not so directly and openly. He was trying to hide it, wiping his face with his arm, but there wasn't much he could do to stop it.

'Jack didn't know,' she breathed, reeling from the thought of it. Somewhere deep within, a guilty voice told her that if Jack had known, he wouldn't have sacrificed Ianto, he might have let Emrys throw her through, and she had to crush it down to focus. That was not the right thinking.

'I feel sick,' Owen groaned and closed his eyes, trying to get himself under control. His reaction had been a surprise to no one more than him. He hadn't realised how invested he had been getting, watching that baby growing, seeing it almost every day, marvelling at it and worrying about it. There were no words to describe how he felt.

'It's okay, it'll be alright,' she cooed.

'No it won't!' He yelled, loosing control. Owen kicked over anything in his path, sending various medical implements flying and grabbed onto the autopsy table, shaking it wildly, unable to cope and just needing to let some of the rage out somehow.

Gwen moved out of the way a little, up the steps. Behind her, off in the Hub, Toshiko was leaning back in her seat looking in their direction to see what the noise was about. Gwen waved her hand as if to say, 'don't worry,' and waited for Owen to calm down.

'No it won't be alright, for fuck's sake! Don't you get it?! Jack killed him! Fucking hell he killed the baby!'

'Owen, he didn't know. Now just calm down.'

Gwen turned around to Tosh again, concerned she might have heard, and was stunned to see Jack instead, standing in the entranceway, staring at them. Heart sinking into her stomach she stumbled up the steps and reached out to him. He put his hands on her shoulders and gently moved her aside, stepping past like a zombie.

Owen pressed his head down on the autopsy table, trying to catch his breath. He realised he was hyperventilating. 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry I just... I can't... I can't... Didn't see this coming? I've been with him every step, you know, I was... I don't know what this is.' He wiped his face with his sleeve and stood up, freezing when he came face to face with Jack.

Jack gave him a long, intent look, face going completely pale. His whole body was shaking.

'I'm sorry,' Owen gasped, not sure what else to say. 'I... you were in your office. I...'

'Tell me everything,' Jack said, seemingly quite calm aside from the slight tremble in his voice.

*

Someone was humming and it was driving him to distraction. Maybe it would have been passable if was at all recognisable, or even tuneful.

He really, really didn't want to have to open his eyes. But the humming was awful. Disgraceful even. He'd heard that voice before many times. It could only be one person, and for once he was in no mood to be polite. 'Jack, shut up,' he groaned.

When the humming didn't stop he huffed and opened his eyes. 'Jack, would you please...'

Ianto gasped in, finding himself in entirely unfamiliar surroundings; a long tent-like structure. A machine somewhere in his peripheral vision started beeping and a strange looking woman with three eyes and purple hair came into view. She told him to calm down and that he was safe in very broken English. 'Where am I?' he asked but got no answer as she moved on to the next patient too quickly.

There were about thirty men in various conditions lined up at intervals on beds, like some sort of a makeshift medical unit. The air was thick with strange smells.

The humming started up again and he looked aside to the man in the next bed. He had a number of pads taped over his torso and face, and bandages wrapped around his head to cover his eyes. He was sitting up on the side, running his hands over a newspaper covered in strange markings, still humming incessantly.

There was no mistaking who he was. 'Jack?' Ianto called out but he didn't move. 'Jack, would you please stop humming?'

Finally that got a rise out of him. 'Are you talking to me?'

'Of course I am.' Now he was beginning to remember how he'd got there, what Jack had done, anger was beginning to well up. With a rush of alarm he felt his stomach. The bump was still there, but dread still flowed through him. 'Oh my God... the baby... Nurse! Nurse!'

Jack stumbled from his bed and went to his side. 'Shhh, calm down. Your baby is fine. So you're the pregnant guy, huh? Caused quite a stir amongst the nurses, I tell you. They haven't seen an alterable human male before. I had to explain that one to them.'

'A-Alterable?'

'Yeah, you know, impregnable. I'm alterable too actually.' He grinned. 'Surprised? I know, we're getting pretty rare these days. Funny we should run into each other like this, so far from home, don't you think?'

'Um... I suppose so. Uh...' He stared at Jack, assessing him. Ianto realised that he looked different. Not just his hair and face but his body. He was a little slimmer around the hips. A tad more defined. There were less lines on what he could see of his face. He looked... younger?

'Didn't catch your name, by the way,' Jack asked. 'I've got to tell you, I'm dying to know where that accent of yours is from. Gives me shivers. You've been mumbling in your sleep a lot.'

'Uh... Hold on a second. Where are we?'

He chuckled. 'I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm having a little trouble seeing right now. A medical tent, I'm guessing. I woke up here a few days ago too. Got hit with erosion gas.'

'No, I mean... Jack, this isn't Earth... is it?'

His smile fell a little. 'Earth? Uh, no. We're a long way from there.' He frowned. 'Why do you keep calling me Jack?'

'Well because... because...' Something about the medical instruments and the way the place was set up told him that the rift had thrown him out of time too. 'What year is this?'

'One of these days we're going to stop asking each other questions and get some answers.' He chuckled. 'By Earth years, this is 5032. We're on the Rigus outpost in sector eight. I take it you weren't drafted in for fighting like me, were you?'

'5032, are you serious?

'Sure am.'

'And you... you don't know who I am?'

'Sorry, no. Should I?'

Ianto frowned, picking at the rough fabric of the sheet draped over him. 'I fell through a rift. A rip in space and time. I'm from Earth. Uh... Cardiff. 2007.'

'2007? Wow. Talk about a long way from home. And Cardiff... that's... England, is it?'

'Wales.' Ianto regarded him with wonder. The Jack of his time had once let slip that he was from the future originally. Could this be a version of Jack dating back to before they ever met? It certainly looked that way, even though the chances of him just happening to land here, in this time, where Jack just happened to be, seemed near impossible.

'I get the feeling you're giving me the once over,' Jack joked. He spun around, pulled down his boxers at the back and mooned him. 'Approve?'

Despite himself Ianto laughed. 'Can't say that I don't.'

'Mm, I love that accent.' He said and grinned. 'Makes my spine feel all tingly. I'm going to have to go to Wales some day.'

Ianto was sorely tempted to comment that it was a certainty but bit his lip.

'You still haven't told me your name, by the way?'

'It's Ianto. Ianto Jones.'

'Ianto,' he rolled it over his tongue with approval. 'Oh I like that.'

'What's your name?' Ianto felt a little guilty taking the advantage to access a little snippet of information that he'd never thought he'd find out.

'Uhhh... well that's complicated. I'm a field Time Agent and Time Agents have their names revoked. Always do. You can call me Agent Forty Two if you like.'

'The answer to life, the universe and everything?' The ego was still there, then.

That got Jack grinning again. 'You read the classics too? Douglas Adams. That's why I picked that number.'

'Um, well, it's not really an out and out classic yet in 2007. Getting that way I suppose.'

'Oh... right, yeah. I forgot for a second there.' He shrugged. 'Not much of a Time Agent am I? Can't even keep track of simple information like that.' Jack stepped a little closer. 'I do have a name, but it's a stupid one. Embarrassing really. I prefer to go by Forty Two. Although... you keep on calling me Jack. Why is that?'

'Uh, well...' Ianto toyed with idea of not telling him, but knew that wouldn't last long. Just seeing him there was already making him want to tell him everything, and then deliver a smack to the face in pre-payment for future decisions he would make. 'You and I know each other. Very well. Or did. Or... will. This is going to get confusing, I can tell.' He looked to Jack and saw that he had his full attention. 'Your future, my past. You... you were, or rather will be, my boss in 2007. You sent me through that rift and... and landed me here.'

Jack turned aside a little, looking conflicted. 'Are you saying you know me at a point in time in my personal future?' He winced. 'Fuck. This could cause problems.'

'What do you mean?'

He ruffled his hand through his military cut hair. 'You've probably already told me too much. And I can't exactly inform the Time Agency. This war they accidentally started has cut us all off and scattered us. It's all gone crazy.' Jack turned to Ianto and leaned on the side of his bed, conspiratorially. 'Us meeting like this could cause a temporal paradox.'

'Oh. Sorry I... I just...'

'No, don't apologise. You weren't to know.' He thought about it and ended up shrugging. 'Oh well, can't do anything about it right now. You might want to avoid telling me anything else though, okay Ianto?'

'Okay. If you say so.'

'Oh but there is one thing I do need to know. Do I fancy you in the future?' he asked, with a well practised leer, not at all diminished by the bandages around his head.

The question made Ianto feel unaccountably sad, and one hand strayed to his belly. He turned his head aside. 'Perhaps you're right, it's best not to talk about it,' he said, hating how choked up he sounded.

Jack didn't have to see him to know that there was something about the way he said that that spoke volumes. He found his way back to his bed and sat down again, reading the psychic newspaper with his fingers.

He took care not to hum again.

*

The silence was deafening. Gwen looked over to Owen but he was too busy staring at his feet to notice. He was leaning back against the wall, distraught, unable to look up. She sighed, seeing the guilt written all over him. It wasn't often Owen was like this; he was normally such a fighter, even when he thought he was in the wrong. This had clearly affected him in ways he could barely comprehend.

And then there was Jack, sitting on the stretcher at the centre of the makeshift medical room Owen had taken them down into, flipping back and forth between the ultrasound pictures from the file next to him. He had been going through them for the better part of ten minutes.

She really wasn't sure what to do. Instinct told her that any attempt to comfort either of them would be brushed off. It was an intensely private moment and being there was making her uncomfortable. Gwen couldn't think of anything else to do though. So she just waited, like Owen, for Jack to take it in and find a way to get past it so that the team could reassemble and get to work answering all of the problems being reported around the city following the earthquake they'd caused.

'Why...' Jack mumbled, eventually, 'why didn't he tell me?' He looked over to Owen but he could give him no answers. The expression of sympathy on Gwen's face caused a surge of anger through him. Jack threw the file down to the floor and kicked the ultrasound monitor over. That seemed to calm him down a little. 'I have to find him,' he said. 'I have to...'

Gwen couldn't hide her dubious expression. He picked it up but didn't challenge it. Jack knew just as well as she did that it was impossible; a needle in a haystack the size of a planet.

The sound of the door creaking open mercifully pulled her attention away from him and she turned to see Toshiko enter. She ran straight for Jack.

'Jack, I have to tell you something...' she said, breathlessly.

'Not now,' he muttered, turning away. 'Please, not now...'

'It's important. I think... I think Emrys is hiding something. I think... he made the rift open deliberately.'

That caught his attention. He turned back to her and waited for her to continue.

'The equations; they're off. I'm sure of it. I was going through the numbers and the information coming out of that machine of his, and I saw co-ordinates and a date setting. I looked at that other device of his, the one he said measured particles; it's empty. It's just a tube. There's nothing in it. Not even a battery.'

What she had said took a moment to resound around them before Jack caught on.

'I think this, all of this, was deliberate,' Toshiko said, ardently.

'Does he know that you're on to him?' Jack asked.

'No. I said I was going to the bathroom.'

He took off at a pace which had the others having to run to catch up with him.

*

'You ready?'

'Yep.'

'You sure?'

'Never readier. Come on, just do it.'

'Alright, but the light in here is probably going to kill your eyes.' Ianto carefully cut through the bandages on one side of Jack's face and started to peel the layers away.

'Now just remember, I'm much prettier without chemical burns. When that medical supply ship finally gets here, and we get a skin reconstructer, then you'll see.'

Ianto laughed. 'I don't need a skin reconstructer to know that.' He peeled away the slightly yellowed patches that had been over Jack's eyes. 'Okay, that's it. The nurse said you should take it slow, not open your eyes too quickly. Let them adjust first.'

He tried to open them too fast and winced.

'What did I just say?' Ianto put his hands on Jack's shoulders and anchored him. 'Slowly.'

Jack smiled and let his hands slide down to rest either side of Ianto's waist. They were sitting on his bed, both cross legged facing each other, at Jack's request, so the first thing he'd see was him. At least, that was what he had said, though Ianto thought it was probably more just to be comfortable. After all, over the past few weeks, they hadn't had much else in the way of company who could speak their language, and the alien nurses were too busy seeing to the endless stream of injured people. They'd been taking care of each other almost exclusively, growing closer by the day. Ianto thought he'd spent more time talking to this Jack than he'd ever had with the one he'd known, and in a way that hurt.

Eventually Jack's eyes started to adjust. The blurs he could see turned into shapes which grew more and more focused. After a few minutes of blinking, clearing the fuzz, he fixed his gaze on Ianto and smiled. Then he leaned forwards and kissed him. It caught him entirely off guard.

'I knew you'd be beautiful,' he said, as if in explanation.

Jack's eyes turned downwards, to the round bump of Ianto's belly. He smiled and touched it but Ianto pulled his hand away.

'Causality,' he muttered. 'It's not a good idea...'

'Fuck causality. Fuck paradoxes. I've had enough of all that.' He put his hand back where it had been. 'I figured it out. This is mine, isn't it? Future me. Or past me, to you.'

Ianto regarded him for a long moment before giving him a guilty nod.

'I've always thought that maybe the universe isn't as random as we think,' Jack told him, eyes a little distant. 'I think you were brought here, to my time, to a place where I would be, for a reason.'

'What reason?'

'I think that maybe we were always supposed to meet like this. I do.' A small, almost shy smile touched his lips. 'Call me an incurable old romantic but I have this... this feeling when I'm with you of... of harmony. Like it's supposed to work out like this.' He palmed Ianto's cheek, stroking it gently with his thumb, then leaned forwards and kissed him again.

He couldn't help but respond. Ianto let his arms slide over his shoulders to the elbows and wrapped his arms around his head as they kissed. Jack leaned forwards, pushing him back to the bed, getting somewhat enthusiastic. Laughter and applause went around the ward and a wolf whistle was sounded out by one of the human patients.

One of the nurses, a large matronly one of indeterminate species, smacked Jack on the back of the head with a rolled up psychic newspaper and yelled at him in some alien language. Jack pulled back, gave her a look of pure innocence and started laughing into Ianto's shoulder. It made him laugh as well.

She stood by, looking at them disapprovingly, until he had got off Ianto and back into his own bed. He lay down and looked across to him, still laughing.

Ianto stared back, giggling, feeling a strange warm glow spreading through him. His Jack had never looked at him the way this one was now. He had to wonder if perhaps he was right; this was the way things were supposed to happen after all.

*

Emrys turned briefly, hearing the elevator open and the team step out, but didn't think anything of it. He got straight back to checking the wires in the rift opening machine, humming a jaunty tune.

The next thing he knew he was being spun around and almost lifted into the air by the coat. A fist caught him across the face and he staggered back, slipping to the floor.

Jack kneeled over him, eyes burning with rage, and pinned him down. 'Who are you?' he growled.

'Excuse me?'

He hit him again. Emrys spat blood, his lip badly split.

'I'll ask you again. Who are you? What is your agenda here?'

Too slow to answer, Jack punched him again.

'Jack, hold on,' Gwen said, putting a hand on his shoulder, aware of the fact that this might yet all turn out to be a mistake. He wasn't exactly in a state of mind to judge properly or hold back if needed to.

Emrys started to laugh.

That stopped them all dead still, it was so unexpected.

He pulled the handkerchief from his pocket and put it over his mouth. 'Ouch,' he said. 'That hurt. Oh but wait... feels a little better.' Emrys rubbed the cloth across to remove the blood. The split healed up before Jack's eyes. 'All better. You'll have to try harder.'

'What the hell?'

Emrys took advantage of his moment of surprise to flip him aside and stagger to his feet. He stepped back from them, and shook his head. 'Alright, alright. I'll lay my cards on the deck. First off, I know I owe you all an apology,' he said, all trace of his slight lisp and his awkward manner completely gone. His whole body language was different. 'Yes, it was deliberate. All of it.' He looked to Toshiko. 'I knew you'd figure it out pretty fast. You're enchanting.' Emrys gave her a wink. 'Would it make any difference if I assured you all that Ianto is perfectly safe?'

'He is?' Owen asked, too quickly. 'How do you know that?'

'As Tosh will tell you, this rift opening device was a tad more specialised than I let on. It was set to a specific time and co-ordinates. Ianto had to go through to preserve the timeline.' He turned to Jack, pre-empting the question on his lips. 'Before you ask, yes, I knew you would pick him.'

'How?'

'Because according to my timeline it already happened that way. You'll have to forgive the theatricals, I had my own reasons for that.' He removed his glasses and put them in the breast pocket of his lab coat. Then he removed the coat and dropped it to the floor, simultaneously stepping out of the loosely fitting trousers he had been wearing. Revealed were some trendy, well-fitting clothes far more befitting of someone his youthful age. Last he ruffled his hands through his hair and restyled it completely, smoothing out the badly shaped side parting to sweep it all back.

The person now standing before them was a million miles away from the one who had entered the base.

'My name isn't Emrys. I just go by that name for work. My real name is Jack, though my father calls me JR. I'm Jack Rhodri Jones.' He looked at Jack, intently, daring him to figure it out. 'Think about it.' He stepped towards him, very slowly, arms folded across his chest. 'Look at my eyes. Look at my mouth. Take a good hard look. You getting it yet?'

Jack founds himself reversing away from him, the intensity in his words taking him aback.

'Still not caught on? Ah, what else? Oh and I do have this startling ability to heal up extremely fast. Notice that? Hmm, I wonder where I could possibly have got that from?'

He turned his attention to Owen, briefly, giving him a big smile and a flex of the eyebrows.

'No way,' Owen gasped.

'See, he's figured it out. Smarter than he looks, that one.' He turned back to Jack.

'It can't be...'

'Why not? You of all people should know that time is all but mere illusion; just smoke and mirrors in the right hands.' JR put his hands on Jack's shoulders and forced him to look into the eyes which were a mirror to his. He smiled, warmly. 'It's nice to see you, dad. Boy do we have a lot to talk about.'

***

What though that light, thro' storm and night,
So trembled from afar
What could there be more purely bright
In Truth's day-star?
— Edgar Allan Poe

 

'Together,' Jack gasped into his shoulder, thrusting up into him harder.

'Yesss,' Ianto agreed, and pulled Jack's hand up to cover his mouth. 'S'good. Oh... oh yes...'

'Love you.' He buried his face in Ianto's hair. 'Love...'

They stifled each other's cries as they came, pleasure washing through them, Ianto screwing himself down on Jack's cock as hard as he could and revelling in the sensations spiking through him and Jack biting into the back of his neck, possessively. They came down from it slowly, gasping for breath in perfect unison.

'Last... time... on this chair,' Ianto reminded him, with a chuckle.

'Last time in this house.'

There was a note of sadness in Jack's voice which made him wish he hadn't brought it up. He knew it had never sat easy with Jack, deserting the Time Agency in the middle of war the way he did. He had had no other option; they were going to send him back to the front and Jack knew he'd probably never see Ianto or the baby again. So they'd left the hospital in the middle of the night and found an isolated place to set up home. Even after two years it was still a difficult topic for him and one best not discussed. But Jack had become more and more strained in recent days as news that the war was over filtered through to the isolated town below their hidden away mountain cabin. Jack was convinced the Time Agency would find them. He knew that the temporal paradox their being together would cause would filter through to their machines and they would know where they were. That was why they were leaving the cabin, their sanctuary, to go on the run.

'I'm going to miss this place too,' Ianto sighed. 'Lots of happy memories.'

'Hmmm.'

'But this could be a good thing in the long run. Maybe we'll find somewhere completely safe, where they can never find us. Somewhere JR can go to school. He's growing and learning so fast, I'm running out of things to teach him. He eats up every book I get him no matter how advanced it is.'

Jack chuckled. 'He's a bright kid.'

'He only has another two years before he'll be grown up if he keeps aging as he is. He looks about ten already. I really think he needs proper schooling.'

Abruptly, he was deseated and Jack lifted him right up into his arms. Ianto had to fight himself not to laugh, knowing had to be quiet so they wouldn't wake up JR. He was deposited on their bed and Jack started to clean him up with the wipes they kept handy. 'We haven't said goodbye to the bed,' he remarked, with a leer.

'We can save that for morning.' He pulled on some boxers and crawled under the covers, inviting Jack in with him.

They tangled up together, as they did every night, never happier than they were in each others' arms.

'I love you,' Ianto whispered, remembering for a moment a time when he had been afraid of saying those simple words.

'Is that all?' Jack mocked. 'I adore you.'

'Then I adore you too.'

'Is that all? I worship you.'

'You're such a child,' Ianto snickered.

'You just can't think of anything to top that.'

'Sure I can.' He leaned forwards a little so he could kiss Jack's nose. 'I prefer show rather than tell though.' A hand strayed down and gave his cock a squeeze.

'It does have its advantages I suppose,' Jack agreed.

They settled down for sleep, contentedly.

'Dad? Daddy?' a small voice called, and there was a knock on the door.

Ianto was just awake enough to hear it.

'JR?'

'Daddy?'

'Hold on.'

He rolled out of bed. After quickly checking to make sure Jack had put on his boxers before he got under the covers before, and that there was nothing incriminating left out, he went over and unlocked the door.

JR was standing in the dark hallway, clutching at his teddy bear. He looked scared.

'What's wrong?'

'There's somebody outside my window,' he whispered.

Ianto was about to tell him it was just his imagination, but then he heard the sound of breaking glass somewhere in the house. He grabbed JR out of instinct and pulled him inside their room. Jack was immediately on his feet, having heard it too. He grabbed the pressure gun he kept in the draw. There were sounds of banging throughout the house, like they were under siege, feet stomping through destroying everything. The din was terrifying.

The window behind them shattered and men in black suits started climbing in...

*

'It was the Time Agency. They found us,' JR told them, eyes glossy, staring off into his memories. 'They transported us to their base and dad... you stood trial before their supreme military court. You lost your appeal and they wiped your memory of the entire two years and redrafted you. You didn't even know us.'

'Two years,' Jack murmured softly, himself falling into his thoughts. 'So that's why they did it. I deserted.'

'It was more that you caused a paradox, really. That is what they exist to prevent occurring after all. They decided that if you didn't remember then the paradox would be averted. And then, since the computers didn't know what to do with me and daddy, they decided to put us in a stasis field to be held indefinitely. Lucky for us, you still had a few friends willing to help out. Agent Ninety sneaked us out and sent us back in time.'

'So that's how you ended up here?' Gwen asked, softly.

JR nodded, and then seemed to take it back. 'Well ah, not quite. He miscalculated a little and we landed in Newport in 2005.'

'Hold up,' Owen interjected, pulling a face. 'My maths might be a bit rusty but, if what you're saying is true...'

'I should be four years old. Yeah, I know. I got the healing thing from my dad and the fast growth from my daddy... uh Ianto. Physically I'm about twenty two and I've settled down to normal aging now. But yeah, I'm only four chronologically.'

At the look Owen gave him, he could only shrug his shoulders. 'What? Technically Ianto wasn't much older when you knew him. He would have been, what, five. Six maybe?' He smirked seeing them all trying to comprehend that. 'Like I said, time is pretty meaningless when all said and done. If you don't believe I'm an adult, I can drop my trousers. Trust me, you'll be in no doubt.' That remark he seemed to direct at Toshiko; he'd taken quite a liking to her.

She looked completely flustered, not sure whether to smile or run.

Jack smiled despite himself. He sounded just like he used to be when he was much younger.

'So as I was saying, we got back in 2005. Now imagine the problem this caused. Daddy realised I was the guy who saved his life at Canary Wharf, so we knew I was going to end up working at Torchwood One. The problem was, he knew what was coming; the big battle with the Cybermen and the Daleks and what happened to his girlfriend at the time. All that. Of course he wanted to stop it from happening. Warn them, maybe. Who wouldn't? But you see, the Time Agency pick up any temporal paradoxes. It's what they do. If we had intervened the way he wanted to, two things would have occurred; first of all he have prevented himself from ever applying to Torchwood Three and meeting you, and therefore prevented me from ever being conceived, and second of all he would have drawn the attention of the Time Agency. They would have found us and probably had us executed or something. You see the dilemma there?'

JR paused for a few moments to let them consider it. After all, he was supposed to be a genius, and even he had trouble getting his head around it some days. 'As you can imagine, it was a traumatic time for him. He decided to go travelling for a while. As for me, after Torchwood One fell, I got a job with UNIT putting my knowledge of future technology to covert use and I've been working for them ever since.'

'Travelling? Where to? Where is he now?' Jack asked, his breath quickening a little.

'Um, let me see...' He looked up in the air, thinking about it. 'The last time we spoke he was in Karnac. That was a few days ago.'

'Karnac, Egypt?' The thought of that just blew his mind. 'Can I call him?'

'Ah... well...' JR looked awkward and picked at a stray thread coming off the bottom of his shirt. 'He told me not to give you his number. He... um, I think it's difficult because he's aware that you're not the Jack he knew in the future and, well, to be honest he said he doesn't want to come back.'

Gwen expelled all of the air in her lungs. There was that uncomfortable feeling again, like she was stuck in the middle of someone else's private moment. It was happening to her a lot lately.

'That's crazy,' Jack yelled, 'he knew me first!'

JR shrugged, apologetically. 'You're not like you used to be though. Even I can see that. He doesn't want to go back to what it was like between you too. I'm sorry, dad, I don't know what to tell you.'

Jack gave him an intense stare and moved towards him. Owen inched forwards a little, thinking he might be about to whack JR one. Instead Jack just stopped in front of him, frowning, as if trying to say something but being unable to get the words out. He was trying so hard, so desperately hard, to find something he could say to prove him wrong. Anything. Nothing came. All he could do was turn and walk away, feeling utterly gut punched.

It was true, what he had said. Things hadn't been right between him and Ianto and he knew it was his fault. The problem had all been his. So many loves, so many lifetimes, he couldn't bear to get into it again. Not after... not after...

'I have to go,' he muttered and made a dash for the lift. Nobody tried to follow him and he was glad they didn't. He needed to be alone.

He found himself drifting down to the disused storage facility Owen had converted into a medical unit. The world took on a strange, dreamlike tinge and faces faded in and out of his vision; faces from his past, with one in particular tormenting him the most.

It was the Doctor. That had been the turning point he thought. He was the reason he had intentionally treated Ianto so badly. The way he had suddenly appeared and swept him away had been a moment he'd dreamed about for decades. But it wasn't the same Doctor, and there was nothing between them except laughter on occasion. No spark beyond that at all. He had to add the incarnation he had known to the long list of people he had loved and lost. James. Rose. Estelle. The real Captain Jack. So many, he couldn't bear it some days.

It made sense to him really that Ianto and his own past self should have become so close. He knew Ianto had loved him. Jack had always known that, and he'd worked hard to kill it. Selfish though it was, he could never give up their closeness, so he had crushed Ianto's spirit instead.

But the person Ianto had been sent through time to meet was untouched by all of that. By that point in his life, he'd loved, sure, but not in any grand sense. Now that he thought about it, it was entirely logical that they would have fallen in love.

Because he knew he had it in him to feel that way for Ianto. He always had. That was what had scared him.

He lay down on the stretcher and stared at the concrete ceiling, tears building up inside. Jack pictured the last time he had seen Ianto, looking around at him, about to be thrown through the rift, utter heartbreak in his eyes.

Finally the tears broke and he curled in on himself, unable to do anything but let it wash over him and hope he was still sane when it was over.

*

'Ianto!' Toshiko shrieked and ran to him.

He quickly dropped his luggage and caught her in his arms, lifting her up a little. 'I've missed you,' he admitted.

Gwen came up and gave him a more measured hug. 'I'm so glad you're alright,' she said, in his ear and kissed him on the cheek. He gave her a sheepish smile.

Owen approached next, looking as though he was trying not to grin and failing. He held out his hand but Ianto grabbed him and squeezed the breath out of him anyway.

Then he saw JR. Ianto walked over to him looking more perplexed than pleased to see him. 'What the hell have you done to your hair?' he asked, every bit the parent, and gave him a bear hug.

'That's nothing. Wait 'til you see my tattoo.'

'What?!'

'Kidding.' JR stepped back, grinning, and Ianto ruffled his hair affectionately. 'Hey!' He frowned like a grumpy teenager and tried to put it back as it was. 'I thought you said you weren't coming back here? What happened to the Egypt tour?'

Ianto shrugged. 'I changed my mind. Got a flight back.' His eyes strayed upwards towards Jack's office with not a lot of subtlety. 'So, uh...'

'Jack went down to the medical room we were using,' Owen said, pre-emptively. 'Wasn't all that happy to hear you weren't coming back.'

'Ah. Yes. Well, that's easily solved I suppose.' He pointed to the lift by way of excusing himself, but turned back for a moment before going over to it. 'Tosh, don't let JR near the computers or he'll have rewritten the system before you've even blinked.'

'You spoil all my fun,' JR whined and pouted. Toshiko thought he looked an eerie amount like Ianto when he did that, although overall he tended to look more like Jack.

He returned a stern, fatherly expression of warning, which JR took on board, and continued across into the lift.

The moment it started downward he started to feel nervous. There had been a very good reason he hadn't wanted to come back, and that was because he wasn't sure he could bear seeing the Jack with no memory of what they'd had and no interest in him other than as some tawdry lay. He had been afraid seeing him again would tarnish his memory of their two happy years together. But he realised he couldn't just sit around in the desert and pretend that the day hadn't come when he was supposed to return. After all, it wasn't Jack's fault he'd had his memories stolen from him, or that for some reason he just didn't feel that way about him the way he was now. So he was determined not to be angry. All the same, Ianto had known this confrontation would be difficult.

Nevertheless, he hadn't travelled halfway across the world for nothing. So Ianto put one foot in front of the other, one at a time, and let them carry him to the room. He entered quietly and saw Jack lying down on the stretcher, quietly sobbing to himself.

Instantly his heart seized up. It had been more than two years since he'd seen Jack, well the one he thought of as his Jack, and more than four years since he'd seen this Jack. Yet still his nerves thrummed with the need to rush over and comfort him. Ianto watched him for a moment, taking the time to steady himself, before he went towards him, keeping his footsteps light.

Jack saw him as he approached and frowned like he wasn't quite sure he wasn't seeing things.

'Hi,' Ianto ventured, tentatively.

'Ianto?'

'Yep.'

It took all of three seconds for Jack to leap over and practically sweep him off his feet, kissing him like his life depended on it. 'You came back!' he gasped, some way between laughing and crying. 'You came back! Ianto, I'm so sorry. I'm so so sorry.'

Ianto prised his hands away from him and stepped back, not quite sure what to make of his reaction. 'Um... I didn't come back for that. I'd rather not...' He tried desperately to remember the speech he'd spent practically the entire plane trip back preparing. It came out in stuttering fragments. 'It's not that I don't... That is to say... You're not...'

'No but I am! I am him.' Jack tried to find some order to his thoughts, to explain what he was trying to tell him. It was hard to articulate everything he wanted to say. 'I... I didn't know. But I want to. I want to know what we had. Maybe... maybe if you tell me I'll be able to remember. Ianto, I... I never meant to hurt you before. I was just... I don't know.' He turned away from him, pacing, trying to think of something to say that wouldn't come out wrong or garbled.

After a few moments Ianto took his hand and stopped him still. He was holding out his wallet. 'You want to remember? Then take a look,' he said, voice cracking a little. 'There are photos in the back compartment. Luckily I had them with me when we were sent back in time.'

Jack accepted it and opened it with reverence. He pulled out a thick wad of photos stuffed in behind the bank notes. Then he sat down on the stretcher and started to look through them. Ianto settled down beside him.

The first photo was of a rough looking Ianto, lying on a bed with a baby in his arms. 'JR,' Ianto explained. 'You were in the next room at this point. At the time I had decided I never wanted you to come near me again,' he chuckled.

The next was a close up of the two of them together. Jack was pulling a face and Ianto rolling his eyes at him. It was closely followed by another snap taken just after it, and they were kissing. Jack guessed they'd had a hover-camera grabbing snaps from the funny angle. They were notorious for that.

Next there was a picture of a boy with dark hair, bright eyes and a terrible haircut. Jack judged him to be aged around seven, until he remembered who it was. 'How old was he here?'

'About six months. Yeah, I know. Getting clothes for him was a nightmare.'

Jack looked at the next snap. It was of him and Ianto in some kind of hospital. Ianto looked fairly alright but he looked terrible, with burns all over his face and chest. 'What the hell happened to me?'

'You were hit with erosion gas whilst fighting. You were a trooper about it though.'

The last picture was a family shot. Him, Ianto and a slightly older JR grinning at the camera like they didn't have a care in the world. It made his heart ache a little.

'That's my favourite one,' Ianto said, quietly, and took it from his hands. Jack could see it all in his eyes; how much he longed to be back in that time, back as a family.

'You've no idea how much I wish I could remember,' Jack said.

'I know. It's not your fault.'

'Maybe not. But I haven't treated you very well as the person I am now. That is my fault. It's just, in you I saw someone I knew I could so easily fall for. I've loved a lot of people in my life, Ianto. A lot. But where are they all now? Gone.' Jack sighed. 'I didn't want that to happen with you.'

A cold hand pressed onto his and Ianto's fingers tangled their fingers together. Jack dared to look up, straight into his eyes, and was taken right aback by the all-consuming love within them.

'You've no idea how much I missed you,' Ianto said, under his breath. 'No idea.'

'Then don't go. Please. I can be him again, I know it. I just need to be reminded. Seeing these photos... everything becomes clear.'

'It does?'

'Call me an incurable old romantic but I have this... this feeling...'

Ianto looked surprised for a second and then kissed him before he managed to finish his sentence. 'Like it's supposed to work out like this?'

Jack nodded and for some reason Ianto started to laugh, heartily, like it was some private joke he didn't understand. 'That's the second time you've said that to me,' he said and laughed more.

'Is it now? If I say it again, will you stay?' He flashed him his most charming grin, feeling that it was definitely time to break out the big guns. 'Ianto, I have a feeling it's supposed to work out like this. I have a feeling you and I are meant to be.' Jack leaned closer so that he was a hair's breadth away from pressing their lips together. 'I have a feeling I might just have fallen in love with you despite my best efforts not to.'

'Again?'

'Again.'

'You're just saying that so I don't make you pay child support.'

'Damn, you saw right through me,' Jack replied, lightly, with a chuckle. But he quickly grew serious again. 'Ianto, please stay. We have so much to catch up on. I... I have a son I want to get to know. I need you here.'

Ianto grinned, cheekily. 'I know. You always have. You just never knew it.'

'Is that a yes?'

He kept him suspense for a moment but ultimately couldn't hold back. 'Of course I'll stay.'

Jack threw his arms around him and smothered him.

'But I have some conditions,' Ianto was quick to add.

Jack froze. 'Oh?'

'First of all, in the mornings, you make me coffee.'

A little relieved, Jack nodded his agreement to that term. 'What else?'

'Give me time,' he said, and looked very vulnerable for a moment. 'I need time to adjust and think this through.'

'Of course.' Jack smiled and rubbed his hand over his back. 'Is that it?'

'One more thing. You will never, and I mean never, impregnate me again. I mean it.'

The laughter this produced in Jack echoed right through the room. 'Fine by me!'

'Good. Then that's everything, I think.'

Jack nodded. 'Oh, one question though. What about if I get pregnant?'

The alarm on Ianto's face was comical.

'I'm kidding,' Jack promised, before kissing him the way he'd always wanted to but had never allowed himself to do; before kissing him like he loved him.

It felt good.


THE END

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