Title: Fragile
Author: Jedi Princess Clarrisani
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Summary: Life is fragile.
Disclaimer: Nope, still no own.
A/N: This fic is based on the events on the TWWC #4 group fic, "It Started With A Broken Headlight".

---

Being immortal, Jack often found himself forgetting how fragile life really was. Dying and being brought back to life was really nothing to him aside from the stinging pain. He would enter dangerous situations without really needing to think about the consequences because hey, getting killed was just the markings of a bad day and he'd get over it.

But sometimes it would all come rushing back to him, the memories of entering a situation and thinking 'I might die today' and 'this could be the last time I do this'. The thoughts of how temporary they were in the universe compared to everything else around them. How easy it was to suddenly lose it all.

It no longer happened to him, sure, but he was a leader, responsible for the lives of four people he had come to love in their own ways. Four people he just wasn't ready to lose yet, just like he wasn't ready to lose those who had gone before.

Their lives were just so brief, so fragile, that he needed to look out for them. It was just so amazing how they could go from being so full of life to teetering on the edge of that darkness, so close to disappearing into that void of nothingness.

Jack sighed, shifting as he held the warm body closer. He smiled faintly, gently smoothing his fingers along Ianto's brow and down over his cheek, the sleeping man twitching faintly and curling tighter into Jack's side, a slight frown playing across his features.

48 hours ago he and Ianto had been in Ianto's bed, curled together in a tangle of blankets and cold sweat, exhausted after a long night of pleasure. Jack had marvelled at Ianto's stamina while Ianto had cursed his, the two laughing and joking about the things they'd done and were yet to do.

24 hours ago Jack had been by Ianto's side, panic sweeping through him as he watched Owen fighting to keep Ianto alive, Tosh and Gwen lingering at the edges of Owen's domain praying for Ianto not to give up the fight against the toxins sweeping through him.

Jack sighed, closing his eyes and wrapping his arms tighter around the softly breathing man. He hadn't even thought about those spores having any effect on his team. They'd all seemed to walk away from the incident relatively unharmed save for Owen's pride after he'd had to be rescued by the fire department from an air duct.

That night Ianto had seemed fine, and the next morning Ianto had just told him that he was tired, Jack thinking nothing of it as he headed off to see Martha to catch up and go through some minor Torchwood/U.N.I.T. matters that they couldn't delay any longer.

Then Gwen's panicked message had come through. "Everyone, there's something seriously wrong with Ianto!!" She'd found him collapsed, and Owen, Tosh and Jack had all been so far away from the Hub, leaving Gwen to take Ianto to emergency where they estimated that he wouldn't make it, Ianto's body shutting down slowly as the toxins poisoned him.

Jack scowled. Yvonne Hartman had a lot to answer for. She'd often deliberately expose her employees to dangerous chemicals and devices just to see what happened. In this case one of the situations Ianto had been involved in at Torchwood One had come back to haunt him, an element from one of those experiments still in his bloodstream had brought on a severe yet slow reaction against normally harmless alien spores, killing him slowly.

It should have taken at least a week if what Owen said was correct, only the intense and strenuous nature of Jack and Ianto's lovemaking had accelerated the process, causing Ianto to collapse at work while no one was around. And to think, if Ianto hadn't gone to work...

Jack shook his head. No, he wouldn't think about it. He'd learnt long ago not the dwell on 'could have beens' or 'should have beens', else he'd slowly go mad on them. What mattered was that at the first sign that something was wrong, Owen had gone out and hunted down everything he could find on the spores and learnt about other Torchwood One employees who'd lost their lives and how to counter the effects, thus saving Ianto's life.

Owen was the hero of the moment, that was for sure, and Jack made a mental note to thank him again in the morning. The mere realisation that he could lose Ianto had made Jack realise that Ianto wasn't just another notch in his belt – somehow he'd become something more.

That was Ianto, though. Always in the background, always knowing what was needed, and always one of the most important cogs in the Torchwood machine. Torchwood had learnt to survive without Jack, but how long would it take to recover from losing Ianto? Hell, how long would it take to recover from losing any of them? They'd be in real trouble should anything ever happen to Owen for instance.

Jack opened his eyes, smiling as he gazed down at the face of the sleeping man. He leaned forward, gently brushing a kiss onto Ianto's forehead and holding him closer still. No, Jack wasn't ready to lose any of them yet, but while they were here he was going to make sure they knew how much he cared. Especially Ianto.

END