Title: The Mirror in the Morgue
Author: Clarity
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Summary: Ianto takes a trip through time to rescue Gwen, inadvertedly getting involved with a version of Jack from 1888 along the way.

***

1998

Manfred Wilson double checked his bag to make sure he had absolutely everything; his cigarettes, his camera, his change of underwear, and most importantly of all, his list of permutations. It wouldn"t do to get trapped in the past without any one of those important items.

When exactly he was about to go was still unknown of course, but he had a feeling it would be somewhere vaguely Victorian. Through his mirror to the past, he had caught sight of gas fittings that looked like they belonged in that sort of era, and the line of corpses in the room told him that it went to a time when the house was still a morgue. He wouldn"t know for sure though until he actually let the reflective glass spirit him away into the past for real, but then, that was half of the fun of it.

It had taken many years to map out the strange mirror"s permutations adequately; many years of jumping through time, seeing where it could take him. Every three minutes, the reflection changed to a different time period and it did the same cycle every day, the whole day. With so many places to go, he had visited nearly all of them and made note of the date in his notepad, before coming back within the last three minutes to midnight; the window which always sent him back to his present.

The time frame he was about to go to was one of the last ones on his list of eras to map out. Then Manfred would know where the mirror went for every minute of the day. Finally.

As he had a hundred times before, Manfred stepped forwards to the enormous mirror that was mysteriously built into the wall of his family"s ancestral home and took a breath. It was good to take a lungful of air before time travelling, he found. Seemed to make it easier. He pressed his hand to the mirror and felt the minor charge pass through his body which indicated that it had worked.

*

1888

Manfred turned around and let go of the breath he was holding, enjoying the fact that the next breath taken would be drawn more than a hundred years earlier than the last. He stepped forwards and looked around at the past version of room he had been in a moment ago, trying not to feel a shiver at all of the dead bodies covered in white sheets and laid out on slabs against the far wall.

"Manfred Wilson," a voice called, and made him spin. A man was leaning against the wall right next to the mirror, watching him.

"Wh... I..."

"Don"t be startled. I know who you are," he said and stepped towards him. He was a young man with dark hair falling in slightly curled locks about his pale face, and a slender form well suited to the dark Victorian clothing he was wearing. "Your name is Manfred Wilson, and you have just stepped through time from the future."

"H... how do you know that?" Manfred gasped, shock reverberating through his body.

"Because this won"t be the last or the first time we meet. Manfred, I need your help. In fact, my life is sort of in your hands." Apparently aware of the gravitas of what he was saying, he chuckled a little at that. "Sorry to sound dramatic but it"s true. But, why don"t we go somewhere more comfortable to talk? You won"t be able to step through back to your present for a good few hours yet."

The young man went to the door and extended his arm into the hallway as an invitation. Manfred stared at him for a long moment, deliberating what to do. In all his time leaps he"d never encountered this before. "Um... alright. But I have two questions to ask first."

"Sure, ask away," he said and shrugged.

"What year is this?"

"1888."

Manfred made a quick note of that in his pad of permutations. "Alright. Next question: who are you?"

The man smiled, warmly. "My name"s Mr Jones, but you can call me Ianto if you like," he replied, before leading the veteran time traveller away.

*

2008

"I"m sorry, what planet are you from again?" Owen asked, incredulity stamped on his face like a rash.

"What?" Jack protested with a shrug. "It"s an obscure reference."

"Flux capacitor is not an obscure reference!"

"What"s going on?" Gwen asked, wandering into the space between them, handing out doughnuts.

"Okay, here." Owen pulled up something on his computer screen and pointed it out for Gwen. "What does that look like to you?"

She laughed a little. "Flux capacitor."

Owen turned around back to Jack smugly. "See. Everybody on the planet has seen Back to the Future."

Jack shrugged, trying to be nonchalant about it. "Not my thing."

"Not your...?"

"That"s a transdimensional lightstrip," Ianto interrupted, passing out drinks for them one by one. "No relation to fictional manipulators of time."

"So?" Owen scoffed.

"So calling it a flux capacitor is somewhat far from the mark. And since it obviously isn"t anything like one, it"s not surprising the Captain didn"t get the reference." He handed Jack his drink, warmth radiating from his eyes, before moving on into the armoury to pass one to Toshiko. She was obviously too engrossed with dissecting alien tech to have noticed that he and Gwen had returned from their trip out for snacks.

Owen muttered something unflattering under his breath to that. He closed the window with the picture in it and sat back in his chair, putting his feet up on his desk as he looked into the bag of doughnuts sent his way. "Knew it weren"t no UFO," he mumbled and picked out a savoury.

Something beeped on Toshiko"s computer and had her hurrying out of the armoury to see.

"What are we getting?" Jack asked, immediately ready to answer the call to work, even if half of his team seemed more inclined to have a break, despite their lack of activity during the day.

"We"re automatically intercepting a report of strange activity, possibly supernatural, in a house on Park Row. Ghosts maybe?" She turned to Jack the same time Gwen and Owen did.

"Why don"t we find out?" he said.

Ianto was already standing beside him, holding his coat out for him. His prescience never failed to make Jack chuckle and he rewarded him with a smile.

"Okay, kids, let"s move."

He ignored the groans of protest from Owen and went and stood by the door to usher each of them out. Once they were past him, he threw Ianto a wink and a small wave as if to say he"d been back soon, before following them out and hurrying them along.

"Apparently the owners are new. They bought it at a cut price at auction a few years ago, with the intention of renovating it into trendy apartments but have only just got round to actually doing something with it," Toshiko told them on the way over, finding information on her PDA. "The disturbance is apparently in the rear hall. An electrician ran from the building and is refusing to go back. The owners went to investigate and also got scared off. Though what it is exactly that spooked them is unclear as yet."

"It was enough for them to call the police," Owen observed.

The house in question was a large old building only a minute or two from the centre of the city, enclosed in iron fencing and surrounded by trees and bushes in need of cutting back. That it had been derelict for a while was obvious from the look of it. It stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the more updated and cared-for buildings surrounding it.

When they parked up outside, Jack seemed to be pretty surprised. "Here? Are you sure?" he asked, and looked perplexed as he got out of the SUV.

"Jack, what is it?" Gwen asked, watching him look across at the house with an almost wistful expression on his face.

He shook himself out of it and gave her his brightest, fakest smile. "Nothing, I just... I"ve been here before. Long time ago now though."

"Looks creepy," Gwen said over her shoulder as she treaded the mossy path towards the front door. "Haunted."

"Nah," Jack said with a chuckle.

"Just because a house looks old and broken down doesn"t make it haunted," Owen said, snidely, and overtook her to get there first.

The front door was left unlocked and there was no sign of anyone being at home. The place didn"t look particularly habitable so that came as no surprise, although a few piles of scaffolding and wooden slats propped up inside indicated that work was in progress.

"Hear that?" Toshiko said and hushed them. "Sounds like... fizzing."

"Hmm." Jack frowned and switched on the lights. Immediately they started to fritz, going to and fro between life and death. "That"s not a good sign."

Owen did a check of the rooms until he found a door where the sound grew far worse with it open. He automatically drew his gun but Jack pushed past him to go inside first, determined to be the only one in danger if there was any danger to be found.

He found himself in a large, cold room he had never been in before, despite knowing the house fairly well from times spent within it over a century ago. There were no windows anywhere to be seen and the walls were alive with electricity; blue and white tendrils of lightning forking all over the place, like monster claws and tangled vines.

"Oh my god!" Tosh gasped upon seeing it for herself. "What"s causing it?"

Jack looked around, trying to find a source for it and decided that the large bunch of partially snapped wires hanging out of the wall must be the reason for the surge.

"Cowboy electricians. You just can"t get the workforce these days," Owen quipped, seeing it too.

"Shouldn"t be doing this though, even if the wires are loose. There must be something else."

"Jack!" Gwen yelled and moved an old screen that was standing on one side of the room aside. Behind it a large mirror was revealed, its frame looking like it was sealed into the wall. It was broken from a blunt smash near the bottom of it, and at least one large fragment was missing. She peered into it, seeing something in the flickering light, moving closer in curiosity.

"Stay back," Jack yelled, noticing immediately that something was wrong with it; whenever the light from the electricity flares dimmed, they and the room were reflected but when the light hit it, they weren"t there. He began to towards her, intending to pull her away from it, to a safe distance.

As he was almost close enough, the tendrils of electricity suddenly leapt from its surface and seemed to grab Gwen by the arm. Immediately Jack jumped to take hold of her. Then there was an enormous burst of light accompanied by a tremendous cracking sound, and everything went dark.

It all happened so fast Owen and Tosh barely had time to gasp. The silence which followed was quickly filled by a clattering rush to find their torches. Once they were able to see again, they found the mirror to be completely cracked and burnt all over.

At the foot of it, apparently unconscious was Jack, covered in steaming burns. Owen immediately ran to him and checked for a pulse. "He"s still alive," he said and broke out his medical kit to try and help.

"Where"s Gwen?" Toshiko shone her torch all around the area, frantically. "I can"t see her! Gwen? Gwen can you hear me? Gwen?!"

Owen looked around for her briefly but his attention was firmly on Jack. "We need to get him back to the Hub. I need you to help me carry him."

"But what about Gwen..."

"We"ll have to come back and figure out what happened later. Right now, I need to get him back. Okay?"

She reluctantly nodded and helped him lift the dead weight of their leader to carry him out to the SUV. Toshiko wanted to go back to find Gwen but Owen was adamant that it wasn"t a good idea for her to go there alone, considering the danger. So Toshiko helped him slide Jack into the back seat and they sped away back to the Hub.

*

"How"s he doing?"

"You know how the Captain is, he"ll get up from just about anything." Owen"s voice was tinged with humour but it didn"t reach his eyes.

Toshiko nodded and put a hand on his shoulder. Jack had some nasty burns down one side of his face and body and his innermost layer of clothing had become fused to his skin. It wasn"t a pretty sight. "Why isn"t he healing?"

Owen shrugged and sighed. "Obviously that only works when he dies. He"s not in any danger of that, he"s just had a severe shock to the system. He could wake up at any moment but I reckon it"ll be a while yet."

"What about Gwen?"

"I don"t know, Tosh, I don"t know."

She and Ianto had gone back later with some better lighting for the room but had found nothing but the destroyed mirror and debris from it. They had checked every room and even had a check for secret passages. Gwen was completely gone.

"I think I may have a lead," Ianto said, making an appearance through the arch leading into the dissection area containing table Owen had laid Jack out on, for sake of ease since he was pretty heavy to carry. "I"ve traced the former owner of the house. His name is Manfred Wilson, and it was apparently in his family"s possession since the early eighteenth century. Only it seems the estate and his inheritance was recently lost due to a gambling problem. Not that he was taking particularly good care of the old house anyway."

"You think he might know something?"

Ianto shrugged. "It"s worth a shot."

"Sounds good to me," Toshiko said and moved up the steps to join him. "Let us know if Jack wakes up."

Owen gave her a quick nod and got back to dressing his wounds. When Jack woke up, he knew he"d be in seven kinds of agony so it was important to protect his wounds and make sure he didn"t cause himself more pain when he had to break it to him that Gwen was, in his opinion, more than likely incinerated. The act of dressing him repeatedly and monitoring him gave him something to focus on, because he had some idea that he might just break down a little inside if she was really gone.

While he did his duty, Toshiko and Ianto took the SUV and ended up on the outskirts of Splot, in front of a terraced house a million miles away from the mansion they had recently been in. Clearly the gambling problem had really taken its toll on the lifestyle of this Mr Wilson.

Toshiko was the one to knock on the door, while Ianto locked the SUV up properly.

"I"m not buying," the man who opened it said, rudely, and tried to close the door.

She blocked the door with her foot and flashed a fake police ID. "That"s good because I"m not selling. We need to ask you a few questions."

"What? Why? I"ve done nothing wrong," he protested, and then amended, "lately."

"Sorry, this shouldn"t take long," Ianto said, moving behind Toshiko as backup.

Manfred stared at him as if he"d seen a ghost. "I don"t believe it," he gasped and then started to smile. "Mr Jones! I was beginning to think you were having me on the last time we met."

"Uh... the last time we met? I don"t..."

"Sorry... you prefer Ianto, right?" He opened his door fully wide, excitedly. "Come on in."

They found themselves in a stuffy little house with furnishings that looked like they"d been rescued from a dump. The décor wasn"t much better; not that they could see much of it through the dust and clutter. Tentatively, they took a seat where he directed them to, and politely declined any food or drink.

"Well, well," Manfred said, dropped into his seat heavily. "Looks like the time has come for me to help you out, finally."

"Uh..."

Manfred held his hand up to stop him. "Hold on, I know this won"t make much sense since, although I"ve met you, you haven"t met me yet. But I have something which will hopefully clear things up." He leaned over to one side and riffled through some junk by his chair, coming out with a metal box. Manfred opened it up and looked through the various photographs inside it until he found one in particular which made him grin from ear to ear. He passed it over for them to see.

Toshiko immediately looked to Ianto with wide eyes, but he was equally surprised. "What is this?"

"That"s you and me, that is. When we met. Back in 1888."

Ianto looked up at him, frowning deeply, unable to quite conceal his disbelief.

"Okay, I"d better start at the beginning. On Park Row there"s a house which my family used to own..."

"The Wilson estate? Our team have already been there," Toshiko said. "That"s what we came here to talk to you about."

"We were called out because the new owners were scared off by something in one of the rooms. You were the last person to actually live in the house so you must know what I"m talking about."

"The mirror? Yes, I know what you"re talking about. Before you ask, I have no idea who made it or how it got built into the walls that way. What I can tell you is, it"s a window to the past. To many different pasts in fact. I listed them all, one at a time."

Ianto held up his hand to stop him. "I"m sorry, you"re going to explain that more. Windows to the past?"

"Every three minutes, the reflection changes to a different period of time for the room it"s in. And I discovered that, if I just touched its surface, I could be transported to that time. Well, I say discovered, but my father and his fathers knew about it. It"s just that none of them had the stomach to actually investigate it more than once or twice, God-fearing types that they were. Oh, and the reflection to the past only works when it"s in contact with light, so you won"t see it if the lamplight is low."

"Maybe that"s why the problems were caused," Toshiko said, aside to Ianto, "the electricians just installed a new lighting system throughout..."

"Electricity? In that house?" Manfred interrupted, with a grimace. "That must have sent it mad. The energy in it is a bit doolally to be honest."

"Manfred," Ianto said, diverting his attention, ardently. "One of our people disappeared. We need to know where she went."

The strange man just smiled at him. "She will have fallen through time. Though to say what year she went to, you"d have to know the exact time it happened." He chuckled and shook his head, giving Ianto an odd look. "So this is how it happens..."

"How what happens?" Tosh asked, clearly a bit disturbed by how lightly he was taking it.

"How Mr. Jones here knows how to go back in time. See, when I still owned that house, I used to have expeditions to determine every permutation of time that mirror reached to, and at what time of the day. The cycle is far from random but it"s wide. Anyway, ten years ago, I stepped through to 1888, and you," he looked to Ianto, "were waiting for me. We had a quiet drink in the kitchens and you told me you had gone back in time to collect a friend who had fallen through accidentally."

Toshiko looked at Ianto for a moment, and then back at Manfred, clearly mystified. "How"s that possible? The mirror is burnt out; blackened beyond repair."

Manfred continued to go through his metal tin. "Not all of it." He pulled out a pocket mirror. "When I lost the house, I took a piece of the mirror with me and set it in this, so I could finish my work. I did try to use it to change my future but I"ve found it impossible to change any events at all for some reason; I wouldn"t be living in this dump if I could."

Ianto took the mirror from his hand and opened it up to the light. What was reflected was not him and the room he was in, but somewhere very different. And as he looked, the image changed to somewhere else.

"I wouldn"t touch the surface just yet," Manfred cautioned him, quickly. "Or who knows where you"ll end up."

The lid was snapped closed. "So I"m going to go back in time to find Gwen, with this?"

"I will give you my list of permutations, so you can know exactly when to touch the mirror and go back to the right year. It"s not an exact science, and you could end up there several months before or after she has arrived, but at least you will be able to rescue her. Then, all you"d need to do is touch it again sometime in the last three minutes to midnight, and you will return to your present. Easy."

Ianto stared at him for a long moment and then at the photograph. "You"re telling the truth?"

"Sure. You seemed like a nice enough chap, so I agreed to help you when the time came. I didn"t know that it would be ten years after I got back, mind."

"Then I suppose this is the way it"s going to play out."

"Ianto!" Tosh said and grabbed the mirror from his hand, as if worried he was going to go there and then. "I don"t like this."

"Considering what happened to Jack, Gwen could be injured. If she"s gone back in time somewhere then she could be in real danger of not receiving proper medical care. Besides," he said, and handed her the photograph, "looks like this is the way it"s supposed to be."

Manfred went over to a bureau in the corner of his room, and took out a notepad and a letter. "You"ll need these. The notepad contains all the information you"ll need to work out when you need to step through the mirror. The letter, well, you gave that to me. In 1888 I mean. You told me to give it you when the time came, and that your life would depend on it." He shrugged. "Made it hard to say no, really."

The last part of what he said clearly disturbed Toshiko but Ianto was far away in his thoughts, considering all he"d been told. Part of him wanted to decry it all as some kind of elaborate hoax; he wanted to look into Manfred"s eyes and see trickery. Rationality made that impossible however. It was all too neat and logical however. Hardly the strangest thing he had ever heard of occurring.

"You"re not seriously considering..." Tosh began.

"I don"t know. It all seems already decided."

"Well, no need to decide this minute," Manfred offered. "But be sure to read that note before you set off. Oh, and then burn it, since I"m not really sure that you reading a note from your future self sent from the past is all that healthy for the timelines."

Ianto ran his finger over the smooth back of the closed wooden clam the mirror fragment had been set in. "You don"t mind me taking this?"

"I can"t use it anymore. You can only go back to any given timeframe once, then it doesn"t work." Manfred shrugged, a little bit put out by that fact. "Not much good to me anymore. I went to them all, albeit briefly."

"Thanks." Ianto put it and the letter into his inside pocket. "We should probably be going then."

"Glad I could help you out."

They stood up to see themselves out, but Manfred quickly followed and grabbed Ianto"s hand before he could leave. He shook it, grinning. "You take care. Give me a call before you go and I"ll see you off, if you"d like."

"That won"t be necessary," Ianto said, brushing off the offer as politely as he could. "But thanks again."

Manfred remained at the door of his house to wave them off. Ianto gave him a small wave back in return and let Tosh drive, since he wanted to look at the notepad that had been given to him.

What he found was interesting, to say the least, if a little incomprehensible in places.

*

Ianto double checked the details of the note from his future self quickly before destroying it with his lighter. He had no idea if keeping it would have created some kind of temporal paradox; just his having it didn"t seem all that healthy. It seemed like the safest thing to do though.

Everything he needed had been packed. He felt pretty cognisant of what was going to happen. All that remained was to actually do it.

Of course, Owen thought him mad; accused him of having a “Jack-complex” whatever that was, saying that he wasn"t a time traveller and shouldn"t mess with that sort of thing. According to him the whole idea was stupid because Gwen was probably dead. That point of view at least seemed to get Toshiko on Ianto"s side, albeit defensively, but she was disapproving as well.

She thought he should wait for Jack to wake up. Ianto had waited for him. For a day or two at least. It was just, he knew Jack would disapprove and that he"d want to go himself, no matter how injured he was. However Ianto knew that wasn"t the way it was supposed to be. For whatever reason, he was the one supposed to go back to 1888, so he was going to do it.

"You"re mad," Owen yelled as he made his goodbyes. "Ianto, this is ridiculous!"

"I"m still doing it." He turned to Toshiko, knowing she at least could be counted on to listen to reason. "I don"t know when we"ll get back. In fact, we might be here already, or it might be a few months. It"ll definitely be in this year though, okay?"

Toshiko nodded, a little sadly. "What do I tell Jack?"

Ianto looked over to the man on the table, various drips coming out of his arm, his charred flesh covered in bandages. "That I"ll be back soon. With Gwen. And it"ll be fine."

She nodded, hands wringing as though suppressing her own frustration at not persuading him out of it. His friend didn"t wave him goodbye when he stepped on the lift to leave the base but she did at give him a gentle smile.

Slowly the hydraulics carried Ianto out of Torchwood and left him standing in the chill air of central Cardiff. There weren"t too many people about which made him feel a bit better about his costume. Not that it was vastly different to his everyday clothing in the essentials, but it did feel a little unnatural in places. He was unaccustomed to wearing a cap and heavy three quarter lengths woollen coat over his suit, or indeed the old fashioned shoes that went with the set. Ianto had done his best to be as neutral as possible in his choices, with no hints as to either wealth or lack of it, despite the fair sum of coinage he was carrying around in his bag, but he wasn"t completely certain he was completely period. There was always the lingering doubt that he might have accidentally mixed the wrong items.

There was only one way to find out of course, and that would be completed soon enough. Ianto went to the edge of the bay, to be certain he wouldn"t end up leaping into someone"s home with the time mirror, and waited for the right hour to come. Between 6.06 and 6.09pm, the reflection would be 1888. He knew the time it occurred because Jack"s watch had stopped at 6.08pm.

So he waited and watched the seconds tick by on his watch, and when the time at last came, Ianto felt nervousness go through him like he"d rarely felt before. Normally this sort of thing - dabbling in time - was more Jack"s game. But in a way, that"s what was making him so determined to do it and do it right. Of course, he knew what Gwen meant to Jack, although whether it was platonic or more than that Ianto declined to speculate for his own sanity, so he knew he was doing it more for him than for her, much as he liked Gwen.

If Jack were to wake up he knew he"d stop him in heartbeat. Jack never said why explicitly but he seemed to spent a good part of his time cutting him out of the most active parts of their work, no matter how well trained Ianto actually was. The only time Jack had finally caved and taken him out, as a way to demonstrate he considered Ianto part of the team despite all evidence to the contrary, had ended in him nearly being eaten by psychotic inbred villagers. After that, Ianto barely saw the light of day and was only let out into the field when Jack was with him. Never alone. Ianto couldn"t deny that going before Jack had a chance to stop him was a little bit to do with the frustration of being babysat in the field, when there was just no need for it.

With that thought fixed firmly in mind, Ianto took a deep breath and pressed his fingers to the surface of the mirror.

*

1888

The next thing he knew, the air was stinking of fish and the night had grown far darker for the lack of electric lights. Ianto did a full turn around, taking in the drastically altered sights with a mix of dread and elation. It was short lived as he caught sight of a few shady looking types not too far off. He remembered that he was carrying a lot of money around with him and that times were far more dangerous. Cardiff was not the vibrant city in 1888 as it grew to be in later times, and there were circles of robbers and crooks all over the place to be concerned with.

So he quickly hid the mirror away in his inside pocket and made for the streets, where the gas lamps offered some sense of refuge. The place looked so different it was bizarre. A brief surge of excitement ran through him from head to toe as he suddenly stopped and reminded himself, I"m in 1888. It was incredible. He"d actually travelled through time.

Not far along, near a tavern which actually hadn"t changed much to his memory, he found a newspaper left on an outside tabletop and grabbed it. The date was August 12th 1888 and it made him sigh, realising he would be stuck there at right through to December if the note he"d left himself was anything to go by.

Although it was dark already, there was still time to get going, he decided. So he took a walk through the centre of the city and out to where he knew the Wilson house to be. It was in far better repair than it had been in the future, understandably, with a big black and white sign on display at the gates (better quality than the ones he"d seen before - presumably those had been lost to the wars, still yet to come) announcing the fact that it belonged to the local Undertakers. Wilson"s old family business was alive and well in this time, figuratively speaking.

Ianto straightened his clothes and did his best to appear entirely unassuming as he trod the path to the front doors. He used the great iron doorknocker that was no longer present in the house"s future and prepared himself, mentally, for whatever was next to occur.

*

2008

Jack woke with more of a whimper than a bang, which took both Owen and Tosh by surprise since normally he was so flamboyant, even in that. It took a while for his eyes to properly focus and for him to become cognisant at all, considering the morphine Owen was pumping through his body.

When he saw the mess the skin of his arm was, and followed it down the rest of his body, he gasped a little.

"Just lie back, Jack," Owen said, "don"t try to move."

"What happened?" he croaked.

"What do you remember?"

He seemed to think about it for a while. "Gwen...? There was... a mirror... electricity..."

"The electricity caused the burns," Owen said. "We don"t know what happened to Gwen."

Toshiko shot him an angry look, still irritated that he was sticking so religiously to the “Gwen combusted” line of thought. She just couldn"t understand why he was being so negative, considering their history together.

Jack groaned immensely as he shrugged off Owen"s attempts to keep him still and managed, somehow, to roll off the tray and onto his feet. "Hold on... need to do something..." he said, before padding slowly to his office. He shut the door behind him and a few seconds of expectant silence followed.

Then there was a gunshot.

They immediately ran to see what had happened, only to find him slumped in his chair, a fair portion of his skull missing. Toshiko put both of her hands over her mouth, staring at him in total shock, while Owen visibly swallowed back the urge to be sick. "Stupid fucking son of a..."

A sudden gasping in of breath alerted them to the fact that Jack had come back to life. They watched with a sense of horror as the burns and the missing part of his head reformed and regrew until he was completely well again.

"Oh don"t look like that," he said, finally, pulling a disdainful face at the state of his clothes. "It was the quickest way."

Both witnesses seemed to want to say something to that but he had robbed them of speech for the moment.

"Now, tell me what happened? I remember the house, the electricity, Gwen getting snared. I think I tried to pull her back and then...?"

"You got enough volts up your ass to light up the London Eye," Owen said.

"And Gwen? Is she alright?" he asked, suddenly panicked.

"As far as we know she"s okay," Toshiko leapt in before Owen could make another depressing assumption. "It looks like the mirror in that house wasn"t any old mirror. It was creating windows to past eras. We think Gwen fell through to the past. Or at least, that"s what Ianto thought..."

Jack frowned and leaned back in his chair. "Tell me everything."

He sat there patiently as Toshiko patiently ran through the meeting with Manfred Wilson and all he"d told her about the mirror and what it did. Jack only shifted in his chair when she mentioned that Manfred seemed to know Ianto, and completely went ballistic the moment she mentioned him in conjunction with going back in time.

"What?! Tell me he didn"t...! Tell me he fucking didn"t!" he raged, and barely waited for her to answer before letting lose a stream of expletives that made even Owen blush a little, since Jack wasn"t normally one for swearing. Suddenly he swung around his desk and grabbed Toshiko by the forearms, almost shaking her. "What year? Tell me what year?!"

"1888," she replied, startled.

All the colour seemed to drain from Jack"s face and he looked horrified.

"Jack? What is it?"

He quickly grabbed his coat and buttoned it up to hide his tattered clothes. "Take me to this guy."

"Who, Manfred...?"

"Now!" he yelled at the top of his voice, leaving them in no doubt as to his seriousness.

Toshiko did the driving on their impromptu trip out to Splot, back to the little terraced house she and Ianto had visited only a few days before. When they arrived, Jack told them to wait in the car and wouldn"t hear their protests.

They did as they were asked for minutes only, running in to help as someone collided with and nearly shattered the living room window. Owen and Toshiko arrived to find Jack holding a terrified Manfred up against the wall by his neck, rage in his eyes, and they had to talk him into letting the man down.

"Jack, he was helping us!" Toshiko pleaded with him. "Let him go! Please!"

Finally, with some effort, Jack let him free but wouldn"t stop glaring at him.

"That"s what you get for doing a good deed," Manfred croaked, his voice a little crushed. "Never again!"

Toshiko picked up the metal tin by his chair, left open on top of his pile of old TV Guides, and found the photograph of him and Ianto from 1888. She gave it Jack.

He flopped onto the couch as he looked at it, eyes glazing over a little. "No," he muttered, softly, so that they almost didn"t hear him. The eyes which looked up to Manfred were shining. "How do I go back in time too?"

"Uh... I don"t know," Manfred said, backing away, cautiously, "I gave him my time mirror. This lady said the one at the house is busted. So there isn"t a way. He"ll bring himself back."

"There must be another mirror," Jack shouted. "Tell me!"

"Well, no... it was hard enough getting one made up. I mean, nobody gets handmirrors made out of broken shards, nobody. I had to make it myself, without touching the surface of it. Can you imagine how hard that was? I bet you can"t."

Jack glared at him for a long time, apparently assessing his truthfulness. Then he put the photo in his pocket and stormed out. Owen and Toshiko had to run to catch up with him and nearly didn"t make it in time to stop him from driving off without them.

The next thing they knew, they were back at the former Wilson estate house. Jack didn"t tell them to stay or go this time, he just ran into the house alone. They found him at the mirror, staring at its broken and blackened surface like he couldn"t believe it.

"Jack, what? What is it?" Toshiko asked. When he didn"t reply, she moved forwards and put a hand on his shoulder, only for him to shrug it off and run out, back to the SUV.

Owen rolled his eyes and yet again they ran out after him. But even he stopped and looked surprised as it was obvious when they got to the SUV that he was crying, quickly wiping away the tears with his sleeve yet not quite seeming able to stop them. They slid in silently and Toshiko drove them back, wanting to ask what was wrong but deciding it would be best not to for now.

When they arrived back at the Hub, the tears were gone but the look of devastation on his face wasn"t. He wandered into the Hub and went to his office, closing the door behind him.

It wasn"t long until Owen and Tosh were edgy enough to want to find out what was going on. Since he tended to respond better to her, Toshiko took on the task of going to see him. When she opened the door, she found him sitting in his chair, drinking shots of whiskey. He waved her in and indicated that she should take a seat.

"Jack... are you okay?"

He chuckled, harshly, at that. "Do I look okay?"

"Not really," she conceded and lowered her eyes, penitently.

"Sorry I just..." he sighed, the tears prickling his eyes again, for his attempts to keep them away, "I worked so hard to stop this from happening. The moment I saw him I knew what I had to do."

"Saw who?"

"Ianto. The day he put in for a transfer from Torchwood One, I recognised the name and wondered... then he walked in and I knew it was him. I couldn"t believe it. Ianto Jones, here, in 2007."

"You"re not making any sense."

"Aren"t I?" he said, and smiled. "Sorry. It"s a tricky thing to explain. See, a long time ago, I got stuck somewhere and needed to get back to 20th century Cardiff - don"t ask. Unfortunately for me, the rift caught me on the way and ended up dropping me in 1869, which is the year it was closed, more or less. So I spent a good many years hanging around in this fair city back around then." He leaned forwards, conspiratorially. "I was in Cardiff in 1888."

Toshiko took a moment to get it, but when she did, she looked utterly shocked.

"You met Ianto? In 1888."

Jack leaned back in his chair with a sigh. "The moment I saw him here, in this time, I knew it was him. Not a descendant; him. But he didn"t know me so I figured, at some point in his future, he was going to go back in time. I hired him on the spot; vowed things would be different. I know it was wrong to try but I had to... I wanted to stop him from ever going back. That was the whole reason I accepted him straight away; the reason I didn"t kick him out after that thing with his girlfriend." He took another shot of whiskey and grimaced as it burned his throat. "It"s why I wouldn"t let him go out on field trips. It"s why I... it was all... all to stop it... stop him from ever going back in time... And now, he"s gone anyway. I"ve failed. Fuck, I should have known when we pulled up to that house. Fuck fuck fuck!"

The tone of his voice told Toshiko the answer to the question she wanted to ask couldn"t be a good one. "Why did you want to stop him from going back?"

The Captain looked at her with eyes filled with pain. Then he turned his computer screen around and took it off the screensaver. Toshiko moved out of her chair to see better and came face to face with an old Cardiff newspaper report, scanned into the archives.

"Read the story at the bottom."

She read the lowermost story, which was about a gang killing in a shady tavern not too far from the Cardiff docks, and named a man known only as Mad Jack as the likely perpetrator. Only when she reached the list of names at the end of it did she understand why he was so upset. Tosh gasped and looked to him, her mouth hanging open a little.

"I killed six people that night," Jack said, at a virtual whisper. "Ianto was the first."

* 1888

As Ianto sipped at his ale and enjoyed the general tavern ambience, he contemplated the strange turn of events which had brought him here; to a time long before his own, into a job which was not a million miles away from his work at Torchwood Three.

Since Gwen had obviously not put in any sort of appearance, and the Wilson Funeral Home was a family business, with only father and son in employment there aside from the maid, who wasn"t allowed into the room with the corpses and the mirror, Ianto had found it hard to convince them to give him employment at first. He had managed to persuade them to let him buy them each a drink however, and made use of a variation on Jack"s retcon formula with the retcon left out in favour of more of the substance allowing for easy suggestibility to get his way. Ianto had managed to convince them both, with a little chemical help, that he would be a perfect mourner and assistant undertaker, who could be trusted with the secret of the strange ungodly mirror.

That meant he would at least be ready for Gwen when she did put in an appearance. It also gave him something to do while he waited and put a roof over his head. Ianto didn"t really need the money so he took on the job for the bare minimum. At first he had wondered if there might be issues of affecting the timeline but, he reasoned, since Manfred Wilson hadn"t managed to change a thing despite trying his hardest, there was likely some protection in place with the way the mirror worked to prevent paradoxes from occurring. So getting a job wouldn"t really make a difference. Just like his writing a letter to his future self didn"t seem to have caused a universal crash.

The job was, in itself, pretty easy. He already knew plenty about preserving corpses so most of the initial difficulty came in mastering the old fashioned equipment used for embalming and beautifying the dead, and in standing the stench which came from treating bodies from a time when the living weren"t exactly pungent generally either. Being a mourner and walking in front of the hearses for the richer clients was a strange experience as well but not exactly taxing. By the by, he felt pretty content.

Although he couldn"t wait to get back to the present, simply because he was already missing a pair of bright blue eyes and a brilliant smile more than he ever thought he would. He couldn"t escape the worry that Jack was going to be livid at him when he got back, even if he had managed to rescue Gwen. Then again, it didn"t really do to dwell on that concern since it would play out however it would play out.

He wouldn"t find a solution at the bottom of a glass either but it was an enjoyable way to pass his evenings off. Ianto had visited one or two of the local taverns and ended up spending most of his time in one near the docks, the Three Feathers, where Jack"s favourite café would one day stand. Not that that was the main reason; he liked the fact that it wasn"t as crowded as the others and the sitting booths were generally quite concealing. He could sit apart in relative solitude and not get pipe smoke blown in his face every few minutes.

When he drained his glass, it was going on eight thirty, so it was definitely time to get going back to the mortuary, to be up bright and early in order to tend his duties. He tipped the barman with an extra few pennies to keep him sweet and went out into the stinking air of 19th century Cardiff.

Almost the moment he stepped foot outside, he was nearly bowled off his feet as a man collided with him and sent them both to the floor. Three other men started laughing as the man who had fallen on Ianto yelled something incoherent and tried to get back up to his feet, presumably to retaliate. Ianto very nearly choked on his tongue as he realised that the man wriggling against him was far more familiar than any man had a right to be.

He watched, astonished, as Jack staggered to his feet and tried to pick a fight with them, clearly drunk as a skunk.

"Come on Jack, fair"s fair. You said you"d pay up today," the ringleader said.

"Ask m"boss."

"We did, and he said you should settle your own debts."

"True. But I ne"r settle debts late, so you, Sir, must be lying," Jack slurred and tried to land a punch on one of them, only to get knocked on his ass in the mud. One of the men went around behind him and held him by the shoulders as the other two approached, clearly intent on beating their money out of him.

Ianto spoke up before he had even thought it through, and knew immediately that it had been a really bad idea to do so. Despite his first initial thought of it perhaps being the Jack from his time somehow, it was very quickly clear that he"d managed to run into a Jack from the past, from the clothes and hair alone. That didn"t alter his response to the man in any measure; his first reaction was still to help him.

"What did you say?" the portly, tattooed man ringleading the gang of three asked.

"I asked, how much does he owe you?"

The man looked at his two buddies, like he wanted to gauge their reactions to his question, and then back at him. "Four shillings and six pence. What"s it to you?"

Ianto shook his head and went into his pocket. He tossed the man a crown. "Keep the change. Now get out of here."

Although they seemed bemused, they honoured his request with laughter ringing in the air behind them. Ianto quickly turned and started down the lane, eager not to draw any more attention to himself than he already had.

"Hey!" Jack called behind him. "Hey, wait!"

The sound of his voice only made him hurry along faster, eager to get away. The last thing he needed now was to potentially pollute the timeline by interacting with a version of Jack who didn"t yet know him. It wasn"t as if the supply of retcon he"d brought with him just in case would actually work on Jack, so running into him in such a way wasn"t at all easily fixable.

Ianto decided that all he could really do now was keep his head down, not go back to that tavern, and hope that he avoid any more chance encounters with this version of Jack Harkness.

*

2008

"I was a different person back then," Jack said, but he couldn"t quite look Toshiko in the eye. "It was... I just lost it. It"s a blur." When, in the pause he left, nothing was said, he knew he had to tell her more or risk losing her respect forever. It was all or nothing now. "Afterwards, I fled to America. Conned my way onto a steamer. I ended up on Ellis Island for the next four or five years until the heat died down. Tosh, you"ve gotta believe me, the other men I killed were thieves and gangsters. N-not that that makes it right. But... I promise you I"ve changed since then. I changed because of what happened that night. I was just so angry and so betrayed I lost myself for a while, but Ianto... Ianto had taught me a lot in the time I knew him." Jack sighed. "It shouldn"t have ended the way it did."

"Ianto dies... in 1888... he doesn"t come back..." She dissolved into tears but flinched when Jack tried to comfort her.

"I"m sorry. I don"t know what to say. There hasn"t been a day since when I haven"t regretted it. I... I came to love Ianto... Tosh, I did, but I didn"t know it until he was gone." Now he was fighting his tears, nearly becoming overwhelmed with the memories. "Then last year, he was suddenly here, in my life again, and I..."

"Don"t. I don"t want to hear any more," Toshiko held up her hand. "I need a moment... to put all this right in my mind." The cogs of rationality were visibly turning in her head as she attempted to make sense of everything she had been told; to find an out. "Jack, are you sure? Are you sure he was dead?"

Jack closed his eyes, remembering Ianto"s eyes sliding closed and blood on his hands. He nodded, though it was difficult to do so.

"Then... then..." Toshiko shook her head, finding herself unable to come up with anything. "We"ve lost him? We"ve lost both of them?"

"We"ll find a way," Jack replied, almost automatically. "I didn"t see Gwen the whole time he was there so perhaps, perhaps she found a way. I don"t know. Tosh, I promise you, we"ll do something..."

"What?" she demanded.

"I... I don"t know."

Toshiko shook her head and leaned back in her chair, still crying in tiny bursts which spoke of her inner turmoil.

"I"m sorry..." Jack began and reached out to touch her, but thought better of it. There was no going back from what he"d told her. She would never look at him the same way again. He knew that much for sure.

The feelings of abandonment and betrayal after the Doctor had left him, twice - once in 200100 and once in 1869, just after he"d arrived, only to see the TARDIS dematerialising - had twisted him inside and made him lose all hope. He"d embraced the darkness for a while there and Ianto Jones had paid for it in the end.

Jack moved back around his desk to his chair and poured himself another whiskey. There was very little else he could do now. He couldn"t even die, as much as he felt like he deserved it.

*

1888

"What the hell are you doing, I nearly crashed the funeral procession!" Ianto gasped, genuinely quite angry that Jack had basically stalked him the entire way to the graveyard, pulling silly faces.

"Imagine that. Old Lady Thomason flying through the air," Jack chuckled.

Ianto looked around to check the Wilsons weren"t looking for him now that the funeral was over. "You aren"t funny."

"I think I am."

"Conceited aren"t we?"

"I tend to take that as a compliment," Jack said, and flashed his brightest grin. "Pleased to meet you Ianto Jones." He offered his hand.

That put Ianto on edge. "How do you know my name?"

"I followed you home the other night. Asked the maid at the door for your name. She was most obliging. Lovely girl," Jack leered. "Want to know my name?"

"Not particularly." Ianto decided he"d had more than enough and he should really go find his employers before they drove the cart back to the mortuary without him.

But Jack wasn"t easily dissuaded. He followed along behind him like a duckling following its mother, hands behind his back, expression nothing short of sweet and innocent.

"Stop following me," Ianto said, finding it hard not to chuckle with disbelief.

"I want to ask you something."

"If I answer, will you stop following me?"

"Maybe."

Ianto stopped and looked him in the eye. He looked so much like the Jack he knew, it was eerie, except the lines on his face were fewer and his hair had not yet seen the benefits of 21st century highlights. "That"s not a good enough answer."

"Why did you pay those guys off for me?"

Having had a feeling that the question would probably entail that, he shrugged and tried his best to dismiss it offhand. "Does it matter?"

"It does to me."

Jack was getting very close; too close for propriety and comfort, but Ianto didn"t pull away. Actually, he found that he couldn"t for some reason, and a voice inside his mind whispered that he really should be stronger than this.

"Fine. I paid because I could."

That didn"t seem to satisfy Jack so much as it intrigued him. "Did you not think that maybe those men would come after you? See what else they could find in your pockets? If I hadn"t have followed you home, anything could have happened."

Ianto detected a note of flirtatiousness in his words but he carefully schooled his face into nonchalance. "Oh, so that"s your excuse is it? Well, I"m sorry to disappoint you or shatter any predilection you might have had to playing the dashing hero to my damsel in distress, but I am perfectly able to take care of myself."

Jack grinned and leaned in a little more, holding Ianto"s arm to keep him close. "Are you now?"

"I am."

"Perhaps you"re right," he replied, assessing his physique from head to toe. "I bet you know all the moves, Mr Jones..."

No sooner had Jack said that, had Ianto decided to use one. He rid himself of the man making inroads into his personal space by twisting Jack"s arm around - a move ironically which the man he was using it on had once taught him - and ducking around him. He walked away, back through the graveyard at a pace, only looking back once to give Jack a triumphant smile. Jack watched him go with a mixture of bemusement, surprise and what appeared to be lust on his face.

As gratifying as that might have been on one level, Ianto knew that it potentially spelled trouble. So he didn"t look back again.

Neither Herbert or James Wilson had noticed his brief disappearance, but Agatha the maid seemed to be looking on as he walked back to them, troubled. "I"m sorry, Sir," she muttered, distressed.

"Whatever for?"

"That man you were just talking to? He came to the house a few nights ago. Drunk as anything. Said he wouldn"t leave unless I told him your name. I haven"t got you into trouble have I?"

"No, not at all, I promise. He"s just... an old friend."

She gave him a very disconcerted glance at that. "If you"ll pardon me saying, it seems odd to me that a man such as you would be friends with the likes of him. I"ve seen him before, Sir, wandering around with thugs and thieves for his friends."

"You needen"t be concerned for me Agatha; he won"t harm me. Though I"m grateful I have you as my guardian angel to watch over me."

She blushed even more at that, smiling shyly. Ianto liked her; she was a good, sweet girl, though quite young and innocent for her age, at least by his probably too-modern standards. Although he"d only been part of the business for a week now, she"d seemed to like him a great deal almost immediately, since the two Wilsons were rather more dismissive of her than he was. They paid her a pittance as well. So every now and then he slipped her an extra few pennies for doing little tasks he could well do himself, like fetching a paper from town or shining his procession shoes, just to give her a bit of extra money to send to her family and her sick father. It wasn"t as if he couldn"t afford it, future exchange rates being what they were, even for antique coins. Agatha appreciated it though, he knew that much.

Ianto thought that perhaps he had been stupid to be so flash with his cash and to intervene in Jack"s life in that way. Jack was right, those men could have reacted far worse than they did and tried to take him for more. Ianto told himself there and then that it was one thing to help out a young girl playing maid but quite another to toss coins at criminals. Obviously the weak spot he had for Jack was going to be a problem, since it seemed to rob him of all common sense.

"Mr Jones!" The sound of Herbert"s booming voice brought him back from his thoughts and he turned to see Wilson Senior beckoning him over. "It"s time to take the cart back. My son and I are going to remain for the wake, since we knew the lady quite well."

That made Ianto smile a little, since he knew for a fact that they"d hardly known the old woman, but that her wake was going to have a rather impressive feast, befitting of an old heiress. Herbert and James were not the sort of men who would ever pass up a decent meal.

"Take Agatha and go home. Then take the horses to the stables, the pair of you," Herbert ordered.

"Uh..." Ianto began, but his two employers were already hurrying after the mourners, eager not to be left behind.

"What"s wrong Sir?" Agatha asked.

"I"ve never driven a horse-drawn carriage before," he admitted.

Agatha giggled, putting her hand over her mouth. He guessed she thought he must be joking.

Uncertainly, Ianto gave her a hand up onto the cart seat and slid in next to her, picking up the reigns. Honestly he didn"t really have the first clue how to get the horses to do what he wanted but he decided that giving a quick crack of the reigns was a good start. The two jet black horses took notice of what he was trying to do and started to canter along the path. Ianto felt a surge of relief that it wasn"t as hard as it looked.

Until he realised he was going to have to make a turn pretty soon. Attempting to figure out what motion on the reigns did what, he managed to make the horses speed up, heading awkwardly for a tree.

The young girl beside him gripped onto his arm. "Pull them this way, Sir! This way!"

He tried but nothing much happened. Agatha screamed.

Then, suddenly, like some sort of superhero, Jack had leapt onto the cart and was pushing him along the seat. Ianto put his arm around Agatha and held her, momentarily concerned she would be pushed off the other side. Jack grabbed the reigns and quickly rescued the situation, bringing them back onto the path and to a steadier pace.

Ianto stared at him, shocked, while Jack just grinned back at him like a kid showing off.

"What the bloody hell do you think you"re doing?" Ianto demanded.

"Please don"t hurt us Sir!" Agatha cried, clinging onto him for dear life.

"Oh quit sniffling kid, I"m not stealing your cart. You were about to drive into a tree. The horses would have tried to go either side and you would have done a fair bit of damage to this nifty little vehicle of yours. And by the way, where the heck did you learn to drive, Mr Jones?"

He had to bite back a comment about the DVLA not including horse-drawn hearses in Category B.

Noticing the sour expression on Ianto"s face, Jack"s grin was replaced by a sulky pout. "What, no thank you? I might very well just have saved your life."

"I"m too busy pondering the irony of dying whilst driving a hearse," he replied, glumly.

That made Jack laugh old loud in a wild and booming manner, the likes of which Ianto had never heard come from him before. It served as a reminder that this was most certainly not his Jack; no period military coat, no responsible tee-totalling, none of that. This was a Jack he should not even be talking to, especially not more than once; a Jack he would never see again when Gwen finally put in an appearance and they could go back home. A Jack he should stay away from.

After they were safely back at the funeral home.

Ianto rebuffed all attempts at small talk made by Jack on the way back and gave him a curt goodbye. Jack seemed puzzled but he accepted it.

"I"ll see you soon," Jack said, by way of parting.

"I doubt it," Ianto muttered as he detached the horses and led them away, taking them to their stables in a field a few minutes away down the road while Agatha hurried inside the house, nervously. He didn"t turn to look at Jack to see if he really was leaving this time. Ianto decided it would be bad to encourage him like that.

When he returned to the cart by the house a good hour later, carrying all of the pieces of costumes attached to the horses for the procession back in a bag, he was puzzled to find Jack"s cap left on the seat of it for no good reason.

Except, of course, to make meeting again a certainty.

*

Ianto found Jack in the Dog and Duck tavern just down the line, in a dark corner of the docks, from the one he had first encountered him in. He was busy taking shots of whatever he was drinking and bouncing a woman with big breasts and dirty blonde hair on his knee. Obviously the place was more of a bawdy house than the taverns he was used to. It was completely packed out with noisy, smelly people. Quite a few of them seemed to be surrounding Jack, like flies around a light. The strange luminous quality that always seemed to radiate out from within with him was very much in evidence, even in the poorly-lit, smoky dens of old Cardiff.

There seemed to be little point in striking up a conversation, since Jack was obviously pretty occupied with the girl on his lap, so Ianto decided to just to push his way to the central table, drop it in front of him while his nose was buried in cleavage, and leave. He was wasting his free time more than enough as it was just going to find Jack to return his cap, rather than waiting for him to use it as an excuse show up at the door in the morning.

Jack"s reflexes were every bit as sharp as they were in future, however, and Ianto didn"t manage to pull his hand back in time not to be caught.

"Well if it isn"t, Mishter Jones!" Jack slurred. "Pull up a seat!"

"I"d rather not..."

A seat was suddenly pushed in behind him and he was knocked off his feet onto it in surprise. Ianto looked behind him to see some thuggish looking men grinning at him with really bad teeth. Friends of Jack"s, he guessed.

"Have a drink! Go on, it"s the good stuff. I"m celebrating!" Jack turned to the dirty looking guy sitting next to him. "Harris, pass it along! This is my friend Jonesy."

"Allo," Harris grunted, taking his eyes of the breasts in his face for only the slightest of moments.

Ianto sniffed the top of the bottle sent his way and decided he valued his intestinal lining too much to risk taking a sip of whatever disgusting brew Jack was getting wasted on. "Why are you celebrating?"

"Payday!"

"Ah."

The blonde was temporarily passed over to the guy on the other side of Jack while he pulled out a gold snuff box with an eagle imprint on the top and took a puff up his nose. Jack tried to pass it over to Ianto but it was declined.

"I only came to return your cap," Ianto yelled over the din, "which you left behind on purpose."

"Oh don"t be like that, Mishter Jones. I only wanted to pay you back for the other night." He grinned and grabbed a passing girl. "Have a girl, on me."

Ianto gave him a suitably withering stare. "I don"t need to pay for mine," he said, bitchily and made him let go of her.

Harris laughed and slapped Jack on the arm.

"Oh well listen to you. For your information Jonesy... you think I have to pay? With thish face and thish butt?! They do me for free." Jack stood up and bent over to show his butt off, laughing as the blonde gave him a spank, merrily, giggling something about Mad Jack being a very bad boy.

"There"s a lot to be said for decorum," Ianto replied. He had no idea why he was being so mean, or why he was continuing with the conversation at all; he just couldn"t seem to give it up. Since Jack was so obviously going out of his way to shock him, maybe just to get a rise out of him, Ianto really wanted to let him know that there was nothing that could possibly shock him. "Your pert little American behind may well be the finest this side of the world, but that won"t count for much when you walk out of here and fall on it."

Jack"s eyes narrowed a little, though the grin remained. "How did you know my accent"s American?"

"Because it is?"

"Yesh but, you see, most Welshmen I"ve met have never met an American before. Not too many hanging "round Cardiff or sailing in. Hell, these broads thought I was Scottish or something. Cheek!"

Jack"s smile faded and he suddenly pushed the girls around aside, grabbing Ianto by the hand to get him to his feet. He bid a grunted goodbye to Harris before dragging Ianto away from the table, over to the wall near the door.

"You know what it is, Jonesy? You"re odd."

"Odd? Me? I"m the odd one here?"

"You..." he paused a moment to stifle a burp, "you don"t fit in here. Like me. I can see it. Been watching you, you know. Is in the way you walk. Your teeth... you have amazing teeth, you know."

"You"ve been following me because you like my teeth?"

Jack laughed. "They"re all pearly and pretty. Like mine." He slapped Ianto on the thigh. "And you can"t drive a horse "n cart."

"I don"t get on well with those particular horses."

"And you carry crowns around with you like pennies."

"Payday." Ianto got the feeling he was being challenged for some reason; challenged to prove he was one of the natives. Why Jack would think it necessary to test him, he had no idea. There was no way Jack could have twigged where he was from, no way at all, so it had to be some sort of game or bluff.

"Not a soul "round this city has seen you before a week ago, when you strode up to Wilson and Son"s Funeral Home and got a job there. Even though they never ever hire out and everybody knows it. Then you just happen to bump into me and toss coins "round like confetti."

The gaze fixed on him now was less drunk and more guarded. There was a hint of paranoia in Jack"s tone, as if he considered the whole world to revolve around him, and by extension thought Ianto"s sudden appearance in it something to be questioned relentlessly; as if it had to be related to him.

"You"re watching me, aren"t you?"

"Me watching you?" Ianto protested, indignantly. "So I"m the one turning up where you live, and where you work, and inconveniently leaving hats around for you to return, now am I?" When no answer was forthcoming, Ianto quickly lost patience and decided he"d had enough interrogation for one evening. "Bye," he said and quickly left.

Ianto made it all of twenty yards from the place before he was grabbed into a dark side alley and pressed against the wall. To his immense relief, it was Jack. "Not as drunk as you looked then?" he complained.

"The night is young." His grip was like iron pressed against Ianto"s skin; nearly hard enough to bruise. "I want to play a little game of yes and no. You know it?"

"Vaguely."

"Answer yes or no to the following questions. Are you a time agent?"

"I"m an undertaker."

Jack shoved him a little and it hurt against the stones, enough to make him whimper. "Yes or no? Are you a time agent?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes! How on earth can I work in the clock trade if I already work in the death trade?" Ianto answered, and knew immediately from the slightly loosened grip that Jack had been thrown off a little by that answer. To be honest, he didn"t really have much conception of what a time agent was, or why one of them might be following Jack, but he could guess. He only hoped he hadn"t played too dumb on that one.

Jack stared at him for a long time, apparently assessing him. Then he took hold of him by the wrist and started pulling him along, away from the taverns and the noise, towards the city streets.

"Hey!" he yelled. "What are you doing?"

"I need to be sure."

"Sure of what? Let go of me!"

"This"ll be a lot easier if you don"t struggle."

"It"ll be a lot easier if you just gave up and let me go!" Ianto tried to get his hand close enough to bite it but Jack was too strong. There was no way to get free of that grip. He contemplated calling out for help, maybe seeing if there were some local bobbies out on patrol or something. Ianto decided it wouldn"t do any good. He would just have to play along for now and maybe use it as an excuse never to see him again later.

Jack dragged him along for several more streets before they reached a dilapidated old house in a row of not particularly nice homes on a dark side street. He opened the door and propelled Ianto inside, quickly fumbling with a gas lamp in the hall to give them some illumination. Ianto noted how he took care to lock it behind him.

With the light now turned on, Ianto turned and found himself at the foot of an extremely narrow enclosed staircase. With an encouraging shove, he climbed up it and the two of them ended up inside a dilapidated second floor bedsit flat, kitted out with the bare essentials but not much else. "Welcome to my home."

"It"s uh...?"

"Crap, I know. But I got it given to me free. Generous boss."

"Not that generous," Ianto muttered to himself.

Jack hung up his coat and took off his boots. Then he took off a gun holster that had been concealed before; not the same one he wore in the future, Ianto noted. Casually he took out the gun, sat down on his bed and pointed it at him.

"What are you doing that for?" Ianto asked, a note of panic in his voice.

"Get undressed and pass your clothes over here, one by one."

"What?!"

"Don"t make me repeat myself." His eyes were darker than ever before; filled with anger and malice. "I"m a damned good shot with this thing." He put it on the bed beside him. "Just do as I say and you"ll be fine."

Ianto gave him a glare, but it was a hurt one. He had no idea what Jack was thinking but he didn"t like it one little bit. This was not the man he knew; now he was certain of it. Whatever happened between this time and the future had to be good for him, because his Jack would never be so cruel and easy with a gun.

He removed his coat and flung it at Jack, angrily.

"Slowly." Jack took the coat and started to inspect it, fishing in the pockets and taking everything out to be scrutinised.

Relief sang through Ianto"s veins that he hadn"t brought much money out with him, and he had left his time mirror safe and sound in his room, under the loose floorboard along with the bulk of his coinage.

Next he removed his waistcoat and handed it over, and then his shirt. Each were inspected hem to hem, seam to seam, and placed down on the bed. "Trousers please, Mr. Jones. And your boots and your socks. I want everything."

His eyes widened a little at that, but he complied, giving out an angry huff as Jack used a penknife to demolish the soles of his shoes. Ianto removed his vest and underwear and stood before Jack naked, arms folded across his chest.

Jack double checked all of the clothes with a new edge of franticness. Then his faced seemed to collapse a little, and he swung his legs over to the other side of the bed, turning his back to Ianto and holding his head in his hands. "I"m sorry," he said, and it sounded genuine. "Take back your clothes. You can go now."

Ianto decided not to question that, and moved over to the bed. He was about to pick up his underwear but the sounds coming from Jack now stopped him. He was breathing heavily, clearly distressed.

Logic told him he should take his clothes and run now. However his heart began to soften and the unnameable something inside him which always seemed to be tuned into Jack wrenched with pain. He sat down and put his hand on Jack"s shoulder.

"I"m sorry. I"m sorry," Jack mumbled into his hands.

"It"s alright."

"No it"s not. I just... I wanted you to be... to be... Oh fuck I hate this place. I don"t want to be stuck here anymore. I want to go home. I wanted... I wanted to be found and taken away. Don"t care what they do to me... I want to go home."

He sounded so small and fragile, Ianto couldn"t help but respond. He shifted across to sit beside him, forgetting for a moment that he had no clothes on, and just held Jack, kissing his shoulder without really realising he was doing it. Jack looked at Ianto for a long time, like he was trying to see inside his mind or his soul, and then suddenly pressed him down on the bed before lying on top of him and kissing him.

Ianto closed his eyes and let Jack do as he wished, stealing the moment for himself, enjoying a forbidden pleasure. For a few moments he forgot it was the wrong Jack and automatically began to touch him and twirl his tongue in all the ways he knew from experience sent Jack wild. There was not a nerve ending in this man"s body that Ianto didn"t know how to set on fire and the response was nothing short of electric.

But all too soon, reality crashed around him and he knew he had to stop. For all he knew, he had erased himself from existence by even speaking to Jack, although he actually doubted that was possible. Ianto fancied he had a bit of a sense for time and its rhythms, and something about all of this seemed... right.

An unbidden memory of his first time with the Jack he met in Torchwood returned to him momentarily, of how Jack had known his body so well it had been spooky; the thought made him laugh into this Jack"s cheek. So this is how he knew, he thought. Suddenly he knew exactly why Jack had stared at him liked he"d seen a ghost the first moment they"d met and had then hired him on the spot with barely a word spoken between them.

"We really need to stop," he gasped, now very aware of the sizable appendage Jack was rubbing against him, in-between their stomachs

"No we don"t," Jack said, between kisses to his neck. "They can hang me for all I care. This... no, this should never ever stop."

Though it saddened him to have to do it, Ianto gently held Jack still and looked into his eyes. "Just lie with me, alright?"

Jack looked disappointed for a moment but soon snuggled down beside him, letting Ianto hold him. But Jack was still hard and, if Ianto knew rightly, really aching for release in a bad way. So he slowly and very gently took his time unfastening Jack"s trousers and reached inside his underwear to pull his erection free. He kissed the man lying against him, sweetly and softly, and stroke by stroke worked him closer and closer to the edge. He knew exactly what hand movements Jack liked; that he loved having his balls squeezed just before he got too close to the edge, in order to heighten the anticipation and make it last longer; that he loved a finger to stroke the sensitive patch on the underside of the head; that when it was being done right, and he was getting to the edge, pre-cum would appear like pearl beads and he liked having them rubbed back in. Ianto took his time and pushed Jack so far he was whimpering with need and begging under his breath between kisses, before taking him right to the edge and then squeezing and twisting to maximise what he was feeling just at the right moment. Jack poured out onto his hand and all over his stomach, all the while mewling and panting into his mouth. It left Jack a boneless, shivering wreck in his arms, unable to form a coherent sound for a good several minutes afterwards.

And Ianto couldn"t help smiling to himself, proudly. It sort of felt like payback for Jack doing the same to him in the future; using knowledge he shouldn"t really have had to completely scramble his brains.

Slowly, Jack looked up at him, blinking hard; completely confused and bewildered and kind of awed, as if he couldn"t quite comprehend what had happened to him. "Where did you learn that?"

Ianto just continued to smile, smugly.

"And I thought you were such a nice boy," Jack chuckled, snuggling into him. "So prim and proper."

"It looks like you thought wrong."

"So that"s the deception I was sensing in you, was it Mr Jones? You playing the innocent young virgin..."

"Isn"t it about time you called me by my first name?"

"Mmm Ianto," Jack purred and kissed him, one hand travelling down his body, through the cooling mess, seeking out his cock. "Isn"t it about time you asked my name?"

"Tell me it."

"It"s Jack. And now I think it"s my turn to reciprocate."

The protest of there being no need lasted precisely as long as it took for Jack to take a commanding grip of him, using his gathered come as a lubricant, and stroke. Ianto"s eyes rolled back into his head and he completely forgot why this was supposed to be a bad idea.

*

2008

"It was a bad idea from the start," Jack said, with a sigh. "I don"t even know why I was drawn to him. He just seemed... out of place somehow. It all just sort of happened. He made me remember the far better man I got used to being for a while before I got stranded."

Owen was still looked about as horrified as he had since Toshiko had marched Jack out of his office and made him recount the story to him too, on the basis of him needing to know why Ianto and Gwen were gone for good.

"We spent nearly four months running around together after that. I managed to keep him away from my work, stop him from knowing what I got up to most nights; the ugliness."

"So let me get this straight... you were a debt collector?" Owen said, incredulously. "Like, you broke kneecaps and did the fist-work to make people pay money to Irish gangsters? Jesus fuck."

Jack stared at his shoes, not proud of it. The fact is, he couldn"t seem to get a decent job in Cardiff back then, not with his accent and lack of credentials or friends, and since he"d felt compelled to stick around there on the off-chance that the Doctor would return to the rift one day, he didn"t consider leaving an option then. He"d done some conning around the place, but Cardiff was too small to get away with that for long. Then came the O"Malley brothers. At first he"d been drafted in to do their dirty work once after borrowing money he couldn"t repay. Jack had been so good, they"d given him a job and a place to live. After that he"d spent his days drinking himself into oblivion, trying not to think about what he had become.

Until Ianto.

It wasn"t easy telling Owen and Toshiko everything about that year. Not when he liked to keep his secrets close normally. The fact was, their colleagues, their friends, were not coming back because of him. He owed them the truth at least.

No matter how bad it was.

*

1888

"Well hello there... and I"m pleased to see you too," Jack said, bemused, as Ianto immediately began searching in his pockets without even saying hello.

He came out with Jack"s snuffbox and inspected it. "Where did you get this?"

"Uh... why do you ask?" Jack swallowed, hard, feeling a vein of nervousness in his stomach at Ianto"s manner. Especially since, now that he thought about it, he hadn"t exactly got the item via respectable means.

It had been a bit of loot, gifted to him by his bosses, the O"Malley brothers, for a job well done.

Ianto searched Jack"s face, frowning in concern. "Tell me, please?"

"Pawn shop," he lied, and hated himself a little for how easily untruths could fall from his lips sometimes. "Why?"

"My bosses" friend was attacked. In his own home. Some thugs broke in and took a lot of valuables."

The look of distress on Jack"s face was more down to terror that Ianto might find out what he got up to in the dead of night than any real concern for the man in question. Mr Johnson would be fine; Jack knew that for a fact, because he had been the one given the task of “persuading” him that his debt to the O"Malleys was past due. He was good at what he did; too good really.

"One of the items was a gold snuff box with an eagle on it," Ianto said, thumbing the top of it. He looked up to Jack, actual pain in his eyes at the thought.

Jack felt like he"d kicked a puppy. And then drowned it.

"What pawn shop? Maybe they"d be willing to go to the police or something?"

"Uh... it was a pretty disreputable place. They wouldn"t."

"Well, we should do something. This is stolen property and maybe..."

Ianto was taken completely by surprise as Jack grabbed him and kissed him, so much and so deeply he almost forgot what they were talking about. He blinked a few times and then smiled as Jack chuckled.

"What?" he asked.

"You"re such a good soul, what are you doing kissing a no good scumbag like me?"

"As I recall, you were the one who kissed me," Ianto said, leaning in because he just couldn"t help it.

"Hmmm, good point." Jack slipped his hand under Ianto"s shirt and waistcoat and stroked the soft skin in the small of his back. "I would say I was corrupting you, except I know for a fact that that innocent boy routine you pull is a cunning rouse."

"I suppose it takes one to know one." This time Ianto decided to lead the kissing.

When they broke apart, Jack was looking at him with a sparkle in his eyes and a downright soppy smile plastered across his face. It fell away as Ianto turned his gaze back onto the snuff box in his hand, wondering what to do.

"What if we promised the pawn shop owner that we"d keep the police out of it. He might have more stolen stuff..."

"Ianto..." he began but couldn"t finish. Instead he pressed his hand over the snuff box. "I tell you what, just keep it. See that it gets back to its owner. It"s not much but, trust me, it"s best not to get mixed up in that sort of thing."

Ianto smiled at him in a way which made his stomach flip flop. "I"ll pay you back for it myself."

"Nah. I don"t need the money right now..."

The undertaker leaned in so that his lips were teasing Jack"s ear. "I wasn"t talking about money," he whispered in a sultry voice.

Jack allowed his eyes to slide closed for a moment, enjoying it, trying to put the guilt aside for a second. But it was no good. It wasn"t going to last. He could feel the ugliness inside welling up and the last thing he wanted was for Ianto to ever see that. "I"m glad to hear it," he said, playing along. "Unfortunately though, that"ll have to wait. I uh... I was just coming to tell you that I can"t stay... for too long. I"m sorry."

"Oh," came the disappointed reply. "Oh, don"t worry," Ianto quickly recovered, putting a brave face on the disappointment. "Another time."

"Definitely." Jack gave him a kiss on the cheek and made a run for it, disappearing over the wall before Ianto had really had time to complain.

He was left alone behind the house, the snuff box heavy in his hand. "Goodbye then," he whispered to himself and decided to go back inside. Those corpses in the room with the time mirror behind the screen weren"t going to embalm themselves, after all.

Jack hung back, out of sight, to watch him go back inside. His heart was thumping in his chest. The despair was creeping up into his veins again and he could think only one thing; he needed to get drunk. Fast. Now.

*

2008

The place wasn"t exactly what it was back in 1888, having become a trendy cosmopolitan restaurant on the side of the bay a long time ago.

But Jack wasn"t exactly the same after 120 years either, so he supposed he couldn"t exactly complain about it. Despite the changes, the memories it summoned were as vivid as ever; he remembered sitting here so many times, trying to reach the edge of oblivion, wasting his money on purpose because it felt dirty in his hands.

Jack had a good memory for such an old man, at least in his estimation. He could recall with near-perfect clarity every punch ever swung in his direction, and every game of cards he played, and every girl he"d fondled with and flirted with, and pretty much every tune that had ever been banged out on the honkey tonk piano that used to stand not too far away from where he was sitting now.

Most of all he remembered the night that had haunted him for every one of those 110 years, and as he sat back and contemplated his losing two members of his team and the then losing the respect of the two remaining ones, drinking water because he didn"t ever want to be that person again, Jack stared into the corner where the cake stand was now happy perched.

That was where Ianto had died; where he"d left him and run like a coward when the sound of whistles had begun screeching in the night outside.

There wasn"t even a bloodstain on the floor. Just cakes now. Time had erased all physical evidence of that fateful night.

Jack toasted the fact that he never would. Call it punishment, providence or penance, but while the universe casually moving forever forwards, forgetting all of the little things in the rush, at least he would always remember.

* 1888

There was a small knock to the door and both Jack and Ianto nearly leapt out of their skins, almost losing half of their bathwater at the same time.

"Sir?" Agatha asked, politely.

"I'm bathing, Agatha."

"I know, Sir. An odd hour to be doing it but I thought it proper I should ask if you want me to fetch some more hot water before I turn in?"

"No no! Uh... it"s quite hot enough, I promise you."

He didn"t have to look around to know that Jack was leering at that.

"Thank you but I can manage. You know I love to bathe." Far more than the natives of this era anyway. "Go to bed. I"ll see you in the morning."

There was a pause and then she replied, "Goodnight, Sir."

"Goodnight."

They waited in silence for the footsteps to recede and Ianto breathed a heavy sigh of relief while Jack chuckled into his shoulder.

"You have no idea how glad I am the door to this room has a lock," Ianto gasped.

"And you have no idea how glad I am your boss has an ass so big he requires a tub for two, and a fireplace this huge to keep it heated whilst in use, and a house big enough for no one to hear us." He gasped a little as Ianto twisted around a little to place delicate kisses along his jaw. "But you"re right, less small talk. Where were we?"

Ianto gripped onto the sides of the metal tub and used the leverage gained to lift himself a little way up and then down again, as a reminder. He pushed himself down on Jack"s cock, hard, and ground his hips against him in a circular motion, making his partner hitch his breath. "You know, I think this water is getting cold," he commented.

"You"re right," Jack agreed and gently lifted him up so that they were standing in the tub together. He stepped out and grabbed a towel Ianto had thoughtfully brought with him for their private little midnight meeting. Jack gave himself a quick rub and then wrapped it around Ianto to lift him up in his arms before gently setting him down onto his feet and drying at his hair. Now that it was longer than it had been when they had first met, it seemed to be an endless source of fascination for Jack. Ianto had no idea why.

Together they pushed the tub of water along the carpet, out of the way, and replaced it with the fur rug of a bear Wilson Senior swore blind he"d shot himself, even though his son James had already told Ianto he"d actually just bought it from a big game hunter fallen on hard times. Jack laid Ianto down in front of the fire, against the soft velvet pelt and slid back inside him to make love to him.

The thing about Jack, which Ianto relished knowing most of all, was how he made love with his hands as much as with the rest of his body. Fingers would entwine with his, or caress his arms, or cup his cheek, or stroke his back, but they were never idle. They were always moving, always seeking out ways to make the experience just that bit more heightened than it already was. Not that he needed to do that at all. Ianto was already on the edge whatever they were doing, because this Jack was his in a way he couldn"t claim the future version he"d known had ever been. That sex, with the future Jack, was friendlier somehow; less intense. It had been about relaxation and whiling away the hours. In his darker moments he wondered if Jack was using him as some sort of Gwen-substitute, since he only ever seemed to open up to her. Whatever it was, Ianto sensed something very different happening with this Jack. Of course, it was hard not to question his own sanity in taking up with the past incarnation of a man he had been sleeping with, in a past era when such relationships were illegal. Then Jack would make use of his fingers against his skin and all rational objections seemed to fly out of the window.

They stifled each other"s cries each in turn and trembled in each other"s arms, the fire still blazing and casting them in a wonderful warm glow. The room slowly stopped spinning and

"I love you," Ianto gasped into Jack"s shoulder, trailing the beads of sweat on his well muscled back with his nails. "Always will."

Jack made a sound which at first Ianto thought was just some sort of acknowledgement but soon realised was more than that. He was crying. It was soft and subtle, and Jack was clearly trying to fight it, but there was no hiding it.

"Shh, it"s alright," Ianto said, and held him tightly, wondering what was wrong.

"Sorry," Jack mumbled and tried again to stop.

"What"s the matter?"

"Nothing. Nothing," he said and attempted to laugh it off, weakly. "You"re overwhelming."

"Is it because I said I...?"

"No! God no, never that." Jack looked him in the eye, stroking his cheek with his fingers, wanting to say the same and failing. "You"re beautiful," he said, instead.

Ianto frowned, finding that term a bit too girly and patronising for his liking, and sensing it had been an evasion of sorts. He carefully manoeuvred Jack out of his body and rolled him aside to go and clean off a little and put on some clothes.

If Jack sensed a change in the mood he didn"t say anything. He just lay back, enjoying the dwindling heat, watching Ianto get dressed.

"Will you see yourself out?" he asked, once he felt he was covered enough to sneak out of the room.

"Not up for more?" Jack asked, stroking himself gently. "I could stay here all night."

"That much I know. Done that once or twice already at your place, remember?"

Jack grinned. "Oh yeah. I could barely walk."

Although he was still feeling hurt that Jack didn"t want to open up to him and explain what had brought on the tears, mostly because Jack never talked to him in the future either, Ianto kneeled down to give him a reconciliatory kiss.

"You sure you want to call it a night already? "Cause that kiss says you want more," Jack said, and pulled Ianto down on top of him with a growl.

"Night Jack," Ianto said and gave him a kiss on the nose. "Don"t get caught leaving or they"ll think you"re a burglar. Or, perhaps with this," Ianto gently grabbed Jack"s already semi-hard penis, "a necrophiliac."

"Hmm. Imagine the headlines."

Ianto nearly made a comment about how, since Jack the Ripper would no longer be taking up all the column space, he might be a big story, but since it wasn"t widely known yet that the London serial killer"s reign of terror was actually over, his fifth victim having been found and reported in depth a fortnight ago, such a comment would have come across as pretty suspicious. Instead he laughed and winked and bid Jack goodnight one last time.

As he left Jack there and slid along the corridors as quietly as he could, he found himself hoping Gwen would not be appearing until the very end of the year. As strange as it was to admit it, he was rather enjoying life in 1888.

Despite the threats contained within the letter he"d sent to himself.

*

Jack weaved in and out of the streets like a shadow as usual and found his way back to the Dog and Duck, even though he kept telling himself he was going to stop going there. As much as he"d enjoyed their private meeting, it had brought the fact that things weren"t as they should be crashing home to him.

Ianto loved him. That should have made him ecstatic with joy. Instead it had hurt more than he could bear.

Because he was unworthy.

He was, of course, trying to become more worthy and to live up to the trust Ianto had placed in him. Unbeknownst to Ianto, he"d just given up his house. He wasn"t doing half of the work the O"Malley brothers were sending him to do. Hell, he was even trying to kick the alcohol, although sometimes he got too down to avoid it.

When last orders were called just before one, Jack bid a grunted farewell to Harris and the broads and took to wandering the streets. He didn"t really seem to need to sleep anymore, not since landing in Victorian Wales, so it didn"t matter that he had nowhere to go. Jack wandered for a while, found himself briefly back at the Funeral Home, then decided to climb a few local landscapes; his wristband might not allow him to travel through time and space anymore but it could still open some basic locks at least.

There was something about being high up in the air, above the smog of daily life in the city. It was like being back in control again. Further to that, of course, was the thought now forever in the back of his mind that, should Rose and The Doctor finally return for him, he might just see the TARDIS before it was too late this time. After almost twenty years running from Cardiff, to various places around the British Isles, only to gravitate back in terror that he would miss the Doctor returning to the rift to refuel and miss his chance to be saved from himself once again, it was becoming something of a forlorn hope.

As always, the city was dark and mostly quiet aside the odd scream, the odd gunshot; everything but the sound of a blue police box making waves in time and space.

"Mad Jack?" a voice startled him and he spun around. "You"d have to be to be sitting around up here in this wind, I suppose."

"Who...?"

"Despite what your instincts are probably telling you, I"m a friend." The man stepped out of the shadow cast over him by the doorway he was still half within.

Jack frowned when he saw his face, recognising him but finding himself unable to recall a name. The guy was one of the O"Malley brothers" lackeys, of that that much he was certain.

"I saw you out walking. Nearly didn"t follow you when you decided to go up here but, well, I think it"s important."

"I"m listening," he replied, even though that was a given really.

The man stepped forwards a bit more and took out a box of cigarettes. He offered one and Jack decided there was no reason to refuse. They lit up and spent a moment inhaling before getting on with business.

"We have a lot in common, you know," the guy continued. "Neither of us are in this nasty ol" business because we enjoy it."

"Speak for yourself, I"m having a ball," Jack said, drolly.

"You don"t even remember me do you?"

Jack shrugged. He really had no idea. "You look a bit familiar."

"Doesn"t surprise me, the O"Malleys have had me out in London mostly. Expanding their dirty little empire." He extended his hand. "Vern Matthewson."

The gesture was tentatively responded to, Jack wondering why that sounded a bit familiar. The answer came to him a moment after their hands were parted; he"d met this guy in a raid, and he"d been subject to the same deal Jack had once, to work off the debt that couldn"t be repaid. Actually, he"d been the one to make the offer, although he had been a bit drunk at the time.

Vern Matthewson was a teacher with a pretty young wife and three children. Jack had been sent out to their home with orders to use the kids to get the money, since the debt incurred was fairly sizable. He"d been drunk as hell and decided to put his own neck on the line, leaving Vern"s family out of it in favour of bringing him back and persuading the O"Malleys to let him work the debt off. He hadn"t seen much of the guy since then. Jack had put the whole thing out of his mind, since he was feeling guilty for a hundred other transgressions, and at least this way Vern could maintain a respectable front for his wife and kids, or so he reasoned.

"You remember me now, I see." Vern smiled and took another drag. "You know, I"ve always wondered why they call you Mad Jack. What you did for me and my family, it made a lot of sense if you got a good heart, so you can"t be too off your rocker. Or is it because you don"t follow orders like everyone else and prefer to stick your neck on the line for strangers? That"s a bit mad in this business, I think."

"That was a one off," Jack replied with snort.

"Oh aye?"

"Besides, you"re the one who followed me onto the rooftop of the public library in the dead of night. We"re all a bit crazy sometimes."

Vern shrugged his agreement of that. "Want to know why?"

"Go for it."

"The O"Malleys are spitting tacks, mate. I heard talk of them teaching you a lesson. You"re not doing what they tell you to do anymore. Since I"m assuming your debt ain"t paid up yet, that don"t strike me as being very smart."

Jack shrugged, even though he knew that was going to spell trouble and it did make him a bit nervous in his stomach. "I don"t even remember what my debt was. Besides, I"ve been meaning to tell those two to look elsewhere for a while now." Five years to be precise, which was ridiculous in of itself. "Only just getting around to it."

"Ah. I suppose it"d be obvious to point out that they won"t want to let you go. The last guy who tried to leave their little organisation premature-like... well," he trailed off, not wanting to spell it out. "Just wanted to give you heads up. I heard them definitely say they were gonna pull you in tomorrow." He tossed the end of his cigarette over the side of the building. "Consider yourself warned." Vern turned to walk away.

"Leaving so soon?"

"I"m going to have to wake up a friend to get a bed for the night as it is. Don"t want to leave it any later than I already have." When he reached the door, he turned back to Jack, an idea forming. "There are two chairs, if you need a place. It"s getting pretty chilly up here."

Jack smiled, immediately wondering out of habit if that was a come on, and then realised, belatedly, that Vern reminded him a bit of his old friend Algy looks-wise. Maybe that was why he"d spared him. The thought made him chuckle to himself, since Algy wasn"t even born yet and he might well be speaking to a forebear. Jack quickly put aside all thoughts of trying it on as a strong pull in his stomach kept telling him he was taken, even though Jack preferred never to be exclusive if he could help it, and he politely declined the offer.

"I"m going back to London tomorrow," Vern said. "You watch your back, Jack."

"You too." The weight of his voice projected his meaning clearly; that he might have put himself in danger warning him.

The man nodded and disappeared back down the stairs. Jack watched him when he returned into the streets and disappeared into the shadows.

Jack waited out the rest of the night under the stars and watched the dawn come in over the house in the distance where he knew Ianto was sleeping. Even though Ianto had warned him that he would be leaving Cardiff for a long time come December, and there was nothing either of them could do about it, Jack found it difficult to imagine him not being there to brighten his days.

Then again, he"d thought the same about his friends on the TARDIS and that hadn"t ended well. So he knew he wasn"t a good judge.

At around seven in the morning he went back to wandering the streets at mortal level.

The hands grabbed him at around eight.

*

2008

The Hub had never been so silent.

Since Jack had walked out on them, Owen and Toshiko had barely said a word. Even the pterodactyl was maintaining a mournful silence. After all, what could really be said? What was there left to do except sit in stunned quietude and try to take it all in?

Toshiko once again shuffled through the pages she had printed out; one report of the shootings with a list of those killed and another of the obituaries for the next day.

Her weary eyes flickered across the second; a small, uncomplicated advert, which said little except the fact that Ianto Jones was dead and left no relatives behind. She had asked Jack if there was a grave they could visit but he said didn"t know. He had been halfway across the North Atlantic when the funeral took place, after all, and it was unlikely to have survived 120 years anyway. There was almost certainly no trace of Ianto. Or Gwen even.

It was all so depressing.

Her eyes began to wander around the page and suddenly she jolted, hard enough to have Owen jolt in surprised reaction.

"What?" he growled.

"Oh my god!"

"What? What?!"

Toshiko put it down on his desk in front of him. "Look!"

Owen did as he was instructed, and turned to her with wide eyes. He blinked a few times, looked again and then gasped belatedly.

"We need to find Jack," she said, urgently and Owen nodded in complete agreement.

As they ran for the door, high up in the rafters the pterodactyl finally screeched.

*

1888

Ianto was in the morgue, tending to the body of a woman who had died of consumption when the commotion broke out in the house. At first he thought he"d better stay out of it, thinking it was probably a relative visiting to make funeral arrangements and perhaps causing a fuss over price.

But he heard his name being called, so he finished up as best he could and went to see what was going on. He was startled to find Agatha dashing about with a pan of water and a towel, a smear of blood down her apron.

"What"s happening?" he asked.

"Mr Jones!" James was yelling for him from somewhere down the hallway.

Agatha hurried along and he followed her. "I"m sorry Sir, I just found him in the garden... this morning when I went to put out bread bits for the birds..."

"What? Who? Found who?"

He stepped inside the front room and was shocked to see Jack laid out on the chaiselong, James kneeling on the floor beside him and Herbert standing by the fireplace looking troubled. Agatha put the pot of water down and wrung a cloth out, which she placed on Jack"s forehead.

The blood had obviously come from his hands, which looked all cut and torn. His shirt was ripped in places and his waistcoat hanging half off, to expose bruising underneath.

"Ianto boy," Herbert said, waving him over, "Agatha found this gentleman sleeping in the garden. We carried him inside and he kept on saying your name. Who on earth is he?"

"A friend. A good friend." Ianto kneeled down, pushing James out of the way and tried to get Jack to look at him by holding his cheeks and titling his head. "Jack? Jack can you hear me?"

"Mm?" he groaned, eyelids fluttering a little.

"What happened? Jack?"

James moved the cloth on his forehead aside a little to expose a nasty bruise. "I suspect concussion." He turned to Agatha. "Go into town and fetch Dr McGuire here."

Agatha nodded and hurried away, removing her apron as she ran.

"Jack?"

His eyelashes fluttered a few more times and he lost consciousness. Even though Ianto knew Jack would be alright in the long run, it made his heart drop and a shock of nerves hit him. He unbuttoned Jack"s shirt a little and inspected the bruising and scratches underneath. Ianto guessed that nothing was actually broken but wasn"t sure.

At length, Agatha returned with the Doctor and he said that Jack"s injuries were mostly superficial. Bruises from fists mostly, along with a nasty knock to the head which had made him pass out. Aside from an brandy or two for the pain, there wasn"t much that could be done except allow him to recover.

Ianto pled with his employers to allow Jack to remain in the house, although they were very uncomfortable with the idea due to a certain oddity in the morgue which made them edgy about strangers staying over. They allowed it with his promise that Jack would be confined to a single room and watched closely, and that he would not stay too long. It was an easy promise to make.

So Ianto and James carried Jack to one of the spare bedchambers in the large house and laid him down on the bed. Agatha provided him with some towels, the pot of water and some bandages from their supplies. Ianto decided it would be best if he was left alone to administer it all and sent her away. They had no TCP in 1888 so he borrowed some carbolic soap from the kitchen instead. Slowly, and with great care, he removed Jack"s clothes item by item and tended every injury he could find.

It was several hours before Jack began to wake up. When he did he looked utterly perplexed. "Where are we?"

"You"re in the Wilsons" house."

That made Jack smile and then wince at having a split lip. "How did I get here? I don"t remember coming here."

"Agatha found you in the garden apparently. Half unconscious and bruised all over. Jack," he leaned in, imploringly, "what happened to you? Who did this?"

Jack blinked a few times and looked down at himself. "I must have wandered here after they knocked my head and let me go."

"Who?"

At once Jack"s eyes darkened a little and he looked away. "Just thieves I guess."

"Thieves?" The fact that Ianto didn"t believe that for a second was very much in evidence in his tone of voice. "There"s not a thief in Cardiff you don"t know and don"t try to deny it. Was it those guys who were hassling you for money the first night I ran into you?"

"No idea," he said and grinned, falsely. "It"s fine, I promise. You"ve done a great job with these bandages. Thank you." Jack tried to touch him on the shoulder but Ianto wasn"t having any of it.

"You keep so many secrets from me. Every word is a halftruth. It"s always some kind of calculated misdirection with you. Always." Apparently Jack never changed, or learned his lessons. Ianto wasn"t stupid enough to think that, every time Jack rushed off or was called over by some denizen of the underworld, that it was just about drinks and poker games. Obviously he was involved in something he didn"t want Ianto to know about. It didn"t really surprise him so much as disappoint him that Jack couldn"t open up to him about anything, in whatever era they were in.

"Ianto," Jack said with a sigh, "it"s not like that. It"s just not important."

The eyes with stared into him were tinged with steel. "Tell me who did it, Jack," Ianto said through gritted teeth. "Tell me why."

He almost wanted to, but Jack knew that he couldn"t. How could he tell him he was really just a low life thug? It made him sick to think of it, especially now that his days were no longer alcohol-induced blurs.

"Fine. If you won"t tell me, I"ll find out for myself."

"Don"t..." Jack tried to move to stop him, but the pain winded him.

"Call for Agatha if you need anything. I"ll be back later."

"Ianto please..."

The door slammed behind Ianto as he left.

*

After spending three hours buying drinks for Harris, Ianto had finally managed to get some truth out of the guy.

So Jack had been working for a pair of Irish wannabee-gangsters, who made their living through gambling rackets and by lending money with ridiculous interest rates. Jack had been unable to settle a debt of some size, or so Harris said, and ended up working for them, like Harris and like many others in Cardiff and elsewhere.

Recently Jack hadn"t been doing his bit for the cause for some reason and so he"d been given a warning.

Another hour of drinks, Ianto was introduced to someone who Harris claimed was a bit higher up the chain, and who was prepared to give him some information in exchange for offers of cash. Eventually, Ianto got directions to several houses tucked away in a dark corner of Cardiff, where the poorest people sheltered together at night. The gang were expected to be spending the night in one of them.

He knew it was a dangerous game to play but he felt he had little choice. Jack was in no fit state to speak for himself and, for whatever reason, didn"t seem to be able to get out of their employment. So he would just have to take matters into his own hands and win the O"Malley brothers over.

It was already getting dark as he began he search and pitch black by the time he found a house with signs of life. Ianto had wrestle the butterflies in his stomach away before he was able to reach out and knock on the door.

There was a scuffling sound and it was opened by an old woman who looked like she"d smoked every day of her life. "What do you want?" she asked in a gravely voice.

"I have to talk to the O"Malley brothers."

She looked him up and down. "You a pig?"

"No, I"m an undertaker," he replied, reasonably. "Look, I know this is unusual, and probably kind of stupid, but I want to ask them a question. About their loan repayments." He slipped a crown into her hand. "Please."

The old lady stepped aside and allowed him in. He was immediately grabbed by a tall guy with large hands and bad breath, and a knife pressed to his throat. In this manner he was escorted inside, into the main living area.

There were five more men in the house, sitting around, drinking and smoking. The Irish brothers were immediately recognisable due to the resemblance between them and their bright red, curly hair. One of the guys did a once over to check he wasn"t carrying any weapons.

"I"m not here to start a fight. My name"s Mr Jones," he said, as confidently as he could, considering the blade. "A friend of mine is apparently in your employment. Jack Harkness?"

"Mad Jack, you mean?" one of the brothers said with a sly smile. "Aye."

"As I understand it, he owes you a debt. I want to know how much it would take to pay that off so that you leave him alone and never go near him again?"

All of the men in the room looked between each other. The brothers laughed together, and one of them got to his feet, stalking towards him. "What if we don"t want to leave him alone?" he asked, and got right up in Ianto"s face.

"Everybody has a price, as I"m sure you know. What"s yours?"

The other brother decided to join him and the two of them examined every inch of his body between them with their matching eyes.

"You got nerve coming here and even asking, I"ll give you that," the taller of the two said.

"What"s it to you?" asked the other.

"He"s a friend. He doesn"t want to work for you anymore but you won"t let him go. I want to help him out."

For some reason that made them all laugh.

"A friend, eh? Nobody has friends that good."

"People like you maybe," Ianto replied, curtly, and regretted it as the knife pressed into his neck a little harder.

The taller brother, who he assumed to be older one, got right up close and stared him hard in the eye. He was a rugged looking man, with bright blue eyes and sideburns to put his own to shame. "Fifty crowns," he said, eventually, and smiled.

Ianto smiled back. "Done. You tell me when and where and I"ll bring it to you."

"What sort of an undertaker has 50 crowns to throw away on some useless drunk?" the other brother asked, with an incredulous snort.

"Inheritance. So do you want that money or not?"

Again the elder O"Malley stepped in front of his brother, taking charge. "Alright. Be at the Dog and Duck tavern on Friday night at ten past midnight. It"ll be shut up for a private poker game. We"ll be waiting for you Jones. But be aware, if you don"t show, it won"t only be Mad Jack getting on the wrong side of a few fists? You understand?"

"Perfectly. But just to be clear, you never met me or saw me, either here or there. Jack isn"t to know."

"Sure, makes no difference to us," he agreed with a chuckled, and for a moment, Ianto thought he was going to shake his hand.

Just when he thought he was going to be allowed to leave, the younger brother grabbed his wrist, almost tight enough to make him cry out. "If you tell anyone about this place, or about us, we"ll have your balls. That"s a promise."

Ianto was spun out back into the hallway and literally thrown out of the house, the old woman who had opened the door cackling behind him.

His heart tried to leap out of his chest as he worked the dates through his mind.

Friday night. That was the date he had warned himself about in his letter.

The date when things were going to go very wrong.

*

Relations had become a little frosty since Jack left the Funeral Home after recovering enough to look after himself. He was clearly suspicious that Ianto was up to something, even though Ianto had told him nothing, while Ianto was beginning to feel edgy about the whole deal he"d struck.

It wasn"t the smartest thing he"d ever done and he knew it. He had been angry and upset when he"d gone to find the O"Malleys and when that died down, he realised it had been stupid to interfere. Again.

Perhaps it was all for the best. Jack would be given an out from the life he couldn"t seem to escape from, so that would be some consolation when Ianto left him, as was inevitable soon. Judging by the reception he knew he would get when he applied for work at Torchwood Three in the future, Jack wasn"t going to bear a grudge, so he supposed it would work out in the end.

He kept himself to himself for the remainder of the week, completing all his work in the morgue, only seeing Jack once or twice. When Friday came, he made as many preparations he could before removing the money needed from his stash and securing the bag of coins to his belt. He actually found he only had 48 crowns and a few shillings left, but that would just have to do.

Ianto crept out of the Funeral Home a little past half eleven, doing his best to avoid Agatha and any problematic conversations that might arise. Then he got going to meet his fate.

All the way there, he kept expecting Jack to jump out and grab him, having found out what he was intending to do somehow. Fortunately, he seemed to be out somewhere that night; Ianto guessed that maybe the O"Malleys had sent him on one last job, out of the way. Or at least, he hoped that was the case.

The Dog and Duck was quiet, being tucked away in a dark corner of the bay, and apparently closed from the outside. He knocked all the same and steeled himself for whatever was about to occur.

Two pairs of hands grabbed him in, carried him over into the main area and pressed him down on the floor while his money was taken and his pockets searched through. They took his gun and the knife in his sock as well. Then he was allowed to stand up and watch them count it out.

"This is only 48," the younger O"Malley hissed.

"Is it? I must have miscounted," he replied, with an unbidden edge of sarcasm.

The elder O"Malley stepped towards him, just as intimidating as ever. "So that"s the bargain huh? Done, just like that. Only it seems to me that a guy who can afford fifty odd crowns can afford more than that."

Ianto glared at him. "That"s everything I have. We made a deal."

The men gathered, mostly playing poker, half watching, laughed together.

"Did we really? I"m having trouble recalling that." The guy turned to his brother, laughing.

Since it was obvious he wasn"t going to be able to get out of there without showing a bit of spine, he decided to put his training to good use. He grabbed the elder O"Malley from behind and hooked his arm around in such a way that would make it very easy to break it. "Don"t move!" he yelled as the men started and some edged towards him.

Silence descended, filled only with the Irishman"s winced mews of pain as Ianto made it clear he wasn"t fooling around. He was about to make his demands when all eyes turned in a different direction.

There was an enormous smash as one of the back windows was broken into and, quick as a flash, Jack ran in, his gun in the air. "Nobody move!" he shouted and aimed it.

"I"ll already told them that," Ianto said, irritably. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing." There he was, minding his own business, sitting on the roof of a nearby monument, when he caught sight of Ianto going to the Dog and Duck. Knowing it was closed for the O"Malley"s, gut instinct had taken him over and he"d run all the way to go to the rescue.

"It"s none of your bus..."

The moment of distraction and the slightly loosened grip gave the elder O"Malley a chance to get free and lunge and Ianto. At that moment, pandemonium broke out, as the other brother and their three friends went for Jack and he had to leap across the tables to avoid them. Unfortunately he didn"t get far, and was tackled to the ground and held onto. He watched as Ianto got a nasty hit to the head and went down.

Rage was frothing to the surface in the older O"Malley brother"s face. He paced for a moment, then kicked Ianto, then paced again. "You"ll regret that," he spat and went to punch Jack. Then he disarmed him and aimed the gun at his head. For a minute or two, he really did look like he was going to shoot.

Then the younger brother put a hand on his and pulled him gently away. "Put him against the wall," he ordered.

The men all lined up, guns aimed at him like an improvised firing squad. A gasp escaped him as Jack realised that this was it; he was going to die. In a tavern, in Cardiff, in 1888. What a way to go.

He looked to Ianto, who was trying to get up, trying to say sorry with his eyes; sorry for leaving him behind; sorry for getting him involved.

"Hold on," the elder brother spoke up and stepped towards Jack. "You know, I always liked you. You"ve done good work for us. I think... yeah, I think I"m going to spare you."

He smiled as Jack gasped in relief, pushing him away and into the waiting arms of his brother. Then he nodded at one of the men and suddenly it was Ianto who was pressed up against the wall in front of the line of guns.

"No!" Jack yelled and tried to struggle free.

"You know how we feel about people leaving our family, Mad Jack," the elder O"Malley said, helping his brother to hold Jack still. "You need to be taught a lesson. Ohh," he chuckled as Jack let out a wail of anguish, "I know it"s hard but it"s for the best."

O"Malley looked to his men and to Ianto, who had finally got his bearings and saw the line of guns aimed at him. "Kill him," the order came.

Ianto"s eyes were still locked with Jack"s when the bullets tore into him and he slammed back against the wall, sliding down it to the floor, leaving a smear of blood where his head had hit the wall.

Finally they let Jack go and he ran to Ianto, kneeling over him. He lifted his head and tried to get him to focus. "Look at me Ianto, come on, stay with me... please stay with me..."

But Ianto"s eyes fluttered closed and he relaxed to the floor. Jack found the hand that had been holding his head covered in blood. Then he heard laughter behind him; cruel and callous laughter like gargoyles in the night.

Pure white rage surged through him and he ran for his gun.

He had no idea really what happened next really, it was a blur of noise, motion, blood and shouts, but the next thing he was aware of was the fact that the O"Malley brothers and three of their friends were all dead. The bar was shot to hell and he had a bullet graze to the arm.

They were all dead. Every single one of them. He sunk to the floor, tears rolling down his cheeks, his bloodied hands shaking. The enormity of what he had just done began to sink in. He was a murderer, and Ianto was dead because of him; because of the life he had been leading, because of the man he was.

Because he had wanted him so much he hadn"t considered the possible consequences for Ianto.

Outside, distant at first but nearer every second, whistles were being blown. More and more, until Jack couldn"t stand it.

He started running and didn"t stop.

*

2008

"There he is, over there. Jack!" Toshiko yelled and broke into a run across the plass.

Owen followed her a few paces behind.

"What?" Jack asked, wearily. "What is it?"

"Look!" She shoved the newspaper printout into his hand, jabbing at it with her finger. "There."

He read it and at first didn"t seem to comprehend. Then he looked again and frowned. "Wait a minute... it can"t mean..."

Toshiko grabbed the paper and read from the advert placed a few columns away from Ianto"s obituary note. "What is this life but a reflection of what is to come? We shall meet again through the looking glass. Should this be ever seen in times ahead, don"t believe everything you read. Coed-ffagl."

"That"s Welsh for Torchwood," Owen interjected. "Don"t ask me how I know that. Seriously."

"Tosh..." Jack asked, rubbing his forehead, not sure he could take much more of this. "What does it mean?"

"Only one person could have put that in there."

Jack blinked as the implications sunk in.

"Don"t believe everything you read... he means the obituary. It"s a fake. That means he must have survived. Jack... Ianto"s alive!"

*

1888

"Mr Jones?"

Something was batting at his cheeks. It was irritating him no end.

"Mr Jones, wake up if you can. Ianto?"

He groaned and opened his eyes. It took a moment for his surroundings to make sense. Ianto realised he was in the morgue, on one of the slabs. James and Herbert were standing over him.

"Good Lord, he"s alive!" Herbert gasped. "We took you for dead, boy. Hauled you back with all the other corpses. We"ve near run out of space."

"I need to sort out this wound before he bleeds to death," James said and tilted his head to the side, doing something that was beyond Ianto"s ability to comprehend at that moment.

"Oh don"t do that, James, let me call for the Doctor."

"No..." Ianto said, and his mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton wool. "Please no. I"m... I"m fine. No Doctor. No police."

"I need to sew this gash up," James said. "So hold still. Father, pass over that shaving knife. Get some alcohol."

He lay as still as he could, floating on the edge of something unnameable as James shaved a large patch of his hair away, splashed his head with something which stung like crazy and sewed up the gash caused by a bullet tearing through the side of his head, very nearly penetrating his skull; the one which had caught a vein and knocked him out and nearly made him bleed to death.

Once that was done, he unbuttoned his shirt and removed all of the layer to get rid of the bulletproof Kevlar vest he had instructed himself to wear that night in his letter, allowing it fall to the floor beside him. At the time he had felt a bit reluctant to bring it along with him to 1888, since it was kind of like bringing a piece of dangerous technology back in time, but in the end he"d decided to go with his own request.

Now that it had actually saved his life, he thought he"d probably make the same request in a day or two, when Manfred Wilson was scheduled to pay a visit through the great time mirror. The cycle would go on.

"Herbert... the police, they think I"m dead?"

"You and other poor souls killed by that Mad Jack. To think, we gave him refuge in this very house. Lord!" Herbert wiped his sweaty forehead with his handkerchief. "They say he"s likely already jumped shore. Probably halfway across the world by now. Coward."

"I"ll be leaving soon, sometime in the next week or two... It would be better for all if Ianto Jones was dead. I don"t want to answer questions or aid the police in this matter." He did his best to sit up, though the bruises from where the bullets had struck and not gone through were quite sore. "I have served you well and never asked for much in return. You haven"t even paid a salary and I haven"t said a word. Please, allow me to remain dead?"

The father and son looked between each other, both obviously surprised by the request.

"Ianto, are you certain?" Herbert asked. "That is a very serious request. And this Mad Jack, surely he should be brought to justice..."

"Believe me, it"s better this way," he insisted. "I"ll remain indoors until leaving, no one will see me. I"ll even continue to work for you, embalming the bodies, placing the obituaries, all of that. Just let me cease to exist in this time."

James smiled and nodded. "If that"s what you want."

That agreement seemed to win his father over too. "Alright. Your terms are set. I suppose we do owe you a debt for your help these past months."

"Thank you. Thank you, so much."

*

Ianto was tending to the corpse of a rich old gentleman who had died in his sleep when the mirror in the morgue began to shoot sparks. He quickly moved the screen aside, for fear that it would catch fire, and watched the reflection. It was too distorted due to the electricity to see what was on the other side at that particular time, but Ianto could guess what he would be seeing if it were possible.

It was about time Gwen showed up.

She was launched through with a tremendous crack and, in the act of catching her, they were both thrown to the floor. She fought him for a moment, screeching, before he managed to calm her down.

"Gwen! It"s alright, it"s me."

"Ianto?" she gasped and winced, realising her arm was burned.

He helped her to her feet and took a look at it. "That"ll need to be wrapped." In many ways he was relieved; it could have been much worse, considering what happened to Jack. As it was, she had got off lightly with just a minor few burns and a smell of smoke lingering about her.

"What happened? Wh... where are we? What happened to your hair?"

Ianto smiled and winced at the same time, wondering where on earth to start.

*

2008

"Did we make it?" Gwen asked, keeping her eyes pressed closed.

Ianto took a look around, at the buildings and the people. The air tasted different. Cleaner somehow.

It was good enough for him.

"I think we"re back," he said, and chuckled as a passer-by frowned at his odd clothing before carrying on by. He closed the mirror they had touched together and stored it safely away in his pocket. "Now we need to know what date this is, to see whether we need to lay low for a while or not."

Gwen went over to a couple sitting and feeding some ducks on a bench. "Excuse me, I don"t suppose you know what the date today is, could you?"

The reply surprised both Ianto and Gwen. They were back only two days since Gwen had been sucked into the past.

"Perfect timing," Ianto commented. "That was lucky."

"So we can go back to the Hub?"

"We should let them know we made it back in one piece."

"Just about!" she laughed, showing him her arm and pointing out the bald patch on the side of his head, only partly concealed by a slight restyling of his hair.

Since it had barely been a week on from the shooting when Gwen had finally put in her appearance, Ianto hadn"t even had the crude stitches out yet. He was already anticipating some snide comments from Owen about 19th century doctors. Such things were inevitable.

They strolled back arm in arm, Gwen clearly quite pleased to be back in their own time. Ianto quickly found the enthusiasm catching and, as enjoyable as some aspects of Victorian Cardiff were, there were some things about modern life that couldn"t be beaten. He was already looking forwards to the pleasures of a nice hot powershower and an orthopaedic mattress.

"Hey look, there"s the others," Gwen pointed out and hurried him along.

Jack was standing and staring at some piece of paper, and Tosh and Owen were staring at him expectedly.

"But... he can"t be... I saw him..."

"Jack!" Gwen yelled and he spun around mid-sentence.

Toshiko immediately ran to her and gave her a hug. Owen did the same, although afterwards there was a moment of awkwardness between them for it. Gwen turned to Jack, expecting the same, only to find his eyes fixed on Ianto. He looked completely and utterly gobsmacked. The piece of paper slid from his hand and went flying away in the wind but he didn"t even notice.

Ianto smiled, warmly, and came to him. When nothing was said, he looked to Toshiko. "Miss me?"

She gave him a hug. "We saw the note near your obituary," she said, "I knew you weren"t dead."

"Ah... I was worried you might see that, so I thought it best to leave a side note. I knew you"d understand it."

Owen grabbed him and then looked at his head-wound with a critical eye. "Holy fuck, who sewed that up? Doctor Frankenstein?"

Ianto rolled his eyes and looked back at Jack. He still looked like a man watching a carcrash happen. "You know, when I first walked into Torchwood Three, you had that exact same look," he said, trying to make light of it. "I can"t believe you never told me we"d met before."

Jack suddenly grabbed him and tried to crush him in his arms, burying his head in his shoulder and dissolving into tears. 120 years of heartbreak, guilt and anguish came pouring out and they sunk to the ground together under the weight of it all.

Wisely, Tosh took hold of Gwen and Owen and led them away, back to the Hub. If either of them noticed, however, they didn"t acknowledge the gesture. They were lost in each other.

"I thought you... I saw you..." Jack sniffed. He tilted Ianto"s head a little and touched the wound, tenderly. "How...?"

"Back to the Future Part Three." Ianto opened his bag and pulled out a bit of the bulletproof Kevlar vest he"d brought back in time with him. Jack looked even more surprised and confused if that was even possible. "One of these days I"m going to make you sit down and watch those films," he chuckled. Anyway, it doesn"t matter now," Ianto told him, firmly. "It"s all matter for the history books."

"I can"t believe it. Oh God Ianto... Ianto..."

"Shhhh, it"s alright."

Jack kissed him and sparks went off behind his eyes. Then there was only one thing that he could say; the words he"d always wished he"d had the guts to say before, when Ianto had been warm in his arms and not just a memory. "I love you, I"ve always loved you, always..." he gasped, almost unable to string together a coherent sentence.

The grin on Ianto"s face at that made the effort entirely worthwhile. "I believe you. And guess what? I love you too, funnily enough."

"How can you... after...?"

Ianto tilted his chin up so they could lock eyes. "It wasn"t your fault. It just happened. Besides, you were a different person back then."

"He"s still in me, that guy; the guy who killed all those men..."

"I don"t care about them. Forget them," he said, honestly. The way he saw it, they had made a lot of lives miserable and the world had been safer for their loss. "Besides, he may be a part of you but so"s the guy who just told me something I always wanted to hear." Ianto kissed him, tenderly. "That"s all the matters. Alright?"

Shyly, Jack nodded and allowed Ianto to help him to his feet again.

"Now, I need a shower in the worst way," Ianto said, with a laugh. "If you need me to prove to you that I"m really here still, really alive, I suggest we start there. What do you say?"

A wicked grin lit up Jack"s face and he snaked his arm around Ianto"s waist, pulling him close as they walked back along the plas to the Hub. "You do realise I"m not letting you out of my sights ever again," Jack warned him. "And I mean ever."

Ianto chuckled. "I look forwards to it."

He paused only to take out the mirror and crush thoroughly it under his heel, before allowing Jack to lead him away.

***

• Main Torchwood slash page
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• Amazon.com - Torchwood: Children of Earth
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• Amazon.ca link - Torchwood - The Complete First Season (7DVD)