Title: I Was a Dad Once
Author: Clarity
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Jack/Ianto (slight Jack/9 implied)
Note: This is a plot bunny which I doubt everyone will like, but wouldn't go away till I explored it a little. Inspired by a certain line in Dr Who. Just a bit of a "what-if" scenario really.
Summary: 'What if I were to tell you that I wasn"t recruited to Torchwood one, I was brought there when they found out certain things about me?"

***

A blurry figure came into view and started to press on his shoulder. "I"ve never seen anything like this. The wound is gone."

Owen. That was Owen"s voice.

"Would you leave us alone for a minute." It was more of an order than a question.

That was Jack, he realised. And he knew that tone. He was pissed off.

The figure of Owen disappeared and another came into view on the other side of him. Finally his eyesight was returning.

"What happened?" Ianto asked, his voice strangled. He desperately wanted something to drink.

"Remember we caught that poisonous alien creature? The one that killed two people in the city?"

He nodded, tentatively, still trying to get the cotton wool out of his throat without making any disgusting noises.

"It got loose. It bit you before I unloaded a round into its skull." Something about the way Jack was looking at him made Ianto distinctly nervous. "You should have died almost instantly."

A cold chill passed down his spine. "Oh. Why didn"t I?"

"You tell me. There was nothing we could have done to save you. Not with that amount of deadly poison in your blood. You should be dead. Easily." Jack folded his arms, staring at him intently. "So why aren"t you? Actually, I think the more important question is, who are you?"

Ianto struggled to sit up on the stretcher, swinging his legs aside and carefully wrapping himself in the sheet laid over him, self consciously. "You know who I am, sir." He had to stop himself from fidgeting with his hands.

"Do I? Or have you been keeping more secrets from us? See, from where I"m standing, nobody could have survived that. You should have been killed like all its other victims. Yet here you are. And your bite mark has all but faded away."

He rubbed his shoulder. It felt a little sore, and there were some tender pink marks left on it, although no sign of a wound. "Lucky me."

"Luck? No, I don"t think luck entered into this." Now Jack was circling around him like a predator. This didn"t look good. "So I"m going to ask you one more time, who are you? Or I"ll have you hauled down to the cells and put in with the weevils."

"Sir… Jack… this is…"

"Ianto, no human could have survived that. No human heals that fast." His expression softened a little though his eyes were still cold. "I need to know what"s going on here."

Ianto looked down at the floor for a long few seconds, deep in thought. "I"m no more a danger than you are. And I keep no more secrets about myself that you do," he replied after careful consideration.

"Not good enough."

"It"ll have to be."

Suddenly Jack was right up in his face, his voice low and tight with suppressed anger. "You"re not understanding me, Ianto, if that"s even your name. You are going to tell me what you"ve been hiding and you are going to do it now, or I am going to let Owen experiment on you until we find out what you are."

"You wouldn"t."

"Try me."

They stared into one another"s eyes, challenging each other to break, for what seemed a long time. Finally Ianto looked away and sighed.

"What if I were to tell you that I wasn"t recruited to Torchwood one. I was brought there when they found out certain things about me."

"I don"t understand."

"Lisa wasn"t my co-worker when we met, she was my guard."

"But… but your files. You have a work record there. I know, I checked you out."

"I earned their trust and eventually, I ended up working for them. That was when Lisa and I got to know each other properly. Then the Cybermen invaded and… well, you know the rest. She got captured protecting me. I couldn"t leave her behind."

"Alright." Jack decided to accept that line, for now. "So why were you there? Who are you, really?"

Ianto laughed a short and hopeless laugh. "I don"t know. I"m just like you. I need a Doctor to tell me that." He gave him a sly smile.

At first Jack didn"t get it. When he did he felt gut punched.

"You"re waiting around here for him. In a way, so am I."

"But…" He shook his head, frowning, unable to quite square the fact that Ianto seemed to be more up on his secrets than he thought he should be. "How do you know that?"

"I don"t suppose you would mind fetching me some clothes. It"s a little chilly in here."

"Not until you tell me what you mean." Jack grabbed him by the arms, holding him tight enough to bruise. "Do you know why I"m like this? Why I can"t die? Do you know how this happened to me, Ianto?"

"No!" He pushed him away. "I only know what I sense. And what all of your records say. And the fact that you have his hand in a jar, and his stupid 3D specs in your office, and file after file after file about him." Ianto pulled out of Jack"s grip and patted him lightly on the shoulder. "I had the same obsession once. One of these days you"re going to realise, it isn"t worth it."

For a long while Jack grew silent, pacing with his thoughts. Ianto watched him, wondering what to say, and if he"d ever get given any clothes. "If it"s not worth it, why are you waiting here for him as well?"

That seemed to make Ianto a little shy. "I… I have a few things to tell him. We had a big fall out once. I said a lot of things I didn"t mean. And, well, that was the last I saw of him. I was hoping to square things with him. I stayed at Torchwood one hoping he"d come but when he did, events kind of took me over." It still amazed him how much the merest though of Lisa could hurt.

Jack felt like his mind was on the verge of collapse. "You… you were a companion?" It didn"t seem likely but it was the only explanation I can think of.

"A…? Oh God no!" Ianto gave him a crooked little smile, which Jack knew he would have found adorable in other circumstances. "You must have figured it out?" The blank expression returned told him otherwise. "It was a bit of a mistake actually. The Doctor accidentally landed in the Shangri-la holiday camp in 1959, in the south of Wales. That"s where he met my mother. It was somewhat of a brief encounter; mostly brought about by the fact that they had been hit by stun guns and were still kind of woozy. Or at least, that"s how she told it."

"Your mother…?" Realisation at last dawned upon Jack. "No. No, it"s not possible."

Ianto shrugged. "I"m pushing fifty years old but I barely look half that. I age too slow. I appear have limited regeneration abilities but it only really kicks in when I"m in mortal danger, apparently. Same as you, as far as I can tell. All of that would seem to indicate that my mother wasn"t lying to me." He looked at Jack, worriedly. "So now you know."

"Why… why didn"t you tell us?" He didn"t realise he was shouting, but he was.

"Why didn"t you?" Ianto challenged him. "You didn"t want to be singled out as anything less than human anymore than I did."

Jack looked at Ianto with new eyes. "You"re his..." He took a deep breath. "I had no idea it was possible. He… he never mentioned you…"

"He wouldn"t." Ianto shrugged, wrapping the sheet closer around himself.

"You know, this explains a few things."

"It does?" For a moment he felt worried; he hadn"t given anything away before, had he? He"d been so careful not to.

"Sure. It explains the birthdate on your records from Torchwood one. I thought that was a typo. And it explains why I"m so attracted to you. And why I feel the same buzz in my gut when I touch you as I felt with him.'

"It really is cold in here. Could I please go and put some clothes on?"

"Oh. Right."

He stepped forwards to help him off the stretcher, Ianto falling weakly into his arms, still shaky. Jack closed his eyes for a moment, involuntarily remembering the Doctor.

"He"s not worth obsessing about," Ianto whispered into his ear, fingers curling into his clothes, almost tenderly. "But one day he"ll come. You can ask him, then."

"And you can tell him, then." Jack"s lips grazed Ianto"s forehead. "I hope this is the last of your secrets, Ianto. I don"t think I could take anymore."

"I won"t tell you the secret ingredient in my coffee then. That would really blow your mind."

***