Title: Severence
Author: Clarity
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Jack/Ianto, Jack/Jack (also, in a minor way, Jack/Nine, Jack/Estelle and Ianto/Ten)
Note: Yes I am completely making up my own canon here, entirely. This deals with things waaay in the future for the Whoverse, jiggered only to tell a story, not to follow canon or make real predictions. Also, the character of Bilis Manger has been heavily fanwanked, with a whole past and storyline that won't be canon either. Meh, just take it all as very AU.
Summary: After a month travelling with the Doctor, Jack ends up back in Cardiff. The team are happy he has returned, but Jack knows something is wrong when Ianto is nowhere to be found and neither Gwen, Owen or Tosh have any idea who he is.

***

Jack had sworn, when he had first stepped aboard the TARDIS this time, that he would never leave the Doctor's side again. Not for anything. Not for anyone. So it was not without a sense of irony that he found himself backing away into the distance at the behest of the only thing that with the power to come between them; the TARDIS herself.

When the malfunctions began the Doctor was perplexed but as relaxed about it as ever he was. He trusted the problem to right itself. After all, he said, if a sonic screwdriver didn't fix it then frankly, he didn't believe it was really broken. He suspected the old girl was just playing a game. Jack thought he was joking, though he really could never be sure; he never quite got the hang of this Doctor, this new Doctor's humour, or at least not in the way he had with his former incarnation.

Every time Jack tried to mend her, she threw fits which sent them hurtling through time and space like confetti. They had ended up in Cardiff, parked over the rift in front of the Millennium Centre, with a view to refuelling in the hopes of that fixing the problem. It had felt odd to be back, since Jack had forced that chapter of his life so thoroughly into the back of his memory, he hardly felt he was there at all.

Of course, fate was playing some terrible tricks on Jack; that he should be left there of all places.

The Doctor had known, when Jack had gone to book them some lunch in a rather nice restaurant, that he was the something upsetting the TARDIS. The assumption was not a difficult one for him. He never had got over the immortality Jack had been lumbered with and, in many ways, Jack felt this disapproval had raised a certain barrier between them which he had been unable to quite push them past.

Although they didn't know why it was happening, the meaning was clear; Jack had to be left behind. Again.

At least he got to say goodbye this time at least, he reasoned, and he had extracted a promise from the Doctor to return for him some day if the problem was fixed. That was something to cling onto. It was all he had now.

He'd slowly moved away from the bright blue telephone box which had once been the happiest home he had ever known, every step backwards a real physical pain, and watched the Doctor and Martha leave. Jack didn't realise there were tears rolling down his face until a gust of wind stung his cheeks.

It was almost one month to the day since he had left Torchwood Three and yet everything looked much the same. The bay, the water tower, the Millenium Centre; even the concrete pavement. That was when a momentary terror struck him. Could he really just walk back into the Hub and expect everything and everyone to just pick up where they left off? When he hadn't even said so much as goodbye to them?

Hell he wasn't even sure if he wanted to go back. But where else was there for him to go? Jack really was right back where he started with nothing but the kindness of friends, or former friends, to anchor him to this transient earth he was stuck upon.

He took a deep breath and tread the few steads he needed to take, back towards the water tower, under the shadow of which the Doctor had been standing barely minutes before. The slab converted in a chameleon lift shifted to life with the flick of a switch on his control wristband and slowly he was taken down.

Toshiko was the first to enter the Hub. She nearly collided with him, as he had been standing by the door looking at the last remnant of the Doctor he had now; the severed hand in a jar. Agape, she stared for several seconds, then prodded him in the arm, expression wavering between hopeful and terrified.

'Miss me?' Jack offered.

'Jack?'

'The one and only. Uh, well nearly.' He chuckled and opened his arms. 'Am I a sight for sore eyes or what?'

All of her doubts crumbled and she leapt into his arms. He held her tightly, a thousand memories he had stupidly put aside returning to him and reminding him of all the reasons he should have missed her.

At once she was just a flurry of questions. He calmed her down as best he could, squeezed her shoulder, and just said that he'd been travelling but was back now.

'How long for?' she asked, with almost a hint of warning in her voice. 'For good?'

'Looks that way, doesn't it?' After all, there was no way to know if the Doctor would even come back for him in her lifetime. It was easy to say and even easier to believe.

Toshiko activated her earpiece and called for Owen and Gwen to come see, though she didn't tell them why. They were just as stunned as they arrived in the elevator leading down from the reception together. He had a moment with each of them and played the same game of deflecting questions.

Gwen wouldn't stop touching him, as if she was afraid he'd vanish again if she let go. At first patience allowed him to bear it. Then a warm feeling of homeliness began to settle and he wanted to hold onto her just as much; hold onto her and all of them and never let go. A funny sort of joy settled in his heart, which felt all the more strange because it was so entirely unexpected.

He really had worked hard not to miss them and to think only of his Doctor, even if his Doctor had not been quite what he was expecting. Now some spark deep inside had lit up in their presence; a subtle feeling of belonging he'd never really subscribed to before, perhaps because he hadn't wanted to. At once Jack was throwing around easy jests about being surprised Owen hadn't managed to blow up the earth during his time in command, fawning falsely over Toshiko's new laptop and flirting with Gwen outrageously because she loved that.

Slowly, a low pain in his belly, like a trapped nerve on a large scale, began to call his attention and rise through his body. He knew by the time it had reached his throat what it was.

Ianto. He wanted to see Ianto. Right then and there. Because of everybody, he had been the one he'd had to stop himself from remembering to miss the most. Thrusting ecstatically into somebody and collapsing in a heap of sweaty limbs with them, entangled in a wash of euphoria, night after night, tended to have that effect on him. It was always hard to let go of lovers. Even if he'd be the first to admit that Ianto had been a very distant, nay lost, feature in his mind when he had been journeying with the Doctor, however platonic that relationship was.

Jack made an excuse that he wanted to go and get some coffee, certain they'd understand the implication, and went for the lift to go to the reception desk. Gwen still refused to leave his side and ended up going with him.

The fake tourist office was empty, which surprised him more than he supposed it should have. 'Is Ianto not in today?' he asked, head half poking through the screen of beads leading out to his little private room just off to the side behind the front desk.

'I'm sorry, Jack?' Gwen asked, voice light and attentive.

'Where's Ianto today?'

Wide eyes, empty of any understanding, met his and she stared at him for a second. 'Ianto who?'

Jack frowned. 'Ianto Jones. About my height, very slim, beautifully Welsh, great lips, got an ass like an antigravity peach, makes great coffee?'

She laughed a little, though her expression remained uneasy. 'Um, I'm pretty sure nobody around here fits that description. Owen only wishes he was as tall as you.'

Her manner and body language disturbed him. She looked entirely serious; perplexed even. 'No really, where is he?'

'Honestly, I don't know who you're talking about. Um… Jack, what's wrong?'

A certain giddiness swept over him as he started to look through the papers underneath the desk. Although he wasn't quite sure what he was looking for, he found nothing vaguely indicative of Ianto. Since the desk computer was not on the Torchwood network, he went back to the lift with Gwen trailing behind, and returned to the Hub.

The first thing he did was ask Owen and Toshiko where Ianto was. They returned the same expression. He did an about turn and went to the computers.

There was no record of Ianto ever having been a Torchwood employee. Or ever having even existed. The three remaining members of what had been his team were watching him attack the computers as if he had lost a screw or two. But at that point in time he was somewhat more concerned with the possibility that somehow, as off the wall as it seemed, he might not be in the right dimension. Either that or somebody had been passing out Retcon in the water.

Clearly something was very wrong here.

'Toshiko, go through the computer with a fine tooth comb and see if you can find anything to do with Ianto Jones,' he ordered.

'Spelt with an "I" rather than a "Y", right?'

That she even had to ask that took him aback far more than it should have. 'Yeah.'

'Hey, hold up,' Owen was quick to butt in, 'I'm in charge here. You left.'

All it took was a raised eyebrow and a half smile and Owen was backing down. He rolled his eyes, arms crossed, and stepped back. There really was never any question.

Ever the whiz, Toshiko took all of a few minutes to come up with something. She had found a folder labelled "jonesrestore" tucked away in some obscure backup files, only suspect because it was nearly one gigabyte in size. However, in the best traditions of being difficult, it wouldn't open without a password. That none of their codes worked, including the override ones, told him that this wasn't a case of him having wound up in the wrong Torchwood. This had to be a case of somebody not wanting them to remember Ianto.

So he sent Toshiko and Gwen with Owen to get all of them tested for recent traces of retcon in their systems. While they did that, he went to his office, which had been kept absolutely immaculate he noticed, and got used to his old chair again. His fingers treaded the desk he had spent many a night slaving over, or slumped over, or fucking over depending on his mood, almost reverently. Funny what memories a mere knot in the wood grain could recall he discovered.

Unfortunately there was no time for any genuine reminiscing. He had a mystery on his hands. Already. His suspicions were leaning towards Ianto's disappearance being a deliberate deception on his part, although why he would have done such a thing, Jack couldn't fathom. All he could do was to follow the trail of breadcrumbs and hope to figure out what the hell was going on.

The big question was what he would find in his bottom drawer. He wasn't sure what he wanted to find. All he knew was, it would be vital.

Almost cautiously, he pulled it open. A gulp went down his throat.

That answered that question. So Ianto had to have left of his own accord. Jack couldn't imagine him leaving without the stopwatch he kept in that drawer; that had been a gift from him to Jack, and they had certainly found a lot of uses for it. Happy memories ticked inside that stopwatch. And if it had been still there, nestled in place amongst the silk ties, he would have known Ianto had not disappeared willingly. This confirmed to him that none of this had been an accident.

He touched the red silk bands, feeling inexplicably heavy in his heart. More fond memories claimed him for a few seconds. Then something brushed his fingers which was the wrong texture. There was a piece of folded paper, half hidden away in the smooth fabric. Jack lifted it up and opened it out.

It was a purchase receipt, specifically for one antique stopwatch, though what it was doing in his drawer he had no idea. Jack was somewhat surprised to see the price Ianto had paid. And even more surprised to see the name of the boutique it had been purchased from.

A STITCH IN TIME

Jack felt his blood run cold. It seemed a little too conspicuous be mere coincidence that Ianto had purchased their stopwatch from the very shop owned by Bilis Manger, timepiece collector through the ages and, oh yes, monster-raiser extraordinaire.

The trio returned with some very worried expressions. Owen confirmed they had all been given retcon at some point in the past three weeks. It wasn't entirely unexpected.

'Did you ever find out what happened to Bilis Manger?' he immediately questioned them.

'His shop hasn't opened once in the last month. We've been monitoring it,' Gwen answered for everyone. 'There has been no trace nor no sign of him. We've had to assume he's out of the picture, for now.'

Jack gave them a nod and led them all back to the computer. 'We need to crack this password.'

He practically lifted Toshiko into her seat and set her to work.

'Okay, it looks like it's a five digit password,' she discovered. 'Suggestions?'

All eyes turned to Jack, which made him frown.

'We have no idea who he is,' Owen reminded him with a shrug.

'Right. Well, uh… first of all, try his name.'

Neither "ianto" or "jones" worked.

Jack wracked his brain but came up with precious few words or digits he could associate with Ianto that were specifically five letters. Heck, he'd barely started to process of remembering their time together properly, since he'd spent plenty of time doing his best to forget. Nothing was coming easily to him anymore. 'Can you get the computer to try and crack it?' he asked.

'Well, possibly. I've read somewhere that a five digit password of lowercase letters yields a possibility of 11.9 million combinations, which sounds like a lot but it's really not. Should be able to do it in about twenty minutes, if he hasn't used any numbers, if I can find the right software online.'

'Great. Do it.'

She went straight to work, with all the eagerness that he remembered. It made him smile.

'Okay, Gwen, Owen, I'd like to do a little shopping. Fancy a trip out?'

They exchanged glances. He gave them a big grin. Jack loved it when he caught people off guard like that.

He drove them out to the shopping plaza. It was late afternoon so the crowds at least had died down. There were only a few hours to go before closing time. Not that it mattered with Bilis' shop, since it was locked up with the windows enclosed behind an ornate cast iron cage.

'Owen,' he directed him with a nod.

The message was immediately received and Owen moved in at the door, while Jack and Gwen used themselves as cover, to allow him to get to work unlocking it. It took him all of a few seconds. Together they slid inside and closed it up behind them.

Once the lightswitch had been found and the shop illuminated, Jack couldn't see anything particularly different compared to his last visit. Same old shop filled with impressive antique clocks, all pilfered throughout the ages and sold in the modern age for a tidy profit. The main difference, which hit them all straight away, was the smell.

Something reeked. Bad.

'Smells like something crawled in and died,' Gwen groaned, inhaling air through her sleeve.

Owen was quick to get his gun and followed his nose around the counter and into the room leading out behind it.

'Jack,' Toshiko's voice came through their earpieces.

'Tosh, how's it going?'

'Cracked it. It was a self-restoring backup file, filled with information about this employee we've forgotten, Ianto Jones. It's all just reinserting itself automatically into the database now. Impressive. He must have known his way around these systems incredibly well.'

'Good work, Tosh.' He was about to ask Gwen if she noticed anything out of place in the shop, when the headphone crackled again.

'One thing though, Jack.'

'Yeah?'

'The password. It was "faust", if that means anything to you?'

'Did you say, "faust"?'

Gwen gave him a worried look. 'I did that play in college. Isn't that the one about a man who makes a pact with Satan? He gives up his soul in exchange for all his heart's desires?'

Jack opened his mouth to affirm this but was beaten to it by Owen shouting for them.

They ran through to the back, guns at the ready.

The room was larger than would have been expected for a small shop, and very dank and dirty. Owen was standing beside the rocking chair at the centre of the room, illuminated under a bright bulb with no lampshade to dull its spotlight effect. Beside it was a small table, and in one corner there was an old mattress lying on the dirty chipped concrete floor. Other than that there appeared to be nothing else to see except the dry rot in the walls and darkness.

As they approached him, they realised they were wrong.

Wedged in the top of the table, standing up in the air at a diagonal from its embedded point, was an axe. Next to the axe was a hand; a severed hand, lying in a sticky looking pool of reddish gunk.

'Oh God,' Gwen gasped and turned away as if to throw up.

At least now they knew what the smell was. It didn't exactly look fresh.

'Owen,' Jack said, his voice dropped way down into his chest, 'put that in an evidence bag. I want to know who it belonged to.'

The Doctor of the operation pulled himself together to get out his rubber gloves and some bags. Carefully, he prised it from the mess of dried blood and wrapped it up tightly.

That done, they hurried back to the SUV and Owen fingerprinted it with the biometric reader on its integrated laptop. He sent a command for information through the computer database.

A match was found in mere seconds, one which made Jack feel weak and nauseous all over.

IANTO JONES

***

It felt somewhat perverse, all standing in silence around while Owen performed tests on the hand in the operating theatre.

Theatre was the right word. It felt just like that; in the round, onlookers watching with a mixture of disgust and fascination at the gory display below them.

Gwen and Toshiko were beginning to remember Ianto. That was a good start. Owen hadn't spent so much time on the computers so he was still operating from more or less a blank. That seemed like a good thing at that point. Jack thought that even Owen would have been a bit freaked out dissecting the hand of someone he knew to be a former friend.

'Like I guessed, tests confirm about three weeks worth of decomposition. Chopped off cleanly, with an axe, in case you missed that.' Owen shot Gwen a wane smile but it was unreturned. 'There are hints of felt tip at the cut too. So somebody marked out a line first. Charming.'

'Can you tell if he's still alive?' Jack asked. He managed to keep his voice strong and authoritative, knowing he had to hold it together to get to the bottom of this and not let the worry break him.

'Judging by the blood loss and the way the vessels are not too constricted it was definitely cut off whilst its owner was alive. There was blood at the scene but not enough for someone to have bled to death. Verdict? I'd say he's probably still alive.'

'Why…?' Toshiko began, and then gulped and had to take a breath. She looked really rattled and with good reason. 'Why would Bilis chop off Ianto's hand? What possible reason would he have to do that? And what was Ianto doing there in the first place? Why did he wipe our memories? I just don't… I don't understand.'

'Faust,' Gwen said and looked to Jack, meaningfully.

He knew what she was trying to tell to him with her eyes. Even if it did make him have to fight to keep the bile from rising to his throat. 'He made some sort of deal with Bilis and didn't want you to know about it. Obviously, things didn't work out for him.'

'No shit Sherlock,' Owen muttered under his breath.

'The question is, how do we find them?'

Only silence attempted a response to that question.

'What do you want me to do with this?' Owen asked, poking the hand. 'Want me to put it in a jar? Hey, we could put it next to Thing over there and have a matching set. Like bookends. One each side of the door.'

Jack glared in response went back to his office, leaving Gwen and Toshiko to tell him off for that one.

He noticed the large book on his desk immediately, as it was so obviously placed, exactly just so where he would be able to read it from his chair.

Something cold chilled his neck and his spun around, half expecting Bilis to leap out of the shadows at him. There was nothing. He wasn't sure if he had imagined it or not.

With very little else to do except take a look at what had been left for him, Jack circled around his desk and regarded it through narrowed eyes. It was certainly old, though not very time worn; a fact which convinced him that Bilis was definitely the culprit. On the front, in gold leaf monogram type, it stated "Photographs". Cautiously, he opened the cover.

Something hurt in his chest seeing the first photograph there; of him and the real Captain Jack Harkness. It was of the moment they had first met in 1941. Actually it was the first time he had encountered Bilis too.

There were other photographs of that night he hadn't seen before. Apparently Bilis had been taking snaps all evening. One or two, of him and the real Jack gazing across the halls at one another, really threatened him with tears. That had been a magical night, crossing through time to meet the real Captain Harkness and falling in love, even knowing that the man was destined to die the very next day. It felt like living through some strange sort of dream now. Real, yes, yet not quite believable.

Other photographs were of all the various couples dancing, the musicians playing and everybody having a beautiful night. Nothing too interesting.

However, at the side of a particularly poignant photograph of the moment he had danced with Captain Harkness to an old old tune, he found a note taped on with a line of immaculate handwritten ledger on it;

Hark! Another angel at the Ritz.

His eyes strayed to the side of the photograph beside the note. Someone there seemed out of place. He leaned in close, not quite believing his own eyes.

'Jack?'

Surprise made him leap out of his chair.

'Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you.'

Jack looked down at the photograph again and up at the man leaning against the wall, hands in his pockets, watching him, and the man in the picture watching him dance with Jack. There was no doubt.

'Ianto?'

'You're back.' Though he looked quite reserved, his eyes were sparkling with joy.

'So are you.' Jack looked at him, really looked at him, and felt a deep unease quiver in his stomach. Ianto looked pale and somehow more gaunt than normal. There were dark rings under his eyes which gave him a vaguely skeletal appearance.

Impulsively he lifted up the album and held it out to him, pointing at the photograph, questioning in his face. Ianto stepped forwards to take a closer look. 'I'm sorry Sir, what am I looking at?'

He pointed to the man in the suit standing just close by to the clarinet player, just shy of being cut off in the photograph.

'Oh,' he stepped back, looking a little guilty.

Jack put the album down and circled around the desk. Roughly he grabbed onto Ianto's forearms and yanked his hands out of his pockets.

Two hands.

Ianto tried to pull free of his grip but couldn't. 'Don't ask questions. Please don't ask questions,' he said, eyes growing dark for the untold secrets he was keeping.

'You made some kind of deal with Bilis. What was it? To go through time? To change the past? What, what was it? You were there in 1941, watching us…'

'Jack, you're hurting me,' Ianto gasped and nearly doubled over as Jack released his hold. He looked so frail Jack might have snapped him in two.

'You owe us an explanation. All of us. For a start, why did you retcon the others?'

'They'll remember me in time. It was… I didn't want them to worry. Or to know what I was doing. They would never have approved.'

'Damned right they wouldn't have. And you think I would have?' He didn't know quite what had transpired but he knew he didn't like it.

'No. But you weren't here.' All of the bitterness in Ianto betrayed itself with those words. 'Just gone. Not even so much as goodbye.'

The hurt in his face told Jack all he needed to know.

'You made a deal with Bilis because you wanted to find me.'

Ianto gave him a slight nod and turned away. 'It was the only way to get you back.' He made as if to walk away and Jack grabbed him, spinning him around in his arms.

'What have you done, Ianto? Tell me!'

'I can't,' he said, his voice breaking to nothing. 'You'll hate me.'

Something like a cold electric shock passed through Jack and suddenly Ianto was no longer in his arms. He had literally vanished in front of him.

'Why did Bilis give you this?'

He spun around. Ianto was now standing behind his desk, looking at the photo album. 'You… how did you do that?'

'I wasn't there specifically to watch you, by the way,' he continued, as if Jack hadn't asked him anything. 'I wanted to talk to the other Captain after you left. Thought he might know where you'd gone. Thought he might have had something to do with it. Or that you were planning to come back to him.' He looked to Jack with sad, shining eyes. 'He was nice. Heartbroken, you realise. Though lucky for him, everybody there thought you were some kind of angel from God or he might have been lynched. They were too shocked really take it in. I took him aside and we talked for a little while, him and I. Quite the reticent hero. Nothing like you.'

Jack wasn't quite sure how he felt about that; about Ianto being there, watching him, as he'd danced with his doomed namesake and shared a kiss so powerful it would live on in his memory for all time. He would never have given up that moment for anything, but the idea of it being seen by Ianto didn't sit at all easily with him. 'So you made a deal with Bilis, and he took you back to 1941?'

'No. That was more of a test run. Time travel with no ship is not as easy as he makes it look.'

'Ianto, look, I'm trying real hard here not to lose it but you've got to throw me a bone. Nothing about this makes any sense. For a start, what the hell is that hand we found?'

'Hand?'

'That hand, the severed hand, in Bilis' shop! The computers matched it to you.'

Ianto sat down in Jack's seat, looking conflicted. 'I suppose you might call that… the price?'

'I don't understand and I need to. Bilis could be dangerous. We need to know what we're dealing with.' The intimation that was left unsaid was that Ianto might be just as dangerous now.

'He… it's a long story.'

'I have a long time.' Jack circled around the desk, moved the book and sat back on it, waiting for an explanation.

'Bilis and I met some time ago. I bought the stopwatch from his shop. I didn't realise until I was tidying up and I found the receipt. He sought me out after you disappeared and offered to help me.'

'And you accepted him?!' Jack asked, in disbelief.

'No! Not at first. But the days went on, and I got worried. Anything could have happened to you and I… I'd never know. So I agreed. I didn't want the others to know so I wiped their memories and removed my files. I always intended to come back though. Once I'd made sure you'd return.'

'What was the deal? He'd help you in exchange for what? Not your hand. Still waiting on an explanation for that one by the way.'

'No. That was a little surprise he kept back from me.' He smiled but it was a grim smile. 'I didn't know he was going to do that.' Ianto sighed. 'I can't explain it, other than to just show you.' He put a hand on Jack's knee.

At once electricity jolted up his spine and caused an explosion of images in his mind: Ianto and Bilis drinking a shot of whiskey together; Ianto realising he had been drugged; waking up in the rocking chair, paralysed, Bilis standing over him with the axe in his hand; his wrist measured with tape and then line drawn slowly across it; the axe gleaming under the light; agony and blood…

Jack dragged the breath into his lungs, half on the verge of screaming, prevented only by the squeeze of Ianto's grip telling him he was safe and that the pain had not been his.

'I'm sorry, I'm sorry,' he was saying, 'I had no other way to show you it wasn't by choice. I thought he had tricked me but it turned out, that was part of the price for this… ability. Humans can't shift through time and space they way he does. Too mortal. Needed a little something extra.' He held his right hand up in the air and looked at it, flexing and moving his fingers.

Jack looked on, frowning. Then a jolt of realisation his him. He leapt off the desk and ran into the Hub.

The jar containing the Doctor's severed hand, which had been by the door not a moment ago, was no longer there. 'Shit,' he gasped, and went back into his office.

'How… it was there a minute ago?'

'One of the advantages of existing in no particular time is that you may use something long before you ever bother to go and steal it in the linear stream sense. I suppose Bilis only just got round to taking it.' He pulled his sleeve down, to display a thick pinkish scar all the way around just below the joint. Then put his hand down on the desk and it began to drum its fingers. 'It wasn't an easy union, believe me. We're not exactly compatible species and it can get a little… hyperactive. I don't exactly know the mechanics of what he did but I believe Bilis infused some of the energy which makes him immortal and able to shift through time into me. That's what made this transplant work. And I guess it's what gave me the same abilities he has. He had to teach me to use them though.'

Slowly Jack approached, aghast with both wonder and disgust. Ianto watched him closely, trying to gauge his reaction. He allowed him to take his hand, the hand that didn't really belong to him, and hold onto it, thoughtfully. Jack's thumbs stroked the soft skin on the back of it, and he stared in, noting the tiny difference in skin tone between it and the arm it was attached to. A tiny sigh escaped his lips and he had to reign his feelings in or else risk being over overwhelmed by them.

'I liked your old one,' he muttered, trying to raise a smile but finding himself unable to. 'Used to do nice things to me. Was a bit rougher to touch.' The hand wasn't a mismatch for Ianto really, aside from the different skin tones, which were hardly perceptible. Ianto and the Doctor he had known, they were both of a similar stature; tall, lean men, with the long fingers of a pianist. But he could tell the difference now that he knew.

'Sorry,' Ianto whispered.

'Why did Bilis do this?'

'He wanted the same thing I do…'

'I wanted you returned here. Back above the rift.'

Jack spun around, heart leaping to his throat at that dark, sinister, serpentine voice.

Bilis gave him a smile. He stepped forwards towards them. 'Well done Ianto. Your efforts have been rewarded. The sabotage must have worked. I am most impressed.'

Ianto snapped his hand back from Jack and backed away, looking incredibly worried and guilty.

'Sabotage?' Jack questioned.

'I'm so sorry. I… I'm sorry.'

Bilis chuckled. 'He caught up with your TARDIS and he sabotaged it while you were all away from it. It was to return to Cardiff, to this era, and to reject you absolutely.' He seemed to take great pleasure in annunciating every consonant and vowel he spoke, manipulating them the way he manipulated people.

Jack spun around to Ianto, his shock telling in his face.

'It was the only way and I… I wanted you back… so much. So much. And you weren't happy Jack. I know it. He's not the Doctor you knew. I feel him, through this hand. I feel how he felt about you and he… he didn't feel the way you wanted. You know that. You were unhappy. I know you were!'

Finally Jack understood why the hand had been such a necessity. The TARDIS would not have allowed such tampering otherwise. 'You…? No. No… Ianto, how could you do that?! You of all people know how long… how much I wanted to be there…!' He grabbed him by the lapels, not quite resisting the urge to shake him.

'Yes! And you would never have left! You would never have come back to me… to us.'

'It was my choice, damn you! You had no right!'

Ianto stilled all over and let the tears in his eyes fall to his cheeks. 'I told you you'd hate me,' he said. 'But I did because I love you. Even though you'll never look at me the way you looked at Captain Harkness, and you'll never want me the way you want the Doctor, I just… I wanted you back.'

'As did I.' Bilis managed to make that sound like somewhere between threat and come-on. 'I had no idea who you were before Mr. Jones filled me in. If only I had, I would have had no need to wake Abaddon from his slumber. Seems somewhat amusing now.'

Jack's attention naturally left Ianto and settled upon the slim, withered old gentlemen filling the entire office with his menacing presence alone. 'You set this up. You knew he wanted me back and you played him. Why? What do you want with me?'

'I knew you only as a traveller in time. But other than that, you were a blank slate to me. An enigma. I could not give you visions, as I did the others, as I could see nothing. If I had only known who you were, we could have avoided that entire mess.' The smile he was wearing like a mask would have seemed almost fond if it weren't for the terrifying sheen of blackness to his eyes. 'You had the power to destroy Abaddon,' he said, with real awe, 'you are the answer.'

'That depends on the question.'

'Ianto, my dear boy, run along. Make your apologies to your friends. They will just be returning from the pizza parlour in but a few moments.'

'Don't you dare,' Jack growled.

Ianto looked between them, uncertainly. In the end he stayed put.

'Now, Bilis, you're going to spill and you're going to do it fast. What do you want me for?'

The old man stared at him for a moment, smile beginning to fade, and began to pace back and forth, hands clasped behind him. 'Have you ever noticed how human beings worship what they cannot have? If mortal, we wish to be immortal and create no end of fantasies about life after death to that end. If immortal, we desire only to be mortal and as you should know, my dear Captain, everlasting life breeds a desire for death beyond imagination.'

'Spare me the bad prose.'

'Abaddon was, I believed, the only creature upon this earth with the power to end my life.'

'At the expense of the whole world?'

'If need be.' Bilis stopped directly before him, making direct eye contact, willing him to understand. 'You know the sting of immortality. I have lived for thousands upon thousands of years. There is no mystery and no joy and no excitement to be had any longer. All I seek is rest. I believe you have the power to give me that rest.' He moved one step closer. 'I want you to kill me. Here, above this rift, where I am vulnerable.'

Jack looked to Ianto, who gave him a gentle nod. He seemed he took this story as truth.

'What, that's what all this was about? You just want me to kill you?'

Bilis removed a handkerchief from the inside pocket of his jacket and delicately unwrapped it to reveal a pocket knife. This he handed to Jack with great reverence.

He stared into the old man's face for a long time frowning. 'How do I know this isn't some sort of trap?'

'A trap?' Bilis repeated, with a chuckle. 'If it is, I must say it would be a rather ill thought out one, seeing as it necessitates my injury. No, I promise you it is not a trap. You know it, that much is in your eyes. You know a little of my dilemma. I see the whole of history but I don't belong anywhere within it.'

A vague memory of him saying the same thing to him and Gwen when they had visited his shop drifted past.

'I am not evil. Not in the conventional sense as you would have it. Just as you will one day struggle to see these mortal beings as anything other than transient and unimportant, I suppose I have done things these days which I would have dreamed of when this curse was still new upon me.' He tutted to himself, straightening his cravat a little. 'However, it would be unfair of me to bore you with all of that. You, my saviour. My god.'

Jack straightened his back, standing tall above Bilis and looking down upon him, arms folded across his chest. 'Flattery will get you nowhere. Why should I help you?'

'Captain Harkness, do you imagine that I would walk away now? You have no idea of the terrors I could reign down upon the children you nestle in this underground cavern. Refuse me and I will not rest for seeking revenge.' The seriousness of his words were ended with a pleasant smile that would have unnerved Abaddon himself. 'It really is quite simple. End my life and this will all be over.'

For a long moment, all that could be heard was the sound of the floorboards creaking as Jack swayed a little on his feet, considering the request. Then he slowly turned to Ianto. 'Get out.'

He gave him a hurt look but it was quickly squashed for guilt as he made for the door.

'And don't come back.'

That made him turn around, shock in his eyes. 'You… you don't mean…?'

'I do. Don't come back ever. Go tell the others you're sorry for what you did to them. Then leave and don't you fucking dare show your face around here again,' Jack said through gritted teeth and blazing eyes.

Ianto looked gut punched. His jaw dropped a little and he gasped for breath. 'Jack…'

'Get out!'

'Okay. Okay, I'll go.' Ianto turned and staggered away, closing the door behind him. He stayed outside just long enough to hear Jack ask Bilis what was to happen next, and for Bilis to convey that only Jack had the power to bring about the death he craved.

Just as he had told Ianto.

He went down the steps a short way before slumping down on them, holding his head in his hands. Ianto had expected this reaction to some extent but he really hadn't known it would be so bad.

The Doctor's hand stroked his cheek and ran its fingers through his hair, trying to comfort him. It understood. It had helped him. They were not the same but they were still acting as one. The hand knew that it was love which had guided him, not sense and Ianto knew he had a history of that, considering just how blind he had been when he had tried to save Lisa. Apparently, he had fucked it up again. But at least he'd had a little help this time.

He wished so much that he could slip back in time and do something to prevent himself from ever making that deal with Bilis. Or even existing, period. But he knew the dangers of ever crossing into his own past, when he had been part of the linear timestream. It could cause the universe to unravel.

There was nothing to be done. Jack had cast him out and he had no choice but to go.

Laughter startled him and he got to his feet a little too hastily. His hands tingled for the rush and the Doctor's one jiggled and flexed itself in response. He had to fight to calm and control it.

Owen, Tosh and Gwen entered the Hub carrying pizzas. They stopped when they saw him.

'Ianto?' Toshiko asked, stepped forwards. 'You're Ianto, aren't you?'

He looked at them, finding it difficult to talk. 'I… I'm sorry I gave you retcon. It was… stupid of me and… and I had no right.'

Owen snorted. 'What's a little drug abuse between friends, eh?' He frowned. 'Hey, your hand… you've still got one.'

'What? Oh.' He looked down at his new one, fleetingly. 'That's a long story.'

'Well fine, but save it for later would you. Not exactly a mealtime topic of conversation. Now come on girls, my pizzas getting cold.'

He led the way over to the couch, plonking himself down and getting right to work on his food. Gwen and Tosh followed behind a little more tentatively.

Ianto staggered down the last few steps, wiping his face as an afterthought in case of any lingering tears. He followed along behind them. 'You ah… you all remember me now, then?'

'I don't,' Owen said, not even bothering to keep his mouth closed as he chewed.

'Owen,' Gwen chastised him. 'He's lying, he does. We all do. There are probably still a few holes but we know who you are.'

He nodded, looking more than a little lost. It felt more than a little awkward being amongst them all again.

'Uh, do you want some pizza?' Toshiko offered, sweetly. 'We got this extra one for Jack but if you don't tell him, we won't.'

'Oh. No, thanks. I don't think Jack would appreciate me eating his pizza. He wants me to leave. Forever.'

'Leave? Why?'

'Uh.' He knew the Doctor's hand was shaking a bit but he couldn't stop it. Sometimes it really did have a mind of its own and he had to just let it do what it wanted. 'It's not important.' Mainly because he had no idea as yet. 'But I wanted to say I'm sorry. And I'll miss you all.'

Gwen gave him a wide eyed stare and dropped her pizza down. 'Is something the matter Ianto?' she asked, rising to her feet and coming closer.

'No. I'm fine. I just have to…' Suddenly, pain struck him in the chest and he reeled back. It quickly bloomed into agony. He looked down and saw a circle of red spreading out on his white shirt. He pressed his hands over the wound and fell his knees. The word began swimming and his eyes rolled up into his head.

The last thing he heard was an explosion as the windows of Jack's office all burst out and a wave of energy spread out along the ceiling of the Hub like a shockwave. The last thing he saw was Gwen's face amongst a haze of grey.

Then he died.

*

'Anything?' Gwen put her hand on Jack's shoulder.

'Not from him. The hand still seems to be very much alive.' He cast his gaze over the body on the tray, hanging out of the morgue bay, utterly still except for one hand slowly stroking the other, fingers lightly moving back and forth almost lovingly.

'This all feels oddly familiar,' she commented.

'You kept vigil for me. Only seems fair I do the same for him.'

She gave him a long stare, not sure whether to bring a certain something up, yet not being able to quite push down the curiosity far enough in order to stay silent. 'He said you'd told him to leave. Forever.'

Jack's expression darkened for a moment. 'You never know what you have until you lose it,' he said, quietly.

'What happened to him, Jack? It was all so sudden.'

He shrugged. All he knew was, when he had stabbed Bilis in the stomach, and the old man had exploded into energy so powerful it had floored him and left him feeling weak, Ianto had died too. He concluded that Bilis had to have known that whatever he had done to Ianto would not last beyond the end of his existence. In fact he had a feeling that had been part of the plan; he'd made Ianto do his dirty work for him, corrupting his reason and using his love against him to make him bring Jack back to the rift. After that he had had no requirement for him.

Bilis had been, without a doubt, one hell of a sneaky bastard. Frankly he was overjoyed the guy was dead. He had been a menace.

He wasn't so happy Ianto had died too though. Not even his life-giving kisses were doing the trick this time, even if the reanimated hand seemed to like them.

'Do you really think he'll come back?' she asked, quietly, brushing her fingers through his hair.

'The hand can't die.' Not until the Doctor did, he presumed. 'Give it time, maybe it'll bring him back.' He had to hang onto that hope.

She smiled and nodded, understanding his need to at least try and wait all too well. 'I'll bring you down some food in an hour or so, okay?'

'Thanks.'

Gwen kissed him lightly on the cheek and left the morgue.

'Looks like it's just you and me again, Ianto. Well, not quite. You me and him, kind of.' He thought back to what Ianto had said; how he could feel the Doctor through his hand, including how he felt. What he'd said wasn't exactly news. Jack knew that the spark he'd had with the former Doctor hadn't been there with this new one. And Martha, though she was a sweet kid and great fun at times, she was no Rose. Nobody ever could be. Worse that that, even the mention of Rose's name would send the Doctor into dark moods he couldn't break through. He sighed, knowing it was time to admit it. He was glad to be back. 'Okay, you win. You were right, I wasn't happy there. It wasn't the home I remembered. Too much had changed. I always counted on him to be the one thing that would never be different; another timeless soul. He was my one constant in the universe. I wanted it all back. Him and her and me, all together, companions to the end. But I guess you can never recapture perfect moments again. And as for meeting Captain Harkness, well… that was another one of those moments. If I went back today, I have a feeling I would find out that it was all mood music, hero worship and guilt mixing together to make emotions run high. So I don't want to revisit that either. It would spoil it. Apparently I've learned a lesson through all of this.' Jack sighed and rested his head back against the doors he was leaning against. 'You never told me how you felt. I'm not saying it would have made a difference or anything, I still would have gone with him, but I'm just reminding you of that fact. I wish you had.' He moved forwards and stroked his hand through Ianto's hair. 'God I wish you had.'

His attention was drawn aside as the Doctor's hand stopped stroking Ianto's one and started tapping it instead, hard, all fingers pressed together to get some sound out of the action. Jack watched it, perplexed. It hadn't done that before.

'He'll fix it,' a croaking voice said, and Ianto opened his eyes a little.

Jack grabbed him by the shoulders, excitement blossoming in his chest. Ianto stared up at him, blinking.

'One day.'

'One day what?'

'One day he'll fix the TARDIS. I used his knowledge to sabotage it. He'll figure it out.'

'Oh.' Jack found himself chuckling. He stroked his cheek, unable to quite handle how happy he felt at that moment; almost as euphoric as he had used to feel resting in Ianto's arms after fucking him to the point of exhaustion.

'Just came back to tell you that,' he said, and closed his eyes.

'Hey! Hey, Ianto, don't you dare!'

Ianto came awake again and smiled.

'You bastard.' He couldn't quite say it with a straight face. The only expression he was able to make was that of elation, complete with enormous cheesy grin.

'Payback for you doing the same thing to us. Thank you for not freezing me, by the way. I don't fancy the idea of waking up with my gonads shrivelled up like dates.'

'You're welcome.' Jack leaned over and kissed him, willing a little bit more of his energy into his body.

'I knew there was a reason I went through all this,' Ianto said, and then looked up at him with sadness in his eyes. 'I know I don't compare to the other Captain Jack or the Doctor. I'm not a war hero or an exciting adventurer but…'

'Shhh.' Jack pressed his finger over his lips to stop him talking. 'Nor was Estelle. There are different kinds of love, and plenty of space in this heart for everybody, I promise you. Sure, I like the exciting impulsive kind of love but there's a lot to be said for familiarity, and for just knowing there's somebody waiting for you, who cares for you enough to do anything for you. It can be just as strong.'

'That's nice to hear.' He didn't sound all that enthusiastic.

''I do love you Ianto, in my own way. It's not the same but it's something.'

Ianto smiled and sighed. 'He's not entirely gone, you know. The Doctor I mean. He's right here. I have his thoughts and his memories swirling around inside my head sometimes. I feel it when he hurts, or laughs or cries. It echoes through the fabric of time. He's everywhere.' The hand came to rest over Jack's, on his collarbone. 'Actually, as strange as this may sound, I'm a little bit in love with him myself now. You might say I've grown quite attached... no pun intended.'

Jack smiled shifted his hand to rest over the Doctor's, and Ianto placed his own on top of his. Jack knew then that, even if the TARDIS did come back for him, he wasn't entirely sure he'd leave with it this time. Things had changed. He had changed. There was no way to recapture those special moments, and he had been a fool to try. All he could hope to do was create new ones. And he couldn't think of anyone he'd like to take along for that ride more that the sweet, caring man lying before him, looking at him as if he was the answer to the meaning of life.

'I guess this just leaves one important question, doesn't it?' Jack said, with some gravitas, purposefully breaking the mood a little.

'What's that?'

'Is he up for a threesome?'

They burst out laughing together, the hand wiggling a little beneath theirs either in protest or in excitement, he had no idea which.

'I'll put in a good word for you,' Ianto promised.

***