Title: Through A Glass, Darkly
Author: masterofmidgets
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Why would I want it? RTD is already doing everything I would do and then some!
Spoilers: Post-Cyberwoman, pre-End of Days.
A/N: So, this was supposed to be a five-page paper about how Dante's relationship to Virgil is allegorical for man's relationship to God. Yeah. Clearly I am far too easily distracted. But this popped into my head and wouldn't go away, so here we are. Also, the quantum mirror totally comes from Stargate:SG1. Just so you know.
Summary: "It's amazing. Like being able to look in and see all the people you could have been if you'd done things differently, all the mistakes you never made..."

***

"So then I said 'I don't know what they told you about human anatomy, but the tentacles are going to be a problem' – and want to tell me what the mirror's for?"

Owen was the only one who bothered to look up, giving Jack and Ianto a cursory glance before returning his attention to the mirror standing in the middle of the Hub; Gwen and Tosh made small sounds of acknowledgment but didn't turn from the mirror's shifting surface.

"It was here when I got back from lunch," Owen said. "The Rift must have tossed it out. But you have to see this, sir, it's – well, it's right spooky, actually, but it's still bloody brilliant."

"Which is well and good, but what is it doing?" Jack asked. Stepping closer, he found himself reassessing whether the artifact was actually a mirror; it certainly looked like one – human-height, a few feet across, set into a heavy, freestanding, oval frame – but the surface had a strangely dark, oily sheen, and a few times he caught flashes of movement from the supposed reflections when everyone was still.

"It's us," Tosh whispered, and Jack could hear the awe in her voice.

"Sort of," Owen broke in. "When I first looked in it, I thought it was showing the future, right, cause I could see some new bits of tech in the Hub and my reflection was wearing a shirt I've been thinking about buying. But then it kept changing – mostly it's us, but we're different each time, and sometimes everything's gone and the Hub's a Weevil den. So now we're thinking it's showing alternate dimensions."

"Well that's wonderful," Jack drawled. "I don't suppose any of you thought to run any tests on this thing before you sat down to ogle yourselves?"

Tosh nodded toward the small black box and laptop sitting at her feet. "All the standard analysis, sir. We can't get a reading on the material the mirror's made of, except that it's producing its own energy, possibly acting as some kind of self-contained battery. And it really does seem to be showing alternate dimensions – the people on the other side can see us, but we can't get through, and we can't hear each other. There's nothing we can do with it, sir, so why not watch?"

"It's amazing. Like being able to look in and see all the people you could have been if you'd done things differently, all the mistakes you never made…" Gwen added.

"And sometimes it's just a bit odd. Remember the one where we were all blue?"

"I liked the one where someone had gone through and done the Hub in pastels and lace. We looked like we were working in a tea shop."

"No, what about the one where Jack started hitting on you through the mirror?"

At that, Jack threw his hands up in despair of being the responsible leader who made his team treat the mirror as a potential threat. Laughing, he pulled another chair up.

"C'mon ladies, make room, I want to watch the show too. Are you joining us, Ianto? We could count how many of my doubles are feeling up yours…"

Ianto shook his head, a wistful smile on his lips. "Maybe later, sir. Unlike some people, I still have work to do today, and the files won't organize themselves. Would you like me to order take-out later and bring it down?"

Jack nodded absently; he had just caught a glimpse of himself in civilian clothes, taking orders from a tall, severe woman in a suit, and he leaned in for a closer look.

It was late. Jack couldn't see the face of the clock on his nightstand to know what time it was, but he knew it had been quite a few hours since he'd finally managed to chase the others away from the mirror and out of the Hub, left Ianto with orders to lock up and go home, and gone to bed. Not to sleep, of course, but it was nice to have some quiet time to think about what the mirror had shown them.

Jack knew the others had seen it as little more than a curiosity, and he couldn't deny that it was fascinating to watch. In the hours they had sat and watched, he had seen himself with a dozen different haircuts and outfits, as the de facto head of a gone-public Torchwood and a minor cog in a vast bureaucratic institution, married to Gwen or flirting with Owen or sleeping with strangers. In one reality they'd had two heads each; in another the place was nothing but a tourist attraction, all the aliens and monsters cybernetic.

Some of the realities had been dark, though. Owen, Gwen, and Tosh hadn't paid them much mind, too eager to see what they looked like and who they were snogging in the next universe, but they had been there, and Jack took note. Worlds where the Hub was an alien stronghold after a successful invasion. Worlds where they were dead, or enslaved, or tortured without cease by any number of alien species. Worlds where none of them had joined Torchwood, or had all gone the way of Suzie, or just been too sloppy or too slow in a fight. Worlds where they had failed.

He had to wonder what the point was. If the mirror really showed alternate versions of the present, then the choices that made each one different had already been made; the mirror didn't give them the power to change anything. Even the good realities, as amusing as they were to watch, left a lingering trace of regret in their wake – Jack was sure his team was lying awake tonight, thinking about the bad choices they'd made, now that they'd had an opportunity to see what might have happened if they'd made the right ones.

Sighing, Jack pushed himself to his feet. The mirror had been a nice diversion for an afternoon when they didn't have anything better to do, but it wouldn't do to leave it lying around any longer; it would be much safer for everyone if he locked it away in his office where it belonged.

When he climbed up into the Hub, Jack was surprised to find it dimly lit, Owen's small desk lamp casting a small pool of yellow light and throwing the rest of the room into shadows. And in middle of this light was the mirror, and Ianto, who had pulled his chair so close his nose almost touched the dark glass.

"Ianto – have you been here all night?" At Jack's soft question, the younger man jumped, scrambling guiltily to his feet.

"Yes, sir. I'm sorry, sir. I'll – I'll be going, sir," he stammered.

"Now hold it." Jack grabbed his arm. "You don't need to run off like that. You didn't do anything wrong. But you could've just watched with the rest of us, you know."

"No, I couldn't, sir," he said softly, and Jack noticed for the first time that Ianto's face was pale and his eyes very dark.

"Lisa." He tried to make it a question, but couldn't, quite, when he already knew the answer.

Ianto sagged against him, and Jack guided him hastily back into the chair, where he sat slumped, head in hands.

"I just wanted to see her. I thought – if these alternate timelines are real places, then even if she's gone here, if I could find one world, just one, where she'd lived, where we were happy, that would make it better. Somehow."

Jack allowed his hand to linger on the back of Ianto's neck, thumb moving in light, reassuring strokes. "And what did you see, Ianto?"

"In 117 timelines she was executed by Torchwood after she tried to kill us," he recited woodenly. "In seventy-eight I refused to leave her and you killed us both. In fifty-seven, I never found her after Canary Wharf, and she died in the rubble. In twenty-four I killed her myself when I saw what she'd become. And in the rest I stopped you, kept you from killing her, and…and there's no one left alive in those timelines. No one but the Cybermen."

"How can you know that?" Jack challenged. "The mirror doesn't show that much, only a few seconds of whatever happens to be going on at the time, not enough for you to know what happened to her in every world."

"Does it matter?" Ianto replied, voice breaking. "I know, Jack! All those worlds, infinite possibilities for how our lives could have gone, and still I can never be with her. Every world I met her was a world that she died…and there was never anything I could do to save her…"

Jack knelt down and cupped Ianto's face in his hand, forcing the younger man's eyes to meet his own. "Ianto – look at me, Ianto. What did you just say?"

Ianto struggled against his grip, but Jack refused to let go, in fact added another hand, this one resting solidly on Ianto's thigh. "Damnit, Jack, let me go – why do you want to hear it again? I couldn't save her, I never saved her, there wasn't anything I could do…"

"Exactly. There was nothing. You. Could. Do. She was lost from the moment the Cybermen invaded. You did the best you could, and it wasn't enough, because nothing could have been enough. You didn't fail her." Jack sighed, shifting slightly, and the grip on Ianto's chin became a caress. "You have to stop blaming yourself for Lisa. You're only making it hurt worse, you know."

"Maybe I deserve to hurt," Ianto said, but most of the bite had gone out of his words, and Jack knew he was winning the argument, for tonight at least.

"Come back downstairs with me?" he asked, leaning close to whisper the words into Ianto's ear. "Easier not to think about the bad memories when you have another warm body to help you forget."

He allowed the words to trail off into a kiss, lips pressed light against Ianto's cheek, and heard the sharp intake of breath before Ianto relaxed into it, turning his head until their lips met. When he deepened the kiss, Ianto didn't resist, opening his mouth for Jack's tongue to slip inside; when he stood to leave, one hand already moving to loosen Ianto's tie while the other went to work on his belt, Ianto followed.

***