Title: Vulnerable
By: bittersweet
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Jack/Ianto
Summary: I found Jack's reactions in "Meat" completely insufficient. Ianto had a gun pointed at his neck! More emotion, please!
Anyway, I have now proceeded to do what I usually do in circumstances like this, which is write something that explains away anything that doesn't suit my own, very strict, personal worldview. Cue evil laugh, trailing lamely into silence...
Based on the line "You love him. That makes you vulnerable", which Jack says to Gwen about Rhys. Doesn't actually feature in story, but thats where the feeling of it comes from.
Disclaimer: Until the day (and it will come, oh yes, it will...) that I go on a killing spree in the BBC and claim all Torchwood for my own... they are free.

***

It wasn't that Ianto didn't notice. He saw how Gwen folded the instant Rhys was in danger, and how Jack kept to the plan even when Ianto had a gun pressed against his neck. He heard every word when Jack was finally forced to step forward and talk, he listened as Jack didn't mention negotiation or surrender but instead talked about the space-whale. When he worked his way free and wrestled the gun from his captor, was shot at with a gun that somehow had no bullets, he noticed that Jacks first words were orders to go after the gunmen. Afterwards he watched Jack argue with Gwen about retcon and quietly asked Owen to patch him up, because no one had realised he was bleeding.

Ianto noticed all these things, but he knew why Jack was like that… why Jack had to be like that. When the time came, Jack was a hero through and through. He was a wise-cracking, citizen-saving, indestructible, incorrigible, flirtatious, brash and loud American hero with a million dollar smile. And one of the unique features of heroes was that, for them, personal wasn't always the same as important. Jack saw the big picture. Jack did the right thing.

Ianto knew he wasn't a hero. When he took down the scum that had caused so much pain to the innocent creature, when he kicked the gun out of his hand and pressed the stun gun to his forehead, Ianto wasn't thinking about justice or duty or protecting innocent space-whales. He was thinking about the people he loved – Gwen, Tosh, Owen and Jack… always, Jack - and how if they got hurt he would tear these people to shreds. For him the people he loved came first, even before his own sense of right and wrong. That's how it had been with Lisa. He wanted to protect her even when she had murdered. He hadn't condoned or forgiven her action – he had just been unable to blame her, so he'd blamed himself instead.

Yes, Jack was a hero. It wasn't something you could learn, it was innate; a strange indefinable quality that set the heroes of the world apart, even if sometimes it wasn't recognised. It wasn't something Jack stop, or he would cease to be Jack. Ianto knew that sometimes, for Jack, the right thing to do came before the nice thing to do. He had a responsibility to more than himself, and often the people that loved him paid for it, in small but important ways. But that didn't matter – though it might hurt sometimes, he could take it. It was worth it.

That was why, when Gwen had left with Rhys and Owen was bickering with Tosh, Ianto slipped away and stood at the door to Jack's office. For a while he stared into his drink and fiddled with the button on his waistcoat. Finally, he plucked up the courage and went in.

He needed to tell Jack that he understood.

It never hit him until afterwards. During the missions he never felt the fear, the doubt, the horror, the panic that the thought of losing one of his team would usually bring. It was like he could just take all that and put it somewhere safe and out of the way for a while. It was a form of coping that had developed over many years. Years of loss, years of dying but never being free, years of waiting and wondering why. He became something else.

Owen and Ianto jokingly called it his "knight on a white charger mode", while Gwen would roll her eyes and say he was playing hero again. They only saw the righteous anger. They didn't see the other side. So many decisions made like this. Feeling nothing.

Not normally, anyway. But today he had. Just for the briefest moment, when he had caught Ianto's eyes as the young Welshman stood helpless but defiant with a gun at his neck, Jack had felt the terror. Then Rhys had been shot, and the emotions were gone, pushed away by adrenalin, self-righteous fury, the weight of responsibility and the knowledge he had an objective, a mission to complete.

It lasted right up until the moment Gwen charged back into the hub and refused to retcon Rhys. The devotion she showed broke down his defenses. He relented, wanting to get it over with, knowing what was coming as his mind processed everything that had happened that day.

When it finally hit he did what he always did – he retreated to his office to be alone. Every thought, every emotion came rushing through his mind, drowning him in guilt, grief and fear. If that shot had been just a little to the right Rhys would have been shot through the heart. If there had been a bullet in that gun Ianto would have died alone, lying on a cold floor in alien blood.

No one could know. He refused to let them see him like this. If they saw the weakness then it was all for nothing – they needed him to be invulnerable. So Jack stayed in there alone, loathing the heartless monster time and circumstance had turned him into.

That was why, when Ianto entered quietly and laid his hand on his shoulder, Jack collapsed against him and clung to him, sobbing a plea for forgiveness.

That was why, when Ianto held him close and murmured reassurance in his ear – "There is nothing to forgive, Jack. You did what you had to. I'm here now, Jack. Let me help" – he knew that if he ever lost the young Welshman the universe could go burn, because nothing and no-one had ever meant this much to him.

***