Corpses in the Rift Room.
Jack falls--rather, is shoved--through the Rift and into the Rift Room already dead. This is less a problem for him than it might be for others, but it's still inconvenient.
If anyone notices the corpse in the Rift Room, they're free to investigate.
If anyone notices the corpse in the Rift Room, they're free to investigate.
Ianto had been down in the Rift Room, monitoring a few things, making sure all was in check when the body of one Jack Harkness appeared. He thought, briefly, that he might be in need of sleep (but when wasn't he?), but upon closer inspection, he knew.
Rushing to the other's side, he allowed his clipboard and notes to fall to the ground, hand instantly reaching for a pulse.
"Jack?"
So, he was dead. But this wasn't something unusual, right? Well, he was hoping the Rift had decided to leave him be...
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Jack's eyes fly open when his heart starts beating, and at first all he can see is a symphony of lights and colors swimming across his vision. It doesn't quite clear, but it receds a bit, to the point where he can see--
He closes his eyes again. Tight. Tells himself he's experienceing a moment of post-death hallucinatatory trauma, because he can't have actually seen who he thought he saw.
Very, very cautiously, he opens one eye. The colors are still there, swimming lazily around the periphery of his sight, and so's the face.
And for a second--just a second, before reason sets in and crushes all hope--he lets himself be convinced. "...Ianto?"
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Ianto doesn't jump as life fills Jack once more, instead, he places one steady hand against the man's arm. He knew Jack would come back, but... somewhere, in the back of his mind, there was always that lingering possibility.
That solitary chance.
"Sir." His voice is quiet but confident. "Everything all right?"
He removes his hand briefly from the other's arm and instead fidgets with his tie (blue silk today!), as if considering something, before his hand goes right back to the man's arm once more.
Be it emotional or physical, take your pick, Jack.
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The voice is great. Just right. And the hand on his arm is a nice touch.
It's just that none of this is technically possible, unless the great forces who've been orchestrating his life for the past few months have decided that seduction would be a nice change from all the threats and grandstanding.
He exhales. Everything's not all right. But for a moment, before he has to get up and break out and go back to the good fight, he can let himself imagine. "It would be."
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It was almost as if the Captain didn't quite believe that even he, himself, had not just sprung into the land of the living once more.
A small, almost cryptic smile, in his fashion, "Well, everything seems to be in tact," he stands slowly, offering his hand down to the man. "Once we get you out of here, I can explain all you need me, too. Perhaps get you a cup of coffee or two?"
The smile might brighten, only slightly.
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After a minute, when he's convinced that this is, if not Ianto, at least a very good facsimily, he lets himself exhale. "Ianto?"
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It's not something he's really used to, but the touch is a good thing, definitely. How much of this he will admit, though, is really up in the air.
"Yes, Jack?" The name feels strange to his lips, but he knows this could prove that this was not a dream at all. He might falter beneath the man's touch, as it is very different, but he won't pull away. Not yet.
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These are good things. These are wonderful, amazing, gift-from-God things. But the last godlike things Jack's talked to were in a less than gift-giving mood, and so this is all ringing very, very wrong.
"How--" he starts, unwilling to let go. Part of him thinks he shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, and part of him thinks he'll damn well look it in the mouth if he has any reason to suspect it's transporting a dirty bomb in there. Whether it knows it or not. "How are you here?"
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Ianto laughs it off and looks up to the other man, "It might be best if we go settle in the common room when I tell you? It would be more comfortable at least."
He still does not pull from the touch, even though his smile might be slowly fading to a smirk. "And I was certain we'd already discussed sexual harassment, sir." It's light, jesting, because he can almost feel something still bothering the other male.
Heaving a soft sigh, he starts to move towards the entrance of the room. Even if that means pulling Jack along with him, his hands atop the other's, on his face or not.
"It's a Rift. I came through that Rift just as you did, sir."
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Yeah, it was one of their jokes. It was an old one. Outdated. Obsolete.
He stops in his tracks, hands dropping to his sides and forming loose fists. "Ianto, stop." Because if there's one thing he knows, it's that one doesn't have to have all--or any--of the answers in order to take charge and hopefully weasel some answers out of people. "...something's not right here."
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"I'm trying to explain. This is a rift that has developed in North America-- Chicago, to be exact. It's a different time, in some sense, different place altogether. Not like Cardiff at all."
Ianto's expression drops the upbeat look it had and his voice goes back to the mechanical, informative tone he'd become so accustomed to both at the Hotel and early on in his job. He does not like it here at all, feeling trapped, surrounded by nothing but trivial tasks. But he's surviving.
"It's not right at all, and we're working on fixing it. Though that could take a considerably large amount of time."
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Ianto is more than little confused now, and while it isn't showing on his face, it is in his eyes. Along with it, though, is a hint of concern.
"As neither should you."
Unless Jack decided to drop in and bring them all back to Torchwood Three, but he highly doubts that.
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Have been dead for over a year, he doesn't say, because there are some things you just don't say.
"You're not supposed to be here," he says. "And if you're here... then there's some reason you're here."
And that's a horrible thought.
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Daring to take one step closer to Jack, he sighs. He might have an idea as to what is happening, but if he does, he does not want to know why Jack is acting the way he is. What events have lead to this confusion and questioning.
"This rift is, in some sense, like ours. Yet, there is a twist to it--- not do people slip through from different times, but also from different universes, different forms of the time we believe ourselves exist in."
Or so that what they've figured out so far, anyway. He's still looking into the finer details of it all.
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Different points in time. He could've guessed that one, but different universes. Different universes.
Things are always too good to be true.
"Is that what's happened, then?" He tries to readopt a casual attitude. Folds his arms across his chest. "So, there's the possibility--"
We're not from the same place. Neither of us is the one the other knows. You're not actually--
He quirks his lips up into a faint mockery of a smile. "Well, this is weird."
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