the final word in the final sentence you ever uttered to me was love ;;
Everything changes the first time Ianto descends to the installation under the Thames, but it takes days for the realization to occur, at last: this isn’t Cardiff anymore. This is not Captain Jack Harkness’s renegade outpost of half a dozen people and the odd weevil. There are people everywhere and all the time, filled with manic purpose like a colony of ants preparing for winter.
He sidesteps office assistants on Segways ten times a day and still brews his own coffee out of habit, although he no longer has anyone to take it to. People call him ‘Mr. Jones’ and ‘sir’ and hand him reports and important things to sign. The rebuilding process will be gradual, he knows, but is still taken aback by how far it has come already.
There are twelve of them in all, scavenged from all ends of the Kingdom, former Torchwood One employees who were scattered after Canary Wharf. Once retconned by Harkness, their memories triggered for service to Queen and country, charged with restoring the Institute to its former glory. Ianto leads them and keeps in mind everything Jack taught him, as he said he would.
Her Majesty’s intentions are apparent: this is a matter of all due haste.
--
The world turns upside down again one day that feels ordinary until he goes home and finds the beeping blue device. A call to Cardiff confirms it - not that he expected any less (or maybe more). Ianto puts it in his pocket after the message is finished and keeps it there after that. Sometimes he sits in his office - so different than the office he’s used to - and takes it out, turns it over in his hands.
But he doesn’t try to activate it again, doesn’t even know if he can. The words are ingrained in his memory, now, the tale of the broken Captain and the Doctor he believes can fix it, I love you and a promise to return.
Ianto throws himself into his work, tries to stay too busy thinking ahead to consider the things he’s left behind.