BAMSR (2/4)
Title: Be All My Sins Remembered (2/4)
Author: nancybrown
Artist: rexluscus
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Gwen, Rhys, Martha, Lois, Johnson, Mickey, OCs
Warnings: poor understanding of time travel, even poorer understanding of 40s era British military systems, angst, character death
Rating: R
Word Count: 27,500 (7100 this part)
Beta(s): queenfanfiction audienced this, while wynkat1313 and fide_et_spe both kicked it into shape, and you have them to thank if it makes any kind of coherent sense
Spoilers: up through CoE (characters only)
Chapter One
***
Chapter Two
***
As soon as they arrived at the Hub, Martha and Gwen made a beeline for the Ladies'. Martha had known at the time that her last cup of coffee had been a bad idea, but at least she made it to the loo. Once upon a time, back before UNIT's enforced lack of privacy in the stalls, even before the frankly Victorian plumbing in the TARDIS, Martha had been one to chat in the Ladies', usually with her mum or Tish. Leo and Dad would give them all this look, and Leo would ask what they chatted about in there while Dad threw his hands into the air and said he didn't want to know.
Now she'd learned to ignore the other people in the room with her and offer the kind of solitude that only came with massive pretence. So when she exited her stall to wash her hands, she hadn't even heard Gwen finish up, to stare at her own reflection in the dark-spotted mirror.
"Gwen? You okay?"
"Fine. I'm fine." She ran a hand through her hair absently. "I'm just late."
Martha smiled. "Oh, it's not like they'd start the meeting without us." Gwen's eyes met hers in the mirror, and Martha felt a shock. "Or, you mean late late?"
Gwen nodded.
Her studies kicked into gear, as Martha rapidly processed gestational stages, prenatal care, and exposure and other risks to maternal and foetal health. "How late? Approximately?"
"Two weeks." Gwen sat down miserably on the room's tiny sofa, a threadbare and sprung artefact from before the days of ibuprofen. Martha sat down beside her.
"How regular is your cycle normally?"
"Not perfect, but regular. I'm on the Pill."
"Have you missed any?" The questions were easy. Martha hadn't specialised in Obstetrics for various reasons, but she had the training. The gears in her head kept turning, even as she noted Gwen's responses.
"Not that I know of, but I don't always take them at the same time."
Martha opened her mouth for standard warning about effectiveness, but stopped, considering where they both worked. She settled on a reassuring smile instead. "I don't have any tests in stock. Have you taken one yet?"
"No." Gwen let out a breath. She looked away, and Martha could see the tears edging her eyes. "There are strict rules about children in Torchwood. I'd have to leave. I don't … I can't leave." She looked back at Martha. "You don't just leave this place."
"No." Martha took her hand. "I'm not going to tell you what to do, but I can tell you what ought to happen first. I've got the physical forms ready, and you just moved to the top of the list. We'll do a blood test, and we'll know for sure."
Gwen closed her eyes. "And if it's positive?"
"Then you're going to have some decisions to make. And so is Jack."
Her eyes snapped open. "What? No, it's not his. It's really not." The quiet regret in her voice said more than her words. Martha could recognise a wistful never-been quite readily, thank you. She swore quietly in the name of everyone who'd ever fancied someone who was smitten with someone else more.
"I didn't mean that. Jack makes the rules here. He bends them all the time, and I know of at least two occasions where he broke them properly and then wrote new ones. He'll find a way to make it all right for you to stay, you'll see."
Gwen didn't look convinced, but she did look happier. Impulsively, she hugged Martha, and together, they went to the conference room.
As they entered, Jack said, "About time you two made it back from No Man's Land."
Johnson snorted, not looking up from the device she was working on with Ianto. Lois had packets out at everyone's places already as Martha and Gwen both sat.
Jack continued, "Admit it. You were in there talking about me."
Martha said to Ianto, "I honestly don't know how the three of you fit in the bed."
Ianto's face went very still. "Pardon?"
"You, Jack and Jack's ego. Seems a bit of a crowd."
As the others laughed, and Jack fake-scowled, Gwen met Martha's eyes with a grateful look. No-one was asking what they'd talked about now, and that was for the best.
Lois cleared her throat. "The Rift refugees we picked up are at the safe house, as per procedure." She looked at Ianto, who nodded and took over from her.
Martha had noticed how much Lois hated to speak in front of the team. She'd come from the school that frowned upon putting herself forward. Martha could not resist an inward smile at memories of her mum's opinion about that school, an opinion which she'd shared with her daughters. Lois was going to have to learn it the hard way. Gwen might be able to help, but Gwen's attention was a million miles away right now.
"We debriefed them upon arrival. Four members of the British Army, from the end of the second war." Ianto directed this to Jack. "They're disorientated, but they're also not sure this isn't some German trick, so they only gave us the most basic information about themselves."
Martha glanced down at the packet in front of her: names, dates, ranks. Maybe Jack could make more sense of them. He'd lived through that time period more than once, although she understood the new recruits weren't necessarily privy to that particular tidbit of information.
"One of them knew about the Rift." Ianto pointed at the first name on the list on Jack's sheet. "Lance-Sergeant Harrison."
The smallest shudder went through Jack's body as his eyes scanned the paper. Martha noticed, saw the sudden concern on Gwen's face as she returned her focus to the matter at hand. As soon as it had appeared, the crack in Jack's façade vanished behind a wall. Johnson and Lois probably hadn't even noticed.
In a jovial voice that fooled no-one but himself, Jack said, "I'm familiar with this group. We'll be using Protocol B. They'll be returning to their home time soon." He took in Ianto and Lois both, as the former sat back, his own concern badly masked. "You two can continue to be their contacts. Keep them at the house, don't let them go wandering or seeing anything they shouldn't. As it is, we'll probably have to dose them with Retcon before they go home."
Jack stood up, signalling the end of the meeting. "Someone make a note about the Tower block. Otherwise, back to work, people." And he left them sitting there.
Johnson broke the silence first. "Is he often like this?"
Gwen and Ianto shared a look, but neither answered.
***
Ianto tapped on the doorframe at Jack's office.
Not looking up from the paperwork on his desk, and more pointedly not actually doing anything with that paperwork, Jack asked, "Did you lose the coin toss or did everyone just outvote you?"
"Straws, actually. I suspect Johnson rigged the short one." He let himself inside and carefully took a seat across from Jack. He kept his body language neutral, open enough to listen, closed enough to point out that fooling around right now would not be appropriate. "How did the wild goose chase to London go?"
"Four hours of listening to people complaining about how I drive."
"It's normally a six hour round trip."
"Exactly! You'd think they'd be glad to have two hours of their lives back." Jack didn't meet his eyes, everything about his stance shuttered tight despite the joking words.
Ianto kept his own voice calm, watched Jack for clues. "The processing went fine. We'll want to retrieve the vehicle after dark tonight, and unless you think they'll need it soon, I can store it in one of the off-site locations."
Nothing.
Ianto went on. "I did some preliminary records searches when we returned, to verify the little they told us. Dates of birth, marriages, de … "
"Stop." Jack's face was frozen. Ianto didn't want to push, never wanted to hurt him, and yet.
"It's Tommy all over again, then. Or Michael." Men out of time, loved and then lost to the past: just another hazard of life on the Rift. Ianto was getting used to meeting Jack's exes. He aimed for a safer topic. "Do you know if there's something specific they have to accomplish before they go back?"
"No." The sound was pulled from somewhere distant, another planet, one orbiting in whatever time Jack was visiting in his memories. "I didn't know." He blinked, and finally he looked at Ianto. "I never knew about this."
Three of the four men would be dead shortly after they returned, and that was history, not to be unwritten. The fourth died twenty years ago.
Ianto said the only thing he could. "I'm sorry."
"Don't."
He sighed. "If you want me to be the one who deals with them, I will. Timeline contamination is the last thing we need, and of course, they'll require a long explanation if they see you." Privately, Ianto had already come up with a cover story, that Jack had fallen through the Rift at a later date, but landed earlier. The Lance-Sergeant would probably fall for the tale, and he could persuade the others. "I'll have Lois keep an eye on the Rift predictor. Perhaps we can figure out when they're leaving and shoo them through at the right time." He attempted a lighter note to see if that helped, but Jack was away again, and there was no help for it.
Ianto stood up. "I'll start making the arrangements." He'd also bring Martha with him when he went back to the safe house so she could check them for ailments, physical or otherwise. Normally, Jack would have given that order, but Jack wasn't in the here and now currently, and it was Ianto's job to make up for the gaps.
As he reached the door, Jack said, "Ianto?" He turned. "See if they need anything. Whatever they want, as long as it doesn't destroy the space-time continuum, let them have it. You can use my personal account."
Jack's face was still a mask, but an emotion burned quietly through the words.
Ianto nodded, and went to work.
***
Gwen turned the key in the door as the clock went seven. Not a bad day, she considered, even with the mad dash to London and back. Rhys was on the sofa. He gave her a wave and a smile as she slipped off her shoes. The carpet in the house was brand new, and they were trying to keep it looking that way for as long as they could.
While she tidied away her handbag and jacket, Rhys dished them up plates. Gwen took a long look at the greasy sausages and watery mash while Rhys tucked in happily.
"Not hungry?" he asked, three bites later, when she'd finally taken a very small nibble that threatened to come back up.
"Late lunch." As lies went, this one was kind and not harmful, she told herself. "Ianto ordered from that place that gives all the extra papadums." Less of a lie: he had in fact placed an order, but it was for the Rift refugees that Jack was refusing to see. The boss's past kept catching up with him, didn't it? She sighed, and pushed her plate away. "Sorry."
Rhys grabbed the plate and tipped her sausages onto his own. "I missed lunch today. So that balances out."
As he ate, she tried picturing him with a baby. There'd be room for a high chair at that side of the table, and Rhys could cut up the sausages into tiny bites and make swooshing noises to get the baby to laugh and open wide. Gwen herself would be trying not to laugh at him as she …
She frowned. While Rhys was easy to imagine with a child, she couldn't picture her own life containing someone tiny and new. Whatever Martha said, Jack would seriously have to consider letting her (or forcing her to) leave, and Gwen could no longer fathom a life without Torchwood. That's what it did to people: no pensions, no walking out alive.
Once when she and Ianto had been alone on a bad mission together, before he'd broken his arm and Jack had finally agreed to the new recruits, he'd confided that he was keeping a countdown. If he made it to his thirtieth birthday, he was handing in his resignation, and he was going to go off and start a normal life on a farm somewhere up north, raising unicorns. The mission ended with five civilians dead, and she'd gone home to have a good cry, and after, she'd called him to say that if he did, she'd quit too, and buy the land next door, and learn to spin straw into gold.
She'd have to go, and she couldn't go, and there were no answers.
"Hey, you okay?" Rhys set down his fork and took her hand.
She realised she was weeping, very slowly, and she brushed away the tears with her free hand. "Yeah. Sorry. Um. Was thinking about something sad." She offered him a smile she didn't feel.
"Anything I can do?"
"You can be wonderful, Rhys Williams."
"You're right, that I can do." He got up from his chair and pulled her into a hug, and Gwen held onto him like a life preserver, like the most important thing in her world.
***
In the end, it had been easier to have the men help him move the broken lorry onto the flatbed of the rental. Ianto liked and respected his co-workers, but Jack was staying clear, and it would take the combined efforts of all the rest to lift the ruin. He decided that a little time spent on the streets, and a little more loading the broken thing into the warehouse, wasn't going to contaminate the timeline any more than the rest that the men had already seen. He did ask them to change from their uniforms into the spare clothing kept at the safe house. ("People wear this?" "Not people with taste, but yes.") No use attracting extra attention.
Besides, this gave him the chance to figure out which one was Jack's ex. He allowed himself to consider the notion that the answer was "all four," but he'd settle for narrowing things down to a single face based on which of them most closely fit Jack's type.
The problem was that Jack's type was "alive and interested."
Harrison was his first guess, and the natural one. He was good-looking in a slightly pretty way, easy around everyone, and a bit flirtatious. Lance-Corporal Lawrence wasn't as attractive as Harrison but he seemed to be a decent bloke, ready for a good time. On the other side, Cpl. Fletcher had a quiet, bookish shyness behind his round spectacles that Jack would find kinky to unravel. Cpl. Stibbs still hadn't quite come out of his shocky state, instead followed along wherever Harrison and Lawrence told him; Martha had said it was to be expected, told Ianto what to look for, and had otherwise pronounced all four of them in good health. Then she'd gone home and Ianto had hit upon his plan to move the half-lorry.
As he shut and locked the warehouse, Ianto took another look at the soldiers. This was probably not his best idea ever, and it was technically against orders, but there was a tradition at stake for when men finished a task requiring manly strength and other things that indicated incipient testosterone poisoning.
"Before we go back, would the four of you fancy a pint down the pub?"
"Is the White Hart still there?" Harrison asked hopefully.
Ianto nodded. "Last I checked." He hadn't been in ages, but it was still open for business.
Twenty minutes later, they had a table and five glasses of Brains. The other patrons didn't give them a second glance. Harrison seemed completely at home lounging in his seat, and even Stibbs was finally winding down, coming to grips with where he was and that this wasn't some weird German plan.
"Where are you boys from?" Ianto gestured at Harrison. "I keep hearing a local accent from you." It wasn't consistent, which Ianto found odd.
Harrison smiled. "Born and raised here, yeah, but we moved to London when I was a boy." He turned his head. "Newport lad?"
Ianto nodded. "Good ear." So he was from around here. Cardiff natives didn't necessarily know about the Rift, but they weren't as oblivious as Torchwood liked to pretend. Sometimes people heard things, knew someone, and back in the day, Torchwood hadn't any means to make them forget it.
Fletcher and Stibbs were both from Cornwall. Lawrence hailed from Manchester, which was no surprise from his accent.
They made small talk for a while, watching the people around them. Two men walked into the pub together, clearly a couple. Ianto tensed. Not everyone even in this time was enlightened on certain subjects, and if something bad went down, it wouldn't be the first time he'd stepped in to put a fast end to a fight. But he wanted a quiet night and he hoped no-one acted like an arse.
Fortunately, the other patrons ignored them and the soldiers barely gave them a second glance, another sign they'd met Jack at some point. Harrison took a longer look. "That's a bit Torchwood, eh?"
Ianto was very proud of himself for stopping his own look of shock cold, instead taking a casual drink from his pint. "The language has changed since your time. The word now is 'flaming,' and it's considered a bit rude."
"Oh, we had that word as well," said Harrison. He shifted in his chair and suddenly there was a warm leg comfortably pressed against Ianto's thigh. Harrison jumped to the top of the list again. Ianto took another drink.
***
Martha looked around her flat and sighed. It wasn't bad at all, larger than the one where she'd lived before the Master had blown it to bits. The furnishings came with, and were all new, a little posh for her tastes, but lovely. Tom leaned towards posh over the simple, modern styles Martha preferred, and he'd feel right at home here.
And that was the problem all in one. He wasn't here. He wasn't going to be here. His work took him out of the country regularly to consult on difficult cases, and when he was home, he worked at the hospital just as hard as she was working, first with UNIT and now here with Torchwood. Even when they lived in the same flat in London, they spent at best two nights together per week. She'd extended their honeymoon by three days to steal a little more time with him before work pulled them back apart.
She didn't regret accepting Jack's request for the assignment here. She'd hoped that a little enforced time away from each other might make them appreciate the rare times they did have. But it still hurt, a little, in the places inside her that whispered this was not how a marriage ought to work. He'd died for her once, though he didn't remember, and now it was a fight just to be in the same room, and she ached.
Martha started the gas for supper. She could fry up something comforting and call him, and make herself feel better. She'd get to bed early, make up for the exhaustion she'd been feeling ever since she started here, and in the morning, she could start everyone's physicals.
Her mobile chimed.
Martha dropped the spatula she hadn't even remembered she was holding, and reached for her mobile, checking the number.
"Hey, sexy," she said in greeting.
"Now don't go calling me by your boyfriend's pet names," said Tom, a smile in his voice.
"That's me forgetting again." She turned off the hob, and went to the couch to curl her legs up under herself as they talked.
"I miss you."
"Me too."
***
The Hub was still. Even Myfanwy was out for the evening, taking advantage of the cloudy night to stretch her wings. Jack had trouble with quiet nights like this, stuck inside his head with memories he couldn't let go.
He wanted to call Frank, but he and Frank were never exactly on good terms. Besides, what would he tell him? "Guess what? Phil's back from the dead, but we have to send him home to be killed. Want a quick visit?" The shock would likely stop Frank's heart.
He could call Alice, if he wasn't suspicious that one of his employees would answer the phone, and Jack was too set on denying that for the moment. Besides, Alice wouldn't care.
In times past, he'd have gone on the pull on dark nights like this, try to lose himself for an hour or an evening. Hell, back in the day, he and Phil had gone out together, and Phil would say, "This half of the room for me, the other half for you," and a good time was had by all, or at least everyone who was had by one or the other of them. Phil had loved life, had loved people, and had embraced Jack's own worldview that joy was there to be shared. They'd got along famously. And then he'd died.
Everyone that Jack loved died.
Maybe that was the point. All he had with anyone was the short span of their lifetime, so he ought to enjoy what he had and stop worrying about it. He could go down to the safe house, feed the men a story, any story, and then appreciate the time he had with Phil before he lost him again. Just the thought of losing him twice made Jack ache, but how much worse would he feel if he didn't take this chance?
He got his coat and pulled out his mobile to call Ianto and let him know he'd be home late tonight.
***
One pint turned into three, though he'd switched to fizzy pop after his own first glass. Ianto knew he ought to take them back to the safe house and out of harm's way, but they were having a good and mercifully incident-free time. Plus, it had been years since he'd gone out with other blokes just to go out, and he found himself reluctant to put an end to things. He had no real friends anymore outside of Torchwood, and going to the pub with Gwen, Martha and Lois was taking work with him instead of really relaxing. Going anywhere with Jack was essentially a date, which was welcome but not always what he wanted. Sometimes he just wanted a couple of pints with mates, talking about stupid things, and pretending for a few hours that he was normal.
Sitting at a pub with a group of time-displaced military men was going to have to do.
Lawrence coaxed Stibbs to play darts while the rest watched from their table. Midway through their game, Fletcher excused himself to the Gents', which left Ianto at the table alone with Harrison. He'd only needed to remove a hand from his knee once, and he found Harrison easy to talk with, so not only was he pretty sure he'd found Jack's ex, he was surprised to find he enjoyed this one's company.
"So," Harrison said, leaning in a bit to lower his voice. "Where's a man go around here these days to find a bit of fun?"
"No fun around here, sorry. Technically, you're not supposed to leave the safe house."
Harrison grinned. "You're breaking the rules for us? I knew I liked you."
The alcohol warmed Ianto's veins at the words and the tone in which they were spoken. The hand crept back to his knee, and regretfully, he removed it again. This didn't seem to deter Harrison in the slightest.
"I like the future," Harrison said, casting a glance over to the couple who'd come in earlier. "In our time, they'd have had to watch themselves in public. Things weren't legal."
Ianto took a glance of his own, caught the rings. "They still do have to be careful. But those two are married." He thought about qualifying that with an explanation of civil partnerships, and then decided it wasn't necessary. "Here's to the future."
They clicked glasses. Harrison said, "You know, your eyes are awfully old for your face. Pretty eyes, though."
That blush wasn't the booze. "I'm seeing someone."
"That's not a 'no,' that's an 'I'm occupied.'" Harrison smiled again in a fashion Ianto recognised well. That was very nearly a Jack Harkness patented "Labels are so limiting" smile, which had been named as a causal factor in more than one divorce petition.
"It's a 'no.'"
Jack probably wouldn't object, but he'd insist on joining in, and while Ianto had enjoyed his first threesome, he wanted to give himself some breathing room before they had another one.
"Anyway," Jack said, dropping into an empty chair at the table, "that'd be weird, even for us."
Ianto blinked, as Harrison said, "But not unprecedented. Tell me you remember Jenny MacAllister."
Jack said, "I will never forget Jenny MacAllister."
Ianto blinked again, and remembered how to speak. "Sorry, what are you doing here?"
"You weren't answering at home, and I had a hunch, so I traced your mobile." Jack sat back, lounging in his own chair almost as a mirror to Harrison. "I told you to keep them at the safe house."
"Ah," said Harrison, "but this one's a rule-breaker, and I'm a terrible influence." His smile had changed, had gone almost sad. "How are you, old man?"
"Old. It's good to see you again." A moment stretched that Ianto couldn't read, and then Jack said, "I see Mark and Jason. Where's Perry?"
"Coming back from the loo. Over your shoulder at three o'clock."
Jack turned around as Fletcher returned to their table, surprise written wide on his face. "Oh my God. Jack?"
Jack faked his smile much better for Fletcher, and managed a friendly handshake with both hands. "Welcome to the future. It's been a long time."
"But," Fletcher said, clearly confused, "we just saw you a few months ago."
Stibbs and Lawrence came back to see what the commotion was. Jack gave out handshakes and back pats, and explained that he'd fallen through the Rift and been spat out again in 2005.
"Happens a lot around here," Harrison said. "Cardiff likes to keep you on your toes." He gave Jack a look. "We couldn't tell you fellows, but Jack here is actually part of a group working for His Majesty to keep an eye on that."
"Her Majesty now," Jack said.
"Aw," said Lawrence, "we're all friends here, right? Phil, you never said your cousin worked for the King."
"It's strictly hush-hush," Harrison said. "Just like the Rift. Also," he said quietly, "once we go back home, we can't tell Jack we ran into him here. National security, boys."
The other three straightened their spines almost in unison at the words, but Ianto had been caught on a different word. "Cousin?"
Fletcher said, "Jack is Phil's cousin from America. He served with us a while back."
Stibbs kept staring. "It's really you? This is like some weird dream."
"It's really me." Jack gave his hand a friendly squeeze. Ianto watched that, watched the way the thoughts moved across Harrison's face in a terribly familiar manner. Of course, the "cousins" story would be easy to pass off. Alice had trouble explaining why she had a "half-brother" with an American accent.
***
Jack waited until Ianto had pulled his car out. Mark, Jason and Perry were on their way back to the safe house, and Jack had offered to take Phil there in his own car. Jack followed Ianto for two streets, then turned off.
"I thought we were going home," said Phil.
"Are you in a hurry?"
Phil settled into the seat. "Not a bit. Where are we headed?"
"I was thinking ice cream. You're a little old for playing catch in the park."
"You can't throw a ball worth a damn anyway."
"I got better at it." Jack kept his eyes on the darkened street, wanting to look over, and also unable to try.
"How long have I been dead?"
Jack nearly crashed the car. Hands shaking, he pulled over to the side and threw on the parking lights. "What?"
Phil's voice was steady, but not as steady as it could have been. "It's been over sixty years, Dad. I reckon Frank and I both died a while ago. It's all right." He went soft at the end, and placed a gentle hand on Jack's arm. "You've been looking at ghosts since you walked into the pub. I'm not stupid."
"No." Jack lay back in his seat for a moment and closed his eyes. "It's been a long time." The message had arrived by courier, thanks to a note tucked into Phil's file to contact Jack along with his official next of kin. Jack remembered going cold, toes and fingers turned to ice, reading the typed words over and over in case they changed with one more reading.
"You've aged. I didn't think that was possible."
"I'm getting there slowly. I'm two thousand years older than I was. Can you believe it?"
"That would explain the grey hairs, then."
Jack's hands rushed to his hair. "Where?" Then he saw the laughter in Phil's eyes.
"I always wondered what you'd do. People notice when you don't change."
Jack shrugged. "I move. I've spent the last nine years living at the Hub." Or he had. Most of his clothes and personal items had migrated to Ianto's flat months ago, and while he did still spend the occasional night at the Hub, it usually meant he was working a thirty-odd hour shift again. Although Ianto had brought up the subject, Jack refused to talk about it or acknowledge the change in what he would not think of as their relationship. Putting words around things made them real, and things that were real could be destroyed. This was Jack's magic trick, a sleight-of-hand and a juggling stunt all in one, where the price of dropping what he held was too high even to contemplate.
Phil made a noise. "Can you tell me about Frank?" The longing was deep there, and Jack's heart clenched.
"I can, a little." Phil didn't know about the Retcon Jack was going to have to feed him later. "Frank's in Aberdeen. He's in care now."
"He's still alive?"
Jack nodded. "He's going downhill. I need to go visit sooner rather than later."
"That's … Wow. Did he have kids?"
"Four of them."
Phil grinned. "Sounds like him. He always wanted a family." The word hung between them for a moment, unable to be retrieved, but Phil never apologised for saying something hard, and he'd learned that one right at home.
Jack thought back. "I don't think you've met Livvie."
"He married Olivia? Good for him. She was beautiful."
"Yes, she was."
"You didn't make a pass at her."
"Me? No. I stick to the rule."
They said together, "No sharing."
Phil added, "Except for Jenny MacAllister."
"Special circumstances."
Phil laughed again. Jack had forgotten how easily Phil laughed, like he was always in on the best jokes. God, Jack had missed him.
"By the way, about the cute one with the tie … "
"Yeah. Don't hit on that one."
"Thought as much. More's the pity." Phil let out a falsely disappointed sigh, and it was Jack's turn to laugh. "You always steal the pretty ones."
His nerves a bit calmer, Jack pulled the car out again into the light traffic. They stopped four streets over at an ice cream parlour that was open late. "Coming?"
***
She'd been staring at the blank page for over ten minutes when Lois finally noticed she had yet to write anything. She hadn't written anything last night; she'd made it back to her own flat at past three, and watched from her window as the other two drove away, and she'd fallen straight into bed. This morning she'd had to rush out the door to catch her bus, leaving the jumble in her thoughts to percolate as she headed for the Millennium Centre. And now she was a day behind with her reports, and the cut and dry words she needed to put to the page were being crowded out with memories of strong, gentle hands and kisses that burned across her neck and back.
She pushed away from the desk.
Paranoia was a skill she'd developed when she'd first started this job. Always suspect they are watching you, so always act natural. It was perfectly natural for her to be jumpy and out of sorts after spending the night with two of her co-workers.
Lois let out a breath. This was ridiculous. Casual sex was casual, and while she generally made it a policy not to sleep with the people she was observing, she was a professional and she was hardly going to let it affect her job performance. Either job. Her job with Torchwood meant she had to work smoothly and efficiently with everyone, and that meant letting go of this, or else someone would get killed. Lois's superiors at her other job had told her flat out that this assignment could easily kill her, and given that a man had died on her first day, she knew it to be true.
Her other job meant the safety and security of the United Kingdom. Regular updates on her observations here, while currently unglamorous, might make the difference in saving thousands if not millions of lives. In her initial briefing, she'd been horrified to discover that Torchwood had been instrumental, not in saving the world, but nearly causing its destruction on several occasions. The so-called "ghost shift" project at Torchwood London, once it had been examined amidst the wreckage at Canary Wharf, set off alarm bells at the Ministry of Defence, and Mr. Saxon identified the group as more dangerous than originally thought. At first, the Institute under new management seemed to look for a different direction, but soon the reports trickled in, even heavily filtered by Harkness and his team, indicating serious breaches in security, in personnel, in judgement.
Lois had often heard the references to "Her Majesty's Fuckups in Cardiff," but it wasn't until she saw the files that she was exposed to the full horror of the situation. And these people, these same people who were named clinically on the damning pages she'd been hurriedly shown the day the opportunity came, were now with her every day, giving her orders and saving her life. Gwen was a sweetheart, and always good for a chat or a pat on the back, and had killed hundreds of people when she'd let Abaddon loose for the sake of her then-boyfriend. Ianto was kind, and helped her use the coffee machine, and his mouth was exceptionally talented, and he'd almost handed the world to robotic monsters. (The report lacked details, but then, it had been written during Ianto's subsequent suspension.) Jack had his own drawer in the filing cabinet.
Someone had to watch them. Someone had to stop them if they tried again.
Her reports were written in shorthand and delivered at one of three possible locations in the morning. If she was being watched (and thank goodness her superiors had sent Johnson to give Torchwood someone far more obvious to watch) she wouldn't look a bit out of place as she went about her daily routine.
Every detail could be important later. With a sigh, she sat down and recounted the mission with the Rift refugees, as well as what she knew of the strange event in London. She added a reminder, mostly to herself, to investigate their London operative Smith more thoroughly in case he was trouble later. Just because Jack trusted him didn't mean he was trustworthy. Jack trusted her, after all.
***
Ianto woke to the sound of the bedroom door opening and closing again with a soft click. The susurration of good fabric sliding over skin to land in puddles on the floor lulled him, and the spring of the mattress as Jack crawled into bed woke him again. Jack's lips pressed against the back of Ianto's neck.
He hadn't been sure Jack was coming home tonight. When pieces of his past showed up, Jack tended to snap himself shut like an oyster, eventually spitting out a carefully-wrapped bit of beautiful garbage. Loving Jack -- Ianto could use that word, here in his head, in the dark, wrapped in Jack's arms in their bed -- meant accepting the pearlescent stories for what they were: Jack's own means of coping with events from a life already too long.
Once upon a time, there was a princess, or a witch, or a shopgirl, a teenager full of dreams. She'd found and lost her father in a single day, and on the next, she'd met a man, a fallen prince full of charms, and she'd loved him in the way silly teenaged girls often do. One day he died, like her dad died, giving himself to save many others, but she had magical powers and, like a silly teenaged girl who loved, she wished him back alive, wished he would never, ever die, and the wish became a curse. The prince lived and loved and fought the good fight when he knew what it was, and watched everyone around him die too young, or grow old while his face stayed young and unlined, and he was afraid to love anyone, his children, his lovers, because they all left him in the end. No happily ever afters.
Only today. Only tonight.
Ianto rolled over and met Jack's mouth. He tasted the old pain, tasted too the last of something rich and chocolatey. He expected Jack to break off the kiss, to begin chatting as his hands moved and his body writhed. Jack loved to talk during sex, loved to tell jokes and tease and offer praise and murmur affections, because in the dark in their bed, Jack sometimes let himself pretend, too. Tonight he was quiet, though, his lips too busy with kisses and licks and bites to form words. Only gasps punctuated the silence as they slipped and wriggled against each other for friction, Jack too desperate even to take the time to fuck, Ianto refusing to wonder how far away in his thoughts Jack was when he came stickily into their joined hands.
A long time later, when they'd cleaned up and found comfortable places for arms and legs to rest, Jack said, "After the Great War, our technology was able to receive signals from outside the solar system. Torchwood London hired linguists to translate, and I had to train most of them because I was the only one who could understand the languages."
A different fairy tale tonight, then. Ianto settled in, already knowing how this one would end. "Meg was smart, and beautiful, and one day she told me that she was pregnant. If she stayed in Cardiff, she could put a ring on her finger and call herself 'Mrs. Harrison' instead of 'Miss,' and no-one would know better. I lived with them for a while, but neither of us was good at relationships, and she ended up taking the boys with her back to London."
Jack was quiet for a long time. Ianto asked, "What year?"
"They moved away in 1930. She died during the Blitz. The boys enlisted as soon as they could. Frank made it to the end of the war. Phil didn't."
There was nothing to say. "I'm sorry" didn't begin to address losses Jack had suffered decades before Ianto was born. Ianto drew Jack closer, kissed his cheek. "Does he know?"
"He figured it out pretty fast."
"What do you want to do?"
Jack rolled away, staring up at the ceiling. "Frank never forgave me. He thought I should have found a way to save Phil. I'm from the future. I can survive anything. I have access to the most amazing technology. But I couldn't protect my son when he needed me."
Ianto had been by Alice's house three times since they'd first met, and every time, she watched her father with that same expression, her eyes accusing him of not trying hard enough to fix the things she thought needed fixing. Steven still adored Jack madly, but the days were numbered until he stopped seeing his "uncle" the hero, and started wondering why his grandfather couldn't change the world.
"I could save him."
And there it was, out between them. A wish, a prayer: make things different this time. Gwen had opened the Rift to bring back Rhys from the dead, and Ianto had helped her for a last, mad attempt to save Lisa. Jack had destroyed a paradox machine to unwrite the deaths of millions. None of them were innocent of the desire, and Torchwood made the rest possible. They had too much power, he thought sometimes, and then he stopped thinking because there was no point.
"How did he die?" Ianto had pulled up what information he could, but Jack needed to talk.
"There was a skirmish right before the end of the war. He was shot just outside of Kiel."
"Was there a body?" Jack nodded. "Are you certain it was his? Who identified him?" Bodies took a while to make it home for burial sometimes, and field embalming techniques were only so good.
"I'm sure it was him."
"All right."
The quiet settled between them again, like a cat. Ianto slowly began to drift off again, when Jack said, "Tell me a lie."
In olden days, Ianto knew, kings and powerful men kept jesters to tell them uncomfortable truths dressed up in laughter. Jack needed the opposite: someone to give him a lie to believe in because the truths were too hard to take. Sometimes he wanted to be told that everything they did would ultimately be proved to be the right course of action. Some nights he needed to hear that things were going to get better. Tonight's lie was an old favourite.
"Everyone you love will stay with you forever, and never leave you, and never die."
Jack settled his head against Ianto's. "Do you promise?"
"I promise."
***
Chapter Three
Author: nancybrown
Artist: rexluscus
Characters: Jack, Ianto, Gwen, Rhys, Martha, Lois, Johnson, Mickey, OCs
Warnings: poor understanding of time travel, even poorer understanding of 40s era British military systems, angst, character death
Rating: R
Word Count: 27,500 (7100 this part)
Beta(s): queenfanfiction audienced this, while wynkat1313 and fide_et_spe both kicked it into shape, and you have them to thank if it makes any kind of coherent sense
Spoilers: up through CoE (characters only)
Chapter One
***
Chapter Two
***
As soon as they arrived at the Hub, Martha and Gwen made a beeline for the Ladies'. Martha had known at the time that her last cup of coffee had been a bad idea, but at least she made it to the loo. Once upon a time, back before UNIT's enforced lack of privacy in the stalls, even before the frankly Victorian plumbing in the TARDIS, Martha had been one to chat in the Ladies', usually with her mum or Tish. Leo and Dad would give them all this look, and Leo would ask what they chatted about in there while Dad threw his hands into the air and said he didn't want to know.
Now she'd learned to ignore the other people in the room with her and offer the kind of solitude that only came with massive pretence. So when she exited her stall to wash her hands, she hadn't even heard Gwen finish up, to stare at her own reflection in the dark-spotted mirror.
"Gwen? You okay?"
"Fine. I'm fine." She ran a hand through her hair absently. "I'm just late."
Martha smiled. "Oh, it's not like they'd start the meeting without us." Gwen's eyes met hers in the mirror, and Martha felt a shock. "Or, you mean late late?"
Gwen nodded.
Her studies kicked into gear, as Martha rapidly processed gestational stages, prenatal care, and exposure and other risks to maternal and foetal health. "How late? Approximately?"
"Two weeks." Gwen sat down miserably on the room's tiny sofa, a threadbare and sprung artefact from before the days of ibuprofen. Martha sat down beside her.
"How regular is your cycle normally?"
"Not perfect, but regular. I'm on the Pill."
"Have you missed any?" The questions were easy. Martha hadn't specialised in Obstetrics for various reasons, but she had the training. The gears in her head kept turning, even as she noted Gwen's responses.
"Not that I know of, but I don't always take them at the same time."
Martha opened her mouth for standard warning about effectiveness, but stopped, considering where they both worked. She settled on a reassuring smile instead. "I don't have any tests in stock. Have you taken one yet?"
"No." Gwen let out a breath. She looked away, and Martha could see the tears edging her eyes. "There are strict rules about children in Torchwood. I'd have to leave. I don't … I can't leave." She looked back at Martha. "You don't just leave this place."
"No." Martha took her hand. "I'm not going to tell you what to do, but I can tell you what ought to happen first. I've got the physical forms ready, and you just moved to the top of the list. We'll do a blood test, and we'll know for sure."
Gwen closed her eyes. "And if it's positive?"
"Then you're going to have some decisions to make. And so is Jack."
Her eyes snapped open. "What? No, it's not his. It's really not." The quiet regret in her voice said more than her words. Martha could recognise a wistful never-been quite readily, thank you. She swore quietly in the name of everyone who'd ever fancied someone who was smitten with someone else more.
"I didn't mean that. Jack makes the rules here. He bends them all the time, and I know of at least two occasions where he broke them properly and then wrote new ones. He'll find a way to make it all right for you to stay, you'll see."
Gwen didn't look convinced, but she did look happier. Impulsively, she hugged Martha, and together, they went to the conference room.
As they entered, Jack said, "About time you two made it back from No Man's Land."
Johnson snorted, not looking up from the device she was working on with Ianto. Lois had packets out at everyone's places already as Martha and Gwen both sat.
Jack continued, "Admit it. You were in there talking about me."
Martha said to Ianto, "I honestly don't know how the three of you fit in the bed."
Ianto's face went very still. "Pardon?"
"You, Jack and Jack's ego. Seems a bit of a crowd."
As the others laughed, and Jack fake-scowled, Gwen met Martha's eyes with a grateful look. No-one was asking what they'd talked about now, and that was for the best.
Lois cleared her throat. "The Rift refugees we picked up are at the safe house, as per procedure." She looked at Ianto, who nodded and took over from her.
Martha had noticed how much Lois hated to speak in front of the team. She'd come from the school that frowned upon putting herself forward. Martha could not resist an inward smile at memories of her mum's opinion about that school, an opinion which she'd shared with her daughters. Lois was going to have to learn it the hard way. Gwen might be able to help, but Gwen's attention was a million miles away right now.
"We debriefed them upon arrival. Four members of the British Army, from the end of the second war." Ianto directed this to Jack. "They're disorientated, but they're also not sure this isn't some German trick, so they only gave us the most basic information about themselves."
Martha glanced down at the packet in front of her: names, dates, ranks. Maybe Jack could make more sense of them. He'd lived through that time period more than once, although she understood the new recruits weren't necessarily privy to that particular tidbit of information.
"One of them knew about the Rift." Ianto pointed at the first name on the list on Jack's sheet. "Lance-Sergeant Harrison."
The smallest shudder went through Jack's body as his eyes scanned the paper. Martha noticed, saw the sudden concern on Gwen's face as she returned her focus to the matter at hand. As soon as it had appeared, the crack in Jack's façade vanished behind a wall. Johnson and Lois probably hadn't even noticed.
In a jovial voice that fooled no-one but himself, Jack said, "I'm familiar with this group. We'll be using Protocol B. They'll be returning to their home time soon." He took in Ianto and Lois both, as the former sat back, his own concern badly masked. "You two can continue to be their contacts. Keep them at the house, don't let them go wandering or seeing anything they shouldn't. As it is, we'll probably have to dose them with Retcon before they go home."
Jack stood up, signalling the end of the meeting. "Someone make a note about the Tower block. Otherwise, back to work, people." And he left them sitting there.
Johnson broke the silence first. "Is he often like this?"
Gwen and Ianto shared a look, but neither answered.
***
Ianto tapped on the doorframe at Jack's office.
Not looking up from the paperwork on his desk, and more pointedly not actually doing anything with that paperwork, Jack asked, "Did you lose the coin toss or did everyone just outvote you?"
"Straws, actually. I suspect Johnson rigged the short one." He let himself inside and carefully took a seat across from Jack. He kept his body language neutral, open enough to listen, closed enough to point out that fooling around right now would not be appropriate. "How did the wild goose chase to London go?"
"Four hours of listening to people complaining about how I drive."
"It's normally a six hour round trip."
"Exactly! You'd think they'd be glad to have two hours of their lives back." Jack didn't meet his eyes, everything about his stance shuttered tight despite the joking words.
Ianto kept his own voice calm, watched Jack for clues. "The processing went fine. We'll want to retrieve the vehicle after dark tonight, and unless you think they'll need it soon, I can store it in one of the off-site locations."
Nothing.
Ianto went on. "I did some preliminary records searches when we returned, to verify the little they told us. Dates of birth, marriages, de … "
"Stop." Jack's face was frozen. Ianto didn't want to push, never wanted to hurt him, and yet.
"It's Tommy all over again, then. Or Michael." Men out of time, loved and then lost to the past: just another hazard of life on the Rift. Ianto was getting used to meeting Jack's exes. He aimed for a safer topic. "Do you know if there's something specific they have to accomplish before they go back?"
"No." The sound was pulled from somewhere distant, another planet, one orbiting in whatever time Jack was visiting in his memories. "I didn't know." He blinked, and finally he looked at Ianto. "I never knew about this."
Three of the four men would be dead shortly after they returned, and that was history, not to be unwritten. The fourth died twenty years ago.
Ianto said the only thing he could. "I'm sorry."
"Don't."
He sighed. "If you want me to be the one who deals with them, I will. Timeline contamination is the last thing we need, and of course, they'll require a long explanation if they see you." Privately, Ianto had already come up with a cover story, that Jack had fallen through the Rift at a later date, but landed earlier. The Lance-Sergeant would probably fall for the tale, and he could persuade the others. "I'll have Lois keep an eye on the Rift predictor. Perhaps we can figure out when they're leaving and shoo them through at the right time." He attempted a lighter note to see if that helped, but Jack was away again, and there was no help for it.
Ianto stood up. "I'll start making the arrangements." He'd also bring Martha with him when he went back to the safe house so she could check them for ailments, physical or otherwise. Normally, Jack would have given that order, but Jack wasn't in the here and now currently, and it was Ianto's job to make up for the gaps.
As he reached the door, Jack said, "Ianto?" He turned. "See if they need anything. Whatever they want, as long as it doesn't destroy the space-time continuum, let them have it. You can use my personal account."
Jack's face was still a mask, but an emotion burned quietly through the words.
Ianto nodded, and went to work.
***
Gwen turned the key in the door as the clock went seven. Not a bad day, she considered, even with the mad dash to London and back. Rhys was on the sofa. He gave her a wave and a smile as she slipped off her shoes. The carpet in the house was brand new, and they were trying to keep it looking that way for as long as they could.
While she tidied away her handbag and jacket, Rhys dished them up plates. Gwen took a long look at the greasy sausages and watery mash while Rhys tucked in happily.
"Not hungry?" he asked, three bites later, when she'd finally taken a very small nibble that threatened to come back up.
"Late lunch." As lies went, this one was kind and not harmful, she told herself. "Ianto ordered from that place that gives all the extra papadums." Less of a lie: he had in fact placed an order, but it was for the Rift refugees that Jack was refusing to see. The boss's past kept catching up with him, didn't it? She sighed, and pushed her plate away. "Sorry."
Rhys grabbed the plate and tipped her sausages onto his own. "I missed lunch today. So that balances out."
As he ate, she tried picturing him with a baby. There'd be room for a high chair at that side of the table, and Rhys could cut up the sausages into tiny bites and make swooshing noises to get the baby to laugh and open wide. Gwen herself would be trying not to laugh at him as she …
She frowned. While Rhys was easy to imagine with a child, she couldn't picture her own life containing someone tiny and new. Whatever Martha said, Jack would seriously have to consider letting her (or forcing her to) leave, and Gwen could no longer fathom a life without Torchwood. That's what it did to people: no pensions, no walking out alive.
Once when she and Ianto had been alone on a bad mission together, before he'd broken his arm and Jack had finally agreed to the new recruits, he'd confided that he was keeping a countdown. If he made it to his thirtieth birthday, he was handing in his resignation, and he was going to go off and start a normal life on a farm somewhere up north, raising unicorns. The mission ended with five civilians dead, and she'd gone home to have a good cry, and after, she'd called him to say that if he did, she'd quit too, and buy the land next door, and learn to spin straw into gold.
She'd have to go, and she couldn't go, and there were no answers.
"Hey, you okay?" Rhys set down his fork and took her hand.
She realised she was weeping, very slowly, and she brushed away the tears with her free hand. "Yeah. Sorry. Um. Was thinking about something sad." She offered him a smile she didn't feel.
"Anything I can do?"
"You can be wonderful, Rhys Williams."
"You're right, that I can do." He got up from his chair and pulled her into a hug, and Gwen held onto him like a life preserver, like the most important thing in her world.
***
In the end, it had been easier to have the men help him move the broken lorry onto the flatbed of the rental. Ianto liked and respected his co-workers, but Jack was staying clear, and it would take the combined efforts of all the rest to lift the ruin. He decided that a little time spent on the streets, and a little more loading the broken thing into the warehouse, wasn't going to contaminate the timeline any more than the rest that the men had already seen. He did ask them to change from their uniforms into the spare clothing kept at the safe house. ("People wear this?" "Not people with taste, but yes.") No use attracting extra attention.
Besides, this gave him the chance to figure out which one was Jack's ex. He allowed himself to consider the notion that the answer was "all four," but he'd settle for narrowing things down to a single face based on which of them most closely fit Jack's type.
The problem was that Jack's type was "alive and interested."
Harrison was his first guess, and the natural one. He was good-looking in a slightly pretty way, easy around everyone, and a bit flirtatious. Lance-Corporal Lawrence wasn't as attractive as Harrison but he seemed to be a decent bloke, ready for a good time. On the other side, Cpl. Fletcher had a quiet, bookish shyness behind his round spectacles that Jack would find kinky to unravel. Cpl. Stibbs still hadn't quite come out of his shocky state, instead followed along wherever Harrison and Lawrence told him; Martha had said it was to be expected, told Ianto what to look for, and had otherwise pronounced all four of them in good health. Then she'd gone home and Ianto had hit upon his plan to move the half-lorry.
As he shut and locked the warehouse, Ianto took another look at the soldiers. This was probably not his best idea ever, and it was technically against orders, but there was a tradition at stake for when men finished a task requiring manly strength and other things that indicated incipient testosterone poisoning.
"Before we go back, would the four of you fancy a pint down the pub?"
"Is the White Hart still there?" Harrison asked hopefully.
Ianto nodded. "Last I checked." He hadn't been in ages, but it was still open for business.
Twenty minutes later, they had a table and five glasses of Brains. The other patrons didn't give them a second glance. Harrison seemed completely at home lounging in his seat, and even Stibbs was finally winding down, coming to grips with where he was and that this wasn't some weird German plan.
"Where are you boys from?" Ianto gestured at Harrison. "I keep hearing a local accent from you." It wasn't consistent, which Ianto found odd.
Harrison smiled. "Born and raised here, yeah, but we moved to London when I was a boy." He turned his head. "Newport lad?"
Ianto nodded. "Good ear." So he was from around here. Cardiff natives didn't necessarily know about the Rift, but they weren't as oblivious as Torchwood liked to pretend. Sometimes people heard things, knew someone, and back in the day, Torchwood hadn't any means to make them forget it.
Fletcher and Stibbs were both from Cornwall. Lawrence hailed from Manchester, which was no surprise from his accent.
They made small talk for a while, watching the people around them. Two men walked into the pub together, clearly a couple. Ianto tensed. Not everyone even in this time was enlightened on certain subjects, and if something bad went down, it wouldn't be the first time he'd stepped in to put a fast end to a fight. But he wanted a quiet night and he hoped no-one acted like an arse.
Fortunately, the other patrons ignored them and the soldiers barely gave them a second glance, another sign they'd met Jack at some point. Harrison took a longer look. "That's a bit Torchwood, eh?"
Ianto was very proud of himself for stopping his own look of shock cold, instead taking a casual drink from his pint. "The language has changed since your time. The word now is 'flaming,' and it's considered a bit rude."
"Oh, we had that word as well," said Harrison. He shifted in his chair and suddenly there was a warm leg comfortably pressed against Ianto's thigh. Harrison jumped to the top of the list again. Ianto took another drink.
***
Martha looked around her flat and sighed. It wasn't bad at all, larger than the one where she'd lived before the Master had blown it to bits. The furnishings came with, and were all new, a little posh for her tastes, but lovely. Tom leaned towards posh over the simple, modern styles Martha preferred, and he'd feel right at home here.
And that was the problem all in one. He wasn't here. He wasn't going to be here. His work took him out of the country regularly to consult on difficult cases, and when he was home, he worked at the hospital just as hard as she was working, first with UNIT and now here with Torchwood. Even when they lived in the same flat in London, they spent at best two nights together per week. She'd extended their honeymoon by three days to steal a little more time with him before work pulled them back apart.
She didn't regret accepting Jack's request for the assignment here. She'd hoped that a little enforced time away from each other might make them appreciate the rare times they did have. But it still hurt, a little, in the places inside her that whispered this was not how a marriage ought to work. He'd died for her once, though he didn't remember, and now it was a fight just to be in the same room, and she ached.
Martha started the gas for supper. She could fry up something comforting and call him, and make herself feel better. She'd get to bed early, make up for the exhaustion she'd been feeling ever since she started here, and in the morning, she could start everyone's physicals.
Her mobile chimed.
Martha dropped the spatula she hadn't even remembered she was holding, and reached for her mobile, checking the number.
"Hey, sexy," she said in greeting.
"Now don't go calling me by your boyfriend's pet names," said Tom, a smile in his voice.
"That's me forgetting again." She turned off the hob, and went to the couch to curl her legs up under herself as they talked.
"I miss you."
"Me too."
***
The Hub was still. Even Myfanwy was out for the evening, taking advantage of the cloudy night to stretch her wings. Jack had trouble with quiet nights like this, stuck inside his head with memories he couldn't let go.
He wanted to call Frank, but he and Frank were never exactly on good terms. Besides, what would he tell him? "Guess what? Phil's back from the dead, but we have to send him home to be killed. Want a quick visit?" The shock would likely stop Frank's heart.
He could call Alice, if he wasn't suspicious that one of his employees would answer the phone, and Jack was too set on denying that for the moment. Besides, Alice wouldn't care.
In times past, he'd have gone on the pull on dark nights like this, try to lose himself for an hour or an evening. Hell, back in the day, he and Phil had gone out together, and Phil would say, "This half of the room for me, the other half for you," and a good time was had by all, or at least everyone who was had by one or the other of them. Phil had loved life, had loved people, and had embraced Jack's own worldview that joy was there to be shared. They'd got along famously. And then he'd died.
Everyone that Jack loved died.
Maybe that was the point. All he had with anyone was the short span of their lifetime, so he ought to enjoy what he had and stop worrying about it. He could go down to the safe house, feed the men a story, any story, and then appreciate the time he had with Phil before he lost him again. Just the thought of losing him twice made Jack ache, but how much worse would he feel if he didn't take this chance?
He got his coat and pulled out his mobile to call Ianto and let him know he'd be home late tonight.
***
One pint turned into three, though he'd switched to fizzy pop after his own first glass. Ianto knew he ought to take them back to the safe house and out of harm's way, but they were having a good and mercifully incident-free time. Plus, it had been years since he'd gone out with other blokes just to go out, and he found himself reluctant to put an end to things. He had no real friends anymore outside of Torchwood, and going to the pub with Gwen, Martha and Lois was taking work with him instead of really relaxing. Going anywhere with Jack was essentially a date, which was welcome but not always what he wanted. Sometimes he just wanted a couple of pints with mates, talking about stupid things, and pretending for a few hours that he was normal.
Sitting at a pub with a group of time-displaced military men was going to have to do.
Lawrence coaxed Stibbs to play darts while the rest watched from their table. Midway through their game, Fletcher excused himself to the Gents', which left Ianto at the table alone with Harrison. He'd only needed to remove a hand from his knee once, and he found Harrison easy to talk with, so not only was he pretty sure he'd found Jack's ex, he was surprised to find he enjoyed this one's company.
"So," Harrison said, leaning in a bit to lower his voice. "Where's a man go around here these days to find a bit of fun?"
"No fun around here, sorry. Technically, you're not supposed to leave the safe house."
Harrison grinned. "You're breaking the rules for us? I knew I liked you."
The alcohol warmed Ianto's veins at the words and the tone in which they were spoken. The hand crept back to his knee, and regretfully, he removed it again. This didn't seem to deter Harrison in the slightest.
"I like the future," Harrison said, casting a glance over to the couple who'd come in earlier. "In our time, they'd have had to watch themselves in public. Things weren't legal."
Ianto took a glance of his own, caught the rings. "They still do have to be careful. But those two are married." He thought about qualifying that with an explanation of civil partnerships, and then decided it wasn't necessary. "Here's to the future."
They clicked glasses. Harrison said, "You know, your eyes are awfully old for your face. Pretty eyes, though."
That blush wasn't the booze. "I'm seeing someone."
"That's not a 'no,' that's an 'I'm occupied.'" Harrison smiled again in a fashion Ianto recognised well. That was very nearly a Jack Harkness patented "Labels are so limiting" smile, which had been named as a causal factor in more than one divorce petition.
"It's a 'no.'"
Jack probably wouldn't object, but he'd insist on joining in, and while Ianto had enjoyed his first threesome, he wanted to give himself some breathing room before they had another one.
"Anyway," Jack said, dropping into an empty chair at the table, "that'd be weird, even for us."
Ianto blinked, as Harrison said, "But not unprecedented. Tell me you remember Jenny MacAllister."
Jack said, "I will never forget Jenny MacAllister."
Ianto blinked again, and remembered how to speak. "Sorry, what are you doing here?"
"You weren't answering at home, and I had a hunch, so I traced your mobile." Jack sat back, lounging in his own chair almost as a mirror to Harrison. "I told you to keep them at the safe house."
"Ah," said Harrison, "but this one's a rule-breaker, and I'm a terrible influence." His smile had changed, had gone almost sad. "How are you, old man?"
"Old. It's good to see you again." A moment stretched that Ianto couldn't read, and then Jack said, "I see Mark and Jason. Where's Perry?"
"Coming back from the loo. Over your shoulder at three o'clock."
Jack turned around as Fletcher returned to their table, surprise written wide on his face. "Oh my God. Jack?"
Jack faked his smile much better for Fletcher, and managed a friendly handshake with both hands. "Welcome to the future. It's been a long time."
"But," Fletcher said, clearly confused, "we just saw you a few months ago."
Stibbs and Lawrence came back to see what the commotion was. Jack gave out handshakes and back pats, and explained that he'd fallen through the Rift and been spat out again in 2005.
"Happens a lot around here," Harrison said. "Cardiff likes to keep you on your toes." He gave Jack a look. "We couldn't tell you fellows, but Jack here is actually part of a group working for His Majesty to keep an eye on that."
"Her Majesty now," Jack said.
"Aw," said Lawrence, "we're all friends here, right? Phil, you never said your cousin worked for the King."
"It's strictly hush-hush," Harrison said. "Just like the Rift. Also," he said quietly, "once we go back home, we can't tell Jack we ran into him here. National security, boys."
The other three straightened their spines almost in unison at the words, but Ianto had been caught on a different word. "Cousin?"
Fletcher said, "Jack is Phil's cousin from America. He served with us a while back."
Stibbs kept staring. "It's really you? This is like some weird dream."
"It's really me." Jack gave his hand a friendly squeeze. Ianto watched that, watched the way the thoughts moved across Harrison's face in a terribly familiar manner. Of course, the "cousins" story would be easy to pass off. Alice had trouble explaining why she had a "half-brother" with an American accent.
***
Jack waited until Ianto had pulled his car out. Mark, Jason and Perry were on their way back to the safe house, and Jack had offered to take Phil there in his own car. Jack followed Ianto for two streets, then turned off.
"I thought we were going home," said Phil.
"Are you in a hurry?"
Phil settled into the seat. "Not a bit. Where are we headed?"
"I was thinking ice cream. You're a little old for playing catch in the park."
"You can't throw a ball worth a damn anyway."
"I got better at it." Jack kept his eyes on the darkened street, wanting to look over, and also unable to try.
"How long have I been dead?"
Jack nearly crashed the car. Hands shaking, he pulled over to the side and threw on the parking lights. "What?"
Phil's voice was steady, but not as steady as it could have been. "It's been over sixty years, Dad. I reckon Frank and I both died a while ago. It's all right." He went soft at the end, and placed a gentle hand on Jack's arm. "You've been looking at ghosts since you walked into the pub. I'm not stupid."
"No." Jack lay back in his seat for a moment and closed his eyes. "It's been a long time." The message had arrived by courier, thanks to a note tucked into Phil's file to contact Jack along with his official next of kin. Jack remembered going cold, toes and fingers turned to ice, reading the typed words over and over in case they changed with one more reading.
"You've aged. I didn't think that was possible."
"I'm getting there slowly. I'm two thousand years older than I was. Can you believe it?"
"That would explain the grey hairs, then."
Jack's hands rushed to his hair. "Where?" Then he saw the laughter in Phil's eyes.
"I always wondered what you'd do. People notice when you don't change."
Jack shrugged. "I move. I've spent the last nine years living at the Hub." Or he had. Most of his clothes and personal items had migrated to Ianto's flat months ago, and while he did still spend the occasional night at the Hub, it usually meant he was working a thirty-odd hour shift again. Although Ianto had brought up the subject, Jack refused to talk about it or acknowledge the change in what he would not think of as their relationship. Putting words around things made them real, and things that were real could be destroyed. This was Jack's magic trick, a sleight-of-hand and a juggling stunt all in one, where the price of dropping what he held was too high even to contemplate.
Phil made a noise. "Can you tell me about Frank?" The longing was deep there, and Jack's heart clenched.
"I can, a little." Phil didn't know about the Retcon Jack was going to have to feed him later. "Frank's in Aberdeen. He's in care now."
"He's still alive?"
Jack nodded. "He's going downhill. I need to go visit sooner rather than later."
"That's … Wow. Did he have kids?"
"Four of them."
Phil grinned. "Sounds like him. He always wanted a family." The word hung between them for a moment, unable to be retrieved, but Phil never apologised for saying something hard, and he'd learned that one right at home.
Jack thought back. "I don't think you've met Livvie."
"He married Olivia? Good for him. She was beautiful."
"Yes, she was."
"You didn't make a pass at her."
"Me? No. I stick to the rule."
They said together, "No sharing."
Phil added, "Except for Jenny MacAllister."
"Special circumstances."
Phil laughed again. Jack had forgotten how easily Phil laughed, like he was always in on the best jokes. God, Jack had missed him.
"By the way, about the cute one with the tie … "
"Yeah. Don't hit on that one."
"Thought as much. More's the pity." Phil let out a falsely disappointed sigh, and it was Jack's turn to laugh. "You always steal the pretty ones."
His nerves a bit calmer, Jack pulled the car out again into the light traffic. They stopped four streets over at an ice cream parlour that was open late. "Coming?"
***
She'd been staring at the blank page for over ten minutes when Lois finally noticed she had yet to write anything. She hadn't written anything last night; she'd made it back to her own flat at past three, and watched from her window as the other two drove away, and she'd fallen straight into bed. This morning she'd had to rush out the door to catch her bus, leaving the jumble in her thoughts to percolate as she headed for the Millennium Centre. And now she was a day behind with her reports, and the cut and dry words she needed to put to the page were being crowded out with memories of strong, gentle hands and kisses that burned across her neck and back.
She pushed away from the desk.
Paranoia was a skill she'd developed when she'd first started this job. Always suspect they are watching you, so always act natural. It was perfectly natural for her to be jumpy and out of sorts after spending the night with two of her co-workers.
Lois let out a breath. This was ridiculous. Casual sex was casual, and while she generally made it a policy not to sleep with the people she was observing, she was a professional and she was hardly going to let it affect her job performance. Either job. Her job with Torchwood meant she had to work smoothly and efficiently with everyone, and that meant letting go of this, or else someone would get killed. Lois's superiors at her other job had told her flat out that this assignment could easily kill her, and given that a man had died on her first day, she knew it to be true.
Her other job meant the safety and security of the United Kingdom. Regular updates on her observations here, while currently unglamorous, might make the difference in saving thousands if not millions of lives. In her initial briefing, she'd been horrified to discover that Torchwood had been instrumental, not in saving the world, but nearly causing its destruction on several occasions. The so-called "ghost shift" project at Torchwood London, once it had been examined amidst the wreckage at Canary Wharf, set off alarm bells at the Ministry of Defence, and Mr. Saxon identified the group as more dangerous than originally thought. At first, the Institute under new management seemed to look for a different direction, but soon the reports trickled in, even heavily filtered by Harkness and his team, indicating serious breaches in security, in personnel, in judgement.
Lois had often heard the references to "Her Majesty's Fuckups in Cardiff," but it wasn't until she saw the files that she was exposed to the full horror of the situation. And these people, these same people who were named clinically on the damning pages she'd been hurriedly shown the day the opportunity came, were now with her every day, giving her orders and saving her life. Gwen was a sweetheart, and always good for a chat or a pat on the back, and had killed hundreds of people when she'd let Abaddon loose for the sake of her then-boyfriend. Ianto was kind, and helped her use the coffee machine, and his mouth was exceptionally talented, and he'd almost handed the world to robotic monsters. (The report lacked details, but then, it had been written during Ianto's subsequent suspension.) Jack had his own drawer in the filing cabinet.
Someone had to watch them. Someone had to stop them if they tried again.
Her reports were written in shorthand and delivered at one of three possible locations in the morning. If she was being watched (and thank goodness her superiors had sent Johnson to give Torchwood someone far more obvious to watch) she wouldn't look a bit out of place as she went about her daily routine.
Every detail could be important later. With a sigh, she sat down and recounted the mission with the Rift refugees, as well as what she knew of the strange event in London. She added a reminder, mostly to herself, to investigate their London operative Smith more thoroughly in case he was trouble later. Just because Jack trusted him didn't mean he was trustworthy. Jack trusted her, after all.
***
Ianto woke to the sound of the bedroom door opening and closing again with a soft click. The susurration of good fabric sliding over skin to land in puddles on the floor lulled him, and the spring of the mattress as Jack crawled into bed woke him again. Jack's lips pressed against the back of Ianto's neck.
He hadn't been sure Jack was coming home tonight. When pieces of his past showed up, Jack tended to snap himself shut like an oyster, eventually spitting out a carefully-wrapped bit of beautiful garbage. Loving Jack -- Ianto could use that word, here in his head, in the dark, wrapped in Jack's arms in their bed -- meant accepting the pearlescent stories for what they were: Jack's own means of coping with events from a life already too long.
Once upon a time, there was a princess, or a witch, or a shopgirl, a teenager full of dreams. She'd found and lost her father in a single day, and on the next, she'd met a man, a fallen prince full of charms, and she'd loved him in the way silly teenaged girls often do. One day he died, like her dad died, giving himself to save many others, but she had magical powers and, like a silly teenaged girl who loved, she wished him back alive, wished he would never, ever die, and the wish became a curse. The prince lived and loved and fought the good fight when he knew what it was, and watched everyone around him die too young, or grow old while his face stayed young and unlined, and he was afraid to love anyone, his children, his lovers, because they all left him in the end. No happily ever afters.
Only today. Only tonight.
Ianto rolled over and met Jack's mouth. He tasted the old pain, tasted too the last of something rich and chocolatey. He expected Jack to break off the kiss, to begin chatting as his hands moved and his body writhed. Jack loved to talk during sex, loved to tell jokes and tease and offer praise and murmur affections, because in the dark in their bed, Jack sometimes let himself pretend, too. Tonight he was quiet, though, his lips too busy with kisses and licks and bites to form words. Only gasps punctuated the silence as they slipped and wriggled against each other for friction, Jack too desperate even to take the time to fuck, Ianto refusing to wonder how far away in his thoughts Jack was when he came stickily into their joined hands.
A long time later, when they'd cleaned up and found comfortable places for arms and legs to rest, Jack said, "After the Great War, our technology was able to receive signals from outside the solar system. Torchwood London hired linguists to translate, and I had to train most of them because I was the only one who could understand the languages."
A different fairy tale tonight, then. Ianto settled in, already knowing how this one would end. "Meg was smart, and beautiful, and one day she told me that she was pregnant. If she stayed in Cardiff, she could put a ring on her finger and call herself 'Mrs. Harrison' instead of 'Miss,' and no-one would know better. I lived with them for a while, but neither of us was good at relationships, and she ended up taking the boys with her back to London."
Jack was quiet for a long time. Ianto asked, "What year?"
"They moved away in 1930. She died during the Blitz. The boys enlisted as soon as they could. Frank made it to the end of the war. Phil didn't."
There was nothing to say. "I'm sorry" didn't begin to address losses Jack had suffered decades before Ianto was born. Ianto drew Jack closer, kissed his cheek. "Does he know?"
"He figured it out pretty fast."
"What do you want to do?"
Jack rolled away, staring up at the ceiling. "Frank never forgave me. He thought I should have found a way to save Phil. I'm from the future. I can survive anything. I have access to the most amazing technology. But I couldn't protect my son when he needed me."
Ianto had been by Alice's house three times since they'd first met, and every time, she watched her father with that same expression, her eyes accusing him of not trying hard enough to fix the things she thought needed fixing. Steven still adored Jack madly, but the days were numbered until he stopped seeing his "uncle" the hero, and started wondering why his grandfather couldn't change the world.
"I could save him."
And there it was, out between them. A wish, a prayer: make things different this time. Gwen had opened the Rift to bring back Rhys from the dead, and Ianto had helped her for a last, mad attempt to save Lisa. Jack had destroyed a paradox machine to unwrite the deaths of millions. None of them were innocent of the desire, and Torchwood made the rest possible. They had too much power, he thought sometimes, and then he stopped thinking because there was no point.
"How did he die?" Ianto had pulled up what information he could, but Jack needed to talk.
"There was a skirmish right before the end of the war. He was shot just outside of Kiel."
"Was there a body?" Jack nodded. "Are you certain it was his? Who identified him?" Bodies took a while to make it home for burial sometimes, and field embalming techniques were only so good.
"I'm sure it was him."
"All right."
The quiet settled between them again, like a cat. Ianto slowly began to drift off again, when Jack said, "Tell me a lie."
In olden days, Ianto knew, kings and powerful men kept jesters to tell them uncomfortable truths dressed up in laughter. Jack needed the opposite: someone to give him a lie to believe in because the truths were too hard to take. Sometimes he wanted to be told that everything they did would ultimately be proved to be the right course of action. Some nights he needed to hear that things were going to get better. Tonight's lie was an old favourite.
"Everyone you love will stay with you forever, and never leave you, and never die."
Jack settled his head against Ianto's. "Do you promise?"
"I promise."
***
Chapter Three