meme!fic
I've posted three of the seven or eight or whatever "Five Things" meme requests!
Five times Sam called Will in the middle of the night - tww, pg, sam/will
Oh, and. Um, the numbers aren't looking great. But I'm sure you already know that. It doesn't matter, okay? Don't worry. We can always rally from behind. Just concentrate on the speech. I'll concentrate on kicking Webb's ass.
Five things Todd wishes he'd said to Neil (and one he wishes he hadn't) - dps, pg, neil/todd
It's an impossible dream. There was no way he could have known beforehand, no way he could have been there, but he can't stop dreaming about taking Neil's firmly by the shoulders and saying, "No. Don't do it. Please."
He doesn't know if it would have changed anything, but he wishes he'd had a chance to try.
And this one is too big to fit in a comment:
Five times Jack told Ianto it was safe - tw, pg, jack/ianto + team (briefly)
Five times Jack told Ianto it was safe
1. "I swear," Jack says, looping some wires around the chair, "I've used this before. It's perfectly safe. It's painful, sure, but perfectly safe."
Ianto's brain flips back to the summary in the archives as Owen and Suzie march their furry purple captive up the stairs from the cells. He doesn't recall "perfectly safe" from the file. "Hazardous," he remembers. "Untested," sure. "Perfectly safe," however, eludes him.
He keeps his mouth closed. The last thing he needs is for Jack to decide to demonstrate how "perfectly safe" it is. He doesn't think that Jack would test something he admitted was painful on his staff, but as long as Lisa is hidden in the basement (too long, far too long, god, he has to fix her soon), he doesn't want to tempt Jack with the idea of probing his mind.
"This is untested, Jack," Suzie says, always the voice of reason, and it's good to know that at least one other person actually reads the archive reports that he had painstakingly transposed into the computer system and refiled.
"It'll be fine," Jack says with one of this large, dismissive grins. It seems to assuage Tosh's fears a little--she connects the wires to her computer with more determination. Suzie still doesn't seem convinced. Owen doesn't seem to care.
"If you say so, sir," Ianto says, holding out the last piece of the device, offering Jack a small, tight smile in response to the brilliant grin that Jack gives him as he takes the metal crown from Ianto's hands.
Twenty minutes later, Ianto is washing fuzzy purple goo off of the equipment with a toothbrush. He can still hear Jack up in his office, his voice occasionally carrying through the closed door, phrases like, "high blood-pressure" and "mis-configured power source" and "capacity of its brain stem" escaping down into the Hub proper, mixed with Suzie's frantic, "my clothes!" and "it won't wash out of my hair!"
He makes a note to stand as far away as possible if they ever use that device again.
He also makes a note to bring some retcon to the dry cleaner's. As circumspect as they normally are, he has a feeling they won't be particularly pleased with the state of Suzie's clothes, and he'd rather like to avoid switching dry cleaner's for the fourth time in a month.
***
2. Ianto eyes the cup of coffee in Jack's hand warily as it slides across the table towards him.
"Don't worry," Jack says with the charming smile that means he's trying to hide what he's really thinking, "it's safe."
Ianto isn't sure if Jack means it's free of retcon or free of any missteps Jack may have made with the coffee machine. He's hesitant to drink it, hesitant to move, really, pain still blinding him to numbness, leaving him with all but the fuzziest of recollections of what's going on, what's going to happen. There are rules for things like this. In the event of an agent being compromised and bringing in an alien threat, there are three choices available to the disciplinary committee: short term retcon and demotion, long term retcon and termination, and... well, termination. Permanent termination.
He eyes the coffee warily.
"I swear," Jack says, nudging it a bit closer, his voice hitting something almost close to compassion, "It may not be as good as yours, but I made coffee before you, Ianto Jones, and I will continue to make coffee in your absence."
His absence. Right. Well, he didn't say death. That narrows it down at least.
He picks up the coffee and sips it, swallowing harder than necessary, swallowing the fact that it will hurt to leave Torchwood. For all that Torchwood ruined his life and Lisa's, for all that Torchwood destroyed everything he held dear over and over again, Torchwood is his life. He knows his deception goes too far back for a short-term amnesia pill, and for all the pain, he doesn't want to lose his memories of Lisa, his memories of the pleasant times he had in London and, less frequently, but still, despite his best intentions, here in Cardiff. He knows that it's procedure to set the newly retconned up with a new life, that he won't even remember losing all of this, but he doesn't want to go back to a life completely lacking meaning, the way he was before Torchwood. He's afraid to be that person again.
"I understand, sir," he says quietly. His voice is foreign to his ears, rough and brittle from a night full of screaming and sobbing and too few hours in a chemically induced slumber. "There's a file on the tourist center computer that Tosh should be able to decrypt. It has the passwords for all of the classified areas of the archives, as well as a brief explanation of the upkeep of some of the artifacts in vault D. The paperwork is explained as well, although most forms should be self-explanatory. New forms can be ordered from Archie in Glasgow, and--" Jack reaches across the table and puts a hand on his wrist. Ianto sucks a breath in through his teeth and tries not the flinch back from the touch. He wanted to see this man die slowly less than six hours ago. Now Ianto finds himself already missing Jack, already missing all of them, but knowing that Jack filled a place in his life that had been empty since Canary Wharf.
"What are you talking about?" Jack asks.
"Before the retcon kicks in," Ianto says patiently. "The butcher three blocks over supplies scraps for Myfanwy every Tuesday and Friday evening. No matter how much she begs, she's only to be fed once a day in the evening. There's a bottle of--"
Jack's shaking his head, his fingers tightening on Ianto's wrist.
"Ianto, I'm not retconning you," Jack says. "Suspension. Four weeks. You're to clean up the mess the Hub is in and then report back in a month. Take some time. Sort out your life. Grieve." He nods at the cup of coffee in Ianto's hands. "Drink that. I'll see you upstairs when you're done." He releases Ianto's wrist and stands up. Ianto can only watch him with wide eyes, a little shocked at just how shocked he is, unaware that emotion could filter through the numbness. "Oh, and, see me before you leave." He rubs the back of his neck and smiles sheepishly. "I might actually need to write down that stuff about Myfanwy."
Jack heads back upstairs. Ianto's coffee is almost cool by the time his hands stop shaking enough to drink it.
***
3. The first thing Jack says to Ianto when he opens his eyes is, "Don't worry, we're perfectly safe."
The last thing he remembers is being stunned by the creature he was chasing through the corridors of the alien ship. He swears softly under his breath, because he knows what "safe" means in Jack!speak, and when he looks around, he swears again and squeezes his eyes shut.
"This is obviously some strange usage of the word 'safe' that I wasn't previously aware of," he mutters, clinging to Jack's leg in a way that would be embarrassing if he wasn't filled with mortal terror. "I guess this wouldn't be a good time to admit that I'm terrified of heights?"
"Obviously not terrified enough to forego quoting Douglas Adams," Jack says. There's amusement tinging his voice, real amusement, not the amused bravado that he affects when he's trying to bolster the troops and hide the fact that he has no fucking idea what's going on. "Nice guy, Adams. His ideas on time travel were way off the mark, but you've got to admire a guy who can fit that much science into a good joke."
"Oh god," Ianto says. He knows that's his place to retort with another dry remark, but they are miles above the ground held up by seemingly nothing and he can feel the wind whipping around them and they are clearly going to die.
Jack chuckles, Ianto can feel it reverberating down his leg, and then there are gentle hands on his shoulders, prying him away from Jack's leg and tugging him into a standing position. His arms immediately clutch Jack's waist and he tries his damnedest not to whimper. The wind is even worse up here and he's embarrassed enough about clinging to his boss without making it worse by whimpering like an infant.
"Come on, Ianto, open your eyes! Enjoy the view!" One of Jack's arms slides snugly around his shoulder and the other presses to his chest in a way that would be playing havoc with the careful distance Ianto has tried to put between them since the mess with Lisa if he could concentrate on it long enough to give a damn.
"We are, apparently, miles above the ground, hovering in mid-air, sir," Ianto grinds out. "If it's all the same to you, I'd like my eyes closed when we splatter across the ground."
"Ianto Jones, do you really think I would let you fall?" Jack asks, close to his ear. It's so sincere, so layered in meaning that Ianto's breath catches in his throat. He opens his eyes very slowly to find Jack's face mere centimeters from his own. He briefly forgets about being miles above ground as his eyes lock with Jack's. "We're on the hull of the ship," Jack says softly. "Its cloaking device is on. Once we get word from the others that our alien friends have been dealt with on the ground, I'm going to take it in for a landing, but for now I thought we'd enjoy the view."
"Sure," Ianto says. The words have washed right over him and this is bad, oh so very bad, because there needs to be professional distance and right now there is no distance in any sense of the word. He can feel Jack's heartbeat, for christ's sake, and it's not fair that it gets to be measured and even when his own is going so fast he's sure to go into cardiac arrest any second now.
"We're safe," Jack repeats softly, squeezing his shoulder, giving him the softest, sweetest smile Ianto's ever seen him give anyone, and Ianto chokes back a laugh because, oh god, safe? No, he's really not.
***
4. "No."
"I swear, it's perfectly safe! Really, just try some!"
"Jack, the last time you tried to get me to eat something that came through the Rift, I had those purple spots for a week."
"But--"
"A week!"
***
5. "Oh, Jack is going to go spare."
Ianto cracks his eyes open slowly, letting them get used to the glare from the sunlight filtering in through the window. He's not sure where he is. It's not his flat, and it's not the Hub. The bed is softer than he's used to, and at first glance he doesn't see any hospital machines, but then notices an IV bag to his right and Martha Jones sitting primly beside him.
"Absolutely spare," she continues, brushing his hair off of his forehead and pulling a penlight out of her pocket. He fights against the instinct to close his eyes as she tests his pupils. "He sat here all night and all morning and I finally convince him to go get some coffee and of course you wake up. You always have to have the upper hand, don't you?"
"Someone needs to keep him in line," Ianto manages to croak out, and Martha laughs.
"Too true," she says, and brushes her hand across his forehead again, more affectionately than clinically. Things are starting to come back to Ianto, slowly. He remembers the bomb, now, and the hostages. He remembers climbing down the lift shaft on a swaying rope, hand over hand. He remembers falling the last two floors. He remembers turning off his comm to shut Jack up, remembers the blast, remembers--
"Oh my god," he groans, "Jack is going to kill me."
Martha laughs again and squeezes his hand, then yells, "Gwen, he's awake!" into the hallway. The words are barely out of her mouth before Gwen is there, bounding across the room, stopping just short of throwing herself at his bed. Her eyes drop to his chest, and for the first time he notices his arm is in a cast.
"Oh, Ianto," she says in her "injured kitten" voice. He rolls his eyes and holds out his good arm, accepting of the hug that she seems all but ready to throw at him. It feels good to hold her, and he must have the good drugs in the IV bag, because even as she squishes herself up against his cast, he doesn't feel any more than a twinge.
"Did I really shoot Jack?" he asks as Gwen pulls away, and she laughs, wiping mascara from her eyes along with the tears that are threatening.
"Yes," she admits, "and he'll probably be bloody furious about it as soon as he's done fretting."
"Yeah," Martha says, "do you end many arguments by killing him?"
"Just one other time," Ianto says. "Well, two if you count the time Owen shot him. Of course, Owen didn't know he could come back at that point, so..." Martha snorts. "In my defense, it was the only way to get him to shut up long enough to enact my plan, which obviously worked as the world isn't blown up and I'm still alive."
"Barely," Martha says sternly. "That was dumb luck is what that was. You should have been nothing but dust."
"If I had been nothing but dust, there would have been no one to clean the dust up," Ianto says. He pushes himself, one armed, into a sitting position and offers both of the girls a wry smile.
"Still, if you try that again, Jack won't be the only one out to kill you," Gwen warns him, pulling him into another hug. He accepts it and relaxes, breathing in the smell of her shampoo, reveling in the fact that his plan worked, he's okay, Jack's okay, the world is saved, and while he'll probably be in the doghouse at work for the rest of his natural life, at least he has the rest of his natural life to live.
"I love you madly, Ianto Jones, don't you forget it," Gwen says, pressing a kiss to his forehead.
"I love you madly too, Gwen Cooper," he replies, uncharacteristically demonstrative, high on life, ready to get out of bed and save the world again.
He definitely has the good drugs in his IV bag.
He's pulling away from Gwen, thinking about how beautiful she is, how beautiful Martha is, how beautiful the sunshine is, how he loves all of it so much it makes his chest ache, when he hears heavy footsteps enter the room.
"You shot me." Jack's voice is splintered, raw. It's obvious he's going for levity, but the look on his face never quite makes it there and the humor is absent from his voice. Martha and Gwen both step back from the bed.
"Yeah," Ianto says. "Sorry about that. Couldn't come up with a better way to get you to shut up."
"You shot me," Jack repeats, walking towards the bed slowly, "then you specifically ignored my direct orders and dove headfirst into danger."
"Climbed, actually," Ianto says. "Didn't really dive until those last few floors. Grease on the bottom of the rope. And, with all due respect sir, your orders were crap." Jack's at the edge of the bed now, but he's still not touching. Ianto can't read the look on his face anymore.
"My orders would have kept you safe," Jack says, and his voice cracks. "My orders would have--"
"Gotten us all killed, maybe," Ianto says. He shrugs, or attempts to shrug as best he can with one arm in a cast, bound tight against his chest in a sling. "You can't always be the dashing hero, sir. Sometimes you need to share the wealth, as it were. Besides, I'm safe now."
Jack frowns, his face clouded over with something so intense that Ianto fears he's going to bust into tears. Instead, he breaks out into a brilliant smile, surging forward, pulling Ianto up against his chest.
"Yes, god. Yes. You're safe. I've got you and you're safe."
Five times Sam called Will in the middle of the night - tww, pg, sam/will
Oh, and. Um, the numbers aren't looking great. But I'm sure you already know that. It doesn't matter, okay? Don't worry. We can always rally from behind. Just concentrate on the speech. I'll concentrate on kicking Webb's ass.
Five things Todd wishes he'd said to Neil (and one he wishes he hadn't) - dps, pg, neil/todd
It's an impossible dream. There was no way he could have known beforehand, no way he could have been there, but he can't stop dreaming about taking Neil's firmly by the shoulders and saying, "No. Don't do it. Please."
He doesn't know if it would have changed anything, but he wishes he'd had a chance to try.
And this one is too big to fit in a comment:
Five times Jack told Ianto it was safe - tw, pg, jack/ianto + team (briefly)
Five times Jack told Ianto it was safe
1. "I swear," Jack says, looping some wires around the chair, "I've used this before. It's perfectly safe. It's painful, sure, but perfectly safe."
Ianto's brain flips back to the summary in the archives as Owen and Suzie march their furry purple captive up the stairs from the cells. He doesn't recall "perfectly safe" from the file. "Hazardous," he remembers. "Untested," sure. "Perfectly safe," however, eludes him.
He keeps his mouth closed. The last thing he needs is for Jack to decide to demonstrate how "perfectly safe" it is. He doesn't think that Jack would test something he admitted was painful on his staff, but as long as Lisa is hidden in the basement (too long, far too long, god, he has to fix her soon), he doesn't want to tempt Jack with the idea of probing his mind.
"This is untested, Jack," Suzie says, always the voice of reason, and it's good to know that at least one other person actually reads the archive reports that he had painstakingly transposed into the computer system and refiled.
"It'll be fine," Jack says with one of this large, dismissive grins. It seems to assuage Tosh's fears a little--she connects the wires to her computer with more determination. Suzie still doesn't seem convinced. Owen doesn't seem to care.
"If you say so, sir," Ianto says, holding out the last piece of the device, offering Jack a small, tight smile in response to the brilliant grin that Jack gives him as he takes the metal crown from Ianto's hands.
Twenty minutes later, Ianto is washing fuzzy purple goo off of the equipment with a toothbrush. He can still hear Jack up in his office, his voice occasionally carrying through the closed door, phrases like, "high blood-pressure" and "mis-configured power source" and "capacity of its brain stem" escaping down into the Hub proper, mixed with Suzie's frantic, "my clothes!" and "it won't wash out of my hair!"
He makes a note to stand as far away as possible if they ever use that device again.
He also makes a note to bring some retcon to the dry cleaner's. As circumspect as they normally are, he has a feeling they won't be particularly pleased with the state of Suzie's clothes, and he'd rather like to avoid switching dry cleaner's for the fourth time in a month.
***
2. Ianto eyes the cup of coffee in Jack's hand warily as it slides across the table towards him.
"Don't worry," Jack says with the charming smile that means he's trying to hide what he's really thinking, "it's safe."
Ianto isn't sure if Jack means it's free of retcon or free of any missteps Jack may have made with the coffee machine. He's hesitant to drink it, hesitant to move, really, pain still blinding him to numbness, leaving him with all but the fuzziest of recollections of what's going on, what's going to happen. There are rules for things like this. In the event of an agent being compromised and bringing in an alien threat, there are three choices available to the disciplinary committee: short term retcon and demotion, long term retcon and termination, and... well, termination. Permanent termination.
He eyes the coffee warily.
"I swear," Jack says, nudging it a bit closer, his voice hitting something almost close to compassion, "It may not be as good as yours, but I made coffee before you, Ianto Jones, and I will continue to make coffee in your absence."
His absence. Right. Well, he didn't say death. That narrows it down at least.
He picks up the coffee and sips it, swallowing harder than necessary, swallowing the fact that it will hurt to leave Torchwood. For all that Torchwood ruined his life and Lisa's, for all that Torchwood destroyed everything he held dear over and over again, Torchwood is his life. He knows his deception goes too far back for a short-term amnesia pill, and for all the pain, he doesn't want to lose his memories of Lisa, his memories of the pleasant times he had in London and, less frequently, but still, despite his best intentions, here in Cardiff. He knows that it's procedure to set the newly retconned up with a new life, that he won't even remember losing all of this, but he doesn't want to go back to a life completely lacking meaning, the way he was before Torchwood. He's afraid to be that person again.
"I understand, sir," he says quietly. His voice is foreign to his ears, rough and brittle from a night full of screaming and sobbing and too few hours in a chemically induced slumber. "There's a file on the tourist center computer that Tosh should be able to decrypt. It has the passwords for all of the classified areas of the archives, as well as a brief explanation of the upkeep of some of the artifacts in vault D. The paperwork is explained as well, although most forms should be self-explanatory. New forms can be ordered from Archie in Glasgow, and--" Jack reaches across the table and puts a hand on his wrist. Ianto sucks a breath in through his teeth and tries not the flinch back from the touch. He wanted to see this man die slowly less than six hours ago. Now Ianto finds himself already missing Jack, already missing all of them, but knowing that Jack filled a place in his life that had been empty since Canary Wharf.
"What are you talking about?" Jack asks.
"Before the retcon kicks in," Ianto says patiently. "The butcher three blocks over supplies scraps for Myfanwy every Tuesday and Friday evening. No matter how much she begs, she's only to be fed once a day in the evening. There's a bottle of--"
Jack's shaking his head, his fingers tightening on Ianto's wrist.
"Ianto, I'm not retconning you," Jack says. "Suspension. Four weeks. You're to clean up the mess the Hub is in and then report back in a month. Take some time. Sort out your life. Grieve." He nods at the cup of coffee in Ianto's hands. "Drink that. I'll see you upstairs when you're done." He releases Ianto's wrist and stands up. Ianto can only watch him with wide eyes, a little shocked at just how shocked he is, unaware that emotion could filter through the numbness. "Oh, and, see me before you leave." He rubs the back of his neck and smiles sheepishly. "I might actually need to write down that stuff about Myfanwy."
Jack heads back upstairs. Ianto's coffee is almost cool by the time his hands stop shaking enough to drink it.
***
3. The first thing Jack says to Ianto when he opens his eyes is, "Don't worry, we're perfectly safe."
The last thing he remembers is being stunned by the creature he was chasing through the corridors of the alien ship. He swears softly under his breath, because he knows what "safe" means in Jack!speak, and when he looks around, he swears again and squeezes his eyes shut.
"This is obviously some strange usage of the word 'safe' that I wasn't previously aware of," he mutters, clinging to Jack's leg in a way that would be embarrassing if he wasn't filled with mortal terror. "I guess this wouldn't be a good time to admit that I'm terrified of heights?"
"Obviously not terrified enough to forego quoting Douglas Adams," Jack says. There's amusement tinging his voice, real amusement, not the amused bravado that he affects when he's trying to bolster the troops and hide the fact that he has no fucking idea what's going on. "Nice guy, Adams. His ideas on time travel were way off the mark, but you've got to admire a guy who can fit that much science into a good joke."
"Oh god," Ianto says. He knows that's his place to retort with another dry remark, but they are miles above the ground held up by seemingly nothing and he can feel the wind whipping around them and they are clearly going to die.
Jack chuckles, Ianto can feel it reverberating down his leg, and then there are gentle hands on his shoulders, prying him away from Jack's leg and tugging him into a standing position. His arms immediately clutch Jack's waist and he tries his damnedest not to whimper. The wind is even worse up here and he's embarrassed enough about clinging to his boss without making it worse by whimpering like an infant.
"Come on, Ianto, open your eyes! Enjoy the view!" One of Jack's arms slides snugly around his shoulder and the other presses to his chest in a way that would be playing havoc with the careful distance Ianto has tried to put between them since the mess with Lisa if he could concentrate on it long enough to give a damn.
"We are, apparently, miles above the ground, hovering in mid-air, sir," Ianto grinds out. "If it's all the same to you, I'd like my eyes closed when we splatter across the ground."
"Ianto Jones, do you really think I would let you fall?" Jack asks, close to his ear. It's so sincere, so layered in meaning that Ianto's breath catches in his throat. He opens his eyes very slowly to find Jack's face mere centimeters from his own. He briefly forgets about being miles above ground as his eyes lock with Jack's. "We're on the hull of the ship," Jack says softly. "Its cloaking device is on. Once we get word from the others that our alien friends have been dealt with on the ground, I'm going to take it in for a landing, but for now I thought we'd enjoy the view."
"Sure," Ianto says. The words have washed right over him and this is bad, oh so very bad, because there needs to be professional distance and right now there is no distance in any sense of the word. He can feel Jack's heartbeat, for christ's sake, and it's not fair that it gets to be measured and even when his own is going so fast he's sure to go into cardiac arrest any second now.
"We're safe," Jack repeats softly, squeezing his shoulder, giving him the softest, sweetest smile Ianto's ever seen him give anyone, and Ianto chokes back a laugh because, oh god, safe? No, he's really not.
***
4. "No."
"I swear, it's perfectly safe! Really, just try some!"
"Jack, the last time you tried to get me to eat something that came through the Rift, I had those purple spots for a week."
"But--"
"A week!"
***
5. "Oh, Jack is going to go spare."
Ianto cracks his eyes open slowly, letting them get used to the glare from the sunlight filtering in through the window. He's not sure where he is. It's not his flat, and it's not the Hub. The bed is softer than he's used to, and at first glance he doesn't see any hospital machines, but then notices an IV bag to his right and Martha Jones sitting primly beside him.
"Absolutely spare," she continues, brushing his hair off of his forehead and pulling a penlight out of her pocket. He fights against the instinct to close his eyes as she tests his pupils. "He sat here all night and all morning and I finally convince him to go get some coffee and of course you wake up. You always have to have the upper hand, don't you?"
"Someone needs to keep him in line," Ianto manages to croak out, and Martha laughs.
"Too true," she says, and brushes her hand across his forehead again, more affectionately than clinically. Things are starting to come back to Ianto, slowly. He remembers the bomb, now, and the hostages. He remembers climbing down the lift shaft on a swaying rope, hand over hand. He remembers falling the last two floors. He remembers turning off his comm to shut Jack up, remembers the blast, remembers--
"Oh my god," he groans, "Jack is going to kill me."
Martha laughs again and squeezes his hand, then yells, "Gwen, he's awake!" into the hallway. The words are barely out of her mouth before Gwen is there, bounding across the room, stopping just short of throwing herself at his bed. Her eyes drop to his chest, and for the first time he notices his arm is in a cast.
"Oh, Ianto," she says in her "injured kitten" voice. He rolls his eyes and holds out his good arm, accepting of the hug that she seems all but ready to throw at him. It feels good to hold her, and he must have the good drugs in the IV bag, because even as she squishes herself up against his cast, he doesn't feel any more than a twinge.
"Did I really shoot Jack?" he asks as Gwen pulls away, and she laughs, wiping mascara from her eyes along with the tears that are threatening.
"Yes," she admits, "and he'll probably be bloody furious about it as soon as he's done fretting."
"Yeah," Martha says, "do you end many arguments by killing him?"
"Just one other time," Ianto says. "Well, two if you count the time Owen shot him. Of course, Owen didn't know he could come back at that point, so..." Martha snorts. "In my defense, it was the only way to get him to shut up long enough to enact my plan, which obviously worked as the world isn't blown up and I'm still alive."
"Barely," Martha says sternly. "That was dumb luck is what that was. You should have been nothing but dust."
"If I had been nothing but dust, there would have been no one to clean the dust up," Ianto says. He pushes himself, one armed, into a sitting position and offers both of the girls a wry smile.
"Still, if you try that again, Jack won't be the only one out to kill you," Gwen warns him, pulling him into another hug. He accepts it and relaxes, breathing in the smell of her shampoo, reveling in the fact that his plan worked, he's okay, Jack's okay, the world is saved, and while he'll probably be in the doghouse at work for the rest of his natural life, at least he has the rest of his natural life to live.
"I love you madly, Ianto Jones, don't you forget it," Gwen says, pressing a kiss to his forehead.
"I love you madly too, Gwen Cooper," he replies, uncharacteristically demonstrative, high on life, ready to get out of bed and save the world again.
He definitely has the good drugs in his IV bag.
He's pulling away from Gwen, thinking about how beautiful she is, how beautiful Martha is, how beautiful the sunshine is, how he loves all of it so much it makes his chest ache, when he hears heavy footsteps enter the room.
"You shot me." Jack's voice is splintered, raw. It's obvious he's going for levity, but the look on his face never quite makes it there and the humor is absent from his voice. Martha and Gwen both step back from the bed.
"Yeah," Ianto says. "Sorry about that. Couldn't come up with a better way to get you to shut up."
"You shot me," Jack repeats, walking towards the bed slowly, "then you specifically ignored my direct orders and dove headfirst into danger."
"Climbed, actually," Ianto says. "Didn't really dive until those last few floors. Grease on the bottom of the rope. And, with all due respect sir, your orders were crap." Jack's at the edge of the bed now, but he's still not touching. Ianto can't read the look on his face anymore.
"My orders would have kept you safe," Jack says, and his voice cracks. "My orders would have--"
"Gotten us all killed, maybe," Ianto says. He shrugs, or attempts to shrug as best he can with one arm in a cast, bound tight against his chest in a sling. "You can't always be the dashing hero, sir. Sometimes you need to share the wealth, as it were. Besides, I'm safe now."
Jack frowns, his face clouded over with something so intense that Ianto fears he's going to bust into tears. Instead, he breaks out into a brilliant smile, surging forward, pulling Ianto up against his chest.
"Yes, god. Yes. You're safe. I've got you and you're safe."