Ianto slept for forty-eight hours, and was sluggish and weak when he woke. Over the next days, his friends fed him and talked to him, and went on long walks with him. Owen and Toshiko visited several times, and even Gwen stopped by, one afternoon. In those few days he seemed to be more stable, though it was difficult to say whether he was mending. Molly fretted that he did not seem to be actually grieving.
“It’s like he’s just treading water,” she said, wringing her hands in the kitchen one evening as they did the washing up.
“Not everyone cries, my Dear,” Arthur patted her shoulder.
“But he does,” she replied quietly. “Don’t you remember, that Christmas after Adelaide…” she snapped her mouth shut as she remembered the camera. “He doesn’t make a show of emotion in front of people, but I can’t tell you how many times I found that boy on his own, crying for her.” She sighed. “So much loss. He’s a quiet man, but a good friend to those smart enough to let him in. And how many others did he lose in London, besides…?” She trailed off, not wanting to be overheard.
“Well, he hasn’t exactly had much time to himself,” Arthur frowned.
“And we can’t leave him right now,” she shook her head. “But I don’t think he’s holding back,” she added. “It’s like he can’t cry, right now.”
“He’s overwhelmed,” he nodded. “No surprise, really.”
“But if he can’t find a way to let it out, it’s going to eat him alive.”
“Draco says he should be well enough in the next few days,” Arthur trailed off, knowing Molly would understand that he was speaking of the grieving potion that the young healer had already prepared. Draco had been waiting for some of the exhaustion and malnutrition to begin to resolve before beginning the course. “That will help.”
She nodded. “I hope so.”
***
On the ninth day following the day that Ianto’s world ended, he woke in the morning and had breakfast with Hermione and Neville. He had noticed that she and Ron did not watch over him, together. He wondered if they thought he’d somehow forget that they were married, if they didn’t show up together.
He gave himself a shake and acknowledged that not only was his mood low, he was also in danger of becoming bitter. He didn’t want that.
Jack visited around mid-morning, and they took a long walk through the nearby park. It had become something of a routine that either Jack or Toshiko would show up every day. Even Owen stopped by, every few days. For Jack, it was his way of checking in and showing Ianto that he wanted to try to salvage their friendship.
They walked along in companionable silence. Ianto was often lost in thought, lately, and his friends had become used to just allowing him to be silent, as their mere presence seemed to be what comforted him most. Jack had lived long enough to understand grief and mourning. He was glad to let Ianto know that he was not alone in his silence, but he also shared the Weasleys’ concern that Ianto seemed to have bottled up all of his pain and grief, to the point where Jack was worried he would choke on it.
“You’re holding back,” he quietly broke their silence. “Doesn’t help, you know.
“I’m not,” Ianto replied, as usual seeming to know what Jack was speaking of. “It’s like it’s stuck. Or…” he sighed. “I don’t know. I feel like I’ve been gutted. Hollowed out, and there’s nothing left but a pain that I can’t seem to express.” He huffed. “Maybe part of me is worried that if I do express it, I’ll be left with nothing, just the emptiness.”
“But it won’t always be that way,” Jack assured him quietly.
Ianto shrugged. “I don’t know what’s…” he trailed off, looking away. “I feel like I'm suffocating.”
Jack wrapped an arm around Ianto’s shoulder and pulled him into a side-armed hug. “Just keep breathing, Ianto. You’ll get through this.”
When Jack dropped his arm Ianto lapsed back into silence and they walked for a while longer before returning to Ianto’s flat. Jack joined them for lunch, noting that though Ianto ate, it was still a worryingly small amount.
After Jack left, Ianto drank a calming potion and went to his bedroom for a nap. Noticing a hole in one of his socks, he took them off, chucking them in the bin as he lay down.
***
Two hours later, as Neville and Hermione sat at the table and read through some case files for work, they heard a loud roar of grief and pain. Before they could stand, Ianto had raced from the bedroom and was out of the door.
Neville chased after Ianto, and Hermione went across the hall to the empty flat the Ministry had decided to rent until Ianto was back on his feet. It was a safe place for everyone to apparate to and from, and Draco was able to brew and store many of the potions Ianto needed so they could continue to use the innocuous looking water bottles to administer them.
She rounded up Harry and Ron, and asked Luna, who had just arrived, to go get Draco.
***
Ianto ran as hard and as fast as he could. Running from the dreams. Running from the monsters – most of which had his own face. (None, he realized with surprise, had Jack’s. But then, that wasn’t really a surprise, was it?) Running from the ugliness of what Lisa had become. Running from the beauty of his own child…
He couldn’t breathe. The dreams were stealing what little breath he had left, and he knew they would kill him, if he couldn’t stop them. Somehow, when the River Taff came into view, he knew what he needed to do…
His lungs burned from the effort of running when he was still so weak and sore. His bare feet were shredded, and his thinly clad chest felt the autumn wind and bleak rain, like icy fingers trying to catch him as he passed. He could hear Neville calling out to him, and a small corner of his mind wanted to tease his friend for not being able to catch him up, as pitiful as his conditioning was, at present. But he kept running, leaping over the railing and landing on one of the docks, below.
He ran to the end of the nearest dock and just kept running. As he plunged into the river, the cold water shocked him, almost causing him to gasp in surprise and pain. But that would be a mistake. It would cause him to reach for the surface and cough up the river and try to breathe, while his breath was no longer his own.
No. He calmed himself against the onslaught of the cold, dirty water as he swam for one of the pilings holding up the dock. As he wrapped himself around the post, he vaguely felt the barnacles already attached to it cutting into him, but the benefit of the cold water was that he was already numb.
He closed his eyes, held on tight, and inhaled. He felt his body rebel against the unnatural invasion of cold, slightly salty, definitely dirty water. His lungs immediately attempted to eject the infiltration, but even as he involuntarily coughed, he drew in another slug. He used the adrenaline-fueled strength that coursed through him to hold the piling closer, and felt relief as the black spots before his eyes expanded to splotches.
The darkness had almost completely enveloped him, and he felt his limbs weakening their hold on the piling when he heard a loud splash, nearby. He felt a pang of regret that Neville would now be as cold and wet as he was, but he would apologize, if he survived.
If this worked…
***
Luna and Draco had just arrived in the flat when a sodden Neville apparated in, holding a lifeless and equally soaked Ianto. “He jumped in before I could catch him. He…” he sobbed, “…on purpose.”
Luna pulled Neville away from Ianto as Draco looked him over. “Drowned?” he asked, looking at Neville.
Neville nodded. “I’m sorry,” he choked. Then he sniffed. “I’ll go find the others.”
Before he could disapparate, the others apparated into the room. They had seen Neville dive in after Ianto, and knew what he would do. They all knelt out of the way, silent as Draco worked.
Draco said, “I’ve got a heartbeat, but his lungs are full.” He twitched his wand, and immediately conjured a basin as Ianto began expelling what seemed like half the river, and then every meal he had eaten in recent memory. After what seemed like an eternity, he lay back, shuddering and coughing, trying to catch his breath.
His breath.
Neville was immediately on him, straddling his hips and holding him by the shoulders. “How could you!” he shouted, his fear bleeding away and anger blossoming, taking its place. “How could you do that to us? To me?”
Ianto stared blearily up at Neville, then gave a half smile. It had worked. Now he would need to beg forgiveness. “I..” he lurched to the side and vomited what felt like perhaps his spleen into the basin. He coughed raggedly, then wiping his mouth, he said, “I can explain.”
“So you’re going to try to tell us that that wasn’t another suicide attempt?” Neville had sat back, and Ianto shivered as his friend dripped on him.
Ianto fell back onto the floor and closed his eyes. He shook his head. “It wasn’t.”
Luna had gone quiet, then gasped. “Oh, Nif,” she cried. She reached out and hugged Neville. “Neville, he trusted you to get to him, in time. Let’s get you both warm and dry, and then we’ll let Ianto explain.”
Neville, somewhat mollified by Luna’s insight, allowed himself to be pulled off of Ianto and led down the hall to the hot shower that someone had had the foresight to start a few minutes ago. He looked around. “Thanks, Hermione.”
“You too, Niffler,” Luna helped him sit up. Draco had healed his feet, then the cuts from the barnacles on his arms, chest and neck. Then he handed Ianto a potion bottle and helped him to drink its contents.
It was the grieving potion. Draco was too shaken by the sight of Ianto not breathing, his lungs full of water due to deliberately drowning himself, to risk waiting any longer to administer it.
Ianto stood unsteadily and did not look at his friends as he made his way out of the flat. Luna made a gesture that prevented anyone from following too closely behind. “Don’t hover,” she cautioned in a low voice. “He’s safe, now.”
Ianto could feel the team’s eyes on him as soon as he entered his own flat. He took off the sodden t-shirt and could practically hear Jack hollering to Toshiko, “Why is he wet?” He vaguely wondered what the callout had been, that had taken their eyes from the cameras this afternoon. He had half-expected Jack to be here waiting for him, and worked very hard not to analyze that notion.
He wasn’t wrong about Jack. He, Tosh, and Owen had gone on a retrieval. A piece of tech had injured a bystander, and as Owen had patched him up and Retconned him, Tosh had disabled the tech. Jack had, very bravely, he thought facetiously, retrieved a containment box from the SUV. It hadn’t taken long, but when they returned, Ianto’s flat had been quiet and empty.
Just as Jack had leaned back to ask Toshiko to do a playback to see where everyone had gone, he saw Ianto enter the flat, soaking wet and staggering, a bit.
“Why is he wet?” Jack hollered.
“Looking through the playback, now,” Tosh answered.
Ianto shed his t-shirt, and Jack was once again saddened that he could to see every rib and vertebra in the young man’s back, as well as how his track pants were hanging onto his hips by little more than a prayer and a promise.
Jack gave himself a shake as Ianto made his way on unsteady legs into the bathroom, where the shower was already running, the room filled with steam. Ianto stood shivering under the water for quite a while, his arms stretched out in front of him, bracing himself against the wall. After about ten minutes, he finally moved to wash himself, then stood for another good, long while before finally shutting the water off.
As Ianto stood under the shower, looking defeated and vulnerable, Toshiko sent Jack the playback showing Ianto’s swift exit after another dream. “And where was Gwen?” he asked, knowing that the former PC had been asked to watch over Ianto as the others left the hub for the first time in days.
“Weevil sighting,” Tosh answered tightly. She was cross that Gwen hadn’t informed them, but then, no one had told her to do so. It didn’t seem fair to be upset, but she had to admit that she was, anyway.
Jack said nothing, but nodded his thanks to Toshiko. He watched Ianto dry off and climb into the pyjama bottoms that had been left on the counter by Hermione when she had come in to turn on the water. He slowly brushed his teeth, his deliberate, shaky, almost feeble movements more closely resembling those of an eighty year-old than a man in his early twenties. When he was done, he leaned against the sink, his head hanging.
When he spoke, his voice was rough and low. “Toshiko, can you and Owen please turn off your feeds? I’d like to say something to Jack, please.”
Jack’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. He wasn’t sure what was more unexpected – that Ianto knew exactly who was watching, or that he wanted to speak with Jack.
“Like hell!” Owen could be heard exclaiming.
Ianto stayed as he was, head still hanging, seeming to only be keeping himself upright by leaning against the sink. Jack watched as he turned and sank to the floor, sitting in front of the cabinet as he had been that night they’d found him with one of Owen’s scalpels. Jack shivered and rose from his seat. As he entered the hub, he saw that Toshiko was turning off her monitor and casting a stern look at Owen.
“Tosh, please send that feed over my comms,” Jack said quietly as he put on his coat. “Owen, turn it off, please,” he added as he left the hub.
As soon as Owen turned off the feed to his monitor with a grumble, Jack heard Ianto exhale. “Please thank them for me, Jack,” he said.
Jack was in the SUV and pulling out of the car park before Ianto spoke again. “I love my friends. I do. They are an extraordinary group of people, and they’ll be the next generation of leaders, in our world. And they have all been through more than you could imagine. So,” he gave a bit of a snort, and Jack wished he could see Ianto’s expression, to gauge what that sound meant, “please believe I mean no disrespect when I tell you that they don’t understand what I’m going through.”
Jack realized that Ianto felt he had no right to ask him to believe anything.
Ianto sniffed. “And I pray to all that’s sacred and holy that none of them will ever understand this. But you, Jack… I think you do.” He gave a rueful chuckle. “I know I’m lucky you haven’t decided to Retcon me back to nappies, as Owen so eloquently puts it, and I know I’m risking you changing your mind about that, with what I’m about to say. But…” Jack could practically hear him shrug.
“I don’t know how I know, but I know you’re a lot older than you let on, Jack.” It was the truth. There had been next to nothing in Torchwood One’s archives about Jack, and Ianto had come to suspect that Jack’d had a hand in that. What he did know was from Yvonne’s secure files.
Even that had been sketchy. Detailed plans of Torchwood Three’s hub, and a long list of anecdotal information about Jack Harkness. Yvonne had suspected that he had travelled with the Doctor, and she was certain that he had some sort of tech that helped him to heal.
Ianto had learned the night he met Jack that it wasn’t any sort of tech. Some sort of Wolverine-level healing factor, if he had to guess. The amount of blood in Jack’s laundry, combined with the absence of corresponding injuries seemed to back up the theory, as well as the sheer volume of blood he’d had to scrub from the Plass, the night Suzie died.
Ianto may have been a lot of things, but he was no fool. It was Jack’s secret to tell, though, and really none of Ianto’s business, as long as he could keep the others from taking a bullet for their boss. The rest, though. The rest was from observation. There was a loneliness in Jack that resonated very deeply with the sorrow that Ianto carried.
“And…” he sighed before forging ahead, “I get the impression that you’re a long way from home.”
Jack almost rear-ended the car in front of him, he was so shocked by Ianto’s insight.
“I know you have no reason to trust me, and every reason to think I would betray you again,” Ianto sniffed. “But I won’t. I just… I want you to know that I get it. Not about being older, though I feel about a thousand years old, today. But about being in exile.” He sighed. “Gods and goddesses, I’m babbling, aren’t I?”
Jack was riveted. He wanted to tell Ianto to keep babbling, especially since the traffic was slowing him down.
“But I think you understand what I’m going through. Well. Maybe not the whole seeing your child through some sort of portal to an alternate dimension bit. But losing…” he trailed off and huffed. “Anyway. I’ll have to tell them what I did, so they understand… well, what I did. But there’s so much they’re not going to get. And I don’t want them to. But,” he paused, then drew in another shuddering breath, “I’m sorry to say that I think you will.” He sighed, seeming reluctant to go on. Finally, “You see, they think I tried to drown myself in the Taff just now.”
Jack almost ran off the road.
Now the words came tumbling out. “But it was the only way, Jack. I told you I couldn’t breathe, yeah? Well, I think it was because I was somehow caught in that portal. I don’t know how I was doing it, but I kept going back. Just to see them, one more time. But I couldn’t stop, and I know it was either going to kill me or send me mad.” Jack could hear another shrug in the ensuing pause. “Or both.”
He huffed a small laugh. “I think it was a bit of madness that sent me running. And as soon as I saw the river, I realized that the only way to close the portal was to shut everything down, if only for a few seconds. I knew Neville was behind me. I wasn’t trying to die, this time. Well, not permanently, anyway. And on the plus side, I don’t think I actually died.”
Once again, Jack was reminded of soldiers putting their trust and their lives in one another’s hands. Ianto’s trust in his friend was so much beyond what one would have for a school friend.
“I can report that drowning sucks,” Ianto deadpanned.
He was quiet for several moments, and Jack held his breath, knowing something big was coming.
“I couldn’t have been out for very long, but somehow,” he drew in a deep breath. “I saw her whole life, Jack. In the space of what could only have been a few seconds, I saw it all. And in a few instances, it was me… I mean, I was living it through his eyes. I kissed her skinned knee on the playground. Scared off her first boyfriend. Fed her ice cream after her first breakup. I walked her down the aisle. Held her babies…”
Jack finally reached Ianto’s flat. He ran up the stairs and through the door, startling Ianto’s friends. He pulled the comm out of his ear as he opened the bathroom door and went in to sit next to Ianto, who had gone quiet.
“It was sending me mad. I wouldn’t have survived. But closing the portal… Now I’m not sure it was the right thing to do,” he looked at Jack, his eyes large and red with unshed tears.
“It was, Ianto. You have to live your own life, not someone else’s.”
“But now I’ll never see her again,” Ianto felt something inside of him crack open. “I know I wasn’t meant to see her to begin with, but…”
“I know,” Jack put an arm around Ianto, hoping the younger man would finally be able to express the grief he had been choking on, all this time. “Now you’ll miss her that much more. But think how beautiful it was, to see who she turned out to be.”
“I couldn’t save them, Jack,” Ianto was beginning to panic. What had he done? “And now the one part I still had, I…”
“Shhh,” Jack soothed. “You know that wasn’t yours, and it was making things worse.”
“But it was all I had left, and now it’s gone!” Ianto was close to hyperventilating. Then he wailed, “They’re gone, Jack!”
Jack turned Ianto so they were chest to chest and pulled him close, and the younger man collapsed into his arms, finally (finally) weeping. It was eerily quiet as Ianto’s silent sobs wracked Jack’s body. He had left the door open, and the others filed in, piling around them.
***
For a long time after, Jack would wonder how they’d all fit in the space between the cabinet and the bathtub, all huddled together in a sort of puddle, all offering solace to their friend. Jack managed to open his coat enough to wrap it around Ianto, feeling the younger man shivering against him, even as he wept.
Ianto did not even realize what he was doing as he curled into the older man’s body, allowing Jack’s warmth and strength to comfort him. He did not realize that as he calmed, one of the things that soothed him was Jack’s scent, and in the crush of the puddle, only Jack noticed Ianto nuzzling his neck, taking that comfort without conscious thought.
It was something Jack would never speak of, given that Ianto most likely thought he was entirely straight. Though there had been that strange conversation, just after he had used Owen’s scalpel. Jack was trying very hard not to read too much into that conversation, given the state Ianto had been in, and the fact that he would likely need quite a bit of time, to heal from this.
Jack could be patient. But the feeling of the younger man in his arms, weak and frail though he was, made Jack’s chest ache, for reasons other than sympathy for his friend. He brutally squashed all thoughts of attraction and flirtation, wanting simply to provide support and friendship to this young man who was anything but the ordinary worker bee his T1 file had implied.
Of course, he already knew that Ianto’s file had been altered, since there had been no mention in there of his being Yvonne Hartman’s personal assistant. Jack would have to determine whether Ianto had destroyed his original file, or just squirreled it away when he altered it for Jack to find.
As he continued to hold and comfort the fragile (and yet so bloody strong) young man, he tried to take his mind off of the warm and pliant body plastered to his. He thought again of what it had taken, to con him. Him! Jack had thought he could spot any con, from any distance. And yet, this beautiful creature in his arms had completely taken him in.
Jack didn’t blame him. Not now that he’d seen his own culpability, in this. No. He just wondered what it was in Ianto’s makeup that allowed such a… direct and loyal person to do what had been necessary to become invisible, to become indispensable, to become dangerously treacherous.
And then Jack remembered what Ianto had said, the previous week. He felt he had betrayed his team, Jack, his house, his friends, and himself. Quite a comprehensive list. And what had he meant by his house? Something to do with their school, he assumed, since his friends all seemed to know what he was talking about.
What was it Ianto had said? Just and loyal, patient and true. It was somehow familiar to Jack, but he couldn’t seem to place it. But if those were Ianto’s values, then Jack could see what was cutting the young man up inside, as much so as the losses he had suffered. Instinctively Jack could tell that these were a core part of what made Ianto Jones the extraordinary man he was.
And then he could see it. Someone as intelligent and resourceful as Ianto could accomplish almost anything for someone who could garner his loyalty. And Lisa had his first loyalty. Rightly so, too. Now Jack understood how Ianto could betray one loyalty to another that took precedence.
And what it would cost him, to do so.
No wonder he was skin and bones. This ordeal had been eating him, alive. Had Tanizaki somehow saved Lisa, what would it have done to Ianto? Would he have walked away, happy and relieved, or would it have gnawed at him? Jack turned away from the thought, unwilling to speculate.
It seemed as though they were there only minutes, though Jack’s sore body told him it had been hours when someone in the doorway cleared his throat. It was the blond man they called Draco.
“Maybe we should get him to bed, let him sleep properly. This was only the beginning, but at least it has finally begun.”
The others slowly peeled away and filed back out of the room. Jack watched Ianto, to be sure they did not disturb him. When it was just him holding Ianto and the young woman called Luna, he gave her a smile.
“Can you lift him, or are your legs asleep?” she asked quietly, returning his smile.
Jack flexed his legs and was relieved that he still had feeling in them. With Draco’s and Luna’s help, he was able to stand with Ianto still pressed against him. He took him to the bedroom and gently lay him down. He ran a hand through Ianto’s hair and kissed his forehead, then stepped back so Luna could tuck him in.
Jack knew his shirt was likely ruined, but he couldn’t make himself care as he limped, stiff and sore, into the living room. One of Ianto’s friends handed him a beer. He didn’t even hesitate to take it before collapsing onto the sofa. “Thanks,” he said, taking a long pull from the bottle of Brains. “Neville, right?”
“Yeah,” Neville answered. He gave Jack a curious look. “We heard him talking in there – assumed it was to the camera. Did he explain anything?”
Jack looked uncertain, not wanting to break a confidence. “He did. Said he planned on telling you lot why he did what he did, but there were things he wanted to tell me, as well.
Neville nodded, respecting Jack’s decision to keep Ianto’s confidence. That didn’t keep him from turning to Luna with a questioning look.
She blithely ignored him.
“You’ve, uh, got something on your shirt,” he pointed, snickering.
Jack shrugged. “Bodily fluids don’t bother me much,” he grinned rakishly.
The others laughed, relieved to have something break the nervous tension in the room. “So what do you mean, this is the beginning?” Jack asked Draco.
Draco looked at Jack for a long moment before deciding to answer. The older man’s willingness to endure drying Niffler snot on his shirt was definitely a point in his favor. “It means that his grief was suffocating him. Maybe because of whatever was going on with that portal, and maybe because he was simply overwhelmed. Probably both. But now he’s finally letting it out. Now he can start grieving properly. Now he can mend.”
Jack nodded. He hoped that was true. He finished his beer. “Let him know I’ll come by tomorrow or the day after, if he wants to go for another walk, or something.”
“We will,” Luna smiled. “Thank you.”
Jack left, feeling more (cautiously) optimistic than he had since this whole ordeal began.
***