Chapter Text
The difference between Wales and Scotland, he found, was mostly just the lack of… everything.
Well, not that Scotland lacked things. Just the things he wanted. And needed.
Things that Scotland lacked: Mermaid Quay, Torchwood Cardiff, Gwen Cooper. And also a ton of other things, but mostly just those three.
What Scotland had, though, was Ianto Jones, which was almost enough to keep him going.
Almost.
It stung, some days. Other days, there was just a mass of some unknown, emotionless feeling. Which was hard to explain, but it just… was. Ianto said he understood the feeling, the one time he was brave enough to mention it out loud. So, that had to mean something, right?
But, basically, this sucked.
A whole life of his, down the drain and gone. Never to be seen again. And that was saying something, considering how many lives he had lived. He had infinite lives. He should be able to recreate one whenever he chose, right?
No. He couldn’t.
He was learning to get by, though.
He now knew how to wake up in the morning, roll over to lazily kiss the beautiful Welshman lying next to him, and then drift back off to sleep. He knew how to dust and polish a picture frame until it shined. He knew how to bake three different types of bread… and also how to waft a baking sheet in front of a fire alarm until it shut up. He knew how long it took for paint to dry on a wall and how long to wait to apply the next coat. He knew how to give a tired, cranky part-time librarian a foot massage without waking him up from his nap. He knew how to be one half of Ken and Ifan, because someone had a hard time picking an entirely new name for himself.
And he also knew how to not punch someone waking him from a nightmare (another thing Scotland also had, rather unfortunately).
Jack gasped, in and out, hunching his shoulders over as Ianto roamed a hand gently up and down his back.
“That one sounded bad.” Ianto fingers trailed up into his hair, then back down again. “Same one, just worse?”
Jack nodded, then shook his head.
“You, and Gwen,” he said. “Thames House.”
Ianto leant forward, wrapping his arms loosely around Jack.
“We didn’t die there,” Ianto reminded him, somewhat pointlessly. “We’re alive.”
“Steven was the kid in the tank with the thing.”
Ianto kissed the back of Jack’s neck, then rested his forehead against Jack’s head.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured.
They sat there for a while. Jack focused on breaths in and out, trying to make his heartrate go back to normal. Harder than usual, this time. Christ, his body felt like it had run a marathon while his brain had been asleep.
Ianto nearly passed out again leaning on Jack, which meant it was time for Jack to stop messing around with the thoughts in his head and time for them to reattempt sleep. Jack tapped the hands surrounding him until Ianto gave a “hm?” and slid off of him.
Jack checked the time as they laid back down. Almost three in the morning.
“See you in an hour,” Jack joked.
Ianto just made a grumbling noise and curled back up against Jack.
But they didn’t need to wait until Ianto’s scheduled nightmare to wake up again, because Jack was restless enough for the next fifteen minutes that Ianto actually sat up and glared down at Jack.
“What is it?” Ianto asked him.
“Nothing,” Jack said.
“No, it isn’t, because if it was, I’d be asleep by now,” Ianto grouched.
Jack sighed and sat up. “It’s nothing. I just… feel weird.”
“Weird?” Ianto asked, suddenly quite serious. “Weird how?”
“I don’t know.”
“Good or bad weird?”
“I don’t know,” Jack repeated. “It’s just… it’s been like this for…” He checked the time. “Maybe eighteen, twenty hours. I don’t know, something around then. I just feel… off. Not like I usually do.”
“Are you sick?”
“How would I get sick? You haven’t been sick, and I’d instantly kill off anything you passed on to me otherwise.”
Ianto shrugged. “Maybe you just need sleep?”
“Alright, I get the hint,” Jack said with a small laugh.
He laid back down and patted the bed beside him. Ianto was there in an instant, curling back up to Jack again. Jack curled himself around Ianto as well, and they both settled in.
For five minutes, anyway.
“I take it we’re getting up now, aren’t we,” Ianto sighed.
Jack pressed an apologetic kiss to his lips. He sat up again and stretched for a moment, then slid out of bed and shuffled out of the bedroom. Ianto, very begrudgingly, trailed after him, taking the duvet along for the ride.
“What are you doing?” Ianto asked as Jack sat himself down in front of Ianto’s laptop.
“Maybe it’s a gut feeling,” Jack said. “Maybe something is happening out there.”
“Hey, is that—” Ianto leant over Jack’s shoulder, peering at the screen. “Jack! I use that for work!”
“And I do, too,” Jack said.
“That’s not work; that’s sneaking onto the Torchwood mainframe.”
Scotland had the Torchwood mainframe, because anywhere had the Torchwood mainframe, if only one just knew how to properly access it.
“This could save our lives one day,” Jack said. “Too useful for us to properly be rid of it.”
Ianto sighed, something that might’ve also doubled as a muttered curse, but he didn’t stop or berate Jack anymore.
“What the hell—” Jack said after he’d had a few moments to play around the systems. “Ianto, look at this.”
“Nobody’s… died in over nineteen hours,” Ianto said. “But… that’s not possible.”
“Evidently, it is,” Jack said. “And when has impossibility ever stopped anything?”
“Well… what do we d—” Ianto cleared his throat, then started again. “What’s to be done?”
“Nothing, I guess,” Jack said. “Hope it resolves on its own.”
“Right…” Ianto said.
And for the next two minutes, neither of them moved a muscle, not even to tear their eyes away from the computer screen.
Then, out of the blue, the computer bleeped at them. At the same time, Jack’s vortex manipulator blipped out an alert.
Confused and a bit startled, Jack read what the screen flashed at them, and then swore. Loudly.
“What is it?” Ianto asked.
He peered over Jack’s shoulder at the laptop. And also swore.
“Shit,” he said. “That’s… how?”
“I don’t know,” Jack said. “But the entire CIA just flashed our name, right across all monitors, it seems.”
“How did the mainframe pick that up?” Ianto asked.
“Toshiko,” Jack said, riding the wave of guilt the name brought along with. “I had her set it up—any big level government agency anywhere gets wind of us after I’d closed a few things down… we get alerted. Just in case something like this happened.”
“Something like this…” Ianto murmured. He looked to Jack. “What is this?”
“I don’t know,” Jack said, truthfully.
“But it’s… not good, yeah?”
“I don’t think anything like this would ever be good,” Jack admitted.
Silence fell between them for a moment.
“We should do something about this,” Ianto said after a minute.
Jack was beyond grateful that Ianto was the one to say it. The guilt that would descend upon him should this go south, and he’d been the one to… no. Best that Ianto said it. He was not going to drag Ianto into anything Ianto didn’t want to be in, anyway.
“How fast can I get a flight to America?” Jack asked.
“Mainframe’s up—I can get you anywhere anytime,” Ianto said quickly. “I’ll get you the soonest flight to…”
“Washington D.C.,” Jack said.
“Got it.”
“Get that off their screens, while you’re at it.”
“Yep.”
Jack got up from in front of the laptop and Ianto slid into his place, fingers already flying over the keyboard. Jack took off for the bedroom, switching out of his old white t-shirt for a more appropriate blue dress shirt.
A very certain blue greatcoat came out of the chest tucked away under the bed.
And a handgun, too.
“You won’t be able to get on a plane with that,” Ianto said, looking up from the laptop as Jack came back out of the bedroom.
Jack tucked the gun away in his belt. “I know. I’ll stash it outside the airport somewhere.”
Then he threw on his greatcoat.
Something felt just right, in that moment. The way it hung over his shoulders, how it draped around his legs, the snug feeling of home it gave…
Well, it didn’t feel completely right.
Not until Ianto came and straightened it.
Then it was completely right.
Ianto brushed off (mostly imaginary) dust from Jack’s shoulders. He didn’t look Jack in the eye, his brows furrowed as he continued to fuss with the greatcoat. Jack eventually grabbed his hands and held them. Ianto looked at him then.
“I’m sure this will all resolve itself soon,” Jack said, though he knew it was a falsehood the moment it formed in his brain. “I’ll be back.”
“You always come back,” Ianto said for him.
Jack nodded.
Ianto searched Jack’s face for a moment, then stepped back.
“Your flight leaves soon,” he said. “You should go.”
“Yeah,” Jack said.
He quickly kissed Ianto goodbye, then snatched up his wallet and keys, preparing to dash out.
But something stopped him.
Jack turned back around, marched back to Ianto, and grabbed onto him. He kissed Ianto again, slowly and fully, and with everything he had to give. And when they parted, he rested his forehead against Ianto’s.
“Be careful,” Ianto whispered.
“I will.” Jack kissed his lips again, gently this time. “I promise.”
Ianto gave a small laugh. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
Instead of responding to that, Jack just said, “Try to find out more if you can, then get some sleep.”
He kissed Ianto once more, then broke away. He left with only one final backwards glance to see Ianto place his hands on his hips and stare at the floor.
That image burned into the back of his brain and played in front of his eyes the entire flight to America, but Jack had to force it aside and concentrate the moment his feet touched American soil.
There were three things that alerted Jack that something deeper was going on. How there was something deeper than people not dying and Torchwood being flashed all over the CIA, he didn’t know. But there was something more happening behind the scenes.
The first thing that notified him was the fact that his arm hurt.
Now, that wasn’t something too out of place. The Esther girl was right—he had just fallen out of a building. He was lucky he wasn’t any more hurt.
But the thing was… something this small should have healed by now. Within an instant, really. But there it was, searing pain in his arm. And it wasn’t going away.
The second thing…
“Torchwood, they said that people died, but there were those other photos,” Esther said. “Gwen Cooper and Ianto Jones. There were no dates of death.”
“They’re still alive,” Jack told her. “The last ones left. And I'm gonna keep them safe, which means making sure that the Institute stays dead and buried.”
“So that first email last night, the one that just said Torchwood?”
“Wasn't me. God knows who it was.”
Later on, as he was waiting for the autopsy of the bomber to start, he thought about those things again. Someone went out of their way to blow Jack up in an attempt to stop him from getting rid of all traces of Gwen and Ianto. Or, that was what he assumed. Torchwood wasn’t just being brought back into light, Torchwood was being dragged out, metaphorically kicking and screaming.
And the third thing that screamed how deep this shit was getting was what the surgeon heading the bomber’s autopsy said.
“All of us have been changed by design,” he said.
“But how? Who could do this?” asked the other doctor (Jack had forgotten her name).
“Well, who's got the technology? Simple answer: no one on this Earth.”
Jack had said that, to that Esther. This was the sort of stuff Torchwood would look at. Things done by technology not from this Earth. Things that changed people by design—even Jack, who was definitely not healing.
So, were they linked? This no-death thing and whoever was spoiling to get at Torchwood?
That was what he spent the night researching, in an abandoned apartment block. Well, that, and Esther Drummond. She’d been smart, and he now had to keep an eye on her. And an ear. Good thing he had both, because some colleague of hers was asking the same questions that he had.
Jack listened in with bated breath as the conversation between Esther and some Rex guy unfolded over a phone call. They hit on the timing of the events and the odd correlation… but just when Jack had hoped they’d make some grand hypothesis, the conversation turned.
“All right, so give me those names again,” the man said.
“Captain Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones, and Gwen Cooper,” Esther told him. “
Jack’s heart dropped right out of his chest.
“Zero information on the captain, and no sightings of Cooper or Jones for the last twelve months. It's like they’ve gone underground.”
That, Jack decided, was good. They wouldn’t be able to find Ianto and Gwen. Right?
Wrong.
Jack slammed down a few of the stolen laptops and grabbed his mobile, shoving it between his ear and his shoulder as he tried to take down his makeshift room as quickly as he could.
“Jack?”
“Nice to hear some Welsh vowels again,” Jack said. “But I’ll need to hear more.”
“What?” Ianto asked.
“I need you to get me a flight back to the UK,” Jack said. “Now.”
“Yes, alright, why?”
“He’s either going after Gwen or you, but I’ll place my bets on Gwen, because she’ll be easier to find.”
“‘He?’ He who?”
“Some CIA bastard,” Jack said.
“Christ. You didn’t take care of it, did you?”
“No, no, I did, but something else…” Jack sighed, rubbing a hand to his forehead. “Things have gotten big, Ianto. Bigger than I thought they’d get.”
“Jack, what’s going on?”
“Not a clue,” Jack admitted. “But for now… get me that flight. And then get yourself somewhere safe.”
“Should I meet you—”
“Whatever you think is safest, okay?” Jack interrupted. “Nothing unless you think it’s safe.”
“But—” This time, Ianto cut himself off. He sighed, and then said a quieter, “Alright.”
“I’ll see you soon,” Jack said.
He hung up then, and left the abandoned flats.
It was funny, how he ended up sitting next to the same man trying to take down Gwen (because it was Gwen, Jack learned as he snatched the phone from the CIA agent). Or maybe not funny. Just Ianto, being extra clever. Meant he didn’t have to do any work to find where Gwen lived—he could just follow the man right there.
Seeing Gwen again was wonderful. Wales and Gwen Cooper. One step closer in the right direction. But it was also one step in the wrong direction, too, because when that helicopter shot at them, Jack got cut.
And the cut didn’t go away.
Jack stood on the Plass, where he should be happy. He used to be happy here. Now he felt weird, and his side hurt from the bruises, and his arm seared in both the places it was cut, and he could only draw one conclusion.
“—Jack? You even listening to me?” Gwen was saying.
“I cut my arm,” he said.
“Okay,” she sighed. “Can’t help but thinking there’s more important things to be worrying about, here.”
“No,” he said, looking over to her. “I cut my arm. Look at it. It’s not healing.”
“Do you mean—”
“I’m staying hurt,” Jack said.
“Oh my god.”
“I know.”
“Seriously, though,” she said.
“It’s only a cut,” Rhys said from off to the side.
“But it’s Jack,” Gwen said. “Don’t you see: the whole world becomes immortal—”
“—and I’m mortal,” Jack finished.
“You’re what?”
Jack shut his mouth and turned around to see Ianto standing there, staring down at Jack with wide and horrified eyes.
“I thought I told you to go somewhere safe,” Jack said.
“Never mind that.” Ianto descended down to Gwen and Jack. “What do you mean, you’re mortal?”
Jack showed him the cut. He took Jack’s arm in both hands, cradling it gently, running his eyes back and forth over the wound, as if it would somehow disappear if he just watched it long enough.
“Ah,” said CIA Rex, apropos of nothing. “There comes my ride.”
Police cars surrounded the Roald Dahl Plass, headed by none other than Andy Davidson himself. Or not, as Andy explained to an upset Gwen that it was actually Rex who was in charge. Not that it mattered to Jack.
And for the very first time, as the armed police circled around the ex-Torchwood team, Ianto placed himself between Jack and the danger, because he was the one who couldn’t die. And Jack could.
Suddenly, Jack found himself missing Scotland.