They Come in Pairs - 8/?
Jack/Ianto (mentions of Jack/Rose and Ianto/Lisa)
NC-17
set between 1x08 and 1x13




Wow, just whoa, I love you guys. You all made me feel so much better by assuring me that my writing is "the opposite of suck." That made my day, seriously. Made my entire week. Of course I'm still nervous about letting you all down with the next parts as this moves into more character-driven chapters for a while and no action (and this is my first TW fic and also my first ever slash fic that goes beyond just a kiss). But anyway, my job sucks right now, life sucks, and you all were pretty much the only thing keeping me from suicide, so thanks. You make me want to just sit here and write a few hundred thousands words, although I can't because I'm working like 14-hour days, but I want to.

Anyway, enough of my rambling, time for dinner...


They Come in Pairs - 8

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"This was a good idea," Ianto commented seemingly at random halfway through the dinner he still wasn't quite sure how he'd ended up at.

"I don't know about that." Jack poked at his food with his fork. "It's a little over-seasoned for my taste."

"I didn't mean the food." He took a casual sip of his wine before noticing that Jack had stopped pushing his entrée around his plate and was instead focussed on him, waiting for further clarification. "I'm actually having a pleasant time."

"Oh?" Jack gave him a charming but cocky grin, which then faded back into a neutral expression rather quickly. "You were expecting otherwise?"

Ianto set down his glass. "That really a thread you want to pull at?"

Jack leaned back in his seat, an obvious withdraw from the conversation. "I guess not." He grabbed his own glass and drained it.

Ianto sighed. "We can never seem to get this right, can we?"

"What do you expect me to say?" Jack's tone was angry now, defensive, and he stabbed at his vegetables but didn't actually eat any. He left a steamed carrot skewered on his fork and glared at Ianto.

"Nothing." Ianto shook his head in resignation before dropping his napkin on his plate and fishing his wallet from his pocket. The meal was indeed over-seasoned. "That's our problem, isn't it?"

"I said I was buying." Jack put down his fork with a clang, carrot still impaled. "You want to walk out, just fucking go."

The woman at the next table gave him a disapproving look for raising his voice and swearing, which Jack of course failed to notice.

"We keep standing on this same precipice. I quit or you fire me, I wake up with no memory that Torchwood even exists. It's always right there, under the surface. We pretend it isn't, but it's still there, and we're incapable of talking about it, about anything. Yet we're having dinner together, like bloody Stockholm syndrome or something." Ianto had somehow managed to keep his own voice calm, and he stood and put away his wallet. "I'm sure you'll remember to tip our waitress. See you in the morning, Sir."

Jack actually let him make it out the door.

-----

It was a good minute or two before Jack decided to follow. He didn't have enough cash to cover the meal, so he tossed a credit card on the table before chasing after Ianto. He hadn't gotten far, and surprisingly stopped walking when Jack called his name.

It had started raining lightly, but the fairly deserted street was probably a much better location for this conversation than the crowded restaurant. "I wouldn't do that."

"You wouldn't what, Jack?" he asked in exasperated confusion. "If this is about tipping the waitress, I meant a literal tip and not something sorted, but by all means feel free. Just because you were out with me doesn't mean you can't go home with somebody else."

"Damn it, Ianto, I have no intention of *tipping* the waitress!" He took a deep breath in order to calm himself down. "I won't retcon you. Not you. Not for that long."

He'd just done it last week, but that had been a single day, and done to spare him pain. Lisa's memory, that was an entirely different kind of pain, one Jack knew well, and he wouldn't take that. The agony was all Jack had left of so many precious things, and he would never give those memories up.

"If you want to leave Torchwood, I won't retcon you."

A drop of water rolled down Ianto's cheek, and Jack wondered if it was a tear or just the rain. "Might be better off if you did."

"But I won't."

"Nobody just walks away from Torchwood."

Jack stared down at the ground. "I worked for another Agency, before Torchwood. They took two years. It messed me up pretty bad, for a while."

Ianto let his fingers graze Jack's sleeve, hesitating to take his hand. "I'm sorry."

Looking up again, Jack met his gaze. "So is this it?" Was fear of having his memory erased the only thing that had been keeping Ianto at Torchwood?

Ianto dropped his hand back to his side. He shook his head like he didn't know.

Jack wondered what it was that he was waiting for the answer to. He wasn't sure if his question had been about the job or about them. He also wasn't sure if the two were even separate questions. Ianto'd just compared their relationship to Stockholm syndrome, and Jack hadn't thought Ianto still hated him that much. Unless he'd meant it more literally, and it wasn't about hate at all, but rather misplaced loyalty, misplaced love. Jack didn't know if those two things could be separated either.

"We've been doing better, haven't we? Recently. Like we could actually get passed..." Ianto trailed off.

"I thought so." There'd been a point where he'd definitely been ready to fire Ianto, be done with him - but lately, yeah, things had been better. Ianto'd *died* for him, and unlike with Jack, Ianto only had the one death to give. Lately, he'd thought Ianto might have actually started to forgive him. And he thought now that he might know why. "That change have anything to do with this?"

He pulled a small receipt from his pocket and handed it to Ianto. Twenty-two white roses that had been delivered in London. Ianto wasn't the type to snoop, but it had been placed in Jack's box of items salvaged from the laundry. It hadn't been tossed out or filed away as a work expense. He knew Ianto had read it.

"Ah." Ianto carefully handed the slip of paper back to Jack.

"I take it you looked into things?" It wasn't actually a question.

"If it had been a full two dozen, or if they'd been red ones, I probably wouldn't have." He ran a hand through his now wet hair, preventing it from dripping in his face. "We both excel at overlooking the obvious."

Jack nodded. "I should have known about Lisa. Should have handled that better."

"You didn't want to know." He paused. "And I was too busy hating you to notice his glasses hanging on your bloody lamp. I saw him there, with your Rose." He paused again, longer this time. "You were at Canary Wharf."

"For all the good it did. Too little, and too fucking late." He'd waited a hundred years only to get there too late. Just like he'd been stuck on the ground on Christmas day. Except then the Doctor had merely lost his hand. At Canary Wharf, Rose's name ended up on the list of the dead. Along with her mother and Mickey. All of them. And Jack's name should have been on that list as well. He hadn't gotten there in time to help them; he could have at least died there with them.

He actually had died there. Only he'd gotten up again when it was all over, and Rose hadn't. He wasn't even sure how it had happened, but the Doctor wouldn't have let her name be on that list if she wasn't gone. On her birthday, he'd sent flowers to the place where she died. A little memorial of sorts had been put up, and Jack had sent the roses there since she didn't have an actual grave.

"There's footage of her in the Torchwood database, you know, in Downing Street." Ianto's eyes moved over Jack, studying him. There was a weight on his shoulders now that had been absent then, and he wondered if Ianto could actually see it. "You looked different, younger. Happy."

Wasn't he happy now? Or had it been so long that he'd forgotten what happy even felt like? He could still remember the look on Rose's face the first time she'd stepped foot on Raxacoricofallapatorius, her smile when she'd actually been able to pronounce it. Pure joy. When was the last time he'd felt that?

He'd need to destroy that footage. It was proof that he'd been in two places at once. He wondered if Ianto had discovered that as well. And he didn't know what else there was to say. "I left my credit card inside. I should..." He motioned back toward the restaurant.

"Right. Before our waitress tips herself. Go." He gave Jack a slight smile.

"This will only take a minute... if you want to wait?" He returned Ianto's hesitant smile with his own seductive grin. "I prefer wet Welshmen with overly seasoned breath to little jailbait waitresses."

"I'm sure there are plenty of them around." He grinned at Jack. "Goodnight, Sir."

He turned to leave but Jack called him back. "Ianto? I will see you in the morning?" He almost sounded worried.

"You will," Ianto confirmed. "And, Jack... we should do this again, sometime."

-----

TBC