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Chapter Text

Jack had spent 19 years in prison trying to get to the Doctor, and within the span of a single day once he broke her out, he knew that their time together would be short and sweet. The Doc had her new companions now and Jack could sense that while he would be welcomed aboard, he didn’t really belong. It was a blessing really that Kai Cooper-Williams managed to get a hold of him and pass along a message from his mother, it sounded like Gwen was still kicking arse and who was he to refuse one of his oldest friends calling him home to Cardiff?

Gwen and Rhys had moved back there after he’d left them for a second time, they were raising a wonderful young man as a son and if Gwen’s message was anything to go by, they had some big news for him. Kai had been awfully tight lipped on the phone when Jack had tried to weasel some clues out of him and had instead just told him to come as quickly as possible, he wouldn’t want to miss this for the world.

So he’d left the Doctor behind before she got the chance to leave him, they’d undoubtedly cross paths in the future but for now she needed to spend time with her new family and he needed to reconnect with his old one.

Seeing Gwen stood waiting for him after all these years, Rhys holding onto her waist from behind and their son, looking all grown up at the mighty age of ten next to them sent a shock of regret down Jacks spine. He’d missed out on so much time with them but what else could he have done? This whole planet was one big, painful reminder of everything, everyone he’d lost. Still, he was home now.

“Oi, oi,” Rhys shouted in Jack’s direction, pointing him out to Gwen as he approached, “look who finally decided to show up!”

42 years old and she hadn’t lost her spark of youth, it was right there nestled deep within her eyes, along with something suspiciously close to mischief. Gwen Cooper-Williams clearly had a secret and she couldn’t wait to tell him.

But teasing had to come first, “What’s this I hear about you stealing your sons boxing gloves to take on the Daleks without me,” Jack grinned as Gwen came running down the path towards him, “miss me, did you?”

“Jack,” Throwing her arms around her old friend, Gwen looked up at his unchanged face and sighed with relief, “you’re back!”

“In the flesh,” pulling away to plant a loud kiss to her cheek, Jack grinned down at his best friend, “it’s good to see you Gwen.”

“We had no idea how to contact you,” guilt was fast worming its way across Gwen’s face in a way Jack was not at all fond of, “I had no idea when you’d next be back, if you even were going to come back and it’s been- we tried Jack, really, even reached out to Martha Jones and Sarah Jane but-”

“Gwen,” Jack placed his hands on her shoulders firmly to ground her as Rhys and Kai made their way over to offer their support which Gwen swiftly batted away, “want to try that again? Breathing this time.”

“It’s Ianto, Jack,” Gwen smiled tearfully, “he’s back.”

-

Waking up after death was traumatising enough, the knowledge of what it felt like to feel life being ripped away from you would drive anyone insane but waking up and knowing, undoubtedly, that you were about to once again feel life slip through your fingers like smoke? Well that was enough to break you, really.

Ianto Jones had no idea how long he spent in such an endless cycle, time had no meaning when you had been buried alive after all. It could have been days, months or even years that he’d spent trying to claw his way out of a frankly ridiculously expensive feeling coffin. He often found himself wondering as the darkness stole him away again and again, if it were Jack or his sister that had picked it out.

He eventually managed to get himself free though, after breaking his fingers more times than he could even count, shredding them on the compressed soil pinning him into the earth. His first breath of fresh air burnt his lungs and he wasn’t even alive long to appreciate it before choking on the dirt in his throat anyway.

The fact he’d managed to rise from the dead unnoticed during the middle of the day was a miracle in itself if he were being honest, then again, he’d apparently come across an abundance of them if he was somehow still alive at this point. It didn’t take him long, even on unsteady feet, to figure out where he was. Cathey Cemetery, half an hours bus ride from the hub, or rather an hour on foot since he’d been buried without his wallet.

It was on his way back to Torchwood, to where Jack and Gwen would hopefully be, that Ianto found something that once again, turned his world upside down. While ‘the sun’ might not be the most reliable source of news, surely they couldn’t cock the date up.

March 1st, 2015.

Six years after he’d died in Thames House.

-

It had been Andy Davidson of all people that had put Ianto back in contact with Gwen. Upon finding that the Tourist office actually was a tourist office now, Ianto had made his way to the station instead, hoping that someone could point him in the right direction. As luck would have it, he’d spotted a familiar, if slightly aged, head of strawberry blond hair leaving the station and Andy was all too happy to take him straight to Gwen, babbling about how spooky it was to see him after all these years and how he should have known, bloody Torchwood.

Gwen’s reaction was somewhat more dramatic, there had been guns pointed, curses shouted and bones nearly crushed in reunion hugs. Oh and tears, a lot of tears. Poor Rhys had been a little bit… overwhelmed at the time. Though Ianto later learned that his rather emotional state was mostly due to a lack of sleep. Kids, eh?

And wasn’t that a surprise, the last time Ianto had spoken to Gwen she had been barely a couple of months pregnant and now she had a whole kid looking up at him with wide, Gwen Cooper eyes.

“Are you my uncle Ianto?” The sweet little girl brushed her wild hair from her face and reached out to poke his funeral suit, “why are you all dusty?”

Both excellent questions that Ianto let Gwen answer on his behalf while Rhys ushered him inside so they could find him something else to wear. He couldn’t help the small smile tugging at his lips as he heard Gwen tell her daughter that he was indeed the young girls uncle. That was, until, he realised that he was going to somehow have to explain this to Rhiannon at some point when he had no idea how it had even happened himself. The joys.

-

Martha Jones was shocked to hear that Ianto Jones had miraculously risen from the dead, but not for long, she’d seen his old coworker walk around as a live corpse after all and Jack was a whole other kettle of fish. So when she heard he was back, she packed up and brought Mickey with her to Cardiff to take a look. The rift was long since dormant but it was probably better safe than sorry for another set of alien aware eyes to take a look at Mr Jones. Just in case.

-

Ianto was disappointed that Jack had apparently taken off after he’d died, even more so that he’d missed him being temporarily mortal but there was no use dwelling in the past, not when the present had so much to offer him. You could say he had a new lease of life, Ianto wanted to start living again.

For a few years that meant spending time with the Cooper-Willaims’, volunteering his time to those in need and keeping an eye out on Cardiff, just in case. Anwen was brilliant, the perfect mix of Gwen’s tenaciousness and Rhys grounded level headed thinking. She of course inherited both their tempers and had no qualms digging her heals in when she thought it was important.

That’s how Gwen and Rhys found out their daughter was indeed their son and when Kai squared his little shoulders across the dinner table to tell his uncle Ianto, he should have known he’d get a soft smile and quiet nod from the man. He, after all, knew everything.

But the quiet life wasn’t really for Ianto, it was a nice way to slowly readjust to his new life but as one year turned to two he grew restless in the monotonous day to day of civilian life. So when Martha Jones approached him for a little job in the south of France, investigating an overweight political leader with the reputation of great flatulance, Ianto was hard pressed to say no.

-

An overnight Forrest that covered half the world, an army of revamped cybermen in the sky, horse sized spiders and Judoons Gloucester kept Ianto, Martha and Mickey busy enough over the next few years, the three of them becoming the unofficial resident experts on extraterrestrial life in Britain. Martha’s old unit contacts would ask for assistance from time to time and with hers and Mickeys status as Companions of The Doctor along with Ianto’s long standing service to Torchwood, they were somewhat infamous by the time the new British Prime minster revealed her ’defence drones’ anyone worth their salt knew to listen to the trio and back the fuck away from the threat presented.

“Daleks!” Martha stared wide eyed at the small screen in Ianto’s crappy London flat, “Mickey, grab your big gun, Ianto- Ianto?” He’d been stood behind her a moment ago, where had he gone?

“Phone,” Mickey grunted as he shoved Ianto’s sofa a few feet back so he could get to the small stash of weapons he knew the paranoid bastard had hidden under the floorboards, “Gwen Cooper.”

Ianto had tried to urge his friend to stay indoors, she had a son, but he should have known that Gwen wouldn’t back down from the fight. Much later he would find a clip of her on the news, sat atop her bright red moped, her sons boxing gloved on her firsts as she squared up against the universes most deadly threat, not without fear but in spite of it.

-

‘It’s Ianto, Jack, he’s back’

Jack didn’t know what to say, he didn’t know what to think when Gwen dropped that bombshell on him, all he did know was that he felt utterly terrified.

Ianto Jones…

The man he’d loved so much he was going to trap himself in the rift just to escape the grief of losing him. He should have known that Ianto would never let him do that, he’d saved him one last time and Jack had run away all over again like the coward he was. But now Gwen was telling him that he was back? Impossible.

“Ianto is trapped in eternal oblivion,” Jack’s forced the words from trembling lips, “he was lost in the space between worlds forever when he blew up the house of the dead,” because dying once to protect the planet wasn’t enough, oh no, he had to sacrifice himself twice.

“I know but he’s back,” Gwen broke out into a tearful grin, “do you really think I would be telling you this if I weren’t 100% certain? I know how much he meant, means to you.” Their conversation was interrupted by a muffled ringtone but far from perturbed, Gwen looked ecstatic as she fished her phone from her bag and saw who was calling, “I think this is for you Jack.”

Taking the offered phone with shaking hands, Jack answered the call and saw a face he’d etched perfectly into his memory staring back, “Ianto,” Jack exhaled all the breath in his lungs, his mind whirling as Ianto’s eyes widened with disbelief. Impossible, utterly impossible.

And then something magical happened, Ianto started to smile and Jack heard something he had thought was lost to him forever, Ianto laughed and on that cold, Welsh afternoon felt the ground shift under his feet. His whole world closed in on the cracked phone screen Gwen had given him, his eyes categorising every pixel of Ianto’s face, the way his eyes shone, how he scrunched up his nose just so when he laughed and- god he was real wasn’t he?

Beautifully impossible.

Chapter Text

Ianto whooped loudly as Mickey took down one of the new Daleks, grinning over his shoulder at Martha as she rolled her eyes at him, the adrenaline always got the boys a bit over excited these days, “Stay focused, reports of people trapped in the bank, let’s get in there and secure the building.”

“Aye aye Captain,” Mickey kept his blaster pointed at the sky as they fell into usual formation, taking shots where he could, knowing that Martha and Ianto had his back, “Can I just say that Harriet Jones would never-”

“Hold on,” Ianto squinted up at the sky as terror fought to take a foothold in his chest, “is that what I think it is?”

Martha followed his line of sight, “A Dalek ship,” not good, “reinforcements?”

“I don’t think so,” Ianto shook his head as the more familiar model of Daleks started pouring from the ship, they appeared to be leaving the population alone and going after the Defence Drone Daleks instead, “am I seeing this right?”

“A Dalek civil war, on earth,” Mickey shook his head as the three of them took cover behind an overturned car, “two alien races using earth as a battleground, now why does that sound familiar?”

Ianto sometimes forgot that Mickey had been at the battle of Canary Wharf as well, small world, “We can all have a good old gossip and draw similarities later but for now, what’s our strategy?”

“Let them fight each other and pick off the victors,” Martha suggested, “try and get people off the streets and out of harms way.” They worked steadily and efficiently, not able to save everyone but doing their best. Narrowly avoiding being blown up, the trio worked their way across the city, ruthlessly taking down any Daleks they could along the way, each having their own unique history with the evil creatures and all too happy to take some of their anger out on them.

Martha was helping an old lady find shelter in a charity shop when she received word that the Doctor had been spotted, “Guys, we have a code blue,” she spoke over coms as Mickey and Ianto were down the street trying to set up a temporary barricade, “the Doctor has been spotted with possible companions.”

“Thank fuck,” Mickey grunted, an explosion sounding off in the distance, “lets hope he has a trick or two up his sleeve.”

“She, this time,” Martha corrected him as more information filtered through her private line, “oh…” one of the companions, dressed in a World War Two uniform, big blue coat, dark hair, could it be? Last she’d heard he was off planet, what was Jack Harkness doing here after all this time?

“Martha,” Ianto’s tinny voice jolted her back to reality and she debated weather she should tell him, she needed him focused after all, “what’s going on?”

He had a right to know, “Possible sighting of Captain Jack Harkness,” she held her breath, making her way outside to join them both, hoping Ianto would keep his head.

She needn’t have been worried, “Ha!” Ianto barked out a laugh, “about time he turned up, come on, last push. If I know Jack, it won’t be long till that ship up there has been blown up.”

Naturally Ianto was right, he knew everything after all.

-

Martha was going to miss Ianto’s crappy little London flat, the peeling wallpaper and ancient furniture had never been her favourite but it had been home in a strange way. Or at least, it had been a base of operation the three of them would retire to at the end of a long mission. Mickey and Ianto would argue over the shitty telly in the corner, she would attempt to feed them when Ianto had survived off just coffee for the third day in a row and no one would remember to take out the bins until it was too late.

Now Ianto was leaving for Cardiff it wouldn’t be the same but different could be good, “don’t be a stranger,” Martha warned him as she squeezed his middle, “and tell Jack he owes us a visit, yeah?”

“Of course,” Ianto set down his duffle back and hugged her back, he was going to miss Martha and Mickey and this strange little life they had all built together but Jack was back and he couldn’t miss him, “don’t think this is the end, I’ll be back chasing aliens with you before you know it.”

“Don’t jinx it,” Mickey raised an eyebrow when he offered him a hand to shake, “come here idiot,” slapping his back, Mickey wished him well and the two of them took Ianto to the train station, waiting on the platform to see him off like concerned parents, “what now?”

“I heard there’s been some funny plastic in Bristol,” Martha tore her eyes away from the train and squeezed her husbands hand, “wanna take a look?”

-

Jack was rocking on the balls of his feet, impatiently waiting for the train to arrive at the station, jittery and painfully hopeful. Ianto was back. They’d only managed a few brief words on the phone before the connection had flickered out, Jack tried not to think about why, Ianto had to be fine. He had to be because he’d only just got him back and the universe couldn’t be so cruel as to dangle the man he loved in front of him only to snatch him away for a third time.

“Jack, stop fidgeting,” Gwen put a calming hand on his arm as people started staring, “he’ll be here soon.”

“Not soon enough,” Jack eyed his now working vortex manipulator, “remind me why I can’t just teleport to him?” He knew of course, why he couldn’t, but that didn’t mean he was happy about it. People had just seen Daleks in the sky, surely a little teleportation couldn’t be worse?

“Oh for the love of- thank god,” Gwen pointed down the train line, “look, that’s Ianto’s train,” she’d forgotten how Jack was so… Jack sometimes. Maybe now Ianto was here he could settle the Captain a little.

She should have known they were both as bad as each other, even if Ianto was slightly better at hiding it.

He was one of the first passengers off the train, wide eyes scanning the platform for them. Jack froze in place as Ianto spotted him, their eyes locked over a sea of passengers but neither moved to close the distance. Gwen was getting slightly concerned after a while but Ianto eventually came back to himself and started moving towards them, somewhat desperately but Jack was no better. It seemed Ianto had broken the spell and woken him up, the two of them meeting in the middle, chests heaving as eyes drank in the sight of each other for the first time in years.

“Jack,” Ianto couldn’t believe it, a part of him thought he’d never see him again. The hand not clutching his meagre bag of belongings raised as if to touch him but he thought better of it and aborted the movement, unsure if his touch was welcome after all this time, “long time no see, eh?”

When Jack just continued to stare at him with wide eyes, jaw clenched and trembling slightly, Ianto took a chance and stepped into his personal space, pulling him into his arms.

Jack’s arms spasmed minutely, as if he’d forgotten what to do with them before he eventually melted into the embrace, laid his head on Ianto’s shoulder and started to shake, “Jack,” Ianto sighed, seemingly only able to repeat his name as they stood there holding onto one another for grim life.

After a while Jack spoke softly, tightening his hold on Ianto as if he were afraid he’d disappear again if he let go, “Don’t leave me, please, don’t leave me alone again.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Ianto whispered, hiding his face in Jack’s hair, “promise.”

After a while, Jack sniffed and discreetly wiped his eyes on Ianto’s shoulder, “I don’t know what we’re supposed to do now.”

“We should probably go and join Gwen, people are starting to give us funny looks,” Ianto shifted them slightly so his mouth grazed Jack’s ear, willing to do anything at this point to lighten the mood, “then again, I’m half tempted to give them something worth staring at. Damn your 51st century pheromones.”

Jack snorted, then started to laugh, his shoulders shaking as he let Ianto pull away and steer them towards Gwen, the hand on his arm somehow both grounding him and blowing his mind. Ianto was back.

Gwen was waiting with suspiciously damp eyes, not that either man was willing to call her on it, “Home?”

Jack felt love blooming in his chest as he reached out to tangle his fingers with Ianto’s, holding onto him tight as his heart slowly began to knit itself back together, “Home.”

-

Kai raced down the garden path as fast as his legs would take him, a bright grin nearly splitting his face in two as he launched himself at his favourite uncle, “Uncle Ianto!” He released him for all of three seconds before he was dragging him towards the house without so much as a hello for his other Uncle, “I drew a picture of mum boxing the Dalek that I want to show you! Dad says it’s uncanny.”

“Kai,” Gwen tried to redirect him, “you can show both your uncles your picture later, let Ianto settle in first, he’s had a long night.”

That seemed to only excite the young boy further, “Uncle Ianto, dad says you blew up a bunch of Daleks in London, is that true? Do you have your gun with you? Can we blow something up here? I’ve got a-”

“Hey squirt,” Jack reclaimed Ianto’s hand as soon as his nephew let go, “can you give us a minute?”

Frowning at the hand holding, Kai crossed his arms with clear jealousy, “but I want to-”

“I’ll be right there Kai,” Ianto averted the incoming meltdown with a kind smile, “let me get changed into something that’s not covered in Dalek chunks and I promise to tell you all about how I blew up a whole bunch of them.”

With Kai placated Ianto made his was inside Gwen’s house, nodding hello to Rhys on his way to the spare room with Jack hot on his heels. Logically he knew he shouldn’t bat an eye at undressing in front of Jack, he’d seen it all hundreds of times before, had had his hands, mouth, Christ tongue across every inch of his skin but that was before… before everything.

“Where’s the rest of your stuff?” Jack eventually broke the silence when Ianto set his duffel down on the spare bed, “Do you… have you got…”

“This is it,” Ianto scratched the back of his head, “Gwen told me you had all my stuff put into storage after I… anyway, she said it was gone and I’ve had to pack light over the last couple of years. So this is it.” How was he only just realising how pathetic it was that his entire life could be packed up in a single bag?

Shifting from foot to foot, Jack scuffed his shoe on the carpet, “What have you been up to?”

“Can we not do this right now?” Ianto sighed, “You left Jack, again and I know I was dead,” he felt a little bad when he saw Jack flinch but carried on regardless, “but I really thought that you’d stick around for Gwen after I closed the rift. She’s strong but no one should have to live with what we know alone.”

“I know,” Jack hung his head, “but I just couldn’t stay here Ianto, not when I saw memories of you around every corner.”

The way Ianto saw it, he had two options. Argue with Jack about things they couldn’t change, or move on and draw a line under all the shit in the past so they could start again, “Theres no point in arguing about the past, whats done is done, right? It’s the here and now that matters.”

Jack heard his own words echoed back to him and nodded, glad Ianto was on the same page, “Right.”

“So how long are you staying?” Ianto forced himself to ask, “Are you leaving with your Doctor again?” He needed to know before they… he needed to know.

“Oh Ianto,” Jack let out a shuddering breath, after all this time he still doubted his place in his heart, “I told you before, I came back for you,” plucking up all the courage he had, Jack closed the distance between them and did what his heart had been screaming at him to do since the moment he’d seen him again. Reaching out, Jack cupped Ianto’s face between his hands, one thumb gently tracing a faded scar on his cheek, a badge of honour for the survivor of so much, “I love you.”

Settling his own hands on Jack’s waist, Ianto felt a small smile pull at the corners of his mouth, “I love you too,” it was nice to hear it without the threat of eternal limbo hanging over him, “so are you going to kiss me or do I have to-”

Hearing the snarkiness as the request it was, Jack closed the last of the distance between their lips and kissed Ianto Jones like his life depended on it.

Ianto’s hands moved from his waist up to his shoulders, holding him close and Jack had no objections to their increased proximity, kissing him deeper to prove to himself that this wasn’t a dream. As much as Jack would have liked to spend eternity in liplock with the love of his very long life, they did eventually have to separate in order to breathe, “I really missed that,” Jack admitted with a lovesick expression on his face, hands tangled up in Ianto’s hair, “you’re perfect.”

Scoffing instinctually, Ianto rolled his eyes and ignored the way Jack was rubbing their noses together, “I missed it too but you know we can’t stay holed up in here kissing forever, Kai is going to lose his patience soon enough and I’d rather not scar Gwen’s child if he comes barging in without warning.”

Growling under his breath when Ianto pulled away to grab a change of clothes, Jack gave him his best pout, “We just saved the world, can’t he give us ten minutes?”

“Ten?” Ianto raised an eyebrow, “I’d have thought we need at least 30, no?”

Groaning, Jack tried not to think too hard about what Ianto was suggesting or he’d barricade them in Gwen’s spare room for at least a week, “you’re a cruel man, Mr Jones.”

Smirking, Ianto winked, “You love me really.”

“Yeah,” Jack sighed happily, “I do.”