Jack had always been rubbish at organization. Anyone who'd ever worked with him said the same. He'd brave the field like no other, pull off the most insane, unbelievable scams, save a million lives, but if he was left alone inside a room full of paperwork, sooner or later the nice men with the straitjacket would come to pick him up.
In some ways, that made Ianto his polar opposite. Ianto, his quiet, unobtrusive sidekick, who did his share with silent efficiency rather than flamboyant noise, who was quite capable of filling out the correct forms in triplicate for everyone in a jam-packed bar without getting the least bit confused, Ianto with his patience to wait for an eternity if he thought it was the right thing.
He'd told him about Flat Holm after the cannibals. Suzie had known, once upon a time, had helped him to organize it all. The idea was Jack's, and he found the location, chatted up the personnel and explained things to them, but Suzie ran the rest, got the property off the state officially, filed each patient and each nurse, made sure everything was organized and secure.
Then she was gone, and in the middle of the heart-wrenching grief over that, he didn't think to tell anyone else until later. And by the time he considered telling Ianto, because Ianto was just such a god when it came to the boring official stuff, it had only been a few days before Lisa was found, and the topic had been shoved into the back of his mind.
A few months later, a new case popped up, and was delivered to Flat Holm, leaving Jack to battle with the formalities. It was a lot of work, a lot more than it looked like, and he was used to having help. He sighed and rolled his neck, catching a glimpse to his room down below, Ianto curled up on his bed, fast asleep and adorable, and there was nothing Jack wanted more than to join him, but he needed to get this done.
Leaning back, he considered his options. He could tell no one, and continue to work through it on his own at insane hours of the day, probably doing half of it wrong anyway. But that wasn't really in the realm of possibility, because he knew they were nearing the time when a suitable version of the Doctor might show up, and if he kept it to himself there was no one to take care of the victims at Flat Holm. That and the more selfish, pressing reason: Jack couldn't do it alone. He could muddle through the paperwork, he supposed, although having some help would be a godsend, but he could not handle going to see the victims on his own. He needed to go, at least once a month, better to go more, because they needed to see people, he needed to see their progress, the nurses had to get paid, and he had to see for himself if there were urgent repairs required. It was a hush-hush thing, not run on state money, because state money meant state interest meant inquisitive people butting in and destroying what little peace there was there, so everything was financed off Jack's own account, and he was responsible for making sure they didn't live in squalor.
Option two, tell one of the others. Owen would understand it all medically, but his empathy, while there, was shot to hell under a brash exterior, which was exactly what the people didn't need there. Tosh would nod and go along with whatever her leader said, a good little Japanese schoolgirl who still owed Jack her freedom, but he didn't want to do that to her, didn't want to force her to see all the horror out there afresh when she was still capable of seeing the wonder. And Gwen was out of the question. Empathy, yes. But she'd take a closer look, start picking out who these people were, what they'd left behind, wanting to make it all better, fix it all up like in a fairy tale, and it just didn't work that way. She'd want to see black and white again, find some way to stop the unstoppable, and run herself dry while doing so. He didn't want her seeing that either. She'd only just started to see what else there was of the universe.
That left Ianto. Ianto, both youngest and oldest of his team, betrayer and betrayed, wise and yet so young he was still foolish. Currently lying in Jack's bed. Jack ran a hand through his hair and wondered what the hell he was supposed to do, when a sleepy welsh voice that made shivers run down his spine even though he should be so far beyond that said, "Jack? What're you doing?"
"I need your help, Ianto."
And so he found himself standing on the shore of Flat Holm three days later with Ianto Jones, archivist, dogsbody, teaboy, lover.
"Now, before we go in, remember: These people were severely injured, sometimes physically, sometimes mentally, you can't expect them to respond anything like you or I would," he cautioned, still unsure as to whether he'd made the right call. The paperwork was finished, at least.
Ianto looked at him as though measuring out carefully what to say, before finally answering, "I'll remember."
By the time Jack had finished talking to the nurses and a few of the more well-adjusted patients, and viewed all the things that needed fixing, it was well past midday. His stomach grumbled uncomfortably, and he set off to find Ianto.
He was sitting in the common room by the telly, with a patient. They weren't watching, though. It was a woman, dark skin, about thirty. "That's Alice," the nurse said. "She...doesn't talk much. Do you think you could bring him in more? They like him. I saw him with Saeed before, too."
Jack nodded absently, still watching his youngest protégé
Ianto looked up, met his eyes. Turned back to Alice briefly, smiled at her, placed his hand on hers before getting up to go. "I'll come visit again soon, yeah?"
She smiled tremulously and waved.
They ate lunch by the bay. "How did you get her to talk to you?" Jack asked between mouthfuls, table manners as absent as always. Ianto looked a bit pained at the way he was cutting his pasta rather than twirling.
"Tell me, Jack, do you ever read anyone's files before you hire them?"
"No. They could put anything in there."
"I figured."
Ianto returned to his food.
"Well, are you gonna answer the question?"
Ianto looked out across the bay. "After my father died, my mother had a mental collapse. I lived with my grandparents for two years while she kept going in and out of borderline insanity and depression. It gives you a certain ability to converse with patients in that kind of establishment."
In the blank of shock, of course the first thought that popped into Jack's head was completely inappropriate. He's right, I really need to start reading files.
"That's where the shoplifting came in, you know," Ianto said a while later, having finished his meal in silence. "I was quite close to my father, and as a result of losing him and as good as losing her I went through a rebellious streak. She's fine now, I visit her at least once a month. Frail, though, and on a lot of medicine."
Jack was still lost for a suitable response. "You don't have to say anything," Ianto told him, perhaps a bit patronizingly. "There's really nothing to say, is there?"
They wandered out along the bay together, not quite ready to return to Torchwood, down a long wooden pier. A family with several small children walked past, the children haranguing the adults for ice cream. Ianto smiled, glanced over, and bit his lip to keep from giggling.
Jack felt a wave of pure affection, tugged Ianto closer by the front of his jacket and kissed him, the softest kiss they'd ever shared. When he pulled back, Ianto was still smiling, or rather, smiling again, and his eyes sparkled. "What was that for?"
"You," Jack said, "are amazing, that's what it's for."
"Oh, am I?" Ianto had raised the Eyebrow, and at that moment Jack wanted so badly to take him home and worship him, cook for him, clean for him, kiss his feet if only so he could keep him forever and ever.
He settled for another kiss though, less innocent this time, hands running down the young, gorgeous body that was all his. "Yes, you are," Jack whispered against his lips. Ianto laughed, and Jack's heart melted a little bit. Ianto was everything he wasn't, young and so strong, through so much heartbreak and grief and still capable of joy.
While he was away, Ianto took care of Flat Holm alone. He knew Jack was coming back, he had always known, and in the mean time, it was easy enough to shove under his other duties, especially since, well…
Owen took command in the field, but outside of it, Gwen ran everything, held the video conferences and made executive decisions. In some ways, she was better than Jack, because she did read the papers and fill out the forms, but she was also completely clueless and needed to be taught everything.
One day she came down to the archives, and at first he thought it was just for a chat, because she liked those, but after fidgeting for a very long time, she finally said, "Ianto, this is a really stupid question, but what is it, officially, that you do?"
She was right, it was a really stupid question. "Head of Archiving, general support, and fieldwork now too, I suppose."
"And…general support includes?"
"Clean-up, taking care of any aliens we have, providing coffee and tea, admin, driving you lot around." He was clearing out the Miscellaneous files again, this time with the help of some papers he'd unearthed in Jack's room. He was the only one who still went there, the only one who had ever been there in the first place, actually.
"How often have you done a night shift these last few weeks?"
"Three days a week. Are we going anywhere with this?"
"Yeah, you need a few days off, Ianto. You work way too hard."
"Well, someone has to."
"You need to sleep. Owen's already been mumbling about enforcing medical leave!"
And it was so that after a bit more arguing, he had to take half of Saturday off every week. He spent the time at Flat Holm, mostly, getting to know each patient better, finding out what had happened to them. By the time Jack came back, he had a whole list of ideas and improvements.
The only one Jack wouldn't agree to was telling the rest of the team.
When Gwen found out about Jonah Bevan, Ianto knew there would be trouble. Jack stubbornly refused to let anyone else know about Flat Holm, and while Ianto felt a certain pride that it was him who knew, he didn't like what this did to the team.
Putting the GPS on Gwen's desk was underhanded, yes, but it needed doing, and their relationship was still to fragile to do it openly. When Jack came back the next day with Gwen, he was livid.
"You told her!"
"I-"
"No, don't even start. I trusted you to keep this to yourself, I told only you because I thought you'd understand, and you go behind my back and tell the person I least wanted to know."
"Because she would never have given up!" Ianto yelled right back.
They were standing in Jack's office, facing each other, screaming, in full view of everyone downstairs. Everyone downstairs was watching while pretending not to, obviously curious.
"That does not give you the right to-"
"Don't get started on right, Jack. I took care of that place on my own for three months, I went there every week for three months, I think I have as much of a fucking right to say when you're wrong as anyone else."
"Outside Torchwood, sure, go ahead, but here I'm the leader and if I can't trust you to follow my orders, then I don't know what you're doing here."
"I'm not following orders I don't agree with, Jack. These are people who had families once, and if you would just talk to them you'd know how much it tears them apart to be right next to their homes and unable to see them. If Gwen thinks she can make a difference, let her try. That's why you hired her."
Jack gave him a cold look. "It's Jonah. You know as well as I do what he's like."
"Yes, I do. I dare say I might even know better. And once she's realized you had a reason for not wanting her to do this, maybe she'll stop questioning your orders."
"I didn't want any of them to know about this," Jack said, quietly.
"Can't always pick what's right over what's easy."
Jack smiled. "You're quoting again. Tell me it's not something really obscure."
"Harry Potter, actually."
And so, Gwen brought Nikki Bevan to Flat Holm to see her son. And so, she learned that orders were orders for a reason and that you can't turn back time (And if Ianto felt a little surge of pleasure and thought, I knew that to begin with, and that's why it'll never be you, Gwen, but it'll always be me, well, so be it).
And Jack came home to Ianto, and they faced each other in Ianto's darkened living room, both right and both wrong, until Ianto saw the tears streaming down Jack's face and remembered hearing Jonah scream himself, and they both forgave and forgot, as well as they ever did, and curled together on the bed, Jack shaking at the memory of a terrible, inhuman voice, all to fresh in his ear, and other terrible memories that went down the same alley, Ianto's arms warm around him, till he stopped shivering and his breathing evened out into sleep as he pressed even closer against Ianto. Ianto, in turn, rested his cheek on the top of Jack's head felt his heart swell with an emotion not unlike the one Jack had felt many months ago on a pier by Cardiff Bay.