Rating: T

Word count: ~ 3,000

Warnings: Should I even warn for angst anymore? It's kind of a given with my stuff. ^.^'

Disclaimer: All recognizable characters are the property of their respective owners. I am in no way associated with the creators, and no copyright infringement is intended.

A/N: This is a companion piece to Ashes, which seems, so help me, to be turning into a series. Oops? Anyway, spoilers up through Small Worlds. (Major thanks directed to methylethyl for the beta, and helping me settle the plot.) And…if you've read Ashes, it's been edited and switched around some. A reread might help, but isn't necessary.

Rebuilding

There is no one else in the world quite like Jack, and Ianto is fairly certain there never will be, no matter how much time passes. Jack is kinder than he really has any right to be, infinitely forgiving no matter the sin. He offers absolution with a single touch of his hand to Ianto's shoulder, and Ianto leans back into it, accepting it unconditionally.

He cannot bring himself to feel anger at Jack anymore, one month after the tragedy—not now that he realizes that killing the monster in Lisa's body was the only way to stop another invasion of Cybermen. Lisa did not die at Canary Wharf—Ianto had seen her in the Cyberman's eyes too many times to believe that—but she had died just the same. The moment she killed Dr. Tanizaki, the Lisa he knew was gone.

Ianto can't regret what he did to keep her alive, but he can regret the end result, the deaths it caused. And he can regret his angry words when he was trying to protect someone who no longer existed.

Jack stands behind him, one hand on his shoulder as they stare at the computer screen. The captain is hesitant, cautious, as though he thinks Ianto is about to push him away and scream monster at him again. Ianto stays silent, calling up the graphs and records of the strange weather patterns, and lets the lack of words speak more eloquently than words ever could. He has been forgiven, and has forgiven in turn. There is nothing really more to say.

There's a pause, like the whole world is holding its breath, and then Jack reaches out to put one hand over Ianto's on the keyboard.

"Enough, Ianto," he says quietly. "You should go home and get some sleep. I get the feeling the next few days are going to be busy."

Ianto can't help but smile a little at that. "When aren't they, sir?" He's just stalling now, though. He doesn't want to go back to his small, empty flat, with every reminder of Lisa's presence in his life packed up and put away for a time when it won't hurt him to look at it and think of lost futures. There is no touch or personality there, just four bare walls and an equally bare floor, with a bed in the tiny back room and a table near the kitchen. Lisa would have loved it, would have loved making it her own. She'd always wanted them to get a studio, but studios in London cost more than a junior researcher and a low-level scientist made, even together.

Jack smiles back, not his usual grin full of teeth and brightness and the overwhelming force of his personality, but a nice, simple smile. It's wry and amused and fond, and all of the other things Ianto had thought lost to him after his betrayal. "Yeah," he laughs quietly, "I guess you're right."

"I know everything, sir," Ianto explains, his slight smile growing. "Was there ever any doubt?"

Jack looks at him—at him, in a way no one else does, almost through him and down to his soul—and the smile fades into something gentle and thoughtful. "Maybe," he admits, and it's painfully honest. "But just a bit. Not now."

Really, how can Ianto hold Jack responsible for anything that's happened? His own actions have led here, have hurt these people he cares about, and yet Jack offers clemency with an ease that is inhuman—almost divine, were Ianto to really consider it.

As much as Jack seems to despair of his immortality, Ianto cannot think of any person in all of time and space who would be more suited.

Clearing his throat, Ianto carefully twists his hand free of Jack's and stands up, touching Jack's arm briefly to show that this isn't a rejection, just a pause. "All right," he agrees softly. "But you should, too. Good night, Jack."

He quickly gathers his coat and the reports he's planning to work on at home—because his dreams have been far from pleasant, lately, and his sleep far from restful, so he knows that sleeping isn't what he'll be doing there—and heads for the lift.

As it ascends, he sees Jack standing outside his office, watching him with a dark gaze that Ianto can't read.

It doesn't matter. Ianto smiles faintly at him, extending a hand of reconciliation in all that has come before, and Jack smiles back just a little, returning it and meeting him halfway.

The TARDIS hums around him, soft and soothing even though she is so otherworldly. Rose perches on the console and smiles at him, a small expression that is equal parts gratitude and praise.

"You've started," she says, and she sounds pleased. There's an undercurrent to her voice that Ianto hasn't noticed before, as though the TARDIS speaks with her.

"Yes," Ianto answers, because he knows what she means. "Was there ever any doubt I would?"

The question is wry and self-deprecating, full of a humor that Ianto had thought absent from his life. Rose seems to understand, because she smiles sympathetically.

"I know it can feel like there's no choice," she says gently, "but there's always a choice, even if the options are a bit limited."

Ianto thinks of poor, brilliant, beautiful Lisa, changed into a monster against her will, despite all of their attempts to stop it. Was there a choice there? Could he have done something to change everything?

If she notices his skepticism, Rose says nothing. Instead, she turns back to the controls and says, "Have you ever seen one of these aliens, Ianto? The Doctor and I got chased by a whole battalion once—they thought he was trying to impersonate their god, and of course I got dragged along for the ride."

Her voice is fondly indignant, a tone that Ianto is all too familiar with—he's got a sister, after all, and Lisa used to use it sometimes, too. So he shifts closer, peering at what she wants him to see on the screen, and lets her talk.

It's easier than anything has been in a long while.

After Jasmine, the Hub is chilly with banked anger, disappointment, and grief. Ianto tries to stay below the radar, not wanting to set off anyone's tears or rages, and serves the last of the day's coffee as the others finish up. Gwen is the first to leave, all but reeking of disgusted fury, and Owen follows her a few minutes later, no doubt headed for the nearest pub. Ianto makes a note to have painkillers on hand for the medic's hangover in the morning as he bids Tosh a goodnight. Her smile is a little weak, and there's anger buried in her dark eyes, but she says nothing. No one has, and especially not to Jack.

Alone in the main area of the Hub, Ianto can't help but wonder what any of them would have done, had they been in charge. Would they have condemned the world for the sake of one little girl who would be happier elsewhere?

(He acknowledges the voice in his head telling him he would have doomed the world for love if Jack hadn't stopped him, and thinks a little wryly that this is what they need Jack for—he's the only one who can see the big picture, and not the individuals. As useful as Gwen is, Ianto would far rather have Jack at his side in a pinch.)

Ianto knows what it's like to have a childhood that is far from happy, and thinks that they might have done the girl a favor in letting her go. Unhappiness turns all too often to dissatisfaction, and dissatisfaction turns to hatred, whether of a place or a person. He knows from personal experience how the little things can poison a childhood, how seemingly innocuous little details become the scars of a lifetime.

When he arrives with the last cup of coffee, Jack is at his desk, slumped over the miraculously clear surface with a photograph clutched in his hands. Ianto's seen it before, making an appearance whenever things are especially hard for the captain, but he's never wondered what it is more than in this moment.

Then he catches sight of Jack's face, and it no longer matters. He's never seen such devastation on anyone before, and he freezes with his hand poised to knock. His heart breaks for Jack, for the agony written beneath every handsome feature, and anger of his own wells up—only this wrath is directed at the team. How can they condemn Jack so easily? How can they forget so quickly that Jack has also lost someone dear to him today? Gwen hadn't said much about Estelle, but Ianto is smart enough to fill in the blanks. Jack loved her, and he lost her. There's nothing anyone can do to heal that hurt, but there's plenty they can do to make it worse, and they have.

Ianto doesn't bother to knock as he pushes open the door and steps in. Jack doesn't look up at him, but his voice, when he speaks, is full of unbelievable bitterness.

"Looks like I've proven you right, Ianto. Everything you said—it's absolutely true, isn't it?"

In the space between two heartbeats, Ianto realizes that it's his words that have added to this pain, his thoughtless, angry curses snarled in the midst of a grief not unlike Jack's. Remorse and self-hatred hit him like a cricket bat to the gut, almost buckling his knees. The coffee cup wobbles on its tray, and Ianto has to take a step forward to steady it.

Jack flinches, just a little, and Ianto realizes what he has to do.

Carefully, deliberately, he sets the cup down on the cleared desk and tucks the tray neatly under his arm. "Captain," he says blandly, and waits several moments until Jack warily looks up at him. Then, formally, Ianto says, "What I said to you during the…Cyberman's attack—" he swallows, because no matter his remorse the words are still hard to get out "—was absolutely unacceptable, and deserving of the highest form of reprimand. It was also untrue." He meets Jack's startled eyes and smiles sadly, a little wistfully. "Captain. Jack. Thank you for doing what I couldn't, for seeing what I wouldn't. Lisa would have hated what she became at the end, and I wasn't strong enough to let her go. So thank you. You're as far from a monster as it's possible to be, and I regret saying otherwise."

The silence is so complete that for a moment Ianto is afraid he made some misstep, crossed some line that he wasn't supposed to, and he quickly looks away from Jack's startled eyes, turning towards the exit.

And then, softly, he hears Jack whisper, "Thanks."

Ianto pauses halfway out the door and turns back. While the lines of grief and stress haven't completely disappeared, there's a light in Jack's eyes again. Ianto looks at him for a moment and nods, then offers, "I'm sorry for your loss, sir. She must have been a great woman."

This time, Jack actually smiles, and while it's sad, there's something so brilliant in it that Ianto finds he can't look away. "Yes," Jack agrees. "She was. The greatest." His eyes go back to the photo, but he's still smiling, lost in reminiscing.

Ianto smiles as well, just a little, and closes the door behind him. He looks around the tidy Hub and allows himself to feel a flicker of satisfaction at a job well done before he collects his coat.

By the time he leaves, faint strains of Glen Miller are rising from the office behind him. Ianto hears whispers of Moonlight Serenade all the way home.

"All that stuff about soul mates? Crap," Rose informs him cheerfully. "No two people are ever really meant for each other. But sometimes, if you're really lucky, you'll meet someone who's your exact opposite, but compliments you in all the right ways. That's the closest humans get, I think."

At one time—when he had Lisa, and he was deliriously happy every moment they weren't fighting and miserable all the times they were—Ianto might have rejected this statement out of hand.

But then he remembers Jack's touch on his shoulder, Jack's haunted eyes, Jack's grin. Ianto doesn't want to be the other half of Jack's soul—he's glad that hasn't been forced on him, along with this suspicion that he hasn't actually aged in a while—because that's not what Jack needs.

Ianto would rather be his contradiction than his matching puzzle piece. He wonders what that says about them.

When he gets in early the next morning—as he always does, because he has no reason to drift around his empty apartment when he might as well be getting work done—Jack is in his office (still? Again? Ianto's not sure). Ianto starts the coffee and, when it's ready, prepares two mugs with milk and a little sugar. He carries them up the stairs and knocks politely.

"Come in," Jack calls, and Ianto feels the knot of worry in his chest ease slightly. He sounds amused more than anything, lighter than the night before, and he greets Ianto with a grin.

"Hey," he says, and that one word is loaded with so much meaning and so many undercurrents that it feels like a twenty-minute monologue.

"Good morning, sir," Ianto returns, offering Jack his blue cup. The captain takes it with a cheery smile, and Ianto has to wonder at his resilience, being able to move beyond what happened yesterday, or at least being able to bury it away where it won't affect him. "There's supposed to be good weather for the next few days—a rarity, this time of year."

Jack takes a slow sip of coffee and sighs, rolling his shoulders. "Hopefully it won't bring the Weevils out in force like it did last time. Anything on the monitors?"

"No, sir." Ianto thinks back to Tosh's Rift activity prediction program. "From all I've seen we're to have a few quiet days to go with the nice weather."

The captain sighs softly and looks out of his office window, down to where the team's desks stand empty. There's an ache in his face that Ianto knows intimately, because he feels it every time he looks around his empty apartment and thinks, "Lisa should be here." Jack's is just as lonely, just as sad, and Ianto feels a pang of empathy. They're both alone in this world, lost souls trying to find a haven somewhere, anywhere. Torchwood helps, gives them a reason to keep on, but it's not always enough. And right now, when the losses are building up and there's no relief, Torchwood is the problem.

"Call the team and tell them to take the next two days off," Jack says, suddenly enough to make Ianto jump a little. "And you should take a break, too. I can watch the Hub."

It's an apology, Ianto knows, a way of getting back into the team's good graces, and that makes him a little angry. Jack shouldn't have to. He's the team leader, the hero, the one who had to make the choices. If anything, Gwen, Owen, and Tosh should be pandering to him. But it's Jack, and he'll never accept that, so Ianto swallows down his biting comments and nods.

"Yes, sir," he offers instead. "I'll call the others. But I have work in the Archives that won't improve with sitting. Do you mind the company?"

Jack's smile is beautiful, and it's aimed solely at Ianto. "Not at all." He flicks a glance at his wristband, then up at Ianto, and the smile widens into a grin. "What would you say to breakfast out?"

This…this isn't a peace offering. Ianto can tell, because they're past that, and everything has been forgiven, even if it hasn't been forgotten. This is an offer in its own right, a firm step forward instead of their usual careful sidestep-skirting of each other, and it makes Ianto ridiculously happy to hear it.

"All right." Ianto returns the smile, and even if his isn't quite as large or bright, well…Jack's grins are always singular, and Ianto's is, if more restrained, just as heartfelt. He takes Jack's coat from the stand and holds it up. "That bakery around the corner acceptable, or did you have something more extravagant in mind?"

Jack slides into his coat as he's done a thousand times before, but it feels different now, more intimate as Ianto settles the heavy fabric and smoothes out the shoulders. If he lets his hands linger a little longer than they usually do, he can tell himself that it's a spot of comfort after yesterday, and not because Jack's broad shoulders and strong back have caught his attention from the first day.

"The bakery's fine," Jack says, breaking the spell, and Ianto steps back. Jack turns to follow him, and there's a knowledge in his eyes that says he knows exactly what it is Ianto's doing.

Ianto's glad, because he doesn't have a clue. Nevertheless, he shrugs into his own coat and follows Jack out into the cool morning.

Sometimes, he thinks he'd follow Jack anywhere, and for far less reason than this.