Emergency Contact

Jack watched his team work quietly around the Hub, enjoying the scene. He'd missed them over the long year he'd been gone. Seeing them now, working seamlessly together, filled him with both pride and guilt. He had been the one to bring them together, to train them—but then he had left them, forcing them to move on without him. It almost felt like he was unneeded now, the proverbial fifth wheel, and he didn't like that feeling.

It would take time for them to adjust. Hell, it would take time for him to adjust after all he'd been through during his time away. But he wanted to become a part of their new dynamic, to lead them once again. He only hoped that they would accept him. They were upset, and rightfully so. He'd left without a word, without a note, and he'd been gone far longer than he'd anticipated. He couldn't explain why, either—or rather, he didn't want to tell them, not everything. It was still too raw, too painful. Definitely not something he wanted to talk about, except with Ianto, perhaps. Only Ianto seemed more pissed off than any of them.

He'd been dry and distant ever since Jack had shown up during the Blowfish chase and stolen the Welshman's shot, unable to resist a dramatic entrance. He should have realized they'd be angry with him, rather than glad to see him save the day. Gwen had shouted and pushed him around, Owen had thrown some sharp questions at him; even Tosh had privately asked him, after John Hart had left and they were sitting around a posh hotel avoiding themselves, if he was really staying. Ianto, however, had pointedly avoided him ever since they'd gone out to the office block together.

Jack couldn't remember the last time he'd been so nervous asking someone out to dinner. It should have been easy. Maybe if he had waited, chosen a better moment, he wouldn't have been so flustered. He'd stammered, for goodness sake! Of course, they'd been searching for a bomb, and he should have realized Ianto would have been focused on the task at hand. Ianto had been skeptical, as well, but Jack had needed to ask, to say something, to know where he stood.

Despite accepting Jack's offer, Ianto had remained distant for the rest of the night. While Jack had had no expectations for their stay at the hotel, he had hoped to talk privately with Ianto. Yet the Welshman had remained with the others the entire time, and Jack had not even had the chance to suggest they get a drink at the bar. Now it was the next day, and after everyone had gone home for a few hours to change, they were back at the Hub, and Ianto had disappeared into the archives almost immediately.

Jack itched to follow, to see him, to talk—and what he wouldn't do for a hug, a simple hug. Maybe Ianto was leery of jumping right back into their previous arrangement—it'd been uncertain right before Jack had run off, after all—but Jack didn't want that anyway. He wanted something different, something more than quick shags on lonely nights. He wanted to take Ianto out to dinner as his date, not on food run in between cases. He wanted to sit in a theater and hold hands during a movie, hoping for an invitation back to Ianto's flat after. Yet the more time passed since his return, the more Jack grew certain Ianto was avoiding him. And that there was a reason.

Shaking his head at a less-than-perfect return that had got off to a rocky start, Jack turned toward the computer, determined to start making up for his absence, starting with some basic catch-up. He'd already gone through a number of files when he'd first returned to the Hub, now he needed to tackle his email. While he hoped the team had eventually started reading and replying to his Torchwood email, Jack still needed to know everything that had happened while he'd been gone. So he started eyeballing it, scrolling through pages and pages of messages from UNIT, from Whitehall, from all the official contacts he maintained as the leader of Torchwood. As he skimmed, he noticed that Ianto had indeed read and replied to most of them, and far more diplomatically than Jack ever did. Jack was once again grateful to his team for maintaining the Hub as well as they had, and to Ianto in particular for keeping the place running in Jack's absence.

He signed in to his personal email, the account he kept for things he did not want connected to Torchwood—underground contacts, secret sources, alien refugees, Flat Holm. The first thing he noticed was that the emails had trickled off, most likely because he had not been around to respond. Then he realized that there were no emails from Flat Holm at all. He went back further and further—nothing for weeks, when he'd always had weekly updates and several messages in between—until he found the last message dated about a month after he'd left.

Jack stared at his screen, his heart suddenly in his throat. Why had the facility at Flat Holm stopped emailing him? Had something happened? Or had they given up when he had failed to respond? He double checked his email, his voicemail, did a quick search through the team's cases—nothing from or about Flat Holm. All communication with the island had simply stopped. Something was wrong. Jumping up, Jack grabbed his coat and was about to dash out the door when Ianto knocked and walked in, carrying a large file folder and looking annoyed.

"Leaving already?" he asked, the bitterness clear in his voice. Jack shook his head and pulled his coat on.

"It's not like that. I've been going through my email and need to check on something…" He trailed off, not sure how to explain, particularly when he saw the look on Ianto's face: hard, bordering on angry.

"If you're worried about Flat Holm, they're fine," he said, stepping forward and forcing Jack back into the room. He shut the door behind them and handed Jack the folder he'd been holding. "You'll find everything you need to know in there."

Jack glanced down at the folder, back up at Ianto, out into the Hub. "You know," he stated, somewhat stunned. "Does everyone know?"

"Only me," Ianto replied. "Seeing as it was my number you gave them as emergency contact."

"Emergency contact." Jack remembered: it had been back in January, right after the new year. He'd not updated the emergency contact since Suzie had died, and Ianto seemed like the natural choice. But like Suzie, he'd never told Ianto that he might receive a mysterious phone call one day from the island of Flat Holm. Because that would have meant explaining why.

"You know, usually people ask someone when they put them down as an emergency contact. So they're not surprised when they get a call to pick up their niece at school or bail their cousin out of jail." Jack opened his mouth but Ianto waved him silent. "Instead, I get a phone call in the middle of the night from a woman I've never heard of asking for Jack Harkness."

"The middle of the night?" Jack asked, still fumbling for his footing. Not only had Ianto found out at the worst possible time, but he was clearly angry about it. "I'm sorry they woke you up, I hope it was important." His eyes briefly closed at the inanity of his statement.

Ianto crossed him arms over his chest and glared at him. "That's why it's called an emergency contact. There was a fire."

Jack stepped back in shock. "What happened?"

Ianto glanced at the others through the window. "Do you really want to talk about it here? It could get loud."

Which meant Ianto was definitely pissed off about the situation. Whether he was angry about the island itself, or with Jack for not telling him didn't matter. Jack needed to hear him out.

"My bunker?" he suggested, but Ianto shook his head before Jack had even finished.

"No way," he said. "The archives. I've got some other files you should look over as well."

He turned and left without another word. Jack watched him for a moment, mentally kicking himself for screwing up so badly, then took off his coat and tossed it on the chair before following. They passed silently through the Hub, Ianto ignoring the curious looks of the others while Jack felt each one following him to the stairway. They were silent as they walked downstairs, until Jack could stand it no longer. As soon as they entered the small office Ianto kept for himself in a corner of the archives, he started to speak.

"Look, I'm sorry about—"

"About what?" Ianto asked sharply, turning toward him, hands on his hips. "Sorry for giving them my number? Sorry for not telling me? Sorry for keeping the presence of a secret base from the rest of us? Sorry you're keeping those poor people there, that it even exists?"

"Yes!" Jack exclaimed. "All of it. I'm sorry, okay? I didn't think you'd find out this way."

"What, you didn't think something might go wrong when you decided to jump in a police box and leave the planet?" Ianto threw at him. Clearly, he was bitter about other things as well. Jack opened him mouth to apologize once more—they needed to have that conversation sometime as well—but Ianto beat him to it.

"Sorry, that's not what this is about. This is about Flat Holm. Why didn't you tell us?" He wasn't asking for himself, but for all of the team, even though he was the one who had found out and was clearly angry about it. Jack started pacing, not sure what to say.

"Because it's my burden to bear," he answered. "My attempt to right a terrible wrong."

"How long has it been there?" Ianto asked. "I couldn't find any information about it."

"I bought it after I took over Torchwood Three," Jack told him.

Ianto seemed to process this. "I didn't find any records of the sale in your name."

Jack shrugged. "I do know when to be discreet."

"Then you're Joseph Hale?" Ianto asked. He rolled his eyes. "I should have guessed at the initials. Just can't picture you as a Joe."

Jack couldn't help but grin. "I do prefer Jack."

"So Joseph Hale owns Flat Holm Island—why?"

"You've been there, you know why."

Ianto pointed a finger at him, his face tight. "No, I don't. I'm still trying to understand what the hell is going on, even after three months of taking a damn boat out there. Helen said they were subjected to medical experiments that went wrong, but I know that's not it. Tell me Jack—what happened? Why are those people there?"

Jack sighed and glanced around the small office. There were two chairs—one at Ianto's desk and one in the corner. "We should sit down, this might take a while."

Ianto planted his feet and crossed his arms over his chest. "I'll stand."

Jack took a breath to steady himself against the anger he felt radiating from the man before him. "When I became leader of Torchwood Three, I found two victims in the vaults, suffering alone, injured and broken. Then I found a third, out by the docks, and I knew I had to do something, but what? I couldn't heal them, but I couldn't take care of them at the Hub. I found someplace they could be safe, cared for—and someplace secret. No one could know."

"Why not?" Ianto asked, his voice stubborn.

"Because of what happened to them, the things they've seen!" Jack exclaimed. "It wasn't medical experiments, it was the Rift! The Rift doesn't only bring things here, it takes them too—including people. And every so often, it brings them back, sometimes years later. Almost every time, they are damaged beyond repair."

Ianto stared at him, his face both shocked and confused. "Damaged by the Rift? But we've settled refugees before, aliens living peacefully in Cardiff, uninjured aside from shock."

"This is different," Jack said, shaking his head. "These are people taken by the Rift and transported across space and time to agonizing fates—alien worlds they can't comprehend, torture they can barely endure. And then the Rift brings them back, like some cruel joke. Only they're different—some return months later, some decades after they were lost. All of them come back worse."

"My god," Ianto murmured, staring at the floor and shaking his head. "That's horrifying."

"That's why no one can know!" Jack said. "Can you imagine the panic if all of Cardiff thought they might be snatched away at any second and thrown across the universe?"

"Mass hysteria," Ianto agreed. "Why Flat Holm? What changed?"

Jack tried not to grow frustrated with the questions; he owed it to Ianto to answer them all, so the Welshman understood what he had been seeing at the island over the last several months. "Torchwood used to execute them, or lock them away, but I wanted to start over, to take care of them. I bought the island because it was far enough away, peaceful and secure. "

"But you didn't tell the people working there the truth," Ianto pointed out. "They should know, so they can help them."

"They can't know," Jack said. "It's classified, you know that. It's the Rift, it's aliens, it's things no human should ever have to know and endure. So yes, they believe their patients are the victims of medical experiments gone horribly wrong, and they hate some secret government agency for it, but they're not terrified of disappearing one day!"

Ianto turned and started pacing before he stopped and pierced Jack with a look. "Why didn't you tell us then? We know about the Rift, Jack. We fight aliens. We could have done something!" His voice grew agitated, upset.

"There's nothing you can do," Jack told him. "It's my job to take care of them."

"If you knew you might leave with the Doctor, you should have told us so we could have taken care of them!" Ianto shouted. "We deserved to know—I deserved to know, Jack. Why give them my contact number if you weren't going to tell me? Did you even stop to consider what I might think if I got that call?"

Jack hung his head. "I didn't, no," he said. "I meant to tell you, only things fell apart so fast after I gave Helen your contact information in January that I didn't have a chance…I forgot."

"You forgot?" Ianto scoffed. "You forgot to tell me I was on call for your secret government facility in the Bristol Channel."

"I did," Jack replied defensively. "And it's not the government, it's mine. I paid for it and I run it. No one can trace it to Torchwood."

Ianto stalked over to his desk and picked up another file that he waved in the air. "No, but for weeks, I tried. The team thought I was hiding something, but I needed to understand! I traced the sale of the island to Joseph Hale, an exceptionally reclusive millionaire from Glasgow. I traced the supply chain to a corporate account under his name as well. There were no records of any of the patients other than missing persons reports with the police, and no one working there has any connection to Torchwood. You did a damn good job hiding it in plain sight out in the middle of the bay." He threw down the file. "You should have said something, left a file, even a bloody post-it note."

"I didn't want anyone to find out," Jack told him.

"But I did, and I had no idea what was going on, what to do," Ianto snapped. "Do you have any idea what it was like, getting that phone call at two in the morning? 'Hello, my name is Helen, I work for Jack Harkness at Flat Holm Island. We've had an incident.' Jesus, Jack—it about stopped my heart! And when I finally got there, and saw what was there, those people…" He trailed off, his shoulders slumping.

"She explained as best as she could, but I knew there was much more than she was saying. I think she suspects it as well. I started looking around, digging through files, trying to find any evidence of Torchwood medical experiments gone wrong. Nothing. It was only by talking with the patients there that I started to piece it together."

"You knew it was the Rift?" Jack asked in surprise. Ianto nodded.

"I suspected it was something alien," he replied. "Too many of them talked about bright lights and other worlds. It made sense that Torchwood would be involved, and yet it made no sense at all that we knew nothing about it. You should have said something."

"I know," Jack murmured. He turned and sat down, emotionally exhausted already. "I screwed up. But now you know. What happened that forced Helen to call you?"

"You mean, other than you not replying to your email, texts, or phone calls for several weeks?" Ianto asked bitterly. He leaned back against his desk, toeing the ground. "Aithne set her room on fire. Fortunately, it didn't spread much beyond her room, though the area was heavily damaged by smoke and water."

"Was anyone hurt?" Jack asked immediately, not as worried about the bunker as the patients. "Aithne?"

Ianto was silent before he glanced up and met Jack's eyes. "She died the next day," he said softly. "I'm sorry."

Jack let his head fall back against the wall and blew out a breath. "No, I'm sorry you had to deal with that. I can't imagine how hard it was, on top of finding out about the island."

"It was hard for them, to lose someone," Ianto said, still speaking softly. "I didn't know her like the others did. They told me about her, about the island. As much as they knew."

"I found her with third degree burns," Jack told him, remembering the night he had gone out to find the young woman, horrifically disfigured and in pain. "Four years ago, near the river. Whatever happened to her, wherever she went, there was fire. She was both terrified of it and fascinated by it. It's one reason she had an area to herself, because she was so drawn to it. It wasn't the first time she set something on fire."

He could sense Ianto nod, but they were silent. Jack had many questions, but he imagined Ianto probably had more and waited for him to speak. Ianto, however, remained silent, clearly locked away with his own thoughts. Jack took a breath.

"Have you had to…" Ianto glanced up at him expectantly. "Have there been any Rift returns?"

"Is that what you call them?" Ianto asked, half curious, half bitter.

"The Rift is returning something it took, so yes, that's what I call them." He stood to walk off some of his negative energy. "There's actually an accompanying spike in the readings, a negative spike, almost undetectable. It took me a long time to figure it out and recognize it, but I don't know of any way to predict it, not like the big ones Tosh tracks." He turned toward Ianto. "So have you found anyone?"

Ianto nodded, seeming reluctant. "Yes, one. A young boy, Peter."

"How did you know to take him to the island?" Jack asked.

"It wasn't long after I'd started going there, and I was working late when the monitors picked up something a few blocks over. He wasn't in good shape, and my instinct told me he'd be better off at Flat Holm, that he was like them. I found his missing person's report when I got back to the Hub," Ianto replied. He met Jack's eyes. "From 1958. He was still eight years old."

"Kids are hard," Jack said softly. "I've brought back two—"

"Sam and Elise, I know," Ianto replied. "They're doing better." Sam and Elise were a brother and sister Jack had found six years earlier. They had been about twelve years old, snatched from the nineteenth century and severely traumatized. Ianto took a breath and stood up straighter. "Look, you should read the file. Everything is in there, including several personal logs and the report on Peter. Aside from Aithne, the residents are doing as well as can be expected. But I took the liberty of making some changes."

Jack nodded. "I'll read it, but tell me about your changes."

Ianto took a deep breath, as if he were nervous. Why? What changes had he made? What changes were even possible?

"At first, I wanted to find those people's families, to get in touch with them somehow, let them know their loved ones were alive." He laughed bitterly. "Helen said that wasn't possible given their condition, and I knew, deep down, that she was right. Even if I didn't completely understand what was going on, I knew enough to accept that there was a damn good reason you kept those people there, alone and isolated and secret. Only they needed more…" He met Jack's eyes. "Once I'd been there several times, I started to make a list of things that could be done to help make them more comfortable. I began digging around the finances, trying to find the funds for them. I bought some new … well, some used furniture. New paint. Some favorite foods. More games, television, things like that." He shrugged. "And last week we started preparing a garden."

"Wait, what?" Jack asked. "A garden, as in outside in the dirt?" When Ianto nodded, Jack tried not to panic. He was only trying to help. "Ianto, what if someone saw them? Visitors to the island, or a satellite, or a boat passing by? I know it's hard, but they have to—"

"Stay locked up for the rest of their lives?" Ianto asked bitterly. "No, they don't. And if you'd told us, we could have helped you with things like this. Because I found a cloaking device in the archives. I rigged it to cover a small courtyard. We added a table, a few chairs, and a small garden. And now they get to see the sun."

Jack was stunned. More than anything he wanted to step forward and crush Ianto in his arms, to express his amazement, his gratitude, his—well, maybe not that. Not yet, anyway. Ianto had been shocked by the island and furious with Jack for not telling them, and yet he had continued to go out there, to manage it, and even work to make it better.

"Thank you," Jack said. "I don't know what else to say, other than thank you for taking care of them."

Ianto met his eyes with a spark of defiance. "I'm not going to stop. I've been going out there every week, sometimes more than once, for the last three months. I want to continue working out there."

"Absolutely!" Jack exclaimed. He almost sagged with relief, that Ianto wasn't turning everything back over to him to manage alone. "Tell me what you want, what you need, and we'll get it."

"You mean, like I've been doing since I found out?"

"Well, yes, but I can help," offered Jack. "It's not Torchwood money, for one. I don't want anyone in London to know."

"You should tell the others," Ianto said. "I know you don't want to, but they could help."

"No," Jack replied immediately. "Out of the question. Bad enough you've got to deal with it now, I don't want the rest of them to know."

"Why not?" he demanded. "It's Torchwood, sir. We should be on this as a team."

"I said no," Jack snapped.

"And I asked why," Ianto hurled back. "With all due respect, your answer is bollocks. We deal with shit every day. This isn't any different."

"I'm trying to protect you," Jack insisted. "To protect them."

"From what? The Rift? The island? The fact that we could die any day, that we can't do anything about it, that we can't save everyone because the universe is one big fucking mess?" Ianto's eyes were blazing. "We know that, Jack. We live it every day."

"You know it," Jack said, shaking his hand upward toward the main part of the Hub. "They don't."

"Jesus, Jack!" Ianto exclaimed. "They're not children! Owen lost his fiancé to an alien parasite, and you think he can't handle Flat Holm?"

"I do," Jack replied, refusing to back down. "Because he's a doctor and there are over a dozen people out there he can't do anything to help, to fix, to save— like Katie. And Tosh—"

"Tosh can handle it!" Ianto insisted.

"Maybe," Jack conceded, but he still didn't want to put it on her. "But she'd never quite trying to stop the Rift from snatching them in the first place, and it would be distracting. I need them focused, not overwhelmed and hopeless."

Ianto crossed his hands over his chest. "And Gwen? I suppose you need her to stay human?"

"Gwen…" Jack sighed. "She'd never understand, Ianto. You know that. She would never accept them being out there, alone, without their families and loved ones. She'd want to track them all down, bring them over, tell the world about the Rift."

"She does understand the concept of secrets," Ianto pointed out. "Given she works for Torchwood and hasn't even told her fiancé."

"Yes, well that's powder keg waiting to blow, isn't it?" Jack murmured, running a hand through his hair. "She doesn't understand secrets like this, not yet."

"And you want to keep it that way."

"Yes!" Jack exclaimed. "For all of them—all of you. I didn't want you to find out either, you know."

"You gave them my number," Ianto reminded him.

"You were the most qualified to handle it if they called," Jack responded immediately. "And you know I'm right. You've been with Torchwood almost as long as Tosh, but you've seen more. You may not agree with anything else, but if they'd called any of the others, things would be an even bigger mess right now."

Ianto tucked his hands into his pockets. "It's not a mess, Jack. The island survived your little trip, and I've come to terms with what's out there."

Jack glanced up, confused. "Then why are we fighting about it?"

"Because you still should have told me, if you needed an emergency contact. It wasn't easy, figuring it out on my own—not being able to tell the others, not knowing if you'd ever come back to explain."

"I'm sorry," Jack said softly. "I didn't mean for any of this to happen, not like this. I'm sorry," he repeated.

Ianto blew out a breath and nodded. "I know. Thank you."

"So where does that leave us?" Jack asked.

"I don't know," Ianto answered honestly.

"I still want to take you out," Jack told him. "I meant what I said that night, about dinner and a movie."

Ianto raised a skeptical eyebrow, tempered by a slight smile that didn't completely destroy Jack's hope. "You mean, that you thought about it while you were gone?"

"I did," Jack insisted. "Look, I know there's more for us to talk about. A lot happened, and then I left without word—not even a post-it, like you said. I feel badly about that, but I had to go. If it helps," he added bitterly, "it wasn't a very good year."

"A year?" Ianto asked in surprise. "But how…that's, er…"

"That's time travel," Jack replied. "Not always everything it's talked up to be. I had a lot of time to think, and I did think about you. I'm not just trying to get into your pants."

Ianto rolled his eyes. "Yes, well, as if there was any doubt about that."

"I wouldn't say no," Jack replied with a smile that was thankfully returned. "But I know it will take time, and I'm willing to wait."

"Why?" Ianto asked. "Why now? Why me? Why—"

"Because it's what I want," Jack said, stopping him before he asked too much. He shook his head fondly. "Something different than before."

"Like what?"

"I don't know," Jack replied. "It's been a while since I've done this. But I do know I'd like to give it try, to see what's there. With us."

"With us." Ianto stared at him for so long, Jack thought there must be something in his teeth. "You certainly know how to throw a wrench in things, don't you?" Ianto stood up straight, once again gesturing more than usual. "You show up after leaving us four months ago, and I couldn't wait to have a go at you for Flat Holm. Only you ask me on a date while searching for a bomb—"

"Bad timing, that," said Jack. "Sorry."

"—and ever since that's all I've been thinking about, rather than having my say and letting you know exactly how I felt about Flat Holm—"

"You mean, that wasn't it?" Jack asked in surprise. "There's more?"

Ianto grinned rather smugly. "That was only half of what I'd worked up in my head."

"I'll consider myself lucky then," Jack murmured. Ianto nodded in agreement and turned around, pacing slightly in the small space. He was quiet for a moment, as if trying pull his words together, before he turned to Jack.

"I'd like to see what's there too," he finally said. "But not if there are still secrets like Flat Holm. Like immortality. Like the Doctor. I can't do that." Ianto shook his head, his eyes troubled. "It's too much, being blindsided like that."

Jack stood and walked over to Ianto and stopped before him, almost but not quite reaching out for his hand. "I will tell you what I can," he said, continuing quickly before Ianto could protest. "And when I can't, I will tell you that I can't. I've lived a long time, and there are things I'm not proud of that I'd rather forget. And I'm from the future, so there are some things I can't talk about, or that future may change."

Ianto glanced down and scuffed his toe on the ground. "I've never time traveled, but I've definitely done stupid things I'd rather not talk about myself. But I've kept secrets and I don't want to do that again either. If it affects Torchwood, then we need to share. Agreed?"

"Agreed," Jack said. "Does that mean it's back to yes? Dinner and a movie?"

"It was never a no," Ianto said softly. "But a few days to find our footing might be good. And you have a lot of paperwork to catch up on." He walked over to his desk and picked up a large pile of folders. "Starting with some of the unofficial business we do around here."

Jack laughed. "I'm glad some things didn't change. I didn't realize we did so much unofficial business."

"Visits to the Silos, a few new settlements, updates on some of your contacts, my notes on Flat Holm and the updates I've made, plus some gossip on UNIT." Ianto shrugged. "The usual."

Jack gazed down at the pile in his hands. "You're amazing, you know."

"Just doing my job, sir," Ianto replied, but he smiled, so he wasn't using it as a barbed weapon. "And if you have anything on Flat Holm, I'd like to see it."

"I'll pull what I have for you," Jack told him. "How about I go through these and make plans for this weekend? Any place special you'd like to go?"

Ianto shook his head, laughing softly as he went back to his desk. "Sorry, Jack. Plan your own dates."

"I want to take you someplace nice," Jack said, "but I've been gone!"

"Then do your research," Ianto said. "I've got my own work to do." Jack pretended to sigh as he turned to leave, but he was smiling to himself. He would absolutely do some research and find the perfect place for dinner. Before he left, Ianto called him back.

"Jack?" he asked. "Maybe we could go out to the island tomorrow? You could see what we've done, meet Peter."

"Take a picnic?" Jack suggested immediately. "I can pack a picnic."

Ianto cocked his head. "And how would you explain that to the others?"

"We'll go late afternoon, as long as it's quiet. Send the others home, I'll get us a picnic dinner. There's a nice outlook where we can eat if you bring a blanket. We can talk some more."

"Is it a date?"

"Not officially," Jack replied. "I'm taking you out properly on Saturday."

"I look forward to it," Ianto replied. "Now go do your reading and research."

"Yes, sir," Jack replied with a wink.

"That's still my line!" Ianto called as Jack left the archives. He grinned, feeling better than he had since the Doctor had dropped him off on the Plass. Things were still unsettled with the team, and they'd all need to adjust, but for the first time Jack felt like there was a glimmer of hope that things would return to normal, and perhaps even better. Ianto had been so distant and angry that Jack had almost doubted his decision to return, but now he understood why Ianto had been upset. They had actually talked about it, something Jack hoped they could do more of as they worked through other issues.

In a way, Jack was glad Ianto knew about Flat Holm. He'd found out in the worst possible way at the worst possible time, but he seemed to be doing okay with it, once he'd expressed his anger. That he'd gone out there every week and begun working to improve it spoke volumes of his character and commitment. Not that Jack was surprised; he had always known that Ianto was a loyal, compassionate, and dedicated man. Jack was unbelievably thankful that he now had someone to share the burden of Flat Holm with, though he knew it would still be difficult for them both. But that was why he'd chosen Ianto as the emergency contact, because Ianto was strong. He could handle it—he had done brilliantly already. Perhaps together they could make an even bigger difference on the island.

Even more importantly, Ianto had still agreed to go out on that date with Jack, something Jack had genuinely wanted and had been afraid of losing. He started thinking about what kind of food to pack for their trip to the island, and what kind of restaurant would be perfect for dinner that weekend. He thought about sitting next to Ianto at the theatre, about holding his hand and taking him home and kissing him goodnight. And maybe more.

Jack had meant what he said, that he wanted to see what there was between them. And he hoped it was something special, because Ianto had proven yet again how amazing he was. He inspired Jack to be a better man, to share his secrets and do everything he could to protect the people of Cardiff and comfort the residents of Flat Holm. And he knew he could—with Ianto by his side.

Author's Note:
I have often thought that maybe Ianto found out about Flat Holm on accident, while Jack was gone. I even mentioned it in my story 'Anchored,' but have never written about it specifically, and this story does not line up with that one. This one was inspired, in part, by a Tumblr thread (as often happens in the fanfic world, I suspect!) and a comment by thatlastdanceofchances about Jack giving Flat Holm an emergency number to call. They graciously gave me permission to run with the idea. I know there are dozens of Flat Holm stories out there, but I hope this one added something new. Thank you for reading!