CHAPTER ONE=

Jack looked up at the bleak grey sky as he left the house of torment behind and started to walk back towards the hub. He managed to get to a deserted, piss stained alley 50 yards away before he broke down crying. He thought it was quite a good way actually. He leant against the rough brick wall behind him and sagged down to the floor as more tears just kept coming faster and faster until eventually he couldn't even see the wet stone he was sitting on. God, he had just been raped! He thought back to the Valiant and the year that never was and cried, if at all possible, even harder. The immortal man drew his knees up to his chest and rested his forehead against them as he tried to get his traitorous body back under control. Jack rubbed his wrists anxiously in an attempt to make the fresh bruises marring the skin there to go away before he got back to the hub because Ianto would see, the Welshman noticed everything. His head was pounding over and over in what seemed to be either the Doctor's voice 'wrong, wrong, it's not even easy to even look at you Jack because you're wrong.' Over 100 years of waiting for the Doctor to come back and it turned out that the time lord could not even look at him and his heart tightened as he remembered just how much he hated him now. 'Your precious Doctor can barely even stand to hear your name Freak, you're so wrong if I put you in a room with some kiddie time lords they'd all be on their knees puking in a matter of seconds. That's how wrong you are, you're a fucking abomination, and if the time lords still lived you would never have been born freak!' And Goddamnit he was not going to break down any more than he already was because he had a date with Ianto in just less than two hours and he couldn't turn up with his eyes all red and stinking of a back alley.

Jack felt a light spatter of rain falling on him and hoped it'd fall quicker so no one would be able to tell that he was crying. He mentally shoved all the events of the previous hours into the little box for such incidents he had in the back of his mind and pushed himself upright and out of the alley before he was able to change his mind.

~0~

The warm water cascading over him from the showerhead did little to soothe the ever-increasing tension in his muscles and he rubbed futilely at his eyes as the memories threatened to overwhelm him again. Damnit he had a date in a little over an hour and he just couldn't do this! He remembered the feel of the guards' hands all over him and the Master's and those poor teenage boys who were given a choice of rape or die. The Master had killed them anyway. As much as Jack knew Ianto wanted it, he wasn't sure he would be able to handle anymore sex for a while, even the flirting that he used to do before Abbadon seemed scary. But the Welshman would want sex, probably need sex, Jack realised, after two months Ianto would need to claim him, to be sure that Jack really was back for good. He could do sex, he decided, he could do anything Ianto wanted because he really did not want the younger man knowing what had happened to him while he had been gone. Even the people on the Valiant had not known everything that was done to him, that privilege was for the Master alone. And, Blake Anderson, he shuddered at the memory of those hands on his body, on his cock, calloused fingers up his arse, stroking him in a way that only Ianto should and then forcing his eyes to stay open and watch the CCTV footage that was somehow not reversed when the paradox machine was destroyed. He realised that at some point during his reminiscing he had sank down to the floor and curled up into a tight ball whimpering occasional broken sounds and that he now had only 40 minuites until his and Ianto's first date.

Jack picked himself up unsteadily off the cool slick tiles and cleaned up any evidence of his little breakdown and stood before the wardrobe trying to determine what to wear. He had told Ianto 'smart looking but comfortable and on the edge of casual' although it was now he realised that that was a totally inadequate way of describing the sort of outfit he should wear. He picked out black trousers and his boots then dithered over the shirt. He had an abundance of his usual blue button downs but he wanted to look like he had made an effort, in desperation he rifled towards the back of the wardrobe and almost laughed out loud when he snagged the perfect shirt. The immortal man held it up to the light to check for any marks and discovered that it was immaculate, the material was still blue but a darker shade to what he usually wore around the hub, and hopefully Ianto would like it.

It was at that moment that Tosh chose to pop her head down from the office. "Ready for your date yet?" she asked him teasingly, and then spied the clothes tossed all over his small room. "It seems not." She added dryly, "Want some help?"

"Yes!" Jack told her. The Japanese woman slid gracefully down the ladder and looked him up and down.

"Your shirt's good," She conceded, "and those trousers will have to do seeing as they're the only sort you own; now what about braces and hair?"

"I don't know, Tosh help me!" Jack begged her.

The techie gave an exaggerated sigh "You really are hopeless at this dating stuff aren't you?" she said fondly.

"It's been almost 40 years since I last dated someone serious, of course I'm hopeless!"

"Calm down, now what different braces have you got? And actually why do you even need braces?"

"Tosh!" the elder man shot her look as if to say 'you can't really be that stupid' "The only coat I have is currently hanging in my office and it won't look right if I'm not wearing braces!" he held up an array of braces dangling loosely from his arm from where he'd fished them out of the drawer. The choice between cream, black, red, blue and green had never seemed so daunting.

"It'll be ok;" Tosh soothed him gently, "Ianto would still think you're handsome even if you only dressed in ordinary clothes like the rest of us mere mortals. Put the red ones on- they go great with that shirt, then do your hair and go take that sexy Welshman of yours on a date."

"You'll think he'll like the red ones?" Jack fretted.

"Yes," Tosh told him firmly, "now hurry up or you'll be late."

"Oh crap!" Jack swore as he saw the time and ran into the tiny bathroom to fix his hair. Smiling at her friend and boss' behaviour the young woman clambered back up the rickety old ladder to the office and left for the night.

~0~

Ianto paused in the open doorway to his flat and gave Jack a coy smirk, "So, do you want to stay for a coffee?" he asked, Jack grinned in return.

"I thought you wanted to take things slowly?"

Ianto fixed him with a pointed look, "Well, I've never been very… conventional."

"Well when you put it like that…"

~0~

Jack and Ianto were curled up beneath the duvet in a happy state of post coital bliss when the beeping of Jack's wristband cut through their peaceful silence and the immortal ex con-man blearily lifted his head to check on it.

"Weevil alert," he groaned, slumping back down beside the Welshman, "I'll go."

"You sure?" Ianto asked him, "We could just get one of the other's to handle it."

"No, Owen has the day off, Gwen's visiting her mom and I'd rather not send Tosh in case it turns out there's more than one of them. You stay here, hopefully I won't be kept too long and I'll come back here."

"Be careful." Ianto warned him, "I don't want the strongest memory of our first date to be me cleaning the blood off your coat."

"Don't worry; it'll be fine," Jack promised his lover, bending down and placing a kiss on his soft lips, "I'll be back soon OK?"

"Mmmm." Ianto murmured, already drifting back to sleep. Jack shot him one last look before quietly sneaking out the door.

~0~

Jack paused at the entrance to a dank alleyway and looked around for the weevil, feeling a sense of déjà vu as he realised it was almost identical to the one he had had an emotional breakdown in earlier. Shaking his head he realised that the rain had probably driven the lone weevil back into the sewers and he had wasted what could have been a very good night with Ianto.

"Bloody Torchwood," Jack cursed under his breath as he started back in the direction of Ianto's flat, "I knew I should have out it on silent." His thoughts turned to the sexy Welshman that was currently in bed waiting for him and he sped up then slowed down just as quickly, what if he woke Ianto up? Maybe he should just go back to the hub, but then Ianto might think the worst and never agree to go on a date with him again! Ever since he had gotten back from running after the Doctor his emotions had been not much better off than the aftermath of a train wreck, one minuite happy and the next ready to make him jump off a roof or get run over by a very big lorry. The immortal man suspected that it had something to do with the fact that he had just come back from an entire year of torture, rape, mind-rape, dying and being belittled like there was no tomorrow with no reprieve between the year that never was and coming back to his team except for a shower to get the worst of the grime off and a couple of hours of helping get all the people on the Valiant sorted out and fixing the Tardis.

Jack blinked and realised that while he had been lost in his thoughts his feet had automatically guided him to the door of Ianto's flat and his hand was halfway to his pocket to retrieve the key that Ianto had given him.

Padding cautiously into the bedroom that he had left no more than two hours earlier, Jack slipped back under the covers and wrapped his arms round the washman, who in return gave an inaudible murmur and blinked open his bright blue eyes still clouded with sleep. "Did you take care of the weevil then?" he yawned curiously.

"Nah, the rain must have convinced it to go back into the sewers so really we woke up for nothing."

"Bloody torchwood." Ianto cursed lightly, snuggling further into the warmth that elder man provided him with.

He felt Ianto doze off again curled up in his arms under the thick fluffy duvet that smelled faintly of lavender. Jack nuzzled the back of his Welshman's neck and felt a few stray tears roll down his cheeks as he remembered how much he was betraying the beautiful young man who for some reason believed he was worth it. The immortal thought of how readily he had let Blake do those things only that morning and felt sick at the thought of being without Ianto again. Jack choked back a despairing sob as he remembered how Blake had pulled him into a side alley one day and forced him to go back to his house or he'd track down Ianto and kill him slowly; all through that terrible two hour ordeal he tried to tell himself that this was for Ianto and he had no reason to be scared if he did what Blake wanted him to. Then the misery-inducing bastard had ordered him to be outside the take-away shop at noon the following day or he'd put the CCTV from the Valiant all over the internet and then 'that stupid prick of a Welshman' definitely wouldn't want him and Jack had- much to his uttermost shame- had readily agreed, anything to keep Ianto safe. Jack felt more sobs and tear threatening to boil over and hastily focused all of his attentions onto the sleeping tea boy nestled securely beneath him and felt the iron grip feeling in his chest loosen a little.

He couldn't let himself sleep, in fear that the memories of the year that never existed would overtake his mind while his body rested and he'd wake Ianto again and he was determined to keep everything and anything relating to his time away so out of reach of the Welshman he would never even hear the smallest of rumours- the younger man didn't need to know, it'd give him nightmares as well.

And so Jack snuggled down next to his lover now boyfriend and inhaled his smell of coffee and something totally Ianto as the cold light of the morning slowly filled the room.