*Note: All dialogue in the second part is taken from the episode They Keep Killing Suzie, written by Paul Tomalin and Dan McCulloch. No copyright infringement is intended.

Ten

They were almost caught the following week.

Gwen and Owen had gone out to investigate a suspicious murder, and Tosh had offered to pick up lunch. So Jack had invited Ianto upstairs, only they had been forced to stop before they'd barely got started when Gwen and Owen returned very loudly and unexpectedly. Jack confidently headed downstairs to see what had brought them back early, while Ianto returned awkwardly to his station to think about what the hell he was doing. Again.

The problem was, he still had no idea, no matter how many times he turned it over in his mind.

He'd never kissed a man before Jack, had barely given it a thought before coming back to Cardiff and joining Torchwood Three. And now…now he was involved with a man, the man who was not only his boss, but who had shot his girlfriend only months before. The man Ianto had hid secrets from for so long, whom he had punched on the Plass and hated fiercely after that horrible night, for however brief a time.

Maybe it was time he stopped thinking of Jack in such limiting terms. Yes, Jack was their leader, but he was also more than that, to all of them. And over the months, he and Jack had become friends, in spite of or perhaps because of all that had happened between them. There was certainly a bit more there now, a strange, mesmerizing attraction; Ianto wasn't blind to that given all they'd explored with one another almost every night since they had first kissed in the conference room.

And yes, Jack had given the order to shoot Lisa, but they had all pulled the trigger, all four of his colleagues. Ianto had never really blamed the others, though, because they were just following Jack. It was Jack who had held a gun to Ianto's head not once but three times that day. It was Jack who had forced him to watch as Lisa was attacked by Mfanwy, who had forced him to go back in to execute his lover.

It was also Jack who had come to him, to see if he was all right when he clearly wasn't. It was Jack who had listened to him, who had dragged him out Weevil hunting as the best way he knew how to help, who had cleaned Ianto's wound from the Hoix and fixed his watch, and who had even started to open up about his own secrets as Ianto opened up about his. Secrets Ianto knew must weigh heavily on Jack, because the more he watched, the more he saw. The more he saw, the more he understood…and the more he understood, the more he felt: sympathy bordering on pity, and a loyal protectiveness he had not experienced for months.

Jack had helped him pick up the pieces of his life. Ianto had blamed him at first, but it wasn't Jack who had broken it: it had happened long before at Canary Wharf, when his life had been ripped apart and Lisa first taken from him. Ianto still didn't feel whole, not completely, but he didn't feel as lost either. He was finding his way again, in spite of how complicated the journey had been.

In the months since Lisa had died, Ianto had accepted her death as well as the manner of it. He had brought Lisa to Torchwood because it was the only thing he could do, and Jack…well, Jack did all sorts of things that he believed were the only thing he could, things he didn't want to do, things that clearly hurt him to have to do. Ianto suspected that what he knew, what he saw, was just the tip of the iceberg: Jack Harkness was a well of deep secrets, and Ianto had learned for himself just how hard it was to live with a secret, how hard it was to live with deep loss and trauma. It somehow seemed natural for them to connect, as strange as it felt sometimes if he dwelled too much on their past.

Or maybe it was just what it was, something fleeting and physical and nothing more. And if it was that, then maybe that was all right too. Ianto had never thought he could be so attracted to another man, and yet there was something about Jack, had always been something about Jack, from the first time they'd met, that pulled him back, turned him around, picked him up.

Glancing up to clear the daze from his eyes, Ianto caught Jack watching him with a small smile. Jack motioned with his eyes back up toward the office and pulled an exaggerated sad face. Ianto rolled his eyes in response, but couldn't help the half smile on his lips as Jack winked. It was sort of fun sneaking around, if he admitted it. Forbidden office affair, indeed. Once more he wondered what the hell he was doing, but he decided he didn't need to know, not yet. At the moment it felt right and good. Someday he'd have to think about what it really meant, but right now, he just wanted Gwen and Owen to get up to their own business and leave already, so he and Jack could finish theirs.

Jack winked at Ianto as he turned back to Gwen and Owen, half-listening to what they were saying about the murder, a cut and dry Weevil killing they'd managed just fine on their own, as usual. He was already thinking about how to send them out again so he could finish what he'd started in his office with Ianto, only he was interrupted by a call from the Cardiff police—this one a double murder, and this time far more suspicious.

Reluctantly heading out with his team, Jack focused on the case, even as it grew more bizarre. When Gwen insisted on using the Resurrection Gauntlet—no, the Risen Mitten, according to Ianto—he let her give it a go, trying not to smile when Ianto pulled out his stopwatch to time the victims' trips back to life. It was all he could do to not laugh out loud when Owen made a joke about Ianto's stopwatch and Ianto replied with a dry, "It's the button on top." Only Jack knew why the watch was so important to Ianto that he always had it with him, ready for even grim tasks.

But then the case became more complicated, and the stopwatch came out again, only this time it was for Suzie. Jack never thought he would have to use the glove on one of his own people, let alone someone who had betrayed them. Seeing Suzie lying there put into prospective just how lucky he was to have Gwen on the team now—and Ianto. What Ianto had done in hiding Lisa seemed like so little compared to what Suzie had done, murdering innocent people to try and master the art of resurrection. Jack hated having to bring her back.

He hated having to kill her as well, but it had to be done. Owen discovered the link between her and Gwen, and once more Jack had done what only he could do: he shot her. Over and over, and still she didn't die, until Tosh and Ianto destroyed the glove back at the Hub. It was finally over. Suzie was dead for good, the glove was in pieces, and no one would be coming back anymore. This time Jack had killed one of his own, only he tried not to think of it that way, because she had betrayed them all. She wasn't one of them, not at the end.

After getting off the phone with Detective Swanson—he'd wanted to inform her the case was closed, after all her help during the rather embarrassing lockdown—Jack was relieved to see Gwen sitting with Tosh and Owen, pale but recovering from her near-death ordeal. He was even more relieved, however, to find that Ianto was already down in the morgue, taking care of Suzie. Again.

"Thanks for doing this," he said as he entered the quiet room where so many bodies lay deep within the Torchwood underground. So much death, as if it was all Torchwood could ever offer—never life, never the happy ending.

Ianto didn't even glance up. "Part of my job, sir." Ianto hadn't known Suzie for as long or as well as Tosh or Owen, so he seemed able to deal with the sad undertaking better than any of the rest of them, and Jack was grateful for that.

"No, I should be doing it, but..." Jack trailed off with a sigh as he leaned against the wall. "One day, we're going to run out of space."

Ianto continued writing, glanced up, then back down, then met Jack's eyes with a mischievous look on his face that Jack was starting to recognize; Ianto's dry sense of humor applied to more than just clever comebacks in the Hub.

"If you're interested," he began. "I've still got that stopwatch."

Struggling to place the context of the unusual comment, given they certainly didn't need to time anyone coming back to life anymore, Jack shook his head. "So?"

"Well, think about it. Lots of things you can do with a stopwatch." Ianto kept a perfectly straight face as he tossed back the words Jack had used when he'd fixed the watch. In spite of all they'd just been through with Suzie, Jack couldn't help but grin widely, because he knew exactly what Ianto was thinking—really, he was surprised he hadn't thought of it first. Once again Ianto Jones was full of surprises.

"Oh, yeah. I can think of a few."

"There's quite a list," Ianto replied. Jack met his gaze before glancing at his wrist.

"I'll send the others home early. See you in my office in ten."

"That's ten minutes...and counting." Ianto gave him a small but confident smile and returned to his clipboard, then glanced up once more. "Oh, Jack? What do you want me to say on the death certificate?"

Jack stopped to consider it, even though he was already thinking about that stopwatch. "Good question."

"She had quite a few deaths in the end," Ianto pointed out in his typically dry manner.

"I don't know," Jack finally replied. "Death by Torchwood."

Ianto nodded. "I'll put a lock on the door, just in case she goes walking again."

"Nah, no chance of that," said Jack, turning to leave. "The resurrection days are over, thank God."

"Oh, I wouldn't be too sure," replied Ianto. Jack stopped, but did not turn around.

"That's the thing about gloves, sir," continued Ianto. "They come in pairs."

Jack turned slowly, a strange feeling fluttering in his chest. Pairs. Once again Ianto Jones had shown himself more perceptive than most with one simple comment. With a nod, he left Ianto to finish with Suzie and headed upstairs to send the others home. He tried to put the thought of another glove from his mind, because the one they'd found had brought them nothing but grief. What would they need another for?

He wondered if Ianto had ever thought about using it on Lisa, after she'd died. Maybe he knew something about a second glove, something from Torchwood One. Perhaps Jack would ask him, just to be sure. It was disturbing to think that there might be another glove out there, or that Ianto might be keeping secrets. Jack did not want any secrets between his team anymore, not after all that had happened. And though he knew it was a double standard to keep his own, he did not want to think Ianto was hiding anything from him again. He liked the Welshman and whatever they had too much to keep any secret but their own.

Shaking his head of morbid thoughts, Jack convinced the others to leave, idly wondering whether Gwen would go home to Rhys or to Owen. He saw them out, then headed up to his office to wait for Ianto. The Hub was his home, and he was glad to have it to himself with Ianto that night to finally finish what they'd started before the past had come back to interrupt them.

Pouring himself a drink, Jack thought about how much their relationship had changed, from the Ianto's first days at Torchwood Three to the horrible night Lisa had died, through the shaky rebuilding of both a personal and professional relationship that had actually, surprisingly, finally blossomed into more. Grinning to himself, Jack recalled the moment Ianto had truly given in to his feelings, down in the archives, when he had declared it their secret and Jack had called it their forbidden office affair. He had no idea where it might lead them, but he did know that Ianto Jones was different. He was special.

Now to just get him up there already with that stopwatch so they could get started on that list…

Author's Note:

The End!

If you've read the transcript from the online BBC extras for this episode, Jack IMs Ianto to see what's taking him so long. And he does ask about Lisa and the second glove. But this is where I shall stop…for now. I set out to get them from the anger and pain of Cyberwoman to this seemingly out-of-the blue bit of innuendo in the morgue, and I hope I've succeeded. Thank you so much for reading this story! I truly appreciate all the comments and reviews, they have encouraged me so much. What a great fandom to fall into. I can't wait to tackle my next unanswered question: what was Ianto up to while Jack was gone, and was he really ready to say yes to that date in Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang?