“Can we talk?” Ianto asked calmly as Jack stormed into the Hub, back from Flat Holm, upset and seething.

“No, I’m too angry.”

Ianto followed Jack to his office and poured them both a brandy.  Jack was pacing and brooding, and barely noticed when Ianto stopped him and placed a glass in his hand.

“I did the right thing,” Ianto told him with a sympathetic smile.

Jack finished the brandy in one gulp and thrust the tumbler back at Ianto, glaring as he did so.

“I fucking-well know that!”

Another brandy; Jack paced some more as he waited for it, trying not to let the alcohol take the edge off his indignation.

“Do you know why I did it?” Ianto asked as he handed the glass over for a second time, with a larger measure.

Jack drank.

“I can guess.”

“Really?”

“Yes.  Gwen wasn’t about to let this go until she’d made all our lives complete hell.”

“Hmm.  Yes, well, apart from that, do you know why I did it?”

Stopping dead in his tracks, Jack turned to Ianto with a frown.

“There’s something else?”

Ianto sipped his own drink, all the while watching Jack with serene intensity.

“I did it for you.  Purely for you.”

Jack’s jaw dropped.

“Wait, let me get this right.  You did something I genuinely, adamantly did not want, purely for me,” Jack established.  Ianto nodded.  “Sometimes, Ianto…  You terrify me.  The closer I let you get, the more I feel at your mercy.  Happy?”

“Not especially.  But I’m still right.”

Jack got the next drink himself, a triple measure this time, and knocked it straight back.

“Few more of these and I may get drunk enough for you to start making sense.”

Ianto left the office and made himself comfortable on the Hub’s sofa.  Jack grabbed the bottle and followed, topping up Ianto’s glass and sloshing more booze into his own.  He stared expectantly at his partner, who nodded for him to sit.  He declined.

“I’m staying right here until you make me understand, or I’m drunk enough to fall down.”

Setting his brandy aside, Ianto casually loosened his collar and tie.

“Why did you tell me?” he asked, words as nonchalant as his actions.  “About Flat Holm.”

“Necessity,” Jack snapped.

“And, at that time, you didn’t care if the knowledge hurt me or not.”

“That isn’t true!”

Ianto shrugged.

“Logically…”

“I didn’t want to tell you, I felt that I had no choice.  Too many victims at once, I couldn’t cope alone, and you were…  You were here, always here.  With me.  For me.  You know that.  Ianto, you know that.”

“What did you say the first time we came back from being at that facility together?”  Jack, in answer, waved the brandy at Ianto.  “After that particular request,” Ianto specified.

“I said, umm…  I don’t know.  That, maybe…  No, I can’t remember.”

“You said that sharing made it easier to deal with.  You apologised profusely for it, but you were glad I knew.”

Jack started to speak once, then twice.  The third time he managed it.

“She’d have to be you.  I see what you did, and why you did, but…she can’t be like you, your strength is very different to her strength.  It isn’t fair that she has to know for my sake.  Every time Flat Holm is mentioned she’ll remember today and it will break her heart all over again.”

“Like it does yours.  And mine.”

“It’s no reason…”

“Owen already knows about that place, and…”

“He doesn’t,” Jack insisted, albeit warily.

“Owen knows, and in the morning I’m going to tell Tosh.”

“No!”

“The team should have a meeting and discuss Flat Holm, if nothing else it’ll be like a support group, for Gwen and for us.  Then, in future, we can bear the responsibility for it together.”

“You will not tell anyone else,” Jack ground out, pacing again in his frustration.

“Is that an order, Sir?”

“Yes.”

“Shame.  That means by tomorrow afternoon I’ll either be sacked or on suspension, because I refuse to let you bear the brunt of…”

“I have to.”

“No.  You.  Don’t,” Ianto insisted, hardening his voice for the first and last time.

The tone made Jack stop and look at Ianto, seeing empathy but also indefatigable resolve; the drum of Ianto’s fingertips on the adjacent cushion extended a subtle invitation for Jack to join him.  Ranting and raving didn’t hold the same appeal as that cushion, especially after enough alcohol to make Jack feel distinctly wobbly.  His glass joined Ianto’s; one more gulp of brandy and the bottle was relinquished too.  A final hesitation gave Ianto time to move into a more comfortable position, then he was winding his fingers in Jack’s and reeling him in, settling them with efficient familiarity.

“Better?” Ianto murmured when they were huddled together.

Jack nodded and shifted slightly, quickly re-establishing his grip on Ianto and holding on so tightly that Ianto could feel every tremor of tension that ran through Jack’s body.

“Owen knows?” Jack asked after a thoughtful while.

“Yes.”

“Was that you?”

“No.  There was a medical emergency on the island when you were away.  He answered your phone.”

“How was he?”

There was a brief pause as Ianto considered how best to word Owen’s reaction to what he’d found at Flat Holm.

“He appreciated the brandy when he got back,” Ianto settled for.

The tension began to subside as Ianto’s fingers played in Jack’s hair, making twirls and peaks of the stiffly gelled locks.

“Tosh doesn’t need to know,” Jack was still insisting, but without his earlier passion.

“I’m telling her tomorrow.”

“I’ll have to fire you.”

“Won’t matter.  She’ll be here for you when I’m not.”

“Don’t make me fire you.”

“Don’t make me make you.”

Jack paused, figuring that out.

“You mean…”

“You tell Tosh.  Or we tell her together.  All of us, together.”

The tension returned; Jack was quiet for a long time before, with a barely-there nod, he agreed to Ianto’s suggestion.  Ianto refused to show exactly how relieved he was at that decision: Flat Holm was a painfully tragic place and Jack alone had borne the soul-destroying responsibility of it for far too long.  Instead he concentrated on the comfort he was able to give Jack, simply by his presence and the unguarded affection he offered.

“Talk to me,” Jack eventually murmured, as he invariably did.

Ianto thought.

“I have a truly bizarre theory about Jonah.  It keeps me sane when I remember that scream.”  The twitch of Jack’s head told Ianto he had his partner’s full attention.  “I let myself believe that, wherever he ended up, he was surrounded by strange creatures that had completely different ideas of culture to us, and…for want of a better word, they trained him.”

“Trained him?”

“Trained him.  And now, although he does his very best, Jonah can’t understand why the unsophisticated louts of this world don’t appreciate it when he sings.”

After a few seconds, Jack’s body gave a little shake.  Then another.  Ianto wasn’t sure if he was laughing or crying, but there was no undue concern as either would be a welcome release.  The cuddles simply kept on coming until Jack was able to speak.

“Stay tonight?”

Jack’s voice was a little hoarse, but warm and tempting, and the way he nuzzled Ianto’s shoulder…

“Jack…  Are you wiping your nose on my shirt?”

“Sorry.  Didn’t want to get up.”

Ianto sighed theatrically and leant his cheek against Jack’s hair, but although his body was quite relaxed his mind was alert, preoccupied with the Rift and the unwelcome twists and turns it inflicted upon their lives.  Every man, woman and child in Cardiff was a potential victim and there wasn’t a thing they could do about it.  As if to prove his point, the programme that Toshiko had left running gave a gentle beep in the background.  Another spike.  Another—  Ianto suppressed a shudder and forced an air of composure, turning his attention back to the man in his arms and giving him another reassuring squeeze.

“Don’t go away, Ianto,” Jack appealed.  “Not tonight.”

“No, not tonight.”  Toshiko’s programme callously beeped; Ianto swallowed hard.  “Tonight…I’m not going anywhere.”