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Title: Watched over
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Jack
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: none 
Author notes: Written for Bingo Card Prompt 43 - Angel at [livejournal.com profile] fffc
Summary: Jack wishes he knew why Ianto is suddenly here. 

Jack took a moment to study the license again before slipping the purse back into its small shoulder bag and tossing it into the passenger footwell. 

‘Don't mind me,’ Ianto quipped, watching the leather bag pass through his leg before lying in a heap on the floor between his feet. 

Jack didn't reply, focusing on putting the address into the car's satnav. His head was so full of thoughts that he wasn't sure he had any room to spare for pondering the how and why of Ianto's presence. Grief did funny things to the mind, and whilst Jack had felt certain he was at least partly on the road to healing, these new turns of events had made him question everything again. 

He gingerly touched the gash in his arm whilst he was stopped at a set of lights, even if there was no traffic coming from the opposite direction. It was still oozing a little bit of blood and it stung like crazy, which helped him keep his mind off other things. 

‘It really isn't healing, is it?’ Ianto asked him, that look of familiar concern etched across his features. Jack had almost thought he'd forgotten how Ianto looked when he was worried, but now it was all coming back to him full force. Every last detail was there for him to see in the flesh, except for the fact that he wasn't flesh. He was just some figment of Jack's overwrought mind. 

Jack swallowed the lump in his throat. ‘Nope.’ He'd wanted to be mortal and like everyone else so for long he didn't know what else there was to believe. The fact that he knew he never would be, only made him want it more. But now that the tables were turned, he felt completely at odds. He'd learned not to fear doing the hard things or putting himself in danger, because nothing could touch him permanently. Only now was he realising that both he and Esther could be dead. Forever. 

‘It's not your fault,’ Ianto said. 

‘Of course it's not my fault!’ Jack snapped. ‘I wasn't even here!’ And yet somehow he was connected to it all. What other explanation could there be for everyone else being suddenly immortal, and him sitting here battered and bruised? 

Ianto turned around in his seat to look at the young woman lying unconscious there. ‘Someone went to a lot of trouble to stop her from finding our records. I didn't even know the CIA had anything on us.’ 

‘Neither did I,’ Jack replied. ‘But someone also went to a lot of trouble to make sure Torchwood was front of mind right at the time when all of this stuff started happening.’ 

‘Intriguing…’ Ianto mused. ‘I am worried about you, Jack.’ 

Jack stopped himself halfway as he went to rest a hand on Ianto's knee. Finding it not there would only hurt even more. 

Silence sat between them for a few minutes as Jack attempted to recalibrate his brain. The Torchwood part of him was easier to readjust to. This other part - the part when Ianto was right there next to him, talking like there was absolutely nothing wrong with this picture - troubled him a good deal. He spent the remainder of the journey following the satnav's instructions, finally pulling up outside a neat little three storey apartment complex. Esther Drummond belonged in 2B and he gently lifted her still damp body out of the back of the car, carrying her inside. 

The apartment was just how he imagined it would look, simple, perfect for the junior CIA staffer who spent more time at work than she did at home. No pictures of boyfriends or anyone else in her life except for two young girls who must have been nieces. Jack lay her down on the bed, not bothering to pull back the duvet and tuck her in. With Ianto's watchful gaze on him, he felt uncomfortable showing any kind of affection towards another person lest it be misconstrued. He didn't know Esther. She was just someone who'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time, or perhaps the right place at the wrong time. He didn't want her death on his conscience. She'd come looking for Torchwood and she'd found him, but she'd also found someone who wanted Torchwood eliminated. Retcon was the only solution. No one could be allowed to dig up anything on Torchwood that might reveal where the last surviving member was now. Jack owed that much to Gwen at least. Safety and protection for all the sacrifices she'd made. 

‘Another speed date ending in lonely drunkenness,’ Ianto observed, supplying the likely explanation poor Esther would assume in the morning. 

Jack set his hands on his hips, looking first at the crumpled woman on the bed, and then at Ianto. ‘Why are you here?’ 

Ianto blinked, as if the question confused him. 

‘You're not real,’ Jack added, as if to clarify the point. ‘So what are you? Some angel of death come to take me away so we can be together?’

For the first time all evening, Ianto looked away, denying Jack's harsh words.’ I'm dead, Jack. We both know there's nothing after death. I didn't ask to be here. I don't take any pleasure in knowing I'm not really here. I'm here because you're here. Something is wrong with the world, Jack. It brought you back here to fix it. If that means I have to be here to watch over you, then that's what I'll do. Because you can die now, and the world can't afford for you to be dead. It needs you. And I'm sorry if you never wanted to see me again.’ 

Jack blinked back tears that threatened to fall. ‘It just hurts,’ he said. ‘Seeing you hurts more than I can ever say. I loved you and now you're gone.’ 

‘I'm sorry. But I'm here for now, for as long as you need me. We'll figure this out together.’ 

July 2025

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