Title: Bump in the road
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 987 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Written for Challenge 512 - Obstacle
Summary: Jack’s return is not without its challenges.


‘Wh- why are we helping him?’ The words cut Jack like a knife. What should have been the best day of Jack's life – finally returning to the place where he belonged, back in a timeline that was where it was meant to be – and now he was having to deal with the shadow that his past lives had cast across his current one.

Jack looked across the office space to meet Ianto's gaze. All jokes about photocopiers aside, there was still a massive obstacle standing between Jack and what he wanted. It came in the shape of a former partner, ex-lover and general pain in the arse Time Agent.

Bless Ianto. Even now he was trying to skirt ever so politely around the issue. Perhaps that meant there was still a glimmer of hope for them, if only Jack could get rid of John once and for all.

Never should've kissed John back at the bar, Jack thought, ruing the impulse. Never should have run off to handle it on his own, thinking he could hide it. Funny how people always fell back on what came naturally in a moment of stress. He hadn't seen John well over a century, yet old habits died hard. His team knew him well enough to know that nothing about Jack’s past was uncomplicated, and often involved people – or aliens – that Jack had shagged at some point. John had only underscored that particular fact, much to Jack’s dismay.

Of course the same could be said that of a hundred years Jack had been here on Earth, John had to pick this day – this one day – to reappear in Jack's life. The odds were incalculable. If only John hadn't turned up today of all days, maybe things with Ianto would be easier, different. Instead they were both doing what they did best, keeping each other at arms length, too afraid to give in to their actual feelings. At least that was true for Jack. He knew what he was doing, hiding all the emotion behind the usual smiles and false bravado.

He liked to think Ianto was doing the same, but then again what did he really know? Months had gone by and Jack had been absent. Ianto may have simply decided that the thing they had before Jack left was just that – a thing. He may have chosen to move on, and he would have been within his rights to have done so. Jack had never intended to be gone more than a few hours, a day tops. What message was he sending to his lover disappearing for months without a word, a goodbye, or even the most basic explanation?

I came back for you. Of course he meant it, but then he'd gone and backtracked, making it a broader statement that covered the whole team. Stupid and a little bit insecure on his part. Why couldn't he have just left it at that? It wasn't a secret that he and Ianto had been… close… before he'd left.

He couldn't possibly tell Ianto the truth; that he spent a year chained up as a prisoner aboard the Valiant, being tortured and mocked endlessly by the Master and his bunch of cronies. And that every single day Ianto had been in his thoughts. Jack never stopped worrying about where he might be, what he was doing, or had the Master gone after Torchwood, attempting to kill them all. They'd escaped for a time but Jack was never really clear on their fate because the Master would never tell him the whole truth of it. It was a psychological warfare that they played, where the worst possible things that Jack could imagine were far more damaging and hurtful than the truth. Jack's imagination ran wild with different scenarios, all of which involved Ianto in pain, hurt or dying.

Whatever happened next didn't matter. He could never confess to Ianto the truth of what had happened in the year that never was. Whether it would have made a difference was yet another question. It might scare him off. And then where would Jack be? Where he was now, ostensibly the same, with Ianto there every day turning up for work, smiling and being all professional “yes, sir” and “thank you, sir” and “would you like another coffee, sir?” Perhaps it was better than nothing, but it hadn’t stopped him asking Ianto if he could stop using the word “sir” every time they spoke to one another. Surely they were past that. Maybe if Jack could only be rid of John Hart, all the obstacles between Jack and the man he was falling in love with might simply disappear. Maybe if he could get over his own self doubt, he might not have fumbled his way through asking Ianto out on a date when all he really wanted was just to wrap himself up in the man’s arms. Right now though, John Hart stood between them like a mile wide chasm.

‘He's a reminder of my past. I want him gone.’ There. Clear. Explicit. Unequivocal. The sooner John was gone the better. Jack had enough fences to mend without steamrolling a few more. He’d made such a has of things and nothing he seemed to do or say was making it better. Who knew that loving a man in the twenty-first century could be so hard. ‘By the way,’ he added, testing the waters a bit more, ‘was that a yes?’ Please say yes. I need you to say yes, Ianto.’

‘Yes, yes.’ It was a little harried and a bit annoyed, maybe even a little embarrassed, but it was a yes nonetheless. Jack grinned in spite of himself. Not all was lost. This time tomorrow John could be gone and Jack would be here, and he might finally have Ianto all to himself. After a year of torture, it was the least he deserved.