And to those who shall go their entire lives without children...

Darkness is all around when he wakes, and though he can't remember the details, he knows he has dreamt of Lisa. He doesn't try to recall anything, because the pain weighing him down is reminder enough.

There's a picture on the refrigerator, which he avoids when he looks for breakfast, knowing the woman captured in it is not all that died the day before.

When he steps back into Torchwood, he sees Jack standing above him, nodding in confirmation a reply to some question Ianto never asked and he knows that with Lisa gone, he's as vulnerable as he always feared to be.

To them shall I give...

It doesn't happen at any particular moment, knowing that he's completely forgiven Jack. Because it doesn't take only one moment, and because, maybe, it will never be complete.

But Jack sees his pain when Ianto mentions Lisa, casual as the tone of words may seem to be, and he cares. Ianto can tell just by looking at Jack, and it moves something within him so quickly that he has to avert his eyes. He remembers the wrong things now, like Jack's hand on his back, warm in the dimly lit office of black corners and blue lights.

In my house...

A man's house is his fortress, but Jack has no house. He makes Torchwood's office the closest thing to home and Ianto is the one cleaning it up. When he thinks about it late at night, it seems like the closest thing to touching Jack from the inside.

Ianto stays late at the office over more and more nights, because really, he hasn't got a home of his own either.

And on my walls...

Ianto spends his nights working. Jack just spends his nights finding ways to make the time pass. It becomes inevitable for them to meet. When Jack approaches him one night, his hand going to rest on Ianto's back as always but lingering more than usual, Ianto remembers what he shouldn't. He recalls ever so clearly Jack's fury over the hiding of Lisa in Torchwood's cellar, a wrath Ianto now realizes was so terrible that simple betrayal can't easily explain it away. He feels Jack's touch under his skin.

That's why he's not surprised to notice his attentions gravitating to Jack increasingly over time, that's why he steps forward when he least expects himself to. Jack's distress after Suzie's execution, he can feel that under his skin as well.

He offers little verbal comfort, but his stopwatch is at a ready, and so is he, in Jack's office, precisely ten minutes later, bent over Jack's desk, mouth wide and gasping with each thrust. His hands against the table barely support him and in a minute (59 seconds, 58…) they won't anymore. He doesn't need to have his cock touched. No matter where Jack caresses him, Ianto can feel it everywhere. Jack drives into him with a madness. One hand is clutched in Ianto's hair and the other, which had played with his left nipple only a second ago, is now doing little more than holding on to dear life as Jack pulls back for just a second before he launches in again, and again. Ianto can feel Jack's panting breaths on his sweaty nape, closer than a kiss, and before Ianto’s about to collapse he pushes backwards, demands more, takes Jack down with him in an orgasmic shout that could bring down the walls of Jericho, and maybe, just maybe, not those walls alone.

A hand...

Ianto wonders at very little when it regards Jack. Taking things in a stride seems to come with the territory of caring for Captain Jack Harkness. He never asks why a hand of no particular use is worth guarding, nor does he question the risking of lives to save that hand. Ianto won't know for sure until he's put to the test, but he starts suspecting that if Jack cares about the hand so much, then he does too, possibly to the degree of risking his life for it. He doesn't resent it the space he somehow feels it occupies between them. He couldn't. Not after bigger, more painful things were there.

And a name...

Owen doesn't know who Jack is. Gwen doesn't reply, as she's become accustomed to being quieter around Owen these days. Tosh agrees with him when she comes back from the past she was sucked into. However, a stolen name, she points out, is not necessarily a theft.

Ianto hears them all and says nothing. Whatever Jack's real name is, he doesn't need a voice to form it.

Better than sons and daughters...

A poetry book is open by his bed. He hasn't read in it for quite a while now. The words echo in his mind regardless. The dreams of other people are engulfed in those pages. He doesn't need them anymore. He starts dreaming of his own secret wishes, and they're still too new, too precious and too fragile to be attached to words.

An ever-lasting name I shall give them...

Lisa comes to him in an apparition. When she appears to him, he knows her not to be actual flesh and blood, not even cyber metal, but he thinks he hears some truth in her words nonetheless. Many will die. He has to stop it. Whatever personal sacrifices that will require, he has to make them.

When he hears Gwen talk about her vision of Rhys dying and he starts putting two and two together, he knows the time for his duty is getting closer. He's grateful for one thing alone. In his apparition, it wasn't Jack he saw. Because they all saw the people whom they've loved. And lost.

Whatever happens, there's still Jack. Even if he won't understand what Ianto has to do.

Which will not be cut down.

Gwen states the obvious, as she's sometimes prone to do, but Ianto understands her for once. It's so unthinkable, it must be said. She says it as best she can. Ianto thinks it as best as he can. They've lost – he's lost – their leader – his lover – twice – over such a short period of time. Jack dies, comes back, sacrifices himself and revives again only to have them find his Torchwood empty of him once more. It leaves Ianto's heart achingly beating to the rhythm that was created by a strange noise he didn't get to hear, a noise which enveloped Jack and drew him away but a moment ago.