Ianto Jones didn’t know exactly how much time had elapsed. He did know it was still dark in the alleyway he was currently sitting in. He did know the blood from the shallow cut in his stomach was still oozing sluggishly into his trousers and not congealed. He did know that the slippery mass of guts in his arms was still warm to the touch, though not steaming in the cold air of a typical Welsh spring night. And he did know that both Jack and the boy were still dead.

With a horrific eye for detail and an almost obsessive compulsion for facts, Ianto Jones could tell anyone who cared to know (it was a short list so far, his name being the only one on it) that Jack Harkness came back from gunshot wounds the fastest. Mere minutes really, with the head shot being the quickest (Ianto hadn’t been there but he’d seen the CCTV of Suzie…),  and gutshots taking less than 20 minutes to come back from.

Death by Weevil took between one to three hours, depending on the severity of the mauling, although for some reason non-lethal Weevil bites healed almost instantly (unlike a Hoix bite, which usually took four to five hours to disappear completely, or that one human but very accidental love bite, which made Ianto embarrassed and guilty by turns and which Jack had shown off for a full week).

Wounds were funny things and Ianto found it hard to keep track of them all. Sometimes he suspected that Jack kept some of the details to himself, making it even more difficult to catalogue them.

Ah, but the deaths, on the other hand. Those horrible times when Jack—his Jack—was lost to him, gone on to somewhere—something—that Ianto had no way of archiving, referencing or easily categorizing. Well, he knew about almost all of them, from the pub brawls of the 1870s to John Hart bragging about snapping Jack in two over a park bench just minutes after Jack had asked him out on a date—

A date which hadn’t happened until tonight…

A new French place, a quiet rift monitor, brilliant food and a bottle of well aged Merlot. Walking back towards Ianto’s flat, holding hands along the way, brilliant conversation and a pause for a brief kiss…

And then this.

“Come on, Jack, please…”

Ianto didn’t know how much time had elapsed since Jack had died in his arms, spilling his guts all over Ianto’s waistcoat with an agonized yell. He did know that Jack had become limp and lifeless in moments and would have fallen to the ground unmoving except for the knife. Knife, was a kind word for the huge blade that had first gutted him and then was pinning him upright, with the business end digging into Ianto just below his navel, and the handle being tugged roughly by a dirty looking youth with a bald head and rotten teeth. Details that Ianto might have missed had the boy not glared at him over Jack’s shoulder and spat out, “pathetic old queers!”

When he pulled the knife free of Jack’s body, there was a wet sucking sound and Ianto and Jack fell to the ground together. When the boy wiped the gore from his knife on the back of Jack’s coat, it hissed like a venomous snake, and Ianto, mind on autopilot mostly, scrabbled for the gun Jack had holstered at his side. And when Ianto shot the boy between the eyes, it made a sound like the caps Ianto could remember striking with rocks in front of his estate home as a boy—probably six or seven years old. He could remember the pop-crack! sound and the faint whiff of gunpowder and how the combination both enthralled and terrified him.

The youth in the alley dropped in his tracks, a look of utter surprise on his face, which went slack a moment later as his brains took their leave out the back of his head.

Breath sobbing out of him like he’d just run the Man vs. Horse in lead trainers, Ianto dropped the gun, pulled Jack and all his bits into his arms and waited for him to come back.

Ianto didn’t know how much time had elapsed since Jack had died. He did know that the sour bile smell of the parts of Jack that should have been on the inside wasn’t making him gag anymore. He did know that his own wound was still making itself known, and he was starting to feel a bit dizzy. And he did know that he had just done murder, and it hadn’t been for Queen and country, nor had it been the last ditch effort of a brave hero making the earth safe from alien threats. It wasn’t even the act of a hunter, chasing down prey for sport or food.

This kill had been done out of petty revenge. He probably could have let the homophobic little bastard go. Instead, he’d instantly reacted with a bullet full of “don’t you pick on my boyfriend!”, and now the kid was dead.  And for what? His wound didn’t seem to be life threatening; he hoped it wasn’t at any rate. And there’d been no other lasting crime that had deserved such a harsh punishment. After all, Jack would come back and—and—

And what if this was it? What if fate saw to it that Jack was really dead this time? What if that was Ianto’s punishment instead, for killing the kid?

“No, Jack, no—please!”

And Jack came alive in his arms with a pained shout, gasping for air and clinging to Ianto with a desperate, bruising grip.

“Diolch I Dduw! Jack!” Ianto burst into stupid tears and held on just as tight.

For long moments neither man moved, both drawing comfort from the other without offering it in any proactive way.

Only when Jack’s breathing had resumed his normal rate was he able to look around and piece together what had happened. He twinged at the unhappy memory of being gutted like a catfish, barely gave the dead boy a disdainful glance and then a quick pat down told him that not all the blood on his and Ianto’s clothes had come out of him.

“Oh, hell! Ianto! Ianto!”

Ianto thought that if he just kept his eyes closed, eventually everything would be okay.

‘When has that ever worked?’ some cold part of his mind mocked him. ‘Did it work when your Tad broke your leg? Did it work when the police had come and told you what happens to shoplifters in jail? How about when Canary Wharf was in flames and Lisa was screaming for death? Did it work then?’

“Shut up,” he muttered to himself.  He startled at the feel of lips on his own and opened his eyes.

“There you are!” Jack’s grin was full of exhausted relief. “How badly are you hurt?”

Ianto thought about that for a moment and decided that his wound wasn’t life threatening. No threat at all to his continued day to day existence. No threat….

“Oh, Jack—“ He looked over at the other dead man—the one that wasn’t coming back anytime soon and Jack shook him, hard.

“Ow! Jack, no!”

“Jack, yes!” Jack snapped back. “Can you stand?” Without waiting for a reply, Jack stood himself, pulled Ianto to his feet, and they groaned in unison. Ianto put a hand to his stomach and felt less fresh blood there than he had expected.

He gave the corpse another guilt stricken look which Jack interrupted by kissing him again and turning him away from the body.

“The Hub’s closer than your flat. And has better supplies. We’ll go there.” Jack decided. “Lean on me.”

“But—“

“No.” They had only taken two tottering steps when Jack stopped them and cupped Ianto’s jaw with one hand while still supporting him with the other. “Listen to me, Ianto. Maybe our lives didn’t need saving tonight—well, not mine at any rate—but look at him.”

When Ianto refused, Jack turned his whole head towards the body with a sharper tone in his voice. “Look at him! Do you think this is the first time he’s done this? Or that we were going to be his last?”

Head twisted back to face Jack, Ianto cringed. But some of the shock was wearing off; some of the panicky guilt was abating.

Jack kissed him a third time, softly, and lowered his voice until it was just a whisper in Ianto’s ear:

“You saved lives tonight, Ianto Jones. Don’t you doubt it for a minute.”

He turned them away from the corpse and together they made their way to the mouth of the alley.

“So, carnage aside,” said Jack. “It was still a pretty fantastic date. What are my chances of getting lucky tonight?”

Ianto wasn’t quite ready to laugh, but he smiled and said, “I never put out on the first date, sir.”

“Cheeky bugger,” Jack’s voice was full of love.