Chapter Text
Every person on Earth saw a ghost.
The religious called it a miracle. The scientifically minded called it a breakthrough and phomenia. Torchwood One called it The Ghost Shifts.
Most saw people from their own past. Their loved ones.
Owen saw his fiancé. Whose death Jack had been witness to.
Toshiko saw her father. Lost just a few years before the incident with her mother’s kidnapping.
Suzie refused to tell anyone what she saw; but she did always spend longer on her glove experiments after she saw it.
Jack, on the other hand, saw something different. He saw someone he’d never seen before. Not one of his numerous ex lovers. Not a brother in arms tragically lost too soon. Not someone he longed for like the Doctor. Not even Grey . He saw a handsome young man in a suit.
The first time he appeared all he’d managed to get out was “who the hell are you?”
The man’s frown deepened, his blue eyes widened sadly, as the form almost tried to reach out to him.
“ Jack …” He heard the name called and felt a cold chill come over him.
The man would return to him. Again and again as the shifts happened. Sometimes he’d hear his name again, sadly spoken as he tried to reach out. Other times he would simply see the fuzzy outlines of a handsome young face, full of cheeks and with pale skin. He was always dressed in a nice suit. Tailored and well made, from what he could tell. With a pop of colour in a wide tie and a waistcoat.
Then the day came he no longer saw his young man. And Torchwood One, would fall.
“Wasn’t real,” said Owen, as if he was a man that hadn’t practically sobbed upon seeing a form he’d sworn up and down was Katie Russel. As if he hadn’t sat with the “ghost” he thought was her just days ago. “Bastards showed us what we wanted to see.”
It was a practical way of looking at things, but also a transparent way for Owen to beg off his own feelings.
They were at the wreckage site, what was left of the Torchwood Tower, salvaging what they could from the destroyed archives. Dealing with the sharp metal that needed to be incinerated. Jack threw some of the scrap into the disposal unit for transport. A sort of high tech rolling bin.
“If that’s the case, why didn’t I know my ghost?” asked Jack.
“Dunno,” said Owen. “Maybe they didn’t think you had someone that they could tempt you with, and made up their own.”
Jack thought of Angelo who’d loved him and hurt him. Of the Doctor that abandoned him in a distant time and place, but not before making him a better man; who’d one day hopefully reverse his curse and provide him with answers. Of Lucia who’d grown to resent him fiercely, but had once been the light of life; and who despite the bickering would always be the mother of his child. His first wife died of the Spanish flu too soon in her twenties. Of his father, slain on a beach that didn’t exist yet, thousands of years from now. Of his childhood friend who’d marched off to war with him and paid the ultimate price. His brother, who’d he never found after years of looking across time and space.
“I don’t think that’s it,” was all he said to Owen, finally after a beat.
Owen simply shrugged. Continuing the dredgary of the clean up operation.
It wasn’t too long after Jack seemed to have found himself a stalker.
He didn’t recognize him at first. The nagging sense that he was familiar was something that Jack had written off as seeing him around the plass.
He was a young man (practically right out of uni) in a studded belt who made good coffee. When he introduced himself as being from Torchwood One, Jack quickly decided he wanted nothing to do with the man. But it did inspire him to check the list of the dead over once more. Rose among them.
When Jack saw him next, Ianto Jones dressed in a suit from head to toe, and suddenly fuzzy images began to click into place. A Welsh lilt whispering his name. Sad blue eyes looking upon him pleadingly.
This was him.
The man in the suit.
His ghost. Alive and in front of him.
And apparently begging for a job at Torchwood Three, doing quite literally anything.
Despite his widening curiosity, Jack was determined to beg him off. If he was somehow tied to the other universe and the cybermen...he needed to be kept away. It was for both of their own goods.
Jack couldn’t help falling, literally falling for him, as they tried to catch that pterodactyl together. He let him aboard. Jack would be lying if he didn’t love mystery. Especially a pretty one with beautiful Welsh vowels.
But then he quickly found he didn’t have time to crack the mystery of his once ghostly employee. It was a whirlwind few months. With Suzie’s sucide and Gwen’s swift recruitment. The team was starting to come together, although Ianto often chose to hide away. Adapting to the persona of an enigma that Jack had already mentally assigned to him.
And then one night the power went out. Owen and Gwen found a cyber conversion unit in the basement. And all hell broke loose.
Her name was (had been, before she’d been turned into this) Lisa. Ianto loved her. And she had come dangerously close to single handedly bringing about the end of the human race on her behalf.
It was clear now. Ianto came to him as a warning. He was tied to the cybermen, because he was going to be the idiot that brought them back.
Why would the cybermen warn against their own kind? his mind supplied. How would they even know about this? Jack shoved the thought away, too angry to focus on anything else but the little hope he had of getting his team out safely.
Lisa would be killed by a firing squad made up of the team whilst she was wearing the body of Annie from Jubilee Pizza. Ianto hadn’t been able to bring himself to take her out himself, even after everything “Lisa” had done.
Ianto...faced suspension. Followed by increased scrutiny.
It wasn’t until Jack had taken on the missing persons case in Raydr, following the clues to a little hole in the wall pub called the Ferret, that he and Ianto would truly reconnect. That he’d be reminded of the ghost that was so tender, so soft with him.
They made peace as friends.
And seconds later:
“You kissed me.”
“You kissed me back.”
It was only for the night, but Jack was finally acting on feelings he’d had since before he and Ianto had even properly met.
Then it wasn’t just for the night. But it wasn’t exclusive. Wasn’t a committed thing.
And then Abbadon came. When Jack finally came back to life after that one, Ianto kissed him like that in front of everyone.
So of course then the TARDIS, and the Doctor with the answers he’d waited for a century and half for, landed on his plass.
Jack didn’t see ghosts when he was being tortured aboard the Valiant. But he was still haunted by his team’s memory. He did a decent enough job playing the action hero, hiding how much it’d all hurt him. The reset didn’t exactly reset his trauma with it….
He and Ianto would go steady after he came back. And each day he found himself falling more and more in love with the man; even if he couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud. The mystery of why Ianto was his ghost hadn’t been forgotten, it just became...less important. He had Ianto here. And that was all that mattered.
They continued on, through the loss of Tosh and Owen. The struggles that only being a team of three brought. And then the day came that the hub blew up. The beginning of the worst week of Jack Harkness’ very long life.
Ianto Jones died in his arms. He begged him, and begged him not to go. Begged the creatures to reverse it. To take everyone else instead. He repeated the word “no” over and over, as if that would somehow stop the reality of it all.
“I love you.”
Don’t.” Because this can’t be the end. Not him. Not now.
They go on. Promises are made as Ianto fades.
“A thousand years time you won’t remember me,” Ianto told him, dying. Because Ianto was dying in front of him and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Nothing to face the fact this was reality and truly happening.
Jack promised to remember him. He would. He had to. One thousand years. Ianto fell limp in his arms, and he lost consciousness. Waking up from death had never left him so empty. He was alive, physically, but dead inside.
It was on his sad world tour that he thought more about it. A way. Any way. To see his ghost again. To see the fuzzy image that he saw every day in the lead up to Canary Wharf.
Jack landed on the House of the Dead. And that was how he ended up losing Ianto’s Ghost twice.
He was more solid and real on the second go. No longer a random stranger, he was someone that Jack had loved. Once again as he walked into the building to seal the rift, lost.
Jack soldiered on. For a given definition of the phrase. He went to space and mourned and drank and cried. He made his way back into the life of one Gwen Cooper, and ended up in America. He left again. Came back again. He’d always come back…it sometimes just took a while.
While he’d been gone Gwen had taken it upon herself to bring back Torchwood to an official outlet. She’d hired an admin. Mr. Colchester was tasked with fixing the Institute's heavily abused finances. She’d begun the process of recruiting for a tech expert or field agent. Gwen handed control back over to him—she was just in charge until Torchwood’s most senior member made another appearance she’d half joked. And Rhys would like to formally quit (Jack had not been aware Rhys had even been hired).
Then one day, of all people, Yvonne Bloody Hartman showed up. A woman that was supposed to be dead. The woman that brought the ghosts upon them. The cybermen.
There were more changes. New team members. Old friends departing. Gwen leaving had been a particularly harsh wound, even if she was still in town and he’d be able to grab tea with her on the odd Tuesday. Having Torchwood without Gwen Cooper there felt hollow. Like a piece was missing.
He learned more about Yvonne. That she wasn’t his Yvonne. The one responsible for all those deaths. But her counterpart. From another universe.
Jack wasn’t really in charge any more. Yvonne having taken heed. Some days she was surprisingly good at it; stopping before she could make the same mistakes the version of her he’d known made. Others she was entirely too ruthless even by Torchwood standards and they butted heads. Jack wished once again Gwen was there. A moral guiding hand when they needed it.
He used the time he wasn’t in charge of the new team to conduct his own research. Cybermen. The papers written on the Ghost Shifts from the archives. Their was a purpose beyond readying himself for the next invasion, and that purpose was Ianto. Trying to understand, finally understand, how he’d seen him all those years ago.
One afternoon he’d caught a flash of blonde hair standing over his shoulder.
“You’ve been doing that a lot,” she said. “Reading those specific archive reports. I’d like to know why, and if there’s anything in particular you’d like to share.”
She crossed her arms. Looking imposing and demanding in her very corporate way.
“Respectfully, I want you as far away from anything involving a cyberman as possible,” said Jack.
She rolled her eyes. “My universe was invaded by the cybermen long before yours was. We spend years and years fighting them. The fact the me from your universe brought them here was her failing. Not mine.”
Jack’s expression made it very clear he didn’t trust that. But he still let her read his notes.
“Interesting,”
“What?”
“Your assuming your ghost shifts were psychic. I think Orr can attest that you’re relatively strong at keeping people out of your head when you want to be. So if you’ve got mental fortitude to block a mind reader…how would one sneak past?”
Jack blinked. Orr was their resident shapeshifting empath. He’d never quite been able to hide his thoughts and desires from Orr despite his psychic training. But he could shield them somewhat. And it was conscious. At his best he could block out a psychic completely like he’d once done with Mary. If the Ghosts had been routing around his head he should have managed some level of defense against them. So should of most of Torchwood, now that he thought about it. They had psychic training.
Besides, we had indicators on our end that they were more physical. Mass coming through,” said Yvonne.”
Jack looked at the readings.
“But these readings here, that’s psychic energy,” argued Jack.
“Yes but...whose? Perhaps...your psychic readings are coming from your cybermen and not you, yourself.” .
Jack thought of Lisa Hallet. Bloodied and having preyed on Ianto’s attachment to the woman she used to be. But also the real hurt she’d sometimes manage to convey. The hurt he saw even through his anger. The reason Ianto had been so insistent she could be saved.
Suddenly a thought came to his mind.
“Weird question. Was there a me in your universe?”
“Died in the line of duty. 2005. Cyberman attack but he wasn’t converted. His boyfriend was.”
“Do you remember who that boyfriend was?”
“Some man from admin. Ianto; the one you asked me about that one time. The one Gwen said thought highly of me.” She tightened her lips. “You both made it far too easy to figure out your motives with that line of questioning. You let your tells show.”
As a rule, Jack did what he could to avoid showing emotion in front of Yvonne Hartman. It was part of their ongoing little power struggle and personality clash. But at that moment, after years of research and trying to come up with a reason why, Jack finally had one. He felt the tears fall down his face as he cried for Ianto. Not his Ianto, but the one that had been his ghost.
Because after all this time, he’d just figured it out.