Title:Checking In
Author: scy
Feedback: scynneh@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: Not mine
Fandom: Torchwood
Pairing: Jack/Ianto implied
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Series 1
Summary: Since Jack's return, the team hasn't wanted to let him out of their sight.
Author's Notes: On more than one occasion, lattara, cosmic, and I have discussed how much this team needs to spend more time together so that things like Cyberwomen in the basement don't happen. With Jack's return, there's the perfect opportunity.
August 2007




Gwen had checked for precedents, and even with all of the agency's complications, there weren't many opportunities to dig out the forms to shift accountability onto the head of operations, but given Jack's absence, regulations dictated Jack's 'went out for a bit,' wouldn't suffice. So after Tosh stopped clinging to Jack, Gwen was relieved that she'd kept herself collected enough to bring up the matter of a report, as nobody else had done so.

"Americans call it being AWOL," she said, sitting on the corner of Jack's desk while the others pretended that they weren't hastily finishing up their current projects and watching Jack's every move.

"You still think I'm American?" Jack asked.

Gwen gave him a warning look. "Not even that is an explanation for you being missing these last couple weeks, Jack."

"Good thing I'm not using that excuse," Jack said.

"What are you saying?" Gwen didn't expect the full truth, but some of it was going to have to be shared this time.

"I think everyone's going to want to hear it," Jack said.

"Don't try and put this off," Gwen warned. "You disappear for weeks, haven't told us anything, you can hang about for the morning."

"You want breakfast?" Jack asked.

"Pardon me?" It was another of Jack's subject changes that skipped rails and unbalanced anyone trying to keep track of him.

"It's just after nine," Jack said. "And I know that Owen would eat five meals a day if he could."

"He does his best," Gwen said. Jack wasn't going to readily give anyone a full report, but she saw his compromise as being a start. With the whole team insisting he might share more than what he thought they needed to know, and it was a relief to have him around.

"I'll see if Ianto's done the shopping, you want a fancy spread?"

Jack shook his head. "Coffee would be great." He smiled. "There are places where nobody's even heard of a latte."

"Shocking," Gwen said, and as she left his office, was barely able to hold back the question of where he'd been that there wasn't coffee.

"He wants breakfast," Gwen announced to Ianto when she found him in the area he'd designated as his workspace while the team was observing Jack.

Ianto looked up from the folders he was thinning and shifted easily over to searching the cooler for breakfast items. "Nothing grand, then?" he said, noting the few things on hand.

"I think comfort food would be enough," Gwen said, and helped Ianto gather eggs, jam, bread, and then motioned to the coffee-maker. "There was a mention of coffee," she added. "Seems like he hasn't had any lately."

"Who doesn't brew coffee?" Ianto murmured.

"Might be the people he was with," Gwen said.

"Still, it's a bit odd," Ianto said, and Gwen touched his arm gently, sharing his opinion, but not wanting to make a big deal of it.

"I'll set up a fresh pot, then," Ianto said.

"Thanks, Ianto."

Owen perked up when he smelled food, and Gwen heard him tease Tosh that by the time she'd rewritten their facial recognition software, he'd have eaten her share.

"There's plenty," Gwen called to Tosh, and the other woman slid neatly around Owen to find a seat at the conference table first.

"Oy," Owen said, and jostled her as he went by.

"None of that," Gwen said, trying to sound commanding.

Owen grabbed a piece of toast and made a face at her around the large mouthful.

"Careful, we don't want you to choke," Tosh said in concern, whapping Owen hard on the back. When he was covered in crumbs and gasping at her, she leaned back and accepted the cup of coffee Ianto handed her with a smile. "This is wonderful, thank you, Ianto."

Owen's coughing let up and he had a long drink of water while glaring at Tosh.

Gwen sat down next to Jack's seat, wanting to be close to him and also out of range when Owen decide to strike back.

Ianto passed out the rest of their coffee and then broke a couple egg shells in a pan.

Jack appeared just as Owen balled up his napkin and threw it at Tosh and she held off on retaliating as everyone stared at Jack.

"If this is what happens when I'm away, I won't even start going through those after-action reports until I've had something to eat."

"It's not," Tosh said, and glared at Owen.

He disregarded it and spoke loudly. "We're all just a little bit wound up, but then, that's the reason for this meeting, right? We get together, eat and forget that you disappeared for three weeks while the world went mad."

"That's stretching it, Owen," Gwen said.

"Only just," Owen said. "Maybe we'd have had clearance to really get in there and help, except no, our boss went missing and he's the one everyone listens to."

He was speaking out, but only saying a lot of what they were all thinking this time, but he was taking it personally.

Owen had dealt with loss and betrayal once before, and the second time around he was the first one to look everywhere that the others thought was unlikely. If Jack could come back from death then he would return from this, it was just a question of when he wanted to make an appearance.

"Nobody has a reliable report of what happened," Tosh spoke up.

"Yeah, and since you have the insider information on everything alien, what did happen?" Owen demanded.

Jack shook the sugar canister and offered it to Gwen. She nodded and dropped several lumps into her coffee.

"Answer the question, Jack," Owen said.

"Actually, you've posed more than two questions, if we count your wanting to hear about where I've been, too."

"Stop avoiding the subject," Owen snapped.

Gwen watched the two of them, ready to get between them if need be. Their last argument had ended violently, and she couldn't stand something like that when Jack had only just gotten back.

"I'm not delaying," Jack said. "Just considering-"

"What you think we need to hear," Owen broke in.

Jack stared at Owen and said in a mild tone," If you interrupt, I won't get the chance to tell you some of what happened, and that's your loss." He leaned forward and continued. "And you may remember that insubordination has gotten you into trouble before, and repeating that trend would be a mistake, Owen, so I suggest you back off and let me decide what can be common knowledge and what's beyond your clearance or purview."

Owen couldn't hold Jack's gaze for longer than a second and he backed off. "Yeah, right, sorry."

"You have every right to be frustrated," Jack said. "I'm not denying that I left without warning and that my explanations are going to be sketchy in some parts, but know that I came back intending to stick around for a long while."

"You're staying?" Tosh asked, before Owen was forced to say anything and make himself even more off-balance than he already was.

"For the foreseeable future," Jack said.

"Why?" Gwen asked. She winced, not wanting to be another person demanding more answers than Jack was prepared to give. "If you can tell us, I mean."

"Earth needs to be defended, and it seems that I'm uniquely qualified, that's the best way to put it." Jack was watching Ianto turn eggs with a spatula. "And I have responsibilities here."

Ianto's hands quivered, and the eggs slipped back into the pan, some missing the edge and tumbling onto the burner.

"At the moment it looks as if my biggest responsibility is to ensure that breakfast doesn't get burned," Jack said and got up. He put a hand on Ianto's arm and took the spatula out of his hand. "It's alright, Ianto, that can be cleaned up later, you go ahead and take a seat, I'll finish these."

"You can cook?" Gwen asked. She didn't mean to sound so incredulous, but the way that the team lived off takeout, she hadn't thought anyone, even Tosh, knew what to do with a recipe book.

"I might take offense at that," Jack said, "if I wasn't busy." He expertly flipped the eggs and reached up to the spice rack to grab a jar and sprinkled a small amount into the pan and turned the eggs again.

Aware that she was staring, Gwen snuck a glance at the others and saw that they were equally surprised, apart from Ianto, who had folded his hands on the table and was obviously trying to present himself as being proper in every way.

"And he cooks," Owen said.

"How do you think soldiers survive on the front?" Jack asked.

"On rations," Owen said.

"Do you really think anyone wants to eat packaged food for long, if they have a choice?" Jack asked. He tasted a spoonful, nodded and gestured for Gwen to pass him her plate. "One learns the basics, like any skill, and when there's the opportunity, expands on it."

"Rhys cooks, sometimes," Gwen said. "It's nice to see that a man can be useful in the kitchen." She didn't mention him often of late, but her boyfriend's name was a way to distract attention from another heated exchange of words.

"I've always had a use for men in the kitchen, and every other room," Jack said, and smiled widely.

"What a shock," Owen said.

Jack set about making another omelette and they all watched him. Having Jack around again was such a relief that they couldn't keep their eyes off what he was doing, and he seemed to realize how much they needed to be reassured because he didn't make a joke about it.

Gwen knew that every one of them wanted to ask Jack why he hadn't given them any warning or sent a message when he knew he was going to be delayed.

"Must not have long distance service where you were," Owen said.

"As of now, no calling plan extends to the edge of the universe," Jack said.

"Huh? You're joking," Owen said,

"No, and it's really a shame, there could be a monopoly on such a huge coverage area."

Toshiko put a hand on Owen's wrist when it looked like he wanted to chuck a bowl at Jack's head.

"I went quite a long ways from here," Jack said.

"Why?"

"I was seeing a friend."

"They couldn't just stop in?" Gwen asked.

"He doesn't do domestic," Jack said.

Tosh prevented Owen from spitting out another word as she smiled at Jack. "Wherever you went, we're all very glad you're back." She gave him a sly look and went on, "Maybe you can teach your friend a little about that."

Jack smiled back as she poked fun at him. "I don't think there'll be any lessons on the subject, although I've been known to be an excellent tutor in other areas of interest."

"Please, keep those insights to yourself," Gwen said.

If Ianto's muscles got any tighter, he was going to strain something.

Jack caught it, of course; he'd probably been watching all of them with his own special sort of intensity, and after the greeting they'd seen him give Ianto when Jack rose from the dead, a certain amount of personal interest in Ianto's state of mind was understandable. If he hadn't shown any interest, Gwen would have gathered up her courage and pulled him aside later, to find out what his intentions were, for Ianto's sake. That wasn't to say that she thought Jack would take well to being badgered by her about his personal life, but after his absence, Gwen didn't want to see anyone else get hurt.

Tosh, who had been more sensitive to everyone's moods since she'd been able to read their minds had looked from Ianto to Jack and then met Gwen's eyes. She shook her head slightly, and Gwen agree that it wasn't the right time to bring it up and that she'd wait and see how the two of them handled things before she stepped in and possibly made it worse.

In the meantime, Jack made sure that everyone had a serving, coaxed Tosh into having a second helping, and only then did he sit down with them.

He had his own plate but he didn't really dig in; and as Gwen snuck looks at him every so often, she thought there was a difference in the way that he was eating, a kind of cautious appreciation of such a little thing. He didn't share any wild stories, but listened to the rest of them as they related what had been going on, not like the weeks had brought any great changes, but to Jack, everything was worth hearing, and he didn't tell anyone that they needed to focus on work-related topics.

She wasn't alone in her observations, and as Ianto insisted on cleaning up, he brushed against Jack's chair, paused for a second longer than need be, until the other man turned toward him, and Ianto gave Jack a very tiny smile, one that seemed to mean more to Jack than Gwen understood.

Jack hadn't told them anything knew, merely hinted and kept almost all of what had happened to himself, but between implication and what they'd pulled together, the truth would appear eventually, and in the meantime, Captain Jack was back at Torchwood

It was better than they'd hoped for, and even further than where some of them left off, and they'd take it.

-end