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CHARACTERS: Ianto Jones, Jack Harkness
LOCATION: Their room
WARNINGS: Arguing, domestics
SUMMARY: Ianto confesses to Jack that he's one of the people behind the info post. Jack doesn't take the news well.

Ianto took a breath and waited for Jack to get back from the shuttle bay. This wouldn't be an easy conversation, but it was one they needed to have. It would be so much worse in the long run if Ianto's role in all this was exposed and Jack was taken by surprise. In a probably futile effort to make things go more smoothly, Ianto had made them both coffee.

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On the days where there wasn't really anything to do with the job he was assigned on the ship, Jack went back to working with his hands on the shuttles in the cargo bay. It had taken some getting used to once Hotspur had been killed, but he settled in well enough again. Grease on his hands, it felt like he'd done something with his day as he made his way back to the room he shared with Ianto, keying the door open and stepping in, before the smell of the coffee hit him and he closed his eyes, a smile spreading across his face, before he opened them to look across at Ianto.

"Coffee?" he asked, making his way over to him.

"Yep," Ianto replied, greeting him with a kiss before handing him his coffee with a smile he hoped didn't look as nervous as he felt. He'd done the right thing, he was sure of that, but he was putting himself at risk. Jack would take exception to that, and he'd be hurt that Ianto hadn't told him in advance, no matter how good his reasons were for doing so. "How are things going down there?"

Jack shrugged, taking the coffee and moving to sit down, blowing across the mug before taking an experimental sip. Still warm, but not too hot. He shut his eyes for a moment as he took the first sip. "They're going. It's slow progress and we've had to rig things a different way in a few of the shuttles, but. There should be more working soon." Not enough for if the ship needed evacuation, but. They were doing the best that they could with the resources that they had.

"Good, good." They'd need those shuttles at some point, Ianto was sure. He took a sip of coffee himself, stalling.

"I've, um... I've been working on some things myself." He tapped his fingers against his mug in a nervous gesture. "I would have told you earlier, but I wasn't sure how it was even going to work out..."

Which was not to say he hadn't had his suspicions this would end up as it had, with himself in a potentially precarious position.

Ianto was starting to act rather suspicious, as far as Jack was concerned. He recognized nervous fidgeting on the other man when he saw it, and this was nervous fidgeting. Nervous fidgeting about something that he'd been holding off on telling Jack about. Automatically, Jack's guard was a little on edge.

"'Some things'?" he asked, lowering his mug to look at Ianto directly.

Yeah, this was going to go about as well as expected. Ianto steadied himself and continued.

"I was talking to some people who agreed that we need to keep better track of things around here, maybe do some digging. You know that anonymous info post that went up earlier...?" He forced himself to still his fingers, to stop tapping at his mug and look confident, in control. He braced himself.

Jack's eyes narrowed. 'People who agreed that we need to keep better track of things around here, maybe do some digging.' He really didn't like where this was going. He had some idea but he really needed Ianto to confirm it first. He could be wrong, in a good way, or in an even worse way than he already thought.

"Yeah?" he asked, urging Ianto to continue.

Ianto hesitated, and then ripped off the bandaid.

"That was me. Me and Sherlock." And a whole host of other people, but that's not the point, and it's not what Jack will focus on to the exclusion of all else.

Jack's eyes were like blue ice. "And whose idea was it then? His? Or yours?" Because he would have thought that Ianto would know better than to call that kind of attention on him, after everything that happened with Hotspur. He would have hoped that Ianto had more sense than to go out looking for trouble. But then again, the man was Torchwood, and Jack should have known better to than to hope as much.

"Does it matter?" he asks cooly in the face of Jack's disapproval. "It was both of us, if you must know. You can't deny it's something that needs to be done, Jack, if we're ever going to get out of here."

He's on the defensive now and Jack won't be happy no matter what, but he'll defend his decision to the end. Jack will just have to learn to accept it, even if he doesn't like it.

"I'm sorry," Jack countered, "did you miss the part about how the last person who uncovered something that whoever the hell is running this operation wanted hidden ended up splattered in the hallway? Splattered, Ianto, they had to identify him by his communicator for god's sake!" His voice was rising. Like hell he'd back down from this. Like hell he'd let Ianto end up like Hotspur did.

"I noticed," Ianto replies steadily. "Hence the anonymity and the encryption. I'm not trying to get myself killed Jack, but you can't expect me to sit around and do nothing when every month it's the same influx of new people with the same questions starting from square one and we never make any progress because of it!" His voice raised steadily and by the end of it he was almost shouting. Taking a breath, he brought it back down again, still trying for reason.

"How many of us are left, Jack? Those of us from the first wave? How many people will still know everything we know a month from now? Two months?"

Jack's jaw is set tight at the end of Ianto's talking, at the end of Ianto's outburst. He has a point, there aren't that many of them left already. They're disappearing every jump, and of all of the people on board, aside from the Captain and First Mate themselves, the first wave are those that know the most history about it all. But he doesn't like it. He's starting to see why Ianto's doing it, and even begrudgingly seeing that it's a good idea, but he doesn't like it.

"What if someone breaks the encryptions? Finds out that it's you?" He's not yelling anymore. That alone should tell Ianto just how worried he really is about all of this.

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