And here was the moment where it all went to shit. Ianto bit back his immediate response, that he would never stop trying if it was Lisa, and tightened his grip on the beer. He wasn't here for a fight, he reminded himself. God, anything but that. "I'm not saying I don't understand your reasoning. If I think about it from your point of view, with an extra five years in between, I can see the logic."
Part of the problem, of course, was that despite the way he clung to facts and knowledge like a security blanket, his incessant need to solve things and to always have the answer, he didn't much operate on logic. It would always be like translating his thoughts into a language he was passable but not fluent in - slightly stilted, with a few seconds lag. "It's just... without all that context, it feels like you were about to tear the world apart to get me back and then the next minute I turn up here and you..." were ambivalent at best was what he wanted to say, but he knew it wouldn't come across well. He meant it purely from his perspective, not as a reflection on what Jack had actually been thinking, which he knew had been a lot more painful and complicated. "I'm not blaming you," he said instead, and an oblivious observer might have been fooled into thinking he was speaking to his hands as he refused to lift his head any higher. "I just can't pretend it doesn't feel like it does."