No Good Deed
Summary: One of a series of unlinked oneshots, songifcs, inspired by seeing Wicked too soon after CofE. Spoilers obviously my dears. Slash Janto.
The songs aren't in order and I won't be using all of them, or even all of those that I do use.
Disclaimer: I don't own Torchwood or Wicked, but recommend you watch both.
One question haunts and hurts
Too much, too much to mention
Why was love so important? Why was it everywhere, so inevitable and so god damn painful? The human race was so lucky to have love, they thought; Jack thought different. It hurt to love. So many people, so many places, so much sex. And these few people who he had sex with again. Only once you did that, once he made a connection… oh he fell into that hole time and time again, after the Doctor… after each time he fell in love and got his heart broken – and it would always get broken – he vowed never to love again. And then what happened? He had to go and do it again, make the same mistakes, and feel that agony.
Was I really seeking good?
Or just seeking attention?
He had to play the hero. He always had had to. No… that was not true. Not always. But it was the role which suited him most accurately, and he liked the glamour which came with the role. So did most of the ladies and many of the gentlemen. But he had helped people. Saved so many people. The whole world several times over. He had done good, and he had been loved for it. But he hadn't been able to save Ianto, or done any good by him. He had just showed off, with his flashy coat and his elusive secret agent role which had ceased being an act and had started to take over him. One of many to come, he was sure. Ianto had paid the price for that.
Is that all good deeds are
When looked at with an ice cold eye?
Oh, his Ianto. Jack had had to step in, full of self assurance and confidence, ready to fight yet another evil with yet another stunning display of bravado and defiance. Yet another mistake in his long life so littered with errors. Normally, when the level of danger was high, Jack went alone. But this time his vanity had been high, too high, and Ianto had paid the price of that vanity. Why couldn't he remember that his lover was only human, without the unnatural advantage Jack had. He supposed that he had spent so much time wishing that Ianto could live forever, he'd forgotten the reality. But he spent so much time obsessing over the issue on the nights when he could not sleep… he didn't know what had gone wrong anymore. Only that it hurt.
If that's all good deeds are
Maybe that's the reason why…
He'd held Ianto's cold body, throughout the long night. He shouldn't have done. He had a world to save, but what was the point in saving the world when everyone died anyway? What was the point in saving the world if he couldn't save Ianto? With time travel he had ways… he had enough money, enough influence with the Time Agency wrist strap and enough power to be able to find a way to bring Ianto back. Though going back in time was impossible as it would create a paradox, there were other methods. The resurrection gloves were destroyed, and the technology was faulty, but if he went further into the future maybe he would be able to find something which would work.
Technology was always progressing, and humanity was not the only species with an obsession with immortality. Then there were the nanogenes. Death is nothing to them, he had heard the Doctor himself say that. But they had been destroyed. In the darkness, Jack cursed the Doctor, cursed him for his cruelty. The Doctor had the power of time travel, to bring back something to save Ianto. The advanced ectoplasmic races maybe. He had the power of the TARDIS! It brought Jack back, it could bring Ianto bag as well. But the Doctor had disabled Jack's Vortex Manipulator; the machine which had saved both Martha and the Doctor's lives twice over. Why couldn't it save Ianto's too? What made the Welshman any less important than her? What made the Doctor a better judge of time manipulation than Jack?
Why did everything have to be taken from him? Either ravished by inescapable rotting passage of time, or his idiotic attempts to do good. And Ianto lay still, devoid of life. How many times had the Welshman sat, merely waiting for Jack to wake from his death, waiting for what was surely impossible? Jack had forgotten how much it hurt.
No good deeds go unpunished
All helpful urges should be circumvented
Tears stained Jack's cheeks. They had been doing that a lot recently. Jack's grief was silent. Gwen had left him alone with it, and he had never gone back to her. It wasn't her mourning. He had forgotten his love for her; he had forgotten his love of the Earth. Everywhere he went on his travels, he could not help but imagine what it would be like to bring Ianto there, show him the pyramids of Egypt, the bustling markets of Japan or Germany, the rolling green hills of New Zealand, and the secret civilizations which the majority of humanity knew nothing about. Gwen wouldn't appreciate it as Ianto would, and Ianto didn't mean as much to her as he had to Jack. When he fell in love it was such a big thing.
No good deeds go unpunished
Sure, I meant well…
That was why Jack stood on a ship 1000 miles from Earth, his back to the once beloved green and blue planet, on a ship bound for anywhere. Gently, his hand stroked the stopwatch in his pocket. He was supposed to be moving on and away, but he'd promised Ianto he would never forget him. This would help in the years to come, when he struggled to remember anything but blue, blue eyes, impeccable suits and the best coffee in the universe. He knew that it would happen, because it already had once before. In the suffocating years spent in his grave, his terror was multiplied by the lessening clarity of his memories of his young lover. But when he'd seen him again in the cells of the Hub, felt the warm body cannon into his and grip him close, everything came flooding back.
On the spaceship, Jack shrugged off his coat, swallowing down the pain at the memory of gentle hands, ever thoughtful as they helped Jack in and out of the greatcoat. Tenderly, Jack folded it and placed it among the crates. He could not imagine the trouble Ianto must have gone to to find that for him. But Captain Jack Harkness was dead. It was time for a new start, a new life and a new name. The 'Jack' was generic enough, but 'Harkness' was too traceable. 'Jones' however…. Jack had made a promise, never to forget. This way, every time someone called his name, Ianto would be remembered and Jack would remember his promises. He hadn't been able to say he loved the man who meant the most to him, so he would never say it again.
Look at what well meant did…
A/N: Hope everything's ok and you enjoyed it Rowan x Please review.