It's my fault you died. Of course it is. Is always is, somehow. Because I'm not smart enough, not strong enough, didn't see it coming. Everyone I love, I kill, sooner or later, somehow. But you were different. Or I thought so. I wanted so much for you to be different. Look at you, Ianto Jones, what you've reduced me to. The great Captain Jack Harkness. I'm pathetic.

I wanted to be a hero for you, though. Did you notice? You spoke to me and I wanted to do anything to make you stop looking so sad, so disappointed in me. That's why I brought you with me. So you could watch me as I saved the world. I wanted to be the great Captain Jack Harkness, defender of the earth gallant, brave, irresistible. I wanted you to see me make you proud. And that's why you died. Because of my ego. I brought you along and they killed you and it's my fault. I begged them to let me just give them the children in return for your life. Some hero I was.

I treated you so badly. We could have been so good. Do you know what it feels like to love someone and see them slowly grow old and die while you don't age a day? I couldn't admit to myself that that was what would happen with you. Because I would have been around to see it, no matter what you think. Because I loved you, and I was scared of the hurt. I'm so selfish.

I promised I'd remember you. It was a useless promise. I want to remember you, keep you alive in my memory and retreat to a world where it wasn't doomed, but even if I didn't... I always remember the people I kill. In a thousand years I'll still remember every second. In a million I'll still recall how I felt for you. When the world ends it'll end with your name still imprinted on my brain. I promise. You deserve it. It's easier to love you knowing that you're safe and whole in my mind, away from anything that could hurt you. Besides, don't you remember? I already loved you for two thousand years. It was what kept me going.

You still live in the silences when you should have spoken. All those moments when I would pause and wait for you to speak. I started filling them in myself, in my head. Saying what I knew you would say. You never really were much of a talker, it's true, but what you did say you said well. I do my best.

The world feels so empty without you. Especially when I wake up. You were always there, waiting for me, making me feel like there was something to come back to. Not any more.

I never visited your grave. Would you be angry? You'd deserve to be. But all of earth is a graveyard, and I don't think that that particular slab of marble really does anything.

I'm going to do it again. I can't help it. It makes Gwen angry, when I kill myself, but there's nothing she can do. I can just put a gun to my head and for a few moments I don't have to feel a thing. I pay for it of course. It hurts to go, hurts to come back. But not as much as it hurts to stay.

Come back, Ianto. Please.