It's the not knowing…
What it was we had, if you loved me.
You know me, I'm precise, ordered. That's what I had with Lisa and my life back then. Everything in its place and all was right with the world. I thought I knew how my life would progress – with Lisa and I could see our future together. Then it was all blown apart and I vowed to do almost anything to get her back. Whatever it took to infiltrate Torchwood Three…and you were so easy to play Jack.
You killed Lisa and I swore I would watch you suffer and die one day. I wanted to hate you but I couldn't; I knew that the girl I knew had died back in Canary Wharf. My love for her had blinded me to reality.
We were just fun, right? It relieved the stress of our work and solace on an otherwise dark lonely night in Cardiff. I couldn't get enough of you – you started a fire, fanned the flames, made my skin tingle, though I mostly hid it under my usual efficient demeanour. I called you 'sir' during working hours in front of the rest of the team, gave nothing away. I tried to stop my heart from thundering in my chest sometimes when you'd give me a look. Play it cool, Ianto. They never knew what lay behind the occasional smirk I'd let creep across my lips, still quietly amazed that the infamous Captain Jack Harkness who could have anyone, any thing in the universe, shared his nights with me.
I didn't mean to love you. It just happened. For a little while we did couple stuff didn't we. Gwen said we sounded like an old married couple…I wanted to grin for Wales when she said that. We didn't define our relationship, whatever it was, but I think I started to feel like with Lisa, that our future lay together. You and me – Ianto Jones and Jack Harkness, fighting alongside each other, keeping Cardiff and the world safe…and each other safe. We soothed each other's nightmares; each other's rock to rage at and now and then cling to.
All gone now. As I lay dying I had to, just had to let you know that I loved you but you didn't say it back. Did you? Was that just putting on a brave face? The man who has lost so many people…and I was just another one? And I said "it was good, yeah?" as some sort of bloody confirmation that I meant something to you and you replied "yeah" but, oh god, that sounded like I was just a blip in time, I knew you wouldn't remember me and that's why I cried. If I had to get killed because of Torchwood I wanted a big brave heroic exit but not like it happened…a snivelling mess on the floor.
I suppose it's kind of irrelevant now but I never knew if you loved me. Did I matter to you Jack? Forget a thousand years, in fifty or a hundred, will you even remember me at all? – Remember the colour of my eyes, my smell, remember the sensitive scar on my back that you'd poke just to make me flinch, remember the look on my face when I actually won at naked hide and seek and you were so going to get it, remember stopwatches and measuring tapes. Or will you just have a vague memory of 'some guy in a suit' but that's all you remember?
It's the not knowing. I never will.
