AN: NO SPOILERS: POST SEASON THREE: ASSUMING THEY HAVEN'T KILLED ANYONE.....as I am such a canonite! For 'the converter', happy birthday dude and Gwen is in her chair, not on the couch or in a corner! x
It was a beautiful photograph that broke Jack's heart every time he looked at it. Gwen had pulled it off the CCTV feed, a video still, and had it printed up and framed. It sat on her desk right next to her pictures of Rhys and a group photo of the team that was. The picture in itself was ordinary enough, one of Ianto, a close up shot of him looking at whatever it was in the middle distance out of the camera's view. Ianto looked beautiful, as he always did in Jack's eyes, but there was a deep sorrowful shadow in his oceanic eyes, a slight furrow in his brow and the faint lines were showing around his eyes and mouth, not normally visible to anyone who didn't know him. What broke Jack's heart was the memory of that day. It was a small but incredibly disturbing incident, that Gwen for some reason had been the cause of and Jack couldn't recall why. It had ended with Ianto having made four cups of coffee he'd forgotten for that fleeting moment that Tosh was no longer with them. She died over a year ago and Ianto had forgotten. He had frozen mid stride, tray in hands and that moment of realisation had been captured. For some reason Gwen had remembered that look and searched for it on the security footage, frame by frame until she had found it. Jack did not understand until one day he finally decided to ask, when Ianto was out of ear shot.
He had perched on the edge of her desk and picked up the little picture frame and studied it closely. It was a portrait of pain, there was no other way to describe it. Ianto laid bare for the world to see. Gwen was tapping away at her keys trying to ignore what Jack was doing, but finally she gave up and leant back in her chair.
"Why?"
Gwen raised her eyebrows. "Why what?" She smiled at his somewhat lost look.
"This picture Gwen, when he looks so sad." Jack put it down and Gwen picked it up and looked at it, as if trying to find her answer.
"This is the only picture I have of the real Ianto. He feels so much Jack and it's all buried so deeply and I know that maybe you get to share a lot more of his feelings than I do, but this is truly Ianto, all his compassion, and sadness and love in that one expression in all his purity. I have it there to remind myself that he has those feeling Jack; because sometimes I forget that he is not just our admin boy and coffee maker. He is Ianto Jones, who has lost more in his short life than I can even begin to comprehend. It reminds me to thank him for all those times he was there with a coffee and a tissue and a hug after Owen and Tosh died. To listen to his quiet undemanding wisdom and to smile at him when his day has been as shit as mine." She put it back down, arranging it carefully beside Rhys. "He has so little out there in the real world Jack and if one little gesture can help him see that there is some light out there."
Jack rested his hand gently on her shoulder his breath stuck in his chest for a moment. The picture was testament to how much they took from the youngest member of their little team and it saddened him to think that they needed to be reminded.
"Thank you."
Gwen hitched a grin. "He also looks fucking hot!"
Jack couldn't argue with that.
FINIS........