Disclaimer: Torchwood isnt mine, but the characters seem to enjoy chatting up my muse. I think Ianto has been drinking tonight, and I was actually lucky enough to transcribe his side of the conversation before he realized I was eavesdropping and retconned me.

The Truth about Ianto Jones

The truth is I didnt really love Lisa.

I honestly thought I did for a while. I even said the words on more than one occasion, but whether it was really infatuation or just a randy young man content with a woman letting him get his leg over, well, your guess is as good as mine.

I liked her fine. She was a sweet girl and I think we would have been good friends even without the sex, but I never saw myself having a lifetime with her. I always thought that when I met the right girl, Id be able to envision a future with her and kids and a dog and a house.

And I always thought it would be a girl.

Until I met Jack.

Its not like Jack turned me or anything, although I choose to flatter him by pretending to let him think so, and he chooses not to believe its just simple flattery. I knew since the ABBA chat with Mam that I was bisexual. I was fourteen then, and I think Mam worked it out before I did.

I just assumed I would settle down with a nice girl someday because thats what men of my background did when they matured, unless they wanted to be ridiculed and abused. Jack and his antipathy for labels shattered those assumptions. Id like to meet the chav with balls enough to call him a poof to his face, especially after seeing him get angry.

But Im getting ahead of myself, arent I?

I was actually trying to find a way to break it off with Lisa when the Daleks and the Cybermen came, and suddenly she was the only familiar thing I had to hold on to in the midst of chaos. Jack says she wasnt really Lisa any more, but I needed her to be, so I believed her when she told me she was. I committed myself to helping her, to keeping her alive until I could find someone who could cure her.

And thats how I met Jack.

Working in the archives, you pick up bits and pieces of information from all the departments, and one of my talents is putting seemingly random bits of trivia together into a coherent picture. So I knew Torchwood Three would have the facilities Id need to keep Lisa alive, and I knew Jack would be the one I had to convince to take me on. All I needed was a way to catch his attention.

Imagine my chagrin to learn that it wasnt my tight jeans, my gourmet coffee, or my Savile Row suits that got the interest of the-man-who-would-shag-anything-sentient, but a bloody pterodactyl.

And thats when things got complicated.

You see, love isnt looking into your partners eyes and seeing only yourself reflected, its standing side by side, looking out into the world together, and seeing the same vision.

I expected Jack to corral the pterodactyl, put it down, and dispose of the body. Thats what Torchwood London would have done. I didnt like the idea, but it was an opportunity to convince him to hire me, and I was willing to do anything, literally anything, to save Lisa at that point.

But Jack didnt see a nuisance stray that needed to be put down. He saw a lost and frightened creature that just needed a little compassion and a safe place to stay. I was honestly a little jealous that he didnt look at me that way because I felt like he saw a kindred soul in her.

And I knew then that we shared the same vision.

I almost kissed him that night because it was so nice to just laugh with another human being again and to feel someones arms around me. Then I remembered that I was doing it all for Lisa and I stopped myself.

There would be other times over the next several months when I wouldnt stop myself, and Id always feel like the worst kind of unfaithful, ungrateful, traitorous bastard, betraying the two people I cared most about, even though I didnt really love one of them and couldnt really love the other, yet.

Then everything with Lisa fell apart.

And Jack forgave me.

After all the terrible things that happened that night and all the horrible things I said, he forgave me. Even when I still hated him for Lisas death, which I knew logically wasnt really his fault, he forgave me.

We took things slowly at first. He was a perfect gentleman, and while he flirted openly in front of the others when nothing could come of it, he never once made a move on me in private when I might be tempted to give in. When we were alone, he always let me dictate the pace.

After we brought Suzie back, after she betrayed us, again; after we had to kill her, again, I only wanted to comfort him, to offer him a safe place where he could let go of all his grief and fear and just be with someone. After he helped John Ellis commit suicide in my car, I knew I couldnt offer him comfort. No mortal ever could.

Then Abaddon killed him, and I really thought it had killed him, and of course it was our fault because we opened the Rift. I was just as culpable as the others, maybe more so, because he thought I would never betray him and he trusted me to stop them. He lay there in the morgue for days, cold and gray and still, and I wanted to go to him, to hold a vigil like Gwen, but I couldnt because he had trusted me, despite my past betrayal, and I had betrayed him, again.

Then he came back.

He forgave Owen and the ladies, and me. He forgave all of us. He forgave all of us for everything, every time.

And after Abaddon, I thought I couldnt bear to lose him again, but I lost him anyway, to his Doctor, who could neither fix him nor give him the answers he needed. I dont know what he went through while he was gone, except that it was terrible.

That didnt stop me from being a right prat at first.

You see, when he returned from his adventures, I was angry and jealous, so I made him court me like a proper gentleman. Wed go out for dinner and a movie or get takeaway and lie in bed watching one of my DVDs. On a rare sunny day, we would picnic in the park, and once, partly as a lark and partly as a reward to Jack for trying so hard, I took him to an office supply store where we snogged in the furniture section until the manager came and asked us to leave.

It was fun dating and playing at being lovers, but sometimes it got in the way. Jack would work so hard at doing what he thought I wanted him to do that he would forget to say and do what he wanted to do. Can you imagine? Jack Harkness, of all people, would forget to follow his heart. Sometimes, it felt like everything we did was just a role-playing game with Jack striving to be the perfect boyfriend, and strange as it may sound, I had to draw him out.

So I danced with him at Gwens wedding. Looking back, I wish I could have seen the look on her face when I cut in on her dance with Jack and turned to him to be my partner, but at the time, all I wanted was for him to remember that he had me.

And I coaxed him into playing naked hide-and-seek. Thats right, the naked-hide-and-seek was my idea, but I swear Jack instigated the greenhouse shenanigans that Gwen walked in on later.

In hindsight, I wish I could have just let Jack be Jack when he came back from his travels with the Doctor, but until his brother Gray showed up and tried to take everything away from him, tried to destroy what he had built, tried to destroy us, I thought I needed to know that Jack loved me.

So, there we were, Gwen, John Hart, and I, locked in the cells with Cardiff in flames, emergency services out of service, Weevils wandering the streets, the nuclear power plant going critical, Tosh and Owen out God knows where doing God knows what to try to fix things on their own, and all I can think of is whats happening to Jack, not because we need him to save the world, but because I cant bear to think about him being hurt.

And thats how I learned that the only truth that matters is that I love him.

FIN