Title: Blip in time
Author: Lilya
Genre: Romance
Summary: Post-Children of the Earth. Of time, heartbreak and a promise
Main Characters: Jack, Ianto.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: not mine, just borrowing them.
Blip in time
In the course of his long life, Jack Harkness has lost many people – friends, lovers, children.
Some faded away with time and distance, some went out one day and never came back, their end recounted on a cold sheet of paper or in the words of another.
Some died in his arms.
It never gets any easier.
Even though Ianto Jones died two days ago, only now it begins to sink in.
The Hub at night is never completely silent: all the tiny noises, all the clicking and whirring normally hidden by human racket can finally come out.
Everything is louder at night – it can't be avoided.
Once Gwen said that Ianto moved like a cat, but at night even his light step would resonate under the vaulted ceiling.
But not anymore.
Jack raises his glass in a silent toast as his heart breaks once more.
The Hub has shrunk, closing in from every side, and the night stretches out ahead without end.
Only now it begins to sink in.
He'll never walk these floors again, make coffee or roll his bright blue eyes, never smile at him again, never sleep in his bed all night and slip out a couple of hours before everybody else gets in to pop home for a shower and a change of clothes…
It's right in this moment that Jack knows, really knows, that he might go through another day in the Hub with Gwen and whatever poor bastard they might manage to recruit, but not another night.
Never another night, when Ianto's absence becomes so solid he can taste it.
It's time to go.
There are many physical remainders and he won't hang around to see them vanish day after day, until no trace of him remains – it would feel like losing Ianto all over again.
At least in his memory he'll be safe.
He doesn't need photographs, nor keepsakes, not even the taste of coffee to remember Ianto Jones.
His only regret is that he never believed it, not even right at the end.
And Jack knows why.
A man like him, going through this kind of pain again and again and again… He shouldn't want to remember, he should strive to forget.
He should harden his heart into ice and stone, lock it away and never let anyone suspect there might be a key.
It would be the sensible thing to do – but his name and that adjective are never in the same sentence unless there's a "not" somewhere in there too.
The truth is you can't love everyone in the same way, to the same depth and degree.
Some people pass by quickly, some you shake off like water and some… some are just special.
They just pull you in without even trying and there's no distance, no wall that can resist them.
It can last a week or a hundred years, but when they leave, they leave a little mark on your heart.
There's no getting over them because what you had, what they gave you, never really ends.
It doesn't matter if that mark is a scar that will never fade or if losing them feels like being torn apart.
It doesn't matter how many times you'll turn around to tell them "look!" and not find them.
The important thing is that they have been there and you are – different, better, more – for having met them.
So now it hurts – more than ever, even more than being blown apart – and Jack can't think about him or see any reminder, he can't even mention his name.
But one day, he will look back and see only their good times, untarnished again.
Someday, he'll get there.
One normal lifetime wouldn't be enough, but time is the one thing Jack has.
All through the Universe civilizations will raise and fall, planets will be born, stars blink in and out of existence – and through all this, Ianto Jones will remain safe in his memories.
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