Promises That Will Be Broken
11-19-10
By Cadeeo
He doesn't tell Gwen things, he figures out. He is standing near the sea on the island of Flat Holm, staring at the seagulls in the sky and feeling the mist settle over him uncomfortably. The whole idea of bringing Gwen into Torchwood was so he could confide in her and she would understand his pain… but she doesn't and he could never tell her his secrets no matter how much he wants to. Gwen is perfect. She's got a normal set of parents, a lovely husband and friends she sees whenever she can find a little time. She does normal things outside of Torchwood, like going to the carnival or the movies. She hurts… she cares…
He put her on a pedestal and he is aware of that now. He hadn't always been aware of that, but lately it's so obvious he wonders why he didn't see it before. He favours her, not because he doesn't love Toshiko and Owen, but because she's Gwen Cooper and that's that. He hates himself for doing it, for dragging her into Torchwood and their misery because what... she was human and wasn't as royally fucked up as the rest of them. Sure they needed new blood, but Torchwood employees are misfits, people who don't quite fit in, who seek something more and are willing to believe. She hadn't sought any of those things, yet he couldn't let her go. Now he wonders why?
Ianto comes up behind him silently and Jack almost doesn't hear him. The only reason he knows Ianto is there is because of his heightened sense of smell that has been finely tuned to Ianto specifically. They stand together in silence, watching the seagulls dance in the sky and Jack remembers dancing to Glen Miller in the middle of the London Blitz. They had danced in the sky then, him and Rose, lovely, beautiful Rose. The memories hurt, but it's an all right kind off hurt. It's a happy memory, but they still leave wanting to hold her close and make sure she hasn't been hurt.
His heart aches for her, but he can't do a thing. Rose is gone, lost in a parallel world, and trapped forever to be without the Doctor. He has to focus on the now and the person standing beside him.
Ianto had been a surprise. Ianto had been unexpected. Ianto had become everything Jack thought he didn't need. The 21st century had come and he had stopped seeking comfort from others. There were shags of course, meaningless tricks, pulled from various environments, different in their own rights, but all the same. They are the notches in his bedpost (even though he technically don't have one), people meant to drive the loneliness and the anger and the fucking unbearable wait away. He stayed away from boys unless they were already committed, because though he didn't discriminate between men and women or other species, he did tend to love the men more. Women are seductive, but men are everything else.
Getting into a semi-relationship with Ianto had been something he should have stopped from the start, because he was falling into the bottomless abyss... again. The same way he had done with 'John Hart' all those years ago, before a war had destroyed the last vestiges of kindness and rational thinking in the man.
Ianto...
What word can describe what Ianto had become to him? No words do him justice; no words can possibly fathom the entity that is Ianto Jones.
Ianto is nothing like Gwen and that's the problem in a nutshell.
Where Gwen would storm into his office, hating him for whatever tough decision he had to make this time, and yell at him until her voice gave out, Ianto would fill up a glass of whiskey and ask Jack to explain his decision and what logic he had based the decision on... but never while the case was ongoing. He never questioned Jack, only ever asked for his reasons and calmly stating his opinion after Jack had talked and they were usually so logical and correct, Jack would hit himself repeatedly for not thinking about it earlier.
When his mood was down, lost in the past, the coffee would be extra strong and Ianto would sit in the chair across from Jack and do his paperwork quietly, just being there. Gwen would have made him talk about his feelings, share his pain, but he doesn't want to share his pain. It's very much his own. Ianto understand that, because while they sit together, Jack heals Ianto just a little bit too.
Gwen doesn't know him. Oh, she thinks she does. She wants to pretend she does, because she's Gwen and everyone can see how he favours her. But no one has really known him for a long time. They don't know about Gray, about being left on Satellite Five, about the sandy dunes of the Boeshane Peninsula or the fact that Jack will never tire of Glen Miller because of the memory of a blond girl with a Union Jack shirt, hanging onto life literally by a threat.
Ianto does know, because Jack tells him in the quiet of the night, when the city is sleeping and the world isn't ending at that second. Jack tells him about the stars, about the moons and planets and galaxies spread across the Universe. He tells him about Boeshane and how he hates the cold in Cardiff, but he has gotten used to it now. Cardiff is his home.
He doesn't wonder why he is trusting Ianto of all people, the one person who has betrayed him the most on the current team. Owen is far up there, but Owen he loves like a son and children makes mistakes. Ianto just is the person he goes to... just because he can and because maybe he needs it. He needs Ianto's arms around him in a strong embrace, something a woman can't give him. He needs to be protected sometimes, too, and Ianto gives him everything. Ianto has so much love to give and he pours everything into Jack those nights where Ianto holds him and it's not Jack holding him.
Jack can find love in everything, it's the 51st century way and he's damn proud of that fact, but if he had been brought up here, in Cardiff in this century, he wouldn't have looked at any woman twice. Gwen would just have been someone in the crowd, nothing extraordinary. He likes taking care of people, he loves to protect them, but there is nothing more powerful to him than that particular feeling he gets when a man, Ianto, holds him. It's all-powerful and wonderful and a various other '- fuls'.
Gwen could never give him what Ianto gives him silently and in the privacy, away from the others prying eyes. He gets it now, gets that Ianto is different, that those rushes of... something is love waiting to happen. It's their potential, it's what they can be if they just have a little bit of time.
But time is bought at Torchwood and soon Ianto will die and leave Jack alone again. He hopes Gwen dies first so she will never see how little he actually really loves her.
The rain gets heavier and Ianto begins to tug him away from the ledge, into the relative safety of a small cave, far beneath the lightning tower, and Jack wonders vaguely how Ianto found him, but Ianto always seemed to find him no matter where he was.
They lean against the stone wall and Jack closes his hand over Ianto's, binding them together and Jack wishes it could be forever.
'Don't leave me,' he whispers, staring at the sea.
Ianto doesn't answer, because why promise something they will both break?
Finish (00:30)
A/N: In choosing to kill off Ianto at the end of season 3, Russell T Davies said that by doing so was to make his death all the more tragic because Jack and Ianto's relationship had never fully matured and therefore never grown into love. It did have the potential, but Ianto died before more could happen, leaving Jack to think of the could-have-beens, which is probably the worst thing. Now, I've always thought Torchwood focused too much on how Gwen and Jack had all this UST, which frankly sucks since Gwen would never in a million years begin to understand Jack's suffering. So, I tied those two things together, placing this around 'Adrift'. This is the end result. Hope you enjoyed.