Oneshot title from OPEN UP YOUR EYES by DAUGHTRY. If you haven't heard this song, I suggest you search it up! I think it matches perfect with the CoE problem we all hate, but realize is necessary.
Present tense fic.
Jack sends the signal and gazes sorrowfully at Gwen's face and her tears. In a few seconds, he'll be gone… And this time he really wouldn't be back. The blue light swirls around him as he's transported into space and across the galaxy.
Except he's not where he expected be, but he's where he should be.
The Cardiff night life and hillside is immediately replaced with a mushroom cloud shaped panel. An orange-yellowy light illuminates the room while blue accents the control panel. Jack knows where he is. And he knows that even after all that waiting and hoping, this is honestly, truly, sincerely, definitely the last place that he wants to be.
The figure at the controls looks up in slight surprise. He's regenerated, past what Jack recognizes to be the time traveler he'd once accompanied –once loved. Those innocent-looking eyes that deny having played a part Earth's history six months ago made the anger inside Captain Jack Harkness boil and explode. He screams. He yells. He hits. He corners the Doctor to the TARDIS's walls. Jack's fists bruise themselves on the interior of the exterior of the Gallifreyan time ship. He accuses. Where were you?! He punches the Doctor square the in the jaw.
The suddenly, the strength leaves Jack. It's just like Samson's hair being cut off. He slumps down, right then and there, against the wall in tears. The immortal man hasn't cried in six months. He's willed himself not to. In that half year, he'd forced himself to be void of as much as emotion as possible. Just like a Dalek. The alien species that had killed him. Just like a Cyberman. The robotic androids that had once devastated his lover's life. His dead lover's life.
Jack feels arms wrap around him, trying to comfort him. The captain should be shrugging the Time Lord off, but he can't bring himself to. He just needs to forget for the moment. He just needs to sink himself in a fake fantastical world. A world where he was already dead. Where Rose hadn't come back and saved him. He adored the wonderful lady with all his heart, but that was the single action Jack could never bring himself to forgive her for.
The TARDIS senses his pain. Even thought it realizes that Jack is a fact –a fixed point in time, wrong- it reaches out to him. The man can imagine tendrils of light flowing through his mind. It shows him what he wants to see: Jack happy with Ianto –forever. It's almost as if the TARDIS is reassuring him that it would happen. But the immortal knows better.
Jack loves Ianto. Loves. Present tense. He still does, even though the Welshman is gone. Jack has loved many others before, but there was something about Ianto that set him apart. Was it the fact that this man accepted him for whom he was and treated him like he was just a normal human being? Yes. Yes. That was it.
The Doctor whispers a sentence in Jack's year. It's in Jack's own native Boeshane tongue, although that was probably just the TARDIS translating it for him on purpose. In English, it meant "I've made things right."
Just then, someone else steps into the main control room. Jack looks up from his wet hands and through his misty eyes. But that figure of a man in unmistakable. The captain dares not question if what he perceives as the reality is truly reality. He just stands up and captures a man in a kiss bursting with emotions. Relief. Happiness. Fear. Jack's sobs continue through the kiss, shaking it as it is being returned. Jack breaks apart and looks into those beautiful grey-bluish eyes that he's memorized. He whispers three words. "I love you." And that is all that's needed for the moment.
Jack continues to cry as he pulls his lover in, suffocating any space that is between them. He wraps his arms around the other man and resting his head on the shoulder. The tears dampen the black waistcoat of the other man, but neither of them seems to care at the moment.
Suddenly, Jack realizes what the TARDIS was showing him. It was the consciousness of a time ship after all. It was showing him his future. With his beloved Ianto. Suddenly, Jack understands. Ianto's like him now, doomed to live for all eternity. Alone. Except, there were two of them now. Never alone. Never going to be alone.
Tonight, Jack just wants to lie in his old TARDIS room with Ianto. No sex tonight. Just contemplation and the pure comfort of feeling each. Jack has been many places and traveled far. For a long time, he's stared into the sun to blind himself from the curse of losing everyone he loved. Everyone he cared about. But now, he will realize one thing.
For the first time, he could open his eyes.