"And you are?"
"Jones. Ianto Jones."
"Nice to meet you, Jones Ianto Jones. Captain Jack Harkness."
He can't remember what their handshake felt like.
Jack opens his eyes. The sparkling lights of the Korean city spread out before him, but he can't seem to recall the city's name. Everything feels so vague….
Where am I?
Am I drunk?
He tries to quench the tiny voice in the back his head, which says, only slightly. It's that you're grieving. You're still in a state of shock.
His hand rests on the cool metal of the pistol in front of him.
He misses Ianto. It can go without saying. He misses those pristine suits and sparkling blue eyes and that soft Welsh accent.
But it's not just Ianto.
Suzie.
Gray.
Owen.
Tosh.
Steven.
How many more? Torchwood is gone. Destroyed, disbanded. But that doesn't mean the cycle of deaths will end. How many more deaths will he cause in this purgatory? How long will it take for him to stop blaming himself?
Jack remembers firing a gun into Suzie's chest multiple times before her connection with the glove was cut and she could finally die. He remembers choking Gray into unconsciousness and cryogenically freezing him in the place which would later explode, ending any chance of him coming back.
He can't remember the last time he saw Owen. He wasn't even there when Tosh and Owen exchanged their last words.
He remembers holding Tosh's head as her eyes lost focus, her expression so distant and sad because she'd just lost the only man she'd ever really loved. He remembers watching Steven's young body jerk and vibrate violently, and the blood that seeped from his nose and ears. But he can't remember the last actual conversation he had with his grandson. His little soldier.
And of course, he remembers holding Ianto's head and shoulders in his lap as the 456's virus worked on killing both of them. He remembers "I love you" and "Don't forget me."
Jack lifts the pistol and sets the barrel against his temple.
Ianto Jones was twenty-nine years old. And he was afraid—Jack can't forget the desperate sadness and fear in Ianto's eyes and written across his face in his last moments. He hadn't deserved that fate. He hadn't deserved a sudden, unexpected death at the hands of a drug-addicted, immensely powerful alien.
Jack cocks the pistol with a quiet click near his ear. What does it matter if he fires? It doesn't make any difference. He'd feel the pain, briefly. But it wouldn't be penance.
All the encounters I've had with reanimated dead and I can't bring back the one man who made me human again. I loved you, Ianto. I—
The explosion of a pistol rings out over the city.
-O-
Jack gasps for air as he jolts back into life.
—never got to tell you that I love you.
As he sits up, he realizes the pistol still rests in his palm. He just stares at it.
He would never commit suicide if it actually meant dying forever. He knows himself too well for that. So something about the situation—the fact that he just shot himself—strikes him as wrong.
He slips his hand out from under the pistol, letting it clunk to the concrete. He stands and straightens his coat, using the sleeve to wipe off the remaining blood on the side of his head.
Ianto always said he loved that coat.
"Fuck," he whispers. He leans his elbows on the short wall between him and the fall off the building and puts his head in his hands.
He only has one person left, really. Through all of this, only one person left who might still care about him.
Gwen Cooper.
And he knows he has to stay away from her. Everyone he cares about gets hurt or killed; it sounds like an old cliché, but it's true. She has a family on the way and he can't get in the way of that. He can't risk her life just because he wants to be around her.
He can hear sirens in the distance. Someone must have heard the gunshot, and he's going to have to get out of here soon.
Jack sweeps the pistol off the concrete and holsters it. He looks darkly out at the city. This world isn't big enough. He needs to get away from this planet, away from Gwen, and away from the memories of Ianto.
Away from himself.
By the time law enforcement finds its way to the roof, there's nothing left but a stain of blood on the ground. Jack Harkness is long gone, leaving only a faint hint of his bitter darkness behind.