A/N: Continuing right where the last chapter left one. Since Jack dove over top Ianto and died and things. The confess your feelings for each other that happened in the canon version of Children of Earth never got to occur, so here it is. Contains massive feels and things. Enjoy! =)

Suddenly, Jack seemed to realize where he was again. "What happened?" he said as he sat up quickly and looked around the room.

"They're gone," was all Ianto could say. He said it blankly as he stared at Jack's face.

Jack seemed to realize immediately that something was wrong and he turned to Ianto. He reached out and touched Ianto's cheek. He did one of those cute half-smiles he knew Ianto was so fond of. "What's wrong? Are you hurt?"

"Nothing. I'm fine." He was still speaking so blankly, so not like Ianto.

"What is it, Ianto?"

"I almost died," he said flatly. "Just now. I saw my life in front of my eyes, Jack. I could feel it happening. I was dying. So close." And with that Ianto's eyes filled with tears and Jack embraced him tightly. Close to his heart he held Ianto's head as he smoothed his hair comfortingly.

"I could have lost you," Jack said with sudden clarity and realization overwhelming him. They sat there on that floor for a very long time. Both sobbing in the other's arms. Once in a while, one of them would calm enough to comfort the other or pull the embrace tighter again, but it never lasted more than a few seconds. The tears they shed in that room could have filled the oceans.

Finally, hours later, Jack and Ianto had cried their eyes dry and were left sitting in a puddle of their own tears on the floor, embracing each other tightly. "Jack?" Ianto said, looking up with red eyes at the face that held him close. Jack looked back at Ianto and smiled gently. "When I thought I was dying. When I could feel it coming to get me. My lungs barely held enough breath to say one more thing," he said with great feeling. Jack looked as though if there were any tears left to be shed, he would have started crying again. "And Jack," Ianto continued. "There's one thing I was going to say. I'd opened my mouth to say it when the Doctor showed up, but it never quite came out." Jack held Ianto's head in his arms and watched his lips as he spoke. "I love you." A single tear fell from Jack's eye at those words. Of course, this wasn't news really. He knew how Ianto felt, but hearing him speak those words was painful.

"You shouldn't do that," Jack said sitting upright.

"But I do. And I want you to know, Jack," he said sitting up as well. "I want you to know, because when I almost died, when I thought I was going to be dead. That's what I wanted to say. I couldn't die with you not knowing, and now I can't live without you knowing beyond a shadow of any doubt in your mind that…I. Love. You." Ianto emphasized each word as he spoke the phrase again. "Someday I am going to die, Jack."

"Not for a very long time," Jack interrupted with a great sniff.

"But until then," Ianto said with a small smile. "I only want you. I want to spend as much time with you as I can, Jack. I can't live this life without you anymore. I know that someday I'll seem like barely a blip on your life, but for me. For my life, Jack. I want you."

"You will never be a blip, Ianto Jones."

"Someday when your 5 million years old. I don't expect you to remember me, but while I'm here…"

He was interrupted again. "No, Ianto. I will always remember you. I could never forget you." He put his hands firmly on Ianto's shoulders. "Don't you ever think, that for one minute I could ever even dream of even thinking about forgetting you. Until the day that you die, years and years from now, of old age, you have me, Ianto. I am here until you send me away."

"Never then. You're never going away," Ianto said, his eyes beginning to water again. "I love you, Jack. And I know you don't do relationships. I know that's not you and I'm not going to ask you to change who you are for me. I'm lucky enough to even have some share of how wonderful you are for a small piece of your life. I just need to you know that I love you. With all my heart, Jack, I love you."

"Ianto Jones," Jack said with a smile crossing his lips. "For you? Anything might be possible." And Jack took Ianto's face in his hands and kissed him deeply and with passion.

The kiss lasted for minutes or maybe it was hours, Ianto never could be quite sure when he was with Jack, but it was a kiss of pure unadulterated passion.

"Ianto Jones," Jack said again with an even wider smile this time. And then with a very deep breath came the words Ianto was never expecting to hear. "I love you." They kissed again. This one was sweeter, shorter, simpler. When they broke apart again, they held each other, staring into one another's eyes.

Not two seconds later a familiar face burst through the door. "You two are alright? You're alive?" Gwen smiled and fell to the floor, trying to catch her breath. Rhys caught up a moment later, gasping for air. He gave them a thumbs up as he slid to the floor next to his wife.

Ianto instinctively tried to back away from Jack. He was so used to hiding their relationship from everyone, even the other members of Torchwood, but not this time. Jack held him tighter as he spoke, "Why are you two so out of breath? What's going on? What's happened?"

Gwen and Rhys caught their breath in the same moment and looked over at Jack and Ianto. "Ran up the stairs as soon as they got the doors open," Gwen said, her breathing slowly returning to normal.

"Didn't want to waste time waiting for the elevator. Mind you the crowd trying to get out of this place was no picnic to get through the other way round," Rhys said getting to his feet. "Neither of you was answering your phones. We thought something might have happened," he added, helping Gwen to her feet.

"Oh," Ianto said, going red in the face. "Sorry," he mumbled, looking at Jack.

"And then, you didn't come out with everyone else," Gwen said approaching the place where Ianto and Jack were sitting. "We thought something must have happened, so we came to find you."

Jack released Ianto at last and got nimbly to his feet, turning around to offer Ianto his hand the second he was upright. Ianto got to his feet, with Jack's help and the four of them set off for the stairs. They'd gotten to floor eight before anyone spoke again; the silence broken only by the sounds of their footsteps.

"So, what happened?" Gwen asked. She couldn't hide her concern any longer.

"I died," Jack said flatly.

"You did?" Gwen nearly shouted, stopping where she was. "What happened, Jack? The whole story. We need to know."

Jack smirked to himself. "Ianto got to see everything. I'll let him explain."

Ianto looked at Jack, and punched him in the arm with his free hand. Jack let go of Ianto's hand which he had been holding and rubbed his shoulder in mock pain. "What was that for?" Ianto rolled his eyes and then began to explain. It took most of the walk back to the warehouse where they'd set up everything to tell the story.

"So," Gwen said after soaking in everything Ianto had said. "The Doctor came. Saved you from dying, but didn't stop to explain what'd happened to the 4-5-6?" She looked up at Jack who was pacing around the warehouse, his hands deep in his pockets.

"Saved, Ianto from dying. I still died, mind you."

"Yeah, but you come back," Gwen said. "How did you die anyway, Jack?"

"The glass they used to form the tank. It was bullet proof and very heavy. When the tank exploded, I dove to the ground," Jack said eyeing Ianto. He didn't know how far he could push his luck with the exposing their relationship secrets today. "And a piece of the glass hit me on the back. It cut deep." He turned around showing them the blood stained back of his coat.

"The drycleaners are going to hate me," Ianto said. "Not that they don't already. You have a habit of dying in your clothes and it tends to get a bit bloody in the process."

Gwen rolled her eyes at the nonchalance of the whole conversation. "I guess we're just lucky Ianto didn't get hit by any of it," she said with a smile.

"Yeah, he won't come back if he dies," Rhys said punching Ianto's shoulder jokingly.

"Wasn't lucky," Ianto mumbled.

"What do you mean?" Gwen said suspiciously. "Are you alright, Ianto? You didn't get hit did you?"

"No. I couldn't have," he said, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.

"What do you mean then that it wasn't lucky?" Rhys said. "Lucky to be alive, you are."

"It wasn't luck. Jack didn't tell his part of the story right."

Rhys and Gwen eyed Jack with suspicion as a smile broke out over Jack's face and Ianto's in response. "Didn't know how much you wanted told," said smiled at Ianto. "Go on then, you tell it the right way."

"What happened?" Gwen's eyes darted from Jack to Ianto and back again as she spoke.

"Jack said he dove to the floor, which I suppose is partially true. But it wasn't out of fear for himself," Ianto said smiling. "He dove over top of me as I lay dying in his arms from the virus the 4-5-6 had set off in the building."

"You're one life is worth more than all of my millions put together, Ianto," Jack said, bending down to kiss Ianto's forehead.

"But I was dying anyway, Jack. Didn't matter if it was from glass or the virus. I was going to die," Ianto said this as if he were still trying to convince himself of the fact, too. He seemed still unable to believe that he had come so close to death only to be saved by the mysterious Doctor with the changing face.

"But you didn't, and that's what matters, right?" Jack said. He paused his pacing behind the sofa where the other three were sitting, before quickly grabbing a chair from the table and pulling it over to sit facing them, nearest Ianto. "I don't know how or why, but the Doctor saved you." Almost as if on cue, the TARDIS could be heard materializing nearby.