Heartbreak
Ianto knew he was dyeing. He looked up into Jack's eyes – the eyes of his lover. He wanted them to be the last thing he would ever see.
The man who could have had anyone he wanted, or so easily no one at all, but he'd chosen him. It broke his heart to see him cry.
Jack's eyes were full of pain. He watched his tears trace their path down his cheeks, and heard his desperate futile pleas. Jack was begging him to fight, pleading with him to stay – even though he knew that he could not. Ianto didn't have strength enough left to reply.
He couldn't recall ever having seen Jack so broken, and yet he was obviously trying to be brave. His suffering so evident. He had given his heart to Ianto, giving himself over to love. He knew that he'd have his heart broken someday, but neither of them had expected it to be quite so soon.
It wasn't fair, to have to say goodbye before they'd barely acknowledged their love for each other, but Ianto knew there was nothing he could do. He didn't want to die, but just like Tosh and Owen before him he hadn't been given a choice. Just like them he could see it coming, and death scared him, but not as much as knowing that he was leaving Jack behind.
They would never know how great their love might have been… just what it might have led to.
They'd both been taken in by a taste of normality, the merest hint of a normal life – but this was Torchwood, and nothing would ever be normal for an of them. It was the price they paid for the extraordinary life they led, a life which could be so easily cruelly snatched away from them.
Jack had died hundreds, maybe even thousands of times. Ianto had often wondered how he found the strength to drag himself back from oblivion. Now he wondered how it was that he battled the pain, and the fear, and the loneliness – because the simple truth was that dying hurt, and Ianto knew he only had to do it once whilst for Jack it was a continuing waking nightmare – from which there would never be any respite.
He begged him to remember him – he hoped that he'd remember him – taking in his familiar scent, the sound of his voice, and he knew that he would never look upon those beautiful blue eyes again, or be held in his strong embrace.
Jack's tears rained down upon him, and he tried to reach out, but his arms were like lead and there was nothing he could do to comfort him. There was nothing he could do to relieve Jack's pain, or to mend his broken heart.
The world was beginning to fade, light giving way to darkness, and Into knew that he couldn't hold on much longer. They didn't have long left. Today Ianto Jones would die, and tomorrow the sun would come up on a new day and the world would be business as usual.
But not for Captain Jack Harkness, his life had been permanently changed by the young Welshman who'd stolen his heart.
Ianto Jones had given Jack something he'd been searching for since the day the Doctor too had found his way into his life, and changed him – someone worth living every day for.
As Ianto's eyes closed for the final time, Jack felt his heart break.
His tears continued to splash down onto Ianto pale and lifeless face, and he placed a final kiss upon those beautiful lips. For several more minutes the 456's taunting words resonated in his ears – knowing that there was nothing more he could do. Ianto Jones was gone…
As Jack's eyes too closed against the world, his heart too ceasing to beat as his body slumped to the ground beside that of his lover, he wished that he too would never wake up. He didn't want to have to face an eternity alone, without Ianto – but he knew from experience that that was too much to hope for.