Jack Wakes - Chapter 11
by Gracefultree
A/N: As this is Jack's story, we see into his head more and more as the chapters get written. This particular Jack, as some of you have commented, is very loving, and, I think, sort of willing to discuss them with Ianto. I can only imagine his heartbreak when he finds out Ianto's real agenda. Oh, wait, I did imagine it! Keep up the comments and I'll be able to write faster... knowing people are reading inspires the mind. Enjoy!
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It was almost two o'clock in the afternoon, and Ianto wasn't in my flat. Normally, if a lover wasn't where I expected them to be, I didn't tend to care overly much. In my life, lovers came and went with some regularity and I let them. It was safer for me that way. But this was Ianto we're talking about.
Ianto Jones, a man who'd already changed me more than I knew. A man who intrigued me from the start. A man who's simple question changed everything.
So you're not going to help me catch this pterodactyl, then?
A man who's simple acceptance of 51st century pheromones blew me away. Who's kiss on the floor of a warehouse opened up a world of possibilities I'd never considered for the way I lived my life. A man who's very presence calmed me and allowed me to sleep more restfully and dreamlessly than I could ever remember in my adult life. A man who made love to me unashamedly and with all the passion in his heart and body and soul.
Or so I thought at the time.
I'd sent my team home early so we could all have a break. We'd had middle of the night call outs four days in a row, and I was annoyed at how much it was cutting into my sex life. So I sent them all home and went to mine, intending to spend most of the next sixteen hours in bed with Ianto. But he wasn't there and I was starting to panic. Where was he? Was he ok?
Take a deep breath, Jack, I told myself. He's probably just out shopping. He cooks fresh meals every night, so he's just getting spinach, or whatever vegetable he's going to feed me. That settled, I relaxed a little. I stripped off my coat and boots. I padded into the bedroom, intending to lie down to wait for him.
By four, with no sign of him, the panic started to resurface. I swallowed it down and dialed his number on my mobile.
"Good afternoon, Jack," he said, a smile in his voice. "I'm a little busy right this minute, but is there something you need?"
"Oh, I gave everyone the afternoon and evening off and was hoping to catch you before you started cooking so I could take you out," I answered calmly, hoping to entice him with promises for something other than our usual pattern.
"You want to take me out?" He asked, sounding surprised. "To dinner?"
"Yeah. Is that so strange?"
"No! No, not strange at all."
"Where are you?"
"London," he answered, rather reluctantly.
"Are you leaving me?" The words left my mouth and hung in the air between us before I was aware I'd spoken, let alone how needy I'd sounded. The silence as I waited for his answer nearly deafened me.
Then Ianto chuffed softly into the phone. "Of course not!" he exclaimed. "I'm just getting some things from my flat. I'll be back in Cardiff at 8:04, if the train's on time."
"Oh. Oh, good. Um, yeah. Sorry," I babbled. "Don't know what came over me. You want me to pick you up at the station and take you out?"
"I'd like that," Ianto said gently.
"I'll get us a reservation," I told him.
"Thanks." He paused, and I could almost hear him thinking. "Jack? I'm sorry I didn't tell you I was coming to London today. I didn't mean to worry you. I just thought I needed some other clothes, and why buy more when I have then here?"
"I wasn't worried," I blustered, and I could practically see him raising a skeptical eyebrow at me. He was so good at doing that. Not to mention that it was totally hot! "OK, I was worried. But you shouldn't have to tell me where you're going. I just got, I don't know, worried that you weren't here."
"It's OK, Jack. I'll be home soon, and then I'll make it up to you, yeah?"
"Yeah," I answered. "I'll see you at the station."
"Bye."
.
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I stood by the SUV feigning nonchalance when Ianto arrived. Dressed in a dark suit and purple shirt, with a striking red tie, he looked good enough to eat. I watched him looking for me, then was rewarded with a huge smile when he spotted me. He picked up his pace and strode over to me, an air of confidence about him. Without bothering to look around at who was nearby, he grabbed the back of my head and dragged me a step forward into a kiss considerably more intimate than the public were used to seeing, no matter the gender of the people doing the kissing. I kissed him back, of course.
We disentangled ourselves after the third wolf whistle and he threw his carryall and garment bag on the back seat before climbing into the passenger seat next to me. We kissed again, and his hand slid up my thigh. I broke away reluctantly, knowing he could read the hunger in my eyes. He gave me another kiss and removed his hand.
"Miss me?" he asked, still smiling, rather smugly, I might add.
"Nah, not a bit," I replied trying to joke away my earlier anxiety. I pulled into traffic.
"You don't like to be vulnerable, do you?" he asked suddenly.
"Does anyone?" I shot back quickly.
"You're evading the question."
"I plead the fifth."
"What?"
"The fifth amendment to the US constitution. It says –"
"That you don't have to say anything if you're just going to incriminate yourself, I know," Ianto finished for me. "But being vulnerable isn't anything to be ashamed of. Not with me. You've seen my nightmares, haven't you? You've woken me up a few times. I'm not going to judge you." I nodded and concentrated on my driving. "Seems to me like you had a bit of a panic attack when you couldn't find me," he commented, the smile still on his face. "Is the famous Captain Harkness really that insecure?" he joked. "Did you really think I was leaving you because you couldn't find me for an hour?" He laughed. I wasn't amused, not by a long shot.
"People can die," I muttered.
"Of course they can, but I wasn't dead. I was just a few hours away. I didn't even think you'd notice I was gone, since you've had so many late nights in a row this week."
"You don't understand," I replied, making a hard turn that had him clutching at the bar above the door to keep from rolling into me. He yelled out it protest. "No one understands."
"So explain it," he suggested, still holding tightly to the bar.
I made another hairpin turn and shot through a red light, barely aware of the traffic that scattered in front of me and the honking horns I left behind in my wake. Tires squealing, I slid us into a parking spot across the street from the restaurant. I could feel the anger in the quickness of my breath, in the tightness of my chest, in the white of my knuckles gripping the steering wheel. I could feel the fear that the anger was keeping at bay. I could feel the - no, stop, don't go there yet –
"I'm over two hundred years old, Ianto. I've lived longer than any human was meant to live and stay sane. I've lost lovers and wives and friends. Every single one of them. I've watched people die quickly and slowly, peacefully and not. I will never grow old with someone. I will never be able to promise anything beyond their life, because I will go on. I always go on, no matter how many times I've died, no matter how I've died. I will never have that one great love that everyone wants, because I have too much time. Do you get it? Too much time! And I'm miserable. I'm so fucking miserable that I grasp at any opportunity for normalcy, for love, because I know exactly how short life is."
I took a deep breath before continuing, still not looking at him, still staring at my hands on the steering wheel. "Everyone who's known my secret had left me. Did you know that? Not died, but left. Walked out the door, not even a 'see you later,' never heard from again. The last woman I let myself love took our daughter - my daughter - with her. She said I was a danger to our daughter because I couldn't die or age." I flexed my fingers on the steering wheel.
"And then I met you, after decades of meaningless sex, and we make love because that's all you know how to do, and I loved it, and wanted more, and what am I supposed to do now, Ianto? I shied away from that kind of thing for so long because I knew what it would do to me. It would break me, because you'll die, too, and it'll be sooner than I want, and I've lost so many people, and I don't know if I can lose another, and I'm so fucking lonely!
"So forgive me if I get a little worried about you not being where I thought you'd be," I finally snarl, looking up at him through the tears I only then realized I was shedding.
Ianto stared at me, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open. Clearly, he'd never thought about the consequences of my "condition," as he'd so aptly called it the night we got together. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so sorry. I didn't think…"
He held me, then, and we both cried, and kissed, and apologized, and eventually calmed down enough to only be an hour late for our dinner reservation.