XX. "One cannot undo what has happened. But the inexorable march of time offers the wise opportunities for redemption. I entreat you, do not escape. Stay in this world and do your karma. ~Amish Tripathi

Jack was numb.

Empty.

He was sitting in the middle of a café with his dead lover in his arms. Again. Not a different lover, another lost to old age or death, but the same man who had died in his arms once already. And just as it had been then, this was his fault now—his past, his mistake, his curse ruining another chance at life for the man who had died fighting by his side on Earth so long ago.

The universe was a cruel mistress. Jack wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry; he did both, giving in to every emotion warring within him.

He heard the local authorities arrive, registered in the back of his mind that the Doctor was still there, somewhere behind him, trying to handle the increasing crowd. It was as if he were trying to keep them away from Jack and Ianto, stop them from questioning one and taking the other away. Jack was not going to let anyone take Ianto from him. Not this time. Not again. Not ever.

He was vaguely aware that his thought processes were beginning to border on irrational, but the part of him aching with grief and swirling with anger brushed aside the realization and embraced it. He'd suffered enough; he could scream and rage all he wanted, when he was ready. First he gave in to the pain of his heart breaking yet again.

Murmuring promises of nonsense, Jack rocked Ianto in his arms, occasionally slipping into another language, even into song. When he heard the Doctor calling his name, he shook his head, shut his eyes, and pulled Ianto closer to him. Blood soaked them both, warm and tacky and never-ending, a red blanket of anguish smothering his soul. He had been killed by an energy pistol several times; it was not the clean, painless death old science fiction serials would have one believe. It was painful and messy and gods why had Ianto jumped in front of him, what had he been thinking, when he knew Jack couldn't die, not ever, not until the universe ended, if even then. He was immortal, eternal, and he was alone because—

Jack's head jerked up. His anger coalesced into a single white-hot point of despair.

The Doctor.

He had died for the Doctor once, that first time they had fought the Daleks, and he had died for the Doctor several times since that day. Jack had lost everything he ever cared about because of the Doctor. Taking several deep breaths, he focused his rage. He set Ianto's body down on the pavement, kissing him on the forehead, brushing fingertips against still soft yet cooling lips. One of the local authorities turned toward them and stepped forward as Jack stood. He raised a finger and growled at the woman.

"Don't touch him. Not one finger, or I will cut it off and feed it to you."

The poor woman stepped back, terrified. Jack whirled and found the Doctor deep in conversation with two men, one of whom Jack recognized as the leader of the city's defense unit. He literally shoved them both aside as he stalked toward the Doctor, grabbing him by his collar and lifting him from the ground, only to toss him forcefully onto the nearest table. He heard the intake of breath behind him and whipped out his Webley, firing it into the air and demanding that everyone back away. Then he placed the weapon over one of the Doctor's hearts.

"Why?" he ground out, torn between shouting and sobbing. "Why did you bring him here just to die? I've already gone through this once!" He tightened his grip on the Doctor's collar, ignoring the pained look in the Time Lord's eyes. The man wasn't upset for Jack; he was scared for his own life. The Doctor was nothing but a cruel, selfish, backstabbing time traveling bastard, picking up companions to feed his ego and tossing them to the side over and over, ruining their lives just as he had ruined Jack's.

"I'm sorry, Jack," the Doctor managed through the chokehold Jack still clung to like a lifeline. Jack's eyes widened as he pressed the gun harder into the Doctor's chest, trying to keep it steady and failing.

"Liar!" he hissed. "You've never apologized for anything in your life. Why start now?"

"Sir, you need to—" started one of the officers Jack had pushed aside. He held hands open and apart and spoke in a calm voice, but Jack had given full reign to his pain and anger. Pointing his gun slowly and deliberately at the officer's forehead, he cocked it with another growl, still pinning the Doctor to the table before him.

"Back. Off. This is between me and him!"

"Jack—" started the Doctor.

"Shut up!" Jack shouted, turning back to the Doctor. "I've had enough of your lies…your misdirection and propaganda. Tell me the truth for one time in your cowardly life. Why did you do this to him? How you could do this to me?" He choked on the last words, unable to stop himself from glancing down at Ianto Jones, dead again and all his fault. It wasn't right. It wasn't fair.

"I didn't bring him here to hurt you, Jack," the Doctor said quietly, raising his head to gaze intently at Jack's face. "I remembered what happened to Mr. Jones that night, when I went back to Cardiff. Mr. Jones was going to die, and he had already been through so much. He'd already sacrificed so much." The Doctor let his head fall back with a thunk and closed his eyes. "I had to help him, because I had already done so. I never meant for this to happen."

A hundred questions raced through Jack's mind at once, confusion mingling with anger as he voiced the first one that settled on his lips. "You didn't mean for what to happen?" It wasn't the most pressing question, but it was someplace to start. As always, the Doctor spoke in maddening riddles.

"I didn't think he'd be shot on his first day!" the Doctor replied. Jack let a sob escape and let his head fall toward his chest, hiding the tears. When he looked up again, he had put on his mask, lips pressed tightly into a straight line and his face impassive.

"And you didn't think he could die?" Jack whispered fiercely. "You didn't stop to think that he's mortal? That anything could cut him down and take him just like that? Again?" Jack's hand was shaking as he spit out the last word with vehemence. How could the Doctor do this to him?

"I didn't," the Doctor replied softly, eyes bright with tears. He almost sounded ashamed. "No, I didn't. I tried to save him." Rather than stir forgiveness, the Doctor's defeated attitude infuriated Jack even more.

"You don't save people, Doctor," Jack spat. "You use them. You chew them up and spit them out in pieces. Like you did with Martha, and with Donna, and River, and all the others. You leave death and destruction and nothing but heartbreak behind you wherever and whenever you go."

With an anger bordering on deadly incoherence, Jack pushed the Doctor across the table and to the pavement. He stood over the Time Lord, breathing heavily as he struggled for his final words to this man who had brought so much pain to his life.

The Doctor sat up, watching Jack warily, but with no fear, as if resigned to his fate. "I was trying to save you."

"No one can save me," Jack said, laughing bitterly. He brought his gun up once more, daring himself to do it. Behind him there was a soft gasp and murmurs from the crowd watching the scene. He ignored them. This was between him and the Doctor.

Could he do it? Could he shoot the Doctor? He was so blinded by his fury at that moment that it would only take one wrong word to push him over the edge. He'd feel no satisfaction, knowing the Doctor could regenerate and return, much like Jack did, but it would be liberating, a way to break this horrible hold the Doctor had held over him for so many years. The Doctor was the only other being in the entire universe who could even begin to understand the enormity of Jack's immortal life—of Jack's pain and suffering as the centuries ticked by. Jack knew he should hate the Doctor for what had happened to him, for what the Doctor had done to him and said to him since that horrible moment on the game station. Yet he didn't. He couldn't.

Until then. One word, and he could.

"You told me yourself, Doctor," said Jack. "I'm impossible. I'm forever. You can't save me." A deep breath allowed him to fling his accusation with all venom as he could find within. "No one can."

"I can."

The blood drained from his face, leaving him suddenly cold and pale. His throat tightened until he was almost gasping from the effort to draw breath. Already shaking hands went numb and the gun fell to the ground. Jack closed his eyes, shaking his head, refusing to look or listen or even believe what he heard and felt behind him.

"Jack." It was the same voice, this time with a gentle touch to his shoulder. "Look at me."

"No," Jack whispered, swiping at tears falling from eyes still locked shut. "Don't do this to me. Not again…"

The hand put just enough pressure on his shoulder that Jack began to turn, almost without conscious thought. He sensed familiar warmth, inhaled a familiar scent in the air around him. Yet he still refused to open his eyes, pressing his palms into his face instead.

"Jack, come back to me." The voice was insistent. "Please. I need you to look at me."

He shook his head. "Not if it's an illusion," he whispered. "A trick, another tease. I can't…"

"Yes, you can." The hand moved from his shoulder to his face, callused fingers trailing along his jaw. "Open your eyes, Jack. I'm really here."

"I really am a genius," murmured the Doctor from somewhere behind him. "It worked." That, more than anything, convinced Jack to slowly open his eyes. In all his long life, he had never been so scared as he was at that moment.

"Oh god," he choked, staring into blue eyes bright with tears as well. "Ianto…"

Ianto Jones crushed his lips to Jack's, much as Jack had done earlier on the pavement when they had first met. He wrapped his arms around Jack, holding them together in a bone-crushing embrace that had Jack gasping for air and pulling away in shock.

"H…How?" he stuttered. He touched Ianto's face, his neck, his shoulders, running shaking hands down Ianto's arms until they came to where Ianto should have had a gaping hole in his side.

Only he didn't.

Jack stepped back, tripping slightly as his entire body was overcome by shaking. His knees hit the back of a café chair, and he sank into it, running unsteady hands through his hair. "How?" he asked again.

"I don't know, Jack," said Ianto. He stood back from Jack, as if afraid to approach him now. He glanced down at his right hand and carefully unwrapped the bandage from it. He held it up before him, staring at the unblemished skin with both wonder and fear.

"You were shot," whispered Jack. "You were dead."

"I was."

"And now you're not."

"Now I'm not." Ianto clenched his healed hand and closed his eyes before looking into Jack's face. "Jack, I'm—"

"Are you all right?" Jack interrupted.

"I'm sorry," Ianto finished.

Jack was stunned. "Don't—" he started, jumping up to reach out for Ianto, but the Doctor cut him off, finally joining the conversation after watching silently.

"Don't be sorry, Mr. Jones," said the Doctor. "It's not your fault. If it's anyone's fault, it's mine. And if you'd like me to apologize, I certainly will."

Ianto's face hardened as he turned away from Jack and confronted the Doctor. "That would depend on what you are apologizing for," he said, his words short and clipped. "I think you owe us an explanation, Doctor. Possibly several."

Jack almost snorted with delirious relief. Ianto Jones was exactly as he remembered: even in the face of disaster, even after dying, he was trying to stay calm and demanding answers.

The Doctor put his hands in his pockets, the gesture so familiar that Jack ached with the memories of a different Doctor in another suit, another time. But this Doctor was not stalling for time or avoiding this issue; this Doctor was gathering his thoughts.

"I tried to tell you before your…ah, friend…appeared. Mr. Jones is not like you, Jack. He's not forever." He held up a hand before either Jack or Ianto could speak. "What happened to you, Jack, that was Rose, all Rose—uncontrolled except by human love, which gave her the ability to do anything she could dream in that moment. She's very lucky she didn't die, taking that kind of power into herself." For a moment the Time Lord seemed to retreat into himself, then shook away the memories and returned.

"But I can't do what she did. Ironically enough, my abilities as a Time Lord limit me to what I can do with the vortex. She had no concept, no context for the power she was taking on, therefore the possibilities were infinite. I, however, am finite. I can't recreate what she did in that moment when she brought you back, nor would I want to. I know how hard it is, Jack." He reached out a hand to Jack's shoulder and squeezed gently. "And I'm sorry."

Jack stared at the man's hand, almost as shocked at his apology as he was at his earlier words about Ianto. It was the Welshman who spoke.

"If I'm not like Jack, what just happened?" Jack heard an underlying tension in Ianto's voice. He was trying to remain calm, but Jack knew what Ianto must have been going through. He vividly remembered the first time he had died and how confusing it had been; he had accepted it over the years, but had not understood it for over a century. At least Ianto knew immortality was possible and would be able to learn the answers to his questions right away. If the Doctor cooperated.

"You were fading, Mr. Jones. You were no longer a part of the timeline you restored." Jack looked up sharply. "Yes, Jack. Restored. Mr. Jones helped me right a very grave wrong. He saved the universe."

"You told me the same thing that night in the forest, before you left," Jack said softly, gazing at Ianto with pride. "He saved the universe, but you wouldn't tell me what it all means."

"What it says on the tin, Jack," snapped the Doctor. "He saved the universe from collapsing and ending. And because of that, he was about to die a very slow and painful death. I couldn't let that happen. I—"

"Why?" Ianto interrupted roughly. "I knew what would happen when I agreed to go with you. I knew I would fade, and I knew it would be painful."

"Ianto," Jack said, reaching out to offer support, but stopping when Ianto tensed and pulled away. "Why would you do that?"

"It was the end of the universe, Jack." Ianto half-laughed, half-sobbed as he crossed his arms over his chest. "And I had nothing left to lose."

"Mr. Jones," the Doctor said warningly. What did that mean, that Ianto had had nothing left to lose? Ianto's eyes flashed before he turned back to Jack.

"Besides, I knew it wasn't the way things were supposed to be. So I knew that even if—or when—I died putting things right, there would still be another me there for you when you woke up." He drew a shaky breath. "At least, I hope he was."

"You were," Jack whispered. "You were always there for me, so many times. And even when things got really bad, you were there for me until the very end."

"Jack." This time the Doctor was warning Jack, but Jack rolled his eyes.

"It's his past, Doctor. He deserves to know. It can't change anything now."

The Doctor did not reply. Ianto glanced sadly at them both.

"I don't need to know right now, Jack. I'm glad he—or I—was able to be there for you, for however long it was. But right now I'd like to know what I am, because I'm not him. And if I'm not immortal like Jack, how did I come back?" There was fear and frustration, yet also a sense of longing in Ianto's voice.

"I needed to stabilize you," the Doctor replied. "I opened the heart of the Tardis and used the time vortex to anchor you to this timeline. I…well, I could explain it, but I suspect the more technical aspects are not as interesting as the end result."

"Which is?" demanded Jack.

"He's alive, obviously." Ianto coughed and the Doctor turned to him. "You're alive due to the energy of the time vortex. That's part of what brings back Jack when he dies, and it now seems to do the same for you. Brilliant."

"Did you know it would?" asked Ianto.

"I suspected it, yes. But you must understand, Jack is unique. He is the product of a woman desperate to save us both, a human who took in the heart of the Tardis. For a brief time she was as powerful as a goddess and, before it began to destroy her, she could use it to do anything. And she did. She defeated the Daleks and made Jack immortal."

Ianto looked uncertain, but Jack was starting to understand. "So how long?" he asked.

The Doctor nodded slowly. "I don't know. I can only guess. You are tied to the vortex itself, through the power of the Bad Wolf. Ianto is tied to the vortex through the power of the Tardis. So a very, very long time…but finite."

"And if I die, I'll come back, like Jack?" asked Ianto. Jack watched Ianto's face, wondering what the man's reaction would be when it was finally confirmed and ultimately accepted. Would he be angry, terrified, despondent? Would he blame Jack, or the Doctor, or both of them? Did he want to live for hundreds if not thousands of years? Did he want to spend them with Jack? Jack had once said he wouldn't wish his immortality on his worst enemy, but the thought of sharing it with Ianto Jones was suddenly the one thing he wanted more than anything in the universe.

"Looks like it," said the Doctor. "And I'm sorry, but it was the only way to save you." He took a deep breath and placed one hand on Jack's shoulder, one hand on Ianto's. "To save you both."

"Why?" whispered Jack, his voice quiet and rough. The simple gesture from the Time Lord surprised him; this Doctor was so very different from the Doctor he had first met, or the Doctor he had traveled to the end of the universe with. This Doctor seemed to genuinely care. His deep shock only grew as the Time Lord stepped before him and cupped his face in large hands, staring deep into Jack's eyes.

"Because everyone deserves a fairy tale, Jack. And this could be yours."

Author's Notes:
Still not done.
Many continued thanks to Tamaar for her patience with this chapter. It took quite a while and many, many emails to get going on it. Same with the next one. I think I have too many new ideas, plus I'm back teaching after the shortest summer ever. But when this story is complete, I have several one-shots started and a few chaptered ideas sketched out to look forward to. Thank you for still reading this story! It means so much to me to get such amazing comments. It makes it all worth letting the story out of my head for others to read. Thanks again and look for the next (and mostly likely, the last) chapter soon!