This story was my contribution to the Torchwood Fan Fest 2021 Mini Bang, in collaboration with princess-of-the-worlds on Tumblr.

Please note that FFN has stripped out ALL OF THE LETTER FORMATTING AND STRIKETHROUGHS, which makes this version of the story somewhat difficult to read. In fact, I almost didn't bother crossposting to this site because the formatting is such a mess! If you would like to read this story with the intended blockquote formatting (and 100% less bold type), please pop over to AO3 and read it there. The author name and title are the same, so you can find it easily via the search function. Or you can enter the URL archiveofourown -dot- org -slash- works -slash- 30563252 to go straight to the story in a correctly-formatted version.

A Hundred Ways to Say Goodbye

He only came back for Alice's funeral.

He and Alice haven't spoken since it happened—not that he could blame her; he's never forgiven himself, either—but even though it hurts to stand beside his daughter's casket, and it would make her furious if she knew, he owes it to her to be there, to suffer at her loss the way she suffered at Steven's. He is her only family, even if he lies and tells the handful of other mourners that their relation is a distant one. That doesn't stop several of them from commenting on the family resemblance, twisting the knife in the wound of Jack's grief.

It's only by chance, waiting in the breakfast queue in the lobby of his hotel the morning after the funeral, that he sees the news item in the local paper: An old post office is slated for demolition in the coming weeks. Distantly Jack recalls that he once maintained a private post box there—one of many artifacts of a life that seems more distantly removed than the few decades that have passed since he abandoned the U.K. Oh, he's come back once or twice, got Torchwood Cardiff up and running again before handing it off to a new staff, but the city has never been the same for him since he lost his team, the ones he hand-picked to lead the human race into a new era.

The ones he got killed.

A little investigation reveals that the post office box fee has been automatically deducted from one of his local bank accounts for the past thirty-odd years. Well, Jack reasons, there's no sense in wasting money, even if he has plenty to spare. He isn't planning on coming back here any time soon; he might as well stop by the post office on the way to the airport and officially close his account.

It's been decades since Jack carried a key to the box, but when he gives the number and his name at the counter, the mail clerk's eyes bulge in relief. A few minutes later, Jack is handed a large sack of envelopes. "Wouldn't fit in your box," the clerk tells him. "Ran out of room… well, years before I started working here. Just been piling up in a bin in the back all this time."

Jack examines one of the letters. It's addressed to him with a printed mailing label, and the return address is from a law firm he doesn't recognize. Probably some mistake, then. He's on the verge of dumping the entire sack into the nearest recycle bin when he catches sight of a postmark: December, 2009. He reaches into the bag and checks another: March, 2011. Then June, 2014. April, 2010. October, 2022. Whatever these letters are, they've been coming for years. And there are dozens of them—possibly hundreds—all sent from the same firm.

The intermittent drizzle that shrouded his daughter's funeral service has finally cleared, so feeling rather like an out-of-season Father Christmas, Jack shoulders the sack of mail and sets off for a nearby park. After displacing some hopeful pigeons from a bench, he selects an envelope at random and tears it open. The postmark says it was mailed in 2015, but the letter itself, when he unfolds it, is undated.

That's all Jack has time to absorb before recognition slams into his chest. He doesn't need to check the signature at the bottom of the page; he knows the neat, sloping handwriting in an instant. The distinctive curl of the J in his name evokes memories of sticky notes and office memos, of feelings he's kept suppressed for decades.

Jack crams the letter into his coat pocket without reading it and hefts the bag again. He can't do this in public.

He checked out early, so it takes only a few minutes' haggling with the front desk to gain access to his hotel room once again. Fortified with a glass of something strong and amber-brown from the room's mini-bar, Jack settles himself on the bed. He smooths the creases from the paper he crushed and spreads it on his lap.

Jack,

Sometimes, I think this was a terrible idea.

At the end of each day, I do one of two things: I either escape to the mundane reality of my own life outside of Torchwood—what little of it there is—and try to put the chaos and responsibility and danger out of mind long enough to sort the laundry or carry the rubbish to the bins without being overwhelmed by what we face every day, or I wind up embracing the more exciting half of my life in the most literal way possible, tangled up with you in some thoroughly compromising scenario.

Writing these letters suspends me somewhere between the two—obviously I don't write them when I'm spending the night with you, so they come on the nights that should be all my own, the ones that should be free of Torchwood. Sitting down and putting pen to paper forces me to sort through all the madness and try to categorize it, the way I file and catalogue things in the archives. In that way, it's beneficial, I suppose; I can't shutter my mind and just repress everything I can't process right away, which is something you're always getting after me about. You're right, even though I don't like to admit it, and probably never will where you can hear me. I'm not one to talk about the things that scare me, or hurt me, or the things that are so far beyond my comprehension I just don't know how to deal with them. You know I like things tidy and labeled, but so much of what we experience doesn't fit into neat little boxes. There aren't even words in our language for some of them.

But the other side of that coin—or page, as it were—is that even on the nights I should be resting, I can't escape Torchwood. I can't go home and watch telly and do the washing and forget about work for a while. By the time I've organized my thoughts into one of these letters, I'm immersed in that world again, and it clings to me like dye and colors everything I touch or see or think. Sometimes, knowing there's so much more out there than we ever imagined, that the universe is so huge and full of such marvels, makes the drudgery of my own little life seem small and drab by comparison. Other times, the enormity of that knowledge overwhelms me until I want to crawl under the covers and shake from terror. And still other times, the days we can't win, the days we struggle and suffer and still can't save anyone, everything looks so bleak that life itself seems meaningless.

Not that I don't want to keep living—I stumbled into that pit once, and discovering that darkness in myself terrified me more than anything Torchwood has ever inflicted on me. Besides, I have you now. More than anything else, you've given me a reason to keep fighting. To keep living, even when it all seems hopeless.

But I don't know how I'm supposed to cope with the rest when I can't leave it behind, even for an evening. Working for Torchwood isn't a job; it's a lifestyle. It's an identity. I don't think any of us realized the depth of the commitment we made when we signed that contract, Official Secrets Act or no. Sometimes I wonder what price it will exact from us before the end. For the first time, I think I'm starting to realize how Suzie felt.

I miss you. It's only been two hours since I left you, and I know I'll see you again in another eight, but even so, I wish you were here. At least then I would have brought the best part of Torchwood home with me, instead of the worst.

Ianto

It takes some time for Jack's chest to stop heaving with painful gasps, for his pulse rate to return to normal. The abrupt plunge into a life he'd thought long buried hurts more than he could imagine. Some cowardly inner voice warns him that nothing but more pain will come from reading the rest of the letters, but he knows he'll never be able to live with himself if he leaves these voices from his past unheard. He gropes blindly for another envelope and tears it open.

Jack,

It boggles the mind that someone as intellectually gifted and (otherwise) technologically capable as yourself stubbornly refuses to be dragged into the era of smart technology. I've personally seen you reprogram communications devices from the 37th century, rewire the Hub's backup terminals, and even hack into a spaceship control panel running on some kind of organic fiber optics—but will you use an iPhone to keep in touch with your team? No, you will not. You insist on using that same archaic flip phone model that's been out of production for so many years that after your little underwater adventure this afternoon, I've just had to order an entire case of them from a bulk recycling service because we've finally run out of spares.

I know you're the one who actually has to use it, so I shouldn't complain, even if someone of your century of origin pecking out text messages on that little mechanical keypad is about as efficient as Toshiko trying to write code on a cuneiform tablet. I'm just saying, it wouldn't kill you to use a device with a touch screen, or at least a modern messaging interface. (At least, not for long, if your typical recovery time is any indication.) And as a bonus, it would mean you'd get my dinner invitations the day I send them instead of some time the following week when you remember to check your texts.

At least today you have an excuse, since your mobile is likely still waterlogged, but I do hope you think to check your email before morning. Your plate's getting cold.

Ianto

Jack follows that letter with another, and another, and another, until the rumbling of his stomach and the blurring of his vision reminds him that he's consumed no solid food since breakfast—though the collection of tiny bottles on the nightstand serve as testament to how far through the mini-bar stock he's progressed. When he glances toward the window, he is startled to see the low slate sky streaked with red and orange.

With a sigh, Jack sets aside the letter he's just finished and forces himself to dial for room service. He shouldn't continue reading at this pace—not when the letters are finite, and not when he has all the time in the universe to appreciate them. Ianto deserves to have his words thoughtfully savored, at the same rate as he wrote them, not gobbled up wholesale in a single sitting.

Once he's put in an order for supper, Jack scoops the pile of unopened letters into his lap and begins sorting them across the mattress in order of postmark date. By the time a plate of chicken and greens appears at his door, he's ordered them into neat rows. The letters he's already read are slotted into their places in sequence where he can revisit them in their proper context.

The hotel informed Jack upon his return that it's booked up for a conference from the following day on, so his next order of business is finding another place to stay. Swiping through real estate sites with one hand while he forks bites of chicken into his mouth with the other, he manages to locate a furnished flat offering a short-term lease. With a few quick taps and a long thumbprint-press to authorize payment, he reserves the flat, then tosses his mobile down beside the letters and turns his attention back to his dinner.

After a few more bites, he glances down at the sleek transparent mobile tablet he's been using for the past few months and chuckles. He'd forgotten all about that flip phone he'd been stuck on at the turn of the millennium until Ianto complained about it in his letter. Now that mobile security has improved to meet the lowest of his fifty-first century standards, Jack usually updates his communications technology with each new generation. Ianto would be proud…

The sudden tightness in his throat threatens to choke him, and Jack washes the last of his chicken down with a mouthful of bourbon.

The next morning's dawn reveals a sky heavy with the promise of rain. Jack checks out of his hotel and secures a cab to carry himself and his precious baggage to his new domicile. It isn't far, but while he and even his much-abused greatcoat can endure the damp Welsh weather, he isn't willing to risk the fragile paper and ink of Ianto's letters.

He doesn't waste time exploring his new flat; he couldn't care less what the amenities are, or whether the curtains match the rug. After a quick run to the local shops for provisions, Jack arranges the rows of date-ordered letters on the dining table. He settles himself on the homely sofa with a strong cup of tea (not coffee, never coffee, even though the letters make him long for it) and the missive with the earliest postmark.

Jack,

I've decided to write to you because… well, several reasons, I suppose. First, we all woke up today with a two-day gap in our memories. Apparently we all decided to Retcon ourselves without leaving a note as to why. I'm hoping it was for a good cause and not because we all decided to have a massive orgy, or something. (Though that in itself might be justification for Retcon. I don't want to think what Owen might say if we'd… ugh.) Anyway, it made me realize how fragile a thing memory is, so I've decided to write more things down. Record my memories, as it were, so they can't be taken from me again.

But that brings me to the second reason, which is that apparently nothing is sacred to you—not even my diary, which you CLEARLY read (and don't think I didn't see those eraser marks on the page with your measurements. From now on I'm only writing in ink).

So instead of journaling, I'm writing these as letters, which I may or may not choose to share with you at some point in the future. If I address them to you, it frees us both from the problems inherent in you invading the privacy of my diary. And if it deprives you of the thrill of the forbidden, and you stop trying to pry into my innermost thoughts and feelings, so much the better.

I haven't decided what to do with them yet. I suppose I'll save that for the next letter.

Ianto Jones

Well, that solves the mystery of why there are so many letters. Jack can recall Ianto recording things in his diary on more days than not. He pictures Ianto hunched over his desk during late nights at the Hub, writing with one of the elegant split-nib pens he favored. More rarely, he would prop his journal on one knee and compose an entry while lounging on the sofa with Jack during one of the weekends spent at Ianto's place. They had too few of those lazy Sunday mornings together, breakfasting on pastries from plates balanced precariously on laps, or simply enjoying each other's warmth while paying half attention to whatever was on the telly. Those memories are precious islands of calm in the maelstrom Torchwood routinely made of their lives.

Jack starts to reach for another letter, then hesitates. The urge to read more is strong, but he's counted the envelopes and calculated that even if he only opens two per day, he'll be through them all in just a few weeks. He should ration the letters out, make them last. A couple of the messages so far have been little more than Ianto's notes on the day's events; there's little personal weight to them. Perhaps he'll start with one letter each day, and open a second only on days when the first proves to be just a few lines of commentary.

That leaves the question of what Jack can possibly do to keep himself busy for the other twenty-three-plus hours of the day. He knows better than to stay in the flat with the pile of letters tempting him, but it's been long enough since he's visited the city that he has few friends left here. Torchwood Cardiff is still operating, as far as he knows, but he hasn't had any contact with the current staff in years—in fact, the last operative he'd trained personally was Anwen Cooper-Williams, and last he heard she'd retired from Torchwood and moved to Australia or someplace with her husband. He has no idea who is running things there nowadays.

Well, he needs something to keep him busy, doesn't he? Perhaps he's maintained his hands-off approach for too long. If he's going to be spending every morning for the foreseeable future revisiting memories of his beloved team and the good old days, perhaps it's time he got back in touch with Torchwood in the here and now.

Torchwood, as it turns out, has moved on without him.

It isn't that the new staff aren't happy to see him, exactly—their poorly-varnished reactions convey legitimate confusion as to who he is and what he's doing there. None of them were trained by Jack or served under him, and while they've undoubtedly seen his name on old reports, or maybe heard the odd legend passed down by their predecessors, they don't really understand how central he is—or was, at one time—to the organization they work for.

Unlike Jack's Torchwood, a sticky-tape-and-string enterprise housed in the leaky Victorian Hub, the new organization is a precision machine with an ultra-modern facility, and seems to have Rift management well in hand. While they indulge Jack's visit the way one would welcome an aged professor to tour a campus where he once taught, they make it clear that they require no input from him in the matter of their operations. In an effort to engender goodwill, Jack even offers to help them round up a pack of Weevils that have been reported near the docks, and Zaid—the team leader, an olive-skinned demigod whose molten-chocolate eyes make Jack regret that he hasn't visited more often—flashes a patronizing smile and assures Jack that he needn't trouble himself.

He isn't that old, is he?

Well, of course he is. But the thought that he might look it is even more humiliating than not being recognized as the modern Torchwood's de facto founder.

In the end, Jack finds a guaranteed way to involve himself, regardless of their initial dismissal: The Cardiff office has recently taken wholesale possession of the assets of Torchwood Two after the mysterious disappearance of Archie, and in the absence of the old mainframe—sadly lost the third time the Hub was destroyed, more than a decade ago—Jack is the only one who can interpret the filing codes. Upon learning this, Zaid grudgingly issues an invitation to work with them for the next few weeks, just until the cataloguing is done. Jack has no doubt that he can prove himself indispensable in that amount of time, but he doesn't plan to exert too much effort trying. After all, he doesn't intend to stay.

But then… why has he? He could just as easily have taken the letters with him when he left Cardiff and read them at his leisure. According to the postmarks, no new letters have been sent to his box for several years, so he has no compelling reason to remain in a city filled with regrets and dark memories.

Except that it holds more than a few happy ones for him, as well. As Jack stretches out on the sagging furnished mattress that night, light from a streetlamp glaring through the cheap plastic blinds, he tries to focus on those instead of all the ways his time in Cardiff ended badly.

He nearly succeeds.

The first letter he opens the next morning is of no great interest—merely Ianto recording an uneventful day of cleaning and filing—so once Jack has refilled his mug and wrestled a slab of slightly burnt toast from the smoking toaster with a fork, he allows himself to select another missive from the pile.

Jack Harkness.

You can be a right bastard, you know that? I swear, I was this close to going off at you today, and you would have deserved every word. But that's not how we do things, so instead I duck my head and push through it, and now I'm putting it down here instead of telling you to your face. Oh, don't worry, I'll get over it—I always do—but I don't think you realize just how much we tolerate from you that we wouldn't take from anyone else. We put up with your bullshit, with your secrecy, with your lording your bloody future knowledge over us and treating us like children. Tosh was almost in tears today, do you realize? I don't think you do. I think you're so used to getting away with anything you please, with flashing those perfect teeth and that toothpaste-ad smile and wafting those bloody pheromones in people's faces and smoothing everything over, that you don't even realize there are consequences to your actions.

Well, there are. And one day, it's all going to catch up to you. I wonder if I'll still be here to see it, or if I will have come to my senses by then.

I.J.

P.S. I forgive you. But don't do it again.

Jack drops the hand with the letter to his lap and sighs. Ianto didn't note what Jack did to merit such a tongue-lashing—pen-lashing?—but he has no doubt that he deserved it. Immortal he might be, but he is still only human, with the very human tendency to redirect his own pain and stress at those closest to him.

He's grown more self-aware over the past few decades, and he likes to think that he's more stable now, less likely to lash out, but sometimes he still needs someone like Ianto at his side to point out where he fails.

Sometimes he still needs someone like Ianto at his side for other reasons.

Feeling unsettled from the decades-old scolding, Jack looks longingly at the remaining letters, but he's already opened his two for the day. Besides, if he wants to make a good impression on the current staff of Torchwood, he should at least try to be on time for work.

Over the next week, Jack falls into a predictable, if unglamorous, routine: He reads one of Ianto's letters over a simple breakfast before making the long walk to the Torchwood main office (it actually is housed in an office building now, though few citizens of Cardiff realize that the high-rise structure extends as far below ground as it does above). He spends the day contributing his expertise to the efforts to catalogue the Torchwood Two collection, taking occasional breaks to prowl around headquarters or share useful tidbits about alien species with members of the staff. With Ianto's remonstrance about his habitual secrecy and future knowledge simmering at the back of his mind, he's perhaps freer with his information than he once would have been, but his tips are helpful and serve to ingratiate him to the younger operatives. Occasionally he flirts halfheartedly with Zaid, who acknowledges the attention with a patient smile that clearly indicates his own lack of interest. At the end of the day, he walks back to the flat, picking up a few groceries or some takeaway en route, and often indulges in another of the letters over supper.

It's a repetitive cycle, bordering on dull, but Jack wants to space out his enjoyment of Ianto's letters. Besides, it isn't as though he has other demands on his time.

Jack,

I've decided to share my memories with you, but not immediately. Perhaps I'll leave them sealed away in the hands of some reliable third party, with instructions to turn them over to you in the event of my death. That way I can't possibly be embarrassed by anything you read after I'm gone.

Or is there a need for a third party? After all, Torchwood will have to confiscate my belongings one day anyway, so I could probably just leave them in a box in the closet with your name on it for you to find. Although—no, on second thought, that won't work. Knowing you, you'll start prowling through my things after I'm asleep some night, and I'll wake to find you ankle-deep in my most personal confessions—and then I'll never hear the end of it. Best to entrust them to someone who can keep the whole lot of them safely out of your reach until I'm gone.

Or maybe instead of turning them over to you all at once, I'll have them sent one by one, so you'll have something to remember me by. They can keep you company until you find someone new. Maybe you'll even tell your new lover about me, and he—or she—it? Them? You do seem to be quite open-minded when it comes to such things, so I suppose I should speak as generally as possible—will think kindly of one who came before.

Love,

Ianto

So that's how the letters found their way to him.

Ianto must have known about Jack's post box—Ianto knew everything, it seemed, except how rarely Jack remembered to pick up his mail—and deemed it a more stable destination for Jack to receive letters than the Hub or any of his several other part-time residences and bolt holes. Considering what ultimately happened to the Hub, the choice shows foresight.

But then, Jack reflects as he traces the L in the letter's simple closing, nearly everything Ianto did reflected his thoughtful consideration of potential outcomes. Perhaps it was an innate sense of caution, or perhaps the horrors of Canary Wharf left him more aware of just how far wrong any situation could go, but he always planned ahead and prepared for consequences more consistently than anyone else on the team—more than Jack, certainly, who has navigated most of his life by the seat of his trousers. (And sometimes by their removal.)

It seems Ianto even considered how best to assuage Jack's loneliness after his own death. Did he realize how short his life was destined to be? Did he understand, even then, how his loss would weigh on Jack's soul?

Jack's fingers tighten on the paper until it threatens to tear. If only Ianto had been able to foresee what awaited them at Thames House, these letters might not yet have been sent.

Each day, the letters continue stirring memories—some faint, some bittersweet, some all but buried in Jack's memory. Sometimes Ianto's words prove almost prophetic in hindsight: He mentions Gwen refusing the dessert he'd surprised them with for fear that she wouldn't fit into her wedding dress—a real crisis that ultimately had nothing to do with how many calories she'd consumed. The reference to a classic film Ianto had seen as a child reminds Jack of the threat that would later rise from an old reel at the Electro Theatre. An offhand comment about the decline in crop pollinators heralds the return of the Daleks months later.

(Even that oblique reference sends a tremor down Jack's spine. The memory of the terror that seized him when he realized what they were facing, of the way he held Ianto and Gwen close and kissed them goodbye, will stay with him for aeons.)

In some letters, Ianto mentions things Jack has completely forgotten, or never knew in the first place. In others, Ianto's descriptions of specific missions or alien interactions plunge Jack deep into reminiscence, until he finds it difficult to drag himself away to continue his work with the present Torchwood.

From time to time Jack catches Zaid's eyes on him. The present Torchwood leader seems to notice how distracted he is at the office, but if he's overly concerned for Jack's emotional well-being, he at least doesn't voice it aloud.

Dearest Ken,

I wonder how long it will take before the inclination to call you that in front of people fades. Soon, I hope, because I don't dare slip up at work—Owen hasn't missed a chance to take the piss since I got back. Keeps asking me questions about how to fold fitted sheets or making smart remarks about homemaking. And this afternoon when I delivered the mail to your office, Tosh laughed and said something about how we still couldn't get enough of each other despite our so-called 'undercover assignment,' to which Gwen replied that she wondered how much of it was, in fact, spent under the covers. I don't believe I have ever come so close to strangling my coworkers.

The others think I was on holiday all that time. That's the most maddening thing about the whole affair; they're actually jealous of the time they think I had off work. As though I was ever able to relax a single moment we spent in Serenity Plaza, what with living a false life, watching and being watched by everyone, constantly surrounded by our delightful backstabbing neighbors… And that's before we even get to the actual alien threat! There's nothing relaxing about lying to everyone, or balancing on the knife-edge between extraterrestrial brainwashing and a fertilizer bomb.

Well, I suppose that isn't quite true. Having a lie-in with you on Saturday mornings was rather nice. At least, until the stereo lawn-mowing started outside our bedroom window.

I shouldn't complain; there are far more onerous assignments we could have undertaken than descending into suburbia for a few weeks, catty neighbors and rigged baking contests notwithstanding. But I can't deny that I'm glad to be back home, sleeping in my own bed, preparing to wake to our usual—and honest—brand of chaos and intrigue.

Your darling ex-husband,

-I-f-a-n- Ianto

Jack's smile grows wistful as he recalls the all-too-brief period of domestic bliss he engineered for them at Serenity Plaza. At the time, he actually thought Ianto would be delighted by the chance to play house with him for a few weeks, away from the Hub and the rest of Torchwood's demands. He little suspected that Ianto would begin to chafe after mere hours of pretending to be happy newlyweds.

Between Ianto's resistance to settle domestically and his growing obsession with organic lawn care—to say nothing of the alien sleeper agents they'd uncovered—the mission was not quite the romantic getaway Jack envisioned. Still, he's glad they had the opportunity to spend that time together. As Ianto said, there were worse ways to spend a lazy Saturday morning than entwined with someone you loved.

Jack,

With regard to our dinner conversation: The elephant would not be caught dead wearing the lipstick. Clearly, it was the giraffe, and nothing you can say will convince me otherwise.

Ianto

Jack stares at this note for a full thirty seconds before bursting out laughing. He has no memory of the discussion in question, but he and Ianto quibbled over pointless things a thousand times, more for the pleasure of the argument than any real importance of the topic. This one sounds a little farther afield than their usual debates, though.

He rereads the short letter as he finishes his breakfast, then reaches for another envelope. Entertaining though they are, two lines of no real substance hardly count as a letter. He thinks he can justify reading another before he slips off to work.

He isn't prepared for the one he opens.

We lost Tosh and Owen today.

God, I can barely write the words. It makes it real, doesn't it? Seeing it there, set down in black and white, it seems like such a simple statement of fact. But it feels like I've been gutted. I've cried so much today, I'm completely wrung out. Hollow. I feel like I'll never feel anything ever again.

I think it's worse for you. I know it is, because you're lying beside me, sleeping, not resting or healing but simply too exhausted to stay conscious in this world any longer. They were my friends, and I miss them, I grieve for them, but in a way they were more than that to you. They were your responsibility, and I think you're blaming yourself for their deaths. It isn't your fault, but you probably won't let yourself believe that. It doesn't help that Gray was the one who killed them. I don't think he was your fault, either, but if you've felt guilty about that for however many centuries you've lived, I doubt my telling you so will change your mind. I do wish you could forgive yourself, though. Maybe by the time you read this, you will be able to.

I'm glad you're asleep now. Every time I look at you, at the guilt and pain and grief in your eyes, my heart breaks all over again. I hate seeing you suffer like this. But I'm so grateful to have you here. It feels awful to admit that relief, that joy I felt when you came back to us. It feels almost like a betrayal, like I somehow sacrificed Tosh and Owen to bring you home safely, even though that doesn't make any sense. I suppose that's the survivor's guilt talking—nothing I haven't dealt with before, only this time I'm feeling guilt for someone else surviving, instead of myself. But even so, I can't stop thinking about how lucky I am that you're who you are, that you survived all this. The truth is that for a moment today I thought I'd lost you, and I don't know how I would have coped with that. I don't know if I could have.

I don't know how you endured, buried alive for thousands of years. I don't know how you remained sane. I don't know how you remembered everything when you woke up. I'm just so glad you did, and that you're letting me hold you tonight.

I love you. I need to tell you that more often, because… well, it's obvious, isn't it? It's not something we say, but it's true all the same.

Ianto

This time, when Jack arrives late and red-eyed at the Torchwood office, there's no doubt that Zaid notices his compromised emotional state. He's a good leader, so he assigns the rest of his team to tasks in other rooms before approaching Jack.

Jack has staged enough talks and interventions to recognize when he's about to be on the receiving end of one. He tries to play the attention off with a saucy grin, tries to focus on the natural beauty in those rich brown eyes that are fixed on him, but it's impossible to do so without also seeing the honest concern there. He wants to remain aloof, but it's been so long since anyone has looked at him that way and meant it, and after all the bittersweet sympathy and longing that Ianto's letter poured over his soul that morning, it's all he can do not to break down then and there.

Jack doesn't think he can talk about it, but they manage. Zaid is patient with his struggle; he accepts Jack's explanation that he's just lost his daughter, and waits quietly until Jack also confesses that he's still mourning someone else. That the return to Cardiff has awakened a lot of old memories. Zaid nods, understanding. His own wife died a year ago, he explains, and it's still hard some days. He doesn't fill Jack's ears with empty platitudes. He does invite Jack to talk again if he ever needs to.

When he finally leaves Jack to his cataloguing work, the lingering pain in Jack's heart hasn't eased, but he finds it a little easier to breathe.

It's been three weeks, and the stack of unopened envelopes is growing thin. Jack hates looking at it each morning and thinking about how few are left. He rations the letters more carefully now, opening no more than one per day regardless of the length or content. He can tell Ianto was writing less often, as well; the notes are brief but skim over multiple days' events, frequently referencing how busy they all are or how exhausted he is. It's no wonder he couldn't find time to write in the days after Toshiko and Owen's deaths. Jack remembers those days primarily for their blurred quality, as the remaining members of Torchwood struggled to fill the shoes of the other half of their team. He's sure that Gwen's new marriage suffered for it, and while Jack's relationship with Ianto deepened during those days, it also had its share of rocky moments.

Knowing now how little time had remained to them, Jack regrets letting stress or minor disagreements steal even one moment of their contentment.

Jack,

Welcome back to the land of the living. Again.

I watched you die at least twice today, and I'm not convinced there wasn't a third time that you're hiding from me. I know why you do—I know you know I hate seeing you suffer, and you know I know how much it hurts you to die and come back to life—but I wish you wouldn't. You like to pretend that being immortal also makes you impervious to pain and fear and doubt, but I know better. I wish you'd let me comfort you whenever you need it, and not just when your suffering finally exceeds your capacity to bear it. I don't know if you realize how hard it is for me to watch you pretend you're all right.

But you're you, and if you haven't learned not to take unnecessary risks or hide your pain after this much time, I very much doubt anything I can say on the matter will change your mind. I just hope one day you'll realize you don't have to hide what you're feeling from the people who care about you.

And I do care about you, Jack. So does Gwen. I know you know that.

Ianto

Jack knows. No matter how painful it is to remember, he'll never forget the ones who truly loved him, or whom he truly loved.

He misses having people who care about him that way, who are willing to support him when he's struggling or comfort him when he needs it without passing judgment. It's been a while since he's opened up to anyone like that.

Someday again, maybe, when the pain of loss isn't so fresh.

He sets the letter aside and heads to the Torchwood office. He's careful to keep a casual smile on his face and joke with the other operatives when he enters. Zaid's eyes are as sharp as they are beautiful, and Jack's already logged his annual quota of vulnerability. He doesn't need another heart-to-heart chat about his feelings.

Given what Ianto's letters have done to him lately, he's not sure his heart could take it.

Norton Folgate. God, Jack. Really? I know there were better men in the 1950s. There had to have been. Hell, you could have put your good-old-Yankee accent to use and gone over to make a pass at Marlon Brando or someone. Why on earth would you settle for Norton Folgate?

I know that of all the things that have happened in the past 24 hours, a random fling you had half a century ago (and clearly regretted) should not be what's bothering me. And honestly, it isn't, deep down, but I suppose it's easier to focus on hating that camp bastard than it is to process all the things that went said and unsaid between us. At least things done/undone is a little easier to categorize, considering we shot each other—and what a day it's been when that isn't the red-letter headline—but I'm still having a difficult time coming to terms with what the Good Thinking virus did to us. Made us say. Made us do.

As unsettling as it was to be manipulated, nothing I did under the influence of the virus really surprises me. I've told you I loved you at least half a dozen times, and written it even more often. The way I feel about you is no secret to either of us at this stage. But you, Jack… Honestly, that was a shock. I mean, I know you have romantic feelings toward me, and I know you love me in a broad sense, the same way you love Gwen, the same way you loved Tosh and Owen. But I wasn't sure you… well, that you loved me, in that way. I suppose I didn't think you'd let yourself love anyone like that, knowing what your life is like. And even if maybe deep down, I did hope that you cared for me a little more than the others, I didn't dream that I'd ever hear it from your lips.

But today, you told me you loved me, over and over and over again, and those words were simultaneously the best and the worst thing I'd ever heard. Knowing I was the only one in your mind when the virus took over, knowing you really do want me in a way that isn't just physical, is what I've hoped for for so long—but having you say it that way, like you're Jack bloody Nicholson in The Shining, and spending most of my afternoon doing my best not to be murdered by you, rather undercut the joy of it all.

I know it's not your fault; the virus controlled you the way it controlled so many others. I know you didn't choose to say those words to me, any more than you really wanted to hurt me. But even though I know I should be content with just knowing—as much as I should really say 'the sentiment is enough' and leave it there—I can't help wishing you'd meant to say it. Because I do still want to hear you say those words to me and really mean them, without being compelled to. I hope one day you'll tell me you love me entirely of your own volition.

And without trying to kill me. I know that should probably go without saying, but… Torchwood being what it is, I ought to be specific.

Love—and I mean it without the bullets,

Ianto

It's Jack's final day at Torchwood. Again.

How many times, he wonders, has he left Torchwood, in tears or in ruin, and vowed not to return? How many times has he been drawn back to what was once his home, regardless of the changes the centuries have wrought?

He doesn't know, but he mentally chalks another tally mark in the exit column. The entire Glasgow collection has been properly identified and catalogued in a system even Ianto Jones would be proud of, and Jack has run out of minor tasks to volunteer for. There's nothing left for him to do here.

He tells himself that, even though knows it's not really about the job. He doesn't want to face the underlying truth, which is simply that there's nothing left for him here.

He flirts and jokes with the staff as usual, adds a few notes to files on alien civilizations, and mostly fills time until he has to go back and face moving out of his rented flat. One of the operatives he's helped asks for his contact information so she can keep in touch, but even as Jack beams over his digital ID, he warns her that he doesn't know how long he'll be within service range. His mobile will work anywhere on the planet, but he doesn't know how long he'll stay on Earth. He never plans that far ahead, these days.

The day drags on with little to do, but inevitably, closing time approaches. The staff say they'll miss him and bid Jack good luck with his future endeavors. He knows they mean well, but given how long his future is, he knows it's going to take a hell of a lot of luck for all of it to be good.

Zaid catches Jack just as he's about to leave the office and skillfully detains him with idle conversation until the others have exited. It's evident that he's seen through Jack's disarming smile to the melancholy underneath, and intends to address it before they part ways. Jack isn't sure what to think of the fact that someone who has known him for such a short time has learned to read him so easily—apart from a fleeting lament that Zaid has never shown any interest in men. He braces himself for another emotional intercession.

When they're alone, Zaid astounds him by leading with the very last thing he expects: He'd like Jack to stay on, if he's willing. They've all enjoyed having him there, he says, and Torchwood could use his expertise. They'd even be glad of an extra hand in the field from time to time.

It takes a moment to ascertain the reason for this heel-turn, but there's a furtive look in the dark eyes that Jack recognizes after decades of discovery and disappointment. Zaid has been reading up on him. Knows he's immortal. Realizes the benefit of having someone who can't die to take the bullets for the ones who can. The shell of cynicism hardens around Jack's heart, and a dark laugh rises in his throat.

That reflexive resentment almost makes him miss the second expression lurking beneath the guilty knowledge in Zaid's countenance, but something—perhaps a lingering softness imparted by weeks of reading Ianto's letters—makes him hesitate before throwing the offer aside. When Jack looks closer, he finds that same unvarnished concern that's been following him for days, checking up on him and making sure he's had someone to talk to. You can stay here, that look says. I know you've suffered. We won't send you away for what you are.

The compassion he sees is almost stifling. For an instant, Jack can hear Ianto's voice as clearly as if he's standing beside him: You don't have to hide from the people who care about you. The sudden conviction shatters the cynical veneer and leaves his heart pounding.

Zaid interprets Jack's delay in answering as indecision, so he sweetens the deal: Housing included, he adds, and offers a keyring. From the logo-stamped tag, Jack suspects the keys fit one of the executive flats that crown the Torchwood office building and provide part of its camouflage. He explored one of them the previous week while searching for the roof access (Torchwood Tower is a very tall building, and old habits die hard), so he knows they are considerably more elegant than the damp bunker beneath his old office in the Hub.

Jack certainly doesn't need a swanky penthouse apartment, but attached as it is to the opportunity of staying with people who value and care about him, who will accept him as he is, he realizes it would be foolish to turn it down.

He takes the keys.

Jack didn't bring much with him for what he'd thought was just a brief visit to attend a funeral, and his short-term lease on the flat is due to expire tomorrow, so when he arrives home he's already mostly packed. There's only one thing left to do, and it's something he's been dreading ever since he tore open the first of Ianto's letters.

The final envelope is sitting in the center of the kitchen table, where he placed it that morning. It's bulkier than some of the others. The flap is pulled up a bit at the edges from the strain of folding it over so much paper, and Jack notices that it had required more postage to send.

That's fitting, he thinks. He'd hate to think that Ianto's final words to him would be something short and insignificant.

He tries not to think about the final words that passed between them at Thames House. About how he denied what was happening even as Ianto slipped away. About how badly he failed to comfort and reassure him in his final moments. About the things Ianto whispered to him with his last breath, and all the things Jack should have said, and how much he regrets missing that opportunity…

Jack cradles the letter in his hands for a long time without opening it, delaying the moment when this precious voice from his past will once again fall silent. These last few weeks have been a gift, resting in Ianto's memory, reliving the days when Jack felt happy and cherished and so alive, when Ianto surprised him each day with his wit or his insight or his gentle compassion.

Once he reads this last letter, all that will again be relegated to the past. Memories to recall, to leaf through like faded photos in an album, but with no new pictures to look forward to.

Leaving it sealed is not an option, though. Jack knows that for all his apparent reluctance to share his feelings openly, Ianto meant these letters to be read, and it would be a disservice to him to leave these final words unspoken. No matter how it hurts him, he needs to hear Ianto's last goodbye.

With trembling fingers and an ache in his throat, Jack tears open the envelope.

The bundle that crinkles within is a disorderly stack of takeaway menus and shopping lists, scraps of mismatched paper folded over at one upper corner to keep them collected. Ianto's handwriting covers the blank side of each page when there is one, and weaves around margins and in between line items when there isn't.

The letter opens just below a grease stain, and without a salutation.

I'm meant to be resting, and God knows I could use a proper sleep, but I've tried and I can't. Too much has happened. Too many things are still rattling around in my head. Oddly enough, it's not the danger or the trauma that has me on edge. Yes, I'm furious about the damage to the Hub, and I'm worried about the military hunting us, and I'm scared for my family, and for all the rest of the children on this planet. But all that is just an average workday for Torchwood. We can rebuild the Hub. We're smarter and more cunning and more resourceful than the military. We'll do whatever is necessary to protect the Earth, just as we always do.

But you, Jack… you're at the heart of what's kept my hands shaking these last few days. It's been a rough few weeks, and I know things have been a little strained between us lately, but all in all I felt like we were making progress. Things were good; we'd found a routine; we were beginning to really understand one another—or so I thought. But then the bomb, and fearing I'd lost you again… For a little while afterward, when I was on my own, when I didn't know if Gwen had escaped or if you would survive, I nearly fell apart. I could feel that all-consuming despair creeping in, telling me to give up. It was like Canary Wharf all over again, only without even the sliver of hope I had then.

And then when we got you back, all I could do was laugh, because it didn't matter if the world was about to end, or if we were fugitives running for our lives. You were here, and somehow that meant everything was going to be okay. Of course I know we won't always escape unscathed, and I would never put the burden of responsibility for our safety on your shoulders, but… How can I explain it? Having you beside me gives me the strength to persevere. You give me hope, and a reason to fight for the future. I know I won't live forever, but knowing that you will makes me want to protect this world and make it a better place—not for myself, but for you. For all the lives you'll live from now on, and for everyone you'll love after I'm gone.

All of that flashed through my mind in that first moment I saw you walking out of that quarry, naked and bruised and covered in concrete dust. All I wanted to do was hold you and tell you how glad I was that you were alive—but of course Gwen and Rhys were there, and there were a dozen men with large guns after us, and it really wasn't the time.

Now I wish I'd done it while I had the chance, because after we got back here, you set off the second bomb of the week. I know things are bad, and I know you're scared as well—understandably, if Frobisher is holding your family hostage—but now it feels like you're shutting me out more than ever. I don't know how to reach you. I don't know the way to get back to where we were.

When I try to think through it all, I keep circling back to what you said, and my mind stalls there. How could I not have known you had a family? I never imagined I knew all your secrets, but I thought I knew most of the important ones. It makes me realize how little I really know about you—just what you've told me, even though the stories you have shared with me could fill volumes. It makes my own life seem so small, next to yours.

I'm not upset—not with you, in any case. Maybe a little with myself, for thinking I merited special treatment, and for assuming that you would put your most precious possessions in my hands. There are a lot of good reasons you might not—after all, I've betrayed you before. Even though I know you've forgiven me, I can't expect you to trust me completely, not with the lives of your daughter and grandson at stake.

God, I've just realized—you have a grandson. That means your daughter must be my age, if not older. Or what if she's much older, and your grandson is closer to my age? Every time I think I've come to terms with your immortality, you casually mention something about that time you had tea with Queen Victoria, or you reveal that you have grandchildren, and I can hardly wrap my mind around it.

I must seem like such a child to you. Considering the gap in our life experience, perhaps it's a wonder our relationship has held together at all.

None of that really matters, though. I don't care how many lives you've lived, so long as I can be a part of this one. I don't care if you have children or grandchildren or great-great-grandchildren older than me. I only hope that one day you'll trust me enough to tell me more about them. Maybe even let me meet them. After all this is over, maybe I'll even get up the courage to introduce you to my family. Compared to the combined threats of the 456 and God-knows-how-many clandestine military units trying to kill us, my brother-in-law's idea of appropriate social interaction is starting to look almost survivable.

But one problem at a time—well, two, I suppose. I don't know if we've ever challenged an enemy of this size or resourcefulness, let alone two of them at once. The stakes have never been this high. The entire world is counting on us to stop the 456 and save their children, and that means taking on Frobisher and his cadre. My niece and nephew are at risk. I know the stakes are even higher for you, with Alice and Steven involved.

Whatever happens, whatever the risk, I'm not going to let you face this battle alone. If there's one thing the events of the past few days have made me realize, it's that I'd rather die at your side than live in safety without you. I'd rather eke out a dangerous existence as a criminal fugitive, plotting to help you save the world from the shelter of this draughty warehouse, than return to a quiet, mundane life without Torchwood. I can't deny that Torchwood has taken things from me—the price it exacts from each of us is high, and I know some day it may cost me everything—but it's given me just as much in return. It's shown me the wonders of the cosmos and the landscapes of alien worlds. It's made me realize how much bigger than all of us this universe is. It's introduced me to friends I would die for, and granted me memories I wouldn't trade for anything.

Best of all, it's given me you. And you mean everything to me, Jack. It doesn't matter if I don't know your real name, or the planet you were born on, or how many children you have. The only thing I really need to know about you is something I've known for a long time now: I love you. More than I can say. More than I ever thought possible. After Lisa, I thought I would never recover, that I would never feel alive again, much less be able to love anyone. But you brought me back from the edge and helped me find purpose. In a very real sense, you gave me my life back, and as far as I'm concerned, it belongs to you.

When this crisis is behind us, I'd like to sit down and tell you all this in person. We have a lot to talk about, and I think the universe is going to owe us some time to unwind when all this is over. But just in case it doesn't pay up, or in case the worst should happen, I'm going to slip out and post this so it will be safe with all the rest of the things I've written you but never had the courage to tell you face-to-face.

After tomorrow, that might change. Maybe we can sit down and read over them together and laugh. Or maybe I'll be able to tell you everything I want to without relying on the written word, and my silly old letters won't matter anymore. Or maybe—if Torchwood claims its final payment before we're able to have that talk—maybe you'll read them without me, someday. If that should happen, then I'm glad I could at least be honest with you in this way. I'm glad I could tell you how much you mean to me with pen and paper, in case my words and actions haven't been clear enough.

Whatever happens, for good or for ill, I'll be standing beside you through it all. I wouldn't be anywhere else in the universe.

All my love,

Ianto

Jack remains still for a long time after he finishes reading. The shadows across the room lengthen and spread until the flat is in near darkness, and he remains motionless, mismatched papers crumpled in his lap, the ink smudged here and there with tears he isn't able to stop.

At last he rises and crosses to the little desk that's crammed into a corner of the furnished flat like an afterthought. He switches on the lamp and prowls through the drawers until he finds a notepad and an old ballpoint, stamped with the name of a delivery service.

The pen doesn't lay down ink as smoothly as the writing implements Jack usually prefers, but it will do. It isn't as though the words need to be particularly legible.

Ianto,

You were right—about so many things, as it turned out. You were right when you wrote that I'm an arrogant bastard, that I took too many risks, that I shut you out. You were right when you said I'd forgiven you, that things were good between us, and that we'd grown a lot closer.

But most of all, you were right when you said that we never said the most important things often enough. Among my many, many regrets, that has been one of the biggest. I should have told you every single day how much you meant to me, so you never could have felt a moment of doubt. I should have shared more with you, so you would have known that I trusted you more than anyone.

Even though I can't send this letter to you, I'm going to say now what I should have told you then: I love you. Then, and now, and a thousand years from now. I promise I will remember you, and remember how much you loved me. I'll try to take better care of myself, because I know you'd want me to. I'll do my best to enjoy this better world that you helped make for me, and I'll keep protecting it, because it's your legacy.

You will always be with me, Ianto Jones. You'll always be a part of my life and who I am. You'll always be standing beside me, in memory and in spirit. I wouldn't have you anywhere else in the universe, either.

Always,

Jack

The rest of Ianto's letters are already packed in the mail bag. Jack adds the last one Ianto wrote—and his own reply, tucked into the same envelope—and shoulders the sack. Without a backward glance at the featureless flat, he steps out into the night.

Once again, it's time to move on—but not to escape the past, nor to run from its ghosts. This time, Jack knows exactly where he's headed. The penthouse keys are new and sharp in his hand.

Torchwood has called him home, and for the first time in years, he has something to protect.