A/N: This is the next chapter, and this time it's Jack-centric. I would like to dedicate this to my four reviewers: CosmicalMadison, Your Angel Of Music (both of whom noted I'd listed Ianto's age wrongly in the last chapter, and so I have corrected it), thunderincrimson and ForeverBossy26. Here is your update, hope it's up to your standards. It's a little shorter than the last. Enjoy.
It was always the same when he was dragged back. One moment, the darkness, knowing nothing, the next moment, gasping for air, a total shock to the system and always frightening no matter how used to it he was.
It was the same until this time.
This was a gradual fade. The darkness shifted through grays slowly, lightening like laundry out in the sun, until it was white and he opened his eyes and drew in a breath. A small, quiet breath, nothing like the heaving and sucking in of air that usually followed his resurrection, and he stared up at the ceiling of this chasm of a room, wishing that his constant cycle of life-death-life-death was a miracle instead of a curse.
Oh, God. There was a red sleeping bag over him, and a woman – Gwen, he identified – at his side, staring at number 14, Ianto Jones. He pushed the bag away viciously, disgusted, and watched the shake in her shoulders and the quiet sounds of loss resonating through her chest.
I'm so sorry. So, so sorry.
He put an arm around her, resting his head on her shoulder as she cried, and stared at that cold, still face, suit still immaculate, tie a fraction askew from where Gwen had 'straightened' it. Trust a man like Ianto to be sharply dressed to the nines, even in death.
His eyes were dry. There were no tears left for him to shed. He'd known when he kissed him, trying to give everything he had to Ianto in that one kiss, that this time was permanent. This time, the life would not flow from him into the man he loved. It would not come.
He longed to reach out and touch that white skin and feel it flush with warmth, feel Ianto smile under his fingertips, rather than feel papery ice, and know he was gone.
My living, laughing love.
Gwen sobbed incessantly and all Jack could think was how he didn't want to look at her anymore because this was his fault. He could've, should've known better, but he'd dragged Ianto in with him and he let Ianto die. He swaggered in like the big hero he is – Captain Jack Harkness, all white teeth and billowing coat and Wham, bam, thank you ma'am – and let him fall. Torchwood staff die young. My fallen idol.
I won't forget you.
After what felt like an eternity, they got up. Gwen moved like a woman twice her age, slow, clumsy and sore. He shepherded her towards the door, but looked back. Ianto lying there, alone, frozen, shut down, next to an empty, crumpled sleeping bag and the numbers 13 and 14. His job was done, but theirs was still not complete.
And yet I'm leaving you all over again.
