Ianto/Jacque fic.
Part 9.
School seems sort of pointless after that.
"If you don't get a good education, where will you end up in life?" He asks you sunday night. You made the mistake of saying that thought aloud.
"Apparently somewhere where I won't have to re-invent myself every fifty years," you answer, adding, "And I have the rest of eternity and then some to worry about school. That whole 'you never stop learning' thing really seems to apply now, huh?"
"Sweetheart, you're going to have to try and live a normal life," he says, messing up your hair as he gets his things together to help fix up the hub. The back-up generator exploded. Again.
"But what's the point?" you ask, the edge to your voice showing the bit of the existential crisis starting at the back of your mind.
"The point," he says, catching you eyes and coming to sit by you on the couch, "Isn't just to go from day to day. It's not to survive. The point," he says, "Is to live."
The next day you go do to school. But you skip out early with a fake headache.
There's some living that's just calling your name. And he wears some nice suits.
You come in to the hub find everyone else gone. Ianto is tidying up after everyone, something that the others seem to take for granted, though he assures you otherwise.
"Hey," you say softly, leaning against the door frame, "Can I help? I promise not to lift anything heavy."
He jumps, but when he looks up, his smile is brighter and more genuine than it had been since before your death. "No, it's fine," he says, putting the things he has away before smiling softly and saying, "But some company would be nice."
You smile and pick a spot on the couch to sit, just watching as he works. Neither of you need to comment when he catches you staring: his smile as he catches your eyes gets an exaggerated eyebrow wiggle in return.
Somehow, an hour or so later, you've gotten him to take turns reading Harry Potter aloud with you. The lights are dimmed and Owen gave you something that made your bones mend a bit faster, something that currently reminds you of Madam Pomfrey. With the fire crackling as one of the strongest sources of light in the library, the setting is actually very nice.
Over the week they'd actually made their way through to book six, so by the time they'd both lost track of their worries they were at the end of chapter twenty four, "Sectumsempra".
"'A roar of celebration erupted from the hole behind her'," Ianto read, "'Harry gaped as people began to scream at the sight of him; several hands pulled him into the room.'"
"'"We won!" yelled Ron," you continue, picking up as if on queue, "'bounding into sight and brandishing the silver Cup at Harry. "We won! Four hundred and fifty to a hundred and fourty! We won!"'"
"'Harry looked around;'" continues Ianto, "'there was Ginny running toward him; she had a hard, blazing look in her face as she threw her arms around him.'" He reads on, completely oblivious to the way you're looking at him. "'And without thinking, without planning it, without worrying about the fact that fifty people were watching-'"
You kiss him, and he doesn't get to finish that sentence.