Archive of Our Own ^beta

In the the huge warehouse, the echoes of Gwen and Rhys's voices grew quieter, then finally inaudible, as she followed him out of sight and earshot, arguing all the while.

Leaving Ianto alone with Jack.

"The old team," he repeated. Just for something to say, to cover up the uncomfortable fact that he didn't know what to say.

Being there for Jack was a routine deeply ingrained by this time. Ever since they'd become involved, Jack had confided in Ianto when things were difficult--whenever the burden of his long life, of dying over and over only to always rise again weighed on him too much. Jack didn't always confide in him, but he did accept the comfort of quiet company in the dark, and Ianto knew that Jack appreciated it.

Friends had died. First Owen, then Toshiko and Owen again. Jack had lost his brother to madness after finding him again. Nothing scared Ianto as much as what had happened the last twenty-four hours.

Jack had been buried alive for two thousand years and come to him without--seemingly--a mark on his psyche.

Blown apart, imprisoned, chained, encased in concrete--

And here he was sitting beside Ianto on the couch. Making mischief. Making jokes.

"I really don't know how you do it," Ianto blurted.

Jack looked at him with a raised eyebrow: huh?

"It's easy," he said, summoning a slow grin. "I just make Rhys think Gwen tells me more than she tells him. Gets results. As you can see."

Ianto rolled his eyes. I know you know I didn't mean that. Try again.

He met Jack's gaze full on.

"These things keep happening to you that must be so awful I can't even really imagine. I worry that... you won't be the same even if you do come back... but you come back every time without breaking. How do you do it?"
 
Jack considered this for a moment.. "I don't know. I think, maybe... I can survive because I can't not survive. Death and insanity are both off the menu, I guess." He kept his voice light and his grin ironic, but Ianto had been filtering irony from Jack for so long that he couldn't remember when he'd started.
 
"That bothers you more than the rest of it, doesn't it?"
 
Jack breathed out, shivering. "Yeah. It scares me. But it's worse that I don't know why. Not really."
 
Jack, frightened of his own immortality, was like a person seeing a ghost--small, lost, and shivering like he was cold. He was looking away from Ianto, past the moment, at something so far beyond here and now that Ianto thought of planets, space, and fields of stars when he tried to imagine it. What did forever look like?
 
He'd used to think he would never be able to understand that which frightened Jack so, until he realized that Jack was just a man, as Ianto was, only he was a man who'd have to live the thing that neither of them could quite grasp.
 
Forever. It had a chilling sound.
 
After a moment's thought, Ianto decided the best thing to do was to to scoot up closer on the couch and wrap himself around Jack. Try to remind him that at least here and now was warm and solid. Rubbing his arms might help too, if his hands could rub warmth back into Jack's skin.
 
Jack came back to Earth in Ianto's embrace.
 
His arms moved to hold Ianto, and Ianto was able to enjoy, for a moment, listening to Jack's breathing with his eyes closed. Then Jack kissed his temple. He laid his cheek against Ianto's forehead.

 Hey." Jack said, gently. "Don't worry about me. You were great today. Remind me to thank whoever taught you to drive a forklift."
 
"No-one taught me. It was just there, and luckily it wasn't too difficult to figure out the controls--"
 
Jack lifted his eyebrows. "Then, thank you. Hmm, you just keep on surprising me."
 
He smiled a little. It was warm, grateful. It made Ianto ache inside with relief that none of his fears of the past night and day had come to pass. Jack was alive, whole, safe, and here. Momentarily giddy with it, he darted forward and kissed Jack full on the mouth.
 
Jack was taken by surprise, but he recovered admirably--as he always did. It was selfish, maybe, when Jack has a future of not dying in all of forever to contend with to just be so glad he's not dead, but then, Ianto suffered no delusion that selfishness wasn't part of his character. He wanted Jack to know that he was glad, too--to taste his worry and his relief. They kissed for grave moments. The world might be ending, so they couldn't be greedy, couldn't take too much time, but they made of it what they could, like they always do. Ianto drew precious courage from this for the conflict ahead.

When Jack headed out, Gwen had to clamp down on her gut urge to follow him. It was an argument with herself that she had to win. She reminded herself that she couldn't be the one Jack confided in. Not anymore. So close, and it would only become tempting to get closer. She had fought so hard to resist him, that to forget where she was, who she was now, was the last thing she ever wanted.

Ianto followed Jack. Good, she thought, clenching her hands on the edge of the table. Jack had Ianto for this. Better anyone than her.

"Where's Jack?" Gwen asked, when Ianto came back in. Immediately, he dropped his eyes and Gwen felt a little guilty.
 
"He's gone to call John Frobisher," Ianto informed them. He cleared his throat, then, and looked at them all again. "That's not all. Apparently his daughter and grandson were taken hostage yesterday."
 
"Oh my God," said Gwen, looking from Ianto to Rhys with wide eyes. Ianto sighed, and moved off to a chair behind them, where he sat down with a slump, rather reminiscent of how Jack had been sitting there earlier.
 
"Did you know?" Gwen asked, quietly.
 
"D'you think I know anything about him?"  Ianto let out a little bitter laugh. "I don't. I don't." He raised one hand to grip the back of his neck. "I've just been a complete idiot," he muttered, quiet and emotionless.
 
Gwen raised her eyebrows at Rhys, disturbed. Rhys lowered his eyes.
 
"I'm not sure it's just you, mate."
 
"What are you saying, both of you?" Gwen demanded. "You don't trust Jack, is that it?"
 
Ianto's head jerked up, and he gave her a look of denial almost to the point of affront.
 
'It's not that, love," Rhys put in, quickly. "Jack's just mysterious, isn't he? But, I mean, he's saved the world before. He'll do it this time, too."
 
"Yes," said Ianto. "He will. That's about all we can count on, with Jack."

"It's easy to understand, now I've thought about it," said Gwen. Her voice was low and steady, as it was when she got so far beyond sadness that she reached a place of clarity.
 
There were tea and biscuits on the table, birdsong, and stripy sunshine through the window blinds. The world still turned. Sometimes that's what hurt most of all.
 
"Jack gave so much for to this planet... and this planet took everything he had. Why would he stay?  Why would he ever want to stay?"

"Sometimes I think," said Martha, her black eyes half-lidded--it threw Gwen back to when they were wide and mad with grief, and the sound of Martha's voice saying I should've been here, I should've been here that Gwen hadn't been able get out of her head--"I think it was all wrong long ago, before everything... when the Doctor..." but she didn't go too far along that line of thought. They didn't have imagination quite enough to encompass wishing they'd never met Jack. Who could have known what shape their lives would have taken then?
 
"But, Ianto..." said Martha. She had already admitted that she was sorry she'd never got to know Ianto better, since he was so important to Jack. Gwen had bitten her tongue, lest a bitter laugh escape her and silently echoed the sentiment.

That was the inscription on his gravestone.
 
The lack of any sort of memorial from Jack is an omission that both hurt and angered Gwen. Martha had said she guessed Jack feels he doesn't deserve to have his own grief acknowledged. Gwen thought Martha was probably right, and hated Jack just a little, because things were always about him.
 
Since it hadn't been done before, Gwen had another marker placed beside it, and that had eased the ache of spite against Jack somewhat.

The cold storage levels of the Hub had been too deep to recover the corpses in the morgue. Instead, she'd filled a coffin with bits of broken things found amongst the rubble. It would just have to do.

Once, she'd fallen asleep thinking about that name-only grave, and dreamed the name on the stone had been Jack's.
 
She pitied Ianto more than she does Jack, of late, even though they weren't as close as she had been to Jack. It's not that Ianto's lot was more tragic than Jack's. It's just, of the two, only Ianto's was on a scale she could understand.

A man was standing at her brother's grave. He was tall, dressed very oddly in a large, blue coat. He turned around and Rhiannon saw he was also sort of unbelievably gorgeous, if a little older. He reminded her of a film star, and he looked unspeakably sad. That's when she knew.
 
"Oh," she said. "It's you."
 
He turned his head to glance at her. She could see his mouth twist. He swallowed.

Rhiannon walked forward across the gravel path, stepping up beside this handsome stranger. She'd had a year to mourn her brother, and the agony of grief had faded, taken its place as a dull ache in her heart, right next to the one that regretted her mother, and the one that remembered her father. Ianto was with family, at least, she thought, and it was a strange comfort, but one that worked.

This man looked as stricken as if it had happened yesterday.
 
"Jack, was it?" She should've been angry at this man, because he'd seen all the parts of her brother's life that would forever be a mystery kept from her... but she just wasn't. His posture was slightly hunched, and he wouldn't meet her eyes. It was as if he'd expected her to be angry, too.

She gave him a sad smile, and his relief was obvious enough to break her heart.
 
She looked at Ianto's monument, the modest headstone she'd chosen for him.
 
Then she ignored it, and conjured Ianto's image in her mind, instead.

"He was so young. He left... nothing," she said, because she knew she would never stop wondering why, and how and who her brother had really been and why he'd had to keep it a secret. "That''s the saddest thing. They said he died trying to save the children for this world, but the world didn't even know it. Who's going to remember him?"
 
Her companion's eyes widened. There were tears and something of suspicion in his gaze as he met her eyes, searching and searching for something.
 
Rhiannon wondered if there were aliens that look like humans, and if so, had they come to Earth, as well?
 
The suspicion disappeared as the breath sighed out of him.
 
"I will," he told her, voice much steadier than she would've expected. "I promised I would."
 
"It's funny," he continued, looking at the ground, not seeming to see the sparsely grassed-over patch of earth that Ianto had been laid beneath. He'd stepped outside of himself--he'd gained a little animation, strained as it was. He had the air of a talkative bloke. Probably liked the sound of his own voice. Too bad she never got to meet him before the world went to hell. Being introduced by the ghost of her dead brother, not the best circumstances for a pleasant chat.  
 
It was difficult to feel sorry for him, based on what was only part hearsay, part guess, but she found she wanted to, and did, though she was sure it was mad.

It was just as mad that she was finding herself believing every word this... strangely arresting... man said.
 
"He never was comfortable with forever... but, he's got it now. They say the dead live on in our memories, well... Mine goes on forever."

Rhiannon couldn't say anything. As she watched, the light left his eyes and his face grew still again.

He nodded sharply to her, and turned down the gravel path.

She watched him go, his long strides taking him rapidly away, and she knew her last chance to know her brother was about to vanish from her world entirely. She hurried to the top of the path, so she'd see him out of the gate. She felt that she wanted to shout after him, to ask or tell him something, but there was nothing. Nothing that could tie Ianto's world to hers in the space of a phrase.

A wind sprang up as Jack left cemetery, whipping his long coat around him, throwing the dust in Rhiannon's eyes. She rubbed the grit out of her eyes and looked for him again.

But he was gone.

Just like that.

Now alone, standing on the gravel path in a cemetery, somewhere outside Newport, Rhiannon Davies burst into tears.