anastasisrick

Title: Till the end
Rating: PG
Genre: Drama, character study
Summary: Jack and Ianto from the beginning to the end.
Characters: Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones
Word Count: 1794
Disclaimer: Torchwood and its character belong to RTD and BBC.

This was the first Torchwood story I wrote last January. I actually like it.

Till The End

Jack knew the Doctor. He had traveled with him, saved people and planets with him. He had spent evenings drinking coffee or tea with him and Rose and Michey. Those were always happy memories stumped in his brain for ever.

Captain Jack Harkness changed after meeting the Doctor. The Time Lord inspired noble feelings in the 51st century man the circumstances and experience had made him a conman. After a while Jack started hero-worshipping the Doctor for everything the alien did and for everything he was. Captain Jack Harkness was willing to die for the Doctor because Jack, in the very end, loved the Doctor.

Ianto Jones hated the Doctor. When they… when he needed him the most, the Doctor had left him unprotected. Ianto hated Torchwood and its great ideas. Torchwood had been made because of the Doctor. Seeing his beloved losing part of herself every day made him want to kill the Doctor who had been there but he didn’t help.

Ianto was tired.

He had see the Hell in the battle at Canary Wharf, the demons in the Cybermen and the Daleks, his fallen Angel in Lisa and the Devil in the Doctor who had come to scold his subjects.

Blood, metal, human parts, smoke and pain; that was Canary Wharf and Ianto Jones hated the Doctor with every fibre of his being.

The Equation for him was easy; Torchwood existed because of the Doctor; Lisa was in pain and slowly turned into a demon because of Torchwood… thus because of the Doctor.

Jack Harkness hired Ianto Jones with only one thing in his mind; sex! The moment he felt the long, lean, hard body underneath his and then on top of him, he wanted nothing more that to peel off the layers of clothes off the young man and give and take pleasure. He wanted to take or to be taken. Captain Jack Harkness was many things but picky was never one of those.

Sex was sex!

Ianto Jones was desperate, but not that desperate. His mind and heart were broken and he only had his body to protect Lisa with. He wasn’t going to turn over his only weapon to a sex-maniac Captain.

Ianto Jones needed something to hold onto in midst of the madness that ruled his life. Nothing in Torchwood 3 could give him that. No one could support him during his sleepless, nightmare-filled nights. That being the case he found himself falling victim of the Captain’s easy banter. Despite his better judgment he was ready to close his eyes when it came to the Cardiff team’s debits and only see the best.

It was easier that he had originally thought. After all he had worked in Torchwood London where the only good thing was Lisa and their love.

He saw Captain Jack’s treatment of the aliens –the pacifists- in a different light. Strange thing was that in Cardiff it was rarer to see cute nice races of aliens. Still, Torchwood three was not Torchwood one. He started to feel an important member even if his job was not the most desirable one. Tosh and Owen had their

idiosyncrasies but, really, who was Ianto to judge them? The Captain was like a hero from another time whom Ianto learned to appreciate.

Ianto Jones had learnt from a very young age to accept and enjoy, and not judge and try to change others.

Jack was intrigued. The newest member of his small team was more than just a pretty face and lean body inside a suit. He had realized that the moment Jones left him alone and aroused in an abandoned warehouse with an ancient creature to keep him company. Despite that, Jack gave enough of his attention in watching said body and face and less in studying the mind and pain the young man hid.

Until it blew in all their faces.

Ianto was crushed. The only thing that kept him sane and stable was stolen from him. It wasn’t so much the fact Lisa was dead, no matter how callous that sounded. After all, Lisa, his Lisa, had died in Canary Wharf. What had remained was Ianto’s desperate attempt to save her, to bring her back, to make her whole. Otherwise he had nothing to hold onto.

And Jack Harkness and Torchwood Three took that away from him in a cruel vicious way. Ianto cared about others for all his life. He was a giving person more so than a taking person. Seeing his cause laid down bloody and non breathing on the red ground took away his stability.

That moment he hated Jack Harkness almost as much as he hated the Doctor; almost as much as he hated himself. He didn’t lie when he said he’d watch Jack die and do nothing to help him. His last hero had been proved a scam.

Ianto Jones could wait to take his revenge.

Jack Harkenss did not expect to see a Cyberman in killing spree in his basement and most of all he did not expect his employee to have something to do with this. He would have killed Ianto. Maybe he should have but all he could see in the young man’s eyes was grief and desperation, both feelings with which Jack was well acquainted.

He kept an open eye after both Suzie and Ianto’s apparent problems. He didn’t want a recurrence of either. And okay, maybe what he wanted was a repetition of the kiss he gave to Ianto when he saw him broken and hurt by the cell of the woman he loved.

Ianto watched and took notice of everything. So did Jack. Jack needed to make Ianto feel as one of them once again. Ianto let his hate poison him.

Cannibals was the last thing Captain Harkness expected to see in the outskirts of Cardiff.

Then again, why not? He should have known better. Humans could be monsters. Hadn’t that been what cut him the most at Ianto’s outburst? That and that question about him having loved?

Jack could either love or hate. Nothing in between. It didn’t matter he loved more than one person at a time, did it? Ianto just didn’t know that.

Ianto saw Jack saving his life after seeing Jack taking the decision to kill a child and having to face his team members accuse him. He saw Jack being hurt and alone and he knew then. Jack Harkness was immune to hate; Jack Harkness became fragile only to love.

What Ianto Jones didn’t expect was what he was faking to become real. His pretence became true. He cared when Jack was tired and he wanted to put him to bed and cuddle around him taking away the memories just as much as he took glee in watching him suffer.

Ianto didn’t mean to betray Jack for the second time… but if Lisa could live, he owed it to her to at least try. Then guilt came just before Jack and Ianto didn’t know to be happy or sad. He was happy Jack was alive and sad because of his own actions and of how tired Jack looked. For a few moments, as Jack’s lips touched his and arms were wrapped around him he could feel only the love.

And then the Doctor came. Jack left… leaving Ianto alone confused and angry. Jack knew the Doctor. The Doctor was Jack’s right kind of Doctor. He had not given a second glance to them; had not said goodbye. He had just left. And broke Ianto’s heart for the second time.

If Jack was to see his young lover’s face that night he would have been scared by the lack of emotion shown. But the only thing Jack could see in the Master’s hands was the hurt and ache of the people he loved.

Jack loved Tosh, Owen, Gwen, and Ianto. He had left, running behind the Doctor believing that he wouldn’t be away for long. He should have known better considering the Doctor’s abilities in navigating his TARDIS. When he returned he wanted to see his small team. He wanted to hug and forget. He wanted Ianto!

And Ianto was there to help in everything. Jack was so broken he didn’t notice Ianto was more so. Every time blue eyes met blue nothing else mattered for a little time. He could drown inside the grey blue eyes, at times icy as cold winter in Scandinavia and others fiery and hot as lava.

Ianto wondered about Jack’s magic. How he could make him forget Lisa, Captain Harkness, the real Harkness, or the way he looked at Gwen more often that the archivist would like. He could not forget he was left alone to face Owen’s ridicule and the girls’ sad eyes. He could not forgive being left behind because of the Doctor.

The end was near. Grey made sure of that. Ianto could see the pain in the eyes he knew so well, but… Tosh and Owen were dead. And it was Jack’s fault. Or at least his brother’s and Ianto knew too well that if Jack could save his brother he would have, damn all consequences.

He catalogued that and moved on. There was nothing else to do. After all, he did love Jack. More than he had ever loved Lisa. Ironic wasn’t it? Ianto’s dark sense of humour and irony often came out to play with the young man’s mind when he was alone and tired.

It wasn’t men. It was just him. Just another humiliation; to be the only one to love. But he knew he had made himself important to Jack. He was the most important person in the Immortal’s life. Jack might not know but Ianto did.

In the end, he knew Jack loved him more than he had loved anyone else in the 150 plus years he had lived in Earth. Maybe he wasn’t as important as the Doctor… or maybe he was. Jack’s eyes as Ianto was watching him, his lungs aching by the lack of oxygen said more than a mouth could ever say.

And it was finally the time of his revenge. Ianto had died for the man he had loved. Time to make him pay for it!

‘I love you”

‘Don’t!’

Ianto didn’t expect to listen to declarations of love but that “don’t” from the broken voice meant more than a million fake “I love you.”. It wasn’t a “don’t love me”; it was a “don’t leave me” coming from a tired man who had lost the one person who had made him whole for more than a year.

And Ianto knew it! He was finally free. And Captain Jack Harkness was doomed. If only for a blip in time! That was enough!

Finis