Work Text:
There's too many people you used to know
They see you coming they see you go
They know your secrets and you know theirs
This town is crazy; nobody cares
I'm tired of fighting
Fighting for a lost cause
beck - lost cause
Jack hoped it would happen fast. Whatever the Master had planned. He had dodged death more times than he could count, but it looked like his luck had finally run out. He knew that he wouldn’t be waiting in this dark room forever. Inevitably, the door would open and Jack would die. Before, when he’d been on the brink of death, it hadn’t mattered. Sure, there was James, John, Angelo, or even the Doctor who may have cared at some point in his life, but there had never been anyone Jack thought about when staring death straight in the face.
But this time was different.
Tosh, Gwen, and Rhys depended on him – or he liked to think they did. Gwen and Rhys would be fine if he disappeared; they had each other. But he liked to hope that maybe they’d miss him, that he was a part of their life as much as they were part of his. He’d grown very fond of both of them. He owed Rhys his life, and although a woman, Gwen had the same fire that he felt inside himself. And Tosh…Jack felt more protective towards Tosh than he did any of them. Ever since the day he saved her in that alley, he’d wanted to protect her from the world’s evils so the goodness in her would never be erased.
And then there was Owen, who Jack needed to make right with again. Jack shouldn’t have been so fucking stubborn in the first place. When Owen had pointed that gun in Jack’s face, Jack deserved every word Owen had spoken, had even deserved the shot. He hadn’t told anyone how much it hurt to see that betrayal and disappointment on Owen’s face. He’d been through a lot with Owen, and Owen deserved better. Jack knew he should have been there for him – for all of them – instead of obsessed with this crusade to find the Master. In the end, what did finding and killing the Master mean? It meant pushing everyone away, and not being there when Owen needed him most. This crusade wouldn’t bring back James, wouldn’t bring back the Doctor’s friends. It had only landed him here, in this dark room, one more of the Master’s casualties that would inevitably destroy more lives. And he’d die in here without ever making things right with Owen.
Jack’s mind drifted and he could barely think the name. Ianto. His Ianto. His wonderful, beautiful Ianto. Jack couldn’t quite accept that he’d never see him again. Not after everything Jack had gone through to get to him. He never wanted to fall in love; he never wanted to be in a relationship with anyone, much less a quiet Welsh ex-soldier who worked in his speakeasy.
The first night he’d seen Ianto singing, the way his slender fingers wrapped around the microphone stand, the deep, gravelly voice spreading through the Hub, Jack knew he was in trouble. He wanted to fuck him and move on, but every time he approached Ianto, he terrified Jack. He’d thought Ianto was quiet, aloof even, but when he sang, he demanded attention and made himself known. That voice caught Jack’s attention, and it never let go. There was something in his eyes, in the slight movement of his body, even in the way he poured alcohol into a cup that unraveled Jack piece by piece.
Jack knew it had been a mistake the moment he’d asked Ianto to dance because it took a second of holding him in his arms before Jack had fallen for him. And it wasn’t just that Ianto was attractive – although that didn’t hurt, Jack knew – but there was something Jack felt between them, a simmering electricity he’d never felt before, at least not that strongly. And there were secrets and pain behind Ianto’s beautiful blue eyes, and Jack wanted to discover what could make someone so young and lovely so sad.
And the moment he saw Adam beating Ianto in the alley, felt the cold fury that overcame him as he pulled the trigger, ached at Ianto’s broken and bleeding body on the ground, he knew there was no going back. Jack was in love in a way he’d never been before.
Now they had been ripped apart, and Ianto didn’t even know where he was. And Jack was going to die, never having told Ianto how much he loved him one more time.
Jack just hoped it would happen fast.
*
It didn’t happen fast. Jack was lost in a sea of pain for days, unsure about anything except the excruciating pain he felt. They didn’t even want anything; they just beat and cut on him and then left him alone, bleeding and raw.
Jack had no bed, just the clothes he’d arrived in and his coat. Sometimes he used his coat as a pillow, sometimes as a blanket. Lying on the hard ground, he knew he shouldn’t even be there. It was supposed to be easy, meeting with the Doctor’s contact. Jack had gone back to his office to catch up on some work. He’d been hesitant to leave Ianto’s side – he’d been rather paranoid since Ianto almost died from that fucking stab wound. He’d spent that week barely moving from the chair, just watching Ianto breathe to reassure himself that he was still alive. The morphine may have numbed the pain, but it didn’t numb the nightmares, and Jack couldn’t stand to watch Ianto call out his name alongside snatches of words from the battlefield, his head a confusion of the past and present. When Ianto had bad nightmares, Jack stretched out beside him and held him, singing and running his fingers through his hair. Ianto hadn’t woken, hadn’t known that Jack was holding him, but at the sound of Jack’s voice, Ianto seemed to calm and fall into a more peaceful sleep.
Jack had done that for days, barely sleeping in case Ianto woke up, had a bad dream, stopped breathing. But Ianto eventually woke up, began moving around, worrying about things that didn’t matter like another scar. Jack wanted to shake him, make him realize that the stitches were the greatest thing in the world. They meant Ianto got to live, got to stay with him. But no matter how much Jack tried to explain to Ianto that none of that mattered – the new scar or the ones on his back – Ianto was self-conscious and obsessed. Jack didn’t care about the scars on Ianto’s back. Sometimes, when Ianto was asleep, Jack would trace them with his fingers and think about what it must have been like for Ianto, visualized it until Jack felt like it’d happened to him. He wanted to erase it all from Ianto, give him back what he’d loss so he’d stop feeling the way he did so often. Jack wanted Ianto to see him like he saw him, perfect in every way.
If he’d never left Ianto’s side that day, he’d never have ended up in this room. He’d have gone to that place in Little Italy Ianto loved so much and brought him manicotti for dinner. Jack had planned on eating pasta in bed, listening to the wireless, maybe playing some cards and making love if Ianto felt like it.
But that didn’t happen, and Jack would never get to eat pasta in bed or make love to Ianto ever again.
*
Jack hoped for a few days after he arrived that the Doctor would come up with a plan to get them out. He’d tried to figure a way out of his cell, but there wasn’t one. And then the torture started, and Jack stopped thinking about getting out ever again.
One day, when Jack was wearing his coat to combat the cold, he stuffed his hands inside the pockets and was surprised when his fingers brushed across something deep in one of them. He pulled out two items, a cufflink and a slip of paper, and he choked out a sob.
The cufflink was one of Ianto’s, a gift Jack had given him for Christmas. Ianto had worn them in the Hamptons. Jack had found it on the floor, next to one of Ianto’s discarded shirts. They’d undressed each other quickly the night before, their clothes tossed all around the room, and the cufflink must have popped off without either one of them noticing. Jack had glanced over at Ianto asleep in the bed and slipped the cufflink in his pocket.
The slip of paper was from a fortune cookie. Ianto had brought dinner back from a Japanese restaurant, and he and Jack had eaten it on their bed in their underwear. He smiled when he remembered the way Ianto tried to scoop the noodles with the chopsticks, dropping some on his leg while the ones he got into his mouth slid down his chin. Ianto had said, “You’ve got to try this; it’s delicious,” before feeding Jack chopsticks full of his dinner. Jack had tried to feed Ianto some of his lo mein and missed his mouth, poking Ianto in the side of the face with the end of his chopsticks and dropping noodle on the bed. Ianto was so mad Jack got food on his clean blankets, and Jack had kissed him until he wasn’t angry anymore. The fortune cookie Ianto had gotten read, Love is for the lucky and the brave. He smiled, the small, introverted smile that Jack loved so much, and then looked at him shyly as he handed him the fortune cookie. Jack read it and replied, “Then it’s a good thing you’re both.” Ianto smiled widely.
He couldn’t believe that stuck in this hell he found those two things. They didn’t mean anything, were nothing but useless material objects, but Jack thought it was like having part of Ianto there with him. He rolled over and fell asleep, clutching both of them in his hands.
*
When the pain got too bad, Jack focused on Ianto. He replayed every memory he had of Ianto in his mind. The first time they danced, alone in the Hub. He thought of what it felt like to hold Ianto for the first time, the fit of his arm around Ianto’s waist, Ianto’s hand inside his own. He remembered how nervous he felt that night, dancing with Ianto. But he remembered even more clearly how nervous Ianto had been, although he tried to hide it. The memory made him smile.
Ianto’s naked body stretched out on the bed, confident for once, and how beautiful he looked with his hair messy and a sleepy, content smile on his face. Jack thought about his long, lean legs, so much paler than his own, the curve of his hips, the smooth contours of his arms, the arch of his eyebrow when he was being sarcastic. And Jack thought about Ianto’s cock, and all the different ways he’d touched and tasted it, and his ass as he walked across the apartment.
But Jack also thought about the self-conscious moods Ianto slipped into, when he was embarrassed for Jack to even look at him. The crease between his brows, the way his face closed off when so often it was open and unguarded when he was with Jack. But Ianto was beautiful in those moments too, in a different way, because he didn’t understand just what he meant to Jack. Jack wished more than anything that they could trade places so he could show Ianto how he saw him through his eyes. If Ianto ever saw himself through Jack’s eyes, he’d never be self-conscious again.
Jack held on to his memories of the weekend at the cottage, at the sun glowing on Ianto’s skin as they sped down the road in the car. He focused on the first time he’d made love to him, the complete bliss of being inside Ianto and feeling him all around him. And the first time Ianto had been inside him, filling him in a way he never thought possible, deep inside his core and outwards through every nerve and sinew.
There were others, Ianto laughing at something Jack had said, the slump of his shoulders after a tough day, the confident way he slid a tumbler full of liquor across the bar, the way his vest fit so snugly around his chest, the way he held a gun with ease. Jack had a million moments catalogued, but that was not even close to being enough to last him through the rest of his life. He wanted to fill every moment, every memory with Ianto.
Sometimes the pain broke through his memories, sometimes Jack screamed, but he tried to focus on Ianto’s face, and sometimes, that was enough.
*
Ianto was dead.
Ianto and Owen and Tosh and Gwen and Rhys. His team. They were all dead, killed by the Master because he hadn’t been there to protect them. He’d failed them. He knew he should have kept them all distant, should never have let Ianto fall in love with him. He’d hoped that Ianto wouldn’t want him because he knew that falling in love with him would be the worst mistake of Ianto’s life. And now, he knew he’d been right.
He couldn’t fathom the pain; it was beyond description. His cuts, bruises, and wounds were nothing compared to the way he felt right now. He wanted to die. He could never return to the Hub, never return to New York. He could never live again knowing that they all were dead.
How could he live in a world where Ianto wasn’t? He’d watched Ianto move close to death twice before, but they were spared. And now? He couldn’t handle it. Not his Ianto, not breathing, his heart stopped, his body cold as it laid in an alley somewhere, tossed and forgotten.
Jack curled into a ball and cried, cried until he was sick, but the tears wouldn’t stop coming.
Gwen, Rhys, Tosh, Owen…Ianto.
Dead.
And now, so was Jack.
*
He’d lost track of time. It may have been a week, it may have been a day. The door opened behind him, and he didn’t bother to turn around.
“You need to eat,” a woman said. Jack kept staring at the wall. He heard her kneel beside him and set the tray on the floor. “Your friends,” she started and Jack cringed at the thought, “aren’t dead.”
Jack looked over his shoulder sharply. “What?” His voice was hoarse and barely audible.
“Your friends are alive.”
“How do you know?”
“I overheard them talking. They attacked them, but didn’t succeed. I just thought you’d want to know.” She stood up and headed for the door.
“Why are you telling me this?”
She looked down at him. “We’re all enslaved to the Master. Just be glad he doesn’t fancy men.”
“Thank you…”
“Lucy. My name’s Lucy.” And with that, she left.
Alive. Ianto was alive. They all were. Jack laughed hysterically from relief. He worried it may be a hallucination, but he didn’t care. Ianto, alive. His heart beating, his lungs breathing, his warm body moving around the Hub. Alive. Jack could see him again. It was the first sign of hope he’d had the entire time he’d been in this place.
Alive.
*
Jack sometimes wondered if this was what Ianto’s nightmares felt like. But Ianto could wake up. Ianto would wake up and Jack would be right there beside him. Except, not now. He’d left Ianto alone, to wake up from his nightmares alone.
Jack couldn’t count the times he’d held Ianto after a nightmare, the times he’d been woken up by the screams or the tremors. The pain and fear that shot through his body every time Ianto cried out in the middle of the night. And Ianto didn’t always wake up; sometimes, Jack would touch him, rub his back or arm, talk to him softly until Ianto settled down. Ianto didn’t know Jack did that; he thought he only had nightmares when he woke up. He wasn’t aware of the times Jack lay holding him while he still slept.
There were nights Jack watched Ianto sleep. He loved to watch him; the way Ianto’s eyelashes fanned, his pink lips remained together, and how his arm or leg always had to be touching Jack. He studied the expanse of Ianto’s chest as it slowly rose and fell, the dip of his hips, the line of his neck. He could tell the kind of night Ianto was having by his face. On good nights, Ianto’s face was blank, relaxed, or had a small smile. On bad nights, Ianto’s entire body was covered in sweat, trembled, and his face was pinched, his browed furrowed. Lately, he’d had more good nights than not.
Jack knew that Ianto was having nothing but bad nights now. He knew that Ianto would think he left him, or worse, would realize the Master got him and think he was dead. Either way, Ianto wouldn’t be sleeping peacefully.
And the worst part was that he had to wake up night after night without Jack there to comfort him.
*
Jack couldn’t believe his eyes. The door had opened, and standing in the doorway was Lucy. And The Doctor.
“Come on,” the Doctor said, stepping inside the cell and holding out his hand. “We’re going home.”
“What?” The Doctor helped Jack stand, though he was having some trouble. The Doctor looked as bruised and beaten as he did. “Where’s the Master?”
“Dead,” Lucy stated.
“Dead?”
“We killed him,” the Doctor explained. “But we need to hurry. I don’t think we can fight off his men. Lucy’s found us a way to escape.”
Jack ignored the pain in his body as he ran through the halls after the Doctor. His mind was numb; he was scared to hope that they would escape. But Lucy was true to her word. They emerged from a back door into a large field. They were in the middle of nowhere with no visible sign of transportation, and none of them knew where they were. But they were free.
Free.
The Doctor explained how Lucy had been helping him plan their escape for weeks. Jack barely listened to the details. He didn’t care how it happened; just that it happened. They had killed the Master, although he almost killed them both in the process.
They wandered in the woods for a day before finding any signs of civilization. They were about fifty miles from New York, but the Doctor knew a man who lived nearby who could give them food and medical attention. Jack was anxious to get back home – back to Ianto – but he knew he had to take care of himself first.
The Doctor’s contact was named Jackson Lake, and the Doctor asked for any news from New York. He reported that everyone was fine and everything the same except that Welsh assistant of Jack’s had left the country and been gone almost a month.
Jack almost left that moment. After he’d eaten some food and been checked over by a physician, he made to leave the house when the Doctor stopped him.
“I have to get back to my people,” Jack said. “It’s been too long.”
“Ianto’s in Wales,” the Doctor informed him. “He’s at his mother’s house.” He handed Jack an envelope. “The ship leaves tomorrow from the harbor.” Jack stared wordlessly at the envelope, which contained a ticket and a stack of cash. “I know you love him, so go bring him back.”
“How?”
“I’ve known for awhile. Rose told me Ianto was worried I knew, and I figured when you didn’t tell me that you wanted to keep it a secret.” He shrugged.
“I – “
“You wanted to keep him safe, I know. That’s why I never wanted him to come along with us. I know Ianto’s an expert shot and great in a tight spot. He’s got quite a reputation, too, you know.” The Doctor smiled.
“I…I don’t know what to say.”
“Say that before you leave, you’ll buy fresh clothes and a new coat.”
“I’m not buying a new coat,” Jack replied.
“Then at least get it cleaned.”
*
The ocean stretched for miles before him. Six days was too long to wait. He wanted - he needed - to be with Ianto right that moment. The Doctor asked him if he wanted to wait and go to the Hub first, but Jack hadn’t even entertained that notion. The Doctor said he knew; he’d been thinking of nothing but getting back to Rose since he’d begun planning their escape. Jack couldn’t wait; he’d spent so many hours locked in that dark hell, thinking that he would never see Ianto again. He needed to see him just to make it real.
But maybe six days on this ship was a good thing. Jack was exhausted, and he needed to heal. When he and the Doctor had shown up on Jackson’s doorstep, he didn’t hide his horror at their appearance. They both looked like walking death. And when he finally reunited with Ianto, he wanted to be a bit more of himself. The six days gave him the time to resolve what had happened to him the last two months, or at least begin to resolve it.
He hoped that Ianto would forgive him, that maybe by crossing the ocean for him he’d realize how much Jack actually loved him. There was nothing else in the world he wanted than Ianto, and after what had happened to him, he needed Ianto more than ever. And he knew that Ianto needed him, too. They needed each other, and that was a comforting thought.
He pulled the fortune cookie from his pocket and read it. The words were fading, the paper was crinkled, and it had smears of mud and blood on it. Love is for the lucky and the brave. Jack knew now just how true that was.
Hold on, Ianto, he thought to himself as he slipped it back into his pocket, I’m coming.
-fin