(no subject)
Title: Long Time Coming. 1/1
Pairing: Jack/Ianto implied Jack/OMC
Summary: AU. Ianto Jones’s new house has come complete with an unwelcome guest. But when things go Bump in the Night, Ianto Jones bumps back.
Rating: PG.
Warning: AU. Mild angst.
Betad by the munificent moblo413
My TW Harlequin prompt was originally this:
72. The Haunting
Investigating a noise in the attic of her historic home, Maggie Holliday encounters a handsome man in a Civil War uniform. He calls her "Isabel," seduces her in ways the shy academic had never dreamed of…then literally vanishes.
With every fleeting visit, Maggie's mysterious lover-Ethan-takes her closer to the edge of ecstasy and madness. Is he really a ghost? Far from chilling her, his touch is incendiary-it all feels so real and so very, very good. And so very familiar…
Ethan insists Maggie's the reincarnation of his long-lost love. And after a few incredible nights in his arms, Maggie is inclined to believe him. But does she dare surrender to a passion that transcends time, tragedy…and even death?
But I wrapped it in flannel and ate it. The finished fic came out… a little differently…
And two Soundtrack songs for your enjoyments (M4a:I'm too lazy to convert tonight)
Kate Bush, The Man With The Child In His Eyes
Ella Fitzgerald, Every Time We Say Goodbye
Long Time Coming.
Ianto Jones was a heavy sleeper. Notoriously so. He had hardly had a poor night’s sleep in his life. At least, that was before he moved to Cathedral Road.
The house was beautiful; classic Victorian Semi-detached, lovingly maintained in its period style. The fireplaces were all original and functioning. It had a pleasant, bijoux garden, spacious kitchen, and a ghost in the attic.
That hadn’t been mentioned in the Home Information Pack.
Ianto was not the kind of man who would, by nature, believe in ghosts. On the other hand, he had been working for Torchwood for four years now, and he was loath to rule anything out. He was, frankly, just a little irritated that the damn spook had to be in his house. Creeping him out, making noise, watching him sleep.
Oh, he couldn’t see this ghost of his, he couldn’t actually catch the spirit, but he knew it was there, knew it was sitting in the corner of his room at night, creeping around and watching him. Frankly, it was pissing him off.
So he was going to put a stop to it. He built a fire and chanted his arse off, burnt a great stack of St. John’s Wort, dusted his house with a fragrant powder that a wizened old medium in Penarth had taken great care in creating for him and, finally, hung a large bough of mistletoe over the head of his bed. Satisfied that he had done all he could, he settled in for a hopefully good night’s sleep. And it wasn’t bad.
Right up until the point when he was woken, somewhat rudely, by a man leaning over him in bed.
“Jesus Christ!” Ianto yelled, scrambling backward across the bed.
“Not quite,” his unfamiliar bedfellow said, flashing him a smile that would have rivalled the Northern lights for sheer brilliance. “Just as hard to get rid of, though.”
Ianto blinked at the stranger, jumped off the bed and reached under his bedside table for the gun that was secured there. He drew it up to eye-height, cocking it at the man who was stretching out over his bed. Ianto didn’t notice that the bedclothes didn’t actually move when they were flopped upon.
“That won’t do you much good, either, I’m afraid,” he was told. “I’m proving pretty hard to kill. I’m Jack, by the way.” Ianto raised an eyebrow. “And you’re Ianto.” Ianto raised the other eyebrow. “You can’t live with someone for three months and not at least learn their name.”
“Have you been stalking me?” Ianto asked, incredulously.
“Well, not on purpose,” Jack replied, a little guiltily. “There just isn’t much to do around here, and you’ve been so wonderfully distracting since you moved in. You know this house was empty for six years before you arrived? I was bored out of my mind!”
“What, you’ve lived in this house? All that time?” Ianto pressed.
“All that time, yes,” Jack confirmed. “Lived? I’m really not so sure.”
“I’m calling the police,” Ianto said suddenly, shaking his head free of the illogical thoughts that had him actually listening to the ramblings of the, albeit very handsome madman who had just broken into his bedroom.
“You could,” Jack said, not seeming scared at all. “But I’d be surprised if they’d see me. I’m surprised you can see me, actually. I suspect that’s got something to do with your half-assed attempt at exorcism last night. Seriously, if I really was a spook, I’d be pissed right now.”
“Hang on, are you saying you’re my poltergeist?” Ianto asked, cottoning on at last. “Or are you saying you’re not my poltergeist?”
Jack leaned forward, stretched out his arm and, to Ianto’s horror, waved his forefinger through the end of the gun.
“I’m saying,” he said, watching his fingers pass along the barrel of the gun, stopping just short of Ianto’s fingertips. “That I remember dying. I remember a bullet passing through my heart and I remember wishing I had one last moment in this house, where the man I loved, lived. I wished I could have been here one more time, to hear him tell me that he loved me.”
“Oh,” Ianto said, letting the gun drop. Jack went to catch his hand and both men gasped as Jack’s fingers passed straight through Ianto’s very real skin. Jack gazed into Ianto’s eyes and Ianto found he couldn’t look away.
“You have his eyes,” Jack said distantly. “There’s something about him… about you.” He smiled hopefully. “Do you believe in reincarnation?”
“I can’t help you with him,” Ianto said. “I can only assume he’s long dead.”
Jack smiled sadly.
“Tell me you love me?” he asked. Ianto’s eyes went wide. “Maybe that’s all I need, to move along.”
Ianto smiled kindly.
“Well, if you think it would help,” Ianto said. “What’s your full name?”
Jack drew himself up to his full height.
“Captain Jack Harkness, at your service,” he said.
“Well,” Ianto said sweetly. “Captain Jack Harkness at your service, on behalf of all my previous incarnations and any part of me that has ever known you, I love you.”
Jack closed his eyes, whispering, ‘thank you’, and standing there for a long minute. He breathed, deeply and redundantly, and waited. Eventually he sagged, shaking his head.
“I don’t feel transcendent,” he said. He opened his eyes. “Did you even mean that?”
“Well, no!” Ianto replied as if Jack were a bit dense. “I mean, I meant it for anyone I might have been that meant it, but I don’t love you! I don’t even know you! You didn’t really think it would be that easy, did you?”
Jack smiled a little shyly.
“I suppose not,” he admitted.
“Oh, but look,” Ianto said hurriedly. “Chances are it’s something to do with the man you loved. I can look him up. I’ll see if I can find him, or something to do with him. There could be all sorts of reasons why you can’t rest.”
“You’d do that?” Jack asked, looking at Ianto suspiciously. Ianto shrugged.
“Well, I have to do something,” Ianto said with a smile. “Otherwise, I’m stuck with you!”
Jack winked.
“I’ll try and stay out of your way.”
##
Ianto very quickly got used to having Jack around and he had to admit it was rather nice to have someone to come home to. Jack couldn’t leave the building, so when Ianto got back each day, anything he could tell Jack about the outside world was fascinating to him. From the insights into the day-to-day saving of the world (which he didn’t mind sharing, because who on earth would Jack tell?) to the people he had seen on the street and what the weather was like.
Today the team had gone out to eat and Jack was eager to hear every detail.
“Oh,” Jack sighed. “Dear God, what I would do for a steak.”
“Too late,” Ianto said wryly. “Should have though of that before you died.”
“Maybe there’s steak in heaven,” Jack said solemnly.
“Either that, or the lack of desire for steak,” Ianto suggested. Jack shook his head.
“I’ll always remember steak,” Jack lamented. “I’ll always want it like I do now.”
“Then I’m sure there’ll be steak in heaven,” Ianto assured him.
“Good,” Jack said, grinning like a child who had been granted his way.
Ianto made himself some toast and a cup of tea. He balanced the toast on top of one of the cups and made his way into the living room. It was only as he put the two cups down that he realised his foolishness.
He stood, open-mouthed, his hands on his hips and stared at the cups.
“Well, I appreciate the gesture,” Jack said, not quite sitting on the armchair that Ianto had bought in an antique shop and never sat in.
“I don’t know why I did that,” Ianto said, shaking his head at himself. Jack laughed a little, allowing himself a second’s longing look at the mug. “I didn’t even ask how you take it,” Ianto said.
“However I can get it, mostly,” Jack said, as one would. “But I prefer it strong, stirred with a spoon that’s just about seen the sugar.”
Ianto gaped some more.
“Then we must have had that conversation,” he muttered to himself, disconnected by his own beverage intuition.
“You’re not eating that so I don’t get jealous, are you?” Jack asked indicating his toast. “My inability to eat is my problem. Please don’t curb your desires because…”
“Actually, I’m still full from lunch,” Ianto said. “It’s all I want.”
“Good,” Jack said. “I don’t want you wasting away.”
“Worried about my health?” Ianto asked, taking a bite out of his toast.
“I like having something to hold onto,” Jack said.
“Oh, Captain,” Ianto said, with disappointment that was supposed to be feigned but came out rather plaintive. “Would that you could grab hold of anything.”
Jack pouted, a smile pinching his cheeks as Ianto’s eyes sparkled above the rim of his cup.
#
Ianto’s colleagues were getting suspicious. Gwen was an expert at poking her nose in and assumed that any change in one’s habits was motivated by romance. Owen assumed sex and Tosh assumed it wasn’t her business.
Only Donna, their slightly crazed yet unexpectedly effective team leader, addressed the possibility that there was a pan-dimensional super-alien evil monster brain infiltrating and messing with his junk.
“I’m fine!” Ianto told them for the tenth time. “There’s nothing wrong with me!”
“Ianto,” Gwen said in her grating ‘sensitive’ voice. “You have to admit, it is weird. I mean, there are days you leave the hub before I do. You left at 4:30 on Friday. 4:30!”
“I had been in since seven!” Ianto pointed out.
“Yeah, but…”
“And all my work was done.”
“I know…”
“I even made you all coffee before I left?”
“It’s not a problem,” Gwen said. “We’re just interested. “I mean, is it a girl? Are you in love, because that would be so great for you…”
“He does look irritatingly happy,” Owen pointed out. “He must at least be getting some.”
“It’s not a girl and I’m not getting any,” Ianto said firmly. “Can we drop it, now?”
“Um…” Donna started. “Do you mind if we scan you for mind-altering alien…”
“Ma’am,” Ianto said civilly. “You are quite welcome to scan me for whatever you choose. If you must know,” he said, wondering if a quarter-lie would relieve the pressure on him. “I’m working on a project. It’s a sort of family history, genealogy thing. I was actually just about to ask Tosh if she’d like to help me. In our spare time, of course,” he said, flashing Tosh a winning smile. She flushed a little.
“Sure!” she said happily. “I’d love to help.”
Ianto grinned.
“Fab. Now we’ve all established I’m a dateless celibate loser, do you think we could drop it?”
The team dispersed in embarrassment. Owen muttered something about Ianto really needing to get laid and Gwen tutted that it was such a waste. Ianto rolled his eyes and went to ask Tosh a question that he couldn’t believe he hadn’t asked before.
##
“I asked my friend to look into your lover,” Ianto said as he unpacked his small quantity of groceries. Jack kept reaching out to take things off him, then pulling his hands back in, disappointed by his own redundancy.
“You did? What did he say? Or she? What did your friend say?” Jack asked. Ianto forced back a smile; Jack was always so interested in hearing about the people Ianto spent time with.
“She, Toshiko,” Ianto explained. “Is looking into him for you. I asked her…” he steeled himself. “I asked her to look at you, too,” he said. “Just for connections. I hope you don’t mind.”
Jack shook his head.
“I don’t mind,” he said quietly. “But if there’s anything you’d like to know, you only need to ask,” he said. “I’ll tell you everything.”
Ianto looked up at him, meeting Jack’s gaze and feeling the heat creep up his cheeks. Jack sighed and Ianto could almost feel it against his cheek.
“I don’t even know if he loved me,” Jack said, turning away abruptly. He opened his mouth to continue and thought better of it, abruptly making a break from the kitchen. Ianto finished unpacking the frozen and cold items, then left the rest. He followed Jack into the living room, to find him not-quite sitting in the chair he had made his own.
Ianto went straight to his side, kneeling beside him, one hand resting on the arm, an inch from passing through his wrist.
“Why would you think that?” Ianto asked. “Of course he loved you.”
Jack shook his head, trying to smile and not doing well at it.
“We shouldn’t have been together; I mean, it wasn’t right, for the time. Everything about our relationship had to be secret. But he never once said he loved me; so maybe he never loved me at all. Maybe I’m better off not knowing.”
“I can’t imagine he would have tried so hard, or risked so much to be with you if he didn’t?” Ianto suggested.
Jack grinned, at least a little honestly.
“The sex was really good,” he said with a wink. Ianto rolled his eyes.
“I can’t believe any reason that he wouldn’t love you,” Ianto said without thinking. “You’re handsome, you’re brave, and you were so in love with him that even when you died, you came back here.” Jack turned to him, his expression soft and ready to believe, perhaps. “Who could argue with that kind of devotion?”
“Are you in love?” Jack asked. Ianto looked up at him with wide eyes. “You should be in love, it’s a crime to waste you.”
“Me?” Ianto whispered, breathing laughter. “I…”
“You,” Jack confirmed before Ianto could dismiss him. Before he could catch himself, Jack had let his hand slide against, and through, Ianto’s cheek. Ianto shuddered, gasping with the sensation that he couldn’t decide if he liked or feared, and fell back onto his behind.
By the time Ianto regained his bearings, Jack had gone through the wall.
#
It was Friday night. Ianto hadn’t made too much of an effort to get out of work early, despite the lack of imminent invasion or likely death. Things at home were by no means bad, although neither man seemed about to make reference to the tension that had arisen between them, but he had all weekend to spend with Jack and it wouldn’t hurt for the team to see him staying late for a night or two. At least it might diffuse some of their suspicions.
That said, six o’clock came and he was ready to be out of the place. He missed Jack and he wasn’t fooling himself by pretending otherwise. Tosh was the only one left in now, anyway, and since she was the least likely to think anything untoward anyway, he decided it was definitely home-time.
He had one foot out of the door before she called him back inside.
#
Ianto got home just before eight, by which point the sun had all but given in and dusk was very much the cloak of the world. He let himself in and immediately looked for Jack. He found the ghost sitting on the edge of his sofa, more or less, staring at a pencil. Ianto approached him slowly and raised an eyebrow.
“What are you trying to do?” he asked, smiling in hello. Jack’s face lost its frustration and lit up with pleasure at his arrival.
“What? Oh!” Jack exclaimed. “Oh, that. I was trying to move it.”
“By staring at it?”
“Well, I can’t exactly touch it,” Jack pointed out. “Yeah. I was wondering if I looked hard enough at it, I could make it move. I tried poking it, too,” he offered.
“Any joy?” Ianto asked, motioning that Jack should follow him into the kitchen while he poured himself some wine.
“Nope,” Jack confessed. “I tried getting angry with it, pleading with it, even getting in touch with God, but he was busy, apparently,” he said reproachfully. Jack smiled wickedly. “Emotions don’t seem to help. I even tried getting horny and still nothing.”
Ianto choked on his wine. He shot Jack a look of mock-exasperation.
“I don’t even want to know how you did that,” he said.
Jack looked him up and down.
“I have an active imagination,” he said. Ianto blinked and cleared his throat before sipping at his wine again. He caught Jack’s disappointed look and questioned it. Jack shook his head. “It’s nothing,” he said, turning to walk back into the living room. Ianto followed him and curled up on one end of the sofa, cradling his wine.
“It’s the little things you miss,” Jack said, sprawling all over the armchair. Ianto tipped his head. “Steak,” Jack explained. “Red wine.” Ianto looked guiltily down at his glass. “Kissing,” Jack whispered. Ianto looked up, his eyes wide under thick lashes. Jack smiled briefly and tore himself away. “A couple who lived here in the 50s used to play Ella Fitzgerald all the time. I haven’t heard her since they moved and, God, I miss her voice. That’s why I wanted to move the pencil,” Jack said. “So I can put on some music, maybe, or clean the house. Be useful. Write down some thoughts or memories before they disappear. Little things,” he concluded. “Aren’t you hungry?” he asked as Ianto continued to stare at him.
Ianto shook his head and put his wine down on the coffee table, pushing off the seat and seating himself at Jack’s feet.
“Tell me,” he said.
“Tell you what?” Jack asked.
“Everything,” Ianto shrugged. “Tell me about the life you had before you died, or the people who’ve lived here before me. You can tell them about me, if you want,” he said, not sounding so enthusiastic about that prospect. “Just talk.”
Jack grinned.
“Talking about me,” he said with a wink. “I can do that.”
#
They had talked until Ianto had drunk most of the bottle, long enough for him to get quite uncomfortable on the floor. Jack suggested they move it to the bedroom and Ianto indulged the innuendo. Jack was quite particular in not talking about his old lover. They talked as Ianto grew sleepy, sharing slow smiles and lazy laughter, lying side by side on Ianto’s bed. And when Ianto was asleep, Jack told him things he had never told anyone else, and confessed a truth he had only just admitted to himself. That the longer he stayed, the less inviting any heaven looked.
#
Ianto woke from dreams of sweaty men celebrating victory together, drinking and carousing, embracing and singing in glory and relief. Jack, as was often the case, wasn’t to be found, so he showered (ignoring the erection with which he had awoken) and, because shouting at an empty house was so uncouth, left Jack a note saying he had errands to run and he would be back later. Then he drove to Bridgend and knocked on a door.
“Ianto?” The young lady on the other side presumed. “Hi! You’re younger than we expected. I’m Michelle. Come in, Nanna’s really excited to meet you.”
“Thank you,” Ianto said as he crossed the threshold and wiped his feet on the mat. “I’m eager to hear what she has to say.”
“Good thing, too,” Michelle said. “Ever since I told her what you were after, she’s been trying to tell me all her stories. I told her to wait for you, I didn’t want to hear it all twice now, did I?”
“No,” Ianto said politely, smiling. “I don’t suppose you would.”
Ianto was introduced to Dilys, a lovely octogenarian with sparkling green eyes and a sharp wit, who fawned over his youth, his lovely skin, his fondness for tea with sugar and all his other obvious positive traits. They sat in a pleasantly cluttered living room that overlooked the valley and, once small talk was out of the way, she began to spin him the story of her parents and the life they had led in the Great War and after.
He heard about a couple who were very happy; together from their twenties until they had succumbed to old age, leaving half a dozen children and almost thrice the grandchildren.
Ianto let her speak; she really was a nice, interesting old woman and the world she described was so different from his own.
“I was my parents’ second youngest,” she said. “I came along in ’27, and then came young Ian, God rest him. They were quite old having children, for the day as it was, but they didn’t get married until after the war, until after…” She beamed at him and Ianto couldn’t help but smile back. “Until after the Captain. That’s who you wanted to talk about, too, wasn’t it?”
Ianto shrugged.
“Yes,” he said. “But please, all of this is so interesting, it’s lovely to hear it.”
“Aye, but let’s talk about him anyway,” she said with a wink. “I never met him, of course, but we all knew about Uncle Jack.”
“Uncle Jack?” Ianto asked, near-incredulously.
“Oh, certainly,” Dilys confirmed. “See, this my Mam told me. My Da and Captain Harkness, or not Captain then, you know, they were great friends. Jack was over here at school and they were inseparable. They trained up, saw some action together.” Ianto didn’t doubt it, but he held his tongue. “And when the Great War came along, they did their part. But then my Da got injured. He lost his leg and got sent right home. Mam says he didn’t like feeling useless while Jack was out being a hero. She looked after him, see, when he was sent home. They weren’t married, then, but everyone knew they would, in the end. Although Mam used to say that when Jack would come home on leave, she’d have second thoughts because he was so bloody handsome. And before the Americans had even joined in the war, he was like his whole country, fighting for us, for the people he loved. And every time Jack would come home, Da would be so much happier.’
“He was handsome, too,” she said. “I got Michelle to dig out some of the pictures they left; of Da and Jack, Mam, too, sometimes, when she was with them. Big tall man, he was; lovely broad shoulders. I would have taken care of him all right, if I’d had chance.”
“Nanna!” Ianto laughed at her granddaughter’s mild disgust. Dilys giggled delightfully. She turned to look at Ianto and her smile dulled.
“Captain Harkness died in December, 1917. Not so long after the Americans had joined the war, as it happened. Took a bullet straight to the heart. My Da was crushed, when they told him. I mean, Mam was upset; they’d all been good friends, but Jack and Da were each other’s family. When Jack was sent home, Da had him buried in the family plot, down Penarth way. And he never forgot him; every week he’d go to visit, and if he could ever afford it, or if he could rob some, he’d take flowers down with him. Daisies for his Mam and a red rose for Uncle Jack. I should be up there soon, too, I shouldn’t think, eh?” she said lightly, causing Michelle to moan in exasperation. Ianto grinned. “I don’t get up there are much as I like, but when I do, daisies for me Mam and a red rose each for Da and Jack.”
“It’s really good of you that you still put flowers on his grave,” Ianto said. “If you never even knew him.”
The old woman fixed Ianto with a knowing look that pierced him straight through.
“It was only when I grew up that I wondered that he took such a romantic flower to an old friend. They should have been yellow. But they were Jack’s favourites,” she added, relaxing out of the intense moment. “And my Da did love him, very much.”
“He wore your watch,” Ianto said as Jack sat, his lips pressed to steepled fingers in the early evening. “She said he wore your wristwatch every Sunday. And it still works if you wind it, look,” he added, pulling the watch out of his pocket and unrolling it from the soft fabric in which it was wrapped. Jack reached up to take it and closed his eyes as he realised he couldn’t. Ianto laid the watch on the coffee table and Jack watched it tick.
“You’re buried next to him,” Ianto said. “On his family plot. His wife is the other side of him. He loved you, both of you, until the day he died.”
Ianto bit his tongue, resisting the temptation to say more, and let everything sink in.
“I’m glad,” Jack said at last. He looked up, eyes shining. “I’m… relieved that he loved me; that I didn’t stay for nothing. And I’m glad he had a good life after I died. Beth was a good woman and he should have been happy. Everything was as it should be.”
Ianto nodded, looking down, away from him.
“Thank you,” Jack said. “I wonder why…” he huffed in frustration, then let his head drop and was silent.
Ianto didn’t add anything, didn’t try and press him any further. Instead he pushed himself away from the doorframe and walked to his stereo with the purchase he had stopped off to make on the way home.
Jack looked up as, a few moments later, Ella Fitzgerald started to drift sweetly from the speakers. He smiled in surprise and looked up at Ianto, who shrugged.
“Well, I can’t give you wine and I can’t give you steak, but I can give you Ella.”
Jack closed his eyes, smiling happily and rocking to the rhythm. He stood up and came to stand beside his friend.
“You listen to my stories when I can’t write them down,” he said. “You bring me music and you look into ninety years of history for me, to try and bring me peace. What great thing did I do to deserve you?”
“You’re a hero,” Ianto shrugged. “And…” his eyelashes fluttered. “You’re a good man. At least that,” he concluded. The song switched onto the next track and Ianto glanced down at the CD case. “I know this one,” he said quietly, placing the plastic to one side and stepping into the room.
“Ianto?” Jack asked quietly. Ianto stopped and turned to him. “Will you dance with me?”
Ianto smiled wryly but didn’t move away as Jack approached.
“Not much of a dance,” Ianto suggested.
“If I can’t hold you?” Jack supplied. “Humour me.”
Ianto smiled and allowed the approach. Jack stood as close as he could without letting their boundaries touch. Ianto allowed himself to move to Jack’s lead, along with the rhythm of the music.
“If this is all there is,” Jack said quietly. “Why am I still here?”
“I don’t know,” Ianto said.
“Maybe I’ll fade away,” Jack whispered. “Or my watch will stop and… so will I.”
Ianto drew in a shuddering breath and Jack pulled back to look at him.
“I thought about not telling you,” Ianto confessed. “Because if this is the answer… you’ll go. You’ll go to heaven for red wine and… him.”
“Aren’t you looking forward to having your house back?” Jack asked, not managing to make it sound like much of a joke.
“No,” Ianto said, stepping back into Jack’s space, tilting his face up to whisper. “I’ll just miss you. Every day.”
Jack breathed laughter and Ianto could, not for the first time, almost feel it.
“Ianto,” he whispered. “I don’t think there could be a heaven without you.”
Ianto stiffened, shrank back a touch and looked up with hooded eyes. Jack, so intangible, was a breath away. The words made their way from Ianto’s lips without hesitation.
“I love you.”
And Jack, it seemed, couldn’t help but kiss him. There were no lips to meet Ianto’s own, but when he met the vision of Jack, his skin was alight. Something fluttered through him like the feeling of taking flight, and the feeling he couldn’t decide if he liked, turned out to be love in every nerve.
He thought he heard Jack say his name.
And he was dropped back to Earth like a stone. His eyes snapped open but he was alone. More alone than he had ever felt in that house, even before he had known Jack. Ianto couldn’t resist the sob that escaped his throat as he realised the truth.
Jack was gone.
#
Ianto spent the rest of the day in selfishness. He wound Jack’s watch, trying to get him back. He shouted and screamed that he hadn’t meant it, he didn’t know if he meant it, that Jack’s business was not all of a sudden done. He pulled down and burned the devices that had failed to keep Jack away in the first place and begged him to come back. He remembered the spells that had brought Jack out into the open and repeated them all to no avail.
At three a.m. on Sunday morning, when his new Ella Fitzgerald CD started to play the same song for the tenth time, he broke down in tears, curled up in Jack’s chair and admitted to himself that his heart was broken, and that was how it would stay.
#
Ianto got back in his car on Sunday afternoon and drove out to Penarth. It took him two full hours to find the right family plot, and another twenty minutes to gather the courage to look death in the face. But he did approach, at last, to lay down pink carnations for the lady and to split a dozen red roses between Jack and his lover.
He stood in contemplation for a few moments, then pulled off his jacket and laid it down. Taking back a rose for a buttonhole, he calmly began to tell Jack all about his day. From the bad cup of tea he had made himself before he left the house, to the woman who had sold him his flowers, to the butterflies that had danced around the buddleia at the end of his street. He talked until he had nothing left to say and the evening began to chill his bones. Then, with a promise to be back in a week, he made to leave.
“I meant it,” he said, turning back to Jack’s sleeping bones. “I was just trying to get you back. I didn’t mean that I didn’t love you. Because I do. I love you more than I knew I could. And I will, until I die.”
“Well, won’t this be the nicest decorated plot in the cemetery?” a familiar voice proposed. Ianto whirled around, wiping his eyes quickly as Dilys made her way over the grass to him, aided by a stick. Michelle was a metre or two behind her, carrying a bunch of roses, another of daisies and a third of daffodils, many of which were still buds. “I’m glad my stories pleased you, but you didn’t need to come up here and make a fuss.”
“Sorry,” he said, smiling a little despite the weight in his chest. “I just felt… connected.”
“Ah, it’s no bother,” Dilys told him as she stopped in front of him. Michelle gave him a smile and a wave from behind her Grandmother. “I only came up because you reminded me. We can spread the rest of these around, it’ll look a treat round here. The daffs are for my late husband.”
“Ah,” Ianto said. “Oh, would you like some help?”
“No, no,” she dismissed him, just as the younger woman seemed eager to accept. “Actually, you can do me a favour, though.” She huffed as she bent over, plucking one of the roses from Jack’s grave and huffed again as she straightened. “That buttonhole suits you. You ought to give this one to the young man at the gate. He looks a little lost.”
“Oh,” Ianto said. “Certainly. I can do that, if you’re sure you don’t want my help.”
“No, I think he needs you more than we do,” Dilys replied, pulling dead stalks from in front of the newest looking headstone, presumably her husband’s. “Poor thing seems to think he’s not allowed into the cemetery.” She turned to look at Ianto again, her green eyes piercing him straight through once more. “He seems to think heaven doesn’t want him.”
Ianto forgot how to breathe. Dilys smiled and Ianto didn’t even stop for his jacket before turning on his heel and sprinting back down the hill.
Michelle stared after him and Dilys just tutted, smiling to herself.
“I think Uncle Jack’ll be all right now, Da,” she said, patting her father’s headstone.
Michelle resigned herself to not understanding and went about unwrapping the entire flowershop that she was lugging around.
#
Ianto’s heart beat wildly in his ears as he barrelled down the hill, the single rose clutched tightly in his palm. He passed under the old stone entryway and had to skid to a halt as he reached the wrought iron gates.
“What does she mean, heaven doesn’t want you?” he asked breathlessly.
Jack gave a shrug.
“I’m a bad influence,” he said. “Too restless. Heaven’s supposed to be peaceful; I was bouncing off the walls. So they tell me, I don’t really remember. They said I had unfinished business.”
“I don’t care what it is,” Ianto said, shaking his head. Jack took a step forward and took the rose out of his hand as Ianto went on. “I’m not letting you do it. I don’t care if you’ve got children somewhere you need to see, or if you need to say goodbye to… anyone. I won’t help you leave again.” Jack snapped off the end of the rose and arranged it as a buttonhole. “I love you and I won’t lose you again, please! My heart won’t take it. If you do have feelings for me…”
“Feelings?” Jack said, taking a step toward him. “Feelings for you? Ianto Jones, I love you. I love you to distraction and I have done for longer than you’ve been able to see me.”
Ianto sagged with relief.
“Then it doesn’t matter if we can’t touch. And you can come outside now and…” Ianto stopped and Jack smiled as he waited for him to catch up. Ianto looked down at his empty hand. “You took the rose,” he said. Jack nodded and extended his hand. Ianto let out a short breath that was almost laughter. “Really?” he asked. Jack shrugged with one shoulder and wiggled his fingers invitingly.
Ianto reached out, and a fingertip's touch was all they needed before they were in each other’s arms. They wound their arms tightly around each other as their lips met, colliding with desperation and so much sweet relief. Eventually they slowed, not parting for more than breath, but letting their kisses become familiar.
“You’re alive,” Ianto said, eventually, when they finally drew apart. “You’re alive and you’re here and you love me.”
“Right back at you,” Jack said with a grin. “All of the above.”
Ianto smiled wickedly.
“Hey, you’re a solid, functioning human man” he said. Jack raised an eyebrow. “You know what this means? What we can do?”
“Oh, yes,” Jack said, pressing against him and dropping his hand down to meet Ianto’s. Ianto bit his lip and tilted his face up for another kiss. Jack obliged. “We can eat.” Ianto looked shocked for a moment then began to laugh. “It’s been ninety years!” Jack added.
“I know! You must be starving,” Ianto admitted. “Let’s get a steak.”
“Oh, god,” Jack said, his voice almost orgasmic as Ianto led him by the hand, over toward his car. “Steak, yes. Can we have wine?” Ianto nodded. “And coffee? Oh, god, and chocolate! I almost forgot about chocolate.”
“Yes, yes and yes,” Ianto said, squeezing Jack’s hand and allowing himself to be drawn into an embrace beside his car.
“Perfect,” Jack said softly, pulling him into a kiss and then leaning down to whisper to him. “And then, my love, I am going to take you to bed, and show you what ninety years of sexual frustration does to a man’s imagination.”
“Good thing, too,” Ianto said, kissing Jack again. “Oh, and Jack?”
“Yeah?”
“Welcome home.”
The End.
Pairing: Jack/Ianto implied Jack/OMC
Summary: AU. Ianto Jones’s new house has come complete with an unwelcome guest. But when things go Bump in the Night, Ianto Jones bumps back.
Rating: PG.
Warning: AU. Mild angst.
Betad by the munificent moblo413
My TW Harlequin prompt was originally this:
72. The Haunting
Investigating a noise in the attic of her historic home, Maggie Holliday encounters a handsome man in a Civil War uniform. He calls her "Isabel," seduces her in ways the shy academic had never dreamed of…then literally vanishes.
With every fleeting visit, Maggie's mysterious lover-Ethan-takes her closer to the edge of ecstasy and madness. Is he really a ghost? Far from chilling her, his touch is incendiary-it all feels so real and so very, very good. And so very familiar…
Ethan insists Maggie's the reincarnation of his long-lost love. And after a few incredible nights in his arms, Maggie is inclined to believe him. But does she dare surrender to a passion that transcends time, tragedy…and even death?
But I wrapped it in flannel and ate it. The finished fic came out… a little differently…
And two Soundtrack songs for your enjoyments (M4a:I'm too lazy to convert tonight)
Kate Bush, The Man With The Child In His Eyes
Ella Fitzgerald, Every Time We Say Goodbye
Long Time Coming.
Ianto Jones was a heavy sleeper. Notoriously so. He had hardly had a poor night’s sleep in his life. At least, that was before he moved to Cathedral Road.
The house was beautiful; classic Victorian Semi-detached, lovingly maintained in its period style. The fireplaces were all original and functioning. It had a pleasant, bijoux garden, spacious kitchen, and a ghost in the attic.
That hadn’t been mentioned in the Home Information Pack.
Ianto was not the kind of man who would, by nature, believe in ghosts. On the other hand, he had been working for Torchwood for four years now, and he was loath to rule anything out. He was, frankly, just a little irritated that the damn spook had to be in his house. Creeping him out, making noise, watching him sleep.
Oh, he couldn’t see this ghost of his, he couldn’t actually catch the spirit, but he knew it was there, knew it was sitting in the corner of his room at night, creeping around and watching him. Frankly, it was pissing him off.
So he was going to put a stop to it. He built a fire and chanted his arse off, burnt a great stack of St. John’s Wort, dusted his house with a fragrant powder that a wizened old medium in Penarth had taken great care in creating for him and, finally, hung a large bough of mistletoe over the head of his bed. Satisfied that he had done all he could, he settled in for a hopefully good night’s sleep. And it wasn’t bad.
Right up until the point when he was woken, somewhat rudely, by a man leaning over him in bed.
“Jesus Christ!” Ianto yelled, scrambling backward across the bed.
“Not quite,” his unfamiliar bedfellow said, flashing him a smile that would have rivalled the Northern lights for sheer brilliance. “Just as hard to get rid of, though.”
Ianto blinked at the stranger, jumped off the bed and reached under his bedside table for the gun that was secured there. He drew it up to eye-height, cocking it at the man who was stretching out over his bed. Ianto didn’t notice that the bedclothes didn’t actually move when they were flopped upon.
“That won’t do you much good, either, I’m afraid,” he was told. “I’m proving pretty hard to kill. I’m Jack, by the way.” Ianto raised an eyebrow. “And you’re Ianto.” Ianto raised the other eyebrow. “You can’t live with someone for three months and not at least learn their name.”
“Have you been stalking me?” Ianto asked, incredulously.
“Well, not on purpose,” Jack replied, a little guiltily. “There just isn’t much to do around here, and you’ve been so wonderfully distracting since you moved in. You know this house was empty for six years before you arrived? I was bored out of my mind!”
“What, you’ve lived in this house? All that time?” Ianto pressed.
“All that time, yes,” Jack confirmed. “Lived? I’m really not so sure.”
“I’m calling the police,” Ianto said suddenly, shaking his head free of the illogical thoughts that had him actually listening to the ramblings of the, albeit very handsome madman who had just broken into his bedroom.
“You could,” Jack said, not seeming scared at all. “But I’d be surprised if they’d see me. I’m surprised you can see me, actually. I suspect that’s got something to do with your half-assed attempt at exorcism last night. Seriously, if I really was a spook, I’d be pissed right now.”
“Hang on, are you saying you’re my poltergeist?” Ianto asked, cottoning on at last. “Or are you saying you’re not my poltergeist?”
Jack leaned forward, stretched out his arm and, to Ianto’s horror, waved his forefinger through the end of the gun.
“I’m saying,” he said, watching his fingers pass along the barrel of the gun, stopping just short of Ianto’s fingertips. “That I remember dying. I remember a bullet passing through my heart and I remember wishing I had one last moment in this house, where the man I loved, lived. I wished I could have been here one more time, to hear him tell me that he loved me.”
“Oh,” Ianto said, letting the gun drop. Jack went to catch his hand and both men gasped as Jack’s fingers passed straight through Ianto’s very real skin. Jack gazed into Ianto’s eyes and Ianto found he couldn’t look away.
“You have his eyes,” Jack said distantly. “There’s something about him… about you.” He smiled hopefully. “Do you believe in reincarnation?”
“I can’t help you with him,” Ianto said. “I can only assume he’s long dead.”
Jack smiled sadly.
“Tell me you love me?” he asked. Ianto’s eyes went wide. “Maybe that’s all I need, to move along.”
Ianto smiled kindly.
“Well, if you think it would help,” Ianto said. “What’s your full name?”
Jack drew himself up to his full height.
“Captain Jack Harkness, at your service,” he said.
“Well,” Ianto said sweetly. “Captain Jack Harkness at your service, on behalf of all my previous incarnations and any part of me that has ever known you, I love you.”
Jack closed his eyes, whispering, ‘thank you’, and standing there for a long minute. He breathed, deeply and redundantly, and waited. Eventually he sagged, shaking his head.
“I don’t feel transcendent,” he said. He opened his eyes. “Did you even mean that?”
“Well, no!” Ianto replied as if Jack were a bit dense. “I mean, I meant it for anyone I might have been that meant it, but I don’t love you! I don’t even know you! You didn’t really think it would be that easy, did you?”
Jack smiled a little shyly.
“I suppose not,” he admitted.
“Oh, but look,” Ianto said hurriedly. “Chances are it’s something to do with the man you loved. I can look him up. I’ll see if I can find him, or something to do with him. There could be all sorts of reasons why you can’t rest.”
“You’d do that?” Jack asked, looking at Ianto suspiciously. Ianto shrugged.
“Well, I have to do something,” Ianto said with a smile. “Otherwise, I’m stuck with you!”
Jack winked.
“I’ll try and stay out of your way.”
##
Ianto very quickly got used to having Jack around and he had to admit it was rather nice to have someone to come home to. Jack couldn’t leave the building, so when Ianto got back each day, anything he could tell Jack about the outside world was fascinating to him. From the insights into the day-to-day saving of the world (which he didn’t mind sharing, because who on earth would Jack tell?) to the people he had seen on the street and what the weather was like.
Today the team had gone out to eat and Jack was eager to hear every detail.
“Oh,” Jack sighed. “Dear God, what I would do for a steak.”
“Too late,” Ianto said wryly. “Should have though of that before you died.”
“Maybe there’s steak in heaven,” Jack said solemnly.
“Either that, or the lack of desire for steak,” Ianto suggested. Jack shook his head.
“I’ll always remember steak,” Jack lamented. “I’ll always want it like I do now.”
“Then I’m sure there’ll be steak in heaven,” Ianto assured him.
“Good,” Jack said, grinning like a child who had been granted his way.
Ianto made himself some toast and a cup of tea. He balanced the toast on top of one of the cups and made his way into the living room. It was only as he put the two cups down that he realised his foolishness.
He stood, open-mouthed, his hands on his hips and stared at the cups.
“Well, I appreciate the gesture,” Jack said, not quite sitting on the armchair that Ianto had bought in an antique shop and never sat in.
“I don’t know why I did that,” Ianto said, shaking his head at himself. Jack laughed a little, allowing himself a second’s longing look at the mug. “I didn’t even ask how you take it,” Ianto said.
“However I can get it, mostly,” Jack said, as one would. “But I prefer it strong, stirred with a spoon that’s just about seen the sugar.”
Ianto gaped some more.
“Then we must have had that conversation,” he muttered to himself, disconnected by his own beverage intuition.
“You’re not eating that so I don’t get jealous, are you?” Jack asked indicating his toast. “My inability to eat is my problem. Please don’t curb your desires because…”
“Actually, I’m still full from lunch,” Ianto said. “It’s all I want.”
“Good,” Jack said. “I don’t want you wasting away.”
“Worried about my health?” Ianto asked, taking a bite out of his toast.
“I like having something to hold onto,” Jack said.
“Oh, Captain,” Ianto said, with disappointment that was supposed to be feigned but came out rather plaintive. “Would that you could grab hold of anything.”
Jack pouted, a smile pinching his cheeks as Ianto’s eyes sparkled above the rim of his cup.
#
Ianto’s colleagues were getting suspicious. Gwen was an expert at poking her nose in and assumed that any change in one’s habits was motivated by romance. Owen assumed sex and Tosh assumed it wasn’t her business.
Only Donna, their slightly crazed yet unexpectedly effective team leader, addressed the possibility that there was a pan-dimensional super-alien evil monster brain infiltrating and messing with his junk.
“I’m fine!” Ianto told them for the tenth time. “There’s nothing wrong with me!”
“Ianto,” Gwen said in her grating ‘sensitive’ voice. “You have to admit, it is weird. I mean, there are days you leave the hub before I do. You left at 4:30 on Friday. 4:30!”
“I had been in since seven!” Ianto pointed out.
“Yeah, but…”
“And all my work was done.”
“I know…”
“I even made you all coffee before I left?”
“It’s not a problem,” Gwen said. “We’re just interested. “I mean, is it a girl? Are you in love, because that would be so great for you…”
“He does look irritatingly happy,” Owen pointed out. “He must at least be getting some.”
“It’s not a girl and I’m not getting any,” Ianto said firmly. “Can we drop it, now?”
“Um…” Donna started. “Do you mind if we scan you for mind-altering alien…”
“Ma’am,” Ianto said civilly. “You are quite welcome to scan me for whatever you choose. If you must know,” he said, wondering if a quarter-lie would relieve the pressure on him. “I’m working on a project. It’s a sort of family history, genealogy thing. I was actually just about to ask Tosh if she’d like to help me. In our spare time, of course,” he said, flashing Tosh a winning smile. She flushed a little.
“Sure!” she said happily. “I’d love to help.”
Ianto grinned.
“Fab. Now we’ve all established I’m a dateless celibate loser, do you think we could drop it?”
The team dispersed in embarrassment. Owen muttered something about Ianto really needing to get laid and Gwen tutted that it was such a waste. Ianto rolled his eyes and went to ask Tosh a question that he couldn’t believe he hadn’t asked before.
##
“I asked my friend to look into your lover,” Ianto said as he unpacked his small quantity of groceries. Jack kept reaching out to take things off him, then pulling his hands back in, disappointed by his own redundancy.
“You did? What did he say? Or she? What did your friend say?” Jack asked. Ianto forced back a smile; Jack was always so interested in hearing about the people Ianto spent time with.
“She, Toshiko,” Ianto explained. “Is looking into him for you. I asked her…” he steeled himself. “I asked her to look at you, too,” he said. “Just for connections. I hope you don’t mind.”
Jack shook his head.
“I don’t mind,” he said quietly. “But if there’s anything you’d like to know, you only need to ask,” he said. “I’ll tell you everything.”
Ianto looked up at him, meeting Jack’s gaze and feeling the heat creep up his cheeks. Jack sighed and Ianto could almost feel it against his cheek.
“I don’t even know if he loved me,” Jack said, turning away abruptly. He opened his mouth to continue and thought better of it, abruptly making a break from the kitchen. Ianto finished unpacking the frozen and cold items, then left the rest. He followed Jack into the living room, to find him not-quite sitting in the chair he had made his own.
Ianto went straight to his side, kneeling beside him, one hand resting on the arm, an inch from passing through his wrist.
“Why would you think that?” Ianto asked. “Of course he loved you.”
Jack shook his head, trying to smile and not doing well at it.
“We shouldn’t have been together; I mean, it wasn’t right, for the time. Everything about our relationship had to be secret. But he never once said he loved me; so maybe he never loved me at all. Maybe I’m better off not knowing.”
“I can’t imagine he would have tried so hard, or risked so much to be with you if he didn’t?” Ianto suggested.
Jack grinned, at least a little honestly.
“The sex was really good,” he said with a wink. Ianto rolled his eyes.
“I can’t believe any reason that he wouldn’t love you,” Ianto said without thinking. “You’re handsome, you’re brave, and you were so in love with him that even when you died, you came back here.” Jack turned to him, his expression soft and ready to believe, perhaps. “Who could argue with that kind of devotion?”
“Are you in love?” Jack asked. Ianto looked up at him with wide eyes. “You should be in love, it’s a crime to waste you.”
“Me?” Ianto whispered, breathing laughter. “I…”
“You,” Jack confirmed before Ianto could dismiss him. Before he could catch himself, Jack had let his hand slide against, and through, Ianto’s cheek. Ianto shuddered, gasping with the sensation that he couldn’t decide if he liked or feared, and fell back onto his behind.
By the time Ianto regained his bearings, Jack had gone through the wall.
#
It was Friday night. Ianto hadn’t made too much of an effort to get out of work early, despite the lack of imminent invasion or likely death. Things at home were by no means bad, although neither man seemed about to make reference to the tension that had arisen between them, but he had all weekend to spend with Jack and it wouldn’t hurt for the team to see him staying late for a night or two. At least it might diffuse some of their suspicions.
That said, six o’clock came and he was ready to be out of the place. He missed Jack and he wasn’t fooling himself by pretending otherwise. Tosh was the only one left in now, anyway, and since she was the least likely to think anything untoward anyway, he decided it was definitely home-time.
He had one foot out of the door before she called him back inside.
#
Ianto got home just before eight, by which point the sun had all but given in and dusk was very much the cloak of the world. He let himself in and immediately looked for Jack. He found the ghost sitting on the edge of his sofa, more or less, staring at a pencil. Ianto approached him slowly and raised an eyebrow.
“What are you trying to do?” he asked, smiling in hello. Jack’s face lost its frustration and lit up with pleasure at his arrival.
“What? Oh!” Jack exclaimed. “Oh, that. I was trying to move it.”
“By staring at it?”
“Well, I can’t exactly touch it,” Jack pointed out. “Yeah. I was wondering if I looked hard enough at it, I could make it move. I tried poking it, too,” he offered.
“Any joy?” Ianto asked, motioning that Jack should follow him into the kitchen while he poured himself some wine.
“Nope,” Jack confessed. “I tried getting angry with it, pleading with it, even getting in touch with God, but he was busy, apparently,” he said reproachfully. Jack smiled wickedly. “Emotions don’t seem to help. I even tried getting horny and still nothing.”
Ianto choked on his wine. He shot Jack a look of mock-exasperation.
“I don’t even want to know how you did that,” he said.
Jack looked him up and down.
“I have an active imagination,” he said. Ianto blinked and cleared his throat before sipping at his wine again. He caught Jack’s disappointed look and questioned it. Jack shook his head. “It’s nothing,” he said, turning to walk back into the living room. Ianto followed him and curled up on one end of the sofa, cradling his wine.
“It’s the little things you miss,” Jack said, sprawling all over the armchair. Ianto tipped his head. “Steak,” Jack explained. “Red wine.” Ianto looked guiltily down at his glass. “Kissing,” Jack whispered. Ianto looked up, his eyes wide under thick lashes. Jack smiled briefly and tore himself away. “A couple who lived here in the 50s used to play Ella Fitzgerald all the time. I haven’t heard her since they moved and, God, I miss her voice. That’s why I wanted to move the pencil,” Jack said. “So I can put on some music, maybe, or clean the house. Be useful. Write down some thoughts or memories before they disappear. Little things,” he concluded. “Aren’t you hungry?” he asked as Ianto continued to stare at him.
Ianto shook his head and put his wine down on the coffee table, pushing off the seat and seating himself at Jack’s feet.
“Tell me,” he said.
“Tell you what?” Jack asked.
“Everything,” Ianto shrugged. “Tell me about the life you had before you died, or the people who’ve lived here before me. You can tell them about me, if you want,” he said, not sounding so enthusiastic about that prospect. “Just talk.”
Jack grinned.
“Talking about me,” he said with a wink. “I can do that.”
#
They had talked until Ianto had drunk most of the bottle, long enough for him to get quite uncomfortable on the floor. Jack suggested they move it to the bedroom and Ianto indulged the innuendo. Jack was quite particular in not talking about his old lover. They talked as Ianto grew sleepy, sharing slow smiles and lazy laughter, lying side by side on Ianto’s bed. And when Ianto was asleep, Jack told him things he had never told anyone else, and confessed a truth he had only just admitted to himself. That the longer he stayed, the less inviting any heaven looked.
#
Ianto woke from dreams of sweaty men celebrating victory together, drinking and carousing, embracing and singing in glory and relief. Jack, as was often the case, wasn’t to be found, so he showered (ignoring the erection with which he had awoken) and, because shouting at an empty house was so uncouth, left Jack a note saying he had errands to run and he would be back later. Then he drove to Bridgend and knocked on a door.
“Ianto?” The young lady on the other side presumed. “Hi! You’re younger than we expected. I’m Michelle. Come in, Nanna’s really excited to meet you.”
“Thank you,” Ianto said as he crossed the threshold and wiped his feet on the mat. “I’m eager to hear what she has to say.”
“Good thing, too,” Michelle said. “Ever since I told her what you were after, she’s been trying to tell me all her stories. I told her to wait for you, I didn’t want to hear it all twice now, did I?”
“No,” Ianto said politely, smiling. “I don’t suppose you would.”
Ianto was introduced to Dilys, a lovely octogenarian with sparkling green eyes and a sharp wit, who fawned over his youth, his lovely skin, his fondness for tea with sugar and all his other obvious positive traits. They sat in a pleasantly cluttered living room that overlooked the valley and, once small talk was out of the way, she began to spin him the story of her parents and the life they had led in the Great War and after.
He heard about a couple who were very happy; together from their twenties until they had succumbed to old age, leaving half a dozen children and almost thrice the grandchildren.
Ianto let her speak; she really was a nice, interesting old woman and the world she described was so different from his own.
“I was my parents’ second youngest,” she said. “I came along in ’27, and then came young Ian, God rest him. They were quite old having children, for the day as it was, but they didn’t get married until after the war, until after…” She beamed at him and Ianto couldn’t help but smile back. “Until after the Captain. That’s who you wanted to talk about, too, wasn’t it?”
Ianto shrugged.
“Yes,” he said. “But please, all of this is so interesting, it’s lovely to hear it.”
“Aye, but let’s talk about him anyway,” she said with a wink. “I never met him, of course, but we all knew about Uncle Jack.”
“Uncle Jack?” Ianto asked, near-incredulously.
“Oh, certainly,” Dilys confirmed. “See, this my Mam told me. My Da and Captain Harkness, or not Captain then, you know, they were great friends. Jack was over here at school and they were inseparable. They trained up, saw some action together.” Ianto didn’t doubt it, but he held his tongue. “And when the Great War came along, they did their part. But then my Da got injured. He lost his leg and got sent right home. Mam says he didn’t like feeling useless while Jack was out being a hero. She looked after him, see, when he was sent home. They weren’t married, then, but everyone knew they would, in the end. Although Mam used to say that when Jack would come home on leave, she’d have second thoughts because he was so bloody handsome. And before the Americans had even joined in the war, he was like his whole country, fighting for us, for the people he loved. And every time Jack would come home, Da would be so much happier.’
“He was handsome, too,” she said. “I got Michelle to dig out some of the pictures they left; of Da and Jack, Mam, too, sometimes, when she was with them. Big tall man, he was; lovely broad shoulders. I would have taken care of him all right, if I’d had chance.”
“Nanna!” Ianto laughed at her granddaughter’s mild disgust. Dilys giggled delightfully. She turned to look at Ianto and her smile dulled.
“Captain Harkness died in December, 1917. Not so long after the Americans had joined the war, as it happened. Took a bullet straight to the heart. My Da was crushed, when they told him. I mean, Mam was upset; they’d all been good friends, but Jack and Da were each other’s family. When Jack was sent home, Da had him buried in the family plot, down Penarth way. And he never forgot him; every week he’d go to visit, and if he could ever afford it, or if he could rob some, he’d take flowers down with him. Daisies for his Mam and a red rose for Uncle Jack. I should be up there soon, too, I shouldn’t think, eh?” she said lightly, causing Michelle to moan in exasperation. Ianto grinned. “I don’t get up there are much as I like, but when I do, daisies for me Mam and a red rose each for Da and Jack.”
“It’s really good of you that you still put flowers on his grave,” Ianto said. “If you never even knew him.”
The old woman fixed Ianto with a knowing look that pierced him straight through.
“It was only when I grew up that I wondered that he took such a romantic flower to an old friend. They should have been yellow. But they were Jack’s favourites,” she added, relaxing out of the intense moment. “And my Da did love him, very much.”
“He wore your watch,” Ianto said as Jack sat, his lips pressed to steepled fingers in the early evening. “She said he wore your wristwatch every Sunday. And it still works if you wind it, look,” he added, pulling the watch out of his pocket and unrolling it from the soft fabric in which it was wrapped. Jack reached up to take it and closed his eyes as he realised he couldn’t. Ianto laid the watch on the coffee table and Jack watched it tick.
“You’re buried next to him,” Ianto said. “On his family plot. His wife is the other side of him. He loved you, both of you, until the day he died.”
Ianto bit his tongue, resisting the temptation to say more, and let everything sink in.
“I’m glad,” Jack said at last. He looked up, eyes shining. “I’m… relieved that he loved me; that I didn’t stay for nothing. And I’m glad he had a good life after I died. Beth was a good woman and he should have been happy. Everything was as it should be.”
Ianto nodded, looking down, away from him.
“Thank you,” Jack said. “I wonder why…” he huffed in frustration, then let his head drop and was silent.
Ianto didn’t add anything, didn’t try and press him any further. Instead he pushed himself away from the doorframe and walked to his stereo with the purchase he had stopped off to make on the way home.
Jack looked up as, a few moments later, Ella Fitzgerald started to drift sweetly from the speakers. He smiled in surprise and looked up at Ianto, who shrugged.
“Well, I can’t give you wine and I can’t give you steak, but I can give you Ella.”
Jack closed his eyes, smiling happily and rocking to the rhythm. He stood up and came to stand beside his friend.
“You listen to my stories when I can’t write them down,” he said. “You bring me music and you look into ninety years of history for me, to try and bring me peace. What great thing did I do to deserve you?”
“You’re a hero,” Ianto shrugged. “And…” his eyelashes fluttered. “You’re a good man. At least that,” he concluded. The song switched onto the next track and Ianto glanced down at the CD case. “I know this one,” he said quietly, placing the plastic to one side and stepping into the room.
“Ianto?” Jack asked quietly. Ianto stopped and turned to him. “Will you dance with me?”
Ianto smiled wryly but didn’t move away as Jack approached.
“Not much of a dance,” Ianto suggested.
“If I can’t hold you?” Jack supplied. “Humour me.”
Ianto smiled and allowed the approach. Jack stood as close as he could without letting their boundaries touch. Ianto allowed himself to move to Jack’s lead, along with the rhythm of the music.
“If this is all there is,” Jack said quietly. “Why am I still here?”
“I don’t know,” Ianto said.
“Maybe I’ll fade away,” Jack whispered. “Or my watch will stop and… so will I.”
Ianto drew in a shuddering breath and Jack pulled back to look at him.
“I thought about not telling you,” Ianto confessed. “Because if this is the answer… you’ll go. You’ll go to heaven for red wine and… him.”
“Aren’t you looking forward to having your house back?” Jack asked, not managing to make it sound like much of a joke.
“No,” Ianto said, stepping back into Jack’s space, tilting his face up to whisper. “I’ll just miss you. Every day.”
Jack breathed laughter and Ianto could, not for the first time, almost feel it.
“Ianto,” he whispered. “I don’t think there could be a heaven without you.”
Ianto stiffened, shrank back a touch and looked up with hooded eyes. Jack, so intangible, was a breath away. The words made their way from Ianto’s lips without hesitation.
“I love you.”
And Jack, it seemed, couldn’t help but kiss him. There were no lips to meet Ianto’s own, but when he met the vision of Jack, his skin was alight. Something fluttered through him like the feeling of taking flight, and the feeling he couldn’t decide if he liked, turned out to be love in every nerve.
He thought he heard Jack say his name.
And he was dropped back to Earth like a stone. His eyes snapped open but he was alone. More alone than he had ever felt in that house, even before he had known Jack. Ianto couldn’t resist the sob that escaped his throat as he realised the truth.
Jack was gone.
#
Ianto spent the rest of the day in selfishness. He wound Jack’s watch, trying to get him back. He shouted and screamed that he hadn’t meant it, he didn’t know if he meant it, that Jack’s business was not all of a sudden done. He pulled down and burned the devices that had failed to keep Jack away in the first place and begged him to come back. He remembered the spells that had brought Jack out into the open and repeated them all to no avail.
At three a.m. on Sunday morning, when his new Ella Fitzgerald CD started to play the same song for the tenth time, he broke down in tears, curled up in Jack’s chair and admitted to himself that his heart was broken, and that was how it would stay.
#
Ianto got back in his car on Sunday afternoon and drove out to Penarth. It took him two full hours to find the right family plot, and another twenty minutes to gather the courage to look death in the face. But he did approach, at last, to lay down pink carnations for the lady and to split a dozen red roses between Jack and his lover.
He stood in contemplation for a few moments, then pulled off his jacket and laid it down. Taking back a rose for a buttonhole, he calmly began to tell Jack all about his day. From the bad cup of tea he had made himself before he left the house, to the woman who had sold him his flowers, to the butterflies that had danced around the buddleia at the end of his street. He talked until he had nothing left to say and the evening began to chill his bones. Then, with a promise to be back in a week, he made to leave.
“I meant it,” he said, turning back to Jack’s sleeping bones. “I was just trying to get you back. I didn’t mean that I didn’t love you. Because I do. I love you more than I knew I could. And I will, until I die.”
“Well, won’t this be the nicest decorated plot in the cemetery?” a familiar voice proposed. Ianto whirled around, wiping his eyes quickly as Dilys made her way over the grass to him, aided by a stick. Michelle was a metre or two behind her, carrying a bunch of roses, another of daisies and a third of daffodils, many of which were still buds. “I’m glad my stories pleased you, but you didn’t need to come up here and make a fuss.”
“Sorry,” he said, smiling a little despite the weight in his chest. “I just felt… connected.”
“Ah, it’s no bother,” Dilys told him as she stopped in front of him. Michelle gave him a smile and a wave from behind her Grandmother. “I only came up because you reminded me. We can spread the rest of these around, it’ll look a treat round here. The daffs are for my late husband.”
“Ah,” Ianto said. “Oh, would you like some help?”
“No, no,” she dismissed him, just as the younger woman seemed eager to accept. “Actually, you can do me a favour, though.” She huffed as she bent over, plucking one of the roses from Jack’s grave and huffed again as she straightened. “That buttonhole suits you. You ought to give this one to the young man at the gate. He looks a little lost.”
“Oh,” Ianto said. “Certainly. I can do that, if you’re sure you don’t want my help.”
“No, I think he needs you more than we do,” Dilys replied, pulling dead stalks from in front of the newest looking headstone, presumably her husband’s. “Poor thing seems to think he’s not allowed into the cemetery.” She turned to look at Ianto again, her green eyes piercing him straight through once more. “He seems to think heaven doesn’t want him.”
Ianto forgot how to breathe. Dilys smiled and Ianto didn’t even stop for his jacket before turning on his heel and sprinting back down the hill.
Michelle stared after him and Dilys just tutted, smiling to herself.
“I think Uncle Jack’ll be all right now, Da,” she said, patting her father’s headstone.
Michelle resigned herself to not understanding and went about unwrapping the entire flowershop that she was lugging around.
#
Ianto’s heart beat wildly in his ears as he barrelled down the hill, the single rose clutched tightly in his palm. He passed under the old stone entryway and had to skid to a halt as he reached the wrought iron gates.
“What does she mean, heaven doesn’t want you?” he asked breathlessly.
Jack gave a shrug.
“I’m a bad influence,” he said. “Too restless. Heaven’s supposed to be peaceful; I was bouncing off the walls. So they tell me, I don’t really remember. They said I had unfinished business.”
“I don’t care what it is,” Ianto said, shaking his head. Jack took a step forward and took the rose out of his hand as Ianto went on. “I’m not letting you do it. I don’t care if you’ve got children somewhere you need to see, or if you need to say goodbye to… anyone. I won’t help you leave again.” Jack snapped off the end of the rose and arranged it as a buttonhole. “I love you and I won’t lose you again, please! My heart won’t take it. If you do have feelings for me…”
“Feelings?” Jack said, taking a step toward him. “Feelings for you? Ianto Jones, I love you. I love you to distraction and I have done for longer than you’ve been able to see me.”
Ianto sagged with relief.
“Then it doesn’t matter if we can’t touch. And you can come outside now and…” Ianto stopped and Jack smiled as he waited for him to catch up. Ianto looked down at his empty hand. “You took the rose,” he said. Jack nodded and extended his hand. Ianto let out a short breath that was almost laughter. “Really?” he asked. Jack shrugged with one shoulder and wiggled his fingers invitingly.
Ianto reached out, and a fingertip's touch was all they needed before they were in each other’s arms. They wound their arms tightly around each other as their lips met, colliding with desperation and so much sweet relief. Eventually they slowed, not parting for more than breath, but letting their kisses become familiar.
“You’re alive,” Ianto said, eventually, when they finally drew apart. “You’re alive and you’re here and you love me.”
“Right back at you,” Jack said with a grin. “All of the above.”
Ianto smiled wickedly.
“Hey, you’re a solid, functioning human man” he said. Jack raised an eyebrow. “You know what this means? What we can do?”
“Oh, yes,” Jack said, pressing against him and dropping his hand down to meet Ianto’s. Ianto bit his lip and tilted his face up for another kiss. Jack obliged. “We can eat.” Ianto looked shocked for a moment then began to laugh. “It’s been ninety years!” Jack added.
“I know! You must be starving,” Ianto admitted. “Let’s get a steak.”
“Oh, god,” Jack said, his voice almost orgasmic as Ianto led him by the hand, over toward his car. “Steak, yes. Can we have wine?” Ianto nodded. “And coffee? Oh, god, and chocolate! I almost forgot about chocolate.”
“Yes, yes and yes,” Ianto said, squeezing Jack’s hand and allowing himself to be drawn into an embrace beside his car.
“Perfect,” Jack said softly, pulling him into a kiss and then leaning down to whisper to him. “And then, my love, I am going to take you to bed, and show you what ninety years of sexual frustration does to a man’s imagination.”
“Good thing, too,” Ianto said, kissing Jack again. “Oh, and Jack?”
“Yeah?”
“Welcome home.”
The End.