Boulevard Of Broken Dreams
Beta: The marvellous and spectacular hel_bee who has the patience of a saint and a heart of a lion (and makes this so much better to read.) Any other mistakes are mine, mine, mine all mine….
Author's Notes: Complete. :0).
Chapter 32
Where The City Sleeps - 33
Jack sat back on the metal bench as Ianto shifted beside him looking down at the pocket watch in his hands. Martha had gone to get the car, an excuse to give them both time to talk.
“They found it on Down,” Jack explained, “his body wasn’t discovered straight away, it was hidden in a disused corridor. Apparently he bled out.” He paused for effect, watching Ianto’s reaction. “Very slowly.”
“Must have pissed off the wrong person,” Ianto replied, tucking it into his pocket.
“Must have.” Jack turned back to the pond and skimmed a stone across the water’s surface, unsettling a mallard who scrabbled away from the ripples. “Martha had it cleaned for you.”
“I must thank her.”
Jack nodded and let his gaze wander to the octagonal turrets of an orangery partial hidden behind a high wall of trees. “Where did you go, Jack?” Ianto asked.
Jack tore himself away from the eighteenth-century folly to look at the few stones he still held in his hand. He could lie, make up some excuse. “I went to visit family,” he said, honestly.
If Ianto was surprised he didn’t show it. “I’ve a daughter and a grandson,” Jack continued, rubbing his thumb over the rough surface of a stone.
“Wife?”
Jack looked up. “No, Alice’s mother is dead.”
Alice. Ianto stared at several faded bouquets of flowers that had been placed by the water’s edge. “I guess they all do in the end,” he reflected out loud.
Jack swallowed. “Yeah.”
“You, you and your daughter, you have a good …”
“No.” Jack shook his head, cutting Ianto off. “Not really, it’s hard for her.”
Ianto nodded sinking back into the slats of the bench. Jack threw the stone into the centre of the pond. “Did the Doctor say anything before he left?” That was it, subject changed, no more questions, no more prying.
Ianto watched the ripples grow and fade, shaking his head. “Not really.” He looked at Jack. “Were you expecting an apology?”
Jack bit back a reply, rolling another stone between his thumb and forefinger.
“Did you try to talk to him?” Ianto asked, already knowing the answer.
“No, I was too pissed at him for the whole ‘Master/brother’ thing.” Jack tossed the stone into the reeds. The tall stalks hissed and shook.
“And if your roles were reversed, Jack, what would you have done?”
Gray.
Jack looked away sharply, he had never spoken of his brother, but the way Ianto looked at him was as if he could see right through to the shadows of his past.
Gray. The colour? A name? Ianto felt Jack’s guard shift and something dark surface to touch the sunlight. He let the moment pass. “You’ll make up.”
Jack snorted kicking his feet into the grass, making Ianto smile. Jack looked at him. “Ianto, I needed to know where you’ve …” was hidden the right word? “…where you’ve placed the Master?”
Ianto blinked against the glare from the water. He sighed. “The automated lighthouse on Flatholm.” Beside him Jack relaxed a little.
“What if he escapes Lucy’s prison?” Jack held onto a small stone as a Moorhen cracked the glassy surface in the shape of a ‘v’, swimming for the reeds.
“I’ve a man there,” Ianto answered.
“UNIT?” The word showed a hint of concern.
“No.” Ianto smiled. “An animal lover.”
“Well, that’s okay then, for a moment I was worried.” Jack followed the uneven skip of a deep blue dragonfly as it landed on a raft of lilies.
They sat in silence for a bit, each measuring their thoughts. In the end it was Ianto who broke the unspoken tension between them. “Where do we go from here, Jack?” It was plainly said, a grown up question for a twenty-first century relationship.
Jack sighed, feeling the broken eggshells under foot. “We could go for a drink. That pub back there looks okay,” he deflected admirably.
Ianto shook his head and started to stand. “I can’t, I have to get back to the house.”
“Ianto …”
“Jack, I …”
Jack eased him back onto the bench. “Give me a minute here.”
He stood, watching the pond, taking ownership of the scene without really realising. Several ducks glided seamlessly across the water while their legs kicked hell for leather underneath; Jack gave a snort but didn’t turn round.
“I don’t know; I don’t know where we go. It’s been along time since I’ve had this sort of relationship.”
“Relationship?” Ianto watched him carefully, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees.
“Do you feel it’s anything less?” This time Jack looked over his shoulder.
“I don’t know, Jack, I’m not sure what to expect, what to aim for in this. I just know that when I’m around you, I’m, I’m …” He shook his head as if to find the right word. “…I feel complete.”
“Complete?” Jack raised an eyebrow.
Ianto gave a frustrated sigh, loosening his tie. “Happy, hell, ecstatic, passionate, warm, fantastic, alive.”
“You make me sound like Viagra.”
“I don’t know how else to love, Jack.”
Love. There it was again, haunting him. Jack let the last stones fall from his grasp.
Ianto glanced up, holding eye contact. “Is it a cliché?”
Jack looked back to the orangery. “One day I’m going to lose you.”
“Yes.”
‘And my heart will break.’ Jack admitted to himself.
He didn’t want this conversation; he didn’t want to let love in. He shook his head. “Hell, you were only meant to be a pretty distraction when I couldn’t have …” He pushed back, pushed away, the slip hadn’t been intentionally or had it.
“Gwen?” Ianto looked up as Jack put his hands in his pockets not daring to turn round. “Do you still love her?” There was no emotion, Ianto kept his voice even.
Jack ignored the question. “I should never have let it get this far, I should walk away.”
“But you haven’t.”
Jack glanced down. “No.”
“Why?” Again, a simple question.
Jack sighed but didn’t answer.
“Do you love her, Jack?” Ianto asked again.
“Yes, but not in that way, not any more, it’s gone beyond that.”
A duck flew from the pond, walking on water until it was airborne. Ianto swallowed, his eyes drawn once more to the dying flowers still wrapped in their cellophane; suddenly everything around them seemed to fall silent. “You think Gwen can save you?”
This time Jack faced him. “I think you both can.”
Ianto stood, joining Jack at the water’s edge. “I need you, Ianto,” Jack confessed, his fingers brushing against Ianto’s hand proclaiming much more.
Ianto curled his fingers round Jack’s tentative touch. “Where do we go from here?” he asked again, his stare fixed on the grandeur of the orangery.
Jack closed his eyes and smiled, squeezing Ianto’s fingers. “Forward,” he answered, “one step at a time.”
The End
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Thank you. xxxx
Boulevard Of Broken Dreams