BTBD Challenge 21 - Fast forward

[m_findlow]

Title: Fast forward
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 768 words
Content notes: Written for Challenge 21 - Forward at beattheblackdog. I resisted the very strong urge to edit this piece in light of what happened in Orlando today. Let not hate win.
Summary: Time suddenly stops for Jack.

Jack felt sick. No, more than that. If he could have, he'd have taken a knife to his torso and ripped the offending entrails from his body, expunging the vileness.

His lover was dead, lying there helpless on the ground.

There was a stunning clarity, knowing that this was the moment he'd been dreading for so long. He knew he would have to face it one day, but still felt completely unprepared for it.

He stroked the pale face, still with just a hint of warmth in its ever cooling state, just as beautiful in death as it had been in life, spared from a brutal and ugly death, but knowing that death was brutal and ugly no matter what form it took.

This was the part he wanted to fast forward, and pretend that the bit in between wasn't real, and that the first part had never happened. He desperately wanted time to move faster than it ever had because the wait was simply unbearable.

He'd known, but never really understood the grief and the anxiety that his lover went through every time he'd died. He'd always brushed it off and told Ianto not to worry, that he'd be back, because he always came back.  And he did. But this was different now. This was the shoe on the other foot, and no matter how sensible it seemed to tell himself that Ianto would be okay, and that Ianto would come back to him, because the TARDIS had given him the one gift he could share with Jack through all of eternity, the irrational fear that he wouldn't come back churned inside him.

This was how it must feel, he thought. It didn't matter how many facts and assurances you put on it, there was always that tiny chance that maybe it wouldn't work, that maybe he wouldn't come back, and that this would be their very last moment together. This is what Ianto went through every single time, even though he tried his very best not to show it, and to be casual about it, making jokes about having to take Jack's coat to the cleaners again. It was subterfuge, he realised, dissembling for Jack's sake, or perhaps for his own, so that Jack wouldn't see how much it was tearing him up on the inside. It horrified him in a way that he hadn't thought possible. Whatever happened next, he knew for certain that he wouldn't be making jokes about it.

As he sat there, kneeling beside the unbroken body, he begged for time stop playing tricks on him. Had he been there an hour, or a day, or maybe just a few minutes. It was impossible to tell because all he could do was think about how his life would be bereft of all meaning without his most loyal companion by his side. He'd been given the gift of immortality and yet here he was, lying there, cold and unmoving. Why wasn't he waking up?

Then there was a movement, so slight and yet Jack sensed it before he felt it. Time sped up again, as if he'd been on pause or slow motion, and was now being thrust forward by the inertia of real time.

It wasn't sudden or violent like Jack's resurrections always were. Somehow this time the TARDIS had taken care and given him the kindness of a gentle wakening. Where Jack gasped and lunged, like a man drowning, Ianto's awakening was like that from a peaceful slumber, taking in a long slow breath that filled his lungs with pure oxygen, removing the cloudiness from his mind. Jack was eternally grateful that he didn't suffer that shocking experience that he went through every single time. It was a torture, yet the pain of it was blunted in knowing that there would be someone there, waiting for him. When he'd grabbed for Ianto's reassuring embrace he'd never realised how much that embrace went both ways, and the relief his lover felt at knowing Jack was safe and well, as much as Jack knew he had returned from the darkness to light and love.

'Jack?' came the confused voice.

He didn't reply, didn't even wait for him to fully come to his senses before leaning down and envolping him in the deepest of kisses, thanking gods he'd long since forsaken. If he had his way, his lover would never have to endure the pain of death, either his own, or Jack's. Immortal they might be, but in death every man walks his path alone, and he never wanted to be alone ever again.