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Slashthedrabble Challenge 435/125 - Right here waiting
Title: Right here waiting
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 500 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Challenge 125 - Wait(ing) at ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif){kind=small}
slashthedrabble
Summary: Ianto isn't quite ready to give up just yet
Ianto stood at the edge of the plass and looked out over the bay. It was going to be a bright clear morning later, but for now, the sun barely peaked over the waterline. It was too early, still too dark to properly enjoy it, and far too cold, but here he was. There'd been things that needed doing at the hub. There always were, and he was the only one here to do them. The hub never slept, just like its leader.
Former leader, he corrected himself, taking a sip of the coffee in this hands, trying to wash the thought away. It tasted unusually bitter, the beans burnt. Everything was bitter lately. Jack was gone and he wasn't coming back.
They'd watched him leave, after the fact, seeing the CCTV footage as he grabbed that hand in the stasis jar, shoving it into a backpack, and running headlong across the plass towards the big blue police box. How none of them had noticed it on their way back with the coffees still perplexed him. But one thing was clear, it had been the Doctor, Jack's doctor, and Jack had left them to go with him.
Ianto couldn't begrudge him his haste. He'd been waiting so long for the Doctor. The Doctor would know how to fix him, he'd said, though Ianto didn't understand what needed fixing. Jack couldn't die, that was what he meant. It was the curse he carried. He wanted the Doctor to fix him so that he wouldn't be stuck like this forever. He'd already lived long enough to know that he didn't want to live forever. Ianto supposed that if he'd experienced all the things Jack had, he might want a doctor to fix him too.
What he hadn't expected was that Jack wouldn't come back. A day or two went by and none of them thought too much about it. Maybe he had to go somewhere so that the Doctor could fix him. He'd be back. Then a few days had turned into weeks, and the team slowly came to accept the fact that he wasn't coming back. Everyone except Ianto.
He didn't want to believe that Jack would just suddenly leave them without so much as a goodbye. That was what he'd clung to, the thought that Jack cared about them enough to have said goodbye.
Maybe he'd been wrong though. After all, what could they offer him that the whole glorious universe couldn't? He just supposed... They'd started something, and he thought maybe Jack had feelings for him. He hadn't wanted to admit it at first, but he had feelings too. Feelings that didn't go away as the weeks stretched on, only intensified and left him with an emptiness in his stomach, a tightness that squeezed his chest, a dull ache that persisted no matter how he tried to distract himself with work.
Jack might never come back, but he'd keep waiting. Hope was all he had to keep himself going.
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Izz hopeful...like Ianto.
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The heart keeps hoping long after everything else has given up, even if it seeems impossible. Ianto just has to wait a little bit longer.
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