Torchwood: Fanfic: Inevitable

[m_findlow]

Title: Inevitable
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Ianto
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 859 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for m_findlow's prompt "Torchwood, Jack, Ianto had warned him it would happen one day, but he never actually thought he'd fall off the edge of a building" at fic_promptly
Summary: Its inevitability didn't make it any less shock

This was always going to go down in history as one of those terrible "I told you so" moments.

'I wish you wouldn't stand so close to the edge,' Ianto implored him. 'What if you fall?'

He'd laughed at Ianto. Actually, properly laughed. He'd been doing this for years and he'd never, ever - not even once - fallen. He'd thrown himself off a couple of times, for sure, but he'd never been so clutzy as to go over unintentionally. In fact, he loved the rush of being so close to the edge of life, wind whipping past his face like an old friend saying hello.

'One day you're going to be laughing on the other side of your face,' Ianto had seethed, annoyed at Jack's flippant reaction.

He loved this spot. He could see the city in all directions, glittering with its white and coppery coloured lights all around him, like a carpet of stars. He could pick out the football stadium, the lights illuminating the castle's walls, tiny specs of light bobbing out in the bay, and the gleaming edifice of St David's hotel. This was his city, his home. He protected it so that its citizens could go about their lives, oblivious to what happened right under their noses.

He sucked in a lung full of air, relishing the cold edge to it, and the slight saltiness. The air up here was better, purer, than down on the ground. It wasn't filled with the scent of car exhaust, stale fish and chips, and cigarette smoke. The stars twinkled overhead and Jack shoved his hands in his pockets, staring up at the inky blackness, admiring its beauty.

The sudden gust of wind came from out of nowhere. It had been a perfectly flat, calm night with barely a breath of wind moments before. The gust caught inside the folds of his heavy great coat and he wobbled, righting himself at the last second.

'Phew,' he said, laughing at his own near miss, when the second gust came ripping across the top of the building. This one did more than just ruffle his clothes. His hands were still tucked inside his pockets, so he had nothing to reach out and grab as the horrible realisation hit him.

The falling sensation was bizarre. When he'd jumped in times gone by, he'd always felt a sense of serenity, knowing that in a few seconds, all the pain and the grief would be gone, snuffed out like a candle flame. This time it was more a sickening sensation that he'd finally bitten off more than he could chew, and that karma was here to teach him a lesson about that fragility of life. Funny how you could think about so much in such a short space of time, he mused. Time really did slow in the few moments before death.

He gasped, pitching himself up like a drowned man.

'Idiot!' came the annoyed, yet familiar voice. It took Jack a few seconds to register its owner.

'Ianto?'

'Sodding hell,' he said, before grabbing Jack by the lapels and pulling him into the most excruciatingly tight hug he'd ever had.

His body might have been healed, but Jack's head was still spinning slightly. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the dark pool where his head had been, and knew it was blood. His blood. Dear God, how much had Ianto seen? Come to think of it, how had he even found him here?

'How'd you know?' he said, when Ianto had let go of him enough to let him breathe.

'You think I'm going to let you stand on a roof completely unsupervised? I don't care how careful you promise to be.'

He should have known. Why had he never spotted the CCTV cameras before?

'It was an accident.'

'I know,' Ianto said, cupping his cheek. 'Didn't scare me any less.'

'I'm sorry,' Jack apologised, and he truly meant it. It would have been bad enough to come back home having to explain the bloodstains on his coat, confessing what had happened after the fact. Putting Ianto through that in the present was something he'd never wanted.

'I didn't mean to scare you.'

Ianto kissed him, stroking a hand though his hair. 'I wasn't the only one.'

Jack frowned, confused.

'I think I might have scared the taxi driver when I yelled at him,' Ianto said. 'To his credit he broke at least three road laws getting here in record time.'

Another gust of wind blasted them as they were crouched on the ground, not unlike the one that had toppled Jack from his perch.

'Come on,' Ianto said. 'There's a storm front coming up from the channel. They're predicting damaging winds and hail before morning.'

Without another word, Jack let himself be pulled to his feet by Ianto, and they walked hand in hand until they spotted a cab to take them the rest of the way home. Not another word was spoken about it, either that night or in the days that followed. They both knew it had been an accident, but not the sort to be joked about.