Title: Time is not a line and I am not a rock
Author: Analine
Pairing/Characters: Jack/Ianto, mentions of Jack/Angelo (past)
Warnings/Spoilers: S4E7 - Immortal Sins, and S4E8 - End of the World
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: ~2,400
Beta: Sariagray
Summary: Ianto has always been different. Jack remembers why.

Notes: While this is in a sense a post-COE fic and a Miracle Day fic, the significant action takes place sometime during S1, with Ianto finding out about Jack's immortality.*nod* Many thanks to Sariagray for helping me make sense of this, though I've fiddled a lot since that beta, so any remaining mistakes are my own! ...I should also mention that this assumes that the flashbacks in Immortal Sins take place during Jack's linear timeline, pre-S1.

The darkness always seems to come too fast, or not fast enough.

He'd had something important to say this time, something hanging there at the edge of his consciousness, but gunshot wounds, especially to the head, worked fastest of all. At the very least Jack had wanted to warn Angelo, to tell him not to be scared, to trust him. To shout out to the New York City streets that he'd be back.

But perhaps it had been too late for that. Perhaps it had always been too late.

There would be a lifetime to second guess, after all, but even given such a long stretch of time, Jack is still never quite able to pinpoint where exactly it went wrong.

He does know, however, what he always knows about everyone he's lost. He knows that it had been his fault.

It's always his fault.

In the end, nothing changes. In the end, he always wants too much, asks too much.

And then there's Ianto Jones.

When it comes to Ianto, by the time Jack realizes what he's doing, it's too late. It's not really a conscious decision to keep something so huge from someone so important but he does it anyway. A willful omission of certain facts – simple, when you put it in those terms. For Ianto's protection as much as his own, he tells himself.

It's textbook behavior, of course - Jack's sure anyone could see it. Ianto definitely would be able to see it, if Jack would let him, but by the time Jack realizes how far in it he is, it's too late. They're past the point of it being okay, past the point of Jack walking in one day and laying it all out for him. They've been past that point for a while. It would be a betrayal to tell him now, after all they've been through, and Jack knows that. He's been here before, after all.

He'd spent a good decade or two wondering when the right time would have been, with Angelo.
Maybe he should just tell them all right at the very beginning, so that they can run away while they still have the chance. Hit the ground running, so to speak.

In another lifetime, Jack thinks, in the next one, maybe he'll give it a try.

And then it happens, two bullets that he doesn't dodge fast enough. They hit him square in the stomach, and suddenly it's his past repeating itself, and Jack can feel the life leaving him, like always, trickling out onto the pavement right along with his blood.

Kneeling over him, Ianto is trying desperately, valiantly, to stop the bleeding, covering his hands with Jack's blood, letting it seep through his fingers and onto his trousers. Jack's body is going cold fast, but he can still feel those fingers, grasping, clutching at his stomach where the bullets hit him. He opens his mouth to tell Ianto to stop, to tell him that it's okay, because he can see the pain on Ianto's face and it feels so real - Jack knows it's real, he recognizes that look.

It's his fault, again, and he's terrified.

But Ianto's face is contorted now, as he pulls Jack's body close to him, and whispers, "Please…" with his fingers pressed tight around the wound as Jack's remaining life bleeds out at their feet. It knocks the fear right out of him.

He tries to touch Ianto's face, but his arms won't move, and so with his eyes, he tries to communicate what his lips can't say. Something important. The most important thing, maybe.

Jack imagines that there's understanding there, that Ianto's arms tighten around him, that his chin falls against his shoulder, that he knows, that Ianto has always known, maybe, that he hasn't betrayed anyone, this time. Jack holds onto that thought as the darkness comes. He wishes they'd had more time.

"Ianto," Jack says as the world brightens around him. His voice is rough, filled with marbles. He clears his throat. "I'm sorry," he says, even though it's woefully inadequate given the circumstances. "I should have told you. I wanted to tell you."

Ianto's back is to him, he's fumbling around in the boot of the SUV, doing what, Jack has no idea. When he first came to, Ianto's arms were still wrapped around him, still holding him tight, and then the life had gasped back into his lungs, and there'd been a hurried, confused moment where they'd both struggled, tangled up in each other's limbs – both trying to get away and to hold on at the same time. Ianto had eventually scrambled up, tripping over Jack's feet, his foot landing square in a massive pool of blood with a sickening squelch.

Jack tries to stand, now, steadying himself on the chain link fence behind him. He watches Ianto flinch a little at his movement, at the sound of the fence scraping against the pavement. Then he goes back to whatever it is he's busying himself with in the boot, completely silent.

"What are you doing?" Jack asks, but keeps his distance, watching Ianto, trying to gauge his… well, everything.

When Ianto doesn't answer right away, he asks again, tentatively.

"I'm…" Ianto clears his throat, but when he speaks again, his voice is unsteady. "I'm looking for water. To wash my hands."

"And you think you'll find that in the boot?" Jack asks, and then laughs a little. The look on Ianto's face – the annoyance that flashes across his features is so normal, so Ianto, that Jack smiles, even though he knows he shouldn't.

"There should be water back here," Ianto says to the SUV, as much as to Jack. "I always keep at least a few liters for emergencies. It helps with cleaning the back out in a pinch. Weevils can get messy," he explains, and then lets out a nervous laugh that terrifies Jack a bit.

"I can't find it," Ianto finishes. Then he looks up and meets Jack's eyes for what feels like the first time in forever.

Jack remembers the first time, remembers Ianto's fingers stretching out to touch his neck, remembers the confusion, the fascination.

Ianto blinks at him. There's no fascination there, now, no hatred either, not even fear. Jack closes his eyes. His body feels warm. He concentrates on the wobbling in his knees, on staying upright. And when he opens his eyes again, Ianto is there. Right there in front of him. Not touching him, but that's probably to be expected, and then Ianto's fingers close around his arm.

"Are you okay? Tell me what you need," Ianto says, and his fingers tighten around Jack's bicep.

"You're covered in blood," Jack says.

"Yes, Jack, I know that. So are you. Why do you think I was looking for water?" His face is lined with concern, with attention. "Look. You have to tell me what you need. If there's some sort of follow up treatment, something I should—"

"Ianto," Jack says, and touches his hand. It's sticky, and Jack frowns. "I'm fine. We need to clean up."

Ianto nods. Stares at Jack, while Jack just stares back, trying to make sense of this exchange. This isn't how he'd imagined it would go. He can't figure out why Ianto isn't angry. Then again, Ianto had always had a habit of defying expectations. Ianto's face is dirty, streaked with grime and blood. His suit is a mess, right down to his shoes, which are coated with mud up to his socks. He should be furious.

"Come on," he tells Ianto, but Ianto fixes him with a look that stops him cold.

"You're okay," Ianto says quietly. "I thought you were dead. You were dead, I…" His voice breaks, and then he shakes his head, composing himself. "I felt it. I felt you die. I watched you take your last breath."

"I know. I felt it too."

Ianto is silent. He stares at his feet, and then at Jack's face, and when Jack pulls him close he allows the awkward hug without resistance. After a second, he returns it, and Jack's heart leaps a little when he feels those strong hands pressed against his back, when he feels Ianto breathe deeply against his chest, and tug their bodies a little closer.

"You know," Jack says a moment later, when they're just standing there staring at each other again under the blanket of cloud cover that's hovering over the bay. Jack realizes now that the air is heavy with the threat of rain. "This would normally be the part where you ask me what happened."

Ianto lets out a breath into the space between them. "I don't feel very normal right now, to be honest. Kind of mad, really. Like I've made you up in my head or something because-" He stops. His teeth are chattering.

"Because…?"

"I'm sure that must be obvious," Ianto says quickly, wringing his hands together in front of him – it's jarring to see the blood between Ianto's fingers, how it's crept up the cuffs of his shirt. Jack realizes suddenly that he's removed his jacket, that it's crumpled in a ball at their feet. No wonder he's freezing. He bends down to pick it up. It's heavy, wet, and Jack wonders if he used it to try to stop the bleeding. He doesn't remember, so it must have been after he lost consciousness.

"I'm so sorry, Ianto. I didn't want you to find out like this."

"It's okay," Ianto says, like he's surprised, like he's telling the truth, and it makes Jack's chest ache.

"I wanted to tell you before," he says, and even though it's only a few steps to the SUV, it feels like miles.

They get there eventually. Jack takes Ianto's ruined jacket, and places it carefully on the floor of the boot. He takes off his coat, and drapes it over Ianto's shoulders. It's cold, and even with the coat, Ianto is still shivering. He feels Ianto lean into his touch as he presses their shoulders and thighs and knees together.

"I really wanted to tell you before," Jack says again, and finds Ianto's hands under the folds of his coat, and squeezes.

The sky looks like rain, feels like rain, like thunder and lightning, electrified.

"Tell me now?" Ianto asks finally, and Jack does, and for once, he doesn't regret it, for once, he spills out all the details, and doesn't hold anything back.

And it might just be wishful thinking, it might just be decades-old hope rearing its head, but for a second that turns into a minute that turns into an hour, a night, a week, Jack imagines that Ianto understands.

He gets used to it. To the firm pull of Ianto's arms against his chest when he comes to. To the solid lips pressed against his temple. He gets used to being welcomed back. He gets used to acceptance, even gets used to Ianto's anger at the risks he takes, gets used to Ianto being there for him, every single time, and to knowing that Ianto hates this, more than anything. He gets used to avoiding death, not because of his pain, but because of someone else's, and that feels ridiculous, unnatural, even, but before long he's used to that, too.

In the end, they don't have nearly as much time as Jack thought.

As if Ianto's acceptance of Jack's condition could somehow change his own mortality. (It couldn't, of course.)

That kind of change wouldn't come until much later, until long after Ianto is dead and gone, until after even his ghost is gone, has stopped haunting Jack's dreams and nightmares.

Sometimes it's as if he was never there at all.

Sometimes it's as if he's right there in the room, listening, as Jack tells him all the things he couldn't find the words for back then.

To say he'd realized what it all meant too late feels like another betrayal. It seems to cheapen everything, somehow, but Jack feels it sometimes, feels the regret seeping into his memories, finds himself wishing for moments long past, tiny little forks in the road where he could have been more honest, more kind, or just plain more.

Letters never sent, Jack thinks, with a touch of hysteria, and smiles at Gwen while Angelo's body just lies there, blipping and beeping at him like a goddamn robot.

He'd had something to say to Angelo, too, so many years ago. Something different, maybe, but important all the same. Jack stares at the figure in the bed in front of him, at the folds and creases of his skin.

He'd been naïve back then, for whatever that was worth.

He imagines Angelo asking about Ianto, imagines the questions he'd ask if he could. He tries to imagine his response, too, the words he would use. It wasn't as if Jack hadn't been asked before. He'd had plenty of practice.

He imagines Them asking about Ianto; later, much later, after Angelo's body had been taken away, after the data had been collected. They'd have been watching, surely. Listening. "Who is Ianto? Does he have something to do with all this? Why did you mention his name?" they'd ask, and they'd be right to be so thorough. Right to leave no stone unturned.

As for the answers, well… Jack must have had better words for it once, something more adequate than this, at least. Surely immortality had granted him better skills of language, of expression.

Now, there seemed to be nothing more to say, the words stuck in his throat, stuck somewhere deep inside his head. That he knows, surely, that must be enough.

In the end, Jack just closes his eyes, and hopes they never ask.

end