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It was a nice restaurant. Not the nicest Jack had taken him to, but nicer than he would go to on his own or when out with friends. There was a real candle in the centre of the table, along with real flowers. Thankfully not roses, but there was no way anyone would see them without assuming they were on a date.
A date. Ianto still had trouble wrapping his head around it.
Jack was telling some story, but Ianto wasn’t following. It had only been a little over a month since Jack came back and asked him out properly. They had grown closer in that one month than they had in the entire year they had known each other before.
Over the months Jack was missing Ianto found himself thinking often on how a human – or, at least, someone who appeared human and was extremely similar to a human – could end up immortal. The more he thought of it, the more the pieces fell into place. And now, with Jack back and sharing more about himself and his past than ever, there was only really one option.
“Jack?” Ianto said, cutting Jack off in the middle of a sentence. Jack tilted his head, immediately focused entirely on Ianto. He still wasn’t used to being Jack’s centre of attention. “Who did this to you?”
“What?”
“Your immortality,” Ianto said. “It can’t have been natural.”
Jack did that thing where with just a shifting of the corner of his mouth and the twitch of an eyebrow he looked as though he could see into Ianto. Ianto didn’t back down.
“It was a long time ago,” Jack said finally.
“So I gathered,” Ianto replied dryly. “It was the Doctor, wasn’t it?”
Jack sighed. “Not…exactly.”
Ianto didn’t push. He never pushed. He sometimes wondered what that meant for their relationship.
Jack picked at his food. “Back when I was travelling with the Doctor, it was…amazing. Even as a time agent I hadn’t seen some of the things he showed me. And the TARDIS– fantastic thing, really. And there was Rose. She was human, the Doctor’s companion. She travelled with him longer than I had. And she was amazing. So sure of herself, cool under pressure…. I was in love with her. With both of them, really. And I think they might have reciprocated, just a little bit.
“The last time I saw them, our last trip together, we ended up in the year 100,100, and, long story short, there were Daleks. They came in droves, and I had to fight them off, to give Rose and the Doctor time to figure out how to stop them. I died.”
Ianto sat, riveted, food forgotten. Jack was never this solemn while telling his stories.
Jack took a deep breath before continuing. “Then I was alive again. I didn’t understand it at the time. I thought the universe had given me a second chance. I helped rebuild the Earth.” He smiled, reminiscing. “But that’s a story for a different time.
“When I saw the Doctor again, he told me what really happened. It was Rose. She took the Time Vortex into herself, gained powers beyond anything you could imagine, power over life and death. She brought me back. But she couldn’t control it – she brought me back forever.”
“Because she loved you,” Ianto whispered, and Jack nodded.
“It still feels like a curse; knowing the cause doesn’t change that. But it does make it a little easier, knowing it was an act of love.”
Ianto took a moment to process everything. Just the notion of Jack being so open was new to him, so the actual knowledge was almost overwhelming. There was one thing, though–
“If they knew you were alive, why’d they leave you behind?”
Jack tensed. Ianto was ready to let it go, aware he had crossed one of those invisible lines you didn’t know about until you crossed it. This was a sensitive topic for Jack.
“Forget it,” Ianto said. “It doesn’t matter.”
“I’m a fixed point in time and space,” Jack said, volunteering the information despite the out Ianto gave him. He wasn’t sure if it was because he had asked, or because Jack needed to tell. He hoped it was both. “Apparently, that makes me uncomfortable for Time Lords to be around.” Jack chuckled. “The Doctor was running away from me. All that time, I thought he simply hadn’t realised.”
Ianto was suddenly frustrated with the table between them. He had never been one for physical comfort, but he knew how much Jack appreciated it. He settled for reaching out with his hand, and Jack took it gratefully.
If it wasn’t clear they were on a date before, it certainly was now. Ianto didn’t mind. Jack was more important.