Work Text:
Jack and Ianto are not fated lovers, exactly. There are worlds, many of them, where they never meet, where they fight, where they die without ever loving each other. Jack knows that intuitively, through the same instinctual part of him that always recognizes the Doctor. They were lucky, he thinks sometimes, to have met.
Ianto sees things a different way. He doesn't have access to the worlds of possibility, he only knows what he lives right now. He wonders sometimes what life would be like without Jack—without Torchwood Three. And he remembers that there are endless universes where he never loved Jack, and that all is possible in existence. He considers it useless, he says once, to dwell on what could have been. He will never know it the way that Jack does, and Ianto already does enough worrying as it is.
"Imagine," Ianto suggests, "a world where you never met the Doctor. What would your life be like then?"
Jack can't imagine that, and the working theory is that he can only connect to selves who have travelled properly through the Vortex, the way he did with the Doctor.
"Well," Ianto says, "it's the same way for me. I can only connect with myself as I am through you. A version of me who didn't know you is a version of me I don't know, either."
Jack is quiet for a long time after that. "I wish," he says, "that I could say that about you. You already know I can't."
"No, because I am not your anchor. I know that. It's alright. I don't need to know what you would be like in other worlds, though, because I have you right here in ours."
Jack laughs at that. "You're a sap. They didn't beat that out of you at One?"
"Oh, they did," Ianto replies. "I'm sure in your other worlds I'm not nearly as expressive."
"Oh, you're always impressive, though. Every you I've met." Jack smiles. He doesn't explain the kinds of people Ianto has been to him, the killers and lost souls and metal husks of human flesh. He knows in his heart that he's telling the truth. Ianto has always left an impression.
"Well, sir," Ianto says, returning to his work formality. "Perhaps you should spend more time being impressed by your paperwork."