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The thing about life is that it never runs in a straight line. You'd be forgiven for thinking that it ought to, but it really, really doesn't. It twists and it turns and it arches back, like a taut elastic band, ready to snap you a swift one on the arse. Ianto Jones has always known it. Ianto had known it as a child, known it as a kid, known it back in Life Before Jack. Ianto had been the one caught up in the tick of must and the tock of not good enough, and those things are friends, and bring each other around for tea and cake. Jack had simply compounded Ianto's knowledge; had brought it into tangible reach, to be felt and held and revered. In the beginning was the world and the word was God and the word was with God; litany from a corner of a long neglected past; his mother with her head bowed, and Rhiannon picking at the hem of her sweater. Time. It wanders. Close your eyes, when the minister drones, and it passes quicker. Blink, and something almost forgotten will resurrect itself in your here-and-now.
(Meet Jack, and you can hold it close, can catch it up in your arms, can hear its heart beat, can smell the sweat and rime of sex; wax confused and wane dazed; and the tick is nothing more than a stopwatch, and the tock is his hands on your back.)
And look at them now. The bay-side, water dovegrey and cool, lapping at the city's bones and fundamentals. Jack laughing, and Gwen, and Rhys beside Gwen; Rhys, caught up between wanting to stare at Gwen with pride, and wanting to gaze at Jack with the last lingering tassels of distrust. Let the image weave into flesh and real, and Ianto leans across the space between them, and taps his finger softly to the corner of Jack's mouth – you've a bit of gravy there, Ianto says. Ianto smiles with his eyes and the corners of his mouth, and sucks at the saltiness upon his fingertip; Jack grins all slow and knowing and bedroom vibes. Rhys rolls his eyes, but he also relaxes against Gwen's side, and Ianto knows that his message has reached its intended audience. Rhys pops a chip in his mouth and chews contentedly. Ianto wonders whether the man is even conscious of having rested his hand upon his wife's stomach. Gwen is conscious of it; she glances down briefly, smile unfurling on her face, then laughs over her soft drink at something Jack has said. A baby. Now there's a thought. Nappies and cribs and the sticky-sweet scent of milk. Ianto remembers when Rhi was having Mica. He remembers when she'd just had David, too; when he'd been an uncle for the first time, and had held that small, pink-faced creature in his arms by a hospital window. He remembers, late at night, half drunk, not-serious-but-yes conversations with Lisa. He remembers, even now, even here, in this nebulous, shifting existence, where the people before him fade at the edges if he allows it. Babies. He's not sure. He's not sure at all. He looks at Jack, and tries not to think about it. Jack meets his eyes for a second, then says something that's aiming for a smile, and Ianto never could say no. Pigeons strut around them, squabbling and making a scene as Gwen breaks chips, with the tips of her fingers, and tosses them onto the damp paving. Ianto puts his drink down, and watches the swell and dip of the water. Strange, the crooked way that time paints itself out. The sound of children, and a bomb in Jack's insides; the sound of Ianto's own breath against his lips, and Jack's grief; space has numbed the pain.
(They danced, one time, in the moonlight, here near the water, old-time music from the open doorway of the information office, sound of their feet moving in rhythm, hand on Jack's shoulder, and face against his neck, listening to a story of a winter spent on a ship in the Bellingshausen Sea; logic fell to the wayside, and it felt like home, and that was all there was to that.)
The thing about death is that maybe it actually does run in a straight line. Maybe that's the most terrifying thing, because Jack can't die, Jack can't die, and Ianto watches him across the flimsy sunshine and memorizes Jack's face, even though he knows it's never going to change; not now, now that it's all over. Ianto had never felt his own mortality so much as at those times when he'd seen Jack heave in lungfuls of air, re-born; Ianto had thought it could never hurt more than that. But it pains more now, when there's nothing left to hurt. Ianto can feel it all begin to blur around him again; to lose shape. He puts his hand to the table and it's not as solid now. He tries to hang on, just a little longer. Gwen and Rhys make some comment about some place they need to be, and time begins to fold with a back-swing motion. Ianto smiles, doesn't even know why, it's not as though they're really here, but he smiles – see you later, then, he says. He feels the tears on his face and pretends that he doesn't, and then it's just them, just him and Jack, and one dispirited imaginary pigeon who doesn't believe that all the chips are gone. And even Jack isn't looking at him any more; Jack is gazing out at the bay, Jack is making some plan for a future that will never end, a future that doesn't have Ianto in it, and still Ianto clings, until the table goes clear, and there's nothing again, nothing, not even tears, just darkness and the fears that haunt him. In the beginning was the word, but at the end was nothing.